Min's Vampire (6 page)

He cried out as he came, punching his
hardness into her with the heat of his release. Min felt herself
break apart with violent shudders. Her final climax welled up
inside her and washed over her like a tidal wave.

The vampire broke off their kiss. His
eyes were still stained the color of blood, and his expression was
not of a man who’d just climaxed during sex. The vampire was still
hungry. The mind-blowing sex had done nothing to slake his
appetite.

Min could tell he was trying
desperately to make his fangs come out. If he could, he would drink
her dry, leaving nothing left. But Min’s spell held fast, and he
soon realized how futile it was—which seemed to thoroughly piss the
vampire off.

“
Damn it to hell!” he hissed
as he pulled himself from inside her and rolled away off the bed.
Standing there completely naked, he threw his fist up in the air
and cursed god and the heavens for their treachery. “What the fuck
do you want from me?”

Min was enjoying the view. Ancient
corpse or not, his fine young body jiggled in all the right places.
The sight of him made her wish he were a mortal lover, not an
undead homicidal demon.

But that is exactly what he
is!
a fierce voice thundered in her head.
She knew exactly who it was, and she refused to see her
grandmother’s spirit, or to acknowledge her.
A filthy, soulless demon!

She communed with her grandmother on
special occasions, even more often since her mother was in stasis.
She was the reason Min knew that Katarina was not in the spirit
realms.

That will be quite
enough,
she thought back at her
grandmother’s ghostly voice.

“
It’s time for you to take
your leave, vampire.” Min gathered the bedsheet about her and
padded across her bedroom and stopped for a brief moment to touch
his bare shoulder. His eyes flickered with red fire, but his face
seemed confused.

Min moved to the window and pulled it
up with one hand. Smiling she said, “I’m revoking your invitation.
Get out.”

As if something invisible were pulling
him, the vampire awkwardly staggered to the window and ducked
through it, stepping onto the roof outside. Min gathered up his
clothes and tossed them through the threshold of the
window.

“
Thank you, vampire…I needed
that.” She slid the window closed, threw the latch and locked it.
She looked one last time at the naked, seething vampire before
pulling the drapes shut.

Chapter 7

Luca stood on the shingled roof and
stared, incensed, at the point where the witch had disappeared
behind her curtain. The show was over, he was naked and still
starving, and she was no doubt laughing in her bedroom—laughing at
him!

Filthy, gypsy whore!
he thought as he pulled his clothes on.
I’ll rip her pretty throat out…gorge on her blood
and snap every bone in her…in her luscious, beautiful body…starting
with her neck!

His mind raced with all the things he
wanted to do to her. Torture her, kill her, strangle her until she
was at death’s door, then let her lovely neck go so she could
revive…then do it all over again.

How dare any human think she
could use me—a vampire—as a sex toy!

She will pay…I will kill her
and every living thing in her retched life.

He was so angry, teeth gritted so hard,
he could have broken a fang! Luca pulled on his boots and then his
shirt, and plotted his revenge.

First her mother, and her
grandmother (if the hag still lives), then any siblings or
friends…her dog if she has one, and her physician…her pharmacist
and lawyer…and most assuredly her boyfriend!

The thought of the
witch…of
Min,
having a lover, a man who slept in her bed and fucked her in
that bed…

He punched the stone wall of
the house with the sudden fury that thought elicited in him.
Another man having her? He would not allow it
. She is
mine
now…

Below, a young man passed by across the
street, practically in the very spot Luca had been occupying before
the witch had invited him in…and began her little game.

Luca dropped from the roof and crossed
the street without making a sound, and with such speed he fell into
step beside the young man in an instant. The man was younger than
Luca had been when he’d been changed, no more than a boy of
eighteen. His flaxen hair was shaggy, and his flesh still moist
from a shower, though some scents lingered: the rum he’d drunk, the
girl he’d just been with. He too had just had sex, undoubtedly now
on his way home to pass out in his own bed.

The freshness of the blood that pumped
through his veins was irresistible. The young man turned and looked
at Luca. A small, confused smile pulled at the sides of his mouth
right before Luca reached out and pulled him into the shadow of a
building, then sank his fangs into the boy’s straining throat. Luca
held his victim with one hand against his heaving chest—he could
feel the terrified flutter of his heart—one hand clamped over the
boy’s mouth to muffle his screams. The glut of the boy’s blood
rushed sweet and smooth over his tongue and quenched the hellish
thirst the witch had ignited in him.

The boy tried to push Luca away, but
Luca grabbed his arm and wrenched it away until it
snapped.

As Luca drank, the boy’s body grew limp
and his heart pounded out its final beats. He released his hold on
him and let him crumple to the unforgiving pavement. Luca licked
his lips and breathed in deep gulps of the night air. Though he
didn’t need it, breathing had always given him solace, an almost
physical comfort.

The boy was dead now, his body drained
nearly completely of blood, his skin cold and grayish blue. Usually
Luca would have already surged away through the city on the hunt
for another kill. He always killed two or three a night. But for
some unfathomable reason he stood there in the shadows and stared
down at the boy he’d just killed. The endless possibilities, the
man he could have become…all snuffed out by Luca’s
hunger.

He did not feel badly for what he’d
done—he never did. If anything he was always filled with the desire
to go off and do it again, like an adrenaline rush, but so much the
sweeter. Yet somehow he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the boy
he’d murdered. Something was different, something was wrong. But
whatever it was, be it emotion or something more mentally alarming,
Luca could not guess.

But a compulsion emerged above
everything else: the need to hide the body. To move it somewhere
the witch would not learn of it.

Senseless…

Luca reluctantly leaned down and drew
the boy’s corpse into his arms and slung him haphazardly over his
shoulder, then moved with preternatural speed until he was on the
other side of the city before he dropped the young man’s remains in
the river. He stood on the shore and watched as the black waters
churned the body around in its wake and the current ushered it off.
The body finally sunk about a hundred feet from shore.

Why should I care if the
witch finds out?

The vampire stood there by the shore,
staring out into the night, pondering with great discomfort that
very question.

~*~

Min woke to the sound of rain on her
windowpane. She loved the sound of rain, always had. She could
remember sitting on the front porch with her mother and little
sister, all three of them silently rocking on the swing. The
pattering of raindrops and the sounds of passing cars sluicing the
rain-slicked streets were like a comforting symphony to them. It
had been one of the few things in life that they all shared a love
for.

Min rolled over on her back
and stretching out her arms, back arched, she groaned
contentedly—she was sore, but in a very good way. It had been far
too long since she’d indulged in her physical desires. A voice deep
inside growled that it wouldn’t be the last.
His
scent hit her then—she’d slept the
whole night in it, a sweet, rich aroma that she would have
associated with death, with vampire, but after last night it made
her body heat up in pleasurable anticipation.

She clenched her mouth closed, as well
as her eyes, and held her hands over them in horror. She’d invited
a vampire into her house! Into her very bed! She cried out in
frustration and rolled onto her side. Pangs of regret and guilt
coincided with every little ache and pain her body told her
about.

“
I can never do that again,”
she groaned.

But you can…but you
will…

Min shot upright in bed, rubbed her
eyes and then pulled her long hair back out of her face. She caught
her reflection in the vanity across the room. She was naked, which
she hadn’t been when she went to bed. She remembered slipping into
a new, not nearly seductive nightgown before she shambled herself
into her bed.

She looked down over the edge of the
bed and found her discarded gown. She had the rawest of memories
slide into place, dreams about the vampire, dreams in bathtubs and
in haylofts, and one in a public restroom as others moved
unsuspectingly outside the stall they occupied, as Min and the
vampire silently pushed each other through climax after climax. It
was no wonder, since she’d spent the night rolling around in his
scent like a…it was just too humiliating to think of what it was
like.

She pulled on her bathrobe and then
bound her hair back in a ponytail with a hair band. She padded to
the bathroom and splashed some cold water on her face, then made
her way downstairs. On automatic pilot she started a pot of coffee.
Feeling guilty or not, her stomach was rumbling obscenely, telling
her she was starving. She got out some grapes and pre-sliced
apples, and looked up to the box of bran flakes that she ate every
morning without fail. They looked like little pieces of cardboard
to her today.

She rejected them and opened the
freezer. It was full of things Min would never ordinarily eat, but
today she needed a treat, and a sugar fix, so she riffled through
the gleaming boxes of frozen foods and pulled out waffles you
cooked in the toaster, and a decadent egg, sausage and potato bowl
that boasted sausage gravy and cheddar cheese. She decided she’d
butter and syrup one waffle and then slather the second with the
egg and sausage mix. She set out two plates, poured herself a cup
of coffee, and waited for the toaster to pop, and the microwave to
beep her breakfast’s readiness.

She was halfway through her meal,
alternating between the two plates of food in front of her, when
she heard the scrape of a key and the groan of the back door
opening. In through the pantry trotted her younger sister, Andy,
her hair a shock of auburn curls, face adorably feminine, and her
smile infectiously beautiful. She bounced into the kitchen,
slinging a heavy bag of books onto the floating island Min was
eating at. She had been humming the theme music to Looney Toons
when she abruptly stopped and took in the sight of her sister with
apprehensive eyes. Her dark blue eyes had always made Min think of
stars, as if they were begging for some great artist to paint them
into their midnight blue canvas. She was wearing a tailored jacket
and matching skirt, something you’d expect donned by a librarian.
But no matter what she did with her hair, the unruly brown and red
curls always countered that primness with an untamed
air.

“
You’re not dressed
yet?”

Min nodded as she took a sip of her
coffee. “Very observant of you.”

“
And you’re eating
breakfast! This is very unusual for you.”

Min glared at her. “I eat breakfast
every day, Andy. Lunch and dinner too.”

Andy gave her a glare of her
own.

“
Okay, I might miss a dinner
once in a while.”

“
Liar. I know you don’t do
anything but scour the books after I leave every night.” Min knew
she didn’t mean the business logs, she meant the magick books she’d
been reading nonstop for the last six months, eighteen…now nineteen
days.

How sad was it that she knew so readily
how long it had been?

“
I see you’ve gotten into my
private stash of goodies. How naughty of you.” Andy plucked the
last hunk of the syrup-covered waffle from Min’s plate. “Speaking
of the shop, not going into the store today?”

The shop.
Min had forgotten all about it.

She and Andy ran a small magic shop on
Hagherty Blvd…well, a bookstore upfront, but a magic shop for those
with enough mystical ability to see that the enchanted, beaded
curtain at its back wall wasn’t really just a wall. The veil wasn’t
too powerful, but it kept the non magical shoppers out of the
mystical side of the fence.

Usually both sisters worked the store,
trading off which end they worked based on their moods. They did a
brisk business. Close, but not too close, to both the local
university and to two separate covens. One located on campus, the
other no more than five blocks away in a rundown Victorian the
group was slowly refurbishing.