Twilight Hunger Part 19

"G.o.d has nothing to do with it, boy. And I'm not only your aunt-your great-great aunt-I'm also your mother and your sire and your sister. The blood ties of the past mean nothing. We are a new kind of family now. And I could take what you gave to her and more without sustaining any damage at all."

I stared at her coldly. "The blood ties of the past still mean something to me, Sarafina. And I promise you, we will never be together in that way."

I saw the hurt and the anger in her eyes. Perhaps she had been undead for so long that the propriety of mortals meant nothing to her, perhaps she had even forgotten it. But I hadn't. I hurt her with those words. But I meant them. And while I hated what she had done to me that night, I knew that I had learned an important lesson.

Never to have physical relations with a mortal.

Morgan closed the book, blinking in shock. There had been exceptions. Something about slaves, which she didn't find the least appealing. Something about "the Chosen," which she understood even less. And other vampires.

Nothing about how one made other vampires. Nothing about anything helpful-except that she now knew why Dante refused to sleep with her.

And she thought it might be for the best. She certainly didn't want him to kill her.

She glanced down at her attire, licking her lips in trepidation. Quickly she jumped to her feet, returned the journal to the safe, closed and locked the door, and then closed the false bookcase over it. Then she ran out of the study, hurrying up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She had to change. She didn't want to tempt him to do... to do that to her.

But the moment she closed her bedroom door, she heard him. Not aloud, but, in some strange, fascinating way, inside her mind.

Morgan.

She ignored the voice in her head and tugged open a bureau drawer.

Morgan!

The French doors flew open, blasted by a gust of wind. She spun around, gasping in shock. But he wasn't standing there on the balcony, as she had half expected. Trembling, she went to the doors to pull them closed, and that was when she saw him. He stood on the back lawn, halfway between the house and the sea. And she felt him looking right at her.

Come out here to me. Now.

Could she really be hearing him without a sound? She thought about calling down that she would be just a minute, but the final word came again.

Now.

It compelled her. She couldn't convince herself not to obey. Turning, Morgan walked out of her bedroom, down the stairs and through the house to the back door. She stepped out onto the flagstone patio and down three more steps, until her bare feet were sinking into the damp, cold gra.s.s. It sent a chill through her, and still she walked on. She walked until she stood facing him, an arm's length between his body and hers.

His gaze slid down her body. She felt it like a touch, s.h.i.+vered with cold and with awareness.

"Now we have time. All night, in fact. And you're going to tell me, Morgan, how you know about me."

She met his eyes and found herself incapable of coherent thought. There was nothing in her mind beyond submission. Obedience. It took an act of sheer will to break the hold of those eyes on hers, compelling her to tell him everything he wanted to know, but she did it. She looked away, past him at the sea.

Her mind whispered that if she told him about the journals, he would take them away. And, G.o.d, she couldn't lose her only link to him.

Or were they her only link to him?

"How did you do that?" she whispered.

His eyes closed for a moment as he sought patience. "Summon you here?" he asked, and when she nodded, he sighed. "I'm a vampire. An old one."

It wasn't an answer. "So you've learned mind control over the years?"

"To some extent, yes."

"Then you could summon anyone to come to you, make them come even if they didn't want to?" She was looking at the ground now, anywhere but into his eyes.

A finger hooked beneath her chin, tipped her head slowly up. "You wanted to."

A s.h.i.+ver worked through her body.

"It's more difficult to convince someone to do something they don't want to do. But I have the feeling, Morgan, that I could convince you to do just about anything I asked."

"I... " Her breathing quickened, and he noticed. She knew he noticed-she saw it in his eyes-and she almost thought he could hear her heartbeat speeding up, too. "I heard your voice in my mind. As clearly as if you were standing beside me, speaking to me."

He nodded.

"Does that happen with everyone, too?"

He broke eye contact this time but didn't look away as she had done. No, he just s.h.i.+fted his gaze to her lips. "I came here to ask questions, not answer them."

"I have questions, too," she said. "And I need answers as badly as you do."

He squared his shoulders. "Your conditions have changed, then?"

"I don't... "

"Last night you offered to tell me everything I wished to know if I would take you. Tonight you're ready to trade information instead of s.e.x."

When he said the words "if I would take you," a s.h.i.+ver worked through her and heat pooled in her center. It brought vivid images to mind. Take you. It implied her submission, willing or otherwise. His mastery, his possession of her in any way he desired. She wanted it, and more. She craved it. She could see it so clearly in her mind. His hands holding her wrists, his mouth moving over her body, kissing and tasting and nipping, sampling her flesh and her blood while she whimpered in pain and pleasure.

"Stop it!"

His voice, harsh and sharp, brought her to attention. He had turned away, his hands pressed to his temples and his eyes closed.

"I can see your thoughts as clearly as you can, Morgan. And I warn you, my restraint is running low."

"I'm sorry."

He stood there for a moment longer, gathering himself, she thought Finally he drew a breath, straightened his back and turned to face her again. "I beg of you, tell me what I need to know. The more time I spend near you, the more you place yourself at risk."

She quelled the fear in her belly. "At risk of what, Dante? Being killed? It's a small risk, I promise you that I'm dying anyway. I'm not sure I'd have made it through the day if you hadn't... " She remembered vividly drinking from his neck and quickly slammed the door on the memory. "I need to know some things first."

"So you can use them in your next screenplay?"

She lowered her head. "When I wrote the script, I didn't know you were real. I thought I was mining the delusions of a crazy old man who was probably long dead."

Sighing, he turned and began walking toward the cliffs. She fell into step beside him, but his strides were long and powerful, and she had to take two steps for every one of his. "You have to believe me, Dante. I would never betray you. Not now."

"And why not?" he asked.

"Because I am in love with you."

They had reached the cliffs, and he stopped walking when she said the words, just stood there, facing the sea. "You don't know me. You don't know what I am. What I truly am. Your writer's mind has spun some sort of fantasy from the romanticized myths and legends you've heard and read. But you don't know the truth, and you need to get it fixed firmly in your mortal mind, Morgan. Vampires are predators. Killers. And mortals are their prey."

"Is that the way it was with Laura Sullivan? Was she your prey?"

He shot her a heated glance. "I was young. In love. I thought I could overcome my natural tendencies with her. She turned on me before I ever had the chance to find out." He lowered his head. "It was the second part of a vital lesson, Morgan. Mortals and vampires are mortal enemies. Do you believe for one moment that a mongoose could love a cobra? And even if it did, they would be doomed. One of them destined to destroy the other."

She swallowed her fear. "What does it mean to be one of the Chosen?" she asked.

He turned his head to stare down at her. "Where did you hear that term?"

"The same place I learned all the other things I know about you. I know that certain humans are called the Chosen. I know that it's something to do with their blood, and that vampires sense them and feel protective of them."

He looked away. "Then you know as much as I do."

"Not quite."

"This is a waste of time. I'm leaving." He turned his back to her.

"Am I one of them, Dante? And does it mean I don't have to die?"

He went utterly still.

She moved closer to him, slid her hands up his back and curled them over his shoulders. "When you fed me from your body, Dante, I felt... alive. Every sense heightened, every nerve ending awake and feeling everything. But it didn't last. I want to feel that again. All the time. I want to be what you are."

"So now we come to the heart of the matter at last. You seek entry into the world of the undead. That is what these declarations of love and desire are truly about." He turned to face her. "You don't have a strong enough mind to bear it, Morgan. You'd be dead inside a year."

"That's a year more than I have now."

He shook his head. "I won't do it to you. I refuse to visit this madness on another."

"Then it is possible. I am one of the Chosen!"

He pushed a hand through his hair in frustration. "Yes. Dammit, yes. You carry the Belladonna Antigen in your blood. You're one of the Chosen. It's why you're wasting away so soon. Your caste do."

She nodded, processing the information and reviewing the tale she had read in her mind. He would be far less likely, his evil aunt had told him, to harm one of the Chosen. "How is it done?"

His eyes gleamed softly in the night. He was angry at her for forcing this and yet aroused at the prospect. His gaze danced over her throat. "I sink my teeth deep into your lily-white throat, Morgan, and I suck the very lifeblood from you. I gorge myself on you until you hover on the very brink of death. If I take a little too much, you die. You lie there, hovering between life and death, until I decide to feed you from me. If you have enough strength remaining in you to drink, then you do. You drink from my veins. You swallow my curse."

The wind blew in harder from the sea. "And that's all?"

"You sleep. You wake. You feed. And it's complete."

She nodded firmly. "All right then." She pushed her hair behind her head, held it bunched there in one hand and tipped her chin up toward him. "Do it."

He looked down at her, a feral gleam in his eyes. Tracing the back of his forefinger over her throat, he growled very softly, like an animal in the night.

"Yes, you want to. You know you do," she whispered.

His breath came harsh and raspy. But she felt him fighting her, fighting his hunger and his desire. And then she remembered what she'd read. How closely the hunger for blood and s.e.xual desire were linked.

He turned his head away from her.

She tugged free the sash of her robe and let the wind part it for her, driving it from her shoulders, down her arms, and then tearing it away. She stood naked, arms outspread, the cold wind razing her.

Dante's gaze came back to her. Riveted to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as they pebbled in the cold wind. She moved closer, slid her arms around his neck and, standing on tiptoe, pressed her mouth to his.

With a shuddering sigh, he kissed her. His mouth tasted hers, their tongues twined and mated, and he held her body nestled against his almost tenderly. His lips left hers to trail over her jaw, onto her neck, where they suckled and kissed, and then he lifted his head as if with great effort. "Please, don't make me hurt you. I couldn't bear it, don't you understand? And I will hurt you. I will."

"It will be different with me. I'm one of the Chosen. I love you, and I know. I won't let you hurt me, Dante."

"You couldn't stop me."

"I have nothing to lose, don't you see that?" She tipped her head back again, her hands pressing to the back of his until he s.h.i.+vered and let her push him lower. His lips brushed her flesh. He groaned softly. "Please, please, Dante, please... "

Growling, he opened his mouth and sank his teeth into her. She felt a stabbing pain and then only warm waves of increasing ecstasy as he nursed at her throat He suckled her, drank from her, and her body vanished. All that remained was that place where his mouth possessed her throat and his teeth pressed into her flesh.

There was a sound. A hiss of air and a thud. Dante grunted in pain, and let her go, staggering backward. Morgan slumped to the ground, dazed, weak.

"I've got you now, you bloodthirsty b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" a voice shouted.

Morgan looked up and saw a rod embedded in Dante's shoulder, blood oozing from around the wound; then her gaze shot the other way, and she spotted the scarred man running toward them, a crossbow in his hand.

"Morgan... "

"I'm fine. Run, Dante. Go. Now!"

He did. Vanis.h.i.+ng in a single burst of movement over the edge of the cliff. When he jumped, Morgan screamed from sheer instinct. And then the hunter was kneeling beside her, looking over the edge in search of his quarry. She looked, too, but Dante was nowhere to be found.

She pushed herself up onto her knees, swung a weak blow at the man. "d.a.m.n you! What the h.e.l.l is wrong with you?"

The man looked at her. His gazed moved down her naked body in the darkness. d.a.m.n him, he looked as such as he wanted. Getting to her feet, weak and dizzy but determined not to show it, she looked around, and found her robe hanging from the gnarled branches of a geriatric apple tree. She walked unsteadily toward it, s.n.a.t.c.hed it free and tugged it on.

"I just saved your life, you know!" the man Aerated, hurrying after her.

"You shot my boyfriend and probably killed him," she snapped. "I'm calling the police."

"You're not calling anybody." He gripped her shoulder and spun her around. She clutched the robe tight around her, especially the wide part around the neck. "Not until you let me have a look at your throat, anyway."

"You had a look at everything back there," she replied. "Should have looked your fill while you had the chance, because you won't get another."

"He was drinking from you. You were letting him. f.u.c.king bloodwh.o.r.e!"

"You're insane." She started toward the house again, but her knees buckled and she had to stop, lean against a tree and breathe deeply.

"He's taken too much," the man said. "He'd have killed you if I hadn't come along."

"It's the shock of seeing my boyfriend shot with a crossbow and knocked off a cliff, you lunatic!" She was vaguely aware of a car pulling into the drive out front. She heard it clearly, saw the headlights. Heard a door slam.

He grabbed her arm again. "Tell me the truth, dammit."