Darkness Falls Read online

  “The hot-blooded vamp?” he asked in a pathetically weak voice, his throat still ragged from screaming.

  Her lips curved upwards in a wicked smile as she showed him her deadly fangs, “He wasn’t really a vampire, you know, but that is neither here nor there. I wish to thank you.”

  Slowly, she began unbuttoning his shirt and his body froze as he suddenly realized what was happening, that she was trying to seduce him. He almost threw his head back and laughed because there was no way he would be unfaithful to Malorie. No way. Even when the woman pressed hot lips against his sweaty chest he knew he wasn’t going to succumb.

  She tugged at his pants, dragging them down his legs until they couldn’t go any further because his ankles were tied to the chair. Closing his eyes, he pictured Malorie as she smiled at him with all of her love and trust and he willed his unruly erection away. It became increasingly difficult as the woman wrapped her lips around his cock and took him all the way down her throat. The experience was so new and the feeling so exquisite, his hips jerked upwards and his faith faltered. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to picture Malorie but she was fading.

  Tears slipped down his cheeks as the woman massaged his aching balls, as she licked and sucked at his straining erection. Against his will, his body moved to her rhythm, desperate for the oblivion of pleasure her lips promised.

  Pulling back, letting his cock slip out of her mouth with a soft pop, she looked up at him with a smug smile, as if she knew how much he wanted her to finish. Leisurely stroking his thighs, blowing softly on his wet penis, she purred, “You are going to be richly rewarded, my pet. When you are one of my children you will be my favorite, I think.”

  “No,” he pleaded, looking down at her with glossy eyes and flushed cheeks. “Please. I don’t want to be a vampire.”

  “Oh, my poor baby,” she crooned, cradling his cheek in her hand as she straddled his lap and sank down onto his erection. Her wet heat enveloped him in a lover’s embrace and he had to squeeze his eyes shut as his breath shuddered out of his body. “You simply don’t understand what an honor it is to be chosen.”

  Frantically, he shook his head no as she slowly rocked on his lap. His only consolation was the fact that Malorie would never know about his betrayal since he would be dead. If she managed to convert him he would kill himself because there was no way he would live his life as a vampire. “Just kill me.”

  She chuckled, her movements becoming more demanding as she curled her fingers into his hair and tilted his head back, exposing his neck. Dazedly, he wondered if she would continue riding him even after she killed him. “My sweet boy, I don’t wish you dead. You are far too precious for death.”

  If she bit him, converted him, the others would do what was necessary to make sure he didn’t come back. The thought made him smile because he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life as a monster. “Then do it.”

  Her wet tongue ran along his jugular and he exhaled, bracing himself for the pain but she never bit him. Instead, she pressed her lush breasts against his naked chest and put her lips against his ear, “You won’t escape me, pet. I’ll squeeze every last drop of passion out of your human body and then I’ll take you further. When I bite you, you will be begging me for it and your ultimate surrender is going to be so sweet.”

  For hours she tormented his body, driving him to the heights of pleasure and the depths of despair. He cursed his traitorous body as he clung to the memory of Malorie even as his body betrayed him. In the early morn, just as the sun was slanting through the windows, she snaked down his abused body and sank her teeth into the tender spot between his balls and his anus. Pleasure destroyed him, making him arch off the chair and scream.

  She drank from him until black dots danced before his eyes and then she came back up and sat down on his lap. Holding his weary eyes, she bit into her wrist and held the fresh wound up to his lips, urging him to drink. Even in his weakened state he tried to refuse her but she was too strong and he drank. Her blood was ambrosia on his lips and he drank until he was drunk on it, until he was drunk on her.

  Grabbing her wrist, he looked up and met her eyes, feeling the venom work its way through his body, erasing all of his doubts and fears, all of his guilt. Power and confidence trailed in its wake, recreating him into something new, something wonderful. In startling clarity, he knew that all of this time he had been wrong, that all of them had been wrong. There was nothing to fear in becoming a vampire and everything to embrace.

  Swallowing, he reached up and wiped a drop of blood from her beautiful lips, “My mistress. Tell me what I am to call you.”

  “Taella.” Her smile was frightening in its beauty, and almost as beautiful as Malorie’s. God, he couldn’t wait to find his wife and explain, to make her a vampire. “I have marked you in a place where no one will see so when the other soldiers discover your body they will assume you died along with your friends.”

  “You’re sending me away?” he asked, hurt that she was already dismissing him and not sparing Stavros and Mercer another thought. There was so much he wanted to ask her, so much he wanted to learn. If she was sending him away how was he ever going to discover how to turn his wife?

  “Only temporarily. In a few days I shall come for you,” she reassured him with a warm smile. She cupped his cheek in her slender palm, brushing her thumb over his lower lip, “I hope to discover the fools you run with.”

  His lips spread into a joyful smile, “So you may show them the glory of being a vampire?”

  She simply smiled as she kissed him and then everything went black for a few hours or a few days, he wasn’t sure. But when he had awakened, he was informed that the soldiers he hunted with were long gone. Taella was furious, though she wasn't angry at him, thank goodness. Kissing his forehead, she smiled at him even as her eyes blazed in rage, “It isn’t your fault, my sweet pet. Those bastards are smarter than I gave them credit and for that I shall have to come up with a new plan.”

  “My father-in-law trained them very well,” he said with a hint of pride. “And my wife is especially clever.”

  Taella raised her eyebrow at the mention of his wife and a slight smile played at her lips as she asked, “But you belong to me now, yes?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said fervently, crawling over to where she lay and kissing the hem of her sheer gown. Looking up at her, devotion filled his unbeating heart and he knew that he would give her the world should she wish it.

  As a vampire, he found that he had incredible strength and unfathomable endurance. He and Taella would fuck for hours at a time, biting and feeding off of one another and soaring to the heights of pleasure and spending days in euphoric bliss. There were even moments when he forgot his human life, reveling in the hunt and drinking the warm blood of humans. Taella insisted that none of her vampires take a human life, telling them that it was imperative to obey her in that. Because he worshipped her, he never questioned her and did as she ordered. Still, he hunted often, playing with his food and then erasing his prey’s memory when he was finished.

  He had been a virgin before Malorie and now he was making up for his lack of experience. When he found his wife again, and there was no doubt that he would find her eventually, he was going to do things to her she could never fathom and once she was a vampire, the two of them were going to burn up the cosmos with their passion.

  Dragging himself out of the ditch, Jack looked around the unfamiliar roads and despite being chilled to the bone, he realized that the air was warm. After spending six years as a corpse, he was surprised he could feel anything at all. Cautiously, he reached up and touched his teeth, heaving a sigh of relief when he didn’t feel the ever-present fangs. Was he human once more or was he dead and this was Purgatory? Maybe the sins he committed when he was a vampire were counted against him and this was Hell.

  Hunger pains clawed outwards from his belly but it wasn’t blood he craved. No, he desired fresh fruit and chicken salad and juicy hamburgers, all of the things he had loved
when he had been human. Pressing his hand against his stomach, he slowly slid it upwards until it was over his heart, his beating heart. Blood pumped through his veins, hot and heavy and alive. How?

  Stumbling down the deserted road in confusion and wonder, he realized he recognized the area, though it looked much different with human eyes during the day rather than vampire eyes at night. The colors were brighter to his human eyes, though there weren’t as many as he was able to see as a vampire. He could remember seeing in infrared and ultraviolet when he had been a vampire, colors that no human brain could easily process and it had opened up so much more of the world. Humans gave off so much heat and he had been drawn to it, hungry for that warmth as much as the blood.

  As much as he had hungered for warmth and blood as a vamp, it had been nothing compared to how he craved sex. He had never officially killed a human, though he had created dozens of vampires. It was a loophole in the vampire world, one that Taella exploited: humans who were converted didn’t actually die, though they were technically dead. It was a tradeoff of sorts, where the human’s mortal life was given up in exchange for an immortal, vampiric life. Taella had explained it to him and he sort of understood but he wasn’t too concerned about the technical side of vampirism and conversion.

  As he turned into the residential section, the houses on either side of the street were monstrous, much larger than any of the dives he had lived in after he joined up with Malorie and Mr. Hunter. But it was eerily quiet compared to the chaos of only hours before, when Taella had led her vampires in attacking the small, affluent neighborhood. In his vampire frenzy, he had howled with the rest of them, fucking the humans as he drained their blood, and it had been glorious.

  Now, the memories made him sick and he had to swallow a few times to keep his stomach from rebelling. It didn’t help that he was afraid of what would come up, since his diet for the past six years had been blood and nothing else. Unless one counted pussy….

  Stopping, he leaned against a tree and scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to get the memories of being a vampire out of his head but it was difficult. Humans were so tender and sweet and it hadn’t only been women he devoured. The things he had done, the pain he had caused….

  This time, he did puke but nothing came up and he dry heaved for several minutes, until tears were streaming down his cheeks and his throat burned. A cool breeze slithered over his skin, making him shiver and reminding him that he was naked. Knowing his body wasn’t going to make it very far, he trudged up the driveway of the nearest house. It was on the outskirts of the neighborhood and he knew that it would be empty because when they attacked, they had silently killed everyone in the first couple of houses. It wasn’t until after an alarm was sounded that they had let loose the full might of their vampire savagery.

  Still clutching his stomach, he turned the door handle, surprised that it wasn’t locked. Of course, there was no reason to lock the houses up since no one lived there anymore but it was still a surprise. Fumbling around in the dark, refusing to turn on any of the lights in case someone was keeping an eye on the empty homes, he finally found a bathroom on the upper floor.

  Turning on the water for a bath, he emptied his bladder, surprised he had enough liquid to need it. Pressing his forearm against the wall in front of him, he rested his head on the arm to quiet the memories digging away at his mind. As loud as his thoughts were, his body felt strong. Not vampire strong, which was an oily, outside feeling, but physically strong from within. Whatever brought him back brought him back better than before.

  A mournful chuckle slipped past his lips as he crawled into the searing hot water, as if he could burn away the past six years. The past six hours. Closing his eyes, he held his breath and slid beneath the fiery liquid.

  Women and men were screaming as the vampires unleashed the full force of their strength and power. He had already drained two humans and was flush with blood lust and exhilaration as they celebrated Taella’s triumphant first volley. In a few hours, the other vampire clans were going to understand the true depths of her power and she was going to lead all of them into a new world, one where the vampires dominated the night. There would be no more making nice with the weak humans, no more peace.

  The vampires would rule all.

  “Jack, my pet,” Taella purred, coming to a stand next to him. Her long, ebony hair was pulled away from her exquisite face and she smiled at him with those succulent red lips. Running the tip of her finger along his hair line, his jaw, she pressed her body against him, “Let me drink of you so that you may enjoy the present I have for you.”

  “You may drink all of me,” he returned, tilting his head to the side for her pleasure. “All that I am is yours and I ask nothing in return.”

  “Oh, I do so love an obedient pet,” she giggled, wetting his throat with her hot tongue. Her fingers curled into his chest and drew blood as she sank her teeth into his neck. Pleasure swamped his body and he anticipated the moment she would strip him, throw him down, and then ride him.

  But she didn’t. As she drank, he watched as she ran her hand down the front of her body and pressed against her most intimate flesh, pleasuring herself as she fed. Her other hand remained on his chest as she drank him dry, holding him in place so he wasn’t even able to hump her thigh. He didn’t care so long as Mistress Taella was pleased. Weakening as she drank more than he had taken in, he held himself still and prayed he didn’t fall, which would infuriate her. He concentrated on the screams around him to keep him grounded, even though they sounded far off in the distance to his blood-deprived brain.

  “Get him cleaned up and bring him to me in ten minutes,” she ordered and he hadn’t even realized she had stopped feeding. Opening his eyes, he saw that she wore her secretive smile and that she was incredibly pleased with herself. Looking at him, her smile grew, “I hope you like my gift.”

  “I love it,” he murmured automatically, his tongue thick and his words slurred.

  She chuckled as she turned around and sashayed away, her feminine hips swaying with each step she took. It was hypnotizing and he barely paid any attention to the vamps who took him by the arms and led him to one of the houses. There was no gift that was more perfect than what she had already given him.

  But then a few minutes later he couldn’t believe what he was seeing: in the midst of the chaos stood his wife. Malorie. Even though she writhed with life that made his gut clench with agony and her body emitted a light that nearly burned his retinas, he was ecstatic to see her. Of course he had to tread carefully because she had always been so insistent that she would rather die than become a vampire.

  Fear had lit her eyes when she saw him, fear and… sorrow. She had begged him to kill her but he knew that if she only experienced what it was like to be a vampire she would finally understand and they could be together forever. There was so much he wanted to share with her but she fought him and he knew she would make a spectacular vampire.

  Her blood burned his lips as he drank from her, filling him with exquisite pain and it seemed the more he drank the more blood there was to drink. So he sucked and sucked, her blood burning his tongue, his throat, his heart, his lungs, his stomach, his intestines. Drawing more blood into his mouth until his entire body was on fire, he prayed for it to end soon otherwise she would die before he could convert her. Finally, finally, he felt her pulse slowing and knew that it was only another moment and then he’d bite his wrist and give her changed blood back, making her a vampire.

  A blinding light exploded within him, around him, and then there was nothing….

  Bursting through the surface of the water, he sucked in huge gulps of air. Dragging his body out of the cooled water, he wrapped a towel around his waist and headed into the adjoining room. Rummaging in the closets, he pulled out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, not caring if they matched or even if they fit properly. As soon as he got some food, some real food and not blood, into his system, he was going to scope out the neighborhood and see if
he could discover what happened to Malorie. If, and it was a huge if, she was still alive, he was going to talk to her. Maybe she would know what happened, why he wasn’t dead.

  Chapter 3

  ~Malorie~

  Present

  “Jack!” she cried, flying out of the bed because the last time she had seen her husband he had been a vampire and he had nearly killed her when he drank too much of her blood.

  He sat up and looked at her with solemn brown eyes, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace. “It’s me, Malorie, I’m no longer a vampire.”

  Ignoring his pleading words, she kept her eyes locked on him as she backed away while blindly searching for a weapon. There was something that was trying to get through her panicked thoughts but she couldn’t think with Jack sitting on her bed and staring at her. Wrapping her hand around a fire poker, she prepared to defend herself if he attacked. “That’s not possible, Jack. There is no cure for vampirism and Feryn killed you when he killed all of the vampires that night.”

  His brows drew together in a thoughtful frown but he just shook his head. “The blast threw me but it didn’t kill me.”

  “You’re a vampire, Jack,” she cried out, her grip on the poker slipping.

  “No,” he denied, shaking his head. His eyes were brilliant and clear as he looked at her and she finally realized that he didn’t reek of death, that he didn’t look like a wax corpse.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned, the weapon falling from her hand and clattering to the floor. Her legs crumbled beneath her and she followed the make-shift weapon down, unable to tear her eyes away from her dead but not-dead, vampire but no longer a vampire, husband. “How?”