Scarlet Heat(7)

Victor’s blood reminded me of fine, rich, strong wine. Or maybe an expensive whiskey. It gushed down my throat, quenching my terrible thirst in the first soothing wave and setting a warm fire glowing in my belly. I could feel its effects immediately—my throat was no longer lined with barbed wire and my stomach wasn’t trying to gnaw a hole in my backbone. I felt refreshed…healed.

Beside me, Victor shifted impatiently and I reminded myself that my miraculous meal had a name and a burning desire to get outside and answer the call of the wild. In fact, he was probably only about two minutes from turning into a huge, shaggy wolf with appetites of his own.

I could have drunk from him all night, sipping that warm, rich blood, savoring it like the most expensive vintage—but that wasn’t an option. I took two more hasty mouthfuls and then drew back, retracting my fangs.

Victor was watching me, an unreadable expression on his stern features.

“I’m sorry,” I said, licking my lips to get the last traces of his miraculous blood. “Did I hurt you?”

He shifted from foot to foot, frowning. “It was nothing. Not as bad as I thought. Except—”

“Except?” I asked, humbly, trying to prompt him. “If you tell me I might be able to make it better for you, uh, next time.”

“Better than that?” He looked at me incredulously and shifted again. The movement drew my eyes to his crotch. With a shock, I saw that he had an extremely impressive erection pressing hard against the front of his jeans. Had I caused that? And if so, how?

“I-I’m sorry,” I stuttered. His blood had had a calming effect on me but suddenly I felt nervous all over again. Was he going to come after me now? Was he going to try something?

“No, I’m sorry,” he said roughly. “I don’t know why that, uh…damn. So fucking weird.” He shook his head, his eyes going hard. “I have to go,” he said abruptly.

“Oh. Of course.” I slid away from him, trying to give him more room. “Um…have fun.”

“Don’t expect me back for awhile.”

“Oh…I—” But before I could finish, he was out the kitchen door and gone into the night.





Chapter Two—Victor





I loped a few yards to the edge of the clearing and then just stood there for a minute, trying to make sense of it all. I could feel the call of the Moon, could feel the brand on my skin, burning like a small sun nestled in my lower back, but I fought it for a little while longer. If I let the wolf come forward now, I would never understand what had just happened. The wolf has no words, it thinks in pictures not sentences and it runs purely on instinct. I desperately needed to think about the strange vampire girl I had somehow found myself bonded to and my animal form was the worst place to do that.

“What the hell?” I muttered to myself, trying to shut out the silvery voice of the moon and her endless siren song. “What the fuck is going on?”

It was a fair question. I hadn’t been acting like myself tonight and it wasn’t just the Change coming on me that caused it. It was Taylor—somehow she was making me act weird.

Driving in the truck with her, I had been doing my best to ignore her because of her scent. Most vamps smell pretty disgusting to me—like the snake cage at the zoo—all leathery and reptilian. And the older they get, the worse the stink is, at least to my sensitive were nose.

But not Taylor—she had a warm, fresh, devastatingly feminine scent. Nothing like a vamp but not exactly human either. There was something strange and intensely attractive about that scent and it pissed me off. Pissed me off because I shouldn’t find anything attractive about her—she was a fucking fanger for God’s sake.

I don’t hate vamps, not like most of my kind do, but I don’t go out of my way to spend time with them either. Corbin had been an exception—only because I had felt more comfortable dealing with him than the local pack when it came to taking a loan for my business. If I had known how he would make me pay it back, I would have run a fucking mile from that undead bastard.

“Fuck,” I muttered as the moon called me, clouding my mind. What was wrong with me? First, I had actually offered her my neck—a sign of submission among weres. It was a sign I had never given to another living creature my whole life and I offered it to a vamp. Then, when she had refused my neck and taken blood from my wrist instead, I had gotten a fucking hard-on from it.

I looked down at my jeans, which were still tented, the ridge of my shaft showing through the denim. My cock was so hard it ached and all from letting that little vamp sink her fangs into me—what the hell was that all about?