by Fiona Zedde
“Hey! Where are you running off to?”
The tall soldier, Kylie had never known her as anything else, steadied her with rough hands. Her always roving eyes moved over Kylie’s face, throat, and body, seeking information and cataloguing it. Cataloguing her.
Ivy’s slightly tilted almond eyes, a reminder of Asia, dark in her butter brown face, warmed slightly as they assessed Kylie. It should have made her uncomfortable, but strangely, it didn’t. Her coolness was neither friendly nor off-putting. It kept Kylie not precisely at arm’s length but at a distance comfortable enough for Ivy to see her while not allowing them to touch in any real way. It was safety and Kylie understood that.
Ivy’s brother had been killed in the clan war, and rumor was that she’d never been the same since. She worked hard, never played, never smiled; everything she had or was she kept in service to Silvija and the well-being of the clan. She didn’t wear her loss on her face, but Kylie felt it nonetheless.
She drew back from Ivy’s grasp the same time Ivy released her.
“I’m not running anywhere,” she said.
Just then, Kylie realized that Ivy was dressed for a workout. She’d pulled her long black hair in a single braid down her back. A loose gray shirt and pants covered her slim and muscular frame. Her feet were bare.
Ivy raised an eyebrow. “In that case, you should come upstairs with me. It’s been a while since we’ve sparred.”
After the day she’d had, Kylie didn’t think that would be a bad idea at all. “Give me a couple of minutes,” she said.
Kylie dashed to her room to change while Ivy continued on to the roof. Within fifteen minutes, she had joined the others on the roof, dressed in her own sparring clothes—black yoga pants and matching tank top. She pulled her hair back in a thick braid at the back of her head.
The entire rooftop, broken up into three spaces—the helipad, observatory, and terrace—was theirs. The wide expanse of the terrace was carpeted in artificial grass and bordered by lush climbing vines that needed nothing to thrive under the New York sky. It was fall, but the flowers were still green and thick, cradling a few pale blossoms that perfumed the night air. The long iron benches had already been shoved aside to the edges of the roof to make room for them.
“The prodigal returns,” Violet teased her.
Her bald head gleamed under the moonlight, her beautifully round body a deadly distraction in the black leotard.
“Glad you made it back home in one piece,” Rufus said. Their resident rock star.
He was usually away on tour or in the studio recording his latest album. It was rare for him to be home, and Kylie enjoyed his presence precisely because it was such an uncommon thing.
He gave her an understanding look that nearly undid her. Out of everyone in the house, he had always seemed to see her for what she was, not what they wanted her to be. He was never judgmental, only sat and waited to see if she wanted to unburden herself. Most times, she did not, and he didn’t seem to mind.
He was dressed in an outfit similar to Ivy’s, loose and all gray, the material flowing gracefully over his slender but powerful body. His long dreadlocks were pulled back from his face into a tight bun.
Rufus, Violet, and Liam had all been assumed dead after the explosive destruction of the clan’s old home, but the three resourceful beasts had kept themselves safe then found their way back to Silvija not long after Kylie was turned. Kylie was glad. She couldn’t imagine her existence without them.
“Ready?” Ivy asked.
Rufus threw a punch at her in answer.
It was a dance they all knew well. Punch and duck and lunge and parry. A fist to the rib or face if you were slacking. Kicks connecting solidly against a shoulder, a thigh. Grunts of pain, triumph.
Silvija demanded that everyone in the clan have sparring sessions at least once every week. There were no set pairings. They all fought each other on their testing ground, and fought full-out, not pulling punches or kicks, to make sure they would be ready in case an enemy came for them.
It had been hard for Kylie at first, raised in a home of peace and Bible study, where a charming smile was the only thing needed to conquer a bully’s fist. But there was no room for passive resistance among the beasts. She learned quickly enough to kick as hard as the rest of them, to bounce back from a vicious hit, to ignore the splash of her own blood and jump back in to give as hard as she got.
She threw herself into it now, hammering her fist into a careless Rufus, ducking low when he tried to regroup and slam an elbow into her face. Kylie laughed.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, old man!”
Rufus was quick. He tapped her kidneys before she could dance away again. Kylie grunted, the pain sharp and immediate, then clenched her teeth hard. She twisted away to slam a roundhouse kick to his chest. He staggered backward a few steps, then grinned savagely.
“Nice!”
Kylie played with them for another hour or so, the time slipping easily through her fingers, her body sustaining blows then immediately regrouping. But all too soon, the initial euphoria and distraction soon drained away until she felt too large for her own body, the energy snapping under her skin, unused. She stopped and caught a fist to the temple. She winced and danced back, shaking away the pain and the brief flare of stars behind her eyes.
“I’m done,” she said, holding up her hands in surrender.
“We’re just getting started!” Violet bounced on the balls of her feet, her hands clenched into fists, her sneakers slapped hollowly against the padded floor.
“I know, but—” Kylie shook her head, unable to express the feeling of restlessness, of wanting more, stirring in her.
She’d felt it when she walked in on her mother and Silvija in the living room. It had seemed to disappear once she started sparring, but as the initial adrenaline rush wore off, the feeling returned. She was distracted and twitchy once again.
“I have to go,” she said.
She turned and left them, opening the door to the cool darkness of the penthouse. Opaque glass walls. Thick blond brick. The hum of the technology keeping them secure.
Kylie gripped the banister to the curving chrome staircase that led down to the topmost floor and the piano, white tiled floors, and tall windows letting in a glittering view of New York by night. The aches and pains from her sparring session were already fading away as if they had never been. She leapt the last few steps, her bare feet thumping against the cool tile.
Clicking footsteps sounded from nearby. The smell of hothouse flowers. Then Julia appeared from one of the rooms down the wide hallway. The vampire who had turned her mother was slender and beautiful with her bald head and midnight skin. Tonight, she looked particularly elegant and available in a clinging, off the shoulder black dress. A large gardenia lay perched over one ear and deep purple lipstick emphasized her full mouth.
Her gaze over Kylie was both predatory and wary. “You look ready to fuck something,” she said.
Kylie jerked back from her, disgusted. Her hands curled at her sides, and she thought of the supreme satisfaction that would come from slamming Julia against the wall. The thick sound her body would make as it hit the pale brick. Her flower falling from behind her ear, the petals separating and scattering under Kylie’s feet. She took another step back. Julia’s smile widened.
“I’d offer to pluck your little flower for you, but your mother would probably kill me. For real this time.” Her eyes raked Kylie again. Then she tucked her purse under her arm, blew Kylie a kiss, and kept walking past, heading downstairs, probably on her way to a party.
Kylie froze in her wake, listening to the disappearing sound of her heels on the tiles.
You look ready to fuck something. Julia’s words echoed in her head.
No! She didn’t want that. She never wanted to surrender herself so completely to another person, to such an animal act, the way her mother had. It was a surrender that seemed to obliterate all care or thought for
anyone else except the lover.
She spun away from Julia’s phantom presence and headed to her room. Even though she’d been sweating before from her sparring session, it was only now after seeing Julia that she felt dirty.
Kylie took a long shower, lingering under the hot spray until the large bathroom swirled white from steam. After she was dry and dressed, she sat on her bed to ponder the conundrum of the Atlanta woman.
She was away from the woman, but might as well have brought her back to New York the way she occupied her mind. Kylie worried her lip between her teeth, trying to decide what to do. She hadn’t made it very far in her mental ramblings when an odd sound came to her.
Moaning.
An odd mix of pleasure and pain, arousal and fear. Before she could second-guess herself, she left her room and walked toward the noise, glad for the distraction from her own thoughts.
The noises took her farther down the hallway and down the stairs to the second floor of the penthouse. She heard a heavy slap and a muffled shout of pain, soft whispers. Abruptly, she realized it was just sex play. But the odd nature of it—the tortured sounds, an unusual smell (of gasoline?) she caught on the air—made her curious.
She found the source of the noises in Ivy’s bedroom.
Julia, Violet, and Ivy. They were in the center of the large room, naked and playing with fire.
Ivy was tied and gagged, her long body bent over at the waist on a thick wooden table. She lay on her belly, her arms stretched wide and handcuffed to opposite corners of the table. Her spread legs bared a smoothly shaved pussy dripping thick juices down her thighs. Someone had twisted her long hair into a tight bun.
Julia viciously spanked Ivy’s ass and grinned as the soft flesh rippled from the blow. This must have been the party she had been rushing off to. She still wore the white gardenia over her ear, but she’d stripped off the elegant dress in favor of a white dildo strapped to her hips with a matching leather harness. She spanked Ivy’s ass again, then squeezed the taut flesh.
Violet, standing near Ivy’s shoulder, held up a long match. A flame bloomed from it, bright and deadly in the large room. She touched it to the glistening flesh of Ivy’s back, and blue flame rushed in a line over the brown skin. Violet waited precious seconds before killing the flame with a single sweep of her hand.
They were playing in front of the large mirror that stood on the wall across from the bed. The mirror reflected back the three of them at their play. Only Ivy watched in the mirror, her eyes wide as she stared at what Violet was doing to her.
“You like what you see?” Violet asked Ivy before she lowered the match again.
Ivy whimpered behind the gag. Beads of sweat dotted her face and strands of hair clung to her forehead. Her body, coated in what smelled like white gas, glistened in the light from the room’s dim lanterns.
Ivy’s upturned ass faced Kylie, so did the mirror. She could see everything. The warrior’s damp face, wet pussy, the tight flex and release of her leg and calf muscles when the flames sank too deeply into her flesh. Ivy’s legendary control was gone, given up to the service of pleasure and the peaceful oblivion of mindless physical submission and release.
Although it wasn’t Kylie’s first time watching other vampires have sex, it never ceased to amaze her how rough they were with each other, how they seemed to hurt each other, hurt themselves, and love it.
Ivy moaned around the gag. Tears splashed down her cheeks, but her expression was one of fear and bliss, a strange ecstasy. Her flesh looked like that of a phoenix as the fire jumped onto it and slithered over her flank before disappearing under Violet’s quick hand. But Ivy did not try to get away. She only stared in the mirror at what the other two were doing to her, her tears flowing, pussy dripping.
Julia, with her thick white phallus bobbing from her hips, came close to the table on the opposite side from where Violet was doing her wicked work. Moaning, she dipped her fingers into Ivy’s pussy from behind and stroked her cock with the other hand.
“You’re so wet for us, baby,” she murmured in her low and carrying voice.
From outside the room, Kylie watched in dread and amazement. Fire alone couldn’t kill a vampire, but burns took the longest to heal and were some of the most painful injuries Kylie had ever experienced. She must have made a noise because Julia’s head jerked toward her.
Julia grinned and continued her slow stroke of Ivy’s pussy, latching her eyes to Kylie’s, her lips parted at the wet sound of her fingers plunging deep inside Ivy’s juicy cunt, then retreating. She gripped a muscular ass cheek, and raked her long nails across the flesh until the smell of blood exploded in the room. Kylie’s teeth pulsed dimly in her mouth.
Still watching Kylie, Julia stroked Ivy’s clit and Ivy moaned behind the gag, jerking her slick brown body in reaction to whatever Julia was doing to her. Violet set her lower back on fire again then swept her hand across the swirling pattern of blue flame and extinguished it. She looked fiendishly happy and aroused, her eyes brighter than the lights in the room.
She moved as fast as lightning, touching flame to several different parts of Ivy’s body, watching them swirl, blue and deadly, over the glowing flesh before putting them out.
Julia broke her stare with Kylie to step behind Ivy. She parted the slick and swollen lips with one hand, while holding the bone white cock with the other. Slowly, she slid the cock into Ivy’s pussy. Ivy moaned, shoving her hips back for more.
“Such a pretty pussy,” Julia murmured.
Then she started to fuck Ivy. Slowly. The shaft of the dildo emerged from the tight pussy, slick with Ivy’s juices. Then she fucked her faster, slamming her into the table with the force of a jackhammer while Violet twirled blue flames all over Ivy’s shoulders and back.
It was like a dream, or a nightmare, of fire and sex. The smell of arousal and impending satisfaction floated in the room along with the scent of gasoline, tears, and blood. Julia grunted as she fucked Ivy into ecstasy. The sounds of their passion grew louder in the room, the slam of the table against the floor, flesh against flesh, moans and grunts.
Abruptly, Violet extinguished the flame on her match, yanked the gag out of Ivy’s mouth, and leapt on top of the long table with her thighs spread. She shoved her pussy into Ivy’s mouth, her eyes rolling up into her head as Ivy latched on to her clit and began to suck.
Kylie stepped back from the doorway, swallowing heavily, and turned around to go back to her own room. Their love play was hard, so rough. Was that the only thing out there for her now that she was one of them?
The question plagued her all the way to her room.
Chapter Four
Hours later, Kylie lay in her bed still listening to the sounds of fucking; the lust in the penthouse never seemed to end.
She could tell who it was by the sound of their breath, by the scents coming at her through the house. In the bedroom one floor and not enough walls away, Rufus and Liam took each other. They were loud and vicious. There were sounds of flesh hitting the wall, gasps, the smell of blood, a hoarse scream from Liam. From farther down the hall she could smell Silvija and her mother, but she quickly turned her attention away from them and their always amorous tendencies. Any room with the two of them had the potential to become uncomfortable simply because of the way they were with each other―tender and hard at once, lovers who loved and loved passionately.
Kylie curled up in her bed while the lights of Manhattan—its office buildings, the searchlight from a passing chopper, other apartments in the sky—blazed at her through the windows. She loved that no one could see her while she lay in her big bed and watched. About a mile away, a couple in an equally tall building insisted on making love with the windows open. So even when Kylie was trying to avoid the concupiscence in her own house, she was faced with an anonymous version of it just outside her window.
To the discordant music of Liam and Rufus’s vicious passion, she watched the tamer human couple. The woman, pale and slender on all fours in
the black satin sheets. Behind her, her lover yanked her long black hair back, baring her slender neck as he wrapped the hair slowly around his fists, pulling her head farther and farther back. Kylie could practically smell the woman’s excitement.
Her male lover’s arousal was easy enough to see. His thick penis thrust into the air as he reached between her legs and prepared her with his hand. Kylie watched them, trying to feel something other than a vague curiosity about what the woman’s cleft felt like, if she were truly enjoying herself or just pretending. Minutes later, she pressed the remote on her bedside table to darken the window and pull the thick curtains over the glass.
She’d never had sex with anyone, but nothing that she saw around her made her want to change that. She knew that her mother and Silvija enjoyed each other. Everyone in the house did. Their rituals of blood and sex were practically a prerequisite to starting the night. But she was cold to it all. She watched humans sometimes, even felt a vague agitation under her skin, but there was no one she’d ever seen who made her want to get down into the filth with, get wet and growl and become truly beastly to reach a mutual sexual goal.
Her bedroom door opened behind her, and she smelled Liam, freshly showered. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to see that he wore his robe, long black silk that held the scent of his recent shower and his own skin. He touched Kylie lightly on the shoulder and slid into the bed in front of her, making himself the littlest spoon. He relaxed against the sheets with a sigh. A few minutes later, Violet came in. She too smelled of the shower with no hint at all of what she’d been doing with Ivy and Julia. She slid behind Kylie, the biggest spoon, resting her cheek against the bent curve of Kylie’s back.
She felt her own body relax, already anticipating the sweet oblivion of sleep.
“Little Kylie.” Violet squeezed her tightly. “It’s good to have you back. You know worry isn’t good for my complexion.” She giggled, always the playful one.
