Page 27 of Her Vampire

Our mortal lives.

“Come with me,” I snarl. “Come so your body knows to make room for our offspring.”

“I—I—I’m.”

I pound into her one last time as the light seeps from the room, my feed-driven skin replaced with taut human flesh, the amulet falling dark and shining no more.

My seed whelms and then surges up my shaft, firing into her as I find her lips and we moan into a crescendo, our bodies bucking and twitching like the tremors after an earthquake, slowly quieting and becoming still as I collapse over her and then roll aside, taking her in my arms.

We lie like that for a long time, both of us panting.

Panting.

I draw the air into my lungs and I feel it rushing around my body, making me feel dizzy as my heart – my fucking heart – begins to hammer in my chest like a god’s hammer, smashing over and over.

“I can feel it,” Tammy whispers, as though reading my thoughts. She sits up and lays her hand against my bare chest. “Oh my God, it worked! Didn’t it?”

“Yes,” I say, a smile touching my lips, a smile I’ve waited over a thousand years for. “I’m a mortal now.”

“And …”

“And what?” I laugh.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel like I’m right where I need to be,” I whisper, pulling her close to me and savoring the feeling of our bodies, both hot, but not feed-hot.

This is the heat of a man and his woman, a woman he’s claimed.

Forever.

“I love you,” I say.

“I love you,” she echoes, giggling. “I wonder if we’ll ever get tired of saying that.”

“Never,” I say, stroking my hand up and down her back, still stunned at the way my heart leaps around in my chest.

“I thought it didn’t work for a second. You seemed to … sort of go somewhere. Like you were lost in thought or something.”

“Gods, Tammy, you’re better at reading me than anyone I’ve ever met. I did get lost in thought for a second.”

I tell her about my idea that I was only turned into a vampire so we could meet.

“I never would have never found you if I hadn’t been changed. You were meant to be born a thousand years in the future. If I had stayed human we would never have had this chance. Don’t you see? It was always going to be us at this moment.”

She smiles shakily.

“What?” I urge.

“It’s just that that made me want to cry. But I don’t want to cry. I want to scream with joy. Because I can feel it, Torsten. I can feel your seed in my womb and it’s just so freaking amazing.”

I sit up, smiling widely now, unable to stop.

I feel so vital, so alive.

“Do you think Chipper will mind if we stay to watch the sunrise?”

“With the number of treats and play the dog sitter gives him?” Tammy giggles. “Yeah right.”

So we lie down together and hold each other close.

After a while, I feel Tammy begin to breathe sleepily next to me, and I match her breathing with mine, in and out, savoring the simple pleasure of it.

But I’m too full of adrenalin to sleep.

I just lie there, holding the love of my life close, feeling all the tiny nuances in my human body.

I don’t regret it.

Not even for a second.

Because I know we’re right.

She’s pregnant.

After what feels like only a couple of hours, I stand up and walk to the window. Drawing aside the curtain, I can’t help but flinch a little, centuries of instinct stabbing into me.

But as I watch the sun crest the horizon, lighting up the sea a startling yellow, glistening brightly and warmly, I can’t help but let out a sound of utter astonishment.

I turn to find Tammy beside me, and I lift my arm and cradle her close, and together we watch the everyday miracle of the blazing autumn sun.EpilogueTwo Weeks LaterTammyChipper doesn’t know what to make of it when I emerge from the ensuite and start leaping around the bedroom, a giddiness filling my chest that has to work hard to outdo the general serenity that has gripped me these past two weeks. He tilts his head at me, tongue out, happy because I’m happy as he leaps onto the bed with me and starts lapping at my face.

Torsten is at work, something which stunned his company at first. In all the years he’s owned it, he’s never gone to work in the day. But now he’s starting his mortal life and he wants to leave behind an empire for our family.

These last two weeks have been heaven.

I want to scream every time I think about that morning at the cabin on the island, the stunned look on Torsten’s face as he waded into the water and collapsed onto his back, floating atop the waves.

“Isn’t it cold?” I called.

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