"Who the hell are you?" I reached for his scarf but he pushed my hand away roughly.
"Don't touch me," he growled. Then he turned and walked briskly out of the park.
"Sarah, are you all right?" Thierry's words were harsh and filled with concern as he reached my side. He watched the Red Devil disappear into the shadows.
"I'm fine."
But I wasn't. Not even close.
I frowned so hard it hurt. What the hell was going on?
Interlude
San Diego, California, 1903
"Where is your wife?"
Thierry looked up from the Red Devil's journal where he'd been keeping notes on the assignment he'd just completed. His friend Nicolai's wife Elizabeth regarded him from the doorway of the small inn they currently called home.
"Veronique has returned to Paris," Thierry said.
"And Nicolai is in New York. My goodness. All this time on our hands and however shall we occupy ourselves?" She smiled at him and ran her hand suggestively down her side.
Elizabeth was a beautiful woman. Blond hair, red lips, a peaches-and-cream complexion.
As a human she'd been an actress whose talent and fame was rivaled only by that of the great Sarah Bernhardt. Men from miles around would come to see her perform and lavish gifts, money, or their undying devotion on her.
Nicolai was one who could give her all three… and he added immortality to the list.
His friend was completely smitten by the gorgeous actress who had agreed to marry him and then immediately be sired as a vampire. Nicolai was obsessed, devoted, and truly in love with Elizabeth and believed she felt the same for him.
Elizabeth was an excellent actress.
Her attire that night was, in a word, scanty, and showed bare skin that would bring a flush to a modest woman's cheek. Elizabeth was not modest. She knew what she wanted and was shameless in her pursuit of it.
Currently, she wanted Thierry.
The thought made him very uncomfortable.
His marriage to Veronique continued to be tolerable. She tended to stay in Europe for long periods, occasionally showing up and expecting him to fall at her feet, and he knew that she was vaguely annoyed when he didn't.
She'd recently left with the promise not to return after a particularly unpleasant exchange in which she'd accused him of hiding from the world and not participating in life enough.
But that had been his cover for several centuries. No one would suspect that a handsome but passionless aristocrat was the Red Devil, who had developed even more of a bigger-than-life reputation since Marcellus had been the man behind the mask.
Though, as much as he worked, as many vampires as he was able to save, nothing seemed to change. He had hoped helping the hunters slay the nightwalkers would be enough to appease their need for something to kill, but now that the nightwalkers were no more, the hunters had taken up their stakes against vampires who walked during the day. It was a wearisome battle that seemed to have no end in sight.
But life was not only about work. There were distractions.
Elizabeth strolled deeper into the room. She had a habit of touching everything, running her fingertips over the tops of furniture or woodwork… or men who were not her husband.
"You keep to yourself too much," she told him, her red lips turning up at the sides. "It's not healthy, this solitary life you lead."
"I'm perfectly fine as I am."
"Nicolai asked you to take care of me when he was away." She pouted. "I don't feel very well taken care of."
He remained still as she came to sit on the edge of his desk. "What is it that you want, Elizabeth?"
"Isn't it obvious?" She raised an eyebrow. "I want you."
He couldn't help but laugh out loud at that. "You want me? I'm quite sure Nicolai would not approve of that statement."
"Nicolai doesn't have to know." Her expression turned slightly sour. She stood up from the desk and began pacing the room as if she were a caged animal. "I can't live like this. I feel imprisoned in this inn. I need to be on the stage again, I crave it."
"Nicolai wishes for you to be safe as you adjust to the life of a vampire."
"Safe," she spat the word out as if it were a curse. "Safety is for cowards. I want to feel the wind on my face. Hear the applause of the audience in my ears." She approached him again. "I want to feel the hands of a lover on my body."
He sighed. Despite her beauty, she did not appeal to him. He already had a beautiful woman in his life whom he felt little for.
Only his secret identity as the Red Devil gave him any sense of peace, and even that was waning. Women were confusing and manipulative creatures. There were times when he longed to have someone in his life who would make him feel alive after such an already long life, but he had long since given up hope that the fortune teller so many years ago had been correct in her prediction that true love would find him.
He stood up. "Elizabeth—"
"What's this?" She snatched up the notebook in front of him.
"Give that to me."
She smiled. "Ah, something to finally capture your attention. Very interesting."
Before he could reach for it, she ran out of the room. He followed. Her bedroom door slammed shut and locked behind her.
He knocked. "Elizabeth, let me in."
"I'm reading. It will only be a moment."
He stifled the feelings of panic that swelled in his chest. Stupid, he chastised himself.
Stupid mistake. I let down my guard.
He kicked the door open.
"It cannot be." She looked up at him, her eyes wide. "You …you are the Red Devil?"
"No."