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Authors: Linda Mercury

BOOK: Dracula's Desires
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C
HAPTER
33
“
M
OM!”
The baby screamed in Valerie's inner ear and kicked her in her cracked ribs.
“Wake up!”
“What?” Valerie groaned.
“She's eating them alive out there”,
the baby said.
Valerie cracked open one swollen eye. The men had attacked Mina. They were fighting as though their world had fallen apart, but were still true to themselves. They were not out to kill.
Mina on the other hand, was insane, powerful, and wanted to kill everything she saw.
They didn't know one small, insignificant thing.
Valerie wasn't dead yet.
Her right arm was broken in five places and completely useless until she fed. Her left shoulder, though, was merely dislocated. A few more seconds and it would pop back. . ..
“Fuck.” And there it went. Why was it people thought that just because a vampire would heal, it wouldn't hurt?
She dragged her broken leg behind her, grinding the gravel into the already-shredded flesh, until she reached the Shelby's driver's side door.
Using her good left arm, Valerie pulled her body across the seats to reach the keys in the glove box. Leaning her battered self on the transmission hump, her swollen fingers shook with the strain of lifting the key ring.
Finally, finally, the key slid into the ignition. A painful twist, and her car rumbled to life.
“I'm sorry, girl,” she whispered to her car, her beloved Ilona's memorial. “I never wanted us to end. Not like this.” With that last benediction, Valerie's left hand shifted gears and floored the last reminder of her wife. Using the white Le Mans stripes as a rifle sight, she aimed her automotive weapon at the incarnation of her former wife.
Two and a half seconds later, the Shelby slammed into Mina Harker's torso. The other woman screamed as the speeding car broke her spine and splayed her halfway across the hood. She lay perfectly centered between the two stripes, Valerie dimly noticed.
Valerie didn't stop until she crashed into the concrete wall of the impound lot's main building, pinning the already-cooling corpse against the crumbling cement. As the engine ground to its final stop, the baby kicked her in the liver.
A band of pain tightened her lower back, dwarfing the pain in her arm and leg. Water splashed down her legs and across the already-ruined leather seats. She sighed as her body tumbled out of the car and landed on her back on the ground. She was so tired.
“All right, kid,” Valerie whispered. “I can do this thing, but then you're on your own. You'll do great, trust me. We Draculs are tough.”
C
HAPTER
34
L
abor
was the right word. This shit was hard work. Even though her arms could barely move, Valerie gripped Ilona's door frame. Her response to the contractions shook the entire wreckage. The ends of her barely healed bones shifted and rattled under her skin. Every muscle and tendon in her body twisted in unnatural ways in the effort of birth. The metal that used to hold the window together ripped with the earsplitting screech as she shook under another contraction
“Fuck, kid!” she screamed. “My liver is not supposed to move that way.” If this kept up, Valerie would be begging for the mercy of silver poisoning. Nothing before had ever hurt like this: not the tortures of her youth, the way her brother crucified her, not when Lance's blood had penetrated her very cells and changed her from the inside out.
“It ain't a picnic on this end, either!”
The baby kicked and punched its way toward Valerie's cervix.
Lance zapped out of nowhere and knelt in the broken glass. His wings nudged the wrecked hull of the Shelby away from the mother and insistent child. Once his two girls were safe, he spoke.
“You can't come out now, little one.” He rested his hand on Valerie's belly, attempting to soothe his daughter. His other hand slid under his woman's neck, removing the pressure on her too-slowly healing arms.
“My minion is suffering, you fool! I must save her.”
John skidded onto his knees, digging grooves in the gravel. “We do this together,
bébé.
You are not alone. All for one.”
“Then get moving!” Valerie shouted. Her face grew whiter and whiter with the strain.
The two men exchanged an exasperated glance. Like mother, like daughter, their gazes said. Valerie bared her fangs in response to their silent communication, but a cramp in her back took her voice.
Lance gathered light in his hand and sent a soothing, healing glow into her body. Valerie's pain eased enough that she could suck oxygen into her lungs. The intoxicant spread a sense of calm throughout her wracked uterus.
“You need more than air.” John jammed his hand into Lance's pants pocket and pulled out his friend's Gerber knife. With the sharp point, he sliced a line across the veins in his elbow.
“Drink.”
John was forever saving her when she was in pain. His blood had mended her when she had been laced with silver, and now he gave even more for her well-being. Valerie opened her jaws and dug her teeth into his arm. The painful torn muscles and broken bones smoothed as John poured his love into her system.
Another contraction. She sighed into the thin skin of his elbow. This one was no worse than a single silver nail through her hand. Definitely manageable.
“Kid,” she muttered. “Really, you aren't supposed to be born for another three months. I looked it up. Humans gestate for three trimesters.”
Her child humphed.
“Mom. We're not human. We make our own rules.”
John wiped his blood away from his already-healed arm. “You are next. Vampires don't have endorphins. Angel blood will do it.”
As Lance took his place at Valerie's lips, John placed his hands on Valerie's churning belly. “Let us care for your mother, darling. You stay in there. It is not safe for you yet.”
“Kid? Come on. Let's do things the easy way.” Lance's voice charmed his daughter into a pause.
“We don't ever do anything nice and easy,”
the child replied.
“She's got a point,” Lance responded. Valerie shot him a glare as she licked her nourishment from her wet chin.
“Easy would be nice for once,” Valerie snapped.
John hid his laugh with a cough. “I don't think we have a choice in the matter,
chou
. She's coming anyway.”
The three adults clasped hands, at peace for another moment. They breathed together. “Then let's do this thing,” Valerie declared, her lips pressing hard against each other. “All right kid. Go for it.”
The next few moments were the most revolting Valerie had ever experienced. Her body swam in an ocean of blood. She groaned and heaved against her men's strong hands, the smell of birth disgusting her more than any festering abdominal wound. The birth fluids soaked into the gravel parking lot and froze, slicking every surface.
Night fell, cold and deadly, but Lance's wings sheltered them, warmed them, and protected them from human eyes and ears. Valerie gave thanks. At least no one would be forced to witness this.
Besides, who knew what her child would be like? Would it be a normal infant helpless and squalling, but with all its fingers and toes? Would it emerge with wings? Fangs? Fangs and wings? She gave a weird, exhausted laugh.
“She's getting loopy,” John said. “Feed her again.”
Lance's blood flashed through her veins, mitigating the last pain from her injuries and labor. One giant tidal wave of a contraction started at the back of her neck.
“This is it!” she cried through Lance's muffling arm.
“
Ready or not, here I come, 'rents!”
As the wave lifted, crested, and broke, the infant escaped Valerie's birth canal and slithered into John's waiting hands.
“She's a girl,” John crowed, wrapping the tiny, wet being in clothing salvaged from the Shelby's wrecked trunk. “And she has your eyes, Lance.”
“I'm not giving them back, either,”
their new daughter replied indignantly.
Lance stifled a laugh against Valerie's shoulder. “C'mere, kid. Let's meet everyone.” He took the newborn from John's hands and settled their small package against Valerie's chest.
Valerie tucked the wrapping of her former favorite sweatshirt away from her baby's face. “Hi there, angel,” she whispered, tracing her fingertips across the wisps of black hair. Arctic blue eyes squinted up against still-wet eyelids.
“I have all my fingers and all my toes, too,”
the baby bragged.
“Wings and fangs?” Valerie crinkled her nose at the child.
“We'll just have to find out.
”
The baby wrapped her fist around her mother's finger. Valerie smiled. The newest Dracul's grip was strong, well suited to weapons training. A strong pulse throbbed in the tiny veins on her head. A powerful will shone in the direct gaze of those ridiculously small eyes.
“Who are we going to name her for?” Lance asked.
John took the baby away from Valerie's arms. The Guide and the infant nodded, each perfectly content with the deal. “I would call you Josephine after another great woman warrior.”
“I suggest we name her after a similarly improbable pregnancy.” Valerie rolled to her knees, wiping her hands on her ruined shirt. “I name her Minerva.”
John rocked back on his heels, but continued to smile at the child.
Lance extended his hands. “Hand her over.” As the child settled into the cradle of his chest and arms, he said, “I would name her after my mom, Victoria.”
“How about we get under shelter before I decide what my name will be?”
Minerva/Josephine/Victoria pointed out.
“Besides, I'm hungry.”
John supported Valerie as she pushed to her feet. “I'm not driving,” she announced. Her most prized possession, the exquisite car that encapsulated her in guilt over the past, was wrecked beyond all fixing. All reminders and remainders of Ilona were dead now.
She looked behind her at her Guide, her angel, and her mysterious daughter.
Fuck it. What happened to Ilona's spirit now was absolutely none of Valerie's business anymore.
“Take us home, sunshine,” she told Lance. “We got a kid, so make it smooth.”
Lance gently transferred the baby to Valerie's ready arms. As he gathered the little improbable family together, Valerie touched her forehead to her child's. “You have a good eye for tactics, kid.”
The baby's arms flopped about in evident pride.
“What can I say? It runs in the blood.”
C
HAPTER
35
D
RACULA
'
S HONEYMOON
“
W
e are going to Monaco for our honeymoon,” John Wannounced to Valerie and a hungry Minerva one bright Saturday morning.
The vampire mother looked up from feeding the baby from one bleeding fingertip. “When did that get decided?” she asked, her tone decidedly grumpy.
Valerie's black hair stuck up on one side and her cheek still wore the lines from her pillow. She rested her own glass of blood on one of the many packing boxes that still populated their new apartment. She sat in the rocker and John perched on the top of the changing table. Not like Minerva needed changing, but they were prepared for any eventuality.
“I promise that we will not get kicked out of the country,” John said as he toyed with a royal purple rattle.
Valerie awkwardly patted the little bottom that rested against her lap. “I doubt we will have a drug-fueled orgy.”
“What's an orgy?”
Minerva asked.
“It's a form of sexual behavior,” Valerie explained, “that involves three or more people.”
John pinched the bridge of his nose. “She's less than a month old. She's not supposed to know what an orgy is at less than a month old.”
Valerie furrowed her eyebrows. “So she's precocious. We can handle that. How are we supposed to teach her anything if we refuse to answer her questions? Are you the expert here? You're not even one hundred years old.”
Settling in together had been harder than John anticipated. Four control freaks in one space made for some itchy conversations. That was why John had secretly arranged this trip.
“And how are we supposed to honeymoon if we have a kid?” Valerie challenged him.
“Glenath and Anthony owe us for bailing them out in Amsterdam. They will take care of our girl,” John stated. “I have planned everything so we can relax. Lance will meet us there. I've packed almost everything you need.”
Valerie's muttered “What the hell are those?” sent John into a suppressed giggle fit. She must have seen the shoes he'd chosen for her. Wait until she saw what surprises he'd sneaked into the luggage. All of them needed to find some kind of equal footing, or their control-freak tendencies would drive them all insane.
 
 
John slammed the trunk on Valerie's new silver Mercedes S600. The former bishop was gabbling baby-talk to the little girl and doing a bizarre finger dance that involved touching her pinky to her thumbs and rotating her wrists in a weird climbing motion.
“How's little Minnie? Who's the cutest girl?” Anthony cooed as he waved a stuffed mouse in a polka-dotted dress at the infant.
“Minnie?!
” Minerva shouted.
“Be nice, kid,”
John mentally said.
“These guys are going to spoil you until you can't stand it.”
“I can handle that,”
Minerva Josephine Victoria Janté answered.
“Get out of here so they can get on with it.”
Valerie shook Anthony's hand and tolerated Glenath's enthusiastic hug. John wondered how his vampire was going to handle meeting his big, affectionate family. She had been alone for so long.
Even more reasons for a honeymoon.
Two hours later, John and Valerie sat under the summer sun in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Valerie chewed on her lips and tapped her fingers on the leather-wrapped steering wheel.
He placed a caressing hand on her thigh. “We are in no hurry,
petit chou
.”
She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. “I hate to wait,” she grumbled.
A vague headache pulsed at the back of John's skull. He hated being a passive passenger. Distraction. That was what they needed.
John lowered the volume on the stereo until Concrete Blonde's “Bloodletting” was a low background thrum.
“You don't talk much about your mortal life,” he said, randomly choosing something to talk about.
Valerie tossed him a half smile, fully aware of his tactic. “Memory fades for me just like everyone else. Besides, from what I read about myself, it's just as well I don't remember.”
“What do you remember from your first life?”
“Fleas,” she said, scratching her head. “Disgusting vermin.”
He laughed. “What else?”
She closed her eyes and caressed the leather-clad steering wheel. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled deeply.
As though savoring the sensation, she exhaled on a soft moan. “Perfume. Real French perfume.” She inhaled again. “I was in Paris for Napoleon's coronation. I wanted to see what he had made of his empire. And the perfume . . .”
She opened her eyes to stare blankly at the traffic that wound in front of them like a glittering snake of metal and concrete. “Life used to stink. Dead bodies, sewage, the lot. We did our best. But perfume! All those beautiful scents mixed into something new, something no one had ever smelled before. It brought so much hope.”
She rubbed her face against her shoulder. “And now you can surround yourselves with this magic at any time, just to keep one's armpits from offending.”
“More.” He caressed her thigh. “Tell me about your parents.”
Valerie started. “What?”
“C'mon. We've got a long drive ahead of us. Tell me about them. What would they think of their granddaughter?” He gave her a little push with his finger. “Spill.”
Valerie rested her wrists on top of the dash and stroked her fingers against her palms. “My parents. I haven't thought of them in many years.”
John observed Valerie's hand rubbing. Thinking about her parents caused her anxiety. “Tell me what you do remember.”
“Well, they were very . . . determined. You should have met my mother. She was unstoppable.”
“My darling
chou
, that apple didn't fall far from the tree. And your father?”
“Bah.” Valerie spun the wheel, pressed the gas, and exited to a gas station. She parked in the shade by the rear and turned off the engine. “We need a break.”
John frowned internally as he quietly closed the Mercedes' door.
Okay, leave the parents alone.
He took a moment to study his lover.
Despite the car's efficient air-conditioning, beads of pink perspiration dotted her temples. Her hair lay limply against her neck and her blouse clung wetly to the slope of her breasts. John's headache abruptly disappeared.
Valerie avoided wearing bras as much as possible, even with her larger, curvier body. Which meant that sometimes she made some spectacular mistakes about what fabrics showed her breasts.
The yellow cotton had turned translucent. John could see the buds of her nipples poking through and her areolas pressed against the sweat-wet shirt. He spread his legs a little farther to allow his cock some room.
Unaware of his gaze, she twisted, her spine snapping into place. “My back is still used to the Mustang. You want anything? I need a break.”
John leaned against the roof of the new car, staring at her nearly invisible shirt. “Water.”
He wiped his forehead and watched her walk into the station. Her bottom swung underneath her worn jeans. Even wearing scuffed boots and dripping with sweat, she stirred him.
She was exhausted. What he really wanted was completely out of the question.
Or was it? Perhaps now was not the time for his interrogation, but rather lovemaking. It had been nearly twenty-four hours.
John locked the car, aware of the admiring looks that the automobile gathered. It didn't occur to him that some of those looks were aimed at him. He wore his black T-shirt and worn Levi's, nothing terribly interesting.
He followed Valerie into the gas station. She was bent over the refrigerated water display, the cooler air making her body react. The attendant licked his lips and ran his hand down to the waistband of his pants. John narrowed his eyes at the lascivious teenager.
The boy shifted uncomfortably at the older man's disapproval.
Valerie straightened and tossed John a sweating bottle of water. She grinned as he caught it one-handed. Her blunt eyeteeth shone like the moon under the greenish fluorescent lights of the store. Even without her fangs, she retained her air of potential violence. John's balls swelled in desire. She was the most beautiful, strongest, most fascinating woman ever born.
Once finished inside, John placed his hand on the small of Valerie's back and steered them toward the far edge of the lot.
“And what is on your mind?” Valerie's eyelids were already at half-mast, a clear sign of building arousal.
John uncapped the water bottle. “It's too hot. We need to cool down.” He lifted the container over their heads and drenched them both with the cold mountain spring water.
Her rusty laugh sounded like Notre Dame's bells to John. Tossing aside the empty bottle, he dug his fingers into the curve of her ass. With full deliberation, keeping his gaze on her, he ground their crotches together.
Despite the too-bright sun, Valerie's pupils were full blown black, barely held together by a thin rim of haze. She pulled his hair, yanking him away from her body. The small sting surprised him into letting her go.
“Look, Mr. Bossy Boots. I'm not some delicate thing for you to command. I know what I want, too. And I want you like this.”
Unsmiling, Valerie dropped her pants around her ankles. She bent over, and placed her hands on the white-painted concrete block wall of the gas station. In the sunlight, her pale ass cheeks framed her dark red pussy.
“Let it never be said that I pass up a chance to obey a lady who knows her mind,” John stated.
Now this was the way to start a honeymoon.
After John caught his breath, Valerie rested against the gas station and pulled up her pants. John idly toyed with her nipples as she buttoned the fly and dug in her pocket. She surprised him when she dangled the Mercedes' keys in front of him.
“Here. You drive,” she slurred. “I'm going to nap. Wake me when we get there.”
John wrapped his hand around the keys. Before she could let go, he brought her fist to his mouth and with all the love and humility in his soul, he kissed her fingers.
Everything was going to be perfect.
Monaco after midnight was a wonderful place for a vampire. The clean streets, the pools of light from the casinos and hotels, the fresh, impossibly beautiful Mediterranean Sea mere steps away from the sidewalk all fed Valerie as surely as angel blood.
Alone, she walked the streets of Monte Carlo as the night lights flickered. The unfamiliar red-soled high heels slowed her progress to a leisurely stroll and her backless blue dress allowed the balmy sea night air to caress her exposed skin. The rich architecture and air of luxury made her purr like a spoiled heiress.
Monaco had changed a great deal since Valerie had been here in 1814, shortly after Napoleon abdicated and the country reasserted its independence from French rule. The Grimaldi family had done well with the beautiful, narrow nation they cared for.
The hem of her short dress fluttered in the breeze. When was the last time she had worn so much color? Or had so much sex? Valerie wasn't sure if the two were related, but the hypothesis bore repeated testing. Extremely self-satisfied, she rested a hip against one of the cream-colored garden walls outside the Place du Casino.
The boys had requested alone time. She touched her carefully styled hair. More accurately, the boys had kicked her out of their hotel suite. “Get out. Go gambling. Get into trouble,” Lance had said. “Just don't come back for at least two hours.”
She shrugged. Fair enough. She'd had plenty of one-on-one time with John. Pleased to be on her own again, she lifted her face to the moon.

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