Vampire's Thirst (The Awakening Series) (12 page)

He rinsed her thoroughly and turned off the water. He slid open the door and grabbed a large bath towel, blotting the water off her skin. He followed up with lotion as quickly as he could, then picked her up and carried her back to the bed where he placed her on the mattress and slid the sheet up over her naked, sleepy form.

Her eyes were closed, lashes casting shadows on her pale cheeks. She had one hand on her still-taut abdomen. He sat beside her and rested his hand over hers. “Is the baby all right?”

Her eyes fluttered open for a second but closed right away as if it was too much effort to keep them open. “I think so,” she said, her voice a little slurred. “I don’t feel any different.” And then just like that she was out.

Duncan moved to a bedside chair and watched her sleep, keeping an eye on her respiration, so glad to see her breasts rising and falling evenly. He should check on the others, but he knew if anyone else was having issues, someone would let him know. Right now his place was with Kimber.

He raked his hand through his hair. When he’d seen Jason go down, Duncan had almost raced outside to get to Kimber, to make sure he was there in case she had a similar reaction. Only Atticus and Leon holding him back had kept him in the building. While she hadn’t gone into convulsions and died like Jason had, he’d seen the toll fighting zombies in this way took. He’d seen the paleness of her skin, the labored breathing, the rise in her blood pressure.

It could have just as easily been her, and their unborn child. He had to make a decision, and the one his gut was leaning toward would make Kimber a very unhappy little necromancer. But he couldn’t allow her to continue putting herself at such risk, even if she seemed to spring back after such exhaustion without any problems. He’d never been an almost-dad before, and he knew he was going to botch things up, but he couldn’t help himself. He needed to keep his family safe.

While Kimber slept, Duncan was given periodic reports on what was going on. The zombies were cleared out of the courtyard. The remaining necromancer, Maggie, was resting and seemed to be fine, her baby, too. Brigid was also in her room, recuperating from her efforts.

Two hours later, Kimber’s legs shifted on the mattress, then she stretched and yawned. As her eyes opened, Duncan leaned forward in the chair he’d placed next to the bed. “Sleep well?”

She frowned. “Why didn’t you climb in with me?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

She turned onto her side to face him, curling one arm beneath the pillow. “You wouldn’t have.” Her gaze went to the tablet on the nightstand. “Did you look at Nat’s notes?”

He glanced at it. “Hmm. I didn’t see where there was anything particularly enlightening, but you might think differently.” He reached out and grabbed the glass of water he’d placed there while she was sleeping. Making an upward motion with his other hand, he said, “Come on. Up you go. You need to hydrate.”

She scooted up to lean her back against the headboard. She took the water from him and downed it in one go, letting out a loud, satisfied sigh when she finished.

Duncan took the glass from her and set it aside. “You feel good about what happened? I mean, except for Jason.”

She pondered that a moment, then nodded. “We did it, right?”

“Yes, though on a very small number.”

“At first I didn’t think it was working. It was almost like the Unseen in the zombies wasn’t strong enough, was somehow too diluted to do what we needed it to do.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I had the thought, during all that, that the longer the apocalypse goes on, the weaker the link becomes between the main body of the Unseen and the bits that are in the zombies.” She stared at him. “Duncan, if that’s the case, then we’re running out of time. We won’t be able to push the Unseen that’s animating the zombies out of them and back into itself. We’ll be trapped here for the rest of our lives, keeping the zombies at bay. And how long will that last? Eventually, we’ll run out of food and a safe place to live.” She rested her hand on her abdomen. “I don’t want to raise my child in a zombie-infested world.”

He pondered that and knew the decision he’d already reached had been the right one. Knowing this was going to make her angry, he added, “Listen, I don’t want you to try again. This killed one necromancer, and we don’t know why, and both you and Maggie were drained. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but if you won’t stop this for yourself, think about the baby.”

Instead of flaring up at him, she sighed and closed her eyes. “I think the baby gave me a little boost in energy,” she said.

“What!”

She looked at him. “Right before the zombies dropped, I felt…” She placed her palms on her abdomen and pressed down. “There was this surge of warmth here, and then I heard Nat say it was working.”

Fear clutched at his insides. “You drew energy from our baby? Like you did with Atticus?”

“No, of course not.” Her eyes widened and one hand came up to cover her mouth. Tears sparkled in her eyes. She dropped her hand to her lap, defeat and despair drawing lines on her face. “Oh my God. Not on purpose, Duncan. You have to believe me. I didn’t consciously think about doing it.”

He got up and perched on the edge of the bed and took her hands in his. “I know you didn’t, sweetheart. But what remains is that it happened. The baby needs all its energy to grow, to survive.” He brought her hands to his mouth and pressed kisses on her knuckles. “Something else is bothering you. What is it?”

She leaned her head against the headboard. “If it’s getting harder to get the Unseen out of zombies, what about the bit that’s in me?” Her fingers tightened around his. “Duncan, I’m really scared about having this inside me.”

“Do you think Brigid and Maggie might be able to help you?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes widened. “Wait. Maggie! Is she all right? What about her baby?”

“They’re both fine,” he soothed. They sat there for several moments; then he said, “Do you want something to eat? You’re probably starving.”

“I could eat, yeah.” He helped her off the bed, holding her as she stumbled. “Wow, that really took it out of me, I guess. I still feel a little fuzzy.”

He slipped his arm around her waist. “Come on. Let’s go out to the living room and I’ll have the kitchen prepare you something.”

They walked out to the main living area and he settled her on the sofa. Just as he was about to straighten, she reached up and grabbed his hand. “Duncan, thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?” he asked. All of a sudden he couldn’t move; his throat worked to say something but he seemed powerless to do so. Her hand, where it curled around his, grew hot. He staggered, feeling like his legs were going to give out, and tried to jerk away from her. He couldn’t. After what seemed like an eternity, she gasped and let go of him so abruptly he teetered, then fell on his ass.

“Oh my God! Duncan, I didn’t mean it.” She sat forward on the couch, her face pale, her eyes pleading with him.

His head felt like it was going to explode. All of his nerve endings flared, sending pain like he’d never felt throughout his body. “You…” He shook his head. “What the hell?”

Had this been what she’d done to Atticus? No wonder he’d been so pissed off. Duncan wasn’t too happy about it, either. But he did notice Kimber looked much more alert, and his pain was fading.

“I am so sorry.” Her hands fluttered as if she wanted to reach out for him but knew she couldn’t. Shouldn’t. “I’m so, so sorry.” She curled her fingers into fists. “It’s this Unseen that’s inside me. It wanted your power, your
life
. We have to get it out of me, Duncan. Before I kill someone.”

D
uncan watched Kimber push food around on her plate. It had been three days since she’d inadvertently siphoned energy from him, and he didn’t think she’d eaten more than a few bites since. She’d done what she was doing now—sighing and looking dejected. Defeated.

It was a look he hated to see on his strong, indomitable woman. It was one he planned on getting rid of, if he could figure out how.

They sat on the sofa in their living room. He had been pretending to read a mystery novel while she pretended to eat. Now he reached over and put his hand on hers, stilling her movement. She jerked her hand away and fisted it in her lap.

He hated this. They were right back where they’d been after she’d drained Atticus, except now he was the one reaching out only to have her flinch away.

“Sweetheart, you need to eat,” he urged. “You’ve hardly had anything in the last couple of days.”

She looked at him, remorse and trepidation dark in her eyes. “I know. I just…” She sighed. “I can’t forget the look on your face, Duncan. You were so shocked and in so much pain. I did that to you. Me.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I don’t know how you can stand to even be in the same room as me.”

“It’s not you. It’s the Unseen.” He leaned over and put his hand on hers again, tightening his fingers when she tried to draw away. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t pull away from me. We’re in this together, Kimber. You and me, we’ll figure this out.” When she nodded and stopped yanking her arm, he stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. “Now, please, eat something.”

She drew in a breath and held it a moment, then released it. This time when she tugged at her hand he let it go, and she picked up her fork again. Several minutes later her plate was nearly clean. “That’s it,” she said, dropping the fork on the plate. She leaned back against the sofa. “I’m full.”

Without a word, Duncan picked up the plate and carried it into the kitchen, then came back and took his seat on the couch again. He took her hands in his and stared into her eyes. “I’ve read through Natalie’s notes again, and remembering how things went the other day, I think the solution to stopping the apocalypse isn’t by using zombies. It’s by using vampires. Namely me.”

“No!” Kimber jerked her hands away and jumped to her feet. “Duncan, you know what happened when I latched on to you by accident. If I did it on purpose, I could kill you.” She dashed tears off her cheeks. “No. I won’t use you that way.”

“Kimber—”

“No.” She walked away from him to stand in front of the fireplace. With her back to him, she said, “You don’t understand how it made me feel. How tempting it was to…” She broke off with a muttered imprecation.

“How tempting what was?” he prompted.

She whirled around. “To keep all that power for myself. To use it to lash out for my own purposes. Not to fight zombies. To take revenge on people who cross me.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “It scared me, Duncan, that desire. Because I knew I could never have enough.”

“Do you think you would feel this way without the Unseen in you?”

She shrugged. Tears glittered in her eyes but she stubbornly refused to let them fall. “I don’t have anything to base a conclusion on, Duncan. This is all so new. I’ve never drawn energy from a vampire until I did it with Atticus. I didn’t know I could. Maybe I couldn’t before. Maybe it took having a bit of the Unseen inside for me to have that ability.” She paused and chewed on her bottom lip. “What if…” She drew in a breath. Eyes wide, she asked, “What if it’s a piece of Eduardo?”

“What?”

“Just listen to me for a minute.” She licked her lips and started walking back and forth in front of the fireplace, her hands flapping in front of her as she paced. “Maggie told me that when I was reanimating Richard Whitcomb, you know, the Lazarus that started this whole thing?” At his nod, she continued. “At the very same time across town, Maddalene had another necromancer trying to raise Eduardo. I guess she got tired of waiting on me.”

He frowned. “I’m not connecting the dots. It’s not the first time more than one necromancer did their job at the same time. Why would it make a difference then?”

She halted and looked at him. “Because she decided that adding the necromancer’s blood to the ritual would strengthen the bond and ensure Eduardo’s resurrection, so she killed the necromancer. She was wrong.” She picked up her pacing again. “But Eduardo’s spirit was already on its way and it needed someplace to go. He needed someplace to go, and he didn’t want to go back to the Unseen. So he went where the power was the strongest.”

“He went to you.” Duncan had always had a sense of pride in Kimber’s abilities. It had pleased him to know she was the strongest necromancer in the area, perhaps even the state.

She nodded. “He went to me,” she agreed. “That would be why it got so weird, the way Whitcomb looked, like something evil was inside him. And toward the end, the way he talked to me, even then I thought someone else—or some
thing
else—was speaking through him.”

He pondered that for a few minutes. “Yeah, Eduardo was a sick son of a bitch. Maddalene was the only one sorry to see him destroyed.”

“I need to go talk to Natalie.”

He raised his brows.

“She was my assistant. Even if she wasn’t with me that night, she went with me on plenty of raisings. She has insight.” She started toward the door. “I need to talk to her.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Duncan…” She placed her hands on his chest. “I don’t even know what I’m going to ask her. She’s my sounding board, that’s all. I promise I’m not going to come up with a plan and run off half-cocked.”

“You go running off anywhere, you’d better come get me first,” he told her.

“Yeah, ’cause then I can run off whole-cocked.” Her grin was fleeting, as was the kiss she placed at the corner of his mouth. “I love you.” Then she was out the door.

Duncan scrubbed the back of his neck. They couldn’t continue on the way they were, living behind fortified walls while the zombies kept on coming. Their supplies were dwindling and would eventually be too small to sustain them. Kimber was right. They had to end the apocalypse.

She was the expert on this. He had to trust her. He didn’t have to like it.

Natalie finished taking off her clothes and stepped up to an equally naked Aodhán. She rubbed her hands across his strong collarbone, then trailed her fingers through the dark hair that lightly dusted his pectorals. Lower down, his cock stood long and proud from its nest of dark hair. She gave him a little push toward the bed. “Why don’t you sit down and let me return the favor you did for me a while ago?”

He grinned and sat. His thighs were rock hard. He positioned his hands behind him and leaned back slightly, muscles flexing in his arms as they bore his weight. “I know better than to get in the way of a woman on a mission, and you have that look.”

“You better believe it.” She wanted to taste him, to pleasure him. Then once he got his second wind, she wanted to fuck him like a hyper bunny rabbit. With a smile, she wrapped her hand around his cock.

He was silken skin wrapped around steel. So thick. So hot. Settling her forearms on either side of his muscular thighs, she worked on slowly sending him into orbit. He felt so good against her tongue. As she made love to his cock with her mouth, he sat forward. His roughened hands roamed over her shoulders, her back, then into her hair, gripping her head to direct her movements.

“Great gods, do you have any idea how sexy you are, on your knees with those pretty breasts swaying and your lips around my cock?” When she took him to the back of her throat and swallowed, he groaned. “Fuck. Do that again.”

She did, loving the sound of his sensual tension building higher and higher. With one hand she reached between his legs and stroked his balls. His hands tightened in her hair. The sac of flesh in her palm drew up closer to his body. He shouted, his cock jerking in her mouth, and his release streamed into her throat in hot, heavy jets. He thrust against her with a final panting growl, and she swallowed one last time. As he pulled away, she gave the tip of his cock another loving lick. She could do this for him every day and never get tired of it. To show him that his pleasure mattered to her, pleased her in a primal way. She guessed it set something off in her inner cavewoman.

He let go of her hair and stroked his fingers against her scalp where his hands had been fisted tightly. Then he bent and wrapped his hands around her upper arms, lifting her up to rest on top of him as he lay back on the bed. “That was amazing. Thank you,
mo chroí
.” He rubbed his hands up and down her bare back. With a slight growl, he rolled over, caging her beneath him. He pressed his groin against hers. “Give me a few minutes, and we’ll find out if your pussy is as tight around my cock as I think it’s going to be.”

“You’re such a sweet talker, Aodhán. I don’t know why you’re still single.” She tried to keep a straight face, but at his put-on look, his over-the-top wounded expression, she laughed. Bending her knees, she cradled him against her pelvis. “But I’m glad you are. That means you’re available to me.”

“Only to you, Natalie. Always.” He brought his head down to hers and gave her such a sweet, slow kiss it brought tears to her eyes.

She cupped his dear face in her hands and returned the caress. As their tongues twined together, she wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him closer, her heels pressing against the backs of his thighs. She felt a twitch of interest from his cock, but before she could do much about it, she heard knocking at the front door.

He reared up, frowning down at her when she showed no indication of moving. “Aren’t you going to see who that is?” he asked.

“Nope.” She trailed her fingers across his shoulders, squeezing here and there, testing the firmness of those bulging muscles. He was so big and brawny, and she knew his strength would only be used to protect her, never to harm her. The knowledge filled her with delight.

“It might be important,” he said. She could tell by the look in his eyes his attention was beginning to focus on her once more and he wasn’t overly concerned about who might be at the door.

“
This
is important,” she responded. She started to draw him down to her. The person at the door knocked again, louder this time, and it sounded like whoever it was also gave the door a few kicks. Natalie sighed and closed her eyes. “It’s Kimber.”

“I figured. She’s the only one I know who’s that impatient.” After pressing a kiss to her forehead, Aodhán rolled off her and got to his feet in a single, fluid movement that made her gasp. God, he was so beautiful it hurt to look at him sometimes. “You’d better get dressed and answer the door before she has someone let her in.”

The pounding came again. “Oh, for crying out loud.” Natalie got up and pulled on a blouse and jeans, buttoning the shirt as she stalked through the living room. “This had better be good.” She yanked open the door.

“Hello to you, too,” Kimber responded with a frown. When Aodhán came out of the bedroom, tucking his shirt into his leather pants, her mouth formed an O of surprise before tilting into a broad smile. “Well, well, well. It’s about dayum time, people.”

“Oh, shut up.” Natalie tried unsuccessfully to fight back a blush. “What do you want?”

Kimber didn’t say anything right away, just looked from Natalie to Aodhán and back again. Then her eyes went big and round. “Oh my God. I interrupted you right in the middle of…I’m the definition of
coitus interruptus
. I’m so sorry. Look, I’ll just go and you two can get back to…things. Things that I don’t want to hear about, because, you know, TMI and all that.”

“Kimber, stop.” Natalie knew her friend sometimes rambled on when she got embarrassed, and this was clearly one of those times. She wasn’t sure which one of them was redder in the face.

“It’s all right,
mo chara
.” Aodhán stopped beside Kimber and curved his hand over her shoulder. “You didn’t interrupt anything that Natalie and I can’t get back to with equally satisfying results.”

Kimber’s eyes closed and she let out a small groan. “Okay, fine. Just shut up about it already.”

Natalie laughed. When Aodhán bent and placed a gentle and too-brief kiss against her mouth, she sighed and leaned against him for a moment.

“I’m going to check in with Brigid, see how she’s feeling,” he said. “I’ll be back later, all right?”

“You’d better be.” She watched him go through the door, then turned her attention on her friend. “Okay, what’s up? And it had better be good, because we were just about to, you know.”

Kimber grimaced. “I know. Sorry. My timing sucks.”

Natalie went into the living room. “So, what’s so important you practically beat down my door?” she asked as she sat down on the couch.

Kimber plopped down beside her with a long, loud sigh. “Duncan thinks it would be better for necromancers to use vamps instead of zombies to push the Unseen back.”

“Really?” Natalie frowned. “That’s quite a turnaround.”

“Tell me about it.” Kimber’s laugh held more than a dollop of misery. “But I don’t think he’ll let me test the theory unless I agree to use him. And that’s not gonna happen, no matter what the king of the vampires says.”

Oh, boy. Natalie knew her friend had always kicked against authority, especially those who tried to keep her from doing something she believed she should. “And?”

Kimber gave a snort. “He really can’t stop me.”

Natalie pursed her lips. “Ah, but yes he could. He could lock you in your quarters, post more guards, any number of things. You know the only way this is going to happen is if he lets you.” She tilted her head to one side. “But am I missing something? I know he’d like to stop the apocalypse, and you just told me he said you could use him, so why wouldn’t he let you?”

Red streaked across Kimber’s cheeks. “Oh, right. I haven’t told you yet.” Her gaze met Natalie’s. “I’m pregnant,” Kimber said.

“What!” Natalie stared at her, her mouth open and eyes wide. “Oh my God! You’re just full of surprises lately. First about being able to draw energy from vampires—Atticus
and
Duncan—and now this.” She leaned over and hugged her friend. “I’m so happy for you.” As she pulled back, she saw the look on Kimber’s face and realized the other woman wasn’t exactly overjoyed. “Wait. Maybe I shouldn’t be happy for you?”