Much Ado About Vampires do-10 Page 4

  About a hundred feet away, a slight woman with a hunted look on her face was dashing around the rocks in a serpentine manner, tossing a worried look over her shoulder. She glanced toward me, pausing with the body language that said she was going to bolt any second. “Run!” she said, waving a hand vaguely. “There’s a wrath demon on the hunt!”

  “Bully for him. There’s a dead guy here who needs our help.”

  “No one can die in the Akasha,” the woman said, glancing behind her again.

  “Well, someone has, and he needs a proper burial. Are there some sort of funeral-home people here?”

  “No one dies in the Akasha,” she repeated, stepping toward me a half-dozen feet. She peered over the edge of the boulder. “Oh, him. He’s not dead. He’s a Dark One. He simply has no blood left.”

  “He’s a vampire?” I looked down at the man, aghast. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Nothing, unless someone feeds him, and no one is crazy enough to do that. Dark Ones are not to be messed with.” She looked over her shoulder again, suddenly jetting off, throwing back at me, “And neither are wrath demons! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of here!”

  I looked in the direction she had pointed, but didn’t see a sign of any movement. Still, if something scary was coming, it would be best to move along.

  “I’m sorry,” I told the comatose vampire. “It’s nothing personal, but my brother-in-law aside, I haven’t had good experiences with you guys.”

  I hurried off in the direction that the woman had taken, my feet slowing as I thought back about the brush of the vampire’s hair against my fingers. It was long and silky, despite being coated with dirt. And the stubble on that sexy chin had felt soft, yet abrasive enough to make my fingertips tingle. Likewise the soft brown hairs of his chest when I had picked off the beetle. It struck me then that his flesh hadn’t been deathly cold.... It was cool, below room temperature, but not the icy chill of death.

  “Poor guy,” I said again, turning back to look at the obscene rock. I couldn’t believe I was feeling any sort of empathy for a bloodsucking fiend, but somehow, the shrunken, gray-skinned man who lay back there didn’t seem at all to be the fiendish short. He was . . . needy.

  “No one will feed you,” I said, gnawing on my lower lip. The savvy part of my mind told me to run far, far away from the vampire. I knew how deadly they could be—I had almost nightly reminders of that. But the idiot part of my brain, the part that fell for con artists, and lost puppies, and kids who cried in stores because they couldn’t have a toy, that part commanded my feet to take me back the way I’d just come.

  “This is stupid,” I told the man when I got back to him. “You’re a vampire. You’re nothing but trouble. I’m not going to feed you and have you go kill someone.” I knelt next to him, wondering how one went about feeding a comatose vampire. It wasn’t something that came up much at the office. I pried open his lips and smooshed my wrist up against his teeth, prodding him on the shoulder as I said, “Mister? Soup’s on. So to speak. Oh, god, what am I doing? I can’t believe I’m actually trying to save you. Only . . . if you’re as powerful as I think you are, then you can get Diamond and me out of here. OK? Do we have a deal? I give you blood and you get us out of the Akasha? One bite for yes, two for no, all right?”

  The vampire just lay there, his eyes closed, his hair begging to be stroked. How on earth did one resuscitate a vampire? Mouth-to-mouth? I removed my wrist from his mouth, eyeing his lips with concern. He wasn’t dead, but it seemed somewhat creepy to just slap my mouth on his and breathe for him. What if there were beetles in his mouth?

  “Urgh,” I said, shivering. “Too icky. I’d better look before I try that.”

  If anyone told me that one day I’d be kneeling in limbo, prying open the mouth of an almost-dead vampire to see if insects had invaded him, I’d have laughed myself silly. It didn’t strike me at all as funny as I angled the man’s head first one way, and then another, trying to get enough light to see into his mouth. With a muttered apology, I wiped off my forefinger as best I could, and swept it around his mouth to make sure there were no lurking bugs.

  His mouth was surprisingly warm, not moist the way a mouth should be, but slightly humid. I sat staring down at him, my index finger in his mouth, a sudden jolt of awareness hitting me that I was ashamed to admit was akin to arousal.

  It got worse when he started sucking on my finger.

  “Oh, my,” I said, staring in amazement as his neck muscles worked. “Mercy. I think . . . oh, man. Mister? You there?”

  I pried up one eyelid, but his eyes were rolled back. Still, he must have some sort of an awareness if his suckle reflex had been triggered.

  “What could work on a finger can work for a wrist,” I told him, gently removing my finger, letting it trail along his parched lower lip. I was going to edge my wrist between his teeth, but some urge deep inside me instead had me bending over him, holding my hair out of the way with one hand as I angled my neck down over his mouth. A strange awareness prickled along my skin as his dry, cool lips touched my neck. I waited a minute, but he did nothing. With a sigh, I scooted down until I was partially draped over his body, my hair spread over him like a screen as I shifted in tiny little movements until my nose was buried in the dusty silken coolness of his hair. I slid a hand under his neck, pressing his mouth to my flesh, my whole body tight and tense, as if I were waiting for a blow.

  A soft exhalation of his breath warmed my skin for a moment, followed by a brief rasp of his tongue. “Go ahead,” I told him, breathing in the scent from his hair, ignoring the musty smell of the dirt to revel in the woodsy, earthy scent that seemed to sink in through my pores.

  Pain suddenly flared in my neck, pain that quickly turned to heat that rippled outward, flowing down through my veins. I moaned, clutching his head to me, the sensation of life flowing from me to him more arousing than anything I’d ever felt in my life. No wonder Jacintha didn’t mind when Avery needed to feed from her—this was the most erotic sensation I’d ever felt, and that was with a comatose vampire. What would it be like when he was awake?

  The impaired side of my mind cackled to itself that I could even contemplate feeding the vampire after he was on his feet again, but at that moment, I would have been willing to sign away all common sense in order to stay just as I was.

  Two hands suddenly gripped my arms, the fingers biting into my flesh, holding me against him as he continued to feed, the sensation of his mouth making my breasts grow hot and heavy, and much more secret parts sit up and take notice.

  Suddenly, I was on my back, the rocks beneath me digging painfully into my back, the vampire’s body heavy on mine, but none of that mattered. It was his mouth that my entire awareness was focused on, his wonderfully hot mouth still on my neck as he drank deeply, and I had the oddest feeling that I could actually sense the blood flowing through his body, replenishing him, like water poured over parched earth. It soaked into every atom of his being, and with each passing moment, I felt myself soaring on a sort of high, a blissful awareness that I was fulfilling a need that had, until that moment, lain dormant in both of us.

  My hands slipped from his head as I gave myself up to him, floating away on a fluffy cloud of euphoria, content with life at long last.

  Chapter Three

  Alec couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He had rolled over to find a woman in his arms. She lay on top of him now, her head limp against his neck, her heart slowly beating, yet at the same time he could swear he felt it beating within him, as well.

  Someone had fed him. Someone, this woman lying across him, had, for an unknown reason, fed him.

  “Who are you?” he asked, his voice harsh and rough from his coma.

  She didn’t answer; she just lay across his torso, her body warm on his. He closed his eyes for a moment at the pain that awareness brought with it.

  Dammit, he wasn’t even allowed to escape the hell of his life through near death. He was to hav
e no peace, no relief; not even the insensibility of a coma was to be granted to him. His heart, or what remained of it, was sick with the knowledge that he had an eternity of even more torment to exist through.

  “All right,” he told the woman, shoving at her arm. “You’ve done what you were sent to do. I’m awake and miserable. Get off me.”

  She made no move, just continued to lie there on top of him.

  And the damned rock still dug into his back.

  He sighed, wondering how much more torment he could survive before going stark, staring mad. Insanity seemed like the only route open to him, the only escape of the torment of his life, and yet, his pride had always held him back from just simply going mad. Now he wondered if it wasn’t easier than existing for each excruciating second.

  “You’re hurting me. Not that you probably care, but I’d like to get up and smash a certain rock to gravel, so if you’d kindly remove yourself from me, I’d appreciate it.”

  The woman still didn’t move, and it struck Alec at that moment that her heartbeat was too slow, her body too heavy on his.

  “Miss?” he said, prodding the woman.

  She lay limply on him, her breath shallow on his neck. For a moment, he closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of her. She smelled like wildflowers after a rain, clean and pure and sweet as honey. Unable to stop himself, he turned his face into her hair and breathed deeply, pulling her scent into his lungs, burning it to his memory.

  Something inside him thrummed as the deep hunger awoke again. He inhaled deeply again, wanting to feed on her, wanting to take within himself the warmth he knew she held, the sweet, spicy taste of her blood still on his tongue. If he turned his head just a little more, he could reach her shoulder. He could drink until he was full. He could take everything she had to offer, every last sip of life, and roll her off him. She deserved it for torturing him this way. If only she didn’t smell so damned good . . .

  He growled a few oaths to himself as he shifted her off him, letting her roll into the spot he had chosen for his final resting place, crushing that foul rock into nothing before examining his torturer.

  She was mortal, apparently in her early thirties, with brown hair, arched eyebrows, and a delicately boned face that was covered in freckles. Her lips were slightly parted, and he had to fight with himself to keep from bending over her to taste their pink sweetness. With a connoisseur’s eye, he cataloged the rest of her—large breasts, broad hips, probably slightly over medium height, big-boned . . . not at all the type of woman he found attractive. He preferred his women on the slight side, delicate and frail. This woman, while not an Amazon, looked every bit the phrase “hearty peasant stock.”

  Hearty peasant stock or not, he knew he’d taken too much of her blood. Her heartbeat was steady, but it had probably been a close thing. He wanted to tell himself that it didn’t matter, that she was clearly there as part of his punishment, but guilt pricked him nonetheless.

  Guilt and something else. He caught himself enjoying the sweep of her hips, the rounded weight of her breasts beneath a washed-out blue tank top. Her arms were also freckled, and for some reason, that pleased him.

  “Wake up,” he told the woman, placing his hands on her arms and shaking her slightly. “I’m tired of looking at your hips. You will awaken now.”

  She said nothing, just lay there, unconscious. He frowned at her, his gaze straying once more to her breasts, down to the curve of her dusty jeans. He would not be attracted to his tormentor.

  “Wake up!” he said louder, and shook her again. “If you don’t wake up, I will slap you.”

  Her chest rose and fell with a shallow pattern of breathing.

  “There are times when I’d give anything to never have been born,” he muttered, staring at her mouth before tapping her on the cheek.

  She didn’t move.

  He tapped a little harder.

  Her forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Ow.”

  He smiled. “Are you awake now?”

  The frown grew, although her eyes remained shut tight. “No. Go away. I was floating. I want to float again.”

  “You’re done floating. Wake up.”

  Her eyes screwed up. Just what he needed, a stubborn torturer. “Don’t want to. Want to float.”

  “By the saints, woman, that wasn’t floating. I almost killed you.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered a little, but remained closed. Color was returning to her cheeks, he noticed, his gaze once again on her mouth. Lips like strawberry cream, he thought, then gave her another little shake. “It’s time for you to wake up now. You’ve floated long enough.”

  A little smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “I like your voice. It’s sexy. If I can’t float, talk some more.”

  You don’t know what you’re saying. I took too much blood, and almost killed you.

  Blood? Oh, yes, I remember that. You’re the vampire who looked like three-day-old roadkill.

  Alec jerked backward. She couldn’t have just done what he thought she had done . . . could she? Only Beloveds or someone with a close family tie could do that, and lord knew, his family and Beloved died out centuries ago.

  Thanks to you , I no longer look like roadkill, he said, eyeing her.

  That’s good. She stretched and opened her eyes.

  “Oh, pretty,” the woman said, reaching up to touch his face. “I always wanted to have green eyes.”

  You shouldn’t. You have lovely dark eyes. They’re very exotic. What the hell was going on here? Why was she able to talk to him this way? It made no sense, unless the fact that he had been so close to death and she had fed him had established a blood bond.

  They’re plain old brown. She blinked a couple of times, her eyes widening, surprise and no little amount of wariness filling her mind. “Uh . . . how did you do that?”

  “I don’t know.” He examined her face again, finding its delicate lines more pleasing with every perusal. “I don’t recognize you, yet you seem familiar somehow.”

  “Maybe we knew each other in a past life,” she joked, rolling herself up to a sitting position.

  As soon as she spoke, she froze, staring at him with huge, horrified eyes.

  “What is wrong with you? ” he asked, not used to women gawking at him as if he were a monstrous beast.

  “Vampire,” she whispered, tickling a memory in the back of his mind.

  He saw again the pooled light from the front of his house in California as it spilled onto the tiled front walk, remembered the three women who had too much to drink, and had evidently picked his house to visit. He remembered also the woman who took one look at him, screamed, “Vampire!” and fainted at his feet. “You were at my house a couple of months ago, weren’t you?”

  “Oh my god, I didn’t recognize you.” The woman tried to backpedal, to crawl backward, but the boulder was in the way. All she did was succeed in plastering herself up against it. “I didn’t realize it was you, or I wouldn’t have—”

  “Wouldn’t have what? ” he asked, his eyes narrowing. “Tortured me? Dragged me back to awareness? Made my life once again an endless cycle of damnation ? ”

  “Fed you,” she said, making Alec shake his head.

  “Where do you know me from?” he asked, not believing her pretense of innocence.

  “I saw you kill a woman,” she said, glancing to her right, obviously weighing up the chances of her success escaping him.

  “Slim to none if I didn’t want you to,” he told her, and smiled, making her press herself back against the rock as he leaned forward, catching again her scent of wildflowers. “And at this moment, I don’t want you to leave. What woman?”

  Her mouth dropped open a smidgen. He couldn’t resist rubbing his thumb over her lower lip, gently pushing it upward until she glared at him, brushing away his hand.

  “You mean you’ve killed so many you don’t know which one?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve killed a couple of reapers when it was them or me, yes. Are you with
the Brotherhood?”

  “No, I’m a lapsed Catholic,” she answered, her gaze moving over him. You look better. Your color is back, and you look even more handsome than I imagined. You’re downright simmering with sensuality, as a matter of fact. Just being close to you makes me dizzy with all sorts of emotions that I really do not want to have.

  His eyebrows rose a little at the candor of her inner monologue. I didn’t think I was particularly simmering, but I will admit that despite your actions, you intrigue me sexually.

  Her eyes got huge again as she blushed. “Oh my god, you could hear that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Even the bit about me being dizzy?”

  “Even that.” He frowned. “You appear embarrassed. Why would you project to me if you did not wish me to hear your thoughts?”

  “I didn’t project! My brain just thought those things up without my permission.”

  He gave a mental headshake. Surely she didn’t expect him to fall for that?

  “I think I’d better leave.” She got to her feet, immediately staggering into him, her legs buckling beneath her.

  “You’re too weak yet,” Alec said, catching her before she toppled over. He could feel her head swim with lack of blood. “You lost too much blood. Why didn’t you stop me before I took too much?”

  She let him push her back down onto the ground, gently guiding her head down between her knees. “I didn’t know you didn’t have an auto stop when you were full up.”

  “I do, but replenishing all the blood I lost would have killed you. What is your name?”

  “Cora. Corazon Ferreira. Do you know my sister?”

  “Corazon,” he said, rolling the word around his mouth. It meant “heart,” a fitting name for a woman who was so determined to stab him in his. “Spanish?”

  “Hispanic. Mom and Dad came from Chihuahua. The place, not the dogs, of course. What . . . er . . . what is your name? Patsy never told me.”