by Multiple
The first bite was crisp and raw as it surged into him. Virgin’s blood. Fanton’s eyes widened with relish as Adam’s hands fisted in his hair and he moaned with compelling sounds. Fanton embraced Adam more, deepening the bite and draw of his lips. He was surprised to find his cock was hard as pretty, pretty Adam’s neck arched to his feeding.
Chapter Thirteen
Trinity slept most of the day and when he woke, he was disturbed at where his thoughts in his resting state had concentrated. Beth.
“She’s a silly little virgin,” he growled, pushing his muscular body off the cold pallet he’d rested on. The heavy drapes in his bedchamber were closed, making the room lightless. He didn’t need his night vision to move about the room, knowing where each piece of furniture was. The room held a large bed, but most days he preferred the pallet. Old habits were hard to change. He also rested naked. The beast that was a part of him somehow found clothing too confining. When he stood his hard erection jutted freely.
Normally, he’d attend to it with his hand. He knew that wouldn’t be enough this time. If he was going to excise the memories of a full-figured, soft virgin from his mind, he’d better find another woman to bury his shaft into.
An hour later, after a vigorous training regimen, he’d bathed, thrown on some clothes, and he was coming down the grand staircase, when he heard a bellow from within the depths of the mansion. “Second brother, attend me!”
Trinity nearly continued on, ignoring his eldest brother’s command. However, he knew Church would hunt him down. Church was the first turned into a vampire and the strongest of their brood. While all of them were forced to do many vile things under the control of their Sire, Church had seen the worst of it. Their stepfather had kept Church as his only subservient vampire for years, before he’d drained the next brother. Church didn’t reveal much of what happened those years, but he’d become the first day walker of the brothers during that time.
That meant Church had bitten and drank from the blood of another vampire after it had freshly fed. Years later, after they’d killed their Sire, Church had made each of them drink his blood, until they all had the ability. The brothers held the secret close because many of the vampire brethren would like to know how to accomplish day walking.
Trinity continued down the mahogany stairs, and then he turned toward the ballroom where Church’s voice had emanated from.
“You’ve forgotten the ball haven’t you?” Church frowned with clear irritation the moment Trinity stepped into the ballroom, which was alive with activity.
Trinity arched an eyebrow at Church. “This week?” he guessed.
“Next,” Church snapped. He added, “If I didn’t work so hard to keep up appearances, the lot of you would be in cold graves with stakes through your …” Church stopped his lecture obviously realizing the company of servants they were in. Some servants were setting up chairs, while others were on high ladders hanging flowing white panels of airy material.
“White?” Trinity offered, for Church’s efforts.
“Damn things have to have a theme.” Church exhaled a breath with obvious annoyance.
“Snow”? Trinity guessed.
“Blast no,” Church uttered. “Angels.”
Trinity nearly laughed, and that surprised him as he caught sight of a burly servant hoisting none other than a replica of an angel high up toward the ceiling.
“You know, Church, all of us are very grateful for your single-minded efforts.” Trinity tried to keep the smirking of his lips to a minimum.
“You don’t mean a word of it.” Church’s voice was a growl as he set down an empty champagne glass on top of a long bar set up in the ballroom. “This really needs a woman,” he muttered, turning to face him. “I’m afraid if one of us doesn’t take a bride soon, the speculation about us will become entirely too intense.”
“You cannot be serious.” Trinity’s spine stiffened. “Can’t we just be reclusive lords?”
Church motioned for him to follow away from the servants’ hearing. They ended up in the anti-room to the ballroom, where Church stopped and turned to him. “The lady mothers of this decade, who are looking for suitable husbands for their daughters, are too scrutinizing, Trinity. They meddle and inquire about everything.”
“We could try another failed engagement,” Trinity offered. “Baptiste’s worked out well a decade ago with that lovely countess from France.”
“Do you want to have to leave here and start over?” Church demanded.
Trinity grimaced. They both knew there were too many reasons they needed to stay in London. One of those reasons was the growing and untamed vampire population. Vampires might be predators of man, however, many men banded together could easily make vampires extinct.
“So we have a problem.” Trinity said finally with a grim slant of his lips.
“One of a growing list,” Church replied, looking just as menacing. He relaxed his wicked glare, bringing a hand up to rub his neck. “So, report to me,” he muttered.
“I wasn’t able to track the murderer,” Trinity said. “Yet,” he added.
“I believe the virgin’s blood clouded our abilities to detect him,” Church said.
Trinity clamped his jaw tight, unwilling to speak about Beth. “You think it’s a vampire?”
Church nodded. Trinity raked a hand through his dark striped blond hair. He was not ready to say it was a vampire. Not the way the bodies were ripped apart.
“How’s the young woman?” Church asked with a curious glint in his rich, blue eyes.
“She will recover,” Trinity supplied, not adding anything more.
The two of them eyed each other, Church obviously looking irritated at the curt answer. He sighed. “What about what she said of us … of you, Trinity?” His voice was tight as though he was keeping his temper in check.
Trinity turned, looking out into the ballroom, wondering why he felt such a need to keep Beth and his interactions with her to himself, as he said, “She will come to think it was her imagination.” He paused. “Who would ever believe her?”
“Then it will be a wise move to invite her to our ball, so she can see us as just normal gentlemen.” Church’s black eyebrows rose against the shock of white hair on his forehead. Trinity whipped around toward him with a foul growl mounting in his throat. Church added, “This simple human woman, whom you can sense at great distances.”
Trinity’s fist clenched. Church was baiting him to some unknown end that only Church could see. However, he didn’t intend to see Lady Winslow again. His brother would just have to live with that fact.
“I’m going to see Cull,” Trinity’s voice snarled. “See if he lost another whore.”
Church didn’t stop him as he turned and left the mansion, which should have made him wonder, but he was too tightly wound to consider it. He knew Cull would not be out in the early evening light. Cull wasn’t a day walker and Cull would very much like to discover how to become one. However, the Blacknall brothers were all mute on the subject. Therefore, Trinity knew he’d find Cull in the darkest corners.
Where he did find Cull was in a candle-lit room laying under an ample-figured whore. They lay upon a groaning feather mattress. Bouncing actually. Trinity raised an eyebrow as the red lace curtains fluttered when he entered the room. He’d never have believed Cull would enjoy being dominated. However, that’s all it could be called, seeing the naked and rotund woman heaving over Cull, who was tied to the bedposts by his wrists. The hearty woman was slapping Cull’s red face, calling him belittling names, as she demanded that he fuck her harder with …
“Your puny little cock!” The tart was not even a vampire.
“Unbelievable,” Trinity muttered.
The woman was too involved to hear his remark. However, Cull’s sharper hearing caught it right away. Even as involved as he was. “Bloody hell, who’s there?” Cull exclaimed, trying to see around the large curves of the bouncing woman. “Stop, Rose! Bloody well, stop fucking, will you?
Someone’s here!”
Trinity leaned a shoulder against the wall watching Rose’s buttocks gyrate. She seemed un-inclined to halt her vigorous intent. He picked up Cull hissing urgently at her. “Untie me, ya damn bitch, or I’ll rip your neck out!”
“Don’t do it, Rose,” Trinity’s voice flung sharply across the room. Rose’s heavy undulations ground to a halt as he stepped forward, baring his fangs and letting the predator’s yellow glint fill his eyes.
Rose screeched as Cull bucked beneath her, cussing and trying to better threaten her into untying him. Trinity supposed the loose vampire won out over the bound one, and Rose lumbered off Cull to clutch her opulent nude body unsuccessfully with her arms and hands.
“Out!” Trinity snarled, stomping one foot forward.
Rose bolted as best she could with her obese size, and then he turned, leaping onto the bed, standing over Cull.
“Fucking cunt!” Cull screamed, twisting his wrists violently against the leather straps, made just for the purpose of holding someone prisoner to the bed. Cull’s eyes turned into glowing red diamonds with fear and anger as he hissed upward, trying to use his legs to push him away.
“I saw that last night,” Trinity hissed, ignoring Cull’s futile attempts as he lowered to a crouch, and he grasped Cull’s agitated chin.
“Seen what?” Cull heaved over his distended fangs and the clamp on his jaw.
“Red glints in the woods,” Trinity charged, planting his other hand into Cull’s chest and shoving down hard. “Be still,” he ordered sharply.
Cull grunted several times before stopping most of his body’s bucking motions. “You’re nearly sitting on my cock, Blacknall,” he spat.
Trinity snapped Cull’s head to the side, exposing his neck as he snarled and bared his fangs lowering his mouth for a ripping shot.
“No!” Cull screeched. “Please, Master, I’ll be good. I’ll be good.”
Trinity stopped, holding Cull arched, as he spoke. “Another woman slaughtered in the woods last night, Cull.”
“No,” Cull rasped beneath the hard stretch of his neck.
“Are you missing any more whores?” Trinity asked.
“No,” Cull’s strained voice echoed. “I don’t know. Been here.”
“I saw the eyes of a vampire in the woods,” Trinity muttered.
A newly turned vampire began its transformation with just a red glint in its eyes. The longer it lived, and the more it fed, expanded the red in its irises, until they were full red like Cull’s when aroused with emotion. It took many decades and blood to turn a vampire’s eyes fully red, which meant the red glints he’d seen suggested a more recently turned vampire. Only day walkers, such as the Blacknalls, had yellow eyes with hints of red slashed in their centers.
“You couldn’t smell him?” Cull asked.
The question itself was innocuous. It was a logical progression. However, there was something in Cull’s tightening posture and the tone of his voice that caught Trinity’s attention.
“No, I couldn’t,” he answered, releasing Cull’s neck to watch his face.
“Strange,” Cull muttered, but his face said otherwise. It revealed that Cull was very pleased.
“Yes.” Trinity’s eyes narrowed. “A vampire, yet one that cannot be scented.” Although, he’d detected a faint scent at the Row Street murder scene. Even then, he should have been able to smell the bastard better. Vampire … or not.
Then it came to him, with awareness so forceful, he nearly revealed its arrival on his face. What power would another vampire hold if it could move about and not be traced by other vampires? Not trailed by the Blacknall brothers …
“What are you up to?” Trinity demanded, snarling fiercely at Cull.
Cull started to sputter and lie. Trinity reached for a short sword that must be Cull’s, on the bedside table. Within one aggressive motion, he stood and swung the sword downward toward Cull’s neck.
“No!” Cull screamed.
Trinity stopped the blade’s edge just at the edge of Cull’s neck. “I heard a rumor!” Cull cried out.
“And?” Trinity asked in a hissed utterance.
“One blood claimed that he could …” Trinity’s gaze suddenly leapt to the east. “Watch the edge of that blade,” Cull yelped.
Trinity ignored the fact that he’d cut the side of Cull’s neck as he jumped off the bed and he let the sword drop to the floor with a clatter.
“Where are you going?” Cull exclaimed. “You can’t just leave me like this!” he screamed.
But he could, and he did.
Beth …
Chapter Fourteen
Trinity leapt off his galloping stallion before it reached a full stop. Beth had been in danger … terrified. He’d felt the jolt of it at Cull’s. Yet since that first peal of fright … nothing. His boots attacked the ground running. His last sense of her placed her well behind the mansion that she resided in. The reason he couldn’t feel anything about her now threw fear through him.
Why not inside the mansion? He looked from a dry creek bed up to the back of the mansion in the distance as he ran. Why was there no sense of her? He was afraid it meant she was dead … He didn’t understand his ability to feel her fear. It could be corrupt or false, but he didn’t stop.
His sharp gaze pierced the darkness and clinging fog. On the grass just before the trees, his acute vision caught sight of a pale limb. He turned toward it, scanning the area for danger. Whatever brought Beth to this spot appeared to be gone.
“Maiden, be alive,” he whispered with desperation that was foreign to him, as he landed over her crumpled form. The fog and sweat drenched his long hair, making it cling in chunks against his shoulder as he went down on one knee over Beth. She lay on her side and she looked naked wearing just a thin gown that was wet with the night dew and painted to her lush curves. Her coal black hair was so long it covered her face and clung to the mound of her breasts. Her arms were outstretched, as though she’d been blindly running and fallen where she lay.
He felt wretchedness he’d not felt in decades seize his chest. No. He scooped her upper body toward him, bringing her to his chest, shoving the grasping hair away from her face. She moaned and he felt her lips move against his chest. The agony sprang free from unnamed pain into overpowering relief.
“Maiden,” he uttered hoarsely.
“Trinity?” Her hot breath warmed his chest. “I prayed you’d come, even as I knew I shouldn’t.”
“What danger?” he asked, amazed at the strength she held to deny the craving for his blood that had to have its demand on her.
“It w-was,” she stuttered.
Beth couldn’t name all the reasons why she hesitated to tell Trinity the revelations about her stepbrother. Shame being one of the strongest making her reluctant. “A horrible nightmare,” she said, lying with a trembling voice. “I-I dreamt of being chased.”
He shifted her body, lifting her upright, and she clasped her hands to his shoulders, leaning her head back to look up at him. She was acutely aware of the promise of his blood so close to her lips. The excitement and heat of desiring it flowed through her as Trinity’s wide hand settled on the slope of her waist. She could feel each of his long fingers as if they touched her skin. A sound rose from her throat like a low moan of longing.
“Are you hurt?” he asked as long strands of his damp hair clung to her cheek.
“No,” she said. “But, how did you know …”
“I don’t know, Beth,” he responded, with mild yellow glows circling his irises. She’d seen them full yellow in color. “I felt your fear.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Yet she wasn’t sorry at all. Hearing her name on his lips was like a caress.
He shook his head slightly at her apology, but no words came with it, only his gaze lowered to look at her mouth, while his hand moved down to the curve of her hip, then stroked upward again.
In that instant, she saw the lengthening of his front teeth into sharp fang
s. Shocking and so close as she’d not be able to deny their existence. She quivered with a gasp. “Will you bite me?” she asked, afraid, but confused at the partial hopeful feelings that rose inside her.
“You are temptation beyond temptation, maiden.”
His voice was a low rumble, but the inflection of his words was strange over the thickness of his fangs. He raised his hand not supporting her to brush the hair from her temple. “We are stronger than our urges,” he said, and she nodded slowly to him. He looked from her lips to her eyes. “You seem to have found your strength.”
Beth looked at the vein in his wrist quickly, then back to his transfixing eyes. “I’m not so certain,” she whispered, clenching her fingers into his strong shoulders.
His hand continued to brush the hair from her face. “The craving is there, yet you are not crazed because of it.”
It was true, yet this close to him it was so much harder. “Will it go away?” she asked.
He sighed settling his hand on the side of her neck. “I don’t know. With time apart, for you, I hope so.” For reasons she couldn’t name, she didn’t care for the implication she knew was coming from his lips, as he said, “Maiden, this must be the last time we see each other.” Then, she knew why she had the awful feeling …
“No!” she cried, shamefully throwing herself upward against him. She understood he spoke the truth, yet she couldn’t stand it. She expected him to push her away. Instead, he put his arms around her holding her within a tight embrace as her tears fell against his collarbone.
Tremors ran through Trinity’s body. He’d not felt the like of them since he’d been beneath his sadistic stepfather’s control. The slight tremors were not of fear … pain, yes … and definitely the temptations of blood and a soft curving body. More he couldn’t put a name too. Yet before the thought caused him caution, he stroked his hand downward as his mouth lay pressed to the warmth of Beth’s fragile neck.
One rounded bottom cheek filled his hand. He squeezed, feeling the heaviness of Beth’s barely clad breasts against his chest. Her curving, ripe figure was made for his desire and he wanted to stroke every inch of her. What was it about this woman? Her body was as cold as his was against the stroke and kneading motions of his hand. He should stop. He didn’t. He should push away from her temptation … he didn’t.