“No, please don’t do this. No. No.” he begged, but his life was no more to William than as if he were killing a fly. He brutally pulled Aidan to him and sank his fangs into hollow of his neck. As the warm, viscous liquid made its way down William’s throat, everything he needed to know about his prey – who he had been, the life he had led - was made known to him.
William knew then that this was not the first woman he had done this to, nor would it have been the last. He could do nothing for those other poor souls, but tonight he was their avenger, their angel of death. He felt Aidan’s heart weakening and then his legs gave way as his soul left his body and went to meet his maker.
William tossed the body aside carelessly, and for the first time he looked into the girl’s eyes as she huddled against the wall in an effort to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible. She was crossing herself repeatedly, reciting some prayer in a vain attempt to summon her Lord and Savior to release her from the monster before her.
Unfortunately for her William had tasted blood and while it had somewhat satisfied his desire for annihilation, he was thirsty for more.
While some vampires will say that all blood tastes the same, William felt that was because they had never taken the time to learn to savor the various complex flavors of each person as the blood flowed into their mouths. Over the years he had learned that fear created a more metallic taste, while lust made the blood thicker, sweeter, warmer, and infinitely more satisfying.
William felt the tinny essence of the boy’s blood to his core and he wanted something honeyed and intoxicating to replace it. He reasoned with himself that Jessica would never be the same after what she had experienced and witnessed, her fragile mind damaged beyond repair. He told himself with no sense of guile behind his words that the only thing that would bring either of them any peace was for him to soothe her mind and fears as he took her life.
“Shhhh, shhhh, it’s going to be okay now. He won’t hurt you anymore,” William whispered as he crouched down in front of her, moving her face up to look at him. “I’ve saved you, it’s all over.”
William stared at Jessica, willing her to let go of her fear and to trust and believe in him. As he hypnotized her with his eyes and his softly spoken words of comfort, William felt her begin to relax and forget why she was in the dark alley in the first place.
“Here, stand up. Look at me please.”
William knew that she found him beautiful. They all did. As she stared at him, he could see his scent working its preternatural magic. Despite her recent trauma, the girl began to wonder what it would be like to kiss him, to make love to him.
“You’re so beautiful, you know,” he told her, knowing that she needed the reassurance nearly as much as he wanted her blood.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you all night, you precious thing,” he lied.
Jessica was well under William’s spell and would have given him anything he wanted from her, but he only asked that she want and desire him. It was torture for him not to take her right away, but he wanted to give her some pleasure before the pain, and as it was in his power to send her to a happy death, he would give her that much for the undeniable gift she was giving him in turn.
William leaned in and kissed her throat – lightly, delicately – while he moved his hands up to caress nipples that were standing on end, inviting him to suckle. He pulled away briefly to look in her eyes to reinforce his spell, urging her to enjoy the moment for what it was – a highly erotic fantasy come to life – before he laid claim to her life force. He kissed his way down her throat, feeling her heart beat against his lips, before resting his face between her breasts, drawing in her scent. William kissed each heavy mound tenderly and reverently, hearing her blood pumping faster as she became even more aroused.
Since he had decided to go through with this monstrous, horrific act, he wanted the both of them to enjoy the fruits of his labor. He reached down and moved his hand up and under her skirt, lightly cupping the mound hidden under lace panties that had become soaked with yearning. He pushed the fabric aside and parted her folds slowly, sliding one cold, long finger into the warm, wet crevice between her legs. Her breathing had become even shallower as she begged him to finish what he’d started.
William wouldn’t, but she didn’t need to know that.
He slipped another finger inside and began moving in and out of her ever so slightly. Her hips bucking energetically in response was almost more than he could endure. William fought the urge to do more as he continued sucking on her breasts, his fingers exploring the entrance to her soul.
He looked up to see that Jessica’s eyes were shut tightly, her face flushed with a desire that was consuming her. Her chest was rising and falling as she gasped for breath, sobbing with need. For some inexplicable reason, William felt the need for her to come even more than he wanted her blood, and he knew that he could delay his satisfaction to ensure that she had hers. He kissed his way down her body, slowly lowering himself to his knees in front of her. Tracing his hands up her shaking body, leaving goose bumps in their wake, he pulled down her panties and then buried his face in the warm folds of her flesh for a long, languorous kiss.
“Please, please, please …” she whispered repeatedly, begging for release.
As William slipped his tongue into her, he tasted the nectar of her womanhood and it was exquisite. He sucked and nibbled until she was battering his face with her hips, but he never wavered in his ministrations. He cupped her rear with his hands and held her to his face as forcefully as he could without breaking her bones. Her breathing labored and erratic, William felt the first pulse of her release on his tongue as Jessica’s orgasm wracked her body and she cried out in rapture.
Before she could come down from her euphoria and become cognizant of what was happening, William dragged his face away from the hot fissure between to sink his bared fangs into her femoral artery. As her orgasm continued to elicit shocks of pleasure throughout her body, he drank in her candied blood as it drained into his mouth and down his throat. He tasted her longing and passion as he heard her weakly, but repeatedly, thank him for the exquisite pleasure she’d just received.
Before long the girl was dead and William was sated. He was at peace with what he had done, sending her to her death having forgotten the horror of what had befallen her earlier in the night, thankful to the man who had shown her a pleasure she’d never known possible before.
He rearranged her clothes, stood up and placed her body against the wall, and then walked out of the alley, never looking back.
CHAPTER 12
William was moody and brooding for the next several days and he would have preferred not to remember the events that had transpired in that Dublin alley. He told himself that the boy had deserved his fate and that the girl had died while experiencing the most exquisite pleasure she could ever have imagined. Because of him, she would never be faced with having to remember her vicious, humiliating rape, or having to live out the hell that came afterward for most victims.
However, despite his internal protestations, William was still angry with himself for needing that outlet in the first place. His recent actions had also forced him to remember all of the other unjustified murders he’d committed over the centuries, going all the way back Ceara. Remembering his, lovely, spirited, warm-hearted wife was more painful now than it had been just months prior. Recalling everything he had loved about her brought such exquisite sorrow and pain, especially if he thought about what could have been had he not acted on his savage desires.
The morning he had been made a vampire, he and Ceara had joyously made love on the riverbank hoping that it would result in the child they’d wanted so desperately for the entirety of their marriage. Later that evening William was to meet with some other men from the village to discuss their strategy for protecting their lands and families from a coming assault they’d heard whispers of.
Sadly, William hadn’t made it to the gathering that night. Instead he ha
d been caught unawares, pulled from his horse only a mile away from the castle. His assailant’s approach was done stealthily; William was given no warning and during the attack, the fiend offered no reason or explanation for what he was doing. Despite William’s emphatic attempt to escape from his captor, he had been ripped from his horse and tossed to the ground as if he weighed nothing. Tearing William’s clothes from his struggling body, his assailant sank jagged fangs into him repeatedly, sending searing, venomous pain shooting into William’s neck, wrists, the inside of his arm, his groin, and then down to his ankles and feet. It was only later – after the change – that William realized he had been bit in all of the places connected to major and minor arterial veins.
As the poison spread through his body, the pain became more than excruciating. As he lay in agony, the only thing that made the pain even remotely bearable was the thought of Ceara and her beautiful smile. Also, somehow knowing that the fiendish monster wasn’t trying to kill him helped settle his fear. Had William’s death been his aim, the fiend could have easily killed him many times over. William told himself that he just needed to get through the horrific pain and then he could return home to Ceara. Everything would be okay then.
In the midst of his litany, William felt a warm, thick liquid trickling down into his mouth from above. Suddenly he was parched, and the spicy, viscid fluid was the only thing that could quench his thirst. Later – he could never say precisely how much later – as the change took hold, his thoughts of Ceara went from loving and tender to obsessive and hungry. Her lingering scent on his skin became torture, the pink of her cheeks an invitation to feast.
William went from thinking how much he longed to return home to the warmth of her embrace to how much he wanted – no, needed – to drink from her. He pictured himself draining the blood from her body, taking her beauty and vitality into to his own as she died in his arms. William could feel the venom pooling in his mouth as he wondered, obsessed over, what her blood would be like as it coated his mouth and cascaded down his throat. He envisioned her struggling to escape his demonic clutches, as she screamed and sobbed his name and it both excited and repulsed him. He grew rigid thinking of the physical struggle that would ensue – after all, Ceara was never one to give up without a fight – and how he would ultimately prove the victor, conquering her intense spirit, making her fully his both in body and soul.
It had been thinking of Ceara in such a profane and vulgar way that had finally brought William to his senses and made him realize the insidious directions that his thoughts had taken. Of course he’d heard the legends of men who sucked their victims dry of blood – they all had during those times – but he had never given them much credence. But now William knew - as assuredly as he knew his name - that he had become one of those creatures of the night. In his un-beating heart, he acknowledged with only a small bit of trepidation that not only did he thirst with a hunger so intense as to bring him to madness, but also that the thirst required nothing less than Ceara’s blood. It aroused and repulsed him in equal measure.
The night following his disappearance, William had stalked the castle for hours, staring at the candlelight flickering behind stained glass windows. On the one hand, with the last vestige of his mortal conscience he wanted Ceara to stay inside, safe from the creature he’d become, and yet his vampiric nature demanded her blood in supplication. His fractured mind warred with itself. He willed Ceara not to look out and see him, while alternately hoping that she would feel his presence and come out to meet him. Only then would he be able to put the terrible, aching thirst to rest. Even though he knew with every last shred of his humanity that it was wrong to want her in that way, William couldn’t resist her allure now any more so than he could while he had been alive.
Human or monster, he had to have her.
For hours William had fought with his subconscious, asking himself what he would do if she were to see him and then rush outside to check on his safety. Would he drink from her until he felt the life rush from her dead, cold body? Even though it was extremely difficult for him to concentrate beyond the thirst that was at the forefront of his mind, William considered what it would mean if he did to Ceara that which had been done to him. He convinced himself that if she were to become a vampire as he had that they could stay together forever, drinking their fill of the world side by side. But the ugly truth of the matter was that he didn’t know how to change her, aside from the bites.
As he stood there, contemplating everything he knew to be true, he heard a voice in his head – that of his sire, the fiend – telling him all the reasons why his plan could never be.
She’ll resent you forever and your love will be torn asunder. You’ll take from her the ability to love and live as a normal human woman. If you do this thing that you are considering, you steal her chance to bear children, the one thing she wants most in this world.
Perhaps it had been his emotional fragility or naiveté about what was happening to him, but at the time William had attributed the thoughts to his own subconscious, not that of a maker who had wanted William for himself, his attentions not to be divided. In those hours William resolved that he would not turn Ceara into a vampire to live by his side; he vowed to cease stalking her and instead leave the area with his sire so that instead of giving in to his new obsession he could devote his energies to learning all there was to know about what he had become. His maker – through their telepathic connection – had convinced him that Ceara was too bright a flame and that she would never bow to William as her maker. He left the castle grounds that night starving for blood, the ache in his gums as intense as a flame on bare skin.
Despite a conscious desire not to do so, the next night William returned once again to stand in the shadows outside the keep, hoping that Ceara wouldn’t sense his presence. That’s what he told himself at any rate. In truth, he had fervently hoped that she would look out and see him so that his torture would end. He had decided that he would either try to make her a vampire or he’d do what his new nature was telling him to do – he’d feast on her like nothing more than a piece of bloody meat. Several hours later he left, Ceara having remained safe inside the castle walls.
After several nights of his stalking – during which time he came to realize that nothing less than her blood coursing through his veins would suffice – his wish finally came true. He arrived at the castle grounds to see that Ceara was standing atop the parapet, looking out over a landscape dulled by the darkness of night. He knew the moment she had seen him staring back up at her, and as he had known she would, Ceara ran inside, down the castle stairs, and out into the field calling his name.
After days of waiting William’s first instinct – a remnant of his human self – was to rush to her side and cradle her in his arms. Almost immediately another part of him remembered that he was no longer human and with that realization came an uncontrollable, animalistic urge to devour her. Time seemed to stand still as William slowly made his way into the moonlit meadow, his resolve weakening as Ceara’s scent wafted over him. He could feel the venom pooling in his mouth but he squelched it as best as he could, reminding himself that the woman before him was Ceara, his Ceara, and not some animal come to slaughter.
As she had approached, William could sense that she saw – knew – there was something different about him. The faint white glow of his preternatural skin and the new grace with which he moved told her that all was not right. William hadn’t yet learned to pick out thoughts from those around him so hadn’t been entirely sure what she had thought of him but he hadn’t needed any telepathic ability to know that she was terrified. It was written plainly on her face.
“Liam, what have you done? What have you become?” she asked in a small, fragile voice, scared to express her fears too loudly.
“What do you think you see, my love?” he responded, barely able to hold back the monster that lurked within.
“You don’t look well. Are you sick, Liam? What has happened to you?”
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William knew that she had wanted with all of her soul to think that he had come down with some nefarious infection and not the real, true malady that he suffered from.
Perhaps if he could have kept her from coming too close, if only he could have convinced her to keep her distance, William would have been able to say goodbye to his dearest wife before harm fell. In all the long years of his vampire life, William wondered if he could have stepped back into the shadows and left her forever … if only Ceara hadn’t thrown herself into his arms. At first he had been able to resist her, but then she started planting sweet little kisses all over his face as she cried both tears of sorrow and joy.
“I don’t care what you are Liam. I don’t care what has happened to you. All I care about is that you’re here with me now,” she whispered to him as they stood embracing one another in the warm summer air.
William knew that Ceara had really believed her words and for the briefest of moments he thought he could give in to her pleas. But then the air shifted and her scent flooded his brain, her heartbeat became the primal music of a thousand drums, and it was too much for his young vampire nature to endure.
William kissed her goodbye – fiercely – that one last time and then sank his fangs into her long, slender white neck, taking his lover, his wife, into him for all eternity. When it was over, when his winsome Ceara lay dead in his arms by his own hand, William screamed a guttural, primordial sound that rivaled even the wildest beast’s anguish.
CHAPTER 13
At the end of each long, grueling night spent working on the castle, William turned his attention to reviewing the long list of unanswered emails that had accumulated in his inbox before retiring for his day’s slumber. One night as summer threatened to give way to autumn, he found among them further inquiries to tour his castle from the American author, Olivia Donnelly. William groaned aloud. When his ignoring her hadn’t deterred her, he had meant to ask Seamus to respond to her, emphatically, in the negative.
A Time Apart: Book One of The Macauley Series Page 10