Born in Twilight (Wings in the Night #5) 6

Their luck seemed to be nothing but bad. Dammit, the bastards had shot him. He shouldn't have risked it. Should have just left the damned car and taken off on foot. He'd been an idiot, thinking like a mortal, a habit he'd thought Rhiannon's constant chiding had cured him of.

As he blinked his eyes clear of the pain-induced haze, he realized Angelica was driving. She'd pulled him from behind the wheel at some point-though he had no memory of it-and now she was speeding over the highway as if the devil were on her tail. He hadn't even realized she knew how to drive. Had never bothered to ask her. But she was driving, and burning the pavement right off the damned roads in her wake.

Only several miles and hair-raising turns later, when she apparently thought she'd lost her pursuers, did she slow down. Her gaze kept dancing over him, and her violet eyes were alive with worry. Glancing nervously into the mirror first, she pulled the car off the road, and turned to him where he lay slumped in the seat, clinging to consciousness with everything in him. He'd passed out once or twice already. He was sorely afraid that if he did it again, he wouldn't wake up.

Her pretty eyes widened when he thought that. "You're getting better at it," he managed. "Reading my thoughts."

"You're too weak to prevent it," she said, and she tore his shirt open, and he recalled dreaming of her doing something very similar. Only under radically different circumstances.

She sucked air through her teeth, and that made him look down. The wound was a jagged tear in his side, an inch or so above his hipbone, which pulsed with blood at an alarming rate. A flesh wound that would barely threaten a mortal.

"Why does it bleed like that?" Angelica whispered. "It isn't that bad. Why won't it stop?" And as she spoke she began searching the car, looking in the glove compartment and leaning over into the back seat.

"Any wound can kill a vampire," he told her. Her teacher, that's what he'd become. Someone older and wiser, whom she needed in order to survive. And that was why she was so worried about him right now.

Wouldn't do to let himself go thinking anything else. "We tend to bleed like hemophiliacs when our flesh is torn deeply. I'm afraid, sweet Angel, that I'll be dead within minutes unless we can stop the flow." Apparently, Angelica had already reached the same conclusion. Because before he finished speaking, she yanked his shirt off him, tearing the fabric in the process. She tore off a sleeve with her teeth, and balled it up, pressing it into the wound. The rest of the shirt, she twisted into one long band, then wrapped it around his middle, so tightly he could barely inhale. She pulled it hard to apply pressure to the wound, and he moaned. Pain. She was causing him intense pain, and she knew that. And she was feeling it, too, an oddity he still hadn't figured out. Maybe Roland could explain it.

As for the pain, it couldn't be helped. Though he had thought she'd be a bit more squeamish about inflicting it on him. She hadn't been, though. Hadn't even flinched, and it was probably a good thing.

He'd die otherwise. When she'd finished the job, she waited, watching the makeshift bandage.

"Don't bleed," she muttered, half to herself and half to the wound in his side. "Don't bleed, don't bleed, don't bleed..."

"It doesn't dare," he told her. Then he leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.

"Don't leave me," she told him.

He looked at her, frowning. But she said no more. She started the car again without looking at him-at his face, anyway. The wound, she perused often. She popped the clutch, then, and sped back to Eric's house as fast as Jameson's high-performance engine could take her there. And then she put her luscious arms around him, and struggled to pull him from the car. He tried to help her, even got his feet out the door and onto the ground. She anchored one of his arms over her shoulders, and helped him inside. No doubt she could have carried him if she'd had to. She had the strength, though he wasn't certain she was aware of it yet. Still, he hadn't been a vampire long enough not to feel a bit odd at the prospect of being picked up and carried by a female, so he told her he could walk, and then he managed to do so. Barely.

She took him down through the passage, and then inside, and she activated the locks after she closed the door.

"Jesus, Angel," he said, pausing for a few shallow breaths before going on. "That was stupid." She eased him into the bedroom, and then gently onto the bed.

"What was?"

"The locks. You don't know the code. How the hell will you get out if I die?"

"You'll just have to stay alive, Vampire. If you don't, I'll be stuck. So buck up and tell me what to do." And then, as he felt himself starting to slip away, she was leaning over him, shaking his shoulders.

"Dammit, Jameson, what should I do?" And he saw tears standing in her eyes.

She was, once again, the woman he could not hate. The woman who needed him. He'd always had a weak spot for women in need. Tamara, first. He remembered trying once to take on a grown man in a bare-knuckle right when he'd been no more than a scrawny twelve-year-old, to protect her. Even Rhiannon, the strongest woman he'd ever known, had her weak moments, and Jameson would have taken on the world to protect her.

And now, this one. This dark angel who seemed to need him more than any of them ever had. He didn't want to feel protective of her, but it was unavoidable. He felt it. He couldn't do otherwise. Even though he was the one lying here at death's very door, he felt her need. He wasn't going to drop dead and leave her on her own. He was going to fight, so that he could stay alive. He wanted to be with her when they found their daughter again. He wanted to see those violet eyes when they were alight with joy. He never had.

Hell, he was actually beginning to like the woman.

He stroked her hair away from her beautiful face. "Any wound will heal during the day sleep," he told her. "All you have to do is keep me alive until then."

"How?"

He tried to smile. "Stop the bleeding. Replace what I've lost. You manage that, I'll be just fine." He struggled to keep his eyes open.

She blinked. "What if I can't?"

"Look in the bathroom, Angel. There should be some supplies in there for...this sort of emergency." She touched his face, checked the wound and then, biting her lip, went into the bathroom in search of supplies. Jameson had no doubt she'd find what she needed there. Eric kept this place stocked with everything anyone might conceivably need. And his friend didn't let him down. Angelica returned with an armful of bandages, and even needles and silk thread. The bandages would have to do. No way was he lying still while she stuck that needle into him. And she wouldn't have time, anyway. It would be dawn soon.

She returned to the bed, removed his makeshift tourniquet and watched with horror in her eyes as the bleeding began all over again. With one hand pressed to the wound, she tore strips of bandage with the other, and her teeth. Pinching the jagged edges of his torn flesh together, she taped them there. Bit by bit, closing the wound. And when she finished, and blood still seeped through, she made a clean, new bandage from a roll of gauze, knotting it tightly around his middle. And then she sighed in relief, nodding.

He assumed that meant the bleeding had stopped.

While he lay there, thinking this was going to be all right after all, the woman picked up a needle and some of that silk thread.

"No," he said, his voice a raw whisper. "That's not necessary."

"I didn't think so either, at first," she told him, unerringly spearing the needle's eye with her thread. "But I see now that I was wrong. If you so much as move the bleeding is going to start again," she told him.

"You could die, Vampire." She finished threading the needle, and loosened his bandages again. "Hold on," she told him. "This is going to hurt like hell."

He passed out from the intense pain when I sewed up the gash in his side. That and the blood loss. I hadn't realized pain was different in all of us, not just in me. Everything that hurt me, hurt me more since the change. Now I knew it was part of this new nature of mine. Pain was magnified, just as every other sensation was. And for some reason, I could feel his pain. I hadn't felt the pain of those other vampires, who'd been held captive in the cells alongside my own. Nor that of my maker, when I'd set him afire and watched him burn. But I felt Jameson's pain.

It didn't seem so odd. The man was in my blood, in my soul. He was like a virus I could not cure.

Slowly growing stronger and spreading throughout my system, until he affected my every thought and feeling.

In a very short time, I'd somehow become quite attached to this man who claimed to be my captor. It had begun, of course, with the physical sensations I'd experienced when I'd taken him. And then the longing. The craving for more of that. It had deepened, I believed, because of the child we'd shared. I'd carried his very flesh and blood within me for months, nurtured it. Loved it.

How could I not be attached to him? Even...even fond of him, despite his being an unrepentant monster, and despite his violent hatred for DPI. He'd spared the man's life tonight. Because I asked it of him, he'd spared it. Surely, he was not quite as horrible as I'd believed him to be at first. Certainly not the same as the beast who made me. No, I'd been wrong about that as well. Jameson would never force himself on me that way.

Though there was, deep inside, a small part of me that wished he would. For then I would be able to experience the fulfillment I craved with him, and suffer none of the guilt of making the choice to do so.

The thought heated my face, and made me sweat. I pushed it aside and focused on the matter at hand. I sewed the wound very well, and then cleaned and wrapped it. And then I just looked at him, lying there, soaked in his own blood. The bleeding was stopped. It would stay stopped. And if what he had told me about the regenerative qualities of the day sleep were true, he would survive. Maybe.

But he needed to feed, to replenish what he'd lost. And then to rest. The wound, according to the vampire, would be healed when he woke. I needed only be sure it didn't break open again before then.

The sweater I wore was soaked in Jameson's blood. Ruined. The jeans, too, had absorbed a great deal of blood. His were in worse shape than my own, though. And I knew I would have to clean him up.

There was no one else here to do it. And the task excited me. I know it is shameful, but there it is. I was aroused at the thought of undressing him, of bathing him.

I first shed my own clothing. What good would it do me to hold him and wash him if I were only soiling him again in the process? I dived beneath the shower spray very briefly, just long enough to rinse the blood away from my skin. I donned the robe he'd worn earlier, and hurried back to his side. All told, I wasn't away from him for more than three minutes. And he was still all right.

Lifting him gently, I peeled what remained of his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor. As I turned back to him, I went completely still. Naked from the waist up, he was...he was beautiful.

I had never looked upon a man's form before. Not this way. He was firm. Muscular, yet lean, and somehow very graceful. His skin lay taut and supple and I longed to touch it. To run my hands over his chest, and flat belly, and feel him beneath my palms.

It was a foreign longing, and yet I was growing used to it. I'd never experienced such attacks of lust before. My curiosity had been answered by the sisters, who simply told me that such things were sinful and unsuitable for a young woman to be thinking about. Nothing more. I was forbidden to touch my ripening body, forbidden to explore it, and learn the secrets of its pleasure. But now, they were secrets I longed to know. Never before had I been so absorbed with physical desire. Only with him. His body held my eyes prisoner. And while I was embarrassed and ashamed, I could not stop myself from looking my fill. His chest intrigued me most, I think, with its hard nipples tempting me to touch.

I licked my lips, pulling my eyes away. But they were drawn back again. And again.

He needed my help right now, not my passion, I reminded myself. But my hands trembled as I unfastened his jeans. And my entire body shook as I stood over him, and worked the denim down over his hips, and thighs, and finally worked it free of his feet. I wouldn't look. I told myself that I would not look at him anymore, and forcibly, I kept my gaze away from him, rushing back to the bathroom for a basin of warm water and a clean, soft cloth. But there was no helping it. I had to look at him as I gently washed the blood away. I washed his arms and his chest as my eyes feasted on the smooth taut skin of his belly. And I washed his hard, rippling abdomen, and the narrow curve of his hip as I stared down at those powerful thighs and the dark curls between them. And the root of him, at rest now, but beautiful and filled with erotic promises I couldn't even begin to understand. Dark. Mysterious. And I wanted to touch him. To awaken that organ and see it come to life in response to my touch. I wanted to feel it, explore it. Learn the secrets of his pleasure as well as my own.

This was so unlike me, these wanton thoughts. I bit my lip, and chased them away. It was wrong, I knew, to look at him this way while he was unable to prevent it. Wrong. And it would be even more wrong to touch him while he rested. Because perhaps if he could object, he would. I knew all too well that he held no tender feelings for me. Hated me, in fact. Given all of that, he might resent my taking liberties with him.

Carefully, I washed the blood from his legs, but even this was a sensual pleasure; running my hands over him again and again, with only the soft cloth between his flesh and my own. My hands tingled where I had touched him. And I felt good. Sinfully, wantonly good.

When I finished, I was hot. I was breathing too rapidly, and beads of sweat dampened my face and my neck. My pulse fluttered in my throat, and my stomach clenched. And I knew why. I wanted him. I was hungry for him. I told myself that it was ridiculous, that I didn't even like him. That he detested me in return. That I could very easily have been his murderess one night long ago, and that it wasn't something a man like him was likely to forget...much less forgive.

But it didn't matter that he hated me. That minor detail did nothing to dampen this desire that blazed to life inside me. I wanted him. How could any woman not want him, when he was laid out before her, naked and beautiful and utterly helpless? Even a virgin, even a nun, even a saint, would have been stirred to a sensual awareness. And I was none of those things, right now. I was none other than a vampiress. A creature of pure sensuality. A creature in whom every sensation was heightened and magnified a thousand times. And for the first time, the very first time, I realized that I was relishing this new nature of mine. Delighting in the sensual awareness. Wanting more of it.

What would it be like, I wondered, to make love to this man?

Foolish notion, of course. Oh, I could look on him, even touch him without his consent and perhaps without his knowledge. But I certainly couldn't make love to him. It was impossible.

And I was getting waylaid by my newfound fascination with the male form. Because he was still in danger from the blood loss he'd suffered, and I mustn't forget that.

He needed to feed. And there was plenty of sustenance in neat little bags just in the next room. I rose, dropping my washcloth into the basin and turning to go and get him some. But then I stopped as I realized how difficult it would be to feed him. I had only glasses. He was unconscious. I might be able to rouse him enough to make him drink, but...

But I didn't want to bring it to him in a glass, cold and stale and weak. I knew the difference between that and warm, living blood. And I also knew the sinful delight of drinking from him. And that it had left him shuddering with desire as much as it had me. And I wanted to feed him myself. I wanted his mouth on me, his teeth sinking into my flesh, his lips drawing my very essence into him. It would stir the desire in me even higher. I knew that, sensed it, because of what had happened to me each time we'd shared blood before. But it would also give me such intense pleasure that I could not resist.

This craving for his touch had driven me to madness long enough. I would explore it a bit now, while he was unconscious, and unable to ridicule my longing with those knowing eyes. I would let him take from me, because I wanted to know what it felt like. And because I was feeling free and uninhibited with him lying there completely unaware.

Boldly, I stretched out on the bed beside his naked body. Wearing only his robe, I lay there, and I pulled him, gently, onto his side, and then lower, so that his head and shoulders lay across my chest. Oh, and I closed my eyes, delighting in the feel of his masculine weight pressing me down into the mattress.

And then I sighed in anguish at the feel of my breasts being crushed beneath his bare chest. These were feelings I'd long ago decided that I would never know. The weight of a man on top of me. It was forbidden me. So I relished each sensation, one by one, enjoying it thoroughly before moving on to the next. I parted the robe I wore, baring my breasts so they could feel his chest against them. And it was good. I ran my hands up and down his spine, closing my eyes as I learned his shape. I cupped his buttocks. They were so perfect and small and firm in my hands as I pulled at them, arching my hips so that his erection pushed against me.

Yes, erection. He was hard now. Not even conscious yet, but responding to my touch as if he were. I'd sensed this desire ran both ways between us. Now I knew it was true.

I moved one hand upward, sliding it over the perfect curve of his muscled back, cupping the back of his head, and gently guiding his face to my chest. With my mind, I reached out to his, in just the way he had shown me. Feed now, Vampire. Take what you need... what you crave...take it from me .

And he did. His mouth moved over my skin, and I closed my eyes. He kissed my breast, and then his lips parted, and his teeth pierced that tender skin. I cried out in pleasure and pain and he drank from me, took from me, as I had taken from him. His movements were slow, and clumsy. He suckled me slowly, very slowly, and gently. Too gently. His hands fumbled upward, like the hands of a sleepwalker, and they found my hair, and stroked it, like stroking a cat, over and over as he fed. And lust for him raged and burned inside me, growing more powerful each time he swallowed.

I could feel him growing stronger. Feel him regaining his power. Soon his hands were in motion, finding mine, and sliding up my arms to settle on my shoulders. And then he lifted his head, opened his eyes.

Hungry eyes, glazed with passion, heavy lidded. They met mine for only a moment, and there was no inhibition in them. No resistance. No hesitance. Just desire.

And a jolt of fear surged inside me, as I wondered what sort of beast I had roused to life. I should end this, right now, I thought. I should gently move him off me, and give him the chance to come fully awake.

He licked his lips slowly, and then lowered his head again, and all of my good intentions dissolved. His fevered lips traced a path to the roundest part of my shoulder, and then he nipped at me there. Sharp, strong teeth drawing blood, and I tipped my head back, gasping in delight. And then he moved again, down over my chest. Pausing and making me gasp again. He sampled each of my breasts, and the skin over my rib cage, and my belly, and my hip, and then he buried his face between my legs, licking and biting at me even there. By the time he began working his way back up my body again I was in agony.

My facial muscles contorted into a grimace of longing and restraint. My breaths rasping in and out of my chest. My skin dampened by his mouth, and dotted with tiny, erotic wounds.

He stretched his nude body atop mine, and lowered his mouth toward my lips, and I caught him, framing his face with my hands and I whispered, "Wait."

God, the look in those tiger-striped eyes of his. He was a creature driven sheerly by sensation right now.

And I was very close to joining him in that state. Very close.

"Wait for what, Angel," he whispered, from somewhere deep in his throat. And he pressed his mouth to mine, caught my lower lip between his teeth and snapped at it.

I twisted my head to one side. Perhaps I never should have started this. I hadn't intended for it to go this far. I hadn't been fair to him. He likely had no idea what he was doing. I hadn't thought it through, hadn't planned on what would happen if he should awaken. "You're losing yourself to the bloodlust," I managed, though I didn't want to talk right now. Didn't want to explain things to him or warn him away. I simply wanted him to take me. Now, before I had time to think it through. I wanted him inside me. Fast and hard and deep.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, fast and hard and deep, Angel."

Oh, God, I'd forgotten to guard my thoughts.

"Oh, Christ, Angel...touch me. Touch me like you want to." And he took my hand, and brought it down between us. And I did. I ran my fingertips up and down him, encircled him and squeezed him. And I read every one of his thoughts as they passed through his mind. He wasn't blocking them. Not at all. All Jameson could think about was how every single sensation was magnified a thousand times since he'd been brought over. And how Rhiannon had told him that with sex it was more like a million times, and how he hadn't experienced that yet. And how he wanted to. How he'd been wanting to since he'd first felt the touch of my lips on his skin. How he'd dreamed of doing this with me.

Knowing it drove me to lunacy, I think. I pressed against him arching my hips, and then his lips trailed down my jaw to my throat, and he sucked at the skin there. And St. Francis of Assisi couldn't have resisted. I wrapped my arms around him and held tight, and he brought his head up and kissed me.

Deeply, the I'd been wanting him to. Pushing his tongue into my mouth and feeding on mine in turn.

Kneading my buttocks with his hands and lifting my hips toward his in a fury of need as well as promise.

Frantically, he pushed at my robe and I lifted my upper body from the bed to help him peel it from me.

Between the two of us, we managed to remove the robe completely without breaking apart at all. His heart hammered against my chest. He was panting, and his skin was hot to the touch. He muttered, and I kissed him and clawed at his skin, nearly incoherent with the need burning in me.

He knew how overwhelming it could be, I sensed it. He was kicking himself for it. It had all been patiently explained to him. He'd been warned, so he knew what to expect, he told himself. While I did not. All I knew was that every cell in me was screaming for release. He was weak from the pain of that bullet, and still, I was certain, not fully aware of what he was doing. But I couldn't stop it now. I couldn't.

Ah, but dammit, he was coming aware, and he was thinking he should stop.

"Angelica..."

I lifted him away, rose just a little, parting my thighs wider, positioning myself beneath him. His passion-glazed eyes held mine as he lowered his body, slipping inside me. I arched against him, tilting to receive him as he pushed deeper. I took more of him. And I closed my eyes and moaned. And that sound seemed to take the last of his resistance, and grind it to dust. He grasped my buttocks and pulled me tight to him, plunging himself all the way into my body. And I tipped my head back and cried out in pleasure. He began to move inside me. And I rode him, clung to him, felt like a warrior goddess as I took all he could give and demanded still more.

When I began to tremble and shake, and when my eyes flew open wide, he knew. I hadn't erected any shields around my mind either. Not just now, and he knew exactly what I was feeling. Even felt exactly what I was feeling. I was shocked at the pleasure of this. Shocked at the delicious tightening going on at the very hub of my body. I'd never felt it before, didn't know what the pinnacle was, but strained toward it all the same.

And when it came, he bent his head and sank his teeth into my throat, and sucked hard at me. And the orgasm doubled, and trebled, and went on and on and on. I felt shattered by its power, and I screamed, and my nails scratched bloody trails down his chest, as I arched like a cat, pressing my hips to take his erection all the way into me, and pressing my throat to take his teeth all the way into me. And he came too, his shuddering release seeming to spill more than his seed into my body, seeming to draw more than the slick fluids from my core, and from my throat. It seemed his soul was drawn from him as well, and it seemed mine was drawn from me. And the two tangled and twisted and mingled together, even as our body fluids were doing, and became one. The ecstasy was so intense I thought I would die. I honestly thought I would die. Waves and waves of it washed over me, sweeping me away into a world of insane sensations, pure, undiluted physical ecstasy. No pleasure this incredible could come without a price.

But I didn't die. I came back to myself, very slowly, and when I did, I felt disconnected, dizzy, as if my brain were still floating out there somewhere.

And Jameson was collapsed on top of me. Arms twined around me, his head on my chest. Utterly relaxed and already, I thought, sinking in a pool of velvety sleep.

When he woke...

I drew a deep breath and let it out very slowly. When he woke there was going to be hell to pay. I doubted he'd forgive me for this latest transgression any more easily than he had when I'd attempted to murder him. This had been very close to rape.

I reached down for the comforter, and pulled it up to cover us both. And then I lay there, and wished that this fevered coupling had assuaged the hunger I had for him. But it hadn't. It still burned inside me.

Still grew. It anything, this had only made it stronger. Deepened and empowered it to demanding new levels.

Lord help me, I craved the man like never before. And I was damned if I had a clue what to do to change it.

I was ruled, for that brief interlude, by nothing but feeling. Sensation. Lust. Desire. Sin. And I took him like a true harlot. No seasoned streetwalker could have seemed more thorough, I'm certain, than I was that night.

Out of my mind. Overwhelmed by my own heightened passions. I must have been.

But then I woke, to find myself naked as the day I was born, and twined around the vampire like a vine that would wither without him. And I was mortified.

Worse than anything else for me then was that I remembered every second of it. Every guttural sound I'd made, and every shameless thing I'd done. I even remembered the climax that had seemed to shatter my soul into a thousand glimmering bits.

Very carefully, I pulled myself out of his arms, and sat up...and then I gasped in horror at what I had done, for it was even worse than I had realized. I'd scratched his chest with my long nails, and he was covered in tiny bite marks. And he was naked, and sleeping, and easily as beautiful as a god. A dark pagan god. My temptation. My downfall. My Satan.

God help me, but desire stirred in me anew as I looked down at him there. I pressed my hands to my face in shame. And then I cried. For I did not know this creature I had become. I did not know her at all.

And I was not at all certain I wanted to.

"Angelica," he whispered, and I felt movement as he sat up. His hands touched my shoulders as if he would slip his arms around me and pull me close. Comfort me.

But I could not bear his touch. Not now. Not when I wanted it so.

"How could I have done it?" I whispered.

"Ah, Christ, Angelica-"

"You should have warned me. You knew what would happen to me if I were ever to let you drink from me. Because it was the same when I drank from you. You knew, didn't you? Didn't you, Vampire?" Lowering his beautiful striped eyes from mine, he nodded. "Yes. I knew what kind of lust would hit you if I drank from you, Angel." He lifted his head and looked me in the eye. "I just had no reason to think you would do it. Why would I warn you against something I thought you'd never do?"

"You should have. Don't you see what you've done? What you've taken from me? What you've made me?" I turned my face away, snatching at the blankets to cover myself.

"I didn't make you into anything, Angelica. You are what you are, and you did to me exactly what you wanted to do. You were the aggressor, Angel. I was barely in my right mind. Hell, if I'd done to you what you did to me you'd be screaming rape."

I turned my face away in shame, unable to deny that he was right. He was so right.

"You wanted it as badly as I did, Angelica. We're both adults. Why are you so mortified?"

"You made me want it," I whispered, but I knew, even then, that he spoke the truth. I'd felt desire for him from that first night. It had been a large part of what made me take him then, that first time. It hadn't been hunger alone, but lust. Even then, though I had denied it with everything in me.

"I tried to stop you," he muttered, as I climbed out of the bed, dragging the covers with me. "But, Angel, you drove me..."

I gritted my teeth and, battling tears, turned away from him.

"You're disgusted by what you did, aren't you?" he asked. "You're ashamed. Aren't you, Angel?"

"Of course I'm ashamed!" I all but shouted.

"Yes. Yes, of course you're ashamed. Disgusted. You gave in to physical desires and made love to a monster. A man you despise and the very thought of it makes you want to throw up." I shook my head in denial. He had it all wrong. I had decided he wasn't a monster, that I'd been wrong about him. It was my own lasciviousness that shocked and appalled me. Not him. Lord. I was so ashamed.

"Come back to bed, Angelica," he said very softly. "Look at you, you're teetering on your feet. The sun is coming up outside. You can't stay awake any longer."

But I ignored him, and made my way into the adjoining room, wrapping myself in the blankets and sinking onto the settee. My limbs felt heavy. My brain, foggy and dim. I knew it was dawn. My body sensed the sunrise as it had since I'd been made over into this creature I now was. A creature of immoral appetites and uncontrollable hungers. A creature of sin, surely.

He stood in the doorway, looking at me, and he, too, was weakening.

"Leave me alone, Vampire," I whispered. "I won't shame myself further by sleeping in your arms." I saw the anger flash in his eyes. "Sleeping in the arms of a monster, you mean? I'm no more monster than you, Angelica. But have it your way. I won't touch you again. I wouldn't have done so this time, if I hadn't been half-delirious with blood loss. Believe me, I'm no more thrilled by the notion of sex with a person I detest than you are." And he turned, stepping out of my sight, returning to the bed we'd so recently shared.

So he detested me. I was about to tell him that his assumptions were wrong. That I was ashamed of my sinful nature, and not of having given myself to him. Not of wanting him. For if I were to desire anyone, it seemed quite natural that it should be him. No other man had ever even begun to stir me this way. No, I was ashamed of the desire itself, not the object of it.

But it was just as well I hadn't told him, for now I knew that he detested me, and resented my taking him the way I had.

It only shamed me more to feel a desperate yearning to go into that room with him, to feel his nude body pressed to mine once again. I still hungered for him. More now than before. The coupling had done that, I knew it instinctively. It was as if our souls had joined. The sensation had hit me before, when I'd drunk from him. But now it was greater and more intense. And if I lay with him again, I sensed this link between us would become still stronger. Each time I surrendered to this need, it would have more power over me.

It would grow harder and harder to resist.

And resist I must, if there were to be any hope at all for my stained soul.

"Come, get dressed. It's night."

I stirred awake, only to find his hand clasping my shoulder. I pushed him away, shoving him at the very spot where the bandages were before I realized what I was doing, and then I winced and drew away, an automatic response.

"The day sleep is regenerative," he reminded me. "It heals us." I sat up, holding a blanket to my chest, and examined his waist, where I fully expected to see a gaping, bloody hole. But there was none. And then I looked up at him. He stood there, wearing a fresh pair of jeans, slowly buttoning a clean shirt. And the marks I'd put on him with my nails and my teeth, had vanished as well.

"You see," he said. "You didn't lose so much to me after all. You're a virgin again by now."

"You bastard."

His response to that was a bitter smile. He buttoned his sleeves and turned away from me. "You might want to dress, Angelica. We'll have company before long."

I lifted my brows, and forced myself to look at him again. His gaze had been fixed to my bared neck and shoulders, and gleaming with that need I still felt. I was not flattered by his desire. For I knew that in him it was only physical, and that he hated me. He quickly averted his eyes. "Go on, they're coming even now."

"Who?" I asked, getting to my feet with the blankets wrapped around me. Fear churned to life in my stomach. Surely if those DPI men had discovered our hideaway he wouldn't be so calm.

"Some friends of mine. Monsters, like me." He stepped closer, reaching up to stroke my face in a mocking gesture. "Don't be so skittish, Angel. They might want to rip your pretty throat out for the way you left me to die, but I won't let them."

I know my eyes widened. And then, without warning, the door burst open, and I came face-to-face with a woman who must surely be the queen of all of them. Tall, and regal, with long, perfectly straight raven hair that nearly reached the floor, and black eyes that gleamed with anger. I backed away slowly, my heart racing.

"Jameson!" she snapped in a deep, rich voice. "What reason could you possibly have to frighten her that way? Look at her, she's shaking."

He did look at me, his mouth twisting in a mocking smile. "It's no more than she deserves, Rhiannon." But another woman had entered behind her, a small, gentle-looking creature, with masses of ebony curls. She smiled at me, and came to where I stood. "It's all right," she said softly. "We're friends. We're here to help, honest."

"Don't be so quick to comfort her, Tamara," Jameson said, as two men came in as well, one of them wearing a cloak that reached to the floor. "But I'm lax in my duties. Eric, Roland, ladies, I'd like to introduce Angelica. The vampiress who attacked me less than a year ago, and then left me to die." They all stared at me. All those dark eyes, and probing minds. And I turned, and fled into the bedroom, closing the door and turning the locks, even knowing that could not keep them out if they wanted to come for me.

I stood there, trembling, watching that closed door, and waiting. Fully expecting one of them to come crashing through it at any moment. My God, these were his friends. His vampiric protectors. The ones who had saved his life when I'd left him for dead. They'd kill me, surely!

Trembling, I fumbled for some clothing, never taking my eyes from the door. What I ended up pulling over my head was some sort of dress, black gauzy fabric that brushed my shins, and straps that crossed my chest, surrounded my neck and crossed again at my back.

At least I was decently covered now. I wouldn't die naked.