"It's late for you, maybe. Not for me. We're about three hours apart, remember?"
"Oh yeah," Karyn said crunching.
"Anyway, I saw the weather on the news and wanted to check up on you."
"The news, huh? I guess it's a slow night for you."
"Well, look who's making jokes now that she's getting' some."
"I'm sorry, Trace," Karyn apologized.
"Don't be. I'm happy for you. Now, are you up because of the bad weather or because of lover boy?"
"Stop calling him that. The man's name is Malcolm. Besides, he just left."
"The man. My bad." Tracey laughed.
"Oh, shut up!" Karyn exclaimed making her cousin laugh even harder.
"Okay, so why are you crunching, sweetie? You should both be in bed fucking right now. Did he piss you off or something?"
"I'm not pissed off, just nervous." Karyn wondered if she should tell Tracey about Malcolm, his brother, and the disease. But she couldn't, at least, not right now. Tracey would think she was either crazy or stupid, and even she herself had trouble processing everything that happened. She just needed time to take it all in.
"You're awfully quiet, Karyn. Oh my God, don't tell me you're pregnant, sweetheart?"
That got Karyn's attention.
"Don't even joke about something like that," Karyn said. She wasn't even due for her period yet but she didn't think she was pregnant. However, she and Malcolm never used protection...
Okay, she felt stupid for that one. She knew better. But honestly, how likely was it that she could get pregnant? Malcolm wasn't even human.
Someone was banging on the door.
"Must be lover b-, I'm sorry sweetie, Malcolm. Probably came back for more of that booty."
"Tracey, I swear to God-"
"Never mind, go answer it. Just listen to me and start using the rhythm method or something if you're not going to wrap it up. I'm not giving up my life to help you raise babies over there in Sparkman. I'm too young for that shit."
Karyn could tell Tracey was just teasing her. "Forget you. I gotta go, Trace."
"You'll be alright, Karyn. Enjoy yourself, okay?"
"Okay."
Click. Her cousin hung up just as Karyn opened her front door.
She should have been more cautious. She saw the familiar flare of his eyes in the peephole, so she opened the door thinking it was Malcolm but it wasn't him. Even though they had the same face, that's where the similarities to her man ended.
He had no shaved head, just uneven matted hair. And he had a dirty, scraggly beard where Malcolm's had been cut so neatly. He seemed so thin, but she knew he had the strength of ten men. She wished it had been Malcolm at the
door, but Marcus was there instead.
CHAPTER TWELVE
They couldn't find Marcus.
Well that shouldn't have been surprising. When they were children, Marcus had always been better at hide-and-seek than he had been. One day, their parents got so tired of Malcolm always crying for help when he couldn't find his brother that they just banned the game outright.
"This is so stupid, Veronique. We aren't going to find him in this all this rain," Malcolm heard Alistair say.
Alistair and Veronique were arguing with each other. What was going on between those two, he didn't know. He wasn't so sure he wanted to know. Besides, it wasn't even important. He needed to focus and find Marcus...
Veronique was screaming inside the car. "You are a pathetic, no-good, son-of-a-bitch! We wouldn't have to find him if it weren't for you!" she shouted at Alistair.
"For me? Really?" Alistair said caustically.
"Exactly! YOU! This is your fault. And you are going to help us find my brother or I will take a knife and so help me…"
"God damn it! Shut up both of you!" shouted Malcolm.
They'd all been driving around for hours in this crazy storm with him sitting in the back seat like some sort of played-out psychic in a cheap movie. His eyes were closed as he tried to use the full extent of his mental abilities to search for his brother. It made him tired and irritable. Frankly, he was even feeling sick.
He was trying to use his link as a twin to locate his brother but it wasn't working. For some reason instead, his head was pounding and his eyes burned. He opened them and everything was a glare.
Veronique turned around to look at him. "I'm sorry, Malcolm. Just do what you -- oh no, Malcolm. What's happening to you?" Veronique shrieked.
His fangs started to distend uncontrollably and he felt pain build up in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to howl.
Was this ARS, he thought with panic. He couldn't think clearly. All he knew was that something was wrong with him and something was wrong with Karyn. He had to get to her now, he thought before he felt his body start to convulse.
She was in the Jewell House again sitting in her favorite place, breathing in the perfumed air. Relaxing as she listened to the laughter.
Laughter. It was strange to hear it. Soft, musical laughter. Karyn got up from her seat to follow the strange sounds.
The Jewell House had an artificial pond with koi and water lilies. There were two children sitting on the opposite side, dipping their toes in the water and splashing each other.
"Come play with us!" they shouted when they spotted her.
There was no reason not to. She walked across the simple bridge that connected them and they made room for her on the grass between them. They told her to dip her toes in the water and she did. They laughed when she drew her feet back at the cold. Funny. She giggled with them and they splashed her too.
And they all played together. They splashed in the water. They played hide-and-seek among the exotic trees. Studied the bugs and butterflies that lived in Jewell House. It was fun and it all seemed so real. Then it struck her.
"Who are you?" she asked.
They seemed to hesitate for a moment before they answered her, and even then their answer seemed nothing more than whispers in her head.
"Robyn," she thought the girl said.
"Wren," said the boy.
They looked familiar to her but she couldn't quite picture where she'd seen them before. "Who are your parents?"
The children looked at each other.
"We're not supposed to tell," Robyn said to Wren.
Wren turned back to Karyn. "We have to go now."
"Are you coming back?"
"Of course. This is aleyksha," he replied.
Karyn woke up. She was lying on the floor in pain. Malcolm's brother had dragged her over to the couch and put her next to it. Her shoulder was still bleeding where he bit her. The fabric on the sofa behind her was saturated with the overflow and she felt completely sick.
It was hard to look at someone who had the same face as her love, but meant to do her harm. She was scared. No matter what they'd been through together, she'd never felt unsafe with Malcolm. Ever.
"Why did you do this to me?" she asked.
"You are my brother's salesh," he said to her. "I can smell him on you." His teeth hung down low past his lips like the vampires she always saw on TV, not retracted in his mouth like Malcolm's, and they were sleek and wet.
Venom, Karyn realized. Malcolm said that the disease made the body produce lots and lots of venom. Just how much poison had this man put in her blood?
"I want Julia, now. Tell me where he took her," he said while he looked at her.
"WHERE IS SHE?" he shouted when she didn't respond.
Karyn was scared but she wasn't going to say anything. She knew his old girlfriend was dead and he wasn't thinking with his right mind. He was directly linked to his emotions and telling him about Julia wasn't likely to get a good response out of him.
"He took her away from me," Marcus said desperately. "He made love to her. She should have been with me."
He put his hand on her knee and Karyn knew she had to get away from him in that moment. She used all her remaining strength to kick him hard and then fly off the couch. B
ut she was just a human, and he was a vampire with ARS. Marcus caught her before she even reached the door and threw her into the ground.
Karyn hit the wood so hard that she couldn't breathe. The next thing she knew he got on top of her and ripped her shirt down. He put his hands on her, skimming over her face, her neck, and down lower until he touched her breasts, squeezing them harder and harder until they finally hurt. His touch was nothing like Malcolm's. It was so alien that she wanted to vomit, but she couldn't get away.
"He treated my Julia like a whore," he said as he straddled her. "You'll pay for what he did."
"God damn it! Where's the house?" Alistair was speeding through the night while Veronique tried to keep Malcolm calm in the backseat.
"Hush, Melkonyeh," she kept saying to him. "El riyoqeh ol. Xuaresh ol ra."
She looked at Alistair. "Dammit, Alistair. Have you not found the place yet?"
"Shut up, Ronnie," he said.
The cops would surely catch them the way Alistair was driving, but Malcolm didn't care. It was as if he was absorbing everything. The light. The air. Their voices. All he felt was fear and pain. Karyn was in a disturbing amount of pain and Marcus was causing it.
"Turn left," Malcolm managed to say when he saw the street light.
He was hooked into them both. He felt the perversion as Marcus tried to rape her. He felt the revulsion as Karyn tried to stop him.
He practically jumped out of the car when he saw her house. Alistair skidded to a stop in the middle of the street while Malcolm ran the rest of the distance and rammed her door in.
He saw her bloodied, lying on the floor screaming, and his brother was on top of her wrestling with her legs. There would be no regrets this time. For the second time in his life, he wished his brother was dead and Malcolm aimed to make it happen. He pounced on him, grabbed him by his long hair, and threw him off Karyn.
Marcus' strength was impossible. It was like he didn't even feel the blow when he landed on the floor. He got up just as swift and came back after him. Malcolm knew he had to finish the job he started.
"Malcolm, no!" Veronique heard his mind and tried to stop him. She was horrified at what Marcus had tried to do to Malcolm's girlfriend but she didn't want to see them hurt each other. She tried to stop them, pulling on the back of Marcus' shirt for she was closest to him.
"Marcus, please stop. Come home," she tried to reason with him hopelessly, but he was like a monster and threw her aside. She bumped her head hard on the wall and slid unconsciously to the floor while he charged at Malcolm in the middle of Karyn's living room.
In the whole time while they were fighting, Karyn tried to move out of the way but she was so weak. She stumbled as she tried to drag herself across the floor. It was too much. The simultaneous link to Karyn and his brother was sensory overload. Her pain transferred over to him and Malcolm fell to the ground. Marcus now had the upper hand and dragged Malcolm up by his throat. He was about to sink his teeth into his neck and then there was a loud explosion.
More thunder, Malcolm thought insanely. He then realized his thoughts were suddenly clear.
The grip on his throat was gone as well. The pressure on it loosened until he could feel Marcus' arm fall. Malcolm opened his eyes and saw his brother's face gone. He didn't understand at first what had happened. Then, as his brother's body slid to the floor, he did.
Karyn shot Marcus. She was now on the floor unconscious but she still had her gun in her hand. When he first saw it on her nightstand, he had half a mind to try to convince her to get rid of it. Ever since he was shot all those years ago, he avoided guns. Now he was grateful. But what had it cost her to find the strength to get? He had felt her pain. What had it cost her to save his life?
"Alistair, call 9-1-1," he told his friend sensing him there.
Malcolm had since crawled over to Karyn, his own strength practically depleted. He took the gun from her limp hand and placed it on her coffee table while he pulled his shirt off. He used it to wipe the blood away from her neck and shoulders trying to find the original wound that Marcus had made.
It was bad, he thought once he finally saw it. Damn you, Marcus, he thought, but his link to his brother was gone. Thank the angels the one between him and Karyn remained. It gave him hope. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Maybe he could fix it. He had to try.
Malcolm bent over and planted his teeth into her wound. He could taste the poison that was circulating in her body on his tongue and it made him nauseous. Even so, he suckled the bite much as he had done in her classroom. He had to neutralize it as much as possible.
I am sorry, lalid. I should have protected you better. I should have kept you from this.
He knew he wasn't doing enough. He increased the pressure of his mouth as he tried to force his body to give her what she needed, but she still tasted different. She barely breathed at all. She was dying, he thought. Karyn had saved his life. Why in hell should she die?
Alistair was trying to pull him away.
Let me go. She needs me.
"The police are coming, Malcolm. The paramedics, too. You've got to let go of her, man."
But Malcolm didn't care anymore that anyone knew what he was. He did not want to let her go. How could he? He could never be happy without her in his life. He could never be happy without her love. Without being able to love her.
Yet, Alistair continued to pull at him. There were sirens approaching. And then he heard the people. Their voices were loud, their hands strong as they touched him.
He finally felt himself being dragged away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Malcolm held Karyn close to him. His long length pressed tight against her ass. His muscular arm was thrown across her soft body beneath her breasts. His legs were threaded with hers.
They'd slept that way every single night since she moved in with him. It was a subconscious embrace, built out of the need to make sure she wasn't going anywhere. The need to know she was protected and safe.
Karyn snuggled more deeply into his hold. She did feel safe. She did feel loved.
The first few weeks after that horrible night had been hard on them both. She was hounded non-stop by reporters and media for interviews. Malcolm and his sister had been hounded by police.
She'd been treated as some sort of hero for killing the Sparkman Stalker. Malcolm and his family were brandished as one of those abnormal families that bred sociopaths. No one knew that they were Vamfir, though. Maybe if she hadn't blown Marcus' face off someone would have figured it out.
Karyn never liked the news. Human beings were abnormally quick to asses judgment and it was too much for her to listen to the praise given to her while shame was brought upon him. Especially when she knew he had saved her life.
In those final moments when she might have died, he latched on to her with such ferocity that he had to be wrestled off her body by police. They thought he was the deranged lunatic, when it was Marcus' body on the floor. They'd even arrested him.
But she knew what he had done. Something similar to when he had kissed her neck in her classroom. He had healed her. And he had risked his freedom and his secret to do it. All for her.
"You're thinking about that night again," Malcolm spoke. He could hear her mind chattering.
"Yes," she replied.
"You'll disturb our children," he said put a hand against her belly. "They'll be too afraid to come out and see the world."
Karyn let out a sigh. "I can't help it. If I never see that house again, it will still be too soon."
She was selling her home. Finally, thank goodness. It had taken her months to find someone to buy it. Though it was much bigger than Malcolm's apartment, she didn't think she could raise her children there. She had a hard time walking through the front door without feeling like she was going to be attacked.
"Relax, lalid. It's over now." He slipped his hands between her thighs and kissed the lobe of her ear. She'd gotten a shorter haircut, the pregnancy making her curls to
o unmanageable, but now it revealed this treasured spot for them both. It made her breathless as he nibbled at it.
He pushed his middle finger past the slippery folds of her cunt, massaging the inner walls of her need. He used his thumb to tease that space above her clit. Here comes the shock bursts, she thought as her body convulsed. He played with her for a long time until she came, flexing her body against his hand.
"I want you to fuck me, Malcolm.”
He was growing hard against her. He removed his hand and Karyn could feel her own wetness as he touched her, pulled her legs apart, and entered her from back of her pussy. He began to rock against her body and she was in heaven.
Karyn thought about all those dreams she had about him. Nothing compared to the real thing. And even though she had resisted him initially, she wondered what she'd ever do without him.
Tracey could be prophetic at times. Malcolm truly was the love of her life. He was her lalid, for it wasn't gender specific she found out. It wasn't even complicated. Lalid was a simple word. It meant one. One heart. One mind. One soul. One love. One perfect love.
Good, she thought. So good. She felt his long teeth pierce her shoulder sending a shuddering thrill through her that made her pussy milk his cock.
His thrusts became faster…
It felt so good to be loved by him.
And he entered harder and deeper…
She didn't have to dream anymore.
He held her hips as they both came together…
It felt so good to have their love awakened...so good to be true lalid.
*****
K. LYNNE DUVALL THANKS YOU FOR READING AWAKENED DESIRES!
*****
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
K. Lynne Duvall wanted to be a writer ever since she was a small child in St. Louis. She took a small detour as an adult when she became a customer service representative, however, the monotony of her job became a blessing in disguise. It allowed her imagination to run wild so she could come up with fabulous ideas for stories. She now resides in Alabama where she has completed her first novel and continues to work on her craft.
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