Page 26 of Love Immortal

Twenty-Five

T hin gray mist settles over the mountains as I drive to 29 Hollow Lane that evening.

Dacian opens the door before I have a chance to knock—he must’ve heard me arrive—but there’s a look of surprise on his face that he doesn’t bother hiding. He is not expecting me.

He’s wearing a loose black cardigan with a black V-neck T-shirt underneath and soft black casual pants. His hair is slightly disheveled, and there’s a book in his hand—a fantasy, by the looks of the cover. This unbelievably attractive man is spending his Saturday night cooped up alone in the house with a book. I can’t help the flood of warm fuzziness that observation brings.

If Dacian wanted to take someone to the movies or to dinner tonight, there’d be a line of candidates stretching all the way to Camden. I’ve seen the way girls look at him, the way everyone’s head turns when he passes. And yet he prefers the company of books like a common nerd—a centuries-old noble vampire nerd. I resist the oncoming smile and remind myself why I am here.

“May I come in?” I ask.

Dacian’s face blanks. Belatedly, I realize it must be a big deal that I, a human, have asked to be let inside the home of a vampire. But unlike in Bram Stoker’s book, Dacian doesn’t give me a spiel about entering of my own free will.

“Of course,” he says, stepping aside to let me in.

The Tudor’s foyer is semi-dark, illuminated by the warm, inviting glow of two Tiffany lamps. The walls are paneled in mahogany wood, and a red Turkish rug covers the floor. Judging by the craftsmanship, this home must have been built for someone extremely wealthy. The furnishings are sparse but chic and expensive, just like most things Dacian owns.

We hover awkwardly by the door. Dacian might have invited me inside, but he seems to have reservations about allowing me in any further. The silence stretches between us for several long moments. I must have truly caught him off guard with my arrival.

Dacian places his book on the small table by the door. “So, what have you decided, Jonathan?” he finally asks.

I struggle to control my sudden nerves, and my words don’t come out easily. “I have a condition. Or rather, I have more questions. If you answer them, I’ll help you get your journal back.”

“All right,” Dacian agrees, slow and guarded.

I take a deep breath and exhale. Here comes the moment of truth. “You said Eric was hunting the night you caught him. Who was he hunting?”

The air in the room stills as soon as the words leave my mouth.

“I wouldn’t presume to know. Could have been anybody,” Dacian replies a little too quickly. I never thought I’d be able to catch him in a lie; his actions are so often indecipherable to me. But just now, there is a tiny flutter in his dark eyelashes that he doesn’t cover up in time.

My heart lets out a thump. I knew it. I knew it. There were only a few people on campus during fall break. How did Dacian know to show up in the right place at the right time? Unless he was already there for some reason. Such as to watch someone sleep so he could visit his dreams.

I double down on my dangerous gamble. “When you realized Eric was hunting, why did you stop him?” I keep my eyes on Dacian’s, not letting myself miss a beat. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to let him go through with it? You could’ve tracked him back to his little cult and found your journal, but you chose to stop him instead. Why?”

Dacian seems to have nothing to say, and that in itself is the answer I so desperately crave.

I throw all caution to the wind and step toward him. “Eric was hunting me for his sacrifice, wasn’t he? And you protected me,” I finally whisper.

The question rouses a storm in the dark depths of Dacian’s eyes. Brazenly, I put my hand on his face. I let my fingers skim his sharp jaw as I draw closer to him. My mouth is mere inches from his. I want to kiss him so badly I could burn down. But I don’t close the distance between us.

“Am I wrong? If you don’t want this, tell me to stop, and I will,” I murmur, my heart thrumming like a hot wire.

But Dacian still says nothing. Frozen like a corpse, he just stands there. I feel the first bells of panic chime inside of me. “Please say something ,” I beg. I wait for several agonizingly long seconds, but there’s no response at all.

The fire in me sizzles out, and I’m overcome with tremendous humiliation. I misread our connection and made a fool of myself. I misjudged everything. How could he possibly want me , a stupid, insignificant human?

“I’m sorry,” I blurt as my eyes begin to sting. How utterly idiotic have I?—

I remove my hand from his face, but before I can pull myself away, my entire world jolts. I’m shoved against the wall with so much force that I swear the house rattles around me. My body is spared the impact because Dacian’s arms wrap around me a moment before I collide with the wall, but his push is so strong that it knocks my breath out of me.

“What do you want me to say, Jonathan?” he demands, panting heavily as though he’s struggling to hold himself back. “That no matter how much I try to resist, I’m unable to keep myself from you? That the instant our eyes met in the theater, I saw our connection? Your heart called out to me, all ten thousand broken shards of it. How could I not answer when suddenly, in a room full of people, I could hear only you?” My eyes widen as Dacian’s hand moves to my face. “Do you have any idea how rare this is?” he asks.

“Tell me,” I whisper, my lips trembling.

“So rare,” he says, “that I’ve only encountered it twice in four hundred years, but the first time I gave in to it, I lost everything, including my freedom. So I tried to deny it. Deny you. For my sake. For your sake. Yet despite all my efforts, here we both are. You said that night in the woods that you were terrified of me, but shouldn’t I be terrified of you, Jonathan?”

There’s a red glow blooming in Dacian’s lightless eyes, only inches away from mine. The sheer intensity of them could stop a heart. For a moment, I can’t speak at all. My skin breaks out in goosebumps as he challenges my courage. But as seconds tick away, I realize that underneath all the fear and the primal instinct to run from the deadly danger that is Dacian lurks an insatiable, uncontrollable need to be with him.

“Please don’t be afraid of me,” I whisper, trying to keep my voice steady, “because I am not afraid of you.”

As the words leave my mouth, Dacian’s head tilts like a predator about to attack its prey. But he doesn’t bite. Instead, his lips crash into mine.

He kisses me ravenously, his tongue seeking the inside of my mouth with desperate urgency. It’s like being hit with a gale-force wind; I feel simultaneously free and terrified that it will knock me off my feet. So I grab onto him, let my hands sink into his hair, pulling at the silky strands. He pushes me into the wall again, his body flush against mine. A fervor of excitement blazes through my skin as I sense how much he wants me, the loose, flowy fabric of his pants hiding nothing. Giddily, I press my hips against his over and over.

He parts his mouth from mine in a breathless whisper. “Upstairs?”

I have no idea what’s upstairs, but I nod because I can’t bear to be separated from him, even for a moment.

Without warning, the world spins again as he sweeps me away, traces of shadow mist melting in our wake as he carries me to the second floor.

After just one thudding heartbeat, my feet touch the ground again. Dazed, I try to take in my new surroundings. This room is dark, save for a faint strip of moonlight on the floor, and strangely chilly, as though someone forgot to shut the window. And looming behind me is Dacian’s massive four-poster bed. A shiver skims down my belly, and it isn’t from the cold.

Our bodies collide again as his mouth reclaims mine with renewed frenzy. One after another, our sweaters drop to the floor, then our T-shirts. I’m so delirious in my desire to touch all of him that I let my hands roam wildly over his chest and the muscles of his bare arms. I press my fingers into his shoulder blades and pull his body even closer to mine while his lovely fingers undo the zipper on my jeans.

He pulls them off, and then it’s my turn. I kiss a path down his lean torso as my far-less-adept, but equally greedy hands fumble with his fly. I thread my thumbs through his belt loops once the zipper yields. But before my mouth can continue below his navel, he catches my chin, his hand gentle but insistent. He pulls me back up. Fear rumbles through me. Has he changed his mind? Are we moving too fast?

Anxious, I gaze up at him.

“Can I ask you something?” Dacian says quietly.

“Yes. Anything,” I reply, and I mean it. He could wish for anything in the world, and I would burn my soul to ash to grant it.

“Keep your eyes open,” he says unexpectedly. “I want you to see me.”

For a moment, I’m at a loss for words. He wants me to see him? Oh, Dacian, how could I possibly see anyone else?

But a desperation seizes Dacian’s features as he waits for my answer. It makes my heart twist wretchedly. Does he think I don’t know who I’m giving myself to? Or that I’ll abandon him? What absurdity. He could toss me out the window, and in this madness, I’d crawl right back to him, broken legs and all.

“I see you, Dacian,” I whisper, with as much reassurance as I can.

Something unwinds in him then, like a knot that’s been tied too tight. Red light rekindles in the depths of his irises, and this time, the haunting beauty does not frighten me at all.

Dacian holds me steady with his gaze as his fingers slide from my chin to my shoulder and nudge me in the direction of his bed. I ache for more of his touch, but he’s in no hurry now as he removes the rest of our clothes. By the time he finally pushes me down on the mattress, I feel like my skin might catch fire unless it’s united with his.

It’s an excruciating effort to keep my eyes from squeezing shut as he takes me into his mouth. A moan tears out of me, desperate and raw. His face moving up and down is by far the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I want nothing more than to lose myself in this ocean of him, but all the while Dacian keeps looking at me, the same plea in his eyes— see me, see me —and I can’t look away. A shimmering red haze fills my mind. I bite my lip in concentration and grasp the sheets until my fingers vibrate from the strain.

My desire starts to crest, teetering on the brink of explosion, but he doesn’t grant me release. Instead, he hikes my knee and moves his warm mouth to tentatively plant a row of kisses along the inside of my thigh. “May I—” he whispers.

“Yes,” I mutter breathlessly before I even hear the rest of his question. I feel him smile against my skin as he presses his nose into the pulse point in my groin. He never lets go of me, but in my peripheral vision, there’s a swirl of shadows followed by the sound of a drawer being opened and shut. The shadows drift over to his hand, and when they dissipate, they leave a small bottle in his palm. My heart thumps as I watch him open it.

I hold Dacian’s face as he carefully settles inside me.

Just the feeling of fullness, of being complete, almost drives me over the edge. But I hang on, and then he starts to move, so unbearably slowly. I beg him to go faster in my mind, or maybe it spills into words—I can’t tell anymore—but when he finally picks up the pace, I don’t last very long at all. We roll and crash into each other like two waves in a storm, arching and falling again and again. His hand wraps around me and starts moving in sync. An unstoppable need swells in me. The world around us fades, dull and unimportant. Only Dacian remains, and the depthless, commanding scarlet of his eyes that bids me to see only him. I hold on to him desperately, his most willing captive, and shudder in his arms until every last drop of desire is wrung out of me.

Only then does Dacian release his hypnotic hold on me. He cradles my head and draws me in for a kiss that is as much a gasp for air as a sigh of relief. His eyelashes flutter shut, and after we separate, I notice his irises are black again.

I collapse, completely exhausted, onto the pillow, every part of me rearranged in a strange new fashion. He lies beside me, letting leisurely minutes pass as we catch our ragged breaths.

Now that the fever of being kissed by him has cooled a little, I shiver again. Curiously, I glance around and find that one of the windows to my right is open, just a crack.

“Are you cold?” Dacian murmurs contentedly.

“No,” I deny, but scoot closer to him. He chuckles at my half-hearted deception but allows me to snake my arm around his waist. “Do you sleep?” I ask lazily when I notice his eyelids starting to get heavy. I’ve wondered this about vampires.

“Yes,” he replies. “I have a body. It requires rest.”

“But aren’t you a creature of the night?” I ask, half-joking, half-serious.

“I am,” he says, amused. “My powers come from the shadows; I am at my strongest when there is no light. However, this teaching occupation demands that I remain awake during the day, which has been very inconvenient, to say the least.”

Well, that explains why his eyes often look tired when I see him in class. He probably feels like he’s constantly jet lagged. He suppresses a yawn. “Any more questions, or will you let this old man sleep?” he asks teasingly.

I can’t help but laugh. I want to make some witty comment about this “old” man looking twenty-five at most, but I am too worn out to think of anything worthy.

“I have one more question,” I say hesitantly. “What happened between you and…the other Jonathan?”

Dacian never outright said it was him, the only other person he’d felt connected to, but from the way his body suddenly tenses next to mine, I know I’ve hit a bull’s eye.

“Is this question a part of our bargain?” he asks somberly.

I shake my head. “Of course not.” I’d never force someone to disclose such private matters. “Just wondering.”

It’s a long moment before Dacian replies. He stares at the ceiling, his eyes distant and his lips a hard, unforgiving line. I almost don’t expect him to say anything at all. But as I start to feel the pull of drowsiness, every cell in my body sated and cozy with shared warmth, Dacian finally answers in a whisper, all the sadness in the world poured into two short sentences.

“He was a coward, and I was arrogant. We were doomed from the start.”