Vampire Mage: An Urban Fantasy Harem (The Vampire Mage Book 1)

by Joshua King

  Ashe shook her head.

  “This is different,” she said.

  She gave the brief version of everything that happened in the last day, and I felt myself slipping in and out of consciousness. I struggled to stay awake. I didn't want to miss anything. When Ashe finished, Stephana looked down at me.

  “You need something to eat,” she said. “Very few people in Solan City would have anything to offer you. Fortunately, I'm not like other vampires. I believe there's still plenty of benefit to eating a normal human diet, at least part of the time. I find comfort in it, and I enjoy eating it, but I also think it has advantages over the normal vampire diet. Not the least of which is the ability to help someone still going through their process. Wait here. I'll make you something.”

  I nodded, and she walked out of the room. Ashe settled onto the couch and leaned toward me.

  “How are you doing?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “It's even worse than yesterday,” I said.

  “You'll feel better after you eat,” she said. “Then you can get some rest.”

  “I can't,” I groaned. “We don't have time for that.”

  “What we don't have time for is you falling on your ass while we’re looking for Malakan and not being able to get up, or us getting into another fight and you not being able to fight back. You need to give your body a chance to heal and rejuvenate. Stephana knows more about Malakan than I do. She'll be able to help us.”

  “How do you know her?” I asked.

  “She's my Sire,” she said. “She's the one who turned me.”

  I don't know why it surprised me as much as it did.

  “Is that why the two of you look alike?”

  “We hear that a lot,” she said. “I don't think it has anything to do with her siring me. If it did, you would end up looking like Aurora.”

  “I don't know,” I said dryly. “Maybe it could work for me.”

  Ashe laughed, and I managed a smile. A few moments later, the older woman came back into the room. Now that I had more of a chance to look at her, I saw just how beautiful she was. She was definitely older than Ashe, but the effect of the years was a richer, more established type of beauty. She walked toward me and settled a large plate on my lap. It was covered with a variety of foods, and she placed a huge glass of milk onto the table beside me. I eyed it questioningly.

  “It will make you feel stronger,” she said. “Eat. Get as much in you as you can.”

  I picked up a sandwich first and sank my teeth into it. The emptiness of my stomach was suddenly obvious. I'd been ignoring it, but now it was the only thing I could think about. I ate ravenously, feeling like I hadn't had a single bite to eat in weeks. I finished the sandwich and moved on to a pile of potato salad. One bite Illustrated what Ashe had meant when she said some foods would taste even better. The mustard was bright and sharp, more delicious than I ever would have expected. It felt ridiculous to be so excited by mouthfuls of potato salad, but it was yet another discovery, another revelation about this new existence.

  “Thank you,” I finally said, realizing I hadn't acknowledged her since she had handed the food to me.

  Stephana nodded, then turned to Ashe.

  “Would you like anything?” she asked.

  Ashe shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “I still don't have any interest in human food, Stephana.”

  “I don't know why you're so closed minded,” the older woman said. “It might do you some good, you know. You would have gotten through your first few days so much better if you had just been willing to eat something.”

  I tilted my head at them.

  “You didn't complete her turn immediately?” I asked.

  By the disgusted way Ashe had talked about people not finishing the turns of the humans they bit, I had just assumed her change had been smooth and easy. Then I remembered her lamenting the difficulty of the change, and commiserating with me in my first moments as I had tried to process the information. The two women glanced at each other, then back at me.

  “Not exactly,” Ashe said.

  “She was extremely stubborn,” Stephana said. “She tried to resist as long as she could. She didn't believe me when I told her what could happen to her if she didn't let me finish. Time was almost up by the time she relented to letting me do it.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  I reached beside me and picked up the milk, taking a long swig. I couldn't remember the last time I had chosen to drink milk on purpose when it didn't come from the bottom of a bowl of cereal. The milk did just what Stephana had said, though. As soon as I swallowed it, I felt more of the exhaustion slip away, and some of my strength return.

  “We're not here to talk about me,” Ashe said, shutting down that line of questioning.

  “Are you feeling better?” Stephana asked, looking at me.

  Her eyes were trained on me so hard it was obvious she was making a point to Ashe. In only the brief time I'd seen them together, I had noticed an interesting dynamic between these two women. I wasn't sure what it meant, but I had a feeling I'd find out more over time.

  “Much,” I said. “Thanks again.”

  “Of course,” Stephana said. Her eyes roved over me. “I have to say, you look a little worse for wear.”

  I looked down at myself and realized I was dirty and that my clothes were torn from the fight.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think I need to find better friends.”

  She gave a small smile and stood.

  “Why don't you get cleaned up?” she said. “I always keep some extra clothes around for situations like this. I'm sure you'd feel even more like yourself if you were clean. Then you can relax a little while we figure this out.”

  She looked over at Ashe, who nodded.

  “Go for it,” she said. “I'll get all this cleaned up, then I’ll get some rest myself. These last couple of days haven't exactly been leisurely for me either.”

  I snatched the last of the pile of fruit as Stephana took the now-empty plate from my lap. She handed it to Ashe, then reached for my hand. I gave it to her, and let her guide me through the home and into a bathroom that felt like it had come from another time. The floor was a classic black and white check tile, and a massive clawfoot tub sat in the middle of the room. The wraparound curtain was pulled back, revealing a showerhead built into one side. Without hesitation, the woman reached for my clothes and started peeling them away from my body. She examined me, running her hands over my body appreciatively. Once I was naked, she walked over to the tub and reached in to turn on the water. Almost immediately, the bathroom began to fill with steam. I breathed it in deeply, and felt it rejuvenate me even more. She turned on the showerhead, then glanced back at me.

  “Would you like some company?”

  My stomach tightened and my cock twitched.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  I watched as she disrobed in front of me, never taking her eyes away from mine. She stepped backward into the tub and reached out a hand to me. Taking it, I stepped up over the high edge of the bathtub and into the warm water. I had taken a shower earlier that day, but there was something different about this. Maybe it was because of how exhausted I had become, and everything that made a little bit of the tiredness slipped away felt extraordinary. I stepped under the stream of water and let it rinse over me. Stephana picked up a bar of soap and began to run it along my body, washing me with a sweet-smelling lather. She focused on my chest and stomach first, then turned me around and started on my back. Her hands moved over my muscles and massaged the soap into my skin. She washed down my arms, and then I felt her touch run along the sides of my ribs and waist. She wrapped her arms around my waist, her hands traveling down from my navel into the tangle of coarse hair at the apex of my thighs. I heard her moan slightly and felt her lips touch my back. They brushed across my skin, and her fingers combed through my hair as they moved closer to my cock.

  I leaned back against her a
nd looped my arms around behind me to grip her ass. She took this as an invitation and one hand wrapped around my cock. There was absolutely nothing slow or gradual about the way she touched me. This was a woman who knew exactly what she wanted, and had absolutely no qualms about going after it.

  “Fuck me, Hayden,” she said into my back.

  I turned around sharply, and pulled Stephana up against me to kiss her. My tongue shot forward into her mouth, and she sucked on it eagerly. Dipping my hand between her thighs, I found her clit and massaged it in tight circles, coaxing it out from under its little hood. Replacing my fingertips with the pad of my thumb, I turned my hand and plunged my fingers into her hot pussy. She was surprisingly tight, and I pumped my fingers into her appreciatively. Stephana lifted one foot and rested it on the side of the tub to open herself up more to me. It was too much to resist. Grabbing her by both ass cheeks, I tucked my hips down, then thrust into her. Stephana's head fell back and she let out a loud groan. Not hesitating even for a second, I slammed her hips against me as I rocked into her.

  “Harder,” she growled, and I complied, digging my fingers into her skin to give me leverage for even more intensity.

  I came hard, the rush of my orgasm hitting me so fast I hadn't even felt it building up. Stephana rolled her hips in energetic circles as I poured out into her, and I felt her clamp down onto me as her own orgasm crashed over her.

  “Much better,” I said.

  She smiled at me and lowered her leg, then stepped forward into the water to wash herself.

  “Good. I’m always glad to help.”

  19

  I was exhausted again by the time we stepped out of the shower. Stephana led me into a side room and gave me fresh clothes to put on. My hands shook as I pulled on the pants, and I could barely button up my shirt.

  “I think I need something else to eat,” I said.

  Stephana dropped a shirt down over her head.

  “No,” she said. “You ate plenty. You need some sleep.”

  “I can’t sleep. I don’t have enough time as it is. I can’t waste any.”

  “You aren’t wasting it. You have to sleep. That’s just part of existing, and going through the change is exhausting. If you don’t get the rest you need, you’re going to end up crashing, and then you’re going to be less than useless.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “It’s true, Hayden. You’re dealing with a lot more than most people do when they are going through this process. Most people aren’t pursued and forced to fight, and most people don’t have to try to jump through hoops to convince their Sire to finish their process. You need as much energy and strength as you can get. That means resting when you need to. Ashe said she was going to lay down for a rest. You should, too. Take advantage of this chance. You’re safe. No one will come looking for you here. And even if they did, they would have to get past me before they got to you. You don’t have to sleep for the rest of the day. Just lay down for a little while, and let your body recuperate. You heal a lot faster than you did when you were fully human even though you haven’t completed the transition yet. But to heal, you need rest.”

  I had to admit the big bed looked incredibly welcoming. The piles of pillows were calling to me. I crawled onto the dark blue bedding thinking I would just rest my eyes for a second. I didn’t need the sleep, whatever Stephana said. Then my head hit the pillow, and the world faded away.

  Coming out of sleep when you didn’t realize you had even fallen into it is always disorienting, but this time it was particularly jarring. I snapped awake feeling breathless, my heart pounding like I was in the middle of a fight. I wasn’t afraid of anything, and didn’t feel like I had been having a nightmare, but I was on edge, just like I had been in the seconds before fighting the men in the shop. Images from the fight flashed through my mind, and I realized something that hadn’t occurred to me before. Tossing off blankets I didn’t even remember getting under, I rushed out of the bedroom and toward the living room. I heard muffled voices coming down the hall and knew Ashe and Stephana were both awake.

  “How long have I been asleep?” I asked frantically.

  Stephana looked up at me from where she was curled in a chair.

  “Only a couple of hours. Calm down.”

  “You needed the sleep, Hayden,” Ashe said. “It’s going to be fine.”

  I noticed she was holding a mug in front of her, and steam was rising up out of it. I pointed to it questioningly.

  “I thought you didn’t eat or drink anything because it was disrespectful to your culture or some shit like that.”

  “Well, I don't think I said all that, specifically,” Ashe said. “But, you're right. I don't eat anything humans do, and with the exception of alcohol, I don’t usually drink anything they do, either. But before my transformation, I loved drinking coffee. I still like wrapping my hands around a warm mug. It's comforting for some reason. There's nothing in here but hot water.”

  I wasn't expecting that from her. I'm not sure what it was about the comment that struck me so much. Maybe it was because it made her seem almost vulnerable, which wasn't something I was accustomed to thinking when it came to Ashe.

  “Can I get you something?” Stephana asked.

  “Coffee actually sounds amazing,” I said. “Lots of cream and sugar.”

  I felt like I needed the boost from the sugar to break through the fog. Stephana went into the kitchen and came back a few moments later with a mug. She settled it into my hands, and I took a deep sip.

  “Good?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Good,” Ashe said. “We were just talking about everything that's going on. I was asking Stephana about Malakan.”

  The mention of his name perked up my interest.

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Honestly?” she said. “Not a lot. They call it exile for a reason. He's extremely reclusive and mysterious. From what I do know about him, I believe he is a warlock defector. The only reason he's able to live anywhere near the city is because he is under the protection of Darien.”

  I waited for an explanation, but didn't get it. I rolled my eyes and looked at Ashe, who recognized the blank expression.

  “The vampire Prime,” she said. “Also, Aurora's father.”

  “Again, a manual. It would be so helpful and would save us a lot of time.”

  Ashe laughed and shook her head at me.

  “So, you've never met him?” I asked Stephana.

  She took a sip of her own coffee, then set the mug down on the table in front of her.

  “No,” she said. “I've never been anywhere near the man. I also don't know where to find him. All I know is rumor has it Aurora often seeks his counsel, as does Darien.”

  “So, I've been sent to find a man no one knows, no one has seen, and no one knows how to find,” I say. “Awesome. I'm just going to get right on that.”

  “It's not that no one has seen him,” Stephana said. “It's just not easy to find him. But there is someone who would know where he is.”

  “Yeah, Aurora. But she's the one who sent me to find him. She's not going to tell me where to look. Somehow I think she's getting a kick out of this whole scavenger hunt thing.”

  “Not Aurora,” Ashe said. “A member of the Shades. She'd have her guards with her any time she went to visit him. They would know where he lives, or at least where he meets with her.”

  “I don't have the best track record with those guys,” I pointed out. “I don’t have the best track record with the Underworld in general, come to think of it.”

  Stephana looked at Ashe questioningly.

  “What's he talking about?”

  “I told you we got into a bit of a scuffle,” Ashe said. “Three men attacked us on our way here.”

  “Not members of the Shades?”

  “No,” I said. “They weren't wearing their snazzy matching getups. The red shirts and sunglasses and all. They also didn’t seem q
uite as powerful as the guards.”

  “Part of that may also be the fact that you are getting stronger as you move further through your transition,” Stephana pointed out. “Every passing minute, you are getting closer to being complete.”

  “Do you know who it could have been?” Ashe asked.

  Stephana shook her head.

  “I don't know,” she said. “But I've heard the Prime's men have been having some problems with warlocks in the city recently.”

  “They’ve been in the city?” Ashe asked.

  “Is that a problem?” I asked.

  Ashe nodded.

  “Remember when I told you people don’t like that Aurora hangs out with Malakan, and she keeps it quiet because of that?”

  “Vampires rarely think too kindly about warlocks roaming around our city,” Stephana explained. “They don’t want them anywhere around, much less patronizing businesses or interacting with people. It’s always a dangerous situation when they start showing up.”

  “But if those guys did have anything to do with the warlocks, why would they be going after Hayden? Malakan was exiled a long time ago. Why would they care if he was looking for him, or if Aurora sent him?”

  Stephana shook her head.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s important that you find him as soon as possible. If someone is coming after you, there’s a reason, and they might not stop with you. They could be after Malakan as well.”

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  “We talk to Ty,” Ashe said.

  “Why Ty?”

  “He was a Shade,” Ashe said. “It was a long time ago, and he hasn’t associated with them since he left the group. But he might still have the information we need, or at least know how to find it.”

  “Why did he leave?” I asked.

  “It doesn't matter right now,” Ashe said. “Let me call him and see if he'll come meet us. I don't want to have this conversation with him over the phone.”

  Setting her mug of hot water on the table, she stood up and walked away as she dialed. I heard her muttering down the hallway, but I couldn't make out anything she was saying. A few moments later, she came back into the room.