She was dead, right? Because, she didn’t feel alive and she was certainly somewhere peaceful and quiet.
To her side, the fluid sound of gentle breaths swept in and out of her ears. In and out, coaxing her to fully awaken and open her heavy lids. What was missing were her own breaths. And her heartbeat.
Yes. heaven.
Her eyes crept opened. Her blurry vision cleared instantly, and her gaze gravitated toward the sublime male specimen sleeping at her side.
“Oh my God!” She flung herself over Niccolo’s body, unable to believe he was truly there. Was he a dream?
“Oh, God. Niccolo, is it really you? Wake up. Please, wake up.” Cupping both sides of his immobile face, she smothered him in kisses; cheeks, earlobes, lips, brows—not one centimeter was left untouched.
He remained peacefully resting, unaffected by her touches. Helena quickly looked him over, her hands frantically hopscotching over each of his limbs. Was he injured?
He seemed intact. He was dressed in all white linen, looking tanner than usual. Almost golden, in fact. His long dark hair was pulled back into a low ponytail.
No, he didn’t look simply intact, he looked magnificent, and she could hear his heart steadily drumming away. He was alive! Definitely alive.
She moved her mouth to his and kissed his lips, face, and neck. Then she stopped to inhale his scent.
Man! He smells so good! Like a delicious bouquet of chocolates, vanilla, and spice. Her mouth watered. She licked her lips as her eyes zeroed in on the pulse of his neck. Fangs painfully popped from her gums along with the irresistible urge to bit him. Hard.
“Crap!” She covered her mouth and scrambled away. I want to eat him, and not in a naughty kind of way...
His eyes flew open, and he sat up. A large glowing smile swept across his face the moment he recognized her.
“Helena!” He jumped from the bed, grabbed her, and clutched her tightly to his body.
“Oh my God, you’re okay!”
Niccolo kissed her with such passion that her toes curled. Every nerve tingled, every cell ignited with his touch. He electrified her body.
“Wait” She pushed hard and broke his grip. She was much stronger than before.
“No,” he said in a low, desperate voice. “I need you. Now. I never thought I’d see you again. I died. You died. I don’t know how or if this is just a dream but…” he pulled her into him again.
This time she didn’t resist. He was right; she needed him as badly as he needed her. She really didn’t know how they’d survived, but there’d be time for answers later. Right now, they were together…somewhere tropical maybe? Who cared. Could be a damned Super 8 in Po Dunk, and it still wouldn't matter.
Helena looked down and noticed she was wearing a gauzy white dress that matched Niccolo’s white outfit.
She pulled the dress over her head and flung it to the Saltillo tile floor.
Niccolo smiled as his eyes wandered over her naked flesh.
Turquoise! Oh my God. “Niccolo…your eyes! They’re—”
“No talking! Kiss me. Now!” His gorgeous new turquoise eyes gleamed with desire and joy. The handsomeness of his face stole her breath.
“How did I ever think I could live without you?” she asked. Her heart fluttered, and the sensation jarred her. She quickly removed the clothes from his body and shoved him down on the bed. The new power surging through her veins only heightened her arousal.
“I have absolutely no idea.” He snickered.
“I’ll never leave you again,” she promised. The steady gaze of her eyes held the conviction of her words. She would never again separate herself willingly from him. “Until the world ends, I’ll stay by your side.”
Niccolo grinned from ear to ear.
Something about seeing this man genuinely happy felt…magical. Like the universe was finally set right. The raw edges of his personality, the darkness, had lifted.
She loved this man’s soul with every fiber of her being.
And his body…was it custom made for her? It was even more glorious than she remembered, with sleek and hard curves of muscles everywhere she looked. His stomach was chiseled from pure steel. His erection was thick and hard, just waiting for her.
A million emotions bombarded her mind, but only one was worthy of her attention: she needed him. Yes, they’d made love in the hotel, and it was fan-frigging-tastic. But at the time, this epic connection hadn’t been fully forged; she hadn’t committed her entire soul to him just yet.
She slowly moved toward him with her trembling hand. She let her fingertips gently float over the ridges of his sculpted abdomen.
His gaze smoldered with ravenous intensity as she lowered her head and sampled his lips.
It was a kiss unlike any other. Like lightening bolts of euphoria shooting into her core. Before her mind could process the flood of raw lust crashing into her, Niccolo had her pinned her under his weight.
Sexual hunger shined in his dark eyes; he too was overcome with this animalistic drive. He plunged his head and took her mouth with fury, gripping her hair tightly with one hand and cupping her cheek with the other. He held her still as his tongue thrust deeply in her mouth. He panted and groaned with each sharp breath.
His hardness pulsed against her hip, and he thrust his thigh against her juncture, undulating and pushing in time with the movements of his mouth. Helena wanted to touch him, to stroke his velvety hard cock. She wanted to taste him on her lips, to lick and savor every inch, but she couldn’t muster the will to stop their momentum. The weight of him, the urgency and hunger in his touch and kiss, they were rapidly taking her to the place she wanted to go.
Lady Pervert Land? Oh yeah…Happy place, here I come!
Helena’s mind barely registered the sensation of his strong, callused hand sliding down her neck, over her breast and stomach, until his touch reached between her legs. His fingers delved into her cleft and Helena moaned.
“You are so silky and hot, Helena,” he whispered into her ear.
She wondered if she would ever want this man to take his time with her. Foreplay simply felt like a waste. He had only to look at her, and she was ready.
She flipped him on his back and straddled him. “I want you…now.”
Niccolo’s head flew back and his lids clamped tight as Helena bore down on him. Once deep inside, she ground her hips at his base to savor the fullness of him inside her. Every inch of him drove her mad. Every. Thick. Inch. Was made just for her pleasure.
“Yes, it is,” he replied with a breathy voice.
Helena laughed. Internal dialog leakage. Again? Oh, well. Any second now, she was going to scream much naughtier things.
***
Niccolo pulled her close to his warm body slick with sweat and Helena couldn’t think of a better place on Earth. If a comet struck her down at this very moment, she’d die with a dopey grin on her sated face.
Her fingers lazily rode the waves of his ripped stomach. Every inch of him drove her mad, but now his smell… “I can’t believe what you do to me. Right now, I want to fuck you, lick you, and drink your blood. All at the same time.”
His eyes opened wide. “You want to what?”
Helena, unable to believe what she’d just said—so…vulgar—clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I just spoke to you like a dirty truck driver. It won’t happen again.”
“No! The dirty talk is great. But the drinking blood part...”
Oh. That. Did they really need to talk about it right now? The ache to have him inside her again was unbearable.
She stood up and began to pace at the foot of the bed. Niccolo was propped up on both elbows staring at her. “Answer me.”
There was no way around it; they had to have this conversation. She threw up her hands. “Viktor turned me while we were captured at the Demilord compound.”
“He did what!?” Niccolo sat up and looked like he was about to leave her again in order to go
hunt and kill Viktor.
Not gonna happen! She jumped to his side and pushed him down.
Vampire strength was cool, but this new body of hers was going to take some serious getting used to. Luckily, she knew a few people who could help figure all this out.
“You’re not going anywhere until you hear me, Niccolo. I went through a lot to save you; it’s the least you can do.”
Niccolo huffed and then nodded.
“Good.” She sat next to him and relaxed. She told him all about the conversation with Cimil and how Helena was destined to die.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, clearly disapproving of her scheme.
Helena remembered her own snarky little thoughts about honesty when Andrus discovered Reyna’s dirty little mate-secret. “Stupidity, I guess,” she replied.
“I would have warned you not to take Cimil’s word. She has a way of telling the truth and lying at the same time.”
“Her skills at the art of manipulation put vampires to shame, but Cimil…” Helena paused. Should she tell Niccolo all about all of the phony rules Cimil had made up—no bedding Helena, no biting, etc.—just so Cimil could watch Niccolo suffer? Naah. Some other time. “I wonder about her,” Helena said. “If she hadn’t helped me, I really would have died. She was the one who told me to read the stories in that weird book.”
She could see that Niccolo was growing impatient. Was he still thinking about hunting down Viktor? Likely. She had to hurry while she still had his attention. “The pages were filled one second, empty the next. Hundreds of blank pages. Except for the last one—the ending to your story.”
“What did it say?” he asked.
“That your vampire bride saved your life, but it was her belief in your goodness, her love that made you the one man with the strength and conviction to save the world.”
She held back her tears as she thought about how those words humbled her. “I thought ‘what if.’ What if Cimil really had told you the truth about the prophecy, that I had to be turned on our three-month anniversary? Which was, in fact, the day of her visit. What if she’d also told me the truth—that I had to die to save you? Becoming a vampire is dying. Right?”
“So, I begged Viktor to turn me—what did I have to lose? When he refused, I jumped him—I was desperate—and tried to force him to bit me. I wouldn’t give up. Finally, he gave in when Sentin woke up and convinced him I was right.”
“But I didn’t sense any change in you when we made love at the hotel.”
Helena wasn’t sure why. “Too soon, maybe? Viktor had just given me his blood. He said it would take an hour or two for his blood to work its way through and then stop my heart.” She sat down at his side and brushed a stray lock of hair from his cheek. “He saved me. He saved you, too.”
Niccolo nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry you had to make this sacrifice for me, Helena. I didn’t want this life for you.”
“It was inevitable, Niccolo. Reyna told me vampires cannot be mated to humans; they go insane after a few months, and our time was up.” She gave his hand a consoling squeeze. “There was no other way.”
Several moments of silence passed while Niccolo stared at their joined hands. He made tiny circles with his thumb over hers. A look of aggravated acquiescence washed over his face.
That’s my warrior, she smiled inwardly. It was her latest observation about the General, Niccolo DiConti: sure he was physically strong, but his secret to being undefeated and thirteen hundred years old was that he never wasted time brooding over things he could not change.
Case in point, once Reyna had made him a vampire, he moved on and found another way to honor his beliefs; he became the fiercest warrior the world had ever known. He saved countless innocent lives from becoming an Obscuro meal. So while Niccolo was no doubt unhappy about Helena's fate, what was done was done, and the alternative would have been death for both of them, possibly for the world, too.
His eyes gently lifted to meet her patient, loving gaze. “I guess that explains why I didn’t want to bite you when we made love at the hotel.”
“Huh?” she said.
Niccolo shrugged. “Vampires don’t crave vampire blood.”
“They don’t?”
He shook his head no.
“Then why are my fangs aching to make you my first snack?” she asked and then opened her mouth to reveal two gleaming-white fangs.
Niccolo’s expression soured.
“What?” Helena asked. “Is it my fangs?” She cupped her hand over her mouth. “Do I look that bad?”
Niccolo shook his head. “No. You look stunning and delectable. It’s just—Reyna is dead.”
Helena frowned, “So why didn’t you die?” She suddenly gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh my gods. Your eyes!”
“What about them?”
She was about to answer when he sprang from the bed. “Did you hear that?”
***
Helena and Niccolo cautiously walked through the enormous Spanish-style villa. As they followed the voices, Niccolo told her that this was his most recent acquisition. They entered the brightly lit modern kitchen—stainless steel appliances, polished granite countertops, and built in brick oven—and were shocked to find Niccolo’s team, including Viktor, Sentin, and Tomas sitting around a large table. Cimil sat at the head wearing a visor, dealing cards. An unlit cigarette hung from her mouth.
“Pony up bitches! Auntie Cimi’s got some garage sales to hit this weekend.”
The men grumbled and threw their multicolored plastic chips to the center of the heaping pile.
“She’s cheating, dammit,” Sentin said. He tossed his watch on the table anyway and lifted his cards, “but I’m not giving up until I kick her ass.”
Cimil cackled. “Bring it vamp! I’ve got all day. Those two love birds won’t make their appearance until—”
Niccolo cleared his throat. The men and Cimil jumped from the table and stared at him.
“Guess you’re fortune telling abilities aren’t so sharp after all,” Sentin goaded.
Cimil shot him a quick glare. “Hey. I haven’t gone in for a tune up lately. Been too busy codling your ass. Really, how many Swedish massages can a vampire need in one day?”
Sentin smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “It’s a fair trade since you keep making me sleep with you.”
Niccolo stocked toward Cimil. Helena was certain he was going to throttle her. “What the hell happened Cimil? What have you done to me?” he snarled.
She pointed to herself. “Me? I delivered! That’s what I did. You are free from the queen, you remain immortal, Helena is also immortal and yours for eternity.” She threw up her hands. “Touch down, baby!” She did a quick little disco dance that only seemed to enrage Niccolo further.
“And what exactly am I if Reyna is dead?” he asked. “What did you do to me and my men?” Niccolo turned and looked directly at Viktor. “And Helena.”
The thought had not occurred to Helena, but he was right. If Reyna was dead, then how come they were all alive?
Cimil smiled coyly and exchanged glances with Viktor sitting at her side. “This hunky bunch,” she pointed to the ten men around the table, “are still vamps. Their maker was not la señorita Reyna.”
“Of course she was. We all remember her turning us,” Niccolo argued.
Cimil held up her index finger. “Oh contraire mon frere! Reyna may have drained these scrumptious bounties of masculinity, but her partner in crime, el Grrran Vampirrro Roberrrto Xavier II—let’s call him Bob, Bob The Ancient One—actually donated the not-so-fresh squeezed juice for her army.”
Cimil buffed her nails on her t-shirt. “No one ever remembers that part, ya know.” She chuckled. “Bob is like the ultimate vampire-baby-daddy! Oh, wait. No. He’s a dead beat dad!” She howled with laughter. “Get it?” She turned to Sentin who just looked...annoyed. “Get it? I said ‘dead beat dad.’ Because he just goes around, making vamps, never sends money or birthday cards…” She noted no one wa
s laughing. “And you are all…dead—okay, never mind. Point is, except for Niccolo, her second in command, none of you could be from her bloodline. You know why, right?”
Everyone exchanged glances, but did not respond.
“Oh, come on! It’s a vampire law older than the Pact—the ruler cannot make the army. Too risky. I mean…what if the ruler dies? Can’t lose your warriors. Didn’t you know that?” She looked around the table. Still no response.
Cimil clapped loudly. “Come on people! Wake up! Get those hamster wheels moving! You mean to tell me no one ever noticed they don’t have Reyna’s gifts? Reyna’s peeps—may they rest in peace—could sift long distance. Bob’s peeps come with built-in stealth—which is why they’re fantastic warriors. And then there is the father of the Obscuros…” Cimil’s eyes went dark and her face blank.
“Cimil?” Helena snapped her fingers.
Cimil lit back up. “Wow! Now that was wicked hot.” She fanned herself with her hand. “So, where was I?”
Helena jumped right in. “You were going to tell us which Ancient One is making the Obscuros.”
Cimil frowned. “Was not! Besides, it is forbidden to speak his name.” She crouched under the table and then popped back up. “I was going to tell our ex-fanged friend, Niccolo, that he’s now an ex-Demilord. Or, as we like to call them, a demigod.” She clapped.
Niccolo growled. “You turned me into a Demilord?”
Cimil replied, “Yippy?”
Helena’s mind did several somersaults. She was transported back to the moment she saw Niccolo in the tomb. Her first thought was that he looked like a god, not a vampire. At the time, he was actually both. She also remembered how Andrus’ vibe reminded her of Niccolo’s.
“But, how? When?” Niccolo asked.
Cimil winked. “Oh, come on. I saw your future. I knew you would kill Reyna—the gods thank you for that, by they way. What a show! We watched every minute—popcorn, Funyuns, pineapple mojitos…the works! We’ve been waiting eons for that horrible monster to go down. None of us were allowed to touch her, though.” Cimil pointed up and whispered, “Consequences.”
Accidentally Married To...a Vampire? Page 25