This Time Next Year

by Catherine Peace

  Kiernan shifted her onto her back again. His weight on top of her added to the hunger devouring her body. Planting his hands on either side of her head, he thrust deep, hard and fast. She dug her nails into his ribs, but his eyes held her. They glowed amber in the candlelight, filled with the love she never thought she’d find.

  His rhythm slowed. Retreating almost completely, he eased back in, searing every part of her along the way.

  The fissures in her spirit started to heal. A lifetime of betrayal and abandonment no longer mattered. She had her protector. Her strong, beautiful, sexy-as-fuck protector. She caressed his cheek. He pressed a kiss to her heated palm then his thrusts quickened—gasoline to the wildfire he’d stoked in her.

  Her back arched hard enough to snap. From the popping, she thought it had.

  After two last, intense thrusts, he collapsed. She struggled to catch her breath, her head dizzy, her vision blurred. How did lust turn to… this?

  His arms cocooned her with strength and gentleness. For once, she had no fear. Maybe for once she wouldn’t dream.

  They slipped into an easy slumber.

  Chapter Five

  Moira’s muffled sobs woke Kiernan from the best slumber in ages. She’d buried her head in his chest, her arms clutched so tight around him he struggled for breath.

  “Moira,” he whispered, kissing her forehead, her cheek. If he scared her, he’d hate himself. “Wake up.”

  She jerked. Her eyes snapped open, wild and frightened, then she slowed her breathing, seeming to realize he was there.

  “It’s okay.” He smoothed her hair, pulling her as close as possible. “It’s okay now.”

  She shifted and sat up, burying her face in her hands.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I have had the same fucking dream since….” Her voice caught and she forced a swallow. “I hate this. So much. I don’t sleep, I mean, I don’t want to sleep because I don’t want to remember, and I depend on coffee and energy drinks to get through the day, but….” Then she broke down again.

  Fuck Willem. “He can’t hurt you anymore,” he soothed. “He’ll never hurt anyone again, I promise you.”

  “What?”

  “Let me get you a glass of water, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  Moira tugged the blanket up to her neck and shivered. Kiernan produced no heat, but she missed his body next to hers. When he returned, she took the water, draining the glass in seconds.

  “I was twenty-nine,” he said, settling back into bed. Crossing his arms over his chest, he closed his eyes. “Worked on a merchant ship during the first world war. Both my parents had died from the flu outbreak, and I had no plans to marry, so that ship was my life. The crew was my family.

  “We got hit by a German U-boat and lost most of the crew. I stayed alive long enough to be rescued, but my injuries were severe. A lot of internal bleeding, hypothermia, gashes everywhere. They did what they could, but every doctor waited for me to die.”

  Been there. The day after the attack, one of the neighborhood druggies had shown up for a quick fix. Instead, he found her, blue-skinned and barely breathing. He ran to a neighboring house and called 911 but didn’t stay. All alone, she waited for the end, and the sirens, which her criminal parents had taught her to avoid, gave her no hope. The paramedics and doctors had expected her to die, too. “What happened next?”

  He shifted then went stone-still. “My maker, Marguerite, worked as a night nurse. Spent every shift by my bedside, told me I reminded her of her son. She looked no more than seventeen, but delirious people don’t pay attention to detail. I loved listening to her French accent as she told me about her journey to America to escape the war and how it’d seemed to follow her regardless. To keep me stable, she slipped me little bits of her blood. Eventually, my wounds healed, and the doctors stopped thinking I would die.

  “When they released me, I didn’t have anywhere to go since the ship was gone, so Marguerite took me in. That’s when she offered to change me. I owed her everything, and she still wanted to give me one last gift. I couldn’t refuse her.”

  Why would he? After all that, after this woman kept him from dying, why wouldn’t he want to take anything she offered? “Did you love her?”

  “I did. She became a mother to me in the hospital. I…didn’t want to be alone.” Kiernan stopped and took a deep breath.

  Moira understood the fear all too well. Lowering the blanket, she snuggled against him, placed a shaky hand on his chest where his heart should beat, and closed her eyes against the silence.

  “Want to know something ironic?”

  “Sure.”

  “I hated the dark. As a child, I lived in sunlight, and on the merchant ship I stayed on deck from sunrise to sunset. I hated not feeling the sun on my face, not being out and doing work. There’s something about a hard day’s work that makes a man feel…alive, I suppose.”

  She tried to picture him as a young child. The best summation she had came from watching Newsies in school. Knickers, suspenders over a plaid shirt, and that adorable newsboy cap. Looking at him now…nope. The T-shirt and jeans had suited him just fine.

  “Marguerite understood. She said she couldn’t give me the sun, but she could give me so much more. She rattled off a few things—eternal youth, cunning, speed—but when she told me how strong I would be, I started listening. And the more I listened, the more I liked. And the more I liked, the more I started to love it. I wanted that strength. If I’d had it on the ship, perhaps I could have saved my crew. If I took Marguerite’s gift, I would be able to prevent a similar or worse tragedy.” His voice cut out, sounding deflated. Defeated. Because he’d failed to do exactly that twenty years ago.

  “She promised to teach me to control my urges, to hunt animals.” The words were strained, almost loathing. If possible, he stilled further. “It sounds so cliché now, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “It’s not cliché, it’s admirable.”

  With a shrug, he said, “Maybe. But all that changed with Willem’s arrival.”

  Moira shivered. Kiernan hugged her closer.

  “He challenged Marguerite for me. She accepted. In order to keep me alive should the worst happen, I had to drink from him; his blood would preserve me, and with her death, bind me to him.” He paused. “The worst happened.”

  From his tone, she realized Willem had killed Marguerite, just like the bastard had killed her parents.

  “Willem took me into his coven. Forced me to feed on humans. He had a brothel set up, humans willing to let us feed on them, use them however we wanted. Marguerite had ruined me, he’d said, weakened me, but he could teach me the true purpose of my change, teach me to use my gifts. I didn’t know what he meant until….”

  She shuddered. “Until he butchered my parents. Right.”

  “After that night, I….” He stopped again.

  His muscles tensed; the unwillingness to continue his story turning him to stone. She stroked his hard chest with her fingertips and warmed at the ripple that went through him.

  He placed his hand over hers. “I kept watch over you and ensured neither he nor any other vampire came near you.”

  A pang tore at Moira’s heart. Brief memories of hisses and screams flashed across her mind. The Dufresnes had claimed bobcats were fighting over territory in the woods behind the house, but now…. “You fought them off.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Her heart pounded in her ears. He lay still but if she couldn’t keep her heart rate down, would he strike? Would he control his urges?

  Inhaling, he squeezed her hand. “Because I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you.”

  Her heart almost stopped. Her mind screamed to run, that this guy was nuts, but she believed him. For the first time in a long time, she believed someone with everything she had. Tears trickled onto her lover’s chest. Her lover. Her guardian.

  “Humans…their blood….” He shook his head. “It’s difficult to
explain. It’s almost musical to us. That song is the allure, and some vampires keep killing just to hear the music. It’s the one joy they cling to.”

  “Does mine do that?”

  With a smile, Kiernan kissed her hand. “Yours is the most beautiful melody I’ve ever heard.”

  Warmth flooded her. “So what about Willem? Did he come after me?”

  “A few times. I kept him at bay but could never deliver a killing blow. When he did stop coming around, I refused to trust my good fortune.”

  She stiffened. “What did you do?”

  “I hadn’t seen him in months, but the moment I believed you safe, he’d strike, and I’d lose you for certain. So I chose instead to hunt him down. End all of it. But I had to survive. I had to keep protecting you.”

  A thousand questions assaulted her, all variations of why bother, but she wouldn’t interrupt his story. Sounded like he needed to say it as much as she needed to hear it.

  “Even after I broke from the coven and started watching over you, his blood tried to force me back into the fold. My body burned with the strain of ignoring his calls. After months of ignoring him, I finally answered and found him at his favorite club.”

  “Is it bad that I’m imagining some bordello or something?”

  Kiernan shook his head, a weak smile playing on his lips. The first real bit of emotion he’d shown since starting his story. “It wouldn’t be far from the truth.”

  Sick fuck. “Keep talking,” she said, though she wondered if she really wanted to know the rest.

  The smile faded. “He was waiting for me that night, sitting alone at one of his shadowed tables, watching the other vampires toy with their human companions. When I sat down, he didn’t look at me, just stared past me at the mass of writhing bodies. His progeny. All as cruel and twisted as he.”

  He nodded, as though he had more to say. She debated prodding him for more information, like why the hell someone would be okay with Willem creating more vampires in his image, what the hierarchy was, if the obscene amount of vampire novels in bookstores had any accuracy at all, but the faraway look on his face stopped her. Pulling him out of the memory now would make it that much more difficult to start again. He deserved to tell his side of the story.

  “He’d always been able to read me,” Kiernan continued. “No matter how I tried to mask my emotions or intentions, I became an open book in his presence. ‘I knew this day would come,’ he said. ‘You were never meant to be a true vampire.’ He sounded hurt and disappointed, like a parent whose child had never quite measured up. ‘I should have destroyed you when I destroyed Marguerite.’”

  “Ouch.”

  “He challenged me. The other vampires stopped moving, and I think the music may have died then. Everything faded away until Willem struck.”

  A shudder passed through him. Should he keep going or should she stop him now? She could imagine the rest.

  “I needed him dead to make sure you stayed safe. By the time I killed him, the club looked like two rabid tigers had gone to war within it.” Another long pause. “There is no easy way to say this—in killing Willem, I killed the entire coven. The ashes of Willem’s progeny covered the floor. I survived because Willem was not my maker. Marguerite’s blood had created me, and it protected me.”

  Sitting up, Moira looked at her new hero. He faced straight ahead, eyes still closed. She traced the line of his jaw with her index finger. “You’ve been through so much.” Emotion choked her voice. “For me. I can’t understand it.”

  He turned toward her. His weary eyes looked her over. Retelling the ordeal seemed to have aged him. “Neither can I. But you’re the first thing that’s mattered since my transformation. To lose you would be to lose myself.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and kissed her.

  She nearly melted into a puddle. His kiss was the kiss of someone who loved her. Desire pooled in her belly and spread lower as she opened her mouth to him. Just one kiss, and she burned for him, ready and willing to give him everything she had.

  She needed him inside her, filling her. Grabbing his erection, she maneuvered her body until he brushed her opening.

  He gasped then knelt between her thighs, dragging her to him, lifting her so she sat astride him, face-to-face.

  Chest heaving, she wrapped her legs around his waist. He kissed her again, stroking her tongue with his.

  Hours earlier, he’d been a stranger, someone she’d feared, but with his arms enfolding her in protection and affection, she couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.

  She’d found perfection, but it wouldn’t last. She would continue to age while he looked as youthful and beautiful as he did now. Kissing his neck, she ran her hand over his chest and smiled when he shifted and held her tighter.

  “Did it hurt?” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “Being changed.” She nibbled along his jaw, seeking his lips.

  When he stiffened, she gave up her search and leaned back to see his face. His eyes were closed, mouth in a taut line. Maybe he didn’t want to remember. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked.

  Minutes passed before he spoke again. The grandfather clock in the main room ticked in rhythm with her pulse, one second for every two beats.

  “It was hell.” In the dim lighting, pain flickered in his eyes, dulling them for a moment. “And it’s a hell I would never wish on you.”

  “Even though I’ll die? Even though you’ll have to watch it happen, someday?” She placed her hands on either side of his face, ensuring he couldn’t look away. “I have spent two decades living in fear. Living in denial. I’ve never been in love until now. Tonight. With you. You can’t deny what’s between us. What’s here.”

  “I never have. What would you suggest?”

  Good question. As it was, they were incompatible in the most important way—longevity. But with all the old fears giving way to new ones, what could they do?

  Then it dawned on her. “Change me,” she said before she lost her nerve.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.” He lowered her hands. “I’ve kept you safe all this time, and you want me to make you what you hate? I can’t do that to you.”

  “I hated one vampire. And if you did it, you wouldn’t have to keep me safe. We’d be together. I’d be as strong as you.”

  “One night, and you’re willing to throw away your life for me?”

  “One night, and I’m finally willing to start my life. I’m yours, Kiernan, now more than ever.”

  Chapter Six

  “You’re certain?” Kiernan glanced at the clock. One hour before sunrise.

  Moira nodded, her hazel eyes glowing in the minimal light.

  “What about your friends?”

  “This isn’t about my friends. This is about me. And you. And us.”

  “You’ll never see the sun again.”

  “I work in a lab from sunrise to sunset. I don’t see the sun now. Besides, I’m Irish. We don’t do sunshine.”

  “You can’t have chocolate or meat. No coffee, no tea, no soda.”

  She winced. Food always made his point for him, since humans could never imagine living without their favorite treats. She pursed her lips while she considered everything she’d miss out on. Probably thinking about never having a wedding, or babies…. Hell, even getting sick was worth the cost of being human to him. Through illness, a person appreciated the benefits health bestowed on him. Being a vampire took that away, too. He floated through every night like a wraith, lacking fulfillment.

  “Eternity is a long time,” he reminded her. “And a vampire’s strength doesn’t guarantee you’ll live forever.”

  “It would be worth it to be with you. If it’s just twenty years, it’d be worth it.” She smiled wryly as tears slipped down her cheeks.

  “This is a huge decision, and this has been a crazy, wonderful, perfect night, but I need you to think it over.”

  She swallowed and buried her head in his chest, sniffling.

>   Drawing back, he lifted her chin with his finger so her watery eyes met his. “Moira, I love you.” He wanted her to feel the weight of each word. “I want you forever. I always have. But for your sake, and for mine, please take time to think through your decision. You’ll miss out on so much if you do this.”

  “I’ll miss out on even more if I don’t.”

  They’d both miss out on the possibility of a beautiful life together if he refused to turn her. Still, the other possibility he hated considering lingered. “I could kill you.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I mean, the process could kill you, and I—”

  “Stop. Just stop there.”

  Determination filled her voice. “I know what you’ve been through. Let me tell you what I have been through. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I was a kid. I have dealt with nightmares in which I relive the attack every single night, and because of those nightmares, I have been alone. No one but my best friend even knows about what happened, and I can’t tell anyone else without sounding like a freaking lunatic.” She took a few deep breaths, but even in the darkness, he sensed her trembling. “Maybe to you, it isn’t worth it. But I…I can’t keep living the way I am.” After several minutes of silence, she excused herself, grabbed a robe out of the armoire, and headed into the living room.

  Moira beelined to the already-uncorked wine on the counter and poured herself a healthy glass. What the hell had happened? Oh right. She’d confessed her love to someone she’d practically just met and asked him to change her into a vampire.

  And he’d said no.

  Maybe that’s best. Settling onto the sofa, she took a long swig of wine and let the alcohol loosen her mind. After all, she’d hated and feared vampires for as long as she could remember, and now she wanted to be one?

  But she wanted to be with him. Loving someone meant sacrifices, right? And she’d be more than willing to make those sacrifices if it meant being with the person she loved, the one who’d outlive her otherwise. Willem had brought them together through the worst way imaginable. Tonight, they’d finished forging a bond that couldn’t break, and now they had a chance to build something beautiful on the foundation a vampire with crimson eyes had intended to destroy them both.