Darkyn - Private Demon Part 32

"You're an heiress, you own a museum, you have a huge mansion on Lake Michigan, and you're the only other Kyn in the world like me. That automatically makes you my best friend." Alex laughed as Jema hugged her. "I expect great Christmas presents, by the way."

After Alex went back to Derabend Hall, Thierry seemed restless. Jema had sent the household staff on a month-long vacation, to give her time to adjust to her new life, but she didn't want to stay at Shaw House. She told him that later in the evening when they went for a walk by the lake.

"I want you to meet my family." Thierry said after he told her about Marcel and Liliette.

"Are you sure you want me to?" Jema stopped and looked up at him. "I feel as if I know you better than anyone in the world, but in reality we met only a few days ago." She hesitated before she added, "Your wife, Angelica, how long did you know her?"

"We grew up together."

"Maybe we should take more time to-Thierry." Her feet left the ground as he hoisted her up in his arms. "You can't carry me off like a caveman."

"It tempts me." He held her so that their faces were close. "It is true that we have shared only a few days together in this world. But think of all we shared in the dream realm. We saw the best and worst of each other, Jema, and it did not change how I felt. It made my love stronger. You made me stronger. In all the years I spent with Angelica, she never did that. She never shared herself with me as you have."

"So we take a chance together?"

"I am willing, if you are." He kissed her. "Would you come back to New Orleans with me? Jamys wishes to become acquainted with you, and so do my brother and my aunt. I can teach you how to hunt, and to live as Kyn. I will not allow Alexandra to poke you with too many needles."

Jema wanted to go at once, wherever Thierry wanted to take her, but there was one person holding her back.

Valentin Jaus. She had so many questions about his involvement in her life. The way he had spoken to her and held her while they were dancing at the masque... he had acted like a man in love.

Was he?

"Before I say yes," Jema said, "and it's going to be yes, Thierry, I need to do something."

Thierry walked her over to Jaus's house, but stayed outside. "I will wait here. It is best."

Alex and Michael were staying with Jaus until he recovered from the surgery Alex had performed to reattach his arm. Jema saw that Alex had some reservations about letting her see him, but a.s.sured her she wouldn't be long.

"He's taken some hard knocks in the last couple of days," Alex said. "Thierry cut off his sword arm, and while I've got it back together, it's never going to work the way it did."

"Is he in love with me, Alex?" Jema asked.

She shrugged. "You need to ask him that question."

Valentin was in his bed reading a report when Jema went in. "Miss Shaw. How kind of you to visit me."

"I don't think we can be Mr. Jaus and Miss Shaw anymore, Valentin." She went over and sat on the side of his bed.

Could this man really have secretly loved her all these years? Why hadn't he said anything to her? "I'm so sorry about what happened at your party."

"I thought it was one of my better ones," he joked.

How could she put it without embarra.s.sing him? "I meant, I'm sorry I didn't realize how you felt about me. I should have guessed."

"How I feel about you as my neighbor?" When she shook her head, he frowned. "Then I am confused."

"I'm in love with Thierry Durand," she said, not to hurt him, but to make the point. "Suddenly I'm noticing a lot of things I never have in the past."

She glanced over at the wall, where it appeared he had taken down a great many paintings recently. The only photo left in the room was that of Jaus holding a dark-haired baby. The baby's face was turned away from the camera, but Jaus was looking down on the child in a way that made Jema s.h.i.+ver.

"My G.o.dchild," Jaus said when he followed the direction of her gaze. "You know that we cannot have children.

Alex has told you?"

She nodded. "I never expected to, so it wasn't a big disappointment. I just..." She made a frustrated gesture.

"Alex believes I infected you with my blood," he continued. "If I did so, I a.s.sure you it was not deliberate. I hope you will forgive me someday for my part in this."

"Forgive you? What about me? I feel as if I've done something terrible to you by falling in love with Thierry." She gave him an uncertain look. "Does that sound completely conceited?"

"My dear Jema." He took her hand in his. "You are a beautiful young woman. Were you not attached, I would gladly take you out dancing whenever you wished. But that is all it would have been."

She bit her lower lip. "Really?"

"It has been a pleasure to know you as my neighbor." He bent over to kiss the back of her hand. Even lying in bed, Jaus made the gesture seem completely natural. "Go back to the man you love, and be happy."

She searched his face for some indication that he was lying to her. All she saw was a distant affection and sincerity.

"I guess I was reading into things too much." On impulse, she bent over and kissed his cheek. "I hope you feel better soon. Thierry and I are going to New Orleans. I'll write and let you know how it goes, if that's okay?"

"I would like nothing better," he a.s.sured her.

Alexandra watched Jema Shaw walk out of Jaus's house.

She stood at the window long enough to see Thierry pick up his sygkenis and whirl her around in the snowy air before carrying her off. It was a terribly romantic moment, one that panged even Alex's decidedly unromantic soul.

"I'm going to check on Val," she told Cyprien, who was working on his laptop.

"Do not be long." He gave her a direct look. "I have found a bedroom we have not slept in yet, and there is the matter of the shrieking o.r.g.a.s.m you owe me."

Alex went to Jaus's room. He was sitting up in bed now, and she felt sure he would be back on his feet in another day. When she looked in, Jaus wasn't in bed, but standing by his window, watching the snowfall.

He'd taken off the sling and the dressings, leaving his arm bare. The moonlight poured silver over him, created a thin line of shadow on the surgical site. Despite Kyn healing, Valentin would always carry a scar from having his arm severed. The limb had been separated too long from his body, Alex thought, to regenerate completely. He might never use a sword again.

She didn't want to guess what sort of scar losing Jema had left on his heart.

He wasn't looking at the snowfall, Alex realized. He was looking down at the seawall, where Jema and Thierry had been walking.

Alex started to say something, and then she saw the moonlight silver a tear slowly winding down Valentin's face.

She turned away and quietly left him there, as Jema had, alone in the moonlight.

Read on for a preview of Lynn Viehl's next novel of the Darkyn

DARK NEED.

Coming from Signet Eclipse in June 2006

Despite the ninety degree heat and soup-thick humidity, a long line of patrons were waiting outside Infusion. Sam found an empty s.p.a.ce halfway up the block, parked, and flipped down the visor to display the unit ID card. Harry was busy staring back at the club line.

"What is this place, like that Rocky Horror movie?" he asked, disbelief escalating his bushy eyebrows.

"You're stuck in the seventies, pal." Sam noted a couple pa.s.sing by them: a young man who had tricked himself out to clone Marilyn Manson; his sulky companion, a Cuban girl, had affected more of a Daisy Fuentes on Acid look. "This is beach goth." And not the kind of people or place she'd have expected a cla.s.s act like Lena Caprell to frequent.

Harry grumbled all the way from the car to the front entrance of the nightclub, where a sign by the door indicated the cover was twenty bucks. The door man, a muscular tank in a surprisingly nice tux, stood up as Sam and Harry cut the line.

"Turn it around." A meaty hand came up to make a stop sign. "You have to wait like the rest of them."

"But we have special invitations from the city." Sam flashed her s.h.i.+eld, and the bouncer rolled his eyes before he jerked open the club's steel front door. "Thanks."

It took a moment for Sam's eyes to adjust to the near total darkness inside, and then she took in the basic layout.

Infusion was cavernous for a beach club, lighting and sound equipment hanging from a flat black ceiling thirty feet above her head. There were plenty of tiny tables and stools crowded around a huge gray slate dance floor, and polished chrome-and-gla.s.s bars that stretched the length of three walls. Bunches of red, oval-shaped lights glittered from the shadows, giving the impression of hundreds of watchful, vicious eyes.

"Welcome to my nightmare," Harry muttered.

Like the bouncer, the bartenders also wore beautifully tailored tuxes, and had their hair slicked back from handsome, bored faces. The waitresses sported abbreviated black French maid outfits, but without the usual mini white ap.r.o.ns and mob caps. No, the decor was definitely red and black-heavy on the black.

Music started up unexpectedly, and Harry flinched as Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came screeching out of the oversized speakers above their heads.

"See the office?" he shouted to be heard over Kurt Cobain.

Sam spotted a plain door off to one side. "Over there, I think," she yelled back.

They found the door locked, and a shouted inquiry at one of the bartenders nearby revealed that the owner had not yet arrived.

"I don't know when Mr. h.e.l.l will be in," the young man bellowed at Sam.

She frowned. "Mr. h.e.l.l?"

"Ell," the bartender repeated, emphasizing it. "Ell for Lucan."

"Christ, he only has one name?" When the bartender nodded, Harry made a disgusted sound and jerked his head toward the entrance. "Sam, this s.h.i.+t is gonna blow out my ear drums. I'll go canvas the line."

She nodded and caught the arm of a pa.s.sing waitress, showing her and the bartender Lena's photo. "Either of you recognize this woman?"

The bartender shook his head and went to deliver two screwdrivers to a couple of middle-aged women at the end of the bar.

"Sorry, no," the waitress said before she hurried off with a tray heavily loaded with Mai Tais. That was the same answer Sam got from everyone, and after an hour of coming up empty, she was ready to leave.

The pounding music and clouds of cigarette smoke had given her a brutal headache, and if Lena Caprell had ever come to Infusion, she'd apparently done it invisibly.

"Sam." Harry appeared and watched the gyrating bodies on the dance floor for a moment. "No luck outside. You?"

"Manager still hasn't shown up. I think we'd better-" A huddle in one corner caught her eye. "We got a deal going down over there."

Harry squinted. "Yeah. Take two o'clock, I'll come up from nine."

The five men and women grouped together in the corner stood shoulder-to-shoulder, half-hidden between a square column and one wall of the club. Sam strolled up, peered over one shoulder and saw a woman in the center. Ten hands were doing various intimate things to the woman's body.

"Hey." Sam prodded a back. "Time for a cigarette."

"I don't smoke." The thirties-something man glanced over his shoulder and bared some fake plastic fangs. "Would you care to join us?"

"You talking up my date?" Harry asked as he came up on the man's other side. He peered at the guy's mouth with mocking astonishment. "Halloween was over in October, buddy."

One thing Sam hadn't been seeing was any sign of drunkenness or drug use, two favorite activities at the downtown beach clubs.

"Let me talk to her." She pushed two shoulders apart and stepped into the huddle. "You okay here, lady?"

The woman's hair was a tangle, and her b.u.t.ton-up dress was open to the waist, but nothing was hanging out. Her eyes focused on Sam after a couple of seconds.

"I'm fine." She leaned back against one of the men, who cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "So fine."

Everyone smiled at Sam and Harry. Everyone wore plastic fangs.

Swingers playing overs.e.xed vampires. It took all kinds. "Look," Sam said, "why don't you folks find a nice hotel?"

"Is there a problem here, officer?"

Sam swiveled and nearly slammed into a broad chest. She looked up into ghost-gray eyes. "Who are you?"

The man took her hand in his, the touch of the black velvet gloves he wore shocking her. "I'm Lucan, the owner of the club. You wanted to speak to me."

What kind of man wears velvet? In July? Sam tugged her hand from his. "Detective Brown, Fort Lauderdale homicide.

My partner, Detective Quinn. We need to ask you a couple of questions, Mr. Lucan."

"It's simply Lucan." His thin lips curled into something between a sneer and a smile. "Shall we go to my office?"

His pale eyes briefly flashed up at the speakers. "It's the only place you'll hear my answers."

Sam heard Harry wheeze and saw more people lighting up cigarettes around them. She leaned close to him. "Let me handle this; you go outside before you have an attack."

Harry scowled but trudged off.

Lucan waited until she looked at him, turned, and walked through the crowd to the office. Sam followed, studying him from behind. He didn't match the description of the suspect; he was too big. She figured him to be at least six-four and two-twenty. He wore his silver-blond hair like a lion's mane, which should have come off stupid but didn't. Even the silly velvet gloves didn't seem prissy, but he had huge hands.

How would it feel... Sam shoved aside the mental image of black velvet on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Quit thinking with your crotch.