Love Me Madly

by Lidiya Foxglove

  I pressed my fingers to the spot where all sensation seemed to converge and I worked my hand as urgently as I could. I would shut my eyes for a bit and then I would feel Silvus watching me and I would have to look at him again. I remembered this feeling from Bertie, too. I wanted to be admired. I wanted to see the lust in their eyes. I wanted to know just how much I drove them mad.

  In the Order I had to dress modestly and I was not supposed to look at men. Even so, men could look at women as much as they wanted. This felt very different from that situation. Rather than shying away from a man’s desire, I was drinking it in, letting it power me. I was not a slave to Silvus, it seemed, so much as he was a slave to himself, to the hunger he could not contain, and the endless quest to find me, all around the world.

  “Ohh…” My whole body arched, my hips lifting up as I pressed my body against my hand and I felt the swollen bud pulse under my fingers. It happened so fast, over almost before it began. “Ohh…” I collapsed, feeling the aching in my arm now.

  “That was an exquisite glass of wine,” Silvus said. “And it wasn’t even my favorite. Ulf and his rieslings…” Silvus put down the glass even as his right hand was unfastening his shirt. He came to me with a little smile and a caress from my breast almost all the way down to my ankles. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “My little wife. So you have been…so you shall be.”

  Now Silvus seemed to come to me as a husband, a lover who had known me for a hundred years. It was strange that even though I had no memory of our past, just from the way he looked at me and touched me, I felt our history.

  “There is something about you that never changes,” he said. “It makes it even more frustrating that I can’t wipe away all these troubles on the surface. Dearest…”

  He climbed into bed beside me and pulled me close to him, our limbs tangling, his fingers threading through my hair. He shifted down and nibbled at my breasts until they felt heavy with rigid nipples, his fangs sharp against the tough but sensitive skin. He bit me until I hissed with pain but didn’t break skin. When his mouth moved back up to meet mine, my nipples tinged with wanting, the pain already forgotten. I spread my legs wider and then I realized I was inviting him in; my god, so quickly I forgot everything I had ever been told I needed to be.

  “This is more like it,” he murmured, spreading my thighs a little wider still, his cock sliding between my folds, stroking against the wetness before seeking entry. I bit my lip as I felt him claim me, my body yielding. He fucked me slowly until I stopped being so tense. I wasn’t used to feeling a man deep inside me, but I would get used to it before long. I sensed a sweet inevitability as my body melted into his touch, and I knew that I would never have felt like this in the Order, not with any man there. Silvus, like Rayner, didn’t just take his pleasure, and he wasn’t trying to produce children. He was cherishing me, gazing at me, kissing me.

  Not that he went easy on me. He would satisfy his own driving needs. As he went, then came the quick, hard strokes that carried his supernatural strength in every controlled motion.

  “Oh!” He was so rough now. I felt bruised but when I saw the look in his eyes, the look of a man who had waited over a century for this moment, I bit my lip and let him have me.

  He spilled his seed inside me, letting out a growl that turned into a cry of pleasure. Silvus didn’t look controlled anymore. His hair was in his eyes, and those eyes were wild.

  He collapsed beside me. “I have missed that,” he said. “Although not as much as I have missed this soul of yours gazing at me. I’m sorry if I’ve left you quite brutalized, pet…nor is it over,” he whispered in my ear now, his body folding around mine as both his hands slid between my legs. My body was so weary but his hands had no trouble making me whimper for more, more, more.

  How could I forget everything I had known? In that moment I didn’t think of home at all as Silvus dissolved me with his hands and fell asleep with his arms around me. I didn’t mind their heaviness. I had never felt so safe.

  Chapter Seven

  Thom

  There wasn’t much better than everyone getting together at Ulf’s. Being a vampire can be a lonely business. Sure, I had my clan, but every clan gets sick of each other now and then. Vampires used to congregate in big cities so they could manage a little society, but that has its own problems when everyone’s competing for the same prey, getting jealous and eyeing up one another’s thralls.

  `I’d always been more of a small town boy than a big city one—a fact that won’t surprise anyone who’s ever met me. That was the one thing I missed the most. If you live in the country you have to get by on the blood of rabbits and groundhogs and a deer now and then. That’ll make anyone crazy.

  Still, we could spread out more nowadays and thanks to the train, the automobile, and the airplane, we could get together. I hated flying; all those hours trapped in a tin can with the thick scent of human blood and not a drop to drink, and the threat of delays? But the other three said it used to be far worse when you had to take a boat. What can you eat on a boat? You pretty much have to secure a thrall or two to travel with ahead of time.

  Now, what was I thinking about? Ah, yes, the gang was all there—every vampire in Georgia or her neighboring states of any importance, and Alissa was surely the prettiest peach of them all.

  When she saw me that morning, trailing her little hand down the bannister of the stairs, she stopped and went pink from neck to forehead.

  I couldn’t wait to find out what that was all about.

  “Good morning,” I said, slinging my arm around the newel post, which was topped by a statue of a lady holding a lamp.

  “Good morning, Thom.”

  “You look like you had a good night with Silvus.”

  “Yes…”

  “That means Jie and I have you for the next two.”

  She looked embarrassed. I muttered a curse. “That weren’t so gentlemanly of me. Let me start again, darlin’, it’s just hard not to think with my loins when I see you blushing like that. Did Silvus tell you we had a good talk with Ulf last night about breaching the gates of the Order?”

  “I think he might have forgotten to talk about anything like that,” she said, with a tiny bit of humor.

  “Well, he thinks it can be done easy enough if we can break your curse.”

  Her face fell. “If we can break my curse? But what are the chances?”

  “I’m sure we’ll get it done. At least we know it can be done and that’s farther than we’ve ever gotten in the past. Trust in Lady Luck.”

  She looked dubious.

  “Can you trust us, at least? When you ran away, weren’t we waiting for you? Don’t we always find you?”

  “Except for the two times when you didn’t.”

  “You can’t blame Silvus for not being able to reach a Pacific Island in the year 1680 or whenever it was. And if you’d lived longer, we would have found you in Belarus.” I shrugged. “We’ll figure it all out. I won’t let anything happen to those sisters of yours.”

  “I want to believe you,” she said. She looked at me for a long, lingering moment before Alice came up to me and shook my hand. I hadn’t seen Alice in some twenty years. Eternally twelve and slight as a weeping willow, she looked hollow-eyed and wasted but she was grinning at me like she was putting her troubles aside for tonight.

  “Thom! I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “Unplanned,” I said. “You remember Bertie?”

  She gasped. “Why, of course I remember Bertie!”

  “This is Alissa. This is Alice Bradley, from Tennessee.”

  “Bertie?” Alice grabbed her into a hug. Alissa looked scared and I pulled the girl off her, gently as I could. “Well, aren’t you pretty. I used to visit you in your house in Baltimore on my way to New York. Please tell me you still can cut it up on the piano because we don’t have a piano player and I’d sure love to hear you play.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t…” She looked at me with a sli
ghtly furrowed brow. “We used to know each other?”

  “I’m sorry, I guess I am coming on a little strong,” Alice said. “I’m just so glad to see you. These boys of yours—and you—were so nice to me when I was young. You threw me a party for my twentieth birthday and made me cry. In my head you’re a kind old man. It’s so funny to see you now looking like my big sister! Alissa and Alice—why, we could be sisters!”

  I knew Alissa was very sensitive when it came to sisters and I half-wished I knew how to shoo Alice off, but she looked like she was back to her old trouble again.

  “You used to play music long into the night whenever Alice came over. Just wait until you hear her fiddling now. If you thought she was good when she was twenty, she’s even better now.”

  “I hope you’ll remember soon, Bertie, I sure have missed you. You were a real light in my life.”

  “Are you playing tonight, then, I hope?”

  “Yep, we’re having a good country dance tonight. I’d call it a barn dance if we had a barn.” Whenever vampires got together, you could expect some sort of old-fashioned dance. There was always a younger crop of dancers but the elders were usually around one or two hundred years old, and they set the tone. Then you had a few ancients and near-ancients like Ulf, Rayner and Silvus who had grown up with even older music, but there wasn’t much to do with them. No one wanted to listen to 17th century music, at least I sure didn’t.

  “Well, we’ll see you, Alice. Save me a dance if you can get away.”

  “Always, for you, Thom.”

  “She was turned as a child?” Alissa asked.

  “Yes. You don’t see any other children here, you’ll notice. That’s a crime we punish by death in this community. A gang of us took him down before he turned anyone else. Alice’s sire was as wicked a man as any we’ve ever dealt with.” Alice was showing all the signs of despair and addiction that were all too familiar in our world. “It was good that he was dead, but a vampire without a sire is like an orphan. We’ve all tried to help her along.”

  “How old is she now?”

  “A hundred and ten, I reckon.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Sure,” I said, not wanting to worry her over it. She had more than enough to worry about already.

  “How many of these vampires knew me when I was Bertie?” Alissa asked.

  “About half, I’d say. And besides Ulf, I saw Dmitry earlier. He’ll remember Li Mei.”

  Alissa’s mouth pursed. She wanted to complain about something but her little caged mind was still figuring out how to bust the lock.

  “Lay it on me, darlin’. Remember, there’s no punch you can swing that’ll hurt old Thom.”

  “Well…I—I’m not sure I like this. My name isn’t Bertie. And I can’t play the piano. I don’t know…much about Bertie, but I do know that he was very different from me and…well, I know you must miss him too.”

  “A lot less than I did,” I said. “I’m warming up to you as fast as you’re warming up to me.” She was still blushing. “That’s a long time to blush.”

  “I remembered—um—the first time we met,” she said. “Bertie and…you.”

  “Ohhoh…that was a long time ago but I still remember it well myself.”

  “But you’d never met me before,” she said. “It seemed like you had.”

  “No,” I said. “It was love at first sight.”

  “Love? Is that what you call it?”

  “Your tongue is getting saucier every day.” I grinned. “When I love something I like to make sure it doesn’t run off anywhere. When I met Rayner I just had a gut feeling that I had to take his offer, and when I saw you, I knew that I couldn’t hesitate. They all had some other idea of you and that made it harder for them to see that you were a prize as you were. These vampires have fond memories of Bertie too. We didn’t keep you hidden like that asshole Joshua. But I’ll be sure they know they’re meeting Alissa tonight. And then…to bed with you…and I don’t care how much Silvus already wore you out.”

  Judging by the smell of her sweat and the teasing musk of her sex just beginning to penetrate my nose through her clothing, she wouldn’t be complaining tonight. But first, I’d have the pleasure of asking her to dance.

  Chapter Eight

  Alissa

  “Vampire parties are my favorite,” Rosie said, throwing dresses on the bed, standing inside of a huge walk-in closet that smelled like the inside of an antique store while clad in a baby blue nylon slip that was sliding off one of her shoulders and showing off the tattoos all over her back and arms.

  “It’s true. At human parties they just drink and smoke and talk and you’re lucky if anything else happens besides that,” said another young woman named Sophie who was the thrall of a vampire named Will. “When I met Will and I realized he could dance—like, really dance, with steps and romance—I was sold on this life.”

  “Something from the twenties, thirties, forties…” Rosie pulled out more dresses. “Take your pick, girls! See what fits! It ought to be quite a hoedown. I think I’m going for this gingham one. I have no shame.”

  “Whoa. That is…square dancey,” Sophie said.

  “Embrace the square dance!” Rosie sang out, spreading her arms.

  “I love your tats, by the way.”

  “Thank you! I started with the Rosie the Riveter one and then I got addicted.”

  “Where do you go?”

  “Oh—it’s a little place right in town. This guy Steve. Are you thinking of something?”

  “Will flew a plane in World War 2 and I thought it might be interesting to get something related to that.”

  “You’re getting serious. Is he going to turn you? Ulf said he’s done turning people.”

  “Oh, really? I didn’t know that. But I don’t know if I want to be turned.”

  I felt left out even though they were both friendly to me, but I just wasn’t sure how to talk to other girls my age. I didn’t know how to talk to Dee. Rosie and Sophie were no easier. In the Order I had known the same girls my entire life. We gossiped in whispers. But we also knew everything about each other and all of our families. “Why don’t you want to be turned?” I asked.

  “I would rather live one short wild life, like a firefly,” Rosie said. “I’m not afraid to die.”

  “I’m really not sure,” Sophie said. “I would have to love Will more than anything to be with him for two hundred years. All my family would die.”

  “They want to turn me,” I said. “After this I think we’re going on a quest to figure out if it’s possible. I’ll have to choose. If I died…I think Rayner would lose his will to live.”

  “Tell him to get a life,” Rosie said.

  Sophie shook her head. “You can’t tell an ancient to get a life. They’ve already had one. They need something to live for. Like Ulf lives to be the father of every vampire in America. But you’ve seen what happens.”

  “Yeah,” Rosie said soberly.

  “What happens?” I asked, thinking immediately of Alice. Most of the vampires looked pale but healthy. She was an exception, her eyes looking large in a gaunt face.

  “Ulf told me that a lot of vampires just never get themselves together. Especially in the early years, vampires struggle to control themselves. The blood lust is really strong, so they need a sire who will be a good mentor for many years to come. Then, as they realize they have to cut off their family and friends, they get depressed. If they make it long enough, the friends and family will start to die. A lot of them commit suicide in the first century. If they don’t have a clan to support them and something to live for, they get dangerous. They might murder humans. At this point, the other vampires have to step in and kill them. It’s not all…romance novel stuff.”

  “Damn.” Sophie put an arm around me. “That’s too dark. I’m sure it wouldn’t be like that for you. Will told me that Rayner has never lost a clan member. He’s obviously a very good clan leader and he loves you. It just takes a lot of
trust to let a vampire turn you. I don’t know yet if I trust Will to stay by my side through thick and thin for a hundred years.”

  I really didn’t know what I wanted, and it seemed like I wouldn’t have long to decide. If we found all the components of the spell to break my curse, then it wouldn’t make sense to hesitate. The sooner I became an immortal, the sooner Father Joshua would stop pursuing me, and I could save my sisters. But the life of a vampire did seem to be a long and sad one. All of the clan had to say goodbye to their families.

  Rosie held up a dress with a big tulle skirt and crinoline, white with red silk flowers around the sleeves and a row of tiny red buttons down the front. “Will this fit you, Alissa?”

  “That’s a lot of dress.”

  “I know. But what do you want? Just a little bit of dress? No. You must go big.” She pressed it into my hands.

  “I hope it fits,” Sophie said. “It’ll be gorgeous on you!”

  I wasn’t used to all the fun of picking out clothes with other girls who admired me in them and helped me add accessories. In the Order, if we wanted to look pretty for church, we would try to do French braids or elaborate coils and crowns of braids, but even then, they were hidden under a cap. Wedding rings and magical wards were the only jewelry allowed, so husbands gave their wives protective spells embedded in a simple gem on special occasions. They were still supposed to be tucked behind the bodice, but of course, every woman let them slip out now and then.

  Vampire clans loved to dress up. That was clear from the start and especially so when we came down to the party, which was kicking off with a spread of food for the thralls and cocktails for everyone. In the next room, a big empty hall with wooden floors shined to a gloss, musicians were tuning up their instruments. Every woman in the room was showing off a vintage gown with a twirly skirt.

  Rayner walked up to me. “You look so fresh and bright, Tulip. The company of other girls is good for you.”

  “They wanted to dress me up. And—you look handsome too.” I felt awkward with the small talk and I couldn’t wait for him to just take me in his arms and dance. We didn’t dance in the Order but sometimes in church, I wished I could. We would all start to sway when we sang “The Gods are Coming Down” which was about the end of the world but it sounded very energetic.