The Dominion Series Complete Collection

by Lund, S. E.

  "Gotta love a new vampire," he says and shakes his head. "Insatiable, are you? It must have been difficult stuck here with only your brother as company."

  "It's been wonderful in one way, but hell in another."

  We walk back to the cottage, hand in hand, and he tells me about the goings-on at the SCU where he's working, trying to get it set up again and working despite the lack of power and technology, but his voice is a bit shaky and I know it's lust. When we arrive, the guards return to their positions around the property and Julien and I go inside. There's a palpable sexual tension between us as both of us know what's going to happen.

  I go to the bathroom and pour one more bucket of hot water from the fireplace into the bath, pouring in some of the sandalwood bath salts. Julien comes into the bathroom and I turn to face him. He stands a foot away from me and looks me over from head to toe.

  "I was afraid I'd never be with you again," he says. "I was afraid I'd never be released from the compulsion. I was afraid you'd choose Michel. Or neither of us."

  "I considered throwing you both over for celibacy, but that's just not in the cards."

  He smiles and runs his fingers over my cheek and then down over the curves of my breasts, touching the crucifix Michel gave me.

  "That thing safe?"

  I bend my head and look at it, touching it with a finger. "Yes, Dylan assures me it's no threat to us. If there's any residue left, we're immune."

  Soon we're in each other's arms and I feel drunk on lust as we kiss.

  "Oh, God, I want you so much," he says.

  "I want you so much," I whisper, almost choking with desire.

  We feel so much bliss, I don’t know how we can bear it.

  But we do.

  * * *

  The rest of the week passes this way, with Julien and I spending our time back together in bed or on the floor in front of the fire, or against the wall in the shower. At night we walk the beach when the weather permits and sleep during the day. Finally, it's Friday and Julien must leave. He rises early, after we've only been asleep for a few hours.

  "Why so early?" I say, as I watch him dress.

  "I have a meeting with Terri tonight and I want to make it there with some time to go over a few things with security at the residence."

  I watch him from the bed, the sheets around me against the chill in the room. A vampire's body isn't as warm as a human's but we still can feel cold and heat. I still prefer warmth to chill.

  Julien comes over and bends down to kiss me one last time before leaving.

  "Next Friday?" he says, his voice light, but there's a note of regret in it that he has to wait so long before we're together again.

  "Next Friday night, same time. Meet me on the beach if the weather's good."

  He sits beside me and leans in to kiss me again.

  "Back in October after you left me to go to Michel," he says. "I thought we'd never be together again. The only thing that kept me going was Soren's compulsion."

  "I know," I say. "I felt so bad, but I also felt responsible. I thought it was my fault that Blackstone released the plague. I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I love you, Julien."

  "I love you."

  He kisses me once more and then leaves me. I hear the door close and the lock click behind him and I lay back, listening as he walks to wherever his ride is waiting.

  * * *

  Dylan's back that night from Cambridge. He brings with him a crate filled with bottles of blood from the local volunteer group packed in chipped ice. We sit by the fire and talk in quiet voices about the classes he attended and how people are trying to keep society together, keeping a skeleton crew of faculty working, and a roster of classes going, working day and night to find work-arounds for technology that failed due to using plastics. We spend the weekend talking about our families, our pasts, and telling each other stories about our parents and growing up.

  I ask him about the deaths Julien and I investigated. The woman in the nursing home, the boy with cancer, and the man whose wife took her life – Dylan gave them all painless deaths at their requests. The young female adepts were Soren's work, as I suspected. He was weeding out Adepts who were loyal to him and those who chose the Council.

  Finally, Sunday morning comes and it's time for Dylan to go back to Boston.

  We hug, and for the first time, I feel like I truly have a brother. He feels real to me now.

  "So, I won't be back on Friday, I guess."

  "You have Amy," I say. "She must be getting fed up with you doing 'sister duty'."

  He smiles. "No," he says. "She understands. Her parents are in Boston so she stays there on weekends and hangs out with the girls."

  "Are you going to turn her?"

  "That's up to her."

  "How come she gets a choice and I didn't?"

  He shrugs. "She may not either." He smiles and picks up his duffel bag and goes to the door. "If you need anything, use the HAM radio in town to send me a message. I'll come right away, but you can always ask mom or dad to help. They're up to speed."

  I nod and wave to him as he goes out to his car. I close the door and turn back to the empty cottage.

  * * *

  I sleep alone all day, and it's a cold outside so I get the fireplace stoked when I get up, eating a light breakfast when I should be eating supper but until I get the day-walking drug, my days and nights will be mixed up again like they were when I first met Michel.

  I soak in the tub because it's really chilly in this cottage. I know I'll have to move to a winterized house soon, but I can't leave the coast right now. I need to be here. I need to adjust to life as a vampire. I have to feel more certain of my choice before I move back to Boston and start life over as a vampire hunter for the new Council.

  Once the sun sets, I get dressed in something warm and wrap a scarf around my neck. Then I get my ancient binoculars and a blanket and climb down the hill to a spot on the beach that's sheltered from the wind. It's a brilliantly clear night with no moon this early so I can watch the Taurid meteor shower with no worries of clouds or the moon affecting the show.

  It's when I'm standing on the blanket, spying the Orion Nebula – a tiny smear of white in the belt of Orion – that Michel shows up, walking towards me from around a huge dune, stepping over a spit of sand that stretches out into the surf. He smiles when he sees me, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his hair ruffled by the breeze off the surf.

  My heart does a little flip-flop because he's so beautiful.

  He doesn’t say anything when he gets to me, just takes the binoculars out of my hands and wraps one arm around my waist, pulling me against him. He kisses me, the fingers of one hand tangling in my hair. Our kiss goes on and on, and when we connect, I feel his emotions and he's so happy to see me, so relieved that I gave them my ultimatum and demanded that they either share me or give me up completely because I couldn’t choose.

  He thought I'd choose Julien.

  He hoped I'd choose him, but he knew from our connection that I was also just as in love with Julien as I am with him and couldn't pick one.

  My heart would break if I had to have one without the other. It was an impossible choice. This was the only way – one at a time, separate from each other. I won't become Marguerite and make them watch each other with me. I'm not that cruel.

  "Eve, I don't want to watch the meteor shower right now."

  I pull away and try to slip out of his arms.

  "Michel, I just got everything set up…"

  "It lasts all night and I need you, Eve. Now," he says, his voice husky. "I can't wait."

  "You waited three weeks," I say and laugh. "I just got things ready for us. I have a thermos of tea, even some cookies for you to eat."

  He makes that sound in the back of his throat and smiles, his smile lopsided. "I want to eat you," he says.

  I turn back to the sky, smiling to myself.

  "Shh" I say and pull away completely. "You're distracting me."

&
nbsp; I turn my binoculars towards another star – Betelgeuse – a red supergiant, and seeing it makes me think of Julien and his story of the two stars colliding, setting off a supernova. I push Julien from my mind. It's not fair of me to think of him when Michel's just arrived

  "Such a saucy mouth," Michel says. I smile to myself and finally give up when he steps closer from behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder, his face beside mine. "Have I told you I love your saucy mouth? I want your saucy mouth on me." He moves my hair out of the way, but when his lips press against my skin, I remember Julien fed there the other night and he feels my memory. He pulls away and moves to the other side, kissing me where Julien hasn't fed.

  Part of me feels incredibly bad that I'm making them do this – share me. I feel rather like a selfish little girl wanting a pony and a new bicycle for my birthday, but it was either this or neither of them.

  I could never choose.

  Julien is so open now, so willing to just love me, and he lets me know it without reservation. I read over my journal and see how frustrated I was with his demands that I just have sex with him, back when we were living together in the warehouse. He said he couldn't give me what I wanted, what I thought I needed, but he was wrong. Now, he wants to give me exactly what I need. I fell in love with him despite his seeming inability to love me. There is a sweetness to Julien that makes my heart glad to be with him.

  I know he loves me with a wild abandon.

  But Michel? I fell in love with him at first sight, with his unruly black hair below his collar, his blue eyes and thick lashes. He gives me something that Julien can never give me. His calm strength, his quiet passion, his desire to protect makes me weak. When we're together, I feel completely possessed and safe for once in my life.

  I laid out my offer in my letters to them and let them decide if they could do it. If they could learn to share, one week on, one week off with time for me to be all alone on the weekend if I chose. So this was them deciding that they could try.

  I wasn't sure if Michel would show up tonight. I was sure he'd feel slighted that I spent time with Julien first. I sent Michel a message through the HAM radio operator to explain.

  I flipped a coin. Julien won.

  As I watch a falling star streak across the sky, Michel's busy with his hand up my sweater, and I think he's not hurting too much right now. I close my eyes and finally give in trying to watch the meteor shower. When he feels my resistance wane, he grabs my hand, pulling me away from the beach.

  "Now, Eve," he says, urgency and a little bit of amusement in his voice. I let him pull me along the shore and up the hill to my cottage, enjoying his urgent need, smiling as he takes my keys and opens the door, picking me up and carrying me over his shoulder like some caveman. I squeal and pound his back lightly with my fists but I'm laughing because he seems so much better than I expected and it makes me happy. He closes the door and turns the lock, then carries me still giggling to the bedroom. He throws me down on the bed, undressing me with an urgency that ignites my desire.

  "I see you still want to control everything," I start to say, but he shakes his head.

  "Quiet," he says and silences me with his mouth. He kisses me forcefully, his hands reaching up under my sweater to cup my breasts. "You talk far too much." He kisses me once more, slowly, deeply.

  "Michel, we have to talk about--."

  "Shh," he says and places his fingers over my lips, stopping me from speaking. "No talking. Not now." He takes off his sweater. "There's more time than you can imagine for talk. I want you right now."

  "I want you right now," I say and grin.

  He makes that throat sound again and shakes his head. "Oh, those dimples," he says. "They're my undoing."

  "I like the thought of undoing you, Michel," I say, closing my eyes as he slowly and very deliberately kisses my cheeks, one after the other, his tongue touching my skin. "I like the thought of doing you and undoing you and then doing you again."

  He stops his motions and for a moment, I wonder if he isn't angry at me because I'm refusing to be quiet, but he just lies there, his face in my neck, his mouth open, tongue pressed on my skin. He wraps his arms around me, sliding them under me and pulling me against his body so tightly. He does nothing but hold me, his face in the crook of my neck, one hand in my hair.

  "Michel," I say, trying to connect with him, but he's blank. I try to pull away. "What is it?"

  He shakes his head and kisses me, but when he finally opens himself to me again, I sense his relief, his lingering fear just now dissipating that I'd leave him because he killed my mother. I feel his horror when he thought that I'd die in the boardroom from the poison he had no idea Dylan and I were going to use against Soren and the Twelve. I feel his dread that we'd never be together again because I'd choose Julien. All the fears finally evaporate and he's momentarily overcome.

  He pulls away finally, breaking our kiss, which has become more about love than lust, and presses his forehead against mine.

  "I thought you were going to die in front of me." He looks in my eyes and I see that his are wet. "Eve, I couldn't bear to lose you."

  "Oh, Michel," I say and cup his face, tuck his hair behind his ear, my own eyes tearing up from seeing his.

  "I love you," he says, and runs his fingers over my cheek. "When you learned about my role in your mother's death, I thought I'd lost you forever."

  ""You could never lose me. I love you, Michel," I say, my throat choking with emotion. "I have since that day in my flat when you stood at my piano and said music was your passion. That it made existence bearable. I even wrote that down as the last line in my entry that day. I wrote, 'I think I'm in love with him and I've only just met him'. Nothing has changed that. If anything, I love you even more."

  His gaze moves over my face as if he can't believe what I'm saying. Then he closes his eyes and leans in, kissing me so tenderly that I feel as if my heart might explode. Soon, the love turns back to lust and I can't wait any longer. The bliss is almost too much.

  Almost.

  * * *

  END OF BOOK THREE

  RESURRECTION

  Book Four in the Dominion Series

  Copyright © 2017 by S. E. Lund

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design by Cover Couture (www.bookcovercouture.com)

  Photos by iStock

  Photo by Shutterstock

  Chapter 84

  “I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”

  Anaïs Nin

  On my weekends alone at the cottage on the beach, I relish the quiet. While the world falls apart around me, I’m sheltered here for a while, listening to the sounds of the surf rising up over the dunes, the crash of the waves on the shore soothing in its regularity. At night, I sit on the beach and watch the Milky Way rise, remembering when I met Michel again and we spent time watching the stars. Or when Julien found me on the beach and fell to his knees in shock.

  So much has happened in such a short time. I need the solitude of this place to help me come to terms with what it means now that I’m a vampire.

  What would my dead mother think if she knew I’d become her sworn enemy?

  And yet…

  And yet she befriended both Michel and Julien. She changed her goals from killing off all vampires to curing them. Did the manuscript make the difference? Did she see them differently once she knew Michel and Julien and read their story? I know it affected me that way.

  From my journal entries, I see that reading the manuscript affected me deeply. Instead of seeing all vampi
res as pure evil, I now see them with empathy, as victims of a cruel fate none of them chose, their actions as vampires largely determined by who they were as humans. They are predators of humans out of necessity, fellow victims doing what they must to survive in a time when humans armed with science have become far too adept at killing them off.

  Once I recover and we defeat Blackstone—and we must—I plan on returning to Boston to continue my mother’s mission to cure vampirism, and if not, at least end a vampire’s need for blood. I’ll try to discover the immortality genes, for that is like the Holy Grail of all our human dreams.

  So while I should be in Boston at the makeshift command center set up to deal with the fallout of the plague, Michel and Julien both insisted that I stay uninvolved for a while. Dylan agreed.

  I’ll follow their advice, at least until I adjust and learn to control my blood craving.

  * * *

  On the Monday morning Michel is scheduled to arrive, I wait for him in bed, a hot water bottle beside me to keep me warm. After managing my time between the brothers for the past month, I feel as if my body no longer belongs to me. It belongs to them, and they've used me so well my brain is almost on a pleasure overload.

  My weekends alone without their touch, psychic or physical, are time to orient myself to my new reality.

  I never thought I could love two men equally. I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but I do. When I’m with one of the twins, I’m happy, but part of me misses the other. Since the brothers agreed to this arrangement, I’ve done everything I can to keep our relationships separate and distinct. I’ve spoken to them both and warned them not to try to show affection towards me when the other is present. For my part, I don’t show affection to either when we’re all together to discuss the Council or our work as vampire hunters.

  While they weren’t jealous when they were both with Marguerite, they don’t feel that way towards me. I can sense their jealousy at even the slightest hint of attention to the other brother.