“Thanks.” Her friend leaned her chin onto her laced fingers and searched Cara’s face. “You have glitter on your forehead. You went to that party last night with Johnny.”
“Yes,” Cara said as she blushed and searched the tabletop. A waiter took Val’s order and afterwards Cara continued. “It was a blast.”
“You and Johnny?” Val’s face revealed a mock frown as she tilted her head to the side, watching Cara’s reaction.
“No. He’s all yours, if you want him. We’re just friends. You know that, Val.”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“Not gonna happen.” Cara decided not to reveal what Johnny had offered last night. She just couldn’t picture the two of them together. With Paolo, she had no problem conjuring up the fantasy of a sexual liaison.
“So what else happened?” Val was her most persistent and, at times, invasive friend. Nothing was off limits, taboo.
“Just beautiful costumes. Great music. My feet are sore from the dancing.”
“You wore sparklies. What did you go as, a Fairy Princess?”
Cara remembered the three faeries swarming over Paolo’s large frame in sensual abandon. How his face had twisted in lust as she tried to follow him, get his attention and become part of his sexual dance…
“…and they didn’t have anything, but—Cara, are you listening?”
Cara realized she had gone back to her fantasy evening. She shook her head and rubbed her temples. “Sorry, Val. Sensory overload. Something you said made me think of one of the dances. There was this guy…”
“You thought about a hunky guy when I mentioned the feed store? You’re worse off than I thought. How long has it been?”
Cara sipped her coffee, embarrassed. “Hmmm?”
“Since you’ve been with a man.” Val was all military now. No way Cara was going to escape the interrogation.
“A year. Two perhaps.”
“Perhaps? Are you insane?”
Am I? Am I filled with need and lust?
The answer deep down in her soul, which felt positively ancient this morning, was…
Yes.
Chapter 8
Marcus was up uncharacteristically early. He’d whistled his way past Paolo’s door, heading down to the kitchen, his boots thumping on the carpeted staircase.
Paolo thought again that his brother was a happily married man. And very satisfied. He had a child to raise and a beauty in his bed.
Paolo hadn’t slept much, and had spent the hours since dawn half hypnotized by the shadow patterns from the old oak tree outside his window, as they danced across his ceiling in the early morning sunlight.
Every fresh, sparkling morning reminded him how grateful he was that his family heritage was Golden vampire and not that of the dark covens. He felt sorry for the dark cousins and friends of his who were destined to go wandering during moonlight hours and could never experience the taste of sunlight he called Heaven. If he had been a dark, he’d have ended his life a couple of centuries ago.
His restless thoughts got him out of bed to dress and head downstairs to catch up with his brother. He could smell pancakes and heard Lucius’s voice prattling along, making idle conversation with their sensational cook. The woman was a seventh generation servant to his family. Paolo remembered every one of her ancestors. They were good as gold to the young vampire children they were employed to attend. Part nursemaid, part teacher, they all were excellent cooks and doted on their charges as if they were their own flesh and blood. The Monteleones had been generous with their kind in return. The relationship between the human and vampire families was cheerfully symbiotic.
“Papa!” Lucius called out. “Look at the mouse ears.” He held up his plate as the cook laughed. The pancakes had been made in the face of the famous cartoon mouse, and chocolate chips made eyes, nose and the smiling mouth.
“Perfect,” said Paolo. “You spoil the boy,” he said to the short, round woman whose salt and pepper braid formed a crown atop her head.
“As is your wish, Signore Monteleone.” She nodded to him. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a child in this house. And now we have two.”
“Dad, did you know the baby drinks milk from Anne? She has bottles built right into her chest, right here.” He pointed to his own flat chest on the right and then the left. “Do human women do the same?”
Lucius’s question reawakened all Paolo’s conflicts about the realities of his existence, and his son’s. What kind of a boyhood was this for his son, who knew about vampires and humans, and that he was of one kind, for now, and his father belonged to another?
“Of course,” he said, as he mussed the top of Lucius’s head. “But you must never talk about this in front of non-family, you understand?”
The boy looked up at him. “I know.” He was pensive. “But I can talk about it with cook.”
“Francesca is like family,” Paolo agreed. The little woman quivered with delight at the comment.
Paolo looked outside to find Marcus working on a piece of equipment near an old wooden barn off in the distance. “I’m going to give Marcus a hand, if he’ll let me.”
“Careful, sir. Your brother has just bought a used tiller. You remember last time he tried to pull it behind his tractor?”
“That’s because he forgot to take off the brake on the blasted thing,” Paolo said as he made his way out the back.
Stepping out onto the patio overlooking their vineyard revealed one of the most glorious sights of the modern world, he decided. He loved looking at living things. Most the leaves were gone. The grapes were harvested, but the leaves had turned from golden or red to brown with flashes of orange as if they were mourning their loss of fruit, and bled from the wound that took their offspring away to a crusher.
Marcus looked up and wiped his hands on a rag as he addressed his brother.
“I didn’t expect you’d be home last night. Rather thought you’d be enjoying the company of a nubile young mortal.” Marcus’s smile was as wide as the valley before them.
“I enjoyed myself. Nearly had myself a foursome. Lovely little green and silver faeries who worked wonders.” He blushed.
“That’s a twist, for you.”
“Things change,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders. “The one I wanted was with another man.”
“I imagine you could fix that.”
“I have a plan. Going to call her later.”
He thought about the card she offered him. She was telling him to find her. She was interested. He adjusted his tight pants.
After they worked in the vineyard and spoke with two winery field hands, the brothers went back up to the house. Before returning to Lucius, they drank stored blood Marcus had delivered to his wine cellar on a regular basis. Anne had joined Lucius and cook in the kitchen. She was holding Ian, their pink baby boy, who had been named after Anne’s father. She cooed at the little face, blew into his eyes and held the pink fist that made a handle of her little finger.
“He’s so strong,” she said as Marcus came to her side and kissed her neck. “I think he will be stubborn, too.”
Marcus nodded. “Going to pay you back, my dear.” He threw a ` glance to Paolo. “We sure gave our folks hell, didn’t we, brother?”
“Absolutely,” Paolo agreed. “Ian must learn from his cousin here. Lucius has learned to get his way without being stubborn or petulant.”
“Wouldn’t go that far,” cook muttered.
“Hey, what’s petulant?” Lucius asked.
“Means you act like a man inside a boy’s body.”
“No, it means you’re spoiled,” Anne amended. “But then, you’re supposed to be.”
Everyone laughed. Lucius remembered something. “Dad, you taking me trick-or-treating tonight?”
Paolo had started to say no, but then changed his mind. “Yes, sir. We’ll go out as soon as the sun sets.”
Marcus and Paolo shared a look of concern. One of their nephews in Scotla
nd had recently been abducted and murdered by a black vampire coven leader. The man had demanded ransom, and then as the family was formulating plans for the boy’s rescue, his body was discovered. The ransom demand had only been a stalling tactic to allow the killers to get away.
Protecting their mortal children was an all-consuming task. The world was getting more and more dangerous for their kind each day. Fewer children were being born to their lineage. The elders were contracting diseases previously believed impossible, and some began to experience aging for the first time in their history. Tainted blood was showing up in their food supply. And vampire blood began showing up in human blood banks, causing a string of mental cases and near zombie-like creatures that had to be eliminated. The balance of power was shifting, and it was becoming obvious the Goldens were in danger of extinction.
All the more reason to protect Lucius tonight. He didn’t want his son to become another statistic.
“Do you mind if I use the Jett boys?” Paolo asked, referring to the four brothers of dark vampire lineage who had sworn allegiance to Marcus and his family, and had protected them for generations. They dedicated their lives, foregoing their own families, to remain single and loyal. In exchange for their sacrifice, the Monteleone family bestowed on them great wealth and property holdings all over the world, which the brothers used to support their other siblings’ families and their parents.
Three of the brothers were currently residing in California, now that Marcus had an heir.
“I’ll have them drop by. You want them costumed?” Marcus had a twinkle in his eye. “Perhaps dressed up as green faeries?”
Paolo shot him a look and mumbled a curse under his breath. “You’d have to watch your own neck if you asked them to do that.”
“And I’d deserve it all.” He slapped Paolo on the back. “You going as yourself, like you did last night?”
“No. I’ll let the Jett brothers be the scary ones. Tonight I’m just going to play the part of Lucius’s father.”
Chapter 9
Cara went to the college and worked on her lecture for Monday. She scanned her bookshelf filled with novels and books on symbolism and mythology. As she ran her finger along the spines, she stopped at the first edition she’d purchased a month ago and hadn’t had time to read
Pulling it out, she flipped open the pages, carefully peeling over an onionskin that protected a black and white etching of a vampire biting the neck of a buxom young maiden in harem costume. Her expression as she stared back from the page of the old text into Cara’s eyes was filled with euphoria. The vampire held her by the waist, two of his long fingers pressing into her right breast. His other arm was entwined with hers as she reached towards heaven.
The book had intrigued her. Printed in 1865, it chronicled the travels of a renowned Scottish theologian who went to India on a pilgrimage to study ancient Hindu texts. Cara had read that this scholar was fascinated with the theory of Divine Coupling he’d discovered through his studies. Before Chapter One of his travels, there was a photograph of the clergyman and scholar. Handsome. Full lips and dark eyes. His curly hair was barely submitted to being plastered to his head and brought under control. There was a wild look about him.
Cara turned back to the etching this man had done. The vampire looked just like him.
Self-portrait?
Her fingers idly moved over the leafy parchment-colored page edges. She opened the book to a random spot and began to read.
It was Tuesday when I got to the temple site. Although I had planned on arriving in the morning, I had transportation difficulties and was left stranded for several hours in the heat and morass of the train station. Beggars accosted me everywhere. But with all the filth and death around me in that crowded place, there was a spicy scent to the air, especially as the Sultan’s harem literally floated past me as if on a magic carpet. Several sets of dark eyes undressed me from behind veils that covered their entire bodies. One set of blue eyes, heavily lined in black charcoal and accented by three light turquoise stones affixed to her forehead and bridge of her nose, haunted me. I saw those eyes all evening as I lay in my lumpy bed at the hotel, and dreamed of possessing her.
Cara caught her breath.
Possessing her…
That was exactly how she felt. He was possessing her with his eyes, his every action. She wasn’t going to go to him. She’d let him come. Willingly, she’d let him come and…
What am I doing?
Angry with herself for wasting her free time, she collected her notes for class, and with the book under her arm, turned out the lights and locked the door to her office.
The evening was beginning to go dusk as she finished her dinner and cleaned up the kitchen, turning on the dishwasher. The neighbor directly below her was having a Halloween party, so Cara resigned herself to the likelihood that she wouldn’t be able to turn in early. Only residents and their guests were allowed behind the metal gates of her complex, which meant there would be no trick-or-treaters. Accompanied by the whir of dishwasher water jets, she sat at the kitchen table and opened her old book again.
She’d been thrilled when she received the alert that this text was available. There had been several other first editions that sold for thousands of dollars, and which were, on her salary, totally out of the question. But this one came to her for less than a month’s pay. Someone from Prague had sent it, wrapped in green plastic bubble wrap. Parts of the leather cover had flaked off in her hands as she’d eagerly unwrapped and fondled the old tome.
Pieces of that leather cover now lay on her table as she opened the book once more and looked for the passage where the author visited the Shastra Temples.
These temple ruins had pictographs of couples engaging in every kind of sexual liaison possible, and several that were anatomically impossible. Cara’s studies had turned up pictures like these for years. In fact, she had been quite stunned that some of the earliest temples erected in this region—which was renowned for its ancient vampire stories—were filled with such erotic and practically pornographic reliefs and statues. It was almost like they were built to honor sex. All kinds of sex.
Locals had visited the temples to pray for fertility and long life. Children were conceived here until the government passed decency laws that forbade the sacred coupling that had gone on for generations. It was a portion of Queen Victoria’s plan to clean up the heathens of India.
Cara read his words.
As I arrived at the first temple, I was struck with the total lack of sound. All along the way I had heard monkeys screaming and birds calling to one another, yet, when I took the stone steps to stand beneath the twenty-foot statue of Jamal making love to his queen, there wasn’t a sound. Not even the chirping insects that had serenaded me on my short hike. It was like the world held its breath in reverence for these acred sculptures, entwined in each other, pleasure filling the faces of the God and his bride.
The relief was quite good, depicting her sexual cave. Jamal’s member was fully embedded in her, but a portion of his shaft was exposed and had been touched by countless pilgrims over the years. The granite was as smooth as a woman’s breast.
Cara closed the book at the end of the chapter. She discovered her breathing had become labored. She fingered the spine with the gold letters, Temples of the Vampire, by Alasdair Fraser.
She jumped as the phone rang.
The caller ID showed it was a local number, but she didn’t recognize it. She picked up the phone anyway. “Hello?”
“Carabella?” The sultry Italian accent was unmistakable.
“Paolo.” Her heart was racing. Would he be able to hear it?
Stop this, Cara. You are reading too much into his voice, the sound of his Italian accent and your need for companionship.
“I decided I’d take you up on your offer.”
“My offer?”
“Yes. To call you. Invite you to lunch. Isn’t that usually what happens when a woman gives a man her telephone number?”
He was right, of course, but she hadn’t thought it out that far.
As she dithered, she tapped her fingers on the book, and then picked it up, startled to see a yellowed letter fall out. She was having a hard time reading the flowing script. The red wax seal had been broken, indicating the letter had been previously read.
“Cara, are you still there?” he asked.
She put the letter back inside the book and set it down again, pushing it away.
“Sorry. I just ordered this old book and had been reading some passages. I apologize.”
“I could call at another time,” he offered.
“No. No, this is fine. Again, I apologize.”
“No apology needed, but you can make it up to me by agreeing to have lunch with me tomorrow. Are you free?”
Am I free? Am I able to say no?
“I have class that lets out at noon. I could meet you somewhere near the college. I have office hours in the afternoon, two until five.”
“Then I shall have you between noon and two?”
She chuckled. “Yes, I supposed you will.”
“Excellent. Shall I meet you at your classroom, then?”
“No.” Her radar clicked on. Status: elevated. She didn’t want him to know where her office was. Yet. “Meet me at the Chowder Grill on Harrison, okay? That’s one of my favorites for lunch.”
“The Chowder Grill it shall be. Looking forward to it. Good-bye.” He hung up.
Chapter 10
“Sidney. Good to hear from you at last. You found the book?” Dag spoke into his black cell phone while waving away the cigar smoke coming from two of the three seats occupied by the hulking dark vampires in front of him. He made an effort not to cough. The squeal of their leathers as they crossed and uncrossed their gangly arms and legs annoyed him. His eyes were irritated but he couldn’t let on. That would have shown weakness.
“No, sir. I did not,” came the voice on the other end of the line.
Dag sat up and immediately the front row did as well. All three sets of size eighteen shoes slammed onto the concrete floor in unison. It felt like a small earthquake. Dag’s eyes were unwillingly drawn to the hole the size of a silver dollar that had been cut from one shoe belonging to the vamp in the middle, revealing a battered big toe with a black curling toenail extending out from the flesh like the horn on a ram.
Mortal Bite (Golden Vampires of Tuscany) Page 5