I had nothing to say to that, and Holroyd’s voice was calmer when he continued. “So, I guess you could say I’m in favor of each man and woman controlling their own destiny. I am proud to be a vampyre, and I personally will never partake of your vaccine if you manage to conjure up one that works. But, it is not for me or anyone else to say what someone else should do.”
“Does that mean that you won’t help Morpheus track us down?” I asked.
“I won’t help him,” Holroyd answered, “but I won’t join against him either. I prefer to stay on the sidelines and see how all this plays out.”
“Kind of like those nice people in the South who didn’t own slaves themselves but did nothing to stop the practice, huh?” I asked, an edge in my voice.
There was silence on the phone for more than a minute, and I wondered if Holroyd had hung up.
Then, he answered in a low, thoughtful voice. “You have a point, Albert, I have to admit that. I may have to give my position a little more thought, but I’m not promising anything more helpful than neutrality.”
“Thank you, Ramson,” I said, “And forgive my words of a moment ago. You are right; I have absolutely no idea what you went through back in the dark ages of our country and so I have no right to judge your actions now.”
I gave him my cell phone number. “Feel free to call me anytime, Ramson, no matter what you decide,” I said. “And, for what it’s worth, I am sorry about what I did to your friends in the Houston Council. At the time, I felt I had no choice but to fight or die.”
“They were good people, Albert. They were just doing what they thought was best for our race, just as you are now.” The big man cleared his throat and continued. “I’ll admit, for a time all I thought about was revenge. In fact, that is the reason I contacted the council in New Orleans, to get them to help me find you.”
“And now, Ramson? Are you still aching to take my head?” I asked dryly.
Holroyd gave a low chuckle. “Let’s just say that on further reflection I realized you didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter. As you say, at the time, it was either you or them, though for all our sakes I kinda wish it had been you who was killed rather than them.”
“Like they say, Ramson, war is hell, no matter who wins,” I replied and gently cut the connection.
I sat staring at the phone for a moment, wondering just how my friends and I were going to escape the wrath of Morpheus and the rest of the vampyres who didn’t want a vaccine to be made. One thing was certain; TJ and the others couldn’t survive on their own. We were going to need to get some help, but I was damned if I knew how.
* * *
Finally, I picked up the phone and dialed TJ’s number, unsure of just how much of what Holroyd had told me I should share with them. Forewarned is forearmed, but too much information might frighten them into immobility just when they needed to act fast and decisively.
My thoughts were interrupted when TJ answered the phone, the sound of her voice again making my heart pound and my mouth go dry.
“Hello?” she said, her voice as throaty and sexy as ever, causing a tingle to run down my spine and into my groin.
“Hello, TJ,” I answered, trying to keep the yearning I still felt for her out of my voice.
“Hello, Elijah,” she replied. “Did you get a chance to talk to Holroyd?” she asked, getting right to the point.
I shivered and had to shake myself to put aside the sexual thrill of hearing her sweet voice again.
“Yes, I just got off the phone with him,” I said. “It seems Morpheus is not content with just trying to find you and kill you and take Sam back for his mate. He’s also trying to enlist all the vampyres he can find to help him destroy me, too, and to prevent our making a vaccine against the vampyre bug.”
“Sweet Jesus,” TJ whispered.
“I have a couple of questions for you and then a suggestion about how to handle this new threat,” I said, ignoring the hammering of my heart as I heard her breathing into the phone.
I could sense the strain in TJ’s voice when she spoke and I knew that she was trying to suppress similar feelings at hearing my voice. The revelation that she still had feelings for me was not unpleasant.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Have the treatments Dr. Wingate and I came up with been successful on you and Sam?”
TJ cleared her throat. “Um, yes, for the most part. We haven’t had any conscious desires to feed or to Hunt . . .” and she hesitated for just a second before continuing. “But, there have been some isolated instances where we took blood from our lovers. It was just a little bit and they’ve suffered no harm and didn’t even realize we’d done it,” she hastened to add, as if trying to excuse herself.
I sighed. I’d expected something of the sort. Since the act of feeding for a vampyre is closely associated with sexual desire, the act of lovemaking is one of the most potent initiators for the Hunger. “Don’t beat yourselves up over that, TJ. It’s only natural that during sex with a loved one you might revert to a small bite or two. It will be almost impossible for any vaccine we might concoct to completely eradicate that natural instinct.”
“If that’s as far as it goes, I think we can all handle it okay,” she replied, relief evident in her tone.
“Now, as for my suggestion,” I said. “Do you remember what we had to do when we decided to go up against The Ripper, Morpheus and their cohorts in New Orleans?”
“Yes. I quit taking my treatments and let myself revert back to full vampyre status.”
“Well, now that Morpheus has enlisted the help of an unknown number of other vampyres in his quest to kill us and reclaim Sam as his mate, there is only one way you and Sam are going to be able to survive an attack by him or his friends.”
I heard her take a deep breath over the phone, and when she replied, there was a tremble of both fear and anticipation in her voice. “Yes, we know,” she said, her voice dropping into a harsh whisper. “Sam and I have already decided to stop the treatments until we are sure that Morpheus is no longer a threat.”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to alarm her more than was necessary, but I wanted to make sure she completely understood the implications of what she and Sam were doing. “TJ,” I began slowly, my voice full of sympathy and understanding, “You do know that once the treatments are out of your bloodstream, the Hunger will return?”
“We’ve already thought of that,” she replied. “Before we leave town, Sam and I are going to go to the hospital blood bank and stock up on some of the blood there that is out of date.”
I shook my head. I’d tried that myself long ago. Banked blood would keep a vampyre alive, but it didn’t satisfy the terrible urges engendered by the voracious appetite of the Hunger.
“That won’t work for long, TJ,” I said. “Not without the treatments. Sooner or later, the Hunger is going to demand a living victim. Try as you might, you will give in eventually.”
“No!” she said in a strangled voice. “Never!”
I took a deep breath. Perhaps it was better to let her learn the awful truth herself. The Hunger was a harsh and terrible mistress and would not long be denied.
“TJ, just remember. When the time comes, and come it will, you do not have to kill to feed. You can use your mental powers to cause your victims to submit and then you can eradicate all memory of the event from their minds. The Hunger will demand more, but nonlethal feedings will keep it at bay for a time.”
“Goddamn you, Elijah!” she cried into the phone. “What kind of hell have you and your kind gotten us into?”
Her scorn and anger pierced my heart, reawakening levels of guilt I hadn’t felt for a long time. “Merely the kind we live with every day of our lives, TJ,” I replied softly, my heart breaking at the hate in her voice. “Performing the Rite of Transformation on you to make you my mate was not the worst sin I’d ever committed, not by a long shot, but it is the one I regret the most.”
She sobbed. �
��I know, Elijah, and I’m sorry for what I said. I know that you are a good person in your heart.”
“Thank you, TJ,” I said, red-tinged tears filling my eyes. “Now, back to more practical matters. Once you’ve gotten a few hundred miles from Houston, give me a call back so I’ll know you’re safe.”
“Okay, Elijah.”
“Do you have plenty of money for the trip?” I asked.
“Yes. The hotel has an ATM and we can all get as much as we need.”
“Okay, but be sure not to use it until you are ready to leave the place, and then don’t go back for any reason, and do not use your credit cards once you leave Houston. Use only cash.”
“Why?” TJ asked.
“Because we don’t know who Morpheus will get to help him. Vampyres are everywhere in our society, TJ, leading normal lives for the most part. If Morpheus has allies that work for credit card companies, or even in law enforcement circles, your movements could be traced by pulling up your credit card charges.”
“Jesus, I didn’t realize y’all were so widespread in society.”
“There are many more of us out there than anyone suspects,” I told her. “And most keep a very low profile when they’re not feeding.”
“All right,” TJ said, her voice subdued. “We’ll be very careful.”
“Then, I’ll wait to hear from you. Good-bye, my dear, and good luck.”
I slowly closed the phone and stared out of my window, alone once again with my memories of what might have been.
Seventeen
TJ looked around at Matt and Shooter and Sam, all of whom were waiting to hear what Pike had told her.
She told them about Morpheus’s plan and that Elijah had recommended that they leave town immediately.
She answered their questions as best she could, and then they went to their respective bedrooms to pack for their trip, having decided to leave at dawn and to head directly for Austin. Once there, they would call Pike back and decide whether to fly or to drive to their next location, depending on how far away he was. On the phone, he’d given her no indication of his present location.
Matt and Sam began to put the few belongings they’d brought with them into a small suitcase. Sam was trying to decide what she needed to buy to supplement the two outfits she’d packed when she began to feel an all too familiar urge. The Hunger was beginning to make itself known now that she’d stopped the treatments.
It began with a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if she hadn’t eaten for days, and proceeded to spread like wildfire though her entire body, making her twitch and burn with a desire to feed, to rend and tear with her teeth until she tasted the warm, coppery taste of someone else’s blood in her mouth. It had been so long since she’d felt the full effects of the Hunger that she’d almost forgotten how seductive the need to feed could be.
She sat on the bed, burying her face in her hands as her body ached with a need not unlike that of a heroin addict.
Matt noticed her look of distress and sat on the bed next to her, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her head against his neck.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, wondering if the stress of their predicament was making her edgy.
She turned her bloodshot, tortured eyes to his and sobbed. “I don’t know, Matt. It feels like I’m starving to death, and I have the most terrible urge to . . .” Unable to say the words, she just swallowed and buried her face against his shoulder again.
Matt’s eyes widened and he looked at his watch. It’d been almost seventy-two hours since Sam’s last antibiotic treatment. By now, he thought, the plasmids and viruses that make up the vampyre bug must be replicating and reproducing with amazing speed. Sam was beginning to change, and he knew what that meant.
He pulled her face up and stared into her pain-filled eyes. “You need to feed, don’t you?” he asked, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
She nodded, shame suffusing her face.
“Do we have time to go to the blood bank at the medical center and get you some plasma?”
She took a deep breath. “I don’t think so, Matt. I just don’t know how much longer I can hold out and control the horrible urges I’m feeling. It’s like my entire body is on fire and I can hardly breathe.”
Matt laid his palm on her face. She was burning up with a fever and her cheeks were flushed. He smiled and nodded. “Okay. That’s easily fixed,” he said.
“But, how? she asked.
He stood up and began to remove his shirt. “We’ll just have to give you a little snack to tide you over until we can get a supply of blood from the hospital.”
She shook her head, but he could see her tongue come out and lick her lips at the thought of drinking his blood.
He bent and jerked the covers back on the bed and lay down, opening his arms to her, offering himself up to her hunger.
She turned and tried to fight the urge, but it was too strong and the Hunger began to take control of her body. Against her will, she turned back to him and moved toward him, as if in a dream.
She lay next to him, and when he put his arms around her and drew her face down to his neck, she moaned deep in her throat and opened her mouth, new-grown fangs glistening in the light from the bedside lamp.
Forcing herself to go slowly and gently, she sank her teeth into the soft skin over his jugular vein and began to suck his blood into her mouth. At the first sweet taste, she relaxed and felt incredible warmth spread through her veins.
After a moment, her pheromones and hormones, stimulated by the act of feeding, suffused her body and she became instantly aroused. Her nipples hardened and began to burn and itch with the desire to be squeezed, and she became wet with desire.
She released her grip on his neck and sat back, her eyes flashing and her skin on fire. Staring into his eyes, she pulled her clothes off and then bent to his belt. Within seconds she had his trousers and underwear off.
As is always the case, her vampyre desire was transmitted though both her bite and her mind to him and his penis sprang erect and jumped and throbbed with transmitted desire.
She bent and took his swollen member into her mouth as he turned on the bed and buried his face between her legs, both of them moaning and grunting with a need so intense it would not be denied.
She sucked and stroked him as his tongue caressed her most sensitive spot, until they could stand it no longer. With one swift movement she was on top of him, his penis buried to the hilt in her throbbing sex.
He bucked against her; his eyes shut as his hands took her swollen breasts and squeezed them, fingers rubbing her nipples.
She almost howled in delight as she bent and fastened her mouth on his neck once again and drank him in as they coupled wildly on the bed.
As he exploded inside her, pumping his semen into her, she came with him and released her hold on his neck long enough to fasten her lips to his, their tongues dancing together as they melded into one being.
Though they were not mates in the classical vampyre sense, Sam felt their minds touch and mingle as they came together and she felt his own release as he felt hers. It was the most incredible experience either of them had ever experienced and after a time they collapsed exhausted into each other’s arms and slept, the terrible Hunger at bay for a while.
* * *
Two hours later, Sam awoke, feeling remarkably refreshed. She felt as strong as a bull and every sense was alive as never before. Her eyes opened and she found she could see in the dark almost as well as if the room had been brightly lit.
She rolled to the side and kissed the sleeping Matt gently on the lips, and smiled when he moaned in his sleep and his penis moved under her hand. Even in sleep it seemed they maintained a deep mental bond.
She was about to doze off and go back to sleep when she heard her cell phone chirp. She’d left it in the sitting room when they’d come to bed.
Slipping slowly out of bed so as not to wake Matt, she padded silently in
to the next room and answered the phone.
“Hello, Sam,” a deep, husky voice said.
Her mind recoiled in horror. It was the voice of Michael Morpheus.
“How did you get this number?” she asked.
“What? No greetings for your lover, my dear?” he asked jokingly.
She didn’t answer. Her heart was racing and she looked wildly around the room as if he might be there with her.
Finally, when he found she wasn’t going to answer, Morpheus said, “I got your number from an old friend of yours, Sam. Here, I’ll let you speak to him.”
A second later, Dr. Sheldon Silver’s voice came on the line. “Sam, don’t come,” he blurted. “He’ll kill us anyway.”
She heard the sharp sound of a slap and a grunt of pain from Shelly, and then Morpheus was back on the phone. “He’s correct, Sam. Dr. Silver and his lovely wife are as good as dead. But we both know there are many ways to die, and I promise you the Silvers will experience the most horrible death imaginable if you are not here at their house within thirty minutes.”
“But . . .” she started.
“And, Sam dear, do come alone if you want to save your friends from a death most foul.”
The phone clicked off before she could reply and Sam sat there in the darkness of the room, sweating and shivering with fear, devastated that her past was putting two of her best friends in danger.
Though her mind was in chaos, she tried to reason out her best course of action. She knew if she showed up alone, Morpheus would overpower her, either physically or mentally, and then the Silvers and her friends would surely die.
If she took Matt and Shooter, they would not be able to overcome Morpheus, either, for vampyres were not easily killed, as she and TJ and Elijah Pike had found out.
Her only chance was to take TJ. Perhaps the two of them would be enough of a match for Morpheus, especially if he wasn’t expecting TJ to be along.
Her mind made up, she stood up and moved silently into the other bedroom.
TJ and Shooter were lying naked on the bed, covers thrown back, entwined in each other’s arms. There was a fresh wound on Shooter’s neck, and TJ’s skin was rosy and flushed.
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