Hunger Aroused (20 page)

“I'll meet you there, Corin, my love,” she murmured. “In the Elysian fields.”

Corin jumped to his feet when he inhaled the sharp tang of blood in the air. Jasmine stood near the death cart. Bright red drops created an elliptical pattern on the floor at her feet. “What did you do?” he roared. “What have you done?”

He ran to her side, forcing her to twist to him. Goose bumps broke out all over, chills stiffening his spine and spreading until he thought his very breath would freeze his lungs. Horrified, he grasped her bloody wrist to his chest, his hand tightening around the open gash in an effort to stem the flow. His fingers slid through salt clinging to her skin.

“I won't let you die for me,” she said, gasping. Hot tears ran down her face.

No. No.
He pulled her arm to his stomach, using the material to wipe away the salt. Broad streaks of crimson made him look wounded.

What was she thinking? She knew her heart had to be destroyed. He'd explained the process to her. This was senseless, an act without purpose that served neither of them. “This won't kill you!” he almost shouted.

Jas yanked her arm away from him, plunged it back into the bowl of salt. Arterial blood poured out of her arm, bright red in the harsh lighting. She fought him in an effort to grab one of the razorlike blades with her damaged arm. “It won't kill me, no, but this way neither will you.” When she failed to pick up the blade with useless fingers, she used her good hand to grab it and dart away from him. From across the room, she faced him, blood dripping onto the floor in bright, round drops. “When my heart no longer pumps blood, use the ash.”

Oh gods. Dead, but not dead. He understood her intent now. Understood it too, too well. She only had to drain her life through the wounds on her wrists, and technically, the stake in her heart wouldn't be the true cause of her demise. It did ensure it, however.

“What will you do when you awaken? What then? Because I won't stake you.” Not even under the threat of death.

Tears dripped in steady streams down her face. Her blue eyes bright. “Please, Corin,” she whispered. “Do this for us.”

He straightened. Let her do this if she wanted. She would awaken disappointed. “No. I won't.” To settle his point, he folded his arms over his chest.

It took everything within him to watch her struggle with the blade. Undoubtedly she hadn't expected it to be so sharp. Corin was a true professional, however. He spent hours honing the blades to a point any razor blade would envy.

The blade she'd used had sliced deep into her left arm, shredding tendons, rendering the use of her thumb impossible. Blood flowing from the wound slickened the hilt of the blade, adding to her difficulty. The blade dropped once, twice onto the carpeting, where a trail of her life escaped.

“Please, Corin,” she pleaded again. Her face had begun to pale, her eyes more stark against her skin. “Help me do this.”

Throat tight, he shook his head. Despite his earlier resolve, he didn't know if he could continue to watch. He'd promised to protect her, even if it meant protecting her from herself.

Her frustration almost palpable, she tucked the hilt of the blade between her side and her arm before resting her right wrist at its point. His legs were not fast enough in their obedience. His command to get him to her went unheeded.

She let out a fierce cry and drove the blade into her flesh. It didn't slice like in the other wrist, but the damage was enough. Jasmine wiped some of the salt from her left wrist on to the right, ensuring vampire heritage did not save her.

“You promised me,” she said, moaning. She drew her wrists against her belly. “You promised me a quick, swift death by your hands. By your hands, Corin.”

“But that…that was before.” Before he loved her as his own. Before he couldn't imagine another day without her.

She fell to her knees, a loud thud in the conference room. Blood spread across her shirt, soaking it up like a sponge. “Will you stand by and let someone else kill me?”

“Jasmine…” A lump lodged in his throat. He thought back to the first day, to the moment when he'd decided to run. He
had
promised. To let someone else complete what he should was unthinkable.

A sudden image of another executioner standing over her, driving a stake into her heart, made the blood drain from his face. He imagined fear contorting her features as she waited for the final blow until Corin no longer recognized her. For gods' sakes, she'd taken the first step; was he truly so much of a coward that he couldn't finish the task she started?

There was no feeling in his legs as he crossed the room. Somehow, on his way to her, a stake ended up in his hand. It weighed a hundred pounds, dragging his arm down, making it a chore to take one step in front of the other. His legs were heavy too. Each footfall taking forever to complete.

He knelt before her, paid homage to his little goddess. To the only woman in all his years who brought him to his knees. He couldn't see her now, for his vision had become blurry. Water-filled eyes blinked, then blinked again, but that only served to force tears down his face. He couldn't see her, couldn't gaze upon her loveliness before she left him forever. “I am blinded.”

“Shh, you're not. Come to me.” She sounded frail, a recognition that ripped his soul apart.

Corin followed the scent of her blood and found a place to rest his head against her still-beating heart. Lying against the soft cushion of her breasts, he prayed for strength. For the gods to guide his hands when the appropriate time came. They had minutes left. Only minutes until her blood stopped flowing altogether. “Don't make me do this, Jas.”

“Oh, Corin, how I love you.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist, feeling the trickle of her blood rolling down his skin. The sound of the conference room door opening and closing beyond them wasn't distraction enough to make him lift his head. Multiple footsteps, the sound of the Council's return, only served to fuel his anger at this injustice.

“Tell me more of the Elysian Fields. It…sounds…beautiful.”

They were of different times, and different gods. For some reason he'd never tried to explain to himself, he didn't let go of his old ways, but embraced them after the time of gods came and went more than he had as a mortal. Thinking of them now, knowing he would meet her in the afterlife shortly, a sense of calm began to fill him. “It's where the virtuous go after being judged. It's a paradise for the innocent and the good. The gods will know our hearts and that we belong there together.”

“You think so?” Weak. Heart-breaking.

“I know so,
mellita.
”

“I look forward…to it.”

She slumped, and Corin jerked upright. “Jas? Are you still with me?” A beat passed. Then another. She still didn't respond. “No—no! Jasmine!”

He moved carefully, gathering her in his arms before laying her onto the floor. Her eyelids fluttered, just enough to settle his erratic heart. Blood covered them both, a pool in the shape of her body soaked into the carpeting. The ash stake lay off to the side, a visual reminder of death. Of what his life had become.

At once Corin hated being a vampire. Hated his life. Hated it all. Something within him hardened, shoving aside all of the beauty Jasmine had introduced to him, and made way for death and despair. How naïve to believe good would be allowed to flourish near him.

When he completed this final task, when he took the life from her, he would destroy them all. Then let the justice of the vampire nation come for him. He would await their new executioners, and he would not fight. He would not struggle, but embrace death.

The gods would understand his need for vengeance and the final, sweet pull of a permanent night would bring him back to Jasmine.

On hands and knees, he crawled to the stake. Bare knuckles scraped against the carpet when he curled his fingers around the smooth wood. The skin on them burned as he swung his body around to face Jasmine again.

She looked so beautiful there. Pale and otherworldly. “I never asked your favorite flower, my Jasmine. When we meet in the afterlife, grow a field of flowers for me.” He kept his voice low, these last few minutes together meant for them and them alone. He used his fingers to push curly brown hair into place around her head. Such beautiful hair. “There I'll feed you strawberries from my own hand. I'll make love to you beneath the stars in that field. We'll make love until the sun rises and we're too spent to move.”

He knew the Council waited beyond. Waited for him to finish this task so that he could go back to being their favorite pet. Their slave. If only they knew the evil filling his heart, even as he spoke to his love, they would flee for their lives.

Corin lowered his head to her chest, pressing his ear to her sternum. Her heart quivered in its hold, a final struggle for life. A few more seconds, a minute at most, and it would give up. He glanced at the wounds in her wrists, where blood flow had slowed to no more than a trickle. Absently he wiped away the salt, once again blinded by tears streaming down his face. Tears he paid no attention to.

Turning over his hand, he opened his palm for one last look at the stake. Funny how he'd never paid attention before to how ridiculous the small instrument seemed. Instead of laughing at the insanity of it all, he tightened his jaw. With a measured breath, he closed his eyes, willing the tears to stop flowing. When he plunged the stake into her heart, he needed a clear line of sight. He would not dishonor her by missing the crucial striking point.

Corin looked up and met the cool gaze of Councilman Sage. He gave him a very slow nod, as if encouraging his executioner to finish the job so they could embrace him once again. Corin ignored it, choosing instead to look into the faces of the other Council members. Memorizing each of the strangers' faces, marking them for death. When he got to the last one, however, all thoughts and plans rushed out of his mind.

He battled his body's instinct to bow before him, the man who'd brought him into this life. The vampire he'd successfully avoided for more than five hundred years. He willed his body not to shudder, nor show any other reaction to his former dominus. The man known once upon a time as Cartius Primus.

“How?” Corin demanded. “How do you come to be here?”

“Finish the task you've started, Titus Corinius,” he said, taking a step forward. “We have a lot to talk about. How I have missed you.”

He glanced down at Jasmine's body and silently begged her help.
What would you have me do?
With Cartius's words he knew the flaw of his plan. He assumed he'd be able to kill the Council members, that he'd be justified in his actions. Only a universe that hated him, that would see him broken again, would send the one man who'd ever made him cower back into his life, pausing him into immobility.

Just when he needed her love the most, the only woman he'd ever given his heart to took one final, shuddering breath.

Pain blossomed outward, a breathtaking grasp that clung with the same intensity of someone who reached for the last strand of life. It started deep in the sternum, spreading like a river, the heart the source of its center. Blood pumped its way through the body, flushing the skin, giving rise to sensation once thought gone.

It hurt, this return to being, and Jasmine wasn't sure if she would survive it.

“Let it happen,” he soothed. “It'll be over soon.”

She tried to smile at his voice, the loving sound of Corin as he gentled her once again. Just like the first time they'd met. “Why does it hurt so much?” If they were in the afterlife, this didn't make much sense. The way Corin had described it, she thought they'd be free of constraints like pain. Life was now supposed to be about honey and flowers and all that.

“It's this way every time it happens. It'll subside soon. Truth.”

This time she did smile. As he promised, the pain also did subside, to be replaced by a warm fuzziness similar to having a few too many glasses of wine. She felt afloat a cloud, like pins and needles, without the discomfort, returning in gradual waves to every part. Jasmine experimented by wiggling her fingers and toes.

“Better?”

She nodded, her cheek brushing against the thigh upon which she rested. “Yes.”

“Open your eyes. We need to talk.”

“That sounds too serious for the Elysian Fields, Cor—” The thought died after she opened her eyes. Jasmine shot upright as the conference table, the two-way mirror, the corporate chairs…all of the sundry office building furnishings came into sight. They weren't in the afterlife. Somehow, for some reason, Corin had failed to deliver on his promise. Disappointment tasted bitter in her mouth. “What happened?” she asked.

“My dominus has returned.”

She swiveled to face him. “Your dominus? Your sire?”

“The same. The man I'm paired with.” He lifted his eyes to meet hers.

“But why wouldn't you…how's that going to help us? Can he?”

“He saved my life once before. In exchange, I served him for a little more than thirty years. I'll make the same deal with him now. Your life, in exchange for my service.”

She shoved a hand through her hair, wanting to pull it out at the roots. “Okay, even if that made any sense whatsoever, what about the Council? How do you plan on getting them to agree to something like that?”

“I have no idea. He seems to have his ways though. It might be money, or exchange for favors, or I-I just don't know.”

Oh God. What did she do with this information? “What if he wants more than thirty years? What if it's fifty or a hundred? What if he's not satisfied until he gets the rest of your life?”

“I'm willing to accept whatever terms he offers, Jas. If I have to sacrifice never seeing you again, I won't lose you. Not to death. Not like this.”

“It's too much. You're willing to give up way too much for me. I can't let you do this.”

He shifted his gaze away. “It's already done.”

She didn't care what he said about the instinct to breathe. Her lungs refused to take on air as shock made her stumble, her arm shooting out to catch her fall. Except, she still sat in his embrace, vertigo skewing that observation until now.

“Remember what I said, Jas. Survive. However you do it, survive. I will find you again one day.”

“I refuse to settle for ‘one day.' This whole goddamned thing isn't fair.” She shook her head miserably. “You should have killed me.”

“The minute you died, I would have become someone you wouldn't like very much. I'd already started down that path by watching your life ebb.”

“I love you too much to watch you do this.”

“And I love you too much not to.”

It finally struck her that they were alone. “Where is everyone?”

“Convening, or whatever it is they do.”

“I still don't understand how they found him. Did they search him out just to torture you with it or something?”

“I'm not that important.” He let out a mirthless laugh. “He's one of the gods' damned Council now. All these years, and I'm still serving him.”

Where was the justice in the world? A minute passed, while her mind tumbled with questions and thoughts. Possible solutions. She'd been given a temporary reprieve, but the cost was too high. Way too high. “What did you mean about becoming someone I wouldn't have liked very much?”

He sighed. “I'd planned on exacting vengeance against them all. My way.”

She grasped him by the collar, bring his face down to meet hers. The kiss she planted on his lips took him by surprise. It was hot. Intense. Commanding. Too damned long in coming. “Look at me,” she barked. “Look in my eyes and know this, Titus Corinius…I would have expected nothing less. You are an executioner. It's what you do.”

A tall man opened the door and walked through. His almond-shaped green eyes were some of the most piercing Jasmine had ever seen. They took in the sight of her and Corin, studying them both with an understanding of their relationship in less than a two-second sweep. “Titus.”

“Dominus.” A subservience she didn't recognize in him crept into that single word. While she rose to her feet, Corin remained on the floor.

“I'm Jasmine George,” she said, walking to him, hand outstretched. The earth tilted on its axis at first, but she righted herself before she stumbled. Sticky with drying blood, her clothes clung to her, but she ignored the gross feeling.

“Ms. George. I'm Cartius Primus.” He lifted her hand to his face. Cool lips brushed across the back. “
Enchanté
.”

“I understand I have you to thank.” She inclined her chin in the air, shoulders back.

“No, you really ought to thank Titus. It's his generosity that encouraged me to speak with the Council.” He addressed Corin. “Which has agreed to release you both into my custody.”

“How?” Corin barked back. “How did you manage to sway them?”

Cartius shrugged. “For some, money talks. For others, favors owed. Even others have, shall we say,
unique
requests that I have indulged or continue to indulge. This is a political arena, Titus. Something I'm not sure you ever appreciated.”

Jasmine's stomach turned. “So you're saying you bribed them?”

“Such a crass word. What I've learned over my lifetime, what I have exploited, is the human weakness.” He chuckled at his own joke. “I've learned what it takes to break a man, and what it takes to make him heel. Wouldn't you say, Titus?”

She bit back the urge to defend Corin. Instead she focused on a niggling memory. “You haven't seen Cor—Titus in years, I understand.”

He frowned. “Centuries. I'd finally thought to replace him, but it wasn't quite the same.”

“Paired with others?”

His frown deepened. “In fact, I have. One other.”

“Did you know I'm paired with Corin?” Jasmine asked.

Corin rose slowly to his feet.

“I love him until it hurts. It's something fierce.”

“Yes, well…”

“I love him too much to send him with you.”

The skin at the corner of Cartius's eye twitched. “I'm not sure you have a choice.”

Jasmine took Corin's hand in hers, squeezing it, her heart swelling. They had a choice. Just maybe Cartius didn't see it yet. “I'm told that if my life ends, Titus might die. Then again, because of his advanced age—hey!” She rubbed where Corin just nudged her with an elbow. “I'm told because he's more
seasoned,
then again, he might live. But not me.” She took a step back, leaning against Corin. “If he dies, so do I. I'm too young to survive it.”

“Young lady, I'm older than he is. I know this. I don't need a lesson in vampire physiology from you.” He made a move to turn, but Jasmine darted in front of him.

“But here's the thing I'm figuring. What happens if a man, even one well seasoned, loses the
two
lifelines he's tethered to? Can he survive it? What do you think, Corin?”

He took her hand, dragged her back into his embrace. Delicate kisses traveled down the side of her face, tickled the top of her ear. “I don't know,” he murmured. “He might live through it, but he might not.”

Confident he knew her burgeoning plan, Jasmine gathered full steam and charged ahead. “I'd rather journey with him into the afterlife now than see him spend one day beneath you. I'd see him dead before he called you Dominus again. But not before I asked one more thing of my executioner. My lover.”

“What's that,
mellita?
” Corin responded. Right on cue.

“Find Cartius's other paired.” She let what would happen after he'd been found go unspoken. Corin knew. If Cartius was a smart man, he'd venture a guess and would probably be right. If he looked into her face, he also had to see how deadly serious she felt about having Corin resume his old life of slavery. She'd drive the stake through his heart herself if it came down to that. Cartius might survive the death of one of his paired, but two was questionable. Hopefully too questionable for him to chance.

Cartius went red with anger. “What do you want?”

Heart pounding, Jasmine smiled at him. “Freedom.”

***

“Where are we going?”

“I have another house, about two hours north. We'll camp there for the time being. At least until we decide where we want to live permanently.”

Cartius had been convinced to lend them his car for a short while. It was amazing how generous he became once his life was threatened.

“If we leave the state, I'll have to get a new license to practice.”

“If that's what you want to do.”

A comfortable silence ensued while she chewed over the logistics. She'd have to apply to the Board of Nursing, get her old records. Hell, she'd have to actually resign from the clinic. They wouldn't be too happy about the short notice.

“You're thinking too loudly over there,” Corin said after a few minutes.

“Sorry. Just wondering about selling my old stuff, making sure my bills are paid, etc. You know how that goes.” She focused on the mundane of her life because a few things about his life still concerned her. They were things they would eventually talk over, and she eventually get over.

“Would you prefer if we bought a new house here? I'd thought you might not want the memories.”

“No, that's—wait a minute. You would buy a house, just like that?”

He shrugged. “If that's what would make you happy, sure.”

Jasmine squinted at him, turning in her seat to make sure she didn't miss anything. “Corin, just how many houses do you have?”

He made a face. “I don't know. Twenty?”

“Twenty.”

“Yes, I think. I'm not sure. I have someone to handle my holdings for me.”

“Twenty.” She gaped at him. “Twenty. Houses.”

The car drifted to a stop at a red light. He turned. “Jas, you sound perplexed. What else am I supposed to do with the money I've made over the years? Hundreds and hundreds of years…”

“Wow. I just never…wow.”

He laughed lightly, a sound she knew didn't come easy to him, but one she enjoyed hearing. “You are now a very wealthy woman, Jasmine George. Whatever I have is yours. You never have to work a day in your life again if you don't want.”

“Let's talk about that later.” It was too much to process right now, and something she wanted to give great thought to. Another thought struck her. “I used to suffer from migraines. Had one the day before we met, in fact.”

“Thing of the past.” The car pulled forward.

“I know, but I think I have an idea. Remember you told me my heart had to stop for the blood to bloom in my system. I think I know how it happened.” Jasmine thought back to the old prescription pain medicine she'd found in the back of her medicine cabinet. She reflected too on the pink pills she'd already been taking all week long to stave off the effects of the flu that wasn't a flu in the end.

“Jas?”

She knew better than to mix two medications, especially when one had expired, without checking for a drug-drug interaction first. It seemed so stupid now. But John Doe's vampire's blood had saved her from death by her own careless hands.

No. Not saved her. It gave her a life she never dreamed. It brought her Corin, and that meant the world to her. “Never mind,” she murmured. “It's not important.”

She leaned back into the seat, tempted to roll down the window and let the breeze flow through her hair. How far they'd come in a few days' time. She'd come to love this man, willing to stare down death in order to be with him. No doubt, he felt the same about her. On the one hand, it wasn't a flawless courtship, but on the other hand, it really was just short of perfect.

“Now what?” Corin pulled her from her thoughts again.

“Just thinking about the impossible.”

“I'd move heaven and earth for you.”

She took his hand from where it rested next to the gearshift. “I know. I'm just wondering if maybe one day, if maybe you'd be interested in maybe, adopting?”

His dark eyes darted in her direction. “Sure, we can adopt. But I'm a little surprised.”

“I've always wanted a family…”

“Not at that. I'd just thought you'd want a child born of you and me.”

“Corin!” She squeezed his hand. “Corin…oh, my God. Corin?”

He squeezed back. “Vampire does not mean dead. It's not impossible for us to start a family. When we've settled, you and I need to sit down for a long, long talk. The things I've neglected to tell you about this life, you should know now. Is that all right,
mellita?
”

Jasmine shrieked, planted a wet kiss on his cheek and sat back grinning. She pushed aside thoughts of Councils and egomaniacs, death and dying. Instead she thought of her new life where she ached with hunger for her lover's kiss and his touch. She thought of little boys with their father's handsome features, and little girls with their mother's blue eyes. She thought of Corin and how much she loved him.