Page 9 of The Vampire Always Rises
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice deep and yet so soft I wasn’t sure I didn’t imagine it.
“Don’t die.”
The pounding continued behind me, irritating me.
“It’s not your time,” I said, irrationally determined to keep the man’s attention.
“I can’t help it.” He sighed then, a wordless expression of so much despair, it made me want to weep, but at the same time, I wanted to yell at the man behind me who was still beating on the doors. I looked up to tell him that he was wasting his time, but at that moment, the prone man grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t open the door,” he said, his eyes a beautiful indigo with little black streaks coming from the pupils, his gaze seeming to sear right through me to my soul.
“Why?” I asked in a whisper, leaning down over him so that my hair hid us from the man at the door.
“I am death,” the pretty-eyed man said, his body going limp, and his eyes closing. I knew he was on the verge of dying if I didn’t do something, and leaned down until my lips teased his.
“I’ll save you,” I promised, not in the least bit concerned with how I was going to do that.
His arms came around me, pulling me onto his chest at the same moment his mouth claimed mine—and it was a claiming, an act of dominance despite the fact that he was very nearly dead. His lips were hot and sweet and spicy all at the same time, and when his tongue ran along my lips in a silent plea, all my dark, secret parts seemed to come alive.
I gave in to needs that swamped my mind, kissing him back with everything I had, my hands tangled in his hair, my breasts sensitized and heavy as I squirmed against him. His hands swept up my back, causing me to move restlessly against him. I wanted more of him, more than just his mouth and hands, and pulled back to tell him so, completely oblivious to our surroundings.
I kissed the man’s jaw, his cheeks, even his closed eyes, wanting to bury my face in his hair, all at the same time he kissed a line down my throat to my shoulder. I shifted, trying to figure out what it was I needed to do to save the man, but a stab of pain interrupted my thoughts, pain in my shoulder that quickly faded away into the most erotic sensation I’d ever had. I was on the verge of an orgasm, spiraling up to it, desperate to meet it and yet not wanting the feeling to end. And just as I was about to burst into the light, into the glorious burning blaze of rapture, I woke up.
The pounding noise was real. I thought at first it was my heart thumping in my ears as I tried to come down off the single most erotic dream of my life, but then I realized the dull noise had its source outside of my body.
“Christian Dante and his wife!” I said to myself, snatching up the sheer chiffon robe that matched my satin negligee. “Bet they locked themselves out.”
I ran for the stairs, mindless of my bare feet on cold wood and marble, racing down the hallways and stairs until I reached the double doors, one of which I flung open with an anticipatory smile on my face.
The man who turned to face me was a disappointment, not at all what I had expected C. J. Dante—and a vampire—to look like. He was dark, wiry, with spiky hair dyed pink, several facial piercings, and a rainbow flag tattooed on his neck. He said something in what I thought was French.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak French.”
“You American?” He sounded oddly nervous. “This is for your master. He is not quite dead, although he should be since his blood was drained, but I didn’t think it was right to kill him just because he was a vampire, you know? So instead I brought him here to your master.”
“My what?”
The man turned around and hauled something up the couple of stairs to the door, laying it at my feet. “Do not tell anyone that I brought him here, or my master will have my head.” He glanced around fearfully. “You did not see me. You don’t know who I am. I was never here. You understand?”
I stared in horror at the object at my feet, dimly aware of the man at the door vanishing into the night.
“What ... who ... glorious grape juice! Vampire? Dead? Did you say ...” I looked up, but the man was gone. “Hey! Mister? Hey!” I stepped over the body and ran down the front stairs, but a white panel truck was barely visible zooming off down the drive. I ran after it a few yards, but it was too far off to see the license number.
With a shiver at the cool night air, I clutched my robe and dashed back into the house, hesitating over the body of the man. He was lying facedown, his black clothing matching his jaw-length hair.
“Now what am I going to do?” I asked, kneeling down and trying to rationalize what had happened while the wispy remnants of my dream still clung to me. “How do you bring around an almost dead vampire?”
Gently, I rolled the man over, stumbling back when I got a good look at his face.
It was the man in my dreams, the one who had told me he was death.
And now it seemed he was speaking the truth.
Chapter Three
“Idon’t know ... oof ... how many people ... grape juice! ... have had to drag a full-grown bull vampire ... ow! ... any distance, but you, sir, are not the easiest weight to shift.” I straightened up from dragging the vampire, and rubbed my back. The man didn’t look like he was made up of anvils, but he sure felt like it.
“Well, I could leave you here, but ...” I glanced around the hall. It seemed so uncaring to just abandon him in a cold hall surrounded by a Lego Millennium Falcon. Even if he was dead, which Spiky Pink Hair said he wasn’t. Although he sure seemed like he was dead. I’d felt for a pulse and found none, nor was his skin warm to the touch. I frowned down at him. “At least your head is still on, so no one had pulled a Highlander on you, and there is no sign of blood anywhere. That’s two in the non-dead column, but if you’re still alive, why don’t you feel alive? Oh well. Dead or alive, I can’t leave you here like a bag of dog food that someone dumped on the doorstep. But how I’m going to move you is beyond me ... hmm.”
