Page 15 of Desperately Seeking Vampire
“You are?” He looked surprised, then flinched when I hit a particularly gruesome bit on his cheekbone. “I have heard that some women sought degrees in medical care, but all the women I knew were nurses.”
“Yes, well, that sort of thinking went out a century ago,” I told him, rinsing out the washcloth, and returning to clean up his arm. “As a matter of fact, I started out as a nurse, but by the time World War Two hit, I managed to get fully trained as a doctor. Not that anyone would let me practice, but at least I made my point.”
“You treat mortals, then?” he asked.
“Not now. It’s difficult to keep getting licensed when you’re not mortal. Usually, I take a decade off when I get to the point where people start wondering why I’m not aging, then decide if I want to go through medical school again under a new identity to get recertified. Not that the mortals know it’s recertification, but eh. That’s why I’m working as a translator now. It’s easier, documentation-wise. Ouch. I can’t do anything about your missing fingernail, but that cut along the side of your hand looks deep. Hang on. There’s a hand towel I can tear up and use as a bandage.”
“I have no need for a bandage,” he called after me as I went to the bathroom again, cleaning the washcloth. “I am a Dark One. I will heal with time. It’s just that I’m a little ...”
“A little what?” I asked when I had bandaged up his left hand. He sat on the bed looking oddly deflated, his gaze on the floor as if his thoughts were turned inward. I touched his bare shoulder. “Ivo?”
“Hmm?” He looked up.
“Nothing. Why don’t you put your foot on the bed so I can wipe the blood and dirt off your ankle.”
“There is no need—” he started to protest.
“I know, but this way, you won’t spread blood everywhere.”
He made a little face of disagreement but, after kicking off his remaining shoe, swung both legs on the bed, lying back. I wiped off his gory ankle, noting that the blood was already slowing and thickening, indicating that his natural healing abilities were kicking in.
“Why did those two strongmen think that you had a stolen spell?” he asked, his uninjured arm behind his head as he looked at the ceiling.
“No clue. My boss is currently enjoying the hospitality of the local police because he tried to skip out with the money from the music festival, but I had no idea he also stole something valuable like a spell. To be honest, I didn’t know you could steal a spell.” I finished with his leg and, noting that a little fresh blood had oozed out of the carnage on his cheek, twisted the washcloth to a clean section, and leaned over him, intending on dabbing at it.
Memory swamped me, along with a strong sense of need, a pulsing red hunger that roared to life with a ferocity that left me shaking. I gasped, staring down at Ivo as he stared back at me, his eyes wide, his pupils flaring.
“It is you,” I said, goose bumps rippling down from my head to my extremities. “I wondered, but I wasn’t sure. ...”
He stared at me as if he were seeing a ghost; then suddenly, I was lying across him, his mouth hot on mine.
“Wow, you’re ... hoo! You didn’t let that motorcycle falling on you damage any of these muscles ... whoa, dude! I am going commando! You can’t put your hand there!” I squirmed when one of Ivo’s hands went wandering down my back to where my butt was barely covered by the oversized tee. I stared down at him, my mouth feeling simultaneously sensitized, and thrilled with the situation.
“How can this be?” Ivo managed to say, his eyes crossing when I couldn’t resist the lure of his lips again, taking care not to put any pressure on his scraped cheek as I kissed him. He waited until I stopped sucking his tongue before adding, “You’re dead.”
“I assure you that I am very much not dead,” I said, reaching behind me to stop the hand that had retreated but was once again sliding toward my ass. “Oh, no you don’t. I’m not saying that I won’t let you later on, because you really got my motor humming with that kiss, but I have at least a dozen questions that I’d like answered, first.”
“You are my Beloved,” he said, looking first stunned, then mildly indignant. “If you are not dead and some form of corporeal spirit, then you are alive.”
“No one can say that you lack the ability to grasp the basics of a situation,” I answered, wanting to giggle at him, but feeling that somehow, I’d just dealt him a blow, and a little kindness was better suited to the situation. “But yes, I am alive.”
His brows pulled together, his hands moving off me. I felt the withdrawal of him as if he’d turned to ice. “Then you deliberately hid yourself from me. You wished for my existence to be a torment. You tricked Finch and Christian in an attempt to drive me to noctambul.”
Carefully, so as not to hurt anything on his torso that might have been bruised in what was obviously a hairy ride to the hotel, I eased off him, and sat on my heels close enough to touch him, but feeling oddly isolated. “I didn’t hide from anyone, let alone trick people into tormenting you. Ivo, I feel like we’re talking at cross-purposes. It was you I saw in 1916 in France, yes? You were gravely injured? Like almost blown-apart sort of injured?”
“I was.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You left me after you fed me. You are my Beloved, and you left me.”
“I fed you because I could see you needed blood. But I wasn’t your soul mate, if that’s what you are talking about.”
“How did you know I was a Dark One?” he asked, his features tight with suspicion. He sat up, and absently, I pulled a couple of pillows from where I’d slept with them, and stacked them behind his back. “How did you know I needed blood?”
“Well, for one, I figured anyone who had been blown up like you and survived couldn’t have been mortal. Then when you were moaning, I caught a glimpse of your canine teeth, which were all fangy, and I figured you were a vampire.”
“Dark One,” he corrected, but it seemed like an automatic comment. His expression had softened a little, but his eyes were still just about shooting me with lasers. “Why did you leave me if you knew what I was?”
“I didn’t really leave you, not in the sense you mean. I shouldn’t have been there to begin with, because I was sick.” I put a hand on his arm. His flesh was warm, the muscles underneath it as hard as banded steel. We both looked down at my hand. “You heal fast,” I told him, noting that the cuts and abrasions were already fading.
“Sick? You are ... what are you?” he asked with a puzzled expression.
