For now.
Planting her hands on her hips, Anna regarded him with a smug smile. “Ha.”
“Ha?” Cezar gave a mocking lift of his brows. “You sound like a villain in a cheesy melodrama. Do you intend to throw me onto the nearest railroad tracks while I scream for help?”
“What I intend is to get some answers that are long overdue.”
“There’s no need to lock me up. Granted it might be fun under the right circumstances, but surely we can sit down and have a rational conversation like normal, non-crazy people?”
“But we’re not normal, are we, Cezar?”
“Speak for yourself, querida.” He gave a hiss as the cuffs shifted on his wrists.
She tried to remain in her Rambo mode, but Cezar didn’t miss her small wince. Even two centuries hadn’t managed to harden that far too tender heart.
“Does it hurt?” she demanded.
Cezar held up his wrists to reveal the blisters that were already marring his skin.
“It’s burning my flesh, what do you think?”
She bit her bottom lip. “Tell me what you’ve done to me and I’ll release you.”
“Anna, I’ve done nothing to you.”
“I know I’m not a vampire, but obviously your bite turned me into something…” Her words trailed away as she lifted her hand and pressed it to her neck.
The precise spot he’d taken her blood all those years ago, he realized with a flare of possessive pleasure. “Something?”
“Something weird.” She glared, holding him entirely responsible for her weirdness. “Tell me what’s wrong with me.”
“At the risk of pointing out the obvious, there’s nothing at all wrong with you, querida. In fact, you’re nothing less than perfection.” He lifted his cuffed hands. “Well, except for this handcuff fetish of yours. Next time we go with leather and whips.”
“Don’t lie to me, Cezar. Something happened that night.” A shudder wracked her tiny body. “Everything…changed.”
Cezar smiled at the doom in her voice. Anyone would think that discovering she was immortal was some hideous fate rather than an astonishing stroke of fortune.
“What changed?”
The gold flecks smoldered as she pointed a finger in his face. “Damn you, this isn’t funny.”
“Anna, I’m not teasing you,” he soothed. “Tell me what happened after I left you that night.”
She wrapped her arms around her waist, as if suddenly cold. “After we…”
“Made love?” he prompted as her words faltered.
“After we had sex,” she corrected. “I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until almost dawn. I had no choice but to sneak out through the window and return to my aunt’s house. When I got there it…”
Once again her words broke off, but this time it was an ancient pain, not embarrassment, that held her in its grip.
“What, Anna?” he said softly, not bothering to try to enthrall her. As a budding Oracle she would be impervious to such mind tricks. “Tell me.”
“The house had been burnt to the ground.” She at last forced the words past her stiff lips. “Along with my only family trapped inside it. I was left on my own with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.”
“Dios. How did it happen?”
“I have no idea.”
He scowled at the realization that the Oracles had deliberately kept her troubles secret from him. If they had not interfered he would have sensed her need. “What did you do?”
She gave a shake of her head, her honey hair brushing over her bare shoulders and filling the air with her exquisite scent. Cezar quivered, his fangs aching for a taste. The only reason he resisted temptation was the memory of what had happened the last time he had taken blood from this woman.
He might not be the smartest vampire ever made, but he occasionally learned from his mistakes.
“I took the coward’s way out.” Anna’s voice was bitter as she became lost in her memories. “I hid in the bushes and allowed everyone to believe that I had died along with my aunt and cousin.”
“Why?”“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” he prodded, genuinely curious. The Oracles were rarely forthcoming, and while they had revealed that this woman was born to join their ranks, they had yet to explain exactly what she was.
She couldn’t be human. Her immortality proved that. And he could detect no demon blood running through her veins. Added to the fact that she didn’t seem to have a clue about her powers, it left nothing but a gaping question.
A question he intended to find the answer to before she was taken by the Commission.
“I don’t know.” A pretty frown tugged at her brows. “It was as if a voice was whispering in the back of my mind to flee. It seems ridiculous now, but at the time I was convinced that if I stepped from the bushes I would be dead.”
Premonition? A natural ability to sense danger? Dumb, blind luck? Dios. The list was endless.
He met and held her gaze. “It’s not ridiculous at all, Anna.”
“Of course, at the time I didn’t realize you had made me into some freak of nature that couldn’t die.”
He chuckled at her sour expression. “I didn’t make you immortal, querida. My only means of doing so would be to turn you into a vampire, and since I can see every lovely inch of you in the mirror and you have what I can only describe as a delightful tan, it’s obvious that you are still very non-vampirish.”
Anna wasn’t satisfied. She clearly wanted someone to blame. And that someone was Cezar. “Then you put a spell on me.”
“Vampires can’t cast magic.”
“Then…”
Tired of being the scapegoat, Cezar took a step forward. They were alone in a hotel room and he didn’t want to waste time being the enemy.
Not when she could be easing the vast, roaring hunger that had returned after nearly two centuries.
“Anna, your immortality has nothing to do with my bite or with any spell.” His voice thickened with need. “You were born special.”
“Special?” She took an instinctive step back as if sensing his dark need. “Being able to bake a soufflé that actually rises is special. Being able to sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” in key is special. Being able to pass through airport security without setting off the metal detector is special. I’m a little more than freaking special.” Without warning she stiffened, her head turning toward the door. “Shit.”
Cezar was on instant alert. “What is it?”
“Do you smell that?”
Cezar closed his eyes and sensed the air. It was very faint, but unmistakable. “Smoke.” The word was a curse on his tongue. Vampires and fire didn’t mix. “We must get out of here,” he commanded, holding out his arms that were still shackled. He could free himself but he preferred to keep that little tidbit of knowledge to himself. “Anna, release me or we both will die.”
She muttered a handful of curses as she reached out and slipped the key into the handcuff. They fell to the floor with a thump.
“There.”
Cezar absently rubbed his blistered wrists as he allowed his powers to flow outward. His fangs lengthened as he realized that the fire was not only near, but magical in nature.
This was a deliberate attack on Anna.
“The fire is just outside the door,” he warned, moving instinctively to scoop her slender body in his arms. The Oracles had charged him with protecting this woman, but even if they hadn’t he would have walked through the pits of hell to keep her safe.
They had unfinished business.
Business that even now was making him hard and desperate to be inside her.
“Stop.” She beat her tiny fist against his chest. As if that could possibly hurt him. “What are you doing?”
He willed the window open as he dashed across the room. “Getting us out of here. Unless you prefer to remain and sacrifice that beautiful skin to the flames?”
“The water sprinklers will put it out.”
“Not this fire. It’s magical, which explains why I didn’t sense it the moment it was started.”
“A magical fire? For God’s sake…” Her words became a shrill scream as Cezar launched them through the window and they fell toward Michigan Avenue. With a skill only an ancient vampire could manage, he landed easily on his feet, still cradling her closely in his arms. He was rewarded with another blow to his chest. “Damn you,” Anna hissed. “You scared the hell out me.”
He lowered his head to speak directly in her ear. “Would you have preferred to remain to face the flames?”
She tugged at the hem of her gown, which had inched up to reveal a tiny pink thong. Cezar’s erection twitched in silent tribute.
Soon, soon, soon…
“I would prefer that you warn me before you leap from a twelve-story building,” she muttered.
He laughed, his body tingling with pleasure. Mi dios. It had been so long since he had felt emotions. So long since he hadn’t been trapped in his cold existence.