For a moment, the world unraveled at the edges. It knit itself back up again in tangled strands of unbearable arousal.
The vampiress had done this. The bitch had somehow poisoned her with her tainted, undead blood. Colleen tried to cling to that, tried to stay lucid, but her rationality was slipping away from her like ooze down a drain. It left behind a thick coat of raw need that grated like sandpaper on her supersensitive nerves. Her fingers clutched the sleeping bag hard enough to punch holes in the quilting. She needed a male’s hard body and rough, groping hands. She needed to be fucked into oblivion, right now. All logic swirled away and left behind blind animal lust. She was drowning in it. She may have screamed aloud from it. She didn’t know for sure.
Her ears picked up a heartbeat. She threw herself at the sound like a starving madwoman and was greeted with the touch she craved. A deep male voice made sounds that may have been words. Colleen couldn’t understand them and didn’t much care at this point. He was here, with her. Only that mattered now.
Oh, he was good. So hot, so alive. His skin slid over hers like silk and deliciously rubbed every sensitive nerve ending until her entire body came awake with electric desire. He knew her needs before she recognized them and quenched her thirsts even as they formed. She pressed herself against the firmness of his chest and rubbed her groin against his rock-solid thigh. When had she lost her clothes? She couldn’t remember.
Just for a second, clarity hit her. Her senses broke the surface of the steamy swamp of mindless need that had engulfed her. Her name was Colleen. She was riding in the back of a van. The van was moving. They were back on the road. She quivered in the arms of a man she loved. The hands that caressed her, the mouth on her neck, the breath that puffed against her lips were real.
She blinked up into storm-cloud eyes with the heat of the sun behind them. This time she knew him. “Jeremy.”
“It’s all right.” He laid her back on the sleeping bag when she tried to rise. “I’ll take care of you.”
Where was the other? She wanted the other. She couldn’t remember his name. Her world had become a jumble of feverish touches and animal gasps, punctuated by microsecond, jagged flashes of sanity. She clutched at those flashes and hauled herself back to the brink of full awareness, only to feel her grip weaken and the human in her start to slide away.
Jeremy!Jeremy, help me!
The rocking motion ceased. The van had stopped. Powerful, blunt-fingered hands and a sea-breeze scent replaced the name that wouldn’t come to mind. His thoughts shored up hers as his arms supported her body. Wallace. His name was Wallace.
“Wallace,” she gasped.
Her vision focused on his smirk. “Right here with you, sweetheart. It’s okay to let go. We’ll catch you. Right, Scarecrow?”
“Absolutely.”
Another wave of lust buffeted her body. She knew when Jeremy entered her and arched her hips to grant him better access. Her thoughts twined with Wallace’s while her pussy clamped around Jeremy’s rigid cock. With her men to keep her safe, Colleen let sanity desert her and gave herself over to the beast.
* * * *
Colleen stirred. Awareness crept back in at a sheepish crawl like a dog that had snapped the leash and run wild all night and finally made its way home. Her body ached and her throat itched. Her teeth had put on weight. The metal floor beneath her was rocking again. She found her head pillowed on a hard male shoulder and her naked body snugly wrapped in the sleeping bag. When she looked up into his loving smile, his name remained fixed in her head.
“Jeremy. What happened?”
God, her voice sounded so hoarse. What had she been doing with it? Not to mention the slimy taste in her mouth. What had she been doing with that?
She tried to speak again. Her bitch of a brain picked that moment to clear and bring her up to speed.
“Whoa. It’s okay,” Jeremy said when she started to thrash. “It’ll all be okay. We’re almost home.”
Nothing he did, nothing he said, could blunt her rising panic. Colleen stared past his head. The world beyond the windshield had grown dark enough for Wallace to drive without peril.
He glanced back at her, concern in his eyes. “Hang on, sweetheart. The worst of it’s over. You’ll be okay in a bit.”
No, she wouldn’t. On some basic level she knew it. She couldn’t take her eyes off the night. The last thing she remembered with any real clarity was the she-bat’s wrist crushed against her mouth and icy blood sliding down her throat. The sun had been high then. She’d lost the whole afternoon.
“What happened?” she repeated.
“We won,” Wallace said curtly. “Details can wait until we get home.” Cautiously he added, “How do you feel?”
Strange. Different. Changed. Both not herself and more herself than she had ever been. “What did that bitch do to me?”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed.” He didn’t sound confident. He shut his mind away from hers, denying her that comfort. Or trying to protect her?
She shoved away from Jeremy. “Tell me. Tell me now.”
“When we get home,” he said. She recognized the stubborn finality in his voice. The men had closed ranks against her. A surge of resentment blasted through Dangerous Colleen. How dare they treat her like this?
She bit down hard against a scathing retort and yelped when her teeth pierced her own bottom lip. Blood smeared her tongue. What the hell? Her teeth hadn’t been that sharp this morning. Or as heavy, or as long.
Listen to them, her well-developed denial muscle counseled. They’ve got a point. So do you. Two of them, in fact.
No. All that had been a dream, a hallucination. It had to be. It couldn’t be real. This time when her mind opted for the easy way out, Colleen didn’t protest or fight. She let her body slump against Jeremy’s and allowed the blissful faint to take her away.
* * * *
The metallic rumble of the van door sliding open brought Colleen back to the world. They were home. Neither Wallace nor Jeremy spoke. Equally silent, Colleen walked between them to the door. She was proud of the steadiness of her steps. She’d used up the last of her denial cards. From here on out, she’d have to face her new reality head on.
She knew her heart should be pounding like mad. She couldn’t hear it. She could hear Jeremy’s, a triple-time thump, but not her own. That bothered her more than the teeth.
Once inside, she turned on them both. “All right, let’s have it. Straight-up truth. No more lies to ‘protect’ me. What happened back there?” Her denial made a feeble bleat. She shoved it back down. “What did she do to me?”
Colleen glared from one to the other. Jeremy stood beside her with his hand on her shoulder and his arm around her waist. Wallace stood before her with his green, unblinking stare. Jeremy made the slow, deep-lunged sigh Wallace couldn’t.
“You already know,” Wallace said. “We were right. Bat blood was the trigger. She made you drink, and then you drank on your own.”
Oh yeah. That memory. Be nice if she could scrub it out of her brain. Details were blurry, emotions razor sharp. She’d marked the blonde bat as competition and set out to destroy her and damn near pulled it off. It hadn’t been Miss Colly from the preschool who’d dived for the vampire’s throat. She didn’t want to have to face the woman—or creature—who had.
Would she still show up in mirrors, or was that only myth?
“I’m a vampire,” she said dully. Out loud it sounded even worse.
“Only part,” Jeremy said. “The rest is human.”
“How human?” She swung her gaze to Wallace, pleading for any scrap of reassurance. “How much rest is left?”
He paused too long before he answered. “You have a heartbeat. It’s slow, but it’s there. Sunlight didn’t bother those other girls. It shouldn’t hurt you either.” He took her hand and gripped it tight. “Your skin is warm.”
“So is yours,” she countered. “And you’re not…” She couldn’t finish.
“No,�
�� he said, “I’m not. I’ll teach you how to deal with the part of you that’s not. We’ll get you through this. It won’t be so bad.”
“No?” She would have laughed if she wasn’t afraid it would dissolve into hysterics. Deliberately, she skinned back her lip. Even Wallace flinched at the sight of her new, hefty fangs. At that flinch, the crack in her heart widened.
“I drank blood. I wanted to drink blood. I have to drink blood now, right? For the rest of my life. Oh God. How long is that going to be?”
“You don’t have to hunt,” Wallace said. “You’ll never have to hunt. I’ll bring you blood. Or—or you can drink from me.”
“And me,” Jeremy said. Her revulsion must have shown in her eyes because he added quickly, “Maybe you won’t need all that much, since you’re not a full vampire.”
“Even a swallow’s too much,” she shot back. “It did something to me. In the van I…” She bit that back and blushed furiously.
“Uh, yeah,” Wallace said. “That was blood lust. It only happens if you chug too much at once.”
“You mean it only happens to vampires.”
Wallace looked at the rug. “Yeah that, too.”
Jeremy hugged her fiercely. “You don’t need to go through that every time, or at all. If you take a little every now and then, you’ll be okay. My mom lived that way for centuries. Wallace lives that way now. All you need is portion control. Bingeing’s never a good idea, no matter what your diet.”
Colleen swallowed a whimper. They made it sound so everyday. She ran her tongue experimentally over her teeth. Her fangs. “How am I supposed to go back to the school with these? The kids will—God. The kids. I can’t go near the kids anymore. All those scrapes and scratches.”
“Relax,” Wallace said. “That’s not enough to spark a feed. Look. You’re going through the checkout line at the grocery store. You’re hungry for chocolate. You see a Snickers bar. Do you eat the whole display? Of course not. Scarecrow there nicks himself shaving on a regular basis. How often do I attack you?”
“On a regular basis,” Jeremy said. “Just not for blood.”
“Okay, bad example. The point is, it’s not like the movies. Somebody gets a paper cut, you won’t go all Dracula on them. We keep blood in the fridge. You’ll be fine.”
“What about this?” She jabbed her finger at her mouth. “I can’t go out like this. What do I say to people?”
“Don’t say anything. Ain’t their business. If you’re that concerned, just keep your mouth shut. I know that’s tough on a chick, but—right. Not helping.”
“So not helping.” She sagged against Jeremy. His presence proved no match for the leaden emptiness inside her. “What happened at the golf course after I…?”
“It’s gone,” Wallace said. “They’re gone. There were seven bats in the freezer. Charcoal, now. If there were any in the other buildings, they’re gone, too. It was going up like Vesuvius when we left.” He didn’t mention Elisa.
Colleen wet her lips. “What about Lebec?”
“Wouldn’t know. None of us knows what he looks like. Doubt it. Arrogant as he seems to be, I don’t think he sleeps with the help.”
“So he may still be out there. What happened to the women?”
“They took off when we torched the place.” He wouldn’t look her in the eye.
“You’re sure? They all got out okay?”
“I guess,” Jeremy said. “We were kind of distracted.”
Yeah, she thought bleakly. By me being horny and hopped up on vampire blood. She wriggled out of Jeremy’s embrace. “I’m sorry. I need to be alone for a while.”
Colleen turned toward the stairs. She took a step. The walls seemed to blur. All at once she found herself at the top of the stairs. But I barely moved, she thought. Like Wallace barely seemed to move sometimes, then suddenly he was standing at Point B while she was still staring at Point A. The vampire’s quicker than the eye.
Colleen shuddered anew. Planting each foot with deliberate care, she walked at human speed into the bedroom and shut the door behind her.
* * * *
So this was failure. Not just the lead-pipe sensation in the gut or the shriveled-up tongue that couldn’t cough up excuses or that jagged crater in his chest where his heart had been sitting only seconds ago. Failure was desolation in the eyes of a woman who’d relied on him to protect her. Them. Two women had trusted him, and he’d doled out a one-two punch of damnation to them both.
Elisa was at peace now, like that was any consolation. Colleen’s hell had just revved up from zero to sixty and wouldn’t be slowing down any time soon.
“It’ll be okay,” Jeremy said. He brushed at Wallace’s hair. “She just needs time to get over the shock. How about you? How are you holding up?”
“I’ll live. So to speak.” Dammit, failure sucked. He’d had more than a bellyful and was sick of dwelling on it. If he couldn’t fix Colleen’s world, he could at least bring some joy to the other great love of his life. “Forget about me. I got good news in Sacramento. I found him.”
“Lebec? You know where he is?”
“Not him. The slayer from Tacoma. I know who he is.”
Jeremy sucked in a breath. He didn’t look as pleased as Wallace had imagined. Just the opposite, in fact. “You what?”
“I found him. I know his name. I can track him like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Say the word and he’s guts on the ground. Blood in the gutter. He’s—”
“No.”
That wasn’t the word Wallace expected. “No? Why the hell not? Oh, I get it. You want to do it yourself. C’mon, scarecrow, get real. You won’t even kill bugs in the house. You catch ’em in paper cups and take ’em outside. I’ve seen you. Let me do this for you. I’ll take care of the slayer, and it’ll all be over.”
“It’s already over. It’s been over. Let it go.”
“But—”
“I said no.” Jeremy closed his hands on Wallace’s face, forcing the vampire to look at him. “What good would it do? Would it bring them back? Would it wipe out the last two years? I don’t want him dead. I don’t even want to know who he is. I’m trying to lay it to rest and you keep stirring it up.”
“I thought you’d want—”
“I don’t.” Jeremy fixed him with a stormy glare. “Have you ever wondered why no slayer has come after you?”
“Not really, no. I figure they’re scared. If they’re not scared, then it’s because we’re on the same team.”
“It’s because you only kill vampires. If you kill a slayer, that changes the game. They’ll hunt you down. I can’t lose you, too. I just can’t.”
“I…didn’t think about it like that. I thought you’d want closure.”
“No, you thought I’d want revenge.” Jeremy released him, but only to gather him into a loving embrace. “As long as you stay under the radar, you stay safe. I need you more than I need revenge. Please, Wallace. Let it go.”
“Okay,” Wallace murmured, hugging him back. “Okay. Guy was a dickhead anyway. Natural selection will solve our problems for us. So what do we do about Colleen?”
“Right now, nothing. We give her time, and when she wants us, we be there. It’s all we can do.”
* * * *
Colleen sat on the bed. She’d discarded the sleeping bag for a robe. She got up, paced around the room, and sat again. She couldn’t sleep. She didn’t try. She feared the night had more to do with her insomnia than nerves.
Her tongue continuously worried at her fangs. Yes, they were still there. They weren’t going away. Ever. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and was fiercely delighted to find moisture. Someone had once told her vampires couldn’t cry.
Humans didn’t drink blood, either, or suffer from blood lust. Those were vampire afflictions. Colleen bobbed somewhere between the waves of the two. Which riptide would finally suck her under?
She got up again, paced some more, and stopped before the mirror on the dresser. She still h
ad a reflection. One question answered. Yippee. Too many others crowded for attention. Like, what was she supposed to do about her future?
A harsh pang twisted her stomach when she thought about the children. No way could she return to the preschool, no matter what Wallace said. She tried an experimental smile. The minute the tips of her fangs showed, Colleen clamped her lips shut. Proof positive something like her shouldn’t be allowed around children. Was her desire for children even her own or something planted in her mind by the vampires?
The vampires had done this. They’d created her to be this way. Nothing in her life was hers, not even that life itself.
Colleen glared at the mirror and chilled to the marrow. Her eyes had gone blood red.
Maybe it was her scream. Maybe it was the crash of the mirror shattering when she drove her fist into it. Either or both brought Jeremy and Wallace on the run. Wallace, with his inhuman speed, reached her first. He took in the sight of her face and the shards of the mirror and for once didn’t say anything. He moved aside and let Jeremy charge in and take her bloody hand.
“Are you all right?” Jeremy asked.
“No, I—” Colleen stared at her hand. The cuts had closed already. Her own blood sliding down her forearm stirred a twinge of greed. She shivered violently.
Silently, Wallace went to the bathroom and returned with a hand towel. Jeremy cleaned away the blood and bits of glass. Colleen stared fixedly at the window the whole time. Only after Jeremy left to dispose of the towel did Wallace come up behind her. Colleen flinched at his touch. Wallace moved away.
When Jeremy returned, he didn’t speak. None of them spoke. They climbed onto the bed, Colleen shut off from the men by her own somber thoughts.
She loved them both so much. Could they still love her, the way she was now? Could she even live with herself?
Her eyes must have closed, and time must have passed because when she opened them, the room was much lighter. Her head was pillowed against Jeremy’s shoulder. He snored gently against her neck. Wallace lounged at her other side, in exactly the same position he’d been in when she drifted off.
Cunningham, Pat - Legacy [Sequel to Belonging] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 24