Darkness In The Flames

by Kelly, Sahara

Adrian relaxed enough to grin at her. “Well, at least you have some language skills, my love.”

  “Yes, but talking like a dratted stable hand isn’t going to solve our problem, is it?” She stood and shook out her skirts. “Sir Sidney, there must be something we can do. Some measures we can take to protect ourselves and the residents of St. Chesswell.”

  Sidney paced the room. This was a question he’d asked himself over and over again to no avail. There were old wives’ tales, certainly. Wreaths of garlic at the doors, crosses, the usual kinds of things people did to ward off evil witches, spells and so on. But this power transcended the norm.

  It went much deeper than a simple curse.

  “I have already suggested that nobody walk anywhere unaccompanied at night. That doors are to be double locked and checked, and that people stay together in groups of at least two or three. From what I’ve heard, Thérèse likes to catch her prey alone. She seldom ventures indoors, unless she is unknown to those within, as she was when you met her, Adrian. She could mingle in that ballroom without occasioning comment. Here, she’d stand out like a sore thumb.”

  Adrian nodded. “Agreed. All those precautions make sense, Father. Good thinking.”

  “There’s something else.” Sidney reached his desk and lifted a small jar of liquid. “I’m not sure if this will work, but it’s holy water from the font in the Church. The Vicar dropped by today to discuss this business and brought it with him. It’s his only suggested defense, other than prayers, which he is offering up with increasing regularity.”

  “I can imagine.” Katherine sighed. “This is so terrible, Sir Sidney. I feel so helpless.”

  “Perhaps we could test it.” Adrian stared at the liquid in the jar. “Put some on my hand, Father.”

  Sidney hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  “What’s the worst that could happen? I will disappear in a puff of smoke?”

  Katherine made a distressed sound and rushed to his side. “You can’t imagine that would happen, can you? Adrian…” She reached for his hand.

  “Don’t concern yourself, Katherine dear.” Sidney’s voice was calm. “It would take a lot more than that to destroy either Thérèse or Adrian. I doubt it would kill either of them if they took a bath in the stuff.” He uncapped the jar. “No, my hope is that this might serve as a delaying tactic, nothing more.”

  Gently he lifted a drop onto his finger and looked at Adrian who held out his hand, palm down. “Go ahead, Father.”

  *~*~*~*

  Adrian wanted to close his eyes as his father dabbed the drop of holy water onto his hand. He had no idea what to expect—if anything—and wasn’t sure he wanted to watch if the whole exercise was a failure.

  But he couldn’t. His eyes, along with those of his wife and his father, were focused on Sir Sidney’s fingers and the shining drip of liquid.

  It fell and Adrian jumped a little. “Ouch.”

  Sidney tilted his head. “Explain.”

  Adrian examined his hand. There wasn’t a mark on it, but he’d definitely felt something. “’Twas a tiny pricking sting. Odd really. Sort of tingled through my hand.” He looked up at Sidney. “That was just a drop, and on me. I’ve been taking your noxious potions.”

  Sidney nodded, following Adrian’s line of thought. “Yes. A good-sized dash of this on somebody like Thérèse…well, we might just have something here. This is most fortuitous.” He bustled to his desk and jotted some notes in his journal.

  Katherine still looked worried, and Adrian smiled at her. He held out his hand. “Want to kiss it better?”

  Bravely she grinned back. “Put a drop of that stuff somewhere else and I might consider the notion.”

  Adrian coughed back a laugh. “My goodness, Mrs. Chesswell. You naughty girl.”

  Katherine blushed. “Yes. It would seem you’re having a rather dreadful effect on my thoughts, Mr. Chesswell.”

  Adrian’s body clenched. “I do hope so.”

  Sidney rejoined them. “I think you should both carry a small flask of this with you at all times, Adrian. We should expect a visit from our flame-haired evil shortly, I expect. She’ll not want to let you sink deeper into Katherine’s toils.”

  “She’s…bloody furious, isn’t she?” Katherine glanced at her father-in-law.

  “Yes. I can’t imagine her being anything else. You’ve taken something she considered hers. I don’t even know if anyone has done that before. Challenged her superiority that way.”

  “I didn’t know anybody could.” Adrian was thoughtful. “She always seemed so…so in command of everybody and everything in her orbit.”

  “Up until now she has been. Which means that none of her other victims have dared to think about taking up arms against her.”

  “And none of them have fallen in love.” Katherine rested her head on Adrian’s shoulder. “’Tis truly a blessing we found each other, in so many more ways than one.”

  Silence followed Katherine’s words, broken shortly afterwards by the distant mumble of thunder.

  “There’s a storm coming. A big one. Been circling all evening.” Sidney narrowed his eyes. “It would make good cover for any nefarious activities Thérèse has planned.”

  “Right then.” Adrian straightened. “First we need to ensure the safety of everybody at St. Chesswell. Make sure the doors are locked and barred, that the servants are in groups, and the windows secured.”

  Sidney nodded. “Already seen to.”

  “Then I think it’s time I went out to take care of Thérèse, face to face. Once and for all.”

  *~*~*~*

  Katherine snorted. “I don’t think so.”

  Adrian stared at her. “What else can I do? I cannot wait here, like a rat in a cage, until she decides to savage some other innocent just to make her point.” He turned to Sidney. “Don’t you agree with me?”

  Katherine’s heart thudded painfully in her breast at Adrian’s words. She deeply sympathized with Adrian’s pain, but her own pain was clawing at her as she considered the possibility that he might lose this battle. “Adrian, let’s think before we rush into anything.”

  Sidney nodded. “A wise course of action. These storms take time to build and break…we have a couple of hours at least. Give me time to work up some kind of defense—a plan maybe that might stand a chance of success.” He laid his hand on Adrian’s arm. “Give me that much, my son. I need to know we’ve done all that we could. I should not be able to live with myself otherwise.”

  Katherine saw Adrian’s throat move as he swallowed. “You have done so much already, Father.” In an unashamedly emotional gesture, he put his arms around Sir Sidney and hugged him. “No one could have done more. If there’s a chance for us to defeat this evil, I know you’ll find it.” He turned his gaze to Katherine. “Take those hours. I will spend them with my wife.”

  For a split second, Katherine and Sir Sidney exchanged looks, and Katherine needed no words to read his message. It was time. Time for her to embark on the biggest adventure of her life, and the most difficult challenge.

  She had to persuade Adrian to feed.

  From her.

  The little group separated, Sidney going directly to his tomes and notes, and Adrian leading Katherine to their rooms. She made no demur, her mind busy with the job ahead of her. Somehow she had to overcome Adrian’s scruples and his fear that he’d hurt her.

  Somehow she had to seduce him into taking as much of her blood as he needed.

  And perhaps the key was in seducing him. The last time they’d shared droplets of each other’s blood had been during lovemaking. It was a time when Adrian’s resistance to her was low and his need for blood high.

  She could capitalize on these two facts perhaps—her thighs were damp at the thought before they’d closed the door behind them. Yes. It would work.

  It had to.

  *~*~*~*

  “I’m afraid.”

  Adrian wasn’t quite sure where that had come from, but it was the truth. He
was deeply and profoundly afraid.

  “I know. So am I.” Katherine came up behind him and hugged him. “But we are together. That means more than any of Sir Sidney’s potions.”

  He sighed. “I wish I had your faith in our combined strength.”

  She eased his jacket from his shoulders and slipped her hands around him to find his bare skin beneath his shirt. “It’s not our strength, Adrian. It’s our love. Our love that gives us not only strength, but courage. And fear. All these things work together and make us more than what we are apart.” She teased at his chest, raking him gently with her nails. “And it’s so much more than Thérèse could ever imagine. I doubt that she believes such a thing possible, let alone being prepared to face it.”

  Adrian sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

  She turned him and finished unbuttoning his shirt. “I’m sure I am. Just as I am equally sure…” Her fingertips found his nipples and played with them, scratching them gently until they beaded into hard peaks. “I am equally sure I have a husband who drives me wild.”

  He watched the blue fire in her eyes as she stripped his clothes from him, touching him with her lips, seducing him with little licks of her tongue, and smiling all the while.

  “Enjoying yourself?” His eyebrow rose as he grinned at her.

  “Immensely. Sit down.” She pushed him back on to the bed and dodged his arms as he reached for her. “Not yet, dear sir. I think you shall have to wait a little.”

  “Aaahh.” He recognized her intentions—to distract him from his fears and concerns. It probably wouldn’t work, but who was he to stop her from her fun? Perhaps she would find a measure of forgetfulness as well.

  “What next?” He folded his arms and waited.

  “Well…” She chewed her lower lip for a moment, then snapped her fingers. “Of course. Silly me. I need to undress.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  With great attention to detail, Adrian’s wife began a leisurely removal of her clothes. Button by button, lace by lace, agonizingly slowly, Kat divested herself of her garments. Adrian was hard as a rock before she’d shed her chemise, and when she did—leaving her clad only in stockings held above the knee by tied garters—he nearly lost control.

  She was beautiful in more ways than one. Her eyes shone with love and desire, her body moistened and scented the air as she lusted for him, and her lips were wet and swollen from the passage of her tongue seductively over them as she undressed.

  His wonderful, unpredictable mate was seducing him. And it was working. Extremely well.

  Adrian shifted on the bed, his cock a heavy throbbing length resting along one thigh. He saw Kat’s gaze drop to look at it, and once again that tongue swiped a path over those lips.

  His body responded, and silently Adrian parted his knees, giving her a better look.

  “Mmmm.” She sank down before him and gently took him in her hands.

  “Kat…you don’t have to…” His words stopped short as Katherine sucked him fully into her mouth and back as far as she could down her throat

  Heat flooded him, an unusual sensation that made him gasp. Every time they loved, he found more and more of his capacities returning. This was a slow sweep of desire that he could swear warmed his blood above its usual chilly temperature.

  His fangs responded to the sensual act, breaking free of his gums and lying hard on his lips. He did not try to hide them—Kat knew who and what he was. It was liberating to be able to enjoy her mouth like this and not pretend. Not fight for control nor feel the need to conceal his nature from her.

  Her tongue learned him, sucking hard then gentling the ridges and veins that rippled over his cock. She tasted the tiny drop of moisture he could feel oozing from the tiny slit and slicked her mouth over him with enthusiasm, making him groan and move with pleasure. Every now and again she dared to let her teeth scrape against his skin just for a second or two, adding a little almost-pain to the mix of sensual ecstasy she was creating.

  She ventured further, finding his balls with her hand and cupping them, holding them delicately and moving the sac as if weighing it. The twin sensations drove Adrian wild and he groaned once more. “Oh God, Kat…so good.”

  His head fell back and he closed his eyes, his entire world narrowed down to one woman, one mouth, one tongue.

  She took him to the brink—then stopped.

  Adrian gasped and panted and waited…waited for the next loving lick that he knew would send him over the edge.

  But it never came.

  He opened bleary eyes, tried to focus on her, and moaned. “Shit, Kat. What are you doing to me?”

  A light chuckle answered his words. “Driving you insane?”

  “It’s working.” He pushed himself up on his elbows, cock erect and glistening. “Take me, woman. Touch me. Climb on top of me and fuck me—God, do something. I’m begging you here…”

  Soft breasts rubbed over his bent knees, an erotic sensation he didn’t expect.

  “I want it all, Adrian. Everything you have.”

  “Put your mouth back where it was and you shall have it. That’s a promise I know I can keep.” He gritted his teeth at the mere thought.

  “That’s not enough.” She slid her body over him, being careful not to arouse him any more than she had already. His cock was free between them, hard and anxious now for release.

  “What more do you want, love? Name it. It’s yours.” He panted as her breasts grazed his chest and she straddled him, still holding her body high above that hard piece of flesh she’d loved so skillfully.

  “I want your trust, Adrian. I’m your wife. I want it all.”

  Slowly, oh-so-slowly, she slid her silky-slick sheath down onto his cock, wedding them in the perfect melding of male and female. It was a hot cradling of his body, a wet glove encompassing him and enfolding him fully within her.

  Amazingly, she sat on him, holding herself erect, and squeezed him with her inner muscles.

  He swore his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Jesus Christ Almighty, Kat.”

  “Mmm.” She grinned. “D’you like that? I do. It feels…good.”

  “Yessss…” He sighed as Kat began to move—too slowly. “Kat…faster, my love. Please…don’t torture me like this…”

  She laughed, a low seductive laugh that made Adrian want to rip into her and drink everything that she was.

  His hunger was building along with his need to explode within her. She was playing with fire and he wasn’t sure how long he could keep his personal damper over the chimney.

  “You can take it, Adrian.” She rode him at a leisurely pace, each downward thrust a deliciously agonizing tease of that which was to come.

  He reached for her, pushing her thighs wide and lifting his head to watch her pussy as it rose and fell on him. She was wet and swollen and pink, gleaming with her sweet honey.

  He licked his lips, feeling his fangs ache as he did so.

  Another lift—another drop, and he was so close to screaming he shuddered with the force of it, and yet she did not allow him the final moment, pulling herself away again with maddening skill.

  “Enough.” He cried out the word, barking harshly as his balls solidified beneath his cock and his body trembled with the onrush of his orgasm. “Enough Kat.”

  He rolled them both, strong limbs tumbling her pale flesh beneath him. He was lost in her scent, the feel of her and his need to take her, pound into her pussy until he spent his last drop.

  “Yes, Adrian, do it. Do it, my love.” She cried out too, words that made no sense until she grabbed his head at the last moment.

  He exploded inside her just as she thrust her neck into his mouth, his fangs scratching her skin and finally breaking through.

  “Drink, Adrian. Feed from me. ‘Tis the only way. I want this. I want all of you.” She clenched her inner walls around his cock, milking his seed. At the same instant she thrust her skin deeper onto his fangs letting her blood flow over them and into his mouth.
>
  He was totally unable to resist the lure of her body—or her sweetly wonderful blood.

  Adrian broke his promise to himself. He fed.

  On his wife.

  Chapter Twenty

  Katherine felt a split-second of exquisite agony and then her orgasm roared over her, coupled with the lightheaded and erotic sensation of Adrian’s fangs in her neck.

  She could feel him drinking, sucking from her and sending shivers of sensual lightning bolts to her breasts and her pussy. Her climax shattered her, propelling her into a vortex of pleasure where there were no boundaries, no dimensions—only colors and the mad bliss of release.

  She merged with Adrian in an inexplicable way, his feeding opening his thoughts and his heart to her as she opened her veins to him. They linked souls in that moment, and she felt the pulsations of his cock as clearly as if they were her own. She felt her own body as it clamped on him, and tasted herself as her blood flowed across his tongue.

  Her breasts swelled against his chest and her nipples were almost painful as her whole body tumbled through a massive spasm of sexual release. She wondered if she’d survive. If Adrian would be able to stop before the end.

  At that moment, she did not care. He could take what he needed to survive, to defeat the evil confronting them. He would be able to save more innocent souls. What did anything else matter next to that? And next to Adrian’s survival, hers was less than important. She realized in that instant how deeply she loved him.

  She was, quite literally, giving her life for him and to him.

  And it would appear he knew it. The moment his cock eased he tore his mouth from her with a cry from his heart that brought tears to Katherine’s eyes.

  “Nooooo…”

  “Yes.” She whispered the word as she fell limply back onto the bed, tired to her very core and weak now that he’d fed.

  “God fucking damn. What have I done?” Adrian pulled free of her body and dropped down beside her, lifting her in his arms and cupping her cheek. “Kat—why? Why did you let me?”