The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set

by R. A. Steffan

  “You’ll get no arguments from me,” I said, once I’d pulled back. “Shopping tomorrow, then? I want to pick up some non-kink related items, as well. I’ve been thinking about a little side project over the past couple of days, but I’ll need some supplies and tools first.”

  Rans gave an easy shrug. “Whatever you like, love. For now, let’s go see what options—if any—are waiting for us in the garage. Hopefully it won’t be anything too tragic.” He sighed. “At this point, I rather feel that Nigellus owes us a decent set of wheels, if nothing else.”

  * * *

  ‘Nothing too tragic’ turned out to be a dark blue Maserati Quattroporte, parked side by side with an Aston Martin DB11 convertible in British racing green. It was likely that the contents of Nigellus’ garage were worth more money than I’d earned collectively over my lifetime—and this wasn’t even his main residence.

  Rans tutted over the Maserati and chose the convertible instead, grumbling something under his breath about anyone who’d buy an automobile without so much as a sunroof in fucking California. I ignored his muttered commentary in favor of rubbing my shoulders back and forth against the buttery tan leather of the passenger seat and pretending I was, I dunno—Princess Kate or something.

  Surprise, surprise... Rans drove like a bat strung out on methamphetamine, ignoring speed limits as though they only applied to other people. And with the top down, the wind blowing my hair into insanity, and the engine growling like a sexy beast, I was loving every freakin’ minute of it.

  Vallecito—population, four hundred and something—was basically dead after dark. We continued on to the town of Angels Camp, which boasted a questionable looking dive bar on the main strip. We were still a bit early for the serious drunks to be out and about, but it didn’t take long for Rans to disappear into the back of the place with a dazed-looking couple in their twenties.

  Meanwhile, I helped myself to an animus appetizer from an overweight middle-aged man who tried to buy me a drink and didn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word no. It was still such an odd feeling. This was a situation that would have been stressful a few months ago—if not downright scary—and it was now a complete non-issue.

  I sat there, calmly shooting down every cheesy bit of innuendo that Mr. Creeper tossed my way, while pulling just enough life-force from him that he started to look a bit pale and clammy after a few minutes. When cool, familiar arms closed around me from behind, I leaned back against Rans’ chest—relishing the expression on my would-be pick-up artist’s face. It was a look that very clearly said, ‘Uh-oh.’

  “Is this bloke bothering you, love?” Rans asked, a hint of the predator that lived beneath his devil-may-care facade creeping into his tone.

  “Nope,” I said with complete sincerity. “In fact, I’m pretty sure he was just leaving.”

  Mr. Creeper stammered agreement and lurched up from his stool, staggering a bit thanks to the amount of energy I’d drawn from him while he was too busy perving on me to notice. I felt Rans’ chest move with silent laughter against my back, and couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips in response.

  “Shameless vixen,” he murmured against the shell of my ear, and my smile grew wider.

  Fifteen minutes later, Rans parked the Aston Martin on a deserted overlook outside the city limits. A short time after that, I found myself spread-eagled across the hood of a hundred-thousand-dollar convertible while he made good on the first installment of his promise to feed my inner demon... all night long.

  SIX

  WE SLEPT LATE the next morning. I was determined to make the most of this short break in the madness that was my life. Hadn’t I just been bemoaning the fact that I wanted time alone with Rans? Well, for the moment at least, time alone with him had just been handed to me on a platter.

  Plenty of crises still loomed over our heads, but for once, none of them were imminent. I felt better about Edward’s credentials as a bodyguard for my father now that I knew about the powerful magic he could wield. Myrial shouldn’t be able to find us anytime soon. I didn’t even have to worry about Nigellus juicing Rans like a cut grapefruit for the next few days.

  True, we still had things we needed to do. Rans drove us into Stockton so we could pick up a new round of fetishwear and sex toys at the local version of Kinks-R-Us. I gave him a flat stare after seeing the clothing he’d picked out for me, and received a dangerous smile in return. Then I directed him to the nearest arts and crafts store.

  If I’d had a bucket list, parking an outrageously expensive sports car at a Hobby Lobby with bags containing whips, leather corsets, and tasseled nipple pasties stowed in the back would probably have been on it somewhere. Rans followed me inside with the air of someone going on an exotic expedition, and to say that my smokin’ hot vampire lover looked out of place among the aisles of glue guns and yarn was... putting it mildly.

  He looked around at the endless shelves of kitsch with a bemused air. “Do you have a knitting addiction I should know about?” he asked. “If so, the first step to getting help is admitting that you have a problem. Or so I hear, anyway.”

  “Ha,” I said flatly, turning down the aisle containing different kinds of epoxy resin. “Look. Cut me some slack. I want to try something, and I have no idea if it’ll work or not. Which reminds me, I also need to swing by a grocery store. I need some of those Himalayan salt crystals. The big ones that come in their own grinder.”

  “Hmm,” he mused. “Well, now I’m truly intrigued, but I won’t press.”

  “Are there any daggers at the house?” I asked, aware on some level that this probably wasn’t appropriate Hobby Lobby conversation.

  “Certainly,” he said. “Though I suppose I have rather been letting your training lapse, haven’t I?”

  That wasn’t why I’d asked about the daggers, but he was right. “I tried to keep up with running and combat practice in Hell, though I didn’t have a partner to spar with,” I told him. “But, yeah, we should take advantage of the lull and get back into it.”

  I dumped a block of modeling clay and some foam board in the cart with the other items I’d collected, and finalized my purchases with the rather wide-eyed checkout girl using some of the cash Rans handed me.

  “H-have a nice day,” she stammered as she tentatively proffered the receipt.

  “You too, hon,” I said with my sweetest smile, and headed out to the parking lot to dump the craft supplies next to the shackles and floggers in the convertible’s minuscule trunk.

  * * *

  Over the next couple of days, I went jogging through the stunning Vallecito wine country with Rans. I sparred with Rans, visited another seedy bar in a different nearby town with Rans, and collaborated on a new piece of quasi-sexual performance art with him, ready to unveil in the notorious San Francisco kink scene. I also played around with marine-grade epoxy resin and salt crystals in spare moments, testing various ratios for my secret project.

  Rans was doing a decent job of singlehandedly causing a countywide iron deficiency among the population, and I’d been benefiting from that surfeit of life-force secondhand, in the most enjoyable ways imaginable. But we still wanted to push my power capacity further, if we could.

  Which is how I found myself the center of attention at Twisted Mission, one of the largest sex clubs in the country. The place made SL2 in St. Louis look like an Amish quilting circle, and I couldn’t say I’d ever expected to bare this much skin to this many people in my life.

  Fun fact—nipple pasties itch like hell. True, I might have found it mildly amusing for the first five minutes to make the tassels whirl around like windmills by shaking my boobs. But after that, the novelty value quickly wore off.

  “You could always go without,” Rans suggested innocently, running an appreciative gaze over the black leather corset that bared the aforementioned boobs to the world.

  “Yeah... no. I’m good, thanks,” I’d said through gritted teeth, cursing whoever invented spirit gum as a method for
attaching things to human skin.

  So here I was, be-tasseled and fish-netted in the middle of a crowd containing easily a hundred people, with more wandering up all the time. On the positive side, if I’d wanted revenge on Rans for his choice of my kink couture tonight, I was getting it in spades. He was shackled to an upright rectangular frame made of heavy wooden beams, his body splayed into an X-shape—wrists stretched above his head and legs spread wide, bare from the waist up except for a spiked leather collar around his throat.

  And I was flogging him.

  Honestly, this shit was way more difficult than it looked. Not only was there an art to making each stroke look as vicious as possible without actually flaying a submissive’s skin off—but after a while, your arm got really tired.

  I had, however, gained a new appreciation of vampire blood control. I’d been worried that the audience might notice the fact that the whip-marks I was inflicting were healing as fast as I could make new ones. Rans only scoffed at my concerns. And, true to his word, he’d consciously routed blood to the areas I was working over, leaving first his back and then his chest flushed an angry red.

  As he had in St. Louis, he was also playing to the crowd, grunting and groaning in exquisite agony as the lash struck. The onlookers, unsurprisingly, were lapping it up with a spoon. I got the impression that when it came to real-world kink scenes like this one—as opposed to professionally produced porn—it was uncommon for both of the players to be young and relatively attractive. Or, in Rans’ case, preternaturally attractive.

  Of course, the people who were perving solely on Rans’ extraordinary good looks weren’t much use to me—even if I could sympathize with them one hundred and ten percent. But there were still a lot of people here who wanted the Domme and not the sub. The lust in this place was sharper than what I’d been able to manufacture with my little voyeuristic displays in the titheling village inside Hell. Here, there was a desperate edge of longing to the lust... and it was plentiful.

  I could feel that familiar jittery sensation building inside me—the one indicating I was stretching my magical capacity to new depths. In some ways, it was a bit frightening, because rather than making me feel full or sated, the feeling seemed to build on itself. It was urging me to take more, rather than to stop. But I refused to pull actively from the innocent people around me. That was a hard limit as far as I was concerned. Unless someone was attacking either me, or someone I cared about—or unless they were being an asshole like Mr. Creeper in the dive bar had been—I wouldn’t draw animus beyond what was being freely offered.

  There was one other source of sexual energy I hadn’t utilized yet, however... and I didn’t think he’d object to offering me a little taste of exactly what I craved. I let my whip arm fall to my side. Rans panted into the sudden silence, broken only by a few quiet murmurs in the crowd. His harsh—and completely unnecessary—breathing was another act... just like his bowed head, hanging forward as though he no longer had the strength to hold it up.

  I used the handle of the flogger to tilt his chin up until burning blue eyes met mine. Those eyes held a sly promise of future sexual retribution that made my nipples tighten beneath the ridiculous tassels glued to my chest. Now, though, I was the one with the upper hand. And I was still hungry.

  I cupped Rans’ hard length through the sinfully tight leather trousers he was wearing, continuing to hold his unblinking gaze as I rubbed and kneaded. The audience’s lust surged. I let it flow into me, but I also let in a trickle from the vampire in front of me. As far as I was concerned, it was like the difference between drinking a finely aged cognac and stale, lukewarm water.

  Damn. No doubt about it, gorging on this much animus at once was messing with my head. Worried that my judgment was being affected, I made myself shut everything out, clamping barriers solidly around my magical core. With some difficulty, I pulled my hand away from Rans’ dick in favor of cupping his cheek for a slow kiss. The sensual slide of his lips against mine centered me, even if the look in his eyes when I pulled back still promised the most delicious kind of payback looming in my future.

  A few whistles and a smattering of applause from the crowd gathered around us brought me fully back to myself. I unshackled Rans’ wrists and ankles before hooking the ridiculous leather dog leash to the collar around his neck and leading him away.

  We made our way out of the building, ignoring the occasional wolf whistles and shouted innuendo. I stopped just outside the entrance, an unpleasant skittering sensation running up my spine. Confused, I looked around, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Rans gave me a concerned look. I shook my head, though—silently dismissing the odd frisson as another symptom of my current power overload. He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t protest as I continued on, heading toward the parking lot.

  When we got back to the car, I sat in the passenger seat, shaking with reaction... or shaking with something, anyway. Rans rested one hand on the steering wheel and regarded me closely.

  “Too much, too fast?” he asked.

  I wet my lips. “I’m not sure. It feels like... filling up the pool somehow made the pool grow larger. But I don’t know that I can control a bigger reservoir. I think it’s fucking with my judgment a bit, to be honest.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “All right, love. No shagging tonight, in that case—more’s the pity. But I still want to get a weapon in your hand once we get back to the house. I’m curious to see what you can do with it while you’re topped up.”

  I tried to control the jitters urging my knee to bounce and my fingers to pick at the seams of the leather corset. “Yeah. Physical activity would be good right about now.” I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “One thing about it—I guarantee that if I needed to get through the gate from Hell to Earth tonight, I’d have no problem whatsoever.”

  Rans gave me an indecipherable look, and started the car.

  * * *

  The following evening, I stood at a workbench in the basement of the Vallecito house, preparing to crack open the casting molds I’d fashioned for my little DIY project. True to his word, Rans had driven us back from San Francisco in the wee hours of the morning, and immediately taken me out to the manicured back yard to spar.

  Much to my shock, about twenty minutes into the session, I scored a lucky combination of a leg hooked behind his ankle to trip him, combined with a wristlock on his knife hand. I blinked in surprise at finding him pinned beneath me, my dagger at his throat and a look of satisfaction on his face.

  “Were you holding back just now?” I asked suspiciously, not releasing my grip.

  “In one way only,” he assured me. “Certainly not in the physical sense, though.”

  I started to ask what he meant by that, but was saved the trouble when his body dissipated beneath mine. A cloud of vapor flowed past and rematerialized behind me as I caught myself with a hand on the grass.

  “Oh,” I said. “Right. I forgot about that little trick.”

  Still, this was the first time I’d ever gotten the upper hand during sparring, and I was fucking well going to take it. Unfortunately, my opponents’ use of magic was something I’d have to worry about in a real fight—both demons and Fae had methods of moving instantaneously from place to place that I, as a hybrid, didn’t. But at least I felt a hell of a lot better about my chances against humans now, Fae-controlled or otherwise.

  Eventually, I’d managed to work off enough of my animus overload to get some rest—although Rans did enforce his ‘no shagging’ declaration, much to my chagrin. When I woke up hours later, I jogged five miles, did some yoga, and no longer felt like I had a live electrical wire running through my spinal column.

  I just felt really, really good. Healthy. Full of vitality. It was kind of weird, frankly.

  Rans had headed off to feed from some unsuspecting souls in nearby Vallecito. Rather than go with him, I stayed behind to focus on my project. I hadn’t wanted to go into detail with him about it until I had a better id
ea if what I was trying to do was practical or not. After a few false starts with the salt mixture, though, I had a good feeling about my latest attempt.

  First, I’d borrowed one of his iron daggers and rolled out a layer of clay a bit longer and wider than the weapon, and perhaps an inch thick. I’d pressed the dagger into it and poked a few holes into the clay around it with a pencil tip, to use as markers for the two halves of the mold I was making.

  When that was done, I formed a four-sided box with no top or bottom out of strips of foam-board taped together, and cut away the irregular edges of the clay so it fit snugly inside the bottom of the rectangular foam-board barrier. Then I glued pieces of a plastic drinking straw in place around the dagger to act as air holes and a spout where I would eventually pour the epoxy mixture into the mold.

  I carefully poured a liquid silicone mold mixture into the box, covering the exposed top of the dagger with the bits of drinking straw sticking out. When it dried, I removed the straws, flipped the box over, and pried the clay out, leaving the dagger and the first half of the silicone mold behind. After painting the exposed silicone with a couple of coats of slippery mold release compound, I poured more silicone mold material into the box, so the dagger was completely encased.

  When the second half of the mold was dry, I removed the foam board edges and separated the two halves of the mold so I could get the dagger out. This left me with a perfect negative impression of the weapon, with small tubes from the drinking straws in one side where I could pour my epoxy resin mixture into the empty space.

  With rubber bands holding the two halves of the mold snugly together, I’d dribbled the marine-rated epoxy mixed with salt crystals into the mold in a thin stream, tapping it a few times during the process to loosen any air bubbles that might have formed. Now, it was cured and ready for the moment of truth.

  Unsure what to expect, I removed the rubber bands holding the mold together and carefully pried the two halves apart. The epoxy dagger inside was marred in several places by imperfections where the air holes had been, or where the resin had seeped between the two parts of the mold.