Not Quite Dead (A NightHunter Novel)

by Stephanie Rowe

  The palpable need driving her words plunged into him, shredding the last of his control. He slipped his fingers inside her at the same time that he sank his teeth into her inner thigh. She screamed his name, her body tightening around his fingers, as the orgasm swept over her. She clung to him, her body shaking as her blood flowed through him, seeking out every last recess of his soul, bringing light and life into the darkness that beat at him so savagely.

  The blood raged within him, driving his lust to a frenzied peak. He eased his teeth from her body, licking away the drops of blood to seal it, then stood, lifting her with him. In two steps, they were beside the bed.

  He lowered her gently to the mattress, and this time, she didn't let go of him, pulling him with her. He met her gaze, and saw in her eyes a warmth and softness that made his heart tighten. Make love to me, Eric. Not sex. Make love to me.

  Her request felt like a sudden jab through his chest. He didn't make love. He didn't even know how. What was he doing? He couldn't—

  It's okay, Eric. Whatever you have, is okay. Her fingers went through his hair, forcing him to look at her. We need this. We both do.

  He fought to hold himself back, exerting every last bit of his strength to hold back the tide rushing through him. "I don't want to betray you, Jordyn. I can't do that to you. You're too special."

  She didn't answer. She just fisted his hair and dragged his head down to hers. The kiss she gave him set him on fire. The feel of her tongue against his, her mouth demanding more, and the desire she poured into the kiss. She took him hostage, shredding the last of his control, igniting that which he'd been trying to hold back, until there was nothing but them.

  She wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing him into her. His cock brushed against her entrance, and he felt her damp wetness calling to him. He pulled back, searching her face. She smiled at him, that same smile he'd cherished since the first time she'd gifted him with it. This was his Jordyn, the woman who was brave enough to go after a fire god to save her friend. A warrior. A survivor. A passionate woman who wanted him.

  The hard shield that had been protecting his heart for so long suddenly cracked, and into that fissure slipped Jordyn, enveloping him in a warmth he'd never experienced in his life. "Jordyn." He whispered her name, and slid inside her.

  She gasped and tilted her head back, gripping his shoulders, but never breaking eye contact with him. Her sheathe was tight and hot around his cock, as if her body was fighting to hold onto him and never let him go.

  He thrust deeper, unable to take his gaze off her face as their bodies came together. He tangled his fingers through her hair, relishing the feel of the silken strands against his roughened hands even as he bound them tighter and tighter with every slow thrust of his hips.

  Jordyn's fingers began to dig into his shoulders. "How did I end up being the one to do the begging?" she asked.

  "I'm that good." He smiled at her comment, relaxing as the woman he knew so well showed herself. He kissed her, a kiss meant to show affection, which turned carnal the moment he tasted her. The kiss became about more than need, more than sex, more than hunger. It became about the woman in his arms, and his urge to belong to her.

  He'd never belonged anywhere. He'd spent his life as a vagrant on the run from himself. It was a life that was exactly as he'd wanted it to be…until now. Until Jordyn. Until this moment. I'm yours. He sent the words into her mind, unable to articulate them aloud, accentuating them with a driving thrust that sent flashes of heat sparking through him.

  He felt her smile, and braced himself, waiting for her return declaration, for the one that would bind them forever. I know you are, Eric. You've been mine from the beginning.

  There was pleased satisfaction in her voice, and a hint of humor.

  He thrust again, pulling back enough to look into her face. "Say it," he said. "Say you're mine."

  She smiled. "No."

  He thrust again. "Say it, sweetheart. You know you are."

  She gripped his shoulders, her fingernails pricking his skin. "No. I belong to no man. I won't. I can't."

  He withdrew slowly, so slowly that he felt his own gut clench from the sensation of her body sliding along his cock. The orgasm swirled at the edges of his control, trying to claim him, but he fought to hold it off. He needed to hear the words from her. He needed to know he wasn't alone. The urge to be anchored to her was so strong it was almost a compulsion. He felt like he was dangling in the unknown, circling desperately, searching for a place to land. Jordyn. He poured his urgency into his words, and thrust again.

  She gasped his name and arched beneath him as she climaxed. The wildness of her orgasm rushed through him and ignited his own, and he shouted her name as the spiral exploded through him. He sank his teeth into her neck, and the orgasm went over the top, an explosion of fire and salvation that tore them both from their bodies and flung them into a world of color and beauty, fireworks exploding through them in a culmination that he knew had changed his soul forever.

  Chapter 18

  "I can't believe you refused to tell me you were mine." Eric's face was buried in her neck, his lips feathering soft kisses over the place he'd bitten. "I feel very vulnerable. You should declare yourself now."

  She giggled, running her fingers down his muscular back. After the orgasm, he'd collapsed on top of her, pinning her to the bed. She had to admit, she loved the feeling of his body covering every inch of hers. She felt safe and protected, shielded from the world. And she felt deliciously cherished. There was just something about his post-coital kisses that made her heart tighten. They were tender and affectionate, not about sex. It was perfect. "You're fine," she teased. "You didn't want me to actually declare myself to be yours for all eternity. You're all about being footloose and fancy free."

  He kissed her neck one more time, then raised his head to look at her. She stopped, startled by the emotion roiling in his eyes. "What's wrong?"

  "There are a few things I haven't told you about me."

  Her heart began to pound. "Like what?"

  "The incident with Jane MacPherson happened over three hundred years ago."

  She stared at him. "What? You're over three hundred years old?" How was that possible? She'd thought he was like her, human enough that he carried a regular lifespan. But even as she thought it, she realized she'd always known. The darkness he carried within him was ancient, entrenched in his soul. There was a heaviness to his soul that took more than several decades to form.

  "Tristan and I stopped aging when we were in our early thirties." His eyes were dark, but she could see those shadows roiling around beneath them, always lurking. "We've spent our entire existence trying to find out where we come from. We move around, never staying in one place. People notice if you don't age. We can't find any record of our past, or of others like us."

  She felt the weight of his words, the burden of being without a history or an identity. "You mean, with an affinity for spirits?"

  Eric nodded. "Yes, as well as other things." He traced a symbol on her breast that she didn't recognize, but her skin tingled, as if it were significant. "But for the last couple hundred years, things have been changing. The hold of the darkness has grown stronger. Tristan has become more and more drawn to those long dead. Something has us in its grip, and we don't know what it is."

  "Like what?" Chills crept down her spine.

  "An ancient magic. An old evil." He cupped her breast, his palm warm and protective. "Since I've come to Parrish Creek, it's been worse. It's coming for me. Whatever it was that we first saw that night of Jane's death, it's coming to claim me." He pressed a kiss to her nipple, not a kiss of seduction, but a kiss of ownership and possession, a quiet statement that her breasts were part of his domain.

  She should feel threatened by his clear expression of his claim on her, but she didn't. It felt right and good. Shouldn't she be scared with what he was telling her? She supposed that any woman who had a marginally functioning brain would realize it w
as time to get out, but all she wanted was to wrap her arms around him and protect him. Walter had always been too strong, too dominating, too consumed with his own destiny. He'd never allowed her close. He'd never let her in like Eric was doing. It was a first for her, and it made her realize how much she had missed out on. It was a gift to be so connected with another person, a man, with Eric.

  Something had happened when he'd bitten her while they'd been making love this time. She'd felt a part of herself merge with him. She didn't know exactly what had happened, but it was different now. They were intertwined on a metaphysical level, and it felt good, as if it was how it was supposed to be.

  He searched her face and she tensed at his expression, knowing before he spoke that it was going to be bad. "Jane MacPherson isn't the only woman I killed."

  Her fingers stilled in his hair. "There's another?"

  "Yes."

  "Really?" She stared at him, her mouth suddenly dry. "What happened?"

  "After Jane, I stayed away from women. I refused to take any chances that it would happen again. But then I met another woman. One night, in an alley. I didn't even see her face, but the moment I passed by her, she called to me. I don't even know what happened. Just one minute, she was a stranger that had passed by me, and the next moment, I had her pinned up against the wall, buried inside her like we were rabbits." His eyes were blazing. "The moment we both came, something came alive inside me, and took her. She disintegrated while I was still inside her."

  Jordyn stared at him. "You're serious?"

  "Yeah." His gaze bore into her. "I don't know what I am, Jordyn. I don't know if you make me safer, or if you're being set up to be my final victim."

  "Wait a sec." She suddenly wanted to push him off her. "You disintegrate women when you have sex with them? And you had sex with me?" She pushed at his chest. "Get off."

  "Listen to me." He caught her hands, his eyes blazing as he sank more heavily onto her. "The way I respond to you is not the same as how that woman affected me. With you, it's different. But if you recall, I did everything in my power to make you leave earlier, and you wouldn't. Making love actually kept us both from disintegrating, and that's a fact. I would never have risked you."

  She heard the grim focus in his voice, and felt the desolation of his soul, and she knew he was telling her the truth. She felt the weight of his words, the burden he carried. "How many times did that happen? How many people have you disintegrated?"

  "Just those two times. I've been very careful around women ever since. I don't get close, and I bail at the first signs that things are headed in that direction." He met her gaze. "Until you." His fingers tightened in her hair. "You're under my skin, Jordyn, and that scares the living daylights out of me. I am very, very afraid of the monster within me."

  A wave of anguish washed over him, so thick she could almost taste it. "What do you want from me?"

  He said nothing for a long moment, his gaze going to her hair as he combed out the tangles. His touch was so gentle, a move that was incredibly sexy because of the fact he wasn't actually trying to seduce her. "I feel as if you're my anchor," he said quietly. "If I can somehow lock my soul around yours forever, I'll be free."

  She felt the truth of his words, and her heart tightened. Where was the arrogant playboy she'd met in the jungle? She bit her lip, unable to keep the tears from her voice. "Eric, I can't bind myself to you. I can't trap myself with a man again. I—"

  "I know." He kissed away her objections. "I admit, I'm a really great guy. If you killed yourself eight times after losing Walter, it would probably take you about a hundred resurrections to get over me. That's a lot to ask of you."

  She managed a small laugh. "A hundred? That's a lot of deaths."

  "I know. I'm pretty fantastic." His smile faded as he tucked her hair behind her ear. "It was wrong for me to ask that of you. You should kick me in the ass and tell me to take a hike."

  "You have a very nice butt. I'd never kick you in it." The instinct to commit herself to him was so strong, she could hear the words shouting in her mind. But how could she do it? How could she cross that line? Emotionally, she'd barely survived sex with him. How could she make herself even more vulnerable to him? "How else can I help you?"

  His thumb flicked over her neck, and awareness leapt through her. "This helps."

  "Biting me?" She put her hand over his, pressing his palm into her neck. "What are you really, Eric? Don't tell me you don't know. You know something. Vampire? Is that why you're so old? What else could you be?"

  He met her gaze, and she saw grim reality in them. "Many creatures feed on the blood of others, or can connect telepathically with others, not just vampires."

  "But?" She heard the hesitation in his voice.

  "The one trait that makes vampires unique is that they don't possess a soul," he said quietly. "Instead of their eternal spirit, they have simply a gaping emptiness howling within them. Without their soul, their humanity erodes away, little by little, until there is nothing left but the predator within. The transformation to vampire means the complete loss of one's soul. For some, the predator wins instantly. Others fight it, enduring for centuries as they tread along that razor-thin line, searching for salvation from the nightmare that haunts them."

  Jordyn nodded. "My grandmother alluded to that." But Oba's words hadn't been so weighted with anguish and suffering that Jordyn felt pain to the deepest recesses of her soul. "Do you have a soul, Eric?"

  He stared at her, then shook his head once. "Not really."

  Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. "The night Jane died? Is that when it happened?"

  He nodded. "Boys play with fire too often, and they get burned."

  "So, you've been a vampire all along?" She didn't understand.

  He shook his head. "Being linked to Tristan gave me an anchor. He held it at bay. We worked together, building shields, trying to anchor ourselves to life and humanity. Until I met you, I never bit anyone, or even had fangs, but it's been there inside me, pushing me in that direction."

  He opened his mind to her, and she was cast into the shadows of his memories. She saw a skinny, underfed, filthy teenage boy huddled in a grimy alley, curled into a ball. His body was shaking violently, droplets of blood seeping through the pores of his flesh. Tempestuous gray clouds swirled around him, diving at him, forming into spikes that tore at his skin. She heard the whispers of evil temptation whirling around him, ancient spirits calling to him, their voices whispering one on top of the other, trying to entice the boy. The boy's head was down, his forehead pressed upon his skinny knees, his thin arms hugging his legs to him.

  The noise grew louder, whispers cajoling him to let them in. She felt the boy's hunger gnawing at his belly, hunger not for food, but for blood. She saw the images they placed in his mind, those of a winged creature of the night, streaking against a black sky, hunting for prey. She watched the creature swoop down, claws extended, to a small figure below. It was too far for her to make out clearly, and then as it got closer, she saw it was a young woman running through a cornfield. Her brown hair streamed behind her, and her breath was rasping in her chest as she pushed herself. She looked over her shoulder at the creature flying at her, her face stark with terror.

  The creature grew closer, and the thirst for her blood became stronger, until it was almost there—

  "Eric!" Another boy grabbed the huddled youth, shattering the image of the girl and the bird. Like the young man, Jordyn was ripped from the illusion and jerked back into the reality of Eric's memory. The spirits swirled violently around the newcomer, trying to shake him loose. She recognized Tristan immediately. He wasn't nearly as thin as Eric, but he was just as filthy, two brothers on the run together.

  Tristan grabbed Eric around the shoulders. "Come on! I found a place!"

  Eric stumbled to his feet, letting Tristan drag him upward. As he stood, she caught her first glimpse of his face. His cheeks were sunken, and his face was gray, as if he were already dead.
His eyes were empty, a bottomless abyss of suffering. "I have to feed, Tris. I can feel it."

  "No, you don't." Tristan threw Eric's arm over his shoulder and began to drag him down the alley. "I found a graveyard. A woman is buried there who was a healer. Her spirit is still strong. I can bring it up. She'll help."

  "No." Eric jerked his arm off Tristan, and then fell. "Don't resurrect anyone. It will take you too close to the edge. You don't want to be like me."

  "I won't. Come on!" Tristan grabbed him. "We're in this together, Eric. I won't resurrect her. I'll just bring up part of her energy, okay?"

  "Swear?" Eric stumbled again, all his weight heavy on his brother.

  "Blood swear." The two boys disappeared out of sight around the ramshackle building, but Jordyn could hear their bare feet shuffling as they hurried away from the whispers that were still calling to them.

  Eric pulled out of her mind, and she was suddenly back in the present, with tears trickling down her cheeks. There he was in front of her, the boy from his memories, now a man. His cheekbones were strong and defined, his body rippling with muscle, but she could see in there that same gaping wound in his soul that had been there before. "Eric." She put her hand on his face, almost surprised to feel his skin was warm.

  He pressed a kiss to her palm. "Tristan's gone vampire," he said. "He can't anchor me, and I can't anchor him. We're both lost. I started hearing the whispers again a year ago, and my guess is that's when Tristan became a vampire." He met her gaze. "I've concluded he anchored himself to you to protect us. He was succumbing to the whispers as well, even before he was bitten. He needed an anchor for both of us. He always knew how to find something to save us, a spirit that was strong enough to hold us a little longer, until we drained its supply of good. He must have chosen you to save us."

  She shook her head, unable to pull away from him when all she wanted to do was cradle him in her arms and take away the suffering he'd endured for so many centuries. "How could I possibly save you?"