by Nancy Gideon
“The killing!”
“Yessss.” It was a slow, wet hiss, and he looked down with his pale, soulless eyes floating in a sea of red, and Louis knew he was about to die.
When Gerardo’s hand forked beneath his chin to lift him, Louis exploded upward, driving his elbow into the soft hollow of the fiend’s throat with a force that would have popped the head off a normal man. But Gerardo only blinked, looking surprised. Then he smiled. And with calm deliberation, delivered a flathanded blow that shattered Louis’s cheek and jaw as it sent him flying against the opposite wall so hard the outline of his body imprinted in the plaster.
Gerardo was on him before his knees had chance to give way. He came with fangs out and snarling. And Louis butted him full in the face with the top of his head. Gerardo staggered back, and Louis scrambled for the door, knowing he’d never reach it. So he stopped and whirled to face the demon coming at him in a full bore of fury. And he leapt straight up, shooting the side of his foot out like the bolt from a crossbow. The kick took the vampire squarely in the chest, halting him—but not knocking him back. Not stopping him. Not hurting him. Because Gerardo grinned as he smacked the heel of his hand just beneath Louis’s breastbone. Ribs caved in like thin kindling, splintering, piercing vital organs and ripping into his lungs. Louis managed a short-lived gasp and dropped.
Gerardo reached down, wrapping his fingers in the short auburn hair, dragging his dying friend up on strengthless legs. His gaze unfocused, his breath gurgling, Louis managed to whisper, “Bella.”
Gerardo leaned close, smiling like the devil he was. “Do not worry, Gino. I will comfort your lovely wife.” And he sank his teeth to feed.
After the shock of the bite, there was numbness and tingling, hot and shivering. Then, from an impossible distance away, Louis heard a shrieking cry.
“Gerard! What have you done?”
The sharp fangs were ripped away, and without support, Louis collapsed. From where he sat crumpled against the wall, trying to force breath through the ruin of his chest, he could see streaking blurs of motion. Occasionally, they would become Gerardo and Bianca as they struggled. But it was too hard to concentrate, and all began to fade. Then there was Bianca crouching over him, her touch tender against the agony in his misshapen face.
“Oh, Gino, oh, my love, look what he’s done to you.”
And incredibly, Louis could swear he saw tears in her eyes.
“Oh, my poor darling, how he’s hurt you. I will take the pain away and we will be together again. The three of us.”
Louis tried to speak. He couldn’t move his mouth. Each faint word was a bubbling torment. “Let me die... please.”
“I can’t, my love.” Bianca stroked his hair. “If you were to die without me, you would become like Reeves, a drooling, mindless hunger. I could not bear to see your beauty rot and fall away. I could not.”
Then she kissed his mouth, waking an exquisite pain before she eased over to the ragged side of his throat.
“No.” His protest was weak and he was so weary. “Don’t take this life from me.” But his eyes were already glazing.
“Gino, it is too late. You die within this frail mortal shell. Let me restore you. Rest in my arms, my love. We will be one again.”
“No. Bella...”
“She is lost to you, Gino. You will be mine,” she vowed, licking at the blood, cradling his broken face against her shoulder to hold him still. She began a gentle suction at the tears Gerardo had opened, that pull increasing as her appetite raged. Louis drifted then, and it was not unpleasant. The searing pain eased. A stronger cadence overwhelmed the weak pulse of his failing heart as Bianca invaded him. He had no strength to fight, no will to resist. At last, when his limbs hung slack and heavy and the cold of death worked its way through him, she sat back on her heels, her face close to his.
“Come over with me, Gino. Let go of the mortal ties and fly.”
And she watched with an avid, greedy satisfaction, having drained not just his blood, but his very soul. She held his head immobile between her hands, savoring the fade of his life force, taking a hideous ecstasy in absorbing it through the glazing portals of his stare. And because he’d once hovered over the dying to suck the same psychic thrill and knew well what she was doing, Louis shut his eyes to deny the obscene pleasure.
Suddenly alarmed because she’d lost touch with him, Bianca gashed her own wrist and pressed it against Louis’s lips. Her blood filled his mouth and spilled down over his chin.
“Open your eyes, Gino. You must fight. You must come over. Let me help you. Let me guide you.”
His head rolled loosely.
“No!”
She caught his chin and rubbed her spouting arteries to his slack mouth, screaming, “No, Gino! Swallow! You must take of my blood. I will not lose you! Gino!”
But she knew he was gone. She could feel his fragile mortal life just slip away and out of her control.
“No!”
Bianca threw him aside like a broken toy and surged up, a howling tower of rage. She rounded on Gerardo, who had the good sense to look afraid. She caught him by the shirt front and slapped him in her maddened fury.
“How could you do such a thing? You knew I wanted him! You knew how much I loved him!”
“Love? You know nothing of love,” Gerardo flung back at her, laughing because she couldn’t really harm him. “See how long he appeals to you when he is a slobbering revenant-en-corps scuffling to do your command, when his flesh begins to peel away and he takes on the mindless stink of death. Then see if you’ll crave him for your lover!”
LOUIS HEARD THEM talking, yelling, as all that was human lay dead within him. Their voices quivered, quicksilver inside his mind as the taste of Bianca’s blood threaded through his veins. A cooling balm glided along bent and tortured limbs that had known such pain. A healing fount became a wellspring eternal to repair the massive internal destruction, soothing ravaged tissues, piecing together that which seemed irreparably fractured. Strength flowed liquid, pulsing. Power. Tremendous power. Sensation intensified, becoming almost too much, too sharp, too vibrant, humming through him in shocking little ripples. Sound, so huge it was hurtful, deafening at first. Scents—blood, heat, bodies close and far, the night, the mist—all delicious fare to inhale and savor. Sight so keen it dazzled. He saw so far, so clear, he couldn’t comprehend it all. A moment of panic sank deep to touch upon a soul that was no longer there. And then he knew. He knew what had happened and what he was.
They looked at him with such astonishment, argument falling away before that surprise.
With one back-handed blow, he sent Gerardo crashing through the big bow window and out into the night. His scream sailed after him, trailing down like a faint ribbon into silence.
“Gino!” Bianca was smiling in genuine relief. She made a move toward him, but his arms rose up so that the satiny folds of his cloak fluttered around him, concealing him in blackness. A blackness that abruptly thinned to just a thread of light and slipped like smoke through the crack in the door. And Bianca was still smiling when Gerardo appeared beside her, brushing shards of glass from out of his coat.
“How strong he is, more so than ever I imagined.” Her voice trembled with noticeable thrill. Then she turned on her male companion with a cold slice of fury. “You will leave him to me!”
Gerardo smiled agreeably. “Have him. I have my revenge upon him. Because the first thing he will do is run home to his bride.” He laughed low and viciously. “And what a reunion that will be!”
ARABELLA HEARD the front door open. With a soft cry of relief, she tossed aside the book she’d been pretending to read for the last two hours and scrambled from the bed. Her thin white nightgown fluttering about her, she ran out into the hall to the top of the stairs.
“Louis!”
The first floor wa
s dark. A strange phosphorescent light spilled in from the open door, and with it, a thick, roiling mist. A wintery chill seeped up through the house until her quick breaths plumed visibly and she hugged herself. A tremor of alarm swept through her along with that prickling cold. She was about to turn and call for Takeo when the mist churned and changed, yielding up the shape of a man.
“Bella, my love.”
His words tingled within her. Truly afraid, yet compelled by his voice to move forward, Arabella eased down two of the steps.
“Louis?”
He was standing at the foot of the stairs, face uplifted, features bathed in an odd blue-silver glimmer that was not quite moonlight, not quite natural. It etched his cheekbones with bold, sharp strokes and his mouth with delicate sensual lines. And from out of that eerie, ethereal light, his eyes glowed hot and golden.
“Louis, I was so worried...” She clung to the railing for balance. Something about his stare dragged down upon her consciousness with an insistent sleepiness. Her limbs were unresponsive, heavy, tired. But beneath that seeping weariness, panic flickered like a resistant flame.
“I told you not to worry, Bella. I told you I would never leave you.”
And there was something in the quality of his voice—it was bigger, echoing, coming from all around and within her.
He started up the stairs, the mist rising with him, cloaking his feet so it seemed that he moved them not at all, but merely rose without effort. Confused by this trick of light, Arabella retreated, backing up the steps to the landing. Her heart pounded with an unexplained fright. Her eyes told her it was her husband coming up to her, but her senses decried it, warning with every frantic pulse that she was in dreadful danger.
He stood on the landing before her, his stillness mesmerizing. He was so... beautiful. She stared and lost herself in the looking. His magnetism surrounded and seduced her. His eyes were so deep they went on forever. Then he took a step and she took one away, her breath coming in soft little gasps.
“Don’t be afraid,” came that smooth, glassy voice, and terror surged within her only to be blanketed by his warm, stifling will. She couldn’t move, could barely breathe as he closed the distance between them. His hand reached out to her. She shrank back but couldn’t avoid it.
His fingers slid caressingly along her cheek and the solidity of that touch broke Arabella’s fearful trance. She exhaled in a rush.
“Oh, Louis, it is you!”
She quickly circled his neck with her arms and his curled lightly about her, drawing her up against him. She hugged him while desperate shivers drove out the last of her tension. She stroked her hand through his hair and kissed his neck, his cheek, and finally his mouth with a reassuring urgency. Then she simply clung.
“I did not mean to frighten you,” he whispered without inflection.
She gave a nervous little laugh. “It was silly—I don’t know what came over me. You seemed so strange, and I—it doesn’t matter now. You’re here, and that’s all that matters. Are you all right?”
“I am full of the night’s chill. I need your warmth to sustain me.”
She pushed away, all concern and practicality. “Come to bed. I’ll just go down and close... the door.” But looking down, she saw that the front door was already shut and the thick fog had dissipated. Everything was dark and undisturbed, as it should be. She shook off a moment of mental confusion and hugged to her husband’s arm. “Come. Let me warm you properly.”
A fire burned in the grate, infusing the room with heat and gentle light. Arabella had lit a lamp at the bedside while she was reading. In that sudden brightness, she gave a soft gasp.
“Is that blood?” She turned back the collar of his coat to reveal the brownish stains that liberally discolored his shirt. “Oh, Louis, have you hurt yourself?”
“No, little one. I am fine and fit.” He shrugged out of his coat and stripped off the soiled shirt, tossing it aside. She could see there were no marks upon him, but all that blood—Then his hand cupped beneath her chin, lifting her head slightly so her gaze was focused upon his own. And he said firmly, “It is nothing, Bella.”
She watched the gold of his eyes swirl and strangely flare, and blinking rapidly, she completely lost her train of thought. “What was I saying?”
“You were saying how much you loved me.”
That sounded plausible. “Oh, yes.” Her hands rode over the virile terrain of his chest. His skin was cool and sleek beneath her palms. She loved experiencing the feel of him, the strength and awesome contours concealed by his sophisticated garb. The world saw the polish, but only she was shown the power. She was zealously possessive of that knowledge. Her breasts flattened against the hard wall of him as she stretched up for his kiss, a kiss that lingered and deepened until she was woozy with delight.
His hands skimmed the nightdress from her shoulders so it filtered down between them, forgotten as his palms curved about the underswell of her bosom. His head lowered and she moaned in quiet rapture as his kiss burned against the soft flesh of her left breast. His lips pressed there unmoving for the longest while. Then he straightened and captured her dreamy gaze within the intensity of his own.
“Do you love me, Bella?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” No hesitation at all.
“Would you do anything for me?”
“Yes.”
“Would you give me anything I needed?”
“Anything.” She looked up into his eyes, her gaze offering an unqualified love for his taking.
He made a brief gesture with his hand and the lamp on the side table sputtered out. Arabella was about to remark upon it, but the words got lost in the wonder of his eyes. She felt the same helpless magic overcome her, her will malleable to his, her life a fragile gift placed in his hands without regret. Hands that could share such tenderness, hands that could rend so ruthlessly.
“I love you, Louis. I am yours.”
She was aware of the bedsheet beneath her, but not of how she had come to lie upon it. Then Louis’s weight settled over her. Strange how light he seemed. But then he was kissing her and it no longer mattered. His kisses went on and on until every breath she took was his. He said her name, and her body rippled in response. His mouth worked over the gentle slope of her cheek, played about her ear, then lowered. And lifted abruptly away. She heard a low hiss issue from him and could feel the hard scorch of his breath against her throat where the silver of her father’s wedding gift glittered.
“Louis,” she whispered with a husky impatience, coaxing him with the stroking glide of her hands and the arch of her body.
His kiss touched once again on the ripe white curve of her breast, but didn’t tarry there. He slid down the willing, naked heat of her, laving a damp trail along quivering abdomen to the moist valley at the base of her restlessly shifting legs. Lowering there, feasting. Wicked, her dazed mind cried, but so luscious in its decadence, so tempting, provoking such glorious passion. She writhed beneath those wet, taunting kisses, growing delirious with need. Hot sensation peaked in a rush and shattered through her. In the throes of pleasure, she scarcely felt a quick piercing pain along her inner thigh.
Instead of coming down from that euphoric plane, Arabella continued to drift, high and heady from the thrill of it, weightless, floating, even soaring. Such freedom was breathtaking, and she longed to hold to it even as a slow downward spiral began.
She felt as though Louis’s kiss was breathing life back into her. She could taste the earthy heat of her own body in that kiss and something else lingering rich and thick with the languid thrust of his tongue. He was covering her and she could feel the hard press of him. He’d finished undressing, though she couldn’t be certain when he’d done so. Her hands fluttered over the muscular bulge of his upper arms and should
ers, gliding down the slick heat of his back. His skin was no longer cool. It burned.
He lifted from the eager part of her lips to whisper with that low, sultry accent, “Bella, I want to be one with you.”
“Oh, yes,” she breathed back into his kiss. She opened herself to him and was bewildered by his delay. “Louis?”
His mouth moved against hers. “Take off the necklace.”
The request was so strange, it momentarily disrupted the dream. “What?”
He levered up slightly and his golden gaze penetrated deep and drugging. She could read desire in his eyes, a passion so intense it made her tremble, a need so raw and huge, it humbled her. She couldn’t look away, and she couldn’t deny him. So when he crooned, all soft and entreating, “Let me claim you for my own,” she reached for the thin silver chain and opened the catch. As she held it, he struck her hand and it went flying from her grasp to land on the floorboards far away.
With a deep and satisfied sigh, he sank down upon her lips again, drinking from their offering of love. She gasped as one forceful thrust of his hips joined them, then he moved between the beckoning spread of her thighs to create the binding tension she’d craved. His mouth drew a heated line of kisses from her lips to her chin, then down the concave of her throat, coming to a halt over her pulse point. He nuzzled there, his breath rasping, his lips parting, his hands clasping either side of her head to angle a taut bend. She felt the slow, wet stroke of his tongue.
And his bite.
His teeth went through the tender resistance of her flesh the way they would pierce the soft skin of a succulent peach with a pain that was swift and instantly forgotten. Then the deep, sweet draw of warm nectar. The pleasure was volcanic, a hot, vibrating surge through her veins, even as her body throbbed in wonderful release below. That caressing beat of perfection went on and on, swelling, becoming the hard pulse of Louis’s heart racing through her in a powerful, seducing rhythm.