Unbitten (10 page)

Katarina lifted her face to his. “What a spectacular
night,” she said. “Now go on,” she said,
turning her head to the side and offering her neck,
“Bite me.”

Her words and the rough tone in her voice set him on fire.
David’s fangs shot down and he felt a wave of power
ripple through his body, a surge of domination, the feeling
a lion has as it brings down a gazelle and its flesh is
right there for the ripping and gorging.

He plunged his teeth into her neck and drank.

She flinched at the brief sting, and then moaned
“Ahh,” pressing her body against his.
“Oh, David…”

Rosemary, that was it. But there was an undertone of
something else–anise perhaps? Fennel? And that
wasn’t all….

The couple fell to the ground as David slurped and sucked
from Katarina’s artery. He loved how it seemed to
excite her, and she writhed next to him, wanting as much of
her body against his as possible.

Finally he was blood-sated, but that only made his sexual
need even more urgent. Trying to slow himself down, he went
up on one elbow and touched her face. He kissed her cheek,
then her ear, then the wound. She was beaming.

“My vacations are usually rather sedate,” said
Katarina with a soft laugh.

“Ha!” said David, grinning. “I
don’t believe you.”

Slowly he pulled up her skirt, his fingers trailing on her
leg higher and higher.

Suddenly he stopped and sat up. He reached into his back
pocket and pulled out a bandage. “Here,” he
said gently. “Let me take care of your neck.”
He peeled off the paper over the sticky edges and placed it
over the seeping bite marks, pressing it down firmly.

He had to admit, the bandage was a marvel. Her neck looked
perfectly normal with no sign of a bandage or a wound of
any kind.

“Now then,” he said, his face contorted with
excitement but still handsome, the scar over his eye
turning scarlet, “for the rest of the evening’s
entertainment.” He climbed on top of her, taking her
hands in his and pinning them over her head. Somehow he had
loosened his pants so that his cock was hot between her
legs, hot and sliding closer, and closer as they kissed,
their tongues darting in each other’s mouths, both of
them moaning with animal pleasure.

“Come inside me,” whispered Katarina. She was
wet and slippery and he slid in and began thrusting,
harder, deeper, his hips moving in an unending circle,
unstoppable.

David could keep that up for a very long time. Until they
were both on the verge of delirium.

Katarina pulled one of her hands away and took his fingers,
guiding them to her breast. He touched her hard tip, then
lowered his mouth to it, careful with his fangs not to nip
her, and flicked it with his tongue and sucked, still
thrusting into her, until she came in an oceanic wave,
crying out and shuddering with pleasure.

David had a pang then, a little needle in the middle of his
chest. The image of Jo had leapt into his mind, and he felt
a bit of remorse for lying with Katarina.

Remorse was not his usual way, and almost instantly he felt
angry at Jo for causing it.

Because David was David, none of these thoughts affected
his sexual performance. He rode Katarina, allowing himself
to get right up to the peak and then fading back, only to
let the sensation build again.

When she bit him on the ear–and not a nibble, a real
bite–he came in a paroxysm of surprise and delight.

Anise, definitely anise, he thought, smelling her sex smell
and pulling it deep into his nostrils, and forgetting all
about Jo for the moment.

Damn this jet lag, thought Jo, as she woke with a jerk in
the darkness before dawn. It’s a much bigger hassle
than I expected it to be. Grumbling, she climbed out of bed
since going back to sleep seemed impossible. She stretched
her arms up, and whoa, she was sore from her ride on Drogo.
She kept stretching, wanting to feel limber when she took
him out again this morning.

She folded her body over at the waist and grabbed her
ankles, keeping her legs stiff and straight, feeling the
pleasant ache as her hamstrings stretched. Then she went
over to the window, planning to hold on to the sill as she
stretched out her back.

It was still mostly dark. She could see a blanket of fog
beginning to dissipate, and the staff of the Château
beginning their work already. A man in blue coveralls
heading to the outbuilding where the furnace lived. A pair
of women carrying rakes making their way to the kitchen
garden. And in the distance, barely visible in the pre-dawn
murky light, she saw a couple wandering along, a man and a
woman, holding hands, nuzzling each other as they walked.

Usually Jo would turn away from a sight like that, not
allowing herself to feel anything. But this time, she
watched the couple, saw them turn down the path to the
guest cottages, and she felt a yearning to have that kind
of warmth in her life too.

She couldn’t really imagine what it would be like,
but she wanted it. And for the first time ever, admitted it
to herself without flinching away.

Her parents hadn’t had it, that was for sure. Jo had
grown up in a run-down little box of a house just outside
of Trenton. Her father had drunk up his paycheck most
weeks, and spent his time at home on the sofa watching TV
in a total haze. Her mother was so wrapped up in trying to
keep her husband from drinking, or yelling at him for
drinking, or threatening to leave him because of his
drinking, that she wasn’t available to give Jo much
of anything either. Jo had latched on to teachers at school
and a few neighbors, who got her through those hard early
years. And then she had left that house as soon as she was
old enough to make it on her own, and never looked back.

She wasn’t sure her parents had noticed she’d
gone.

She was sitting on the floor now, with her legs spread out
as wide as she could get them, leaning to one side and then
the other, twisting her torso, feeling the muscles pull
until they would go no farther. She made a time zone
calculation and realized it would be a good time to call
Marianne. She grabbed up her cell and slid back under the
covers for some girl-talk.

No answer. Jo started to leave a message but remembered
that Marianne detested voicemail, and so she texted her
instead:
aMAzing. cant sum it up in a txt. get ur butt
ovr here. xxoo

The sun was peeking up over the horizon and the sky was
turning pink. Jo put on her riding clothes and boots and
trotted downstairs, looking for coffee. And maybe, if she
were going to be completely honest, looking for David as
well.

Later that day, Tristan, Alain, and Jessica reluctantly
left
La Petite Espionne
, after five courses
followed by glasses of digestif, feeling heavier than when
they went in, heavier but suffused with happiness.

“I have had snails many times,” Tristan was
saying. “It is not a dish of my region but I have
loved them since I was a child, and order them whenever I
have the chance. No plate of
Helix pomatia
has
ever come close to the pinnacle of deliciousness as that
one. The ingredients are so simple. And each one was
bursting with flavor on my tongue, so fresh it’s as
though the chef ran outside to pick the parsley after
getting my order.”

“I always thought escargots were like chewy pencil
erasers,” said Jessica.

“Well, yes,” said Tristan. “But with
garlic, parsley, and butter sauce. That rather changes the
effect.”

Alain smiled somewhat painfully. That last bit of
crème brûlée
had been a step
over the line, and he would rather not think about food for
at least a few minutes.

Paris in October, Tristan realized, was a revelation. The
tourists were few enough that they were invisible unless
you went to the Eiffel Tower or other major picture-taking
sort of attraction. The sky was a brilliant blue. And the
Parisians seemed full of gaiety, now that they had survived
another season. It felt neighborly to be there, not like a
big city, but friendly and relaxed. Tristan had been to
Paris numerous times in his life, but he had never
experienced it quite like this. And the conversation at
lunch–and the company–had been more than
interesting.

He glanced over at Jessica, noticing how the top button of
her blouse seemed to have come undone somehow during their
long feast. He could see just a thin strip of lace on her
bra, and the swelling of the tops of her breasts.

“Still hungry?” she asked him, eyebrows raised
but with a little smile.

Maybe it was more like a smirk. Tristan wasn’t sure.
He was too pleased with the world, with himself, and with
Jessica to feel any embarrassment to be caught peeking. In
response, he gave her a look of frank desire and
appreciation. Not pushy. Just letting his admiration be
known.

Jessica caught the compliment and accepted it with grace.
And gave Tristan a once-over when he wasn’t looking.
Not bad, she thought. A little older than I usually go for.
But you can’t dislike a man who is that ga-ga about
lunch. Very nice brown eyes. And for sure a twinkle in his
eye, except when he’s talking vampires.

The three got back to Alain’s office and continued
talking.

“So please, clear up my confusion about vampire
gender issues, I suppose you could call it,” said
Tristan, settling in a comfortable armchair.

“Well, most–but not all–vampires are
males,” said Alain. "And the males vastly prefer to
drink from female humans. We aren’t clear on the
details, but what we guess is that it verges on taboo for a
male to drink from another male. It’s not totally
unheard of, but not at all the usual thing. Perhaps sort of
a homophobic tendency there, although there are plenty of
homosexual vampires, especially in big cities.

“Whether male blood is equally nutritive, well, we
don’t have any proof that it wouldn’t be.
Unfortunately we can’t set up a study with controls
to get any hard data.

“As to the female vampire question.” Alain let
out a long sigh. “Honestly, I am reluctant to speak
about it, because I am so uncertain about whether we are
even on the right track. So much is guesswork.”

Tristan nodded, showing encouragement and sympathy in his
expression.

“Let me explain for a moment how we think a vampire
comes to be a vampire, because that is inextricable to the
female issue. People have got the idea–from
television shows and movies, largely, which is hardly any
way to nail down facts–that you turn into a vampire
if you are bitten by one.

“Not so. And this we are fairly certain about.”
Alain stood up and leaned his hands on his desk. “You
become a vampire if you drink a vampire’s blood, not
the other way round.”

He let the words sink in for a moment before continuing.
"So these families of vampires, like your la Mottes, most
likely–when the child reaches a certain age, the
vampire father would wound himself and have the child drink
his blood, thereby passing his status to his son.

“I say “son” because we have no evidence
of this familial connection happening with daughters.
Although it has happened with husbands turning their wives.

“The twist in all of this is that female vampires,
called
labrim,
do not drink from human males; they
must, for reasons we don’t really understand, drink
from male vampires. Whether this is the custom of the
culture or necessary physically, we’ve no idea. But
we guess the latter.

“And despite their bloody-minded natures and their
virtual obsession with blood, male vampires do not
especially like being bitten. They prize their own blood
beyond anything. They can be a little
bit…prissy…when it comes to bleeding.”
Alain looked at Tristan to make sure he was following all
the detail, and not becoming sleepy from the big lunch.
Tristan was hanging on every word.