Page 1 of Resurrecting His Soul
ChapterOne
Ricardo
“Come on, Ricardo, I’m starving.”
Ricardo glanced over to the passenger’s seat where Melina was giving him her best salacious smile, and he smirked. “I did see a sign a few miles back about a county fair that should be getting ready to come to life.”
Melina’s eyes darkened, and her smile morphed into something that would scare the life out of the bravest of humankind. “Let’s go have some fun, then.”
Ricardo slammed on the brakes and flung the car around, the tires screeching as the tread left four black streaks on the hot asphalt. As soon as the car was pointed back in the direction of the little town they’d just passed, Ricardo floored the gas pedal, adrenaline and a growing desire to feed retracting his patience. His foot remained planted on the gas pedal, forcing it to the floor, until he saw the flashing lights of the Ferris wheel.
After parking the car, they both headed straight for the fence. Forgoing the main entrance, they jumped the fence just behind the funnel cake trailer. It was a weekend, and the fair was packed full of the town’s inhabitants. Ricardo’s fangs descended while he took a moment to imagine all the ways he could begin his carnage. Melina did not take such pauses before jumping right in for the kill. As a young vampire, it was more about feeding and gorging herself on fresh blood than about savoring the kill as Ricardo had come to do over his 400 years as a vampire. Sure, he needed to feed, but more than the sweet nectar of a human’s blood, he enjoyed their fear. The terror in their eyes the moment they were about to die was what kept his life interesting after four centuries. He was, after all, the monster he’d been expected to become.
Ricardo made his way through the crowd, heading for the line of people waiting to take their turn at the dunking booth. He was just beneath the Ferris wheel when a sharp breeze whipped through the air, and it brought with it the most alluring fragrance Ricardo had experienced in his many years. Freezing, his eyes closed and he inhaled. His senses were enveloped with the most intoxicating aroma, and it filled him in a way nothing had ever done. It was more alluring than the blood or the killing and rampages that had been the focus of his life for so long.
Ricardo dropped all plans of mayhem and of feeding. His sole focus shifted to finding the source of the sweet, sweet fragrance. The scent was coming from above him on the Ferris wheel, from inside of one of the carriers which was stopped near the top of the wheel while people were let off and on the carriers at ground level. Ricardo walked over to the platform, ignoring the line of people waiting to ride who were giving him their best impressions of evil glares. He would wait until the carriers made their way around and delivered the special soul where he stood.
His eyes were locked on the spot where the delectable scent permeated. While the carriers moved closer to the ground one by one, the heady scent became stronger with each drop. Out of nowhere, something crashed into the Ferris wheel, and not just anywhere, but into the carrier he was watching. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one lured to the scent because Melina was climbing into the carrier, and he heard two women scream before the scent of fresh blood floated down.
“No!” he cried.
Leaping into the air, he landed on the edge of the carrier where Melina was caught up in her feeding frenzy. His incisors extended to their full length, and he reached for Melina, grabbing her hair and yanking her away from her prey. In a flash, he twisted her head fast and hard until he heard the snap of her neck breaking, then he threw her body to the ground. She would be pissed when she woke up, but he couldn’t let her kill this human. The scent which had drawn his attention away from every other human at the fair was so strong his head was swimming in its splendor. The woman Melina had been feeding on was the source of the intoxication, and with her vein still open from Melina’s bite, and her blood dripping down the side of her neck, it made her scent overwhelm him. Seeing her there, bleeding out and sensing her fear was all consuming. For the first time in centuries he did not relish the fear permeating the air. Instead he felt a tugging sensation in his chest, and a need welled up inside of him. A force stronger than even the desire to feed had been when he’d been a new vampire… he had to protect her, make sure she didn’t bleed out, and get her as far away from Melina as possible.
Ripping the sleeve from his shirt, he pressed it over the woman’s fresh bite wound to slow the bleeding, then he lifted her up into his free arm and held her close to his chest. “I’ve got you,” he said to her. Then he leaped down from the carrier and flashed them to his car in the parking lot. He drove until he knew he was far enough away from the fair that Melina would not be able to track the woman’s scent, then he found a hotel. Thanks to his mind-bending abilities, he was able to quickly secure them a private suite.
She hadn’t woken up since he removed her from the Ferris wheel back at the fair, and when he laid her on the bed in the room, her body was limp. Her skin was pale, and her heartbeat was so faint that to the human eye she would appear to be dead. Ricardo, however, could hear her faint heartbeat; it was incredibly weak, but at least it hadn’t gone completely still. He positioned himself on the bed beside her, pulled her onto his lap, and brushed her flaming red hair away from her face. It was the first time he’d had a chance to really look at her, but he was not surprised that she was beautiful with her pale skin and full lips which were a natural shade of pink that called to him even in her sleep-like state.
Ricardo allowed his fangs to descend once again and lanced his own wrist. Then he brought it to her mouth, making sure to part her lips enough so she would be able to swallow his blood he offered to her. It took a couple minutes, with his blood trickling down her lips into her opened mouth, but she finally swallowed. He only allowed her to take a small amount of his blood before he felt her teeth clamp down on his wrist, and her hands came up and gripped his arm, holding it in place while she drank her fill. It was funny. For some reason, he liked watching her feed from him. Knowing it was his essence that was bringing her to life made something flutter inside of him, something he was sure didn’t exist anymore. After all, you couldn’t be the kind of monster he had become with things like your heart or soul still intact. Yet, the flutter tingling inside him did not dissipate. Instead, it grew stronger and without realizing it he began stroking her hair, whispering to her, telling her everything would be alright.
When her eyelids flashed open, he experienced another first when her emerald, green eyes took his breath away. He felt parts of him welding together, parts he had known were broken seemed to be trying to become whole again. Rubbing his chest, he tried to find something to justify the feelings rolling through him, but he couldn’t come up with anything. In the past four centuries the one thing he’d known to be true was that he did not have a soul, but when her eyes met his, he felt his soul light flicker, and he could feel it within in him, tangible like any other physical part of his body. After four hundred years of his heart sitting inside his chest like a rotted piece of flesh, he felt every beat of her heart within his own as if it were coming back to life and beating once again.
At first, she looked around, her eyes darting around the room and back to him several times. Her brows drew together, and she sat up in a flash, nearly cracking their heads together, but he quickly moved out of the line of fire.
“You’re safe,” he said, bending his head so he could look her in the eyes.
Her eyes lifted until she was looking at him straight on and he held his breath, waiting for the inevitable moment when her adrenaline slowed, and fear kicked in and she began screaming. But that moment didn’t come. Instead, she stared at him for what felt like a lifetime and slowly her beautiful mouth transformed into a smile and she said, “You saved me.”
“Yes.” After I put you in danger, he thought, but he was not prepared to share that with her. She would realize how dangerous he was soon enough, and he wasn’t in any hurry to scare her away.
Her hand cupped his face, and she leaned up and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek, then she laid back in his arms and said, “Thank you.”
His world shifted the moment her lips pressed against his skin, his drive to feed and his desire to kill outweighed by something more powerful than centuries of blood lust. She held all the cards, owned his every cell, and with that one caress of her sweet lips became the most important thing in his existence. He didn’t know her name yet, but his soul knew exactly who the woman in his arms was, and he would do whatever he had to in order to make her feel the same way.
ChapterTwo
Lisandra
Everything had happened so fast. One minute she was enjoying her newfound freedom. Stopping at a carnival she passed on her way to figure out where she wanted to make her new home. The next thing she knew, she was attacked by something. It had happened so fast she was fuzzy on the details. There were flashes of a girl, young and beautiful, but with eyes that held no soul. Then something cut her throat. No something bit her. The beautiful girl had bitten her, and oh god! Her hand flew to her neck but she only felt a slight ridge on her skin, and when she pulled it away it was clean. There had been so much blood. She ran her hands over her neck again, feeling for a scar or something that marked her flesh as a reminder of what had happened, but there was nothing. Her skin was smooth like nothing had happened, but she knew that wasn’t true. It was all a bit jumbled in her mind, but she was sure of one thing—she almost died and the handsome stranger who held her close had saved her life. It was a strange sensation to feel your life draining from your body, your soul disengaging from the world you knew as you drifted away from your own flesh. Not as painful as she had always imagined it would be, but she wouldn’t say she had enjoyed the sensation either. She had just decided to take her life back; just found the courage to leave behind a life of disappointment and pain. She did not want to die, but the pull had been impossible to resist until something sweet and rich hit her tongue. When the liquid ran down her throat, it was like it was breathing life into her every cell. Her soul reconnected with her body, and she felt a warmth and strength slowly filling her up; a strength unlike anything she had ever known.
When she opened her eyes, she didn’t feel groggy or weak. No. She was alert like she’d just downed buckets of coffee spiked with Red Bull. Unlike pretty much every other day of her life for the past five or so years, she didn’t need to wipe the sleep from her eyes, or stretch to bring some life into her limbs. Her body felt alive, no, more than that. She felt like the Energizer Bunny. Her sight was perfect, everything around her was vibrant, and she didn’t know what kind of lights were in the room she was in, but they must have been using 100-watt bulbs because it was bright.
When she met the worried blue eyes that hovered above her, she felt her heart squeeze tight in the most delicious way. She didn’t need him to tell her he had saved her; she knew it instantly, could see it in the concern marring his beautiful face. It was weird and comforting, but she felt some kind of connection to him. There was something inside her willing her to trust him, but she knew that her gut wasn’t something she should always listen to. Her old life had taught her that all too well. She reached for her cheek, a memory of her life before causing a twinge of pain to dance across her skin before she shook it off.
Blue eyes were watching her, and if she let herself, she imagined it would be easy to get lost in his sapphire gaze. When she thanked him with a kiss to his cheek, he beamed at her like she had made his world, and there was a tiny flutter deep inside her belly, the kind that made school girls giggle when their latest crush gave them attention.
Slowly, he smoothed her hair behind her ear, and she realized she was leaning into his touch before she had consciously decided to do so. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
Oh, his voice. It was deep and husky, and she felt it like electricity humming in her chest. He should narrate audiobooks for a living. Women would buy them just for his voice. With a voice like that, he could make horror stories sexy.
