The Vampire's Seduction (27 page)

“The munchies?” Reedrek repeated, barely able to contain his mirth. “And pray tell, what does that consist of?”

“Wow, you guys really are old.” More laughter. “Smoking pot makes you starvin’ hungry—gives you the munchies. Get it?”

“Offering us this
pot,
as you call it, would be very unfortunate then.”

“Why? You old dudes could at least afford some waffles at Denny’s.”

“Because they’re vampires,” a voice from the other side of the circle said.

After a moment of silence, all the teenagers except the one who had spoken burst into more unrestrained laughter. One of the boys laughed so hard he fell back against a convenient headstone, gasping for breath.

“Vampires—yeah, right.”

The boy who’d spoken stood up, but even he was smiling. It took me a second to place him—he’d followed Jack as we were leaving Club Nine. Werm, he’d called him.

“I’m afraid your friend Werm is correct. You should listen to him,” I said.

Reedrek bowed like an inebriated showman. “Evil vampire at your service.”

More laughter.

Werm moved closer. “You know my name,” he said, staring at me, sounding awestruck. “That’s so cool.”

I handed the joint to him. “Yes, and since Jack isn’t here, might I suggest that Colonial, at least tonight, is not a
cool
place for you and your friends.”

Three of the boys were literally rolling on the ground. “You dudes are already stoned out of your gourds,” one of them said, causing the others to laugh harder.

Reedrek leveled his full attention on the boys. I could feel his mind probing their inebriated thoughts.

I dug in my jacket pockets until I found a folded sheaf of bills. I had to do something before Reedrek exhibited his appetite. Too full to argue, I assumed, he remained leaning against a tomb wall and watched as I handed the money to Werm. “Take your friends away from here,” I said, bending his mind with my own.

“But I want to stay,” he mumbled, looking toward Reedrek. A truly bad inclination when one is in the presence of a vampire.

“You’re too hungry to stay. You’ll starve to death if you don’t get to Denny’s right now.”

I’m not sure these mortals had ever felt the kind of hunger I planted in their minds. I certainly had—the belly-scraping-backbone need of a body for sustenance. In my case, a whiff of blood. Right now, however, my hunger had been more than satisfied, and I hoped that Reedrek felt the same. However, that wouldn’t stop him from killing for sport.

“Go!” I ordered, and one by one the boys stood up and, still giggling, walked into the darkness.

Reedrek leered at me. “Just as I expected. Why do you bother saving the helpless? They’re all dying one day at a time anyway.”

“Frankly, I’m too tired and too full,” I lied. “Now that the cemetery is quiet, I need sleep.”

Reedrek, still wobbling on his feet, was little help in lifting the ten-foot concrete slab that covered the opening to a family crypt. I, on the other hand, felt as if I could stack the automobiles parked along the street into one glorious pile if I chose.

Under no circumstances would I be able to sleep.

Reedrek crawled down next to the dusty bones of the other long-dead occupants. He passed out as soon as he achieved a prone position. The sight of him so helpless brought back my hatred, and I thought I should kill him then and take him to hell myself. But first I had to see Eleanor a final time. If Reedrek killed me on the morrow, I would have had one last grand night of living. The least I could do, however, was to leave the tomb open in hopes the sun would catch him unawares. As my lust pounded with new urgency, I upended the massive slab of stone, leaving my not-so-loving sire under the stars. Then I practically flew down the sidewalk to Eleanor.

I took a seat on the chair next to Eleanor’s bed, thankful that she was alone. I’d already done more than my share of killing for the night. I needed a different sort of exercise. Besides, killing Eleanor’s paying customers was bad for her business. Not part of our oh-so-civilized arrangement. Heat radiated from my skin in such thick waves that I thought surely it must wake her. It did cause her to sigh in her sleep and push the covers off, baring her body to my gaze. It surprised me that she wore a man’s long-sleeved dress shirt. I would’ve thought a woman in her profession would sleep naked. Then, with an even more surprising jolt of pleasure, I realized the shirt was one of my own. Lucky shirt. Not a problem; she would be naked soon enough.

As I rose from the chair intent on waking her, she startled and sat up as though I’d already touched her from across the room. Perhaps my mind had called out since my body had been so preoccupied by thoughts of her.

“Who is it?” she asked, then coyly pulled the sheets over her bare legs with her left hand. Her sleepy vulnerability heightened my wanting.

You’ve already guessed,
I whispered in my mind,
have you not?

“William?” she responded. Then she flicked on a light. Eleanor gasped when she saw me. “What—what’s happened to you?” She actually sounded afraid. Although she’d always been a good actress, this seemed real.

I moved over next to her, doing my utmost to keep my feet on the floor. I sat down on the bed. Instead of sliding into my arms, she leaned away from me, staring. “You look so different—and the blood—” Her empty hand fluttered toward my chest.

“Do I? Look different?” Without the sometimes handy advantage of a reflection, I couldn’t tell. I knew I felt different. My arteries were singing through heated muscles, my hard-won control balanced on a knife edge.

“Your eyes, they—” She looked away.

I brought one hand up to cup her cheek and noticed that I had blood under my fingernails. There’d been no time to mimic respectability by cleaning up. No telling what I looked like—or smelled like. My senses were overrun with the scent and taste of new blood, and now of sex.

Now,
my body howled.

“I’m here to play,” I said, pushing my fingers into her hair.

She tentatively placed her hand over mine, looking uneasy. Perhaps my appearance made our game all too real. “Why don’t I draw you a bath? Fix the cut on your chest—”

I pulled free and shrugged out of my coat. “No time for that, my girl.”
Now, now, now!
“The sun will be rising soon.” In a trice I was naked. I ripped the shirt from her with my teeth.

She screamed when I entered her. She dug her fingernails into my hot skin, but I barely felt her struggle. She belonged to me and I would fuck her at my leisure, although there was nothing leisurely about the way I pounded into her. She screamed again and I came in a gasping, bucking two-minute interval, remaining hard and full inside her afterward.

I held her pinned to the sheets beneath me. She’d stopped struggling. Her heart beat against my chest like pounding fists. Finally, she shifted.

“Let me,” she said, pushing against my weight until I turned over. I brought her with me, still impaled. I pushed my hands upward along her belly and breasts, caressing the snake tattoo from tail to snout. I slid my fingers around her hips and tugged her downward. She squirmed and grimaced slightly before giving me a tentative smile, more like her old self. Shrugging out of my restraining grip she began her own rhythm, and soon we were both winded, straining toward another peak. With her hands flat on my shoulders she spiraled into a long back-arching orgasm, and I followed.

“Your skin is like fire,” she managed as she slid off me.

I stared at the ornate crown molding along the ceiling.
It’s the blood, it’s the killing. It’s who I really am.
Those words were not for her ears. But her body tensed as though the truth had passed from my hot skin to hers. I pushed up on one elbow and gazed down at her. “I’ve had an interesting evening,” I remarked.

“I can see that,” she said, as one finger slid across the already healing cut on my chest.

I could damn well guarantee she wouldn’t want to know the details. In an effort to distract her, I ran a hand down her belly, sinking fingers between her thighs. I worked the wetness I found there before confessing, “I think I missed you.”

“You th-think?” She sighed and opened her legs, an invitation for more exploration.

I sank my fingers deeper and looked downward to enjoy the sight of my hand fondling her sex. That’s when I saw that the wetness I’d felt was blood. Her thighs were red with it. Something gripped my stomach. “I’ve hurt you,” I said, unable to take my eyes off the sweet redness.

She slowly pushed herself up and followed my gaze. “Yes,” she answered, dropping back to lie flat. “Don’t really care—not now.” She moved her hips against my hand.

“Let me make it better,” I offered. Without waiting for a reply I grasped her hips and lifted her higher on the bed. Then I set my tongue to work on the blood. It tasted of her and of me. Perhaps I’d come blood after overfeeding. Whatever the case, she was soon moaning from my ministrations. In normal times this would have been a dangerous pastime for me—starved for human blood, this would have been the ultimate temptation. But tonight I was satiated, and the small amount of blood I licked and sucked from her skin seemed more like dessert after a twelve-course meal. Sweet and stimulating. Obviously, she agreed on the matter of stimulation, since she came hard once again, against my tongue.

Afterward, I carried her to the bath and we soaked for a short time. She still seemed a little wary of me, but not so much that she wasn’t happy to wash away any signs of blood or dust from my skin. She washed my hair with her clever fingers and I was beginning to think of tumbling her again when I felt a presence near.

I rinsed quickly and snatched the towel Eleanor offered. But instead of letting her dry me, I went to the window and looked out. I could feel the sun, less than an hour away, rising to drive me back to the darkness. My sire came to mind, and I did my best to envision him burning to cinders under a bloodred sunrise. If there were any mercy in the universe he would die a miserable death and vanish into hell where he belonged. A chill ran through me like an ill-omened wind. His evil was close and choking. I scanned the shrubbery in the side yard, where I saw him, leaning on the wrought-iron fence. He was waiting for me.

Reedrek.

I pulled on my pants, prepared to go out and face him. Suddenly there was a knock downstairs on the front door.

“No!” I shouted. In my haste to prevent Reedrek from entering, I grasped Eleanor’s locked bedroom door and yanked. The door burst from the hinges and I shoved it away, making it down the stairs in three long strides, just as one of Eleanor’s girls sleepily reached the front entrance.

“Do not open that door,” I ordered.

Her hands immediately fell back to her sides. The knock sounded again, more insistent. The girl, Tami I think, looked up at me, then up the stairs. I followed her gaze to find Eleanor, wrapped in one of her satin bedsheets, standing on the first landing. It would do no good to try to keep him away from her now. The damage was done. I’d allowed my lust to disarm me. Could I have been a bigger fool?

“Back away,” I said, and gave Tami a little shove before unlocking the door and swinging it open myself.

Reedrek smiled.

I turned to Eleanor and in my most persuasive, mind-shifting tone said, “This man is never to be invited into this house. Do you understand?” Both she and Tami nodded. “Warn all the others.”

“Dear William, I thought we were just getting to be friends again and now this. You leave me out in the open with no care for my safety. You won’t even introduce me to your playthings.”

“We were
never
friends.”

His smile and good manners disappeared. He reached through the opening and dragged me outside. I could smell his skin smoking from the action. Having crossed an uninvited threshold, he was burning.

“Stay in this house!” I managed to shout back to Eleanor as I struggled with Reedrek. We rose into the air, him in his element, me grappling with my rising anger. Instead of helping my cause, leaving the ground only worked in Reedrek’s favor. He dragged me, barefoot and shirtless, into the waning dark and all I could think about was what he would certainly do to Eleanor after he’d finished with me.

Jack

A shaft of light pierced my eyelids and I flung my forearm over my face. “Hey!” I protested. I squinted one eye open just enough to see who’d rudely awakened me. “Olivia. Where the hell have you been?”

“Cheers to you too,” Olivia said airily. She wrapped her arms around Rehya—now in four-legged form, signaling that it was daytime—and dragged her from the coffin. “Out, Lassie,” she said.

Reyha landed on her feet after a catlike save in midair. She whined and retreated to the ottoman where I had tried to finish vampirizing Shari the night before.

Rehya rested her sleek head on her paws and stared at me. The only thing that would distract her was if William came in, at which time she would shift her undivided attention to him.

Olivia had some kind of wild light in her eyes. It occurred to me that she might have come under Reedrek’s thrall. I knew I couldn’t trust her—not that I trusted her all that much to begin with—and I found myself wondering who would win a catfight (if you’ll pardon the expression) between a two-thousand-year-old Egyptian mystic attack dog and a strong female vampire. I shuddered just thinking about the possibility of having to sic Reyha on Olivia.
When Supernaturals Attack.
Even Fox wouldn’t put that show on television.

Olivia crawled into my coffin, a come-hither look on her face. She straddled me and began to massage my bare chest. “I guess since my box is occupied, you’ll just have to share yours.” She inclined her head toward the coffin that contained Shari’s body. “I saw there’s a Goldilocks in my bed. No matter. I’ll play Mama Bear to your Papa Bear. Who is she, anyway?”

I swallowed hard as she tweaked my nipples none too gently. “Her name is Shari. I tried to make her into a vampire last night and it didn’t work. She’s dead. Really dead.”

As quick as a flash Olivia’s demeanor changed. Her flirtatious smile disappeared; her vermilion-painted mouth became a grim line. She sprang back onto the floor, landing on her high snakeskin heels. She walked over to her coffin and, taking a moment to steel herself, raised the lid. I went to stand beside her as she somberly studied Shari’s body.