Beth grinned and shrugged off her coat. She tilted her head and pulled her hair back.
"Now?" Penny asked.
"Why not?"
Penny studied her neck and whispered, "Why not indeed."
"You want to go first, or do you want me to?" Beth asked.
Penny shook her head. "Same time. Otherwise things can get complicated."
"Oh, um, okay. So what's that mean?"
Penny held out her wrist and lifted it. "From the wrist. Slower, so we can control it better. Keep your heart beating with mine. Drink and try not to lose yourself. It will be difficult for both of us to turn the other away."
Beth stared at Penny's wrist and then shook her head to get herself out of her trance. She held her arm up and looked at her wrist. She smiled and offered it to Penny. "I'm excited, aren't you?"
Penny looked at her wrist and took it in her hands. She lifted it near her face and hesitated. "I'm scared. I've never done this."
"But you trust me?"
Penny nodded. "I do. Feel my heart and match it. Bite when I do."
Beth swallowed and lifted Penny's wrist to her mouth. She felt the smooth skin beneath her lips and kissed it before opening her mouth and letting her fangs extend. She locked her eyes with Penny's and squeezed her heart in time with Penny's.
Penny closed her eyes and seemed to lose herself in the joined rhythm of their hearts. Beth sensed the blood flowing beneath her fangs, calling to her. She fought the growing urge until she felt the sharp sting of Penny's teeth parting her flesh. She bit down and tasted the mixture of spice and metal flood her mouth. Her instinct to swallow saved her as she was swept away by the rapture of feeding and being fed.
Chapter 15
Beth stood in front of John's door for the second night in a row. This time she was clean, sober, and terrified. What would he do when he saw her? Did he hate her? Would he send her away? Was he even still alive?
She shook the thoughts away. Worrying about them was given, she couldn't stop that, but she also couldn't find out if she didn't see him. She already knew he wasn't downtown, she'd seen his partner walking their beat by himself. Had he called in sick or had John never woken up?
She turned and looked around her. John lived in suburbia, with small yards and cookie cutter houses designed at being affordable and easy to build. Nice, but not extravagant. And at this time of night nobody was outside shoveling or snow blowing driveways. Light poured out through windows, but nobody knew or cared that she was there.
"Quit stalling!" Beth hissed at herself. She turned at the door and squared her shoulders before reaching up and ringing the doorbell.
She heard a noise inside. A heavy footstep or something hitting the floor? A moment later there was a noise of the wall beside the door being struck. A fist, or something else? Did he throw something at the door? Before she could wonder more about it she heard the deadbolt click and the door was pulled open.
"John!" Beth hissed when she saw him standing with his shoulders stooped and dark circles under his eyes. Even his hair looked limp and lifeless. He wore the same sweat suit from last night, though it was showing wrinkles and hung limp on his frame.
He leaned forward and stared outside, turning his head back and forth. She could see the two band-aids on the side of his neck instead of the half dozen she'd placed there. He'd changed them. He grunted and stepped back, inviting her in.
Beth stepped past him and waited for him to shut the door. He shuffled around her and sat down in his recliner. No, he didn't sit, he collapsed into it. Complete with a heavy sigh of exhaustion. She stood there and watched him before glancing down at her boots. "Do you, um, want me to take these off?"
A tired chuckle slipped from his lips. He waved his hand and sighed.
Beth bit her lip and nodded. She moved to the end of the couch closest to him and sat down, leaning on the arm to be closer to him. "How are you?"
He stared at her and shook his head. His hand rose to touch the bandages on his throat. "Is this a sick joke?" he asked. "Some kind of twisted prank?"
"No!" Beth blurted. "It's— it's not like that at all. It's complicated."
He nodded. "Complicated. I can see that. It's not every day I wake up naked with holes in my neck and the girl I slept with the night before missing. It's been a very complicated day for me. I've felt like shit and every time I tried to go outside I almost passed out."
"John, I'm sorry. I really am. I've been fighting for you."
He ignored her rambling and went on. "I tried searching my house, looking for a poisonous snake. I mean, what else could do this to me? Make me feel like I was dying with a couple of puncture wounds? That's the only thing that made sense - a big poisonous snake. Or a spider from some kind of bad horror movie, maybe. I couldn't find either of them though, so I had to go back and try to figure it out."
"John—"
He shook his head, silencing her. "I remembered when I saw you the first time. You looked like hell. Beautiful, but crash cart beautiful. I've seen prom queens turned meth addicts that looked better than you did. And you had a bandage on your throat."
Beth reached up to where Penny had bitten her. It seemed like a lifetime ago, not a matter of weeks.
"You said what you had was a condition. A disease. A disorder. You didn't say I could catch it. But I did, didn't I? You gave it to me. That's why you're connected to Penny, she gave it to you."
Beth's eyes widened. How had he figured all that out on his own?
"So that's it," he said as he watched her react. He sighed and leaned his head back. His eyes flicked to his right, where his gun rested on the end table beside his chair. "You're fine now. How long does it take? What does it mean? When can I go back to work?"
"John, you can't," Beth said.
He looked at her. "You're fine now."
She shook her head. "No, I'm not. I mean, I am. I'm better than I've ever been. Better than you can imagine, even. But it wasn't easy getting here."
"What did you do to me, Liz?"
She nibbled on her lip for a long moment before she admitted. "I bit you."
He blinked and shook his head. His eyes went to his pistol again. "Bit me? That's impossible."
"You don't think I can bite you?"
"Of course you can bite me, but you're not a cannibal. And I'm not missing any pieces or parts."
"You are," Beth confirmed. "Blood. A lot of it."
He cleared his throat and looked to the stand again. This time his eyes fell on a mostly full glass of water. He turned back to Beth. "I've seen some crazy stuff in the time I've been on the force, but this may be the worst yet. You bit me and drained some of my blood?"
"I drank it."
He shook his head, trying to refute what he'd heard. "You can't drink a person's blood! It will make you sick! Are you into some crazy goth cult or something I haven't even heard about?"
"That's not it. Not at all," Beth said. She glanced around, desperate for something to bring the conversation around. It was going badly. No, worse than badly, at this rate he'd be going for his gun and try to arrest her. Or just shoot her.
"Oh, then what is it?" he demanded. "The way I see it I've been assaulted, maybe even raped. It's looking premeditated too. I can come up with a few more charges to file too. Why, Liz? Why? I really liked you. Love you, even. I don't understand."
Beth looked up at the ceiling. She couldn't cry anymore but she wished she could. She wished she could show him how she felt. How upset she was by what he said. His words hurt, but they hurt because she deserved them.
"This is my fault," she whispered.
"Yeah, that's kind of what I've been thinking," he agreed.
"You were so nice to me. So caring. I didn't think. I mean, I tried to stay away, but you wouldn't let me. That kind of makes it your fault too."
"You attacked me," he reminded her. "Don't try to push this off on me."
Beth hung her head. He was right, she couldn't blame him. How dare he be nic
e to her. How dare he treat her like a person who was worth being treated nice. She snorted and laughed at her own thoughts.
"This isn't funny," he growled. "What's going to happen to me?"
Beth swallowed her laugh and lifted her face to his. "It is funny, but the joke is on me, not you."
His brow furrowed. "What?"
"John, you're going to die," she stated.
His head jerked and he glanced at his gun again. He was going to go for it.
Beth focused on him and demanded he ignore her while she lunged forward with everything her supernatural body had to offer. She grabbed the pistol off the stand and reversed course, landing back on the couch with enough force to make the wooden frame crack and shift the entire thing a few inches back on the carpet. The wall stopped the couch from moving but the movement jerked his eyes back to the couch and then to her.
"There's no medicine or prayer in the world that can stop it," she continued as though she hadn't paused. She held the pistol in her lap with her hands resting on top of it. "The way you look and feel, I think two days. That's all you have left."
"What— how— give me that back! How did you do that?"
"John, I'm a vampire," Beth said. "The real blood sucking sort that terrified you when you were a kid and watched a movie about them."
He shook his head and then did it again. "Impossible!"
"My heart doesn't beat unless I want it to. My lungs don't breathe unless I need to talk or look like I'm breathing," she said. "How else could I get your gun from you so easily?"
John jerked his head to the side. His eyes widened when he saw his gun wasn't on the end table. He looked back at her lap and saw her lift her hands to reveal his pistol. "What the fu—" his words trailed off as he lifted his eyes to her face and saw her toothy smile, complete with needle sharp fangs where her canines should have been.
"Believe me yet?" she lisped around her fangs. She frowned and kept her mouth open as she shrank them back to her normal sized teeth.
A strangled cry slipped from John's open lips. He stared, unblinking, and tried to shake his head in denial.
"The sex last night was nice," she went on. "Very nice, I enjoyed it. But I can't come like that anymore. Or at least I haven't been able to yet. Sex for us is up here, in our minds. And when we feed. Drinking from you was more fulfilling than you can imagine."
He shook his head again. "This isn't real. I'm dreaming. A nightmare. That's it."
Beth frowned and looked down at the gun. "Would it help if you shot me? No, that's too loud, someone else might hear it. I know, a knife. Do you have one?"
"What?" he stared at her, overwhelmed and confused.
Beth placed his pistol on the couch beside her and stood up. She walked from his living room into his kitchen and found a block with cooking knives on them. She pulled one out and tested the edge before walking back into the living room. John had jumped to his feet and retrieved his gun. He held it out and pointed it at her.
"Put that down," Beth scolded him. "You can't hurt me with it. And like I said, it would make a lot of noise. We can't have that."
"Put the knife down!" John demanded. The tone of authority he used when on duty crept into his voice. It sent a shiver down Beth's spine. A shiver of excitement. She would show him who was in charge.
"This knife?" Beth asked, holding it up. She shrugged her coat off her shoulders and let it fall to the ground. She wore another pair of jeans beneath a black cami that was stretched tight across her chest. She frowned. "Do you mind, I really don't want to ruin my jeans."
"What?" he shook his head. "No, put the knife down!"
Beth rolled her eyes and used her free hand to unbuckle her belt and unbutton her jeans. "Hang on," she said while shimmying and shaking to use one hand to push her skin tight jeans over her hips and down to her calves.
"I don't want to have sex with you! What's wrong with you? Put the knife down, please! I don't want to hurt you, Liz. Even after all this."
"You can't hurt me, baby," Beth said. She lowered the knife slowly and touched the sharp point against her thigh. "See?" she asked as she applied pressure and pushed the knife into her leg slowly.
John's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He lowered the gun as he watched inch after inch of the kitchen knife sink into her thigh. He leaned sideways in time to see the point emerge from the back of her leg. A tiny dark red trickle of blood started to run down the back of her leg.
"What the fuck?" he hissed.
Beth glanced down and twisted. "Shit!" she muttered. She let go of the knife and wiped the descending pearl of blood off her skin. "I don't want to stain these jeans."
John staggered and collapsed onto the couch.
Chapter 16
Beth was sitting on the floor and watching John when his eyes twitched beneath his eyelids a few minutes later. He blinked his eyes open and glanced around, then recoiled from her. He leaned up and looked down at legs, but she'd pulled her jeans back up and looked presentable again. His eyes lingered on her thigh.
"Yes, that just happened," Beth reassured him. "You're not crazy."
"I'm not so sure about that," he mumbled.
"I love you, baby," Beth said. "And you told me you loved me. I would have never done any of this otherwise."
"Any of what?"
"Making you like I am. Well, maybe."
"Maybe?" he asked. "What the hell does that mean?"
"You have to die first and then rise again."
"Jesus Christ."
"Not exactly," Beth said. "I mean, not at all, really. I don't know much about him, but—"
"I wasn't referring to him," John said. "Not directly, anyhow."
"Oh! Sorry. Penny can explain things so much better anyhow, we really should go see her."
"Last time I saw her she wasn't too happy with me," John pointed out.
"She's better now. Sort of," Beth said. "We had a heart to heart."
"Wait, are you two together, or not?"
Beth smiled. "It's complicated."
"A lot of things are complicated with you."
She laughed. "You have no idea! I'll tell you all about it, but not now. We'll have all the time in the world soon, but we have to get you through this first."
"Through what, this dying thing? Most people don't come back from that."
Beth took his hand and slid it under the bottom of her shirt. She positioned it on her chest and ignored his wide eyes as she brushed his palm across her breast. "Pay attention," she scolded him. "What do you feel?"
"Uh, your boob?"
Beth rolled her eyes. "Deeper. Inside of me."
He frowned and concentrated before staring at the bulge his hand made under her shirt. He lifted his wide eyes to hers. "Holy shit."
Beth nodded. "I rose again. You will too, as long as you fight for it."
"Fight for it?"
"Yes. It's— it's hard for me to explain. Penny is so much better at it. We have to go see her. And yes, I love her. I love her so much it hurts to think of not being with her. She saved me, John. She helped me and saved me and gave me this eternal gift. All she asked for in return was for me to love her. How can I not?"
"Uh, I don't understand?" he answered. "I mean, how can I compete with that?"
"You don't have to," Beth assured him. "I love you too, remember?"
"I've been on a few domestic calls where three-ways didn't work out so well."
Beth grinned. "Stop thinking with your dick, John. Soon that won't matter. You'll find pleasure and satisfaction in other ways."
He blinked a few times and shook his head. "I'm so confused. Feels like there's a fog in my head, I can't even think straight."
"Dehydration," Beth confirmed. "I probably took almost half your blood. Enough that I was worried you were going to die."
"Wait, I thought you said I was going to?"
"Sorry, I meant from the blood loss, not the change."
"The change?"
"Becoming like me."
John rolled onto his back and dropped his arm across his face while he groaned. He left his other hand trapped on Beth's breast.
"Ahem," Beth said. "We really need to be going. Later, if you're up for it, I'd be happy to fool around."
He turned to look at her. He extracted his hand from her shirt. "You said you don't get off from that anymore?"
"I don't, but it's still fun. And I like making you happy. I did make you happy, didn't I?"
He nodded and then caught himself. "Wait, are you like some black widow or something? You mate and then, uh, kill?"
Beth rolled her eyes. "I've had sex with three people in my life— sort of. The first wasn't really a person, he raped me over and over again and tried to get me pregnant with his litter. The second was a frat boy in the burned down house we drove past on campus. He got me drunk and drugged me up so they could have a frat party gang bang. Before it got too far Penny saved me. She killed him and the others and burned the house down."
His jaw hung loose as he stared at how matter-of-factly she discussed the nightmares she'd endured. "Wait, pregnant with a litter?"
Beth waved it aside. "Later. I'll tell you all about it. The important part is the third time was the charm. The third time I was in a sexual encounter it was with a kind, caring, and amazing man that captured my heart while it was still beating."
"The park?"
"The park," she confirmed. "Now get up, lover, I've got to get you to Penny."
He grunted and nodded, then let her help him sit up. Penny helped him put his shoes on and then grabbed a jacket out of his closet before she put her coat back on. She glanced back from the door, making sure the pistol was lying under the couch where she'd hid it after he'd fainted. The gun didn't scare her, but she didn't want to run the risk of complicating anything with Penny.
"Ready?" she asked him.
"I guess?" he asked. "We taking my car?"
"Sure, I'll drive," Beth said. "I haven't driven in a few weeks now, I kind of miss it."
"On these roads? Should I be scared?"
Beth grinned. "Trust me."
He swallowed and nodded back into the house. "Garage is that way."
Lover's Kiss Page 10