by Tracy Tappan
She returned his smile with a crooked one of her own. She hadn’t expected him to be so genuinely happy to see her. “I appreciate your gallant reception, doctor, especially in light of the fact that I threatened to cut your throat the last time we were together.”
“Oh, pish posh!” Blushing charmingly, Jess brushed that aside with a wave of his hand. “That’s already long forgotten and forgiven. You were in a stressful situation.” He cleared his throat. “Still are, I imagine. Come, I’m excited to give you a tour of the facility and show you some of our methods and machines.” He first introduced her to the other two people in the lab, his assistant, Mekhel, and the brunette, Syrian. He then went on to outline his plans for their time together. She only half-listened to him, her attention craning toward a conversation that’d started up between Syrian and Jaċken.
“…missed your appointment yesterday,” Syrian was saying. “Can you come see me now?”
“I’m working,” Jaċken snapped at her, ever the gentleman.
Syrian released a measured sigh. “I moved around several others to fit you in today because I knew you’d be overdue. Look, you’re wearing your sunglasses.” No response. “I can only take one man a day, Jaċken, so you really shouldn’t be messing with my schedule like this.”
“…brand new MRI machine,” Jess was gushing, “upstairs in the….”
“Chrissake,” Jaċken grumbled. He pressed the “speak” button on his headset. “Vinz, you copy? Yeah, I need to step away for about five minutes. Take up position at the lab door for me.”
Toni felt the brand of Jaċken’s eyes land on her for a moment, then he spun on his heel and stalked off with Syrian. Next, Mekhel left, off to gather supplies, and then Dr. Jess was handing her a white lab coat of her own.
“Shall we begin now?” the doctor asked pleasantly. “I want to show you how the Sigmund-phase works.”
“Yes, of course.” She shrugged on the coat, and followed Jess over to a work station, intrigued by what a Sigmund-phase was and how it…“Who was that woman?” Okay, maybe she was more intrigued by that right now. “That, um, Syrian?” And what was she planning on doing with Jaċken? I can only take one man a day….
“Ah, yes. Syrian Popovici’s one of our blood donors.” Dr. Jess pulled over a small red machine that had four tubes on the top of it and a valve on the side. “Jaċken has gone off to feed.”
Soooooo, Jaċken was engaging in a little bite-the-neck with that cute brunette was he? She almost snorted. Right, a euphemism for sex if she’d ever heard one. Because, really, she didn’t know what the men and women did around here when they played vampire, but she’d bet it got hot and heavy pretty quickly. Bodies would inevitably press close with all that neck nibbling, breasts rubbing against a thickly muscled chest, legs entangling, and—
Her stomach clenched suddenly as an image of Jaċken making love to that woman hurtled into her mind: his powerful body moving rhythmically over her, buttocks flexing taut at each rise and fall of his hips, muscles in his back and shoulders undulating with every…. The tightness in her belly sharpened into a feeling that would’ve been jealousy had such an emotion been possible with a man like Jaċken.
“The blood donors are a valued group of widowed spouses in Ţărână,” Dr. Jess continued to explain. “They are both men and women who’ve volunteered to let unmated Vârcolac feed on them. It’s a much-needed service, seeing as our genetic predicament has left us with so many singles who need to feed but can’t form a bond.”
That sounded rather antiseptic, not at all like a tightly knit cult. “Vârcolac aren’t allowed to get close to one another?”
Jess smiled. “Oh, Vârcolac become very close, my dear, but in this case you misunderstand the term ‘bond.’ When an unmated Vârcolac feeds on and then makes love to a mate of equal unmated status, he physically bonds to her. Actual biological changes occur within him.” Jess started cleaning the red machine with an alcohol wipe, even though the thing already looked immaculate. “After that, he can only feed on his mate’s blood; he’s dependent on it. His wife in turn will be rendered infertile to any male other than her husband.”
Wow, she had no idea the community was so strict. “I guess it’s ’till death do you part’ for real around here, huh?”
Jess chuckled. “Very much so.” He pushed a pipe cleaner into the machine’s valve and swished it around. “This blood-bond is permanent, Dr. Parthen. There can be no going back once you’ve chosen your mate. You need to be clear about that.”
Toni smiled archly. “I’ll make sure to remember.” Aw, shucks, and here she’d had her heart set on hooking up with two. “I overhead Syrian mention that she can only take one man a day yet the other, uh, ‘dragon’ women said that their husbands only…um,” God, she hated talking like this, “‘feed’ on them every three days so they won’t get addicted.”
“The donors are addicted.”
She blinked. “Oh.” She paused, waiting for more. Apparently, that was all Dr. Jess had to say about that. “Are donors always widows?”
“Yes.” Jess tossed the pipe cleaner into a trashcan and grabbed another, going to work on the valve again. “Widows were already bonded to someone else in the past, you see, so their blood is resistant to further bonding.”
She tugged out a wet wipe and used it to sterilize her hands, a move which Dr. Jess seemed to appreciate. “And…the same goes for sex?” She glanced at the door through which Jaċken had disappeared. “Only with a donor?”
“Stars, no. Donors and their clients never make love. It’s true,” Jess added when she gave him a dubious look. “In fact, they can’t. Vampires aren’t physically capable of performing sexually until they’re bonded.”
“So they have to—” She stilled in the process of snapping on a pair of latex gloves. “Wait. Holy crap. No sex. Are you telling me all the single men and women in this community are virgins?”
Another chuckle rippled out of Dr. Jess. “My goodness, it’s not a disease.”
“No, no, of course not, it’s just….” I don’t believe it. “For one, the men in this town exude more masculinity and sex appeal than an entire squad of Navy SEALS.”
Jess slanted a look at her. “Can’t a man be both? Sexually appealing and a virgin?”
She shrugged. Frankly? Not to her mind, no. She just couldn’t imagine some girl not getting her mitts on a guy who was as hot as the ones around here.
Jess threw away the second pipe cleaner. “The concept of male virginity is only strange to you humans. For us, it’s quite ordinary. It’s the norm.”
The norm, right. She almost laughed; she could just imagine how that Classified Ad had run.
Have you seen ‘Interview with a Vampire’ more than ten times? Would you like to escape the harsh realities of life without drinking the Kool Aid? Well, then, join our club! (those who’ve already experienced hot monkey love need not apply).
“From what I’ve seen,” she said, “the men around here act just as horny as any other guy.” An image flashed into her mind of Dev, naked in his bedroom, eyes smoldering. “Hell, more.”
“Of course they do, and it makes sense if you consider how many years the single men and women have had to suppress their urges and live in a state of deprivation.” Jess opened a drawer and pulled out a couple of syringes. “They can’t even masturbate.”
Oooo-kay. That was kind of TMI.
Mekhel re-entered the lab with a rack of blood-filled test tubes. “I have the samples, doctors,” he announced with a smile.
Jess clasped his hands together. “Excellent. All right, Dr. Parthen, I’m going to show you how to use the Sigmund-phase now, and you’ll see how to create a Vârcolac blood graph.” He started to neatly cuff up his left sleeve. “We’ll also experiment with the blood graphs stored in the hospital computer. Everyone in the community has one on file.”
“Mmm, yes,” she murmured, making all of the correct I’m listening noises as out of the tail of her vision she saw Ja�
�ken return to the lab door. He exchanged a few words with Vinz, then took the man’s post.
“When you draw my blood,” Jess instructed as he handed her a syringe and an alcohol swab. “I want you to keep the sample in your possession at all times. That way you can be certain I don’t add anything to it or make a switch of some sort.”
“Right.” She absently slipped the plastic cap off the hypodermic needle and pretended to listen to Dr. Jess’s further explanations. Surreptitiously, she let her gaze wander over Jaċken, checking out the column of corded muscles in his neck, the mounds of twin biceps bulging out from his short-sleeved T-shirt, and the way his crisscrossed knife-holster emphasized the breadth of his back. She lifted her gaze to his profile, and took a deep breath. He really had an incredibly chiseled face when a girl let herself see past how disagreeable his expression was much of the time. Cult fanatic or not, the man really was a damned hot bastard.
As if feeling her stare, Jaċken swiveled his head in her direction, his sunglasses no longer hugging his stony face. She almost startled when his eyes met hers. So impossibly dark…. They locked gazes and held, remaining bound in a game of stare-down long enough for crickets to chirp and tumbleweeds to roll by.
She pulled her eyes away at last, her lashes lowered, heat flushing her cheeks.
She’d never understood the male obsession with virginity. How it was that the moment a guy found out a girl was a virgin, the first thing he wanted to do was take it.
She turned to Dr. Jess with the syringe and tried to keep her hands from trembling.
Now she did.
Chapter Sixteen
Garwald’s Pub looked like any bar directly out of Good Ol’ Boy Americana: sawdust and peanut shells on the floor, dimly lit green-shaded lamps suspended over mauve vinyl upholstered booths, and tall cushioned barstools at a long, shiny bar. Coors and Budweiser neon signs blinked from the wooden walls, hanging next to hubcaps and license plates, and some fishing paraphernalia. The requisite pool table was in the back, lorded over by a huge elk head on the wall.
The juke box was pumping out a Doobie Brothers oldie as Jaċken entered, Nỵko close on his heels. The two of them threaded between the tables in the center of the room, heading toward a booth in the back, Jaċken bumping recklessly into a couple of empty chairs. That earned a few glances, but otherwise everyone kept to their own drinks and conversations. Thirty-seven years ago, when the three Brun Brothers had first arrived in Ţărână, that wouldn’t have been the case. Then, one of Jaċken’s dark moods would’ve sent many people slipping rapidly, if discreetly, out the back door. But the townsfolk had long since learned that, although Jaċken was far from a chummy person, he did know how to control the…baser aspects of his unique bloodlines, as did Nỵko. Shọn was a different matter.
Speaking of his younger brother…. “Where’s Shọn?” Jaċken asked, scanning the bar as he sat down in the empty booth.
Nỵko claimed the seat opposite to him. “My guess would be at The Shank Tooth.”
“What?” Jaċken scowled. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“You want him here when he’s in one of his moods?” Nỵko grabbed a handful of peanuts out of the bowl and started cracking them open.
Jaċken gave his brother a heated look. “Shọn’s a member of the Warrior Class, Nỵko. He shouldn’t be hanging in Stânga Town at The Shank Tooth. He patrols that town, for Chrissake.”
Nỵko shrugged. “It’s where Shọn goes when he feels bad. C’mon, Jaċken, you know that.” He tipped his head back and trickled the shelled peanuts into his mouth from his fist, the tattoos on his neck rippling.
Jaċken exhaled hard, rubbing a hand over his brow. Well, hell, he didn’t want Shọn beating himself up over what had happened with Toni today. Okay, yeah, it was Shọn’s fault that Jaċken and Nỵko were here at Garwald’s on some unscheduled R & R when they didn’t want to be. The youngest Brun had caught an up-close-and-personal whiff of Toni today and gone apeshit, which had prompted Roth to insist that all the Bruns take a night off from guarding the exceptionally fragrant women. Roth had been trying to do them a solid by giving them this break; for men who’d taken the vow the Bruns had, it was especially torturous being around Toni. But it would’ve been nice if the man just let them do their fucking jobs.
“Howdy, boys.” Luvera Nichita sashayed up to their table, pulling a notepad from her apron and a pencil out of her black-haired bun. “What can I get you two princes tonight?”
Nỵko smiled at her. “Couple of longnecks ought to do it.”
“Well, heck, I don’t need to write that down.” Luvera shoved her notebook back in her apron. “I shoulda figured, anyway.”
The Bruns generally only drank beer; hard alcohol, and just about any other chemical stimulant or intoxicant, was never a good idea for men of their unique bloodlines.
Luvera winked at them. “Be back in a jiff’.”
Nỵko watched her go, his smile turning wistful. “Luvera’s real sweet, you know. She’d make a guy a great mate.”
Jaċken hiked a brow. “You saying you want the job?”
Nỵko whipped his gaze back over to Jaċken. “No, of course not. I mean, uh…if it were possible, I certainly wouldn’t kick her out of my, um….” His cheeks reddened as he stumbled about on unfamiliar ground. They rarely talked about women…sex, children, family, a home, the future. What would be the point? “I’m just saying it’d be nice if we could get some human Dragon males down here. The women of our breed deserve a chance at a family, too.”
Jaċken shrugged. “Soon as a guy pops up with Peak 8, we’ll go get him.” Kidnapping a male would be interesting; more so trying to keep control of him down here.
Luvera plunked down two longneck Budweisers on their table. “Here ya go, boys.”
“Hey, that was fast.” Nỵko smiled at her again.
“You’re my favorite customer, Nỵko Brun.” Luvera tweaked his nose, then bustled off.
Blushing, Nỵko picked up the bottle and took a swig of—
He choked halfway through the sip.
Jaċken felt it, too, like a ramrod straight up his spine.
His back was to the door, but Toni’s entrance hit the entire place like a sonic boom, rolling through the bar like a punch to each man’s gut. Some men jerked upright and tightened their jaws, while others slid low in their seats, their eyes rolling up into their skulls.
It slammed into Jaċken in such a physical wave of ball-clenching sex vapor, he almost bit his tongue from clamping his teeth hard enough to keep from moaning.
Nỵko set down his beer with exaggerated care. “When will that woman be able to wear the mud?”
Jaċken took a hard pull on his beer, contemplating chewing his way through the rest of it. “Dr. Jess tested her today to see if she’s allergic.” Please have the Universe be feeling kind and let her pass that test with flying colors. A few dabs behind Toni’s ears of the sulfuric mud which bubbled up in the cave and her scent would be cut in half. Once a woman was mated, her scent diminished, thank Christ, for anyone save her husband, but until then, the smell of an unmated Dragon woman running amok was equal to one long communal, never-ending ball massage…. minus the happy ending, of course. Insanity.
Raucous voices pulled Jaċken’s attention over to the pool table. Thomal was introducing Toni to a group of his friends, and she was smiling and shaking hands with everyone. Jaċken’s stomach cranked over. She had the kind of smile that made a man want to conquer worlds, if only to see that smile aimed at him in gratitude and awe. Either that, or fuck her silly.
“They make a nice couple,” Nỵko mused. “She’d do well to choose Thomal, I think.”
“Yeah.” Jaċken tore at his Bud label. “They’re the picture of perfect blond-ness together.”
Nỵko jerked his eyes back to him, but Jaċken only gave his brother a view of the top of his head.
“Uh, huh.” Nỵko shoved out of the booth.
Jaċken snapped his he
ad up. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To get Shọn.”
Jaċken scowled at him. “Don’t be a pussy, Nỵko.”
“Sorry, but I can’t handle it.” Nỵko pushed his beer over to the salt and pepper shakers. “Why don’t you come along?”
Jaċken curled his lip. “The hell if I want to go into Stânga Town on my night off.” It was probably absurdly transparent that he really wanted to watch out for Toni without “officially” guarding her.
Nỵko blank-faced it, though, which was awfully nice of him. “Be back in a few, then.” He tossed off a salute and left.
Jaċken leaned back in his booth and stared at the dart board across the bar, trying to talk himself into leaving Toni to the care of her Protection Team. Breen and Gábor were posted in the pub, Jeddin would be outside. Jaċken managed the incredible feat of keeping his eyes glued to the board for a full count of ten before he shifted his gaze back to her. He gripped his Bud and took another long pull. Jesus, she looked fantastic tonight.
Not that he didn’t doubt somebody could tie Toni to the back of a Jeep and drag her through horseshit for two days straight, and he’d still want her with a kind of hunger that bordered on crippling. But tonight…she looked like something out of a dream. The jeans she wore shaped her ass perfectly and rode provocatively low on the sweet curve of her hips. Low enough that a peek of her slim waist showed beneath a short-sleeved red sweater that was just tight enough across her tits to make his eyes want to boing out of their sockets.
It only upped his torture that he’d fed on Syrian a few short hours ago, putting his strength at its highest and his senses at their most finely honed. Every little detail about Toni was magnified a hundredfold to him: the little freckles sprinkling her arms, the way her long, tarnished-blonde eyelashes curled at the tips, the shimmer of certain strands of her hair, as if they were peppered with gold dust, others alight with living flames.
