Unbitten

by Valerie du Sange

  One of the women was carrying a stick. She lifted it to her mouth and bit down on it several times. The one who was chewing on something kept chewing. The third one got a little ahead of the others, perhaps since she was less busy. She called out to Jo in a language that sounded vaguely familiar but Jo could not place it. It didn’t sound like words, actually.

  The four of them kept this up for about half a mile, with Jo walking increasingly quickly–she couldn’t help herself–and the three women behind her, making a variety of weird sounds, and slowly gaining on her.

  Jo had that feeling you can get when out on a terrace, somewhere high up. The feeling is that that you’re going to fall anyway, so maybe it’s better to go ahead and jump and get it over with. She stopped. And turned to face the three women, to get whatever was going to happen over with.

  The three women appeared surprised, and they stopped too, for a moment. Then they crept closer, all three making strange sounds down in their throats and peering at Jo intensely. All three were smiling.

  The one who had been chewing pulled some kind of root out of a pocket and bit off another hunk. The one with the stick patted it against her thigh. The third one–man, she could use a dentist, thought Jo. The woman’s teeth were either missing or little nubs, like half-eaten Chiclets.

  The three women came closer, until they were surrounding her. They were not teenagers. And they did not smell good.

  “Is there a problem?” asked Jo. “I’m sorry if I’m on your land or disturbed you somehow.”

  They kept smiling. The smiling was making Jo feel really, really uneasy.

  “My horse took off on me,” she said, trying for a nonchalant tone, even though she could see that the time when a nonchalant tone might have gotten her out of this had passed a while back. And she wasn’t sure they understood English. She wished, fervently, that she had been more diligent in her study of French.

  The chewer reached out and plucked at Jo’s shirt. Then she lifted the shirt up so that Jo’s stomach showed.

  All three of them made more noises. Like grackles, Jo thought. Starlings.

  Jo stepped back. The woman let go, but advanced, reaching out again. The sound of starlings–raucous, grating–got louder. Jo was seriously creeped out, verging on scared. But now that she could see them plainly, they looked middle-aged, these women. I can outrun them, for sure.

  And as she had the thought, so her body followed. She spun around and took off down the bridle path, tearing along as fast as she could, cursing her damn slippery-soled riding boots, imagining the opening to the pasture as being within reach even though she knew it was miles away.

  As she made a turn, her boots slid on some leaves and she fell down, rolling, but was up again before the roll was done.

  She did not look back.

  She tried to listen, to hear if their squawking was still close by–but what she heard was a motor, revving and slowing and revving again.

  And in the distance up ahead, she saw a figure flying along on a moped, swathed in fabric and wearing something unusual on his head, calling out over the engine noise, “JO! JO!”

  He braked the moped just before reaching her and skidded into a turn.

  “Hop on!” he said, and she did.

  Henri quickly accelerated and they flew down the wide path. By far the biggest feeling Jo had was relief. Those women–they were not like anything Jo had ever seen, and she had been in plenty of sketchy neighborhoods in her time, places where the wrong word or the wrong movement could get you into real trouble, but these women were in a whole other league.

  They felt…witchy. For real.

  And now that she felt safe she could allow the reality: that had been a wolf howling. More than one.

  Jo nestled her head on Henri’s neck. She didn’t like that she was feeling it, she fought feeling it, but the truth was, she was deeply grateful that Henri had come to rescue her. As much as she wanted to believe herself always self-sufficient and not in need of any rescue, thank you very much–the fact was that riding on the back of the moped, with her arms around the very solid Henri, felt more reassuring than anything she could remember.

  14

  Pierre strode down one of the narrow back streets of Mourency, tapping Angélique’s number.

  “Hey babe,” he said when she answered.

  “Shut it,” said Angélique. “What kind of trouble are you in now?”

  “No trouble,” said Pierre. “Zero trouble. The opposite, actually. I’ve decided to make something of my life and I’m looking for a new job.”

  Angélique laughed. “Uh huh, sure,” she said. “I thought things at the farm suited you quite well. They didn’t mind you doing all your work in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s not like stacking bales of hay requires daylight,” he said, a little defensively. It was a lost cause, and he knew it, but he could never quite give up hoping that Angélique would like him just a little. “So my idea,” he said, “is that you could put a word in for me with the la Mottes.”

  “Are you high?” she said, and hung up.

  Hmm. Going to have to go to Plan B, thought Pierre, moving at vampire speed down the street and out to the countryside, in the direction of the Château.

  Thierry had called David, waking him up long before the sun went down, to let him know that Drogo had arrived at the barn without Jo, but that Henri had gone in search of her.

  “He went out…when?” said David, coming fully awake when he heard of the crisis.

  “About an hour ago,” said Thierry. “I am thinking if he does not return by the next hour, I will go out after them, on horseback.”

  David agreed with Thierry’s plan. He got out of bed and began rummaging for some clothes, still pressing his phone to his ear. Worrying about Jo, yes, but also about Henri, outside in broad daylight.

  Is he out of his mind?

  “It only means a long walk for her?” David asked, with a hopeful note in his voice.

  “That is the best case,” answered Thierry.

  David juggled the phone while getting into a flannel shirt and some jeans. “And…the worst case?” he asked.

  Thierry paused, never wanting to put his worst fears into words when it seemed at all possible they might come true.

  “The worst,” he said finally, “the worst is…well, there are wolves,” he said. “We don’t know if perhaps she was thrown and might be hurt. And wolves in a pack, you understand…”

  “I understand,” said David. “You were right to let me know.” He looked out the window and saw the sun still blazing. Dusk was still at least an hour away. “I’ll be right down to see what I can do.”

  Thierry couldn’t exactly figure out what that might be, since David did not ride and Henri had taken the moped, and since as long as he had known him, David had been more of a wait-and-see sort of guy when it came to trouble, a man who hopes problems will resolve if you ignore them. But Thierry did not spend much time on such thoughts; David was his boss and he was who he was, no point getting your knickers in a twist wishing he were someone he was not.

  David said goodbye and put his phone in his back pocket. He poured himself another cognac just for something to do. He went to the window and waited until the sun began to sink down beneath the line of trees.

  The wolves weren’t nothing, he thought. But the wolves weren’t the half of it. Those witches were seriously creepy. He remembered seeing them when he was a child, when he had ridden farther into the forest than he was supposed to. Who knew what they were capable of?

  Eventually his bedroom felt claustrophobic and he picked up a jacket and went outside, just in time to see Henri cruising down the gravel path dressed rather oddly and with Jo hanging on behind.

  Seeing her hands holding on to his brother’s hips made his fangs tingle. He did not like it. At all.

  “Jo!” he shouted over the din of the moped. “You are all right?”

  Henri braked, skidding a little in the gravel, making
a bit of a flourish, thought David, an unnecessary flourish. Jo swung her leg around and stretched her arms up over her head while Henri took off the big hat and the netting over his face.

  She looked from one brother to the other. “What…were those women?”

  David looked up at the roofline of the Château and sucked in his cheeks, but said nothing.

  Henri took one of Jo’s hands in his still-gloved hand. “They are neighbors, Jo,” he said, his voice serious. “Our families have been neighbors for hundreds of years, in fact. And they are, well, I believe the word in English is ‘eccentric’, yes?”

  “You can say that again,” said Jo, remembering their raucous cries and the weird, creepy smiling. “I was a little frightened,” she said softly, because Henri seemed so kind that the admission just slipped out.

  David stepped forward and put his arm around her, claiming her. She felt the jolt that came with his touch and her thoughts became jumbly.

  “The forest,” she said, pulling away and speaking to both brothers, “the forest is magnificent. I don’t understand how you both aren’t out riding on those paths all the time.” She shook each leg as though she could shake off the remains of the fear she had felt when the women were following her. “I should go to the stable this minute and have a talk with Drogo. He was a very bad boy today,” she said. “And I want to make sure Thierry knows I made it back,” she said, looking at Henri with a grateful smile.

  “Thank you, Henri,” she said, impulsively leaning in to kiss him on both cheeks.

  David took in the hat, the netting that Henri had pushed back from his face, and the rest of the outfit Henri was sporting, and they too exchanged a look, with Henri nodding to let his brother know the outfit had worked.

  Henri turned back to Jo, smiled, and told her it had been his pleasure. And it had been. He was completely thrilled at having been able to go outside in the middle of the afternoon, on a sunny day, with no ill effects whatsoever. Not so much as a sunburn. I’ll be working on tanning lotions next, he laughed to himself. He was anxious to call Claudine and set up a meeting to discuss putting the sun-protective clothing into production sooner than they had planned.

  Way down deep in his scientific heart, there was something else. Henri had wished the moped ride had gone on and on, with Jo’s hands holding his hips, or her arms around his waist. He had felt more warmth from that touch than he had had in his life for many decades, and he had wanted to reach for her and hold her close. He felt a profound relief at getting to her in time, before the witches or the wolves had done her any harm or at the very least scared her out of her wits. Not that she seemed easy to frighten, he thought, affectionately.

  But those feelings were no more than a momentary flickering, as he waved at Jo and then at David, calling out goodnight, and turned to hurry down the path to his lab. Must keep humans at a distance, he thought, as his parents had taught him and as he believed made perfect sense.

  15

  Jo stood still, looking at David. He looked back.

  She was deliciously disheveled, with some dirt on her cheek and her pants, and her shirt a little askew. Her hair sticking out crazily all over the place from the riding helmet followed by the moped ride. He reached over and pulled her shirt down to straighten it, and saw how it pressed against her breasts when he did that, so he pulled it down again.

  She felt like she was floating along in a shiny bubble of relief, the kind of relief that is no less intense for having denied that she was afraid. She felt, acutely, that these moments right then were a gift, that she was free from normal, everyday considerations and burdens because there had been some chance that she might not have gotten out of the forest alive.

  She surprised herself with that thought, because when she had been in the forest, even when the woman had been plucking at her shirt, she had not felt like her life was in danger. Or she hadn’t allowed herself to feel it until now.

  Jo bowed her head for a moment and tried to still the chattering of her mind. She looked up to see David looking intently into her eyes. He reached his hand out and stroked her arm, and she could read the questions in his face–may I continue? Do you like this?

  She had never experienced physical desire as a conversation like this. She felt another wall of defenses crumbling.

  Without a word, he took her hand and led her inside. Albert was lurking around the entryway and David nodded to him. “Drinks in the second salon,” he said as they went by. He had his arm around Jo now, and she leaned into him just a little.

  They sat on a velvet-cushioned settee and looked into each other’s eyes. Gently he pulled a bit of leaf out of her hair. She increased the pressure of her hand, holding his. They were in that best of all moments, the moment when they both knew they were going to be making love that night for the first time. Without saying a word, they agreed to prolong it, to wait until they could not stand to wait another second.

  Albert brought drinks: another cognac for David, and a hot toddy for Jo to help with the chill. Albert generally disapproved of David’s English predilections, considering them to be a few steps too many in the wrong direction, but in the case of a woman cold from a moped ride at dusk in October, he agreed that a hot toddy was the correct choice.

  Jo sipped her hot drink and looked at David over the edge of her cup. He smiled slowly at her.

  “I want you to talk horses again,” he said, wanting only to hear her talk about something she was passionate about.

  “Ha,” she said. “Ungrateful beasts! They leave you out in the woods just to get home for a few oats,” she said.

  “Those oats must be extremely tasty,” he said, looking at her mouth, then back at her eyes, then back at her mouth.

  It felt to Jo as though he were flicking her, teasing her, with his tongue, even though they had not yet kissed.

  “And Drogo must be deranged. How he could willingly decline to have you on his back, with your legs around him? Unimaginable,” he said softly, letting a few fingers drift up to her neck, and pushing her hair back, stroking her skin.

  “What time is dinner,” asked Jo.

  “Eight. Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “Very,” she said.

  “And what do you want?” he asked, letting one hand fall to her leg, just above the knee, and rubbing with his thumb the patch of suede on the inside thigh of her jodhpurs, lightly, just hard enough not to tickle.

  “I want everything,” she said, her eyes gleaming. “But maybe, I would start with some…berries in cream?” she said. She put her arms around his broad shoulders, feeling amazed by his size, his touch.

  “Berries in cream are very good,” he said. He continued to stroke her neck with one hand, and with the other he reached up and slowly unbuttoned the top button of her shirt. “Delectable,” he said, looking down her shirt and licking his lips.

  “And juicy,” she said. “I would like to eat them one by one, and feel them bursting in my mouth,” she said, her voice turning almost to a whisper as he unbuttoned another button, and another, infinitely slowly, as though they could spend the rest of their lives on the velvet settee, touching, and looking into each other’s eyes.

  Finally her shirt was open to her waist. David moved the flaps of shirt to either side so he could see her fully.

  Jo loved watching him look at her. She loved seeing his face become greedier, hungrier. His upper lip was seeming to enlarge, become engorged.

  “And what about you?” she said. “What do you want?”

  “Blood sausage,” he said. “The fresher, the better.” A little more roughly, starting to breathe more heavily, he undid her bra in front, pushing it out of the way, and could not hold back a moan. “Jo,” he said, pulling her up to straddle him, her breasts moving delectably near his mouth, “I think we should leave the salon and go upstairs.” He took one nipple into his mouth, very very slowly, and sucked it.

  “We are in a public room, and guests could come in at any moment,” he said, giving the
other nipple his attention, then putting his face in between her breasts and kissing her.

  Jo could barely hear him. It felt like her groin was on fire, her insides melting for him, her nipples giving her thundering jolts of exquisite pleasure. She could feel his cock under her and she rocked herself against it. He wanted her to get up and walk? She wasn’t sure she could.

  Just as she had that thought, he stood up, and powerfully built vampire that he was, he held her against him with one arm, scooped up her legs with the other, and carried her through the first salon and towards the grand staircase that ascended from the main foyer.

  “Good night, sir,” said Albert.

  Jo was positive she saw him smirking.

  “We got her back,” David said, sounding so happy, so relieved. “Good night, Albert,” said David, his eyes on Jo, moving from her eyes down her body and back again as he effortlessly climbed the stairs.

  Jo didn’t think she had ever been picked up and carried like that before. She had had no idea how excited it would make her. It was all she could do to stop herself from jumping out of his arms and mounting him on the staircase.

  David held her body so close he could hear her heart beating, could see the arteries and veins in her neck, could feel how her excitement was causing her blood to rush around her body, whooshing faster and faster the more aroused she got. At the landing he buried his face in her hair, his mouth on her neck. He wanted to bite her more than he had ever wanted to bite any woman in his two hundred and four years as a vampire.

  Jo had resisted longer than any other woman, and now that she was giving in–more than giving in, now that she wanted him–he wanted to ravage her, suck her, make her scream for more of him.

  But he held himself back.

  He took a deep breath, with his cheek by her neck, in her hair; he ran his tongue over his throbbing fangs, and then lifted his head up, met her eyes, and said, “I am looking forward to being inside you more than anything I have ever done in my life.”