Dreaming of a Blood Red Christmas by Nicola Claire Page A

of her it always is. Beautiful. Carnal. Delicious. I lick my lips and taste her blood on my tongue, a residual of fantasy, nothing more. Lucinda's blood does not taste the way it used to. It is more than before.
    I have yet to decide whether I like it.
    For a five hundred year old vampyre I handle change ridiculously poorly.
    The reason for my abrupt wakeful state is currently digging stinging needles of agony into my spine. I roll over, and like the idiot I seem to be of late, reach beneath my back to haul the offending object out. The smell of burnt flesh assails my nose before my mind cottons on to the fact my fingers are being burnt by silver.
    Merde!
    "Lucinda," I say, without a note of emotion in my voice. "Is there a reason why one of your stakes is in the bed?"
    "Hmm?" she mumbles, and even the sound of the incoherent word falling off her lips makes my body stir. "What'sthematter?" she mumbles, words tumbling one after the other in a waterfall of luscious sound.
    "This," I say, letting the offending article drop from my fingers onto her, now more than ever, ample bosom. The skin on my fingertips begins to heal immediately. The smell of burnt flesh doesn't dissipate quite so easily.
    "Oh," she announces, clarity making it through the fog of sleep at last. "I wondered where that had got to."
    She rises to a sitting position in a motion I would never have thought I'd see my hunter display. Like a wallowing hippopotamus, the tangled blankets making for turbulent waves. If she could read my mind right now there would be hell to pay, I realise. So I hastily replace the image of a struggling oversized river mammal with one far more fitting my beautiful kindred.
    The naughty dream providing the material with relative ease.
    "Arghh," she moans, and immediately I am beside her, rubbing her back and offering support. "How much longer will it be?"
    "Any day now, ma douce ." She is fit to pop, I cannot see this going on much longer. She'll have these babies by Christmas Eve, I am sure of it.
    "This sucks," she declares. "And it's all your fault."
    Of course it is.
    "Yes, my dear. I know," I assure her softly. "But think what we'll have at the end of it?" Images of our babies lying in our arms, as we sit before the large Christmas tree adorning our sitting room, float through my mind.
    Our babies. My hand begins to rub across her distended belly, the awe I have felt, from the moment she informed me we were pregnant, having only expanded in size, not diminished.
    A small foot nudges my palm, making a horror movie image out of Lucinda's bare skin where I lift her night shirt up to see. Ah, one of my children will be a dare devil. I think perhaps the boy. But given Lucinda's nature, it may well end up being the girl. A smile spreads across my lips at the unexpected excitement I feel at getting to know their personalities soon.
    Lucinda leans her body into me, her head heavy on my shoulder.
    "I feel like a hippopotamus," she declares, and I swear for a second I stop breathing. Then remind myself that Lucinda is nothing if not vocal when she dips inside my head and sees something she does not like. If she knew my momentary lapse in judgement earlier had involved images of a hippopotamus, she would surely have let her ire be known.
    "Of course not," I reassure her. "You are delightful."
    "Delightful?"
    "Delicious," I correct, nuzzling my face into the curve of her neck. At least she smells the same. Candied apples and sunshine, honey and Spring.
    "I don't feel delicious," she advises and my heart squeezes with the weight of self doubt she carries in her tone.
    "You appear more beautiful to me with every single day," I murmur, my fangs slipping out uninvited; being near her enough to cause the involuntary reaction. Hearing her despondency making the desire to protect her even more fierce.
    "So, when the twins arrive and I go back to being me again you'll miss the belly?"
    Ah. How does one answer that? Is this a trick question?
    I settle