Much Ado About Vampires

him.

“Wake up,” he told the woman, placing his hands on her arms and shaking her slightly. “I’m tired of looking at your hips. You will awaken now.”

She said nothing, just lay there, unconscious. He frowned at her, his gaze straying once more to her breasts, down to the curve of her dusty jeans. He would not be attracted to his tormentor.

“Wake up!” he said louder, and shook her again. “If you don’t wake up, I will slap you.”

Her chest rose and fell with a shallow pattern of breathing.

“There are times when I’d give anything to never have been born,” he muttered, staring at her mouth before tapping her on the cheek.

She didn’t move.

He tapped a little harder.

Her forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Ow.”

He smiled. “Are you awake now?”

The frown grew, although her eyes remained shut tight. “No. Go away. I was floating. I want to float again.”

“You’re done floating. Wake up.”

Her eyes screwed up. Just what he needed, a stubborn torturer. “Don’t want to. Want to float.”

“By the saints, woman, that wasn’t floating. I almost killed you.”

Her eyelashes fluttered a little, but remained closed. Color was returning to her cheeks, he noticed, his gaze once again on her mouth. Lips like strawberry cream, he thought, then gave her another little shake. “It’s time for you to wake up now. You’ve floated long enough.”

A little smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “I like your voice. It’s sexy. If I can’t float, talk some more.”

You don’t know what you’re saying. I took too much blood, and almost killed you.

Blood? Oh, yes, I remember that. You’re the vampire who looked like three-day-old roadkill.

Alec jerked backward. She couldn’t have just done what he thought she had done . . . could she? Only Beloveds or someone with a close family tie could do that, and lord knew, his family and Beloved died out centuries ago.

Thanks to you , I no longer look like roadkill, he said, eyeing her.

That’s good. She stretched and opened her eyes.

“Oh, pretty,” the woman said, reaching up to touch his face. “I always wanted to have green eyes.”

You shouldn’t. You have lovely dark eyes. They’re very exotic. What the hell was going on here? Why was she able to talk to him this way? It made no sense, unless the fact that he had been so close to death and she had fed him had established a blood bond.

They’re plain old brown. She blinked a couple of times, her eyes widening, surprise and no little amount of wariness filling her mind. “Uh . . . how did you do that?”

“I don’t know.” He examined her face again, finding its delicate lines more pleasing with every perusal. “I don’t recognize you, yet you seem familiar somehow.”

“Maybe we knew each other in a past life,” she joked, rolling herself up to a sitting position.

As soon as she spoke, she froze, staring at him with huge, horrified eyes.

“What is wrong with you? ” he asked, not used to women gawking at him as if he were a monstrous beast.

“Vampire,” she whispered, tickling a memory in the back of his mind.

He saw again the pooled light from the front of his house in California as it spilled onto the tiled front walk, remembered the three women who had too much to drink, and had evidently picked his house to visit. He remembered also the woman who took one look at him, screamed, “Vampire!” and fainted at his feet. “You were at my house a couple of months ago, weren’t you?”

“Oh my god, I didn’t recognize you.” The woman tried to backpedal, to crawl backward, but the boulder was in the way. All she did was succeed in plastering herself up against it. “I didn’t realize it was you, or I wouldn’t have—”

“Wouldn’t have what? ” he asked, his eyes narrowing. “Tortured me? Dragged me back to awareness? Made my life once again an endless cycle of damnation ? ”

“Fed you,” she said, making Alec shake his head.

“Where do you know me from?” he asked, not believing her pretense of innocence.

“I saw you kill a woman,” she said, glancing to her right, obviously weighing up the chances of her success escaping him.

“Slim to none if I didn’t want you to,” he told her, and smiled, making her press herself back against the rock as he leaned forward, catching again her scent of wildflowers. “And at this moment, I don’t want you to leave. What woman?”

Her mouth dropped open a smidgen. He couldn’t resist rubbing his thumb over her lower lip, gently pushing it upward until she glared at him, brushing away his hand.

“You mean you’ve killed so many you don’t know which one?”

He shrugged. “I’ve killed a couple of reapers when it was them or me, yes. Are you with the Brotherhood?”

“No, I’m a lapsed Catholic,” she answered, her gaze moving over him. You look better. Your color is back, and you look even more handsome than I imagined. You’re downright simmering with sensuality, as a matter of fact. Just being close to you makes me dizzy with all sorts of emotions that I really do not want to have.

His eyebrows rose a little at the candor of her inner monologue. I didn’t think I was particularly simmering, but I will admit that despite your actions, you intrigue me sexually.

Her eyes got huge again as she blushed. “Oh my god, you could hear that?”

“Of course.”

“Even the bit about me being dizzy?”

“Even that.” He frowned. “You appear embarrassed. Why would you project to me if you did not wish me to hear your thoughts?”

“I didn’t project! My brain just thought those things up without my permission.”

He gave a mental headshake. Surely she didn’t expect him to fall for that?

“I think I’d better leave.” She got to her feet, immediately staggering into him, her legs buckling beneath her.

“You’re too weak yet,” Alec said, catching her before she toppled over. He could feel her head swim with lack of blood. “You lost too much blood. Why didn’t you stop me before I took too much?”

She let him push her back down onto the ground, gently guiding her head down between her knees. “I didn’t know you didn’t have an auto stop when you were full up.”

“I do, but replenishing all the blood I lost would have killed you. What is your name?”

“Cora. Corazon Ferreira. Do you know my sister?”

“Corazon,” he said, rolling the word around his mouth. It meant “heart,” a fitting name for a woman who was so determined to stab him in his. “Spanish?”

“Hispanic. Mom and Dad came from Chihuahua. The place, not the dogs, of course. What . . . er . . . what is your name? Patsy never told me.”

“Patsy? Ah, my former neighbor. I’m Alec. How did you know I was a Dark One?”

“Dammit!” she snapped, looking irritated.

“Pardon? ”

“‘Alec’ is one of my favorite men’s names! Now you’ve gone and ruined it for me.”

What a very strange woman she was, not at all like a tormentor. Those big eyes, and that delicate face, and a mouth that was starting to hold an unholy fascination for him . . . and then there was the rest of her. He grew hard thinking about the rest of her. With an effort, he focused his attention on the maddening, desirable woman before him. “You’re deranged, aren’t you?”