Ronald’s eyes widened in shock, then anger, which was followed by fear when she twisted the handle, turning the blade so the wound couldn’t close as the weapon lodged between his ribs. Only then did she release the handle that protruded from his chest. She pulled her hand from his at the same time she let go of the knife, and his emotions—fear and hate—stopped rumbling through her.
He staggered backward, staring at her. His eyes turned red. He managed to pull the blade free.
Emma took no chances that he might gain the strength to heal himself. She reached for another dagger and thrust it at him, catching him on his right flank. Blood poured from the wound. Ronald cried out in pain and terror. Emma watched him, still careful not to meet his gaze directly where he could control her in any way. Then without looking down, she reached for yet another dagger. Only this time, she managed to grasp the sword James had created. As she hefted the blade, James’s revelation about the only true ways to destroy a vampire flashed through her mind.
The sword was warm to her touch and heavy. The handle turned slippery from James’s blood, which covered her fingers. She was forced to use both hands to draw it over her head.
Ronald didn’t even notice it in her hands. He was too busy concentrating on stopping the flow of his blood. He didn’t see her swing the blade in his direction, but Emma had no doubt he heard the hiss as it cut through the air before reaching him. She stared at Ronald, both mesmerized and horrified, as life left him along with his head. Like Mary and Marcy, he turned to gray ash in nearly the same moment his head was separated from his body.
And still for a long moment after he was gone, Emma stood there with the sword in her hands, poised for attack, as if she expected him to reappear.
He didn’t.
James’s moan behind her broke her stance. She turned, dropping the sword, surprised that it shattered into what must have been a million pieces when it hit the tile floor.
“James,” she said, kneeling beside him, taking note of how much blood pooled around him. His skin where she touched him was icy. She took him in her arms in an effort to warm him.
“Emma . . .” His voice was very weak.
She blinked against tears as she softly chastised, “James, what are you doing? You can heal yourself. I know you can. If Ghetts could do it so easily, so can you. What are you waiting for?”
“You . . . don’t . . . understand . . .”
“Well, that’s for sure.” She pressed her hands, one each over two of the bleeding wounds on his torso. Yet, blood flowed freely from the several other wounds. “James, we’ve got to stop the bleeding. Help me!” She moved one hand, then the other to different wounds, but was unable to stop the bleeding on any of them. “Oh, God,” she whispered hoarsely. “If I could call Doc . . .”
James grabbed her wrist, forcing her to meet his gaze. He was as pale as death, his eyes looking like glassy smoke. “It’s no use,” he said slowly. “Just let me hold you . . .”
“No,” Emma insisted. “You said you had the power to heal yourself. You said that all those stupid little accidents where I had to stitch you up were just ploys to get close to me, that you could have healed every one of them with nothing more than a simple thought. See—” She pulled at the small adhesive bandage she’d put on his finger the day before.
Had it merely been a day? It seemed like a lifetime ago since James had sat in the clinic and allowed her to stitch him up.
The finger beneath the bandage was completely healed. There was no stitch. She knew he’d kept the bandage on to avoid any questions.
“If you can do this,” she said, working to keep the desperation from her voice, “you can heal yourself now. What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t want to live,” he replied simply.
Emma stared at him. “What?” Her whispered question was loud in the silent room. “What are you talking about? Why not?”
He held her hand, but his grip grew weak. He was fading away. “Not without you.”
She felt tears on her cheeks and wondered how long they had been there. “Why would you think it would be without me?”
“I saw the hate in your eyes when you discovered what I am, when you learned how our making love can change you. If I die now and never touch you again, you will return to normal. You can live your life like a normal human. You can marry. You can have a family . . .” Each word he spoke grew softer and softer.
“No!” she screamed at him. “You don’t understand. It’s true that I was angry, but not because of what you are. I was angry because you didn’t tell me, because you didn’t give me the choice. By the time I ran all the way back here, I saw the truth—that you are my soul mate and I don’t want to be without you. It doesn’t matter what you are. Do you hear me, James? It doesn’t matter. Please don’t leave me.”
She looked deeply into his eyes, willing him to see how she truly felt about him. “I love you. I think I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you. I dreamed of you even before I met you.”
“You did?”
She nodded. “I dreamed about you being in my room, touching my hair. I’d wake up and wish you were there.”
James closed his eyes briefly and offered Emma a small smile, not bothering to tell her the dream was real and that he’d fallen in love the moment he’d touched her. “It’s still too late for me to heal myself. I’ve lost too much blood.”
Emma knew what he needed, and she didn’t hesitate. Picking up one of the nearby daggers, she sliced open her wrist. Her blood joined his on the floor. “Then take mine. You said you didn’t need much to sustain you. Take what you need to heal yourself now,” she implored. “Please . . .”
For a moment, he refused, giving a slight shake of his head.
“Do it,” she all but ordered.
“You’re certain?”
She searched his eyes, seeing the distance in his gaze and doing her best to push aside the terror she felt at seeing it. He didn’t have much time left. She had to make him understand how much she needed him. “Certain of what? That I love you or that I want you to have my blood to live? Because I’m certain it’s yes to both. I give my blood to you of my own freewill. I give you my love, too. And if you won’t take them, then let me bleed to death with you, because I can’t live without you, either.”
“Then I accept both your love and your blood,” he said.
But he was so weak he couldn’t raise his head to reach her, so Emma brought her wrist to his lips. The sensation that passed through her at the touch of his mouth, the warmth that pulsed as he drank her blood, was like nothing she had ever experienced. Like his first kiss, like the touch of his hands on her breasts and when he first filled her with himself as he made love to her, his mouth on her skin was sensual and arousing. It heightened every one of her senses. Her nipples tingled. She felt what must have been hundreds of feathers fluttering in the pit of her stomach. She moaned as he swallowed.
Before her eyes, his bleeding stopped and his wounds healed. His color returned.
“That’s so warm,” she muttered. “I would have thought it would make me cold.”
“Why?” he asked after another swallow. Then he licked his lips.
“When people bleed or even just give blood, they always get cold,” she said, feeling out of breath, but not weak by any means.
“I don’t believe this is the same thing.” He held her wrist and pressed his palm against the cut, placing pressure against the wound to stop the bleeding. “Thank you, my love,” he said. Then he brought his lips to hers.
She was surprised she didn’t taste blood. But she only tasted James as his tongue teased hers. Again, her nipples tingled and grew hard.
“James,” she said quietly.
He let out a hungry, “Mmmmm,” as he kissed her again.
“What was that sword made of?”
“Salt.” He took a deep breath. Her sweet, woodsy scent filled him with a heady feeling.
“And you could just conjur
e something like that up out of thin air?”
Still holding her close, he shrugged. “I guess I can. All I could think about was doing whatever was necessary to keep you safe from him. But I don’t make things like that a habit.” He met her gaze and returned her smile. He leaned down and brought his lips to hers.
“Will you make love with me?” Her words were breathy and spoken between kisses.
He stopped kissing her and looked at her. “Do you understand what you’re asking?”
With only slight hesitation, she nodded. “How many times will it take . . .”
“How many times can I make love to you before you become completely like me?” he finished for her.
Again, she nodded.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve never turned anyone. Not by making love or by biting them.”
“You’re a vampire and you’ve never turned anyone?” she asked, astounded.
“I only sustain myself by drinking their blood. I don’t have to turn them in the process. Nor do I let the need for blood control my actions, like Ghetts did. Living like a human man is what keeps me living like a human man, if that makes any sense.”
“It does, sort of,” she admitted. “So I’m not going to be like you because I gave you my blood?”
He chuckled. “No, my love. Not until you’re ready. Besides, it’s my venom that turns a person into a vampire, not my drinking their blood like I just did yours. You opened yourself up for me, I didn’t have to bite you,” he explained. “And we can make love all you want. We just need to stop at the drug store first.”
He held her close. Tenderly, he caressed her face. “I thought when you ran away that I’d lost you forever. Then when I saw Ghetts with you, holding your hand, I was terrified there was no way I could save you.”
“Your love saved me,” she explained. “Every time I looked at him, I thought of you. I remember looking at him, thinking he looked like you and yet his eyes were so cold. He couldn’t control me by pretending to be you.”
He pulled her tightly against him and held her as if he never wanted to let her go.
They sat there quietly for several minutes before she asked, “If I choose to become like you, can I still be out in the sun?”
“After a while, yes,” he answered.
“Really?”
“You’ve seen me out in the sun, haven’t you?”
She smiled. “I remember the first time I saw you at the beach. You were teaching a group of kids how to swim.”
“You were a knockout wearing a little purple bikini,” James recalled with a smile.
She leaned up and kissed him. “Please make love to me,” she whispered.
He moaned. “Not yet, not until you’re certain or we can get some protection.”
“I’ve already thought about it.”
“I haven’t, and I want you to have time to come to terms with everything first.”
“Are we going to fight about this?” Her voice sounded light, as if arguing with him was the last thing on her mind.
“How about I just kiss you?”
“And afterwards, will you swim with me?” she invited.
“I’d love to.” James murmured, lowering his lips to hers.
But his kiss was interrupted as Deke Price ran into the room. He took in the gray ashes on the tile before meeting James’s gaze. “He’s destroyed?”
“Yes, it was Ghetts,” James told him.
“What? Why the hell didn’t we feel him if he was this close to us?” Deke let out.
James quickly explained that Ghetts wasn’t drinking blood and had stayed hidden beneath so many emotions.
“And you both are all right?” Deke asked.
James held Emma tighter. “We’re just fine.”
They both smiled as they stole a glance at one another.
“I guess we can tell all the other guys that between the storm and not being able to write enough tickets, Ghetts decided to move back to the mainland,” Deke said.
James chuckled lightly. “That sounds like a plan. Where’s Lily?”
“She’s safe with Doc Jenkins,” Deke answered. “And I guess if the two of you don’t need me, I’ll be riding out the storm at her place.” He pointed a finger at James, “And don’t you say it, either.”
James just grinned. “I could never pass up the chance to tell you I told you so.”
Deke’s grin matched James’s. “I’ll see you two later.”
“Maybe we could meet at the diner and have a few burgers,” Emma suggested.
Deke gave her a slick smile. “That sounds good.”
“Lock the front door behind you, will you?” James asked him.
Then he was gone and James and Emma were alone again.
“James?”
He looked deeply into her eyes and smiled. “Yes?”
She glanced at the ashes on the floor. “He said he had to go to the mainland, that he practiced on other victims, learning how to control their emotions as he strengthened his ability.”
James let out frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I just want to know if you had to practice on victims to become as powerful as you are.”
James held her close. “Just as I’ve never turned anyone, I’ve never practiced anything on anyone, either. Power comes with maturity and patience. It’s probably like learning to crawl, then walk, then run. If Ghetts had been patient and not so evil, he would have learned to feel emotions so he didn’t need to suck them from others. Now where were we?”
“Right here,” she replied, as she brought her lips to his.
James listened to the rain as he easily lifted Emma into his arms. He carried her away from the blood and what was left of Ronald Ghetts. At the edge of the pool, he peeled away her wet clothes. Mother Nature was pounding the island, beating against the glass surrounding them. Yet in his arms, with Ronald Ghetts nothing but ashes, Emma was safe. In fact, everyone on the island was safe, at least from the monster known as Ghetts. There might be other monsters just waiting in the darkness for a chance to prey on the people of Medusa’s Island, but James and Deke were here to guard against them. And for James, there were no plans to leave. His place was right beside Emma.
“And one more thing, Emma,” he said when he’d finished disrobing them both and held her cradled in his arms
“Yes?” she said. Anything, she thought.
“Will you marry me?”
Emma stared at him for a long moment before her vision blurred with unshed tears.
“I know you’re meant to be my mate,” James added. “There is no doubt about that. And I know that knowledge alone should be enough. But I want it all legal and binding. I want everyone in this town to know we belong to each other,” James added.
“Yes, I’ll marry you,” she said softly.
He pressed his lips to hers passionately, feeling as if he’d never get enough of her. “I have never been so happy,” he breathed as he released her from the kiss and touched his cheek to hers.
“Can you really feel happiness?” Emma asked.
He smiled. “Yes. I don’t need a candle or water or the energy of the storm to feel happiness. All I need to do is look into your eyes.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No Fear. Copyright ©2009 by Allison Harris. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, witho
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