by Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight, Vickie Taylor
"Then our skin begins to blister and peel. Our hair catches fire, and our internal organs start to liquefy."
"We don't have to be here when the sun comes up. All you have to do is… whatever you do to make me a vampire, and we'll leave."
"I don't like being used."
He turned toward her. His green eyes looked flat black in the darkness. "How is it using you to ask you to do what comes naturally to your kind?"
"I'm relatively young for one of my kind," she said. "But I've been a vampire long enough to know that I don't like it much. I won't curse another to suffer this existence."
"You'd rather die?"
"I died a long time ago, Daniel." She turned her face up to the sky. The moon was gone. The first pink tinges of dawn seeped up from the eastern horizon. Already she could feel her skin prickling. Soon the heat would replace her never-ending thirst as the source of her misery. "But I'd rather not burn. There are… kinder ways."
His face screwed up as her meaning sunk in. "You want me to kill you?"
"You're already killing me. I'm just asking you to do it mercifully."
"Jesus!" Daniel jerked his hand up to run through his hair, hit the end of the handcuff and winced.
He thought he'd planned for every contingency, taking care to hide the car and keys so she couldn't kill him and take off on her own. So she needed him to survive.
How could he have known she wouldn't want to survive?
Of all the vampires in Atlanta, he had to pick the one with a death wish.
He pulled her close. So close their noses nearly touched. Was her face already turning red from the sun?
"All you have to do is bite me, or cut me or whatever you do to get my blood."
She said nothing, just stared over his shoulder at the blushing sky.
He pushed her to her back, straddled her, not really putting his weight on her, but pinning her down as he fished a penknife out of his pocket.
"Here, I'll help you." He flicked the blade open and, hesitating only a second, gouged his wrist. Blood trickled into his palm in a steady stream.
"Go ahead. Drink." A drop of blood landed on the corner of her mouth. She pressed her lips together. "Drink, dammit! I know you want to."
More blood splattered on her chin, her cheek. She whimpered, and threw her arm up, but it wasn't to push his away.
It was to cover her eyes.
He glanced over his shoulder. The first bright sliver of gold shone from the horizon.
She writhed beneath him, struggling to turn away. He let her, sliding to one side, and she immediately curled into a ball on her side with her back to the sun. A spasm wracked her, then another, harder.
She covered her face with her hands, pulling his hand along, and his fingertips brushed her knuckles. They were hot. Cracking. The shell of her one exposed ear was raging red.
Christ!
He dove over her, wrapping himself around her, cradling her head. "It's all right. It's okay. We're getting out of here."
Taking only a second for one deep breath, he pulled his leather jacket up to cover her head, held the rest of her as close to him as he could, and pushed to his feet with her in his arms. Keeping himself between her and the sun as much as possible, he ran for the car.
Each step seemed to take an hour. By the time he reached her Jeep, the sun felt high and hot on his back. He retrieved the keys from the rock he'd hidden them beneath, then hurried to the Jeep parked behind a blackberry thicket, unlocked their handcuffs and settled her on the floorboard. He tucked his coat around her as best he could, then drove like a madman down the gravel road, dust and rock spewing up behind him like a monochrome rainbow. But where was he taking her? This had been his grandparent's farm years ago, but the house and barn were long gone. There wasn't a neighbor for miles, and even if there was—
"Hang on," he yelled to Déadre, and wondered if she was still coherent enough to hear him. To understand.
He slammed on the brakes at the entrance to the old lane, which had once led to a two-story frame house with gingerbread trim, and skidded into the drive. The house might be gone, but there used to be a storm shelter. A dank and dark concrete hole he'd been afraid of as a kid. He'd told his grandma he'd rather blow away in a tornado than crawl down in that grave.
He rolled to a stop beside the crumbling chimney, all that was left of his grandparents' lives. Twenty yards to his left was the split-trunked oak he used to climb. That meant the shelter should be…
There it was, the cement entry and wood doors nearly obscured by the overgrown grass.
He ran to the passenger side of the Jeep, pulled Déadre out and made a run for it. She was so hot he could feel her burning skin through the leather coat.
He kicked the door open and nearly fell down the stairs. He laid her in the shadows of the darkest corner and crouched over her.
Her chest jerked as she fought for breath. "The door." She moaned. "Close the door."
Cursing, he jumped up and grabbed the pull rope. The door banged shut behind him, plunging them into total darkness.
He felt his way back to Déadre, pulled her close. He couldn't see her, but he could feel her. Her whole body was shaking, her muscles convulsing. He smelled singed hair and scorched flesh.
His heart pounded against his breastbone. Blood and guilt roared in his ears. What had he done? God, what had he done to her?
"Déadre? Stay with me, baby. Stay with me." He rocked her gently but fiercely, afraid to hold her too tight lest he hurt her more. "Tell me what to do. How can I help? Can you hear me?"
She clutched at him mindlessly, clawed at him, practically crawled up his body, her fingernails scraping his shoulders and chest. Then she fell against him, panting, and knocked him back on his elbows, her hot face searing his bare skin.
Her tongue lashed out, swiped over one of the minor wounds she'd caused, and the touch was like a lightning strike in his blood. The heat transference was incredible. Every cell in his body sizzled.
She scraped him again, and again nuzzled the wound. He managed to string two logical thoughts together. "Blood? You need blood? Will it heal you?"
She didn't answer. She was too busy. Her hands were as quick as her tongue. They roamed and glided, scraped and tweaked. Pleasure and pain blurred.
This was what she needed. He could feel her getting stronger. More aggressive.
His body was electric, jumping and twitching at the intensity of the sensations her recovery was causing, and when she swung one of her hips over his to hold him down, he couldn't help but arch up into her as if she'd turned up the voltage.
He reached up to grab her, to pull her close, to hold her back, he wasn't sure which. His blood pounded so hard he thought his veins might burst. His mind overloaded. She ground her pelvis down on his engorged sex and he grunted, thrust as if they weren't separated by two layers of cotton and leather, his and hers. He found the hem of her shirt, slid his hands underneath and palmed her breasts, pinched the stiff nipples.
"Déadre, we've got to stop." But they were beyond stopping. Far beyond.
Some part of his mind knew this was wrong. Accused him of betraying Sue Ellen. Betraying himself, his promise. Betraying Déadre, taking advantage of her when she was out of her mind with pain, with need.
Most of him didn't care.
He bucked and she rode him. Heat poured out of her core and over his erection like a lava flow. Her greedy mouth left a trail of fire over his jaw, his neck. He tensed, as her mouth paused over his jugular, but she traveled on, down his arm, where she snatched his hand and lathed his wrist with her tongue.
His bloody wrist.
Her mouth latched on over the open cut and she sucked as greedily as a newborn. She rubbed herself against him, mewling as she drew down hard on him.
He fought the urge to resist. She needed this; he'd almost killed her. And he wanted this. It was the only way he could kill Garth LaGrange and free Sue Ellen. But now that the moment was here, panic swelle
d. He could feel the life force being drained out of him by the pint.
His head spun. He felt like a drunk on a three-day binge. The blood loss should have rendered him incapable of maintaining an erection, but he grew harder and thicker than ever and wondered if his stamina was a result of the thrall the authors of his research material had speculated about. The sexual excitement that stole a vampire victim's senses, made him unaware he was being fed upon until it was too late.
If so, he could understand where vampires got their reputation as masters of eroticism.
They'd earned it.
His limbs went numb. His heart stuttered, restarted, stuttered again like an engine running out of gas. He was dying, and it didn't seem to matter. He was almost there. Ready to climax.
Déadre was ready, too. He could feel it. Her thighs quivered on each side of his hips. She tilted her head back and took one long, last draw from his wrist, then dropped the limp appendage. With his blood smeared across her chain and cheeks, her jaw slack and eyes glazed in ecstasy, she sat down on him hard and pushed her pelvis forward, trap-ping his shaft in her body's natural channel. Her upper body stiffened, hung suspended above him for a long moment, then fell forward, kissing him with a gusty sigh, and Daniel let go.
The last living things he knew were the fiery eruption of his body, the sound of her name in his throat, the taste of his blood on her mouth.
He managed to mumble four words against her slick lips. "Bring me back. Please." But in her fevered state, he wasn't sure she heard them.
Then with one final, shuddering pulse, his heart stopped, and his life ended.
Spent.
3
DÉADRE woke up with a muzzy head and a bad case of cotton mouth. She couldn't quite figure out why she was awake at all. It was daytime, even in the dark she could feel the sun in the warmth of the air, the dry heat of her grave.
Except this wasn't her grave. This place was larger, deeper underground, and she wasn't lying on the freshly turned earth of her homeland. She was sprawled across a broad male chest.
A still, cold, broad male chest.
It all came back to her in a rush of pain. Heat. Arousal.
Daniel.
She snapped upright. "Daniel?"
With her excellent night vision, she could see his pallor was gray as stone. Though his lips were parted, she could discern no breath passing through them. She couldn't hear his heartbeat or the blood swishing through his veins.
Terror clawed at her.
"Daniel?" She shook his shoulders, but got no response.
She'd killed him.
No, no, no, no, no. Yes.
He was dead. In her fever, she'd drank his blood until he had no more to give. None to sustain himself.
She'd murdered him.
She scrabbled backward until her shoulders hit the rough cement block wall, and stuffed her fist in her mouth. She hadn't killed a mortal since 1934, when she'd been made a vampire by the elderly gentleman down the row from her to whom she sold milk and eggs twice per week.
One week, dairy and poultry hadn't been enough to satisfy his hunger. He'd taken her blood. And initiated her into the ways of the undead.
When she was strong enough, he taught her how to hunt, to feed. He'd picked victims for her that were weak so that they wouldn't pose a threat, for she believed old Jonathan Rue had loved her in his way. He didn't want her hurt.
In her inexperience, she had taken too much from one old grandmother, a neighbor of Jonathan's. She hadn't realized the woman was bedridden and in frail health even before Déadre had slaked her thirst at the woman's throat. She hadn't realized she was killing her until it was too late.
Jonathan had comforted her, told her they all made mistakes at first, but Déadre would never forget the slack expression on the grandmother's face, the open mouth, as if she'd tried to cry out and couldn't. The lifeless eyes that looked just like Daniel's did now.
She could put life back in those eyes, or a semblance of it.
No. She'd never made a vampire. Wasn't sure she knew how.
It was what he wanted. What he died for.
Daniel, with the body to rival any Greek statue. Beautiful Daniel, with the body cold and gray as stone.
No. Yes. She had to do it. Had to try.
He'd saved her life. He'd fed her.
He'd hurt her. Almost killed her.
He'd come as close to making love to her as any man had in decades, since Jonathan had been staked through the heart by a mob in '46.
She couldn't leave Daniel here to rot. It might already be too late. How long had it been? How long had she slept? She had no way to tell.
"Don't let it be too late," she pleaded to no one and crawled forward. Cradling his head on her lap, she extended her thumbnails and pricked her index finger, then squeezed a drop of blood onto his tongue, then another. "Come on, Daniel. This is what you wanted. You can do this."
She closed his mouth, worked his jaw, simulating a swallow. When she'd repeated the process three times with no effect, she slapped his cheek. "Don't you give up on me, dammit. You started all this. Don't quit on me now!"
She opened a bigger gash on the palm of her hand, let the blood stream freely onto the back of his throat for a full minute, then closed his mouth and worked his throat again.
Tears welling in her eyes, she rubbed his chest, pounded on him with her fist, threatened and begged and pleaded with him to move until his left hand twitched.
She froze, watching, hoping.
His fingers clenched rhythmically. His eyes rolled to white, then back to murky green as his chest bowed. His back arched off the floor as if he'd been defibrillated and he dragged in a deep, rasping breath.
Remembering too clearly the confusion he would feel as he regained consciousness, the pain, the inexplicable rage and the blood lust, she backed away. The next few moments would be worse than death, worse than a thousand deaths, but there was nothing she could do to help him. Not until his rage was spent.
Eyes wide and lips snarling, Daniel rolled to his knees, then staggered to his feet. He rushed the cement block wall of the storm shelter as if it were a demon after his own soul. He pounded the concrete with his fist. The flesh split, bone shattered, but he didn't bleed. He had no blood left.
She hated to see him hurting himself, but it didn't really matter. The pain of transformation was so great that he'd never notice a little thing like a few broken bones, and once he was undead, he would heal quickly.
Eventually his temper died to the point where he became aware of her. He cocked his head and stared at her with insensible eyes. Animal eyes.
She beckoned him with a motion of her hand. "Come to me," she said softly.
He growled and rolled to the balls of his feet, ready for attack.
"Come to me."
His shoulders sagged. He slid one foot forward as if he were too tired to lift it.
"That's it. Come. It will get better soon. I have what you need."
He stumbled forward and fell into her arms. Gently, she lowered him to the dirt floor, their backs against the wall, and opened her shirt. With a flick of her thumb she sliced the side of her breast, pulled his head down and stroked his hair as he fed.
DANIEL had a vague notion that time had passed, though he couldn't guess how much. Time seemed elastic now. Hours rushed by in the blink of an eye. Days were a blur of sleep, warm, coppery drink and soft hands.
The hands were on him now, pressing something cool and damp to his forehead. He opened his eyes and found her studying him.
"Daniel? Are you there?"
Arms shaking, he pushed himself up on one elbow. "Of course I'm here. Where else would I be?"
She wrung out her cloth and laid it across the sports water bottle he remembered from her Jeep. "Never-never land, maybe? Or wherever you've been for the last three days."
"Three days?" He levered himself to a sitting position, leaned back against the block wall. "Jesus, I—"
He winced. It was like someone set off a firecracker in his head. He dug his fists into his eyes. "Christ."
Bam. Bam. Bam. Bright white lights exploded in his vision.
"You might want to choose a non-religious expression," Déadre said. "Vampires and Him don't mix too well."
"Vampires? What do you—" He pulled his hands away from his face and looked down at his chest. Had he always been so pale? For that matter, how could he see his skin tone at all in the dark?
His gaze flew to hers. "Did you… ? Am I… ?"
Biting her lower lip, she nodded.
"I don't feel any different."
Never taking her eyes off his, she walked to him, picked up his hand and laid his palm over the left side of his chest. "Feel that?"
"No."
"Exactly."
He slid his hand side to side, searching. "My heart's not beating."
"You'll learn to make it beat when you want it to, later. Comes in handy when you have to get close to a mortal. I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
She stared at the floor. "For killing you. I didn't mean to. I—I lost control."
He grabbed her by the upper arms, made her look at him. "I asked for this."
Her glistening eyes tore him apart inside. Amazing how his heart could be dead in his chest and still cause him so much pain.
Her bowstring lips quavered, and he couldn't stand to see them tremble, so he stopped them the only way he knew how. He captured them with his own.
She stiffened, but only momentarily, then she leaned into him with a pleading mewl. He slipped his tongue past the seam of her lips and answered with a groan. Then-mouths fused, he tugged the hem of her tank top out of her leather pants and slid his hand underneath.
She might have been a creature of the night, but she felt more like an angel filling his palm. He backed her up to the wall and, pinning her there, slipped a second hand under her shirt.
There were advantages he hadn't thought of to this vampire business, like not having to breathe. He could ply her with kisses endlessly, never breaking contact, while his stealthy hands kneaded her, memorized her shape and texture.
