Mortal Bite (Golden Vampires of Tuscany) (6 page)

Cara awoke to the sound of a car horn blaring. Checking the clock, she
realized she had overslept and missed church. Her head ached, as if she’d been
drugged. Had someone slipped her something in her drink last night?

She felt as if she was exhausted from staying up all night making love.
The feel of a new relationship burned in her belly. As though she’d been
intimate with him. As though he’d seen her naked, seen her full of the hot
pleasure that was her vivid dreams. And he wanted more.

No. I slept alone.
Though she
looked around her bedroom, she found no evidence that he had been there last
night. She discovered her sex was swollen and sensitive when she stroked
herself and discovered she was wet with her own desire. But no man had
penetrated her last night. She’d been alone with her naked fantasies.

Cara ripped herself free from the bed and showered. She put her hair in a
clip and wore her tightest pair of jeans with a small, pink long-sleeved top.
She applied her makeup fast, adding some sparkles to her eyelids and pink cherry
lip-gloss.

Just in case,
she thought as
she smacked her lips together to spread the creamy glitter lip gel.

She was starving and parched for some orange juice and decided to visit a
popular bistro she knew was open for Sunday brunch. She found a corner table in
the shadows, ordered eggs and French press coffee and settled in to listen to
Brazilian love songs and read one of her vampire romance novels.

The hair at the back of her neck and forearms tingled as she read a
steamy scene of blood and sex. The vampire hero became the man she met last
night. He was the one biting her own neck as she writhed under him.

“Cara?” a female voice interrupted.

Cara had been staring into her coffee, leaning on her book, but not
reading, dwelling instead in her own fantasies. She recognized the voice, and
looked up with a smile.

“Valerie. Sorry. I was pretty engrossed in this book.” Cara held it up to
show her friend.

“Hmmm. Let me see that,” the redhead demanded as she pulled it out of
Cara’s hands and began reading where she had left off:

“
His thick cock thrust upwards,
impaling her with his will to possess every inch of her body. At last she felt
the bite on her neck, as he took from her what she had never given before. Her
blood. And with it, he took her heart. Completely.”
Val fanned her face but
remained standing in front of Cara’s table. “You’ll have to lend me this book
when you’re done.”

Cara searched the room, making sure they hadn’t attracted the wrong kind
of attention, and smiled. “At this rate, that’s liable to be tonight. There’s
sex in every chapter.”

“My kind of book,” Val answered. “You sure you won’t give your friend a
little priority claim? I promise to return him in the morning.”

Val meant the hero in the book, but Cara felt possessive of the arms and
eyes of the man she met last night.

“He’s mine,” she said and grabbed her book, placing it in her backpack.
“Come, sit with me. I’m buying.” She motioned to the chair and Val eagerly accepted.

“Thanks.” Her friend leaned her chin onto her laced fingers and searched
Cara’s face. “You have glitter on your forehead. You went to that party last
night with Johnny.”

“Yes,” Cara said as she blushed and searched the tabletop. A waiter took
Val’s order and afterwards Cara continued. “It was a blast.”

“You and Johnny?” Val’s face revealed a mock frown as she tilted her head
to the side, watching Cara’s reaction.

“No. He’s all yours, if you want him. We’re just friends. You know that,
Val.”

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“Not gonna happen.” Cara decided not to reveal what Johnny had offered
last night. She just couldn’t picture the two of them together. With Paolo, she
had no problem conjuring up the fantasy of a sexual liaison.

“So what else happened?” Val was her most persistent and, at times,
invasive friend. Nothing was off limits, taboo.

“Just beautiful costumes. Great music. My feet are sore from the
dancing.”

“You wore sparklies. What did you go as, a Fairy Princess?”

Cara remembered the three faeries swarming over Paolo’s large frame in
sensual abandon. How his face had twisted in lust as she tried to follow him,
get his attention and become part of his sexual dance…

“…and they didn’t have anything, but—
Cara
, are you listening?”

Cara realized she had gone back to her fantasy evening. She shook her
head and rubbed her temples. “Sorry, Val. Sensory overload. Something you said
made me think of one of the dances. There was this guy…”

“You thought about a hunky guy when I mentioned the feed store? You’re
worse off than I thought. How long has it been?”

Cara sipped her coffee, embarrassed. “Hmmm?”

“Since you’ve been with a man.” Val was all military now. No way Cara was
going to escape the interrogation.

“A year. Two perhaps.”

“Perhaps? Are you insane?”

Am I? Am I filled with need and
lust?

The answer deep down in her soul, which felt positively ancient this
morning, was…

Yes.

Marcus was up uncharacteristically early. He’d whistled his way past
Paolo’s door, heading down to the kitchen, his boots thumping on the carpeted
staircase.

Paolo thought again that his brother was a happily married man. And very
satisfied. He had a child to raise and a beauty in his bed.

Paolo hadn’t slept much, and had spent the hours since dawn half
hypnotized by the shadow patterns from the old oak tree outside his window, as
they danced across his ceiling in the early morning sunlight.

Every fresh, sparkling morning reminded him how grateful he was that his
family heritage was Golden vampire and not that of the dark covens. He felt
sorry for the dark cousins and friends of his who were destined to go wandering
during moonlight hours and could never experience the taste of sunlight he
called Heaven. If he had been a dark, he’d have ended his life a couple of
centuries ago.

His restless thoughts got him out of bed to dress and head downstairs to
catch up with his brother. He could smell pancakes and heard Lucius’s voice
prattling along, making idle conversation with their sensational cook. The
woman was a seventh generation servant to his family. Paolo remembered every
one of her ancestors. They were good as gold to the young vampire children they
were employed to attend. Part nursemaid, part teacher, they all were excellent
cooks and doted on their charges as if they were their own flesh and blood. The
Monteleones had been generous with their kind in return. The relationship
between the human and vampire families was cheerfully symbiotic.

“Papa!” Lucius called out. “Look at the mouse ears.” He held up his plate
as the cook laughed. The pancakes had been made in the face of the famous
cartoon mouse, and chocolate chips made eyes, nose and the smiling mouth.

“Perfect,” said Paolo. “You spoil the boy,” he said to the short, round
woman whose salt and pepper braid formed a crown atop her head.

“As is your wish, Signore Monteleone.” She nodded to him. “It’s been a
long time since we’ve had a child in this house. And now we have two.”

“Dad, did you know the baby drinks milk from Anne? She has bottles built
right into her chest, right here.” He pointed to his own flat chest on the
right and then the left. “Do human women do the same?”

Lucius’s question reawakened all Paolo’s conflicts about the realities of
his existence, and his son’s. What kind of a boyhood was this for his son, who
knew about vampires and humans, and that he was of one kind, for now, and his
father belonged to another?

“Of course,” he said, as he mussed the top of Lucius’s head. “But you
must never talk about this in front of non-family, you understand?”

The boy looked up at him. “I know.” He was pensive. “But I can talk about
it with cook.”

“Francesca is like family,” Paolo agreed. The little woman quivered with
delight at the comment.

Paolo looked outside to find Marcus working on a piece of equipment near
an old wooden barn off in the distance. “I’m going to give Marcus a hand, if
he’ll let me.”

“Careful, sir. Your brother has just bought a used tiller. You remember
last time he tried to pull it behind his tractor?”

“That’s because he forgot to take off the brake on the blasted thing,”
Paolo said as he made his way out the back.

Stepping out onto the patio overlooking their vineyard revealed one of
the most glorious sights of the modern world, he decided. He loved looking at
living things. Most the leaves were gone. The grapes were harvested, but the
leaves had turned from golden or red to brown with flashes of orange as if they
were mourning their loss of fruit, and bled from the wound that took their
offspring away to a crusher.

Marcus looked up and wiped his hands on a rag as he addressed his
brother.

“I didn’t expect you’d be home last night. Rather thought you’d be
enjoying the company of a nubile young mortal.” Marcus’s smile was as wide as
the valley before them.

“I enjoyed myself. Nearly had myself a foursome. Lovely little green and
silver faeries who worked wonders.” He blushed.

“That’s a twist, for you.”

“Things change,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders. “The one I wanted
was with another man.”

“I imagine you could fix that.”

“I have a plan. Going to call her later.”

He thought about the card she offered him. She was telling him to find
her. She was interested. He adjusted his tight pants.

After they worked in the vineyard and spoke with two winery field hands,
the brothers went back up to the house. Before returning to Lucius, they drank
stored blood Marcus had delivered to his wine cellar on a regular basis. Anne
had joined Lucius and cook in the kitchen. She was holding Ian, their pink baby
boy, who had been named after Anne’s father. She cooed at the little face, blew
into his eyes and held the pink fist that made a handle of her little finger.

“He’s so strong,” she said as Marcus came to her side and kissed her
neck. “I think he will be stubborn, too.”

Marcus nodded. “Going to pay you back, my dear.” He threw a `
           
glance
to Paolo. “We sure gave our folks hell, didn’t we, brother?”

“Absolutely,” Paolo agreed. “Ian must learn from his cousin here. Lucius
has learned to get his way without being stubborn or petulant.”

“Wouldn’t go that far,” cook muttered.

“Hey, what’s petulant?” Lucius asked.

“Means you act like a man inside a boy’s body.”

“No, it means you’re spoiled,” Anne amended. “But then, you’re supposed
to be.”

Everyone laughed. Lucius remembered something. “Dad, you taking me
trick-or-treating tonight?”

Paolo had started to say no, but then changed his mind. “Yes, sir. We’ll
go out as soon as the sun sets.”

Marcus and Paolo shared a look of concern. One of their nephews in
Scotland had recently been abducted and murdered by a black vampire coven
leader. The man had demanded ransom, and then as the family was formulating
plans for the boy’s rescue, his body was discovered. The ransom demand had only
been a stalling tactic to allow the killers to get away.

Protecting their mortal children was an all-consuming task. The world was
getting more and more dangerous for their kind each day. Fewer children were
being born to their lineage. The elders were contracting diseases previously believed
impossible, and some began to experience aging for the first time in their
history. Tainted blood was showing up in their food supply. And vampire blood
began showing up in human blood banks, causing a string of mental cases and
near zombie-like creatures that had to be eliminated. The balance of power was
shifting, and it was becoming obvious the Goldens were in danger of extinction.

All the more reason to protect
Lucius tonight.
He didn’t want his son to become another statistic.

“Do you mind if I use the Jett boys?” Paolo asked, referring to the four
brothers of dark vampire lineage who had sworn allegiance to Marcus and his
family, and had protected them for generations.
 
They dedicated their lives, foregoing their own families, to
remain single and loyal. In exchange for their sacrifice, the Monteleone family
bestowed on them great wealth and property holdings all over the world, which
the brothers used to support their other siblings’ families and their parents.

Three of the brothers were currently residing in California, now that
Marcus had an heir.

“I’ll have them drop by. You want them costumed?” Marcus had a twinkle in
his eye. “Perhaps dressed up as green faeries?”

Paolo shot him a look and mumbled a curse under his breath. “You’d have
to watch your own neck if you asked them to do that.”

“And I’d deserve it all.” He slapped Paolo on the back. “You going as
yourself, like you did last night?”

“No. I’ll let the Jett brothers be the scary ones. Tonight I’m just going
to play the part of Lucius’s father.”

Cara went to the college and worked on her lecture for Monday. She scanned
her bookshelf filled with novels and books on symbolism and mythology. As she
ran her finger along the spines, she stopped at the first edition she’d
purchased a month ago and hadn’t had time to read

Pulling it out, she flipped open the pages, carefully peeling over an
onionskin that protected a black and white etching of a vampire biting the neck
of a buxom young maiden in harem costume. Her expression as she stared back
from the page of the old text into Cara’s eyes was filled with euphoria. The
vampire held her by the waist, two of his long fingers pressing into her right
breast. His other arm was entwined with hers as she reached towards heaven.

The book had intrigued her. Printed in 1865, it chronicled the travels of
a renowned Scottish theologian who went to India on a pilgrimage to study
ancient Hindu texts. Cara had read that this scholar was fascinated with the
theory of Divine Coupling he’d discovered through his studies. Before Chapter
One of his travels, there was a photograph of the clergyman and scholar.
Handsome. Full lips and dark eyes. His curly hair was barely submitted to being
plastered to his head and brought under control. There was a wild look about
him.

Cara turned back to the etching this man had done. The vampire looked
just like him.

Self-portrait?

Her fingers idly moved over the leafy parchment-colored page edges. She
opened the book to a random spot and began to read.

It was Tuesday when I got to the
temple site. Although I had planned on arriving in the morning, I had
transportation difficulties and was left stranded for several hours in the heat
and morass of the train station. Beggars accosted me everywhere. But with all
the filth and death around me in that crowded place, there was a spicy scent to
the air, especially as the Sultan’s harem literally floated past me as if on a
magic carpet. Several sets of dark eyes undressed me from behind veils that
covered their entire bodies. One set of blue eyes, heavily lined in black
charcoal and accented by three light turquoise stones affixed to her forehead
and bridge of her nose, haunted me. I saw those eyes all evening as I lay in my
lumpy bed at the hotel, and dreamed of possessing her.

Cara caught her breath.

Possessing her…

That was exactly how she felt. He was possessing her with his eyes, his
every action. She wasn’t going to go to him. She’d let him come. Willingly,
she’d let him come and…

What am I doing?

Angry with herself for wasting her free time, she collected her notes for
class, and with the book under her arm, turned out the lights and locked the door
to her office.

The evening was beginning to go dusk as she finished her dinner and
cleaned up the kitchen, turning on the dishwasher. The neighbor directly below
her was having a Halloween party, so Cara resigned herself to the likelihood
that she wouldn’t be able to turn in early. Only residents and their guests
were allowed behind the metal gates of her complex, which meant there would be
no trick-or-treaters. Accompanied by the whir of dishwasher water jets, she sat
at the kitchen table and opened her old book again.

She’d been thrilled when she received the alert that this text was
available. There had been several other first editions that sold for thousands
of dollars, and which were, on her salary, totally out of the question. But
this one came to her for less than a month’s pay. Someone from Prague had sent
it, wrapped in green plastic bubble wrap. Parts of the leather cover had flaked
off in her hands as she’d eagerly unwrapped and fondled the old tome.

Pieces of that leather cover now lay on her table as she opened the book once
more and looked for the passage where the author visited the Shastra Temples.

These temple ruins had pictographs of couples engaging in every kind of
sexual liaison possible, and several that were anatomically impossible. Cara’s
studies had turned up pictures like these for years. In fact, she had been
quite stunned that some of the earliest temples erected in this region—which
was renowned for its ancient vampire stories—were filled with such erotic
and practically pornographic reliefs and statues. It was almost like they were
built to honor sex.
All kinds
of sex.

Locals had visited the temples to pray for fertility and long life.
Children were conceived here until the government passed decency laws that forbade
the sacred coupling that had gone on for generations. It was a portion of Queen
Victoria’s plan to clean up the heathens of India.

Cara read his words.

As I arrived at the first temple, I
was struck with the total lack of sound. All along the way I had heard monkeys
screaming and birds calling to one another, yet, when I took the stone steps to
stand beneath the twenty-foot statue of Jamal making love to his queen,
there wasn’t a sound. Not even the chirping
insects that had serenaded me on my short hike. It was like the world held its
breath in reverence for these acred sculptures, entwined in each other,
pleasure filling the faces of the God and his bride.

The relief was quite good,
depicting her sexual cave. Jamal’s member was fully embedded in her, but a
portion of his shaft was exposed and had been touched by countless pilgrims
over the years. The granite was as smooth as a woman’s breast.

Cara closed the book at the end of the chapter. She discovered her
breathing had become labored. She fingered the spine with the gold letters,
Temples of the Vampire, by Alasdair Fraser.

She jumped as the phone rang.

The caller ID showed it was a local number, but she didn’t recognize it.
She picked up the phone anyway. “Hello?”

“Carabella?” The sultry Italian accent was unmistakable.

“Paolo.” Her heart was racing. Would he be able to hear it?

Stop this, Cara. You are reading
too much into his voice, the sound of his Italian accent and your need for
companionship.

“I decided I’d take you up on your offer.”

“My offer?”

“Yes. To call you. Invite you to lunch. Isn’t that usually what happens
when a woman gives a man her telephone number?”

He was right, of course, but she hadn’t thought it out that far.

As she dithered, she tapped her fingers on the book, and then picked it
up, startled to see a yellowed letter fall out. She was having a hard time reading
the flowing script. The red wax seal had been broken, indicating the letter had
been previously read.

“Cara, are you still there?” he asked.

She put the letter back inside the book and set it down again, pushing it
away.

“Sorry. I just ordered this old book and had been reading some passages.
I apologize.”

“I could call at another time,” he offered.

“No. No, this is fine. Again, I apologize.”

“No apology needed, but you can make it up to me by agreeing to have
lunch with me tomorrow. Are you free?”

Am I free? Am I able to say no?

“I have class that lets out at noon. I could meet you somewhere near the
college. I have office hours in the afternoon, two until five.”

“Then I shall have you between noon and two?”

She chuckled. “Yes, I supposed you will.”

“Excellent. Shall I meet you at your classroom, then?”

“No.” Her radar clicked on. Status: elevated. She didn’t want him to know
where her office was. Yet. “Meet me at the Chowder Grill on Harrison, okay?
That’s one of my favorites for lunch.”

“The Chowder Grill it shall be. Looking forward to it. Good-bye.” He hung
up.