First Drop of Crimson

Spade lay on his back, Denise sleeping within the circle of his arms. Her honeyed jasmine scent mixed with his, creating a muskier, lush fragrance that he occasionally breathed in. It was their scent, sharpened by passion, and with each breath, he savored it.

She's truly mine now.

The possessiveness he felt had nothing to do with being a vampire. Yes, under vampiric law, Denise was his the moment he bit her, if he chose to claim her as such. But this was different. It was the sort of bone-deep emotion that made him want to hold her tighter with one hand - and draw a sword against the world with the other.

It also made him want to wake her up so he could take her again, even though he knew she needed more than the five hours' sleep that had been sufficient for him. He watched the steady rise and fall of her breasts, the diamond and amethyst necklace still sparking between them. Denise had the blankets pulled up to her waist, but Spade hadn't needed them. Not with the smoldering heat of her body alongside his.

The memory of how incredible it felt inside her had Spade rolling onto his side, facing her. Maybe he'd wake her, take her just once, and then let her fall back asleep afterward...

Sounds of a car pulling into his driveway made him snap into alert. All the guests had left, so it couldn't be a late chauffeur picking up a lingering partygoer, and he wasn't expecting anyone.

He slipped out of bed without disturbing Denise, yanking on his pants and shirt from the previous evening. The sword he put back in the loop on his belt in case this was an uninvited ghoul, but the rest of the knives he grabbed were silver.

Then the car stopped and a door slammed. Spade felt waves of power emanating from the exterior of the house, growing in increasing currents that marked the identity of the person outside as a Master vampire.

Power he recognized all too well.

"Bloody hell," Spade muttered, taking off the knives and sword.

He was already down the last flight of stairs when Alten opened the door. "Bones," Alten said, surprise in his voice.

Crispin saw him rounding the corner and his brow arched. "Going to invite me in, Charles?" he asked crisply.

Even though the power crackling around him was familiar, the scent was familiar, and the annoyed expression on Crispin's face was more than familiar, Spade paused. Hotels and other public places might be fair game, but a demon couldn't come inside a home unless invited. Had Raum somehow found them, and vastly improved his disguise?

"Sire?" Alten asked, flicking his gaze between them.

"You arrived without invitation, you can walk through that door without invitation," Spade replied, tensing.

Crispin snorted in disbelief as he brushed past Alten. Some of the stiffness left Spade as he saw his friend easily clear the threshold.

"If we hadn't been mates for over two centuries, I'd be tempted to knock you on your arse," Crispin said. "What has gotten into you, Charles?"

"Got here right quickly, didn't you?" Spade said, walking toward the less formal living room at the back of the house. He didn't look behind him to see if Crispin followed; he'd come this far, he wouldn't stop now.

"If you were trying to hide, you did a bloody poor job of it by hosting a large party under your name," Crispin replied. "Word gets around about that, especially word that you're relocating here with your new human lover."

"Whiskey?" Spade asked, ignoring that.

"Of course."

Spade filled a crystal glass from the decanter in the living room, handing it to Crispin. His friend took it, still eyeing him in that annoyed, bemused way, but at least he'd come alone. Cat would have stormed up the stairs to search every room for Denise, impatient woman that she was.

"Sit," Spade said, indicating the sofa.

If he was anyone else, he knew Crispin would have refused. Perhaps pulled a weapon and demanded whatever it was he'd come for, but Crispin curled himself into the sofa as languidly as if he'd arrived only to relax.

"You reek of Denise," he remarked in a conversational tone.

Spade's mouth tightened. "That's none of your concern."

"I grow very weary of you telling me that," Crispin said, his tone sharpening. "Shall we quit the pretense and just get straight to why you've taken up with my wife's best friend behind my back? What sort of trouble is Denise in, and why didn't you bring it to my attention when you discovered it?"

Crispin was too smart for his own good, but Spade made one last attempt at evasiveness.

"What makes you think Denise is with me for suspicious reasons? She's a beautiful woman, I'm an attractive-enough bloke, we get on..." Spade dangled the rest of the sentence with a shrug.

"Bollocks," Crispin said, brown eyes narrowing. "We both know you avoid relationships with human women, and we both know that a demon was in Denise's house before she suddenly showed up at your side as your devoted lover."

Crispin must have gone to her home and smelled Raum there. Bloody man was too smart for his own good.

"Not to mention Denise decided to shun all things vampire the last time I was around her," Crispin went on. "I heard it in her thoughts. So even if a demon dropped by to say hallo and nothing else happened, Denise isn't with you out of a sudden desire to join the vampire ranks, so why don't you quit the shite and tell me what's going. If you don't, I'll just read it from her mind the moment I see her."

Damn Crispin's new telepathic skill. He could indeed pluck all the details from Denise's mind as soon as she woke up.

"Before I tell you anything, I must first inform you that whatever her initial reasons for seeking me out, things are serious between Denise and me," Spade said. Then his voice hardened. "You're not leaving with her, Crispin, unless it's over my dried, withered corpse."

Both of his friend's brows shot up, and then Crispin let out a bark of amazed laughter.

"Lucifer's bouncing balls, that's why you're acting like a nutter! You've gone and fallen in love with her. Bloody hell, if I didn't see it on your face myself, I wouldn't believe it."

Crispin was off the couch in the next moment, slapping him on the back. "This is cause for celebration! And no small relief for me as well. I had to force my wife to let me speak with you alone. She fretted that Denise had somehow gotten into trouble and you were holding her against her will."

Spade was momentarily speechless. Was it that obvious how he felt about Denise, or did Crispin just know him too well?

"I'm quite pleased for Denise, too," Crispin went on, his grin fading a bit. "She was broken up very badly after Randy's death, and then her miscarriage - "

"Miscarriage?" Spade interrupted, gripping Crispin's shoulders.

The smile wiped completely from his friend's face. "Didn't she tell you? Denise miscarried a few weeks after Randy's murder. Doctors reckoned it was grief and stress. Afterward, she moved out of my home and I heard in her thoughts that she intended to pull away from our world. She ceased calling my wife or returning her calls the past couple months, so I figured she'd made the final break."

Spade closed his eyes. Denise didn't just have guilt over her association with vampires for her husband's death; she had it for her unborn child's, too.

"No, she didn't tell me."

Denise cared for him, yes, but with such a loss, would she be willing to relinquish her chance at motherhood forever for him? Vampires couldn't impregnate humans. Cat had been the rarest fluke as a half-breed, and even then, her father had been undead by days only. Not centuries, as Spade was.

Crispin must have read some of that from his face, too. "Does Denise feel the same way about you?"

Spade opened his eyes. "I don't know."

Denise stretched, rolling over. No one was on the other side of the bed, which she was used to, but then her eyes snapped open when she remembered this time, someone was supposed to be.

She sat up, looking around the room. It was large, yes, but a glance still told her Spade wasn't in it.

It's not unusual for him to be up before you, she reminded herself to cover that flutter of nervousness in her stomach. How long did he even stay? an insidious inner voice promptly asked. For all you know, he left right after you fell asleep.

She looked at the bed. The covers weren't mussed where Spade would have slept. Her stomach plummeted. Maybe Spade did leave right afterward. Maybe she'd misconstrued what he'd said last night about this not being casual.

Or maybe she was being an idiot and Spade had just slept without messing his side of the bed and was now getting breakfast.

Hope battled with insecurity. She hadn't dealt with this potentially awkward morning-after situation before. With Randy, the only other man she'd slept with this quickly, she knew how he felt beforehand. The other three guys, she'd dated for a while before sex came into the picture, so relationship parameters had been firmly established. Spade had said his feeling for her weren't casual, but in the harsh light of day, that could mean many things, and a relationship wasn't necessarily one of them.

Well, one thing she wouldn't do was sit in bed and stew until Spade came back. Denise got up and went into the bathroom. Any situation was better faced with an empty bladder, a clean body, and a lack of morning breath.

After Denise emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, though, the sight that met her eyes made her heart twist. Spade was in the bedroom, fully dressed, sitting on the couch, and he wasn't alone.

When Bones's dark brown gaze met hers, Denise almost burst into tears. Spade had called him to come get her. He'd even arranged for Bones to be here when she woke up, so there would be no messy scene. God, last night had been a one-nighter mercy fuck.

"Denise - " Spade began.

"No," she cut him off, holding up her hand. "Save it. Just give me a few minutes, Bones, and then I'll be ready to leave."

She wasn't looking at Spade anymore, but Bones's face registered amazement. "You want to leave with me?"

"I told you, she's not going anywhere," Spade snarled. Then it was impossible for Denise to ignore him, because he was right in front of her, gripping her arms. "What the devil has gotten into you?"

She laughed at that, a high-pitched, mirthless sound. "What the devil? Oh, good one, Spade. Har har! Well, it's nothing you need to worry about anymore, is it? Thanks for your time. All your time, but really, the farewell fuck was unnecessary. A vibrator can last all night, too, vampire."

Bones cleared his throat tactfully. "Need a moment alone, mate?"

"It appears so," Spade replied in an icy tone, his eyes glittering emerald.

"Don't," Denise said sharply when Bones got up. "I'm sure you'll tell him all about it anyway, Spade. But then again, when Cat finds out, I hope she sticks something silver in you where the sun doesn't shine!"

Spade's grip lessened. "You think I rang Crispin to come get you. That's why you're acting this way."

"Why else is he suddenly here?" Denise demanded, horrified to feel tears well up in her eyes.

Spade leaned very close, his hands now stroking her face. "I didn't ring him, I promise. He showed up uninvited, but it doesn't matter. I told you before, you're not going anywhere. You're staying with me, where you belong."

He kissed her, slow and searching, until the tears dried from her eyes and warmth spread through her. Even so, that warmth was followed by fear. Her feelings for Spade weren't just a combination of lust, gratitude, and friendship. She'd fallen for him. Hard. That was more than proved by her out-of-control reaction when she thought he'd called Bones to whisk her away. She was in way over her head emotionally, and she wasn't sure she was ready.

"Bugger, what do you have on your arms?" a surprised voice asked.

Denise froze. Spade pulled away, revealing that Bones was right behind them. He stared at her bare forearms, revealed when the robe sleeves fell back after she'd wrapped them around Spade's neck.

"Telly," Spade said.

Bones went across the room and flicked on the television, still set to blaring from last night. Then Bones came back and held out his hand.

Denise glanced at Spade. He nodded once, and she slid her hand into Bones's cool grip, palm up. Bones looked at the tattoos closely, then a slight hiss escaped him.

"Brands." One word, almost inaudible to Denise with the blasting TV, even though Bones was less than a foot away. He took her other hand and his frown deepened.

"You should not have hidden this from me, Charles. Or you," Bones added to Denise.

"Mate," Spade said softly. "You don't even know the half of it."

Denise tensed when Spade reached behind him and took a knife off the dresser. She knew what he intended, and it wasn't the tiny prick of pain that made her flinch when he pierced the tip into her palm. Then Spade smeared the single drop onto his finger and held it out to Bones.

"Don't say a word," Spade ordered in a dark tone.

With an arched brow, Bones took his friend's finger and popped it into his mouth. Immediately his eyes changed to green and he jumped back, knocking Spade's hand away.

"Christ Almighty!"

"Don't say it." From Spade, with more vehemence.

The look Bones gave Denise made her tainted blood run cold. It was shocked, calculating...and pitying.

"Bloody hell," was all he said.

Denise couldn't stop her ironic laugh. "Yeah. That's it exactly."