[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
A sharp pain ran up my leg. The leg that the lamia-thing had bitten. Please, no. I leaned against the
counter divider. Richard was watching me, puzzled.
I swept the robe aside. The leg was swelling and turning purplish. How had I not noticed it? "Did I
mention I got bitten by a lamia today?"
"You're joking," he said.
I shook my head. "I think you're going to have to take me to the hospital."
He stood up and saw my leg. "God! Sit down."
I was starting to sweat. It wasn't hot in the apartment.
Richard helped me to the couch. "Anita, lamias have been extinct for two hundred years. No one's going
to have any antivenom."
I stared at him. "I guess we're not going to get that date."
"No dammit, I won't sit here and watch you die. Lycanthropes can't be poisoned."
"You mean you want to rush me to Stephen and let him bite me?"
"Something like that."
"I'd rather die."
Page 204
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Something flickered through his eyes, something I couldn't read; pain, maybe. "You mean that?"
"Yes." A rush of nausea flowed over me like a wave. "I'm going to be sick." I tried to get up and go for
the bathroom but collapsed on the white carpet and vomited blood. Red and bright and fresh. I was
bleeding to death inside.
Richard's hand was cool on my forehead, his arm around my waist. I vomited until I was empty and
exhausted. Richard lifted me to the couch. There was a narrow tunnel of light edged by darkness. The
darkness was eating the light, and I couldn't stop it. I could feel myself begin to float away. It didn't hurt. I
wasn't even scared.
The last thing I heard was Richard's voice. "I won't let you die." It was a nice thought.
42
The dream began. I was sitting in the middle of a huge canopied bed. The drapes were heavy blue
velvet, the color of midnight skies. The velvet bedspread was soft under my hands. I was wearing a long
white gown with lace at the collar and sleeves. I'd never owned anything like it. No one had in this
century.
The walls were blue and gold wallpaper. A huge fireplace blazed, sending shadows dancing around the
room. Jean-Claude stood in the corner of the room, bathed in orange and black shadows. He was
wearing the same shirt I'd last seen him in, the one with the peekaboo front.
He walked towards me, fire-shadows shining in his hair, on his face, glittering in his eyes.
"Why don't you ever dress me in anything normal in these dreams?"
He hesitated. "You don't like the gown?"
"Hell, no."
He gave a slight smile. "You always did have a way with words,ma petite . "
"Stop calling me that, dammit."
"As you like, Anita." There was something in the way he said my name that I didn't like at all.
"What are you up to, Jean-Claude?"
He stood beside the bed and unbuttoned the first button of his shirt.
"What are you doing?"
Another button, and another, then he was pulling the shirt out of his pants and letting it slide to the floor.
Page 205
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
His bare chest was only a little less white than my gown. His nipples were pale and hard. The strand of
dark hair that started low on his belly and disappeared into his pants fascinated me.
He crawled up on the bed.
I backed away, clutching the white gown to me like some heroine in a bad Victorian novel. "I don't
seduce this easy."
"I can taste your lust on the back of my tongue, Anita. You want to know what my skin feels like next to
your naked body."
I scrambled off the bed. "Leave me the fuck alone. I mean it."
"It's just a dream. Can't you even let yourself lust in a dream?"
"It's never just a dream with you."
He was suddenly standing in front of me. I hadn't seen him move. His arms locked behind my back, and
we were on the floor in front of the fire. Fire-shadows danced on the naked skin of his shoulders. His
skin was fragile, smooth, and unblemished so soft I wanted to touch it forever. He was on top of me,
his weight pressing against me, pushing me into the floor. I could feel the line of his body molded against
mine.
"One kiss and I'll let you up."
I stared into his midnight-blue eyes from inches away. I couldn't talk. I turned my face away so I
wouldn't have to look into the perfection of his face. "One kiss?"
"My word," he whispered.
I turned back to him. "Your word isn't worth shit."
His face leaned over mine, lips almost touching. "One kiss."
His lips were soft, gentle. He kissed my cheek, lips brushing down the line of my cheek, touching my
neck. His hair brushed my face. I thought that all curly hair was coarse, but his was baby fine, silken soft.
"One kiss," he whispered against the skin of my throat, tongue tasting the pulse in my neck.
"Stop it."
"You want it."
"Stop it, now!"
He grabbed a handful of hair, forcing my neck backwards. His lips had thinned back, exposing fangs.
His eyes were drowning blue without any white at all.
"NO!"
"I will have you,ma petite , even if it is to save your life." His head came downward, striking like a
snake. I woke up staring at a ceiling I didn't recognize.
Page 206
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Black and white drapes were suspended from the ceiling in a soft fan. The bed was black satin with too
many pillows thrown all over the place. The pillows were all black or white. I was wearing a black gown
with spaghetti straps. It felt like a real silk and fit me perfectly.
The floor was ankle-deep white carpet. A black lacquer vanity and chest of drawers were placed at far
corners of the room. I sat up and could see myself in the mirror. My neck was smooth, no bite marks.
Just a dream, just a dream, but I knew better. The bedroom had the unmistakable touch of Jean-Claude.
I had been dying of poison. How had I gotten here? Was I underneath the Circus of the Damned, or
somewhere else altogether? My right wrist hurt.
There was a white swathe of bandages around my wrist. I didn't remember hurting it in the cave.
I stared at myself in the vanity mirror. In the black negligee my skin was white, my hair long and black as
the gown. I laughed. I matched the decor. I matched the damn decor.
A door opened behind a white curtain. I got a glimpse of stone walls behind the drapes. He was wearing
nothing but the silky bottoms of men's pajamas. He padded towards me on bare feet. His bare chest
looked like it had in my dream, except for the cross-shaped scar; it hadn't been there in the dream. It
marred the marble perfection of him, made him seem more real somehow.
"Hell," I said. "Definitely Hell."
'What,ma petite ?"
"I was wondering where I was. If you're here, it has to be Hell."
He smiled. He looked entirely too satisfied, like a snake that had been well-fed.
"How did I get here?"
"Richard brought you."
"So I really was poisoned. That wasn't part of the dream?"
He sat on the far edge of the bed, as far away from me as he could get and still sit down. There were no
other places to sit. "I'm afraid the poison was very real."
"Not that I'm complaining, but why aren't I dead?"
He hugged his knees to his chest, a strangely vulnerable gesture. "I saved you."
"Explain that."
"You know."
I shook my head. "Say it."
"The third mark."
Page 207
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"I don't have any bite marks."
"But your wrist is cut and bandaged."
"You bastard."
"I saved your life."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]