Chapter 17
Carson groaned in pleasure, tightening his grip on Jocelyn’s hand as she whimpered his name. Ah, how he loved to hear his true name on her lips. Her breath skittered across his bare shoulders, and he felt goosebumps appear. No one else had known his name, much less spoken it, in more than two hundred years. It was like a shock to his body yet a lullaby to his mind when she whispered it in the tones of pleasure and love.
One of his hands threaded through her hair, and he drew more strongly on the wound in her neck. Her blood was sweet and tingled across his tongue, the pleasure of it wreaking havoc with his reason and his body. The taste of her was like fire in his veins, leaving behind chaos in the wake of trembling desire. Distantly, he felt the feeling of her finger nails digging into his bare back, but the pain only added to the desperate bliss of those moments.
The feelings coursing through his body were like none he had ever felt. His muscles tingled as life rushed back into them, her blood healing the damaged cells. His bones began to mend themselves as the bruising disappeared from his skin. The exhaustion that had plagued him fled in the addition of exhilaration and adrenaline to his tortured mind and body and soul. He could feel power coursing through him as pain faded, the bloodlust lessening and strengthening in strides. The horrible, helpless lust he had felt slipped away only to be replaced by the lust that Carson felt for none besides Jocelyn. Her blood called to him in its Siren’s song, making her irresistible in his strongest moments much less in the weakened state in which she had found him. As his body healed, he felt himself compelled to continue to drink from her, though his mind pleaded with him to stop. He felt her blood pressure lessen, her pulse slow. The amount of blood seeping between his lips diminished as he felt her life start to slip away.
Her memories, her life flowed into him in her final moments, as was expected when a victim’s life was coming to an end…
Her mother.
Her mother’s death.
Her stepfather.
The abuse.
Running away.
Cold nights.
Days without food.
School.
Her apartment.
Her friends.
Her jobs.
The night she found him.
Nights spent with him.
Her time here with Dania.
Finding him here.
Her love for him.
Emotions and memories poured into him, burning into his mind until he knew her better than he knew himself. Each memory, each emotion seared itself into his own memory as he felt every emotion she had ever felt. Loneliness. Fear. Anger. Love. Joy. Pride. Each one connected with something inside of him and resonated with his own past and his own hopes for the future. God, the pain of her past caused an ache in his soul, a hole in his own heart to mirror her own for the hurt that he could not heal, could not take from her and bear himself. But the love she felt for him, pure and innocent and true, was enough to have him weak and trembling on his knees as his damaged heart was mended by the love of the beautiful woman who had saved him from Dania, from himself, from life.
Carson’s mind told him that the time to stop had come and gone, unheeded by his body, but he still could not force himself to stop as her life streamed into him. As it began to ebb, Jo went limp in his arms. Her fingers slipped from his back and grew cold between his own fingers. Her body chilled under his lips as he held her, her body becoming heavier as her breathing slowed, chilling across his back before her head fell backwards and allowed her hair to drift across his face in cool waves. He fought with his body, trying to draw away from her, but the lust that had taken hold in the past weeks refused to loosen its grip after finding gratification. He groaned in a mixture of agony and pleasure, the monster in him enjoying these moments while his heart nearly burst with pain and regret. He fought to release her, but his body simply wouldn’t obey. It was as though he had stepped outside of himself. He could see what he was doing, what was happening to Jocelyn, but he was powerless to end it. Helpless. Lost.
There was a chill in the air that seeped into Carson, burying itself deep in his bones as his mate slipped close to death. The marks on his hand burned as they would with the death of a Connatus Spiritus, causing him to jerk away from Jo, finally releasing her from his death grip. He caught her gently before she could hit the ground, laying her tenderly on the cold ground as tears rapidly gathered in his eyes, and he cursed violently, his worst fears having been proven true. His tears slipped down his cheeks, falling soundlessly across her body and across the dirty floor, leaving tiny marks in the dirt.
Carefully, he leaned his head close to hers to feel for her breath, to listen for her heartbeat.
Nothing.
Her skin was cool to the touch, her cheeks having lost their bright peach hues. Her lips too had lost their blush and had faded to the color of her too pale skin.
He yelled out in frustration and despair, the walls trembling in fear as the air vibrated with his howl.
“Please,” he prayed. “Please don’t take her from me.”
He prayed to a God that he couldn’t see, to the Fates that had been nothing but cruel to him, to the woman who had become his salvation. He offered up his penitence, remorse and contrition clear in his voice as he vowed his loyalty and honor for the life of his love.
There was a nearly silent, almost imperceptible intake of breath, and Carson’s eyes flew to Jocelyn, watching as her pulse beat very faintly in the hollow of her throat. Slow, weak, but evident nonetheless.
The thought slithered into his mind that he could Change her, bring her back from the brink of death. But how would she react? He had never mentioned it to her… She had seemed so frightened of what he was, and yet she was utterly confident in him, in his self restraint and morality. How well had that fared for her? Not very… And after what she had been through this week with Dania, he feared she might hate him if he turned her into such a beast. Yet, he knew she still could see the good in vampires. She had trusted Kaleo. She had trusted him. She could always see straight into the soul of people, could detect the slightest inkling of goodness. But would she want to be one of them? That was a different matter entirely…
His mind argued with itself, running around in frivolous circles in the few seconds before he made the life-altering decision. The pros and cons flittered through his mind with nearly alarming speed before he came to an utterly selfish realization. He couldn’t live without knowing she was alive. No matter her reaction, he would still know she was alive, safe. The rest didn’t matter. She may hate him. She may never speak to him again, never allow him to set eyes upon her again, but, somewhere in the world, she would be alive, breathing the same air as him, looking up at the same night sky full of stars. The decision was made before he had drawn a full breath.
He leaned toward her, parted her lips gently with a finger tip, and raised his own wrist to his lips, biting through his hardened skin until blood pooled atop his pale skin. He tilted his wrist slightly, allowing the drops to land on her lower lip.
“Jo, can you hear me?” he whispered, a measure of his panic slipping into his voice. “Please, you have to open your mouth. You have to swallow,” he told her, trying to control the trembling of his voice.
There was no change. The blood slipped down her lip and onto her tongue, turning the soft pink of both lips and tongue to an eerie crimson. The color was striking against the pallor of her ivory skin.
Moments slipped by with agonizing longevity. The silence was crippling. Carson ceased to breath as he watched Jo.
Then something changed. Her eyelids fluttered. Her tongue moved. As a few more drops fell into her mouth, she slowly swallowed.
Relief flooded Carson in waves stronger even than his grief. He heaved a sigh and pulled Jo up to a half sitting position against his chest.
“Come on now,” he murmured, holding his wrist to her lips. “Drink, Jocelyn. Just a little.”
Her head lolled back against his chest, unresponsive for fleeting seconds before her mouth suddenly clamped onto his wrist. Her hands flew to his arm to hold him against her lips. She drew steadily on the small wound in his wrist and ecstasy became him. The pleasure flowing through him as she drank from him was nearly as potent as when he himself fed. It was indescribable. It was like lightening sizzling through his veins.
He desperately tried to keep his wits about him in order to discern when she had taken enough. When his heartbeat stuttered, he knew the time had come to draw her away from him. Carefully but determinedly, he pulled his wrist away from her lips. She fought for a moment, but his superior strength assured that he succeeded. He brought his wrist to his lips and sealed the wound by licking across it swiftly.
With a glance down at Jo, he saw that a few drops of blood remained on her lips, and he carefully wiped them away.
She looked up at him with a slightly dazed expression before snuggling more deeply into his chest. He knew she wasn’t aware of what she had just done. It was as though she were in a dream. He remembered the night he himself had been Changed. It had been euphoric…at least for a short while. The pain had come later.
He leant down and softly kissed her forehead, praying he could keep the pain from her. It tore at his heart to think of how she would hurt, but there had been no help for it.
There was a slight change in the air, a vibration that was as distinctive as the sound of his own heartbeat. Dania was home. With that knowledge came the realization that he couldn’t stay with Jocelyn any longer. His mind frantically searched for where she would be the safest. There was no time to transport her. Sounds of the warriors talking above, giving their nightly report, rebounded down to him. Time had run out.
“Jo?”
“Hmm,” she murmured.
“Look at me,” he said, drawing her face up to look him in the eye.
The dazed look remained in her eyes.
“Jo, listen to me. I don’t know what’s going to happen in a little while, so I need you to pay attention, okay?”
She shook her head slightly and appeared to try to focus on him.
“Okay,” she murmured, still not entirely coherent.
“You’re going to be in extreme pain in a little while. I am deeply sorry, but there was no other way. I can’t explain right now. There is no time. I can sense Dania already. I need you to be strong, okay? I need you to stay here, no matter what you feel, no matter what you hear, no matter what you see. Stay here, okay? I can’t be worrying about you any more than I already will.”
Her eyes cleared slightly at his words, and she nodded her head vigorously.
“Okay, I promise.”
Carson nodded curtly in return before he stood.
“Where…where are you going?”
“Stay here. I’ll come back for you.”
He left her sitting in the middle of the dungeon, dust floating in the air, blood streaked along her face, and dirt covering every inch of her exposed skin and clothes.
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Jo is becoming a vampire! I hope that doesn't disappoint anyone with how cliche that is, but it's been the plan all along... There are still a few more twists though. :) Anyway, please vote, comment, and follow! I'd love to hear your thoughts! :) And the pic is of Carson's mark!