by Mel Teshco
Outside the tinted window the night was ink-black, where heavy cloud cover obscured the sky. But a lone star peeked through the fog up high, a beckoning light in the darkness. It steeled her resolve.
Mom, I won’t let you die.
Chapter Two
“Ah, we’re here,” he murmured.
She nodded, forcing indifference as she turned to view one of Sydney’s Kings Cross nightclubs.
It appeared little different to the many others in the area. Seedy and unremarkable, the well-lit exterior of peeling paint and broken neon signs exacerbated its dingy interior.
She climbed out, aware of the many envious stares from passersby—tipsy night clubbers, hard-faced hookers and sightseers alike.
He took hold of her hand in his, then dropped it low to rest on the small of her back. She should have stepped away and brushed off his possessive touch, which shot an electrified thrill down her spine. She didn’t. His presence offered a comfort she’d never felt before. He was strong and self-reliant, and for once it was…nice to lean on someone whose force seemed as indomitable as her own.
Her senses started to buzz in the vicinity of two brawny bouncers who guarded the nightclub’s front door—vampires, the pair of them. As she approached with her escort, the muscled twosome stepped aside, sketching a bow as they walked past.
She frowned. Was this normal vampire practice? She knew so little about her own ancestry. Truth be told, she’d never wanted to learn the customs of nightwalkers and knew little more than what she’d observed since she’d started tracking down the Vampire Lord a little over three months before.
Oh, there had been things she couldn’t have helped but learn before this undertaking, self-taught experiences that’d began the moment she’d needed to drink blood. That a mortal’s memory lapsed after she’d fed had been one of her first realizations.
As a part-mortal, it’d been many years before Kia had needed the nourishment of human blood. A diet including a penchant for red meat had sustained her for a little over seventeen years. Only when she’d reached sexual maturity—and satisfied that need—had she begun to crave another. She’d hungered for blood with a ferocity that had left her weak and shaky.
Her mother might not have any vampire blood running through her veins—might even have despised the race—but she’d understood Kia’s fundamental urges. She’d scrimped and saved to buy a small house set amongst the privacy of vineyards. To protect the daughter she could never turn her back on, no matter her origins.
It was there that Kia had met her first lover, a handsome, strapping young man. He’d been the perfect candidate to satisfy her awakened vampire needs—hunger and sex.
Kia wrenched her mind back to the present. She had a feeling she’d need all her wits about her this night.
“This way,” he murmured. He steered her around the dance floor as techno music thumped, heat pulsing from the press of bodies writhing in time to its beat.
He drew her toward the crowded bar, where a barmaid immediately took their orders.
Drinks in hand, they found a private booth where the music was a few decibels gentler. In a padded seat, she sipped her bourbon and coke, taking a look around.
She stuck to her human senses, enjoying the more muted effect. Noting vampires in the crowd, she wondered how they coped with their enhanced sensitivities, how they tolerated the din, the bright strobe lights and stale body odor.
The purebreds wouldn’t understand how much of an advantage she had over them at times like this. Nonstop superior sight, smell and hearing were all well and good as a rule, but overtax all three senses and a vampire’s logic and judgment became fuzzy and distorted.
But in human mode she was drawn to other vampires. They exuded a force field that was hard to resist—little wonder mortals became so helpless and transfixed within their radius.
Perhaps it was best a human didn’t recall willingly offering a nightwalker their throat. The saliva in a vamp’s bite triggered a chemical reaction in the victim’s blood, numbing their brain and clouding memory. If they happened to become a little groggy and weak afterward, then all the better.
That same saliva could affect an unborn fetus if the bitten woman was in the earliest stage of pregnancy. The more a vampire drank from a pregnant woman, the more saliva he transmitted, and the greater the odds were the baby’s genetics would cross over and mutate to vampire.
Kia would have been born mortal if her mother hadn’t been brutally attacked by a vampire in the early stages of her pregnancy.
Chantal hadn’t known she was pregnant when she’d celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday at a nightclub with some girlfriends. But nausea had overcome her when she’d rung her husband, Kia’s father, to come get her. After making her excuses to her friends, she’d stumbled outside.
Chantal’s husband, Jackson, had found her in the car park some thirty minutes later. Raped, beaten and drained of almost all her blood, she’d barely clung to life. But with a hospital only a block away, the medics had been able to act quickly. A massive blood transfusion had saved her and Kia’s life.
Four years later, without any explanation or apparent reason, Jackson had walked away from his responsibilities as husband and father. He had never been seen or heard from again.
“My name is Ronan,” the man by her side revealed, bringing her attention back to him.
Kia jumped, startled by the liquid-honey voice so near to her ear. He’d leaned close, his knee brushing hers a moment before he reached to cover her hand.
“Ronan.” She tested his name, enjoying the sound like a connoisseur would a fine wine. She inclined her head a little. “I’m pleased to know you.”
Oh, hell. Was she? He’d been her lover for one night… A nameless man who’d brought her great pleasure. And now he was what, exactly?
As if sensing her emotional withdrawal, he entwined his fingers with hers. He stood and drew her to her feet. “Dance with me.”
It wasn’t a question, but she played along, concealing her desperate urgency to find the Ancient One. Her senses burned. She just knew Sean was within her grasp. And another opportunity to meet him may not eventuate soon enough.
The DJ ended his techno-music mix as she followed Ronan onto the floor. He cast the DJ a look, who returned a nod. Then Ronan swept her fluidly into his arms, and a slow melody pierced the air.
So he’d requested the song, so what? Right now she didn’t give a damn. Not with his body molded against hers, his large hands cradling her curves like he’d never let her go…like he owned her.
She’d never allowed this kind of liberty with any other man before, indeed, he’d have been inert on the floor had he even tried some of Ronan’s moves. But she wanted this man, Ronan, to touch her. She couldn’t quite explain why, except that he was unlike most men. Strong. Brilliant. Tantalizing. He enthralled her.
She looked up, scorched by the molten heat in his silver-gray eyes. “So”—her husky voice cracked—“this is the underworld crowd?”
He nodded. “Some of them, yes.”
Some? She sucked in a breath, aroused and frustrated all in one. Ronan was telling the truth. She’d have sensed Sean’s presence if he was here.
A pity Ronan was only human. Though he may well be connected to the secretive vampire network, he couldn’t know they were nightwalkers— know Sean—could he?
Only one way to find out.
She stood on tiptoe, being careful to look away from his throat as she spoke into his ear. “Is Sean Maximillus a regular here?”
He smiled when she sank back onto her heels, his teeth dazzling white beneath the slowed-down movement of the strobe light. “Occasionally.”
Oh, my! She stumbled, but he held her steady in his arms as she breathed, “Really?”
“Yes. He used to cause quite a stir. But now, pretty much everyone knows better, and leaves him alone.”
With Ronan’s body slotted so intimately against hers, Kia had the insane impression they hadn’t
scratched the surface of what could be physically shared. She squirmed. Last night their sex had been mind-blowing. The best she’d ever had. By far.
She held his gaze. “So you’ve met him?”
The song reached its crescendo, and with an expert flourish, he twirled her once and dropped her backward, a wicked glint in his eyes as he kept her there, arched over his arm. His gaze raked over her partly exposed breasts. “Many times.”
She quivered. Her nipples pushed against the flimsy silk of her dress, her sheer lace thong damp with arousal. Her body demanded one thing, her mind another.
She’d always enjoyed sex. It was integral to her genetic makeup to seek out a lover who could satisfy her needs, in more ways than one. Just recently, it had also helped to alleviate pent-up frustration from her mission. But she’d never been this preoccupied. Never been so hopelessly fascinated by a mortal.
He tugged her upright and then stepped behind her, bringing her close. His arms draped possessively across her body and felt all too right. She luxuriated in the oneness, the closeness, even as she lolled in his embrace.
The DJ started up a frenzied beat and topless women—vampires—adorned with feather boas and headdresses strutted out onto a stage in the far corner. Their eyes glowed red, a stirring of bloodlust, which was reciprocated by the vamps scattered throughout the room.
For a moment, Kia wondered what the humans thought when they saw the vampires’ eyes, then guessed most of the mortals had imbibed too much to notice and were too aroused to care.
Oh, mercy.
Her body responded with an incredible intensity. When male vampires swaggered onto the stage wearing nothing but studded leather thongs, she had to close her eyes for a moment and fight her skyrocketing need.
Ronan’s arousal nudged the small of her back, and he said hoarsely, “Look.”
She turned. In the crowd, a man, a vampire, had slipped a hand up beneath the miniskirt of a pretty human. When the girl sank against his caress, his tongue slid across her throat before his eyes flashed, fangs glinting. He bit deep and drank, and the girl convulsed with pleasure.
Kia gasped with need, but fought it off as realization hit like a sledgehammer to her consciousness. Ronan did know about vampires. He knew only too well!
The dancers joined the crowd, weaving across the dance floor as each one found and paired up with an avid human. Arousal filled the air, and soon after, the cloying scent of sex and blood.
“Kia,” Ronan groaned. “We should go.”
It was past time to leave. Through a tidal wave of desire and hunger, fury writhed within her like a snake uncoiling, an undiluted wrath that had her jerk out of his grasp and spin around to face him.
It might have been her vampire side causing her eyes to burn and her fangs to protrude on either side of her bottom lip. But it was her human side that saw her raise her hand, her open palm connecting to his cheek with a sharp crack.
Little could stop a vampire’s bloodlust. But incredibly, all motion froze. The DJ ceased play. And vamps with blood on their lips and lust in their stares, dropped their eyes and bowed their heads.
At some level, she recognized she’d broken some basic vampire code. Right then she didn’t care. All she saw was Ronan and his lie.
Anger bubbled within, at his duplicity, at her own idiocy, but mostly at the catastrophic waste of time, which may well affect her mother’s outcome.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a vampire?” she gritted.
With eyes shot red and incisors long, and his voice oddly calm, he said, “There is much you haven’t been told.”
Anger grew, vibrating through her chest to feed a savage ardor. “What?”
“Not here.” He offered her his hand. “You want to meet the Ancient One. I will take you to him.”
A murmur rippled through the onlookers. He quelled it with a look and waited, hand outstretched. “Now or never.”
Chapter Three
Bloodlust screamed through her body as they left the club. The display of hunger and sex, along with her fury at Ronan’s lies, brought her need to fever pitch, overcoming all logical thought.
Desire clouded thick and urgent in the air between them as they made their way to the limo, and with a sharp nod, Ronan dismissed the chauffeur to the driver’s seat. He thrust the back door open for Kia, and she clambered inside, anticipation firing her blood.
She waited, her pulse jumping, her senses razor sharp and fixated on Ronan. The club scene had been foreplay of what was to come, so it was no surprise when Ronan slid across the seat and dragged her into his arms.
In some distant part of her mind, she bitterly accepted Ronan had deceived her, but she was all but lost in the moment, her predatory instincts and savage desire surging to the fore.
A tinted screen rose between the driver and the backseat. The car rolled forward, but Kia scarcely noticed. Everything centered on Ronan as his lips possessed hers, his tongue thrusting inside her mouth and between her fangs.
She quivered when the back of his knuckles brushed the delicate skin along her inner thighs, then gasped as he bunched the flimsy lace of her thong between his fingers and, with an effortless motion, wrenched the sheer fabric apart.
He tugged her dress up over her head and let it fall on the seat behind them. His eyes glowed without restraint as he pressed a splayed hand to her exposed mound, and massaged her sensitive nub.
She jerked her mouth from his and heaved a fitful sigh. Her legs fell apart, back arching while hot chills grew and intensified, before imploding to her scalp and toes and back again.
She released a shuddering breath as the mini-orgasm subsided. “My turn.” She reached up, then yanked open his jacket, before she peeled it from his shoulders, thrusting it down his arms in record time. She fumbled a little with the buttons on his shirt and hissed impatience before she tore it open, exposing his ripped and muscled torso.
“Dios,” he muttered as she ran her fingers over his chest and taut nipples. With jerky movements, he pulled off his remaining clothes. He curled his hands over her shoulders and pressed her backward.
With her shoulder blades pinned against the door, her bent knees brushing his thighs as he kneeled above her, she lifted a leg and draped it over his shoulder, exposing her wet center to his hot gaze.
She scraped the heel of her stiletto along his shoulder blade and he growled low in his throat before moving into position. She looked up at him and smiled with half-closed eyes. There was no time for formalities. Just the here and now.
In one hard, fluent thrust, he filled her slick heat. Her head fell back, her mouth opening in a silent scream of rapture. He withdrew halfway, and taking hold of her upraised thigh, he hauled her close and rocked forward.
He grunted out a breath, the enticing veins on his neck standing out sharply as he grappled for control.
She whimpered. And when he rotated his hips, grinding farther inside her, she almost fell apart.
His chuckle trailed off into a groan when he leaned forward, his cock dipping farther into her juices. Placing solid-as-a-rock forearms either side of her shoulders, he pulled out of her a little and plunged deep inside.
She screamed. He muffled the sound as his mouth covered hers. Her vision blurred when he sucked her tongue and her lower lip. She shut her eyes for a moment, pitched so close to the dazzling edge she felt her pulse clacking like a runaway train.
Abruptly, he pulled out, his head tilting back. Her leg flopped onto the seat. Then he flipped her around, her back and buttocks aligned to his chest and groin.
“I want to hear you scream again,” he rasped in her ear, his breath sending tingles down her spine and making her clench in need. “But this time, I won’t stop you… This time I want to hear my name on your lips.”
She couldn’t respond. Not now. Not when he covered her completely, the head of his cock kissing her slick pussy before he jerked forward, driving into her hard. She couldn’t think beyond the act that tore the air rig
ht out of her throat.
He held her hips, lifting her up and pushing her away, the sound of their slapping flesh even louder than their heavy panting breaths.
This was no gentle seduction. This was decades, perhaps centuries, of experience and practiced skill. It was primitive and ancient and utterly vampire.
His breath tickled the skin at her throat as he reached down, pressing a forefinger against her delicate clit. She gasped as liquid heat flared, exploding through her veins.
He thrust into her one last time, simultaneously sinking his fangs into her throat. He sucked, and white-hot bolts of pleasure crystallized in her bloodstream, curling her nerve endings before she shattered into a thousand juddering pieces, screaming his name while she contracted around him.
He reared his head back from her throat, his fangs glistening with blood as he let out a roar, his seed pulsing again and again, deep inside her.
He pulled out, and she immediately missed him, as though she was some now incomplete, and a little lost. The pleasure-pain sting of his bite quickly faded and the hum of the car engine was now background noise to the sudden, shrill quiet.
She released a ragged sigh, sensing that her every breath was noted, her every action and reaction, filed away. She lifted her stare to his but assaulted with a sudden bout of dizziness, she lolled back to her former position, with her head resting on her crossed forearms.
She shivered as though experiencing the lustful caress of his eyes as they slid over her naked buttocks and outspread thighs.
He leaned forward, before he brushed his lips over the tender spot along her throat where his fangs had pierced. When he licked the puncture wounds to further encourage the healing process, a rash of goose bumps covered her flesh at such an intimate and personal touch.
“Are you okay?”
She forced herself upright, stiff and shaky and oddly self-conscious as she recognized the vulnerability stealing over her. For a moment, it also stole her breath. “I’m fine.” But she wasn’t. Not at all.
