Now Comes the Night (12 page)

Still, everything Armand had said only made it more obvious that she couldn’t just abandon Brennan either. She couldn’t turn her back on the man who’d made the past six months more bearable, walk away, relinquish her “claim” on him and watch while the others moved back in and proceeded to tear him to pieces, reducing him to a commodity once again, a tasty treat, a plaything.

Yet, despite the fact that she was now, in some ways, even more confused about what to do than ever, she was feeling better than she had been. Just being with Armand had a way of cheering her up. Maybe it was the way he embraced being Vampire, the way he reveled in it. Once upon a time, she’d felt the same way. She’d give almost anything to feel that way again and she was pretty sure Armand would be all too happy to help her get there.

If only things were different. If only Armand was not still in love with her mother. Julie still wasn’t certain why that continued to bother her so much. Shouldn’t the fact Armand had
definitely
been with Conrad—someone she’d known all her life, someone who’d raised her and cared for her—be the thing that counted against him? Shouldn’t
that
be the thing that bothered her, rather than the mere
possibility
he’d also been with her mother, someone about whom she knew next to nothing?
The heart has its reasons of which reason is unaware
—isn’t that how the saying went?

Unsatisfactory as that was, she suspected it was as good an explanation as she was ever going to get. She wondered if her mother had found him cheering as well?

“What are you thinking about?” Armand asked quietly.

Julie glanced at him, smiling wryly. “Actually, I was thinking about you.”

“
Moi?
” A wicked smile lit up his face, making him the very picture of temptation. “
Vraiment
?”

“
Oui
,” Julie replied teasingly. “Really. You looked…I dunno. Sad, I guess? I was wondering what you were thinking about.”

Armand shook his head. “No, not sad, exactly. I was merely…pondering an old proverb.”

“Yeah? Me too. In a way.”
The heart has its reasons
…

“Oh, is that so? Why don’t you tell me about it?”

They stared at each other in silence, for a moment, and all the words Julie longed to say were right there on the tip of her tongue.
Can I ask him about my mother? Can I tell him who I am
? No, she damn well could not. She couldn’t tell him
anything
. Oh, but she wanted to.

“Ah, there you are,
chica
. Finally. I’ve been searching all over for you.” At the sound of Damian’s voice, Julie blinked. She tore her gaze away from Armand’s and turned toward the doorway.

“What’s up, D?” she asked, absentmindedly taking note of the slight frown on Damian’s face.

“I’ve a party to plan and I’d like your assistance,” Damian replied in the brittle, overly sweet tone he always seemed to use around Armand. “That is, if Armand can spare you?”

“Of course.” Armand’s tone was equally brittle. “A party—
mon dieu
! How could I ever dream of interfering with so critical a matter?” He heaved an exasperated sigh as he got to his feet and moved toward the ballet
barre
, no doubt to begin his workout.

Julie rolled her eyes. Why was it that so many of the men in her life couldn’t simply get along with each other these days? Armand disliked Brennan. Damian disliked Armand. Conrad and Marc seemed to strike sparks off each other just by being in the same room anymore. It was enough to drive a woman crazy.

“So what are we
really
doing?” Julie asked after she’d followed Damian into the hallway.

Damian looked surprised. “We’re
really
planning a party. For New Year’s Eve. I have less than two weeks to get ready for it and you know how I value your opinion.”

“Oh. Well, that should be fun.”

“
Sí.
I thought so as well.”

Julie studied Damian’s expression. It was calm and composed and gave nothing away. It was a look she’d gotten so used to seeing on his face that she’d almost forgotten how very different things used to be. She sighed inwardly. Maybe Armand was right—not lying, after all, not seeing only what he wanted to see. Maybe the Damian he knew really
didn’t
care very much for humans, or for much of anything anymore. Unfortunately for Julie, that Damian bore only a passing resemblance to the Damian she knew and remembered and had loved since childhood. The real Damian. The one she’d grown up with. The one who’d generally seemed more than a little fond of humans. Some humans, anyway.

Chapter Six

April, 1981

Another new town. Damian bit back a sigh as he cast an appraising glance around the crowded bar. It was the third establishment he’d visited tonight and, from his perspective, definitely the most interesting. At least the social scene in their new community was likely to be an improvement over the last couple of places they’d lived. They’d taken something of a risk with this move, one he had campaigned hard for, but he had high hopes the gamble would pay off. This time around, Conrad had allowed him to choose a small college town with a relatively large population of young people and an active nightlife, instead of yet another sprawling, anonymous suburban community, identical to all the others in which they’d lived for the past ten years.

Damian was convinced this change of scenery would provide a better environment for the twins, offering them increased mental stimulation and greater autonomy, factors he was sure they would benefit from at this point in their development. They were still too young to actually try and mingle socially with their prey, but at least here they might take a more active role in the search for food and better learn the ways of their kind. He and Conrad could take the twins with them on their nightly hunts, hopefully without attracting too much unwanted attention, and without the twins having to wait for nearly every meal to be dragged home for their consumption.

In addition, all this increased freedom for the twins—the freedom to go out on their own without constant supervision—to feed outside the house, maybe even, eventually, to hunt for themselves—meant he and Conrad would have more freedom as well. The freedom to seek their own entertainment. Which, in a town like this, meant Conrad would have no trouble spending each night in a different bed, if that’s what he wanted, filling his every waking hour with willing co-eds, or eager divorcees, even the occasional man.

If he were to be honest with himself, Damian had to admit that it was the last possibility he found the most disturbing. Once, it would not have been the case. Once, it was the idea of Conrad with a woman—one woman in particular, but any of them really—that had filled Damian with despair, had left him certain he was losing his hold on Conrad’s heart, convinced he was no longer what Conrad wanted or needed. Or loved.

Now, it was the thought of being replaced in Conrad’s bed by another man that tore him apart inside. Perhaps because he knew it was his own fault that Conrad no longer saw him as a viable candidate for that role. Perhaps because he knew too well the joys the “other man” would find there. Or maybe it was for no reason other than that he was lonely and craved the closeness he’d never found with anyone else.

Whatever the cause, these days it seemed far easier to convince himself that he didn’t care who Conrad bedded when he knew that, whoever she was, she’d be bringing different equipment to the party than he could bring. What would make it even easier would be if Conrad were to do…whatever he was going to do…somewhere that Damian wouldn’t have to bear witness to it. Out of sight, out of mind. That philosophy hadn’t exactly worked very well for Damian when he and Conrad were apart all those years, but at this point he was more than willing to give it another try.

As for Damian’s own plans for entertainment…he didn’t really have any. It was now five years since Damian had resolved to move on with his life, to give up on his dreams of making Conrad want him again—almost six years, in fact, if he were going to split hairs. And what progress had he made? What had he actually accomplished in all that time? What steps had he taken toward re-claiming his emotional independence? None, nothing, and none again.
Dios
mio
, he
was
pathetic, still every bit the fool Conrad had branded him.

Sighing inwardly once more, Damian finished his drink and replaced the glass on the bar. Very well then. He’d come, he’d scouted, and now he could leave. He’d fed once already tonight, earlier in the evening, and had neither the appetite nor the need to eat anything more tonight. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for sex right now either. Not even when faced with the appetizing array of bodies currently grinding away together on the dance floor. Gay dance bars were something entirely new in his experience, a modern development of which he heartily approved.

Tonight the prospect held no interest for him. Why bother picking out some random stranger he might seduce simply so that he could re-ascertain what he already knew to be true? He would never find anyone to replace Conrad, not in any of the ways that counted. Not in his heart, not in his bed—

“Hey.” A hand landed on Damian’s shoulder, interrupting his thoughts. “I
know
you.” The emphasis, and the tone with which the words were spoken, made them practically an accusation. “We’ve met before…haven’t we? I’m sure of it.”

Reining in his instincts, which, at the moment, were heavily weighted toward vivisection, Damian sighed. “I very much doubt it.”

Eyes, blue as a sun-lit ocean, met Damian’s gaze when he turned to face his accuser. There was something vaguely familiar about those eyes. They held entirely too much boyish innocence layered with a hint of determination and were slightly blurred due to an excess of alcohol, but nothing sparked any real recognition for him.

Damian’s eyebrows rose as he examined the rest of the stylish, enticing, and very
au courant
package. A hint of black eyeliner. A single gold earring. An extravagant mane of teased, blond hair. And a build that hinted at exquisitely crafted muscles hidden just beneath his skin-tight clothes. It was the last that convinced him.

He allowed his not-so-subtle gaze to glide over the stranger’s frame for a moment longer, down and then up again, as though he were actually considering the matter, rather than merely taking his time to admire the view. Mmm. Damian was reasonably certain he’d have remembered
that
if he’d encountered it before in any kind of intimate fashion. “No, I take that back. I’m
sure
we’ve never met.” It was kind of a shame though, now that he thought about it. Perhaps he should consider rectifying the situation? A quick bite, a hurried rendezvous in the back alley…

“No, really, man. I mean it. That wasn’t just a line.” The other man—little more than a boy, really—readjusted his grip. He was hanging on to Damian’s arm now, as though
that
were anything that could detain him if he really wished to leave. “Hold up. Gimme a minute. It’ll come to me.”

Damian gave him all of thirty seconds, which was exactly how long it took for him to remember why it was that vampires tended to settle in large, anonymous cities. It was so that they would not find themselves in situations such as this, being waylaid and importuned in bars by tempting and attractive strangers seeking to renew an acquaintance where none had ever existed—nor ever would.

“Time’s up.” Damian favored his would-be suitor with a small, regretful smile. Then he shrugged off the boy’s hold on his arm, turned and disappeared into the crowd.

He didn’t look back as he weaved his way through the maze of writhing bodies that had filled the dance floor, not taking his time, but not hurrying either. Damian Ysidro Esposito-Montoya did not run from danger. Especially not when the danger came packaged in so attractive a guise. Still, he breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the door without being stopped. He wasn’t looking for complications tonight.

Outside, a slight drizzle was falling. Not a downpour by any means, but enough of a rain to have cleared the sidewalks of passersby. Unfortunate. He’d have preferred a little more cover as he made his escape. As it was, he only got about halfway up the block before he heard the door to the bar creak open once again. A frisson of awareness lifted the hair on his neck.

“
Damian
! Wait up!”

At the sound of his name he halted. What now? He’d given his name, his real name, to very few humans in the last decade. Was this another vampire then? Someone who’d spied him as he made his way through the crowd? Someone who’d recognized him—and would likely recognize Conrad too, if he saw him? Someone who might pose enough of a threat to the twins’ safety that he’d have to be killed to preserve the secret of their existence?

Damian sighed as he contemplated the extreme likelihood that he’d have to do just that. He shouldn’t be so surprised. They’d known all along it was a possibility. Still, Conrad would not be pleased. This was exactly the kind of unpleasantness they’d been hoping to avoid by settling in a series of interchangeable and wholly unremarkable bedroom communities. It was the very reason they’d purposely steered clear of all those very same large, anonymous cities in which their kind were known to congregate.

It was strange, though. He hadn’t sensed any other vampires in the bar tonight, hadn’t picked up a single scent. Then again, he had allowed himself to get distracted toward the end. A mistake, obviously. As he should certainly know by now, there was always going to be a price to pay for those. Damian turned slowly, reluctantly, wondering which of his former acquaintances was likely to lose his life tonight. He was surprised, and more than a little relieved, to find himself facing not a vampire at all, but rather the same, distracting young man from whom he’d just taken his leave. Whoever he was, the boy was certainly persistent, but at least he was human. Definitely the lesser of two evils.