Sacred Circle

by Claire Thompson

  He had only meant to kiss her thigh, but his teeth were suddenly bared, the canine fangs now discernibly longer than a human’s as they plunged into tender flesh. Grace, still caught in the throes of her orgasm, barely registered the sharp pricks of his teeth against her. He sucked at her thigh, the sweet, heady blood bubbling up against his tongue. When had blood tasted so sweet? Not for close to three hundred years. Only a mouthful, then just one more!

  Julian forced himself to stop. Indeed, he wanted to stop because he wanted to mount her. To claim her in the most primal of ways. To seduce her into wanton submission, firmly under his control. Now he rose over her, his huge cock bobbing at her lips as he knelt over the girl. “Take it,” he said softly, and Grace’s eyes flew open. She gasped at the size of his member. It was hard as a rock, but its skin was satin-soft. Carefully she licked the large head, her pink tongue slipping around it, making him almost beg.

  But Julian didn’t beg—he commanded. Kneeling up, he pressed his erection against her lips, forcing them to part as he slowly slid into her mouth. Grace stayed very still—her eyes closed now, her body inert beneath his. Her mouth felt hot and sweet against his flesh. He felt her teeth lightly grazing his cock as he slid it further back into her throat. Her lips closed upon him and he groaned with pleasure, as she seemed to come alive, gripping him with lips, tongue and teeth.

  Julian was out of control as Grace gently cupped his heavy balls with long, cool fingers while she continued to suckle and tease his cock. Oh, it was too perfect! Julian pulled back suddenly, while Grace still held his penis with her lips and teeth. Those sharp teeth pulled across his flesh and Julian gasped as Grace’s eyes glittered with bloodlust.

  For the second time she consciously used her fledgling telepathic skills, sending these words to the strong man leaning over her. I want your blood. I want the blood of the true kin. Don’t deny me what I was born for. I’m ready. Take me, Julian. All I ask in return is your life.

  “Mon Dieu!” Julian breathed, for a moment forgetting his English, reverting to the tongue of his youth. He lay across the naked girl, pulling her up with him properly onto the bed. “You don’t know what you ask, my love. Sharing the blood between lovers is a risky business. You haven’t yet the strength.”

  She answered, “You already took my blood with your kisses. I felt it. I felt the sting and somehow it only heightened the pleasure of your mouth against me.”

  “Grace, you are wise beyond your tender years. You will find in our journey together that pain and pleasure are not always distinguishable. I consider them to be alternate extremes of a circular spectrum, best enjoyed together.”

  “Please. Make love to me, Julian. Don’t make me wait any longer. I feel as if I’ve been waiting all my life.”

  “Make love to you as one vampire to another? I might well kill you, my love. You are but a babe.”

  “Then kill me! This is how I would die!” Grace’s voice was deep and sensual with arousal, but the urgency was plain. She wanted what he offered, whatever the cost. He had expected desire, but he had not expected this. Again, their eyes locked, and he read into her soul. Yes, she wanted his love, and his blood. She wanted to suffer and be exalted in equal measure. She did not want to control, but nor would she be denied.

  Julian’s passion flared again, obscuring all better judgment. Slowly he raised himself over the naked willing girl, touching the head of his cock to her wet entrance. She arched herself up, seeking him out with her sex, and Julian complied, pressing into her. Grace screamed, but it was the scream of primal appetite, not of pain.

  That would come next.

  Chapter Ten

  “Grace,” he whispered over and over, but he could not rouse her. What had he done? He had listened to the entreaties of a newfound vampire, letting his own lust cloud his senses. And now she lay still as death, white as a funeral drum. “Grace,” his voice broke as he leaned close to her, dropping his head gently on her bare breasts.

  Dimly he could still hear her heart beating and thrumming against his ear. She yet lived! But it was by no means certain that she would regain consciousness. Even now, with his lover’s life poised between heaven and earth, Julian couldn’t stop the images of what they had just done together from filing past his mind’s eye like a rich banquet for the senses.

  He felt the warm fullness in his veins from her blood, rich and plentiful as she had just fed herself. Yes, as he had entered her with his cock, so too had his teeth bitten down. First on her breast, just above a jutting nipple, over a pale blue vein, outlined below the soft white skin. Grace had cried out as he bit her, but she didn’t struggle. No, in fact, she had arched up to meet both his cock and his mouth, accepting the pleasure and the pain as one. Her submission made him perhaps bolder than he would have been, and he suckled freely, the bright-red blood dribbling down his chin when he at last let go to kiss her mouth.

  The pulsing, throbbing perfection of his cock buried deep in her velvet cunt was offset suddenly as he felt the prick of a vampire lover’s special kiss. Grace’s sharp kiss easily broke the skin protecting the subclavian artery. Julian’s first instinct was to pull away, but he forced himself to endure it. To accept the primal lover’s bite that he hadn’t felt for so many years—too many to count.

  As she sucked his blood, her strong legs wrapped around his hips, pulling him into her. Julian felt himself grow dizzy and faint. She should stop soon. She must stop. His head grew heavy and he forgot where he was for a moment. The dizziness shifted to heightened sensation as she took more of his life’s blood from him, while still moving in a tight, perfect dance on his cock.

  Finally, Julian found the strength to pull away. Gently, but forcibly, he pried open the greedy girl’s mouth, causing her to release her canine grip. He smelled his own blood, pungent and ripe on her tongue. She moved forward, her eyes closed as if in a trance and her fangs bared, seeking again the blood she’d waited her whole life to taste.

  Julian’s need overrode his charity, and he bent over her, baring her white slender neck to his own sharp kiss. He bit down, expertly drawing the blood in a steady hot stream, swallowing as rapidly as he could so as not miss a drop. Grace moaned, still impaled on his cock, held in his razor grip by the throat. Her moans became barely audible. Julian knew he should stop or at least slow down, but his lust was at a fever-pitch.

  Though he’d lain with hundreds of women over the past centuries, no one had ignited his passion as this girl did, except perhaps his first real lover, Adrienne. When her writhing slowly ceased beneath him, Julian came to himself, suddenly gripped with an icy fear that he’d gone too far.

  “Grace,” he had whispered, “Grace, speak to me. Where are you?”

  “I’m here, you silly angel, my darling,” she had whispered, to his great relief. And then, to his astonishment, “Take me. I want more.” She smiled slowly, her vampire fangs now fully distended and still red with his blood.

  Julian, in a most uncharacteristic act, bared his own throat for his lady. She didn’t need a second invitation. Biting down, she groaned against the onslaught of hot salty blood. As she suckled, her body came alive again, and she arched and thrust her hips against the man whose cock was still buried deep inside of her.

  Julian was close to climax, though weakening again now from her relentless grip on his throat. She was beyond greedy. She was a blood-slut and would have to be taught. But now no words or coaching would penetrate her near-trancelike state. Instead, he again forced her lips apart, stopping the flow of his blood before he was powerless to resist her.

  He pulled out of her tight little cunt at the same time, and Grace actually whimpered with dismay. No shy flower any longer. She was a wanton whore—her legs lewdly spread revealing the sticky sweet crush of her sex. Her head was thrown back on the pillows, her hair wildly cascading in shades of red and gold around her like a halo. Her lips, dark red against white skin, were parted and a thread of Julian’s blood trickled from the corner. Julian’s lust seize
d him like a sickness, and he no longer gave thought to her safety or her desires. His head pounded with bloodlust and pure animal desire.

  Hoisting her roughly up, Julian forced the girl to her hands and knees. Positioning himself quickly behind her, he thrust his aching cock into her sweet, wet pussy in one long smooth movement, like a well-oiled sword finding its sheath. Grace moaned and fell forward, but Julian’s strong arms were there to catch and hold her.

  As he roughly fucked her from behind, his teeth sought the sweetmeat of her vein where her neck and shoulder met and he bit, like a dog rutting with a bitch in heat. Grace screamed, and Julian knew it was from both pleasure and pain. This spurred him on, and he fucked her mercilessly, ramming against her as he held her hips with his hands to keep her steady.

  The blood spurting in his mouth and the tight muscles of her cunt wrapped around his cock brought him to the edge of release. The delicate curve of her long, narrow back and the globes of her rounded bottom sent him over that edge, and he cried out his passion with a single word—her name.

  Collapsing against her, Julian lost consciousness for a moment or two. When he opened his eyes, his lover lay unnaturally still beneath him. Quickly he moved off her, all concern now that his greedy lust had been satiated.

  Over and over, he had called her name, seeking her soul with his probing thoughts but finding nothing. When at last he’d given up, and laid his head softly against those sweet breasts, he had heard that weak but still pumping heart.

  Something wet fell across her bosom as Julian lay still, and he realized with surprise that it was his own tears. Sitting up next to her, Julian stoked Grace’s soft skin, whispering her name like a prayer. Her eyelids fluttered and slowly opened. Her pupils were huge, almost obscuring the pale blue-green irises. Julian. He heard the word in his head though she made no sound. Her lips curved into the hint of a smile, and Julian felt relief wash over him, leaving him literally weak.

  Smiling down on her, Julian lay a hand on her warm thigh as if she were a square of sunlight and he just in from the cold.

  * * * * *

  They were lying naked together in tangled sheets, sipping champagne and speaking in the lazy soft tones of people with all the time in the world. It was a Monday, but Grace hadn’t reported for work at the downtown law firm. She’d called in sick, but in fact she knew she would never return.

  “You’ve survived the sacred exchange,” Julian told her, “though my own lust almost cost you your life. I can never forgive myself for that, Grace. I realized, as you lay senseless and weakened that I couldn’t bear losing you. I know, I know—” he held out his hand, palm up, as if to stop her protest, though it was in fact himself he was admonishing. “We’ve only just met. And yet how many have shared the intense intimacies you and I have experienced together in so short a time? It is as if we were born for one another.”

  He didn’t ask if she felt the same way. He didn’t have to. Their psychic connection was firmer than ever, now that they had shared each other’s blood. Julian, who rarely slept more than a few hours at a time, had fallen into a deep sleep once Grace had been roused and he had satisfied himself that she was out of danger.

  Together they slept the sleep of lovers, their bodies entwined, their dreams spilling over into their new and impossibly sweet reality. Grace awoke several times to stare at the luminous skin of her newfound lover. At his dark curls tumbling softly against his neck. At the two tiny holes, she had left as her mark on his flesh, now all but indiscernible.

  Grace touched her canine teeth, which had retracted to their normal length. She had never read of this ability or reaction in the literature, but it made sense. How else could these vampires have moved so easily disguised in society? Their teeth must retain a quality not unlike other organs that distend when engorged with blood. The penis or the nipples, for example. Grace shivered a little, touching her own bare breasts and the little mark just above her right nipple where Julian had suckled so greedily.

  She realized she couldn’t possibly have truly absorbed the fact of her new life. Or the admission of it. To think, she had always possessed these abilities, these powers and desires and yet, had remained unaware. The years of torment and self-imposed suffering had been shed in one amazing weekend. She had sloughed it all off like an old and unwelcome skin.

  What would her parents say? Julian had told her some of what to expect, now that she had finally awakened her vampire passions. She would cease to age. Well not cease precisely, but the process would be so dramatically slowed that she would not notice it from decade to decade, century to century. How to grasp such a concept! Julian looked barely thirty and yet assured her he was born just before the turn of the eighteenth century.

  Was it all an elaborate and bizarre hoax? But no, how could he have feigned the psychic connection they shared? Or the sacred exchange, as he called it, of their blood? Or the life-giving exhilaration she had felt when she took her first human victim.

  It had been as if she were a hollow vessel, empty and dry as a bone. When her lips and teeth made contact with that poor dying addict it was as he had said, as if a parched desert were suddenly in the most beautiful bloom. As the sweet blood pumped through her, she felt her life was renewed. The constant sickness and hunger she had carried silently for so many years in the pit of her being was snuffed out with that sharp kiss.

  She had no reason to disbelieve Julian about the longevity of vampires. There was much in the literature to substantiate these claims. She was fascinated with the little snippets he had provided and eager to learn all about his rich and adventurous life.

  But there was all the time in the world. What a novel thought! She laid back, content just to stare out at the constantly shifting patterns of the dark-green leaves at her windowpane. Being a practical person, one of her first questions was how did he live? He didn’t seem to hold a job, and yet he was obviously wealthy and unconcerned about money.

  He told her about the Dark Circle. About the Elders, and his sizable holdings in real estate and investments all over the world. “When you have a lifetime, indeed, many lifetimes, to invest and expand, you learn a great deal. I leave the handling of the day-to-day matters to trusted humans. I have been burned occasionally along the way, but one learns quickly whom one can trust.”

  Switching topics, as money really didn’t interest him, Julian said, “You will need to meet with the Elders, you know. You’re a missing piece. You’ve somehow slipped through the careful net of vampire society. But now that you’re with me, you will be noticed. We will need to take a trip abroad, my dear. Have you ever traveled?”

  “Well, I’ve been to New York and to Mexico for visits, but other than that, no. I’ve always wanted to travel but never had the means or the time.”

  Julian smiled. Ah, to be so new! He had traveled the world so many times that it had lost its appeal, its mystery, for him. He well understood the term travel-weary. Perhaps with Grace, he would rediscover the joys of new cultures and experiences. Seeing it all again for the first time through her eyes. “Well, you have the time now, my dear. And the means. Once you are initiated into the Dark Circle, I am sure you will be provided with your own portfolio. There are definite advantages to our situation over the poor humans. Not having to worry about financial issues is certainly one of them, but money and things rather bore me. I much prefer the company of a beautiful woman.” Tenderly he touched her cheek.

  Grace smiled shyly, feeling thoroughly happy. When they made love this time, no blood was exchanged. Yet, his power was evident. Grace, who had never considered herself sexually submissive, found herself drawn to his dominant ways. When he ordered her to sit back on her haunches, her fingers laced behind her head, it didn’t occur to her to disobey. Indeed, it excited her to comply as he commanded that she stay perfectly still, no matter what he did to her.

  “Don’t move, wench. I am going to touch you as it pleases me. You are not to move or to fall out of position. Understand? Do so, and I w
ill punish you.” Grace shivered a little. She saw the twinkle in his dark eyes, but still the game felt real. Punishment! Like something out of a Gothic romance novel.

  Obediently she knelt up, her pretty little breasts offered to him as the position of her arms behind her head raised them for his pleasure. Her sex was exposed beneath the auburn pubic curls as she spread her slender thighs at his direction. Julian, wearing only his jeans, his supple bare chest exposed, stood up next to the bed where his naked lover awaited his caress.

  At first, he kissed and licked her little nipples, smiling as the tips sprang to attention. Gently cupping each breast in his hands, he lifted and then let them drop. When she tried to lean down to kiss him, Julian lightly slapped her cheek, startling Grace back into position. She touched the little stinging spot where he’d hit her, her eyes wide.

  “I told you,” he said, lightly biting a nipple between words, “to stay still. I did not say to bend down and kiss me. You will learn, my love. Though the days when a man essentially owned a woman as his personal property are gone, at least in this country, you will find that my preferences still run thus. I like to own my woman. To cherish and adore her, of course. But she is to obey me. In everything—but most especially in sex. Am I understood, wench?”

  Grace’s learned reaction was to balk. The words leaped to her lips that she was nobody’s wench, nobody’s property. How dare he speak to her, a modern American woman, with such insolence? But the words died before forming. Her body responded to his command. She knew that he was aware of her sudden rush of desire. There were no secrets between vampires on the same psychic connection.

  “Yes,” he murmured, his voice low. “Yes, I knew it. I sensed it in you the first time we met. You are submissive. You are untrained, but you are eager. There are so many wonderful things awaiting us, my love. I have waited so many years to find you!” He bit her nipple much harder, twisting it with his teeth. Grace gasped as the pain registered, mixing in a strange way with the tingling need pulsating now at her sex.