Vampire Lover

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  She had, in fact, seemed as shocked as he had been.

  She had allowed him a taste, and he still felt the aftermath.

  Slayer blood was said to be a delicacy. But surviving any sort of closeness to a Slayer was unprecedented, and highly unusual. No vampire he knew of had survived such a forbidden assignation.

  Still, the flicker of his excitement was tempered somewhat by a wave of residual resentment. A reminder that he had come to Miami to get away from 26

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  the old feuds. He thought he had escaped the problem of ancient vendettas by leaving them and the blood oaths behind. Now he had to deal with this young Connor incarnation. Nothing had changed.

  This Connor was part of the family that had hunted his family for centuries. Connor killings had been swift, brutal, until his family was all but extinct.

  He was the last of his bloodline.

  Of course, it was no secret that his family had enjoyed their share of Connor blood, in return. A blood oath went both ways. He had known there were two Connors left in his part of the world. One of them was old, nearly blind and feeble, in County Clare. The other one, this youngest Connor, had left Clare and against all odds was here. Not only in the same city, but blonde, youthful and as sexy as anything on two legs.

  And she was a Slayer.

  She’d inherited the gene that Connor men had for centuries scoured the countryside for. Connor men sought out and married women with a special gene they called "Sense," perhaps hoping to shore up their own family’s longevity. The DNA that produced a Slayer was a delicate one, preferring to be housed in women. But rarely was it passed on from mother to daughter.

  Except here, it seems.

  This Connor was the daughter of Katherine, the Slayer who had taken his father to an early grave.

  Hayden had to ignore the jumping pulses of interest, because the feud had merely changed continents. Against nature, Connors had found a way Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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  to pass the gene along, by birth. He hadn’t escaped his past at all.

  Damn it, he should have recognized the shade and shine of her green eyes. He hadn’t been prepared. How could he have been? Even with the name Connor, she should have been normal.

  So, who was the real sucker in this bit of introductory foreplay?

  What would transpire when she came after him?

  "What will it be then, Slayer?" This time when his fangs extended, Hayden bared them with a sad, questioning smile.

  It took Kelsie five more minutes to gather herself sufficiently to move, and then it was only to step over the broken glass.

  Her trembling had lessened. She felt steadier, though oddly distanced from the world around her.

  Her anger had finally burned through some of the bullshit. She had peered into the eyes of the wrong beast. A willing sacrifice, for the sake of a newspaper.

  "Thanks for nothing," she muttered to the moon.

  Now she was all too aware of him. Although the vampire had gone, his presence lingered, wrapped around her like sticky, muscular, invisible arms.

  Out of habit, she fingered the chain at her neck, pressing on the pendant her mother had given her on her tenth birthday, just hours before her mother had died. Touching the charm made Kelsie breathe easier.

  The necklace was all she had of her mother, and a reminder that although she may have been the first 28

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  Connor to leave Ireland, roots ran deep. She was never to take the necklace off. Her grandmother had requested that she not do so, and Kelsie never had.

  And Connors, she had been taught, never ran away from a fight.

  So, what happens next?

  Would the monster come back for her? Would her grandmother know what to do, if Kelsie called?

  Maybe she’d whittle some stakes in the meantime, just in case. Having hooked a vampire, was she dead meat?

  The patio torches sputtered beside her. Kelsie looked there, then again to the doorway, hearing an echo of the vampire’s voice.

  "You want a wolf? Why not just call them?"

  A shiver of apprehension arrived as she thought about that. The pendant seemed suddenly weightier in her fingers, and icy to the touch.

  Nothing was as it was supposed to be. Silver was supposed to ward off vampires, but this vamp had ignored it. Vamps were supposed to be pale, gaunt creatures, yet this one could have been a movie star.

  What else had the legends gotten wrong?

  Why had this vampire left her alive and breathing?

  He hadn’t really tried to harm her…much.

  She glanced at her knuckle, at the smear of blood, and wondered if the scent would lure more nighttime creatures. She wasn’t up for that, no matter how badly she needed a byline.

  But the moonlight seemed to tug at her chest, as if attempting to pry free a rib bone. The vampire’s eyes had pried something loose as well, by delving into Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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  hers. For a minute there she had felt different—defiant, belligerent, slightly dangerous and as though she carried someone she didn’t recognize hidden inside of her. The vampire’s unholy mouth on hers had started all of this strangeness, and his disappearance hadn’t lessened the effect.

  She felt… off.

  "Wolves haven’t helped your kind in a century," he had said. "Why not just call them?"

  "What the hell." None of this made any sense, anyway.

  Focusing her attention on the doorway, Kelsie said loudly, firmly, "Wolfmen. If you’re there, come out now."

  A hot breeze rose to circulate fallen leaves on the patio. Kelsie’s heart rate notched up tenfold.

  Light-headed again, she put a hand to the wall for support. How lame was calling werewolves with the expectation they would come? How ridiculous was it to take the advice of a bloodsucker? The encounter on this patio had turned her into an idiot.

  She fought off another wave of distress, thought, What sort of person can call werewolves?

  She frowned, trying to recall the term this vampire had used that had struck her anxiety cord, and shouted for the hell of it, "Weres! Come out!"

  When she looked up, it was to find two men beneath the awning. Big guys. Their chests and arms rippled beneath their shirts like a freaky muscle mirage. Their curiously bright, animal-like eyes were trained on her.

  "Shit!" she swore, as she raced for the gate.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After taking a good long look at the moon, Hayden turned his attention back to the nightclub, half a block away. A heated breeze ruffled his hair as he waited.

  He had given her every reason to come after him.

  He had scratched her skin, bringing up the blood necessary to identify her. Now that he had placed her, he could hear his dead ancestors crying out for retaliation against the atrocities her family had performed on them in the past.

  Hayden fought that notion, as he always had. More questions consumed him. Were Slayers always this attractive? He wanted her to come after him for reasons having less to do with what was wired into him, and more to do with the excitement of meeting a female strong enough to face him. A female with a shared past. One who already knew about him.

  Wouldn’t that be a relief?

  In spite of the time she had spent in Miami, this Slayer still tasted like County Clare. She wore the Connor crest at her throat—a heart with a stake through it.

  Cheeky Connor bastards. This wasn’t a game, after all, or a date with a viable partner. It was the unexpected meeting of a Connor with "Sense" and a Flynn, whose name in old Irish, Flann, meant blood-red. This meeting was a continuation of a terrible, Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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  centuries-old war.

  A Connor Slayer would have to come after him.

  Her own blood would demand it, if not her soul. So why prolong the inevitable? He would wait for her right here, tonight, and get it over with.

  He’d love to get his hands on her agai
n.

  And his mouth.

  Hell, he did want to bite her. His soul cried out for that. No Slayer, or anyone else out of the fold, knew how seductive a fang slipped into dewy skin could be, or how incredibly erotic that physical metaphor was.

  The longing for intimate blood sharing had a name.

  A Dark Surrender was a ritual that took place when a vampire found a mortal woman willing to take him in, body, blood and soul. Becoming like him. Leaving one life behind for another. The continuous line of Flynns was proof of the viability of the ritual. The offspring of that kind of liaison became what he was. A living vampire.

  Not one of the undead, per se. Some special quirk in Flynn blood, long tended, allowed the vampires in his family to live and breathe and age as mortals did, with beating hearts in their chests. A unique side effect in the invisible manuals of vampirism.

  He wasn’t immortal. Unearthly strong and powerful, certainly, but susceptible to a stake or a silver bullet that might only slow the true undead down. After Flynns were killed, if they weren’t immediately beheaded or cremated they became monsters, undead vampires, like the rest of the fang-bearing breed. For this reason, his family had always taken precautions against an unwanted afterlife.

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  It was likely a Slayer from County Clare would know all about that, too. A Connor was certain to comprehend the nuances of a Flynn’s existence. As the last Connor Slayer standing, this one would have been raised on the propaganda, fed it on a daily basis, along with her porridge.

  Probably she had been hoping to throw him off balance with her silky, sultry aura. If that had been her agenda, she had reached her goal.

  Hayden licked his lip. Catching a slight trace of the Slayer’s sweetness, he pulled a face. This Connor was a forbidden delight. No one had mentioned this might be the case, or that he would be so attracted to the very being set upon this earth to destroy him.

  He wanted to touch her, all right. Needed to touch her. For all the wrong reasons. Never would he have considered that a Flynn might want to take a Slayer to bed, instead of putting her under the ground. His fangs ached with a dull persistence. Not for the thrill of a bite, but being near to her again. The enemy. Like it or not, Hayden Flynn had been sidelined by a Slayer, and he was going to have to do something about that.

  "Come and get it, then, Connor," he said, knowing she would hear him, wherever she was.

  Hayden’s body gave him a swift heads-up. His awareness filled in the rest. The Slayer had left the club. The night carried her presence: a whiff of blood in the air, sweet as nectar.

  She had left the lights and the crowd to enter the realm of the beast. Who but a Slayer would dare Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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  confront the darkness?

  He was feverish with anticipation. If she sought him, knew him, had a bead on him, the outcome seemed bleak. One of them might die.

  He focused on the sidewalk, saw her. She kept close to others on the street, her footfalls tentative, the gems on her sandals throwing off random glints of colored light as she passed beneath a streetlight. She looked wary, agitated and…inspired. If she was anything like her ancestors, this woman was Death in a pretty capsule, her outward appearance designed for a reason.

  He waited by the side of a building, near the sand, observing from the shadows.

  Can you feel me, Connor?

  She paused midstep and turned to look straight at him. Hayden’s blood boiled in his veins. His thirst beckoned. The Slayer’s green eyes, though unfocused, held an unsettling, haunted quality that was alarmingly innocent. Almost vulnerable.

  The unusual thunder started up again in Hayden’s chest. Anticipation? Withheld aggression? Misplaced lust for an old enemy? He was still hard. His fangs were sharp against his lower lip.

  Theirs was to be a unique duet, it seemed: a mortal woman with special strengths and a vampire with a plan that didn’t include draining all her blood. Both sets of parents would roll over in their graves at this last thought.

  Yes, here. He sent the message to her, anxious for closeness and at the same time dreading it, if she meant to fight.

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  Clearly sensing him, she crossed the pavement, heading his way, hesitating twice as if to think things over. Determination crept over her features as she continued on. Her silk blouse clung to her breasts enticingly when she picked up her pace.

  Stopping just a few yards away, and in full moonlight, his beautiful nemesis spoke around the people on the sidewalk. "What do you want?"

  Hayden scented the blood on her hand and on the scratch he’d made at her throat. His thirst responded with a roar that nearly kicked him sideways.

  The Slayer took an unconscious step backward.

  Fighting for control, Hayden growled, "Shouldn’t I ask the same thing of you?"

  "Why would you?"

  "You’re nothing like I expected," he said.

  "Neither are you," she admitted warily.

  "You did expect me, then?"

  "Does anyone expect a vampire? Should I be flattered by the attention, or speed dialing 911?"

  Clearly tasting her fear, but liking the exchange, Hayden said, "Ah, that’s the question, isn’t it? Which of us will be left standing?"

  She blanched visibly. A puzzled expression crossed her face.

  "For the sake of my ignorance, why don’t you explain why only one of us will be left standing. Is it your bloodlust?"

  Her act really was good, Hayden decided. It had to be one. He recognized her. The air around her swirled, caressing her slender form as if it knew her, too. The silver talisman at her throat was icing on the cake.

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  "We’re opposites, are we not?" he said.

  "That’s your explanation?"

  "Old enemies," he elaborated.

  "How can that be, when I don’t even know you?"

  The Slayer’s weight shifted back and forth from foot to foot, evidence of her nervousness. Each move she made stirred the air, pushing the lushness of her scent to him. It really was a toss-up for him as to what to do. If she wanted to play games, Hayden decided, he’d play along, see where this went.

  He pointed to her throat. "I recognized the Connor crest."

  She fingered the charm. "You had to bite me to see it."

  "I didn’t bite you," he corrected.

  "No? What would you call this?" She tilted her head to expose the scratch marks. Hayden’s hunger exploded when he saw the nip he’d used to place her.

  Sweet as nectar…

  He struggled to speak past the gnawing thirst, wondering if that thirst might be conceived more of emerging emotion than a desire for blood.

  "I’m a vampire. You’re a Slayer. I’m supposed to bite you," he confessed. "Or die trying."

  Connor flinched, and tilted slightly on her pretty feet as if she’d been struck. She rallied quickly. "Go to hell with this Slayer business. But before you jump back into that hole you sprang from, tell me how you knew this was my family crest, and how you knew my name."

  "Everyone in Clare knows about the Connors, and what that crest stands for."

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  "Clare?" She seemed confused. Her forehead wrinkled in thought. "County Clare? You’re from there? Yes, I hear it now in your voice. Do you know my family?"

  "You’re the first Connor I’ve met in person, although our families have been at each other for years," Hayden replied.

  "At each other?"

  "Maybe arch enemies is a better description."

  "Hardly any of my family is left."

  "True. Yet you’re here, and in the presence of the one being you were born to kill."

  Hayden watched her rock back. Noticed how her breasts pressed against the shimmery silk as if straining toward him. Either she was as attracted to him as he was to her, or the thought of taking down a Flynn turned her on
.

  "Kill?" Her reply emerged slowly, and after a pause. "You’re saying that due to an old argument between our families, you want to hurt me?"

  "Just as you want to fight me. The blood feud is branded into us, Connor, served to us on a plate whether we want it or not." Hayden didn’t mention how much the idea sickened him. He still wasn’t sure about Connor’s intentions.

  "I don’t want to fight you," she said.

  "Then why are your hands fisted? Why are you here, so far from the club? Why haven’t you already called the police?" He took a step forward, spoke around his fangs. "It’s who we are. What we are. What I find strange is that I want to resist the temptation bred into me."

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  He was, in fact, wrestling with urges arising from a source outside of himself that told him to tear into her neck with the fever of a fiend. Part of him had been preset to eliminate whatever Connor he might find.

  But he had always been different. He had grown up hating the destruction, carnage and stories of sadness and loss the rest of his family had known.

  He wanted this Connor for other reasons. She was radiating her own kind of pheromone, fascinatingly feminine and musky. He was sure that her green eyes, though half clouded by doubt, beckoned for him to fall into their emerald Irish depths.

  Not only did he not want to kill her, the urge to bite her took on a whole new meaning, plumped up by desire of another sort. Bite for pleasure. Indulge in the splendor he was sure he would find here. Together, they might find new ways to vent the frustrations bred into them. Love, not war.

  "Connor." Hayden pitched his voice lower. "It’s what we are that finds us together."

  "What we are?" she said, obviously perceiving the hunger in the intensity of his gaze, because she took a stance as wide as her tight skirt would allow, and raised her hands to fend off any movement he might make.

  In her eyes, Hayden saw a flash of green fire that was contrary to the tremble in her voice as she said, "I suppose it’s way too much to ask for somebody to tell me what the hell is really going on!"

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As soon as the vampire repeated the word Slayer, the air had gone right out of Kelsie, dragging her into a tunnel the color of pitch. She fell, folding into the darkness, with the night closing in after her.