by Aubrey Ross
A Taste of Dawn
Aubrey Ross
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Copyright ©2006 Aubrey Ross
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Prologue
Italy, 1859
Huddled in the corner of the dank, stone room with her knees drawn up to her chest, Mercedes San Carlos shivered and contemplated death. A lantern occupied the opposite corner, its wavering light growing dim. The old woman hadn’t come for several nights. Perhaps she’d never come again. The possibility offered less comfort than Mercedes expected. If the hag never deactivated the psychic barriers surrounding the room, then Mercedes would starve; a slow, extremely painful way to end her pointless existence.
If Mercedes smashed the lantern, however, she might be able to catch her threadbare gown on fire, transforming this hated cell into a tomb. But she didn’t know if fire had the power to kill her, and she had to succeed this time. It couldn’t go on. She had to find some relief from this endless misery.
She was an “abomination,” a creature too hideous for words. She’d been locked away since her father’s death, ignored and neglected. A painful reminder of… Mercedes didn’t understand why the old woman kept her alive when it was obvious the hag despised her.
Driven by loneliness and desolation, Mercedes slipped beyond her confinement the only way she could. She floated on currents of metaphysical energy, searching for a host, a willing mind with which to meld. Most were too busy, too set in their ways to hear her whispered plea. She touched mind after mind. Nothing. No one reacted. No one cared. Scanning and reaching, she tested the limits of her control.
Then a scene came into focus, or more specifically a man. He sat at a box piano surrounded by sheets of half finished music. Mercedes’ heart leapt within her breast. She loved music. Her papa had spent hours teaching her to play the lute, piano, and violin. He would accompany her as she sang for their guests, pride shining in his eyes. She’d locked those memories in her heart and all the years of incarceration had not minimized their power.
She focused on the stranger. He was a man in his prime. Firelight accented the red in his shaggy dark hair. The tips of his fangs touched his full lower lip as he concentrated on the music he was attempting to play. He was a vampire like her father, fierce and predatory. Perhaps he would be strong enough to rescue her from the hag.
Hope squeezed her heart, but she couldn’t let herself think beyond the moment. If he didn’t accept her into his mind, nothing else mattered. Intelligence and creative intensity burned in his bright blue eyes. Mercedes drifted closer, gathering energy into a concentrated stream.
Please, don’t resist me.
The man closed his eyes, his fingers pausing over the keys. His mind opened and his vibrant energy surrounded her. Familiar, yet exciting, he allowed her to establish a link. She communicated through music, expressing her joy and vulnerability, infusing his mind with desire and bittersweet longing. He organized her raw emotions with instinctive skill, his fingers flying over the keys.
“Eric, what are you playing?” A man intruded from behind the musician. “Please tell me it’s yours.”
“It’s mine.” Eric pivoted to face the couple who had just entered the room. “At least I think it’s mine. It felt almost as if someone was whispering in my ear, but I’m not going to argue with my muse. What did you think?”
“I think it’s the best thing you’ve ever written,” the beautiful blonde woman praised. “We came by to cheer you up. You appear to have found your own inspiration.”
Eric smiled, pressing his hand to his chest. “My heart is pounding. I need to write this down before I forget a single note.”
“Why don’t we help you?” the dark-haired man suggested with a wicked smile.
Desire suffused Eric’s body with tingling heat. Mercedes barely recognized the sensation. She had never experienced anything so stimulating.
Mercedes’ unique physiology required two things for survival, blood and sexual energy. Blood could be administered without her cooperation, but sexual energy could not be forced upon her. The old woman learned this as Mercedes matured. Ruthlessness and cunning became necessary when motivating Mercedes to feed.
“You’re my sire, Chad. And Lynette is your mate.” Eric turned back to the piano and reached for a quill pen. “Why do you keep tempting me like this?”
“We’re looking for a third. It’s not that unusual. Lynette’s chances of surviving transformation are doubled if she accepts this kind of relationship.”
“I’m not the sort of man who’ll be able to share his mate, even knowing that’s what she wants.” He looked at Lynette. “You’ll find a third. I have no doubt. But I am not that man.”
“Can’t we pretend just for one night?” She smiled, her hips swaying as she moved closer to the piano. “I know Chad would enjoy the fantasy.”
Mercedes tried to ease out of Eric’s mind. They were going to share this woman. These two men were going to touch her, kiss her… Mercedes couldn’t even imagine what they were going to do. Why would Lynette welcome such activities? She had instigated this!
“This song is a triumph,” Chad said. “Let’s celebrate your victory.”
He joined Eric at the piano and together they wrote out the song she’d helped Eric compose. She should go. She wanted to leave, but his emotions were making it almost impossible to dissolve their connection. Wave after wave of tingling heat flowed across the link.
Her breasts swelled, the nipples tight and aching. Was this how it was supposed to feel? Was this how Lynette felt?
Unashamed of her desire, Lynette undressed as the men spread the pages of music across the top of the piano, allowing the ink to dry. She cupped her breasts and tossed her head, sending her strawberry blonde curls cascading across her skin.
Chad’s dark gaze moved over Lynette’s curves with leisurely appreciation. “Isn’t she fabulous? So uninhibited, so eager.”
After only a glance, Eric closed his eyes. “She belongs you.”
“She belongs to no one,” Chad said firmly. “She shares her heart with me and we find pleasure in a variety of situations. I haven’t touched you since I transformed you. I know it makes you uncomfortable. This may ultimately have been a disservice to you.”
“How so?”
“Your training is officially complete in three weeks and tradition dictates that I present you to my sire.”
“Faelon.” Lynette said the name with a conspicuous sigh that made Chad scowl.
“Faelon is quite creative when it comes to demonstrations of respect.” He pulled Lynette in front of him and turned her to face Eric, displaying her shape
ly body for the other man. “You have mastered each new skill and accepted each development in your nature. The one area of concern I have is your reluctance to indulge your sexuality. You are no longer human. Vampires are primal, predatory, and sexual. You don’t want to learn this lesson on your knees in front of Faelon.”
“I don’t want to learn it on my knees in front of you either.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He cupped Lynette’s breast, but his gaze locked with Eric’s. “There will be no holding back tonight. We are going to fuck and feed as only vampires can. We’re going to make Lynette scream with pleasure and whimper with pain. You will not flinch if my fingers brush your cock and you will indulge your savage nature without restraint.”
“I understand.” Eric resigned himself to the events he knew would follow, but Mercedes felt the part of himself he locked away. He had the heart of a poet. How could his sire not understand that Eric would never be able to shut that off completely?
“Then get on your knees and feed from her pussy. Lynette is so aroused I can smell her musk.”
Eric didn’t hesitate. Kneeling before the blonde, he parted her outer folds with his thumbs and pushed his tongue deep into her cream coated slit. Mercedes slid down the wall and spread out on the floor, welcoming the cold stones beneath her bare skin. Her cunt pulsed and a slow melting sensation made her whimper. Pressing her hand over her mound only made the throbbing worse.
She scanned Eric’s mind, waiting for a deeper reaction to the sexual stimulation. Lynette’s scent pleased him. Her taste rolled across his tongue and filled his mouth. His pulse sped and his cock hardened, but his emotions remained carefully protected. He wanted Lynette’s body, craved the physical release he knew they would share. Still there was no tenderness, no real connection.
Fucking to feed -- she understood the concept all too well. Faceless bodies brought to her in utter darkness. Passion always tainted by fear. Mercedes slipped her fingers between her thighs and found her swollen clit. Imagined Eric’s mouth pressed against her mound, his tongue curling around the sensitive nub. She rubbed and plucked.
With a sharp cry Lynette shuddered in release. Mercedes felt her own orgasm fizzle out seconds before it fully formed. She needed him here with her, not this stolen glimpse of his frantic exchange with someone else.
“Your turn, my love,” Chad told Lynette. “Suck our reluctant friend while I take advantage of the heat he’s created.”
Neither man undressed. They each exposed the only body part that mattered to them. Lynette knelt and grasped Eric’s hips, tilting her ass up toward her mate. Chad waited until Eric was moving in her mouth before he knelt behind her and found the entrance to her pussy.
“Arch your neck, Lynette, take all of him.” Chad wrapped her hair around his hand and ensured that she obeyed. Eric shuddered as his cock slid deep into her throat.
Mercedes pushed up with her feet and fucked herself with her fingers. She’d never felt like this. Wild. Savage! She wanted to be on her knees with Eric thrusting in her mouth and Chad ramming her cunt. Her inner muscles clenched and her nipples burned. She needed more than her own pathetic fingers.
Pushing to the back of Lynette’s throat, Eric came in shuddering waves. The rolling compression of her throat milked every drop from his shaking body. An orgasm burst within Mercedes and she curled up on her side, cupping her mound. She whimpered as her abdomen rippled with pleasure, a teasing hint of what should have been.
Eric pulled out of Lynette’s mouth, his expression feral. Chad said something Mercedes couldn’t hear. The link was slipping! She didn’t want Eric to continue without her. She needed this as much as he did.
Warmth faded. The firelight dimmed. She was back in the stone cell, alone with her misery.
Chapter One
Virginia, 2006
Moving across the dance floor like a leaf on a breeze, Mercedes swayed and twirled. She was safe. She was free. She was intoxicated by the power of invisibility.
“There it is again,” one of the lighting engineers called out. “Did you see that bizarre sparkle?”
She was pushing it.
Abandoning her pirouettes, she hustled toward the far side of the dance floor as one of the roadies jumped down from the stage. “I don’t know what you’re hitting,” he called back to the man on the catwalk. “There’s nothing down here.”
Pleased with her mischief, she skirted the stage and carefully dodged stacks of equipment and bustling roadies oblivious to her presence. She was invisible, not intangible. She needed to be careful or her adventure would come screeching to a halt.
Club Carousel was filling up fast. She’d have to find an out-of-the-way corner or niche where she could wait until the show started. She wasn’t here for the revelry and had no interest in the drunken debauchery that defined these parties. It had been decades since she’d heard Pyrite play live, and she was not going to be denied.
Faelon would be furious if he realized she’d disregarded his orders and left the “protection” of his estate. But Faelon would never know. She’d be back in her gilded cage before he had any idea his precious niece had decided to spread her wings.
“Come on. Just do it.” The hushed, female voice was filled with urgency. Mercedes hesitated, then stepped out of the way as two roadies carried a folded riser past her. Couples were tucked away in corners all over the nightclub and it would only get worse as the evening progressed.
“Julie, his teeth marks are still seeping and you want more?”
A shudder coursed down Mercedes’ spine. Not just from the repulsive question. The man’s voice was as familiar as her own and he’d just whispered another woman’s name. She swallowed hard and turned in the opposite direction from the voices. The last thing in the world she wanted to watch was Eric King fucking someone else. She’d wasted way too many nights in that endeavor already.
Most people focused on Rafe and Phillip, but Mercedes knew more about Pyrite than most people. She had always been fascinated by the band’s enigmatic songwriter. Eric refused to do interviews or any form of publicity. Still he was a vital ingredient in Pyrite’s recipe. Phillip provided the haunting melodies. Eric added complexity and depth with his lyrics and musical acumen. Then Rafe used sexuality and boundless energy to complete their connection with the audience. That’s what the world believed and that’s how it had to remain. Not even Pyrite realized they had a ghost writer.
“You can do anything you want,” Julie persisted. “Or I’ll do whatever you want. Just bite me, please.”
Mercedes ducked between two rows of crates and found herself sandwiched against the back of the stage and the side wall of the club. Damn. The only way out was past Eric and the floozy.
Channeling energy into her shields, Mercedes kept her gaze fixed straight ahead and hurried past the shadowed alcove. A sharp motion in her peripheral vision drew her attention to her right. A busty redhead shoved Eric up against the wall and attacked the fly on his jeans as if her life depended on getting the zipper down.
He caught her wrists. She used her upper arms to push her breasts together, nearly spilling the creamy mounds over the top of her bustier as she gracefully sank to her knees. “I’m good. You know I am. I need something. Please. Anything. I can’t think through this burning.”
His expression softened. Trailing his index finger down the curve of her cheek, he searched her flushed face with his bright blue gaze. “Where’s Lance? Why are you so… needful?”
As soon as he let go of her hands, she went right back to work on his pants. What male could resist such temptation? A nearly naked woman was all but demanding to suck his cock. And Eric was a vampire, one of the lustiest species on earth.
Julie located her target and pumped his thick shaft several times while she flicked her tongue against the very tip. Mercedes felt her mouth water. Humiliated by the instantaneous reaction, she focused on the other woman. What was wrong with the redhead? Had one of the vampires created this frenzy? She
didn’t think it was Eric. He had attempted to dissuade her. At least he had until she unzipped his pants.
Eric leaned against the wall, his eyes closed as Julie aroused him. She wet her lips and sucked on the head of his cock, while her hand slid in a tight spiral. Mercedes crossed her arms over her aching breasts and dragged her gaze back to his face. His hair appeared black in the dimness, but she knew the true color was rich mahogany. Desire tensed his handsome features, creasing his brow and narrowing his sensual lips.
With a soft groan, he opened his eyes and looked at the woman on her knees. He wrapped Julie’s long hair around his hand and pulled her head back so he could push into her throat. The motion exposed a section of her back riddled with bite marks. He jerked out of her mouth and pulled her to her feet, ignoring her cries of protest.
“Did Lance do this to you?” he asked as he zipped up his jeans.
“She likes it,” someone said from the other side of the narrow aisle. “In fact, she demands it. Don’t you, darling?”
Mercedes hopped back as the man sauntered toward Julie and Eric. Dark-haired, as were most vampires, he was lean with rawboned features that cast eerie shadows across his eyes.
“No human demands a vampire’s bite,” Eric said. “You’ve got her addicted and you know it. This is against the Covenant and --”
“Don’t lecture me with Faelon’s rules. No one pays attention to that shit any more.”
“Lance will bite me.” Julie rubbed the other man’s crotch and turned her head, offering her well-perforated neck.
“You’re disgusting,” Eric told Lance, dragging Julie away from him. She shrieked and reached frantically for her abuser. “You’re also fired.”
“You can’t fire me.”
“Do you honestly think Thane will keep you around once he sees what you’ve done to her? It’s not just the job, Lance. I’m going to report you to the council.”
“She’s a bite whore. She gets off on it. I didn’t start this, she did!”
