Amanda Ashley Read online

  “Maybe you’ll believe this,” he said, and turning away from her, he removed his shirt and trousers.

  Kara stared at Alexander’s back. Part of her mind registered the fact that he didn’t wear anything underneath his clothes, that he was tall and broadshouldered and perfectly formed, but even as she found herself admiring his well-muscled physique, she felt herself recoiling from the visible proof staring her in the face. A dark, diamond-shaped pattern ran down the length of his spine, feathered across his buttocks, and continued down the backs of his legs.

  It reminded her of the kind of skin peculiar to the alien invaders she’d seen on an old TV series.

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Convinced?” His voice was hard and cold and flat.

  “What . . . is that?”

  “It’s perfectly normal.”

  “Normal?”

  “Indeed.”

  Hardly aware that she was moving, Kara stood up and approached him. Hesitantly, she ran one fingertip over his spine, exploring the raised ridge of flesh that ran the length of his back. It felt coarser, thicker, than the rest of his skin, almost like soft leather. The dark stripe grew lighter in both color and texture as it continued below his waist and down the backs of his legs.

  Repelled, yet curious, she touched him again, felt him shudder as her fingers brushed against his spine. Thinking she had hurt him in some way, she withdrew her hand.

  But she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his broad back, from that peculiar ridge of inhuman flesh. It was unlike anything she had ever seen. Alien. And even as she stared at his back, at the strangely compelling pattern on his spine, she found herself wondering if he was different from earthly men in other ways.

  Riveted to the spot, she watched the play of muscles in his back as he slipped on his shirt and trousers.

  Unable to help herself, she backed away from him when he turned around to face her.

  “You’re afraid of me now,” he said, and there was a wealth of sadness in his voice.

  Incapable of speech, Kara shook her head. Alien. Alien. The words repeated themselves in her mind.

  The fear in her eyes pained Alex far more than he had anticipated.

  “I won’t hurt you, Kara,” he said quietly. “I’d swear it on everything I once held dear if I thought you would believe me.”

  She swallowed hard, wishing she could think of something witty or brilliant to say. Instead, she felt her throat grow thick, felt the sharp sting of tears behind her eyes.

  “Kara, say something.”

  She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “Gail will be thrilled to know she was right,” she murmured, and burst into tears.

  He took a step toward her, wanting, needing, to comfort her, but her outthrust hand held him at bay.

  “Don’t touch me!” On the verge of hysteria, Kara turned and ran out of the room, sobbing.

  Chapter Eleven

  He stared after her while shards of pain splintered through him. The sound of her voice seemed to reverberate off the walls: Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me . . . Don’t . . .

  A coarse oath escaped his lips. He hadn’t let himself care for anyone in two hundred years. Not that he had lived like a monk. Though he wasn’t human, he was still a man, with a man’s hungers, a man’s needs. Needs that, since coming to earth, had been gratified only after a cash transaction. The women who had satisfied his lust had been willing to do whatever he asked. A few had thought it odd that he insisted the room they met in be kept completely dark; most had thought it strange that he refused to let them see him naked, but he hadn’t cared. He had never spent more than fifteen minutes with any of them. He had satisfied his lust and left their beds, ashamed of the need that had driven him to seek them out in the first place. Never, in two hundred years, had he trusted another living soul with the knowledge of who and what he was. He had lived on the edge of humanity, alone but never really lonely, until he gazed into Kara Crawford’s dreamy blue eyes.

  Now, for the first time, he had found a woman whose touch he craved. He had risked letting her know who he was, had shown her what he was, and she had looked at him with horror and revulsion. It shouldn’t have hurt. It was exactly the reaction he had expected, but that didn’t lessen the pain.

  His steps were heavy as he left the cavern. He stood in the yard, hardly aware of the rain as he pondered what to do next. He couldn’t take her home. She wouldn’t want to stay here, not with him, not now.

  How could he let her go?

  How could he make her stay?

  He couldn’t. Tomorrow he would give her the keys to his car. If she was smart, she would find a place to hide, someplace where no one knew who she was.

  No doubt she would feel safer with Barrett than with him.

  Weary to the depths of his soul, he stared up at the night sky. His world was out there, millions of miles away in another galaxy, and everyone he had ever known, everyone he had ever loved, was long dead. As he should have been.

  He felt suddenly tired—tired of being alone, tired of living in the shadows. Tired of living, period.

  Crossing the yard, he activated the opening in the rock face, then stepped out onto the narrow ledge.

  He stared dispassionately into the blackness that yawned below, and for the first time since he’d arrived on earth, he contemplated ending his life. It would be so easy. One step over the edge into nothingness and all his troubles would be over. . . .

  “Alex? Alex, where are you?”

  He whirled around at the sound of her voice.

  “What are you doing out here?” Kara asked, glancing around.

  “Nothing.”

  She stared past him, her eyes widening with the realization of what he meant to do.

  Taking hold of his arm, she gave a slight tug. “Come inside,” she urged. “We need to talk.”

  He shook off her hand; then, as though he had no mind or will of his own, he followed her through the opening, touched the lever to close the portal, then followed her into the cavern.

  Kara sat down on the sofa. Alex stood at the opposite end of the room, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his Levi’s.

  “What do you want to talk about?” His voice was flat, emotionless.

  Kara’s raised her eyebrows. “What do you think?”

  “I would think you’d be anxious to get away from here.” He withdrew his right hand from his pocket and tossed his car keys at her. “You can leave any time you wish.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  Kara looked at the keys in her hand, then dropped them on the low table beside the sofa. “I thought you were going to protect me.”

  “Indeed? And who’s going to protect you from me?”

  “Do I need protecting from you?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Alexander, I’m sorry for what happened before. But you’ve got to understand. I mean . . .” She held out her hands, palms up. “You can’t blame me for being a little shocked.”

  “And you’re not shocked anymore?”

  “I don’t know. It’s . . . it’s just so hard to believe. Even after . . . after what you showed me.”

  He didn’t say anything, just looked at her, his gaze shuttered and cold. She could feel the tension radiating from him, see it in the rigid set of his shoulders.

  “Tonight . . . the fire in the hearth. It wasn’t already lit, was it? You did it.”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it to you, Kara. I think it, and it’s done.”

  “Is that how you cut windows in the mountain?”

  “No. I have some . . . some tools from home.”

  “Did you make the glass in the windows?”

  “Yes.”

  “What other tricks can you do?”

  “More than you want to know.”

  “I never saw you during the day. Why?”

  “Earth’s sun is much
stronger than that of Er-Adona. Even a little is like poison to me.”

  “So you sleep during the day and go out at night.”

  “Yes.” He smiled enigmatically. “Just like Dracula.”

  “You said you came here over two hundred years ago.”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t look a day over thirty-five. Perhaps two hundred was considered middle-aged where he came from. “Do all your . . . Is it normal for your . . . your people to live so long?”

  “No.”

  “Talk to me, Alexander, please. I want to understand.”

  She looked so earnest, Alex felt himself relenting in spite of his determination to keep her at arm’s length.

  “I don’t know why I’ve lived so long. At home, a normal life span is a hundred and twenty-five years.”

  “Are you immortal, then?”

  Alex shook his head. “I don’t think so, but I must have undergone some sort of mutation. I don’t know. I only know that my body’s aging process has slowed. As near as I can tell, I’ve only aged about ten years since I came here.”

  Ten years in two centuries, Kara mused. It was incredible. Beyond comprehension. Imagine living for centuries instead of decades. Never being sick. It was the fabled Fountain of Youth, only there were no magical waters. The magic was in Alex’s blood. And yet, for Alex, it hadn’t been a miracle, but a curse. Two hundred years of loneliness, of avoiding the sun, of living in the shadows, on the edge of humanity. No wonder he wrote about vampires!

  “Alexander? Why did you come here?”

  His gaze slid away from hers. He was reluctant to tell her the truth, certain it would only make her more afraid of him than she already was. And yet, she had a right to know.

  “Alex?”

  “There is no war where I come from,” he said, speaking slowly. “No crime as you know it. We have no need for locks or jails. Our society is one of total peace and tranquility. Before I was . . . before I left, there had been no crime for over three hundred years.”

  “That’s amazing!”

  “Not really. Punishment on ErAdona is swift and final. There are no second chances.” His gaze met hers. “My distant ancestors were an uncivilized and warlike people. After centuries of bloodshed and violence, the women of my planet decided it was time for peace. They gathered their children around them and barricaded themselves in the cathedrals, refusing to come out until the men destroyed their weapons of hand-to-hand combat and swore to live in peace.

  “In time, we invented sophisticated weapons of war to repel invaders, but there are no confrontations among our own people. It is not tolerated.”

  Alex inhaled deeply, then blew out a long, slow breath. “But even in the most placid of societies, there are occasionally those who refuse to conform . . .”

  He paused and Kara saw his hands ball into fists. Was he speaking of himself? “Go on.”

  “His name was Rell and he was the son of one of ErAdona’s ruling families. He . . . he wanted a woman who belonged to another, and when she refused him, he took her by force. And then, when he realized what he had done, he . . . he killed her. He buried her body in a dry lake where he hoped it would never be found. . . .”

  Alex’s voice trailed off. He was staring at his hands, clenching and unclenching them, and Kara knew he was caught up in the past, that he had forgotten she was there.

  “Alexander?”

  He blinked several times. “I found her three weeks later.” He would never forget the horror of it, the dark black blood encrusted in her hair and clotted over the hideous gash at her throat, the awful smell of her decomposing body.

  “AnnaMara . . .” Unbidden, her name whispered past his lips.

  “Alex, it’s all right. You don’t have to tell me any more.”

  “I found the man who killed her, and I choked the life out of him with my bare hands. And then . . .”

  He looked at Kara, at the compassion shining in her eyes, and knew he could not tell her the rest, could not tell her that he had hacked Rell’s body to pieces.

  He paced the floor, suddenly restless. “When the council learned what had happened, I was arrested and confined to my dwelling. Some of the council members argued that I should be executed, since, like Rell, I had also taken a life. But my father intervened in my behalf, reminding the council that, anciently, it would have been my right to avenge my wife’s honor. And so the council decided to be lenient.” He spat the last word from his mouth as if it tasted bad. “Instead of having me executed, I was exiled. My parents were entrusted with the care of my daughter, and I was banished from our galaxy to this small, warlike planet.”

  “I’m sorry, Alex, truly I am.”

  He stopped pacing and stared into the hearth. “They refused to let me see my daughter before I was sent away,” he said, his voice dull with grief. “And now she’s dead.”

  Kara bit down on her lower lip, wishing she could erase the hurt from his past. Wanting to comfort him, she went to stand behind him, hoping her presence would ease his pain. She stared at his rigid back, compelled to reach out, to offer the solace of her touch.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t touch me. There’s blood on my hands, in my soul.”

  “Alex, please let me help.”

  “Nothing can help. Go away, Kara. Now, while you can.”

  She stared at his back for a long moment, then turned and left the room.

  In bed, huddled under the blankets, Kara stared at the ceiling, her heart breaking for the pain Alex had suffered. He had avenged his wife’s death, and lost everything. It wasn’t fair. She tried to imagine a world without war, without crime, without poverty. Without Alex.

  Turning on her side, she closed her eyes, her own troubles seeming minor compared to those of the man in the other room.

  There was a terrible awkwardness between them the next day. Kara had prepared a late breakfast, always conscious of the man in the next room. Alex hadn’t eaten anything, only drunk a cup of hot black coffee.

  He had stood in the living room, staring out the small round window, his hands shoved into his pants pockets, while she ate her solitary meal, then washed the dishes in water warmed by a solar heater. And all the while she had tried to think of some way to ease the strained silence between them.

  She had yearned to go to him, to run her fingers through his hair, to press her cheek against his broad back and tell him she was sorry, but she was afraid—afraid of what he was, afraid of being rebuffed, and even more afraid of what might happen between them if she stayed. And so she had eaten her solitary breakfast and then washed and dried the dishes.

  And now she stood in the opening between the living room and the kitchen, staring at his back and wondering what to do.

  “It’s stopped raining.” His voice was low and soft, yet she had no trouble hearing him. “You should go now.”

  “Go?”

  He nodded. “Take my car and whatever else you need.”

  For a moment, the thought held a certain appeal. She could leave this place, this strange, troubled man, and go home. Only she couldn’t go home. Barrett might be waiting for her.

  Kara shuddered, remembering the deranged look in the doctor’s eyes when he spoke of testing her blood. She knew now what he was looking for. He had discovered the healing agent in Alex’s blood . . . She caught her breath with the realization that freedom lay within her reach. All she had to do was get to a phone, call Barrett, and tell him that it was Alex’s blood that held the strange antibody.

  The thought had barely crossed her mind when Alex turned away from the window, his deep black gaze locking on hers.

  “Go on,” he said, his voice bitter. “Do it.”

  “Do what?”

  He jerked his head toward the end table. “My keys are there. You can find a phone on your way home.”

  She stared at him. “You can read my mind, can’t you?”

  “When I want to.”

  “I asked you about that once before, and
you lied to me.”

  He didn’t deny it.

  “Why did you lie to me?”

  “How could I explain it?”

  “I don’t know. It must be handy, being able to read minds.”

  “I can only read yours.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s a link, forged by the blood I gave you. During the ErAdonian mating ceremony, it’s customary for the man and woman to exchange a small amount of blood. Not only does it forge a strong bond between them, but it enables them to share their innermost thoughts, to communicate telepathically over long distances.”

  He shook his head, wishing he could think of a way to make her realize the danger she was in. “You can tell Barrett whatever you like, but he won’t believe you.”

  “I think he will. It might take him a few minutes to accept, but once he thinks about it, he’ll realize it’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

  “And you expect me to sit here and wait for him?”

  “Of course not. I just want him to leave me alone. I just want to be able to go home again.”

  He could hardly blame her for that. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the stark beauty of ErAdona and all he had lost.

  “Do what you have to, Kara.” He looked at her for a long moment, then left the cavern.

  For a time, Kara stared after him, her mind reeling as she tried to sort out her feelings, tried to decide what to do, who to trust, where to turn.

  Suddenly, she had to get away, had to be alone to try and sort out her jumbled emotions. With a wordless cry, she picked up his keys, ran into the bedroom, threw her clothing and toiletries into a couple of shopping bags and ran out of the cavern.

  A cold wind buffeted her as she tossed the bags onto the seat, then slid behind the wheel of the Porsche.

  Standing outside in the shadows, Alex watched her drive away. He could have made her stay. He could have kept her imprisoned in the cavern. He could have overpowered her free will and forced her to do as he wished. But he didn’t want a mindless robot. He wanted her love, and her trust, freely given.

  Standing on the ledge, he watched the headlights pierce the darkness as she drove down the mountain.

  She was going.

  It was for the best.