Dark Knights 1: Eternity of Darkness

by Shana Nichols

  He toed off his shoes, rubbed his feet against plush carpeting the dark blue color of the midnight sky. As he stepped out of his slacks, he noticed the waning moon peeking between the window frames. They only had three more nights...three days. Three short days before Louis would make his move, before Julie’s life would be in immediate danger and Stefan would be her only chance for survival. Three days to make memories for himself that would have to last a lifetime -- in his case, many centuries during which he’d regret having lost her in his every waking hour as well as in his dreams.

  In three days he’d have to be at his fighting best to meet an adversary stronger than any other he’d ever faced. An enemy stronger than himself. Fuck, but Stefan didn’t want to face Louis down alone. Not when Julie’s life would depend on him destroying his prey.

  He’d have to fight Louis, for Claude was practically a babe, virtually useless in a physical confrontation. It didn’t sound as if Alex was going to be allowed to make it here in time to help. Stefan had to swallow his pride and call Alina at first opportunity tonight, and ask her to send several others of the clan. Perhaps numbers could make up for youth, though he knew from painful experience that sometimes help from novices was worse than no help at all. Still, he had to do all he could, risk whatever he must, to save Julie and prevent other women from falling to Reynard’s bloodlust.

  Stefan had to have an edge. He dared not risk draining his strength in Julie’s welcoming body, yet he couldn’t deny her need. He’d have to tell her. Warn her of the danger she faced. Reveal himself for what he was and enlist her help in protecting herself. Perhaps she’d even help him find a likely source for fresh, life-sustaining blood other than the enticing vein in her pale, slender throat, for with his constant arousal, he knew he’d require a goodly supply.

  Stefan bent, intending to dress before Julie finished her shower, then changed his mind and stripped off the rest of his clothes. Once she saw him as he’d been born centuries earlier, without the pretense of clothing, she’d have to believe he was of another species...the creature of the night that mortals had feared and reviled since the earliest recorded history.

  She’d look closely. Her pupils would dilate. Her lips would go slack when she saw the creature she’d thought she wanted to make love to. Seeing her revulsion -- that would nearly destroy him. But it couldn’t be helped. He flipped on a lamp on the bedside table, then drew back the covers on Julie’s bed.

  In the bright circle of lamplight, she couldn’t help but notice his body didn’t look quite like that of most mortal males. Intending to lie there, exposed to her scrutiny, he stretched out on the pale blue cotton sheet. Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he drew the top sheet up over his pale, hairless chest.

  One more time. Surely it wouldn’t hurt for him to see desire on her beautiful face one more time. Then he’d do what he must, make the confession that had sent many a mortal screaming for the nearest lawmen over the years. Just for a moment, though, he’d see desire in her beautiful eyes. The desire he read now, as he drifted into her mind.

  Her fierce need for him fueled his own passion, as though the irresistible pull between them were a harbinger of joy, not pain. Stefan reached over and dimmed the lamp to a soft glow.

  Chapter Six

  Eyes to drown in. A cliché, for certain, but the expression might have been freshly coined to describe Stefan’s clear sea-green eyes. When he looked at her, she felt heat...the fire of his passion, or was it only a reflection of her own desire? Julie stretched, then spritzed her damp skin with her signature fragrance -- a subtle blend of musk and roses made especially for her in Marie’s Parfumerie, a tiny shop she’d discovered in New Orleans’ French Quarter the last time she’d gone home to visit her dad.

  “Do your magic, old lady,” she murmured, recalling the wizened voodoo priestess who’d insisted the scent she’d created would enslave the man of Julie’s dreams. Then, wrapping a pale-blue towel around her naked body, Julie opened the bathroom door.

  And saw her dream lover waiting in her bed.

  Hair as black as a raven’s wing against the pale-blue pillow sham. Pure temptation -- his was the face of a dark angel. Softly diffused light from her bedside lamp limned his striking features, shadowed the high cheekbones and aristocratic nose. The angry-looking laceration on his left cheek caught her eye. It lent a hint of danger, a reminder she knew little about him. That didn’t matter. When she looked into his gorgeous eyes, she saw emerald fire.

  Fire that drew her in and placed her under his sensual spell, even before he drew a hand from under the sheet and patted a spot on the edge of the bed. “Come here.”

  She wanted nothing more than to go to him, for him to hold her. Take her. Ease the ache that had grown in the pit of her stomach since she’d first seen him in front of the hotel. Slowly, deliberately, she unwrapped her towel and stood naked before him, an eager victim for the erotic delights he promised with that wicked, knowing smile.

  His teeth flashed snowy white, made his pale skin appear almost tanned by contrast when she sat and bent to brush her lips across his. With surprisingly cool hands, Stefan framed her face. “There are things about me you don’t know. Things you need to know.”

  “You’ve got a wife and six kids stashed away somewhere?”

  “No, but -- “

  “Some dread disease?”

  “Of course not.”

  The laceration on his face drew her attention. “Don’t tell me you’ve done something...gotten in trouble with the law.”

  He shook his head. “The scratch is my punishment for a moment of carelessness, nothing more.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter.” If he didn’t touch her -- take her -- she’d die. Every cell in her body burned. “I don’t understand it, but I knew the moment I saw you that this was...destined.”

  “I knew it as well. Turn off the light and come here. Warm me.” He sighed, as though resigned more than eager to fulfill that destiny.

  His flesh felt cool yet satiny when she laid her head on his muscular chest and entwined their legs. He moaned when she encircled his big, thick cock with one hand, then cupped his sac. His skin there was incredibly soft. Incredibly smooth.

  So. He shaved his body. That must have been why he’d covered up -- why he wanted no light but that faint glow provided by the moon. “You feel so good. I’ve never understood why men who shave should worry that women won’t like them smooth.”

  “I don’t. Shave, that is. Except for my face. I don’t grow body hair.”

  Unusual. She liked the smoothness of his skin, the sensation of satin over hard male muscle. She liked it a lot.

  He slid his hand along her throat, drawing her attention to his eyes, so close now to her own. “I’m a vampire, my love. I...my hunger for you is so fierce, I cannot bear it.”

  She stared up at him, something powerful pounding through her at his admission. So he wanted her so much, he could compare himself to a creature of the night in his hunger. She liked that, liked the poetic side of her dark angel. “Then feed on me,” she whispered, arching her neck. “I want you to have all of me that you can take.”

  His groan, and the hard clutch of his hands on her shoulders, confused her, but a moment later he rubbed his cheek over one breast, brushing the nipple, making it tighten and sending the heat of arousal straight to her core. He definitely could grow a beard if he wanted to. She liked that sandpapery rasp of stubble against her own smooth skin.

  God but she loved the velvety feel of his sac, the way his heavy testicles shifted beneath her fingers. He’d taste...she nipped her way down his chest, tonguing his navel briefly before sliding down, dropping kisses along the underside of his cock, swirling her tongue around the incredibly soft skin of his corona. He tasted...incredibly clean, as though he never sweated.

  “Come here. I want to taste you, too.”

  He turned her, lifted her, stroked along her flanks as though memorizing their contours. As if he loved the sensation of t
ouching her, stoking her flames as she knelt over his face. His hands slid higher, his touch so gentle it seemed almost reverent. Yet arousing. When would he touch her intimately?

  Now. He took his thumbs and opened her. Cool air made her shiver, but not for long. When he slid a finger along her slit, seeking, arousing, finding her clit and tonguing it, he seared her with his heat, his passion. He sucked her quivering flesh into his mouth while he stroked her sides, seeking and finding both breasts. Both sensitive nipples. Tugging there, sucking her clit, lapping up the moisture that gushed from her needy womb.

  No man had ever made her so hot, so fast. She wanted him as needy as she, as eager to join their bodies and fuck until they collapsed in a heap of sweat and exhaustion. Cupping his testicles in one hand, she wrapped the other around the base of his cock and took as much of him as she could into her mouth. He throbbed against her throat, so big, so smooth. When she swallowed, he let out a low moan against her own aroused sex.

  A moan that tickled her clit. Everywhere he touched her with his mouth drove her higher. Each sensuous slide of his tongue over her sex stoked her need. As though he knew she wanted even more contact, he pinched her nipples lightly and rubbed their aching tips against the satin-smooth skin that stretched over his washboard abs.

  She needed more. Needed his huge, throbbing cock in her, stretching and filling her. Bringing her to a climax. When she swallowed again, she felt his groan all the way to her womb. Her belly clenched. She sucked harder, ravenous for a taste of his essence. Her body arched involuntarily as the pressure burst, first deep inside her, then radiating to her swollen sex, her breasts, everywhere any part of her touched part of him.

  She’d never come so hard, so fast. Without a man inside her. God, she wanted now to taste the drop of lubrication she finally coaxed from his huge, pulsating cock. She raised her head and licked the slick, warm fluid from his slit.

  Her sex still thrummed with aftershocks from her orgasm moments later when he shifted, positioned himself, and drove into her from behind. His big hands clutched her breasts again, kneading, stroking, building up a need for more though she’d not yet recovered from the first climax he’d given her. His hard belly slammed against her buttocks with every pistoning motion of his hips, taking her higher...making her want more. More of him.

  “Oh, yes, please.” The harder and deeper he took her, the more she wanted of him. “Give me all of you,” she whimpered. “Now. Oh, yes. You’re so big. So powerful.”

  “So wanting to devour you, cherie.” He’d laid his head on her upper back -- she could tell by the feel of his silky hair, the hint of evening beard growth tickling her skin. “Can’t...can’t hurt you, though. Never would forgive myself.”

  “You won’t hurt me. I’m tougher than I look.” The pressure was building inside her again, needing the tiniest nudge to push her over the edge to ecstasy. “Fuck me, Stefan. Fuck me hard.”

  He reared back, grasped her hips, pounded into her until all she could do was whimper with the pleasure-pain of his loving. “Yes. Like that. Oh, yes.”

  Stefan held tight rein on his emotions. She might say she wanted him to devour her, but she didn’t know. Didn’t know. She had no idea how having her, so hot and giving, surrounding his cock like a tight, slick glove, aroused him. No idea how much he wanted to consume her, claim her. Make her his for all eternity. It didn’t help that she was begging him to give her more, take more. Or that with his every stroke into her sweet channel, she opened further, took all of him, wouldn’t let him measure his strokes. He tightened his jaw, determined that when he came he wouldn’t take her the way he yearned to do.

  He would not taste her. Mark her. And he’d never give in to the need to claim her fully. Not at the risk of her life.

  His balls tightened. He was close. His seed bubbled scalding hot, eager to spurt out into her waiting womb. Each contraction of her flesh around him brought him closer -- closer to fulfillment. His fangs scraped his lower lip, growing, elongating, readying themselves to culminate the encounter, provide the ultimate sexual high she seemed to want so much.

  No. It took a force of will he hadn’t been sure he possessed, but he managed to clamp down rather than dig into her tempting flesh when her trembling climax triggered his own. The pleasure would have overwhelmed him as he spurted the essence of himself into Julie’s eager body, but for the excruciating pain of his fangs piercing his own tongue.

  * * * * *

  “Why are you closing the drapes?” Julie asked the next morning after she’d let Noodles into the courtyard to take care of her morning toilette. She’d hoped Stefan would sleep for a while longer. He’d seemed drained last night after they made love a second time.

  “Sit down, Julie.” He looked disturbingly solemn, deliciously naked but for the large towel wrapped around his narrow hips.

  Did he regret having made love with her? “What’s wrong?” A lump formed in her throat when he took a seat not on the bed beside her but on the tapestry-covered chaise she’d found at an antique auction not long ago. Noodles deserted her, hopped up instead on the chaise, as close as she could get to Stefan.

  He patted the dog when she licked his hand, then met Julie’s gaze. “I spoke the truth to you last night, Julie. I closed the drapes because sunlight is my enemy. I’m a vampire.”

  Julie laughed, then bent down to pet Noodles. “You’re being silly. You scared me for a minute, there.”

  His hand came down, took hers from Noodles. He drew it back up to hold between them, which also drew her gaze to his face.

  He wasn’t smiling.

  “You’re joking,” she said, not quite so certain now.

  “You know my kind lives among yours now.”

  “Of course I’ve heard of vampires. That doesn’t mean I believe in them. Or that I believe you’re one.” Still, Julie wondered. Vampires were said to possess frighteningly strong powers of persuasion, and Stefan had certainly drawn her in, made her want...

  He met her gaze, his own expression deadly serious. “Why would you not believe? Our existence has been documented through the centuries.”

  “All right. Say you really are a vampire, although if you are, you’re very different from any vampire I’ve ever seen or read about. Why didn’t you tell me this when we met? Or before we made love?” Her words trailed off as she remembered -- his touch, the heat of his hot seed bathing her womb.

  Stefan reached out, took her hand. “I did tell you last night, before we made love. And I had a very important reason for not revealing myself to you immediately. You are in danger, and I came here to protect you. I didn’t know if you were a person who, like many, would have run in fear from me, shut yourself away from me where I could not protect you.” He hesitated, then parted his lips.

  Julie gasped. The incisors that had seemed just a bit longer than the normal person’s had elongated, so now they curved wickedly over his bottom lip. Then she blinked, and they had retracted. He laid her hand carefully on his own knee, withdrew his own, and then lifted his lids, meeting her gaze with the expression of a man prepared to be struck between the eyes with a lethal instrument. “I want you,” he said roughly. “Too much for your own good. Make no mistake about that. I’d leave now to protect you from me, but I’ve come here to save you from a serial killer who has you marked as his next victim. I cannot leave you, as long as he’s a threat.”

  “Please. Don’t insult my intelligence. Tell me the truth about what’s going on.” Emotions warred inside her. Hurt, anger...and something more. Some deep, enduring emotion she wouldn’t let herself accept was love. Was he being cruel? Was he insane? What was going on? Why did she feel her world was spinning away off its axis, her mind and soul torn between incredulity and betrayal? She jerked her hand from his.

  Julie hated the conflicting emotions that gripped her, fought hard to swallow the lump that had developed in her throat. A lump that threatened to strangle her. Though too overwhelmed to get out the words -- the questions that f
looded her mind -- she forced herself to meet Stefan’s emerald gaze. “You’re...you’re really a vampire?”

  He held out both hands. “What do you see, Julie? Why do you think I’m so pale, and why do you imagine I have no body hair? Though I can function in daylight better than most of my kind, I must avoid direct sunlight. Looking into a mirror temporarily blinds me. Normally I do my feeding at vampire bars, but the only sustenance I require is blood. Human blood.”

  She backed away from him, stumbling in her haste to put some distance between them. “W-why? How?”

  He shrugged. “A mutation of genes in my family’s case, or so I’m told. The mark of Lilith, I’ve heard it called by those of my clan who like to wax poetic. Lilith apparently was the unfortunate young wife of a long-ago d’Argent lord, who birthed a vampire babe before she died. Rollo, the baby’s father, resisted the efforts of all to have him do away with his son, and so it was that the child lived to become a man. Eventually he took a bride, who bore him twins. One of those children was my own grandfather. All of this happened a thousand years ago or more.”

  “You mean you’ve always been a vampire?” Gruesome scenes from late-night movies Julie had seen came back to her, of ghouls rising from their coffins at night, of handsome men shifting into bats and swooping down to feed on unsuspecting women. She’d heard stories that some of the vampires were good, not evil, but all the images that crowded her mind now came from those movies and horror stories. “I thought vampires were created from people who’d died, and that they only come out of their graves at night.”

  “Yes, most humans think so. There are clans of vampires who proliferate themselves by turning those who’ve died. Others multiply by preying on unsuspecting humans and making them vampires. These made vampires tend to be evil, which bodes no good for the rest of us.” Stefan’s expression turned fierce. Frightening. His pupils dilated, so much that his eyes looked more black than green.

  “So what kind of vampire are you?”