Know Me When the Sun Goes Down Read online

  I made a soft murmur of protest as his lips left mine, but they continued their tender assault, blazing a trail of kisses down the side of my neck to that sweet spot, his tongue laving at my throat. I felt the scrape of his fangs begging entrance, and I knew all too well what it took to make him lose control like that. He wanted me as much as I wanted him.

  The sound of someone clearing his throat cut through the haze of pleasure, and Bishop instantly shielded me with his body, so that I couldn’t see who it was. “Leave us,” he growled, none too pleased with the interruption.

  But it was Clay’s familiar voice that floated out of the darkness. “The dispatch from Rome is here. You said to notify you as soon as...”

  “Yes, yes,” Bishop replied, running a hand through his hair. “I shall attend you momentarily. Wait for me below.”

  “By your leave.”

  Clay moved off, and Bishop went very still, as if he was afraid to even breathe. Wode tìan, was he about to retreat into his shell again? “Duty calls?” I offered with a sad smile, expecting him to be all coldness and regret. But as he swung around to face me again, the only regret I saw was for the interruption.

  “I’ll find you later,” he said, his voice full of promise as he stroked my cheek with a look of wonder and surprise. Leaning in, he kissed me again, stealing my breath with the barely leashed hunger there. “We’ll speak more of this.”

  “As long as you keep talking like that, I’ll listen to whatever you have to say,” I smiled, practically throbbing with anticipation as he walked away with a grin worthy of my Bishop.

  Bishop. Was he really mine again? I lingered in the maze, humming the waltz as I made my way to the center to sit on the stone benches. The rest of the ball went on inside and I couldn’t care less. Nothing else could possibly top the memory we’d made out in the garden.

  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m stupid sometimes. After everything I’ve been through, you’d think I’d have my guard up when in a potentially vulnerable position all alone. But I was completely oblivious as I sat there, humming to myself and replaying that kiss over and over again.

  Even when the sliver of moonlight I sat in was blocked out, I didn’t notice a thing until I heard, “Good evening.”

  His voice was deep and rich, with a unique accent formed over nearly three millennia. Golden hair almost the same shade as mine spilled over his shoulders, and despite the crisp, formal attire, there was a wildness to him, as though the veneer of gentleman was a mask about to slip off. He wore no cravat, his shirt open to reveal a hint of his chest, and I knew his skin would be bronzed and taste of the sun.

  “Jakob?” I gasped.

  Chapter Seventeen

  His blue eyes widened in astonishment. “You know me?”

  Oops. “Well, I know of you,” I hedged. “What are you doing here?” I darted a look over my shoulder to the house where the ball went on unaware of an Ellri in their midst. “Are you nuts? What if someone sees you?”

  “Already you are concerned with my safety, I like this,” he smiled, moving to sit beside me on the bench, and I scooted onto the other one. “Have no fear, we are quite alone for the moment.”

  If he wasn’t worried, I wasn’t about to lose any sleep over it. “That doesn’t answer my question though. What are you doing here?”

  “I heard tales of a wondrous new flower among the weeds.”

  “And you thought you could pluck me?” I smirked, and he burst into a rumbling laugh.

  “You are delightful. You will grace me with the honor of your name.”

  “Anja Gudrun.”

  “A proper name,” he approved. “And I am Jakob...”

  “Yes, Jakob Thorssen, Ellri extraordinaire, I know,” I cut him off before he delivered a long list of accomplishments. Somehow I got the feeling this Jakob was even more full of himself than the one I’d come to know.

  “How do you know this?” he asked, his head canted to one side as he studied me. “I have not trod upon these grounds for a century or more.”

  Fast on my feet, I drummed up a lie or two. “For one, I’m older than a century. Two, I’ve heard all about you from Carys.”

  His expression eased as he accepted my reasons. “Ah… I can imagine the tales she has told. And yet, she never spoke of you.” Jakob was on the move again, settling onto the bench beside me.

  “There are lots of things she never told you. Carys was a selfish person at heart.”

  “Perhaps,” he allowed. “But one should not speak ill of the dead.”

  I mashed my lips together to keep from saying anything about Carys being alive. Technically she was dead, or undead, but not gone. What would happen if I led him to where Lodinn kept her in torpor? What kind of a reality would I travel back to?

  Jakob took my silence for respect for my fallen Sire. “So it is true, you are her progeny, and therefore of my line.”

  “Ah... I am of your line,” I nodded, inching away when he leaned close, sniffing at my hair. “Hey, haven’t you ever heard of personal space before?” I scowled, edging away, but he caught fast to my arm, holding me in place.

  “Bide a moment,” he murmured, his brows drawn together in puzzlement. “There is something familiar...”

  There wasn’t any way he could find me familiar, was there? Great googly moogly, was he able to tell I was draugen the same way Sylvius could?

  His eyes narrowed in suspicion as he drew back. “What secrets do you possess?” he demanded, hands gripping my arms below the shoulders.

  Uh oh. “Every girl’s got a few secrets, Jakob,” I said, trying for a minx-like smile the way Carys would’ve replied, but he wasn’t buying it.

  “I will learn your secrets one way or another,” Jakob growled, pulling me to him, his fangs sliding into my neck before I could draw breath to protest. His throat worked as he drank, drawing a sharp lick of pleasure along my veins. A deep shudder went through him, and he gathered me into his lap, hands gentling to pull me tight against his body.

  “Stop it! Please, Jakob, I’m begging you to stop,” I sobbed, hating the forced intimacy of it even as my body responded against my will.

  To my utter surprise, he let me go, my blood tingeing his lips with a blush of color. “You are mine!” he gasped.

  “Yes, I am,” I admitted, hand clamping over the wound at my neck, but it was already closing over. “But keep your voice down or we’ll both be found out.” After all, someone else might decide to take a turn about the gardens at any given time.

  Jakob continued to stare at me as if I’d sprouted another head. “But how can this be?”

  “Because I’m…” There was no other way to explain it, I had to come clean and hope he didn’t think I was crazy in the brainpan. “I’m from the future.” All I got was a scoffing noise from him. “Fine then, you explain how it is I’m your progeny?” I retorted, crossing my arms over my chest. “And while you’re at it, how do I know about you and Sanna, and how you screwed over Lodinn by killing his wife? And that’s why you’re hiding out instead of being worshipped by the vampire community. Oh, and there’s the way you left Maeja, don’t forget that tiny tidbit. Or shoot, has that happened yet?”

  He looked bewildered by my words before he drew himself up in annoyance. “I am unused to such impertinence.”

  “Well, get used to it. I’ve been through a lot because of you, including losing some people very near and dear to me. So don’t think you can just älskling your way out of this one.” I was done bowing and scraping to the guy. If he thought being my Sire entitled him to some kind of ownership over me, he had another think coming.

  Jakob stared at me slack jawed for long seconds as if trying to process it all. “From how far in the future have you come?”

  “Two hundred years.”

  “How is this even possible?”

  “Gypsy magic,” I shrugged. It still shocked the heck out of me how it’d all come to pass.

  “The price must have been ste
ep indeed.”

  “Only my immortality.”

  Jakob sucked in a breath. “Why would you gamble away such a precious thing?”

  “Because I had to come back, it was a matter of life and death.”

  “For me? Is there some tragedy I must needs avoid?”

  Of course he had to make it all about him. “No, for Bishop. Ulrik,” I clarified, and his face soured with distaste.

  “Ulrik?”

  “Yes, for Ulrik. He’s everything to me.”

  “Always it is Ulrik,” he flat out scowled. “First Carys and now you. Will my progeny ever fall susceptible to his questionable charms?”

  “I know she cared for him, but that was never love. She only wanted to screw with his head.”

  He stared at me blankly. “Screw…?”

  “Mess with. Confound,” I tried again. “She enjoyed pitting him and Aubrey against each other, you know that. Carys wasn’t capable of love. But if she was, I know she loved you.” Maybe that wasn’t fair. I’d read her diary, I’d seen on the page where she loved Bishop. But I’d also seen how she treated him after Jakob removed his compulsion. No one who truly loved would ever be so selfish.

  “You say this as if you knew her well? How is this possible if you are from the future and yet she has been dead these hundred years?”

  Frak. I really couldn’t let him know that Lodinn had her squirreled away in a crypt, God only knew what would happen if he went charging off after her. “There’s an explanation for this, but to be honest, I don’t know how much to tell you. You make some really bad decisions in the future. The kind that ruin lives.”

  Jakob took a few moments to digest that. I knew he could compel the answers out of me, but all he said was, “But Carys lives?”

  “She is technically alive, yes.”

  “What means this, technically?”

  “It means that in this time, she’s gone to ground.” Not a lie...

  “Ah. I never thought that would befall her.” He made the assumption that it was by her choice, and I didn’t correct him. “And you have spoken with her in this future time you speak of?”

  “Yes, I have. In the short time I knew Carys, I got to know her better than I wanted to.” Not a lie…

  Suspicion slanted his features. “You are holding things back.”

  “Duh. I already said you screwed things up in the past... or I mean, the future.” I waved off the distinction. “You have to trust me when I say that there are some things better left unsaid.” I don’t know what I was thinking, expecting Jakob to leave it at that.

  His stubborn nature kicked in, and Jakob did what he did best, taking what he wanted without thought or regard for anyone else. “This is unacceptable. You will show me what I wish to know.” Once again I found myself in his arms, his mouth pressed to my throat. This time, instead of just pleasure, he stole my memories. It all came spilling out of me, how he’d turned me, how I’d met Bishop. How he’d stepped away to let us be together. Faster and faster the memories danced between us, though he lingered over the one and only time we’d slept together in the back of a limousine. Typical.

  I had no control over which memory he sifted through next, but I relived how Lodinn met his end, and how I’d fought Carys with a pair of chopsticks. Finally he sat back in a stupor, leaving me feeling violated and dazed.

  “Don’t ever do that again.” I swiped his hand away when he reached for me again.

  “I am sorry, älskling,” he said, contrite. “I see now what we were to each other.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I spat back at him. “You saw a few highlights. You can’t pick and choose what history you want to embrace. You didn’t see Rob, Bishop, and I being tortured for keeping your secrets. You didn’t see all the deaths you’ve caused. You didn’t see your daughter either.”

  “My... I have a daughter?” I’d managed to astonish him again.

  “You did. Or you will. That is, you have a daughter, but she died trying to save your life.” I wasn’t sure how much to tell him about Nelleke. What if telling him about it kept him from visiting the vale and making her to begin with?

  “Tell me more of this,” Jakob demanded. “I would see my daughter’s death so that I might prevent it.” Again he stole more of my blood, reliving his weakness in trying to break the curse, Nelleke’s sacrifice, and Maeja’s wrath. I barely had the strength to stand when he was done, slumping against him as I fought to stay conscious. All the while Jakob stared off into space, in shock or grief, it was hard to tell.

  All of a sudden he seemed to realize how much he’d taken, and held me close, his embrace tender. “I am sorry, my Anja. I took too much. Here, drink of me.” He drew a line at his throat with a sharp fingernail, pressing me against the shallow wound. I reacted on instinct, my mouth clamping over it, fangs sinking deeper once the blood hit my tongue. I’d forgotten the rich taste of his blood, and for long moments there was nothing but the sensation of him flowing into me, filling me far more than human or even vampire blood ever could.

  On and on I drank, and when he pulled me into his lap, I didn’t care. I didn’t mind the way he pawed at my hair until the carefully arranged pins came free, or the way his hands smoothed over my curves, until I felt the kiss of the night air on my bare skin as he urged my skirt up over my thighs.

  “That’s enough,” I decided, tearing my mouth away from his throat, ignoring the way his answering groan of disappointment sent a shudder through me. I held my breath until the wound healed over and I wasn’t tempted by the scent of his blood. “Jakob, I told you, we’re not together like that. I don’t expect you to fully understand our dynamic from only a few snatches of memory, but we are not well suited for each other.”

  “Your body disagrees,” he said in a thick voice, reaching for me again, and I scrambled off his lap, tottering as I fought to regain my balance.

  “I’m not a slave to my body.”

  “I could change your mind with a single thought.”

  Were we back to that again? “We’ve had this conversation before, I don’t even know how many times. Yes, you could compel me, but it wouldn’t be me, it’d just be my body and that’s a hollow victory. Don’t you agree?”

  He sat there, confused, as if the thought had never occurred to him before. Maybe he hadn’t come to that epiphany until the twenty-first century?

  “In the future you understood that,” I said gently, wanting to foster that line of thought with him. “The future you let me have free will to make my own choices.”

  “The future me sounds like a fool,” he grumbled, adjusting himself.

  “The future you understood that you’ve been missing what it’s like to feel love freely given. Sanna, Carys... Have you ever truly given a woman a choice before?” His silence spoke volumes, and I sat down beside him again. “There’s happiness out there for you, Jakob. I believe that. But you have some growing up to do.”

  “I have lived more than three thousand years.”

  I nodded. “And that’s why it’s time for you to be a better person now. Start off by going to apologize to Maeja for leaving her like that. Maybe she’ll even share Nelleke with you and you can know your daughter?”

  Jakob brightened at the thought. “Always I have wanted a daughter.”

  “Not sons?”

  “What care I for sons?” he snorted. “I have had countless sons by my blood over the years. They only seek to overthrow and steal your power for their own. Daughters have real heart.”

  “And Nelleke was a shieldmaiden. She was one of the finest people I ever knew.”

  “Carys... I must see to freeing her.” He started to rise, and I caught his arm.

  “Please, I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but she causes so much pain to everyone she touches. And if you go stealing her from Lodinn’s hideyhole...”

  “He will come after me and mine,” he acknowledged, lips compressing into a grim line. “Very well, I shall leave well enough alone. For now.”
<
br />   “Thanks, Jakob.” That was one crisis averted at least. “I’m glad we had this chance to talk.”

  “As am I,” he smiled warmly, touching my cheek. “I do wish to know you better.”

  “We have plenty of time to get to be friends,” I said firmly, catching his hand and holding it in my lap where I could keep it from wandering.

  “But not eternity.” His scowl returned. “You have gambled away your immortality. That was a reckless decision.”

  “He’s worth it,” I shrugged. “Wouldn’t you do the same for Sanna? Or your daughter?”

  “I hardly know,” he admitted, looking down at his boots. “Immortality is a hefty price to pay.”

  “No it isn’t. Immortality is a curse when the one you love is gone.”

  “You do care for him deeply.”

  “Yes, I do. There is no forever for me without him.”

  We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, the heat of his hand warming my lap as I held it. Finally, he rose to his feet with predatory grace, but simply bowed to me with a courtly display of manners. “Very well, my Anja. I will leave you to your machinations, but know this – I will see you again.”

  “I sure hope so, otherwise I’ll never become the vampire I am today,” I smiled, rising and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Take care of yourself. And when you meet Rob, be good to him. He’s important to me too, as you plainly saw.”

  “What care I for your paramours,” he muttered to himself. “If you have need of me, seek me at The Cat & Fiddle.”

  “The Cat & Fiddle? Is that an inn or something?”

  “No, it is a tavern I frequent when I am in these parts. There I may freely socialize among the lowborn without fear of being recognized. If I am not there, leave word for me with the owner and I will come to you when I can.”