But it was too late. The pictures clamouring for attention in her mind broke up. Dazed, she realized a woman had joined Aurel in the ring, a beautiful Dragul with extraordinary blood-red hair, who began to dance to the rhythm of his voice. It was a love story, but Beth lost the thread as her view of the erotic dancer in white kept intertwining with new mind-visions of couples making exotic love.
Worse, the performer danced with Aurel himself, winding her lithe body around him, holding his hands to her breasts. Beth grew hotter. Jealousy rose with lust. Aurel held the woman as she finished the dance of seduction, co-operated as she thrust her hips into his in artistic consummation. His voice died away. He lowered his head, and Beth’s fury rose. She rejected him out of hand for playing her, for using her dreams and her helpless attraction to influence her; and yet she didn’t want him kissing other women, not the same day he had kissed her!
But his mouth swept past the dancer’s, until he found her neck. The dancer writhed against him in ecstasy and with shock, Beth realized he was biting her. Drinking her blood.
Fast flowing streams, rushing air, warm, pumping blood…
Beth heard the blood pound in her own heart. Her head began to ache. Her father was a vampire. In the past, he had killed to feed, although nowadays, he lived on blood-donations and the occasional willing victim. She knew he even drank from her mother occasionally, though she didn’t like to go there. But she, Beth, had never drunk blood. Sometimes it called to her, as it was calling now. More than once, making love, she had found herself staring at her lover’s throat so intensely that she could smell his blood. But blood was not necessary to her. Her lupi half took care of that…
Abruptly, Aurel straightened, swinging the girl upright as he did so. He licked his lips once, and released her.
Oh Christ, he’s coming back!
Only then did she recognize the full force of the desire simmering in her. Not just to make love with Aurel, but to taste his blood, to have him drink from her. Her dazed, hot gaze followed him as he left the ring and walked to their table. But he didn’t come to her. In a surprisingly graceful gesture, he knelt before the king.
The king leaned forward. Neither touched the other until Vasil’s lips fastened on Aurel’s throat.
Appalled and fascinated, Beth tried to look away. But like the rest of the guests, her eyes were riveted to Aurel. Without flinching or moving, he continued to offer himself to the king, eyes closed; and the king continued to drink. It was weirdly arousing. She imagined them both drinking from her, at once, doing other pleasurable things to her together too, and was astounded by the strength of her desire for it.
Am I not the vampire here? Half-vampire…
The king raised his head, and inclined it with polite gratitude. A drop of Aurel’s blood lingered at the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t trouble to remove it.
A cheer, vocal and internal, went up from the whole room. All around Beth, Dragul were in each other’s arms, feeding from each other. To some it seemed as casual as going round everyone in the company for a New Year kiss; with others it looked much more serious, much more sexual. Beth watched them intensely, greedily, feeding her own arousal.
By the time Aurel threw himself into the place beside her, she was soaking wet between her thighs. She no longer cared that she’d been played by him. She wanted Aurel every conceivable way, but mainly inside her. She wanted him to touch her. Her skin screamed for it.
To make it worse, the dancer continued her performance, this time to seductive harp music, telling yet another story that played in the background of her head, slowly, gradually dragging her back in. As she followed the dance, she was aware of Aurel touching her, of his arm at her waist, drawing her against him. The pooled moisture flooded between her legs.
The dancer swayed, her movements now larger, still sensuous yet somehow bigger, larger than life. Something flickered behind her, like a huge tail. Beth stared. The dancer’s filmy white tunic was little more than a decoration on a long, scaly body, twisting sinuously to the music. The woman was slowly morphing into a dragon.
But this was nothing like the agony of her mother, or of Beth herself, changing into their wolves. This was curiously graceful, this was sexy…
Fascinated Beth watched the dancer’s neck lengthen, her face change, her teeth snap together. Now it was the dragon, not the woman who sought a mate. Around her, couples were writhing together on the tables and the floor, some on the chairs and benches, some dancing in pale imitation, others clearly having full sex in a tangle of limbs and fluttering wings, their uninhibited pleasure intruding into Beth’s mind so that she lost the dancer’s story -- but not the wonder of her transformation.
Turning into Aurel, her face lifted to his, she whispered, “Can you do that?”
“I can do anything you want,” he said and covered her mouth with his.
The heat was incredible. Fire raged in her stomach, her core, consuming her. She heard her own moan muffled in his mouth, and the eerie sound frightened her into pulling free. A moment longer, she stared into his dark grey eyes, clouded with lust. And then she fled.
Somehow, she got through the tables, past the ring and out of the hall into the cold, fresh air of the night. It was nearly dark, a pale dusk surrounding the spectacular hills. It was beautiful, magical, and she couldn’t bear it.
She was trembling, her cheeks burning with fever as she leaned her back against the cool stone wall. Christ, what’s the matter with me? Am I ill? Did they really drug the water?
“Of course not. You’re sensitive to our thoughts, and the rituals are new to you. You’re just -- overwhelmed.”
Inevitably, it was Aurel, speaking inside her head. She closed her eyes. But she knew he was still there, only feet away from her. And there were things she had to say.
“Contaminate the samples, Aurel. I won’t let them come here.”
There was a pause, then, “Thank you.”
Though she didn’t hear him move, she opened her eyes to find him standing right in front of her. She said, “You can take me back now. As close to the tether as you can get.”
“I could,” Aurel agreed. His fingers touched her cheek in a brief, feather-light caress. “Or I could make love to you.”
Her lips twisted. “In gratitude or in pity?” She wanted to weep. Her whole body still trembled with need.
Aurel put his arms round her. “In love,” he whispered, and buried his mouth in hers. She could feel the huge hardness of his cock pressing into her. Hard for me? For the dancer? The king, God help us? Or just because of the ritual, because it churns you up and makes you want…?
“Sh-sh.” Without leaving her mouth, he spoke inside her head. “Is it so impossible that I could love you? I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. In your city, in your house. I stood outside your window, one night that I followed your father, and I saw you lying there, so beautiful, so full of latent passion… I had never felt desire so strong for a stranger, and one moreover who was young and human. I pushed you from my mind and flew home. But I think it was the strength of my desire that brought you the dreams. And the strength -- well that is another tale for tomorrow. Fly with me, let me show you Dragul passion…”
His mouth released hers at last. She stared up at him. Something shifted. He was letting her in. Not enough to deluge her with an enormously long lifetime of emotions and experiences, but enough to reveal his desire burning brightly around her, enough to see his loneliness and vulnerability buried for so long behind his work and his awe-inspiring manners.
“A little truth,” he whispered. “When you’re ready, you’ll find the rest for yourself. Admit that you want me.”
Laughter trembled on her lips. “What’s the point? You know I do! It seeps out of me like blood! Oh God, don’t let me talk about blood. Aurel, I want you so badly it will kill me…!”
She could say no more. His mouth devoured her. Her feet left the ground before she registered the unfurling of his wings, and
they were soaring high into the darkening sky.
He held her in one arm, her legs over his hips. With his free hand, he took hold of her tunic, and ripped. Gasping as she dragged her mouth free, Beth watched the turquoise fabric tumble and float through the air on the currents.
“Now I’ll freeze up here!”
“No you won’t.”
He was right. There was some sort of invisible cocoon around them, one that warmed the air rather than hid them from it. Now he held her with both arms, stretching them out so that she fell back from the waist, away from his body. There was only the growing darkness, the rushing, spinning air, and the relentless beat of Aurel’s wings to distract her from pure sensation.
Then he bent over her and took one nipple into his mouth. The pleasure was so intense that she cried out. He sucked it in a long stream, alternately gentle and hard, while his tongue teased and flickered at it. Beth hung onto his head, eyes closed, letting all the sensation wash over her, the exhilaration of flying, of the wind caressing her naked skin, and of Aurel licking and sucking her breast.
Moving in his hold so that she fit more comfortably over his erection, she slid her hands between their bodies to tug at his tunic.
“Impatient,” he whispered aloud, arousing her further with his breath on her nipple. “You want my cock inside you?”
Unable to speak, she nodded. Aurel smiled, and transferred his attention to her other nipple. Obligingly, he helped her dispense with his tunic, which followed hers into the dancing air currents, and now she had his naked cock between her legs, pressing on her pussy. She wriggled until her clitoris was there too, and gasped with the shock of the pleasure.
“Oh God, I’ll come before you’re inside me at this rate…!”
“No you won’t,” he promised. “There’s a long way to go before I’ll let you come…”
Beth moaned. Desperately, she moved her clitoris against his cock, glorying in the feel of his soft skin over bone-hardness, grazing her. The thrusting motion of her hips built the pleasure further. So did Aurel’s reaction to her body’s caress. He was growling, his cock throbbing between her legs. She heard her own triumphant crow of laughter, deep in her throat as she trailed her hands down his back, feeling along the seams of his wings. She pushed her body upwards, meaning to impale herself on his shaft, but suddenly she couldn’t move.
His hands held her hips quite still. Wickedly, eyes gleaming, he watched her frustration.
“Aurel, I’ll die!” she gasped. “You’ll die! Do it now!”
He smiled. “No.” He moved her, once, sliding his cock along the length of her pussy, and then held her still once more. She dropped her head on to his chest, biting him with the force of her lust. He growled, and she felt his lips on her neck, seeking and finding the spot that drove her wild. She twisted her head, pleadingly, and he licked her vein, sucked it hard into his mouth, making her writhe, and yet he still controlled the movement of her hips, only allowing her the occasional circular caress of his cock which seemed to build and then hold the pleasure, while never quite reaching completion.
She felt his teeth, gently nibbling the skin of her nape.
“Will you bite me, Aurel?” she whispered. “Will you drink from me…?”
“If you want me to…”
“God help me, I want everything…”
He lifted his head, but only to seize her mouth in a consuming kiss. She licked his teeth, wicked, sharp incisors…
“Like yours,” he said inside her head, while he sucked on them, and turned her mouth over and over. Lost in his kiss, she was almost surprised when he lifted her buttocks and she felt the blunt caress of his cock at her entrance. Gasping, she tore her mouth free and stared into his eyes.
Now? Oh God yes, now…!
Without smiling, he lowered her slowly, smoothly on to his shaft. It slid into her slickly, yet stretched her, filled her, reaching impossibly far inside, and bringing with it exquisite pleasure that spread outwards to her very fingertips. She clutched his neck with those fingertips, suddenly overwhelmed by the hugeness of what she was doing with him, what she had been pleading for with words and without for so long.
He smiled, and suddenly they were diving through the air in a long, stomach-churning plunge. At the same time, he pulled back his cock and drove into her. She cried out, all the pleasures, excitements, fears and passions beginning to merge into a maelstrom with Aurel at its center.
Dancing and diving through the night sky, Aurel fucked her slowly and exquisitely. Several times, he took her to the brink of ultimate joy and then held himself still within her while he kissed her breasts or her mouth or her throat, caressing her buttocks and thighs with his hands.
When he paused like that, she couldn’t help digging her nails into his skin like claws. Small animal noises of fury and frustration broke from her, and she tried desperately to make him keep moving within her. She could barely reach his wings while he flew, to get at that erogenous under-zone that drove him wild. But she kissed him with all her passion, knew her mouth aroused him as much as his did her. She read his lust, more powerful even than her own, and yet so rigidly held in check that he could do this.
Those distant dreams had largely been orgasm, right from the moment he had touched her. In reality, he seemed determined never to let that happen. And now he was flying higher and higher under the emerging stars, holding her hard against him while he ground his hips into her. Gasping into the thinner air, Beth held on to him. His wings beat, hovering. At last, he drew back his cock, almost the whole way, and she shuddered, moaning, knowing it was coming back, knowing that this time, this time…
They dived. His cock plunged in and out of her, pushing her finally and irrevocably over the edge. The intensity was impossible, so fierce she couldn’t even cry out as she tumbled through the air, her mouth open in a long, silent scream of joy. The speed of his fucking increased with their fall, keeping her at those impossible heights while he reached his own. Wanting all of him, she reached blindly for his mouth with hers, but he eluded her, instead seizing her neck in his mouth and she cried out again, feeling his teeth pierce the skin.
He sucked on her wounded throat and the draw of her blood brought a new weird pleasure that merged with the sharpness of the pain, spreading through her to join the rest of her body’s helpless delight. She felt him swallow her blood at the same time as his cock pushed into her once more, exploding his own joy at last in a hot, powerful stream, gushing into her as he drew blood from her.
A cycle of life, she thought wildly, lost in the ecstasy that seemed to go on and on… She could hear his blood pounding too, coursing through his veins, stronger, sweeter blood than she had ever smelled before. She opened her dazed eyes, found herself gazing at the pulsing vein in his neck while he sucked her blood and fucked her to insanity. Could you go mad from pleasure?
On instinct -- what else could she act on in this condition? -- she reached for his neck, covering the vein with her mouth. It was as if she could taste it, his warm, strong blood… New desire filled her, eclipsing the intensity of what was already happening to her.
With a gasp, she buried her teeth in his skin. Hot blood spurted into her mouth, forcing her to swallow. And suddenly, she could match his rhythm, his frenzy, letting all the pleasures tear her body apart with rapture, and slowly, astoundingly, rebuild it.
At last the dark world grew clear again. Above them, wispy clouds swam over the crescent moon, drifting between the stars. Only the beating of Aurel’s wings and the low panting of their breaths broke the silence.
Beth whispered, “What have I just done?”
Aurel smiled. “Become my lover, my…” He smiled again and kissed her mouth. “You’ve just had that flying fuck.”
Chapter Seven
From the grassy square, hidden in the shadows of the king’s palace, Avram watched the two figures descending. His heart thumping, he prepared to bolt back inside before the Keeper noticed him. But the Keeper’s flight led
away from the palace toward, in fact, the Keeper’s own house.
Well, not for much longer would it be Aurel’s. The days of his arrogant risk-taking were just about over. When the king saw where Aurel’s stupidity was leading his people, he would turn at last to the one who should always have been Keeper, the only one capable of guiding and protecting the Kingdom’s laws.
Avram smiled sourly. It might have been nice to have Aurel’s house as his own, to rub the face of the ex-Keeper in his failure. But unfortunately, there was only one way to preserve the Dragul: isolation. And that could not be achieved above ground. Not for more than a few puny years.
Avram waited until he was sure Aurel and his human whore had disappeared inside -- no doubt for more of the same abandoned coupling he had witnessed in the sky. Well, at least it would keep the fool distracted and out of the way, while he, Avram, saved the Dragul.
Avram spread his wings and took off into the night sky, flying high and swift over the palace, and out of the valley kingdom.
* * *
Aurel lay on his big, round bed, eyes closed in ecstasy as the more-than-human girl wrapped her lips around his throbbing cock, slowly massaging it.
He had brought her back here to sleep. Under no illusion about the overwhelming nature of what he had just done to her, he had been more than happy to let her slumber in his arms until dawn. He’d meant to watch her sleeping face, softly caress her delectably smooth, wingless back if she stirred, soothing her rest. And then, with the dawn, he would have woken her with the subtlest, lightest caresses until she was wet, and then, while she was still half asleep he would have entered her and made love to her with slow, languorous pleasure.
He hadn’t intended it to be so wild in the sky. He had meant to make it special, not to wipe her out. But too often he had lost control in her enticing body, in the unexpectedly fiery passion of her responses and desires. The morning’s gentler loving would have made up for that. But it seemed Beth had her own ideas.
As he had laid her tenderly on his bed, carefully spreading his long body out on its side beside her, she had reached immediately for his wings, climbing on to him to caress the soft mesh of the underside until he groaned. Her smile was wicked.
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