Resurrection (8 page)

Ged's wealth, and that of other like-minded vampires he persuaded to invest along with him, funded much of the research. His pharmaceutical foundation, which he named after his birthplace, spearheaded the medical revolution. Human lives were saved, and in return Ged had ready access to all the blood products he needed.

He could concentrate on living, not merely surviving. At last, immortality was worth having.

It was a contented vampire, therefore, who strolled the perimeter of his property that first night, remembering the scenes of his earliest years. His life before Lilia had in many ways been a simple existence, but he had been happy enough. He gazed over the lake and remembered learning to fish there. His father's steward had been his mentor and friend, and he recalled the pride with which he bore his first decent trout up the hill to the castle. The cook baked it in pastry and he remembered vividly the succulent taste as he chewed on it. He rarely consumed food nowadays, had no need of it, but perhaps if he could manage to drag another trout like that from these calm waters, he might make an exception.

Ged turned and made his way back up the hillside toward his new home, detouring to admire once more the fine new structure Sven had designed to house the motor bikes he had shipped from New York and the smart BMW he had purchased as soon as he relocated to the UK. The garage was built of traditional stone, much of it no doubt originally part of the castle itself but which had been scattered across the surrounding landscape as the ruins were raided by locals in search of building materials. The stone had been reclaimed, or at least enough to construct the garage and the stable block which was next door. He had still to acquire a horse, but would deal with that as a matter of priority. Perhaps he might breed horses here—fine horseflesh had been an abiding passion of his.

He hummed as he made his way back into his comfortable, modern pod. Yes, life was good. Certainly, it was better than the alternative.

January 2013

"Shall I see you next week, Sir?"

"Maybe. I'll text you." Ged thought it unlikely, he was no real fan of scening with the same sub more than a few times, and this was Suzette's fourth visit to his castle in as many weeks. She was stunning to look at, responsive, obedient for the most part. He had no real complaints, but his interest was waning and he suspected hers was too. He helped the petite submissive back into her lightweight overcoat which fully concealed her fetish wear underneath. She belted the coat and shrugged.

Suzette was a realist, he knew. She wasn't about to make a fuss and if either of them ever fancied a re-run, for old times' sake, that would be fine. His companion hardly even winced when he patted her bottom as they exited his home, though he knew she must be sore. The caning he'd administered had been a beauty. They'd both had a good time and her arse was a fine sight, all shades of pink and crimson.

Suzette was human. Most of his submissives were, although he'd had some pretty spectacular encounters with vampire females and they were his preference. Vampires were hardy. As a Dom he was always careful and sensitive to his subs' needs, but humans were flimsy creatures, requiring extra vigilance and he had to be certain they would use a safe word. Vampires were more fun. He could relax with them and not be scared of doing some damage by accident, but they were just a bit too thin on the ground. Most of the women he met who shared his kink were of the more fragile variety, though as humans went Suzette was pretty damned good.

He found himself reconsidering. Perhaps one last time?

"Take care, Sir. It's been nice." Suzette paused by the open door of her car and stretched up on tiptoe to kiss his mouth. Ged responded, and in seconds she was plastered across the bonnet, her legs spread wide as he rammed his cock into her slick channel. He offered up thanks that she hadn't been too bothered about putting her underwear back on when he released her from the spanking bench, then he lost himself in the moment.

His fangs dropped. It was an involuntary response the instant his dick slid into her hot, greedy cunt and she quivered around him. He could just about prevent the reaction if he concentrated hard enough, but he enjoyed the thrill of risk. He scraped his elongated canines across her unprotected throat. In the old days he might have sunk them in, savouring the sweet tang of warm blood loaded with endorphins, but not any longer. Not for years now had he forgotten himself to that extent. Ged liked to think of himself as a more refined class of vampire these days, though on occasions his resolve could slip. Mercifully for his accommodating little sub, this wasn't one of them. But he came close.

He drove his cock deep, shuddering with the sheer joy of it. She was tight, hot, gasping his name. He looped his arms under Suzette's knees to splay her thighs yet more and lifted her up to meet his plunging thrusts. His balls contracted, drawing up hard to eject a stream of hot cum into her already well-fucked pussy as she spasmed around his cock.

Slowly, he lowered her feet back to the gravel. She was gasping, breathless, but with a smile as wide as the acres surrounding his ancestral home.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like me to call round next week? It'd be no trouble, Sir."

He bent his head to lean his forehead against hers and gave that prospect some careful thought. It was the slow, aching retraction of his fangs which finally made up his mind. If he carried on fucking this one, it was only a matter of time before...

Best not.

He stepped back and re-opened the car door which had been slammed shut when he shoved Suzette up onto the bonnet. He offered her a polite bow as he helped her inside and leaned across her to fasten her seatbelt.

"Goodbye, Suzette. And yes, it has been nice. Take care of yourself."

He watched the tail lights disappear along the narrow lane leading from his isolated home to the main road, and realised how cold he was. Ged liked the cold. He infinitely preferred it to the sweaty heat of the summer, but still…

Suzette must have been fucking freezing. Ah well, she could turn up her heating now in the snazzy little Mazda she liked to drive.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and glanced up at the sky. Clouds scudded across the moon and a truly bitter wind was getting up, but he decided he'd take a turn around his property anyway. At a brisk walk he headed for the ruined tower on the outer curtain wall of his castle. There was decent view from up there.

*****

"What the fuck's she doing there?"

Ged pulled the collar of his sheepskin flying jacket up around his neck and turned his back on the biting wind now swooping across from the north. He peered down from his vantage point, perched on the highest remaining pinnacle of his derelict north tower, to survey the scene before him. It was almost eleven o'clock on a cold early January night. The weather remained dry and crisp, though snow threatened which in this wind meant a blizzard. The sky had been clearer earlier in the evening but the gathering clouds now blotted out most of the moonlight. Still, Ged's acute night vision was more than equal to the task and he could easily pick out the woman apparently taking a nap on the meadow beside his lake. She looked to be wearing something long and white and vaguely floaty, and certainly not suitable for the plummeting temperatures. Humans were a fragile bunch, but despite their physical frailty he had often observed they could be incredibly foolhardy. No doubt his unwelcome visitor would be some drunk who had probably wandered up here from the village. It was almost two miles, but still. Perhaps the New Year's celebrations had dragged on a few extra days.

Whatever, this woman was bloody trespassing and he wasn't having that. Ged valued his privacy. More than a little irritated, he stepped off the crumbling edge of the tower. He dropped the twenty or so feet to the ground, landing lightly on the balls of his feet, then set off down to the lake to sort the matter out.

As he got closer, intending to drag the woman to her feet then order her off his property, Ged could see that his unexpected intruder was not moving. Indeed, she showed no signs of life at all.

"Shit!" He broke into a run.

The woman lay face down in the damp grass, unmoving. As he crouched beside her he realised two things. The first was that she was alive. He could hear her heartbeat, faint, but it was there. Just. The second thing he took in at first glance, her clothes were dripping wet.

Christ, had she fallen in the lake?
Ged stood and gazed around him for any signs of others nearby. If she had somehow ended up in the lake she couldn't have got out of the water alone, surely? Had she been attacked? Had someone dumped her here on his doorstep, like some sacrificial virgin from a bygone, more superstitious age? He saw no one, though the glint of metal caught his eye. There was something lying in the grass a few feet from them. Ged looked closer. It was a candlestick, just a single candelabrum, made of some sort of alloy he guessed.

A soft moan by his feet stirred his sense of urgency. If the human female was going to survive this experience, he needed to get her out of this biting wind and warmed up. Fast.

"Miss, can you hear me?" He crouched beside her again and laid his hand on her shoulder. She shuddered, and moaned softly.

"Miss, can you tell me your name? How did you get here?"

There was more incoherent muttering from the barely conscious female, but nothing he could make sense of. She seemed familiar, though he couldn't quite place her. Maybe he'd caught sight of her on one of his infrequent forays into the nearby village. He had made no real attempt to get to know his neighbours, though he was aware of some considerable interest among the locals in the barmy sod who'd bought the old castle and actually moved in there. Perhaps she was just a curious villager, a snooper who had met with some sort of mishap.

Her hair was matted, as though she'd just risen from her bed, and it was caught back into a long plait. Women in the twenty-first century rarely allowed their hair to grow so long, but this woman's tresses reached her waist, and the colour was a glorious dark red. Surely he'd have remembered that if he'd met her previously.

His hands gentle, he ran them down her ribs and spine, carrying out a quick, cursory check for injuries. He had had some human medical training, though that was over a century ago and he certainly did not consider himself any sort of physician. He could, however, detect the heat given off from the site of a serious injury such as a fracture or bad sprain, and if he had discovered anything of the sort he would not have moved her. Finding nothing to alarm him unduly he took hold of her by the shoulders and rolled her onto her back.

"Holy fuck!" He breathed the curse as he gazed down into delicate, perfect features he had not seen for over five centuries. "Jane?"

It couldn't be. Jane had perished half a millennium ago. His wife had disappeared from his castle in the night. Her body was never found despite weeks of searching. There was no way this woman could be his Janey, but Christ, she looked exactly like her. A descendant, perhaps?

No, Jane had had no children. There were relatives, but none who inhabited these parts as far as he knew, though he had sort of lost touch for a while.

The woman's eyelids fluttered, her lips parted as though she was about to speak. Ged leaned in.

"Miss, you've had an accident. You fell in the lake but you're safe now."

Well, more or less. The presence of a horny vampire would only count as a problem if he was in a bad mood, or hungry. Thanks to the lovely Suzette and a fridge full of blood he was neither at the moment. "I'm going to take you inside where it's warm, then I'll call you an ambulance."

"What? Why are you..." Her voice was breathy, the merest whisper. Had he been blessed with less sensitive hearing Ged might not have caught her words at all.

"You're safe now. I'll take care of you." Well, he'd see her safely into the keeping of others who would. That amounted to much the same thing in Ged's estimation. He gathered her into his arms and stood up. As an afterthought he turned and retrieved the candelabrum too.

The woman was slender and light, it required little enough of his vampire strength or stamina to carry her up the grass banking in the direction of his home.

"Sir? My lord?"

What? Ged halted in his tracks, even turned to look behind him. The voice was so clear, and so achingly familiar. When he could finally do no other he inclined his face to gaze into the smoky grey eyes of the woman in his arms.

"What did you call me?"

"My lord? I apologise, I did not mean to cause you such nuisance."

"Do you know me?"

She frowned up at him, blinking in confusion. "Of course I do, my lord. You are Gerard, Earl of Roseworth. My husband."

*****

What. The. Fuck
?
It was all Ged could do to complete the short distance to his home. He elbowed the door open and bundled the shivering woman inside, then dumped her without ceremony onto his sofa. His mind was in overdrive as he assessed the possibilities.

She was a witch. She had to be, though he could detect none of the usual low level hum given off by magical beings. He wasn't personally acquainted with that many witches, but those he did know all gave off that same tell tale signature vibration. Some even glowed ever so slightly. He knew that many had the ability to alter their features to resemble another, though he had never encountered one who could mimic a voice so perfectly too. And mannerisms. This little female had looked right at him, her expression one of nervousness and hope. Janey invariably wore such a look.

This female was an impostor, she had to be. But how did she come to know so accurately what his long-dead wife had looked like? Even he would have struggled to bring her features so vividly to mind. Ged intended to find out.

He stood over the woman, glaring down at her. She peered up at him, her face quivering in a nervous smile. As he furrowed his brow, pondering what he might need to actually do to her in order to get at the truth, the female's teeth actually chattered.

Shit. She was no good to him with a dose of double pneumonia.

"Wait there. I'll get you a dry blanket or something." He strode across the room towards the open staircase which led to the upper floor, pausing only to call over his shoulder. "Twenty three centigrade." His voice-controlled air-conditioning revved into overdrive to raise the temperature within his pod. He hadn't the slightest notion what was happening here, but witch or not he was not about to allow the girl to freeze to death in his care. Imagine trying to explain that to the human authorities.

When he returned clutching a duvet he'd dragged from the spare bed, the wench was huddling in the corner of his sofa. Her eyes were wide, she was plainly terrified. She gazed around her, then her eyes snapped back to him as he clattered back down the timber staircase.

"What manner of place is this, my lord? Why have you brought me here?"

"It's... it's where I live." Ged chose his words with care. Every instinct he possessed was on red alert, screaming at him to proceed with the utmost caution.

"But, your home is at Roseworth. You are lord there. This is... this is..." She stopped, clearly at a loss for any vocabulary to describe her current surroundings.