The Accidental Vampire Plus Vampires Are Forever and Bonus Material

by Lynsay Sands

  “There are movies in the cupboard in the living room if you want to watch something,” she suggested as Victor picked up his empty plate and carried it to the kitchen. “I’m sure we won’t be long.”

  She was being optimistic, Elvi knew, but really, there couldn’t be that many laws and if they would just stop getting distracted, they might get through them quickly, Elvi thought as she carried her own plate out and collected two cups for the coffee.

  The men were silent at first, but by the time she’d poured the coffee and started to lead Victor out of the room, they’d begun to discuss their options when it came to entertainment.

  Elvi led Victor up to the sunroom, and moved to open a couple of windows to allow the cool night breeze in as Victor settled in one of the wicker chairs. Once done, she settled on the wicker sofa adjacent to him and raised her eyebrows expectantly. “So, no biting, only one child every hundred years, and…?”

  “And you can only turn one mortal in a lifetime,” Victor said. “Those are the top three.”

  “You can only turn one?” Elvi asked with surprise.

  “I told you, it’s all to keep the population down.”

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Most immortals save that turn for their lifemate.”

  “Yes, I guess they would,” Elvi said, but was frowning. “Then who turned me and why would they waste their one turning, turning me?”

  “DJ and I were wondering about that,” Victor admitted, then set his coffee cup down and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Elvi, would you tell me exactly what you remember about your turning? Maybe we can sort it out from that.”

  “I can try,” she said unhappily. “But it’s all pretty blurry.”

  “Just close your eyes, relax, and take yourself back there,” he suggested.

  Elvi smiled faintly. “You sound like a hypnotist.”

  “I wish I was,” Victor admitted, then added, “If I could read your mind I could pull the memory from you myself, but—” He paused, eyebrows rising. “DJ might be able to. We can wait for him and—”

  “No,” Elvi interrupted quickly. The last thing she wanted was someone poking around in her brain. Besides, no one else seemed to be able to read her, what if DJ couldn’t either? That was a complication she didn’t need, especially not with Mabel so obviously head over heels for the man.

  “Okay, we’ll do it the hard way, then,” he said wryly. “Sit back, close your eyes, relax and just let yourself go back to that day. You said you were in Mexico…”

  “Yes,” Elvi murmured. “Mabel and I were supposed to stay in a resort, but when we arrived we found there was a problem with their water. Everyone was being moved to other resorts. They’d made arrangements for us too and we got out of our taxi just to be ushered into a van.”

  “Were there others in this van?” Victor asked.

  Elvi nodded. “Three couples and four individuals.”

  “Describe them,” Victor suggested.

  “Two of the couples were our age,” Elvi said, her brow drawing together as she tried to picture the people in the van. “They were near the front of the van. The other couple was younger. In their forties I think. They were right behind the driver.”

  “And the other four?” Victor prompted when she paused.

  “Three were young women, university students, I think,” she began, and then grimaced. “They were seated at the back and complaining about the lack of “action” at the resort and hoping the next one was better.” Her voice was surprised as she said that. She’d forgotten all about it, but then she’d spent the better part of the last five years trying to forget that trip.

  “And the last person?” Victor asked.

  Elvi squinted her eyes more tightly closed, searching her memory for the last man. For some reason, her mind seemed to shy away from him.

  “He was seated across the aisle from Mabel and me,” she said slowly. “I can’t…I have a vague recollection of jeans and a dress shirt. Average looks. He was quiet. The rest of us talked some, but he seemed to want to keep mostly to himself.”

  “How old would you say he was?” Victor asked, sounding tense.

  “Mid to late twenties,” she said and opened her eyes with realization. All five of the men in her home this week looked to be in that age range. For that matter so did she.

  Victor nodded, and then suggested, “Okay, now tell me about the trip itself.”

  Elvi closed her eyes again. “They told us it would be a five-hour drive. It started out fine. Mabel and I were tired from the flight and napped for the first hour or so. When I woke up, Mabel was chatting with the German couple in front of us. They were a nice couple,” she added sadly. Mabel told her afterward that they both died in the crash.

  “So, you were chatting with this other couple…” Victor prompted.

  “The accident happened about an hour after I woke up.” She paused and frowned. “We were on a narrow mountain road. I think the driver swerved to miss something. The next thing I knew we were rolling. Everyone was screaming and the world was topsy-turvy, baggage was flying everywhere.

  “The van ended up on its side, on the side Mabel and I were on. I must’ve been knocked out; I remember waking up to find I was lying on Mabel. I heard her moan and was afraid I may be crushing her, but when I tried to move, pain shot through my head and I think I passed out again.”

  “And the next time you awoke?”

  “That was in the hotel. We were apparently transported there after we were found,” Elvi said reluctantly, then ground her teeth together and admitted, “I woke up to find I had fangs and they were sunk in Mabel’s throat while she struggled weakly.” She opened her eyes to see Victor was wincing at these words and nodded grimly. “Yes. I damn near killed her.”

  “To be frank, I’m surprised you didn’t. It takes a lot of blood for a turning. More than one mortal could supply.” Victor frowned with sudden curiosity. “Where did you get the blood?”

  “Mabel bribed one of the maids. The woman’s brother worked at a blood bank. She paid a lot of money for it.”

  Victor raised his eyebrows. “Well, at least she didn’t follow the story of Dracula and think you could only drink from the source. Was your biting her the first clue to your having been turned? And how did you end up at the hotel? The turning makes a mortal very sick. Why didn’t you end up in a hospital?”

  “I think regaining consciousness after the accident to find me with my head in a cooler, lapping up spilled blood from burst blood bags was really her first clue,” Elvi said dryly.

  Victor stiffened. “You didn’t mention that.”

  “Well, it’s not really a clear memory,” Elvi explained. “And you said to tell you the next thing I remember. Mostly the blood bag episode at the crash site seems like a dream to me and I’m only sure it happened because Mabel said it did.”

  Victor frowned. “Tell me your memory of it, dreamlike or not.”

  Elvi paused to collect the memory, and then said, “Well, as I say, it’s kind of blurry. I remember waking up and smelling something that…” She hesitated, unsure how to describe what she’d felt. She’d been in terrible pain, every inch of her body aching, and that smell had driven her into a frenzy. She’d been desperate to get to it.

  “I understand,” Victor said. “You must have been amazed when you realized it was blood drawing you so.”

  “Maybe. I don’t remember feeling anything at all except relief. I’d caught the scent, struggled to get free of my seat belt, crawled over Mabel, trailing the smell and there was an open cooler there. It must have been in with the luggage that fell everywhere. The lid was off and one of the bags had burst open. And…”

  “And you lapped it up, then went after the unburst bags,” Victor guessed.

  Elvi nodded. “I didn’t have anything to open them with, not even fangs at that point, so I was tearing them open with my teeth, getting more blood on me than in me when Mabel woke up and spotted what I w
as doing. I have a vague recollection of her yelling at me, and then I think I passed out again.”

  “She said I was already starting to look younger when she found me and that I had a bad gash on my forehead, but an hour later it was gone and I looked younger still. She knew right away something was wrong,” Elvi offered. “When someone came across the accident scene and the authorities showed up, they wanted me to go to hospital, but she wouldn’t let them take me. She bribed them to take us on to the resort.”

  Victor was silent for a minute, and then asked, “Are there any other dreamlike memories, prior to that one, that you haven’t mentioned?”

  “One,” Elvi admitted. “But I know that one’s a dream.”

  “Tell me,” he insisted.

  She closed her eyes, trying to place herself back in the van so that she would remember more clearly. Finally, she said, “The first thing I remember is it was raining.”

  “Raining?” Victor echoed with bewilderment.

  Elvi nodded. “Yes. My mouth was open and filling with water.”

  “In the bus?” he asked doubtfully.

  She nodded. “It tasted funny when I swallowed it. Tinny.”

  “Like blood,” Victor suggested.

  Elvi kept her eyes closed. Now that she was examining the memory, it was clearer than it had ever been before. She could actually recall the slow drip, drip, as the liquid hit her tongue and slid down her throat.

  “I opened my eyes, and…the lone man in his twenties was hanging over me.”

  She sensed Victor leaning further forward, his body tense. “Hanging over you?”

  “The bus was on its side,” she reminded him. “His seat belt had kept him in the seat, but he was dangling over us.” Elvi could see him there now and cringed. “He’d been injured in the accident.” She opened her eyes, banishing the image. “That’s how I knew it was a dream. Mabel said she saw him after the accident and he was just fine. Uninjured.”

  “Forget about that,” Victor instructed. “I want you to close your eyes and picture the scene again. What exactly did you see?”

  Elvi reluctantly closed her eyes. She allowed the memory to blossom in her mind despite its unpleasantness. “His eyes were closed. I thought he was dead. There was a large, sharp triangle of glass in his stomach, and another in his upper shoulder. It had pretty much sliced his arm off and there was blood running down his dangling arm and dripping…”

  “Into your mouth,” Victor said with triumph.

  Elvi opened her eyes with amazement. “Yes.”

  “You really are an accidental vampire,” he said with a grin that then faded. “I’m surprised he didn’t realize what had happened when he woke up and saw you jonesing for blood.”

  “I don’t think he did,” Elvi said with a frown. “Mabel says she got me out of the van and away from the others when she realized something was wrong with me.”

  “That was very brave of her,” Victor said solemnly. “Especially if she suspected what you had become.”

  “Yes,” Elvi agreed. “She’s a good friend. She got me to the hotel, arranged for blood for me, and then called Teddy and had him overnight Casey’s passport to us in Mexico.”

  “Your daughter’s?”

  “Yes. Mabel wanted to fly me home right away, but my passport picture showed me with graying hair and wrinkles…”

  “And you didn’t look like that anymore,” he murmured.

  Elvi nodded. “I don’t think I would have survived if Mabel hadn’t been there to take care of everything. She kept me alive, got me home, talked to Teddy and some others and smoothed it over so they didn’t come after me with stakes.” She grinned. “Somehow she presented it to the town as a really cool adventure rather than a horror story, and I was the tragic hero rather than a monster.”

  “But to yourself, you were a monster,” Victor guessed quietly.

  Elvi eyed him solemnly. “I nearly killed her.”

  “You were out of your head, Elvi. She knows that. If the situation had been reversed and Mabel had been the one turned that day, or if it had been Casey, how would you feel?”

  Elvi released a shaky sigh. She’d carried the guilt of that episode in her heart for five years and it wasn’t going to wash away that easily. And she didn’t want to think about it. It was time for a change of subject, she decided.

  “Are you ready to talk about what happened earlier between us yet?” Victor asked suddenly, and Elvi glanced at him with alarm. This was not the topic change she’d wanted. She was not ready to talk about the possibility of their being lifemates.

  When a brief, panicked search of her mind didn’t turn up any ideas for another topic change, Elvi simply leaned forward and kissed him. In her experience, that was always a good way to silence a man. At least, it had always worked with her husband.

  It worked well with Victor too, she realized when he caught her by the waist and drew her off the sofa to settle on his lap in the wicker chair.

  Smiling against his mouth, Elvi slid her arms around his shoulders, and then stiffened when a sudden sharp pain exploded between her shoulder blades and vibrated outward, stealing her breath and consciousness.

  “Elvi?” Victor murmured uncertainly when she went limp in his arms.

  Pulling back, he used a hand to catch her face by the chin and tilt it back, frowning when he saw her closed eyes and pale, slack face. Concern immediately claimed him. It was one thing for her to faint at the climax of their lovemaking, that was normal for immortals on first joining, but they’d hardly started here.

  “Elvi?” he said again and gently slapped her cheek. When he got no response, Victor started to move the hand at her back, intending to lift her and set her on the sofa so he could go get a wet cloth or something, but he froze when his hand brushed something hard.

  Tugging her forward against his chest, Victor peered over her shoulder and down, his heart stopping at the sight of the arrow protruding from her back.

  Fifteen

  “I guess this means the first arrow wasn’t an accident, and answers the question of who the target is,” DJ murmured as he watched Victor pop another bag of blood to Elvi’s teeth.

  Victor grunted. In truth, he’d rather have been the target himself than see Elvi like this. He’d been frantic when he realized she’d been shot. Standing with her clasped against his chest, he’d crossed the sunroom, glancing out at the dark yard beyond as he passed the window. He hadn’t seen anyone below, but the shooter could have been hiding in the shadows.

  Leaving the hunt for her shooter for later, Victor had carried Elvi into her room to tend her, grateful that DJ and Mabel had chosen that moment to return home and that the younger immortal had come in search of him.

  DJ had taken one look at Elvi on the bed with the arrow in her back, and promptly yelled for Mabel to bring blood up at once. He’d then slipped into Elvi’s bathroom for some towels, and settled on the opposite side of the bed, offering support and encouragement as Victor began the incredibly delicate task of removing the arrow without causing further damage.

  Mabel had arrived with blood just as Victor finished pulling the arrow. Much to his relief, Mabel hadn’t gone into hysterics. She’d been upset and demanded to know what had happened, but hadn’t gone about shrieking or fainting or anything of that ilk. Modern women, it seemed, were a sturdy bunch.

  “Her wound is healing,” Victor muttered as he switched blood bags. He’d already given her four bags and her wound was obviously closing. At least it certainly looked smaller to him, still she wasn’t showing any sign of waking yet, but there would no doubt be internal damage to be repaired as well.

  “The men are wondering what’s going on,” Mabel announced, returning from another blood run. “My bringing up all this blood has tipped them to the fact that something is going on.”

  “What did you tell them?” Victor asked, taking the blood from her and setting it on the side of the bed.

  “Nothing, I just waved away their questions, an
d came back up here.”

  “They’ll follow her up then,” DJ said with a frown.

  “They already have,” Edward announced from the now crowded doorway.

  Elvi heard the murmur of voices and wondered fuzzily who was standing outside her coffin talking. It was only when she opened her eyes that she recalled she no longer slept in a coffin. She was on her stomach in her bed, and her room was full of people. Victor, Mabel, DJ, Harper, Alessandro, and Edward were all there from the voices she could hear.

  “Who would want to hurt Elvi?” Harper was asking with dismay.

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out,” Victor said grimly.

  Elvi frowned, trying to understand what they were talking about. Hurt her? Had someone hurt her? She’d barely asked herself the question when she spotted the bloody arrow on the side of the bed and recalled sitting on Victor’s lap in the sunroom and a sharp pain in the back.

  So that had been the source of the pain. She stared at the bloody arrow and recalled the one that had narrowly missed them at the furniture store. Elvi had been sure then that it was an accident and, if not, then it had been meant for Victor. She’d lived in Port Henry her entire life. No one here would harm her, she’d thought. And still thought that.

  Elvi briefly struggled with what had happened, trying to make sense of it, and then stiffened as an idea struck her. She turned cautiously onto her back, relieved when there was no pain. It seemed she was healed.

  “We must find who did this,” Alessandro said furiously. “They can not hurt the Elvi. She is good woman, so bella, so sweet.”

  “Yes, and we will have to guard her until we do,” Harper murmured.

  “Then you’ll be guarding the wrong person,” Elvi announced, drawing their attention as she managed to sit up. While there was no pain, she was feeling a bit weak and suspected she needed more blood to replace that used up in the healing.

  “Elvi.” Victor hurried to the bed, concern on his face. “You shouldn’t be moving around yet.”