by Tiana Laveen
“There you go, my Love…”
When she rolled onto the ground, what felt like sharp broken glass sliced into her arms, but she kept listening for the arrows until she’d caught them all and placed them at her feet.
A dim light emerged in the darkness, revealing the man himself, dressed in thick armor. She hated how her body responded to him, even in her state of immense physical pain and the mind games he played with her. Her pussy throbbed inside her cotton panties and jeans, her nipples hardened, and her mouth salivated.
“You could have killed me. What if one went into my head?” She spoke in a loud voice, ensuring he heard her though he was still a distance away in the vast room.
“It wouldn’t have killed you. You’d have been quite uncomfortable and probably in need of a little reconstructive cosmetic surgery, but you wouldn’t have died.” His voice was slightly muffled beneath the helmet.
“How’d I do overall?” she asked as he now stood before her, towering like a metal mountain. “I know it started out rough, but I think that was pretty good, right?” Oddly enough, she found herself wanting his approval. It was the strangest thing.
He said nothing for several moments. What a getup he had on—the attire of a knight. A long, sharp sword hung on his right hip and he clutched several arrows in his hand. He set them down at her feet and removed his bascinet.
“You did all right.”
“All right? Yeah, okay.” She chuckled as she slumped down on the floor, taking a much needed breather. “Alexandre, I have some questions I need you to answer.” He looked as if he were not interested in her inquisition, but he sat down beside her. “What is all of this training about?” She threw up her hands. “I’ll admit, I came and agreed to stay here in your home because you promised discrete feedings, from donors no less. I was going to eat and run. I am still here though, because something inside of me is telling me that you are telling me the truth… that I need this. You said I could be in danger, that I’m not up to date to protect myself. What’s going on?”
“You’re not like many of your kind. That’s intriguing. I am not exactly certain why you’re not, Venus, but what I do know is some will want to experiment on you, while others will want to kill you out of jealousy or fear. Some will want to steal you away and claim you for their own. Others will want you dead because I want you…because you’ve caught the attention of a Count of my status.”
“You love bragging about yourself, don’t you?” She smirked as she flicked a piece of glass out of her flesh.
“I’m not bragging.” He had on a stern expression. “What I think about myself is irrelevant when it comes to public perception. This is how I am regarded in our world, Venus. I am one of the last of my kind, a dying breed. Not dying due to weakness, but due to stubbornness. I am trying to break that curse. With you.”
“Why are you so obsessed with me? I know about you now…”
The man leisurely leaned back, his eyes glowing. He lit a lantern and turned back to her.
“Let’s take this one step at a time. What do you think you know about me now?”
“I know that you’re highly sought after by women but have not committed to anyone, though it is expected of you. I know that you were supposed to be married over three years ago, and now the throne is in jeopardy. I know that you’re from France but have refused to leave New York. Why?”
“There are certain connections, a certain spark, as humans would say, chemistry, that a vampire of my magnitude looks for when selecting not a fuckbuddy, not a concubine, but a bride who will also be his mate. I have had fulfilling trysts with many females. I love to fuck, as we all do… Show me a celibate vampire and you will have found a needle in a haystack. I love a woman’s company. It began early on. When I was a young boy, I was assigned a sorcier.”
“A wizard…”
“Yes, you know French?”
“Some.”
“Good. That means teaching it to you will go much faster. You need to be fluent. Anyway, we’ll deal with that later. My sorcier was, for lack of a better word, like a caretaker for me… assigned to watch over me while my parents fought and went off to war. All members of my Coven are trained for combat, we’re born into it. That’s part of the reason why I am training you as well. No Queen marries without knowing how to properly physically defend the throne. Anyway, my sorcier told me, in secret, that I would meet my mate here in New York, my bride. He said it was imperative that I wait for her because my bloodline would depend upon it. Time went on, and I never found you. I began to secretly worry that he was mistaken and I’d wasted valuable time. Having an appropriate mate was very important not only to myself, but to my family. I have searched for you for so long, Venus, and now… I finally have you.”
His eyes grew lighter as he reached over and glided his fingers softly against her hand. She looked down, intrigued by his gentle touch. “I’m obsessed with you because you are beautiful. You’re resilient, smart, at times enchantingly silly, and full of lust. I’m fixated with your stubborn nature, and I can feel your attraction to me… it’s so strong. But you don’t feel as strongly about me yet as I do about you. That must change. Our connection, regardless of that, goes beyond the physical. I felt it as soon as we looked into each other’s eyes for the first time.”
“Like love…”
He looked at her as if he didn’t know what to make of her words, as if he were confused by such a suggestion. Could vampires love? She knew that she could, though she hadn’t felt love since before she was turned. But she remembered the feeling clearly… it was still within her. She did have a connection to this beast, this horrible tyrant. Something in him seemed to soften now when they were around one another. He’d let his guard down. He stopped using every opportunity to pry into her mind, to humiliate her, to make her bend to his whims. It was as if he was trying to sell himself, make her see what she could have and that, perhaps, he’d be willing to be what she wanted, if she agreed to stay with him.
She sensed loneliness… anger… hurt… desertion… pain.
“Alexandre, I was told that you can’t mate. You’ve been confusing me by calling me your mate, since that is a term typically used for those wanting offspring.”
The man chuckled then cracked his neck.
“Myths, fairytales, legends…” He shrugged. “Don’t believe the shit. The details are boring… like a history lesson.”
“I teach history. I’m here for it.”
She smiled at him and he smiled back. He stood to his feet and removed the suit of armor, one piece at a time, each part clanking to the ground until he ended up in only a pair of boxer briefs. He walked away, disappearing into the darkness for several seconds. When he re-emerged, he was wearing loose burgundy satin pants. His necklace beat against his hard, muscular chest with each step he took. His bare feet slapped against the cold, concrete ground as if they were made of steel. Sitting beside her once again, he raised one leg and had the other straight out.
“All right, I will explain this as simply as I can. There are many types of vampires, at least five different varieties, but the most notable are Pure Bloods, Turned, and Half Breeds.” He counted on three fingers.
“Yes, I know that. My mistress told me.”
He nodded. “All three categories go by a plethora of various names depending on where in the world they are located, but I will use the terms I just gave you as reference. Well, for whatever reason, your mistress didn’t tell you about the birds and the bees for our people.”
“No, she did, but there’s always more to learn.”
“Okay, here goes nothing: Pure Bloods are able to mate, Venus. You’re not the first turned human to believe otherwise. We just often have chosen not to do so since some believe they shouldn’t mate with anyone else who isn’t pure. That has resulted in centuries of incest, which of course doesn’t affect us intellectually, but it made our bonds weaker, meaning, outside genetics tend to make us stronger because we then incorporate
their powers and skills versus just recycling our own. Since we are in the minority, there isn’t much that is known about us, and misinformation gets spread in our community, but keeping firm to the belief that we should only breed with our own is what caused our numbers to fall even faster. It was a terrible choice if you ask me, but I was a youth at that time, and had no say. My grandfather was king then. Anyway, moving on.
“Female Pure Bloods can mate with another Pure Blood via intercourse, just as humans do. We all have dicks and pussies, ovaries, nutsacks that are fully functional and behave similarly to human and mammal reproductive constructs.”
“But I heard that Pure Bloods can’t have children with humans.”
“Well, that particular rumor has merit. If a Pure Bloodmates with a human, a male Pure Blood in particular, the human female has a high chance of dying during childbirth, if the sex act alone doesn’t kill her. It happens nevertheless from time to time, though a Pure Blood mating with a human isn’t ideal if it’s male to female, due to our strength and inability to control ourselves during mating targeted coitus and the subsequent climax. In other words, we fuck and cum hard when mating and the human female body isn’t built for that.”
“But you’ve fucked plenty of human women.”
“I have. But there’s a difference in fucking to impregnate, and fucking to just get off.” She nodded in understanding. “Also, there is a difference even in how we fuck human women and fellow vampires. It may look similar to a bystander, but it’s not. Also, I’m sure it goes without saying that all vampires, turned or Pureblood, can reproduce, so to speak, by biting a human with intent. Intent means, not biting to kill.” She nodded in understanding. “How we bite to feed versus to turn are completely different. To turn, we release a virus as well as a healing serum simultaneously.
“To feed, well… you already know. Another difference is we control our reproduction one hundred percent, unlike humans, Turned, and Half Breeds. Now, we can physically mate with another Pure Blood, and obviously that would have no consequences. In that case, we’d go forward similarly to any typical sexual encounter and conception. Turned Vampires such as yourself can mate with Pure Bloods, too. That’s a given or I wouldn’t have pursued you. The sex is still rough for the turned if she or he isn’t mentally prepared for it.” He held his hands up like scales. “It’s intense, for lack of a better word. There’s also a great power differential. Once you build your strength up, tap into it, which is another reason for this training—despite your basic survival skills which I’ll admit are impressive—you and I won’t have any issues.”
She smiled then burst out laughing.
“Now it makes sense. That’s why you haven’t fucked me.”
“Well, not exactly. You have to be ready, just like I said. You would handle a fucking right now with flying colors; breeding, not so much. I need you to be able to take both because if I fuck you and in the middle of it I sense you’re fertile, I can’t promise that I’d be able to control myself. To resist the chance to procreate right then and there with my mate, since I’ve already chosen you for my Blood Queen would be damn near impossible, especially when creating a first born. It’s totally biological at that point. Timing is everything though. This needs to go right. The last thing I want is to—” He stopped, unable to say it. Refusing to say it.
“What about Half Breeds like Whiskey?”
She gave him a way out and he jumped on it as fast as he could. God forbid he voice any words of love for her.
“Whiskey is my right hand. He’s a Half Breed, which are the offspring of humans and Turned Vampires, thus considered half human and half vampire, can mate with humans or other Half Breeds with no problem. Half Breeds sometimes have an almost uncultivated quality though. We cannot mate with them.” He pointed to himself. “We can fuck them, but there’s no successful reproduction to date between the two. Turned such as yourself are barely human anymore so the mating is usually successful. All right, glad I didn’t have to pull out an old dusty slideshow presentation with a bunch of hard cocks, vampire sperm, and eggs.”
He grinned slyly as he got to his feet. He reached for her hand, and she looked at his fingers. They were ghostly white… practically translucent. Protruding, knotted blue veins ran up and down them, and she could almost see the blood flowing through them. She took his hand and stood, kicking the arrows off to the side with a swipe of her foot.
ZOOM!
She fell to the ground, ducking when a bullet came barreling towards her. Racing to a corner, she looked all around her, listening to him laugh as he whizzed around in now complete darkness once again.
“You fucker!” She stood on guard, climbing up the wall in reverse. Her adrenaline kicked in… She was ready to play.
He’d stolen the stingy bit of light they’d had with a mere whisper in the lantern’s direction. They were shrouded in black.
“Awww, baby, don’t be pissed. All this talk of fucking and breeding got me horny!” He cackled. “Now… let’s see how many fucking bullets to the head you can dodge. Show me just how bad ass of a survivor you can be, Venus!”
The gun cracked, and a series of shots resounded all around…
CHAPTER SEVEN
Eat Your Heart Out
…Several weeks later
Alexandre sat opposite her at one end of the long white table, watching her indelicately jam her fork into a plate of salad in the dimly lit dining room. The pieces of Romaine lettuce and sliced tomato turned to mush between her gnashing teeth. He slumped back in his seat and glared up at the silver domed ceiling, rolling around a glass apple paperweight in his hand. One of his clients had given it to him as a gift. Seconds turned to minutes, and he was at his wits’ end. Her chewing drove him mad. He looked back down the table at her and sucked his teeth in displeasure. He rubbed down the side of his clean-shaven face and rested his hand there for a moment.
“If it bothers you so badly,” she stated around a mouthful of food, stabbing the plate to death as if she and the lettuce were in a duel, “put earmuffs or something on. I am eating as quietly as I can.” She swallowed, then started again, the horrible cycle continuing. Her full lips twisted to the left then right; her cheeks reminded him of a damn squirrel with a mouthful of nuts.
“You chew like a fucking camel.”
“Your mama chews like a fucking cow.”
“My mother is dead.”
“So is mine and so am I and so are you and your entire crew. Pass the motherfucking peas.”
He picked up the crystal bowl filled with peas and carrots over white rice and slid it down the long table. She managed to catch hold to it, even with her bandaged arm. There’d been an unfortunate incident with a black bear the day prior… They made a trip to the Catskills, in New York, for some hunting and camping out. She hadn’t fared so well when it came to the animal attack portion of her training. Once the big, beautiful creature sank its teeth into her shoulder and practically snatched the whole damn appendage off, she screamed out in pain and horror. He’d offered to assist, but as she bled profusely, the woman picked up the animal high in the air above her head and ripped it’s head off with her bare hands…
…And then she fell to her knees and cried.
These fucking human emotions would be the second death of her.
“Who’s your favorite artist of all time?” He clasped his hands together and smiled, while ‘Make It Wit Chu’ by Queens of the Stone Age played through the speakers. She scooped up a spoonful of the rice and vegetables and shoved it in her mouth, then took her time chewing it all up.
“Faith Ringgold.”
He reached for his freshly poured blood in a wine glass, took a sip, and set it down alongside the paperweight he’d been toying with.
“I’ve never heard of her. Is she a sculptor? Painter?”
“Painter. Quilter. Children’s book writer and illustrator. She’s from Harlem. She’s also an activist and was heavily involved with the African American Civil Rights Mo
vement of the 1960s, with a concentration on Black women’s liberation. Much of her work is very colorful and tells a tapestry of stories.”
He smiled at her words. “Nice pun. You’re naturally corny. It’s kinda cute.” He huffed, growing a bit bored.
“She’s an inspiration to me.” The woman dabbed at the sides of her mouth with a white linen napkin then set it back down.
“Why do you feel that you need to be inspired by someone, Venus? I never understood that about human nature. Why aren’t you people able to make your own choices? Move about on your own steam? Why do you need a predecessor? Someone leading the charge?”
“The same reason why your parents were Queen and King. Everyone needs someone to charge ahead, to teach them the ropes. That’s the reason I’m here, right?”
“Touché.” She kept on eating.
“I like how you think, Venus. It’s foreign to me… the way you construct ideas. It’s like your brain is full of artistic renderings of life. I’m a more linear thinker. I believe even if I were human, I would have been that way.” He shrugged. “It’s simply my personality type.”
“Maybe, but you’ll never know.” He sat there for several minutes deliberating on what she’d said. “Let’s reverse roles for a second.” He grabbed his napkin from his lap and slapped it onto the table. “I want you to train me on how to be a human.”
She smirked. “Why should I even bother? I thought you had that already down pat. We’re pathetic idiots, right? Just imagine a snail trying to make it down the opposite end of a street in rush hour traffic. That’s a person in your eyes… a human being destined for continuous acts of stupidity. One after a-fucking-nother.”
“Not necessarily. It’s obvious that you still need that connection. You’re sitting here eating their food still for God’s sake. You hang out with them. You insisted on going to work, even during your training with me, stating that the students needed their tests handed back and you had a duty to teach. I enjoyed watching you, by the way. You seem to have a really good time.”