by Tessa Dawn
"You are my blood destiny," he repeated, interpreting the words in English, "the other half of my soul. You are the love I have waited a lifetime to find. The gift I will spend a lifetime trying to become worthy of. Your heart was revealed to me beneath the blood moon, your spirit chosen by the goddess Cassiopeia to be honored, cherished, and favored by me—above and beyond all others—for all eternity. Do you accept this as your true destiny?"
Jocelyn smiled. "Yes, I do...if you do...."
He chuckled softly. "Jocelyn Levi, do you come to me now of your own free will?"
Jocelyn nodded. "Yes, Nathaniel; I do."
"Will you relinquish your heart, your life, and your body into my care? To be transformed, remade, and reborn? This night, unto forever, to be made immortal?"
Jocelyn weighed his question carefully: She couldn't find the words to answer. Turning to face him, she kissed him gently on the mouth and nodded her head. "Will you always take care of me like you do now?"
Nathaniel's smile lit up his eyes, a beauty to rival the heavens. "Oh yes, iubito mea, always."
She turned back around. "I will."
He nuzzled her cheek, slowly exhaled, and then resituated her in his arms. "I want you to relax into me, baby." He gently stroked her hair, then tenderly pulled it away from her neck, tucking it behind her. "I need you to try and let go; do not fight me, if you can help it."
Jocelyn nodded as he gently stroked her neck, the pads of his fingers brushing over her artery again and again in a hypnotic rhythm.
And then he gently tipped her head to the side, urging her ear down to her shoulder. His arms tightened in a viselike grip, the muscles of his legs tensing around her.
"Breathe for me, angel," he whispered, and then he lowered his mouth to her pulse.
He licked the artery with a soft swirl of his tongue, gently scraping his teeth back and forth against her skin. A soft purr escaped his lips. When she was finally, completely, relaxed—
like a child who had fallen under a spell—she felt a tiny pin-prick, two sharp stings, at the surface of her skin.
And then his teeth sank deep.
The piercing pain jolted her out of her trance, and her body went stiff, her muscles clenching as she waited for the intense sensation of his entry to end.
It felt as if it would go on forever....
The simple act of Nathaniel inserting two razor-sharp fangs into her flesh, piercing through muscle, spearing past tendons, sinking deeper and deeper...until she caught at his arms and tried to pull away.
He didn't let up. He didn't relent. He didn't retreat.
He simply continued to apply steady pressure until his incisors were deeply nestled into her throat, leaving her utterly stunned by the severity of the pain.
Jocelyn struggled for breath, unable to speak. She felt his hands massaging her arms, his thumbs rubbing in soft, caressing circles, a gentle purr rumbling from his throat. And she tried to relax into it, but that was a bit like asking someone to lie down on a razor blade without resistance. It went against her every instinct.
"Shhh," he managed to whisper, even with his teeth lodged deeply in her throat.
And then the real pain began....
Poison. Venom. A burning sensation began to swell as toxic fluid poured into her veins...slowly seeping through the artery with tremendous pressure as it invaded her blood stream.
Jocelyn cried out in misery: What had she expected? A mosquito bite? A bee sting? A flu shot?
The amount of toxin being injected into her vein was like that of a thousand wasps stinging at once, a rattlesnake that wouldn't let go...a two-hundred-twenty-pound scorpion, shooting enough fatal venom into her blood to reshape her entire physiology.
What had he said? Transformed, remade, reborn. He was killing her. He was slowly...insufferably...destroying what she was so that he could remake her as something else.
Panic began to set in.
It was one thing to hold one's breath through a rabies vaccination—or even the insertion of an IV—something one expected to hurt but knew would end soon. It was quite another to try to endure such a thing indefinitely...the initial pain of injection going on and on until every muscle, organ, and tissue in her body was consumed by the searing toxin.
She tried desperately to hold her breath. She shut her eyes. She clutched at his arms. She dug her nails into his flesh, but nothing stopped the torture. It was simply, utterly-and absolutely—unbearable.
There was nothing Nathaniel could have said or done to prepare Jocelyn for the agony she was enduring: Her blood vessels felt as if they were about to burst—the very veins themselves resisting—as if her body were not only rejecting, but downright refusing the foreign inoculation.
And there was nothing left in her constitution that was strong enough to endure such an assault a moment longer.
Jocelyn felt like a failure.
A desperate, suffering, helpless failure. She had wanted this so badly. She had wanted Nathaniel...so very badly. And the stakes were so extremely high, but—
"No more."
Her voice was an anguished whimper. And then she cried out as a fresh burst of pain racked her body. The blistering venom was really starting to spread out now, flowing downward toward the trunk of her body, approaching her chest and her heart. And it burned like acid.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she began to struggle with much more ferocity. She tried to sit up, to wrench her body free of Nathaniel's iron grip. Her legs kicked and her arms flailed, but he only tightened his hold, his powerful thighs like cords of iron clamping down over hers.
"No, Nathaniel!" she screamed, pleading for mercy. "Stop!
You have to stop. I can't do this."
He didn't budge. He didn't panic or even react. He simply continued to inject the painful venom into her veins.
And then the vampire's toxin reached her heart.
A brutal cry of terror ripped from her throat as her body began to shake violently, convulsing in waves of agony until she finally began to seize.
Jocelyn fought wildly.
She clutched at his arms. She scratched and pulled at his hard muscles in a frenzied attempt to break free. She thrashed her head from side to side, trying to dislodge his fangs. She even clawed at his eyes and kicked back at his groin—anything, everything—just to break free, to stop the unbearable pain.
When nothing moved him—when no act of desperation brought her freedom—she at last began to beg and cajole:
"Nathaniel, you have to stop. Oh God, please...I know...I know what it means for you, and I'm sorry...I'm so sorry."
Her tears fell like rain. "But if you love me...if you care at all...you will stop."
The seizing continued, and the pain grew worse...as if that were even possible. "Please," she pleaded, her voice hoarse with desperation. "Just let me die. I can die with you; we can still be together. Please, Nathaniel...don't do this."
She struggled against him with all of her might then, pouring every ounce of energy she had into freeing herself.
"Stop it!" she demanded. "Do you hear me? I want you to stop!"
When all of her energy had been spent, she sobbed. "How can you do this to me? Why, Nathaniel? Oh, God, please...please...make it stop."
Nathaniel wanted to speak to Jocelyn so badly. He wanted to soothe her, to tell her she was halfway there, to convince her to hold on just a little while longer, but her anguish was so great...her pain so intolerable...he could hardly bear it. He couldn't console her telepathically yet, because his full concentration was required to initiate the conversion.
He knew she felt betrayed, abandoned, and deceived—and it was breaking his heart. But he also knew what stopping would mean...for both of them: not only his death, but hers.
Her human body could not survive such a lethal injection of vampire venom, and without completing the transfusion, her vampire body would not be strong enough to accept the conversion.
He wanted so desperately to end her pain
.
He would have gladly accepted his own death, allowed her to live on without him just to stop her agony, but he couldn't.
It just wasn't possible. This was an all or nothing proposition that would take life from—or give life to—both of them.
Nathaniel couldn't speak. He couldn't console. He couldn't do anything but restrain the beautiful woman in his arms as she suffered so terribly at his hands. And he didn't dare risk withdrawing his fangs, not even for a moment, because he knew he could never pierce her again.
Nathaniel shut his mind off to the sound of her cries, afraid that she might actually convince him to allow them both to enter the Valley of Spirit and Light together.
He had heard tales of conversion....
The males had been taught all about the powerful transition at the Romanian University: what happened physically, how long it might take, the proper way to administer the venom, how to restrain the recipient....
But nothing in all his long centuries of living had prepared him for what he was witnessing now.
The woman he loved, the destiny he had promised to honor, cherish, and favor above all others, was in indescribably agony: because of him.
Tears began to well up in his eyes and he struggled to hold them back. Jocelyn was pleading with him now, like a helpless child, begging him for mercy.
She actually used the word mercy.
Nathaniel gently merged with her mind, trying to make sense of what she was going through—to share it, even if he couldn't end it. And what he found was a red cauldron of pain, panic, and confusion, a fear so great it had taken the place of reason. Jocelyn was experiencing nothing less than...torture...and it had robbed her of her will to live.
Nathaniel could feel the sensation of his own venom pumping into her body as it violently attacked her internal organs, destroying them from the inside out. The assault was merciless on her blood, and the pain was like nothing he had ever witnessed before. No one—male or female, human or vampire—should ever be asked to endure such torment.
Nathaniel held her closer. His hands massaged her arms where he gripped her, even though he knew it was a worthless comfort. As tears streamed down his face, he felt as if his heart might shatter into a million pieces. In all of his centuries of living, he had never felt more helpless.
And so he prayed.
As he beseeched the grace of the Celestial Deities, for the first time in decades, Nathaniel pleaded for an end to Jocelyn's suffering.
Yet time continued to pass. Slowly. Painfully. Until prayers became curses and sorrow gave way to rage. Still, Nathaniel fought to hold it together. For both of them. To keep his fangs securely lodged in her neck...
As he forced the venom to continue flowing.
Chapter Twenty-six
Jocelyn was too exhausted to fight anymore. The pain had finally won. She felt like death was near now, and she prayed it would come swiftly.
There was no more anger at Nathaniel, no more sense of betrayal or panic...no more begging for mercy. Only the sweet anticipation of an inevitable end.
The transformation obviously hadn't worked.
And curiously, she wondered why....
Why had her body refused the conversion?
As Jocelyn drifted in and out of consciousness—the pain now blessedly causing her to black out—she thought about Nathaniel, how painful his death would be, and she hoped it would be nothing like this.
She thought about Ida, her next-door neighbor, and the family she would never have. And she thought about her fish.
Who would take care of them now?
And then all at once, the room seemed to fill with colors, like an iridescent rainbow swirling through the air. Nathaniel seemed to move farther and farther away, slowly drifting out of her awareness, until she could no longer sense the rock-hard arms that held her or the powerful legs wrapped around her.
The jagged teeth embedded in her neck no longer felt as foreboding. Maybe the pain had washed away all of her sins—did she really have that many sins?—so that when she did finally die, there would only be absolution awaiting her: forgiveness, peace, and eternal rest.
She laughed aloud, or at least she thought she did. How silly it all seemed. Maybe it had all been just some sort of crazy dream....
Vampires.
Werewolves.
A beautiful, sexy man who lived only for her...adored her...worshipped her.
Immortality.
Now that she thought about it, it had definitely been a dream. Then why did that damn fire in her veins persist on burning?
And then the strangest thing happened.
A bolt of electricity shot through her, like nothing she had ever felt before, and she felt an abrupt, undeniable release, like that of her spirit letting go of her body, moving all at once into a new host. This must be what death felt like: a sudden pop. A simple...letting go.
As the cumbersome weight of her human body seemed to disappear, oxygen poured into her lungs with extraordinary efficiency, and vitality surged through her veins like a flood of new life—invigorating her senses, awakening her mind. Her joints and muscles swiftly came alive: revitalized, energized, rejuvenated. Her heart began to pump fresh blood through her veins like a four-star general sending his elite troops into battle, arousing every organ and tissue to its highest state of renewed health.
Jocelyn felt perfection in her body: staggering health and vitality...
And power.
Like she could leap buildings, or fly...run with the wind.
Maybe she was an angel after all.
Jocelyn didn't have to test her newfound strength to know it was there. She felt it in every cell of her body: the complete absence of illness, the total lack of vulnerability to disease, the utter removal of every toxin or pollutant that had been stored in her kidneys or liver for so long.
And mental clarity—
Her five senses were outrageously enhanced. She could hear the wind moving through the trees outside, the individual rustling of the leaves. She heard a robin singing more than a mile away.
And she could smell—
The spoor of cougars in the forest, the rich scent of pine, and the sweet aroma of wet earth beneath the river-beds.
She could even distinguish between the various spices and perfumes in a jar of potpourri that sat on Nathaniel's pine dresser. Pine smelled different than birch. And birch smelled different than aspen. Their needles and leaves made distinctly different sounds. There was a symphony to nature—harmonious, glorious, beautiful.
Now that her fear was gone, Jocelyn could taste its residual evidence in her mouth; she could actually separate the flavors of fight versus flight. And she could acutely feel Nathaniel's body behind her: the perfection and contour of every lean muscle that touched her. She could hear his heart beating in his chest as clearly as if it were her own and she was listening through a stethoscope. And she could...identify...his thoughts. As if his electrical impulses were firing in her brain.
Am I dead? She tested the telepathic question.
She heard a huge sigh of relief, although the sound was not an audible vibration but a stimulation of the mind instead.
No, my love.
She felt his joy!
How are you feeling?
Mental telepathy: Holy shit! She could read his mind, and he was reading hers. They were talking without their mouths or ears. Speaking...and hearing...with incredible clarity. And the nuances were far more varied, far more precise than they ever could have been from using the inner ear. It was like receiving sound in high-definition.
Am I—
Immortal? Yes, you are.
Jocelyn could still feel the venom pumping into her body, restoring the last remaining cells and tissues, but it no longer felt like poison.
More like the fountain of youth.
Everywhere it flowed it brought health, vitality, and a powerful awakening.
Jocelyn closed her eyes and began to revel in the warmth and pleasure
of the life-giving substance as her pain gave way to ecstasy...a high unlike anything she had ever felt before.
Her head fell back and she moaned, her neck rubbing languidly against Nathaniel's mouth like a cat stroking its body against a leg. She was seeking the immense pleasure of the physical contact now, the sheer ecstasy of his fangs still embedded in her neck. She was drawing him in...wanting...needing...the way he felt: so good. So very, very good.
She wanted more of what he was giving her.
A low-pitched, feminine hiss escaped her mouth as the pleasure completely enveloped her, and she felt Nathaniel's body instantly respond with the same urgency—as a tremendous arousal centered in his groin.
Jocelyn purred like a kitten then, knowing just what buttons to push in order to entice the powerful male vampire behind her. Her mate. It was like she was inside of him now—inside of his head, his heart, his skin—and the answering jerk of his sex confirmed that she knew exactly what she was doing.
You are feeling much better, my angel, he drawled.
She could feel him smiling.
Jocelyn reached behind her and stroked his glorious hair. I have never felt this good in all of my life.
Instinctively, Nathaniel bit down harder, his deep fangs sinking even deeper. Only this time, Jocelyn didn't fight him.
She didn't shriek or cry out in pain or try to stop him. Rather, she trembled from the pleasure of it and let out a deep, husky moan of satisfaction.
You like that? Nathaniel purred, sounding pleasantly surprised.
She arched her back and rubbed up against him in answer.
Oh yeah, he whispered, his psychic voice growing hoarse.
You like that, all right.
Jocelyn's breasts suddenly felt incredibly heavy. Her nipples became hard and painfully erect as desire pooled like a river into her core, flooding her senses with liquid heat. She needed...wanted...with an urgency she had never felt before.
