by Mel Teshco
The vampire didn’t bother denying it. “Enough talk. If you think I need you, you’re wrong. It’s past time I killed you both…I’ll search the whole planet if I have to for new donors.”
He opened his mouth, his fangs lengthening, his eyes growing crimson.
The monster I’d known in all my forty-six years in the nest had never revealed this side of himself, his true side that he hid with such horrible ease. His whole face changed, from the almost cherubic placid man everyone saw, to a hard malevolence that made him look like someone else.
A someone who could almost have been handsome if not for the evil shining through, his corrupted soul that was beyond repair. A man—vampire—on the verge of a mental implosion.
A vampire so intent on finishing off his prey once and for all, he didn’t appear to hear the silent tread behind him. His eyes sharpened a microsecond before Newry cut the sword through the air. An expression of relief crossed the vampire’s face, before his head dropped and rolled along the floor, his body crumpling lifelessly alongside.
“The first time you visited my house you took my Nancy. Now it’s my turn to take from you.” Doctor Newry didn’t drop his long silver blade, which dripped with vampire blood. Instead he gripped it as if it was his lifeline, one that might appease his daughter’s death.
I stared at the vampire, whose body didn’t even twitch in final death throes, and whose blood was turning a sludge-black. It was odd, the sense of nothingness filling me. But then all my remorse and despair had been saved for those women who’d died at the bloodsucker’s hands. Women like Sophie.
I turned to the doctor, nothingness falling aside for gratitude. Newry had made a life, a future, between me and Alexander possible. I stepped toward the older man simultaneously with ferocious, stabbing pain lancing through my belly. I fell to my knees with a strangled hiss.
Alexander shouted my name and I looked at him with wide, terrified eyes, before I surrendered to the darkness that took away all my pain.
I woke gagging to blood streaming down my throat. I swallowed convulsively and pulled my head away, sucking in a startled breath. My agony was gone. My eyes flew open and I turned back, meeting Alexander’s stare.
My head was draped on his lap, and as he withdrew his wrist I saw the telltale crimson line, which told me exactly whose blood I’d been drinking. My eyes widened even as I glanced at Newry, who stood looking down at us on the floor. My horrified gaze returned to Alexander. “What have you done?”
He didn’t look even slightly repentant. “I saved your life.”
I shook my head. “I can’t drink human blood…can I?”
The doctor sighed. “Who said he’s human?” At my gasp, he added, “No human lives to his age without gray hair, wrinkles and health ailments.”
I blinked at Alexander, and he said, “I’m not a vampire, but I’m not a mortal anymore either.”
“So…what are you?” I bit into my bottom lip. “What am I?”
Alexander stroked my hair. “That’s what we’re hoping to find out.” As I struggled to sit, he put a hand between my shoulder blades and assisted me up, adding, “But not right now. Tonight we sleep, and tomorrow, in full daylight, we enter the nest and find out what we can.”
“The vampire’s library?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes. With luck we’ll find our answers there.”
He pushed to his feet before offering his hand to me. I accepted, noting his ease of strength, and my own surge of energy. I frowned. “How is it that your blood took away my pain?”
He looked at Newry. “To be honest, we had no idea if my blood would be an acceptable substitute. Turns out it was…not that I was left with any choice.”
I shivered with realization. I’d been close to death. Alexander had saved my life.
He brushed the back of his hand down my face. “We stick together, okay?”
I stared at the black blood stains on the floor. The vampire who had ruined so many lives was nowhere in sight. “You buried him?” I asked.
Alexander shook his head. “Not even minutes after you blacked out, his whole body dissolved. His vile blood is all that is left behind.”
I shuddered, hardly able to believe such a powerful being was dead. “He’s really gone.”
“Yes.” I turned to the doctor. “Thank you for coming back here and saving us.”
He smiled. “No thanks necessary. It was my honor to rid the world of the monster who claimed the life of my daughter.”
Alexander turned to him. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I really am.”
The doctor nodded. “Yeah, not half as sorry as me.” Newry swung away to head into the kitchen. “I think I’m in need of a strong drink.”
I brushed my lips over Alexander’s as he watched Newry walk away. I took Alexander’s hand to lead him to the guest room. After so much pain and suffering, we needed to celebrate being alive.
Alexander slipped under the covers then reached for me, taking me into his arms and nuzzling my throat, my hair, my breasts as he murmured sweet nothings that warmed my heart even as his touch warmed my body.
“The doctor—”
“Won’t hear a thing,” he said against my ear.
We took our time taking off each other’s clothes, and I moved across the mattress so that my legs draped over his hips as he lay on his side facing me. The satin head of his cock was already wet with pre-cum, and I shivered with need at the hot, pulsating length of him as he aligned himself with my center.
We couldn’t kiss in this position, but in that moment, I didn’t care. He slipped inside me in one careful thrust, then moved slowly back and forth in a rhythm that felt all kinds of right. I lay spread open for him, my breasts jiggling and my womb warming with pleasure.
I didn’t know much about sex—only what this intensely passionate man had taught me. But I didn’t need to be experienced in the sexual arts to know that this rightness every time we joined wasn’t typical for couples. I closed my eyes, pleasure singing through my body in a growing chorus that I knew would reach the heights sooner rather than later.
Alexander growled as though holding himself back, even as he increased his rhythm, the pace only fast enough that our flesh gently slapped and wouldn’t be heard by anyone but ourselves. Not that I cared anymore. He could have lifted me in his arms and slammed me against the wall before fucking me like a primal alpha and I wouldn’t have stopped him.
Nothing was more important in that moment than reaching the orgasm steadily building inside me, a pressure so intense I knew it’d be next to impossible to hold back my—
I clapped a hand over my mouth and screamed into my palm as pleasure imploded inside me. Starbursts of wonder rippled through my body and made me arch against him.
The moment I let go, Alexander followed suit, his breath hissing at his climax, which pulsed deep inside me, his eyes bright with ecstasy and more than a little bit of awe.
I took my weight off Charley to lie on my back beside her, my hand clasping hers and our breathing in sync as we stared up at the ceiling.
I didn’t doubt for a second that Charley was as awed as me, knowing that we could make love without fear tainting the act. We no longer had to run and hide, no longer had the vampire in the back of our minds.
Charley tilted her head my way. “I can barely comprehend we now have a future to look forward to together.”
I squeezed her hand. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
She smiled, her gorgeous eyes glowing even as she squeezed my hand in return. “Incredible,” she agreed.
“But?” I asked, sensing more than just happiness behind her stare.
“But, I believe to move forward, we need to put the past behind us.”
I searched her stare. “Sometimes it’s good to share what has defined us. What made us who we are.”
She nodded. “And go into a relationship with the blinkers off and everything out in the open.”
I brushed my thumb along her lower lip
. “Are you volunteering to go first?” I asked.
She blinked. “I am. Just don’t…judge me.”
I shook my head. “Believe me, my days of judging people are way behind me.”
She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, as though unsure where to start. I lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles.
“Take your time. There’s no hurry. Not anymore.”
She nodded. “I guess I’ll start from when my childhood was a happy place. Before my father died in a workplace accident on our farm and my mother went off the rails.”
“How old were you when he died?”
Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, as though masking her pain. But when she focused on me next, there was a quiet strength in her stare. “I was almost thirteen. I remember that much, at least, because my thirteenth birthday was a non-event, when our birthdays used to be such a celebration.”
My heart squeezed with love for her. As if it wasn’t bad enough she’d lost a parent, she hadn’t had her father either to celebrate her becoming a teenager, and guiding her through those formative years.
“My mother was too drunk and high to even acknowledge my birthday, deep in her own grief to acknowledge I was also grieving.”
I fingered a piece of her hair that’d escaped her ponytail, before I brushed it behind her ear. “She must have really loved your father.”
Charley sighed. “Yeah, she did. He was her life. I was just the kid who reminded my mom of the man she missed every single day.”
“That should have been a positive for her.”
“Believe me, it wasn’t.” She exhaled softly. “She fell into alcohol first to forget my dad. The farm went into debt and mom sold it dirt cheap before we moved to Sydney. It was there drugs became her amnesia of choice. It was also there that she began to use her body to get her fix, fucking strangers and even her drug dealer to afford the habit.”
“I’m sorry, Charley.”
She managed a smile. “Not even six months after she kicked me out of our dingy home, she overdosed, finally getting her wish to join my father in the afterlife.”
I shook my head. “You should be proud of yourself and how you’ve turned out. I don’t know many people who would have survived that kind of childhood.” And I had no doubt there was a whole lot more to the story. I only hoped she’d tell me all about it one day.
She arched a brow. “Yeah, in my case it was a matter of either getting on with my own life or turning into my mother. And if dad really was watching me in spirit, I wanted to make him proud.”
I kissed her then, needing her velvet-soft lips against mine, to touch her as much as to reassure her. “I’ve never met a stronger, more courageous and beautiful woman in my life. Your dad would have been beyond proud of you.”
Her lashes fluttered and she sighed against my mouth, for a moment clearly losing herself in the kiss. Then she pulled back, a determined glint in her stare. “What about you? I know so little about you.”
I shrugged. “Honestly, there’s not a lot to tell. My childhood wasn’t anything to complain about. I had strict but loving parents who provided me with everything I could want materially. They were proud of my good grades, of my rising star in the law firm where I worked.”
She seemed to process the fact I had once been a lawyer, before she asked, “How did the vampire get you?”
A sigh shuddered from my lungs at the memory. “I was working late at the firm. Everyone but a couple of cleaners had gone home hours before I finally finished working on a case. I made it as far as the car park before the vampire intercepted me. I have vague recollections of his voice washing over me, and not much else.”
“He brainwashed you into following him into the nest,” she whispered, clearly appalled that the vampire had been able to mislead us with such ease.
“Yes, though I don’t recall following him like a dumbass sheep. I think he must have oversaturated my mind with his command, because I’ve never experienced that level of persuasion since, not to the point of having big memory blanks.”
It was her turn to touch my face, her fingertips gently grazing along my jaw. “I’m glad you had a wonderful childhood. You would have needed to draw on that while living in the vampire’s nest all those years.”
She was right. At first I had drawn on my childhood memories to endure the vampire and his nest. But in my lowest points I despaired at having known such happiness, and had done my best to forget my old life. The only way I’d survived was to neutralize my emotions, ensure nothing touched me and made me yearn for what I’d once had.
“Oddly enough, I blocked out my childhood memories, while my most recent memories of my marriage and my career faded without even trying.”
“Maybe all those women the vampire brought to the nest had something to do with it?”
I didn’t like the thick lump of grief sitting deep in my belly from the women who’d arrived then died at the nest. I’d played my own part in not once trying to help any of them to escape. After all, I’d been stuck there for so long, I’d never once entertained the thought that it was remotely possible to leave.
“Maybe,” I said hoarsely.
She smiled, but there was more sadness in her face than joy. “Let’s sleep on it. Things always make more sense in the light of day.”
Chapter Thirteen
Bright sunlight hit my face when I woke, Charley’s soft warmth and womanly vanilla scent filling my senses. My dick stirred, but I resisted waking her. She’d been through hell and back these last few days and only sleep would truly soothe her soul.
But as I stepped through the bedroom door, I almost wished I’d stayed in bed.
Jasper lay on his belly on the hallway floor, blinking up at me and licking the last of the black blood off his muzzle. Jesus. I scanned the rest of the floor. There was no more of the black sludge to be found.
My gut clenched with unease. I had no way of knowing how this would affect the dog. Would it kill Jasper? Or would it do quite the opposite and see the dog’s lifespan greatly increased?
The bathroom door opened and Doctor Newry stepped into the hallway in faded jeans and a navy flannelette shirt. He was toweling his shaggy gray hair when he caught sight of me. “You’re awake. Good. I’m about to get some breakfast together and then I was thinking we could discuss where we go from here.”
“Good idea,” I murmured before I nodded toward the dog. “Any idea on how this dog lapping up all the vampire blood will affect him?”
The doctor frowned, a faint tinge of disgust in his stare. “We probably should’ve got rid of that before we went to bed.” He slung his towel over a shoulder. “Nothing to it now other than to keep an eye on the dog and hope he’ll be okay.”
I sighed and followed Newry into the kitchen, ignoring the stickiness left underfoot. Ten minutes later I sat at the dining table, tucking into a bowl of cornflakes with milk and honey. When has normal human food ever tasted this damn good?
The doctor outlined a plan. “We should probably go to the nest today, read those books you saw in the vampire’s chambers, and see if we can find any of the information you’re looking for.” The doctor pushed a hand over his lined face. “And I’ll concentrate on finding any evidence of where my daughter might be…or even if she’s alive.”
I stopped chewing, the cornflakes suddenly sawdust in my mouth. I forcibly swallowed, my belly churning.
“Alexander.”
I turned at Charley’s voice. She stood in the hallway behind me, looking sleep-rumpled and sexy. It was only her sad eyes and troubled expression that confirmed what I knew even before she said, “You need to tell him the truth.”
“The truth?” Newry repeated, his voice shrill. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
I turned back to the doctor, noting his tight shoulders and blinking eyes. My heart sank, but Charley was right. Newry needed to know his daughter was now at peace. He needed to know he could finally say goodbye. I cleared my throat. “Nancy was b
rought to the nest where I was taken.”
The doctor’s eyes brightened. I hated that I’d be the one who’d dull his stare. “She’s not there anymore…she’s…gone. She couldn’t live the way I had.”
“Live like what?” the doctor scraped out.
“Like a blood bank for the vampire.”
Newry dragged a hand over his face. “So you’re saying my daughter killed herself?”
I nodded and managed a raspy, “Yes.”
His stare looked haunted. “And what did you do to try and stop her? Were you a part of her death?” He banged his fist on the table. “Tell me!”
I could do little else but stare wordlessly back at him, guilt gnawing at me inside. In some ways, I had been a part of his daughter’s death. I’d never once tried talking Nancy down from her high-pitched ramblings, where she’d told me she’d prefer spilling her lifeblood on the ground to giving it to the vampire.
How could I have talked her out of something I’d privately agreed myself countless times? In the end, I’d wondered if she’d been the strong one, not me, ending her life on her own terms.
Charley stepped forward and placed her hands on the doctor’s shoulders in a show of support. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” She looked up at me, her face understanding. “We’re both sorrier than you can imagine.”
Newry didn’t answer, but his anger seemed to abate into shock. He was white-faced, and his voice trembled as he said distantly, “When Nancy decides to do something, no one or nothing will get in her way.” He exhaled, when he added, “She must have known there was no other option.”
I shoved away my cereal bowl, my appetite now non-existent. But I felt compelled to reassure him. “Living in the nest makes a person constantly question their mortality. Death was an endless tugging of the subconscious, especially when survival guaranteed the vampire’s longevity.”
