She gathered her jumbled feelings, managed a small smile when Stefan squatted beside her and tucked the coverlet around Sam before lifting him and laying him on the bed. “I’d have put him there before I turned him, but he was too heavy for me . . .” Strong enough to lead a clan yet too weak to lift your lover a distance of only three or four feet. Some queen you are. Acutely aware of her nakedness now, she snatched up the top sheet and wrapped it around her. Its softness enveloped her, somehow gave her hope that Sam would embrace his new life . . . embrace her . . . when he awakened.
As if he weighed twenty pounds instead of two hundred, Stefan lifted Sam and placed him gently on the bed. “Lie down beside him, as I lay with Julie while she transformed. You look as though you’ve been through hell.”
“I have. Where are the others?” If the message she’d projected to Stefan had reached his ears despite the presence of his new bride, then they should have also made their way to Alexandre and Claude. “Jacques is destroyed, and Philippe is in one of the other bedrooms, sleeping off the effects of the poison Reynard used to dispose of both of them.”
Stefan sat beside her on the bed, drawing his trembling bride down beside him. “They are going to meet us at the castle. Claude is bringing Marisa to join in the ritual since we’ve not had time before to welcome her to the family.”
Of course Julie wouldn’t feel comfortable taking part in a vampire orgy with her own father, and Alina felt sure Sam would be even more reticent. “Thank you. I hadn’t considered . . .”
“It’s all right. I thought Julie might remind Sam that living as one of us can be tolerable—even pleasurable,” Stefan said, giving Julie a hug. “Remember the night when Claude was born?”
“I thought about it yesterday, when Sam hinted about a ménage. It was almost as though . . .” Alina suddenly realized she was about to talk about an event she doubted Stefan had shared with Julie, as well as confirming to Sam’s daughter that they’d been lovers. “You two—and you too, Noodles—may as well go home and enjoy your honeymoon now that the immediate danger is over. We will want to hold the ritual in our ancestral castle.”
If Sam is willing. Alina hoped he’d enjoy the freedom of taking to the air, floating over land and ocean without the noise of jet engines reverberating in his ears. She doubted he’d relish losing out on a lot of mortal pleasures, and she shuddered to think he might refuse the ritual and exist for centuries in limbo, a virtual eunuch in a world very different from his own. “Stefan?”
He reached over and patted her arm. “We will stay in New Orleans a few more days, but in the suite where we started our married life at the Monteleone. That way we will be close by in case you need us.” Stefan bent and brushed his lips across Alina’s cheek, then rose. “Come, Julie, leave Alina to take care of your father. You need your rest.” Alina watched as Stefan met his wife’s gaze, shut down her scan of his thoughts as he drew Julie to her feet and hurried her from the room. Some things should be kept private, even from one’s clan elders, she thought, adjusting her body to fit the curves and angles of the man—no, now the vampire—of her heart.
She said prayers to every deity she knew of that Sam would accept his new lease on life . . . and that he’d want her now as much as he had when he had been mortal.
• • •
He was dead, wasn’t he? Sam’s eyelids felt as though they’d already been weighted down with coins in preparation for the funeral. No, they didn’t do that anymore, did they? Besides, if he were dead he wouldn’t feel anything at all.
He felt strangely cool, but for the warmth of an angel whose hips cradled his sex. She felt familiar. Almost like the marble perfection of his woman . . . his Alina. Not a woman. A vampire. Cousin by marriage to Julie.
“Alina?” Her name rattled off his dry lips, the sound coming out raw from a throat that felt constricted.
“I’m right here.” Her low, slightly accented voice gave him temporary comfort until he realized the sheets felt different. Softer against his back, and the arm that rested beneath her silky hair, as though . . .
He moved his other hand over his body. His? Yes, he was running his palm over himself, but it was different somehow. Cold. His skin was smooth as a baby’s ass. The muscles beneath it seemed harder now than they’d been when he was a young man. Could she? No. He’d forbidden her. But a voice in his head reminded him she could.
She was his submissive lover, but she also was a vampire. A vampire queen.
Tentatively, he rubbed his tongue over his top teeth, then the bottom ones. Awareness came suddenly.
“Goddammit, Alina. I told you I wanted to stay mortal.”
She turned and caught his head between her hands, her touch as gentle as he recalled his mother’s years ago. “Wim Reynard killed you when you were defending me. I couldn’t bear . . .” Her voice trailed off. As it did his memory started to come back. The vampire he’d seen this afternoon. And again tonight, after Alina had wakened and ordered him to hide. He saw himself grabbing the dagger, going on the attack.
And he remembered feeling as though he was choking. Everything going black.
“He got in here. In this room. How?”
“He drugged the guards. The poison destroyed Jacques, but Philippe apparently got a smaller portion. He staggered in here as the Reynard bastard was choking you. I tried so hard to stop him . . .” A sob came from deep in Alina’s throat.
That sob made Sam feel guilty. He should have been able to protect her from the skinny bastard. Bits and pieces of the fight flashed through his head. The dagger. The satisfying feeling of its silver blade slipping between ribs, finding purchase in the vampire’s evil heart. And the imprint of ten skinny fingers digging into his neck with superhuman strength, cutting off his wind. “Where is he now?”
Alina rolled away, leaving him suddenly cold. “You destroyed him. Philippe arrived in time to deliver the coup de grâce. And to save you.” She reached out and stroked Sam’s neck, her touch gentle as she traced the imprint where Reynard’s fingers had been. “If he had not come, I couldn’t have stopped Reynard and turned you quickly enough, before life had completely left your body. No, don’t open your eyes. They will become less sensitive in time, but for now the morning light will harm them.” She slid off the bed and drew the drapes. “There. That’s better.”
Better? Sam doubted it. Crazy as it was to mourn something as simple as a morning walk down Decatur Street, he couldn’t help thinking about the things he’d lost with one long bite by his vampire lover. He looked at her, saw the fear—and the love—in her beautiful green eyes. “You did what you thought you had to do,” he said, surprised that he managed a civil, almost friendly tone. “Come back here and tell me what all this means. Don’t leave me with any surprises.”
She sat beside him, her slender legs folded under her bottom. “It means you’ll still age, but slowly. You’ll drink blood instead of eating and prefer night to daytime. Your mind will stay the same as ever. You’ll find some perks, I’m sure, such as being able to move through time and space without the need for planes and such. And in time you may develop the ability to communicate telepathically. Some made vampires do. Others don’t.” She smiled at him, as though hoping to wipe away his anger. “It’s a mixed blessing, reading others’ thoughts.”
“How’d you do it?”
Taking his hand, she rubbed his fingers along one side of his throat. “Feel the two marks?”
The two small marks along his jugular vein felt insignificant, yet they’d apparently changed his life forever. Once more he traced his tongue over his upper teeth. As impossible as it seemed, he was now a vampire. Like Julie. Like Alina. Tentatively he opened one eye and then the other, found the dim light uncomfortable but bearable. A chilling thought ran through his mind. Was he now her slave? He had to know. “Does this mean you are now my mistress?”
Alina bared her throat. “I am your creator, in a way. But I am also your lover, as much now as when you were a mortal. Go ahead
. Take me now. Drink from me as I drank from you last night.”
He couldn’t help recoiling at the thought of drinking blood. “I can’t.”
She lay on her back, drew him down beside her, baring her throat, offering herself to him in a way that gave him back some control, some sense of who he was that he’d felt quickly slipping away. He stroked along the curve of her hip, expected the usual stirring of arousal as he looked at her perfect body, imagined himself plunging into her tight sheath . . . her lush mouth . . . that other intriguing orifice he’d yet to claim.
Nothing. Not a twinge of sexual desire, nor the surge of blood to his groin the way he remembered feeling last night before the fight. “Something’s wrong. Terribly wrong with me.”
“Come on. You need sustenance now. It’s easy. Arousing. Come on. Bite me.” Her voice was husky, different. Was she using vampiric compulsion to bend him to her will?
Sam didn’t care, because he was feeling his first attack of bloodlust. It began as an itchy feeling, a longing for the salty, metallic taste of his mate’s blood. A throbbing in his groin that quickly had his cock as hard as he’d ever been. An ache that began deep in his belly and spread until he could do nothing but take her. Taste her. Take life from her as she’d taken it from him. “I still am not happy that you did this,” he said, laying his hands on her shoulders and drawing her up onto his lap.
Driven not by reason but by compulsion, he aligned his fangs so they’d pierce the inviting vein she’d bared as he flexed his hips and buried himself deep inside her. He felt nothing there. Not the wetness or the warmth of her warm, tight flesh, only a building ache in his testicles that demanded release. “Do it now,” she whispered, “give me a vampire bite while you are deep inside me.”
I am a master, not a slave. He hoped that still was true as he sank his fangs into her tender flesh, felt them pierce the vein she offered. Warm, slightly salty fluid filled his mouth when he bore down and sucked. He swallowed once, twice. On the third taste of his lover’s blood, feeling started to return to his cock as it swelled against her damp flesh. She moved on him, coaxing . . . rubbing herself against his now hairless groin, the hard nubs of her nipples against the newly smooth skin that covered his chest. When he drew on her blood, her inner muscles contracted. Her skin warmed. The moans he heard from her lips made him realize she was about to come. “Make me come, my darling. Now,” Sam ordered.
“No, love, you can’t come. Not yet.” Alina ground herself down hard on him, let out a feral scream as her inner muscles clasped him, as though trying to squeeze out an orgasm that wouldn’t come. “Made vampires are impotent until they’ve been accepted into the clan.”
He sure as hell didn’t feel impotent. His balls were about to burst, and his cock had never grown so thick and long. His body had never before felt the delicious sensation of skin on skin, unimpeded by the body hair that had apparently disappeared when he’d made the change. He drew back his fangs, lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
“How long must I wait for this acceptance?”
“Until tonight when the elders of my clan join me to welcome you and take you to the d’Argents’ ancestral castle. Until the ritual.” A sense of acceptance flowed through his veins as he drank Alina’s blood while his cock lay deep in her body, seeking yet not finding release. “Meanwhile you must learn how best to serve your queen.”
Sam served no one. Nothing but his own desires . . . or did he? For the last few days of his mortality he’d dominated Alina, but he’d done it to pleasure her. Was that not a form of submission? “I serve my queen best as her lover. I command that you come.”
Alina laughed as she lifted herself off his throbbing flesh and twisted around, straddling him so her wet, musky sex made contact with his mouth. “Taste me while I tell you what must happen if you are to regain your potency. I forget you’ve just now crossed over.”
Panic coursed through Sam, but he couldn’t find the words to protest. Not while she was rubbing her intimate flesh against his lips. A voice in his head said he didn’t even want to stop her sensual movements, especially when he felt her wrap one small, soft hand around the base of his sex. “Mmmm,” he managed to say as his arousal grew to an exasperating fever pitch with no relief in sight.
“Most made male vampires are sexually impotent. Over the centuries, though, the d’Argents have found themselves short of new blood—pun intended—and have therefore discovered a way to restore the potency of the mortals we have turned.” Her tone mesmerized him, made him concentrate not on the delicious musky taste of her sex but on the breathless sound of her voice. “We’ve managed to keep our methods secret for hundreds of years, but I believe Louis Reynard came to me because rumors had spread. Even if I would have taken him, I couldn’t have restored his ability to have sex, because the method only works on vampires when they’ve been newly made by a member of the d’Argent clan.” She paused, let out a little moan when he took her between his teeth and nibbled none too gently.
Bitch. She deserved a little pain. Besides, Sam had learned the second time they made love that a little bit of pain aroused her. He lapped up the warm, slippery fluid that had escaped when he’d bitten her. His cock became larger, harder—damn painful. His denuded skin registered every motion, each brush of her hand on his hypersensitive flesh. Even the press of her knees against his shoulders heightened his need to take her, prove to her that vampire or not, he was boss in bed. I won’t be your sex toy.
“Yes. You will. This is the first part of the ritual I discovered as a young vampire . . . the rest will take place at twilight.”
Sam recalled her enthusiasm when he’d mentioned a ménage. Who’d take part? Not Julie.
“No, not Julie. I wouldn’t be so cruel as to ask her to take part in a vampire ritual with her own father. Not Stefan, either, for participating with Julie’s mate would be too awkward for both of you. Alexandre and Claude will be the two d’Argent males taking part, along with Claude’s bride, you and me.” Alina paused then continued. “Philippe will come here just before nightfall to prepare you for the ritual. Like you, he is a made vampire. Go gently with him, for last night he lost the lover who changed him. He and Jacques were inseparable.” Her body released its juices and she shuddered with the release Sam wanted so badly for himself.
He wasn’t at all sure he liked the idea of males taking part in this vampire initiation. “Tell me more about this ritual,” he demanded, drawing her hand to his aching flesh. “I have a feeling I’m not going to like it.”
“Lie back.” She paused, bending to lick the tip of his penis before rubbing her cheek along the taut skin of his shaft and scrotum. “All made male vampires are pierced. Have you ever played with sounds?”
“No, but I once watched a dominatrix use a set of them on her slave at the club.” The idea of having a metal object threaded through his cock had never been a turn-on. It wasn’t now, either. “I thought you mentioned piercings.”
“The piercing is to place a ring that will hold the sound in place during the ritual. Philippe will explain more when he prepares you.”
The more Sam heard, the less he liked the idea. The prospect of having a gay male vampire—a virtual stranger—handle his private parts made him want to stop this before it even began. “I don’t think—”
“Do you want to stay impotent, unable to get release for the rest of your life?” Alina worked the tip of her forefinger into his anus and moved it in a slow circle. “Your very, very long life?”
Of course he didn’t. But . . . “The whole thing sounds distasteful. Not to mention damn painful.”
“It won’t be. The purpose of the preparation is to purge the remnants of your mortal body and prepare you to be reborn, fully potent, as a d’Argent vampire. As my consort, if that’s your wish. By the way, vampires heal almost instantly from any but the most serious of wounds.”
“I’m not worried about the pain.” He had to say it, but he wasn’t sure that was true. Sliding h
er hand down the inside of his thigh, she cuffed his ankle and bound it to the nearest bedpost. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Before you can become a vampire master, you must be reborn a vampire slave. Spread your arms and legs, and we’ll get this done quickly.” There was that low, compelling tone again—vampire compulsion that had him meekly positioning himself so she could bind him. “That’s good, mon cher.”
He didn’t think he could have stood it—the humiliation and discomfort his subs often begged for—but he knew her soul ached to have to do it. “What now, my vampire queen?”
She bent and brushed her lips over his. “Take a nap, my darling. Philippe will be coming soon. I have things I must do to ready everything for the ritual.”
The ritual that would make him whole . . . and hers for all eternity.
Chapter Six
How many hours had gone by? If the light streaming through the open French doors didn’t burn his eyes so much, he’d have been able to tell by looking out into the courtyard. The clock on the nightstand was just outside his limited range of motion. Never in his life had Sam felt so helpless.
Or so alive. He pictured Alina taking him in some sensual vampire ritual and grew even hotter and harder. Fuck. He was about to burst. He went back in his mind to the fight . . . the sensation of claws choking the life from him . . . Alina’s gentle touch. As if he were in real time he felt the first touch of her fangs, the sensation of floating outside himself as she sucked the lifeblood from him. Leaving his mind and body a void waiting to be refilled.
He had no feeling of urgency, no need to relieve himself. Those, he guessed, were feelings unique to mortals. And he was mortal no more, but a newly made vampire hovering in the shadow world between his old world and the one he would inhabit for a long eternity. Forever.
The door opened. Footsteps clattered on the hardwood floor then softened to muffled thuds when they moved over the antique Persian rug. Soft at first then louder as they approached Sam’s bed. “I’ve been through this too. Our queen felt I could prepare you better than she could.”
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