bryn n sinjin 02.5 - blood lust (2 page)

“Guilty as charged, my little imp. As a Master Vampire, ‘sucking’ is a singular pastime to which I excel. Now, were I a mere bloodsucker, or something equally as base, perhaps I might retort with a pun regarding ‘sucking’ and other pastimes, some of which I enjoy even more …”

“Oh, God, here we go again,” she said with a sigh. “If you intend to enlighten me as to the superiority and sophistication of Master Vampires, and how they are sooo much better than regular vampires, save it! I’ve only heard that tedious lecture … what? Nine million times already!”

“Your words cut me to the quick, bête noire,” I answered, without feeling offended. Never a man who repeats himself, I imagined the truth lay more along the lines of my “lecturing” her once, at the most.

“We need to continuously sharpen my fighting abilities, Sinjin,” the fury demanded, nodding vigorously. “I need to take my skills to the next level, and must always keep improving myself, breaking my own records. I can’t rest, not even for a minute. That could mean the difference between life and death!” She stopped to take a breath, thank God, lest she swoon in her heightened agitation. “If we eventually have to face Luce and Nairn, I must be ready,” she finished.

Luce and Nairn were the rulers of what were once her people. Luce was an old and powerful Elemental, and Nairn was the leader of the Daywalkers, a species akin to vampires, only these bloodsuckers could walk in the daylight. They were not much of a threat in my opinion; the males only lived until their twenty-first birthdays, owing to a mysterious disease which they contracted during their late teen years.

“I see,” I started before the imp interrupted me.

“I have to be able to defend myself against the speed and strength of the Daywalkers. Unfortunately for me, you are the only person who can teach me everything I need to know.”

“While it is quite true that I am the best teacher, I fear you are taking this training subject a bit too seriously, my dear,” I started, turning to face her earnestly. “You will drive yourself to fatigue if you continue in this reckless manner. You require as much rest as you do practice.”

She immediately started shaking her head in protest. “I don’t have time to rest! Rest and I’m as good as dead.” Taking a deep breath, she repeated, “No. I’ve been spending half my days training with Mathilda just to hone my magic; and I intend to spend the remaining half with you, mastering my agility and speed.”

Mathilda was certainly the best choice for instructing the lady on magic; she was the oldest of the fae, and by far, the strongest.

“And to whom will you report regarding your lessons in deportment, cooking, sewing and child rearing?” I asked with a large grin.

Her subsequent glare spoke volumes.

TWO

“I wasn’t fast enough,” the shrew announced, her lips tightening. “Again. Let’s try it again.”

“Bête noire, we have been doing this for over an hour,” I started as I shook my head. My next round of recourse would have to include the outstanding fact that there was no possible way she could beat me when it came to speed. She was simply not fast enough. This was not a critique upon her person but, rather, her species and, more specifically, because she was not a vampire.

“I don’t care,” she interrupted, her jaw set stubbornly. “I won’t give up until I can sense where you are and defend myself.”

We were honing her ability to detect me in the air as I materialized through it. Daywalkers shared the same ability, and could move from one locale to another in merely seconds. It was true that a Daywalker could not compete with the speed of a Master Vampire, but perhaps that was even more reason for the imp to train with me. If she could defend herself against me, she could defend herself against any Daywalker.

I did not say a single word as I stood in front of her and watched her inhale deeply. Her chest was already rising and falling owing to her exhaustion. We had been sparring for quite some time. She stood in a fighting stance, her eyes trained on mine. With her long, honey-colored hair blowing about her shoulders in the soft breeze, she was … nothing less than lovely. Perhaps she was the most beautiful creature I had ever beheld. At the very least, her beauty equaled that of her sister. As fraternal twins, the splendor of Jolie and Bryn could not be compared in terms of quantity thereof. The queen shone as the light to the Lady Bryn’s darkness, both in her features and inner character. Jolie’s bright innocence was fully displayed by her wide, blue eyes and plump lips. Admittedly, the two shared some similar traits, but Bryn might as well have been cut from a completely different fabric. For one thing, she was harder. Her physique was carved of well-developed muscle, which was overlaid with curvaceous, feminine flesh. And her hollow cheeks only served to make her already pouty lips appear that much fuller. Her eyes, the very same shade of cornflower blue as her sister’s, were far more suspicious in contrast, suggesting the hardened thoughts running through her mind that colored her world.

As I beheld her before me now, though, I was quite convinced she was the most stunning woman I had ever seen.

“Sinjin,” she said, her tone of voice audibly irritable. “Stop zoning out and start paying attention to what I’m saying!” She glared at me. “God, you’re so annoying!”

“Ahem,” I said while clearing my throat. I felt suddenly ill at ease knowing she had caught me admiring her. While I am certainly an avid proponent of venerating the sumptuous beauty of women, as a rule, I rarely lose myself in their loveliness. That would be entirely too inexperienced and clumsy. And I am certainly far from acting a novice when it comes to seducing the fairer sex.

“Again,” she ordered, her lips tight. “Dematerialize again.”

“Shall I remind you who is the teacher in this enterprise?” I asked in a perturbed tone.

“We both are well aware of our roles,” she retorted with a roll of her eyes and a yawn. I assumed that was merely to incite me, although I am not a creature who can be stirred to emotion so easily. Having lived six hundred years, I have trained myself in the art of composure. Too bad for the shrew.

“Are we?” I asked with a facetious chuckle. “Pray tell me, then, why the student would make such unreasonable demands of the teacher?”

She frowned, but took a few steps toward me. I caught the alluring scent of her skin, something which filled me with an insatiable desire to touch her and stroke her cheek. Her skin would feel satiny to my touch. I knew this from experience. The luscious memories of her suddenly infiltrated my mind, indelibly tainting my every thought. Truthfully, it took all my superior strength to stay rooted in place. I grew instantly irritated with myself. This desire, this
need
seemed to come out of nowhere and yet managed to take complete control over me. I felt incapable of breaking its stranglehold and that realization did not sit well with me. In general, I rarely allow such feelings to creep up on me.

“Maybe because the teacher isn’t all he makes himself out to be,” she snapped, reminding me of our ongoing conversation. My attention, however, was not fixed on her words. Instead, the sound of her blood rushing through her veins hit me like a freight train. I immediately took a step back from her just as my fangs elongated of their own accord. I wanted to feed from her. The urgent desire to do so suddenly overcame me, demanding immediate satiety. I clenched my eyes shut tightly and forced the urge back into submission. I could not allow her to observe me having trouble controlling my own primal instincts. Feeling beyond perplexed over that fact, I did not want to draw any more attention to it.

“Your meaning, pet?” I managed.

“If you want me to learn how to defend myself properly, you have to practice with me more,” she explained. Her vigorous nodding suggested her neck wished to demonstrate its agreement as well. “Practice makes perfect, right?”

“You carry on as if I am your nursemaid,” I grumbled at her, my eyebrows furrowing in the center of my forehead. While I found our conversation trifling, I
had
managed to repress my body’s reaction to her again, which pleased me no end.

“You’re hardly my nursemaid,” she retorted with a quick shake of her head. “If anything, I’m the one who has to keep reminding you that we need to practice!”

“You are rather amusing today, to say the least,” I replied. Again, I fought to ignore the need to pierce my fangs deeply into her neck. It was bizarre because I had fed quite recently and yet it seemed to make little difference. True, the blood running through the shrew’s veins and arteries was nothing like I had ever experienced before. Still, that did not explain this driving compulsion that was nearly overtaking me and clouding my judgment. And as to her blood, which tastes sweeter than any other I have ever sampled, it also endows me with abilities I had only ever dreamt of. Most notably, the ability to walk in the daylight. Needless to say, my hunger for her was undeniable and growing by the second. Perhaps it always had been.

“Puhleeze, Sinjin,” she started. “Sell your excuses to someone else because I’m not buying them.”

“Mayhap you have forgotten,” I started while gritting my teeth. I remembered she and I still needed to engage in a conversation that I was more than certain she was avoiding. “But as the guardian to the queen, I am a very busy man. You should consider yourself fortunate that I can manage to carve any time from my demanding schedule for you at all.”

“Really, Sinjin?” she asked, dropping her hands on her hips and regarding me with ill humor. I nodded a silent response to her question. She immediately began shaking her head and appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be quite put out. “Give me a break! If you weren’t training with me right now, you’d be snoozing underneath your tree!” she insisted. “You know that as well as I do.”

“I am not in the mood to discuss the finer aspects of indulging in a midnight siesta beneath the stars,” I started, although my eyes were riveted on the steady beating of her carotid artery.

“Stop looking at me like you want to eat me for dinner,” she ground out, her sour expression discouraging, to say the least.

I immediately brought my gaze back to hers and smiled. “For I am certain that would fall upon deaf ears.”

“I’m not interested in verbally sparring with you either,” she agreed.

“Thank the darkness for that,” I quipped as she widened her stance, holding her hands up in a “come hither” motion, indicating she was ready for another sort of sparring. But I was not keen to enter that type of sparring either. Were we horizontally positioned, however, I would have been more than eager …

I grumbled an unintelligible comment, even to my own ears, before flickering through time and space, disappearing and reappearing right beside her in the mere blink of an eye. When I landed, I noticed her eyes were closed. The reason for that was so she could better detect me by using her other senses. When she opened her eyes, she gracefully pivoted on her toes and twirled around to face me. She held her hand out in front of her to simulate a sword, or, perhaps, a firearm.

“Got you,” she said with a self-impressed smile that I found a little too charming.

What has gotten into you, old man?
I reprimanded myself. The weak reply was I did not know why my feelings towards her were suddenly so irrepressible.

“So it seems you have,” I smiled, struggling not to rake her figure from head to toe. There were moments when the shrew’s unflagging beauty nearly caught me off guard. My feelings became strangely alien, even to myself. These fleeting moments, though rare and far between, disrupted my concentration because they surprised me. And I detest surprises. After enduring one century after another, surprises rarely enter the picture. That is exactly the way I prefer it.

“Perhaps we can retire now?” I asked with a hopeful expression. “There is another subject that I wish to discuss with you.”

“You were going easy on me, weren’t you?” she swiftly interjected. She dropped her smile and a frown took its place as she studied me from narrowed, suspicious eyes. My failure to respond only seemed to further anger her. “You
were
going easy on me!”

“I was doing nothing of the sort!” I staunchly replied. In truth, however, I most certainly had “gone easy on her,” as she so phrased it.

“How dumb do you think I am, Sinjin?” she demanded. As she glared up at me, I had to take a step away from her. The delicious smell of her skin with the blood pulsing beneath it was almost overwhelming. I feared losing self-control, which would only further distance her. It was important that she trust me, for I was the closest ally she had.

“Dumb?” I repeated, sounding astonished.

“Yes, dumb!”

“Well, on that subject, you have not opened your mouth, as it were,” I started, but she interrupted me.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt,” I quoted from Shakespeare. She shook her head fervently in protest. Not only was she uninterested in the bard’s quote, but she refused to listen to me in general.

“Stop trying to let me win,” she insisted. “The whole point of practicing is so I can improve. If you keep rigging it so I always win, I’m not learning anything new or useful.”

“How dare you accuse me of duplicitous behavior?!” I replied defensively. However, my thoughts were not on the conversation. Instead, I was considering a much more important discussion, which was still waiting in the wings.

“There’s no supposing!” she railed back at me. “I
am
accusing you of duplicitous behavior because you’re cheating!”

“You offend me, madam,” I said with mock sensitivity. “Perhaps we should retire for the time being, and pursue various other subjects?”

“I’m not retiring until you come at me for real,” she replied. She crossed her arms over her ample bosoms as if to exaggerate her refusal to yield until I did.

“Very well,” I said with a heartfelt sigh. With a brief glance down at the infuriating woman, I vanished a second later. When I reappeared, I was directly behind her. I gripped both of her upper arms and heard her hiss in astonishment as she inhaled her shock. I leaned down until my mouth was beside her right ear. “It would appear you have been caught,” I whispered.