The Font

by Tracy St. John

  Elisha’s fist drove into Heriolf’s gut, sending the vampire lord backwards onto the ground. Snarling like a feral wolf, Elisha went for the stunned man’s belly, biting deep into the muscled abdomen. With teeth and hands, he bit and clawed his way in, nearly disemboweling his enemy.

  With a roar, Heriolf threw him off. Elisha crashed into a granite headstone headfirst. Stars bloomed before his vision.

  Sebastian’s voice rang through the clanging chaos in his head. “Elisha! Take Naya and get out of here!”

  Elisha staggered to his feet, shook his head to clear the cobwebs, and saw Mariel and another vampire harrying the shrieking Heriolf. Inner parts were hanging from his torn gut, but it was still an inconsequential injury to a vampire. Like the crushed ribs and flayed skin of Elisha’s neck it would all heal, given time.

  Sebastian appeared before Elisha, his dark face riddled with worry. Elisha grabbed his friend. “You must escape too. He’s still too strong for you.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. For all our sakes, go!”

  Elisha didn’t want to leave the others to deal with the still too-enhanced Heriolf, and he might have wasted precious time arguing had he not seen Heriolf catch sight of Naya. The huge vampire bellowed and started to fight his way towards her.

  Elisha raced to Naya with all the speed he could muster. She was in his arms in half a second, and he flew with her into the star blasted sky. Heriolf’s furious roar rose in the air after them, but a glance back told Elisha he was too busy fighting off Elisha’s co-conspirators to follow.

  Chapter 10

  Naya fumbled with the key card, sliding it into the slot of the motel room’s door while Elisha stood at her back, watching for pursuit. She’d never been in a motel before, and it took three tries before the sound of the lock sliding back and the flash of green from the indicator light told her she’d been successful.

  She opened the door and hurried in. When Elisha only stood silhouetted in the doorway, not following, she stared in surprise. “What are you waiting for?”

  His voice was strained, no doubt from the pain of his terrible injuries. “I want you to make this room yours, safe from any vampire. Claim it by formally inviting me in.”

  Naya understood at once what he was saying. If she marked this room as her own by extending an invitation to a vampire, no other vampire could enter without her say so. “Please come in, Elisha.”

  His shoulders sagged with relief, and he crossed the threshold. Naya flicked on the light switch, a near novelty for her since Heriolf’s home didn’t have electricity. She shrugged off her coat and looked around the room with curiosity while Elisha carefully peeled his blood-soaked shirt off.

  The carpet was a rough, thin, multicolored affair, a garish diamond pattern emblazoned on its nap. The heavy curtains were red and blue striped, stopping just above the air conditioning unit. The floral pattern of the comforter on the double bed was a splash of hectic hues.

  Beyond the clashing fabrics, the furniture was cheap and scarred. The old cathode-ray television was a heavy dinosaur sitting on the dresser. Beyond a half-opened door, Naya saw the curve of the sink and toilet, both gleaming white in a beige-tiled bathroom. It looked clean enough but there was an old mustiness tickling her nostrils, as if it hadn’t been aired out in awhile.

  “You deserve much better.” Elisha’s nose wrinkled at the space. He strained to examine his already healing neck in the mirror. Naya winced at the ragged chew marks Heriolf’s teeth had left, along with the strange lumpiness of Elisha’s ribcage. One jagged bit of bone was slowly receding back into the split in his right side.

  “Don’t be silly. This is fine,” she told him. She tugged at him, leaning her head to one side to expose her neck. “Drink so you can heal quickly.”

  Elisha’s eyes flashed dark at her invitation. Naya let him capture her with his gaze, falling into that welcomed embrace of no thought, no fear, no sorrow. When his arms circled around her and drew her close, she was soft all over, her only need to give him whatever he might require. His teeth slid painlessly into her neck, a part of him enclosing itself in her. She thought of the even sweeter possession of his penis entering her. Her breath caught and her lower parts spasmed with arousal.

  Elisha’s teeth slipped back out of her flesh. The room filled with soft sucking sounds as his mouth pulled on her, drinking her in. Making her a part of him. His woodsy, dry leaf scent chased the odor of old air away.

  She whispered, “My love. My love.”

  He held her even tighter to his cool, hard body. Naya gave herself to him, healing him, making him whole again. It was the most pivotal moment of her life, committing herself in her entirety to Elisha.

  I would do anything to keep him safe.

  Her words coming out in slight moans, Naya told him, “If I return to Heriolf with the condition he lets you go, you could find a life elsewhere…”

  The words choked off. Yes, she would sacrifice herself to the vampire lord to spare Elisha the final death, but giving herself to any man but him was a nightmare to contemplate. Especially to Heriolf.

  Elisha stopped feeding. He pulled back to look her in the eye. “I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself for me. Never, Naya. So don’t let me ever hear you suggest such a thing again. I love you.”

  “But—”

  “Silence.” His glamour still held her, and she had no choice but to fall quiet.

  As he carried her to the bed, her heart sang with joy that only had a little to do with his hold over her mind. Elisha has spoken the words she hadn’t realized she was desperate to hear.

  He loved her.

  He laid her on the bed. Naya noted with deep contentment that his torso no longer looked crooked. The exposed rib had disappeared back into his body, and the ladder of his ribcage appeared whole beneath the drying blood.

  “Lie quietly here while I clean up,” Elisha whispered. “Then I’ll join you.”

  She listened as he washed himself in the bathroom, her thoughts only on him. When he returned, he was nude. Healed. Whole. And aroused.

  The sight of Elisha completely restored and eager for her excited Naya. His penis was livid with intent, ready to take its pleasure with her body. She moaned an inarticulate plea to be released from his glamour so that she might fling herself at him.

  “I enjoy you like this, my beautiful Naya.” Elisha came to the bedside, his hands caressing her breasts through the bodice of her dress. She moaned again to feel his touch. He grinned. “I like having you helpless, unable to deny me.”

  I would never deny you, she wanted to say.

  He gently lowered the shoulders of her dress, pulling the top down to expose her. When her breasts were freed, jutting hard peaks towards him, he sighed. “So very lovely,” he said, leaning down to capture one in his mouth.

  Naya shivered as he savored her with soft lips and gentle hands. She fought to move, to touch him in return, but for now her fingers wouldn’t even twitch. Perhaps Elisha felt her tense with the effort, because he paused long enough to say, “You have no choice but to lie very still and enjoy what I do to you.”

  His will overcame her, and Naya went lax. Pleasure suffused her as she was forced to surrender everything to him, forced to wallow in the bliss he gave her.

  “So soft,” Elisha praised between licks and sucks on her swelling nipples. “You fit me perfectly.” As if to prove it, his mouth closed over one dainty orb, consuming it completely. His fangs slipped easily into her skin. He drank a couple of swallows, and then moved to the other breast to repeat the performance. She gushed wetness, the sensations of his teeth, tongue, and lips transporting straight to her clit.

  Naya felt her skirt rising over her legs, sliding upward to expose her knees, her thighs, her mound. It whispered over her skin until it rumpled at her waist. With a sigh Elisha moved down. He parted her legs and kissed one inner thigh, starting near her knee. He worked his way up, his mouth leaving a moist trail on the
soft, downy skin. Naya’s breath left her in a whimper as he neared the vee of her sex. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the sensation of his moth-silky kisses delighting her body.

  His tongue licked delicately along the crease that separated leg from mound. Then came the pressure – but no pain – of another bite. Naya moaned as Elisha took a sip. Then he went to the other leg to repeat the sensual journey from knee to the opposite fold that marked the border of her sex.

  Bite. Sip.

  Elisha mouthed his way over the slight rise, his tongue dampening the upper boundary where the soft blond swirls of pubic hair began. Then he kissed his way down, creeping a slow path towards where she wanted his wet warmth the most. Naya shook all over, feeling his fangs scrape through her curls … velvet lips tender midway down … the slight hint of breath right there…

  And at last the sweetest kiss of all, his tongue plunging between nether lips, making her tense all over though she still couldn’t move. Naya’s cry rang through the room.

  He fed from her for awhile, feasting on her honey as he had her blood. Naya fought to writhe, but Elisha’s glamour held her still for the glorious torment. Supple lips and silky tongue stroked her petals. Warmth steadily built to baking heat, suffusing her until she thought she might erupt like a volcano, spewing molten lava from the pit of her stomach.

  Naya managed a groan, a grating sound from the very heart of her. Elisha’s chuckle rumbled seemingly from his mouth to shiver up her spine, making her hair stand on end.

  “Please,” she rasped, the effort to speak herculean.

  “Coming out of glamour again, my sweet?” her lover, her tormentor said. “How do you do that?”

  Naya hadn’t come out of it far enough to answer him. She watched with helpless angst as he crawled over her. Please, she mouthed.

  The almost cruel pleasure in his expression softened as Elisha gazed down at her face. “My love,” he whispered. He bent to kiss her, his lips flavored with her essence.

  Then Elisha was on top of her, pressing in that beautiful thickness to make them one. Naya felt how she formed to enclose him, as if her body molded to accept him and only him. She had been made just for this man, just for this moment.

  “I release you,” Elisha said, and her arms and legs wrapped around him to draw him ever deeper inside.

  Naya moved against him, slow and serpentine, helping him find all those engorged, sensitive spots that made her insides tumble. “Never let me go, Elisha. Never,” she begged.

  “I won’t.”

  They held so tight to one another that they were reduced to grinding their hips together. Elisha’s coarse pubic hair made sparks fly from Naya’s clit, adding to the growing inferno. He grunted, shifting to press hard against that magic point within her sheath. Naya’s legs tightened around his hips as if she would meld him permanently to her body.

  With a grunt, Elisha rolled over, carrying her with him. She was suddenly on top of the vampire, straddling the strong body.

  “Do it,” he invited, his arms sliding from around her to lie flung wide on the bed. “I am yours, my Naya. Take what you will.”

  Naya lifted to look down on him. He put her in control? She started to protest she didn’t know what to do then realized she did. With primitive instinct, she knew exactly what she wanted and how to claim it.

  Propping her tiny hands on Elisha’s chest, Naya raised her hips, unsheathing his length until only the head of his cock remained inside. She pressed down, taking him back in, biting her lips in reaction to the stomach-curling friction.

  “That’s it. That’s it,” Elisha groaned. His hands reached to cup her breasts, rubbing, massaging, as she rose and fell over him. “You feel so good, my beauty, my beloved, my Naya.”

  Naya found that spot again, that cluster of nerves that like the pressure best. She moved to rub him there, her jaw dropping open to warble a happy sound as her insides melted. Moving in small circles on the downstroke, feeling the firmness of his groin against her softness. Up again, crying softly to be nearly emptied of him, only to thrust herself down, spearing her own body on the livid strength of him.

  Pistoning faster. Harder. Finding a rhythm that lit her insides until she thought she must be aglow with the fire that licked from her loins to her breasts where Elisha’s hands massaged. He was actually breathing, each pant coming in grunts as she worked to bring them both to ecstasy.

  Naya had never felt anything, known anything as raw as this joining. So alive. The damp sounds of sex, of gasped breaths, of the creaking bed. The scent of her blood and desire, of his dry leaf smell deepening to that of fragrant, verdant earth. The feel of Elisha beneath and inside her, of the demands of her own flesh to ravish and ravage, to sate and be sated.

  Moving ever quicker as the first spasms of the consuming elation trembled her belly. Her world narrowed as she felt the storm rushing in on her, thundering through her sex. Lightning flashes of ecstasy broke through her, making every hair on her body rise. And here it was, breaking through her in a cataclysm of bursting tempest, beating her mercilessly from the inside, sweeping aside all conscious thought as the gale ruptured.

  Elisha seized her hips, yanking her up and down until his control fractured. His cries joined hers, adding to the din of howling passion, of roaring completion.

  Like a delicate flower whose stem has been bent by tumultuous winds, Naya wilted over him, her limp body falling onto him. His arms circled her, and she listened to his heart gallop within his chest for a few minutes until it remembered the body it inhabited no longer required its work. In the blissful silence that followed, Naya heard the first bird outside invite the dawn.

  “Morning is coming, Elisha.” She felt like weeping to lose him even for the few hours of daylight.

  He sat up, and they untangled themselves from each other. Naya was made a little glad to see he seemed as reluctant as she to part. His gaze never left her as he pulled pants, socks, and boots on. His bloodied shirt was an utter ruin.

  Elisha held out his arms, and Naya rushed to be held again. “Did you see the building with the children’s playground equipment for sale on our way here? Right off the interstate highway?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “Next to the RV dealership. Yes. It’s only about a mile away.”

  “That’s where I’ll rest for the day.”

  He kissed her gently and handed her a pocketknife. She placed it on the nightstand.

  Elisha gave her a steady gaze. “I fear how quickly Heriolf might find you when the sun sets, especially if his human spies discover you before he rises. They will be commanded to not harm you, but you have no such restrictions against them. Promise me you will defend yourself, Naya.”

  “I will.” Her stomach curdled a little at the thought of harming, perhaps killing another human being, but Elisha was right. Falling into Heriolf’s hands would harm so many more, mortal and vampire alike. She would have to pray it would not come to her using the knife.

  “Come to me before nightfall. I want you right there when I rise so I can protect you if necessary.”

  “All right. Elisha, be careful.”

  They kissed as if they may never touch again. Tears tracked down Naya’s cheeks, but more birds were calling now, warning of the coming sun. When Elisha opened the door, the sky was already turning reddish-orange with the brute’s arrival.

  Naya watched him lift into the air, and then she was alone. She’d never felt as isolated as she did with Elisha gone from her side.

  She turned, closing the door and locking it securely. Vampires could not get in without an invitation, but their human slaves were another matter entirely. With daylight coming they would be on the hunt. She hoped tracking her down with only their paltry five senses would make it nearly impossible for them to find her.

  Naya went to the bathroom. The paint in the room was old and peeling, but it otherwise looked very clean with the sink and bathtub gleaming unblemished whiteness. There were small bottles of shampoo and condit
ioner, along with a tiny bar of soap sealed in plastic. She gratefully ran the tub full of water as hot as she could stand it. It had been days since she bathed, and she wondered that Elisha had found her attractive at all. The memory of their last coupling made her smile even as she ached to have his body next to hers once more.

  Naya sank into the steaming tub with gratitude, sliding all the way down to cover her face and drench her hair. She came up spluttering and reached for the coarse white washcloth to scrub moisture from her eyes.

  As she washed, Naya thought. Heriolf would never give up his search for her as long as he lived. She entertained no illusions that he wouldn’t kill Elisha, not even if she made the ill-advised deal to give herself to the vampire king in exchange for Elisha’s life.

  “But maybe it would buy Elisha enough time to get a safe distance away,” she mused out loud. She sighed, knowing it was no real solution.

  The only true option was for Heriolf to suffer final death. “Or for me to die,” Naya whispered. She shuddered. Elisha’s cohorts were determined for that to happen.

  The irony wasn’t lost on her. After years of emptiness, of an almost ghostly existence in the vampire world, vibrant life had been offered to her. Life and love. And with these remarkable gifts came the threat of death, both for her and the man who had brought her out of her shadow world existence.

  Naya finished her bath and turned on the shower to wash her long hair. During this and the toweling off afterwards, her thoughts ricocheted back and forth, looking for some way out of the labyrinth her elfin blood had placed her in. Her mind lurched from one wild scheme to the next, struggling to find the sure path that would allow her to remain at Elisha’s side without the fear and jealousy of other vampires. Without others of elf descent around to even the playing field for all, she couldn’t discern how she and her vampire lover would be permitted to continue.