Demon of Mine (10 page)

A family secret? Did the Remingtons
have some access to some special medical knowledge or medicine?
Perhaps it was possible. They were, after all, very wealthy. She
hardly dared to let herself hope. “Of course. You have my
word.”

“
Very well.” He paused for
a moment, as if considering how to begin. “You’ve heard the things
people say about my family. They call us demons.”

She spoke honestly, thinking of the
kindness the Remingtons had shown her, a simple housemaid.
“Jealousy drives people to say things they wouldn’t otherwise. I
know better than to put any stock in those rumors.”

“
I’m afraid the rumors are
true, or close to it.” He spoke calmly, but there was a hint of
bitterness in his voice. “We Remingtons are indeed wicked
creatures.”

“
I—”

He interrupted her protest. “If we are
to accomplish anything tonight, you must believe me.” After a short
pause he spoke again. “I am prepared to show you just what I am if
I must, though to say that I would prefer not to is an
understatement.”

Curiosity superseded Elsie’s stalwart
loyalty. What family secret could merit such graveness? She didn’t
consider Damon prone to melodramatics. Unless she was wrong, the
Remingtons must indeed have some unsavory secret. But how could a
hidden fault possibly improve her health? “What are you, Damon?” It
was the first time she’d dared to call him by his Christian name.
Her lips tingled with the novelty of it, and a slight shiver raced
down her spine.

He did not rebuke her. Sighing, he
lifted her hand. It appeared paler than usual in the moonlight,
even to her damaged eyes. When his lips brushed the back of it, she
trembled. She expected a kiss, perhaps to feel the tip of his
tongue trace the fine bones of her hand, dampening her fair skin.
He surprised her by turning her hand over and moving his mouth
instead to the underside of her wrist, where her pulse fluttered
beneath soft skin that was whiter still. “Do you feel it?” he
whispered.

Every inch of her body tingled in
anticipation. “Feel what?” She was feeling quite a lot, as she
always did when she was near him, or even when she thought of him,
but which individual sensation he meant to pinpoint was a
mystery.

“
Your blood. It calls to
me.”

It was true. It thrummed in her veins,
heightening her awareness of every bodily sensation, from the
smooth coolness of the stone bench beneath her skirts to the
delicious brush of his full lips against her wrist. Most of all, it
surged between her thighs, soliciting a primal ache that made her
mouth water. “Yes.” She swallowed. “It always does that when I am
near you.”

He laughed softly and humorlessly. The
rush of his breath against her skin made her nipples tighten
against the fabric of her shift. “I’m flattered, but that’s not
what I mean. I suppose I will have to show you after
all.”

Some neglected intuition told her she
should be wary, but she couldn’t bring herself to fear. Not when
Damon was pressing his mouth flush against her wrist and her body
was responding with a flood of fiery sensations. The ache in her
core flared and throbbed. Her nipples were as hard as the stone
beneath her, which hadn’t managed to cool the heat between her
thighs. The two pinpricks of pain that came next seemed nothing
next to the unchecked desire that coursed through her, even as she
felt liquid being drawn from her veins.

Her blood. Damon was drawing it into
his mouth, swallowing it with surprising speed, as if he were
terribly thirsty. She stared in surprise at the blurred vision of
his dark head bowed over her slender wrist. His eyes were pressed
shut in a look that she recognized as ecstasy. It didn’t make any
sense, but she knew her face must look the same. Only a small part
of her mind, located somewhere in the very back, had the sense to
question what he was doing. The rest of her simply melted, and she
slumped promptly against his side, sighing breathlessly.

He pulled his mouth from her wrist at
once, and two warm streams of liquid began coursing from the small
punctures he’d made in her flesh. “Are you all right?” he asked,
halfway breathless as he squeezed her hand.

“
Yes.” She made no effort
to straighten, preferring the feel of Damon’s fine tailcoat against
her cheek and his musky scent to sitting on her own.

He tensed against her, his muscles
going hard. “Are you sure? You aren’t going to faint from the
shock?”

“
Why would I do
that?”

He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t
know. It’s what I always imagined a lady’s reaction would be if she
saw, if she knew…”

“
I’m no lady. In fact, I’m
about as far from being one as possible.” She plucked at her plain,
practical skirts in demonstration.

“
A woman, then,” he
corrected himself.

“
I suppose a lady
would
have fainted. But
as a housemaid, I have seen – and cleaned up – far worse.” What was
a bit of blood compared to some of the colossal messes she’d tidied
up during her seven years of domestic employment? It would take
much more than this to put her into a faint, or even turn her
stomach, though it certainly
had
roused her curiosity.

“
Well,” he said, lowering
her hand. It fell naturally on his thigh, and he said nothing when
she let it remain there. Her blood thrummed in her fingertips,
making them itch to move, to feel every inch of him. Clearly, she
still had plenty of the stuff left. “Your beautiful face makes it
easy to forget that you’re no shrinking violet.”

She smiled faintly, unable to help
herself.

“
I’m afraid I might be the
one in shock now,” he continued. “I expected fainting or shouting,
maybe even tears. I was prepared for that, but I don’t know quite
how to face this calmness. I thought for sure that when you saw my
true nature, you’d be terrified.”

“
I didn’t see much, to tell
the truth.” She gestured toward her eyes. “Perhaps that explains my
state of collection.” She scoffed at herself inwardly. ‘Collected’
was hardly the term she’d use to describe her current state. She
felt as if she might melt if she didn’t burst with desire first.
“Mostly, I just felt.” She sighed, remembering the soft, hungry
press of his lips against her skin.

“
Even worse, I should
think.”

She turned a searching gaze to his
eyes, though her poor vision kept her from seeing their usual
breathtaking gleam. “No. Not at all.”

He was silent for half a moment.
“Truly?”

She nodded. “I almost wish you’d do it
again.”

A sound that could only be described
as a growl rose from somewhere deep in his chest, surprising her.
“Don’t tempt me. Please.”

She quieted, thinking through the
sensual haze he’d put her in, trying to decide what all this meant.
With a start, she realized she’d forgotten all about the original
purpose of this midnight visit, which had been to discuss whatever
he hoped would help her medical condition. When she’d agreed to
meet him here, she hadn’t harbored any hope of her own. But that
had changed. If Damon Remington could drink her blood – and even
more amazingly, if she could enjoy it – perhaps he harbored other
shocking surprises as well.

“
Well,” he said, his tone
still unusually low and rough. “Aren’t you going to
ask?”

“
Ask what?”

“
What I am.”

“
I thought you’d shown
me.”

He grasped her arms and
pulled her close to him, peering intently into her eyes. His face
was blurry around the edges, but beautiful nonetheless. His eyes
searched hers, seeming darker than ever. “I thought so too, but you
act as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. Elsie, I
am
the demon people call
me, even if they don’t know the full truth of what they say. I
don’t just drink blood, I live on it. I am a vampire.”

Vampire
. It was an old word from even older legends, some ancient
superstition she couldn’t quite bring herself to associate with the
breathtakingly sensual man who was holding her so close,
practically pleading with her to think him a monster. Feeling
vaguely dazed, she said the first thing that came to mind. “If I’d
thought them real, I would have imagined them much more
frightening.”

He laughed, breathily and humorlessly.
“Most find me adequately frightening.”

That seemed to be true enough. She
remembered Jenny’s blue eyes and how they’d pleaded with her as
she’d begged Elsie to abandon her fascination with Damon. As if
that were possible. She herself could not quite manage to summon
any fear of him. If he were truly a monster, he wouldn’t have
brought her here to discuss healing – wouldn’t, in fact, care two
pence about her illness. “And what if I had?” she asked. “You said
you were prepared to handle me if I burst into hysterics. What
would you have done?”

He answered without hesitation. “I
would have silenced you with a kiss. A thousand of them if I’d had
to. And if that had failed to calm you, I would have made love to
you, to show you that I’m not just a demon, but a man, too.”
Elsie’s nerves buzzed as a moment of tense silence stretched
between them. “It would have been wicked of me, wouldn’t
it?”

“
Positively, demonically
wicked.” She laughed breathlessly, trying to feign humor, not
wanting to let on that his words had stirred her to the point that
she felt dangerously near collapsing. She could smell the sweet
perfume of rose petals that would be released as their writhing
bodies crushed them. Mixed with Damon’s heady, spicy scent, it made
her heart quiver and her core dampen. She almost wished she could
be afraid.

“
Would you have liked
that?” His voice was almost a whisper, but bold still, low and
sensual.

Elsie’s breath caught in her throat.
Perhaps he was a demon. He certainly possessed the devil’s own
skill when it came to temptation. Her core clenched and her mouth
watered, hungry for some taste of his body. It never occurred to
her to lie. “Yes.”

He growled again, sounding almost
feral and desperate for something – for her, she realized as their
mouths crushed together, merging at once into a dance of twisting
tongues. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see well. Her other
senses were all she needed. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed
herself against him and moaned.

Several minutes later, he pulled his
mouth from hers, breathing hard. They were still entwined on the
bench, and her heart beat against his chest while her hardened
nipples pressed against him, straining against the front of her
dress. Every inch of her body burned for him.

“
It could be like this,” he
said. “I could change you, make you like me, and it could be like
this. I could make love to you, and you wouldn’t even feel the pain
of the transformation.”

Her mouth went dry as realization
struck her. “Change me? Into a vampire?”

He gripped her tightly, and his answer
was half-groan. “Yes. It would heal you, Elsie. You would no longer
be ill. You could live forever, or close to it.”

Her heart soared for a moment as she
imagined the healing he offered her. There would be no more
episodes for the other servants to whisper about when they thought
she was asleep, no more fainting spells or broken china. Her vision
would clear, and she’d never live in the wretched shadow of
invalidism again.

But was all this really, truly
possible? Her mind whirled. Within a few sensual moments, old tales
she’d never given any credence to had come wonderfully, startlingly
alive. She was being held in the arms of a living legend now, if
she could only bring herself to believe it. “Do you mean it, Damon?
This isn’t all some horrible prank, or a dream, or…” What else
could it be, if not either of those things or the truth?

He gently lifted her hand from his
thigh and pressed it against his mouth. Parting his lips, he
touched the tip of his tongue to her fingertips. She let him guide
her, allowing him to draw her touch across his teeth. His canines
were long, sharp and wickedly tapered. She felt them with awe. They
were not false, but smooth and still warm from the meeting of their
mouths. Eventually, they disappeared into his gums, as much a part
of him as his raven-black hair and dark eyes. She’d felt them brush
her tongue as she’d kissed him, but hadn’t realized how long they
truly were. She gasped as he pressed the tip of one finger lightly
to the end of a fang and sucked the resulting blood away. “It’s all
real. This is what I really am.”

Though she breathed a sigh of relief,
reality brought with it a whole new slew of worries. The old
vampire legends were dark things, full of macabre details and
morbid deaths. But Damon didn’t seem at all like the creatures they
told of, so perhaps other details had been skewed as well. She had
to know. “Is it like in the old stories? Must you take the lives of
others to live?” She couldn’t stomach the thought of sucking the
life out of others, keeping it greedily for herself. Dying seemed
preferable.

He lowered her hand into his lap again
and gripped it tightly in his own. “No. It needn’t be that way.
There are alternatives.”