Voracious - (Claire Point Vampire 5)

by V. K. Forrest

  “Dallas,” he murmured. “How do you do this to me? Why do I let you do this?”

  Feeling Aedan’s growing desire for her, she scooted back and tugged at his belt buckle. She unbuttoned his jeans and slid her hand inside, cupping his balls with her hand. He groaned with pleasure and pushed her over and down into the couch. Both seemed to be in a frenzy. He unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans as she pushed his down his hips.

  Neither of them bothered to kick off their shoes, Dallas with her jeans around her ankles, him only getting his down to his knees. She was wet and aching for him before he ran his palm over the blond bed of curls between her thighs. Probed with his fingers. Stroked with his tongue.

  “Aedan.” She ran her fingers through the thick, ginger hair that she loved. “Love me.”

  “I do love you,” he murmured, stretching over her to kiss the pulse of her throat.

  “Make love to me.” Her voice caught in her throat as she kicked off her jeans. “Please.”

  “I am—”

  She covered his mouth with her hand, actually feeling as if she was in pain, she needed him so badly. “You know what I mean.” She reached down to grasp him in her palm and stroke him.

  With the faintest smile, he pushed hard into her. She arched her back, meeting him, welcoming him. She moaned so loudly that he covered her mouth with his hand. She laughed . . . maybe she cried. She was so desperate for the feel of him inside her, the fullness he gave her, not just of body, but soul.

  Close to orgasm with the very first stroke, she didn’t take long to come. Panting hard, gasping, she ran her hands over his bare buttocks, encouraging him to go faster. Harder.

  “We running a race?” he groaned in her ear.

  She raised her hips forcefully. “This time around? Yes.”

  As she came a second time, he surrendered, arched his back, and groaned with his own release.

  Dallas wrapped her arms around Aedan’s waist as he collapsed on top of her. “Let’s go in the bedroom,” she murmured in his ear when she caught her breath. “And take it slow this time.”

  Aedan dropped to the wooden floorboards that were wet and slick with her blood. Her white blouse and pale green skirt blossomed red. “Mon amour . . .” He gathered her in his arms, the smell of her blood thick in his nostrils.

  Her eyelids fluttered, and then she opened her eyes, but he couldn’t tell if she could see him or not. There was so much blood on the floor. Too much blood for any human to lose and still live.

  “Madeleine,” he whispered, pulling her close to his chest.

  “Aedan . . .” Her breath seemed cool on his cheek. “I’m dying.”

  “Non. No.” He smoothed her blond hair, smearing blood in it. His heart was breaking. He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t bear it. “No, Madeleine. Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true,” she murmured, her voice becoming breathy. Already ethereal.

  As she spoke, he could feel the light inside her fading.

  “Save me,” she begged.

  “I cannot.” He squeezed her tightly in his arms, trying desperately to think of a way to help her. Knowing he could not.

  “You can, my love. You are the only one who can. Make me one of you. Give me eternal life.”

  Aedan gritted his teeth. “I cannot. It is against our laws. Against the laws of nature. Of God. It’s a curse.”

  Madeleine had been holding on to his arm, but her hand grew too weak and fell.

  “Dallas,” he groaned, cradling her in his arms.

  “Make me a vampire. I beg of you, my love.”

  “I cannot.” Tears ran down his cheeks, mixing with her blood. “I will not curse you as I’ve been cursed. I will not.”

  Chapter 22

  “I will not curse you as I have been cursed.”

  “Aedan.”

  “I will not curse you as I have been cursed!”

  “Aedan? Aedan wake up. It’s a dream. It’s just a dream.”

  Aedan opened his eyes to see Dallas leaning over him, shaking him. Her hair fell around his face, pulling him back to the present. Dallas was alive and well. There was no blood. No gaping wounds. No initial carved into her flesh.

  “Dallas,” he panted.

  “I will not curse you as I’ve been cursed?” she asked. “What the hell is that about?”

  He scrambled to sit up, still breathing hard. His heart felt as if it would burst in his chest. “A nightmare,” he said.

  “Obviously.”

  She reached out, but he pulled away.

  “You want me to turn the light on?” she asked. She laughed aloud. “Okay, that was a ridiculous thing to say. You probably see better in the dark than I do in the light.”

  He leaned against the wall, because there was no headboard, and hugged a pillow against his bare chest. He was hot and sweaty, but felt cold at the same time.

  She sat up on her knees, facing him, naked. She always slept naked, which he adored.

  “That was more than a nightmare. That was real. That happened to you.”

  He stared straight ahead. She had two stacks of plastic drawers that served as a bureau. On top of it, among the pieces of jewelry, socks, and underwear was a vase, obviously made by a child. Kenzie? Or had Dallas made it herself, years ago? “You shouldn’t have been in my head,” he told her. “We vampires have rules about that kind of stuff. Aren’t there rules with people like you?”

  “I don’t know any people like me. And I was trying to shake you awake,” she defended herself. “You were upset. I didn’t need to be a witch to know you were reliving something.”

  He lowered his head, staring at the tangle of sheets across his bare legs.

  “I got a glimpse of her,” Dallas said softly. “She looked like me.”

  “This is private,” he snapped, jerking his head around to look at her. Before he could stop, his fangs came down, exposing them to her.

  She flinched, but not much.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, contracting his fangs. He lowered his head again, embarrassed. It wasn’t so much that he was angry with Dallas, but with himself. Maybe with God for putting him in that position with Madeleine. Being forced to tell her he could not make her a vampire, while she lay dying in his arms. Even though he had the power to give her everlasting life, he had denied her.

  Aedan glanced up, tentatively, at Dallas.

  Another woman might have run away at that point. At the very least asked him to leave. But not Dallas. Not Dallas, because she wasn’t afraid of him, not even when he was at his darkest.

  “You might as well tell me.” She sat down beside him and leaned on the wall. She pulled the sheet up over her bare hips to her waist, but left her breasts naked to the cool, night air. “I’ll see it eventually, you know. The more you try to hide things from me, the more they’re right there, waiting to be seen the minute you let your guard down. Which happens more often than you realize.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “I killed her.”

  “The woman who looked like me?” she asked uneasily.

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head slowly, refusing to look away from him. “No, you couldn’t have. I saw her wounds. She didn’t die from a vampire attack.”

  He shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. I didn’t kill her, but I didn’t save her. I killed her because I had the power to save her and I didn’t.”

  “You had the power to save her?” Dallas repeated, obviously not following.

  Aedan leaned forward, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. “I arrived before she died. As she was dying. I had the power to give her life—”

  “You mean to make her a vampire?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He was shaking, as all the pain of the decision, the torture of it, came back.

  “Are you allowed to do that?” she asked, still sounding as if he were telling an incredibly tall tale.

  “No,” he exhaled. “There are punishments. Sometimes banishments. It depends on
the circumstances. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that I was afraid of what the sept would do. It was about right or wrong. But she didn’t understand that. Madeleine. She didn’t understand that it is a curse to live forever, to be vampire. That it is eternal damnation. She was very young. Nineteen. She didn’t understand,” he repeated.

  “I understand. It’s like my gift . . . that I see more as a curse.” Dallas slid her hand across the mattress to cover his. She was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. “You did the right thing, Aedan.”

  For a while he just sat there, unable to lift his head. Finally he turned to look at her. “You think so?”

  She picked up his hand, turned it over, and kissed his palm. “You did the right thing, letting her die and go to heaven to be with God, or wherever it is we go. It would have been wrong to have made her a vampire.”

  “She begged me. She pleaded.”

  “She was young. She didn’t understand the burden you carry. She couldn’t see it the way I see it. You did the right thing,” she repeated. “By making her a vampire, you would have been damning her.”

  His gaze met hers in the darkness, and he felt a great release. It was almost as if Madeleine was, through Dallas, granting him forgiveness.

  Dallas scooted over in the bed and laid her head down on the pillow in his lap. He stroked her hair, pushing it back over her ear.

  “I love you, Dallas,” he said, so quietly that she wasn’t even certain she had heard it.

  She closed her eyes. “I love you, Aedan.”

  “You get my message?” Kaleigh dug a carrot stick into a dish of dip on the table. “The other day? You never called me.”

  Aedan took a sip from a red and white plastic cup—Kaleigh’s high school colors. Her mother had bought all the paper products in red and white. “No, I didn’t get your message. You called?”

  It was Sunday afternoon, and Kaleigh’s parents were throwing a graduation party for her. Aedan felt like he needed to make an appearance. He’d come over with Peigi and Brian, literally walking between them to keep them from going at each other. The weird thing was, Peigi was perfectly congenial. She said nothing to Brian about the baggy shorts and wrinkly T-shirt he was wearing or the fact that he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. Which, of course, he had.

  Kaleigh crunched on the carrot stick. “No, I think I texted you. The other day.” She wrinkled her freckled nose. She was dressed in a yellow sundress. She looked cute—very high school girlish and not very wisewomanish. “I think I did.” She shook her head. “Things have been crazy. Maybe I didn’t. Or maybe it didn’t go. I’ve been telling my mom I need a new cell.”

  “Kaleigh, try to focus. This is important.” He took her arm to move her away from the table and the others standing in line, waiting for Swedish meatballs, crudités, and mini cheesecakes. She grabbed a handful of carrots. He led her off the back porch and into the yard, away from her family and friends. The sounds of the party faded as Kaleigh and Aedan walked to stand beneath an elm tree. “What did you find out?”

  “All kinds of crazy things. Did you know there really is a Sasquatch thing?” She chewed on another carrot stick. “At least there used to be. Not around here, but—”

  “Kaleigh,” Aedan said sharply.

  She scowled. “I’m sorry, okay?”

  He glanced at the pretty two-story house, his gaze straying to Mary McCathal and Peigi in a private conversation at one end of the porch. Something was up with those two. He tried to listen in on what was going on in their heads, but they had both closed their thoughts to others. Almost as if they had something to hide . . .

  He looked back to Kaleigh. “Please, hon, just tell me what you learned. I just don’t have the patience for this today.”

  “Fine. I’m getting to it. I couldn’t find anything in our library, but I met this girl online, she’s from Romania. She calls herself a strigoi, but she’s a vampire.” Again, Kaleigh wrinkled her cute, little freckled nose. “She’s like this expert on creatures.”

  Against his will, Aedan became curious. “You talk to other vampires online?”

  “I talk to you online sometimes, when you’re away.”

  “I’m a Kahill.”

  She crunched loudly. “I’m allowed to talk to other vampires. Shoot, you single guys fu—”

  He snatched a carrot stick from her hand, interrupting her. “Back to the point, Kaleigh. What did you find out about Jay?”

  “Cosmina says he’s probably a sleeper.”

  “A what?” Aedan chewed on the carrot.

  “It’s a stupid name.” She waved enthusiastically to someone on the porch and then returned her attention to Aedan. “They’re pretty much human, or at least they look human. But they hibernate for years at a time. They come out of hibernation for a few moon cycles, then back they go.”

  “Back they go where?”

  She shrugged. “Cosmina says it’s thought that they go underground or in caves or something. They sort of support each other, taking care of each other when they come out of hibernation. Apparently different sleepers run on different timetables. Of course, obviously, Jay’s not taking care of other sleepers because he’s here attacking women.”

  “They live in Romania?”

  She shook her head and poked him in the chest with her finger. “Cosmina lives in Romania. Sleepers are from—”

  “Scotland,” Aedan finished for her. He hit his palm with his fist. “Damned if Mark wasn’t right. It was a Scottish accent.” He looked at Kaleigh. “Are they violent?”

  “She said not generally, but maybe because they’re humanoids, they can be, like any other of God’s creatures. Maybe he’s just a bad’n.”

  Aedan chewed on that thought for a moment. “I guess that’s possible.”

  “I know that’s not much help, but it’s all she knew. She found the information in some accounts of her vampires running into the same sleepers centuries apart.”

  Brian and Victor and Kaleigh’s boyfriend, Rob, came across the lawn toward them, tossing a volleyball between them. “We’re getting up a game,” Rob said.

  He was older than the others and already beginning training with a kill team with the sept. Aedan liked him; he was sensible. A good guy.

  “Everyone’s a little bored,” Rob said quietly. He winked at her. “You want to play?”

  “Just a sec.” Kaleigh flashed him a smile.

  They made a cute couple.

  “Aedan?”

  “Nah. Thanks, but I’m going to head out. Got somewhere I gotta be.”

  “Is it that girl Mary saw you with? She’s an HF,” Kaleigh sang conspiratorially to the guys. “He’s gonna be in big trouble.”

  “Sounds like we spend more time breaking the rules than following them,” Brian observed.

  “Sometimes,” Aedan agreed. He glanced at Kaleigh. “Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem. Thanks for the card.” She flashed him her pretty smile. “And the moola. That’s way better than a silly book about the road to adulthood or something else lame like that.”

  “Have a good time. Behave yourselves.” Aedan waved.

  The group walked off, headed for the volleyball net that had been set up in the middle of the lawn.

  “Hey, Brian,” Aedan called. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” He glanced at the porch. More people were arriving, bearing gifts. Peigi and Mary were still standing alone, talking.

  “Yeah?” Brian walked back to Aedan and stood in front of him, hands in his front pockets, looking completely awkward.

  “Anything going on with you and Peigi I should know about?”

  He shrugged his scrawny shoulders. “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Have you noticed she’s been acting a little strange?”

  “She hasn’t been riding my ass, if that’s what you mean.” Another shrug. He looked up at Aedan. “Actually, she’s been kind of nice these last couple of days. Maybe she just needed to let off some steam. Yo
u know, with the fireball thing?”

  “Maybe.” Aedan glanced at the porch again. This time Mary and Peigi were both looking right at him. “Okay, well, catch you later.”

  “Catch you later, man.”

  Aedan headed in one direction and Brian another.

  What’s going on, Peigi? Aedan telepathed.

  Nothing, she shot back. What makes you think anything’s going on?

  I don’t like this, Peigi. I’m worried about you.

  Don’t be. She smiled. You know I love you, Aedan. As if you were my own son.

  I love you, too, he telepathed. So please don’t do anything stupid.

  She smiled at him, again with innocence. Do I ever?

  “Aedan’s coming,” Kenzie said. She was sitting at the kitchen table shaping Play-Doh.

  Dallas stood at the kitchen sink rinsing off lasagna noodles and trying to read over the recipe in the magazine she’d picked up at the grocery store. She was great in a bar kitchen, but a chef she was not. She’d actually had to ask the guy in the produce section what shallots were. “Yup,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “Aedan’s coming for dinner, and then maybe we’ll go for a stroll on the boardwalk.”

  “No.” Kenzie sat stock still in her chair, her arms stiffly at her sides. She wasn’t looking at Dallas, which wasn’t all that unusual, but she had a strange look on her face. “Bad man.”

  Dallas groaned inwardly but made a conscious effort not to let her daughter see her frustration. “We’ve been over this. You like Aedan. He’s not a bad man.”

  “Bad man,” she repeated. “Boardwalk.”

  Dallas turned back toward the sink, shutting off the faucet. “Kenzie, Kenzie, what’s your mama going to do?”

  “Die,” Kenzie said.

  Her voice was so eerie that Dallas spun around, water from her hands dripping on the floor. “What did you say, Kenzie?”

  The little girl picked up a glob of blue Play-Doh, dropped it, and began to mash it.

  “Kenzie! That’s not very nice. We don’t joke around about stuff like that. You understand me?”

  “Madeleine,” the little girl said, pressing her thumb into the middle of the Play-Doh. “Dead.”