by Nell Stark
“I love you, Valentine,” she whispered against my skin in response to my wordless groan. “I love you. I love you.”
She released her grip on my hair to cup first one breast, then the other, even as she began to stroke me languidly. My hips thrust into her touch, needing more. She laughed softly, teasing me, reminding me who was in charge.
“I’m going to taste you, Val. I’m going to drink you in, make you come in my mouth…and then?” She paused to mark the skin of my neck with a long, pulling kiss. “I want to come with your teeth in me.”
I breathed a plea without conscious thought. Her hand never left my breasts as she sank gracefully to her knees, as she twisted two fingers deep inside me, as the heat of her mouth enveloped me and every nerve became a storm of sensation. The room cartwheeled across my field of vision. Alexa’s name burst from my throat.
Over the pounding of my heart, I heard my own harsh gasps and the soft sounds of her lips kissing my thighs. For a moment, I felt deliciously emptied by the passion that had wrung me out so thoroughly, but then thirst rushed in to fill the vacuum, tinting the world red.
Alexa rose to her feet. My tongue curled around one of my sharp canines—an involuntary response. Her glistening lips curved seductively in a slow smile that bespoke her desire. But her eyes—those beautiful emerald eyes that she shared with her panther—were soft and loving. In one smooth motion, she undid the knot of her robe and let it fall to the floor. I reached out one finger, tracing it along her jaw and down, down over the ridge of her collarbone.
“Yours,” Alexa said, her voice trembling on the simple syllable.
“Mine.” I closed the gap between us and kissed her hungrily, urging her toward the bed. When she stretched out on it, I followed her down, entranced by the way her tan skin stood out against the white coverlet. I ended up with my lips pressed to her neck and one hand curled around her breast. The urge to sink my teeth was overwhelming, but I fought it, gentling my lips against her skin and rubbing her nipple between two fingers. My jaw ached with the effort of holding back.
“Val,” she whispered, hips undulating against mine. “Oh, God.”
I shifted my hand to her waist and pressed down, holding her in place. “No,” I said, rising to meet her gaze. She looked as hungry as I felt. “Slowly. Be patient.”
Her answer was inarticulate, half frustration and half anticipation. I took my time, caressing the taut muscles of her stomach before stroking along her thighs, forcing us both to wait. When I finally touched her, I felt every muscle tense.
“Please—”
The entreaty inflamed me. I dipped my head and took her into my mouth, thrilling to her low cry. It was all I could do to keep from pressing my fingers all the way inside and claiming her. Instead, I went as slowly as I could, fluttering my tongue against her as I slid deeper, one fraction of an inch at a time.
She was incoherent below me, above me, and when her body clutched at me, she cried out. I yielded then, shifting my mouth to her thigh and sinking my teeth, prolonging her climax and assuaging my thirst. Her blood was richer than the finest brandy—bold yet gentle, subtly complex. The essence of Alexa. My love.
I felt her fingers in my hair, pulling me up. But when I obliged, she guided me not to her mouth, but to her neck. “More,” she said, fitting one muscular leg between mine. “Take more.”
My own cry was muffled against her skin as I obeyed. Her intoxicating flavor burst again under my tongue, and she arched beneath me, shivering in pleasure. We slid down the wave of passion together, moving in tandem, urging one another up the other side until we found the glorious crest together.
For a long time afterward, I held Alexa as she dozed, savoring the sensation of her heart beating under my palm and the sound of her deep, even breaths. Fatigue tugged at me, but I didn’t want to lose awareness. Our time was running short.
After a while, her eyes opened. She leaned in to kiss me before pulling back, blinking sleepily. “Mmm. How long was I out?”
“About an hour.” I rolled onto my back, carrying her with me. She smiled at the change of position, settling the slight curve of her belly into the dip of my rib cage and kissing my chin.
“That was incredible,” she sighed. “We are so good together.”
“And a formidable team,” I said, thinking back to our encounter with the leopard.
She raised one eyebrow. “We do seem to have a routine, don’t we? I do the wrestling, you do the shooting.”
“It works.” I trailed my hands down the back of her neck to massage her shoulders. “What was that all about, anyway? The leopard, attacking Amiri out of the blue.”
“I don’t think it was after Amiri. I think it was after me.”
I stilled my hands. “You?”
“It probably perceived me as a threat to his territory.”
“Even though you weren’t in panther form?”
Alexa kissed my chin again, trying to soothe me. “I’ll ask Constantine about it,” she said, wriggling against me—a cue that I should continue my massage.
“What was that word that you said?” I asked after a few minutes. “Just before you changed.” I tried to remember what the two syllables had sounded like. “Oo-dyay.”
A deep shudder racked Alexa’s frame and she rolled away, turning her back to me. Her body trembled violently, as though she’d just been outside in the bitter cold. Startled, I touched the shoulder I’d just been rubbing. “Baby?”
“Just…a minute,” she said, her voice strained. “I’m sorry—just…”
I lay as still as I could, trying to stave off my own apprehension. For a second there, she had sounded as I remembered from the early days of her infection with the Were virus—tense, distracted, and struggling to maintain control.
Finally, she turned back to me and buried her face in my neck. When she spoke, her voice was thick with regret. “I’m sorry, love. Clearly, I still have lots of work ahead of me.”
“What happened?” I asked, running my hand down along her side and back again in what I hoped was a soothing motion.
She took a long breath. “That word is a…a trigger. It’s an imperative, in Swahili. My way of calling the panther.”
I thought about that for a minute. “Well, it seems very effective. I’ve never seen you transform that quickly and with no struggle.”
Alexa’s laugh was shaky. “That’s the goal, certainly—it’s a significant step on the road to fully integrating my two halves. According to Constantine, anyway. But I think…” She pulled back to look at me, and her eyes were troubled. “Apparently I’m a little too trigger-happy. When you said it, just then, the panther almost got away from me. I am so sorry.”
“Baby.” I kissed her once, then again, then a third time. “Alexa. This is a process for you. A long process. Remember telling me all about it, back at the beginning of the summer?” When she nodded, I smiled to reassure her. “It’s so clear to me that this time you’ve spent in Telassar has been very good for you. And for the panther. You’re remarkable. You have nothing to apologize for.”
She didn’t answer right away—just kept looking into my eyes, as though searching for something. I wasn’t sure what, but I stared back, trying to convey every ounce of love and pride and affection that I felt for her. Trying to shield her from the raw need that, even now, still tore at the depths of me.
Because that was my battle. And she had her own to fight.
Chapter Two
I landed in New York early in the morning and had a cab take me directly to Tisch Hospital, where I was interning. There was no sense in going home to lie around the apartment missing Alexa—better for me to do something productive and exhaust myself in the process. I never slept well without her.
Besides, my supervisor, who was a stickler for proper protocol, would be out on vacation this week. In her absence, Sean, my best friend at the lab, had promised to show me how to operate the scanning electron microscope. I’d never had the opportunity to w
ork with technology that sophisticated and was eager to learn, especially since it was an integral piece of equipment to a microbiologist’s research. Maybe, if I felt competent enough after a little while under Sean’s tutelage, I could sneak in some samples of vampire and Were blood to examine.
Not for the first time, I wished that Harold Clavier, the Consortium’s chief physician, would be more forthcoming in granting me access to the Consortium’s research facilities. I had practically begged him to allow me a place as an intern on one of the teams currently conducting medical research, but he had argued I didn’t have enough experience to be useful. He had a point, but I got the sense he was using my inexperience as an excuse to stonewall me. The only real question in my mind was whether he had a personal bias against me, or whether his orders were coming from Helen. Either way, my lack of access was symptomatic of their distrust. Not that I could blame them; I’d already demonstrated that I wasn’t very good at following orders when they didn’t suit my purposes.
As I was paying the taxi driver, my cell phone rang. The number was blocked. When I answered, I was greeted by the voice of Helen’s secretary.
“Valentine. Ms. Lambros requests your presence at ten o’clock this evening.”
I bit back a laugh at her choice of verb. Helen didn’t request things; she demanded them. “My schedule’s clear,” I said breezily. “May I ask why she wants to see me?”
“She will inform you upon your arrival. Ciao.”
The connection clicked off before I could open my mouth again. “What on earth,” I said under my breath, staring at my phone as though it could offer me some answers. I hadn’t so much as seen Helen since she’d shown up in our apartment the day after Alexa and I had tracked down and killed the rogue vampire known as the Missionary—though not before he murdered Detective Devon Foster and her partner.
I pushed aside the familiar twinge of guilt and walked toward the entrance to the hospital. What Helen wanted with me, I couldn’t guess. She had been kind and attentive while I adjusted to my new circumstances, but by now, I was just another vampire, doing the best I could to make a place for myself. Alexa was the special one.
As I drew close to the front doors, I fumbled in my bag for my ID badge. There was no sense in getting anxious. It was time to focus. My questions would be answered soon enough.
*
When I stepped into the antechamber to Helen’s office at a few minutes before ten o’clock, her secretary waved me through right away. Helen’s floor-to-ceiling windows, specially tempered to allow her to work there during the day, looked out over the dark swath of the East River and the sparkling lights of Long Island City. For a moment, I stood captivated by the view before I realized that Helen and I were not alone. A man leaned against one corner of her desk; tall and thin, with his hair drawn back from his face in a long ponytail that fell well past his shoulders. The off-white shade of his linen shirt and slacks matched the color of his sandals perfectly.
“Valentine.” Helen walked around the desk and beckoned me closer, then grasped my shoulders and kissed both cheeks. “It has been too long. Please, allow me to introduce Henri Alençon.”
When Henri pressed his cool cheek to mine, my suspicions were confirmed that his olive skin was the product of genetics and not time spent in the sun. Like us, he was a vampire.
“A pleasure,” I said. He simply inclined his head. Having been born into a family of what amounted to American royalty, I recognized snobbery when I saw it.
“Monsieur Alençon has sought you out from across the Atlantic.” Helen’s intent gaze reminded me of my mother’s scrutiny during the important social events I’d attended as a child. Helen looked as though she were silently compelling me not to misstep, but in this case, I had no idea what constituted a faux pas.
“Oh?” I asked, completely in the dark as to why a vampire from overseas—French, by the sound of his accent—should wish to seek me out.
Henri clasped his hands behind his back. “René Valois, Blood Prime of the Clan of the Missionary, has summoned you to Sybaris.”
I blinked, having no idea what three-quarters of that sentence meant. “Excuse me?”
When Helen’s eyes narrowed, I knew that I was not performing to her expectations. Henri wore a puzzled frown. In that fraught moment of silence, I decided on honesty. “I apologize for my ignorance. What is a blood prime, and where is Sybaris? And why should I be summoned there?”
Henri seemed taken aback. “You are…unaware…of your clan affiliation?”
The Clan of the Missionary, he had said. Why would I want to be affiliated with the vampire who had turned me and almost killed Alexa? The memory of rage welled up hot under my skin, pushing politeness aside.
“I killed the Missionary several months ago,” I said harshly.
“We are, of course, aware of this.” Henri spoke as though we were conversing in a foreign language in which he was fluent and I a neophyte. Maybe the metaphor was apt. “The clan will convene to elect another Missionary in a week’s time. All members must be present.”
Now I was the one lost for words. Henri already knew that I was the one responsible for the death of the Missionary, but despite being a part of his so-called clan, he didn’t care? Was he particularly callous, or did the entire organization embrace the same Darwinian “live and let die” imperative?
“That bastard made me a vampire!” I was unable and unwilling to keep my vehemence in check. “I have no desire to elect his ‘successor.’ Why the hell would you want to turn what he did into some kind of…office?”
Henri’s mouth clicked shut and he crossed his arms over his chest. I’d affronted him, but frankly, I didn’t care. His mission was anathema to me; I wanted nothing more to do with the Missionary, and I certainly didn’t want anyone else to suffer as I had.
“Please forgive Valentine, Monsieur Alençon,” Helen said. She angled her body away from me to give him her full attention. The message was clear; I was in the doghouse. “She is new to our community and our ways. She does not understand her place.”
But Henri would not be appeased. “I am afraid that my visit was in vain,” he said stiffly. He crossed the room and opened the door, then looked over his shoulder at me. “Your willful ignorance is foolish, Valentine. As are your scruples.”
The silence in his wake was deafening. I turned back to Helen, feeling as though I were facing my executioner. Her face was stony.
“He is right.” From a snifter on her desk, she poured a finger of amber liquid into a glass, and the aroma of fine scotch filled the room. “You are a fool not to have paid any mind to your heritage, your history.”
It was true that my knowledge of vampire and Were history and politics was woefully thin—the price I paid for splitting my attention between two realities. But I had good reason to do so. “I’ve been a little preoccupied,” I said hotly, unappreciative of having been put in my place like some kind of delinquent schoolgirl. “I’m doing everything I can to prepare myself to research the parasite full-time. I know we can find a cure.”
For a moment, Helen looked murderous. But in the next instant, she was offering me the glass and smiling. I shifted on my feet, feeling as though I were trapped in the eye of an unpredictable storm.
“The parasite is, of course, important. And I understand your obsession with it.” She ran one deep red fingernail along my jaw, and I struggled not to flinch. “But stop and consider for a moment, Valentine. Are you really so poorly off?” She moved away from me toward the windows, and I couldn’t help but admire her silhouette against the skyline. “You will always be young, always be strong. Your lover has made it possible for the two of you to be together for eternity. Why not embrace your new life?”
The problem with Helen’s rhetoric was that some of it was always right. Unlike any human couple, Alexa and I could truly have a happily ever after, and I was thankful. The sticking point was that I hadn’t chosen this existence, the way she had chosen to become a Were in
order to sustain me. And I didn’t like being dependent on her for my sanity and survival. Finding a cure for the parasite would allow those vampires who wished to, to have their humanity back. To have a choice. But I didn’t speak my thoughts. Helen would only twist my words.
She turned, and our gazes locked. When I was the first to look away, I caught the ghost of a triumphant smile. Exhaustion washed over me then, compounded by the long plane ride, the full day at work, the fatigue of missing Alexa. I wanted to go home and sleep until she returned—to forget all about political maneuvering and machinations. But Helen had other ideas. She sat at her desk and gestured for me to take one of the chairs.
“All the information you could ever want on the history of the vampire clans is in the library,” she said, “and I strongly urge you to take full advantage of those extensive resources. But before my next appointment arrives, I have some time to tell you about your particular clan.”
Part of me still wanted to lash out, but I decided that civility was the best option. “Thank you.”
“There are seven vampire clans in total. You in particular will be interested to learn that the number is not arbitrary; one exists for each subspecies of the parasite.”
No one had ever mentioned that particular detail to me before, and my fatigue retreated to the background. “The vampire parasite has subspecies? Did they evolve alongside each other, or are they derivative from a common source, or—”
Helen held up her hand to forestall my barrage of questions. “As I told you in our first meeting, you were infected by Plasmodium sitis. In Latin, sitis means ‘thirst.’ The name is not a coincidence. Your parasite engenders a thirst in its hosts that is significantly stronger than that produced by the other subspecies. When that thirst is assuaged, however, Plasmodium sitis also makes its hosts stronger and faster than the vampires of any other clan.”
I remembered watching the Missionary nearly drain four people, as well as the unearthly speed with which he’d dodged my bullets and the crazed strength that had allow him to wrestle Alexa nearly into submission. I fought down a shiver.