Kiss Across Deserts Read online

  De Leon opened the cabinet doors and the cupboards beneath, rifling quickly through the contents. Then he spotted the little glass bottle at the back, with the other substances that would have Alex lose his license to practice if he was discovered with them. De Leon quickly unwrapped a syringe and loaded it. “How much?” he demanded.

  Alex told him and he depressed the syringe, squirting back liquid until the quantity was correct. “This is a subcutaneous needle,” he pointed out.

  Alex straightened and fumbled at the robe. De Leon swore under his breath and reached over and pushed the robe down, baring his arm. He gripped the muscle and injected the liquid in a way that told Alex he had done it before.

  Then he tossed the syringe in the trash can and sat on the edge of the bathtub and looked at him. “How long?” he asked.

  “Fifteen…minutes.”

  De Leon nodded, his lips pursed. “Very well. Do you want to tell me now what the hell it was you took?”

  Alex pulled the robe back up over his shoulder, moving slowly, then lean back against the tank. “Not yet.” The words were still blurry.

  “Well, if you think it’s worth it, I suppose no one can stop you. Personally, I can think of better things to do with my brain cells and my time.” There was a note in his voice, a dry one that made Alex think he was almost sneering at him.

  That forced him to find the words, to explain himself. “It’s not addictive.”

  “Maybe not physically.” De Leon stopped there.

  “I wasn’t…I didn’t do it for the high.”

  “There’s a side benefit to getting ripped out of your skull?”

  Alex drew in a breath. He could feel his heart calming. The Sommeil was kicking in. “I was…looking for something.”

  “The meaning of life?” De Leon asked dryly.

  Alex shook his head. “With the serum, I can…see. A long way away. And deep inside.”

  There was no pithy comeback this time. Alex looked up.

  De Leon was staring at him again in that intense way. Perhaps he had his own way of seeing deep inside. Then he smiled a little bit, just the corners curling up. “That’s what you are hiding.”

  “Hiding?”

  “When you were at the house last week, I knew you were hiding something. I thought you were just wary of me and were holding back on what you know about Veris and Brody, to protect them. But you’re the perfect witness. Candid, truthful and clear as a bell. So that didn’t make sense. I’ve been wondering what your secret was. Now I know.”

  “You’d better tell me then, because I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Alex said, letting a chill enter his voice.

  De Leon stood up. “Not sitting on this cold porcelain, I’m not. Can you get up, or shall I help you?”

  Alex pushed against the counter with the flat of his hand and against the wall next to his other elbow, to boost himself onto his feet. But his strength had left him. He could barely lift himself off the toilet cover.

  De Leon grabbed his arm again and hoisted him up in a powerful lift. He kept hold of his arm and walked him back through the house to the lounge room.

  Alex shook off his hand. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine, but you’re recovering, clearly.” De Leon settled himself on the arm of the sofa. His legs, encased in expensive designer jeans, stretched out. He wasn’t as tall as Alex, but few men were.

  Alex sat on the coffee table. It felt better to settle on something solid than the butter-soft cushions of the armchairs. He didn’t for a minute consider sitting on the sofa. Not while De Leon was sitting on it, even if he was sitting on the arm. “You should go,” Alex told him said. “I can look after myself now.”

  “No, I don’t think you can,” De Leon said softly.

  “Why are you here, anyway?” Alex asked irritably.

  “Let’s save that for later. Right now, you look like a man who is in dire need of coffee. I’m presuming that means you should feed. Do you have a convenient supply?”

  “A slave?” Alex asked, appalled. “Do you?”

  “Never,” De Leon said flatly. “I was a slave once, myself. The idea of enslaving a human for their blood makes me…furious.” He drew in a breath and let it out. “I meant, do you have a human friend you have an arrangement with. It’s not uncommon, especially these days.”

  “I prefer to hunt,” Alex said stiffly.

  “You’re not in a fit state to move out of the house. Any supplies stocked for emergencies, then?”

  Alex swallowed. Now that they were talking about blood and feeding, he could feel the symptoms of hunger rising in him. “I usually…borrow. From the hospital.”

  De Leon got to his feet. “Then I’ll have to find a donor for you. Stay here, Alex. You’ll give yourself away if you try to feed for yourself. Think of a drunk trying to sneak into the house where his wife is sleeping, and you’ll understand.”

  Alex threaded his fingers together. “I look that pathetic, do I?”

  “Not wearing silk Armani, no.” De Leon grinned. “If it helps, I know what you’re going through. We’ll talk, once you can think straight.”

  No, thank you, were the first words that rose up in his mind. The idea of talking, of explaining himself, of having to reveal things he hadn’t told anyone for centuries made him deeply uneasy.

  But he remained sitting on the table, feeling sober thought and normal function return to him, listening to the traffic far away through the open window, and wondering how De Leon planned on bringing food to him. Hunger won out over his reticence.

  Chapter Three

  De Leon returned nearly fifty minutes later, just as Alex’s hunger had spiraled into a keening need. He pushed keys into an inner pocket, then pulled a full blood bag out of his jacket. “It’s a bit cool, because I lifted it straight out of the fridge. But I think you’ve had cold blood before.”

  Alex almost tore the bag out of his hands. His fangs had already descended, but he hesitated.

  “I’ll wait in the kitchen,” De Leon said and walked out of the room.

  Alex would have appreciated his discretion, but he was too much in need. He bit carefully into the corner of the bag and began to feed. It was cold, compared to the heat of a human body, but it would do for now.

  When he had finished and strength returned to him, he went through to the bedroom, put on clothes and washed his face. He was very nearly sober now. The last traces of the serum were still circulating, making him feel a touch giddy. If he remembered the sensation right, it felt much like it had felt to drink wine—something he had learned to do once he had converted to Christianity.

  De Leon was sitting at the dining table, in front of Alex’s laptop. He looked up as Alex walked into the room. “I figured you wouldn’t mind. I have to stay on top of my emails these days and in truth, I didn’t think I would be here this long.”

  “You hacked my profile?”

  “I logged in as a guest.” De Leon grinned. “I can find out everything I need to know about you with a single phone call. I don’t need to hack your data.”

  “You’ve made that phone call?”

  “Not yet.” De Leon stood up. It was dark in the room, but neither of them needed much light to see clearly. He moved the laptop away and pulled out the chair at the top of the table. “Have a seat.”

  “You are making yourself at home,” Alex observed dryly.

  “You forced that on me. Consider it payment for sobering you up. Sit.”

  Alex frowned, mildly annoyed at the curt order, but he found himself moving around the table and sitting on the chair De Leon had pushed out. Reluctantly, he agreed with De Leon. The man had helped him straighten up.

  De Leon sat down again, and rested his hands on his knees.

  “Are you about to give me a lecture?” Alex asked, not sure if he found the idea amusing or not.

  “No. But I do want to talk to you about whatever it is you’re snorting or injecting.”

  Alex sighe
d. “I told you—”

  “You’re looking for answers where there aren’t any,” De Leon said, cutting him off.

  Alex blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “I know exactly what you’re doing. I even know why.”

  “You don’t know me at all. Even if you made that phone call, you still wouldn’t understand.”

  “But I know this, what drove you to seek out other dimensions, or whatever it was that you thought you were doing. I’ve been there, Alex.”

  He couldn’t think of a single thing to say in response. Weak denial rose within him, but the fact that De Leon thought he knew what Alex was doing kept him silent. Then he shrugged. “Is there any point in trying to dispute something you seem to feel is so apparent?”

  “It’s not apparent, my friend. You have been hiding the severity of your dilemma from everyone, including Brody, Veris and Taylor. Even I didn’t know until I saw you at the front door. But now I know and I know why you hide it from them. I also know why you want to deny it now. You’re lost. You’re adrift in the sea of time, with no direction, no purpose and no idea what you should do next.”

  “I think you should leave, De Leon.” Alex said it as calmly as he could, but he really wanted to jump to his feet and beat the man until he left. The violence of his reaction appalled him.

  “You had better call me Rafe,” he replied. “You’ve asked me to leave twice now, yet I am still here. “ He leaned a little closer. “One of the few things that pulled me out, when I was where you are, was friends. Family.”

  It hurt. More than Alex thought it might. “We are not all blessed with an abundance of offspring,” he said dryly, as his heart thudded on its own.

  For the first time, he saw surprised in De Leon’s face.

  “Did you think I was not aware of your generational family?” Alex continued. “That we didn’t know about the serial wives you’ve married and the children you have raised, and their children and their children’s children? You have propped up your life with your invented family, but I saw how empty your house was on Sunday. Empty…and with a nursery in the basement. Which of us is the more pathetic, do you think?”

  De Leon’s jaw rippled and his eyes narrowed. “How…?”

  “Did you think you were the only one investigating the people involved in Brody’s case?” Alex asked.

  De Leon sat back. “So Brody and Veris checked me out. Natural, I suppose, for the circumstances.” He seemed more than just surprised, but Alex couldn’t pin it down.

  “You knew them well,” he asked, “when you knew them…from before?”

  De Leon drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Very,” he said flatly.

  That confirmed the hints and allusions Veris and Brody had let slip over the two years, since their return from Constantinople and Rafael’s abrupt appearance in modern times.

  “What were they like, back then?” Alex asked, his curiosity overriding any of the discomfort this conversation was causing. “I met them at the Siege of Jerusalem in ten ninety-nine. That was five hundred years after you had met them and Brody was human when you did.”

  De Leon studied him. “Am I imagining the envy in your tone?”

  It was Alex’s turn to be surprised. “Not exactly. Not for what you had with them…” he said slowly.

  “But because I was there,” De Leon finished. “I’m starting to understand why you’re in the pickle you’re in. You’ve been doing too much looking back. Too much wishing for times long gone.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I?” De Leon leaned forward once more. “I will tell you something, Alexander Karim, before I leave. It might comfort you. I envy you for your friendship with them now, in this time. It is something that I do not have. It is something I…miss.”

  Alex stared at him. “Then you are angry they investigated you.”

  De Leon stood up. “I understand why they did. My connections to the Council make me a political danger to them. But I had hoped that what they knew of me from before, that it would be enough to have their trust, still.” He grimaced. “Survival is often ruthless, is it not? And those two are superb at surviving.” He pushed the chair back under the table. “I will wish you good night, Alex. You should stay off the serum—that is what you called it, didn’t you? You should stay away from it for a while. You need perspective. And you need to focus on the here and now.”

  Alex followed him to the front door as a thought occurred to him. “You never did say why you came here,” he pointed out.

  De Leon turned to face him, his hand on the door handle. There was an odd look in his eyes. “You don’t know?”

  Alex shook his head, mystified.

  De Leon did something simple and quite shocking. He lifted his hand and curled it around Alex’s neck. His thumb brushed against his jaw and Alex’s skin sizzled at the contact.

  Lingering effects of the serum, he told himself.

  But his heart started pattering.

  “I like you,” De Leon – Rafe – said.

  Before Alex could open his mouth to speak, Rafe pulled the door open, stepped out and shut it again.

  Alex’s jaw still tingled.

  His heart thundered.

  * * * * *

  “You’d better sit down and tell us what’s bothering you,” Veris said. “You’ve been twitching since you walked in.”

  Alex stepped around Brody’s favorite chair and settled on the sofa, which had been added to the room last year, so that everyone in the family could sit if they wanted to. The sofa was a richly luxurious silk-covered thing with antique braid and glowing colors. It shouldn’t have worked in this room of modern lines and Craftsman chairs, but it did.

  “I wanted to wait until the children had left,” Alex said.

  Taylor sat next to him and rested her hand on his knee. “Would you like me to leave, too, Alex?”

  “No, of course not. Why would you think I would want to exclude you?”

  She smiled at him. “You have that confessional air about you, and you were raised in a patriarchal society. I thought you might prefer the company of men to speak of your problems.”

  “I do. But your presence is not a negative in the slightest.”

  She squeezed his knee. “Thank you.” Then she moved to the other end of the sofa, giving him room.

  Veris picked up a chair in one hand and settled it close to the angle between the sofa and Brody’s high back one and settled down. “The kids are all fed and settled for the night. We shouldn’t be interrupted. The floor is yours.”

  “Thank you,” Alex said and meant it. “It’s personal, of course, and it has been driving me crazy for two days. I need to consult with experts.”

  “Finally,” Veris said, “The doctor acknowledges my superior medical knowledge.”

  Brody rolled his eyes. “He said personal, doofus. A cripple could out-hobble you when it comes to dealing with yucky emotions.”

  “True,” Veris said without the slightest shred of resentment.

  “Actually, it’s both of you,” Alex said.

  There was a little silence. Brody and Veris and Taylor all exchanged glances.

  “You’ve guessed already,” Alex said.

  “Why don’t you tell us, anyway,” Veris said gently.

  Alex took a deep breath and let it out. Then he scratched at his hair. “Hell, this is harder than I thought it would be.”

  “Blaspheming, too,” Brody added, his voice just as soft.

  Alex shifted on his cushion uncomfortably. “I thought I had offloaded all this nonsense centuries ago, but it seems I have latent prejudices lingering, still. This is very difficult to speak of.”

  “Would you like me to start you off?” Taylor asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Alex said truthfully.

  She leaned forward. “This is about Rafael, isn’t it?”

  Alex caught his breath, then realized that had given them his answer, so he shrugged. “Yes. How did you know?�
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  “I guessed,” Taylor confessed. “He was watching you very closely when we were at his house last week. I might have put it down to him not knowing you as well as any of us, but now you’re here, so that puts it in a different light.”

  “My wife,” Veris said proudly.

  Taylor stuck her tongue out at him and looked back at Alex. “What is the expertise you need?”

  “I don’t for a moment imagine that you made a move on him,” Brody said, and despite the light words, his tone was quite serious. “It’s not in your nature, so even if you’re sweating over getting him into bed, you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Rafael learned quickly how to reach for what he wanted, anyway,” Veris said. “He started late, but he was a fast learner. So, Rafael came on to you and now you think you’re in some sort of dilemma?”

  Alex grinned. “No, no dilemma.”

  Again, the little silence.

  Veris stirred. “Ah…” he said softly.

  “You three are always three steps ahead of me,” Alex complained. “I never feel stupid except when I’m with you.”

  “We don’t think you’re stupid at all,” Taylor said swiftly.

  “You wouldn’t get invitations here if you were,” Brody added. “Stupid is a self-correcting condition most people can’t be bothered to address and that offends me.”

  “I won’t tell you what it does for Veris,” Taylor added. “So, if you have no dilemma to resolve, that means you’ve made up your mind one way or another. You wouldn’t be here if you plan to say no and move on. You want help saying yes, is that it?”

  Alex blew out his breath. Relief touched him. “More or less,” he said carefully. “I’m not totally ignorant of how it goes between men, as I’ve been watching you two for years, but I’ve never….it’s new territory for me.”

  “And what about the lovely Ms. Stevens?” Veris asked. “I thought you were completely smitten by her.”

  Something like guilt touched Alex. “I am,” he said swiftly. “But this…it’s…”

  “Different,” Brody finished firmly, sitting up and leaning forward. “Veris, stop giving him a hard time. You had mentors when you were younger, and I…” he scowled. “I wasn’t given a choice. I learned the hard way how it goes. But we both had to learn. Same as we – all three of us – had to learn about sex with the opposite gender. It’s a legitimate question.”