Page 15 of Incandescence

Alexander

I approached the front door of the doctor’s house with far more caution this time around. Who knew what the brothers and their mates had threatened the man with when they came here looking for us?

Because of them, Charley and I might get the muzzle of a gun in our faces.

I rapped on the door and yelled out, “Doctor Newry. Sorry to disturb you again, but we really need to talk.”

No sound came from inside, but Jasper whined, as though sensing something amiss. I tried the doorknob, shocked then wary when it turned and the door swung open.

Charley seemed just as surprised. “The doctor wouldn’t leave his door unlocked.”

She didn’t need words to voice the rest of her thoughts. The doctor was profoundly paranoid and suspicious of just about everyone. He’d have his house locked up tighter than Fort Knox.

I stepped inside, the dog slinking to one side of me and Charley gripping my hand on the other. The floorboards were dull and echoed woodenly underfoot, the walls a faded dirty cream. The house was musty and smelled of damp and cat. My voice echoed as I called out,

“Newry, are you home?”

A wind chime tinkled lazily in the screened kitchen window, the sound eerily loud in the thick silence. Charley tightened her grip as she whispered, “I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I.”

A cat hissed in the corner of the shadowy kitchen, its ginger fur raised into hackles and its green eyes almost luminous with dislike. Probably as much because Jasper was straining on his leash and vibrating with excitement than us human intruders.

Another cat, a big tabby, bounded off the kitchen table and slinked underneath one of the vinyl chairs. I strode toward the stove and lifted the lid on a saucepan of congealed soup.

I exhaled heavily and turned to Charley. “It looks like our doctor left in a hurry.”

“Do you think the brothers took him?”

I shook my head. “No. Their only goal is to find us. The vampire has planted that suggestion in their mind and nothing else matters now.”

“But Daryl wasn’t—”

“He knows we saw his lab. That’s more than enough motivation for him to come looking for us.”

“So where’s our friendly doctor then?”

I looked around, a little sick inside. “The brothers gave the vampire this address.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, curling her hand in mine. “I hope he’s okay.”

I glanced at the untouched saucepan of soup. “I’m sure he is. He hadn’t eaten dinner, which means he left before the vampire visited last night.”

The tabby crept toward us, meowing pitifully. Charley squatted and encouraged the cat closer. When he pushed against her legs, purring in ecstasy, she looked up at me and said, “These cats will starve if we leave them like this.”

I nodded, the cogs turning in my mind. “Then we stay here. At least until we can think of a better option.” The house had also supposedly been safeguarded against vampires.

“And if the doctor’s daughter turns up?”

I shook my head. “He lives the life of a hermit. I imagine even his own daughter visits on only on rare occasions.”

I wouldn’t think about the fact his other daughter would never come home again.

She nodded, then released her grip on my hand to look in the pantry.

After retrieving a can of cat food, she released the tab and poured the meat into a dish.

Two more cats, a white longhair of undetermined breed and another tabby, came out of hiding.

All four of the felines circled Charley’s legs, squawking as though they hadn’t been fed for a week.

When Jasper whined and licked his chops, Charley grinned at him and said, “I’m sure I’ll find something here for you to eat, Jasper.”

I unclipped his chain and he trotted forward, ignoring the cats now, to focus on begging for food. The cats were of the same mind.

I laughed at the comical sight of Charley surrounded by adoring and hungry animals, and she looked up with a grin and asked. “What’s so funny?”

“You. Us. And our readymade family.”

“Not to mention our readymade house. Let’s hope Doctor Newry doesn’t get too upset with us—”

One of the cat dishes dropped to the floor, all four cats scattering as Charley pushed a hand to her belly and folded over, gasping for breath.

Shit. I raced toward her. It’d been so long since she’d had any cravings for vampire blood, I’d almost forgotten it would happen again.

I’d yet to experience it myself since leaving the nest. In fact, for the first time in forty-six years, I felt almost normal. Human. Not the blood whore I’d become.

I turned her to me. “Try to relax, go to another place.”

She looked up, her face pale and her eyes glittering almost maniacally. “You need to help me forget again.”

My dick shouldn’t have instantly hardened in agreement, but the invitation was more than enough to remind me of the passion we’d shared. And if our lovemaking got rid of her pain, I was a selfish enough bastard not to want to take that away from her.

I nodded and took her hand. Jasper was busy licking the floor clean of some kind of seafood mix. He’d be fine for a little longer.

When Charley struggled to straighten, I bent and lifted her into my arms. Striding down the dingy hallway, I ignored the obviously rumpled bed of the main bedroom and stalked into the guest room, which looked quite a bit cleaner than the one the doctor used.

I laid her onto the bold red comforter and followed her down. Already her eyes glinted with need as much as pain, her breathing still heavy, but for a far different reason.

I removed her too-big clothes with quick hands and removed my own clothes in record time.

My dick was harder than steel at seeing her naked in full daylight, her breasts luscious and her waist trim.

Her long legs quivered, drawing my eyes to her gorgeous little pussy with its fine strip of dark hairs.

She drew her belly in before she splayed a hand across the taut flesh.

There was no time to enjoy the scenery, or even to ask her to take her hair down so I could see it fall around her shoulders and breasts. I needed to take her pain away.

“Just fuck me,” she whimpered.

I climbed over her, my cock throbbing in sync with my racing heartbeat. I wanted Charley more than anything else in the world, but I’d have to save making love to her for another day.

Right now, hard and fast was her only stipulation.

“Please,” she gasped, compressing her lips as her eyes glazed over with pain.

I kneeled between her thighs, pushed her legs up and over my shoulders and guided my cock to her beautiful pussy. I sank balls-deep into her tightness with a deep groan.

I didn’t give her time to adjust to my size. I rocked in and out of her without any preliminaries, ensuring her mind focused on the sex, and on the chemistry that burned between us hotter than a lightning strike.

Her eyes glinted, her pain evidently fading as moistness covered my shaft. I stroked harder and faster. Her head fell back, her neck arching as she gasped and moaned.

I growled, my balls tightening painfully. I wouldn’t come until she’d gotten off first. No way in hell.

She jerked, and I sensed a hunger, which pain had coalesced into a fiery climax. She cried out, her muscles clamping like a fist around my cock.

I pumped one last time and roared as my seed gushed out, flooding inside her and leaving me drained.

I closed my eyes for a moment, needing to shield my visual of Charley, who’d softened my heart and hardened my cock to steel without even trying. I’d fought for so many years against my blood craving, yet I had zero willpower against this woman.

I wanted her with a greater hunger than I had ever had for anything the vampire could offer me.

Her legs fell from my shoulders and I opened my eyes and disengaged from her wetness.

Moving to lie beside her, I then gathered her close.

“Thank you,” she said hoarsely, her eyes glinting with moisture. “Whatever you’re doing works. Most of the pain evaporated the moment you slid inside me.”

I stroked over her hair, my skin warm with the afterglow of sex. “I’m thinking we should try it once just because we’re in the mood for it.”

She brushed a hand down the side of my face, her lips curling at the corners. “We should, shouldn’t we? Luckily, I wanted you from the very start.”

Euphoria pushed through my system, leaving me lightheaded and incapable of speech. Instead I leaned forward and kissed her, a tender merging of lips that conveyed so much. I pulled my head back, my voice cracking with emotion. “I wanted you from the start too.”

She smiled. “I know.”

I pushed some loose strands of hair behind her ear, wondering absently how anyone could be so beautiful, inside and out. “My feelings are...intense considering I’ve learned so little about you.”

Her smile dimmed, even as she said brightly, “Maybe it’s my mystique that attracts you.”

I cocked my head to the side, my gaze holding hers. “Seriously, I’d love to learn some more about you, Charley.”

She blinked. “I’ve told you my real name. It’s more than I know about you.”

I exhaled softly. “I was Jake Reynolds a lifetime ago, but I’ll always be Alexander now.”

She frowned. “You’d give that kind of power to the vampire?”

“He might have named me, but he doesn’t own me. Not anymore. After everything I’ve been through, the name fits me now. I’ll never go back to being the Jake I remember.”

She nodded, blinking tiredly. “You’ve been through hell and back. I’m not about to pretend to understand how you survived. And you’re right, the bloodsucker doesn’t own you, he never did. Not like he wanted to. If he had, you’d never have wanted to leave the nest.”

I turned inward for a moment, thinking back even as I had to shake away the memory of the death of each woman who had. I cleared my throat. “A pity it took forty-six years and you to make me realize I really could leave.”

I was talking to myself. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was deep. I resisted touching the silken softness of her skin. I didn’t want to wake her. I knew firsthand how much hunger pains took out of the body. Sleep was the only way to fully recover.

I stifled a yawn. The danger of being on the run was almost as tiring. But I wasn’t about to go to sleep. I left the bed and the too-inviting warmth of Charley, before I dressed back in my ‘borrowed’ clothes and headed into the lounge room.

Jasper’s toenails clicked on the faded linoleum floor as he followed me around while I triple-locked the front door and secured all the windows. I had no idea how the doctor had gone about safeguarding his house, but it would have been all for nothing if he’d opened the door to the vampire.

I had no doubt the bloodsucker would have compelled the doctor to step outside.

Satisfied the dark and rather dingy house was as secure as possible, I retrieved the bowl on the table and filled it with the soup. Placing the full-to-the brim container on the floor for Jasper, I watched with a half-smile as he wolfed down the food then licked his chops as he looked up for more.

“Guess you want what’s left on the stove then,” I murmured, before spooning out more.

The ginger cat pushed against my legs with a pitiful meow, as though we were now the best of friends, even as it glared menacingly at the dog.

I unlocked the back door and glanced outside to the warmth of mid-morning sunlight and a small backyard that had been recently mown. It wasn’t much, but at least the dog and cats had somewhere to relieve themselves.

The ginger cat raced outside first, followed by Jasper, who sniffed the yard suspiciously while the feline sharpened its claws on the rickety wooden fence. One of the tabby cats slid outside next and I sat on the step, watching the animals.

I managed a smile. It was a beautiful winter day, the sun warm on my face and the animals making me yearn once again for a normal life.

Charley’s sudden scream dissolved the fantasy quicker than ice dropped into boiling water.