B007XKEWAE EBOK

by Lawson, Nicola

  "You cheated," she accused him. "You knew how I was going to defend against that."

  Fulton's body was pressed tightly against her back to keep her held securely in place.

  "Your attackers aren't going to be playing fair," he said his mouth close to her ear. "Sometimes you'll need to improvise to get out of a sticky situation."

  "You want me to improvise my way out of this, fine." She tried to kick him with her legs but he was standing in such a way that she couldn't connect with any force.

  "Not good enough," Fulton said still holding her tightly. "Try harder."

  She needed to do something he wouldn't expect. Gabriella struggled to move her arms but she could only manage to brush her hand against him, she couldn't get the leverage she would need to break his hold. Unless she could make him break it without using force.

  Her left hand was just free enough for her to touch the outside of his left thigh. She started moving her hand up and down his thigh in a gentle caress. She felt him start to react and started to move her rear end against him the few centimetres that she could manage with him holding her so tightly. She felt his body reacting more to her efforts and he abruptly released her.

  "Something wrong?" Gabriella raised her eyebrows at him.

  "You're not above cheating yourself, good. But what if an attacker does this."

  He rushed towards her and tackled her to the ground, but he lowered her gently without much of a bump even on the barely padded floor. He wrapped his right arm over her legs just below her knees and locked the arm. With his left arm he attacked her bare feet, tickling them without mercy.

  Gabriella screamed out and wriggled trying to break his grip. Her efforts proved in effectual and she forced herself into a sitting position so that she could lash out at him. She slapped him playfully on the back and head to encourage him to release her. When he did so she wasted no time in jumping up and pushing him down so that he was flat on his back. She straddled him and pinned his arms to the floor.

  "You torture me, you get some of the same in return," she said mischievously.

  She started to gyrate on top of him and this time when he reacted there was nowhere for him to run to. She had to stop after a few moments though because the lack of proper gratification would torture her as much as it would him. She would need to spend some quality time with herself as it was.

  It was amazing how difficult it could be to concentrate when you had built up such tension and all you really wanted was to get off. Did Futon feel the same need for release? She could feel his straining body and guessed so.

  They locked eyes again and all the feelings she had tried to subdue since she realised she had them welled up and threatened to gush forth. In the end she could contain them no longer and she leaned forwards resting her body on top of Fulton's and putting her lips against his.

  Gabriella released all her emotions through her kiss and felt them returned in Fulton's. That single kiss contained more genuine feelings and more passion than all her very many more intimate moments spent with Francesca. She wanted it to last forever but she was the first to break contact.

  "We need to talk," she told Fulton.

  "We needed to talk long ago," he agreed.

  Voices in the living room reminded them that they were not alone. Gabriella jumped off Fulton guiltily.

  "Soon."

  Chapter Thirty-four

  "Put these on," Fulton laid a very short skirt and an only slightly larger top on the bed. There were a pair of calf-length boots at the foot of the bed. There was no underwear, Gabriella hadn't been willing to give away any of the few items she owned. Fulton very much doubted whether Persephone would have been willing to wear it anyway, she was kicking up enough of a fuss about wearing the clothing Gabriella had provided.

  "These are hers," Persephone protested. She was perched naked on the other side of the bed sulking.

  "I'm sorry nothing of mine will fit you," Fulton retorted sarcastically. "But you can't go out like that."

  Persephone stood and presented herself to Fulton. "Why do we have to go out at all? Just send them to fetch us something to eat and we can have some more fun ourselves."

  "They would never agree to it and I wouldn't ask them in the first place," Fulton said pushing her away. "You wanted to be a vampire, you have to take everything that goes with it and that includes hunting."

  "But hunting is so tedious, can't someone else do that and just let me make the kill?"

  "No!" Fulton shouted. "Get dressed."

  "This isn't how it's supposed to be," Persephone muttered while she did as she was told and started getting dressed.

  "You had no idea what it meant to be one of us but you still wanted it, and now you have the gall to complain that this isn't what you expected."

  "I do know what this is supposed to be like," she protested. "I've read the books and seen the films and it isn't supposed to be like this."

  Fulton whirled on her. "What you've seen and read are romanticised fantasies created by people with no experience of the reality of our existence. Believe me I've read much of the same sort of thing as you will have done. This that you are living now is the reality of life as a vampire. And if this isn't what you wanted then it's tough because you can never go back to how it was before."

  "But what about all the myths and legends? They can't all be wrong."

  "What do you think the myths and legends are if not works of fiction that have just been around for a few years? Believe me we are not some sort of special race. We aren't dark angels, demons or gods. We're just animals same as humans and dogs. What you see is what you get. We don't even have any religion. There are no vampire gods. Who needs to make up stories about a place where you can live forever when you are already immortal? So you'd better get used to living like this or give up now and end it quickly because it won't change. It will never be any different. It will never get any better."

  Persephone finished getting dressed in silence but acted as though the argument had never happened when they were with Francesca and Gabriella.

  The hunt didn't involve any elaborate set-up or seduction. The four vampires had simply made their way to an area away from their home, to keep attention away from where they were living, and started looking for suitable victims. The quartet had divided into pairs early on leaving Fulton to hunt with Persephone. He identified a pair of women getting out of a taxi together and marked them as prey. He pointed them out to a disinterested Persephone.

  "Just follow me and attack when I tell you."

  The women were struggling to walk in unfeasibly high heels so Fulton and Persephone quickly caught up to them. Fulton shadowed the woman on the right and motioned for Persephone to do the same with the woman on the left. The other vampire appeared disinclined to follow his instructions but at an angry look from Fulton she filed into place.

  The women were walking down a brightly lit main road where they felt safe and Fulton didn't plan on making the kill anywhere so public. He waited until the women were walking across the mouth of a deserted side street. He gave Persephone the signal to grab her target and moved forwards to deal with his own. He clamped a hand over the woman's mouth and dragged her kicking her heels down the side street.

  When he had taken the woman a sufficient distance that they wouldn't be seen from the main road he looked about for Persephone. She wasn't where she was supposed to be which was beside him. Keeping his hand firmly over the woman's mouth he looked around for the young vampire and the other woman. He located the vampire just now entering the side street her face contorted in a fang filled grimace. There was no sign of the woman. Just then a scream pierced the night time quiet.

  "She got away," Persephone said approaching him.

  The woman he held got a look at Persephone's vampiric face and redoubled her ineffectual efforts to free herself. Fulton was tired of holding her and took a moment to snap her neck.

  "You lost her?"

  Persephone looked down and sh
uffled her feet. "She kicked her shoes off and ran and I couldn't be bothered to chase her."

  "You couldn't be bothered? Well you had better get bothered if you want to eat tonight," Fulton said advancing on her so that she had to step back away from him.

  Persephone had been backed up against a wall when she said, "Can't I share some of yours?"

  "I told you, you have to do these things for yourself."

  Fulton ignored the desperate look she gave him and roughly grabbed the back of her top catching a handful of her skin at the same time. "Now get out there and get yourself something else to eat."

  He pushed her back towards the main road. She started to turn to look back at him but he turned his own back on her first and went over to the woman where he proceeded to feed. He could tell that Persephone was still watching him but he gave no indication of it nor did he invite her to have some.

  At last he heard her footsteps retreating back to the main road.

  "So that's how you've decided to deal with this by taking it all out on that poor girl. A poor girl who you turned and forced into this lifestyle." Pseudo-Fulton appeared from behind Fulton shaking his head.

  "I never forced her into this, she wanted me to turn her," Fulton retorted.

  "You told her yourself that she didn't understand what it meant, what it really meant, to be a vampire. But you did. You knew she wouldn't have wanted it if she knew the truth about what being a vampire would be like. But you went ahead and did it anyway. Not for her but for yourself because you wanted to pretend she was Gabriella. And she would belong to you."

  "I've admitted what I feel for Gabriella," Fulton said. "We've agreed we need to talk things through."

  "Ooh, you're going to talk things through. How exciting," Pseudo-Fulton mocked him. "Fat lot of good that does that girl out there whatever decision you two wind up making. Not that it's likely that you'll be able to come to a decision. It's taken this long for the two of you to admit to having feelings to each other. How much longer do you think it is going to take before either of you has the courage to admit it to Francesca?"

  "I feel like I'm stuck in one of those cartoons where the main character is advised by a good version of himself dressed as an angel and a bad one dressed as a devil. You used to come as me as the devil version but now you've started appearing as the crappy little angel. Why can't both versions appear at the same time? I'd love to watch you kick the shit out of yourself."

  "Both versions do appear at the same time, and you've already tried the shit kicking without success," Pseudo- Fulton said. "And if I'm the angel this time," he paused purposefully, "What does that make you?"

  Persephone was upstairs in their room again, sulking about the way Fulton had been treating her and how her new life wasn't living up to her expectations. Francesca was upstairs asleep after having made love to Gabriella, who had fumbled over the words she used to tell Fulton about it. This meant they were alone with only a minimal risk of being interrupted. They had the television set on giving out a low drone to disguise the sound of their voices, but not so loud that they could miss anyone coming down from upstairs.

  Now that they had this time together it seemed that neither one was willing to make the first move and put into words what they were each thinking. They sat there intently staring at the floor, the ceiling, the T.V without really seeing it. Anything as long as they didn't look at each other.

  Fulton was the first to give in and turn his eyes on Gabriella. She continued to resist and continued to rigidly look at anything but him. Fulton just sat and stared at her, able to look at her and admit his feelings to himself but finding it impossible to find the words, or the courage, to relay them to her.

  When Gabriella gave in as well and regarded him Fulton noted the stress she wore around her eyes. However hard it was for him to admit to himself that he wanted to be with her and her alone it would be infinitely harder for Gabriella to do the same. Francesca's hold on Fulton was strong and he couldn't imagine betraying her with Gabriella, but her hold on Gabriella would be much stronger having been cemented over two and a half centuries.

  "I think I love you."

  Even though she had to break eye contact, Fulton was impressed with the strength of will that let her utter those words to him.

  He put his hand under her chin and lifted her head back up to face him. "I love you as well."

  Almost as if speaking those words had broken the chains holding him to silence Fulton found himself continuing. "I love you as I thought I never could after being turned."

  Gabriella looked relieved. "I thought that was just me. When I was turned I thought that love had ceased to be a part of my life. That what I had with Francesca was as close as I was able to get anymore."

  "Exactly," Fulton agreed. "I was willing to accept that I could never feel love and that Francesca's passion was all I could hope for, but then I found myself falling in love with you."

  "And I with you," Gabriella said. "That was why I was so hard on you. I thought that if I kept you at a distance the feelings would go away. Can you forgive me for how I treated you?" She looked terrified that Fulton would be unable to do so.

  "Of course I can. But I am the one that should be begging your forgiveness. You tried to reject me to protect yourself, a completely natural reaction as far as I'm concerned, what I did was unforgivable."

  This time it was Fulton who had to break contact with Gabriella. "I took a poor confused girl and turned her into one of us as a poor substitute for having you."

  Gabriella mirrored his earlier gesture, cupping her hand under his chin to bring him back to face her. "I can forgive you that. I can forgive you anything." She hesitated. "But that is the problem. What can we do to keep from hurting them? Even though I know now that what I have with Francesca isn't a patch on what we could share I still couldn't bear causing her harm."

  "That's the crux of the matter," Fulton agreed. "How can we be true to ourselves and not hurt Persephone and especially Francesca?"

  They sat in contemplative silence.

  "It can't be done," Gabriella said at last. "It's like the irresistible force pitted against the immovable object. Something has to give."

  Tears had welled up in her eyes as she spoke and now the flooded forth. Fulton took her in a tender embrace and let her release her tears on him. "It's an impossible choice," she mumbled after her crying ceased, but she made no move to be freed from his arms.

  "I know how I would choose," Fulton said quietly speaking into her hair. "Trying to pretend I don't have feelings for you has made me insane. Literally," he added thinking about the re-emergence of Pseudo-Fulton.

  "I know how I want to choose as well," Gabriella said. "But I have been with Francesca for so long. And there is some bond that we have that I don't know if I have the strength to break."

  "Then I will give you the time you need to gather that strength," he replied. "I don't want to push you into this until you are ready."

  Now Gabriella pushed herself out of his embrace. "Thank you." She tilted her head towards him so their lips met for only the second time.

  Francesca woke to find Gabriella's side of the bed empty. A look at the clock on the dressing table told her that she had been asleep for a little under two hours. She could smell and hear Persephone in Fulton's room still cursing and muttering to herself. That girl could really throw a marathon sulking session. If she wasn't so whiny all the time she could be very attractive. Francesca had to give Fulton credit for picking a good-looking plaything. But it didn't sound or smell as though Fulton was in there enjoying his plaything at the moment.

  Francesca got out of her bed and dressed herself in her sheer dressing gown. When she stepped outside the bedroom she could just make out the sounds of the television coming from down the stairs. She kept meaning to have a talk with Gabriella and Fulton about how much time they spent in front of that thing. Judging from the additional voices she could hear both of her lovers were watching at that moment. France
sca decided that now was the perfect time to have that talk.

  Padding down the stairs as quietly as only a vampire was able she approached the living room door. She listened to see what type of program they were immersed in. It sounded like one of those talk shows were supposedly ordinary members of the public went on to air their dirty laundry. They had some of the most dysfunctional groups of people on those shows. So dysfunctional that they would make Francesca's little family look like a normal human family by comparison.

  Running alongside the noise of the chat show was the constant sound of Fulton and Gabriella talking. Francesca listened as their conversation progressed and her ire rose. They planned to betray her. At least Fulton did and he was convincing Gabriella to go along with him.

  She should have known this would happen. Hadn't Gabriella herself told her that the larger a group became the more the risk of betrayal by the members of that group? Gabriella had almost begged her to just let it be the two of them, but Francesca had gone ahead and included Fulton in their family. Then Fulton had gone and taken it upon himself to introduce a new member, and as if that wasn't enough he was going to steal Gabriella away from her.