Superstition

by Veronica Blake

  A thick permeating silence settled inside the cab of the truck as they drove the rest of the way to Dawn’s apartment.

  She slumped in the seat as her mind spun with the bits of information he had already given to her. She wouldn’t be completely mindless apparently, and she would remember her human life here, but she would never see her family again; never stand before a room full of eager young students to teach again; probably never experience another romantic night dancing to live music; never...

  But to not be with Mateo Two Moons forever? Well, she already determined that was never going to be an option, either.

  Her door opened and he was lifting her out of the truck. She had taken her high-heeled sandals off after they left the hotel; they dangled from her hand, the rhinestone straps shimmering in the pale moonlight. He carried her to the apartment and let her lean down so she could unlock the door with the key she had taken from her evening bag.

  He didn’t put her down until they were in her bedroom. As he placed her on the mattress so she was leaning on the pillows against the headboard, she tossed her shoes and purse on the floor beside the bed. He kicked his boots off and removed his black blazer before sitting down next to her on the bed. She watched him turn to switch on the small lamp sitting on her bed side table. Her overpowering love for this vampire made her entire being ache as she observed every small gesture he made and as she cherished each moment they spent together.

  Mateo’s hand seemed to freeze in mid-air after he turned on the light. His gaze was glued to the nightstand. She looked to the spot he was staring at. Damn it! She left the extra pregnancy test laying there.

  “Dawn?” he gasped without looking away from the box.

  “I’m not,” she retorted. “I took a test yesterday and it was negative. The directions say you should do it twice to be sure, but I never got around to it.”

  “But—” He stopped and looked down at her. “Why did you even take one? I mean, what made you think you might be pregnant already?”

  “My paranoia,” she replied with a shrug and a shake of her head. “I know it’s probably way too soon to tell. But I’m not, so no worries.” She felt a heated blush flare up her cheeks. Why the hell had she left that stupid box laying there?

  He settled back against the pillow and was silent for a moment before pulling her into his arms. “We may be running out of time, you know.”

  Her breath trembled slightly when she drew in a heavy sigh. “I thought we had eternity?”

  He kissed the top of her head. “We do in my world. But recently something happened in my village that might change things in the future for our kind.”

  The tone of his voice sounded different. She sensed whatever happened was bad—really bad.

  “I don’t think I want to hear this,” she said in a meek tone.

  His long pause made her certain she didn’t want to hear whatever he was about to tell her.

  “Rafael’s mate, Lydia, gave birth to a stillborn dhampyre two nights ago.” His voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “What? Rafael had a dham—I prefer to just think of them as children, okay?” Her mind could not comprehend the words he had spoken. She thought about Mateo’s two handsome brothers, Rafael and Anton, whom she met on the mountain when she had been camping with Chloe, and again the night they met at the pizza place. It never occurred to her they would have women or mates, as Mateo called them, and children of their own.

  “As you know, I’m the youngest of my brothers. Anton is the oldest. He and his mate, Nita, have six dhamp—children; three girls and three boys. Rafael and Lydia have twin girls and a three-year-old boy. The baby who died was also a boy.” He drew in a heavy sigh and rested his cheek on the top of Dawn’s head. “This is the first child my clan has ever lost. He is the first to be stillborn in the history of all of the Blood Clans as far as we know.”

  “My God, Mateo, I’m so sorry.” She snuggled closer to him. The life Mateo and his clan lived in those secluded mountains was so much more involved than she imagined. “What do you think happened?”

  He shrugged. “It’s beyond comprehension. We have always believed when we mate with real ones—humans—the combination of our blood with our mate’s blood creates a strong healthy child. That was always the way it was before this happened. The males are the strongest of all because we become full vampires as we mature, and we must carry on our bloodline. But even the female dhampyres born to the clan, who live common human lives are free of illnesses or disease until they grow old and die, usually of natural causes, because they have the strength of their father’s blood in their veins. After the mating process is completed, I will share a small portion of my blood with you occasionally. It will keep you healthy and strong while you are still a mortal.”

  The core of her existence hardened to stone as she tried to absorb all he was telling her. She swallowed hard and her throat constricted with the idea of drinking Mateo’s blood. Her stomach did an unexpected twist. How much more would she be able to accept without freaking out again? She pulled back slightly and looked up at him. His own pain was apparent in his expression.

  “So, the girls do not become vampires as they age?” she asked, trying to concentrate on little bits of information at a time. “Only the boys? And they are normal when they are young but grow up and become vampires?” She placed her hand up to her forehead and closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to absorb this new knowledge.

  “Yes, my sisters were all born around hundred years ago, like my brothers and me. They lived in the village on top of the Superstitions until they were young women, then they moved down to the Apache village with the real ones. They married real ones and had children that were also human. They grew old in the typical way until they died of old age.”

  She stared, wide-eyed, at him. “I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around the idea you are more than a hundred years old.” She rubbed at her temples as they throbbed unmercifully. “You and your brothers, you look like you’re in your twenties. Are all the men in your clan like that?”

  “I’m so sorry to be causing you all this pain. I’ll get you some aspirin for your headache.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I just need answers right now.”

  His frown drew his thick brows together as he nodded in agreement. “Yes, all the men stop aging in appearance around twenty-five years. This is also when we start to drink human blood, although we still eat food. We do not become mature vampires until we are a hundred years old. It is around this time our mates will come to us.”

  She pulled completely away from him now. “Wow,” she whispered as his words sunk in—drink human blood—that was the really scary part. “And you’re not just talking about drinking the blood from your mates, are you?”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  The thoughts in her head were too horrible to speak out loud. Even though he had already done it to her, the idea of Mateo biting someone else and drinking their blood like the blood suckers in the horror movies was more than she could deal with. Her mind spun with more images of the pale undead creatures she had seen in the books she had been studying the past couple of days.

  But she had only to look at him to see he was not like the monsters in books and movies. She tried to clear her mind of the upsetting images and focus on learning all the facts she could so she could try to understand what Mateo truly was. Yet, the numbing terror controlling her mind at this moment was stuck with another horrifying thought.

  Someday, he said she would become a vampire, and that would mean she would need to drink human blood. This was too unbelievable to comprehend. She moaned out loud.

  “Dawn?” he asked in a worried tone. “You know I could just end this agony you are going through right now if you wanted me to? I can’t bear seeing you like this. It’s going to happen sooner rather than later, anyway, and once you are my mate in every way, and living in my world, you will not have any more worries.”

  She
looked at him in disbelief. “A baby just died. How can you say there is nothing to worry about in your world?”

  He exhaled sharply. “You’re right. But as I told you before, this has never happened in all the history of the Blood Clans. We can only hope it will never happen again.”

  “So, why now? What changed that would cause a baby to die for the first time?”

  His voice sounded tortured when he answered, “I wish I knew. We have no answers. Only heartbreak and disbelief rules my clan right now. We have reached out for help in finding answers, and hopefully, once we hear back from other Blood Clans we will know more. If it’s happening to other newborns in different parts of the world we might be able to figure it out. Some of the other clans have doctors in their Clan Societies. They might be able to do tests or something. If it’s only happened in our clan, to Rafael and Lydia’s baby, I don’t know if we will ever find out what happened. Their child has already been cremated.”

  Silence engulfed the bedroom. Other Blood Clans? How was it possible for vampires and dhampyres to exist in all parts of the world for centuries without being discovered? Dawn could ask questions all night about the things Mateo had just told her, and she did want to know everything. But there was time for those questions and right now she could only envision one thing…Her fate was going to happen sooner rather than later.

  When it was time for it to happen, she would not fight against it, because she knew she wanted to be with Mateo always. At this moment, though, maybe they should just concentrate on the time they had left to spend here in her world before their destinies led them to his world.

  She pulled up to her knees beside him and straddled his lap with her legs. Her fringed mini dress was hiked up around her waist, but she didn’t care. As she placed her hands on each side of his handsome face, she saw the look of surprise filter through his eyes. Gazing into the shimmering depths of those twinkling eyes was as alluring as peeking through Alice’s looking glass in Wonderland. She didn’t know what she would find, but she knew she had to step through to the other side if it meant being with this vampire forever.

  “Kiss me,” she commanded in a breathy tone.

  One thick brow lifted slightly over his eye for an instant. As her intention became clear to him, his gaze glowed with eagerness and his long ebony lashes closed half way as he leaned forward to obey her order. She slid her hands up into his hair and leaned into him to meet his lips with her own. They touched lightly at first. His lips were gentle, almost timid as they came together. Pulling her closer, his arms wrapped around her waist as his kiss intensified. She grabbed handfuls of his hair in her tightening grasp and rose from his lap to push her body hard against his.

  Bending over him, she continued to kiss him with forcefulness as their lips devoured one another. His hands were up under her dress, clutching the thin straps of her panties for the second time tonight. “You know you want to rip them off again,” she murmured as she pulled her lips from his mouth for an instant.

  One swift motion and her only other pair of black lace G-strings were shreds. She didn’t even have time to give them a second thought. As he pulled them from between her legs, he asked in a sly tone, “Like this?”

  Her pussy throbbed and grew wet. She sat back down on his lap, wanting him to feel how hot he made her. His cock was hard and pressing against the material of his black jeans. The ridge of it swelled into the area between her legs, making everything below her waist contract and quiver.

  She released the tight hold she had on his hair and grabbed his loosely knotted tie. Her eyelashes narrowed as she smirked.

  “I’ve wanted to do this all evening,” she said in a suggestive tone as she leaned back slightly.

  Her nimble fingers slipped the loose knot in his tie apart. The tip of his tongue dampened his parted lips. A soft moan escaped from her own mouth as her desire for him raged out of control.

  “What else have you wanted to do to me?” A slight tremor in his voice hinted at his anticipation as he looked up at her with eyes hooded in growing desire.

  She stopped short of letting the tie slide completely away from his neck as she grasped it close to his throat and used it to pull herself up to him roughly. Her lips hovered just over his, brushing lightly for an instant as she answered, “Everything.”

  His breath flooded her mouth as he answered, “I will be your sex slave tonight, my love. Anything you desire…it’s yours.”

  He was making her so wet it could get embarrassing if she wasn’t so seriously turned on right now. She leaned back and cast him a provocative smile as she cocked a brow in the suggestive manner he had done early. “Take your clothes off,” she ordered with authority. He swallowed hard enough she could see the Adam’s apple in his throat expand for an instant.

  “Um? You need to—” His head tilted to the side as he motioned for her to move.

  “Oh yeah.” She groaned inwardly. Now, the really awkward part was about to happen. She rose to her knees and swung one leg over his thighs so he was free to get up. The wet spot soaking the front of his pants was a glaring tribute to how much she wanted him. Her only consolation was her womanly juices saturated the area over his swollen cock, and it was about to rip itself out of his pants. It was more than obvious he was every bit as turned on right now as she was.

  She reclined on the bed as Mateo rose to his feet and stood in an awkward pose as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. She was reveling in this new-found power over him.

  “You are my sex slave, remember?” Dawn said as she stretched her legs out and crossed her ankles in a modest gesture. She smoothed the ruffled fringe on the hem of her dress down over her bare thighs. “I want you naked. Then, I want you—” She let her gaze travel slowly down over his body as she added, “Inside of me.”

  Mateo stared at her as if he were looking at her for the first time. For a moment, Dawn wondered if she was taking this dominatrix thing a bit too far. A nervous fluttering in her stomach caused a quivering frown to tug at the corners of her lips. She started to say, ‘Just kidding’, when a wicked smirk curved his mouth. His eyes narrowed and his gaze raked over her body with unrestrained longings that made her feel as naked as she had just commanded him to be. Excited anticipation shook through her body.

  He began to undo the little black buttons running down the front of his black dress shirt. His fingers moved slowly, pushing every button through each of the button holes with deliberate intention. His piercing gaze never left her face.

  It took all her willpower to remain calm and still on the mattress. She wanted to jump up and rip that shirt off his body, especially as his hard, muscled, six-pack peeked out from between the material of the shirt when he finally had all the buttons undone. She swallowed hard, and waved her hand through the air in an impatient motion for him to continue.

  A teasing smirk curled Mateo’s lips. “I like it when you are bossy. What other surprises do you have in store for me?”

  Dawn gulped heavier this time. She was acting like she knew what she was doing, but the truth was she had never been quite this adventurous in the bedroom before. His impulsive actions earlier this evening inspired her to be a little naughtier than usual and right now her body was alive with eagerness, and her mind was on overdrive with wanton thoughts. Otherwise, she was just winging the rest of this dominate stuff.

  “You’ll never find out if you keep wasting time,” she taunted, hoping she sounded more confident than she was feeling.

  His thick eye brows rose slightly. He obeyed. The black shirt slipped from his shoulders, sliding down his muscled arms and disappearing to the floor beside the bed. Dawn let her gaze linger on his well-defined shoulder muscles and firm pecks. She remembered the first time she had seen those finely-toned muscles move under his white western shirt the night they met at the pizzeria; the night she had fallen in love with him.

  She was jolted back to the present when, with a slow brush of his fingertips, Mateo pushed the long strands of his hair b
ack from his forehead in a sensual motion. Giving his head a slight toss, he sent the rest of the heavy mass swirling over those broad shoulders. The floodgates broke between Dawn’s legs. Her hands curled into tight fists in her lap.

  He was so incredibly hot. And he belonged to her for eternity. She was going to be nothing more than a smoldering pile of soaking wet ash at his feet long before eternity got here.

  Since it was obvious he was enjoying torturing her to the brink of madness, she attempted to keep from writhing all over the mattress in delirious rapture. She reminded herself this might be the one and only time he would be her love slave if their fates had anything to do with it. But, oh God, if he didn’t get those damn pants off soon, she might have to rip them off with her teeth.

  He sighed as if he was in no hurry and casually undid the clasp on his belt. The silver buckle dangled at the side of his bulging erection for a moment before he reached down and slowly pulled the belt from the loops on his jeans. Her gaze honed in on his washboard stomach and the way a tiny bit of hair trailed down from his bellybutton to places still barely concealed by his low hanging jeans. She couldn’t stop the impatient moan that escaped from her dry mouth.

  With the belt still dangling from his palm, Mateo held the leather strap up. He grabbed an end in each hand and pulled it taut. It made a loud cracking sound. One cocked brow and a lopsided smirk transformed his expression into one of mischievous intentions as he asked, “Will we be needing this, Miss Malone?”

  Dawn gasped. His innuendo was clear. She shook her head from side to side in a negative motion. This joking around was fun, but she wasn’t sure how far she wanted to go with this roguish game. She was open to trying new things, but the idea of being whipped with his belt did not sound like much fun.