Forbidden Touch (29 page)

Mitch decided to go with the second plan. He hadn't ever had much charm, so to speak. He figured if he tried to seduce a woman, he would more than likely start thinking of Ciera again, and then she would show up here with him and Lazarus. If that could be avoided, he was going to avoid it at all costs. He had felt the tingling a little earlier, but he fought it off. He had slowed his breathing and thought about his brand new skills. It was actually really cool to be able to do those things.

They had walked a few blocks, and it was getting late. Three girls and two guys stumbled out of a bar. Lazarus and Mitch had stopped to watch the small group. One of the blond girls stopped to look in her purse.

"Damn it! You guys go ahead to the car. I forgot my cell phone on the table. I'll be right there," she said, and went back through the club door. Her friends kept walking, oblivious to the fact that two vampires were about to take a small collection from their friend.

When blondie stepped back out the door, her friends were nowhere in sight. She looked around nervously, then hugged her arms to her chest and began walking in the direction her friends had gone.

She was only about twenty feet from the alley Mitch had hidden himself in. When she approached, instead of covering her mouth with his hand like Lazarus had told him to do, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. A loud scream echoed in the alley before he could cover her mouth.

He wanted to explain that he wouldn't hurt her, and that she wouldn't remember a thing about all of this tomorrow. But all he could think about with her being so close was the warm liquid running just under her skin.

His fangs protruded, and he was sucking that fluid down his throat before he even knew he had bit her. He had slumped against the brick building with her in his arms. He could feel her fear of him, and he was getting images in his head of people he didn't know. A few of them were of the same guy, but others were of an older couple, then there were some of younger people. He was seeing her life, the girl in his arms, her life was flashing before his eyes. He was taking her life from her. He had already taken more than enough, but her blood was so good. He didn't want to stop.

He fought with his craving for only a few more seconds before pulling back and running his tongue over the tiny holes in the girl's neck.

He turned her to face him. She was no longer scared of him. She was on the verge of passing out. Mitch shook her and she opened her eyes lazily. "Hey, I know you …You're that guy on the news," she said, and Mitch figured she may have drank a lot more alcohol than she had needed to. Her eyes drifted shut again.

"Look at me!" he said, and she opened her eyes lazily to him once more. He focused on seeing beyond her blue eyes, then spoke. "You never saw me here. You walked out of the bar and found this alley. You were too tired to go any further, so you sat down to rest awhile."

She nodded. "I was tired," she said as if she were in a daze.

Mitch looked at her another moment, then looked around him. There was no one in the alley but the two of them. Lazarus had left him to do this on his own, and he had almost killed her. He stood and ran back toward Lazarus' unmarked, leaving the girl in the alley to be found by her friends.

Mitch traveled the two blocks to Lazarus' car in mere seconds. He didn't have time to wonder just how fast he could run. Lazarus had left him to kill that girl, and he was pissed.

The guy was leaning up against the side of his car, smiling. Mitch didn't stop running. He tackled his partner to the ground, only giving one punch to the jaw before discovering he was actually the one on the bottom. Lazarus wasn't fighting back, but he was holding Mitch's shoulders to the pavement. Mitch tried to struggle under his hold, but it was useless, the guy was stronger than he appeared to be.

"Calm down," Lazarus whispered, and his voice wasn't even strained as he held Mitch down effortlessly to the road. "You had to do that one on your own. I will not always be there to tell you when to stop. You did well; she is still breathing."

Lazarus stood quickly, jerking Mitch to his feet as well. He brushed at Mitch's clothes, then his own. "We are not done here. I want you to try your hand at compulsion."

"But I already did. I compelled that girl back there to forget me," Mitch said as he pointed in the direction of the bar.

Lazarus only shook his head. "It isn't the same. Any vampire can make a human forget about them. But only a vampire that is strong in compulsion can make humans do things against their will. I cannot, but I think maybe you can."

"Why would I want to make anyone do something they didn't want to do?" Mitch asked, and he was calm now, well ... as calm as could be, considering the circumstances.

"We want to frame somebody for murder, don't we?" Lazarus said with a smile, then began to walk away from Mitch, in the direction of Nelson Park.

Mitch huffed, but put his hood back up and followed him.

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Chapter
47

Ciera had let Dane parade her by all the people in the big house. Every eye in the house had glanced her way at least three times. And she had lost track of the times that Dane had growled. She found his jealousy hilarious. But there had been a few women look his way also, and she didn't find the feelings she was having funny at all.

He walked into the next room and stopped suddenly, then turned and pushed her back out.

"What is it?"

He shook his head. "Nothing that we need to be a part of."

Ciera turned her head to the side and looked at him with disdain. "I'm not a little kid, Dane. I think I can make that decision on my own." She walked around him, and went through the archway.

The sight and smell of the room stopped her in her tracks. "Oh…" she said, embarrassed. She could feel the heat rushing up her face. There were about six or seven couples before her, oblivious to the fact that she was watching them. They were all feeding off each other, and she could see that only one of them had any clothes left on, and that sheer piece of clothing was only a thong.

Dane took her hand and pulled her back out of the room slowly. He hugged her tight to him. "I'm sorry that you had to see that."

She nodded, and knew that he would feel it; her head was against his chest. She could feel the soft thumping of his heart beneath her ear, and she closed her eyes and pictured Mitch holding her. She was almost positive the next time he pulled her spirit to him, that he would be as nice as he had been in his dream.

"I'm really tired, Dane. I need to lie down awhile, I think," she said.

He pulled back away from her, tilting her face up by her chin to study her better. "You need to feed. I'll get you a bag of blood from the…"

Ciera scrunched up her nose. "Yuck." She shook her head. "I can't feed like that; it's cold."

"All right." He sighed as he thought. "We will go out and find something. The nearest town is about fifteen miles from here. I'll just run up and get my…"

"No," Ciera said, and grabbed his hand as he began to walk away from her. She shook her head. "I don't want to go out."

"Ciera, there are no humans in this house. I don't know what else to tell you. You are in the early stages of starvation. I don't think you can make it until we leave tomorrow. What do you want me to do?"

Ciera glanced back at the room they had just walked out of, then looked back at Dane. "Have you ever done…that?"

He looked away from her and let out his breath. Telling her that he'd participated in a blood orgy was certainly not going to win him any brownie points with her. But neither would lying to her. When she found out the truth, she would hate him. He nodded. He wasn't proud of the things he had done in his life before he met her, but he couldn't undo any of them. "Yes." He waited for her to stomp off from him, and when she didn't, he looked back at her. He was expecting her to look disgusted with him, but again she surprised him. She actually looked curious. She held her hand out to Dane. He eyed it for a moment, then looked back up at her face. She couldn't want to go in that room with all of those vampires. There would be no way that she would come out still a virgin. He couldn't fight them all off of her. And thinking of just one of them touching her naked body was quickly pissing him off.

"No!" he shouted at her, and she jerked her hand back with wide eyes.

She stared at him a few moments before hurt filled her eyes, then she turned and ran through the crowd.

He only stood there a second before he went after her. He had to rudely push vampires out of his way to catch up with her, but he finally did. He turned her to face him and there were tears streaming down her face.

"You can't possibly want to go back in that room Ciera. I can't protect you from that many vampires. You will lose your innocence, and then you will be mad at me because you will think that I let it happen. I would rather you be mad at me now for not letting it happen at all."

She stared at him with wide eyes. He thought that she wanted them to join in with the festivities in that room. She shook her head and her eyes danced with laughter. She couldn't stop the escape of giggles as they came out of her.

Dane looked at her like she had gone mad with insanity. "What is so damn funny?" he finally asked.

She caught her breath enough to answer him. "I didn't want to do that with them, Dane. I wanted to feed from only you, and … for you to feed from me."

A feather could have knocked him over, he was so dumbstruck. "But I uh…"

Ciera held out her hand to him again. He looked at it with his eyes still about to pop out of their sockets. "Is your answer still a no?"

He shook his head slowly.

"Then will you show me to our room please?" she whispered.

He took her hand, then closed his eyes with a sigh of relief. He opened them to a smile on her face, and led her up the stairs to his room.

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Chapter
48

Mitch was walking alone to what appeared to be a homeless guy sitting on a park bench with a bottle of Jack in his hands. It was cold out tonight, but the frozen chill didn't seem to bother Mitch like it used to.

Lazarus had given him the instructions he would need to complete the task. He was to do it the same way that he had compelled that blond girl to forget him. If he had the gift of compulsion, the guy would do anything he told him to do. If he didn't have the skill, the guy would only look at him like he was crazy. He didn't know how compelling someone to do something was any different than making them forget about you, but he would soon find out if he was strong enough to pull it off.

He dropped to his knees in front of the old man. The man looked up a little startled, and clutched at his bottle, like Mitch was going to take it from him.

Mitch ignored the bottle and looked deep into the old man's eyes. The man was instantly captivated. Images flooded Mitch's own mind of people he did not recognize. There was a woman and two small children there, with a much younger version of the old man sitting in front of him. Mitch shook his head and blinked several times, and when he took his gaze away, the man spoke, "Are you an angel? Did you come here to take me home to my wife and children?" he smiled. "I'm ready to go," he nodded. "I've been ready to go for such a long time now." His voice drifted off at the end in a sad tone.

Mitch growled internally. He thought about draining the poor man, and giving him exactly what he wanted. But it wasn't his call to make. God would take him out of his misery when it was his time to go home.

But God never would take Mitch out of his misery. He was forced to live in this purgatory that Ciera had created for him, for all eternity. His own personal Hell. He would live day in and day out in misery, because he wanted Ciera more than anything in the world, but he didn't know who was telling the truth.

He had told her before the crash that he only wanted to be a vampire if they could be together; if she loved him and believed that they were soulmates. Had she lied to him so he would agree to become like her, so she could use him as a vampire puppet for herself? If that was the case, things had not gone at all like she'd planned. He sighed. He knew just how the old man staring at him felt, because he was miserable without Ciera. His family had been taken away from him, and he wanted to go to heaven to be with them. Mitch's heaven was here on earth, but he couldn't go to her. He couldn't ever be with her again.