The Vampire Who Loved Me

by Theresa Meyers

  She became ultra aware that this sexy stranger was fully clothed while she wore nothing more than her aqua T-shirt and underwear. She shifted, giving a vicious yank to her comforter and covering her bare legs. How would he know? She didn’t even know what was going on. No one could.

  The virus was a precisely engineered mutation, something that didn’t just pop up as part of natural selection. What was happening to her? What could she do to stop it?

  Fear added to the increasing pain. His words seemed to finally filter in past the rush of thoughts in her pain-addled brain. “What do you mean that’s not the worst? This is miserable.”

  “You’re about to get hungry. Far hungrier than you’ve ever been in your entire life.”

  Her hands wrapped around her waist as she tried to contain the gnawing pain in her belly. Waves of nausea flooded her body and her skin was slick with sweat. “Great,” she managed to say, pressing her forearms deep into the pain. “Just the news I didn’t want to hear.”

  Belatedly Beck realized that Mr. Big-as-a-mountain-and-über-sexy wasn’t planning on going anywhere and her sad current state wasn’t making her the best of hostesses at the moment.

  He held out his cell phone. “Want me to call Kristin?”

  “I doubt you’d be able to reach—” He pushed a speed dial button and handed her the phone. Ever since Kristin had been turned into a vampire with a nocturnal schedule, she hadn’t gotten to spend much time with her best friend. Glancing at the window, she noticed moonlight slanting in between the slats of her miniblinds—so it was night. Kris might still be awake.

  Regardless, Kris was going to get an earful next time she saw her. All this time she’d been asking her friend to set her up with someone big, blond and gorgeous and Kris sends him now? Beck knew by the feel of her unruly hair and rumpled shirt that she looked like hell.

  It rang twice before her friend answered. Relief washed over Beck, taking some of the pain with it.

  “Are you doing okay?” Kristin’s voice was tinged with concern.

  She hurt all over but telling Kris that would only make her worry more. “Hey, I’ve got this blond giant standing in my bedroom who says you sent him.”

  “That would be Achilles. He’s from the clan.”

  “You sent me a freakin’ vampire?” She glanced at him, the size of him, the sexiness of him, the strength of him suddenly making way too much sense. “Why?”

  “Beck, he’s the best there is and you’re going to need it.”

  “What for? I’m trying to find a cure to get you—” She glanced up at his intently curious green eyes and turned away from him and lowered her voice, covering her mouth with the edge of her hand. “I’m trying to get you back to normal, not play for the other team here.”

  “Just listen to me. We know they injected you tonight with the vaccine you’ve been working on. There may be a chance you could be turning into a vampire from it.”

  Beck’s heart raced and the pain intensified so that she could barely grit out the words. “No, and hell, no. It’s supposed to stop the virus.”

  “But if it doesn’t—”

  “It will.” She fisted the comforter in her hand. From what she’d been able to discover in her search so far, her mother had hooked up with a vampire, first as his mistress, then as his donor and eventually as an ichor addict. The need for someone stronger than herself to sustain her had become more important than anything or anyone else in her life. Being turned without her consent even if it was by a vaccine was like repeating her mother’s mistakes all over again. And she refused to do it.

  “Can you please just humor me for friendship’s sake? He’s an experienced mentor, the best according to my husband. He can make the transition easier for you. Take care of you in ways only vampires know about. Besides, isn’t he everything you’ve been begging me to set you up with for months? Big, blond, rich?”

  Beck threw him a cautious glance beneath her lashes. He was definitely the first two. She hadn’t talked with him long enough to know about the third one. “Yes, but your timing stinks. I look like death warmed over.” Then the thought struck her that vampires were un dead and maybe looking like death warmed over had some weird appeal to them. Clearly she was delusional. She shook her head. “Look he can’t stay here. He just can’t—” The absolute last thing she wanted was for some guy she barely knew caring for her like a nursemaid. But did she have a choice?

  Beck forced herself to think past the icy needles of fear prickling her skin, past the pain. She needed to focus on the facts.

  Fact one, this mutated virus strain might kill her. And she didn’t have the background or knowledge to stop it. Fact two, her friend, who was the closest thing she had to family, until they could locate her mom, trusted this guy—actually had sent him. Fact three, Kris was a vampire. This guy was a vampire. As much as she hated to admit it, if anyone knew what to look for in the signs of a person changing into a vampire, it would be one. Which meant she’d be pretty stupid to send him away, especially since the pain wasn’t abating.

  “For once in your life, Beck, stop trying to have a game plan for everything and just go with this until we can be certain what’s going on,” Kristin urged.

  Beck sighed. Desperation won out over indignation. She sure didn’t want to die, but she didn’t want to become one of them, either. “Fine. But I’m only doing it as a favor to you.”

  The tension coming through the phone from Kristin’s side instantly relaxed. “That’s good enough. Call me if anything changes.”

  “Sure. Night.” She stared for a second at the phone, then handed it back to the stranger in her room.

  He took it, scrupulously avoiding her touch as he did so. “You didn’t believe that Kristin sent me.”

  Beck cocked her head to the side. “If a strange man entered your bedroom, in particular a vampire, would you trust his word?”

  “No.”

  “Right. Then cut me some slack.” She latched on to the anger burning in her chest formed partly at her own inability to stop the virus and partly at her needing assistance from the very beings she detested. She needed something to help her focus past the pain she felt. She sighed, shoved her crazed curls out of her line of vision and peered intently at him.

  He had a thin faded scar that bisected his right eyebrow, the stubble on his chin seemed just as golden as his hair, but a shade darker.

  This was the first time she’d really gotten to analyze a vampire up close. Beck had to mentally switch off the scientific section of her brain that was ready to go into full investigative mode. “So you’re a vampire, huh?”

  “So I’ve been told.” He gave her a playful grin that sent heat spiraling down to her toes. The scent of rosemary that tinged the air changed slightly, now underlined with the smell of warm ocean. If she’d closed her eyes she could have pretended to be on a strip of sand gazing out at the azure water. But there was no way she was going back to sleep with him in her house.

  “Look, before we get into this too far, let me tell you that I’m really against becoming a vampire. And I’m not into being a donor girl, so don’t even ask. Are we clear?” Of course even as she said the words, her curiosity about him spiked further. Up until now her observations of vampires, with the exception of Kris, had been from as far a distance as possible while she formulated a way to reverse the virus.

  Did vampire fangs get in the way when you kissed? Beck wiped her hand across her forehead. Wow. Maybe she was sicker than she thought. There was no way, absolutely no way, that she should even be contemplating kissing a strange bloodsucker, no matter how gorgeous he was, no matter how real the fantasy in her dreams had been before she’d awoken. After all, she reminded herself, no matter how normal he seemed—okay, who was she kidding, he was way better than normal—he was still one of them.

  “Crystal clear. My only mission here is to protect you and to mentor you through your transition.”

  “Oh. Good. Glad we got that all straightened out.�
�� She finally lifted a hand out to him. “My friends call me Beck.”

  He grasped her hand lightly in his, then brushed a skimming kiss against the back of it sending an electric arc zinging up her pulse points. “Yes, but I like your given name.” His eyes glittered as the pad of his thumb stroked the soft underside of her wrist. “Rebecca … Rebecca … Rebecca.” Her name came out a soft, seductive whisper said so slowly, so deliberately, that it sounded like a lover’s mantra.

  She yanked back her tingling hand. “Stop saying that.”

  “Your name?”

  She fidgeted, bunching the comforter more solidly around her. “It just sounds wrong when you say it like that. It makes me … uncomfortable.”

  A killer smile lit up his face and made her heartbeat stutter step. “That’s even better.” He was teasing her.

  Beck whipped her body away from him so quickly that a few of her annoying curls bounced, but at least she could hide the tightening points of her breasts from his view. “I’m not sure this mentor thing is going to work out between us. I might need to see about getting someone else.”

  He chuckled, but it held a sad, hopeless edge to it. From the corner of her eye she watched him crook his finger at a wooden ladder-back chair she kept by her dresser. It seemed to hover across the room and plant itself on the floor behind him. She pulled up the bed covers and tucked them securely under her armpits, then twisted to face him again.

  “That’s funny to you?”

  He smiled in a good-natured way that seemed completely at odds with his ass-kicking appearance, then relaxed back into the old wooden chair. It creaked in protest. “No, it simply shows how little you truly know about vampires. Once you’ve been given a mentor, that mentor is yours until one of you dies.”

  Curling her legs close to her belly helped with the pain. It did nothing for the nausea or the growing hunger that had her cramping stomach growl annoyingly. “Hardly likely given you’re undead.”

  He slanted her a mild look. “Precisely.”

  “So I’m stuck with you if I turn into a vampire.”

  He leaned, tipping back in the precarious chair and propped big booted feet up on the edge of the bed. “That’s right, sweetling.”

  With a sweep of her arm, she knocked his boots off her bed. They landed with a heavy thud on the floor and he arched a dark blond brow at her.

  Beck ignored the look then got up and strode with all the confidence she could muster in her semi-dressed state toward her closet where she grabbed a pair of jeans and yanked them on. She glanced at the clock. Five in the morning. With any luck there’d be no one to bother her until 7:00 a.m. and she could make some progress in figuring this mess out before she couldn’t think at all. Anything was better than staying here with a massive vampire brooding over her with a gaze that was too intense for her liking. “Good. Then it won’t be too long, because I’m not becoming a vampire.”

  He deliberately placed his boots back on her bed, blocking her path to the bedroom door. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  She glanced down at his legs, then stepped over them. “To work.”

  He stretched in the chair, spreading out his arms that had bulging biceps. He managed to take up even more of her bedroom, if that was possible. Then he relaxed. “I’ll go with you.”

  Beck turned and pinned her best no-nonsense glare on him, the one that usually cowed the most persistent interns at the lab. “No. You’re not. I’m going to work. You don’t work there.”

  “Aren’t you the least bit interested in playing doctor with me?” He grinned, showing normal, even, very white teeth. The effect of his killer smile would have been devastating to any normal woman. For Beck is was catalytic. She hadn’t had a date in so long because she’d been too focused on her research. She’d managed to forget how the air in the room could shift and change in an instant, wrapping around you like a heated blanket when a guy as virile as this was close by. Okay, being truly honest, she’d never dated someone like this. Not even close. Why would she? He was a vampire. Oh, why on earth had Kris sent him?

  The intensity of him vibrated in the room. She felt like a hydrophilic molecule to water, helpless to resist him and that sensation took her aback for an instant. She couldn’t feel attraction to a vampire. After all, look what it had apparently gotten her mother. It wasn’t logical. Her common sense scrambled trying to come up with some fact she could fixate on instead of the rush and tumble of sensations crashing around her insides. There was no way she was going to answer his question.

  “I thought vampires had fangs.” How she managed the words when her mouth was so dry, she had no idea.

  He leaned forward resting his thick forearms on the tops of his black jean clad thighs. God, she bet his butt looked spectacular in those jeans. Snap out of it, Doctor. Remember there’s an us vs. them at work here and unless you want to start playing for the other team, you better freakin’ pull yourself together.

  “Wanna see?” His eyes glittered.

  Beck shook her head pressing her fingertips to her throbbing temples. “Yes. No. I mean I don’t need you to show me anything.”

  “But you’re curious.” The teasing tone of his voice was seductive enough to make her nipples pucker.

  He’d definitely taken her mind off the pain that was lessening now. A dull aching throb she didn’t like, but could ignore if she concentrated. “No. I’m a scientist. Any interest is purely out of a desire to bolster my current research.”

  He glanced at the platinum Rolex on his thick wrist. “It’s 5:00 a.m. I give you four hours, maybe five, max. By then you’ll be so hungry you’ll be begging me to help you.”

  Beck huffed and started walking out of the bedroom. She stopped midstep and leaned back past the edge of the doorjamb to catch his intense green gaze. Ask help from a vampire? Ha! That would be the day. “You might want to make a note. I don’t beg. Never have. Never will. See you.” She wiggled her fingers, grabbed her purse and streaked toward the front door as fast as her wobbly legs would take her.

  If she’d learned anything from her mother and her own experience as a woman in a highly competitive male dominated profession, it was that a man like that was trouble with a capital, neon-outlined, throbbing T.

  Chapter 3

  Beck made it to the lab in record time and slipped her pass card into the double security scanner, her stomach gurgling loudly. Within these walls, where she’d spent the last six years of her research career, she felt safe and in charge. Unlike home. Especially now that he was there.

  “Password?” Margo’s voice came through loud and clear on the speaker in front of her.

  “Vanquish.”

  The door sprung open and she dashed inside, her heart still beating faster than it should have.

  “Hey, Beck. You look … better.”

  Beck rolled her eyes. “Pfft. I know I look horrible. You don’t have to try to make me feel good about it.” An unfamiliar sensation skittered over her skin and had her wondering if it was just because she was fighting off the virus, or because Margo seemed a bit cooler than usual.

  Margo shrugged. “Shouldn’t you still be in bed?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” She wasn’t about to tell Margo that her sleep pattern had been rudely interrupted by a hot vampire who’d offered to play doctor with her. “I want you to take a sample and see what’s going on in my blood chemistry.”

  Margo nodded and went across to one of the large stark white cabinets that lined the far wall and pulled out the syringe and vial to draw Beck’s blood. “We should have been taking samples every four hours.”

  “I thought about that.” The stick of the needle didn’t bother Beck, but the sight of her own blood trickling thick and viscous into the container made her stomach roll in protest. Yet another good reason why she’d never make a decent vampire.

  At least vampire ichor was black. That was easier to deal with.

  Margo pulled out the needle and walked away, vial in hand.

>   “Hey, don’t I get a cotton ball or Band-Aid, or something?”

  Margo glanced back at her. “Sorry.” She brought back both and pressed a cotton ball to the site, then topped it off with the bandage. She capped the vial and stared at it. “It looks a little darker than normal. Perhaps a depleted level of oxygen.”

  “Let’s run a panel on it. I want to see exactly what’s going on and how the altered ichor is reacting now that it’s been mixed with human blood.”

  Margo prepped a sample with dye and slid it under the electron microscope. “Hmm.”

  “What are you seeing?”

  Margo looked up from the microscope, her face blank and remote. “See for yourself.”

  Beck wedged herself into the chair and pressed the viewer to her face. Under the intense magnification the vampire virus had a distinct hexagonal shape of the bacteriophage with several tail fibers and a collar of whisker-like projections at the base.

  Under normal conditions the bacteriophage would dock with a host cell, and insert the strand of the viral nucleic acid that turned the host cell into a replicating machine, spitting out identical clones to infect the whole system.

  In sufficient quantity the vampire ichor contained enough of these vampire bacterio-phages, or what she and Margo had come to nickname as vampiriophages, to overwhelm the body and turn the entire system into replicated vampire DNA within less than twenty-four hours. Beck kicked up the magnification on the scope. Yep. There they were. The vampiriophages were still swimming about, attaching to cells in her blood sample.

  “At least the metagenetic substitution we made in the virus DNA should stop the process,” she muttered to herself. Of course that’s what she and Margo had been counting on when they created their provirus.

  Beck watched intensely as several of the cells underwent lysis, spilling out a host of new vampiriophages. She sat back with a sick feeling in her stomach.

  “It didn’t work. The vaccine still isn’t viable.”