The Night Within Us: Dark Vampire Romance

by Sylvie Grohne

“But you should.”

  He comes close and stares at me insistently, but I turn and slip away. All the confidence I had only moments ago is gone.

  “Humans kill too. They kill other creatures, to feed off them and clothe themselves with them. They don't exactly do it nicely either. And they kill their own kind. Mostly out of base motives – hate, envy, resentment, greed, revenge. Do you think humans are better than us?”

  I turn to him again and look at him, blinking.

  “But I don't want to be like that. Don't you understand? I don't want to be that kind of person.”

  “You're not a person, Amy,” he says soberly, and my blood runs cold.

  “You're a half-blood. Don't try to be what you're not. A wolf can't be a sheep, no matter how hard it tries. You're just torturing yourself needlessly.”

  He lays his hand on my shoulder. “You're perfect, just how you are.”

  His words have a disarming effect on me. Even if I can't accept them, they lie like a Band-Aid on my soul, on the wound that has been hurting my whole life long.

  I gulp and search for words. “It paid off,” I murmur.

  “What?”

  “Working on it.” I cast him a quick sideways glance. Of course that breathtaking grin is there again.

  “Why are you so open with me?”

  “Because I can be.” He comes closer, standing right before me, and captures my gaze with his blue eyes.

  My heart races like crazy in my chest. So furiously that for a moment I almost think it might break my thorax in two. “What makes you so sure?” I ask, trying again to only breathe through my mouth, because his scent at such close quarters almost drives me out of my senses.

  “Well. . .” he whispers softly and kisses me, lightly grabbing my hands which have risen to stop him, but which at the first contact of our lips give up all resistance. His kiss is warm, gentle and like a promise spreading blissfully through every cell of my body and taking it over. Every single touch of our lips sends shockwaves through my body, making me shudder and long for more. His hands now lie on my head and run through my still damp hair. My eyes are long since closed, and I'm somewhere in the nothingness, where time stands still and reality no longer seems to be within reach. My knees are so soft that I slip down a little, but he catches me and holds me tight.

  “I knew right away you were something special,” he whispers in my ear. I open my eyes and look at him. The blue of his iris shimmers in an intriguing way.

  “I think we're very similar,” he adds, lifting me up and setting me down on the wooden counter, only to kiss me again, more intense and demanding than before. My arms seem to move on their own to wrap around his neck, and my hands run through his thick hair. I may feel the animal in me now, but it remains calm inside me.

  Somewhere, far off in the back of my mind, I hear the whispering voice warning me, but I refuse to listen. I'm enjoying the moment and every single feeling that rushes through me.

  “Noah.” I only mean to think his name but it slips from my lips in an unintentional whisper, and he pulls me even closer to him. Stop. Stop. What are you doing? my reason pipes up again, but I already feel as if I'm free-falling, unable to stop.

  9

  Amkaya

  As we lie tightly intertwined upon the bedsheets and I think about how he must have no idea he's the only one who has kissed and touched me like that in over a century, I realize something else: I'm in the process of losing my virginity to a fairly arrogant and damned attractive son of a Nephilim. Although I'm not sure whether, given my age, I should find that tragic or funny.

  Even though his hands keep moving beneath my shirt, stroking my stomach and back, and he even reaches for my breasts with noticeable arousal, he doesn't make any move to undress me or go any further.

  If only he knew how long I've had to go without this kind of touch, and how ready I am for it right now, he'd surely throw his restraint overboard. I decide to give him a clear signal. I sit up and cross my arms in front of me, reaching for the seam of my shirt to pull it over my head, but he stops me.

  “No, stop. I can't.” He's breathing heavily as he presses me to him and holds me tight as if he is afraid I might run away. “You have no idea how much I want to, but I can't.”

  His kiss on my forehead has something determined about it. He disentangles himself from me and stands.

  “I better take you home now.”

  That's the second shower of the day for me, this time a cold one as I'm pulled roughly back to reality. I don't know what's going on.

  “What do you mean? I don't understand.”

  He moves restlessly through the room and avoids eye contact. Then finally he looks at me again.

  “I can't, because it's not safe,” he explains in a dark voice.

  “What's not safe about it?”

  “I'm not sure you'll survive.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “No.”

  I try to understand what he's telling me, but I can't make head or tail of his words and just stare at him cluelessly.

  “Okay, I'll try to explain.” He comes back over to me, but remains standing next to the bed with his arms folded.

  “You remember, my father is a Nephilim?”

  I nod. I got that, and after what I'd seen with my own eyes, I didn't have the slightest doubt it was true.

  “None of the Nephilim could conceive offspring, because they were cursed to kill any human women they lay with, as an eternal reminder of the sins of the angels.”

  “But you exist.”

  “Yes, my father's embraces with human women weren't deadly. I'm the half-breed that never should have been. Probably the only one of my kind, with powers I wouldn't be allowed to have if it were up to the watchers. I was hunted relentlessly for a long time, until they found out I'm not like my father, who could father offspring. I bring death to women. Since then, they tolerate me more or less.”

  “You mean a woman dies if she. . .?”

  He nods. “She doesn't survive it. I would unintentionally drain all the life energy from her when we united. Or she would die shortly after. Either way, it would be her death sentence.”

  I look at him aghast. “Were there many?”

  His eyes now look bleak and his lips are pressed into a thin line. “Enough.” He doesn't look at me. “Especially when I was young and inexperienced, and then every so often when the loneliness and yearning in all the centuries got so excruciating and overwhelming that I forgot myself.”

  “And they all died?”

  “Yes,” he answers in a flat voice.

  Thoughts whirl through my head. If the women beneath him died, then had their death fed him too? A thought which makes me feel a little nauseous. But, considering my own guilt, can I judge him for that? Even if a part of me can understand him, the other part is totally disgusted by the idea. Why is he telling me this? Why didn't he simply go through with it with me? As aroused as he was. And then there's something else:

  “What about the fact that I'm immortal? Wouldn't that be like a free pass for you?”

  “You're half human and we can't rule out the possibility of it still killing you.”

  “You're only a quarter angel and you survived a plane crash without a scratch. Why are you worrying about me then? You saw yourself how my wounds heal. See, nothing left.” As if to prove it, I show him my flawless skin.

  “It's no earthly death. Its origin contains such a strong power, I fear it can overcome the power of your immortality.” His voice sounds full of sorrow.

  “I'll get us a car,” he says in conclusion, gets up and goes to the door, but I'm with him in the blink of an eye, blocking the way. Good that he doesn't use the disappearing-into-thin-air number from before.

  He raises an eyebrow in surprise and looks at me questioningly.

  “Tell me why. Tell me why you didn't just go through with it when you had a 50 percent chance?” Cheeks flushed, I hold tight to his casual short sleeved shirt and I'm not i
nclined to let go until he answers me.

  He takes my face in his hands hesitantly, and again I see something in his face that I interpret as tenderness.

  “Because there's no way I want to experience the light in your eyes dying out for good.”

  There are so many sentences he could have said, but only this one - I feel this for certain - is the sentence that opens an expanse within me which I've never felt before. I inhale deeply.

  “That won't happen,” I reply with all the certainty I can muster.

  “You can't know for sure.”

  “Wouldn't you feel it, if I were close to death? Didn't you say you could feel things like that? And? Do you feel anything?”

  “No.”

  “See. That proves I'm not going to die.”

  My hands find their way under his shirt and stroke the firm, smooth skin of his torso. The warmth of his skin causes me to shudder blissfully. For a moment I feel Noah stiffen completely and look at me incredulously.

  “Trust me,” I whisper and press myself to him without breaking eye contact. God, those eyes are definitely not from this world.

  “But if you don't trust me. . .” I lower my gaze and let him go, turning away from him.

  “You're playing with me.” His husky voice creeps beneath my skin.

  I don't even have to answer him. The look I cast him is a clear admission.

  “Damn it,” he groans quietly between his teeth. Suddenly he lifts me up and carries me back to the bed. This time it's him that pushes my shirt up and takes it off. His gaze makes my skin tingle, as he hastily opens the buttons of his shirt, slips it off and immediately does the same with the rest of his clothing. I stare openly at his fully naked body and I'm sure I've never seen a more beautiful man than this one standing before me.

  I lift my hips invitingly and he leans over to me, slowly pulling the shorts I'm still wearing off. The glance he casts me as he does makes my heart leap into my throat and I tremble slightly as he lies down with me and we're skin to skin.

  I feel that the animal in me is awake. The tantalizing scent of Noah's warm skin and the blood pulsing beneath it keeps it lying in wait. But it's as if it knows this is not its time, but mine.

  I feel stronger and more assured for not having to fear for his life, and it's much easier for me to put IT in its place. Today I know the warning signs of an attack. Then, by the lake with Morton, I didn't know about its existence in me, so it was able to overpower me. Just as it could if IT were starved and won the upper hand for survival's sake.

  Although I tried time and again to suppress and deny it, Noah is right – IT is an inextricable part of me.

  There are times when it seems like an eternity goes by without anything really happening. Life simply passes us by, more or less. And then suddenly in the space of a few days or hours things happen that change everything, turn it all on its head. This morning we were still strangers and now, before the day is even through, I'm lying here in his arms and there is no place on earth I'd rather be.

  Noah is having trouble controlling his arousal. The tenderness of his touches and kisses have taken on a somewhat rougher pace, but I enjoy it just as much.

  The desire I feel is all-encompassing and overwhelming. I've suppressed my sexuality for so long out of fear and guilt. Now the sum of the sensations is almost equivalent to an inundation of feelings, but I don't recoil from it at all and let them in. There are doors you open and never again want to shut.

  I wonder how long it has been since he was last intimate with a woman. The fact I can survive it all is a new experience for him too, then. So I'm not the only one whose first time it is. Destiny is such a kitschy word. I don't like it and I don't believe in it either, but doesn't it really seem like a fateful encounter for us both? The obviously strong attraction on both sides, and the chance to be so close to someone without killing them? And what's with the possibility of you dying? whispers the voice in my head.

  His kisses are now hungrier and more urgent than any of his kisses before. A shiver runs through his body and his arousal presses hard against my side.

  “Are you really sure?” He looks at me searchingly. I hear the concern still present in his voice.

  “Absolutely,” I lie, since I'm not at all sure I won't die doing this after all. I know I'm playing Russian roulette. But I don't care. All I know is I've never, for as long as I can remember, wanted anything as much and as desperately as this.

  I'm prepared to run the risk. I was never afraid of my own death. It was always the damned eternity that did my head in.

  “Amy,” he whispers my name and buries his face in my hair. I kind of like it how he calls me that, and also the way his voice sounds when he does. It's excitingly different and makes me feel like I'm reinventing myself, shedding an old skin.

  “I want you,” I affirm my consent once more in a quiet, steady voice and a longing tug in my belly agrees. Yet I still sense his indecision.

  Quick as a flash, I turn him gently but firmly onto his back and sit myself resolutely on his stomach, holding his arms tight and kissing him.

  “Noah Elyas Sandman. How much more encouragement do you need?”

  Smiling, I slide my hands along his sinewy arms all the way down to his chest, his stomach, then push down on him to support myself. Slowly I lift my hips, slip a little further back and as I sink back down, take him inside me. A short, sharp pain makes me stop a moment, before it is swept away by other sensations a second later. A feeling of intense vitality pervades every cell of my body and makes me feel invincible, while an irresistibly sweet agony grows stronger and stronger within me.

  “You. . .” he gasps, and his hands grab the flesh of my hips and clench there slightly in time with my movements. Even though his eyes glide over my naked body again and again, they also continue to seek out eye contact, making me need to close my eyes now. He's too close to me, way too close. Because I can feel that I'm slowly losing myself; my thoughts are scattering to the wind and now I only consist of an unyielding desire that seeks release.

  The sounds that escape my throat, the groans and whimpers, also withdraw from under my control and sound so strange in my ears that I almost can't tell they are mine. Only when I fall breathless and trembling onto his chest, do I realize it really was me.

  His arms wrap around my body and his warm palms press me to him gently. I'm so relaxed that if I were a cat, I'd be blissfully purring right now. Instead though, I simply listen to his heartbeat, gloriously happy, and still can't believe the beast in me stayed away.

  “You're incredible.” His voice sounds hoarse. He puts two fingers beneath my chin and presses it up so I have to look at him.

  “THAT was incredible,” I correct him and smile dreamily. “Now I know what all the fuss is about.”

  He looks at me in astonishment. “What do you mean? Are you saying. . .?”

  “That I'm still very much alive, as you can see, and that I absolutely must have more,” I finish the sentence and kiss him on the lips. “You wouldn't deny me that, would you?” I whisper in his ear and kiss my way down his throat.

  He grabs my upper arms, and in seconds I'm lying beneath him. Still connected to him. Still one with him. He buries his face between my breasts, kissing them almost a little too roughly, but still with an intensity that makes me moan and makes my body react immediately. I push my hips against him, because I long for him to move, but he remains still.

  Finally he lets go and moves within me. Slowly to start with, but then faster, harder. With every stroke he loses a little more self-control.

  Driven by renewed desire, I cling on tight to his arms and back, suppressing the feeling of wanting to bite him. Our eyes meet again and again, but weren't they blue before? Now they shine almost emerald green. A fascinating color change. Or is it just the light making them shimmer green now?

  “Angelus. Autem. Meus. Es. Tu,” he lapses into Latin. You are my angel.

  Couldn't you have turned up a few decades a
go? I ask silently, before the waves rise up over me again and I fall to pieces in his embrace.

  I'm pulled, almost jerked, from my bliss, because I sense that the animal in me wants to pounce, but in the next moment the feeling is gone. Instead, an irresistible fatigue takes hold of me.

  I can still hear Noah groaning out loud, and feel his semen flowing into me, but it's hard to keep my thoughts together.

  “Amy!” He calls my name and pulls out of me.

  “No, stay with me. Stay in me,” I want to beg him, but I have no energy left for these words. Although my eyes are open, a veil settles over my vision and I gradually lose sight of him. A strange rustling fills my ears. As if from afar, I hear him calling my name over and over, and then everything is still.

  10

  Ramon

  Through the many years down here in my prison on the dark seabed, it is as if the images of my memories become clearer and more intense. Maybe because they're all I have, and the lonely darkness is able to more thoroughly light up every corner of my mind, to discover details I hadn't consciously perceived before. Things I would rather not look at so closely and wish I could erase from my memory are mercilessly exposed too. Like the first days, months and years after Violette sunk her teeth into my neck.

  Unusual muffled sounds forced their way into my consciousness before I even opened my eyes and realized I was on board a ship on rough seas. The gusty storm lashed the sea against the bulkheads, and the creaking of the masts, the buzzing of the canvas penetrated deep down into the hull, as did voices, commands, and footsteps hurrying back and forth over the deck.

  I sat up and hot pain tore through my body. It felt as if poison were running through it and spreading to my extremities with every little movement. My tongue was dry and stuck to the roof of my mouth; a queasy feeling rose from my stomach.

  The four-poster bed on which I lay had a canopy of red velvet and open curtains. It occupied a large portion of the room. My palms slid of their own accord across the smooth material of the bed linen. Never before had I felt such soft, luxurious sheets on my skin. In spite of the half-light of an oil lamp it wasn't difficult to make out the details of the cabin. On the wooden walls around me hung weapons, candlesticks and obscure masks. To my right, the wall had seven lattice windows through which the weak shimmer of the night sky fell. The moon stood high in the sky, but the clouds lent a sickly dullness to its fine light. A massive table on sturdy baluster legs stood before the windows with various thick books and a coffer on top. A white skull grinned at me as it slid back and forth with the strong swells, intensifying the queasy feeling in my stomach. The blazing light of the lamp danced in its eye sockets. Suddenly I jumped up and ran to the door, fast. Inhumanly fast. And in spite of the violent movements of the ship, I was incredibly sure on my feet. Was I even human anymore? The memories of my encounter with the beautiful stranger on the beach and of what happened there came back to me, as did vague shadowy pictures in which she poured her thick blood down my throat; it burned like acid inside me and ripped me back from the darkness I was slowly sinking into. Even though I could still almost feel the kisses of her full, blood smeared lips on mine, and I knew the legend of blood sucking vampires, I shook my head in disbelief and refused to accept these pictures as reality.