chapter Nineteen
Alexis sat in the front row, heavily guarded on either side by Ethan's security team. Like someone was going to snatch her or something.
Seamus was two seats over from her, and she could practically smell him sweating. She felt a certain amount of guilt over stressing him out. Hey, she lived for her job, or had up until a week ago. She knew what it was like to put your heart and soul and hours of work into something, only to watch it fail.
It sucked. Failure was like physical pain. She was so TypeA it was scary, and she could sympathize with Seamus. Leaning around the brawny henchman on her right, she whispered to Seamus, "I'm sorry for distracting Ethan. I'll do whatever is necessary to help him win the election. Just tell me your strategy maybe we can schedule a meeting for tomorrow to get me up to speed."
He stared at her. "I think that's an excellent idea. We can verse you in proper protocol, such as not speaking during a presidential debate."
Tight-ass.Alexis sat back in her seat and studied the stage. She actually couldn't hear them all that well. "The acoustics in here are lousy," she told her bodyguard.
He glanced down at her, all dark hair and pale skin. "We have better hearing than you. It's not necessary to have it any louder."
"Well." So she would just sit there and admire Ethan's package in that gray suit. His opponent, Donatelli , was a very creepy dude. He wore expensive clothing, but his frame was so lean, he almost looked effeminate. Yet there was nothing gentle about the way he gripped that podium and fired accusations at Ethan.
He pointed fingers at the moderator tugged at his tie, looked exasperated, and cast a cold, hard, arrogant stare across the entire audience. At one point, he said, "With all due respect, Mr. President, that is the most outrageous lie I have ever heard. We don't believe you, do we?" He held his arm out to encompass the audience. "We think it's time you told the truth to us." That got Alexis riled up."Bastard."
"Quiet," Seamus reprimanded her.
Right.She'd forgotten she was in a room with two thousand vampires, all of whom could probably hear her speaking if they tried hard enough. That was vaguely (disturbing, but she'd better get used to it, since she was probably going to be spending a lot of time with this crowd for the next decade.
They all looked very normal.Acted very normal. It was all civilized. Just like an election in any other democratic country.
Ethan didn't look annoyed by Donatelli . He just smiled. "The truth is that we have prospered as a nation for the last forty years.
No deaths by mortals, zero poverty, low crime, and a stable source of blood through the banks we've established. I don't have to lie. The facts- speak for themselves.Including your criminal record."
Go, Ethan.
Donatellipounded the podium. "I am not a crook."
Hello, Nixon. Alexis fought the urge to roll her eyes.
"Read my lips." Donatelli turned to the audience. "I stand for your interests. No new laws, no new restrictions. No new taxes.''
Alexis frowned and glanced down at Seamus. Did he notice anything odd here?
"My goal is to see a blood bag in every refrigerator."
The sudden need to giggle overcame her.
"We will bury you, Carrick."
Alexis slapped a hand over her mouth and smothered her snort. Now Donatelli was borrowing from the Cold War Russian dicta tor , Kruschev .
Seamus shot her a glare.
Ethan just raised an eyebrow and gave Donatelli a cool look of dismissal. He turned to the moderator. "Next question, please."
Thirty minutes later her butt was numb, but she had a whole new respect for her vampire lover, soon-to-be roommate. He handled himself with dignity and intelligence, and an excited Seamus actually smiled at her as Ethan and Donatelli left the stage.
"He didgood ," Seamus said, his shoulders sagging in relief.
She grinned back at him. "That's awesome. I'm sure all the prep you did with him helped quite a bit."
Now he was the one rolling his eyes. "You don't do well as a suck-up."
" Brittany 's better at it than me. Maybe because she's sincere and I'm really not," Alexis admitted.
Seamus laughed. "I guess if Ethan finds it necessary to marry a mortal, at least he chose a lawyer. You should understand how to play politics."
"Yes, I do. And my sister's half-vampire. That should count for something."
"It does."
"Plus I sort of speak Spanish."
"Sort of?"
"Probably more than you," she defended herself.
"I speak English, Gaelic, and French," he said.
"Ooh, la, la." Alexis glanced around the room, noticing everyone was standing up and milling around. "What now? Can I leave? What's Ethan's schedule for the night?"
"He just needs to get his microphone off and speak to a few political analysts. Then he'll be heading upstairs to rest. We'll go over the results and opinion polls tomorrow night. And it would be smart if you're there so we can discuss your roll."
"Perfect." But tonight her roll was vamp vixen. She had the idea to hot-tail it upstairs and be ready for Ethan when he got back.
The idea of going down on the president had some real appeal. Too bad she hadn't been successful projecting her thoughts to Ethan. She could wing that one his way now that he was offstage.
"Okay, I'm taking off then."
"Take your guards," Seamus said firmly.
"Sure thing."
Donatellithrew down the mike in the dressing room Carrick had provided for him. He hated giving these speeches. He was much more persuasive one on one. And it had thrown him off when Carrick had strolled into the room with the sister of an Impure on his arm, looking very much a couple.
The crowd had lapped that up, and it had thoroughly irritated Donatelli .
After an early mistake he had never remarried because he'd rather cut his own head off than be latched on to a vampire wife for all of eternity. And mortal women were excellent for affairs, but he'd never enjoyed any of them enough to propose marriage, no matter how short term.
Carrick was a fool, in his opinion, if he intended to chain himself to a mortal. Then again, he'd always thought Carrick a fool.Which was why Donatelli needed to overthrow him and his concept of government. They were undead. Vampires possessed uncommon speed, skill, and agility. And what did they do? They hid among mortals, imitating their weak democracy.
Donatelliwas going to restore the Vampire Nation to its previous glory, when men trembled in fear at their immortality and power was rightfully theirs. It would be his.All of it.Unless Carrick won the election.
The dressing room was well appointed, with buttery leather sofas and a minifridge stocked with blood bags. Carrick was ever the gracious host.
Donatelliwondered how gracious he would be when he went upstairs and discovered a corpse in his suite.
The thought of that was the only thing that kept him from flinging the glass coffee table through the wall.
Alexis ditched her bodyguards at the elevator when it stopped on the twenty-fourth floor.
"I know it's your job to escort me, but see, the thing is, I can't have you in Mr. Carrick's room with me."
"But Miss Baldizzi , that's what Mr. Fox told us to do. We're supposed to wait with you until Mr. Carrick returns."
"I know, but Mr. Fox isn't Mr. Carrick, and which do you think Mr. Carrick would prefer when he gets back?Me hanging around playing Scrabble with you guys or just me naked in bed waiting for him?"
Both bodyguards blushed profusely, their jaws dropping open, which was kind of cute. Alexis was getting rather fond of their silent, brawny presence, but she had to draw the line at the elevator door.
"Exactly, boys, just what I thought. Thanks for theride, I'll see you tomorrow night." She waved cheerfully from the hallway, pushing the elevator button so the door closed and it started to descend. "Good riddance."
Swiping her key card, she entered Ethan's suite. She didn't have time to prep in her room, so she was just going straight for the kill. The minute she was in the door, she unzipped her dress and let it drop to the floor. Retrieving it so Ethan wouldn't trip onit, she gave a sigh of relief. The thing had been cutting her across the armpits all night long.
There were no lights on and she felt along the wall for the switch, hoping Ethan had closed his blinds since she was in her bra and panties. Not just any bra and panties. This was a red-hot push-up bra made up of a sheer material that showed everything and then some.A scrap of similar fabric that covered her in the front down south and nothing but a piece of red string masquerading as a thong in the back.
Impulse panties.Bought in one of those rare moments where she'd longed to get in touch with her femininity. Hopefully in about ten minutes, Ethan would be touching her femininity.
Her hand found the switch. She flicked the light on and squeezed her eyes shut reflexively at the sudden flood of brightness from the kitchenette. Saluting the hound dog standing sentry by the front door, Alexis strutted down the hall to the living area and tossed her dress on the wet bar, debating whether to leave her heels on or not.
Then the thought fled her mind altogether when she saw a body propped up against Ethan's glass balcony door. Shescreamed, a strangled shriek of horror that trailed off into a gurgle.
"Oh, my God."It was Kelsey, Ethan's secretary, the one who had been missing, according to Seamus.
Her stomach did a hideous roll, and she gagged at the sight of Kelsey's pale, bloodless face, her legs straight out in front of her, the strap on her dress slipping off her shoulder.
After a long horrified second, when Alexis battled back nausea, the lawyer in her took over. She'd seen many graphic crime scenes, both in photos and in person. She'd witnessed severely beaten rape victims getting medical examinations and she'd seen a five-year-old girl shot in the head by her stepfather. This wasn't any different?it had just completely caught her off guard, ripping her out of the frivolity of a seduction.
She scanned the room quickly, in her shock forgetting where the phone was in Ethan's suite. Spotting it by the television cabinet, she realized it was too close to the body. She was going to have to go out into the hall and to her room so she wouldn't contaminate any possible evidence.
With shaking fingers, she reached down, feeling around to retrieve her dress before she remembered she'd thrown it on the counter. Then she sensed something as she stared at the body that had been a vibrant, energetic woman.Breathing. She could hear breathing other than her own. Was Kelsey still alive?
No, nothing about Kelsey looked alive.
Standing straight up, Alexis shot a nervous glance around the room. God, she wasn't alone, she just knew it.
Then she spotted him. Just a few feet from Kelsey's body, he was hunched behind a hunter green leather chair. Her eyes locked with his in the dim room, the glare of the light from the kitchenette flooding over into the living area. He moved so fast she wasn't even aware of it until his hand was over her head, pressing firmly, but not painfully. The glint of a knife flashed as he flicked open a switchblade.
Fear leaped up in her along with a rash of bile.
"Leave," he commanded. "You never saw me."
She tried to edge back away from him, but his hand cupped her head like a basketball. Alexis instinctively sliced out with her palm and gave a side strike to his flank. Using her spiked heel, she dug down into his foot.
He gave a startled roar and let go of her."Bitch."
Immediately she realized her mistake. He'd been trying to wipe her memory of him and the incident. He would have let her go if she had faked confusion, acquiescence.
Maybe it wasn't too late. She groaned and grabbed her head, backing away from him. She was a shitty actress, but it was worth a shot, and he.was between her and the door. If she could stumble around him, she could head for the hall slowly and carefully.
Too bad she didn't really know what the hell happened to someone undera glamour . She'd only seen the guy who'd shot Ethan sort of hanging there drooling when Kelsey had put him under one.
And now Kelsey was dead. Involuntarily her eyes darted over to Kelsey sitting there like a big stuffed doll.
A shudder wracked her.
The guy in front of her sucked in his breath. Alexis looked at him and realized what was happening. She had walked backward right into the glare of the kitchen light and the guy was ogling her breasts and everything else between her knees and neck.
Great.Just wonderful.She was going to die in her underwear, murdered by a henchman with a boner.
No way in hell was she pretending to be undera glamour now He'd probably lick her or something gross like that.
Best tactic was surprise aggression.
" Ki-Hap!"She yelled her karate cry of strong energy, prayed for a little yong-gi ?courage?and went at him, fists flying.
Smith had encountered any number of unusual situations in the two hundred years he'd worked for Mr. Donatelli , but he'd never been karate kicked in the knees and chest by a half-naked blonde. She was fast and much stronger than she looked, but it wouldn't be any trouble to suppress her.Except he couldn't stop looking at her body. Every time she twisted, turned, lifted her foot to kick, he caught a new and fascinating shot of skin.
His brain couldn't seem to process why she was in her underwear in the first place, and he could only manage to defend himself with halfhearted blocks while gaping at the see-through red bra, her nipples puckered tight against the material.
And he didn't even flinch when she clipped him on the side of the head, because that extensive kick gave him a view that men paid good money to see every night in Vegas.
Distractingwasn't even the word for it. Smith was downright in awe, completely mesmerized, and only remembered where he was and what he was supposed to be doing when she tripped over the body he had planted.
She fell hard, her ankles flipping right over the sides of the high heels she was wearing. Pitching toward him, Smith instinctively moved out to subdue her while she was vulnerable.
The knife he was holding loosely made contact with the tender flesh below her ribcage. Horrified, he heard her gasp, felt her knees crumple,saw her eyes roll back in pain.
Uh-oh.This was bad.
Panicked, he tried to retract his knife, but it was caught on something?muscle or bone. He yanked and she groaned in agony, clutching at him. Shaking loose of her, he abandoned the knife and let her drop to the floor, falling right in front of the other girl. Smith headed toward the balcony, stumbling over the door runner as he yanked it open.
Damn it all. He'd just stabbed Carrick's mortal girlfriend, and he didn't think Mr. Donatelli was going to like that.
Even if it had been an accident.
Alexis wished she'd tried more seriously to open her mind to Ethan. Now she was screaming for him in panicked silence and it was nothing but a black, empty void. The pain in her side had faded into numbness, cold, cold, everywhere, like ice had crept over her hands and feet.
The clock in Ethan's bedroom was ticking, ticking, and Alexis lay on the floor, knowing she was bleeding to death, trying to move, but unable to get her body to cooperate. Brittany and Ethan hovered in the front of her thoughts and Alexis felt regret, for all the time she'd wasted, for all the things she wouldn't do or see.
Ethan, she screamed.Help me .
On the elevator to his room, Ethan was running through his sched - 1 ule for the following night when he heard Alexis call out to him. | In his head.
Alexis? He searched for the source, wondering if he had imagined it. She had sounded desperate, afraid.Lonely.
There was noanswer, and only silence when he called out to her again. He didn't like this. Panicking, he willed the elevator to move faster. Seamus had said Alexis had gone upstairs with two guards, but he didn't feel at all reassured. Not until he saw her for himself.
He raced down the hall when the elevator opened, and fumbled with his key for a second before giving up and just shoving the door open, breaking the lock. Pausing in the doorway, he scanned the room, listening.
But it wasn't sound that assaulted him. It was the smell of blood.Hordes of it. "Oh, Lord." Ethan ran into the room and saw Alexis immediately.
She was on her side on the floor by the coffee table, eyes closed. Blood ran down her side, across her abdomen, and in a wide, wet circle on the carpet.Way too much blood. Falling to his knees, he pressed at her fleshy, gaping wound, afraid to check for a pulse, scared of what the answer might be.
"Alexis, love, what the hell happened?" Why was she in her bra and panties and nothing else? Who'd put the knife in her side?
"Ethan?" Her eyelids fluttered open.
"Yes, it's me." He brushed her hair off her face in agonized relief. "It's all right, I'm here now. I'm here."
"I don't want to die in my underwear."
He would have laughed if he weren't choking back tears. "You're not going to die in your underwear." Feeling in his pocket, he fumbled around for his cell phone. "I'm calling 911 and they'll patch you right up."
Except he could already tell by the pallor of her skin and the amount of blood she'd lost that it would be a miracle if they could save her. He felt his throat closing up, and he gathered her into his lap so he could wrap his arms around her, feel her warmth, hear her heart beat slow and sluggish. The knife in her side was twisted at an awkward angle, like she'd fallen on it. When he glanced around the room, he saw the missing Kelsey, drained of her blood, propped up against the glass door.
Good Lord. What the hell was going on?
Anger boiled in him, hot and fierce. He had finally found a woman he could love and she was being taken from him before he could even blink. He hadn't even had time to live with her, to make her his wife. And his cell phone wasn't in his pocket, damn it, not that he seriously thought she had a chance.
"You're crying," she said, sounding surprised.
"Vampires don't cry." But he felt the wetness on his cheeks, knew blood tears had fallen from his eyes. He gripped her closer, tighter, wishing he could give her his strength. "And you're going to be okay."
Her head went back and forth. "No. You've got to turn me. I'm dying." Her words were faint and pain-wracked.
"Turn you?"
"He stopped stroking her cheek and stared down at her, not daring to hope. "But you said you didn't want to be a vampire. That you didn't want to drink blood or quit your job or other things." He couldn't remember what else she'd said, didn't really care, but he wanted to remind her.
The temptation to take her fear and use it to his advantage was powerful, so he needed to be rational. Alexis hadn't wanted to be turned, and he couldn't be selfish and do it now when she was vulnerable and suffering with pain.
"Are you nuts?" she said, with characteristicAlexis attitude. "That was before I was dying. I choose living as a vampire over not living at all." Her eyes fluttered open, locked with his, clear and certain. "Do it. Please. I'm not ready to leave you and Brittany."
Hope flooded his chest, made him pull her closer to him. "Are you sure?" God, he wanted her to say yes. With Alexis turned, they wouldn't have to settle for ten or fifteen years together.
He could have her for the next thousand years, until he died of old age, an ancient vampire. She was his chosen one, and they could be together forever.
"I'm sure." It was barely a whisper, her lips moving slowly,white and cracked, but Ethan heard her clearly. "I love you," she said. "I want to be your wife."
That was all he needed to hear. "I love you, too, Alexis, for eternity."