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MELINDA'S WORLD FELL into darkness and nothing.
Her last memory, William's face, his lips, his fangs sinking into her skin and her life slowing and slowing until nothing but darkness. A seemingly endless corridor of nothing. No thought. No worry. No fear. No joy. Just—nothing.
Before that had been a torrid of emotion. Her family would go on without her. She had to remain strong and let that happen if it must—Rae's secret was too important to give in to her own desire to live.
Charlie needed to finish the process and he had. He had done it. If this was Melinda's last moment alive, or on earth, she could rest peacefully knowing her brothers would be okay.
William—he'd never be okay living in a world without her in it. She'd thought she'd have to fight to get him to turn her. Beg even. But he'd given in easily—a testament to just how far they'd come together. How much William had changed and accepted about his own desires, and knowing that in the end it did not matter how they lived out that future, only that they did.
But there was always the chance it would fail. So, she'd labored those last minutes, languishing in the reality that this might be it. This might be the end. She would not be the first Howard to die young, and she dare say she'd not be the last. Although, that would have a different meaning in the future with her family's new bloodline.
But with every second that passed, and every drop of blood William drained from her, the darkness had come sliding in like the heaviest of weights, one she was not able to fight. But her determination to return to William and her friends and family—and not hurt them by dying—remained in her soul even as that darkness sank her into a place of nothing.
Until that dark nothing became something. A spark. A flame. A bright light drilling upward to some new place she'd never been. She was aware again. Her mind returning to her. Thoughts and memories returning in a blaze all at once.
But with that awareness did not come movement. Her muscles refused any command.
She became aware of an outside presence, but moments later it slipped inside her mind.
"Return to me, my love." It was William's voice in her mind. She heard his tiny gasp when the first stirrings of thought from her mind wound into his. She felt his relief in her own mind. She had not slipped forever into darkness. He had not failed.
But a moment later her ears awakened and not just her mind. The sounds crashed into her eardrums like a thousand instruments playing all at once; everything was nonsensical and loud and overwhelming. Until she found William's voice and after, the rest she tuned out.
Feeling returned to her limbs. But no heat. No blood pumping in her veins. No beat of her heart. And there was a new ache she'd never felt before, in her throat and in her belly. A hunger. Ravenous and instant and demanding.
Her eyes flicked open wide as her body inhaled like she'd just awakened from a deep sleep. The oddest sensation was not having the need to exhale and repeat the process.
Emerald eyes flashed brightly over her. The only eyes she ever wanted to wake up to. But it was like seeing them for the first time. It was still William's beautiful eyes, and yet they were—more. So much more. So many colors swirled into the mix she had never noticed before—because her human eyes would never see them.
"Hello," he whispered, leaning over her. His gentle lips against hers ignited new feelings she'd never had as a human either. It was like being a vampire was to take the human form, which already worked pretty darn good, and enhance it. Everything was just a little—more.
And then it hit her—she'd just thought it and it hadn't even sunk in.
"I'm a vampire."
William grinned and helped her sit up, not that she needed it. The first thing she noticed was that his skin no longer felt cold against her own. Wait—her own skin. She ogled herself in stunned silence at her smooth, pallid skin.
"You're beautiful, Melinda. But you always have been."
A rush of thoughts banged into her head and yet her vampire speed worked even there. She drifted through them all like flashcards until her mind stopped on one important memory.
"Charlie? My family? Mina? Demons..." She had bound out of William's arms and off the bed faster than her thoughts ordered her body to do so.
William caught her and steadied her a few feet away.
"Whoa." She pushed out a clipped exhale in shock. Moving fast was also going to take some adjustment.
"They are all fine," William allayed her fears. "Charlie finished the change. No one got hurt. They've all been downstairs waiting anxiously for you."
"And what about you?"
His eyes met hers and mixed with the relief, she saw something wicked and mischievous.
"I admit, I am—excited—to witness your rebirth. To be by your side."
And although she no longer had heated blood in her veins there was still plenty of heat sizzling between the two of them.
"As for Mina and the demons, they were dealt a heavy blow when Rae changed everyone, and we took Markus. I'm sure we will see King Daemon again, but probably not for a long time. As for Mina, I'm not worried about her. She may turn up again, and if she does, we will deal with her then. I'm not going to seek out trouble. And the truth is, she prefers to stay in the shadows. She's smart. She doesn't like to take risks."
"She really thought the demons had a solid chance of winning," said Melinda.
"It’s the only reason she was here. She may taunt, but she prefers to live."
"So, she'll stay away?"
"Unless she has a very good reason not to."
"Speaking of staying away," Melinda began. "I'm going to have to stay away from people for a time." Even thinking about people—erm—blood—her food now, got her throat scratchy and tight and reignited that ravenous hunger.
"You need to feed, love. I have it prepared for you, if you'd like to eat."
"Yes. Okay. I don't want to hurt anyone." Truer would have been, Dammit, I'm starving! But she didn't want to come across so needy only minutes after waking.
"I won't let you hurt anyone." He spoke gently, as if the matter was already settled.
But her nose turned up to the mug. "What I smell downstairs is so much better—" she froze, horrified.
William merely stroked her cheek and smiled.
"I just called my friends and family, delicious."
"You'll learn to like what's in the mug," he insisted. "Ignore the walking dinnerplates downstairs," he teased lightheartedly.
"Seriously? I'm reborn minutes ago and already with the dry vamp humor." It was funny though, and her life now. "Now I understand why Courtney hid in the woods for weeks and came to us for help."
"As long as you feed regularly, you'll be okay, Melinda. I have zero doubts. Your mind is still your own and you will not hurt an innocent. That does not change unless you let it change, which is no different from being human."
She nodded and downed her first sip of animal blood. All in all, it wasn't half bad. But when William leaned close to lick a dribble off her chin, that's when the real heat ignited and she refused to let him go, sliding onto his lap suddenly violently hungry for something else.
Something he was just as hungry for and in a flash of movement that no longer fazed her even a little, she was flat on her back with her vampire pressed down over her.
"You were holding back so much," she breathed out.
"I don't have to worry about hurting you now." And there was an evil warning in his emerald eyes.
She sucked in, a question on her tongue.
William guessed at once and in a flash had left her and returned with a mirror.
"Wow," she stared at herself. "This is so surreal."
"What do you think?" the vampire asked her with a smoldering simper on his lips.
"Still my blue eyes, just sharper. Brighter." And with flecks of red thrown in too. "And fangs. Wow."
But what she loved more than anything was William's eyes and what she saw there. Her vampire in his magnificent glory. The William she'd gotten to know during his detox—the easy going, easy to smile and laugh, man he'd been before he'd been turned. So, so long ago that had been. Before that first disaster; the loss of his wife and child had sent him into a spiral that had gotten him turned into a vampire. He'd recovered over the years that followed, but never fully.
Now, the vampire, the wicked predator who resided inside of him was free and equal to the man. The monster and the man, one being, purely in love and loved in return. No longer did the smiles not quite reach his eyes, they lived there in genuine happiness. He might have spent years denying himself the ability to feel anything, fully, but those days were ended.
He'd been broken for so long.
She had been too.
Not nearly as long as the vampire. But together, they'd healed each other and embedded into each other's lives, one no longer able to live without the other. She'd seen him at his worst, and his lowest, and at his most dangerous.
But Melinda was his equal now in strength and ability, not just in spirit.
She pushed the vampire onto his back with a warning snarl as her eyes fluttered. Melinda ran her tongue along the new fangs protruding against her lips as William stared up at her with a hunger that matched her own.
Melinda had no idea how much time passed as she stilled herself and looked at William like she'd never truly seen him before. He'd always been a form a walking art, chiseled to perfection. But seeing him like this, with new eyes—it was even better.
Seeing Melinda like this, like him, tamed the beast, slayed his inner vampire, and humbled the man to his knees.
"Forever," Melinda whispered, the idea of forever, something yet to be understood. And only time would give it true definition.
"Forever," William agreed with a loving smile. In many ways, his hundreds of years of living did not count. It felt a bit like he'd just been reborn himself. Since the day he'd been turned, he'd never truly felt alive. Or like the man he'd once been. And now he'd been given everything because of the woman now permanently bonded to him.
"Thank you, for not giving up on me."
She could say the same of him.
"I would not change a thing," she told him instead. "Except for the fact that I'm starving again already."
"Come, let me feed you. Properly."
"But this is fun too," she whined not ready to stop her exploration of the vampire.
He chuckled. "I've created a monster." But he did not seem disappointed in the least.
"You have no idea," she retorted with a giant grin on her face. But he had every idea.
Her entire outlook on the future was to drink blood and be with William. And maybe someday, leave this attic and see her family again.
"I like the way you think," growled William.
Melinda Howard was certain being a vampire was going to be the best thing ever.