2 Sean Hayden (9 page)

"I'm not picky, Steve, the wrist is fine," I answered and watched as he brought his wrist up to my lips, looking to Marcel to see what his preference would be.

"The wrist is fine with me, too," he said nonchalantly, like he'd done this a million times before. Hell, for all I knew he had.

I watched Marcel as he took Steve's wrist into his mouth and bit down. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and made a motion toward the wrist in front of me. I tried not to laugh as "daddy" told me to eat my dinner. He knew I couldn't really, but to not fake it would be rude.

I pierced his flesh and heard his intake of breath. I thought I might have hurt him, until I saw his face. He stared at me with utter ecstasy etched upon every inch of his face. His body went rigid and his breath came in shallow gasps, like he'd started hyperventilating. I concentrated on not drawing the blood through the wounds I'd created. Even the small amount that got on my tongue had a numbing effect. The blood tasted lifeless and strange. I shuddered to think what would happen if I swallowed any.

When I felt like I'd pretended long enough, I pulled my fangs out quickly. I made sure to run my tongue over the wound and let the healing properties of my saliva close it. Steven immediately stopped his rapid breathing and looked at me with pleading eyes. "Please, don't stop," he begged, but I couldn't do it anymore. The taste of his blood didn't agree with me. Marcel redoubled his efforts and Steve closed his eyes in blissful ecstasy, getting me off the hook for now.

The sounds of the vampires feeding filled the room along with moans of pleasure from the humans providing the meal. I felt oddly out of place sitting there, the only one not eating. I considered rejoining Marcel and pretending to feed from Steve again when my new friend Victoria released the thigh of the woman she had been feeding on with a soft pop. She gave the young girl a brief smile and a briefer pat on her leg and surprised me with a heartfelt, "Thank you."

I looked at the wound on the girl's leg and watched, waiting for it to close. It didn't. I kept staring at it, as if it meant something, when it dawned on me. Victoria wasn't a master vampire. I looked from the wound to her face and saw something I didn't expect, embarrassment. I gave her a quick smile and licked my finger before running it gently across the wound. My effort made the girl still being fed upon by the vampire on the other side of Victoria moan a little louder and spread her thighs apart. I looked up at Victoria and she looked at me a little funny.

"What?"

"Your eyes," she said and drew her face a little closer. "Your pupils are like a cat's, but why?"

"Honestly, it's too long to get into, but they've always been like that. I'm a little different in other ways, too." I held up my hand, not high enough for anybody else at the table to see, just enough for Victoria to give a little gasp. She reached up tentatively to touch them and stopped short as if to ask for my permission. I nodded and felt her cool skin touch mine as she grasped my hand and gingerly ran the fingers of her other hand over my talons.

"They're beautiful," she said and I gave her a patronizing little smile. My talons were many things, but beautiful wasn't one of them. I appreciated her little lie though.

"How long have you been a vampire?" Her face darkened. "I'm sorry," I said immediately, hoping I hadn't made a faux pas in vampire etiquette.

"No, it's okay. It'll be three years in May. I hated London and thought San Francisco would be a nice change. I used all my savings to pay for the move and wanted to go to college, so I took a job at a club out there to pay for it. The club attracted a lot of vampires, and most of them were pretty nice, even the one who turned me. I didn't want this; I never wanted this. One night Sam offered to take me home. He hadn't been a vampire long and still kind of nerdish and gangly, but he seemed nice enough. I'd been fed upon a few times and liked it, so I asked him to come up for a drink." She paused as if relieving the night. "Sam couldn't control himself and severed my jugular. In a panic, he turned me. He saved my life, sort of."

I didn't realize it, but as she told her story she moved a little closer and her face was only a few inches from mine. Her vanilla scent magnified several factors from her proximity. I closed the last few inches and whispered, "I'm sorry," in her ear. She turned her face until her lips brushed mine and I saw reddish tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, staining her pale skin darker. A little jolt of electricity ran from my lips to places I'd rather not mention, just from that little innocent brush. I'd like to say she pressed her lips against mine, but I know in my heart it happened the other way around. I even removed my hands from hers and slid them over her sides and up her back, pulling her closer into my embrace.

My lips opened as she molded herself against me. Her tongue gently made its way between my lips and over my fangs. She tasted so sweet. I needed to draw her in closer because I couldn't get enough. Her hands began to roam and ended up around my neck, begging me not to let the kiss end. The entire room dropped away until Victoria and I sat alone at the monstrous table. She intensified the passion of her kiss as her tongue slid over the tip of my fang. The vanilla of her scent faded away and the taste of her blood filled every one of my senses.

The smell of her blood filled my nose. I reveled in the wetness and magic of it with my tongue the roar of her blood in my ears. Her blood became the sweetest drink I have ever experienced. A low growl started in my chest as I broke our kiss to have more. I licked my way down her jaw and kissed my way down her neck until I could feel her artery beneath my lips. Vampires don't have a heartbeat, but I could feel the ebb and flow of her lifeblood pass through that fragile little tube. Before I knew it, my fangs pierced the flesh of her neck and my mouth filled with honey sweet nectar.

Victoria began moaning and writhing beneath me. Her arms tightened around me, pulling me even closer. When she realized the impossibility of it, she slid her hand down my chest and cupped my breast. The sensations drove me wild and I pulled her blood even faster into my mouth. Her strength flowed through me as it left Victoria. Then I reached the point I had with Cicero. I could either stop, or pull the last dregs of blood through the wound and with it the magic that kept her alive, that made her a vampire. My body wanted her magic so badly I didn't think I
could
stop. Someone tried to pull me from Victoria, but I didn't care. Nobody else could keep me from my meal and I wasn't sure I could either.

With Cicero it had been very different. I wanted to end his life for killing my partner. I willingly sucked the life right from him, but the creature in my arms wasn't anything like him. She'd been nothing but sweet to me. I couldn't end her as I had him. I forced myself to stop drinking, pulled my fangs from her flesh, and licked the wound closed. Her hands had fallen from my neck and she didn't move. She nudged the collar of my suit jacket away with her mouth and gingerly licked my neck. I gasped at the sensations running through my body from that tiny lick. When she started suckling at my neck, my eyes started to flutter. When Victoria pierced the flesh of my neck with her fangs, I fell to the floor, with her cradled into my arms.

The pleasure began overloading my senses. A thousand tiny bursts of electricity sparked from my toes up to my face and everywhere in between. I didn't want it to stop, ever. Victoria's jaw worked as she sucked my blood into her body, and with each draw the fireworks exploding in my body started all over again. She pushed her leg in between mine and pressed against my mound, which only added to the sensations threatening to overwhelm me. No wonder humans lined up in droves for this.

I felt strength returning to Victoria as she pinned my arms against the cool stone floor. She continued feeding and brought her other leg in between mine, forcing them apart. She lay completely atop of me and started grinding against me, threatening to destroy my sanity. I couldn't take the pleasure anymore. I struggled and she released my arms, allowing me to wrap them around her and roll her onto her back with me on top.

"Victoria," I called softly She made a moaning noise, so I at least knew she could hear me. "Victoria, stop." As soon as the command left my lips her jaws froze. I leaned away from her, breaking the connection of her fangs with my neck
and knelt over her. She raised her arms above her head and stretched like a cat, complete with tiny mewling noises. Victoria opened her eyes and looked up at me. She smiled.

"Amazing," she said, as I saw her focus on me coming back to reality.

I smiled back at her until I saw her pupils dilate completely and then the sides close together, forming a tiny black slit in a sea of blue.

Chapter 10

I blinked and shook my head to confirm what I thought I saw. Sure enough, my eyes stared back at me from Victoria's face. "Well this wasn't in the manual," I muttered and stood up, offering Victoria my hand. She took it and I glanced down, looking at her fingers as she did. I sighed with relief when her normal looking fingernails briefly reflected the room's candle light, rather than showing dark talons like I had.

A soft cough from my left reminded me we weren't alone in the room. At least forty sets of eyes, both human and vampire, stared at us from around the room. I looked at Marcel and saw something dark in his, Strozzini looked angry, and Santiago looked incredulous. I tried to meet Marcel's gaze, but he looked away focusing instead on Santiago and gauging his reaction.

"What?" I didn't get it. I expected someone to answer me, but no one did. A hushed silence fell over the room and nobody moved an inch. Santiago closed his eyes and tilted his head backward a fraction of an inch. He stood frozen for a moment and then opened his eyes looking at Marcel.

"This is how you repay my hospitality? You come into my home and steal one of my people. Did you plan this all along?"

"Ramon, I assure you it wasn't our intention, I don't even think the child realizes what she has done. Look at her, she is completely confused." He held up his hand in my direction.

"What are you talking about?" I was just as confused as Marcel said.

Opening my mouth probably wasn't the wisest of ideas. Santiago opened his mouth and bared his fangs, letting out an echoing hiss that left the rest of the guests rubbing their arms or holding their heads. I probably should have kept quiet, but Santiago pissed me off.
How could he be so angry over something I didn't even know I did
? I crouched a little and hissed back, narrowing my eyes.

"Fuck," Marcel said and turned to look at Santiago. In the split second it took him to turn, Santiago swung his arm fully into Marcel's chest, sending him flying off to the side. He lunged at me and had his hands around my throat faster than I have ever seen another vampire move.

The force of his attack knocked me back a few feet and sent Victoria to the ground. I brought my arms up in a two fisted attack, punching him squarely in both shoulders simultaneously. It freed his grip from my neck, but I could feel where his nails ripped through my flesh. That's when the remainder of Santiago's people attacked.

I took a blow to the back of my head and heard the crunch of wood. I spun and saw a male vampire holding a broken chair with a dumbfounded look on his face. In a flurry of movement, I grabbed the remaining leg of the chair from his hand and drove it through his neck in a spray of blood. His eyes rolled and he went down hard right on top of Victoria. She cursed and threw him off, jumping to her feet. I half expected her to attack, but she smiled and spun, putting her back toward me to fight off the vampires rushing us.

I turned to put my back against hers when Santiago caught me in the jaw with an uppercut. My head snapped back and I heard something crunch in my neck. He'd broken my neck. I just hoped it healed fast enough for me to keep fighting. I tried to hold still for a moment, but Santiago had other ideas. His hand closed on my windpipe as he drew his other hand back to strike. I looked down and started to lift my head when Marcel tackled him from the side, driving him into the massive oak table we'd been feasting upon moments ago.

I gingerly lifted my head and it worked. Marcel had bought me the few precious seconds I needed. I rolled it from side to side and everything snapped back into place, as the gods had intended, and looked down. Marcel had Santiago pinned with his hands, crushing his neck as if he meant to rip it off the vampire's shoulders. Strozzini kicked Marcel in the face, freeing the master of Sacramento.

"This is her fight, Marcel. She committed the crime; she has to pay. You know the laws. If she lives, you need to teach them to her apparently." Strozzini spat contemptuously.

"There are too many," Marcel pleaded.

"Enough." Strozzini crossed his arms, finishing the argument.

I spared a glance behind me. Two of Santiago's vamps had Victoria held upright between them while two others pummeled her faster than she could heal the damage. The rest of them surged forward to subdue me. I knocked the first two away, and gouged the third in the face before the others surrounded me. Once they did, I fought them off for a few minutes before they finally had my hands and arms pinned to the ground. I'd officially gotten my ass kicked.

I lay pinned on my back when Santiago finally walked over and kicked me in the face. Victoria's curses turned to whimpers as her beating continued. I think her cries of pain hurt more than the kicks I received from Santiago. Victoria hadn't done anything wrong, and hell, I didn't even know what I'd done to deserve this, but after several minutes, the pain turned to anger as they lifted me off the ground and held me. I had a vampire on each arm and one had me in a headlock forcing me too look forward as Santiago leaned in and punched me right in the face.

My body turned trembled as my anger turned to hatred. A growl started deep in my chest, getting louder with every passing moment. I could feel the fangs in my mouth grow longer, as well as a peculiar sensation in the tips of my fingers and toes. It had happened before when I fought the master of Chicago. When I became angry enough, my teeth and my talons extended themselves, and judging by the look on Santiago's face, two small horns had sprouted from my forehead.