Bitten by Chaos: a paranormal romance

1. The First 24

Iexpected the hunger for blood when Julian turned me into a vampire, but I didn’t expect the all-consuming need or the other sensations that came with it. My surroundings had sharpened to the point where every sound, no matter how small or insignificant, felt like a clap of thunder to my sensitive ears. Every object turned from a single color into a unique conglomeration of vacillating and nuanced shades. And I could smell everything, but Julian’s intoxicating scent of bergamot and cloves overpowered it all, wrapping me in a safe and warm embrace that allowed me to start becoming used to the onslaught of my own senses.

He held me in his lap, soothing me, gently stroking back my hair, and grounding me. Without him, I would have been an absolute mess. My heart broke when I remembered his transition had been at the hands of a psychopath. I shuddered.

“You will be alright,” he murmured, tightening his hold on me as he misconstrued my reaction.

Hugging him back, I nestled into the crook of his neck and shoulder. Which was when my stomach grumbled—a reaction to the smell of the sweet nectar running through his veins that he’d shared with me to bring me back. He’d cut me off, but oh, how I craved what was only centimeters away.

“You need to feed more at first, Charlotte,” he said, tugging me away so he could see my face. “I will help you and make sure you don’t do anything you will regret. And with proper guidance, it will not take as long as you fear to make sure you’re able to manage with your new body.”

The soft rumble of his voice ignited other needs,and I bit down on my lip, accidentally drawing blood with my fangs, which I couldn’t yet control. I swallowed hard and edged closer to him on the bed.

“We should go elsewhere. I doubt Hazel would appreciate her cottage becoming the casualty of a newborn vampire.” Julian’s dazzling smile made me want to jump him. So I did, tackling him to the mattress and straddling him.

His chuckle turned into a moan of pleasure when I aligned our bodies, ground against him, and swept my tongue inside his mouth.

“We really should go where we won’t break anything by accident,” Julian said between hungry kisses.

“I don’t want to wait.” I ran my nails down his arms, creating scratches that closed behind me as I went.

He growled and shot up from the bed, lifting me so that I wrapped my legs around his waist and teased his neck with my fangs. I hadn’t even meant to call them out, but once again, they were there, right along with the slow rush of my own blood still running in his veins and in my ears again. So tempting…

Forcing my face forward to look him in the eye, Julian reached over with one hand and threw the window open.

“You need to feed,” he told me, mesmerizing me with those crystalline eyes filled with shards of glittering purple and blue.

In answer, I leaned in, snagged his bottom lip between my teeth, and pulled as I mashed my core against his body.

He grinned in response and took off through the window and the forest beyond at breathtaking speed. But instead of burying my head against him to hide from the wind as I normally did, I threw my head back and laughed with delight as the stars and trees passed us in perfect, dizzying clarity, my hair dancing in the wind so that the moonlight shone off the multitude of reds I’d never noticed before.

We flew through the door of his old house and into the bedroom where a thick layer of dust coated the furniture—a reminder that we’d been on the run for far too long and kept from the place we called home and the people we loved. It was all because of my psychic powers and those after me. But vampires didn’t retain psychic abilities once turned, and Julian had made my wish come true. I just hoped it was enough to stop those after us.

My heart clenched as he released me, though he remained focused solely on me.

“Stay here,” he said, then zoomed away again.

But I didn’t want to stay there without him. I was hungry, and there was so much to explore in this brand new world. Yet when I tried to climb out the window, something stopped me—I realized he was my sire, and I had to obey. It was true of all vampires, and the thing that had caused us so much pain with Julian’s maker, Silas.

Having Julian as a sire was something I hadn’t considered before, and I bit down on my cheek to stop from screaming and crying in frustration and anger. It was like my emotions had boosted along with my senses. But when I saw him return with a young witch I recognized from my mother’s book club, I relaxed immediately. Julian would never do anything to hurt me or make me feel like I’d lost agency. He’d done it so I wouldn’t go on a feeding frenzy I couldn’t take back.

Speaking of, the scent of the witch was so intoxicating, I found myself drawing closer without having realized I was moving. My fangs dug into my own bottom lip, venom dripping uncontrollably from the tips as the sound of her pulse rushed like a river through my head. The beat of her heart acted like drums, drawing me into a trance of need.

Julian brushed her hair to the side, exposing her neck, and I whimpered softly.

“I have glamoured her,” he said, putting a hand on my arm to stop me. “She is someone who has offered on many occasions and was willing. I want you to try your best to control the flow and send her the thought that this doesn’t hurt. Do you understand?”

In truth, I barely heard him. I was too focused on sating the need that gnawed at me from the inside. My vision covered in a haze of red, I fought against the pressure of Julian’s hand. But he held me still until I repeated his instructions back to him.

Then he removed the barrier, and I was there, licking the tender spot beneath which I knew I’d have the best access to the nectar in her veins. I grabbed hold of her upper arms and sank my fangs inside, releasing the flow of blood. She screamed and struggled against me, and Julian ripped me away as I thrashed and clawed at the air.

“You will not experience pain,” he told her, and she relaxed. Then he released me again, and I went right back to where I had been, gulping at the warm flow as it coated my tongue and teeth and chin. After a couple of minutes, I relaxed into a less frenzied rhythm, taking the time to savor my meal and the rush of warmth and energy I felt flowing down my throat and into my extremities.

“Stop,” Julian said, and I did. “Bite your tongue and then lick the wound. That will close it.”

I followed his instructions and stepped back, suddenly fully aware of my actions, both horrified and in awe.

“You did well for your first,” Julian soothed, brushing some of the blood on my mouth away with his thumbs. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the woman standing and swaying slightly before me. Had I hurt her irrevocably?

“Bite into your wrist and give her a little. Just a little, and she will recover quickly, my love.”

I did as instructed once again and watched as the color crept back in her cheeks.

“You’re sure she was okay with this?” I asked, hoarse.

“I promise,” Julian said. “I will return her to her home and come back. Stay here.”

This time I didn’t try the window, just helped myself to Julian’s shower, staring at my image in the mirror as the water heated up. I was a naked, pale, blood-soaked mess with hair jutting in all directions like I’d lived in the woods for a week, and my eyes…my eyes were made of the same crystal shards as Julian’s, but instead of indigo, they were a mosaic of gold and green and grey.

Julian appeared behind me, leaning forward over my shoulder, as perfect as ever.

“I thought maybe I’d look as put together as you,” I said on the verge of tears. I didn’t know where they were coming from exactly, since I’d asked for this, but still they fought for release.

The smile I received warmed my barely beating heart. “You will gain far more control over time. I expect it will be only a matter of weeks, perhaps even days, until you feel more like your old self. I’m glad you like my mirror. I’ve had it spelled so that it shows my reflection.” He spun me around to face him.

There was so much I hadn’t considered, I realized. He’d warned me. He’d told me he would wait until I could think it through. But I forced his hand. He’d done it because he felt he had to. Just as I’d made the deal with the queen of the Seelie court because I felt the need to save him from a slow, torturous demise. I’d bargained with her, offering myself in exchange for his life, and he’d done the only thing he could think of to try to prevent her from taking me.

“I don’t regret saving you. Not for a second,” I said.

Julian’s answer was to pull back the shower curtain and gesture for me to enter. I did so, finding the hot water, turned all the way up, to be so good against my skin that I moaned. Barely aware of Julian climbing in beside me and tugging the curtain closed, I leaned back to let the spray cover my head.

Smooth, soapy hands massaged my body as steam rose from the bottom of the tub. He lathered shampoo and then conditioner into my tangled hair and patiently worked out each knot, facing me and holding me captive with smoldering eyes.

When he finished, he spun me so my back was to him and pulled me against his chest. He soaped his hands once again and this time began kneading my breasts, squeezing and rolling my nipples between his fingers until they stood out, painfully aroused. I leaned back against his chiseled chest as his erection slid long and hard against my backside. Then his palms skated down my stomach to coax my legs apart so he could thoroughly cleanse the slickness between my folds. When his other hand joined in and found my clit, I went weak in the knees and pressed my weight back into him, wriggling against his slippery body.

“You know,” he said, finding my ear. “You’ll find your balance and strength are exceptional now.”

“Hmm?”

He reached around and shut off the water, pulled back the curtain, and offered a hand out of the tub. He joined me, dripping wet, and wrapped me in a fluffy white towel, then began to dry me off in such a sensual way, he had me leaning back against the counter, gripping it hard as he finished.

“What about you?” I asked when he stood back to admire his work.

Another grin and he toweled himself off at super speed. I found I could follow along, tracking his every movement no matter how fast he went. I was still marveling when he dropped the towel on the floor and pulled me against him.

“Want to try something?” he asked.

“Mmm, yes,” I said, liking this seductive version of Julian.

Looking at it logically, I supposed Julian meant to distract me from my spiraling thoughts. Well, he was doing an excellent job.

He lifted me, walking us into the bedroom, and tossed me in the air, catching me so that my legs landed over his shoulders, and his face was exactly where he wanted it.

For a moment, I worried about falling, but I quickly realized that it was easy to balance even as he tugged me further into him, dipping his tongue inside of me with long, languid strokes. Fisting his hair, I clenched my legs against him. He scraped his teeth over my clit then sucked me into his mouth, actually clamping down on me. Though it was painful, it was also mind-blowing when a jolt of pleasure shot through me, making me arch my back and cry out.

He must have liked the sound I made because he repeated the process then soothed it with a lick before using his tongue like a vibrator against the spot.

“Oh gods, Julian,” I cried, clenching my thighs so tight I should’ve worried about strangling him. Then I was falling onto the bed, and he was crawling over me, eyes rimmed in scarlet, a look of desperate hunger on his face.

Before I could reach down to stroke him, he was driving inside of me at an unforgiving pace, so hard that on his third thrust, he’d taken us all the way to the headboard. He lifted me again, standing with me, spun me to face the wall, and gripped my hips.

“Hands on the wall,” he said, his voice so throaty I almost didn’t recognize it.

I complied as he tugged me back toward him and entered me once again, all the way in. Saying he was well endowed was an understatement, and though I’d taken all of him before, we’d worked up to it. Now he’d gone in like a bullet, filling me to bursting and sending shockwaves of bliss through me. My nails dug into the wall, cracking through the plaster and sending a small avalanche of debris down as he pounded into me to the point of lifting my feet from the mattress with each thrust.

Then he withdrew and turned me again, pressing my back against the damaged wall and lifting my legs to hook over his shoulders so I was practically bent in half. I looped my arms around his neck and watched his face as he pummeled me, forcing me toward a cliff’s edge I’d never climbed to before. I didn’t know if it was my new senses, our vampire strength, or a combination, but I was sure my own eyes were as hooded and hazy as his.

“More,” I croaked, and he obliged, drilling into me, to reach that same spot again and again until I was so close, I began to tremble uncontrollably.

He slammed into me one more time, and we bit down on each other’s shoulders, as though it was a rehearsed dance. I tipped over that cliff’s edge, eyes rolling back in my head as I latched onto him with my teeth, and he spasmed inside of me, sucking my blood in time to the pulse of his cock.

When our bodies finished their mating dance, we lifted our heads, and I slid off his shoulders to the collapsed bed. It was then I realized I’d not only punctured the wall behind me but had caved in the plaster with my back.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, wide-eyed.

“Did you enjoy it?” he asked, so serious I almost laughed out loud.

“So much,” I said and kissed him.

“You see why I thought it best to leave Hazel’s untouched,” he said spinning me around and setting me on the carpet.

“Oh yes,” I agreed, looking over the wall. “Sorry about that.”

“I’m not,” Julian said as he stalked toward me in a way that made me take a step back.

“Already?” I asked, though inside I was delighted. The hunger for him seemed to be insatiable.

He opened his mouth, flashing his fangs, and mine descended yet again without my permission.

We proceeded to christen Julian’s dining table, kitchen counter, and even the crystal chandelier that belonged in his house as much as any of the other mismatched furniture did. It ended up on the floor with a chunk of the ceiling on it. Little escaped our path of destruction, though we managed to leave the smaller kitchen table and a few chairs unmarred.

I fed twice more, each time able to control myself a bit better. In fact, the last person Julian brought to me wasn’t glamoured and was all too happy to ‘help me out.’

Finally, I felt like things might be manageable and decided to put on some clothing. But when I opened the drawer where I kept some of my things, Julian’s hand stopped mine. I turned to him in surprise then found myself held by the knees moments later, flipped upside down while Julian feasted between my legs, and I enjoyed taking him with my mouth at the same time. I never knew vampires had no gag reflex.

It was almost morning when we finally stopped, lying beside each other on the shag carpet of his now trashed bedroom.

Julian’s phone buzzed, and he zoomed away to retrieve it.

“What is it?” I asked, using my own super speed to join him, looking over his shoulder.

The text was from Hazel. A single word stared up at me, forcing one heavy thump from my chest.

Demons.

We’d mistakenly thought they’d stay in their dimension to regroup after our fight with SHADE’s all demon board and the Fae. Only two had survived. Apparently that had not deterred them from coming after us—after me.

“We have to go,” I said, zooming over to grab some clothes for real this time.

Julian joined me, and in seconds we were dressed and running hand in hand at top speed through the forest. It was obvious long before we arrived outside the cottage that there would be little left. Shadowy smoke plumed into the still dark sky as Hazel’s shapeshifting familiar Karma circled above in raven form.

I pushed myself harder, nearly colliding with my sister as she hurried from the scene. I stopped abruptly, taking her in my arms, mindful not to squeeze too hard as others surrounded us.

“They burned my house,” Hazel said, clearly still in shock.

Sam and Lydia flanked her, exchanging worried glances. Everyone’s face and clothes were smeared with soot.

“What happened?” I asked, holding Zoe at arm’s length. In retrospect, that might have been a mistake since I watched both understanding and horror melt over her as she took in my altered appearance.

“You…you…”

“Demons,” I said, trying to redirect her. But I knew if I could blush, I would have. She’d welcomed Julian into our home, but she’d also lost a father to vampirism. And here I was, turned just as he had been, with no warning.

“Zoe got us out just in time. They set the house on fire from all sides,” Sam said, eyeing me with what looked like pity that set my teeth on edge. How dare he judge me? He might be the shifter liaison and a wolf, but he seemed to be getting along pretty damn well with Lydia based on the fang marks peeking out from his t-shirt collar.

“They were looking for you, Doc” Lydia said, worry creasing her smooth face as she met my eyes.

“You didn’t even tell me—” Zoe finally squeaked out as she started to shake with sobs.

Guilt poured out of me as I reached for her, but she shied away.

“Yes, I’m a vampire,” I admitted. It sounded almost ludicrous. It had happened so fast. I’d been in the bedroom of her girlfriend’s cottage just the night before as myself.

Zoe’s bloodshot eyes pinned me in place. “Why?” she demanded.

“I did it,” Julian said, hands on my shoulders possessively. “I didn’t ask permission. I simply did it.”

Zoe’s look of disgust zeroed in on him. “I trusted you!” she screamed.

“I made a deal with the Seelie queen,” I blurted, getting everyone’s attention. “I did it to save him. Julian was about to die, and horribly. This was his way of trying to prevent her from taking me like I said she could. She wanted me for my psychic gifts. And…and truth be told, I’m glad he did it. I asked him to a long time ago.”

Everyone around us stayed silent, the information soaking in slowly with the backdrop of Hazel’s home being devoured by blue demon fire.

“The demons wanted me for my psychic abilities too. Everyone has, from MorningStar to Silas to Mordock,” I said, motioning at the house.

Without another word, Zoe pulled me into a hug that would have crushed my lungs if I weren’t a vampire. One by one, the others joined the huddle, and their love and support brought tears to my eyes.

It was when I wiped at them that I realized they were tinged pink with blood.

Something in my stomach clenched.

“The sun is rising,” Hazel said, narrowing her eyes at the rapidly lightening sky.

“Meet us at the Devaux house.” Julian grabbed me.

He zoomed us back through the forest and through the yellow crime scene tape waving in the breeze. Then released me inside the small house I hadn’t set foot in for months. He sat me on the floor near the sofa and began quickly covering windows with sheets and blankets. Only then did I realize what was happening.

When he finished, he sat on the floor before me with a sad smile.

“How long until it won’t hurt me?” I asked. How many years would it be before I could walk in the sun?

“Only a week or so, and then you can use charms and sunscreen to great effect,” Julian answered. “Things are easier now than in my day. And I am here to help you through the transition, my love.”

That wasn’t bad, I supposed. Then I thought of my mother’s sunlight charm she’d tried to use on Julian. It would outright kill me in minutes. Somewhere, Mama’s soul was watching, and her daughter had just become a vampire.