Samantha Moon: First Eight Novels, Plus One Novella (124 page)

Fang, I saw, was naked, too. He was sitting in a chair. I could see his chest heaving. His skin was gleaming slightly. I hadn’t seen him naked before. This was a first...and it was impressive. All of it...and all of him.

But I was seeing what he was seeing, and now his gaze shifted as she slowly swung a leg over him and straddled him. I felt him shiver. Heard him moan and gasp. She adjusted herself on him, reaching down, and now he moaned low and long as she slid him inside her.

A powerful wave of pleasure swept through him and subsequently me, too. I felt him throbbing.

Jesus, no wonder guys love those things so much.

But this wasn’t about sex. I knew that. Fang knew it, too. This was just preparing him for what was to come. He was waiting for it. I could sense his thoughts, even if they were a bit scrambled. He was willing her to do it, to do it, to do it.

Please. Do it. Please. God, please.

His thoughts briefly overcame mine, his line of thinking replacing mine.

I shook my head, and nearly pulled out of the scene, but I had to see what happened next. I had to see what was going to happen to my one-time friend, Fang.

Do it, love. Do it, baby. Do it, do it. DO IT!!

I shook my head, trying to clear it, trying to focus on what was happening, but Fang’s thoughts were too intense, too powerful, too overwhelming. I had two choices only: block the vision completely...or give into it.

I debated only briefly.

And gave into it...

Chapter Twenty-nine

They writhed.

I writhed, too, along with Fang, since I was living through him, experiencing through him, feeling through him. All while I sat here alone in my office, while he made love in another part of town, with a vampire.

A very dangerous vampire.

I did not feel jealous. I loved Fang, but for different reasons. He had been a friend first...and a stalker later. Knowing his past later did not wipe away the feelings of warmth I had developed for him. He had helped me through some very dark times in my life, and for that, I would always be grateful.

That he had had an agenda only came out later.

Agenda or not, he had always been my Fang, my friend, my confidant, my rock, my source of information and sometimes, even inspiration.

But I was losing him tonight.

I was losing him forever.

The sound of his panting filled my thoughts. I could also feel his heart racing. Nearly uncontrollably. Fang had the mother of all delusions. Early on in life, thanks to a rare defect, he had believed he was a vampire. And a part of me suspected he
still
believed he was a vampire.

At least, a vampire at heart.

Fang was the embodiment of the Law of Attraction. He believed it hard enough, wanted it bad enough, lived it, breathed it...and now he was about to become it.

The real deal.

A vampire.

His lifelong wish, his fondest desire, his burning passion was about to become real, and he could barely control himself. No, he couldn’t control himself. I felt ghost tears pouring down my face. But they were his tears pouring steadily down his face. Our connection was still so strong, so powerful. In this moment, we were one.

I could stop the connection, but still I resisted.

I had to know what was happening to my friend...I had to know what was going through him, and what she would do to him.

She writhed on his lap, faster and faster. From his blurred vision, I saw his hand reaching up for her hair, pulling on it. She went with it and bared her teeth. Not unnaturally long canines, no. Normal teeth. I was the same. My teeth were always the same size. Nothing pointy. Nothing I ever had to hide.

Thank God. Going through this life was hard enough being what I was. At least I didn’t want to have to keep my lips closed, too.

Her teeth were unnaturally white. Same with mine. No coffee stains. No yellowing. Apparently, a steady diet of blood whitened teeth, too. Go figure.

Her chest was small. Not a lot of bouncing or heaving there, but I saw that one of Fang’s hands were groping them absently. Mostly he was concentrating on her face, her mouth. I saw what he saw—and he was laser-focused on her teeth.

Her pure white teeth, which she flashed once more.

She was going to do it. She’s doing it. Please do it. Please. I need this. I have to have this. I must have this.

Fang’s vision focused and unfocused, wavered, spun briefly. He was close to hyperventilating. Close to passing out. He wanted this so bad, was so excited, so turned on...

Deep breaths, Aaron,
he told himself, his thoughts appearing in mine.
Deep breaths. There. There. She’s doing it. Oh, God, she’s doing it...

His eyes unfocused and I saw that Hanner had indeed lowered her face...briefly to his lips, which she grazed with her own, now down along his chain and onto his neck, all of which she kissed and licked hungrily...

Jesus, it’s really happening.

I wasn’t sure if that had been Fang’s thoughts or my own, until I realized it didn’t matter.

One thing I did know was that Fang was close to orgasm.

Jesus, I shouldn’t be seeing this, feeling this,
I thought.

Her rhythm increased, her hips riding me—Fang—harder and faster. I felt her body thrust against me, her breasts grazing me. Her lips kissing me. Fang and I were one, truly one, and it was all I could do to not gasp. Something was rising in him, an incredible sensation. It was building powerfully. He gripped the chair he was sitting in. I gripped my own chair.

And just as I felt a sharp pain in my neck—no, an excruciating pain—Fang released powerfully into her, crying out, holding her tightly.

Even while she drank deeply from him.

Chapter Thirty

It was the next day, and I was with my daughter.

We were at the Brea Mall, which was next door to the same Embassy Suites where I had stayed for a few weeks last year, back when my ex-husband, Danny, had been trying to destroy me. He’s cute like that.

I was holding Tammy’s hand. These past few days, ironically, she had seemed inseparable from me. She had only run away for a few hours. It had been just long enough to miss her mommy.

The mall was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday evening, although there was the usual amount of squealing teenage girls. Trailing right behind the squealing girls was a group of giggling boys. This trend was repeated throughout the mall, on every level of every quadrant. From Macy’s to Nordstrom’s, from Sbarro’s Pizza to Wetzel’s Pretzels: laughing girls were followed closely by giggling boys.

Of course, there were whole families here, too. And couples shopping, and security guards strolling, and glass elevators elevating, and escalators escalating.

But none were as loud as the squealing girls.

“You don’t have a lot of friends,” I said after we stopped for pretzels.

I ordered two out of habit. I wasted more money that way, and as we continued our slow stroll through the mall, I broke off a big chunk of pretzel and just held it. I waited until Tammy turned to look at a poster of the latest
Twilight
movie, this one called
Midnight Sun
, and dropped the chunk of pretzel into a trash can. That was a damn shame, since it smelled heavenly and there were hungry folk in the world.

Tammy glanced over at me and smiled. I smiled, too, and pretended to swallow the non-existent pretzel.

I hated my life sometimes.

We continued like this until we got to the downstairs courtyard near JCPenney. When Tammy conveniently turned to look at something that surely caught her eye, I quickly disposed of the last of the pretzel—

But not in time.

She quickly glanced back at me...and only then did I realize that I’d been set up.

“Mommy?” she said.

“
Uh, yes?” I had looked away, feigning interest in some shoes in a nearby window.

“
Mommy, why have you been throwing away your pretzel this whole time? I’ve been watching you do it in all the windows.” She looked at her own reflection in the store window and stared at my hand-less sleeves. “Well, sort of watching you.”

Caught. Dammit.

“Mommy has a stomach ache,” I said.

“
But you always have a stomach ache.”

“
I know, baby. Sometimes Mommy is very sick.”

“
But you’re always sick. If you didn’t want the pretzel, then why did you order it?”

“
I wanted it, sweetie. Very badly.”

She stopped walking and took my forearm. Long ago, she had quit asking me about my cold flesh. Cold flesh and Mommy were one and the same. “Enough double talk, Mom.”

“Double talk?”

“
Yes. Double talk. It means you are telling me one thing but mean another.”

“
Oh, it does, does it?”

“
Yes, it does. Mrs. Marks explained it to us the other day. And I realize that you do that a lot. Double speak.”

“
You think so?”

“
I know so, Mommy. For instance, if you wanted the pretzel so badly, then why not eat it? Then why
pretend
to eat it? And if you actually had a stomach ache, then why order it at all?”

I crossed my arms under my chest and leaned a shoulder against the window. I glanced at the time on my cell. He should be here any moment now. For once, I wished that Danny was early.

I said to Tammy, “I don’t know, honey. You tell me.”

“
I think you do know, Mommy. I know lots of things these days.”

“
What things?” I asked.

“
Secrets.”

“
Whose secrets?”

“
Everybody’s secrets.”

“
How do you know their secrets, honey?”

“
I see them.”

“
See them how?”

“
I just see them. Like visions.”

“
I see,” I said. “So, what secrets do you know about Mommy?”

“
For one, you’ve been lying to me and Anthony for years.”

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. My lips and tongue worked to form words, to no avail. Mercifully, across the mall, Danny appeared through the crowd, looking grim-faced and handsome and moving quickly.

“There’s another, slightly bigger secret,” she continued, following my gaze and seeing her dad approaching.

“
What?” I asked with sickening dread.

“
You’re a vampire.”

I think my eyes just about bugged out of my head, not that I could see my reflection. I pushed off the window just as Danny appeared and hugged Tammy. She hugged him back, but kept her eyes on me.

“Where’s Anthony?” he asked me gruffly.

“
He’s with his cousins this weekend.”

“
Fine. Tell him I miss him.”

“
Will do,” I said. But I was looking at Tammy.

Danny nodded and was about to turn away with the palm of his hand on Tammy’s lower back, when he suddenly stopped. He looked at me curiously, then his daughter. “Everything okay here?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Tammy, “Ask Mommy.”

“
Yes,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”

“
Fine, whatever,” said Danny, and now he took Tammy’s hand and led her off for his weekly visitation.

As she followed behind him, Tammy looked back once...and gave me a knowing smile.

Chapter Thirty-one

I was sitting in my minivan, admittedly shocked.

My innocent children were innocent no more. Gone were the days where they would blindly accept Mommy’s complaints of a tummy ache or of a rare skin disease or my even vaguer explanation that “Mommy is just cold.”

I started and tried to predict the significance of Tammy also knowing that her mother was the freak of all freaks. I wondered if there was any hope that my kids might still might grow up to be normal...and that thought alone nearly overwhelmed me. I buried my face in my hands all over again. I sat like that until the tears stopped.

As I sat there, face in my hands, two things occurred to me: one, how deep my hate was for the angel, Ishmael; and, two, that my daughter was steadily growing more psychic.

And when, exactly, did that happen?