Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) (24 page)

“Good, I’m just…I’m not going to last long. Not
while you’re touching me like that.” I tried to keep my hips from moving in
time to her strokes and failed. It felt too good and I’d been on edge for too
long. I needed to come.

“Are you going to…?” She looked at me meaningfully.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “So if you don’t want me to
finish, you’d better stop now.”

“Of course, I want you to finish,” she murmured.
“I…I like the idea of
making
you
finish to be honest.”

“You like that, huh?” I laughed hoarsely. “Okay
then, baby—come on—make me come.”

“All right.” She pumped me harder and faster, her
soft little hand flying over my aching shaft. There was a look of concentration
on her face, her lush bottom lip caught between her little white teeth, and her
full breasts swayed to the motion of her strokes.

At that moment, a red haze came over my vision
and the beast inside me roared, demanding that I finish not in her hand, but in
her pussy. I wanted desperately to flip her over and shove my cock into her
sweet, wet cunt. To flood her channel with my seed and mark her as mine
forever. Below the beast’s demands, I could hear my wolf whining uneasily. When
the curse was closing in, it was the beast who held sway. Its savage dominance
frightened the wolf.

I fought the beast’s desires grimly.
Not going to hurt her,
I swore to
myself.
Not going to do anything to scare
her or take more than she’s ready to give.

My hands curled into the blue bedspread on either
side of me and I closed my eyes, closing out the scarlet heat that wanted to
envelope me. I concentrated on fighting the curse, ignoring the burning of the
brand. If I could just get through this, if I could just come before the beast
inside me burst free…

“Victor,” I heard her whisper in my ear. “Come
for me. I want you to come,
now
.”

Her soft sweet voice saying those hot words, her
scent in my nose, her hand on my cock, finally, mercifully pushed me over the
edge. With a low growl, I arched my back, thrusting fully into her fist and
came, spurts of hot cum jetting from the tip of my cock and wetting my belly.

At last the fire in my back went out—but not
entirely. It was more like someone had doused the flames but left the coals,
burning and banked for the next time.

There can’t be a next time,
I told myself as
I collapsed, panting and spent on the bed.
I
can’t let this happen again. It’s too damn dangerous. I almost took her. Almost
hurt her…

And then Taylor was curling up against me, laying
her head on my shoulder and sighing contentedly.

“Was it good? Did I do it right?” she asked,
stroking my chest.

“God, baby, it was better than good,” I assured
her hoarsely. “It was…a-fucking-mazing. I don’t remember the last time I came
that hard.”

She made a happy little noise of contentment at
the back of my throat and I reminded myself that she had no idea of the danger
she’d been in. God, I was a shit, risking her this way. If the curse had
consumed me, if the beast had come out…

I won’t think about it now,
I told myself,
taking a deep breath as my body finally relaxed.
But I won’t let it happen again either.

I can’t.

Chapter Eighteen—Taylor

We got cleaned up soon after that and went to bed
together, even though it was still just the middle of the night. As a vampire,
I knew I should want to be up until just about the crack of dawn and not wake
until sunset the next day. But somehow, since I’d been with Victor, my body
clock seemed to be resetting itself. I woke up earlier and earlier in the day
and got sleepy sooner at night. It was almost as though I was slowly reverting
to a daytime schedule—which made no sense for a vampire but then again, neither
did going into heat.

Nothing makes sense anymore,
I thought
drowsily as I put my head on Victor’s chest.
Nothing makes sense but it’s wonderful. So wonderful.

It was the first time I had slept with him in
human form and I loved how safe I felt in his arms. The hard planes of his
chest made a perfect pillow and his deep, even breathing relaxed me. Best of
all, I found he kept me just as warm as a man as he did in his wolf form.
Perfect.

I usually sleep too deeply to dream, but this
time my sleeping mind made an exception…

I am with Victor, the two of us holding hands and laughing and somehow I know
it is in the future—whether years or weeks, I can’t say. We are walking along
the beach at noon—the sun hot and bright overhead, the sunshine warming my skin
as it hasn’t in many long years. I look up at it, squinting the way you do on a
bright day, but I am not afraid. The sun is no longer my enemy but a warm,
benevolent friend.

Victor says something I can’t hear. I looked over and asked him to repeat
it.

“I said, I think she’s hungry…”

“Who?” I ask but then I look down and realize I am pushing a baby
stroller. Victor is already kneeling on the sandy beach, cooing to whoever is
inside the stroller.

“Daddy’s little princess is hungry?” he says, picking up a baby who looks
to be about one and a half years old. He brings her to me and I look at her in
wonder.

She has Victor’s big chocolate brown eyes and my dark brown hair. Her
little face is heart shaped and delicate with a button nose and a sweetly
pursed candy pink mouth—perfect in every way.

“She’s beautiful,” I whisper, in awe of the precious little girl.

“Just like her mom,” Victor says proudly. He holds her out to me and she
puts up chubby little arms, eager for me to take her.

“Momma!” she says when I hold her. She nuzzles close and presses her
chubby little cheek to mine. “Momma…love you.”

“Oh, sweetie,” I whisper, holding her tight. “I love you too. Momma loves
her little girl so much.”

Victor puts his arms around both of us.

“And I love you both. My two sweet girls,” he rumbles and I feel loved
and protected and perfect in every way.

The waves shush along the beach, the sand is rough and warm under my
feet, my little girl is safe in my arms and my husband loves me—loves both of
us completely. The sun beams down on us like a golden blessing and I feel a joy
like I have never known, a joy I never expected to feel after Celeste…after
she…she…

The sound of shouting voices and slamming doors
woke me. I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes sleepily. The clock on the night
table said eleven thirty. I stared at it in sleepy incomprehension.

Eleven thirty? Why didn’t Victor wake me? Did he feed the baby? She’s
hungry—I know she’s hungry…

I stumbled out of bed feeling groggy and
disoriented. The dream was still lodged in my head. I could almost feel the
warm sand under my feet and hear the soothing
shush-shush
of the waves breaking on the beach. My arms felt empty,
though. Where was my baby?

There were loud angry voices coming from
somewhere outside. Was something wrong? Was she out there?

I hurried toward the sound, the voices growing
louder in my ears. One of them was Victor’s and the rest were unfamiliar.
She’s out there—I know it! She’s in trouble.

I hit the kitchen door running and burst out into
the sunlight. Half a dozen men were standing on the front lawn arguing with
Victor. He was shirtless and still dressed in the black sleep pants he’d had on
the night before. The bite marks from where he’d fed me at the club were very
prominent on the side of his bare throat. He sounded angry but I couldn’t
understand what he was saying. I wanted to go to him, to ask where our daughter
was. But the sun overhead was too bright—it dazzled my eyes and felt too warm
on my skin.

“There she is! That’s her,” one of the men
shouted. He had a black tribal tattoo on one side of his face and one of his
arms was in a sling.

One of the other men frowned. “Thought you said
she was a vampire?”

Vampire. I’m a vampire…
The dream began to clear from
my brain. There was no baby, no beach, no sand. There was just Victor standing
there looking angry and the sun blazing down on me. I looked down at my arm,
expecting to see my skin erupting in ugly red blisters as it had every other
time I had been touched by sunlight.

It wasn’t blistered but it did look different. It
was no longer translucently pale. It looked…tan. As though I’d been lying out
all summer (because screw skin cancer) to get that healthy bronze glow.

“She ain’t no vampire,” one of the other men
said. “She’ can’t be. Ain’t no vamp I ever met could be out in the full light
of day without burning straight to ash.”

His words seemed to alarm Victor. He turned to me
and his eyes widened in alarm.

“God, Taylor!” He rushed toward me, grabbed me up
in his arms as though I weighed no more than a child, and ran with me into the
house.

“What the hell?” he demanded as he set me down
and looked me over carefully, searching for damage. “What are you thinking,
baby—coming out in the sun like that?”

“I don’t know—I-I didn’t mean to,” I stuttered.
“I had a dream about you and me and the beach and a…a…” But I couldn’t say the
word “baby.” It hurt too much to realize that part was just a dream—a dream
that could never come true.

“You’re a new vamp.” Victor was still examining
me. “And it’s almost noon—the sun should have ashed you. Do you honestly feel
okay?” He looked at me anxiously, as though he expected me to blow away in a
puff of ash and smoke at any time.

“I…I think so.” I put a hand to my head. “I’m a
little dizzy, but other than that…”

“You need to drink.” He lifted his wrist to his
mouth and bit down hard, severing the tender blue bracelet of veins with one
bite. “Here…” He held his bleeding wrist to my lips. “Drink.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. Now that I was
in out of the sun and thinking more clearly, I really
did
feel ill. Kind of woozy and slightly sick to my stomach—the
same kind of feeling you get when you have heat stroke. But I had only been out
in the sunlight for less than a minute. Still, even that short amount of time
should have killed me. How had I survived? I didn’t know, but I
did
know that his delicious blood made
me feel instantly better.

“See, I
told
you she’s a fucking fanger,” a voice from the doorway said. “He’s even
feeding her again.”

“Fucking disgusting,” muttered another voice.

I glanced up, my mouth still clamped to Victor’s
wrist and stared at the half dozen angry faces crowding in at the kitchen door,
which Victor had neglected to shut in his hurry. The smell of wet dog assaulted
my nose and I almost gagged on the blood I was drinking.

“You’re not welcome here. This isn’t pack
property and you’re on my land. Get off,” Victor snarled at them.

I pulled my mouth from Victor’s wrist, licking it
quickly to seal and heal the wound.

“We’re not going anywhere until you acknowledge
the will of the pack master and agree to appear at the council at Skull Rock
tonight,” Tribal Tattoo, who seemed to be the leader of the gang, snapped.

“I’m not coming to your fucking council. For the
last time, I don’t want anything to do with your pack!” Victor sounded
thoroughly exasperated.

“It’s not you that has to come,” one of the other
weres said. “It’s her.” He pointed right at me.

“Me?” I pointed at myself uncertainly. “I’m a
vampire—why would I want to go to a council of werewolves?”

“Because you offered mortal insult to the Alpha
Bitch of our pack,” he snarled. “You have to answer for that, fanger. Answer or
die.”

“Mortal insult?” Victor demanded. “What the hell
are you talking about? LeeAnn came here and trespassed on
my
land and threatened
my
wife.
Taylor didn’t do anything to her.”

“She laid hands on her, didn’t she?” a new voice
asked. “Excuse me, boys. Coming through.”

A tall handsome man with a neatly clipped
mustache pushed his way past the other weres and into Victor’s kitchen. He had
iron gray hair and looked to be around his mid-fifties but he was still quite
fit and muscular.

“Victor,” he said, nodding.

Victor nodded stiffly back. “Pack Master
Wainright,” he said, his voice a low growl. “What do you want?”

“I want to address the wrong that was done to my
daughter,” the older were said. “As I said before, your, ah,
wife
laid hands on LeeAnn. You and I
both know that’s a mortal offense.”

“No, she didn’t,” Victor protested, looking at
me. “Did you, baby?”

“I put my hand on the back of her neck and, uh,
pushed her out the door,” I admitted, feeling sick. “But only because she was
being extremely rude and wouldn’t leave any other way. I didn’t really
hurt
her though.”