Fallen Ever After

by A. C. James

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2014, A.C. James

  (Wandering Impulse Press)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means; electronic or mechanical including photography, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Cover art designed by Ramona Lockwood.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Diane Peters and Kathy Kulig for their critiques. I’d also like to dedicate this book to Vikki Jankowski and Amy L. Gale for their friendship and support. Oh, hell. I dedicate this book to all the gals of the Pocono-Lehigh Romance Writers who’ve supported my writing and have become my friends!

  Acknowledgments

  And I’d like to thank Alexis Arendt as my editor.

  Chapter 1

  Having an eternity to figure things out is a really long time. It seemed like a good advantage to have, since I was only twenty-two, but that was before things got messy. Really messy. On the other hand, adjusting to being a vampire and everything that went with it would have been more difficult if not for the fact that I’d dealt with having the Sight my whole life. Freakish, supernatural occurrences were an everyday thing in my world long before I met Arie Cush.

  The afternoon sun filtered through the bedroom window of the loft as I shifted in Arie’s arms. It had been a week since Katarina’s death—a week since I’d become a vampire through some strange twist of magic that I still couldn’t wrap my head around. Killing Katarina had killed us both, except now I was a vampire. Not a small side-effect.

  I studied Arie’s face while he slept. He had a face that I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of looking at. A dark curl fell across his forehead; I wanted to reach out and brush it back, but I didn’t want to wake him. His eyes, had they been open, would have been a somber gray, and his lips did unimaginable things to me. Just thinking about it made my thighs tingle. Throughout the week he’d been patient as I adapted to my new life as a vampire, as a Night Walker.

  Or at least that’s the ancient term that Victoria used, even though bloodstone made it possible for vampires to withstand the sun. I could walk in the daylight as long as I wore the ring that Arie had given me. But he’d explained that ‘Night Walker’ had been a superstitious term that villagers used in Victoria’s time. I twisted the bloodstone wrapped around my ring finger. One day I hoped Arie would give me a different sort of ring, that I’d wear on an entirely different finger. I sighed. I doubted that would ever happen, given his tumultuous history with Katarina.

  Katarina is dead. And I’m here now.

  But I wondered how he felt about me killing the woman he once loved. Still, it was self-defense and she had terrorized the entire city. She was a whole different kind of crazy. I hoped her memory wouldn’t haunt us, but it had me thinking maybe we should slow down. We’d been thrown into a living situation that neither of us was ready for. Now that my life wasn’t at stake and I could protect myself, there wasn’t any reason to rush. My heartbeat quickened at the thought of disappointing him. I couldn’t help feeling just a little bit guilty over killing his crazy-ass ex, even if I didn’t have a choice. It was me or her. And I chose her.

  His chest rose and fell with the steady rhythm of his breathing. “Holly…you know it’s not polite to watch someone while they’re sleeping.”

  His eyes were still shut but the hint of a smile curved his mouth. God, he was sexy as sin and twice as wicked. The word for Arie was hot with a capital ‘h.’

  “How did you know I was watching you?”

  Arie’s eyes fluttered open. “I could hear your pulse quicken. I can only imagine what dirty thoughts are running through that pretty little head of yours. What are you thinking?”

  Warmth flooded my cheeks and my pussy clenched just from the sound of his raspy voice. “I was thinking it’s Saturday, so it’ll be busy at the club.”

  I lied rather than deal with a subject that would be difficult for him to hear. That insecure part of me wondered whether we’d stay together, because we’d been tossed into a dangerous situation and he’d only wanted me in first place because I looked like her. But that was over now. Besides, the world didn’t stop spinning just because Arie and I had been wrapped up in one another, cocooned in the loft since the night of the gala. The night I’d killed Katerina and everything had changed.

  “Holly,” Arie said in a stern voice. “You know Tessa said to take all the time you need.”

  “I know. It’s just that I need something that resembles normalcy after everything that’s happened. A distraction might be good for me. Besides, I can’t stay in bed with you forever.”

  Arie laughed. “And what’s wrong with that? You really think going to the club will bring you a sense of normalcy? You’re joking, right?”

  I couldn’t help but grin back at him.

  The Hellfire Club operated as an underground BDSM sex club upstairs and a Goth club downstairs. But that was the very normal, very human part, that hid Chicago’s playground for the supernatural right in plain sight.

  And lying there with the sunlight streaming down on us, everything felt right. It felt natural, almost, after the nightmare that filled the previous months. Katarina had killed so many innocent people, and it took all my strength and embracing a magic I didn’t understand to stop her. Somehow I didn’t think the calm would last, and I wanted to enjoy every minute of it while it did.

  Reaching out, I grazed Arie’s cheek with the back of my hand. He caught the back of my knuckles with a kiss that made my breath catch in my throat. “I want to see how Victoria is doing. I haven’t seen her since the night of the gala. You said she’s been asking about me.”

  Every detail of the night of the gala, the night that I died, would be etched in my memory forever.

  “Did you forget? She stopped by and helped me decorate the tree—helped me plan the scavenger hunt?”

  I blushed. “Oh, right. I forgot she stopped by, but I had a good reason to be distracted.”

  Arie’s eyes darkened with desire. After he’d almost lost me, it didn’t take much to get the blood pumping in our cold, dead veins. A look or a touch, even one as chaste as brushing his cheek or kissing my knuckles, could end with us falling into bed. Then we’d make love until the sun came up and sleep until noon.

  But I’d died.

  Arie didn’t bring me back as a vampire. Some strange mystical exchange happened. Maybe because Katarina drank my blood and then I’d used Rue’s words to summon magic and by some lucky accident I’d defeated her—like Dorothy dropping a house on the Wicked Witch of the West. The happy accident had worked out. Well, mostly, if you ignored the fact that I was a real-life-blood-sucking-vampire.

  Death had drawn us closer together. Gone was the moody and brooding vampire I’d fallen in love with. We were both mad about each other. I got under his skin almost as bad as he got und
er mine. His sexy scavenger hunt over the holidays had ended with a multitude of mind-blowing orgasms and Arie giving me a promise ring. I could wait for more, because I knew what that meant to him—what a huge step it was. In that one gesture he promised me forever. It made me feel happy and scared all at the same time.

  If I could stay in bed with him all day, I would, but we’d done exactly that for the past week. Arie’s phone never stopped ringing. I wasn’t even sure how my godmother had tracked down Arie’s number, but with her anything was possible. First Tessa, then Victoria, and then Luna had called, but it felt good to have friends worrying about me. They were more like family, and considering that I’d never really had one, I loved feeling like I belonged—even if the family that I belonged to was a dysfunctional, supernatural hodgepodge of vampires and faeries and witchcraft.

  “How can I say no to you?” His sexy look melted me.

  “Then don’t,” I said with a smile. “Don’t say no to me. Just be with me…always and forever.”

  Arie sighed. “I’m yours for eternity, but I don’t think you realize what forever means—at least not yet. But someday you will, and I wonder how you’ll feel about it then.”

  “What? Do you think I’ll get sick of you or something after a few hundred years?”

  I couldn’t help teasing him. It felt good to be lighthearted and free. Things had been so tense between us, but now we could put Katarina behind us and just focus on our relationship. God, I never realized how looking like his ex would make me feel. Like I was somehow less than the psycho-vamp-tramp, and I knew it didn’t make any sense but that didn’t change the way I felt about it.

  He pushed a stray chestnut strand away from my face. “No, I think you’re young, you’re beautiful, and you have no idea about the implications of this life.”

  His suggestion insinuated that I didn’t yet understand what it meant to be a vampire. And maybe I didn’t, but part of him still worried about how I’d deal with the Sight now that I’d turned. Katarina had the Sight too, and it had driven her to madness once she’d been turned. Now that she was out of the picture, it might be a good idea to let us get used to the idea of our relationship. Our lives had completely changed over the past few months. I loved him with everything I had, I just didn’t want to screw it up by moving too fast. Nagging, useless insecurity and guilt dug into my conscience.

  “Arie. Let me…” I brushed my lips over his mouth. “Let me love you.”

  “Please,” he whispered, his fingers linking with mine. “Don’t ever stop.”

  “Never. I can’t.”

  And no words were ever truer.

  His love drove me like an addiction, and I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. Not now. He closed his eyes and pulled me close. Unbidden tears ran down my cheeks. Why was I crying? Was it my heightened senses and emotions from being turned? Lifting my head, I took his mouth, our kiss flavored with the salt of my tears. Arie wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe. Not that I depended on it anymore. It was a good thing, too, because it felt like dying, the way air was being sucked from my lungs by my hot vampire boyfriend kissing me senseless.

  As much as I loved our week together, it would be fun to hang out at the Goth club downstairs at HFC. Tonight a Euro-Goth band called Defiance promised to bring out the vampires—both the wannabes, or fang-fakers as Victoria liked to call them, and the actual undead. Tessa had surprised me by not making demands of me this week. Still, a change of scenery would be nice, since we hadn’t left the loft.

  Not that I could complain about the scenery. Arie’s tongue explored my mouth with a hunger that seemed insatiable, and the air filled with a charge of awareness. In an almost dreamlike state, I pulled him closer. It could be the apocalypse and I wouldn’t care—probably wouldn’t even notice—because whenever Arie kissed me the whole world fell to pieces. All I could focus on was his tongue brushing against my teeth, and I realized now that I’d never noticed the details of his mouth before. At least not like this. The swirl of his tongue, the sensuous textures, contrasts, and each finite detail that made my finely tuned senses nearly explode. Anticipation made my skin tingle. My breasts pressed against the hard wall of his chest, his hand fisted in my curls as he pulled me deeper into his mouth. God, kissing Arie now that I was a vampire, with every sensation amplified by about a billion, was so fucking hot.

  Seriously, I could get used to waking up like this. We’d never be the normal couple that went to picnics, movies, and hikes in the woods, growing old as we held hands and kissed. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  We’ll never have children, either. Or grandchildren that I can spoil rotten. I only started living with him when my life was at stake. It’s all too fast.

  I pushed the thoughts aside as I met his tongue with mine. The possessive yet gentle meeting of our lips left me breathless and reeling. He thrust his muscular thigh between my legs. His hands dropped to my lower back and he pulled me toward his knee, rocking his leg against me. The pressure felt incredible, and I knew without a doubt that if he kept it up I could come like this. Easy. Or tear his clothes off and forget all about meeting up with Victoria and Luna at the club. I groaned.

  Maybe I should. The pleasure streaking through my core overwhelmed me, and I arched into him without him pulling me forward. I took what I wanted, rocking against…

  Arie pulled his knee away.

  He broke off the kiss and threw me a smile, that cocky curve that lifted his mouth in a way that made me want to either kiss him again or smack him. Or maybe both.

  “Shouldn’t you start getting ready, if we’re going to the club?”

  Unquenched desire and irritation at both his cockiness and my own weakness tangled into a conflicted knot at my core.

  “Arie! I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work.”

  I threw off the sheet and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “No matter how sexy you think you are, you can’t seduce me into staying in bed with you. I swear. We’re going to the club—I really mean it.”

  But it didn’t sound very convincing—even to me.

  Arie sighed and reached for my underwear. He managed to grasp the string side of my bikini, pulling me back into bed and into his arms. I tumbled into them less reluctantly than I let on.

  “You don’t mean that,” he said, taking my hand and bringing it to his lips, where he nipped the pad of my finger. “But I want to give you something to think about…for later.”

  He knew me so well, and of course he was right, which was irritating, especially when he looked completely amused.

  I jerked my hand away playfully. “Fiend!”

  Definitely the wrong thing to say—the erotic light in his eyes became hotter and more intense. He looked like he might pull my underwear down and plunge into me with one stroke. The sheer fabric of my bikini happened to be the only layer of clothing between us; I’d discovered that Arie preferred to sleep naked most of the time. But his preference kept us from doing a whole lot of sleeping. His lust-filled look could have burned a hole through the material, and there wasn’t much to my underwear to begin with. He stared at me the way a lion might look at an antelope right before the chase. And my first thought was that, like the antelope, I should run for my life. My second thought was that I really wanted to get caught.

  “Only when it comes to you—you’re mine, Holly,” he said, his husky voice a penetrating caress.

  “Yes, yours.” It was a promise I intended to keep.

  His chest was smooth, the thick pads of muscle rolling beneath pale skin. And his abs, dear Lord, those ripped eight-pack abs could be cut from steel. Oh god. Arie’s gaze trailed to my naked breasts. Warmth spread to my chest as my nipples tingled and hardened under his gaze. I tried to cover up, but Arie grasped my wrists, raising them above my head.

  “Never hide your body. I want to
look at you.” He brushed his lips across mine, kissing a trail down my neck. “You’re so beautiful, Holly.”

  I trembled under the assault to my senses. Bare and open to his hungry gaze, a mixture of vulnerability and desire shot straight to my thighs. Wetness pooled in the folds that lay between them. Everything was intensified. Arie had always turned me into a puddle of sensation, wrung me out with his expert touch that he’d undoubtedly honed over the centuries. But I’d never experienced anything quite like this. Each sensation felt drawn out, overwhelming, and excruciating in a way that verged on painful. His mouth left a trail of fire that burned into my ultra-sensitive nerve endings—one of the perks of being a vampire. At the moment it left me squirming as I tried but failed to adjust to the thrum humming down my neck, to my thighs, and through my entire body.

  “I’m going to suck on those,” he whispered as he looked at the hardened pebbles of my nipples, which betrayed my need to feel him inside of me. “Touch, taste, nibble, and bite…”

  “Yes. Please, yes.” I writhed beneath him, needing him to do what he described.

  His mouth moved further down my throat, and I shuddered at the scrape of his teeth over my skin. Slowly, his mouth descended, nipping and licking as it trailed lower. The desire that flamed in my breasts and between my legs only eased when he finally took one nipple between his teeth. But my relief was only temporary. His tongue flicked over the hard nub while his hand massaged my other breast and pinched my taut nipple. I gasped for air, wriggling beneath him, needing to feel him touch my pussy.

  God, I want this man.

  I clutched his shoulders, digging my nails into his skin as I let out an animalistic growl that I almost didn’t recognize. His mouth trailed lower, between the valley of my breasts, over my ribcage, across my navel…

  He stopped just above the mound of curls between my legs.

  “Are you sure you want to go to the club? We could stay here, have some fun, order some delivery.” When he spoke, his breath tickled the coarse hair at the apex of my thighs.