For All Eternity (The Black Rose Chronicles) (32 page)

When it was over, when he’d felt the life force as well as the pain and terror leave the boy, Calder rose and turned away, ashamed. Paradoxically, for he was well aware that he could hide little or nothing from Valerian, he did not want the other vampire to witness his disgust.

Or his rapture.

Graciously Valerian said nothing, but only went on to another cot and fed again.

Calder could not bring himself to follow suit, even though he yearned to experience once more the inexpressible jubilation that was only then receding, a tide of sweet fire raking his soul as it ebbed away. He left the hospital tent by ordinary means and stood gazing up at the stars for a long interval.

Presently Valerian joined him, and by tacit agreement they returned to twentieth-century London and Maeve’s grand house.

Much to Calder’s delight, she was waiting there in the formal parlor, pacing back and forth along the edge of the marble hearth. Her hair fell free in wild curls, and she wore tight-fitting denim trousers and a black blouse of some stretchy fabric that clung to her curves.

“Where have you been?” she cried furiously when she realized that Calder and Valerian were there.

Wisely Valerian faded into mist and took himself off to some safer and no doubt more cordial place.

Calder made no attempt to hide his admiration or his curiosity. “I’m sorry you were worried,” he said in all sincerity, for he truly loved this glorious being, and even the bliss of feeding for the first time could not compare to the splendors he’d known in her arms. “I was impatient to see what it was like to move about as a vampire.”

Maeve’s temper seemed to subside a little, though her eyes still flashed with sapphire fury. “There are so many dangers,” she sputtered, running the fingers of one hand through her lovely tangle of hair. “Warlocks, angels— the sunlight. And sometimes time travel can go wrong, and it’s impossible to return— ”

He gripped her shoulders. “I’m safe,” he said pointedly, touched by her concern. If anything, the transformation had deepened his love for Maeve, and the emotions she stirred in him were almost too splendid to be endured.

She flung herself at him then, wrapping her arms around his neck and murmuring, “I was so afraid—” Calder stroked her back, warmed by her love, nourished by it. He laughed hoarsely and held her a little away from him. “What about these scandalous clothes of yours, Maeve Tremayne? What manner of devilment is this?”

Her smile was tentative but genuine. “This is how twentieth-century women dress,” she said. “If they choose to, that is. They have a lot more to say about a great many things than their ancestors had.”

He took her hand, lifted it over her head, and twirled her about as he had seen dancers do. ‘Trousers,” he marveled. Then he held her close again and kissed her. “I must say, I like the way they look on you.”

Calder felt Maeve tremble in his arms, and he kissed her again before saying, “I love you.”

Her blue eyes glistened with a sentiment equal to his own. “You taught me to mate as humans do,” she said softly. “Now let me show you how vampires give each other pleasure.”

Calder pretended to be shocked. “What? Do twentieth- century women seduce their men so boldly as that?” Maeve touched his mouth with one finger, and with that single gesture effectively set him ablaze with the need of her. “Who cares what they do?” Her eyes, tender before, were smoldering with forbidden knowledge now. “I am a vampire, not a mere woman, twentieth century or otherwise. Come with me, and I will show you passion you have not even imagined.”

He did not resist her; indeed, Calder doubted that he could have done that, even if he’d wished to do so. He gave her his hand and then felt himself dissolve, felt his very soul plunging through space. Then, just as abruptly, he was whole again, and they were alone in an upstairs chamber, a vast room that he remembered as Maeve’s studio.

She’d brought him there after the shooting, and sometimes when she was working at her loom, unaware that he was conscious, he had watched her for a moment or two before slipping under again.

He moved to draw her close and kiss her once more, but she drew back, smiling and shaking her lovely head, like a mischievous nymph bent on luring him into some enchanted place.

“You’re thinking of the human way of lovemaking,” she scolded softly. “I want to show you how vampires mate.”

Had he still had need of his lungs, or of air, Calder would have drawn a deep breath at that moment. As it was, he simply watched Maeve, struck dumb by her terrifying beauty, and by the depth of his love for her.

She kept her distance, watching him with those magical eyes, too far away to touch him, and yet he began to feel the lightest of caresses. It seemed to him that fingertips brushed the sensitive place beneath one of his ears, made circles around his nipples, whisked ever so slightly across his mouth.

He moaned and moved to reach for Maeve, but she kept herself just out of reach. In the next instant he began to feel her touch in more intimate places, across his belly, the small of his back, along the insides of his thighs.

Calder gasped with pleasure, but Maeve silenced him with a soft “Shhh” and proceeded to tease the length of his staff. He was completely in her power then, as effectively restrained by his own desire as he might have been by iron manacles.

His clothes were not physically removed—they seemed to melt away like thin ice under a spring sun—and not only was Calder’s body bared to Maeve’s attentions, but his soul as well.

He whispered an exclamation, a plea, and then felt her touching him everywhere, inside and out, even though physically she was still well beyond his reach. Her mouth drew at his nipples, not one, but both, warm and wet and greedy. At the same time, impossible though it was, her tongue traveled the length of his shaft and teased the tip until he cried out in a ragged, glorious, despairing voice.

Maeve showed Calder no quarter that magical night, as she initiated him into yet another vampire mystery. She was a gentle but relentless conqueror, having him thoroughly, again and again, until it all culminated in one cataclysmic, soul-rendering release.

He lay trembling on the cool, hard floor when she’d finished with him, depleted and yet more fantastically alive than ever before. When his emotions would allow him to speak, he whispered, “It’s a good thing you didn’t do that when I was mortal, love. I might have died of the pleasure.”

She laughed softly and came to lie with him, her own body naked and sleek and glowing in the moonlight pouring in through the tall windows. She took him into her arms and kissed the hollow at the base of his throat. “There are more terrible ways to die,” she observed, nestling close.

He stroked her breast, in the human way, and draped one of his legs across hers in a possessive gesture. “Why are you tarrying here with me, Maeve?” he asked, his tone gruff with his love for her, and the sudden knowledge that even eternity can be a fleeting thing. “Has the war been won already?”

Maeve raised herself onto one elbow, her hair a silken mantle in the moonlight, and gazed sadly into his face, as if to memorize every feature. “No, my darling,” she said, tracing his mouth with the tip of one index finger. “The war hasn’t been won.”

Calder asked no more questions, sensing that, for Maeve, this was a time out of time, a place of refuge and restoration. “I think I like the human way better,” he said. She looked puzzled. “Of making war?”

He gave a raspy chuckle and held her close against him, his chin resting on the top of her head. “No, sweet—of making love.”

Maeve drew back to study his face. “Why?” she asked, sounding stricken. “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel pleasure, Calder Holbrook, because I know—”

Calder smoothed her tousled hair. “I felt more than pleasure,” he assured her gruffly, “more than ecstasy. But when mortals make love, they touch, they become one being, if only for a little while. I want that for us.”

Her bewildered expression gave way to one of mischievous delight. “Before I decide that one is better than the other,” she purred, “I would want you to take me the way you would take a human woman.”

He turned her gently onto her back, this beautiful, complex fiend, and gripped her wrists, pressing her hands gently to the floor, just above her head. Then he mounted her, and she parted her silken thighs slightly, her dark blue eyes glittering in the darkness.

“Observe,” he teased in a scholarly tone, and glided inside her with one long stroke. Within moments they were both wild with passion, rolling over the smooth wooden floor, first one taking command, and then the other.

The finish of their lovemaking was simultaneous, apocalyptic, a collision and a fusion.

Lisette sensed trouble, but she was intrigued rather than fearful and allowed herself to be drawn back to nineteenth-century Spain, back to her villa beside the sea.

She slept through the day, conserving her strength for battles she knew were coming, and had her carriage and horses brought around only moments after the sun had set. She would feed, of course, but for the time being she would make no more vampires, special or otherwise—to do so would be foolhardy, for her powers seemed to be waning. While she was sure the effects were temporary, she certainly didn’t want another confrontation with Maeve Tremayne at this juncture.

Just the thought of that treasonous creature filled Lisette with fury—she would destroy the rebellious vampires, all of them, and in ways so horrific that tales of them would be told for millennia—but for now she had more immediate concerns. She must coddle herself, feed well, and engage in her favorite diversion— seducing young, firm-muscled mortals, drawing badly needed strength from their unbridled passion.

The carriage rattled its way through sleepy streets and into the small seaside district, where a cluster of cantinas provided lively entertainment for visiting sailors and young noblemen alike.

One particular place drew Lisette, and while she was wary, it was not a new sensation. Over the centuries she had become expert in locating likely prospects—the scent and heat of their rich, sweet blood invariably drew her, even from great distances.

She signaled the driver to stop by tapping at the roof. Manuel was a slow-witted dolt who had—unknowingly, of course—provided Lisette with sustenance on several occasions, when it was inconvenient to hunt far afield. His saving grace was that he never asked questions, even though a great many strange things took place in the villa.

Lisette alighted without waiting for assistance and, clad in a flowing gown of blue silk and a white mantilla made of the finest lace, swept boldly into the cantina that had drawn her attention from the carriage.

Her entrance caused a gratifying hush among the celebrants—even the flamenco dancers stopped to stare—but Lisette did not offer so much as a nod of acknowledgment. Her gaze swept the crowded tavern, seeking the one who had summoned her back from her travels, however inadvertently.

Lisette uttered a small cry when she found him—

Great Scot, he was the very
picture
of Aidan Tremayne— studying her speculatively through narrowed blue eyes. He displaced the dancing girl from his lap, and the colorful ruffles of her petticoats swished as she flounced angrily away.

“Aidan,” Lisette whispered brokenly, even though she knew quite well that this mortal was not her lost love, but only someone who looked like him. Still, it was a very attractive quality, an unexpected and welcome bonus.

Silently she summoned him, and he rose from his chair, frowning with bewilderment, to obey. No one else in the place moved nor, it seemed to Lisette, whose senses were suddenly hyper alert, even breathed.

She laid one white hand to his face, felt the lovely rush of vibrant blood beneath his flesh, the warm firmness of the muscles. “Come with me,” she said. Then she took his hand, as though he were a child, and led him out of the cantina into the balmy, starlit splendor of a Spanish night.

“What is your name?” she asked when they were settled in the carriage and she’d smoothed the lines of bafflement from his wonderful face with a gentle hand. Even as she spoke she cupped his masculine parts through his trousers, to make the terms of the game clear, and to give him a foretaste of the ecstasies ahead.

His breathing was raspy, and a fine sheen of perspiration glimmered on his forehead and upper lip. Lisette was gratified to see and feel that he was aroused, eager for her.

“Jorge,” he said in soft Spanish.

Lisette preferred English. “George,” she said, dragging her fingers along the soft, thin fabric of his breeches, from the top of his muscular thigh to his knee, then back again.

George moaned as Lisette opened the buttons of his breeches and reached inside to stroke his straining shaft with expert fingers, and she was both pleased and touched by his reaction. It had been much the same that other night, long before, when she’d found Aidan Tremayne walking alongside an English road. He, too, had been a lusty young man, welcoming Lisette’s skilled caresses, groaning softly as she attended him in various ways and showed him things he’d yet to experience with a mortal woman.

She maneuvered George so that he lay on his back, draped over her lap in delicious abandon, and then just sat admiring him for several moments, thinking what a splendid creation he was.

He writhed with pleasure, the lovely mortal, while Lisette taught him a few basics. Somewhat to her own surprise, she felt a deep tenderness toward the fragile creature, rather than the greedy lust that was usually at the root of such escapades.