Twilight Hunger (Wings in the Night #7)

Twilight Hunger (Wings in the Night #7) Page 17

Morgan slept through most of the day again. It was afternoon when she woke, stretching her arms above her head and arching her back, feeling good. She opened her eyes, and everything that had happened the night before returned to her. She felt a delicious sensitivity at her throat, and, flinging back the covers, ran to her dressing table to examine it in the mirror.

A purple bruise and the marks of his teeth. No punctures. No. He hadn't tasted her blood, but he'd fed her his own. She could still taste him on her tongue.

What did it mean? she wondered yet again. How did one become a vampire, if it were possible at all? Was she already changing? Was this vitality singing in her veins a part of it, or only a temporary side effect from drinking him? This sleeping through the day, waking only late in the afternoon, was this a sign that she was becoming as he was?

She only knew she'd been getting steadily weaker until he had first come to her. Now she felt stronger, as she had the last time. She thought, the way she had been feeling, she might well have been dead by now without his intervention. His... his blood. He was keeping her alive.

But for how long? She had to know. And she knew where to find the answers. Or hoped she did. Dante's journals. There were still one or two she hadn't read completely through. That was what she would do for the rest of the afternoon, she decided. Read. Research. She had several hours before dark, and that was precisely how she would fill them. She stripped off the torn, buttonless nightgown, pulled on her white satin robe, tied it and moved down the stairs to the study, where she kept the journals locked away in a safe.

But when she stood in the open study doors, she saw the mess on the floor and realized she had other work left to do. Broken boards lay beside the hole. If it were true that the scarred man was hunting Dante, and if he were to come back here and somehow see this...

Damn.

Her afternoon passed more quickly than she would have liked. She had to shower, dress. Then, taking one broken piece of wood with her, she drove into town to the nearest lumber yard and purchased matching pieces of the correct length to patch the damage she had done. She bought a hammer and nails, a small crowbar and a handsaw.

When she returned home with her purchases and faced the task before her, she felt a hint of doubt that she would be able to pull it off. Ordinarily this kind of physical labor would be far too much for her to tackle alone. She'd toyed with the idea of hiring someone to do the job but realized she had no idea who she could trust. How would she explain the need to keep it quiet, and even if she did, wouldn't that just make the worker more likely to tell? Her being who she was, he would probably sell the tidbit to a scandal sheet for a few thousand dollars.

Besides, she didn't feel as if the job was too much for her. Not today. Shrugging, she knelt on the floor, took up the crowbar. She would never know until she tried, she decided.

It took her an hour to pull out the old nails that held the broken scraps of lumber to the main beams underneath and remove the bits of wood. Then more time as she measured the hole and marked her new boards at the right length.

Now the test, she thought, as she took up the saw. If she could manage this, it would be a miracle.

Swallowing her doubts, she laid the sawblade across the line she'd drawn and drew it backward. Then she began to pump the saw back and forth, as smoothly as she could. The short end fell away, clattering to the floor, and she looked at it in something like shock. She drew a hand over her brow, felt sweat beading there. Her heart was pounding, her body warm with exertion. God, when was the last time she had felt this way?

She continued to work, sawing the boards, fitting them in place, nailing them as she went along. When there was only one board to go, she paused to kick all the scraps, the old lumber, the broken pieces, the sawdust, the bent, used nails, into the hole. Then she nailed the final board into place.

It didn't look perfect when she finished. The boards were a different color, lighter, newer looking, unfinished, and the joints were less than tight. But it was the best she could do at the moment. Her newfound energy seemed to be starting to wane.

She got a broom to sweep up the remaining bits of sawdust and dirt. Then she pulled the oriental rug back down to cover the new boards.

Brushing her hands and straightening, she was finished.

Only an hour now, until sundown. She looked down at herself, realized she was damp with sweat, and had sawdust clinging to her skin and her hair. If he came back-God, she hoped he would-she didn't want him seeing her like this.

"I need to get ready," she whispered. "For Dante." Yet more of the day wrested from her hands. She would barely have time to read at all. Still, it was important.

A half hour later, she returned to the study, freshly showered, her hair clean and lavender scented and blown dry, flowing loose down her back. She wore the white satin robe that tied at the waist and hung all the way to her bare feet, and she carried a pot of herbal tea and a cup with her. It was a special blend, supposedly good for boosting one's energy. Hers was running low, though still higher than it had been before Dante had come to her.

She turned on the gas fireplace, then went to the safe in the wall, took out one of the precious journals, one of those she still hadn't read all the way through, and curled up in the big armchair nearest the fire. Filling her teacup, she flipped through the pages until she found the place where she had last left off. And before very long, she was immersed once again in the tales of the vampire, hearing them as clearly in her mind as if they were spoken in Dante's deep, rich voice.

Sarafina tried to warn me. "Never mix with mortals. Never." She said it early in my education and repeated it often. "Our kind must live alone."

"What about the Chosen?"

I knew the term. That surprised her to some extent, I think, because I hadn't heard it from her. We sat by a fire that night, in a grove of trees, the way we had done in our mortal lives. I think that at the beginning, that was what Sarafina envisioned. A band of two-two Gypsy vampires, living the way we had before. She was trying, I think, to recapture some of what she had lost when she had lost her family, her tribe. But of course it was impossible. I accepted that long before she did.

"The Chosen are humans with a connection to us. Something about the blood," she told me. "We know which ones they are because we sense them. We feel drawn to them, and sometimes they to us. But we do not make ourselves known to them, Dante. That must be understood at all costs. We do not."

"They can become vampires. Like us," I said.

"They can. And do you know what happens when they do?"

I shook my head.

"They go mad."

She said it so simply, as if it were an established fact. "All of them?" I asked, even though I knew better. I hadn't gone mad, nor had Sarafina.

She didn't answer that. "Some become so morose they refuse to feed until their bodies become dormant, brittle shells that lie as if dead for untold centuries, their souls trapped inside. Some become giddy with their newfound vampiric power and go on gluttonous killing sprees, leaving so many bodies in their wake that the mortals realize what is happening and hunt us like animals in their vengeance. They die, too. We kill them ourselves. We have no choice, unless the mortals beat us to it."

I sat there listening, rapt with attention.

"Some simply open a vein and let themselves bleed to death. Others walk deliberately into a fire like this one and burn to ash."

I studied her for a long time. The way the fire danced on her face and in her eyes. "I was one of the Chosen," I said. "You sensed it in me and transformed me."

"I had no choice. You were dying."

"You had a choice. You could have let me die."

She averted her eyes, shrugged as if my words were of little consequence.

"I think you planned to transform me all along, Sarafina. I think that's why you came back to the family, singled me out."

She looked at me again, pierced me with her eyes. "Perhaps I wished for that, Dante, but I would not have done it without careful consideration. This life is not an easy one. I know it must seem so to you at this point, but it's not."

"You think this life seems easy to me? I lost everyone I loved, 'fina. My own mother, my family, my very way of life. Everything I knew was torn from me that night. It's been far from easy. Yet I have not gone mad, or ended my own life."

"It will become harder."

I mulled that over for a moment. How certain she sounded. Was she so unhappy, then? I began to realize how very lonely she must have been all those years before I had crossed over to join her in darkness. "Most mortals cannot bear the shock of the change. The loss of all they were. Even those who do adjust and accept do not all last A hundred years, perhaps two, and then the reality of eternal life begins to reveal itself to them as it really is. As much curse as blessing. As much pain as pleasure. And they, too, often choose not to continue."

"And what of those who do?"

She was silent for a long moment. "Those who do continue, I suppose, find a way to make peace with what they are. They stop fighting it. They stop hoping for a cure to make them mortal again. They stop looking for rhyme or reason to explain their existence or justify it. And they simply accept."

"Have you reached that point?" I asked her.

Meeting my eyes, she shook her head. "No. But I've seen that acceptance in the eyes of some of the old ones. I've heard them speak of it And I am determined to survive, on my own terms and in my own way, until I find it for myself."

And she would, I thought. But for now, she was restless. Seeking something, maybe this peace she spoke of, maybe something else. I couldn't know.

"Then what do you do, 'fina?" I asked. "For... companionship?"

"We have each other for that."

"That's not the kind I meant." I had to look away, still not comfortable with the lustier aspects of what I was, still not understanding it, as this was very early in my preternatural life. I couldn't face her as I spoke. "When I feed from the humans... especially the women, though sometimes with the men, as well... I feel... "

"Desire," she said, finishing the sentence for me. "I see now what it is you need to know. How to sate it."

Eyes fixed on the fire, I nodded.

"Do not be embarrassed, Dante. We are sensual creatures. It is our nature. Every physical sensation is heightened to degrees far too intense for mere mortals to bear. We feel everything a thousand times more keenly than we did before. Pain, yes. To the point where it can paralyze us. But pleasure, too. God, the way we experience physical release is beyond comprehension."

My throat went dry, and I felt a stirring of desire at her description.

"The blood lust and sexual lust are very closely bound in our kind," she went on. "You cannot experience one without the other. Should you attempt to have sex with a mortal, you'll end up biting deeply into her flesh before you've finished, drinking her into you. The two go hand in hand. The ecstasy of the drinking enhances the orgasm, and the orgasm enhances the ecstasy of the blood. The combination of the two is such potent, mind-numbing pleasure that you give yourself over completely to sensation. You hurt them. You kill them."

I studied her through narrowed eyes. "I don't think I believe it."

"No?"

"No. Certainly I sense that some of what you're saying is true, but not that physical pleasure could drive me beyond the ability to control myself. Certainly not that."

"Perhaps," she said slowly, drawing out the word. "It's less likely you'd kill one of the Chosen, though still a risk. It's best to stick with other vampires, or make for yourself a few slaves."

"Slaves." I said the word with contempt. She always kept several at her disposal. Mortals, not of the Chosen caste, whom she had made virtual zombies, utterly devoted to her. She drained them, but not to the point of death. Then replenished their bodies with a modicum of her own cursed blood. She did this over and over, keeping them captive for days at a time, until the bond was forged. One night she would rise to find them utterly hers. Ready to obey her every command, their very existence based on their desire to please her. I did not know how she managed to mate with these mindless drones without killing them. I think she usually did end up killing them in the end, but how she kept them alive in the meantime, I do not know.

I hated them. I hated the sight of them. And I had no desire to know the details of what she did with them.

But for me, I knew my own soul. And I knew that I could never become so drunk on pleasure that I would kill an innocent. "I don't believe you," I told her. "I think you only want to keep me from being close to anyone other than you."

She lifted her brows. "Do you now?"

"Yes. Perhaps you don't have the inner strength to control your lusts, to have sex without murdering your partner. But I do."

"Well. That's very good to know."

I was not to know it then, but my dear benefactor had a plan in mind to teach me, once and for all, the truth. It was weeks later. We were staying in a fine home, guests of some wealthy old man who was utterly smitten with Sarafina. I disliked mixing with the mortals this way. Living among them, making excuses for the hours I kept. This did not bother Sarafina. She didn't mind living with them. She kept herself hidden away behind a patina of lies. No part of her, body or soul, ever touched them. Not on any level beyond that of predator and prey. She was playing make believe as their friend, their guest. She felt nothing for them. Nothing. And I was fairly certain she had been hunting peasants in the nearby village. Three people had gone missing since our arrival.

I did not like to think that my aunt was murdering the innocent. However, it was her choice. Not mine. We did not sit in judgement of the acts of another vampire unless they directly endangered us as a whole. So long as she was careful to dispose of the bodies and didn't kill too many in one town and draw suspicion on herself, I had no business telling her it was wrong, much less trying to stop her. She would have to deal with her own guilt, or karma, or sin, or whatever were the results of her actions. It was not my place. This was one rule among our kind, and the first my aunt had taught me.

It was as I contemplated these things in my rooms one night that a gentle tap sounded on my door. I didn't bother opening my mind to gather impressions, a mistake I made often, I fear, in my early days. I simply assumed it was 'fina and called, "Enter."

The door opened, and the serving maid I remembered from the late dinners where 'fina and I pretended to eat with our host and various guests, night after tiresome night, stepped inside. She wore very little. A nightgown of fabric so sheer that every inch of her warm mortal flesh was visible, and she carried a candle. Her hair, masses of it, honey blond and wildly curling, was loose and tumbling. Her lips wet and parted. Her body full and lush.

Forcing my gaze to her face, her eyes, I said, "What is it you want of me?"

"You've got it wrong, m'lord. I've come to ask that very question of you." Her accent was of the lower classes, though not quite Cockney. She'd trained herself to lose the harshest edges of her natural speech, I guessed. Imitating instead the more pleasing tones of her employers.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

She stepped farther inside, setting her candlestick on the bureau, closing the large door behind her and then eyeing me calmly. "I see the way you look at me, m'lord. At my breasts when I lean close to pour yer tea. And at my arse when I bend to pour anyone else's. I got tired of waitin' for you to ask, thought I might be bold and make the offer."

It was true enough. The wench wore necklines scooped so low I had wondered more than once how she kept those delightfully plump tits contained. They swelled above the fabric of her dresses, and she made sure to wave them under my nose as often as possible. I'd been tempted. I'd been intrigued.

"Surely yer not shy, now, are you, m'lord?"

"No. I'm not shy."

"You'll find I'm not, either." And she proved it, while walking across the room toward me, tugging at a tie at her neckline and shucking even the thin garment she'd been wearing. It floated to the floor, and she stood proudly naked, not a foot from where I still sat in a chair near the fireplace.

I could smell every scent of her. She was clean, freshly bathed, just for me, I thought. Her hair smelled of henna, her skin of aloe. And I smelled her arousal, too, and knew she was damp with the juices of it. And I'd yet to even touch her.

I licked my lips in anticipation. God knew it had been years since I'd known a woman in the way she wanted me to know her. I'd devoured many, yes, drinking from them in small, restrained draughts that left me craving more and left them quivering with desire. I went to them by night, commanded them to remember me as a dream.

Sarafina had told me I could do no more without killing them. I didn't believe her. Surely I could... touch...

The wench dropped to her knees, stroked her hand over my groin and felt my aroused state. She smiled up at me, then tore my breeches open and bent to lick at my root. I shuddered in pleasure, desire blazing through me at the first touch of her tongue, but then she took me into her mouth, warm and wet, took me deep. Her arms twisted around behind me to hold me to her, and she bounced up and down on my cock, sucking with all her might. Even as the semen rose in my rod, so the blood lust rose in my veins. I felt it, like a dark hunger, growing stronger with the pleasure she gave, until I could hear the blood rushing beneath her skin. I could smell it. I had to have it.

Gripping a handful of her hair, I pulled her head from me, pulling her onto her feet and forward, so she straddled me. I grabbed her hips and slammed her down, stabbing deeply into her, so deeply she cried out-in pain or pleasure or some mingling of the two, I do not know. I didn't care. Again she began bouncing up and down on me. I'd had her throat in mind, her sweet jugular, but the swollen mounds of those succulent tits bouncing in my face changed my mind.

I reached out and caught one like a prize, sucked hard on the nipple and then bit down. She shrieked in delight, and I pierced the very tip with an incisor and sucked hard at the thin trickle of blood that came.

It touched my tongue, and I was lost. Sensation, need, that powerful hunger that overwhelms all logic, burned through my brain as I sucked harder, bit deeper to increase the blood flow, ignoring her shrieks as I held her to me and took what I wanted, even then knowing it wasn't enough.

I got up, my cock still embedded in her, her legs anchored around me, her bleeding nipple tight in my teeth, and I walked to the bed, tumbled us both down onto it crossways, landing hard atop her. I let her breast go at last as I rammed myself into her so powerfully the heavy bed thumped and jerked, inching across the floor with my thrusts. She was crying out now, too loudly not to be heard in her passion. I silenced the wench with a hand to her mouth and sank my teeth into the other breast, biting deeper this time, plunging both fangs in to the hilt and drinking, sucking. I fucked her hard and sank my teeth into her delicious flesh over and over again, her shoulder, her arms and, finally, her throat. My razor-sharp teeth sank through her flesh as if it were butter, broke through the cartilage with a popping sound, and then the jugular gave up its bounty. I drove my shaft to the hilt as her heart pumped the blood into me in willing sacrifice. I devoured her and I climaxed, and it was magnified a thousand times from the climaxes I'd known as a mortal. A million times. My body nearly shook itself apart. I was momentarily blind. Deaf. My entire being was focused at the two places where we were joined-my cock inside her and my teeth in her throat. Between the two arced bolts of lightning. And that was all I was. Sheer mind-bending pleasure so intense it was agony. I cried out with it, releasing her throat, drawing my head back to roar in savage delight.

When the sensations finally waned, I still lay there on top of her, relishing the feel of her Life thrumming in my veins and the satisfaction of sexual release. I was high, soaring on the aftermath of such intense gratification. I was warm, her blood pumping through me, empowering me.

Gradually I became aware of a slow, rhythmic clapping from somewhere in the room. Bunking out of the buzzing energy in my head, I lifted my eyes, focused them, and saw Sarafina standing on the far side of the room, applauding. "Well done, Dante. Very well done."

I looked down at the woman beneath me. Her eyes were wide open and glazing already. And her throat-God, I hadn't simply punctured it, I'd torn a wide, gaping wound. I'd ripped her flesh, severed the vein, torn through the muscle, baring her windpipe. I scrambled off her, backing away, but I saw it all. There were smaller wounds on her breasts, her arms, her shoulders, even her jaw. They'd bled, but only a little. I hadn't let much of that nectar escape my hungry mouth. Her center was torn, bloody from the force with which I'd pummeled her.

I brought a hand to my mouth in shock, but it came away with traces of scarlet adorning it. It was on my face, I knew. I'd buried my face in that wound, slavering to get more of her into me. And I must be wearing a lot of the evidence still.

It was on my hands, my chest.

Turning in shock to Sarafina, I whispered, "Why didn't you stop me? Why?"

"Stop you?" She shook her head. "I sent her to you, Dante. Some lessons are only learned by doing. Now you know what will happen if you spend your passion on a mortal. Save it. Slaves or other vampires are the only safe options if you're determined not to kill. Then again, perhaps you've changed your mind about that, now that you've seen how good it is."

"I don't kill."

"You do now. Like a wolf or a shark or any other predator, you've had a taste of it, Dante. You'll do it again. We're predators. It's what we do. But that argument is for later. Now we must leave this place before tonight's work is discovered. Wrap the slut in blankets and go wash yourself up. I'll gather our things."

"But-"

"But nothing. She already composed a note, informing the household that she has run away with a stable boy. I actually had her believing you would want to take her away with us once you'd sampled her luscious body." She tipped her head back, laughing delicately. "I vow, Dante, you did her nicely. I had no idea you were such a stallion."

"Shut up, 'fina," I saw where her eyes were and righted my breeches. "You're my aunt, for God's sake."

"God has nothing to do with it, boy. And I'm not only your aunt-your great-great aunt-I'm also your mother and your sire and your sister. The blood ties of the past mean nothing. We are a new kind of family now. And I could take what you gave to her and more without sustaining any damage at all."

I stared at her coldly. "The blood ties of the past still mean something to me, Sarafina. And I promise you, we will never be together in that way."

I saw the hurt and the anger in her eyes. Perhaps she had been undead for so long that the propriety of mortals meant nothing to her, perhaps she had even forgotten it. But I hadn't. I hurt her with those words. But I meant them. And while I hated what she had done to me that night, I knew that I had learned an important lesson.

Never to have physical relations with a mortal.

Morgan closed the book, blinking in shock. There had been exceptions. Something about slaves, which she didn't find the least appealing. Something about "the Chosen," which she understood even less. And other vampires.

Nothing about how one made other vampires. Nothing about anything helpful-except that she now knew why Dante refused to sleep with her.

And she thought it might be for the best. She certainly didn't want him to kill her.

She glanced down at her attire, licking her lips in trepidation. Quickly she jumped to her feet, returned the journal to the safe, closed and locked the door, and then closed the false bookcase over it. Then she ran out of the study, hurrying up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She had to change. She didn't want to tempt him to do... to do that to her.

But the moment she closed her bedroom door, she heard him. Not aloud, but, in some strange, fascinating way, inside her mind.

Morgan.

She ignored the voice in her head and tugged open a bureau drawer.

Morgan!

The French doors flew open, blasted by a gust of wind. She spun around, gasping in shock. But he wasn't standing there on the balcony, as she had half expected. Trembling, she went to the doors to pull them closed, and that was when she saw him. He stood on the back lawn, halfway between the house and the sea. And she felt him looking right at her.

Come out here to me. Now.

Could she really be hearing him without a sound? She thought about calling down that she would be just a minute, but the final word came again.

Now.

It compelled her. She couldn't convince herself not to obey. Turning, Morgan walked out of her bedroom, down the stairs and through the house to the back door. She stepped out onto the flagstone patio and down three more steps, until her bare feet were sinking into the damp, cold grass. It sent a chill through her, and still she walked on. She walked until she stood facing him, an arm's length between his body and hers.

His gaze slid down her body. She felt it like a touch, shivered with cold and with awareness.

"Now we have time. All night, in fact. And you're going to tell me, Morgan, how you know about me."

She met his eyes and found herself incapable of coherent thought. There was nothing in her mind beyond submission. Obedience. It took an act of sheer will to break the hold of those eyes on hers, compelling her to tell him everything he wanted to know, but she did it. She looked away, past him at the sea.

Her mind whispered that if she told him about the journals, he would take them away. And, God, she couldn't lose her only link to him.

Or were they her only link to him?

"How did you do that?" she whispered.

His eyes closed for a moment as he sought patience. "Summon you here?" he asked, and when she nodded, he sighed. "I'm a vampire. An old one."

It wasn't an answer. "So you've learned mind control over the years?"

"To some extent, yes."

"Then you could summon anyone to come to you, make them come even if they didn't want to?" She was looking at the ground now, anywhere but into his eyes.

A finger hooked beneath her chin, tipped her head slowly up. "You wanted to."

A shiver worked through her body.

"It's more difficult to convince someone to do something they don't want to do. But I have the feeling, Morgan, that I could convince you to do just about anything I asked."

"I... " Her breathing quickened, and he noticed. She knew he noticed-she saw it in his eyes-and she almost thought he could hear her heartbeat speeding up, too. "I heard your voice in my mind. As clearly as if you were standing beside me, speaking to me."

He nodded.

"Does that happen with everyone, too?"

He broke eye contact this time but didn't look away as she had done. No, he just shifted his gaze to her lips. "I came here to ask questions, not answer them."

"I have questions, too," she said. "And I need answers as badly as you do."

He squared his shoulders. "Your conditions have changed, then?"

"I don't... "

"Last night you offered to tell me everything I wished to know if I would take you. Tonight you're ready to trade information instead of sex."

When he said the words "if I would take you," a shiver worked through her and heat pooled in her center. It brought vivid images to mind. Take you. It implied her submission, willing or otherwise. His mastery, his possession of her in any way he desired. She wanted it, and more. She craved it. She could see it so clearly in her mind. His hands holding her wrists, his mouth moving over her body, kissing and tasting and nipping, sampling her flesh and her blood while she whimpered in pain and pleasure.

"Stop it!"

His voice, harsh and sharp, brought her to attention. He had turned away, his hands pressed to his temples and his eyes closed.

"I can see your thoughts as clearly as you can, Morgan. And I warn you, my restraint is running low."

"I'm sorry."

He stood there for a moment longer, gathering himself, she thought Finally he drew a breath, straightened his back and turned to face her again. "I beg of you, tell me what I need to know. The more time I spend near you, the more you place yourself at risk."

She quelled the fear in her belly. "At risk of what, Dante? Being killed? It's a small risk, I promise you that I'm dying anyway. I'm not sure I'd have made it through the day if you hadn't... " She remembered vividly drinking from his neck and quickly slammed the door on the memory. "I need to know some things first."

"So you can use them in your next screenplay?"

She lowered her head. "When I wrote the script, I didn't know you were real. I thought I was mining the delusions of a crazy old man who was probably long dead."

Sighing, he turned and began walking toward the cliffs. She fell into step beside him, but his strides were long and powerful, and she had to take two steps for every one of his. "You have to believe me, Dante. I would never betray you. Not now."

"And why not?" he asked.

"Because I am in love with you."

They had reached the cliffs, and he stopped walking when she said the words, just stood there, facing the sea. "You don't know me. You don't know what I am. What I truly am. Your writer's mind has spun some sort of fantasy from the romanticized myths and legends you've heard and read. But you don't know the truth, and you need to get it fixed firmly in your mortal mind, Morgan. Vampires are predators. Killers. And mortals are their prey."

"Is that the way it was with Laura Sullivan? Was she your prey?"

He shot her a heated glance. "I was young. In love. I thought I could overcome my natural tendencies with her. She turned on me before I ever had the chance to find out." He lowered his head. "It was the second part of a vital lesson, Morgan. Mortals and vampires are mortal enemies. Do you believe for one moment that a mongoose could love a cobra? And even if it did, they would be doomed. One of them destined to destroy the other."

She swallowed her fear. "What does it mean to be one of the Chosen?" she asked.

He turned his head to stare down at her. "Where did you hear that term?"

"The same place I learned all the other things I know about you. I know that certain humans are called the Chosen. I know that it's something to do with their blood, and that vampires sense them and feel protective of them."

He looked away. "Then you know as much as I do."

"Not quite."

"This is a waste of time. I'm leaving." He turned his back to her.

"Am I one of them, Dante? And does it mean I don't have to die?"

He went utterly still.

She moved closer to him, slid her hands up his back and curled them over his shoulders. "When you fed me from your body, Dante, I felt... alive. Every sense heightened, every nerve ending awake and feeling everything. But it didn't last. I want to feel that again. All the time. I want to be what you are."

"So now we come to the heart of the matter at last. You seek entry into the world of the undead. That is what these declarations of love and desire are truly about." He turned to face her. "You don't have a strong enough mind to bear it, Morgan. You'd be dead inside a year."

"That's a year more than I have now."

He shook his head. "I won't do it to you. I refuse to visit this madness on another."

"Then it is possible. I am one of the Chosen!"

He pushed a hand through his hair in frustration. "Yes. Dammit, yes. You carry the Belladonna Antigen in your blood. You're one of the Chosen. It's why you're wasting away so soon. Your caste do."

She nodded, processing the information and reviewing the tale she had read in her mind. He would be far less likely, his evil aunt had told him, to harm one of the Chosen. "How is it done?"

His eyes gleamed softly in the night. He was angry at her for forcing this and yet aroused at the prospect. His gaze danced over her throat. "I sink my teeth deep into your lily-white throat, Morgan, and I suck the very lifeblood from you. I gorge myself on you until you hover on the very brink of death. If I take a little too much, you die. You lie there, hovering between life and death, until I decide to feed you from me. If you have enough strength remaining in you to drink, then you do. You drink from my veins. You swallow my curse."

The wind blew in harder from the sea. "And that's all?"

"You sleep. You wake. You feed. And it's complete."

She nodded firmly. "All right then." She pushed her hair behind her head, held it bunched there in one hand and tipped her chin up toward him. "Do it."

He looked down at her, a feral gleam in his eyes. Tracing the back of his forefinger over her throat, he growled very softly, like an animal in the night.

"Yes, you want to. You know you do," she whispered.

His breath came harsh and raspy. But she felt him fighting her, fighting his hunger and his desire. And then she remembered what she'd read. How closely the hunger for blood and sexual desire were linked.

He turned his head away from her.

She tugged free the sash of her robe and let the wind part it for her, driving it from her shoulders, down her arms, and then tearing it away. She stood naked, arms outspread, the cold wind razing her.

Dante's gaze came back to her. Riveted to her breasts as they pebbled in the cold wind. She moved closer, slid her arms around his neck and, standing on tiptoe, pressed her mouth to his.

With a shuddering sigh, he kissed her. His mouth tasted hers, their tongues twined and mated, and he held her body nestled against his almost tenderly. His lips left hers to trail over her jaw, onto her neck, where they suckled and kissed, and then he lifted his head as if with great effort. "Please, don't make me hurt you. I couldn't bear it, don't you understand? And I will hurt you. I will."

"It will be different with me. I'm one of the Chosen. I love you, and I know. I won't let you hurt me, Dante."

"You couldn't stop me."

"I have nothing to lose, don't you see that?" She tipped her head back again, her hands pressing to the back of his until he shivered and let her push him lower. His lips brushed her flesh. He groaned softly. "Please, please, Dante, please... "

Growling, he opened his mouth and sank his teeth into her. She felt a stabbing pain and then only warm waves of increasing ecstasy as he nursed at her throat He suckled her, drank from her, and her body vanished. All that remained was that place where his mouth possessed her throat and his teeth pressed into her flesh.

There was a sound. A hiss of air and a thud. Dante grunted in pain, and let her go, staggering backward. Morgan slumped to the ground, dazed, weak.

"I've got you now, you bloodthirsty bastard!" a voice shouted.

Morgan looked up and saw a rod embedded in Dante's shoulder, blood oozing from around the wound; then her gaze shot the other way, and she spotted the scarred man running toward them, a crossbow in his hand.

"Morgan... "

"I'm fine. Run, Dante. Go. Now!"

He did. Vanishing in a single burst of movement over the edge of the cliff. When he jumped, Morgan screamed from sheer instinct. And then the hunter was kneeling beside her, looking over the edge in search of his quarry. She looked, too, but Dante was nowhere to be found.

She pushed herself up onto her knees, swung a weak blow at the man. "Damn you! What the hell is wrong with you?"

The man looked at her. His gazed moved down her naked body in the darkness. Damn him, he looked as such as he wanted. Getting to her feet, weak and dizzy but determined not to show it, she looked around, and found her robe hanging from the gnarled branches of a geriatric apple tree. She walked unsteadily toward it, snatched it free and tugged it on.

"I just saved your life, you know!" the man Aerated, hurrying after her.

"You shot my boyfriend and probably killed him," she snapped. "I'm calling the police."

"You're not calling anybody." He gripped her shoulder and spun her around. She clutched the robe tight around her, especially the wide part around the neck. "Not until you let me have a look at your throat, anyway."

"You had a look at everything back there," she replied. "Should have looked your fill while you had the chance, because you won't get another."

"He was drinking from you. You were letting him. Fucking bloodwhore!"

"You're insane." She started toward the house again, but her knees buckled and she had to stop, lean against a tree and breathe deeply.

"He's taken too much," the man said. "He'd have killed you if I hadn't come along."

"It's the shock of seeing my boyfriend shot with a crossbow and knocked off a cliff, you lunatic!" She was vaguely aware of a car pulling into the drive out front. She heard it clearly, saw the headlights. Heard a door slam.

He grabbed her arm again. "Tell me the truth, dammit."

"Let go of me! Help! Someone help!"

"Hey! What's going on out there?" a man's voice called. There were running feet, and then she saw forms in the darkness, coming around the side of the house. Three of them. It was too dark to make out faces at a distance. The newcomer in the lead said, "I'm a cop, mister, and you'd better let that lady go before I decide to put a bullet in your ass."

The scarred man released her arm, turned and ran into the night.

The new man muttered a cuss word and took off in pursuit, while the other two, both women, rushed to either side of Morgan, asking if she were all right.

She kept her head down, clutched her robe tight, not wanting to reveal the telltale punctures on her neck to anyone. "I don't know who you all are, but I'm glad you came along when you did," she muttered.

"Just point us to the nearest door, hon," said one of them. "We'll get you inside."

She nodded, pointing to the back door, and she got her knees steady again. They helped her inside, through the back door into the kitchen, and she kept her head down, face averted, as she hurried through ahead of them. "Just wait here, will you? I just need a minute... "

She felt their eyes on her-curious, no doubt-as she hurried through the house, but they did respect her request. No one followed her. She paused at the study to lock the doors, and then she dragged herself upstairs to her room.

God, she was so weak. That bastard. His interruption might very well be the end of her. She shed the robe, dragged open a closet and located a silk pajama set. She pulled on the bottoms, slung the top on the bed and went to a dresser drawer, digging until she found a black turtleneck. She pulled it quickly over her head, then put on the pajama top and added slippers for good measure. When she stood in front of her full-length mirror, she saw a pale, frail woman. Curling her fingers around the neck of the shirt, she tugged it down, leaning closer to her reflection. The two punctures were there. Tiny, purple.

Swallowing hard, she eased the collar back into place against her skin, reached for a hairbrush and wondered who these new people were. She was going to have to go back downstairs and face them in a matter of minutes. How, when she could barely stand upright?

She would manage.

God, where was Dante? He'd vanished over the cliff but had never hit the water. She was certain she would have heard the splash if he had. What, then? God, was he all right?

Tears welling in her eyes, she tiptoed onto the balcony and looked out at the night sky. "God, Dante, are you all right? Tell me you're still alive. Tell me something, somehow. If you died because of me... "

Morgan.

His voice came clearly in her mind. And with it was a bolt of pain that was nearly blinding. She pressed her hands to her head, dropping to her knees.

I'll come to you again.

It was a promise, given with another blast of unbearable pain.

"Dante, where are you?" she said aloud. "Let me help you. Let me do something."

But there was no reply. Nothing. And she knew he wouldn't say more. Because when he sent his thoughts to her, he sent his agony, too. God, that they could be this connected-ah, but he had drunk deeply from her tonight. That might have something to do with it.

"I love you Dante," she whispered. "I swear I didn't know that man was coming. I swear it. And I'll kill him myself to protect you. I will." She had to prove it, though. She knew that. God, what he must be thinking! That she had planned this, set him up for that animal to shoot down.

Tears rolling down her cheeks, she backed inside but left the doors open so he could return to her if he were able. And then she turned, squared her shoulders and went to face the strangers downstairs.