A desire as sharp as hunger, as painful as frigid cold seized her. She needed more of him, to come again and again, until she passed out from exhaustion. She dug her nails into his back and let out a breath that sounded more like a hiss.
He raised his head to look at her face. “Angelina?”
She answered him with a throaty growl.
Vega looked down at Angelina. He’d just made love to a beautiful virgin, an innocent. He was the first man she’d ever had inside her, the first man to bring her to orgasm, the first man to taste the sweetness between her legs.
And now, before his eyes, her face had changed. Her hair fanned out against the pillow in wild snarls. Her emerald eyes had changed, the dilated pupils narrowing until they became the eyes of a cat.
She opened her mouth to let out another growl, and he saw two pointed teeth, not fangs like his, but the razor sharp incisors of a predatory feline.
He didn’t have to look at her hands to know her nails had turned to claws. The scratches she’d left on his back stung in testimony to their sharpness.
He’d done it. He’d awakened her. And now she was feral, clawing for more.
His cock grew hard again almost instantly. She reached down and grasped it, pushing it inside her and letting out a purr of satisfaction.
Without thinking, he shoved his cock into her as deeply as he could then pulled out. When her claws dragged down his back, he thrust back into her.
She bit down on his shoulder, pumping her hips against him, milking his cock. If they didn’t slow down, he’d come and it would all be over before he could satisfy her.
He didn’t want to think of what came next, of biting and feeding from her. For the first time in five hundred years, he felt more like a man than a vampire, and he wanted to make that feeling last.
His relief when she stopped was short lived. She moved away from him, and to his shock, turned over on her stomach.
“Take me this way,” she said with a growl. “From behind.”
He wanted to refuse, to return his mouth to her clit and make her come again, but when she positioned herself on all fours and looked at him over her shoulder, the word no left his vocabulary.
He knelt behind her and grabbed her hips. With one thrust, he buried himself inside her until his sacs hit her backside.
She moved her hips back, grinding against him. He moaned and withdrew his cock. Helpless, he pumped into her with a force that made the bed groan beneath them.
She reached between her legs and formed a circle with her fingers, stroking his shaft with every outstroke. He clutched her pelvis with one hand and found her clit with the other, rubbing it furiously.
She spread her legs further and lowered the upper half of her body down to the bed, pushing her hips higher. He deepened his thrusts, using both hands on her clitoris and holding her hips tightly against his when he finally came deep inside her.
She came when he did, her sex convulsing around him, her wetness mixing with his.
He ran his hands down her back. She glistened with sweat. He could feel the scratches on his own back healing already. Panting, she withdrew from him and turned over to face him.
Her eyes were back to normal, as were her teeth. A glance at her hands revealed human fingernails.
“What just happened to me?” She looked up at him, wild eyed. “It’s like I became…”
“A cat?” He lay down next to her, taking her in his arms. If his undead existence ended by morning, he would accept it as the price he paid for this night. He’d rather face death than feed from Angelina without telling her everything first. She’d given herself to him as no other woman ever had. He owed her the truth.
“Yes, a cat. It’s like I was…” She curled up against him, taking his heart into her keeping forever with that simple gesture. He tightened his hold on her. “It’s like I was feral or something.”
“I think you discovered your true nature. Have you ever heard the term ‘Bastet’?”
“Like the Egyptian cat goddess Bast?”
He nodded. “Bastets have the bodies of humans, but the souls of cats. They’re the children of the goddess Bast.”
She was quiet for a moment, considering. “That could explain why I love Egyptology so much. I’ve always been fascinated by the pyramids, the pharaohs, the Nile...” She was about to say more when the lights suddenly came on again.
She looked at Vega, and her eyes swam with fear.
He realized with a sickening shock what the sudden return of light revealed. His fangs had grown with their passion, becoming two massive prongs, ready to impale human flesh. The woman who’d stirred his feelings like no one he’d ever met saw him as he really was, an undead monster, the ruse of a Halloween costume with cosmetic fangs crumbling to dust the way his corpse would at dawn.
Angelina sprang from the bed, tearing the sheet off with her. She wrapped it around her, hiding her body from him. His heart contracted with pain. The body she’d shared with him, allowed him to explore and delight in. And now she kept it from his eyes, as if he were an intruder out to harm her.
Which was exactly what he hadn’t meant to do.
“Who are you?” She backed away, eyes narrowed, shoulders tensed. Her mouth twisted into a grimace of revulsion. “What are you?”
“I’m Vega St. Angelo. I was born in Italy.” He drew a deep breath. “And I’m a vampire.” What purpose would be served with denial? The truth was there, staring back at her.
She shook her head. “No, no way. There’s no such thing.” But even as she denied it, he knew she believed it on some level too deep for her to process yet.
But soon enough, she would. And it would be over. He’d lose her as quickly as he’d found her.
“I was made in Venice, as a young man. I had a blood disease; there were no methods of treatment then, no wonder drugs or chemotherapy…” He had to make her understand. “Becoming a vampire was the only way to avoid death.”
She covered her ears with her hands, the sheet dropping to reveal the tops of her breasts. He relived taking her breasts into his mouth, sucking, being more sated by her than any living blood he’d ever had.
“I don’t want to hear this. Just stop talking and get out.” She pointed to the door, the one he’d carried her through on their way to making love.
“My maker loved me like a son. He couldn’t let me die, and I didn’t want to meet my end at the age of thirty. So he turned me.”
“And you just hop from house to house on Halloween, shelling out this story and performing random deflowerings?” Her voice broke. “Get out. I never want to see you again.”
“Angelina, you have to believe me. I meant you no harm. I feel something for you that I haven’t experienced in all my centuries of life.”
Her face turned to stone. “How many centuries have you lived?”
Another painful truth. “I was made five hundred years ago tonight.”
She backed away again, this time until she hit the bedroom wall behind her. “And I let you touch me…” She covered her mouth with her hand. “I let you have sex with me…”
“It wasn’t just sex. You know this as well as I do.”
She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “I let you…” Her face blazed scarlet. “I let you come inside me. My God.” Her bitter laugh sliced through the air. “I might even be pregnant with your demon spawn, or whatever it is that you undead blood suckers call your children.”
“I can’t father a child.” At least he could reassure her on that point.
She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “God only knows what I’ll catch from sleeping with you, the risks I took with my health tonight.” She stopped, her eyes widening. “You did this to me.” She pointed an accusing finger at him.
He went on guard. “I did what to you?”
“You turned me into that—that thing, that cat thing, whatever it is that came over me when we were in bed. You did it!” She clutched the sheet, her knuckles turning whi
te.
His voice was low and defeated when he answered her. “You were born a cat-shifter. I merely awakened you to your true nature.”
She laughed again. “How the hell would you know anything about me?”
His next words sank inside him like cement to the bottom of the ocean. “Because my maker told me. You were selected for me this night.”
Her face went blank. “Selected?”
“Every hundred years, on the anniversary of my birth into vampirism, I have to empower my blood again.”
Her eyes were hard as she stared back at him. “Where do I fit into this?”
The truth would make her hate him forever. He’d die with the sun, having known his true soulmate for only one night. She’d carry her loathing of him inside her forever. He’d carry the memory of her face with him for whatever eternity awaited him on the other side of the crypt.
“Only the blood of a virgin can empower me.” He paused, committing every detail of her to his memory, knowing she’d force him to leave as soon as he finished speaking. “You were the virgin. My maker chose you for me. It was he who told me of your cat nature, and how I had to awaken you as part of my empowerment.”
Angelina’s mind reeled. In the course of a few short hours, she’d met the man of her dreams and lost her virginity in what must have been the most mind-blowing maiden voyage in recorded history. Now she’d discovered she was part feline and that the man who’d made love to her as if his life depended on it actually did have his life on the line.
Something still wasn’t adding up. “But…you never drank my blood.”
He shrugged. His still nude body distracted her. This man was far too gorgeous to be five hundred years old. “I was to awaken you before I drank.”
“And you did. But you never bit me. You never even tried to take my blood.” She relaxed her guard just a little. “What gives?”
He exhaled. “I couldn’t take your blood like a ruthless predator, not after what we shared and the way you’ve made me feel.”
She took a small step forward. “So when exactly were you going to do it?”
His eyes met hers, burning into her the way his body had burned into hers a few short minutes before. “I couldn’t bring myself to do it unless you consented. I could’ve used my powers to lure you into bed tonight, but I fell for you the minute I saw you. I only wanted to make love if it was what you wanted as well.”
She puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “Well, after what we just did, I hardly qualify as a virgin.”
He dismissed her words with a gesture. “It doesn’t matter. I’m the one who took your virginity. Your blood would still empower me. Besides, I was to awaken you first. And female cat-shifters only awaken through making love.”
She felt her heart soften a degree. He could’ve taken advantage of her so easily, but he hadn’t. That didn’t exactly put her at ease, but it was a start.
There was one thing she had to get out of the way. “Were you planning to kill me? Is that part of the deal?”
“Never.” He shook his head. “You must believe me, Angelina. I’d never do anything to harm you. I only take the lives of those who hurt others. Criminals, murders, child abusers.”
She sat down on the corner of the bed. Undead creature of the night though he was, she believed him. Something in her gut told her he was being honest. “What happens to you if you don’t get virgin blood tonight?”
He shook his head again. “It doesn’t matter.”
She leaned forward, touching his shoulder. The simple skin on skin contact made them both jump. “After everything we’ve been through tonight, I think I deserve an honest answer to my question.”
He put his hand over hers and gently guided it away from his shoulder. “I die when the sun rises. My body will turn to dust, and my soul will depart this earth forever.”
A cry of anguish escaped her lips before she could stop it. “I can’t let you die!”
He tried to smile, but it faded like mist. “You have no choice in the matter, my darling.”
Angelina threw the sheet aside. “Like hell I don’t.” She climbed into the bed next to him. “Where do you need to bite me?”
He laughed, this time with real amusement. “That’s not exactly the way it works.”
“Then how does it work?” She touched his lips with her fingers. “I was afraid sex would hurt, but you made the pain pale in comparison to the pleasure and beauty.” He kissed her fingertips, and she continued, love for him overflowing inside her, replacing the anger, fear, and doubt that had tainted the past moments. “I trusted you with my body to do that. I trust you to do this, too.” She replaced her fingers with her lips. “I can’t let you die. You’re the only man who’s ever made me feel like a woman.”
“You are a woman.” He turned her over on her back. “All woman. The woman I’ve searched for since my life began, since it ended and began again.” He smoothed his hands over her breasts. “It begins again tonight, with you. This is my true rebirth.” He took her nipple in his mouth, bringing it the same tumult of sensation he’d brought before, but slower, achingly slow.
She sighed, wrapping her legs around him, losing herself in him and the feeling of her breast in his mouth.
“I don’t want this to end, Vega.” She ran her fingers through his hair. She’d been waiting for him her entire life, and now that she’d found him, it didn’t matter what he was. He was hers.
“And I love you.” He abandoned her breasts to press his lips to hers. “You are my soulmate, forever. Not just tonight, but for as long as my immortal heart beats.”
She moaned, feeling him harden between her legs. “I want you inside me.” She touched his erection, guiding it to her. “Please.”
He slid inside her, centimeter by aching centimeter, until he couldn’t be in her any more deeply, until he was so deep that he touched her very soul. Then he began to move, and the universe shattered around her.
“Drink from me.” She turned her head, offering him her neck. “Let me give you life, as you’ve given it to me tonight.”
He stilled his thrusts, holding her face between his two hands. “We are bonded to each other until the end of time.” He kissed her again. “My life is your life.”
“And mine is yours.” Her eyelids fluttered shut. “Drink.”
He sank his fangs into her neck, and she shivered, first with pain, and then, as his slow suction began, with ecstasy. She felt his heart beating in time with her own, his life flooding her veins. He began to move inside her again, still drawing blood from her neck, the combined sensations more than she could bear.
She ran her hands down his back with a light touch, her orgasm building as the blood pulsed through her and from her into him. He pulsed into her, the hard length of him beating like a heart inside her, bringing her closer, closer…
She came, her voice rasping out his name. He withdrew his fangs from her neck, leaving a searing pain behind, and shuddered as he came inside her, whispering his love to her even as he filled her, kissing her wounds until they healed.
He collapsed on her breasts, resting his head on one and his hand on the other. She knew in that moment that a white picket fence and everyday marriage wasn’t her destiny. This man had crossed time and space to be with her. He was her fate.
She would love him until the day she died.
“This still doesn’t explain that whole cat episode.”
Vega raised his head to look at her. She’d never grow tired of looking into his eyes, catching the northern lights in their azure depths.
“Silas could explain this to us further. He’s something of an expert on these matters.”
“Silas?”
“My maker.” He rolled off of her and out of her. She sighed with regret. She wanted him inside her, joined to her that way forever.
But as soon as he took her in his arms, pulling her against his chest, she felt no regrets, nothing but the bliss of being completely loved. “So, when do I get to
meet this Silas character?”
“After I’m done making love to you again.” He stroked her breasts with his hand. “I’ll never tire of this, or of you.”
“But we’ll have fun wearing each other out in the meantime.” She planted a quick kiss on his lips. She needed to ask him those dreaded relationship questions. But what do you say to a five hundred year old vampire, she thought, my place or yours?
“What happens now?” She averted her eyes, letting her fingers trail over his chest. “With us, I mean.”
“I can think of a few hundred things.” He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I have an entire century ahead to discover them.”
She laughed. “Maybe you do, but I’m still limited to a mortal life span.”
He considered her words. “For now.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Are you suggesting I join you in this immortality gig of yours?”
His mouth turned up at the corner. “You could certainly do worse than an eternity with me, my love.”
“How would we fill all that time?” She giggled at the devilish look in his eyes.
He pulled her on top of him. “I’ll speak to Silas about this. Surely he wouldn’t wish for me to lose you, not after spending five centuries looking for you.”
She placed a leg on either side of him. “Better be careful, I feel another feral fit coming on.”
He caressed her thighs. “I rather like your feral fits.”
It would be too easy to get caught up in passion again before she got the answers she needed. She caught his hands in hers. “What about when morning arrives?”
He sighed deeply. “I return to my crypt until sunset comes again.” Squeezing her hands, he continued. “We have every night together until the end of the world.”
“And every day apart?” She echoed his sigh. “How will I survive my nine-to-five world without you?”
“You’ll count the minutes until dusk, knowing every night will be the fulfillment of your wildest fantasies, that you’ll be loved as no other woman has been loved since the dawn of time.” He released her hands and pulled her down to kiss him.
“And what if you make me a vampire? What happens a hundred years from tonight when we both need to guzzle some virgin red?”
Cat Scratch Fever Page 3