something no mortal but Jolene had ever known before. With that knowledge she held the power to destroy him? but it didn't matter. Losing her would destroy him as nothing else could.
She followed him into the parlor, as he'd known she would, though she stayed on the far side of the room. Foolish girl, he thought, didn't she realize the danger she was in?
Leanne rubbed her fingertips over the two small wounds in her neck. "You did this, didn't you?"
"Yes."
A look of horror filled her eyes. "Am I??"
"No!" He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, his fists clenching and unclenching as he fought to control the thirst raging through him. "I may be a fiend of the worst kind, but I would never condemn you to a life of darkness."
She touched the wounds in her neck again. "Then why?"
"Last night was to be our last night together." He met her gaze, begging for her understanding, her forgiveness. "I wanted to taste your sweetness just once."
Leanne stared up at him, the thought of never seeing him again suddenly more frightening than the realization that he was, indeed, a vampire.
"Our last night?" she repeated tremulously.
"Yes."
His gaze lingered on the pulse throbbing in her throat for a moment before returning to her face. "You'd better go now."
Wordlessly, she continued to stare at him, her eyes filled with anguish and denial.
With preternatural speed he crossed the floor until he was standing in front of her, his eyes blazing with an unholy light.
"Go home, Leanne," he said, his voice harsh and uneven as he fought to control his raging thirst. "You're not safe here."
"Jason?"
A low growl rose in his throat as he bared his fangs. "Go home," he said again, and his voice was filled with pain and tightly leashed fury.
With a strangled cry she turned and ran out of the room.
Out of his life.
Part 1 Chapter Nine
He sat in his favorite chair in front of the fireplace in the den, staring, unseeing, a the flames. In his mind's eye, he saw the horror in Leanne's eyes when she thought he might have bequeathed her the Dark Gift and turned her into a loathsome creature such as himself. The sound of her footsteps running away, running away from what he was, echoed like a death knell in his ears.
He stared at his hands. He hadn't eaten for several days, and his skin looked like old parchment. He knew his eyes glowed with hell's own fury, knew that soon he would either have to go to ground and lose himself in sleep, or satisfy the awful craving that was eating him up inside.
An unquenchable thirst for blood.
A deep and never-ending hunger for Leanne.
Had it been only two weeks since he'd held her in his arms, tasted her sweetness, heard the sound of her laughter? Only two weeks?
It seemed a lifetime.
A lifetime, Jason mused with a bitter smile. He had walked the earth for three hundred years, and never had the hours and the minutes passed so slowly.
During the long, lonely hours of the night, as he prowled the alleys and dark streets of the city, he seemed to hear the wind taunting him with the sound of her name. Sometimes he paused outside a house, listening to the sounds of life inside: children crying, laughing. He watched people eating, talking, arguing, sleeping. And he thought of Leanne, always Leanne, of how wonderful it would be to be mortal, to share her life, to sit across the breakfast table from her in the morning, to make love to her in the light of day, to father a child.
He haunted the shadows outside the Ahmanson, torturing himself with glimpses of her face. He read the sadness in her eyes, and he was filled with bitter regret because he knew he was the cause of her sorrow. She didn't smile anymore, and the world was the poorer because of it.
One night, driven by an uncontrollable urge to hear her voice, he bought a ticket to the evening performance, sitting in the last row of the balcony so there would be no chance of her discovering he was there.
Oblivious to everything else, he sat with his gaze riveted on her face, silent tears streaming down his cheeks as he listened to her sing. Her voice, while still beautiful, lacked the enthusiasm, thejoie de vivre, that had once set it apart from the others.
Leaving the theater that night, he had told himself she'd get over him. She was young, so