Darkness In The Flames (15 page)

Local lore was full of such tales, and she’d paid little attention to most of them. Now, however, she was confronted with something that might be a great deal more real than some distant fairy tale.

And a great deal more dangerous.

She clung to Adrian and her movements attracted the woman’s attention.

“Your little pet is scared.” The words were a sneer. “Shall I make her like us? Shall I drink her blood then leave her to an eternity of damnation? Or shall I drain her dry and toss her carcass into some ditch?” She tapped long fingers against her fangs. “So many choices. It is good to have so many choices.”

Her smile was wickedness and sensuality made flesh, and even Katherine found herself attracted sexually by this repellant creature. There was a magic about her, an aura that warmed the body and the senses. A fragrance that aroused, an air of repressed hunger—it was not hard to see how she could seduce any and all men who glanced her way.

But it appeared that tonight Adrian was immune to those charms. “You will not touch her, Thérèse.” His voice was unyielding and for a brief moment, Katherine could have sworn she saw confusion cross Thérèse’s face.  “You will not touch her, have her, drink from her or do anything else to her.” He was stern, cold and definitive. There was no room for negotiation with this man.

“I shall do as I please.” Thérèse blinked at Adrian, totally ignoring Katherine.

“Not
this
time.”

Katherine risked a glance at Adrian and noticed that his fangs had emerged. She was neither surprised nor horrified. On him, they seemed to be a part of his essence. They were not to be feared, nor welcomed—they just
were
. She should have been shocked, she supposed, but this entire experience was so unreal, there was little left inside her to be scared.

The duel of words continued.

“And you think you could stop me?” Thérèse tipped her chin upwards, challengingly.

“Yes.” Adrian tensed even more. “You are nothing but an evil bitch with a malevolent power you use for your own ends. Whatever devil inhabits you will eventually tire of your lustful ways.
You
will end up that carcass in the ditch and I shall be happy to crush what’s left of you under my boot.”

Incredibly, Thérèse laughed. “Such bravado, dear one. Let’s see if your words change after I’ve fed from this creature…”

Adrian linked his hand with Katherine’s and lifted them both to his lips. “Never, Thérèse. It will never happen.”

She sneered back at him and reached toward Katherine. Who jumped. She simply could not help herself. The slight movement pushed her hand into Adrian’s mouth and his fangs pierced her skin. It might all be a dream, but the wound felt real enough.

Adrian’s tongue licked at the tiny puncture, soothing it and wiping away the blood.

A fire spread into Katherine’s body at his touch, a warmth that had everything to do with Adrian, his fangs and her blood. She shuddered.

Adrian shuddered too, an arrested expression in his eyes.

Thérèse frowned and reached for Katherine once more, but before she could move more than a few inches, Adrian lifted his hand in a gesture of protection.

Thérèse gasped and fell back, staggering a little as she caught her feet on the tumbled limbs of her male victims.

Katherine blinked and Adrian—Adrian licked her hand once more, his tongue soft and loving as it roamed over her knuckles. He finished with a quick kiss. “Apparently we have a magic that is ours alone, my Kat.”

His whisper made no sense. “I don’t understand…” Her gaze was fixed on the furious face of Thérèse who now made no pretense of hiding her anger.

“Neither do I.” Adrian held himself still.

“Can we leave, Adrian? Can we awaken? I would like to go back to St. Chesswell now, please.” Katherine trembled, chilled and afraid of what she saw in the other woman’s eyes.

“I don’t know.” He moved a little. “Stand behind me, Kat. Let me protect you.”

“
Let me protect you…
” Thérèse sneered the words in a high-pitched voice. “Impossible. She will be mine every bit as completely as you are mine, Jadranko.” She threw herself back down onto the two men waiting eagerly on the grass.

Katherine watched, tucked in back of Adrian, just peeping around his arm to see—to see Thérèse as she began fucking them.

With deliberate movements, she grabbed a cock and straddled the man, making sure her audience could see every fleshy fold and glistening curve of her body. She smiled wickedly as she slid her silky sheath down over the hard length, moaning in delight as she was filled. “So good. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

Adrian shifted. “I can’t move, dammit.”

Katherine tried too, although she had no idea how to accomplish something as definitive as movement when she existed solely in a dream state. “Neither can I.”

A laugh followed her words. “You are mine. As are
you
…” Thérèse reached for the second man and to Katherine’s horror, she pulled his chest to the fangs that gleamed so sharply. “Jadranko. Do you remember? Why do you not come to me in the—dare I say it—
flesh?
” She chuckled.

“That’s
it
. She cannot harm us, Kat. We are not real. She wants us, but does not know how to find us. She attempts to lure me, she always has.” Adrian’s whisper was firm and his body a barrier between Katherine and the evil in front of them.

But he could not stop the sight of Thérèse from branding itself into Katherine’s brain.

Fucking one man and biting another.

The feeding had begun, a slurping, greedy sound emanating from Thérèse’s mouth as she began to drain blood from her victim.

Her hips rose and fell, grinding her pussy into the sex of the man beneath her. The man in front of her orgasmed as she fed, his seed flying from his cock to dapple the limbs in front of it. He cried out, his head falling backwards and his mouth wide, shaking with the force of his climax, his balls hard, cock throbbing and spurting gleaming milky strands of life towards the woman who drank so copiously from his breast.

His hands fluttered limply, and yet she continued. His eyelids fell, covering his eyes as they rolled upwards, and yet she continued.

His body sagged, but Thérèse held him erect. And she still continued.

She drank and drank and sometime during her feast she orgasmed around the cock beneath her. Katherine could see the shimmers and spasms of climax as they rippled through Thérèse, and the thighs of the man beneath her twitched and heaved as he cried out his pleasure.

And still she fed, fangs buried deeply in her victim’s chest.

Katherine’s breath all but left her lungs as Thérèse finally ripped her face free and let the man fall in a heap to the ground. Blood coated the beautiful face, dripping freely down to spatter the white skin and the full breasts. An expression of pleasure crossed Thérèse’s face, a grimace of satisfaction that chilled Katherine more than anything she’d ever seen.

“Mmm.” Thérèse licked her lips, savoring the droplets of blood that remained. “So good. So tasty.” She narrowed her eyes and stared at Adrian and Katherine. “And to think I have dessert waiting for me.” She glanced over her shoulder at the man lying prone beneath her, then looked back up.

“I can’t wait until I have the two of you here with me. ‘Twill be the sweetest feast of all. And we shall take our time, shan’t we, my love?” She stared at Adrian. “We shall relish each and every moment of your little friend’s pleasure. You shall fuck us both, and perhaps I might even let her fuck me with her tongue while you watch. You’d like that, wouldn’t you,
darling
?”

Once more the fangs shone, this time against the dark curtain of blood that draped her face. “You will come to me. It may take time, but you will come. You cannot resist my powers. And I have all the time in the world. And if you do not come to me…why then perhaps I shall come to you. As I said, we have plenty of time.” She looked at Katherine. “Of course,
she
doesn’t. So you’d better come soon, Jadranko. Come find me. I want to play with you again.” Thérèse sighed. “It’s more fun when there’s someone to share it with, don’t you think?”

She lifted herself off the second victim and stretched. “Mmm. Fucking and feeding in the moonlight.
Soooo
very nice.” The man blinked at her, as if in some kind of stupor. She smiled. “And now to continue. This meal will strengthen me, Jadranko. I chose these two carefully. Lots of lovely fresh blood and hot desires. You
know
what that does to our kind.”

She slid her hands between her legs and smoothed her pussy, sighing with pleasure as her hands reappeared coated with a mix of juices and semen. Leaning down, she wiped them over the naked chest of the man lying helplessly before her, an expression of lust and fear on his face. She knelt beside him and dropped a bloody kiss on his lips. “Don’t worry, darling. I shall not hurt you. I could
never
hurt you.”

The obvious lie grated all the way down Katherine’s spine and she sensed a matching shudder of horror cross Adrian’s flesh. This was truly a demon from Hell come to earth, and Katherine wished for something—a cross perhaps—to intervene. To possibly save this unfortunate man from the fate that had already ended the life of his friend.

But it was to no avail.

Adrian and Katherine were helpless, caught in the appalling agony of this nightmare they shared, forced to watch this evil and wicked creature destroy two innocent lives.

Katherine tried to close her eyes, but even then she could not stop the images from flooding her mind.

Thérèse, licking the liquids from the man’s chest as she rubbed her breasts over his body.

Thérèse, fondling his cock, bringing it from its flaccid state back to a full erection and making him whimper as she did so.

Thérèse, bending her head to his breast and resting her ear there for a moment or two as if listening.

Thérèse, opening her mouth wide—so wide—inhumanly wide—and biting, a harsh ripping of flesh and muscles and cartilage.

And finally, Thérèse, her mouth overflowing with that which had once been a human. Her eyes were wild and burning as they sought the two who watched. She wanted to make sure they could see her. Could see her feed and swallow and drink some more.

She made absolutely sure they had a perfect view of her final triumph.

She dipped her hands into the chest cavity of her victim and tugged.

She withdrew his still-beating heart.

Katherine’s scream boiled from her gut to her throat, and with a horrid lurch she awoke, nestled deep in Adrian’s arms.

She tore herself from the bed, staggered to the far side of the room where the customary screen stood, dashed behind it and vomited.

Chapter Thirteen

Sidney frowned, his thoughts disturbed, his emotions roiling with anger as he listened to what Adrian related. “She wants you, doesn’t she? She thinks of you as hers. Hers to command at will.”

Katherine stared from the window into the darkness. “I had no idea such evil could exist. No idea at all.”

Adrian moved to go to her, but Sidney stayed him with a gesture. Katherine needed a little time to come to terms with all this. As much as Adrian wanted to comfort her, as indeed did Sidney himself, nothing would be gained at this point by pushing the physical on Katherine. She needed to sort out the mental first.

“Sadly, evil is always present in one form or another, Katherine. This—this
creature
—is the worst of the worst, however.” He steepled his fingers together, as was his habit, and stared at her over them. “Now you know what happened to Adrian. Why he cannot move around during the day. Why he does not enjoy meals the way you and I do. And why I am working so hard to find something—anything—that will counteract the poison Thérèse infected him with.”

Katherine turned at that. “Poison? You think she is—venomous?”

“A good word for it…yes.” Sidney nodded. “No matter what the myths would have you believe, Adrian is alive. Blood circulates through his body, although at a greatly reduced speed. His heart beats, but barely, and slower than I had thought humanly possible.”

His gaze fell on Adrian, who remained still in his chair by the fireplace. “It is my belief, backed up by some of my research, that this Thérèse woman contaminated Adrian when she bit him. Her poison—venom, if you like—is strong, very strong indeed. Possibly because she has been doing this for countless eons. Neither of us have any idea how old she might be.”

Katherine nodded. “What you say makes a sort of sense, so far…”

Sidney smiled a little, pleased that Katherine could grasp the essentials so quickly. “Well, I have tried to counteract this agent, this foreign matter that runs through Adrian’s blood. I’ve had some small success. He can eat a little, drink wine and is certainly more
human
—if you’ll permit the expression—than he was when he arrived.”

Adrian looked up at that. “There is something else, Father.” He paused and glanced at Katherine. “Forgive me, Kat. I have to be completely honest with my father. He must know all there is to know if he is to be able to bring me back to the human race.”

“I understand, Adrian. But what…?” She tipped her head in inquiry.

“Father, when Kat and I were—together—earlier tonight, I felt a greater return of…of…my sense of…taste.”

Sidney’s lips twitched as Katherine turned back to the window with a strangled sound of embarrassment. He turned a laugh into a cough. “I see.” Wisely he let the subject pass, merely noting the incident for future consideration. “And you said when you accidentally scratched Katherine’s hand…?”

Adrian frowned. “Yes. That was most odd. Kat jumped, my teeth nicked her skin by mistake and I found a drop of her blood in my mouth.” His eyes turned to the woman just as she turned to him.

Sidney nearly gasped at the emotions they both unwittingly revealed at that moment. Truly, they were meant for each other. Now all he had to do was get them to realize it and figure out a way to keep them both alive. Or as alive as possible.