One With the Night (39 page)

Callan snapped his eyes open. It was dark, but he could see anyway; every detail of the rough stones, the minute splinters of wood feathering the ceiling … And smell! Damp earth, cool stone, the water of the loch outside, and … cinnamon and ambergris.

Jane. She lay against him, her arm across his chest. He was naked under the blanket that covered the lower half of his body. His chest and shoulders were bare. He wasn’t cold, though. Jane’s body warmed him. He picked up a strand of the hair that lay across his chest, caressing it. Her tresses had escaped their knot and were spread in golden glory over the shoulders of her damnable, dear gray dress. How could a creature of the night have hair like the sun?

A thrill of life snaked along his veins and made its way to his crotch. Jane. He felt the curve of breast and hip. She was sleeping, pale in the dim light.

She had given him her blood many times—sweet, generous Jane. That’s why she was so pale. His brows contracted. He could feel her breathing. It was steady, calm. But was she well? She stirred. He hadn’t meant to wake her. She should rest. There was an ordeal ahead.

Life thrilled along his veins. He had a Companion again. But this time it was Jane’s Companion that infected him. He liked that thought. The joy that sang in his veins was familiar, treasured more since he had lost it, but also frightening. His feelings were so complex he could hardly sort them out. He had abandoned all thought of going back to what he was before Asharti had infected him. The charming rogue was gone for good. He found he didn’t care. All he knew was that he had to be vampire for Jane. He had to be strong. They both had to be strong or they would not win through.

The very fact that he was vampire meant they had survived three nights. Elyta would be wondering where the search had gone wrong. Sooner or later she and Flavio would come round to Urquhart Castle. That was good. The confrontation was necessary. He and Jane would risk all on a single throw of the dice, betting on Elyta. And Flavio. Even Clara. Would he were as lucky at that moment of truth as he was at cards or dice. There would be one chance only.

Jane’s breasts under the bodice of her gray dress pressed against his chest. Even through the cloth, they were soft, yielding. He felt his genitals swell. His vampire nature was asserting itself, longing for the life that surged in Jane’s veins. Like to like.

She stirred again and his cock rose. He stilled himself, willing her to sleep on. But she raised her head and turned sleepy eyes toward him. Dark smudges hung under them. How much she had given him! “Ye always seem ta be takin’ care of me,” he murmured.

Her eyes were soft. Now, with his new sight, he could see how violet-indigo they were even in the dim light. “Welcome back,” she whispered. “I might say the same, you know.”

Would that were true. Still, he smiled at her. She would think it was a smile of reassurance. She wouldn’t know that he just couldn’t help smiling when he looked at her. He’d never seen a more beautiful woman. Perhaps it was the goodness and the intelligence that shone from her eyes. It occurred to him that men had thought Asharti the most beautiful woman in the world. And almost anyone would consider Elyta beautiful. But neither Asharti nor Elyta could hold a candle to Jane, because of who she was.

Her eyes darkened. A faint whiff of woman’s desire wafted over him. His balls tightened. His cock stiffened with need. It was his Companion calling to Jane’s. And hers was answering. A little contraction rippled through his spirit. It wasn’t that she loved him. How could she? But she wanted him. Her Companion demanded the most elemental gesture of life and living, as did his.

Once he’d thought he’d never have sex with a woman again, that the sexual act had been spoiled by Asharti forever. He’d gone more than two years without a woman, with help from his left hand. Until Jane. With Jane, the act was joyous. Was it just because she was vampire that he couldn’t resist her? Probably. He couldn’t resist Asharti in those first days of being vampire.

And yet … he wanted more than sex with Jane. He wanted to give something to her, anything. For him it
wasn’t
just the urging of his Companion. After all, he’d made love to Jane when he was human. It hadn’t been as explosive as vampire-to-vampire sex. Yet how sensual and satisfying it was to give her blood as they made their way toward climax. He had never felt anything like it. It wasn’t like Asharti drinking his blood at all.

But he had to face the fact that for Jane, the only reason to want him now was the need of her Companion. She hadn’t had release in days.
That does no’ hurt me. It’s just th’ way things are.
What other way could they be, she being who she was and he being who he was?

“Why do you look at me so strangely?” she whispered, her eyes still dark with desire.

“I ha’ new eyes ta see ye with.”

“I must be a sight…” She ran a hand through her hair self-consciously.

“Aye.” His voice was so husky, he cleared his throat. And he knew he couldn’t keep the desire out of his eyes any more than she could. His genitals were so swollen they were painful.

“Do … do you need blood?” she asked.

He did. Her blood, even though it was vampire, would be necessary for several more days. After that, it would no longer sustain him and he’d need human blood. But how could he take more from her? He avoided her gaze. “Ye’ve given me enough.” That was certainly true.

She ran her hands over his chest. As always, her touch was gentle. “You’re healed.”

He glanced down. There were no marks at all where Elyta had pierced his nipples. The jagged cut on his chest was gone, the stitches shed. He felt no raw welts on his back. He would still have his old scars, but all wounds he’d had three days ago were healed. The feel of Jane’s hands on his body made his cock throb, straining against the blanket. And she was not immune, either. Her breath quickened. She would be wet between her legs. She glanced down at the blanket. He felt her own need ramp up. Even if she only wanted him because she was vampire, still she had needs, and he would do his best to fill them. He covered her hand with his own.

*   *   *

Jane leaned down. Callan’s breath was hot on her throat. Lord, he was only just awakened to his Companion, and she … she wanted to make love to him so badly she could taste it. What kind of a woman was she? The feel of his chest beneath her hand, his hand, warm and dry, covering hers, knowing that his shaft was hard against his belly under the blanket, all made her crazy with desire. She so wanted to kiss him. She held herself forcibly in check. He might want her but it couldn’t be good for him to expend so much energy so soon.

He reached up to her, and touched his lips to hers. Jagged bolts of heat shot to her most moist parts. His eyes widened. Did he feel it, too? His tongue slipped between her lips, and she was lost. The sensuality, the sheer physical joy of that intimacy, drenched her. She leaned in and kissed him back, searching his mouth with her tongue. His arms came around her and crushed her to his chest. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t care. As a matter of fact, what she wanted most was to rid herself of this stupid gray dress. She pulled at the ties, never letting her mouth stray from Callan’s. He worked at the buttons on her bodice and helped her shrug out of it. She pulled her skirts down and kicked off her slippers. Her breasts felt swollen. He freed them from the light chemise that rose up to cover her nipples under her half-corset. She tore at the corset and threw her remaining underthings away. He thumbed her nipples lightly and she had never felt so sensitive. She arched her back and presented her breasts to his mouth. He was not loath to take the suggestion, and fastened those wonderful lips onto her right nipple, sucking gently. The moist feel of his mouth on her breast, sucking, made her want to experience another kind of sucking. He had said that there was a joy in giving as well as taking. In these past days she had felt that satisfaction, even though it was but her wrist that he sucked at. But now, as she remembered him baring his throat to her while they were joined, she wanted the intimacy of his teeth in her throat as much as she wanted his cock inside her. She slid under the blankets with him, and pressed her body along his flank. With her left hand she grasped his cock. How she loved the little growl he gave as she slid the skin up and down over the hard shaft.

“Tell me you’re going to put that inside me,” she said, panting.

“Aye,” he rasped. “I’ll fill ye.”

She straddled his loins, opening her flesh against the thickness of his cock. She slid along it, wetting it with her cream. He hissed in a breath and then grasped her waist and helped her move back and forth. When she could stand it no more, he lifted her as though she weighed nothing and she pulled his cock up. He lowered her onto his rod, slowly. But she didn’t want slow. She pushed herself down on him. “Ahhh,” she sighed, impaled. A feeling of completion filled her along with his flesh. The blanket slipped from her shoulders, unheeded. She put both palms on his pectorals and pushed herself up and down, reveling in the feeling of being filled. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, in something that was neither a snarl nor a grin. His breath hissed in and out as she thumbed his hardened nipples.

And then she raised herself up off him. After the first satisfying thrusts, she felt strong enough to make it slow. He looked surprised.

She smiled. “Drink from me.”

“Jane…” he protested.

How like him to be concerned for her. “I’m strong enough. My Companion has been making blood at a furious pace. Do you mean to be the only one who has felt the joy of giving?”

His expression softened. His eyes creased. Had there ever been a time when she didn’t recognize that as a smile? “I canno’ deny ye anythin’,” he said softly.

She lay down over him, pressing her bare breasts to his chest. He rolled her gently to one side, cradling her head with his biceps. She lifted her chin and looked into those gray-green eyes, baring her throat. “From my throat, as you took it from me.” She rolled onto her back.

The throb of his Companion said he yearned for the blood and for the completion of their act. The life within her veins answered. His eyes went red. His canines slid out. Would this hurt? She, who was made from a beaker, knew so little about living as a vampire. A thrill of fear mingled with the throb inside her. That delicious half fear, half need made her own eyes go red.

As he bent, his black hair with the gray streaks at his temples fell forward. His canines scraped upon her throat. “Sweet Jane, generous Jane,” he murmured.

And then she felt the twin pricks, hardly more than the piercing of her finger by a rose thorn. Was it her Companion that made the pain seem so unimportant? He sucked gently. With his other hand, he took his cock and slipped it back inside her. His body contracted as he thrust and now pulled at her throat more urgently. A feeling of total completion filled her, even as her hips thrust in counterpoint to his. She moaned as she held his head to her throat, feeling the pull of his lips at her neck. Her other hand splayed over his back as the muscles moved under the skin. Her hand strayed down over his loins to his buttocks. The bunching of the muscles there only served to heighten her excitement. Their Companions’ vibrations ramped up some scale toward insanity. Energy seemed to pass between them, reverberating back and forth, growing with each round-trip. Jane opened her eyes, sure she would see a glow of light around their bodies. Instead the air seemed thick and full of power. It was almost buoyant. They seemed to drift on a bubble of energy. She had never felt so potent, so strong.

The wave burst over them without notice. The darkness of the tower around them disappeared. She screamed. Callan shuddered. The pulsing of his cock inside her pushed his seed into her core. It was as if she gave him strength with her blood and he returned the strength with his seed. They clung to each other, the ecstasy pulsing on and on until it wrenched them onto some higher plane. She glimpsed … something—a blinding light.

Then it was gone. A curtain closed and she was falling, falling back down into her body. The vibrations of her Companion cycled down, even as Callan’s echoing vibrations slowed. Callan withdrew his teeth from her throat. She felt the wounds close. He held her, gently now, to his chest. His cock was still inside her. The thump of his heart against her ear was comforting.

Jane had never felt so satiated. But she didn’t feel weak. Far from it. Their joining seemed to have increased her energy tenfold. That energy was now latent within her, waiting to be called upon.

She had been transformed.

It wasn’t shocking. She thought back. She had been transformed when she had made love to him and sucked his blood in her tiny room at Muir Farm, too. How had she not recognized it at the time? And that was when Callan had been human. She had been transformed even the first time, when they had made love here at Urquhart Castle. What was it but a transformation which could induce her to cede all control over her body and let it do what it wanted, what it was made to do? And tonight? Tonight the whole world had changed. Transformation had been coming on in great bounding leaps, like a great Dionysian beast. Not a beast she was afraid of. Not anymore.

Or maybe it had been gaining intensity slowly as she grew to love Callan. She realized that in order to love someone else, one had to give up controlling everything oneself and cede some control to another. Was that why she had trusted him enough to simply transport out of the kitchen at Muir Farm because he said he had a plan? Yes. And she trusted him enough to abandon all defenses and let the sexual demands of their Companions burst over them in transforming ecstasy she could only experience by reveling in being female.

But what about Callan? Had he felt it, too? If he had, then nothing would ever be the same. He would know they belonged together. He would embrace the love she knew he had inside him. Their joining seemed the seminal purpose for their lives that enabled all their other purposes to flower. They were meant to be together, taking and giving strength and joy, spending their strength on others, recklessly, and on each other. She lifted her head from his chest.