A Whisper of Eternity Read online

  He took a step into the room.

  She took a step back.

  He lifted one brow. "Are you afraid of me now?"

  "How did I get here? Why am I here?"

  "I brought you here because I wanted you here."

  "Why didn't I wake up?"

  "Because I did not wish you to."

  The fear in her throat moved downward and congealed in her stomach. She started to ask another question, but before she could form the words, he was standing in front of her, only inches away. She gasped, startled. She hadn't seen him move.

  "I will not hurt you, my best beloved one."

  "Where are we?"

  "This is my house."

  "But where are we?"

  "Ah. We are in a distant corner of Maine."

  "So, I'm your prisoner now."

  "You are my guest."

  "A guest who can't leave. Sounds like prison to me."

  "We need time to get to know each other again. I will not be shut out of your life this time. I will not share you with another. This time, you will believe. This time, you will be mine."

  "So you're going to keep me locked up inside this house?" She stared down at her hands, noticing, for the first time, that she was holding the brush so tightly, her knuckles were white. "And what if I believe and I still don't want you? Still don't want to be what you say you are?"

  "Then I will let you go."

  "Why won't the doors or windows open?"

  "Because I did not wish them to, but they will open for you now."

  "Did you take my phone?"

  "Yes."

  There was no need to ask why.

  She glared at him, angry and more than a little frightened.

  Gently, he took the paint brush from her hand and dropped it into a can of turpentine. "Come," he said quietly, "walk with me."

  Though it sounded like an invitation, she knew she had no choice. When he offered her his hand, she took it. Together, they walked down the stairs. The front door opened at a wave of his hand and they stepped outside.

  The night was cool and clear. A full moon hung low in the sky, bathing the trees and flowers in a wash of silver. Electric lights illuminated a flagstone path that led around the side of the house and through a wrought iron gate that opened into an enormous yard. Tall trees grew in the distance. Closer at hand were flower beds filled with roses and shrubs. There were trees cut into a variety of shapes: a bear standing with one paw raised, a unicorn looking over its shoulder, an elephant standing on its hind legs, a giraffe, a whale, a seal, a dragon. There were a number of fruit trees and, further down the path, a small natural pond. A large gazebo stood in the middle of the yard, surrounded by rose bushes. A high wall surrounded the yard and the house. She made note of the trees that grew near the wall. It wouldn't be too difficult to shinny up one of the trees and climb over the wall.

  Dominic's hand tightened on hers. "The wall is electrified. To discourage vandals."

  Tracy looked at him sharply. Was he reading her mind?

  "There is nothing beyond the wall save a large forest," Dominic went on. "The nearest house is thirty miles away."

  "If you live here, why were you staying at Nightingale House?"

  "I did not say I lived here. Only that it belongs to me."

  "And what am I supposed to do here? Oh! The seascape! I'm supposed to ship it to Mr. Petersen next week."

  "I will take care of it."

  "But…"

  "I will take care of it."

  "His address is in my book."

  He nodded.

  "How long are you going to keep me here?"

  He shrugged. "That remains to be seen."

  She looked up at him and their gazes met and locked. A shiver of anticipation ran down her spine as he moved toward her, one arm curling around her waist to draw her up against him. He was going to kiss her—she knew it. Well, she had no intention of kissing him, not while he was keeping her here against her will. No way!

  She put her hands against his chest to push him away, but it was like trying to move a block of granite.

  Gently, he caught both her hands in his, and then he placed one finger beneath her chin and tilted her head back to give him better access to her lips. She started to object but before she could form the words, he kissed her, driving all thought of protest from her mind.

  Tracy's eyelids fluttered down as his mouth covered hers. Whatever else he might be, the man knew how to kiss. Had she always responded like this, always felt as if her bones were melting, as if her blood was on fire? She pressed herself against him, a sense of feminine satisfaction flowing through her when she felt his response to her nearness.

  He broke the kiss briefly, then claimed her lips once again, more aggressively this time. His tongue teased the seam of her lips until, with a sigh, she opened for him.

  She moaned softly, all thought fleeing her mind. There was only Dominic, his tongue exploring her mouth, his hands moving over her back, her breasts, lightly massaging her belly, making her burn like a fire out of control. He released her hands and she wrapped her arms around him, her body intimately molded to his, certain she would fall if he let her go. Faint images whispered through her mind. It took her a moment to realize they were fragments of his life. She saw him as a young boy tending sheep on the side of a grassy hill. He was tall, even then, his skin dark, his hair long. He sat on a rock holding a small black lamb in his arms. In the distance, she saw a hut with a thatched roof. The scene changed and he was strolling down a cobblestone street with two other young men. They were laughing as they walked along. The scene changed yet again, and Dominic was seated at a small table in what looked like an inn. A woman sat beside him, a beautiful woman with long red hair and skin that was almost translucent. The woman smiled at him, a come-hither look in her dark eyes, and Dominic followed her out of the inn. The scene changed yet again and she saw the two of them sharing an embrace in a dimly lit room, saw the woman's lips draw back to reveal a pair of small white fangs…

  Startled by what she saw, Tracy drew back, frowning.

  Dominic looked down at her, askance.

  She shook her head in wonder. "I… I saw you…"

  He lifted one brow. "Saw me? Where?"

  "You were a little boy holding a lamb… a young man laughing with two other men." She swallowed hard. "I saw you with a woman. A beautiful woman with red hair…"

  "Kitana."

  "She bit you."

  "Aye, she did indeed."

  "She was a vampire?"

  There was a wrought iron bench under one of the trees. Dominic sat down, and after a moment, Tracy sat beside him.

  "I had just turned twenty-five when I met her," he said. "Until then, I had done little, seen little. I knew nothing of the world beyond our little village, had no ambition other than to tend the sheep with my father. It was not a bad life. I had a few friends, and I had met a woman I planned to marry. And then I met Kitana. She was a wild Gypsy woman, more beautiful than any creature I had ever seen. She tempted me beyond all reason and I was suddenly filled with a restlessness I did not understand. And then one night she asked me to go away with her. She said she could arrange it so that I could be what she was, promised that I could live with her forever, if that was what I desired. I said yes without a moment's thought. Naïve as I was, I thought she meant I would be as wild and free-spirited as she. I had no idea then what she really was, or what being like her entailed."

  "So, you're saying she was a vampire?"

  He nodded. "Yes. She was very old, and very powerful."

  "Did it hurt? Becoming a vampire?"

  "The bite did not hurt. What came later was… frightening, more than anything else, though she could have made it easier for me."

  "What came later?"

  "What difference does it make, if you do not believe?"

  "What happened to her? To Kitana?"

  "We spent many years together and then one night I woke up and she was gone. It was
while I was looking for her that I found you the first time. I knew the moment I saw you that we were fated to be together."

  "How did you find me in all those other lives you claim I've had?"

  "I do not know how to explain it, but somehow, sooner or later, I am drawn to where you are." He smiled faintly. "But this time, it seems, you were drawn to me."

  She didn't want to think about what that might mean. "Did you ever see Kitana again?"

  "From time to time."

  "Why did she leave you?"

  "She found another young man. I imagine the world is filled with those she has brought over and abandoned." He did not tell her that once Kitana had tired of her young man, she had come to him again, wanting to take up where they had left off. They had not parted on the best of terms. He had told her it was over between them. She had vowed that one day she would bring him to his knees.

  "You're saying there are hundreds of vampires running around sucking people dry and no one knows?"

  He laughed softly. "It is easy to pass among mortals. They do not want to believe vampires exist and so they dismiss the little things they see that are beyond their comprehension. As for sucking people dry, that is rarely done these days except by overeager fledglings who cannot control their hunger."

  "Did you… have you ever… done that?"

  "Not for many years."

  Tracy gazed out over the gardens. They were beautiful, even in the moonlight. The air was fragrant with the scents of earth and grass, trees and flowers. It was beyond bizarre to be sitting here having such an outlandish conversation. With a vampire.

  "Where do you sleep?"

  He pressed a kiss to her palm. "That is one question I cannot answer."

  She regarded him curiously. "Why not?"

  "There is no need for you to know."

  "Don't you trust me?"

  "Should I?"

  "I don't see why not. I knew where you… where you slept at Nightingale House."

  "Indeed."

  "Are you afraid I might… let's see, what are the ways to destroy a vampire?" She frowned, trying to remember how it was done in the movies. "You can cut out its heart, or chop off its head, or burn it up. Isn't that right?"

  "It?" he asked with a wounded expression. "Do I look like an 'it' to you?"

  He didn't kiss like an 'it'! Oh, no, he was all man in that regard. "Don't change the subject," she admonished. "Let's see, what am I forgetting? Oh, the ever popular stake through the heart."

  "Shall I hide the axe and the matches?"

  "No need," she said, laughing in spite of herself. "I couldn't dissect a frog in biology class. I think you're safe from me."

  He laughed with her.

  Warmth passed between them, bringing with it a sense of camaraderie from shared laughter.

  His gaze rested on her lips again.

  Her heart seemed to skip a beat.

  Before she succumbed to the look in his eyes and the yearning of her own heart, she said, "What's it like for you, during the day? What happens when the sun comes up?"

  "The sun steals a vampire's strength. We are overcome with a lethargy that is, in the beginning, impossible to resist. We sleep the sleep of, you will pardon the expression, the dead."

  "And if someone found you while you were asleep, what then?"

  "Very young vampires are totally helpless when the sun is up. After many centuries, some vampires are able to stay up after sunrise and rise before sunset."

  "Can you?"

  "Yes, though my powers are weak until after dark."

  "And if someone invaded your resting place, would you know? Would you be able to protect yourself?"

  He nodded. "Self-preservation is as strong with us as with anyone."

  "Has anyone ever tried to… to destroy you while you were at rest?"

  "Yes."

  "What did you do to them?"

  He did not answer, only gazed at her through fathomless gray eyes.

  "You killed them, didn't you?"

  "Should I have let them destroy me?"

  "No, of course not." She smiled faintly. "It was self-defense, after all." She didn't ask how many times he had defended himself, didn't want to know how many men or women he had killed to defend his life or to satisfy his thirst.

  Silence settled between them. Tracy was keenly aware of Dominic's presence beside her. Their conversation, while interesting, had been quite disconcerting. Feeling a sudden need to change the subject, she asked him how she was supposed to pass the time.

  "In any way you wish. Paint. Read. Walk in the gardens. If there is anything you want or need, you have only to let me know."

  "And you'll get it for me? Kind of like my own personal Santa Claus?"

  "If you wish to think of it like that, yes."

  Tracy smothered a yawn behind her hand. Though it was still early, she was suddenly sleepy.

  Dominic stood and offered her his hand. "Come. You've had a long day, and much to think about."

  Chapter 12

  Much to think about was putting it mildly, Tracy mused as she lay in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin later that night. She had locked her door even though she knew it would not keep Dominic out. She was completely at his mercy here, in this house. He could take her blood or her virtue and she would be helpless to stop him. He could keep her here for as long as she lived, and no one would ever know what had happened to her. It surprised her that she wasn't afraid of him, but then, he had never done her any harm.

  Still, she couldn't stop tossing and turning. She didn't know whether it was the strange house, the strange bed, or the fact that there was a vampire downstairs, but sleep eluded her.

  Finally, she slipped out of bed, drew a comforter around her shoulders, and curled up in the window-seat. She stared out the window, her mind replaying the conversation she'd had with Dominic earlier. It was beyond belief that he had existed for so long, or that she had lived many lives.

  So, if he was truly a vampire, and she had little doubt now that he was, what was it like for him never to grow old, to watch the world change and evolve while he always stayed the same? What had it been like to watch her die in his arms time after time? For the first time, she considered how awful it must have been for him. If he loved her as he said he did, it must have been painful to tell her goodbye over and over again, unsettling to wonder if he would be able to find her when she was reborn. What had he done while waiting for her return? How much time passed between one lifetime and the next?

  Questions, and each one more eerily weird than the last. Were the answers as bizarre?

  A movement outside caught her eye and she leaned forward to get a better look. At first, she wasn't sure what she was looking at and then, when he moved out of the shadows, she realized that it was Dominic walking in the moonlight. His cloak billowed behind him, stirred by the same breeze that whispered through the trees.

  He moved fluidly, lightly, as though his feet barely touched the ground. And when he passed under one of the lamps, she saw that he cast no shadow. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Everything in the yard cast a shadow on the ground, save Dominic.

  After everything he had told her, after everything she had seen, it was that fact that convinced her of the truth once and for all.

  He came to her the next night as soon as the sun was down. One minute she was alone and the next he was there, standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her dry the dishes.

  She pressed a hand to her heart. "You startled me!"

  "Forgive me."

  She wiped the last dish and put it away; then, feeling slightly self-conscious for no reason that she could discern, she slipped past him and went into the living room. She sat down on the sofa, her heart skipping a beat when he sat beside her, close enough to touch.

  "How did you spend your day?" he asked.

  She shrugged. "I painted a little. I wandered around the yard. I finished reading Wuthering Heights. She regarded him for a moment. "I wondered wher
e you were… sleeping. Is it like sleeping? Do you dream?"

  "It is like death," he replied quietly. "There are no dreams. And yet…" And now it was his turn to regard her through narrowed eyes. "Back in Nightingale House, I dreamed of you."

  "I saw you last night. You were walking in the gardens."

  "Indeed?"

  She nodded. "You had no shadow."

  "Perhaps, like Peter Pan, I have merely lost it."

  Tracy stared at him, then burst out laughing. Peter Pan! Now that was funny! And yet, they were very much alike. Like Pan, Dominic never aged.

  "It's true, isn't it?" she said. "You really are a vampire."

  He nodded.

  "What did you do all those years when I was between lives and you were waiting for me to be… to be reborn?"

  "I educated myself," he said, "over and over again. I traveled the world, learning to speak other languages so that I would be able to speak your language, whatever it might be. It was no easy thing, keeping up with the world. Vampires are reluctant to change. We try and cling to the life we knew before the change came upon us. But those who do not change do not endure. So many new inventions with every century. New languages. New countries. New ways of life. I came from a poor village. We raised sheep for a living." He laughed softly. "In my day, people rarely traveled beyond the place where they were born. Today, you can be across the world in a matter of hours. It is a remarkable time."

  "You're the one who's remarkable. Don't you ever get tired of, well, of living?"

  "Only when you are not in the world with me."

  Sincere words, quietly spoken. They went straight to her heart.

  "Dominic…" She lifted a hand to his cheek. His skin was cool beneath her fingertips.

  He went utterly still at her touch. His eyes were focused on her face, his breathing suddenly shallow.

  Slowly, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. Perhaps she could learn to love him as he deserved. One thing was certain—no man she had ever known had affected her the way he did. Never had she responded so quickly to another man's touch, or another man's kiss. Had her subconscious remembered him from the past even though she had not? Did her body yearn toward his because they had made love in other lives?