Arctic Fire Read online

“You’ve been in there for a while,” Julian called to her.

  “It’s called relaxing!”

  She could picture him standing on the other side, his arms folded across his chest as he stared at the door. “I thought you planned to feed tonight.”

  “I do. Give me a few more minutes.”

  “What?”

  “Just give me a couple more minutes!” she called over the hot water flowing into the tub.

  “What?”

  Quinn slid her foot up and turned the water off. “I’ll be out soon!”

  “What did you say?”

  Sighing in exasperation, Quinn slid down so only her shoulders were out of the hot water. She made sure the bubbles covered her body before yelling at him again. “Come in!”

  The door opened to reveal Julian leaning in the doorway, his arms folded over his chest just as she’d known they would be. His nearly white-blond hair was darker in color due to his shower. He’d chosen not to put a shirt back on, which was something she both appreciated and disliked as her eyes raked over his magnificent form and chiseled abs. Her gaze finally settled on the black tattoo of an angel weeping on his right bicep.

  She slid further into her bubbles and scowled at him. “You could hear me fine,” she accused.

  His mouth curved into a smile as his gaze slid over the bubbles. “This was too tempting to resist.”

  “You could have waited until I got out, like any respectable gentleman would do.”

  “Those are two words I’ve never been called before.”

  “Respectable and gentleman?”

  “Exactly.”

  She shook her head and brushed back a piece of hair that fell free from the bun she’d piled on top of her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I know what I’d like you to do with me.” He stepped further into the bathroom, sniffing at the air as he moved. “Smells fantastic.”

  He moved around her, but didn’t come close enough to see anything. Her shoulders relaxing, she tipped her head back against the pillow as he stopped near her sink. He grasped the edge as he leaned against it.

  “Maybe I should start calling you Bubbles,” he said with a smile.

  “That’s a stripper name.”

  “I wouldn’t turn you down if you offered to dance for me. I have dollar bills, and I’d be more than willing to hand out some hundreds too.”

  For some reason, that caused her to laugh. Sliding her foot toward the hot water tap again, she froze when his eyes latched onto her exposed leg. Passion radiated from his eyes as he watched the water and bubbles slide over her skin. His hands clenched on her sink so hard she feared he might rip it from the wall. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the ravenous look on his face as her body quivered.

  Knowing she had to do something to break the tension before he pulled her from this tub, she turned the water on again and slid her leg back into the water. “There’s your strip tease,” she said through the constriction of her throat.

  “Worth it.”

  Extending her toe up again, she turned the water back off. The nearly white band around his pupil turned red as he followed every movement she made with a predatory expression. “Julian.”

  His head tilted to the side when his ice-blue eyes met hers again. He released her sink and brought his hands before him. “Need me to go, Dewdrop?”

  No! Yes! No! The words bashed around in her head like a bat trapped in a belfry. She wanted to touch and feel him so badly, yet she knew she wasn’t ready for what that progression in their relationship would mean. She didn’t know if she was ready to have sex for the first time. He already had her heart, would she ever be able to survive the loss of him if he had her body too? There were too many enemies out there hunting them both to believe everything would be okay for any length of time.

  Walking over, he kept his eyes on her face as he knelt beside her and brushed back her damp hair. He leaned forward and kissed her lips. “Maybe we could blow some of these bubbles out of the way or something?” he suggested.

  The teasing glint in his eyes eased some of her tension as she chuckled. “Let’s not.”

  He kissed her forehead and leaned back on his heels. “Take your time.”

  A sense of loss slid over her when he rose and walked over to the doorway. “I thought you were hungry,” she said, unwilling to have him leave already.

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I am, but if you move some of those bubbles aside, I’ll be able to wait a little longer.”

  She shook her head and sank lower in the tub. “I like my bubbles.”

  Turning to face her, he rested his hand high on the door jam and leaned against it. “One day, I’m going to climb in there with you and pop every last one of them.”

  Her toes curled at the idea and the promise of his words. “I’ll get out now.” She lifted her fingers through the bubbles to give him a little wave. “Now shoo, before I give you a zap that will make that punch you took to the nuts earlier seem like fun. I’ll make it not work for a week.”

  His smile faded away. “Can you do that?”

  “I’d be willing to find out,” she teased.

  He glanced at his crotch, then shook his head as he turned away from her. “We’re taking hand jobs off the table,” she heard him mutter before closing the door behind him.

  Quinn laughed and rose from the tub. She grabbed the towel dangling from the hook and wrapped it around herself before stepping out. Her need to feed hadn’t been pressing before she climbed into the tub, but she found herself starving. She just wasn’t sure if blood would be enough to satisfy the urges clamoring through her body right then.

  Her resistance to him was melting away; it was only a matter of time before she gave into him completely. She smiled at the realization.

  ***

  Julian released the coyote and sat back on his heels. His gaze drifted over to Quinn as she fed on the coyote she’d caught. The silvery rays of the moon falling over her caused her hair to glisten. Her eyes opened; their golden color shone in the light as she gave the coyote a pat before sending it unsteadily into the night.

  Rising to her feet, she wiped the sand from her knees and brushed back her hair. He continued to watch as she wiped the sand from her ass before turning to face him. Her head tilted to the side when she caught him. “Do I have blood on me or something?” she asked.

  He rose to his feet and dusted the sand off his clothes. “No blood.”

  “Good, can’t spill any,” she said with a laugh. She looked toward the sky as it brightened in the distance. “We have to go.”

  “We do.”

  He broke into a brisk run through the desert with her at his side. He moved so she was ahead of him as they sprinted through the shadows and rocks obscuring their approach to the back of her apartment building. They broke into a leisurely jog, appearing to be nothing more than two people out for a run before the sun came up. So what if most people would be in bed after a night of work? Humans were used to the oddities of other humans and often wrote off or ignored the strange and unexplainable.

  The rays of the sun hit his back as he pulled the back door open. He stood over her, using his body to block her from the beams. He could tolerate them; she wouldn’t be able to. Closing the door behind him, he stayed close to her back as he followed her up the stairs and waited while she unlocked her apartment.

  Slipping in behind her, Julian made his way over to the window and pulled down the slat on the blind to look out at the motel. Luther sat in a chair at the corner of the building, flipping through one of his numerous books. Behind him, Chris poked his head out of his room before striding down the wooden walkway toward his Guardian. As a Guardian, Luther was entirely human, but he had vast knowledge of the Hunter line and trained them to fight vamps. Luther had adopted and raised Melissa after her family was killed in The Slaughter. He’d discovered Chris and his best friend, Cassie, years later and had started their Hunter training.

  He
glanced over at Quinn as she unzipped one of her knee-high, black leather boots and dropped it on the floor. She pulled out the stakes hidden within her boot, set them aside, and then unstrapped the one wrapped around her calf. He couldn’t help but smile as he watched her take off her other boot and more weapons before pulling free the stakes strapped to her waist.

  They’d only gone out to the desert for an hour, and she’d prepared herself for war. It was one of the many things he’d come to love about her. One of these days, he’d work up the courage to tell her that.

  “I’m going to speak with Luther,” he said as he released the blind.

  She looked up at him from behind her curtain of brown hair. “It’s light out.”

  “I can move through it,” he said. Walking over, he rested his hands on the couch behind her. “You’ll be safe here now that it’s daytime.”

  Her gaze went to the window before coming back to him. “It can’t wait until later? When you’ll be safer?”

  “I’ll only be exposed for half a minute at most. I can tolerate that.” He’d been working hard to increase his tolerance to sunlight by gradually exposing himself to it; that short amount of time would barely affect him.

  He bent to press a kiss against her forehead. Her hands squeezed his wrists before she released him. He didn’t want to leave her, but Luther had talked to some of his Guardian friends to try to learn something new about the prophecy. He’d been hoping to hear back from them soon.

  Reluctantly pulling away from her, Julian walked to the door. “Make sure to lock it behind me.”

  “I will.”

  She walked over to the door as he slipped out. He remained in the hallway until he heard the locks slide into place. Turning away, he strode down the poorly lit and dingy hall of Quinn’s apartment building. The smells of cooking bacon and eggs filled his nostrils. The couple at the end of the hall was fighting again, and the one in the apartment to his right was doing his daily routine of waking and baking with his pot.

  Julian ran down the stairs and shoved the door open. The early morning sun spilled over him, heating his skin as he ran across the street toward the motel. Luther looked up at him as he jogged by and into the shade of Chris’s room. Chris glanced away from a rerun of “Married With Children.”

  “Privacy,” he said around a mouthful of potato chips.

  “You’re the last person who should ever talk about privacy,” Julian replied as he moved to the window. He pushed the curtain aside and peered up at Quinn’s shaded windows. “Are you seriously eating chips at seven thirty in the morning?”

  “Breakfast of champions.” Chris wiped some of the crumbs from the front of his shirt. “And are you seriously questioning my eating practices, blood boy?”

  “Christopher-”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. You stopped being a boy before you became a vampire.”

  Julian shot him a look as Luther strolled into the room and placed his books onto one of the tables. “Have you managed to learn anything new about the prophecy?” Julian inquired.

  Luther lifted his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “There’s nothing left for me to discover. I’ve tapped the few Guardians I trust; no one has heard anything. If we’re going to learn anything more, it’s going to have to come from the vampire community. They’re the only ones who can tell us what they’re planning, how many of them believe the prophecy, and how many want to do something about it. Infiltrating them is the only way we’ll learn anything.”

  “And there’s no way to do that,” Julian said. “We saw how vampires react to my presence last night.”

  “Some of them would welcome you back amongst them.” Chris set the bag of chips on the nightstand as he swung his legs out of the bed. “You are an Elder after all.”

  At over five hundred and seventy-six vamp years, he was one of the only two Elders left. Any vampire who managed to survive to five hundred was considered an Elder. Their speed, strength, and other inherent vampire abilities increased at that age, as well as whatever ability they’d acquired upon becoming a vamp. Julian’s psychometry, the ability to learn things about others from touching them or an object they’d touched, had nearly doubled upon becoming an Elder. It was why he often kept it shut off. The flood of images from his surroundings was distracting and tedious.

  “To go back amongst the vampires and earn their trust, I would have to kill again in order to prove my loyalty to them,” Julian said. “I’d also have to leave Quinn here, unprotected.”

  “You had me convinced it was a bad idea once you said killing again,” Chris said. “I feel like that wouldn’t be the wisest of choices.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” Especially when the need to kill was always just beneath the surface, lurking within him. Quinn helped to calm the hunger and the urge, but if he ever gave in again, he didn’t know if he’d be able to bring himself back. For her, he believed he could bring himself back from the darkness within him. However, she may be able to forgive him if he returned to being a murderer, but she’d never forgive herself if he killed innocents in order to keep her safe. He rubbed at his temples as he paced away from the window.

  Melissa entered the room; her brows drew together as she watched him. “What’s going on?”

  Chris filled her in when she sat on the bed beside him. “Definitely not a good idea,” she agreed.

  Julian stopped pacing and pulled the curtain back to check on Quinn again. Not for the first time, he realized the vampires had to be organized and ruled. These confused and angry vamps were more dangerous than if they were united under a general guideline, as they had been when the Elders were alive. Granted, the Elders had pretty much let them have free rein to do whatever they pleased as long as they kept the vampire species a secret, but there had been rules, and there had been rulers they’d listened to and respected.

  These stupid vampires didn’t realize that most prophecies were so arbitrary they could be taken one of a thousand ways. It was like the man who wished to be wealthy, and the next day his entire family died in a plane crash and he collected their life insurance. He’d gotten his wish but had suffered greatly in the end.

  The prophecy stated that, if used correctly, Quinn could be their greatest ally and savior. Many of them probably believed she would be on their side, or they’d be able to bend her to their will. They didn’t stop to think that if they pissed her off enough, she might destroy them all. He was sure some had questioned how a vampire not born of vampire blood could even exist, but most probably hadn’t. He doubted any of them had considered the possibility she may be part Hunter and would fight them every step of the way.

  How could he possibly go about trying to get the vampires to fall in line? How could he bring some stability back into the vampire world without crossing a line he’d vowed never to cross again? How did he do it without pushing Quinn away and ruining what was growing between them?

  He had no answers for those questions, only a growing headache.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Melissa said.

  “Yeah.” He had a feeling the battle would be coming to them soon, and they were not ready for it. His gaze slid back to Quinn’s window. The driving urge to get back to her had him walking toward the door before he realized he was moving.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said and slipped outside.

  Higher in the sky, the sun burned his skin as he sprinted across the road to Quinn’s apartment building. He ran up the stairs and nodded hello to the kid who liked to wake and bake as they passed in the hall. Julian’s eyes rolled when the kid flashed him a peace sign.

  “Don’t like Dusty?”

  He hadn’t realized Quinn was standing in the hall with a cat in her arms until she’d spoken. Whenever that cat escaped its apartment, it would sit outside Quinn’s door, crying until someone finally opened it. He’d suggested tossing the cat outside last time it had gotten loose, but she’d insisted on returning it.

  “Mittens escaped again,” he s
tated.

  “She did.” Quinn walked down the hall and knocked on the door of apartment six. The door cracked open an inch. Quinn handed the marmalade cat through the door to the elderly woman who kept stranger hours then they did as vampires. The woman took the cat and closed the door without so much as a thanks.

  “Three years ago, I’d have eaten her rude ass. Mothball scent and possible dusty veins be damned,” Julian muttered as they walked away.

  Quinn shot him a censuring look, but the corner of her lips quirked in a smile as she stepped into her apartment. “So what’s your problem with Dusty? He’s harmless enough.”

  Julian closed the door and threw the locks. “That kid never would have survived the sixties. I was immortal, and I barely escaped them alive. I spent a good chunk of the decade high or tripping my balls off, but I did love Woodstock. It was a hedonistic indulgence of music, sex, and blood.”

  Quinn blinked at him, her mouth opened then closed again before she shook her head.

  “What?” he inquired.

  “Sometimes I forget how much older you are than me, and how much more of this world you’ve experienced.”

  “And you forget how brutal I once was.”

  Her forehead furrowed. “No, there’s no hiding what you’re capable of. I don’t want you to either. It’s just your talk of feeding on flower children, twenty-some-odd years before I was born. It can be a little disconcerting.”

  He grinned at her as he approached. Resting his hands on her hips, he backed her toward her bedroom. “None of those flower children were as cute as you, and they definitely didn’t smell as good.”

  “You’re an ass,” she told him.

  “I am.”

  “What did Luther have to say?”

  “He’s discovered nothing new.”

  She bit her bottom lip. “I didn’t think he would.” She focused on him again and leaned up to press a kiss against his cheek. “And I’m exhausted.” Before he could stop her, she spun out of his grasp and sauntered toward her bedroom.

  “One of these days, you’re going to let me in there.”

  “Today’s not that day,” she shot over her shoulder with a saucy smile that made his deadened heart lurch before she closed the door.