The New Vampire Read online

  Eric smiled and the glow in his eyes went soft and dreamy. “That was you, on our wedding night after the first time we made love. You’ve got a real thing for cheesecake.”

  “I do?”

  Jason snickered. “Oh, yeah. You wouldn’t believe the midnight runs we made while you were…”

  Eric glanced sideways at Jason, cutting him off in mid-word. “We can talk about that later. She needs blood now, not cheesecake.”

  I grabbed his hand, holding him to me. “No, I think I want the cheesecake now, too.” Or not the cheesecake, exactly, but the way the woman in my memory had felt. Safe. I hadn’t felt that way in a long, long time and I wanted to, so much. The need to be that way again pressed at me, urgent and keen and as hungry as anything I’d ever known, even the vicious craving for blood when my own ran too thickly in my veins. “Can you get me some?”

  Jason flopped back onto the bed, laughing hard as Eric’s smile stretched into a grin. He touched his forehead to mine. “I should never have fed you cheesecake on our first date. I wish you could remember that, too, how your eyes lit up with every bite and the way we felt then.”

  Jason rolled over and cupped Eric’s shoulder. “No more making memories without me.”

  “Now who’s jealous?” Eric said mildly. “Give me your wrist. If we’re gonna do this, we might as well do it right.”

  They shifted until they were kneeling on either side of me, facing each other. Jason held Eric’s wrist to his lips with one hand and sank his fangs in, latched on with his mouth as Eric did the same to the wrist of Jason’s other hand.

  God, that’s so good. Jason, his eyes flickering across the both of us. I love having your blood inside me.

  Eric, humming against Jason’s skin. I love having you inside me, all of you. Later?

  Jason, eyes glowing bright. Oh, yeah, babe. Deep and hard and beautiful.

  “I want deep and hard and beautiful, too.”

  Eric choked on a laugh and lost his grip on Jason’s wrist. Blood trickled slowly along the skin. I followed it with my eyes as it rolled down, slow and red and rich, and my gums tingled around my lengthening fangs.

  “Sorry. Didn’t expect you to hear us so clearly.” Eric lapped the excess blood up. “Here, Jase, give your wrist to her while I take off her panties.”

  Jason held Eric’s wrist for a moment more, closing the wounds, maybe, and then his mouth found mine. His lips parted and he sucked lightly, licked his tongue along the seam of my lips. Open for me. His need bore down on my mind and I wanted to please him, needed to in spite of the warning he’d given me not to. I opened my mouth wide enough to accept his tongue, still coated with Eric’s blood, luscious, heavenly. I lapped at it with my own, taking every drop of the precious fluid I could find. Jason groaned and shoved his hand up my shirt, his skin rough on mine. He cupped my breast, teasing the nipple, rolling it gently between his fingers, plucking it until it hardened into a throbbing nub of heat…

  (…gonna make you come. His eyes hot, so very hot, his hips moving against mine, my mouth at his throat, savoring him. Come so hard…)

  Eric’s hands drifted down my body, skidding over my skin in delicious rubs. He dipped his fingers into the top of my panties and tugged, and I lifted my hips for him. Jason’s hand abandoned my breast and I moaned into his mouth…

  (…give it back to me. Cold metal under my skin, the bars breaking me. It’s mine, give it back…)

  His fingers touched my clitoris, pulling on it with the same gentle tugs he’d used on my breast. I arched into his hand, into the heat gathering there, pooling into that single point of contact, building within me into a fierce ache. I needed something, needed it now. I grabbed Jason’s nape, deepened our kiss, and dug my nails into him, breaking the skin. His blood welled up, tantalizingly close, and his fingers shifted, circling my clit in quick rubs, faster, harder, until my hips writhed under his touch.

  Eric’s hands pinned my hips to the bed a moment before his dick nudged at my pussy, and then he slid into me, sheathing himself fully within my welcoming heat, and I shuddered. This was what I’d needed, this is what I’d craved. He thrust into me, silky and hard, his erection dragging along my inner skin in delicious pulls and pushes.

  “Give her your blood now,” he said, and his voice was thick and low and full of desire, the same desire filling me.

  Jason broke our kiss and shifted away from me, replacing his mouth with his wrist, still damp with blood. Eric thrust into me hard and held himself there as he stretched out above me, covering me with his warm weight, our skin meshed tightly together. I ran my tongue over the tiny wounds he’d left in Jason’s wrist, tasting the both of them, Eric’s mouth, Jason’s blood…

  (…fucking beautiful, what the three of us are…)

  Eric’s hips flexed, sliding his dick in and out of me, wondrously slow and hard. “Put your legs around me, Gigi.”

  I did, lifting them up and wrapping them around his back. He shoved a hand under my butt, between it and the mattress, and yanked me tight against him, creating something blissfully raw and wonderful with every thrust. Pleasure pulsed through me, sweeping me along in its wake. I sank my fangs into Jason’s wrist, savoring the ebb of blood over my tongue, piquant and dark, so unlike Eric’s. Jason flinched, and then he shoved his briefs down with his other hand and pulled his cock out, stiff and long and thick, and encircled it with his fingers.

  Eric’s breaths came in hard puffs over the back of Jason’s wrist. “Mine, now, Jase. Please God. I’m so close.”

  Jason tugged at his wrist. I shook my head and pressed it harder to my mouth. His blood was so good, and I needed it, needed more, needed Eric fucking me while Jason’s essence dripped down my throat.

  “You can have more later, promise,” he said gently. “We have to jumpstart the bond, and to do that, you need more of Eric’s blood.”

  I dutifully laved my tongue over Jason’s wrist, closing the flow of blood off, and let him go. He pulled his wrist away, brought it to his mouth, and licked over the skin, his cornflower blue eyes holding mine. Taking you into me.

  A moment later, Eric’s throat was at my mouth and Jason moved away and all I could remember was the hunger rippling through me. I struck, digging my fangs into the pulse beating beneath Eric’s skin, lifting my hips up to meet his as he pounded into me, fucking me so hard, so good. His blood splashed across my tongue, complex, sweet, and he moaned or I moaned or Jason moaned, and the shadows leapt into my mind, a voracious morass, crowding everything else out…

  (…do anything they asked of me. Cold, empty, cold. Tired of being alone…)

  And then the light came, supplanting the shadows. Warmth spread over my mind, they, Jason and Eric combined in a way I didn’t understand. They waited for me, reaching out, beckoning me closer, luring me into their love.

  Gianna, come to us.

  The thought had a strange echo, one I’d felt before.

  Come to us. Enter us.

  Above me, Eric thrust one last time and his dick throbbed with the orgasm shuddering through him. His satisfaction radiated outward, washing over me, separate and apart from they, but strong, tempting. Jason’s finger slid between my lips and Eric’s throat, breaking the seal, startling me into letting Eric go. He levered himself off of me, one hand clutching his neck, and then Jason slid into the place Eric had vacated, taking my hands with him, holding them above my head against the bed, secure in one massive hand.

  “Gonna fuck you so hard, baby.” Make you come, make you beg. He pushed his dick into me, slow and gentle, stretching me. “God, you’re so tight, so wet, so…”

  His voice trailed off as I sank my fangs into his pulse, drinking him in, savoring his blood. It mingled with Eric’s inside of me, stretching me in a different way, expanding everything outward until our three minds were melded intimately together, still separate, but so close they seemed a part of me. I reached into them, searching for something good, something I’d lost, and found it in a connection that fl
owed between them, graceful like a slender rope anchored heavily in each of their minds and thinning in the space between them.

  I wanted that…

  (…it’s mine, give it back to me…)

  Needed it, longed to have what they had. I touched my consciousness to their connection.

  “That’s it, sweetheart,” Eric said, his voice close to my ear. “Don’t be afraid.”

  Jason pulled out slightly, then shoved himself into me again, hard, harder than Eric had. I inhaled sharply through my nose and moaned against his throat when he did it again. Eric’s fingers tangled in my hair, tugging gently, and that connection drew me in. Jason fucked me and his blood blended with Eric’s in my mouth and the yearning rose in me to be a part of them, forever a part of them, the way we were meant. I extended my mind outward and skimmed it along their connection, searching for a way in, some hole or weakness, and touched a memory…

  (…three hands on white, gold rings, platinum, love and friendship…)

  That was us. We were they. Meant, it was meant, what we had was meant to be.

  I wedged my mind into that memory, into the connection, and lightning shot through me, brutally twisting through my mind, taking the shadows with it. I arched under Jason’s heavy weight and jerked away from him, losing my grip on his throat…

  (…arms engulfing me and Eric, laughter, we’re gonna have a baby…)

  The connection sucked me in, a whirling vortex of sound and imagery rushing past me in fits and starts.

  “Jesus, Jase, she’s seizing.”

  “Fuck. Call Elizabet.”

  “They’re on their way.”

  I glided along with it, away from the shadows, drifting through the light. Dimly, I felt hands pinching into my limbs, forcing them onto the bed. Heard urgently spoken words, but those were part of the shadow. It was the light I wanted, the light I craved, the light they had given me. I wanted it, wanted it back, wanted the good and the tender, the kind and the sweet, needed it, yearning, craving, clawing, biting, needed it and the blood…

  (…everywhere, all over me. GetawayEmilyrunbabyrun…)

  The baby. I had to find the baby. Where was she? The shadows, they had my baby. They’d consumed her the way they’d fed on me, filling their emptiness, selfish greedy shadows. They’d taken the light, taken the happy light, boiled through me like acid, eating away at me until I was a shell of hatred and fury and cold, shaking with it, lost, lost, lost…

  (…come here, little Gianna. A woman, her eyes wild, reeking of blood and madness. Come to me and I’ll leave your family alone. Come along, now, child.

  You’re lying. My heart thundered in my ears. Mom and Dad. Had they had time to get out? Had Emily? I know what you want, Selena. I know you want Eric. I can feel it in you.

  She laughed, cold, savage. I want him, yes, have since the first moment I saw him. You’re the key, pretty little girl. Come to me. I’ll be gentle.

  No, Selena. I tamped down on the fear racing through me, clamped it down tight, hiding it away. Eric and Jason would come to me. They would hear me and come. You can’t have me and you can’t have him. You’ll never have him.

  Foolish girl. As if a weakling mortal could stop me. She leapt for me and I scrambled away, screaming as her fingernails lengthened and sharpened and clawed through my skin like a knife through tissue, and I arched as Eric and Jason popped into my mind, joining me, snapping us all into one.

  Selena raked her claws over me again and her fingers caught on my shirt, holding me in place. I struggled against her, tripping over my own feet as we skidded along the blood-soaked carpet, and then she was on me, holding me down, and her fangs ripped through my throat, and I screamed even as I knew I couldn’t let Jason and Eric see me like this. It would kill them to watch me die, to feel my body growing cold and my soul slipping away. I sent a final thought through one to them, all of my love, every piece of it, and then I deliberately shattered one into a million tiny fragments as Selena slurped greedily at my throat, draining me, and the shadows engulfed what was left of my mind…)

  Chapter Seven

  Light pierced the shadows.

  I groaned, shifted, placed a hand over my tightly closed eyes. A dull ache pounded in my skull, beating at my mind with every thwoosh of my heart. The surface under me was soft, giving, comfortable. I slid my leg down, then up, and stopped when my knee bumped into something solid.

  “Gianna, dearling.” A hand smoothed over my shoulder, soothing and kind. “You have awakened.”

  “I’m…” I coughed, clearing the roughness from my throat. “Where am I?”

  “In your bedroom. Alice showed it to you last night. Do you remember?”

  Alice, Alice. An image of a sweet woman with curly blonde hair and deep blue eyes filtered through the pain. “She helped me bathe.”

  “Yes, she did.” Relief flooded the voice. “She helped you bathe and dress, and brought you downstairs to us.”

  Dinky. He’d shown me to the parlor where…something waited. No, someone. “I remember going downstairs. Grandmother was there with her man. He was very kind to me.”

  A sigh, disappointed. I remembered that, too. My eyes popped open and my vision flooded white as the light stabbed at me. I covered my eyes with my hands, only enough to dim the light, and blinked until I could see clearly. The woman sitting beside me wore a thin flannel robe. Her long, black hair was pinned to the crown of her head and her legs were curled up under her.

  “Grandmother.”

  She smiled. “I was afraid you had forgotten.”

  I shook my head, winced as the ache worsened, hammering at me.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I got run over by something really big and mean. My head is all fuzzy and achy, and my skin feels kind of sensitive, a little bruised, maybe. I don’t remember why, though. What happened?”

  “You had an interesting night.”

  Her voice held a wry note I seldom heard from her. “I did?”

  “Indeed. Do you remember anything else?”

  “Supper.” Eating a salad and falling into the Before. Someone beside me, protecting me. No, two someones, one hazel, the other blue. I pressed trembling fingers to my forehead. No, that wasn’t right either. It was there, what those colors were, standing just outside of memory, melting away every time I reached for meaning. “I want to remember.”

  “You will, in time.” Her hand squeezed mine, soothing, comforting, the way a grandmother’s touch should feel. “Are you strong enough to bathe on your own?”

  I sat up gingerly, easing my way up. A fragrance tugged at me, faint and evocative. I sniffed delicately, found Grandmother’s scent (roses) and my own (melon) and a woodsy-spicy something. “Was there a man in here last night?”

  “What do you think?”

  I sniffed again, focusing on the masculine. It felt like one, but smelled of two…

  (…fucking beautiful…)

  Laughter and light, a large man holding me to his chest and a slender one…

  (…love you, so much…)

  Lifting me high, lifting me above the shadows…

  (…come back to us, Gigi. We need you, all of you…)

  I gasped as the memories flooded in, tumbling about in my head, over and under and around themselves, twisting into me, a dizzying array of sensations and sounds and images, disjointed and fractured. My heart galloped and my breath went shallow and my hand tightened like a vise over Grandmother’s. I didn’t want this, didn’t want the Before to sweep me back into the shadows. Why didn’t anyone understand? I couldn’t go back there, couldn’t go back to the pain.

  “Contain it, Gianna. You must control yourself.”

  Couldn’t stand the thought of losing them again, couldn’t bear to be alone, forever without them…

  (…give it back, give it back to me…)

  Couldn’t live without them anymore, no more…

  (…three hands, fingers touching, forever…)

  “Three became
one,” I breathed, and snapped into the Now. “Eric, Jason. I lost them.”

  “No, dearling. Shh. They were never lost.” Grandmother skimmed the backs of her fingers over my cheek, over and over again. “Those two would never leave you.”

  She was wiping away my tears. I touched the skin under my eyes, swiped the wetness from them. “Where are they? Can I see them?”

  “They waited as long as they could, waited until they knew you would recover, and made me promise to sit with you as long as you slept.”

  A horrible heaviness settled within me and surged upward, clogging my throat, taking my breath. “They left me?”

  “No, dearling, no. They merely had to return home, only for a few days. Their outside obligations are complicated and engrossing, else they would never have gone.”

  “But you said…” I sniffed, breathed through the odd pressure in my chest, curled my fingers into the bedspread. It was spring green, like newly unfurled leaves. Alice had picked it out for me. Eric had told her I liked green, so she’d picked out this lovely cover for my bed. A good memory, one that didn’t hurt to remember. “How can they not leave me if they’re gone?”

  Grandmother’s expression lightened and she laughed. “Jason said you would ask that, and Eric said that if you did, to tell you they would always be in your heart, forever, right there should you need them.”

  I touched the skin between my breasts through my t-shirt, resting my fingers over the beat of my heart. “I can’t feel them, in my head. They’re supposed to be in my head, aren’t they?”

  She pursed her lips together. “The three of you were rather naughty last night. Eric was supposed to begin rebuilding individual bonds, not attempt to forge a single connection between all of you.”

  The connection, a slender rope stretched between him and Jason, warm and inviting. It burned fiercely in my memory. I took a deep breath as the heaviness in my chest evaporated. “I found their bond, I think, this beautiful thread sort of spooling between their minds, and I tried to enter it. It was so peaceful there, so strong and good, and I wanted that.”