Met by Midnight: Shadow World Stories and Scenes, Vol. 1 (The Shadow World)

by Dianne Sylvan

  It wasn’t until he slipped into the water beside me that I remembered this was not like any other relationship…and this one was for keeps.

  Reality swam over me again.

  I’m a vampire.

  Oh God I’m a vampire.

  And…I’m Queen.

  “Breathe,” he told me. “Stay grounded.”

  I nodded and did the best I could. I was so tired—and still so hungry—it was almost impossible to concentrate enough to stay calm, but I had been practicing this for months. He’d been right, long ago, when he’d said it would become second nature.

  I’m Queen…

  …his Queen…

  Forever.

  “Miranda, breathe.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “Rough night.”

  A chuckle. “Understatement.”

  His hand cupped my chin and turned my face one way then the other, appraising. “You’re a mess,” he said with a smile, and I smiled back, wrinkling my nose.

  He reached over to the side of the tub and retrieved a washcloth and a bottle of body wash. Before I knew it he had gingerly lifted the hair from my neck with one hand and was scrubbing lightly at my skin with the other.

  “I’m still not sure I understand all of this,” I said, closing my eyes, letting him tend to me, the motion of the soapy washcloth hypnotic to my addled senses.

  “It takes time,” he replied, lifting the rag to my face. “We have time.”

  I nodded, swallowing. There would be time in the next few days for me to unpack the loss and find a place to keep the pain, as well as to take out the happiness and hang it where I could look at it every day. Right now I didn’t need to do anything but take a bath and go to bed.

  His hands moved slowly over my torso, pausing now and then to wring water and rinse me off. I noticed there was something dark in his eyes that made my heart ache.

  “I thought you were dead,” he said very quietly, running his fingers over my lips. “I thought I’d never see you again…that I would have to spend eternity without you. I wasn’t sure I could bear it.”

  “You don’t have to.” I kissed his hand, turning his palm over in mine, tracing his lifeline. “Neither of us ever has to be alone again.”

  Our eyes met, and after a moment he smiled uncertainly. “To be honest I have no idea what to do with that.”

  I returned the smile and echoed his words. “That’s okay. We have time.”

  He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around, then tilted me back so my hair was submerged, steadying me while he got the shampoo. I hadn’t ever realized how enormous the tub was; the one in the Mistress Suite was big, but nothing like this. I felt like Cleopatra, especially with a handsome man washing my hair.

  I looked up into his face. Had he always looked like that? It was as if he had become more…solid, for lack of a better word, like I could see him in 3D and couldn’t before. There were thin rings of color in his eyes I hadn’t been able to detect with my old vision—azure, indigo, even black.

  My eyes fell on the Signet. It was no longer flashing, but it still glowed, and the longer I stared into it the more it seemed like the light was almost dancing.

  Without thinking I pulled my hand up out of the water and wrapped my fingers around the stone at my throat.

  David smiled. “Yes, it’s still there.” He worked his fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp until I wasn’t sure if I was going to fall asleep or jump him…well, in truth, the former was far more likely right now. If it had been any other night I might have been pleased at the situation: the two of us in the bathtub, him washing me, candlelight…but my entire body was so weary the thought was laughable. Right now all I took from the experience was comfort, and right now that was enough.

  “I’ve noticed we all do that,” David was saying. “Fondle our Signets. Especially at the beginning. It takes a while for the mantle of authority to settle around our shoulders.”

  “Authority,” I echoed, trying to stay awake just a little longer. It felt so good to hear his voice again. “That’s so weird.”

  He chuckled again. “You’ll get used to it. Eventually you’ll figure out what kind of Queen you want to be.”

  “What do you mean, what kind?”

  “Every Pair is different,” he said, ducking my head back—slowly, thank God—to rinse my hair out. Meanwhile he pulled the drain stopper to let the dirty water out of the tub and turned the tap on to replenish it. “Most Queens stay out of the leadership aspect of it and let the Primes deal in power struggles and security.”

  “Then what do they do with all their time?”

  He shrugged. “Spend money, near as I can tell. Gather followers, hold Court, have grand parties.”

  I made a face. “Give me a break.”

  “Not all do. There are several who take their positions seriously and own their power.” He sat me back up, smiling. “I have a feeling you’ll fall into that category.”

  “Damn right,” I muttered. “Now hand me the washcloth.” He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “It’s your turn.”

  “You’re falling asleep,” he pointed out.

  “And you smell like a period,” I replied tartly. He actually snorted.

  I did as he had done with me, lathering up his chest and shoulders and letting my hand trail around the contours of his muscles, admiring how the water and candlelight turned him golden. There was a long smear of blood on his upper arm, I guessed from a sword; thankfully it had long since healed, not even leaving a scar.

  “How does the tattoo thing work?” I asked, mostly to distract myself while I washed below the water line. “Don’t our bodies, like, reject the ink or heal too quickly or something?”

  “Both,” he answered, sounding pretty sleepy himself under my ministrations. “You have to consciously slow the healing process down and the artist has to work quickly. It’s very difficult.”

  “Why did you get yours? And when?”

  “Back when I was a lieutenant in California…I went in with Deven once, and he convinced me to get my own.”

  “Deven…that’s your friend the gay Prime, right?”

  “Yes.”

  I started to ask another question, but his eyes opened and he said, “Esther’s back with blood for us. We should finish up before it gets cold.”

  I bent my senses toward the rest of the suite, and sure enough I heard someone moving around; I could feel Esther’s presence if I tried. It was going to take time to learn how to use all my senses together—I was used to dealing with the empathy, but now my hearing, smell, and sight were all so much sharper that if I didn’t want to be constantly blocked off from everything I’d have to work on isolating things I did want to feel.

  To think there had been a time, not that long ago really, that I’d been daunted by the mere idea of shielding. Tonight I’d done so much more than that…and I knew it wasn’t even a sliver of what I was capable of.

  Back then I would have been terrified at the prospect. Now, I found I couldn’t wait to try myself out. I wanted to know what the boundaries were, how far I could push things. I’d been able to influence my audiences as a human…what could I do now?

  A terrible thought occurred to me, and I sat back. “My guitar.”

  David met my eyes. Sadness…I remembered…the fire. Everything I owned had been destroyed.

  “We’ll get you a new one,” he said. “Any kind you want.”

  “My keyboard…all my clothes…” I almost wept again. “My mother’s picture. I can’t replace that.”

  He sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. We’ll find another one.”

  I wiped my eyes impatiently. “I’m so glad I killed that bitch,” I said venomously, but it came out wrong, half a sob, half a whimper. “I hope we killed all of them.”

  David pulled the plug again, nodding. “We did. There are probably a few stragglers yet in the city, but every Blackthorn that set foot on our property tonight is dead.”

>   “Good.”

  After one last rinse to make sure we were both clean he wrapped me in a thick terry robe and deposited me in front of the fireplace, not in “my” armchair, but on the couch that stood between the two.

  God, I had missed this room. It had been months since I’d sat here surrounded by books and techno-gadgets with the shutters down and the fire roaring. How many times had I fallen asleep on this couch? I’d usually woken in my bed in the Mistress Suite…which was no longer my room. This was my room…although I imagined if I wanted my own space I could have it.

  I didn’t. This was where I wanted to be. The thought that I could spend as much time as I wanted in the library now, and in the music room with the piano—my piano—was as heady and joyful a feeling as seeing Ariana Blackthorn’s severed head hit the ground.

  Oh, life was getting weirder by the minute.

  David pulled on a pair of black flannel pants and handed me a comb, and I set to working it through the stubborn snarl of my wet hair while he turned his attention to a silver tray that Esther had left on the coffee table.

  On it were two wine glasses and two plastic donor bags of blood.

  My stomach lurched with what should have been nausea but was, in fact, hunger. The itching in my jaw, which I’d been ignoring, returned full force and became a painful burning. I remembered this feeling now…I’d felt it when I’d bitten Drew.

  “I bit Drew,” I said, surprising myself.

  David paused midway through cutting off the corner of one of the bags and glanced at me curiously. “Did you kill him?”

  I laughed weakly. “No…but I gave him a raging hard-on.”

  He grinned at me. “That’s because—and you can’t see it now, so you’ll have to take my word for it—you’re unspeakably beautiful.”

  I looked down at my hands. Even as shaky as they were with hunger and exhaustion, they looked stronger, and my already-pale skin was practically translucent now. I wished I could see my face. I had met vampires of every race and a variety of physical ages, but they all had a certain underlying beauty that was hard to pinpoint. Was I beautiful now too?

  “You’ve always been beautiful,” he said, handing me a glass of blood then turning to pour his own. “I thought so the first time I saw you.”

  Now I stared at the blood. “At the grocery store,” I recalled vaguely, unable to raise my hand and drink. Was I really going to do this? Was this really my life now? Was I really sitting here salivating over blood?

  “Take it slowly,” David advised. “You’ve only fed once and you don’t want to overdo it. Your system is still adjusting to the change.”

  I didn’t want him to watch me. I thought back to that night in my apartment when I’d guzzled stolen blood from a coffee mug. It seemed so civilized, sitting here in front of a fire, holding a stemmed glass like I was a yuppie tasting a new Merlot. I’d been human, or mostly, when I drank that bag. Now I wasn’t.

  I’m not human anymore.

  To stave off the panic that arose at that thought, I took a sip.

  Instantly my senses were overwhelmed. The itch in my mouth grew so bad I nearly cried out, and the only way I knew I could assuage it was to drink—I took another swallow, then another, trying to take my time, careful not to spill.

  When I finished the glass he refilled it. I kept drinking until the entire pint was gone. By the time I was done he had finished his and was watching me quietly, approval in his eyes. I held the last sip on my tongue for a moment, wondering at how completely I had changed—a week ago I would have gagged at the taste of it, but now I almost couldn’t bear to be done.

  I could feel it moving through me, easing the itch, soothing the burn, restoring my body everywhere it went. The last of the bruises and scrapes from the battle faded away, as did some of my tiredness. It wasn’t like the euphoria I’d felt that first time, but it was far more satisfying.

  We locked eyes. I could see it in him too. The surge of power and pleasure settled quite happily between my thighs.

  “Am I going to get turned on every time?” I asked.

  Sparks in his eyes. “Is that a problem?”

  I set my empty glass on the coffee table, then reached over and took his, returning both to the tray.

  Two empty glasses, two spent plastic bags.

  I moved over to him, slowly shifting into his lap, and kissed him.

  His hands moved up into my hair, drawing me closer; I wound my legs around him, letting his tongue dart into my mouth, my nails scratching lightly down his arms.

  My desire for sleep vanished and heat rose up to replace it.

  Once again I felt my teeth pressing into my lip, but this time for a different reason. The instinct was overpowering; I gave in to it, feeling the strange slip-pull my canines sliding down from my jaw, and bent, striking hard where neck joined shoulder.

  His blood welled up and he gasped, a low growl building in his throat, his fingers digging into my hips. I lapped delicately at the two drops of blood—I hadn’t hit a vein or anything else major, but brought out just enough for a taste. I’d forgotten how he tasted…and it was different now, sweeter, with an underlying scent that I realized was age…immortality. He didn’t taste like Drew, or the blood from the bag. He didn’t taste human.

  Before I could react, air rushed past my face, and I was on the floor on my back; he had flipped me off the couch in a blur, moving the coffee table out of the way without touching it. But there was no force—never any force—just need, and he lowered me the rest of the way to the floor almost reverently before returning his attention to my body, his mouth fastened firmly to mine, sucking his own blood off my tongue.

  I arched my back to help him get the robe off and tossed the garment aside. The hearth’s radiant heat bathed my skin. He seemed to want to devour me, roaming my body with lips and teeth and hands, and it felt like I was lying inside the fireplace, burning, turning incandescent before I could turn to ash.

  I struggled to get him undressed, and for a moment when his bare flesh touched mine neither of us could even breathe—the contact was such a jolt, as if a circuit had been completed, and all the things I had been sensing from him all night grew exponentially more intense. We stared at each other for a minute, and I could see my own wonder reflected in his. We held each other’s eyes, both sensing the import of what was happening, and I wound my leg around his waist and pulled him into me.

  We moved together with aching slowness at first, remembering each other, as if it had been years since we’d last touched, and yet, somehow, it felt like we’d never been apart.

  We rolled to one side, then the other, each long undulation like a wave casting me farther and farther out to sea, then gently pulling me back up to the surface, gasping and moaning as the waves peaked higher and higher. I braced my back into the ground, and we met with more momentum, the reverence beginning to smolder and then ignite. Among the thousand sensations warring for my attention was the knowledge that my body was much stronger now—and that he had always been strong, even the first night we’d made love, and he must have been holding back for fear of hurting me.

  There was no reason to fear that now. The desire to be filled, to feel our bodies dissolve into one flesh, raced over me, and I bit him again, trying to infuse that bite with driving need…and this time, he bit back.

  The sting of his teeth brought everything into single-pointed focus. The world contracted, the entire universe outside the room disappearing. I let him have everything—let it all go—my shields, my heart, my body, anything, everything, laying myself open and drawing him in.

  Contraction…explosion…creation…all rushed in, and then out, whirling my soul with it…with him…until together we shattered the world inside me.

  I screamed.

  Then I passed out.

  Unsurprisingly, I woke up in bed.

  For a while I didn’t move. I lay there with my eyes closed, just listening and feeling. I could hear the fire still crackling quietly
. I could hear the wind outside pushing on the metal shutters that kept the sunlight out. I could hear breathing: both of ours, relaxed and even.

  I could smell the hearth, where the fire had burned low; I could smell almonds and shampoo and laundry detergent as my hair was fanned out over the pillows to dry. I could smell sex, though that scent had faded, probably via the washcloth from the bathtub, for my thighs weren’t as sticky as I would have expected. I could smell something in the air…something bright and white-hot that made my heart jitter slightly.

  Daylight, I realized. I could smell daylight.

  More importantly, though, I could smell, and feel, the presence beside me in the bed; the indefinable scent of immortality, of something ancient but still vital, with undertones of wine and some sort of wild-edged musk.

  I could feel him watching me, and I let my eyes flutter open, meeting their deep blue. He smiled softly. “Go back to sleep, my Queen. It’s barely noon.”

  I lifted one hand and rested it against his Signet, then down to where I could feel his heart beating beneath my palm. His fingers closed around mine.

  “Good night,” I murmured, already drifting away.

  “Rest well, beloved,” he whispered.

  It was the first time he had ever called me that.

  A Lovely Way to Burn

  She was a fast learner.

  He had no idea what to make of her at first. They had known each other for months, slept in adjoining rooms, worked closely to train her gifts, yet until he saw her teeth flash in the night and pierce the skin of a young mortal writhing in her grasp, he didn’t really know her.

  They all fed differently. Some were connoisseurs of a certain race or body type. Some sought to feed on those who reminded them of someone else, from long ago, in another life. Some were less discriminate and hunted whoever was healthy and convenient.

  Others turned it into a game. The seduction, the chase…they fed on it as much as the blood itself. Sexual desire ignited the blood’s life force, giving it power, making it more nourishing. That had always been his preferred technique, for though it took time, it was a sure way to grow in strength without having to kill. Death gave off a tremendous amount of power, but it was dangerous…addictive…and drew too much attention to their kind.