Blood Born Read online

  Maybe his blood would help her, give her additional strength in case the aneurysm did burst, maybe even prevent that weak place in her aorta from ever getting any weaker. He hoped so, because he didn’t dare give her any more. Things had gotten out of hand during their bonding, and he’d taken more blood, given more blood, than he’d intended. She could be hovering close to the point of being turned, and she didn’t want that.

  He didn’t know the exact point; no one did, when it came to turning someone vampire. The tipping point in every human was different, depending on a lot of factors. But he was a blood born, and his powers were intensified. Added to that, Chloe was a conduit, and God only knew what effect that would have.

  She stretched and yawned, finally coming awake. Luca couldn’t resist the arch of her body, so sleek and female. He stroked his hand from her hipbone upwards, over the curve of her waist, the softness of her belly, to cup one of her small breasts in his big hand. His thumb swept lightly over her nipple, chafing it, and he watched it tighten as it turned a darker rose in color.

  The light blush of arousal tinged her entire body. He looked into those soft brown eyes and something in him relaxed, because the anger that had been there before was gone. “Hello, sweetheart,” he said, and couldn’t even feel embarrassed that he’d sunk to using endearments.

  “Luca,” she murmured, turning in to him and sliding her hand over his shoulder, around his neck. He still felt a sense of shock every time she knew him, but this time there was also a piercing sweetness at hearing her say his name. The heaviness of his growing erection pulled at him and he rolled on top of her, his mouth hungry on hers, her response as urgent as if they hadn’t had each other in days. Already there was nothing more natural than moving between her legs and sliding home into the clinging heat of her body.

  One. Bonded. Beloved.

  East Texas

  Jim Elliott hadn’t been sleeping well for the past two months. At first he’d thought the problem was with the new vitamins his wife, Sara, had been making him take, so he’d started slipping the capsules into his pocket in the morning, making her think he was taking them but secretly dropping them into the trash when she wasn’t looking.

  But he didn’t sleep any better once he stopped taking the vitamins. In fact, things got progressively worse. The disturbances moved from his strange dreams to when he was awake, from nightmares about very realistic, bloody battles, to seeing things he knew couldn’t be there. It had started with bits of light he saw out of the corner of his eye and had gradually turned into light-filled shapes that no one else could see. The shapes had become more distinct over time, and what he now saw was undeniably the figure of a man—a figure that came and went at all hours of the day and night.

  He was seeing things that couldn’t possibly be, and dreaming about battles that felt too real. But hell, he’d never been in a battle. He was too young for Vietnam, then the military had gone to all-volunteer, so he hadn’t served during any of the Gulf wars, either. So why in hell was he having what felt like flashbacks to battles he’d never fought? They weren’t even modern battles, for crying out loud. Soldiers didn’t use horses and swords now, and while he knew which end of a horse was which, he didn’t know diddly about swords.

  He didn’t tell anyone about his problem. Privately, he looked up the definition of schizophrenia, but that didn’t seem to fit. He was hearing voices—a single voice, really, but it wasn’t telling him to do weird shit, and he knew the visions he was having were visions, so that wasn’t schizophrenia. He didn’t know what the hell it was.

  Beer had dulled the problem for a while, but he’d ended up being drunk more than half the time. That hadn’t helped the situation at all, because three weeks ago he’d lost his job. Dozing off at the bank and waking up screaming hadn’t gone over well, but when he’d started showing up drunk, well, that had been the kicker.

  A week after he’d lost his job Sara had decided to go visit her parents in Alabama. Judging by the tears in her eyes and the expression on her face as she’d left the house, she wouldn’t be coming home anytime soon. If he’d told her what was happening and asked for her help, she would’ve stayed, maybe. She was a good woman, most of the time. She thought the problems were a midlife crisis and out of control drinking. Sara wouldn’t walk out on a sick man, but if he was just a crazy drunk, that was another matter. So she was gone.

  Just as well. Jim hadn’t slept in days. He hadn’t been drinking, either, since alcohol had only made matters worse. And something odd had happened.

  He couldn’t say why it happened, but it was like a switch inside him had been flipped. The fighting he dreamed about, the indistinct shape that came out of nowhere … he had finally accepted the truth: it was real. He wasn’t crazy, and his mind hadn’t been dulled or damaged by too much beer. There was a world beyond this one, a real world, and the man he saw was trying to contact him. He didn’t know why, or what would happen next, but he knew without a doubt that change was coming, and for some reason he didn’t grasp, he would be at the center of that change.

  He’d tried, but he couldn’t think of a good way to tell Sara what was going on, though he missed her more than he’d thought he would. She’d think he had truly gone off the deep end. Maybe it was best to keep her in the dark, for now. He sensed that the farther away she was from him right now, the safer she was.

  He certainly couldn’t tell Jimmy, their only child, who was in his final year of college in Austin. The boy needed to concentrate on his schoolwork; he’d have enough reality to deal with once he graduated. Until then, Jim would have to handle this problem on his own. While he’d accepted whatever was happening to him as real, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a part of whatever this was. The violence in the dreams was so tangible, he sometimes woke smelling blood and aching from wounds that were not his own. And in those first few seconds of wakefulness there was a name on the tip of his tongue, a strange name he couldn’t quite catch. Something with a strong “R” sound.

  He’d read somewhere that if you saw a ghost you could send it on its way by telling it to move on, or something like that. He hadn’t paid all that much attention, didn’t know if he had to call in someone special, or if maybe he himself could get rid of the ghostly figure he saw. Would that somehow bring the nightmares to an end? Ignoring the ghostly man didn’t seem to be doing a whole lot of good. Screaming at it—him—hadn’t helped, either. Even if it was real—and it felt real—didn’t he have a choice in the matter? Maybe he didn’t want to be involved with whatever the hell this was.

  In the meantime, he drank a lot of coffee so he wouldn’t sleep, watched a lot of television to distract himself. When the doorbell rang just after midnight he was surprised but wide awake and still dressed, in an old pair of jeans and a faded T-shirt. No shoes, but hell, who cared? His heart quickened as he neared the door. Maybe it was Sara. Maybe she’d had a change of heart and come home, but he really hoped not; she shouldn’t be here until he found a way to be rid of the dreams and visions.

  Besides, Sara wouldn’t need to ring, she’d have a key. That thought occurred to him just as he opened the door, then the blonde who stood there wiped Jim’s mind clean of all thoughts about his wife—about everything, to tell the truth.

  Immediately he knew he hadn’t seen this woman around their small town, because he would’ve remembered her. She was young, tall, curvy, gorgeous, and dressed in next to nothing. The “next to nothing” part got his attention more than the rest of it. The denim shorts that hugged her hips were so tiny that if she turned around he’d surely see her ass hanging out. The pink T-shirt was form-fitting and cropped to show her stomach, and it was fine and firm. And she was so tall the high heels put her close to his own six feet. Who wore heels with shorts? Not that he was complaining, because it made her legs look a mile long.

  A six-pack of beer hung in one manicured hand, and the car parked in the driveway behind his was a red Porsche.

  She was a distraction at a time w