by Jools Louise
Roaring, Howard came, too, when Mary suddenly convulsed in ecstasy as she found her release, sucking hard on Naomi’s nipples. Naomi and Callum came next, screaming out their pleasure as they writhed together.
Under the warm morning sunshine, my coven reconnected in their own carnal way. Making love, reclaiming one another, we fucked the day away, finding comfort and contentment, and our utmost pleasure, within each other’s bodies. And I found some solace at last from the guilt demons that chased me still.
Chapter Seven
Mercer
I prowled silently through the deep snow, my wings giving me lift as I drifted above the blanket of white beneath my boots. Now back to full strength, my demon reveled in the power of flight after being freed. With my enhanced vision I tracked the movements of a couple of moose that roamed the treeless plain, beyond the boundaries of our home, but I ignored them. They were not what I sought. My prey was of an entirely different kind, a creature I had cause to kill without qualm, and I would once I caught up with him. Charles had somehow found us, tripping one of our silent, magical alarms and alerting Julius to the presence of the intruder. Only a vampire could trigger the alarm, and so I and Silas and Sven were now tracking down the traitor.
Julius had told us to do what we wanted once we caught Charles, implying that he didn’t care either way. I knew that Julius did care, though…far too much. For months during the deep, cold winter, Julius had brooded. His inner pain was obvious to everyone in the coven, and we had hurt with him. For two thousand years, Julius had gathered his family. He had given us a choice about whether we wanted to become vampires, had explained what that meant, and had treated us with respect and love. He was everything a prince should be, caring and loyal and willing to fight to the death to protect any and all of us. His betrayal by Charles had touched us all. And we wanted revenge for our beloved Julius.
I whispered Charles’s name, letting the wind take my words to his ears. He stood beside a thawing stream, the banks strewn with pebbles, and looked back as though struck, spying me closing in on him. His big body looked tense, as though he was preparing to run. Silas and Sven came from each side, though, and he had nowhere to go. Even with Charles’s speed, he could not escape three of us. Sven was over three thousand years old, and the strongest. He had roamed the earth, a nomad belonging to nobody when first converted at about the same time as Julius, but then joined the Norse tribes to the far north after centuries as a rogue vampire. An ex-Viking warrior, he had plundered the shores of England when that nation was just a primitive dot on the map, earning his status as a vampire prince before deciding to follow Julius instead, when Julius rescued Sven from Theo’s clutches. Theo had a history of destroying covens that were more successful.
“So, Charles, we meet again,” Sven said in his deep, growly voice, all three of us now surrounding Charles, who wore the look of a deer in headlights. I stared at Sven, not realizing the pair knew each other. “You dare to come here after what you have done? You are not an honorable man but a verminous monster who must be dealt with as such.”
“I work for the Paranormal Council. You know that, Sven,” Charles replied, not flinching from Sven, instead meeting Sven’s blue eyes steadily.
“You used me, and you used my prince, Julius,” Sven said, almost to himself, ignoring the claim. “You will not survive this day, I think.” Sven’s long, tawny-colored hair glittered beneath the full moon, which shone brightly on the tense tableau.
“I did my job,” Charles replied, sneering slightly.
“I was a job to you?” Julius had followed and now stood a few feet away, looking at Charles through unreadable eyes.
“I had a job to do,” Charles repeated, standing a little straighter and staring right back at Julius.
“And just what was your job?” Julius asked. “Sven already told me how you tried to recruit him. He told me how your duties for Theo often overshadow your obligation to the Council. The same Council that demands that we all play fairly with each other and not use underhanded tricks to steal from others.”
“You enjoyed what we did together,” Charles said, shrugging casually as though it was no big deal.
I snarled furiously, stepping forward, only to be waved away by my prince, who smiled gently at me. I tensed but moved back, knowing something of what was behind that smile. Julius used it on special occasions…like when he was about to eliminate vermin.
“I did,” Julius said softly, moving closer, drifting over the snow like a ghost, his wings spread, their translucent black forming a huge shadowy veil behind him. “I liked that you went all alpha on me. I enjoyed such pleasure in your arms.” He smirked a little and tilted his head to the side, as though contemplating a puzzle that he couldn’t quite figure out. “Sven told me something of his history with you and Theo, but when I met you, I made some assumptions about your better nature.” Julius laughed without humor, his fangs gleaming as his lips curled back into a snarl. “I had thought you to possess some finer feelings, but I was mistaken. You think only of yourself. Theo is the perfect employer for you, isn’t he? He is the same soulless creature as you are. What he wants, he gets, just like you.” Julius snarled for real this time, his fists clenched. “Six of my people were murdered because of your ambition. How do you intend to pay for that?”
Charles looked startled and frowned blackly. “I do not intend to pay for anything,” he spat and then lashed out with his claws, aiming for Julius’s throat. Julius sidestepped nimbly, snapping an iron device around Charles’s throat as the big vampire attacked.
Charles cursed, distracted by the thing around his neck, clawing at it in vain, trying to remove it.
“This is an ingenious contraption designed by you, isn’t it?” Julius said, smiling that gentle smile again, his eyes as cold as the ice beneath our feet. “You allowed my coven to wear something just like this, right before you slaughtered six of them. Some kind of Hunger Games event, wasn’t it?” Julius grabbed for Charles suddenly, gripping the vampire just above the iron choking the traitor. “The rest of my family would have suffered the same fate, isn’t that right? Their vampire abilities were severely hindered by this, and they were unable to help themselves when Theo’s guards got through with them. Isn’t that what happened?”
Charles began choking for real, his larynx slowly being crushed by Julius’s strong grip. “I did my job,” Charles insisted, coughing and wheezing. “Now kill me and be done with it. You are weak. You don’t have the guts for it.”
“You’re right,” Julius replied, almost gently. “I don’t have the stomach to kill you outright, for that would be too easy. Instead, I have something a little more…long term in mind.” In his other fist, Julius carried a small vial. “Do you recognize this, Charles? This is the substance you used on Sven to slowly poison him, isn’t it?”
Charles began to struggle in earnest as Sven and Silas grabbed him by his arms and Julius upended the vial of silvery fluid into Charles’s mouth.
“Liquid mercury?” I asked, gulping. The stuff, a metallic substance used for medical equipment mostly now, was extremely toxic to humans…lethal as well for vampires. A vampire would take a long time to die once mercury had been ingested. That was if they only had a couple of drops. The vial contained a quantity that would kill Charles much more quickly…and he would be in such agony he would beg for death way before the end.
Julius’s eyes glowed red in the darkness, and I picked up the pain my beautiful prince was feeling, mixed in with his rage at Charles’s deception.
“Sven?” he said through gritted teeth, and Sven nodded.
“We wouldn’t want you to poison the wildlife, now would we?” Sven told Charles, smiling grimly. Then he and Silas carted Charles off across the snowy wasteland, his curses and pleas falling on deaf ears.
“Julius?” I said softly.
He continued to stand there, staring after Charles, and then crumpled to the cold ground, sobbing wretchedly.
“Julius
!” I cried out, gathering him in my arms and then racing back to our home.
* * * *
Julius
I felt sick to my soul, unable to stop the wrenching sobs erupting from me as Mercer carried me swiftly to the cabin. I was vaguely aware of my coven gathering around, surrounding me with concern and kisses, but my misery was now complete, and so I shut myself inside my mind, shutting them out.
I felt the loss of the six who had been slaughtered. It was hitting me like a sledgehammer right now, even though it had been months since the events back at the tavern. I had kept most of my grief inside, not wanting my coven to think ill of me. I knew that I didn’t rule my coven as other vampires did. I had not the heart to treat them like empty vessels for my sexual pleasure. Somehow I had managed to retain a semblance of the humanity stripped from me centuries ago and refused to become a bloodthirsty monster, killing people at will.
I had chosen my family carefully, wanting people around me who I could trust. Sven had come to me nearly two thousand years before, a prince in his own right. He had pledged a blood oath, rescinding his title, and we had sealed our bond in the traditional way. I had never regretted my decision to accept his allegiance, and he had proven a worthy addition to my inner circle. He had been betrayed by Theo and, I found out, Charles. I had been a fool, though, and had thought that Charles actually cared. How wrong could one gullible vampire be? I had killed my family. I had destroyed everything for a hot piece of sexual dominance. I deserved to suffer the same fate as Charles, for, in my own way, I believed I was as much a traitor as he. I found in myself a hard inner core and was not sorry at my decision when it came to the method of Charles’s demise. Sven had taken a droplet of mercury many decades hence, and to this day, he had lost certain abilities as a vampire, the metallic liquid crippling his wings and preventing him from being able to fly.
The cure for taking mercury was fairly risky, involving draining a victim of ninety percent of their blood and then infusing new blood slowly back into the unfortunate vampire. I had suffered a similar fate soon after I was converted, courtesy of Theo’s dastardly thugs, who had offered tainted blood to me during a gathering of the Paranormal Council, my initiation into the ways of vampire politics.
Both Sven and I had survived the whole transfusion thing, and it had not been pleasant for either of us. I had suffered no lingering effects, fortunately, but Sven had not been so lucky and had blackouts and intense mood swings every so often. I hadn’t known it was Charles who had poisoned Sven, though. I was doubly a fool for not putting the clues together since that was Theo’s MO and Charles had mentioned several months ago that he had done business with Theo over the years. I had not thought his business included murdering fellow princes.
“Julius,” Mercer murmured, cradling me against his strong body, his biceps bulging as he lifted me into his lap, urging the others to leave. I heard the soft whisper of my friends leaving, my tears beginning to abate.
“Why do you not follow Theo? He’s not weak like me. He doesn’t fall apart because he has to dispatch his enemies. He just does it, no qualms, no emotional response. I’m nothing.” Even I heard the whine in my voice and cringed at the sound, hearing a low chuckle from my African warrior. His hard cock was lying beneath me, its thickness intimately familiar to me. Over the past two thousand years, I had sucked and been fucked by Mercer’s big dick countless times.
“Even you know how ridiculous that question is,” Mercer snorted, stroking my hair gently and pressing a tender kiss to the top of my head. “We all escaped monsters like him in our human forms. Why would we want to continue our eternity with such as he?”
“I’m tired of all the politics,” I sighed wearily. “To Theo, this is just a game of one-upmanship. He kills for fun, slaughters humans for the sheer pleasure of wielding power. How many people were slain at our tavern?”
“Julius, my friend and lover, my brother in blood,” Mercer replied softly, turning my face up to his and placing a loving kiss on my lips. “This is not just a game to Theo. It’s everything to him.” I frowned and shuddered as Mercer nipped my lower lip teasingly, sucking on the soft cushion of flesh. “People follow you without question, and he hates that effortless charisma you have. You were chosen as a prince soon after your conversion. He had to wait five hundred years to achieve the same, and only because he took out his competition.” I slowly slid my tongue inside his mouth, sampling him delicately. He sighed, opening wider for me, and I had to adjust my body as my cock surged with increasing urgency, pushing upward.
“Mercer…” I murmured, a catch in my voice. My head lolled against his arm, and he released my mouth to trail a moist path down my throat, mouthing my Adam’s apple gently.
“My love, Theo is jealous because you have something he will never have…integrity. He believes that ruling by fear is the only way to gain loyalty and respect. He’s a moron—but a deadly one. Theo has spent centuries trying to figure out ways to oust you from your position, thinking the coven would simply swap sides once you were out of the picture. He imprisoned us because we all, individually, told him to go fuck himself.”
I let out a half-laugh, moving restlessly against my lover as he teased my shirt buttons open and was maneuvered so he could sample my little brown nipples. I arched my back as his mouth found one flat disc and licked at it until it came alive under his tongue. He caught the little nub in his teeth, pulling and tugging at it until I was moaning fluently, cupping his head, holding him closer.
“He doesn’t have the capacity for love and caring and affection that you do…or that any of our coven has toward each other.” He chuckled again as he released one nipple, lifting me so that he could reach a new target. My other nipple was treated to a similar torture, his fangs grazing my chest as he chewed at the little fleshy pebble.
“Mercer…please…” My cock was pushing urgently against the soft material of my pants, forming a tent, which he was happy to massage for me, leading to more pleas.
“Do I please you?” he asked, dipping his fingers beneath the waistband of my trousers and finding bare, moist, engorged flesh throbbing in arousal.
“You’ve always pleased me,” I replied breathlessly, my face contorted into tortured desire. “Since our first time together, when you thanked me for saving your life.” I choked out a groan when he wrapped his fist around my hard cock, shoving my pants down a little to release my cock from its confines.
“Sire, I always will,” he said sincerely and lifted me higher so that his mouth was in reach of my needy cock. I lay before him, balanced in his hands, in wanton supplication. He took the offering, opening wide around the delicious morsel before him and swallowed my cock down. I cried out my pleasure at the first taste, and he sucked on me hungrily. I writhed in his arms, my hips bucking involuntarily with each deep draw.
* * * *
Mercer
Julius tasted deliciously of spice and musk and a little saltiness to add to my palate. As a blood-sucking undead creature, I could still appreciate the different textures and flavors on my tongue. I particularly enjoyed driving my prince to ever-increasing ecstasy, at my mercy as I devoured him voraciously, wanting to show him just how much I wanted to please him…for eternity. This man had stood against an entire legion of Roman soldiers to protect me. He had faced down one of the most feared vampires, his sire, who had wanted to take me as one of his own, and had fought to the death against a monster ten times as vicious as Theo. Julius had earned my undying love and respect for that alone, taking on a brutal killer so that I would not suffer under Prince Harald’s brutality.
Julius came apart, his balls drawing up before shooting their load into my avid mouth. I drank the thick cream down but didn’t stop sucking. He cried out desperately, pleading for mercy, but I gave no quarter, determined for him to know how much he meant. I turned him onto his hands and knees and lifted his hips, presenting his little pink hole for inspection. I lowered my mouth, nibbling the soft globes of his ass, suckin
g up little love bites, ignoring his gasps of entreaty. He wanted to be fucked, He wanted my cock deep inside him. I would make him wait just a while longer, I thought, smiling against his smooth flesh. He cursed me luridly, in seven different languages, then added a few more, to make sure I understood what a cock-teasing bastard son of a buffalo I was. I got the message, sinking one thick finger into his clenching hole as punishment.
“Fucking hell!” Julius yelped, his chute clenching around my finger as he adjusted to the sudden invasion. “Warn me next time!”
“Yes, sire,” I replied respectfully, crooking my finger and finding his prostate. “I’m about to drive you out of your mind, now,” I added, laughing at his continued swearing, then nailed his tiny gland over and over until his cock was thick and dripping once more, and he was shoving his hips back at me, begging me to nail him with my cock. I declined the invitation and removed my finger from his horny hole, shoving my tongue inside instead, which had him raking at the carpet with his claws, his head flung back as I gave him an intimate cleansing.
“Mercer…” Julius wailed and then gave a piercing yell before his cock erupted once again. Quickly turning him, I aimed his thick hose at my face and opened my mouth to catch the ropes of thick cum as they spattered everywhere.
Catching his cock between my lips again, I cleaned him off tenderly and then lowered his trembling body, aiming my rock-hard cock at his anus. He clutched at my shoulders as I breached him, punching past the loosened ring of muscles guarding his channel. I controlled his descent, groaning myself as his exquisite warmth wrapped around me, inch by succulent inch.
“I love you, Julius,” I told him, cupping his head as I kissed him, putting all my love for him into the smooch. My toes curled up as the heat increased, our mouths desperately meeting again and again, passionate and hungry for more.
