by Karen Greco
Or maybe I was getting used to being a vampire.
Snapping myself out of my gothic reverie, I worked my tongue over the sharp fangs that replaced my canines. Anger was more exhilarating than mourning. "Kill him."
"That's the hunger talking."
"I don't feel anything," I lied. In fact, I felt everything. But what I felt about Gramps was just more matter-of-fact. He plunged a knife in my neck and I bled out while choking on my own blood. Family or not, the man needed to die.
"You do, trust me," Frankie said. He dropped his arm back over me, as if to hold me down.
"I'm not going out to kill him now," I pointed out.
"Just in case," he said, giving me a squeeze.
My body tensed around his weight, becoming more aware of his proximity. His scent was a heady mix of rain-soaked soil and molten metal — a mix of earth and blood. I shifted closer to him, his scent surrounding me, grounding me. My fingertips danced along his forearm.
"You need to get more rest, Nina," Frankie said. His lips lingered along my hairline.
"I am done resting," I said, flexing and relaxing my muscles one by one. His body shifted against mine, and my nerves jumped to attention. "It all feels so weird, Frankie."
"I know," he said. He brushed my hair away from my face. "It takes some getting used to."
"Everything feels heightened," I whispered.
"You can hear them in the kitchen, right?"
I nodded, licking my lips. "More than hear them. I can sense them. Smell them. Feel them. I can almost taste them."
He gave a rueful chuckle. "I'd sincerely hoped that you would never feel this way."
"It doesn't feel bad," I said, rolling to my side to face him. "Not as bad as I thought it would."
"That's good, then," he said, sliding his hand over my shoulder and down my arm, setting my nerves on fire with his touch.
His black t-shirt was tight across his body, and I could see the outline of his chest muscles through the fabric. I feathered my fingertips along the soft cotton, feeling his firm body underneath. "So you think I'm still a witch too?" I asked.
He nodded and closed his eyes as my fingers continued to dance along his t-shirt. "Your grandfather said the magic was killing you. It was slow, but it was happening. Said the headaches you'd been having, the nausea, all of that was triggered when your magic was released. He said absorbing Kittie’s magic, the dark magic, pushed the process along faster. He said that death in such a manner would have been excruciating."
I stole a glance at his face. "And you believed that excuse?"
"Why wouldn't I believe it?" he asked, shivering involuntarily as my fingers brushed along the raised scars on his chest. I could feel them under his shirt. He leaned his head back against the headrest and I wondered if his scars were sensitive. "Those headaches kicked in when your witch powers surfaced. Marcello hitting you with that blade made them even worse."
I pressed my nails into him, my frustration rising. “When that knife kick-started all this, Tavio tried to give me a stone, a demon cursed object that he said would stifle the witch. He claimed having both in my body would kill me. I thought he was full of shit.”
“Tavio? He knew?”
“And I didn’t believe him. And I didn’t take the stone—”
“—because it was a demon curse,” Frankie finished.
“And I didn’t want to lose the witch,” I admitted.
Frankie jumped up and paced the room. The nervous energy radiating off of him spiked my bloodlust.
"We still don’t know if you’re in the clear," Frankie said. "What happens when the turn is complete? Too many questions, too much of a risk. Your grandfather could be the only one who knows how to fix you if your body goes to war with itself. Without Bertrand’s interference."
"Dr. O would know," I said, wrapping my arms around my middle and swallowing down the hunger and desire rising in me.
"Dr. O is behind iron bars."
"We're getting him out," I insisted.
"Of course we are. But he's not here right now, and now is crucial. And I won't risk losing you. It's not worth killing that bastard." He stopped pacing the floor and turned to me, fear etched into his face.
"Frankie," I whispered. I lifted a shaking arm towards him, motioning for him to come to me.
He flashed me a sad smile. "That's the vampire talking."
I sat up, unsteady. His eyes glowed, an eerie blue lighting up across the room, tracking my movement. The muscles of his lithe body flexed and relaxed with each shift of his position. Want flooded over me, the sensation almost too much to bear. I pulled my blood stained t-shirt over my head. He took a few tentative steps towards me, stopping at the foot of the bed.
"Nina," he said, touching my bare foot with trepidation, "you're in the midst of turning."
"I know exactly what I am doing," I said, reaching behind me and unsnapping my bra. I shrugged out of it, exposing my small breasts. He licked his lips, eyes on me.
"We can't," he said. Frankie didn't move from the end of the bed but his eyes continued to sweep over my body while his hand brushed along my ankle, inching up my calf.
I scooted to the end of the bed and took his hand from my leg, moving it to my left breast. I pressed it where my heart used to beat. He closed his eyes and curled his fingers against my skin. "Nina, we can't," he repeated. "We shouldn't."
His hand fell away and I dropped my head so he didn't see my eyes fill with tears. Damn. Vampirism was worse than PMS, and Frankie's rejection smarted. I began to slither away. But before I darted from him in humiliation, his hand caught me behind the neck and he pulled me to him. His mouth hovered just over mine.
"Don't think I don't want this," he said, his voice rough. "I've wanted this for a long time."
"So what's stopping you?" I asked. My physical hunger was sated by the stale blood, but this more primal hunger threatened to consume me. Not enough blood in the world could tamp this down.
"This could be the transition talking, and I don't want you to regret this," he whispered, his mouth just inches from mine. My lower lip trembled as he captured it gently between his teeth. "It changes everything, you know. There is no going back."
"Got it, no going back," I repeated, tugging on his t-shirt, digging my nails into the fabric until it tore away with a satisfying rip. His body exposed, I admired his angular lines. Frankie was long and lean; bulking up was not in his DNA. I stared at the scars that covered his torso. I ran my hands over his cool skin, tracing the raised lines and peaks, the remnants of the deadly job that bound us both.
No longer able to hold back, his mouth crushed mine and my adrenaline spiked. I pulled at the buttons along the fly of his jeans. His hands fumbled along my body, like a 13-year-old kid playing Seven Minutes in the Closet for the first time.
"Sorry," he said, pulling away from me. "I promise I’m better than this."
My emotional pendulum swung the other way, heightened by the vampire DNA that was growing like kudzu through my cellular structure, leaving me feeling physically and mentally exposed. My confidence threatened to bottom out, and I snatched up the quilt and clutched it against my bare chest. "Am I too aggressive?"
"Not at all, love," he said. The tenderness in his eyes told me he wasn't lying. "But I've wanted this for so long that I'm rushing."
"I don't think I can wait either," I said, relief flooding me. My senses heightened, every time Frankie touched me I wanted to scream in pleasure. Control was a hard thing to muster.
"Really?" His smile of relief turned to one of mischief. He tugged at the quilt, exposing my half-naked body. "Let's try this again. But I want to savor you."
The quilt dropped away again and he pressed me down onto the bed. He settled his body between my legs and kissed me again. His tongue teased along my lips before slipping into my mouth, dancing around my newly formed fangs. His right hand cupped my breast and he ran his thumb over my taut nipple. His mouth released mine, and he moved down to my n
eck, scraping it with his fangs. At the soft spot just under my ear, his tongue teased me and I angled my body up against his. His fangs sank into that sensitive spot, and I moaned and tilted my hips into his pelvis.
"Wait," I whispered as my body stilled. "Do vampires need condoms?" My body was primed and, like a runaway freight train, this was only going in one direction until we ran out of track. Once this got going, it was going to be nearly impossible to stop if we were ill-prepared.
Frankie released his fangs from my neck, sending shivers down my back as the cool air touched the open wound. "They aren't necessary. Nothing to worry about in that department." I guess being undead had its advantages.
He kissed me again. His lips tasted like blood, my blood, which only increased my arousal. My hands swept down his body, and I pushed his unbuttoned jeans down his hips. Then I did the same with my own, kicking them off the rest of the way. I reached for his erection, but he stopped me.
"There's nothing more I want right now," he said. His expression told me he was telling the truth. "But, let’s slow it down, love. It's not a race. We can enjoy this."
I growled my disapproval. My impulse control was waning and I needed to release the tension building inside me. But his expert hands traveled down my body and slid between my legs. I closed my eyes and shuddered as his fingers explored me. I wrapped my legs around him and moaned when he found my core.
"Are you certain?" he asked.
"Are you kidding?" I said through gritted teeth. "It's all I want right now."
"Right now?" he repeated. His fingers danced inside of me, and I pressed against them, proof of my interest in doing this right now. "I don't want you to regret this."
"Why would I?"
Frankie's cerulean blue eyes dropped to my mouth as I bit on my lip, trying to keep a measure of control. Then his gaze jumped back to meet mine. "There is no going back from this. There is no 'friends with benefits,' as the kids say. I want you. All of you."
"I know," I whispered, closing my own eyes. There was no going back to before. Before I was a novice witch and not-dead-yet vampire. Before my own grandfather bled me out on the floor of my bar. Before Aunt Babe died at my mother's hands. Before Max was just a hot FBI agent stopping into the bar for a beer and a flirt.
Now, I was dead. Well, technically undead. I drank blood. And, at this very moment, I was desperate for craven sex with Frankie, my best friend, work partner and, now, my fellow vampire.
My attention snapped back to Frankie when his fingers probed me deeper, driving me closer to climax before he pulled back again. "Maybe we should stop," he whispered, although his hands said otherwise.
Frustration flashed through me and my eyes lit up the area surrounding us an eerie green. Like a reflex reaction, I pushed Frankie off the bed and against the wall, pinning him to it with an arm stretched across his neck. I ran my tongue over my sharp fangs. "Why should we stop?
Frankie moved fast, flipping me around so I was pinned against the wall. My feet off the ground, only Frankie's arm kept me from falling. His body leaned on mine, the feel of his skin sending shivers through my me. I met his gaze with a look that challenged him to take me. He backed away, dropping me so I landed on my feet with a gentle thud. "This is exactly why. You're not yourself, Nina."
"I'll never be myself again," I pointed out, wrapping my arms over my chest.
"You'll come back to yourself once you learn to control your impulses," he said, looking at me with a mix of desire and disappointment. "All of your impulses."
He turned and hunted for his jeans, yanking them on when he located them crumpled on the floor. I stared at his fingers as he buttoned them. "I know exactly what I want."
"Of course," he said. "It's your first impulse. Was mine too, after I fed. When you first turn, your base desires are overwhelming. First you want food, then you want to fuck."
He handed me my filthy shirt. I fingered the fabric caked with dried blood. "You gave me food." I left the final part of that argument unsaid.
"A hungry vampire is a dangerous vampire. A horny vampire will get over it."
I watched him examine the remains of the t-shirt I clawed off of him. His movements were slow and considered, like he was still weighing up the pros and cons of our predicament. A flicker of regret crossed his face. “You really don't want this?" I whispered.
"Of course I want this," he said, giving up on his ruined shirt and tossing it on the bed. "But not this way. Not until I am sure."
"Sure of what?"
He walked to the door and put his hand on the doorknob as he looked back at me. "That you feel the same way. That there will be no regrets."
"I won't have any."
"Maybe I will," he said. When he turned the knob, I clutched my top to my chest and retreated into a dark corner of the room, away from the sunlight. "I'd take a stake for you, Nina."
He slipped out the door so quickly that for the briefest moment a sliver of sunlight was cast in the room.
16
I stared at the red-tinged hue of the setting sun, creeping around the velveteen blacks that Frankie pinned up around the windows. I wished I could throw open the curtains and absorb its warmth.
I shivered and pulled the blankets tighter around me. The thing about being dead is it’s pretty damn cold, the kind of cold that settles into you bones and makes them ache. And it never really goes away.
There was a light tapping on the door.
"Who is it?" I croaked. I knew it was Frankie. No one else visited me in my sick room. No one liked to be around the dying. But I still asked the question, just to be difficult.
Frankie poked his head through the door. "You up for a visitor?"
I buried my head into the pillows, not ready to face him after what had happened between us. "Maybe later."
His eyes glowed at me through the dark room. He pursed his lips. "It's later."
The door creaked open and Frankie pushed a man in the room, shoving the stranger so hard that he face-planted onto the floor.
I inched my way into a sitting position, ignoring the pain ripping down my spine. "What the hell, Frankie? You think I want an audience for this?"
"For what?" Frankie asked. "Dying?"
I wilted back into the mattress and turned my head away from him. "You'd have to stake me to kill me."
"According to your grandfather, it may take more than a stake to take you down," he said.
I turned my head towards him. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Why don't you ask him yourself?"
"Because I will sink my teeth into his fucking heart and bleed him dry."
Frankie clapped his hands together. "That's my girl! But as I mentioned before, we need the old man alive. This git..." He kicked the man, who mistakenly assumed Frankie wasn't paying attention and was crawling towards the exit. "This git is dinner."
"I'm not hungry," I lied. My eyes tracked Frankie. His behavior wasn't the least bit strained. Did I dream our near-hookup last night? If I did, it still felt very real.
"You need to eat something, Nina, or you will waste. And that is much worse than death."
I swallowed. This was the first time I’d smelled a human since starting to turn, and he smelled delicious. "Where'd you get him?"
"Does it matter?" Frankie asked.
My glare told him it did.
"Found him snooping around the alleyway,” Frankie continued. “Said your mum sent him."
I sat up again. The aches from the movement stabbed at my body. "Sent him for what?"
"Go on, tell the lady," Frankie said. "What'd Leila send you for?"
"I don't know any Leila," the man said, shrinking away from me.
The way his eyes darted around the room told me he was lying. I crawled from the bed and padded toward him. Each step was agony, but I propelled myself forward, pushing through the pain. I yanked at what was left of his overlong hair on his balding head and pulled him to his feet.
"It's time to tell us why L
eila sent you." I said this with a slight lisp, my sprouting fangs impeding my speech.
At the sight of them, the man trembled, his entire body quaking with fear. "Please don't, please don't make me," he said, his voice little more than a squeak. "She said if I told, I'd—" His lips kept moving but noise ceased to vibrate from his vocal chords.
"Goddammit." I shoved his head back, and the force of my push hurtled him backwards. His head slammed into the plaster wall and, with a blank expression, he crumpled to the floor, lips still moving and broken bits of plaster raining down on his head. My fangs itched. "She spelled his ass."
"Can you break it?" Frankie asked, crouching down to look into the man's eyes.
"I'm a vampire now, Frankie," I said. "I can't do shit with spells anymore."
"You don't know that," he replied, looking up at me, his expression hovering between hope and annoyance.
I climbed back onto the bed, my body weary from that small exertion. "Just leave me be."
"Not until you eat," he said, getting to his feet.
"Is that why you brought that useless cretin into my room?" I asked, crawling under my quilt.
"I thought we'd kill two birds. He tells us why Leila has him surveilling the place and then you have a little dinner."
I pulled the blanket over my head. "I'll have a bag later."
I heard Frankie's footfalls coming towards the bed. "No more bags for you."
"Why? Are we out?" I asked from under my blankets.
"Doesn't matter," he said, his voice in close proximity. "You need to feed on fresh blood. Nutrients leech out when it's been sitting."
"Like cooked vegetables?" I asked. "I think you're bullshitting me."
He pulled the quilt off of my head. "You feel like hell, right?"
I buried my face in a pillow, ignoring him.
"Like something's gnawing at your insides? Like your bones are going to shatter?"
I pulled one of the pillows over my head, still ignoring him.
"That's because you aren't getting the fuel your body needs. You need real food. Fresh blood. Not bagged."