Claimed by a Vampire

She caught her breath, and stared at him wide-eyed. “Do you feel that way about every human?”

“Not quite. There are some who are more enticing than others. You’re the most enticing morsel I’ve ever met.”

“Oh.” She twisted her fingers together. “As a meal?”

“In every way.”

Her eyes widened, and then that maddening blush came to her cheeks. It called to him, to his hunger and his lust, as little had. He closed his eyes, seeking self-control even as his body hummed with need. She would never begin to imagine how hard it was, nor did he ever want her to.

But apart from his instincts, he was quite sure he wanted her to move on before he came to care about her as any more than as a passing acquaintance or a tempting delicacy. He’d lost everything he’d ever loved, and he wasn’t going there again. Ever.

But even as the tension seemed to leave her, as she appeared to accept this new blow, he watched her drop her head in her hands. More minutes passed, then she said almost plaintively, “Why in the world would I have a demon in my condo?”

“I don’t know.” He rubbed his chin, as if the mere rubbing of it could erase the delicious aroma of that woman, or keep it from reaching his extremely sensitive nose. “You haven’t done anything have you? Held a séance, used a Ouija board?”

“No, I wouldn’t dabble with that stuff.” She appeared faintly embarrassed. “I don’t know how much I believe in it, but I don’t see any reason to run that kind of risk.”

“I agree with you there.”

She paused, suddenly looking thoughtful. “I’ve never done anything like that. But my ex-boyfriend might have.”

His attention perked and he moved a bit closer. “Why do you say that?”

“I’m not even sure if he did. He had all these necklaces he’d wear from time to time, even though I hated some of them. Everything from an Iron Cross to some kind of feathers he said were an old talisman, to a star, and I didn’t think much of it. Well, that’s not exactly true. I objected to the Iron Cross, and the feathers kind of stank. But what’s to object to in a star?”

Then she gasped, apparently making a connection, and spoke quickly. “It wasn’t just a star. It was a pentagram. Why the hell didn’t I realize that?” Her eyes narrowed, even as her hands clenched into fists.

“Oh, man.” She barely breathed the words. Then she spoke acidly. “Oh, wouldn’t that be just like Tommy and his friends. To think something like that was cool. They’d love the idea it would upset some people. Heck, they’d probably even think it made them special and different.”

“When did you break up with him?”

“About two months ago. I found out he was cheating on me.” Her voice broke and then steadied. Clearly it still hurt like hell to remember the discovery. “And frankly, I didn’t like some of his friends. The cheating was the last straw.” She shook her head. “Anyway, his friends were … well … it’s hard to explain. I’m pretty sure they were doing some drugs, which I didn’t like, but their behavior grated on me. Cynical, antisocial and determined to break rules for the sake of breaking them. Arrested development.” She sighed. “And they seemed to be rubbing off on Tommy. He wasn’t like that at first, Creed. Truly he wasn’t. But after we’d been together about four or five months, he started bringing them home with him from the club where he had a gig.”

“I believe you,” he said gently.

“He changed.” Her voice broke again. “I blamed his friends, but maybe I didn’t really know him. Could somebody really change that much just because of friends? But he seemed to be getting more like them as time passed.”

“Did he start wearing that star necklace more often?”

She frowned faintly. “I don’t know. He started wearing his necklaces under his shirt so I wouldn’t see them. It made me mad that he still wore them when he knew I didn’t like some of them, but it made me mad at myself, too, for objecting to the stupid things. I mean, I must have seemed like such a bitch, picking on his jewelry.”

Creed sat, rubbing his chin slowly, lost in thought. There could definitely be a link, he thought, but how much of one he couldn’t be sure. The gateway, if they’d opened one, would have been where she lived before, not where she lived now. He definitely needed to kick this around with Jude, but for the moment he didn’t want to add to Yvonne’s worries, so he asked no more questions.

Yvonne, however, broke into his thoughts with a question of her own.

“You said your relative was attacked?”

“My great-granddaughter. She was nearly killed.”

She hesitated, then said, “That’s mind-blowing.”

“What is?”

“You don’t look anywhere near old enough to have a great-granddaughter.”

“I told you I was married once, and had daughters.”

“I know, but … Sorry, none of my business.”

“I was married, I had four daughters and a son. And then some damn vampire decided she wanted me, changed me and I was never able to go back to them.”

The corners of her mouth drew down. “They couldn’t accept you?”

“I wouldn’t ask them to. And certainly not in the state I was in at first. So I watched from afar, watched them grow old and die.”

“I’m so sorry! I can’t imagine the pain.”

He closed his eyes again, this time to blind himself to her sympathy. He hadn’t expected that. “It was a long time ago,” he said finally. “A very long time ago.”

“Feelings,” she said quietly, “have their own calendar. They don’t vanish simply because the months and years turn over.”

His eyes snapped open. “No. They don’t. But they visit less often, though they remain every bit as strong.”

She nodded. “I know. I lost my mother five years ago. Not that long in terms of pain, even when you don’t especially like them. I can only imagine what it must have been like to stay away when they were still there.”

He felt utterly flabbergasted. First she accepted that he was a vampire as if he hadn’t just bent all the rules of her known reality, and now she was expressing sympathy rather than fear or revulsion. “You are quite … unusual.”

“Why? Because I’m not running in screaming terror?”

“Because you believe what I told you and now you’re expressing sympathy.”

“Your eyes,” she said simply. “The way they changed. How could I not believe? I felt something already. Something different. You moved so fast and then your eyes changed. There’s no other explanation than that you’re telling me the truth.”

“I am. But I still would have expected some difficulty.”

“You mean I should get upset, scream, deny, whatever?” She shrugged. “Maybe most people would. I’m weird. I’ve always been weird. And I like unusual people. You certainly qualify as the most unusual person I’ve ever met.”

One corner of his mouth drew up. “So you think of me as a person? I’m not even a human anymore.”

“You’re still a person.” She leaned back and tucked her legs up beneath her on the couch. “I write about all kinds of fantastic beings. Some come from tradition, myth and fairy tales, others I make up. But I’ve never followed the current trend for vampires and werewolves.” She half smiled. “You’re giving me ideas for a story.”

“About vampires?”

“Maybe. You’re not at all what I would have expected.”

“Meaning?”

“Vampire as St. George.”

Finally he laughed and allowed himself to relax. Things might change at any instant as she truly absorbed what he’d told her, but for the moment he was willing to enjoy himself. At least as much as he could when her scent was driving him nuts. “I’m no saint, and certainly not a dragon-slayer.”

“Just don’t tell me there are dragons.”

“I haven’t met one, so I can’t say for sure.”

A smile flickered across her face. “True. Having just made the acquaintance of a couple of vampires I guess there’s no way to be sure that there aren’t any dragons, or elves, or trolls.”

She was definitely taking this entirely too well. A new and different tension began to creep through him, apart from the tension of self-control. None of her reactions seemed quite normal. The resistance had passed too quickly. The acceptance bordered on the extreme. Most people fought so hard to keep their beliefs about reality intact that they could literally erase from their minds anything that didn’t fit. He knew that effect intimately, as he’d seen it in action more than once, and more often than not took advantage of it. Denial was a basic trait of human nature. It actually helped vampires to survive.

Vampires and other things he would not mention, not today. Yvonne was dealing with enough. Or not dealing as the case might be. He honestly wondered which it was.

Her face had grown thoughtful, and he tensed again, waiting to hear her thoughts. He couldn’t help feeling that her easy acceptance of what he had told her was nothing but a ticking time bomb that might go off at any moment.

But then she looked up at him with a crooked smile. “I could use a little more proof, I think.”

“Proof that I’m a vampire?”

“Yes. Part of me recognizes that you moved far too fast for a human, that your eyes change in a way I’ve never seen any human’s do. But another part of me is seriously balking.”

“I’m honestly surprised that you aren’t terrified, given the stories everyone tells about us.”

She gave a little shake of her head. “You’ve been kind to me in the extreme. I tend to judge people by their actions even more than their words. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Maybe you should be.”

Her eyes widened a bit, and for the first time he saw a hint of fear that had nothing to do with what was going on in her apartment. Yes, it was better if she kept a distance, but his chest tightened anyway.

“Are you threatening me or warning me?” she asked.

In an instant he hovered over her, bending so close that he could feel the warmth of her breath, itself an intoxicant. “I’m a predator,” he whispered in her ear. “I can control myself. But with you … You have no idea how much I’d like to taste you.”

He heard her suck a sharp breath, then release it in a long sigh. He knew the reaction she was having. Many had it in the presence of a vampire. Burgeoning sexual interest, an almost soporific relaxation. Next she’d turn her head to expose her neck and he’d hate himself just for revealing that she was as helpless before the attraction of his kind as any other human. He didn’t want to see her that way, but he also didn’t want to examine his reasons for that.

She surprised him, though. She didn’t offer her neck. She didn’t adopt a pose of compliance. No, she raised her hand and touched his cheek, electrifying him with her warmth, the only warmth he could feel anymore.

“It must be hard for you,” she said. “I should go to a hotel.”

Appalled, he straightened instantly, crossing the room so fast that she couldn’t have seen him move. “No,” he said. “No. I don’t want you to be alone.”

“But this is causing you problems. And you can’t do anything about it anyway. Can you? Jude can do just as much if I’m in a hotel.”

“No,” he said again, feeling his body coil as if it wanted to spring. Only with huge effort did he avoid crouching a bit. “It won’t be safe for you. I can handle it. And yes, my very presence helps protect you.”

“How?”

“Because if anything tries to take you, it’ll have to deal with me. They don’t like to deal with my kind, Yvonne. We’re beyond their reach and we can wreak havoc on them when they take physical form. And … I could drag you back from the gateway of hell.”

His doorbell rang, interrupting further discussion much to his relief. He’d said more than he intended, and things he didn’t want to explain.

He went to let Jude and Terri back in. He noted the way they both looked at Yvonne, but only Terri’s face betrayed surprise.

“You’re not upset?” she said to Yvonne.

“About the existence of vampires? Why would I be? There are worse predators in the world evidently.”

Jude looked at Creed. “She doesn’t get it.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“I don’t get what?” Yvonne demanded.

Jude looked at her. “That we could be the worst predators on the planet. If we chose to.”

“Do some of you?”

Creed felt a dark wave of bitterness. “Some do. Like the one who changed me. As a rule, most of us prefer not to make a bloody mess of things because like you, we prefer feeling reasonably safe.”

“Well, then.” That seemed to settle it for Yvonne. “At the moment I’m more troubled by what’s going on in my condo.”

“That,” said Terri, “is something I agree with. Totally.”

“She does have a point,” Jude agreed. “That feeling isn’t plaguing her because some prurient boyfriend or neighbor has installed miniature cameras or listening devices. Whatever it is, it’s big and it’s bad. I just wish I knew why it’s interested in Yvonne.”

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