Dracula Unleashed (3 page)

She thought of how barbaric she must look, her black hair spread across the white linens of their bed, her mother's heavy gold and ruby necklace clasped around her neck. Rubies the size of pigeon eggs decorated her ankles and chimed together as she urged him on. Her men liked the look of her draped in the jewels she had carried over the years.

Preening a little, she teased him with the draw of her nails across his bunched shoulders. She'd had her entire life to dream of what kinds of sex she wanted. Her uninhibited partners had met every idea she had thrown at them with genuine enthusiasm.

“Hell, yes,” he muttered, arching into her touch. She scratched him harder, leaving red marks along his ribs.

A groan from the other side of the bedroom heightened their excitement. John and Valerie turned their heads in unison to admire the third person in the room. Their lover, Lance Soliel, struggled against the twining black ropes that held him fast to a wooden chair.

The bondage outlined his muscular shoulders and brick-hard belly. His thighs bunched and pressed against the chair's seat. Valerie could tell from the movements of his biceps that he struggled against the knots holding his hands behind his back. She flickered her tongue at him through her fangs.

His cock was flushed the same purple as his face, setting his arctic ice-blue eyes aflame. His erection arched toward his belly, and a pool of sweat and pre-ejaculate decorated his flat stomach.

Lastly, a black ring gag kept his mouth open, leaving him only the use of his tongue.

Valerie's slick pussy testified to Lance's oral skills. John had taken his turn demanding the wet devotion of Lance's tongue until the two of them could not resist the need to fuck.

Her dead heart could not swell or heat or grow as humans' organs did when they felt profound love. But she could trace the warmth that flooded her bones and eased her self-disgust.

John tilted Valerie's hips up so Lance could get a good view, then penetrated between her flaring labia into the hot clasp of her pussy.

John settled his cock deep inside of her. Rolling his hips in figure eights, he reached for the vibrator on the side table and flicked the switch.

Valerie pushed at him. The loss of self-control frightened her.

“No,
non.
” He wagged the long white handle like a father would wag a finger at a naughty child. “I like this. I want this. Give it to me.”

She was no coward. She would face the fear of her flashbacks. Valerie closed her eyes.

The vibrator ripped through the barriers of her mind. With a cry like stone cracking, she orgasmed.

After the ropes were undone, after the cuddling, the three fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

She woke with the taste of old rotten blood in her mouth.

Without disturbing her men, she slinked out the open window.

The disgusting images never stopped. Valerie wanted to dig her eyes out, throw herself on a stake, even beg Lucifer for the ability to forget. She ran faster, pushing the edges of her speed. She sucked in air.

Valerie might have been transformed from a vampire to something unheard of, but oxygen was still an intoxicant. Vampires on oxygen were known to lose control of their judgment. As if she had taken a shot of cocaine directly to her brainstem, her nerves screamed, as raw as though they had been sandpapered. Her eyes bulged.

At three in the morning, Lake Geneva transformed from a deep, cold blue into luscious purples and greens. The urban glow of the city spread like a lighthouse over the water and shed illumination upon the nearly vertical mountains. The bucolic glory of central Europe never failed to inspire awe in any beholder.

The boulders and lichen of the tree line gave way to the edge of the snowpack. Her bare feet made no indentation on the fresh powder.

Valerie wanted to forget. She would erase the memory of Mina's dying face. But it was acid-etched into the bottomless depths of her sick mind. She flowed across the rooftops of downtown, the colored lights sending aurora-like colors across the water. She jumped from building to building, landing with light feet that never stumbled. Valerie's undead muscles didn't burn from the exertion; after all, that required a metabolism. Her body went numb from the brutal pace. Grief gripped her throat as tightly as a barbwire noose. The nausea did not abate.

Valerie shook with unleashed horror that did not let her sleep.

 

 

Lance liked sleeping. It was a comfortable holdover from his recent human past. The press of his spouses' skin grounded him, gave him peace after he plunged into horror to find those lost in fear.

Sometimes, sleeping was not all it was cracked up to be.

“Where's Nelson?”
Lance demanded.

Lance's head jerked on the pillow as though he had been electrocuted. Annoyed, John Janté threw an arm over his husband's chest. “Will you two crazy kids let me sleep?”

“Sorry, sweets.” Lance's human guise rippled, revealing wings of majestic gold and white. “Work calls.”

The Angel of the Lost dropped a quick peck on John's lips and disappeared.

“Merde.”
John wrapped his blanket over his head and tried to go back to sleep. One would think angels moved as silently as an owl on the hunt, but no. Whenever his husband traveled the cosmic pathways, electricity buzzed through the apartment, frying all the fuses and stinking up the place with ozone.

Fortunately, Valerie had left the window open after herself. He groaned. Two weeks straight of her running away instead of asking for help. It had to stop, but how the hell does one discuss PTSD with a vampire? He punched his pillow. Why the hell hadn't he settled down with a well-adjusted mortal or two? Why an angel who vanished at the drop of a feather, a vampire who could never ask for help, and a child who could read minds?

From the nursery, Minerva whimpered. John sat up, wide awake. She had made a noise!

“Dad?”
she whispered in his mind.
“Where is everyone?”

Hurrying, he fumbled into his slippers and robe.

The latch on the baby's door stuck for a moment; then John shuffled into the room. Little Minerva's big blue eyes tracked him as he crossed to her crib. He lifted her from beneath her armpits, her orange fuzzy onesie tickling his chest.

“I am right here,
chérie.
” He sat on the rocking chair and patted her back.

“Then all shall be well,”
the child murmured, and tucked her head under his chin. Her renewed contentment reverberated in his mind.

Yes. This was why he wanted the life he had. How would he ever be satisfied without a child who could speak telepathically, a wife who had fought for him, and a husband who gave succor to those lost?