Her Vampire Husband

by Michele Hauf

  “I would like to have known him in an earlier time,” she said to the witch. “Perhaps in a wilder time. A freer time.”

  “He would have slain you,” Ravin said bluntly. Then she studied Blu for a while, a smile creeping onto her lips. “Or maybe not.”

  With a rallying whistle, Dez called everyone into the bedroom where a huge book was spread open on the bed. “I think I have an idea.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  CREED BID Dez AND Ivan goodbye, the last guests, and went in search of his shoes. He’d been conversing with the Council members in his bare feet. He’d had the hotel order clothing for them both, but the shoes had only been delivered an hour ago.

  “Blu?”

  She sat on the bench before the glossy, black grand piano. He hadn’t noticed her there, so quiet and small. Without a bright wig, she blended into the surroundings.

  “I’m off to supervise the spell,” he told her. “They plan to begin at midnight.”

  “That’s three hours from now.” She propped an elbow on the piano. “Do you think Dez’s idea will work? That the spell will end the fighting instantly?”

  “Sounds like it might. It’s worth a shot, Blu. I don’t want this to go any further than it has.”

  “Come sit by me.” She patted the bench.

  He had things to do. There were nations to save. But Blu’s pale entreating eyes obliterated those nations with a flutter of lash. How could he possibly concern himself with all that when the only thing that mattered to him was right here?

  He slid onto the bench and pulled her into a hug. “Ma chère, you feel so good. When this is over I’m going to hold you all day. All night. Weeks on end.”

  “Hold me now. We’ve time before you need to go. Give me one hour?”

  “Anything for you.” He dipped his head aside her neck and her hair swept over his face. “I love when you adorn me with your tresses.”

  She giggled. “You say such romantic things, vampire.”

  “I’m an old softy at heart, I guess.”

  “Old, yes. Soft? You have your moments.” She slid her hand across his lap and he reacted to her touch. “But I wonder how hard I can make you?”

  “Blu, now’s not the time.”

  “Now is the only time, lover. I want to make love with you. Before the end comes.”

  “It will not arrive.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Her fierceness reminded him of the proud wolf who had led him from the compound. And of the woman who had begged him to make things right. He hadn’t done that yet.

  “What if you leave and never return?” she asked. “What if the spell doesn’t work?”

  “Then I’ll not stop until it is right. I made a promise to you.”

  “Give me what I wish this one time.”

  He should not think of sex at a moment like this. But he could not deny that her strokes across his lap were getting a rise out of him. The woman was insatiable. And he adored her for that.

  And what if…?

  It could go badly for him this evening. He had no idea where the Northern pack was, if Blu’s father was plotting against Nava at this moment. Amandus could be looking for Creed. For Blu. There was so much to worry about.

  It was now or possibly never.

  “You want to stop the world and get off for an hour?” he wondered aloud.

  “Yes, please.”

  He lifted her into his arms and strode into the bedroom.

  Her robe spilled from her shoulders and she sat naked and proud upon the bed, his princess of the daylight. She entreated him to enter her kingdom with a crook of her finger. Creed shed his clothes and she stroked him hard. As he slid inside her, the world did slip away.

  Only two. Entwined tightly. Breaths gasping and muscles tensing.

  Skin brushed skin, gliding on the silk sheets, and shivering when bruised by the air.

  Hair so black it was blue slithered across Creed’s arm and shoulder. He pushed his fingers through her dark veil and pressed his mouth, teeth bared, against her neck.

  Together they climaxed. It was sweet, slow, yet intense. Blu’s body arched above his, giving of herself completely.

  And when he thought she would slide from him and begin to dress, she straddled him and tucked her head beside his.

  “I love you more than I’ve loved before,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve ever known romantic love. It is a true love that spreads from my heart through my bones. I didn’t think anything like this was possible, Creed. You fill every part of me.”

  Every part of her body hugged his. Her breasts were heavy against his arm and chest, her leg draped across his hips, her mouth whispering against his neck.

  This was his world. He would allow nothing to take her from it. Nothing.

  “Lover?”

  “Yes, Blu. My princess, my heart, my death and my life.”

  “I want something from you. Something I want more than anything else in this world.”

  “Ask,” he whispered, “and I’ll fight every pack on this planet to get it for you.”

  “Fighting isn’t necessary. You just need to kiss me.”

  “A kiss? Is that all my werewolf princess desires?” Dazzled by her sparkling gaze, he sighed.

  Blu’s lips parted, her tongue teasing the bottoms of her upper teeth. “A kiss…and then…a bite.”

  Creed’s heart thudded. Could she be asking…? Granting him permission to do the one thing he most desired?

  “Bite me, lover. Make me yours completely.”

  “Truly? It’s only because we’re so unsure of what will happen—”

  She pressed two fingers over his mouth. “I’ve never been more sure in my life. I need to surrender to you. I want to wear your mark. It would be finer than anything I could buy with that pretty little credit card.”

  “B-but the blood hunger?” They both knew werewolves did not take blood for survival. But once bitten by a vampire? That would change.

  “If you can do it, I can.” She licked along his jaw. “Don’t deny me. You know you want to taste my blood.”

  She made her tongue firm and teased the vein on his neck. She knew what that did to him, how it made him ache. Creed’s teeth tingled, but they didn’t automatically descend now. Curious.

  “Show me your teeth, lover,” she whispered.

  “Blu, tell me you know what you’re saying.”

  “You know I do.”

  He rolled her onto her back and knelt over her. The penthouse looked over the city and it was dark twenty stories up in the sky. But Blu’s eyes glittered for him like two stars he could kiss and possess without fear of being burned. Her mouth pursed and she coyly tilted her head aside.

  He stroked her neck, the vein warm and pulsing expectantly. Never had he been so desirous of the bite.

  He would not question again. This gorgeous princess always knew what she wanted, and did not toy with her demands. If she wanted something, she took it. Or asked for it.

  The world was falling apart, and the only thing he wanted was to gather her into his arms and sink his teeth into her flesh, and lose himself in the blood bond.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “Bite me.”

  His canines descended. Creed parted his lips to display them to his wife. She touched them, not showing the fear she’d once had for them. He didn’t require the stroking of his teeth to increase his arousal. The fact that she accepted him excited him like nothing he could ever imagine.

  “I will wear your mark proudly,” she whispered.

  Mon Dieu.

  His teeth pierced her fine skin and glided into the vein. Blu’s body arched against him, her nipples skimming his chest. He stroked one, but his focus remained on the blood easing from his wife’s vein.

  Wine and whisky and centuries of liquids drank and sloshed and spilled and devoured—nothing compared to this. To the hot elixir flooding his mouth and sweetening his tongue.

  Fangs retracted, he sucked
at her neck. Her hand slid across his back and fingernails drove softly into his skin. Heady, the drink. His, only his. His werewolf princess, the wild-haired sex-kitten who growled rather than purred.

  Devour was a poor word to explain how he sucked at her neck. He consumed her. Surrounded and dove deep and became her.

  He slipped his other hand between her legs. She cried out as he found her clit and slicked across it masterfully. Her arms sliding across the wrinkled sheets, Blu tried to anchor herself to this world.

  He wouldn’t allow it. They had gone beyond. Nothing held them down now. He could drink from her ever after and never satisfy his thirst and, yet, he drowned in the splendor of her life.

  Blu cried out, a blissful and aggressive declaration of climax.

  Creed took his mouth away, gasping for air but needing little. Red jewels spilled down her neck and glittered. He licked the blood trickles away.

  Still she came, an amazing swoon that now captured him.

  Better than orgasm, it was the wide and spacious world opening up to him. And he needed more.

  Clasping her throat with one hand, he again drove his fangs into her vein below the previous bite. Blu convulsed in pleasure. He sucked a short drink, then dragged his fangs down her flesh.

  The hot mound of her breast beckoned. So soft, aching for his intrusion.

  “Yes,” she gasped. “Take me there. Please.”

  Just above her nipple, he sank his teeth into the generous, firm flesh. He drank a little there. And below the other breast, on the underswell where it was so hot and smelled like the hotel’s tangerine soap. Mmm, blood oranges?

  He could not determine where one climax ended and the other began. Together they built their own world, topped by a constellation of unending orgasm.

  Gliding his palm down her stomach and following with his mouth, Creed sunk his teeth in the backside of her hip, there, where her bottom gently curved. But when he tickled his tongue across her thigh, he avoided the artery. There was no danger this night, only pleasure.

  Kissing her clit, he dashed his tongue to taste the sweetness of her climax. She was so wet and throbbing for him. There, he did not use his teeth; instead he impaled her with his tongue until she cried endlessly with pleasure.

  Her fingers twined into his hair and she pulled him to her as she sat up and kissed him on the mouth, fangs still down. He pricked her lip and blood trickled across his tongue.

  “You wear my mark now,” he murmured. “You’ve given me a gift, Blu.”

  “That was incredible. I don’t know why I didn’t let you do that sooner.”

  “You needed to trust.”

  “And to love. I’m yours. Always yours,” she said. “No matter what.”

  “In body and blood.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CHOOSING THE CORRECT SPELL was paramount. They could not make werewolves’ blood poisonous to the vampires, or vice versa. There was to be no violence this time, as there had been during the war between the witches and vampires. None from the two nations must suffer because of the spell, or the Council would not condone it.

  A love spell was out of the question. That would be the utter opposite of a poison spell like the Protection, and could have more dire results. Manipulating the wills of either werewolves or vampires was also too malicious to consider.

  Dez and Ravin finally came up with a sort of repellent spell. When a vampire or werewolf approached the other with hatred or violence in mind, an auralike field would form around both, repelling them from each other. Neither would be hurt. They could make a go at each other yet never succeed in violence. Once the repellent spell touched them, their anger would dissipate. It wouldn’t change the opposing parties’ minds about the other; it would simply make them indifferent.

  It was manipulative, but the least of all evils they had considered.

  That also left the floor clear for attraction. The spell would not affect those whose feelings were amorous or even simply friendly toward one another. (They highly doubted that would occur.)

  It also would not detect falsehoods, one who purposefully chose to deceive, but that was a glitch that could not be avoided.

  Dez was elected the witch to perform the spell. She had eight centuries on her, and was the keeper of the Book of All Spells. Her magic was powerful, the kind needed to encompass the world.

  They’d chosen a field twenty miles from the nearest suburb and miles from any home. It edged an Indian reservation, yet was not held by a private owner, as far as Lucy’s research of city records showed. The grounds needed to be neutral.

  Ravin first blessed the grounds with a simple spell, then stepped back to join the others around a great bonfire, to wait.

  Dez conjured and whispered for over an hour.

  Creed arrived, and was greeted with hopeful wishes for the spell. He fixated on the burning pyre, yet his heart beat with the vivid memory of Blu in his arms. In his blood now. He could still taste her, feel her rush through his veins. What a gift she had given him.

  When the blood hunger struck her she need only drink from him. She need not seek others; he would not have it. Blu would be relieved surely.

  When finally Dez spread her arms and commanded it so, the night fell still. All Council members turned to the witch to see what would happen.

  Flames burst fifty feet into the air, sending sparks across the field. Like fire sprites, the sparks danced through the plowed dirt as if live entities.

  “Is that supposed to happen?” Ivan called to his wife.

  “Not sure,” Dez said, joining the group, spell book tucked under an arm. “There’s…someone out there?”

  Indeed, from amidst the fire stepped someone—or something.

  “Ah-ah-ah, my pretties.” The dark figure stomped toward them in a flaming veil that formed from its very body. Black horns curled tight against its head. Fire sprites congregated around the beast in dancing reverie. “It’s not going to be so easy as all this.”

  Ivan was the first to recognize it. “Oh, hell.”

  “I’m not even going to look,” Dez said. She squinted at her husband. “Is it?”

  Ivan nodded. “Himself.”

  BLU HUNG UP THE PHONE just as Creed walked into the bedroom and hugged her. She could feel his strength claim her, yet also his exhaustion in the sigh that whispered over her ear.

  He shivered as he sucked in a breath. “Didn’t work,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “Himself paid us a visit. He has an interest in keeping the nations at odds.”

  “The devil Himself.”

  Blu had only been told about the prince of darkness, and how he appeared to others. When one not attached to Himself looked at him, they saw their greatest temptation. “What did he look like to you?”

  He smoothed a hand over her hair and kissed her eyelid. “Like you, my love. With the violet wig.” He brushed aside the hair from her neck to inspect the wound he’d left behind.

  “And you said black was your favorite color. I think you have a new one.”

  “Actually, I do have a new one, but it’s not violet.”

  “Hmm, you like green?”

  “Nope. I prefer Blu.”

  She pouted prettily and touched the bite marks on her neck. “How does it look?”

  “Angry, actually. But it’ll heal.”

  “And scar. And then the whole world will know how much I love my husband.” She toppled him on the bed then showered him with kisses.

  Could it be so simple as this? No cares, a laughing tumble in his wife’s arms? Creed wanted it desperately, but it seemed the world—and the very devil—would conspire against him.

  He stroked the fine, silken column of Blu’s neck. “Do you have regrets?”

  “Never,” she said proudly. “I’ve been checking it in the mirror. And when you touch it now, it sends shivers through me. Good ones that tingle in my breasts.”

  He dashed his tongue over the reddened pierce marks. Blu
moaned appreciatively. “I can feel your heartbeat as my own now. We’re in synch.”

  “Is that sort of like me having your scent in my nose?”

  “Yes. I could find you anywhere in the city if I needed to.”

  “So we’ve got our own sort of GPS on each other now. Cool. How soon before I’ll want to take blood?”

  “Not sure. You worried?”

  “Not if you’re the guy I get to suck on. Can we do it that way?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, lover. You must bite only me if you feel the craving for blood. I am your willing donor.”

  She rolled her eyes at the euphemism.

  Creed noticed the pink cell phone lying on the nightstand. “You were talking to someone?”

  “Believe it or not, that was Severo on the phone as you walked in. He’s offered to speak to my father.”

  “That’s quite an offer from the werewolf, but it won’t be necessary. I had a good think on the way here after the spell failed. I’m going to speak to Amandus.”

  “No!” She reached for him as he tugged his shirt off and sorted through the newly purchased clothes scattered on the bedroom chairs. “You can’t go to my father after rescuing me. He’ll kill you, Creed. We broke the bargain I made.”

  “Then we’ve nothing to lose, yes?”

  “But…” Her eyes widened with unloosed tears.

  “It needs to be done. We won’t get anywhere trying to concoct spells if Himself continues to negate them.”

  “Why would you do this?”

  He snapped out a black button-down shirt and slid his arms through the sleeves. “Because I love you.”

  “And loving me means committing suicide? Leaving me alone forever?”

  “Blu, I don’t intend to die.”

  “Of course not, but you will! One lone vampire against an entire pack of wolves—”

  “I’ll keep a keen eye for wooden stakes and holy water.”

  “You’re not baptized!”

  “Sorry, just trying to keep things light.” Holy water wouldn’t harm him, they both knew.

  She shrugged from him when he tried to pull her into an embrace. “This isn’t funny. Amandus wants your head now.”

  “Blu.” This time he wouldn’t allow her to shuffle away, and secured her with a tight hug from behind. He hated that she wanted to push him away, when they both needed this contact so much. “I have to try.”