The Vampire's Slave (Tales of Vampires Book 1)

by Zara Novak

  “I must say I’m looking forward to having a little niece or nephew.”

  Claire heard Sophia’s words, and for the first time the idea struck her that if all things went to plan, she would be pregnant with Eric’s child at some point in the coming weeks. She had been so preoccupied with exploring his body, and letting him explore hers, that she’d completely forgot about the end goal of their coming together. Eric had abducted her in the first place for the suitability of her womb.

  “I don’t understand any of this… ‘breeder’ stuff.” Claire said as they walked through the castle back to Sophia’s room. “How does Eric know that I’m a breeder? When will we be able to…” She trailed off at the end of the sentence, unwilling to question Eric’s own sister on the nature of their sex life.

  “You’ll know soon.” Sophia said, half blushing in realization at the delicacy of the topic. “As for knowing if you’re a breeder or not. It’s pretty obvious to vampires of the opposite sex if a human is a breeder or not. Or senses are much higher than that of humans, and apparently breeders are absolutely enticing to Vampires.”

  “Well that would explain why he can never keep his hands off me.” Claire joked. Then her face flushed with mortification as she realized what she had said to Eric’s sister. “Oh goodness, I’m so sorry!”

  “It’s alright!” Sophia giggled. “To be honest I have a morbid curiosity about it all. I don’t really want to know what you guys have been up to while you’ve been here of course, but this is all as new to me as it is to you and Eric. The last time there was a breeder in the castle was when my mother was here, that was over twenty years ago. We haven’t seen one since.”

  “So you never knew her?” Claire asked. “She died before you were born?”

  “Mother? Heavens no, I knew here for the better part of a century…”

  Claire’s eyes widened at Sophia’s admission. “Of course.” She shook her head. “I’m constantly forgetting age doesn’t effect vampires the same way. I’ve been thinking of you as the same age as me.”

  Sophia smiled. “It’s okay, I’ll take it as a compliment. As for this breeder stuff, the one person you’ll be best of asking is Ira… and hey! Speak of the devil!”

  As they rounded the top of a staircase Claire and Sophia were faced with the Victorian clad doctor. Ira stood with a book to his eyes, studying the words intensely as he stood in the middle of the corridor.

  “Ira, hey!” Sophia called out to the doctor and approached him eagerly. Claire followed closely behind.

  “Huh? What?” Ira turned his head at the last moment in an almost languid shock. “Oh! Sophia! Claire!” The two vampires kissed air and Ira tucked the thick leather tome beneath his arm.

  “What are you two lovely women up to tonight?”

  “I was just giving Claire a tour of the grounds and the pools.” Sophia sang.

  “Ah most fascinating!” Ira beamed, rocking on his heels. “I trust Master Eric is treating you fair Claire? Is everything going alright with your consummation?”

  Things were going very well. That was what Claire wanted to say. She’d had more orgasms in the last week then she’d had in her entire life. She stammered, stalling for her brain to conjure up a more diplomatic answer.

  “Things are going great actually, thanks. Eric is a royal tease.”

  Ira beamed at her words, knowing full well what she meant. “Ah yes! Well, it’s all part of the process you see, we need to make sure that you’re ready for best chance…” Ira trailed off at the end of his sentence, and his eyes flicked down over Claire’s body rapidly. Claire barely noticed the gesture, but there was something about it that made her feel uneasy.

  “In fact Ira, there were a few things I’ve been meaning to ask you about the whole process -”

  “Well my dear, there’s a book in the library I can get you should you need instruction…”

  “No.” Claire laughed. “Not help with that. Just - how do I know when I’ll be ready? Eric keeps saying I’ll know when I’ll know, but what does that mean?”

  “Ah yes. Well… from reading the journals of Belladonna, I am familiar with the subject somewhat. She detailed her sessions in rather explicit detail, and even though her breeder was a male, I believe the sensations are the same for both parties regardless.”

  “So, is there anything I can expect? Some tell tale sign to let me know when I’m ready.”

  “There was one passage I remember in particular.” Ira said, pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “Where the lady Belladonna describes herself going into a heightened frenzy of passion. If I can recall verbatim she described it so:

  ‘My libido has swelled to a great ocean of fire, which rages across my skin like lashes of flame. My whole body tingles with itching heat, and my mind craves nothing else other than to feel the flesh of my lover sheathed between the cup of my red flower. My eyes burn to see him, my mouth burns to kiss him, my hands burn to touch.’”

  Ira coughed gently, indicating that he had finished his recollection.

  “Well…” Claire felt her face blushing once more.

  “Quite the vivid picture.” Sophia said with one eyebrow raised.

  “Quite! I can fetch the journal from the archives if you like?”

  “No it’s alright.” Claire smiled. “We best be going anyway Ira. Eric is expecting us, but thank you for your words.”

  They said goodbye to the doctor and continued down the hall. As they walked Claire looked back and caught the doctor staring at her once more. A chill passed over her and she ran forward a few paces to catch up to Sophia.

  They reached Sophia’s room a few minutes later. Upon arriving there, there was no sign of Eric, so they decided to wait, assuming that he would be back there at some point. Sophia sat Claire at her dressing table, platting her hair while she stood behind her. As she decorated Claire’s hair in all manners of fancy, they made idle chit chat as they waited for Eric.

  “The journal was funny aye? Was it any use to you?”

  Claire smiled at Sophia in the mirror.

  “Perhaps. Her language was certainly… descriptive - that’s for sure.”

  They laughed together, and fell into a peaceful silence, Claire almost feeling half drowsy as Sophia’s nimble fingers danced through her hair, twisting it into a thing of beauty.

  “You’re good at this.”

  “Decades of practice.”

  As Sophia worked her magic on Claire’s hair, Claire stared into the mirror at the girl looking back at her, the girl that was so different from the one she had been just a week ago. She thought of the words in Belladonna’s journal, the description of skin burning like fire as a sign of a breeder being ready. She brought her mind to the dull sensation of heat across her own body, the sensation she had first noticed when she had woke this morning. It was nothing like the description in the journal, but it was definitely something, and Claire knew that it meant the end of her release was near.

  She closed her eyes and saw her lover standing before her. She removed his clothes and pushed him back onto black velvet, spreading her legs as she mounted him, pushing him inside of her, groaning as she felt him fill her completely.

  The space between her legs tingled as she sat on the chair, unable to draw her thoughts to anything else. Prickles of heat flared across her skin as she thought of Eric, rising steadily with each moment. Her body was starting to burn for him, and soon, he would mount her, whether he thought she was ready or not.

  9. Claire

  “I trust Sophia hasn’t only subjected you to mischief.” Eric brushed a hand down Claire’s arm and planted a neat kiss on her forehead as they were reunited. They had eventually reconvened outside Sophia’s room, and after a brief chat with his sister, Eric thanked her for keeping Claire safe, and they left to return to his room.

  “Quite the contrary.” Claire said. “She gave me a tour of the castle, and we even bathed in the hot springs beneath the castle grounds.”

&nbs
p; Eric raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Fancy. I’m glad you had a good time.”

  “It was lovely, thank you. How was your business? I know you weren’t looking forward to the meeting.” Claire could sense that Eric had been reluctant about the family ‘business’ that he’d been summoned to earlier that morning.

  “It was hard work, but it’s done now. Another family came to us asking for our assistance, I didn’t want to help, but they presented some damning evidence. I’m afraid I have no choice, I will have to help them in a few weeks.”

  “Oh - okay.” Claire’s eyes dropped to the ground in sadness.

  “I’m sorry.” Eric said, sighing quietly to himself. “I promise it won’t be for long, and we still have time with each other before then. I will make sure Sophia and Veronica keep you safe.”

  “But what about the castle, what about the other families, what about…”

  “Wraith? He is to come with me. He has a… particular set of skills and they are needed for this task. As for the other families, you have my word that they won’t bother you again.”

  They walked in silence for a few moments before Claire broached the subject that had been running through her mind since Sophia had brought it up.

  “Sophia mentioned something to me earlier. About Wraith. She said that he hadn’t always been this way.”

  Eric pulled Sophia close to him and placed a finger over her lips immediately.

  “Quiet.” He looked up and down the corridor. “I know I promised I would talk to you of such things, but now is not the time or place. Come, we’re only a few minutes from my room - we can discuss it there. I promise.”

  When they returned to his Eric’s room, he locked the door closed behind them and took a deep breath.

  “Come, sit on the bed, I will explain everything.”

  Claire did as he asked, watching Eric as he paced back and forth. He brushed his hands through his hair as he walked, as if he were recounting the details of some important story. He looked tense, and agitated.

  “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  “No. We do. It’s the Belmont family secret, and you’re one of us now, so it’s important that you know.”

  Eric crouched in front of Claire and took her hands in his own.

  “You have to pledge to me that you won’t share this information with anyone else however. No one outside the family knows. Only father, Veronica, Sophia and I.”

  “I promise you Eric, I swear. What is it?”

  “Wraith was normal once upon a time. For the first part of our life while we were growing up, we were inseparable. Back when I was young and wild, we loved to hunt together. I was probably the worst of the two. All was well with life. We had scraps as brothers do, but we were normal, we were happy. As happy as vampires can be anyway.”

  “So he was like you are now?”

  “Kind of.” Eric said, half turning away before looking back. “You have to understand that I wasn’t always the person you see before you today. Not all vampire are like I am. Hunting brings something out in us. If you do it enough, that other side becomes your permanent face. We become cold, distant, cruel. My sister Veronica, she still has a shred of decency, but a few more decades and she will be wild with cruelty.”

  “Okay…”

  “I made efforts to change myself, Sophia was born innocent, she was born pure. She never liked to hunt for game. So I changed for her. That creature you met the night I brought you here, that was a mere taste of my old self. You helped break it again, and bring me back to my improved self. Well, the old Wraith was hardly a saint, but he was a damn sight better than he was now.”

  “What happened?”

  “First of all, you have to understand that there is strange magic in this world. Vampires are but the tip of the iceberg. There are other creatures out there, for more mysterious than I. Wizards, Witches, demons…”

  “Demons?”

  “Yes.” Eric sunk his head. “And is that very affectation that curses Wraith to this day.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Our old home was in Europe, and we had many happy years there. My mother died under mysterious circumstances - circumstances that are still unclear to this day.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It was a long time ago. After her death, a melancholy swept over our family, and a dark energy seemed to take over our house. It went like that for months, until weird things started happening.”

  “Weird things? Like what?”

  “Strange creatures appeared, strange and dark creatures that were attracted to our melancholy. Demons, you see, they are like magnets. They are drawn to negative energy, and they set upon the house like a flock. It took us some time to realize what was happening, and when we did realize we decided to fight back. Small darkness attracts large darkness, and large darkness attracts death.”

  “And then what?”

  “We fought back the only way we knew how - with our fists. A local clan of shifter folk had moved in.” Eric paused at the confusion on Claire’s face. “Werewolves for lack of a better word.”

  Claire nodded slowly.

  “They’re drawn to the energy just as the shadows are, and they had taken residence in our valley. Wraith and I set to work on cleaning the pack out. It was up on the mountain, on the very last night of our mission when it happened. We had found their main hiding spot and we were clearing them out. It was hard work but we succeeded, and I felt a shift in the energy immediately.”

  “You had won over the melancholy?”

  “Almost, but mother nature doesn’t like to go out with a whimper. She goes out with a bang. The heavens opened up and a storm the likes of which I’ve never seen came down upon the earth. Flashes filled the night air, as lightning struck down a hundred times a minute. Wraith and I were running back to the house for our lives, he was just ahead of me when I saw it happen. There was an almighty bang and the earth exploded underneath him. Next thing I knew, he was face down on the grass, still as death.

  “He was hit?”

  Eric nodded. “I thought he had died instantly. I picked him up and carried him home and laid him on the table before father. We were planning funeral arrangements when his eyes opened again.”

  “So he was alright?”

  “Yes and no. He was alive, but he wasn’t Wraith any longer. As it turns out, the storm wasn’t a regular storm, it was a shadow storm, a rare paranormal phenomena - the result of a dark portal opening in the skies above the earth. The flashes that filled the valley, they weren’t forks of lightning. They were the paths of demons trying to get to earth.”

  Claire sat wordless, trying to understand the implications of Eric’s story.

  “But why did the portal open?”

  “To this day we don’t know.” Eric sighed. “They are vary rare and extremely dangerous. It was probably brought about by the final surges of melancholy as we made an effort to fight back against it. We suspect it’s somehow connected to whatever killed my mother in the first place.”

  Claire blinked, Eric felt the need to go on.

  “When Wraith was hit, his body was taken over by a demon. The morning after the storm, the melancholy had left our house, and father decided we should move back to America. Wraith was never the same. Whatever dark entity had taken over his soul, left him cruel, dark and completely amoral. He’s never been the same since. The demon lies dormant in him, but it taints his very soul. He is Shadow Cursed.”

  Silence beat between them, as Claire felt a strange sadness wash over her. The same creature that she had feared, hated, and felt repulsed by, was the same creature that she now felt sorry for.

  “In a way it was almost like he sacrificed himself.” Claire said. “To help defeat the dark energy that had taken over your family.”

  Eric nodded. “We have looked the world over for some sort of cure, but there is none. There are none others that know of the Belmont family secret, for it co
uld be incredibly dangerous in the arms of others. If other vampire knew that Wraith was really possessed, they could try and harness his power, using the demon within him. No one else knows, not Ezra, not Ira. Only us. You have to keep this with yourself.”

  “I will.” Claire gripped her lover’s hand tight. “I promise. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

  “You deserve to know.” Eric said. “I should have told you sooner when you had your run in with Wraith. There is a reason for his behavior. Maybe we should have killed him a long time ago, but I have never found the strength to do it.”

  “Why is this knowledge so dangerous?” Claire asked.

  “To be Shadow Cursed… it is a powerful thing. Wraith’s body harbors the raw energy of the demon inside of him. Demons aren’t of this earth, and they can’t live here long without a vessel in which they can hide. Normally it is humans that are Shadow Cursed. It would happen to sailors out at sea back in the past. The men would go wild with the power and kill everyone on board. Their own strength was amplified by the power of the demon inside of them.”

  “But a Shadow Cursed vampire…” Claire muttered, half speaking to herself.

  “Exactly.” Eric said. “The power of a vampire is already multitudes stronger than that of a man. I’ve seen rare glimpses of the demonic power that Wraith possesses. But when I see it… my god.” Eric’s eyes glazed over. “I’ve never seen power like it before. If Wraith knew what he was capable of, if he only knew the strength that lay inside of him…”

  “You mean he doesn’t know?!”

  Eric shook his head. “At least… I don’t think. We’ve only seen it once or twice, and when he comes back, he seems to have no memory. One thing is clear, one day the demon will wake up for good.”

  “And then what?” Claire said, almost hanging off the edge of her seat. “What will happen?”

  “I don’t know.” Eric answered honestly. “But I don’t want to be around to find out.”

  *