Once Burned

Chapter 36

I was glad Vlad was occupied with his gruesome task. It gave me time to mull our latest spat without worrying that he was clued into my thoughts since his “due diligence” policy meant the prisoner would receive all his attention. To help take the edge off, I took a bath and drank three glasses of wine while I quietly acknowledged the reason behind my unexpected venom toward him tonight. It wasn’t just frustration because he refused to implement my plan. It was because I’d done the stupidest thing possible—started to fall in love with a man who would never love me.

Sure, Vlad might care for me in his fashion, but he’d never allow himself to be emotionally vulnerable enough to love. With his usual brutal honesty, he’d stated that up front. I thought I could deal with it, but somewhere along the lines, this complicated, mesmerizing, often terrifying man had gotten so deeply beneath my skin that he’d pierced my heart. Now, I wasn’t so sure that having most, but not all, of him would be enough, and the hell of it was, I still didn’t want to let him go.

Maybe I wasn’t the only one with psychic abilities, I thought. Unless something drastic changed, Marty would be dead on in his prediction that Vlad would break my heart.

The last thing I felt like doing was sleep, but I’d need to be clearheaded tomorrow if I was using my powers to hunt for Szilagyi. A couple hours of restless tossing and turning later, I’d just started to drift off when sharp raps at the door startled me. Vlad wouldn’t knock, and Maximus was busy helping him play hide-the-hot-poker on Szilagyi’s captured henchman.

“Leila.” My father’s voice, followed by another series of raps. “Let me in. We need to talk.”

Gretchen, I thought with a mental groan. She must’ve told Dad about what she overheard earlier. Why hadn’t I asked Vlad to glare her into keeping her mouth shut?

I got up, putting a robe over my silk nightgown before I opened the door. My father came inside, his rapid but thorough glance taking in the area that was a smaller, paler green, and more feminine version of Vlad’s bedroom.

“Where is he?” he asked without preamble.

“Torturing the hell out of an enemy combatant he captured tonight,” I replied with equal abruptness.

“And this is the man you’re risking your life for?”

Hugh Dalton had the kind of hardened, self-possessed stare that some vampires a hundred years older hadn’t manage to perfect, and he turned it on me with full force. It bounced off.

“No, I’m risking it for myself, Marty, and a nice boy who helped save me recently and then got killed by the vampire I’m trying to take down,” I said coolly.

He spun in a half circle and paced a few steps away, his limp making the strides shorter and less graceful than his former militarily precise movements.

“It’s fine to hate me,” he stated, jaw clenching as he shot a pain-filled look my way. “I failed your mother and I should have been there for you after the accident. I . . . part of me blamed you at first. You must know that after touching me, but deep down, there was never a question as to who was really responsible for her leaving and subsequent death. Me. So please, even though Marty was a better father to you than I, don’t expose yourself to more vampires trying to save him. Keep punishing me, I deserve it. But don’t endanger yourself more than you already have.”

The truth we’d both known for years was finally spoken between us, and now that the words hung in the air, I felt a weight inside me ease. I’d told Vlad that talking about my father’s deepest sin was too painful, but what I didn’t realize was that the wound had only festered by ignoring it. Memories I hadn’t allowed myself to recall sprang to my mind like clips from a movie reel: The four of us collecting seashells along the Virginia shoreline when my dad was stationed near D.C. How Gretchen, only eight, had fallen giggling into the sand while I taught her cartwheels. My dad sweeping us up and spinning us in circles until we screamed with delight while my mom laughingly chided him to put us down before we got dizzy.

The happy family we’d once been had broken into pieces, but broken things could still heal. I was proof of that. We are all more than the sum of our sins, Vlad had said. If I wanted to lay down the burden I still carried over my darkest deed, then I had to forgive my father for his.

“We both failed her,” I said, voice roughened from the pain of remembrance. “But if Mom were here, she’d tell us to get over it already. She’d say that nothing was more important than our family sticking together, and I—I want to listen to her now like I didn’t back then.”

He grabbed me, pulling me against him despite the current that made him shudder. His cane dropped to the floor as he put both arms around me, tucking my head into his shoulder as he’d done when I was a little girl. I embraced him back, keeping my right hand to my side since I hadn’t gone to bed wearing my gloves. It had been so long since I’d hugged my dad, breathed in that blend of Old Spice and aftershave, yet somehow, the years of estrangement seemed to melt into mere months.

Then I gently pushed him away and gestured at his ruined leg. “A bomb blew your convoy apart and crippled your knee, but you still crawled toward the survivors and kept providing cover fire.” Watery smile. “I’m going with Vlad to help look for the vampire who captured Marty, but it’s not because I think he was a better father to me than you. It’s because I’m the daughter of a man who refused to abandon the people he felt responsible for even when he was outgunned, bleeding, and only able to crawl.”

“God, you’re as stubborn as your mother,” he said in a voice that cracked from emotion.

I laughed even though my vision blurred from tears. Guilt had made memories of my mom too painful to dwell on, but now it felt good to recall the various aspects of her personality.

“She was stubborn, wasn’t she?”

My father opened his mouth to reply, but then Vlad entered the room. He didn’t seem surprised to see my father. I guess he would’ve heard us talking as he approached.

Dad retrieved his cane and straightened to his full six-foot height. Then he stared at Vlad with an intensity that would’ve made a lesser man squirm.

“I don’t care who or what you are. You fail to protect her while using her as a homing device on your enemy, and I’ll find a way to kill you.”

Tough as Hugh Dalton still was, it was the equivalent of a house cat threatening a Bengal tiger. To his credit, Vlad didn’t laugh or crack one of his charmingly lethal smiles.

“Oh, I always protect what’s mine,” he replied, and his tone made me think he was speaking to me, too.

My dad glanced at me, sighed in a way that said he strongly disapproved of this relationship, and left, his salt-and-pepper head erect even if the rest of his body was no longer straight. I closed the door behind him but waited before turning around, not sure if I’d finished one confrontation only to have another.

“Done already?” I asked neutrally.

“I am. The others aren’t” was his reply. A slithering noise followed, and then seconds later, the hiss of water.

I turned around. His clothes and shoes were in a pile on the floor and he was in the shower. He hadn’t bothered to turn the light on, but the door was open and he’d chosen to shower in my room. Not his. For Vlad, that was as much an offer to join him as a formal invitation.

I shouldn’t. The smart move would be to go back to bed and sleep on all the concerns I had about this relationship, but I went into the bathroom instead, flipping on the light. The glass doors encasing the shower concealed nothing from my gaze.

Vlad’s head was directly under the spray, dark brown hair appearing longer with the water sluicing through it. Red rivulets turned to pink and then ran clear as the blood that had soaked through his clothes washed away. From his taut nipples, the water was cold, but faint steam rose as it hit him. His body was even more tempting with that glistening wetness highlighting every ripple, hollow, and bulge. Long, thickly muscled legs set off the twin mounds of an ass that practically dared you not to stare at it. I did until he took a bar of soap and began rubbing lather over himself. White suds clung to sinewy arms, draped across broad shoulders, gathered in the hollow of a sculpted chest, slid down the enticing dark trail on his stomach, and then crowned in the crisp hair of his groin.

My gaze stayed there, and when he lathered flesh that grew and thickened under his hand, a distinct throb began in my loins. Vlad’s seething masculinity was matched only by his incredible power, and though both were way out of my league, I was drawn to him like the proverbial moth to a flame. Without thought, I slipped out of my robe and then my nightgown.

When I met his gaze, it was bright green and predatory, making a shiver run through me that had nothing to do with being naked in a chilly room. I’d never had someone stare at me the way he did. As if he already owned me body and soul, and I was the only one who hadn’t realized that yet. Moving like I was in a dream, I entered the shower, gasping when he pulled me to him. The water was icy, but his flesh was scalding, and the shock of burning and freezing at the same time was heightened by the intensity of his kiss. His mouth was molten bliss, tongue a sinuous brand; large hands igniting desire everywhere they roamed. My nails dug into the muscled expanse of his back, and he let out a low laugh at the current that jolted into him.

“I love how excitement sharpens your power.” Growled as his mouth trailed down to my neck. “When you’re about to come, your whole body vibrates. Most incredible thing I’ve ever felt.”

Then he sucked the spot he’d pierced three days ago. The punctures had healed, but shards of erotic sensation coalesced under his mouth as if reminding me how good his fangs felt buried there. I’d gripped his head and stood on tiptoe to press him closer before I realized what I’d done.

Another chuckle, more darkly possessive than amused. “I told you you’d crave my bite.” Then the graze of sharp teeth. “Is this what you want?”

It was, and between the taunting strokes of his fangs and his ruthlessly knowing hands, I could barely stay upright. Desire melted my bones to candle wax, and the wetness between my legs was from more than the shower spray, but the sensual triumph in his tone stirred something primal in me. Yes, he’d made me crave his bite, his kiss, and other things I could never have from him, but I refused to be the only one drowning in need.

I sank to my knees, grasping his hardened flesh with my left hand. I’d never done this before, but I’d seen it through the eyes of other people and it seemed basic enough. I closed my mouth over the tip of his shaft, running my tongue along heated flesh that was smoother than velvet, yet hard as marble. Something between a groan and a hiss sounded above me, and then his hand brushed my cheek.

“Don’t stop.”

The words were a command; his tone wasn’t. It resonated with the intensity of a plea, probably the closest I’d ever come to hearing Vlad say please. Inwardly, I smiled. Who had what the other person wanted now?

His laughter ended on a harsh note as I took him deeper, tasting the faint, not unpleasant tang of soap. My teeth pressed against him from his girth, tongue curving along that rigid flesh as I encased him until I had to stop despite there being more. The cold water made me shiver, but Vlad’s warm thighs pressed against my breasts, his scorching hands twisted in my hair, and my mouth was filled with his pulsing, hot length, making those parts of me deliciously burn. Always extremes with Vlad, but right now, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I withdrew my mouth with the same slowness he’d used the first time we made love, things low in me clenching with the memory. Then I encased him again to the accompaniment of another rasping groan. He sounded the same way when he was inside me, and my body responded. My breasts felt heavier, my nipples puckered to hypersensitivity, and my loins swelled while wetness slicked my inner thighs. That arousal made me move my head a little faster, draw on him harder. His grip on my hair tightened while that faint tang of soap changed to something salty.

“Yes. Like that.”

His voice was almost guttural, and the next thing he muttered wasn’t in English. I increased the pace and pressure, and the space between those harsh moans became shorter while he swelled even bigger in my mouth. His hips rocked against me, that firm grip on my head exciting because it was reminiscent of how tightly I clutched him when he went down on me. I wanted him to feel that same out-of-control passion so I pressed closer, sucked harder, moaning myself as his thighs rubbed my breasts to tease my nipples. Saliva escaped to coat the parts I couldn’t fit as I moved even faster, my thighs clenching as the throbbing between my legs became unbearably intense.

Suddenly, I was off my knees and in his arms. The tile chilled my back as he yanked my legs around his waist and pressed me against the shower wall. Then his mouth crushed onto mine, muffling my groan at the feel of him against that aching part of me. A deep thrust made every nerve ending flare with blinding pleasure, tearing something very close to a scream from me. I was so wet that he slid in to the hilt, and when he began to withdraw, I shoved against him in wordless demand for more.

I felt him smile wide enough that for an instant, I kissed only his teeth. Then he arched forward so strongly that his pelvis ground against my clitoris, the friction sending more rapture spiraling through me. I whimpered into his mouth, rocking against him, my thighs tightening on his waist and my arms lashed around his neck. Each cleave of his flesh amplified the pleasure, contracting invisible strings inside me until I felt like my body thrummed from ecstasy. Kissing him was a drug I never wanted free from, but when I began to get light-headed, I broke away to gulp in air.

He untangled my right hand from around his neck, bringing it to his mouth. “Look at me, Leila.”

I hadn’t been aware of closing my eyes, but as some point, I must have. I slit them open, my breath catching. Vlad’s hair plastered to his shoulders in wet, dark sections, his muscles bunched with every moan-inducing thrust, and his eyes blazed so brightly that it was like looking at the sun. That stare held me more securely than his arm under my hips as he turned my hand over and then bit into the fleshy mound beneath my thumb.

The sound that came from me was almost animalistic. That was how he made me feel—feral, uninhibited—and as heat slid down my arm to slowly spread through the rest of me, those feelings grew. I needed more of his bite, his touch, his body, and especially the fierce emotion in his gaze as he swallowed my blood, and I needed it now.

That was why I whimpered in protest when, all too soon, he withdrew his fangs and released my hand.

“Your turn,” he said throatily.

Then he bit into his wrist deep enough to leave a gash before holding it to my mouth. Still lost in that primordial state, I swallowed without hesitation, not minding the harsh coppery taste because it was his blood. I licked until every drop was gone and the wound closed on itself. Once it did, he bit his wrist again. This time, I was the one who pulled it to my lips, sucking strongly as I stared at him.

The smile he flashed me was lust at its most savage. His movements became harder, faster, turning my moans into sharp cries. When his wound closed a second time, I let his wrist go and yanked his head down to mine. His tongue invaded my mouth with the same sensual brutality as his thrusts, and I met both with equal fervor. If he hadn’t positioned his hands behind my head and hips, the tile behind me might have cracked from how fiercely he drove into me, but I didn’t care. His blood slid like fire through my veins, filling me with even more wildness. Nothing existed except this moment, and as my whole body shuddered from the overload of ecstasy, I didn’t even notice the cold anymore. All I felt was heat, inside and out.