Darkness In The Flames

by Kelly, Sahara

  She paused in front of Katherine and reached out to her, grasping one of Katherine’s breasts in her hand and squeezing it hard. “Although I will admit he has reasonable tastes in women. He could have done worse.”

  Frozen in that strange and powerful black-eyed gaze, Katherine could only shiver as Thérèse fondled her body, sliding her palms over nipples that beaded involuntarily at the touch. Thérèse’s hands slid lower and she probed between Katherine’s thighs, seeking, searching, intruding into the dark and secret places that made Katherine gasp.

  “Mmm. Very nice.” Thérèse licked her fingers as she closed the distance between them and rubbed her naked skin against Katherine’s in a sensual gyration of cold flesh. She angled her hips and ground her pussy into Katherine, closing her eyes as she did so and obviously enjoying the sensation. “I think I may play with you a little.” She stepped back and considered Katherine thoughtfully.

  The air changed, and Katherine found herself prone on some sort of couch with Thérèse looming over her.

  “Now. Let’s see…”

  A cool tongue swirled around Katherine’s nipple, biting it and tugging at it with sharp teeth. It was so close to being painful that she braced herself, but apparently Thérèse was too skilled to push her into agony—yet.

  Fighting her body’s automatic response, Katherine concentrated on thoughts of Adrian. Of how he must have felt when this evil wickedness seduced him with her eyes and her magic and her white flesh.

  Cold hands roamed over Katherine, squeezing, pinching then caressing, stimulating the nerve endings that would arouse, finding the places that made Katherine sigh and bite her lip with anger that she could not fail to respond to such wicked lust.

  “How delightful. Such hot juices…” Thérèse’s mouth had worked its way to Katherine’s mound and lower, discovering the liquids that her touch had stimulated. She sucked on Katherine’s clit, unerringly and skillfully sending shudders into Katherine’s groin.

  “Shall I make you come, I wonder?”

  “No. I will not.” Katherine forced locked neck muscles to move and lifted her head, staring down at the fiery tumble of curls and the face that stared at her over her own pubic hair.

  “If I desire it, you shall.” Thérèse licked her again, a harsh and forceful stroke with her strong and cold tongue. “But maybe I don’t desire it. Maybe I shall just arouse you to the peak and leave you there. It would be a modest punishment for your presumption.”

  “I…I do not understand.” Katherine blinked against the anger that blazed from Thérèse’s inky eyes.

  “You presumed to take the one you call Adrian from me. To claim what is mine. I do not permit that. Ever.” She returned to Katherine’s clit and attacked it with lips and tongue making Katherine cry out and writhe beneath her.

  “He is not yours.” Katherine hissed out the words as she battled her orgasm, held—as Thérèse had threatened—on the brink but going no further. This was sensual torture of a kind foreign to Katherine. She had few, if any, defenses against it, and thoughts of Adrian weren’t helping. Imagining him between her legs instead of Thérèse simply aroused her more.

  She gulped back a groan and focused on her anger. This creature was evil personified, a sexual and sensual evil, to be sure, but dark and ugly beneath the seductive touches.

  “Mmm.” Thérèse hummed as she sucked at Katherine, obviously enjoying what she was doing.

  Katherine was stunned that a woman could gain pleasure from doing this to another woman, and perturbed that she could not move, could not escape from those cool lips and that fluttering tongue.

  “You taste hot. Human. Good.” Thérèse lifted her head and smiled wickedly, her mouth shining and her lips red against the white of her face. “I wonder what it would be like to drink from you. Suck you dry and discard the empty shell.” Lasciviously she lifted herself up, sliding towards Katherine’s face and rubbing her breasts against any part of Katherine’s body she could find.

  “It’s your turn now. Make me come. Then perhaps I shall slake my thirst. From you.”

  Trembling and weak as her body thrummed with unfulfilled tension, Katherine could only stare, paralyzed, as the vampire slithered up her body. She came to rest at Katherine’s chin, her pussy inches from Katherine’s mouth.

  “Suck me, bitch. Use that hot tongue of yours. Fuck me with it or it will be the worse for you. I can end your life quickly or make you linger and scream for the release that only death can bring.” She lowered herself onto Katherine’s face. “It’s your choice.”

  Katherine held her breath as the other woman pushed her sex towards Katherine’s mouth. She would not do this. She could not do this. It violated everything Katherine had been raised to believe, and made a mockery of her love for Adrian.

  As the cool flesh touched her lips, Katherine closed her eyes and prayed for strength.

  She prayed for courage to fight this horror, and she prayed for some sort of answer as to how to defeat the undefeatable. A solution to the question of how to destroy this unspeakable evil and the woman it possessed.

  And she finally thought of Adrian. And how very much she loved him.

  At the very last moment, Thérèse gasped and her weight was pulled from Katherine’s chest and face.

  Her prayers had been answered.

  Adrian was there.

  *~*~*~*

  He’d heard Katherine calling him and fought his way to a sort of wakefulness, seeking out her voice, following her thoughts and feeling her terror.

  He knew, without a doubt, who was with her. The sense of darkness that he always felt in Thérèse’s presence loomed large over him, and this time it was filled with dread that she now had Katherine in her toils.

  Stumbling through the mist he reached them, Katherine with her eyes closed tight, Thérèse about to push her pussy into Katherine’s face. It was an erotically charged image that sent a frisson of sheer agony through Adrian. There was no way he would permit his wife to be tainted by this ugliness.

  Silently he moved to Thérèse and grasped her by the hair, yanking her backwards and off Katherine with one vicious tug. She spun and hissed as he released her, fangs emerging to lie harshly over her full lower lip.

  Adrian ignored her. He moved to Katherine and bent over her. “Are you all right?”

  Her eyes opened and incredibly she smiled at him. “I am now that you’re here.” She raised a hand with difficulty and Adrian grasped it in his, relishing the warmth that flooded him at her touch.

  “Well, isn’t that just the sweetest thing. A husband come to comfort his wife.” Thérèse sneered the words past her fangs, a faint flush of anger and arousal staining her cheeks.

  “You will not touch her.” Adrian stood tall, holding Katherine’s hand and quietly issuing the order.

  “I shall do as I please. If I please to take her, I will. Just as I shall take you, my sweet, if it pleases me.” Thérèse chuckled and caressed her own breasts. “I feel needy. I feel the urge to have her mouth suck me. She will make me come, and then—if I feel like it—I will fuck you too. She can watch.” Deadly dark eyes flicked a casual glance at Katherine. “Then perhaps I shall come to her in the flesh and feed from her.”

  “I don’t think so.” Adrian tugged on Katherine’s hand, feeling some sort of resistance, as if a weight rested on his wife’s body, holding it down. He turned to look at her. “Katherine, concentrate. Ignore her and concentrate. Stand up, my darling. Stand next to me.”

  Thérèse’s light laugh echoed into the mist. “She is mine now, Adrian. Or should I call you Jadranko? Should I remind you of the night you fucked me in the gardens of Rogaška? The pleasure we shared? The blood we shared? You are mine. You always have been since that night. Perhaps there may be room for a third in our games, but only if I decide it shall be so. You have brought her to me. She is mine to do with as I wish.”

  Again, Adrian ignored her, pouring his strength through his arm and into the woman clinging to his ha
nd. Katherine swallowed, met his gaze with her own and slowly rose from the couch. “Thank you, my love.” She stood beside him and smiled.

  Thérèse hissed. “How dare you?” She frowned at Katherine. “You are mine. I have control here.”

  Adrian tucked Katherine’s arm in his and pulled her close, turning to the vicious and angry creature confronting them. “I think not. There is more here than you can ever imagine, Thérèse. You live for death and violence and your own pleasure. Those days are over for me.” He leaned over and kissed Katherine gently, ignoring the gasp from Thérèse. “I have found a new power.”

  A shriek of rage shattered Adrian’s ears and Thérèse grew bright and fierce, a swelling vision of fury. Her teeth gleamed sharply as she shimmered in front of them, an illusion of evil and hatred.

  “You will regret this, you fool. I could have shared it all with you, but you continually ignored me. I cared little for that. Given time I could have…” She scowled at him. “This is the last insult I shall take from your hands. Turn your back on me? Turn down immortality? The eternity of pleasures I could have given you?”

  She moved away, a shadow of her former image, a threatening storm of fire that gave no heat, only horror. “You have cast the dice, you poor pathetic creature. You have chosen someone else to share your miserable existence. There will be no quarter now for you, or for those around you.”

  Her words were screeched in tones that made Adrian wince, and he felt Katherine tremble against him as Thérèse continued her vituperative diatribe.

  “Beware, one who calls himself Adrian Chesswell. I know where you are. I know where you live. I know—now—who you think you love.” It was a curse, spat into the mists between them. She faded into a mere glimmer. “I shall see you both soon. And then I shall see you in eternal hell.”

  She vanished.

  A peal of thunder woke Katherine and Adrian and they both sat up in bed with a start.

  “Oh dear God.” Katherine turned worried eyes to Adrian. “She means it. She will come here, won’t she?” Shivering, his wife threw herself into his arms.

  “Yes. I think she will, if she’s not here already. That was a strong vision, which usually meant she was close to me.” He sighed and tucked Katherine into his shoulder, surrounding her with his arms. “I avoided her in the past, Kat. She taunted me in my sleep, but I have not seen her in the flesh for many years. I swear.”

  “I believe you.” She dropped a light kiss on his chest. “But it would appear she still considers you her property, Adrian. And I’ve taken you away.”

  “You’ve claimed something she could never have, Kat. My heart. She’s vengeful, jealous and vicious. She sees that we have something she wants. She could never possess it, though, since she has no heart of her own.”

  “Do you know anything about her, Adrian? Where she came from? How long she has been…this way?” Katherine sighed. “It must be a terrible existence. Feeding from people, drinking their blood, killing them perhaps, having…sex like that.”

  “She shocked you.” It was a statement not a question.

  Katherine thought for a moment. “I was not unaware that sexual interactions can take place in many different ways. But to have a woman touch me like that—expect things from me I couldn’t imagine doing—well, yes, I suppose it did shock me.”

  “And yet the two of us were able to pull free of her control. That’s something that really surprised her.” Adrian spoke more to himself and yet Katherine heard him.

  “I think…” she paused, “I think it might possibly have something to do with the fact that we shared—well, we fed from each other, Adrian. Just a little, but we exchanged our blood. I’m not like you, you didn’t turn me, if that’s the right word. But it was enough…”

  “Enough to give us the power to withstand her?” Adrian pursed his lips as he considered the idea. “It’s possible, Kat.”

  “Or maybe it was as simple as the love that exists between us.” She sighed and ran her fingers down his chest to his navel.

  Adrian’s hand did some wandering of its own. “Maybe.” Her body distracted him and he found her wet and hot, a residual effect of their nightmarish experience. “Hmm. It seems I am being an inattentive husband.”

  He rolled her on to her back and slipped between her legs. She smelled warm and sensual, a blend of their earlier lovemaking and her own heat. With a smile, he dipped his head to her pussy, seeking out her clit. He wanted to replace the bad memories with good ones.

  And he wanted to make her come—just because he loved it when she did.

  It didn’t take too long, either. He kissed her and found her clit with his tongue as she moaned out her pleasure. She was ready, swollen and clearly aching for him, since she spread her thighs wide, welcoming him home.

  “Adrian, oh God, Adrian…”

  They were whimpers of delight and Adrian drank them down as he licked her into a frenzy, her muscles clenching beneath his hands as he stroked her thighs from knee to groin. She was all silk and wet velvet and within moments he felt her spasm her way into an explosion of orgasmic contractions.

  “Adrian…” Her scream rang around the room and he held her tight, letting her come in wave after wave of ripples around his face.

  This was his heart’s delight. To be able to taste and smell his woman as she fell apart in his hands. This was an experience that outweighed everything he’d done, everything he’d felt and everything he thought he’d lost.

  Until Kat.

  The dawn was breaking as she eased into a relaxed and limp state, sighing with exhaustion and pleasure.

  My wife. My heart.

  Adrian slipped in beside her and hoped he wouldn’t be the cause of her death. Losing Kat would destroy him, he knew. Without her there would be nothing on earth for him—nothing to hold him here. Somehow he would find a way to follow her if she left him. As he fell into the abyss of sleep he did something he’d not done for quite a while.

  He prayed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  One look at the faces of his son and new daughter-in-law, and Sidney knew something had happened. He had news for them as well.

  “Tell me.” He skipped the preliminaries.

  “Not good, Father. She’s definitely near. She didn’t mention Arthur Byerly, but I’ll bet anything that she was responsible.” Adrian sighed as he took Katherine to a seat near a low table set with tea and scones.

  “She knows where we are, too.” She added, pouring herself a steaming cup. “She’s very angry that Adrian and I are wed.”

  Sidney nodded. “I’m not surprised. From what you’ve told me, she wouldn’t take such news easily. This is a creature that relishes the control she has. The victims that now jump at her command.” He stared out of the window. “She can’t stand the thought of losing one. Of surrendering the power she has over you, Adrian, to somebody else. Or even to yourself.”

  “She made that clear.” Adrian’s voice was somber. “I am concerned, Father. If she’s here, and if she killed Byerly, then I am afraid more deaths may come.”

  Sidney took a breath. “One already has.”

  “What?” Katherine’s teacup rattled as she jumped at Sidney’s words.

  “A local maidservant. On her way home from the Inn where she worked. She’d been seeing a lad and he’d been delayed. She was alone—a dark path—just the right place for vermin to prey on the innocent.”

  Adrian swallowed. “Was she—“

  “Yes. Completely exsanguinated. And mutilated too, by the sound of things.”

  “Oh dear God.” Adrian rested his head against the window. “It’s all my fault.”

  Sidney squared his shoulders. “You take too much responsibility for this, Adrian. Yes, she has come looking for you, but she has been here before. Long ago. I verified that fact while you were sleeping. Old manuscripts confirm what was called a flame-haired succubus. It emerged from the caves beneath the Chyne hundreds of years ago to seduce unwary men and turn them
into slaves.”

  “Good lord.” Katherine’s jaw dropped. “Exactly how old is she?”

  “I have no idea.” Sidney turned to her. “But it’s quite possible she has some history with our original St. Chesswell. He closed off the caves with a few well-placed rock falls, and sent her back to the depths of the earth. I’m supposing that there are other exits elsewhere, and probably more legends too. How she ended up in Europe is anyone’s guess.”

  “Did you find out anything else? Like how to destroy her?” Adrian’s gaze was intense and Sidney felt the agony that lay behind it.

  “I’m working on that, my son. Never fear, that is very high on my list of priorities.”

  “Should we—is there anything we should be doing?” Katherine asked Sidney.

  “I can’t think of anything. Nor can I find anything to protect us in the old documents. Back then, of course, she would have been viewed as a tool of the Devil.”

  Adrian snorted. “She still is. I have no problem looking at her that way.”

  Sidney crossed to the window and put his hand on Adrian’s shoulder. “She is certainly possessed, Adrian, that is true. Possessed of a great evil that preys on innocent humanity. But…” He paused, searching for the words to express his scientific beliefs. “It’s my opinion that she was once human. That someone did to her what she now does to others. Given that assumption, it follows logically that she can be destroyed. Or at least incapacitated. I just have to discover how.”

  Katherine put her teacup down on the tray with a clatter. “Well then, let us help. We can all read, and what we don’t understand you can translate. It will go faster with three pairs of eyes.”

  Sidney smiled at her. “A wonderful suggestion, my dear, but these manuscripts are in medieval Latin. I don’t know how extensive your education was, but I doubt it covered this particular language.”

  Katherine swore. Fluidly and indelicately. Then blushed. “Sorry.”