by Aja James
Oh yes, Devlin would agree emphatically with that.
She got off her barstool and walked around the counter toward him.
Or rather, stalked around the counter. Like a feline predator.
“So you’re a vampire,” she stated solemnly.
“We call ourselves Dark Ones,” he informed her, watching her move closer and closer, until she was standing immediately before him.
Without preamble, she touched a fingertip to the notch at the base of his throat.
The sensation was so evocative Devlin almost fell off his stool.
“Do you drink blood to survive or because you enjoy it?”
She used the same fingertip to trace each wing of his collar bones, her eyes following the trail with a mesmerized intensity.
Devlin swallowed. His skin where she touched was breaking out in goosebumps. Fine hairs all over his body raised to attention like reeds in a stiff breeze.
“Definitely the first, and sometimes the latter.”
She moved as close to him as his seat on the stool would allow, her hands bracing on each of his spread thighs. He fought to shift restlessly when she flexed her fingers against his denim-clad legs, kneading the tensed muscles beneath like a cat. He thought he even heard her purr.
“I want to know all about your kind,” she said softly, almost whispering. “But not right now. Right now I have just one more question.”
Devlin’s adrenaline revved up as if he were an Olympic triathlete poised at the starting line.
“What’s that?”
“What did you bring for dessert?” she inquired in that low, sultry voice of hers, now smoky with lust.
He’d forgotten about dessert. She’d mentioned before in the chat room that she didn’t usually like sweets.
“I—”
“How considerate,” she interrupted, pressing forward to lick his notch with the flat of her tongue in a long, hot, wet glide.
Fissures of pleasure streaked through Devlin’s body like lightning bolts, straight to his cock and hardening it in an instant.
“You brought yourself,” she answered for him, and then declared, “I’d like to have my dessert now, Devlin Sinclair. I’d like to have you.”
*** *** *** ***
Estelle Martin sat on her bed in the small inner chamber that was little more than a box carved out of the back of the shop, everything built-in, including the bed, closets, shelves, and matching end tables.
No windows to let in any light.
She’d been sitting there for hours now, well into the night. For once, her shop was blanketed in darkness, not a single lamp turned on, not even the twinkle lights she used out front.
She sat there in silence, in her old-woman form, not bothering to change back into her true self, as if being in someone else’s body helped to keep her own memories and experiences at bay.
Tal-Telal.
After thousands of years, he was here. In her shop. Not two feet before her.
He’d held out his hand to her.
Her mind skittered away from that image and focused on other aspects of the encounter.
Dark Goddess, but he’d changed!
It was as if her hatred, thirst for vengeance, all her pent up rage and resentment over the millennia toward the world at large and him in particular had manifested in his physical form. She’d only glimpsed him for brief seconds before she all but ran away, but she could recall every single detail of what she saw.
Once, he’d been so golden and bright he rivaled the very sun in the height of summer. And now he was winter incarnate.
His hair had been ruthlessly shaved, and what remained looked tough and brittle whereas she remembered long, silky tresses, thick and soft. It was a dull silver now, streaked with white, instead of the color of finely-spun gold glinting beneath the full blast of sun.
His skin, once a light honeyed tone, was now pale as death and stretched so thin over his flesh and bones she could see clearly every delicate vein beneath it. What she could see of it, at least, given that he’d been mostly covered in black fabric from head to toe.
His face bore lines where it had always been smooth and youthful. There were faint brackets around his mouth, creases between his brows, deep grooves in his cheeks. As if he frowned a lot. Suffered a lot. In contrast, there were no lines at the corners of his eyes. As if he never laughed. Never smiled.
And then there was his most arresting, defining feature: those brilliant turquoise eyes that had shone with an inner light like stars burning within the heart of laser-cut gems.
They no longer shone. They no longer burned.
They were cloudy and opaque like sand kicked up under powerful waves. His eyes seemed turbulent and unfocused now. And whereas once those eyes saw straight into the heart of any matter, any being, now they couldn’t see what was immediately in front of him.
He was blind.
A sharp phantom pain exploded in her heart at the realization of how much he must have suffered. How much pain he must have endured. But she ruthlessly shoved the empathetic impulse into the periphery of her consciousness, buried so deep in the dessert wasteland of her heart no one would be able to find it, least of all herself.
There was a time when his pain was hers. When he dictated the rhythm of her heart, the cadence of her breath.
No longer. Never again.
She hadn’t painstakingly sawed away her connection to him over hundreds and thousands of years just to be drawn back into his orbit now.
Even so, her hands fisted on her thighs involuntarily, bracing against the maelstrom of emotions that assaulted her.
Anguish. Sorrow. Anger. Regret. Longing. Self-loathing. Confusion. All in their most intense, most concentrated extremes.
But above all, one awareness eclipsed all others and clamored to the fore:
Raw hunger.
She shifted into her natural form as sharp fangs punched through her gums, dripping with saliva. A long, primal hiss emerged from her throat and ended on a growl.
Even now, after millennia apart, after she’d sworn to herself she’d never succumb again to temptation, she wanted him.
Craved him.
His blood in her mouth. His seed in her womb. His body all around and inside of her.
And she would have him, she vowed. She would have him on her own terms this time. She would have her fill until this burning need was exorcised from her body, mind and soul.
Until she fully achieved that ultimate state that was the antithesis of all-consuming, heart-rending love:
Cold indifference.
*** *** *** ***
Twelve miles away in Manhattan, Tal lay awake in bed, staring unseeingly at the ceiling.
Everything over the last few hours were a blur. Somehow, he’d gotten back to the rental apartment Inanna’s Mate had prepared. There might have been a cab ride, because he couldn’t recall whether his feet or legs were able to function. There had been talk amongst his daughter, Sophia and Benji as they hurried him out of the shop. He’d heard none of it for the roaring blood in his ears.
From the snippets of conversation he’d caught between Inanna and Gabriel when they returned, she seemed to think that his odd behavior was due to stress and exhaustion from being out too long.
She didn’t seem to know who the owner of the shop really was.
Tal blinked once. Twice.
It had been centuries since he’d lost the last residuals of sight, but he still kept his eyes open when awake, blinked as if his dead eyeballs still required rest and lubrication, as if he were still a seeing male.
Habits were hard to break.
One habit in particular was etched forever into the very essence of his being.
Arammu, mi shi. My love, breath of my life, my soul.
There was not a day that went by that he didn’t think of her. Indeed, it was the image of her in his memory, his dreams, that kept him sane over the years. Although the hope of reuniting with his daughter had given him a go
al to strive for, it was the knowledge that she was alive somewhere in the world, safe and whole, that kept his heart beating.
He swallowed as tears burned behind his eyes and spread corrosively through his nasal cavity and throat.
She’d seen him.
She’d recognized him.
There was no mistake in her sharp intake of breath when he’d turned to face her.
He should have known better than to reach out to her. It had been an involuntary gesture that he hadn’t even realized he was making until he’d absorbed the impact of her rejection as he heard her hastily walk away from him.
Why should it shrivel his heart and shred his soul now, her immediate and unequivocal rejection? After how they’d parted that last time, he should be grateful she hadn’t spat at him or cursed him into everlasting hell.
Whether she cursed him or not, he had been to hell and back. Perhaps he was still there.
He almost wished she’d attacked him. He deserved it for hurting her. Betraying her. Breaking the beautiful, loving heart that she’d entrusted into his care. But then she’d have touched him, and he didn’t think he could have withstood it.
It didn’t matter the whys of what he’d done. It didn’t matter the horrors and devastation he’d endured in the millennia that followed. None of it was penance enough for hurting her so irrevocably.
Like shooting down the brightest star in the sky.
The burning pain in his heart spread through his veins and arteries like wildfire, reigniting the countless wounds still unhealed all over his body.
Tal squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw tight against the onslaught. He could not see it, but he felt his old wounds festering within him, roiling under his skin, blooming black and blue and hideous green beneath the paper thin epidermis that stretched tenuously over his decaying flesh and bones.
Rain, the Pure Healer, had warned him of this. The symptoms of his “condition” were similar to the Decline that Pure Ones experienced when they loved the wrong person, someone who could not or would not reciprocate. Except that the Decline lasted thirty days before the Pure One either chose death or became a vampire. Not every Pure One was given the choice, however; the Goddess alone held their Destinies.
Tal’s condition had lasted millennia. Somehow, death had not come for him, and though he often battled the desire to take his own life just to stop this breathtaking pain, he stubbornly refused to succumb to a cowardly end.
But now, whatever it was, this gnawing disease within him, had been triggered in full by her presence. He could barely draw breath at the mind bending agony that devoured him, as if all the torture he’d endured in captivity were now revisited upon him.
En force. At once.
His blunt nails dug bloody dents into his palms as he fisted his hands at his sides to keep from screaming. Every muscle and sinew tightened to the point of breaking, and his torso arched off the mattress as if stretched raw on a rack.
But even as the unending agony blasted through his body, his blood heated with a different kind of fire, shooting like lightning through his veins, making them stand out like tree roots against his skin. At the same time, his manhood elongated and swelled, becoming so painfully hard that he bucked his hips in helpless need.
The need to feed her. The need to fill her.
The Undeniable. Desperate. Drive.
To Mate.
Chapter Seven
Devlin did not know the exact time he woke up but his body told him it was well into the middle of the day.
Contrary to popularized fiction, vampires did not turn to dust under the sun’s rays. At least, not his Kind.
No, they were merely induced to sleep throughout the day. It was a biological imperative so strong, that weaker, newer vampires could pass out stone cold at the slightest exposure. To rest better, safe and undisturbed, vampires of old used sarcophaguses as beds, which led to the modern extrapolation that vampires slept in coffins.
Personally, Devlin preferred the Westin Heavenly bed. He’d had one of gigantic proportions specifically made for his chamber back at the Cove since he was a male who liked to have room to spread out in slumber.
The bed he currently slept on was definitely a Heavenly bed as well, he could tell from the way his body seemed enfolded by clouds, the way his pillow supported his head like soft, comforting arms or a warm, feminine lap.
But the bed was not his own.
He sat up slowly, lethargically, feeling the effects of the sun outside even though no natural light entered Grace’s basement apartment, the shutters on the clerestory windows high up in the walls blocking all daylight.
Wow. This was a first.
Devlin had never slept in someone else’s home before, much less someone else’s bed. He had a fundamental distrust of people, and only through hundreds of years of interaction had he built up enough faith in his Chosen comrades to call them friends.
And look what happened. There had been a traitor amongst them all this time. She was no longer a threat, but it just went to show that deceit was insidious and nothing could be taken for granted.
But here he was, trusting a virtual stranger with his life after just a brief online acquaintance and two nights of no-strings-attached sex.
She could have called some government experimental lab to take him away in a straightjacket in the middle of his dead-to-the-world slumber and he wouldn’t have known. She could have put a few bullets into his head and heart (recovery was not impossible, but it sure would have hurt) and he would have been none the wiser.
Thankfully, Grace Darling did none of those things. All of Devlin’s limbs were intact. No blood or guts smeared anywhere. No handcuffs or bindings to keep him prisoner.
He looked around the cavernous studio. Where was she anyway?
He got up from the bed and walked around, leisurely taking in the apartment and securing the perimeter. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No hidden cameras, weapons or monsters.
A plate awaited him on the kitchen counter, however. Slices of bananas and two macarons were arranged in the shape of a happy face. A cup of coffee, still hot in its thermos, sat beside it.
A smile involuntarily tilted Devlin’s lips at the sight.
She’d made him breakfast.
He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had ever made a meal for him, simple though it was. When he’d lived as a human, scores of servants fulfilled his every request. His father the Duke had not been stingy about hiring the best help, the cook included.
But as Devlin dug into the light repast, he couldn’t recall a time when his belly had been more satisfied. A feeling of fullness, not just of the stomach, but his very being, enveloped him.
Finishing the last drop of the strong, rich, perfectly brewed coffee, he padded nude into the luxurious bathroom at the back and availed himself to the shower. Afterwards, he wrapped a large towel around his hips and went back into the common area.
Still no Grace.
He wondered briefly whether he should hack into one of the many laptops she had spread out on the large dining table and see if he could find any information on Zenn himself. But not knowing when she’d be back, he didn’t want to take the risk.
Besides, she seemed genuinely open to helping him find some answers from her employer. It would certainly save him a lot of trouble, but more importantly, he just couldn’t stomach sneaking around behind her back now that they were…
Well, whatever it was they were, he didn’t want to betray her trust.
As if his thoughts conjured her, the back door opened behind the kitchen to admit Grace, arms full of something furry along with a bright red notebook.
“It’s almost lunch time,” she said by way of greeting. “Do you want to go out or eat here?”
Devlin was still half asleep given the fact that A, it was daytime when vampires needed to rest and B, he was yet again exhausted to the roots of his hair from the marathon sex the night before.
Honestly, he di
dn’t know how it was possible the things she got his body to do. It was almost as if she were his Blooded Mate the way his sex obeyed her every command, so hard for so long and used so well he thought the thing might just fall off at the end of it.
So no, he didn’t feel up to going out. He wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep for a few uninterrupted days. Maybe weeks.
But he was a bit peckish, despite having just had a snack. His stomach growled in confirmation. His body demanded the replenishment of fuel after all that exertion. A few rare steaks wouldn’t go amiss.
“What do you have?” he asked, not particularly hopeful. He’d noticed last night that her fridge was mostly empty.
She put the furry thing—her pet chinchilla—back into its cage, stored the red notebook in a side drawer and walked to the front door.
Instead of opening it, she looked over at the digital clock in the upper oven.
“It’s almost noon,” she said, as if anticipating an event that was about to happen.
Devlin knew that she always had her lunch promptly at noon, but unless food was about to magically appear, they were going to dine on bread and butter and a few leaves of salad.
Unless…
The buzzer sounded in the front door. And before Devlin could fortify himself (or at least make a mad dash for his pants!) Grace opened the door as her aunt Maria squeezed inside, a loaded bag in each hand.
“Phew!” the elderly woman said as she got across the threshold, “it’s hot out there! Just barely July and already ninety-five degrees! Must be that global warming trend everybody’s talking about. I just about—”
And that was when she clapped eyes on Devlin, standing in the middle of the room like a twat, buck naked but for a low-slung towel.
“How do you do,” Devlin greeted in his most respectful, solemn voice, holding out a hand to shake.
In situations like these, it was better to pretend the Emperor did indeed have new clothes.
The old lady dropped her bags to the floor as her mouth went slack and her eyes rounded into saucers.