by Aya DeAniege
At four, I ended up getting up for good.
“You should shower, I pulled out some clothing in your size. Do wear it without a fight. Your clothing, recall, was worn yesterday, and mortals frown upon women wearing the same clothing two days in a row.”
“You keep bossing me around,” I grumbled.
I sipped my coffee as Quin watched me. He ran his tongue over the inside of his mouth.
“Trying to give you the experience of being a baby vampire, of course,” he said finally. “Kindly go do as I command you.”
“I’m not really into role play,” I said with a grimace.
“I’ll keep that in mind when I finally have my way with you. Go do as I commanded.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. He held out his hand, and I handed over the coffee mug. As I walked away, I stuck my tongue out. My back was to him, and I was feeling a little playful.
“Don’t stick your tongue out at me, it’s not polite.”
“Is being a Progeny like being a sub?” I asked body, turning towards him.
His eyes roved down my form, then back up and locked with my own. Those beautiful browns gave nothing away as he bared me to my soul.
“Go shower.”
I took that as a yes, and yet a no at the same time.
Though I didn’t understand the purpose of showing me what it was like to be his Progeny, I did as Quin asked. After my shower, I dressed in the provided clothing. Then I went to the mirror and looked at myself.
He had chosen a dark red colour, sanguine I believe was the proper term. A bloody red that was untouched by autumnal brown. I hadn’t worn something so red since my third-grade Christmas play when I was a background elf. The shirt seemed brighter than that, crisper.
I wasn’t entirely certain it had ever been worn before.
The pants were dark brown slacks. Altogether, the outfit mirrored what I had worn the day before. Except the shirt was short sleeved instead of half.
The socks and underwear were new. There was just a fresh feeling to a brand-new pair that couldn’t be imitated no matter how clean one was.
This night, I fought my hair back into a braid. Having it long and loose just made it get in the way.
“Quit preening,” Quin said, leaning against the door frame. “You look good in red, and we don’t have time for you to be self-conscious.”
“Then you should have chosen a different colour,” I muttered, slipping the tablet around my neck and settling it under the collar of my shirt. “Like a lovely grey, maybe.”
“You look good in red,” he repeated.
I arched an eyebrow at him.
He smiled back in response. “You keep doing that, and I’ll be tempted to give you a nip.”
“Oh?” I asked. “Give it a shot.”
He slipped into the bathroom and had his hands on me before I realized what was going on. One hand grabbed me by my braid, the other slipped down to the small of my back, pulling me close. He bent and captured my lips, tongue thrusting into my mouth.
It took all I was to keep my feet under me.
You read about those kisses, or hear tales from others, but you think they’re the exception to the rule. You never stop to think, ‘hey, maybe I’ve only been with bad kissers before.’
His hands tightened, focusing my full attention on him and his tongue as it slipped out of my mouth.
A fiery need was slowly consuming me.
I had never just slept beside a man, not when we were both alone. I had never had one who was so controlling around me.
And then the fiery need turned to a burning which focused almost entirely on my mouth. I felt as if I had just bitten into a hot pepper. While I’m a fan of spicy things, I didn’t like it in combination with the lingering coffee flavour.
“Why does it burn?” I asked.
“I may have gulped some pepper juice,” he said with a toothy grin. “It seems to have the effect of countering the venom. Or makes us salivate so much that our mouths are clean of it. Worth it, though, to see that fog come over your eyes.”
“You need your caps,” I said.
“Everything is on lock down until the Council wakes. They take their damned time these days.”
“So, no vampire is allowed out before the Council?” I asked.
“Not really, it’s more of that no vampire business can happen while they are sleeping. What we’re doing tonight is definitely vampire business. My guy is arriving tonight with the phones too. Oh, and Sasha’s guy is supposed to get back to me about who keeps taking my guys. They take that sort of thing seriously.”
“You’re avoiding the main topic of discussion.”
“And then I’ll kill him. It’s on my list of things to do today.”
“Like it’s a shopping list or something?” I asked. “And since when is it kill? Just maim gently. I’m joking, don’t get that look. You need to tell them what to do and let them handle it. It’s their mess.”
“Involving my Maker, oh, and me. I will deal with it. All they will do is gripe and whine and moan. Come, food is likely done.”
“Freezer food?”
“Frozen food, yes, but I don’t have a lot of fresh food about. Not unless I know I’ll be having mortal guests. Or if I had a guy, I could send him out during the day.”
“An IT guy shopping?”
“Say it like a word.”
“An... it guy?” I asked.
Then it dawned on me. Not an IT as in an information technology guy. The position was for a young man who did running and errands as well as the technology. He was basically an aide to the vampires who did it all. I just didn’t understand why they insisted on calling their helpers IT guys.
“Does that mean something in your language?” I asked.
Quin grinned. “Maybe.”
“And it makes you grin like an imp. Hopefully, they never figure it out, or there will be so much trouble for you and the others. Mass confusion as your genders are switched on IDs, and there are flags put on your name.”
Quin shrugged. “It’s not a written language so your linguists wouldn’t speak it.”
“What?” I squawked.
“We don’t consider a language ‘dead’ until modern humans can no longer translate it,” Quin murmured with another shrug. “Take the languages of the Upper Paleolithic area, if you will. We still carry on words from the language and know their original meaning. Humans, on the other hand, have the words in their evolved forms, which we also use. Those languages are considered dead. If you heard it, you wouldn’t recognize it. Nor would any modern speaker of the evolved languages because the symbolism of the words themselves have changed.”
“A tree is still a tree.”
“When English as a language dies, the word ‘tree’ may be remembered, but pine, birch, palm, will likely be forgotten. Especially if those things no longer exist. With the evolution of creatures, there are things that once exist whose words have now been swapped over to the nearest to creature.”
“Such as vampire?”
“Actually, yes. We’ve not always been called vampire, and the Elders—those of Lucrecia and Lu’s Makers—were an entirely different creature. There’s a marked evolution between those generations.”
I tried to recall what he said the night before.
“That’s the period that Lu says the Elders attacked and tried to kill the Great Maker, isn’t it?”
“It is, yes.”
“And the Great Maker survived?”
“According to Lu, yes, she did. Not many vampires seem aware of myths of the Great Maker, aside from calling the first vampire by that name.”
“The Great Maker is a woman?”
“According to myth, again. You must understand, when male gods began coming around as the first or even the only god, the vampires of old were pissed. Children came from women. Therefore, everything that existed came from the female.”
“Yeah, but doesn’t archaeology show—”
“Fuck ar
chaeology. It’s a view of the past created by a patriarchal society, blinded by their way of doing things. There are statuettes all over of pregnant women. And then there are statues of dicks. Not of men. Of dicks, Helen.”
“That would suggest Bau is the Great Maker.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what Lu believes. But get the oldest vampires talking. Before Lu, there’s just... no males. Sure, Lucrecia’s Maker, but he was still a baby compared to the others who were culled. She thinks that until Lu, or around that period, it was believed that only women could be turned.”
“Why then?”
“According to Lu, a man was turned to punish the vampires for their treachery.”
“And if he believes that his Maker is the Great Maker, he’d then see himself as the devil.”
“In the modern terminology, yes,” Quin said.
“Your Maker is crazy.”
“I know,” he said.
He led the way to the kitchen, pulling a pan from the oven. On it was a small quiche, I’m guessing the frozen kind.
“Anyhow, the earliest full language I can speak is from what modern humans would call a nomadic ice age people. As I’ve taught that language to others, I assume it was Bau’s original language. Makers press the languages of their mortality and that of their Makers onto their Progeny.”
“What’s Lu’s language?”
“Sumerian, didn’t I tell you that?”
“Can you say something in Sumerian for me?”
“You’ve been saying it all along. Lu.”
“Means?”
“Man, or male.”
“Wait, he kept calling you boy.”
“Yes,” Quin said, then frowned at me as he opened a cupboard. “Obviously, this is one of those things I thought was obvious.”
“Yes, I think so. So, no one knows the myth of the Great Maker.”
“Myself and Lu. Bits have floated around.”
“Bits?” I asked. “Quin. He’s been calling himself Man all along and says the Great Maker turned Man to punish Woman.”
“Punish her children, not women.”
“Oh, my god, and he won’t drink from women.”
“Nope.”
“Because we aren’t prey, man is.”
Quin seemed to consider that. “He does tend to not feed on his play things.”
“Because they haven’t sinned yet?” I asked.
The frown deepened. “Haven’t sinned yet? No, you don’t understand, Lu has always been a pedophile.”
“Bad people always rationalize what they do,” I said. “I think he believes that boys have no sin.”
His eye twitched. I watched him twitch again. He silently pulled down a plate and set it on the counter. There was a moment of silence before he turned to me.
“Just to be clear, you think he believes I am an innocent and therefore he torments me?”
“Would you put your dick in something dirty?” I asked.
Quin twitched again.
“Wonder what would count as dirty,” he muttered. “Because obviously, it’s not rape or baby killing or torture.”
“From where I’m standing, in vampires, it’s the ability to create more of themselves, and in humans, it’s the lack of the ability to give birth.”
“Excellent,” he said. “I’ll go over who he’s killed and see how many of them were Makers.”
“Why is that excellent?” I asked.
“I told you last night. I’m on a short list to become a Maker.”
“Was that announced to the general immortal population?” I asked.
“Only to those who needed to know. Most of the vampire community is ignorant of the list, only knowing there is one and they aren’t on it. Our Makers were not informed unless we told them, which I did not do.”
“But by becoming a Maker, you would spoil yourself, commit sin, in his eyes. Once you commit sin, you are no longer protected by, well, whatever it is that makes you an innocent.”
“Sasha survived,” Quin said. “She was a Maker when he attacked the Council. I’ve also had my encounters with him. I think I could win.”
“One: think being the key word there. You know what happened to Thought, right? Two: I swear one of you has said that she survived because she took on Lucrecia’s power through transference and it is that dictatorial power which keeps Lucrecia alive. Remove the ability to command others and Lucrecia would have been dead long ago.”
“Says who?” Quin asked.
“Lu, last night. He’s pretty upset about Lucrecia stealing you, which is a long time for a vampire to hold a grudge,” I said. “I mean, she’s committed the sin of creating another of her kind. She’s a woman. She’s also been chosen on more than one occasion for an important something. They’re almost of the same generation.”
“Lucrecia is a representation, however, watered down, of what vampires once were.”
“Her Maker was killed during the cull, which implies her Maker may have been of the second or third generation. She’s probably been marked for execution since then, and likely knows it.”
“Her Maker was male. A man. Lu was created by an older vampire, before her. Once it was known men could be turned, it became a fashion. Men got along easier in the world, so they were turned to front for their Makers. Lucrecia, I believe, was created by one of that generation of men.”
“So why create another woman?”
“She was a whore.”
I choked on the words I wanted to say. Then I swallowed and considered the images of Lucrecia I had seen. She was beautiful but hadn’t been under the age of twenty when she had been turned. Under thirty, surely, but she still held herself as a matron might.
The last term anyone might apply to her was ‘whore.’
“Well, for her Maker she was. He had Progeny who he used to kill his Maker, to be free of the woman. Then he turned Lucrecia to serve them all.”
“So, the cull worked in her favour.”
“Yes, she was taken on for a time by another vampire, a woman, who was also culled about a century later. We’d have to ask her, but I don’t think she’d be willing to discuss it.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“The last time I brought it up, she tried to strangle me with her own two hands. She wasn’t overly strong at that point. It was in fashion for her to be tiny.”
“Trade her. Wraith information for stuff on her early life.”
“That could work. If she doesn’t lock me in a box for being Wraith.”
“You’re Wraith,” I snapped. “You lock her in a box, not the other way around.”
“It’s a matter of respect.”
“The Council whored Wraith out to Death, knowing the sort of vampire he was, the kind of Maker he had become and what he liked to do to others. I think respect is out the window and it’s time to stop your feet and hold your breath.”
“That doesn’t really work.”
“Or start killing vampires.”
“Yes, dear Council members. If you’d so kindly stay in one place for an entire year so that I can figure out how and when to kill you,” he said as if addressing a crowd. Then he shook his head at me. “That would not go over well.”
“You do know how to kill them. And you know where the head is. I’m betting, given how cliché you lot are, Lucrecia’s got the staff and is bringing it this way. So, you’d have the whole bit.”
He was quiet a moment. “I would, yes.”
“So, kill some vampires.”
“Mortals should want to conserve life, not end it.”
“Start with those on the list. There are four slated for execution, right? Kill them, to show you can. Then lay out demands. They gave him someone to torture eternally! You, surely, could gain a pardon. Or a second line of stock. Or your own family. A pat on the head, even?”
“And Lu? I cannot kill my Maker.”
“Lock him in a box, make a vampire, transference the ability and then execute him. Simple math. You’re all ki
nd of old men. Blinded by how it’s been done for centuries.”
“Which is why we’re looking for new blood,” he said weakly.
“I hope you understand what new blood would mean,” I muttered.
“Oh, I’m starting to see it.”
Coming Soon:
Prototype
An Aurora Novel
(Working Title)
My name is Maggy Doyle. I have a three-year-old daughter, a husband, a home, and an extended family. I work a secretary job for a lawyer's office and spend my days just trying to fly under the radar of pretty well everyone.
See, five years ago, I was found wandering around a field. I don't recall anything before that moment. I had no idea who I was. If it weren't for Harry, if not for how much he loved me before the incident, I would have probably been lost forever.
Imagine my surprise when I opened my front door one day to find men standing there, demanding my daughter and I go with them. They wouldn't answer my questions or tell me where they were taking us.
There's this nagging at the back of my mind telling me that it has to do with Aurora. The still new, third world we were linked to, ruled by a woman who is said to have not only created the world, but also animals, and who knew what else.
What could she possibly want with twenty people ranging from late teens to middle-aged? The only thing we have in common is amnesia. Our lives before a certain point were erased. We didn't do anything wrong, none of us know each other and our incidents were months or even years apart.
We’re completely harmless.
I think.
My name is Nathaniel Edwards, I am just over forty years old as I write this introduction. I’ve chosen to write this of my own volition, I was not pressured into it, nor was I commanded by my wife and Mistress, Isabella. Today she may be Mistress, but tomorrow she will be my sub once more. Most likely you are reading this because you read Isabella’s books and were curious about my part of the story.
Or you whined about how you didn’t get all the details in the middle portion of her books and now you’re hoping my absolutely detailed account with her will rectify the situation.
I’m not the least bit sorry to say, you will be disappointed. This is not a detailed account of my time with Isabella Domme. You already know what happened when she was around me. I lost my mind, my lust got the better of me.