Runaway Vampire (Argeneau, #23)(56)
Actually overly long, she thought with a frown and turned her hands over then back. She hadn’t seen these hands in years—many, many years. Time had scarred and wrinkled them, marring them with age spots and—but no more. Now they looked like they belonged to a young woman. Someone maybe twenty or twenty-five and—
Thoughts dying, Mary stilled and stared blindly at her hands, her mind suddenly racing, and then she slowly lifted her head and peered into the mirror over the sink. An old friend stared back.
“Dante!” Mary called, her voice coming out strangled.
“Yes?” He answered right away. It sounded like he was right outside the door. “Are you all right?”
Mary merely stared at the woman in the mirror. Her hair had grown a bit and now hung almost to her shoulders. It was also a golden blond for the first couple of inches, before becoming the platinum white age had turned it to. It actually looked kind of cool, she noted with surprise. Like some kind of young, hip hairdo.
Her face also looked young under the smudges of dirt and blood still on it. Mary picked up the folded washcloth on the counter and dampened it, then ran it over her face, cleaning away the smears of blood that Dante had missed. Then she let the cloth drop into the sink and simply stared at herself. Her cheekbones were high, her lips full, and her eyelids no longer looked like they were drooping with exhaustion. But her eyes themselves? They were a beautiful cornflower blue mixed with a silver that had never been there before.
“Oh my,” she breathed.
“Mary?” Dante asked through the door with concern. “If you do not answer me I am coming in.”
“What did you do?” she asked in almost a whisper. “Look what you did to me.”
The door opened behind her and Mary shifted her gaze briefly from herself to Dante. He looked worried.
“I am sorry I had to turn you without asking permission,” he said quietly. “But you were dying. I could not let you die.”
“Ah,” Mary breathed and shifted her gaze back to her own face again. He’d turned her. This was her peak condition. She must have been badly injured in the accident after they’d been forced off the road.
“The RV?” she asked, her gaze still sliding over her face.
“The council will replace it,” Dante assured her.
“Ah,” Mary said again. The RV had been totaled then. She wasn’t surprised. She had a vague recollection of them rolling. RVs were not good at rolling. Meeting his gaze in the mirror, she asked, “And the kidnappers?”
He shook his head unhappily.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said sincerely.
Dante’s mouth tightened, but he merely said, “They will try again. Russell is sure they followed us here from the accident sight.”
“Russell and Francis,” Mary murmured slowly. He’d mentioned both names earlier as she recalled and she tilted her head and then asked, “Are they the men Lucian sent?”
“Yes.” Dante nodded and then asked, “You are all right?”
Mary blinked in surprise at the question, and then recalled that he’d entered because she’d called out in shock when she’d first seen herself. Shifting her gaze back to her reflection in the mirror, she marveled over it again. It was incredible, and made her wonder how long she had been out. How long did a turn and this kind of transformation take? Before she could ask, a knock sounded at the door of the bedroom. Mary turned to peer at him in question.
“Wait here. It is probably room service,” he said, turning away. “I was getting hungry and ordered food.”
Mary watched him go, and then turned her gaze back to herself. It was probably horrible of her to admit it, but she was quite enthralled by the wonder before her. Dante had turned her. She was at her peak condition. All of her, she thought suddenly, and losing interest in her face, reached for the hem of the overlarge T-shirt she wore and jerked it up.
Mary pulled it all the way up to her neck, leaving only her throat and shoulders covered. She then stared at what she could see of her body in the mirror. High, full, firm breasts, a much smaller stomach than she was used to seeing, but still with a soft roundness, and the tops of curvaceous hips. Wishing she had a full-length mirror, Mary continued to hold up the shirt and turned to look over her shoulder to see what her peak-condition butt looked like. She had to get up on her tiptoes to be able to see it, but once she did . . .
Damnnnn, Mary thought with wonder, she had one fine ass. It was bigger than she’d expected. Apparently, a female body in peak condition was not a body that looked like a skinny boy’s body minus the penis as all of today’s models seemed to have. Who knew?
Shaking her head, Mary turned back around to look at her front again. This time she didn’t just look though. Releasing one edge of the T-shirt, she slid that hand over her body, running it lightly over smooth, taut skin, amazed it didn’t all disappear and turn into the body she’d become used to.
“Oh, mio dolce Dio.”
Mary jerked her gaze upward at that comment and positively beamed at Dante’s reflection when she saw that he’d returned, and that he was staring at her with a combination of shock and pure unadulterated lust. Apparently, he hadn’t expected to return to find her feeling herself up, she thought with amusement and slowly let her T-shirt drop back down as she turned to face him. “Dolce means ‘sweet’ in Italian, yes?”