Conversion Book Two: Bloodlines

by S. C. Stephens

  I flushed, realizing that she was talking about foreplay. I remembered Teren telling me that vamps did feed off each other, and I remembered his devilish smile when he’d said he would like it. I knew I was his first bite, but had he been bitten? Curious, I peeked up at Alanna. “Did she? Bite him?”

  Alanna busied herself with cleaning up the kitchen, her hands moving blurringly fast. “I don’t think so,” she said lowly. “Anyway, they left soon after that. Nice couple.” She started humming as I narrowed my eyes at her.

  Right, she didn’t think so. Teren and I were seriously going to have to have the exes talk. I could see that now. Taking my empty glass, she immediately switched over to tales of male guests. The sun went down while she was talking and Halina sauntered into the room, sitting up on a stool and delighting in the conversation she’d walked into. She went into graphic detail on a couple of the male vampires that had crossed paths with her. I blushed furiously and studied anything but Halina’s face as she told me every horrid thing that I was afraid Teren had done with that female. Yeah, we definitely needed the talk.

  I sighed as I felt his location. It had shifted a few hours ago, when he’d gotten off work and headed to the vampire’s home. And it unfortunately hadn’t shifted any closer to me; he’d headed miles north, towards Santa Rosa. I hadn’t felt the distance lengthen or shorten since it had stopped; he was still there. I hated it, knowing where he was but not “how” he was. I wondered if it would just stop if he died. Would the GPS binging in my head vanish the second he was staked, or would it continue to go off until his dead body was disposed of? I closed my eyes. God, I did not want to think about that.

  Imogen’s cool hand went to my shoulder, as she’d come in to join us. “He’ll be alright, dear.”

  Halina stood up, adjusting her short skirt. “Yeah, it’s just a vamp nest, a small one even. He and Ben will be fine.” She smiled crookedly as she mentioned Ben, and I wondered how she knew all the details. She’d been asleep when he’d called. That could only mean that they’d discussed this plan last night.

  Irritation at that flowed through me. I hated being left out of loops. “Why aren’t you with him? Aren’t you the protector? Isn’t that your role?” I snapped that at Halina and the entire room silenced. No one generally talked to Halina like that.

  She cocked her head as she stared at me. I couldn’t tell if she’d laugh, or knock me off my chair. She leaned into me, her hands going to her hips. Her ageless eyes burned with a sudden anger. “You know nothing, about what I am,” she said coldly. Then, abruptly, she straightened and smiled. “Besides, he’d be done by the time I got all the way out there.” Blinking at her sudden mood shift, I watched her turn to leave the room. “It would be a waste of my time,” she said before she left.

  Still dazed by the display, I turned my eyes back to Alanna. She was watching her grandmother intently. When I felt Halina leave the house and then the property, going for a run apparently, Alanna’s eyes came down to mine. “Teren forbid her.” She shrugged. “It’s sort of a sore point.”

  I cocked my head. “He…? Why would he do that?”

  Alanna bit her lip and looked over at Imogen. Imogen shrugged, her grandmotherly appearance looking a little lost as to how to explain it. She tried anyway. “Mother…might know these vampires, and they may not…react well, if she showed up.”

  I tilted my head at her, even more confused. “What? Does Teren know them?”

  Imogen shook her head, a dark lock of hair escaping from her loose bun. “No, this was before he was born.” I raised my eyebrows, waiting for an explanation, and she eventually sighed and shrugged. “We think it’s this woman vampire, who may or may not have had this mate, who Mother may or may not have slept with, at some point, when she and her mate may or may not have still been together.” She shrugged again. “It’s all very vague, and we’re not really sure. Teren just didn’t want to start out confrontationally, if it really was the woman we think it is.”

  I dropped my jaw at the revelation. “He’s going to see the scorned woman of his great-grandmother’s lover?”

  Alanna and Imogen shared a look and then they both shrugged. “Possibly,” Alanna answered.

  I shook my head, irritated at the little vampiric soap opera. “She’s going to stake him when she realizes who he is.”

  Alanna quickly shook her head. “He won’t tell her.”

  I groaned and ran my hands back through my hair. “You all look exactly alike! He’s a walking advertisement of Halina’s genes! All of you need to start keeping that in mind!” I knew I was ranting, but I really was not a fan of being left out of plans.

  Alanna looked at Imogen like she was seeing the resemblance for the first time. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Hmmm,” Alanna muttered. “You do have a point.” Quickly she turned back to me and smiled a warm, reassuring smile. “It will be fine. The nest was only her and her new mate.” She grinned and started making dinner for Jack and me. Looking over her shoulder, she added, “Rumor is, she staked the old one.”

  I closed my eyes, not feeling any better.

  I didn’t feel any better during dinner either, as I felt each long minute that he was north of me, tick by. I didn’t start to feel better until Alanna was clearing away everyone’s dishes. Then I started to feel a lot better. It happened like it always happened. The minute that blip on my internal radar started moving in my direction, I started to feel it. It was faint as first, since he was so far from me, and I only closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.

  Halina across from me chuckled as I felt her eyes on me. She was still wildly amused by my reaction to Teren coming home. “He’s on his way,” she muttered, laughing a little on the end.

  I stayed in my chair, stiff and straight, with my eyes closed. The pull was faint, but I knew it would get stronger and I was starting to prepare myself. This was just what I did when Teren came back to me every day. I found some place to stay very still and practiced my deep breathing. That usually worked for awhile.

  He was farther away from me than usual, and I sat in that chair for over an hour as the other vamps went about their evening routines, Alanna and Jack going downstairs with Imogen to look over the books, Halina staying seated across from me, watching.

  Eventually, as he got closer, my mouth dropped open and my breaths came in shorter pulls. My hands came up to the table, holding onto the edge so hard that I was probably marring it. He was within a mile of me, approaching fast. That’s when things really intensified. It was like we were two huge magnets, each fine, and fully functioning as long as we were kept apart, but start bringing us closer to each other, and you could practically feel the energy crackle between us. The thought that we weren’t going to do anything to stop that unbelievable energy, wasn’t making my waiting any easier.

  As I ran a hand through my hair and down my suddenly dry throat, I heard Halina’s curious voice across from me. “It’s so fascinating. Just him coming closer to you, drives you into a frenzy.” I heard her plop her elbows on the table, but didn’t crack my eyes open to look. “And he feels it too, so it’s not the pregnancy.” I heard her sit back in her chair as she continued to speculate. “It has to be the blood. It has to be because he spawned you.”

  Near panting now, I finally opened my eyes and looked over at her. She had her head tilted to the side as she watched me struggle for control. “Why…would that…do this?” I got out between shallow breaths.

  She shrugged, her brow bunched. “I don’t know. I didn’t exactly keep my creator around long enough to ask.” She grinned coldly and I shuddered, remembering that she had ended his life shortly upon him turning her. She’d never wanted this life. She’d let him know that.

  While I was wrestling with controlling the buildup in me, Halina spoke in an oddly serious voice. “I know that I may seem…standoffish to you at times, but I do care about your fate, about the children’s fate.” My eyes widened at her rare sincerity, especially towards me. Her pale eyes took in my s
tartled expression. She shook her head, her youthful eyes sad. “But…I’m not human anymore, Emma, and I haven’t been for a long time. And while the others may share some of my traits, none of them truly understand what being pureblood means. The constant desires I push back. The alieness I feel inside of me…”

  Her voice trailed off as she looked away from me. My body started shifting two different ways, desire and anxiousness over Teren approaching, sympathy and compassion for the reluctant vampire before me. As my breath increased even more with my struggle, her eyes slid back to me. “If you make it through this, I pray for your sake, that you end up more like Teren…and less like me.”

  I thought to reply to that, but instead, my head snapped around to the hallway leading to the front door when I felt Teren hit the driveway. Before I knew it, I was standing, my chair knocked over from where I’d streaked upright. Halina laughed and walked over to fix it. I glanced at her, at all the traces of her previous comments gone and the return of her sultry self, but the fire in my body was taking over too quickly to worry about her anymore.

  Whimpering in frustration, I let my hands trail over my body, trying feebly to end the ache. It didn’t do anything, but it gave my restless body something else to concentrate on while I waited. This is when it got really bad, when he was super close. I got the feeling that if something or someone detained one of us right now, I would literally explode. It would not be pretty.

  Luckily, none of the vamps here were going to try and halt our connection. They knew better. I streaked to the parking lot when I felt him pull up, Halina darting ahead of me to open the damn door.

  I was at the side of the newly repaired Prius before he’d even shut it off. I yanked on the door, accidently pulling a hinge off with my revved up strength, and pulled him out of the car. He was on me in a flash – hands, lips, tongues - I was practically crawling over him as the magnets inside us completed the circuit, our bodies all the more energized for it.

  Knowing he’d promise to not stop this, I started tugging at clothing. I heard the buttons of his shirt pop off as I ripped it open. A low growl escaped his chest as his hands tangled in my wild-in-the-slight-breeze hair.

  A few feet away from where we were mauling each other, I heard Teren’s other car door open. I heard a foot crunch onto the gravel and the smell of aftershave and body wash hit me. As I pulled Teren’s ruined shirt off his shoulders, I heard a startled voice say, “Um…guys?”

  Wanting privacy, I jumped up, swinging my legs over so Teren would catch me in his arms. Luckily for me, he did. “Bed,” I muttered, in the one second break between our kisses.

  He grunted some sort of response and then he was moving, streaking us upstairs, to finally relish this heat, instead of pushing it away.

  As the world rushed by, my super hearing heard Hot Ben mutter, “What the hell was that?”

  As Teren kicked in our door, breaking the frame, I heard Halina reply with, “That’s just how they say hello now.”

  Teren set me down by the bed and we started ripping off clothes. Panting, I finished tearing off his outfit. Literally. I ruined everything he’d been wearing. Between our erotic noises, I whispered, “She’s right, we never say hello anymore.”

  Finished peeling off my clothes, his lips attached to my neck. “Hello,” he muttered into my skin, before he dragged his tongue up to my ear.

  Letting out a husky laugh, I heard Hot Ben enter the house and say to Halina beside him, “It was weird. You should have seen him in the car, it was like he wanted to tear the seat to pieces, he was so antsy. He wouldn’t even talk to me, wouldn’t even drive me home.”

  Teren’s body, naked before me, pressed into me and I groaned loudly. Not loud enough for a still confused Ben, but loud enough for the others. Halina laughed as she responded to him. “Yes, she’s like that too. It’s very entertaining.”

  Teren laid me down on the bed harshly, not hard enough to hurt our children, but rough enough that I bounced on it. He was laying beside me in a flash, his cool, hard body along the side of mine, igniting me. “You were gonna rip apart the seats?” I breathily asked him, turned on even more by the image.

  His hand slipped down between my thighs and I groaned again. “You have no idea. I couldn’t wait to get home to you. I couldn’t get here fast enough.” His breath cool in my ear electrified me. His fingers running up and down my slick skin brought me right to the brink.

  “Me too,” I moaned as his finger dipped inside me, taking me right over the brink. I cried out and clutched his hair tight.

  As my ecstatic groans died off, I heard Ben say, “So…what are they doing now?”

  As Teren’s cool mouth darted down to replace his fingers, and another loud cry echoed throughout the room as a second orgasm instantly hit me, I heard Halina laugh and tell him, “Guess.”

  Ben laughed as well as I came down off my second high. Teren flipped me to my side, coming up behind me. As my stomach was generally in the way when we faced each other, this was how we could be the closest. His chest rested against my back and I felt the rumble of a growl through my skin. I turned my head to him, my fangs extending as I lost control on them, but he kissed me anyway. He lifted my leg up around his hip and swept a hand down to my core again, prepping me for him.

  He dropped his head to my shoulder, his fangs prickling my skin as he dragged them across me teasingly. I panted as he brought me right back to the edge again, it really didn’t take much at this point. The energy buzzing between us was intensifying everything we naturally felt for each other, and not really caring about anything but being with him, I let out a loud cry when he removed his fingers and entered me. Then he was plunging deep and hard, grunting with each thrust. He grabbed my hip as he rocked me back and forth, pulling me closer, deeper. I bent forward a bit, away from him, allowing him to go as deep as he could. He gasped and muttered my name.

  Careful not to hurt me, but plunging harder, faster, and even deeper, he let out more noises than he usually did. He was animalistic, ravaging me with the beast within, not reigning in his vampiric nature like he usually did. His unrestraint drove me to madness, and I blocked out Halina telling Ben that we were, “About to bring the house down.”

  My hand clenched the sheets in front of me as he continued pounding into me. The passion between us only escalated, until he finally growled deep and slowed his hips, coming in me. Feeling that release, hearing him groan in the most erotic way, I came again too - a particularly hard and particularly long one. Third time’s a charm.

  We rode out the sensation in tiny hip movements and bursts of staggered breaths. Eventually, he stopped moving completely and sagged against my back. Heart racing, breath heavy, I sagged against him too. He removed himself and laced his arms around me, burying his head in my neck. “I love you,” he muttered.

  I could only grunt a series of sounds that sort of sounded like I love you too. He chuckled and snuggled into me, reaching over me for the covers we’d shucked aside in our haste. I sighed as the thick warmth enveloped me, protected me from the chill of his extremities. His core, the part that had been actively rubbing up against me, that was quite warm.

  As our breaths returned to normal, the intense energy dissipating, I heard an ongoing conversation that I’d managed to block out as things had gotten a little…intense, at the end.

  “…so she started chucking things at him! It was hilarious.” I heard Hot Ben sigh and Halina laugh.

  I twisted my head to Teren. “The vampire chucked things at you?”

  He sighed and kissed my shoulder. “Yeah, she took one look at me and knew exactly who I was.” I twisted around to him and he shook his head. “See, Great-Gran knew the vampire’s boyfriend-”

  I cut him off, Alanna already having explained the dramatics to me. “They told me.” I shook my head as I looked over his face, his hair rumpled, but perfect. “I told them she’d know who you were.”

  He raised an eyebrow at that and I heard Halina mumble, “We can�
�t help it if we’re unforgettably attractive.”

  Teren rolled his eyes and looked down at the floor. “Well, she definitely remembered you. You may want to stay out of Santa Rosa for awhile…or maybe even the State.”

  Halina snorted. “She should get over it. I mean, if you think about it, I did the cow a favor.”

  Teren sighed and snuggled back into my skin. “Right,” he muttered, just as Ben asked, “What did you say, Halina?”

  I grinned and laughed at the fact that I was now privy to all these secret conversations. Well, the ones I was awake enough to hear anyway. Just as I was about to ask Teren what had happened, and maybe berate him for not telling me the entire situation before he went over there, I heard Hot Ben continue with, “Yeah, she went off on him for like twenty minutes…but then, this big vamp showed up. Things got a little hairy after that.”