Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) (14 page)

Okay, that was it. I couldn’t let her go on like this—I had to
say
something. I knocked on the door and
the soft little sounds she had been making stopped abruptly.

“Taylor?” I said, knocking again. “Come on, open up.”

“I’m busy. I’m…I’m about to take a bath.” She sounded slightly panicked.

“Open up,” I repeated, prepared to be firm.

Slowly the door opened and her flushed face appeared. Her clothes were
rumpled and askew and her long dark hair was tousled, as though she’d been
running both hands through it, trying to straighten it out.

She looked fucking gorgeous and she smelled even better. I took a deep
breath and immediately regretted it when her delicious scent invaded my senses.
Okay, I had to keep it together here, especially considering what I had to tell
her.

“What do you want?” she demanded, frowning at me.

“I know what you’re doing in there, and it’s not taking a bath,” I said
simply. “But Taylor, honey, it won’t help.”

“What? What are you talking about?” She crossed her arms over her chest
protectively and took a step back. “I don’t…don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

“Yes, you do.” I took her right hand and brought it to my nose. I inhaled
deeply, taking her warm, feminine scent into my lungs, deliberately letting it
overwhelm me. I was instantly achingly hard. “You’ve been touching yourself,
baby,” I murmured, my voice deepening to the Wolf’s growl. “But it’s not doing
any good, is it?”

Her eyes widened and for a moment I thought she would deny it again. Then
finally she hung her head.

“How…how did you know?”

“It’s a wolf thing,” I said. “I don’t know how or why it’s happening to
you, since you’re a vamp. But I’ve seen it before.”

“Seen
what?”
She looked at me
uncertainly.

I took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes. She deserved the truth, no
matter how bizarre it sounded. “Taylor, baby, I think you’re going into heat.”

Chapter Ten—Taylor

I stared at him, trying to take in what he was
saying. Going into heat? That couldn’t be true. Could it? Then I remembered
what Gwendolyn had said.
“He’s been a
were all his life—you’ve only been a vamp for less than ten years. If anybody
is going to change it’s going to be you, sweetie.”
But could it be that I
was really changing that much? Could Victor possibly be right?

“What…what does that mean?” I tugged nervously at
my rumbled blouse and skirt. I’d been in such a hurry to touch myself when we
got home I hadn’t even had time to take them off. But the multiple orgasms I’d
already had before he knocked on the door hadn’t even touched the raging desire
inside me—if anything, they had made it worse.

Victor took a deep breath and I could tell he was
trying to think of a way to explain without freaking me out. Then finally, he
shook his head.

“Damn it—there’s no nice way to say it. It means
you need to be bred.”

“Bred?” I took a step back. “As in…” But I
couldn’t make myself say the words.

“Taken,” he said in a low voice.
“Fucked.”

Hearing that word coming from him in a soft, deep
growl did things to my insides. My pussy was suddenly liquid, my nipples so
tight they ached. But at the same time a rush of ugly memories came crowding
down on me.

“You’ll get used to it,” Celeste said, tightening the straps of the
silver chastity belt. It burned me horribly, plumes of smoke rising from its
hinges but it was the long, cruel silver wand she had forced inside me that
hurt the most. The searing pain of being burned from the inside out was almost
more than I could bear. It was only my second week as a vampire. How could I
stand this for the rest of my long, unnatural life? For the rest of eternity?

“Shut up and stop sniveling,” Celeste snapped. “Or I’ll shove it in
deeper…”

And that wasn’t all…there was more, so much more.
So many things I had been forced to endure. So many memories. So many
nightmares… I had pushed them all to the back of my mind, constantly avoiding
them, ignoring them, pretending they didn’t exist. Now, though, it was as
though the physical desire Victor had raised in me had brought them rushing
back. I couldn’t avoid them anymore. Couldn’t pretend they hadn’t happened.

“No!” I gasped, taking a step back. “No, you
can’t…I can’t let you.” I bolted past him, out of the bathroom and through the
bedroom. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to get away, away
from him and from the awful memories.

But some things you can’t outrun.

* * * * *

Victor

I caught her in the kitchen with her hand on the
doorknob.

“No, Taylor.” I pressed my hand flat against the
wooden door, holding it closed despite her desperate attempts to wrench it
open.

“Please…” She turned to face me, her face naked
with fear. “Please, Victor…please don’t,” she begged brokenly. “Don’t…I can’t…I
can’t stand it if you…if you do that to me.”

“Baby, baby…no. Of course not. Of course I
won’t.” I wanted to reassure her, wanted to let her know that I would never
hurt her, never take what she wasn’t willing to give.

But she was too far gone, too upset to hear me.

“Please…” She was crying now, her big blue eyes
wet and red with blood tears. She wrapped her arms around herself, holding on
tight like she might shake herself to pieces if she let go. “Please…” she kept
repeating. “Please, no.”

I didn’t know what to do with her. I couldn’t let
her out into the night—the moon was still mostly full. There were probably
members of the local pack out there, hunting. She would be an easy target.

“Honey, come back where we can talk,” I begged
her, trying to take her by the arm.

“No!” She shied away from my
touch violently. “No, don’t…please
don’t.”

Her tears, her fear of me—they were
tearing me up inside. Why had I been such an idiot and blurted it out like
that? Why hadn’t I been able to think of a better way to tell her what was
going on? Now she was sure I was going to rape her like that bastard Roderick
probably had. No wonder she didn’t want me anywhere near her. What was I going
to do? How could I ever earn her trust back after this?

Inside me I felt the wolf howl
with anguish. The pale girl—the female we had adopted into our pack and claimed
as our own was hurting. She was hurting and there was no way to ease her pain.

Or was there?

The wolf—she liked my wolf. She
trusted that part of me more than she trusted…well,
me.
The human me, anyway. Suddenly I knew what I had to do.

* * * * *

Taylor

Victor took a quick step back
and yanked off his t-shirt. Then he started unbuttoning his jeans.

I watched him numbly, my vision
blurred with tears. This was it then—I thought he was a nice guy—thought I was
safe with him.

I was wrong.

He pushed down his jeans and I
turned my head away and closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch what was about to
happen. Couldn’t stand to see him come at me and do…what he was going to do.

Think of something else…take yourself away,
I told myself frantically. It was what I always tried to do when I was
with Celeste and she gave me away to someone to use. But it didn’t work now any
better than it had then. I couldn’t take myself away. I would just have to
endure it. Just have to—

A soft whine interrupted my
frantic thoughts. Something warm and furry brushed against my knees.

The sensations were so strange,
so not what I was expecting, I had to open my eyes, just a little, to look.

Victor was gone.

In his place was the huge,
grayish-black wolf I’d helped the night before. The animal whose paw I had
bandaged, the one I had fed bacon. The one who had slept beside me and kept me
warm and safe all night long.

The wolf nudged me again and
whined. It was standing in a puddle of discarded jeans and t-shirt—Victor’s
clothes—so I knew it was him. But somehow, he wasn’t as scary this way. I loved
animals and trusted them implicitly—his wolf was no exception.

“Oh,” I whispered, trying hard
to control my tears. “Hello, boy.”

The wolf made a soft, sad sound
in the back of his throat and nudged me again. This time I understood he was
nudging me away from the door. He wanted me to stay inside. Why?

A long, liquid howl in the
woods outside answered my question. I shivered—other wolves, the local
pack—were out there. I was sure they wouldn’t take kindly to a vampire being in
their territory.

The wolf took a few steps
toward the hallway and then turned his head as though asking me to follow.

I stood there, staring at it.

He came back for me and
insinuated his big, furry head under my hand. I rubbed my fingers through his warm,
soft ruff. I was still crying—I could feel the tears leaking down my face in
slow, steady rivulets of blood. The wolf whined again and this time I went with
him.

We wound up on the bed together,
the very place I had feared going with Victor.
The wolf
is
Victor,
I reminded myself, but even though I
knew it was true I wasn’t afraid.

I wasn’t afraid but I was still
sad. Not just sad—heartbroken. The flood of memories was still so strong—set
loose from the prison of my mind like an evil genie set free from its bottle. I
felt them wash over me, threatening to carry me away to a place of misery and
pain. A place so far away I would never find my way home again.

I wrapped my arms around myself
and tried to pull myself together, tried to push the horrible thoughts back.
But they wouldn’t go…I wasn’t strong enough to make them.

Suddenly, the wolf who had been
sitting beside me, pushed his way into my arms. He licked my wet cheeks,
cleaning my face, and butted his head against my chest.

Slowly my arms came up and
wrapped around his warm, furry sides. I couldn’t hold myself together—couldn’t
keep myself from being washed away by the evil flood of past abuse. But now at
least I had something—
someone
—to hold
on to.

I clung to the wolf and cried,
my scarlet tears wetting his ruff as I let the rough, dirty waters of memory
take me. I couldn’t hold them back anymore—I didn’t even try.

The wolf seemed to understand.
He threw back his head and howled, a long, lonely, miserable sound. The sound
my soul was making. The sound of anguish so deep I couldn’t give it a voice—he
voiced it for me.

He shared my pain and in
sharing, made it less.

Gradually, the flow of images
and memories slowed to a trickle as did my tears. I felt exhausted—all cried
out. The way I used to as a kid when I was so upset it seemed like the world
would end and yet somehow, it didn’t.

Along with the weariness came
peace—a feeling that I was in a better place somehow, than I had been before. I
had faced the memories and they hadn’t broken me—thanks to the wolf, I was
still here, still me. I still didn’t want to have sex or anything resembling it
in the near future but the thought no longer made me crazy with fear.

I can deal with this,
I told myself.
Whatever happens, I’ll get through it.
Everything is going to be okay. It has to be.

I sank down on the bed and
cuddled close to the wolf. As before he pressed his back to me and even though
dawn was hours away, I felt myself slipping away. Letting a healing sleep take
me to a place where there were no more dreams, no more nightmares. Just the
warm smell of fur and leather and sunlight, just the feeling that I was cared
for and protected and loved.

Chapter Eleven—Taylor

I don’t know how long I slept but when I woke up,
Victor was bending over me, a concerned look on his face.

“Hey, baby,” he said softly when I opened my eyes
and gazed up at him. I noticed he was fully dressed in jeans and a black
t-shirt. He was also being careful not to touch me—I wondered why. Then I
remembered my freak out of the night before and felt embarrassed.

“Hey.” I had fallen asleep in my clothes and I
felt rumpled and messy. I rubbed my eyes. “What time is it?”

“Only about two in the afternoon. I came home
from work early—wanted to do something about the windows.”

“Oh?” I sat up and stretched. “What did you do?”

“Come see.” He held out a hand to me and then
seemed to regret doing so. God, was he afraid to touch me at all now? Well,
considering the way I had freaked out on him the night before, probably so.

“Okay.” I reached out and took his hand.

Victor’s stern features broke into a broad grin
and his chocolate brown eyes lit up, making me feel warm all over.

“Great,” he said, pulling me gently from the bed.
“Come on.”