"They were trying to escape a disease, Veronique. They wanted to make life better for their children. They did what they could to survive." Malcolm understood why his father had brought him to this world, even though that meant he had spent most of his life living in isolation, unable to feel like himself. Yielding to human customs that made no sense instead of the ones from his home world.
Veronique turned around to look at him. "They made the wrong decision. The disease they tried so hard to escape is here. Marcus and the other Vamfir who have ARS are proof of that. And the people on this planet are too prejudiced. What do you think the police will do when they find him, hmm? What do you think will happen once they discover that he's not human?"
She's right, Malcolm thought. Going to the police for help was definitely no option. Marcus would be killed. Human beings didn't care much for anything different. Their myth about vampires and blood drinking was ridiculous, but everyone on the planet believed it.
Karyn probably believed it too, he thought unhappily, if she thought vampires existed at all. He should be disgusted at himself, caring for a woman who was probably just as bigoted all other humans. Even if she weren't, she probably wouldn't want to have anything to do with him once she learned his brother was a killer. He found the news articles online. There were many more women like the one Karyn saw yesterday. All of them were discovered after Marcus had run away from home.
"My vacation starts in a few days," he said after he collected his thoughts. That should give him enough time. He had been so close to finding Marcus before that he hoped he could do it again. Once they had him then Malcolm could figure out what to do about Karyn. He could tell her what he was and what she meant to him. He had to find a way to do it. He couldn't give her up.
CHAPTER FOUR
"I like this guy. You should find a way to get with him."
"Tracey.…"
"Do it, Karyn. Once you and the dream guy fuck, you'll have him out of your system. You can get on with your life and I'll have an interesting story to write."
"I will not be a character in one of those trashy, perverted novels you write," Karyn said to her cousin.
"Chill out, sweetie," laughed Tracey. "I was only joking."
"You'd better be."
Karyn had her favorite chips once again and was crunching like crazy while Tracey talked to her.
"Seriously, though. You should forget your little misguided attempts to stay away from men and just go for it. You don't have to be ashamed about it. Sex and lust is all perfectly natural."
"Not for me it isn't."
"What? You think you're better than the rest of us earthly creatures, sweetheart? I don't think so. People are so busy denying what they want out of life that they miss living. You're a hot-blooded woman. He's a hot-blooded man. So make some heat between the sheets already. There's nothing wrong with that, Karyn."
But there was something wrong. At least Karyn thought so. People shouldn't hook up because of dreams or lust but because they genuinely cared for each other.
Earlier today her dream man said he cared about her, but come on. How could he? They hardly knew each other. Matter-of-fact, she didn't even know his name. And even when she thought she knew someone and became involved with them, she still came away disappointed. She wasn't going to risk getting her heart crushed again.
Once she and Tracey hung up she picked up the newspaper and flopped down on her bed. She had sworn never to read the news again. At least she was being consistent in ignoring all of her decisions, she thought.
The Sparkman Stalker was the front-page headliner today. In the paper were pictures of all of his known victims including the one Karyn had found. All were very pretty women. All had various shades of reddish-brown hair. Altogether, there were six of them as well as a man who'd been killed in the same way. She remembered thinking about him that night at the store. Because of his death, the police thought there was some sort of copycat killer on the loose as well.
Karyn put the paper down. Ever since that night at the store, she felt more and more apprehensive. Even though the paper left out her name, it still mentioned that a local person had found the last body and now she felt like she was being watched. She even removed her gun from her closet and brought it out on her nightstand in easy reach where once she thought it improbable that she'd ever be attacked. And she didn't ever want to look at another redhead again. She couldn't stop thinking that everyone she saw was going to die.
Karyn realized that she needed to get calm. She closed her eyes and tried to visualize herself in a safe place. All she could think of were the strong arms that held her today. She felt so warm and protected within their embrace, like she was in the center of the galaxy and nothing could ever hurt her. She liked that. She wished her dream man was holding her again.
She could imagine his hands right now. She could feel their smooth padding and their firm pressure as they touched her and held her arms. She relaxed. He was pulling her close and kissing her. She really wanted him to kiss her she thought as she curled up on the couch. That would calm her down...or get her excited. Either way she knew she would feel so much better.
He was walking a path in the woods before he saw her. She was fully nude. Her beautiful brown body lay on the cool green grass. One hand was wrapped around her own waist. The other was positioned next to the soft curls of her hair. She looked like an artist's dream. But she didn't look like Julia.
Where was Julia?
The woods surrounded them. The fresh scents of the earth, trees, and flowers filled his nostrils and lungs and he felt peaceful. He wished Julia was with him. He wished Julia could feel this peace.
But this woman was not Julia. Julia had never slept naked in the grass. The woman in front of him looked comfortable, uninhibited, and so free.
Where was Julia?
This woman seemed familiar to him, he thought as he looked at her. He knelt beside her as he searched his weary mind for who she was. He touched her breast trying to remember. The nipple peaked and he traced the design with his finger, appreciating the architecture of it. He let it distract him. He felt so tired and touching her soothed him.
He continued to trace her exquisite breasts, then ran his hand down the flatness of her stomach, lower still to her mound where more of her curls waited for his fingers to touch and explore.
The woman moaned softly as he did that. Nice. He watched her wake, curiosity and desire building in him. She had the eyes of Cleopatra, he thought. So different from Julia's.
Where was Julia? Her name was a song playing in the back of his mind.
The woman touched his face curiously and it felt good to be touched by her silken fingertips. He relished it. He wished Julia would touch him. He missed her so much. But Julia wasn't here.
He touched the woman's face in return. He leaned forward to kiss her. Their lips made an excruciatingly brief contact and suddenly he saw himself as though he were far away.
He realized he had been unclothed as well. Strange, but he thought he had grown his hair long recently, and now, his head was clean-shaven. Where his body used to sport the outline of a few of his ribs, now they looked filled in. He didn't look like he had been starving for the past few weeks. He didn't look weak anymore. He looked strong.
He realized the body he saw wasn't his. He was watching his twin brother, Malcolm.
Anger surged within him as he realized his brother and this woman tried to tempt him. They tried to make him betray Julia.
Their kisses became more passionate as he watched them. He remembered Julia's kiss. Her lips were soft and as sweet as wine. She slid her tongue against his asking him, no, begging him to take things further and make love to her.
He could have. He probably should have. But he hadn't because he knew in the back of his mind that they were open and exposed.
So he made himself content with her lips and her touch, even as his cock hardened and strained against his clothing to reach her. He could no longer pret
end that she was meant for his brother when he knew in his soul that she was his. Malcolm would get hurt, but then Malcolm had already hurt him by trying to keep them apart.
Marcus felt his teeth grow.
His emotions made the air crackle and he could see a thunderstorm gathering on the horizon. He needed to find Julia more than ever now. He had to bring her back. They should be the ones enjoying themselves, not his brother and this woman. His brother didn't deserve it. He did something to Julia and told him she was dead.
He wished his brother was dead.
The storm continued to build and grow. The two traitors continued their fucking. Suddenly he couldn't take it anymore. He raged at them so forcefully that lightening hit one of the trees. He covered his ears at the explosion and crouched down low startled at the result. When he looked back up, his brother was still there but the woman was gone.
"Karyn," his brother had called out.
Karyn.
So that was her name.
It didn't sound right for her. Delilah would have been much more appropriate of a salesh.
He should find her though. He would bet his life she knew where his brother was hiding Julia.
All of his instincts told Malcolm that his brother was here even though he didn't see him yet. When they were younger, their mother, Pamiaqeh, often told them stories of the Invisible Ones, chameleon-like monsters that hid in shadow and ate little children who strayed too far from home. In mystical legend, the Vamfir hunted them down and eliminated them from the home world ages ago.
Malcolm felt like his brother was one of them as he scanned the shadows of the slums in front of his eyes. He was the first Night Hunter, and Marcus was a monster.
He had spent the whole night tracking him and finally ended up here in Anne's Park. The name implied a very soft and gentle beauty but there wasn't any here. Most of the buildings were run down and boarded up. Trash grossly littered the streets. Drug dealers and crackheads hung out on nearly every corner. His sensitive ears heard the sounds of arguing in the alley behind him. And then, the piercing wail of police sirens that soon followed.
Damn he wished he could leave, but he had to keep his focus on Marcus. He had to get him off of the streets. That was his duty.
His duty. He held on to that premise and let it guide him because more and more he found himself wishing Marcus was dead.
It was ironic. In the past, duty and sacrifice were always ethics that Marcus had followed. Their father had been a well-known royal. Their mother had a very prominent position as a Tenth Judge. Both were respected far and wide on the home world and had done their best to instill a legacy of pride and heritage in their children. On a strange world like Earth where superstition, prejudice, and injustice ran wild and rampant like pervasive weeds, their heritage and practices were supposed to keep them sane.
However, it was Marcus who had taken it all more seriously, and Malcolm who followed his desire to fit in with the Humans until the day they had both lost Julia. She would have been Malcolm's bride, but she was Marcus' lalid.
Lalid. Malcolm closed his eyes and thought about his own true lalid, Karyn. How he ever could of thought it were anyone else, he didn't know.
And he thought she was starting to accept him, until that last dream. They were in a place from his memory. A place he often went to when he was younger and wanted to find contentment and freedom. The green grass was always refreshing. The trees tall and serene like the xuloda that his father described of the Vamfir home world.
It wasn't serene this time. It was disturbing. A storm was on the horizon, but Karyn was there holding him and making love with him. Releasing with him when a bolt of lightning struck and one of those large trees fell dangerously close to them. She had disappeared.
After that dream, Karyn had avoided him. He didn't understand why.
Malcolm wondered if it were simply a matter of superstition. Experiencing something frightening in a dream could make a person want to avoid everything associated with it. He'd seen humans react strongly to things that held much less significance. Maybe the dream was too disturbing for her. It felt odd to him as well. Maybe that's why she steered clear of him once he came back to work after unsuccessfully using his time off to search for his brother.
But he couldn't get close enough to tell if that were truly the case. She wouldn't speak with him. She stopped making eye contact. Every time he approached her, she'd find a way to leave. Dreaming was like breathing however, and regardless of what happened before, she couldn't avoid him there. It was only there where she let herself be free to interact with him.
They still fucked. She still said and did things with him there that even indecent women might hesitate to do. So wildly sexual, his Karyn, but stubborn too because during the day, no play.
He wished she would come to him on her own. Malcolm was tired of dick-hardening dreams and days where he walked around unfulfilled and in pain. He needed her to acknowledge him again and he only knew one way to get her absolute attention. He had to get inside her head and he waited patiently in the company's lunchroom to do it.
At three-forty exactly, she walked in amongst some of her trainees and sat down at a table by herself to eat. He hid outside her view so she that she wouldn't see him and while he did, he observed the way she ate. He watched the way she brought her food to her lips and the way the tip of her pretty pink tongue touched every morsel before biting. He wondered if being here in front of everyone was a good idea. He felt his groin tighten at the innocent sight of her eating. But Malcolm was now willing to play dirty and he had to stay here to do it.
He closed his eyes. To everyone else it probably appeared as though he was deep in thought. He was, but he had shut out the noisy world around him and had focused only on Karyn. Relaxed during her mealtime as she was, her mind was unsuspectingly unguarded giving him the perfect opportunity to do this.
Hello, lalid, he whispered inside her head.
Karyn dropped her fork. The loud metal clank was enough to draw the notice of a few people around her. She smiled weakly in apology as she picked it back up.
In his mind, he kissed her lips.
Across the room, he saw her lips part.
In his mind, he tweaked her nipples.
And across the room, her chest suddenly rose.
In his mind, he rubbed her clitoris with his thumb.
And across the room, he saw her hand start to move towards her skirt before she realized what she was about to do and stopped herself.
I need you, Karyn. I want you. Don't you want us to be together?
He thought about them being together. He thought about how it would feel to touch her satin breasts. He thought about how it would feel to kiss the soft flesh of her stomach. He thought about how it would feel to take his place inside of her and feel her body stretch to accommodate his tool before driving himself deep inside her again and again.
Don't you need me, lalid?
He thought about all of it. The sensations of muscles that would contract and release. The slickness of sweat on their skin. The scent of their sex filling the air. Then he downloaded it into her willful, stubborn brain.
He opened his eyes slightly to study her. She wasn't eating. She was staring at her food but he saw her breathing heavily as her body became aroused by the sensations and thoughts he was sending to her.
She forced herself out of her chair breaking contact with him and left.
Malcolm got up and followed her.
He found her down a barely used hallway, well away from the training rooms and offices that were on the production floor. She was leaning forward against the wall, chest heaving and when he stepped closer she looked up at him.
"How did you do that?" she asked him realizing he was the cause of her trouble.
"It's difficult to explain. Someday, I'll tell you." He placed a hand over her stomach to steady her and rubbed it knowing that the state of arousal would be with her for a while.
Soon his fin
gers slid to her slender waist. His hands then settled on her rounded hips. It was as if they had their own mind around her. They couldn't be controlled. Malcolm found himself taking her by the hips and dragging her up against him. Her eyes widened at the contact.
He gave her a moment. It was a moment where she could have pushed him away, if she really wanted. It was a moment to tell him no, if she really wanted. But she didn't, and then his lips came crashing down to claim hers.
She yielded to him. Her mouth opened beneath his and her tongue came out to taste him. They devoured each other. Held on to each other. Pressed their bodies passionately together, not even caring where they were.
He found her ass and pulled her even closer. She moaned against his lips, brought her hand down to the bulge in his pants, and slowly ran her hand over it making the muscles in his jaw flex.
"I want you now, Karyn," he said passionately. "Be with me."
"No."
"No?"
"No." Karyn released his cock and disengaged herself from him. Her cool demeanor was unexpectedly back in place. She started to straighten her clothes.
"You would do all that and leave?" he asked as she turned away. "Why?"
"Payback," she said simply.
Ah, yes. He should've heeded those famous words. Payback really was a bitch and his dick was really hurting now.
I will take Karyn from you.
What? Malcolm's eyes snapped open to see someone watching him from an alley across the street.
Marcus. He'd finally found Marcus.
CHAPTER FIVE
Or, maybe Marcus had found him.
The way Marcus regarded him made it seem like he was lucid and aware of his surroundings. But even with the distance and the dimness of the streetlights, Malcolm could tell his brother's eyes were still not right. They were totally dilated and completely black. His fangs were distended and dripping venom.
Awakened Desires Page 4
