Wombstone (The Vampireland Series) (16 page)

“How's your back?”
 

“It's pretty sore. I've been using the heat pack you got me ... aren't I supposed to heal fast or something?”
 

Ryan pressed his lips together, concerned. “You have to drink the blood. Otherwise, you're going to get sick. Sicker than you are now. And your back won’t heal, either.”
 

I clamped my mouth shut like a little kid. “Mmm–mph.”
 

“Mia, Sam is different. Even as a newborn vampire, he drank a lot of blood. He was insatiable. His fucking nickname was The Ripper. You need to drink.”
 

“There has to be another way,” I said stubbornly.
The Ripper? Sam?

“There's not. Do I have to force you?”
 

I narrowed my eyes. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?”
 

“No, I would not like it. I would like you dying even less, though …”
 

Well, what was I supposed to say to that?
 

“Turn around,” he said.
 

“Why?!”
 

“Forget the blood for a while. Let's talk about it later. Do you want me to try and make your back feel better?”

“How?”
 

“I'll massage it a little. I promise I won't try and make you drink blood.”
 

“Fine.” I turned around, still watching the television while Ryan’s strong fingers started pressing into my skin. A draft of air was getting into the room from somewhere, and I felt goose bumps rise on my bare arms.

I looked to the coffee table, realizing the wine bottle Ivy had given me was empty. Had I really drank that much? On an empty stomach? It was like I couldn’t get enough of it. I was feeling kind of woozy, but more than that, I was sorely disappointed that there was no more.
 

Was there blood already in the wine? Was that why it was so intoxicating?

“Mmm,” I said, relaxing my tensed shoulders. I closed my eyes. Ryan was an
excellent
masseuse.

What happened next took both of us by surprise. I breathed deeper as a delightful warmth spread through me, from where Ryan’s fingers touched my skin all the way to the tips of my own fingers and toes. A vague feeling of concern was replaced by invisible threads that pulled at me, urging me to get closer to him, to feel that warmth even better. Dreamily, I turned around to face Ryan. Our eyes met for one fiery minute, and then the unthinkable happened.
 

We kissed.

I don’t know who kissed who. It just happened, out of
nowhere
.

Even as I pressed my mouth against his, I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell I was doing. This was Ryan. The bad guy. And all I wanted to do was rip my clothes off and jump him.

“Ryan,” I breathed nervously between kisses. “What are you doing?” I was terrified. What was happening here? A voice in my head screamed
Stop
, but that voice was drowned out by something else much more powerful, a primal hunger that rose from the depths of my stomach and coiled around me the way my fingers coiled around Ryan’s shoulders.

After a few moments, Ryan pushed me away and looked at me with urgency.

“Are you … drunk?” he asked in a voice barely above a whisper, tracing a line down my bare arm with his fingers.
 

I giggled. “I think so. Are you?”

He seemed to struggle with that for a moment, looking from me to the bottle of wine and back again. I leaned forward, arching towards him, and pulled him hard against me, surprising us both with my urgency. His lips were warm and the faint taste of what had been mixed with his wine sparked a thirst in me that needed to be quenched. Without thinking, I bit down on his tongue and moaned as I tasted the same sweet, coppery substance that had brought me back from the dead. I sucked greedily, utterly disappointed when he pulled away.

He drew back. “Your bloodlust is starting,” he said warily.
 

I shrugged. “I don’t need a running commentary,” I replied matter–of–factly, emboldened by this new feeling that was making me act like a rabid animal.
 

He pushed away again, and I met his gaze steadily. I could feel the way my eyes burned, the way I longed for what was in his veins as well as the flesh that contained it.
 

This is it. I really am a vampire.
My final acceptance of what I had become was both exhilarating and devastating.

Ryan appeared to be having an internal struggle. I didn’t know why, but he kept looking around, to the empty wine bottle, the rest of the room, and back to me. I wasn’t patient, though, and I wasn’t gentle. My nails gouged his olive flesh, and it took every ounce of self–restraint I possessed to stop myself from pressing deep enough to draw blood.

“I should take you somewhere,” he said, to himself more than to me, but it appeared that the bloodlust I was experiencing was also affecting his ability to act rationally. I could almost read his thoughts, could see the change in his expression as he gave in to his own desire and stopped resisting my embrace.
 

As his mouth crashed into mine I thought of Jared’s sweet face and tender mouth and for one rational moment, sadness engulfed me.
 

What the hell was I doing!?

I pushed those thoughts away. They were worthless now, discarded scraps of the person I used to be. I couldn’t feel like this and be safe with Jared – more importantly, Jared couldn’t be safe with me. Not with this thirst. Not with this hunger. I could rip Ryan limb from limb and it wouldn’t bother me, and he even deserved it, but I couldn’t risk going home and doing that to someone I loved.
 

“You are so beautiful,” Ryan said firmly, planting kisses down my neck.
 

“Why did you take me?” I asked suddenly. “Why me? Why not someone else?”

“I did what I was told,” he replied, his kisses slowing but not stopping completely.

As his lips grazed my healed neck, Jared's face swam in my mind. “What about
Jared
?” I whispered his name, and it gave me the strength to push Ryan away.
 

At the mention of Jared, Ryan drew back, a pained expression on his face. I wiped my neck and my mouth with my palm, suddenly devastated.
 

Nobody spoke. The muted TV continued to glimmer, the only light in the room. The lust and hunger swirled around my chest like a poison that could only be chased away with blood.

“I know you'll try to go back to him,” Ryan said finally. “We all try to go back to our human life. But you'll see – he won't understand.”
 

“I won't tell him,” I answered numbly, the red haze around me becoming a little less intense. “He doesn't have to know.”
 

Ryan smiled knowingly. “And your unending youth? Your eating habits? Your blood thirst? Your infertility?”
 

Ouch.
 

I stared at the TV screen while he kept going. “What about your new routine? Not to mention, were you thinking of moving in with him, with all that blood in your refrigerator? Acting like
this
whenever you get hungry?”
 

He was right. My cheeks burned with the knowledge that he was right.
 

He took my hands, and I didn't struggle. “I hate you,” I said, my throat thick with emotion. “I could
never
love you. You’re
nothing
compared to him.” My words were a little slurred from the alcohol, the heat rising in my cheeks equal parts red wine and rage.
 

He hugged me to his chest, and for a moment I closed my eyes and thought of nothing else except the sound of our hearts thudding against our ribcages. My eighteen–year–old heart, and his eight–hundred–year–old heart, yet they both sounded the same. “People think the opposite of hate is love. It's not. Hate and love are so close, and you know why? Passion. The opposite of love isn't hate. They’re closer than you think.”
 

At that moment we could have been any young couple, entwined in front of a movie on a Friday night. If I closed my eyes, he could have been Jared, except Jared was warm and loving and Ryan was cold and chillingly cruel. And if I wished hard enough I could almost believe that I was still me; but the real
me
wouldn’t feel like this.

“He'll always be afraid of you,” Ryan said solemnly. “He won't understand what you are.”
 

I swallowed thickly, thrilled and frightened. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the small amount of blood I’d tasted when I bit Ryan’s tongue, but for the first time since I had awoken from death, I felt
alive.

“I'll never leave you,” he murmured in my ear, sensing me relax as I stopped fighting him. “I'll never be afraid of you.” He covered my mouth with his, and I was falling, falling into an abyss that I did not want to resist.
 

Stop. You have to stop.
But I ignored the voice of reason in my head. I couldn’t stop.

“Ryan,” I breathed. “Are you inside my mind?” Hot hands crawled under my sundress and tugged my underwear down, until cotton slipped over my ankles and was discarded. I pulled at his shirt, lifting it up and over his head.

What I had really meant to ask was:
Are you making me feel like this? Are you compelling me?

“No”. Firm hands picked me up effortlessly, and without a second thought I gripped my legs around Ryan’s firm waist.
 

This is a bad idea. This is the bad guy!
But the voice of reason was swiftly drowned by the blood–red heat of desire. It was exactly the same feeling that I had experienced with the blood in the refrigerator – an all–consuming need that engulfed every sense and silenced any reasonable thought I might have had.

He dropped me onto the dining table and in one motion slid his jeans and boxers off. I leaned back on my elbows, still kissing that mouth with such hunger, it scared me. It was like I wanted to devour him all at once. Like I wanted
him
to devour
me
.

He gripped the small of my back, slipping into me in one sure movement, and then it was too late to turn back. I kissed his neck, his mouth, anything I could get close to with my impatient mouth . The rhythmic movement of his bare skin on mine felt good. Really good. Better than anything I’d felt in months and months. I had only ever been with one other guy before – Jared – and I struggled to associate how the same act could be so violently opposite to what I’d experienced in the past. There was no love here, no romance – it was purely physical.
Deliciously
physical. I eyed his collarbone, moving my mouth towards his soft skin, imagining how good it would taste if I just bit down and drank.
 

But in an instant, everything changed. I gasped as I was beaten to the punch, sharp teeth pinching at
my
neck. I felt anger as my skin broke open like paper. I tried to protest as warm blood oozed from my jugular. Suddenly, any desire I had felt was washed away by revulsion.
 

The room spun as my blood was siphoned off. The pressure of my blood pulsing into his hungry mouth overwhelmed me. It hurt, like someone had taken a blunt razor and scraped it across my skin and then put an industrial vacuum cleaner onto my exposed artery. And it hurt more because he was taking the one thing I wanted; the one thing I didn’t have enough of; the one thing I had been about to take from him.
 

My elbows went from under me and I sank backwards, laying rigid on the table, my dark lover bent over me. I pulled my neck to the side, trying to disengage his teeth from my skin, but the pain caused by my movement made me gag. I stopped struggling and laid perfectly still, salt water stinging at the edges of my eyes. A horrible dragging feeling scraped through the middle of me. When Caleb had bitten me, he had taken some part of me along with my blood. It had been like a little piece of my soul, torn off in a messy chunk and yanked through me until it belonged to him. But what Ryan was taking from me – it seemed as if he wanted
everything
. It felt like he was ripping my entire
being
out of my body, along with my blood, and claiming my life force for himself. And he was enjoying every minute of it.

Please stop please stop you’re hurting me …

He must have taken my stillness as compliance because soon he was sucking harder, until black spots appeared in my vision and I felt myself fading into unconsciousness. Then he shuddered, collapsing on top of me. It hurt almost as much when he pulled his teeth from my neck as it had when he bit into it.   
 

Thank God.
It was over. He had taken everything and left me an empty shell, but at least that dragging feeling had finally ceased. At least that animal part of me had been weakened enough to slither away, dormant, and I could think semi–logically once more.

“Off,” I wheezed, pushing my palms against the crushing weight on top of me. “Off, off, off!” I started to hyperventilate, taking tiny little puffs of air.

He apparently wasn’t listening. “Ryan!” I said, this time very forcefully. “I can’t breathe, get off!”

“Vampires don’t need to breathe,” he murmured, but he slid off of me and went searching for his clothes.
 

I sat up and moved to the edge of the table, still catching my apparently non–essential breath. It had all happened so fast, I hadn’t even taken my clothes off. I looked down, horrified to see my white cotton dress stained with fresh blood – my blood.

“You fucking idiot!” I said, clutching my neck with my hands. “Did you have to bite me?” I looked around, noticing my blood splattered on the floor and smeared across the dining table. I had seen so much blood in the past weeks, it no longer affected me very much. But that didn’t change the fact that my neck was burning as it continued to weep.

Ryan ignored me, buttoning his jeans at a leisurely pace. I was about to yell at him again when I realized he wasn’t paying attention. He looked … stricken; with rage or confusion, I couldn’t be sure.