One and Only

by Bianca D’Arc

  He wasn’t about to kill her now.

  Not when he wanted to taste of her again and again. No, he would keep this female around and keep her healthy. She was fast becoming an addiction.

  He realized, belatedly, that he’d never healed as quickly as he had in the past twenty-four hours with her blood in his system. He’d taken her blood out of necessity before he could find a safe place for them to seek shelter. Luckily, she hadn’t bled much in the crash, but her brain injury had looked serious. He would need more of her essence to heal himself before healing her more fully. Already, he had reduced the swelling in her skull somewhat with his healing gift. She would be much better, if not fully recovered, after a second session. But to do that, he must be stronger.

  Her blood energized him. And her responsive body tripled the energy he derived from her blood. Her blood had been potent before, but now that she’d come so beautifully for him, his energy level peaked. He was near full strength. As she would be, as soon as he found the strength to tear himself away from her juicy neck and give her the healing she needed.

  But she was so sweet!

  With a groan, he backed off, using a light zap of his healing touch through his tongue as he licked the sensitive skin of her neck. She squirmed deliciously under him, but he knew he had to finish her healing first, before satisfying other needs.

  Settling the unaccustomed hunger for her blood—and her body—would come later.

  “Are you all right?” He nuzzled her neck a moment longer.

  “I’m…” She gasped as he moved upward to kiss her lips. “I’m okay. Please…”

  “Please what?” He lifted to look down at her expression, which held a hint of dismay, a huge helping of bliss and a smattering of residual fear. “Please please you again? I’d be happy to, but it will have to wait until I can heal your wounds a bit more.”

  In the darkness he saw the faint elevation of color in her cheeks. It made him hard to realize that even after the blood he’d taken from her beautiful body, she could still blush. He’d always liked modest women—something that was becoming increasingly hard to find in this modern world.

  “Heal me? So you’re not… You’re not going to kill me?” Her beautiful eyes were wide with apprehension and he didn’t like her looking at him that way.

  “No, sweetheart.” He stroked her hair, trying to impart reassurance with a gentle touch. “I wouldn’t have bothered carrying you from the wreckage if I intended you harm. I’m a healer. Even before I became…what I am…I had the gift of healing. I only want to use it to make you well. What comes after that is in the hands of fate.”

  “What are you?”

  Atticus sighed. He should have expected the question. He’d left himself wide open for it, but he hadn’t thought beyond the need to comfort this small mortal woman.

  “I’m immortal.”

  “Like a vampire?” Fear clouded her words, but he also sensed fascination. It was a good sign.

  “Some call us that, though it’s not a term I prefer. There’s too much incorrect mythology associated with the word and too much fear as well. We’re mostly peaceful beings, only seeking to co-exist.”

  “But you feed on human blood, right?”

  He nodded, sitting up by her side. The light in the cavern was dim, but he could see her plainly. He suspected she could make out his form as well, from the way her gaze tracked his movements, though without doubt her vision was less able to cope with the dark than his.

  “As you experienced yourself, we do need blood to survive. Blood and sex. We are creatures of energy, and the psychic power released during orgasm is ambrosia to us.”

  “So that’s why you made me…”

  “Come? Yes, sweetheart.” He liked teasing her, oddly enough, though he usually didn’t waste much time conversing with his mortal prey. “You came beautifully for me and increased my strength. You helped heal me and I will do the same for you in return.”

  He wasn’t a man who often indulged in the pleasures of the flesh. He had many gifts to bring prey to him. Clouding mortal minds so they never knew of his feeding from them had proved to be one of his most powerful abilities. He had often brought females to orgasm as he fed from them, because it usually doubled the potency of their blood, but he didn’t take pleasure for himself. He hadn’t even considered doing so in a very long time. Just one more thing to fall by the wayside as the malaise of his endless existence festered and grew.

  But this small woman had ended all that. With one look, she’d sparked a fire that brought him back to life. Back to passion. She fed his hunger like no other. He didn’t regret the impulse that made him save her. He didn’t regret living, though only the day before he had welcomed death. She gave him reason to go on, a flicker of hope in his increasingly dark world.

  She might even be the One.

  His breath caught at the enormity of the thought. He searched her pale features. She was beautiful to him, even covered with smudges of dirt and her hair in disarray. He knew she experienced more than a little pain from her head injury, but she seemed content, still a bit warm and fuzzy from the climax he’d given her. Strange pride filled him at having put that dreamy look in her eyes.

  Each immortal searched for their One—the single person in the entire world who completed them. Most never found their mate. Many went insane and became true monsters. But a few, like him, walked the earth for centuries on end, searching.

  The idea that he might have found her, just when he’d been ready to end it all, astounded him. He hardly dared believe. But there were signs…ancient signs that led him to believe that she might just be his One.

  First, her blood was more potent than any he had ever had, and her orgasm fueled his own desire in a way he hadn’t experienced in many decades. He wanted to come inside her to see if the rest of the legend could possibly be real.

  Could they share their minds?

  Could they truly become One?

  Healing would have to come first, but he had to go slow. Brain injuries needed special care. He’d taken the risk of drinking from her and giving her pleasure because there was no way to restore his own health without her blood. As he’d absorbed her essence, his strength had returned and he’d been able to block the worst of her pain and make her focus on the good sensations he gave her. It had been a risk, but there had been no other way and he was confident in his ability to heal her completely, now that he was fired up with the life that ran so beautifully through her veins.

  Chapter Three

  “How old are you?” Curiosity overcame Lissa’s better judgment. The idea that she was sitting naked, in a dark cave with a friendly vampire was simply too weird.

  “I’ve walked the earth far longer than you, sweetheart,” he replied with a chuckle. From the sound of his voice and the vague shadows she could just make out, he’d moved away.

  “My name is Lissa.” She tried to sit, making it only to her elbow before her head started spinning.

  “Lissa.” The rumble of his voice cut off her next question. She’d been about to ask his name, but it didn’t seem to matter when he was beside her, his warm breath wafting over her skin and his voice rumbling through every pore. “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. Here.” He supported her shoulders and took her hand, placing some kind of small basket in her grasp. Or was it a cup? She couldn’t make out much in the murky darkness of the cave, but she could both hear and feel liquid sloshing around within the small receptacle she now held. “I collected some water for you. This cave has a little spring near the back that should be safe for you to drink.”

  “What is this?” She touched the rim of the cup, feeling branches and leaves.

  He settled beside her. “I wove some twigs together and lined it with leaves. It’s not entirely waterproof, but it works well enough. Drink, Lissa. You need fluids.”

  She found a smooth spot on the rim where leaves had been folded over the twigs and tried a sip. The water was cold and incredibly refreshing. Sh
e drank the whole cup, smacking her lips as she lowered the makeshift container.

  A shock went through her system when he leaned down and licked her lips, turning the caress into a kiss that was sweeter than anything she’d ever tasted

  “You are beautiful, Lissa, and you taste good enough to eat.” His whispered words caressed her face as he lifted away, a millimeter at a time.

  Her head swam as he let her go and her vision clouded. The man was potent, but she was still feeling the effects of being knocked around the interior of the shuttle bus as it careened down the mountain. He laid her back on the thin padding of their ruined clothes, and stroked her cheek with light, comforting motions.

  “I’m sorry, sweet Lissa. You need to rest.”

  “Don’t leave me.” She clutched at his arm as he made to move away. She had no idea where the impulse came from, but she didn’t want to be alone. In particular, she didn’t want this compelling man—creature of the night though he was—to go far from her. She needed his warmth, his presence at her side. He made her feel safe, though just why she should feel safe with a vampire, she couldn’t say. Logically, she should be trying to escape him, but logic had nothing to do with the terror in her heart at the thought of his leaving her.

  “I won’t. I promise you. But you need to rest more before I attempt the next phase of your healing. As do I. Healing takes something out of the healer and I was injured in the accident as well.”

  “Oh no.” She hadn’t truly understood before, her thought processes clouded by everything she’d had to deal with since waking. “Are you all right?”

  “Don’t worry for me, sweet Lissa.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles with an old-world flair. “I’m much recovered since tasting of you. Just a few minutes rest will have me at full strength and ready to give some of that energy back to you. But I want to be sure to do this right. Brain injuries can be difficult. I want to make certain we’re both ready when I attempt to heal you completely.”

  Silence descended as he settled beside her. He held her hand, offering warmth and comfort she wouldn’t have believed possible from a vampire.

  “I thought you guys were supposed to be cold.”

  He gave a long-suffering sigh. “The myths about my kind are seldom correct.”

  “Then what is true? I already know you drank my blood—unless I was hallucinating that part.”

  “No, you weren’t hallucinating. Though I normally leave the mortals I drink from with no memory of the event. They don’t tend to handle the idea as well as you have.”

  “I must’ve gotten my brains scrambled by the accident,” she admitted. “I don’t understand why I trust you, but I do. Maybe it’s stupid of me to tell you that, but I can’t see how my situation could be any worse.”

  “Oh, it could be worse, little one, but lucky for you, your trust—amazing as it is—is not misplaced this time. I want only to protect you. Of course, even if I were an ancient Venifucus killer, I might still tell you that, to keep you cooperative.”

  The irony in his voice comforted her. Something in her deepest mind liked him. Not only liked him, but trusted him. It was the same place the feelings of mixed dread and elation had come from when she’d been about to board the shuttle bus.

  She understood the warning now. The dread was most likely a premonition of the accident and the death that would visit all those innocent souls in the vehicle. The elation might have something to do with her rescuer. From the first sight of his handsome face, she’d been drawn to him.

  Destiny wasn’t something she often tried to fight. She was just talented enough psychically to understand things sometimes happened as they were meant to happen. Fighting against fate only made life more difficult.

  His words caught her attention, the niggling of her second sight alerting her to something important. Or perhaps it was something that would be important later. Either way, she trusted her abilities enough to investigate.

  “What’s that word? Veni-something?”

  “Venifucus.” The foreign word rolled off his tongue, but a shiver of premonition set her nerves jangling. “It’s an old word. A name for a group of killers who left this realm eons ago.” He was quiet for a moment, as if reflecting. “I’m not sure why that popped into my mind now, when I haven’t thought of them for centuries.”

  Lissa knew enough to tuck the information away for later consideration. Her gift sometimes guided her to learn strange tidbits that became useful months, sometimes years, later.

  “Centuries?” The thought gave her pause as he sighed. One of his warm hands stroked her shoulder, offering comfort.

  “I was born in what you would call the Dark Ages, though to us, they were just hard times. My family owned a small vineyard, as I do today.”

  “You make wine? But…?” She didn’t know how to ask him the questions running through her mind. A vampire businessman? It seemed too weird to contemplate.

  “I can drink wine. In fact, it’s a delicacy to my kind, though we can’t ingest much else without consequences. But the fruit of the vine is our one last link to the sun. It heals us and invigorates us. I’ve always enjoyed the winemaking process and in one form or another, I’ve been involved in wine production since about the fourteen hundreds.” He sounded as proud as any successful businessman talking about his career. “My main vineyard lies in the valley below. In fact, we’re not too far from my land here. Perhaps tonight I can venture out and get some clothing and food for you. Or if you’re well enough, you can come to my home and get cleaned up. We’ll call the hotel from there and let them know you’re all right.”

  “I was on my way to a conference, looking for a job. Guess that’s out now, all things considered.” She didn’t want to think about her dwindling bank account or the bills that had been piling up.

  “You won’t make the conference, but try not to worry. I have a lot of business connections. Perhaps we can find you a job, once you’re healed.”

  Tears gathered in the back of her eyes at this man’s incredible kindness. Not only had he heroically dragged her from the wreckage and saved her life, but he was talking about helping her get her career back on track. He was almost too good to be true and under other circumstances, she probably would have been very wary, but she’d been drawn to him from the first. Fate, it seemed, had thrown them together, and for better or worse, her destiny was intertwined with his—at least for the foreseeable future.

  Atticus lay beside her, attuned to her moods as he’d never been with any other being, mortal or immortal. It was as if he could sense her emotions, though he’d never had any kind of empathic abilities before.

  She was a complex woman. Her surface thoughts were chaotic after the trauma she’d been through, but he sensed an inner core of strength he had seldom encountered in any being, and almost never in a female. She was remarkable in every way.

  He could feel her fretting over her lack of a job. Atticus didn’t want to frighten her by being too forward, but she had nothing to worry about. If necessary, he’d create a job for her—if she really wanted one. Although the longer he was in her presence, the more he thought seriously about keeping her. He had enough money to support an army. He could keep one small woman in style for the rest of her natural life.

  But that was the sticking point. She was mortal. He’d never made a practice of keeping mortal pets around his home as some of his brethren did. It smacked of slavery to his mind and he didn’t hold with that. For the first time, he was considering asking a woman to stay with him who knew full well what he was and what he’d want from her. There was no way he could keep her under his roof and not want to taste her blood again and again.

  It was a momentous step.

  He’d have to think carefully about the consequences before he broached the subject. There was also the improbable, but tantalizing idea that she could actually be his One. He’d find the answer to that question before he went any further, but he didn’t dare get his hopes up too
high. He’d searched the world over for centuries. He’d almost come to terms with the idea that he would never share his immortal life with one special woman. Almost. But there was a small part of him that still yearned for that impossible dream. Perhaps this woman was the answer to his quest. Perhaps.

  But he had to heal her first, then take her, to be absolutely certain one way or the other.

  Atticus leaned up on one elbow, looking down at her lovely face in the darkness.

  “Don’t fret, sweet. It will all work out. For now, let’s concentrate on making you well, all right?”

  Her expression lightened, much to his relief. “All right. I just wish everything would stop spinning.” She chuckled and closed her eyes, likely unable to see much more than shadows in the dim cave.

  “I can help with that.” Gently, he placed his hands around the points of impact on her skull as he gathered his renewed strength. Using his healing gift, he directed pulses of energy to the places in her badly bruised head that were still injured. He’d done a lot of the repair work already, but the finer points had been beyond him the night before. He’d stabilized her, but left the finesse work until he was stronger.

  Concentrating, he set to work. It took quite a while, but when he finally released her, she was healthy once more.

  And ready for what he planned next.

  “How does that feel? Is the headache any better?” His deep voice drifted down to her from above.

  She felt so good with his hands on her face, in her hair. Her eyes had drifted shut of their own volition while he’d touched her, her unconscious mind trusting him in ways she’d never really trusted another being. Even with the few lovers she’d had in her life, she’d never fully let go and let them control her body or her responses. With this strange, startling man, giving over all her power was second nature.

  Her body recognized him on some intrinsic level that she didn’t bother to question. She knew from past experience with her psychic gift that some things defied logical explanation. Her uncharacteristic response to this imposing male creature was undoubtedly one of them.