“Hello, Eric,” she said coolly.
I slid into the booth beside her, careful not to crowd her. “How’ve you been?”
“Oh, you know. Busy.”
Devin stood aside while Cassie took a seat opposite us, then scooted in himself. “It’s nice to see you again, Gianna.”
“You, too,” she said, though her voice held a hollow note of insincerity.
“That’s a great blouse,” Cassie said to her. “Where’d you get it?”
I let their conversation flow around me, content to listen, though I did raise a questioning eyebrow at Devin. How had he gotten Gianna here? I caught the answer from his mind. She needs to feed. Not in the same sense that a vampire did, no, but still. She’d been taking small bits of my blood nearly every day for weeks. While I was nowhere near being a full-blown vampire, my late lapse notwithstanding, stopping cold turkey from drinking even diluted vampire blood carried the risk of unpleasant side effects. Nausea, dizziness, an overwhelming urge for blood of any kind. If she didn’t want to see me again, I’d learn to respect her decision, but she needed to wean herself off the blood first.
I’d tried to warn her about that. Apparently, Devin had had better success there.
Figured.
Halfway through the meal, I casually sliced my thumb open on the sharp end of a fang before offering her a pinch of meat from my burger. Her eyes widened and the color leached from her skin.
“Take it,” I urged quietly. “No one’s watching.”
She glanced between it and me, and my gut pinched at the worry in her expression. “It won’t turn me?”
“No. Here.” I pressed the meat against her lips. “Your hormones are out of whack. This will help.”
Devin hmmd just loud enough to catch my attention.
“What?” I said.
“You can smell her hormones?”
“Yeah. Can’t you?”
“Not like that.”
His brow furrowed with real concern, though I kept my mind closed to it. There were still many, many things I didn’t know about the world of the Vampyr, but whatever worried him was something I didn’t want to know, especially in light of my indiscretion a few nights before. If I was turning too fast, there was no help for it. My path had been set the moment Elizabet slipped into Devin’s bed and offered me her throat.
I coaxed Gianna to finish her hamburger and part of mine, and fed her enough of my blood to be reasonably sure she wouldn’t be harmed because of the lack. Her wariness endured long enough for me to give in to the temptation to probe her mind gently, and what I found there puzzled me. She was mostly ok with the sex, even the sex that had involved more than one person. (I drew a clear image from her mind of an energetic foursome involving me, her, Cassie, and Dev, and winced with shame. Damn me and my lack of control.) What troubled her the most was that I’d vamp out on her, hurting or perhaps killing her in the process, and that I’d hidden what she considered the important parts of my job as a vampire’s pet.
Namely, sex with another woman.
Sure, the other stuff had freaked her out a little. Me giving her permission to be intimate with other people, particularly Jason, who had a mega crush on her. The whole you’ll be my queen and rule at my side gig. (Jesus. Were all vampires that cheesy?) Very much against her strict Catholic upbringing. But my not dishing the full deets on my relationship with Elizabet really bothered her. I could feel the questions burning in her mind, mostly, Why didn’t he tell me?, followed closely by, I thought I meant more to him than that.
Of course she did. I was just too cowardly to tell her, had been all along. It was what had held me back from sharing the truth. I’d been so afraid she’d leave me. And now, she had. It felt a little like a lose-lose situation, like no matter which way I’d gone with it, she would’ve left me anyway.
When the meal was finished, I walked her to her car, and kept my hands stuffed into my coat’s pockets so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach for her. “Come by the apartment in a couple of days,” I said. “Or I can come to you, if you’d rather.”
Her eyes drifted away from mine, as if she couldn’t stand to look at me any longer than she had to. “Your place is better.”
“Sure. Fine. Ah.” There was really no delicate way to bring it up, so I just blurted it out. “Don’t be mad at Jason. He’s a decent guy and he really doesn’t deserve to be punished because of my mistakes.”
She jangled her car keys against her thigh. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good.” I stood there like a dolt, trying to think of a way to prolong the conversation, and came up with a complete blank. “I guess I’ll see you soon.”
She opened her door and got in, started her car, and eased into traffic without looking back once. I watched until her taillights disappeared around a corner, then headed toward Devin’s car. We didn’t speak on the way back to my apartment, and maybe that was a good thing. I didn’t have a whole lot to say that wasn’t a pity-fest, and I was pretty sure I’d knock heads together if I had to listen to Dev and Cassie being all lovey-dovey.
I said goodbye at the car, wished Cassie a Merry Christmas, and accepted a swift but potent kiss from Devin.
God, he had a great mouth. Didn’t know if I wanted him to use it on me. I mean, kissing was ok, fondling not so bad, but he didn’t want to stop there.
Sometimes, I didn’t want him to.
It was too much for me to process, not on top of everything else that had happened, so I let it go, food for another night’s thoughts.
When I was safely ensconced in my apartment, I texted Jason, let him know I’d be around for a couple of days. He texted back almost immediately. late practice nxt cpl days. cu after nxt out o town game. Then a couple of minutes later, xoxo.
I was pretty sure he didn’t mean kisses and hugs, but it made me laugh.
Finals went about like I thought they would. Mom began to hound me to come home for Christmas, even though I’d told her weeks before that I’d be there on Christmas Eve. “I just worry about you,” she said, and I rolled my eyes, glad for once to be talking to her over the phone so she wouldn’t catch me being disrespectful.
Devin called to remind me about the annual Christmas party at Elizabet’s. I hedged on whether or not I’d go. It wasn’t mandatory and, frankly, I was still trying to wrap my head around everything that had happened. Being there right then didn’t seem like such a good idea.
Mostly, I stayed home, watched reruns, gave my mind a break from studying and worrying about, well, everything. Before Devin had taken me to Elizabet’s, before I’d become a pet, my life had been on a steady and firm track. I’d known exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. The last few days had changed a lot of that. I’d originally planned to take a year off, maybe intern somewhere before going into a Master’s program. That was out the window, had been since I’d signed the pet’s contract, but now it seemed too risky. What if I vamped out in the middle of an office full of people? Hell, what if I did that in the middle of class? No need to ask what would happen. After Marco cleaned up the mess, he’d put me down like a rabid dog. I didn’t want to hurt anybody else, and I sure as hell didn’t want to die.
A few days later, Jason came by straight from practice to hang out. We ended up ordering in pizza again. While we waited for delivery, I sprawled across the couch in front of the boob tube and he took a shower. Though, why he had to take one here was beyond me. Didn’t they have showers in the locker room? I’d asked him that and all he’d done was give me a slow, sexy grin. It finally hit me that he’d wanted an excuse to be naked around me.
Honestly. I was accumulating potential lovers faster than I could figure out what to do with them.
With Gianna gone, I’d had a lot of time to consider that night, the night I’d gone crazy. Some of it was coming back to me, but most of what had happened was still locked tight somewhere in my brain. Regardless, one thing had finally become clear. If I hadn’t wanted to be with Devin, deep do
wn in the secret part of me that was hidden from everybody, myself included, I never would’ve had sex with him. That realization shifted my entire way of thinking. All along, I’d thought I was tolerant of other people’s sexuality because, hey, I’m a tolerant kind of guy, but I’d never thought I’d actually be with a man, not in that way. Until Devin, it had never occurred to me that I might enjoy it, that I might crave another man’s touch. I loved women, loved sinking into that sweet flesh, loved the scent and sound and shape of them. My heart belonged to a woman. Apparently, though, my body was less picky.
It should’ve amused me, and would have if the knowledge hadn’t left me reeling.
A knock sounded on the door and I rose to answer it, expecting the pizza delivery guy. When I opened it, my breath caught. Gianna stood on the threshold, her fingers plucking at the hem of her coat.
“Hey,” I said. “You didn’t have to knock.”
“It didn’t feel right to just come in.” Her eyes darted around the small space of my apartment as she stepped inside and took off her coat. “I thought you might have somebody here.”
A sharp pang twisted in my gut. She meant another woman. I guess I deserved the hit, though I didn’t have to like it. “Why would you think that?”
She lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. Jason chose that moment to walk into the room, nude except for a pair of boxer briefs, and I cringed. I hadn’t forgotten he was there. Hard to miss the images he’d projected very loudly from his mind while he was jerking off in the shower, of Gianna sitting on his face while he pleasured her pussy and me with my mouth on his dick. Pretty much an extended version of what we’d done a few nights before. So, no, I hadn’t forgotten him. I had hoped he’d at least come out fully clothed. Kinda hard to explain a half-naked guy exiting your bedroom to the woman you loved.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Gianna. “Hey, Gianna.” A blush crawled up his face, turning his cheeks ruddy. “Sorry. Eric let me borrow his shower. Um, where can I hang my towel?”
I stifled a sigh, grabbed Gianna’s elbow automatically to keep her from leaving. “Just drop it on the floor. I’ll throw it in the wash while we eat.”
“Thanks, man.” Jason darted a worried look between me and Gianna and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll just…wait in here while you guys talk.”
Gianna yanked her elbow out of my hand as the bedroom door shut with a quiet click. “Are you sleeping with him, too?” she said in a voice thick with emotion.
“We’re bonding over our mutual love of a woman. That and pizza.” I fumbled with an explanation, something that would make sense without hurting her. “I’ll probably end up introducing him to Elizabet, though, so yeah, we might have sex someday.”
She gave a broken laugh. “I feel like I don’t even know you.”
I rubbed her arms, couldn’t help the need to touch her, to comfort her. “Don’t say that. I’m still the same person.”
“Yeah, maybe. I guess I just didn’t know who you were until the other night.”
“That wasn’t me,” I protested. “I swear, that wasn’t me. If you’d just let me explain…”
She put her hand up, pushed at my chest, and I dropped my hands to give her space.
“Stop, Eric, please. I can’t take any more.”
“Ok.” I took a deep breath, willed the heartache to recede. “I guess you’re here to take my blood.”
Her gaze fixed blankly on a point over my left shoulder. “Can we hurry? I need to get home.”
“Sure. Ah, you want to have a seat?”
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself, looking so vulnerable and alone that my heart squeezed painfully. I sliced my thumb open and heaved a relieved sigh when she accepted it willingly, holding my hand to her as she suckled my thumb.
At the restaurant, there’d been enough distractions, enough noise and people, that I’d been able to tamp down the sexual desire roiling through me with each draw of her mouth on my thumb. Now, it was just the two of us, locked together by whatever it was that made vampire blood so compelling and addictive. I gathered her to me with my free arm, buried my face in her neck, and breathed in the spicy scent of her skin. Heat roared through me and need, and I licked, taking her into me.
She moaned low in her throat and tilted her head to the side. I could sense her blood rushing through the pulse in her neck, her heart beating; felt her need rising up, begging for release.
Take her, a voice whispered in my mind. Take your queen and turn her.
Yes, I thought. I should do that. I should turn Gianna so that we could be together forever. It was only right, only fitting that a woman as beautiful and giving would be my companion for eternity.
My canines lengthened and sharpened in my mouth. I grazed them against her skin, took her broken moan as an assent, and pushed them gently into her flesh, withdrawing them immediately to minimize the pain. Sweet Gianna with her luscious blood. It filled my mouth, a delicious treat. I twisted her around, pressed her back to the door, and lifted her one-handed until my aching dick rested in the cradle of her legs. She wrapped them around me and rolled her head back against the door, releasing my thumb as she did.
“Eric, God,” she moaned as I ground against her. Her hands tangled in my hair, holding me to her neck. A little more, the voice whispered. A little more and she’ll be ready.
Ready to turn. Gianna, my heart. Forever my heart.
“What the hell?” a male voice barked, and then hands were on my shoulders, pulling me back from my beautiful queen.
I let out an angry roar as arms came around me, lifting me off the ground. From a great distance, I was aware of Gianna collapsing against the door, her hand pressed against her neck, of the shocked paleness of her face.
“Calm down now, Eric,” the man said in a low voice against my ear. “You’re scaring Gianna. You don’t want to do that, do you.”
“Never…hurt her,” I panted in a ragged voice I didn’t recognize. It jarred me enough to dissipate some of the haze, enough that a slow horror crept through me. I inhaled sharp breaths, forcing myself back from the edge of a madness that was all too familiar. When my control was firmly back in place, I said, “You can let go now, Jason.”
He hesitated long enough for me to know exactly how afraid he was, even if I couldn’t feel his fear pounding against my mind in harsh waves. His grip loosened gradually as he eased me down until my feet touched the carpet. “Steady now,” he said.
When he let go, I dropped to my knees in front of Gianna, pried her hand away to assess the damage. Jason left and came back with a wet dish towel while I gently prodded the flesh around the bite and did an internal assessment. The blood loss was minor, the bite mark shallow enough that it would heal quickly. I sat back with a relieved sigh and shifted away to give Jason room to clean Gianna’s throat. She held a hand out for me and I grasped it, squeezing gently.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I know.” A tear streaked down her face. She sniffed and scrubbed it away. “Don’t feel bad.”
I barked out a laugh. “No way to stop that.”
“Next time you have to take her blood, you’re not doing it alone.” Jason sat back on his haunches and rolled the towel into a cylinder. “You scared the shit outta me, man.”
“Me, too,” I admitted. My hands shook with it. Jesus. If he hadn’t been there, what would I have done to her? “Thanks for stopping me.”
He shrugged a massive shoulder, shot a rueful grin at me as if to say, Why else do you keep me around?
A rapid knock came to the door, startling us all.
“Probably the pizza.” I pushed myself into a stand and locked my knees to keep from falling again. “Can you take care of her?”
“Any day.”
Jason gathered Gianna to his chest and rose with an effortless fluidity that stirred my envy.
“Show off,” I muttered.
He grinned at me and strode with her to the couch whi
le I answered the door and paid for the pizza. We talked her into staying long enough to eat, ensconced between the two of us on the sofa. I have to admit it; we coddled her, spoiled her, treated her like the queen she was. The color came back into her face as her hunger was sated and the fear left it, though I could still sense it creeping through her heart. An hour later, she left, promising to come by in a couple of days, to call me if she felt odd or had any sudden urges to bite someone. She even kissed my cheek before she left, which gave me a hope I hadn’t felt since that awful night.
Jason walked her down to her car. When he came back up, we vegged in front of the TV, made deep male grunts to communicate with the occasional gesture thrown in to liven things up. His need pressed against me, a gentle push that I knew I’d have to deal with later. Not that night, though. I’d reached the end of my rope where the world of the Vampyr was concerned. Later, I’d figure out a way to fold Gianna back into my life, figure out where my budding friendship with Jason was headed, and what I was going to do about Devin. For now, though, I relaxed into the couch and let my mind wander, content to let the movie playing on TV distract me from the new reality of my life.
The way things were shaping up, it was going to be a long winter.
I wasn’t really looking forward to it.
Episode 4
The Cold Man
Chapter One
January in Atlanta was usually mild. If there was weather, it was a cold, pounding rain that brought misery wherever it landed. This year, midmonth we had six inches of cold snow overnight, bogging down traffic and sending everyone into a frenzy that was just as miserable to endure as rain would’ve been.
I left class early and rode with Devin to Elizabet’s, afraid I’d never make it on my own to our monthly appointment. He called Marco halfway there to let the favorite know we were on the way and might be late.
Good ol’ Dev. He should’ve been a Boy Scout, had been, for all I knew. In spite of our friendship, there were a lot of things I still didn’t know about him, but this one was certain. Devin was always prepared, no matter what life threw at him.
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