I was glad that she had joined me willingly in the night world. I hated the idea of not having her in my life. I didn’t want to mourn her for eternity, while others came and went in my life. We never had to grow old together, and we would have an eternity to enjoy our youth and each other. I, for one, couldn’t do that as just friends—I wanted more. Mortal death had taken a lot from us, and I wanted some of it back. I wanted a true vampire relationship with her.
I stared into the flames. As my nervousness increased, my mind drifted, and I found it harder and harder to focus on any one thing. I got restless and compensated by roaming through the house. I avoided Bronwyn, because I wanted to give her the distance from me that she really needed to think things through. If she needed to talk, Sembur or Kilkenny drifted close by, ready to offer a steady hand or word of advice. Finally, I felt the pull of the morning, and I knew I had to rest for the day. For once I was glad of the oblivion that sleep would bring.
I would not spend every moment until Bronwyn made her decision tying myself into insecure knots. When I went to bed, I went alone. I fell asleep before Bronwyn joined me, and I knew that she must have taken her rest elsewhere.
Early the following night, I sat out on the rear stairs of Sembur’s house, just watching the stars drift by, taking my solace from the night.
The breeze stirred the tops of the trees bordering the rear path, harsh moonlight making them cast jagged shadows on the concrete. Off to one side I could hear an animal crashing through Sembur’s beloved vegetable garden. Much to my surprise, he had not been lying. He had planted tomatoes, and was expecting them to bear fruit any day now.
I wondered why he did it. He could not, after all, enjoy the fruits of his labors.
I had not yet seen Bronwyn, and I wondered what she had done with herself during the day. I wondered if she had vanished last night, after we had told her a little of what we knew. I didn’t think she would react like that, but who knew when it was the last straw?
A presence stirred behind me, and I knew Sembur was watching me. “Sembur.”
He sat on the step beside me. We watched the night for a little while, and he sighed when he heard the animal in the distance. He shook his head ruefully and then turned to me. “It’s time. She’s waiting.”
With those four words, my spirits soared. He got to his feet, and then grinned and held out his hand to help me up. I took it and allowed him to pull me to my feet.
We went down the darkened stone hallway to the library. Sembur opened the door for me and gestured for me to go in. I did so, and if I had a heart it would have been beating with anticipation. Bronwyn sat on our sofa, arms crossed, legs stretched out in front of her, Kilkenny by her side, caressing her arm.
When Bronwyn saw me, she rose to her feet and threw herself in my arms. “My angel.”
Sembur smiled. “Are you both ready?”
I nodded. “I certainly am.”
“So am I,” Bronwyn said, giving my hand a quick squeeze.
“Let’s begin.” Sembur seated himself on his overstuffed leather chair, Kilkenny by his side to assist him.
Their fiery eyes shone in the darkness, shadows shifting and changing on their faces in the crackling firelight. He nicked his wrists, and we both knelt to catch his blood. The explosion of sensation that the first drop produced made me reel, and I clutched him to hold off the dizziness that threatened to knock me over. As I took each draft, the sensation worsened, but so did the sensation of raw strength and heady power.
I had feasted of Sembur’s blood before, so I knew what was going to happen when I consumed his blood. I had had a refresher just before I had healed Bronwyn. Feasting nonstop on Sembur and Kilkenny as we were both doing was something that I had never done before, so I was not prepared for the explosion of sensory input. The dim lighting seemed to brighten to the point of being painful, each sound deafening. My ears became a hundred fold more sensitive, and I could hear every whisper the night produced. I was ultra aware of Bronwyn beside me, the sounds of her feasting, and the soft moans from our hosts as the blood left them.
Bronwyn was much more sluggish, reeling when the first drops of blood hit her lips, almost falling over from the power of the blood. I tried to help her as best I was able, but the dizziness that the increases brought sent me reeling. Eventually Sembur and Kilkenny caught us, and we ended up cradled in their arms, lost in our mutual feasting.
I cannot tell you how many times we all drained each other of the precious blood. It was well into the wee morning hours, not far from dawn, when we were all forced to go out in search of food.
I got behind the wheel of Sembur’s car, Bronwyn beside me and Sembur and Kilkenny behind. Bronwyn looked amused that we were taking such an antique form of transport to dinner. The trip was silent, and by unspoken consent I pulled up in a shadowed, residential area.
There was garbage in the streets and cars haphazardly parked along the sides of the roads. I could hear honking horns from the cars on the main street close to us, and the sounds of drunken laughter from people leaving the pub on the corner.
Sembur and Kilkenny both focused in the direction of our prey, faces still and guarded, eyes flaming.
I glanced at Bronwyn, who was frowning at them.
“They’re calling the humans,” I whispered.
“Oh.”
After a moment or so, we watched a party of four leave the pub and look uncertainly in our direction. They split off into two couples, two of them walking toward us and the other two heading in the opposite direction.
Bronwyn and I exchanged a grin.
The four of us broke into a silent and deadly run toward them, so swiftly they could not see us coming.
Sembur and I grabbed the male half of the couples, and neither one gave us much more than a puzzled, unfocused stare as our fangs sank into their necks.
As the hot blood jetted down my throat, I thought I heard a strangled squeak from Bronwyn’s prey, but I had to concentrate on not killing my victim.
I was hungry. Starved.
I felt my young man go limp in my arms, and I put him on the sidewalk in the shadows. I nicked my wrist with my fangs and spilled blood on the wound, watching the skin close.
I could still hear the sound of a light scuffle, courtesy of Bronwyn’s victim, and I turned around to see what was happening.
Bronwyn’s victim was struggling and trying to punch her with one hand, the other flailing what looked like a butter knife. She was so drunk she could barely stand.
Bronwyn watched her, arms crossed, head tilted. I felt what could only be described as a kind of mental slap from Bronwyn. The drunk girl’s eyes widened, and her body went rigid. She stayed that way for a second or so, and then fell forward into Bronwyn’s waiting arms.
Kilkenny joined Sembur and I and watched Bronwyn take her victim.
“That’s interesting,” I said, glancing at them both. “I didn’t think it would happen so quickly.”
“It’s because of your blood,” Kilkenny said. “It’s stronger than it should be for someone of your age.”
I nodded. “True. I wonder if I can get her to remember how she did that.”
“Probably not,” Sembur said. “I think she’s going to have to practice that skill. It’s not an easy one to master, and it’s difficult to explain.”
Kilkenny and I nodded as we watched Bronwyn drip blood onto the girl’s bite marks, making them disappear.
“Are you all right?” Kilkenny asked, studying me closely.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I needed the human blood—although I really wasn’t all that hungry—and now it’s not sitting well with me.
I feel like I’ve over eaten.” I grimaced. “I’d forgotten what that felt like.”
Bronwyn staggered toward us, looking as though she wanted to retch. I understood how she felt.
Sembur studied us and exchanged a glance with Kilkenny.
“I think it’s time to get you both to bed.”
I nodded, watching the world waver and feeling my stomach contract uneasily.
“I think I’m going to—” I said, clapping a hand over my mouth.
“No, you’re not,” Sembur said. “That’s one thing that’s not going to blend in easily on a city street.” He scooped me up into his arms, and Kilkenny followed suit with Bronwyn.
I closed my arms and concentrated on keeping my food down.
I swore to myself again I would
never
feast on another drunk human.
Sembur and Kilkenny put us into the back seat of the car and took us home. He drove considerably faster than I did, for which I was grateful. My eyes were watering against the painful predawn light teasing the edges of the sky.
By the time we got back to Sembur’s house, we were both able to stand and walk by ourselves. I didn’t feel quite as sick, and Bronwyn had lost her pallor, an almost rosy glow returning to her cheeks.
Bronwyn and I couldn’t do much more than stagger back to our comfortable bed, stomachs ill at ease with the human blood we had consumed. I lay on the satin sheets, staring queasily at the spinning room, head pounding with the sights and sounds of the amazingly noisy night.
Bronwyn lay by my side, probably as thankful as I that we didn’t breathe. Neither one of us needed the cacophony that would have produced. Poor Bronwyn was much worse off than I was. She looked paler than death, and almost as though she were resisting the temptation to run to the nearest corner so she could be quickly and tidily sick.
I felt the pull of dawn come over me and tried to resist it as much as I could. Much to my surprise, it worked. I knew I could walk around in darkness during the day, but I didn’t think that was a good idea. The blood was working miracles to my poor body, but I felt as sick as one could get while not being alive. It felt too much, too soon, so I made myself pass out.
The next evening, when I woke up, I kept my eyes closed, prepared for the same rotten hangover I’d had at dawn.
“Crowley?” Bronwyn asked hesitantly. “Are you all right?”
My body felt rested and pain free, so I waited for a moment to see if it began hurling abuse at me. I leaned up on an elbow, feeling her body close to mine, bracing myself for vicious stomach contractions.
I cautiously opened an eye and blinked uncertainly against the savage light that flooded my eyes. I groaned.
“It’s all right,” Bronwyn whispered, pulling me into her arms. “It’ll pass.”
“Uh, huh.” I kissed her chest and smiled at the sensation of her skin against mine. “I think I’m fine.”
“You know,” she said, pulling away from me and sitting up, “I feel terrific.”
I grinned, taking in her inhuman beauty. “So do I, actually.”
She smiled happily at me, and bounced out of bed.
I tried hard to help her dress, but we were both hampered by the kisses we exchanged. I’m not sure how, but we managed to pull on our clothes, leave the guest room, and head toward the library where Sembur and Kilkenny waited for us.
When we entered, they exchanged a fond glance and smiled at us.
“Are you ready to begin again?” Sembur asked.
“Yes, we are,” Bronwyn said.
Sembur sighed and leaned back in his comfortable chair. “Come.”
He held out his wrist, and Bronwyn went to him. She knelt before him, eyeing his wrist with an intense gaze. I settled myself before Kilkenny, grateful that I could not blush anymore. Sembur’s lover was so beautiful that she always threw me off balance, and I felt awkward about taking the blood gift from her. I gazed at the blood pulsing through the veins that ran under the alabaster skin of her wrist.
I began to drool. The hunger for blood was intense. I was so focused on the hot blood that I forgot myself and plunged my fangs into her wrist, drawing in a great draft of blood that left me reeling, and Kilkenny hissing in pain.
“Take, young one,” she said.
I could not stop even if I had been of a mind to. No more than an animal, I pulled in her blood, feeling it jet down my throat.
I was dimly aware of Bronwyn moaning close by, almost sickened from the power that I knew from personal experience was flooding into her from Sembur.
He pulled away from her, as Kilkenny pulled away from me. Both pushed us back, and then took us into iron arms and held us close as their fangs took the precious blood that had been given to us.
Drained almost to the last drop, we again feasted from them.
We did this until dawn, when Sembur stopped.
“It is time for us to feed,” he said.
I shook my head. “I’m not going out tonight. I don’t need to.”
Sembur nodded and held out his hand for Kilkenny. “We will go.
We will see you again in the evening.”
Kilkenny took his hand and smiled gently at us as they left the library.
I crawled over to Bronwyn. “Are you all right?”
She gazed at me in wonder. “I feel terrific. It’s almost like there’s something just beyond my reach. Like a whispering around me.”
“That’s Sembur’s blood working in you,” I said, pulling her into my arms. “It’ll get loud enough for you to want to tune it out in another couple of nights.”
“What’s happening to me?” she asked, her arms tightening around me.
I smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “Sembur’s blood is changing you. You’ll be as strong as me in a couple of nights.”
“I feel as weak as a kitten right now.”
I stood, bringing her with me, and cradled her against my chest. I walked from the library, kissing her forehead. “I’ll take care of you.
The weakness will pass.”
She nodded against me, and I pushed open the door to our room. I put her on the bed and collapsed beside her.
It was like I was coming out of a drunken stupor, and I closed my eyes to stop the room from spinning around me. Bronwyn was right about the whispering, I thought as I drifted away into sleep.
The feast lasted for several nights, as Brownyn adjusted to what the ancient blood was doing to her. I was much quicker, and all that was left in its wake was exultation and drunk enjoyment of my heightened vampiric powers.
It took another couple of nights of feeding from Sembur and Kilkenny for Bronwyn to reach the same level as me and to truly feel comfortable with her new blood. I awoke that fourth evening, energetic and eager to hunt. Bronwyn rolled over and smiled at me, her burning green eyes gentled with love.