"Harder," I moaned, and he drove forward. He drove into me again and again. There was nothing gentle about him; he was every inch the hard, dominant male. And I loved it.

His fists tangled in my hair, his breathing as hard and fast as my own. I dug my nails into his back as I felt the world spiral out of control and burst over me in wave after wave of scalding hot pleasure. He yelled and sank his teeth deeply into the frantic heartbeat that pulsed in my neck. I screamed, not knowing whether in pleasure or pain, as my body spasmed and my legs quivered around him. The very earth seemed to shake beneath us.

As he drank from me it was almost as if, in those few shining moments, I was inside him. I could feel my blood flowing into him. I could smell my perfume and feel my hair against his skin. Even as I felt him inside me I could feel myself surrounding him, hot and pulsing with need. I screamed again as pleasure washed over me for the second time, leaving bright white lights dancing behind my closed eyelids. He was still throbbing deep inside me when he picked his head up, ran his tongue over the punctures in my neck, and in one quick movement rolled us both over so that I lay sprawled on top of him.

Chapter Twenty-Six

"What was that?" I asked, knowing instinctively that what had happened there at the end was not in the normal course of things.

He laughed softly. "I think that is our compensation for never being able to walk in the sun again."

"It was like I was seeing what you were seeing and feeling what you felt," I said with wonder.

"Yes," he said and shivered, running his hands over my back. "It's always there to a certain extent when you drink from someone but it's more... intense when you do it while making love."

"Will it be the same after I've turned? Or does it only work with humans?"

"Oh, it'll be even better afterward. But always remember, between two vampires blood is like a drug or an aphrodisiac. Only take a little and only for pleasure. If you take more than a few swallows of blood from another vampire's body it'll make you horribly ill."

"I suppose you've done this quite a lot," I whispered, not liking the feeling of raging jealousy that swept through me.

He stilled and then said carefully, "What do you want me to say to you, Cin? I've been undead for seventy years and I haven't been a monk."

I buried my face in his neck. "Of course not," I replied, feeling virginal and ridiculous.

"Look at me," he said and wiggled around until he was nose to nose with me. "As long as you'll have me, there will be no one else.

I swear that to you. My G.o.d, woman, as if I could even think of any other female with you by my side and in my bed."

I smiled a smile of pure feminine pleasure and laid my head on his chest.

"Am I too heavy for you?" I asked.

He grunted. "Move and I'll bite you."

"Promises, promises," I purred and kissed his collarbone. "Michael?"

"Hmmm?"

"I can't feel my toes," I said in a sleepy and unconcerned voice.

His rumbling laughter answered me. "Were you planning on going anywhere?"

"No," I said. "I just thought you should know."

"So," he said, wrapping his arms around me, "what did you do all afternoon?"

"I rode Missy and I... I swam naked in the lake."

"Did you now? Is that something you do often?" he teased.

"No, never, you wretch. I just thought that since it was something I'd always secretly longed to do and since I only had one more afternoon in the sun then I thought I should do it, is all."

He went very still. "Are you determined to do this, then?"

I sighed. Bless him for still wanting to save me but he was going to have to get over it and do what had to be done.

"You know there's no other way." I said, running my fingers across his chest, lightly grazing his nipple. "If you won't do it then I'll get Devlin to."

He grabbed my hair and forced me to look at him. "No other man will lay finger or fang on you, do you hear me?"

A thrill of pleasure coursed through me at his ferocity but there were still doubts clouding my thoughts. There were questions about the future that he and I needed to resolve.

"Do you keep fighting this because you don't want me with you? I know the three of you are like a family and I don't want to intrude where I'm not wanted. I mean, I could always go-"

His laughter stopped me in mid-sentence.

"Good G.o.d, la.s.s, for seventy years I've traveled with Devlin and Justine, envying them for what they have together and wanting it for my own. I just never thought when I found it that it would be with someone as fine as you. It's a hard life we live; I just want you to be sure it's me that you want."

I breathed a sigh of relief and pleasure. He did want me. I laid my head back down. "My father would approve of you."

He snorted. "I very much doubt that."

Putting my hands on his chest, I pushed up so that I was straddling him and glared. "He would. Mrs. Mackenzie said so just this morning."

"Did she now?" he asked with a smile. "Lord, I'd love to paint you just like that."

"Naked?" I asked, arching a brow.

"No, it's that haughty look on your face I'm after."

"But not naked?"

He shook his head. "No, not for this portrait. I'm thinking I'd like to see you looking like that, clad in something red and silken and scandalous. That dress you were wearing when we first met, perhaps."

I smiled and stretched out on top of him, reveling in the perfect fit of our bodies. "You paint?"

"Given enough years to practice you can become good at anything." "Hmm, maybe I'll finally master the piano then."

He quirked a brow at me. "Don't all young ladies of quality play?"

I grimaced and hid my face behind the fall of my hair. "Apparently not. I can't seem to get my left hand and my right to work independently of each other. It's a flaw."

"Hmm, I may have to ch ange my mind about this, you know. I mean, a vampire who can't play the piano... what good is that?"

I giggled and he clasped me tightly to him and rolled us over until he was staring down at me.

"Wait here while I light some candles. I want to see you."

"Let me do it," I said, not wanting to lose the feel of him over me, inside me.

I closed my eyes and called to that place deep inside me where my magic goes to rest. It welled up in me, making me feel so alive and flushed with power. I imagined the candles lit and an instant later every wick in the room burst forth into flame and then settled to a soft glow.

"You amaze me," he said softly and kissed me high on my cheekbone. "I love this little freckle."

"It's not a freckle; it's a beauty mark."

"It's a freckle and it's precious."

"Are you going to argue with me all night?"

He groaned. "What would you rather do?"

I moved my hips against him.

"Again, my little wanton?" he asked.

"Can we?"

I felt him stir and harden inside me. He leaned down to kiss me.

"Michael, wait," I said, my hand on his chest. "First tell me what will happen, when you turn me, that is."

"I have to drink from you one more time tonight, soon, and then you must drink from me. You will simply feel as if you're falling asleep but your body will die and be reborn."

"And then we'll see if I still have my magic or not."

"Yes."

"You've done this before? Turned someone, I mean."

"No, but Devlin gave me very specific instructions."

"I don't want to end up dead dead, Michael."

"Don't worry so. Make love to me, Cin, and let me take care of you." He pulled out of me almost entirely and then thrust forward and I was lost in the rapture. Some time later when the world split and fell into shimmering stars he bit the other side of my neck, exactly where Sebastian had marked me. This time I didn't feel pain, only white-hot pleasure. The room spun lazily and I realized dimly that I was weak and dizzy from blood loss. I seemed to see everything as if I were standing outside my body, looking down on a tableau.

Michael pushed my hair from my pale face and got up, rummaging through the discarded pile of clothes until he found his sgain dhu. The sgain dhu is a Scottish dagger worn tucked into the boot or the top of a man's knee sock. Michael's had some kind of large golden stone, topaz or amber I would guess, cut and set at the tip of the hilt. It was old and battered, the leather sheath scarred and well-worn. He had probably been wearing it when he'd fallen at Falkirk.

He gathered me into his arms, unsheathed the blade and sliced across the big vein in his neck. Blood welled up, so red on his pale skin.

"Drink," he said, and pressed my lips to the wound.

Blood, hot and salty, ran into my mouth. I swallowed and gagged and tried to pull away.

"No," he said pressing my face to his skin. "If you don't drink you will die in truth, Cin. Stay with me. Drink."

Blood washed over my tongue and I swallowed again. The more I consumed, the better it tasted until I was clinging to him, my mouth fused over the wound. Feeding, and it felt good.

I pulled away, repulsed by what I'd just done. I knelt on my hands and knees on the bed, my head hanging down, the room spinning uncontrollably, and I moaned. Michael eased me onto my back and brushed my hair from my face.

"Easy love, I'll stay with you. I promise I'll guard you while you rest. Sleep well, my darling."

He stroked my hair and spoke, low and soothingly. It was like I was hearing his voice down a long dark tunnel, softer and softer, until sleep, or death, claimed me and I heard no more. I lay there cold and pale and unmoving with Michael bending over my naked and b.l.o.o.d.y body.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

What really surprised me was that I woke up at all. On some level I really hadn't thought it would work. But I did wake up and I knew I was different. I lay there with my eyes closed, feeling my body. I didn't feel my heartbeat. I wasn't breathing and yet I didn't feel as if I had to. It was strange and frightening. My mind and body felt rather fuzzy and disoriented but I could hear s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation around me.

"...any time now..."

"What do you think the chances are of her retaining her magic?"

"...no way to tell..."

I lay there like a child holding its breath underwater, waiting until my lungs burned before I finally gave in and surfaced. I waited but the sensation never came. I was truly as still as death. Oh dear G.o.ddess, was I really dead? Was I not in my body at all? Panicking I sat up, pleased that I could do so, and dragged in great heaving gasps of air. No, I wasn't dead. I wasn't dead, I thought over and over again, and the panic eased until I could finally see what was around me.

I was in some large, dimly lit room. There were no windows. Long tables filled with jars and books lined the walls and herbs hung from the ceiling in drying clumps. The bed I was laying on was tucked neatly into one corner. I shoved myself back into that corner and stared at the people surrounding me.

"Dulcinea. Cin, listen to me," said a beautiful blonde man. "You're fine, do you hear me? You need blood and then the confusion will go away."

Michael. Yes, Michael. I remembered him. He did this to me. Blood. Yes, I needed blood. I looked around, my eyes scanning the people who stood staring at me. Vampire, vampire, old man, an older woman who looked at me with pain in her eyes, a young girl.

Yes, she would do. I held my hand out to the girl.

"Come," I said and thrust my power out. My body was coursing with it, burning with untapped magic.

The girl flew through the air to me, landing in a limp pile on the mattress next to me. The woman screamed and the vampires rushed me. I flung one hand toward them and the magic pushed them back against the wall. Grabbing the girl, I turned her face up to me exposing her neck. She looked at me with pain and disbelief clouding her large, liquid green eyes.

"Dulcie?" she choked on a sob.

Fiona. I remembered now. Dear G.o.ddess, what was I doing? I shoved her away from me and huddled in the corner, curled into a tight ball, the hunger gnawing at me. What had I become that I'd nearly hurt Fiona? I couldn't even bring myself to look at her mother. I was supposed to be strong but I felt weak; I felt like a monster.