Sweeter Than Wine

“Christy was brought in to Emergency a few hours ago.” It was clear that even Jena—a doctor used to dealing with this kind of situation—was struggling to retain emotional control. “The trauma team did their best, but it’s just not possible to repair all the damage in time. Her organs are beginning to fail one by one. She probably won’t live through the night.”

Her soft voice didn’t carry beyond the small circle of friends gathered in the hospital waiting room. The old study group from college was reunited in their worry, with some additions. Lissa and Kelly had recently married, so their husbands, Atticus and Marc, were there. As was Sebastian.

He was the odd man out
⎯
a single, unattached male
⎯
but he was a close associate of both Marc and Atticus, and had a personal interest in Christina, though none of the others realized it. Sebastian had kept quiet about his attraction to Christina. She was still married and Sebastian was old-fashioned enough to want her to be free before making a move on the beautiful young woman.

“What happened to her?” Atticus asked, his arm around his wife, offering comfort.

The women shared knowing looks and Sebastian’s senses went on alert.

“She told me a week ago that her husband had been violent with her on a few occasions recently. They’ve been having problems for a while now and I’m pretty sure she told Jeff she wanted a divorce.” Jena’s eyes welled with tears. “I heard from the team that brought her in that he’d been arrested.”

“Her husband beat her?” Marc spoke in outrage for all the men.

Jena nodded, gulping. “I think he just snapped. He’s never been the most stable personality. Even in college, he was a little weird.”

Sebastian had heard enough. He moved closer to the women, drawing their attention.

“Take me to her.”

5

Lissa and Kelly gave him curious looks while Jena seemed puzzled. He would have repeated his demand but Marc stepped smoothly forward, projecting calm.

“Perhaps if we could see her now?”

Jena nodded, rising. “Yes, of course.”

Marc shot him a quelling look as they all started down the hall, but Sebastian ignored it. Christina was dying. That was all that mattered. If he had to disobey a direct order from the Master, he’d do it. For her. To save her.

Sebastian thought he was calm, but when he saw her pale, bruised body lying broken amid the white sheets and bundles of tubes, he cursed.

“And they call us monsters.” His breath hissed out between his teeth and his eyes glowed red.

“We can save her, can’t we?” Lissa looked up at her husband with hopeful eyes.

Atticus nodded thoughtfully. “We can, but it should be Sebastian, I think.”

“Sebastian?” Kelly stepped forward and Sebastian chafed at the delay.

Thankfully, Marc agreed. “If he will agree to take on the responsibility.”

“I will.” Sebastian didn’t have to think twice. This is what he wanted more than anything. Relief filled him at the idea he wouldn’t have to fight any of them over who would be her maker. He knew in his soul he was meant to do this. He was meant to bring over this sad, broken, beautiful mortal woman to their world. He would save her, then he would cherish her, for as long as she’d let him.

“What are you people talking about?” Jena planted herself in front of Sebastian, forcing him to look at her rather than stare at Christina as he had since entering the small room. He didn’t have the patience to deal with this. His fangs grew as his anger and frustration built. His eyes glowed and the doctor gasped.

“We can save her, Jena.” Lissa intervened, much to Sebastian’s relief. “We’ve been keeping a big secret from you since Atticus found me.” She looked over at her husband for support.

6

“What Lissa’s trying to tell you—” Kelly stepped forward to Jena’s other side, “—is that we were both close to death and our husbands saved us. They made us like them and now we’ll never die. At least not by normal means.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jena repeated, standing her ground, braver than Sebastian would have credited.

He let the tips of his fangs show. “We’re not human. We’ve been changed.”

“Are you trying to tell me you’re vampires or something?”

Sebastian grinned, showing off his pointy, pearly whites. “Or something. Now, if you want your friend to live, I suggest you stand aside.” Sebastian pushed at her surprisingly strong mind, but she would not be swayed.

“I don’t believe this,” Jena whispered, looking around at her friends as if seeking confirmation that this was some kind of joke. But serious expressions met her gaze.

“Believe it.” Sebastian made to move past her, but the doctor grabbed his arm. He could have easily pulled free of course, but her action so surprised him, he paused.

“You think you can save her?” Jena’s expression was hopeful, yet leery.

“I know I can,” Sebastian answered.

“I don’t want her in any pain.” Jena stared at his teeth with fascination. Sebastian could almost see the moment when she accepted that this was for real and not a hoax of some kind. Her gaze narrowed. “Will it hurt?”

Sebastian actually grinned at that. “Our kind can make the bite inordinately pleasurable. Would you like a demonstration?” His mocking tone dared her. “I haven’t fed and I could use the strength if I’m going to give Christina a good portion of my blood.” He stepped toward her in a threatening manner and all four of the other vampires in the room moved to defend her. Sebastian was growing even more impatient. He had to save Christina. Didn’t they understand?

“Okay.” Jena bared her neck.

“What?” Both Kelly and Lissa objected.

But the doctor squared her shoulders. “I want to know he’s not going to hurt her and if his being at full strength is important for her recovery, then I want to help.” Sebastian 7

also sensed the good doctor wanted confirmation that they were for real. She was the type who needed proof.

Kelly shook her head with a delicate snort of amusement. “Our very own Florence Nightingale, willing to sacrifice anything for her patients.”

“You prove to me this won’t hurt her more, and I’ll stand aside and let you do what you’ve got to do to save her. I don’t want to see her die any more than you do.” She stared at her friends with a hurt expression. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

Lissa flushed and shrugged. “We thought it was best to keep this a secret.”

“What, you didn’t want me to know you go around biting people and drinking their blood? Gee, I wonder why not?”

“Sarcasm is unbecoming in a doctor.” Kelly chastised her friend in a teasing tone.

“Besides, we only bite our husbands. We nourish each other.” Marc stood beside her and pulled his young wife close, the love between them obvious.

Jena shrugged. “I still want to make sure this will work. You’re not married, right?”

she asked Sebastian point blank.

“Not yet.”

“Good. Then bite me. Have a snack and prove to me you won’t hurt her.”

She stepped forward and placed herself only inches away from him. She smelled clean and good, and he was hungry. It wouldn’t do to attempt the conversion of a grievously injured mortal without proper sustenance. The process would go better for Christina if he was at full strength when he turned her.

Without further ado, he caught the good doctor in his arms and clamped down on her speeding pulse, biting deep. He allowed her only a minimal awareness of the pain and focused on the pleasure awakening deep inside her body. She began to pant, her blood rising, her passion heating the warm syrup as it bathed his tongue. He pulled her closer to his hard frame, sliding one muscular thigh between her legs and grinding her against him, bringing her to an explosive orgasm as her blood and lust fueled his hungry being.

8

She looked flushed and downright shocked as he put her away from him with a slight bow of thanks. She turned crimson as she realized her friends and their husbands had just watched her achieve a fast, explosive orgasm.

“Thank you, Doctor. Now I will attend your patient.” With another curt bow, Sebastian lifted her and placed her down behind him in the small room. He hovered over Christina’s pale form for a moment, touching her cheek with his fingertips. Her eyelashes fluttered, but she didn’t wake. He looked at the mass of tubes running here and there, and started to disconnect the I.V. There would be nothing going into her body but his rich blood, and not through an I.V.

Jena came up on the other side of the small bed and turned off some of the monitors, helping him disentangle Christina from the tubes.

“If you hadn’t just bitten me, I’d wonder if I was going insane.” She was shaking her head, obviously bemused by the rapid and startling flow of events, but still game to try and save her friend.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her.”

“Do it now, Sebastian.” Marc stepped forward. Sebastian looked up to see the last remaining monitors begin to flash alarmingly. “Doctor, if you would watch the door to keep any of your colleagues from entering?”

Jena went to the door and Sebastian sat at Christina’s side. He let one hand trail down her cheek as he moved closer, savoring her soft skin and delicate scent. She was almost gone. He could feel it.

Using one long finger, partially transformed into a sharp claw, he slit his wrist and held it to her mouth. He had to massage her throat to help her swallow. For long minutes he watched her drink from him, the color slowly returning to her cheeks, but he knew she was not out of the woods yet. The conversion would take all night and she would need more time to heal as well, with such extensive injuries. Even vampires could not heal so quickly from such deep wounds.

9

“I’ve adjusted the paperwork and removed any evidence from her file.” Jena’s familiar voice comforted Christy as she drifted up out of the darkness of unconsciousness. Her mind was muzzy with sleep, or maybe it was drugs. She recognized the smell of the hospital.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

The second voice was deep and richly masculine. Christy didn’t quite understand her reaction to it. Hearing that particular male voice felt like a caress in her mind. In a split second of recognition, she knew to whom it belonged.

But why would
he
be here? And where was Jeff? A shiver of alarm coursed down her spine when she thought about her volatile husband, but this man’s presence made her feel somehow safer, though she had no plausible reason for it.

Her heart thrilled at the idea of seeing him again. Tall, dark and mysterious, he’d been in her mind since she’d first seen him at Lissa’s wedding. They’d shared a single dance at that meeting, and one other at Kelly’s wedding a few months later. He’d swept her around both ballrooms like a dream. He’d fired her imagination for months afterward, though she knew those dances were moments out of time, never to be repeated.

“She wakes.” The bed at her side dipped as someone sat down. Christy struggled to open her eyes though they seemed almost glued shut. As her blurry vision cleared, she saw his face.

Sebastian.

He looked so good, his mere presence comforted her starved senses. Had she conjured him from a dream? In reality, they’d only met twice and had barely spoken.

Christy had been uncomfortably aware of her husband, Jeff, watching every move she made for later commentary. Even then, their marriage had been falling apart, and soon after, Jeff had taught her to fear his unpredictable moods. But this all made no sense.

Sebastian had no reason to be at her bedside with such a heart-stopping expression on his handsome face.

“Am I dreaming?” Her weak voice sounded thin, but overall she felt better than she’d expected physically, though mentally she was still fuzzy.

10

“Does this feel like a dream?” Sebastian grasped her hand and squeezed with gentle pressure, but she didn’t have the strength to squeeze back and her entire body hurt.

“Do you remember what happened?” Jena asked from her other side. Christy looked over at her friend, noting the circles under Jena’s kind eyes and the lines of worry on her face. That look brought it all back in a rush. The anger, the fear…the pain. Christy gulped, suppressing a shiver.

“I remember. At least until I blacked out. Where’s Jeff?” Anguish blocked her throat as she remembered the last time she’d seen her husband. She hated the debilitating fear he’d instilled in her. The mere thought of what he’d done—and what he could still do to her—made her quake with apprehension.

“Jeff’s in jail, where he belongs,” Jena was quick to reassure her.

That made sense to her foggy brain, and went a long way toward soothing some of her immediate anxiety, though the fear lived on in her soul. “I saw him being handcuffed and then I remember seeing the grass zooming up at me. I guess I fainted.”

Jena clutched her other hand. “You passed out. The ambulance brought you here and one of the emergency room staff called me.” Tears gathered in Jena’s eyes. It struck Christy because Jena was always so strong. She never showed this much emotion.