by Alyssa Day
She was so tired…
When she woke up two hours later, Bane was still sleeping. She watched him for a while, unable to understand how her life had gone from dull to dangerous in the space of so short a time. How a man—a vampire—had blown through her safe, ordered world like a gale-force wind.
She wanted to touch him. To kiss him. To hold him.
Instead, suddenly shy, she very quietly and carefully opened the car door to discover to her great relief that they were in a dimly lit garage, not in a parking lot in broad daylight. She’d find help getting Bane out of the car or find out if she should leave him here, and then she’d go to her place and the hospital for clothes and supplies.
She nodded to herself, decisive, ignoring the bizarre reluctance she felt at the thought.
I don’t want to leave him, even for a little while.
She was in serious trouble.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The second Ryan started to leave the car, Bane’s eyes snapped open.
“Usually guys only fall asleep after sex that they, ah, participated in,” she said, feeling her face heat up.
He breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of her arousal—her pleasure. His cock, which hadn’t fully subsided during his brief slide toward unconsciousness, stood at attention again, ready and willing to take what it had been so cruelly deprived of.
He wanted her again. Wanted to make her silky skin glow again. To drink the champagne of her blood. In all his centuries, he’d never tasted anything like her blood.
Or were his feelings for her making him hallucinate? Were taste hallucinations even possible?
He discovered that he didn’t care, not even a little
Leaning forward, he slid his hand around the nape of her neck, drawing her to him. “If you think I didn’t participate in that, you’re really, really wrong. I may need to give you a refresher on your anatomy classes. That was me between your legs, with my mouth on your—”
“I know!” She smiled so brilliantly it lit up the darkest part of his heart. “I was there, too. I mean, I was sort of there. Mostly, I was floating somewhere in space, out beyond Saturn, watching supernovas cartwheel through the sky, while my brain exploded. Not that you need more fuel for your arrogance, but…wow.”
Damn, but she was beautiful when she blushed. Her cheeks and chest turned the exact color of an English rose in the springtime sun, a sight he hadn’t seen in far too long. He had to kiss her. He had no choice.
And so he did, bending his face to hers and gently taking her mouth. Where before it had been all passion and heat, this kiss was softer. Gentler. A simple reminder that such goodness existed in the world—in his life—and he could reach out and touch her in such a way.
She can never leave me.
The thought shocked him, as much for its intensity as its meaning. He’d only just met this woman, and now he wanted to keep her forever? He had no more right to possess this woman than he did to possess the sun itself.
And yet, to bask in her warmth…forever…what wouldn’t he sacrifice for that?
“Bane?” From her tone, it wasn’t the first time she’d spoken his name. “Are you okay? We should get you to your, ah, coffin?”
Her nose wrinkled, in spite of her obvious attempt to keep her expression neutral, and he started laughing.
“No. No coffin, no grave dirt, no turning into a bat. I can fly, but never in the shape of a rodent, or any other shape, for that matter. What you see is what you get.”
Her mouth fell open before he finished speaking, and her eyes lit up with pure glee. “You can fly? Not just, you know, hover?”
“Yes—”
“Do you grow wings?”
He blinked. “No, I’m not an angel. I—”
She clutched the front of his shirt and shook him. Actually shook him. “There are angels? Oh. My. God. Annie is going to die! Can you fly with somebody? Like Superman and Lois Lane? Can you take me, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, rational thought insists that there is no possible way you can do this, but can you take me flying? With you?” She paused to gulp in a breath. “In the air?”
He stared at her for what felt like a long time. “You’re not at all what I expected,” he finally said.
Right there, right before his eyes, her excitement started to fade. She released his shirt and moved back then turned to leave the car. “Yeah,” she said sadly. “I get that a lot.”
He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back against him. “You’re far, far more wonderful than I could ever imagine a human to be,” he breathed into her ear, not resisting the opportunity to kiss her neck.
The scent of her skin and the pulse of the blood racing through her veins combined into a powerful aphrodisiac, driving him to take. To possess. He clenched his jaw against the urge and forced himself to relax his grip.
He realized he cared about not frightening her, when he’d cared about so little for so long; the epiphany shone like a jewel in his mind.
In his heart? Surely not.
She turned to look at him, her beautiful ocean-blue eyes sparkling again. “Really?”
“Really.”
“So, about falling asleep earlier…”
He motioned to her to precede him out of the car. “Giving enough blood to effect the Turn in someone is very draining.”
She snorted out a laugh. “I see what you did there. Draining. Vampire puns, for the win.”
“I didn’t actually intend that,” he said, chuckling. “You must be good for me.”
“Well. I know how you can thank me,” she said, flashing a saucy grin. “You can take me flying.”
“Maybe not right now.”
“Fair enough. I need to stop by the hospital, go home, and get some food and sleep, and then get my medical bag and come back to see if I can do anything for Mr. Evans. If you—”
Bane slammed the car door behind him, his vision starting to haze into a red sheen. She could not leave him.
She must not leave him.
“No.”
Her brows drew together. “What do you mean, no? No to which part. No to flying? That’s okay, but—”
“No to all of it,” he commanded, putting his hands on her arms and using his most powerful mental push.
She stared at him for several seconds and then backed away. Then she put her arms straight out in front of her body and started walking jerkily toward the door to the house, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open.
“Yesss, Master,” she droned, jerking her head back and forth.
He froze. He’d never encountered such a reaction. What had he done? Had his push been too hard? Had he permanently damaged something in her mind?
She made a sound, and he realized she was choking. He’d broken her. He’d broken this human—this woman—who’d come to mean so much to him in such a short time.
He raced over to take her into his arms but stopped short when he realized that she wasn’t choking at all.
She was laughing.
At him.
Doubled over laughing, in fact.
“Oh, oh. Oh, Bane,” she gasped, still laughing. “What, did you think that you’d zombiefied me?”
Before Ryan, nobody but Meara had dared to laugh at him for three hundred years, and this woman did so—openly—again and again.
And he liked it.
Warmth swept through him, threatening to dissolve the block of ice he called a soul. Threatening to offer him a chance at the most terrifying thing in the world.
Hope.
He suppressed the smile trying to break free and instead, pretending that she’d injured his dignity, he brushed past her to open the door.
“Zombies don’t exist,” he informed her, using his haughtiest voice.
In response, she stood up on her tiptoes and k
issed him right on the mouth. “Oh, honey. You’re priceless. If you could have seen your face.”
Still laughing, she entered the house, calling out a hello to Mrs. C, who was walking up the stairs with a load of laundry. Bane’s housekeeper stopped and handed Ryan a bundle of clothing, shooting Bane a scandalized look, probably due to the buttonless, beltless way he’d brought Ryan back.
Bane just stood and watched them, and then he slowly brought his hand to his mouth to touch his lips. She’d laughed at him.
She’d kissed him.
She’d called him honey.
He realized, standing stock still in the doorway from his garage, of all places, that he would kill for this woman. He’d kill to protect her. He’d kill to keep her. His vision flared red again—just for a moment—and then subsided.
He knew what he wanted. What he must have.
Now, it was all about strategy.
…
Hunter was worse.
Not only was he not in the trance-like state he should have been in, he seemed to be growing more and more feral. Bane could hear him crashing against the walls and door in the safe room from all the way downstairs, where he was waiting for Ryan to come out of the bathroom in whatever clothes Mrs. C had given her.
“Ryan. I have to check on Hunter. Stay here.” He sped up the stairs, entirely unsurprised to hear her open the door and follow him. Did the woman ever listen to anybody?
Edge sat slumped in a chair outside the safe room, head in hands, eyes closed. He looked up blearily when he heard Bane arrive.
“He won’t stay down. I’ve given him blood three different times, and each time he sleeps for less time between feedings. It’s full-on day now; he should be out.” Edge shook his head. “Hell, I should be out. But he keeps… Well. You can hear him.”
Everybody could hear him. Hunter was shouting for Bane each time he hurled his body at the wall.
“I should check his vitals, at least,” Ryan said, walking up to join them. She wore a pair of soft black pants that Meara liked to wear for exercising and a loose, bright purple T-shirt that said Savannah Pirate House on the front.
He considered himself a big damn hero for not staring at her lush, braless breasts, barely contained by that soft fabric.
“His vitals?” Edge sneered at her. “He’s a vampire. What comparative data do you have to judge his vitals?”
Ryan bit her lip but stood her ground. “Nevertheless. Maybe I can find some way to help him. It’s agreed that I can study Bane, and only Bane, but maybe there’s something I can do for Mr. Evans. It can’t hurt to at least try.”
Edge suddenly raised his head, sniffing the air, and then his gaze arrowed in on Bane. “You fucked her? First, you tell her our secrets, knowing she can’t be made to forget them, and then you fuck her?”
Ryan flushed a hot red. She wouldn’t have known how keen vampire senses were.
Edge definitely didn’t realize the fine line he was treading.
Bane needed to teach him a lesson. So he slammed his fist through the wall, right next to Edge’s head.
“You will apologize to the doctor,” he said, very quietly—so quietly that Edge’s silver gaze widened.
They all knew what happened when Bane’s fury grew so powerful that his voice turned quiet and deadly.
People died. Vampires died.
Everybody died.
Edge inclined his head. “Yes. I was out of line. Chalk it up to exhaustion and blood loss.” He stood and held a hand out to Ryan. “I’m sorry, Doctor. That was rude, and, worse, you didn’t deserve it.”
Ryan nodded and shook his hand, and Bane had to fight himself to keep from yanking her away from the other vampire.
“I totally understand. Not at my best here, either,” she said, head held high. “I’d still like to check on Mr. Evans, if you don’t mind.”
“Whatever. It’s up to Bane. I need to get some sleep.” Edge shoved a hand through his hair and then headed toward the hall. When he reached the doorway, he paused and shot a narrow-eyed glance back at Bane. “I’m not wrong, though. And you know it.”
And then he was gone.
Ryan touched his arm, and Bane glanced down to see her glaring at him, her cheeks still flushed.
“You could have mentioned that vampires have heightened senses of smell.”
He couldn’t help himself. He leaned over and kissed her. “You need to stay well back when I open the door.” But then, considering her usual response to being ordered about, he continued. “Please. He’ll be able to smell your blood—the bloodlust is extremely heightened during and just after the Turn—and it will make things more difficult.”
She studied his face and then nodded. “Of course.”
“It’s important. He—” Bane’s mind, already prepping his argument, caught up with what she’d said. “You will?”
A thud and a shout from the warded room made her flinch, but then she shrugged. “I’m not unreasonable. If me being nearby will make things worse, I’ll go stand over there. It’s going to make it hard for me to examine him, though.”
“Once he’s asleep again, we’ll see if we can make that happen.”
She walked over to the far wall and turned and leaned against it.
He took a deep breath and opened the door, braced for Hunter to charge him in an escape attempt.
Nothing happened.
He took a cautious step into the room, which had been entirely trashed, from the chair to the bed to the walls themselves, and caught sight of Hunter, huddled in a far corner.
“It hurts so much, Bane.” The man raised his head, which Bane was shocked to see looked like a skull barely covered with skin. Hunter’s eyes glowed a dark red, and his nails had grown out, which made sense, given the deep, scoring claw marks on the walls and, in one corner, on the ceiling.
The ceiling that was twelve feet off the floor.
“Maybe basketball will be your superpower,” Bane said, attempting a feeble joke, but any humor faded as he looked at what was left of his friend.
“Hurts. You didn’t tell me it would hurt so much,” Hunter growled, and Bane felt every single word as a black mark on his soul.
He’d done this.
And now it was up to him to fix it, when he had no idea what was wrong.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t how the Turn should be happening. I know that is no comfort to you, but—”
Hunter lurched up to stand, staring past Bane. “Blood. I smell—it’s so good. Want. Need. Need! Now!”
Hunter shot across the destroyed room, and Bane braced for impact.
“Need!”
“No,” Bane commanded. “No, you will not go near her. Take my blood. You only want my blood now.”
“Want your blood now,” Hunter said, so brokenly that a spear of self-loathing sliced through Bane. If he’d left his friend to die, as humans did, the firefighter would be at peace now.
But he’d be dead.
No.
Bane’s fangs descended, and he bit into his own wrist before Hunter could savage it. “Here. Take what you need.”
Hunter lunged, grabbing Bane’s arm with newly enhanced strength. He drank and drank, gulping in the blood that he shouldn’t have even been awake to need for another two days. And then, mid-gulp, he glanced up at Bane, eyes widening, and then slowly toppled to the floor, dislodging his new fangs from Bane’s wrist as he fell.
Just like that, he was asleep again.
Bane bent to feel for his pulse and was relieved to find it steady. Inhumanly slow, which meant the Turn was in fact taking effect, but still steady. He bent and lifted Hunter into his arms and put him down on what was left of the slightly shredded mattress lying up against one wall.
When he looked up, Ryan was in the doorway, horror stamped on her expression. “What have you do
ne to him? He was better off in the hospital than like…like that.”
She didn’t add “you monster,” but the words hung, unspoken, in the air between them.
He’d known she’d one day look at him with horror and disgust. He’d just hoped it would be some day far, far into the future.
Not today.
Not now.
“I wanted him to live,” he began, but she cut him off.
“No. Not now.” She rolled up her sleeves and walked into the room.
Shock froze him in place. After seeing that—seeing what Hunter had become—she walked into the room instead of running away.
She was a warrior, and he wanted to worship at her feet.
Instead, he rose and silently watched her approach.
“Now,” she said. “We figure out what’s wrong and how we can fix it.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mr. Evans—Hunter—had destroyed the room. It looked like a tiger had been let loose in it. She glanced at Bane’s wrist. No, not a tiger. A feral vampire. But she’d think about distractions like that later, when she wasn’t in the room with him.
When the scent of freshly spilled blood wasn’t thick in the air, carrying with it such a heavy weight of ancient superstition and very modern fear.
“I need my kit,” she mused, crouching down to examine him.
Bane blocked her from touching Hunter by the simple expedient of lifting her bodily and flashing across the room and out the door.
“Not now,” he growled, his eyes twin blue flames. “I don’t know if he’s truly asleep again or just taking a brief respite before he continues to dismantle the room and anyone who enters it.”
She made a growling sound of frustration right back at him. “I need to examine him, Bane. And at least let me bandage your wrist.”
But when she looked again, she saw the wounds fade to fine, white lines on his skin.
“We heal pretty quickly. Even those marks will be gone tomorrow.”
She inhaled a deep, shaky breath. “Okay. Okay. Well, if we can discover what property in your blood drives your metabolism—your healing—imagine the implications for the rest of the world.”