Sweet Last Drop

by Melody Johnson

  Dominic rolled his eyes heavenward and muttered something foul under his breath. “You have enough blood of your own that you won’t transform, I assure you.”

  I bit my lip. Dominic’s intentions, and especially his intentions regarding my status as his night blood, were so complex that I couldn’t see the big picture, but Dominic—five steps, two skips, and a bite ahead of everyone, as always—knew exactly how the pieces fit. Was this just another trick, like swearing on the passage of time, that I didn’t understand or comprehend?

  Dominic sighed heavily at my hesitation. I could feel the balance of all our lives in the weight of his sigh. “Do you or do you not trust me, Cassidy? It’s that simple. When I tell you that drinking my blood will not transform you, do you believe me?”

  “Yes, I believe you,” I said, surprising myself. I really did believe him. He wanted to transform me, there was no denying that, but I believed without a doubt, more than his desire to transform me, that he desired my consent. “I trust you, but—”

  “No. You either trust me or you don’t, and if you don’t, your brother’s only chance at a normal, sane existence is lost.”

  I breathed in sharply. “Well, when you put it like that,” I snapped.

  “I’m not putting it any other way than how it truly is,” Dominic said patiently. “In this, however, I won’t force you. You must see reality for what it is and seize it with both hands. No one but you can do that for yourself.”

  Dominic pressed his wrist to my lips again, but this time, despite the instinctive urge to gag and bolt, I forced myself to stay the course. I sealed my lips around the wound, like I’d witnessed from him on multiple occasions, and sucked.

  Any other time his blood made contact with my tongue—our experience with Jillian excluded—I’d spit it out instantly. This time, I allowed myself to taste it. I rolled its flavor over my tongue, feeling its texture, and to my surprise and deepening hate for everything concerning Dominic being right, the taste and texture was tolerable. His blood was cool and thick in my mouth, like chilled honey, but slippery against my tongue instead of sticky. It slid down the back of my throat before I could swallow, so I could either choke or accept it. Against my better judgment—against everything I thought I’d wanted for myself in this life—I swallowed.

  Although his blood was chilled, heat spread down my throat, into my stomach, and through each limb. It swirled and crashed through my body like a riptide, unexpected and drowning, his blood in my blood, pumping through my veins in time with my heartbeat, healing and invigorating my body from the inside out. From chest to fingertip, head to toe, I was radiant.

  Drinking Dominic’s blood was a different experience now that Jillian wasn’t leeching from my mind. In my wildest dreams, I’d never imaged feeling anything but disgust from drinking blood, yet I basked in it. But even the sun, providing light and life to the entire world, will incinerate whatever dares to venture too close. Dominic’s blood was suddenly scalding. My skin stretched, like it might rip from my own body to keep from burning.

  “Dominic? It burns.”

  “Your body must accept my blood as your own in order for it to strengthen you,” Dominic’s lips moved against my ear as he whispered, his voice rushed and urgent. “Otherwise, you’ll just throw it up again.”

  “Something’s wrong,” I murmured. “I’m on fire, and my skin is tearing in half.”

  “No, it’s not. My saliva burns, too, but it’s just healing.” Dominic moved his wrist away from my mouth and held my hand. He squeezed tightly. “Do you feel this?”

  I nodded.

  “Focus on my hand in your hand. Feel its cold soothing your heat, its strength protecting you. The coldness and strength that you feel in my hand is inside you now, anchoring you. Feel my blood course through you and embrace the gift it’s about to give. You must accept it.”

  “Its gift?” I hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Strength, Cassidy. Visualize my strength coursing through your veins. Let go of your fear and allow the blood access to your muscles and bones. Allow it access to your mind. Can you feel it in your veins?”

  “Yes,” I said. The blood was still burning and my skin was still tearing, but I could feel what he was describing, too. I focused on his hand and the anticipation of strength inside me.

  “Visualize the blood soaking deep into your muscles, into the aches and soreness. Visualize it revitalizing you from the inside out. Can you feel your body healing, your vision sharpening, your muscles strengthening?”

  “Yes,” I whispered in wonder. “I can.” I visualized what he described, seeing past the physical discomfort of my stretched skin to the miracle occurring beneath it. My heart shifted into third gear, and my biceps and triceps, my thighs and calves, my abdomen and all my muscles expanded, filling my stretched skin. My body fit inside itself again, but I was something more than I’d been before. I could feel it like tiny electrical snaps, the living electric pulse of his blood, now my blood.

  “How do you feel now?” Dominic asked cautiously.

  I glanced up into his face and stared. I could see the midnight energy of his being enveloping me. I could literally see his concern like a physical halo surrounding his body.

  “Is this how you see?” I asked. I felt a strange, pointed whirl against my arm and cringed. A moment later, I felt the sensation again and again in concurrence with an owl hooting in the distance. I was feeling the vibrations of its hoot against my skin. I could literally feel his sound waves. “Is this how you feel all the time?”

  Dominic stared at me like I was a stranger. “Every time I think I know you, every time I think I’m impressed by the woman you are and the night blood you’re becoming, you do something extraordinarily unexpected, and I’m awed by you. Over and over again, you amaze me.”

  “I can feel sound waves and see emotions.” I took a deep breath to calm my heart, and my mouth flooded with a muted, clean freshness, like peeled cucumber. “I can taste the air. Why wasn’t it like this the last time I drank your blood?”

  “Jillian was drinking from you, taking the nourishment that should have been yours, but she’s not a part of you anymore. It’s just me inside you. Knowing the night blood you are now, it humbles me to think of the vampire you’ll become.”

  I narrowed my eyes, not so enthralled by my newfound senses to miss that last remark. “The vampire I won’t become,” I clarified.

  “Don’t,” Dominic hushed, placing a finger over my lips. “Please, don’t ruin this for me. You trusted me and took my blood into your body willfully and without the bloodlust of Jillian’s cravings. Don’t deny what you feel with pithy words. Don’t cheapen this moment between us.”

  I wanted to deny it. I wanted to sneer and snort derisively What moment? You can’t cheapen what isn’t there, but after a lifetime of seeking and divulging the truth, I couldn’t refute the undeniable, and the truth of the matter was that Dominic was, once again, right. Damn it.

  I lifted my hand and touched Dominic’s face. With his blood coursing through my hand, it somehow felt as if I was touching myself. Dominic shuddered, and by the bright, burnt orange burst through his aura, I knew he felt the same.

  “How long will this last?” I asked.

  I watched his throat work as he struggled to speak. “For most, mere hours. For you—” He shook his head. “Any guess would be speculation. Several hours to a day? I simply can’t predict anything concerning you.”

  Dominic was inches away from my face, his lips breaths from mine, and inching closer.

  “Long enough to save Nathan,” I whispered.

  He blinked, trying to focus. “Long enough for what?”

  “Several hours to a day with these senses and added strength,” I said. “It should be long enough to save my brother.”

  “Hmm,” Dominic murmured noncommittally. I heard the snapping spark, like the spit of cracking logs in fire, of his hand sliding along the small of my ba
ck.

  “Dominic,” I warned. “Bex is keeping Jillian in your absence. You said yourself that we were short on time.”

  “They’ve waited this long,” he growled. “They can wait a few moments longer.”

  His mouth sealed over mine in a blaze of exploding fireworks. My eyes widened, shocked by the explosion of light and heat between us, more shocked at first from the sensory collide than from the kiss itself, but as his mouth rocked over mine, my eyes shut of their own accord. His kiss was magnetic. His lips opened and fused against mine. I responded in kind, attuned to his movements like a choreographed dance. Where he led, I followed. I grasped at the collar of his shirt as the friction and pace escalated. His rhythm pounded though my blood, our blood, and its beat lit my lips and cheeks and neck. Everywhere his lips and tongue and teeth touched, I burned, and everywhere he hadn’t yet touched burned even brighter.

  Although his burnt orange aura and my own flaring burst of sparkling light collided, they resisted the merge. He pulled my hair back, exposing my neck. I angled my mouth on his and stroked my tongue over his lower lip. He growled and bit my lip. I bit him back, and I could feel him smile against my lips as we battled for control.

  His hand against my lower back skimmed higher. I could smell the crack and smoke of the hearth from his movement. My breath caught, equally enthralled by his physical touch and the dynamic of my newfound senses. The callused pressure of his palm scraped from my lower back to my hip. His tongue slipped between my lips and curled against my tongue, and I forgot the movement of his hand in a blaze of light and rhythm until his calluses scraped against the tender underside of my left breast.

  I tore my mouth away from his, panting, and stared into his eyes with wonder. Dominic, despite the fact that he wasn’t panting—one of the perks, I suppose, of not having a circulatory system—met my gaze, and he looked just as devastated.

  “Is this how it is for you every time?” I asked, gaining a newfound respect for his restraint.

  “Everyone is unique—different auras colliding is always a unique experience—but yes, kissing you is like this every time.”

  “And everything else?” I asked. I broke our locked gazes to stare out into the vivid kaleidoscope that had become my world. “Is this how you see and hear and feel and smell and taste every day? Like magic?”

  “My senses seem fantastic to you because they’re new, but after hundreds of years, they become the norm. If I were to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell as a human again, I suspect I would feel bereft of my senses, essentially blind and deaf compared to the sensory input I’ve become accustomed to receiving.”

  I shook my head in wonderment at the prospect of living in such vivid Technicolor. “I can’t imagine ever becoming accustomed to this.”

  “I never thought to live hundreds of years either, yet here we are,” Dominic said, his gaze focused on me. “And thank God I have.”

  The look in Dominic’s eyes as he stared into mine was unmistakable. I didn’t need a vampire’s senses to see the intent behind his gaze.

  “They’re expecting us,” I whispered shakily, not sure I wanted to stop but knowing for certain that if we didn’t stop now, we never would. “Nathan will attack someone tonight, and Bex is expecting us to help her stop him.”

  “So she is,” Dominic said, his voice deliberately measured.

  I extracted myself from his embrace and stood, tasting the heavy reluctance in my heart like syrupy medicine.

  Dominic stood still, not pulling away but not stopping me either. I shook my head regretfully at his appearance. His clothes were ruined, stained by my blood.

  “I don’t know why you even bother dressing up,” I commented. “That was one of your nicer shirts.”

  “All of my shirts are nice.” He looked down at himself, as if just noticing his soiled clothing. He fingered a bloody patch on his shirt and then, locking his gaze on me, slipped that finger into his mouth.

  I swallowed, partly disgusted because that’s how I was supposed to feel, but the rest of me was intrigued. I could smell the sharp spice of my taste on his tongue. Later, I might blame his blood for tainting my judgment, but I wanted him in that moment like I’d never wanted anyone in my entire life.

  “One day you’ll look at me, not as a vampire or an ally or a problem to resolve, but as a man. And when that day comes, I’ll be right here in front of you, the same man I’ve been since the first we met. It’s you who will see me with new eyes.”

  I shook my head, at a loss. “Dominic, I—”

  Before I could continue, Dominic took me in his arms, and we were soaring over the trees and through the darkness toward Bex’s coven.

  Chapter 17

  Jillian was a walking, talking, living skeleton.

  We were once again in Bex’s main dining hall. Dominic, Bex, and Rene were arguing about the best means to capture and subdue Nathan, but I couldn’t focus on their conversation without being distracted by Jillian, by the boney protrusions of her collar bones, the straggles of hair sprouting from her skull, and the revolting motion of her bare jaw as the tenuous strings of tendon and skin—the remains of her flesh—attempted to articulate words and expressions.

  The last time I’d seen her, Jillian had been in the peak of health and challenging Dominic for the position of coven Master. She’d been uncommonly beautiful, petite, and voluptuous with rioting, curly blond hair that bounced down her back to the curve of her waist. She’d worn leather from head to toe and carried herself with a weight of power that belied her petite stature. I’d witnessed her rip a fellow vampire’s throat out, exposing the gleaming bone of his spinal column, in punishment for speaking out of turn. I’d watched her impale Dominic with her claws—hell, she’d impaled me on her claws, too—and I’d felt the clever ruthlessness of her thoughts when our minds had entwined. But beneath the ruthlessness, beneath the raging thirst for blood, and deep beneath the power that she wielded like a shield as much as she did a weapon, was bone-deep betrayal and fear.

  Now, Jillian struggled to hold herself upright. She was nothing but bones and blisters after enduring the last three weeks inside a silver prison. I wondered absently how long Ronnie would have survived in Walker’s silver-lined basement before she looked like Jillian. Three days? Three hours?

  Jillian’s gaze met mine.

  I breathed in sharply, caught staring.

  “Miss me?” Jillian whispered.

  A great, steaming wave of rage crashed over me, and for a choked, suspended moment as everything Jillian had inflicted on me and mine boiled through my veins in vivid, shining, red detail—impaling me on her claws, betraying Dominic, leading an uprising of murderous vampires, leeching onto my mind, nourishing herself on my life-force, and transforming my brother into a heart-eating monster—I couldn’t do anything but stare open-mouthed at her, into those beautiful, icy blue eyes, nearly identical to Dominic’s eyes, imbedded in that grotesque skull that was once her face.

  “How dare you,” I said, low and surprisingly calm-sounding despite the inferno inside me. “After everything you’ve done—”

  “Everything I’ve done?” Jillian laughed, and the sound was like nails scraping across the back of my eyelids. “You’ve known Lysander for, what, maybe a month? I lived with the man for decades. This was not his path. His brother—”

  “I know all about your sad, sob story. This is entirely your fault, so don’t act the martyr. You have no right.”

  “I have every right. Vampires are confined to a mere shell of an existence, living in shadows and hiding underground. We deserve more. We deserve a leader who is willing to strive for more, for freedom from the night!”

  “I’ve heard that speech before, too. I didn’t buy it then, and I’m not buying it now,” I snapped. “My brother was a night blood, a cherished future vampire, or so I’m told, yet look at the life you gave him! You transformed him into a monster!”

  She smiled. Or at least I think sh
e did. She didn’t have lips, so her teeth and fangs were already exposed, but the muscles that remained over her cheekbones bunched and lifted.

  “Sacrifice for the cause,” she said.

  I saw red. “He was my brother, you bitch, not some pawn in your fucking game for you to—”

  “Cassidy!” Dominic’s voice broke our conversation, and I realized that his hand was squeezing my upper arm, holding me back. “Now is not the time.”

  I met his gaze and looked around. Every eye in the room was on me.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. Having four vampires’ eyes trained on me was not the attention I wanted.

  Dominic released my arm. “Bex and I are both needed to restrain Jillian while we’re above ground, leaving only Rene to guard you. I’d prefer to guard you myself, but—”

  “—But Jillian is your responsibility. I know. I’ll be fine with Rene.”

  Dominic shook his head. “It’s not enough. Rene is powerful for someone so newly transformed, but he’s still young.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “As much as it pains me to admit, Walker’s skills could be useful. I would certainly feel more comfortable with you more heavily guarded.”

  “I don’t know how much help we’ll get from Walker,” I admitted. “We had a sort of, er, falling out.”

  “I was only gone four hours,” Dominic said, and I could hear a tinge of interest surface in his voice.

  I sighed. “It’s been an eventful four hours.”

  “Well, we won’t have another four hours, eventful or otherwise, if we don’t focus and finalize this plan. With the Day Reapers already here, there’s no telling what kind of timeframe we should expect.”

  “The Day Reapers waited several years before intervening last time,” Bex said, indicating Jillian with a tip of her head. “And the creature hasn’t caused nearly as much destruction. I doubt they’re here so soon.”

  “They’re here already,” Dominic said grimly.

  “Y’all know that for sure?”