She existed in a black haze, all the world muffled but for her senses, which were acute. She gloried in the texture of his skin and hair, tasted his blood, smelled his scent and wanted him. She heard him moan somewhere above her, and his hand clenched on her thigh and raised it higher. The thick length of him probed at her tender opening and slid deep.
It overwhelmed her. She sank her teeth into his skin, unaware they had lengthened and sharpened while she fed. She pulled him closer with newfound strength, meeting his every thrust when he began to surge into her. She’d never felt anything like this. Before, when Misha had taken her, he’d been the center of her universe. Now, he was the center of the universe, and she wanted to weep and howl with the joy of it. Instead she drank deeply and moaned against his skin when he bowed his head and sank his fangs deep into her neck. He drank back the blood she was taking, and passion and power arced between them, a never-ending chain of pleasure and heat and lust and love.
The tension broke over them simultaneously, her body trembling and clenching while he pulsed his release inside of her. She tore her mouth away from his chest and screamed, a banshee sound of ecstasy and transformation. He echoed her with an animal roar of pleasure and triumph. They melted together in a tangled heap of blood and sex and sweat.
When Reggie finally managed to stir a long time later, she realized there really wasn’t any blood. Like he’d said, the wounds seemed to have closed even while they’d pulled away from each other. But there was plenty of sweat and plenty of sex.
Reggie wrinkled her nose. “I need a shower.”
For some reason, Dmitri found that vastly amusing. He laughed out loud and hugged her close. “I love you, dushka. You delight me.”
“I’d delight you more if I didn’t stink,” she said. She sniffed and arched an eyebrow at him. “In fact, I think you’d delight me more if you—”
Dmitri glared at her, though his eyes glinted with humor. “Do not insult me by telling me I stink, Regina Elaina. I may have changed you, but I am still the one in charge here.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re the great big alpha male, O Exalted One,” she said, pushing at his shoulders until he rolled away from her. “But I am going to take a shower. Turning into a vampire takes a lot out of a girl. Which door leads to the—”
Her chatter ground to an abrupt halt, and Reggie fell back to the bed with a muffled thump. “Oh, wow. I almost forgot. I’m a vampire.”
Dmitri surveyed her dazed look with humor. “Almost. It will take a few more hours for the transformation to complete itself, but you are on your way.”
“What do you mean, ‘almost’?” she demanded, glaring at him. “I drank blood. I had fangs!”
“Those are merely the first stage,” he said dismissively, sitting up on the edge of the bed and scratching his chest absently. “In a few hours you will also have excellent night vision, amazing strength, acute hearing, and incredible speed. You’re not done yet.”
That took the wind out of her sails. “Oh.”
She thought for a second, and when she looked back at him, she looked like she was plotting something. “Will I get as strong as you?”
He laughed out loud. “Not a chance.” She pouted, and he kissed the tip of her nose. “Not only am I more than seven centuries older than you, dushka, but I am also a man. Even among our kind, nature has weighted the advantage with men when it comes to strength.”
Reggie humphed and stood, heading for the door she thought might lead to the bathroom. “Then I guess if it’s just like being human, nature compensated by giving women the advantage when it comes to intelligence.”
She punctuated her comment by looking back at him over her shoulder and sticking out her tongue. Clearly, she had maturity on her side too.
Dmitri gave a mock growl and started after her, but the thunderous clap of the door slamming back against the wall stopped both of them in their tracks.
“Get away from her, you dirty bloodsucker, before I turn you into vampire shish kebab!”
Chapter 26
It took Reggie a few seconds to pull her mouth closed, but the sight of your four best friends bursting through your lover’s bedroom door, brandishing crosses and sharpened broom handles, can really shake a girl up.
Danice stepped warily forward to stand beside Ava, a makeshift cross, fashioned from two rulers and some duct tape, held out in front of her. Corinne and Missy stepped into the room and took positions flanking them.
“Come on, Reg,” Danice urged, her voice soft and soothing, as if she were talking to a child or a victim of some violent crime. “We’re here for you. It’ll all be okay now. Just come here to me, and we’ll get you out of here. Poor baby.”
Reggie just stared at her. “Are you out of your minds? What the hell are you doing here?”
“I believe this is the cavalry, dushka. Your friends have come to rescue you from my evil, bloodsucking clutches.”
Dmitri’s voice showed exactly how amusing he found the situation. Reggie glanced in his direction and saw him leaning unconcerned up against the bedpost, his arms crossed over his muscular chest and his legs crossed at the ankles. His very bare legs, since he was still completely naked.
And so was she.
“Jeez, guys! Could you maybe knock next time? We’re not exactly dressed for company here.” Grumbling all the way, Reggie stalked back toward the bed, yanked off a sheet and wrapped it around her in a makeshift toga. When Dmitri made no move to cover himself, she grabbed a pillow and threw it at him.
He caught it and grinned.
“I think he must be using some sort of mind control on her. What do we do now?”
Corrine whispered her theory, but Reggie heard it with no trouble. Her hearing had already improved.
“Dmitri is not controlling my mind, you idiot! And none of you have to do a bloody thing except apologize for barging in on us uninvited and then get the hell out of here so we can get dressed.”
Ava ignored her friend’s scowl and stepped forward, holding an intricate gilded crucifix toward Dmitri. “We’re not leaving without you, Reggie. We know all about your new lover. He wasn’t just at that goth party for kicks. He’s a real vampire. You’re not safe with him.”
“You’re out of your mind!”
“No, Reggie, it’s true!” Missy, clutching her own cross, moved closer to Regina, her face an earnest picture of concern. “I thought she was crazy, too, at first. But then what she told us started to make sense. Did you know the only recorded photos of Vidâme’s ancestors are of adult eldest sons? No mothers, no fathers, no children, no old people. Just men in their thirties who manage to look almost exactly alike.”
Reggie started to open her mouth to talk some sense into her friends, but Danice stopped her.
“It’s the truth! It’s freaky, Reg. Every single picture could be this guy’s twin, and in all the photos, the dude is only ever seen at night!” Danice shuddered.
“And what about that hickey on your neck, Reg?” Corinne joined in. “Danice was right all along. It was a bite mark. This monster drank your blood. I’m telling you, he’s a vampire!”
“And I’m telling you, I know!”
Reggie’s shout cut straight through her friends’ protests and even made Dmitri quirk an eyebrow. Reggie thought about smacking the smirk right off his face, but she refused to resort to violence. No matter how good it sounded. She contented herself with glaring at him and snarling before she turned back toward her friends.
Ava took one look at Reggie’s expression and stiffened. Corinne screamed and Missy looked ready to faint. Danice jumped back until she hit the wall, and Ava turned her cross toward her friend.
“God, Regina, I’m so sorry,” Ava whispered, a mask of agony twisting her features. “We came as soon as I heard from Marc that you’d been kidnapped from the restaurant. But we’re too late. He turned you into one of them.”
“How do you know that?” Reggie demanded. Ava’s reaction kind of hurt her feelings.
“Your fangs,” Dmitri explained, dropping the pillow and crossing to Regina’s side to wrap his arm around her shoulders. He paid no attention to the cross-wielding reactions of her friends. “You became angry, dushka, and your fangs emerged. It is an emotional reaction you will learn to control.”
“Yeah, and I hope you’ll keep that in mind right about now. That whole control-over-your-emotions thing.” Graham appeared in the doorway, looking sheepish. He shrugged to Dmitri. “I did the best I could.”
Reggie threw her hands up in the air and turned on Dmitri. “Great! Now we’re having a party in your bedroom! Did you invite the neighbors, or just your closest vampire buddies?”
Dmitri spared her an impatient glance before glaring at the new intruder. “Graham is not a vampire. He is Lupine, a werewolf, and I did not invite him at all. In fact, I assumed he would be keeping an eye on your friends and preventing this very event from occurring.”
“Give me a break, Misha,” Graham said, stepping into the room with a belligerent expression. The four human women scattered out of his path. “I’d like to see you try and ride herd on four humans with estrogen poisoning. They’re royal pains. They almost made Rafe want to kick my ass for talking him into helping me with them.”
“Actually, I would like very much to kick your ass for that.” Another male voice drifted in from the hall a second before an unfamiliar, dark-haired man stepped into the crowded bedroom.
Reggie uttered a choked scream. “Is this another werewolf you didn’t invite? Should I expect the entire uninvited population of Manhattan to join us next? Are we supposed to serve refreshments?”
“Werecat,” Rafe corrected with a lazy smile. “I’m not a wolf, but ‘shifter’ is a great nonspecific term that’s guaranteed not to offend any of us. And I’m Rafael De Santos. It is my pleasure to meet you.”
Regina reflexively shook the hand he extended to her before she remembered how furious this entire farce had made her. She snatched her hand back and used it to poke Dmitri hard in the shoulder. “This is all your fault!”
“What is all my fault?” Dmitri looked offended.
“Everything,” she proclaimed. “The fact that I’m losing my mind. The fact that my friends have already lost their minds. The fact that I have half the world in my bedroom, and I just got turned into a vampire. I’m sure global warming is your fault too. I’m just not sure how yet.”
“Don’t forget the fact that he scared your friends so badly, they’re hiding behind the bed,” Rafe offered with a grin.
Reggie turned around and saw her friends peering warily over the mattress from the other side of Dmitri’s massive bed. She rolled her eyes.
“Actually, that’s the one thing I can blame on you two,” she said, extending her glare to encompass Graham as well. “They were fine until you showed up. You’re the ones they’re scared of.”
“We’re not the ones they were waving crosses at,” Graham said. “I think that means they’re afraid of you.”
“Ha! My friends know me better than that.”
Determined to prove her point—since her life couldn’t get much more surreal than it had in the past ten minutes—Reggie stalked over to the other side of the bed, and grabbed the crosses and broom handles out of her friends’ hands so quickly, they couldn’t even think to protest. She grabbed the woman closest to her—Danice—and gave her a great big hug and a smacking kiss on her cheek.
“See? My friends know I would never hurt them. They’re intelligent, modern women who don’t fall prey to superstitions.”
From the corner of her eye, Reggie caught a glimpse of Corinne’s hand sneaking out toward a cross. She reached out casually and planted her foot on it.
“They know crosses and garlic and holy water are nonsense, and vampires are not evil demons from the depths of hell.” She ignored the shocked expressions on the faces of her friends and continued. “They also know if I didn’t have complete faith in Dmitri, I would never be with him, and that I’m a grown woman fully capable of making my own decisions about who I want to date and who I want to marry.”
“Marry?” Ava almost choked on the word.
“And they know that even if I did become a vampire, I’m still the same person I always was, and I still love them as much as I did before. And they know they’re not getting out of being the bridesmaids at my wedding, so they might as well get used to the idea!”
By the time Reggie finished her tirade, she was panting, her friends were reeling, and Rafe and Graham were looking chastened.
Dmitri laughed.
“Well, I think you have explained everything to everyone’s satisfaction, dushka,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I believe they are only waiting for us to set the date.”
“Don’t think you’re getting off scot-free, mister,” she grumbled, glaring up at him. “You just stood there buck naked and flashed all that manly muscle at my friends. It’s indecent! Would you go put some clothes on?”
He threw back his head and laughed harder. “Why should I?” he teased her. “Our guests are on their way out, and I will just have to strip them off again, because I intend to make love to you as soon as we are alone.”
Reggie scowled. “You know what they say about good intentions.”
“That refers only to the good ones. I intend to be very wicked, dushka.”
“Um, I think that’s our cue to leave,” Corinne said, breaking the tension and dragging herself up to stand on shaky legs. “It’s been a really long night.”
Reggie dragged her eyes from Dmitri. “You don’t have to go. I’m sorry I yelled like that. I was just a little tense. But you could hang out for a while. I could get you guys something to eat.”
Ava turned green and shook her head frantically.
“Oh, don’t be such an idiot,” Reggie said, rolling her eyes. “I meant I’d call for pizza or something. I just had a drink. I’m not going to snack on my bridesmaids.”
Missy stepped forward bravely and gave Reggie a hug. “We know that, Reg. It’s just going to take a little getting used to. Give us a few days, and I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
With the last of her anger faded away, Reggie realized she was nervous. What if her friends couldn’t accept what she had become? What would she do?
But when she looked into Missy’s eyes, she saw the other woman meant every word. Yes, Missy was a bit shell-shocked, but her love for her friend was stronger than her fear. Looking around at the other women, Reggie saw the same truth reflected in each of them. It really would be okay.
Epilogue
It took a while to clear out the circus in Dmitri’s bedroom, but they finally managed it around four that morning. There were a few cacophonous minutes of questions, explanations, and discussions when Reggie demanded to know how her friends had managed to research vampires, evade trailing werewolves, and take up breaking and entering. She also wanted to know how they’d accomplished all that, but couldn’t remember to knock before barging into someone’s bedroom.
Dmitri expressed admiration—or maybe that had been fear—when Ava explained how she’d will-powered her way past his mind games, shimmied out her eighteen-inch-square basement window right under Graham’s nose, and gathered up an impromptu army for the cavalry charge.
He also took the opportunity to reemphasize that whole “knocking” thing.
Reggie sat on the side of the bed and heard bits of the conversation that took place when Dmitri escorted his two friends to the front door. It seemed like her hearing was improving by the minute, and a shiver of excitement passed through her. All of a sudden the possibilities open to her in her new life sounded exciting. Letting Dmitri turn her no longer felt like even a minor sacrifice. It felt like a blessing.
Tentatively, she reached out with fumbling, infant senses and tried to share some of her new feelings with Dmitri. She knew the instant he sensed her, knew his pleasure and his affection.
If you wish to take a shower, you should do so now.
His voice rumbled in her head, a thousand times clearer and sharper than she’d ever heard it. It left her breathless. It will be dawn soon, and at the beginning, the sunrise will exhaust you. I will be up in a minute.
Grinning, she decided to take his advice and headed for the bathroom, or at least for the door she thought probably led to the bathroom. Dmitri still hadn’t given her the tour.
She guessed correctly, and felt quite pleased with herself when she turned on the shower. She had barely stepped under the spray before he crowded in with her. Not that he needed to crowd. The shower—and the bathroom—was just as spacious and elegant as the rest of his house. Still, she ignored him while she reached for the bottle of shampoo on the shelf and lathered her hair, but she couldn’t ignore him when he slipped his hands into the foamy cap and massaged her scalp with strong, gentle fingers. She gave in and leaned back against his chest on a blissful moan.
“You should call in to work,” he murmured while he continued to rub lazy circles in her hair. “After your change, you will need to sleep for most of the day.”
“I already took the day off.”
His fingers paused, then resumed. “I am going to pretend you did so because you expected me to rescue you from your date. Otherwise, I would have to punish you.”
He tugged gently on her hair and leaned down to nip her shoulder.
Reggie grinned, and purred her reply, pressing her hips back against him. “Oh, no. Please don’t hurt me.”
Dmitri chuckled. “That is good though,” he continued. “It gives us all of tomorrow evening and the entire weekend to move your things out of your apartment.”
One Bite with a Stranger Page 22