Her whole body clenched in pain. She needed water. Adrienne gasped. No, she’d become a vampire. Her thirst required a different kind of relief. Blood. The world inside her box turned crimson for a second before it righted again.
Oh boy. Vampirism was going to take a little getting used to. Adrienne really didn’t want to kill anyone. There had to be a way. Jerome, or Feri’s version of him, had told her the royals had learned to control themselves. She would be able to figure it out, without the years of murders in her wake.
But first she needed out of her box.
“Think, damn it.”
She was a vampire. The change had to come with some perks. Hanzi was fast, and the ass who had ended her human life had been scary strong. She must be, too. No way should a box be able to hold her if she set her mind to it.
Adrienne gritted her teeth and lifted her leg to smack the top of the coffin. With a hard kick, the top of the coffin cracked. Not enough to wrench it open, yet a good start. She would push herself out of the box. It was going to take some effort and, hell, she had nothing except time.
Unless opening the coffin opened the ground on top of her. The thought dawned on her and for a second she couldn’t breathe. Had they actually buried her? Was she going to find herself underground?
“Pull it together.” She forced her fear down. Adrienne would collapse later. After she got out of whatever her situation was, found Hanzi, beat the shit out of him, and took care of her need to feed without killing anyone. Then she would sit and have a really good cry.
First things first.
She kicked. Again. And again. Until finally, the lid split open. Using her hands, feet, and eventually hips, she pushed upward and through the lid of the coffin.
With a shout, she emerged. Fortunately, there was no dirt to deal with. She panted as she tried to see her surroundings. What the hell was going on?
A roar of an engine assaulted her ears, and, without the box to dull the noise, it hurt as if someone played a loud bass line that she couldn’t wait to end.
Seconds later, a woman walked in the room. She was tall, blonde, blue eyed, and wearing a flight attendant’s uniform. The roar. The clothes. Was she on some kind of plane?
“Help.” She extended her hand and the woman paled. What was wrong? Did she look frightening? Well, of course she did. A young woman had popped out of a coffin and was still half inside it.
Less than a second later, blonde stewardess screamed, a loud howl. Every hair on Adrienne’s body stood at attention.
The attendant kept screaming. Frightened. And she smelled so...alive.
Like a zoom on a camera, all Adrienne saw was the poor woman’s throat. Her pulse beat steadily, faster and faster. She heard it over the engine noise. Everything seemed clearer. She would feel better—easier—if she bit on the woman’s skin and sucked.
Adrienne pulled herself from the rubble of the coffin and stood. Gone were her aches, and instead her body moved fluidly. A sharp ping of pain panged her gums and seconds later, her fangs released. Perhaps she should be frightened by the newness of the experience, maybe later she would. Only their presence meant she’d have what she wanted, which was only to suck the flight attendant’s blood until she no longer felt thirsty.
Nothing else mattered.
“Don’t move.” She spoke to the woman and the flight attendant listened. Her shaking stopped, although her eyes stayed wide and tears streamed her cheeks.
Had she made her food still? Made the flight attendant cease her jitters? What was the ability called? Compulsion. Yes, Adrienne was a vampire. She’d be able to do such things.
And she loved it.
“Adrienne.” Hanzi’s voice boomed into the room, cutting out all other noises. She spun around to see him.
He stood in the doorway, his eyes red, his own fangs descended. “Is this real?”
“You tell me.”
Seeing him abated the hunger, and the tension in her shoulders as the desire to feed receded. How could she both want to feed off the woman and find the idea so completely repulsive at the same time?
“What was I doing in a box?”
His fangs pulled upward, and she saw the strain in his gaze which had been hidden behind the mask of the vampire. One, she suspected, she herself would wear a lot. “You’re dead. I’m bringing you home to your family.”
“Obviously not.” She threw her hands in the air. “What? With the whole blood exchange? Wasn’t rebirth part of the deal? You drink from me I become the same as you?”
“Not from a single experience. It never should have happened so easily, so quickly. You should have remained dead.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, vamp boy. There were two exchanges.” She held up her fingers as if he couldn’t count. How thickheaded did he have to be? “You drank from me and the vampire who was, at some point, wed to my aunt Flicka also did. Two drinks. Do vampires ever change from two sucks to the neck? Huh? Answer me.”
“I hadn’t considered....”
She advanced on him. All her pain was his fault. Every horrible second since she’d opened her eyes could be blamed on Hanzi. “I woke in a box because you didn’t think about it. A box, Hanzi. I had to bust out of it. I...”
He pulled her into her arms. God, he smelled so good, just the same as nighttime. She wanted to roll around in him although she also wished to rip out his eyes.
“I’m so sorry.” His words were a whisper. “I woke in a pit of buried dead. I know the terror. Forgive me. If I had ever considered the possibility....”
She closed her eyes. “Okay. Hanzi, I don’t feel well. I’m so thirsty. How do you bear it? I want to hurt the woman in the corner. I told her not to move and she hasn’t.”
“Well, her listening to you would be normal. You’ll become accustomed to it and soon know how to differentiate between orders and regular speaking. I promise.” He kissed her. “Kicsikém, I cannot tell you....” His words trailed off and his whole body shuddered. “Perhaps not this minute. There will be time. Lifetimes to tell you. You are hungry, and frankly I am in awe of your self-control. You are not frenzied and you’re holding off, which is a small miracle to say the least.”
He pulled back and crooked his finger toward the still not moving flight attendant. On shaking legs she moved toward them.
“I’m stronger than you for the moment. I can undo your compulsion. There will likely come a day when I cannot. It would be impossible for me to have moved her if Feri had commanded her to stay.”
She supposed his explanation made sense but she wished he hadn’t dragged the woman over here. She was too close and so was her pulse. Beat. Beat. Beat. Her stomach ached.
Hanzi placed his hand on the woman’s shoulder. “You won’t be hurt in any lasting way. You won’t be afraid. And you won’t remember what happened.”
The flight attendant stopped shaking and actually smiled. “Today is a beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“Incredibly.” Hanzi took a deep breath. “The best ever. Adrienne, you are going to bend over and bite her where her pulse is. To do so should come naturally to you. After, I will help.”
“Just bite her.”
“As you were about to when I walked in.”
Right. She followed his instructions. Adrienne turned her attention back to the woman. With Hanzi here she wouldn’t kill her. The woman was no longer shaking. Altogether, she felt a lot less monstrous than she had moments earlier.
The woman’s pulse beat hard. Adrienne bent over, she smelled the sweetness of her skin and the slight salt from the sweat she must have perspired when she’d been terrified. Her gums panged again, her fangs once again descending.
Acting without thought, she bit. The woman, her prey, jolted and didn’t move. In seconds, the coppery taste of blood hit Adrienne’s tongue. She’d never tasted blood as food before. Maybe a quick suck on her own if she cut her finger. To feed off it was different. The woman’s blood was wine. The blood was chocolate. The taste of blood
was steak.
The red goodness of everything.
“Enough.” Hanzi put his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t want to let go. The flight attendant tasted good. She was warm, filling, like a hot bath at the end of a long day—the only thing she wanted. End of story. The woman was hers.
“Adrienne, I promised her she would not be ultimately harmed.”
His words made he pause. Yes, he was right. She didn’t want to make him a liar. Adrienne let go. She licked her lips to taste every drop.
“I want more.”
“I know. You’re not quite done yet. Close her wound with your tongue. Stop the bleeding.”
She bent back over. So close to the wound and not allowed to suck? Was everything going to be so hard all the time? With a swipe of her tongue, she closed the wound on the woman’s neck.
“Tell her thank you and send her to rest. We won’t be needing her services again on our trip. She isn’t to remember any of it. Tomorrow she might wonder if she’s getting the flu. On day two she’ll feel perfectly well.”
Adrienne took a deep breath. She really wasn’t prepared for speech making. “Do whatever he said. And thank you.”
The woman nodded and walked, albeit with a wobbly gait, from the room.
“I want more.” She grabbed his shirt. Why didn’t he understand? “I’m still thirsty.”
“We’re going to have to distract you until we can solve your hunger problem. Feeding on the pilot would be stupidity of the first degree.”
“How do you propose to make me not think of it?”
His mouth came to hers. “I plan to make you come. Over and over again.”
She’d woken in a box and had to push her way out. Fed off a woman. And he wanted to have sex? He swept his tongue over her mouth, and any objections she had fled into the atmosphere. Yes, sex would be great.
Jumping, she was relieved when he caught her. “Take me hard, Hanzi.”
He didn’t object, and his not saying no was the first relief she’d had all day.
****
Later, he lay with her on top of him on the floor. The wood coffin lay in shards next to them. Adrienne wasn’t asleep, and he’d not expected her to be. She needed to feed again before she slept. For the foreseeable future he would need to see she got fed round the clock until the hunger sated.
She pointed to the mess that was the coffin. He still couldn’t believe she had managed to bust herself out unfed as a brand new vampire. He’d been as weak as a kitten when he’d emerged from the ground, and crawling up had taken hours.
“If someone were to take a piece of wood from the coffin and push it through our hearts would we die?”
He nodded. Death wasn’t wonderful pillow talk. “Why, yes, actually. Sunlight burns us. Fire in general, we meet our ends.”
“Got it.” She ran her hands over his chest. “I’ll try not to die again.”
He shuddered. “You took all the goodness left in the world with you. I’ve been given it back. I’m not exactly sure why. I won’t argue. I’ll simply keep you safe every day.”
“Sounds a plan.” She rubbed against him again. “Do I look any different? Paler? Snotty?”
“You look the same, and as long as you regularly feed you won’t change. Here, I have a question.” He rolled on his side to look at her. “The angel on your arm. What does it mean?”
“Oh.” She rubbed her finger over it. “It’s a matching set.” Adrienne held up her other arm. “See the devil on my other elbow? Angel on one arm, devil on the other. Yin. Yang. All good stuff. Balance, baby.”
Hanzi stared at the so-called devil inked on the opposite arm. He hadn’t noticed it before because it didn’t look a thing like a devil. “Frankly, my darling, it’s a bit more a cat than a devil.”
“I hate cats. Cats are the devil to me.”
“Woman.” He bent over to capture her lips again. “You are so wonderfully odd. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“I didn’t want to be a vampire.”
He nodded. She spoke the truth. “I know. I wouldn’t have wished it for you.”
“Since I have it, however—my so-called dark life with you— I’ve decided it’s really not so bad.”
“Oh? Your vast depth of knowledge from hours of being a vampire have taught you it’s not so bad?”
“Yes.” She moved until she was on top of him. “I get to spend it with you, Hanzi.”
The plane hit some turbulence and he winced. “Earlier I wished the plane would crash.”
“Not to worry, vamp boy. You’ve already had all the wishes you can make come true for a lifetime. I came back to life. The plane is making it back to land. And then, you can meet my parents.”
Hanzi grinned. He’d thought this kind of happiness would never come to him. He wasn’t going to complain ever, even about something as horrifying as meeting her father. He didn’t do parents, although he guessed he was going to have to endure it for Adrienne’s sake.
For the first time in centuries, there was happiness to be had. For her, he surrendered the dark and embraced Adrienne and all the joy she brought with her.
Other books by Rebecca Royce...
Dragon Wars
Forever (Dragon Wars 1)
Eternal (Dragon Wars 2)
Always (found in the Romancing the Wolf anthology)
Evermore (coming soon)
The Westervelt Wolves
Her Wolf
Summer’s Wolf
Wolf Reborn
Wolf’s Valentine
Wolf’s Magic
Alpha Wolf
Angel’s Wolf
Darkest Wolf
Lone Wolf
Fallen Alpha
Alpha Rising
Alpha’s Strength
Alpha’s Sacrifice
Alpha’s Truth
Alpha Enticing (Coming Soon)
The Capes
Seductive Powers
Adrenaline Rush
Last Ascension
The Conditioned
Eye Contact
Embraced
Copyright © 2015 Rebecca Royce
ISBN. 978-0-9964874-3-6
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Thank you.
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