by Sandra Hill
“You are always showing off, Beau,” Patience observed, then added, “We must all still be Lucipires.” There was disappointment in her voice.
“Of course, we’re still Lucipires. Look at us,” Beau said. “Great-lookin’ scales, by the way. Specially the ones on yer boobs. I didn’t know nipples came big as maraschino cherries.”
“Moron! If your tail were any longer, you could screw yourself!” Patience sneered. Not so soft-voiced and gentle now.
“Ah already can,” Beau boasted.
“I kin peel the skin off a toad with my claws,” Grimelda bragged.
Zeb realized in that moment that the Crazy Coven must be in demonoid form. It must be crowded in here. His bedroom in the bungalow was not very big. More important, Regina better be careful. You never knew what a Lucipire might do. Even when they tried to be good, their inclinations were hard to control sometimes.
“I just thought that since we lost our teletransport powers, maybe we weren’t demon vampires anymore.” Patience sounded as if she were weeping.
“Dream on, baby!” Beau chided her. “Jasper would never let us go so easily.”
“What if—”
“Aaarrgh!” Regina hollered so loud, Zeb’s ears rang. “Will the lot of you get out of here? There’s no space in the bedroom for me to work.”
“What work? What’re you gonna do?” Beau wanted to know.
“What I tried to say before you idiots interrupted me was, it’s vangel blood that Zeb needs.”
“Oh,” several voices said as one.
“I’ve seen it happen before,” Regina said. “Well, only among vangels. But when one of the vangels got badly hurt in a battle with the Lucipires, the only thing that cured him in the end was taking blood from another vangel.”
There was silence for a moment. Followed by the sound of licking Lucipire lips. Beau said, “Lucky us, y’all! We just happen to have a vangel in this heah house.”
“Out!” Regina shouted.
“Do you think you would have enough to spare for us to have a taste, too?” Patience asked.
“Out!”
“Bet it would make my maggot potion tasty,” Grimelda cackled.
“Out!”
“Ah could make you,” Beau said, and Zeb could tell by the steely tone of his voice that he meant it.
“You could try, but then you’d never have anyone to intercede with Michael on your behalf,” Regina replied in an equally steely tone.
There was the sound of pushing and shoving and curses as several, presumably Lucipire bodies made their way through the door. Then, Zeb heard the door slam and the lock click.
He sensed Regina standing next to his bed (he could tell she was standing there by the strong cinnamon scent). She said, “Are you ready to party, big boy?”
You have no idea, he thought. The words wouldn’t emerge from his battered body, but other things did. Like fangs slowly emerging in his mouth and although he didn’t . . . couldn’t in his present state . . . have an erection he did feel aroused down below. Sort of a hot throb. Imagine that! He wasn’t surprised at the fangs, but he hadn’t been aroused by a woman in ages, literally. Not that this was a sexual arousal. Just a reaction to the possibility of vangel blood, which had to be richer than a virgin human.
“I’m either going to kill you or cure you,” Regina said, pressing her fingertips to his neck.
At the zing her mere touch caused, ricocheting with erotic, cinnamon ripples across his body, to all his extremities and the Happy Ground in between, he decided he couldn’t care less. He was drowning in waves of pleasure so intense it hurt. The yearning for completion was sweet agony. Who knew a man could experience sexual bliss without a hard-on?
If Satan knew about this kind of pleasure pain, he would have surely employed it back in the Horror cave dungeon. And he would have wrapped it somehow in erotic memories of his wife and all he’d lost.
Maybe he was still in that torture chamber. Maybe this was all a dream.
Maybe Regina really was Lucifer’s sister.
Chapter 6
Blood matters . . .
“I’ve never done this before,” Regina said to Zeb, though he was unconscious and probably couldn’t hear her. “You could say I’m a virgin, ha, ha, ha.”
She thought she heard a snicker, but when she looked closer, Zeb appeared dead to the world. Pun intended.
It’s not that Regina hadn’t taken blood before, or given it, during a human sinner saving. But that was different. When she came upon evil humans who wanted to repent, she needed to take a small amount of their tainted blood from their bodies, then inject a small amount of her more pure vangel blood into theirs. The blood ritual benefitted both the sinners and the vangels, sealing the sinners’ redemption, saving them from becoming Lucies, but also making a vangel’s skin stay a healthy tan color. Without it, vangel skin turned whiter and whiter, then almost translucent. Fighting and killing Lucipires had the same result. She remembered a time back in the early days of her vangeldom when she’d been living in a cave. One day, she’d noticed that she could see her veins and arteries through her transparent skin. Not a pretty sight! Talk about a jump start to getting her butt into vangel gear!
Of course, maintaining an attractive skin color was not the goal of the blood getting or letting. Saving sinners and killing Lucipires, that was the primary mission for a vangel.
Okay, now to the problem at hand. First, she better take out a little of his bad blood so that when she gave him some vangel blood, his bad blood would be diluted. Over and over the process would be repeated, every couple hours, until he lost the demon taint and his body’s system would be better able to heal. Hopefully, this could all be accomplished within one day, or two at the most, and during this time period they would both have to eat or drink something with lots of iron in it to replenish their depleting blood supplies.
A vangel’s fangs could work both ways, injecting and sucking. She lifted his arm and put his wrist to her mouth where her fangs were already elongated. The heat of his fever hit her skin like a hot bellows.
“Cheers!” she said.
It would be nice if she could say that the instant she tasted Zeb’s blood, she swooned with delight, like a first sip of ice cold Pepsi on a hot afternoon. But that would be far from the truth. In fact, his blood tasted putrid, like the demon life source it was. How could a man who smelled like summer rain have a sewer running through his body? She withdrew her fangs, spat in the wash basin, rinsed her mouth with whiskey, and spat again. After repeating the process six times, she figured that was enough. For now.
Then she prepared herself to give him blood. How to do that in his still unconscious state? She hated to bite herself and infuse him with some of her blood because it was such a slow process, a mere drip at a time into the mouth. It would be better if he took her blood himself, rather like a baby, being given eye droppers of milk or sucking on a nipple. “Blessed Lord, in this symbolic ritual, may my blood be as yours in the Holy Sacrament and give Zebulan healing sustenance. Amen,” she prayed, then pressed her own wrist against Zeb’s fangs, hoping he would instinctively bite her.
Nothing.
Not to be deterred, she fanged her own wrist and waited until droplets of blood rose above the surface. Then she held her hand, wrist downward, over his parted lips, letting one drop, then another, then another fall onto his tongue. (Can anyone say eye dropper?)
Nothing.
But wait. She thought she heard a moan.
With lightning swiftness, Zeb’s arm snaked out, his fingers cupping her nape, and yanked her forward so that she fell across his chest. Before she realized his intent, his fangs sank deep into the curve of her neck, and she actually felt her blood rush to that spot, as if seeking nourishment, not giving it. Apparently he preferred neck veins over wrist veins.
After that, her world changed.
A blue mist seemed to swirl above, then settle around them like a cloudy cocoon. The rain aroma intensified, and
for the first time she smelled her own cinnamon fragrance that Zeb had alluded to. Cinnamon rain, for sure. They ought to make a scented candle with that name.
Zeb’s drinking from her was slow and rhythmic and only tiny sips at a time. But, oh, the bliss! It was both primal and sexual. No wonder vangels who mated sometimes fanged each other while making love. A fang fucking she’d once heard Trond describe it. His wife, Nicole, had smacked him for the crudeness, but she’d been smiling as she did it.
Regina arched her head back to give Zeb better access, an ageless gesture of female submission. How odd! That she would surrender anything to a man!
Only her breasts pressed against his battered body, the rest of her half on, half off the bed, her legs dangling over the side. Still, she adjusted herself so as not to hurt him, and in the process she twined the fingers of one of her hands with his, and she placed her other hand against his head, to hold him in place.
His hand still cupped her nape, but his other hand was making sweeping caresses over her back, from shoulder to rump and back again. Over and over. Even though she wore one of his old T-shirts and jogging shorts, she felt naked under his touch.
Regina was more aroused than she’d ever been in all her life. Not that she’d been inclined to lust very often. Once every century or so.
She wanted to climb atop his body and rub herself against him. Skin to skin. Breast to chest. Pubic bone to pubic bone. Thigh against thigh.
She couldn’t. Even if she could, she wouldn’t.
She wanted to kiss his lips and draw his tongue into her mouth. She would suck on him with childlike hunger. No, not childlike. Nothing childlike about the hunger she was feeling.
In any case, it was a moot point. It was hard to kiss a fanging man when only one set of fangs was involved. Two sets? Impossible! Wasn’t it? They might even get locked together. Imagine Vikar’s consternation if she arrived back at the castle fang-locked with a demon vampire, wanting him to unlock them. They would be the laughingstock of all vangeldom. Angeldom, too, she supposed.
She could imagine the jokes.
“How do two vampires kiss?”
“Carefully.”
Better she concentrate on something else.
Forget his mouth and kisses. She wanted to examine his flat male nipples. To lick at them. Draw them into her mouth and suckle. Hard. And then she’d like him to do the same to her.
Whoa! Where did that thought come from?
As if he’d read her thoughts, Zeb’s hand that had been cupping her nape moved down to hold one of her breasts from underneath and flick the nipple with his thumb. Repeatedly. Like a guitarist strumming an instrument.
Un-be-liev-able! Ripples of pleasure shot out throughout her body and lodged in her center where she exploded into a small orgasm. She gasped. That had never happened to her before. She’d never climaxed so quickly and from only a touch. Good thing Zeb wasn’t awake to witness her humiliation.
But that brought her back to reality, somewhat. She had to stop Zeb’s drinking from her, for now, or she would be drained. Slowly, carefully, she pushed herself up and away, until his fangs withdrew from her with a small pop. He licked the skin, reflexively, to seal the wound.
“That’s all for now,” she said and rose off the bed. Her shaky knees almost gave out. How was she going to do this again and again until Zeb was healed? She would be a basket case. The most satisfied woman in the universe! Or the most stirred up and antsy for release! Yikes!
Zeb’s eyes opened for a moment, and he said, “Thank you.” Almost immediately, he fell back asleep, or unconscious. His body still threw off heat like an inferno; so the danger was not over. Still, she sensed that he was a little better.
She covered his body with a thin sheet, dabbed at the blood on his lips with a tissue (the fangs having retracted already), and finally replied to his comment, “No. Thank you!”
Who says there are no new ways to do it? . . .
Zeb hurt all over, but sometimes when the red-haired woman let him drink from her, he hurt so good. Regina, he reminded himself. The redhead was Regina the vangel witch who rescued him. His poor, bruised cock failed to grow with the fangings, but it throbbed when she ministered to him. A pleasure-pain of throbbing, but no release.
Not that he was complaining! He’d probably burst his stitches with a hard-on. Yes, there were stitches in his most sensitive body part. Which of the four witches had done the stitching? He almost didn’t want to know. Thank God he’d been unconscious when the sewing took place!
He was pretending to be asleep at the moment while Regina bustled around the room. If she suspected he was awake, she would force more of that awful, presumably iron-rich spinach and tomato juice slush down his throat to replenish lost blood. Meanwhile she munched away on iron-fortified oat cereal, sometimes plain, other times in a bowl with reconstituted dried milk. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Like fingernails on a chalkboard, she was, or fingernails on a wounded cock. He knew it was cereal she was eating because he heard her mention it to someone this morning, or was it yesterday. He’d lost track of time. Crunch, crunch, crunch. He felt like leaping from the bed and . . . and . . . he couldn’t think what.
That was unkind. He should be thankful for her rescuing him. He was thankful, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t irritating.
“Zeb, you have to drink more spinach.”
“Zeb, do you want to pee in a jar?”
“Zeb, I had to shave your head.”
“Zeb, where’s the toilet plunger?”
“Zeb, Grimelda caused a little fire on your patio with her cauldron.”
“Zeb, Patience saw a shark today when she was sunbathing in her bikini. The one made from one of your kitchen curtains.”
“Zeb, Beau caught a seagull, and we’re having it cooked Cajun style tonight. Is it true seagull tastes like chicken?”
“Zeb, Zeb, Zeb . . .” She was driving him crazy. And what was that about shaving his head? Surreptitiously, so she wouldn’t notice he was awake, he put a hand to his head. Yep, bald. He couldn’t really complain. Craven had done a job on him, pulling out clumps when frustrated with his torture. Zeb could only hope it would all grow out uniformly. But then, in the scheme of things, what did it matter how he looked?
“I know you’re awake,” she said.
Busted!
“How do you feel?”
He tried to sit up but sank back down. “Weak as cat piss.”
She nodded. “The fever is gone, finally, but it’s going to take a while for you to be back to normal.”
“I think a few more fangings should do the trick,” he said and took pleasure in the blush that swept over her face. He knew that the fangings aroused her sexually and that she even climaxed a time or twenty. At least someone was getting their rocks off.
“Do you really think that’s necessary anymore?” she asked.
“Definitely.”
She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. “Maybe more spinach slush would make you stronger.”
He shuddered.
“Or if you’re up to solid food, maybe some seagull livers.”
He shuddered even more.
“Beau has developed a technique for catching the birds. He’s planning to domesticate them, like chickens, and with proper feed, improve the taste of the meat.”
It was his turn to narrow his eyes at her. “Just how long does he plan to be here?” But then, another thought occurred to him. “How long have we been here so far?”
“Four days!” He jackknifed up into a sitting position and about passed out from the pain. “What’s happening in the world? Jasper must be raising havoc somewhere at our escape. And, bloody hell, what about Michael and your gang?”
“First of all, we can’t get your TV to work, most of the time. The reception is horrible. If I see another Die Hard DVD, I’m going to puke. If that’s not enough, Patience has played the Mary Poppins movie ten times so far. Really, Zeb? Mary Poppins?”
He ignored her jibe and
said, “You need to jiggle the antenna on the roof.”
“Beau has tried that. As for Michael and my gang, I don’t know. For some reason, my telecommunication skills have died.”
“Uh-oh! Not a good sign.”
“Once you’re better, I figure we should go to Transylvania and face the music, whatever it is.”
“All of us?” He arched his brows at her.
“I was thinking we could leave them here until we can scope out the mood back home, assuming they would be willing to wait here.”
“Dream on.”
“What do you suggest?”
“For now, hop on up to the bed so I can fang you.”
“I’m not sure I can do that in the daytime.”
“Why?” He tilted his head in question, then guessed, “You’ve never had sex in the daytime?”
“Hah! I’ve hardly ever had sex, period, let alone in the daytime.”
“Ah, then you have something new to look forward to.”
“I liked you better when you were asleep.”
“Yeah, but wait until I show you this new way of fanging. I put my mouth on your bare breast and pierce the edges of your areola with my fangs, at the same time laving and licking and sucking on your nipple. I’ve been told it’s a great way to increase the blood flow.” He batted his eyelashes at her. He had the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man.
He could swear she just dampened her shorts, and maybe she’d even had a mini-orgasm, while she held onto the bedpost for support. But then, before she stomped off and slammed the bedroom door after her, she told him, “Why don’t you go fang yourself?”
Or she might have used that other F word.
Zeb smiled. He felt better already.
Another war to end all wars! . . .
Jasper was in a livid, demonic uproar. He was about to declare war unlike anything humankind had ever witnessed before. People would think the Apocalypse was coming by the time he was done.