For someone riddled with paranoia, he seemed oddly unconcerned. I couldn’t help wondering whether this was an attention-getting device, but that wasn’t my major concern at the moment.
“Is there anyone else here?” I asked as he proceeded to nail a board across another window. “A…a housekeeper? Or sitter? Anyone?”
“Just Abby, but she’s left. I’m glad. She didn’t believe Sebastian was coming. She said I was…” He paused a moment to recall the word. “…delusional.”
“Hmm. Well, here’s the problem—I’m a tutor, not a nanny. I have my own home to go to, and other work I must do, so I can’t stay here to take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself,” Damian said matter-of-factly. He nailed up another board.
“I’m sure you can. Regardless, I believe it would be best if I spoke with your parents.” I sat on the edge of the bed, next to a cordless phone. “Do you have their number?”
“My mum is on a cruise. You can’t talk to her unless she calls. My dad and Nell are in Heidelberg. But there’s no phone because they’re building a new house.”
It took some doing, but after fifteen or so minutes, Damian was persuaded to hand over a slip of paper with his father’s mobile phone number on it. Two minutes after that, I found myself talking to a pleasant American woman who identified herself as Damian’s stepmother.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stay,” I said after explaining what happened. “I have many other clients, and although Damian seems like a delightful child”—Damian huffed and puffed past me hauling a handful of cobwebby two-by-fours from the basement, shooting indignant looks at my lack of helpfulness—“I simply cannot put it all aside to take on a nanny position.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to do so permanently,” said the woman named Nell, a distinct note of pleading in her voice. “But we would be so very grateful if you could stay with Damian overnight. Just overnight. I will call the agency right away, but I know for a fact they won’t be able to send someone out until tomorrow morning, and we can’t possibly get away until after that. I realize this is a great deal to ask you, but if you could see your way clear to just staying with Damian until morning, we would be happy to pay you a bonus on top of your regular fee.”
I bit my lip, swayed against my will by the word bonus. “I hate to appear mercenary, but I’m a bit tight right now financially, so it really does matter when I ask how much this bonus would be.”
Nell was silent for a moment. “How does a hundred pounds sound?”
It sounded like heaven, but I had enough presence of mind not to blurt that out. Evidently Nell took my momentary silence as disapproval, because she quickly added, “I’ll make it two hundred if you can stay until the new nanny arrives.”
My hesitation wasn’t due to greed. I quickly ran over a mental list of everything that I needed to do in the next twenty-four hours. “I will agree if you don’t mind my clients coming here to see me.”
“Your clients?”
“I’m a counselor,” I answered.
“Oh. Occupational? Emotional?”
“Sort of a cross between the two. I counsel people who’ve undergone a major change in their life and need a little help to get going again. I have three appointments tonight, and a handful more in the morning.”
“Ah, I see. Well, so long as no one unbalanced or dangerous is brought into the house, I don’t see any objection. Thank you so much for doing this, Ysabelle. Adrian will be relieved to know his son is in such capable hands.”
The son in question chose that moment to stalk by me with a fistful of kitchen knives.
“Erm…yes.”
After a few basic instructions on where things were located in the house, and promises that a new nanny would be on the doorstep bright and early, Nell hung up. “Anything else you need, Damian will help you. He’s very precocious,” she said before she disconnected.
Precocious was one word for it. I promised to call if there were any problems, after which I set the phone in its cradle and watched with interest as Damian bustled around the room arranging knives, electrical tape, and more wood.
“Your bag is talking.”
“Hmm? Oh. Erm…” My wits, somewhat shaken with the events of the last half hour, attempted to pull together an explanation of why a spirit was in my purse. “Damian, have you ever wondered what happens to people after they pass on?”
He shrugged. “Not really.”
“Ah. Sometimes people who pass on unexpectedly are a bit…well, confused is as good a word as any. Many of them don’t realize that they’re dead. Some do, but they might remain behind in spirit form for other reasons—there’s something important that needs to be done, amends to be made, revenge, that sort of thing. What remains of those people after their bodies fade are often called ghosts or spirits—”
“Sally speaks horrible French.”
I did a quick mental double-take, upping my estimation of Damian a smidgen. “Ah. You chatted with her?”
“She asked me to let her out.” His eyes narrowed for a minute before he dismissed me and turned back to his work. “I figured you had her trapped in there on purpose, so I didn’t.”
“Thank you, but she’s not actually trapped…One second, I’ll let her out and see if I can explain a bit.”
It took a few minutes to smooth Sally’s ruffled feathers, but at last she settled down enough to listen to me while I told her of our change of plans.
“What about votre clients? You know, les zombies that you are supposed to see?”
I shot a glance at Damian, but he didn’t seem to be listening, instead happily pounding planks over the window. “I’ll just have to see them here instead of at home. There are only three more tonight, aren’t there?”
She nodded.
“Excellent. I’ll just deal with them and send them on their way. That should be the end of it.”
Sally had a few choice things to say about the change of plans, but I pointed out to her that we needed money to live. By the time I was finished with her, Damian had used the electrical tape to attach a couple of knives to each window. Sally took one look at the knives and headed for safer ground. “I will go leave une petite note on our door for les zombie appointments.”
“Revenant appointments.” I waited until Sally left for our flat before saying to the industrious boy in front of me, “Um…Damian…”
“Just in case,” he said, not waiting for me to finish my question.
A few minutes of close scrutiny of his handiwork made it clear that Damian was not a stupid child. He handled the knives carefully, respectful of their ability to cause injury. I debated making him take the potentially lethal booby traps down, but decided that so long as he was not harmed—and did not harm anyone else—the rest was an issue for his parents or his nanny.
“I see. As fascinating as that is, I’m here to give you lessons, and even though your stepmother has asked me to spend the night here just to make sure all is well, I think we should proceed with the original plan and take a few lessons in English and history.”
“I’m busy right now,” Damian answered, not even looking at me as he went into a room made dark by more boarded-up windows. He selected two skinning knives and arranged them on each side of the window. “Why do you have a spirit guide?”
“She…er…was a bit of a gift. And just so you know, attempting to distract me isn’t going to work. There are many other things I would like to be doing at this moment as well, but tutoring is what I’m being paid to do, and do it I will.”
“Protecting us from Sebastian is more important than lessons,” he said with a black-browed scowl in my direction. “My dad would want me to save your life over learning some stupid dates and writing compositions.”
“I don’t even know this Sebastian person,” I pointed out. “Why do you think he would pose a risk to me?”
The look the boy gave me was rife with irritation. “You’ve got a double soul.”
I swea
r, my mouth hung open for a moment at his statement. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about. People don’t have two souls,” I said slowly, a chill running down my arms. How on earth could a mere child see my handicap? “Everyone is granted one soul only when they are born.”
Damian shrugged and said nothing.
“What does Sebastian have to do with souls?” I couldn’t keep myself from asking. “Is he a demon?”
“No. He’s a Dark One.” He looked up and grinned, two pointed canines clearly visible despite the gloom. “Like my dad and me.”
I took a couple of steps back, a hand at my heart. I’d heard of Dark Ones—vampires, tainted by the dark powers, parasites who preyed on the lives of mortals—but I’d never seen one in person.
“I think…I don’t know…I think I need a little air,” I said, stumbling backward as my words jumbled together. Blindly, I made my escape, clutching the banister as I ran downstairs, aware now what it was that Abby had found so wrong with Damian.
I wanted to run away, to go home and hide, to forget I’d ever been here, but as I stood with my hand on the front doorknob just about to bolt, my conscience took that moment to kick in and remind me that although Damian might be a vampire—vampire!—he was also a child. I couldn’t just leave a ten-year-old alone.
“I’m hungry.” Damian’s voice drifted downstairs. “Do you have any blood?”
A flight instinct I didn’t know I possessed kicked in. I yanked the door open, a survival instinct overriding my better sense into running. But a dark shape looming in the doorway had me shrieking instead, stepping backward in horror as a familiar man—tall, built rather solidly, and covered in blood—staggered through the door.
“You, woman, give me the ring!” he demanded in an authoritative voice that was immediately contradicted when his eyes rolled up and he collapsed at my feet.
I stared down at the man in shock, a thousand questions racing through my mind. What on earth was the kissable Good Samaritan from the alley doing here? Had he followed me? Was he a stalker rather than a lifesaver? How could anyone who kissed the way he did have harm on his mind? And what on earth was he babbling about? “What ring? Who are you? What did you have to do with those demons? God’s mercy, you’re bleeding! Are you all right? Should I call the paramedics?”
“Oooh,” Damian’s voice said from where he stood on the stairs, looking down at the scene before him. “You let Sebastian in. That isn’t good. Now he’ll try to kill us.”
Chapter Three
“Who are you?” The voice was as rough and low as I remembered. “You are not the charmer. You cannot be. What are you doing in this house?”
Sebastian was bound to a chair, held by a thin nylon laundry line Damian had found in the basement. Before I could answer, Sally, only just returned from a quick trip to my flat, gasped and floated over until she was directly in front of him. “Elle est very charming! You, however, are tres, tres rude!”
“He said charmer, not charming,” I said slowly, racking my brain to dig out information on charmers. Fleeting thoughts skittered away as I was swamped with the memory of Sebastian’s mouth on mine.
“So?” Sally contined to stand with her hands on her hips, glaring at Sebastian. He glared right back at her.
“A charmer is someone who can unmake curses,” he said, turning his gaze to me. I felt it as if it were a physical touch.
“That’s right—they lift curses and wards and things. You are quite correct; I am not a charmer. My name is Ysabelle Raleigh. I am tutoring Damian. I take it you are Sebastian?”
“Yes. Where is Adrian?” His brows pulled together as he looked down at himself, noticing that his arms had been tied behind him. When he looked back up to me, his gray-blue eyes were flashing with indigation and just a smidgen of disbelief. “You think to hold me prisoner?”
Sally’s form shimmered indignantly. “Oui, vous êtes dérangé man! And there you’ll stay until vous expliquiez why you’re attacking poor Belle!”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed at her for a moment. “You are aware, are you not, that you are not speaking actual French?”
“Le gasp!” Sally said, following word by deed and gasping in a thoroughly shocked manner. “Je suis too!”
“No, you are not. You are mangling a perfectly nice language—”
“Zût alors!” she interrupted, shaking an ethereal fist in his face. “I should pop vous on the nose—”
“All right, that’s enough, you two.” I gave my spirit guide a very stern look. She bristled, her eyes flashing. “Sally, please leave us alone.”
“Like Abaddon I will! You are not…not…whatever the word for ‘safe’ is—”
I shooed her toward the door. “Don’t be silly. He’s bound quite tightly, and if I need any help, I’ll yell for you.”
“Mais—” She shot both of us a shared indignant look as I shoved her through the door.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said, giving Sebastian a wide berth as I returned to the desk I’d been leaning against. “She’s a bit ecentric.”
One of his eyebrows rose. “An understatement, but one I am willing to let go in order to deal with more important issues.”
“Yes…your injuries seem to be healing. I take it you received them fighting the demon? Why did you do it?” I asked, desperate to distract myself from the strange attraction.
Damian and I had half dragged, half carried the unconscious Sebastian into the library, a room filled with comfortable leather chairs and several bookcases, all dominated by a large rosewood desk. As my aching arms attested to, he was a big man—imposing, but not fat—with hair the color of rich, dark honey, his eyes a stormy grayish blue. Despite his arrogance, my fingers itched to run along the stubborn line of his jaw, to feel his touseled hair, to gently brush the width of those broad shoulders, tracing the solid planes of his chest down to that flat belly, and still farther below to where tight jeans accented masculine attributes. My lips positively burned with sensual delight at the thought of kissing him again.
“I disabled the demon…after a bit of a fight. What were you thinking, running straight into it?”
“I was running down the alley because you told me to.”
He had the audacity to look annoyed. “I told you to turn left. You would have been safe if you’d done so.”
“Moot point,” I said with a smile. “I am…erm…sorry about running into you. And the…er…kissing. I’m not normally so forward.”
He frowned. “That also is a moot point. Where is Adrian and the charmer? Why have you tied me to this chair?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Tomas are in Germany at the moment. As for the bonds—I’m sorry, but I felt it prudent given the nature of your arrival and Damian’s avowal that you’ve come to destroy him.”
“I have,” Sebastian said simply, pulling uselessly at the ropes. Because of my weaving experience, I could tie a quality knot. “Germany. I should have known. Very well, we will go to Germany once you give me the ring. You will release me now and bring it to me.”
I rested my hip against the edge of the desk, considering the man before me. “We? We will go to Germany? We as in you and who, exactly?”
“You try my patience, Beloved. You know full well I am referring to you. Now cease these games and release me. I have limited time to destroy Adrian, and we must Join as soon as possible.”
“Hold on,” I said, raising a hand to stop him. “Back up a moment—you expect me to go to Germany with you?”
“Of course. You will go wherever I go.”
“Are you insane?” I couldn’t help it, I goggled at him for a moment. “I don’t know you! Wait—is this because I kissed you back?”
The look in his eyes was almost insulting. “Why do you pretend ignorance? I am a patient man, but you are pushing my limits. Release me!”
“Not on your life. This is about that kiss, isn’t it? You think you’re going to take me away to Germany just because I kissed you? Once? God’s blood, w
hat do you do with the women you sleep with—marry them?”
“I will marry you, yes. Now cease with this useless conversation and release me.”
I shook my head. “I’m going to call in some professional help. Honestly, I think you must have bumped your head on the pavement when we fell. You’re not making any sense—”
He swore in French, and his muscles bunched for a moment before the rope exploded around him. One second he was sitting, the next he was before me, his hands hard on my hips as he yanked me up against him. “We do not have time for these games. Your presence complicates matters somewhat, but we will overcome the obstacles you present. The first task at hand is to complete the Joining. Remove your clothing.”
“What?” I shrieked, trying desperately not to melt against him.
“We must make love to complete the Joining. We will do that first, then retrieve the ring.”
His body was hard against me, hard and aggressive and overwhelming to my senses, but it was an oddly exciting feeling, not at all the frightening one I’d expected. He was a vampire, I desperately reminded myself. A cold, heartless parasite who preyed on humans.
We prefer the term Dark One, actually, he said. With a start I realized he was speaking directly into my head. And I assure you I am anything but cold and heartless. Right at this moment, I am very, very hot.
My eyes widened as his head dipped toward mine, freezing as his gaze narrowed for a second on me. I had the sensation that he was seeing deep into my soul, baring all my secrets. I knew then that he’d noticed my handicap, and I turned slightly to avoid his piercing gaze. I felt like a succulent bit of prey watched by a dangerous predator—a feeling I did not enjoy, no matter how many tingles of excitement rippled down my body.
His voice, which had been deep and forceful, softened. “You do not know what I am talking about, do you?”
“No, I don’t. All I know is that you mean Damian and me harm—”
“Beloved, I could never hurt you,” he said, his thumb sweeping along my lower lip, teasing me until I turned back to look into those all-seeing eyes.