Dancing Dragon

by Nicola Claire

  “Come on!” I encouraged. “Take a bite. You know you want to.”

  Another drop, another growl-come-purr. Another millimetre of length on his fangs. But, still he didn't latch on. I pressed my wrist against his mouth firmly and open and closed my fist, trying to make the blood drip faster down his throat.

  “Come on, Michel! Drink. Don't you know it's rude to keep a girl waiting. Grab a hold now and...”

  He bit. Hard and fast and so not what I was used to Michel doing. This was all vampire, survival at all costs. His hands came up and encased my wrist, squeezing my flesh in a grip that threatened to overpower the sting of the bite. He didn't temper either. Pain shot down through the puncture site, down through the veins and flooded through my body. I arched back against the driver's seat and shoved my other hand, fisted, into my mouth to stifle a scream. Oh God, it hurt.

  I bit down hard on my knuckles forcing myself to concentrate on something other than the draw of my blood through my wrist, the sound of Michel drinking, slurping at my vein, the growl in this throat rising to an unnatural sound. A predatory, proprietary sound. This was his blood vessel, he wasn't going to share.

  I knew it was because he was so weak, so near the final death himself. For a moment I allowed myself the belief that as more of my blood went into his system, the more able he would be to stop and take control. But as the minutes passed and my head became more and more dizzy, the world blurring and a humming began to settle inside my head, I knew this wasn't going to be the case. I fumbled with my cellphone, trying to get it out of my jacket pocket by reaching over to the front passenger seat. It was almost too far away, but I got two fingers on it and slid it from the wet material. Then just as it came free and I lifted it up off the seat, I lost it forward. Into the front footwell of the passenger’s seat.

  Phoning Samson was out, so I tried to focus on the connection we shared. I can't talk telepathically to him, like Michel can those of his line, but I did get the responding tug back down that line. Samson had felt me and sent an answer to my call. He would follow that tug, but it would take time. Not only because he would have to keep homing in on the response his repeated tugs got down the connection, but also because it was daylight outside. Samson is only a level four Sanguis Vitam Master. He can venture out in the day, but only if it is overcast and only briefly.

  I was on my own. No one else to rely on but me. It was getting harder to reason out a possible solution. I was shaky and dripping in sweat. Chills rushed down my body followed by sharp stabbing pains and then dizzying dots of light before my eyes. I lay my head down on the seat next to Michel and almost allowed myself to sink into the darkness that called. That darkness made me think of my Light and as soon as I did I felt it thrumming, already gathered waiting for my command.

  I had no idea if a blast of my Light would make much of a difference to Michel. He might be too far gone. My Light might only add to the enjoyment he was obviously receiving drinking my blood. I didn't have the strength to alter it from its usual manifestation, so it was certainly going to be a thrill for him, but what choice did I have? I was so close to passing out, this was all that was left for me to do.

  I took one last deep breath in and as I exhaled it, let my Light rush from me to him. I wasn't directing it as I normally would. It probably just filled the back of the car, anyone nearby would have felt compelled to come over and see what was making all that light, but I had parked far away from other vehicles on the bottom-most level of the car park. Chances of a Norm approaching were slim. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or bad.

  I tried to redirect it towards Michel, I tried to command it to go to the vampire. I may have even said something out loud, but all I could see, just before my eyes closed shut and my body and mind succumbed to unconsciousness, was a bright white light all around me. I couldn't even feel Michel holding my arm any more. I couldn't feel his fangs in my skin, the draw of my blood or even the chill that had set into my bones. Just the white light. So comforting and also so final.

  Like the light people see just before they die. The White Light that leads them to Heaven. I knew my Light would not lead me to Heaven, but I wondered if it was leading me to Nut.

  I don't know how long had passed before I woke up. Not in Elysium with Nut, but still on the floor in the back of a once pristine, brand new Range Rover. My head resting against an unconscious, bloody, but at least no longer feeding, vampire. I ached. My head pounded and when I lifted it off the seat it threatened to explode. My throat was parched, I couldn't swallow although I tried and just ended up coughing which made my head pound even more. I did manage a groan.

  My arm was still lying across Michel's chest, his hands protectively cupping my wrist and elbow respectively. He was still not breathing, but the cuts that had been visible on his face and neck had healed. And when I gently pried my arm free of his grasp - noticing he had somehow sealed the fang marks on my wrist - and checked the rest of him, there was no longer any sign, other than the drying blood, to indicate he had been sliced and diced at all. My blood, or maybe my Light, had helped heal him, but why was he still out cold?

  I tried to get myself up from behind the front seat, but I had no strength in my arms and my legs were just like jelly. And I couldn't move without making my head pound more, or making my body scream out in a dull ache from top to bottom. I felt a little trapped where I sat, but at least I was alive.

  The car parking garage gave no indication of what time of day it was and I couldn't peer around the front seat to see the dashboard clock, so I had no idea how much time had passed. I was hungry, I knew that much. I had missed dinner the night before and been up until dawn. That, with the loss of blood, made my stomach grumble. Despite my aches and pounding head I could so have gone a hamburger and fries. The greasier the better.

  Every now and then my cellphone would chirp from its discarded spot on the floor at the front of the car. Someone had phoned and left a message. Probably Samson. I couldn't shift, so there was no chance in reaching for it to see, so I just sat there for a while and waited for the pounding to ease and the aches to decrease. After half an hour my head was almost back to normal, but the aches were getting compounded by cramp. I took a deep breath in and attempted to shift my weight again.

  I managed to get up onto my knees, extending my thighs right out and wriggling my feet to get a bit of circulation back into them, all the while leaning on Michel's seat with my upper body. My face was over his neck and it was a few seconds before I realised I could feel his breath on my skin. I shifted quickly to get a look at him and lost all upper strength in the move. As I slunk back down into the footwell behind the driver's seat, Michel rolled over and grabbed me. His eyes shot open as his hands grabbed my upper arms. We were face to face, eye to eye. His a lovely deep, deep bottomless blue. Mesmerizing. Then with one swift motion he had me lying out flat on top of him. He shifted his weight again and I was then lying between him and the back of the rear seat. Trapped.

  I held my breath waiting for him to pounce. My neck was within biting distance. All it would have taken was a dip of his face and his fangs would have been in my flesh. I'm not sure how much blood I had left in me, the move from the floor to the seat had caused the pounding to start again and the world to tilt on its axis. I don't think it did much better for him. He was breathing, but it was ragged, uneven and as though he couldn't get enough oxygen into his lungs. Not that he needed it, so maybe it was more he was trying to control himself. Trying not to bite.

  I prayed he was winning.

  We both lay there, warm body against warm body and hardly moved an inch. Then his hand started caressing the length of my arm, his eyes now closed, but his breathing not yet back under control. The touch of his hand on my arm was reassuring and disconcerting at the same time. Vampires tend to play with their food before they eat it. Was Michel even there?

  “I am here, ma douce,” he said and suddenly I could breathe again.

  I let a shaky breath out
and felt tears start to track down my cheeks. His hand moved from my arm to my face and caught each tear, without even opening his eyes.

  “Are you OK?” I asked, in what was an embarrassingly small voice. He growled in response, then started rubbing my arm again as though he was sorry to have scared me with the sound.

  “Not quite yet,” he said, softly. “Antonio and Ricardo are on their way.”

  “Is it dark out?” Maybe we'd been here the whole day.

  “No, but they have talents that can hide them from the sun.”

  I was guessing those talents involved shadows. Hopefully one of them could drive the car and still survive the sun, or maybe I could get them to swing by McDonald's and grab me a Quarter Pounder on the way here. With a hamburger on board I could give Michel more blood.

  As soon as that thought crossed my mind Michel stiffened. Then through gritted teeth he whispered hoarsely, “Do not think of giving me blood, ma douce. I am barely in control as it is.”

  I swallowed and tried to think of something else. Water. Strawberry thick-shakes. Coffee. But no matter how I tried, I couldn't stop seeing the image of Michel latched onto my wrist, suckling at my blood like a hungry, toothy baby. I tried, I really did, especially as the growl in the back of Michel's throat changed from a purr to something more suited to the depths of the jungle. But no matter what I tried to do, 'blood sucking vampire' kept leaping to the front of my mind.

  I knew when he was about to bite, his body although still stiff from when he had issued the warning, had changed, shifted slightly. Allowing more of my body to ease into the seat beside and beneath him, trapping me even further. I don't think he realised he had done it, it was so natural, so much a part of the predator in him. He was fighting it, I could tell, but he wasn't strong enough to move away, or strong enough to push me away. Physically he was still so weak. From aiding Avery and from the battle with Lutin.

  “How much could you take before it's too much?” I asked, keeping my voice level and calm and matter of fact. If I couldn't stop thinking about the elephant in the car with us, I might as well talk to it.

  He growled low and long and moved his face into the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply and then licking a line above my rapidly beating pulse with his hot, wet tongue. OK, so talking about it probably hadn't been the wisest move, but I was hypovolemic and not quite myself.

  The length of his long, hard body shifted further, no longer just trapping me, but pinning me to the seat beneath and behind me. I was encased by him and the car. He still smelled of blood, but this close, this intimate, I could smell the clean cut grass and fresh salty sea spray as well. Even on the verge of being drained dry his scent turned me on. My body responded automatically and he stilled, then pulled his face away from my neck and looked at me.

  His lips quirked at the edges and a spark lit up in the now violet and amethyst in his eyes.

  “You would let me, wouldn't you?” he asked, huskily. “You would let me feed, even though you do not have enough to spare. And you would enjoy it.” He took a sharp breath in and closed his eyes. “I smell your desire. I feel your body moulding to mine, becoming more compliant.” His eyes opened again and now magenta washed the amethyst and violet away. “I want to drink from you so badly, I am fighting to remember who you are.”

  “I am your kindred Nosferatin, Michel. Don't you dare kill me.” I hadn't said it as forcefully as I had intended. It probably should have been backed up with a bit of my Light. But for the life of me I didn't have the strength to resist him. If he chose to bite me right now, I would indeed let him.

  He stared at me for a few seconds, the magenta fighting a returning mauve in his eyes. And then he lost the battle.

  His fangs slid into my skin at the side of my neck and his arms went around my body pulling me hard against his chest. As the first pull of my blood went into his mouth I heard him cry out in my head, Non! It sounded so full of remorse and anguish, it damn near broke my heart.

  I wanted to say something, tell him it was all right, I'd be fine, he wouldn't kill me. I tried to form the words in my head, even as my mouth failed to respond to my command to speak them. But I couldn't, because I didn't have enough blood to spare and what little he was taking now, was already too much.

  I let the blanket of darkness that had been threatening to cover me for the past few seconds envelope me and I faded away from the car.

  Chapter 30

  Blood Lust

  The second time I awoke from Michel attempting to drain me I was back at Samson's house. Lying on the bed Samson had laid me on when we first came to London. Michel was sitting up beside me, leaning against a pile of fluffed up pillows, reading from a tablet computer. The shutters were closed on the nearby window, but he had switched a small table lamp on, so the room wasn't the eerie unnatural glow of UV shuttered light, but an incandescent one instead.

  He looked down at me where I had obviously stirred and smiled.

  “Ma douce,” he said, simply. “How do you feel?”

  I checked my body, stretching slightly under the covers, acknowledging that I had been stripped naked - not an uncommon occurrence when Michel places me in bed unconscious – and noted I didn't ache. My head felt fine. I wasn't dizzy or light-headed. I reached up and felt for the fang marks on my neck, but couldn't find anything new, just the same old Sigillums Michel had marked me with before. No new raw bite marks, no trickle of blood.

  Michel's finger came down and traced one of his marks lightly, beside my own hand.

  “They saved you,” he said, a haunted look crossing his eyes. “I would have kept feeding. By the time Antonio and Ricardo arrived, you would have been dead. Me too.” He attempted a smile then, but failed miserably. “It was the sensation of my Sigillums under my lips that broke through the blood lust. Not to mention the Light that began to emanate from your own Sigillum here.”

  He brushed against the other side of my neck where a light and colourful tattoo-like design graced the fang marks of one of his Sigillums. My Light had placed it there when he had marked me, trying to remove the Sigillum of another: Gregor. I had wanted that original Sigillum gone, so I had added my own Light to Michel's Sanguis Vitam and together we had banished Gregor's mark. In its place now was Michel's Sigillum with my Sigillum wrapped tightly around it. Bizarre, but beautiful. Also a damned obvious mark that prospective employers did not seem to like.

  “Huh,” was all I managed to get out. Michel finally smiled.

  “I am so sorry, ma douce,” he said, sliding himself down the bed and snuggling into the side of me. His arm came over my waist and his face nuzzled into my neck, kissing above his marks. “You tasted so good.”

  I wasn't quite sure if I had heard him right. His voice was husky and muffled against my skin.

  “Did you just say I tasted so good?” I asked, pushing against him slightly.

  He chuckled. “You are safe, ma belle. The blood lust has passed, it is merely memories now. But memories I can't seem to get out of my head.” His teeth scraped along the length of my neck.

  “Michel!” I screamed, my whole body going tense.

  “Are you scared of me, ma douce?” he asked, nibbling his way up to my jaw. “You are healed, I managed to do so as soon as we returned here. I will not harm you. You have enough to spare.”

  “Michel?” I said again, this time a little timidly, in a question.

  This was not like him. He would not be so cruel to attempt to feed off me again when he had almost killed me a short time ago. He would normally be tip-toeing around the issue of feeding from anyone and definitely not hinting at feeding from me.

  “I want to taste you again. You are mine.”

  And then I got it. This wasn't just the memory of feeding from me, his blood lust resurfacing, this was his vampire wanting to stake a claim. Lutin had almost won the bjóða, had almost won the right to take me from him. His vampire wanted to make sure I was still his and no one else’s. The only problem was, I didn't think I
did have enough blood to spare and I definitely didn't have the courage to test it just yet. I'd be fine after a meal and a few hours of just being in Michel's calm and controlled company, but when he was so near the edge like now, the thought of letting his fangs near my neck sent a shot of pure dread through my veins.

  “No blood,” I whispered into his ear. “Claim me another way.”

  There is, of course, only one other way to be claimed. He didn't argue with me, he must have realised that feeding wasn't a welcomed option right now, so he quickly stood up off the bed, stripped in lightning speed and was under the covers before I even blinked. Vampires.

  “Lucinda,” he murmured, as his body covered mine, his hips spreading my thighs wide as his groin settled between my legs. “Mine,” he managed to get out before his mouth claimed my lips and his hips rolled slowly, forcing his way inside. “All mine,” he groaned against my teeth.

  I wasn't ready, but I didn't care. I'd almost seen him die last night, I needed to feel him too. He eased his way out and then back in again, inch by slow inch further, until he was completely sheathed inside my hot core. And then he just stilled there, his mouth still pressed to mine, his tongue still devouring mine. I thought he wouldn't move, but he did; slowly, treacherously, teasingly.

  My body arched off the bed as heat quickly swelled inside me, curling my toes and catching my breath.

  “Yes,” he breathed against me. “You are mine.” And then that claiming genie, the one we thought we had rid ourselves of, was back.

  His movements sped up, as he attempted to climb down my throat into my body and I attempted to climb up his and through him. We found a rhythm. Fast and hot and urgent. With each roll of his hips, each thrust of his hard length inside me, I cried out my own need and hunger in return. And with every pound of flesh on flesh, skin to skin, I heard his own thoughts in my head. Mine. Mine. Mine.