A wave of nausea and pain crested over her, pushing her to her knees as she wrapped an arm around her middle. She rocked back and forth, her skin damp with sweat, heart beating too hard in her chest. “I don’t care why it is at this point, what do we have to do to make it stop?”
“You need to feed.”
“Yeah, yeah. I got that, professor. Where’s the glass?”
“No glass.” He gently helped her up from the floor.
“What?”
He grinned, his teeth transitioning from normal to pointed as his fangs descended and elongated with an audible flick. “It’s time to take your fangs on a test drive.” He ran his fangs along the edge of his thick wrist cutting a line that welled with black ichor.
A terrible pressure built on either side of her mouth, near the top of her gum line and Beck could feel something pushing forward, sliding through the soft gum tissue. The tip of her tongue confirmed her personal set of pointed tips were primed and ready. Beck’s stomach bucked and kicked, an animal inside that demanded to be fed.
He held out his wrist to her. “Drink.”
Beck reared back. “Eewww. No!” A wave of heat swamped over her, an insistent throbbing built just behind her eyes and her body ached. Since when did being hungry feel like the flu?
“Before you reject it out of hand, perhaps you ought to taste it.” He dipped the tip of his finger into the black liquid and offered it to her. It gleamed on his finger. She couldn’t drag her gaze from it.
Beck’s mind was repulsed but her body had other ideas. The sweet scent of black licorice, filled her nose. While other women might swoon for chocolate, black licorice had always been Beck’s downfall.
She closed her eyes and tentatively touched the tip of her tongue against his finger. The initial taste of anise was quickly followed by the sensation of liquid heat that shimmered over her tongue, leaving it tingling.
She flicked her eyes open and looked up at the golden good looks of her personal mentor. “Not as bad as I thought.” Her tongue moved in quick swipe over her upper lip and one fang.
“Will you trust me now?”
She shrugged, her belly giving an especially large growl that echoed in the room. “Do I have a choice?”
“Pay attention, fledgling. To feed, you need to puncture a sizable artery.” He reached out and pressed his fingers against her neck. “The best points are here and here.” His fingers traveled down her body, then skimmed lightly along her inner thigh making her contract with need. She inhaled deeply to steady her racing pulse and found the air spiked with a heady combination of rosemary and mint and something else definitely male. She couldn’t identify it easily, but it pulled at her like a drug.
“That’s if you need a hit fast and a good quantity. For average feeding you could also feast from the vein in the wrist.” His fingers brushed the sensitized skin of her own wrist. “Or you could pick any of a dozen other pulse points.” His gaze dipped down to her breasts and Beck sucked in a breath as the tips hardened in response to his hungry look.
This lesson was a lot harder to concentrate on than she’d anticipated. Her fangs were actually throbbing.
“Perhaps we should start with a wrist. Come closer.”
Beck stepped forward, an invisible cord attached in the area of her belly button, inexorably pulling her toward him. He reached forward, wrapping his uncut arm around her shoulder and turned her so that her back snugged up against his massive chest. The solid heat of him seeped through her clothes and the subtle smell of licorice circulating in the air teased her senses.
Achilles held his thick forearm out before her, the swell of the dark ichor at his wrist glistening in the overhead lights. Beck was shaking, her skin fevered.
“Don’t think, just do it.” His husky whisper in her ear shot a shiver of desire rocketing down her spine. Beck closed her eyes and leaned forward, letting her tongue reach out blindly toward the source of the delicious licorice scent.
She lapped once, and a glorious liquid heat shimmered down her throat leaving a fiery trail. Had this been a week ago she would have thought someone had given her a sip of fine aged anisette liquor. But now she knew better. Unable to watch, she closed her eyes, slightly embarrassed, she took another swipe with her tongue.
Achilles nearly fell to his knees at the sensation of her warm tongue on his skin. It sure as hell didn’t help that the curve of her bottom was pressing back against his groin as she leaned forward to feed.
Focus, soldier. She’s your fledgling.
He swallowed hard, fighting back the fierce tide of longing pulling at him.
“Good. Now use your fangs.” A warm appreciative sound rumbled in the back of her throat. Aw, hell. It was a good thing she wasn’t feeding from a major artery. “Gently, I don’t want my arm ripped open.”
The subtle scrape of her tips against his flesh made his skin tighten and ache in unison from head to toe. He backed up from her slightly hoping she was too hungry to notice the rock hard ridge pressed up against her backside. The pop of her fangs sinking into his skin made every nerve come alive, a pure current of ecstasy flowing from the point where they connected through his veins straight to his heart.
Achilles pulled away from the jolt. It was too much. This was more than feeding a fledgling. A glowing ephemeral strand had formed between them. No one else would see it, but he could sense it all the same. Her fangs slipped from his skin as he eased his arm away from her.
“Wait. I’m not finished.” She turned her head and gazed at him, her eyes fever bright, her skin luminous. Her pink tongue darted out, swirling over the end of a pearly fang.
Oh, gods. No. She was imprinting with him.
“You’ve had enough.”
A hurt look softened her eyes for a moment but was quickly replaced by something he feared more.
Fierce determination radiated from her so that she nearly glowed with it. She began moving toward him with a fluid seductive sway to her hips like a cat stalking prey. “I’m still hungry.”
The vampire pheromones drifted off her, strong, seductive and mixed with her unique blend of ginger and citrus that drove him crazy with thoughts of how the dips and hollows of her would taste. Before she’d begun to transform she’d been hard to resist. But with the power of his ichor saturating her system, she was lethal to his common sense.
This was why mentors were to be unyielding, hardened more than any other vampire. To resist the temptation she offered took nerves of titanium.
She lifted her chin, lips lightly parted, her fangs brushing the fullness of her supple bottom lip. “Achilles,” she breathed, “come to me.”
Chapter 8
Achilles was helpless to resist her.
She slid her small hands up his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him from breast to thigh. Her body heat seared everywhere they touched. “Feed me.” She might as well have said take me. Either way it had the same impact on him. Achilles’s legs trembled. His body ached to feel her.
A low determined rumble from her stomach indicated she wasn’t just reacting to the imprint forming between them, she was indeed still hungry. Achilles blew out a ragged breath. He didn’t need the damn oxygen in his body but maintaining control was essential to his survival and hers.
It was his duty to feed her, to protect her, no matter what it cost him personally.
And that cost was going to be high.
Incredibly high.
Forming a full imprint with her would mean he’d be excommunicated from the clan. It was one thing to exist as a halfling, unable to feel the things others took for granted; it was completely another to be excommunicated from the clan.
Vampires like that had few options and either became solitary or part of a nest of reivers to survive. Life as a solitary vampire was impossible for a halfling. He’d go mad without interacting with others of his kind. And adopting the mores of a nesting vampire went against everything within him.
No. That
wasn’t an option, either. If it came down to being excommunicated, he’d beg Dmitri to behead him. But at this moment none of that mattered. What mattered was taking care of his fledgling, the cost be damned.
He looked down into her eyes and found himself in the cool tranquility of a shaded wood. “Then eat.” The words came out with a slight tremor, because, despite the fear of what might happen, his need was almost as intense as hers.
Her fingers threaded through the hair at his nape, her small palm curving to cup the back of his head. She pressed his head down at the same time she rose up on her toes to bring them face-to-face.
“Kiss me.”
Achilles couldn’t stifle the primal growl vibrating deep in his chest. He captured her mouth, fangs and all, in a fierce kiss, his hands splaying over the curve of her hips. Her soft wet mouth against him sent sparks shooting through him like an electrical hot wire.
The dewy tongue that had been torturous before now brushed with a tempting silken slide that made him lose all his good intentions. Her scent blended with the nuance of his own ichor, making her taste like a sweet confection impossible to resist.
He crushed her to him, reveling in the feel of her firm, hard-tipped breasts pressed against the wall of his chest. The soft sound she made deep in her throat torqued his lust yet another notch. And he knew, he feared, that every second, every sensation, bound them more tightly together, creating a stronger, unbreakable imprint.
Mind-blowing as kissing Rebecca was, Achilles tried to pull back. The warning bells in his brain were pealing loud and clear. He knew, as she couldn’t, the ramifications of taking this to the next level. Deep in the recesses of his mind he was conscious of what was really happening between them and his duty to stop it.
Her strength had increased and Achilles found himself locked in her arms. She moved swiftly. Her fangs scraped along the tender inside of his lip as she suckled it, releasing a flood of ichor into his mouth. She kissed, still sucking at his lip, her tongue touching and twirling with his.
You have to stop. You must stop. Kill the imprint. Kill it now, his rational mind screamed. But gods, how could he release her when she felt so damn perfect in his arms? When for the first time in centuries had he felt awake, alive? All he could think was how good it would be to bond with this woman.
But she doesn’t want to be a vampire. That thought stopped him in his tracks. He pulled back, swiping roughly at the remaining ichor seeping from the cuts already healing in his lip.
“That’s enough, fledgling. No more.”
Rebecca tipped up her chin, licking her bee-stung lips, dark from their kiss, with relish. “It’s no big deal.” Hazel eyes gleamed with excitement. “A kiss, that’s all.”
If she only knew. He could already feel the throbbing of the imprint in the air between them. Perhaps she didn’t know what that sensation was, but he damn well knew. And he knew better than to allow this to continue.
He pulled away, shoving down the sleeve of his sweater over his forearm. “You should have plenty of ichor to see you through a full transition.”
“Meaning what?” Beck touched her fingers to her sensitive lips.
He crossed the room and sprawled out on her girly couch. Wasn’t easy trying to maintain a light casual air between them as if what had transpired had really meant nothing at all. Just dinner—vampire-style. “You won’t need to feed from me again.”
“Ever?”
He shook his head, grateful for the moment that there was some space between them.
“Regular blood should do the trick from here on out. I’ll teach you how to glamour and feed properly from a donor.” Beck pressed her two fingers to the spot between her eyes then spread them upward along the ridge so they spread out in a V just over her brows.
Unable to take his gaze from her face, Achilles sat up his eyes narrowed. “How long have you done that?”
“What?”
“That. With your fingers.”
Beck stared at him. “I still don’t get what you’re asking.”
He mimicked her movement showing her precisely what he’d seen. “That.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Always.”
Gods above and below. For an instant she had reminded him so clearly of Ione.
In all his years as a mentor, only Ione had been able to break his concentration, his focus, with a sensual pull so deep it couldn’t be denied.
But imprints were eternal, lasting beyond the boundaries of time or space, life, death and undeath. How could he possibly be open to forming an imprint with Rebecca when he’d clearly formed one with Ione thousands of years before? His bond with Ione had lasted centuries and had nearly been the death of him.
But his attraction to Rebecca was no less real, no less addictive. If he were honest with himself and her as well, he hadn’t merely marked her as his own when they’d kissed while she had dreamed. The imprint had begun to form the moment they’d physically touched and she’d wrapped her arms around his neck. It had only strengthened when she’d fed from him.
He’d done his best to deny it. But an imprint was something beyond the powers of an individual vampire. It was the combined powers, passions and pain of two vampires forever linked.
The realization hit with the force of a category five hurricane, leaving him shaken and in a cold sweat.
No. Impossible …
And yet—
Could it be that the reason he couldn’t resist Rebecca was because she was Ione reborn?
As a warrior he should have seen the signs. But the knowledge was both bitter and sweet. Ione may have been reborn as vampires with unfinished business sometimes were, but in this lifetime as Rebecca she had no intention of remaining a vampire. Worse yet, in this century she had the technology to make it so.
As painful as severing the newly reformed imprint would be, allowing it to strengthen would only cause them both more pain when she returned to her mortal form. Half of him, and of her, would die. He’d been there, lived that and wouldn’t put his worst enemy through it, let alone Rebecca.
He raised a hand to touch her, but let it drop useless by his side. Beck turned away, her shoulders tipped inward. She believed he’d rejected her. It’s for the best, he told himself resolutely. Do your job, let her go. Let the imprint die. Maybe in another time and another place, she’ll come back again and want to be a vampire.
“My head just hurts,” she muttered.
“Is your vision shifting?”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed, then blinked rapidly as if dust had been blown into them making them water. “What’s happening to me?” An intensity sparkled in her voice. She plunked down on the couch, holding her hand out in front of her and twisted it first one way then the other, testing her vision.
“It’s all part of the final stages of your transition.”
He grabbed the remote and flipped on the television to reinforce the casual image he was going for. In reality his sudden realization about Ione being reborn as Rebecca had him feeling more skittish than a yearling colt brought out into the ring for its first war horse training. Ione had been the mentor, he the fledgling. Now with the roles reversed he was bound and determined not to repeat their earlier mistake. He would protect them both against the unendurable pain—even if it meant hiding the truth about the imprint from Rebecca. Even if that meant rejecting her advances.
He didn’t know what was on the television, hadn’t even glanced at it. He was just staring in the general direction of the screen so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact with her. His ears strained and heard the ebbing pace of her heart, the beats coming slower and slower. Did she even realize that she was losing her last grasp on her mortality? What surprised him more was that she hadn’t seemed to need to sleep in the earth to complete her transition the way most vampires did. The mutated virus in her system was odd, indeed.
“Stop spoon-feeding me, Achilles. Isn’t it your job to explain things to me and help me with this transition? Tell me how to s
top whatever’s happening!”
“You can’t stop it. Your senses are becoming amplified. Sight, smell, hearing, taste—all amplified a thousandfold.”
She shifted, leaning forward. “What about touch?”
Unable to stop it, his gaze flicked to hers and held. “Yeah. That, too.” She stretched, hands high over her head, causing her neck to arch and her breasts to thrust proudly forward. Gods, she was gorgeous. Gorgeous, dangerous and totally, completely off-limits.
Beck relaxed out of her stretch more energized that she had been in years. Whatever was in that ichor was amazing stuff. A bit freaky at first, but amazing. After she completed the vaccine, she fully intended to explore the medicinal properties of ichor. She did a slow mental check of all her systems, filing away what she noted so she could share it with Margo when they spoke again.
Her breath caught. “Wait. I don’t have a pulse!” She patted herself down as if it were somehow misplaced in one pocket or another.
Achilles sat casually in the recliner, phased a beer in hand and raised it in salute to her. He gave a dry chuckle completely unimpressed by the gravity of the situation. “Congratulations, you’ve joined the ranks of the undead.” He turned back to the television and took a sip.
Her fangs throbbed again, but this time was different. The gnawing hunger had abated. But she was pissed, her breath came fast and heavy, the air smelling oddly of pepper. She hadn’t asked to be a vampire, had never wanted to be undead. Being congratulated and reminded only stung more. She needed to stop being such a sissy and get back to work on the vaccine. She needed to find a way to get a hold of ichor from Evaline St. Croix.
“You can stop huffing and puffing like you’re a fire-breathing dragon, as well.” The deep masculine tone of his voice was laced with annoyed amusement. “You won’t need to breathe unless it makes you feel more comfortable around mortals.”
“I’ll keep breathing if I feel like it.”
He shrugged. “Your choice. I was just letting you know it was unnecessary.”
How’s the fledgling holding up? The voice came out of nowhere, echoing in her head just like Achilles had when he’d been talking to her vampire to vampire. Only this wasn’t Achilles’s voice. It sounded like Dmitri.
The Vampire Who Loved Me Page 8
