Blood Calls

As Diego had helped Simon bury them, he had seen grief like Esperanza’s in the man’s eyes. It had only made Diego regret making him a keeper, and had reinforced his decision never to use his vampire’s kiss again.

He shook off the unpleasant thoughts, comforted by the fact that he had left Simon ensconced in his favorite chair, watching a History Channel special on the San Francisco earthquake, and muttering about his own survival.

Diego pushed through the door of the auction gallery, but stopped short as he collided with a woman in his haste to see the Manet. He reached out to keep her from falling.

“I’m sorry,” he began, but smiled when he recognized Ramona. “I didn’t expect you here, little one.”

Ramona gazed up at Diego, thinking he looked as elegant and polished as ever. He had grabbed her arms to steady her, and she in turn had placed her hand on the sleeve of his overcoat. The expensive cashmere felt smooth against her fingers, in sharp contrast to the itchy wool of her own peacoat.

She pulled away from him, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket, both to keep from touching him again and because the chill of the late fall night had bitten into her body.

“I came to see the auction, too,” she explained, walking toward a row with two empty chairs. But then she stopped short. “I’m sorry. I just assumed you were here alone, but if you’re with—”

“I’m with you,” he said with a smile, and confirmed her choice of seating.

Ramona told herself he was just being kind, much as he always was, but it was tough not to imagine how it might be if it were different. If he saw her not as an eccentric, reclusive painter always living on the edge, but as an attractive woman.

Although how could he? she wondered, gazing down at the coat that was a bit too big on her, thanks to all the weight she had recently lost. Even before her illness, his actions had been nothing other than brotherly. She’d always admired his faithfulness to the woman in his life.

When she sat, he paused to remove his overcoat, and revealed yet another fine silk suit and shirt. The top two buttons of the shirt were open, exposing the curly, light brown hairs on his chest. She wondered whether that hair would be crisp beneath her fingers.

“Ramona?” Diego said, and she realized that he had asked her a question.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“Do you want to take your coat off?”

Cold lingered in her body from the autumn night, so she shook her head. “Not just yet.”

He sat beside her, his size and strength striking her again, but she had little time to think about him as the auctioneer came to the podium.

She leaned forward, eagerly watching as a covered painting was brought in and placed on the easel. A hush fell over the room, replaced by murmurs when the painting was unveiled and the auctioneer named the opening price. Fifteen million dollars.

She held her breath, examining the painting from afar. She told herself it must be the original, but once again her artist’s eye could pick out the differences. Why hadn’t anyone at the auction house seen that this wasn’t the authentic masterpiece? Why didn’t any of the prospective buyers realize it?

As the bidding for the painting climbed ever higher, she shifted closer and closer to the edge of the chair, her arms wrapped tight around her to ward off the frost filling her body. When the bidding ended at thirty million, she gasped, shocked by both the price and the fact that it seemed as if van Winter was going to get away with his deception.

Diego’s hand lit on her back, and she glanced over her shoulder and met his concerned gaze.

“Estas bien?” he asked, rubbing his hand against her shoulder in a soothing gesture.

“I’m fine. I just can’t imagine…” She wanted to say that she couldn’t believe that no one had realized the fraud, not even Diego, who was usually so astute.

“It is a lot, but one day you may command similar prices.”

“Sure. When I’m dead,” she muttered, and Diego chuckled, not realizing the irony behind her statement.

“Do not worry, little one. Your day will come.”

She forced a smile and fixed her attention back up at the front of the room. As had happened for the first painting, the next two were sold swiftly.

All three of her paintings fetched a grand total of nearly one hundred and twenty million dollars. She wanted to stand up and shout to everyone that they had been deceived, but who would believe her?

This was one of the city’s better known auction houses, selling off paintings for one of the world’s richest men, and she was no one.

Merely the struggling unknown who had unwittingly helped him carry out the deception.

A sick feeling twisted her gut, and the chill that hadn’t left her all night made her numb inside, weak, she realized as she tried to stand, and found that her legs were a little wobbly. The anxiety and the late hour had taken their toll on her.

“Ramona?” Diego questioned, but she couldn’t answer as spots began to dance before her eyes.

She had pushed herself way too much, she realized as Diego slipped his arm around her waist, providing stability.

“Let me get you home,” he said, and she didn’t argue, lacking the strength to make the trip on her own.

Besides, she needed to conserve her strength for what would be a tough road ahead—proving that van Winter had sold forgeries, and even more importantly, clearing her name of any involvement in the crime.

Chapter 2

So maybe he was wrong to be taking advantage of the fact that she was feeling unwell, Diego thought. But it was the first opportunity to be close to her since Esperanza’s death. He had noticed Ramona well before that, but being an honorable man, unlike he had been in his human life, he had banked his attraction to her.

Even now a part of him said this wasn’t right. She was human and he was undead. He could offer nothing, but he couldn’t deny that he liked the weight of her in his arms as he held her on his lap the entire cab ride home.

She murmured a protest when they arrived at her loft and he insisted on carrying her upstairs. With his vampire powers, he barely registered her weight. Actually, even with just his human strength he could have easily managed. She was so petite. Thinner than she had been a few months ago, he belatedly realized.

It brought out protective feelings in him that should have sent up major warning bells. The last woman he had felt this way toward was Esperanza, and look how that had ended. With death both times.

But that didn’t stop him from depositing Ramona on the sofa in the living area of the large loft, and getting her settled. Despite her continued reassurances that she was fine, he insisted she rest while he prepared some tea, since he noticed yet again that her hands were ice cold.

Way too cold, combined with way too pale…

Diego opened up his vampire senses, but found Ramona’s energy to be totally human and a little frail. The hunter in him recognized she was easy prey, but he tamped down such a thought.

He hadn’t fed from an unwilling human for quite some time. He wasn’t about to begin now.

Although the look that she gave him as he approached with the tea hinted that Ramona might not be so unwilling.

Handing her the mug with the honey-laced concoction, he sat on the coffee table before her.

“Gracias, Diego. You didn’t have to do this.” She cradled the cup with her long fingers, her actions graceful as she brought it to her full lips and took a delicate sip.

Desire rose in him again, much as it had the other day. Intent on fighting it, he said, “I need to take care of my investment, don’t I?”

A crushed look swept across her features before she contained her emotions. “Of course. I understand how expensive it is for you to show—”

“Your masterpieces,” he said, and because he couldn’t sit there any longer, staring at her wounded, doe-brown eyes, he rose and stalked across the loft to her work area.

As he had two days earlier, he stood before her paintings, admiring the sweep of her brush as it almost made love to the figures she had placed on the canvas. The movement of the brushstrokes was so alive, he found himself laying his fingertips against the image on the canvas as if to prove to himself that they weren’t real.

Ramona wondered what he was doing as he stood there, scrutinizing her artwork once more. When he raised his hand and touched the canvas, she had to go see what had drawn him. She set the mug on the table and joined him.

When he ran his fingertips along the line of the woman’s hip in the painting, tracing the slender sweep of her waist, Ramona imagined his hand against her own body. Imagined how it would be for him to touch her the way he caressed the woman on the canvas—the woman she had imagined herself to be, lost in the throes of a lover’s embrace.

As he shifted his hand upward, over the shadow beneath the woman’s breast, she felt his energy beside her. Sensed his growing desire and her own.

When he looked at her, his ice-blue eyes blazed with fire. “Did you feel this way as you painted?”

She had felt that way and more. But she couldn’t confess that with each stroke of the brush, she had imagined it was them together.

“No,” she said.

But he faced her and, laying a hand at her waist, murmured “Liar.”

He bent from his larger height, but she was already meeting him halfway, wanting to experience him if only for this one moment. A moment that had sprung from nowhere, but was not to be missed.

His lips were a bit cold, but wonderfully soft on hers. They sampled the edges of her mouth as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close.

The body she had admired from afar was much like she had imagined. Big. Strong. Firm.

He was hard beneath her hands as she grabbed hold of his shoulders. Hard against the flatness of her belly as he swept his arm beneath her buttocks and drew her to him.

She moaned at the thought of that hardness within her. Of his big body urging her downward into the softness of the bed that was just at the other side of the loft.

Her whimper of need jolted Diego from the enjoyment of her response.

As right as she felt in his arms, this was wrong, he thought, and slowly eased away from her.

“Perdóname, Ramona. This should never have happened.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry, too,” she said, and shifted away, nervously rubbing her palms up and down the front of the figure-hugging jeans she wore.

He reached out and took her hands to stop the jittery motion. “Please don’t take this wrong, little one. It’s not you, it’s me.”

“You’re gay?” she squeaked, obviously confused by his statement.

“No, not at all,” he began with a chuckle. “I’m just a…heartbreaker. A cad.”

“A cad? Fossilized much?” she teased uneasily at his choice of the rather old-fashioned term.

“Let’s just say I’ll break your heart, and I’d rather not do that.”

She slipped her hands from his and nodded. “I get it, Diego. No harm, no foul.”

“Right,” he said, only he didn’t think either of them believed that there had been no harm.

After the heat of that kiss, their relationship would never be the same, and that wasn’t a good thing.

Diego was always amused by a visit to the Lair. His friend Ryder had managed to create quite a tongue-in-cheek homage to his vampire self. From the faux stone walls to the hundreds of realistic bats clinging to the ceiling, everything about the establishment created the illusion of being in a cavern deep belowground.

As Diego strolled to the bar, he smiled at the sign for the club, which dripped neon blood from its bright red letters onto the gleaming stainless steel surface below.

Diego realized the crowd here only liked to play at being in the darkness, unlike those who frequented the Blood Bank, where he used to hang out before meeting Ryder nearly two years ago. Up until then, he and Esperanza had visited the place fairly regularly, knowing that they could always sip from a willing neck or drink the bloody libations the Blood Bank carried for its vamp clientele. Totally unlike Ryder’s club, which had a strict No Bite No Blood policy.

Diego had to acknowledge that coming here and being with Ryder had mellowed him somewhat, making him more of a human wanna-be than ever before. Maybe that was the reason Ramona was now so intriguing. Hanging with Ryder and his friends the past two years had blurred the lines between his true vamp world and the human world to which he could never belong.

Or maybe it was because his friend Ryder was in love with a human—something Diego refused to consider.

Ryder approached, his mortal lover at his side. Diana didn’t look well, Diego thought; her pale countenance and slight frame seemed even more delicate than it had just a few weeks ago, when he’d last seen her. As she neared, his vamp senses picked up the unusual thrum of power cast from her body, and he shot a puzzled look at Ryder.

Had he turned her? he wondered, sensing that there was something more vamp than human about Ryder’s lover. However, Diego knew if there was anyone more adamant than he about not turning anyone, it was Ryder.

“How are you?” Diego said as he rose and embraced Diana, sensing the fragility in her petite body.

“I’m fine. What brings you here?” she asked, slipping onto a stool beside him.

Ryder took a spot behind her, clearly offering her support. She shot him a look that was both grateful and sensual, as if just his touch could rouse her.

Diego realized it was enough for his friend as he bent and nuzzled the side of Diana’s face in a loving gesture, a human gesture. Even when Ryder dropped his head lower, to the crook of her neck, the vampire stayed in check.

With the scene too painful to behold, Diego turned away, focusing on the deep red of the wine in his glass. He imagined it was a fresh O positive, to remind himself of what he was. Of why emotion such as that plainly visible on Ryder’s face would bring only pain and despair.

As Diana picked up her own glass of wine, he once again wondered at her paleness and the power spilling off her body. Of course, Ryder was plastered so close that maybe it was a remnant of his vampire energy that Diego sensed.

But maybe it was time to press the issue.

“Bite any good necks lately?” His gaze skimmed to Diana’s jugular before he took an idle sip of his wine.

Ryder straightened, an angry look on his face. Diana flinched at the remark and her own face darkened with anger.

“Something on your mind, Diego?” Ryder asked, easing his hand to her shoulder, where he rubbed it back and forth as if to soothe the prickly special agent, who was clearly not amused by Diego’s comment.

“Diana just seems a bit…under the weather. Maybe she needs a more experienced vamp—”

The human Ryder had been the one to escort Diana to the bar, but it was his demon side now acting with a vehemence and swiftness Diego hadn’t expected. He found himself lifted off the stool as Ryder snared his neck in one strong hand.

“Why are you doing this?” his friend hissed against his face, his eyes bleeding out to an intense blue-green as a hint of fang slid downward.

“Woman trouble,” Diego confessed. For the last hour he had prowled Ryder’s vamp-themed club and engaged in dances with an assortment of nubile young women in the hopes of driving Ramona from his mind. When he realized that every female he had chosen reminded him of the eccentric artist, he’d given up and decided to resort to wine to force thoughts of her away.

Diana laid a hand on Ryder’s arm, urging him to release Diego, which he did. She slipped from her stool and said, “I’ll let you two talk. Be back later.”

With a quick kiss on Ryder’s cheek, she walked away, leaving the vampires alone. Reining in the anger that had brought forth the demon, Ryder said, “It’s been over a year now. Don’t you think it’s time you forgot about Esperanza?”

“You can never forget a true love, but actually, this is about someone else.”

“Someone else? This warrants something stronger than wine, I believe.” Ryder motioned to a waiter. “A bottle of Cuervo and glasses, please.”

The bartender obliged. He placed a shaker of salt and a small bowl of limes next to the tequila.

Ryder poured full shots of the liquor, then grabbed his glass. Heedless of the salt and lime, he held it up and said, “To women.”

Diego shook his head. “Never again, amigo.”

“But you said—”

“Woman trouble. As in major mistake never going to happen in my eternal life if I can help it.” With that said, he slugged back a full shot. He quickly refilled the glass, prompting a chuckle from his friend.

“This is serious. I’ve never known you to have more than one.”

With a careless shrug, Diego took his time with the second drink, sipping the tequila slowly. He winced at the sharp taste of it, so much less pleasing than either a glass of wine or a nice nip from the neck of someone willing.

Like that attractive young woman eyeing him from the end of the bar. She was barely thirty, with long chestnut-colored hair and dark eyes much like—

No. He hated that his thoughts had strayed back to Ramona. After Esperanza’s death, he had assumed he would spend the rest of his eternal life sans partner. That Ramona kept intruding into his psyche troubled him deeply.

“So tell me, Diego. Who’s the unlucky vamp who’s displeased you so?”

In the vampire hierarchy in Manhattan, Diego’s age and corresponding power put him high on the pecking order. Those who angered him could be handled without encountering much opposition from the other vampires in the city. Not that Diego took advantage of such rank. If anything, the other vampires considered him a human wannabe because he normally refused to benefit from his powers and his undead state.

As for Ramona, she knew nothing of his eternal life. Nothing other than the face he presented to the mortal world—that he was a well-off dilettante who had rather successfully dabbled in the art world. He imagined that like most humans, Ramona would not be able to deal with his true self.

“Diego?” Ryder prompted at his delay in answering.

“She’s not a vampire. She’s a mortal.”

Ryder shook his head as if to clear it. “Did I hear you right? A mortal? Like Diana?”

Diego thought about Ryder’s mortal lover, only Ramona was nothing like Diana. With a shake of his head, he teased, “Amigo, there isn’t anyone quite like your lover.”

Ryder looked toward Diana, who was busy talking to someone at the edge of the bar. He tarried in refilling the shot glass before bolting back another slug of tequila.

“Is everything okay with you?” Diego asked, sensing his friend’s suddenly troubled state.

With a shrug, Ryder said, “Diana has been tired lately.”

Diego sensed that it went beyond tiredness, but if that was what his friend wished to call it, he wouldn’t worry him more. “I’m sure she’s been working long hours on some case.”

“I guess desk duty can be difficult.”

Desk duty would be the death of someone like Ryder’s very empowered lover, he thought. “They still haven’t released her?”

“No. The review board suspension hasn’t been lifted. But enough of that. Who is this mortal woman who has you so twisted up?” Ryder asked, starting to refill their glasses for a third time. Diego waved him off. “I’m afraid I may need something more satisfying, mi amigo.” Something that would remind him of what he was and why someone like Ramona Escobar was thoroughly wrong for him.

“I’d go with you, but…”

Surprised, Diego shot a puzzled glance at his friend. Ryder only occasionally indulged his vampire needs, usually at times of extreme stress, when releasing the beast within helped restore balance.

It also helped restore the reality of their situation—that they were no longer human. That playing at being so and acquiring human desires and attachments could only bring eternal pain.

Slipping from the stool, Diego clapped his friend on the back. “Comprendo, amigo. However, a willing neck waits for me at the Blood Bank.”

Chapter 3

Diego slipped payment to the vampire guarding the back rooms and walked past him with the young girl in tow. She was medium height, with short red hair and a plain face, but her body made up for it. The black leather she wore exposed womanly curves and alabaster skin. She was much like Esperanza, who beneath her servant’s clothes had been blessed with a voluptuousness that he’d lovingly cherished for five hundred years.

He opened the door to the first room, one of a series that Foley, the owner of the Blood Bank, kept for those who wanted some unusual enjoyment. As Diego entered, he noted the chains, whips and other accoutrements on the far wall.

When the young woman saw them, she let out a squeal of delight and rushed over, selecting a small whip, which she snapped with relish.

The noise unnerved him, and in a blast of vamp speed, he raced forward and ripped the whip from her grasp.

She glanced up at his face, her head tilted at what she probably thought was an engaging angle, but which only served to expose the pale skin of her neck and the pulse that beat there.

“What’s the matter? Afraid of a little pain?” she asked coyly.

Diego laid a finger on that pulse point and met her gaze. “You know nothing of real pain,” he said, his tone soft but threatening.

“Really? But I know one thing.” She leaned closer and reached down to stroke him through the fabric of his pants.

“Yes, you do know.” He sucked in a breath as she undid the zipper, slipped her hand inside and beneath his briefs to wrap her soft palm around his rock-hard erection.

“You like?” she asked, and at his nod, she dropped to her knees, freed him from his pants and took him into her mouth.

Dios, Diego thought, enjoying how she satisfied him with her gifted mouth and tongue, while wondering at the same time why modern women debased themselves so quickly in this fashion. In his day, only the street whores would go at a man like this, without prelude or passion.

But that thought didn’t stop him from holding her head to him until he felt his climax rise to the edge, and with it, the beast who needed satisfaction of another kind.

Shaking his head, he drove the demon back, wishing to at least pleasure the woman before he allowed his own release and indulged the vampire with a different kind of fulfillment.

Urging her to her feet, he undressed her slowly, revealing each luscious curve. He paused to caress her generous breasts, which filled his hands, and the large, rosy peaks of her nipples. She moaned as he sucked at them, but with a little love bite, he moved lower down her body until he was the supplicant before her, peeling away her leather pants to reveal the nest of auburn curls between her thighs.

She gazed down at him then, her brown eyes dilated with passion, her lips full, not that he would kiss her. He never kissed any of his conquests on the mouth.

Instead he grasped her hips and urged her forward. He nuzzled the curls with his nose and then slipped his hand around and parted her, eased one finger and then another into her while he licked the nub between her legs.

She gasped in delight and grabbed hold of his shoulders. Her soft moans drove him on, until he could wait no longer. Surging to his feet, he raised her off the floor and drove into her before walking them to the far wall of the room.

With her back against the rough plaster, she shifted her hips, moving on him, and he hammered into her again and again until she nearly screamed from the force of his thrusts and the pleasure they wrought in her.

The pulse at her neck beat rapidly. Violently. Blood called him to fulfill another need.