This thing with Christiana hangs over us, but we plow through the season as if nothing’s wrong. I have to for Annie’s sake. She’s unaware Alex has to leave us. There were enough ruined Christmases when Stephen’s planned leaves were yanked away at the last minute.
Annie is scheduled to be with her father for the holidays. Alex, who committed to stay with me until the end of the year agreed to drive with us to drop her off. We’re leaving for DC when school lets out.
In one day, I’ll lose them both. At least I’ll get my Annie back.
I try to enjoy the season. The radio is all holiday songs, all the time now so I give into it and turn it up. When Annie casually walks by singing along or whistling a festive tune, it stabs me in the heart.
All kids love the holidays. I know she’s happy because of Alex. My God, how will his absence affect her? It’s not something I thought about.
On the drive to find a Christmas tree, I shift in my seat and bring my gloved hands to my face.
Alex reaches over and touches me. “Something wrong?”
Everything. “No.” I give his hand a reassuring squeeze then jam mine back against my face. “The tree farm is just another mile up this road.”
“Real trees are the best!” Annie advises from the back seat.
On the military bases, we always had to go artificial. Stephen didn’t like real ones, claimed they were dried out fire hazards. As soon as Annie and I were on our own, I changed that. Every year, we get the biggest one we can squeeze into our little house.
One year, the top was smashed against the ceiling, the upper branch hilariously curling over. I’m curious if shopping for a tree with Alex will be different. Men are restrained when it comes to these things. My father was. I guess I’m a lot like my mother, full of reckless abandon during the holidays. I want every inch of the house sparkling with lights. What I took away from watching my mother and father is that women want to be dazzled and men worry about the electric bills.
The place I get the trees from is more of a Christmas village than just a bunch of cut trees leaning on a dirty chainlink fence on the side of the road. There’s music and hot chocolate, games and a sleigh ride for kids. The field to pick out the tree is lit up like a baseball park at a night game.
I usually let Annie pick the tree. Whichever one she wants. I watched fathers inspect needles, check the bottoms, and ask stupid questions. Takes all the fun out. If she wants it, we take it home. It’s in the house a lousy three weeks at most.
I want to say to those fathers, It’s not a life-partner, you’ll get another one next year. I stop in my tracks and wonder if vampires think about humans that way. In a few decades there will be another one.
I shake those thoughts away when Annie surprisingly clutches on to Alex as soon as we get there and says, “Help me pick one out!”
Sure, he gets a say. She never asked to hear my opinion. But it’s adorable, so I smile and follow them.
Alex couldn’t be any more different from these overly cautious men walking around. After ten minutes and discussing several options like we’re on Say Yes to the Dress, we select a seven-foot spruce that is as wide as my sofa.
Now the entire living room has to be rearranged.
When we get home, it’s as if we’ve done this for years. Each of us concentrates on different tasks. Annie bounds down the basement steps to collect all the ornaments. They’re packed in small enough boxes so she can carry them up and down. That’s been her job for years. As her snow boots clomp down the wooden steps, Alex pulls me into his arms.
The smell of pine needles lingers on his glove as he runs his fingers under my chin. His eyes are heavy and he suffers the same confliction as me. This is absolutely fucking wonderful. And we’ll never ever do it again.
He lowers his lips to mine and kisses me, passionately, but with control since we can’t get too crazy. Yet.
“Hey snog on your own time, people,” Annie says, brushing past us with the first box.
“Where on earth did you hear that word?” I ask as I untangle myself from Alex.
She puts the box down on the dining room table and sails by me to get more. “Harry Potter!”
Alex grins and makes room for the monstrosity of a tree tied to the roof of his Benz. He lifts my sofa and tucks it under his arm like a newspaper. “Where do you want this?”
To make sure Annie doesn’t see Alex move the sofa like it’s a paperweight, I block the entry way into the kitchen and point to the imaginary divider between the living room and the dining room. “Right here Kal-El.”
I help Annie with the rest of the boxes and organize the ornaments as we do every year. They’re all new. Purchased our first year here. Nothing reeks of sentimental value, other than the fun memory of when I let her go hog wild in Target that year.
Since then I bought additional ornaments here and there to color coordinate the tree a little better. The first year it was entirely red. The color is fitting now, given Alex is in our life.
Next year I suspect the tree will be entirely blue.
~ ~ ~
Elizabeth’s school began its holiday break, but Annie has one more day to go.
Because it’s rare for Elizabeth to be home during the week alone, I took the day off as well. Tomorrow, we’re driving to DC so Annie can be with her father for the holiday. Elizabeth planned to go alone. As if I would let her make that trip by herself. I must spend every available minute with her. Until . . . My dreaded reality burns in my brain like a fiery iron. Until, I must leave her.
While I should be grateful for complete and unfettered access to Elizabeth when we are alone, it’s bittersweet when the child is gone. In the corner of Elizabeth’s mind, she constantly thinks of her daughter. Watching her phone for texts from Stephen or posts to his Facebook page that show how much fun they’re having.
I know she is eager to spend this last evening with Annie for an entire ten days. I haven’t decided if I will stay or let them be alone. I’ll let her make the decision for me.
Last night, we made love until she was exhausted, which took longer than I anticipated. She is so charged up lately. It wasn’t until well after three a.m. that she fell asleep in my arms. It was like she didn’t want to close her eyes.
I didn’t have the mental capacity to work so I stayed in bed with her. I slipped beneath one of the covers and kept a flannel sheet between us so she wouldn’t shiver.
When she gets back into the house after Annie’s bus leaves, Elizabeth takes my hand and heads for the stairs. She really can’t get enough of me.
Now I can’t wait. I pull her past the living room and thrust everything from the dining room table.
“Alex, your laptop!” Elizabeth says in an attempt to catch it.
“It’s backed up.” I roughly push her coat off. Underneath, the silk nightgown is thin enough to show me how I make her feel. “I’ll get another one.”
Elizabeth reaches for me with a firm consenting touch as I lower my zipper. She wants this too. I lift her up and lay her down on the table. With the front of her nightgown pushed up past her gorgeous breasts, I run my hands along her skin until I get to her panties. In a fury, I pull them aside so my erection slides in. She’s always so wet for me. The warmth, the tightness, her sweat-soaked skin drives me to madness.
She moans in response as I give her my fullest and deepest penetration. My back remains straight and my legs are in a position to take her and please her. I can go for hours. With one of her thighs over my shoulder and the other bent, I keep her spread wide to feel nothing but my driving need.
Her climax crashes over her and she screams my name, the way she did that night. No, I could not have handled Loren taking her like this. I’m grateful she had the good sense that I lack.
“Alex,” Elizabeth huffs. “That’s the
third time your phone has rung.”
“Huh?” I hadn’t even noticed.
Now that she mentioned it, the next successive clamor of rings thoroughly enrages me. How dare someone interrupt me, when all I have are days left with this beautiful woman who I’m madly in love with.
I press my head into a chest drenched in sweat and release my own pleasure. Her hips twitch at the cool jet of liquid entering her body. God, I fucking love that.
Elizabeth sighs happily and stretches. “I need coffee.”
I pull up my pants and nod tightly after a kiss. I spot my laptop on its side in the corner. When I pick it up, some loose parts rattle but despite the crack in the screen in the upper left-hand corner, it works.
“Don’t forget to check your phone,” Elizabeth reminds me from the kitchen as the smell of fresh coffee in her mug wafts past me.
From my coat pocket, I pull out the phone. Several missed calls, plus an email and a text from Armand.
Check your email. I have questions for you.
Shocked, I spin around, and while Elizabeth sips coffee, I open the documents on my laptop. His simulations produced hopeful results.
With every run and more tweaks, less hypothetical patients die. Armand is not a biologist, though. I have information stored on old laptops and hard drives that can help him. I turn to Elizabeth who sits happily at her kitchen table, reading the news on her phone and browsing her Facebook feed.
“Would you mind taking a ride over to my house with me for a little while?” I don’t want to leave her.
“Sure.” She snatches her mug and heads for the stairs. “Let me put some clothes on.”
We get to my house and I rush inside preoccupied with this information and when I thoroughly neglected Elizabeth, she finds me in my office. “What’s going on? Does this have anything to do with all those calls?” Her fingers brush against the desk we made passionate love on.
I stand and touch her face. For a moment, I don’t know what to tell her. I’m brimming with excitement though and can’t contain myself. “I’m gathering some research to send to Armand. He thinks he might have figured out from a clinical perspective how a human turns into a vampire.”
I feel her brain process and send neurons through capillaries. “You mean after all this time, you didn’t know?”
“No one knew exactly. If you take science as a whole, the ratio of what we don’t know to what we know is close to a million to one. Otherwise, the entire field of research would be obsolete.”
She nods. “I never thought of it that way. With everything we know about the body, we still can’t cure cancer.”
“Sad, but true.” I’m surprised she didn’t follow my train of thought down the tracks. “But if Armand can isolate how a vampire is made. Perhaps I could become human again.”
Chapter 25
Elizabeth’s eyes widen and she loses her balance.
“Darling?” I crouch at her knees.
“Human? You?” She gawks at me like I suggested I want to change into a giraffe. “But, you were given such a gift.”
“Gift? You think this is a gift?” I snap. “To be dragged from the human race to live in fear and isolation? To watch everyone, I love die?”
Her shocked expression means I need to compose myself. My nerves are operating on a short fuse and I don’t like that I scared her.
“I’m sorry.” I touch her gently; I can’t stand when she’s afraid of me. “I didn’t mean to come apart that way. I’ve been like this a long time. I despised myself for more years than you’ve been alive. It’s just been pent up inside me for so long.”
“I understand.” She caresses my cheek.
“Would you not want me if I were human?” I ask, my voice is scratchy just imagining it.
“Is that what you think?”
“You took no other man into your bed since your divorce. Just me. I can’t imagine I’m the first to tempt you.”
Elizabeth thinks about this and takes my hand. “So, what does all this mean?”
I kiss her knuckles. “This is the way out. Or it could be.”
“Wait.” Elizabeth points to my papers. “Does Armand have enough data to do any kind of real experiments? I won’t allow you to be his first test case. Nothing ever works the very first time, Alex. You know that.”
Time is the one thing I don’t have. I’d rather be dead, really dead, destroyed, walking around without a head than be with Christiana. If Armand kills me, all I can hope for is to meet Elizabeth in this afterlife I hear so much about.
~ ~ ~
Alex is paler than usual.
He buries his head in his papers again, but I slip a finger under his chin. It’s like lifting a boulder from the ground.
Reluctantly, he submits. “What?”
Pressing my fingers under his eyes, I notice slivers of purple veins. “When was the last time you fed?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been preoccupied.”
Worried, I go to his kitchen and open the refrigerator where he keeps the vials he steals from work. While I hate the idea of him drinking strangers’ blood, unless he feeds off me day and night, it’s his only option.
My heart pounds violently. There is nothing, nothing in this icebox.
Returning to the office, I poke around for his medical bag. “Alex, you need blood.”
“I’m fine,” he answers blankly and stares at the papers laid out in front of him.
“Are you in any pain?”
“I’m fine.”
I step closer and hate that I’m a little nervous that he let himself get to such a state of deprivation. “Didn’t you say you drank my blood right there in the lab because you let yourself go too long?”
He pops his head up. “That choice led me to you.”
“Now’s not a time to be sentimental. There’s more at stake. You have me and Annie to protect. We have a long drive tomorrow, there and back.” I thrust my arm in his direction. “Right now, remove six vials of blood from me.”
“Elizabeth, no. You passed out the last time I did that.”
“It’s a good thing you’re here, then.” I shake my arm again hoping my scent will waft up and tempt him. “You need this, Alex.”
He runs his hands over his face. “Fine.” He stands, and from a closet in the back, he removes his bag.
I sit in his chair with my arm extended. My eyes wander to his papers for a distraction, but they make no sense to me and only add to my agitation. The routine begins. My fingers close into a fist and the band wraps around my upper arm. Alex’s cold hands have been on me a hundred times since he did this yet the feeling propels me back to that afternoon.
The same shivers of this beautiful stranger touching me flood through my mind. The intimate moment where he held my life in his hands. One wrong slip or the tube left open, my blood would drain away.
Now this is to save him. To keep him healthy and present of mind to be there for me, while we figure this mess out.
“No, Elizabeth, watch me.” His voice turns my head. “You can do this.”
The tiny needle slides into my vein, disappearing under the skin. That vein, which runs through the crease of my elbow turns blueish purple. “That is cool.”
“I know.” Alex transfers the tube of blood to one vial and stops.
“What are you doing? You need more than that.”
“I’ll get more blood from the hospital when we get back.” He slides the needle away and wraps it up with the tube to be discarded.
“That’s almost a week from now.”
“I can count on your blood to sustain me more than a stranger’s.” His fingers curl around the vial like a claw.
The vampire is more present now than the man I know. While
he drinks, his lips wrinkle into a snarl as he tastes my blood, fresh from my veins. Warm and thick. Instead of cold from his refrigerator. His eyes flash to me and his dark thick eyebrows are a sharp contrast to his light features, enhancing his facial expressions.
Will he devolve into a maniac and begin a feeding frenzy? Those eyes flash iridescent green for a moment until they shine like eightballs again. Next his spine lengthens, he appears taller. No wonder vampires feed often, satiated with human blood makes Alex more formidable than I’ve seen him in weeks. To control his thirst must be one of his superpowers.
Still, seeing how fresh blood, my blood affects him makes me realize, he clearly needs more and is being polite about it. I have to tempt him into taking more blood from me.
Straight from my veins.
“There’re a few books I want to pour over.” He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles, but he’s shaking. “Don’t worry, we have plenty of time to get back home for Annie.”
He’s lost in his thoughts, but he’ll focus more if he’s nourished. He said he didn’t like drinking and having sex at the same time. Maybe he just never tried it with the right partner.
But this isn’t something he’ll agree to immediately. I have to tease him.
“I’m going to take a bath.”
“Okay. Good. Relax,” he responds distractedly.
In Alex’s en-suite bathroom, I run the water until it’s scalding. Hot water will rush more blood to my skin and he’ll smell it. I strip off my clothes and step in the tub, easing in against the painful heat. My heart pounds with fresh and flowing blood. My breasts float in the water and my nipples pucker against the cool air above the warm surface.
Drawing Bloodlines (The Princeton Allegiant Series Book 1) Page 21