by Marie Dry
Mark leaned forward and dragged her into his arms. “Forget about the wolf, I need you.” She fell over him, her soft curves mashing into him.
“Mark, what are you doing?” She blinked up at him with big confused eyes. Beautiful trusting eyes.
“Don’t say no, I need you. Right now, right here.” He cupped her cheek. She had the most beautiful skin, antique copper, always so soft. Glowing with health. He couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her gray, the life sucked out of her, evil looking out of her eyes. He kissed her, trying to wipe that obscene thought from his mind.
He grabbed the hem of her sweater and pulled it over her head. She crossed her arms over her breasts and looked over her shoulder at the wolf that watched them with unblinking eyes. “Send the dog away.”
“Go away, dog,” he said, without taking his eyes off Sabrina. Wolf got up and padded out the door, throwing one last taunting look over his shoulder. When Mark heard the dog in the kitchen, he pulled Sabrina’s arms away from her chest and took off her bra. Her beautiful breasts spilled into his hands.
“I have to have you now. I’ll make it good for you, but I have to have you now.” He sounded like a mad man, but that obscene image of her with evil dead eyes haunted him.
She got up, carefully compensating for her bad knee, and took off her slacks. She stood before him in panties so brief he wondered why she bothered.
He reached out and fingered the soft silk and then ripped it off and drew her over him. He barely had the presence of mind to touch her, to make sure she was ready for him. “Tell me you’re ready, that you want me inside you.”
She cupped his cheeks and rested her forehead against his. “I’m ready, Mark, come inside me. Make love to me.”
He unfastened his pants, shoved them down his thighs, and then grabbed her hips and pulled her down over him, entering her in one swift thrust.
“I’ll make it good for you, I just have to, I have to...” He forgot what he was going to say.
She moved, a slow up and down glide that caused pleasure to spike from his dick to every muscle in his body. When he came, when the pleasure drowned the reality of his life, when his body tautened with more pleasure than he’d ever thought to experience, he held onto her. His wife that wasn’t his wife. She cried out and her tight hot channel milked his cock until they both collapsed on the couch in a sweaty tangle.
Sabrina stared at the ceiling, still holding onto Mark. That had been incredible, it was as if something driven had come over Mark. The way he looked at her, touched her, as if he feared she would disappear right in front of his eyes.
She rubbed her palm over his short brown hair. “Be a good husband and bring us some tea and milktart.” She’d worked up an appetite.
He opened one eye. “Auntie Koen told me the other day that you were a very good girl and would look after me. You know, do the cooking, bring me my slippers, and other wifely things.”
She snorted. “Dream on.”
With a groan, he got up and pulled on his pants before he went to the kitchen. Sabrina grabbed his shirt from the floor and put it on. She heard him talking to Wolf and then he returned with a tray with a glass of brandy and the tea and a milktart she’d baked the previous day. He sat down the tray, served her a slice of milktart, sliced a bigger piece for himself, and then sprawled on the couch next to her.
She frowned at his scuffed boots on her couch. “Why don’t you ever take them off?”
He sat upright and shrugged. “I don’t like to be caught vulnerable.”
Her cozy house, that had always been so safe, suddenly seemed vulnerable. He might be living in the same house, but she suspected he inhabited a very dangerous world. She took a bit of the milktart, chewed, and then turned sideways on the couch so she faced him. “Tell me what’s going on, Mark. What’s wrong with Jo? Why are you so worried about our safety?”
“There are many different kinds of beings on earth. Most of them go about their business, ensuring they don’t do anything to draw attention to the old ones.”
“The old ones, is that what you call yourselves?”
“That’s what the ancient ones call us.”
“Ancient ones?” she asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.
“There are civilizations that existed so long ago that it isn’t even part of our history.”
Sabrina shivered, she didn’t want to hear anymore. She wanted to go back to a place where unearthly creatures didn’t exist. Where ancient referred to long dead civilizations. She wanted to ask him what he was, why he married her, but now she was even more afraid of the answer.
“What’s wrong with Jo?”
He wolfed down the milktart and just when she thought he was going to ignore her question he said, “She’s infected.”
“Infected? With what?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve heard rumors that the drogge are infecting young women. I don’t know how or with what.”
“The drogge?”
He sighed, drew her close to his body, and leaned back with his scuffed boots planted on her yellow wood table. She frowned at his boots, but didn’t say anything this time.
“No one is sure exactly what they are. Every hundred years they appear and cause havoc and then disappear.”
“What kind of havoc?”
“Two hundred years ago, they sacrificed hundreds of children to whatever god they worship before they disappeared. A hundred years ago, they recruited vampires to their cause only to trap them in one place and kill them. They disappeared again.”
“So, vampires do exist?” Was that what he was? She despised herself for being a coward, but couldn’t bring herself to ask him.
“Yes.”
“Could that be what’s happening to Jo? Are they trying to turn her into a vampire?” As horrific as what was happening to Jo was, Sabrina was relieved that Mark wasn’t the cause.
“No, vampires are born.”
“In the movies and books, if humans are drained of their blood and then drink a vampire’s blood they turn.”
“This is not the movies or a book. Vampires are born and that snobby lot would never convert humans.”
“Vampires are snobby?” After all the movies made about them and books written, she’d thought of them as sexy. Like Mark.
“You have no idea.”
She put down her plate, her appetite gone. “Something terrible is coming. Isn’t it? That’s what all the partying is about. You’re searching for the drogge.”
He drew her down against him, his arm around her. “Yes.”
They sat quiet for a while. Mark sipping his brandy while Sabrina tried to imagine some being evil enough to infect Jo.
“Are you a vampire?” She almost wanted him to say yes. At least she knew something about vampires.
“I have vampire blood, not enough to make me need blood.” He tensed against her and she thought he sounded angry and sad at the same time. “I’m only half vampire.”
“Is it like the thirst the vampires get in the movies?” This was unreal. He was her husband, she slept next to him every night and they calmly talked about his vampire traits.
“Yes, if they don’t feed regularly. They’d feed on their own children once the thirst come over them.”
“You know, if you hunger, I wouldn’t mind providing for you.” She winced. “Well, I would mind, but I’d do it for you.”
“Don’t. Don’t care for me like that,” he bit out.
How could she not love him with every fiber of her being. She shivered. “Do you feel it, the thirst?” If he did, he was sleeping on the couch from now on.
“No.” A smile was in his voice. Did he read her thoughts? She didn’t like the idea of him being able to invade her mind at will.
“Let me know if that changes.” This had to be a dream. She was sleeping in her bed upstairs and dreaming about being married to a vampire. “What do they look like? The drogge.”
“No one knows. Some can feel their presence.�
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“Can you?”
“Yes.”
Again she sensed some emotion from him. Anger, determination, and guilt.
“Can Jo be helped.”
“I don’t think so, if I’d gotten to her earlier, who knows?”
“Will she...die?”
He stared into his glass, his expression somber. “If she’s very lucky.”
Sabrina shook her head. “That’s horrific. I have to believe that she’ll get better.”
They sat in silence for a while. Sabrina lay with her head on his shoulder, his arm tight around her. He stared into his brandy and she couldn’t take his brooding silence anymore. “Let’s go to bed.” She was tired from worrying about what would happen.
One moment they were on the couch and the next they fell on the bed.
“Another vampire trait?” She laughed up at him. Maybe having a husband who was half vampire had some benefits. It felt good to laugh after their serious conversation.
“A more useful one.”
She smiled and went to wash up and put on her night dress. When she came back, he lay on the bed. He gathered her into his arms, kissed her, and then they both pretended to settle down to sleep. They both lay awake in the dark. Trying to forget that monsters existed.
“Sabrina?” His voice was loud in the silent dark room with the only illumination the faint light spilling through the curtains from the streetlights.
“Yes.”
“You have to practice keeping me out of your mind.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask me that. Practice. Practice as if your life depended on it.”
“Very useful.” She kissed him, stroking her fingers through his short brown hair.
The light clicked on and he stared down at her. “Every day, every moment, I want you to practice.”
“All right, I promise I will practice.”
He kissed her, a savage claiming kiss that had an edge of desperation to it. When she came up for air, he smiled, a wolfish smile with a lot of teeth. “I might not have the thirst, but nothing stops us from pretending I do.”
Sabrina covered her neck with her hands and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Oh no, mister big bad vampire. I know you’re crazed with blood lust, but please don’t drink my blood.”
He loomed over her, his luminous white and blue gaze glittering down at her. He kissed her, a passionate playful kiss that went straight for her neck. “I’m crazed with lust all right.”
Shrieking with laughter, she grabbed his head and pushed him back. “No, get away from my neck, you evil vampire. My husband will kill you if you drink my blood.”
“I’m determined to kiss your beautiful neck. No husband will stop me.” He ran his forefinger down her jaw over her neck and down to her breasts. She shivered in reaction. “The first time I saw you, I wanted to touch your skin. To see if it was real.”
Abruptly all desire left her and, this time, her shivers weren’t from pleasure. “Did you take control of my mind and convince me to marry you. It’s not like me to be that impulsive, to get married after only knowing you two weeks.”
He stared down at her, so still she thought he might have stopped breathing. The silence lengthened, became fraught with lies unspoken. “I may have manipulated you into making a decision sooner, but we both know we would’ve wed eventually.”
“Why?”
“You love me, you fell in love with me the moment we met.”
Her doubts about his feelings made it so hard to talk about her love for him. It made her feel like a supplicant at his door.
“I meant, why the hurry to marry me?”
“Why wait? we were sure of our feelings for each other.” He pulled her against him and shut off the light again. “We have to go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
Sabrina lay staring into the darkness. He’d lied to her, cleverly avoided answering her question.
Chapter 6
The sun shining through the curtains she’d forgotten to close the previous night woke her. Why didn’t Mark want to tell her why he was in such a hurry to marry her? She knew without opening her eyes that Mark wasn’t there. Her vampire, she corrected herself. Though he’d been careful not to tell her what he was. If one half of him was vampire, what was the other half? The horror of seeing Jo was turning into who knows what threatened to steal her breath. Cloud her mind with fear. Sabrina shuddered to think what other creatures were out there.
She opened her eyes, stared straight into wolf’s eyes, and screamed. A loud shrill sound her father used to say could wake the dead.
Wolf backed off and barked at her.
Mark burst through the door, Samuel on his heels. Both of them looked ready to kill any threat. For one moment they both looked...other.
Mark looked around. Searching for the threat. “What’s wrong?”
“I opened my eyes and your damn wolf was in my face.”
Samuel quietly left and Mark came to sit on the bed. He leaned down and kissed her. “He’s probably in a hurry to get his bacon.” He turned to the wolf who sat on his haunches, trying hard to look innocent. “You guard her from the door.”
Sabrina glared at the wolf. If an animal could smirk, that’s what the wolf did. She turned her glare on Mark. “Don’t think I forgot that you tried to mess with my mind.”
“Life would be much easier if I could manipulate that stubborn brain of yours,” he muttered.
She stopped on her way to the bathroom, turned to face him. “Really?” She tapped her bare toes on the carpet.
“I’d love to stay and fight with you.” The heated once over he gave her left no doubt to what he thought the outcome would be. “Unfortunately, I have to be at a meeting in half an hour.”
“This discussion isn’t over,” she warned him.
He kissed her, a quick touching of lips. “I’m off. Be careful, don’t go out alone.” With that, he was gone. He didn’t leave through the door. He was just gone.
Either she was getting used to supernatural goings on, or she’d gone around the bend because, instead of having a breakdown, she got on with her day. She showered and went downstairs to get breakfast. The dog barked at her. “Shut up, you wolf in dog’s fur, you’ll get your bacon.”
She quickly made breakfast and gave Wolf some bacon.
Squaring her shoulders, she went to the front door, not surprised when she found Samuel lounging against the car. He stared at her without blinking. Obviously he didn’t consider her a friend. “Good morning, Samuel.”
No answer.
“I need to get vegetables from the market. I’d like to walk, but Mark said it wasn’t safe to go out alone.” She’d seen enough movies to know what happened to foolhardy women who didn’t listen when someone told them there was danger. She hated having to explain herself like this, but going to the church on her own had been foolish. If there was danger, she wasn’t taking any chances.
“I’ll go with you.” How did the man manage to be so emotionless? They walked to the market in total silence and Sabrina was glad the small neighborhood fresh food market was just two blocks over.
It was while she chatted with one of the sellers that a strange sensation went down her spine. Someone watched her, something gave off such a vibe of malevolence that she shivered and looked up, half expecting to see the clouds darkening. Even a month ago she would’ve dismissed the sensation. Now she knew better. Wolf, who’d stayed by her side the whole time growled very, very softly. Sabrina looked around, careful to appear only distantly interested in her surroundings. Nothing stood out. She knew most of the people who came to the small market. The rest were tourists and none of them seemed to be watching her. Samuel leaned against a shop window outside, seeming unaware of any threat.
Her heart beat faster. When Samuel offered to come with her, she’d dreaded having his sour company the whole time. Now she walked over to him, trying to appear casual. She knew he was aware of her approaching, but instead of focusing on h
er, scanned the area around her.
“I’ve had this strange feeling of being watched for the last hour.” She had no doubt he knew more about the danger facing them than she did. Still, she felt as if she was over reacting.
He nodded. “Someone’s following us. Walk home, but try to act normal, let’s see if they show themselves. I’ve phoned Mark.”
Sabrina walked home, Samuel fell back. She glanced casually behind her, but couldn’t see him. Once she neared her house, her steps slowed. The house was painted turquoise with the shutters a beautiful purple to compliment the roof, the circular stairs in front a bright pink. She loved this house. It reminded her of the best times of her childhood. During the times her parents split up, and they stayed with her Ouma, they’d bake koeksisters and milktart and make bobotie and all the other wonderful dishes her Ouma knew by heart. There’d be no fighting, only Ouma singing off key in the kitchen and her workroom. After the old quilting frame and needles and spindle Sabrina had inherited from Ouma, the handwritten cookbook she gave her was her most treasured possession. Handed down from mother to daughter, it was added to with each generation.
Every time she walked into her kitchen, she missed Ouma, but she also smiled when she remembered the hours they’d spent in here. Could almost smell the bobotie in the oven and see Ouma standing at the kitchen table.
While Sabrina put everything away, Samuel did his usual once over of the house after locking the door behind them.
“Did you see anyone following us?” she asked.
He didn’t answer her, merely took his spot by the door. With a sigh, Sabrina assembled the ingredients for koeksisters. When she was stressed, she baked, and she needed to relax. Being surrounded by rude chauffeur bodyguards and who knows what else he was and dogs that hated her chewed her nerves.
She hoped Mark came home soon. She could feel whatever it was still nearby. As if it somehow managed to penetrate the very walls. Never before did she think about what the presence of evil felt like. Now she knew. This particular evil descended and hovered as a cloud over the city. A cloud that might bring thunder storms of evil or softly raining insidious evil. Thinking of Jo, Sabrina suspected the latter. She took out her phone to call Mark and then frowned down at it. She didn’t have his number. How could she be married to a man for two months, and she didn’t have his number.