by Eve Silver
“Please.” She knew not what she begged for. But he knew.
Reaching down, he closed his fists in her chemise and tore it open, baring her to his gaze, his touch. His features were hard, hungry, and the way he looked at her made an answering hunger rear inside her.
He let his weight down full upon her, wonderfully heavy, holding her and freeing her, the hard ridge of his arousal between her thighs. She had never felt anything more breathtaking, more sensual. Longing burgeoned and swelled, and she cried out as he closed his mouth again on her nipple, the erotic tug making her body squirm. Then he offered sweet kisses and gentle bites until she was panting and writhing beneath him.
Running her hands along his shoulders and down the hard planes of his chest, she explored the feel of his smooth skin, taut over lean layers of muscle. He was wonderfully masculine, wonderfully appealing.
His mouth moved again to her throat, his hands skimming her waist, and lower, dipping between her thighs to touch her sex. She felt swollen and tender and pliant and wet and when he touched her there, all those things combined into a tight, restless coil. She ached for his touch there, but his touch made her feel as though she needed to squirm and writhe. She moaned, lost in sensation.
She had never imagined this. Never. It was like a tempest inside her own body, a magnificent tempest that lured her to fling herself into the storm with untrammeled abandon.
Her body stirred, her hips rolling in a way she did not deliberately intend. But the movement felt so good, so right. She felt as though he led her to a place she had always known and never even thought to look for. Hot and quivering, sensation poured through her. She was alive, so alive.
Between her thighs, his arousal was thick and heavy, pressing against her sex. Again, her hips rocked up, and she felt a slick pressure, there, between her folds. The pressure became a burn, and the burn became pain. But before she could protest, he slid his hand between them and his fingers—those clever fingers—made her crave the burn, the pressure, the invasion. She opened to him, sliding her heels along the smooth, soft sheets, shifting to an angle that increased the incredible feelings he stirred.
Cupping her breast, he stroked her and rocked his hips to bring himself tighter against her. There was a tautness, a pressure as he pushed inside her a little more, and she gave a shocked cry at the intrusion, the foreign sensation of being stretched and entered.
He held himself back. She could feel that in the leashed tension of his body. A press; a release. Just a little of his erection easing in to fill and stretch. It was alien and frightening and beguiling all at once, and she could not help but catch his rhythm and move with him. Again and again until she was panting, half in apprehension, half in wild abandon.
What a mad slurry of feelings. She wanted him, ached for him, but could not help but be a little afraid of the unknown.
And then it was unknown no longer. He pushed harder, the stretching so powerful and strange, she cried out. A sharp instant of discomfort, a burning, an ache, and then he was inside her, deep inside her, fully sheathed.
She lay there panting, a little dismayed.
As though he knew everything she felt, he simply stayed as he was, allowed her to understand the feeling of his body joined with hers, and then he began to move, a shallow thrust, a retreat. She didn’t dislike it, not precisely, but…
He slid his hand down her belly to her soft curls, to her slick folds and the place so sensitive it made her moan. He caressed her there with lazy swirls of his fingers until she gasped and arched up to meet each shallow thrust. Wanting more. Needing more. He moved faster now, and deeper, and while the pain was not completely gone, it wasn’t precisely pain anymore. And as his fingers pressed harder and slid faster, she arched and dug her heels against the sheets, striving and failing to find that which she craved.
With a little cry, she reached down and locked her fingers around his wrist, holding his hand exactly where it was, aching for something she could not name.
Too much. It was all too much. She could not bear it, could not hold fast to the spiraling pieces of herself.
She twined her fingers through his hair as he thrust deep and hard, his breath ragged as he turned his face into the crook of her elbow.
Hot and sharp, she felt his bite, there on the soft skin at the inside of her elbow.
“Killian—” She cried out, and tried to make him understand, but it was too late. The sensation of his fingers sliding along her wet sex, and the feel of his penis moving inside her...She was flying apart, a thousand shining bits of her all flying apart.
And he was with her, flying with her, his release coming an instant after her own as he thrust deep one last time, throbbing inside her, spilling himself inside her.
She clung to him, floating, and finally drifting back to herself.
Panting, bewildered, wonderfully replete, she lay there and stared up at the gilded ceiling, one arm draped across Killian’s broad back, the other flung free across the sheets.
He kissed her neck, her cheek, and finally roused himself to lift his weight from her and roll to the side. She missed it immediately. The weight of him. The heat.
She snuggled against him and smiled as he slid his arm around her and drew her close. Slowly, she lifted her lids, and languidly eased her arm across his chest.
Frowning, she stared at the golden expanse of his skin, and it took her a moment to understand what she saw.
Blood. She had left a smear of blood when she moved her arm over his skin.
She jerked to a sitting position and stared at the crook of her elbow. Her veins traced blue beneath her skin, and there were two small punctures there and a small smear of her blood.
He had bitten her. Tasted her. The thought was both appalling and fascinating.
Her gaze jerked to his, and she found him watching her, his lips drawn taut, his eyes pinched.
“Killian,” she whispered, a question, a plea.
His gaze never leaving hers, he reached out and traced his index finger across the blood on her arm, then brought it to his mouth and drew it across his lower lip.
On some level, she knew she ought to be repulsed, but the sight of him—the smear of crimson on his lips, the trace of his tongue as he licked it, the look of pleasure on his face as he tasted her—was incredibly sensual.
Yes, she ought to feel disgusted, horrified, afraid, but all she felt was love. Acceptance. Blood held no mysteries or horrors for her. How could it? She had mopped up buckets upon buckets in her time at King’s College, not to mention the years she had worked by her father’s side.
“Have I shocked you beyond bearing?” he asked.
Wetting her lips, she took a second before she answered, and then she offered the truth.
“Shocked me? Yes. I am shocked, but not so much by what you did, as by the way I feel about it.” She paused, and he gave her the moment, gave her time to collect her thoughts. “I am neither horrified nor repulsed, and that is the shocking thing. I found it...” She shook her head, trying to understand her own emotions. “Is blood essential to you? For your survival?”
“Yes. But that was not for survival. I did not feed from you, Sarah. That was but a tiny sip. It is a—” he made an absent gesture “—for my kind, it is a form of connection. I come into you and you come into me.”
Somehow, she understood that. She had felt connected to him, as though for a single glittering instant, they were one.
“You did not feed from me…but you do feed?”
“Occasionally.” He made a small smile. “Not often. And the bowls of blood the physicians bleed from their patients ought not go to waste.”
She felt her lips twitch in an answering smile, and she wondered if she ought to be horrified by that. Her father had always deemed the practice of bloodletting to be both dangerous and barbaric. She could hardly fault Killian for putting the folly of others to a beneficial use.
Suddenly, the magnitude of their discourse overwhelmed her, and s
he fell back on the sheets to stare at the gilded ceiling.
“That story in the magazine...You are—”
“Nothing like the monster in the story,” Killian offered. “But, yes, I am a vampire.”
He leaned in as though to kiss her, but held himself inches above her, hovering just beyond reach, his gaze locked on hers.
She understood then. The choice was hers. To deny him or to clasp him to her, press her mouth to his, accept him for all he was.
To accept that he was a vampire.
“Does it cause you pain?” he asked, touching the marks on her skin.
“It…stings,” she said.
He bit down on his tongue and licked the wounds he had made on her. To her astonishment the sting disappeared, and the marks with it.
“Oh, let me see!” She surged forward and peeled back his lips and he laughed as she poked at his tongue. “There’s no wound.”
“I heal from all wounds,” he said.
“And you healed my wounds…” Her eyes grew wide. “Killian, imagine! You can cure disease, heal horrific injuries, you can—”
He pressed two fingers to her lips. “I cannot. I can heal only tiny wounds in humans with the application of my blood, and then only if my blood touches the wound from the fount. Anything larger than a prick or a scratch does not respond, and if I bleed myself into a tube or beaker, my blood alters immediately and loses whatever minimal curative power it has.”
Sarah thought for a moment, and then nodded. “That makes sense.”
Killian’s brows rose. “It does?” he asked as he twined his fingers with hers and drew her hand up to kiss her palm.
“Of course. If you are—” she cut him a sidelong glance “—feeding and you are interrupted or have had your fill and wish to save a portion of your meal for later, it makes sense that you could seal a wound so that your prey would not bleed to death and would be available at a different time.”
Killian stared at her then he laughed. “You are ever practical.”
And Sarah laughed at the wonder in his tone, as though her practicality were some wonderful and desirable treasure.
After a moment she asked, “What we just shared...Was it an act of love for you, the taking of my blood?”
His lashes swept down.
“An act of connection,” he said, his voice ragged. “I have lived alone for more years than you can imagine. I dare not let myself love.” He looked at her then, his expression so bleak that her heart broke for him. “To love means to lose, Sarah. I cannot. I dare not. It is a path to madness for one such as me.” He made a muted groan. “I think that in the years of emptiness, I have forgotten how to love. But I can keep you safe. I can make you happy. Those things I can offer you. And I can offer you truth. I want you.”
Tears welled, and she made no effort to stem their flow, but let them trickle from the corners of her eyes and across her temples. She would not hide them from him as he had not hidden the truth from her. He did not love her. Could not love her. But he wanted her.
She lifted her head and pressed her mouth to his. She could taste the faintly metallic hint of her own blood on his lips.
“Sarah—”
“Shh.” She pressed her fingers against his lips, then kissed him again. “It matters not, Killian. I have enough love for us both. I do. I will share my love with you, and it will be enough. I swear it will be enough.”
With a groan, he took her mouth in a hungry kiss. He made love to her once more, languid caresses and leisurely care, no part of her untouched. No part of her unloved.
But beneath his gentle care, she sensed his demons, tightly leashed.
And when they were both sated, the sheets rumpled and mussed, her heart thudding in the aftermath of passion, she stroked his hair and asked, “How long, Killian? How long have you been alone?”
His chest expanded on a deep breath, and she thought he would not answer. There was sadness for her in that, in his refusal to share any part of himself. Then he surprised her, his voice low and deep.
“Five hundred years, Sarah. I have been alone for five hundred years.”
The enormity of that slapped her, and she gasped. She could not imagine it, could not think how he had borne it.
“In all that time, you never took a companion, never shared yourself with anyone?”
“Physically, yes. I have taken many lovers. But not a companion. I brought none of them into my home, my haven. I showed only one woman the truth of what I am. She turned from me in disgust and I did not try again, not because I feared another rebuff, but because after a time, I was glad that she had been horrified, glad that she turned from me. I preferred my solitude even as I reviled it.” He smiled a little. “Do you understand?”
“I do,” she whispered. “Better than you think. I could have found a man to marry me—”
“But it would have cost you everything you are.”
“A price I will never be willing to pay,” she said.
* * *
Hours later, Killian sat propped on the pillows, feeding Sarah slices of apple dipped in honey. The sticky liquid clung to her lips, and when he leaned in and kissed her, it clung to his as well. He popped a slice in his mouth, chewed and swallowed, and Sarah watched him with unabashed curiosity.
“You eat,” she observed.
He laughed. “Yes.”
She laid her palm flat against his chest.
“Your heart beats.”
“It does,” he agreed, amused. “Despite the stories and mad suppositions, Sarah, I am not undead. My heart beats. And though my body does not require food, I can have the occasional bit if I choose, simply to enjoy the taste.”
“Just the occasional bit? That is all you require?”
“I require only blood. And in the beginning I could not tolerate food at all. But over time, I acquired a taste for the occasional morsel, especially sweets.” He grinned. “I always had a taste for sweets.”
She came up on her knees and studied him. “And sleep? Do you sleep?”
“I sleep when I must, usually a handful of hours each week, always during the daylight hours, for those are the hours when sleep lures me.”
“Do you feed every day?”
“I take it as I require, far less often now than in the early years.”
She nodded, and dipped her finger in the honey, then smeared it over his lips. Tipping her head, she kissed him, tasting honey, tasting him.
Then his words triggered a thought. “How often did you require it in the early years?” And that question triggered another. “How often do you require it now? How does it work? You said you take it from the bleeding bowls…how long after the patient is bled does the blood remain viable as a source of nourishment for you? Is there a difference when you feed directly from a person? Why blood? Is it the whole of it that you crave or just a single component? And—”
He rested his fingers on her lips, grinning at her. “Ever the physician, my Sarah. So curious.”
She laughed. “I am curious.” She paused. “Alright, answer the first question first. How often did you feed in the early years?”
“At least once each week. More often than that, if possible. It was like a madness, a thirst that could be assuaged no other way. And if I went too long, the madness became a maelstrom.”
Sarah tapped her lower lip, his answer sending her thoughts racing along different paths until one snagged her full attention. “The killer at King’s College,” she mused. “He takes the lives of those who are dying, those who suffer terrible pain. I think he believes it a mercy. But he does it often. Does that mean he is...new? That these are the early years for him?”
Killian blinked, and sat straight. “A newly made vampire. Yes. That makes sense. And he is making an effort to turn his thirst to the good, to find a way to control it.”
“Did you control it?” she asked, not quite certain that she wanted to know.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, planting his bar
e feet on the carpet, and he turned his face to her over his shoulder, his expression somber.
“Not at first. At first, I was careless and greedy, drinking where I would. I did not murder indiscriminately. I tried to take from those who were already touched by death’s hand, or those who ought to be. The murderers. The villains. Those with true evil in their hearts.” He raked his hand back through his hair, and took a slow breath, as though deliberating how much to reveal. “I would have you know the truth, Sarah, though it paints me in a less than perfect light. I did not always drain my prey unto death, but I took no pains to ensure that I did not. I simply did not care if they lived or died.”
“But the vampire who hunts at King’s College does care,” she pointed out. “He kills on purpose, and he chooses to drain those who are suffering a horrible death.”
“A strange form of morality.”
“Killian, I think it is the vampire that follows me. I have seen him in the graveyard, sensed his presence behind me in the alleys. He dogs my steps.” She shook her head. “It is the same man, Killian. The man who stalks me is the same as the one who moves like a wraith through the wards, stealing lives.” She paused. “But that comes as no surprise to you, does it?”
“It does not. My kind are a territorial lot. We have an ability to sense other blood drinkers who step into a place we consider ours. I sensed him there, outside Mrs. Cowden’s house.”
She gasped, for though she had suspected it, hearing confirmation was disturbing. “What does he want with me? Why does he follow me?”
Killian reached back and took her hand. “I don’t know. I do not think he wishes to drain you. That would have been an easy feat for him and he would have done it long before now were that his intent.”
“How very reassuring,” she said.
Killian studied her for a moment. “He moves about only in the darkness,” he said. “His pattern indicates he is too new to have built up any sort of tolerance of the light.”
“That is why you told me I would be safe in the light.” And as she thought about it now, she realized it was true. She had never felt the sensation of being watched, being followed, in the daylight. Only in the hours between dusk and dawn. “But you can move about in the light.”