Eternity and a Year

by Ranae Rose

  Isadora was too quick for him. She darted between the two of them in one deft movement, and Brendan collided with her.

  He jerked away as if he’d been burnt, his face contorted with rage. Meanwhile, Isadora grasped Carrie’s hair again, twisting it painfully. Carrie whimpered and looked beyond her captor and Brendan to where Sophia had appeared in the doorway, casting the shadow that had caused the disturbance. Carrie’s heart rose from where it had settled at her toes.

  Isadora appeared to be doing her best to divide her attention between Brendan and Sophia, paying little attention to Carrie, whom she was jerking about by her soft, nutmeg locks like a rag doll.

  “Release her,” Brendan said.

  The urgency in his voice and eyes hurt Carrie almost as much as the physical pain. She hated that her disobedience had driven him half-crazy all day and pushed him to the brink of tears now.

  “No,” Isadora said.

  She jerked Carrie’s hair suddenly, so Carrie was forced to rise to a standing position. Carrie stood beside her captor, wincing as sharp cramps attacked her calves.

  Isadora tilted Carrie’s head backwards again and leaned her own close to it with a cruel smile. “You’ll both obey me. If you don’t, I’ll have her blood.” She pressed her mouth against Carrie’s neck in demonstration, parting her lips and baring her fangs so their tips threatened to dent Carrie’s skin.

  Sophia’s brow plunged in irritation, and Brendan moaned in anguish.

  Carrie’s heart pounded frantically. A few silent moments stretched by, during which each vampire in the room remained infinitely more still than Carrie, who trembled from the upheaval in her chest.

  “I thought so,” Isadora said, smiling in cruel satisfaction.

  She removed her mouth from Carrie’s neck and stared levelly at Brendan. “Now,” she said, “I came here to have you, and I will, even if your pitiful human has to lie beside us with my hand around her fragile neck as I do.”

  Brendan stared back at Isadora, a hint of fear in his eyes. Another pang of guilt swept over Carrie.

  “As for you,” Isadora added, glancing sharply at Sophia, “you’ll stay out of this if you value your existence.”

  Sophia responded with a vicious glare.

  Isadora ignored her, turning instead to address Brendan again. “Return to your knees.”

  Brendan obeyed, never removing his gaze from Carrie. It was not accusing but apologetic. Carrie wilted, held more or less upright only by the iron grip Isadora maintained on her hair.

  Sophia lingered by the door, watching the scene unfold. Carrie wondered if she had a plan to help her and Brendan, praying a silent request that if she didn’t, she would come up with one quickly.

  “Strip,” Isadora said.

  Brendan opened his mouth to protest.

  “Do it,” Isadora said, then flicked Carrie’s neck with the end of her cold tongue.

  Carrie trembled with both revulsion and dread.

  Brendan sighed, pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside quickly to reveal the smooth, pale bodyscape of his muscular torso. Isadora bared her fangs and pressed them against the soft curve of Carrie’s neck, wrenching her hair cruelly to make her cry out for emphasis. Brendan, his expression disgusted, unbuttoned his fly and obediently slid his jeans down over the strong expanses of his thighs.

  Carrie glanced briefly at Sophia, who was watching Brendan shed his clothing with an unreadable expression. Her pity rose for the vampiress whose husband had been taken from her by Isadora years ago.

  Isadora sighed as she regarded Brendan in his nudity. “You’re beautiful, you know,” she breathed. “I knew you would be. That’s why I chose you.” She spoke more quickly as she continued. “I always choose the beautiful ones. And why not? I can have anyone I want. After all, you’re just like the others, nothing but a toy to me—a fragile toy, but beautiful while you last.” She laughed breathily. “Now,” she said when she’d regained most of her composure, “rise.” She punctuated her command with a sudden movement that tore her dress away from her body and cast it aside so she stood nude before her small audience.

  Brendan started to straighten.

  “No!” Isadora chastised him, her lips curling in a devious smile. “Rise, but remain on your knees.”

  Carrie paled. Her heart hammered frantically, and she felt panicked and helpless, as if she were watching a scene unfold in a horror movie, utterly unable to change the events that played out across the screen. She didn’t want to watch, but she was powerless to look away.

  Brendan met Carrie’s gaze, blinked and licked his lips nervously. Carrie was conscious of him looking away from her face and focusing instead on her breasts, more than half of which, including her cold-hardened nipples, still spilt over the top of her bra cups, pushed upwards by the garment as if in offering. The small wounds left by his fangs were dark dots on the pale swell of them, and an unexpected arousal tugged at her as she remembered the way he had pressed her back hard with his hand, forcing her breast deep into his mouth to inflict them. His steady stare sent a flush through her, and he licked his lips as if in longing to take them once more. Then her eyes widened as her gaze came to rest between his legs, where his penis rose as it swelled.

  Isadora stared, too, watching with obvious enjoyment as Brendan’s erection grew. Her face darkened when she saw where he was looking, though, and she hissed.

  A thrill of smug satisfaction filled Carrie, then she gasped in pain as Isadora tossed her to the floor by her hair, exclaiming angrily. She landed on her back, on top of her bound wrists, and a warm seepage of blood began as several stitches popped out of place. She rolled onto her side, groaning, as Isadora stepped in front of her, flaunting her moon-white body.

  “Look at me,” she said to Brendan. “Look upon the body that will take your life and what little strength you possess, as well.”

  Carrie stared up at Isadora from where she lay. The vampiress’s dark hair brushed the upper slope of her round buttocks as she tossed her head, causing the full curve of one breast to peek from beside her arm.

  Brendan’s voice drifted from beyond her nude form. “You’re so beautiful, Carrie,” he said. “So beautiful. That night, when I watched you through the window…”

  Warmth spread through Carrie’s core at the memory of Brendon’s confession that he’d watched her masturbate one night during his year-long disappearance. Her clitoris tingled rebelliously, and she cursed herself for it. This was no time to feel this way! How could her terror allow room for arousal?

  “That’s what I’m thinking about, Carrie. That, and when we made love for the first time in a year on the third floor of this building, just a few nights ago.”

  Isadora shrieked angrily. “On your back!”

  “Carrie, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  “I told you to lie down!” Isadora snapped.

  “Carrie, I—”

  Isadora struck Brendan hard across his jaw, silencing him and sending him sprawling on the floor. Carrie stared at him in horror from around Isadora’s legs. The full moonlight streamed through the doorway, causing his milky skin to glow slightly. Isadora bent over him, a mass of bare limbs, white curves and dark, swinging hair. Carrie choked on a large lump that had formed in her throat as she tried to call out.

  Brendan exploded in a surprising fury of calculated motion as Isadora loomed over him, knocking her away from his body and onto the floor.

  “Ugh!” Isadora cried as her back and head collided with the cement, her red eyes wide with surprise.

  Brendan flung himself over her face, pressing his chest against it, driving his knees into her jaw and curling his arms around her skull as if it were a strange, hairy football. “Now!” he shouted, but Sophia was already at his side, bent over the writhing, nude form of her prey.

  Something gleamed in the light, and a dull, sickening thump sounded, as of metal being driven deep into a body.

  Isadora flailed wildly as Sophi
a carved her flesh and bone with a steel blade, but Brendan held tightly to her head, blinding her and preventing her from rising. Sophia sawed quickly and with all the stoic efficiency of a butcher, carving a U-shaped line that cut through ribs and split the bottom curve of her victim’s heaving left breast. Brendan’s body hardly muffled the blood-curdling shriek that escaped Isadora as Sophia grasped the breast firmly and pulled, opening her chest cavity. After cutting away the vessels and cords that held it in place, she extracted the still heart. Sophia held it appraisingly against the moonlight while the breast that had covered it lolled grotesquely, its surprisingly dark nipple pointing accusingly sideways towards Carrie, who stared in sick horror.

  Sophia and Brendan were both knocked aside then, bowled over by the crazed Isadora as she rose. Carrie gaped, unable to look away from her. Isadora’s eyes had gone as wide as saucers, her entire body trembled and, while one of her breasts hung round and firm, the other sagged, cloven like a goat’s hoof and swinging like a door on a hinge, revealing her bloodless insides. She shrieked again, looked frantically around and finally darted out of the door, naked and still screaming. The silence left in the wake of her shrieks and footsteps was deafening.

  Neither of the remaining vampires made any move to follow their fleeing victim. Instead, Brendan rushed to Carrie’s side and removed her bonds, while Sophia remained utterly absorbed in the prize she had torn from her victim’s chest. The heart gleamed wetly, a dark purple in colour, and Carrie had to look away, fighting the urge to vomit.

  “Are you all right?” Brendan asked as he dragged the fabric strips from Carrie’s wrists and let them flutter to the floor. “Did she hurt you?”

  “Just bruises,” Carrie replied, her voice rasping slightly through her damaged throat. “Except for my wound. I think some of the stitches came out.”

  Brendan pressed her head against his shoulder and peered down at her back. “The bandage is bloody,” he said as he stroked her skin. “I’d remove it and take a look at the damage, but…”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Carrie insisted.

  “You’ll just have to go back to the hospital and have a doctor take a look,” Brendan said.

  “What? No!” Carrie protested. “I’m not going anywhere!” She flung her arms around Brendan’s neck, squeezed tightly and gasped as pain surged through her reopened wound.

  “Look at you,” Brendan said, tilting her head back gently and tracing the curve of her bruised throat. “You need to go.”

  “No,” Carrie said, burying her head in his shoulder and forcing herself against him so her dirtied breasts painted charcoal-grey smudges across his pale chest. “I’m staying with you.”

  Brendan sighed, causing several wayward tendrils of Carrie’s hair to flutter. He stroked them flat against her skull with one hand while he pressed her harder against him with the other, forcing her breasts to swell upwards in the space between them. “And I’m staying with you. I’m going with you this time, then I’ll take you home.”

  “And you’ll stay with me there?” Carrie asked.

  He nodded. “I won’t leave you alone again.”

  Carrie opened her mouth to reply but wrinkled her nose instead as a sickly odour greeted her nostrils. “What—” she began, lifting her head from his cool shoulder. “Oh,” she said, a sound of mingled surprise and understanding. Sophia stood over a small, burning mass at her feet.

  Sophia tucked a glinting, silver lighter into a fold of her dress. Then she stood still, staring down at the heart enveloped in flames as if determined to see it reduced to ash. It shrank beneath the heat with the foetid smell of charred flesh, and Carrie retched.

  Brendan moved fluidly to his feet, lifting Carrie as he did so and supporting her with a strong arm around her shoulders when she stood. “Let’s go outside,” he said, urging her in the direction of the door.

  “But you’re—” Carrie swallowed a mouthful of bile as she stared at Brendan, eyeing the length of his bare form, every sinew and muscular curve exposed.

  Brendan glanced appraisingly down at his own body then looked around as if searching for his clothing. He found his garments lying nearby and stepped into his jeans quickly but held his shirt out to Carrie. “Here,” he said.

  She slipped into it without protest, grateful for the cover it provided even though it hung baggily around her figure.

  “Wait here,” Brendan directed a moment later, pausing cautiously before the threshold.

  She lingered obediently, holding her breath as best she could as he stepped out of the building and into the alley.

  “No sign of her,” he announced a few moments later, peering through the doorway at Carrie. “Come on.” He held out a hand for her to take.

  She hesitated, turning to face Sophia. “Thank you,” she said.

  Sophia looked up from the flames and smiled briefly at her. “My work isn’t done, yet. I still have to burn her, but…well, this is a huge start. Thank you,” she added nodding in Brendan’s direction.

  Brendan nodded. “Thank you, Sophia.” He paused as Carrie took his hand. “Will you be pursuing her?”

  “I’ll start tracking her tonight, as soon as this has finished burning,” Sophia replied.

  “Good luck,” Brendan muttered, and drew Carrie out of the building, into the night by his side.

  “So you and Sophia planned all that?” she asked as they strode over the packed-dirt alley floor.

  Brendan nodded. “She found me this afternoon, after Isadora captured you, and told me what had happened. We planned what we would do as best we could.”

  He flexed his arm, pulling Carrie closer to him as they emerged from the alley and stepped into the street. “It’s kind of a long walk to the hospital. Do you want me to call a cab?”

  Carrie eyed her surroundings warily and shook her head. “I don’t want to wait here. Let’s just walk.”

  Brendan’s bare, white chest glowed faintly beneath the street lights and attracted stares from nearly everyone they passed. No one accosted them, although a few cat calls followed him as they walked around the line at the door of a night club, forced off the sidewalk and onto the street by the queue of bodies. Carrie got the feeling something in Brendan’s red eyes kept the curious and the dangerous onlookers alike at bay.

  “I’ll wait around the side of the building for you,” Brendan said when he and Carrie finally stood before the hospital doors. “I think with the way I look right now, I’d do more harm than good if I went inside with you.”

  Carrie surveyed Brendan, who was bare from the waist up and glowing pale, save for where she had smudged his chest with grime. His eyes shone red in the darkness, and he had forgotten his shoes. He looked wildly, dangerously sexy, but she guessed some people might not see past the ‘wild’ and ‘dangerous’ parts. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “But you’ll be waiting when I get out, won’t you?”

  He nodded.

  Carrie rose to her tiptoes and pressed her mouth firmly against his. He responded with surprising passion, seeking out the darkest recesses of her mouth with his tongue.

  “I’ll be waiting,” he said when he finally released her.

  Chapter Six

  Brendan paused only to close the apartment’s front door behind him and slide the lock into place before resuming the kiss they had reluctantly ended in front of the hospital nearly three hours before. Carrie had spent nearly half that time talking to a very suspicious nurse and a doctor who had remembered her from last time and had wanted to call a police officer. Despite their questions and insinuations she was in some sort of trouble and needed help, she’d refused to admit anything of the sort. There was little a human could do about a creature like Isadora, and mentioning her would be likely to call her mental health into question. So she’d stubbornly stuck to her story of tripping and falling—twice. The doctor and nurse hadn’t been fooled, and she thought ruefully they probably suspected her to be involved with drugs or some other illegal activity, like pros
titution. And though she would never admit it, Brendan excited her as much as any drug.

  Her heart beat faster against his still, cool chest as his lips covered hers, eager and insistent. She gripped his shoulders, digging her fingernails into the bare body she’d been lusting after during the entire walk home. He cradled her face between his hands a little too tightly, and she drew breath sharply, breaking the seal of their kiss.

  Brendan released her, settling his hands on her shoulders instead. “Come to the bedroom with me.”

  Carrie stared down at the oversized, borrowed shirt she wore, as if she could see her dirt-smudged breasts and stomach beneath it. “I’m filthy,” she protested, despite her body’s urges to forget about the grime and obey him. “I need to take a shower first.”

  “You don’t need to do anything,” Brendan said. “I would have made love to you on the floor there in the building if you hadn’t been hurt.”

  Carrie wrinkled her nose as the stench of burning heart flooded back to her.

  “Okay, on the third floor, then,” he said, brushing a lock of hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.

  “You have a one-track mind,” Carrie remarked. “And after meeting two more vampires, I’m beginning to think you’re all that way.”

  Brendan lowered his gaze but smiled. “Two-track, really. Blood and sex. The two of which aren’t completely unrelated.”

  Carrie smiled faintly, which apparently went unnoticed by Brendan.

  “I know it must seem horrible,” he said, “but there, in the building, when Isadora had you, I was so scared, but…but you looked so good.” He moaned faintly and fondled Carrie’s breasts through the thin fabric of the cotton shirt he’d lent her, pressing his palms against her barely-shielded nipples as they hardened beneath his touch. “I wished…that I could have been the one to put my hand in your hair and pull your head back—gently, though—and see your breasts point up at me.” He wound his fingers in the locks at the nape of her neck and tugged gently in demonstration. Carrie arched backwards slightly, her nipples pointing sharply as if they would pierce the fabric of her borrowed shirt. “You don’t hate me for it, do you?” he asked, brushing his lips over the bruised hollow of her neck.