Born to Bite Bundle

by Hannah Howell

  “No.” She shook her head, her long auburn hair spilling around her. “I have a vague idea of gothic stories but other than that, no. I do not, and Gráinne did not, see you as a monster. At least not in the dreams I had. That is why I am asking you to explain to me . . . Explain how you can have lived over one hundred years . . .”

  He hated this part. “Because I am a vampire and vampires are immortal. I am over three hundred years old, Grace.”

  She stared at him in disbelief and whispered, “If only you had made me immortal, I cried in my dream last night.”

  “I will live forever,” he confessed.

  She took a deep breath. “Go on.”

  “Vampires are creatures of the night. We feed on human blood and we live forever.”

  “Human blood?” she echoed woodenly.

  Phillip cringed, not wanting to see the revulsion in her eyes. “Yes. We bite humans and drink their blood and they die. It is how we survive.” He looked at her steadily. “I was made a vampire when I was thirty years old. I was bitten by a female vampire in 1570. I have been a vampire ever since.”

  That day so long ago haunted him as if it were yesterday. Lady Anna Barlow had seduced him with her beauty and cursed him by making him a monster. And he had loathed every day of his endless existence until Gráinne came into his life.

  Grace said, “It sounds like a strange sort of twisted fairy tale.”

  He shook his head. “The happily ever after is rather unlikely.”

  Her beautiful blue eyes met his and he saw the fear in them. “Do you want my blood?”

  He wanted so much more than her blood. He wanted her love, her companionship, and her constant presence. He wanted her with him always, for he had lived too long without her. Every ounce of his self-control was centered on not harming her. “You are not in any danger. I’ve long since learned to control my . . . baser urges. I would never hurt you, Grace. I love you too much.”

  He sensed her unease and only wished to calm her. He leaned in and kissed her silky cheek.

  Grace began to tremble nervously. “I don’t know what to think.”

  He held her tightly to calm her. “If nothing else, Grace, know that I love you more than life itself and I will never let you go again.”

  “You are not going to kill me for my blood?” she asked, a strange light in her blue eyes.

  “I have not searched for you for a century only to kill you now.”

  She touched her hand to his face, her fingers caressing his full lips. He stilled, allowing her to explore him, wanting her to feel utterly safe. He could not help but kiss her fingertips. Spreading his lips slightly, he allowed her to feel the smoothness of his perfect, white teeth. He opened his mouth and she sank her finger deeper inside, until she ran against a very long, very sharp tooth along his upper jaw and found a matching one on the other side. Two very sharp teeth used for ripping flesh, like a wolf. Yes, now she could understand why he would call himself a monster. He expected her to recoil from him in disgust, but she did not. Her blue eyes glittered with passion.

  He bit down on her finger, locking it in place, and their eyes met. He could feel her arousal as she began to breathe heavily. He loosened his hold on her finger, sucking gently on it instead. Grace slowly pulled it from his mouth and arched her hips against him.

  With a low growl he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his. He kissed her roughly as desire for her washed over him in a tidal wave. He knew she wanted him as much as he wanted her and it thrilled him. He entered her in one swift stroke.

  It was only the beginning.

  They made love over and over in his massive bed until she was exhausted and he had to let her rest. She slept peacefully in his arms and he watched her, breathing deeply of her sweet scent.

  She finally opened her eyes and yawned sleepily. She smiled at him and murmured, “I’m hungry.”

  “You’ve worked up an appetite.” He admired the color that suffused her soft cheeks. “I’ll ring for the servants and have some food sent up for you.”

  “What about you?”

  He laughed ruefully.

  She smiled at him. “Why are you laughing?”

  He shook his head. “Because I don’t eat food.”

  “You feed only on human blood?” she asked, her eyes huge.

  “Yes.”

  “But not mine?”

  His face became very serious. “You think I am jesting?”

  “No . . . You have two very sharp teeth.... Yet . . . it all seems . . . I don’t know what to believe,” she admitted.

  “Well, believe me, for I am telling you the truth.”

  Grace sat up in bed, pulling the sheet over her luscious breasts. “Prove it, Phillip. You keep telling me you are this kind of monster, this vampire. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you are a monster. Prove it to me.”

  Dread filled his heart at her words. “Do not ask me to do that.”

  “How can I not? You claim to be over three hundred years old, a creature that lives on human blood. An immortal being, who loved me in another lifetime. You say these things and just expect me to believe you with no proof? I am not a fool, Phillip.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I never said you were.”

  “Then do not treat me as such,” she said coldly.

  He pulled her to him. She wrapped herself around him and he held her close. He loved the feel of her in his arms.

  “Vampires have some special gifts, special strengths.”

  “Such as?” she prompted.

  “Some vampires can read people’s thoughts. Some have extraordinary hearing and can hear even the faintest of noises. Some are incredibly strong or can see things miles away.”

  She cupped his face in her hands. “And you, Phillip? What special gift do you have?”

  “Well, for one, I can read people’s dreams.”

  Grace froze.

  “That is how I found you, Grace.”

  “How?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “I’ve waited for you for years. I’ve traveled all over the world searching for you. Somehow, I sensed your dreams about Gráinne. They brought me closer and closer to you. As you dreamed about your other life and learned how much I loved you, the dreams called to me. Very faintly at first. About ten years ago I was in China and I realized I needed to come to England.”

  “That was when I first started to record my dreams,” she confessed, “just before I married Henry. I wrote them down in a special journal.”

  “Writing them down made them stronger, making it easier for me to find you. Most people forget their dreams upon awakening,” he explained. “When you write them down, you help preserve their memory, making them stronger. Every time you had a dream about your life, Gráinne’s life, and recorded it, you left a clear path for me to find you. Your dreams were so vivid, so clear, I was reliving our life together with you. But once you saw me, you stopped writing about them, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Grace admitted, spellbound by his confession. “But how could you know that?”

  “Because I know you, Grace. I know everything about you, because I can see all of your dreams, not just your dreams about Gráinne. I know you were devastated by your parents’ death when you were sixteen. I know you thought you loved Henry and were happy enough in your marriage with him. I know you hate your overbearing mother-in-law and I can’t say I blame you. I know you want to marry Lord Grayson simply to escape her. And you are correct in your assumptions of him. He does love you and would be good to you.” He paused before looking at her knowingly. “And I know you blame yourself for Henry’s suicide, but you shouldn’t.”

  Grace’s eyes grew round and she pulled away from him. “There is no way you could know those things.”

  He drew her back into his arms, placing a kiss on her lips. “I’ve seen your dreams, Grace. All of them. I know how you were the one to find Henry’s body that morning, hanging from the rafters in the attic. I know about the nightmare
s. I know how Mary took care of everything. How she and the doctor had agreed to keep the suicide a secret to avoid a scandal and the official story that was told was that Henry died of an unexpected heart ailment. That doctor passed away the following year, so that left only you and Mary guarding the truth. And you have never spoken to a soul about losing Henry in such a way.”

  Tears spilled from her blue eyes as he spoke and he was wrenched with guilt for bringing up the topic of her deceased husband. He whispered, “His death was his choice, Grace, and you are not to blame.”

  She hid her face in his chest, the warmth from her tears heating his skin. “You can’t know these things about me,” she sobbed.

  “But I do,” he answered softly in her ear. “And I know you love me.”

  “How? How do you know these things?”

  “You asked me for proof, Grace. I just gave it to you. I know these things about you because I can see your dreams. While you were sleeping a little while ago, you were so exhausted and so peaceful, you didn’t dream at all.”

  She said nothing.

  “The reason I can know these things is that I am a vampire.”

  Grace slowly nodded her head. “And I knew about this, Gráinne knew.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wanted you to make me what you are. . . .” Her voice trailed off as the significance of those words occurred to her.

  “Yes, you wanted me to make you a vampire all those years ago. I had misgivings and did not want to turn you into the monster I was—”

  “You are not a monster,” she protested.

  He hated what he was and not once in three hundred years had he gotten used to it. He cupped her sweet face in his hands. “Yes, I am, Grace. Do not doubt that for a second.”

  “Why didn’t you make me a vampire then? I wouldn’t have drowned. We could have stayed together—”

  An anguished groan tore from his throat. “Don’t think I have not tortured myself with that regret every minute of the past one hundred years. If I had done what you asked, I never would have lost you.” He closed his eyes at the memory. “When I learned your father had taken you to France, I was immediately on a ship on my way after you. I was caught in the same storm, but when it ended, there was no sign of your ship. All aboard were lost before dawn.”

  “Quarter past five,” Grace murmured softly.

  He glanced at her and said, “Perhaps.” After a moment, he began again. “I cannot say for sure what I did for decades after that. I was so consumed with grief and rage over losing you, I truly became a monster. I killed indiscriminately, with no mercy. I am ashamed now of the terrible things I did during that time.”

  Instead of recoiling from him, she placed a kiss on his cheek.

  Her touch warmed him. Phillip went on, “I existed in a murky haze, drifting from place to place, country to country, continent to continent. Living forever is a torturous existence when you have no wish to live. Until one day I woke up and everything changed. That aching, endless pain of losing you was gone. I felt I suddenly had a reason to live. I felt there was hope. It was such an astonishing change that I marked the day. It was February 17, 1840.”

  “That’s my birthday!” she cried in astonishment.

  “I know.” He smiled at her. “But I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew then was that I wanted to change how I was. I wanted to live. It was a few years later I sensed that you were alive. I knew you were living somewhere and I had to find you. Your dreams called out to me, I suppose, as you grew older.”

  Grace explained, “They’ve just always been with me, so different from regular dreams. I could never rid myself of the feeling that they were important. Sometimes I would have the same dream over and over. The dream of when we first met, by the little stone fence. Do you remember that?”

  “Like it was yesterday.” He placed a kiss on her lips. “You were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.”

  She smiled at him. “I had that dream for years. Then I would dream about other meetings, other times of us together. They became more frequent and more intense in this past year.”

  “You dreamed more as I got closer to you.”

  “But if Gráinne knew you were a vampire, why didn’t I dream about your being a vampire? Why didn’t I know that? That part was so vague.”

  “Because I didn’t want you to know that until I saw you first, because I assumed you knew what a vampire was. I didn’t want you to be frightened of me.”

  “You influenced my dreams?”

  He shrugged sheepishly. “To a certain extent. Being a vampire is a highly guarded secret and I can control what you know about me. I wanted to tell you myself. I wanted to explain.”

  Grace stayed quiet.

  As he held her warm, naked body in his arms, he had revealed many secrets to her. As ugly as those secrets were, she did not seem to be repulsed by him as he feared she might have been. Uncertain how much she had changed from being Gráinne to Grace, he did not know how she would react to his secret. Gráinne had not feared him, but he did not know what to expect from Grace.

  “So what happens now?” she finally asked.

  “That is up to you.”

  “I am not marrying Lord Grayson.”

  He laughed, filled with satisfaction at her words. “I should hope not! Not after what we’ve done in this bed all day.”

  “Phillip?” she asked hesitantly.

  “What is it?”

  “Are you going to make me a vampire?”

  A long silence ensued. His eyes focused on her. “I want you with me always, Grace, because I know what it is like to live without you. But as before, I would hate to take your humanity from you. I would hate to make you a monster.”

  “But would you if I asked you to?”

  He hesitated, just as he had done when Gráinne asked him a century ago. “Yes.”

  Her pretty blue eyes widened.

  “But only if you have had time to think about what you are committing to, what it really means, and how the world as you know it will change completely. Once you become a vampire, it cannot be undone. It is nothing to take lightly.”

  She kissed him and he felt as if the sun had warmed him. “Will you explain more of the details to me?”

  “If you promise to take some time, a few days at least, to consider the impact of becoming a vampire with me. When you are quite sure, then I will make you a vampire.”

  “Do you know how to make a vampire? Have you made one before?” Her blue eyes glanced at him in uncertainty.

  “Yes. And no.” He certainly knew how to make one, but he had never bestowed that horror on a human being and he had huge reservations about doing so to Grace. However, he had lived the alternative and knew, once having found her again, there was no way he could exist without her in his life. He had to make her a vampire. But he wanted her to have more time to think about the gravity of the choice she was making. “You need to go home and decide you want to be a vampire when you are not naked in my bed and under my influence. I won’t take no for an answer on this.”

  Grace suddenly sat up, panic on her face. “Good heavens! Home! What must they be thinking? What time is it? How long have I been here?”

  “It’s almost six o’clock in the evening.”

  “I’ve been with you all day!” she cried in anguish. “I left a note that I’d only gone for a walk. They must be frantic looking for me by now.”

  He sought to calm her. “Get dressed and I will take you home.”

  “What can I tell them? They won’t believe I was out walking in the rain all day.”

  “Most likely not, but you can say you were with a friend.”

  She gave him a wry look and then hurried to dress as Phillip watched her. She was beautiful and sweet, just as she had been as Gráinne. He could not believe his good fortune in finding her for a second time. He had been lucky to even meet someone as wonderful as her a century ago. To have her in his life once again brought him more happiness than he
had a right to have.

  Chapter Seven

  Every lamp was lit and the house was practically glowing from the street. Filled with dread, Grace entered the house. As much as she hated leaving Phillip and had toyed with the idea of simply staying with him forever, she knew he was right. She had to make a clean break with her human life before she joined him in his vampire world.

  As was always her way, she needed to wrap matters up neatly and say her goodbyes. She had to face Mary one last time. She had to end her engagement with Lord Grayson in person. He had been nothing but kind to her and she owed him at least that much respect.

  Grace squared her shoulders and opened the door. The household was in an uproar and her sudden entrance only made it worse. A chorus of shouts and cries greeted her as the servants gathered around her in the foyer.

  “She’s home!”

  “She’s safe!”

  “Oh, Miss Grace, we have been looking for you everywhere!”

  Mary loomed in the doorway of the parlor, her round face pinched in a tight frown and her eyes narrowed with mistrust. Lord Grayson stood behind her. Grace felt a twinge of guilt when she saw the worry and concern on his features. He rushed to her side, placing an arm around her shoulder and guiding her into the warm parlor.

  “My dear, are you all right? We have been searching for you all afternoon. I came right over as soon as Mrs. Sutton sent a note around telling me you had not returned from your walk.”

  Mary waved the servants away and followed Grace into the parlor. Grace sensed her mother-in-law’s anger boring into her spine, but knew Mary would say nothing in front of Lord Grayson. She’d save her wrath for when they were alone.

  Lord Grayson escorted Grace to a seat on the sofa, where he helped her take off her coat. As she removed her hat and gloves, he sat beside her, clearly worried, his face appearing older than she remembered.

  Mary did not sit, but said in a clipped tone, “I can see that you are unharmed and quite well, Grace, so I can assume you were not in any danger all day. You left this house before dawn, without a word to anyone, sending everyone into a panic over your whereabouts and safety. Now you return over twelve hours later as if nothing were amiss. I think you owe us the decency of an explanation.”