The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance

by Trisha Telep

  With one eye on the creatures, he slapped Riley’s face. Hard. There was no time for niceties in moments like this. She muttered something unintelligible, then her eyes opened. “That hurt.”

  “So will the chameleons if you don’t get moving.”

  The mother’s roar just about drowned out his words. He turned, standing in front of the still-groggy Riley.

  The creatures merged with the darkness. He switched to infra, following the muted flame of the mother’s life force, waiting until she was almost upon him before he launched at her, hitting her hard in the gut, thrusting her backwards, into her milling kits. One caught the full force of her weight, driving it into the ground, its short scream suddenly cut off.

  He wrapped his hands around the creatures neck and squeezed as hard as he could, but the skin was thick and leathery under his fingers, its neck thickly corded with muscles.

  Claws tore at his back, shredding skin and drawing blood. He hissed in pain but refused to release his grip, tightening instead.

  “Hey bitch,” Riley said from behind them. “Let him go or I’ll kill your munchkin.”

  The chameleon froze.

  “Quinn,” Riley added, almost casually, “I don’t think strangling it is the way to go.”

  “You might be right there.”

  He may have killed chameleons before, but never with bare hands. Weapons were best – the only trouble was, they didn’t have any. Heaven only knew where her laser was.

  He rolled off the creature, felt its hatred sweep across him, frying his senses. But as he backed away the wrongness in the air increased suddenly.

  “Riley, watch out–”

  The words were cut off as a huge paw swept him up into the air and tossed him like rubbish against the cavern wall. He hit it hard and fell to the ground on all fours, the cavern spinning around him and anger rising like a thick and bitter wind within him.

  He got to his feet. Riley had been backed against the wall, a blob of darkness towering above her, slashing with sharp claws. Though she managed to avoid most of the blows and land a few of her own, bloody rents marred her golden skin and a darkening bruise decorated her forehead.

  No one hurts what is mine.

  He ran forwards and leaped upwards, landing on the back of the creature, wrapping his arms and legs around its body. But instead of trying to choke it, he reached again for that ancient part of his soul, becoming one with the darkness and the air. Only this time, he rolled it outwards, moving it from him to the chameleon, letting it flow across every part of the creature’s body, until they were both encased.

  It didn’t sense the danger. Didn’t know it was about to die.

  He drew the net of air and darkness tighter, letting it invade skin and muscle, blood and bone, until the creature was one with the air just like him.

  It sensed the danger then, sensed the wrongness.

  It began to writhe and twist in a effort to get him off its back, but it was too late. Far too late.

  He drew in all the threads of energy, then took a deep breath and exploded outwards, thrusting the particles of air and darkness that were both him and the creature into a 1,000 different directions. Scattering their molecules and forever destroying the chameleon.

  His molecules reformed, until what stood on the earth of the cavern was once again vampire.

  A vampire whose veins pounded with the need to take blood and regain the strength he’d just expended.

  Riley was staring at him, eyes wide and perhaps a touch of fear in those silver depths.

  “What the fuck did you just do?”

  “Destroyed it.” He turned to the muted flame that was the mother chameleon. “Your partner is dead, as is one of your kits. Two remain. If you leave now, and forget this madness, they just might stay that way. Stay, and I will destroy you all.”

  The chameleon screamed, a sound filled with fury and pain. He felt nothing for her – certainly no pity – and he would kill her if he had to. But the truth was, his strength was down and one chameleon might still be more than he and Riley could handle.

  The creature screamed again, but this time her remaining kits gathered around her.

  “Go,” he said softly. “And live. But return here, go after either of us again, and I will hunt you down and destroy you all, if it’s the last thing I ever do on this earth.”

  The creature left, which only proved that they were far more intelligent than anyone had presumed.

  With the danger gone, weakness returned. His knees buckled, and, if not for the fact that Riley was suddenly there, offering him a shoulder, he would have fallen.

  “You need blood,” she said, and underneath the concern he could taste her alarm. She feared what he’d done – feared it enough to perhaps walk away.

  He couldn’t allow that. Wouldn’t allow it.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “It took more strength than I remembered to destroy that creature.”

  She hesitated just a little, then shifted and offered her neck. The sweet pulse of life called to him, and his canines lengthened.

  She gasped as his teeth broke her skin, but the sound became one of pleasure as he began to drink. The richness of her blood flushed the weakness from his body and, as she became lost in the experience of a vampire’s feast, he let his mind merge with hers, becoming one with her, keeping her unaware and unknowing as he drove down into those parts of her mind that held her memories, altering what she remembered. No one knew what he could do and he intended to keep it that way – for now.

  As he began to retreat, he did one other thing – left her with the gentle desire to take fewer loves and not visit the wolf clubs as much.

  Unfair, perhaps, but he’d learned long ago that those who played by the rules, lost.

  This time, he had no intention of losing.

  He withdrew his teeth, then kissed her neck to take the remaining sting away.

  She smiled at him, bright eyes still filled with lust, the desire he’d raised by feeding from her unquenched by his own design. The dreams that had begun this night had yet to be fulfilled in the flesh.

  “I think,” she said softly, her fingers twining through his, spreading the warmth of life across his flesh. “That we both need to go upstairs and take a bath.

  “As long as the bathing involves sex. I don’t really care.”

  She laughed, a rich, throaty sound that rolled across his senses and raised a hunger of a different kind. “You vampire, are insatiable.”

  “I think it’s the company I keep.”

  She grinned and tugged him into the tunnel. They moved quickly back through the sewers and into her apartment. It didn’t take long to run the bath, and in the aromatic water they washed the grime and blood from each other.

  As she leaned back against the bath, he captured her foot and gently kneaded her arch.

  “So,” she said eventually. “You came all the way from Sydney just to shag me in person?”

  “The dreams were not enough tonight.”

  “You know all the right words to say, even if they are lies.”

  She shifted, pulling her foot from his grasp and running her hands up his stomach, making warmth and life flood across his body. There were many vampires who couldn’t stand the touch of another, who took the blood they needed with as little contact as possible. He had never been one of those, which is why he always tried to take what he needed while making love. Blood might sustain his life, but it was physical contact, the warmth of another, that nourished his soul. That made the effort of going on through the darkness and the loneliness that much less of a fight. Even emotionless contact was better than nothing.

  But he and Riley had never been emotionless.

  Her body followed the journey of her hands up his body, until she was lying on top of him, her full breasts squashed against his chest and her heart beating like a trapped thing. Her desire swirled around him, as tasty and warm as the cadence of her blood.

  She raised a wet hand and lightly
ran a finger around his lips. It was so soft, that touch, and yet so arousing. The blood need rose in him, as thick and as strong as desire.

  “And just what were your original intentions?” she said softly. Teasingly. “Before we were so rudely interrupted by the chameleons, that is.”

  He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, holding her still as his lips met hers. But this kiss was no gentle thing, but rather fierce, filled with all the hunger and desire that was in him.

  “Good intentions,” she gasped, when he finally let her go.

  “That is only just the beginning.” He kissed her chin, nuzzled the pulse point at the base of her neck, drawing the scent of her, the wild muskiness of woman and wolf combined with the sweet freshness of rain on a summer’s day. A scent that was uniquely her own, a scent he would never forget, no matter what happened between them.

  He slid his fingers down her flesh, then wrapped his arms around her, sending a wave of water crashing over the rim and onto the tiles as he spun them around, until she was on the bottom and he was on top.

  “Ah, the control freak strikes again,” she murmured, eyes bright with amusement. “Can’t stand having a woman in charge and all that.”

  “As if there is any way to control you,” he murmured, releasing her arms and sliding down her body again.

  When he took one nipple into his mouth and sucked on it lightly, she gasped softly, her body arching into his, urging him on silently.

  He teased her, touched her, aroused her, until her blood was humming and her body shuddering, and all he wanted to do was bury himself deep inside her, release himself as he filled his soul with her blood and her life.

  But not yet. Not quite just yet.

  He rose and claimed her lips yet again, his kiss as urgent as before, filled with the unleashed desire that burned between them.

  “You know,” she gasped, “for a so-called control freak, you’re doing a very tardy job of taking what you want.”

  He smiled at her, his gaze roaming over her features, features that could be as sharp and as pretty as she was. “I didn’t think you’d appreciate such assertiveness if it meant cutting short your own pleasure.”

  “Trust me, you wouldn’t be cutting short anything.”

  He shifted position, so that he was between her legs, his cock pressing against her, teasing, but not entering. “So you’re saying that you would like me to take you?”

  She grinned. “Unless you’ve got something better to do.”

  He paused a heartbeat, pretending to consider. “Nope,” he said, “I don’t believe I do.”

  And with that, he rammed himself deep inside her. And it was glorious, so glorious. The way her body enveloped him, the heat of her surrounding him, claiming him. There was a completion in this moment, a wholeness that went beyond mere pleasure. It might create life in others, but for him, it was all about sustaining it.

  He began to move, and she moved with him, her supple body shuddering with the force of the pleasure building within her. He could taste her desire, taste her need, as surely as he would soon taste her blood, and it only fuelled his own lust to greater heights. He began to move fiercely, urgently, and she was right there with him, wanting everything he could give her.

  She gasped, grabbing the bath top for support, as his movements grew faster, more urgent. Everything broke, and she was unravelling, groaning with the intensity of her orgasm. Then his own hit, and thought and time stopped as he came, thrusting deep and hard, losing himself inside her as his teeth entered her neck and he took the lifeblood he needed.

  She came again, her shuddering rolling across his body, her mind filled his, completing him. Making them one.

  She was his – in dreams and in life – and one day soon she would know it.

  He’d make sure of it.

  Love Bites

  Kimberly Raye

  It was the perfect place to meet a vampire.

  A fast retro dance pounded over the state-of-the-art sound system and vibrated the walls of the trendy club located in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Cigarette smoke thickened the air. Liquor flowed from the wall-to-wall bar. There were mirrors everywhere – the massive walls, the floor, the ceiling. Red velvet couches and small glass and chrome tables edged the room. Strobe lights twirled and sliced through the darkness, casting flickering shafts of lights on the sea of bodies that gyrated on the dance floor.

  The place oozed decadence and sexual tension.

  It also oozed bullshit.

  I stood off to the side near the far edge of the bar and watched a man, mid forties, dressed in slacks and a plain white button-down shirt, approach two young women sipping Cosmos. They ignored him at first, sucking down their drinks and rolling their eyes, but the more he smiled and talked, the more they seemed to relax.

  The man definitely had game.

  In everyday life he was James Blumfield, Manhattan’s representative for the Snipers of Otherworldly Beings – SOBs for short. By night, he was Jimmy Blue, a music-video producer. At least that was the cover he used in places like this.

  James spent his days pushing pencils and mapping every vampire – made or born – and every Were (from wolf to Chihuahua) between Chinatown and Harlem. Jimmy took over at night, tossing around the bullshit so that he could locate his designated target and make the actual kill.

  He was one of the best SOBs in the business.

  He was also my boss, mentor and uncle.

  My name is Danielle Blue and I come from a long line of SOBs. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great (I think that’s enough greats) grandfather made the first ever vampire kill back during the twelfth century. We Blues have been killing Others ever since.

  Life for a Blue went something like this – birth, dysfunctional childhood (you try being raised by a pair of supernatural assassins) emotionally traumatic teen years (on account of this is usually when a Blue realizes that Mom isn’t the PTA president and Dad’s not using that wooden stake to put up a tent), high-school graduation and then the family business. My entrance had been a little delayed because I’d been determined to buck tradition and do something different. I’d spent a year fantasizing about being a famous artist (I’d painted dozens of pictures and had sold a whopping zero). I’d wound up broke and living at home, which had ended with me finally giving up my brushes and enrolling in SOB Special Weapons 101.

  I know what you’re thinking. Having ‘Dani Blue, SOB’ imprinted on my business cards is sure to kill my dating chances.

  Well, you’re right. But some things, like an 800-year-old legacy, are just more important than getting laid.

  Especially if you’re like me and getting laid hasn’t been all fairy dust and rose petals like in the movies.

  Where’s the back hair and the farting and the ‘Hop on honey, and take a little ride on the love pony’?

  I kid you not. That was my last boyfriend’s favourite pick-up line. It worked the very first time, after I stopped laughing and realized that he was, you know, sort of cute. But cute can only last so long (two years in my case, on account of I’m somewhat of a slow learner when it comes to guys). I’ve had a total of three boyfriends.

  My first crush back in the seventh grade (which I’d repeated twice because I just hadn’t been able to nail the maths) had lasted all the way until sophomore year because no matter how many loogies he spit at me, I just couldn’t stop thinking that maybe, just maybe, he had some sort of excessive spit disorder. I had a severe algebra block, so who was I to point fingers?

  And then there was my high-school boyfriend, Todd, who had a bad habit of boinking cheerleaders behind my back, yet I kept giving him a second chance because – hey – we’re talking an obvious addiction. I’d had it bad for Twinkies and Oreos back then, so I knew the feeling.

  And then there was Ryan (see pony reference above).

  Anyhow, I’m 22 now and ready to take a nice long hiatus from men and relationships and bodily noises. It’s time to put the last four y
ears of SOB training to the test.

  My thoughts slammed to a halt as someone bumped into me from behind and I pitched forwards into a young woman holding an Appletini.

  “Bitch,” she muttered before I could give her so much as an apologetic smile.

  “Sorry,” came a slurred voice behind me, followed by a slosh of beer on the back of my faded-blue-jean jacket.

  Just for the record, I’m not much of a clothes hound. I never could master the art of shopping and so I’ve been buying the same brand of button-fly Levis for the past ten years. The only thing remotely stylish about me was the pair of regulation Ray-Bans I wore to protect myself. See, vampires can read minds and influence humans, but only if they stare directly into the eyes.

  Other than the ultra-cool glasses, I was dressed not-so-ultra cool in my usual: jeans, a worn, paint-splattered T-shirt leftover from my starving artist days, tennis shoes and my favourite hand-me-down jacket.

  One that now smelled like Heineken.

  No sooner had I recovered than someone else bumped into me. I shook some bourbon off my shoe and shifted my gaze back to my Uncle Jimmy. But there were too many people and I could no longer see him.

  Yep, it was the perfect place to meet a vampire, all right.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the perfect place to kill one.

  While I’d been extremely lucky on the written part of my finals, I hadn’t done so well in the actual field test. Not that I didn’t know my way around with a stake, or a .350 Magnum loaded with silver bullets. It’s just that my aim sort of, well, sucked.

  During the field test I’d been placed in a back alley with a pseudo-vampire and three stuffed mannequins a.k.a. humans. I’d bumped into human number one, decapitated number two and staked number three in a place I’d rather not mention (let’s just say he won’t be fathering any stuffed babies any time soon). Since the primary mission of an SOB was to rid the population of Others to preserve the safety and well-being for all human-kind, I’d gotten a great big F.

  Luckily my graduation wasn’t just based on the field test, but a combination of the written portion, the field demonstration, and a lot of begging and pleading on my Uncle Jimmy’s part. He’d put his reputation on the line and convinced upper SOB management to give me a chance.