Valerie was alive but the chest wound was nasty and long. He pushed at the flesh lightly, attempting to ascertain how deep the wound was but she cried out in agony and he realized it was an absolutely appalling idea for him to coat his fingers in her blood.
His fangs were extended, the desire for her blood painful and getting worse. It felt like a fist was wrapped around his entrails, jerking tighter in a frantic compulsion to lap her dry. Not only was he in desperate need of blood, but here Valerie was, the most exotic forbidden drink. Better than water in a desert, her body splayed out invitingly before him.
Her scent and blood surrounded him, seeped into his clothing and coated his hands and skin. Lucas heard a noise and realized it was him, a gasp and desperate groan of hunger and weakness he couldn’t control.
Valerie wasn't just nourishment, but excitement and pure life that could course through him.
All he had to was drink.
Base desire. He tore his gaze away from her jerkily, rocking backwards on his heels, the movements uncoordinated so that he fell backwards, landing hard on the floor.
He had to give her his blood. That would heal her even if the consequences to himself would be severe. The urgent need to feed her almost overwhelmed him, chased his own hunger to the back of his mind. He bit his wrist quickly, the wound from where Marion had taken out a chunk of his flesh, already healed. He moved his wrist towards her mouth but paused.
Slow down.
Think.
He was acting like a rash young man when both of their fates could be changed forever in the next few moments.
Lucas inhaled deeply, pressing the flat of his palms over his eyes as he tried to cut through a haze of blood lust, weakness, and desire for her.
Was this the only option? Giving her his blood would give her power over him. Already, he was drawn to her. How much worse would it be if they had that connection? His fingers went back to the wound on her chest, hovering above it, wanting to see and touch the internal damage. His hand shook to touch her, but he held himself poised and still.
God, he wanted her.
He thought of those who were still loyal to him. Who could he trust, how soon could anyone be here to feed her instead of him doing it himself? It wasn't feasible. Things were so unstable it wouldn't do to have another vampire feed her, have a hold over her and thus over him, especially as Marion already knew about Valerie and his interest in her.
The dilemma was simple. Feed her or let her die. No alternative. He sat on the ground next to her bed and brought his wrist to his mouth again, the second wound closed but pink. Wrist pressed against his fang, he reopened the skin, saw his black blood sluggishly pool to the surface and leaned towards Valerie, a riot of emotion in him like birds batting against a cage. Even though he dreaded this moment and how it might alter the future and give her power over him, it was still a sacred act. An act of devotion to give of himself to her, in order to sustain her life.
Feeding another was intimate, the act sexual, personal and not done lightly, with emotional ramifications and vulnerability.
Her lips were cool, a faint tinge of blue around them and he feared he had already waited too long to save her.
Val didn't open her mouth but turned her head away in resistance, her brow furrowing, her body trying to arch away but too depleted to even roll over.
Lucas spoke to her gently and stroked her cheek with his other hand, speaking words he would not later remember, half threats and half pleadings in his native tongue that he'd not spoken in a long while.
She turned to the sound of his voice, her head tilted towards him again. He saw her features smooth out as she relaxed, her body sinking into the mattress as she responded to his words and the compulsion he put in his voice. Her lips opened and he felt her tongue press against his flesh.
Oh God.
Her mouth was scalding and he dropped his head onto the bed, a harsh breath exhaling from him. A rough groan was jerked from him and he cursed. How many more times could she force utterances from him?
She sucked harder, her throat working as she fed from him.
Each tug and swallow cascaded through his body inflamed him. Lucas felt himself breathing in time with her movements. Quick, jerky, breaths that were unnecessary for a dead man. He forced himself to stop. Stared hard at the wall across from him and tried to get his mind off of the erotic act that was being played upon him.
But his mind wouldn't focus and he kept thinking of this woman, this mortal who was becoming a dangerous obsession. Why lie? She had been his obsession since he'd first discovered her existence. He'd gone to see her after drinking her mother's blood, mixed with Roberto's, all those years ago.
A lovely child who cried herself to sleep because she missed her mother and the happy father she'd known.
He'd been uncertain of what his actions would be: either kill her or take her for his own. The blood of an empath would have been his whenever he wanted. All he had to do was take her and he could feed from her whenever he chose. He'd wanted desperately and feared just as much. Imagined himself as a blood junkie desperate for his next fix of her, a species he'd thought eradicated, but not.
He'd watched her and left her, the temptation for her death or her person warring in him so strongly that he knew he couldn't make any decision then.
But he'd remembered the exquisite pleasure her mother's blood had brought him, how it had lingered in him for weeks afterwards and made him feel things he'd thought long gone.
When he'd seen the little girl in her bed sobbing, he felt sad for her, had felt tears running down his face in sympathy. He'd remembered his own mortal wife and children, how he'd felt when he became a father. The grief from when his brothers had died the night his vampire maker came to his home.
This girl was dangerous.
So he'd let time pass. Let her grow, even protected her family. Even when it expanded to include the human male she loved. He'd seen that happen too and had done nothing. Human emotions were fleeting and distasteful, it made no difference to him where her heart was engaged, it was her blood that called him.
At least that’s what he told himself.
But he hadn't expected her to be so strong. So resistant to the darkness. As her father and Jack succumbed to a life of slaughter and protection, she broke away. The empath in her unable to thrive in that dark environment.
He understood her actions and need to break away from the death they craved. While some might consider her actions callous or cowardly, something her Jack always accused her of, he thought they were reasonable, especially for an empath.
An empath could be dragged under so easily by those they loved. They felt emotions and absorbed them. It would destroy her spirit to be surrounded by a life of death. An empath was emphatically a being that relied upon positive energy. A glowing and resonant force that brought calm and unity to all the Other races. It was one of the things that had made them so valuable.
Her hands gripped his wrist, pulling him closer, deeper into her mouth and he kept his body from hers by a thread.
He needed to fuck her.
The dress could be gone in an instant, her legs open in less. He could be in her right now, this very moment, his cock lodged to the hilt in her hot depths.
Her eyes were open and looking at him without knowledge of who he was or what she was doing.
She will know it’s me. It would be his body over hers, his hips wedged in the cradle of her thighs and she’d cry out him name, over and over again. He stumbled away from her.
The wound on her chest was gone, her skin whole and unblemished under her torn and bloody dress.
A wave of vertigo washed over him as he righted himself. Val made a sound of distress. Lucas walked away from her, waiting for her to come to herself, trying to think of something else besides his cock in her heat.
Physically he was wrecked, weaker than he'd been in centuries from the blood Marion and Valerie had taken, the poison in the arrows and the wounds inflicted upon him and th
e amount of energy it had taken to return to her apartment safely.
He looked out her window, leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of him, the wound on his wrist still dripping blood. He needed to bind it. He was so weak it wouldn't heal on its own.
“Lucas?” Val said, knowing she sounded fragile.
He turned towards her but didn't move closer, staying on the other side of the room. What the hell had happened?
Val's hand was wiping at her mouth, his dark blood upon her fingers, the blood staining her lips. She looked at her hand, examined the blood and sat up, her dress gaping in the process. She looked shocked, her eyes unnaturally wide. Her gaze was locked on his face, the dress ignored. He did his best to ignore it as well.
“What happened?”
“There was a brawl.” His tone was self-deprecating but weary. At this moment, he seemed near human.
His shoulders were slightly slumped, his features soft and mortal. “And so they tried to contain me. Your Hunters came at an opportune moment and we fled.” Here there was a lengthy pause as though he was done talking, but something about the way he stood, a tension maybe, made her think he had more to say. “You would have died, so I fed you.”
She nodded jerkily, suspicions confirmed. “What does that mean?”
He stood still and the moment dragged. When he answered her she knew it wasn't the whole truth. “Nothing. It means you are healed, that is all.”
He’s lying.
“I won't be a vampire, will I?”
He shook his head slowly in negation, the corners of his full lips turned down slightly as he stared at the carpet, like he was unwilling to look at her.
So she looked at him instead, trying to understand his strange, almost vulnerable mood.
He looked awful, his movements jerky and hesitant. His clothes were covered in blood and torn. He was still imposing and strong but she could almost feel the effort it took for him to stand there and stay animated.
He is so hungry.
She could feel it.
Lucas watched her watching him. All he wanted to do was to drink her down. Drink her until it killed her and set him on fire, an ecstasy of emotion that would carry him away like a tide. Perhaps her blood would kill him. He wanted it anyway.
A stranger thought came to him, crowding out the last. What if she were just a normal human he could drink from? He could take her across his lap and drink from her gently, give them both pleasure and keep the mental distance he had with anyone else. He wished for the discipline to enjoy the taste of her blood in a quiet way, instead of the cacophony of emotion, pain, and pleasure that would no doubt accompany even the smallest taste of her blood. Lucas shook his head, it was foolish to be distracted.
He was sixteen hundred years old and had been in an emotional half state of existence for hundreds of years. If he drank from her, his reaction would be extreme. Her blood was too intense for someone as old as him. Like a starved person being offered a steak, their body rejected it, needed plain water and time to adjust to food again.
Lucas could smell her empathic blood. Knew she wasn't merely mortal. Every time he was with her he felt almost intoxicated by her scent alone. And she desired him. That changed the call of her blood and her scent so that she wasn't just alluring but nearly impossible to resist.
She wasn't trained to control her blood, like empaths had been centuries ago. He was fairly certain that if he drank from her she would only give him desire since it was what she felt. Feed him desire for her until it consumed them both.
What pleasure might that bring? She was like opium. He blinked, suddenly aware that he was staring at her neck, watching the steady beat of her pulse push lightly against her skin.
Val watched him in his stillness. He'd disappeared into himself, a gorgeous and bloody automaton standing in her bedroom. There was no blinking or nervous gestures.
He is really dead.
She could forget that sometimes, like when he looked at her like he was just a man desiring a woman or when he told her the history of vampires and Others. She'd thought he'd been robotic before, but this was scary.
It made her want to flee, make a dash for her bathroom even though the door was no protection against him. Was he thinking about eating her?
He blinked and made a little half bow towards her before leaving out the front door and she knew he was too weak to dematerialize.
Valerie went to her kitchen and found a box of cookies. Shortbread. The fat content was insane but she had just survived a stabbing, attack, and near shooting, calories were the least of her problems. It would be nice to live long enough to gain ten pounds. She finished off the cookies with a glass of milk and hobbled back to bed, sore all over.
What did it mean that she'd drunk from Lucas? Would he have a hold over her? Her eyes closed and she fell asleep, the feel of Lucas as he'd held her close and tried to disappear with her like a ghostly embrace.
Chapter 12
London, England
The phone rang and Valerie reached for it, enjoying the happy realization that nothing hurt when she stretched. She was healed from Lucas’ blood. It had worked. Saved her life and she wasn’t a vampire. She didn’t want to dwell on it too much.
“Hello?”
“Val.” Jack’s voice sounded gravelly and tired. Jack didn't speak, the moment dragging out until she heard him say her name in a devastated way.
This is the call.
She just knew it. Something about the silence, the pain in his voice. She spoke in a whisper, “Is he alive?”
“He's not gonna make it Val. The damage is too severe. I know he wants to see you before it's too late.” His voice trembled at the end and she knew he was just as upset as she was. Maybe more since Nate had been a father to Jack in earnest, whereas she'd been a reminder of his lost love and a liability that needed to be honed and cajoled.
She'd been work whereas Jack had been his hope. She got out of bed, already at the closet grabbing her suitcase.
“Where are you?” She asked trying to think about practical things.
“Italy. Rome.”
She almost screamed, furious that she’d even have to ask. Of course it was Rome. Where she’d been last night. Where she had almost died. Did he know? Had he seen her?
“What's the hospital?”
“Sant'Andrea. I'll see you soon, Val.” He hung up and she hurled the phone at the wall, overcome by rage and sadness.
Hastily, she got ready and went downstairs to the street. She found a cab easily and had him take her to Stansted Airport where the next flight left in three hours.
Lucas could get her there instantly. She called him and left a message. Where the hell is he?
She felt betrayed. He’d promised her that he'd take care of Jack and her father and he hadn't. Part of her knew that was unreasonable, he was in the middle of a coup, with potentially no allies and fighting for his own life but she was still angry.
The next few hours passed in a haze. She tried to read a few magazines on the plane but it was pointless. Images of her father, conversations had, moments where he’d been disappointed ran through her mind.
His voice.
His expressions.
Gone forever.
The way he used to tuck her in at night when she was little, or the way he hunched his shoulders when he was mad or irritated with her.
Most of her memories were conflicted. They’d let each other down, but that didn't mean she didn't love him. Maybe she should have made more effort, tried harder to let him know how much she cared, that even though she kept apart from him she did love him.
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