by V M Black
“What is between us now is deeper than choice,” Mr. Thorne said. “It is biology. You can no more deny me that I can resist you.”
He pulled me toward him, and I melted into his embrace before I could tell myself to resist. His mouth came down over mine, hard and soft at once, sending a deep shock into my center and lower, at the juncture of my legs.
His arms were around me, sliding up into my hair and down to the small of my back so that my entire body was pulled against his. My hands clung to his jacket, my lips and teeth parting to let him in. His tongue stroked me, and I shook in his arms.
Have you lost your mind? part of me demanded. He’s a monster!
But I couldn’t listen to that part. Not now. Not even if it meant he would take my blood again.
He pulled back slowly, and I made a soft, whimpery sound and opened my eyes to see him looking down at me. I knew he had kissed me only to prove his point, driving home his claim on me, but it didn’t change anything.
“For however long you live, you will want to give me yourself and your blood, and no more women will have to die,” he said.
No more would die, because I could give him all he needed. No more would give themselves to him. And no more would arch against him, begging him for satisfaction, pleading to be filled...only me. I was frightened at the triumph of that thought.
“It isn’t fair,” I said, knowing that I sounded like a child. It didn’t matter. “All I wanted was to not be sick anymore. Was that so much to ask for?”
“You asked to live,” he said. “These are the conditions. Would you have said no?”
I pushed against his chest, and his arms loosened around me, and he stepped back. “I couldn’t have. Dammit, you know that I couldn’t have refused—couldn’t have said no to anything. But you should’ve told me anyway.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” he said.
I pushed my hair out of my face. There has to be another way, I thought, even as I ached for him, longed for him, craved the slightest touch. I knew he could wash away all my warring thoughts and all my fears. I knew he could make me glad of anything he demanded of me.
But I didn’t want him to. They were my fears, just as they were my dreams, and I had a right to them.
I shifted. “Look, if you need my blood, I’m sure we can...work something out. As long as it isn’t too often. As long as that’s all that you want.”
His gaze held me. “No, Cora, that’s not all that I want. It never has been.”
My throat went dry.
“Why now?” I asked. “Why not...before?” I would have given everything to him then. My body, my life. Why had he held back?
He gave a hiccoughing kind of laugh, and he reached out so quickly that I couldn’t react. Suddenly, I was against his chest, his arms around me, his hold as fierce as the light in his eyes. He froze in the next instant, as if his own action had taken him by surprise. I felt the breath he took before he loosened his hold again, taking one deliberate step back, away from me.
“I did want you before, more than you can imagine. Just as much as I wanted your survival, your change. I believed in it, and dared fate to damn me as a fool. But the part of me that knew the harsh mathematics under the hope feared I was already taking your life. I could not—should not have taken more than that.”
I remembered the heavy blanket he had put over me, the barrier he had thrown up between us as a white wall. A wall for him, not just for me.
He said, “You were the first time I violated the promise I had made to myself for many, many years.”
“But it’s different now.” It wasn’t a question.
Dorian captured my hand again, holding my wrist up so that I saw the mark, one no tattoo needle could have made, even as his fingers caressed it.
“We are bonded. There is no wrong in it now, whatever we might do.”
Whatever we might do. Oh, damn, I could imagine too well what that might be. And I was very much afraid that, at that moment, I would agree to anything.
I looked up, into his eyes, and whatever he read in mine made him drop my wrist as if I’d burned him and retreat to the other side of the bed, keeping his back to me. The hand that had been holding mine curled into a soft fist, as if he were holding the memory of the touch.
The darkness was seething around him again. “Get dressed. Have breakfast. Give yourself a little time to make some sense of everything that has happened. We have all the time in the world.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me.
“You will find clothing in your dressing room,” he said, indicating a door with his chin. “I will be awaiting your company in the breakfast room. We can continue talking there.” He put a special emphasis on that word, and I wondered whose benefit it was for.
I nodded again, not really believing that it would end there, not sure whether it was him or me I distrusted most.
Dorian crossed to the door he’d come in by and opened it, then paused in the doorway . He turned back, perfectly collected again, a stone image of a man. “By the way, you will find your phone on the dressing table.”
He shut the door.
Chapter Four
Crap. My phone. Lisette! How long had I been out of contact? She was going to kill me!
I ran through the doorway he had indicated, blowing past rows of empty wardrobes to reach the dressing table. There it was: my phone, sitting on the center of the table with a plug trailing from it.
I snatched it up, pulling the plug out in one sharp motion, and pushed the button to wake it up.
8:47 AM Wednesday, December 24, it read.
Wednesday. Five days had passed. Lisette would be hysterical. I unlocked the phone and was greeted with the message that I had sixty-two unread texts and thirteen voicemails. Most of them were from Lisette.
Yeah. She wasn’t going to be happy.
But what could I tell her? At this point, not much, unless I wanted to seem crazy. There wasn’t much that made sense to me.
I could at least send her a text. I paged through her text messages, scanning them quickly. First came a few “good luck” messages and some casual observations about her family and her “dickwad” brother. Then were requests for an update, growing increasingly urgent. Finally came the announcement: If I don’t hear back from you in 12 hrs, I’m calling the Mont. Co. police.
That was a day ago.
Awesome sauce.
I hit the reply button urgently and typed, I’m fine. The drs had me in an induced coma in Georgetown. Just came out 1 hr ago. Treatment worked. Will call as soon as I can.
I hoped that would satisfy her, at least for the moment. As I shoved my phone in my pocket, an incoming call announcement lit up with Lisette’s name. I didn’t answer. I would talk to her—and, oh God, the police—later. I had the sudden image of the cops tracking my cell to Dorian’s house, banging on the door, forcing their way in past aghast servants, cornering the vampire in his lair....
But would that be a bad thing? I wanted out, after all. And anyway, now I had my cellphone back. I could call for help if I needed to.
Except that Dorian Thorne knew I wouldn’t call for help when I most needed it. Not with him in the room.
I really was losing my mind. I shook my head and stepped back from the table and looked around the dressing room for the first time. Two broad windows let light flood in, revealing a closet that would put most celebrity house tours to shame. Only a small section of it had any clothes, perhaps eight feet in all, but it still represented four or five times the size of my entire wardrobe. There was a note taped up to the wooden divider between the full section and the next one.
Madam, it read, Please avail yourself of this basic wardrobe, which was assembled at Mr. Thorne’s request. Do not consider yourself constrained by my selections in any way, and you may choose to set aside those that do not please you to be returned. Sincerely, Jane Worth.
Oh-kay. That totally wasn’t completely inappropriate. My o
wn clothes sat on a waist-high island, cleaned and, yes, ironed. I opted to put them on instead, and I discovered that they were already slightly less loose. I ran my hands down my ribs and was convinced that they were just a little bit less prominent than before.
There was a door between the dressing room and the bathroom I’d glimpsed from the bedroom, and I splashed cold water across my face, regarding my reflection as I patted it dry. I looked...better. Some of the gauntness was gone from my cheeks, and the dark circles under my eyes were much lighter.
A silver-handled brush and comb set sat on a mirrored tray. New, I decided after some inspection, and tamed my hair into some semblance of order. Even better, there was a fresh tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush still in its wrapper. I made quick use of them.
Hesitantly, I pulled down the edge of my turtleneck, slightly frightened of what evidence I would find there. But there were only a few faintly silvery lines against the unbroken skin where Dorian had drunk from me.
The wounds—I shivered at the memory of them—they must have healed like the needle-mark in the back of my hand after Dorian Thorne had kissed it. Because I wasn’t quite human anymore—or maybe because he wasn’t human at all. I wasn’t sure which, but I knew it was impossible for such an injury to have disappeared so quickly through natural means.
Was I really believing all this? This inanity about blood-bonds and vampires? I frowned at my reflection. I didn’t consider myself to be a gullible sort of person. Wasn’t it much more logical that I was the victim of an elaborate hoax? That would make far more sense than everything I knew about how the world worked being wrong.
Well, there was one way to check, if I had the means and the nerve to do it.
I pulled open the vanity drawers. Manicure tools, lotions, bath oils, cotton balls, bobby pins—and safety pins. There. I pulled one out and unbent it. Taking a deep breath, I chose a shallow vein on my arm and pushed it in.
Crap. I jerked back. Well that didn’t hurt any less than I’d expected it to! I watched as several drops of blood welled up. It certainly wasn’t healing as fast as the mark on the back of my hand. But when I grabbed a cotton ball and wiped away the blood, I couldn’t see the puncture wound beneath—it had sealed without a trace. And I realized that it wasn’t actually hurting anymore, either.
The change was as real as it was impossible. And if it was real, then everything was. He had saved me. Dorian had saved me, but to what end? For his pleasure? For his hunger?
Suddenly, it was too much to take in, too much to believe—and even if I believed it, far too much to accept. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I was being buried alive. My head pounded with panic, swallowing everything.
I had to escape.
The cotton ball fell from my suddenly nerveless fingers, and I ran. I ran without thinking where I was going—just away, out of this place. I hit the bedroom door and charged through.
I was going so fast that I nearly slammed into the iron balustrade opposite the door. I grabbed it with both hands to stop myself, my hips catching against the rail. My head swirled as I looked over the drop into the room below. Scarlet and gold.... I realized that I was on the mezzanine above the enormous, hotel-lobby-like room I had seen the day I arrived. Which meant the exit was...that way.
“Madam!”
I spun at the word. The slim, gray-clad woman stood next to the door, between me and the stairs. I lunged past her, but she made no move to stop me.
“Be careful, madam!” she cried after me.
I ran. There at the end of the mezzanine was the upper flight of the grand staircase I had used when I arrived. I took the stairs without slowing, my feet clattering down them as fast as I could force my sluggish, wasted muscles to respond.
I made it down the first flight to the lobby level, a stitch in my side and my breath whistling painfully in my lungs. A door opened off the lobby, and I knew whose silhouette filled the doorway without looking. The force of his presence reached me across the distance that separated us. I pushed harder—if he got too close, it would all be over, my will crushed in his own.
The great double doors, unguarded, were only one more flight of stairs away. I flung myself down them, willing my feet to move faster.
I saw the fatal step, just six stairs from the bottom, tried to fling my leg out to catch me, but it was just too slow. My body arched out over the stairs, and I braced for the impact of the hard stone—
But it never came. I only saw him for an instant, out of the corner of my eye, and then faster than was humanly possible, he was there, under me, scooping me from the air even as I fell.
And then he had me in his arms.
Dorian Thorne. The vampire.
Chapter Five
“Let go!” I said as soon as I could breathe again. I could feel my body betraying me, the excruciating awareness of him overpowering my senses, filling my brain with the smell of him, the strength of him, my nerves jangling with unwelcome, uncontrollable attraction.
To my shock, that was exactly what he did, setting me gently on my feet and stepping back three steps to the base of the staircase.
I sucked air, trying to clear my head. I stood in the foyer just inside the front doors. Dorian had caught me as I had fallen the rest of the way down the stairs.
There was nothing, I realized, between me and freedom. Nothing except a vampire who could move with superhuman speed....
I edged back slowly toward the doors, watching him warily. He stood there, unnaturally still, his suit unruffled from my rescue, silent and handsome as sin. I didn’t dare look away.
After an agonizing minute of inching backwards, my hands touched the brass doorknob, and I grasped it, almost sobbing with relief.
“Go ahead.”
I jumped at his voice and froze.
“You may leave, Cora,” he said. “I have already told you that you are not my prisoner.”
“You also said I belong to you now,” I said, even as I berated myself. He was giving me what I wanted. Why was I arguing with him?
“You do,” he said simply. “You’re mine. In this house, at your university, in class, in bed. A mere change of scenery cannot alter that.”
I tried to say something, anything, but the force of his influence came over me again, and it was all I could do to wrench open the door and turn to run into the clean morning light—
But I stumbled on my first step out of the door and yelped as the sunlight struck me like a physical blow. I was beaten back into the relative dimness of the house, slamming the door behind me and leaning against it. Gasping as my heart hammered against my ribcage, I blinked my streaming eyes to clear them.
“I recommend good sunglasses,” Dorian said. “And a hat.”
“What have you done to me?” I cried.
He stepped forward, and my hand tightened on the knob again, but I did not twist it.
“I saved you, Cora,” he said. He tilted his head to the side, and it reminded me of the curious motion of a cat before it devoured its prey. “I will be happy to provide you with sun protection, and if you wait for my chauffeur to come around, he will take you wherever you want to go. It wasn’t a trick when I said you could leave.”
He paused. “Or, if you want to know more, you could have breakfast with me, as I first suggested.”
“It was more of an order,” I said. The engraved pattern of the doorknob was imprinting itself on my fingers. I had to tell myself to keep holding on because I wanted too badly to let go, to go to him.
He paused, and I had the feeling that he was reviewing our conversation in his mind. “Ah, and so it was. How remiss of me. Would you care to join me, then? For breakfast?”
Just breakfast? I almost asked. But I didn’t.
The force of him almost seemed to pull me toward him, tattering my resistance. I didn’t trust him—and I couldn’t trust myself. My stomach took that moment to protest its emptiness loudly, and it was all too easy to give in.
“Fine,” I said,
knowing I shouldn’t but unable to stop myself. “But then I’m going home.”
“Of course,” he agreed easily—too easily. “Follow me.”
He turned and started up the stairs without bothering to give a backward glance to see if I was actually following. I frowned at his straight back, hesitating for a moment longer, and then I shook my head and went after him, not sure if I had passed a test or made a terrible mistake.
“The breakfast room is just beyond the grand salon.”
I didn’t answer, unsure if Dorian was trying to reassure me with small talk. If so, it wasn’t working. But at least I had the proper name for the vast hotel-like room in the center of the house: the salon.
He still had not even cast a look over his shoulder as he stalked along the arcade around the perimeter of the great room. I chafed against his confidence that I would follow. But perhaps it wasn’t arrogance. Perhaps he could feel my presence as I sensed his. It was an unsettling thought.
He opened a door that looked much like any other and stepped through. I hesitated on the threshold. Along the opposite wall of the room, behind the gleaming table, light streamed through a broad bank of windows that overlooked a formal garden.
“Why doesn’t this sunlight seem too bright?” I asked, frowning.
“To an ordinary human, it is quite dim. There is a filtering film on all the windows in the house,” Dorian said. “It is one of the luxuries of the modern age that we can dispense with curtains and shades.”
I stepped into the room, ignoring the word we. “What would happen if I stayed out too long? Is sunlight...deadly?” I had a horrifying thought of spending the rest of my life shut away from the day so that I wouldn’t light on fire, like something out of a horror film.
“Not at all, but you would get a spectacular sunburn.” Dorian crossed to a buffet, where an extravagant range of foods was arranged under silver covers and in china tureens, and began heaping various delicacies onto a bone china plate. “We aren’t magic, Cora. We won’t turn into dust and blow away.”
