From the Dark

by Michele Hauf

  “I…er…” She slipped to the right and bent to feel under the fountain bowl. Grasping the vine tangled about her left ankle, she ripped, choking it from its roots. That’d teach it. “There must be a switch or something along the base. Don’t you think?”

  “Why are you frightened of me, Jane? I won’t hurt you. Do I come off as some kind of monster to you?”

  Her fingers played over a small button. Pressing it, Jane heard water begin to gurgle within the stone foundation of the piece.

  She stood and brushed back her hair. Her arms were moist with mist, and running her palms over the front of her chemise reminded her of what Michael had correctly deduced about her lack of undergarments. She didn’t need a bra. Besides, she hated feeling confined.

  “You’re not a monster,” she said. “And you’re right, I don’t know you, so even if you were…”

  “Which I am not.”

  “Sure. But grant me this—I have volunteered to stay with a stranger, and will remain cautious until we do—” Get to know each other, got stuck at the back of her throat. Sounded too committed. But the need for connection was so strong. This man attracted so easily. Common? Was that how he labeled all his groupies? “Oh, here it comes!”

  Water splashed out of the cherub’s pursed mouth and—well, it was more a drool down the chin and fat belly that then routed to a few trickles across the toes and into the bowl.

  “Give it a few minutes,” Michael said. “The water pressure will increase.” He stepped back, and Jane took a step at the same time.

  Turning swiftly, Michael caught Jane from falling by grasping her shoulders. Supporting herself by gripping his shirt front, she chuckled—fear reaction.

  And he leaned in to kiss her.

  The fine translucent jewels of rain coating Michael’s hair slid down Jane’s cheek. He smelled of rain and grass and black cherries. He tasted wild. And sinful. Ending the kiss, he nudged into her hair and snuck kisses along her neck.

  His hungry groan matched her own wanting murmurs. Jane clung to his shirt, unwilling to release him. Teeth grazed the underside of her jaw, seemingly gentle strokes promised danger when he passed over the thick vein.

  Whatever he was to the world, his fans and the groupies, he was certainly not common. His heart pounded against hers, the bass beat of a frenzied Indian powwow.

  He felt…familiar. A wicked disease shivered up Jane’s arms. Was it the anxiety of a new kiss? Or the longing familiarity of so common an act?

  Not common, this man. Wicked and unique.

  But he belonged to the world. To all those many worshippers. Why did she feel as if she were stealing him away from all of them? And what was wrong with that?

  A glance of skin on skin traced her back, his fingers explored her spine, heightening her senses. She could smell his being, salty and strong, and taste his want, even feel his curiosity. Slither and glide, two fingers skated up her spine, beneath her silk shirt. Jane moaned. The touch, it—

  What was that odd feeling?

  The shimmer?

  Michael’s eyes snapped open and his clear blue eyes focused on hers. He shifted his body to fit tight to her hips and chest and legs, pressing fingers against the small of her back as if he wanted to push her right through him. A silent challenge was issued.

  Compelled by primal instinct and the desire for contact with a potent male, Jane moved into him. Sliding her knee between his parted legs, she crushed her chest against his. Her nipples hardened against his tight pecs. A shiver engulfed her body.

  Yes, it was the shudder of kissing a stranger, not the shimmer. That was ridiculous to even consider.

  “I could take you right here,” he groaned.

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “Are you afraid of a stranger’s desire? That I want you?”

  She closed her eyes and let her head fall back. Her hair dusted Michael’s elbows. He held her there, so covetously. She could feel his erection against her thigh, powerful and strong, wanting, and yet, not so demanding as to make her feel threatened.

  Afraid? Never.

  But cautious? Always.

  “I bet you ask all the girls that before you make love to them, then walk away, never again to see them.”

  “Judgmental, aren’t you? What makes you think I have had so many girls, and then walk away?”

  “Isn’t that what rock stars do?”

  “Oh, Jane, you have no idea what I am. Rock star is just the costume I wear.”

  His roaming kisses found her mouth, and he clasped the back of her head, drawing her deeper into the intimate play. Mine, the move said. Will you surrender?

  The answer came unbidden. Jane allowed her body to melt into his every hardness and angle. Her fingers stroked the flexing muscles on his arms. His every movement changed the sinew and flesh beneath her caress, tightening it, stretching it. Whatever lay beneath the costume, she wanted a peek.

  She stepped a bare foot onto his boot. A moan escaped. Want cried out. Yes, she wanted, groupies be damned. Begone the other sensation currently tracing the back of her neck and tingling across her scalp. A warning? No, the danger she had seen in him earlier, when he’d scared her in the workroom, wasn’t there now.

  “Then let me see beneath the costume,” she said, clinging to his T-shirt, wanting to tear it from his hard body, but using it more to merely hold on to a last vestige of common sense. “Right here.”

  Forget common sense. She had been a good girl for far too long. She worked hard, supported herself, and always—well, usually—did what was expected of her. Didn’t she deserve a dance with this dangerous bit of sexy?

  “Ah!” Michael suddenly pushed away from her, separating their bodies with a rush of cool, misted air.

  Stretching back his shoulders and spreading out his arms, he tilted his head back, and like a mighty warrior, cried out to the star-speckled sky.

  Unsure how to react, Jane stumbled backward, but caught herself against the fountain.

  Without looking at her, Michael twisted at the hip and strode toward the house. “Sorry! I…”

  The insurgence of sensation—at her lips, in her breasts, pulsing in her groin—receded as quickly as it had begun. Jane stood there, empty, and open, breathing heavily.

  A shiver scurried through her body, and she clutched her arms, hugging herself. She had felt him. Like a whisper in her blood. An invitation to dance in his exotic world.

  She touched her mouth, hot and plumped from the ravaging. “Yes, ravaged,” she whispered.

  Instinctually, she knew it was the man’s mind she had labeled, and not their embrace.

  Chapter 7

  W hat novelty. Michael Lynsay had refused to follow through with a seduction.

  Why? Because after that first kiss, well then, the next kiss, and the next just wouldn’t be as exciting. Or that’s what Michael told himself as he cruised toward town in Jane’s Mini Cooper.

  Truth was, if he had wanted to continue kissing her, the monster would have barged in, begging him to bite. And after the bite, the kiss didn’t matter any more. Persuasion would be called upon. Jane would swoon into his bite, and later, she would come to without memory of the extraction.

  That he’d been able to push away from Jane and resist going further gave him minimal hope. He could control his urges.

  What he couldn’t do was this sharing the space bit. Which is why he pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  “Lousy seventy miles per hour on this thing,” he muttered. “Piece of junk.”

  In response, the Mini started to shake as it rumbled over the gravel road. Michael let up on the gas and the car settled to a smooth fifty miles per hour.

  He hadn’t asked to borrow Jane’s car, but he intended to gas it up in thanks. It had been all he could do to get out of the house and away from the woman. And her heartbeats.

  He flexed his hand, sensing she had not followed him into his pulse. This felt too fast. Yes, even for him, a man who could take a name
less woman behind an alleyway after a concert, this was fast.

  But only because this time it felt like it should be more than a mere fix. Something about Jane compelled him, made him want to slowly peel away her layers to discover the riches inside. It was more than a blood craving.

  Why did he feel her inside him?

  This was new to him, so he wasn’t sure how to define it. But he did want more. More Jane. More kisses. And sure, sex, as well. But not until he’d collected himself.

  His stomach lurched painfully. The constant feeding he’d conditioned his body to withstand would never allow him to forget when it was time for sustenance. Hell, not even sustenance, it was the need for adrenaline, plain and simple.

  Why did sex—not even sex, but simple kisses and foreplay—always summon the urge to drink blood?

  It had been decades since he’d been able to make love to a woman without then drinking from her. When wrapped within the blood hunger, his lust began to frenzy. He needed satisfaction. But mere orgasm no longer did it for him. The monster demanded its fill.

  The monster wrapped chains about the man who wanted to kiss her—just taste Jane’s sweetness—and instead made him pay with blood.

  A tiny prick at his temple promised to become a fierce screw drilling into his brain should he not pay attention to his body’s demands.

  “Don’t worry, you bastard,” he muttered. “I’m looking.”

  “Frickin’ flames.” Ravin Crosse stabbed the point of her dagger onto the fluttering white flyer that had been stapled to the wall in the hallway leading to the restroom.

  She glanced out to the main floor of the Denny’s restaurant. Patrons were eating, conversing, paying her no mind.

  Tugging the flyer loose, she stuffed it in a pocket and went out the side door. Her chopper was parked in the lot across the street, right next to the Dumpster, where no one ever parked.

  Straddling the leather seat, she then drew out the flyer and unfolded the crumpled white paper. The five men who formed the group The Fallen stared at her. They were playing a concert in two nights at the Decadance, a nightclub located just out of North Lake.

  The man in the center of the photo, the tall one with the long blond hair and killer smile, taunted the camera with a gimmee gesture of his fingers. Ravin recognized him immediately.

  “Not good,” she said to herself. It was the vampire she had pinned as a source.

  “Curse them all! A public figure would certainly be missed if he suddenly ceased to exist.”

  Tearing up the flyer, she then balled it up and tossed it into the Dumpster. “Jane is not going to like this.”

  “Looks like a schedule of tour dates from last year,” Sylvan Banks commented. He handed the iPod to his mistress. “You can store a lot of info on these little things. Yes, like that. You swing your forefinger around the white dial. Do you see that list of files? You can select one by pressing the center button. Do you want me to do it?”

  “I’m not stupid.” The woman drew her shoulders away from the irritating man. Still barely a teenager, he tried her every last bit of patience with his obnoxious need to treat her like an invalid who could not even understand the simplest of tasks.

  She leaned over the small white music player to study the device, but her focus strayed.

  She was exhausted. Tired, and so ready to release the tattered shroud from her body and step back into life. It had been over a year, and still the healing moved at a snail’s pace. She could barely see a change in the ruddy lumps and puckers that had invaded her flesh.

  Devastated by the ugliness of her condition, she rarely went out at night, and relied on lackeys like this boy to bring her sustenance.

  This was not like her. Once she had been strong, bold and beautiful. So beautiful, they always cried, just before climax. That she had not died a year ago only proved she was meant to walk this earth. But not like this. She missed her lovers. She craved the affection, the blind worship and sexual play.

  Until her confidence returned, she would not have any of it. And that was only possible with the help of one very important man.

  She scanned the list of files on the music player Sylvan had found in the graveyard. Music. Videos. Podcast? Whatever that was. Tour schedule. Songs. Unfinished.

  So much inside this little bit of plastic. She did not cease to marvel at technology. And when she thought she’d learned all she could about gadgets and gizmos, another new one emerged to be discovered and marveled over.

  “You’re sure it belongs to him?”

  “Picked it up from the top of his mother’s grave. It’s his.”

  “This piece of his life does me little good, especially, as you’ve explained, with the ear pieces missing. Is there an address for Mr. Lynsay in there? Or rather, look up all his band mates, and check for Minnesota addresses. Is there any way we can get a message to him via that thing?”

  “You mean like a video? Sure, that’s possible. I just need to download the software and I’ve got some video equipment. What sort of message?”

  “You worry about the electronics, I’ll contend with the words. Got it?”

  “Yes, Isa—er, mistress.”

  Idiot. She’d found Sylvan an agreeable enough lackey when she’d first tracked him down through the music magazine. The reporter had written an article about The Fallen. While no expert on the group, he did live in Minnesota, which made tracking them easier.

  Soon, very soon.

  And then?

  Back to life.

  She returned his wink from across the dance floor. The club was virtually dark, save the frenetic strobe that glimpsed bits of laughter, gyrating hips, swaying arms and bouncing breasts.

  Michael strode toward the back door, knowing she would follow. He high-fived a young man who pointed in recognition at him, and then shoved open the back door. It had stormed briefly this afternoon, and now the heat had stirred the atmosphere into murk. Fog coated the air.

  “Is it really you?” giggled up behind him. His catch for the evening. “The fallen angel?”

  Pretty damn close.

  “Shh.” Michael stretched back his hand and she clasped it. “No talking, sweetie.”

  “But I’m going to need an autograph. Please? Oh, pretty please?”

  “How can I say no to a pretty please like that? This way.”

  He spied a hedge that bordered the back of a Chinese restaurant. The smell of orange chicken and spicy shrimp called to him. The love for aromas never left, though to eat would make him physically ill.

  “Come here.” He tugged the woman to his side, and insinuated them behind a delivery truck with a cold engine.

  The restaurant was still open. Clanks of dishes and shouts echoed out through the back screen door. They’d have to be quiet. Which meant, as soon as he flashed his fangs, he’d have to slap a hand over her mouth.

  “Ready for this?” He eased her hand over his crotch to throw her off the plan.

  “I’m so excited. A real rock star! I saw you on MTV!”

  “Yeah, baby. Whatever.”

  He didn’t bother to kiss her. Kisses, while intimate, didn’t appeal when the women slathered thick goop all over their lips. She stroked him hurriedly.

  “Hey, baby, take a look at these, will you?”

  He tilted his head down and stretched open his mouth. An appropriate evil growl felt right.

  As predicted, her scream was easily silenced with a clamp of his wide hand over her mouth. Michael worked quickly to satisfy the monster.

  Startled awake by the garage door opening and closing, Jane sat up and swung her feet out of bed. Shrugging a hand through her tousled hair, she yawned and stretched. It was still dark out; the moon scythed high in the sky.

  A car door slammed. Must be Michael. He’d taken her car without asking, but she hadn’t minded. Though she did mind the fact that he’d seemed to be fleeing her after almost convincing her to have sex with him in the garden.

  What had she said to turn
him off so completely?

  Heck, she had been willing. Which didn’t speak well for her powers of attraction. Had she forgotten how to turn a man on?

  It wasn’t as if she hadn’t experience. How long had it been since she’d slept with a man? To think about it was more depressing than she was willing to admit.

  Well, she was up. Might as well go say hello, see if he was in the mood to talk.

  Quickly descending to the main level, she spied Michael as he came toward her down the hallway. He looked a marvelous splendor. Blond hair flowing behind him with his quick pace, his arms he held slightly arced out at his sides.

  “Michael.” Jane realized she clung to the chair rail nailed hip-level on the wall, and released her tight clutch. “Just getting home?”

  Though the hall was dark, his eyes glittered and his teeth flashed as he answered, “Yep.”

  He smelled like smoke and alcohol, and something innate. Jane could not name the familiar scent, yet it disturbed her.

  “I don’t mind you taking the car,” she offered.

  “I gassed it up.”

  “Thanks.”

  He paused at the end of the hallway, facing the stairs that led to the basement where he must have his own room—though Jane had respectfully kept away from snooping. Twisting his neck as if to fight out a kink, he then turned to her.

  Sighing through his nose, now that he had stopped moving he seemed to fill the entire hall, his presence soaring beyond the physical body and becoming a part of the very air.

  Jane drew in a breath. Smoke. “You’ve been to a club?”

  “Yes.” He stalked closer.

  She realized she wore nothing but thin silk pajamas. And yet, approached by the man, she did something entirely unexpected. Instead of crossing her arms over her chest, she put back her shoulders, which lifted her breasts. The hallway light, located thirty feet away, cast a soft glow over them.

  She felt…frisky. And wanting. Things inside of her had gone missing. Or rather, she couldn’t name the source of emptiness; it could be inner, or maybe it was external. All that surrounded her demanded focus, and yet, something was missing. Nothing tangible though—she felt that. Something inside awaited release. Awakening.