Hotter Than Hell (56 page)

“That’s good.” More relaxed than he had been as they’d entered the apartment, Simon began to undress her. As always he took his time, caressing skin as it was revealed, kissing her mouth and her throat, raking his talented hands across her body. He played her as well as he played his piano, and they did make music.

Simon removed his clothes, with her help, as they walked into the bedroom. Once there, he did not rush to the bed as he sometimes did, but held her so that she was facing the mirror while he stood behind her. They were both naked, both entirely bare, but for the small gold cross that caught a glimmer of light from the other room. Simon’s hands covered her breasts. His fingers rocked back and forth, very gently, and she found herself leaning into him, reveling in the sensation of her skin against his. There had been a time when Claire had been embarrassed to look at herself this way, but Simon thought she was beautiful and he’d said so so many times she was beginning to believe him. He bent his head and kissed her shoulder.

“Do you really love me?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“Just for today because you like the way I make you feel, or for forever? Think before you answer,” he added quickly. “Forever is a very long time.”

She did think, but in truth she’d known the answer before he’d even finished asking the question. “Forever,” she said.

“For better or for worse?”

She nodded, and his hands slipped lower, where he aroused her with a deliberate slowness while his eyes held hers in the mirror. She saw a flash of fire there, and this time she knew the fire was real, not a reflection of neon.

“I was bitten in 1941,” he said.

Claire gasped, but did not move.

“It was hard at first, adapting to a new way of life. I had no one to help me, no one to teach me. I was bitten and abandoned to find my own way in a new world.”

Claire’s heart pounded as Simon spoke calmly and his hands caressed.

“It’s the immortality that’s hardest to take, I must admit. You’d think it would be wonderful, a gift instead of a curse, but friends always grow old and die and it’s impossible to stay in any one place for very long before people start asking questions about why I don’t grow older. Immortality is lonely. Very lonely.”

“Are you saying…”

“I’m not a killer,” he interrupted. “At least, not an indiscriminate one. Since ’41 I’ve killed three people. Two were trying to kill me. The other was a mistake.”

“A mistake?”

“I did not know my own strength.” His hands continued to arouse her, and his eyes held hers in the mirror. The flame there had died, but she did not fool herself into thinking it had never existed. “You have a choice to make. If you’d like I can pack my bags, change my name once again, and go somewhere so far away no one will ever find me. Say the word, and I’m gone.”

“I don’t want you to go!” she whispered, horrified at the idea that he might disappear from her life. “What’s the other choice?”

Simon lowered his head and nipped at her bare shoulder. “You know, Claire. You know. Come with me, if you dare. It’s your choice.”

“I don’t want you to go,” she said again. She didn’t want to go back to the life she’d lived before Simon had come into it.

“That’s not an answer,” he protested.

“There must be another way!” But she knew there was not.
When I was bitten. I’m not a killer. Come with me.

Claire slowly tipped her head to one side. That was her answer. She would not lose Simon. Not now, not ever.

“Look,” he whispered.

His hands now rested against her bare stomach, and as she watched they began to change. Long nails grew in the blink of an eye, and hair sprang up on his arms, his hands, his face. What had been lean, pale muscle grew larger and was almost instantly covered with dark fur. The shape of his face changed from the handsome face she had come to love to one that was caught between man and wolf. The teeth that grew long and sharp were fierce, but the eyes were Simon’s. She knew those eyes.

He raked his fingers, his claws, across her belly. Sharp talons did not break the skin, but they did leave fine red marks in their wake. She looked so pale, so vulnerable, with those powerful claws moving against her flesh. And yet, she was not afraid.

“I’m no vampire,” Simon said, the voice his and yet not his. It was throatier. Deeper. Colored with the force of an animal even though he touched her with the gentleness of the man she loved. “Whiny bastards,” he added beneath his breath. “Look at me without flinching, without being filled with horror. Look at me and understand that if you choose me we will never have children. We will never make a home that will last more than a few years. For an eternity, we will only have one another. Still love me, Claire? Still want to come with me?”

Because she knew those eyes so well she saw the pain there. Simon thought she would say no, that she would be terrified by what he had become…what she would become if she joined him. She should be terrified, but she was not. In fact, she remained amazingly calm. The face of her lover was no longer beautiful, but it was still his face. He was a werewolf—a shapeshifter, a Jekyll and Hyde—a monster to the minds of most just as a vampire was a monster.

But in spite of his current appearance, Simon was the best man she had ever known. She loved him. He was hers.

She reached up and touched his head, surprised by the softness of the fur that met her hand. She gently but surely drew him down until his mouth touched her neck. That was all the answer she had to give.

It didn’t hurt much when he bit her, when his sharp teeth broke through the flesh at her neck. A heartbeat later she felt the power of the animal that was inside him enter her blood, rushing through her veins with a burning sensation that traveled quickly throughout her body, changing her. Feeding her. Making her stronger. Simon held her with tenderness, though his limbs looked as if they could not offer tenderness.

There was pain, as the burning increased, but Claire welcomed the pain as she welcomed the rush of energy and strength. A new element was added to her body, and it shook her to the core. She and Simon were completely joined, much as they had been during sex, and she dismissed everything but the way it felt to be held in this way, to be joined. To be bitten.

The teeth were withdrawn from her neck, and Simon became a man once again, quickly, smoothly, and completely. Again, he met her eye in the mirror.

“When?” she asked. “When will I change?” For a moment she felt a tickle of panic, but the panic did not take root. It did not last.

“Some changes will come to you immediately. Others will arrive with the rise of the next full moon.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” she blurted. “You changed and there’s no full moon tonight. I thought…”

“Don’t believe everything you read, love,” Simon said with that touch of humor she adored. “You’ll learn all you need to know, in time. I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you everything.”

He led her onto the balcony that overlooked downtown Atlanta. Already Claire felt stronger, more alive. In addition she felt something she had not expected…an increased pull to Simon, who was, in a way she had never expected anyone to be, hers. Forever hers. He was in her blood, now, and she was in his.

“I was so sure there was a vampire in the building.” She laughed lightly and easily.

“There is.” Simon said. “When you come into your full abilities you’ll sense when a vampire is near.”

“I knew it,” Claire whispered. “Is there like a club or something? Monthly meetings?”

“Vamps and Weres don’t get along, but we refrain from fighting openly so we won’t bring undue attention to ourselves. Existing in a world that doesn’t believe in us is tough. Keeping it that way is even tougher.”

“Who is it?” she asked, searching her mind for the most logical answer. The young guy from the first floor, Charlie, the handyman…

“Mrs. Tillman. Don’t let the doddering old lady act fool you. She can be a nasty bitch when she feels like it.”

“But she’s
old.
”

“Only because it suits her at this moment in time to be old.”

Claire pictured Mrs. Tillman’s sour but unthreatening face in her mind, and imagined that mouth coming down on her neck. She shuddered, and Simon wrapped his arms around her in response. “At least now I understand why you were so upset at my teeny obsession with vampires.”

“Teeny?” he teased.

“Miniscule.”

The moon was not full, and still Claire drank in its power. The moon was a living thing that fed her, that called to her like a drug she needed in order to survive, in order to be strong. The moon’s rays washed over her much as Simon’s hands did, and she knew she had made the right decision in offering him her neck. No wonder he was so often out at night. To be bathed in the moonlight was magical.

“When did you know…” she began and then faltered. “When did you see that I…”

“That you were meant to be mine?”

“Yes.” The words sounded so right, so true to her heart.
Meant to be mine.

“The day I moved in I saw you come in from work, and…”

“The day you moved in?” she interrupted. “Why did you wait so long?”

“I knew if I was right and you were the one then you would come to me, in time. You did so, in your own unique way. You were drawn to me, Claire. That’s why you became obsessed. From that first glance, we were united.” With his fingertip, he touched the gold cross she wore. “I’m just glad this isn’t silver.”

Claire turned and leaned over the balcony railing, face lifted to the moon. A cool night breeze washed over her bare body and she opened her arms to drink it in. Even the brush of the wind on her skin felt finer, sharper, more beautiful.

Simon kissed the wound on her neck, a wound she knew would quickly disappear. “You are remarkably gorgeous tonight,” he whispered in her ear. “Gorgeous and powerful and mine in a thousand ways.” His body was molded to hers, and she felt as if she not only absorbed power from him but also gave back, in some way she could not yet explain. The night was at their feet, waiting to be claimed and conquered. Her life had just begun.

Again, Simon kissed her neck. “Moonlight becomes you, love,” he whispered against the sensitive skin. “Moonlight becomes you.”

MIA WALKED DOWN THE DAMP, RAIN-DESERTED
sidewalk, her seventy-five-dollar heels clicking faintly from fatigue on the wet cement. She was tired, but she could still maintain her elegant, upright posture if she moved slowly. Her dress-length overcoat and matching umbrella of midnight blue kept her dry, and it was rainy enough that she didn’t need to wear her sunglasses to protect her pale, nearly albino eyes.

With a small toss of her head, she shifted her black hair, cut short as she liked it. Traffic was light, but she didn’t want to risk being splashed, so she shifted closer to the classy, well-maintained narrow buildings that lined the street. The paper sack of groceries on her hip wasn’t heavy, but her daughter’s needs were telling. It wasn’t the usual fatigue brought on by an energetic newborn. Holly was the first banshee born in Cincinnati in over forty years, and if Mia couldn’t keep her in an emotion-rich environment, the child took what she needed from her mother. It wasn’t as if Holly could draw upon her father for her emotional needs. Not now anyway.

Frowning, Mia brushed her hair from her eyes and wondered if having a child at this particular time had been a good idea. But when Remus—psychopath, murderer, and gentle lover—had fallen into her lap by way of a bungled rape attempt, the chance to use his anger and frustration to engender a child in her had been too great. A smile curved Mia’s delicate mouth up. Remus had quickly learned the difference between his unreasonable rage at the world and her true hunger, becoming pliant and gentle. Respectful. The perfect husband, the model father.

And at the thought of Holly, happy, inquisitive Holly, so pretty and soft, looking like a younger, mirror image of her mother, babbling innocently as she sat on her mother’s lap and basked in the love for her, Mia knew she’d have it no other way. She would do anything for her daughter. As her mother had done for her.

The soft whoosh of a passing car brought Mia’s head up, and she blinked at the rain heavy on her eyelashes despite the umbrella. It was cool and damp, and she was weary. Seeing a rain-abandoned table outside a cafe, she slowed, brushing once at the wrought-iron chair before sitting with her groceries on her lap and trusting her coat to keep her dry. The awning helped shield the rain and she closed her umbrella. She was just a casually sophisticated young woman waiting for a cab that would never come.

People passed, and slowly her pulse eased and her fatigue lessoned as she soaked in the emotions of the pedestrians, taking in flashes of feeling like water eddying around a rock in a streambed. It was all the law would allow now, this passive sipping of emotions. If she fed well, people noticed.

Mia straightened when a couple arguing over whether they should have taken a cab walked by, sensation rolling over her like a sunbeam. Almost she rose to fall into step behind them, to linger and drink it in, but she didn’t, and the warmth faded as the couple continued on.

One might think that a predator existing on emotions might have an easy life living in a city that measured its population in the hundreds of thousands, but since humanity had learned banshees were not the stuff of story but living among them, humans had armed themselves with knowledge, and their numbers had dwindled.

The image of a mysterious weeping woman foretelling death had given way to the reality of a sophisticated predator: a predator who could feed well upon office arguments started between co-workers with a careful word or two, gorge upon the death-energy a person released when dying, but barely survive upon the ambient emotions around her that the law allowed.