The Last True Vampire (31 page)

“I want to taste my blood on your tongue, Mikhail.” His eyes met hers, wide and wild. “Do it,” she urged as another wave of intense pleasure threated to crest and take her under.

He dragged the flat of his tongue across her breast and Claire let out a desperate gasp. Anticipation coiled in her stomach as he slanted his mouth across hers, his tongue thrusting in time with his hips. The coppery tang of her blood shouldn’t have made her want more, but it did. And this time it was Mikhail’s blood that she wanted to taste. To drink. The instinct to gorge herself on his blood wound itself into her very DNA until she thought she might go mad in want of it.

He broke their kiss and pulled back as though to gauge her reaction. Claire licked her lips and his eyes flashed, riveted to the motion. “You’re mine, Claire.” He thrust deep, knocking her head against the wall, and she let out a low moan.
“Mine.”
Harder. Deeper. “And I’ll make sure that
any
male who thinks to lay claim to you knows that fact.”

“Yes!” How could she possibly think of any other man, ever? Mikhail was the center of her universe, a force too powerful to resist. His muscles rippled beneath her touch, flexing and releasing. The veins stood out on his neck as he fucked her with furious abandon. “I want to taste you, Mikhail. Drink from you. I
have
to!”

She couldn’t explain the urge, but neither could she do anything to fight it. Mikhail let out a triumphant purr as he brought his wrist to his mouth and bit down hard. He pressed his wrist to her mouth and Claire latched on, digging the blunt ends of her teeth into his flesh as she sucked. His hips bucked wildly, and at the first warm gush of salty copper that filled her mouth Claire’s body coiled tight on the verge of another mind-shattering orgasm.

Hands wrapped tightly around his arm, she held his wrist to her mouth, drawing on his scored flesh with deep, hungry sucks. Mikhail’s lips pulled back to reveal the sharp points of his elongated fangs moments before his jaw clamped down. A shock of heat flooded her as his cock pulsed with every wave of his orgasm. Every muscle, every vein, that corded his body stood out in stark relief as a deep, satisfied roar erupted from his throat.

Claire came with him, her second orgasm more powerful than the first. Her body quaked with the force and Mikhail’s skin popped under her teeth as she bit down on his wrist to increase the flow of blood.

She floated away with each powerful spasm of her inner walls. Left her body completely behind as she floated on a cloud of sheer ecstasy. She was nothing more than a tangle of nerves and sensation, a gossamer thing without form.

For what seemed like years, the only sound in the tiny apartment was that of their mingled breaths. She looked down at Mikhail’s wrist, and the open wounds shrunk before her eyes until they healed completely, the skin as smooth and flawless as it had been moments ago. She dragged her eyes upward to find his almost completely silver now, only a trace of vibrant blue ringing the irises.

“Your mouth is so lovely stained with my blood.” The guttural quality to his voice made her core contract, squeezing his still-erect cock inside of her. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her slowly. Gently. Lapping at her lips and tongue in a satiny glide that filled her with a renewed rush of heat.

“Mikhail,” she said against his mouth. Her words weren’t her own but rather spurred by something deep inside of her that she didn’t understand. “I want
more
.”

CHAPTER

24

Claire had taken his vein, completing their blood bond. It was something he never would have expected, not until after her transition, and that she was begging for more challenged his tenuous self-control. It would be a simple thing to drain her while his cock was still buried in the slick heat of her pussy. And when her heart ceased its beating he’d offer her his vein once again, triggering her transition while he filled her with his seed.

The animal in him surged to the surface of his psyche, demanding that he ravage her. Extinguish the flame of her human existence so he could spark something new and wild, giving life to the vampire she would become. “Claire, don’t ask this of me.” His fangs tingled in his gums and he was overcome with the urge to bite her. To drink her dry while he fucked her. “Not when your daughter is so close and there is so much unresolved between us.”

Claire pulled back so quickly that her head smacked against the wall. Her brow furrowed as she searched his face. “What are you talking about?”

He held her close, the heat of her body a soothing balm on his skin. “Your child. The one in the apartment down the hall.” He smoothed Claire’s hair back and let his fingers thread through the silky strands. Perhaps the small amount of blood she’d taken from him had addled her mind. A ribbon of panic unfurled in his gut and he withdrew from her body, the profound sense of loss he felt only heightening his distress.

The same confused frown puckered her brow as Claire unwound her legs from his waist. He set her gently on her feet and she leaned back against the wall, her arms still slung over his shoulders. “You think Vanessa is my
daughter
?” She choked out a disbelieving laugh. “I would have been fourteen when she was born!”

Now it was Mikhail’s turn to be confused. “You didn’t deny you had a child. And you said yourself that your child’s father was an asshole.”

Claire’s cheeks flushed with color. “I was talking about
you
. That caveman attitude of yours drives me up a wall sometimes!”

He was her child’s father? But the girl wasn’t her daughter.… The gears turned in Mikhail’s mind, slow to move. He took a stumbling step back and then another. The Collective stirred in his mind, coupled with the unidentifiable scent that clung to Claire. His gaze raked down the length of her body, pausing at the almost indiscernible curve to her lower abdomen. That fullness hadn’t been there before. Her breasts, though perfectly round, were in fact heavier than they’d been just two weeks ago.

“For someone with centuries under his belt, you’re a little slow to catch on, aren’t you?”

A bright smile lit her features as her hands wandered to her belly. Mikhail dropped to his knees before her, wrapped his arms around her torso, and pressed his cheek to her womb. “My child,” he murmured against her skin. “You’re carrying my child?”

Claire threaded her fingers through his hair as though to soothe him. “It’s a boy,” she whispered. “Don’t ask me how I know.”

His child. His
son
.

Emotion swelled in Mikhail’s chest to the point that he thought he’d burst. Claire had never belonged more to him than she did in this moment. “You hid yourself from me.…”

Her voice was rich with emotion as she curved her body over his. “I was scared. Confused. I still am. I don’t understand how I feel or why. Nothing makes sense except for the fact that I want you, Mikhail. I’ve never felt anything more true or right in my entire life.”

“I’ve lived for centuries. Fought. Bled. Sought pleasure when I wanted it. Watched the eradication of my people and lay helpless, entombed, unable to do a gods-damned thing about it. I’ve suffered. But never have I loved. Not until now, not until this moment, have I known what it is to truly love something.” He covered the curve of her stomach with his palm. “I love this child. I love
you
.”

Claire slid from his grasp, her soft skin brushing against him as she padded past him into the tiny living room. His gaze followed her, like a magnet pulling metal, as he admired her narrow waist that flared out at her hips and rounded the perfect globes of her ass. “You can’t be in love with someone that you don’t even know. You think it’s love, but it’s just the tether that makes you feel that way.”

Each syllable spoken was laced with a soft sadness that sliced through Mikhail’s heart, leaving nothing but bloodied tatters behind. He turned toward her and rose from his knees. “Have you ever loved, Claire?”

The delicate features of her face hardened to stone. “No.”

“Then how do you know I can’t love you and that you in turn can’t love me?”

Mikhail took in the sight of her, skin still flushed, her right breast and throat still showing signs of the marks he’d given her. She was sex personified. Glorious, sensual, and unashamed. The pregnancy had given her a roundness that she hadn’t possessed before. A softness that he yearned to stretch his naked body along.

She turned her back to him. He crossed the room to where she stood and molded his body to hers, cradling his still-stiff cock into the crease of her ass. At his gentle thrust she let out a shuddering sigh, and he reached around to take the weight of her breasts in his palms.

“You are made for me,” he whispered against her ear. “The gods have laid out our path and we have no choice but to follow it. How could I not love you? We are two halves of a whole. Now joined, we will never be parted.”

“I don’t understand any of it.”

With gentle strokes, Mikhail caressed the tight points of her nipples, plucking at them before working his way back over the puckered dusky pink flesh to the creamy porcelain swell that filled his palms. Claire let her head fall back on his shoulder as her eyelids drifted shut, the dark lashes fluttering against her cheeks.

“I wish I could make you understand how important you are, Claire.” He ventured downward, one palm sliding between her breasts, over the flat of her stomach and the slight swell of her lower abdomen. He slipped his fingers between her thighs and her swollen lips. A low whimper made its way to his ears, and Mikhail’s sac tightened at the sweet sound. “Your blood called to me. A siren song I was helpless to resist. And when I first took your vein that night, you awakened the seat of my power, strengthened me so that I might strengthen the whole of my people and replenish my race.”

He circled her clit and Claire’s legs gave out. With his free hand he encircled her waist, holding her against him. “You are a Vessel, Claire. Unique. You can bear the weight of the Collective. Your blood is the only thing I need to sustain me. To sustain us all. You’re meant to be the mother of the vampire race. They can feel you. They know your strength, and even from great distances they can feed upon your life force.”

She rolled her head against his shoulder and a sheet of her silken hair cascaded over his arm. “Who?”

“The dhampirs,” he murmured against her ear. “Concentrate, Claire. Can you feel their pull?”

*   *   *

Claire shuddered in his embrace. His long fingers stroked her with artful precision while his voice, dark and decadent, served only to seduce her further. As if she could ever deny him anything.

“Concentrate, Claire. Can you feel their pull?”

The days of exhaustion. Constant, gnawing hunger that she’d been too nauseous to satisfy. Falling into bed fully clothed, only to pass into a deep, dreamless sleep until she had no choice but to drag herself out of bed for her shift at the diner. All this time she’d thought it had been the pregnancy. The baby taking what he needed from her.

“I feel it,” she whispered. “They’re taking more than I have to give.”

“They need you.” Mikhail slipped one finger and then another into her pussy and Claire cried out. “
I
need you. Your blood will save us all.”

Claire came in a violent spasm that rocked her from the tip of her head and rippled to the base of her toes. “Oh, god, Mikhail!”

“You might not think that I can love you, but I’m going to prove you wrong, Claire. And you’re going to love me, too.”

He sealed his mouth over her throat and bit down. Another orgasm came immediately on the heels of the first and Claire bucked in his grasp, holding on to him as though her life depended on it. Wave after wave of pleasure crested over her as he fed from her vein, and Mikhail brought her down slowly, each pull of his mouth thrumming through her while he stroked her with soft, languid passes of his fingers.

Years sped by in the span of seconds and Claire remained still in his embrace until he’d had his fill. The heat of his tongue soothed his bite and his lips brushed the sensitive skin at her jawline, under her ear, and at the hairline at her temple. “You will love me, Claire. I promise you that.”

She couldn’t help but think that with his many gifts—supernatural speed, good looks, and the ability to bend others to his will—Mikhail Aristov would’ve made one hell of a hustler.

*   *   *

Claire stuffed the rest of her clothes into a duffel bag and took a last look around her bedroom. Her next-door neighbor was throwing another rager that was just a notch below blow-your-eardrums-out loud. She definitely wouldn’t miss having to put up with that bullshit.

Sunrise was only a few hours off, and Mikhail was pacing the confines of the apartment like a caged beast. The thought of returning home with him was bittersweet and filled her with a crippling guilt. There was a name for that feeling. Survivor’s remorse?

How could she possibly run away with Mikhail to live in his castle and leave Vanessa behind to fend for herself? Who would make sure there was food in the fridge and that she had everything she needed for school? Leaving like this, just packing a bag and walking out on the life Claire’d carved out for herself, made her feel like a total asshole. She didn’t have any obligations to Vanessa. She wasn’t Claire’s daughter. But didn’t the kid deserve an explanation and a proper good-bye?

Claire deposited her bag on the couch and crossed the room to where Mikhail continued to pace, a dagger clutched tight in his right hand. His brow furrowed as he searched her face. “What’s wrong?”

The fact that he could sense her emotions was going to take some getting used to. Claire offered him a reassuring smile and let out a measured breath. “I need to go say good-bye to Vanessa before I go.” Unless Carlene was having a bad night, as Vanessa called them, she’d more than likely be asleep. Still, Claire couldn’t disappear without a word. Even if she had to wake the kiddo up, she was going to give Vanessa a proper good-bye.

“All right, love.” Mikhail spun the dagger in his large hand, a blur of motion that ended in a flash of steel. “We’ll go together.”