Love at First Bite (7 page)

Her throaty laugh shook her breasts. "No, my pet. You must ask me for mercy. I am your Goddess, not your paltry
Christian God." She increased the pace of her hand moving up and down his cock. All the while her eyes glowed red.

"Beg me for mercy."

Davie could hardly breathe. Fire seemed to be eating at him from inside. Still he hesitated. She could make him beg. But
she didn't. She wanted him to abase himself on his own, damn her! But what use was pride when he might burst into
flame at any moment?

"
Goddess
…"
He gulped for air. "Have mercy on me
."

She leaned in and brushed his lips with her own. "No," she said softly, and pierced his throat with her canines.

He was burning up. He rolled his head from side to side, trying to escape the flames. He heard moaning. And voices.

"Rufford, he needs you."

"I'm nearly healed."

"He can't wait."

That was Fedeyah. Davie opened his eyes. He lay on a bed in a darkened room, naked, just like his dream, only he wasn't tied down. And it wasn't the ambassador's great Tudor bedstead but a simple straw mattress on a wooden frame. Sweat-soaked sheets were bunched around him. Davie looked around, expecting to see Asharti waiting in the corner to torture him, but he saw only Rufford outlined in the doorway. The vampire was stripped to the waist. His torso was covered with half-healed wounds.

"Water," Davie croaked.

Rufford sat on the edge of the bed. "Water isn't what you need." He grabbed a great long knife from the bedside table and calmly sliced his wrist. Blood welled. Davie could smell it. Something inside him rose up and shouted in joy. What was that, that felt so… alive?

Rufford swiveled around and lifted Davie's head, holding his bleeding wrist to Davie's lips. "Quickly, suck before I heal."

Revulsion filled him. But another part hissed,
Yes
! He bent and sucked. The blood tasted like copper life flowing down his throat. He drew at the wound greedily. A sense of well-being flooded him. The burning itch along his veins receded. Too soon, the wound closed. He only just managed to restrain the urge to ask Rufford to open himself again.

Rufford seemed to read his thoughts. "In another hour or so, when I have rested." In truth, Rufford looked awful. There were dark circles under his eyes. His wounds were healing slowly. Had he drained his strength so that Davie could make peace with his infection? Davie lifted a hand to his sweaty brow and pushed back damp strands of hair. The lingering fear from his nightmare still vibrated inside him.

"Thank you," he said hoarsely. "Not sure thanks is enough for what you've done."

Rufford shrugged. "I'm making reinforcements. Strategic use of my blood. You should thank Fedeyah. He's been taking care of you."

Fedeyah came up behind Rufford with a fresh linen cloth and laid it over Davie. "Thank you, Fedeyah," Davie whispered.

Fedeyah grunted in acknowledgment. "Food?"

Yes. He could eat now. He nodded.

"I think you've turned the corner," Rufford observed, standing.

"How long has it been?" This was the first time Davie had even a mild interest. It felt like he had been dreaming of Asharti and burning inside forever.

"Two days. Would have been faster, but nights have been taking their toll on me."

"How bad is it?"

"People are leaving the city. Some panic and hoarding of supplies. More of the enemy coming in. Most are newly made, but they act together. Difficult."

"What he means is that blood is running in the streets." Fedeyah presented a bowl. Davie could smell the dates and goat cheese, along with the scent of the soap used to wash the linen, his own sweat and the mustiness of the earthen floor, the faint whiff of rancid oil in the bottom of a disused amphora in the corner. He heard the skitter of rats and the call of an imam far away. His senses poured information over him.

Rufford shrugged, trying to look confident. "Reinforcements will be here soon."

"When can I help?" Davie asked. Suddenly he realized how strong he felt, how… whole. Was this the joy Rufford talked about?

Lord, there was some part of him that
liked
being a monster. He shoved it down. No, he didn't. He sacrificed himself to the cause of mankind. He would suffer being the stuff of nightmares in order to fight the greater nightmare. It was a fate worse than death. His opinion hadn't changed about that. But it was a price he would pay, at least for a while. Either he would be killed in battle or, if they won through, Rufford would kill him.

"Soon. I'll give you blood as often as I can. And there are things you must learn."

Translocating
, Davie thought.
Feeding
. He shuddered and wasn't sure whether it was horror or ecstasy that trembled down his spine.

"One other thing I should tell you. The Companion with its will toward life gives us… more intense sensations of all kinds."

Rufford got a secret smile. He raised his brows and shrugged. "It makes relations between a man and woman… well, the phrase

'joys of the flesh' takes on a new meaning." Rufford sighed. Was he missing his wife? "Don't be surprised by the frequency and power of your erections, especially at first. Later you'll get more control."

This all sounded like Asharti. Her ghost seemed to hover in the room, laughing that throaty contralto laugh. She had needed constant satiation, regardless of the cost to others. A horror of premonition shot through Davie. "Tell me I don't have to be like her."

Rufford chuffed a laugh. "You don't. You won't be. And how I wish there had been someone to tell me that when she first made me."

Everything had changed, except one thing. He had lost Emma. Now he was separated from her not just by distance but by his very nature. "I only hope Emma never knows what I've become. I could not bear her revulsion."

Rufford looked at him for a moment. "She didn't strike me as a fragile flower. Beth liked her. And Beth doesn't like the kind of woman who goes into hysterics."

"I'm not talking about having the vapors over some social slight. The stakes are a little greater than that, Rufford."

"Well, you know her better than I."

"I'm just glad she's safe at home. I wonder you can bear to have your wife in danger."

"It wasn't my choice," Rufford said softly. "Women have minds of their own, especially Beth. And in a partnership you must treat their desires as equal to yours or you will lose them."

Advice on women from a vampire? And one who made his beloved into a vampire, too.

"Rest," Rufford commanded. "I'll be ready to give you more blood in an hour."

Emma Fairfield came down the gangplank to the quay from the xebec that had brought her on the last leg from Gibraltar. The solid land beneath her feet felt strange. It had been three weeks since she had left Portsmouth. Not as fast a trip as she would like. But the captain of the packet she had booked passage on for her and her three companions had gotten wind of evil doings and political upheaval in Casablanca and set its passengers down in Gibraltar. It had taken several days to find a Turkish trader willing both to try to get its cargo into Morocco and to take her up. In Gibraltar she'd sent the two women home in the propriety of each other's company under the protection of Mr. Stubbs. She had only required their company in order to book passage in the first place, since no respectable English ship's captain would entertain taking a single lady aboard. Thank goodness the Turkish captain had no such nice compunctions.

During the journey she had managed not to let the doubts about what she was doing creep in. There was too much to do to pacify her wrangling companions during the first leg of the journey and too much fresh and strange to be interested in at Gibraltar. Then with the necessity of bribing the Turkish captain and hiring bodyguards for the second leg of the journey, she'd hardly had time for second thoughts.

Now she was here, where Davie might be.

She was surprised that there were only three ships in the harbor and very few people on the quay. Her experience with harbors said that they were usually teeming with workers and passengers and sailors. Those in evidence here seemed to be hurrying about in a sort of random panic. The city spread out above her, the whitewashed adobe buildings with their red tile roofs marching up the hill. Palm trees drooped in the hot April sun. The bougainvillea might be colorful beneath the fine coating of dust, but one couldn't really tell.

She swallowed. Second thoughts came down in buckets now. It suddenly seemed very much harder than she imagined to find Davie. He had said he'd start in Casablanca, but that didn't mean he was still here after more than six weeks.

Well, no use crying before the milk was even surely spilled. The first thing was to acquire a roof over her head. She stalked up to a single cart, finished dumping its cargo unceremoniously by the dockside. The driver shook his head and made a woeful sound when she asked after the Prince Hotel. He dropped her and her trunk in front of a modern building in the Georgian style without ceremony. A stream of obviously English people flooded into the street.

"You there, with the cart!" an older man accosted her driver. "To the harbor. I hear a ship has come in."

"That's my cart," a hefty woman with several ostrich plumes in her brocade turban protested in a screeching voice. Several others joined in the melee. Emma looked about for a doorman. Not seeing one, she hoisted her trunk by one handle and dragged it through the doors.

Inside, chaos reigned. The uniformed attendant behind the desk was arguing with several people. Luggage was stacked everywhere and guests, predominantly men, were rushing about with neck cloths askew and without apparent purpose, contributing to the pandemonium. "Excuse me," she shouted to the man behind the desk, as several of those accosting him threw up their hands and rushed away, creating a gap. "May I check in?"

"Check in?" The man frowned. "Everyone's checking out!"

"Why?" she asked. Several people turned to her in astonishment.

"The embassy evacuated," the deskman explained.

"Blood in the streets," a portly woman wailed.

"The end of the world as we know it." This from a gentleman with long white mustachios.

"The place isn't safe for civilized people."

"Murders every night."

"People drained of blood."

The crowd parted as several more people just dropped their bags and ran for the door under the onslaught of this litany.

Emma felt the blood drain from her face. Davie had said it would be dangerous, but the reality of a city in panic shook her. He must be here. But if the embassy had been evacuated, how would she find him? She took hold of herself and gave herself a mental shake. Let them panic. She had a purpose. She had to find Davie.

The man behind the desk looked around wildly at the crowd rushing for the door and simply deserted his post.
Good
, Emma thought. She grabbed a key labeled "106." That might be on the first floor. She dragged her trunk upstairs. She didn't stay long in the room, though. She pushed out through a lobby now nearly empty and into the heart of the city.

What few people were left all seemed to be hurrying this way and that with bundles on their backs or chickens under their arms or carts full of rugs or furniture or pots, whatever they had. Panic crept into Emma's soul. She tried to stop several people to ask them if they had seen a tall, blond Englishman, but they shook her off and hurried on.

Tears of frustration welled up into her eyes. Had she come all this way only to be denied by a city in panic? She found herself at the open-air market surrounded by stone arches of Romanesque design. Most stalls had already been deserted and their goods abandoned. Some were being looted openly. Others had their wares scattered and broken. Shouts echoed around her. As she turned, she saw in the harbor below a ship weighing anchor, its sails flapping into place. Only one ship remained. Retreat was being cut off even as she failed in her purpose. A man with very bad teeth leered at her and said something unintelligible. He grabbed her arm. She twisted away and ran farther into the market, ducking under cloth hung over ropes for display.

Her breast heaving, she crouched under the fabric. Her breath slowed. She looked up. They were burnooses. That would cover her blonde hair. She pulled one that looked smaller off the line and over her head, twitching up the hood. There, that was better.

Now what to do? She peeked over into the next stall. Canvasses stretched across wooden frames were stacked neatly against the tables. She spotted charcoal. The stall belonged to an artist…

Emma had an idea. She slipped into the stall. A charcoal… canvasses, and a knife.

Very well. If she could find some nails and a hammer, she had the beginnings of a plan.

They swung through the empty streets, silent, senses pushing out into the night, searching for the ones who would be waiting.

Davie saw clearly in the dark now. He no longer wondered why Fedeyah and Rufford never needed candles. He had been hunting with them for nearly a week. Rufford insisted he act only as backup since he was still so newly made. But that did not make the battles any less horrific. Or his horror at his new condition less intense. He wondered that Rufford and Fedeyah were still sane.

Everything had changed in the last week. Davie could call his Companion and use its power to draw the darkness for translocation or to compel a weaker mind. His strength amazed and appalled him, as did the painful burns sunlight caused on skin and eyes. These were signs that he had left his humanity behind. And the sexual need was so intense it had been a torment during the last days. He clung to Rufford's assertion that he didn't have to be like Asharti, but privately he had his doubts. Who knew to what he would stoop when the need for blood or sexual fulfillment raged through his body?

Whenever Asharti seemed near enough to invade his thoughts, he would conjure up an image of Emma and let the love he had seen in Emma's eyes the last time they met banish his memory of Asharti's whips and fangs. Images of Emma did not banish the erections, though. Quite the contrary. And thinking of how repulsed she would be by his new nature created bleakness in his belly but didn't counteract the power of her image on his body.