Carnal Thirst (7 page)

Her night vision seemed stronger than it had been before, but she couldn't know if that was an overactive imagination or not. She hadn't displayed any other ‘super’ powers.

They didn't talk as they worked through the woods.

She breathed shallowly, creeping behind him as he moved silently to the leaner wood, thicker and dark, with a covering of leaves thick enough to stifle the growth of underbrush. She sensed he was tense, watchful. He looked up suddenly, as if he'd heard something, startling her with his abrupt reaction.

Without warning, he took off at a run.

Maggie trailed after him, but dressed all in black, he blended into the dark so completely she lost him within seconds. She stopped, holding her breath as she listened for him. In the distance, snapping sounded, echoing through the trees like a rifle shot.

She jumped at the sudden noise and ran in that direction. In seconds, another wave of dizziness washed over her, leaving her weak. She stopped, leaning against a tree as she waited for it to pass. Each heartbeat accentuated the feeling, until her entire body throbbed with acute pain. She dropped to her knees as her stomach spasmed on a hard knot. Gasping, she clutched her belly, closing her eyes tightly as she tried to meditate and convince herself it didn't hurt so bad. Over and over, she repeated the mantra, a cold sweat drying on her brow, giving her chills.

Behind her, something fell to the ground. The scent of blood assaulted her nose, making her want to retch.

She swallowed with difficulty, huddling on the ground, trying to control her shivering.

"It's worse than I thought,” Danior said from behind, moving around before her. In his arms he held a young deer. It was still alive, but its eyes were glazed as if it had been tranquilized.

Just by looking at it, she knew that he held it enthralled.

He knelt before her and produced a butterfly knife, flipping it open with one hand as he lay the deer on the ground. He sliced its throat open without preamble, without struggle or pain to the animal. It lay there as it's life bled out of its throat.

Blood scented the air, sharp and pungent.

"Drink,” he whispered.

Maggie shook her head, closing her eyes against the sight. Her teeth seemed to pulse. Her gums swelled.

Saliva pooled in her mouth, making her feel like she'd drown.

Danior moved until he caught her by the back of the neck, pushing her inexorably toward the deer. Her
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lips touched its neck, warm liquid wetting the sensitive skin.

"Drink if you want to live,” he commanded.

Fighting nausea, she opened her mouth against it, letting her teeth sink in to the bare flesh. Her gums convulsed as her teeth connected, she felt something ejaculate from her teeth—like a stinger releasing poison ... or fangs. The pain in her head ceased immediately, as if a fluid had been built up, causing unbearable pressure that had now been released. Fresh blood welled into her mouth in that instant, making her gag. She choked on it, tried to pull back to spit it out, but he wouldn't ease the pressure on the back of her neck, forced her to drink.

She swallowed. Warmth spread into her belly, quieting its painful uproar. She felt the same as if she'd gulped a draught of wine.

"More,” he said, urging her to drink. She did, drinking more as he commanded her, until her body prickled with sensation.

Apparently satisfied she had had enough, he released her.

Maggie turned away from the dead creature, standing as she wiped blood off her mouth with the back of her hand. She bit a knuckle, choking back tears. She continued to taste it and feel the pulse beating, growing weaker beneath her tongue. Worse than drinking it's life, as her belly had filled and the warmth spread into her arms and legs—she'd enjoyed it. The pleasure was akin to orgasm, not the peak, but the afterglow. Waves of energy traveled inside her, like a sigh of endorphins radiating through her body.

He closed his arms around her, wrapping her in his heat and scent, obliterating any chance of seeing her kill as she recovered.

She was repulsed by what she'd done, the way she felt. How could she enjoy something so horrible?

Would her humanity drain away each time she fed, until she was nothing but a monster? “How often will I have to do this?” she said brokenly, sobbing against his chest. “I'd rather die than do this every night."

He rubbed her back, rocking her in his arms. “Each vampire is different. Some require constant feeding.

Others do so perhaps once a month, or a few times during a year. We won't know how often you will have to feed until the next time it happens."

"I can't stand it. I can't be here, Danior. Take me back to the house, please."

* * * *

Though she'd been sleeping most of the time since her attack, Maggie was exhausted. She felt emotionally drained by everything that had happened. Her nerves were raw, easily rubbed to the point where the smallest, inconsequential detail would hurt her, memories an agony. She was so tired, so ill at the turn of her life, that all she wanted to do was sleep.

Danior seemed to sense her weariness and bade her return to her room to sleep until she felt better. She did so gladly.

In her sleep though, she was tortured by images of dead things. They were all around her, demanding her life in return for theirs, claiming she was their murderer. Maggie screamed and ran away from them, but always she was hungry, looking for a new victim, looking for blood. She had to go through them to ease the unquenchable thirst. They clawed at her legs, nails painful, poisonous. Her legs were
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deteriorating beneath her, leaving her prey to them, unable to run away.

Maggie cried out in her sleep, struggling to wake herself. She knew she dreamed, but she couldn't fight the hold of her slumber, could only repeat the horrors again and again.

Cool hands touched her forehead before grasping her bare shoulders. They shook her, gently, and she came awake at last with a gasp. Danior stood above her, his face inscrutable in the dark.

Seeing him brought her a sense of relief so profound, it brought tears to her eyes. She wanted to ask him to hold her, but she wasn't brave enough to risk rejection—wasn't sure enough of how he would respond.

"You were having a nightmare,” he said softly, brushing the tears from her cheeks with a thumb.

Maggie shivered. It had been years since she'd suffered night terrors. Stress and uncertainty caused them, and she had this unwelcome feeling that they would only continue and grow worse. “I know, but it didn't feel that way to me. It felt real. Horrible."

"It happens to many of us,” he said. Without asking, but as if he knew she sought his embrace, he climbed into the bed, facing her beneath the covers. He pulled her against his bare chest, wrapping an arm around her back for support.

He was all muscle, hard and unyielding, but his gentleness with her made her feel indescribably tender, achy and needy for him.

The rhythm of his heart lulled her fears. She almost felt like she could trust him to keep the nightmares at bay, that she'd found a knight in shining armor instead of a creature of the dark ... a living nightmare.

It couldn't fight the hopelessness welling inside her, the despair—rational or irrational—that she would become a monster surrounded by other monsters more terrifying than anything she could imagine. She was a realist. This was an abandoned house, not a place where he lived. In the back of her mind, she knew they were hiding, that something bad hovered on the horizon, waiting to attack. She couldn't bring herself to ask him and confirm her suspicions, and she suspected he would lie about it anyway to spare her. Something bad was going to happen. Something worse than anything she'd experienced thus far. She felt it in her bones. “You should have let me die,” she whispered, turning her face into his chest as sleep overcame her.

* * * *

Danior flinched at her words, tightening his arm at the small of her back. How often had he wished much the same thing? Eternity paled when there was no hope for a better existence, no hope for the common dreams of man. Immortality seemed to suck the life out even as it granted forever.

He felt her thoughts, felt the horror and despair, her uncertainty. She sensed a malevolence approaching just as he did. Her gift of clairvoyance was fledgling but promising.

He could tell her the truth, but he was reluctant to. She was strong, her will great, but she'd been hit by too much, and she hadn't yet fully recovered from the first stages of her disease. She would not come into her powers until the virus had time to spread through her body like a cancer, mutating cells instead of devouring them.

The council had likely discovered by now that Zane had left a changing human at Danior's mercy. In the
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week since, he had not returned to dispel surfacing rumors. They would know what he'd done, and they would kill him for it. He wondered idly who they would send to do the deed.

The only way for the council to maintain control was to issue death to any who broke their rules. Among the long lived, death was the only thing they feared. Ostracism had never worked, for most were loners by nature. The new world orders had forgone the torture of the old world in favor of dealing swift, lethal justice. There were too many vampires to hide. If their numbers increased, they would be discovered. As advanced as this age was, they would still be destroyed for their way of life, for feeding from the living—or taken for secret experiments.

Danior had understood the rule, had agreed with it for as long as he'd lived here, since the signing of the Louisiana Purchase.

It would have been better to let her die. She wanted it, but he simply couldn't bring himself to destroy her, no matter how hard the devils of reason spurred him to.

It was too late now to make a difference one way or another.

This place of massacre would not shelter them long. Only reluctance and fear of the past had kept them away for this long. Time was not on his side. He had to get her out of the states, to the old world and their old traditions.

That meant negotiating passage to the old world, so that they were not killed on sight. He had his cell phone in his back pants pocket. He could make the arrangements tomorrow. There was bound to be a ship they could take from port.

It meant leaving all she knew behind, but he'd read enough of her thoughts to know that no family held her here. Fortunate enough, since she would have had to sever all life ties anyway.

Danior stroked her hair, enjoying the silk of it between his fingers. Though he couldn't see its color in the dark, he knew it was a burnt amber, threaded with gold. It would turn dark as she spent her years in the night, as it did for most of their kind. The fair-haired were rare.

He nuzzled her temple, breathing in the unique scent that was all her own. She was helpless, in need of his protection. For the first time in his life, he felt needed, whether she wished it or not. He'd selfishly indulged his whim, but he wouldn't change his decision. His rule of the city as vampire lord had been meaningless. He was not needed for control—because the council were the keepers of the law. The vampires in the region were aged, fully capable of defending themselves, and fully willing to start wars with rival factions and their natural enemies, the Lycans.

Danior felt more like a politician shuffling for favor rather than able to bring about change and prosperity for his kind.

They did not need him. Life would go on as it always had.

But for Maggie....

How long had it been since he'd comforted a woman, comforted anyone for that matter? He'd only ever thought of his needs before. Women were to be used only for carnal pleasures. Hadn't he been taught that lesson over and over again? Love was a weakness, a dangerous emotion—one that would get him killed.

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He felt strangely calm holding her, soothed by the motions of soothing her as she slept to keep her terrors at bay.

He hadn't slept during the night in centuries, not since his turning, but he found that just this once, he wanted to engage in it, if only to imagine he was human for just a little while.

Chapter Six

The dream changed. There had been something in the darkness around her that terrified her. Like most nightmares, she wasn't certain of what it was, only that it was dark and evil and it would hurt her if she didn't escape. When she'd tried to run, though, she'd found she couldn't. She struggled as hard as she could, but it was all she could do to move at all. Her heart was pounding, suffocating her. She fought to drag a decent breath of air into her lungs even as she labored uselessly to run.

She had reached a point of despair, knowing that whatever it was that pursued her, it was going to catch her and something horrible would happen. And then, she wasn't alone anymore. She felt safety in the presence beside her.

His hands soothed her, easing the painful pounding of her heart. For many moments, peace settled over her. And then the dream changed once more. This time, she lay in a man's arms and, as with the dream before, she knew with certainty that he was her lover. Warmth flowed over her like mulled wine as he caressed her and her heart began to beat rapidly again, this time with desire as his caresses became more intimate.

She sighed in delicious anticipation as she felt him pull her thighs apart. Blood flooded into her labia, making them pulse with fevered longing. Moisture gathered there, as well, as he dragged his tongue slowly along her cleft from the mouth of her sex to her clit. A shiver skated through her. Her breath caught in her throat. She tensed, waiting, hoping to feel his touch again. And as he stroked her once more and the heat and tension built inside her, she felt a strange rise and fall of her senses as she moved slowly upwards through the layers of sleep into a hazy, almost drugged consciousness.