I did it, me, the weakest vampire in Elizabet’s crèche. I’d defeated the shadows. I’d defeated Zane. And I’d done it on my own.
Eric and Jason would be so proud.
I stood slowly, shakily, and stared around the yard at my husbands slashing their way through werewolves alongside a large, black wolf with icy eyes, at Alice and Gregory lying so still next to one another, at two pets I barely knew limping slowly toward Marco, who was pulling himself to where Elizabet rested, pinned under the carcass of a gutted werewolf. Even from this distance, I could tell she near death. Her light, the internal beacon or aura or whatever it was that distinguished us from other humans, sputtered like the last burst from a dying flame. Marco would help her. He always did.
The rest of us? It was like Alice said. We’d carry on. We’d endure. We’d lost so much here, sustained so many injuries, but we had survived.
A baby’s soft mewling tore through the sorrow gripping me.
I twisted around and pinpointed its direction near the porch through the buzz ringing in my ear, and staggered that way on flimsy legs. Needed more blood, and soon, but I needed Willow more.
Nathaniel stepped onto the porch carrying my baby girl, and suddenly, the night’s losses didn’t seem quite as bad as before. Bad, yes, horribly so, but not as bad as they could’ve been. My baby was safe. She was healthy and whole.
And I had found my control.
A tear rolled down my cheek. I mustered a smile and stumbled toward the little girl I loved more than life itself, eager to hold her once more.
Bonus Short Story
“We All Fall Down”
Author’s Note:
This story is told from Jason Bellmont’s point of view. Chronologically, it falls between Episodes 2 and 3 of The New Vampire.
Gianna’s cream-and-coffee skin gleamed under the flickering light cast by the candles on the nightstand, combining with her inner glow to create an ethereal aura. She lay on her back sprawled across the pale green sheets of her bed, beautifully nude, her skin flushed with passion and her pussy bared to my touch.
She was easily the most beautiful woman I’d ever known. Tall with dark brown kinky curls inherited from her African-American father, deep chocolate colored almond shaped eyes, and a wide, luscious mouth under a patrician nose. Those she’d gotten from her mother, the Italian goddess I’d met only twice, the first time on the night Gianna married my Master, and the second time on the night Selena had killed Gianna’s family.
I’d watched Selena’s body burn under the harsh Southern sun, hoping I’d feel something, anything. A sense of justice, of a wrong righted, but Selena’s brutal death hadn’t brought Gianna’s family back, and it hadn’t made Gianna whole again. All it had done was keep the vampire from doing more damage. In the end, I’d felt only a numbing sense of loss. Without Eric, Gianna’s husband and my lover, I might never have felt anything more.
Gianna shifted her hips under my hand. “Stop teasing me, Jason.”
I laughed, low and easy. “I’m not teasing, I’m servicing.” Exactly as Eric had dictated when he’d laid down my punishment earlier in the evening. “If I go quick, it won’t be nearly as satisfying for you.”
I slipped a single finger along her slick clitoris, rubbing lazy circles over the nub of her sex. She clutched the sheets in tight fists and pushed the back of her head into the pillow cradling it. Her breasts bounced, drawing my gaze. They were full and round, her mocha nipples tight buds. I dipped my head and licked, then sucked her into my mouth. Mmm. She tasted so good, all spice and woman and love.
A gentle male hand slid around my waist, and a moment later, Eric curled his much smaller body into mine, spooning me. His dick, firm and erect, skidded along my ass cheeks, and the desire I’d easily held in check up to that moment intensified, pushing me into full arousal, testing the control I’d lost a couple of hours before.
If anyone could break me, it was Eric. He’d done it before when I’d needed it. Hell, he’s the one who’d built me in the first place, making me his favorite, bringing me into his life, even knowing how much I loved Gianna and how much I’d wanted her for my own.
A dream since lost to a better hope, that three would once again become one. A part of me wanted that so badly, wanted the perfection of the communion Eric, Gianna, and I found amid the deep bond we’d shared. Another part ached for the girl I’d lost to Eric. Stupid, since he willingly shared her with me. In his mind, we were a family, united together against the harsh world of the Vampyr.
Would I ever reach that ideal, or would jealousy and regret always claw at me?
Eric’s hand slid lower, skimming lightly over my abs, down, down. Anticipation and excitement whirled through me and my stomach muscles drew in. God in Heaven, he knew exactly what to do to me, knew exactly what I needed. His fingertips feathered along the shaft of my erection, torturing me with those small caresses. Up and down, stroking my dick, glancing along the tip.
He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to my spine. Adonis. The word whispered along our bond, mind to mind. You know what I want.
My heart tripped and stuttered, stumbling in my chest, and my lungs seized up. Oh, God, yes. I knew exactly what he wanted. I nipped Gianna’s nipple gently, then let it go and trailed hot, wet kisses down her stomach, soft and slow. She released her tight grip on the sheets and cupped my head, her hands a light weight as I went lower and lower. Eric’s hand fell away from my dick and the mattress shifted behind me. I crawled between Gigi’s legs, on my knees with my ass in the air, and braced myself on my elbows with her thighs over my shoulders and my forearms pressed into the bed on either side of her hips.
Eric settled in behind me. His fingers nudged my thighs more widely apart, allowing room for his whole hand to reach between my legs and cup my balls. The fire burning in me hitched another inch higher, pushing against the wall I held firm between the pleasure of his touch and the need to come. My breath hissed in. I couldn’t come. Sweet Jesus, I couldn’t come. He’d told me to control it, and I would, but God. Holding back was beginning to hurt, spreading in a fierce ache from my dick into my thighs and lower abs. Soon, all too soon, it would fill me and I would writhe in passion’s grip, unable to quench the burning heat created under the friction of his hand and the taste of Gianna’s beautiful womanhood.
Distraction. I breathed through the desire, let it slide up my body and out with each breath. I needed a distraction. Gianna’s pussy beckoned, the slick folds, the sharp womanly scent of her musk. I dipped my head and licked into the opening of her body, then up along her center.
Cool wetness fell between my spread ass cheeks and I tensed. Lube meant Eric intended to stay a while. Lube meant he’d take it slow and easy, stretching out our pleasure. He could make it last a long, long time when he put his mind to it.
His mind wasn’t necessarily something anyone wanted focused on them.
Gigi’s clit slipped out of my mouth. “Jesus God, Eric. I’m already close.”
“You will hold your control.” His touch was gentle, his words unyielding. “We depend on you, Jason, on your strength and discipline.”
Our bond vibrated. We can’t afford for your control to break, just when we need it most. The thought/feeling echoed in my mind, and with it, a grim determination. The first tendrils of real fear crept through me. Always before, Eric had punished with love, and now, it was gone, hidden beneath his need to strengthen us in whatever way he could. It’s why he’d chosen me over Devin, his first male lover. I was so much stronger, physically yes, but also mentally. Eric, my beloved Eric with his brilliant mind and keen grasp of strategy, had instinctively known I would serve him far better than Devin ever could.
And in his choosing had come my salvation, a way to have the family I longed for, and to slake the needs my conservative Midwestern family hadn’t understood until one heart wrenching night when Eric had unwittingly shown them what I meant to him.
A rigid tip prodded the tender flesh of my anus, and a
moment later, it slid into the tight hole. I relaxed and eased my ass back, welcoming the slight pain as flesh stretched and adjusted around a butt plug. My breath panted along Gigi’s pussy. Ok, good. He wasn’t gonna fuck me, not yet. I could handle a butt plug. I could handle having him behind me caressing me as long as he wasn’t in me.
A whistle of air whipped through the air and a sharp slap stung my ass. Gianna’s hips jerked under my mouth, and I panted out a moan.
Gianna struggled up onto her elbows, her chocolate eyes glittering and wary. “What are you doing?”
“It’s just a little spanking, sweetheart,” Eric said, his voice low and soothing. “It won’t hurt for long.”
A laugh stuttered out of me. No, it wouldn’t hurt exactly, but it would by God send me over the edge. I liked a little pain with my sex. Ok, sometimes I liked a lot of pain, and Eric knew that. He always knew exactly what was going on in my head, exactly which button to push. Exactly which stroke would make me come and which one would prolong the desire.
This time, he was deliberately pushing me toward an orgasm.
His hand landed on my ass again, and again and again, and the fire in my blood boiled and raged, seeping outward with the pleasure dealt by his blows. I dropped my head to Gigi’s thigh, sucked the tender flesh there into my mouth, focusing on the taste of her dusky skin and not the pressure of Eric’s thumb holding the butt plug in my ass or the throbbing beauty of his narrow hand slapping my skin.
On and on it went, the whistle of his hand through the air, so soft a mere human could never detect it, the sting of his blows, the jump in my nerves. I shuddered and shivered and silently begged for more, even as passion’s fire slowly consumed me and my ass went numb.
It took long moments for the lack of blows to filter into my awareness. Gigi’s fingers slid through the blunt ends of my hair, soothing me. Cool air fanned across my heated skin. The pressure on the butt plug eased. I clenched my muscles, reflexively holding it in place. Somewhere along the line, I’d released Gigi’s thigh, letting her flesh slide out of my mouth.
Service. I shook my head, struggling to think through the red haze falling slowly over my mind. I was supposed to service her.
On your back, on the other side of the bed. The words hammered through my bond with Eric, and I obeyed. Love and duty twined through me. My Master needed me to be there. He needed me.
I crawled over Gianna’s still form, my muscles trembling, so full of need, my skin prickled. My dick was painfully swollen, so hard, so hard, need to come. The tip dragged along the smooth silk of her thigh and I nearly came then, nearly lost it. I paused, my breath blowing hard, my heart pounding. Ass throbbing, feeling coming back. Can’t come. Have to lay down. Eric said so, my Master. I pulled myself across the bed on shaky limbs. They gave out almost as soon as I cleared Gianna’s body, and I dropped, landing on my side. I rolled onto my back and lay there staring up at the ceiling, struggling to discipline myself, struggling to contain the inferno licking over every nerve in my body.
A soft, feminine moan. I turned my head, and for a moment, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Eric’s slender body covered Gianna, his hips moving in a steady rhythm between her toned thighs, meeting the upward surge of her hips. He was watching me, his eyes completely black. One word filtered through the fog clouding my mind.
Mine.
I flinched. Every emotion I’d ever held for them, every drop of love, every bit of need, sank like a stone into my gut.
She’s mine. He snarled at me, fangs bared. Say it.
“Eric, please. Don’t.”
Say it. Say it, say it, sayitsayitsayit, SAY. IT.
I cried out, a harsh, broken groan. She was supposed to be mine, supposed to be mine, and I loved her so much. “I can’t.”
Look at me.
I blinked, found Eric. His expression was so hard, so cold as he fucked her, fucked my beautiful Gianna. She writhed under him and her fingernails dug into his back. Her mouth was on his throat, drawing deeply of his blood, taking her fill, and an ugly beast reared up within me. That was supposed to be me. I was supposed to be the one loving her. That was supposed to be me above her, feeding her, making her come, sliding in and out of her tight, wet pussy, our minds joined so closely we could feel each other’s pleasure as if it were our own.
She was supposed to be mine, and she’d chosen Eric.
Don’t look at her. Look at me.
I did, gazing at him as a hard rush of anger rose, hateful and greedy.
She’s mine, Jason, and I will do whatever I have to do to protect her, to protect my family.
I know that. I slapped the words back at him. Goddamn, hadn’t we been through that already? Hadn’t we endured enough trying to protect each other? I know that, Eric.
Do you? Do you really?
With no warning, my bonds with Gianna and Eric disappeared. I reeled from the loss, my mind swirling dizzily, unanchored and adrift around the gaping holes where they were supposed to be. No. Christ, no. A sob pushed its way out, and another, and I scrambled for them, reaching out for their lights with my mind, searching the ether for their comforting presences.
And found nothing.
The void where they’d been grew and grew, pushing out the pain of unfulfilled desire, leaving me empty, so fucking empty. It sliced through me, shattering my heart, taking everything they’d given me, crushing the meager pieces of me that remained into ash.
My mind sprang into sharp focus. This is what I’d done. This is what had happened because I couldn’t embrace her need for both of us, couldn’t move away from my own selfish wish to have her for myself, only myself, couldn’t return to the beauty of three as one, the way we’d been for such a sweet, short time before Selena’s attack.
A single point of light flickered, dancing out of my mind’s reach, and the weight of Eric’s determination pinched at me. I will do whatever I have to, even if it means excising a limb.
My breath stilled, frozen in my lungs. “No, Eric. Please God, don’t cut me out.”
His eyes met mine, ruthless, steady, and devoid of any feeling. Let the past go, Jase. Let it go or lose us both.
A vision seeped into my consciousness. Razor sharp claws raking over Gianna’s tender skin, cutting through her ribs, shredding her heart. Gianna, falling, falling, her beautiful features frozen eternally in a mask of shocked pain, her eyes sightless as she landed in a splayed heap on the wet earth. Eric, spattered in blood, running to her, skidding to a stop on his knees beside her lifeless form, ignoring the war raging around him in a hazy flash of movement and the shrieks of the dead and dying.
And me, kneeling in the distance, watching the tragedy of battles lost unfold in front of me, my hands chained to the ground. I strained against them, pulled and tugged with all of my strength, skin breaking, blood welling, pain etching every muscle, every bone, and nothing would break them. They bit into my wrists, cutting me, greedily lapping up the well of heartache filling my chest. I looked down, searching for a way to break them, searching for a way to help the people I loved, and scrambled back, horrified. The chains weren’t made of metal as I’d expected. They were miniscule replicas of myself, twisted and deformed, intertwined with one another in a swirling mass of rotting, oozing flesh.
Through the clamor of the fighting, a soft gasp caught my ear. I lifted my gaze to Eric. He arched backward, arms spread wide, and the point of a steel blade erupted out of the center of his chest. I screamed my rage into the battle and threw all my weight into the writhing chains anchoring me to the ground, screamed until my voice was a raw gasp of air spilling uselessly out of me. The blade withdrew. Eric’s arch turned inward, and he sank gracefully down across Gianna’s corpse.
“No. No, please.” Not that. Anything but that. My sweet Eric, my beautiful Gigi, forever gone. “Please God, no.”
This is what we become. The vision faded, replaced by an unwavering blackness, taking Eric’s presence with it. Without you, he whispered, and was gone.
> I fumbled in the dark, reached for them.
And went nowhere.
I was still kneeling, still gripped tightly by the chains that were me and not me. I yanked and tugged, frantic to loosen their hold. Tinny chattering voices hummed as they worked, strengthening themselves with sinew and blood, and their chorus coalesced into meaning.
Eat the dying, eat the wounded, partake of the host.
Fetid breath blew over my skin and stinging pricks ran across my hands. The swirling mass of doll-sized Jasons swelled upward, growing in number. Soon, my skin was gone, consumed by their lust for power and strength, and their teeth nibbled into muscle, then bone, eating away at me inch by inch. Their torturous progress overwhelmed me, shooting through me so hard and fast I screamed, and still they ate, bit by bit, taking my arms, my shoulders, working their way up my legs, inhaling toes and feet and ankles and calves. I screamed and screamed, pressed into the blackness by the teeming mass, screamed and screamed at the burning agony boiling me into bits, melting me under the onslaught of a thousand thousand mouths, slurping up the merest shred of me until I was no more than a pinprick of light that fluttered and shivered and winked out of existence, carrying anguish and loss and heartache with it into nothingness.
My eyes popped open on a gasp. A blurry white mass was above me, far away. Had I died? Was I in Heaven?
I blinked and the mass came into sharp focus. After a moment, I recognized it. I was on the bed in mine and Eric’s bedroom at Elizabet’s, staring up at the ceiling. A shaky laugh rumbled out of my chest. Heaven, indeed. I lifted a trembling hand, dropped it back to the sheets. God, I was weak as a mewling kitten.
The New Vampire Page 28