“He’s one of the strongest of us, but this guilt he carries is a great weakness in his soul. He has stayed in his castle for so many years . . .” Alex glanced at Stefan then continued. “Alina regretted pulling him into this battle with Reynard, but I think it relieved her to have an excuse to force him out into the world again, bring him back to a full and vibrant life. He’s a very good man, Julie. The d’Argents need him. We don’t have any elders but for our mothers—and they all are vampires made, not born. In their stead we need cool heads and brilliant minds. Stefan has both.”
“Alex, how can I make him know I’d prefer death to life without him?”
“I could turn you. I know he loves you.”
Stefan’s eyelids snapped open, as though he’d been resting, not hovering in that no-man’s-land between life and death. “If anybody turns the woman I love, it will be me. Go on, my reckless cousin, now that you’ve satisfied yourself that I’ll survive. Return Claude to Paris so his bride and mother may nurse him back to health.”
Julie met Stefan’s gaze. “Do you think Reynard will come back?”
Stefan closed his eyes, lay silent for a moment before opening them again and meeting Julie’s gaze. “No. He’s gone to ground to nurse his wounds, somewhere in the mountains, whether the Rockies or the Alps, I can’t discern. Alex, we must have managed to inflict some serious damage on him.”
“I’d consider a stake driven into the chest a serious wound, if it were my chest.” Alex spoke casually, as though he staked another vampire practically every day. “I don’t think Claude will be up to traveling for a few days. His wounds are more than what I’d describe as serious.”
If Claude had been mortal, he’d have been dead by now. Julie recalled the pool of blood she’d noticed beneath his unconscious body. “Speaking of Claude, doesn’t he need to be fed?”
“I’ll go and try to feed him. If he can take some nourishment, he should be able to travel in a few more days. Julie, I’m sure you can care for Stefan’s wounds.”
• • •
Late that night, Stefan woke, his injuries no longer paining him as much. He still felt weak, but he also was ravenously hungry. Julie lay beside him, lending him her body heat. The curve of her hip cushioned his bandaged arm, and despite his pain he was tempted to slide his hand up and cup her generous breast. He inhaled, taking in the fruity scent of her shampoo. Amazingly, since he felt too weak to move, his sex began to harden.
“Julie?”
She woke instantly and turned to face him. Though it was dark, he saw her clearly, read the concern in her expression. “What do you need?”
You. The words Alex had spoken to Julie when he thought Stefan had been unconscious would not leave him. The strongest of us, but a weakness in his soul.
Alex’s voice filled Stefan’s mind. “Take what you deserve. What she deserves.”
He was older, wiser than he’d been two centuries earlier. He knew now how to turn a mortal without losing control. What had happened with Tina had been a tragedy—but one born of an ill-fated love. He’d tangled that tragedy in his mind with the earlier loss of his father, creating one deep wound that had kept him in aching loneliness for so long. He hadn’t been able to see it until Julie had pried open his heart. Until she had offered everything she was—past, present and future—to love him, stand by him.
To turn away from her would not only break her heart, it would be an insult to the gift of her love. Thanks to his mother’s influence during his childhood, Stefan d’Argent was a gentleman who’d never insult a woman.
As they lay together in the dark, the risk of turning her seemed bearable. “I need to feed.” He whispered it.
“Feed on me. Please. I want you to. I trust you not to cause me harm.”
There was no way he’d survive if he should inadvertently destroy her. But going on alone, spending centuries regretting his lack of courage, was too much for him to bear. Especially now, when she’d shown him real courage by facing down her would-be killer, risking her life to protect Claude with her own frail body. When Julie faced him like this, with fierce determination to change her life and embrace his world, he couldn’t turn her down.
He must find his own courage, face the demons he’d dodged for so long. Overcome the tragedy of his past and embrace who he was now.
Stefan knew instinctively that loving Julie was right. “I know you trust me, love, but I must summon the courage to trust myself.” He slipped his free hand between her legs, found her wet and swollen. “Ride me. Please.”
Not having full mobility should have frustrated Stefan, but it did not. Julie straddled him, poised to impale herself on his erection. He reached up and traced the curve of her hip, her outer thigh, his gaze locked with hers in solemn promise . . . total commitment. He coaxed her to take him inch by inch, until she held him fully within her sweet, hot flesh. Though he wanted to rush to the release she promised, he wanted more to draw it out. Have her take him, deplete him, so when their climaxes came . . .
He couldn’t wait. When she stroked his chest and pinched the small nubs of his nipples, he had to move. Had to claim her fully. “Ride me. Ride me hard and fast. Satisfy my lust and yours. Now and always.”
“Oh, yes. Always.” Julie gasped for breath as she moved on him. Her face was flushed with passion, her body took on a light sheen of perspiration—for the last time, he thought, trying to concentrate on the pulsating vein in her throat but being distracted by the incredible sensations coursing through his body.
Her eyes shone with passion. With the kind of love he’d wanted all his life. “Let go, my darling. Come inside me. Give me your vampire child tonight.”
“I can but try. Chances are it will take many months of diligent effort before I succeed. Perhaps years.” Grasping her hips, he coaxed her to move faster yet, and he arched his back to deepen his penetration. Her soft moans of pleasure took his arousal to a fever pitch.
“Yes. I love how you make me feel inside. Don’t stop. You feel so good . . .” Her words trailed off into a series of delighted whimpers as she bent over him. Offering the pale column of her throat. Offering herself.
Despite his injuries, the dominant male within him burst forth. She gasped as he changed their positions, flipped them so she was beneath him. Her thighs opened to accommodate his thrusts, and she entwined their calves. Taking him as he took her. He slid his hands under her neck, arching it.
His release was coming, drawing his testicles up tight against his body, making him flush with an unfamiliar heat. His heartbeat accelerated, making speech difficult. He raised his head, laid his fangs against the tender skin of her throat. “Is this what you want, my darling? Be very sure, for once I’ve turned you, you can never go back to being a mortal.”
“I’m sure,” she murmured, taking his head in her hands and cradling it. “Come in me, bite me. Make me your mate.”
“I’ll love you forever. For all the time to come. For an eternity.” Stefan whispered the words against Julie’s throat as his hot semen began to spurt deep within her body. Then, fighting down the terror that still rode him hard, he sank his fangs into her jugular vein and drank his fill.
“My God, Stefan. I’m coming. Oh, yes.” She clenched his cock, her inner muscles milking him. “I love you.”
• • •
Julie had never come so intensely. Never felt so intensely each scorching burst of his seed within her womb. Never before experienced the ecstasy—the sense of being taken, transformed.
She belonged to him. Totally, completely. Passion coursed from him through her to every cell of her body. Violent pleasure, unlike any she’d ever known. “Don’t stop.” As though her hands could hold him, she tunneled her fingers through his hair, clutching him to her throat while he sipped her lifeblood.
Indescribable. The heightened sensations slowed but were no less pleasurable. A warm feeling of completion began where his fangs pierced her throat, and in the depths of her womb. It spread, the unfamiliar s
ense of satiated lethargy, staying with her even when he lifted his head and met her gaze with eyes that glowed with emerald fire.
“You’ll sleep, my love. When you wake—”
“I’ll be a vampire too.” Her eyelids felt heavy. Terribly heavy, but she kept them open, gave him a loving smile. “Your mate.”
“Forever.” Stefan braced himself above her, watched over her as she drifted away, unconscious from the ultimate vampire ecstasy. She looked so pale. So fragile. “Please,” he whispered to her God and whatever deities might listen to a vampire’s plea, “let me have created my mate rather than having destroyed the mortal I love.”
Through the night he held her, a loving, silent vigil while she lay unmoving, her flesh cooling, her heartbeat slowing . . . Stefan dared not move for fear he’d miss that next heartbeat. His own heart pumped faster with each passing moment as her breathing slowed, then stopped.
She’d waken. She had to. But what if she did not? No. Stefan wouldn’t allow . . . wouldn’t even think he might lose her. He laid a hand on her throat, over his marks of possession. The taste of her blood lingered on his tongue and his fangs, taunting him with the knowledge he’d taken it from her. Taken her, for better or worse. His eyelids drooped, yet he did not sleep. If he slept, he might lose her.
Then, as dawn was breaking, she fluttered her eyelids and smiled up at him. “I’m yours now, for all eternity.” He’d never welcomed a smile so much, never wanted so much to get on his knees and thank the fates for bringing him his golden angel. His Julie.
When she lifted her head and kissed him, she grazed his lower lip with her small fangs. “Oh, no,” she exclaimed, looking with horror at the marks he imagined she’d left on him. She looked bewildered for a moment, as if she had no notion what to do. But then she smiled, bent and licked away the tiny drops of blood, applying a bit of suction to the wound. When she raised her head and met his gaze, she licked her lips. “You taste good.”
“You can drink my blood anytime, my darling. As you are mine, I’m yours.” He felt surprisingly strong to have so recently been grievously injured. Her blood had healed him, as his would now heal her if she should ever suffer a wound.
Stefan loved the timid way she smiled, as though worried that her fangs would show. “I imagine they’ll take a bit of getting used to. They look cute, though.”
“Thanks. At least I won’t be seeing them for myself.” As though experimenting, Julie ran her tongue across her fangs. “They seem awfully small to have hurt your lip like that.”
Grinning widely, Stefan bared his own fangs, extending them for her to see and then retracting them. “Once you’ve learned to control the movement, they’ll stay retracted unless you consciously extend them to feed. You’ll get used to the feeling, learn to control the movement.” The fangs were only one small, visible change that had taken place while she slept. Stefan imagined they’d take less getting accustomed to than feeding exclusively on blood, becoming mostly nocturnal, and learning to propel herself through time and space. “I’ll help you, my love,” he told her when she reached up and ran a finger over her straight, white teeth, a bemused look on her face when she felt the longer incisors. Stefan looked forward to showing her all the qualities that set them apart from humans.
“I don’t want”—her gaze dropped to his half-hard sex, and her pale cheeks turned a bright, well-fed-vampire shade of pink—“to hurt you . . .”
“You won’t. When vampires bite, it’s a voluntary thing. When you suck my cock the way you’re thinking about doing, your fangs will remain retracted. Just as mine always do when I’m nibbling on your tender flesh.” Stefan would risk getting puncture wounds until Julie learned to control the action of her fangs, rather than forgo the pleasure of having her go down on him. He slipped one hand over her plump ivory mound and found her clit swollen, protruding impudently from her damp, satin-smooth labia, then spread her legs wide and bent to tongue her there. “I’ll take pleasure demonstrating how we use our mouths to love each other, in perfect safety.” Delicately, he caught her clit between his teeth and flailed it with his tongue.
Her inner thighs caressed his cheeks while he stimulated her. This was the Julie who’d stolen his heart—yet she was not the same Julie she’d been last night. Instead of deep rose, her intimate flesh glowed shell pink against the alabaster paleness of her newly made vampire body. Every vestige of her body hair had magically disappeared, as he’d known it would, leaving her smooth. Like him, yet even softer. Stefan drank his fill, not stopping until she whimpered and shifted her body, offering him more. Giving of herself this morning as she had last night, with full trust, with perfect love.
“Stefan, I want to feel you inside me.”
He reversed his position and knelt between her legs, rubbing his erection along her warm, wet labia, seeking the haven of her sheath once more. “You’re my love, my partner.” He sank slowly into her welcoming heat, his gaze locked on hers.
As the morning sun filtered lightly through heavy drapes, Stefan took his vampire mate for the first time. Lacy patterns of dim light danced between them as they moved in an ageless rite of possession. Though he braced himself on his hands, sparing her the weight of his upper body, in his mind he stroked every centimeter of her glowing skin, claiming it—claiming her for all time. Julie arched her neck, a vampire offering sustenance to her vampire lover. No need now to hold back. Hot semen gathered in his balls, his fangs elongated, and he bent his head to accept her selfless gift. Growing wetter, she shuddered and convulsed around his aching flesh, demanding all he was, all he’d ever be. “Now, Stefan. Bite me now. Bite me as you did before.”
He couldn’t deny her. Not now, not ever. Letting go the control he’d struggled to hold on to, Stefan came. Mindful of her fledgling status, he sank his fangs with care, nipping . . .
She screamed, the sound one of ecstasy, not pain. When he lifted his head, she found his neck and bit him. Given with love but without the finesse born of centuries’ practice, her tentative bite left his heart beating wildly, his body trembling in tandem with hers.
Apparently drained with the intensity of their lovemaking, Julie fell asleep, her hair spilling over Stefan’s arm. Her heartbeat, like his, had slowed so as to be nearly imperceptible. He couldn’t resist touching her, petting her satiny skin, running his fingers through the fine strands of her golden hair. As a mortal, she’d sat before a mirror and brushed it to a fine sheen. He’d do it for her now, until she learned to groom herself by touch, not sight. Or until he had to go again, continue the hunt for Reynard until he was well and truly destroyed.
“You’ll not park me in that castle of yours while you go off chasing that killer again,” Julie said, her eyes wide open now, although he heard sleep in her husky voice.
Amazing how quickly she’d picked up a vampire’s knack for reading minds. Stefan had a feeling argument on this matter would do no more good than his orders for her to stay inside had done during the fight yesterday. He took her hand, brought it to his lips. “Wherever I go, you shall go too, my darling. Forever.” Stefan watched her expression soften.
“Woof.”
“Noodles, you can go too,” he added when her little dog jumped up on the bed and demanded their attention.
Epilogue
A wedding? Julie always had expected she’d have one someday, but she’d never dreamed the guest list would be divided between mortals and vampires, or that the ceremony would take place in a vampire bar on Rush Street—a place she hadn’t realized existed less than a month ago. She’d never imagined she and her bridegroom would seal their vows with bites as well as the traditional kiss.
Two weeks had passed since Stefan had turned her, and she still had trouble keeping her fangs from elongating whenever her body stirred for him. It still felt strange, passing on mortal food and taking sustenance only from blood. She liked it best sipped slowly from Stefan’s veins. Today, though, they fed from rich red human blood served in fine crystal stem glasses.
>
“To eternal happiness, long life, and many little vamps,” shouted her friend Giorgio once the obligatory toasts were finished.
Stefan linked his arm through hers, smiled down at her and whispered, “Easy now. Relax and sip slowly, then retract your fangs.”
So far Julie liked most things about being a vampire, except the difficulty she still had dealing with her fangs. But she wouldn’t let a little detail like that bother her on her wedding day. Carefully, keeping her gaze on her new husband’s, she sipped, swallowed. It wasn’t all that hard, sort of like drinking soda from a straw.
The change that gave her the most pleasure was that her skin had become as smooth as satin. Not a body hair in sight. Stefan made no secret about liking her even better without it, and it pleased her not to have to endure monthly bikini waxings to keep herself as silky as a newborn baby. Just thinking of him licking and nipping at her sex with nothing between them to mute the erotic sensation had her wishing they were somewhere private. She felt herself growing damp, anticipating his touch, the delicious friction of private flesh on private flesh.
He looked darkly handsome in his tuxedo, but she loved him best naked, lying back and letting her explore his magnificent body with her eyes and hands and mouth. Whenever he smiled, her mouth watered. She had to struggle to keep her fangs retracted, but so far she’d managed to do it when they indulged in sexual foreplay. God, but she loved giving him oral sex, sucking and licking him while he used his tongue to titillate her.
Since she’d become a vampire, her reactions to emotional and sensual stimuli had become more intense. From the first day, she’d found herself feeling and seeing things in more vivid detail. She even found herself entering Stefan’s mind, learning his thoughts before he voiced them. Though she now went out only in total darkness—for unlike her mate she could tolerate almost no daylight—everything seemed bright as long as she had him by her side.
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