by Aja James
As he cut the engine and secured the garage door, he practically tossed Ava through the door of the house. He led her by her wrist down the hallway through a hidden door in the wall and flung her into the secure chamber and locked them both inside.
She staggered off her feet and landed on her magnificent ass on the tatami mat. She said something to him, but he couldn’t hear for the buzzing in his ears. Then the room started to tilt and wobble, and Ava seemed to multiply in two, then four.
Four Avas… Dark Goddess help him…
It was his last thought as the floor ran up to meet his face.
*** *** *** ***
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!
Ava couldn’t seem to shut off the litany in her head.
For a couple of seconds that seemed like an eternity, she was frozen still, only her eyeballs darting from left to right, up and down, taking in the situation.
Small, traditional chamber with steel shutters on lock down and blackout drapes not quite drawn. A rectangular opening on the side leading to what looked like a washroom. Three of the walls lined with built-in desks set up with state-of-the-art tech equipment including several monitors, keyboards, a bunch of devices and wires and stuff that Ava didn’t know what they were used for. One swivel chair, dimly lit overhead lantern, a rolled up bundle for sleeping in the corner, a small freezer-fridge beneath one of the built-ins and a neat stack of bottles of water beside it.
And right in front of the door to the room, what appeared to be the only entrance and exit—
Ryu lying face down on the floor in a pool of blood.
Right. That got Ava moving again.
With a calm clarity that miraculously kept the screaming panic at bay, she crouched beside Ryu, rolled him gingerly onto his back and checked his vitals.
Okay, still breathing. She could work with that.
His clothes, boots and hair were soaked with blood, and she didn’t know how much of it was his. There were shards of glass visible from tears in his leathers, likely also embedded in his flesh. She needed to cut the clothes away and clean him as much as she could to see where the wounds were so she could stem the blood flow.
She made a dash for the washroom and hoped there would be first aid she could use. Jack pot! A full kit in the cabinet above the toilet.
She rushed back to Ryu’s side, opened the kit and dumped all the contents out. Calm as her mind seemed to be, her movements didn’t bother with keeping a sedate pace and neatness. Time was of the essence.
Finding a pair of surgical scissors, she efficiently cut away his clothes, tugged off his boots and patted him down, checking for broken bones.
Nothing seemed broken. Great news.
Between the unconsciousness, the blood and his faint heartbeat growing fainter by the second, lack of broken bones was what she focused on as her inner optimist gave her the pep talk of her life.
He’s going to be fine, she told herself as she soaked towels with warm water and quickly wiped away the gore covering him from head to toe to see where his wounds were.
He’s just taking a little breather after all that shadowy assassin stuff, which looked like a bit of an ordeal.
She assessed the multiple gashes and puncture wounds and bruises on his body, half a dozen in the chest and sides, a few on the legs and arms, shards of glass embedded in his skin in too many places for her to take in all at once.
Doesn’t seem to be internal organ damage though, she told herself almost cheerfully, pressing gently around his torso. He’ll be good as new in no time!
Just needed a massive blood transfusion, but hey, she’d figure something out.
After disinfecting and binding the worst of his wounds, no time for stitches, the bleeding seemed to have stopped or at least stalled. Maybe because he didn’t have much blood left to bleed, he was so pale beneath his normally honey-toned skin.
But she jerked her mind back from that unhappy place. She needed to stay positive. He was going to be just fine.
With remarkably steady hands, she picked out the glass shards all over his body, amazed that she wasn’t a similar pincushion. Aside from a few bruises and aches, she suffered not even a scratch. He must have somehow protected her from the worst of the explosion and the fall from the second floor with his own body.
At the thought of what he must have endured to protect her, Ava’s hands started to shake, and she clamped her teeth onto her lower lip to refocus her efforts.
A particularly large, jagged piece of glass was embedded at least two inches in his shoulder. As she struggled to remove it without damaging the tissues around the wound further, her palm slipped across the sharp edge and was sliced right open.
At least she got the glass out, she thought, barely noticing the gash in her hand, not realizing that she was dripping blood onto Ryu’s face at a steady trickle.
Blood that hit the seam between his colorless lips.
Lips that parted to take in more.
And suddenly, Ava fell forward onto his chest, her hand trapped in both of his, her bleeding palm pressed against his mouth.
Her emergency calmness entered a new level of zen as she stared transfixed into Ryu’s mesmerizing black eyes, wide open and staring back at her, and watched him suck at her bleeding hand in deep, desperate draws.
Well, Ava observed neutrally like she was floating outside her own body, this was one way to go about a blood transfusion.
*** *** *** ***
More.
He craved more of this delicious life-giving nectar.
The vampire inside of him demanded nourishment, starved as it had been for months and now on the edge of death.
The blood in his mouth, smoothly rolling down his throat, heating his stomach and infusing immediately into his bloodstream, reinvigorated the healing factor in his DNA, awakening his consciousness fully even as his body remained a wasted mess on the floor.
Ava’s blood.
Was his second thought. And he involuntarily pulled her closer, sucking her hand harder, making her flinch though she didn’t seem to notice her own reaction.
He curled his body closer around her as she lay fully on top of him and held her securely in place with one arm around her back. She wouldn’t be able to get away if she tried to. A near-death, starving vampire was still much stronger than a small human woman.
But her body was relaxed, and her stare didn’t seem frantic. It was first blank with shock, but then her gaze grew warmer, as if she didn’t mind a monster greedily drinking her blood.
She even looked relieved.
Her free hand was stroking the side of his face and neck. It felt good.
More.
The wound at her hand wasn’t providing a steady enough source of blood. His fangs punched through his gums and his lips peeled back to accommodate them.
“That’s a neat trick,” she murmured drowsily, but didn’t seem alarmed. She hadn’t started screaming or clawing at the walls yet.
As if somehow knowing what he needed, she tugged her wrist to his mouth.
“Go ahead,” she said, “it seems to help you.”
He hesitated briefly before he struck, sinking his fangs into her vein and drawing upon it immediately.
She gasped.
He didn’t think he was hurting her. The feelings he had while feeding from her and the Consent she’d given him made the process pleasurable rather than painful.
Though he was half-crazed with hunger and agony from his wounds, a part of him still recognized Ava. The protectiveness he felt toward her, the unwilling…care, the intense sexual attraction… these emotions infused themselves in the venom produced by his fangs that seeped into her bloodstream as he fed.
He continued to hold her stare to watch for signs of how she was taking it all. Her look of acceptance and relief transformed gradually into contentedness, then eased into the beginnings of sleepy arousal. Her eyelids began to droop. Her cheeks suffused with color. Her lips parted as her breath came faster.
He sucked harder, and undulated his body against her very subtly, his own arousal flaring hot.
It was enough to set off a string of small explosions within her as she orgasmed slow and long on top of him.
“Oh my God,” she rasped, no longer able to maintain their stare, her head falling like that of a rag doll onto his chest as he continued to draw blood from her wrist.
He positioned her lower so that her groin was nestled against his and slowly ground his erection against the notch at her thighs. He could feel her wetness even through her slacks.
“Holy Mary…” She shuddered from head to toe as her seemingly never ending orgasm intensified, and her thighs clenched tightly against his hips.
But the blood loss was catching up with her.
Even as her body continued to shiver in ecstasy, her consciousness was beginning to fade. Within moments, she had fallen asleep on top of him.
Ryu licked closed the incisions he made with his fangs and also lapped at the gash in her palm, closing the skin more effectively than stitches. The vampire in him wanted to take more of her sweet, addictive nectar, and he knew in the back of his mind that taking her soul would strengthen him further.
But then there would be no more Ava. And even the bloodthirsty monster within him couldn’t contemplate a world without her in it.
He was going to live. That was enough.
Ava’s blood had saved him.
She was sure to have a million questions when she woke up. But he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.
He was so tired. His body had gone through so much trauma. He felt so heavy… so much pain…
Within seconds, the gates of his mind gave way to dark dreams from another time…
Sengoku period, 15th century Edo.
She didn’t say a word as she took his chin in her hand, turning his face to the left, then to the right, her eyes glancing over the bruises and scratches he knew he sported, along with the swelling around his right eye that was making it difficult to keep his lids open.
Ryu had expected her to strike him for what he had done. At least rage at him and shout for others to come and take him away. But she did none of those things.
You would have thought she saw men violently stabbed to death by her own son’s hands every day.
Quietly, Misaki took the blanket on the floor and started ripping it. She got on her hands and knees and used the shreds to clean up as much of the mess as she could.
Ryu watched her work in silence, still stupefied by what had happened over the past few hours and what he had just done.
She didn’t ask for his assistance as she painstakingly dragged the man’s body from the center of the room to a corner behind a folding screen. Then she wiped the tatami mats as well as she could so that it was no longer slippery with blood, merely stained black with it.
Still not having spoken a word, she straightened Ryu’s ruined new clothes as best she could, careful not to touch his skin directly, and brushed his disheveled hair back from his face. Gently, she took his hand, unwrapped it from the bloody hair stick, stuck it back into her own coiffure, and pulled him with her out of the chamber.
She walked quickly and he followed at a half-run, or she would have dragged him behind her. He didn’t really see where she led him, and he was too numb with shock to care. He just knew that after a while, they were beyond the gates of the establishment.
Still moving swiftly, she pulled him down a deserted street, then turned the corner to another, and another. Ryu passed houses he’d never seen before, but he didn’t have the time or desire to look more closely.
It must have been hours after midnight. All of the houses were lightless. Only the moon provided any illumination to go by. Everywhere the paths and alleys were silent and still, not even a dog or cat moved in the shadows.
The wind picked up to rustle leaves and scatter fallen petals from cherry trees, swirling them in the air like snow.
They walked a long time at the quick pace she’d set. They even passed beyond the village gates, or what Ryu assumed to be the village gates since he’d never seen them before.
Finally, she stopped at the foot of a large, steep hill, lined with narrow steps that led toward a Shinto shrine at the top, half hidden by trees.
She let go of his hand and folded her own before her. She waited for him to raise his eyes to her face before speaking.
“This is where I will leave you, Ryu-chan,” she said quietly, calmly. Even sweetly with a small sad smile.
He didn’t say a word, merely staring at her with bleak, black eyes.
“After I leave, climb up the steps to the shrine above,” she instructed, “wait outside quietly. A man should come to get you, but you must be patient.”
She took his chin, this time ever so gently, in her hand, her eyes roaming his face as if memorizing his features.
“He will take care of you, Ryu-chan. You must stay with him and do as he tells you. Don’t come back to the village unless he allows it. And never come back to the establishment to find me. Do you understand?”
He neither nodded nor blinked. He didn’t understand.
He hadn’t understood anything since she came upon him earlier in the evening. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he was contentedly trimming bushes in the courtyard garden, dancing with the bumble bees.
Her fingers brushed his cheek so lightly he almost thought it was the wind.
“Goodbye, Ryu-chan,” she whispered. A single tear escaped her eye and ran down the length of her nose to drip off her chin.
“I’m sorry.”
And with that, Misaki hurried away back in the direction they had walked, toward the village gates and beyond.
It would be ten years before he saw his mother again.
He looked up, way up, beyond the seemingly endless steps that led up the hill toward an unknown end.
Despite his hunger, aches and pains, he began climbing, one step at a time, mindlessly following his mother’s last instructions to him.
When he got to the top, he found a courtyard with a giant gnarled cherry tree, surrounded by four establishments, one of which housed the Shinto shrine. It was an Inari shrine with a statue of kitsune, the fox deity himself, guarding the entrance.
Ryu sat down on the dirt ground in front of the steps to the shrine and waited.
He didn’t notice the passage of time as he struggled to keep the events of the past few hours from surfacing in his memory. He willed himself into unfeeling stone. Perhaps he would die here in front of this shrine.
Alone.
Perhaps it was what he deserved for what had been done to him and what he had done in return. Surely only the evil could suffer such brutal punishment. Surely he was evil for taking the life of his punisher in turn.
And then someone was standing before him, a dark shadow of a figure, just before the rising dawn could cast the hilltop in its rays.
Ryu looked up and had to tilt his head back farther because the figure was so tall viewed from his sitting position on the ground.
He looked into black eyes that reminded him of his own. A face that the women in his old home would have swooned over.
The man before him smiled a strange half-smile. It was not evil, like the other man’s, Ryu could tell, but neither was it warm or amused.
“Do you fear me, boy?” the man asked, and the tips of very sharp teeth glinted in the faint morning light.
Ryu slowly shook his head. He’d seen far worse monsters this night.
The smile lengthened a bit to expose more white teeth.
“Then come along,” the man said, “I will teach you how to survive, how to be strong and never again the victim.”
Ryu got up and followed him as he walked into the shrine.
And never looked back.
Chapter Eleven
Ava stretched languorously and arched her back like a cat awaking from a nap under the afternoon sun.
It was rather warm.
&n
bsp; Not uncomfortably, just a cozy, luxurious heat that made her tingle pleasurably all over.
She almost purred.
The cocoon of heat that surrounded her seemed to effervesce an intoxicating aroma. She inhaled long and deep, filling her lungs with the drug.
It was so familiar, the scent. And yet unfamiliar at the same time, perhaps because of its concentrated intensity, a sublime musk that made her…
Hungry.
But not for food, though her stomach did seem rather empty. When was the last time she ate?
No matter. She had other priorities at the moment. A physical imperative that was more pressing than filling her belly.
It was a sexual hunger that gnawed at her core, making her saw her legs in an effort to relieve the ache.
Distantly, she was aware of gentle hands opening the button closure of her slacks and pushing her pants and cotton briefs down her legs. And then the hands brought her hips tight against something hot and hard and velvety.
Ooohhhh. That hit the spot.
Literally.
Ava whimpered and tried to get even closer, opening her slick, wet core against the wonderful, delicious pressure. She wanted desperately to take it inside her, to fill her throbbing emptiness with its voluptuous fullness.
“Ava.”
That voice.
She shivered at the deep, husky sound, feeling it resonate through her body in addition to hearing it stroke the sensitive drums of her ears.
Say it again. Say my name.
She wiggled her hips and ground her naked sex against the rigid, satiny column that pulsed with power against her.
“Ava.”
There was her name again, said this time in a guttural groan.
Niiice.
Let’s see if she could hear that sound again. She ground down in a circular motion and took the plump head of the column inside herself—
Abruptly she was pulled upwards, strong hands gripping her beneath her armpits, lifting her bodily off her warm, cozy bed…
That was a beautiful male torso covered by honey-colored, hairless skin, decorated with faint pink gashes and fading blue bruises.
