Chapter Six
Vampire's Kiss
"Kai…" A dark, velvet voice in a haze of pain. "Kai…" His entire body was scorching with pain, his muscles binding, knotting, and tearing in bursts of agony… but that voice, so beautiful… so soothing. But, Trygle… that stupid bit-beast had nearly killed him.
Midnight bent over Kai's too still body, fervently praying to the vampire goddess Raksha and her brother Ravanna. Her eyes scanned his body, noting the deep cuts, the lacerations from the talons, and the torn muscles. The All-Star team would pay for this. She would rip out their throats and drain their blood into the ocean.
Letting the blood trickle from a wound in her wrist, she watched the wounds close on Kai's body when her blood struck. "Kai, come on… don't you dare die on me, buddy!" Her breath escaped when he opened his eyes, his wounds fully healed. Then she noticed two deep scratches, one at his throat, and one crossing his arm. Interesting thoughts began running through her head.
"How'd you find me?"
"I felt your pain, in my head. I tracked it here, and found you."
"Neat trick."
"Thank you. It hurt like hell. What happened?"
"Better question: What happened to you?" So he'd noticed her bruises. Like an idiot, she'd gone to get her stuff from the Holiday head quarters in Las Angeles, and had run into Lotho Boggier. She wasn't gonna tell Kai that, though. She could handle a few broken ribs. She'd done it plenty of times.
"Nothing. Now, you're not completely healed, so hold still, and close your eyes." She lowered her mouth to his arm, bathing the cut with her tongue, tasting Kai's sweet, adrenaline-laced blood. Kai gave a strangled cry when her fangs sank deep into his flesh, washing his body in delicious heat. Her mouth feeding from him made Kai want to scream.
Sweeping her tongue over the pinpricks her teeth had made, and noting the scratch was perfectly healed, she kissed Kai's jaw, and then buried her long, needle-like teeth into his throat, taking a very long time to take very little, savoring the taste of his skin under her lips, his blood flowing into her mouth. She closed that scratch, and the pricks in Kai's skin.
"Am I healed now?"
"Yeah."
"Damn." Midnight smiled, asking, "Why?"
"Because that was about the closest thing to Heaven I've ever felt. What the hell was that?"
"Vampire's little kiss of death."
"Ooh. Question?"
"Mmm?" Midnight snuggled up to Kai, who kissed her cheek.
"Why the 'kiss of death?'" Midnight then sighed, murmuring, "Because it's a lot like… you know, and the word we have for that means 'living sweet death' in English. Also, if I really wanted to, I could turn you into a vampire that way." Kai stiffened. "What? What'd I say?"
"Would you?" He asked softly. Midnight looked confused.
"Would I what?"
"Turn me into a vampire?"
"I can't. It's forbidden by our gods. Lady Raksha was quoted as saying only those who are dying may be changed, or those who are life mates. The problem with that is, that a person can be life mate to someone, and soul mate to someone else. It's rare, but it happened once. That was scary."
"Why? What happened?"
"A vampire named Daimon was in love with a human, Marina. Unfortunately, his life mate, the woman he was chemically bound to for eternity, was a vampiress named Felicity. He didn't love Felicity, he was just tired of waiting for his soul mate. Unfortunately, then she said the binding words without his consent, and so when Marina came along, we had a hell of a lot of problems. For one, there was my cousin, Shan. When she was nineteen, we had to transform her because she was dying. It was something about her vampire cells attacking her human ones or something. I wasn't even five at the time. Also, after Marina and Felicity were both murdered by vampire hunters, Daimon went crazy, tried to kill Victor, his son, and also almost killed Shan's soul and life mate, Jeremy."
"Whoa."
"Come on, you shouldn't be too light-headed now. We need to get back."
"Sure, Dara."
"Hey, you never did tell me what happened."
"That kid from the All-Stars attacked me."
"Thought so."