A Fall of Silver (30 page)

You trust me?
How? How can you trust me? I’m crazy and even you must know that. Her hands shook as panic gripped her. “It’s a secret? Your secret?”

“
Yes. And it must be remain a secret.” His expression was calm, certain.

He
trusted her.

Her skin flushed,
effervescent with heat. The thought that he trusted her was too much to bear, and it both exhilarated and frightened her. She didn’t want his trust, the responsibility of his confession, or the fear that she could slip and reveal it to someone.

Worse, s
he didn’t want the connection a shared secret implied, the respect and the
liking,
because when he knew her and discovered the truth, she’d see the disappointment in his eyes.

Then the hard, evil side of her
reminded her that perhaps it would be good if he did figure out who she was. People who feared her left her alone, and she was glad. She could deal with terror: she knew the way it tasted and how it felt. She had been lovers with terror for years.

Ultimately, fear didn’t hurt as much or as deeply as people.

“Why did you tell me?” she asked in a whisper.

“You trusted me with your
past, your secrets. I could do no less.”

The
late afternoon sun blazed through the windows. The light haloed him with a nimbus of fire like a medieval saint painted in gold. She blinked and the illusion was gone, leaving his face in shadows. All she could see was the blue blaze of his eyes from within shadowed hollows.

“You asked
me.” Why had she revealed so much?

He took a step forward and touched her shoulder, gently, tentatively.
“I wanted to understand you.”

“Why? What’s there to understand? Why bother?”

“I know you won’t believe this, at least not right now, but you’re worth the trouble.” His hand cradled her neck.

H
eart pounding, she stilled. She wanted to touch him and pull him against her so much it almost took her breath way. She wanted to stop thinking and just feel the warmth of his skin under her hands. For once, she wanted to feel truly safe.

“Right. Well, we agree on the trouble part.” She held her breath
, waiting for his response.

H
is thumb caressed the soft underside of her jaw before tilting up her chin. She stared into his eyes, wanting him and his stupid cinnamon rolls, wanting to finally find a place where she belonged.

This is crazy.
I’ll hurt him, and I can’t bear the thought.

S
he was growing too close to him, too close to a man who courted the enemy, who had once
been
the enemy. But she couldn’t push him away. The muscles in her body trembled, and she waited, aching for him. How much simpler it would be if she could just stop thinking, no decisions to make: helpless, submissive and docile.

He could be t
he one
. The one she could trust. Her heart ached.

A
cruel voice whispered that she hadn’t told him everything, hadn’t revealed precisely how much of a fool she had been. The vampires in Mexico City had listened to her pleas and showed teary sympathy, claiming the other had forced her—or him—to treat her with such cruelty. Each one had promised her freedom in exchange for trust. Then each had let her go, only to recapture her just when she thought she was free.

Hope c
an only survive a few such games before it burns away in the flames of madness: an insanity that fueled her frenzy of hatred and fear.

S
he’d never be free of them. They had destroyed her naivety and sympathy along with her ability to trust. She could feel their destructive influence bubbling and steaming like a vat of poison brewing within her whenever she thought of the vampires holding Father Donatello. Her head throbbed with tension and hatred.

She couldn’t control the anger
much longer. The sharp-clawed, feral beast crouched, waiting for fear to flush it out into the open and charge anything standing nearby. To kill.

To protect the innocent
, she added, desperately clinging to a thin thread of decency.

If Kethan knew
how she felt, he wouldn’t be standing so close or gazing at her with such hunger.

“Quicksilver,” he whispered her name, his eyes flaring.

Her body quivered in response. Desire curled within her belly and pooled between her thighs.

“Don’t trust me,” she replied, her voice thready and quivering with raw emotion.
“Don’t—”

Before she could
warn him, he covered her mouth with his. He pressed into her, his arms enveloping her with heat. She breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the scent of his skin. A frenzy of desperation made her deepen their kiss, wanting to touch and taste every inch of him, an overwhelming sensation of
rightness
gripping her.

H
er hands twisted under his arms and grabbed the back of his shirt. She tightened her hold as the tension within her exploded. She curled around the hard strength of his body, her hunger matching his as she brought her legs up to encircle his waist. When his lips caressed her jaw and neck, she grabbed his hair and yanked his head up, fastening her lips on his, yearning for the taste of his mouth.

Vaguely aware of
his movements, she felt the long muscles in his thighs bunch. He was climbing the stairs. She clamped her legs more tightly around his waist, ankles locked at the base of his spine. He moved effortlessly, one hand entangled in her hair, the other undoing buttons—hers—his—it didn’t matter.

His hand brushed through her hair to the nape of her neck, touching a hard area of numbness
at the base of her skull. Then his fingers moved past to cup her chin, and the dead sensation vanished.

He kicked open the door to his room
. It slammed into the doorstop. Then he untangled her ankles and threw her onto the bed. Laughing, her blood effervescent with excitement, she bounced to her knees and yanked off her clothing, watching him do the same. Then he stood at the foot of the bed, his body larger and harder than she expected and the white scar prominent on his chest.

“It’s been a long time,” he groaned, pushing her shoulder
s back.

A high-pitched half-laugh
broke from her throat. The sound crackled through the room, revealing her tension and near-panic at the thought of messing up, of doing something wrong.

Stop! Don’t be crazy. Her heart
clenched. I can’t—but I need this—I need him! Just this once.

Once
.

“Come here.”

“You come
here
.” When she fell against the mattress, he grabbed her ankles and pulled her forward until her legs dangled off the bed on either side of him. His hands ran up her thighs before he bent. Her eyes closed. All she wanted to do was
feel
.

H
e nuzzled her, his tongue making her cry with need. Her toes curled as she braced her heels against his shoulders, wanting to push him away so she could feel the length of him against her body, yet needing him to continue, wanting the tension to explode.

Relentless, he massaged the soft, moist flesh, his breath warm against her inner thighs until she could stand it no longer.
She trembled and then let go, gasping as wave after wave of shuddering release swept through her.

B
efore she caught her breath, he nudged her open, entering her and filling her so completely she moaned. He thrust until another wave of quivering heat flashed through her muscles and bones. He caught her hands and held them above her head, his eyes intent upon her face and body as she moved beneath him.

“God, you’re beautifu
l,” his low voice ground out.

Muscles tightening
, he went rigid, body pumping by instinct, contracting until he relaxed against her with a sigh. He buried his head in her neck, his arms pressing against her shoulders.

Not wanting to let go,
she wrapped her legs around his buttocks, locking him in place. She wanted this feeling, the connection of complete surrender and contentment, to last.

S
tay with me. Stay. Please.

His skin felt satiny and warm under her hands
in the vulnerable areas along his sides. She tightened her legs and ran her hands over his back. Her caresses grew desperate when she felt him move slightly. As his breathing slowed, she felt him withdrawing, centering himself. Slipping away.

“Don’t get up,
” she whispered. “Don’t go.”

Brushing her hair away from her face, he propped up his
left elbow on the bed and rested his head against his hand. “We can’t stay here. I wish we could, but…. It’ll be dark soon. Night. We need to find Father Donatello.”

“I know, but
—” She broke off and looked away.

This was why she
avoided relationships—this sensation of being pushed away and abandoned.

Now her body ached to
remain here with him. She didn’t want to get up and get dressed. The bed felt warm beneath her and the room smelled of sex and Kethan. When she inhaled, the heat pooled between her thighs again, wanting release, wanting his touch, needing more.

Wanting him to be a man who hated vampires as much as she did, instead of being their friend
, being everyone’s friend, and offering redemption to the damned.

Craziness screamed through her, driving a sledgehammer into the back of her head.
Her past taunted her. She’d never been good enough. Never would be, not for someone like him.

S
he released him and wrapped her own dark sense of purpose around her like a cloak, acknowledging the terror lurking in the darkest pool of her mind, waiting.

She didn’
t need him. She didn’t need anyone.

All she had to do was
play along with his fantasy of negotiating with the damned. Once the talks were done, she could slip away and do what had to be done. She’d watch from the shadows and wait until the opportunity to destroy the undead presented itself because if she didn’t, it meant she’d been wrong when she murdered Carol and Carlos and all those who followed. She had to believe her actions made a difference—made things
right.

The beast within her moved restlessly, demanding carnage—the blood of vampires—and it would have to be fed
, eventually.

If
only she could save Father Donatello first. That action might serve to make up for Kathy and the rest of her failures over the years, times when she simply hadn’t been fast or sharp enough.

This time, she wouldn’t fail.
Whatever it took, she’d make sure Father Donatello came home, safe and still human.

Trying not to grin like an idiot,
Kethan dressed quickly. Despite his sense of closeness and completion, he couldn’t convince himself that Quicksilver felt the same connection. There was an unpredictable side to her that kept him off-balance and his instincts warned him that their brief moment of sharing wouldn’t make her stay or change her mind about his mission.

When she got up, her muscles long and smooth beneath the pale skin, h
is concerns faded. He couldn’t look away: he wanted her. There didn’t seem much else to think about except that he felt a tenuous bond forming between them, tying him to her. Perhaps it was only a one-sided bond for she seemed determined to maintain her distance, but it tugged at him even when he wasn’t sure she would ever reciprocate his feelings.

She
despised him and what he did for a living, that was clear, although she seemed to be changing. When she told him about her past, he’d heard the pain and doubt in her voice. She needed to believe she’d done the right thing to help her deal with what had happened to her.

That’s really all anyone
wanted: to do the right thing.

Well,
at least he maintained no illusion that one night together would transform her or make her accept his past. He might not be a vampire now, however he was fairly sure she did not see vampirism as a curable condition.

Once a vampire, always a vampire.

She caught his glance. Her mouth compressed and a mutinous expression slowly replaced the satisfied flush. “I’m going to take a shower.” She grabbed her discarded clothing and headed for the guest bathroom.

As h
e watched her go, his eyes lingered on the long line of her back and rounded curve of her bottom.
No
. He had no regrets, at least not yet. They’d both been crazy, unable to focus on anything except the tension burning between them. Perhaps now he could concentrate on the situation with Sutton instead of being distracted by the blood pounding deep within his body whenever Quicksilver walked by.

Shaking
his head, he got up and showered in the master bathroom. When he returned to his bedroom, he stared at his rumpled bed with a goofy smile on his face, breathing deeply. Her faint scent lingered like some warm, exotic perfume. It took several minutes before he realized he still held his damp towel. He put it in the hamper as he considered his next action.