Bite. Part 41

A moment later, she raised her head. Daniel's blood trickled out one corner of her mouth. She swiped the drop away with the tip of her tongue. "Mmmm. Good. Strong. Powerful."

She lowered her head to suckle on him again.

Deadre's arms went stiff at her sides. Her fingers curled into her palms. Her skin went cold and her blood boiled. "You tricked

him. You knew about his research all along and you pretended to fall in love with him."

"Of course I did, darling." She lapped at Daniel's neck like a cat at a puddle of spilled milk.

"He loved you. He came here to save you!"

The High Matron raised her head, patted Daniel's cheek. "Did he now? Then I shall have to make him my special pet. With Garth

gone, Daniel will make a fine new Enforcer."

No. Deadre couldn't let this happen. Daniel wouldn't want to live like this. She wouldn't let it happen.

She grabbed the kerosene lantern from its hangar on the wall. Before the High Matron could raise her head in surprise, Deadre threw the lantern. Fuel splashed all over Daniel and the woman. Flames engulfed them.

Yelling, "No!" but not sure any sound actually came out of her closed throat, Deadre reached into the flames and pulled Daniel back. She threw him to the floor and slapped at his burning pants leg, the cuff of his coat, smothering the flames with her body. "No. No, no, no!"

"You b.i.t.c.h!" The High Matron stumbled backward into the satin-draped wall. The wall covering ignited. She swatted at the cloth, but only succeeded in tangling herself in it further. Screaming, she spun, and the burning cloth encased her like a shroud. A moment later, her whole body burst into flames and disintegrated.

Daniel's eyes snapped open as if he'd awoken from a nightmare. His arms closed around Deadre as his lungs dragged in a ragged breath. He rolled with her, away from the fire. Away from the pile of ashes that was all that was left of the High Matron.

"Sue Ellen!" he yelled, but Deadre heard the difference in his voice. The betrayal. "Sue Ellen," he said once more, quieter, before he pulled Deadre to her feet and down the stairs, out the door and into the fresh night air.

"NICE digs," Daniel said. He sat on what he supposed doubled as both dining room and coffee table since it was the only table in the twelve-by-twelve crawl s.p.a.ce underneath the maintenance shaft to Track 11 of Atlanta's metro rail system. The walls were bare, the only furniture besides the table was a coffin lined with dirt in the center of the room.

At least the ceiling had some decor. If you could call heavy metal rock posters and stick-on glow-in-the-dark stars decor.

"Don't be a funny boy." She spooned a glob of burn medicine out of a blue jar with her finger. "Or I'll have to mix a little holy water with your salve."

He leaned away from her approaching finger. "You wouldn't."

She daubed the glob on the end of his nose, then swiped it down his chin. "No, I wouldn't. But it wouldn't hurt for you to show a

little respect."

"Honey, after what you did to Garth, I'm downright afraid of you."

Her chin wobbled. "It's been a long time since I killed anyone. And I've never done it on purpose."

"You didn't kill Garth. I did."

She ducked her head. "The High Matron..."

"She was using me. Pretending to be mortal, dressing in prissy outfits and playing sweet and helpless and dumb, when all along I

was the stupid one. She was just waiting for me to perfect the synthetic blood. She had to have been working with Garth all along. She's the one who introduced me to him, said he could fund the research. She would have made me into what he was, eventually."

He captured Deadre's chin between his thumb and forefinger and brought her face up to his. "You saved me from that. A fate worse than death."

"You don't want to die, now that her soul is free?"

He touched his lips to hers, tasted her fear and her pa.s.sion, and whispered, "Not when I have you to live for."

She looped her arms around him and pressed herself into him. Their noses b.u.mped. Burn salve squished across their cheeks and brows as they nuzzled and kissed each other. That didn't matter. They'd both been burned. "We have a lot of work to do, getting your blood to the vampires of Atlanta-everywhere, for that matter-so that they can live and thrive without feeding off humans," she said between biting his earlobe and running her tongue over the crease of his eye.

"I want to get it into human hands, as well. There's still a lot of need there."

She wiggled her hips against him. "Maybe we can keep enough for ourselves to keep life interesting at home, too."

"We'll keep plenty."

He felt her smile on the side of his neck. "I love you, Daniel."

"I love you, too, Deadre."

He opened his legs and she stepped into his body where she belonged, where the blood l.u.s.t beat intimately between them.

For eternity.