by C. M. Steele
“You are tired,” he says, leaning over me as I lay on the rug.
“I’m not, my mate,” I argue, breathing heavily under his gaze. My heart’s beat has picked up double time, but it’s not about the change in me. It’s the natural lust I feel for him. I’m ready to go again.
“Are you ready again?” he asks as if he hears my thoughts. As if understanding my concern, he adds, “I feel your emotions. I sense your longing.” He grabs me fast and flips me on my belly, lifting me to my knees. He leans over my back and whispers, “This time fast and hard. I want you to feel me with every step you take.” He slams into me, rocking me forward. I grab the edge of the rug and go for a ride. His strong hand squeezes one side of my hip as the other cups my breast, moving from one hard nipple to the other, plucking and rubbing them until I arch my back up come on his cock. He roars as he fills me up again. He pulls me back into his arms, and bites down on my pulse, making me come again.
Noise from the other rooms below can be heard.
“We need to get away, but first, are you up for a dance?” he asks me with a smile.
“I’d love nothing more, Alaric,” I say.
“Oh, my love, I promise there is much more to desire.”
“Yes, that I’m certain, but I sense that once we’re alone, there will be too much to occupy our time.”
“I will always dance with you, my queen. Come. Let’s enjoy the ball.”
Chapter 8
Alaric
Dressing quickly, we both check our appearances before making our way back to the ball below. There are people moving around the place, almost oblivious to us as they enjoy the wine and conversations. I don’t know anything about this place other than the Oakes Mansion is full of supernatural beings. Some who are clearly lusting for their mates as much I crave to take Allegra again. I nod and smile at several couples who acknowledge us as I lead my bride to the center of the floor. With a bow to each other, I take her hand and dance around the room. “You’re so beautiful, Allegra.”
A blush steals over her face, sending my hunger for her into insane need. I press her flat to my body, then run my nose down from her cheek to her shoulder, watching her shiver as her flesh craves mine. “Alaric,” she sighs. Even with our scents mingled, I can still smell her heat building for me. Jealously, I wonder if others can as well. Perhaps dancing around, so many bloody beasts was a bad idea.
We twirl around the room, creating a small audience. When the music ends, those watching us cheer. “Are you ready, my sweet?”
“Yes, my mate.” We make our exit, giving a simple thank you to the hosts. Then I whisk her off to our little getaway.
“Where are we?” she asks, rubbing her hands under my jacket as we stand in front of our cabin. I hold her close and unlock the door.
“Just outside Montreal,” I admit vaguely.
“Canada?” she shouts with a beautiful smile crossing her face.
“Yes, my mate. Come this is our little home for the night.” The cabin has the latest in security. It’s not as if we need it in this isolated area, but I don’t want to be disturbed for the next day or so.
We enter the small wooden space, and I turn on the main room’s light. Everything is as I placed it for us. “Are you hungry?”
“Not for food.” The glint in her eyes gives no doubt what she’s hungry for.
“Good.” I pull her into my chest and slam my mouth down on hers kissing her until I feel her fangs lower down. Fuck, I’m so damn turned on. I run my tongue along them, and she freezes for a moment. “What’s wrong, my sweet?”
“Oh my, I could have hurt you.” She covers her mouth like I didn’t mark her already with my own.
“No, you can’t, my beloved. We are mates unless you truly wished to hurt me.”
“Did you have other mates or lovers?” she asks hesitantly.
I brush her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “No. Only you. I knew you were mine from the morning after I changed.” I pick her up and pin her to the wall, kissing her again. I tear her clothes off while she rips off mine. I grab her thighs and lift them over my waist holding her by her ass. Her pussy clenches around my long, thick cock, ready to take more of my seed. The idea of breeding her with my little vampires sends me into a frenzied need. I thrust into her slamming her onto the wooden door. Our bodies repeatedly rock, banging on the door as we fuck hard and fast. She cries out, coming around my dick. We kiss frantically, then she drags her mouth away and comes down on my shoulder, biting me for the first time, and I come deep into her womb.
She releases her fangs from my skin, then she licked the wound closed like I did hers. I’m nowhere near done with her. I carry her with my cock deep inside to the large bed, sitting with my back against the headboard. “Fucking ride me,” I demand, spanking her ass.
“Yes,” she agrees, clamping her hands onto the headboard and bouncing on me. I look between us to see her slick pussy soaking my cock. “Fill me up,” she screams, throwing her head back. I press my hands around her smooth back, rubbing her up and down while I pump up into her. Roaring, I lift myself up and flip her onto her back, thrusting into her until she comes for me again.
Chapter 9
Allegra
Our sweaty bodies lay intertwined on the bed. We haven’t moved since last night, but I have so many questions about his life before he became a vampire. I know a lot about vampires, but what I want to know is more about my Alaric.
“What was your life like before you came to Manchester all those years ago?”
“I grew up in Indiana in an orphanage going from place to place in foster homes and stuff until I aged out.”
“Wow, do you know what happened to your parents?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know about them until after I became a vampire. And that’s how I ended up with the castle.”
“Please continue,” I say, sitting up in the bed, crossing my legs and clasping my fingers together.
“Well, it seems my family knew that I was destined for a future as a vampire or that’s what they believed. It appears their seer in the area was more than just superstition. The home was left to me and cared for by the longtime family help. My parents were hunters, too, but they were killed shortly after they gave me away to America. They hoped I would be cared for, but since they died, the solicitor for my wealth lied and left me to the whims of the foster care.”
“Wow. Wait…are we distantly related?”
“No. You’re of Italian descent, but I’m an Austrian. It’s something I looked into years ago, and that’s how I learned the story of my life and the fortune my family left me. My full name is Wilhelm Alaric von Jager. Now, my title is Lord Jager and you are Lady Jager. We have a large estate which produces enough crops and animals to feed the area and ourselves while funding our lives.”
“Speaking of food. Are you going to teach me how to hunt?”
“Of course, although, I’m certain I don’t need to, my sweet Allegra.”
On the way back from a productive hunt, I ask a question that’s been running in my head since he mentioned his past, “By the way, what happened to the guy who left you in the lurch?”
“Oh, as crooks do, he got caught up in other messes and pissed off some bad people. He was found killed with a gunshot wound in a river.”
“Yeah, so karma came for him.”
Chapter 10
Alaric
The setting of the sun on our third day of paradise marks the end of our trip. It’s time for us to return to Manchester to speak with her father and then go to my castle in Bucharest. They have a lot to work out. I owe Alessandro everything, but Allegra is my mate, and I have to take her feelings into this.
“Alaric, I know we’re going to see my father, but I want to ask you something first.” She rubs her hands together nervously looking away from me.
I press my thumb to her chin and lift her gaze to meet mine. I’m guessing that this has to do with her father. I kiss her forehead, the
n respond honestly, “Anything. I can’t lie to you.” She realized the other day that she can sense my emotions, too.
She bites the edge of her bottom lip before asking, “How was my father all this time? Was he living up the vampire life?”
I give out a little chuckle. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh because it’s not funny, it’s sad. Your father from the time I met him talked about you sparingly, but he had the strangest need to follow you around. It took me a few months after my change to realize that he was your father. He was miserable and hated any time we lost track of you.”
“What if it was just because he knew I was the last hunter?” This is the shit that makes me want to kick his ass. I know it was hard for him to stay away, but the truth is hurting and confusing her.
I hold her close to me, snuggling on the small sofa near the fireplace. “My sweet Allegra, he wanted to tell you the truth for so long. It hurt him, shamed him that he had to pretend to be dead because he had become the hunted.”
“Have you ever bitten a human?”
“Only once,” I say, cupping her cheek and rubbing my thumb over her soft skin. “You are the only one. Your father taught me how to hunt and eat animals. Food doesn’t hurt us like they believe. It’s just not very sustaining. A lot of the nutrients are cooked out of human food. We need much more to have the speed and muscle move the way we do.”
She jumps off the sofa and moves to the window, and I follow, standing behind her. “Should I forgive him?”
“That’s an easy answer for me. I never had a family. Your father became mine that day he came to help me. For you it’s different.”
“Okay, I see your point. In all honesty, I don’t want to be angry with him. I want to put it aside and pretend it never happened, but mentally, I know that I shouldn’t.”
“You shouldn’t hold onto anger if it’s not true anger. You’re told that you should like red because of your black hair, but you hate it, right?”
“Yes,” she stammers out.
“Well if you can forgive him. Who’s to tell you that you’re wrong for it?” I ask wrapping my arms around her waist and gently resting my chin on her head.
“I suppose you have a point. Thank you, Alaric.”
“Hey, I’m here because of him. I wouldn’t be with you, so I owe him everything,” I whisper in her ear as I hold her close to me.
She turns around in my arms and looks into my eyes. It is only for a moment, and I feel deprived when she lowers them. “Well, my dear vampire, I love you, and therefore I suppose he has a good reason to be forgiven.”
I tip her chin up to look at me, and I incredulously ask, “You love me?”
She blushes and steps away from me, dashing to the other side of the cabin and leaning against the window pane. She looks up at me and says, “Yes, you seem surprised. I think I loved you as a teenager when you were still just a young man.”
“I can say the same. I remember thinking that you hated me and that you were beautiful even though you were too young for me. Then you ran off on me. I wanted to wait until you reached eighteen before claiming you as mine because that’s what it felt like from the start. I had to protect you until I could possess you—body and soul.”
“Well, you passed that up by several years.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t my plan, but I also didn’t expect to be turned into a vampire overnight either.”
“Good point.”
An hour later, Allegra and I travel back to the apartment that Alessandro and I had in Manchester. I don’t sense anyone. It’s empty, but for a note.
I’ve gone to Bucharest. There’s nothing left for me here. I’ll be looking for my own home soon—Your Father
“Well then, are you ready to go home?”
“Yes, I am.”
We arrive in Bucharest at our castle. Allegra gasps at the beautiful Romanian architecture. We enter without using the front door, appearing in the lobby. “Mrs. Fernbach?”
“Ah yes, my dear. It’s such a pleasure to see you again.”
“What are you doing here?”
“It seems that I’m one of you now. A vampire attacked me on Halloween three years ago. I was there to keep tabs on you should you appear in town again.”
“So you don’t have a son you were trying to pawn off on me?”
“Oh yes. Well, it seems that you have found him. Well, Alaric is my son because he’s so young and needs a mother’s touch.”
“Father,” Allegra blurts out, seeing Alessandro come through the room.
“Allegra,” he pauses. She shakes her head and steps up to him, throwing her arms around his neck.
“No, no. You don’t need to say anything. Let us forget about all of it. I don’t want to deal with it. Life is different now. My happiness only revolves around one man these days,” she remarks, turning to smile at me. Damn right. I drag her back to my side.
“Now that’s all settled, if you two would excuse us, I have to show my wife around her home.” I take her hand lead her leisurely about the castle. Our bedroom is isolated in the west wing of the home. It is perfect for the privacy that newly mated vampires need. We only have a couple of years to create our family. And I plan to expand on the Von Jager clan as much as I can.
“Our bedroom is all the way on the other side of the castle,” she says with an impish grin.
“That it is. And perhaps we need to test the acoustics,” I growl, slipping my arms around her waist and dragging her close to me.
“Say no more, my Lord,” she whispers, nipping at my earlobe.
Epilogue
Alaric
Six months later…
The waiting for my heir to be born had forced me to nearly go insane with fear. For the past six months, I have been pacing and reading whenever I thought about this new life coming into this world. Most of the knowledge was still passed down in journals and word of mouth, but none of that mattered because Allegra’s my universe and nothing must go wrong. She couldn’t die like a human would, but the pain would be more than I cared for. Both of us just feasted when she doubled over. Freaking out, I contacted all the vampire specialists I could find.
I only left to prepare a meal for Allegra when I heard her cry out. I rushed into the room to see her with her legs parted and her knees practically behind her ears. Don’t think of it. Now’s not the time to think of claiming her. “Stop it,” she growls out at me.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” she sighs, reaching for my hand. I take her tiny one in mine, holding it in her punishing grip while the vampire midwife, tells her to push. In seconds our baby is delivered. I can’t believe how fast he came out after the hours of waiting, but my son was born. A dark-haired smiling toothless vampire with a little extra chubbiness. She lays the baby on her belly, and I run my hand over his head, then steal a kiss from my tired mate.
“Congratulations, Milord and Milady.” They clean her up in a flash, and I rest with my family in my arms. The baby latches to her breast like a normal baby would until it’s time to teach him to eat. Fuck, I couldn’t be happier as we fall asleep.
Allegra
Twenty Years later…
Four children later, Alaric and I are no less in love than we were when we first mated. My fertile years have passed, but we’re happy with the large family we have. In the vampire world, there aren’t that many children born to any pair. At most there’s only been two. We had Alessandro, Wolfgang, Zander, and Alana. A girl birth is a little rarer than a boy, but she is just as strong as they are.
“Allegra,” Alaric calls out as he enters our bedroom.
“Yes, my love?” I answer singsong like while I brush my hair before bed.
“We have a problem,” he growls. Oh, we don’t have a problem, but my dear husband is no different than a human dad when it comes to his little girl.
“Yes? And do you care to tell me what it’s about?”
“You already know, don’t you?” he accuses.
/> I shrug and smile. I get up from my vanity, and in my tiny silk robe and shift, I walk up to my husband and nudge him back to sit on the bed. Running my fingers through his thick hair, I promise, “Alaric, you must calm yourself. She is old enough to be mated, even if she’s not over eighteen. Although, I’m certain that it won’t happen for a long time. Even if he was interested in her, we have made it clear that we must meet this mate.”
“I know. I know. It’s just she’s my princess.” We had all four kids in a three-year span because the Wolfgang and Zander were twins and Alaric and I can’t keep our hands off each other. Vampire pregnancies are shorter as well. We only hold them in for about six months and can get pregnant almost right away, well at least I did.
“Come, let me get your mind off of it, my Lord,” I purr, tugging his shirt from his pants and lifting it over his head. I decide he needs me to take my time and love him slowly. I unleash his cock from his pants and take his thick length in my hand, stroking it up and down as he shudders with sudden need. I gaze up at my mate as I wrap my mouth over his tip, sucking it until I could feel his body tense. I take his cum down my throat then stand up and drop my robe. He takes my hand and lifts me onto him, sliding down his pole. All things Alana—forgotten.
Can true love last forever?
Yes, our love will last forever. And luckily that’s what we’re in for.
THE END
Next in the Hauntingly Romantic Halloween Novellas is Hunting Gypsy by MK Moore
