Sabrina and the Gargoyle

by Marie Dry

  “Stop calling it a fantasy. I saw a picture of a celebrity doing it to his girlfriend.” She had to find a way to keep him out of her mind. How did he expect her to have a conversation with him when he did that?

  “I like your mind. It’s so deliciously naughty.”

  “It’s not, you’re just saying that to make me blush.”

  She felt him smile against her thigh. He moved down until he could reach her toes. Slowly, his gaze fastened on hers, he sucked her toe in his mouth. She whimpered and her body jerked, if she wasn’t a puddle of pleasure, she’d be afraid of bouncing off the bed.

  “What--” She swallowed, moaned, and struggled to think what she was going to say. “What are you doing?”

  “Giving you your fantasy, though next time I think I’ll make you tell me.” He sucked her big toe into his mouth again. When she thought she would explode, he moved up her body and kissed her calf, her knee, then the inside of her thigh. She should stop him, she knew there was an important reason she shouldn’t allow him to linger there, but her mind was a puddle of pleasure. Veins...it had something to do with veins.

  He cupped her sex and she panted with sheer lust. Slowly he parted her folds and then inserted a finger, moving in and out, mimicking the motions of sex. Her body didn’t want his finger. It wanted more.

  “Please, Mark, don’t tease me, I need you.”

  “Not as much as I need you to.” There was something almost driven in his voice. Almost self-loathing, but she was too caught up in their lovemaking to focus on it. “I need you to crave me, to feel empty when I’m not inside you.”

  “I am empty, Mark, please, come inside me. I need you so much.”

  He inserted another finger, increased his pace, her hips keeping time with the rhythm he set.

  She clenched her thighs around his hand. “More, please, Mark, I need more, I need you, not your finger.”

  “Will you let me suck on your neck?” His voice was pure sin and temptation.

  “No, maybe, I don’t know. Please be inside me, Mark.” She needed him so much, wanted to be close to him, share this special pleasure with him so much, she would’ve promised him anything.

  He clasped her knees, slowly pulled them open and back.

  Sabrina moaned when he entered her, his gaze holding hers captive while he pushed deep inside her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and held onto him.

  “Move, Mark, please.”

  She came at the first stroke. He thrust deep, seeming almost desperate to claim her as his, to make it last.

  She felt his teeth scrape her neck and, in that moment, if he’d wanted to suck her dry, she’d have let him. He stiffened against her, groaned, and increased his pace, and, when he came, she peaked again. He fell over her and she loved his heavy weight on top of her, even if it made breathing difficult.

  When his breathing slowed, he rolled off her and dragged her close to him. “We can’t stay in this house.”

  She stared up at him, at his glowing eyes and growing incisors and her whole being shrank back from his words.

  “This is my home, the only place I ever had a family.”

  Chapter 4

  His growl echoed around the bedroom with a hollow almost supernatural bite. She stared up at him, shivers of after pleasure shock still racking her body.

  “Why would you want to move?” She couldn’t give up her home. She could still see Ouma in her workroom. When she baked in the kitchen, she remembered making koeksisters with her mother.

  He pulled her tighter against him and stared down at her. “It’s not safe here for you.” He seemed reluctant to say anything else.

  “Does this have anything to do with that newscast? You looked almost afraid.” She never thought her big tough husband could be afraid of anything.

  “No.” He softened and cupped her cheek. “It’s all right for the moment. We can stay. If there’s danger to you, I will remove you from this house, kicking and screaming if I have to.”

  “What kind of danger could make it necessary for us to leave a safe neighborhood? Leave my home?”

  “The kind that leaves no one standing,” he said with somber conviction, as if he’d faced this particular danger before.

  “What are you involved in? Mark, please tell me. Why did you marry me?”

  Before his face shut down, she saw terrible guilt.

  “No.”

  “Why did you engineer our first meeting? What are you? How can you read my mind?” If only he would talk to her. Tell her what was going on.

  His lips pulled into a kind of ironic smile. “I’m your fatal destiny.”

  “Why fatal? What does that mean?”

  He might think his smile reassuring, but it had the opposite effect. “I was being clever, go to sleep. I have a long day tomorrow.” He reached out and clicked off the light.

  “What did you do with Jo?” She knew it had something to do with the danger she could feel vibrating in the air around them. Why he seemed sad sometimes. She moved even closer to him. Talking in the dark seemed more intimate than their lovemaking. She never thought she was the kind of woman who would make love with her husband if he did what Mark did tonight. Except this was different. This was not about him cheating.

  Mark sighed and put his hands behind his head, his chest under her cheek moved, then settled. “She’s on a dark path. I talked to her and then left her with her parents.”

  “And you couldn’t have me there while you talked to her?” She believed him, but a tiny part of her didn’t like the idea of him alone with the beautiful Jo. The way she’d looked at him gave Sabrina chills just thinking about it.

  “No. Go to sleep.”

  “Stop ordering me to sleep.” She closed her eyes, but her mind wouldn’t shut down. “Are you a vampire?” The teeth she sometimes saw could be vampire. Even the wings she thought she saw. In the movies Dracula turned into a bat. “You’d make one huge scary bat,” she muttered.

  “Sabrina, please go to sleep.” It sounded as if he was trying not to laugh.

  “Are you a vampire with wings?” She had to know.

  “For the love of--yes, I turn into a giant bat and suck blood for food.”

  “Only women’s blood or men’s too?” She should be running screaming. Not asking questions. He might try to make a joke about it, but that woman at the party had screamed that a giant bat looked at her through the window.

  He erupted, loomed over her with smoldering eyes. “Your blood, wife, if you don’t stop asking questions and go to sleep.”

  “I’m just curious, it can’t be easy to turn into a bat.”

  He kissed her and she almost forgot about winged vampires. Almost. It was bitter chocolate at its most seductive. This man of hers, the only man she’d ever love, kissed her and her body that still trembled faintly with her pleasure, as if her orgasm continued to overload with desire, wanted more.

  He lifted his head. “Go to sleep wife or I’ll show you how bats make love.”

  “How?” she dared.

  He went for her throat. She squealed, hunched her shoulders, and lowered her chin to protect her vulnerable neck. “All right, all right. I’ll go to sleep.”

  “Too late, this bat wants to make love to his wife.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, again.”

  “All right, but my knee--”

  He kissed her neck and moved up, his breath wafting over her ear. “Let me worry about your knee.”

  Her body responded to his touch, his kisses and teasing bites played her like a fine-tuned instrument. At first, she silently called herself weak for allowing him to distract her like this. For letting him get away with what happened at the Greylings’. Soon, she was lost in their lovemaking.

  The room, the pleasure still coursing through her body, receded until all she was aware of was the brown eyes, backlit by amber, mesmerizing her.

  “You will forget your suspicions of me. We are newlyweds living ordinary lives.”

/>   “Yes.”

  They were still in the honeymoon phase, but already settled into a comfortable routine. She loved being part of a family again and couldn’t wait for them to have children.

  “You’ll sleep now and wake content.”

  Sabrina loved the deep timbre of his voice, the gentle way he spoke to her. She pulled his head down and kissed him.

  “Night, liefie.” She was so happy, so content with her life.

  He deepened the kiss, “Goodnight, Sabrina.”

  She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.

  “We sound like the Waltons.” She thought she heard swearing in her dreams.

  The next morning, Sabrina woke alone and sat on the side of the bed to do her exercises. Most new wives would want their husbands still in bed when they woke. Most wives didn’t have to go through a set of exercises each morning to be able to walk. Last night had been wonderful. Coming back from the--

  She stared down at her scarred knee. “That qi yall. He messed with my mind.” She slapped her hands down on the exercise mat. “That oversized long toothed bat played me.” She slapped her hand down again, the satisfying sound negating the discomfort in her hands. “I’ll kill him.”

  The wolf padded into the room, managing to look curious and regal at the same time.

  “Don’t even start, you. I’ll send you back to your ancestor. Or show the tokkelosh where you sleep.”

  The wolf turned smartly and left.

  Suppressing a groan, she went to take a shower. How could he? What kind of cold and calculating man would make love to her so beautifully and then try to wipe her mind? She replayed everything that happened last night. How could she be sure she didn’t forget something important? Sabrina viciously scrubbed the washcloth over her body, over every inch he’d kissed and caressed. She’d find a way to resist him messing with her mind. Right after she killed him.

  She looked into the mirror. Her face appeared distorted by the fog. The steam and glass of the shower gave the illusion that her figure was clothed in ethereal fog, giving her blue eyes a supernatural look.

  She blinked, half expecting to see a lightbulb over her head. That’s it. She knew how to safeguard her mind. Not by thinking of a brick wall. Not by trying to keep him out of her mind. Instead, she’d show him what he expected to see. She’d hide her real thoughts behind an impenetrable layer of false emotions.

  She slammed her palm against the fogged mirror. No one made free with her mind. She’d be more Stepford than the Stepford wives.

  “Ouch.” Cradling her hand, she went to her closet. It was still hot enough to wear her favorite red dress. After she brushed her hair and put on makeup, she went down to the kitchen and found Wolf sitting suggestively at the fridge.

  “You won’t intimidate me into feeding you,” she told the wolf.

  He managed to look skeptical.

  Scowling she put a piece of bacon down for him. “All right, that’s not really true, but we both know you turn mean to force me to give you food.”

  He wasn’t above growling and baring his teeth in a very intimidating manner to get his way. Though maybe she could scare him again with the tokkelosh if he did that again. Her great grandmother had slept with bricks under her bed to prevent it from getting her during the night. Maybe it would go after a wolf as well.

  Should she leave Mark? She loved him, but he scared her. Whatever he was involved with, it had something to do with Jo and those dead eyes that spooked the living spirit out of Sabrina. She had this awful sense of evil coming, a pressure that she could almost see tightening its hold on her city. He’d wanted them to leave her house. She knew Mark didn’t scare easily so what exactly was coming?

  Through the window she saw Samuel guarding the front door and on the floor next to her, eating his bacon was the wolf, trying to pretend he was a dog. She needed space, a safe place where she could think without Mark’s guards around. She slammed the coffee mug into the sink. Where he couldn’t mess with her mind while she tried to make decisions. No matter how tenderly he’d made love to her last night, she needed to remember what he was. The way he went off with Jo. That he’d messed with her memories.

  Church. She had to get to a church. He won’t be able to enter that, vampires burned if they try to enter. She rubbed her chest. She didn’t want him to burn and she didn’t want him unable to enter a holy place because he was evil. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure he was a vampire, even taking into account the bat idea, the brief glimpses she’d seen of wings didn’t look vampirish to her. Call her a coward, but she didn’t want confirmation that he was a vampire.

  “This is so crazy.” She rested her forehead on the kitchen table. “Maybe I’m going crazy.” Wolf put his head on her thigh and she cautiously sat upright. He’d never done that before. Gingerly she patted his head. “Good wolfie.”

  He growled at her.

  She held her hands up. “All right, all right, big mean very scary wolf.”

  He gave her a fake doggie smile, with entirely too many gleaming white teeth for her piece of mind.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll help me get away from Samuel.”

  Get real, she could read it on his face. It was scary how human-like and intelligent his expressions could be.

  “If you’re a dog, I’m the queen of Sheba,” she muttered and went to the back door. Samuel was at the front door and the back door looked out on a tiny courtyard surrounded by houses. It had a small space beside her house, just enough to drag the dustbin for emptying every Wednesday.

  Hopefully, she could use that to get away while Samuel’s back was turned. The dog stayed on her heels. Sabrina turned and glared down at him. “Go back,” she whispered.

  He didn’t budge.

  “I’ll make you a steak, just for you if you go back.” She didn’t know what would be worse, if her neighbors saw her sneak out of her own house or saw her bargaining with a dog as if he understood her words.

  “If you get me caught, I’m giving the tokkelosh directions to your bed,” she muttered softly and tiptoed down the narrow lane leading to the road. The dog stayed on her heels.

  She carefully opened the gate and slipped outside into the street, praying none of her neighbors saw her and called out a greeting. She peeked carefully. Samuel stood with his back to her. She slithered down the street and around the corner as fast as her knee would let her. That dog stayed on her heels. At least he kept quiet.

  An hour later, Sabrina huddled in one of the pews in the old church close to her house, feeling foolish. Mark would never harm her, that much she did trust him. And if he wanted to suck her blood or hurt her, he could’ve done it by now. Sneaking out of the house had been a bit excessive. But then, he did try to control her mind and having a bodyguard and dog around all the time was wearying. Before they married, she’d been used to spending a lot of time on her own. It was hard getting used to having people around all the time.

  On top of that, she had this sense that Mark was struggling with something he had to do, and when he got around to doing it, she’d be the one to suffer.

  Wolf sat quietly in the aisle next to the pew where she sat, as if he knew he’d get chased out if he barked or ran around.

  She couldn’t stay in here forever. She’d always thought herself to be level headed and above believing in superstitious nonsense. Suspecting her husband was a winged vampire changed her perception of the world around her. The first few times she’d seen him move faster than her eye could follow, she’d shrugged it off as her imagination. Then she’d seen his eyes glow a few times and every now and then the shadow of wings appeared at his back. She touched her neck. Did he suck her blood last night and erase her memory of it? How could she be sure she remembered everything?

  Sabrina glared down at the dog. “After he messed with my mind. Who knew what happened, what he made me forget?” she whispered at it.

  “I thought they only had services on Sundays,” Mark said from the pew behind her.


  Chapter 5

  Sabrina couldn’t stifle a soft scream and a church official paused to frown at her. He looked at Mark and, with a serene expression, moved on.

  She turned and glared at Mark, who sat in the pew behind her. “Don’t you have any respect? That could be a minister whose mind you just messed with.”

  Too late she realized she’d given away her resistance to his mind control. The Stepford idea wouldn’t have worked anyway.

  “I merely told him to move on,” he said from next to her, his eyes narrowed.

  Her heart hammered at this blatant show of his abilities. “You can’t just take people’s choices away like that.”

  What was he? Did she really want to know?

  His breath stroked over her neck and Sabrina leaned away from him, surreptitiously checking for growing teeth. “Don’t force me to take their choices then.”

  “Like you tried to take mine?”

  “You managed to resist my commands.” The way he said it scared her. As if he was determined to make her mind comply.

  “Why did you do that to me?” She knew he heard the question she didn’t ask out loud. How can he make love to her like that and then violate her mind?

  He stood and held his hand out. “Are you ready to go home?”

  Sabrina stared up at him. He looked like a normal handsome man ready to take his wife home. For a brief moment she wished she’d been susceptible to his mind control. “Tell me why? Why did you marry me? Why did you stay behind with Jo? What is it that you’re looking for?”

  Would he tell her why he tried to make her forget? She could see from his narrow-eyed look that he didn’t like her insistence. Well, tough.

  “No, now let’s go.”

  Her heart tore apart, like a ripped pattern card. He didn’t even try to explain himself. Whatever he was involved in was obviously dangerous and he’d exposed her to it when he married her. “You should’ve told me about whatever you were involved with before we got married.”

  His eyes blazed and then he visibly contained his emotions until they were a normal blue. It was a frightful thing to see, as if he took control of some massive force and contained it in his body. Mark took hold of her arm and lifted her out of the pew. “What did you think to accomplish by coming here?”