The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set Read online

  She applied make-up in a hurried manner, and didn’t even bother to dry her hair. She hadn’t brought many of her flashy clothes with her, but Jill managed to find a single gold colored bandeau-top. Paired with a mini-skirt and leggings it created the type of look that just begged for attention. Not that Jill necessarily needed it. She knew how to turn on the charm and to bring the men to her.

  Peeking out of her bedroom door, her eyes darted side-to-side warily. She wasn’t necessarily afraid of getting caught. She just wasn’t in the mood for talk or explanations. No, she was on a mission and that was all that was on her mind.

  Hunger.

  She found the keys to Doc’s Jeep still in the ignition. She supposed he didn’t have to worry much about people stealing a vehicle out in the middle of nowhere. When she peeled out of the parking lot she considered where to go. She spotted a brightness of lights miles down the road to her right that had to be a town. She turned the corner with a squeal of tires and grinned with one corner of her mouth as she licked her tongue over her teeth.

  It was late in the evening–or early in the morning depending on your point of view–but the bar in town was still bustling with patrons. When she walked in she felt male eyes on her from all directions, but she ignored them and approached the bartender. Let’s see who comes to me first, she thought to herself.

  “Vodka tonic,” she told him.

  He accommodated and she downed the contents in one swallow. She waited a moment for the heat to wrap around her belly. Nothing.

  “Minus the tonic,” she ordered, her eyes turning colder.

  Again, she took it all in one quick drink. Again, nothing. She’d suspected this would happen and almost growled in protest. Alcohol had no effect on her. She looked up at the bartender. He leaned over with two hands on the bar and waited with a cocky smirk.

  “One more.”

  Full glass in hand she turned around and rested her elbows against the bar, thrusting her breasts forward. Her prey was approaching from her left with a confident expression on his face. When he offered to buy her drinks she chose to maintain the mystery and instead of speaking she just nodded. By the time he’d handed over his bills she was already at his table, sitting in the chair he’d just vacated. Her legs were open wide and she’d placed the glass of vodka between them. His eyes became heavy with lust as he flicked them from her crotch then back up to her breasts and finally to her lips. She licked those lips just for him.

  “Got wheels?” Jill asked, finally speaking with a husky, sultry voice.

  “Baby, I gotta truck and I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go,” he advised. Standing over her, he ran a finger from her earlobe down to her neck and to the skin just at the top of her breasts.

  Finishing her drink she grinned, “The truck’ll do.”

  Then she stood, rubbing her hands on the insides of her thighs as she leaned forward. She peered down at the front of his jeans and leered a moment at his growing desire. Waiting for him at the door she saw him hesitate a moment. He started for her, then thought again and went back for his beer. He took a swig from the longneck before exiting the bar ahead of her.

  Jill was pleased when he led her away from the parking lot lights and to a truck hidden from clear view of the bar door. She took her time climbing into driver's side of the truck, flashing her ass in the air as she squirmed toward the passenger seat and waited. Her male companion followed her and seemed to not know what to do. She wasn’t as demure. Swinging a leg up, she straddled him, rubbing her sex against his and then began kissing his neck. She ripped his shirt apart so she could move her mouth lower and run her teeth against his chest.

  “Damn baby, you’re a little tiger aren’t you?” he growled, grasping her backside roughly.

  Pulling back, Jill lifted her face above his and looked deep in his eyes. “Your name?” she asked.

  “Colton.”

  She could hear his pulse roaring in his veins. She could feel it and hear it. The blood rushed and pounded; she focused on it. She centered on his eyes and stared into him. A part of her felt like she was trying to gnaw at his soul through his pupils. Before long his expression went lax and he sighed deeply, lost in the reverie.

  The first sinking of her teeth into skin was exquisite. She slurped the blood into her mouth, savoring it a moment before letting it glide down her throat. She was hungry–near to starving. She sucked and sucked and sucked, losing herself in the feel of his blood as it fortified her. The pain in her heart diminished as she continued drinking and feeding in rapture. Even though her host’s erection was no longer throbbing between her legs, she ground and pressed her crotch against him desperately. She moaned against her host’s neck as her body quaked and racked in release.

  She didn’t react immediately to the banging on the driver’s side window, just raised her piercing eyes and glared at the face outside the vehicle. She refused to release her teeth from the man’s neck, continuing to drink more and more.

  “For the love of–” Doc cried, yanking the door open, “Jill, you’ll kill him!”

  She willed her incisors to retract, then raised her mouth from his neck, peering down at the limp body underneath her. She felt shame somewhere inside her, crying and wailing, but the darkness kept it subdued and in check. She smothered her soul’s objections to her own actions, and cocked her head at Doc with a smile.

  “Will you taste as good as that, lover? Will vampire’s blood sustain me?”

  A shudder wracked through his body when he heard the crass coldness in her voice. He shook his head before he spoke. “No, Jill. You can’t live on my blood. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Then how does it work?” Too late she realized the words were spoken by the inner Jill, the one who was scared, hurt and very alone. The one being swallowed up by the blackness.

  Doc peered at her with his crystal blue eyes and he could see the war evident in her expression. If he’d had someone to lean on would he have won that battle within himself? Could he have salvaged the good in him before it was tainted, jaded and broken? True, he’d found a way to bury the darkness, but it soiled his soul and that was what he couldn’t live with. Was there some way he could spare her that?

  “I love you, Jill Prescott. I love you and if you’ll come home with me now, I’ll teach you all I know. I’ll show you how it works and I’ll love you for as long as I can. Please, my beautiful girl. Please come with me.”

  Jill looked down at her victim, watched as he took a shallow breath and she sighed with relief that he was still alive. Leaning forward she flicked her tongue against the marks on his neck just as she’d felt Doc do for her on so many occasions. The wounds healed instantly, and she turned her gaze back to Doc. He opened his arms to her and she eyed him with a cold glare.

  Closing her eyes she slapped one of his arms away then crawled out of the truck. He took a breath but before he could speak she shoved his shoulder and waved her hand in his face to stop anything he might say. “Don’t, Doc. Don’t.”

  * * *

  Doc wasn’t surprised to find Charlie waiting for him in his study when he got home. The old man stood when he entered the room, nervously rubbing his palms on his knees. The two of them cringed simultaneously when the echo of loud metal music rolled along the hospital halls, reverberating throughout the building.

  “You found her then?” Charlie asked, dropping back into his seat and clinching his eyes closed when Doc slammed the door shut with a bang.

  “I found her. At the bar in Rosemary.” He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “It’s nearly dawn. With any luck she’ll sleep soon.”

  “She’ll need to feed if –” Charlie’s voice trailed off when he saw Doc’s face screw up into a painful frown. Charlie couldn’t know what it was really like to become a vampire, but he’d learned a lot from his friend. “Did she kill anyone?” he asked, realizing that Jill must have already had her first “meal” as a vampire. It wasn’t unheard of for a young vamp to feed so voraciously from
a host to cause the victim’s heart to burst.

  Doc shook his head as his body slid into his large easy chair, then he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and placed his head in his hands. “She didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Is she all right? What the hell is she doing in there?” The music was so loud the vibrations rattled in their eardrums.

  Doc listened to the nasty hateful words of whatever grunge music was blaring from down the hall. He could only imagine what was going on in her little room. That cold hospital room that had become hers in the span of a few weeks, warm and inviting and good enough for her to stay in… forever.

  Forever. She had forever now if she wanted it. He’d cheated death–her death. So now if she was lucky she might have centuries of life. But what sort of life could it be? So many changelings found the trauma of the change so much that within weeks, they’d flail themselves into the sunlight; desperate to banish the darkness from their souls.

  “What have I done?” Doc whispered, agony morphing the sound of his voice into a hollow groan.

  When he felt Charlie’s warm hand on his shoulder he was tempted to shove his friend away. A rage welled up in him so strong that if he didn't contain it he knew it might drive him to snap the man’s neck.

  When his friend's fingers squeezed into his cold, cold skin, his effort to comfort had reached Doc. His heart opened and he felt not only the temperate heat of his friend’s touch, but also the warmth of caring and sympathy for his situation.

  “You did the only thing you knew to do, Allen. You and I both realized what the score was even when you carried her into that exam room. She’d been lying there too long. Her body had lost before you reached her. She’d be dead now if not for your gift.”

  “Ha!” Doc’s laugh was ugly with disgust. “Not a gift. A curse. A fucking curse is what I’ve foisted on her. She won’t survive it, Charlie. She was good and beautiful in a way that can never overcome this. Oh, god, her sisters. She has a family, Charlie. What the hell have I done?”

  “You need to help her. She needs your guidance.”

  Simultaneously they both realized the music had stopped and both of their heads lifted, turning toward the door. Doc cocked his to the side just a bit, listening. He was half afraid he’d hear the sound of one of the vehicles starting up, but thankfully no. A second passed, then the door opened, creaking inch-by-inch.

  He was struck by how different she looked.. She was still gorgeous, without a doubt. There was a flawless complexion to her skin and perfect curves from head to foot. She was no longer wearing the skirt from earlier, but still had on the skin tight leggings that ended at her ankles. Instead of the bandeau top, she’d slipped into a t-shirt. Despite the slightly less provocative dress, she oozed sexuality, her chest pressed forward and her limbs moved with syrupy deliberation. It radiated from her in a way that was tacky and distasteful.

  What Doc saw was the darkness and it was enveloping her. Killing off the Jill he loved cell by cell.

  “Charlie.”

  Doc said the name in such a way as to signal to his friend that he should leave them alone, but the older man hesitated. “I think I should stay. There’re things that I –”

  Jill turned her lavender eyes on him, dropping her head so that her gaze flicked up to meet his. She widened her eyes as she stared into him, then blinked when Doc stepped between them.

  “Charlie, you should go,” Doc said, maintaining his place between the two so that Jill couldn’t use the reverie on Charlie.

  Jill followed Charlie with mournful eyes as he trudged from the room. When she turned her stare back to Doc it was to toss him a nasty scowl. “I’m still hungry.”

  “No, you’re not. We only need to feed about every forty-eight hours. You took enough from that boy in Rosemary that you’ll be sated for days. It’s easy to be gluttonous in the beginning.”

  Taking on the air of boredom, Jill walked toward the bookshelf and rolled her fingers along the spines of the books as she paced. “Surely you’ve fed from Charlie, right? I mean he’s here for that purpose isn’t he? So surely you’ve taken from him at least once.”

  Doc placed a hand over hers and clinched her fingers hard. “No, I have never fed from Charlie. I haven’t taken from a living person in years.”

  She laughed, a hollow shrill sound. “Why would you deny yourself? And I can clearly see he’d let you. He cares enough for you he’d gladly give you his life-blood. And of course he’d let me. But he’d enjoy it more from me I think. You know he’s quite fond of me. And now,” she tugged her hand from his and rubbed both palms against the front of her pelvis. “And now I’m free enough I’d be able to milk that fondness. C’mon, Doc. I won’t take too much from him. You can watch if you like,” she reached up and placed a palm on his chest, rubbing little circles. “And you could have a taste too. Don’t you miss it, Doc? It’s so sweet and hot and –”

  “Stop it!” he reached up and grabbed her hair at the back of her head and tugged.

  Jill gasped but smiled seductively. “Maybe it won’t nourish me, but I’d still like to taste you, Doc. I wanna sink my teeth into your skin while you’re fucking me and swallow your cold vampire blood with each–”

  He kissed her to shut her up. Their lips connected in an inextricable bond as she reached both hands down and clasped his backside. Doc groaned into her mouth and took her by the shoulders, slamming her against the bookshelf. Several volumes tumbled off the top and landed with a thud, but neither of them cared. Jill grabbed his hands and forced them onto her breasts, squeezing tight.

  Despite Jill’s attempts to bite him, Doc demurred and held her hair to keep her teeth away from his skin. She raked lengthened and sharpened fingernails into his arms instead, then licked traces of his blood from her fingers as she watched the wounds close before her very eyes. Their coupling was hard and fast against the bookshelves. It was also without any of the affection of their previous times together.

  When it was over Doc fled from her touch with such speed that she might have collapsed to the floor. Instead she reached a hand out for the bookshelf while she retrieved her discarded leggings from the floor. She watched him warily with narrowed eyes, sensing something strange but not quite able to pinpoint what it was.

  “What, it wasn’t good for you?” she asked, smirking in spite of the nagging alarm screaming somewhere in her mind.

  He hadn’t expected this. Never imagined that she would pull the darkness up out of him. But Doc could feel it, taste it on his tongue and feel the black leeching into his veins and taking over. He had two choices now. Either he would find a way to save her from the ugly things taking her over or he would just have to surrender to them within himself. Either way, she was his and he was hers. He wouldn’t give up on her even if it meant becoming all that he’d worked so hard to deny himself.

  Doc realized something else; he was willing to live for her. Not once since he’d made the decision to end his own life had he reconsidered or thought twice about it. Jill Prescott had changed everything. Nothing was the same.

  “This isn’t you, Jill. You can’t give up on who you really are because of this. You’ve got to fight it,” he pleaded, reaching out a hand toward her.

  An emotion sparked somewhere in her chest and she lifted her fingers to him instinctively. But before the movement was complete she snatched her arm back down and leered. The momentary spark had been nothing more than a flicker and it was quickly snuffed out by the nastiness brewing within her.

  “Ah, the good doctor. Trying to save his patient. C’mon, Doc, we both know the truth. Your noble gesture wasn’t so noble as it was a means to an end. An end you weren’t willing to admit you even wanted. You wanted me to stay. And you fixed it so that I’d have nowhere else to go.”

  “Jill!”

  “Allen!” she snarled, baring her lengthened teeth at him like an animal. “You couldn’t bring yourself to ask me to stay. No, you knew I wanted to but the good thing, the right thing in
your sick, twisted mind was to tell me to go. And then when I fell, you saw your chance to complete the manipulation. So your ‘choice’ could become a good one, a virtuous one–in your mind.”

  “That’s not true. You know that’s not true.” He’d lowered his voice to a whisper, a pleading murmur.

  Suddenly Jill felt tired. Her body shrank a little and she clutched her leggings to her chest while she glared down at the floor. She could hear Doc’s ragged breathing across the room from her and felt her eyes getting heavy with exhaustion. She needed to get away from him and quickly. She kicked the ottoman hard with one foot, then fled the room.

  The Present – The Women

  The four Women looked identical of face, but with varying hair colors. Each of them wore robes that fit tight along the bosom and through the waist and then expanded outward in never-ending folds of cotton pooled onto the ground. The ground was divided into fourths and each woman resided in her own sector.

  A giggle escaped the one who’s head was topped with gold-blonde waves. “So good to finally meet you ladies.” She pointed delicate fingers to her own breast. “I am Earrach and these are my sisters: Samhradh, Fómhar and Geimhreadh.” To further clarify who each identically faced woman was she signaled the orange-haired, the brown-haired and then the white-haired women one by one.

  “You have finally come,” Samhradh spoke with an enormously bright smile.

  Fómhar bristled and waved her hand at the other. “Of course she has come.”

  Jill looked at the fourth woman, the one called Geimhreadh but she only stared coldly at them.

  Devan cleared her throat and stepped forward but still outside of the circle in which the four Women stood. “I think maybe I should thank you. I know–” she cleared her throat. “Rooney’s told me how integral you have been in helping to keep me safe all of these years.” Roon wasn’t there with them. He’d said that he and Daeglan must wait their time to climb the hill.