Everlasting Kiss (Everlasting 1)

Alex swore long and loud as he watched Daisy lead Erik up the stairs to her bedroom. If he was going to be totally honest with himself, Delacourt wasn't such a bad guy, all things considered. He treated Daisy with respect. If Daisy was to be believed, Delacourt had saved his life. But still...it just wasn't right!

"It bothers you," Costain said, "the two of them?"

"Damn right!" Unable to stand still, he began to pace the floor. He glanced upward. It didn't take a genius to figure out why it was so quiet up there. It made him sick to his stomach to think about what Daisy was doing, and who she was doing it with.

Rhys grinned as he took a place on the sofa, one arm resting along the back. "He's a good man."

"He's not a man at all. And neither are you."

"No?" Rhys shrugged. "I would wager I'm as much a man as you are. More, perhaps."

"All right, then. He's not human," Alex amended, his voice gruff. "And neither are you."

Rhys laughed out loud. "Mortals!"

"Jealous?"

"Hardly," Rhys said with a huff. "We are superior to you in every way. In another hundred years, I'll be more powerful than I am now, and still making love to beautiful women. Where will you be?"

Faced with his own mortality, Alex dropped into a chair. He had hunted vampires. He had killed vampires. But he had never really talked to one. Never tried to understand them. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair. "You really like being a vampire?"

Rhys grunted softly. Mortals were so predictable. They always asked the same questions, as if there were no more to being a vampire than blood and death. "Yes," he said. "I like being a vampire."

"So, drinking blood? Killing innocents? None of that bothers you?"

"Blood is a necessity. Killing is a choice. A choice you've also made."

"It's not the same. You can't kill something that's already dead."

"You're judging a way of life for which you have no experience. You have no idea what it's like, to have the strength of twenty men, to be able to transform into mist, to move faster than the human eye can follow, to scale a building or leap a barrier with no effort at all, to cross the country with a thought, to see and hear and touch the world in ways that mortals can never know. You don't know how addicting that power can be."

Alex stared at Costain, mesmerized by his voice, by the picture he had painted. Maybe being a vampire wasn't such a bad thing after all. To always be young, powerful, in control.

Rhys smiled faintly. "The thought of being a vampire no longer seems so repellant, does it?"

"Of course it does!" Alex exclaimed, but they were just empty words, and Rhys knew it.

"You're a hunter. You've killed my kind. Have you never tasted our blood?"

"Of course not!" Alex said adamantly, and even as he denied it, he heard Daisy's voice in the back of his mind. Erik saved your life. He had never asked how, never let himself dwell on it, until now. Had Erik given him his blood? Even as the thought rose in his mind, he was afraid the answer was yes.

"Never been curious?" Rhys asked.

"Sure, I've wondered. They say it gives you a high like no other, that it lets you experience, for a short time, what it's like to be a vampire."

Rhys nodded. "So they say."

"They also say that too much will kill you, and that some people come down hard, and some never come down." Just his luck, Alex thought. The one and only time he'd had a chance to find out what it was like, and he'd been unconscious.

"So they say." Rhys bared his fangs. "It's better straight from the source."

Alex stared at the vampire, at the gleaming white fangs. What would it be like to taste vampire blood? He had tasted his own blood. What human hadn't pricked a finger or received a small cut and licked the blood away? It was a natural reaction. But to drink vampire blood--Undead blood--to feel what it was like to be a vampire--the power...the invincibility...he wasn't unconscious now. What would it be like?

With a shake of his head, Alex sat back in his chair. What the hell was he thinking?

Rhys laughed. "Where's your courage, hunter?"

Erik stared at the woman lying so trustingly in his arms. Never in all his existence had he expected to feel this way about a mortal woman. With Daisy, he felt anything was possible. Almost, he could believe he was just an ordinary man in love with a woman, that they could have a future together. A nice dream, but that's all it was. There was no place for them in the world he lived in, and certainly no place for him in hers.

She smiled up at him, a sleepy, satisfied smile, one that stroked his ego because he had put that smile on her face.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"How incredible you are."

"You are."

"There is something I've been wondering about," Erik said. "How did you find me at La Morte Rouge?"

"I felt your pain, and I followed it." She frowned at the memory, then reached up to cup his cheek. "How did you stand it? I've never experienced anything so awful, so...I don't know. I can't describe it."

Erik shook his head. "How could you feel it? I blocked the link between us so that you wouldn't."

"Well, I guess it didn't work."

"You really are incredible." He kissed her lightly. He hadn't wanted her to know what he was going through, had been afraid she would do exactly what she had done and ride to his rescue. "My brave, foolish flower." He glanced out the window. It was time to go. "It's a quarter after eleven, Daisy darlin'."

"I wish you didn't have to go."

"I know." Erik trailed his fingertips down her cheek. "Don't you think I'd rather stay here with you?"

With a sigh, Daisy snuggled closer to his side. Some people were addicted to vampire blood, she thought, but not her. She was addicted to a vampire. Just looking at him made her high. His kisses were as intoxicating as the touch of his hand--that big, powerful hand that was gently stroking her thigh, making her quiver for more.

She sat up, reluctant to let him go, but knowing she couldn't ask him to stay. She didn't trust Rhys Costain to watch out for Alex, but she knew Erik would take care of him, not because Erik cared whether her brother lived or died, but because he loved her.

It was eleven forty-five when Erik followed Daisy into the living room. Rhys was stretched out on the floor in front of the TV. Alex sat on the sofa, going through his vampire hunting kit.