Daniel Read online

  Daniel

  by

  C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp

  One

  “Jenna! Ohmigod, Jenna Cooper! Is that you?” I made my voice a girlish squeal. Inwardly I was wincing, but I played the role to perfection, running up to the mark like a long-lost acquaintance, making sure everybody in the restaurant would be watching so that there’d be witnesses later if she tried to deny what was about to happen.

  A gorgeous woman in a lavender silk suit and pearls the size of gumballs leaned back from her salad plate and eyed me suspiciously. But she didn’t bolt or try to deny it, so I ploughed on.

  “I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. Nobody ever does. But it’s you, isn’t it? You are Jenna Cooper?”

  She blinked a few times, and I could see her trying to match my face with a memory and failing. I mean, let’s be honest, the Jennas of the world are beautiful, and popular enough that from the day they’re born there are hangers-on and wannabes enough that they really don’t remember. Was I that girl from high school or college? The quiet mousy one? Maybe from that office she worked in briefly before marrying well? The other woman at the table gave her a sympathetic look. It’s always so embarrassing to be caught flat footed.

  “Yes. I’m Jenna, but it’s Jenna Ross now. I’m sorry, I really don’t seem to remember you.”

  “That’s all right,” I assured her as I pulled a stack of folded papers from my fashionably large purse. “You wouldn’t. We’ve never met.” I dropped the pages onto the napkin in her lap. “My name is Karen James, and you’ve just been served.”

  I turned and walked away, my high heels clicking on the hardwood floor. All eyes were on me as I made my way through the restaurant. Not because I looked good — I did, but I will never be in the same league as the Jennas of the world. I’m short and stocky, rather than tall and elegant, my suit was black polyester, my necklace tiny seed pearls. But I’d done my job, and done it well. Mrs Ross had been served her divorce papers very, very publicly, just the way her husband wanted.

  Nobody bothered me on my way out. Since I hadn’t bothered with the valet, I waved him away when he started to approach, walking to the farthest end of the lot where the employees park. I’d left my car there, because my battered, twelve-year-old subcompact would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb among the shiny new BMWs and Mercedes.

  I walked confidently up to my car, keys in hand. I’d parked directly under the street light. I could see every detail in that flat, orange light. He didn’t step out of the shadows. There were no shadows. He simply appeared. Like smoke, in thin air.

  I didn’t scream. I’ve seen the show before. Only this wasn’t Daniel. Which meant I was in trouble.

  “That was cleverly done. A brilliant piece of acting work you pulled off in the restaurant, if I do say so myself.” He was tall and slender, but well built. His hair was a natural silver-blond that looked perfectly in keeping with his marble-white skin. The voice was cultured too, as smooth as that same marble. Soothing. It was all part of the package. I didn’t dare look into his eyes, but I had no doubt they were gorgeous - and utterly mesmerizing.

  The stranger stood in quiet amusement as I took in every bit of his appearance.

  “Thank you. I’m actually very good at my job.”

  “As am I.”

  I didn’t doubt it. With those looks and attitude he probably had to beat off the prey with a stick. Sex is a powerful lure, and by God he was sexy. His whole body breathed pheromones. I felt my body tighten, and it wasn’t from fear. Dammit.

  “Look at me,” he ordered.

  “No.” I fought the compulsion. It wasn’t easy. But I’m as stubborn as hell and I’ve had lots of practice, so I managed.

  “Look at me.” There was a hint of a growl in the voice, and I felt my body give an involuntary jerk. But I closed my eyes and fought for all I was worth.

  “You know our ways, how is that possible?” Hands like steel bands dug into my shoulders as he grabbed me, intending to drag me towards him. “I smell . . . Daniel.”

  He pulled harder, and the pain was blinding. I fought long enough for him to put some strength into it then surprised him by going utterly limp. When he bent over to catch me, I punched upwards as hard as I could, driving my car keys deep into his throat, my fist slamming against his windpipe.

  He reared back, blood pouring from his neck in a wide spray. I’d caught an artery. His teeth bared, and I caught a glimpse of vicious fangs.

  I started screaming bloody murder. The valet turned, as did the customers he was serving. They moved slowly, as if coming out of a trance. But they did move. Apparently I’d injured him badly enough that he couldn’t heal and use his mojo. The men ran towards us. The woman pulled out a cell phone and began dialling 911.

  “You’ll pay for that, bitch.” He spit the words out with a spray of blood, and vanished, like a puff of smoke.

  “Are you all right? You’re covered in blood! What happened? Where did he go?”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.” I stood up and tried to brush the dirt and leaves from my torn stockings, which just smeared the blood around worse. My hands were covered in it. In fact, there was enough blood that if he’d been human I’d have worried about him bleeding to death. But he wasn’t. Which meant that I’d just pissed him off. Of course, I couldn’t tell my rescuers that. After all, vampires don’t exist.

  Yeah, right.

  The police came, and there was an ambulance. It took hours to deal with all of the official crap. Other than bone-deep bruising on my shoulders, I didn’t have any injuries, but the doctors were worried that I was going into shock. So I had to call my boss. His irritation at my being off duty for the rest of the night was only slightly mollified by the fact I’d gotten Mrs Ross. Knowing my luck, he’d dock me for the extra hours. Between the statements for the police and the emergency room rigmarole, it was 3 a.m. by the time I climbed out of the cab that dropped me off at my apartment door.

  My eyes burned with exhaustion, my clothes and keys had been impounded for evidence, and I was out the cab fare home. If a particularly kindly ER nurse hadn’t loaned me a spare set of scrubs, I don’t know what I would have done. As it was, the thin cotton did nothing to cut the chill breeze blowing. I shuddered, shivering as I scrounged the last of the change from the bottom of my purse to come up with enough to pay the cabbie. No tip. But there you go.

  A blast of cold wind plastered the thin green cotton of the borrowed scrubs against my skin. Swearing, I hurried across the short stretch of gravel that led to the back door of my apartment building.

  Twitchy with nerves, I kept looking over my shoulder, my fingers trembling as I tried to punch in the access code for the door.

  “What’s happened to you?”

  I screamed, not a full-throated shriek, but one of those sort of half-screams you give off when you’re startled. I knew that voice. It was Daniel.

  “Easy, easy.” He started to reach for me, to pat my shoulder, but I flinched away in fear and pain.

  “Karen, what happened?” He stood utterly still, perfect body outlined in the harsh shadows cast by the stark white light of the security bulb overhead. He sniffed, and a shudder ran through him. Even his eyes reacted, pupils expanding, moving more like the slitted eyes of a cat than a human.

  “You smell of blood, and it isn’t yours.”

  Another, longer, sniff, and he stepped closer, invading my personal space, but there was no threat to the motion. Nor was there any of the heat and sexual tension I’d come to expect.

  He stepped back, his expression horrified. “Dear God, Karen. What have you done?”

  I was shivering from the combination of cold and shock. My teeth weren’t quite chattering, but that would probably be next.

>   “Let’s get you inside.”

  “What do you think I’m trying to do?” I reached around his bulk to try to enter the numbers onto the keypad again, but he made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. He placed a hand gently on my arm. I felt a rush of warmth, and I was suddenly standing in the middle of my living room.

  “Lie down on the couch under the blankets. I’ll run you a bath. You need to keep warm.”

  I didn’t even bother converting the futon into the bed position, just curled up on it as it was. I wrapped myself up in the quilt my sister had made for me (as well as in every other blanket that I owned) and still I was shivering. Daniel moved with brisk efficiency, but none of his usual smooth elegance. He started a hot bath running before crossing the few steps into the kitchen to set a kettle on to boil.

  I watched him because I couldn’t not. Whenever he was near me, he had my full attention. He was so damned beautiful. His skin was the colour of caramel, smooth and creamy. The hair a mass of soft dark curls. Saying it was dark brown didn’t do it justice. Every strand seemed a separate shade of brown, some with glossy highlights, others so dark they were almost black. Every time I looked at his hair I had a wild urge to run my fingers through it.

  Tonight he was wearing new jeans in that deep shade of indigo that seems to fade after the first few washings. The collar of his navy silk shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his throat and giving just a glimpse of his smoothly muscled chest. I saw the pulse jumping in his throat and realized something completely unexpected.

  “You’re afraid.”

  He stopped, turning to face me. The movement was . . . odd, inhuman.

  “You smell of blood and of Alexander. You haven’t been bitten. I’d know if you had. Which means that you have somehow managed to hurt one of the most powerful of my kind. He won’t let that stand. He can’t. Yes, I’m afraid. And so should you be.”

  The phrasing struck me, as it sometimes did: “So should you be,” not “You should be, too.” How old was Daniel? I had no idea. He’d never say, just smile and change the subject.

  “What do I do?”

  The kettle began to whistle, and he moved into the kitchen. I heard him rummaging in the cabinets for a mug, heard him rip open one of the little metal packets of instant cocoa I drink. A few clinks of the spoon against china, and he reappeared, mug in hand. “Drink this, and tell me what happened.”

  I did as he said. It didn’t take long. There wasn’t much to it really, and I’d had lots of practice repeating the story to the police and the doctors.

  He didn’t interrupt. He just perched on the edge of my wooden rocking chair, sitting unnaturally still, barely seeming even to breathe until I finished. The stillness was odd, foreign. It wasn’t like him. Normally he was animated, more alive than most of the people I know. Not tonight.

  I was the one who got up and shambled into the kitchen to refill my cup, then into the bathroom to turn off the taps and strip for my bath. Daniel just sat. “Why me?” I muttered. It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but he answered.

  “Because you were clever. It caught his attention. Alexander always says ‘You are who you eat.’“ He paused, his voice gaining a hint of dry sarcasm. “Of course, it didn’t help that you parked in the farthest, most deserted part of the lot.”

  “There were people. It was well lit.”

  He let out a soft snort, but didn’t argue.

  I didn’t hear him go - not that I would. But I’d been in the tub just long enough for the water to start to cool when he appeared in the bathroom doorway. In his hand he held what looked like a necklace of three charms strung on a black satin ribbon.

  The warmth of the cocoa and the bath had helped. I felt better - good enough that I risked something I’d never done before.

  I’d always been cautious around Daniel: kept my distance, carefully avoided looking him in the eye and never, ever, coming close enough to touch. It had become a game between us. We’d tease, play up the sexual tension, but we never stepped over the line. He’d moved slowly, allowing the friendship to develop. It had occurred to me more than once that he wanted -needed — that more than sex, more than blood.

  I rose slowly and stepped out of the tub. I watched with satisfaction as his eyes followed the water that trailed down every curve of my body. His eyes darkened until they were almost black, and a bulge began to show beneath the tight denim of his jeans.

  “Hunters are always alone.”

  “Always?” I put a teasing note in my voice and stepped up to him. Only a fraction of an inch separated us. Such a tiny distance. I could smell the hint of soap on his skin, feel actual heat radiating from his body.

  “Karen . . .”

  “Shush.” I reached up and placed a finger against his lips. “We’ve known each other for months. If you were going to bite me, you would’ve done it by now.”

  “You don’t know that.” His whisper was as rough as the stubble that decorated his cheeks.

  “Yes, I do.”

  He held his body stiff, motionless. He didn’t move forwards, but he didn’t resist as I moved my hand against his chest for balance and went up on tiptoe to kiss him.

  It started as a gentle touch of the lips, my body barely brushing his. It didn’t stay that way. He had me in his arms so suddenly it was startling, his hands sliding down my body until they reached my thighs. He grabbed me then, lifting me from the ground, pulling me tight against him, so that the rough denim ground against the most intimate parts of me as his tongue plunged into my mouth.

  I whimpered, my hands tearing at the cloth of his shirt. I wanted, needed, to feel the warmth of his skin; needed to touch him, to have him touch me.

  He groaned, pulling back from the kiss, but not putting me down or letting me go. Burying his face in my throat he spoke in a whisper that was hoarse with need. “We can’t do this.”

  “Yes, we can.”

  I felt him gathering himself together, preparing to pull back. I couldn’t stand it. Pride went out the window in the face of pure need. “Daniel, please.”

  “You don’t understand.” He lifted his face and for the first time ever, I looked him straight in the eye.

  “I don’t care. I want you. Want this.” I ground my body against his hardness.

  He blinked, and I was caught in the magic of his gaze, a swirl of gold and copper, bronze and the rich brown of dark chocolate. I heard myself gasp, felt myself being carried into the living room.

  He took his time, licking the water from every part of me, using teeth and tongue to tease as his hands explored. His shirt was gone. I writhed against him, shouting myself hoarse.

  When we were done, he collapsed beside me, both of us sated and spent, the weight of his body pinning me to the futon mattress.

  “When we can move, you need to put on the charm I made you. It’ll make you harder to find and more difficult for Alexander to connect us. It’ll let me know if you’re in trouble.”

  “Harder to find?” I shifted my weight, rolling towards him, the fingers of my right hand tracing delicately over his sleekly muscled chest and six-pack abs.

  “Alexander will be looking for you. He’s going to want to kill you, as slowly and painfully as he can. I’m not going to let him.”

  “Can you stop him?”

  “I have to.”

  Two

  I rolled over and slapped my hand in the general direction of the alarm clock, hoping to hit the snooze button. The movement sent a wave of pain shooting through my shoulder and down my arm. The pain was a far more effective wake-up call than the buzzing of the clock. I gasped, my eyes going wide.

  It took a second for my mind to click into gear, to remember last night. It hadn’t been a dream. I had the bruises, and the charm necklace, to prove it. But Daniel was gone, and I had things to do before I went into work this evening.

  I was sore and stiff, both from my injuries and from my amazing night with Daniel, so I set the shower massage on high, and turned the
temperature up as hot as I could stand. By the time I had spent a few minutes under the spray, I was able to raise my arms above my head. Not without pain, mind you. The bruises were too deep for that. But at least I had full range of motion and was able to brush my teeth without screaming in agony.

  I dressed simply: black jeans and a loose polo shirt. The bra straps hurt against the bruises, but I’m too busty to feel completely comfortable braless, so I wore it anyway. Dark socks and running shoes completed my outfit.

  When I was dressed, I called in to the office. If anyone hadn’t shown up there might be work available, and since I’d lost half of my shift to the hospital visit, I could use the money.

  “Anderson Investigations and Process Service. This is Amber, may I help you?”

  “Hey Amber, it’s me.”

  “Karen! Ohmigod. Are you all right? I heard you were mugged and had to go to the ER last night.”

  “I’m a little banged up, but I’ll be OK.” Maybe. I hoped. Assuming Daniel and I could handle Alexander.

  “Oh thank God. Well, look, there’s nothing for you here until you come on shift, so take it easy and rest up. Good job on the Ross service by the way. The boss is pleased.”

  “Thanks.” Glad he was pleased, but too bad there was no extra work. Oh well.

  “See you when you come on shift.”

  “Right.”

  I hung up the phone feeling a little depressed. I needed to take my mind off of things, distract myself. So I flipped on the television and hooked up the game console. In minutes my mind was off in la-la land, chasing through dangerous mazes collecting weapons and killing aliens.

  The more the day wore on, the more tense I became. I’d gotten lucky yesterday. Alexander had been expecting an easy kill and had been careless. Next time he’d be prepared.

  I knew that Daniel wanted me to let him take care of it. Fine. I mean, let’s face it, the “creatures of the night” have all sorts of advantages over the rest of us. First, nobody believes they exist; if I asked anyone but Daniel for help, they’d lock me up in the loony bin and throw away the key. Then they have that whole hypnotic-stare, super-strength, gotta-stake-me-and-cut-off-my-head-to-kill-me thing going.