“Are you alright?” Megan whispered as she crept through the darkness of my room to my bed.
“No jokes, please,” I murmured with my face still planted firmly into the folds of my pillow.
She sat on the edge of the bed and lightly massaged my back. “Did he mistreat you?”
“I can’t explain it,” I said as I rolled over. Then, with a disgusted look, I added, “The bedding is a disgrace. I wouldn’t sit on it if I were you.”
She quickly stood and grabbed my hand. “Get up and I’ll strip it while you clean yourself.”
I crawled off the bed with much less zeal than Jasper had displayed just minutes earlier. I couldn’t explain how I felt. I had a myriad of mixed emotions battling inside of me. None was victorious enough to claim king of the pile so that I could identify it and express it.
I was surprised when my legs collapsed benea
Two weeks had passed since Jasper and I began having nightly sex. I guessed that there was enough virus inside of me from him to override what had been placed by Evan or my wedding night rapist, but I said nothing. I’d begun to enjoy and look forward to our little arrangement. Not only was the sex fantastic, but, little by little, Jasper was behaving more like a lover and less like a service provider. He even fell asleep twice until the wee hours of the morning. I found that the attention I received from him – both physically and emotionally – was just enough to keep me satisfied as far as male companionship went. We’d also developed the habit of having a conversation before the sex began. So, the more time we spent together, the more I grew to know and like him. I could easily continue our arrangement, indefinitely.I knew that the preventative would be arriving at any moment from his mystery researcher. Once
The first thing that came to mind as Amy waved the smelling salts beneath my nose was that the very creatures that I professed to despise and wanted nothing to do with were now holding me a prisoner.I aggressively pushed her hand away from my face as I sat up and snarled. She may have been a vampire, but I wasn’t afraid of her. Not like I was of the fiery eyed beast who’d just commanded that I become their prisoner. She felt too familiar to me. Partly because Megan professed her to be a good friend with a kind heart and partly because she’d been my family physician since before Joseph was born.“I can’t believe you’d do this,” I said as I glowered at her. “How could you do this to Joseph? He’ll be looking for me soon for a feeding and you know it. Megan has nothing but praise for you. Does she know this side of you, I wonder?”She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. &l
I was still angry with her, so I didn’t share my discovery with Amy when she surprised me by entering my lab with a large duffle bag slung over her shoulder during her next trip for milk. “Megan thought it might help you feel better if you had a few of your toiletries. She also sent over some of Evan’s research journals and his laptop. She said that he played a major role in helping you when you were researching werewolfism and thought that maybe there’d be something in there to use or that might springboard your mind in the right direction.”“Are you and Megan still best of buddies? How does she feel about you taking her god son’s mother from him?” I sarcastically snarled as I accepted the bag and then went into the tiny half-bath to pump my breasts.Although it was a thoughtful gesture on Megan’s part, there was no shower or bath available to me. I’d been reduced to standing at the si
Amy’s bright smile left her face almost immediately when she entered the lab. “What’s the matter?”I opened my mouth to display my altered teeth. “It’s too late. I’ve turned.”“Too late for what?” she asked. “You knew that this was going to happen.”“I was researching for a cure,” I lied; although it wasn’t really a lie, since it was common knowledge that I’d been actively trying to find the cure. I just didn’t mention that someone else had found a preventative and now it was too late for me to take it.“You feel that you might have found it if you hadn’t been forced to do this research, don’t you?” she asked, sympathetically. When I nodded, she sighed and said, “That’s possible. Then, again, you could still be struggling for the cure. As it is, you’ve found a cure for a debilitating
One of the perks of being a vampire was the increase in things like speed and strength. I appreciated it as I rushed from my car into the house in search of my son. I was so engrossed in getting to him that I’d forgotten that I’d become a vampire until I saw the look of fright on Cynthia’s face as she ceased descending the stairs with my son in her arms when I flew into the foyer of the house.I stopped short in front of the hall mirror to inspect myself. I looked the same. I could only assume that it was my speed of movement that clued her in to the fact that there was something different about me. I cursed myself for my thoughtlessness. I would have preferred to have time to be around her for a while so that she could see that she wasn’t in danger from me before I confided in her that I’d turned into a vampire. Now, I had no choice but to admit to it and hope for the best.“So, you made the change while you
Lucile was a delightful middle-aged woman who was human with absolutely no fear of anything supernatural. She seized every opportunity between courses to babble on about the supernatural families that she’d cooked for over the years. Although most were vampire families, she’d worked for a werewolf and a witch household as well. She made sure to point out that she much preferred the vampires.Dinner was vegetarian, which had been my preference before I became a vampire and was most definitely a must now that I was one. There was something about the protein in red meat and poultry that didn’t settle with a vampire. They could eat it, but the odds were that they’d suffer for it. Since the main staple for survival was blood, and food was a secondary item, most vampires chose to avoid foods that they knew wouldn’t settle well, no matter how delicious it might taste. I was no exception.Jasper sat so close to me at the dinner table that I
Jasper had made himself my self-appointed protector. Because of this, he was at my house so much that it was hard to tell if he was a resident or not. As a result, we spent a good deal of time getting to know each other. Besides the fact that his centuries of life had been full of adventure and interesting experiences that I loved to listen to him tell stories about, I found that we had a tremendous amount of likes and dislikes in common.He discovered my affinity for fine food and five-star restaurants and went out of his way to take me to one each week. It was during one of these nights out that I was accosted by a vampire, who the restaurant’s bartender called Joe, while making my way to the ladies room. Being a much older vampire with a burly body, his strength superseded mine. By the time Jasper realized what was happening, I was well on my way to being raped in the alley behind the building.I’d seen enraged vampires figh
Being a bit superstitious myself, I insisted that we not go somewhere that I’d gone with Max or Evan. We looked at the list of states that had no waiting period for marriage. Jasper suggested Vermont. I think I would have preferred a warmer climate, but, although cool, the weather was still fine. So, while I called Megan to explain what we were up to, Jasper hired a private plane to take us there.Megan didn’t express the excitement that I’d expected from her, but then, she’d been a bit subdued since I’d returned from imprisonment. I tried on several occasions to have a private conversation with her about it, but, somehow, we were always interrupted; either by Cynthia or Jasper. I made myself a promise that I’d insist we talk when Jasper and I returned.I was no longer nursing, so I didn’t have to worry about getting home to feed Joseph. Even so, I wasn’t comfortable being away from him for too lon