Eternal Embrace

Copyright © Billi Jean 2013. All Rights Reserved, Total-E-Ntwined Limited, T/A Totally Bound Publishing. Jaxon stared at the woman on his bed. An IV ran from the inside of her pale arm to the bag of blood he’d hoped would repair the damage caused by two Death Stalker vampires. He’d replaced all her lost blood with the hospital bags, but so far, nothing seemed to be stopping her body’s shift to vampire. Her skin was the natural ivory white only a true redhead could make look sexy. But now, her skin tone was pasty instead of luminescent. The bite marks were red and swollen. Worse, there were faint blue veins spreading out from the sites of the punctures that scared the fuck out of him. She twisted this way and that on the bed, as if caught in a nightmare that wouldn’t end. She’d stop for a bit, then almost immediately start all over again. Keeping the IV in place was difficult. With a husky groan, she tossed her head, and her red hair fell across her delicate features. She suddenly jerked her knees to her chest, nearly upsetting the IV stand. He dove for her, barely catching her arm and securing the needle so she didn’t rip it free. Panic shot straight to his heart. Fear chilled his skin followed by anger. He couldn’t help her, not this way. Nothing was working. Not one thing he’d done seemed to stop Joey from transforming into a vampire. Cursing, he bowed his head and tried to gain some control over the chaos ripping him to pieces. He wanted to both shake her and demand to know what the fuck she’d been thinking going back to that club when he’d made it clear she shouldn’t step one foot inside. He also wanted to hold her tight and swear to her he’d never let anyone harm her ever again. He laughed without humour and adjusted the needle in her arm. He knew. She’d been trying to get him out of her system with the oldest trick in the book—with someone new. He could have saved her the time—no one else would do. He’d tried. All he could think about when he’d been around other women was Joey’s teasing smile, her lush breasts in his hands, and how she’d sighed his name when he’d made love to her. Yeah, he knew all about why she’d been at that club. Only he’d never dreamed she’d have the nerve to disobey him. She was tiny, delicate in ways that sent a shot of lust along his spine. But she had more fire than he’d realised. Oh, he knew how much she had in bed—that one night he’d been unable to resist her burnt in his brain, diminishing every other fuck he’d ever had down to nothing. Joey was a seven-course meal savoured over hours. Every other woman was six-day-old pizza still in the box. She’d called him a coward when he’d ushered her to the cab outside that club. In one sense, she was right. Sitting by, helplessly watching her human body shifting into a vampire, he felt like more of a coward than he ever had in his life. Many of the immortals who knew him counted on him to be always ready for a fight. And he always was. He’d managed to survive and even kick ass in this world he lived in, but he’d never put himself on the battlefield because shit mattered. He’d fought to fight, maybe add his punches to the ‘good’ side of the battle, but nothing had really meant anything to him. He’d never risked caring about anything enough for it to matter. Until Joey. Losing her, ending her life before she turned into a vampire, wasn’t something he could do. One look into her face—just that single glance across a street nearly a year ago—and he’d felt his world unravelling. Everything he’d believed about himself had slowly fallen away the longer he spent in her presence, until he’d become addicted to the one thing he couldn’t have—her. She sighed and her body eased. If she followed the pattern, she’d sleep, then start all over again. He stood and walked over to where he’d left a jar of salve on his worktable. A witch he trusted had said it would help Joey. It might even save her life—her vampire life—he