The Bite Before Christmas

by Heidi Betts

  But he’d volunteered to help Jillian hang garland, and fully intended to follow through with the offer—as well as anything else she needed help with that would put him even remotely in contact with her lovely feminine curves.

  Holding a ladder steady…catching her when she fell…carrying her to his bed and showing her exactly what put the vamp in vampire….

  Maeve was one to talk, though. She and Liam were just as spoiled by their wealth and station as he. Not that he thought now was the best time to point that out.

  Given their shock at his offer to help with what they probably considered menial labor, though, Connor realized that perhaps he hadn’t been setting the best example for his brother and sister all these years. Instead of giving them everything they’d ever wanted, making sure they were not only provided for, but extremely well provided for, maybe he should have made them work for a few things. Even put them to work. The devil knew he owned enough restaurants that he could have placed them both into any number of positions rather than allowing them to spend all of their time partying and playing at being adults.

  It was food for thought, and he intended to chew it thoroughly over the next few weeks.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” he told his sister decisively.

  Loosening the knot of his tie, he slipped it off, then unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows.

  “Hand me a wreath and show me what to do,” he said to no one in particular.

  Glancing at Jillian, who had paused in the act of gluing a round glass ornament strategically to her wreath, he found her studying him with glittering blue eyes and a pleased, almost happy expression on her face.

  The idea that she approved of his participation and his interaction with his brother and sister made him shift slightly in his chair, pride straightening his spine. He’d never realized before that such small gestures could act as an aphrodisiac. That relaxing his normally rigid attitudes and rolling up his sleeves to help with something as mundane as putting together Christmas decorations could make a woman smile.

  And when she smiled, he got hot, both inside and out.

  Clearing his throat to keep his brother and sister from noticing the desire that was probably wafting from him in waves, he clapped his hands and rubbed them together.

  “It’s Christmas,” he said, starting to reach for miscellaneous items spread across the table that he thought he would probably need if he was really going to do this wreath-making thing. “If the two of you can be Santa’s helpers, then so can I.”

  Flashing Jillian a grin that showed teeth but not fangs (no sense scaring her back into her shell, if he could help it), he added, “Right, Santa?”

  BITE SIX

  Jillian couldn’t believe how quickly the next few hours passed. Or how much she enjoyed them.

  And actually having fun wrapping ribbon around two dozen wreaths while surrounded by vampires was not something she ever would have thought possible.

  On top of that, Liam, Maeve, and Connor seemed to be enjoying themselves, too. After getting off to a bit of a bumpy start, the two younger siblings had not only warmed up to her, but apparently been willing to put whatever issues they had with their older brother aside long enough to let him join in the decorating process.

  They’d passed him a bare, artificial-pine circlet and all the supplies he would need, giving him blow-by-blow instructions on what to do, the same as she’d instructed them earlier. Then they’d teased him about his lack of imagination when he’d opted to follow Jillian’s lead and put his wreaths together the exact same way so that they would match when hung around the inside and outside of the mansion.

  Connor had handled it well, though. Rather than taking offense, he laughed along with them, then tossed back a bit of their own medicine, ribbing them about the skulls and crossbones they’d chosen for theirs. He wanted to know what Christmas special had given them the idea…or if there had been a pirate ship flying the Jolly Roger somewhere in the story of Jesus’s birth that he didn’t remember. Maeve had stuck her tongue out, and Liam had flipped him the bird—good-naturedly, Jillian hoped—but the mood in the room had remained light.

  By the time Jillian started to yawn in earnest, they had nearly fifty wreaths perfectly decorated and ready to go. Liam, Maeve, and Connor helped her pack them all into boxes to be dealt with later. Then Liam announced that there were still a few hours left until dawn, so he was going to hit the clubs.

  Jillian noticed a small frown marring Connor’s brow at that, but he didn’t say anything, merely watched his brother and sister shrug into their almost matching black leather jackets that made them look like something out of The Matrix trilogy and leave the house.

  “Well,” Connor said slowly a moment later, “that was nice while it lasted.”

  She chuckled. “Considering how surly they both were earlier when I first met them, I’d say it was a smashing success.”

  He gave a small hmph from the back of his throat.

  “I think you handled things quite well, too,” she told him softly, knowing it probably wasn’t her place to comment on his conduct one way or the other.

  But he didn’t seem to take offense. Instead, he offered a small smile and said, “I nearly bit through my tongue a couple of times, but it’s been a while since the three of us were in the same room without snapping at each other, so I thought it would be wise to keep my mouth shut.”

  Nodding, she crossed her arms first beneath her breasts and then more loosely at her waist. She wasn’t cold; the entire house was toasty warm. There were even fires burning in each of the many hearths scattered throughout the mansion. But being suddenly alone with Connor in the doorway of the giant dining room, silence echoing all around them, caused a chill to snake down her spine. One caused by nerves or trepidation, she wasn’t sure.

  “I know Maeve and Liam can’t possibly be in their teens, but they do come across that way sometimes.”

  Connor cocked his head and fixed her with dark, fathomless gray eyes. “Are you familiar at all with vampires and the details of their turning?”

  Okay, now she was cold. “No,” she answered, swallowing hard and hoping he wasn’t about to give her a lesson a la ’Salem’s Lot or The Lost Boys.

  “It’s simple, really, and not nearly as gruesome as you might expect.”

  Good, because right now she was envisioning massive bloodletting and Chinese take-out containers writhing with worms and maggots.

  No more horror movies, she decided. No more books or films that looked even remotely spooky. She wanted only to read and watch things that were light and fluffy, with no paranormal creatures in sight and nothing that was likely to induce nightmares. Pollyanna. Anne of Green Gables. Kung Fu Panda.

  Well, maybe not Kung Fu Panda. Bears scared her, too, even the animated ones.

  Her stomach chose that moment to rumble, and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Either she was hungry—it had been several hours since her last meal—or it was her body’s way of telling her to run. Maybe through the kitchen, where she could grab a sandwich, and hide in her room before Connor started regaling her with the gruesome details of how one became a member of the undead Army of Darkness.

  She tightened her arms around her waist, trying to stifle the sound before Connor noticed. Of course, he was a vampire, with superior hearing, so he probably heard the growl before she did.

  “You’re hungry,” he said, as though she wasn’t aware of that fact. Brows knitting, he asked, “When was the last time you ate?”

  Since she wasn’t wearing a watch and hadn’t paid much attention to the hours as they ticked by, anyway, she honestly wasn’t sure. She did have the vague recollection of a gummy raspberry breakfast bar that tasted like cardboard while she’d packed up her car that morning, but that was it.

  “A while ago,” she admitted with a small shrug. “Around lunch,” she lied.

  In vampire time, “lunch” probably meant somewhere aro
und midnight, anyway.

  Connor muttered a low curse before grabbing her hand and dragging her from the dining room entryway into the long hall leading to the foyer.

  “Randall!” he called in a near-shout. “Randall!”

  A second later, the butler appeared on the other side of the wide staircase. “Sir?”

  “Jillian is desperately in need of sustenance. Bring something filling and delicious to the upstairs solarium as soon as possible. I’ll eat with her, so enough for two.”

  “Yes, sir,” Randall replied with a curt nod, then turned on his heel and headed back to the kitchen.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she insisted, surreptitiously trying to tug her hand out of Connor’s strong grasp. “I could just as easily have made a sandwich for myself or grabbed a quick bowl of cereal.”

  “Cereal?” Connor repeated, his mouth turning down as if she’d suggested eating snails…and not fancy French escargot, but the flower garden variety. “Why would you do that when my cook can whip you up plate of pasta or chicken parmesan in under twenty minutes?”

  “Because asking your cook to prepare something for me in the middle of the night is an inconvenience for her, and fixing a bowl of Count Chocula for myself isn’t.”

  He gave a low chuckle, his fingers tightening around hers for a brief second. “Count Chocula?”

  “It was the first thing that popped into my head,” she admitted somewhat sheepishly. Gee, wonder why.

  Still holding her hand, he started up the stairs, pulling her along beside him. “No Count Chocula. You’re a guest here, and guests don’t resort to cold cereal at Drake Manor.”

  “You’re used to getting exactly what you want exactly when you want it, aren’t you?” she asked, more amused than anything else.

  “Of course.”

  They’d reached the second-story landing, and he led her off to the left, to the end of the long hallway where a beautiful glass-paned solarium looked out over the pristine, snow-covered landscape.

  “But I forget that you’re human, and that humans need to eat every few hours.”

  “And you don’t?” The question slipped out before she even realized she was curious.

  At the small, wrought-iron patio set arranged amidst the junglelike plants and flowers filling the room, Connor held out a chair for her and waited for her to sit before taking the opposite seat for himself.

  “You don’t know much about vampires, do you?” he asked.

  Jillian felt her cheeks heat and looked down at the intricate leaf-and-vine design of the tabletop, unable to meet his gaze. “No, I’m afraid not. Does it show?”

  He chuckled. “Just a little. But at least you’re willing to learn, which is more than can be said for the majority of mortal society.”

  Randall appeared in the solarium then, providing them with place settings and wineglasses. He poured a glass of Chablis for her and a glass of…well, she assumed it was blood, since it was much redder and thicker than any wine she’d ever seen…for Connor.

  After adding a low, crystal hurricane lamp with the tea-light already burning as a centerpiece—a rather romantic one, Jillian thought somewhat nervously, given that the only other illumination in the room came from scattered pockets of moonlight shining through the overhead window panes—he silently disappeared, leaving them alone once again.

  “Most of the humans I work with either think they know about vampires or pretend they do, faking it enough to get through meetings with me and hoping I won’t call them on it.”

  “Give them a bit of a Vampire 101 pop quiz, you mean?”

  “Exactly,” he said, flashing her a wide smile.

  Jillian could have sworn she saw the tip of a fang in that grin, and quickly grabbed her wine, taking a sip to cover the fact that her heart was suddenly beating faster and she was trying hard not to stare.

  “Would you like a lesson in what makes us tick, Jillian?” he inquired softly.

  She set her glass aside, licking her lips before replying. Did she? Was she brave enough to listen?

  “Will I be tested on the information later?” she asked.

  Tipping his head to one side, he murmured, “I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

  The soft, low timbre of his voice slithered through her like hot melted butter, turning her insides out.

  “Okay,” was the only thing her overheated brain could think to say.

  Randall reappeared to place two steaming plates of food in front of them. The simple scents of grilled flounder, steamed vegetables, and potatoes au gratin wafted up from the table, making her stomach growl again. But at least this time she could do something to appease it.

  “First, what we were discussing downstairs about Liam and Maeve,” he said as they each lifted their forks and began to eat. “How vampires become vampires to begin with. It’s simple, really. If a vampire bites a human, drains them of blood nearly to the point of death, and then allows that person to consume their blood, the human becomes vampire.”

  “What if a vampire bites a human, but doesn’t give that person their own blood?” she asked, her curiosity winning out over her uneasiness with the topic they were discussing.

  “Then the person doesn’t become a vampire, and it’s like any other bite one might receive—from a dog, a mosquito, or a rabid toddler. It might bleed and hurt for a while, but eventually the wound will heal. Vampire blood and saliva also contain an enzyme that speeds healing, so if the immortal doing the biting takes the time to…treat the wound, for lack of a better word, it heals that much faster. Almost instantaneously. That’s why you don’t see more donor humans walking around with bandages taped all over their bodies, looking like Egyptian mummies.”

  Jillian had heard the term donor before and knew it didn’t apply only to those who agreed to sacrifice their organs after death or voluntarily walked into the Red Cross to give blood. She’d also heard the term blood boy/girl to describe groupie-like humans who willingly became regular blood donors to vampires for the chance to be a part of their inner immortal circles.

  “Unfortunately, becoming a vampire brings with it a bit of arrested development,” Connor continued when she didn’t respond. “That’s why you don’t see vampire children. It’s…not forbidden, because we don’t exactly have ‘rules,’ but it is extremely frowned upon to turn a child. Whatever age a person is when they’re turned, that’s the age they remain forever—perhaps not when it comes to calendar years, but mentally and maturity-wise. And nobody wants to deal with a bunch of vampires going through their ‘terrible twos’ into infinity.”

  Pausing with a bite of fish halfway to her mouth, her eyes widened slightly. “So Liam and Maeve are…”

  “Perpetually twenty-one and nineteen—respectively,” Connor finished for her, the corners of his mouth tugging downward. “They’ve existed for over a hundred years, but they’ve never really grown up, and likely never will.”

  So much of the younger siblings’ attitudes and behavior suddenly made sense to her. It was a difficult concept to wrap her mind around—living in a state of permanent adolescence. Recalling some of the more traumatizing portions of her own youth, it sounded like a fate worse than death. Poor Maeve and Liam.

  And Connor. Though he didn’t look that much older than his brother and sister, he was so obviously more adult than they were.

  “So how old are you? Were you?” she wanted to know. Realizing how rude the question sounded, she cleared her throat and lowered her gaze to her plate, where she stabbed negligently at the potatoes. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. Women don’t like to be asked their age; I imagine men aren’t fond of it, either.”

  “It’s not a question I get very often, I admit,” he said, a devilish half-smile spreading across his face. “But I was thirty-six when I was turned.”

  Not counting the century or so he’d been immortal, he was only four years older than she was.

  “That’s quite an age gap,” she comm
ented. “I can understand why Liam and Maeve get on your nerves sometimes…and why they might think you’re a bit of a stick in the mud.”

  Connor made a noise that was somewhere between a snort and a chuckle. “Did they say that?”

  They had said a lot of things, not all of which she remembered verbatim—or would be willing to repeat to Connor or anyone else. “It was more the impression I got.”

  “I’ll bet,” he replied wryly, obvious humor in his tone.

  “But tonight went well,” she was quick to point out. Pushing her near-empty plate a few inches away and leaning forward to cross her arms on the edge of the table, she said, “You were good with them, and they were good about not acting out.”

  Taking a sip of…she would just think of it as A-positive, since the word blood still gave her a bit of the willies, and she remembered hearing one of the younger siblings mention it was one of Connor’s favorite…flavors? Types?

  Sigh. Learning to coexist with vampires was complicated. She almost felt as though she was touring a foreign country, having to stumble her way through learning a whole new language, a whole new culture.

  Lowering his glass, Connor’s stormy gray gaze locked on her, holding her attention like a hypnotist’s watch.

  “You were good with them,” he told her softly.

  Warmth suffused her body and climbed up her throat to her cheeks.

  And then that low heat burst into blue-white flames as he added in a near whisper, “I think you may be good for all of us.”

  BITE SEVEN

  It would be the perfect moment to kiss her, Connor thought. And he wanted to, almost desperately.

  The pink tingeing her skin made her seem both innocent and sexy at the same time, which was downright irresistible. If only this table wasn’t taking up so much damn space between them, he’d have his lips on her already, his hands skimming the gentle curves beneath her top and jeans.

  And suddenly he wanted that. Desperately. But since he knew how skittish she was—especially around him, Lord Dracula—he didn’t think he would gain any points by tossing the bit of metal aside and grabbing her like some demented creature in one of those terrible Bela Lugosi films that had given them all such a bad reputation to begin with.