Sweeter Than Chocolate: Valentine's Day Anthology

by Gina Kincade

  At the precise moment of Emma’s scowl, her cousin Laurisa began, “There is no scandal or gossip told of in polite conversation. So, what good is all of this babble here? Like you, Emma, I am so sick of talk of inventions, or I dare say literature, Walter Scott publishing Rob Roy and John Keats publishing Poems. No, give me a steady flow of talk, with no ease of manners, about what is really happening within the walls of all of these homes. I want to know whose wife is an uptight and frigid wench. I dream of hearing of inappropriate kisses dared in dark corners. Oh, dear me, or about the steam-powered medical device for treating hysteria in women and that they may soon be made to buy for personal home use by those on the shelf. Can you imagine what they do with that metal rod that vibrates?”

  While Laurisa feigned a swoon, Emma remained motionless barely giving the girl a nod of agreement. She didn’t dare reveal any emotion or someone might sense how much she would like to try the invention out right about now. Tonight, she’d begun to feel something more tangible lurking, something more powerful, more present than all the nights before. Besides, he’d whispered tonight. She was quite sure she heard it. She might be a damned fool, but deep in her gut, she thrilled at the idea.

  This presence was out of place even with the sedentary fall of water from the late-winter sky creating an eerie ambiance. Then, like arms coming from the darkness, the spirit wrapped around her. The moonless hour, the sky covered in clouds, weighed in on her with a sudden heaviness, more pervasive than the dampness of the atmosphere. She wondered if they were being watched by a spirit or a being, whichever it was, after weeks of hanging around her unseen, she felt she knew him. The masculine qualities of the essence, she had no doubt about, and she wanted to meet him.

  Even with the windows closed, an unnatural breeze swept over her, lured her outside. She uttered only a brief farewell, leaving her fellow witches mouths agape with her abrupt and unexplained departure. As her steam-powered carriage, a gift from her father, went through the rough streets, a sweat broke out over her neck, sent shivers down her spine more so than the shake of the engine did. The evening felt ripe with possibilities, ones as unbelievable and as fantastic as the dirigibles flying above her.

  Back home and retired to her own bedroom, she flew to her glass doors, which lead onto her balcony. Stopping short of throwing them open, she saw a man, his outline a shadow against the gas lamps on the street. Stepping closer, unable to resist, she could see how his head was raised to a proud angle, and how his wicked smile brightened his dark eyes. A sudden wave of panic bred of realization washed over her.

  “Why Emma, your body gives off the heat of sexuality like the flame of a candle blowing in a breeze. I have been burnt by its sparks all night as I’ve watched you.” The low timbre of his voice was erotic and intimate, wrapping her in comfort. “Drop the protective spell which bars me from your room. Let me in. You know me. It is I, the one you have been feeling for weeks. It is my presence you now long for.”

  “You’re a…”

  “Yes I am,” he cut her off. “I knew a powerful witch such as yourself would know what I am once I got close enough to you. Such is the reason why you had to get to know me first, from a distance. I didn’t compel you if that is what you think, but let you feel me. I opened myself to you, every night for months, to let you get to know me. And, I thank whatever there is that is still blessed in this world, that because of my actions, my abilities, you have come to want me as well. I can feel it, it burns within you; a flame I blew on, made come to life. Now there you stand with a raging fire all your own to save the likes of this cold-blooded vampire.”

  Her mind went through the ominous and the seductive possibilities before her. As one of the walking dead, beyond his threat to the blood, which coursed through her veins, a vampire could suck from her the energy that made her magickal. Be that as it may, the chance to be at the mercy of this man was alluring nonetheless in a way she could not possibly comprehend or explain. He was so much stronger than her, dangerous even, and this excited a place in her that even she didn’t know existed. It was juxtaposed to everything she did, stood for. She may use her gifts, even at times at the expense of others, to rebel against social morals and rules, but she wasn’t reckless. Yet, the idea of giving herself to him, naked and wanton, made her feel even stronger.

  She did feel she knew him, had been getting to know him in an intimate way over time. She’d welcomed the presence even when she felt it was driving her mad, when her pulse raced and her head got hazy just because she could feel him near. His touch, his kiss, she wanted. Desperately. How had she missed what he was? Was it a matter of compulsions? Did he just out right lie? Was he using some sort of mind energy, specific to his kind on her, even before tonight, before this first face-to-face meeting? His kind certainly weren’t above it. They hungered for a witch’s magick, and after they drained them of their energy, they drained them of their blood. The same had happened to her aunt just a little under a year ago.

  She knew though, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that sexual tension wound tight like twine around the bristles of a broom inside her. And, the two of them were still separated by glass, a frail barrier she wanted to break to get to him. She had to be under his type of spell, so to speak, and knew not what she would do next.

  Standing steady, her hands balled into fists as he continued to speak again.

  “I know your plan, or your amusements, should I say. I’ve been watching you with Cecilia, Isabella and Laurisa. I can help. I can make you a stronger witch in many ways. Just as I can drain you, I can feed your energy, help you build it up, as a man not a vampire. Some of my humanity remains, and you, you make me want it more, to fight for it harder. Do you believe in destiny, Emma?”

  “I do. Yet with you I feel like a pawn of some twisted fate, one you are perhaps devising.”

  “No. I am not controlling you in any way. Believe me please. I do now believe in the fates, that even a mistake, maybe several, can lead one on a given path to where they were meant to be. I’m a new vampire, made only within the last dozen or so moons. I believe now we were meant to be soul mates in life perhaps. Or, maybe I’ve had too much time to rationalize it all, to come up with excuses to suit my fancy. Yet, with all my heart I believe we were destined in life. My change to a vampire can’t stop that. It is now that we meant, a cruel hand of the gods, but still, I welcome it. I beg of you to give me a chance.”

  His hand came up to the glass. Palm pressed against it, her hand moved like a magnet to his. Even with the glass between them, she felt the buzz of his energy go through her arm, shoot straight to her heart, making the confounded organ skip a beat, like when her carriage wheel hit a rut in the road.

  “As well,” he continued, his head down now, his voice even more raspy, though it had been gravely to begin with. “I can teach you to use the overabundance of sexual energy you bear in my presence.”

  “You created it. You built it inside me.”

  “No. First time I saw you I dared to get too close, couldn’t stop myself. When I did, it sparked inside you, inside of me too. I felt it, felt how you reacted the same to me as I to you, as if we were meant to meet. Soul mates I believe they call it.”

  “Star-crossed lovers would be more like it now then unfortunately. Destined to meet in life or not, now, our kinds are enemies.” Her hand on the glass balled into a tight fist, but remained there just opposite his.

  “Had I still been mortal I would have asked for a dance the first time I saw you, started calling upon you the next day. But, I knew right away what you were. I just sensed it. I knew I should stay away. I knew all too well the dangers of us being together. But, I’m a stronger vampire now. I will not let myself hurt you. Even the first night I saw you, I knew I couldn’t harm you in any way. I couldn’t listen to the rules of nature. I was drawn to you, and each time I dared come to you, you responded, you wanted me too. At night, while you’ve slumbered, you’ve even cried out for me though you had no name or face. But, I
knew. You know. How many dreams have you had of a faceless presence? How many times have you woke up in a cold sweat telling me to come to you? I could have. I’ve had many opportunities as I’ve followed you. But I waited; waited until I knew you were ready for me, that you felt things for a stranger you had felt for no other. You feel it don’t you?”

  His forehead on the pane of glass left no mark of body heat. The proof of what he was hit hard, broke her heart actually as she admitted, “Yes, I feel it. But dare I ask if I will come through this safely. Now that you have made yourself visible, will I ever be safe out of the confines of my room even?”

  “Yes. You’ve been safe all these nights when I could have done whatever I wanted, grabbed you up out of the night on your rides home, made it seem as if you’d disappeared into thin air. I didn’t, the fact remains. You will always be safe with me. I will see to it. It’s a promise I’m fully prepared now to make. Together, we can continue your fight against the social norms.

  “I’m well aware it is how you and your cousins enjoy passing your time. We can build on your magick, harness your energy, use it to fuel your spells. Your plans for the pompous aristocracy, I can help with. If you wish it so even it would be my pleasure to open their eyes to the beings who walk among them who are forced by fear to be secret about who they really are, witch or vampire or other. I was cast out by them in life as a crazy, failed inventor they called me. Now, in death, I still can’t walk among them less I give into the damnable anger they bring about in me. Please don’t worry with you, love. You… I could never hurt you. I’ve gotten closer and closer each night, letting my body adjust to everything about yours, the smell of your skin, the sound of your heart beating, the way your sweet blood courses through your veins. There have been many nights lately I believe you have purposefully let your wards down around your room in hopes I would come in. I did, I just didn’t make myself known.”

  “A sillier notion I have never heard of. Not only your claim of being safe with you, of you being in this room at night without me knowing it, but what does a vampire know of magick other than to steal it?” She had wanted her words to come out sharp and angry, yet her voice instead sounded soft, emotional, even shook with her need for him. It wouldn’t do.

  “I have been studying all about you and your kind for some time. Ever since I first saw you. I knew I needed something to convince you to be with the likes of me. You doubt your feelings even now.”

  “I am trying to find the fear I know I should have, but it won’t come. You promise you are not forcing that, not changing something in my thoughts?”

  “I promise, Emma. Though you don’t know me, I would not do that to you. I want you to welcome me in, call me to your body all on your own,” he said, his words expressed in an ardent manner, furthered by a breathy, deep tone.

  “So rather than some angler or rogue, you were an inventor in life?” she asked, breathless, wanting to touch him as much as she wanted to know more about him. Talk seemed safe at least for the moment.

  “Rogue, maybe a little, but not in any criminal way. But, yes, an inventor, though a failure they called me. I fear my life was ended before I could make a better name for myself. I tinker at night still, but now all I wish for is making myself a man again so I can walk in the daylight, see the sun on your beautiful skin. If only I could make a clockwork contraption that would make my heart beat again, make it pump blood through my veins so I could be warm for you. But, alas, even with your magick, it can never be. My soul, what would make me worthy of you, is gone. Maybe what I need to invent is that time machine everyone fails at so I can go back in time and be somewhere else on that fateful night my life was ended.

  “I’m still trying to make a steam-powered device that will ease the stress of the body, force relaxation through heat and vibration without making the same person nauseous or burning their skin. Ah, just misunderstood, and past the time it matters. You know what being misunderstood is like, I fear.”

  She nodded, her heart breaking for him as it pounded with excitement.

  Her small group of witches were tolerated, even with their true identities a secret, rumors as to what they were breed fear, the only reason they were even reasonably accepted. Their mothers had all managed to marry well, marry up into the aristocracy anyway, but their offspring was still it seemed, deemed unworthy nonetheless. True, it often took the aristocracy time to warm up to new blood in their lines, especially those people included by marrying up.

  Yet, the older generation of witches, her mother and her sisters, had let too much slip, enough to warrant speculations about them. Damsels in distress want your spells as much as they want to turn their heads and pretend the magick doesn’t exist. The lesson, trust was a frivolous thing in drawing rooms and ballrooms alike. Should it be so with him? He wasn’t even human anymore.

  His being an inventor, skilled or not, thrilled her as well. Emma tried not to lie to herself. She liked the new, the different, the unbelievable, especially when magick wasn’t involved, it fascinated her all the more in the mundane world. What she wouldn’t give to see some of his creations, even get to play with them, maybe even make the clockwork gears or steam-powered engines come to life at her own whim. If she asked, if she dared go; would he take her to his lair, or his house, whichever he resided within? She’d never know if she didn’t first let him in.

  Something about him felt so familiar, so right. Yet, she questioned it, questioned the premonitions, which foretold her of his coming. Were they warnings? Or, were they signs? Now that she knew what he was exactly, she could not be sure. What she couldn’t question was the way her heart was beating in her chest, like she had run up the stairs seconds ago, to the way her palms were getting clammy or the way her stomach bound into a tight knot each time she looked at him, contemplated touching him and being touched by him. Her trembling hand moved to the latch.

  “Please Emma, open your heart. You know me. You’ve felt me with you. I’ve not going to hurt you. I wish I had a way to prove that to you. I love you. I have loved you from afar for so long, only observing while you got used to my presence. You felt me, and you were safe all this time. It is the only proof or plea I have. Don’t push me away. Don’t fear me. You didn't until I got close enough to let you know what I was. Until now, you’ve wanted me too. I’m that man, vampire or not.

  “I repeat one last time, because it is all I have…If I wanted to, couldn’t I have drained you long ago? Why when I could have taken you from your carriage tonight with no one being the wiser would I wait, come to your balcony and beg to be let in?”

  When she opened the glass door, he glided in on a rush of cool night air. Despite the chill, she knew they were about to combust.

  In a few blinks, the door was shut tight, and he stood inches from her.

  “I know you want me. I want you too. Believe in it. The feelings are real. They grew inside you knowing me, feeling me from afar. I have not glamoured you in any way. I won’t hurt you. I’ve practiced control. But, now that I am so near to you, let me touch you, your beautiful powder-white skin. First I can show you what it means to become a woman. I can teach you the strength you can find in a sexual union. Then, I can teach you to harness that power, to use it to give life, to wreak havoc, whatever you want, whatever you can dream up. I can help you bring your dreams to their full potential. Then, the world is yours to do with as you may. You want revenge or you just want to have a little fun proving a social point or you want reform for a less uptight aristocracy that not only accepts you but reveres you, it shall all be yours along with the undying love of one vampire.”

  “I don’t understand how you can know so much about magick.”

  “I can’t reveal all of my secrets in one night. But, let me say that when you have every night to walk alone when people sleep, you have enough time to study what you come across. I came across grimoires, very detailed ones to study.”

  “Did you kill the witch?”

  “Would you forgi
ve me?”

  He stepped closer, if it was possible. She could feel the coolness of him even through her clothes. He inhaled deep, closed his eyes. She felt desired, but like prey. Why then could she not find the fear to run from this man? He had not even denied having killed her kind. Never had she been so foolish, never had she so wanted a man before. True she was always attracted to the rogue, but this was beyond that. Loving this rouge could be suicidal, insane, and yet, she continued on.

  “Let me touch you. Just say yes. Valentine’s Day is shortly upon us, and I would like to be yours, to have you be mine before then. If so, a great many gifts await you, ones better than any poem upon a piece of paper, ones any day of the year you wish them to come. Without fancy words, can I just have you? The love, the lust, I feel inside me is fierce. Let me unleash it. Just say the word, Emma. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Yes,” the word came out in a rush of breath before her mind could even process all he had offered her, what it meant to agree. With one word she had unleashed this monster upon her body. Of this she was well aware, anxious and excited, rather than scared. The only thing, which truly disquieted her, was the absolute discrepancy of the matter.

  Before she could even brace herself for his next move, now that he had her permission to do whatever he wished, her clothing fell in shreds at her feet, and she stood naked before him. Looking down, lace, silk, corset, everything laid in a puddle about her feet. The puddle could not be a truer statement since her gown, though fortunately not one of her favorites, had been an aquamarine blue. Her tiny slippers were even covered by the pile of once fine linens. The beige inexpressibles in strips looked like the foam upon the sea.

  The dress had been a gift from her mother. What explanation would she have for the shape it was in now? She couldn’t worry upon it now. The cut of the thing had exposed her breasts a little more than even she had been comfortable with just hours ago. In this moment, they stood out proud, her nipples hard. The rush of heat through her body had her look away from his gaze down at the floor again.