Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) (3 page)

It was too much—he was too big, too
threatening. I lost my nerve and stepped back.

“I can’t reach you. Maybe…maybe you should
just go.”

“No, damn it.” He straightened up and
shook his head fiercely. “Just look at you—now that I see you in the light I
can tell you’re in a bad way.”

“I’m fine.” I drew myself up and crossed my
arms over my chest protectively. “Just fine.”

“Hell no, you’re not,” he said, almost
angrily. “You look like a stiff wind would blow you over. You need blood.”

He took a step toward me and I took a step
back. I didn’t like the way he loomed over me—it made me feel small and
trapped. It brought back memories I would rather forget.

“I can wait until you get back.” I
swallowed and heard a dry click in my throat. “Honestly.”

“No, you can’t. You need to get some
now—I’m going out tonight and I don’t know when I’ll be back.” He came toward me
again—and again, I backed up.

“Why?” I made myself ask, though my heart
was pounding and my lips felt numb. “Are you, uh, planning a trip?”

He barked a short laugh. “Something like
that. Sometimes when the moon calls me like she is tonight, I…it takes me a
little while to come…to come all the way back.” He scowled. “I really can’t
explain it more than that.”

“Oh,” I whispered. I took another step
back and felt something hard hit my hip. Casting a glance over my shoulder, I
saw that I was trapped with the L-shaped kitchen counter at my back. I had
literally backed myself into a corner.

“Look,” he started, coming so close I
could feel his heat radiating against my skin. He started to duck down, his
face close to mine—too close. “What if I just—”

“Please,” I whispered, my throat tight,
and turned my head away. I pressed my cheek to my shoulder and squeezed my eyes
shut, gripping the counter until the edge of it bit into my fingers. “Please
don’t
.”

“What the hell?” Victor sounded genuinely
uncertain. He straightened up and took a step back, putting some much needed
space between us.

Immediately I felt like I could breathe
again.

“Thank you.” I forced myself to look up at
him. “I just…it’s hard for me. You’re…so big.”

“Sorry.” His voice was unexpectedly
gentle. “Didn’t mean to uh, scare you.”

“I’m not scared,” I said but the tremble
in my voice gave away the lie. “Maybe this isn’t going to work. Maybe…maybe you
should just go,” I mumbled.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed
impatiently.

“I told you I don’t know when I’ll be
back. The Moon is calling me—do you want blood or not?”

“I do. I…I
need
it,” I heard myself confess. “But please…not from your neck.”

He frowned. “What’s wrong with my fucking
neck? I don’t offer it to just anybody, you know. If any other were saw me
giving the sign of submission to a Goddamn vamp—”

“It’s too much. Too close.” I put a hand
to my chest where I could feel my heart thumping. “Please…if I could just drink
from your wrist? Would that be okay?”

He looked thoughtful. “Actually, that
would probably be better. Not so hard to hide the marks later.” He gave me a quizzical
glance. “Unless you can heal them up so nobody can tell you’ve been biting me?”

I thought of the ugly scars that had
marked Addison’s arms and wrists until Corbin had healed her. Scars that had
been caused by my fangs. I shook my head regretfully.

“I’m afraid not. I’m not very, uh, old or
experienced as vampires go. I was only born to darkness six years ago.”

“All right, well, I guess we all have to
start somewhere.” He sighed. “Wrist it is, then.” He held out his left wrist
and then changed his mind and offered me his right instead. “Left handed,” he
explained when I looked at him questioningly.

“I see.” I looked at the strong wrist and
muscular forearm he was holding out to me. His hands were large and well
formed, the fingertips tapered like those of an artist. He was surprisingly
unhairy too—I hadn’t been around many weres and I’d always imagined they must
be almost as hairy in human form as they were when they took their animal
shapes. But Victor only had a light dusting of coarse black hair on the back of
his arms. I wondered if he had a hairy chest and pushed the thought away. What
was wrong with me? He was offering me blood and I was starving—I needed to
feed, not admire his admittedly impressive physique.

I focused my attention on the bracelet of
blue veins that pulsed on the underside of his wrist and tried to concentrate
on one in particular, calling it toward me.

In the week and a half since rescuing me
from Celeste, my new master Corbin had given me some tips on how to be a
better, more effective vampire. Most of what he’d taught me was simple,
including calling a vein to the surface as I was doing now. If only Celeste
would have had the time and patience to teach me, maybe I would have made a better
vampire. But my petite blonde ex-mistress had no patience with ignorance or
incompetence of any kind so I had remained at the bottom of the food chain,
uneducated and uninformed about my new existence until recently.

To my relief, the vein began to swell
until it presented a decent target for my aching fangs. Unfortunately, I still
wasn’t good enough to give pleasure as I fed, like a master vampire could, but
at least I could strive to hurt my donor as little as possible.

Victor said nothing to the subtle display
of my power. He simply stood there waiting, his arm at the right height for my
mouth. When I gave him a quick glance, his eyes flashed bright gold and he gave
me a barely perceptible nod as if to say,
do
it.

I couldn’t wait any longer. The warm musk
of his scent filled my nose and under that I could smell the hot copper of his
blood. My empty stomach twisted and my throat was parched.

I struck, my fangs piercing the big vein I’d
called, slicing through his flesh and digging deep to get the nourishment I
craved.

Victor grunted and I could tell I’d hurt
him. But he didn’t try to jerk away—he held rock solid as I fed from him,
drawing the rich, delicious blood out in great, hot mouthfuls, gulping it down
like a starving beggar, feasting for the first time.

And God it was good…so incredibly
good
and different from anything I had
ever tasted
.
I had never had were
blood before—most vamps haven’t since we consider each other mortal enemies. To
be honest, though, I hadn’t even had much human blood, aside from my friend
Addison’s, which was sweet and tasted slightly of strawberries. That was nice
but this was special…
incredible
.

Victor’s blood reminded me of fine, rich,
strong wine. Or maybe an expensive whiskey. It gushed down my throat, quenching
my terrible thirst in the first soothing wave and setting a warm fire glowing in
my belly. I could feel its effects immediately—my throat was no longer lined
with barbed wire and my stomach wasn’t trying to gnaw a hole in my backbone. I
felt refreshed…healed.

Beside me, Victor shifted impatiently and
I reminded myself that my miraculous meal had a name and a burning desire to
get outside and answer the call of the wild. In fact, he was probably only
about two minutes from turning into a huge, shaggy wolf with appetites of his
own.

I could have drunk from him all night,
sipping that warm, rich blood, savoring it like the most expensive vintage—but
that wasn’t an option. I took two more hasty mouthfuls and then drew back,
retracting my fangs.

Victor was watching me, an unreadable
expression on his stern features.

“I’m sorry,” I said, licking my lips to
get the last traces of his miraculous blood. “Did I hurt you?”

He shifted from foot to foot, frowning.
“It was nothing. Not as bad as I thought. Except—”

“Except?” I asked, humbly, trying to
prompt him. “If you tell me I might be able to make it better for you, uh, next
time.”

“Better than that?” He looked at me
incredulously and shifted again. The movement drew my eyes to his crotch. With
a shock, I saw that he had an extremely impressive erection pressing hard
against the front of his jeans. Had
I
caused
that? And if so, how?

“I-I’m sorry,” I stuttered. His blood had
had a calming effect on me but suddenly I felt nervous all over again. Was he
going to come after me now? Was he going to try something?

“No,
I’m
sorry,” he said roughly. “I don’t know why that, uh…damn. So fucking
weird.”
He shook his head, his eyes
going hard. “I have to go,” he said abruptly.

“Oh. Of course.” I slid away from him,
trying to give him more room. “Um…have fun.”

“Don’t expect me back for awhile.”

“Oh…I—” But before I could finish, he was
out the kitchen door and gone into the night.

Chapter Two—Victor

I loped a few yards to the edge of the clearing and then just stood there
for a minute, trying to make sense of it all. I could feel the call of the
Moon, could feel the brand on my skin, burning like a small sun nestled in my
lower back, but I fought it for a little while longer. If I let the wolf come
forward now, I would never understand what had just happened. The wolf has no
words, it thinks in pictures not sentences and it runs purely on instinct. I
desperately needed to
think
about the
strange vampire girl I had somehow found myself bonded to and my animal form
was the worst place to do that.

“What the hell?” I muttered to myself, trying to shut out the silvery voice
of the moon and her endless siren song. “What the fuck is going on?”

It was a fair question. I hadn’t been acting like myself tonight and it
wasn’t just the Change coming on me that caused it. It was Taylor—somehow she
was making me act
weird
.

Driving in the truck with her, I had been doing my best to ignore her
because of her scent. Most vamps smell pretty disgusting to me—like the snake
cage at the zoo—all leathery and reptilian. And the older they get, the worse
the stink is, at least to my sensitive were nose.

But not Taylor—she had a warm, fresh, devastatingly feminine scent. Nothing
like a vamp but not exactly human either. There was something strange and intensely
attractive about that scent and it pissed me off. Pissed me off because I
shouldn’t find
anything
attractive
about her—she was a fucking fanger for God’s sake.

I don’t hate vamps, not like most of my kind do, but I don’t go out of my
way to spend time with them either. Corbin had been an exception—only because I
had felt more comfortable dealing with him than the local pack when it came to
taking a loan for my business. If I had known how he would make me pay it back,
I would have run a fucking mile from that undead bastard.

“Fuck,” I muttered as the moon called me, clouding my mind. What was wrong
with me? First, I had actually offered her my neck—a sign of submission among
weres. It was a sign I had never given to another living creature my whole life
and I offered it to a
vamp
. Then,
when she had refused my neck and taken blood from my wrist instead, I had
gotten a fucking
hard-on
from it.

I looked down at my jeans, which were still tented, the ridge of my shaft
showing through the denim. My cock was so hard it ached and all from letting
that little vamp sink her fangs into me—what the hell was
that
all about?

It’s not fair,
muttered a
voice in my head.
She’s fucking gorgeous
and she’s got that scent too. How am I supposed to live with that for three
months?

By not laying a hand on her, that was how. She was a vamp and I was a
were—we would keep our distance. And anyway, it wasn’t like Taylor
wanted
me anywhere near her.

I remembered the proud, hurt, defiant look in her big blue eyes when she’d
told me someone had broken every bone in her body and she’d still managed to
heal. What kind of sick bastard would do something like that to someone as
beautiful and delicate as her? Whoever it was, they had really done a number on
her. I flashed on her reaction when I’d gotten too close while she was trying
to feed from me. She’d flinched away and the fear in her face was so raw it
made my gut ache.

She must have been
hurt—fucking horribly abused.
I didn’t want to think how, exactly. I remembered
Roderick, the ancient vamp Corbin had asked me to stand down right after Taylor
and I were bonded. He’d wanted her back, badly enough to challenge the
blood-bond between us—something unheard of in either vamp or were circles as
far as I knew.
What did he do to her?
What did that sick fucker do?

Just wondering that was enough to make a low growl rise in my throat. I
knew Roderick was dead now—Corbin had killed him using some kind of dark
witchcraft I didn’t understand and didn’t want anything to do with. But part of
me wished he was still around so I could rip his throat out. If he had been the
one to put the fear in Taylor’s eyes, he deserved to have his guts carved out
and served to him for supper.