Between Good and Evil Read online

  Her eyes opened, her expression falling into a frown. The flashlight cast dark shadows on her face, and she released his hands. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, there is no point in doing it at all.”

  “What aren’t I taking seriously?”

  “All of this.” She gestured so emphatically that she nearly backhanded him across the face. “My gifts. My methods. You have to concentrate on your question. It’s not enough for me to do it alone, you have to also. Think about your question and nothing else. Got it?”

  Isaac rubbed his hands together. He was starting to get chilled from being in here, and it must be worse for Rune. “Maybe we need to take a break and come back later. You’re shivering.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You are a little bit.”

  With a sigh of annoyance, Rune reached out of the little space and grabbed the blanket that he had insisted they bring. She wrapped it around her shoulders and tucked it under her arms. All the while she was scowling and grumbling under her breath. Isaac didn’t know if she meant him to hear or not, but it was amusing nonetheless.

  “Now concentrate. All I’m getting is the immediate stuff, and we need some future possibilities, here. They’re tough enough to get without you thinking about me.”

  “You can tell what I’m thinking?” He hadn’t counted on that… it was a bit disconcerting.

  “Okay, not exactly.” She brushed her hair back from her face and fiddled with the flashlight. “But I can tell where they’re focused. A feeling in the pit of my stomach, really. And so, I know you were thinking about me. What about me, I don’t know. Although I can guess.”

  The heartbeat that usually was slow and steady thumped hard for a few seconds. The last thing he needed right now was for her to end up prying into his mind somehow, to find out the true reason he abducted her.

  She turned accusing eyes on him, and he flinched a little. Did she really dislike being thought of as pretty? Or was it her who was doing the thinking? He had kidnapped her, after all.

  “If you didn’t believe in my abilities,” she snapped, “why take me at all?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. You were thinking that I’m not a real psychic and—”

  “Wait.” Isaac had to laugh at that, even though it earned him a fiercer scowl. “That’s not what I was thinking at all. Yes, I was thinking about you, but it wasn’t your abilities I was doubting. I wasn’t doubting anything at all. I was thinking about how pretty you look.”

  Her cheeks turned red and she ducked her head. “Oh.”

  He enjoyed her embarrassment for a moment, glad to have been able to throw her off guard for once. Ever since she had woken up, she’d been throwing him off guard. First, it was attacking him, and then it was asking him all those questions about himself. The fear had faded away quickly. Then it was going all through these caverns and being so genuine in her offer of help. He wasn’t entirely certain how to take it.

  “I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable,” he said at last, eyeing her.

  Her head jerked up and she smiled falsely. “Uncomfortable? No, not in the slightest. Now, let’s get back at this.”

  She held her hands out to him again, and he took them. When she closed her eyes, he did as well. He concentrated on his question—not the one he had told her, about wanting to get out of this life. No. He already knew. He was good for nothing else but to cause destruction and chaos. It was what he was raised to do, and there was nothing good that could come from him.

  But his lord and master had another question. Rune would flatly refuse to answer if he had told her that he was looking for answers about Gregory’s plans to launch a full-scale invasion on the human world. He concentrated on that thought and that thought alone. Were they going to be successful, or did Gregory need to step back and bide his time for a more fitting opportunity?

  His heart started to beat a little faster and he became aware of the thirst in his throat. He would have to drink fresh blood soon. The bagged stuff helped keep him strong, but it took human blood fresh from the vein to keep a vampire’s heart beating. He hadn’t been able to resist a couple of swallows of Rune’s blood, but he couldn’t drink fully from her. It would weaken her too much. Besides which, drinking without permission was a terrible thing to do. He felt sick with himself for what he had done already. He wasn’t going to take advantage of her again.

  Rune suddenly pulled her hands out of his. “You’re doing it again.”

  Oh. He shook his head. “Sorry. I guess I have a lot on my mind.”

  “We’ll have to work on that a bit, then.” Rune squirmed her way free of the tight enclosure and stretched, pushing herself to her tiptoes as she did so. “Right now, I think we’ve pushed it too far. We’re both tired and I’m getting pretty hungry and thirsty.”

  “It’s going to take a while to get back to the room.”

  Rune didn’t appear to be listening to him. She pulled a marker from her back pocket and made a symbol next to the entrance of the little nook. “That way we don’t have to search and search for it again. Actually, we should probably put a string or something from the room to here, so I can find my way without you.”

  “Will it help?”

  “It should.”

  Isaac shrugged. It wasn’t like he was going to let her go wandering by herself, but if it made her feel better, he could do it. They were pretty far from the entrance, anyway, and she’d only get lost if she tried to make her way out by herself. He offered his arm to her and she took it as they headed back. The weak light of the flashlight hardly illuminated half a dozen feet in front of them, but he supposed it was a comfort for Rune.

  “You said that you were raised to be a weapon,” she asked, her voice burning with curiosity. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Just what I said.”

  Rune hummed, then continued. “Well, when was that? It must have been several centuries ago. Were you kidnapped as a child and raised to be an assassin for the king or something?”

  Isaac laughed, more at her ignorance than any real amusement. “I’m only twenty-two years old, Rune. Not all vampires are ancient beings that fought in the Roman wars.”

  “Twenty-two? So, you haven’t been a vampire that long…” She peered at him hard, as though trying to guess when he had been turned. “I wouldn’t put you any older than twenty.”

  He sighed as he shook his head. “Rune… I was born a vampire. You do know that’s possible, right?”

  Judging by her dropped jaw and the look of shock on her face, she hadn’t.

  “It’s rare,” he admitted. “But it does happen. With the right circumstances, two vampires can have a child. Or a vampire and a human. It is rare and the process isn’t entirely understood. Both of my parents were vampires, and so I was born a vampire, too. We who are born like this have all the strengths of being a vampire, as well as the need to drink blood, but we age like normal humans. Until we’re about thirty or so, at least. Then we slow down.”

  “Like shifters, then,” Rune said, picking up her pace as he started walking again. “Wow. I didn’t know that. Wow. What else don’t I know about vampires? Hey, wait, I’ve heard that drinking blood is really sexual, how do children—”

  “Drinking blood is no more sexual than eating a hamburger for vampires.” He rolled his eyes. “Or stubbing a toe for humans. You shouldn’t believe everything you hear or read in romance novels. It’s not that glamorous. Mostly I drink from blood bags, to avoid the mess. Even willing donors always end up squirming and struggling. I’ve lost many a good shirt because I was careless when feeding.”

  Silence fell for a few seconds before Rune cautiously asked. “And how often do you feed?”

  “Depends.”

  “On?”

  Isaac cast her a wary look, then shook his head. She seemed to be curious, not probing for a weakness. “How much I exert myself, mostly. The story about sunlight isn’t entirely false. You see, we drink blood to
keep our hearts beating. If they stop beating, we don’t die unless we go into the sun. Silver stakes, holy water, all that. They’re not effective unless our hearts are dead. Well… the stakes, I suppose, work just as well if you stake us with beating hearts. They don’t have to be silver, though. Anything is effective, just as if you shoved a sharp object into a human’s heart. Silver does prevent vampires from healing quickly, though.”

  “Okay…” Rune frowned a moment, then nodded. “But you didn’t answer my question. How long between feedings? Are you going to want to drink my blood? Can you eat real food? And, I know it’s stupid, but… can you fly? Turn into a bat?”

  “Every week. No, unless it becomes an emergency. I did have a couple of swallows when I charmed you... And I am very sorry about that. Yes, as long as my heart’s beating. No and no. Any other questions?”

  “You drank my blood?” Her eyes were wide.

  “A couple of swallows,” he repeated. He hung his head in shame. “Less than what they’d take when they drew blood for tests. I’ve been putting it off, and I was very thirsty. I won’t do it again, I promise... I’m truly sorry for—”

  “Was it good?” Her guileless gaze grew curious. Didn’t she understand? No, she didn’t. “I’m not answering that. Nor will I drink from you.”

  “But then… who will you drink from?”

  “Blood bags,” he said. “I just finished off the last of my stock, so I’ll get some more. Or I’ll ask a vampire pal of mine to spare a pint or two. Vampires are quick healers,” he added. “As long as we’ve got beating hearts, we can regenerate our blood within a day. Lots of vampires actually prefer to feed on each other. One of the reasons we can afford to keep to ourselves.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Isaac had to grin at that. She was taking it all in stride. He had to admit, he had been expecting that it would take longer to get her to this point. They walked in silence, and he relaxed as they made their way back to the room where she was staying as his ‘guest’. Hopefully, this was going to work out without turning into a big deal. He could hope, after all.

  Chapter Three

  Rune didn’t often do this sort of personal work. It was far too easy to get lost in another person, to get signals mixed up and have all her strength devoted to someone else. But seeing as she had a few days of free vacation anyway, she decided to give it all she had. After all, she didn’t have to try very hard to feel how much Isaac wanted to be free of his life.

  “I think that’s enough for today.” He pulled his hands away from hers.

  Rune sagged against the wall of the little nook. There were certain places on earth where it felt like there were rivers converging, and those were the best places to reach out to the universe. It was the third day that they’d tried this place, and she still wasn’t getting anything useful. What she was getting most was the hopelessness. The feelings that it didn’t matter what he did, Isaac would always be trapped within the cycle of violence. But those were his feelings. Not from the universe. It was starting to affect her, though, and she was so bone-dead tired that she didn’t even want to walk back to the little room.

  “Are you coming?” Isaac shone the flashlight ahead as he climbed out of the nook.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  He waited a moment before reaching for her arm. He helped her get to her feet, then steadied her as she swayed. A wide yawn made her jaw crack, and she rubbed it with a frown.

  Isaac kept hold of her hand as they walked along. It was nice, having someone to hold onto. Rune thought of Dane at that moment. He was never satisfied with a simple hand-in-hand approach. He always wanted his arms around her. To have his hand in her back pocket or slung around her shoulders. She liked it; liked the feel of his strong body against hers. But it was nice to have just the hand holding once in a while.

  Thinking of Dane made a stab of guilt and confusion fill her. It’d been three days since Isaac abducted her. Dane was going to be so worried for her. She had tried to ask Isaac for permission to phone people so they wouldn’t worry, but he flat-out refused. It was one of the things that annoyed her most about the situation. What she should be doing is trying to escape him. After all, the vampire had kidnapped her! She should be furious with him, not mildly annoyed.

  When they got back to the room, Isaac released her hand and flung himself into the hammock he had strung up along one wall. It’d been awkward at first to sleep in the same room as a man like that, but Rune got a strong enough sense of who he was that she wasn’t frightened.

  “I think the problem is that you don’t really know what you’re going to do,” she told him as she sat on her own bed. Her back was cramped from the huddled position she’d been in all day and she stretched out. “The future is in flux. Whatever is going to happen depends heavily on your choices. Which, I guess, means that you do have a choice. You might be able to get out of this situation after all. Make a new life for yourself.”

  He swung out of his hammock so quickly that she jumped. Isaac grunted an apology and stalked to the minifridge.

  “I need to go pick up more blood here soon. Do you want anything? I can get some soda or…” He glanced at her, his gaze running over her figure. Rune quickly sat up, flushing. Isaac turned back to the fridge. “Maybe some soap and deodorant. An extra pan for washing.”

  Was he saying that she stunk? She bent her head trying to sneak a sniff at herself. The odor was not pleasant. A grimace crossed her face and she flung herself back down. Smelling like that, he wasn’t going to be having any thoughts about her at all.

  Still, she had to admire the control he had over himself; while they were meditating together in that nook, she often caught whiffs of what he felt, and images sometimes flashed in her mind of the two of them entwined. Sometimes they were from herself, but they were most often from Isaac. Those sorts of feelings never lasted long, though, and he hadn’t acted on them at all. Which was a good thing, because she didn’t want to have to explain the complicated relationship she had with Dane.

  They weren’t girlfriend-boyfriend. They weren’t exclusive. On their first date, Dane had told her that he didn’t expect her to date only him, and if she wanted to sleep with other people, he was fine with it. Didn’t they agree that their relationship would remain that way until they decided to change it? And they hadn’t changed it. She knew that Dane still had other girls he dated. It didn’t bother her. She was certain it wouldn’t bother him if she slept with another guy… except for the fact that she still hadn’t given him a real reason for why she refused to sleep with him.

  Shaking her head, Rune let out a sharp exhalation and grabbed one of the books Isaac had gotten for her the last time he went out. Psychics Among Us. It was mostly garbage, but Rune had learned long ago that diamonds could only be found in the trash. Serious books only told her the same thing over and over again about behind psychic, whereas something like this could give her new ideas.

  “There has to be a way to clarify things,” she said as she opened the book. “All that vagueness and fog. I know that there’s a future there, it’s just…”

  She peeked up at him as he drank from his thermos. Something twisted inside of her, and she wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad something. There was something he wasn’t telling her. Something big. She was certain the visions would be clearer if he told her what it was, but he was holding back for a reason. Rune knew in her bones she didn’t want to know what that reason was.

  As she turned back to the book, picking up where she had left off, an image flashed through her mind. Of Isaac kneeling over her. His hands on her body. Her breasts plump and bouncing. Her fingers digging into his biceps. She bit her lips together and waited for the image to pass. It lingered longer than usual, probably because she liked watching it, but cut off abruptly as Isaac shoved the thermos of blood back into the fridge.

  He was struggling. That much was clear. With his future, to keep his mind off her. Although why it was so difficult for him, she didn’t know
. It wasn’t like she was anything special, other than her abilities.

  Dane thinks you are. Why shouldn’t Isaac?

  “I need to—” Isaac started.

  Rune did not want to be left alone again, not with that image still playing pleasantly in the back of her mind. “Wait. Vampire babies.”

  Isaac turned to her with wide eyes. “What?”

  “Uh…” She ducked her head as she flushed. “What I mean is, you said that vampires can sometimes make babies. What is… the process, I guess. Is it just sex or do vampires have a special breeding cycle that I’ve never heard of?”

  He stood there for a long time, staring at her.

  It had been a long, long time since she’d let herself get so far. To have her legs wrapped about a man’s waist. To have him inside of her. She wanted that again. With Dane, it was almost impossible to resist. Only her fears kept her from saying yes when he asked. Back in high school, she’d thought she had gotten pregnant and it had terrified her so badly that she refused to go to school for a week. She had been certain she was going to die, and would lie in bed crying, trying to think of what she could do.

  Maybe she had been too cautious since then. But she never wanted to go through that fear again. And so, she had refused to let herself get that far. Sure, she’d done oral a few times, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t enough.

  Isaac was a vampire. Depending on how it worked with vampires, chances where he wouldn’t even be able to get her pregnant at all. She’d be able to sate the desires that had been building in her so long, and when she and, in turn, he got his answers, maybe she’d finally be able to tell Dane her real reasons for not sleeping with him. Something nudged her, urging her forward. Rarely did she ever feel signals this clear; everything would be fine if she slept with Isaac.