Belonging. Part 11

Okay. Her mind drew the picture for her, and yeah, she imagined it might have looked like something else to somebody who didn't realize what was going on. But the weird thing was...why did Levi care? "That wasn't exactly what you think, Levi."

"Then what the h.e.l.l was it?" he demanded.

"Levi..." She licked her lips and glanced at Duke. The shapeshifter was quiet, standing between her and Levi. The bite mark on his neck was no longer bleeding, but the scent of blood was still there. She could smell it but she'd fed enough to take the edge off and now worry and nerves took care of the rest. Her fangs retreated and she was able to take a deep breath without the scent of blood pushing her to the edge.

Levi followed her gaze. His eyes locked on the rapidly healing mark at Duke's neck and narrowed. He came toward Duke again but Duke didn't move. Didn't do anything as Levi reached up and hooked his finger in the neckline of Duke's T-shirt, tugging it lower.

He stared at the bite and watched in disbelief as it healed. It took less than a few minutes and then Duke pulled back. "What...?" he stopped. Closed his mouth with a snap and then looked from Duke to Cori.

Through stiff lips, Levi said, "I need to speak with Corinne alone."

Duke glanced at Cori and then back at Levi, shaking his head. "Don't think so, buddy. You're still riding a little too high there."

"Duke, it's okay." She sighed and shoved her hair back from her face.

The shapeshifter opened his mouth to argue. Cori snapped, "d.a.m.n it, are any of you ever going to realize I can think for myself? I don't want or need any of you hanging over my shoulder and watching every step I make."

Duke scowled. Glanced at Levi, then at Cori. His scowl deepened and he reached up, shoved overlong hair back from his face. Without saying another word, he turned on his heel and left.

As the sound of his footsteps faded, then disappeared altogether, Cori stood and waited.

Levi's eyes were unreadable. His face a harsh mask of stone. He reached out and touched a finger to her chin, pressing down. Cori closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she opened her mouth and let her fangs extend.

Levi pulled his hand away, closed it into a tight fist. "Owen was right."

"Right about what?"

"What he saw that night. When he said you were bitten by a...by a vampire."

Cori retracted her fangs and folded her arms across her middle. "Yes. He was right."

"He spent four years with people telling him he was crazy-" "I know that," Cori said softly, her voice thick as she tried to speak around the knot in her throat. "Well...I know now. But I didn't know what he was going through. I was told he'd recovered from the attack, that he was doing okay."

"And you just let it go at that?" Levi demanded.

Guilt made her queasy. But something about his tone sparked a flicker of anger inside her and the anger was so much easier to handle. Narrowing her eyes, she said, "I could barely keep myself together for the first year or so, Levi. By the time I was almost steady again, so much time had pa.s.sed that I thought it would just be best to let Owen think I was dead. It was a mistake, trust me, I know that. But I can't undo it."

She wanted to say more. She wanted to apologize for what had happened to Levi. She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to rise up on her toes and kiss the scars at his neck-scars that were only days old but they looked so much older. Years older. She wanted to tell him she'd listen if he needed to talk and she wanted to yell at him for adding to the guilt inside her.

Most of all, though, she wanted to snuggle up against his chest and just breathe him in. Let his warmth wrap around her. Maybe then that tight, icy knot of loneliness in her heart would ease.

Instead, she just turned away. But before she could leave, he was in front of her, blocking the doorway.

"I'm sorry," he said brusquely. "Look...my head is still really messed up right now."

Cori shrugged. "Forget about it." She started around him but he lifted an arm, barring her way.

"I've spent the past four years hating myself for letting you leave that night," he said, his voice throbbing with intensity. "Four years feeling guilty over it. If you hadn't left my place, you wouldn't have been hurt.

Owen wouldn't have been hurt...at least not physically. Four years wondering what would have happened with all of us if you'd stayed. Four years thinking you were dead. Four years thinking my cousin had gone off the deep end. Now I feel like I'm the one going off the deep end."

"I understand the feeling," Cori muttered. She licked her lips, still tasting Duke there. Levi's eyes narrowed on her mouth, staring at it. His nostrils flared and she knew he could scent the other man on her.

Heat flashed through his eyes and his mouth twisted in a snarl.

For some reason, it caused her normally slow heartbeat to speed up a little, made her fangs extend.

Hunger. That's all. You're hungry. You didn't feed enough. She hadn't-she knew that. The hunger still simmered just below the surface but it wasn't anything she couldn't deal with.

It was harder to deal with the way her heart kept thumping so hard within her chest. Harder to deal with the fact that she was getting more and more turned on, standing there in front of him while he stared at her mouth.

"You were feeding," he whispered. His hand came up, cradled her face. Then he rubbed his thumb over her lips, still staring at her mouth, mesmerized.

"Yeah." She swallowed, tried to think past the heat fogging her senses and the fatigue that weighed her down.

He pressed his thumb against her mouth again and without thinking, she bit him. Lightly, just sc.r.a.ping her teeth over the roughened pad of his thumb. His pupils flared and another one of those deep, hoa.r.s.e growls slipped past his lips He leaned in and she shivered as he buried his face against her neck. Her knees wobbled and she swayed toward him. But as she did, the thick gray curtain of exhaustion wrapped around her. Her vision grayed out and she fought past it with nothing but determination and desperation. Late. Way too late. "I've got to go, Levi," she said, her voice thick. She pulled away from him, carefully extricating her body from his arms and trying to recall just how they'd gotten there in the first place.

"Go where?" He touched her hair, brushing it back from her face.

"My room. I need to lie down."

"Lie down?" He frowned. "Are you sick...do vampires get sick?"

Cori shook her head and made her leaden legs move. One step. Another. She could feel him staring at her as he fell into step beside her. "Maybe...maybe I could come with you, then?" he asked, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant. "I think, I dunno, well...we probably need to talk."

"Talk." She swallowed. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. Her lids drooped over her eyes and it took every bit of strength she had to make them stay open.

"Now..." her lids drooped again. She forced them open. Made herself take another step. "Now isn't a good..."

Time.

She dropped and, though Levi was still adjusting to his altered abilities, he moved quickly, catching her just before she would have crashed to the floor, boneless and limp.

Levi now knew what it was like to have ten years scared off his life.

Or, in his case, maybe fifty. They'd told him that if he lived long enough, he'd die of old age sometime around his third or fourth century. Or longer, if you're powerful, one of them had said. So, yeah, seeing Cori drop like a stone did a little more damage than just ten piddling years.

He paced as he waited for the red-haired witch to show up. Chelsea. Kelsey. Keelie. f.u.c.k, something like that. He couldn't remember her name. How the h.e.l.l was he supposed to think right now? He couldn't.

Not until somebody told him she was okay.

h.e.l.l, not even then. He'd think again when she opened those pretty eyes and looked at him. Maybe. After he kissed her again. Held her. Then he might be able to think.

He felt a pair of eyes on him and he looked up, met the gaze of the blond from earlier. b.a.s.t.a.r.d had Cori's scent on him. f.u.c.king p.i.s.sed him off. It shouldn't. It shouldn't make any difference to him but it did. Cori was his. He'd wanted her four years earlier and he hadn't thought it was right to try to take her. Try to keep her.

Right. Screw right and wrong. She'd ended things with Owen-she hadn't been in love with him. Owen hadn't made her smile, hadn't made her laugh.

Levi could do that. He could make her smile. He could make her laugh. And he could have her now. Have her. Keep her. Wrap his arms around her and cuddle her against him, chase away the sadness in her eyes.

Replace it with warmth.

His distracted, turbulent mind focused once more on the other man's face and he glared at him. "You got a problem?"

Duke-Cori had called him Duke. Duke shrugged lazily and remained against the wall, eying Levi with obvious amus.e.m.e.nt. "Me? No. I don't have a problem. You do, though. Females are always problems."

Levi snarled at him and then turned back to the bed, studying Cori's still body. "What the h.e.l.l is taking her so long?"

"Who? Cori? I already told you-she's going to be like that until the sun sets." "Not her. The red-haired woman."

"Kelsey." Duke rolled his eyes. "Busy lady. She'll be here soon."

"She should already be here," Levi muttered. "What if something is wrong?"

Duke closed his eyes and shook his head. "Nothing's wrong. She's a vampire. Vampires sleep during the day. And Cori is a baby vamp-that means she sleeps more than most."

"She's been a vampire for four years."

"Four years is nothing."

"Nothing?" Levi shook his head. The past four years of his life had been h.e.l.l. Not nothing. "Four years can be a lifetime."

To his surprise, the other man smiled, a mocking, bitter smile. "h.e.l.l, you can say that again." A far-off look entered his eyes but it was gone almost as quickly as it had come. "Kelsey's coming down the hall. You can start breathing again."

Levi frowned, listening. It was too d.a.m.n hard to differentiate the sounds, though. He heard footsteps.

Heartbeats. Breathing. His own, Duke's. Several sets of feet treading along just outside the door. "How can you tell it's her?"

Duke shrugged. "I just can. Sooner or later, you'll be able to do the same thing. You just need to let your mind catch up with your senses."

There was a knock at the door, but Kelsey entered without waiting for anybody to open it. She gave Levi a flat stare and shook her head. "d.a.m.n it, I knew you were going to be trouble."

Levi ignored that comment. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he said, "She was walking down the hall and then she just dropped. Would have hit the floor if I hadn't caught her. Is she okay?"

Kelsey gave him a baleful glance and then focused her gaze on Cori. "She's fine. She's just sleeping."

"You didn't even take a look at her," Levi snapped, scowling.

Kelsey took a deep breath and looked as if she were doing a mental count of ten. Then she said quietly, "Levi, I'm a healer. If something as wrong with Cori, I probably would have felt it hours ago. That's what I do.

It's what I'm good at. I feel sickness. I feel pain. Vampires don't get sick and she isn't hurt physically. She's just sleeping." But she crossed the room and knelt by the bed, studying Cori.

Levi knew it was more to mollify him than anything else, but he would take what he could get.

"It happened right around sunrise, right?"

Levi shrugged. "Beats me. I left my almanac in the room."

She slid him a look. "Another smarta.s.s. I so did not need this," she muttered. She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Duke?"

"Right at, ma'am. I was already in my room, but I heard him yelling. Only took me a minute or two to get there and I saw the sun coming up through the trees."

Kelsey nodded and then straightened. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Levi. "She's sleeping. Look...you're new. I understand that was probably scary as h.e.l.l, but she is fine. Vamps have to have a few decades behind them before the sunrise stops. .h.i.tting them like that."

Scary as h.e.l.l. "You've got a thing for understatements."

"So I've been told," she said. And her mouth twitched. Then she smoothed a hand back over her hair and glanced at Duke. "Duke, you can go on to bed if you want. Cori's fine." Duke shoved off the wall and left without a word.

"I'm not leaving," Levi said flatly.

"Now why am I not surprised?"

Levi was pretty sure it had been one of the longest days of his life.

For the longest time, he'd sprawled in the chair by her bed, watching her, ears straining to hear every slow heartbeat. But that weird, uneasy restlessness plagued him and had him pacing her room until he just about wore a path in the carpet.

About four hours after she'd scared the life out of him in the hallway, Levi gave up wrestling with his conscience and settled down on the bed next to her. It was a big-a.s.s bed. She didn't take up much room and she hadn't moved a muscle since he'd placed her there. He lay down on the other side of the bed, on his side, so he could watch her sleep. Oddly enough, that soothed the restlessness burning in his gut.

Unable to resist, he reached up and touched his fingertips to her cheek. Soft and silken, but cool. He thought back, remembered how cool she'd felt that night in the alley. Earlier. Her skin had warmed then, under his touch. Warmed under his mouth and hands and body. Cautiously, he edged closer and draped his arm over her waist. She didn't move but something about her body relaxed.

When he woke up hours later, he had her wrapped in his hands. She was warmer now, almost hot, her body soft and sweet against his. She sighed and he shifted, staring at her with sleepy eyes. She was awake, watching him in the dim room.

"You're awake," he whispered gruffly.

"So are you." She frowned and pressed against his chest. "What are you doing in here?"

"Sleeping with you," he replied. And he'd slept well. Not once had the dreams chased him. He brushed her hair back from her face and whispered, "d.a.m.n, Cori, I can't believe you're alive."

Her lashes flickered and she looked away from him. "I'm sorry."

He scowled. "Sorry you're alive?"

"No. Yes. Sometimes. I don't know. I'm sorry I had to let everybody think I was dead but there was really no other way to handle it. When..." her voice trailed off and she swallowed-an audible, dry click. Then she licked her lips and tried again. "When I was attacked, I lost a lot of blood. Too much. If anybody knew I was alive, it would lead to questions that can't be answered. I hated not contacting anybody but I just didn't have much choice."

Levi nodded. "I think I can understand." He sighed and shifted on the bed, leaning forward to press his lips to her brow. "I need to apologize. What happened with Owen...it's not your fault. None of it-not his death and not the fact that he lost himself after you died. You didn't choose for any of this to happen, no more than I did." He grimaced and added, "And I get the need to keep us...I mean...well, people from knowing about this s.h.i.t. That could get ugly."

"Ugly is putting it mildly." Cori sighed and once more pushed against his chest.

He had to force himself to let her go. As she slid out of the bed, he did the same and jammed his hands into his pockets. She looked miserable, her gaze darting across the room, never once connecting with his.

Seeing her, after four years-it was unreal. Touching her, feeling her body moving against his had been better than any dream he'd ever had. He wanted to say something-anything. Although he really didn't know what. Thanks for that night. Why did it happen? Did you know who I was? I'm sorry I couldn't help Owen. I'm sorry I hurt you. I want to touch you again. I want to kiss you. What's it like when you feed?

But before he could figure out what to ask, and how, Cori glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "I've got to start getting ready for work. If you don't mind..."

"Mind? Uh. No, I'll go." He started toward the door. Two feet away, he stopped and turned back.