“When I’m asleep, it looks like I’m dead. We don’t need to breathe. We don’t move. There is no waking us up if the sun is shining. I look like a corpse when I’m asleep. From what I hear, it’s kind of creepy. So I understand if you’d rather not do this.”
“Do you trust me?” he asked. “You’re sure you’re not freaked out about the idea of falling asleep with me?”
She reached up and ran her hand along his jaw. “I trust you.”
“And I am not freaked out by you, at all.”
“Good.”
They had one another again, and when they were done, Shanti kissed him. “Sleepy,” she murmured.
“Sleep well, gamila. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
She nodded and let the dawn pull her under.
Zero watched Shanti as she fell into what had to be the deepest sleep he’d ever seen. She hadn’t been kidding. She was absolutely still when she slept. No breathing. Her naturally cool vampire body like a statue. He was glad then that she’d prepared him for this. He would have been stressed out otherwise.
It was unsettling, but if this was how Shanti slept, he’d get used to it. He climbed out of bed, rechecked the locks on the door and windows. He went to the small fridge in his kitchen and grabbed the bottle of orange juice, guzzled quite a bit. He was more tired than he expected to be, and he wondered how much of that had to do with Shanti feeding from him.
Just the memory had him hard again. He’d predicted that being bitten by Shanti wouldn’t be anything like the night he’d been attacked, and he was right. He’d fantasized about it since the day they’d kissed in his studio, the day she’d admitted what her fanginess meant around him. And he didn’t even care that it was probably fucked up that he’d wanted it so bad, that he’d practically begged her to bite him. It had sent shockwaves through his entire system the moment she’d started sucking. Warmth everywhere, and every time she pulled, he felt it everywhere. The contented moan she’d made didn’t hurt either.
He glanced at the deadly, amazing, beautiful, scary-as-hell woman in his bed.
She loved him.
He smiled. That was nothing he’d ever even hoped to hear someone say to him. And to hear it from someone like Shanti… he shook his head. He hadn’t planned to tell her, but he’d been so frustrated and relieved and angry and needy, it just came out. She made him forget all the shields he usually put between himself and others.
And he didn’t even care. She could have everything, every part of him, if she wanted it.
Zero climbed back into bed with Shanti. She was sleeping on her side, facing him. He put his hand on her waist and drifted off to sleep beside her, and the last thought he had as he fell asleep was that he’d have to rearrange his teaching schedule to allow for vampire hours.
When Shanti woke up, she woke to the feel of Zero’s warm body beside hers.
Zero’s warm, naked body.
She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. He was watching her, golden eyes tracking her every move.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Hey. Did you sleep well?”
She nodded. “Did I creep you out?”
“No. It’s very peaceful, the way you sleep. Wish I could sleep like that.”
She looked him over. His right side, the side with the scars on his shoulder and arm, was toward her, and she could just make them out via the dim light from the lamp.
“How did those happen?” she asked. He followed her gaze down his arm.
“Shrapnel. An IED hit when we were traveling through Kandahar. Eight of us in the transport. Half of us didn’t make it.”
Shanti watched him, afraid to talk, knowing this wasn’t something he talked about. He was very tight-lipped about his life in general.
“One guy lost both of his legs in the attack. Me and another guy got lucky by comparison. He had more shrapnel wounds. I got shrapnel and 100 percent loss of hearing in my right ear, about 50% in my left ear.”
“Seriously?” she asked. “I had no idea.”
He nodded. “That was why I was discharged. I went through two surgeries for the shrapnel, and there’s still some in there. But my hearing still hasn’t come back.” He paused. “My buddy Parker, the guy I own the studio with?”
Shanti nodded.
“He was on the transport too. Lost his right leg and he’s still not someone I’d want to face in a fight.”
“Why did you join?” she asked, putting her arm around his waist and resting her head on his bare shoulder. He put an arm around her, held her close.
“You know my family situation wasn’t the best,” he said, and she nodded, remembering what he’d told her about his mother and how he got his name. “I was one of those kids who just kind of wanted to be left alone. By everyone. I was a loner in school, and the same with my family. Really, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just knew I didn’t want to be here anymore. I knew I wasn’t the college type, and when the Marines started recruiting at my high school, I just kind of thought, why not? Marines were badasses and I figured I might as well start there.”
“And what do you want now? Or do you not know?”
He ran his fingertips down her spine, and she shivered. “Well, right this second, I know exactly what I want,” he said, and she buried her face against his shoulder, her body already reacting to him. “And I know, beyond that, that I want you by my side.”
“You have that,” she said, and he kissed her.
“I don’t really care what else I do. I like my work. I don’t have a whole lot of ambition, maybe.”
She ran her fingers over his chest, down his stomach, and he tensed.
“What about a family? Kids?”
“I think I’d be a terrible father,” he said, shrugging. Then he looked at her. “What about you?”
“I figured maybe someday I’d adopt, but I think I’m beyond that point now. I mean, look at how freaked out I am about having you in my life, worrying about you. There is no way in hell children have any place in my life. Once upon a time, I wanted that. But I’m different.”
He lay there silently for a while, as if he was thinking. “I want to be by your side, in every way. I don’t want to be one more thing for you to worry about.”
She looked up, met his eyes.
“I don’t know how it works… but if I wanted to become a vampire, how would I do that?”
She sat up. “Are you saying you want to be turned?”
“Yes.”
“You want to give up daylight and normal life and not having to drink blood?”
“That’s not a lot to give up.”
“You say that now. Believe me, it’s a big deal. It’s hard to adjust.”
“Do you not want me to?”
Shanti sighed. “It doesn’t matter what I want. This is your life. And you can’t just make this decision because of me. What if we break up? What if I die? And then you have a long, lonely life ahead of you and you won’t be able to go back to your old life.”
“We are not going to break up,” he said. “You know you’d go crazy without me.”
“Obviously.”
“And I’m not going anywhere either.” He ran his hand down her back. “And you’re not going to die. Are you serious? You’re scary as hell.”
“You are so sweet.”
“I know.” He kept rubbing her back. “I’m not saying I am planning to be turned right away. We’ll stay together and keep getting to know each other. I want to get in better shape before I’m turned anyway. Is it true that you kind of always stay the way you are when you’re turned?”
“Yes. And excuse me, but better shape? I don’t think you can get any better, Zero.”
He sat up and pulled her onto his lap, her bare back against his bare chest. He pulled her thighs open and slid into her.
“Oh. Yeah, definitely can’t get any better,” she moaned as he started moving, holding her hips down firmly as he thrusted up into her.
“You make me better, Shanti,” he
said. And then there was no more need for words.
When they’d exhausted one another, they both fell back onto the mattress.
“Also, I want to be able to keep up with you,” he gasped, and she laughed.
“You do okay. For a human, I mean.”
He shook his head. “Superior vampires,” he muttered. “From the way you scream, I’m pretty sure I do better than okay.”
She sat up and straddled his lap.
“I can’t. You’re killing me, Shanti,” he said in mock horror, and she leaned down and nipped his shoulder.
“Getting back to the subject,” she said, watching him as he stared at her. “Zero.”
“What?”
“Eyes up here.”
“Fine.”
“If you want to be turned, we have to get someone to sire you.”
“Can’t you do it?”
She shook her head. “A vampire’s sire has kind of a bond to them. They can call, and their children have to come. They can insist you do things, and you kind of have to obey. It’s hard to explain. It’s almost automatic, from what I understand. Your sire tells you something, and what they say, goes. Not a good relationship to have with someone you’re romantically involved with.”
“Is that how it is with your sire?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “My sire is dead. Thank God.”
“What was he like?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know about him is that I never asked to be changed. He grabbed me one night when I was taking the garbage out after work. And I couldn’t fight him. Couldn’t even move. He was draining me.” She stopped, met his eyes. “You know how scary that is.”
He nodded.
“And then, for whatever reason, he didn’t just leave me for dead. He sired me and left me in the basement of an abandoned house so I wouldn’t burn when dawn came.”
He sat up, too, and wrapped his arms around her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, put her arms around his neck. It amazed her how he just seemed to know when she needed things like this, that she needed his touch. This was something she never talked about. Not even to Molly, who knew a very basic version of the story.
“I woke up, and everything hurt. Everything. When you’re a vampire, your senses are more acute. It’s overwhelming, even after you’re used to it. But at first, it’s a nightmare. Sounds, smells. Light. Everything makes you want to curl up in a ball and try to close the world away. But you can’t because when you wake, you are starving. Bloodlust kicks in.”
She paused again, afraid of sharing this part of herself with anyone. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder.
“A good sire knows this,” Shanti continued. “They prepare an environment for a new vampire. A safe, quiet, calm room. They make sure there are no mortals around, because the scent of their blood would drive a new vampire insane. When the bloodlust kicks in, you don’t care who you drink from. All you want is blood. It’s uncontrollable, and we are frighteningly strong. A human doesn’t stand a chance, and there is no reasoning with bloodlust.”
They sat in silence, Zero’s hands playing up and down her back, soothing her tense muscles.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, gamila,” he murmured.
“I want you to know. I’ve just never told anyone else about all of this,” she said. Then she continued. “I woke up in that stinking, dank, damp basement. I could hear and smell the rats nesting in the garbage there. My first act as a vampire was to grab one and drain it. I wasn’t even thinking. I just smelled something with blood, and I needed it. I was sickened by myself, but I was also still starving. I went outside. The moonlight, the streetlights made my eyes burn. The sounds of crickets and cars had me covering my ears. It hurt. Everything hurt. And there was a bus stop across the street. And an elderly man was sitting there.”
She clamped her lips shut, hard, closed her eyes. Zero kept rubbing her back. He was barely breathing. “I killed him, Zero. I drained him, and I ran away. Once the bloodlust was satisfied, for a little while that first night, I threw up. Sickened by myself. I realized what I was, and I wanted to die.”
“The second night, I drained another man. I don’t even remember seeing him, feeding from him. That part is a blur. All I can remember is looking down at him afterward, and knowing that was my fault. That someone’s father or husband or friend wouldn’t be coming home, because of me.”
She rested her head on Zero’s shoulder, and he held her tighter.
“The next three days, I told myself I’d let myself die. That I would fall asleep out in the open, and the sun would kill me. I didn’t know if that would actually work. That was just what I knew from movies and stuff.” She paused. “But when it came down to it, I figured I already had a lot to pay for once I met my Maker. Suicide would only add to it. And maybe I was a coward and didn’t want to face my punishment. So I survived off of rats, for the most part. I nearly attacked two more people, but I stopped myself. And then one night I went back to my aunts’ house. They’d thought I was dead. They still do. And I was stupid and I knew I was on the edge of losing control. And I saw my baby brother.”
She didn’t say anything for severe long minutes, and Zero waited, warm hands on her back. “I leapt at his back. He was walking home from the bus stop. I knocked him down to the sidewalk, and I heard his forehead hit the concrete. I controlled myself at the last second and ran off before he even realized what was happening.” She rested her face against his neck. “The next morning, I started trying to see the Angel. Molly.”
“To get help?” he asked.
She shook her head. “To kill me. I knew she’d killed a few vampires. Including my sire, ironically enough, but not before he’d sired me.”
“Why didn’t she kill you?”
“She thought I was worth saving,” she said softly. He squeezed her tight.
“I’m glad. You are definitely worth saving,” Zero said.
“I’m glad, too. I keep hoping that at some point I’ll feel like the good I’ve done balances out what I did to those poor men, to the other people I attacked. It hasn’t happened yet.”
He held her tighter. “Why do you think he ended up siring you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was just nuts. Maybe he just wanted to have a few offspring of his own. Molly said he was kind of a sick bastard, so maybe he just wanted another woman he could control if he wanted to.”
“Did he ever…?” Zero asked, and she could hear the growl in his voice, as if he was going to find him somehow and kick his ass.
“No. He never had a chance. Molly apparently killed him not long after I was turned.” Shanti pulled back from him, met his eyes. “It’s a huge adjustment. It’s scary, and painful, and part of you will always hate the fact that you need blood to survive. There are synthetic blood products, and I drink them. Um. Other than when I drink from you,” she said.
He was quiet, still running his hands up and down her back, as if he couldn’t get enough of the feel of her. It had her practically in tears, the warm, attentive way he cared for her. And she knew that warmth didn’t extend to most people. She knew that, somehow, she’d been blessed enough to be able to see a side of Zero no one else ever saw, and she was grateful for it. And she knew, that moment, that there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep him safe.
“Thank you for telling me that. I won’t just jump into anything.”
“Do you still think it’s something you’ll want?” Shanti asked softly, and he nodded.
She ran her fingers over his jaw. “We will have to ask someone we trust to sire you, when the time comes. It should be someone powerful, since your power level as a vampire depends on who your sire is. More powerful sire, more powerful children.”
“Do you know anyone like that?”
She nodded, knowing exactly who she would ask, when Zero decided to be turned.
Chapter Nine
As content as Shanti would have been with just staying in bed w
ith Zero all night, she knew he had to be starving. She’d fed from him again, which was something she’d have to be careful about.
The man was addictive in every possible way.
They showered, and Shanti dressed in the small bathroom and did her make up and hair. She could hear him moving around in his room. She opened the bathroom door and came out just in time to watch him slip the two knives she’d given him into sheaths in his back jean pockets. He already had his gun in a holster at his back. He looked back at her, and the sight of her bare-chested, weaponed-up man mad her nearly ready to jump him again.
“Fangy again, gamila,” he murmured, that tiny smile quirking the corners of his mouth.
“I have a feeling that’s going to be my default condition when I’m around you,” she said. He laughed a little and grabbed a black t-shirt out of his dresser, pulled it on, then a flannel shirt over that.
“I am starving,” he said, and she nodded. He took her hand and they walked out into the night, down the street toward the restaurant they’d eaten at the first time they’d gone out. Shanti watched every single person who passed them, ready to destroy anyone who posed a threat.
It wasn’t just paranoia, fear over needing to keep Zero safe. Things had only started getting crazier since the night Molly got back. Just in the couple of weeks since she’d returned from the Nether, both of the teams Shanti was on were busier than ever dealing with rogue supernaturals. Some of them seemed hell-bent on causing trouble, and it was becoming apparent that things weren’t calming down anytime soon
If one of them even looked funny at Zero, they’d be signing their own death warrant.
She looked around as they walked. “This was a terrible idea. We should have ordered in,” she muttered.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hide all the time now, Shanti.”
“We definitely should not be out together,” she said. She could feel a vampire somewhere nearby. “Walk faster, babe.”
He glanced over at her, and she focused on sensing for the vampire. They made it to the restaurant, walked inside. They found a table along one wall, They both gravitated toward the seat facing the door. She glanced up at him.
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