DÉADRE awoke on the back of a giant black stallion galloping through the dark of a moonless night, galloping straight toward a cliff, the booming sound of waves crashing against rock rising up to her from far below. Her muscles rippled with his. Wind whistled through her clothes, tore at her hair. All she could do was wrap her fingers tighter in his mane and hang on for the ride.
Hooves clattered over stone. She felt his haunches gather for the leap, heard a scream and realized it was her own, then she was flying, soaring through the night, but doomed to fall, to break against the rocks below like the next wave.
She opened her eyes for one last look at the world, the night…and found she wasn’t riding a giant horse through the sky, wasn’t falling. Daniel held her, safe in his arms.
He sat on the edge of a cold metal table, cradling her head against his chest, rocking her. “Shh. Shh, now. It’ll get better in a minute. A lot better.”
Her heart was beating, she realized, beating hard without her even trying, and she was breathing without any effort at all. Fresh blood flowed through her system, pooled between her legs and rushed her toward fulfillment.
She clutched at Daniel’s jacket, grabbed his hair by the handful and bent him back over the table, her greedy mouth latching on to his, sucking and kneading, while her hands raked over miles of hot, silky skin and hard muscle. He mumbled something that she sure hoped wasn’t “stop” because she couldn’t have stopped if she’d tried. Even if her life, or her unlife, had depended on it.
Lost in a frenzy that was somewhere between the fury of an erupting volcano and the big bang of a new star being formed, she pulled Daniel to her and rolled. He landed on the floor beneath her with a thud, but she didn’t think he was going to complain. He grabbed her T-shirt by the neck and tore it in two as easily as if it had been made of paper. Absently, she noted that the gunshot wound had healed. Her breasts were pink and perfect, bobbing over his face while she pressed her thigh against his erection and rubbed encouragingly.
Not needing much encouragement, he fumbled her zipper down and peeled off her leather pants, then she straddled him.
He brought his hand to her, feathered his fingers through her curls, but she pushed his wrist away. “I can’t wait. Can’t wait.”
She jerked down his fly, pulled him out, squeezed once and then lowered herself until she’d taken him to the hilt.
Her eyes closed. Her head fell back. Her hair brushed her bare shoulders as he put his hands on her hips to hold her down and then bucked beneath her.
She was back on the horse, the black stallion, galloping, the wind in her hair, the night air in her lungs. His muscles rippled with hers. He lifted, she clenched. They both groaned.
She quickened the pace, rode him hard. This time, the crashing she heard wasn’t waves against rocks, it was her own blood in her ears. She spurred him on, knowing the dark cliff lay ahead, insane for it, mad with the need to fly off it with him. She urged him faster with her hands, her heels, then leaned over and used her teeth, her tongue.
She wanted more; he gave her more. Another powerful stride. Another powerful stroke. He tensed beneath her, gathering himself. She clutched his mane, holding on. Blind. Deaf. But able to feel. Feeling every shudder, every gasp, every ripple as they catapulted off the cliff together. Fell, arm in arm.
She landed on top of him—again—this time splayed across him like a piece of limp spaghetti.
“If this is how you recover,” he said, his warm breath fanning her damp forehead. “I’m going to have to shoot you at least once a week.”
She lifted her head weakly and grinned at him. “If this is how I recover, you won’t have to bother. I’ll shoot myself.”
A laugh rumbled beneath the ear she had pressed to his chest. “Maybe we should think about a little less bloody form of foreplay.”
“Bloody.” Her heart skidded to a stop. “Oh, damn. I’ve taken blood.” No way she could have recovered so quickly—or so passionately—otherwise.
She grabbed his neck and scanned for every inch of earthy-smelling male skin. “You don’t understand. You can’t give blood yet. If I take too much, it’ll kill you.” Her hands trembled on his trachea. “How much did I take? Are you okay?”
“You took plenty.” He wrenched his head away. “But it wasn’t mine.”
She looked around the room, not convinced, still afraid she’d hurt him. “Whose? How?”
“No one’s. It’s synthetic. A product I’ve been working on for three years. I’m a microbiologist, Déadre. It’s what I do.”
“A microbiologist.” She hesitated, wanting to believe him but not quite daring. If he was trying to protect her from the truth…. If she’d hurt him…. “And you’ve made fake blood?”
“Completely non-organic. Doesn’t even require human hemoglobin like the products the big drug companies have been working on. It’s so simple I’m amazed no one thought of it before. All I did was compound perfluorocarbons.”
“Perfluoro-whats?”
“PFCs. Flourine and Chlorine.” His eyes lit up and he laughed. “I knew it would work. I knew it would. The PFCs are even more efficient than real red blood cells because they just absorb the oxygen, instead of bonding it to iron the way blood does.”
“If you say so.”
He clasped her shoulders. The touch zinged through her hyperstimulated nerves.
“Can’t you feel it?” he asked. “The PFCs are forty times smaller, so they can fit into the smallest capillaries, literally reach every cell in your body, yet they carry twice as much oxygen. Can’t you feel how strong it makes you? How alive?”
She did feel different. Warmer. Not so tired.
He lurched to his feet, fastened his pants and threw her jacket and pants to her. He didn’t bother with the ruined shirt.
Pacing, he dragged a hand through his hair while she dressed. “This stuff is powerful mojo. Not only will it help mortals, but it could mean a whole new life for vampires.”
She zipped her pants and shoved her arms in the sleeves of her jacket. “New life?”
“No more feeding off mortals. No more killing, accidental or otherwise. And the power it will give us, it’s tremendous.”
It sounded good, so why was her stomach turning. “You know what they say about power corrupting.”
He stopped, turned to her. “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“That’s why you and every other vampire in the city haven’t already heard of the synthetic blood. He wasn’t going to share it with the rest of you. He wants it for himself. He wants to be the biggest, baddest-ass fucking vampire in Atlanta.”
He picked up his own coat and punched his arms into the sleeves. “Well, I’ve got news for him. He’s not the only vampire who can cook up a pot of this joy juice, now. Garth LaGrange is going down. For good.”
She dropped the test tube she’d been holding. Glass shattered at her feet. “Garth LaGrange?”
“The one who wrecked my lab and stole my work.”
“The one who turned your fiancée.”
“Yeah.” He looked down at his feet, then raised his head. Color spotted both cheeks as if he’d just realized, as she had, that they’d made love while he was engaged to another woman, but she couldn’t think about that now.
“The one you’re going to kill,” she said flatly, already knowing how he would answer.
“Tonight. Right after I drink so much synthetic blood that an M-one tank couldn’t stop me.”
Oh, God.
She winced, the pain flaring instantly. Crap! She hadn’t done that in decades. Rubbing her temples, she hoped it would be decades, or longer, before she did it again, assuming she was around that long.
Which she might not be, since the vampire she’d just made—the man she loved—was determined to try to kill the evilest, cruelest, most powerful being in Atlanta.
Garth LaGrange, the High Matron’s Enforcer.