"They're full of seed, which I'm going to enjoy shooting into this sweet p.u.s.s.y of yours."

"Oh G.o.d, Andrei. It's starting to feel good...so good." She moaned and turned her head, blindly seeking his mouth.

He pressed his lips against hers. A shock of utter delight sizzled through him at the contact. Kissing her hungrily, he attempted to control the most compelling wave of l.u.s.t he'd ever experienced and fought hard not to come. He wanted to make sure he'd satisfied her before he came for the first time.

But the feelings accosting him overwhelmed him. He couldn't hold on. Crushing her body against his, he thrust his tongue between her full, warm lips, rubbed her c.l.i.t and f.u.c.ked his c.o.c.k in and out of her. Wave after wave crashed over him as the c.u.m thundered down his c.o.c.k and shot deep into her c.u.n.t.

Jets of seed blasted against her G-spot. She arched her body back against his, sucked hungrily at his tongue and blew apart around him, her p.u.s.s.y clasping wildly, squeezing the last drop of seed from him.

Deciding that ingesting her blood would push him over the edge and he'd probably end up really hurting her physically, he contented himself with licking the side of her neck, below her ear, as the last tremor of pleasure crashed over him.

Still buried to the hilt in her drenched p.u.s.s.y, he pressed his lips against her ear. "Has anyone ever told you how sweet your p.u.s.s.y is?"

"All of my men love my p.u.s.s.y," she told him, her voice soft and seductive.

"Yeah?" He bared his incisors and nipped at the back of her neck. "Don't you talk to me about other men and this p.u.s.s.y."

She tried to ease off his c.o.c.k, but he gripped her hips and pulled her back until he was fully seated inside her again. He wiggled his hips and licked her neck. He loved the feeling of being totally inside her c.u.m-filled c.u.n.t.

"Feeling a little possessive, Andrei?"

"In your dreams, little b.i.t.c.h."

"You'd better be glad you're still hard and inside me or I'd slap you all the way back to Philly. Now kindly remove your oversized pole from my stretched p.u.s.s.y."

He ground his hips against her, loving the weight of her a.s.s against his groin. "You have a nice a.s.s," he told her. "You know I'm going to have to f.u.c.k it, don't you?"

She shivered. "If you think I'm going to allow you to f.u.c.k my a.s.s with that... thing you call a c.o.c.k, you're totally nuts."

"You said I wasn't going to get all my c.o.c.k in you and yet here you are impaled on every last inch-and loving it." He flicked his thumb against her c.l.i.t. "I'm going to love f.u.c.king your luscious a.s.s, my delicious hussy."

"You're making me so hot, Andrei."

He kissed her neck. "Let's f.u.c.k again."

"Oh h.e.l.l yeah." She sobbed as he eased out of her and then forced his length b.a.l.l.sdeep into her again. "Oh h.e.l.l, Andrei, your d.i.c.k feels so good. f.u.c.k me."

"Oh yeah, baby, oh yeah, but this time I want to lie on top of you so I can kiss you as we f.u.c.k."

"Yes, please, Andrei," she begged in a soft voice that turned him on.

He eased out of her, gently rolled her onto her back and slipped between her legs. Her soft cries as he leisurely impaled her on his c.o.c.k kept him hard and totally aroused. When he felt her pubic hair against his, he lowered his upper body until her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s cushioned his chest.

"Oh...Andrei!"

He grinned and licked her lips. "Feels good doesn't it, my sweet b.i.t.c.h?"

"I am a b.i.t.c.h-your sweet b.i.t.c.h, Andrei." She slid her fingers down his back to clutch at his a.s.s.

"d.a.m.n right, and if I ever catch you offering yourself to another man, I'll rip his heart out and tear it into tiny pieces!"

She laughed and wigged her hips against his. "Oh, Andrei, you say the sweetest things. Now f.u.c.k me, my handsome honey boy."

"Gladly," he groaned, pressing his lips against hers.

Jace made his way along the dark, quiet corridors of Wilfredo's mansion. The dim lamps that usually lit the way had not been turned on. Not that he needed any artificial illumination. He saw just as well in the dark as he did in the full sunlight. After decades of cavorting with vampire hunters and stalking his mostly nocturnal prey, the full sunlight had lost some of its charm for him.

He stopped at the closed door at the end of the second floor corridor. Wilfredo liked to have the various hunters he considered his "children" gathered around him. Taking a deep breath, Jace opened the door and stepped into a large room lit by a mult.i.tude of crystal lights dangling from an enormous chandelier for which Wilfredo had paid a small fortune.

Surprisingly, Wilfredo was alone, seated in his favorite leather recliner in the center of the room, opposite a large bay window. The eight smaller leather chairs surrounding the big burgundy chair were empty. Where were the others? Wilfredo generally liked to have at least one or two of his children with him at all times.

Jace's gaze centered on the custom-made recliner. As always, when entering any room that contained Wilfredo, Jace felt as if he were-h.e.l.l, there was no other word for it -he felt as if he were home. As he crossed the room, Wilfredo-a big, well-built man with thick, shoulder-length dark hair, magnetic eyes, an aristocratic nose and full, almost feminine lips-rose. Although Wilfredo looked to be in his mid-twenties and had excellent vision, he smiled at Jace over a pair of bifocals he said had once belonged to Ben Franklin, whose loss the centuries-old vampire still mourned.

"Jason!" Wilfredo engulfed him in a bear hug before drawing back to stare at him, a frown on his face. "What is it?"

Jace shook his head slowly. "I have problems I can no longer deal with alone," he admitted in a low voice.

"There is no need to struggle alone with problems, Jason. If there is anything that hurts or concerns you, I am here to a.s.sist you and to do whatever I can to ease your pain."

"I'm a little old to come running to you like a little boy every time something unexpected happens."

Wilfredo sucked in a breath. "What purpose would I have in life if my children did not feel free to come to me and throw any burden, no matter how heavy, on me? You are as dear to me as a son. Your concerns and problems are mine." He nodded toward the chair to his right. "Sit and cast your burdens onto my shoulders, Jason."

Feeling as if the proverbial weight of the world was about to be lifted off his weary shoulders, Jace sat. He took a deep breath and spoke in a low, hesitant voice.

Seated in his chair with his eyes closed, Wilfredo listened without interruption until Jace fell silent. Only then did he open his eyes and look at Jace. "And these dreams where Carollina pursues you... you're sure it's her?"

Jace frowned. "She looks different, but it's her. She's...evil. She wants me to join her in her pursuit of what feels like evil. I'm not so sure they are dreams. They feel real. When I wake, I'm... " He swallowed slowly.

"Speak, Jason. Speak your heart with no fear to tell me anything and everything that weights you down."

He had gone up against centuries-old vampires with no fear for his life. But the dreams of the woman he had once loved sent chills of terror through him. "I'm... afraid."

Wilfredo placed a hand on his shoulder. "There is no shame in honest emotions, Jason. Nor is there shame in fearing the loss of good to evil."

Jace frowned. "Loss of good to evil? What do you mean?"

Wilfredo sighed. "I've feared for some time now that we may have erred long ago and may now have to right a fifty-year-old mistake."

Carollina had been slain fifty years earlier. "What mistake?"

Wilfredo leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes filled with pain. "We accepted that we had lost Carollina to death."

"We did!" Jace spoke angrily, feeling the pain of her loss anew.

Wilfredo turned his gaze on his. "We accepted that without proof."

Jace's right hand shot up his chest to clutch a thin gold chain around which a delicate figurine of a woman hung. "I wear the proof, Wilfredo." He drew the chain and its charm from under the dark pullover he wore. "I gave this to her several years before her death. She never took it off. Never. When I arrived at the scene of her death, I found it lying in a pool of blood."

Wilfredo nodded. "Yet we all grieved without the ultimate proof-her body."

Jace stared at him. "What are you saying?"

"It is too early too say anything for certain, Jason. How long have you been having these dreams?"

"I've had them for a number of years, but I was always able to vanquish her in them. I can no longer do that and they are happening more frequently."

"Then we must act quickly or risk losing you as well."

"Losing me how?"

"If you can no longer resist her in the dreams, she will come to you when you're awake and attempt to turn you into what she has become."

Jace sucked in a deep breath. "And what has she become?"

Wilfredo's eyes pulsed with grief. "I fear our dear one has truly been lost to us in a way neither of us antic.i.p.ated, and which she would not have wanted. I fear she may now be a nocturene."

Jace shook his head. "A nocturene? Carollina? A low-breed, rogue vampire? No." He shot to his feet. "No! She was one of the purest people I've ever known. There's no way she could have joined those who slaughtered her."

Wilfredo looked up at him. "I'm afraid the only thing that was slaughtered was her pure spirit."

Jace leveled an angry finger at Wilfredo. "How can you suggest such a thing, when you've always taught us that one of pure spirit can never be turned to evil?"

"Do you think I find delight in the fetid task which now lies before us?" Wilfredo pounded a clenched fist against his chest. "Didn't I love her as one of my cherished children? Didn't I grieve for more than a decade when we lost her? Do I not still feel her loss as much as I did fifty-one years and three months ago? Don't I blame myself for my failure to protect and save her?"

Jace heard the pa.s.sion and pain in the other male's voice and knew they mirrored his own endless grief. "She's dead, Wilfredo."

"No, Jason, she is not dead. She is alive and plotting to bring you across. I won't allow that to happen."

"I would never join anyone aligned against you."

A sad smile touched Wilfredo's face. "Not while you are pure of heart. If she gets her hands on you, you won't be pure of heart for long." He frowned. "Even now your encounters with her have changed you."

"Changed me? How?"

Wilfredo studied him in silence for several long moments. "I can feel evidence of the change in you. There is little humanity remaining in you."

Jace gave a guilty start. "What do you mean?"

Wilfredo tilted his head. "You are no longer a human latent. You are now a vampire latent."

"What?"

Wilfredo reached out, grasped his chin and tilted his head back. "Just as I suspected-incisors. Can your eyes glow? Do you have increased vitality and strength? Have you developed a l.u.s.t for blood?"

Jace swallowed hard. "My eyes don't glow, but..."

"You have developed a l.u.s.t for blood?"

"No. Well, not blood in general." Just the blood of the beautiful, alluring Ana. "I do feel stronger."

Wilfredo sighed and released his chin. "It is only a matter of time now."

"What's only a matter of time?"

"Carollina has begun the transformation process. It might be too late to stop it."

"It might be too late to stop what?"

"The complete loss of your humanity."

So that's what was happening to him. After so many years spent among vampires, Jace wasn't sure how to view the coming transformation. Wilfredo, though, didn't seem pleased at the prospect of what was happening to him.

Wilfredo sighed. "Carollina is lost to us, but I will not lose you. I will do what is necessary to protect you from her. You are no longer human, but I won't lose you to her darkness."

Jace swallowed a sudden lump of fear. He knew that tone in Wilfredo's voice. "What do you mean?"

"I will do what must be done."

"What is that?"

Wilfredo shook his head. "With a nocturene who knows us so intimately on the prowl, I must gather all my children to me and prepare them." Wilfredo's eyes darkened with fury. "When I have done what is necessary, I will find and destroy those responsible."

"But we never knew who was responsible." Jace clenched a hand into a fist. "If we had, we would have exacted vengeance a long time ago."

Wilfredo closed his eyes. "My memory has begun to return."

Jace frowned. "Return? When did you lose it?"

"It was after my encounter with Madison's mentor that I began to realize that I am not who I thought I was."

Several months earlier, an aborted attempt by Jace and several other hunters to dispatch Vladimir Madison had gone astray, resulting in Vladimir's twin brother, Aleksei, confronting Wilfredo at the mansion. What had been shaping up to be a standoff between the two powerful, centuries-old vampires had been interrupted when Aleksei's mentor, a powerful being known simply as Luc, had appeared. Luc had forced both Wilfredo and Madison to stand down.

Jace was silent. To force Wilfredo, the most powerful vampire Jace had ever encountered, to back down, this Luc must possess incredible power. "Why should your encounter with him be so important?"

"Because seeing him after so much time forced long suppressed memories to the surface. I didn't address him as Lord because I feared him."

"Then why?"

"I addressed him as Lord because he is such."

"What do you mean?"

Wilfredo shook his head. "I am still struggling to recall ancient memories. The time will come when I will reveal all, but for now, I must call the others home to prepare for the a.s.sault of the nocturene."

Jace averted his gaze, swallowing hard in an attempt to dislodge a lump of rebellion. If Carollina were alive, he'd have to find a way to save her. No matter what Wilfredo feared, he knew she would never have surrendered to evil. If he could just find a way to communicate with her, he was certain he could bring her back into the fold of the vampire hunters.