Once Bitten: A Paranormal Vampire Romance (Arcane City Book 1)

by Tilly Hart

  The familiar thrum had spread up through my torso as her sheer vitality flowed out of her, seeping into me like a parasite. A parasite that infected my every fibre, sneaking through me and whispering ungodly things into every dark crevice within me. It was always the same when I was near a desirable woman. Their blood sang to me, begged for me to indulge. It wasn’t the way anymore. The humans outnumbered us like ants at a fucking picnic, and despite our abilities, we had to tow the line. Donor bags. Animals. The blood junkies.

  So I did what I had to do. I had let her go.

  If I was the last man on earth, she wouldn’t be interested.

  Because I wasn’t even human anymore.

  I was a vampire.

  Three

  REBECCA

  The ten-minute wait. The two week wait. My life had been reduced to a series of procedures and waiting and failing. Repeatedly; course after course, test after test. The latest test, after the latest wait, shook in my fingers as I sat on the toilet in my pyjamas. The first blue line had appeared instantly, but a second hadn’t. I knew that Ben would hover impatiently at the other side of the locked door. The first few tests, more that three years previously, he’d been beside me, waiting together. But I could no longer handle the intense desperation that leaked from him, as he waited, the surge of never ending hope that I no longer shared.

  My foot jumped impatiently against the cold tiles as the walls pressed in around me. Not for the first time, I wondered how I’d ended up there. The man I thought I had loved replaced by a pressure cooker wannabe baby daddy, my life reduced to little but my faulty womb. It was a topic of conversation wherever we went. To my in-laws, at our joint workplace, amongst our friends. Everywhere we went, talk would turn to our lack of children and my 'issues’. They were never our issues. They were mine.

  The clocked ticked on and the blue line remained single, destined to be the harbinger of disappointment. Except that it wasn’t sadness that rushed through me. You’d think after a third round of IVF, after the needles, and hormones and egg collections and exhaustion that I’d be heartbroken, but I wasn’t. Relief flooded every inch of me. A wave of utter relief followed by crippling guilt.

  It would devastate Ben.

  When we’d met, at twenty and in college, Ben had impressed me with how together he was compared to our peers. Focused, driven and intelligent. Not one of the bumbling dick-heads looking to see how quickly they could drown their liver before trying to land their prick into the nearest girl. He had been so mature. But as the years passed, the plan became a hindrance to me, rather than the security it had once represented. There had been so many things I’d wanted to do, wanted to try, but that Ben talked me out of because the deviation from our life plan would have been too great.

  Sex. God, I missed actual sex. Ben and I had lacked the crazy passion I’d heard my girlfriends swooning over, but at least it had been consistent, at first. Until we turned twenty-five and gained another checkpoint on the plan. Ben had always wanted to have his first child at twenty-five, second at twenty-eight and get married with two adorable children at our sides when we hit thirty. I’d never particularly wanted children and had resisted. But when our friends began pushing out the cute little fuckers, Ben went baby mad to the core. After a few months, I reluctantly agreed to ditch the pill and try. The thing they don’t tell you, when you are trying for a baby, is that after a year of failing, the sex becomes an exercise in boring, fraught, timed necessity. You don’t feel desired, or wanted, you feel like a reluctant panda being forced to reproduce.

  And then came the IVF. The months of injections and hormones and appointments and disappointments. The raging moods and low lows. All for a baby I didn’t even know if I wanted, with a man I could barely sleep in the same room with. We were three years behind Ben’s plans, and with every day that came and went, I was more rooted to the spot than ever. I needed a break. To reconnect.

  With a sigh, I pulled up my pyjama pants and steeled myself to kick the metaphorical puppy.

  The door hit Ben with a soft thwack as I opened it.

  ‘Jeez, Ben, you don’t need to stand right behind the door.’

  ‘So?’ There they were, the big old puppy eyes, still filled with pointless hope. I handed over the test.

  ‘Sorry.’

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and waited for the inevitable reassurances which always followed the negative result. It’s not your fault. We can try again. It will work next time.

  Ben stared at the results window for much longer than it took to confirm that it was a big fat nope. Without looking at me he spoke in a soft, hurt tinged voice.

  ‘Why aren’t you upset?’ he asked, his eyes never leaving the test.

  My mouth opened, but I didn’t have the words to fill the space between my lips.

  ‘Why are you never upset? You should be. This should tear you apart. It tears me apart every time.’ He threw the test at the wall, splintering it into pieces. Broken, just like us.

  ‘I… I never wanted this.’ I spoke into my lap, my breath catching in my chest at the admission. I’d wanted to scream the words at him a thousand times before, but never had I said them anywhere other than in my head.

  ‘Wanted what? We had a plan. You knew my plan when we met. And now you don’t want it?’ Ben slumped down next to me on the bed and looked at me with raised eyebrows and watery eyes.

  ‘I didn’t realise you wrote it in fucking stone, Ben. Plans change. Life changes. It’s not my fault I’m not a baby making machine. We were trying for you, not for me.’

  ‘You don’t even want kids?’ Red crept up from Ben’s collar and infused his cheeks.

  ‘I don’t know. But I didn’t want this. I was twenty-five, I wanted to have some excitement in our lives before we became parents.’

  ‘Our lives are exciting enough.’

  ‘No, they aren’t! We have pot roast at your Mum’s every Sunday. We have drinks after work on Thursday with the same people in the same bar. Pinot Grigio, one glass, then home for the same shitty programs with the same meals in front of the TV while we ignore each other. Even sex isn’t fun anymore on the rare occasion we have it. Everything in our life is so functional. Where is the excitement? Where is the spontaneity? Don’t you crave it?’

  Ben looked at me as though I’d sprouted two heads and turned purple. ‘No. I want to settle down. I want a family.’

  ‘That’s the problem, you don’t want me! I’m a means to get what you want, to hit the next point in your plan. I need to feel wanted.I need to be a priority. What if we can’t ever have kids Ben? What then? What if I say no to more treatment? I’m sick of feeling faulty, I’m sick of being stuck in the ass with a needle full of hormones for weeks on end which drive me up the wall. I sick of it all.’

  ‘You don’t want more treatment?’

  ‘No one wants IVF, Ben. They put up with it to get something they want more than anything. But you are the one who wants it, and I am the one who has to deal with the side effects.’

  ‘I don’t care what anyone else wants. Are you refusing to try again?’

  I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat feeling like it was blocking my windpipe, and lifted my eyes to Ben’s.

  ‘Yes.’

  With that one paltry word, I saw a coldness enter his usually warm brown eyes. A hardness that he’d never subjected me to in the eight years we’d shared. ‘Then I’m done.’

  ‘Done trying?’ Hope surged in me for the first time in years. Maybe I’d been wrong about Ben, maybe I could be his priority. Maybe we could make it work with just the two of us.

  ‘No. Done with this. I’ve wasted eight years with you. Eight fucking years, Rebecca! If you didn’t want kids, you should have told me at the beginning. Do you know how far off course this puts me?’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ I stood up and rounded on him. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve wasted your time with me? I’m a human being, not just a means to incubate babies for you. Do you thin
k I wanted a chocolate teapot of a womb? Do you even love me? Did you ever? I would have given you children if I could, but I can’t.’

  My breath came in sharp rasps as I spat the questions at Ben, my chest raising in angry puffs.

  ‘Love is overrated. Passion is overrated. I thought what we had was more than that, Rebecca. I thought we were on the same page. Passion dies. We were on a steady course, you and I.’

  ‘I would have had kids for you, because I loved you. It’s not my fault.’

  ‘Maybe it is. Maybe you just didn’t want it enough.’

  ‘That’s not how science works.’

  As we came to an impasse we stood facing one another, his face beet red, while my heart ached in my chest. Was this really the end? Our whole lives were entwined in one another’s. We worked in the same office, shared the same friends, lived in the same house. Without Ben, I’d be alone. My parents still lived in England. Clarity hit me like a shovel to the face. I’d built my entire life around Ben, and I couldn’t stand him anymore.

  ‘Look, we’re just emotional after the test.’ Ben said, flipping his anger to a look of pity. ‘I’ll take the spare room and we can hash out a plan tomorrow, figure out how to get us back to trying again.’

  Another plan. It was always a fucking plan.

  I’d had enough.

  No more plans.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ Ben stopped in the doorway and looked back at me with surprise.

  ‘No. I’m done with plans.’ I grabbed a holdall from the wardrobe and haphazardly threw some clothes and toiletries into it, followed by a phone charger and whatever else useful came to hand. Ben stood and watched, his mouth tightened into a firm line.

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic, Rebecca. Where do you intend to go? What about work?’

  ‘Anywhere but here. I can’t do this for one more minute. I’ll come back for the rest of my things and I’ll find a new job. Tell Steve I quit.’

  ‘Rebecca, you can’t just walk out of your life like that on some stupid notion that you need a guy who is obsessed with you and only you. Life isn’t like that.’

  That’s when I smiled, because for the first time in a long time, I could do whatever the fuck I wanted. I didn’t have to consider Ben’s plans.

  ‘I want to be wanted, and you can’t give me that. So yes, I can.’

  And I did. I grabbed my purse, threw on some jeans, and I left Ben stood on the doorstep telling me to get back inside and act like a rational adult.

  As I walked down the street, away from the only home I’d known since coming to the US, I had a fresh spring in my step.

  For the first time in eight years, I was free.

  I spent most of the day just enjoying the peace and quiet, listlessly walking from place to place in the city, people watching and relaxing as life rolled on by. It wasn’t until night fell that I questioned my haste in leaving home. While I regretted leaving Ben not even a little, home was safe. The city was not.

  I opted for a motel close to home and booked a room out for the night on their website. Feeling a touch more confident after securing a place to sleep, I stopped for a quick drink in the bar next door.

  The instant I walked in, the hair on the back of my neck lifted, and I bit my lip as all eyes turned to me. The bar was dark and dingy, people hovered at the edge of my vision in obscured corners, but feeling emboldened by my recent walking away from Ben, I continued in to the room taking a seat at the bar. I cleared my throat, awaiting the barman to turn around, but he remained focused on the game on the small TV in the corner.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said in a soft voice, my fleeting bravery dying by the second.

  The bar tender turned, and I watched as his bushy eye brows shot up his face. ‘Looking for someone?’

  ‘No. Just a drink, please.’

  ‘Sorry, it’s just, this isn’t the place we see the likes of you.’

  I looked down at myself, knowing that I was pretty ordinary on the whole. ‘What do you mean __the likes of me__?’

  A faint blush crept into his cheeks as he wiped the back of his sleeve over his forehead. ‘Nothing. Didn’t mean nothing. What can I get you?’

  ‘A glass of white wine?’ An old guy at the end of the bar snickered and nudged his friend.

  ‘Not that kind of place. Beer or shorts?’

  Heat reddened my own cheeks as a few more chuckles came from around the bar. ‘Beer, please.’

  I vowed to drink the one beer and then scuttle out with my tail between my legs. Despite the judgment seeping into me from the bar’s usual patrons,I would finish that drink with my head held high.

  As the last dregs of the bitter brown liquid filled my mouth, I moved to stand, but a hand touched my waist from behind.

  To my surprise, it was the biker. The one from the Louis’ Pizza.

  ‘Can I get you another?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, I’m not exactly welcome here.’ As I stood, he grasped my fingers, just for a moment, and pulled me back to sitting.

  ‘You’re with me, and none of these fuckers will give you a hard time. Right?’ He looked around at the men surrounding up and all eyes slid away from his gaze.

  ‘Thank you.’ I adjusted myself in the seat and smiled awkwardly as the barman places another beer in front of me.

  ‘Anytime.’ He took a swig of his beer, a glint in his eyes as he watched me take a tentative sip of my own. ‘I don’t mean to pry, but what the fuck is a girl like you doing in this shit hole?’

  The barman didn’t even flinch at the slur upon his establishment, though it would have been hard to describe it as anything else. I weighed my options as I took another drink. I could lie. The stranger would never know. I could spill my guts about Ben, but no one wants to listen to that. I chose neither.

  ‘Staying next door tonight, just needed a nightcap.’ Keep it vague, Rebecca, you have no idea who this guy is.

  ‘So roach infested is your bag?’

  I laughed, ‘No, roach infested isn’t my bag. Have you ever been in there? It’s not so bad.’ I knew, because I’d stayed there during one epic fight Ben and I had had a few years back.

  ‘No, was that an invitation?’ He was a cocky son of a… my stomach churned at the suggestion, sending big old flares to my neglected nether regions.

  ‘It was not,’ I said, firmly but still with a smile. He may have been cocky, but damn did he look fine while doing so. It couldn’t hurt to flirt, just a little. It had been years since I had given into a flirtation.

  ‘Shame…’

  ‘So you are a biker, right?’

  He nodded, one eyebrow lifting a touch at my question.

  ‘What’s it like?’ I might not be ready to just into bed with a total stranger, but he was the most exciting thing to walk into my life in eight years.

  ‘Being a biker?’

  ‘Yeah. It must be so full of adventure.’

  He almost choked on his beer as he laughed. ‘I’m not sure it’s the adventure you think it is. There’s never a dull day though, I’ll give you that.’

  I put my chin in my hand and sighed. ‘The bike must be fun though, speeding along with the wind in your hair, nothing but open road ahead. That’s the sort of adventure dreams as made of.’

  He licked his lips as he leaned in close, the hint of aftershave lingering between us. If he’d have kissed me right there, I’d have been putty in his hands. He didn’t. ‘There are two things in life that give me a thrill these days. Riding and fucking, and I’d be happy to introduce you to either. The bikes out back want to come for a ride.’

  The way he said ride fanned the flames in my pants to a roaring fire, and I had no words to respond. My brain told me going with him was not only stupid, but a horrible idea, yet every inch of me screamed to go with him. To give in to temptation and live for once, even if only for a night.

  But I couldn’t.

  After years of sticking to the sensible option, I no longer had the brash st
upidity of youth on my side, and regretfully I shook my head.

  ‘It’s not that I’m not tempted. Running away for a wild night has never sounded better. And you… are probably exactly what I need right now, but I just can’t hop on a bike with someone I don’t know and ride off into the night.’

  He looked neither surprised nor hurt by the rejection, but grinned and leaned in to me, placing a hand on the back of my neck and getting so close there was barely a breath between us. My brain all but melted as my loins took over all sensibility completely. I closed my eyes, waiting for the kiss that never came.

  ‘I’m not a stranger, the name’s Jed.’

  ‘Rebecca,’ I whispered back, all but consumed with his fingers entwined in my hair and feel of his chest as I placed my hand under his open jacket, just the thin fabric of the tee-shirt separating his well-muscled physique from me.

  ‘Catch you around, Rebecca,’ he said, standing up and throwing a few bills onto the bar for the drinks. My confusion and horny desperation must have amused him, because he grinned from ear to ear as I sat there, dumbfounded.

  As he left the bar, attention turned to me, leaving me red-faced as I sat alone once more.

  Four

  JED

  Fuck.

  Getting close to her had been stupid. Why taunt myself with something I couldn’t have? For a moment, I had been so sure she would give in. The way her cheeks had flushed and her mouth had opened, the way her head had tipped back into my touch as I grasped her hair, the way her lips had parted as she expected a kiss.

  My fists clenched by my sides as I willed my half erect penis to behave itself. Despite the lack of blood flow, vampires’ bodies still reacted much the same as humans did. Our heart still beat, our stomachs still growled, and our cocks still gave our intentions away. Well, those of us who had cocks. I couldn’t explain it, I’d never found someone who could. Were we reanimated corpses? Magical beings? I didn’t have the answer.