Endless Days (The Firsts)

by C. L. Quinn

  Armel was salivating. Ah, mon Dieu! Here she was, lying on a divan with a glass of wine wearing only a thin robe. As if someone had prepared her for him. He almost loved the crazy bitch vampire he had sold his soul to. She had brought him the one thing that he truly wanted more than anything on this earth…Cherise Devereaux at his mercy. Now, whatever he wanted from her, she would do it. No one knew she was here, or ever would. His pants tightened as he swelled. Bon. She would take care of him soon enough.

  He walked over to her.

  “That looks like good wine. May I share?” he said in French.

  She stared at him incredulously and said nothing. That’s how it would be until she adjusted to her life with him. He really cared about her, he wasn’t cruel. But she would comply and she would welcome him. She didn’t have any choice about that. Still, he would play nice. But she’d better, too.

  “Answer me, Cherise,” he demanded in French.

  She picked up the bottle of wine and put it to her lips and began to swallow.

  Putain! Garce! Salope!

  He ripped the bottle from her hands and threw it against the wall, the shattering glass thunderous in the quiet room. So, she refused to speak to him? He could play her game.

  He grabbed her hair and spat at her, in English, “You need to remember who owns you now.”

  Their faces were close, eye to eye, and he smiled at her as he kept her hair trapped with one hand and slid the other up her side to cover a breast that was now exposed.

  “Magnifique,” he whispered, just before he was torn bodily from her and thrown across the room airborne to crash against a far wall.

  He opened his eyes as he heard Tamesine’s voice above him.

  In a sharp staccato, she said, “What. Do. You. Think. You’re. Doing?”

  His head was vibrating, both ears ringing. It took a few moments for her question to sink in. “I’m reacquainting myself with the woman you brought here for me.”

  “Did I? Did I? Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m keeping her for myself. She’s far too beautiful for the likes of you. I see you near her again, I’m going to make you dinner. Sorry, that’s inexact. I’m going to make dinner of you. Comprendre?”

  Fucking malfaisant! Trompeur! Betrayer! He knew she couldn’t be trusted! Even when he engaged her to betray David and Didier, he knew it would go badly. But he had to take the risk. There was no other way he would have been able to arrange Patric’s death and Cherise’s subservience. Now he had to figure out how to get rid of the psychotic vampire without getting himself killed.

  “Tamesine, we had a deal. You would aid me in my mission, and I would help you find all your people and get back together with your family. Do you no longer want my help?”

  She stepped forward and lifted one stiletto-heeled shoe up and brought it down on his throat. She pressed, deeply enough to cut into his skin. As blood trickled onto the plush champagne carpet, she licked her lips.

  “I don’t know.” She glanced back at Cherise, who stood near the loveseat watching the scene. “I think I may have found all I need in her. She’s lovely and I can read into her soul. She’s a very powerful empath. You thought I wouldn’t know she isn’t entirely human? You’re such an idiot. What do you think little human? Should I kill him?”

  Tamesine looked back just as Cherise made it to the door that she had left wide open. In a flash of movement no one could see, she was there and had Cherise back on the loveseat, thrown against the pillows.

  “Ah, ah, ah. Sweetie, you are going nowhere. My bad, leaving the threshold open…”

  With another flash of light, before Tamesine could reclose the opening, two vampires were standing there. Cherise sighed in deep relief. Koen and Katerine, not even winded from their supersonic move.

  Tamesine turned, shocked. She walked forward, forgetting everything, everyone, in the room.

  “Koen? Koen. After these many years…my friend…my brother… How are you here? I haven’t unblocked my life force yet. How can you have found me?”

  “I wasn’t looking for you. I was looking for her.”

  They both looked at Cherise. She didn’t know what else to do, so she just smiled slightly, aware that this rescue could go horribly wrong. But so grateful they had found her. She wondered where David was and if he was alright.

  Koen nodded at her. “He’s fine,” he said. Cherise released her stopped breath in relief.

  Tamesine nodded, too. “So. You want my playmate. You can’t have her. I’ve decided to keep her. You have that one…she’s very pretty. You don’t need two.”

  She was petulant now, like a child. A recurring theme, Cherise thought. This vampire was truly broken. Her empathic abilities started to kick in, and she wondered…could she help her? Was she crazy to even think it at all?

  “Oh, she’s first blood. I’ve not met you. What is your name?”

  “I’m Katerine. I was with David Patric when you captured and tortured him.”

  Tamesine smiled . “Lucky girl. You can have him back now. Why don’t you run along and play? He’s going to be dying soon, so you better make the best of it and fuck like rabbits while you can.” Now she was laughing out loud.

  Another swirl of color and movement and David was standing next to Cherise. Tamesine reached for him…and stopped. She froze in the position of pursuit, only her mouth able to move.

  “What the fuck? Koen, you’ve never been able to contain me. Have you grown that much more powerful?”

  “I have. But that isn’t me.”

  A third rush of light brought Park to within inches of Tamesine.

  Koen smiled. “Meet my daughter.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Tamesine was panicking. Her eyes were wide and frantically searching back and forth.

  “Please don’t do this. I’m trapped…I can’t breathe!”

  Park walked up to her and touched her cheek. Tamesine calmed a little. A vampire’s touch could completely calm a human, and while Park was exceptionally powerful, she could only slightly affect the ancient vampire.

  “You can breathe. Just relax. It’s your own fault, anyway. Everything that happens to you from here on out is of your own making. You feel trapped? How do you think your victims feel? And for them it’s been much longer than a few minutes. So forgive us all if we have no sympathy.”

  Park turned to her old friend and they embraced. “Cherise, mon cherie. I cannot believe we meet again surrounded by vampires. That is why you left…to get away from them.”

  “Yeah, plans didn’t exactly follow course. So glad to see you and your father. Thank you for coming.”

  Koen walked up to Tamesine, staring at her the entire way. She stared right back at him with pride and anger.

  “So, what are we going to do with you? You show up here after centuries when we thought you dead. You’ve broken our code. You’ve harmed a first blood. One of your own. Maliciously and intentionally. And planned to kill him. It’s punished by death, you know that.”

  Tamesine shrieked. “You don’t pass judgment on me, Koen. What have you done to survive these many years! How are you so clean? I know there was a time…”

  “There was.” He glanced at the others. “Long ago. I regret anything we ever did even in the extremely distant days when we hurt people. Ignorance. Conceit. But I have never harmed a first blood. The grievance is unholy. I will have to call council.” He turned to his daughter. “We’ll have to retain her. I wonder how.”

  “I don’t think I can keep her frozen. There are no cells that will hold her?”

  “That’s my concern. I really don’t know what she’s capable of.”

  Tamesine had gone quiet, her eyes closed.

  Suddenly Armel Joubert raced forward. It was so unexpected, no one reacted before he got to Park and stabbed her with a long dagger multiple times in the chest. She gasped and fell forward on her knees, her arms crossed in front of her as blood began to drip all around her. At the same moment two things happened. Koen threw a
fireball at Armel, who shrieked and went up into flames. And Tamesine smiled and disappeared.

  Koen was on his knees in front of his daughter.

  “God, Park, let me see.”

  Her eyes were losing focus. “It’s okay. But…I’m dying. He punctured my heart. I love you, father.”

  Crimson stained the plush beneath her as she slid forward into his arms. She was gone. But not forever. A dagger could not kill a first blood. Unless it could take the head, it could inflict only fatal wounds. While the stabs were very painful and looked like mortal wounds, Park’s body would regenerate and she would be okay. With time. It only made it a little less painful for Koen to see his daughter in a pool of her own precious blood.

  He lifted her and laid her on the long padded bench against the front of the room. Lifting his head, he scanned the air sightlessly. He was searching for any remnant of Tamesine. But she’d reblocked her life force, and was no longer physically anywhere near this location.

  “We’ve lost her,” he said, leaning over Park.

  “What!?” Cherise surged forward. “But she’s first blood…that wouldn’t kill her!”

  Koen chuckled. “No, little human. Not Park, she’ll be fine. Tamesine. She’s gone. If I ever find her, she’s dead forever.” He picked Park up in his arms and headed to the door. “Let’s go. I want to get her back to your place to heal, David.”

  David took Cherise’s hand and led her out. Her eyes lingered only for a split second on the burnt spot in the carpet. Joubert had earned his fate. And she was going home. They were all going home.

  As the woman of the household, Katerine took over arrangements. She settled chambers for Koen and Park, and ordered Jules to prepare his biggest buffet.

  Cherise had spent the entire trip back home in David’s arms. They hadn’t had a chance to speak yet, but when they arrived back at the house, she pulled loose and stayed with Park to help clean her up and wrap her wounds. Katerine brought loose fitting lightweight pants and a nightshirt for her.

  David had hovered near the doorway the entire time she tended to Park.

  Cherise turned to Koen and thanked him again, let him know she was there if they needed anything during the night, then turned to her quiet vampire. “David, come with me.”

  He glanced at Koen, who gave him a look of sympathy, and followed her out of the room.

  “Can we go to your chambers?”

  He nodded. They were quiet all the way down to his protected rooms. As soon as the door closed behind then, Cherise threw herself into David’s arms. He held her so tightly she thought he would crack a rib, but she didn’t care. Both their cheeks were wet when she pulled back and held his face.

  He swung her up into his arms. “I was terrified. After all we’d been through, to lose you…that was worse than the entire thirty years of torture.”

  “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I should have listened. I’m so arrogant…such a fool…I could have destroyed everything.”

  He let her down and caressed her face. “You’re a brave and incredible woman. Everything you’ve done has been to help me and the others who are captured. I am so grateful you are here and well and it’s over. Well, I pray it’s over.”

  “I think it is. Koen doesn’t think she’ll risk coming back. She knows your community will find a way to destroy her. Collectively, you guys are unstoppable. It’s my fault Tamesine got away. I should have anticipated her having Armel Joubert blood-bonded and under her control.”

  “She’s lucky you were unharmed. Nothing on this planet…even the most powerful member of my race…would have stopped me from killing her. Repeatedly. And then permanently.”

  He pulled her close and then vampire-moved them to his bed.

  “I just want to hold you,” he told her.

  They curled up together, inextricably entwined, souls bonded, bodies merged, in the darkness for a long time. At one point Cherise got up and pulled off the long tee shirt David slid over her head when they rescued her.

  “Make me forget her touch.”

  He rolled her over on her stomach and removed his own clothes. As he straddled her, she could feel his manhood pressing against her buttocks once he leaned down. He started at her shoulders…bites, gentle, and licks, working his way slowly over her highly sensitive skin from one side to the other. And then downward. She knew the curves of her waist were extremely sensitive and he nipped at her until she squealed and begged him to stop. She was beyond ready for him, but he wasn’t finished. He continued to her rounded bum, then between the thighs, and between the legs. No amount of begging made him satisfy her need to be inside him. He licked the back of her knees and calves, and just as she was ready to struggle against him, to force him to come to her, David rolled off her and turned her over.

  Cherise thought he was finally ready to enter her, so she started to climb on top of him, but he gently pushed her back and started on the front. She protested since she was very ready to feel him inside her when he began what was a uniquely vampire move, flicking very quickly back and forth between her nipples with his tongue. The effect nearly blew her off the bed. And he still wasn’t finished.

  He continued his journey until he reached the point where he slipped her legs apart and settled in. Cherise moaned immediately, her head thrown back. It reminded her of a phrase she’d seen somewhere, she couldn’t remember, but it was “I sing the body electric.” That’s how she felt…like her body was thrumming with electricity…like every wavelength of light was shooting from her. The bond they had together strengthened each time they were together, creating a connection like she’d never known. And when she came, the electricity and light shattered from her in an explosion that rocked her deeper than anything in her life. Sex with this vampire was so far beyond the physical. She had to make him feel this, so she powered him beneath her and slid down over him. He pushed deep, and began to move in and out, so that when she started moving, he groaned and flipped her over. He took control, but was so ready by the time he got back inside her and felt their bond envelop him, he exploded too.

  They lay unmoving for long minutes afterward. He stayed inside her, buried deep, until eventually he slid out.

  “I’ve never experienced anything like that. You were made for me.”

  Cherise touched his hair. She loved the softness between her fingers. She loved everything about him.

  “We’re bonded. Mated, actually. Physically, mentally, emotionally, by the universe. I’ve heard of it before, but, of course, never experienced it. We’re amazing together, aren’t we?”

  “Amazing doesn’t cover it. But I want to do that every morning before we sleep for the rest of my life. Cherise, I need to bring you over. I need to make you vampire. Because you’re human, I was terrified she would kill you.”

  “I…I will have you do that, but not right away. You do know I live much longer than ordinary humans, right? We wouldn’t have to do the change for a while.”

  “You’re still more vulnerable.”

  “Well, yes, that’s true. I would like Park to help with the conversion. You don’t know this, but her blood is unique. It helps a vampire conversion go easily, instead of the week of torturous pain that is typical. I wouldn’t ask it of her until she is long healed. I love you, David. I do want to be with you forever. I just need a little time.”

  He didn’t say anything, but pulled her close and rested his head on hers. Nothing…nothing…had ever felt better than this.

  For the first twenty four hours, Park threw up blood at intervals throughout the night. Koen stayed with her. Bas, her husband, had blown up his mobile for the first few hours, but he was on his way here now. Even though it was not permanent, a death is hard and leaves damage behind. Park was a superbly powerful vampire, and Koen wasn’t too worried about physical damage. More the emotional effect of experiencing death and rebirth.

  Still he kept vigil at her bedside. He brushed back the thick unruly hair, staring at her face. This daughter, thi
s miracle…he thought he’d lost her before he’d ever gotten to know her. Before she was even born, she’d been ripped from him, and he had come to believe she hadn’t survived. Then last year he had gone to ask for help from an old friend, and caught a life force he’d never felt before. If there was ever a belief in providence, this had to be it.

  Koen had been alive well over a thousand years. A good life, at times, but very, very long. The past decades had been hard. He’d been weary, and quite alone…and ready to leave this world for the next. But on the eve of the day he’d decided this, he’d felt her life force, searching for him…the child he’d thought he’d never know. Now, his life renewed, he had his daughter back…and a precocious granddaughter that might be the strongest vampire in the world. And a son-in-law who he would never admit to anyone how much he’d grown to love. Bas took exceptional care of Park and Cairine.

  Park’s eyes opened. “Father,” she said weakly. “Did you call Bas?”

  “Your little vampire will be here within the hour. He had to make arrangement for Cari, but he’s on his way now.”

  She smiled at his address of Bas as a little vampire. He was hardly that. After ingesting her super vamp blood, Bas was only slightly smaller than Koen. She sighed in relief. She hurt so much. Bas would be able to merge with her and mask some of the pain.

  Koen was still watching her.

  She choked again and looked up into her father’s eyes, a mirror of her own green ones. “Dying is hard, comedy is easy.”

  Koen laughed. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, then took her hand.

  “Baby, I wish I hadn’t brought you.”

  “You needed me.”

  “Always. But I think I would have been okay alone.”

  She looked at him with a twisted smile. “I don’t think so. She was trapped and terrified…and she’s incredibly clever. I’m really glad I was here. I could barely hold her…I’m not sure you could have. And father, if she ever shows up again, you have to promise me you’ll let me know.”