Authors: Jessa Hawke
“I follow my heart… just like you did.”
~
The pale light of a winter morning barely lit the kitchen. Annabelle carefully lifted out a baking tray from the cooking range. She glanced over her shoulder and noticed Benoit’s worried face. “Benoit, what’s wrong?”
“The post arrived.”
“And?”
“There is a letter… a letter from the duchess, I recognise her elegant handwriting.”
Annabelle’s face beamed a joyful smile. “Then that must be great news. The Duke has been frightfully worried this past week.”
“So out of character… they argue, but she never flees the house. I have a bad feeling about this.”
~
Charles opened the letter as he sat down at his desk. He raised a hand to his mouth as his tear ducts began to well. A then tear broke loose before running the length of his cheek. His fist suddenly smashed against his desktop. “Fuck.” He then swiped his drawing items from the desk, sending them crashing to the floorboards. Resting his head on his folded arms he began sob. “Why, why would she do this to me?”
~
Sat in the staff quarters of the mansion Benoit sat across from Annabelle and the head footman, Geoffrey. “The Duke hasn’t left his room in three days.” He grimaced as he looked at Geoffrey. “He has never been like this.”
“He’s just sad… wouldn’t you be?”
“Of course. but I knocked twice this morning and four times yesterday… and nothing. Not a word, nor even the slightest noise.”
Annabelle quickly added, “I haven’t heard anything since yesterday.”
“What did you hear?”
“Cries and sobs.”
Geoffrey sighed. “We’ve all heard his cries.”
“I worry because…”Benoit sat with his back straight. “I checked the gun cabinet this morning. He’s taken his hunting rifle and three rounds.”
“He surely won’t.”
Geoffrey grimly muttered. “Why else would he take the gun to his bedroom.”
“Good Lord” Anabelle put her hands to her mouth. “Maybe we should do something.”
“What? A risk getting shot?”
Benoit noted. “Geoffrey is right. The gun cabinet wasn’t the only thing the Duke raided. The drinks cabinet was emptied of its brandy and Scotch. When a man is not of sound mind, he’s not predictable.”
Annabelle stood from the table. “I’ll go. He’s less likely to feel threatened by a woman.”
~
Annabelle knocked on the door. “My Lord, It’s me, Annabelle.” She glanced down the corridor where Benoit and Geoffrey waited. Facing the door once more she knocked again. “Can you hear me?” Pressing her head against the door she waited for a response. “I just want to know if everything is OK.” Suddenly the floorboards creaked from within before the door suddenly unlocked.
“You may enter, Annabelle.”
“Thank you, my Lord.”
Charles rubbed his tired face with his hands while walking towards his bed. “I apologise for being distant.”
“It’s OK.”
“I have opened the window with the hope the fresh air does me good.”
“Maybe one should venture out, a walk maybe?”
“Now is not the time for walks among the flowers. “Charles slowly sat on his bed. “But I will be leaving for my residence in Scotland… I do not know when I return. I need to think.”
Annabelle nodded. “I understand.”
“You, have children?”
Annabelle looked out of the window at the splendid gardens and thought it most pretty. “No my Lord.”
“A lover.”
“Not as yet.”
Charles gazed from his bed. “And why not?”
“I have never had the time.”
“Why?”
Annabelle turned her back to the window, and faced the Charles. “I was looking after my mother when she was ill, and then my father had his accident in the Colliery. There just wasn’t the time to meet the right man. There was one, but he didn’t wait and married the miller’s daughter.”
“So like me you have had your heart broken.”
“Yes, but you get over it. Life is for living… even if it’s difficult. ”
“But I already feel dead.”
Annabelle watched Charles roll back onto his bed. She noticed the rifle propped against the wall and picked it up before quietly leaving the room.
~
Jacques sat beside the open fire while he weaved his basket. A sudden knock on the door caused him loose his feed. “Darn.” There was a second knock which caused him to shout for his daughter. “The door, Annabelle.”
“I’m not decent.”
Jacques turned in his chair to face the door. “One minute… I’m coming.“ He groaned as he climbed from his chair. One reaching the door he turned the handle and opened it. He then felt surprised to see a well-dressed man. “Good day, Sir.”
The father of Annabelle?”
“And who may you be?”
Charles pumped out his chest. “The Duke of Middlebrook.” He then gestured for Jacques not to bow. “At ease… I see you carry an injury..”
“My Lord… Annabelle is indeed my daughter.” Jacques couldn’t raise his eyes. “How can I be of service?”
“This may come of shock… But out of respect, I will not proceed without first consulting you. I wish to marry your daughter.”
Jacques felt a sudden dread. “You…wish to marry Annabelle?”
“She is a woman of good heart and spirit. You have raised her well.”
“But look around, we are but simple people.”
Charles talked slowly in an attempted to translate his sincerity. “I have learnt that this does not matter. As I have never witnessed a prettier face nor have I been touched by such warmth and selflessness.”
“I’m quite taken aback.” Jacques nearly fell as Annabelle barged pass and threw herself into the arms of Charles. He felt powerless to stop the romance. “But it seems Annabelle has made up her mind. I can do nothing but give you both my blessing.”
While basking in the sun from the large bay window of the master bedroom, Annabelle could not peel her eyes from the gold wedding band. With the ringing of wedding bells still fresh in her ears she shivered as Charles embraced her from behind. She leant her head to one side as Charles combed his fingers through her hair, brushing it behind her ear.
Annabelle felt a sense of belonging as he tied his arms around her waist. The touch of Charles’s lips on her cheek caused Annabelle’s heart to jump within her chest. She felt like she was living the life of one of her characters which she had read about… but feared that it may all just be a romantic dream.
But the sensations felt real while Charles began to disrobe her.
Annabelle covered her nakedness, blushing incessantly. But a smiling Charles softly laughed, while coaxing her to free her arms. Tracing his hands along her face, he tasted her lips and pushed her backwards onto the bed.
Annabelle felt her innocence leaving her, but it was immediately replaced with a fulfillment and love. Energy and excitement coursed through her veins. She thought Charles body felt heavy and powerful, that this physical love went far beyond her expectations.
The burns of broken innocence gave way to the lusts of passion. Annabelle wrapped herself around Charles and never wanted to let him go. With closed eyes, she succumbed to her dreams. Erupting into a joyous realization that she had found love in all its forms.
THE END
Twice Bitten
Kersley despised the thought of having to take evening classes at the college, but there was nothing that she could do about it since during the day she had to work her job to make ends meet. She enrolled in a few liberal arts classes that she needed to finish her degree so she could apply to law school and finally ‘make something of herself’, as her father would say. Her classes usually went until 10pm in the evening, and by the time she packed up her books and chatted a little bit with her classmates, it was often closer to 10:30pm before she drove home. She had moved to the town of Nooksville a year ago and had immediately regretted the idea. It was rumored that there were vampires around the town, who at times went wild and fed their wild desires with blood from humans, and the worst thing is that it was impossible to tell a vampire from a regular human being. She, however, did not believe that such things existed, and usually thought of the majority of the people in this town as strange. The main reason for her moving here was because she had gotten a well-paying job at one of the banks, something that she could not turn down, especially in these hard economic times.
The only thing that brightened her day in this awful town was Mickey, a guy that she had been crushing on from a distance for quite some time. He went to the same classes as her, although that was about all that she knew about him. He was a handsome guy, the sort of guy who just looked like a ‘great lay’, and she couldn’t get him off her mind. She found herself daydreaming about him often, and the dreams often left her with a throbbing in her sex that ached for attention. She had tried sitting close to him during the classes, but that was as far as she could go because she was way too shy to be the one to make the first move. All that she could do was to pray that one day he would notice her and hopefully make a move. She thought that he must have a high-paying day job judging from the designer clothes that he wore and the BMW that he drove. With luxuries like those he had to have money. That is, unless he was from a very wealthy family, which was also a possibility because of all the old money that floated around this town.
One the other hand, Kersley extremely disliked Mickey's brother Joe. He also attended the same class, but he was the complete opposite of Mickey. Joe was obnoxious and had no qualms about forcing things to be done his way. Kersley did everything that she could to stay away from him, and wondered what the deal was with the women who hovered around him, even though it was rumored that he was very well endowed and could take any woman to paradise with his cock. Kersley was repulsed by Joe, and she would have none of his nonsense if he ever tried anything with her. He was not even half as handsome as Mickey, and at times Kersley wondered if they were from the same mother.
Mickey Benson and his family had lived in Nooksville for centuries. They were the last of the remaining good vampires, although his brother Joe considered himself a “bad boy” and would occasionally attack human beings. Mickey did his best to try and keep his younger brother in check, even though at times it became almost impossible. Joe had contracted an incurable virus that affected vampires before he was vaccinated, and it had sort of gone to his head like it had all of the other bad vampires. Being a member of the Benson clan, there was no way that Mickey and the other family members could run him out of town like they had all of the other infected vampires. They therefore did their best to keep him in check, monitoring him as much as possible.
Nooksville was a very dull and boring place for Mickey, and he had even been thinking of moving to some other state to start his life anew when a breath of fresh air held him back. One of his uncles ran the Nooksville County Bank and he hired the hottest blonde that he had ever seen, Kersley. She carried herself like a sex-goddess that needed to be worshipped. She was the sort of woman who gave him a hard on just looking at her. She had all the right curves and a body that any model would kill for, and Mickey started to find himself obsessed with her. There was only one problem. Unlike Joe who was loud and made his point clear, Mickey was a reserved and calculating guy who took his time laying out a plan before executing it. He had a cousin that worked in administration at the college that filled him I on the classes she was enrolled in so he could join the same classes as her. However, there was somebody who seemed to want to cock block him in a big way - his brother Joe. He saw the way that Joe's fangs ejected whenever he looked at her, and he knew that sooner or later Joe would make an aggressive move on her, although Mickey had a hunch that Kersley would want absolutely nothing to do with him.
Kersley just wasn’t his type. Joe went for the sort of women who did not mind one night stands and had sex just for the fun of it, no strings attached. Kersley looked like the sort of woman who would enjoy the sex only if she felt something for you. Mickey knew that he had to first make her notice him, although at times he noticed her gazing in his direction in an admiring way, but her glance would quickly dart away and her face would flush with a bright crimson shade. He couldn’t be sure about what thoughts coursed through her mind. His best friend and fellow vampire, Chris, could read human minds, but Mickey did not want him getting in the head of the woman he was falling in love with. It was better that he found out what she was thinking in his own way, and that is what he intended to do.
“That sure is one hot piece of ass,” Chris interrupted his thoughts as they watched Kersley getting out of her car while seated in Mickey's car. They had followed her home from class just for a chance to gaze at her form for even a few more moments before the night was finished.
“I told you so. The only problem is that I can't seem to gather the guts to even talk to her, I feel like she is too special even for me,” Mickey replied, marveling at the fine molding that God had created as his cock stifled in his pants.
“I wonder how wild she can get in bed, because I know that you love them wild. Remember the threesome that we had with Kate early last year? You couldn’t seem to get enough of her,” Chris continued, adjusting his dick in his pants as he too began to get aroused just looking at Kersley's long legs emerge from the parked car.
She was dressed in a short dress that hugged her body in a good way, and for some reason, she felt as though she was being watched, although she could not see anyone as she looked over both shoulders. She uneasily made her way out of her car toward the house. She still felt a strong sense of unease as she opened the door. Suddenly, from nowhere, she felt someone cupping her mouth from behind. Turning quickly, she found that it was Joe.
“Hello sweetheart. Surprise! You have been avoiding me, and so today I decided to come and pay you a visit personally,” he said, as alarm registered in Kersley's mind. “Now, you are going to come with me and I am going to teach you a thing or two about how to handle a real man, I'm going to fuck you like you have never been fucked before.” Kersley let out muffled screams and writhed her body trying to escape Joe’s hold.
Mickey and Chris immediately got out of the car and made their way out of where they had hidden it. They had not expected to see Joe appear from nowhere like he did; apparently he had been hiding somewhere near the house. Mickey was furious as they ran towards Joe. He was much stronger than both of them because of the virus that had infected him, but there was no way that Mickey was going to let Joe have his way with the woman he felt he was falling in love with. Since his family was used to policing Joe and his antics, Mickey carried around a drug that could disable Joe's joints; the problem would be finding the opportunity to inject Joe while in the middle of this rampage. As they approached Joe and Kersley, Joe pushed Kersley roughly to the ground, his eyes becoming red and his fangs instantly ejecting, ready for war.
“Joe, you don’t have to do this, just go home. Leave Kersley alone,” Mickey said, holding out the biggest syringe that Kersley had ever seen.
Kersley could not believe what was happening. The strangest thing that she had ever seen was unfolding right here before her. Joe had been in the process of abducting her, and suddenly Mickey and another guy just as handsome as him appear from nowhere. The weirdest thing of all was what was happening to Joe. He had suddenly become animal-like, his eyes turning a glaring red while his teeth turned into fangs. This had to be some bad dream that was happening, and Kersley would wake up and find herself in her home, but no, it was more real than ever. She was so filled with fear, that she did not even have the strength to get up and run for her life. All she could do was watch this craziness from the ground in a state of paralysis.
Kersley watched as Joe charged towards Mickey and his friend, knocking Mickey to the ground easily before turning on his friend. A huge fight ensued between the three. Kersley was in shock as Mickey and his friend also got the characteristics that Joe had, eyes turning bloodshot and long fangs sticking out of their mouths. Aha! Vampires, that is what they all were. So it was true about what they said about vampires! No wonder all the girls at school said that Joe was very well endowed down there - he was a vampire. Suddenly, Joe was charging at her on the ground, and just as he grabbed her and was about to sink his fangs into her neck, Mickey jabbed the huge needle into his back. Joe froze and fell to the ground, leaving Kersley trembling like a leaf. She had just about been the next victim of a rogue vampire.
“Kersley, are you okay?” Mickey came and knelt beside her, putting his hand around her shoulder, his eyes full of concern.
“Yes, I'm fine. What the hell is with your brother? Are you all vampires?” she was still in shock, although his hand on her shoulder registered its presence in her body, sending pleasant sensations all the way to her pussy.
Dammit, Kersley, you are supposed to be afraid, not getting turned on!
“My family is the last of the remaining good vampires, since the rest were infected by a virus, the same dangerous virus that infected my brother here,” Mickey explained, hoping that she would not go and squeal to the rest of the city residents. “We are not bad people, and not all of us suck blood from humans, just the infected ones. Luckily for this city, the only infected vampire is my brother since we drove the others out. We figured that we would live with humans better that way.”