Esoterica 1: Liam's Awakening: A Lovecraftian Fantasy Harem Adventure (Esoterica Chronicles)

by Virgil Knightley

  I smiled with narrowed eyes as I wrapped my arms around Carmilla’s waist and she gasped in surprise. The vampire smiled coyly as I pulled her in for a sensual kiss. For a moment, she blinked in surprise but quickly and eagerly allowed herself to succumb to my embrace. She bit the inside of my lip, drawing blood, which her tongue sought voraciously. I didn’t mind. I had gone primal, biting her lip in kind.

  I understood. These evil, dead cultists didn’t matter. My own painful memories were shackles that I’d have to cast off sooner or later. All that mattered was what I chose to do with my life, and I wouldn’t be caught wasting another second.

  Chapter 12

  Star Girl

  The next day, I awoke in my bed beside the naked form of Carmilla the vampiress, her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms thrown over my neck. I chuckled at how comically close her mouth was to my neck and how her lips occasionally twitched when she took a deep breath, flashing a fang for a brief moment as she continued to snore lightly into my ear.

  I shook her awake. “What kind of vampire sleeps all night, anyway?”

  “Dhampir,” she corrected me with a grunt. “I’m a daywalker, remember?” She stretched out like a cat in a sunbeam. I chuckled as I stroked her hair one last time.

  Adorable. “Then get your sweet ass up, daywalker.” I kissed her on the forehead and pulled myself out of bed. Throwing on some clothes, I stared blankly at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was a surprisingly gaudy and large clock for a dorm room, but then nothing was digital or modern here. “Shit, we missed breakfast with your friends,” I said.

  “...S’okay,” she turned over and mumbled into my pillow, her pert ass now facing up. I gave it a slap. I simply had to.

  “Time to get up, Carri,” I said.

  She turned over and looked at me with a tired but affectionate smile that showed the fang on the right side of her mouth. “You called me Carri,” she purred. Her eyes closed again.

  “Well, you can stay here for a bit if you want,” I shrugged, giving up. “I don’t mind. But I’m going to the library to learn more about cultivation. Maybe I’ll meet up with you later?”

  No reply but the sound of soft snores.

  I chuckled to myself and walked out the door, closing it gently behind me so as not to further disturb the sleepy dhampir. I picked up some food from the cafeteria, wrapped it up in some cloth, threw it in my bag, and took it with me.

  Mr. Shaw, the creepy librarian, was accommodating in finding just the book I was looking for: Mana Management for the New Sorcerer. Rather than sit in the musty library all day, though, I opted to check out the book and read it outside, improvising a little breakfast picnic. It wasn’t that uncommon of a way to study, I noticed, as several other students were doing precisely the same thing, splayed out under trees, leaning against standing stones, and squatting in the shadows of various buildings.

  I sat on the vividly green grass of the campus between the standing stones and the forest, enjoying the surreal alien sky that hung over me. As I bit into a half-loaf of bread, I suddenly felt a pleasant rush imposing itself upon my senses. It smelt like lavender and felt like butterfly kisses all over my body.

  And then, from my periphery, I became aware of silvery white locks blowing in the breeze. A ghost-pale girl stood before me with eyes devoid of whites—instead they swirled a midnight blue and twinkled with captured starlight. Dahlia.

  “Can I sit here?” her sweet voice said.

  Jesus. She was maddeningly pretty. Otherworldly beauty didn’t begin to cover it. It transcended beauty. She was intoxicating to even look at, especially now that I had her alone. Or did she have me? It was all I could do just to stay focused enough to respond.

  “Uh, sure,” I said, trying to smile, but ultimately, I was too distracted by the flawless creature in front of me to manage a convincing grin successfully. “Perfection,” I actually murmured out loud to myself as I stared.

  “What’s that?” she asked, sitting down so close to me that I was positive she could probably hear my heart beating in my chest. I was reduced to gaping and grunting, trying to form words at first as I fidgeted like an anxious mess, but finally, the adrenaline settled in, and I managed to regain some composure.

  “Oh nothing,” I said. “I was just noting it was a perfect day for a picnic.” Nailed it. But that was close.

  She batted her eyelashes at me, and I fell into the gorgeous trap of looking directly into them. It was like stargazing.

  “Can I see your familiar? Uther, right?” she asked.

  I had dreaded this. “Of course.” I tapped the ground, and the white fox appeared. Dahlia and the fox looked one another in the eyes intensely for a moment, and for that briefest moment, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. But when she reached out to pet the fox and smiled at him, I relaxed a bit.

  “It’s kind of… flattering,” she said with a giggle. “The similarity, I mean.

  I laughed nervously. “I honestly don’t know what it means. How did you find out about him?”

  “I asked Carmilla about your familiar after she took you to summon him, but she got dodgy. And then… let’s just say I know how to make her talk,” she said slyly.

  “Right,” I nodded. I’d have a few words with the vampire girl later.

  Her tiny hand rested atop mine. I jerked back in surprise. “You don’t need to be nervous with me,” she said. “You feel it, don’t you?”

  “Feel what?” I asked, unable to rip myself from her entrancing eyes for even a fraction of a second.

  “You feel drawn to me.”

  “Well, you’re the most insanely beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” I said, blushing. I couldn’t believe I’d just said those words. I almost threw up in embarrassment right then and there.

  She frowned a little bit at my words, and it hit me like a bag of bricks to see an unpleasant look on her perfect face. “No, not that,” she said. She looked down at her legs and then back up into my face. For my part, my gaze never left her. She took a deep breath as she prepared her next sentence. “We’re soulmates.”

  I gulped. On the one hand, this was going way better than I expected our first one-on-one conversation to go. On the other hand, whoa. “How’s that now?”

  “I’m a Starchild,” Dahlia explained. “My father was a star, and my mother a human woman.” She gripped my hand tightly and leaned against me. Every point of contact between us was electric. Tingling ripples of pleasure spilled outward from every part of me where my skin met hers.

  “My dad was just a mailman,” I commented, trying to stay engaged despite my quickly deteriorating focus.

  “Long story short, Liam,” she continued, “I can see souls. And yours and mine are a perfect pair. It’s why touching you... even a little like this...” She stroked my neck, and I flinched from the euphoric sensation.

  I swallowed hard again. “Oh, is it that? It’s not your power?”

  She shook her head, “No, it’s our power over each other.”

  “So we’re... soulmates? Really?” I asked. It was hard to understand.

  “Afraid so,” she confirmed. Her eyes were beginning to grow ravenous as she looked at me, her lip quivering as one hand fiddled with her dress’s shoulder strap absent-mindedly.

  “So now what?” I asked. This was a lot to absorb, and I wasn’t sure how to proceed with this information. Just a few seconds ago, I had been a bachelor on a campus surrounded by beautiful women, and I had felt myself getting pretty close to both Rebecca and Carmilla. Now I was staring my soulmate in the face. It was an incredible feeling, but I was a bit afraid of the implications as I thought more about it.

  “I... I don’t know,” she said. The admission comforted me somewhat. “I never expected to see you so soon in my life. Or at all. Most people go their whole lives without meeting their soulmate. I’m only twenty, and here you are.”

  I had to agree, it was a tremendous thing for two people in their early twenties to know without a doubt. Who
wrote the book on this situation?

  “But now that you’re here, I can’t just let you walk away, Liam,” she whimpered. She licked her lips at the completion of my name like it was sweet just to speak it.

  “Now that you’re here,” I said, “I can’t imagine walking away.” Corny, I thought. I’m a loser.

  She didn’t react badly at all, though. Her smile grew warmer, hotter. “Then let’s just stay like this for a while,” she suggested, and she put her head in my lap and looked up at my face. It was the most angelic thing I’d ever seen.

  I couldn’t help myself, and within seconds I was stroking her hair and cheeks as though we were already lovers. She didn’t shrink away from my touch; on the contrary, she shivered pleasurably.

  “Are we… uh… together?” I dared to ask.

  Dahlia paused to choose her words. “I don’t see a need for a label,” she said. “No matter what we do, or who we spend our time with, now that we know of one another, we’ll always find our way back,” she said.

  I nodded. It made sense. “I want it to be natural, anyway.”

  “Me too,” she agreed. “I don’t want to force it. Let’s just have fun and fall into a pattern together on our own terms,” she said. “We have the rest of our lives to figure it out. But I’ll be honest—I can’t imagine being with any man but you.”

  Suddenly we heard a familiar voice make a polite cough. I looked up and was startled to see Carmilla standing over us, looking downright shocked at what she saw. “Well, it’s nice that you two had a chance to chat, but holy shit.”

  I was utterly mortified. I just gawked in embarrassment and bewilderment. Dahlia, however, slowly adjusted herself and sat back up, leaning on my shoulder.

  “We’ve got room for a third,” Dahlia said, patting my lap.

  Both my eyes and Carmilla’s opened wide at the suggestion, and Carmilla’s ordinarily pale cheeks went rose-red.

  “I…” Carmilla tried to think of something to say. She looked back and forth between me and Dahlia repeatedly. “I just remembered I have something to do,” and she walked away. I was amused to see her walk convert into a run after a few paces, but I felt horrible at the same time, not sure if seeing me with Dahlia like this would hurt her.

  “Did you mean that?” I asked. “About her joining us?”

  She made a naughty smile and licked her lips again. “Carmilla and I already have plenty of experience together. And I know she likes you. It’d make it easier if we were all together,” she explained. “She’s going to continue needing me for blood, anyway, and sometimes that can get kind of, um, physical with her.”

  “That’s been my experience, too,” I said. Dahlia didn’t respond except to giggle slightly, and I took it as a good sign. She wasn’t the jealous type, at least not with Carmilla.

  I kind of felt like I won the lottery. That was the closest comparison I could come up with to the feeling I was experiencing. It seemed cliche to think, but it was true. This degree of luck was beyond supernatural.

  “Besides,” Dahlia continued, tracing her name into my chest with her finger, “She’s suitable. Her aura also complements yours and mine. Our union with her would make each other’s magic stronger. And I know her soul well. We can trust her.”

  “I’m sold on this proposition,” I said flatly.

  “I thought you might be.” I could feel her eyelashes batting against my shoulder as her electrifying fingertips repeatedly stroked my chest and neck. “But only if I’m your favorite.”

  I chuckled. “I don’t think any force on Earth could replace you.”

  “Earth is small,” she pouted. “Swear it on the multiverse, Liam.”

  I smiled. “Sure, I swear.”

  She returned the smile and curled up even more comfortably in my lap.

  I caught a glimpse of my own watch and abruptly became aware of the time. With a jolt I remembered what I had been told days before. It was almost noon. “Shit,” I said. “I have a meeting with the Headmistress soon. I need to get going. It’s really important.”

  Dahlia nodded and pulled herself from me. It looked almost painful for her, her face contorting and her body going sluggish like a form of withdrawal was setting in. I probably looked the same way. We both stood up, and I found myself staring into her cosmic eyes once more.

  “Can I kiss you?” I asked, feeling brave. I had become aware of Dahlia’s elevated heartbeat and heaving breasts, the reddened complexion, and the light perspiration. She was clearly as hungry for my affection as I was for hers.

  Her eyes seemed to glow as they went wide. In them twinkled countless tiny stars in a dark and nebulous sky. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before, and now, inches from her face I could appreciate the incredible view on a new level.

  “You may,” she whispered.

  I leaned in, fully intending to land only a single chaste peck on her lips, but tongues got involved almost immediately, and within moments we were fully making out in the middle of the field outside the dormitories. It was a kiss unlike any I had ever had before, a kiss as good as any sex I had ever experienced. It was like being reborn.

  But eventually, I worked up the strength to pull back when it became clear that Dahlia never would.

  “When will I see you again?” she asked. Her voice and eyes were almost desperate.

  “I would be surprised if I can make it through the day without another hit of whatever this is,” I said, stroking her lips as she tongued my index finger. My senses throbbed, but I felt invigorated by her, stronger just for having been with her.

  “Get a room!” someone shouted, and we both blushed and grinned as we kept staring at each other.

  “Room 602,” she said. “We can use my room. Or yours. I’ve got no more classes today, but I’m leaving on a mission with Rebecca Nurse tomorrow.” Hearing Rebecca’s name sobered me up. Didn’t she hate Rebecca? And more importantly, can she tell I fucked her? Dahlia could clearly sense the change in my mood when the name was brought up. “You know her?” she asked, squirming a little as I absent-mindedly stroked her back.

  “We’ve met, yeah,” I said as vaguely as I could.

  She scrutinized me for a moment. She seemed to be studying the air around me until her eyes squinted with a look that read to me as irritation.

  “Are you reading my aura?” I asked with a chuckle.

  “You caught me,” she blushed. But before I could ask why she hated Rebecca so much, she cut me off. “Anyway, you should go. I’ll see you tonight?”

  “I’d bet my life on it,” I said.

  “I’d give you another kiss, but—”

  “Yeah, there’s no coming back from that,” I agreed with a solemn nod. “So… goodbye for now.” And I left with a mere smile and a wave. She waved back. It was abrupt, but it had to be, or I’d be pulled into her orbit for good.

  Even with many questions answered, I had a million more questions about her now. About us. Was our connection healthy? It felt overpowering. It was almost like a drug. And if it was unhealthy, would I be strong enough to fight it? Definitely not, I had to admit to myself. But there are worse fates than succumbing to her.

  Last but not least, what did this mean for me and Carmilla? And Rebecca?

  I looked around for Uther and quickly realized that the fox must have dismissed himself when things got heavy. An ace wingman, I thought. “Sorry about that, buddy.”

  Before I knew it, I was standing in front of the Headmistress’s office again. “Time to go to school,” I whispered to myself, with not much of a clue as to what I had in store.

  Chapter 13

  Level Up!

  “So, you have completed your first mission,” the Headmistress’s voice rang with amusement. Her stare was usually enough to give me the shivers, but today I welcomed it. “Good. Then it is time for us to further your education.”

  I swallowed hard. “Oh, I was just doing a bit of research about that, actually,” I said. “About mana cultivation.”
<
br />   “And what did you find?” she asked.

  “Oh, I got distracted, so I didn’t learn much yet.”

  She studied me. “Distracted by whom?”

  “...Dahlia White.”

  The Headmistress cocked an eyebrow at me. “We shall circle round back to that another time. Keep your eye on the prize, Mr. Elloway.” I nodded, but I knew it was easier said than done.

  She sat across from me at a table that hadn’t been there a moment before, opening books that I didn’t remember seeing her pull from the shelves. A few of the artifacts that I had claimed from my mission were sitting on the table already.

  “How did you get those?” I asked, pointing at my treasures.

  She ignored the question, and with a wave of her hand, they crumbled into glittering dust and flew into me, breathed in through my nostrils. It was like inhaling sawdust, but it didn’t sting and wasn’t unpleasant after the initial jarring sensation. Then her hands went back to work on the books she had laid out.

  “These will be useful to you,” she said, pushing them toward me. “But for now, let’s start simply. I will guide your first cultivation session myself, but you will need to manage it on your own in the future. In these tomes, you can understand the limits of your progression, but I will spoil the surprise for you now,” she said. She paused and glared at me ominously for dramatic effect.

  “And what’s the surprise?”

  “There are no limits. Not to one with as much potential as yourself.”

  I took in the words and believed them. I knew the drive—the hunger—inside myself. I knew what I was capable of. I smiled, and the Headmistress returned my grin with her own. I was starting to see her as my co-conspirator or something. It was the first bit of comradery and warmth I felt toward her.