Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,38
Adam at all? What if it was the angry dead man taking on the VR appearance of Adam from the database? Was that even possible?
And why would he do such a thing? What was Jilly to the dead man?
The sister of the people who’d killed him?
“Oh fuck,” Jilly whispered.
****
Sera fell back on Blair’s pillow, purring. Blair licked the puncture wounds in her neck, ensuring they’d heal by morning, and trailed his mouth lazily down toward her breast.
Sera flopped her arms around his neck, stroking his head. After a moment, because the conversation they’d interrupted with sex came back to her, she said, “That was a good thing you did, with Jason. I think it might work very well.”
Blair’s shoulders rippled, perhaps in a shrug. Of course, he didn’t need her approval for whatever he chose to do, but she really did think it was a stroke of genius that would help Jason adjust at last to being undead and unemployed instead of the whiz-kid banker he’d been before last year’s bit of vampire trouble. He’d be good at keeping the other fledglings in line. Besides, it would free Blair up for more time with her…if that was what either of them wanted.
Vaguely dissatisfied with the direction of her thoughts, she turned them elsewhere. “I think it’s still there, you know.”
Blair teased her nipple and spoke in her mind. “The poltergeist?”
“I promised I’d find its killer. But…”
“It frightens you,” Blair observed, wrapping his lips around the nipple and gently tugging.
“I told the Ewans I was stronger than it. I don’t think I am.”
Blair eased himself back inside her body, and she gasped, half with pleasure and half with annoyance.
“Damn it, are you even listening to me?”
“I can listen to you and fuck you at the same time. You’re afraid it won’t go away even when its killer is found, because it’s developed a taste for causing havoc and it’s stronger than you.”
Sated as she already was, Sera’s body began to move without permission, distracting her from less pleasant thoughts. “Blair, I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he said huskily, arching and moving with more emphasis. “I’ll catch it for you.”
“Catch it?” she repeated, grabbing at his head to keep him focused. “How?”
“Vampires scare the crap out of all spirits. Didn’t you know?”
She closed her wide-open mouth. “No,” she managed before Blair opened it again with his. She couldn’t not kiss Blair. It was physically impossible. Although, when her lips were free once more, she did remember to gasp out, “And what’s with Jilly and this Adam program? She talks about him as if he’s still alive—Adam is dark, Adam is as tall as Blair. I’m worried about her.”
“Don’t be. Think of something else.”
“You?” she suggested, and he reared up, reaching impossibly far inside her.
“Me,” he agreed.
Sera smiled and stroked his powerful thighs. “All right,” she agreed. “Just for tonight…”
****
In a quiet cottage near Loch Lomond, Melanie Merrow had her face in a book. Literally. She woke up to find her cheek resting on the pages of the ancient and valuable tome she’d managed to borrow from a suspicious witch only with promises of exceptional care. Dribbling on its pristine pages could certainly count as exceptional.
She lifted her head, and, with the white gloves she’d promised to wear while handling the book, she guiltily swiped at the tiny marks of moisture. It would dry out. Zoe would never know, and the book would still be there.
Damn, she hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Her watch told her it was nearly three o’clock in the morning, so she must have been out for at least an hour.
I need to get my life back, Melanie thought ruefully, and stop chasing shadows. It was all Sera’s fault, of course, not just encountering vampires, of all illusive and mysterious paranormal beings, but having a relationship with one. Blair was certainly a fascinating being—and damned sexy—but his importance to Melanie went beyond whatever happiness or unhappiness he brought to Sera. He had knowledge, knowledge that had pointed her to the road she was now on.
Snoring on a priceless book was hardly an auspicious road. But at least, before she’d fallen asleep looking for further references, she’d discovered a direct mention of the Founder.
And when the men captured the vampire and laid him in a grave, preparing to drive the stake through his heart, the Founder appeared and the vampire vanished with him. The village knew no further assaults from the unnatural world.