I tried to focus on her words, but my legs wobbled and the rising pleasure fogged my brain. “What do you mean?”
“I thought I’d fulfill Fiona’s last wish to return the soil to her grandfather’s grave. So, I went to the cemetery tonight to sprinkle the dirt. The last time Fiona opened the box for me, it was completely full of dirt. But now it’s only got a tiny bit inside.”
“But it was like that when we found it…” Quoth ground his palm against my clit as he slammed his fingers inside me. I was so close. I was on the edge, fighting the pleasure as I struggled to figure out what Jo was saying. His fingers swirled, and it was harder and harder to focus on Jo…
“Exactly, Mina. Someone removed dirt from the box before you got to it. Enough dirt to have a second box.”
My heart hammered against my chest as Jo’s words penetrated the fog of my pleasure.
Oh, no, no, no.
Dracula removed some of the dirt from Fiona’s box, splitting it into another container. My blood went ice cold. I remembered Mrs. Ellis’ old cookie jar sitting on the kitchen counter in Dracula’s house. I bet it was inside there…
“I’ll be right home, Jo. I think I have an idea where the dirt is—”
The phone clattered from my hand as Quoth sank his teeth into my neck.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Ow!” I wrenched my body away. My hand flew to my neck, which hummed with pain and a kind of strange euphoria.
My fingers touched something wet, warm, sticky.
Blood. My blood.
Quoth grabbed for me. I ducked under his arm and tried to put some distance between us. But Quoth’s grip was stronger than I ever imagined. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me against his body. His teeth sank into me again – deeper, harder. The pain drove the air from my lungs at the same time that his bite hummed pleasure through my veins.
Fog swirled in my mind. I moaned against Quoth. It felt sogood, the pain and the pleasure of it melding together, battling it out inside me so there was no room for myself inside my skin any longer. I floated above my body, resting on a cloud of euphoria as I watched Quoth sucking on my neck.He’s biting me. Why is he biting me? I have to stay in control. I have to…
“It’ll only hurt a moment, Mina,” Quoth whispered, making a suckling noise as he nuzzled against me. “Then we can be together for eternity.”
Yes, Quoth. I want to be with you forever.
Pleasure coursed through my veins. I gripped his arms as I rocked against him, giving myself over to him completely. The orgasm that Jo had interrupted rose inside me again, building anew. I wanted this, I wanted to chase the pleasure to its glorious heights. I didn’t want Quoth to ever stop.
I glanced down at our chests pressed together, and was dimly aware of a river of blood flowing down the front of my shirt.
I wonder whose blood that is.
The pleasure built and crested, surging through my veins, right to the top of my head and the tips of my toes.
I’ve never felt more alive. I…
Fuck.
Somehow I clawed back a tiny corner of my mind. And through the haze of ecstasy, the crimson pulses in my vision alerted me to what was happening.
Quoth’s drinkingmyblood.
It all fell into place.
The way he’d been sleeping during the day and closing the curtains in the shop. His newfound confidence and forcefulness. The strange paintings that spoke of feelings he’d never before expressed.
All those late nights Quoth spent with his art tutor, Professor Sang – he wasn’t at the school, he was with Dracula. We wondered how Dracula was getting information about who had access to Romanian dirt. Deirdre said a raven had been hanging around the mailroom at the post office, and we knew all three victims had their dirt mailed to them…
Quoth was spying on people in his raven form, sneaking into secret places for his master to locate the dirt and…
We took Fiona from Dracula before he could complete her transformation, but all along the Count had been cultivating another bride.
