Out for Blood (38 page)

“Yes.” She swallowed the wave of fear. This was what she’d asked for. And once she was turned, nothing else would matter. “I also understand I have a lot to learn.”

He sat beside her on the bed, their hips touching. “And I will teach you.” He placed his hand on her rib cage, just beneath her breast. “Calm your breathing. Your heart beats like a hummingbird’s wings. The change will be easier if you relax.”

“As much as I want it, it’s still a hard thing to relax for.” She blew out a long slow breath and stared up at the intricately painted ceiling. The blue sky and darting birds seemed very unvampire-like. “How many others have you turned?”

“Sired,” he corrected her. “And I have sired… enough. When they were needed. My house—you understand what this means? All noble vampires come from one of five houses or families. I am House of Paole. It is a small one. Many think we are not so powerful, but we are.” He shrugged again. “We can be.”

“And because you’re my sire, I’ll be that house as well?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “You are quick.”

“You don’t get to be mayor by being slow.”

He laughed. “I suppose not.” He squeezed her side where his hand still rested. “And now you are more relaxed, yes?”

“Yes. I feel ready.” Or as ready as she was going to be.

“Good.” His face shifted into the jutting mask of bones she’d seen before on Malkolm and Dominic. The face she’d soon wear herself. He bent over her.

She flinched, then laughed. “I’m sorry. I’m not afraid. I’m really not. I’m just… human.”

He leaned on his forearm, his upper body resting lightly on hers. With a gentle look that seemed misplaced on the monstrous face before her, he brushed his fingers down her cheek. “I understand.” He placed a kiss on her jaw.

His cool mouth on her skin sent a shiver through her, alighting every nerve that had been poised to snap at the first instance of pain. His mouth went lower, down her neck. Goose bumps rose across her body and she arched into him, tipping her head back to give him greater access. She closed her eyes and murmured her approval.

The bite came immediately. The pain blossomed out from where his teeth were buried in her neck. She swallowed and clung to him, forcing herself not to cry out or pull away. But a few moments later, the pain faded and pleasure verging on the edge of orgasmic spiraled through her. She was on the bed, but falling, spinning through blissful waves of heat and pressure.

Air shuddered through her lungs, catching in her throat. Faster and faster she plummeted downward. Shadows rose up to meet her, a silky drift of murky longing. The longing grew sharper, the pleasure dissipated, and alarm took its place.

Death had come for her.

The urge to fight pressed hard, heating the air in her throat to a blazing furnace. Her lungs burned, but relief was gone, lost in the sharp spines of pain that held her in place. She dug her fingers into Luciano, clawing at him but all the while willing herself to accept.

He clamped down harder and then… blackness.

The pain was gone, and along with it the need to breathe and the desire to live. A tiny pinpoint of light beckoned to her, so distant it could have been a star. She floated, no way to move toward it, no body to command. The light shifted into the shape of her
abuela’s
face. She reached out, tried to speak, but she was nothing.

Abuela’s
face disappeared.

Bittersweet liquid coated her tongue. She turned away from the foul taste, but it clung to her. The wetness clogged her mouth and ran down her chin.

“Drink.” The command was hollow and distant, as if spoken through a tube miles away.

Her throat convulsed, but the convulsions didn’t stop there. They echoed through her, lighting an icy spark that fired a hunger unlike anything she’d ever felt. She sucked at the source of the liquid. Blood, her new brain told her.
Blood that is now life
.

Her body came back to her, weakly at first and hard to control, like a toddler’s. Shaking, her hands reached up for the limb that pressed against her mouth. Her eyes opened.

As crystalline as if cut from glass, Luciano smiled down upon her. It was his wrist she clung to, his blood she swallowed. “That’s it.” He nodded. “Drink.”

She did, trying to ignore the sounds drilling into her head. The tick of the clock on the bedside table, the soft gurgle of water through pipes, the scurry of tiny feet somewhere very far away. She inhaled out of habit and a thousand scents filled her nose. Dust, fabric, cleaning chemicals, cosmetics, water, but above all… blood.

“That’s enough,
cara mia
.” Luciano pulled his wrist out of her fingers with a small struggle. He nodded. “Already your strength grows.” He licked clean the blood left behind, the twin puncture wounds healing before her eyes.

“I need more.” Need did not begin to describe the craving in her belly.

“I know. Your hunger will be overpowering for a few days.” He patted her leg. “I’ll get you some more right now. Stay in this room, understand?”

“Yes.”

“
Bene
. I shall return shortly.”

As soon as he left, she jumped off the bed. Literally. The small amount of effort she exerted landed her several feet away. She walked to an overstuffed club chair taking up a corner of the room, reached down, grasped one of its bun feet, and lifted. Single-handed, she brought it above her head.

Amazing.

She dropped the chair and her hands went to her face, feeling for the strange angles of her new nature. The hard ridges rose over her cheekbones and brow. A mirror. She tried the door on the right side of the room. It opened into a large bath.

She flicked the light switch and blinked as the illumination flooded the space. The grains of sand in the tile’s grout lines were visible. How was that even possible? She turned toward the gold-hued mirror.

The monstrous face she’d expected to see stared back at her with the same silvery gaze the rest of the nobles had. She ran her fingers over her skin, studying each new slope and rise. Peered closer at her luminous eyes. Not monstrous. Powerful. Intimidating. Noble.

Human face.
But the thought only caused her human face to flicker over her skin. She concentrated and it came back. She leaned in. The fine lines around her eyes and mouth were gone, her forehead smooth. Not a strand of gray showed through the root line where her color was growing out. In fact, there was no root line anymore, just a head full of silky, bouncy brunette hair. And her eyes… her eyes had never been anything special, but their ordinary brown was gone, replaced by a hundred shades of the same color. Her eyes were spectacular.

The moment she stopped concentrating on her human face, it disappeared and her vampire one returned.

Curling her lips back, she turned her head side to side to see the fangs that now jutted from her upper jaw. Also intimidating. She growled at herself, then laughed at her childishness. Her tongue tested the fangs’ sharpness. The jagged tip of one pricked the surface and caused a small drop of blood to well up.

Saliva pooled in her mouth and her stomach clenched. She swallowed and looked back toward the door. If Luciano didn’t return soon, she’d have to head out on her own. She couldn’t go much longer without—

The suite door opened. “Lola? I’ve brought you a decent meal.”

She stepped out of the bathroom and a new emotion swelled alongside her hunger.

Luciano had brought one of Dominic’s comarré with him. The slim young man smiled at her, his eagerness spilling off him like a delicious perfume, but everything about him—his gold marks, his bleached blond hair, his age—reminded her of the last time she’d seen Julia.

“Bloody hell,” Mal snarled. “This isn’t a game.” He was fully aware that his anger came from fear. The fear that he’d hurt Chrysabelle. Or worse. The voices applauded.

Chrysabelle exhaled slowly. “So you acquiescing to my every desire over the past few days was due to some fugue state born out of your joy at still being alive?”

“Life with me is never going to be easy. I told you that.”

She nodded. “Yes, you did.” She hesitated like she was looking for the right words. “I know this isn’t a game. It’s your life. It’s
our
life. For what we’re about to go up against, you need to be at your most powerful. Drinking my blood out of a plastic cup isn’t going to get you there.”

“I’ve made it through worse with less.”
What you deserved.

“But you don’t have to this time.” She grabbed the hand he’d pulled away from her. “Stop fighting me. We’ve done this once already without Mortalis there to protect me. It’s going to be fine.”

He glared at her. “The last time we did this, I had chains the size of tree trunks holding me back. And they were starting to give.”

“But they didn’t.” Mortalis gave Mal a stare that had frustration written all over. “And she’s right. You need to go in strong. The numbers are not on our side this time.”

Mal leaned back, casting his gaze at the twin strips of overhead lighting. Chrysabelle’s fingers caressed the palm of his hand. He closed his fingers over hers. “You’re asking a lot of me.”

“I know,” she said. “But if I’m willing, you should be, too.”

He tipped his head to look at Mortalis. “You’re sure you can do this? Sure you can manage the beast if I can’t?”

Mortalis nodded. “If I can’t, Amery will step in to help, too.”

“Great,” Mal cracked. “Two shadeux inside me. Sounds like a freaking picnic.”

“Mal.” Chrysabelle’s voice went soft and breathy, and she leaned into him, her warm body pressed against his. The small contact was enough to amp up his hunger and spin the voices into an unbearable whine. She blinked, her blue eyes pleading. “Do this for us.”

He dropped his chin, and after a moment stared up at her from his lowered lids. “You and I are going to talk later.”

She canted her head to one side. “About what?”

“About the inappropriate use of feminine wiles.”

She smiled and, damn it, he liked it. “That’s a yes, then?”

He nodded. Doc was right. Love had made him soft.
And stupid.

“Do you want me to sit on your lap?”

“No.” The word came out louder and sharper than he’d intended, but her question had driven home just how intimate an act they were about to partake of in front of Mortalis. Mal had never been an exhibitionist, and he wasn’t about to start now. “Just sit where you are. Give me your wrist.”

Her frown morphed into a more understanding look, and she extended her arm. Without another glance at Mortalis, Mal rested his hands beneath her wrist. The flesh there was unadorned, the signum scrolling away from the spot where the veins showed through her pale skin. He closed his eyes as he took her scent into his body. Son of a priest, she undid him, and despite the fae’s presence, Mal let out a soft sigh of pleasure.

Her heat traveled through his fingertips, urging him on. His face shifted and his fangs dropped. Lifting her wrist higher, he pressed his mouth to her skin and bit down.

She inhaled, a half gasp, half laugh that shot straight to his remaining humanity and reminded him what it felt like to be a breathing, daywalking, warm-blooded man who had once known the pleasure of a woman.

The voices drowned that feeling in seconds, their cries and whimpers filling his head until the chaos scratched at his skull. He sucked at the bloodstream harder, wanting this over before the inability to stop overpowered him.

As if called, the beast lifted its head. The names scrambled across his skin like rats, colliding and gnashing their teeth. Still drinking, he focused less on the blood and more on his control, but the voices began to fade and the beast’s raging grew no worse.

Before any of that changed, he released Chrysabelle. He wasn’t quite sated, but the victory of being able to stop was satisfaction enough.

He dropped her arm and pressed back into the seat as the hot-cold power of her blood struck him, shooting jolts of pain through his bones and tightening his muscles. The pain vanished seconds later, leaving him with a euphoric sense of well-being, a beating heart, and the need to breathe.

He let out a long breath. “I can’t believe I just did that.” He straightened, the pounding of his heart exaggerated by the rush of what had just happened. “How was that even possible? Could my curse be broken?”

“I don’t think so.” Chrysabelle cradled her arm to her chest. “More like it’s the ring’s power, protecting me.” She glanced at Mortalis. “As soon as we get back, you’re going to make that meeting happen, right?”

He nodded. “Amery has already agreed to help me.”

Barely listening to anything but the rush of blood in his ears, Mal rolled his shoulders as a fresh charge of power coursed through him, buoyed by the release of no longer being enslaved by the curse. The voices had gone oddly quiet. Not silent so much as hushed. As if they were trying not to be heard.

Slowly, the whispers filtered through the sound of his breathing and his pulse. He stood as comprehension struck him. He grabbed hold of the bulkhead. “I need to go lie down.” Without waiting for a response, he made his way toward the back of the jet.

He shut the bedroom door, locked it, and dropped onto the bed. The voices grew louder. He squeezed his head between his hands, trying to shut them up, but still they raged. The beast joined them and the maelstrom of mental pressure increased tenfold.

The torture seared his brain. He rocked back and forth, still holding his head, wondering if it would split in his hands from the pain.

Chrysabelle might be safe, but the next human to cross his path wouldn’t be. Drinking from her had reignited a fury in the voices unlike anything he’d experienced before. They sank their teeth into him, chewing through his resolve, weakening his control.

The question was not if he’d ever kill again, but when.