Insatiable

Chapter Forty-three

2:00 A.M. EST, Saturday, April 17

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B

New York, New York

Lucien stared down at her. Her face was a pale, resolute moon beneath his.

How must his own look to her? he wondered. A mask of shock.

“You can tell,” he murmured, trying to make sure he understood her correctly, “how everyone is going to die?”

“Well, not everyone,” Meena said. “Obviously not you. Since you’re already dead.”

He had hold of both her arms, and he didn’t let go or loosen his grip on her. He just kept staring down at her.

“That’s why you have to go,” Meena said in her husky voice. “I know you’re going to kill the guard. The one from the Vatican. And also Jon.”

On the word Jon, her voice broke.

Lucien felt as if the roll of thunder that sounded just then had come from somewhere deep within him. He shook his head, trying to shake the truth of her words from his mind, like the tiny rain droplets that were still clinging to the ends of his hair.

“No,” he said. “Meena, I wouldn’t. I haven’t killed a human in centuries, and you have to know, I would never kill your brother or anyone you loved.”

Despite the darkness in her bedroom, he saw the tears at the corners of her eyes, shining like diamonds. “Except that you’re going to,” she said simply.

“Meena,” he said. His heart, which for so many years he’d suspected had died within him, along with his soul, was finally coming back to life. “What you see…your visions…they don’t always come true. Do they?” He thought of the boy whose keys he’d taken away earlier in the evening.

“No.” Meena lifted a wrist and scrubbed at her streaming eyes. “Not if I warn people. And they do something about it. But you’re a vampire, Lucien. You’re not just any vampire. Apparently, you’re the ruler of all vampires, the prince of darkness. I’m really supposed to just…trust that you’re not going to do anything to this guy? Or to my brother? Not even in self-defense? Because they both really want to kill you. Alaric Wulf’s got a really big sword, and-”

Lucien released his hold on her shoulders then. But only to pull her close and rest his cheek against her hair.

“Shhh…,” he said. “Then what you saw is just one possible future.”

“Unless something changes,” Meena said, pushing him away.

“And what needs to change is your being here. And you should probably tell Mary Lou and Emil to go, as well. Because the Palatine is onto them, too. And I’m really not trying to be prejudiced against…well, what you are. Because God knows I have my own problems with people thinking I’m this awful person just because I have this sort of…obsession with death. But they do call you the prince of darkness. And that tends to suggest that you’re evil and so not very trustwor-”

“I’m not evil,” he ground out. Then he reconsidered. “Well, not anymore.”

“I believe the words anointer of all that is unholy were used in reference to you,” Meena said. “Maybe I’m wrong, but to me, that doesn’t suggest anything good.”

“The Palatine are hardly unbiased where I’m concerned,” Lucien said wryly. “But I’ve worked hard since rising to my position to bring about a new, enlightened age to my people, to protect both their interests and those of humanity.”

“I saw a photo,” Meena said, “of a Palatine guard with half his face eaten off. Alaric”-she nodded her head toward the bedroom wall-

“said it was from a vampire attack.”

Lucien nodded, his shoulders drooping. Alaric. Alaric Wulf.

“Yes. I know of this man. And,” he added, unable to keep his shock that all of this was happening from showing, “his partner. That was the Dracul who attacked them.”

“Was it the…Dracul”-she said the word like it was distasteful to her-“who attacked us outside St. George’s the other night?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Not us, though. Me. They were after me. You were never in any danger.”

Meena let out a small, mirthless laugh. “Well, you weren’t in any danger while I was there,” Lucien said, amending his statement.

“And is it the Dracul who are murdering those girls?” Meena asked.

He looked down at her. How could such a forceful personality be wrapped into such an impossibly small body? “Yes,” he admitted. “I’m fairly certain so.”

“So…the new enlightened age isn’t really working out, is it?” Meena asked.

He had never felt such despair. Why was all of this happening now, when he had finally come so close to grasping a little happiness?

The bargain his father had sealed had achieved immortality for himself and his family.

But what was the point of eternal life if one was destined to spend it alone?

“It’s complicated,” he said. “Blood-lust is strong, especially in the newly turned, so they long to feed…but I won’t allow them to kill. They know there will be repercussions if they disobey. But there are so many more of them now than there used to be. I can’t manage them all. I’ve tried delegating, but…I think my brother is the one behind the rise against me. He’s done it before. He always wanted the throne.”

Meena reached for the towel he’d abandoned, lifting it to wipe his hair and the back of his neck. “Like dialogue writers,” she murmured, gently kissing the places where she’d pressed the towel just seconds before, “always wanting to be head writer.”

He glanced at her in surprise. The touch of her warm mouth against his skin had sent an electric shock through him. He didn’t know how to react. He wasn’t sure if the kiss had meant anything…

Or everything.

“I’m sorry?” he asked, stunned.

Her eyes were wide. She looked as surprised by what she’d just done as he was.

“The fact remains, you’re still going to kill my brother,” she said.

“I’m not,” he insisted, taking her hand and pulling her toward him, then dropping his face into the warm curve where her neck met her collarbone. He was careful not to kiss her there, though. He’d seen the copy of Dracula on the floor in one corner of her room, as if flung there with some violence. “Meena, I told you, I love you. I would never-”

“I know you wouldn’t want to,” she whispered into his crisply damp hair. Her voice was unsteady with unshed tears. “But I also know my brother doesn’t know you like I do. And he’s going to try to kill you. He wants to join them.”

“Join who?” Lucien’s mind felt woolly. Was this the result of her nearness or the remnants of her blood still fizzing through his veins?

“The Palatine,” she said.

Lucien barely heard her. Somehow his shirt had come open, and she was kissing his shoulders as if she couldn’t stop herself, her lips soft as flower petals. All he could think about was the smoothness of her skin-like a newly poured Montrachet-and the fact that he could hear her pulse racing in her veins, in his veins, an echo of the heartbeat he once used to have.

So he said only, “I don’t think we need to worry about that happening. Any more than we need to worry about my killing Jon.”

While he spoke, he lifted her snowy white nightgown over her head, not entirely certain whether she was even aware of what he was doing.

Now she knelt beside him, fully unclothed, her dark-eyed gaze searching his face. Even shadowy as the room was, he could see one tip-tilted breast trembling with every throb of her heart.

The wave of desire that slammed into him was stronger than anything he could ever remember feeling in his lifetime. Which had been half a millennium long.

“Meena,” he said. His voice was an open wound, his need was so great. He stretched out a callused hand to capture that quivering breast.

Then, his final reserves of control broken by the feel of her satiny skin under his fingers, he found himself dragging her toward him, marveling at the quick hot litheness of her body, and lowering his mouth over hers, overwhelmed with an urge to consume her…devour her…engulf her.

She let out a small sound-whether of protest or desire, he couldn’t determine-and flung both hands up against his chest.

He reluctantly tore his mouth away from hers and asked, his eyes half lidded, “What is it?”

“No biting,” she whispered. “I really, really mean it this time.”