Once Upon A Midnight

by Stephanie Rowe

  Mark walked closer and then sat down on his knees facing Meghan. “You have been here before,” he said. He reached out to take her hands in his. “It was simply in another lifetime. It was when you were mine. My Mihaela.” He waited for her to absorb that information.

  “That was my name then?” Her eyes sought his.

  “Yes.”

  “And we were a couple?”

  He caressed her palms with his fingers. “Yes. We were going to get married.”

  “You said you would show me. Show me now.” She inched closer, her knees opening to keep him in front of her.

  “Lean forward.” He let go of her hands and placed his on either side of her head. “Close your eyes.”

  Meghan did as bid. Nothing seemed to be happening. She opened them again. “Well?”

  It was daylight, and everything around her looked different.

  “Mark, where are you?” Meghan stood up and spun around. She nearly tripped on her skirt.

  Skirt? Looking down, she saw the long length of red and gold material that swirled around her ankles and rested on the top of her worn leather boots. Above her waist, the red material was cinched with a black and gold threaded corset that was tied so tight, her breasts nearly spilled out over the top.

  “What in the world?” She glanced up in time to notice she was standing in the middle of a small village. There were people gathered around watching her. Meghan glanced left and saw a well, and then she looked to her right and straight into the eyes of the one man who made her skin crawl.

  “Mihaela, you have no choice in this matter. You will do as your father says and we will be married tomorrow. Then you will be mine!” The tall man sneered at his cornered bride to be.

  “Professor Petrescu?” Meghan backed away from the look of intense anger on his face. It rolled off of him in waves striking fear into her heart. Desperate, she took two more steps back as he slowly approached.

  Feeling behind her, Meghan found the ledge of the well. “Don’t come any closer! I will jump down this well if you do!” Grasping the edge, she sat herself upon it, swinging one leg over. Why did I just say that?

  “If you attempt to jump, I will make sure you wish you were successful!” said Petre. He was within arms-length of her now. Meghan spit in his face.

  “You will be sorry for that,” and with lightning speed, Petre swung out with his right hand. The hit landed making her cheek explode with pain even as she was brutally dragged by her hair off the well and thrown to the ground.

  She sucked in a breath, hiding her face and fearing another blow. When it didn’t come, she peeked up through her fingers. The scene shifted and Mark was standing before her only now he was dressed in a white, flowing shirt, vest, and dark suede trousers covered to the knee by black leather riding boots. His hair was a bit longer and tied back with a cord. He held out his hand.

  “This is how we first met. This is where I first saw you.” Although his manner of dress had changed, it was the Mark from her time speaking.

  Meghan allowed him to help her up. “I don’t understand. That man was Professor Petrescu,” she pointed back at the well where all the people had been standing around. No one was there any longer. Day had once again turned to night and she was again dressed in her jeans, sweater, and boots.

  She was back in the glen, sitting in front of him. Confusion marred her features.

  “Yes and no. That was Petre Petrescu, a gypsy dog who once tried to claim you.”

  “But that’s the same name.” Meghan was having a difficult time understanding. She shook her head trying to clear it and think rationally, but none of this was rational. “Is he like me? A reincarnation of sorts? Is that why he showed an interest?”

  Mark fought against his response to her words. Inside, he wanted to kill the man, but until Meghan fully comprehended the situation, he needed to remain in control. “No, he is not like you. He’s filth.” He cupped her face, leaning in and staring into her eyes intensely. “He is not an ancestor of Petre Petrescu, he is the original.”

  He let the words sink in and watched as disbelief clouded her brown eyes. “That’s not possible,” she shook her head and leaned back.

  “I might normally agree with you. Perhaps if he was like me, a vampire, but he’s not. And yet, it is true nonetheless. I can smell it on him. The same scent, the same blood. A vampire’s nose is never wrong.”

  “But that’s crazy! How can he be alive hundreds of years later? And you said he tried once to claim me. What does that mean anyway?” Meghan pulled her knees beneath her and sat up straight. She wanted answers.

  Mark blew out a breath. “He was your fiancé.”

  “What! There is no way I would agree to marry that man. He’s creepy!” She hugged herself.

  Mark chuckled, but it was a dark sound. “You didn’t agree. Your father, Simion, made the arrangement with Janus Petrescu in order to raise himself up in the hierarchy of the tribe.”

  “Tribe?” A furrow appeared between Meghan’s delicate brows.

  “I may have forgotten to mention it, but you were a gypsy also.” He offered a half-smile. “Lovarya. Actually, a cousin to your friend, the little Curarya gypsy.”

  This surprised Meghan, but at the same time, felt right. She loosened her hold on herself letting her hands slide to rest on her thighs. “Well, that explains a lot,” she said, looking around.

  “Explains what?” he asked, curious.

  She looked at him. “Why I felt drawn to Romania, why it felt like I’d come home the moment I stepped off the airplane.” She smiled, but it faded quickly. “So my own father sold me out? How did I get out of it? Please tell me I didn’t marry that creep!”

  He shook his head. “No, you didn’t. After that day, after I looked into your eyes, I knew you were the one. Seeing that filthy peasant mistreat you, well, needless to say I wasn’t having it. My father owned this land then. I own it now. I went to Simion and offered him a deal he could not refuse. I gave him riches, he gave me you.”

  Meghan laughed. It sounded so outdated, so ridiculously old-fashioned that she couldn’t take it seriously. “You know no one does that sort of thing anymore, right?”

  Seeing her laugh, even if it was at him, calmed him and Mark enjoyed seeing her lighthearted, not afraid of him. “Is that so, Miss Hartley?”

  “You’re darn right it’s so. So what happened? I imagine Petrescu was not happy.” She waited to hear the rest of the story.

  “No, he certainly was not, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Oh, he tried. We had an altercation or two where I got to pound his face a few times,” he glanced at her, grinning. “I really did like that part, but it did him no good. You were mine.” The grin faded and an intense possessiveness returned to his eyes.

  Meghan felt those last three words vibrate down her spine and spread like warm honey throughout her body. “And I agreed to this?” She licked her suddenly dry lips.

  Mark, sensing the change in her body, leaned forward and inched closer on his hands and knees, stalking her like the predator he was. “Oh, yes. You insisted on it.” His face leaned in close to her own. She felt the sensuality rippling over him, reaching out to her.

  “I insisted?”

  “Well, you wanted me, very badly…”

  His lips hovered over her own. Meghan felt hot despite the cold night. Still, she shivered.

  “Are you cold?” He asked, concern in his voice. Mark didn’t feel the cold, or the heat for that matter. He almost forgot she was human and subject to the elements. He rubbed her arms with his large hands trying to instill heat with friction through her thick sweater.

  “I’m okay,” she said, glancing down at his hands, and then up into his face. “Were you a vampire then?”

  Mark smiled slowly, continuing the rubbing motion and moving his hands to her back, sliding down, and lifting her beneath her buttocks until he settled her onto his lap. He wanted to place himself between her body and the cold ground thinking he
was at least a little less cold than the frosty grass.

  “I was as human then as you are now. My…condition didn’t happen until later. As a matter of fact, it happened on the night we were running off to get married.”

  Meghan was feeling warmer. His ministrations had set off a spark of heat that was being slowly kindled to a flame by his dexterous fingers.

  “How did it happen? Was I there?” She let him hold her closer. He tucked her head under his chin and kissed her hair.

  “No. You weren’t with me when it happened. I still don’t exactly know how it happened. You see, you’d disappeared--”

  “Disappeared?” She cut in. “How?”

  “I don’t know, my love. I came back here to meet up with you in our glen. You never showed up, and when I set out to find you, something happened and I blacked out. I awoke the next night, frantic.” He left out the details about his insane bloodlust. “I went to Simion thinking he’d reneged somehow, that maybe Petrescu had taken you, but he knew nothing, and I never did find that rat bastard. The last I knew came from his own parents who claimed he’d gone to the village shaman, an old gypsy witch who was their village elder. I could get nothing from her, and in fact, barely escaped with my life.”

  “From an old woman?” Meghan tilted her head up to look at him.

  Mark smoothed her hair with his fingers winding the blonde tresses around and around. “She was a powerful witch, a sorceress of great power.”

  “Why would Petrescu go to her?”

  “I can only imagine, but I’d say his longevity has something to do with it. But why? Why would he seek to stay alive so long? That is what I don’t get. And I never did find out what happened to you. I’m just thankful to have you back.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

  “But, Mark, I’m not her anymore. Even though some of this feels familiar, I’m still Meghan, not Mihaela.”

  He nodded. “This is true. A part of her is in there, and you are who you are now. But Meghan, the soul you carry,” he touched a finger to her chest over her heart, “is the soul that I love, and I don’t mind at all getting to know you all over again.”

  He didn’t want to tell her that despite her new persona in this life, she still looked like, acted like, and felt in his arms, just like Mihaela. Some things do not change when souls are reborn. He would let her continue to maintain her identity. He didn’t care as long as she was by his side.

  Meghan studied his face. She was thinking about everything he’d shown her, and every word he’d said. It felt like an episode of the Twilight Zone, but at the same time, she knew it was all true. Stranger than her acceptance of the story were her feelings for this man. He’d lived a long time with no hope whatsoever of finding the woman he loved, this Mihaela, or her. Whatever! Her mind was mixed up. And yet, here she was, cradled in his lap, held securely in his arms smack in the middle of a glen she weirdly remembered. They weren’t two strangers at this moment. She wasn’t the reincarnated version of an ancient gypsy girl, and he wasn’t a mythical, blood-sucking monster of legend. They were just a man and a woman gazing at each other under the stars. Her heart melted. This felt right to her, and it didn’t matter that Dana’s grandmother had warned her about the vicious Strigoi. Mark wasn’t vicious. He was kind, sweet, and sexy. The last part hadn’t completely escaped her. Wasn’t it only an hour or so ago they were making out on the balcony?

  His lips stretched into a smile. “I did promise you we’d finish that.”

  Before Meghan could utter her surprise at his reading her thoughts, his mouth found hers, taking her lips in a breathtaking kiss. The flame he’d sparked earlier with his wandering hands erupted into an inferno. She threw caution to the wind and kissed him back. It was even better than her dreams.

  “I know,” he whispered into her mouth.

  His hands roamed freely, caressing her back before sliding lower and squeezing her buttocks. He nibbled a path to her ear, licked, and then continued down her neck where the heat of her skin combined with the scent of her blood. The heady aphrodisiac hardened his manhood and lengthened his fangs. He longed to sink both deep inside her and claim her under the starry sky. His fingers found her breast, rubbing the tip, and making her nipple pucker begging for more.

  “Mark, please!” Meghan moaned her demand.

  “With pleasure, my love.” He parted the sweater revealing the flannel plaid beneath. Thank goodness, it’s a button-down, he thought. One by one, the buttons were undone until her naked breasts greeted his hungry gaze. “Frumoasa,” he uttered before his lips descended taking the hardened peak into his mouth. He laved her nipple with his tongue and suckled it until she gripped his hair, desperate for satisfaction.

  Barely able to think, Meghan grasped the only thing that sank in at the moment. “What does that mean?”

  Reluctant to release his prize, Mark gently bit the peak, then applying one last lick, lifted his head and buried his seeking lips into her neck whispering, “Beautiful. It means beautiful.”

  Meghan smiled as she loosened her grip on his hair. She allowed her fingers to comb through his dark strands. They felt every bit as soft as she first imagined when she noticed him in the tavern.

  “I’m glad my hair pleases you.” He nipped her earlobe.

  “Stop that!” She giggled.

  “What? This?” He nipped it again, then soothed the spot with gentle kisses.

  “No, reading my mind. How do you do that?”

  Mark lifted his head and found her lips again, searing them with the heat of his passion. When she was whimpering her need, he pulled back. “We are connected, my love. It is a psychic bond formed when I visited your dreams.”

  Meghan stopped. She looked up at him. “That was an invasion of my privacy you know. I didn’t invite you to…to…,” she struggled to find the right words.

  “To enter your personal space?” Mark added helpfully.

  “Yes. That!” Meghan gave him a very serious look.

  He knew she was right, but somehow, he wasn’t as sorry as he should be. “You’re right. Do you wish it hadn’t happened?” He held her close to his body, slowly laying her back and shifting his weight over her, sliding a knee between hers even as he pressed her into the soft, but cold grass.

  “Well…” She thought about it. Am I really sorry? He never hurt me. Wait, yes he did. He bit me!

  Mark chuckled. “I did, and I’m sorry. I promise never to do that again unless you invite me to. But we did a lot of other things that you didn’t mind, like this...” He settled his hips against hers, the evidence of his desire pushed into the most intimate part of her rubbing slowly and insistently up and down. The friction of his jeans on hers only caused more heat as liquid warmth spread up and out from her center.

  “Well, that wasn’t a bad thing,” she agreed. Her breath caught as she wrapped her knees around him planting her booted-feet on the ground as he thrust again.

  “And this.” Mark suddenly rolled over carrying Meghan with him. His strong hands lifted her up until she straddled him. He gripped her hips and rolled her over the stiff length of him. When she moaned uncontrollably, he grinned. “You are killing me. My God, you are so breathtaking.” He gazed up at the woman riding him. Her head was thrown back in abandon, her hair spilling down her back. Her shirt and sweater were still parted revealing her magnificent breasts in the moonlight. The extension of her neck beckoned him even as his fevered eyes narrowed on the pulse in her jugular. With each beat of her heart, it throbbed, and each time it did, he thrust his hips forward while gliding hers forward and back along his length. He couldn’t believe they were dry-humping like teenagers when he craved to bury himself inside of her warmth, but the moment was beyond erotic, and he was enjoying watching her take her pleasure.

  He reached up with one hand and cupped her breast, rolling the nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She continued riding him as he massaged and pinched the soft flesh. The pleasure/pain had her panting.

  “Oh, God, Mark.
Please.”

  “I’m yours, Mihaela. Take me where you wish. Ride me!” The friction was driving him wild. Her womanly scent rose upon the heat created by their bodies rubbing together. He was sure he would burst into flames at any moment. She leaned forward planting her hands on his chest. His own hand abandoned her softness to dig into her hips. He thrust and rubbed while she countered. Each movement causing her gorgeous breast to sway above him. Meghan was lost in the ecstasy, and Mark was there with her. Without further thought, he unbuttoned her jeans, tugged the zipper down and when she leaned forward again, slid his hand inside. His dexterous fingers found her moist crevice and entered the folds. When he pressed her nub, Meghan exploded, climaxing hard.

  “Oh my God! Yes!” She pushed harder as his fingertips massaged her heated flesh. Her body shuddered and her muscles twitched low in her stomach.

  Before she could come down from the high, Mark flipped her over, tugged her jeans off right over her boots. He shoved them beneath her bottom with one hand, and undid his own jeans with the other.

  Meghan watched in amazement as his rod sprang forth. It wasn’t the first one she’d ever seen, but it was by far the largest, and before she could say a word, Mark positioned himself between her thighs and plunged deep. She sucked in a breath. The immense pleasure of him inside her was more than she could stand, and when he cradled her head in his hands and kissed her, she forgot what she was going to say. His tongue tangled with her own as he thoroughly claimed her mouth.

  “Mine!” He said, and then pulled out almost to his tip before thrusting hard. He repeated the motion and her hips rose to meet him. Mark reached down with one hand to grasp her beneath her knee. He hitched her leg high over his waist opening her wider allowing him to delve deeper.

  Meghan gripped his shoulders and held on for dear life as each gliding thrust propelled her toward another orgasm. She couldn’t even catch her breath. He claimed her just as surely as he had in her dreams, only this was better. A hundred times better!