Her Vampire Hero (Midnight Doms Book 4)

by Nicolina Martin

  I close my eyes and focus, reach for her, letting tendrils of my consciousness intertwine with her barely-here presence. Sensing the darkness, the void, I also touch on the faint flickering non-dead state she rests in. I haven’t wept in millennia, but a tidal wave of relief washes over me and my cheeks get wet as I touch my forehead to Kat’s.

  “Let’s put her in your bed. Make her comfortable. Alaya can watch over her for a few minutes. We have matters to tend to, punishments to dole out and then we’ll clean up this mess.”

  Clutching Kat to my chest, a bloodied little ragdoll, so soft, so small, and so invaluable, I blur past the outer room and lay Kat on our shared bed, smoothing out her dress, pushing the hair off her face.

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. It all happened so fast.” Alaya’s husky voice behind me is raw with emotion.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I’ll stay with her until you come back.”

  I nod as I clench my teeth. Time to face the murderers.

  Chapter 17

  Lou

  Maximus and Lucius holds Bass, pushing his arms up on his back. He snarls as he sees me, then he grins and flashes his fangs.

  “She tasted delicious. True fear sweetens the blood so much more. Something you will never know now. I took it.”

  I fight down the rage and pull on the calm that true fury brings. I have lived much too long to let my emotions get in the way of my goals. Steering my steps toward the human, held in a vice grip by Selene, I grab his hair and drag him across the floor until we stand before the three male vampires.

  “You wanted me to master you?” I pull back his head, facing him toward the others. “What was it you longed for? That I whip you? Fuck you? Feed on you?”

  The human’s heat rises, arousal mixed with fear. His scent sweetens. I put my mouth to his ear. “I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.” With a flick of my hand, I stab a fingernail into his neck and tear open the artery. He gasps and writhes, clutches for his throat. Warm blood gushes down his chest. Before me, fangs descend and the other four vampires in the room snarl, deadly hunger gleaming in their eyes. Our true nature. We are monsters.

  I move closer, holding the human in front of Bass, right outside of licking distance. “Is this what you wanted? The sweetness of the death? Look at him.” I yank the human’s head. He cries out and something cracks in his neck. “Look at the blood that’s spilling to no use. So sweet. His last drops, Bass.” I drop the man to the floor. His knees buckle. He tries to get up, but his legs don’t seem to obey him. We stand in silence, watching the last flickers of life.

  “Could have put that on the tap,” says Lucius.

  “I rather enjoyed him dying, knowing he was of no use,” says Selene, a cruel expression on her otherwise so delicate features. She fully looks like the lethal hybrid that she is.

  I look up from the pale corpse on the floor and meet Bass’ defiant gaze.

  I’m just about to grab his head when he smirks. “The king of Louisiana says hello.”

  I freeze. “What?”

  “Did you think you’d get away? He never leaves a job unfinished. You can kill me, but you will have to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life. Same goes for her,” he spits, cocking his head toward the room where Kat rests. “If she makes it.”

  I roar, about to throw myself over him when Selene steps in between us.

  “What is this about?” Lucius voice is darker, taking on a dangerous tone. “What business do you have with Louisiana?”

  “None!” I snarl. “Damian Solero didn’t care for a more powerful vampire in his town so he decided to take me out.”

  “Powerful,” scoffs Bass. “You couldn’t even protect your woman!”

  “Shut up,” says Selene and slams an elbow in his face, crushing bones from the sound of it. Bass grunts as blood begins to pour from his broken nose.

  Lucius grabs his neck, forcing Bass to face him. “Will there be more?”

  Bass scoffs.

  Cocking his head, Lucius then nods. “I could probably negotiate.”

  Selene twitches, her light eyes darkening.

  “—but attacking someone in my club is also an attack on me.”

  Selene smiles, her fangs descending, looking all he lethal hybrid that she is.

  “Anything else?” Lucius turns to me.

  I have nothing more to say. I know where to find Solero and his petty quest to eliminate me will have to wait. I need to get back to Kat.

  Lucius backs up, leaving room for me, and at the same time I grab around Bass’ head, tearing it off his shoulders. His body stiffens, his skin turns gray, then he disintegrates in a cloud of ash.

  “I have a lady to care for. I’m sorry about the mess,” I say and brush dust off my sleeves. “I’m taking her with me. I thank you for your hospitality, but I’m sure you can appreciate that I don’t want her to wake up here.”

  “One hour until dawn. You have time. Remember that she’ll be thirsty when she wakes. Here.” Lucius blurs and appears behind the bar, digging something out from under it, then he tosses me a bag of blood. “You and I will talk later. You will tell me the whole story and leave nothing out.”

  I catch it, nod my thanks, and spin on my heels. Alaya sits on the edge of the bed, holding Kat’s limp hand. She stands back as I scoop up Kat in my arms.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” she says.

  I blur through the outer room, up the stairs, out through the still busy entrance where no one knows of the deaths in the dungeon. In a few moments it will be business as usual for everyone but us. I shoot up in the night, jumping from roof to roof, almost flying. Kat is cold and still against my chest, but I sense her being, a profound knowledge that she’s hanging in there. Her human form is dying, but she will live. I don’t know if her mind will be the same, or if her brain has been damaged. My own transition was horrifying and I have never wanted to put anyone else through that.

  The final leap takes us in a perfect arc up onto the terrace. I slide open the glass door, pull it closed behind us and put Kat on the new couch that I haven’t even seen before now. The designer seems to have fulfilled her promises. It takes me a few minutes to pull a mattress into the safe room and dress it in bed linens. I fluff up a couple of pillows, throw on the comforter, then do a slow spin, taking in the sparsely equipped room. Perfect.

  When I’m back out by Kat’s side, the sky is gray with soft hues of orange and pink licking the mountain tops in the east. I crouch by her side, goosebumps racing along my back as I push a lock of her dark brown hair behind her ear. My chest clenches as I look her over. She is soiled in blood. I haven’t had the time to wash her, dress her. I glance at the sky. Twenty minutes before dawn. Lethargy has already seized my limbs and weighs me down. I can’t risk it.

  “Come, dear.” I mumble and lift her. I sniff her hair, put my nose to her forehead, she’s a little chilly, but there’s still a slight warmth left. I will miss her humanity. I fear what her vampire will be like. Her death was a trauma, her final moments lived in terror. I don’t know how it will affect her, but I will be here. I have lived it and I got through. I’ll teach her.

  We have forever.

  Kat

  Strings pull at me, tugs where my chest should be. I am nothing but consciousness. I have no body. At first I think it’s the vortex that is drawing me in, but then I move past it, and I fly.

  Pain hits me like a freight train and I scream. The noise from my own throat echoes, comes back, and thrashes my eardrums.

  I slam my hands over my ears and then I clench them into fists in shock. There are hands? Everything is still black, but there’s a rustle next to me that takes up my whole mind. A hand on my cheek. I gasp and move, suddenly on my feet, slamming into something flat and solid. A wall.

  Teeth. Fangs. Pain.

  Bass tearing into my throat. Dying. I died! Where am I?

  “Kat.”

  Lou? How can Lou be here? I expected, hoped for, m
y brother, maybe my grandparents who have all passed.

  Lou is dead too. He’s a vampire. Maybe he can be here?

  “Open your eyes, Kat.”

  I realize that if I have hands, I maybe have eyes too, so I make a tentative move to open them. It’s dark, I know it’s dark because the light is off, strange, like a dark light that I’ve never seen before.

  In front of me stands the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. My sweet vampire, my maddeningly stubborn, clever, curious vampire. I reach for him, put my hand on his chest.

  “How can you even be here?”

  I have vocal cords! Win!

  “You’re awake! Finally. I wasn’t sure. You slept through the day. Then you didn’t wake for almost the whole night. We only have three hours until dawn.”

  I shake my head and take in the little room, then I pat down my body. “What do you mean awake?”

  I stop. My mind goes blank. Everything is absolutely still. Completely, absolutely still. I don’t breathe and there are no beating hearts in this room. I put my hand over my chest, a bolt of fear shooting through me, then my throat constricts and I clutch it.

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Kat.” He takes my hands in his, squeezes them. “You have turned.”

  “What do you mean? Turned?”

  He inhales, exhales. He’s breathing. I’m not. I take a breath, experimentally, but it doesn't do anything for me. It fills my lungs but it’s like I don’t need it. Realization doesn't dawn on me bit by bit, it doesn't mercifully fill me with the knowledge, it hits me full on and I sink to my knees with a whimper.

  “I turned?” I touch my teeth. They’re blunt, feel normal. “I thought he killed me? I’m sure he killed me. He said… I was a message. He was… Lou! He was the vampire in the alley!”

  Lou’s eyes darken and he clenches his jaw. “I realize that now. We found you. I… completed the process. I’m so sorry you got caught up in this.”

  “You? I thought you didn’t want—” I clutch my throat, swallow against the ache. “What’s wrong with me?”

  Lou reaches for something next to the mattress. I know he’s fast, and that to the human eye, he would be but a blur, but I see his every move. He holds up a hospital blood bag before me. “You’re thirsty. It’s normal. It’s what happens. You need to eat.”

  I grab it, turn the wobbly plastic bag in my hands. “Blood?”

  He gestures toward the bag, winces. “I’ll take you out, but it’s what we could arrange with such short notice.”

  I look at it with horror, then my hands fly to my lips. My gums ache and something suddenly fills the space between my lower lip and the row of teeth. I part my lips and drag a finger along them, feeling the two elongated canines. “Oh my God,” I whisper. I look at Lou, then at the bag, putting it to my nose, sniffing it. It reeks of plastic, and faintly of something else, something enticingly edible, something that makes my throat ache even harder, scorching it. It just happens. I sink my fangs into the bag and suck. It’s cold, it’s disgusting, and it’s heavenly. It doesn't taste like anything I can relate to. It’s everything amazing I have ever tasted in my life, all thrown together in the same life-giving substance. I growl. I growl! Then the bag is empty but I am not full.

  My eyes fill with tears as I throw it to the floor, wanting to stomp my feet. “I need more!”

  Lou laughs. “We’ll make a quick detour outdoors. But you will do as I tell you.”

  I clutch my head. “I think I’m going crazy. There are sounds! I hear flushing. Birds. When you move, your clothes, they cut into my ears.”

  “I lay in a grave for weeks. Every night I listened to the sounds of the forest. I heard the worms move in the soil, the tiptoeing of mice as they ran across the ferns. You’ll learn to sort it. You will learn to turn it on and off at will. Come.”

  “Where are we, even?

  “We’re in our safe room, in our apartment. We need safe places to sleep. Always. You know how I am unconscious during day time. That’s when we are the most vulnerable. If someone wanted to stake us, or decapitate us, pull us into the sun, or set us on fire…”

  Lou taps a code into a panel and a part of the wall slides to the side.

  “Seems we aren’t that immortal,” I say.

  He cocks his head and ducks into the opening, beckoning for me to follow. “We’re pretty damn good at living for a very long time, unless someone stronger than us holds a grudge.”

  “Like someone does against you?”

  He snarls. “I will take care of that.”

  I follow him into the living room and stop, stunned. I see everything. I see the whole way to the horizon. I know it’s night. There’s no sun, no shadows, but I see it. I grab his hand, clutching it. “Lou! It’s beautiful. Oh my God!”

  He brings my hand to his lips, planting a kiss on the backside, his lips sending a wave of heat through me as they touch my skin.

  “I have so much I want to show you!”

  I gasp, a rush shooting through me, a sudden need to feel him, then I’m in his arms, toppling him, pushing him down on a couch, tearing at his shirt. Lou groans and tears my dress in two. I shrug it off and shove my hands beneath his shirt, along his taut stomach, threading through hair, every single strand tickling my palm. He’s not cool. He’s hot. We’re the same temperature. “Get out of this,” I growl. “And this!” I sit back a little, snapping open his belt, his zipper, breaking it and ripping it off his pants. He’s hard as a rock and my pussy aches just as much as my throat. Lou scrambles out of his pants, me still on top, then he bites through my bra, freeing my breasts. I pull out his cock, long and thick, ridged, made just right for me. I breathe and my heart slams in my chest. I stop for a moment, the head of his cock resting against my opening, put a hand on my chest and stare at him.

  “It beats sometimes babe. When you experience strong emotions. Fear. Lust. Hate.”

  I listen. There are two hearts beating in this room. A grin spreads on my lips. “Are you afraid?”

  Lou grabs my hips and slams me down on him, filling me. It hurts so good, sending scorching tingles through my whole body, sending my mind in a spin through space and back.

  “No,” he growls.

  I lift and sink down on him, gasp. Do it again. Again. Increase my pace. “Oh my God,” I moan. I’m strong. My thighs don’t tremble. I lean in and lick his nipple, then the other, catch his mouth, circle my tongue around his fangs, pricking it, tasting my own blood. “God!” Gyrating my hips, I move faster, slam down harder.

  “Fuck!” Lou grabs my hair and pulls back my head, nipping along my throat, not breaking the skin.

  I ache for him to feed on me, then I realize I’m of no use to him in that department anymore. For a brief moment I feel remorse, then I spin, taking him with me, pulling him on top of me.

  He thrusts, hard, inhumanely hard. He’s not careful anymore. He doesn't need to be.

  “Will I—” I pant, “still enjoy—” I mewl as the heat builds and it feels as if someone has poured acid in my veins. I burn, and it’s delicious. “Spanking?”

  Lou rolls off me the next moment, pulling me up and over his knee, smacking down his hand harder than he’s ever done before, sending a shockwave of pain through me. It immediately morphs into lust and and I squirm on his lap.

  “I don’t know. Do you?” He slaps me again, and again.

  It was never like this when I was human. It stings, but it doesn't ache after, it scorches my insides, makes my pussy convulse. He pulls me up and to my feet, making me straddle his lap and then pushes me forward. I support myself on the table and arch up my ass, right in front of his face.

  A long, lazy lick along my slit makes me shudder. He pushes a finger inside my pussy and one inside my ass, circling my clit with his unrelenting tongue, and I think my spirit leaves my body as I spasm around his finger, roaring out my orgasm. It never seems to end, his every move setting off a new earthquake-like deep clenching. I cry and whimper. He pulls
out and moves behind me, then he pushes his cock inside me. I fall on top of the table and he follows, fucking me like never before, raw, brutal, desperate.

  When he comes, roaring my name, I feel every hot spurt of his seed, every twitch, his every wave of release hitting me, setting off yet another orgasm.

  Finally, we still. The table lies broken in two and we’re on the floor between the splinters. I laugh and I cry.

  “I’m so emotional. I’ve never felt anything like it!”

  “You still liked the spanking, then?”

  I groan. “Don’t mention it. You make me want to go again.”

  Lou moves in me, slowly, teasingly. “We have all the time in the world. I’ll fuck you in every country in the whole world, on mountain tops, in the desert, in the depths of the ocean, but right now, my dear, we have two hours until sunrise. We’ll feed and sleep, and when we wake I will teach you how to manage your new life.”

  “Le petit mort,” I say.

  “The little death?”

  I rock my ass against his hips, making him moan. “I think I just died like a million times.”

  Lou laughs and pulls out, giving me his hand.

  “Come.”

  Chapter 18

  Lou

  After a quick shower, and yet another, very quick, lovemaking, we’re fresh and on the prowl. I’m terrified of what Kat might be like as a vampire. Her future is yet to be written. I have no idea of how bloodthirsty she will be, if she’ll take off, if I’ll be able to contain her. I want to help her to not kill humans. It’s in our nature to feed until the heart ceases to beat, and it takes strength and experience to stop in time, to just take a little. She can’t compel anyone yet, at least not without damaging their minds, and to not leave a trail of people who remember a ferocious woman who bit their necks, I’ll need to be by her side.

  Barefoot, and dressed in nothing but a white shirt that reaches to right above her knees, she dashes to the terrace. My cock stirs. I happen to know that she also has no underwear. She’s like a ferocious animal, newborn, agitated, exhilarated. One hour and twenty-five minutes til dawn. The curse of the sun shows no mercy. Fucking her again is out of the question and I fight the urge to pin her down and rip off the offending fabric.