His smiled shimmered. “You’re going to fit in with us.”
He trailed his fingers to her collarbone, and Dawn shifted, body so needy, so attuned to the only anesthetic she knew.
Then, like clouds in her dream/nightmare, two thoughts wisped by:
Matt.
Jonah.
She tried to bar those out, too. But it was not as easy as a regular mind block, the one that was even now dissipating again while Paul smoothed his palm up, down, up her neck. Heavy motion, sexual, faster, harder, an innuendo making her pulse sweet and thick.
“Don’t look so sad,” he said. “I heard your father is missing. And I know your mom has caused you so much pain. You’ve fought long and hard during such a short life, so why not allow me to lift your burden for a night?”
Looking into the promising dreamscape of his gaze, moving with his rough/tender caresses, she sincerely believed he could make things better, erase all her problems and shine light all over the earth. He promised, and it had to be true.
In the liquid haze of her consciousness, he stopped stroking, his eyes boring into her with genuine care, drawing her to him. Slowly, she offered her neck, her veins pounding against skin, begging to be punctured.
He could take it all away. If he did, maybe everything would be fine.
“Yes?” he asked, eyes brightening, heating.
Her mind block quivered with the struggle of holding. It left the rest of her unguarded, open to what he wanted.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Without pause, his form expanded, beginning the change.
Too late, Dawn opened her mouth to yell, but couldn’t.
With a shuddering rumble, the vampire whipped into himself, just as Robby had, snapping into Danger Form with the violent speed of a storm. Milliseconds later, he was hovering, luminous and piercing to the eye, a breathtaking monster that froze Dawn to the ground even as it lured her to open herself to its bite.
He reached out, the angelic, formless fog that had once been his body revealing all her fantasies. You are loved, the creature’s mist whispered, you are free from sadness.
Yet Paul Aspen, vampire, was not tempting her with solid images as Robby Pennybaker had done: he was luring her with whispers in the dark of light.
On the edge of screaming—at her weakness and her victory—Dawn stiffened just before he laid fang to her throat. He broke her skin with a sinuous pop, sliding into her jugular vein and making her arch and grasp at the dirt.
“Oh, G—” She grabbed at air—freezing, hot, thick, horrifying air.
Her head was pummeled by a million fists punching to get into her brain, hands that cried to sift through every piece of information. And, as the vampire sucked the blood from her, she went dizzy, feeling a part of herself escaping.
Reaching out to grasp anything, everything, she urged her mind block to defend her.
But…it didn’t. Mistake, she’d made the biggest mistake of…
Oh…
He was pulling at her with erotic greed. Instinctively, she pushed at him, but connected with nothing. Her hearing filled with the sounds of his animal frenzy while images of his seduction kept blipping into her:
Beautiful. Goddess. Safe. Loved.
The sky started going black, dimming into midnight and guttering the stars. Energy, life itself, ebbed out of her, bit by bit….
Peace…No…pain…
The breath left her as her eyelids closed.
She didn’t know when the vampire stopped because time didn’t exist anymore. There was quiet in this hovering world, he had been right about that. Blessed blankness.
She felt a touch on her neck. Fingertips, solid, warm with the tapping pulse of her blood in his creature’s body. She felt her wound knit together, still wet and sore.
“Before I say good-bye, sweet Dawn,” he said, voice back to normal, “I want to thank you, even though I didn’t drink enough to leave you terribly affected. I would’ve liked more, but at least I can say I was the first. Always the first.” He laughed a little. “It was worth any hell I’ll catch. But you won’t be turned, you won’t even remember anything about this….”
She summoned a mind block again, but it rolled into nothing.
The Voice…she thought over and over.
She hadn’t been careful enough.
Then the vampire laid a palm on her forehead, and the last thing she remembered was the stars blinking into oblivion.
I N her sleep, she heard something thudding against her brain, pounding, pounding, pounding.
Jerking awake, Dawn found herself coated with sweat, which stuck to her with a clammy chill.
“Vamps,” she said, still hearing the pounding in her mind.
But then she blinked and looked around, and the chaos slunk back into her nightmares.