The Ornament

Chapter Three



aylee turned and stopped dead. The words K died on her lips as she saw her dream lover lying prone on the couch, his eyes open. He looked dead. She brought her hand to her throat, her fingers nervously tapping the side of her neck.

He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be real. He was a vampire and vampires just didn’t exist.

What in the hell is going on here? She returned home to find someone molesting her things and a dead man on her couch. She turned toward the Christmas tree in the corner and frowned. She could have sworn she left the lights on and the music playing. The silence creeped her out, even when she didn’t have a burglar laying on her carpet, most likely peeing his pants from the fifty-thousand or so volts of electricity she’d just bagged him with.

Behind her, the robber’s phone played Jingle Bells as someone attempted to call him. They’d just have to call back later, preferably after the police 13

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dragged him out of her house.

Biting her bottom lip, Kaylee made her way over to the couch. Slowly, gingerly, she reached out to touch his cheek. She had to touch him at least once, even if he was dead. “You’re a dream.

You can’t possibly be real,” she whispered.

I could think the same of you, my love.

Kaylee knew at that moment that he wasn’t dead. Somehow, he spoke into her mind the way he always did in her dreams. But why wouldn’t he move?

“Why do you look like a dead man sprawled across my couch?” She got the impression that he wanted to shrug, but was too weak to do so.

Why was he so weak? In her dreams, he could do anything. He could shift his shape into anything, he could fly, he even had preternatural speed, running so fast, he was nothing more than a blur.

I am dying. I haven’t fed in over three months.

When one of my kind does this, we grow weaker and weaker until we finally collapse like this.

“Why would you choose to die on my couch?” She narrowed her eyes. “Am I even awake or is this all another dream?”

He chuckled into her mind, his voice growing weaker and weaker as though he kept getting farther and farther away. It took me quite by surprise. Believe me, had I known I had gotten so weak, 14

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I would have lain on my back and closed my eyes, instead of falling face first onto your couch. It’s not comfortable at all.

Kaylee finally realized this was nothing more than another dream. Her dreams always started with Gregori convincing her to let him feed. Only this was the first time he’d been too weak to take her in his arms and nuzzle her neck.

Shifting her weight to one leg, Kaylee rested her hand on her hip and smiled. “So…I suppose you expect me to feed you?”

I wish you were alive so you could. However, I saw your decapitated body myself. A gang of slayers found you, knew you were mine and took your life in an effort to stem our population. You are the dream, my love. He smiled gently into her mind. Like all of the dreams I have had of you over the last year. They were nothing but visions of a lost love, the wishful ramblings of a desperate man.

“Unless you received a memo I missed, we aren’t dead.” She gestured to the man lying unconscious on the floor. “Do you really think ghosts Taser people?”

I assume that we are both dead. I have starved to death as was my plan. Life without you is unbearable.

That was the most romantic and idiotic things anyone had ever said to her. Kaylee heard a bump coming from the stairs, assumed it was the other burglar and continued through their mind link.

Oh, puhleeeze. You have somehow managed to convince 15

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me to feed you in every dream. Why should this one be any different? Besides, what if this was the last time she dreamt of him? Death was rather permanent, even in dreams.

Whatever you decide, you may want to do it in a hurry. Your Taser victim has a friend and he’s headed our way. If I’m not mistaken, he has finished ransacking your jewelry box and underwear drawer.

“No one breaks into my house and gets away with it.” Kaylee narrowed her eyes and thinned her lips, determined to stop the man who would take everything she had left of her parents, even in a dream.

Yanking her sleeve up, Kaylee opened Gregori’s mouth and jammed her wrist against his teeth. Sharp incisors sank deep and she groaned with the pain. It never hurt this much before.

Of course not. Before, I had the strength to mask your pain with pleasure.

Kaylee watched as the color returned to his face. After a few seconds, he brought his hand up and pressed her wrist tighter to his mouth. The pain melted away to pleasure and Kaylee swayed on her feet. She wasn’t sure if it was from the pleasure he provided or if he was draining her dry. She hoped it was the former.

As usual, a swipe of his tongue closed the wound. Kaylee looked down at her wrist to see the small wounds fade to pinpricks before 16

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disappearing altogether. What the world wouldn’t give for his saliva. She could imagine how quickly someone like him could heal wounds in a hospital.

Kaylee wrinkled her nose at the thought. She didn’t know if she could stand the thought of him licking other women like he did her.

“What the hell?”

Kaylee spun around as the burglar looked from his partner on the floor to her.

“What’d you do to him, you bitch!” His eyes widened. “You! It can’t be. You’re dead!”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? I’m obviously alive and well.” She waved her arms, wobbled her head back and forth, than reached up to touch it. “Yep. It’s still there. I’m obviously alive.”

“Not for long,” the intruder said with a growl and pulled a gun from his pocket.

Gregori burst into action at that moment. In a blur of motion, he leapt from the couch, shifted his shape into that of an impossibly large wolf and attacked. He bit down on the arm holding the gun and shook his head, dislodging the weapon from the criminal’s hand. It fell to the floor with a clatter. Kaylee screamed when the burglar’s friend came to and pulled a weapon from his pocket and fired.

The bullet missed Gregori, slamming into the wall behind him. Gregori snarled, his teeth 17

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dripping blood as he released his first victim and began to stalk his second. “Keep it away from me, lady, or I’ll kill it and you.”

“You’d kill us both anyway,” Gregori said. His voice was deep, distorted. Kaylee could only imagine the effort it must have taken to speak while in the body of the wolf.

“Vampire!” the other man said, his voice filled with terror.

“Yes. I am a vampire.” Gregori shifted back into his human form. “We never should have gone public ten years ago. Ever since then, we have had nothing but attacks against us.” He cast a glance toward Kaylee. “And against those we love.” He stepped closer to the burglar, obviously not worried about the one rolling on the floor, holding his wrist to his chest.

He reached out with his foot and kicked the gun on the floor toward Kaylee. It lay between them like a snake ready to strike. Could she get to it before the man shot either one of them? Did Gregori have enough strength to take this new assailant on?

The second man dove for Kaylee, grabbing her around the throat. He laughed. “One move and I’ll break her neck.”

Kaylee smiled at Gregori and winked. I have this one, but you’ll have to catch me when I fall.

She didn’t give him time to reply. What she was 18

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about to do was going to hurt her attacker a lot more than it hurt her. Gritting her teeth, Kaylee pulled the Taser from her front pocket, jammed it against the burglar’s groin and pressed the trigger.

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