A Fire in the Blood(87)
“Fine! How can it be fine? You turned my best friend into a blood-sucking vampire!”
“There are worse things,” Andrei replied.
Jilly uttered a very unladylike snort.
“I’ll bring her to you when she wakes tomorrow night so you can see for yourself. Until then, I bid you good evening.”
Smiling inwardly, he decided to give them a little display of vampire magic. Dissolving into mist, he vanished from their sight.
Jilly’s gasp of surprise was reward enough.
Chapter Forty
She woke to darkness, but it was a darkness unlike any she had ever experienced. There was no light in the room, yet she saw everything clearly, each object crisply defined. She had fallen asleep in her clothes. They were familiar yet different. She felt each individual thread against her skin. A glance at the ceiling revealed every tiny fault, every tiny crack.
An ant crawled across the ceiling. Incredibly, she could hear its movement as it made its way toward the corner.
She licked her lips, suddenly overcome with a ravenous thirst. Never before had she felt such thirst, or such pain. Something was wrong. Throwing back the covers, she moved toward the door. Andrei. She needed him.
She was reaching for the latch when the door opened and he stood in the opening. Silhouetted in the light from behind him, he looked tall and dark and dangerous.
When he opened his arms, she went into them gladly. He was here. There was nothing to be afraid of.
His hand stroked her hair. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt this way before. What’s wrong with me? I’m so thirsty!”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
She looked up at him and it was like seeing him for the first time. He looked the same and yet different. It was as if she had been looking at him through a veil before and it had suddenly dropped away, revealing the true beauty of the man.
She was trying to comprehend the change when she became aware of a sound she had never heard before—a slow, steady beat that sang in her ears like music.
A heartbeat. The knowledge came to her, along with the realization that it wasn’t a single heartbeat, but four. It spiked her thirst, made her whole body ache with need.
She licked her lips, let out a startled cry when her fangs ran out.
Fangs!
“Tessa, it’s all right.” His arms tightened around her as he sensed the panic sweeping through her. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. What you’re feeling is natural.”
She stared up at him in silent horror as the memory of the night before flashed through her mind. The images were hazy, dull, but she clearly remembered demanding that Andrei turn her into a vampire.
She didn’t have to ask if it was true.
The answer was there, in his eyes.
“I’m so thirsty.”
“I know, love. You can drink from me, if you like, or I can take you hunting.”
Hunting. She waited for a sense of revulsion to overtake her, to feel nausea churning in her gut, to be horrified by the mere thought of feeding on a fellow creature. Instead, the idea was oddly compelling.
But she was thirsty now.
And he was here.
She ran her fingertips along the side of his neck. She could feel the blood flowing there, smell the crimson tide just beneath the skin.
Driven by a force too strong to resist, she went up on her tiptoes, pulled his head down, and took her first bite into a new life.
* * *
Andrei closed his eyes as Tessa’s fangs pierced his skin. Since he’d been turned, no vampire had ever fed on him. The feeling was orgasmic.
He had been able to read her mind before; she had been able to hear his thoughts. Now it was as if their hearts and minds and bodies were one. He knew her deepest thoughts, felt what she felt as she drank from him—surprise, satisfaction, a growing hunger for human blood.
When she’d had enough to ease her thirst, he pulled away. “Not too much, love.”
She licked her lips.
“Tessa?”
“Don’t let me kill anyone.”
“I won’t.”
Wrapping her arms around her middle, she rocked back and forth. “I’m still hungry.”
“I know. That’s why we’re going hunting. It’s nothing to worry about. It will come naturally. And I’ll be there to make sure you don’t take too much.”
* * *
Walking down the streets of the neighboring town, Tessa felt as if she had been reborn, which, she supposed, she had. Sights and sounds and smells assailed her from all sides. Her new vampire senses were amazing. Her vision allowed her to see things mortals never saw. Her hearing, sense of smell and touch, were equally amazing. And always, like a song that played over and over in her head, the alluring symphony of beating of hearts.