Crimson Debt Read online

  “So she…this mistress of yours…she showed compassion? That’s unusual in a vamp,” I murmured.

  Corbin shot me a look. “Compassion had nothing to do with it—it was more her twisted sense of humor that made her spare my Janet.” He shook his head. “She even allowed me to visit her regularly, though most of our kind force their fledglings to abandon their old life at once.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “So she let your wife live and allowed you to visit her on a regular basis. How was that funny?”

  “Don’t you see?” Corbin turned to face me, a bitter expression on his face. “She knew I would be unable to resist making love to Janet—the fuck-lust is always strongest when one is first born to darkness. She wanted to watch me kill her—to “fuck and suck” her to death as you so nicely put it.”

  I put a hand to my mouth. “Oh, no…”

  “You don’t have to look at me that way. My love for Janet was strong—stronger even than a newborn vampire’s lust.” He sighed. “It took immense self-control but I was actually able to make love to her without hurting or killing her.”

  I shook my head. “But…how?”

  “By gorging myself on blood before I came to her mainly.” Corbin looked grim. “I drained many a man dry that I might not spill a single drop of my beloved’s blood.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh yes, my darling, I am a murderer many, many times over—though I killed my victims for love, I still killed them. But I’m afraid the statute of limitations on my crimes has long run out.”

  “There is no statute of limitations on murder,” I whispered through numb lips.

  He gave me a sardonic smile. “Even when those wronged have been dust in the ground for four centuries? I think you’d have a hard time convicting me now.”

  “Maybe…” I shook my head, trying not to think of all the people he’d killed. “So if you went to all that, uh, trouble and you were able to be with her, why isn’t Janet still here with you now? Why didn’t you bond her to you or turn her into a vampire?”

  “My maker forbid me to do either.” He stared moodily into the dying embers of the fire. “She thought it was only a matter of time until my control snapped and I killed Janet.”

  “But you didn’t, did you?” I said softly.

  Corbin shook his head. “My control held. But then something unexpected happened—Janet got pregnant.”

  “What?” I frowned. “But that’s impossible. A vampire and a human can’t conceive, even if the vamp could keep from killing his human partner. They’re like…two different species.”

  “That should be true but in our case…” Corbin sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I believe it was possible only because I was so newly turned. There was still enough that was human in me to make conceiving a child possible. And so, since I couldn’t keep my hands off her, Janet conceived.”

  “What happened?” I asked. I was trying to imagine a human/vampire hybrid but I was drawing a blank. Such a thing had never even been considered before—it should have been completely impossible.

  Corbin turned back to the glowing embers in the fireplace. “The birth was a difficult one. And the blood…” He shook his head. “There was so much blood…too much of it for me to help. Even though I had gorged and gorged again before her time came, I still couldn’t let myself get too close. And the baby…the baby was born dead.”

  “Oh, Corbin…” I put a hand on his arm, wanting to comfort him. Despite the fact that four centuries had passed since the events he was relating, I could still see the pain in his eyes, still hear the agony in his voice as he told what had happened.

  “No, don’t pity me—it was a blessing.” He got up abruptly and started pacing in front of the bed. “The child was…a monster. A deformed little creature with blind eyes and razor sharp fangs—she could never have fed it. It would have chewed her to pieces.”

  “But…she must have been so…so…” I couldn’t think of the words to describe what Janet must have felt. The agony she must have endured.

  I’d had a miscarriage once in grad school, back when I was with Todd, the guy I thought was the one. The pregnancy had been an accident in the first place and I hadn’t felt ready to have kids but still…I had wept inconsolably over the small lost life. It had ultimately driven my fiancé and me apart—it was Taylor who got me through that dark time, which was one reason we were so close.

  I had only been two months along when I lost the baby but it was still an awful experience. I couldn’t imagine going to term and then losing it in such a traumatic way.

  “Poor Janet,” I said, my voice choked.

  “She was devastated,” Corbin said flatly. “Utterly distraught. Seeing the thing that was supposed to be our son…I think it broke something inside her.”

  “Oh, Corbin,” I whispered again. I wanted to take him in my arms and hug him but he was still pacing and he didn’t look like he wanted to be hugged.

  “Don’t worry—her pain did not last long. The birth killed her.” He shook his head. “Didn’t I tell you that though I loved her enough to be gentle, she died anyway? My maker called it ‘delicious irony.’ How she laughed!”

  “What a bitch!” I said indignantly.

  “Yes, well…” He shook his head. “It’s a pity she’s not around to hear you call her that.”

  “You mean she’s not around Tampa or not around period?” I asked.

  “She is dead.” Corbin stopped pacing for a moment and looked at me. “I killed her. I won’t tell you how I managed it or how long it took—let us just say that a large part of my second life has been entirely devoted to vengeance.”

  “I don’t blame you for that,” I said. “I would have wanted to kill her too. But what did you do when she was finally gone? How did you end up here?”

  He shrugged. “I wandered the world for a while, consumed with guilt and regret. It was not only my maker who killed Janet—I did my part as well. If I had been able to stay away from her, she never would have gotten pregnant or died during childbirth.”

  “But you loved her,” I objected hotly. “Loved her enough not to hurt her despite your nature. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

  He gave me a smile that had a touch of genuine humor in it.

  “Listen to yourself, Addison. Are you, an Auditor, actually advocating a human/vampire relationship instead of condemning it?”

  “Well, no…” I frowned, feeling confused. It had always seemed so black and white to me before—humans and vampires mixed sexually like oil and water. No, more like nitro and glycerin. A successful physical relationship between the two should be flatly impossible—it was like a hungry lion trying to make love to a wounded antelope without ripping its throat out.

  And yet, somehow, Corbin had made me see things in a whole different light.

  “Well?” Corbin stood there staring at me, an unreadable expression on his face.

  “I guess…I guess I’m just advocating love,” I said at last. “No matter…who it is doing the loving.”

  “Thank you,” Corbin said quietly. “That’s very tolerant of you, Addison.”

  I frowned. “Don’t try to make me out to be some kind of a racist here, Corbin. The reason I don’t believe in vampire/human sex is because the human almost always looks like he or she went through a meat grinder when it’s all over.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Almost being the operative word, I believe. At least, in our case, darling.”

  I could feel my cheeks getting hot again but I refused to drop my eyes. “We never had sex—not really,” I pointed out, crossing my arms over my chest. “You may have, uh, gone down on me but I would never, never risk going all the way—with you or any other vamp.”

  He looked angry. “Do you still not believe in my self-control? My ability to be gentle?”

  “Sure, with the love of your life,” I shot back. “But I’m not her, Corbin. I’m not Janet—I’m just a girl you happen to have a business arrangement with.”