Kissing Phoenix Read online

  His fingers trailed over her hips and cupped her butt. The embrace tightened and she pressed toward him. He kissed along her jaw and his teeth grazed her earlobe as he rolled the small gold stud between his teeth. She tipped her head and let him trail kisses down her neck. His breath tickled her skin as his tongue flicked against her pulse. Her blood surged and liquid heat pooled low in her belly. Her body responded to his touch as if nothing had changed. She needed to feel his skin against hers. Details were forgotten as she existed only in the moment, wanting more from Aidan without knowing what it was. Her hands were under his t-shirt, sliding over lean muscle. She glanced up and caught his heated gaze. The golden light in his eyes burned for her alone. Would she be able to look at him when that light no longer shone?

  “There are other options.” His thumb traced her cheek as if he was begging for her to agree with whatever he said.

  She wanted to believe his whispered words.

  “What do you mean?” Lilith raised a brow. “New age therapies?”

  “Not exactly.” Aidan’s face was serious, as if he were balanced on a scalpel and walking barefoot along the blade. “More like ancient remedies.”

  She frowned. What was he trying to tell her? That there was a mystic cure and if she ate a lizard under a full moon, she’d be fine? If it meant living, she would. She would do anything that gave her better odds than her doctor. He’d sat there calmly and told her she had a five percent chance of survival if they cut and radiated her until she was a shadow of herself. Her odds the first time around had been better and she’d fought with everything she had and then more, but she couldn’t do it again, not when the odds were stacked against her and her gut was telling her she couldn’t win this battle.

  “What do you mean?” Even though she didn’t want to, she began to hope. To believe that Aidan might be able to save her life the same way he’d healed her heart.

  “There might be a way…” He wouldn’t look her in the eye.

  She swallowed down the fluttering wishful thinking in her chest and returned to reality. Aidan was a musician, not a doctor.

  “You don’t get to raise my hopes before telling me what you’re hiding.” And she was sure he was hiding something. The past couple of days he’d been somewhere else even when he was with her. That had been fine. She hadn’t been in the mood to talk anyway. She’d had her own secret to keep. It had taken her days to think of a way to tell him and even now it wasn’t going how she’d expected.

  Aidan closed his eyes as if the words he was trying to find were written on his eyelids. He sighed and forced them out. “I’m Vampire.”

  Lilith forced a laugh and stepped back. “You’re not a Vampire.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve seen you walk in daylight.”

  “Daylight generally isn’t a problem.” His lips revealed elongated teeth as he spoke.

  Long, delicately pointed outer incisors. Not shaped like an animal’s canines, for tearing into flesh. No, these teeth were something else entirely, but no less dangerous. Trapped between wanting to run and frozen with fascination, her blood pounded in her ears. The room became tiny and airless. Aidan had fangs just like a Vampire should.

  He closed the distance between them. Smooth, constant motion, lord of his domain. He moved like a predator. She’d never noticed his grace before. Now all she could do was watch as he took her hand, turned it over and ran a finger over the pale blue vein. Then he kissed the inside of her wrist as if he was savoring the taste of her skin. Heat flowed from his touch and the pressure of his teeth and rose deep within her, awakening a part of her that had been dormant. Desire raced unrestrained through her blood and sparked every nerve. One touch and she was his. She waited for his fangs to pierce her flesh. Caught in a moment that shouldn’t be, her breath became trapped high in her throat.

  Aidan’s gaze locked on hers as his tongue glided over the vein. Then he released her without biting. She gasped as if she’d glimpsed heaven and had it stolen. Her body trembled and ached. Her blood was too hot to be contained within her flesh.

  What had he done to her?

  Her shaking hand found its way to her neck. Her pulse bounced hard beneath her fingertips. Every touch, every lick of her neck had been for one reason. He wanted to bite her. Except she’d put money down he’d never actually bitten her.

  Because Vampires don’t exist. Get a grip.

  She was hallucinating. She’d entered a daydream while waiting for Aidan to come home, but the cooling curry in the air smelled real. The kiss had been very real, searing her skin. Aidan’s teeth looked very, very real. Her eyes narrowed. She was going to kill him if the teeth were fake. She’d be dead before it got to trial.

  “Prove it, Dracula. Are the teeth real?”

  She watched his incisors return to a more usual human shape and then lengthen again into needle sharp points. She shivered, her skin was like ice, but her heart raced at the sight. Fear and lust entwined to smother all remaining doubt. He wasn’t playing.

  Aidan flicked his tongue over a tooth. “Real.”

  Her mind skittered over the alien terrain. If he could walk in daylight, were all Vampire stories false? “Don’t Vampires drink blood?”

  He nodded and the light caught his hair, turning brown to red. “When we can get it,” he said too casually.

  She stepped back, feeling like a rabbit in a lion’s cage. Could he hear her pulse? The tremor in each breath? Her calves hit the sofa. If she ran, she’d never reach the door.

  His eyebrows drew together. “I never bit you.”

  Part of her sighed with relief; a more primal part was offended. She was good enough for sex, but not to bite. “Why? Did you know I was sick?”

  “No. You never offered.”

  “How could I offer if I didn’t know you were an undead…” She’d felt his heart beat beneath warm skin. They shared a bed, not a coffin. He disproved everything she thought she knew about something that didn’t exist. “What are you?”

  “Vampire. A genetic variation of human.” The long incisors had no effect on his speech.

  But they affected her. She wanted to know what it would feel like to be writhing in his arms as his fangs broke her flesh. The thought sent a shiver of desire down her spine. It had been lust at first sight with Aidan—how much of that was because of what he was, not who?

  She looked away to clear her head. None of this made sense. “Scientists would have made that discovery.”

  “The change is in the junk DNA. It binds the etheric body close. Scientists can’t prove what they don’t believe in.”

  Aidan was right. The etheric body was new age hocus pocus. Supposedly. He took a step toward her.

  She held up her hand to halt his advance. “If you’re human, why drink blood?”

  “I need etheric to survive.” He shrugged. “From blood or food.”

  Lilith nodded. His obsession with organic food wasn’t because he was a hippie or trendy, it was survival. It hadn’t worked for her. No amount of yoga and health food had kept her in remission.

  “So, do I stake you through the heart to kill you?”

  His teeth returned to normal and he laughed. The sound could bring summer to the coldest winter. “That will kill most things.”

  She couldn’t join in his amusement. He looked like Aidan, but the man she loved had been replaced by a Vampire.

  “Have you always been Vampire?”

  “Born that way. My father was a Vampire who paid my human mother for more than her blood.”

  “Are you immortal?”

  “Near enough. The etheric keeps us young. Starved of it, we age and die.”

  Lilith nodded, reassessing the man in front of her, a plan forming. “Do you get cancer?”

  His hair fell over his eyes as he looked at the floor as if he knew what was coming. But he’d told her for a reason. He could take away her cancer. He could make her Vampire. Her battered hope stood up, ready to accept her new fate.

  “If you turn me, I will
live.” Life as a Vampire was better than death and Aidan could teach her how to live. She didn’t have to drink blood. She could just eat healthy, extra healthy. For a moment, rainbows colored her vision.

  Then Aidan lifted his head. Pain lined his face as if she was seeing old scars exposed for the first time. “It’s not possible.”

  Lilith blinked as if she hadn’t heard him properly. “Not possible?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry. Vampirism is genetic. The same as your blue eyes and brown hair.”

  Her lungs couldn’t draw breath. He couldn’t save her. He couldn’t make her Vampire any more than he could turn her into a cat.

  “Then why tell me?” Her voice was dark and broken. “Why tease me with your immortal life?” she said between her teeth.

  He didn’t answer. He just stared at her, his eyes shadowed and cold. Lilith shook her head and marched down the hallway and out the front door. She had nothing to say to her immortal Vampire boyfriend while the remains of her life could be counted in days.

  Chapter Two

  The slamming of the door rang in Aidan’s ears after Lil had left. Overall, the Vampire talk hadn’t gone too badly. Pretty much as he’d expected, except for Lil’s news. He slumped onto the sofa, hollow as if his heart had been carved out. He hadn’t seen her illness coming, but who would? She was life. Vibrant and joyful. He glanced at the door, waiting for her to come back. There was a chance she wouldn’t. He bit back the thought. He couldn’t accept a life without Lil.

  He closed his eyes and tried to contain the ache filling his chest. They could fight this. There were ways no human knew of…but Lil was human and she had to accept him before he told her about the other non-humans and her chance at survival. If she couldn’t tolerate the reality of Vampires, Fey, Weres and Shaman were going to give her nightmares. Right now she needed space and time to think.

  He needed space and time to think. He opened his eyes. From the shelf Eve stared down. She’d watched over him for so long. What would she say now about the existence of Vampires? Had she forgiven him for lying and running away? Or was she laughing because he was losing Lil for telling the truth?

  Unable to look at her heart-shaped face and half-hidden smile, he got up and laid the picture down with trembling fingers. He’d stopped grieving for Eve a long time ago, but the guilt had lingered. He hadn’t tried to save her. By the time he’d gotten home from war she was too sick and it was too late to do anything but wait for the end.

  Around Aidan, the house was devoid of life, and he didn’t want to be alone. He picked up the phone. He needed to call someone, tell someone that his past was repeating and he’d screwed it up again. He gripped the handset without dialing. Who was he going to call?

  Human friends wouldn’t understand.

  And his Vampire friends?

  William never let anyone close enough to get hurt. Except for the band he rarely saw anyone. Etienne had lost all feeling centuries ago, and Owen, well Owen had broken up with more human lovers than most humans had hot dinners. He was the oldest Vampire Aidan knew, but he would get no sympathy there. All would remind him of the rules. He slammed the handset back into its cradle so hard it rattled. He didn’t need reminding about Fendrake’s rules. He’d just broken one of them by telling Lil Vampires existed. Saving her would break more than he was prepared to count.

  His friends would all be there if it fell apart, like they had been before, but until then he was on his own. He let out a breath. Maybe it was better not to involve them. They would try to stop him from giving Lil a chance no human should get.

  Unable to sit still, he paced around the lounge-room filled with the clutter of two centuries of life. Maybe if he were older he would want to forget the past, but he liked the tangible. The memories he could touch. His medals, a piece of shrapnel pulled from his leg, his first wedding ring. He touched the gold band. It had been good, despite the lies. He wanted this time to be different, but maybe Lil wasn’t ready.

  He picked up his jacket and pulled the engagement ring from his pocket and opened the box. The pink diamond glinted in the light. Even if she accepted Vampires, she may not want to be married to one, there were too many catches—the biggest one being the lack of aging. They would have to move every ten years before people realized they weren’t getting older. These days it wasn’t as easy to change lives and identities. He shut the box and put the ring into the cupboard, hoping it wouldn’t become another souvenir. He wanted to hear her say yes, see it sparkle on her finger and have her at his side and in his bed.

  Aidan scanned the contents of the cupboard, looking for something with a happy memory. From the bottom he pulled out his first medical kit, it was the oldest item he had. One of the first things he’d owned. A small smile turned the corners of his lips. Before then he’d only had what he could fit in his pockets. Back then, medicine had been little more than bleeding and opium. Good for Vampires, bad for humans. Still, it had been a better career than grave robbing.

  Music had been an accident. He’d been treating Owen’s human fling, bleeding and storing the blood for Owen’s later consumption, and had heard him playing. From there it had been a short step to meeting William and an even shorter one into society parties he hadn’t even dreamed of. In their spare time they taught him how to play—they didn’t need to teach him how to compose. He’d been doing that for as long as he could remember. It had been Etienne who’d taught him how to write the notes down. In exchange, he’d stitched the many wounds Etienne acquired by not being able to feel even the simplest of sensations.

  He ran his finger over the leather and glass. Some days he missed the precision of a scalpel and the knowledge he was doing something worthy, most days he didn’t care. He’d seen enough blood to last his entire life, too much of it spilled in violence. He pushed the bag back into the cupboard. Some memories were best left in the dark.

  But just because they were locked away didn’t mean they were forgotten. They lived on to poison another day. He looked at his collection with a new eye. Maybe he should clear out the lot and create a fresh start instead of being surrounded by the echoes of other lives. But he knew if Lil died he wouldn’t be able to walk away from the life they’d created so easily. He’d hold onto the memories even as they cut his hands.

  Why wasn’t she back yet?

  He checked out the window, but saw no sign of Lil. Searching for her would annoy her, yet he couldn’t go to sleep knowing she was out there trying to digest the meal he’d force fed her.

  “Damn it.” He ruffled his hair, his nails hard against his scalp. In his mind, notes fell together in a tune that could burn a soul. If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well work. He waited a moment longer at the window, then stomped to his music room and closed the door.

  * * * * *

  Lilith tucked her hands under her arms to keep her fingers from freezing. Spring was trying to push through, but winter’s chilly hands still controlled the weather. It was one extreme to the other, by July there’d be heat waves. She walked on, determined to put some distance between herself and Aidan. She couldn’t breathe in his cute terrace house surrounded by the remnants of his life.

  Outside his house, normality prevailed. Everyone was bursting with life except her. People walked their dogs. Mothers pushed overly bundled children in prams. Their lives would go on. Aidan’s life would go on and on and on.

  Hers would end.

  She stopped in the middle of the park with her hidden hands in fists and her nails digging into her palms. She swore under her breath.

  It was so goddamn unfair.

  She’d fought this battle and won. Or thought she’d won. Then the cosmos yanked her chain and brought her to heel like a disobedient puppy. If only she could wake up and find all of this was a dream. No cancer. No Vampires. No secrets.

  Lilith huffed out a cloud of air and stamped her feet. She should have grabbed a jacket. Now it was freeze or go home and face the music. Her ageless Vampire boyfrie
nd was waiting. A giggle bubbled out. She was dying and Aidan was immortal. Laughter interrupted her breathing and she snorted. He shouldn’t exist, but no matter how much her mind rebelled, in her gut she knew Aidan hadn’t lied. However he hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her the truth either. And neither had she. She’d waited weeks before telling him because she was so afraid of him leaving. He wasn’t leaving—he was Vampire. Which was worse?

  She sucked in a lungful of icy air and sighed. On the surface nothing had changed. Yet everything was different. The colors were a little sharper and the sun shone a little colder on the world she thought she knew. An overly hairy man with a loud Discman jogged past. Vampire?

  Lilith turned her head. What about the mother yelling at her boys not to run across the road? She spun, studying the people in the park. How many Vampires passed for human? How did the humans not notice?

  She recalled an offhand comment Aidan had made during a film. Something about humans not seeing what was in front of them. Only it wasn’t aliens hiding in plain sight, it was Vampires. They could be anyone, and anywhere. If daylight didn’t stop them, what did? Why was the news not full of suspected Vampire assaults? How many were there? She turned on the spot; sure the people in the park were watching her. Her heart thumped. How many of them could hear its call?

  Despite the chill in the air, sweat formed on her back.

  There was nowhere safe to run. In a world full of Vampires, there was only one she trusted. One who’d had every opportunity to bite her, but hadn’t. One who claimed to love her. One who claimed to have a cure. If it wasn’t becoming Vampire, what was it?

  Curiosity made her head home toward the terrace house. Buffy sat on the front steps, waiting to be let in. The cat purred and smooched her legs. Lilith smiled, getting the joke for the first time. It was so typical of Aidan. The cat sauntered into the house before her. Lilith closed the front door and turned the lock. Then she took a moment to catch her breath and compose her thoughts. She had questions she didn’t want answered. She didn’t want the safe world she knew destroyed by truths that should be hidden by the night.