A Vampire for Christmas

chapter ONE





Jersey Shore, December 23, 1931



THE GALE-DRIVEN SNOW lashed at his skin, tearing into his flesh like stinging nettles, but Damien did not budge from his position high atop the lighthouse tower. Even when the nor’easter threatened to rip him from the narrow ledge, Damien held his ground.



The force of the wind was such that each gust delivered a punishing body blow, but he relished the pain. He deserved it. The physical discomfort was nothing compared to the anguish in his heart.



Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Tomorrow it would be a year that he’d lost Angelina. For the second time.



The first time he’d lost her, it had taken over a century for her to return to him.



The woman he had come to know as Angelina had looked slightly different each time they’d met, although there had been strong physical similarities with each of her apparitions. The raven hair and jewel-like green eyes. The voluptuous figure any man would want to touch. Full lips with a Cupid’s bow meant to be kissed.



What hadn’t changed was Angelina’s spirit. Her inherent goodness brought light to his soul. Her kindness had called to him on two occasions over the past century and on two occasions he had failed her.



And his failure had killed her.



Damien raised his head into the wind and howled with the pain of her loss and his guilt, but the storm was such that his cry blended with the screeching winds. Only he heard his anguished voice.



How much longer will I have to wait for her? Will she ever return to me? Damien wondered, peering into an after noon sky made so dark by the storm it seemed almost as if night had already descended. Perfect for a vampire like him, but not so good for any poor wretch who might be caught in the tempest.



He had battled such dangerous gales in his earlier life as a ship’s captain. Dared the sea and Poseidon himself in those misspent hell-raising days before he’d lost his mortal life.



His father—the one who had not even deigned to claim the bastard son who had slipped from his lover’s womb—had heard of those adventures and proclaimed Damien was not his, but rather the Devil’s spawn. The old man had never had a kind word for him nor had he ever believed that Damien would make something of himself. With each and every overture Damien had made, his father had rebuked him.



So Damien had stopped trying to please the old man. Instead, he had pleased himself—in every conceivable way with any available woman in every port in which he had ever set foot.



Until he met Angelina…the first time.



His gut fisted into a knot once more as he thought of her. Acknowledged all that he had lost because of his own ego. He tightened his grip on the edge of the railing as a particularly powerful squall nearly cost him his precarious footing on the slim ledge around the beacon of the lighthouse. He was tempted to let the wind take him. On occasion lately he had thought about tossing himself over the side, down onto the rocks below. As a vampire, the fall would likely not kill him, but it would break his body and Lord knew he deserved to suffer. Maybe after, the kiss of the morning sun would finish him off and end his insufferable existence.



But Damien would not embrace death tonight.



Angelina had come to him just before Christmas Eve on both of the other occasions. In his heart, he prayed that she might somehow return to him again soon.



There had been a sense of anticipation building for days, warning him that something unexpected approached. Some would have said it was the excitement of the upcoming holiday, but Christmas had never had any special appeal for Damien. His mother had tried her best to make it special, but with their meager existence, that had been difficult. She always somehow managed to scrape together a little gift and roast a scrawny chicken to perfection.



Sadly, Damien had not realized that his mother’s love had been what had made the holidays bearable. Much like it had been Angelina and her love that had first brought joy into his life.



If by some miracle she did return this Christmas, Damien vowed that he would not fail her again.



He was about to return to his home at the base of the lighthouse when the sweep of the beacon highlighted a dim shape on the water. He squinted and looked hard against the driving snow. With another turn of the light he noted the hazy outline on the surface of the ocean. Scrutinizing the horizon more intently, he confirmed that there was a ship at sea, battling the immense surges caused by the winds.



He wondered what would possess someone to be out on a day like today, but as the vessel drew closer, the vague outline sharpened and he recognized its shape.



Fury rose up in him at the sight of the rumrunner manned by his nemesis, Captain Pedro Ramirez. No wonder the boat was out tonight. The vampire captain and his immortal crew would have little fear of death in the churning waters any mortal man would avoid.



As Damien watched, the crew struggled with something cumbersome along the schooner’s deck. To his surprise, they raised a skiff over the lip of the starboard side and lowered the small vessel into the rough seas. The boat pushed away from the schooner, manned by two crewmen who furiously rowed through the surging waves. Time and time again the sea tossed the meager skiff up into the air before crashing it back down against the water’s surface.



Still the vampire crew pushed ahead, unmindful of the dangerous ocean.



Damien wondered anew why they would be out in such weather and why they were headed directly toward his lighthouse. But Damien understood that Ramirez delighted in torturing him. In taking Angelina from him, time and time again. With Christmas Eve arriving tomorrow, maybe Ramirez wanted to remind Damien of what he had lost last year.



As the skiff hit the shore, the two crewmen jumped overboard into the pounding surf and hauled the vessel up onto the sand to beach it. Then they reached in and dragged out a long, lumpy roll of canvas clumsily bound with rope. They tossed the package onto the sand and then dragged it upward until it was well beyond the reach of the angry surf.



Then they pulled the skiff off the beach and back into the waves for a return trip to the rumrunner.



A present from Ramirez? Not likely, but Damien couldn’t resist the temptation of the package. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but he was already dead, both physically and spiritually, so who cared what danger lurked within the bundle?



With a surge of vampire speed, he nearly flew down the spiral staircase and out the lighthouse door, racing over the sand and snow to the package not far from the water’s edge. As he approached, he could see the brownish-red blotches along the outside of the canvas. Even with the wind, his vampire senses picked up the smell of blood and the hushed heartbeat pulsing beneath the fabric.



Damien dropped to his knees and swiftly undid the thick ropes wrapped tightly around the rough bloodstained canvas. His fingers shook as he wondered who was trapped within. As he both hoped and feared that it was Angelina.



The wind picked up one edge of the cloth, what he now saw had once been a sail, as he finished untying the rope. Freed, the sail flew upward into Damien’s face, strong enough to open a gash along his cheek.



Ignoring the wound, which his vampire body would heal in the space of a few heartbeats, he ripped the canvas sheet away from his face and held it down with one knee. But before he could undo the rest of the bundle, a hand fell from beneath the other edge of the canvas.



Petite and bloodied. A woman’s hand. Achingly familiar.



Angelina.



She lay naked in the center of the sail, her raven hair spilling out against a mosaic of bright red and rusty brown on the white canvas. There was no denying the scent of blood, but more powerful was her familiar aroma. Even with the storm swirling around him, her natural perfume filled his senses, making him think of bright summer days and fields of wildflowers.



Impossible. Wonderful. He reached for her, encircling her in his arms. The heat of her blood bathed his hands. Seeped through the thin wet fabric of his cotton shirt.



He drew her close and kissed her temple, detecting the thready pulse of life beneath his lips.



She was alive, he thought with joy. As her eyelids fluttered open, recognition came alive in their emerald depths.



“Damien? Is it really you?” she said in the voice that had been haunting his dreams for nearly a year. He realized then that her voice had not changed during any of her visits. Each word she spoke was like music, strumming elation and desire to life deep in his gut. Her voice wrought peace in his soul, as it had every time she had come into his life.



“It’s really me, Angelina. This time nothing will take you from me.”