Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (81 page)
I looked up towards the skylight again, fifty or sixty feet above the floor. Where was that sky? What constellations gazed down on us? Maybe we were no longer even in a world with stars. Perhaps, she’d dragged me away to somewhere else, somewhere the star-shine was too afraid to follow. Some
decaying anti-room of one or another lesser hell. I shut my eyes and tried to let it all go, every thought that stood in-between me and the demon I’d spent so long trying to find. I had come looking for her, and she had found me
I opened my eyes as the thing between her legs slid into me.
There was pain, but not so much as I’d expected.
“Yes,” she sighed, grinding her hips against mine. “You’re still here with me, little girl. Maybe you’ll stay after all. Maybe you’re what you always thought you were.” And then she leaned closer, her spine arching like the back of a cat, like the spine of nothing human, and her long, rough tongue began licking away the blood on my breasts, taking little bits of skin with it. Her breath in me, taking me more surely than any mere sexual act, taking me and taking me apart. Cunningly altered molecules of oxygen and hydrogen splitting the cells of my body, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, mundane gases rendered impossibly exotic to divide mitochondria from their DNA, to divide the nuclei of my body to supernova. I wrapped my legs around her as her organ probed deeper, tearing me up inside. This was utter dissolution. Alchemy too sublime and mercurial for crude earthly chemistries. The rupture of membranes to release floods of cytoplasm as she had her way with me. I could feel those barbs, digging in so deep I’d never get her out. No going back now, and nowhere left to go back to, because I’d gone looking for her, and she had noticed.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked her, the guttural grunt of some animal escaping my lips, almost, but not quite formed words.
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“Don’t you know? Lead into gold,” she whispered. “Water
into wine. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
I closed my eyes. Isn’t that exactly what I’d wanted? The concrete below me crumbled and fell away, or it only seemed to, and I was tumbling into some pit for which a bottom had never seemed necessary. Crossing distance that was not space or time and she was still inside me. She would always be inside me. She kissed me again, and blood flowed from her mouth into mine. Her short nails dug into my sides, puncturing skin and muscle and scraping bone, and an instant later her lips pressed to my left ear. There were words – promises, threats, taunts, but none of it as important as her voice. The words themselves were irrelevant, mostly, only there because the voice had to take some form. It was the voice of this consuming pit, and in it I heard the aeons and saw the feral creature for what she was, saw the primordial forests she’d stalked, the glacial wastes and caverns, the necropolises and catacombs of vast cities gone to dust 10,000 years before the coming of mankind. She was there through it all. She is the constant. She is the rising of the sun and the setting of the moon. Her jaws clamped tightly about my throat, her long canines and incisors opening up new wounds, releasing more of me into the chasm rising up around us.
“No doubt,” she whispered, the wind and darkness tearing her words away almost before I could hear them. “No doubt ever again.”
“We’re going to fall forever,” I replied, surprised at the resignation in my voice. I’d never been so sure of anything in my life.
“That’s up to you, little girl,” she said with a laugh, and there was only a moments confusion before I understood exactly what she meant.
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She thrust her hips again, that pulsing shaft of flesh and horn between her legs becoming suddenly an unlocking key, becoming now the holy grail to divide my last resistance, and the deep places of this nowhere rumbled and echoed as we began to rise. The angry, cheated abyss, oblivion’s dragon that much more empty for our retreat, and then we were lying on the mattress again, and I could hear the steady, determined drip of water.
She kissed me once, her lips softly brushing mine, then withdrew and crawled away into the gloom. But I could still see her. With these new black eyes, this new flesh, she could never go so far that I would be unable to see her.
I lay there for a time, until the sun began to rise, shining in dusky cathedral shafts through the skylight, throwing chiaro-scuro bands across the concrete. We would have to sleep soon, but first I rolled over onto my belly and licked away the blood she’d left for me on the floor.
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A uthor B iographies
C. T. Adam s and Cathy Clam p
Award-winning
USA Today
bestselling authors C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp have written nearly a dozen paranormal romances. They are the authors of the Sazi Shapeshifter series, as well as the Thrall Vampire trilogy.
www.ciecatrunpubs.com
Keri Arthur
Keri Arthur publishes books in both the paranormal romance and urban fantasy fields, and is the author of nineteen novels, including the
New York Times
bestselling Riley Jenson, Guardian series.
www.keriarthur.com
Am anda As hley
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling writer, Amanda Ashley, is the author of over fifty books and is a pioneer of vampire romance.
www.amandaashley.com
Jenna Black
Jenna Black writes paranormal romance for Tor (the Guardians of the Night series), and urban fantasy for Bantam Dell (the Morgan Kingsley series).
www.jennablack.com
Karen Chance
USA Today
and
New York Times
bestselling author of the Cassandra Palmer series from Penguin. Her new series,
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beginning with the novel
Midnight’s Daughter
, starts this year.
(2008).
www.karenchance.com
D elilah D evlin
Award-winning author of erotic, paranormal romance, including the My Immortal Knight series from Ellora’s Cave.
www.delilahdevlin.com
Barb ara Em rys
Barbara Emrys teaches creative writing at the University of
Nebraska.
Sherri Erwin
Naughty and Nice
, the sequel to Sherri Erwin’s first paranormal
romance
To Hell With Love
, is published this year by Zebra.
(2008)
www.sherribrowningerwin.com
Colleen Gleas on
Bestselling author of The Gardella Vampire Chronicles from
Signet.
www.colleengleason.com
Raven Hart
Raven Hart is the author of the Savannah Vampires series from
Ballantine books.
www.ravenhart.com
Nancy Holder
USA Today
bestselling author of the Gifted series (Silhouette),
co-author of the Wicked series (Simon & Schuster) and author of many novels tied into the
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
universes.
www.nancyholder.com
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D ina Jam es
Dina James is a first-time writer addicted to all things paranormal. She lives in Astoria, Oregon.
Caitlin R. Kiernan
Caitlin R. Kiernan is the author of seven novels, including the award-winning
Silk
(winner of the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel and a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel) and Threshold. She writes science fiction and dark fantasy works, comic books, short stories, novellas and vignettes.
www.caitlinrkiernan.com
Jenna Maclaine
Her first paranormal romance novel,
Wages of Sin
, is published by St Martin’s Paperbacks this year. (2008)
www.jennamaclaine.com
Alexis Morgan
Alexis Morgan is the bestselling author of seventeen books, including two contemporary paranormal romance series for Pocket Star (the Paladins of Darkness and the Talions series).
www.alexismorgan.com
V icki Petters s on
USA Today
bestselling author of The Signs of the Zodiac series, which is set in her hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada. After ten years with the Tropicana’s Folies Bergere, she still knows all about what really happens behind the scenes in Sin City.
www.vickipettersson.com
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Kim b erly Raye
USA Today
bestselling author Kimberly Raye is the author of the Dead End Dating series from Ballantine, featuring the vampire matchmaker Lil’ Marchette.
www.kimberlyraye.com
Savannah Rus s e
Bestselling author of the vampire series The Darkwing Chronicles from Signet Eclipse, and the upcoming Sisterhood of the Sight series (2008)
www.darkwingchronicles.com
Lilith Saintcrow
Lilith Saintcrow is the creator of the Dante Valentine series from Orbit. Her new Jill Kismet series Begins this year. (2008).
Sus an Sizem ore
Award-winning author Susan Sizemore always seems to be writing about vampires. Among her efforts are the dark fantasy Law of the Blood series and the romantic Primes vampire series from Pocket Star.
Rachel V incent
Urban fantasy author Rachel Vincent writes the Werecat series for Mira Books.
www.rachelvincent.com
Shiloh Walker
Bestselling author of the vampire Hunter’s series from Berkley
Sensation.
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Reb ecca Y ork
Award-winning
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling novelist, Rebecca York (aka Ruth Glick) is the author of more than 100 books. She writes the romantic-paranormal Moon series for Berkley and romantic thrillers for Harlequin Intrigue.
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