Immortals After Dark 05 - Dark Needs at Nights Edge

didn’t seem able to. Her eyes were stark, her breaths ragged. When he tried to stay her, she passed right through him, making him shudder from a surge of electricity.
    Every protective instinct in him screamed to life. Keep her safe... keep her close.
    He couldn’t. He roared with frustration when she moved through him again.
    How long could she sustain this pace? Faster, twirling away from him, until... she vanished.
    Turning in a slow circle, he bellowed, “Néomi!” But the sounds continued, sounds that he didn’t want to identify: the wet scraping of bone; her scream—interrupted. Suddenly blood pooled out over the floor, soaking the petals.
    Until they, too, disappeared.

15

    He’d seen it. Somehow the vampire had gotten free.
    When Conrad had begun yelling for her from all over the house, she’d evacuated from her studio to the bayou folly.
    She planned to sleep out here, away from all the commotion. The crickets and owls were lulling, and a breeze blew. She couldn’t feel it, but the cypress needles above her combed the wind, the sound sublime. She was just about to fall into reverie when he came upon her.
    He stopped in his tracks, and his eyes briefly slid shut.
    “What do you want?” Néomi murmured.
    He wound around jutting cypress knees to reach her. “Are you injured?” he asked, crouching beside her, surveying her.
    As much as she hated to admit it, his presence was comforting. “Don’t be ridiculous, vampire. I can’t be injured.” Yet her essence was depleted—it always was. And she was shaken from the relived pain. Being stabbed in the heart tended to do that to a person.
    Much less when the knife twists... She shuddered. How much longer can I continue to endure this?
    “What the hell was that back there?” When she shurgged, he said, “You’re even paler than before, fainter.”
    “Am I to expect more insults, Conrad? You should know that I’m not one of those women who will take disdain over nothing.” Had she sounded as if she was trying to convince herself? “I’d rather not converse with you.”
    “I don’t want to insult you.” He couldn’t take his gaze from her, as if fearing she’d disappear again.
    “You didn’t want to be around me earlier. Perhaps now I don’t want your company.”
    He studied her face. “I think... I think that you do.”
    “Cocky now? Le dément reveals a brand-new personality.” She didn’t like that he was right, or that he knew he was right. Maybe she was as pathetic as he’d deemed her. “How did you get loose?”
    “Pulled my shoulder out,” he said, his tone indicating this wasn’t even worth a mention.
    She quirked a brow. Intense man. “Naturellement.”
    “Come inside with me.”
    “You’re ready to let the lapdog inside? And here I didn’t even beg at the door. Why do you even care what happens with me?”
    “I just... do. So return with me,” he said. She could tell he wanted to snatch her arm and drag her in. “Dawn’s coming.”
    She feigned tapping her chin. “Hmm, I never would have suspected if not for that big orange ball rising.”
    “If you won’t come inside, then I have no choice but to stay with you here.”
    “What about the sun? Are you crazed—strike that. Are you a fool?”
    “Tell me what happened tonight or come inside. One of the two.”
    “Allez au diable.”
    “Then I’m staying with you.” He sank beside her, flaunting that stubborn mien.
    “Then I’ll leave.”
    “And go where?” he asked. “Is this where you usually go when you’re not with me?”
    “No, I’m out here because you wouldn’t stop shouting in my house!” she snapped, at the end of her patience. “I don’t know why this happens. At the same time every month, I dance. I can’t stop it, can’t control it. And then once I’ve danced my heart out, I get to have it stabbed. Month after month.”
    “You said you were alone here.”
    “I am. I don’t see Louis. I don’t see the knife. I just can... I just feel it.”
    “I’ve heard of ghosts compelled to reenact certain aspects of their deaths.”
    “Well, now that I know I’m not alone in this, it’s all better. You may go now. Adieu.”

    If Néomi had previously appeared breezy and confident, now she looked like a shaken girl, off by herself to lick her wounds.
    But Conrad had believed what he’d said earlier. She wanted him near—even if she was prickly with him. Of course she’d still be angry with him about earlier, but he also