Eternal Ever After

by A. C. James

  I put my hand to my mouth to feel for fangs but felt only my canine teeth.

  “How do I…do this?”

  “If you’re expecting fangs—don’t. You won’t be able to feed unless it’s from a blood bag or if I help you. At least for the next few weeks until your fangs come in. How long it takes is different for everyone, but once they do they will descend instinctively when you’re about to feed. Just latch on and suck.”

  Slowly, I lowered my lips and opened my mouth around the wound and began to suck. As the warmth of Arie’s blood touched my tongue I bit down harder on his arm. I sucked greedily, not expecting the pleasure coursing through my veins.

  I felt like a snowy owl flying through the darkened sky with the city lights illuminating the night like endless fireflies. I felt like I could break bricks with my bare hands. I’m invincible. The blood raced through my body, sending shocks through every nerve. It left my nerves tingling until my whole body felt like ropes of fire.

  “Enough,” Arie said.

  He yanked his arm away to release it from my savage clench—the clench of a new vampire hungry to feed.

  “Luna will be here soon.”

  “Luna? Why is Luna coming here?” Then I remembered Katarina snapping Victoria’s neck. “Where is Victoria? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  I lifted my hand to my head. The sounds outside were disconcerting but had died down since I’d fed from Arie. Looking down at my clothes I saw that Arie must have changed me out of the black dress I wore to the gala. A sharp knock on the door to the loft drew my attention. Arie went to the door and answered it. Luna walked in with the comet tail trailing behind her. Her hair shimmered silver and her eye lashes sparkled in the rosy sunlight filtering through the glass window.

  “Thank you for coming, Luna,” Arie said.

  “Why is she here?” I looked from Arie to Luna and back again for some sort of explanation.

  “There is a reason my father brokered me in a deal to pay off his debts,” Luna said. “Moon faeries are very rare and can be very valuable to your kind.”

  “Holly, you don’t have to stay this way if you don’t want to,” Arie said as he looked away. “There is only one way to heal you.”

  “How is that even possible?” I asked.

  “That I couldn’t really tell you, but my father told me years ago that he thinks it has something to do with your disorder making you vulnerable to sunlight. My powers are connected to the moon. It’s the only way to heal vampirism. There are only so many of us. Not enough to heal all vampires.”

  There is no cure. None that we’ve found, except for a supernatural bloodline that’s very rare. It’s neither vampire nor human blood that can reverse vampirism. I remembered our dinner at WaterScapes. That must have been what Arie meant by a rare bloodline.

  “Luna, you didn’t tell Holly the cost her cure comes with.” Arie crossed his arms.

  Arie couldn’t look at me and I didn’t like how his voice had turned soft, quiet even, as he spoke to Luna.

  “If I cure you it will deplete over half my magic, but in exchange my servitude to your Court will be complete. I will be free to go,” Luna said.

  Arie inclined his head. “You still didn’t tell her what that means. Your magic is linked to your life span. Moon faeries are very rare, and without them we would have no moon.”

  “So if I allow you to heal me then it will shorten your life. When you’re free what will you do?” I asked.

  “I will return to my father.”

  I didn’t want to think about the implications of shortening her lifespan or what would happen if moon faeries became extinct and we had no moon. But I knew that the moon stabilized the Earth’s rotation and that days would be shorter and our climate would be harsh. Exhaustion wore on me and pain hammered in my head, making it difficult to think. I didn’t like that she would return to the one person who had traded her like property to settle a score that should have been his responsibility. I didn’t like that saving me would cost her life. And isn’t this what you wanted? The reality of being a vampire hit home, but I didn’t know how I felt about any of it. Part of me felt overwhelmed and frightened by all the new sensations, while another part of me felt strong, vital, and invincible. Arie and I could be together. Forever.

  “Arie…?”

  “The choice is yours. I can’t make it for you.”

  “I need more time.”

  Luna sighed. “Well, you know where to find me.” She turned on her heel and left.

  My head was spinning and I reclined on the sofa to try to make it stop. I closed my eyes. It was all too much. Arie came over and sat beside me, brushing a stray hair away from my face. -Holly, I’m not sure where to begin. There’s so much that I’ve wanted to tell you. I have waited for a long while. When I look at you I see truth, love, and happiness—everything I’ve wanted in life. I thought it was all a dream, but it led me to you.- I smiled at the surge of telepathy and opened my eyes.

  “I know.” I held his hand to my face.

  “You don’t have to decide now. You can take all the time you need.”

  I knew everything would be all right in the end. Katarina was dead, but I couldn’t do anything other than close my eyes. Even after three days of sleep I could barely keep my eyes open. I felt Arie kiss my closed eyelids. Just for now I would relish this moment and decide the rest of my life later. After all, I had plenty of time to figure it out.

  Turn the page for the first chapter in the next book…

  CHAPTER 1

  Having an eternity to figure things out is a really long time. It’s a good advantage to have since I’m only twenty-two. Adjusting to my hypersensitive vampire senses would have been more difficult if not for the fact that I’d dealt with having the Sight my whole life. Freakish, supernatural occurrences were an everyday thing in my world long before I met Arie Cush.

  The afternoon sun filtered through the bedroom window of the loft as I shifted in Arie’s arms. It had been a week since Katarina’s death—a week since Arie had turned me into a vampire to save my life.

  I studied Arie’s face while he slept. He had a face that I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of looking at. A dark curl fell across his forehead. I wanted to reach out and brush it back, but I didn’t want to wake him. His eyes, had they been open, would have been a somber gray. And his lips did unimaginable things to me. Just thinking about it made my thighs tingle. Throughout the week he’d been patient as I adapted to my new life as a vampire, as a night walker.

  Or at least that’s the ancient term that Victoria used, even though bloodstone made it possible for vampires to withstand the sun. I could walk in the daylight as long as I wore the ring that Arie had given me. But he’d explained that ‘night walkers’ had been a superstitious term that villagers used in Victoria’s time. I twisted the bloodstone wrapped around my ring finger. One day I hoped Arie would give me a different sort of ring that I’d wear on an entirely different finger. I sighed. I doubted that would ever happen, given his tumultuous history with Katarina.

  Katarina is dead. And I’m here now.

  But I wondered how he felt about me killing the woman he once loved. Still, it was self-defense and she had terrorized the city. She was a whole different kind of crazy. I hoped her ghost wouldn’t haunt us, but it had me thinking maybe we should slow things down, since we’d been thrown into a living situation that neither of us was ready for. Now that my life wasn’t in danger and I could protect myself, there wasn’t any reason to rush. I felt my heartbeat quicken at the thought of disappointing him.

  His chest rose and fell with the steady rhythm of his breathing. “You know it’s not polite to watch someone while they’re sleeping.”

  His eyes were still shut but the hint of a smile curved his mouth. God, he was sexy as sin and twice as wicked.

  “How did you know I was watching you?”

  Arie’s eyes fluttered open. “I could hear your pulse quicken. I can on
ly imagine what dirty thoughts are running through that pretty little head of yours. What are you thinking?”

  I felt warmth flood my cheeks and my pussy clench just from the sound of his raspy voice. “I was thinking it’s Saturday so it’ll be busy at the club.”

  I lied rather than deal with a subject that would be difficult for him to accept. Besides, the world didn’t stop spinning just because Arie and I had been wrapped up in one another, cocooned in the loft since the night of the gala.

  “Holly,” Arie said in a stern voice. “You know Tessa said to take all the time you need.”

  “I know. It’s just that I need something that resembles normalcy after everything that’s happened. A distraction might be good for me. Besides, I can’t stay in bed with you forever.”

  Arie laughed. “And what’s wrong with that? Do you really think going to the club will bring you a sense of normalcy? You’re joking, right?”

  I couldn’t help but grin back at him.

  The Hellfire Club operated as an underground BDSM sex club upstairs and a Goth club downstairs. But that was the very normal, very human part that hid Chicago’s playground for the supernatural right in plain sight.

  And lying there with the sunlight streaming down on us, everything felt right. It felt natural, almost, after the nightmare that filled the previous months. Katarina had killed so many innocent people, and it took all my strength and embracing a magic I still didn’t understand to stop her. Somehow I didn’t think the calm would last, and I wanted to enjoy every minute of it while it did.

  Reaching out, I grazed Arie’s cheek with the back of my hand. He turned his head and caught the back of my knuckles with a kiss. “I want to see how Victoria is doing. I haven’t seen her since the night of the gala. You said she’s been asking about me.”

  The night of the gala was the night that I died.

  Arie’s eyes turned dark with desire. After he’d almost lost me it didn’t take much to get the blood pumping in our cold, dead veins. A look or a touch, even one as chaste as brushing his cheek, could end with us falling into bed.

  I’d died and he’d brought me back as a vampire.

  And death had drawn us closer together. Gone was the moody and brooding vampire I’d fallen in love with. We were both mad about each other. I got under his skin almost as bad as he got under mine.

  If I could stay in bed with him all day, I would, but we’d done exactly that for the past week. Arie’s phone never stopped ringing. I wasn’t even sure how my godmother had tracked down Arie’s number, but with her anything was possible. First Tessa, then Victoria, and then Luna had called, but it felt good to have friends worrying about me. They were more like family, and considering that I’d never really had one, I loved feeling like I belonged—even if the family that I belonged to was a dysfunctional, supernatural hodgepodge of vampires and faeries and witchcraft.

  “How can I say no to you?”

  “Then don’t,” I said with a smile. “Don’t say no to me. Just be with me…always and forever.”

  Arie sighed. “I’m yours for eternity, but I don’t think you realize what forever means—at least not yet. But someday you will, and I wonder how you’ll feel about it then.”

  “What? Do you think I’ll get sick of you or something after a few hundred years?”

  I couldn’t help teasing him. It felt good to be lighthearted and free. Things had been so tense between us, but now we could put Katarina behind us and just focus on our relationship.

  He pushed a stray chestnut strand away from my face. “No, I think you’re young, you’re beautiful, and you have no idea about the implications of this life.”

  I knew his suggestion insinuated that I didn’t yet understand what it meant to be a vampire. I also knew that part of him still worried about how I’d deal with the visions now that he’d turned me. Katarina had the Sight too, and it had driven her to madness once she’d been turned. Now that she was out of the picture, I felt like it might be a good idea to let us get used to the idea of our lives completely changing. I loved him with everything I had within me and didn’t want to mess it up by moving too fast.

  “Arie. Let me…” I brushed my lips over his mouth. “Let me love you.”

  “Please,” he whispered, his fingers linking with mine. “Don’t ever stop.”

  “Never. I can’t.”

  And no words were ever truer.

  His love drove me like an addiction, and I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. He closed his eyes and pulled me close. Unbidden tears ran down my cheeks. I still wasn’t used to the heightened senses and emotions from being turned. Lifting my head, I took his mouth, our kiss flavored with the salt of my tears. Arie wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. Not that I depended on it anymore. It was a good thing, too, because it felt like dying the way air was being sucked from my lungs by my hot vampire boyfriend kissing me senseless.

  As much as I loved our week together it would be fun to hang out at the Goth club downstairs at HFC. Tonight a Euro-Goth band called Defiance promised to bring out vampires—both the wannabes, or fang-fakers as Victoria liked to call them, and the actual undead. Tessa had surprised me by not making demands of me this week. Still, a change of scenery would be nice since we hadn’t left the loft.

  Not that I could complain about the scenery. Arie’s tongue explored my mouth with a hunger that seemed insatiable, and the air filled with a charge of awareness. In an almost dreamlike state, I pulled him closer. Anticipation made my skin tingle. I could seriously get used to waking up like this. We’d never be the normal couple that went to picnics, movies, and hikes in the woods, growing old as we held hands and kissed. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  We’ll never have children, either. Or grandchildren that I can spoil rotten. I only started living with him when my life was at stake. It’s all too fast.

  I pushed the thoughts aside as I met his tongue with mine. The possessive yet gentle meeting of our lips left me breathless and reeling. He thrust his muscular thigh between mine. His hands dropped to my lower back and he pulled me toward his knee, rocking his leg against me. The pressure felt incredible, and I knew without a doubt that if he kept it up I could come like this. Easy. Or tear his clothes off and forget all about meeting up with Victoria and Luna at the club.

  Maybe I should. The pleasure streaking through my core overwhelmed me, and I arched into him without him pulling me forward. I took what I wanted, rocking against…

  Arie pulled his knee away.

  He broke off the kiss and threw me a smile, that cocky curve that lifted his mouth in a way that made me want to either kiss him again or smack him. Or maybe both.

  “Shouldn’t you start getting ready if we’re going to the club?”

  Unquenched desire and irritation at both his cockiness and my own weakness tangled into a conflicted knot at my core.

  “Arie! I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work.”

  I threw off the sheet and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “No matter how sexy you think you are, you can’t seduce me into staying in bed with you. We’re going to the club—I mean it.”

  Arie sighed and reached for my underwear. He managed to grasp the string side of my bikini, pulling me back into bed and into his arms. I tumbled into them less reluctantly than I let on.

  “You don’t mean that,” he said, taking my hand and bringing it to his lips, where he nipped the pad of my finger. “But I want to give you something to think about…for later.”

  I jerked my hand away playfully. “Fiend!”

  Definitely the wrong thing to say—the erotic light in his eyes became hotter and more intense. He looked like he might pull my underwear down and plunge into me with one stroke. The sheer fabric of my bikini happened to be the only layer of clothing between the both of us. I’d discovered that Arie preferred to sleep naked most of the time. But his preference kept us from doing a whole lot of sleeping. The way he
looked at me now could have burned a hole through the material, and there wasn’t much to my underwear to begin with. He stared at me the way a lion might look at an antelope right before the chase. And my first thought was that, like the antelope, I should run for my life. My second thought was that I really wanted to get caught.

  “Only when it comes to you—you’re mine, Holly,” he said, his husky voice a penetrating caress.

  “Yes, yours.” It was a promise I intended to keep.

  His chest was smooth, the thick pads of muscle rolling beneath pale skin. And his abs, dear Lord, those ripped eight-pack abs could be cut from granite. Oh god. Arie’s gaze trailed to my naked breasts. I could feel warmth spread to my chest as my nipples tingled and hardened under his gaze. I tried to cover up but Arie grasped my wrists, raising them above my head.

  “Never hide your body. I want to look at you.” He brushed his lips across mine, kissing a trail down my neck. “You’re so beautiful, Holly.”

  I trembled under the assault to my senses. Bare and open to his hungry gaze, I felt a mixture of vulnerability and desire that shot to my thighs. I could already feel wetness pool in the folds that lay between them. His mouth left a trail of fire that burned into my ultra-sensitive nerve endings—one of the perks of being a vampire.

  “I’m going to suck on those,” he whispered as he looked at the hardened pebbles of my nipples that betrayed my need to feel him inside of me. “Touch, taste, nibble, and bite…”

  “Yes. Please, yes.” I writhed beneath him, needing him to do what he was describing.

  His mouth moved further down my throat and I shuddered at the scrape of his teeth over my skin. Slowly, his mouth descended, nipping and licking as it trailed lower. The scorching desire that flamed in my breasts and between my legs only eased when he finally took one nipple between his teeth. But my relief was only temporary. His tongue flicked over the hard nub while his hand massaged my other breast and pinched my taut nipple. I gasped for air as I wriggled beneath him, needing to feel him touch my pussy.