Forbidden Days (The Firsts) (34 page)

She turned to him, her eyes lifting to him, and following his face down as he kneeled in front of her.

“I’m fine.  I just…got an awakening last night…I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it. I’m…” she hesitated.  “I’m vampire.”

“You’re first blood.  That’s different apparently.”

“Not as different as you might think.  I’m changing…from what I was.  Cherise says I’ve reached first blood maturity, where growing and aging stop.”  Her eyes shined with moisture.  “I can’t tolerate sunlight anymore.  I wasn’t prepared for that.”

“What happened?”

“Last night, I felt restless…a lot happening.  So I went to the balconies and stepped out to watch the sunrise.  It’s always been one of my favorite moments of the day.  I burned, Bas, my skin started to blister.”

“Oh, baby.  Yeah, then, you’re done with that.  It’s classic vampire reaction.  I didn’t know if you would be like us.  I thought maybe you were different.  Your human half protected you.”

“Well, it doesn’t.  Thank god for Cherise.  No one else told me.”

“Park, I’m not sure anyone else knows what to expect.  You are sort of new.  But it’s going to be okay.  Aren’t you happy with your new life here with me?”

She sat forward and grabbed his shoulders.  “Oh, yes, Bas, I’m happier than I’ve ever been, you know that.  This is just such an adjustment.  But don’t think I’m unhappy with my life.  I’m overjoyed to have found my father, my family.  And I’m deeply in love with you, in case you don’t know that yet.  This is a small thing in the long run.  I realize that now.  So many wonderful things surpass the beauty of a sunrise.  Forgive me for my maudlin display of nostalgia.”

“I would forgive you anything.  And in case you haven’t guessed …I’m madly in love with you, too.  So, I’ll be maudlin with you and show you something else that you will love.  Come along.”

He grasped her hand and pulled her up to move along the corridor to the end, turned right toward the center of the large house, and to the stairwell.

“If you’re truly vampire, you should be able to move in hyper-speed.   We’ll practice later.  Right now, I’m going to carry you down these steps.”

He picked her up and had her down two flights in seconds, two floors below their sleeping quarters.  She was a little winded, more from the exhilaration than the exertion.  Bas wasn’t affected at all.

He set her down and took her hand.  “Come here.”

Large double doors led into a huge room with a tall curved ceiling and stadium style seating facing a large movie screen.  Ambient lighting created a gentle glow all along the perimeter of the room.  Bas pulled her up front, sat her down and grabbed a black box perched on a pedestal.  He sat down beside her, smiling.

“Behold the magic.”

The lights dimmed, Bas looked through a menu for a moment and the screen lit up.   Before her eyes, a stunning sunrise over a rolling ocean filled her view, the sound of the waves moving, then crashing against the shore, birds calling, resonated from in front of her and behind.

“Oh, Bas…” was all she said.  The image was in such high definition, the sound so pure, she felt like she was there, at this moment, with Bas beside her.

“There’s nothing I can’t give you.  It’s a nearly perfect life.  You are immortal, too.  So we have a lot of amazing centuries ahead of us.  Imagine, Park…you will see our children and our children’s children, all their own futures…you’ll be there for them.  It’s a gift, like you told Bernie…uh, Burne.”

“It is.  Eternal youth, an extraordinarily long life, a chance to learn the right way to live.  I wonder if we ever get it right?”

“Endless years, endless choices.  Endless ways to get it right.  Endless ways to fuck it up.  We may be vampire, but we’re still very, very human too.  We never get to perfect, Park.  That’s perhaps the most unnatural thing of all.”

“I think you’re right.  Okay, I’m over losing the little things.  I still have earth and sky, and I get to have it a lot longer now.  That isn’t a loss.  And I get to have you for a number of years that would terrify most men.  I hope you can love me until the twelfth of never.”

“I think I can love you until the end of time.  Just let me have a chance to prove it.”

Bas kissed her then, like it was the first, like I was the last, enough to prove what he just said.

“Did I tell you?  These seats recline.”

He dropped a lever and her seat went almost flat.  He gave her a look, she gave him a look, and with ocean waves crashing on the screen, they made love in front of a scene right out of a movie appropriately titled
From Here to Eternity
.

144

Chapter TWENTY-TWO

Naked, still damp, Zach stood in the middle of his room looking at his old driver’s license photo, lost in memories of his life before this happened.   His job, which he really
had
loved, his friends he’d been very close with, fraternity brothers he’d likely never see again.  He let the sadness roll in as he looked at the man he used to be.  Suddenly, the door swung open with an insistent crash.  Dez stood there, breathing hard.  He glanced up and stared at her.  She stared back.  A few moments passed and he turned to face her, slowly started toward her.  Her eyes wandered up and down his body, locked on each section lingeringly as he passed by.   Eventually she returned to his eyes.

“I won’t be staying.  Here.  In Vancouver.”

He nodded his head.  “So?”

“I don’t stay in one place very long.  I’ve rarely had the same lover twice in over two hundred years.”

“Okay…”

“I just want you to know that.  If I fuck you, that’s all it is.”

“Okay.  Never asked for anything else.”

“Yeah, but…you’re used to women falling for you.  I won’t.  You understand?  You good with that?”

Zach walked up to her, the muscles in his thighs distracting her…the generous package between them…

“I’m good with that.”

“And…” he was closer and she was losing her train of thought.  “And…”

He was close enough to grab her around the neck and haul her to him.  His kiss was like an attack, quick and devastating.  Dez groaned.  How did this
new
vampire do this to her?  Everyone knew she was a hard-ass.  She played everything her own way.  Always.  By her rules only.  She wanted him.  Had from the beginning.  She didn’t
want
to want him.  He didn’t mean anything to her.

She pulled back, but he held tight.

“It’s just a quick fuck,” she repeated.  “It doesn’t mean anything beyond that.”

“A quick fuck.  Got it.  The fuck…absolutely.  We’ll see how quick.”

Zach swept her up and crossed to the bed quicker than human, laid her down gently and ripped off her shirt.  She was wearing nothing underneath.  Zach stared.  Those breasts…he wanted his mouth on them more than anything right now, with a long journey planned traveling down from them to the center of her sex…to that place where he would claim her…and they’d damn well see if this was just a fuck!

He pushed her back, slid his hands under her hips to remove her skirt, flinging it across the room until it landed on a chandelier.  Dez smiled.

“You’re going to have to jump for that later tonight.”

“Then I’d better save my strength.  I should go to bed right now.”

Her little lace thong disappeared in shreds and he lifted her hips again to touch her in that place just perfectly designed for his tongue.  Dez bucked upward to meet him.  Zach crawled up her body and started at her breasts, perfect globes that fit perfectly in his hands, the tips already erect, waiting for attention.  He felt his body respond as he moved across her.   She grabbed him in her fingers and tugged.

“Even for a vampire, I have to tell you.  That’s an amazing cock.”

“I don’t plan you forget that.  That comment about not having sex with the same man twice…I’m going to make you want to tattoo my name on your thighs so everyone knows who owns what lies between them.”

Then he kissed her again,  and she felt lightheaded, like this was a bad idea, because  she’d been lying to herself as well as to him…
oh, hell, it meant something!
She rolled him over and sat up on him.

“I want your mouth on me.  I want it all over me.  But right now I want you inside me.  I want to feel you come.”

She slipped back and grabbed him in her hand, then pulled, tugging and massaging the full head until she slipped forward and slid down over him, his firm length filling her.  Why did it feel so much more amazing than ever before?  It was just a good fuck..okay, a
great
fuck.  Nothing she hadn’t felt a million times before.  But it did.  It felt like she was where she belonged, and that she never wanted to leave him.  That she was home.  She rode him, hard, relentlessly, until they both came so hard, the entire huge bed shuttered, and Dez saw those fucking stars they mention in those asinine romantic comedy films.  She collapsed against him and neither moved for endless minutes.

Eventually, he wrapped his arms around her and rolled her on her side, rolling against her.  He kissed her again, and tasted saltiness.  Pulling back, he looked at her.

“Dez?  Are you crying?  Are you upset?  Talk to me, baby.”

Baby. 
Baby?
  She did not do endearments.  She was an emotionless bitch, famous for love ‘em and leave ‘em.  She didn’t know what to do with this.  With him.  She just had to get out of here, back to her normal life, back to South America.  She’d forget him and be herself again.  God, she didn’t want this.  She didn’t believe in love, not after all the lousy relationships she’d suffered her first fifty years.  Not going back there.  Zach.  He was just a fluke.

She got up abruptly.  Grabbed a charcoal gray shirt he’d left lying on a bench at the foot of the bed and slid it on.   She turned and smiled at him.   “Well, I got what I wanted.  That’s it, out of my system.  Okay.  Have a good life, Zach.”  Then she left so quickly, she never gave him a chance to respond.

He laid there stunned for a moment, running his hand over his sticky penis that still smelled of her.  He smiled.   She was afraid of him.  He hadn’t been a skilled attorney without being able to tell when someone was desperate to avoid something.  She couldn’t face what she felt…couldn’t conceive of loving him.  It would take some time, but he would have her.  She was already his, just didn’t know it yet.

It was time.  Alvin had used up all the patience he could afford.  Final count, according to the increasingly hostile Shanks was forty eight vampires, mostly brand new, but that couldn’t be helped.  Alvin knew he would never have found older vampires who would have complied with his vampire purge.  One hundred and two blood-bonds, also new, but better fighters than compels, who were nothing more than human.  Over a hundred compels, just to create bodies to deflect some of the vampires in Bas’s  stronghold.  It would have to do.  He wanted Bas, most of all, but the mission was to kill as many vampires as possible.    And Bas’s woman.  If it had been possible, he would have liked to have captured her.  Not realistic, though.

Still, there was much to be gained for his cause with the attack.  The loss of his forces would be irrelevant…he could build more later.  He conceded his goal of eliminating vampires altogether would take a lot of time.  He’d have to rebuild his patience after this battle.  This attack, though, was more than killing vampires.  It was killing the ones who let her die.  They deserved this fate.  Alvin felt bile build up in his throat.  Bas deserved to die.

He lifted the elaborately carved sword high and struck a pose.  Victory belonged to the just.  In this case, there is no doubt…it was Alvin.  Sweet, sweet revenge.

“Enjoy your last meal and your last fuck, vampire.  Tomorrow night, you will be gone from this world.  You will be exactly where your kind should always have been.  As soon as the mission were finished, he’d kill Shanks.  A bitter pill, he’d had such plans for his first vampire convert.  But the bastard had reveled in his inhumanity.  He needed killing almost as much as Bas.  Sighing, Alvin picked up his list.  So much to do to be ready.  But tomorrow night, they would attack.  There was a flutter of excitement in his gut…the thrill of finally achieving his goal.

He wondered if he could get a chocolate milkshake before bed.

Shanks figured they were as ready as they’d ever be.  Little else to be done.  The frantic little chipmunk guy was running around like someone was going to cut his head off.  Oh, wait…that was likely to happen.  Oh, well.  He had his teams trained, entry points assigned, weapons assigned, and everyone ready to go on his command.  All that remained for Shanks now was to get a big hard on, a hot girl, some warm blood…in that order.  He grinned to himself as he reached into his pants and began his pre-battle entertainment.  Alvin was going to die tomorrow night…

Eugene was putting it all on for his extraordinary guests.  All the residents of Bas’s household were in culinary heaven.   Food never stopped coming, new and exciting dishes they’d never tasted before.  It seemed that having royalty was a very, very nice thing.

At breakfast, Eillia convinced Koen to put off the blood feast for Bas until this battle was resolved.  Koen sulked a little, but he did agree the timing might not be the best.

“I will take you all back to France, then we will do this.  It must be done.”

Bas nodded.  “I’ve agreed to it.  But I can’t be out of service if we’re attacked.  I appreciate your understanding.”

Koen growled.  “Just get me some more of those stupid cinnamon rolls.  They’re incredible.”

Jake came in and asked Bas to consult on new intel.   “We’ve locked in on the b and b.  It
is
their base.  I’m going to go over and do some surveillance tonight.  Take a crew, see if we can find out who the leader of the pack happens to be.”

Koen stood up.  “No.  Just take me.  I can take care of the lot of them for you.”