The Bite Before Christmas

by Jeaniene Frost

  Startled, Teddy turned to find Katricia rushing down the stairs, his gun in hand, and pointing at the air as she loosed another bullet. He stared at her blankly, wondering how she’d got inside, grabbed his gun, and got back so fast, but then recalled immortals had incredible speed. He turned to peer back toward the bear, relieved to see the large back end of the beast disappearing into the trees. Apparently, the combination of his log and the gun was enough to make him decide against pursuing this meal.

  “Are you all right?” Katricia was in front of him, the moonlight enough to reveal the concern on her face. “I smell blood. Did he get you?”

  Teddy clutched the log in his hands, teeth gritting as he became aware of the burning in his chest, but merely shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, I’m fine,” he lied and turned away to move slowly toward the logs he’d dropped.

  “Teddy, your coat’s ripped,” Katricia said, following. “Let me see—”

  “I’m fine,” he growled, waving her away. “We need to get the wood and get inside in case he changes his mind and comes back. You can look at it then.”

  Katricia hesitated, but then hurried past the stairs and the end of the deck to quickly gather up the logs he’d dropped to go after the bear. Teddy was relieved not to have to do it himself. Now that the panic was over, the adrenaline was beginning to seep out of him and he was starting to feel weak and shaky.

  Leaving her to it, he stopped at the stairs and pressed the log he carried to his chest to free his other hand to hold the rail. He started up the four short steps, frowning at how much effort it took. By the last step, it was like climbing Mount Everest, and he was swaying, his hold on the rail the only thing keeping him upright.

  “Teddy?” The concern in Katricia’s voice made him straighten and force himself to take the two steps to the cottage door. He managed to pull it open and stagger inside. He even made it to the open inner door to the cottage, but then he was suddenly on his knees and slumping against the door frame, both arms now hugging the log to his chest, instinctively pressing it tight against the pain beginning to radiate there.

  “Teddy!”

  He heard the crash of the wood hitting the vestibule floor behind him and then Katricia was catching him under the arms. The log slipped from his hold and dropped to the floor as she lifted him to his feet from behind and propelled him out of the doorway and inside. The damned woman was practically carrying him like he weighed no more than a child, he thought with disgust as she moved him to a kitchen chair and set him in it. These immortal women could really be hard on a man’s ego.

  “Let me see.” She moved around in front of him and tried to pluck his arms away from his chest, but he merely turned away on the seat with annoyance.

  “Get the wood and close the door first. You’re letting all the heat out,” Teddy muttered.

  Cursing, Katricia hurried to do as he said. The moment she did, he sagged back in the chair and let his arms drop away so he could peer down at himself. The only light in the room was the fire in the fireplace. The two logs he’d put on before going outside were now burning merrily, but it didn’t really cast much light on the situation this far away. Still, he could make out enough to know he’d taken a serious injury. He could see the wound was long, tearing through his heavy winter coat at the right side of his upper chest and shooting down at a diagonal to his left hip. The animal’s claws had shredded through the cloth, insulation, and even the zipper . . . and, no doubt, his skin as well. He could see the sheen of blood in the dim light and was now aware of the dampness down his stomach and legs. His jeans were wet with his own blood, and liquid was trickling down his legs. Christ, he was bleeding badly, he thought with concern. And it was beginning to hurt like hell now.

  “Let me see.” Katricia was there again, turning the whole chair to face her, and this time Teddy didn’t try to stop her.

  Her reaction on first seeing the wound was a bit alarming. Immortals had better night vision than mortals, and he had no doubt she could see in this light as easily as if it were daylight. The dismay and horror on her face as she bent to look at his chest and stomach wasn’t encouraging, and then she was suddenly all activity and curses as she quickly set about removing his coat.

  “Why the hell did you do it?”

  That frustrated mutter caught his ear as Katricia finished with his coat and started on his sweater, simply ripping the tattered material to the sides.

  Opening eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, Teddy frowned at the top of her head and asked with confusion, “Do what?”

  “Attack the damned bear,” she snapped, now rending the shredded flannel top of his pajamas open as well.

  “I was trying to save you,” he muttered, swallowing when he saw that his skin was torn just as the material had been. It looked damned deep, too. Four gouges running diagonally from chest to hip like long ditches in his body.

  “I’m immortal. You should have let me handle him,” Katricia snapped, suddenly straightening to move to the sink.

  “Fine. Next time a bear’s around and you come out bellowing like a female moose drawing its attention, I’ll let the damned thing eat you,” Teddy growled irritably as she returned with a dish towel. When she began to mop at his chest, he winced against the pain and ground out, “Are you sure you want to do that? You’re wasting good blood. Maybe you should just lap it up while it’s on offer.”

  When Katricia raised her head and glared at him, Teddy grimaced and then gave a slight shrug, which made him wince again as he said, “It’s perfectly good blood and your delivery hasn’t arrived yet. Besides, it runs all the way down my legs. Could be fun to have you lick it up. It would certainly distract me from the pain.”

  When her eyes widened incredulously, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, muttering, “Ignore me. I think I’m delirious. Must be the aftereffects of that damned dream I had.”

  “We had,” Katricia corrected solemnly and continued to mop at his chest.

  Teddy struggled his eyes open and forced his head back up to stare at the top of her head again. “We?”

  “It was a shared dream,” she said without looking up, her concentration on trying to clean up enough blood to see the wound better, but the blood was still oozing out.

  “A shared dream?” he echoed, a slow smile replacing the pain on his expression. “So we are life mates?”

  Katricia merely nodded, her concentration on his wound, and Teddy grinned like an idiot for a moment, but then frowned and sighed.

  “Well, doesn’t that just figure? Turn out to be a life mate and die before I get to enjoy it,” he muttered with disgust and then drew in a hissing breath when she gave up trying to clean away the blood and pressed the cloth firmly to his chest and stomach to try to stop the bleeding.

  “You’re not going to die,” she said grimly, pressing harder on the wound. “I’ll turn you. It will be fine.”

  “You need blood for a turn and there isn’t any here. You can’t turn me,” Teddy said gently, and then forcing his head up and eyes open again, he took in the fear on her face and forced a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m too ornery and stubborn to die.”

  Katricia didn’t appear much reassured. Teddy supposed it was because his voice seemed to grow weaker with each word and they both knew they were empty anyway. He was pretty sure he was going to die. In fact, he was growing cold, which could be shock, but he suspected was loss of blood. He was bleeding out, Teddy thought, letting his eyes drift closed again.

  “Maybe you should put another log on the fire. It’s getting cold in here,” he muttered wearily just before darkness claimed him.

  Six

  Teddy woke up warm in a bed with just a sheet covering him to the waist and a mess of blankets gathered below his feet where he’d kicked them off. This was how he was used to waking up. However, he didn’t recognize the room he was in. The light was on, revea
ling soothing pale blue walls similar to his bedroom at home, but the furnishings were all wrong. The two dressers and bedside tables were all a light wood, the windows were covered by ice-blue blinds instead of his own, darker blue drapes, and the bed he was in was king-size and damned comfortable.

  He also wasn’t alone in the bed, Teddy noted, peering at the woman lying beside him in bed. Katricia in the overlarge T-shirt she’d been wearing in their shared dream. Even as he peered at her, she murmured sleepily and rolled toward him, flinging her arm over his chest, a chest that didn’t have gray hair sprouting out of it, he realized and lifted his head to look himself over. His chest was wide, his pecs defined, his stomach flat and missing the bit of a pot belly he’d gained over the last couple of years as age crept up on him. Now his skin stretched tight over muscle and bone, and a light mat of dark hair had replaced the gray hair on his chest, as well as on his arms . . . and his legs, he saw, shifting one out from under the sheet. His arms and legs were also as taut and sculpted, as they’d been when he was younger.

  And he wasn’t feeling a single ache or pain. Normally, he woke up to a stiffness that settled in while he slept, and it took a bit of time and some moving around for that to pass. He wasn’t suffering it now though. In fact, he felt damned good. Full of energy and . . . hell, he had a morning stiffy, too. Hadn’t had one of those in a while, he thought with a grin.

  That was when Teddy realized he was dreaming again. Must have passed out, he thought. He was probably still slouched in the kitchen chair with Katricia working over him, trying to save his life. It couldn’t be a shared dream, because while Katricia was wearing the same T-shirt, he’d still been his sixty-four-year-old self, not the strong, healthy specimen he’d been as a soldier. So he had to be having his own dream now.

  Either that or he was dead and this was heaven, Teddy supposed. He wouldn’t have thought he could have Katricia with him in heaven, since she was probably still alive, but he guessed maybe you got what you wanted in heaven, and if so, this would be it. Katricia and a bed. Teddy was pretty sure that was definitely heaven for him.

  The thought made him smile faintly. Just a day ago, he would have said that heaven to him would have been a nice walk through the woods with Elvi, like they used to do as teenagers. What a difference a day could make, he thought wryly and then glanced down to Katricia as she murmured sleepily and shifted her leg along his under the sheet. Her bare leg against his bare leg, he noted with interest. He wasn’t the only one interested in this fact. Little Teddy showed his own fascination by perking up as if trying to look around under the sheet.

  Teddy lowered the hand that had been resting up by his head and ran it lightly over Katricia’s back on top of the T-shirt. The light touch made her sigh and start to roll into it, and he quickly lifted his arm away to keep it from being trapped against the bed as she rolled onto her back. When she then lay still, he eased onto his side and peered at her. She looked sweet and innocent in her sleep, with none of the wicked humor that often peeked out of her expression when she was teasing him. He actually kind of missed that. Teddy liked that streak of naughtiness in her, the sexy smiles, the teasing glint in the eyes as her gaze raked his body, the unapologetic glee in her expression as she hit him with a snowball or trounced him in cards. The uninhibited pleasure she had expressed over the simple fare they’d had to eat, and the pleasure they’d briefly experienced in their shared dream.

  Katricia brought the young Teddy out in him, the man who enjoyed life and wasn’t so burdened down with responsibilities. He’d grown cynical after years of being a cop, but she made him feel like the world could be a good place. She made him feel alive again . . . which was pretty ironic, since he was probably dead, he supposed. But it was hard to care much about that when he was here with her. Whether it was a dream or heaven, he didn’t care. He was ready to enjoy it.

  Smiling, Teddy plucked at the sheet covering them both from the waist down and drew it slowly away until her bare legs were revealed. He then kicked it off himself as well as he gazed over her. Teddy had noted before that she had an athlete’s body, and now found himself unable to resist sliding his hand over the top of her near leg, starting just above the knee and running it up to the hem of her T-shirt where it ended at the top of her thighs.

  Katricia breathed out a little sigh and shifted onto her side again, facing him as his fingers drifted over the taut, muscled leg.

  She could have been a runner, he thought, moving his hand from the leg that was now closest to the bed and shifting it to rest on her upper leg. He slid it upward to her hip, pushing the T-shirt ahead of it, and his gaze skated over every inch of skin revealed as he continued to push the light cloth upward. It was large and loose, and he’d pushed the cloth up to the underside of her breast before she moaned and rolled onto her back.

  Teddy followed, bending over her to claim the far nipple as his fingers pushed the cotton over the mound. He drew it between his lips and suckled at it, his eyes widening incredulously as the action sent pleasure tingling through his own body. It made him suckle harder, and then graze it with his teeth, which just intensified the sensations running through him, and he moaned, vaguely aware of Katricia releasing a sleepy moan of her own.

  Releasing her nipple, he lifted his head to peer at her, but she was still asleep. Her mouth was parted now though, and her breathing was shallow. Watching her face, he slid his hand to her breast, covered it, and gently squeezed, then squeezed again before catching the nipple between thumb and forefinger and tweaking it lightly.

  Katricia moaned again, her head turning on the pillow, and Teddy had to bite his lip to keep from moaning with her. Damn, he was experiencing her pleasure, he realized. Like a life mate was supposed to be able to do. This had to be heaven, he decided and lowered his head to her other breast and began to minister to it with his mouth as his hand released her first breast and slid down across her stomach to dip between her legs. She was warm and already wet. He wasn’t surprised; little Teddy was certainly excited by the sensations coursing through them. The little trooper was already standing at attention, but straightened even more as Teddy slid his fingers over Katricia’s damp skin, sending shaft after shaft of pleasure through them both, exciting them further.

  Teddy had been with a lot of women in his day and had always considered himself a generous lover, but damn, he hadn’t realized just how good he was. It was no damned wonder he’d never wanted for female companionship.

  The arrogant thought ran through his head as he let his mouth explore her body, laving and nipping his way from one breast to the other, but he stopped thinking altogether and simply allowed himself to feel and experience as his mouth followed the path his hand had taken and began to lick its way down her stomach.

  Katricia woke up gasping for air and making little panting squeaks of sound. Her body was burning up from a fire centered between her legs. For one moment, she simply lay there, staring at the ceiling of the bedroom in her cousin’s cottage as wave after wave of passion poured over her, but then she recalled how she’d got there and why and concern pushed enough of the passion aside to allow her to look for Teddy.

  She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised to find his head buried between her legs, causing the fire eating her alive; nothing and no one else had made her burn like he did. But Katricia was surprised. She’d sat up with him for more than twenty-four hours as he’d gone through the turn, feeding him bag after bag of blood to get him through it, terrified through most of it that between his age, the injury he’d sustained, and the amount of blood he’d lost he wouldn’t survive. When the worst of it was over and he still lived, Katricia had finally allowed herself to sleep, but she’d climbed into bed next to him to be sure he didn’t wake up alone and confused. The last thing she’d expected was to find him—

  “Oh God,” she gasped, her thoughts scattering as Teddy pushed a finger up into her even as he continued with what he was doi
ng. The pleasure that rolled through her then was so overwhelming it was almost terrifying. It was too much. She couldn’t—

  “Teddy!” Katricia cried, grabbing his hair and tugging almost viciously in her desperation to make him stop. She couldn’t catch her breath and felt like she was drowning in the pleasure he was causing. It was slamming through her body and crashing into her brain in repeated, pitiless waves, and then he responded to her tugging, stopped what he was doing, and rose up, moving up her body. But her respite was short-lived, because then he was sliding into her even as his lips claimed hers.

  Katricia groaned into his mouth. It had been a long time since anyone had been inside her body and he felt so damned good there. Her arms and legs wrapped around his shoulders and hips, and she held on for dear life as he thrust into her. If she was going to drown, at least she wouldn’t go alone, Katricia thought, clinging to him with everything she had, even her lips. Her mouth was almost suctioned to his until he broke their kiss and moved his lips to her ear, muttering, “You smell so damned good.”

  Katricia merely groaned and nuzzled his ear back, nipping at it as his body pounded into hers. When she felt his teeth sink into her neck, her eyes blinked open with surprise, and then she screamed as a final, redoubled wave of pleasure crashed through her, a tsunami that rolled through her mind, dragging it under to the murky depths.

  Katricia woke up some time later and opened her eyes to find herself peering over a blood bag at Justin Bricker’s smiling face. Frowning around the bag in her mouth, she half sat up, and then paused to catch the sheet that started to slip off of her naked body. Glancing around, she saw Teddy lying on his back next to her, with Anders holding a bag to his mouth as well. He was still unconscious.

  “You let him bite you.”

  Katricia turned to peer at Bricker at that comment. He actually tsked as he said it, and she scowled at him around the bag. She hadn’t let Teddy bite her, he’d caught her by surprise. Not that she’d minded. It had been . . . well. . .