Worth Dying For (31 page)

Amber knew Bane had done it. Her body had been lost in such mind-blowing ecstasy that she only realised something had happened when her heart lurched in pain.

A sting flared to life in her neck, as if a sharp knife had been pressed to her throat and she tried in vain to move away from the sensation. But the feeling spread further, down into her chest and up into her head. An almost unbearable pain moved through her body, doubling and intensifying until every part of her screamed in agony.

Why is Malachi crying? Does he think I am dead? Please, please let me die…I can’t bear this pain. I love you Bane, but I can’t do this…it hurts. It hurts. Please make this pain stop. Please…

Amber didn’t know if she was begging out loud or pleading silently but when she sensed death trying to pull her under she reached for it, desperate for release from the torture. She tried to breathe but her lungs were as paralysed in pain as the rest of her.
 
The clawing burn in her throat from the need for oxygen intensified until she could bear it no longer—and then suddenly it eased and the longed for darkness started to close in around her.

Her last thought was of Malachi. She would see him again, of that she was sure. Amber had faith in him. He would find his way back to God—if only to find his way back to her in the hereafter.

Amber was surprised by two things when she woke up again. First, that she actually had, and second, that she wasn’t in pain anymore. She sucked in a deep breath and almost cried in relief when it didn’t hurt. Next, she flexed her muscles one by one but none reported any problems or protested too much. Then she tried opening her eyes.

Bane’s concerned face filled her vision. His frown deprived her of the smile she had anticipated and she wondered if something had gone wrong.

“Am I alive?”

His eyes squeezed shut and he dropped his head, relief evident in his posture. “Well, technically, no.”

“Oh. Am I a vampire then?”

“I would hope so after what you went through for the past two days.”

Two days? That explained the burning dryness in her throat. “I need water.”

Bane sat up and looked away, a strange expression on his face. “It’s not water you need.”

“Oh.” Amber wondered if Bane had known what he was doing. “Why don’t I feel any different? Are you sure it worked?”

He smiled at her. “Oh yes, I’m sure. Why do you doubt it?”

“Because I still feel like me I guess. I kind of thought I’d be more aware of the changes.”

“You’ve been flat on your back for the whole five minutes you’ve been a vampire. How different did you expect it to be?”

Amber didn’t like him laughing at her and she turned to frown at him—but then a low rumble erupted from her chest. She sat up and pressed her hands to her torso. “Did I just fucking
growl
?”

“Yes, I think you did.” His eyes glittered with excitement and he edged closer. “And it’s the sexiest damn thing I ever heard.”

“You
liked
that?” Bane nodded and pushed her back down onto the bed. “I thought you hated everything about being a vampire?”

“I’ve never been in love with one before.” His lips caught hers and he kissed her with an intensity she felt sure would have killed the human she had been two days earlier. When he pulled away to drag his lips to her neck, she felt his teeth graze against her skin and she tensed for the pain. He bit her again and this time she understood why their kind did it. Amber’s hips jerked from the bed, slamming into his groin as it came down to meet hers. She turned in his arms and sunk her own teeth into the part nearest to her, Bane’s shoulder.

“Fuck! Amber…” His body went rigid above her and he gasped, grimacing against the sensations she seemed to be causing.

Amber released him. “Malachi, you cursed!”

Her laughter seemed inappropriate but she couldn’t stop the delight coursing through her at the sight of him losing control. He growled against her neck and grasped her thighs, parting them. Amber’s laughter died in her throat as he placed the head of his cock at her entrance. Just when she expected him to fill her in one long, satisfying thrust, he paused.

She jerked beneath him, unable to close the distance between them while he held her, still much weaker than him despite the change. Amber wished he would let her take his weight now she was stronger, but he seemed set on being gentle. When Bane shuddered above her, she wondered at the reason for his reaction, until he shifted position and dropped his body to press hers into the mattress. Amber searched his face but he did no more than raise an eyebrow in amusement.

“Did you know I wanted you to do that?” she asked.

“You can use your mind to drive me crazy along with your beautiful body now. Try thinking of something else.”

She pictured him kissing her breasts and he complied, but in ways she couldn’t have imagined. His teeth nipped her flesh and again she jerked beneath him. As the images began to race through her brain without conscious effort, she lost the ability to distinguish between his thoughts and her own.

The one thing he had never done for her came into her mind and Bane slid down her body almost immediately, to kneel in the space between her thighs. Amber’s hips moved underneath him as her legs somehow ended up over his shoulders. His free hand moulded to the outside of her leg and held her still as his face turned inwards. Suddenly he was sinking his teeth into the flesh of her thigh, his fingers working slow, luxurious circles on her clitoris. His venom entered her at the source of her lust—through the artery supplying the blood to her most sensitive parts—and the orgasm that followed made her so weak she thought she might have died again.

 
Bane didn’t release her straightaway, his fingers starting to move in and out of her and his mouth pressed against her hot, sensitive bud. His tongue slid in and around her, his lips sucking at various points but always returning to the place she craved it the most. She came again, gentler than the first time but no less in awe of what he could do to her.

Bane rose up over her without warning and entered her hard and fast, sinking in to the hilt even before she could form the wish for it in her mind. He thrust into her again and she matched him stroke for stroke, revelling in the sounds she dragged from him as she did so. Amber’s gaze fixed on Bane’s neck as it passed over her, the muscles strained taut, and the urge to bite him took over. She reared up, feeling her fangs descend seconds before her teeth sunk into the firm flesh.

His reaction did not disappoint. Bane’s hands moved to her head to hold her mouth against him, pinning her in place as he slammed into her over and over. His growls escalated as his release began and she clung on tighter, wanting to make him feel something to match the experience he had given her.

Amber released him when he stilled above her. Her teeth had punctured his skin. But before she could ask Bane how she had managed to damage him, the flesh healed in front of her eyes. The two small puncture wounds simply closed over and within seconds it seemed as if nothing had happened.

She laughed as he collapsed onto the bed beside her, unable to do more than smile. Amber watched him fall asleep with a grin. Now she could match him a little more closely in strength and stamina, Bane had reacted like a typical human male and fallen into a coma immediately after sex. Still, seeing him spent and exhausted after making love gave her a sense of power she enjoyed.

Amber slid from the bed, moving so carefully that she barely jostled it, but Bane still woke. “Where are you going?”

“I want to go outside.”

“Wait, I’ll come with you.”

He drew level with her and hesitated while she stared at him in confusion. Was she taller? She’d barely reached the top of his chest before, but now she stared straight at his nose. “Wow.”

 
“Do you like being bigger?” The worry on his face reminded her that Bane was still expecting her to freak out in some way, once she realised how different she was.

“As long as I’m not fat, I don’t care.”

“No, you are beautiful.”

 
“Do I look different?”

“Only in small ways.”

“Gaining four inches in height is a small change?” Amber looked around, desperate to find a way to see herself. “Damn it. Why don’t you have a mirror?”

“What is it you wonder about?”

“I don’t know…are my eyes like yours?”

Bane smiled. “No, they’re still green but a slightly different shade and the gold flecks in them are brighter.”

“Oh. And has my hair grown?” He nodded and Amber understood why she could feel it tickling the skin of her ass. “I guess I can cut it.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” He reached around her, pulling the thick waves forwards and arranging them around her shoulders. “It’s up to you of course, but it’s very beautiful and I would miss it.”

“Won’t it grow back?” Bane shook his head. “Ok, I’ll keep it then.” She smiled when he seemed pleased by her response.

“Surely you must have some questions that don’t revolve around your appearance, lovely as it is?”

Amber smiled at his teasing. She had done nothing but talk about how she looked. There was so much more she wanted to know.

“I think it’s time you showed me what this body can do.”

When she found herself back on the bed a split second later, she couldn’t be sure Bane hadn’t misunderstood on purpose. But any thoughts of her hunger, or curiosity about how she would move through the world from now on, disappeared when she felt the unbridled love and happiness radiating from him.

“We’ll go outside soon…I promise,” he said. His hands began a slow exploration of the body that was new to both of them.

When Bane whispered something deliciously dirty in her ear, Amber wondered if he’d always said such filthy things to her and she just hadn’t been able to hear him. She’d been a fool to think he’d had taught her all she needed to know about how sex with him would be.

“Outside” could wait a little longer.

Chapter Eighteen

It pleased Malachi to watch Amber take to her new life without hesitation.

On their first trip to the mainland to hunt, when hunger drove them from the bed they had been reluctant to leave, she got her first kill. Her compassion for the animal seemed to disappear when she caught its scent and began to chase it down. Amber whooped with joy as she sped across the fields, her legs pumping hard, propelling her forwards, her pace matching his. As she brought down the beast she groaned in almost erotic pleasure and Bane knew how wonderful she would feel as the burning in her throat eased for the first time. Amber made him proud.

Bane could not keep his gaze or his hands off her but he resisted the urge to take her again until they got back to the cave. Amber’s new body felt every bit as soft and lush as it had before, but now she could handle the intensity he’d been forced to keep in check when she was human. They didn’t leave home again except to hunt for a full week, and even then Bane couldn’t wait to get her back into his cave and his bed.

 
It delighted him to discover, although he would never admit it to her, that Amber loved to fight him. She relished her newfound strength and agility and would attack him regularly, often without warning. Bane always held back a little as they wrestled, allowing her to think she could match him physically—except for in the bedroom. Amber had learnt he was easy to tease and she often drove him to distraction, laughing in triumph when his lust for her shattered his self control and he forgot to be quite so gentle.

Bane thought Amber seemed content with their life together, but one day not long after she had changed, she walked into the cave and sighed. He looked at their home through her eyes for the first time and doubted she had any intention of spending her eternity inside its cold, dank walls.

“I want a house,” she said.

 
“Really? I kind of like it here.”

Amber moved closer, wrapping her arms around his neck, and giving him the sweet smile he recognised as a warning that she was about to wield some of the power she had learnt she had over him.

“Don’t you want me to be happy?”

Bane pulled away to stare into her eyes. “It’s all I ever want. Are you happy, Amber?”

 
“There’s one thing I don’t have, and only you can give it to me.”

He guessed they weren’t talking about houses any more. “You already own everything I have, but tell me what it is, and I will try.”

“Your soul.”

“You have that already.”

“But does God?” Amber bit her lip, unsure she should push the issue.

“Is that what you worry about so much?”

“I don’t worry
that
much. Anyway, I thought I kept it very well hidden.”

Her nervous smile tugged on his conscience. He should have forced her to talk more rather than spending all his time trying to make love to her or keep her entertained.

“I wish you had told me what was on your mind. When I see you go off on your own looking so sad, it makes me wonder if you regret being with me. Do you regret it?”