A Fire in the Blood(18)

He bowed over her hand. “I’ll call you soon.”

Tessa nodded again. She watched him descend the stairs, then went inside and closed and locked the door.

What if her nightmare was more than just a bad dream? What if it had been an omen of some kind? A warning? What if Andre really was a vampire? It would explain how he knew so much about them. How he knew so much about Colin.

* * *

After seeing Tessa safely home, Andrei drove back to the theater. He parked his car several blocks away.

Walking toward the entrance, he saw that the fire was out. Several foot cops patrolled the sidewalks around the building to make sure no one crossed the crime scene tape. The fire trucks were still in evidence. A number of curious folk stood across the street, watching the cleanup.

Andrei moved past the police, weaving in and out among the fire crew, unnoticed, thanks to what he liked to call a vampire veil, which hid him from sight when he didn’t wish to be seen.

He prowled the inside of the theater, his senses probing the rubble for a clue, a scent, something—anything—that would tell him who had destroyed his friend. But, for once, his preternatural senses failed him. Then again, any trace of the killer’s scent had likely been burned away by the fire or extinguished by the gallons of water that had been poured into the place.

Returning to his car, Andrei drove to the next town in search of prey, wondering, as he did so, if it had been a mistake to tell Tessa about Colin. Would it lead to questions best left unasked and unanswered?

He found his prey on a street corner waiting for a bus. A thought brought her into his car. He took her quickly and went on his way, leaving her with no memory of what had happened.

Back at home, he stood outside a moment, enjoying the quiet of the night. Then, drawn by an irresistible need to see Tessa, he walked to her apartment complex.

A thought took him to her front door. The sound of her deep, even breathing told him she was asleep. He had forgotten what mortal sleep was like. His rest was like death—until he met Tessa, there had been no dreams, no nightmares, only oblivion.

It took only moments to dissolve into mist, slip under the door, and float into her bedroom.

She slept on her side, her cheek pillowed on her hand. Her hair spread across her shoulders like skeins of fine gold silk, tempting his touch. Resuming his own form, he lifted several strands and let them sift through his fingers. Her hair was, indeed, like silk. An indrawn breath enveloped him in her unique scent.

He was suddenly desperate to hold her in his arms, to claim her lips with his, to explore every inch of her, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet, and every delectable hill and valley in between.

Not since Katerina had he felt such an overwhelming physical desire for a woman, a need so strong that it was painful in its intensity.

It took every ounce of his considerable self-control—hard won in the last seven hundred years—to turn his back on her and leave the apartment.

A thought took him to his lair, located in the bowels of a three-story mansion that had been built over a hundred years ago. He had found the place quite by accident while passing through Cutter’s Corner. A large sign in the front window had announced that the building was scheduled to be demolished. Andrei recalled paying a visit to the man in charge and offering to buy the place. The man had charged him twice what the property was worth, but after a little renovation and some major reconstruction in the basement, Andrei had a secure lair.

He had furnished the upper floors with antiques gathered over the years. And, as he’d told Tessa, he sold a few now and then to a select clientele—of other vampires. Most of them came looking for pieces to remind them of another time or another place, an inanimate object that harked back to a life or an era that no longer existed.

Now, standing in the center of the vast living room, he felt an overpowering sense of emptiness. How long since he’d had a friend to talk to, someone to share his life with? Occasionally, he had allied himself with other vampires—both male and female—but vampires tended to be solitary creatures, as untrusting of their own kind as they were of mortals. He had spent most of his long existence living alone in places like this—houses and buildings abandoned by mortals.

He lifted a brow. Maybe it was time to take another wife.

As long as it was Tessa. He had no trouble at all imagining her clad in a long white gown and veil.

Or in nothing at all.

So easy to imagine caressing her from head to toe . . . sipping the sweet red nectar that flowed through her veins.

* * *

In the morning, Tessa woke with a smile. Her dreams last night had been far more pleasant than the nightmares she’d been having. Last night, she had dreamed of becoming Andrei’s wife, and while the reality of that was unlikely, at least in the near future, since she scarcely knew the man, it had nevertheless been wonderfully romantic. He, in a tux that emphasized his dark good looks, she in a long white gown and veil. Walking down the aisle, she had been blind to everyone but Andrei. . . .