The Undead Heart (#1 in the Blood Thirst Series)

by Stephanie Jackson

  It wasn’t much hotter here than it was in the Tennessee she had just left, but she wasn’t out walking in a ten pound dress back home. She’d been thinking about how she was going to approach Richard, but by the time she saw him, she was so hot and miserable that she really didn’t care anymore. He was already watching her when she spotted him. She walked up to him, shoved the bag into his hand, and said, “Hold this.”

  ***

  Richard was standing on the street waiting for Leso when he caught a fruity scent on the breeze, mixed with other things he didn’t recognize. He spotted a red haired woman walking in his direction. She was beautiful, and she was the source of the scent. He felt his chest squeeze, and he knew he had to find out who she was.

  He was thinking about following her when she looked in his direction and headed his way. If he could catch her eye, he would mesmerize her and get her somewhere more private, so he could find out who she was.

  Then she walked right up to him and shoved a bag into his hand. “Hold this!”

  He caught her gaze and tried to capture her mind. He thought it was working until she said, “Ten minute walk, my ass. It was at least thirty. I’m gonna stuff that ball cap down his throat! Where’s the closest hotel?”

  He just stood there stunned. His gaze did not work on her at all.

  “Are you gonna stare at me all day, or are you gonna tell me where a hotel is?”

  She spoke with an accent that lilted. It was very nice. She had the most beautiful, green eyes he’d ever seen.

  She clapped her hands in front of his face and said. “Focus! Hotel! Now!”

  He shook his head to clear his mind. “There’s a nice hotel down the street on the left.”

  She turned in that direction and started walking. She looked back at him and snapped, “Well? Come on!”

  He didn’t know who she was, but he knew she was angry. Outside of the hotel, she reached inside the bag he was holding and pulled out a roll of money.

  “Do they know you here?”

  “No,” he answered, confused. “Good, go and get us a room for the night,” she ordered, shoving the money at him.

  He didn’t understand. Was she insane? He didn’t care, he would be with her anyway, but was she insane?

  She glared at him. “Richard, I don’t want to scream at you on this street, but you don’t know how close I am to doing it.”

  “You know my name?” he asked, shocked. “Yes, I know your name, and if you go get the hotel room, I’ll tell you how.”

  That was all he needed to hear to walk into the hotel. He got a room and led her to it. Once inside, she started taking off her dress.

  “What are you doing?!” he gasped.

  “I’m sweating to death. Don’t you recognize the symptoms? Are these women crazy? No wonder they get the vapors,” she nearly growled and she kicked the dress across the room. “Don’t get the dress wet, he says! I hope sweat doesn’t count, cause it’s soaked. If I go back naked, it’s his own fault.”

  He didn’t know what she was talking about and didn’t care. She was standing in front of him wearing nothing but a corset and the tiniest scrap of underwear he had ever seen, her skin damp with perspiration.

  She walked over and kissed him. “Hi, Sweetie,” she smiled. He loved her. He didn’t know how or why, but he knew it was true. If she knew what he was, would she run away screaming?

  “I’m Beck.”

  “Beck,” he repeated, tasting the sweet name in his mouth. It was perfect. “Actually, my name is Rebecca Emily Stockdale Jaxon, and I have some things to show you.”

  “I shouldn’t be in here with you. It’s not decent,” he said, turning towards the door.

  She grabbed his arm and spun him back around. “Sit!” she said, pointing at the only chair in the room.

  He had no choice but to obey her command, so he sat in the chair and waited. She flopped on the bed, pulling her crossed legs up in front of her, and looked at him with a thoughtful expression on her face. She was killing him. If he had needed to breathe to survive, she would have him dead already.

  “I never asked you. How many memories you can take at one time?” He was shocked. She couldn’t know that about him, and how was he supposed to answer her anyway, when he could focus on nothing but her hair falling over her perfect left breast?

  “Alright. Let’s try this again,” she said, seeing his difficulty. “Your name is Richard. My name is Beck. You are a vampyre, and you can see other people’s memories. I need to know how many memories you can take at a time.”

  She knew he was a vampyre! How? She knew and yet, she still sat there with no trace of fear? Who was this woman? Why was she here?

  “I need you to answer me. I don’t want to overwhelm you.” Too late, he was overwhelmed already. “I don’t know. I’ve only received three at the most from one person at one time, but that was all they gave me. So, I couldn’t say.”

  “Well, I have a lot more than three. Scoot the chair over here, and we’ll see what you can take.” Again, he did as he was told. She took his hands in hers. “Your skin is so cool, you lucky bastard.”

  He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, allowing his body to cool it, and then blew it across her body. She dropped her head back and moaned. He watched, mesmerized, as the goose bumps chased each other up her arms and across her shoulders.

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Nor did I,” he replied, watching the goose bumps fade. “Okay, here we go. You ready?”

  He nodded and closed his eyes. He saw himself pulling a small child away from the water’s edge, pulling the same older child from in front of a strange carriage, crushing the head of an attacking dog. Then, he saw himself in a room with her, telling her she would go to the past to meet him. They were kissing. He was running his hand up her hip… “Stop,” he breathed, pulling his hands away. This wasn’t possible. She was showing him memories of himself that he didn’t have, of things he hadn’t done. Was this some kind of trick?

  “Richard, I know this is hard to understand, but we do know each other. I thought the memories would be easier than the explanation.”

  “It seems your explanation is that you are from the future.”

  “Yes,” was all she said. “And we’ve been, what, chasing each other through time?”

  “Yeah, something like that.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Yeah, you do,” she said sympathetically.

  “I have to go,” he stammered, hurrying to the door. “You’ll be back,” she called out as the door closed behind him.

  ***

  He had to find Leso, had to tell him about this woman. He found Leso on the street where they were supposed to meet earlier.

  As he approached, Leso said, “What has happened to you, brother?”

  “I need to talk to you. I met a woman,” he started, and told him of everything he had just seen.

  “Do you believe her?” Leso asked when he was done. Richard shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe. She wouldn’t have those memories to share if they weren’t true, but how can I believe she’s from the future? It just can’t be possible.”

  Leso smiled. “We are not possible either, brother, yet here we stand. So, I ask you again. Do you believe her?”

  He thought about it for a moment, and then nodded his head. “I do.”

  “Then, perhaps you should go back and hear the rest of her story.”

  “Yes, I think I will,” and turned back towards the hotel.

  When he returned to the room, she was dozing on the bed, perspiration covering her again. He took another deep breath and blew it across her body. The cold air made her eyelids flutter open.

  “Told you that you’d be back.” He looked at her for a few moments before speaking. “How could I stay away? Give me your memories, all of them, everything you can think to give me. I need to know.”

  She gave him his request. He stood for hours, holding
her hand in his. Each memory was relived in his mind, becoming one of his own: the fights; the lovemaking; the man in the library; Leso killing the vampyre; their declarations of love; their cliff; their ocean; the story of some of his family’s deaths; their wedding day; playing toss with her in the yard with some of his family, and his new hunter brother.

  He took everything she gave him and understood. She was his wife, his reason for being on earth, and he was hers. Of course she would travel through time to help save his family, just as he would walk through over a hundred years to be with her again. It made perfect sense.

  When he opened his eyes again, she was smiling at him. “I love you.”

  “Say it again, Little One.”

  “I love you,” she repeated as he pulled her up into his arms.

  Even though he had seen it all, and believed every word, he was still stunned. He’d truly met the one woman that he would spend eternity loving no matter what else happened to him, her, or them. Beck kissed him fully and deeply on the mouth and then leaned back giggling. Richard looked at her questioningly.

  Beck smiled and said, “Now you’ve been kissed!” Instantly, one of the memories she had given him took hold, and he laughed, too. She kissed him again, sat in his lap on the chair.

  He pulled back to look down into her eyes. “I know that this isn’t technically our first time, but will you just humor me for a little while?”

  “It would please me to no end to give you your wish.” He slowly smiled at her, and he was suddenly standing upright with her cradled in his arms. He gently sat her on the large, over-stuffed bed while he sat down behind her. He ran his hands over her body, starting at her hips, rubbing her back, and then, as he moved the hair off of her neck, his cool lips began to graze her neck.

  She began to turn, but he stopped her and whispered into her ear, “Have patience, Little One…I want you more in this moment than ever before, even counting the memories you’ve given me. Will you let me do as I will until I ask you to join me?”

  Breathlessly, she replied, “Anything you want, but please don’t make me wait so long as I have to beg you to let me touch you, too.”She could feel his mouth spread into a smile as he ran his tongue across her neck at the same time as his hands slid around her waist and gently over her breast. As his lips slid over her neck and back, he continued to caress her breast, standing her nipples straight to attention. As her breath caught in her throat, he slid one hand down her stomach and in between her thighs.

  As she unconsciously spread her legs, he moved around her and laid her back on the bed. He was on the floor and went from sucking her toes to licking her leg from her ankle to her inner thigh. As his mouth found her nub and licked at it with a gentleness that few ever achieve, he moved his hands up her body again.

  As she totally surrendered to him, he asked, “Are you ready?”

  She reached out to pull him upward and onto her. Deeply, they kissed as she reached down and guided him into her. As their bodies moved in perfect unison and as one mind, she was on the verge of her second climax. As she strained into him, Richard moaned, and she literally lifted him a foot off the bed as her body spent itself again. They seemed suspended in space forever before collapsing one with the other totally fulfilled from the lovemaking.

  ***

  It had gone better than she had hoped it would. She’d known that when he left the room, he wasn’t running away. She knew he’d just needed awhile to process what was going on. She knew he was going to be angry when he found out all the things she had not shared with him.

  She’d showed him nothing of Jeremy’s story of Elderson. Jeremy had told her that he had only run into the vampyre that had told him of Elderson’s plan a few months before he found Richard. She knew the day that she was supposed to die in this time, and planned to take Elderson out with a syringe of her blood. But, if that plan failed, she didn’t want Richard to start hunting him.

  She was here to save his family, not to get him killed. If she died, he could find her again. If he died, it was over. She had never told him that her biggest fear was stepping back into her time and finding him gone. She would not be the one to give him the information that would bring that fear to reality.

  She’d also not told him about her plan to become a hunter. She thought that would be more than he could take right now. She’d left out the last fight they had had, as well, but that was mostly out of shame of what she had said to him. She didn’t tell him about the rape, either. What would be the point? Even if he did stop it, she would still remember it. He brought her out of her thoughts and back to the bed they were laying in. “Any other memories you want to share?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “You have the most beautiful accent,” he said. “I don’t have an accent, you do, and it’s much stronger now than what I’m used to,” she smiled.

  “Does it bother you?”

  “Not at all. It’s just different.”

  “How does what I am not bother you, Little One?” he asked quietly.

  “What? The vampyre thing? That’s just what you are, not who you are. Who you are is a kind, decent, loving man. You also happen to be my husband, and I love you. We have to get married again when I get back, by the way. Only if you want to make it legal again, I mean.”

  “Of course I do. Only this time, I would prefer there to be more of my family there, and less of yours. How was someone as good as you raised by such horrible people?”

  “It wasn’t easy. If I didn’t have my sister, who knows what kind of person I’d be?”

  “You have come all this way to save my family. Can I ask how you plan to do this?”

  “Well, I thought I would teach your family how to fight.” He laughed. “You’re going to teach us how to fight? Forgive me Beck, but you are only human.”

  “Here, take this memory,” she said, and gave him the memory of the rear naked choke hold in the field, leaving out the confrontation with Jeremy that happened just before.

  “Alright, I’m intrigued. You are very fast for a human.”

  “We talked about this in my time. In a fight, vampyres rely on speed and strength. I’m going to give you skills.”

  “Whatever you wish. If it will help my family, we’ll try anything.”

  “And I need to find Potter.”

  “The hunter?” he asked coldly. She’d had to leave out a lot of her memories of Potter because of the conversations they were having at the time, but she still didn’t care for Richard’s tone.

  “You trust him with your life.”

  He said nothing.

  “You trust him with my life,” she said softly. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  “It is, though,” she said and gave him one of her favorite memories of Potter.

  She had just gotten Richard with the rear choke hold in the field, and Richard had said in a very serious voice: ‘Hunter, throw this human in the air’.

  “Alright, I’ll give him a chance,” he said grudgingly. “You will not give him a chance! You’ll give him your trust. He loves Jenny with all his heart, and she feels the same for him. You will not fuck this up for them. He is to her, what I am to you. You always told me that Jenny was never happy. Potter makes her happy. So, you just suck it up and get use to him. He’s your family, too. You saw that yourself through my memories.”

  “You have a foul mouth.”

  “Yeah, and you can suck that up, too.”

  “Suck it up?”

  She sighed. “Yes, it means: learn to live with it. And you really are gonna have to learn to live with it. Potter is going to be around for a long time.”

  “When do you go back?” he inquired.

  “November 13th at noon.”

  “That’s not very long to truly get to know you, Beck.”

  “Well, you’ll have to do your best. Besides, that’s all the time I have to get to know you, as well.”

  “But you do know me.”

  “I know I love yo
u, but we never really talked about you. I know you’re a vampyre. I know how you became one. I know a little about your family, but not much else.”

  “Good, then I’m not the only one of us at a disadvantage,” he smiled. “Well, that’s not nice. In the time I just left, you knew quite a lot about me. You watched me pretty much my whole life.”

  “I was saving you when you were a child?”

  “Oh, yes. Without you, I would have fallen in the river, been run over, and attacked by that dog.”

  “And attacked in that library,” he said, a touch of anger in his voice.

  “I could have taken care of that on my own. You just didn’t give me the chance.”

  “God willing, I will never give you the chance to defend yourself against a man,” he growled.

  “He was only human. I could have easily taken him down.”

  “No offense, but you are also only human, Little One. Did I kill him?”

  “No, he lived,” she answered. “Well then, next time around I will have to make sure to throw him harder.”

  She giggled. “You know, you’re incredibly over protective of me. I’m a big girl. I can hold my own in a fight; with a human, at least.”

  “Of that I have no doubt. What made you want to learn to fight, Beck?” She thought of that night in Alex Whitman’s car, not only of the rape, but of the beating she had taken.

  She looked him right in the eyes…and lied. “I’ve just always found it interesting.”

  “Well, hopefully, the only use you will ever find for those skills will be to teach us,” he said. “What do you wish to do first tomorrow?”

  She couldn’t get over how proper his voice sounded now. His brogue was so strong that it was hard to believe it was coming from the same man she had started her morning with.

  “Well, I’d like to meet your family, of course. Then, tomorrow night, I need to go find Potter.”