Embrace the Night

Page 143



She breathed a sigh of relief when she reached home. Inside, she pulled off her cape and gloves and removed her hat. For a moment, she paused outside her bedroom door, her curiosity again tempting her to peek inside. Only her promise to Gabriel to let him rest undisturbed kept her hand from the latch.

With a shake of her head, she turned away from the bedroom and began affixing garlic around all the windows and the front door. When that was done, she took the bottle of holy water and sparingly dribbled the liquid across the floor in front of the door and along the windowsills.

As she sprinkled holy water over and around the windows, it occurred to her that such precautions would not only keep Nina out, they would also serve to keep Gabriel in.

She'd treated every room but the bedroom where Gabriel slept when there was a knock at the door.

"Who's there?" she called, images of a female vampire with bloody fangs jumping to the forefront of her mind even though it was still daylight.

"It's Maurice. Sara Jayne, are you all right?" "I'm fine. I'll see you at the theater tonight."

"Are you sure you're all right?" Maurice asked. "Can I get you anything?" "I'm fine, really."

"Sara Jayne, please let me come in."

"Not now, Maurice. I'm taking a nap. I'll see you tonight." "Very well, cheri," he agreed with obvious reluctance. " Au revoir."

Sara pressed her forehead against the door. She wouldn't be able to keep Maurice at bay for long. They were supposed to be engaged, after all. He wouldn't be pleased to learn that Gabriel had come back into her life. Somehow, she'd have to find the words to tell him that she was breaking their engagement. He wouldn't like that, either, but she knew now that she could never marry Maurice, or any other man. Her heart and soul belonged to Gabriel, now and always.

Gabriel.

A vampire.

It was still hard to believe, to accept. In spite of all she had seen, all he had said, it still seemed like a nightmare, too hideous to be true…

She felt suddenly cold all over as she recalled the nightmares that had plagued her here in Paris not so long ago.

They hadn't been nightmares at all, she thought, recalling the horrible images that had invaded her sleep, the visions of a fiend with hideous fangs and blood-red eyes. They'd been a premonition of things to come. She knew that now, because Gabriel was the demon in her dreams.