Bite Me if You Can (8 page)

“What problem?” Marguerite asked as Leigh’s eyes dropped over his tapered waist to his behind. Her eyebrows lifted a little as she saw that he didn’t have the flat ass that so many men were cursed with, but a pert rounded one that just made her want to reach out and give them a squeeze.

“The girl broke the needle ripping it out of her arm.”

The irritation in his voice drew her gaze back up as he turned to give her an irritated glance.

“I need to replace the needle. Where do I find them?”

“Oh dear.” This comment was followed by a long silence, then the woman said, “I’m afraid I don’t have any replacements.”

“What? But—”

“Lissianna doesn’t need them anymore so I’ve never bothered to—Call Thomas,” she interrupted herself suddenly. “He can pick up one at the blood bank and drop it by.”

“Yes, well that’s another problem. I can’t reach Thomas.” There was steel in his voice now, and Leigh didn’t envy this Thomas person. He was obviously not on Lucian’s list of favorite people.

“You can’t?” Marguerite asked with surprise.

“No. I’ve tried calling him several times tonight and he isn’t answering his phone.”

“Hmmm. That’s odd. Maybe it’s his night off. He shuts off his cell phone on his nights off.”

“Maybe,” Lucian muttered, not sounding convinced.

“Is she awake?”

“Who?”

“The girl,” Marguerite said, then made a sound of annoyance. “What is her name, Lucian?”

“It’s Leigh. Leigh... ” His expression went blank, then he glanced at Leigh. “What’s your last name?”

“Gerard.” It tumbled out before she could think better of giving it.

“I heard that. You are on speaker phone,” Marguerite said sharply.

Lucian’s eyes looked annoyed above the kerchief on his face, but before he could admit or deny it, the woman went on, “And why didn’t you tell me she was awake? For heaven’s sake, Lucian. Just teach her to use her teeth to feed until you can get hold of Thomas. It’s faster anyway.”

Lucian heaved a sigh that sent his kerchief billowing.

Wondering absently what the woman was talking about, Leigh reached out absently and petted Julius. The action roused the animal from sleep, and his whole body went stiff under her hand as Marguerite began to speak again. He was suddenly very much awake. Awake, alert, and stiff and quivering as he searched the room for the source of the voice.

“Try calling Jeanne,” the woman was saying. “She’ll know where her brother is and how to reach him. He always gives her a number in case of emergencies.”

Lucian rumbled something that might have been an agreement to her suggestion, and the woman went on. “And thank you for waiting for the kennel people. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t arrived. We probably would have had to drop Julius off at the—” She stopped abruptly as Julius barked in response to hearing his name. “What was that? Was that Julius?”

Julius barked again despite the glare Lucian had turned on him, and Leigh bit her lip at the frustration on his face as he clutched the phone to his ear.

“Why is Julius still there?” Marguerite sounded alarmed. “I thought the kennel people came to collect him!”

“They did,” Lucian answered. “A woman came by.”

“Then why is he still there?”

Lucian opened his mouth, closed it again, then reluctantly admitted, “She didn’t arrive at an opportune time.”

Silence seeped through the room. When Marguerite finally spoke, her voice was terribly calm, even a little cold, as she said, “Explain.”

Lucian’s eyes shifted to Leigh, and her own widened in surprise at the accusation in his gaze. It seemed obvious he blamed her for whatever had happened.

“I’d left the front door open and gone in to check on... er... Leigh,” he said, grasping for the name. “She was back to her screaming and thrashing so I decided to take her up to Lissianna’s room.”

He ignored Leigh’s startled gasp at the announcement that she’d been “back to screaming and thrashing” and continued, “I picked her up to carry her upstairs, and when I got into the hall there was a woman in the doorway. I started to explain that Julius was in the kitchen, but the sight of Leigh covered in blood and in a fit must have upset her, because she... er... took off.”

“She saw Leigh covered in blood and in the midst of turning?” Marguerite said carefully.

Leigh glanced down, noting the large red stain on her blouse, and supposed the sight of it might be somewhat distressing. She certainly found it distressing.

“I believe Julius may have been barking rather frantically at the time as well,” Lucian announced.

“You believe?” Marguerite asked dryly.

“I had my earplugs in to drown out the screaming,” Lucian explained.

Leigh gaped at the man. Geez, he was all heart.

There was a long drawn-out sigh across the phone. “She probably thought you were some mad killer.”

“That’s what the police said,” Lucian agreed.

“The police?” Marguerite squawked.

“Everything is fine,” he said shortly. “I explained everything.”

“You explained what?” Marguerite sounded almost hysterical. “You couldn’t tell them the truth.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Marguerite, of course I didn’t tell them that.” He released a long sigh that sent his kerchief fluttering again. “It’s obvious you’re on edge from your long journey. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything here. Get some rest.”

“You’ll take care of everything?” Marguerite sounded a bit stressed, but Lucian wasn’t listening. He’d set the receiver back in its rest and was pushing buttons, trying to disconnect as she went on, “I’ve known you for seven hundred years, Lucian, and in all that time you’ve—”

Her rant was cut off as Lucian finally succeeded in finding the button to end the call. Leigh was almost sorry he’d succeeded. She would have liked to hear more. Marguerite had known Lucian for seven hundred years? She must have misheard her, Leigh thought. She’d probably said seven hungry years or something, though that didn’t make any sense either. Anyway, she had a feeling that whatever followed would have been interesting.

Relaxing as silence drifted through the room, Lucian straightened his shoulders and turned to Leigh. He stared at her for a while, then gestured to the tray. “I made you something to eat if you’re hungry.”

Leigh peered at the steaming pile on the plate on the tray, then asked uncertainly. “What is it?”

“Prime cuts in gravy.”

“Prime cuts in gravy?” she echoed slowly. “Did you cook it?”

“I opened the can and heated it up in the microwave for one minute. Someone named Alpo cooked it.”

Leigh stiffened, her head shooting up, eyes wide with disbelief. “Alpo?”

He shrugged. “That’s what the can said.”

Leigh shook her head with bewilderment. “You can use a microwave, but not a phone, and don’t know that Alpo isn’t the chef, but the brand name for dog food?” There was something seriously wrong here.

“I can use a phone,” he snapped. “I’m not an idiot. It’s just Marguerite has these stupid fancy phones with more buttons than a plane cockpit and... ” He paused and seemed to regain his temper, then added, “As for a microwave, I have one of my own. I occasionally like to warm... beverages before I drink them.” He scowled, then added, “And what’s wrong with dog food? Food is food, and it smells pretty good.”

Leigh stared at him as the vague, dreamlike recollection of stumbling into the kitchen returned to her. Her eyes narrowed on Lucian as she wondered if he’d been the blond with Morty and Bricker in the kitchen, the one who’d covered her mouth and pulled her out of the door and against his chest. Had that really happened? Was Lucian that man?

Leigh supposed he could be, but it was hard to tell without seeing his face.

“Do you want it or not?” Lucian asked, and she turned to him with disbelief.

“You’re kidding, right?”

He shrugged and repeated, “Food is food, and I didn’t find anything else in the kitchen.”

Leigh shook her head. She wasn’t that hungry and hoped to God she never was. “No, thank you.”

Shrugging again, he picked up the plate and set it on the bed in front of Julius. The dog immediately began to lap it up.

“See. He likes it,” Lucian said, and Leigh bit her lip against the rude comments that sprang to mind as she watched him bend to the bedside table and open the door.

Curious, she leaned forward and found that it wasn’t a bedside table at all. It was actually a small refrigerator and it was presently stacked half full with bags of blood.

“Open your mouth.”

“What?” Leigh asked. It was such an unexpected order, and his head was in the refrigerator and half-muffled. She was quite sure she’d misheard him.

“I said open your mouth.” Lucian straightened from the refrigerator with a bag of blood in hand.

Leigh eyed it with confusion. “Why?”

Apparently not the most patient of men, rather than repeat himself again, he reached out, clasped her face in one hand and dug his fingers into her cheeks. She was forced to open her mouth to avoid pain. Lucian paused and frowned as he peered at her teeth.

“Of course not.” Shaking his head, he glanced around, then back to her, his gaze pausing on her blouse. “Right.”

Leigh frowned, wondering what on earth he was thinking, then gasped in surprise as Lucian caught the bloody front of her blouse and raised it to her nose. She tried to pull her face away from the crusty cloth, but he simply followed with the stiff material, and she stilled as she breathed in the scent of her own blood.

Normally, her reaction would have been to wrinkle her nose with distaste at the tinny scent wafting up her nostrils. However, Leigh found herself pressing her nose closer into it, her stomach rippling with cramps as she breathed in the distinctive smell. After a moment she became aware of a shifting sensation in her mouth.

Startled, she jerked her head away, her hand rising to her mouth. Her fingertips brushed against the sharp tip of a tooth that was suddenly protruding past the others, then Lucian brushed her hand aside and slapped the blood bag to her mouth.

Leigh heard the pop of her teeth piercing the plastic, then felt something cold slipping up through her teeth as the bag quickly began to deflate. Her eyes shot to Lucian, scared and bewildered as she tried to understand what was happening.

“Right,” he said firmly. “I’m going to explain a few things to you. In the meantime, you just sit there and hold onto this.”

Lucian caught her hand in his free one and raised it to hold the bag in place. Once he was sure she had a grip on it, he straightened and considered her, apparently trying to decide how to go about explaining what he had to tell her.

“I don’t know how much you remember of last night.”

“ ’Onny,” Leigh muttered around the bag, then paused, thinking there was no way he would understand anything she said. Much to her surprise, however, he seemed to grasp it.

“Donny?”

“Unh,” Leigh said, nodding.

“The red-haired guy Morgan was talking to?”

Leigh nodded quickly again and spoke around the bag once more, “ ’Or’an ’it ’e.”

“Morgan bit me—you?”

Leigh nodded again.

“Right. Then you do remember. So I don’t need to explain that vampires really do exist, one bit you, and—apparently—gave you blood?”

Leigh grimaced around the bag against her lips, vividly recalling choking as the tinny liquid poured into her mouth. The same liquid apparently presently being sucked up by her own teeth, which had grown decidedly fangish.

“And now you’re turning, too,” he continued. “You’re a vampire.”

“O’ ’it,” she muttered around the nearly empty bag. That so wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“Oh shit, indeed.”

“So, Morgan really was a vampire?” Leigh asked as soon as the first bag of blood was empty and she could remove it from her mouth. She then frowned at the lisp to her own words. It was odd trying to speak with a mouthful of fangs. Her tongue instinctively tried to avoid the sharp incisors, and as a consequence some of her words were mangled.

Lucian didn’t seem to have any trouble understanding her, however. He merely opened the refrigerator door again and said, “You remember Morgan biting you and giving you blood. What did you think that meant?”

“It could have been the result of drugs dropped into my soda at work,” she pointed out almost hopefully.

“No.”

“Are you sure—” Leigh stiffened as he cut her off by popping a fresh blood bag to her open mouth. She instinctively pulled it away to finish her question, only to gasp as blood shot everywhere, springing into the air like a red fountain from two puncture holes.

Cursing, Lucian snatched the bag from her. Spinning away, he strode to the door against the wall the bed rested against and slammed it open to reveal a bathroom. He tossed the bag into the sink, grabbed a towel off the rack and whirled to return to her.

“Sorry,” Leigh said quietly as he swiped at some of the blood that had sprayed over both her and the bed. Not that his effort did much good. The blood had already soaked into the sheets, and probably into her shirt, though it was hard to tell with the bloodstain already covering it.

Lucian didn’t respond to her apology other than to grunt, then—giving up on any hope of mopping up the blood—he turned to retrieve another bag of it.

“Open,” he ordered firmly.

Feeling guilty about the mess she’d made, Leigh sighed and opened her mouth for him to pop the fresh bag there. She then sat there with questions rushing through her mind that she couldn’t ask. The moment this second bag was empty, she ripped it impatiently from her mouth.

“Do—”

“I know you have questions,” Lucian interrupted, “but they will have to wait until we get through feeding you.”

“No. I... ” Leigh paused and growled in her throat as he popped another bag to her mouth. The man was fast, managing to pick the moment when her mouth was open just wide enough. She hadn’t even seen the bag coming, it was just suddenly there, stuck to her mouth and blocking her speech.

Leigh glared at him over the bag, and Lucian glared right back, then his eyes shifted to the center of her forehead and narrowed in concentration. Frowning, she looked upward, wondering what he saw there.