Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(89)

What was it with the evil throng? Give them an inch, they take the world, or at least covet it.

He arched, pressing into me even as he pulled my hips down. I couldn't think anymore, could only feel, the pressure, the pain, the possibilities.

What could we do, together?

I shook my head hard enough to hurt. Focus! Jimmy needed to drink from me, I needed to drink from him. and then ...

Shazaam, I'd be a vampire. Or close enough.

I had to move this along, and I knew just how.

"Maybe this isn't the best idea," I murmured. "I should probably—"

I flew to the side as he tossed me onto the bed, following me there, slipping inside again even as he captured my hands and drew them above my head.

"Too late now," he said, eyes burning into mine as he began to move. In and out, slick, hard heat.

"But—"

"Quiet, Elizabeth."

Jimmy never called me that. But the demon did.

He held me captive with his hands, his legs, the weight of his body. I struggled a little to make it look good, and he laughed the laugh of his father. I'd always hated that laugh.

"I've taken blood from you in so many ways. What was my favorite? Here?" He licked my neck. "There?" He grazed my shoulder. "Perhaps this?" He shifted, and his thumbnail coursed along the inside of my thigh.

I jerked, the movement making my breasts jiggle, and he smiled, lowering his head, nuzzling me.

"So pretty. So round and soft." He lazily licked a nipple, then blew on the moisture left behind, becoming fascinated when the bud peaked.

In perfect syncopation with his thrusts, he suckled. I matched each of his movements with my own, forget-ing what I was about, only caring what was to come.

Suddenly, he tensed and spurted, full and hot. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him closer, reaching for my own release but unable to find it.

Until his fangs pierced my breast. The pain made my body bow, pressing me into him and making me come with such ferocity I would have shrieked if I could have breathed.

His rhythmic sucking seemed to pull first at my belly and then ever lower. My head went dizzy with blood loss. Despite his orgasm, he stayed hard inside of me, kept pumping against me. Then he lifted his head; a quick flick of his tongue traced away the last drop of blood from his lips, and I wasn't disgusted. I was intrigued.

Blood was both life and death. What did mine taste like? What did his?

Jimmy leaned closer, pressing me deeper into the mattress as he whispered my own enticement back to me. "Do it. You know that you want to."

At first, I thought he meant come again; boy, did I want to. And when he seemed to grow even larger, swelling inside of me, stretching the already sensitive flesh, I did come. And then I did it. I bit him. Because he was right.

I wanted to.

He tasted like wine, just as he'd said, deep and rich. I became drunk with it; I couldn't stop. Didn't have to. Because Jimmy wouldn't die any more than I would.

The heady combination of sex and blood flowed through me, strengthened me. Together we finished what we'd started—shuddering through a shared orgasm and completing my transformation into the darkness.

As I think back on things now, it scares me. I blundered ahead, doing what needed to be done. What choice did I have? But if I'd thought more about it I would have wondered: Once I was possessed by evil, why in hell would I want to fight the Naye'i and stop the coming Apocalypse?

Except I did. The instant I became a vampire, I was consumed by the need to kill her. As I'd thought just moments before, why did every evil thing want to rule the world? And as soon as I was an evil thing, I knew.

Because I could.

I was better than all the others. I'd chosen this. The choosing gave me strength and ambition.

The whole world seemed different. With dhampir powers I could see farther, run faster, hear more. But as a vampire everything became magnified. Colors flared, agonizingly bright and surreal. Sounds reached me long before they should, altering my sense of time and place.

I unwound myself from Jimmy's embrace, the slide of our skin so intense I could literally hear the hair on his legs swish; the blood coursing through his veins hummed like a song.

When he spoke, I flinched at the volume. "Do you like it?"

"Mmm," I purred.

He took my hand and led me to the mirror above his dresser. That bit about vampires having no reflection? Total BS. I could see both of us—along with our flam-ing eyes and sparkly fangs. It was a good look for me.

I fingered Sawyer's turquoise. I was now as strong as the woman of smoke, and while I wore this, she couldn't touch me.

The bitch was toast.

I laughed, the sound deep, throaty, and utterly demonic. I liked it so much, I laughed again.

A heated breeze blew in through the window. The breath of evil, it smelled like brimstone, and I drew it in like ambrosia.

The wind called me closer; I peered through the bars and up to the top of the mountain. The full moon shone across a gathering mist. Rain tumbled from the sky, but only on the peak, and the dormant volcano rumbled.

The rain is a woman, Whitelaw had said.

Old Navajo legends that hinted of the truth.

"The woman of smoke," I murmured.

She was here, and she was waiting for me.





CHAPTER 33