Page 18 of Incandescence

Alexander

W e kissed then, a desperate mating of tongues and clashing of teeth. At the back of our minds we knew if the vampire came for us tonight, this might be our last time together.

We tore off each other’s clothes.

No matter how much we wished otherwise, and fought to stay free, there was a good chance the vampire would still take us, or kill us. A good chance our lives would again change once the day gave way to night.

I picked her up and she wrapped her legs around my hips. In two strides I had her against the wall. Her breasts quivered with her little gasping breaths, her nipples tight with arousal.

She looked up at me with bright green eyes and her dark hair drifting out of its ponytail. I swallowed hard. “You’re so damn beautiful.”

She didn’t seem to want to talk and I wasn’t in the mood for a one-sided conversation.

Any conversation.

And neither of us wanted foreplay. Without any formality, I aligned my cock between her folds and, holding her stare, I drove into her.

She gasped, tensing for a moment. But she was already wet enough to take my all, and I didn’t hold back. I kissed her again as I thrust inside, and she counter-thrust, her breasts jiggling with every motion, her lips parting to give my tongue full access.

When she drew back to inhale, I pumped all the harder, heat and electricity blowing through me like a furnace. I groaned and kissed my way down her throat, my tongue swiping across the little puncture wounds in her neck.

She stilled with a gasp, clearly startled by the intimate contact. She seemed even more startled by the climax that shuddered through her, and her inner muscles clamped hold of my dick even as my breath stalled, shockwaves of pleasure coursing through me.

I shouted out her name as my seed poured into her, along with my heart, my soul. But I didn’t care. If I lost her, I’d lose a giant part of myself anyway. I’d take every second of time I had with her and cherish it for all I was worth.

She unknotted her legs from around me, forcing disconnection. She slid to the ground with a little mewl of loss. But it wasn’t until she winced that I realized we might have overdone the sex.

Guilt stabbed at me. For crying out loud, she’d been a virgin before I taken advantage of her unchecked hormones yet again. I put a hand under her chin and tilted her stare back my way. “Are you okay?”

She gave me a reassuring smile. “Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact a vampire wanted us more than anything else alive, I’d be the happiest woman in the world right now.”

I wanted to keep her that way and planned to do everything in my power to do exactly that. I kissed her with all the gentleness I hadn’t shown her against the wall, revealing my deep affection in the best way I knew how. When we finally pulled away, her eyes shone with wonder, with hope.

I trailed a hand down the side of her face, drinking in her shiver of awareness. “Just know that you’ve already made me the happiest man alive.”

We didn’t speak much after that. What more could be said? Instead, we dressed in silence, and as daylight turned to dusk, we grabbed some snacks, a bunch of blankets and pillows from the bed we’d shared, before we rounded up the cats and took them into the attic.

Jasper whined as he watched us disappear up the ladder and Charley turned to me. “He doesn’t want to be down there by himself. Do you think he’d let you carry him?”

“Only one way to find out.”

I stepped onto the ladder rungs. I was still stronger than I’d ever been, a strength that seemed to have actually intensified since leaving the nest. Not to mention the fact I hadn’t once had hunger cramps.

Night was already upon us when I dropped to the floor and bent for Jasper. About to pick him up, I froze at the bang of the front door and the wood that skidded across the faded linoleum.

Shit.

“Well, well, well, look who we finally found,” Rory drawled as he stepped into the hallway, a slight limp to his walk.

I straightened, my heart in my throat at seeing not just the younger brother follow Rory inside, but their brainwashed friends too. As they walked down the hallway, I pulled the cord above my head so that the ladder snapped back out of sight. “Don’t let anyone up there,” I shouted.

I didn’t have time to see if Charley was listening. The brothers moved fast. But I was faster. I distantly acknowledged the vampire blood had given me not just extra strength, but extra mental clarity too.

I turned sideward to make myself less of a target. Throwing a punch to the jaw of Rory, I then spun and kicked Daryl in the nutsack. Rory fell back and Daryl crumpled with a strangled scream, holding his groin.

Two more came at me at once, jostling past the brothers curled up on the floor to get to me. I squatted, then kicked the legs out from under one man, before surging up to punch into the gut of another, driving the wind out of his lungs.

The last man came at me with a knife, but adrenaline burned away any fear. I’d taken out the other men with relative ease and I didn’t doubt for a second I couldn’t do the same with this skinny teenager with lank hair, red eyes and a prominent Adam’s apple.

He raised the blade and it arced toward me. I caught his wrist and stayed his arm before I kneed him in the groin. The knife dropped to the floor and he followed it with a grunt. I kicked the blade out of sight even as Jasper growled.

I turned to the Rotty. “Now you’re the vicious guard dog?” I asked drily. But any and all sarcasm faded as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and my senses prickled with foreboding.

“Alexander, behind you!”

I didn’t need Charley’s high-pitched warning to know who’d arrived. I spun around to the vampire’s slow clap of hands. My heart missed a beat at seeing his glowing red eyes that gave away his blood hunger.

The vampire didn’t attack. Instead, he somehow withheld his base need and he ambled forward, stopping with a curled lip at the first human writhing in agony on the floor.

He looked back at me. “Isn’t this a surprise,” he said with his modulated voice. “Not only have you conquered your blood hunger, you’ve managed to also hang on to some of my power.” He smiled, not bothering to hide his long, sharp fangs. “A pity you’ll never be as strong as me.”

I shook my head. “You’re wrong. You’re the weak one here. You need the blood of someone like me to survive. I. Don’t. Need. You.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Or your blood.”

The vampire’s face paled with barely suppressed rage. “You forget yourself, Alexander. Forget that I fed you and looked after you. Forget that I gave you a longevity most people only dream about.”

My pulse pounded in my ears, my mouth drying with the wrath I forcefully swallowed. “I wanted a normal life. I never once asked to live in a never-ending nightmare.”

Except hadn’t those forty-six years been worth it just to meet Charley in my future?

Without a doubt.

It was odd, the settling of emotion as I realized the truth.

And suddenly I was unmoved by the creature who fed on fear as much as he did blood, because in the end, love was all that mattered.

I smiled. “But I guess you’re right—I should thank you for that longevity—without it, I would never have met Charley. ”

The vampire’s eyes flashed, my goodwill clearly not what he wanted or expected. “Her name is Maya.”

“No. Her name is Charley.” I stepped over one of the brothers and moved closer to the vampire. “And you’re not my master anymore. You’re a bloodsucking freak who can’t ever experience what it is to be human.”

“You’re right about one thing,” the vampire interjected smoothly. “I am a bloodsucker.”

He didn’t deny that he wished to be human. I didn’t doubt for a second he’d sell his soul just to feel any other emotion aside from the burn of antipathy I’d witnessed just moments earlier. I guessed no donors had ever escaped the nest before.

The vampire uncurled his hands, no longer bothering to hide the evil behind his eyes as he added, “But I’m also your bloodsucking master.”

I sensed him reaching into my mind. “Don’t listen to him!” But Charley’s shout barely penetrated my subconscious. It was as if a fog clouded my brain, sinking deep into my defenses.

“Offer me your throat.”

I couldn’t fight the vampire’s honeyed voice of persuasion. Though my mind screamed no I was compelled to obey. I was a mindless marionette.

My head turned and the vampire’s twin fangs slid into my throat even as Charley’s scream slid into my head.

I groaned and everything blurred while ecstasy and despair, yearning and horror, became a new symphony in my head.

I vaguely heard the brothers and their mates stagger to their feet before they stumbled toward the door. Then the vampire’s icy cold hands that burned my skin held my attention while he kept me in place, siphoning my lifeblood...perfect vampire nutrition.

I swayed, quickly lightheaded by the feeding. In some distant part of my brain I knew he was taking too much, yet I couldn’t fight, couldn’t even form the word ‘stop’.

Was this what the vampire had planned? Drain me lifeless and make Charley his next eternal blood-slave?

I stiffened . No! I wouldn’t let him touch her.

The vampire never expected my surrender to morph into rebellion. Before he grasped my intent, I jerked away from him, his fangs sliding like icy blades from my throat.

I heard Jasper’s vicious growl, registered that the dog had latched on to the vampire’s leg. The vampire didn’t have time to acknowledge more than fleeting shock at my strength of mind, before he turned his attention to the irritation chewing on his limb.

He kicked the dog free and Jasper yelped as he hit the floor hard.

The vampire turned back to me at about the same time as a distinct whoomp filled my senses.

I fought to stand even as I distantly realized that the vampire was clutching at an arrow that’d pierced his brow, the arrowhead sticking through the back of his head.

Another whoomp sounded and an arrow cleaved through the vampire’s chest.

I blinked, staring in confusion at the powerful vampire frothing at the mouth. The creature had lived for centuries and Charley had managed to give him pause. Oh, he wouldn’t die, but I had no doubt it’d take some time to recover.

Charley’s hands were suddenly around me, supporting me. “Alexander, can you hear me?” Her voice came from a great distance, but I managed a nod even as she said, “You’ve got to drink his blood and regain your stamina.”

I swayed, blood loss depleting me of every bit of my strength.

But not my strength of will. I looked up at the vampire.

His eyes were crimson, rage radiating from him at being bested by a mere mortal.

He wrenched the arrow from his head and blood gushed from his wound as he bellowed with pain and all-consuming wrath.

“We don’t have much time.” Charley’s voice quavered with raw fear and her own desperate hunger.

It was her fear that pushed adrenaline through my veins and gave me temporary power. If I didn’t drink, I couldn’t protect Charley. And I wouldn’t let the bloodsucker hurt even a hair on her head. Not while there was still breath in my lungs.

The vampire was paler than parchment, but had already worked half the long, wooden arrow from his chest.

It was now or never.

I stumbled forward, using all my remaining strength to clamp hold of the vampire’s shoulders and sink my teeth into his throat.

Warm, metallic blood filled my mouth. It no longer tasted like ambrosia.

I choked and forcibly swallowed the thick syrupy blood, managing a couple of mouthfuls before the vampire yanked the arrow from his chest. As it clattered to the floor, he turned to deal with me.

His cold hands encircled my throat before he thrust me back. I crashed into a wall, the wind knocked out of me. But energy was already beginning to burn through my body, his rejuvenating lifeblood giving me all the power I needed and then some.

I pushed back, my eyes wavering between an intensity of super vision and an aura of red that for a moment blinkered my sight.

“Alexander.”

It was Charley’s strained, hollowed-out voice that caused my stomach to drop with foreboding. Something wasn’t right.