by Ranae Rose
He responded wordlessly, driving himself into her deeply and quickly, sending her climax to a higher peak than she’d expected. Moaning, she fought the urge to writhe beneath him, wrapping her arms around his neck and arching her body against his as she lifted her hips instead. He thrust into her, delving her channel with the hard length of his erection. Her core tightened around his shaft in response, trying to push him to the same heights he’d taken her to. He grunted, giving her every inch of his cock. She gasped with each stroke, clinging to him as her body tensed and tightened beneath him, every last bit of it burning with an ecstasy that threatened to choke the breath out of her as it compelled her to cry out.
He rode out her climax, punctuating her pleasure with deep, generous strokes until she wilted beneath him, letting her arms tumble from around his neck to lay limp at her sides. “Better than anything I ever dreamed of,” he growled, lowering his head so that his lips brushed her ear. “Feeling your body trying to milk my pleasure out of me like that…” He flexed his hips again with a grunt. The sudden thrust elicited a last wave of toe-curling sensation, causing her core to tighten around his cock again as she gasped. “I could die happy, if I wasn’t immortal.”
He pumped himself into her with mounting tension, cradling her between his arms. Muscles strained in his forearms as he gripped her shoulders and pressed his lips against hers in a wild, tongue-seeking kiss. She let him ravage her mouth, stroking his tongue with hers when she had the chance. Below, her body sparked with sensation, left even more sensitive than before in the wake of her orgasm. His cock felt harder than ever, unyielding against her softer flesh. She braced herself when he gasped and ended their kiss, pounding his hips against hers. She willed her core to tighten, embracing his cock and inviting him to spill himself inside her. Heat filled her channel as he moaned, finishing in a burst of passion.
Minutes slipped by before he withdrew from between her thighs, punctuated by the steady ticking of the clock on the mantle above the fireplace. Relaxing on the mattress beside her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against his chest. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you when it’s dark and show you exactly what being a vampire means.”
Chapter 11
A light breeze swept over the fields, whistling through the grass. It sent the ends of Elsie’s loose hair fluttering around her waist as the wind combed through the roots and over her skull like a pair of cool hands. The dull ache of sun exposure from that morning was gone, banished by the dark in a way the tea hadn’t quite been able to replicate. She took a deep breath, marveling at the amazingly clear scents of the countryside, including the juicy aroma of a distant apple orchard. The stars sprinkled throughout the inky sky were all the illumination she needed to see clearly. Though the moon was waning, only the sky was black. The world looked as if it had been draped in purple tulle, tinting everything the color of twilight. It was such a contrast to the human vision she’d always known that she blinked, as if the lavender landscape was a fluke and might suddenly fade to black.
Damon took her hand, folding it inside his as he stood beside her, peering out over the otherworldly country scene that stretched behind the house. His fingers felt like silk gliding over her skin, bringing a heat that quickly spread throughout her body, igniting her sense of touch. The energy she’d felt zinging through her veins just moments before suddenly seemed paltry in comparison to the fire that swept through them now. Something was wrong. Or rather, it had been until now. Until just a few minutes ago, when Damon had woken her from sleep, she’d never lived. “So, this is what it feels like to be alive.”
Damon laughed, squeezing her hand. “No. This is what it feels like to be undead.”
“Is it always like this?”
“At night. It’s different during the day. Until the sun sets, we’re much like humans. Our bodies are not especially strong, and we’re wracked with pain if we step into the light. But at night…” He sighed and lifted a hand in a sweeping gesture. “It’s like this. Our senses are stronger. Our bodies are stronger. Our teeth are long and we are thirsty.”
Elsie nodded in acknowledgement of his words and the dry burn in her throat. Raising a hand to her neck, she swallowed, trying to imagine taking a mouthful of blood from a warm body. Her dry throat responded with mouth-watering alacrity, tightening almost painfully while her mind rejected the horrifying notion. But she couldn’t go without drinking forever. She could feel that fact in her bones, in the very fibers of her being. She craved blood like dry ground craved rain, and the wanting seemed to flood her body with the strength she’d need to obtain it. There would be no more china, no more teacups. It was time to face the fate she’d chosen – whatever that was, exactly.
“I know it’s overwhelming,” Damon said. “When I first stepped outside after being changed, I thought I was dreaming. But you’ll get used to it. I’ll help you.” He moved forward, his footsteps rustling through the grass. Elsie followed in his wake, forcing herself to admire the purpled landscape and the brilliant stars that illuminated it. They were beautiful, but she longed to study Damon; to take in the midnight sheen of his hair and the dark gleam of his black eyes. And then there was the sensual Cupid’s bow curve of his mouth, and the slopes of his broad shoulders beneath his shirt – he wore no coat. But she couldn’t let herself admire him. She wanted him too badly, wanted him to the point that it hurt not to have him. Not wanting to seem greedy or ungrateful that he was willing to take her by the hand and guide her through her new life, she continued to study nature. Looking at him would have simply been too much of a temptation.
“You must be burning with thirst,” Damon remarked as he pulled her along, taking her away from the house and toward the untamed fields and forest that stretched beyond. “I’ll teach you how to hunt.”
She put on a false veneer of bravado as she followed him, trying to seem excited over the prospect. He seemed eager to show her, and she wasn’t about to put a damper on his enthusiasm – she’d asked for this, after all, and he had a terrible habit of blaming himself for anything and everything. The last thing she wanted was for him to think that she thought the way he lived was disgusting.
“There,” he said, pointing out across a field to their left.
She turned and squinted in the direction he was pointing. After a few moments, she realized she didn’t need to squint to clearly see what he was trying to show her. “A deer,” she breathed, hoping he’d mistake the relief in her voice for bloodlust as she told herself she was an idiot for half-expecting to see a person standing there. “What now?”
“We run,” Damon said, flashing her a grin.
“Do you really think we can chase it down?” She eyed the oblivious creature critically, noting its lack of broken legs. “It looks to be a healthy specimen.”
“Of course we can. Follow me.” He took off in a sprint that left Elsie’s skirts swishing around her ankles as she stood watching, dumbfounded. He was fast – faster than any man had a right to be. But of course, he wasn’t a man – at least, not in a strict sense. He turned his head, shooting a beckoning glance over his shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”
Clutching fistfuls of her skirts, she raised them and began to run. Her speed was disappointingly ordinary. Damon glanced over his shoulder and laughed. Maybe there was something wrong with her, or perhaps only male vampires could move so quickly. She felt like a fool, until he called out something encouraging to her. “You can run faster if you want to. You’re holding back.”
With his dark hair becoming wind-swept under the starlight and his lips curved in rare laughter, he looked beautiful. The ache in her core intensified, urging her to catch up with him. She charged forward, willing herself to move faster.
It worked. Soon, she was running by his side. He rewarded her with a grin that made her want to throw her arms around him and pull him tumbling down into the grass. Resisting the urge, she looked ahead to where the doe had stood. It had heard them and was bounding away, toward the ed
ge of the forest. “This is amazing,” Elsie said as they raced after it. “We must be as fast as horses!”
“I race my horse Ares sometimes,” Damon replied. “I usually win, and he hates it.”
They were too fast for the deer. With a few long last strides, Damon overtook it and leapt, pulling it to the ground with him. Elsie winced as they fell, waiting for the sound of snapping bone. Surely all four of the creature’s slender legs wouldn’t come away from the tumble unhurt – it would be too easy for one of them to land at an odd angle or be broken beneath the combined weight of animal and vampire.
But they didn’t. Damon brought the deer to the ground just right, pinning it on its side. It struggled, futilely kicking at air and tall grass while Damon crouched on the ground behind its shoulders. Elsie stared, transfixed, waiting for the inevitable. Her stomach churned in a fit of mingled hunger and dread as Damon lowered his mouth to the animal’s neck. She expected blood, gore and screams from the animal. But when Damon pressed his lips to its throat, the gesture was as light as a kiss, and the deer stopped struggling after a quick moment.
“It’s paralyzed now,” Damon explained, rising with only a small drop of blood on his lower lip.
Whether or not it could feel, it could clearly see. It blinked up at Elsie with wide, dark eyes that unnerved her. As reluctant as she was thirsty, she stalled for time. “How did you do that?”
“Venom. Our fangs produce it. You may use it anytime you choose to still a victim temporarily.”
Elsie swallowed, taking in the new information. Her throat burned, desperately dry. She could smell sweet hints of blood in the air and see little beads of it welling against the deer’s caramel-colored pelt where Damon had pierced its long, graceful neck.
“Don’t be afraid,” Damon said, taking her hand and gently pulling her down to the ground. “You don’t have to kill it if you don’t want to. You can drink some of its blood and let it go.”
Elsie nodded as his suggestion calmed her, if only slightly. Logic told her that draining the animal of all its blood would be no different than eating meat, which she had done many times as a human. But eating a slice of roast prepared by the cook was somehow different than personally draining a living creature of its lifeblood. Damon placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and she lowered her head, feeling as compelled by his gentle urging as her own thirst.
The animal’s hair was soft and warm. She hated how pleasant it felt against her lips, how its texture and the scent of blood combined to fuel her hunger. Opening her mouth, she tentatively pressed her teeth to its neck.
Her fangs began to ache upon contact with her victim, throbbing as if they might burst. The pressure eased when something almost sickeningly sweet-tasting leaked out of them – presumably venom. The taste was followed quickly by a whole new level of thirst that drove her to bite down into the animal’s muscle and let its blood rush into her mouth. She hardly had time to feel disgusted before she swallowed, and after that, there was no turning back. The deer’s blood was more delicious than any venison she’d ever tasted – or any food at all, for that matter.
Several minutes passed before Damon spoke. “If you want to let it live, you’ll have to stop now.”
She pulled her fangs from the doe’s neck and rocked back on her heels, facing Damon.
“You don’t have to, of course,” he added. “You can drink all of it. It’s really no different than having a bit of beef for dinner.”
She took a look at the animal’s half-closed eyes and shook her head. “This feels so strange to me. I don’t want to kill anything.” Worried about sending Damon into the throes of guilt, she continued. “At least not tonight.” She mimicked him when he rose and followed him to a spot in the grass, several strides away from the resting animal.
He nodded as they settled down on the ground again. “That’s fine. You can choose what you want to be and how you want to live.” His voice grew suddenly sharp. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Leaning back on her hands in the grass, she eyed his frown curiously. “Who would tell me otherwise?”
“Many would,” he replied bitterly. “Including my parents.” He grasped one of her hands and pulled it into his lap, gripping it tightly. “Don’t worry. I won’t let them corrupt you.”
“Are they really that bad?” she asked, eyeing the sleeping deer. Surely it wouldn’t be difficult to live without killing anyone, or even an animal, if she didn’t want to. Between the tone of Damon’s voice and the dark gleam in his eyes, he made his parents sound like the demons they were reputed to be.
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “But you don’t have to be like them. Or me.”
She laughed. “Of course I want to be like you. Why wouldn’t I?”
He shot her a dark, warning look. “Don’t be a fool.”
Her laughter died on her lips. Trying not to let her hurt show on her face, she looked away from him and at the sleeping deer, as if it could possibly offer some comfort.
“What I meant,” he said, “was that you don’t know what you’re saying.”
She dared to look at his face again. “You’re always saying things like that. I don’t see anything terrible about you. I love everything I see. If there’s something I shouldn’t, then tell me about it.” She forced herself to hold his agitated gaze, not really afraid of what, if anything, he might reveal. He seemed to have a fondness for being hard on himself. No doubt his guilt sprung from some overly harsh self-judgment.
“Very well,” he said, his tone unusually formal. “If you insist.” He looked away from her before beginning. “When I was sixteen, just a few months after I’d been changed, my parents hired a new stable hand. At least, that’s what it looked like when I found the man mucking out the stalls. As a boy I spent half my life in the stables, and the other half riding, so I was on friendly terms with all the stable workers. I saw no reason why he should be any different.” He pressed his eyes shut and tilted his head back, sighing.
“I was very proud of the handsome gelding my father had given me for my birthday. I couldn’t resist showing him off to the new stable hand and was delighted when the man seemed to appreciate the animal as much as I did. He was poor, but a true horseman. We talked horses for hours, until the sun began to set and I went inside to wash and dress for dinner. In the excitement of meeting another equestrian, I’d forgotten all about my new nature.” His sensual mouth twisted into a grimace.
“We ate the evening meal in a very private dining room on the third floor, my parents and I. Lucinda was not there, for she hadn’t yet been changed. It was my first formal meal alone with them, and my last. There were great goblets on the table, engraved with silver and filled with blood. They bid me to drink and I did. What I didn’t know – what I found out when I stumbled across the freshly drained body draped across a table in the next room – was that the blood had come from the stableman I’d just made friends with.”
Elsie repressed the urge to gasp as a shiver of distaste raced down her spine, causing the hair on her arms and the back of her neck to stand on end.
“They hired him intending to murder him that night for their dinner. He had no family, and had yet to become established among the other servants. He was never missed.” The misery in Damon’s voice sliced through Elsie’s heart.
She placed a hand on his arm and pulled in an attempt to get him to face her. “That wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was. I did it. I drank the blood of an innocent man, of a friend.” He’d opened his eyes, but only to glare stubbornly at the distant forest.
“Damon…”
He shook his head. “I don’t want you to try to convince me I’m innocent.” At last he looked at her, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I know I am not, but the sight of you makes me think my existence is not necessarily a sin, and that is enough.”
“Yes.”
She rose to her knees and brushed a
kiss across his lips. “I’m certainly glad that you exist. It was after that happened that you took to the streets at night and saved me from the fire, wasn’t it?”
His expression darkened. “Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?”
He sighed. “It was after that that I took to the streets, but you weren’t the first distressed person I found.” The tall grass rustled quietly as he clutched a fistful off it, crushing the thin stalks in his fist. “The first was a man – a tailor, I think, for I found a packet of needles later in one of his pockets. He was walking alone at night, traveling the dark streets between a tavern and his home when a thief accosted him. I was watching from the shadows and thought I’d play the hero by intervening when the thug laid hands on the man.”
He tore his handful of wild grass up by the roots and flung it away, scattering it. “By the time I tore them apart the criminal had already drawn his knife. The tailor had been cut, but it wasn’t a fatal wound – or at least, it shouldn’t have been.” He let the silence stretch on for a while, and Elsie shifted in the grass, as much for distraction from her impatience as for comfort.
“I hadn’t fed for nearly two weeks,” Damon said. “After what had happened with the stableman, I was too disgusted with myself to touch blood, though I felt as if I were dying of thirst. And so, when the tailor’s blood began to flow, I lost my mind. I killed both men.”
Elsie’s fingers itched with the desire to bestow a comforting touch upon Damon, but fear that he’d reject her effort caused her to hold back for a moment.