by Lynsay Sands
“So, what did you call about, Holly?” Gladys asked when she remained silent.
Grimacing, she bit her lip briefly as she tried to come up with an excuse for calling, and then said, “I just wanted to remind you that I can only work part-time again after this week.”
“Oh, yes, your classes start again,” Gladys murmured, the sound of shuffling papers coming through the phone. “Well, that’s okay. I’ll put Nancy on the days you can’t work,” she assured her, and then asked, “You did schedule your classes so you have two days free each week again, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I e-mailed my class hours to Beth on Monday,” Holly assured her and glanced toward the ceiling when James called her name from upstairs.
“Oh, good, good,” Gladys said. “I’ll get them from her and work out how to handle the Sunnyside taxes. In the meantime, I should let you go. You need to leave for work soon, I’d guess.”
“Yes. Thank you.” Holly said good-bye and hung up, then headed upstairs to see what James wanted.
She found him in the bathroom, staring down at the clothes she’d stripped off earlier to take a shower. The black jeans, T-shirt, leather jacket and makeshift bandana all lay in a crumpled pile on the floor. Holly bit her lip, knowing he would want to know whose clothes they were. In his rush to get to work last night he hadn’t seemed to notice the borrowed clothes she was wearing, but he wasn’t in a rush now and there was no mistaking them for anything but a man’s clothes. He would want to know whose they were and how she’d got them.
“Jeez, Holl, you give me hell all the time for leaving my socks laying around instead of putting them in the hamper, and then you go and just leave all of your clothes where you take them off?” he asked with a combination of amusement and irritation. “I saw them there when I came in, but then forgot they were there and tripped on them on the way out of the shower. I could have knocked myself out or something if I’d hit my head on the tub or toilet. As it is I think I wrenched my shoulder catching myself on the counter.”
Holly let her breath out on a slow sigh. He hadn’t noticed they were a man’s clothes. She supposed it was hard to tell from a crumpled heap . . . maybe. Her gaze shifted to his shoulder as he rubbed at it with one hand, his expression pained. James was shirtless, wearing only his pajama bottoms. He had a nice chest, muscular enough to have some definition, but not overly so, and with just the slightest paunch. He was an attractive guy. Always had been. It had always made her wonder if she even would have caught his eye if they hadn’t been thrown together by the lives their parents had led.
Holly’s parents were archaeologists. She’d spent the first eighteen years of her life being dragged from one dig to another. Most of that time she’d lived in tents and had been homeschooled in camp . . . by James’s mother. His father had also been an archaeologist and a lifelong friend to her father. They’d worked together. James’s mother, a teacher before she’d married his father, had traveled with them to look after her and James and had schooled them both. Holly had grown up with James. They’d been each other’s only friends. He’d been her first kiss, her first date, her first everything and she was the same for him. Marriage had been the natural next step and it was going beautifully. They never argued, never disagreed. In fact, this was the closest thing to a fight they’d ever had.
“I’m sorry,” Holly murmured, stepping forward and urging him to turn his back to her. Once he did, she began to massage his shoulder. “How was work?”
“Oh, same old same old,” he muttered as she pressed her thumbs into the knotted muscles. “That feels good. A little gentler though please.”
Holly eased her grip, her eyes following the line of James’s shoulder to the curve of his neck. He had his head turned away and her position behind and a little to the side gave her a perfect view of the muscle that ran down from his jaw to under his clavicle . . . and the external jugular vein that ran over it. She could almost see it throbbing under the skin. Holly found herself staring at it as she worked the muscles of his shoulder and had to fight the urge to touch and kiss him there. This wasn’t the day they had sex. James was always exhausted after work and she was always in a rush to get out the door. It was no time to initiate something and she knew it, so just waited for the desire to recede.
But, instead of fading away as she’d expected, the hunger inside her seemed to grow stronger, and she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze away from that pulsing vein. Holly had the oddest urge to run her tongue along it. Bizarre, but she blamed it on the smells coming off of him. James smelled . . . well, yummy. He’d just showered, so she expected it was a new cologne he was using or something. Whatever it was, it was heady with a deep rich scent, almost tinny but in a pleasant way.
“God woman, are you trying to dig a hole in my shoulder?” James said on a pained laugh. “Gentler, please.”
Holly tore her gaze from his throat and glanced forward, freezing when she spotted herself in the mirror. Horror was rushing up within her when Holly noted movement behind her. In the next moment something snaked around her waist even as a palm slapped over her mouth. She was dragged away from James and out of the room so swiftly, it left her off balance and struggling to keep her feet under her as she was whisked down the stairs and through the house. It seemed like barely a blink later that she was being released in the garage and left to find her own balance as her captor stepped away.
Managing to keep her feet under her, Holly turned sharply on her attacker, not terribly surprised when she saw that it was Justin Bricker. The note he’d left in her car had said he’d be here when she needed him . . . and she needed him . . . or at least someone right now.
“I have fangs,” Holly said faintly, hardly able to believe what she’d seen when she’d caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror upstairs.
Justin merely nodded and eyed her warily.
For some reason that infuriated her. At least, she was suddenly terribly furious, and demanded, “What have you done to me?”
“Saved you,” he answered at once.
“For what?” she asked sharply. “Some sort of living death as a vampire?”
“You aren’t dead,” he assured her solemnly. “I turned you to save your life, not end it.”
“Vampires are dead,” she snapped.
“But you aren’t a vampire. You’re an immortal,” he said firmly.
“Buddy, you can call it a retort, but it’s still just an incinerator to burn bodies in,” she said grimly.
He blinked in confusion at that. “What?”
“It’s— Never mind,” she said wearily. “The point is, you can call it immortal all you want, but if it has fangs and sucks blood it’s a vampire.”
“But if it has fangs, sucks blood and still has a beating heart and a soul, it’s an immortal,” he countered.
Holly merely stared at him as the last part of his comment repeated itself through her head. So she still had a beating heart and a soul?
“You should know you do . . . at least the heart. It’s thundering up a storm right now. Surely you can feel it?”
Holly glanced to him sharply. “I thought you couldn’t read me.”
“I can’t,” he said with surprise.
“Then how did you know I was wondering about that?”
“Because you said it aloud,” he explained, his words gentle.
Holly was silent for a moment, concentrating on paying attention to her body. After a moment, she became aware of the frantic thudding coming from her chest, as well as a pulsing in her head. Her heart was pumping, thundering up a storm as he’d said. She was alive. The news was such a relief that Holly nearly fell over. At least her knees went weak and she would have fallen had he not reached out to steady her. Once she was solid again though, he released her as if she were a hot potato. Holly found it oddly insulting.
Clearing his throat, he moved sev
eral steps away and then turned to say, “I’ll need to train you.”
“Train me for what?” she asked, wary now herself.
“For survival,” he said grimly. “We have laws, rules, a certain conduct that is expected from us. Breaking the laws can see you punished and then beheaded.”
“Beheaded? Are you kidding me?” she asked with amazement. When he shook his head, she protested, “But that’s positively feudal.”
“We’re an old race,” he said with a shrug and then shifted impatiently and moved toward the door. “You’ll need to dress so we can go.”
Holly blinked and glanced down at herself, becoming aware for the first time that she was still wrapped only in a towel. She supposed she’d been so shocked to see those fangs protruding from her mouth in the bathroom mirror that she’d forgotten everything else. She found it surprising, though, that she hadn’t lost the towel when he’d grabbed her and dragged her down here. She was also rather surprised that James hadn’t noticed and chased after them.
“My husband—”
“Is in bed sleeping,” Justin assured her. “In his mind, he thanked you for the nice back massage and then crawled into bed.”
“How do you know that?” Holly asked.
“Because that’s the suggestion I put in his thoughts as I grabbed you when you were going to bite him.”
“You controlled James?” she asked, outrage seeping out in her voice.
“He can’t know about any of this,” Justin said with a shrug.
“But . . . he’s my husband. I shouldn’t keep something like this from him.”
“You’ll have to,” he said simply.
“But—”
“He’ll just think you’ve had a nervous breakdown and are crazy. That’s what you thought when I told you about us, isn’t it?” he pointed out.
Holly felt herself flush guiltily. It was exactly what she’d thought. That he was a madman. It seemed he wasn’t so mad after all. He had turned her. Did that mean she really had hit her head and fallen on scissors? She peered down, her hand moving slowly across the skin exposed above her towel as she wondered where the scissors had gone in.
“Is the turn why I can’t remember anything that happened?” she asked finally.
“I don’t know,” Justin admitted. “It shouldn’t be from the head wound since that’s healed.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and then he added, “Or at least the visible part of it is healed. Marguerite did once say that the turn can continue long after the turnee is up and walking again. That it takes care of the big things first and then continues on to the smaller, more time-consuming repairs over time afterward.” He shrugged as if that wasn’t important. “If the nanos are still working on the inner repairs, you could yet regain those memories.”
“What are nanos and who is Marguerite?” Holly asked at once.
Justin opened his mouth, closed it again, and then said, “Look I’ll explain those two things and anything else you want to know, but not here, not now, and not with you standing there in nothing but a towel. Now let’s go in and get you dressed. Then we can go somewhere and talk about anything and everything you want.”
“Why can’t we do it here?” she asked at once.
“Because your husband can’t know about this, and,” he added firmly when she started to speak, “Because I don’t have any blood here for you. And unless you want to do your first practice biting session on your husband, I suggest we go somewhere where I do have blood for you.”
“Why would I practice biting at all?” she asked, alarm creeping into her voice. “Back at the hotel you said we don’t feed on mortals anymore.”
“I said it was against the law except in emergencies,” he corrected. “The time may come when you’re miles or hours away from bagged blood and may be in desperate need. Maybe you had an accident, or your supply was destroyed. If anything like that happens, you’ll need to know how to feed off the hoof without killing the donor.”
“Off the . . .” Holly peered at him with horror as she grasped what she thought he meant. “Seriously? You call it that?”
Justin sighed impatiently. “Off the hoof, takeout, two-footed fast food—call it whatever you want so long as you learn how to do it properly and without causing harm to the mortal you feed on.”
“I would never—”
“Never say never,” he interrupted solemnly. “Now, can you please get dressed?”
Holly would have liked more questions answered, but now that she was aware of her scantily clad state, she was self-conscious. Getting dressed seemed a good idea. Nodding, she moved past him and slid inside, aware that he was on her heels as she crossed the kitchen. That didn’t surprise her, but she was a little surprised when he trailed her upstairs as well. When he then tried to follow her into the bedroom, she stopped dead and turned to hiss, “I can manage on my own from here.”
“What if he wakes up?”
“So?” she asked with irritation. “He’s my husband, he’s seen me dress before.” Well, not really, she acknowledged. Mostly she took her clothes with her into the bathroom and dressed there, or used the closet door as a shield. She wasn’t comfortable being completely naked, even with her husband. He might notice the cellulite, or a stretch mark, or her muffin top. That was also why she insisted on the lights being out when they had sex.
Much to her relief, Justin backed off and let her enter the room alone. Tiptoeing now, Holly crossed to the closet and pulled out work clothes. She had agreed to talk to Justin mostly because of the promise of blood. She wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of having to consume blood, but she didn’t want to risk not having it and running around biting people willy-nilly. Sadly, Holly wasn’t sure whether she would have bitten James or not, but certainly she’d had some strange thoughts going through her head as she’d eyed the pulsing vein in his neck. Kissing it had been her first thought, but that had been followed by the idea of licking it like it was a lollipop. Holly had never had the urge to lick his throat before or any other pulsing vein on the man. She couldn’t say that she might not have licked and then bitten into the vein. All she’d been aware of was that she was terribly hungry and he’d smelled soooo good.
He still did, Holly thought, glancing to the sleeping man in the bed as she stopped at the closet. She could smell him from there, a distance of at least eight feet. That was new. Allergies had plagued her from childhood on and left her sniffling most of the time. She’d always been the last to smell anything, including skunk. Now she could smell her husband from across the room.
“Weird,” she muttered, and firmly turned her back on him to consider what she should wear. In the end, it wasn’t a hard choice. Holly didn’t have an extensive wardrobe. She had a pair of black pants, a pair of navy blue pants, two pairs of jeans, half a dozen T-shirts in various colors and four blouses, one white, two cream, and one red that she had received from her mom for Christmas and hadn’t yet had the courage to wear. Holly snatched up the red one now and her black pants, then walked over to the dresser beside the bed.
Laying the clothes on the foot of the bed, she opened the drawer and pulled out some standard white cotton panties. She tugged them on under the towel, noting that they fit a little loosely. Thinking she must have grabbed an older stretched-out pair, she shrugged and next grabbed a bra. It was also standard white, and Holly finally dropped the towel, surprised when she had to grab the panties to keep them from sliding right off with the towel. Jeez, they were really loose.
She’d probably lost some water weight while unconscious the last two days, she decided, but then glanced down at herself. As a rule, Holly avoided actually looking at herself. She didn’t like seeing the lumps and bumps and the muffin top. It was depressing as hell and made her feel unattractive.
She didn’t see any of those lumps and bumps now though, and her usual muffin top was missing. Her
stomach had the slightest roundness to it and she definitely had hips and a waist. She would never make it on the runway where stick figures walked in high heels, but . . .
“Damn, I look good,” Holly breathed as she actually braved appraising herself in the dresser mirror. She had the figure of a movie starlet of old, Marilyn Monroe and women of her ilk, who looked like women and not like flat-chested boys as seemed to be the rage now that thin was in.
This was not the loss of some water weight while unconscious for two days. This was a full body remodel. There wasn’t a spot of cellulite or even a pimple. Her skin was like porcelain, and her figure perfection.
“Damn,” she breathed again, hands rising to slide over her stomach and then down over her hips. This was . . . awesome! Grinning, Holly quickly tugged on the bra she’d retrieved, noting that it still mostly fit, though she had to do it up at the tightest fastenings rather than the loosest now.
Still smiling widely, Holly turned to the bed to collect the blouse and pants and then paused as James chose that moment to murmur in his sleep. He followed that up with turning onto his back, and tossing the sheets and blankets aside so that he lay sprawled on the bed in only a pair of boxers. It wasn’t the sight of him in his drawers that made her halt, but the wave of James-smell that rolled over her. Not that he stunk: he had taken that shower just before lying down. That wasn’t the smell that crashed over her like a wave. It was something else, a cocktail of strange scents she’d never smelled before yet seemed somehow familiar. Her senses were obviously a bit keener than before, and Holly suspected what she was smelling was pheromones, hormones, skin and that coppery something that had smelled so yummy earlier. Tinny and . . .
“Crap,” she muttered. It was blood. She could smell James’s blood. How the hell could she scent it through his skin? And why was the aroma so damned delicious all of a sudden? She’d never even noticed the odor of blood before or that it was especially attractive. She certainly had never enjoyed the taste on the rare occasion when she’d stuck a cut finger in her mouth. Now . . . damn, but her mouth was watering at the scent of it and she was fighting the urge to crawl up the length of her husband on the bed. She could actually see herself sinking her teeth into several hot spots on his body along the way—behind his knee, his thigh, his groin, his wrists, inner elbow, his neck. They were all spots she was pretty sure housed major veins or arteries . . . and Holly had no idea how she knew that.