Forbidden Days (The Firsts)

by C. L. Quinn

  “I do owe you, then, Sebastian, for bringing the moments together that brought my daughter to me. In light of this, and the existence of my grandchild, you are welcomed into the family. We will do your blood feast tomorrow night.”

  Bas tilted his head and looked at Eillia. “Blood feast?”

  “It’s a great honor, Bas. You are now a member of the family of a first blood. It is typical to drink from the bloodline when that is so.”

  Koen elaborated. “You will ingest my blood so that you are bonded to me, too. The infusion acts similar to a human getting vampire blood. You will experience conversion as it rewrites you. You won’t be first blood, but it will increase your vampire talents…and there are some who pick up new ones. It is required. You would ask if it were your daughter.”

  He was right. Bas nodded. “Okay. But if I’m going to be down for some time, I need to make sure my teams are in place in case we’re attacked.”

  Koen laughed. “This is not a problem, little vampire. There are two full blooded first bloods here. And Park is remarkably strong. There is no chance a vampire and his babes will give us any trouble. So. Where’s this chef Eillia brags about?”

  “I’ll get him.” Bas stepped up to Koen, face to face, showing he was, at most, two inches shorter than the huge old vampire. “The name is Bas, not little vampire, just a reminder.” Everyone held their breath as Koen responded, slowly, then nodded silently.

  Bas turned to Park and held her face between his hands. “It’s all okay?”

  She smiled back, her hands on his arm. “Oh, yes. All okay.”

  Bas went through the double doors, whistling lightly as he looked for Eugene. He could breathe fully again now that things had finally gone right. And he wasn’t going to die tonight.

  Eugene laid out a complete buffet for the second time that night, all four tables filled with his finest creations. Koen sat at the closest table with Bas, Park, Eillia, and Hamid. At different times through the night, other vampires would wander in, have something, and meet Koen, and then head back out. Park understood. Koen was so intimidating, not only physically, but also the legend…what he was…a first blood.

  Burne, however, was fascinated by him, and being a new vampire, had no fear of who he might be…so she scooted in beside then and engaged him animatedly in conversation. Park watched , fascinated too.

  “Koen, tell me, how long have you been alive?”

  Eillia leaned in. “Burne, that isn’t exactly polite.”

  Burned frowned. “I’m sorry. You guys are sensitive about your age? I mean, excuse me, but why? If I were a thousand years old and looked like you, Eillia, I’d be singing it out. Because, damn… This vampire thing is spectacular. Do you guys even realize after all these years how beautiful you are?”

  Koen answered her. “It means less…as the years go on. Other things matter more. Yes, though, beauty, especially that which does not decay, is always appreciated.” He looked at Park. “But other things do matter more.”

  Burne thought how different this man was than they were expecting. He compelled her attention . She leaned in and asked him if she could steal a croissant off his plate, giving him a charming smile.

  He smiled back and held it up. “I’ll share.”

  At that moment Vaz came through the opening where the door used to be and sized up the scene. His woman with the impressive first blood, her mouth too close to him as she had been preparing to bite the pastry he held. Vaz stopped as if he’d been frozen again. His eyes bounced from Burne to Koen. It was obvious he was furious, but trying to contain it. Koen stood up.

  “If this is your woman, she’d delicious, vampire. You should take her away and properly feed her.”

  Burne got up and went to Vaz. “We were just talking. You know…”

  Vaz lifted her aggressively into his arms and stormed out. Everyone was silent for a moment while Koen took his seat again.

  “A reasonable response. I wouldn’t want to see someone hand feeding my woman. There would be much blood.”

  Bas agreed. Eillia and Park rolled their eyes. The buffet was nearly finished and so was the night. They parted shortly afterward, Koen giving Park a long hug and kiss on both cheeks.

  “Til night falls again, dear daughter.”

  “Til then, dear father.” She hugged him one more time and then took Bas’s hand and led them to their room to sleep.

  As it was nearly dawn, he fell off quickly. She could not, though, so she got up and wandered out of the room, down the corridor, and out onto a balcony to watch the sun skirt the edge of the trees on its ascent up the sky.

  At first, she noticed how bright it was, wishing she’d brought her sunglasses. Then, as the liquid white surface of the sun cleared the treetops and shined into the blueness overhead, Park noticed her cheeks flaming. As if she’d gotten an instant sunburn. At the same time the heat seemed to move into her scalp, she put her hands up to cover her forehead, and her hands began to burn. What the hell…

  Park backed away quickly and pulled the shutters tight. What was happening? She’d never…never been sensitive to sunlight. As her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside, she looked at her hands. They were bright red, with some blistering on the palms. She just stared at them when she heard someone walk up behind her.

  “Oh, mademoiselle Park. Your first blood is kicking in. You cannot go in the sunlight again.” Cherise gently led her down the corridor to a small bathroom.

  “The cool water will help it feel better. You will heal quickly.”

  “But I’ve never had a problem. This can’t be right.”

  “No one has told you. As a first blood hybrid, you will go through normal aging through adulthood. At a certain point when your body reached…ah…um…maturity, the aging slows, then it stops. When that happens, you become first blood…vampire. Park, you are vampire now. You will eat like the others, you will need blood for nourishment. You cannot see the sunrise again. I am sorry, but this is so.”

  Park felt her blood run cold. All the time she’d spent assuring Bernie and Zach that everything was going to be okay, she’d never expected to face the same issue. Even though she’d been learning who she was, for some reason it hadn’t struck her that she was vampire, too. That the life she’d lived was done. She was okay with that, she loved the people in her life now…but there had to be some grieving over the loss of her human half. No more early mornings.

  Bas woke up suddenly as usual and rolled over to pull Park against him. She wasn’t there. Dressing quickly, he wandered into the corridor, lifting his head to capture her scent. It was faint, like she’d passed through here, but not recently. That confused him…Park hadn’t been in their room all night? He almost vampire-moved through the corridors, but that would have compromised the small trail he had which was his best way of locating her. At the end of the third corridor at the back of the house, he saw her sitting in a window seat that he knew was one hundred percent UV filtered, so he approached her.

  “Park, are you okay?”

  She turned to him, her eyes lifting to him, and following his face down as he kneeled in front of her.

  “I’m fine. I just…got an awakening last night…I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it. I’m…” she hesitated. “I’m vampire.”

  “You’re first blood. That’s different apparently.”

  “Not as different as you might think. I’m changing…from what I was. Cherise says I’ve reached first blood maturity, where growing and aging stop.” Her eyes shined with moisture. “I can’t tolerate sunlight anymore. I wasn’t prepared for that.”

  “What happened?”

  “Last night, I felt restless…a lot happening. So I went to the balconies and stepped out to watch the sunrise. It’s always been one of my favorite moments of the day. I burned, Bas, my skin started to blister.”

  “Oh, baby. Yeah, then, you’re done with that. It’s classic vampire reaction. I didn’t know if you would be like us. I thought maybe you were
different. Your human half protected you.”

  “Well, it doesn’t. Thank god for Cherise. No one else told me.”

  “Park, I’m not sure anyone else knows what to expect. You are sort of new. But it’s going to be okay. Aren’t you happy with your new life here with me?”

  She sat forward and grabbed his shoulders. “Oh, yes, Bas, I’m happier than I’ve ever been, you know that. This is just such an adjustment. But don’t think I’m unhappy with my life. I’m overjoyed to have found my father, my family. And I’m deeply in love with you, in case you don’t know that yet. This is a small thing in the long run. I realize that now. So many wonderful things surpass the beauty of a sunrise. Forgive me for my maudlin display of nostalgia.”

  “I would forgive you anything. And in case you haven’t guessed …I’m madly in love with you, too. So, I’ll be maudlin with you and show you something else that you will love. Come along.”

  He grasped her hand and pulled her up to move along the corridor to the end, turned right toward the center of the large house, and to the stairwell.

  “If you’re truly vampire, you should be able to move in hyper-speed. We’ll practice later. Right now, I’m going to carry you down these steps.”

  He picked her up and had her down two flights in seconds, two floors below their sleeping quarters. She was a little winded, more from the exhilaration than the exertion. Bas wasn’t affected at all.

  He set her down and took her hand. “Come here.”

  Large double doors led into a huge room with a tall curved ceiling and stadium style seating facing a large movie screen. Ambient lighting created a gentle glow all along the perimeter of the room. Bas pulled her up front, sat her down and grabbed a black box perched on a pedestal. He sat down beside her, smiling.

  “Behold the magic.”

  The lights dimmed, Bas looked through a menu for a moment and the screen lit up. Before her eyes, a stunning sunrise over a rolling ocean filled her view, the sound of the waves moving, then crashing against the shore, birds calling, resonated from in front of her and behind.

  “Oh, Bas…” was all she said. The image was in such high definition, the sound so pure, she felt like she was there, at this moment, with Bas beside her.

  “There’s nothing I can’t give you. It’s a nearly perfect life. You are immortal, too. So we have a lot of amazing centuries ahead of us. Imagine, Park…you will see our children and our children’s children, all their own futures…you’ll be there for them. It’s a gift, like you told Bernie…uh, Burne.”

  “It is. Eternal youth, an extraordinarily long life, a chance to learn the right way to live. I wonder if we ever get it right?”

  “Endless years, endless choices. Endless ways to get it right. Endless ways to fuck it up. We may be vampire, but we’re still very, very human too. We never get to perfect, Park. That’s perhaps the most unnatural thing of all.”

  “I think you’re right. Okay, I’m over losing the little things. I still have earth and sky, and I get to have it a lot longer now. That isn’t a loss. And I get to have you for a number of years that would terrify most men. I hope you can love me until the twelfth of never.”

  “I think I can love you until the end of time. Just let me have a chance to prove it.”

  Bas kissed her then, like it was the first, like I was the last, enough to prove what he just said.

  “Did I tell you? These seats recline.”

  He dropped a lever and her seat went almost flat. He gave her a look, she gave him a look, and with ocean waves crashing on the screen, they made love in front of a scene right out of a movie appropriately titled From Here to Eternity.

  144

  Chapter TWENTY-TWO

  Naked, still damp, Zach stood in the middle of his room looking at his old driver’s license photo, lost in memories of his life before this happened. His job, which he really had loved, his friends he’d been very close with, fraternity brothers he’d likely never see again. He let the sadness roll in as he looked at the man he used to be. Suddenly, the door swung open with an insistent crash. Dez stood there, breathing hard. He glanced up and stared at her. She stared back. A few moments passed and he turned to face her, slowly started toward her. Her eyes wandered up and down his body, locked on each section lingeringly as he passed by. Eventually she returned to his eyes.

  “I won’t be staying. Here. In Vancouver.”

  He nodded his head. “So?”

  “I don’t stay in one place very long. I’ve rarely had the same lover twice in over two hundred years.”

  “Okay…”

  “I just want you to know that. If I fuck you, that’s all it is.”

  “Okay. Never asked for anything else.”

  “Yeah, but…you’re used to women falling for you. I won’t. You understand? You good with that?”

  Zach walked up to her, the muscles in his thighs distracting her…the generous package between them…

  “I’m good with that.”

  “And…” he was closer and she was losing her train of thought. “And…”

  He was close enough to grab her around the neck and haul her to him. His kiss was like an attack, quick and devastating. Dez groaned. How did this new vampire do this to her? Everyone knew she was a hard-ass. She played everything her own way. Always. By her rules only. She wanted him. Had from the beginning. She didn’t want to want him. He didn’t mean anything to her.

  She pulled back, but he held tight.

  “It’s just a quick fuck,” she repeated. “It doesn’t mean anything beyond that.”

  “A quick fuck. Got it. The fuck…absolutely. We’ll see how quick.”

  Zach swept her up and crossed to the bed quicker than human, laid her down gently and ripped off her shirt. She was wearing nothing underneath. Zach stared. Those breasts…he wanted his mouth on them more than anything right now, with a long journey planned traveling down from them to the center of her sex…to that place where he would claim her…and they’d damn well see if this was just a fuck!

  He pushed her back, slid his hands under her hips to remove her skirt, flinging it across the room until it landed on a chandelier. Dez smiled.

  “You’re going to have to jump for that later tonight.”

  “Then I’d better save my strength. I should go to bed right now.”

  Her little lace thong disappeared in shreds and he lifted her hips again to touch her in that place just perfectly designed for his tongue. Dez bucked upward to meet him. Zach crawled up her body and started at her breasts, perfect globes that fit perfectly in his hands, the tips already erect, waiting for attention. He felt his body respond as he moved across her. She grabbed him in her fingers and tugged.

  “Even for a vampire, I have to tell you. That’s an amazing cock.”

  “I don’t plan you forget that. That comment about not having sex with the same man twice…I’m going to make you want to tattoo my name on your thighs so everyone knows who owns what lies between them.”

  Then he kissed her again, and she felt lightheaded, like this was a bad idea, because she’d been lying to herself as well as to him…oh, hell, it meant something! She rolled him over and sat up on him.

  “I want your mouth on me. I want it all over me. But right now I want you inside me. I want to feel you come.”

  She slipped back and grabbed him in her hand, then pulled, tugging and massaging the full head until she slipped forward and slid down over him, his firm length filling her. Why did it feel so much more amazing than ever before? It was just a good fuck..okay, a great fuck. Nothing she hadn’t felt a million times before. But it did. It felt like she was where she belonged, and that she never wanted to leave him. That she was home. She rode him, hard, relentlessly, until they both came so hard, the entire huge bed shuttered, and Dez saw those fucking stars they mention in those asinine romantic comedy films. She collapsed against him and neither moved for endless minutes.

  Eventually, he wrapped his arms around her and roll
ed her on her side, rolling against her. He kissed her again, and tasted saltiness. Pulling back, he looked at her.

  “Dez? Are you crying? Are you upset? Talk to me, baby.”

  Baby. Baby? She did not do endearments. She was an emotionless bitch, famous for love ‘em and leave ‘em. She didn’t know what to do with this. With him. She just had to get out of here, back to her normal life, back to South America. She’d forget him and be herself again. God, she didn’t want this. She didn’t believe in love, not after all the lousy relationships she’d suffered her first fifty years. Not going back there. Zach. He was just a fluke.

  She got up abruptly. Grabbed a charcoal gray shirt he’d left lying on a bench at the foot of the bed and slid it on. She turned and smiled at him. “Well, I got what I wanted. That’s it, out of my system. Okay. Have a good life, Zach.” Then she left so quickly, she never gave him a chance to respond.

  He laid there stunned for a moment, running his hand over his sticky penis that still smelled of her. He smiled. She was afraid of him. He hadn’t been a skilled attorney without being able to tell when someone was desperate to avoid something. She couldn’t face what she felt…couldn’t conceive of loving him. It would take some time, but he would have her. She was already his, just didn’t know it yet.

  It was time. Alvin had used up all the patience he could afford. Final count, according to the increasingly hostile Shanks was forty eight vampires, mostly brand new, but that couldn’t be helped. Alvin knew he would never have found older vampires who would have complied with his vampire purge. One hundred and two blood-bonds, also new, but better fighters than compels, who were nothing more than human. Over a hundred compels, just to create bodies to deflect some of the vampires in Bas’s stronghold. It would have to do. He wanted Bas, most of all, but the mission was to kill as many vampires as possible. And Bas’s woman. If it had been possible, he would have liked to have captured her. Not realistic, though.