Julian missed Caitlin desperately, much more than he had
expected he
would. He spent the first week sulking, the second snapping
at everybody
until finally, Daedalus told him off. The Nosferatu’s
scorn stung even
more than Caitlin’s absence. He made an effort to act
on Daedalus’ last
retort:
“You’re a Prince, Julian. Behave like
one!”
He buried himself in work daily, but
the nights were difficult to
get through. Even when he spent several hours out hunting,
feeding till
he could drink no more every night, there were hours
in the early
evenings and just before dawn when the loneliness hurt
most.
Caitlin called every few days. She
made a habit of calling late in
the evenings, the time difference making it early mornings
for Julian.
But he made sure that he was always available when her
calls came
through. The sound of her voice made him want her, and
she had always
something tender to say to him, apart from reporting
on her progress.
“I miss you,” they would tell each
other, and they both meant it.
Julian started visiting the Haven
every other evening. He knew about
the affair that Lillie was carrying on with Frank Kohanek,
and it made
him feel secure in her company. Therefore, he was totally
unprepared
when she sought him out one night and asked him to dance.
The music had
turned to a soft romantic melody. He danced with her,
her body moving
enticingly in his arms, reminding him of what had been.
He felt
apprehensive, well aware of what Lillie’s touch could
do to a man,
Kindred or mortal. But Lillie didn’t try anything, she
kept the
conversation light, a smile on her face, her eyes averted.
Julian saw Frank Kohanek enter the
club. A shadow passed over his
features when he saw Lillie dancing with her former lover.
He sat down
in one of the booths. When the music ended, Julian steered
Lillie
towards Frank’s table. The last thing he needed right
now was a jealous
cop coming after him. Nevertheless, he was shocked by
a pang of jealousy
himself when he saw Lillie kiss the policeman.
“You shouldn’t leave a beautiful lady
on her own,” he said more
sharply than he had intended to. “Someone may steal her.”
But Frank Kohanek was in a foul mood.
“Shouldn’t you heed your own advice?”
he retorted belligerently. It
stung.
“Alas,” Julian made a placating gesture,
“my lady is thousands of
miles away.”
Before he turned away however, he
caught the white light that
sparkled in Lillie’s eyes at his words and knew that
nothing had been
forgotten as he felt his own eyes respond with a green
shimmer.
He decided to stay away from the Haven
in the future; but Lillie’s
burning flash of naked desire followed him for days,
awakening feelings
within him that would have been best kept locked away
if Caitlin had
been around. Within a week he was back in the club, but
the first person
he ran into was Cameron, and he regretted that he had
come.
Cameron growled when he saw Julian,
but then checked himself. Later,
when those who had accompanied Julian were dancing or
hanging around the
bar, leaving him alone in the booth, Cameron dared to
approach the
Prince. To his surprise, Julian allowed him to sit down
at his table,
offering him a glass of wine. Cameron had only intended
to greet Julian
Luna formally; it was his duty as Primogen to acknowledge
the Prince’s
presence.
What does the bloody Ventrue want?
he wondered.
But Julian didn’t want anything. He
posed the usual questions about
the Brujah Clan and its business, demanding nothing and
offering
nothing. The Brujahs had been behaving unusually well
lately. Cameron
became aware that all other Kindred in the club were
watching them. At
last he gathered up his courage and asked:
“What’s going on?”
Julian allowed a shadow of a smile
to show.
“What do you think is going on?” he
retorted.
And then it struck Cameron. He was
being pardoned, officially!
Sitting at the Prince’s table, sharing his wine, he was
no longer pariah
to the other Clans. The wave of relief that swept over
him made him feel
ashamed. He hated being grateful to Julian Luna.
The Prince nodded dismissal, the show
was over. But before Cameron
left, he posed another question:
“How is Caitlin doing?” He knew that
he had made a mistake when he
saw Julian’s face set into stony hostility.
“To you she doesn’t exist,” the Prince
said coldly.
Cameron backed away. He had been pardoned,
but not forgiven.
Cameron sat at his table, his Brujah
friends surrounding him, still
dazzled. A barmaid had brought wine they hadn’t ordered.
“It’s on the house,” she said.
When Cameron looked up, he saw Lillie
nod and smile from a distance.
Other Kindred started strolling towards his table. Suddenly,
he was
lavished with more attention than the Prince himself.
The hate made his
triumph taste bitter. How could one man hold such power?!
He glanced at
Julian Luna, but there was someone sitting opposite him
and the Prince’s
eyes were focused on that person. Cameron concentrated
on being amiable
to those who addressed him, while his mind was busy imagining
how he
could decapitate Luna with the same Japanese sword that
had been used to
cut off Eddie’s head. But his mind wouldn’t heed his
wishes entirely,
and he saw the three dead bodies in Manzanita; Julian
Luna had killed
them, unarmed and gravely injured. Daedalus had been
barely able to stop
him when he had lashed out at Cameron. No, Cameron wasn’t
yet ready to
match his strength against the Prince’s.
Another picture came unbidden into
his mind. Caitlin, her blond hair
fluttering in the breeze, her soft voice calling Julian’s
name, the dark
head against her shuddering body... Cameron choked on
the wine, but when
he looked again, the booth on the other side of the room
was empty.
A young woman had slipped into his
booth. Julian’s senses identified
her instantly: a human.
“May I?” she asked although she was
already seated. He nodded
smiling and looked her over appraisingly. She wasn’t
very pretty but
seemed fresh and wasn’t too intoxicated. Short dark hair,
a little on
the plump side. Her blue eyes looked straight into his
as she pushed her
empty glass towards him.
A pro looking for a customer? Julian
wondered and his smile
broadened. Maybe I should pay for my meals every now
and then.
He poured some wine into her glass
and her hand took his when he let
go of the bottle.
“Isn’t it boring to sit here all by
yourself?” she asked. Julian
didn’t remove his hand from her grasp and looked pointedly
at their
joined fingers saying:
“I’m not all by myself, am I?”
She looked at the couples whirling
on the dancing floor before her
gaze returned to him.
“How about a dance?” But Julian shook
his head.
“Not my tune.” He leaned closer to
her. “I have a better
proposition. Let’s find a less crowded place.”
She nodded, blushing.
An amateur in desperate search for
male company, Julian concluded.
He knew every nook and cranny in the Haven. It shouldn’t
be too
difficult to find some deserted room.
“My name is Amy,” she said as he led
her up the stairs. As soon as
the door closed behind them and they were in an empty
corridor, she
turned to him, her arms closing around his neck, and
kissed him. He
responded to the kiss and felt his body react as she
pressed softly
against him. He lifted her and carried her into a poolroom
that he knew
was seldom used. As he had expected, it was deserted.
He let go of her
and turned to lock the door. When he faced her again
she was taking of
her clothes, slowly, suggestively. He watched her, surprised
by how
little reaction he felt. She stopped suddenly and he
realized that she
expected him to follow suit. Reluctantly, he removed
his jacket and his
shirt. In the next moment she was close to him, his belt
coming loose in
her hands. She dragged him down; the carpet was rough
under his back and
buttocks. She held his face with both hands, kissing
him passionately,
her body pressing him down as she straddled him. The
inbred instinct of
an eighteenth-century gentleman prevented him from using
force against a
woman when his life wasn’t in danger.
She has more limbs than an octopus!
he thought as his hands slid
over her sweating skin. Her movements became jerky, her
breathing
labored. He pressed a hand between their bodies, his
fingers reaching
her and helping her over the edge. He was rewarded as
she cried out,
throwing her head back, her throat exposed. His teeth
sunk deep into her
carotid artery and he drunk her blood in big gulps. It
was hot and sweet
and still bubbling with the sexual excitement he had
provided.
Well, Julian thought wryly, I’ve paid
for my meal anyway!
He disengaged himself from the unconscious
girl. Carrying on with a
lifeless body wasn’t enticing even though his own lust
hadn’t been
quenched. He put on his clothes and bent over the prone
figure, making
sure that the wound on her throat was closing rapidly.
He took one of
her discarded garments and wiped off the blood that was
already drying
on her skin. He wanted to leave, but to let her wake
up alone and naked
in one of the back rooms of the Haven might be unwise.
He took her in
his arms and, after checking that there was no trace
left of his bite,
he let his hand pass over her face. Her eyes fluttered
open. Julian
produced a worried expression.
“You passed out,” he said. “That was
unkind.”
She tried to get up and he helped
her to her feet. She smiled at him
shakily.
“It has never happened to me before.”
Her hand moved to her throat.
Apparently, there was some sensation left. He had awakened
her too
early. “What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Julian’s lie had years
of practice. “You screamed
and then you were gone. I was afraid that you’d suffered
a stroke.” He
looked at her accusingly. “You scared the hell out of
me.” He was
deliberately cruel because he didn’t want her to come
after him again.
As he had expected, she put her clothes on with swift,
angry movements
and stomped out of the poolroom without another word.
He laughed when
the door closed behind her. Works every time!
Lillie, who had access to everything
and everywhere in the Haven,
covered the peephole and turned away smiling. This was
the Julian she
recognized. Whoever that sex mad girl was, she certainly
got what she
deserved! The scream still echoed in Lillie’s mind, making
her shudder.
Had she ever screamed like that? Not with Frank. She
stood hesitating
for a moment before running out, but when she entered
the poolroom,
Julian was no longer there. She went down to the club
and saw him in his
booth: his clothes were in perfect order, every hair
in place, his face
bland. Several men were seated at his table, all Kindred.
Lillie went to
the bar, took a bottle of wine and some glasses.
“I thought you might want some more,”
she said, placing them on the
table. The murmurs of thanks went past her as her eyes
met Julian’s. She
became aware of the double meaning of her remark when
she saw him
flinch. She saw the green shimmer and she saw the muscles
of his jaws
clench.
Bye, bye Caitlin, she thought triumphantly
as she moved away after
letting him see her own incandescent response.
Julian managed to stay away from the
Haven and from Lillie for
another week, knowing perfectly well that he would give
in eventually.
Lillie didn’t try to contact him, knowing just as well
that her allure
didn’t need any enhancement. It was a battle of wills,
and Julian lost.
He found out through Sonny when Frank was working nights.
Not that he
was afraid, but walking in on that cop would only complicate
matters. He
came to the club when it was long past midnight. It was
just closing
down. He found Lillie seated in one of the booths, a
stack of bills in
front of her, a glass of wine in her hand. He slid soundlessly
into a
seat, facing her.
“You took your time,” she said in
a low voice.
“Lillie,” he said, “I’m afraid I shouldn’t
even be here,” he
shrugged helplessly, “but I couldn’t stay away.”
Lillie smiled her imperious smile.
“Julian, you’re always welcome.” She
put the papers away and took
his hand. “Come,” she said simply. He followed her, his
willpower gone.
Frank found them in the early morning.
Sonny had come into the
police station earlier than usual and told Frank that
there had been
some trouble in the Haven during the night. Frank went
to the club
unsuspecting, he just wanted to make sure that everything
was all right.
He was shocked and dismayed. Caught in the act was hardly
the right
description of what he saw. They were in Lillie’s private
room above the
club, both naked, their bodies dripping with blood from
the wounds they
had inflicted on each other, seemingly unaware of the
world around them.
Frank didn’t stop to think. He grabbed
the first thing that looked
like a weapon, a poker, and attacked them with a shout
of rage. But
Julian was swifter than Frank had expected. He shoved
Lillie away and
was moving aside when the poker came down. Instead of
hitting his head,
it landed on his shoulder and Frank was gratified by
the audible snap of
a bone breaking. But in the next moment, the poker was
wrestled out of
his hand and he was thrown down on the floor, Julian’s
hand squeezing
his throat, a knee planted firmly on his chest. No matter
how much he
struggled, Frank couldn’t get out of Julian’s grip. Even
with one arm
useless, his superior strength was a distinct advantage.
Frank tried to
talk, but the strangling hand made it impossible. He
saw with horror
that Julian’s face was absolutely expressionless: that
he was being
murdered in cold blood. His vision began to blur; he
heard Lillie’s
scream, but it sounded as if she were far away, and everything
went
totally black.
Frank was still lying on the floor
when he regained consciousness.
Something had been put under his legs, so the first things
he saw were
his own shoes. The sight seemed so ridiculous that he
started to laugh.
A hoarse croak came out. He had a headache that was a
pride to its
species, his throat hurt like hell and his ribs screamed
in protest
against every breath he took; but he was alive and it
genuinely
surprised him. He tried to look around but his head advised
him against
it. Lillie’s face came into his field of vision.
“Frank, can you hear me?” she asked.
He tried to answer, but all he managed
to produce was another croak.
He decided that it was all the conversation he was capable
of and shut
his mouth. Lillie touched his face lightly and turned
away saying:
“He is conscious, but I think you
damaged something in his throat.
He can’t talk.”
Now, it was Julian’s turn to appear
in front of Frank’s eyes. He was
only half-dressed, and Frank noticed with satisfaction
that he favored
his left arm. He touched Frank’s neck and chest very
gently.
“A few broken ribs, his throat will
be all right,” he said turning
to Lillie. Then his gaze returned to Frank.
“How could you be so stupid?” he asked.
“You are playing with fire,
this isn’t the first time you’ve nearly provoked me into
killing you.
Next time you attack me, choose something more effective
than a piece of
cast iron. You only managed to make me angry.”
Frank made an effort.
“I... broke your arm,” he hissed.
Julian started to shrug but grimaced
in pain.
“My arm will be all right in a couple
of hours, it will take weeks
for your ribs to heal. Why did you do it? How did you
know I was here?”
“I didn’t.” Frank’s speech was getting
better. “They said at the
station that there had been some trouble at the club.”
He omitted
Sonny’s name meticulously. “I... just went mad... when
I saw you two...
thought of Alexandra. Why can’t you leave her alone!”
Julian and Lillie looked at each other,
and Frank could almost feel
the invisible bond between them.
“Frank,” Julian said at last, “Lillie
and I are Kindred. We go
back... more than a hundred years. What’s between us
is forever, nothing
can change that.”
“Yeah?” In spite of his disadvantageous
position, Frank was warming
up for a fight. “What about Caitlin Byrne?”
“I love Caitlin but she is a mortal,
and I want her to remain one,
although it means that I’ll lose her eventually.” The
smile on Julian’s
face was so sad and full of pain that Frank lost his
appetite for
arguing. Somehow, fighting when the opponent wasn’t cooperating
gave him
no satisfaction.
Julian rose to his feet and, putting
his good arm around Lillie,
kissed her on the forehead the way a brother might kiss
a sister.
“I’ll leave now,” he said. “Lillie
will get you a doctor. If you
tell him that you have been squashed by a vampire, he’ll
probably put
you in an asylum.”
After Julian had gone and Lillie stopped
giggling, she returned to
Frank’s side.
“What happened, really?” he asked
her.
“Really?” she said. “You really tried
to bash in the head of the
Prince of San Francisco, and lived to tell the story.
No one else has.
He must like you a lot. What possessed you?!” She started
to sound
angry, but Frank avoided her question.
“I mean, why didn’t he kill me?” He
remembered the dead man without
a throat in the bank.
“I told him it would be bad publicity
for the Haven,” Lillie’s anger
wasn’t subsiding. “No, frankly, he let go when you passed
out. I
couldn’t have stopped him even if I had tried.”
“Thank you very much!” Frank said
bitterly, but Lillie’s face was
serious.
“Get one thing straight, Frank,” she
said coldly, “if Julian hadn’t
broken a few of your ribs, I would have. I like you,
but you can never
replace Julian. Do you understand?!” She was shouting,
her eyes flashing
white lightning.
“Yeah, I get it,” Frank said trying
to pick himself up, but the pain
in his chest made him fall back with a grunt. Lillie
stared at him
angrily for a moment longer, then went to the phone to
call a doctor.
Frank was taken to a hospital, examined
and patched up. There was a
police investigation. Remembering Julian’s acidic comment,
he said that
he never saw his assailant and Lillie corroborated his
story. Tests were
made, there was some blood on Frank’s neck that wasn’t
his. The lab
computer had a field day blinking a Match found display
in red. As it
turned out, the blood found on Frank matched one of the
samples of semen
found in connection with a rape case of one Caitlin Byrne
some months
ago. The information was filed and stored for future
use. The rapist in
the case of Ms. Byrne had never been apprehended.
Frank tried to break it off with Lillie
after that incident, but was
unable to. She never mentioned what had happened and
neither did he. But
when Sonny asked what had happened to him - his ribs
took weeks to heal
just as Julian had predicted - he said that he had been
squashed by a
vampire. Eventually, Sonny dragged the whole story out
of him, and Frank
was surprised by the look of horror on his partner’s
face. It made him
understand that what Lillie had told him was true. He
was probably the
only person, mortal or Kindred, who had made an unsuccessful
attempt to
kill a Prince and lived to tell. He didn’t see Julian
Luna during the
following weeks, neither in the Haven nor anywhere near
Lillie Langtry.
Nor did he ask her if she saw Julian again.
Frank’s attack had a sobering effect
on Julian. Being with Lillie
had been... enjoyable, nothing more. He longed for Caitlin’s
warmth,
realizing that he needed her love more than he needed
sex. He had seen
that girl from the club a few days before. As it turned
out, she worked
at the Times. He recognized her in spite of glasses and
a business suit,
but pretended that he didn’t. Seeing her there made him
suspect that her
advances in the Haven were not mere coincidence. He hoped
that she
wouldn’t run babbling to Caitlin on her return, but if
she did, well,
there were ways to make a girl forget. No problem for
a Kindred. Still,
it was another mess that he had no need of. Daedalus
had tended to his
broken shoulder, never asking one question. The Nosferatu
was wise
indeed. He had made some ill-humored noises and said:
“Julian, getting into a brawl over
a woman doesn’t become you.”
As usual, Daedalus’ scorn stung more
than the actual injury.
He decided to stay celibate. After
all, the reports from the Gangrel
couple in Europe described Caitlin’s behavior as impeccable.
Amy was angry, scared, humiliated and
thoroughly unhappy, not
necessarily in that order. How stupid can a girl get!
She had run into
Julian once in the office a couple of weeks before Caitlin
was supposed
to return from Europe. His indifferent expression told
her that he
didn’t even recognize her. Maybe it was just as well.
But she hated him
anyway.
How could he forget?! She certainly
couldn’t.
She had gone to the Haven because
she had heard that he was
sometimes there. She had watched him, devising means
to approach him.
The first time she made her move, she was beaten by that
handsome young
man. The next time Julian was alone in his booth, she
closed in on her
quarry before anyone else. It seemed almost ridiculous,
how easy he was
to seduce. To cut Caitlin out, that would make Amy’s
day. What she
didn’t expect was that her day would be made in a very
different way.
The memory made her squirm.
Oh, God! she thought, I’m twenty-five,
and that was the first time a
man had made me come! And now, he doesn’t even recognize
me!
He had allowed her total freedom to
do as she pleased, his hands
hardly touching her. She had rubbed against him, exciting
herself, fully
aware that it would lead to nothing: the frustration
overwhelming her as
it had always done in the past. And then, quite casually,
his hand was
on her, propelling her into another dimension: the inhibitions
of her
whole life swept away in one exploding moment. No wonder
she had passed
out!
He had chased her away afterwards
like some cheap tart. Damn him to
hell!
Anamaria Weatherstone wasn’t used
to being treated like a tart.
After all, she was the heiress to the Weatherstone&Reilly
fortune, one
of the biggest construction companies on the West Coast.
Well, one of
the heirs anyway. Her father had bought her the glamorous
job as a
reporter for the San Francisco Times and she liked it.
Lots of men
around. Only she had set her eyes on the one man who
wouldn’t be
impressed by the Weatherstone millions. Amy was spoiled
and lazy, but
she wasn’t stupid. She knew that she couldn’t point her
plump finger at
Julian Luna and say:
“Daddy, buy me that!”
She had heard about the reclusive
Julian Luna long before she ever
saw him. His name circulated among the rich and powerful
of the city,
and she was certainly one of the rich and powerful. Men
talked about him
with respect, the women in hushed voices. There was a
mystery that was
intriguing. When it became known that he had bought the
San Francisco
Times she was thrilled. When he turned up at a staff
meeting at last,
she had been amazed. He was much younger and much better
looking than
she had imagined. She understood what the hushed voices
of the women in
her set of acquaintances meant.
To her dismay, however she saw that
the man she coveted was there
for one purpose only. Caitlin Byrne, that pale, thin
nobody! Promoted to
editor in one blink of an eye. What did he see in her?
The way he looked
at her, there was no doubt that he was ridiculously infatuated
with that
cold fish. Amy had been there on that evening when Julian
had locked the
door to Caitlin’s office. Her desk was the nearest, she
had heard
everything and it had haunted her for months. Even in
her dreams. When
Caitlin had moved in with Julian, Amy was on the brink
of giving up. And
then, quite unexpectedly - unexpectedly for Caitlin that
is - the
opportunity to go to Europe had turned up and Caitlin
was too
professional to decline. Of course, Caitlin didn’t know
that it had all
been arranged by Weatherstone senior, as requested by
his beloved
daughter Anamaria. The old man was proud of his daughter’s
altruism and
was only too happy to oblige. Caitlin would be gone for
two months and
Amy started to stalk Julian Luna. She had set out to
seduce him the
moment she found him alone in the club, and she had succeeded
beyond her
wildest expectations. Everything inside her screamed
for more. The
evanescent moment of ecstasy she had experienced with
him overshadowed
her whole existence. And now, the devil didn’t even remember!
Amy
decided that it was time to remind him.
Julian was at home. One of his rare
headaches had forced him to make
the day short. A thunderstorm was on its way, the clouds
over the city
dark and heavy with rain that had yet to fall. In his
mortal life he had
been susceptible to weather conditions, responding with
a splitting
headache to atmospheric changes. The ailment pursued
him into his life
as a Kindred, albeit the attacks were not as severe as
in his youth.
Still, unused as he was to being ill, he found the nuisance
irritating,
often breaking into a fit of rage at the slightest adversity.
It was
better to avoid company in such moments. Even Daedalus
would keep out of
his way. Amy had chosen the worst possible moment to
confront Julian
Luna.
He sat in the library, unable to read
or listen to music, the
fireplace the only source of light. His muscles refused
to relax, the
pain unabating, when a servant came in quietly and informed
him that a
young lady wanted to see him.
“Does she have a name?” he asked,
the irritation in his voice
apparent. He didn’t want to see anyone, a young lady
least of all. The
expression young lady used by his servant meant a human,
otherwise the
name and Clan would have been given.
“Anamaria Weatherstone,” the servant
answered unperturbed. The name
sounded familiar to Julian, but he couldn’t place it
immediately.
“No,” he said. “Get rid of her!”
“The lady was rather persistent,” was the
answer.
“No!” Julian started to sound angry.
The door closed and the soothing darkness
and silence were restored.
But seconds later, the servant was back.
“She says it’s very important, concerning
Miss Byrne.”
Julian frowned, he had talked to Caitlin
this very morning. What
could be wrong?
“All right,” he sighed, “bring her
in.”
He knew what was wrong the moment
she entered the library. She had a
dark dress on: it matched the color of her hair and suited
her much
better than the flimsy thing she had been wearing in
the Haven. No
glasses again. She squinted, trying to see Julian in
the dark. He nodded
to the servant who put the lights on, albeit dimly, and
left. Julian and
the young woman looked at each other. He knew what she
wanted, it wasn’t
the first time this had happened. A chill spread inside
him, his hand
rubbed his aching forehead, he hated these situations.
He shook his head
tiredly. It was just as well that she came now, while
Caitlin was still
in Europe. The message she had made the servant deliver
was an evident
threat. The first thunder made a deafening bang outside
as she moved
closer. A bolt of lightning filled the library with an
eerie white
light, sending a painful shock wave through Julian’s
head. The intensive
light blinded them both momentarily, making them blink.
When Amy could
see again after the library was returned to its subdued
light, the chair
that Julian had been sitting in was empty.
“Do you think it was wise to come
here?” She heard Julian’s voice
behind her. She spun around, her eyes widening in surprise;
she hadn’t
seen him move. Julian stood by the fireplace, his back
against the
flames. He was looking at her coldly.
“I had to see you,” she blurted out.
“I had to,” she repeated.
“Why?” His voice disclosed nothing.
Let her come out with it and be done,
he thought. He still had no
idea what he should do about her, but he was sure of
one thing: Caitlin
must be kept ignorant. The young woman moved towards
him, but stopped
when another lightning bolt lit up the room. When the
last growling
sound of the thunder rolled away in the distance, she
moved again,
coming really close, too close. Julian had nowhere to
go: the fire was
only inches behind him. He tried to glide sideways out
of her reach, but
she stopped him, her hands taking hold of his upper arms.
His muscles
hardened under her palms in resentment, but she interpreted
his reaction
differently.
“I need you,” she whispered, her body
pressed against him, her voice
husky. “I want you...”
Julian turned around and she followed
his motion, her back now
against the fire. He didn’t try to disengage his arms
from her grip,
that old upbringing haunting him again. But when she
let her hands move
up, encircling his neck, her face straining up in search
of a kiss, he
took hold of her wrists, broke her embrace and leaned
away from her. She
frowned, but didn’t draw back, her body pressing harder
against his, her
belly rubbing against his groin. Julian let go of her
wrists and,
grabbing her hips, pushed her away from him with a shout.
He stopped
himself at the last moment, realizing that he was on
the verge of
throwing her into the fire. Disgusted, he let go of her
and moved out of
her reach. There was another thunderbolt, much further
away, rumbling as
a distant growl in a wolf’s throat. Amy stood where he
had left her, her
body silhouetted by the roaring flames, her face filled
with disbelief
and hurt.
“You can’t treat me like this!” she
screamed. “You can’t, you damn
fool...”
“Stop it!” Julian’s shout silenced
her.
She pressed both her hands over her
mouth, her eyes filling with
tears.
“You’re making a fool of yourself,”
Julian tried to reason with her.
“I think it would be best if you forgot what has happened
here, as well
as what happened at the Haven.”
She winced and her shoulders started
to shake.
“Please, don’t make the situation
more awkward than it already is.”
Julian realized that he wasn’t reaching her. She shook
her head,
refusing to listen to him.
“Forget?!” she shouted at last. “How
can you say that?! How can you
demand...?!” A sob racked her, but she stifled it and
straightened her
back, her eyes narrowing. “Do you think Caitlin would
mind if I
remembered what we did in that club?”
Julian took a step back, cold fear
gripping him. Of course, Amy
didn’t remember the most important part of what had happened
in the
Haven, but what was important to Julian and what was
important to Amy
were two different things.
“It’s your word against mine!” Julian’s
anger was taking over again.
“Look at yourself,” he continued contemptuously, “do
you really imagine
that Caitlin would believe you?”
In truth, Julian would never have
looked at Anamaria twice, had it
not been for the blood in her veins. She spat at him,
her whole body
shaking with rage.
“Oh yeah!” she exclaimed. “Do you
know what I did afterwards?” She
was shouting loudly. “I went to the police! I told them
that I’d been
raped. They examined me. If I point you out, it will
be proved that you
were with me that night. I think that your sweet Caitlin
will believe a
police report!”
Julian watched her rave. She was lying
of course, he knew that he
hadn’t left any traces in her, but her audacity enraged
him even more.
“You’re out of your mind,” he hissed.
“Get out of here!”
But instead of heeding his demand,
she ran towards him, her arms
outstretched, her fingers crooked into claws. Julian
was so stunned by
her assault - that she was able to reach him - her long
nails ripped at
his face before he reacted. Amy never perceived what
happened. The
powerful blow landed on her neck less than one second
after her nails
tore Julian’s cheek. There was a sickening sound of crushing
bones. She
was dead before her body hit the floor. Julian stared
at the lifeless
body sprawling at his feet, uncomprehending. Slowly,
the realization of
what he had done dawned on him. The shock made him sway,
and he backed
away from the corpse. A white flash of lightning illuminated
the scene
with horrible clarity. A loud clap of thunder followed
immediately. In
the disclosing light, Julian saw that her right hand
was covered with
blood, her neck was twisted in an impossible angle, and
the wide-open
eyes stared sightlessly at him. In spite of knowing that
she was dead,
he crouched over her and let his fingers search for her
pulse. Of
course, there was none. His hand moved up her neck. All
the vertebrae in
her neck were crushed into popcorn, the base of her skull
was pushed
into her brain. He backed away.
“Stupid bitch!” he snarled.
What now? Julian tried to think straight
but failed. The
thunderstorm seemed to rage just above the mansion, the
lightning and
thunder succeeding each other continuously. Julian’s
headache threatened
his sanity, it had become worse than ever before. For
a split second he
thought of shoving the dead woman into the fireplace,
but realized that
it wouldn’t do. He made an effort to concentrate.
Think! he commanded himself. How did
she get here? Her own car? A
cab? Had anybody seen her? Had she told anybody? Had
anybody seen them
together in the Haven? Lillie, of course! But Lillie
wasn’t a threat.
Cameron?
Julian sank helplessly into the big,
comfortable leather chair.
“Stupid bitch,” he said again aloud.
He was grateful that Caitlin
was on the other side of the globe. On the other hand,
he wouldn’t have
touched that woman had Caitlin been in San Francisco.
“Oh, Caitlin!” he shuddered.
The damn woman had been Caitlin’s
colleague. He looked at the dead
body again. She had scratched his face. The blood under
her nails was
his. Could it be cleaned away well enough? Or would the
police find
something, no matter how hard he tried to get rid of
the evidence?
I need help, he thought. Daedalus!
His mental shout was answered. Julian
didn’t hear him enter, but
suddenly Daedalus was there, standing by the fire, looking
at the dead
woman, then at Julian. Julian lowered his eyes. How could
he tell his
closest friend that he had killed a human because she
had disgusted him,
had made idiotic threats and had scratched his face.
“What happened?” Daedalus asked at
last.
But Julian didn’t address the question.
“She must disappear,” he said to the
Nosferatu Primogen.
Daedalus didn’t repeat his question.
He understood that the woman
had died for the wrong reason. He didn’t want to know
why. He came
nearer Julian and examined his injured face. The wounds
were already
closing: there would be no trace left of Amy’s attack
within a few
minutes. But the blood on her hand was drying and would
not vanish.
Daedalus had taken in everything at one glance.
“I’ll take care of the body,” he said
finally. “Julian, how did she
get here?”
“I’ll find out,” Julian answered.
Anamaria had come in her own car.
Cash identified it very quickly
after Julian had given him the car keys he found in her
bag. The car was
gone from the San Francisco area within an hour. By the
morning it had
been sunk in the Pacific Ocean, two hundred miles north
of the city.
Daedalus thought of almost everything. Three of his clansmen
went
through Amy’s apartment, making sure that there was nothing
there that
would connect her to Julian Luna. They destroyed her
computer; the diary
they found was brought to the mansion. Julian burned
it after having
read it. If possible, reading it worsened his headache.
The steaming
lust and envy that rose from the hand written pages filled
him with
revulsion. She had described her encounter with Julian
in the Haven in
every graphic detail, enhancing her memory with what
her feelings and
her imagination conjured up. It made him feel sick.
The thunderstorm abated in the morning
and so did Julian’s headache.
He slept through the next day.
Anamaria Weatherstone disappeared
on the night of an unusually
powerful thunderstorm. Her body was never recovered.
Julian didn’t ask
Daedalus what had been done with it: he didn’t want to
know. Daedalus
didn’t know that Amy had worked at the San Francisco
Times, and Julian’s
migraine had made him forget to inform the Nosferatu
about it.
It had all started when a new Irish
pub opened in the vicinity and
the girls had dragged Caitlin along. The dark bitter
beer made them
somewhat disorderly. Jenny, the boldest, gave Caitlin
a sly look.
“Tell us,” she purred, “how is he?”
Caitlin winced.
“Julian is fine,” she pretended that
she didn’t understand what
Jenny was after, and all three of them laughed at her
answer.
“C’mon Caitlin,” Amy’s blue eyes were
twinkling, “we know that! We
want more. Give us some meat. Don’t be shy; we are friends,
aren’t we?”
“Uhuh,” the others chirped in.
“He is so cool,” Donna said dreamily,
“so dignified... so rich!”
“So handsome,” Amy added.
“So sexy!” Jenny came to the point.
“We want all the gory details!
We want blood!”
Caitlin’s face turned violently red.
She wasn’t in the habit of
discussing her sex life with anybody, but the friendly
bantering brought
all her feelings into the open. She bowed her head, trying
to hide her
embarrassed expression. But Jenny was relentless.
“We all know what happened in your
office. You remember, don’t you?
We could hear everything,” she lowered her voice to an
intimate whisper,
making Caitlin wish that she were somewhere else. Amy
put an arm around
Caitlin’s shoulders.
“Don’t be shy,” she said again, “we
just want you to be happy. Does
he make you happy?”
Caitlin nodded, and then raised her
head.
“I’ve never been so happy in my whole
life,” she said with emphasis.
“I love him!”
But Jenny wasn’t satisfied yet.
“That sounds very nice, but is he
good in bed? He seems so...
restrained.”
Restrained, indeed! Caitlin realized
with rising anger that Jenny
was trying to provoke her into disclosing her most intimate
experiences.
“Look,” she said, “Julian and I love
each other. We make each other
happy. We satisfy each other. That’s all the confession
you’re going to
get!” But in her mind a question arose: I’m satisfied,
but is he? He
always seems to be ready for more when I’m not.
However her outburst made Jenny back
off.
“Okay, okay,” she said, “then tell
us what’s he like as a person.
You know, the man behind the mask. Does he prefer pop
music or classic,
Chinese food or Italian, late night shows or highbrow
debates. Things
like that.”
“Soccer games or horse racing?” Amy
added.
“Does he have an equally good-looking
brother stashed away
somewhere?” Donna put in, giggling.
Their barrage of questions made Caitlin
aware of how pitifully
little she knew about Julian.
“He likes ice cream and opera,” she
said finally, “and he doesn’t
watch TV.”
Three pairs of curious eyes stared
at her, urging her to continue.
Caitlin shrugged helplessly.
“He is afraid of flying.” That made
them laugh. At last a weakness.
“He told me once that he is a good swimmer, and he is
very strong. He
speaks several languages. No brother, as far as I know.”
And that concludes the bulk of my
knowledge about Julian Luna, she
thought sadly. There were few other things she knew about
him, things
she wouldn’t share with her girlfriends.
The next evening, in her office, Caitlin
looked at the computer
screen. The title read Funny things that I know about
Julian. She
deleted the word Funny and wrote Curious instead, then
exchanged it
again to Strange. She was dead serious.
She printed out the file and, sipping
her coffee, went over what she
had written. The first paragraph started with Physiology
in bold
letters.
High body temperature, it stated,
sterile. Never sick. Caitlin had
suffered from a few severe colds during recent months,
but Julian seemed
immune to such ailments. He had mentioned headaches on
some occasion,
but always in the past tense.
Never tired, the next line said. True,
he was always alert. He never
tired of making love to her, she was always the first
to lose interest.
A warm feeling spread through Caitlin’s body.
No wonder Lillie was mad, she thought.
Who would have guessed that
the strict, somber businessman was the greatest lover
since Casanova.
Not that she had had so many to compare to. But her meager
experience
was telling enough. Once men got what they wanted, they
turned away and
started snoring, often leaving the woman halfway through.
Not Julian. In
fact, she had never seen him fall asleep before she did.
Where did he get all his energy from?
That was the next item, food.
As far as Caitlin had seen, he ate next to nothing. Sometimes
they spent
so much time together that she knew he hadn’t eaten anything
all day.
When she pointed that out, he would brush it away, saying
that he wasn’t
hungry. He certainly didn’t look anorectic. Did he get
up in the middle
of the night and raid the fridge? Did he suffer from
some eating
disorder?
Lately, he had acquired a taste for
sweets. He would eat cakes and
ice cream, while she attacked a steak or a pizza. Her
quite serious
remark, that all that sugar would rot his teeth, made
him fall apart
with laughter.
Of course, how could Caitlin have
known that Kindred were impervious
to human infections. She couldn’t know that a new one
would replace a
lost tooth, developing in its place, as in a shark. Nevertheless,
Julian
had tried to imagine a Kindred with decayed teeth, and
it was that
picture that had made him laugh so hard. As for the sugar,
it was a
source of pure energy from which he could benefit slightly;
besides, it
tasted rather pleasant. Some fresh fruit had the same
effect. If he
could make Caitlin believe that he was a vegetarian -
eat deserts and
fruit in her presence - then maybe she would stop commenting
on his lack
of interest in human food. Vegetarian, indeed, he had
thought dryly. All
the blood he had drunk over the years! It would certainly
fill any blood
bank. Well, he was what he was, nothing could change
that.
Caitlin was concentrating on her list.
There was that uncanny
ability to heal: small cuts and bruises that should take
several days to
heal were gone the day after. She remembered one particular
incident.
She had scratched Julian’s collarbone while they were
making love. He
hadn’t been quick enough in intercepting her hand. She
had watched the
droplets of blood that came forth, vaguely disgusted
by her own desire
to lick them off his skin. She had taken the edge of
a sheet and wiped
the blood away. Afterwards, when she looked at her hand,
there was blood
under her fingernails, but, when she turned to Julian,
she saw to her
utter surprise that there was no trace left of the damage
her nails had
inflicted. That mystery scared her so much that she didn’t
dare to ask
him about it.
And that crazy thing with his eyes!
Also, he smelled of nothing. When
they were near each other, she
could detect the faint scent of his after-shave. She
couldn’t identify
it, but it reminded her of fields in the summer and freshly
turned
earth. Beyond that, there was nothing.
Lastly, there was his unbelievable
strength. He was very careful not
to exhibit it, but sometimes he forgot himself. The ease
with which he
lifted heavy objects. He could pin her down with one
hand; and even
though that didn’t impress her, he had once pinned down
a man, with no
more effort than he used on her. Another time, he twisted
off a big
padlock when Caitlin refused to climb over a fence.
“Julian, you’re showing off again,”
she had exclaimed, but he had
said that the padlock was rusty. They both peered at
the broken steel at
their feet, the metal glimmering in the sun: no trace
of rust on it.
Julian had shrugged in a dismissive gesture and opened
the gate for her.
Caitlin read through her notes again.
The picture that emerged from
her description was not entirely... human. She shied
away from her
conclusion.
C’mon Caitlin, of course he belongs
to another species, he is a man!
She tried to joke her unease away. A little different
from other men,
but he is the man you love.
Only, he is a little too different,
a little beyond the human
boundaries. His sight and hearing are a little too good,
his strength a
little too great, his other abilities a little too far
out of the
ordinary. His past a little too mysterious.
Caitlin, get a grip on yourself, she
admonished herself, or you’ll
start believing that your lover comes from outer space!
She shivered violently.
His knowledge of astronomy and physics
- a little outside the realm
of an ordinary businessman. But then again, there was
nothing ordinary
about Julian Luna.
The paper crumpled in her hand. She
threw it away and deleted the
file. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. A couple
of days later,
she told him about her summation of his traits and the
conclusion it had
led to. She tried to make it sound light, as if she were
joking. To her
surprise, Julian assured her quite seriously, that he
was as much of
Earth origin as she was.
“I abide by the same laws of Nature
that you do. But I’m different
from other men.” He had added sadly in the end, “please,
Caitlin, let it
rest at that.”
But Caitlin couldn’t let it rest.
The more she thought about it, the
more convinced she was that she was going out of her
mind. She realized
that although she was living in Julian’s house, she was
not really
living in his life. She tried to acquire an insight into
his affairs
and, to her surprise, Julian offered to let her tag along
for a few
days.
“Take a pillow with you,” he told
her laughing, “you’ll be bored to
death.”
He was proven right. The unending
business meetings, the bickering
about interest rates, negotiations with union leaders,
trade routes,
taxes, stock-markets and the like, made her lose interest
in no time.
She endured it for two days. In fact, the only exciting
thing that
happened during her visit into Julian’s business world
was provided by
Caitlin herself. After returning from a lunch break on
the second day,
she found him alone in an executive office in the bank.
Piles of papers
were spread on the big mahogany table. Julian was sitting
at one end,
leafing through one of the formidable bundles. He was
totally absorbed
in his reading and didn’t look up when she entered. A
wicked idea formed
in Caitlin’s head and she crouched down. Moving quietly
on her hands and
knees beneath the table, she reached him unnoticed, and
was gratified by
his surprised flinch when her hand touched him. Using
his weight, he
made the heavy chair slide back, allowing her more space.
“Caitlin, please!” he protested, but
did nothing to stop her. She
pressed herself between his knees, her hands and mouth
busy. For a long
moment there was only the sound of his uneven breathing,
then she heard
the door open and voices of entering people. She had
not thought of
locking the door! Julian’s hand was on her head instantly,
preventing
her from moving, and she heard him address his associates.
“Will you please wait outside.” His
voice betrayed him and he had to
clear his throat.
There was a short silence, followed
by shuffling feet and the door
closed again. Julian took hold of her face, making her
look up at him.
“You left the door open on purpose,
didn’t you?” The accusation was
mollified by his laugh.
“I did not!” Caitlin was offended,
but her hand returned to him.
This time however, he stopped her.
“Caitlin, I’m trying to work,” he
said. “You are... distracting...”
“Well,” Caitlin purred, “you distracted
me when I was working.”
“Oh, so you want revenge,” he was
laughing again. Before she could
respond, he lifted her on the table, pressing her down
on the paperwork.
“Julian,” she whispered, “the door
is still unlocked.”
“If anyone enters,” he muttered, “it
will be the last thing he does
in this bank.”
He followed her out and Caitlin was
hard pressed not to giggle when
she saw how everybody tried not to look at them. She
was already in the
car when she remembered that her torn panties had been
left among the
crumpled papers on the table in Julian’s office. She
laughed helplessly
all the way home.
“I lost something in your office,”
she greeted him innocently when
he returned that evening.
His hand dug into his pocket and came
up with the silky item in
question.
“I had to remove your underwear from
the bulletin board in the staff
coffee room,” he said darkly. But Caitlin dissolved in
a paroxysm of
laughter again, and eventually Julian was infected and
started laughing
too.
“Revenge is sweet,” she managed to
sputter at last, and they laughed
till it hurt.
Caitlin never followed him to work
again, but Julian noticed that he
was treated differently at the bank since her scandalous
visit. He was
greeted with smiles; there was more help and compliance
than ever
before, almost... warmth.
Well, he thought with incredulity,
they see me as human! It suited
him fine, among humans. Of course, Caitlin never attended
his meetings
with the Kindred. The conclaves were held in the dead
of night, in
Daedalus’ gatehouse. Except for those who worked directly
for Julian, or
lived there, few Kindred entered the main house nowadays.
Caitlin deleted Julian’s affairs from
her mental list. There was
nothing out of the ordinary there.
If one doesn’t count a pair of maltreated
knickers littering among
dreary bank papers as out of the ordinary, she thought
wryly.
So what else was there?
Caitlin knew that Julian seldom spent
a whole night with her. He
would be with her in the evening, following her to bed
as a matter of
course, but he’d be gone in the morning. Whenever she
woke up in the
middle of the night, he’d be gone too. It struck her
that he probably
left her as soon as she fell asleep. Or she’d go to sleep
alone and
would find him at her side when she woke up in the morning.
She never
noticed when he came into her bedroom. Somehow, he always
managed to
sneak into her bed without ever waking her. His nightly
absences scared
her.
What are you up to in the middle of
the night, Julian? she wondered,
but didn’t dare to ask, not really seeing that she didn’t
want to find
out. Finally, she decided on the simplest answer. Taking
into
consideration his strange eating habits, she came to
the conclusion that
he really ate in the middle of the night. She was dead
right of course,
only she wasn’t aware of what it was he consumed.
She was appalled by her own desire
to hurt him. That was how she
perceived her urge to bite him when they made love. She
knew that it
pleased him, but not how much. The carnage she had caused
in her
parents’ house was mercifully forgotten. She had never
been interested
in kinky sex, but suspected now that there was a masochistic
streak in
Julian, which evoked her reaction. It scared her. Every
now and then,
Caitlin had a feeling that she glimpsed a darker side
of her lover’s
personality. There was something sinister lurking just
beyond her grasp.
In the best moments, he could make her forget the whole
world, but more
and more often she was just frightened. When the opportunity
to go to
Europe presented itself, she jumped at it immediately.
And now, a month
later, she was in Paris, driving herself mad with longing
for Julian.
She had spotted the young couple that
Julian had sent along as
guards within a week. In San Francisco the two Gangrels
were
inconspicuous, but in Europe they were pathetically visible.
Caitlin was
both annoyed and touched. She knew that they were there
for her
protection, and she was no longer as self-confident as
she had been
before she had been raped. In her initial annoyance,
just to spite them,
she had picked up a man in the hotel bar one night. He
looked vaguely
like Julian, but when he tried to kiss her, she got the
jitters, and was
quite grateful when her guards turned up in her room.
The man had become
threatening when she had asked him to leave without delivering.
The two
Gangrels were very glad when she accepted their company,
and the young
woman, Alice, followed Caitlin happily on every shopping
round. Three
weeks and four cities later, they were sharing a row
of seats on the
plane back to the States. Both of her guards were miserably
afraid of
flying, just as Julian had been, and Caitlin felt that
it was now her
turn to protect them. She had not notified Julian about
her homecoming,
which was just as well because the plane was detoured
due to bad
weather, and they had to wait almost five hours in Chicago.
It was ten
o’clock in the evening when they finally landed in San
Francisco, but as
far as Caitlin was concerned, it was early morning, and
she hadn’t slept
all night.
She was disappointed that Julian wasn’t
at home when she arrived at
the mansion, but decided that it was for the best. She
was just too
tired for any reunions. She took a quick shower and was
asleep before
her head touched the pillow.
He had hurt her by sheer attrition.
They had been apart for almost two
months. Instead of sneaking
quietly into her bed, as he had always done in the past,
without waking
her, Julian had grabbed her, his fingers digging painfully
into her
flesh, and kissed her until she responded instinctively,
still half
asleep. His initial urgency was endearing, albeit unpleasant.
He had
parted her thighs brutally, forcing the penetration,
scaring and hurting
her at first. But it was over within moments, his whole
body shuddering
uncontrollably, his voice growling her name over and
over. They spent
the rest of the night making love. Caitlin couldn’t match
his strength,
but she was amazed by the power she had over him. The
sound he made when
she took him in her mouth, as if she were inflicting
pain instead of
pleasure. He took hold of her face with unsteady hands,
arresting her
movements, while he begged her to continue.
“Don’t stop, Caitlin... don’t stop...”
His voice breaking.
But she stopped, shaking her head
free from his grasp, and laughed
softly.
“Which way do you want it?” she asked,
looking up at him.
“I don’t want it to end too soon.”
He was laughing too. But Caitlin
enjoyed being in command.
“That’s for me to decide,” she said
with mocking sternness. “Keep
your hands off me!”
Julian abandoned any attempts to steer
her, concentrating on
prolonging the experience when she returned to her task.
But he
capitulated loudly within minutes. Still, Caitlin accused
him of holding
back, and threatened to do the same. He took her up on
that challenge.
Only, she was unable to live up to her threats. He could
immobilize her
with little effort, making sure that she was entirely
at his mercy,
watching her give in, no matter how much she tried to
resist the
overwhelming waves of pleasure. He’d laugh triumphantly,
holding her
quivering sex in his hand.
“It’s not fair,” she complained, “I
can’t hold you down.”
But she knew that she could render
him just as helpless as he could
make her. When her teeth raked the soft skin over the
hardness beneath,
he would quiver just as she had, and it was her turn
to laugh in
triumph. She loved being on top, when she could at least
pretend that
she was in charge. Sometimes she really was and she delighted
in
watching him abandon his control, give in and enjoy the
pleasure she was
giving him.
To her surprise, he was always ready
to start again within minutes,
no matter how many times he had made love to her before,
or how
intensely. She was always the one to say when it was
enough. Usually,
she would be too tired or too hurt to continue after
a few hours. She’d
be quite satisfied and sleepy, apart from being sore
in all the
important places. He always ceased when she asked him
to, never showing
any disappointment at her loss of interest. She had asked
him about it
once, but he had laughed her concern away.
“I’m just too stupid to know when
to stop,” he had joked. “I’d
probably go on till I dropped dead, because I want you
so much. It’s
fortunate that one of us is sensible enough to know better.”
The truth was that Julian’s endurance
surpassed Caitlin’s by far,
but he was not inexhaustible. However, with her, he never
even got close
to getting tired. Except that one time... he chased away
the memory.
After all, he had been able to match the stamina of the
sexy Toreador,
Lillie.
Caitlin was exhausted, but her aching
body prevented her from
falling asleep. Julian bowed over her, his hand touching
her face.
“Caitlin,” he said, “let me ease your
discomfort.”
She looked at him uncomprehending.
“What can you do?”
“Trust me.” He took her in his arms,
despite her whimpering protest.
“I can.”
His lips touched hers, but there was
nothing sexual about the kiss.
His tongue moved slowly over her mouth and, to her surprise,
the
soreness disappeared. He licked a bruise on her shoulder,
creating the
same effect.
“How did you do that?” There was incredulity
in her voice.
“Shhh ...” he whispered as he uncovered
her breasts. First one
nipple, then the other, the smarting pain subsided slowly
under the wet
touch. He searched for other damage, omitting strained
muscles,
concentrating on skin-deep injuries. The big bruises
on her thighs would
not disappear entirely, but the pain diminished considerably.
He parted
her legs, ignoring her feeble protests.
“Hurts!” she complained when his tongue
found her sorest part. He
was very still for a long moment, letting his saliva
soothe away the
pain. He stopped when he felt her body relax, then sat
up, smiling at
her unbelieving expression.
“I can’t do anything about the pain
inside...” He touched the lowest
part of her belly gingerly. “I can’t reach it.”
She smiled back.
“It’s not half as bad as the one you’ve
taken away. How did you do
it? Are you a healer of some sort? Tell me!” She had
trouble believing.
“I just can.” Julian shrugged and
looked away. Caitlin sat up
abruptly, throwing her arms around him.
“It’s a gift!” she exclaimed. “Think
of all the people you could
help!”
To her dismay, he started laughing.
“Caitlin, I can’t go around licking
people, can I?”
She couldn’t help laughing too.
“No, I suppose you can’t.” She
was suddenly serious. “Is this why
you heal so well when you’re hurt?”
“Yes.” He anticipated her next question.
“Don’t ask me how or why,
because I don’t know.”
He wasn’t lying. He didn’t know why
the Kindred had this ability. He
was surprised that Caitlin accepted it so easily. There
were so many
people who claimed that they had many different gifts
and abilities. His
was at least real. He wasn’t endangering the Masquerade,
and he hated to
see Caitlin in pain because he had made love to her too
intensely or for
too long. What little pain or injury she had ever inflicted
on him,
healed within minutes. Except that one time... he chased
away the memory
again.
She was asleep again, her body relaxed
in his arms. He wouldn’t
leave her this night, not even to feed. He had come back
to the mansion
late, after a long dreary evening at the negotiation
table. He had been
tired and still fuming over the stupidity of some of
the people he had
to deal with. No one had been around to inform him, and
he didn’t
realize that Caitlin was back until he opened the present
she had left
for him in the library. He had removed the fine paper
it was wrapped in,
finding a small card inside.
For Julian, I love you, Caitlin, it
said.
The small leather case contained a
pair of cufflinks, made of
crystal, the work so beautiful that it was breathtaking.
He admired them
for a long moment, watching the tiny prisms reflect the
light cast by
the fire, when the implication struck him. He had run
to her bedroom,
his heart beating so hard he was sure the sound would
wake everybody in
the mansion. He had looked at the sleeping woman for
a few seconds,
then, all reason gone, he had climbed into her bed, his
clothes left in
a heap behind him.
Now, his arms hardened around her
and she moved restlessly. He
relaxed his grip, not wanting to wake her, she had been
so tired.
“Don’t you ever leave me again!” he
said vehemently. “Ever!”
She responded to his voice, making
a small cat-like sound, and moved
closer, her body soft and warm against his. He wanted
her again, the
desire like a painful disease, but he decided to let
her sleep and wait
for her to wake up. With his Kindred patience, he could
wait forever.
Both Lillie and Sonny asked Julian’s
permission to Embrace Frank
Kohanek. They had stayed on after a conclave, which wasn’t
over until
dawn. Julian had expected something out of the ordinary
to happen,
Sonny’s presence was unexpected. Not being a Primogen,
Sonny was not
expected to attend such meetings; but when he turned
up in the middle of
the night, informing the Prince that he had something
to discuss with
him in private, Julian had frowned apprehensively.
Trouble? he wondered.
He looked from Lillie to Sonny, pondering
over their request. If he
allowed Sonny to do it, Frank would become a Ventrue.
Would that calm
the policeman down? To be a Ventrue meant to be reasonable
and
pragmatic. A rational mind was a Ventrue characteristic.
How rational have you been lately?
his reason asked himself. He
shook his head. Julian had never been very good at deceiving
himself,
sooner or later the truth would stare him right in the
face, no matter
how unpleasant or unwanted.
Still, the question had been posed,
Ventrue or Toreador. He regarded
Lillie’s beautiful face. The volatile Frank - a Toreador?
As if there
weren’t trouble enough? If Frank became Kindred, he would
be a serious
contender in the future: for power, and for Lillie, Julian’s
wicked
reason added.
“Has he asked to be Embraced?” he
posed the inevitable question at
last, dreading the answer. To his relief, they both shook
their heads in
negation.
“Then there is nothing to discuss,”
he said with satisfaction.
“I have a reason to believe that he
wants it,” Lillie argued. “I
wanted your permission first, before I asked him.”
“He knows about us,” Sonny added.
“He practically lives among us.”
“No,” Julian responded. Seeing their
disappointed expressions, he
added something that surprised him as much as it flabbergasted
his
companions: “He is mine.”
Sonny flinched visibly and Lillie’s
eyes widened. Her gaze
concentrated on Julian and Sonny’s presence was forgotten.
Julian stared
back at her and Lillie’s challenge was defeated. She
averted her eyes.
“Frank is mine,” Julian repeated in
a low voice that made Sonny
shudder.
That’s not the way a man talks of
another man, Sonny thought with
disbelief. You thought you were in trouble, Frank. You
ain’t seen
nothing yet!
But Julian had heard the erotic tone
in his own voice, and was
shocked and embarrassed himself. He rose swiftly to his
feet intending
to leave. Lillie started to laugh, a low, lascivious,
throaty laugh that
made Julian even more embarrassed and, to his dismay,
he felt his face
turn hot. He turned away and fled.
No! he thought vehemently. As long
as I have something to say about
it, Frank will continue his existence as a human.
But to Embrace Frank Kohanek was more
tempting than he wanted to
admit to himself.
Caitlin was greeted with cheers and
whoops on her return to work.
“We thought you’d eloped,” Jenny laughed.
“However, the publisher is
still in town, so we figured you’d be back sooner or
later.”
On her way to her office, Caitlin
noticed that Amy’s workplace had
been emptied, the forsaken computer sitting in regal
loneliness on the
deserted desk.
“Where is Amy?” she asked, and was
drowned in excited babble. As it
turned out, Amy had been gone for nearly a week. After
a couple of days
people started to worry. Anamaria Weatherstone wasn’t
the most reliable
person in the world, but whenever she didn’t come to
work, she called at
least, sometimes the next day. But when nothing had been
heard after
four days, her father had contacted the police. The Weatherstone
millions had put the police department on edge: there
was an ongoing
investigation, they had picked Amy’s desk clean just
the previous day.
Caitlin didn’t have time to worry at first, but the next
day, when she
had got rid of the most pressing matters, she stopped
on her way out at
Amy’s desk. Reluctantly, she turned on the computer.
Enter password, it blinked at her
invitingly. What could Amy have
used as a password? She tried several times but was denied
access. She
sat twiddling with the keyboard, thinking about her missing
colleague.
Amy was different from other girls in the office. Not
as outspoken and
bold as Jenny, but there had been something... hungry
about her,
something... almost repulsive. Although Amy had worked
at the Times for
more than two years, she wasn’t really close to anyone,
and rumors
circulated about her many short-lived affairs with the
male members of
the staff. Not nice rumors. Predatory, sly, daddy’s little
rich girl.
Caitlin knew about the Weatherstone fortune.
Just ugly rumors, she shrugged. The
others are envious of her
wealth. But Caitlin had to admit that she didn’t like
Amy either. She
pressed a few of the keys and, all of a sudden, she was
allowed access
to Amy’s files.
“What! How!” Caitlin exclaimed. She
sat for a moment, trying to
understand.
What was it I wrote? she wondered.
It felt like a cold shower, when
she realized that she had used her own password, ‘Julian’.
Caitlin looked at the screen reluctantly:
she didn’t want to go
through what Amy had written. There weren’t too many
files, but one of
them screamed at her with its name. It was ”Julian” again.
Her hands
shook when she opened the beckoning file. She started
to read it on the
screen when she realized that it was too long, more than
thirty pages.
She pushed the print button and, while the printer was
working, she went
through other files. Those were connected with work.
She deliberately
waited for the printer to finish before picking up all
the pages, turned
off Amy’s computer and went back into her office. She
sat down, but got
up quickly again to fetch coffee. She knew that she was
fending off the
moment when she would have to read Amy’s writings. The
few lines she had
already read had left a queasy feeling in her stomach.
Caitlin sat down
and lifted the papers resolutely. Sipping her coffee,
she started to
read from the beginning.
Today, our new owner has graced us
with his presence for the first
time. The elusive Julian Luna is suddenly my boss. Wow!
Now I can see
what Annie van Hoff and that slut, Selene, were talking
about in such a
breathless manner. It’s not just his looks. And he’s,
well, dreamy. It’s
everything: the way he moves, the way he talks. He seems
to be totally
in control. When he looked at me, just for a short moment,
it felt like
he could see inside my dirty little soul. It was scary,
and very, very,
unbelievably wow! Yummy, with some butter on! Oh, hell!
Hold the butter!
So far, Caitlin wasn’t surprised. She
had seen women react to Julian
before. They would always look at him twice, and he had
this uncanny
ability to make them stop talking just by looking at
them. But then Amy
proceeded to describe the gossip that circulated among
the jet setters.
An image of a ruthless, power-hungry and rather evil
person was created.
This isn’t Julian, Caitlin thought.
But she continued reading, her feeling
of uneasiness becoming
stronger. Amy went on describing what she had heard from
her female
friends. Apparently, Julian had a bad reputation among
the women as
well. But it was of a different kind. Short-lived affairs,
one-night
stands had obviously been standard, leaving the ladies
all heated up and
quite mad at him - the resident Don Juan.
This isn’t Julian, Caitlin thought
again. However, she could believe
the part about the women wanting him back.
Slowly, Amy’s feelings started to
color the contents of her diary.
Obviously, she had fallen in love with Julian Luna. There
were also some
derogatory remarks about Caitlin. She came upon the evening
when Julian
had made love to Caitlin in her office. She remembered
it very well. But
the way Amy described what she had heard, and what her
imagination
added, made Caitlin cheeks burn.
It had become an obsession. Utterly
surprised, Caitlin read how Amy
managed to get her out of the country with the help of
her father,
sending her on that long trip to Europe. Amy following
Julian. Then came
the part about what had happened in the Haven. It was
nauseatingly
detailed: Amy’s outrage at being discarded, her disclosure
of what the
encounter had meant to her, and her desire for more.
It made Caitlin
feel sick and she started to cry.
“It isn’t true,” she whimpered. “It
isn’t true.”
She took a deep breath, and read through
the graphic description of
the copulation again. Could it be just a fantasy?
“Oh, God!” she sobbed. She recognized
it so well. Julian’s adept
hands.
The last entry was only a week old.
I’ll not let him get away with it,
it said. And now, Amy was
missing. The police were looking for her.
Caitlin sat in her office until it
was almost midnight, not knowing
what do, not daring to confront Julian with what she
had found.
The trilling noise of the phone ringing
made her almost jump out of
her skin. She picked up the receiver and said her name
before realizing
that there was only one person who would call her at
her office that
late.
“Caitlin,” Julian’s warm voice made
her wince, “isn’t it past your
bedtime? Or have you gone over to European time for good?”
He laughed
softly. “Please, come home.”
Caitlin made a strangled sound.
“Caitlin, what’s wrong?!” The laughter
was gone, replaced by
anxiety.
Caitlin looked at the papers on her
desk. She swallowed hard and
cleared her throat.
“Julian,” she said as calmly as she
could manage, “can you please
come here?”
“What’s happened?” He sounded really
worried now.
“Just come,” Caitlin said and put
down the receiver.
Julian came into her office forty-five
minutes later. Caitlin was
sure that those were the longest forty-five minutes of
her life. He
frowned when he saw her sitting idly behind her desk.
Her pale,
tear-streaked face told him that something was terribly
wrong. But when
he tried to take her in his arms she stopped him, her
hands pushing at
his chest, her face turning away.
“What’s the matter, Caitlin?” he asked
letting her go.
She handed him Amy’s diary without
a word. He started to read the
first page, but looked at her after only a few seconds.
“What is it?” His voice was expressionless,
as was his face.
“You tell me.” Caitlin looked at him
intently, but there was nothing
to see. “Go on, read it!” she added.
All Julian wanted to do was to take
the offensive papers and burn
them. But he had to read it all over again. He recognized
Amy’s diary
after reading the first sentences. Where did it come
from? He had burned
the original only a week ago. And now it was back, haunting
him. How did
it find its way into Caitlin’s hands? He sat down, pretending
to read,
turning each page after an appropriate amount of time.
He knew it by
heart anyway. He managed to bring an expression of incredulity
and
disgust onto his face. When he came to the incident in
the Haven, he
didn’t have to pretend. He was painfully aware of Caitlin’s
accusing
stare. He put the diary down at last.
“Who wrote this... this abomination?”
His voice was filled with
revulsion.
Caitlin continued to stare at him
in disbelief.
“Are you trying to tell me that this
is a fake,” she demanded, “that
you don’t know her? For God’s sake! Julian, she works
here, or used to
work here. Anamaria Weatherstone, she is missing!”
“Oh,” Julian shrugged dispassionately,
“the fat girl. The police
asked about her, apparently she’s gone missing. How come
it’s in your
hands,” he pointed at the papers, “and not in the possession
of the
police?”
“I found it in her computer.” It was
Caitlin’s turn to shrug.
“Apparently, they couldn’t access her files.”
“But you could?” Julian allowed a
smile to show.
“She used the same password as I do,”
Caitlin said.
He raised one eyebrow inquiringly.
“Julian.”
“Yes?”
“That was the password,” Caitlin explained.
“Your name.”
“Oh,” he said again. His hand moved
over his face. Suddenly, he
looked more tired than she had ever seen him before.
“Let’s go home
Caitlin,” he said at last, “I’m exhausted.”
Caitlin looked at the discarded pages
of Amy’s diary.
“Julian,” she asked, “are you saying
that this is nothing but a
raving imagination of an infatuated, oversexed, unsatisfied
young
woman?”
He shrugged again helplessly.
“Caitlin,” he made a grimace, “I had
nothing to do with her, nothing
at all. She was hardly my type, would you say?” He glanced
at her
apprehensively. “You know, this has happened to me before,
more than
once.”
“What?” Caitlin asked, not comprehending.
“This...” he was frowning, searching
for the right words,
“persecution; women pursuing their own fantasies. It’s
one of the
reasons for my... reclusive lifestyle.”
Caitlin wanted to believe him. Although
there was a small voice in
her head that was saying But how could Amy know? her
heart said he is
telling the truth, believe him! She looked at his dispirited
expression,
then stood up and went to him. He slid to his knees when
she touched his
face, his arms locking around her, his face resting against
her body.
“What shall I do with Amy’s diary?”
Caitlin asked after a long
moment.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “If you
give it to the police, it will
mean trouble; if you destroy it, we’ll be left in peace.”
Caitlin hesitated for just one second
before she disengaged herself
from Julian’s embrace. She took the diary and fed it
into the shredder,
then activated Amy’s computer, deleted the file named
Julian, made sure
that no trace of it was left and changed the password
to the first
expression that came into her mind, vile.
They went home.
Julian realized that making love to
Caitlin that night had been a
grave mistake. She had sought his closeness and reassurance,
wanting to
be held and told that she was loved. The ageless male
arrogance
interpreted her reaction as desire, responding accordingly.
She had
accepted the intimacy, but her body had resisted him
as never before. If
Julian had been a normal human, he would have given up,
demanding
explanations and sulking. But Julian Luna was not a normal
human man. He
had broken through her defense, making her give in to
his deft caresses,
understanding only too late that it was this very feat
that had held her
back. When her body at last reacted the way he wanted
it to - shaking
helplessly in the forced orgasm - the steamy words from
Amy’s diary
flashed in his mind and he knew with dreadful certainty
that Caitlin had
recognized him in the explicit description.
She lay motionless afterwards, her
back turned to him, more distant
now than she had been during her stay in Europe. He wanted
to tell her
the truth, to beg her to forgive him, knowing that she
would if he
hadn’t killed that damn woman. He was well aware that
the murder,
accidental as it was, lay beyond Caitlin’s ability to
condone. Caitlin
was trying to pretend that she was asleep, making a poor
job of it, but
she wanted him gone, and after some time he slipped out
of her bed.
Much later, after Julian had left
her bed as she pretended to be
asleep, she thought of his hands on her body, his relentless
touch that
had made her shudder with pleasure, and that had been
described so well
by Amy.
Caitlin cried during most of what
was left of the night.
---