Steal the Light (Thieves) (13 page)

But the rest of my life didn’t have to be so long. Did it? Just as the dark thought started to fill me, I heard a voice.

“God, you’re so fucking beautiful.”

I could hear him. He’d always told me I was beautiful.

“I need you not to freak on me, Z.” Daniel’s voice. It wasn’t a weak little whisper. For a moment, I wondered if I’d gone crazy. It wouldn’t really surprise me, and the truth was, if I could be with Daniel again, I wouldn’t really care if it was real or not.

“Why would I freak?” It was a dream. I had fallen asleep on the couch and naturally I dreamed that Daniel had come back to me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized I would have to wake up and deal with his death all over again, so I was going to enjoy my dream while it lasted. “Come here and hold me.”

Daniel kept to the shadows. “I thought you would be more upset. Did they not tell you, baby? Wow. I thought for sure they would call you. This is going to be a little difficult to explain. First off, the car is totaled, and I know this sounds bad, but that’s actually the not so bad part.”

“Why would I be upset to see you?” I asked, though I was actually getting a little antsy. Shouldn’t Daniel obey me in my dreams? It was my fantasy, and I wanted everything to be perfect. I stood up to get closer to him, but I saw him retreat from me. “Damn it, Danny, I don’t know how much time we have. I could wake up any minute, so please get over here. Don’t make me chase you. I don’t think I could handle that right now.”

“Zoey, this isn’t a dream. I know you’ve had a shock, but I need you to come out of it now. I need you to help me figure this out. Everything is weird now. You glow, baby. I don’t know why you glow.”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” I said soothingly. “You’re back, and I’m happy. That’s all I want to feel now. This is my dream.”

Daniel stepped out of the darkness, and it was my turn to retreat. “If this were a dream, baby, would you bring me back like this?”

I was startled out of my fog. He was really standing in our living room. He was really alive. He really had fangs. Long and white, they emerged from his mouth, caressing his bottom lip.

“Holy shit, Danny, you’re a vampire.” I walked toward him. My initial shock fled, replaced with an amazing sense of wonder. I felt a smile spreading across my face as I reached up to feel his skin against my palm. His eyes were a little strange and there were those fangs, but it was my Daniel, and he was alive…well, he was here. I wouldn’t argue with it. I knew a bit about vampires. I knew how they could rise, and I had just won the fucking lottery. “I just saw you at the morgue. Were you pretending? You seemed really dead to me.”

He pulled me to him, and I felt his sigh of relief as our bodies fit together. This was where I belonged, wrapped up in him, his scent filling my brain. His hands moved on my back, pulling us closer together. His little dance with death hadn’t slowed him down. His hips moved a bit, rubbing his erection against me. This was a deep intimacy I no longer took for granted.

Daniel’s lips pressed against my forehead. “I woke up about an hour ago. I was on a table, turned out to be an autopsy table. Let me tell you,
CSI
makes that shit look glamorous. It was horrible. They cut my chest open. I had to…push it all back together. Luckily, they hadn’t actually started taking stuff out yet. Surprised the autopsy guy, though.”

I only got about half of what he was saying. I was too busy letting the truth of his return wash over me. I understood the process of becoming a vampire. I also knew how rare it was, and it was even more surprising it had happened while Daniel was so young. I let my head nuzzle into his chest and heard…

“Your heart is beating.” It was the most glorious sound I’d ever heard.

He gave me an embarrassed smile and didn’t even try to hide his fangs. “I kinda ate the autopsy guy. He’s not dead or anything. Maybe a little anemic and god, he tasted horrible. I’m only feeding on chicks from now on. They have to taste better.”

I hadn’t exactly liked that guy. He’d been a bit of an ass, but the enormity of it all hit me in that moment. Daniel had been dead. Dead. Gone from this Earth. I’d begun the process of mourning him. Hell, I’d thought about joining him.

The tears I’d feared would never come burst forth in a tidal wave.

Daniel stopped cracking wise and swept me up, hauling me against his chest. He carried me to our bed and held me while I cried. He talked, but there was nothing like sarcasm in his words now.

First, he told me how the car seemed to come out of nowhere, and he’d only had enough time to think about me and how much he would miss me and us, and to wonder in that final moment who was going to take care of me. He told me how confused and scared he’d been when he’d first stirred. He told me how the hunger had coursed through him and the horror of realizing what he needed to do. He told me the only thing that got him through it all was the need to get back to me, to our home, to our life.

And I cried. I sobbed because I had lost him and I had no idea how to live without him. He was my world, the steady hand that held mine. I’d known him since I was a child, drawn to him even before I understood what it meant to like a boy. He’d been my friend, my boyfriend, my only lover, my everything, and then he’d been gone.

After the longest time, my tears subsided. We were lying together on our bed, the piece of crap bed we’d bought at a garage sale, our legs tangled together.

“Z, please forgive me.”

There was nothing to forgive. “I don’t care, Danny. You’re here. It’s all that matters. I don’t care about the vampire thing, but we need to talk about the Council.”

I wasn’t totally stupid. I knew the Council trained vampires.

“I don’t know, Z. I don’t know exactly how it works. I can only promise that if they take me away, I’ll come back for you. If they make me move, we’ll go somewhere new. We’re going to be okay.” He nuzzled against my hair. “This doesn’t change a damn thing. I want you more than ever. Baby, you have to tell me. Am I a monster?”

He couldn’t think that. He was Daniel. My love. “If you’re a monster, then you’re my monster.”

“God, Zoey, the hunger. You can’t imagine it,” he whispered. I could feel the tension in his body. “Just being near you makes me crazy. You’re really beautiful, Z.”

I sat up and looked down at him. He was the beautiful one. Death had taken all the small imperfections humans possessed and turned him into the ideal version of himself. His eyes were dark, and I could feel the need coming off his body. His pupils were slightly dilated and so blue I thought I could get lost in them. Desire flooded me. Every girl part I had went soft and wet. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but the air around me felt soft. My nipples peaked, straining against my shirt.

It was all coming from him. Desire poured off him, like a wave rolling over me.

He wanted. He was hungry and I could feed him. I wanted to feed him.

I shrugged out of the shirt I was wearing, and his hands began to shake. I didn’t think about the implications. I just knew he needed blood and I had plenty.

“Do you think it hurts?” I wasn’t really scared of the prospect. I just wanted to know what to expect.

Daniel pulled away. “No, this isn’t a good idea, baby.”

“Don’t you want me?” If he didn’t, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” If there was one thing I knew in the world, it was that Daniel Donovan wouldn’t hurt me. “I trust you. I love you, Danny.”

Daniel pulled me to him, and I could feel my heart racing. I should have been afraid, but all I could think of was just how excited I was. I thought I’d lost him forever, but I was going to make love with him. I was seventeen again, and Daniel and I were discovering the world together. We’d had no one but each other. The world had changed and we would figure it out all over again.

I got to my knees, getting rid of my bra in the process. With anyone else, I was insecure, but Daniel was my home. Daniel was love and safety and all the good things of the world in one package. I could be naked and exposed and perfectly happy because he never looked at me with anything but desire.

“Zoey.” My name was a benediction on his lips. A promise of a future I thought I’d lost. “Be sure.”

“I’m always sure of you.” I reached out and touched his shoulders, smooth skin covered by muscles. His flesh was cool, but just his touch ignited my senses. I could feel the blood flowing through my veins.

I understood why he found that first feeding so distasteful. There was a sexual element about it that would bother Daniel. The room was heavy with anticipation, and Daniel’s fangs were full and large. They weren’t the only part of him that wanted to play. His erection tented his pants, his cock pointing my way.

“God, baby, you smell so good.” He groaned as he nuzzled my neck, the sound skimming across my flesh. He ran his tongue across the smooth skin, and I shivered in anticipation. I let my hands roam. It was like his whole body had tightened, reforming into a perfect version of Daniel.

I could feel his cock against my belly. He moved against me as though he couldn’t quite help himself. I couldn’t either. It felt right to be near him. Perhaps his death simply focused my consciousness to him, but there was a deep, physical connection that hadn’t been there before. I loved Daniel, but this closeness felt like something more.

It was right and good to feed him.

He leaned over and kissed me, his mouth covering my own. I was deeply aware of how much bigger he was than me. I was small in his embrace, but that was all right. He would never hurt me. I was his. I was precious. Our tongues tangled, the feeling heightened beyond anything I’d known before. Daniel seemed to inhale me, his every cell focused on my body, my soul.

I was aware of my own heart. I could hear it beating in my chest, making a rhythm we could move to. My heart was visceral, real in a way it hadn’t been before. It pumped blood through my body. Blood that kept me alive. Blood that would feed my Daniel. My heart was the center of our universe.

Daniel’s eyes glowed in the dim light as he rubbed our foreheads together. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t full of you, baby. I think I loved you before I knew you.”

I let my head fall to the side to give him better access. A delicious wave of desire pulsated across my skin. His magic. Vampires had ways to persuade their blood partners, to make the feeding process a pleasurable one. He was seducing me with his newfound skill, and I let it wash over my whole being. His arms wrapped around me. Our legs tangled together. I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began, we were so close.

He growled just a little, the sound low from the back of his throat. The moment lengthened, blood pulsing, heart pounding, body aching.

And then he struck, fangs sinking in, finding the vein. Pleasure, pure and undiluted, coursed through me. My womb fluttered, orgasm blooming from the center of my body. I was with Daniel in that moment, feeling the glory of blood and trust and the promise implicit in the exchange.

We were more than we’d been before. I’d changed as surely as Daniel had. I was more than the woman who had wept and thought about joining her lover. Larger. The moment Daniel fed, I’d grown larger somehow.

He pulled at my neck, and another wave crested and darkness took me.

Warmth and heat surrounded me when I came back to consciousness.

“Welcome back, princess,” he said, smiling down at me.

My back sank into the mattress, Daniel’s weight pressing me down. My whole body was languid, utterly submissive to his. And I’d lost my pants. And underwear. And everything. He’d stripped me down and lost his own clothes and our bodies slid against each other, skin to skin.

“Wrap your legs around me.” Daniel rubbed his chest against mine, the hard length of his erection nestled at my core. “Fuck, Z, you’re so wet. That smells good, too. It’s like I’m surrounded by your light.”

I liked the sound of that. The whole world seemed like an erotic dream. I did as he asked, drawing my legs together with him in the center. It didn’t take much for him to twist his hips and join us together.

This was where I belonged, with Daniel inside me. I let my hands run down to his ass to cup those muscular cheeks. He was my playground. And I was inside him, too. My blood flowed through his body, keeping him alive.

“You feel so good, Z.” He sounded a little drunk, but then I felt that way, too.

I twisted my hips, trying to take him deeper. He felt so good, rocking his cock back and forth, playing in my pussy.

He stared straight down at me, our eyes locking as he thrust in. We were so connected. I could practically feel his pleasure, and I wanted to give him mine.

And then he was Daniel again, his lips curling up and those dimples creasing his face. “I think we’re going to like this life, Z.”

I thrust up, impaling myself on him, fire flashing through me. Yes. This was going to be an adventure.

He leaned down, and his perfect lips found mine. I could taste the faintest hint of metal and realized it was blood. I licked at his lips, and he went a little crazy. His hips set a punishing rhythm that made me moan and beg. He pressed into me, bringing me to the edge over and over. I wrapped myself around him because he was the only real thing in the world now.

Daniel groaned and ground down, hitting my clitoris and sparking heat through my body.

Sex had been good, but this was something beyond any orgasm I’d had before. This was flying on a jet, when I’d only ever been on a bus. He finally found that perfect spot and let his cock glide over it, and I took off.

I held him so close as he released his own control and let himself fall. It was all right. We were safe there together.

He held me the rest of the night, telling me over and over how much he loved me. About an hour before dawn, they came and took him away from me.

I fought and screamed and, in the end, I begged.

It didn’t matter. He was gone again, and I was left with nothing but questions.