Gabriel's Mate by Tina Folsom (red white royal blue .txt) 📕

on his honeymoon holed up at his place. I can’t do that to him right now.”
Gabriel nodded. “What’s going on?”
“Sit down.”
Gabriel sat and waited until Samson did the same. “I’ve never seen you like this.”
Samson gave a mirthless laugh. “I guess my responsibilities as a husband and expectant father don’t go well with having a newly turned vampire in the house.”
“A newly turned vampire?” This was indeed a shock. A newly turned vampire was a danger, unable to control his urges, liable to attack anybody. That Samson was uneasy made perfect sense. His wife Delilah was human and pregnant with their first child. She would be a prime target for any new vampire.
“She was attacked tonight.”
“Delilah? Delilah was attacked?” Gabriel felt adrenaline shoot through his veins.
“No, no. Thank God. Delilah is fine. No. This woman—a human—she was attacked and turned. The two bodyguards who just left—Eddie and James—scared off her attacker and went to help her. Her eyes had already turned black, so they knew the process had started.”
A human’s eyes turning entirely black with not a spec of white remaining was a sure sign of the turning. Only once the turning was complete would the eyes turn back to normal.
“They brought her here about half an hour ago,” Samson continued. “She must have been attacked on her way home. We have to find her attacker and take him out.”
Gabriel understood. “A rogue. As long as he’s out there, he’s a danger to everybody and particularly to her if he realizes we’re sheltering her.”
Gabriel and his colleagues despised vampires turning unsuspecting humans against their will. It was a major infraction in their society—a crime in fact—punishable by death. A vampire’s life wasn’t easy—Gabriel of all people knew this for a fact. He therefore believed in protecting a human’s right to choose and wouldn’t force this life on anyone. He’d punish anyone who violated this right.
“Yes. That’s why I need you. I need somebody I can rely on.”
“What do we have?” Gabriel was all business now. This was his job. This was what he did best. A case to sink his teeth into and turn his thoughts away from his personal problem was what he needed. “Do we know who the woman is?”
“She’s a doctor. She works at UCSF Medical Center. We found her ID. Her name is Maya Johnson, age thirty-two, lives in Noe Valley. We haven’t been able to ask her anything yet. When Eddie and James brought her in, she was unconscious. I hope she can give us a description of the vampire who attacked her when she wakes. In the meantime, I’m keeping radio silence on this. It could be anybody. Until we know who might be behind this, I don’t want anybody to know she’s here.”
“That’s smart,” Gabriel agreed. Until they could talk to her, they had to play it safe. Of course, that was assuming she could tell them anything. “You’ll know she’ll be in a panic when she comes to.” Not only would she be traumatized by the attack, but once she realized what she had turned into, she would truly panic.
Samson closed his eyes and nodded. “I can only imagine too well.”
“Should we bring somebody else in to help her through this?” Gabriel knew he wasn’t the right person to guide a woman through a life-altering transition like turning into a vampire. He wasn’t good with women.
“I’ve already sent for Drake. He’ll know what to do. Maybe he’ll be able to calm her down when she starts to grow hysterical.”
Considering his own interactions with Drake, Gabriel doubted the man would do any better than he. But he wasn’t going to contradict Samson, who clearly held the doctor in high regard.
“Yeah, let’s hope he can. Should we have a woman here when she wakes up? Having a bunch of six-foot-something vampires gawking at her when she comes ‘round might be a little intimidating.” Gabriel glanced into Samson’s eyes. He sure had no interest in being the one to tell her the bad news. He also wasn’t shy to delegate things he had no business doing. It was better if a woman, someone with a little more sensitivity, did the job.
“Not Delilah. I want her nowhere near the woman. You know as well as I do what a newly turned vampire is capable of. She won’t be able to control her strength even if she doesn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
Gabriel held up his hand. “I wasn’t thinking of Delilah. Yvette hasn’t left for New York yet. I gave her a couple of days off to do some sightseeing.” Yvette was a good bodyguard and, despite the fact that she could act a little prissy, she was solid and had a strong sense of right and wrong. He was sure the two women would bond instantly.
Samson let out a breath. “Sure. Yvette. That’s a good idea.”
Heavy steps sounded on the stairs. A moment later Carl, Samson’s trusted butler, rushed into the room. He was a stout man, heavy around the midsection and somewhere in his fifties. As always, he wore a formal dark suit. In fact, Gabriel had never seen him in anything else, and he was sure the man didn’t own a single pair of jeans.
“Mr. Woodford, the woman is doing worse.”
“Dr. Drake is already on his way. There’s nothing I can do until he gets here. You shouldn’t leave her alone,” Samson said.
“Miss Delilah is with her,” Carl responded.
Samson and Gabriel jumped up.
Panic struck Samson’s face as he bolted up the stairs. Gabriel ran after him and stormed into the guest room.
“Delilah!” Samson’s voice was full of alarm.
Samson’s petite wife sat on the edge of the bed and wiped the woman’s face with a wet cloth. “Samson, please, I’m trying everything to make her comfortable. You storming in here screaming doesn’t help.” Delilah’s scold was soft. Her long dark hair fell into her face as she bent over the woman. Despite the fact that she was pregnant, her body showed no bump yet. According to Samson, she was only three months along—which meant she’d gotten pregnant almost instantly after the couple had blood-bonded right after Chinese New Year.
“You shouldn’t be here at all. We don’t know how she’ll react. It’s too dangerous for you.” Samson put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her up and away from the bed. “Please, sweetness, you’re taking decades off my life by doing this.” He looked over his shoulder at Gabriel and gestured toward the bed. “Gabriel, would you?”
Samson wanted him to play nurse? That was not part of the deal. He would investigate who’d done this to her, even protect her if she was still in danger, but under no circumstances would he sit by the woman’s bed and play nurse.
It was best to tell his boss right now. Babysitting a newly turned vampire female was not what he needed right now, especially not when he was expected to actually interact with her on such an intimate level. A few interrogations, sure, he would be more than willing to do that, but not this, not sitting by her bed, taking care of her.
Hell, he would have no idea what to do. His knowledge of a woman’s body was limited to some hurried sexual interactions and many not-so-hurried porn movies. Surely nobody could expect him to take care of a vampire female? Where the hell was Drake? Shouldn’t he be here by now?
Gabriel turned toward Samson, who was leading Delilah out the door, ready to decline the job expected of him. But a low moan from the woman in the bed made him glance in her direction.
His breath caught in his chest as he saw her for the first time.
Gabriel heard the door close and knew he was alone with her.
The woman lay on top of the blankets, her clothes bloodstained. She wore pants and a t-shirt, a loose, white doctor’s coat over it. In red letters her name was stitched over her breast pocket: Maya Johnson MD, Urology.
Maya’s face was pale, and it looked even paler framed by her shoulder length dark hair. It wasn’t perfectly straight, but had large waves which seemed to caress her face. Her eyes were closed, thick dark lashes standing guard. He wondered what color her eyes would be once they returned to their normal state. Her skin had an olive tint to it, hinting at Latin, Mediterranean, or even Middle Eastern ancestry.
She had bruises and cuts on her face, mostly around her lips which were full and perfectly curved. She had fought her attacker, he knew instantly. Within hours her injuries would be gone, her vampire body healing itself while it slept.
He could only imagine the pain she’d gone through and the horror when she’d realized what was happening to her. She had died tonight at the hands of a rogue, and then he’d brought her back from the brink. She’d had to experience death to gain a new life. How painful had her death been?
Gabriel knew that every vampire’s transformation was different. Many had horrifying memories of the event, things nobody spoke of. And this woman’s memories would be terrifying—being turned against one’s will would have been traumatic. Her wounds attested to it.
Gabriel looked past the injuries and the ugliness of the bite wound on her neck. It was clear the rogue had been interrupted since he hadn’t had a chance to close the wound with his saliva. It would take longer to heal without it. Had he licked the bite wound, it wouldn’t even be visible anymore.
Gabriel only saw the woman underneath the injuries: the sensual curve of her nose, the strong lines of her cheekbones, and the gracefulness of her neck. Her slender figure might as well have been bare, for he could almost imagine what her nude form looked like.
Elegant long fingers extended from slim hands, hands whose caress he wanted to feel on his own skin. Long legs, which he wanted her to wrap around his waist as he made love to her. Full breasts he could suckle from as he kissed every inch of her body. Red lips he would taste with his.
There was something so enthralling about her scent, something so foreign, yet so familiar at the same time. No other scent compared to hers. Rich and dark, it engulfed him, cocooned him in an aura of warmth and softness. Every cell in his body responded to her call.
She was perfect.
About the writer

Tina Folsom always loved vampires and decided that vampire and paranormal romance was her calling. She now has 15 novels in English and several in other languages (Spanish, German, and French) and continues to write, as well as have her existing novels translated.