Blood Pact

off to a slow start.”

    Celluci frowned. "I'm not sure I understand. You can't ever see him again?”

    "He says I won't want to. That we won't want to.”

    "The bastard could've told me." He dragged a hand up through his hair. ”Henry wanted me to tell you that a year is a small slice of eternity.” Taking a deep breath, he wondered what he would’ve done had their positions been reversed. "Never mind. Henry doesn't owe me anything. And the son of a bitch already apologized.”

    Vicki looked doubtful. "Yeah? Well, I'm not buying into his tragic separation bullshit even if we can't share a territory." Brave words, but she wasn't so sure that they meant anything, that her new nature would allow a bond to remain without the blood.

    "I'm not giving you up without a fight.”

    Henry turned away from the lights of a new city and sadly shook his head. "You'll be fighting yourself, Vicki. Fighting what you are. What we are.”

    “So ?” Her chin rose. ”I don't surrender, Henry. Not to anything.”

    "He's got a cellular phone and he just bought a fax machine, for chrissake; I think we'll manage to stay in touch.”

    "Really?" Celluci propped one hip on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. "You never called me .”

    "I wasn't able to until just recently, things were a little chaotic at first. And then . . ." She rubbed a pale finger along the edge of his kitchen table, glad she'd lost the ability to blush. "And then, I was afraid.”

    He'd never heard her admit to being afraid of anything before. ”Afraid of what?”

    She looked up and he found his answer in the desperate question in her eyes.

    "Vicki . . ." He made her name a gentle accusation. Couldn't you trust me ?

    "Well, I'm different now and . . . What are you laughing at?”

    How long had it been since he laughed like that? About fourteen months, he suspected. "If that's all you're worried about; Vicki, you've always been different.”

    The question faded, replaced by hope. "So you don't mind?”

    "I'd be lying if I said it won't take getting used to, but, no, I don't mind." Mind? There wasn't much he couldn't get used to if it meant having her back beside him.

    "It won't be the same.”

    "No shit.”

    "Henry says it can be better.”

    "I don't care what Henry says.”

    "It won't be settling down and raising a family like you wanted.”

    He slid off the counter. "Don't tell me what I wanted. I wanted you.”

    She opened her arms, her teeth a very white invitation against the curve of her mouth.

    He met her halfway.

    They hit the floor together.

    Two hours and twenty-three minutes later, Vicki pillowed her head on his shoulder and stared up at the kitchen ceiling. She'd thought that over the last fourteen months she'd come to terms with what she'd become, vampire, child of darkness, nightwalker, but she hadn't, not really, not until her teeth had met through a fold of Mike Celluci's skin and she'd drawn his life back into hers. She licked at a drop of sweat and could feel his breath, warm against the top of her head, his scent wrapped around her.

    "What're you thinking of?" he asked sleepily.

    Vampire. Child of Darkness. Nightwalker.

    Reaching up, she brushed the curl of hair back off his forehead and smiled. "I was just thinking about the next four hundred and fifty years.”

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