The Vampire's Revenge (18 page)

“Wait,” I said. “If we’re going to be working together from here on out, there’s something I have to tell you—something I have to get off my chest.”

“The only thing you’ve got to get off your chest is that bullet and this fondue fork,” she assured me.

“But I have to tell you—”

She bent forward so that we were eye to eye and gave me a look that was troubled, but firm—a look that stilled my tongue and unburdened my heart. “No, Jack,” she said with conviction. “You don’t.”

I nodded, hoping that she meant what I thought she meant—that whatever had transpired before this moment didn’t matter. I let myself relax completely and closed my eyes again. When the metal fondue fork struck the silver bullet, pain shot through me and I almost passed out from shock.

“I can’t get it out with just the one,” Connie said through gritted teeth. “I’ve got to get the other one in there so I can use them like pincers.”

Since relaxing didn’t seem to make me feel better, I steeled myself for the next probe. After a couple of misses, Connie got a grip on the bullet and dragged it out. I could tell the minute the silver was out of my body. I went from feeling like I was being poisoned to feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. It doesn’t sound like much of an improvement, but somehow it was.

Connie cleaned the area after she removed the bullet, and no more blood seeped from the wound. There was no need for her to stitch the hole closed because I heal so fast. It was already beginning to disappear, and the aftereffects of the silver were gone. The aftereffects of the whiskey were bothering me a little, but that would be over soon, too.

I gingerly turned onto my side and beckoned her to lie down beside me. She put her cheek against my bare chest and we held each other.

“I can’t believe you’re really in my arms again,” I said, stroking her back. “I had accepted the fact that you were eventually going to kill me.”

Connie shivered and I held her closer. “What are we going to do now, Jack?”

“We’re not in this fight alone,” I began, thinking. “We already have a network of good vampires we can depend on. Throw in some shape shifter and faerie friends who can help us in a pinch, and we take it one day at a time.”

“We’ll have to be vigilant, proactive,” Connie said.

“Right,” I agreed. “Maybe you should move into William’s mansion with me and the twins. Melaphia and Renee don’t live there anymore,” I said, hating the sound of that. I explained to Connie what had happened.

“I can’t move into the mansion. But leaving may be the best thing for Mel and Renee,” Connie said. “It’ll be good for them to get away after what . . . happened to William.”

I felt her body tense. “Oh, my God, Jack. I’m so sorry about William.”

If I had any doubts that Connie had come to her senses, I didn’t now. It was as if the reality of William’s death at her hands was sinking in for the first time. I held her tighter as she began to sob.

“It couldn’t be helped,” I said. “Everyone who loved him is aware that you couldn’t have stopped yourself, even if you’d known how. What’s done is done. There’s no going back.”

“That’s true about a lot of things. You’re right. There’s no going back.”

I loved the feel of her cheek pressed hard into my injured chest. The pain reinforced that I was still alive, after a fashion, and that my love was really back, no longer an unhuman killing machine.

I stroked Connie’s hair, she turned her face up to me, and I kissed her gently, then harder. Something like a spark ignited between us and we both pulled back and looked at each other. The feeling was similar to when we first kissed and were repelled by an electric shock that burned me. Except that this time I felt only pleasure. What had been a burn was now a powerful magnetism.

“What was that?” Connie asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s try it again.”

I kissed her again, rolling onto my back and bringing her on top of me. The draw we felt to each other was even stronger this time. We couldn’t get our clothes off fast enough. The look in Connie’s eyes was wild, now not with murderous intent, but with desire.

She straddled me and wrapped her hands around my already hard cock. When she sheathed me in her warm, wet body, we connected like light and dark halves of the same whole. I was rocked by a wave of sensation that almost made me lose control, but I hung on, not wanting to miss what I knew was going to be the ride of my life.

Connie’s body, with its warmth and growing life, accepted my darkness but countered it. As she thrust her hips against me, it was like the dance of death that slayers and vampires are destined to do, only in reverse. The life I’d put inside her had changed the polarity of the kinds of creatures we were. Instead of repelling her, I could feel myself being drawn in by her. It was the best thing I’d ever experienced.

She looked every bit the goddess, powerful and in command, as she rose and fell on my throbbing shaft. Her long hair fell like a black veil across her face as if she was performing some dark pagan rite.

If I had thought I was letting go with Olivia, I didn’t know what letting go was. Every fiber of my being was alert, alive, in tune with the silent song of Connie’s lovemaking. Her rhythm controlled me like the moon controls the tides. Closing my eyes, I kneaded her thighs with both hands, then slid them upward, caressing her breasts.

She lowered herself closer to me and I teased her nipples with my thumbs. She flattened her hands against my chest for support and increased her movements. I was soaring upward toward a climax like I’d never felt before.

“What’s happening?” Connie cried, gasping.

“I don’t know,” I said. I looked down and saw that we were levitating off the sofa, floating in mid-air.

The opposition between the Slayer and blood drinker had turned inside out, and we were more desperately drawn to each other than ever. Nothing in the universe existed for me but her.

I leaned into a sitting position and held her closer. She arched her back, and I circled the delicate skin around each nipple with my lips and tongue. Her breath came in long deep waves as she clasped her arms around my neck, and I felt her lips against my hair.

I sat up fully with her still astride my lap; I raised my head and we kissed again. I felt like we were back floating together in the healing river as we had been earlier, only this time I was healed, stronger than I’ve ever been, thanks to her. We stayed there in that place, in that sea of emotion until we were swept away in a powerful surge of racking, mind-numbing pleasure.

We clung to each other as wave after wave of climactic joy rolled through us, unwilling to separate until we had wrung from each other every possible ripple of sensation.

Connie collapsed against me and we were on the sofa again, spent. I gently stroked her back, enjoying the weight of her lithe, athletic body resting on mine. For the first time in weeks I had hope. And it occurred to me that together Connie and I might actually be able to protect the baby and build a life.

My hand slid down her side. I longed to turn her on her back and place my palms against her abdomen, maybe even put my ear to her belly and see if I could hear my baby’s heartbeat again.

Suddenly I was struck by the conviction that I should go ahead and tell her she carried my child. It had felt so good to tell her the truth about what happened in the underworld. I closed my eyes and imagined her face when I gave her the news about the baby. I knew she would be happy.
By the gods, I’m going to tell her.

“Connie,” I said, at the same moment she said, “Jack.”

“You first,” I said.

“There’s something I have to tell you.”

“What’s that?”

“This is really hard to say. Especially after what we just shared.” I felt her body, which had been so relaxed after sex, fill with tension.

“Go ahead,” I said. The faster she got whatever she wanted to say over with, the quicker I could tell her the wonderful news and could see the look on her face when she realized she was going to be a mother again.

“I shouldn’t have made love to you, but I couldn’t resist being with you one last time.”

“What?” I asked dumbly.

“That was my way of saying good-bye to the idea of you and me as anything but allies in the struggle against the old lords. We can’t ever do it again.”

That made no sense to me. “Huh?”

“Remember when you said earlier that you had given me to Seth? Well . . . he took me. I belong to him now. There can never be any going back.”

I finally had the answer to the question I’d been trying to figure out for days. She and Seth had sex, just like I had hoped they would. It hurt knowing my best friend had made love to my woman, but I deserved the pain.

I realized now why Connie hadn’t been madder when I confirmed that I’d slept with Olivia. I guess she figured we were even. “Look,” I said, “it doesn’t matter to me that you had sex with Seth.”

“What do you mean, ‘It doesn’t matter’?”

“That didn’t come out right,” I said hastily. “What I mean is, we can put behind us everything we’ve done since we were last together. We can start over fresh.”

“We can, can we?” she said. “And what about Seth?”

“I’m really sorry about hurting him. But this thing between you and me is bigger than all three of us put together. Seth will have to get over it.”

“And what if he doesn’t?” she asked. “What if there’s something in his makeup that won’t let him?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not sure I can explain.”

“Look. I feel really bad for Seth. I take full responsibility for hurting him, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes for however long it takes to make it up to him.”

“And what if you can’t?”

“I have to. There isn’t any other way.”

Connie got up and turned her back on me to dress. “Jack, I understand that we’ll be fighting bad vampires together until one of us dies. But that’s going to be the extent of our relationship. The lovemaking—” She paused, choking on her words. When I came toward her, she held her hand out to stop me. “It’s over between you and me.”

“But—but after what just happened between us . . . Surely you can’t throw that away.”

“You threw it away when you came up with that scheme of yours,” she said bitterly.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Explain to me what it is about Seth that makes you think he couldn’t get over you leaving him. You left him once before.”

“That was before we had sex.”

Exasperated, I said, “The important thing is that you’ve refused to go away with him after all, so you might as well stay with me so
I
can help protect you.”

“I don’t
need
your protection. This bullheaded macho thing you have going has screwed up all our lives.”

“Look, I know Seth will be hurt, but eventually he’ll understand.”

“No! It’s you who still doesn’t understand what you’re dealing with. Me leaving Seth now will hurt him in ways that you can’t even fathom—ways that he could never recover from.”

She turned to go topside, but I grasped her arm and turned her back to me. “I love you,” I said.

Throwing my words back at me, she said, “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Fourteen

The next night I decided to get good and drunk. I figured I deserved it. The double-dead and nuclear threats were over, the real Connie was back, Mel and Renee were safe, and I’d thoroughly screwed up my life. If that didn’t call for a good bender, I couldn’t imagine what did.

I also figured I could call olly-olly-oxen-free to Werm to let him know he could come out of hiding. I walked into the Portal in anticipation of getting good and liquored up and ran right into the fist of a pissed-off werewolf.

As I sailed through the air, a number of things occurred to me simultaneously. One: The guy had a helluva long reach. Two: I couldn’t believe I was too slow to avoid a haymaker, especially after such a big windup. Three: I was about to get my ass kicked like it had never been kicked before. Connie had evidently decided to embark on her new life with Seth with a clean conscience.

When I crashed against the wall, the club completely cleared out. Werm’s patrons might be a weird bunch, but they were not stupid. It was a good thing they ran, because I had the awful feeling that my friend—or my former friend, more like it—was about to go all four-footed and furry on my sorry ass. That would have been quite a spectacle for the humans.

By the time I’d gotten to my feet, Seth had vaulted over the bar and seized me by my shoulders, bringing me eye to eye with him.

“You bastard,” he began.

It was as good a place to start as any.

“You set me up,” he continued. “I ought to kill you for what you’ve done to me.”

Seth and I had spent many a night drinking and debating the most important questions of the universe. Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron? Ginger or Mary Ann? And the most important issue of all—who were the baddest of the badasses—vampires or werewolves? It had all been academic until now.

Now it was real.

“Connie told you,” I said.

“Everything,” he growled.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re
sorry
?” Seth’s whole body vibrated with rage. His gold-green eyes blazed with it, his voice oozed it. And I deserved every bit of it. “You gave me back the woman I love. The woman I thought was lost to me forever. You gave her to me not just for safekeeping but for good and always. You swore you and she were finished.”

“I thought we were—”

Seth cut me off and went on, still clutching me in a death grip. “But then, early this morning, she came to me. I was so happy. Then she said she had to tell me something. She told me about your little tryst.”

“I lost control,” I began. “I was just so happy to have the real Connie back.”

Seth shook me again. “You lost control,” he mocked. He slammed me against the wall hard enough to pulverize the sheetrock. But I barely felt it as the pain of my shame overwhelmed me.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen. I thought she was going to kill me last night, so I wanted her to know the truth about why I tried to kill
her.
”