Poison and Potions: a Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Erin Hayes

  "Then make me," she said.

  "I don't understand."

  "Make me like you."

  "Don't be silly, mi amore. If I make you like me, I won't be able to enjoy you ever again."

  Before she had a chance to protest, he tore the sheet away so that it flapped against her ribs as she trembled. She watched his tongue roam his lips as he regarded her, his eyes traveling from the pulse in her throat to her belly as it rose and fell with each breath.

  "So beautiful," he said. "Like the weak cappuccino children drink." His palm whispered against the swell of her lower belly. "Let me see the rest. I've never taken the time to drink you in with my eyes."

  "No," she said.

  His gaze jerked to hers, impatient at first, then squinting in thought. "Ah, yes," he purred. "The tease." A thread of pleasure moved his mouth. "I am your master, mi amore. I will take what I want."

  "No man is my master."

  "Then you want to be taken. Is that the way of it?" He looked eager instead of annoyed.

  "I want to be made."

  He ignored that, sending his fingers probing beneath the waistline of her panties, peeling them down. When she resisted, he pinioned her against the bed with one hand on her ribs and the other stripping her of the last bit of material covering her sex.

  He sucked in a breath.

  "I will make you," he said, the lust on his face as clear as if he'd literally drooled onto her skin. "I will make you scream for me, beg me for release, shout to your god that you abandon him in the face of your new master."

  "Like hell," she croaked, and I felt like cheering for her for doing exactly what I hadn't been able to do against him all along. I even crept out from behind the veil and shouted a vitriol-laden fuck you in his general vicinity. I wasn't sure if she felt that, but it certainly made me feel better. I gave him a double one-fingered salute without the benefit of having fingers, and I yelled at him to go to hell until I felt myself breaking apart like steam dissipating in a hot room. Go to hell, I said with my last bit of energy. Go straight to hell.

  Of course, hell descended.

  He buried his face into the tender flesh of her upper thigh, tearing into the skin so fiercely that she let loose a scream of surprised pain. Her fingers flew to his hair, pulling whatever she could grip and twisting until some came loose in her hands. All it succeeded in doing was to send his teeth to her upper thigh, where he bit and tore and moved on again to her belly. He wasn't taking the time to suckle at each wound, but was letting the coppery scent taint the air as she leaked from each bite. He was driving himself into a frenzy, one she had taunted him with.

  I slashed at the gossamer threads that wrapped around me, shrieking at her to get the fuck out of there. She wouldn't survive. We wouldn't survive. It didn't matter that he might want me so badly he wouldn't let me out of his thrall, but that was exactly the problem. He wanted me so badly that he couldn't control himself at the best of times.

  She bucked against him so I knew she had heard me. She knew right then and there that she wasn't playing with some young undead but a much more ancient and powerful being. She understood exactly how strong the thrall must've been if I couldn't come clean from it. A drug. His thrall was crack and my blood was the pipe we shared.

  "Make me," she shouted.

  He had already lost control; if he heard her, he didn't care to take the time to deny her. His teeth sank into her neck. He drew hard, so hard I could feel some part of my core moving with Ismé's pulse as it fluttered. He had begun to drain her in earnest, gulping down great drafts of her blood and I didn't think anything would be able to stop him, not even his deep seated desire to keep my heart beating for his return. He was going to take it all.

  And then Heaven cracked open its door, shedding its light on his vulnerable skin. He released her. She sank against the mattress, panting with shock and fear.

  He regarded her with something like disgust. I felt faint.

  "The chianti has gone sour."

  "What," she said, confused, and I didn't have the energy to even try to broadcast that she'd screwed us both. Somehow, despite all my efforts to resist, this bitch of a parasite had found a way to make the break from his thrall. I gave a short thought to the Auburn-haired warrior from earlier, thinking that maybe I should have just let her take my head. It might've been far quicker, maybe even less pathetic than what was going to happen next.

  "It's gone," he said. "Whatever was there that sang to me is gone."

  "So you have no reason not to make me."

  "So I have no reason to return," he told her.

  He sighed sadly. I shuddered from within, reading in his face a sense of loss much as I'd seen in my father's when my mother passed away. I knew what Ismé didn't. That if Gio had no reason to return, he had no reason not to drain her--and me--completely.

  She squirmed, trying to resist him, but he latched onto her neck.

  "I'll make it quick, mi amore," he said against her neck, around the flesh that made his voice sound muffled. "For the sake of the pleasure you gave me, I'll take you quickly."

  Chapter Fourteen

  WHEN SHE WAS DEAD

  I was dead, and it was exactly like I always worried it would be. Death had fingers of ice and a suffocating weight that kept my spirit pinned to some dark place. Death was as quiet as a monk's robe trailing along a deep dungeon floor to a man's last moments. It tugged at my feet trying to yank me deeper into nothingness and when it couldn't get good purchase from my calves, it shifted to my thighs, and behind my knees. It hefted me to the dizzying heights of a judgement scale, draping me over the pan as it waited to measure me against some unit of lighter fare.

  I knew I'd be too heavy to be rewarded the light, and I immediately felt the regret of a spoiled and wasted life. I whimpered, and when I heard the sound, I wondered why it was so clear. Only when I felt the pressure again, crushing my chest, did I realize the resulting tears couldn't be from the afterlife at all.

  I was alive.

  I was me.

  I struggled to open my eyes. The lids had weights tied to them. I concentrated instead on speech. My mouth was as good as sewn shut.

  "She's trying to speak," said a woman's voice. "She's alive. For now. Be quick."

  The bruising pumps on my chest halted.

  "Leave us, then. Get the plasma. Hurry."

  "Yes, sir."

  A whisper of touch on my cheek. "Jade?"

  I couldn't even force my tongue to the edge of my mouth. I wanted to answer; I wanted nothing more than to open my mouth and emit even the briefest of moans. My body wouldn't obey me.

  "He drained you, damn him." A pinch at my throat that ached all the way to my toes. "I stopped him, my little mambo, but I wasn't fast enough."

  Magnus. His voice so thick, it could have been clotting blood. I wished I could smile at the irony.

  "Your chain," he said. "You would have had it with you if we hadn't – if I hadn't..." he cleared his throat. "But I can't worry about that now. We have to get you well. You will get well. Can you hear me?"

  I nodded, using all the energy at my command.

  "Can you hear me, Jade? Do something. Nod. Anything."

  I felt the flat of his hand against my chest. Feeling for a heartbeat, I supposed. I prayed it was strong enough for him to sense.

  "Do you want to live?"

  Silly question. Why would anyone have to be asked that?

  "Jade. Tell me. Do you want to live?"

  I heard the sound of wheels squeaking and of the clattering of steel on steel. The woman's voice saying there was only one bag of plasma left.

  "It won't be enough," she said.

  "It doesn't have to be much." His fingers probed the edges of my eyes, peeling the lids open. He was nothing but a blur haloed in too much light. "Stay with me, Jade."

  My eyelids fell closed again when he let go and he cursed with enough venom to make a serpent jealous.

  "Do you want to die? Is that it?"
/>   I felt someone grapple for my hand, pulling it away from my body. There was a slight burning sensation in the crook of my elbow that seemed to streak in two directions at once. It spread into my rotator cuff, across my chest.

  "Jade." This time his tone was more insistent. "Do you want to die?"

  This had to be what it felt like to be injected with heroin after a long withdrawal. My entire body begin to tingle. I felt my cheeks being slapped.

  "Answer me. Do you want to die?"

  I marshaled my strength, inhaling deeply. "No," I croaked, praying he heard me.

  "Get out," Magnus said. I couldn't imagine where he thought I would go or how he thought I would be able to move. It was only when I felt him peeling away the blanket I was wrapped in that I understood he wasn't talking to me.

  "Go to the hospital," he said. "Go to the blood bank. Find a bum on the street; I don't care. Just find another source."

  "I don't know her type."

  "It won't matter," he said. "Just go."

  "I'll bleed myself," she said. "I have equipment in the lab."

  "Then do it." Curt, almost angry except for the electric note of something else in his tone. I might have labeled it as anxiety if it had come from someone I knew loved me. As it was, I had no clue about his intentions. I thought of Aisha and the fact that Ismé didn't love her, and I felt sorrow.

  He shifted focus to me again. I felt his mouth against my ear. "Forgive me, Jade," he said. "The plasma just won't be enough."

  If I felt confusion, it came second to the desire to live. I had no choice but to trust. He had saved me before, and although it had been a long and arduous recovery, I was willing to go through it again. I couldn't even imagine why he needed to ask my forgiveness for that. He knew I wanted to live. If the nurse's blood type wasn't a match, then at least we could say we had tried.

  What about that could possibly require forgiveness?

  The answer came as I was mulling it over; I felt his tentative weight shift alongside me. His fingers tiptoed to my hips and moved across the mound of my pubis. I felt the tickling of his fingers in my hair. So. I was still naked, then. Gio had left me bare and broken, the bastard.

  I felt a feathery kiss on the corner of my mouth.

  "I'll be gentle," Magnus whispered.

  He probed me with the tenderest of touches, all the while murmuring against my cheek, sending his breath to my ear. He was sorry. He would never do to me what Gio had done. But if I was to live, he had to take me.

  I realized what it was he needed forgiveness for as I felt warmed oil being massaged onto my sex. I wanted to weep with the thought that I'd wanted him so badly before, and now the only way I would enjoy the act would be when I couldn't truly feel, couldn't respond. When his taking of me would be nothing more than pity: a clinical event much as a doctor checking a patient's blood pressure.

  He entered me millimeter by millimeter, slow and careful. There was no passion or urgency. I felt no weight or pressure as he slipped in, and I wasn't sure if it was because I was truly dying and could no longer feel or if he was being careful about his weight so he wouldn't crush me. He withdrew immediately and I didn't feel him inside me again for several seconds. When he returned, it was with another solid pressure burying deep within me. I knew he had planted himself as far as he could when he gripped my hair in a fierce tangle and he shuddered against me.

  I felt the hot water of my tears pooling in my ear.

  "I'm sorry, Jade." He smoothed my hair, sopping up the water with his sleeve. "It's not Gio's seed, but it might help gain you time."

  My body had the nerve to tremble its response. I didn't want him to know how sad the act had made me. I wanted to be as emotionless about all this as he was. While I could at least open my eyes now, I couldn't look at him. I chose the wall of his luxurious bedroom instead, feeling the grief morph into something less sad, and more akin to anger.

  "You'll be fine," he said, pulling the wool blanket--I could tell now it was wool--up over my shoulders and tucking it beneath my chin. "It's just your body trying to live. You were so cold."

  I wondered how an undead being could feel cold, and I imagined I must have been frigid indeed if he'd been able to feel it. The blanket scratched at my chin and I tried to squirm to get free of it.

  "Good," he said. "It's working." He lifted my hand and rubbed my skin, shaking the limb out as though he expected he could force fluid into the furthest regions of my body by doing so.

  "Our fluids work to heal," he said, a queer tone moving beneath the currents of his voice. If I didn't know better, I would say anxiety had stolen his vocal cords, filling the silence with a barrage of words to dampen the tension. Maybe he felt regret. Maybe it was awkwardness.

  "A vampire has the best connection to his thrall through intimate contact," he went on. "If we don't make them with our blood, our seed balms them, sustains them until we return. I told you this already, I'm sure. I didn't know if--I mean, I wasn't sure I would have a connection with you." He pushed the edges of the blanket into the crevices my body made against the bed. "It seems there's enough. At least just enough till Anastasia returns with some blood."

  A silence fell over us. I had the sense he was looking at me, waiting to see if I could respond. When I didn't, he sighed and tried to lean over me to get my attention.

  "Are you awake?"

  I shut my eyes, praying he wouldn't notice the tears.

  "I just thought you should know why," he said. "I would never have...after the last...I would never have done that otherwise."

  Even worse. I'd groan if I had the wherewithal. I wanted to shriek at him to get out. Anastasia saved me the trouble.

  "I have a pint," I heard her say from the doorway. "I'm sorry; it's not enough."

  "Give it to her." He stood and I could hear him backing away. His voice drifted to me from a good distance. "I'll find more. Just get that in her."

  Anastasia went to work. I rolled my head to face her. She wasn't as old as I'd thought before. Last time I was here recovering, I'd believed she was in her late fifties. Now, I couldn't see a sign of age spot or wrinkle, and yet, I still had the feeling she was much older than Magnus. I found myself wondering if he had her in his thrall, if he sustained her the same way Gio had me. I cringed at the thought. A burst of jealousy spread across my belly.

  "He would have made you," she said, looking down at me as she replaced the plasma with a unit of blood--her blood, I realized. No wonder she looked so drawn.

  I swallowed, feeling for the first time how much my throat ached.

  "I wouldn't let him." She twisted a lever and the red fluid sped down the tube to my arm. "I didn't think you'd want life that way." She sent a flint-eyed look to mine that cut through my miasma.

  "No," I croaked out. "Not that way."

  She nodded, seemingly pleased. "But he would have. You need to know that." She inspected the progress and grunted, satisfied. She swayed a bit on her feet.

  "You don't need to worry about Gio anymore."

  No shit. Now that the chianti was gone, there was nothing he wanted from me. And Ismé had done her own part in making sure that part of my life was over.

  With a start, I remembered Ismé. Ismé. My hands went to my chest, probing, running over my skin. If she was in there, that bitch, I'd beg Anastasia to pull the plug just to make sure hell took her back.

  "You're agitated," Anastasia said. "I should never have told you. He wouldn't forgive me if I let you get worse." Her hands smoothed over mine, tugging them down to my sides. "Careful."

  "Ismé," I managed to croak out.

  "No," she said. "Anastasia. Call me Ana." She tried on a smile for me, one that transformed her face. I thought for a moment I was mistaken about more than her age; she might have been very pretty if you looked past the severe hairstyle and the solemn expression.

  I tried to squirm to a sitting position. "Ismé," I said again.

  Before Ana could even attempt to gentle-handle me back aga
inst the bed, a cloak of blackness swept over my vision, clotting my consciousness. I couldn't fight it, and I lost consciousness with the thought that Ana hadn't been swaying on her feet at all. I'd just been dizzy.

  When I woke again, it was to light streaming in through the French doors of the balcony. I looked sideways. A cot hunkered next to my bed. Atop the cot was a foul-smelling vagrant connected to a tube that stretched across the distance to a blood bag. I was connected much the same. Ana sat in the corner, watching me from a very puffy recliner.

  "Nearly topped off," she said. "You feel stronger." A statement, not a question. For the first time, I thought I detected a note of foreign accent. Weariness showed in her face.

  "Yes," I said, trying my voice. I did feel better. Stronger. Sassy, even, as I realized how they'd decided to top me off.

  "He couldn't do better than a homeless man?"

  She shrugged. "He was the closest."

  "AIDS? Hep C? The clap?"

  "Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter."

  "And how much? What will happen to him when I have all his blood and he's in the same state I was in. That he saved me from."

  She stood to inspect the IV inserted into the vagrant's arm. "He would have been dinner in any case," she said.

  "Somehow I doubt that. Magnus doesn't look like the kind who enjoys greasy take out."

  "He does have a more elegant palette, but he wouldn't have been picky last night."

  "Just grabbed the first living blood bag he saw is that it? What happened, Ana?"

  She tapped the IV. "I wasn't there."

  "But you know what happened."

  "I know he brought you here. I know he must have been on fire to get you safe because ten seconds more and this conversation would not matter."

  "He brought me to you instead of the hospital where I might have received proper care. He brought me here instead and now this man is forced to sacrifice himself for me."

  I was damn happy to be alive, but I couldn't find a way to process the fact that I was simply alive because another man was dying for me. I felt nausea grip my belly.