Awakened (Vampire Awakenings) (18 page)

He blinked at her, obviously surprised by her change in topic, and from the look on his face, more than a little relieved. He shrugged as he pulled out another sweater, opened a drawer, and dropped it in. “I’ve known Mike, Doug, Jack, and David since we were kids. We went to school together, lived near each other, and joined all the same teams in high school. We were never apart. During our senior year I met this girl at a party. She was beautiful, and vibrant, and she could have had anyone she wanted. For some reason, she wanted me.

“I saw her at a few more parties after that, and then she vanished. Last year, I ran into her again. She was at a frat party at my house in Buffalo. At first I was surprised that she even remembered me. It wasn’t until later that I realized she had been looking for me.”

He broke off as he bent and grabbed another sweater. “Why?” Sera prompted.

Liam shook his head and shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. For some reason she fancied herself in love with me. She had kept tabs on me over the years and had always known where I was. She came back for me last year because she thought that I was finally mature enough to be changed. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time.

“I left with her that night. However, unlike the last time, she didn’t just feed off me and leave. She changed me. She was lonely, and she wanted someone to spend the rest of her life with.”

“And you didn’t want to be that person?”

Liam sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t know her, or what she was. When I found out what she did to me, I freaked out. Needless to say, I took it about as well as you did. The last thing I wanted was to ever see her again, let alone spend eternity with her.”

Liam grew silent as he seemed to drift off to another place. It appeared he forgot that she was even there as he relived his own, tortured memories. “What about the others?” she prompted.

Liam’s gaze remained unfocused for a moment, before settling on her again. “The others are my fault,” he mumbled bitterly.

“You changed them?” she asked in surprise.

“No. She did.”

“Then how is that your fault?”

“She changed them as a way to get to me. When I refused her, she went after them. She thought that if the others joined her, I would come to her too.”

“But they didn’t?”

“No, they didn’t. Their reactions were just as strong, and volatile, as mine. When I found out what she had done, I swore I’d kill her if I ever saw her again.”

“Have you seen her since?”

“No. She changed David last, probably because she found him last, and then she disappeared. None of us have seen her since.”

“Is that why you came back to college here?”

He nodded as he picked up another sweater and dropped it in the drawer. “David’s coming back at the end of this semester. It’s easier when we’re all together, and the frat house is a perfect place for us.”

“Why?”

Liam winced as he realized the mistake he had just made. They had just gotten off this topic, and he knew that he was going to have to tell her the truth. “Because there are lots of drunk girls that we can control, and attract to us, even if they’re sober. But when they’re drunk it’s easier to make them forget that we fed off of them.”

“They remember?” she asked in surprise.

He shrugged and grabbed another sweater. “Sometimes they know what’s going on, but we can make it so that they don’t.”

Sera gaped at him as her hand fluttered to her throat in shock. “Have you ever done that to me?”

His eyes narrowed sharply as he dropped his sweater. “No, I haven’t. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Her eyebrows came together as she stared at him. “Well, why not?” she demanded.

He stared at her in surprised amusement. “Because those girls are more like cattle. I care way too much about you to do that to you.”

She was suddenly very confused. She didn’t want him drinking her blood, yet she didn’t want him going elsewhere for something that she could give him. Mostly, she just didn’t want him to not want her that way. “Is there something wrong with me?” she asked softly.

“Are you serious?” She nodded, unable to speak. “There is nothing wrong with you Sera. Would you have preferred it if I had taken it from you, without your knowledge?”

“No.”

“All right then.”

“But...”

He sighed angrily and slammed the bureau drawer shut. “There are no buts Sera. I wouldn’t drink from you without your permission.” Sera nodded, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. She felt like a fool. She was acting like a fool. “I can tell you that I’ve been very tempted too.” Her eyes flew back to his as she gaped at him in surprise. He smiled slyly as he leaned against the bureau and folded his arms over his chest. “Seriously tempted. Your neck is very delicate, appetizing, and I can smell your blood, even from here. It’s amazingly sweet.”

There was suddenly a feral gleam in his eyes that was utterly thrilling, and totally terrifying. A shudder worked its way through her as she instinctively responded to him.

She forced herself to take a deep breath. There was still so much more that she wanted to know, and she couldn’t allow herself to become distracted now. “Did you attract me to you?”

“No. I talked to you, it’s different.”

Sera’s forehead furrowed as she recalled the first time that she had seen him, and the world had seemed to disappear. Had he used whatever power’s he possessed to make her feel like that? Had he been using his powers on her all along? “I have never used anything on you.”

“That first time I saw you...” her voice trailed off as her throat constricted.

“Never Sera. I felt something the first time that I saw you too, but I have never used my powers on you. I could have made you forget what you saw the other night and changed your memory, but I didn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“Because for better or worse I wanted you to know, I needed you to know.”

Sera’s heart melted and she found herself suddenly able to breathe easier again. “Than what is this ability to attract people?”

“There’s a power inside me that draws people in, but they don’t do anything that they wouldn’t want too.”

“Even letting you feed off of them?”

He sighed angrily. “We have to survive Sera, what would you suggest we do? Kill them?”

“No!” she cried in horror. “But it seems wrong.”

He shrugged. “Because it’s not the nicest thing to do to a person. But most of them don’t know what we’re doing, and the ones that realize it, well, we just bend their will to ours and force them to forget it. No one leaves unhappy.”

“Bend their will?” she croaked. “How?”

“It’s easier when someone has been drinking. You just sort of make them forget. It doesn’t hurt them, and they don’t even know that we’re doing it.”

Sera was wishing again that she hadn’t started this conversation. Her mind was beginning to spin. She didn’t want to know what else he could do. What all of them could do but there was one more thing that she had to know. “How have you been feeding since we got together? Are you still sleeping with all these girls?”

His eyes widened and then narrowed sharply. “No!” he cried indignantly. “Of course not. Sleeping with them was just an added bonus. It was a bigger rush, more power, more thrilling.”

Nausea twisted in her stomach as she shook her head in an attempt to clear her befuddled mind. “More thrilling?”

Liam was silently kicking himself in the ass. He should have kept his big mouth shut, but she was being so damn obstinate, and aggravating, at the moment. His brain wasn’t having enough time to tell his mouth to stay shut. “Sera come on; you don’t want to hear this.”

She bit on her bottom lip. No, she probably didn’t want to hear this but she had come this far, and she couldn’t turn back now. “Yes, I do. I need to understand Liam.”

He groaned softly as he straightened away from the bureau. “Because we’re pleasing ourselves in more than one way. The blood is a giant rush, and sex on top of it makes you feel like you could rule the world. Are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to know?” he demanded savagely.

She blinked back tears as her stomach threatened to empty itself. “No,” she choked out.

The pained look on her face was enough to help calm him down. “It’s my past Sera. I haven’t slept with anyone since I met you, I don’t ever want to, but I cannot change my past. No matter how much I wish I could now that I know you.”

Sera took a steadying breath. “How are you feeding now?”

“I don’t have to sleep with someone to feed off of them. I can make the marks go away almost instantly. I can feed off of someone, and ten minutes later send them back into a party like nothing happened. Their neck may be a little redder, or they may appear to have a tiny hickey, but no one is ever the wiser. They don’t even know that I was there.”

Sera felt even sicker. She closed her eyes as she tried to block out the nausea in her stomach, and the sudden pain in her heart. She felt as if he was cheating on her, even though he wasn’t. But she couldn’t help feeling that he was going to someone else for something that she could give him. Something that he had never asked her for, or wanted from her.

What had she gotten herself into? What was she doing here? With him? With all of them? And now Kathleen was vulnerable to Mike. She wanted to run from the room, grab her friends, drag them out of the cabin, and back to safety. She opened her eyes. Liam was staring at her with a mixture of anger, and hurt.

“Changing your mind?” he sneered.

She had wanted to know, and as he had promised, he’d told her the truth. She had brought this on herself. She had known what he was when she had stayed in his room yesterday. She had made her choice. She wasn’t going to leave now. He needed to survive. She couldn’t turn her back on him because she didn’t like the way that he did it.

“Kathleen,” she whispered.

“Mike won’t hurt her. I know that he likes her and cares about her as a friend. If things progress, I don’t even know if he’ll feed off of her.”

Sera nodded. She felt like she was abandoning her friend, but there was nothing that she could do. She couldn’t go barging up there and tell Kathleen to stay away from Mike. It wouldn’t happen. In fact, it would only make Kathleen more determined to go after him.

Liam turned away from her. His shoulders were slumped as if he had the weight of the world on them. She moved slowly over to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and rested her chin on his back. He stood stiffly for a moment before his hands enclosed hers. He turned around and she tilted her head to look up at him. He was so unbelievingly gorgeous that it made her ache with longing. She ran her hands down his shirt, and slipped them underneath to feel the warm skin pulled taut over his hard abdomen. Slowly, she pushed the shirt up. He lifted his arms so that she could tug it over his head and toss it to the floor. Stepping back she took the time to admire his solid chest.

  She smiled softly as she stepped close. His muscles rippled beneath her touch as he inhaled sharply. Her smiled deepened as she realized the full extent of the power she had over him. The power that only a woman could hold over a man. She dropped a soft kiss on his chest and lightly tasted him. His hands wrapped into her hair as he pulled her head away, and lifted her mouth to his. She kissed him passionately, her tongue entwining with his as her body began to tingle with anticipation.

His hands leisurely roamed over her. Breaking the kiss he pulled her sweater over her head and unhooked her bra. His eyes were dark and clouded with passion as he gazed at her. His hands skimmed to the waist of her jeans, he unbuttoned them and bent to slide them down.

She stepped out of them and kicked them across the floor. Stepping back to him, she pressed her full breasts against his chest as she slid her hands down to his button and easily undid it. He watched her intently as she undressed him, making no move to stop her, or touch her. She pulled his jeans and underwear down. Her eyes flicked to his hard, throbbing cock as a wicked thought crossed her mind. Before she could have second thoughts, she knelt slowly before him.

Liam inhaled sharply as he realized her intent. He reached down to stroke her cheek as she bent forward and slowly ran her tongue along his hard shaft.

He throbbed and pulsed beneath her touch as she drew him into her mouth. His hands dug into her hair as his hips arched into her. Moving slowly along him, her tongue flickered along his head as she tentatively began to explore him. At first she had been hesitant, and more than a little afraid, but she became more confident as she felt his excitement rise, and his hands guided her. Her hands wound around to grab his firm ass and draw him deeper into her mouth.

He groaned as his head tipped back and his body trembled with pleasure. He had never seen anything as erotic as Sera kneeling before him, making love to him with her delicate mouth. He lightly stroked one of her breasts, relishing in the feel of the hardened nipple as he rolled it in his hand.

Her mouth and tongue moved faster, and he knew that he couldn’t take much more of the exquisite torture. He pulled away suddenly, and bent to pick her up. She gasped in surprise when he lifted her as if she weighed no more than a feather. She gazed at him with wide eyes and smiled softly as she wrapped her arms around his neck.