A Vampire for Christmas(66)
So Damien had stopped trying to please the old man. Instead, he had pleased himself—in every conceivable way with any available woman in every port in which he had ever set foot.
Until he met Angelina…the first time.
His gut fisted into a knot once more as he thought of her. Acknowledged all that he had lost because of his own ego. He tightened his grip on the edge of the railing as a particularly powerful squall nearly cost him his precarious footing on the slim ledge around the beacon of the lighthouse. He was tempted to let the wind take him. On occasion lately he had thought about tossing himself over the side, down onto the rocks below. As a vampire, the fall would likely not kill him, but it would break his body and Lord knew he deserved to suffer. Maybe after, the kiss of the morning sun would finish him off and end his insufferable existence.
But Damien would not embrace death tonight.
Angelina had come to him just before Christmas Eve on both of the other occasions. In his heart, he prayed that she might somehow return to him again soon.
There had been a sense of anticipation building for days, warning him that something unexpected approached. Some would have said it was the excitement of the upcoming holiday, but Christmas had never had any special appeal for Damien. His mother had tried her best to make it special, but with their meager existence, that had been difficult. She always somehow managed to scrape together a little gift and roast a scrawny chicken to perfection.
Sadly, Damien had not realized that his mother’s love had been what had made the holidays bearable. Much like it had been Angelina and her love that had first brought joy into his life.
If by some miracle she did return this Christmas, Damien vowed that he would not fail her again.
He was about to return to his home at the base of the lighthouse when the sweep of the beacon highlighted a dim shape on the water. He squinted and looked hard against the driving snow. With another turn of the light he noted the hazy outline on the surface of the ocean. Scrutinizing the horizon more intently, he confirmed that there was a ship at sea, battling the immense surges caused by the winds.
He wondered what would possess someone to be out on a day like today, but as the vessel drew closer, the vague outline sharpened and he recognized its shape.
Fury rose up in him at the sight of the rumrunner manned by his nemesis, Captain Pedro Ramirez. No wonder the boat was out tonight. The vampire captain and his immortal crew would have little fear of death in the churning waters any mortal man would avoid.
As Damien watched, the crew struggled with something cumbersome along the schooner’s deck. To his surprise, they raised a skiff over the lip of the starboard side and lowered the small vessel into the rough seas. The boat pushed away from the schooner, manned by two crewmen who furiously rowed through the surging waves. Time and time again the sea tossed the meager skiff up into the air before crashing it back down against the water’s surface.
Still the vampire crew pushed ahead, unmindful of the dangerous ocean.
Damien wondered anew why they would be out in such weather and why they were headed directly toward his lighthouse. But Damien understood that Ramirez delighted in torturing him. In taking Angelina from him, time and time again. With Christmas Eve arriving tomorrow, maybe Ramirez wanted to remind Damien of what he had lost last year.
As the skiff hit the shore, the two crewmen jumped overboard into the pounding surf and hauled the vessel up onto the sand to beach it. Then they reached in and dragged out a long, lumpy roll of canvas clumsily bound with rope. They tossed the package onto the sand and then dragged it upward until it was well beyond the reach of the angry surf.
Then they pulled the skiff off the beach and back into the waves for a return trip to the rumrunner.
A present from Ramirez? Not likely, but Damien couldn’t resist the temptation of the package. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but he was already dead, both physically and spiritually, so who cared what danger lurked within the bundle?
With a surge of vampire speed, he nearly flew down the spiral staircase and out the lighthouse door, racing over the sand and snow to the package not far from the water’s edge. As he approached, he could see the brownish-red blotches along the outside of the canvas. Even with the wind, his vampire senses picked up the smell of blood and the hushed heartbeat pulsing beneath the fabric.
Damien dropped to his knees and swiftly undid the thick ropes wrapped tightly around the rough bloodstained canvas. His fingers shook as he wondered who was trapped within. As he both hoped and feared that it was Angelina.
The wind picked up one edge of the cloth, what he now saw had once been a sail, as he finished untying the rope. Freed, the sail flew upward into Damien’s face, strong enough to open a gash along his cheek.