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Caridad Piñeiro
To all my friends at New Jersey Romance Writers for their support and encouragement. In particular, many, many thanks to Irene, Lois, Kathye, Anne, Patt, Mary, Shirley, Chris, Nancy, Ronnie and Ann for their caring and helpfulness. For more information on this wonderful group of writers, visit www.njromancewriters.org.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Prologue
Westchester County, October 2004
The body twitched convulsively on the floor of the cage before death stilled its movements.
Only two more rats to go and the active cell strain would be gone, leaving just the frozen samples and the journal taken from Dr. Frederick Danvers’s lab nearly a year ago. Not that either had been of much use. The journal contained no instructions on how to prepare the frozen cell samples for use in test subjects. Multiple attempts to activate the preserved strain using standard lab procedures had been dismally unsuccessful. There was little of the precious live sample left. In addition, the journal had not provided any clues as to the origin of the unusual cell strain so that more could be obtained. The project was close to failure.
A nudge with a finger to the dead rat’s body—just to make sure, since one had given a rather nasty bite once. A postmortem examination would hopefully yield some knowledge. If it didn’t, there was only one way left to secure what was needed to further the experiments. One very unpleasant way.
Unfortunately, such means were sometimes necessary when the possibility of reward was immense. And what greater prize could there be than the promise of immortality?
After all, who wouldn’t want to live forever?
Chapter 1
Westchester County, November 2004
Death would not be ignored that day.
It was in the bite of the chill wind as it ripped through the bare branches of trees, wailing plaintively. It was in the somber darkness of the clouds as it began to rain, as if they, too, were weeping.
Melissa Danvers stared down at the graves of her parents. A little more than a year ago, the ground had been too hard to bury them. Now a carpet of green, dulled by the frosts of fall, covered the earth where her parents rested. But there was still no peace for Melissa. There were too many things left unsaid and unresolved.
She murmured a prayer beneath her breath as the cries of the wind grew in intensity. Melissa almost didn’t hear the rain turn into sleet that beat a rat-a-tat-tat against her umbrella as she concentrated on the graves. She wondered what it had been like for them in those last moments before their car left the road and hurtled down the incline. Would they be alive if she had called the police when they hadn’t arrived according to schedule? Had they suffered for hours before they were found, or had their deaths been quick?
A particularly forceful gust of wind grabbed at her umbrella. Sleet stung her face and she shivered. A second later, he wrapped a strong arm around her. Looking up, she met the gaze of her family’s oldest and dearest friend. Of the man who had been so many things to her—surrogate brother, fairy godfather, protector. Now, he was all the family she had left.
“You okay?” Ryder Latimer asked as he drew her close.
She leaned into the comfort of his solid presence, which blocked the buffeting winds and provided her stability, much as he had most of her life. “I’m hanging in there. And you?”
Ryder stared down at the ground. Icy rain dripped from the brim of the fedora onto his face, but he seemed not to care. He looked paler than usual and Melissa worried that this outing was taxing his strength. He had yet to fully recover from the injuries he had suffered a few months before while assisting his FBI agent lover with a criminal investigation. “Are you feeling all right?”
He nodded and, without looking at her again, said, “I should have done more.”
“There’s nothing either of us could have done,” she replied, although her heart was heavy with remorse.
Ryder said nothing else, but she sensed that he shared her guilt. He had turned down an invitation to accompany her parents for a quiet weekend in Vermont. If he’d been driving instead of her father…She stopped herself, unwilling to begin the blame game again. Especially with Ryder, who had always been there for her. She also had to be his support now.
He handed her red roses and she laid one on each grave, pausing to pass her hand over the wet, spiky grass. Softly, beneath her breath, she said another goodbye to a mother and father she had never really known.
Ryder also laid a flower on each grave. After he was done, he took her elbow and hurried her to the limo that waited to return them to the Manhattan apartment they shared.
As she neared the car, the driver popped out of his seat and came around to open the door. She struggled with the umbrella for a moment, then slipped inside. A second later, Ryder sat in the seat opposite her and tossed off his hat.
She met his dark gaze, remembering a similar moment on the day her parents had been buried. He had been troubled then, as well. She hadn’t understood why until she had opened the envelope brought to the graveside ceremony by her father’s attorney.
With vivid recall, that day came alive again as they sat in silence while the limo pulled away.
The envelope had been old, its age apparent from the brittleness and rich yellow color of the heavy parchment. There was a patina on the envelope’s surface, as if it had been handled often.
Ryder had clearly known what it held. He’d told her it was her destiny, but nothing could have prepared her for what was contained in the neat, precise words of the letter: a legacy from an ancestor dead for well over a century.
On that day, she’d had to deal with her parents’ deaths. But then again, virtually everyone everywhere had to confront death and accept the inevitability that one day, death would come for them, as well.
Only fate sometimes interceded in ways hard to imagine.
On that day, Melissa had been forced to realize that fate had changed not only what she believed about death, but the very nature of her existence. She could no longer just be a physician dedicated to saving lives. Fate had charged her with being the companion and physician to Ryder Latimer, a one-hundred-and-forty-year-old vampire.
After the shock of it, she realized every Danvers before her had answered the call. Honor demanded she do no less. Since Ryder had always been there for her, for her family, she had felt compelled to repay him for being her champion.
In the time since then, she’d slowly learned just what her duty to Ryder entailed and how difficult it was. Handling things that couldn’t wait until the sun was weak enough for Ryder to emerge. Obtaining the blood necessary for his feedings. Giving him medical assistance when the sun, garlic or a lack of blood taxed his system.
In the last few months, it had been an even more exacting burden. After his injuries, he’d been too sick to tolerate even the weakest of sunlight, which had made him a virtual prisoner in their apartment. He’d required extra blood and medicine in an effort to help his recovery. His lover, Diana Reyes, had assisted Melissa on many an occasion, but she lacked the medical skills to deal with Ryder’s more complex needs. That was solely up to Melissa and it kept her almost constantly on edge. Both mental and physical exhaustion had become part of her daily routine.
For a brief moment, the burdens of her life had been eased by a chance encounter with Diana’s younger brother Sebastian. In just one night, he’d provided her a glimpse into the kind of life she had come to think wasn’t possible—one where she wasn’t alone. But one night was all it had been. With daylight, Melissa had been troubled by the idea of sharing the secret of Ryder’s existence and the commitment to keep him safe. And by the idea of sharing herself.
Ryder, she thought and looked at him again. He had closed his eyes and seemed to be resting. Although he was normally pale by human standards, his skin seemed almost bloodless today. She worried again that he had pushed himself too hard. As if sensing her prolonged perusal, Ryder opened his eyes and met her gaze.
“I’m okay,” he said, and Melissa wondered if mind reading was one of his vampiric abilities. Or did he just know her that well?
“You don’t look okay.”
“I’m doing fine—”
She cut him off with an angry slash of her hand. “You’re not fine. It’s been over two months, and you’re still weak. I’m worried.”
“You shouldn’t be. I’m healing slowly, but I am getting better,” Ryder insisted.
Melissa couldn’t argue that he appeared stronger and was doing more every day. But he still wasn’t healthy enough for her taste. “Your strength and energy levels—”
“I’ve never been hurt this badly before, except for…” His voice trailed off, broadcasting his reservations.
With a wave of her hand, she urged Ryder to clarify.
He dragged his fingers through his dark hair, his frustration obvious. “Except for when I was first turned. Your great-great-grandfather, William, tended to me until I seemed to get better.”
“Seemed to? It’s like being pregnant, Ryder. Either you are or—”
“I got toothy,” he said harshly and locked his gaze with hers. “I got hungry and I got wild and the fangs emerged. You don’t want to know what I was like then.”
His hands were clenched tightly by his side. Melissa reached out and grasped one fist. “I know what you were like then, from reading the first journals. But now…” She hesitated, unsure of how to continue without treading on very treacherous ground.
The journals her ancestors had kept could be an amazing source of information regarding Ryder’s vampirism. She’d managed to go through about a dozen before one of them had been stolen from her office.
“One of the journals is missing and you’re uncomfortable that I’ve asked you to approach Sebastian for help?” Ryder questioned.
“Am I that easy to read?” she wondered aloud.
Ryder chuckled and said, “A big hint, Danvers. Poker is not your game.”
Melissa shook her head in amusement, then brought up the argument they’d had often since someone had broken into her office a few days ago and stolen one of the Danvers’s memoirs. “We can keep the journals safe by ourselves. We don’t need to ask anyone else for help.”
Ryder shook his head. “No, we can’t. At a minimum, we should ask Diana for her advice. As for Sebastian, his skills would be invaluable.”
Though she was uneasy about bringing Sebastian back into her life, she knew Ryder was right. Those journals were too important to risk. They needed copies—encrypted, impossible-to-steal copies. Because Melissa was convinced there was information in her ancestor’s notes that could help her heal Ryder faster.
Her father had concocted a mix to counteract the effects of too much sun and other poisons on Ryder’s system. What was left of the mixture had saved Ryder’s life two months ago. And with today’s medical advances, she hoped she could make a difference. Perhaps even find a cure.
Then Ryder might not need her as his constant companion. She could have a life with…Sebastian again came to mind, as he did too often lately.
“I stopped hoping for a cure a long time ago,” Ryder said quietly, again reading her thoughts. “I don’t want you to have your hopes dashed, as well.”
But they’ve already been destroyed. She suddenly wanted to lash out at him. Ever since she’d discovered her duty, as next in the Danvers line, her hopes and dreams had virtually disappeared. Somehow she’d persevered, creating the illusion of normalcy in much the same way Ryder adopted the semblance of humanity. The sham had worked for a little while. But now there were recent happenings in both their lives that suddenly made her wonder What if?
For starters, Ryder was in love with a human and, from what she could see, the feeling was very mutual. Of course his relationship with Diana hadn’t progressed to the living-together stage. The marriage thing seemed out of the question. But what if Diana was here to stay? Would that free Melissa of her duty?
And if it didn’t, and Melissa somehow suspected that it didn’t, what about her life? What about the possibility of love?
Only, she reminded herself, no one had mentioned love that night, only sex. Which, with Sebastian, had been…She wouldn’t call it a mistake, but it had certainly been unplanned. Spontaneous. Well, at least the first time. The second and third…Being a modern, mature, Sex and the City kind of girl, she knew that one night with a man did not a romance make. But in the very few and very infrequent free moments since then, she’d wondered whether a second or third or fourth date with Sebastian might change things.
After the craziness of such thoughts, logic would return and she would acknowledge that what had happened that night had been simple transference. Or at least that’s what one of her psychiatrist friends would call it. She’d taken the caring shown by Sebastian toward his sister and toward Ryder and transferred it to herself. With her parents’ recent deaths and Ryder seriously injured, she’d been vulnerable, starved for affection. It had resulted in a very pleasant interlude.
But that was all it had been or ever could be. In addition to the constraints of being both a doctor and Ryder’s companion, she wasn’t ready to trust her heart to anyone. She might not ever be ready.
It’s not as if she’d learned how to trust—how to love—from her parents. They had been emotionally distant, at best. Her mother had been a physically frail creature, needing most of her husband’s attention and having little patience for the inquisitive and energetic child Melissa had been. Her father’s time had been taken up by his medical practice. And, of course, as she had learned at his death, by Ryder and his demands.
Later, medical school and her residency had curbed what was left of her personal life. Her few encounters during that time had intentionally lacked emotional investment. Since becoming Ryder’s companion, her social life had become nonexistent.
Except, of course, for Sebastian.
But if she was ever to have any life at all, Melissa had to take control of things. To have control, she needed more information than what was currently at her disposal.
She wrapped her arms around herself, more than a little uneasy about the path she was about to embark upon. She wasn’t someone who normally challenged the status quo, but maybe a year with a vampire—and that one night with Sebastian—had left her feeling a little rebellious. For too long, she had followed without question. Guarded her heart to avoid being rejected. In spite of her protests against seeking help to safeguard the journals, she had no doubt the possibility of a normal life was worth the risk. Even if that help—that risk—came from Sebastian.
When she spoke, the strength of her conviction was clear. “I’ll go to Sebastian tomorrow, but for the other…I’m not asking permission, Ryder. I plan on scouring those journals for any hint of a cure. With or without your help.”
“And nothing—”
“Nothing, not even getting toothy, is going to stop me.”
Chapter 2
Sebastian Reyes had a problem. Or rather, his new client had one. They had gotten the SQL Slammer virus because someone in their IT department forgot to shut down Port 1434. He entered the user name and password he had been provided, cleared his client’s firewall and remotely accessed their network. With a few keystrokes, he had a patch going to fix the issue.
He grabbed three squeeze stress balls and pushed away from his desk, where his computer was monitoring the progress. He tossed the first stress ball high into the air, followed it with the others, juggling them to pass the time while his computer ground away. As he walked around, stress squeezies flying through the air, Sebastian occasionally shot a look at the monitor where a large dialogue box announced how much of the patch was finished.
Not much longer, he realized, pleased his new computer and server setup were working so well. Even though the dotcom bust had finally reached the company for which he had been working, resulting in its bankruptcy, he’d recently sold one of his computer games. And he’d turned the frequent requests from former clients—such as the frantic call regarding the virus—into a consulting business for those who needed their networks operating, and the private things on their systems remaining private. So instead of doing the nine-to-five office routine, he worked out of the apartment he shared with his FBI agent sister, Diana, writing new games and monitoring for performance and security issues. Plus he got to do other fun things, like hacking into the systems of clients and other consultants to make sure everything was in working order. Nonconformist that he was, he loved the hacking best.
All in all, he couldn’t complain. At twenty-eight, he was making a decent living with less stress, and he was his own boss. He smiled, tossed the balls around, then stopped his juggling as he noticed the patch was complete.
Sebastian laid the squeeze balls on the desktop and ended the remote session just as the doorbell rang.
He opened the door and stopped short.
Melissa Danvers.
Dr. Melissa Danvers, vampire keeper, still looking as stunning today as she had nearly three months ago when she’d first dropped that bombshell on him. He’d thought it a shame someone so very beautiful was a crackpot, until his sister confirmed that Ryder Latimer was a vampire.
“Hi. You’re the last thing I expected to see,” he said, wondering what she was doing on his doorstep, but pleased nonetheless.
She held her Coach purse before her and nervously fingered the straps, looking decidedly prim, proper and uneasy. But that uneasiness couldn’t dim her beauty. For months, he’d tried to convince himself his recollections of her had been suspect, colored by the tension and danger of the night they had shared.
They hadn’t. Wheat-blond hair framed an oval-shaped face that was classically beautiful. From the straight, slightly pug nose to a heart-shape mouth with lips…
Don’t think about those lips, he warned himself. Just keep it simple. Meet her gaze directly and firmly and…
Only the blue of her changeling eyes was a stormy gray tonight—the color of trouble. So he shouldn’t have been surprised when she said, “I have a problem.”
“A problem?” Panic raced through him. There was only one problem he could think of that would bring her to his door. They’d taken precautions when they’d made love that night, but of course, nothing was foolproof. His gut tightened with concern. He was barely capable of taking care of himself, much less a child or a wife. His father would have…
He refused to think about the chastisement that would have been sure to come from his father, if he’d still been alive. Sebastian was no longer the hesitant little boy always striving for his Papi’s acceptance. He was a grown man, and he knew what he had to do.
He motioned Melissa into the apartment, then closed the door behind her and strove for a totally-in-control kind of voice. “Wrong. No problema. Whatever you need, Melissa. Are you Catholic?”
A shocked expression crossed her patrician features. “Forthright, aren’t you? And no, I’m Episcopalian.”
He squared his shoulders and, with what he hoped seemed like bravado, nodded. “I’m a responsible kind of guy. And you’re smart. Attractive. And—”
“Healthy. See. I have all my teeth,” Melissa said with some bite and forced her mouth wide open to display her perfectly white and straight teeth.
Sebastian narrowed his eyes as he considered her carefully. “Do you always hide behind a joke?”
She shook her head, as if chastising herself, and her shoulder-length hair swayed with the movement. “We’re getting off on the wrong foot. I’m sorry. It’s not a personal kind of problem. I need your techno-knowledge.”
Sebastian released a long breath and was surprised that mixed in with the relief was a little regret. Maybe even a bit of anger. Three months of not being able to stop thinking about her and the only reason she was on his doorstep now was because she needed his expertise. “So I guess what happened between us was—”
Melissa held up her hand to silence him. “Please don’t be offended, but I thought we both knew that it was a result of the danger and—”
“The tension. Right. Nothing else.” He had known someone like Melissa would have no interest in someone like him. They were too different. It was why he hadn’t called her after their night together. It was why he shouldn’t have been thinking of her all this time. He stuffed his hands into his pockets—he was too tempted to move a stray lock of her silky blond hair from her face. That would be wrong. So totally wrong.
“What kind of computer help do you need?” He struggled for a neutral tone.
When her gaze met his, something big and dangerous flared to life inside him. She hesitated, seeming to recognize what he was feeling. “Actually, I’m rethinking this.”
Despite her statement, she took the seat Sebastian offered and settled herself on the black leather couch in the living room that doubled as his office. He sat before her on the coffee table. Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his thighs and clasped his hands together. He was fighting a losing battle not to touch her. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
Melissa paused again, clearly troubled. With a nod of her head, she explained. Sebastian patiently listened to her description of the Danvers family journals and how one had recently been taken from her office. That didn’t give him a clue as to why his help was needed until Melissa finished by saying that Ryder and Diana thought someone should scan the remaining journals as a safeguard.
He gave a careless shrug. “Scanning is easy enough to do. But someone could still snatch the one machine with the images. Unless you encrypt the files and the database. Put the pieces at different secure locations.”
Melissa smiled. “That’s why you’re the best person for this job. You know exactly what we need to do. And you already know Ryder’s secret.”
“It would take a day or—”
Melissa quickly jumped in. “It needs to be foolproof. No one can hack into this.”
From the tone of her voice, Sebastian gathered there was something she wasn’t telling him. It bothered him that she wasn’t being totally honest. “Not giving me all the details, are you?”
She flushed and shifted nervously. “I’m not really sure—”
He moved off the table and sat down next to her. “And I’m not sure I want to be dragged into something without all the information.”
The stain of color on her cheeks deepened and she looked away. Sebastian lost the battle then. He cupped her chin and applied gentle pressure until she faced him. Her skin was smooth and warm beneath his fingers. As soft and silky as it had been the night they…He ripped himself from those thoughts. They were a dangerous distraction. “If there’s more, I need to know.”