Knight looked at me like I’d always imagined a man looking at me on our bonding day, with love and a devotion so pure, it was like staring into the sunlight. He held out his hand when I reached him and helped me up the steps to the platform. A table was there for us, with the goblets and the knife. I filled mine, he filled his, and we drank our lovers’ blood. I knew what his tasted like, but he had never drunk blood before. He smacked and looked like he was about to burp, then it passed. We put our wounds together, held wrists, and stepped in a circle. My blood flowing into his blood flowing into my blood. The circle ended, and we said the words:
I pledge my life to you. I will spend every moment hereafter with you. You are my family, my hearth. And though the seasons change and the world renews, within your embrace is where I will stay. I will never love another the way I love you, even should there be a day when you are not by my side. Our love will never fade. Eternal and unchanging we shall be. Together.
We drew close and kissed tenderly, forever bonded. Everyone clapped for us and we stood before them as one. We had a party again, with good food and games and dancing. Our numbers were so small now, we had few friends left, and those that we did, we cherished.
Knight and I danced to the song he’d played when he proposed, and I sang along to it with my head against his shoulder.
You’re all I ever wanted…
We left the party first and went to our new little yellow home down the road. Knight tried to carry me over the threshold, but I told him that was silly, so he picked me up and did it. We made mad passionate love all over the house and then after our passion was thoroughly sated, we drifted off to sleep in our bed, and I fell into a dream.
I dreamed of the house again, the one from my nightmare. I was frozen in fear of having the same dream, but this time was different. The house wasn’t in shambles now. There was fresh paint on the walls, simple furniture, and the smell of bread in the air. I walked from one room to the other until I got to the front door.
The screen door opened for me and I saw a party outside. I was wearing a white cotton dress and flowers in my hair. A woman approached me. She had dark curls and tanned skin. Kitty? No, Kitty didn’t have tanned skin.
“Mother, we’re about to start,” she said. She tugged my hand to a table decorated with party things like balloons and cake. Another woman with dark curls saw me and smiled.
“Mother,” she said too. Her eyes were purple and blue. Kitty.
Then a man and another woman came. The man was tan with black locks that looked like they refused to be tamed. The third woman looked different from the others, with blonde straight hair and blue eyes. She looked like Arthur.
The man came and kissed my cheek. “Happy birthday, mother.”
The third woman came too and did the same. “Happy birthday, mother.”
Birthday? Vampires didn’t celebrate birthdays. And four people calling me mother? What kind of dream was this?
“Give her some room, kids,” a voice said from behind me. Knight was here too. He set his chin on my head and held me tightly in his arms. “You know how she feels about birthdays.”
I turned to look at him, and there was something about his face that made me believe he knew what was going on. “What is this?” I asked him.
He chuckled at me and stroked my cheek. “Four hundred years of life and you still don’t know what a vision looks like.”
“This is my future?”
He shrugged. “Who wants cake?”
The four adult children scrambled to get some cake from him. The haze of sleep left and I slipped into the dream like it wasn’t a vision, as if it was simply a dream. I joined them at the table and joked over who would get the biggest piece and put icing on the boy’s nose with a laugh as we celebrated my birthday.
When I woke up the next morning, I felt strange to be back in the yellow house instead of the farmhouse with the four children. The other side of our bed was empty, but I smelled food cooking, so I put on a robe and walked into the kitchen. Knight was at the stove making something. He saw me and smiled.
“Good morning, my bonded mate. I made bacon.” He held out two plates, each holding an entire package of cooked bacon. “My bacon, your bacon.” True love. He handed me one and I sat at one of the bar stools.
“I had a dream.”
“A dream? Was it about me? Was it naughty?” He gasped with a grin.
I simpered at him, smiling. “We were at a farmhouse somewhere. I’ve never seen it before. There was a party outside and there were four children calling me mother. One of them was Kitty.”
He crunched some bacon and brought over a pan of eggs to dump onto my plate. “Four kids? Sounds like a lot of work. How many looked like me?”
“Two.”
“Only two? Pssh. I need to step up my game.” He sat next to me and kissed my hand to quell the frown that had risen on my face.
“What if Alistair comes back?”
“If he comes back, we’ll deal with him. Between us and Arthur, nothing can stop us.” He paused, chewing on a bite of eggs. “Was it happy? The dream you had. Was it a happy dream?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling.
He toasted bacon with me and kissed me with tasty bacon breath. “Then no matter what, our future looks pretty good.”
Bite of the Fallen
Born Vampire, Book four
NSFW Edition
1. The Carnival of Horrors
--Year: 2053--
“Pick a booth. Any booth.” My pale skinned mate, Lisbeth, stood next to me with a skeptical look on her face under the blinking carnival lights. The cool spring air smelled like cinnamon, barbeque, and human sweat. It was the perfect combination to make my stomach rumble.
“I don’t need a teddy bear,” she complained, and wrinkled her nose in the adorable fashion I’d come to love. Standing beside her was our fifteen-year-old son, Jason, who was munching on a funnel cake and enjoying himself much more than his mother was.
“I need a teddy bear,” he demanded, mouth full of food. “Win me a teddy bear, dad.”
Raising an eyebrow at him, I responded, “What are you, five? Win your own teddy bear.” I ruffled his long black curls, a slightly difficult act since he was almost as tall as I was. He stuck his tongue out at me and showed me his half-chewed funnel cake. That’s my boy.
Lisbeth furrowed her eyebrows at him this time. “Jason, stop imitating your father.” I gasped in mock indignation, but she had me there. Showing my chewed food was one of my quirks. I enjoyed making her squirm, one of the many things we’d started doing to each other after so many years together. Her favorite thing to do to me was eating bacon and not sharing it. Fuck, I loved her so much. She stepped up and gave me a peck on the cheek. “I’m going to the Halloween ghost ride.” Unable to help myself, I gently took her chin in my hand and kissed her slowly, enjoying the soft curves of her plush lips and the gentle moans that escaped them under my mouth.
Daddy like.
When she pulled away, I saw the flush in her cheeks before her smell changed to an arousal so intense that I very much wished we were alone. I contemplated slipping one of the ride guys fifty bucks so I could get her alone inside one of the fun houses. Time hadn’t dulled my attraction to her, on the contrary. I still wanted her as badly as I had the first moment I laid eyes on her.
“No teddy bears,” she whispered and licked her moist lips. My voice deserted me with her so close, smelling like desire, and I could only nod dumbly. She walked away, giving me the opportunity to watch appreciatively at the sway of her hips.
“Get a room,” Jason complained around his bite of funnel cake. “Seriously, you’ve been bonded for thirty-five years. Humans hate each other after that long. You two act like you’ve only been together for two weeks during summer camp.” An intriguing scenario. We’d have to act that out later. Slowly. And with costumes.
Far away from our spot next to the spinning puke-inducing ride, I saw Kitty standing alone at one o
f the booths. My step-daughter was wearing a black hoodie with the hood over her head. The kids around her were all on their holo-phones, but she paid them no mind and was staring at an aquarium filled with goldfish in the center of the booth.
“I’ll be back,” I told Jason. He nodded and started walking over to a tornado ride. In the darkness, lit only by the lights on the booths, I walked over to Kitty and stood beside her. The booth was one where you throw golf balls into vases to win goldfish. A few groups of kids threw endless supplies of the balls, trying desperately to get one into the vases, to no avail. The vases had spouts that repelled the balls if you didn’t throw them with perfect accuracy. “You not playing?” I asked my step-daughter cautiously.
Kitty might’ve been thirty-five years old in age, but for a vampire, she was still a teenager. It meant most of the time she was moody and sullen. Standing at the booth, she looked like she was in a bad mood, and she came from a family of volatile women, one of whom was my beloved wife. Lisbeth’s temper was terrifyingly sexy though, so I didn’t complain. In lieu of an answer, Kitty shrugged at me. We got along just fine, but in her mind, I wasn’t her dad. It was true, sure, but I’d been there her entire life. She didn’t even give me birthday cards. “If you want to talk…” I offered.
“You’re here,” she finished, her voice flat and slightly agitated. She sighed, her eyes flicking to the humans still urgently trying to get a ball into the vase and win a goldfish. Her fingers braided and re-braided a few strands of her long black hair that looked exactly like her mother’s. “I could easily win every goldfish here without even trying.” She could. I could. Anyone in our family could dominate every booth here with little, if any, effort.
“Why don’t you? We could get an aquarium. It would look nice in the kitchen.” Would that make her happy? I couldn’t tell. I’d do anything to make her happy.
“Nah,” she answered evenly. “Wouldn’t want to steal their hope.” She gestured to a new set of ball throwers. “Kind of sucks though. I can never be in the open. I can never show my full power.”
I resisted the urge to put my arm around her, just to make her feel better. “You can among your kind, and mine,” I comforted.
“It’s not the same. You understand.” I did. The years before I’d found her mother had been lonely. Living in the human world, and yet never being part of it. We had a nice community now, full of vampires and Lycans, and our two hybrid children. We lived in peace, but we were still hidden from the world.
“Solemn crowd,” Lisbeth said from behind me. She kissed the bottom of my ear and hugged me, peeking over my shoulder at the ball tossing. Her purple eyes glanced over at her daughter. “Not playing?” Kitty shrugged again. Lisbeth let me go and hugged her instead. “He’ll be back soon, don’t worry,” she soothed, tucking some of Kitty’s long black hair behind her ear. Kitty’s solemn mood made sense now. Her biological father, the Incubus Balthazar, went on trips now and then with his life partner, the Succubus Toni. They weren’t lovers. I know, that was difficult to believe as their way of greeting each other was a peck on the lips. I long suspected they were lying to us, but since they lived next door, we would’ve smelled it if they were fucking.
Kitty was very close to her father. She hated it when he wasn’t there. I pulled five dollars out of my pocket and handed it to the booth worker. The human handed me fifteen white balls and wished me good luck.
“What are you doing?” Lisbeth questioned from Kitty’s shoulder, grinning widely.
“Shooting deer. What’s it look like? I’m winning something for my daughter.” Kitty looked away when I said that. My daughter. She didn’t like me calling her my child, and sometimes I forgot to edit myself. “Sorry,” I told Kitty apologetically. Lisbeth’s eyes dropped with sadness and she stepped away from Kitty. She too felt upset that Kitty wouldn’t accept me, only I wasn’t here for emotional shit. I was going to win a fish.
Easily, and with so much skill I felt embarrassed for the humans, I sunk all fifteen of my balls inside the lipped vases designed to make everyone fail. The booth worker’s jaw dropped, and she stood frozen for a few moments. One of the other workers quickly stepped in for the sale.
“Nice skills, dude,” he said with a smile. “Would you like fifteen goldfish, or you can get three Betta fish, and we also have hermit crabs.”
“Crabs,” I said with an immature smirk. He got out a little plastic terrarium and picked up three hermit crabs from their tank to put inside it. He handed it to me along with a pamphlet on how to care for them.
“We have some bigger terrariums for them,” he began, ‘fishing’ for more of my money. I pulled out two twenties before he could finish his sales pitch. His smile grew and he grabbed the money, quickly reaching below the booth counter to get a large terrarium with food, a bag of sand, and some decorations for the crabs, along with a water dish.
“Ooo, crabs.” Jason came up beside us, his arms overflowing with three Pokémon stuffed animals, and some rock candy hanging out the side of his mouth.
“That better not be our anniversary present,” Lisbeth quipped under her breath at the sight of the terrarium. Glaring at her, I held the two containers out to Kitty. She stared at them like I’d just bought her a rifle.
“What…” I jiggled the plastic boxes so she’d take them, and she did after I pushed them against her. “Thanks. I guess.”
“You’re welcome,” I sang and grinned happily. I waited, but she didn’t smile at me, and my heart sank just a bit. I ignored it and pulled Lisbeth to me with a tug on her sweater sleeve. “You, Miss Wifey. You get a prize too.”
She smiled and placed her slender hands on my large shoulders. Fuck, I needed her right now. “Is it you?”
“Adorable. No. I spotted some lamb tacos over there, and I’m buying you some.” She squealed and started dragging me in the direction of the lamb tacos, following her nose until we were standing in front of the food truck and ordering eight of them. Two for each of us. “I could eat everything in that truck,” I muttered around a bite of taco. Lisbeth would’ve retorted, but she was busy stuffing her beautiful, pale face.
I could watch that woman eat tacos all day.
The only sounds around us were that of humans enjoying the fair as we were too busy eating to speak. These kids were so mine. I stuffed the last large bite of taco in my mouth and pulled my mate in for another kiss, licking the seams of her lips for a last remnant of the taco sauce.
“Happy anniversary, sexy.” She smiled against my mouth, chewed a few more times, and kissed me back. I loved it when she tasted like Mexican food. Lisbeth con queso.
“Gross,” one of the kids muttered. “We’re eating here.”
Lisbeth narrowed her eyes in their direction. “Didn’t I raise you better? There’s nothing wrong with your parents kissing.”
“Yes, but,” Jason defended. He leaned in close like he had a secret and hissed, “You kiss every five minutes. All day long. It’s like a chick flick I can’t turn off.”
Kitty laughed and nodded, licking her pinkie. “Truth.”
“One day, son, you’ll find a girl. Or a boy. Or… person. And you’ll kiss them every five minutes. And when that day comes…” I stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “I will tease you mercilessly because of this moment. Something to look forward to.” Pat, pat.
“Son-in-law!!” someone shouted at the entrance of the carnival.
“Oh fuck, no,” I groaned. Lisbeth elbowed me and went to greet her father, Lucas, and Clara, her aunt/step-mother. Once they reached us, Lucas hugged his daughter like they’d been apart for ten years instead of a few hours. He’d missed four hundred odd years of her life, and even though he’d been with us for several decades, there was still lots of time to make up for.
“My Lisbeth,” he cooed over her like she was a baby. “Another year with this unruly werewolf. It’s not too late for an annulment. I know some people.” I tried not to growl at him.
She batted him away
and stuck a finger out in admonishment. “That stopped being cute fifteen years ago, dad.” She motioned from her eyes to his eyes, signaling she was watching him, and pulled Clara in for a hug.
“Happy anniversary, darling,” Clara said happily. “I wish Ana was here.” Lisbeth stilled and caught my eyes, then looked away. Anastasia, her mother, was still missing after thirty-five years. We’d all tried to find her, to no avail. My wife and her mother hadn’t parted on the best of terms. As Lisbeth repaired her relationship with her father and aunt/step-mother, she eventually wanted the same with her mother. It had caused many nights of heartache, for all of us. Clara stepped back from Lisbeth and realized she’d brought a frown to everyone’s face. “Oh, dear me. I’m sorry. I spoke without thinking.”
Lisbeth kissed her aunt/step-mother on the cheek. “We all want her here.”
Clara, flushed with embarrassment, turned to me and gave me a hug too. She always smelled like bread. I loved hugging her. “Happy anniversary, Knight. I love you, son.” Love this woman. Love, love, love. She was the fourth most important woman in my life. Wife, daughter, sister, and then Clara.
When our hug didn’t end quickly enough, Lucas huffed and reached in for his bride. “Enough hugs, son-in-law. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that kiss.” He pet at Clara’s hair like she was a cat. Yes, I’d kissed Clara once. No, I’m not hot for her, I was simply trying to prove a point to my wife. Clara betrayed me by telling Lucas about it, and he’d never let me forget it since.
The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition) Page 56
