Enraptured (32 page)

“I don’t.”

“I see.” Ronan looked toward Brian. “Will
you be able to help her with this?”

“With a description I might be able to,”
Brian replied.

“What will that do?” Ian inquired.

Brian dropped his arm off of the pickup and
stood away from it. “You have your secrets Purebred, and I have
mine.” He turned to Paige. “You’ll have to let me know what he
looks like.”

“I can do better than that, I’ll draw you a
picture of him.”

Brian stared at her, seeming to size her up.
“Make sure this is what you want.”

“It is,” Paige said emphatically. “I’ll
never be able to start a new life…” She looked up at Ian and
pressed her hand against his chest. “
We’ll
never be able to
start a new life while he remains out there.”

“I agree,” Brian replied. “But make sure you
want to be there when it all unfolds.”

“I have to be.”

Brian nodded before stepping away from her.
“Get me that drawing, and I’ll do my best to help you.”

Ian stared curiously at Brian as he walked
away. The man had always been a bit of a mystery, but there were
far more layers to him than Ian had realized. “So I assume the
change will take place tonight,” Ronan said.

“Jeez you’re in a rush to see me dead,”
Paige muttered, her head tilted back to look up at Ian. “But I’m
ready if you are.”

Relief filled him, he crushed her against
him and held her close.

Paige found herself all alone in the motel room
while Ian went to feed in preparation for her impending change. She
paced the room, uncertain of what to do. What was someone supposed
to do when faced with their impending death?

She finally settled on pulling out the pad
and pencils Ian had bought for her. She flipped past the pictures
of the cabin she’d drawn, the surrounding woods, mythological
creatures, and one of Ian sitting on the porch with his legs on the
banister, before finding a blank page.

In order to get her mind off of her
impending death, she put the pencil to paper and began to draw the
image of her father forever etched into her mind. Her fingers shook
as she worked, but she forced herself to push onward, to get it
done. Her stomach turned as she realized just how much his hated
face reminded her of her own. She tried not to think about it as
she sketched in the cheekbones and chin.

Holding the pad away from her to study it
better, she was greeted with the heavily masculine version of her
face staring back at her. His eyes were brown; she’d at least
gotten her eye color from her mother, his hair was lighter in
color, but there was no denying this man was her father, and his
DNA had factored heavily into her creation.

She shuddered and tossed the pad on the bed.
Her skin crawled; she had to get as far from his image as possible.
Striding to the other side of the room, she fiddled with the sink
and toiletries set out around it. She knew Aiden and David stood
outside the door, watching over her in case her father or any of
his cohorts were in the area. She couldn’t bring herself to go and
talk with them. This wanting to be alone, and yet unable to be
alone was the strangest sensation.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to think about
it for long as the door to their room opened and Ian stepped
inside. He’d only been gone for a couple of hours, but it had felt
like a day. The healthy glow of his skin, and the aura surrounding
him told her he’d fed well, something that would have made her want
to destroy him only a couple of weeks ago. Now she knew he hadn’t
hurt anyone, and he’d done this for her.

Tears burned her eyes, she hadn’t realized
how much she’d missed him until seeing him now. Without hesitation,
she ran across the room and threw her arms around his waist. The
force of her hitting him caused him to rock back on his heels.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“I missed you,” she breathed.

He pulled her closer against him and bent
his head to nuzzle her ear. “I missed you too, but when the bond is
complete we’ll be able to communicate and sense each other. We’ll
never be separated again. You’ll never have to feel like this
again.”

It sounded so strange and yet so oddly
appealing. She pressed closer against him, inhaling the scent of
the mountain air clinging to his clothes. Holding him, she knew she
didn’t want to wait a second more to be joined with him for an
eternity. “I can’t wait, Ian. I have to do this, now.”

“I know it’s frightening…”

“No, it’s not that.” Her mind traveled to
the drawing lying on the other bed. “I’m ready to move on, with
you.”

The warmth of his breath tickled her skin.
She could live another thousand years and never get used to what
his arms and kiss made her feel like. It was easy to lose herself
to the touch and feel of him. The erotic sensations he aroused in
her body with his hands and tongue made it easy to forget this
would all lead to her impending death. He’d told her that her heart
would stop beating, she would die, but she felt no dread of that as
his body moved over hers and within hers.

Turning her neck to the side, a sigh of
contentment escaped her when his fangs pierced her skin. The
fulfillment he experienced while feeding from her caused a cry of
ecstasy to escape her. His love beat against her, ensnaring her in
a cocoon of serenity she never wanted to break free of.

Her fingers dug into his back, they raked
over his skin as his ecstasy crashed through her. She didn’t have
fangs, not yet, but she bit down on his shoulder hard enough to
draw blood in an attempt to stifle her cries. A growl of pleasure
escaped him; his hand clenched in her hair. He held her while her
blood filled him. Pleasure continued to extinguish all fear within
her, even when her heart skipped a beat and then two.

The warm trail of her blood slid over her
skin, down her back, and onto his hands when he pulled away from
her. “Stay with me, Paige,” he whispered in her ear.

She thought she told him she would never
leave him, but she couldn’t be sure her mouth opened. A ringing
began in her ears as her heart continued its odd, stuttering beat.
Then she felt the warmth of his wrist pressing against her mouth.
Something coppery and delicious dripped onto her tongue and slipped
down her throat. It took only a second for her to recognize it was
his blood filling her. She could feel the strength of his blood
stealing in to replace the weakness holding her body immobile.

A slight mewl escaped her, it was the only
sound she could make as her heart turned over in her chest and
broke free of the arteries connecting it to her body, or at least
that’s what it felt like. Then, it just stopped completely. A gasp
escaped her, she lost all control of her body as it went completely
rigid upon the bed. Cold and immobile, she felt like a cadaver,
then she realized with an air of almost detached and insane
amusement, that she was. Ian held her against his chest as his
blood continued to fill her mouth and trickle down her throat. She
couldn’t swallow anymore, she had no control over any of those
muscles either.

Has something gone wrong?
She
wondered frantically as her body remained stiff. Is this what
really happened when a person died? Their body went beyond their
control, but their mind contained all awareness? It was the most
horrific thought she’d ever had, but now that it had taken root,
she couldn’t shake it.

Feeling burst back over with an agony so
intense there was no way she could think she was dead anymore. She
was very much alive and wishing she wasn’t. A scream built within
her throat and would have torn free of her, if Ian’s wrist hadn’t
still been pressed against her mouth. Hot pokers of fire pressed
everywhere over her flesh and dug into her sandpaper raw nerve
endings. She bit down so vehemently on his wrist she drew blood
from the wound that had already healed. It was her human teeth
biting at him, but the fresh wave of warm blood caused a feeding
frenzy within her body that reminded her of piranhas churning at
the top of the water in search of food.

She clawed at the arm pressed against her,
needing more blood and more of him. Her feet kicked against the bed
as misery and hunger drove her to the edge of madness. She’d been
warned, but she hadn’t expected this animalistic need, this
insatiable
thirst. She wanted to tear the flesh away from
him and drink every drop of sweet blood pulsing through his
veins.

The sensation of someone taking a knife to
her back and slicing open her spine gripped her. Her back arched
off of the bed, and another scream strangled against Ian’s wrist.
She tried to cry, but nothing filled her eyes. All she could do was
scream, and thrash, and fight against his imprisoning hold.

Ian clung to her as she battered more
violently against his hold. Sorrow filled his heart; he pressed his
lips against her temple to try and soothe her in some small way.
Sweat coated her flushed skin; it stuck her hair to her forehead
and cheeks. “It’s almost over,” he whispered fervently in ear.
“It’s almost over.”

He hoped those words were true. He knew the
transformation didn’t last long, but how long this would continue,
he didn’t know. Cradling her against him, he winced as her human
teeth tore at the flesh of his wrist. She shredded through his skin
and scraped against his bone as she eagerly gulped his blood. He
would gladly open every vein in his body in order to ease a
fraction of what she was going through.

He gritted his teeth as her fingers tore at
his arms, spilling more blood. The mingled scents of sex and blood
filling the air would have excited him at any other point, now the
only thing he cared about was her. She bit down again, but this
time fangs pierced into him.

His eyes flew open, he inhaled sharply as
the strangest sensations of relief, possession, and then pleasure
slid through him. Her fangs remained imbedded inside of him as she
drank from his vein in greedy pulls. Arousal slid through him, his
own fangs lengthened and pressed against her neck again, but he
didn’t bite down. This was about her and only her. Everything in
his life was about her now, he realized. It had been since he’d
first met her, and it would be until the day he died.

She was still in pain, but it began to ease
as she gulped his blood. Her pain pulled back from his mind,
allowing him to slip inside to finally feel the pleasure building
within her. Her love for him beat against his mind, it was nearly
overwhelming in its intensity and more than matched what he felt
for her.

Beneath her love for him, he also felt her
terror that something would happen to him because of her, or her
father. All of the horror she’d experienced throughout her life
slipped past the steel walls she’d built around herself. For the
first time he saw her vulnerability, her uncertainty, and the
loneliness that had been her constant companion over the last four
years.

“You’ll never have to go through anything
like that again,” he promised her.

He said the words out loud, but there had
been no need for him to. She could sense all of his thoughts, his
love for her, his willingness to die in order to keep her alive as
the bond between them strengthened and grew. Through the connection
between them, he felt her uncertainty easing. Her happiness swelled
up to beat against him.

“I love you,” he whispered into her
hair.

Her fangs released their hold on him when
she’d finally gotten her full. Her dazed eyes rolled up to meet
his. “I love you too,” she whispered before her eyes closed, and
she passed out against him.

Ian listened to the beat of her heart and
the reassuring pulse of the blood in her veins. He couldn’t stop
staring at her, this woman he’d never expected to find in this
life. This woman who had turned him from a consistent one night
stand man into a one woman man. His desperate need to always be
within someone, to always be moving had eased, and for the first
time in months, he was finally able to just
be
.

He’d never felt so at peace in his life, yet
he couldn’t help but worry about what she would feel upon waking.
He’d seen the fire in her eyes when she’d approached Ronan about
her father. Finding him wasn’t something she was willing to let go
of, not yet anyway. Maybe not ever. The man had to be taken care
of, and Ian had every intention of being the one who took the
bastard down, but he’d wanted her out of it. He knew now that would
be impossible, and she would never forgive him if he tried to keep
her from fulfilling her mission.

He had to keep her safe from the man who had
created her and from herself. He’d found his salvation in her; he
could only hope he’d be enough to help her find hers. Shifting his
hold on her, he curled up beside her and drew her against his chest
and heart, where she would always belong.

***

Ian picked the pad up from the bed; he
frowned at the face staring back at him. There was something about
it…

His head shot up and turned toward the
bathroom door. The beat of the running water drifted to him; he
turned his attention back to the drawing in his hand. He couldn’t
deny who the man staring back at him was. A pit formed in his
stomach as he recognized the face of the vampire he’d fought in the
alley. He’d gladly kill this man for what he’d done to Paige, but
her life couldn’t revolve around death and revenge.

Ian turned toward the door before Ethan
could knock on it. Ethan still had his hand raised in the air when
he opened it. Aiden and David stood behind his shoulder. “At least
you’re awake today,” Ethan commented.

“I am.”

“How did it go?” Aiden inquired, his eyes
flickering behind him.

Ian glanced at the closed bathroom door
before stepping outside to join them. He shut the door behind him.
“It went well enough, it was…”