"Apparently so." She smiled slightly.
"I am glad you're here. I wasn't quite sure if you would come to our little tryst."
"How could I not? You knew your note would lure me. Now, what unusual activities have been going on here?"
"My, my, you do cut to the chase," Asher remarked, his eyes drinking in the beauty of both her face and her soul. Noting her impatient sigh, he spoke. "I have heard of some strange activity here at night. Unearthly noises and graves without bodies."
"It could be simple grave robbers," Clair replied cautiously, wondering what exactly Asher knew about her research.
"Or something more nefarious."
"And what would that be?"
"Those blood sucking fiends of the night—vampires. What else?" He waited for her reaction, noticing her fingers twisting in the folds of her cape.
"I see," she said, but she didn't. What was Asher's game? He was talking about vampires. She knew he must believe in them; after all, he was a werewolf. And she knew in a roundabout way they all belonged to the same preternatural club.
Cocking her head, Clair examined the Earl thoroughly. Maybe he was a werewolf trying to pretend to be a vampire trying to pretend to be human. It was a complex riddle, one worthy of the Sphinx. Or was Asher trying to gammon her like Ian had, leading her down a false trail with a false scent? "Vampires. Here at the Eternal Sleeps Cemetery?" she said.
Asher shrugged. "I thought it was a subject close to your heart. Your research into matters of the paranormal, I mean."
"It is."
"It is a very dangerous subject," Asher warned, stepping closer, Clair's spirit drawing him like a moth to flame. He felt his incisors begin to lengthen.
"It's not just my work, it's my calling, my destiny," Clair tried to explain, her voice filled with grim determination. Everyone was always trying to warn her away from what she knew to be right, what she knew to be essential to her mental well-being, what she knew she had to continue to do in order to be who she was and what she wanted to be in the future. She had to win the prestigious Scientific Discovery of the Decade Award.
Asher glided closer. "No, there is no escaping destiny." And you are to be mine, mine, mine, Asher repeated in a silent litany.
Cocking her head, Clair studied him, a slight smile forming as she decided what to say and what not. "Perhaps you do understand. 'The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on; nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.'"
Asher was moved by the glimpse of sorrow, bliss, and joy she revealed. It was a gift he would always cherish. "Omar Khayyam," he said.
She nodded, raising her face to his. "I have been and will always be Clair Frankenstein, be that a blessing or a curse. I would not change it for all the serenity or ladylike manners in the world."
Moved, Asher turned partially away. Placing his boot upon a tombstone, his eyes searched the night and he changed the subject. "There are shadows dark and low here. The secrets of the graves are echoes of the dying… dying… dead," he remarked softly. "So many dead. So many lovers lost to each other's embrace. So many mothers with hearts turned to dust. Laughing friends whose laughter has been silenced."
Clair focused on the sorrow evident in his eyes. She understood from her research that werewolves were not immortal, but they lived for over a century. It was an intriguing thought, but a melancholy one as welclass="underline" they knew more than a hundred years of joy and grief, of birthing babies and bidding friends farewell on the journey to the unknown.
Asher turned to Clair, carefully studying her reaction to his next words. "Do you think that creatures of the night could be lonely?"
"I would say we are all prisoners of ourselves, loneliness being one of our worst jailors. If humans can shed tears, why not the supernatural? Yes, I imagine they know a great loneliness, perhaps more than any other."
Asher lifted her chin with his pale hand. He stared into her eyes and gently bent down to kiss her lips. He kissed her tenderly, hiding the raging hunger filling his veins. The kiss stirred his dark soul, reaching into recesses he had long since thought shriveled up and dead from lack of warmth.
Her breath was the sweetest of scents, her taste a tantalizing hint of incredible delight. In the blink of the eye, Asher fell completely in love. Consequent with that love came knowledge. He would not make Clair immortal and risk the warm, generous essence of her human soul. She was too special to make into the chill undead. Although he doubted he could let her go completely. Perhaps if the Fates were kind they could be lovers. And Asher knew, with a smile, he would help Fate along in whatever manner he could.
Stepping back, Clair lifted her hand to her mouth in startlement. That kiss had been riveting. It was lucky she loved Ian, or else she might find herself involved with this attractive arrogant Wolf man of London.
Gently taking her hand from her mouth, Asher pressed a quick kiss to Clair's heated palm, wanting to do much more, when he heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Jerking his head upright, he scanned the darkness. "Expect any minute to have a mad dog at your door," he predicted in annoyance.
Clair glanced in the direction Asher indicated, seeing nothing really, just a slight movement of shadow. She turned back to Asher only to find him gone, vanished into the night like woodsmoke.
Before Clair had a chance to catch her breath, Ian appeared. He loped toward her, a fierce expression on his face.
"Bloody hell, Clair," he roared. "Have you lost your mind! You could have been ravished! You could have been…" He trailed off, unwilling to say what Asher could have done to her alone in the dark.
"Where the hell is the pompous bastard?" He scoured the area with an eagle eye. Espying no movement, Ian grabbed Clair's arms and began to shake her. His heart had stopped in his chest when Lady Mary told him where Clair had gone tonight and with whom. It was at that moment he'd realized how he loved Clair: with an intensity so bright it might burn his soul to ashes.
"Asher's gone. The earl left right before you got here. He heard you coming." She was confused by Ian, by Asher, and by Asher's kiss. She loved Ian, this man whom she'd once thought was a vampire. She was attracted to Asher, a werewolf, pretending to be a man. It all had to be a huge cosmic joke. Whoever said love was easy was not seeing her life.
"Did my aunt tell on me?" she finally managed to spit out. "Ian, stop shaking me. You're hurting me," she chided sternly.
"Bloody hell! I'll do more than shake." With ruthless intensity Ian crushed Clair to him, taking her mouth with a raw hunger that left her breathless. It was a greedy kiss that both aroused and ravished, and he tasted her deeply.
Briefly, he let her up for air. She inhaled sharply. Now that was a kiss to raise the dead. Quickly, she glanced around. No one was climbing out of his or her grave. Her mini-inspection done, she turned her attention back to the very angry man in front of her.
Ian was staring at her with raw male hunger. Her heart danced in her chest as she felt hot wetness between her legs. Before she could say a word, he began nipping at her neck, sending little flickers of fire up and down her spine. She sighed, a sound that apparently drove him wild. He bore her to the damp earth, which smelled of damp leaves and rich soil.
The passion flared hotter between the two lovers as they kissed, almost bursting them into flame. Clair felt as if she were being consumed. Her love for Ian fed the fires of this great desire. She wanted Ian in the way a woman wanted a man. She wanted to give Ian the greatest gift she could give him, besides her love. She wanted to gift him with her virginity.
Grabbing his shoulders, she arched her back as he bit and kissed her neck. She had never known her flesh was so sensitive to the touch of warm lips. Liquid fire was streaking down her veins, making her feel alive and loved. Moaning, she whispered his name, "Ian. Oh, Ian."