Because who the hell would want to waste their lives on a crazy dhampir?
And for years, I’d been happy that way. Okay, maybe “happy” wasn’t the word, but content, at least. Once I’d thought that things were going pretty well if I had a full stomach, a place to sleep in safety, a job to do, and no frightening episodes for a while. That had been the good life; that had been all right.
So when had “all right” stopped being enough?
I had a feeling it coincided with meeting a certain blue-eyed vamp who had somehow retained a measure of innocence that was ridiculous, just ridiculous, in our world. He’d come out of nowhere with all these ideas, stupid, antiquated things like chivalry and nobility and decency, the stuff humans usually scoffed at, and that vampires . . .
Well, I doubted some of them even knew the words anymore.
I didn’t think some of them ever had.
And yet here was Louis-Cesare, a ridiculous contradiction of a creature, determined to ride or die when the latter was a lot more likely, not caring that his girlfriend had a split personality that could kill him, and just might for shits and giggles someday!
He was a naive fool, and I should have kicked him to the curb as soon as I met him.
But, instead, here I was hoping again.
So, who’s the fool now? I wondered, and pulled him down.
Chapter Seven
And, God, he was good, because Louis-Cesare was always good. Even in a tub partially filled with soapy water, because the drain mostly didn’t. But you couldn’t beat the size of the thing, which was six feet long and comfortably roomy, because the Victorians knew how to make ’em, yes they did.
Made you wonder what they got up to, all those upstanding citizens, when the curtains closed.
That, I thought, arching up.
If they were really lucky.
Oh, yes, just like that.
But good as it was, it wasn’t what I wanted tonight. Only I didn’t know what that was. I just knew there was something—
Something he seemed to understand, because he started kissing his way up my body a lot sooner than normal. Stopping at all his favorite spots until he paused at my neck, right over the pulse point. I swallowed, my heartbeat speeding up, but he didn’t bite. Just rested his lips against the hot, soapy skin under my hair, his own falling over my shoulder, his breath tickling my ear.
“What is it?” he murmured, because I’d tensed up, going rigid in his arms.
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. Just gripped his shoulders, feeling the hard muscle underneath as he slid against me—and, God, yes, that’s what I needed like the air I wasn’t getting in panted breaths. My ribs protested, but I didn’t care. My ribs could go to hell.
And then he pulled away again.
I stifled a scream—just. “What?” I breathed.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, frowning. “Not now.”
“Oh, yes, we should.”
But he was getting that look again, that stubborn “I know best” look that drove me half-mad even when I wasn’t already there. He was hard against my thigh, hot and huge and insistent. And so ready he was shaking with it. Typical of the man to be noble, even when need had turned to agony, too gentle or polite to take what he wanted.
So I did it for him.
With a cry of pure frustration, I flipped us, throwing him onto his back again and straddling him with efficient grace. Wrapping one hand around the base of him and curling the other around the back of his neck, I sat down smoothly. And simultaneously pulled his mouth close enough to kiss, swallowing his protest.
Mine, I thought deliriously, and with a growl, I ground my hips down, setting a ruthless pace, latching on to his neck with my teeth and—
Louis-Cesare froze.
Suddenly, everything slowed down, from the wave of soapy water splashing over the side of the tub, to the shower curtains billowing out to show the bathroom in flashes, to the heart beating hard under my lips.
I told myself to let him go, to pull away, but I didn’t appear to be listening. I managed to get my fangs out of his skin before they had done more than dent it. But then I stopped, like I’d hit a wall.
I stared at that expanse of pale flesh and a tingling spread over my skin, like a fever had gripped me. I could feel how it would taste as I bit down. It would be firm and slightly resistant, warm, with faint traces of soap and Louis-Cesare. My fangs would slide in, slick as glass, pushing past his body’s defenses until the blood welled up, hot and thick and alive in my mouth.
It was an insane thought to have. I didn’t have the bloodlust of a vampire; I never had. Blood did nothing for me: I couldn’t use it, didn’t need it. But suddenly I could taste it, wanted to, with a craving beyond any I’d ever had—for anything.
I wanted to bite deep into that vulnerable spot where shoulder met neck, not to harm but to mark. To leave an unmistakable brand to everyone who saw him that this one was taken. This one was mine.
I heard him swallow, felt the chest beneath me rise and fall faster, as if some of my intent had leaked over. But he didn’t draw back, even when my lips ghosted over that exact spot again, when the faintest edge of my teeth grazed him. A shudder rippled through him and into me, and his hands clenched on my body, but to draw me closer, not to shove me away.
His hand moved to my nape, sliding under the hot, wet strands of my hair, pulling me close. My tongue flicked out, laving the warm surface, his pulse beating hot and fast under my lips. His neck was smooth, free of any marks, an unbroken pale expanse that no one had ever dared to claim, because that wasn’t how this worked.
The more powerful vamp made the mark, and I didn’t know too many more powerful than Louis-Cesare. The damned vamp had held another first-level master, the highest rank of all, in thrall for a century, so I was thinking power wasn’t really a problem for him. So, technically, it should have been him marking me, only he wasn’t moving.
But he wasn’t moving away, either, and I didn’t know what that meant.
I also didn’t know that I could even do it. I wasn’t a vampire; I’d never marked anyone in my life, not like that. But somehow I knew it would work, knew I could leave an indelible trace of our connection on his body, something no amount of time would erase. The urge was so overwhelming that, for a moment, I just clung to him, vibrating, my nails digging into his hip, his shoulder, deep enough that they threatened to leave marks of their own.
“Dory—”
“Don’t.” I growled, my voice low. “Don’t talk.”
I turned my head to the side, and gulped in a breath, almost dizzy with the desire to finish this. And knowing I couldn’t. Vampires bit often, but they marked oh so rarely. To do so was to make a final claim, an eternal commitment. A formal declaration of alliance that joined houses, bloodlines, and fortunes in a way that made a mockery of human marriage.
And once done, it could never be undone.
Not to have one at your side whom you had marked was one of the biggest signs of weakness possible. It could open him up to attack, to challenge, by those who didn’t understand that the one who had marked him wasn’t a vampire, wasn’t someone who had the right. Wasn’t someone who had anything to offer.
Not even herself, since half of me was owned by someone else.
This was another one of those things I couldn’t have; I knew that. But it’s hard to think when your body is full and tingling, your nipple still throbs from his lips, and the rush of lust has made you light-headed. Yet I was trying. Trying to push back against the tide of instinct or desire or whatever the hell was wrong with me and remember all the reasons this would be a Very Bad Idea.
It wasn’t working.
I growled again, and felt him shift inside me; clamped down, and heard him cry out. Felt him begin to thrust in thick, stuttering strokes, so unlike his usual easy dominance, as my fangs started to dent that perfect skin again. And it was sweet, sweet, oh God, it was so fucking—