She tasted the salt of her tears before she realized she was crying. This was too hard. Why did freedom have to come at such a high price?
“It always does,” Teaghan whispered, hugging her close and patting the back of her head. “Prove you’re worth it. Choose freedom and a future you’ve made for yourself.”
“Why are you waiting for me to say yes? You could just do it and I wouldn’t have any say in the matter.”
“I won’t. I’m not letting you make me a scapegoat, Jeliyah.” He pulled her back so she met his gaze. “I’m also not letting you martyr yourself for some warped ideal based on misplaced loyalty.”
“You’re contradicting yourself.”
“I’m letting you know the deal before I start convincing you to make the right decision.”
“Convincing me how?”
His grin should have been her warning but her turbulent emotions blinded her to the situation. She figured it out when he started snapping the chains holding the front halves of her dress together.
Teaghan loosened his hold so he could divest Jeliyah of her dress. Rather than unhook the chains, he broke them. Jeliyah stared up at him. He knew she was struggling with a tough decision, or he gathered she felt it was tough. When it had been Teaghan making the choice, he’d embraced it readily. Immortality meant he could continue killing people far into the future. Vampirism meant he would be more efficient at it.
There had been other enticements but those two had meant the most to him. Jeliyah wasn’t him. She needed something other than her own life to tip the scale toward vampirism. He knew just the something to give her.
Her breasts popped free when he snapped the last chain at the collar of the dress. He beheld the twin mounds of delicious perfection and couldn’t decide which should get his attention first.
His indecision gave Jeliyah enough time to break away from him and stalk toward the door.
She snapped, “This won’t help me.”
“I beg to differ.” Teaghan chased after her, staying one step behind her until she got to the door. He pinned her there with his chest pressed against her back. “Vampires have heightened senses, Jeliyah.”
“I know that.”
“You’re aware of it but won’t know the truth until you choose to be changed.” He snapped three of the chains on the side of her dress so he could slip his hand under the front flap. He trailed his fingers through the tight curls covering her mons before going lower to tap her clit.
Jeliyah’s breathing caught. She pressed into his hand, trapping it between herself and the door.
“Sex was an interesting pastime while I was human. It became an obsession after my change. ‘Heightened senses’ doesn’t mean just hearing, sight and smell. Touch and taste are included in that.” He switched to rubbing her clit in small circles that her hips mimicked. Whispering in her ear, he said, “Imagine this sensation magnified by three, maybe four. A simple touch,” he squeezed the tiny nub, making Jeliyah keen with need, “could send you into orgasm. It takes years to acclimate to the new sensitivity of your skin after the change.”
“This won’t—” She pulled in a shuddering breath and scraped her fingers along the door. “Life is about more than sex, Teaghan.” She pushed back against him, probably to shove him away, but all she did was rub her ass against the bulge in his pants.
He moved forward so she could feel more of his arousal. “Life is about many things, pleasure top amongst them. Your higher-ups can’t offer you that.”
“You’re spewing the same nonsense they did when they recruited me.” This time when she shoved against him, she managed to make him back up. She escaped to the side, looking frazzled and cornered though she had the large room surrounding her. “Credit cards without a limit. Amazing sex. It’s all hollow when weighed against my life. No matter what I choose someone will own me.”
“I don’t want to own you, Jeliyah.”
“Then help me.”
“I am.”
“No, you aren’t!” Her gaze went to the window.
Teaghan didn’t bother looking. She wasn’t seeing the scenery but the illusion of freedom she thought existed beyond the windows. “Leave without being changed and you’re in for a world of pain, necromancer. You know that.”
“I…I…” She shook her head hard. “Why did you bring me here?”
“I want you safe.”
“Dead isn’t safe.”
Teaghan rushed her. He grabbed her against his chest and held her though she fought to free herself. With one arm around her waist, he used the other to force one of her hands against his chest. “Feel that. That’s a heartbeat, Jeliyah. I’m not dead.”
She stared at her hand. “A corpse animated by magic that forces blood through your veins so you can play human.”
“Fine. I’m a magic corpse but you’re the same, necromancer. You said it. Niccolo did too. You’re alive but you’re not human. Vampires and necromancers are two sides of the same magic. The only difference is I had to die before mine took effect. You’ve been this way since birth.”
He felt the realization hit her. She stared at him with wide, spooked eyes. Teaghan knew he had to get her past this, past the idea that everything would be okay if she held on to her notion of living. It wouldn’t. Niccolo wasn’t bluffing. The higher-ups sure as hell weren’t either.
He released her and then smoothed his fingers down her cheek. “Be changed, Jeliyah. Be with me. You’ve seen my life. I live. I’m alive. You’ll still be a necromancer but you’ll also have the power of a vampire to back it up. You felt a bit of that when you tasted my blood. Take the final step.”
She whispered in a voice that sounded as if it belonged to a child, “I don’t want to die.”
The vulnerability in those few words tore at Teaghan’s heart. He couldn’t calm that fear. In order to be a vampire, she had to die. Mortal death but still death. He didn’t want to be the one to kill her though he trusted no one else to do it, to help her through the change.
He laid a soft kiss on her lips. “I’ll be right here, sweetness. I’ll bring you back. Promise. I’ve done it many times already. I know what I’m doing.”
Silent tears trailed down her cheeks. She was giving in and the decision scared the hell out of her. This wasn’t breaking free of brainwashing that wanted to retain its hold, but simple human survival instinct.
“Please?”
He framed her face with both hands. “What, sweetness?”
“I don’t want to die. Please, Teaghan. Please.” She gripped his hands as desperation entered her eyes. “Living like that is death. I don’t want to die.”
The image of the bleeding room flitted across her mind. The memory of IVs siphoning off blood to create necro-metal and a room that smelled overwhelmingly of sterilizers was the reason Jeliyah hated hospitals today.
The tension surrounding Teaghan’s heart loosened as he realized what she was saying. He gave her a sad smile. “Say it, Jeliyah. You have to say it. Invite me.”
She swallowed loud and wet her lips before she said, “Make me a vampire, Teaghan.”
“With pleasure.” He pulled her to him and kissed her sweet lips, happier than he thought he would be at hearing her say the words. It was for his own peace of mind. He’d already been invited into her body and didn’t need another invitation to change her. But he didn’t want her looking back on this day and thinking he’d forced her.
He would have. He wouldn’t lie to himself. Jeliyah wouldn’t have left the room a human. Teaghan had been prepared to make her a Renfield if she refused to make a choice either way. She would have hated him for that and he’d been prepared to take it because he knew they would have time enough together for him to earn her forgiveness.
Now that wasn’t needed.
He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Her kittenish sound of surprise when he yanked her dress off made his dick twitch.
“Teaghan?”
“Relax, sweetness. I plan to change you. But first, let’s bid goodbye to your humanity.”
Her heart rate increased. To his amazement, Jeliyah spread her legs and reached out, opening herself to him. He tore off the suit and joined her on the bed.
Jeliyah hugged him close with her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his shoulders. The slick, hot heat of her slit teased the tip of his erection. Teaghan held back the urge to enter her. Not yet.
He coaxed her to free her hold on him so he could get to her breasts. The twin beauties had been calling to him since Jeliyah bound them in the dress. Free now, her breasts lay bare for his perusal. He watched them sway and quiver with each breath she took and every beat of her heart.
A heart he would soon stop so the magic could restart it. Teaghan didn’t want to think about that in this moment. He latched on to one of Jeliyah’s pert nipples as a way to distract himself. She cooed beneath him and shifted. He had to lift his waist away to keep her from pulling his dick into that tight pussy of hers.
Jeliyah whimpered and tried to follow him. He pressed one hand to her belly and held her down.
“Teaghan,” she said in a breathy tone full of need.
He smiled around her nipple but didn’t give her what she wanted. Instead he slipped one finger between her lower lips so he could rub her clit. Jeliyah cried out as she arched, pressing her nipple farther into his mouth.
He sucked at the offering and enjoyed the way she moaned in reaction. Jeliyah had a sensitive body. Teaghan could see years of acclimation sex on the horizon for them before she grew accustomed to her heightened vampire senses.
Teaghan almost laughed at himself. Years. He’d never contemplated months with one woman let alone years. Jeliyah made him wish for decades, centuries. He wanted to indulge the sweet aroma of her aloe-and-cucumber-scented skin mixed with the musk of her lust for as long as he had the ability to smell it.
He inhaled as he switched to her other nipple and flicked it with his tongue. The bud grew stiff with the attention he gave it and Jeliyah moaned louder. When he slid his hand lower between her legs so he could fill her channel with two fingers, she wrapped her arms around his head and held him tight to her breast.
Her hips rose off the bed to meet his thrusting fingers. Her mind begged him for his dick, for a deeper penetration than his fingers could provide. Teaghan wanted to give in to the request but there was a method to the madness to which he subjected her.
Leaving her nipple, he trailed kisses down between her breasts and over her belly. He had to shift his position so he was beside her instead of between her legs but Jeliyah didn’t protest. She continued writhing as his fingers teased her inside.
He laid a kiss on her clit.
“Oh!” Jeliyah’s legs quaked.
Teaghan gave her tiny nub another kiss before lapping at it. It didn’t take many licks before Jeliyah vocalized her release loud enough that Teaghan was sure many, if not all, the vampires in the estate heard her.
He kept her trapped in the feeling with the fingers of one hand churning her pussy while the other hand rubbed her clit, distracting her from the pain of him pricking her inner thigh with his fangs. He pierced her femoral artery and drank deep before retreating from the wound so it bled freely.
This was the part Teaghan didn’t like. The death Jeliyah feared so much. He chose this way to make it as painless for her as possible. The rapid beat of her heart from their activity sped up her blood loss.
He stopped teasing her as her breathing slowed along with her heartbeat.
“Teaghan?” A little fear tinged her voice.
He stretched out along her side so she could feel his heat. “Right here, sweetness. Right here.”
“I…I…” She took several deep breaths before she sighed her last.
Teaghan clenched his fists, holding back the urge to shake her, to call her back. That wasn’t how it was done. He had to wait. The longest minutes of his life passed while he watched Jeliyah.
The waiting had never seemed so bad before this moment. It was a few minutes. No time at all and yet Teaghan struggled to keep his cool. Too soon and he would be making her a Renfield—alive, tied to his life and a slave. Too late and he would be making her a tombstone. It was all about timing.
Then he felt it. A tiny tickle across his senses. The spark of life. Jeliyah’s life. Her consciousness splitting from her body, preparing to move on to the hereafter, and the signal he’d been waiting for. He dragged a fingernail down his wrist before holding it over her mouth. With his free hand, he massaged her throat so she swallowed.
He stared at the wound he’d given her, willing it to close. A relieved smile curved his lips when the twin holes on her inner thigh grew skin as they healed. His bite left behind two sunken scars. The only remnants of the wound he’d made to change her. The last scars she would ever carry.
Cupping her head, Teaghan kissed Jeliyah’s lips. Soft at first. A simple reassurance she was coming back to him. Her mouth moved beneath his and he deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue over hers. Jeliyah inhaled as she circled her arms around his shoulders and returned his kiss.
“Welcome back,” he whispered.
Jeliyah blinked at him, confusion playing across her features. “Back?”
“Don’t worry if you don’t remember. Most don’t.” He kissed her again so she wouldn’t dwell on it. There was no need to remember death when he wanted to revel in life.