The Truth about Vampires

by Theresa Meyers

  “Won’t happen to you.” He took a casual sip of his brandy as if they were merely discussing the weather and not her potential death or un-death.

  An angry heat stole into her cheeks. How could he act so blasé about this? “How do you—”

  “Zarah knows exactly how much she can administer to heal mortal patients without causing the conversion to begin.” Dmitri took another long, slow sip of the brandy and let it sear a hot trail down to his stomach. Her eyes were too bright, nearly luminous. The ichor was still affecting her more than he’d seen in others. Zarah had hinted that it might be because he’d fed from her just days before. He wasn’t sure. But he did know he shouldn’t have fed from her in the first place. That was his mistake and he damn well wasn’t about to repeat it. No matter how badly he wanted to. He tore his gaze away from her and concentrated on keeping his fingers on his glass instead of reaching out for her.

  “But I still have a virus in me, right?”

  He nodded. “For the moment.” He took another drink, working hard to keep as far from her as he could without raising her suspicions. The air vibrated with a heady mixture of female sexual desire and something that was purely Kristin and as addictive to him as any opiate.

  Since she’d had the ichor treatment her scent had altered slightly. She now emitted a vampire mating pheromone that was changing to suit his most intimate fantasies, to lure him in. Dmitri steeled his resolve.

  “What do you mean? It’s a damn virus. Once it’s in there, it’s in there!”

  Saints, he prayed it wasn’t so. Because if it was, he was screwed. She had already broken through the reserve he’d tenaciously clung to all these centuries. And that was when she’d been fully mortal, not a walking, breathing package of seduction in a powder-blue sweat suit that molded itself to every curve and swell of her exquisite body.

  He couldn’t touch her. Dared not taste her no matter how strong and elemental the compulsion became. The least he could do was calm her fears from a safe distance.

  “Not with this virus. Once the virus has done the work necessary, your body’s natural immune system neutralizes it, unless, of course, you don’t have enough blood left in you to actively fight it off.”

  Curiosity sparked in the depths of her intelligent eyes. Saints above. She was breathtaking. Streams of golden hair spilled softly over her sloping shoulders, but her chest and chin were held high with determination. For an instant his vision faltered and he saw the panic-stricken green eyes of that young maid replacing Kristin’s far sharper blue ones.

  “That’s how you create your kind, isn’t it?”

  Dmitri snapped himself out of the memory, stiffened and nodded. She made it sound almost like catching a case of the sniffles. The details of his own turning were still deeply etched into his brain like acid on glass. Being drained slowly, being used up and then filled up with the ichor Larissa had poured into his open mouth. The wounds seared as if hot acid were being siphoned into his veins. The intense hunger, the overwhelming sensations that had flooded him until he’d completed his first feed and slept overnight covered in deep dark earth. “It’s not a pleasant process.”

  Six hundred years and the memory still nauseated him, had the power to make him shake with anxiety and bone-deep fear. He’d never put another human through the painful process, and he’d be damned if he ever would. It was simply too horrifying a memory for him.

  “What about the murders? My friend Beck says the DNA from the ichor and a DNA sample from Balor’s case are a match. Are the murder victims people who didn’t fare well in the conversion process?”

  Dmitri wished. “Frankly, I hate the comparison between those of the Cascade Clan and what the reivers are perpetrating. So, no. That’s different. That’s murder. Vampires don’t have any reason to remove the organs, and conversions in our clan are tightly monitored.”

  She kept pressing, her dogged determination something he both admired and loathed. “Do you think that perhaps someone in your clan is in on it?”

  He straightened his shoulders. “No. I’d know. The Bloodless Murders are firmly laid at the reivers’ door.” Achilles had been working on ferreting out their nest without any success. They were like the Scottish border reivers of several hundred years ago, striking in small groups, taking what they needed and vanishing without a trace until they struck again, causing havoc in their wake. Vane was the only solid lead they possessed.

  “I thought you said the clan council would be taking care of the reivers. But they’re not, are they?”

  He clenched the snifter in his hand too hard and it shattered, spraying shards of glass and droplets of brandy across his shirt and the floor. He growled in frustration and phased the mess away, whisking away his sodden shirt in the process. He heard her small gasp and without glancing in her direction, assumed he had scared her with his display of anger.

  He couldn’t look at her. It just hurt too damn much to know that their bonding was doomed from the start. She was mortal—and going to stay that way. She had no business being with a vampire and he had no business wanting her with every fiber of his being. “Sorry. It isn’t that simple. There’s more involved than just subduing them.”

  When she didn’t reply, he did cast a quick glance in her direction and the sight nearly drove him to his knees. Her eyes were the luminous electric blue of a summer sky, her skin flushed a delicious pink and smelled like cinnamon icing.

  She drifted toward him, as if she was mesmerized, almost floating rather than walking. And when she reached out and stroked his bare shoulder, he flinched, the feeling akin to fire licking his skin. Need, raw and primal, surged through him in a crashing wave so intense it nearly caused his knees to buckle.

  “Don’t touch me.” His words came out a harsh whisper.

  Her caress skimmed over his chest, making the muscles bunch and flex, cry out for more.

  “Why?” The sultry tone in her voice caused him to shudder thinking of how wet and slick her skin would feel.

  “Because all this—the reivers, you and me—it’s all far more complicated than you can possibly imagine.” He blew out a harsh rattled breath that had nothing to do with oxygen and everything to do with maintaining his control.

  She leaned into him and the scent of aroused female and vampire bonded, filling his sense with the pheromones swirling in the air, and weakening him further. He closed his eyes and visions of her wet skin sparkling with water drops appeared before his eyes. Hell. He couldn’t escape the need that raged through him or the extension of his fangs any more than the aching erection she’d aroused.

  “It doesn’t have to be complicated, Dmitri,” she said softly, her words a whisper of hot breath fanning against his bare skin. God, she was a temptress. And he was definitely no saint. “You just need to tell me the truth.”

  He opened his eyes and gazed at her. Big mistake. Huge. The blue sucked him in like an endless inviting pool and he felt himself drowning, gladly. Saints above, he was totally screwed.

  “Let me guess,” she said as she twisted a finger into the hair at his nape, setting off a chain reaction of need in his body. “Do those vials of ichor at Sangria have something to do with the complexity of this situation?”

  As much as he wanted to sink into her touch, feel every inch of her sweet softness, he couldn’t. If there was any hope of breaking their bonding, he had to initiate it now. Control it now. He pulled away from her fingers, instantly feeling the loss like a punch in the gut.

  “We’ve always restricted illicit trade in ichor to ensure that conversions aren’t random or unintentional. The rest of the complexity in this situation is strictly about the bonding happening between us. I can’t be with you. And you shouldn’t want to be with me. It’ll never work. You’re mortal. And I’m—”

  She reached a finger forward as if to shush him and instead gave his right fang a long, deliberate stroke from root to tip. Dmitri shuddered, the sensation shooting straight through him, igniting his hunger into a fu
ll-fledged demand to have her.

  “Don’t tell me what I want. I already know,” she breathed.

  Unable to resist her, Dmitri pulled her in to nestle against him, reveling in the feel of her, even as he hated himself for giving in to temptation. “Do you know how difficult this is? Do you even realize how close you are to death? Just being here, being with me, being involved with this problem we have with the reivers, is reducing your chances of survival. I hate being the cause.”

  She pressed her mouth against his in a kiss that started as light as the caress of a butterfly’s wing and then grew more lush and full until he was utterly lost. The kiss was so pure it tasted of sunshine. How could he ruin something so utterly perfect? And ruin it he would.

  She’d never be the same if he fully bonded with her. No mortal ever was.

  He’d seen some of Achilles’s bonded mortals wither away into empty husks, because their desire consumed them so fully they could neither eat nor drink. He’d heard of mortals dying of insanity in the bonding experience, unable to control the onslaught of their heightened sense. And that alone scared him when it came to Kristin.

  Without a doubt he knew he would do everything in his power to protect her, even if it meant keeping her away from himself. For her own good. He broke the kiss, pulling away from the very thing that made him feel the most human, most alive in centuries.

  “Some things are worth dying, or becoming undead, for.” She pulled his head down to hers, her eyes shining with promise as she licked a damp trail across his lower lip.

  He shoved her back, the temptation almost more than he could bear. “No! Not this. You don’t understand.”

  The roughness of his words hit her like a physical blow, causing her to stumble back a step. “Then help me understand.”

  His shoulders bunched into tight coils of sinew and muscle as he wrapped his hands around the back of his head and began to pace. “The truth is, everything’s changing. And it’s all happening because now mortals know about us. But it’s more than that. The reivers want to fundamentally change the way the world works, with vampires at the top and mortals—”

  “Somewhat lower down the food chain.” Even as she said the words, panic started to flutter and beat behind her ribs like a frightened bird trapped in a cage.

  He sighed, staring at her with defeated eyes.

  “Exactly.”

  “Crap.”

  He closed the centimeter of space between them. “You can see why we’d be concerned. This isn’t just about a few murders, or even just about the survival of our clan. It’s about the survival and freedom of mortals as well.”

  Adrenaline spiked through her system. “Concerned? I’m completely freaked out! You’re telling me we’re about to become freakin’ fast food.”

  “We’re trying not to let that happen.”

  Determination once again surged in her. “How do we beat those reivers?”

  Dmitri shook his head. “You aren’t fast enough to beat them, and unless you have a significant supply of dead man’s blood, or access to the silver stored in Fort Knox, or a few extra atomic bombs lying around, you have nothing.”

  Power and anger pulsated off him in dark, shimmering waves, like mirage heat, that filled the small space between them. This was bad. Really bad. Kristin’s knees gave out suddenly and she plopped down on his couch, her stomach a tumble of knots, fear prickling her skin. “Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

  He looked up, his glare menacing, but alluring to her all the same. “Would you have understood?”

  “I think I would have. And even if I didn’t, you could have trusted me.” Her defensive tone instantly softened his features.

  “I do trust you. The problem is, I don’t trust the rest of the mortals out there. My position in the clan demands that I keep certain things secret.”

  She stood up and stepped toward him. “Not between us. Not anymore.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  Kristin spun away and groaned with frustration, fisting her hands at her sides. God. What a mess. They were worse off than Romeo and Juliet. They only had warring families. She and Dmitri had different species. “Stop saying that! Look, I’m going to write about the virus, whether your leaders approve it or not. Humans have a right to know what they’re up against and the potential that ichor has to heal. They also need to know about the reivers. But that doesn’t have to change what’s growing between us.”

  “Actually, yes, it does.”

  “Why?” It came out more a plea than a question.

  “If I can’t maintain control of the mortals’ reactions, if I can’t keep the members of our clan safe, my laird has the right to execute us both. And I’d rather be beheaded than let him kill you.”

  Kristin just stared dumbfounded. She’d be damned if some vampire she’d never met was going to change the course of her life and her kind. Suddenly this was far bigger than any Pulitzer. This was her one shot to change the world.

  “Bullshit,” she muttered hotly. She locked her gaze on his, intense and determined. “If the reivers were gone, would any of this be an issue?”

  “Yes. You’d still be mortal.”

  “But we might have a chance?”

  “Slim to none, but yes, a chance.”

  “I’ll take it. If we get rid of the reivers, then we can work everything else out. We’ll prove they’re behind the murders, and let the human authorities take care of them.”

  Dmitri shook his head. “You’re betting that mortals will rally to this cause.”

  “You don’t think they will?”

  He shook his head. “If six hundred years has taught me anything, it’s that all vampires are alike to most mortals. If one of us is a threat, we’re all a threat.”

  Chapter 14

  Even after a full eight hours of sleep, Kristin still wasn’t one hundred percent. Ichor or not, she fortified herself with caffeine and forced herself to work frantically through the day. She needed to write as fast as she could to have the article in to Hollander by the evening deadline. Touting the ichor’s enormous benefits while acknowledging its vampire-causing virus proved to be harder than she’d anticipated. She hoped against hope that Dmitri was overestimating just how bad a reaction humans would have once this story hit the newsstands.

  She blew out a breath as she emailed the file to her editor.

  “Finished?” Dmitri stood in the doorway, sexy as hell in a drawstring black pajama bottom and nothing else. Kristin felt her breath catch at the sight of his well-defined chest and ripped abs gloriously bare. He’d slept the day in his room. Once or twice she’d tried the door, wondering if she could just catch a catnap curled up beside him. But the door had been locked, just as before.

  She nodded as she rose from her chair and stretched out the kinks in her neck. “Don’t like being disturbed when you sleep, do you?”

  She’d fallen asleep on the couch watching television sometime during the night while he’d been working and woke in the morning to find his bedroom door locked once more.

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “I don’t think sleeping in dirt would really appeal to you.”

  Deep down, part of her disagreed. Sleeping with him was the least of what she wanted to do with him in a big wide bed. Finally his words hit her. “Dirt? But you’ve got a bed.”

  “That’s purely for show.” He crooked a finger and she crossed the short distance to him willingly, her fingers itching to touch the broad expanse of hard muscle she found so irresistible.

  His fingers curled over her hand and he led her into his bedroom. Awareness arced between them, causing her heart to start pumping harder and the tips of her breasts to harden. It was getting more difficult to see in the dark and Kristin surmised that the ichor was beginning to wear off.

  He snapped on a lamp with a push of a remote control in his hand. A second button caused a series of metallic clicks. Panels over the headboard slid open to reveal a huge gap in the wall. The entire b
ed lifted from the floor and folded neatly into the space, revealing a large square hole that had been carved into the rock below and spread with black satin.

  She eyed the space, then eyed him. “I kind of expected a coffin. But you sleep down there?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not plush, but it works.”

  Kristin shivered and he pulled her closer. The fact that it resembled a double-wide grave wasn’t lost on her. She pressed her cheek against his chest. It was far too easy to forget that he was undead, especially when he made her feel so utterly alive. “But your bed would be so much more comfortable.”

  He chuckled as his fingers lazily stroked her hair. “With you in it, I have no doubt.”

  “So why bother with a bed if you actually sleep down there?”

  Beneath her cheek his chest stiffened ever so slightly. “It’s a small connection to whatever humanity I once had. A reminder.”

  “Have you ever wanted to be human again?”

  He closed his eyes, sighing deeply, as though the thought alone caused him great pain. “Countless times.”

  “Well, isn’t there some kind of antivirus, some way to undo the damage?”

  He shook his head. “Once a vampire, always a vampire. Only once every thousand years does a plague come that mutates the virus, putting us all at risk. And that threat has already passed.”

  But if the virus could be activated and deactivated naturally, then it could be done artificially too, she thought. Beck could do it, given enough time and resources. “What if you could create an antivirus of some kind?”

  “Why are you so intent on finding a solution?”

  She looked up into his eyes and felt her heart trip over itself. Somewhere along the line reality had snuck up on her and delivered one heck of a sucker punch. She loved him down to the tips of her toes. She’d take even the slimmest chance if it meant they could be together. And, as much as she wished he felt the same way, she knew her being a mortal and his being a vampire was a major issue for him. But she wasn’t ready to tell him about her newly discovered feelings yet. “I just wanted to see if there was any way to be with you.”