by Aja James
*** *** *** ***
Ishtar huddled in the back of a Peapod truck headed to Boston.
She wished it would go faster, but the driver drove cautiously given limited visibility due to the continuous torrential downpour.
She’d never been to the city despite its proximity to NYC. She didn’t have any incentive to venture from her little shop, Dark Dreams, in the Eastern European hoods of Brooklyn.
It was where she’d finally tracked her daughter to, an area that Inanna had frequented as the former Angel of Death, collecting Blood Contracts on Lost Souls as a way of feeding herself for survival before she’d met her Mate. And also as a way to release the souls back into the universal balance so that they could find a peaceful end or a better next life.
So, in an effort to be closer to Inanna without revealing herself—a mother who’d never held her, who’d never been there when she’d needed her—Ishtar established a fairy-tale-like store sandwiched between two looming townhouses, open to any and all who came upon it and wanted to rest their weary feet. Hoping that one of those visitors would be her long-lost daughter.
She was not disappointed.
Most days, Ishtar contented herself with baking treats for the nearby orphanage, welcoming visitors to Dark Dreams and lending a sympathetic ear for their troubles. She never took money for the goods she baked, never sold any of the thousands of trinkets and wares she’d collected over millennia of living, and which she displayed carelessly on the shop’s wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves like they were items at the Dollar Store.
Sometimes, if the human visitors Consented, lulled by her spicy teas and sugary treats, she’d take what she needed of their blood, injecting calmness and a sense of peace into their veins as she did so.
But she never took their souls.
After all the lifetimes she’d lived, all the human atrocities she’d witnessed and experienced, she still couldn’t break the Dark Laws that protected them. Somehow, those were the few verses she’d memorized.
Yes, most days, she carried on in her old woman’s form. A sweet, teddy-bear of a lady with gray-blonde hair and a lilting accent. A lady who liked to give her treasures away to the people who needed them the most.
Like the comb he’d given her for her twentieth name day.
She’d given that, in turn, to a young man who seemed to yearn for it with all his heart the first time he’d visited her little paradise. It was a gift well given and well received.
Other days…
Other days, she seethed with unspent rage, doubled over with soul-deep pain, mourning everything she’d lost because of him.
Mourning the loss of him most of all.
Those were the black, bleak days she hid herself away, hating herself for wanting him, berating herself for missing him. And transferring that hatred within her heart to the Pure male still so vivid in her memories, unworn by time.
The Tal-Telal in her memories shone with a blinding brightness, from his long, sun-gold hair to his brilliant turquoise eyes. At the height of his strength and beauty, so sublime he hurt her eyes.
The real Tal had suffered. He’d aged.
It was the consequence of a Pure or Dark One whose body could not heal as fast as it needed to, whether because he was too weak or because his wounds were too many.
She’d added to those wounds a few hours ago. Perhaps they were the deepest of all.
Ishtar drew her arms around her legs tighter, as if trying to pull herself together.
Inanna had talked of a second home in Boston since Mating with Gabriel and acquiring a son. Ishtar always remembered every word her daughter said, so closely did she hang her heart upon them.
Perhaps Inanna had taken Tal there, to her home in Boston.
Ishtar had chased their vehicle in her leopard form all the way to the tunnel that led to the highways. She’d seen the giant green sign that said “Boston” before their lightless SUV sped like a black bullet in that direction.
It must be where they were taking Tal, because the resonance of his blood in her body grew stronger the closer she moved toward Boston.
She didn’t know what she would do when she got there.
She just needed to see with her own eyes that he was healing. Surely…what she did, the wounds she’d inflicted upon him in her blind rage and vengeance, would heal.
She didn’t understand why he’d looked like death when she found him. Was he truly that weak of body? Was that why he’d altered so much physically? Had he other wounds on him that she didn’t see?
Before she realized what she was doing, Ishtar’s lips formed the words of an ancient prayer. A prayer to the Dark Goddess to watch over him.
Even though she shouldn’t care.
Even though she was the one who hurt him the most.
“Like a constantly rolling sphere, the Cycle of Life does not necessarily follow a line that is straight; it could curve into a better, brighter Path or a darker, bleaker Path, based on the force of choices made.”
—From the Ecliptic Prophesies, buried and forgotten
Chapter Four
The Mistress had been a silent void lately, which made the Creature slightly nervous.
It had a sneaking suspicion the Mistress’s unpredictable moods related to her ex-prisoner, Tal-Telal.
She denied it, or deflected it, whenever it ventured a question in that direction, but it knew her well enough by now to conclude with high probability that the Mistress was royally pissed off.
She acted at times like she’d planned it, as if she were releasing a one-in-a-gazillion catch into the wild only so that she could reel him back in again at the appropriate time.
But the Creature wondered.
Lately, she didn’t seem as in control of Destiny as she normally was.
Of course, there was also the possibility that she was miffed about losing her Blooded Mate, Enlil Naram-Anu.
Well, no longer “Beloved of Anu” now that he’d literally cut her from his heart, for that was the only way a Blooded vampire could be free of his better half, though the process of un-bonding often led to death or madness.
But perhaps the Creature didn’t know its Mistress as well as it thought. For there was one other the Mistress mulled over more than Enlil and Tal.
The one who was closest to her rotted black heart.
Who was even now pulling away from the Mistress’s poisonous grasp.
*** *** *** ***
Third millennium BC. Outskirts of Akkad.
For five summers, Ishtar stole out of the palace once or twice a week to meet the blacksmith’s son on top of the mountain cliffs that overlooked the sea.
To avoid suspicion, she attended her studies and procedural appointments dutifully during the nights, becoming downright boring, in the words of her sister, and waited until everyone was deep asleep before sneaking out in her leopard form as the sun warmed the skies.
Queen Ashlu thought that her mischievous younger daughter had turned over a new leaf, or perhaps merely matured, so diligent was she with her lessons in history, politics, martial arts and military strategy, and so complacent was she in keeping all her appointments, meeting one Ensi’s son after another.
Both princesses had grown into renowned beauties widely admired throughout the vast Akkadian Empire that the Dark Ones ruled. Even humans and Pure slaves whispered grudgingly that they outshone the goddesses in the heavens. As such, their hands in marriage were fiercely vied for by ruling Ensis from every principality.
By ten years of age, the elder princess, Anunit’s betrothal had already been secured. She would take Enlil of Anatolia as her Consort before they Mated when she reached her majority in her twentieth year.
Ishtar, however, had still not decided on a potential Mate.
It was the one concern Queen Ashlu continued to have about her younger daughter. For, at fifteen, Ishtar was still a girlish maiden, untried in the ways of carnal pleasures, while most vampires, male and female, discovered and indulg
ed their sexual appetite much earlier.
Even worse, Ishtar didn’t seem to have any interest in kindling her passions, no matter how many beautiful boys and full-blooded males the Queen paraded before her.
But really, it was no big mystery, Ishtar thought to herself as she bounded eagerly down the steep face of the mountain that led to the sandy beaches by the sea.
How could any male appeal to her more than Tal?
She paused on a jutting boulder near the bottom of the mountain to look at her favorite being in the world unnoticed, as he strolled slowly along the beach while he waited for her arrival.
He was so beautiful to her eyes it hurt in the most glorious ways to behold him.
His coloring and features would not normally be considered attractive among her Kind. The majority of Dark Ones were dark-haired and dark-eyed with varying shades of skin tone, the most preferred shades being honey and olive.
Tal was pale all over. His long, silken hair rivaled the sun for brightness, usually tied back in a loose tail bound with a leather cord. It was free flowing now, almost reaching his hips, spun pale gold dancing in the summer breeze.
The boy-man had grown into a breathtaking male, tall and lean, his muscles still filling out his large, graceful frame. Even though Ishtar had grown quite tall herself, taller than her elder sister and taller than her regal mother, she still only reached his collar bone when in vampire form.
But that was just a guess, because she hadn’t taken vampire form in his presence since that night they’d decided implicitly that she’d be his leopard pet and he’d be…well…simply hers.
They met from then on only during the early mornings before he had to begin his work, and it was a lot easier for her to enjoy their time together when she didn’t fall over unconscious from sleep.
As if he knew she was there, he turned toward her now and smiled, opening his arms joyfully.
With a ferocious kitten growl, she leapt from the boulder, flying through the air, and within a few bounds, launched herself at his body, knocking him to the soft, warm sands in a heap of laughter.
He mock wrestled with her on the beach, mimicking her growls and baring his brilliant white teeth. She batted his tickling fingers back with her furry paws and took every opportunity to lick his face and smack him with her fluffy tail.
Finally, he let her have her way with him and lay flat on his back while she pressed him down with her leopard weight, which, while much less than half his weight, was enough to pin him there when she added a bounce and a pounce into the mix.
Paws on his chest, she crouched fully on his torso while she bathed his face and neck with her tongue, purring so loudly, she vibrated with it.
He chuckled helplessly, his hands in her fur, rubbing her playfully up and down.
Ah, his voice…she might love the change in his voice best of all. Deep and warm with a husky timbre, hinting at the full-blooded male he would soon become.
No one in the Dark Queen’s empire and beyond could ever appeal to Ishtar as much as Tal.
Without warning, she shifted into her vampire form, the playfulness suddenly evaporating in a blast of heat that emerged from within her young woman’s body.
Tal’s breath caught in his throat as he gazed upon her vampire self as if for the very first time.
And perhaps it was the very first time, for Ishtar knew that she’d changed as well.
Her body was lithe and long, lean and muscular from an active life—rigorous combat training as a vampire and free-spirited sprints as a leopard.
For the first time, she wished her chest had filled out a bit more like Anunit’s had, who boasted womanly curves just like their mother. But as Ishtar lay on top of Tal, chest to chest, she feared her own small breasts were less than adequate.
For what, Ishtar didn’t know. Filling a man’s hands, like Anunit told her about?
Tal’s hands had always been long-fingered, and now they’d grown broader as well, large and thoroughly male.
What would he do if she filled them with her curves (if she ever grew any)? Ishtar wondered. She wished now that she’d actually attended sex education as Anunit had, a couple of years ago at the onset of her woman’s cycle.
But then Ishtar would have to touch, and be touched in return, by an endless assortment of Dark males, humans or Pure slaves who were part of the education: This part goes here. That part does that. This part hardens when he does that. That part swells if you do this.
Bleh, was what Ishtar had thought of those classes and religiously avoided each and every one, though her twin reveled in them and wouldn’t stop talking about it when she came into Ishtar’s chamber the night she’d lost her maidenhead.
Yet now, looking deeply into Tal’s turquoise eyes, feeling his heartbeat beneath her palm, surrounded by his intoxicating scent and the heat of his body, Ishtar wanted desperately to start her sex education please.
With this male. Only with Tal.
Just as involuntarily as she’d changed forms, her vampire fangs elongated in her mouth at the thought, pulling her lips apart.
His eyes shifted to the dagger-like canines, glinting with saliva, then back to her wide, dark eyes, her pupils having dilated to the point of swallowing her irises completely.
“Do you want me, little cat?” he asked in that low, husky rumble.
As if hypnotized, she could only nod, words having deserted her.
“Then come and take me, ana Ishtar,” he invited, tilting his face slightly away, exposing the long, strong column of his throat.
And the thick, gorgeous vein that throbbed there beneath his pale, sun-kissed skin.
Without thought, acting purely on instinct, Ishtar struck. Sinking her fangs into his neck, deep into that pulsing vein.
With the first voluptuous swallow she felt her body come alive.
A power the likes of which she’d never known poured through her tissues like molten lava, fueling her senses, awakening a different kind of hunger: a rapturous lust and unquenchable thirst, the primal imperative to mark this male, possess him body and soul.
Claim him for her very own. Now and forever.
Her mind shied away from the overwhelming feelings even as her body clamored for more. Things she didn’t even understand.
Helplessly, voraciously, she fed at his throat, taking great gulps of his hot, sweet blood into her body, her hands tangled in his hair, her thighs clenching tightly against his hips, as if she could hold him there, keep him with her forever.
She never wanted to let go. She never wanted to stop. The more she took, the more she craved.
At length, she felt his hands stroke gently down her back, heard a shuddering sigh sift through his lips. Somehow she knew she had to stop feeding now, before she took too much of him.
She licked the puncture wounds in his throat closed and nuzzled his neck affectionately, her limbs relaxing, her body lying in a contented boneless heap upon his.
“I love you, Tal,” she murmured beside his ear, the words tumbling from her vocal chords without her having consciously formed the confession in her head.
“I’ll only ever love you.”
His body stiffened slightly beneath hers, but then it relaxed by increments, as if he were willing the tenseness to leave.
He didn’t say anything in reply, only continuing to stroke her back comfortingly.
Strengthened by his Pure blood, wide awake despite the beaming sun, Ishtar raised her head on one hand and looked down into his beautiful eyes.
“When I grow into a full blooded female, do you think you could love me too?” she asked innocently but fervently, her heart and soul in her glowing dark eyes.
“Just enough to stay by my side,” she added, lest he thought her greedy, “I will always love you more.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw as he held her gaze, but still he made no reply.
“I want to be the first to kiss you,” she whispered, one hand rubbing her thumb across his full, soft mouth.
“The first to touch you as a lover would. The first to hold you while you sleep. May I be your first, Tal? I want more than anything for you to be mine too.”
Ishtar knew enough about humans and Pure Ones from her lessons to comprehend that Pure Ones only gave themselves carnally to their Eternal Mates. Unlike vampires who reveled in blood and sex and battle, fully embracing their animal nature, Pure Ones were peaceful, calm, and reserved physically. If they joined sexually with the wrong person, they would die an agonizing death within thirty days.
Ishtar knew that Tal had not met a Pure female yet who touched his heart. He was only nineteen summers, after all, and too busy taking care of his ailing papa, making ends meet with his metal works and carpentry.
And when he had any free time to spare, he always spent it with his “little cat.” Climbing the rocky slopes of the mountain, running carefree along the beach, dozing contentedly together under the sun.
She knew that a Dark and Pure One could never Bond; it was strictly forbidden in the Dark Laws of her Kind. But selfishly she wanted to keep Tal to herself. She didn’t want him to look at another female the way he looked at her. Full of undiluted joy and affection.
Finally, he raised his hands to her face, his fingers gently tracing her brows, her nose, her eyes and cheeks.
When they came to her lips, he stopped. Slowly, he levered his torso upwards, raising his mouth to hers.
Ishtar held her breath with anticipation but didn’t close her eyes. She didn’t want to miss a moment if he intended to kiss her.
Her very first kiss! With Tal! It was the best day of her life by far.
When his lips met hers in a gentle caress, she gasped at the fission of awareness that coursed through her, like the zig-zagging fiery steaks of lightning illuminating a moonless night.
But then, before she could feel the full press of his mouth, he lowered his head back onto the fine sugary sands.
“You should go,” he said quietly, “you don’t want to be missed.”
“I don’t want to miss a moment with you,” she readily returned, nuzzling her nose against his, the way she liked to do in her leopard form.
