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Phaze
www.phaze.com
Copyright ©2008 by Sapphire Phelan
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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Published by Phaze Books
Also by Sapphire Phelan
Phaze in Verse
Beast Magic
Coming Together Under Fire
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This is an explicit and erotic novel
intended for the enjoyment
of adult readers. Please keep
out of the hands of children.
www.Phaze.com
Crimson Promise
a Phaze OZ HeatSheet by
SAPPHIRE PHELAN
Crimson Promise copyright 2006, 2008 by Sapphire Phelan
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Cover design © 2008, Debi Lewis
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eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-59426-728-4
ISBN-10: 1-59426-728-6
First Edition—March, 2008
Printed in the United States of America
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Victor noticed in the reflection of a window in one of the buildings he passed how the alabaster light from the twin moons above illuminated his blanched features, bringing up shadows in every contour. The only color on him came from his lips and eyes; both a blood-red hue.
He grinned, running his tongue over large, sharp canines, then slipped down the town's only street, really a dirt road. Darting in and out of alleys, he kept to the darkness, as he wanted to make sure no one saw him. Fortunately, there was no one out tonight; it was too cold for that. If he was alive and breathing, he could have seen his breath in the freezing air. But he wasn't alive or dead. Instead he was in-between: undead.
He melded with the deepening shadows of the alley, where he waited as the door to the bar nearby slid open. A lock of hair as black as a raven's wing fell over his brow as he stared at the glaring light spilling from the doorway. Without a hint of arrogance, he knew that if someone did come out and catch sight of him, he would think an extremely pale, but good-looking man stood there.
Good-looking as an undead, he had been even more so as a mortal. The face of a dark angel—that's what women had said over three hundred years ago, in Germany. Then one night at a debutante ball, he met an attractive woman with russet curls that flowed over her shoulders and down her back. He was bored with all the mincing virgins simpering around him, and when he saw the newcomer he became fascinated. Her white face lacked innocence and her eyes seemed worldly beyond what he thought at the time was her young years. She convinced him to leave the ball with her, and took him to her home where she enticed him into her bed.
In the throes of passion, just as he was about to cum, her eyes glowed blood-red and sharp fangs burst from her mouth. She sunk them into his neck, draining him almost to the point of death. She hadn't, though, and forced him to drink some of her blood, making him a Nosferatu like her. After that, he stayed with her, until a vampire hunter staked her in the heart, ending her undead existence.
He grimaced at the memories. Now, his bad boy looks fit his eternal life in a more meaningful way.
Sounds of revelry erupted from the bar, so loud it seemed as if the walls of the place couldn't contain it at all. Drunken yelling from the miners, women's laughter, and screeches of a badly played piano filled the area like fingernails on a chalkboard, stretching out disjointed fingers toward him. He hated the noise just as he hated the dirty, threadbare town of the humans. In fact, Victor hated everything about this alien world.
Every night, he wondered why he had come to this misbegotten hellhole on the other end of the universe.
Images of a ravaged Earth would come into his mind in answer, and he resigned himself to his new world, hunting in its darkness for the blood he craved. He was alone—the last vampire left in the universe.
That was the real reason he couldn't stand this world—the loneliness. Even if vampires weren't the most social of creatures, at least males and females came together once in a while to fuck, to feast off the ambrosia of one another's vampiric blood, heightened by the frenzy of sex. The tantalizing odor of blood, sprinkled with alcohol, wafted toward his nostrils. Flaring them wide, he took in the scent and appreciated the heady flavor of the lifeblood, though not the cheap beer that laced it. It came from two figures that stumbled out of the bar and almost passed the alley in which he hid. One halted, and his vampire hearing took in the sound of liquid hitting the side of the building. The stench of piss drifted his way and he wrinkled his nose in distaste. Unfortunately, he couldn't be choosy for a meal, and quickly he flew from there, leaping upon his intended victims.
Suddenly, another shadow darted across his path and ripped the neck of one man, while clasping the other tightly against its front. Neither had time to cry out, the other creature had been that quick. The man with the torn throat fell to the ground, precious blood spilling and seeping into the dirt, turning it to mud.
Starved for blood for a long time now, Victor fell to his knees in the wetness and fastened his mouth over the opening, sucking out what remained of the red liquid in the body that had gone cold with death. He ignored the other sucking sounds above him. Ordinarily, he would have taken the body away and hid to feed upon it, as he would have been wary of whatever kind of creature feasted on the other victim. Nothing of it felt undead to him, just some strange alien essence. But, it had been a long time since he last fed, and the hunger forced him to finish off every last, precious drop.
With the body now drained, he rose to his feet and licked the few splashes of blood from the corners of his mouth. Then he straightened his clothing, tried to knocked off as much of the bloodied mud caking the knees of his pants, and looked over to see what kind of being had fed with him. The sight of soft, heather-purple eyes staring into his slammed into his gut, as he saw they belonged to a vision of beauty so alien, that caused his body to harden in places he thought long dead. He would have caught a breath—if he had a breath to catch. But he did it anyway, from force of habit.
By all that was unholy, alien or not, she was something that men fought to catch glimpses of.
She opened her bloody mouth. A long, snake-like tongue, edged on each side with tiny, sharp fangs—not unlike the thor
ns of a rose—slurped back into it. But, not before it took with it what remained of the blood on her lips. Her arms loosened and the drained husk of her prey dropped to the ground. Her cat eyes widened, then returned to their normal state. He noticed for the first time that she had no hair on her head and had delicate pointed ears, like a cat's.
He resisted the urge to stroke her, to see if she would arch into his touch. Instead, he took a step nearer, then stopped.
"What are you?” asked Victor.
The alien smiled. She had lips as purple as her eyes. Luscious, he wanted to taste them, drink from them.
"It should be I who asks the question here,” she said in a soft voice. “What are you? All hu-mons that I have hunted and feed from do not drink life from their kind."
She spoke English, but with a foreign lilt. Her voice spun a web about him, sounding like deep, rich dark chocolate—the good, expensive European kind.
He edged closer. “When a human has been killed by a vampire,” he remarked, “then that human becomes undead. To survive, it must hunt and feast on the blood of living beings. For hundreds of years, I have not been human."
Suddenly, without warning, she stood before him, a hand edged with sharp fingernails stroking his face. She cocked her head to one side as if trying to figure him out.
"Soft, like velvet, and cold like the snow of the Dar-Ghre Mountains to the north,” she said in fascination. In continued exploration, her fingers skittered along his skin, trailing from his face and down his neck, then pausing, palm flat, against his chest. “Even under your clothing, I can feel the coldness that is you."
He reached out and touched her neck, finding her flesh warm and full of life. He lingered, enjoying the heat. A strange, tiny beat hovered under the skin, further evidence she was alive. It had been so long since he touched another being for anything other than a meal.
Once, there had been other vampires on Earth, but in the last thirty years—since the mortals killed their world by the final destruction of the rainforest—vampires had mysteriously begun to die off, as if with the rainforests gone, they could no longer survive. No more were the threats of wooden stakes, fire, or the burning rays of the sun the only thing to fear. An atmosphere changed added a final, deadly item to the list of things vampires had to fear. He had been smart and quickly smuggled himself aboard a spaceship that blasted off for this planet, where the Fargo Mining Company mined for precious minerals.
His hand trailed down her swan-like neck to golden globes that appeared to be breasts. They felt soft. He squeezed both.
Obviously, in that respect, she was like an Earth woman.
Breathing in her essence, he knew that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. Like an aromatic cloud, her female odor rose up, teasing his nostrils with it.
Victor's cock hardened as he took in her nearly naked body. She wore only a long, cherry-red skirt with a slit that ran up the sides to her hips. The hem dusted naked toes bearing large, sharp claws the same color as her eyes and lips. Everything about her was colorful, a flamboyant flower in a dust-bowled planet. Wherever she went, she would stand out, a princess among commoners.
Her breathing quickened as his fingers found dark nipples, and between the thumb and middle finger of each hand he pinched and stroked them into tight little buds.
So much fuckability.
She trembled. He leaned over, his mouth close to one of her pointed ears.
"You're alive, not undead like me. And yet, you feast on blood, exactly like me."
His fangs caught the bottom of her ear and he nibbled. Instead of screaming from the pain, she moaned and pushed her ear into his mouth.
Such an eager little thing.
"I want you,” she said with a passion-ridden rasp.
He forced control of himself, for he felt the need to spend himself like a teenage boy at her admission of desire. It was hard, though, so hard. She whimpered, then whispered into his ear.
"Though you are not my kind, it has been so long since I have felt passion for anything other than blood. I have been alone for so long."
He burned with desire. His arms circled around her smooth shoulders and he held onto her tightly as he took off with her into the night air.
They flew away from the human town, over dusty, barren lands, and toward the mountains to the north. The only audience to this flight were the twin moons above.
He landed into the lair he had made the night after he arrived on the planet. Her body slid down his as his feet found purchase on the stone floor of the cave. He grimaced, ashamed of his home.
Not a place to bring a female of any kind, but it protected him from the light of the alien red sun that hung in the sky during the daytime. The burning rays from it were worse than those from the yellow one of Earth.
He cleaned off an overstuffed chair he had stolen from a miner's cabin, a man whose life he drained. Threadbare, with a couple holes in places, it had been enough for him. Now, looking at it and seeing the unearthly beauty standing next to it, he hated the damn thing. It was all he could offer her, though.
"Sit."
She perched on the edge of the rose-dappled cushion. Her purple eyes darted around, taking in the meager furnishings and the glow from the alien lichen that lined the cave's walls. She remained silent.
Wanting to know her, he crouched down in front of her. He stared straight into her eyes, willing her with his not to look away.
"Who are you? Where did you come from?"
She lifted a shoulder delicately. “I come from here.” The shoulder dropped.
He frowned, taking her hands with his. Using his thumb, he stroked the palm of one of them. Such velvety skin she had. She shifted, trying to draw away, but he held on tight, keeping her where he wanted her.
"But I read the reports before I came here. No life had been found, and only the remains of some ancient civilization had been discovered, revealing that the inhabitants had been dead for at least a thousand years.” He brought her hands to his cheeks and basked in the warmth that emanated from them as he kept staring into her eyes. “The inhabitants of that long-dead civilization are nothing more than dust lining their tombs."
She sighed, and finally managed to withdraw her hands from his, dropping them into her lap. He didn't try to recapture them. With shock, he realized her trust in him had become that important. Otherwise he might frighten her away.
"Yes, those were my kind,” she admitted, “killed off by a deadly virus that our scientists accidentally created. But I did not die. The virus ... transformed me."
Blood-green tears, instead of blood-red like his, welled up in her eyes and streaked down her golden cheeks. Taking a hand, she wiped at the wetness then. In fascination he watched as she lifted the wetness on her hands to her mouth. The tip of her tongue darted out and she lapped up every drop on the skin. Then, taking a hand, she cupped his cheek and gave him a serious look.
"I had been all alone for eons on my world. Then the hu-mons came and I heard the call of their blood. I have been subsisting on it ever since. Though the strange taste of it is still hard to get used to, and some of the hu-mons I have fed off of are disgusting and filthy, still, it is better than living on the blood of tetrepops that lived far below the surface."
"Tetrepops?"
She smiled. “Feasting on your hu-mons gives me knowledge of your former world. They are not unlike your ... rats. Like me, they are all that is left of this world."
"I see."
He rose, drawing her up with him. Front to front, he felt her warmth seeping through his pores and into him. Eyes closed, he nuzzled her cheek.
It felt so good.
Her scent, that unique alien scent, filled his nostrils. His cock hardened, and he pressed her tight against him, his erection seeking the softness between her thighs. Never before had he felt like this. For a long time, when he was human, and after his rebirth, he had fucked many females, vampire and human. None, though, made him as urgent to strip and shove hims
elf inside of her, to feast on her blood and drink what he knew had to be a unique flavor that was all her.
Her scent grew thick, cloying. Did that mean the little vixen was aroused, too?
"I have to have you,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Now."
Her eyes stared into his, the purple in them becoming almost black. They reminded him of the black hole he had seen at a very long distance when his ship passed it coming here. The darkness of her eyes swirled around and around exactly liked a vortex. If he allowed it, like the black hole, her eyes would draw him in. It also gave Victor more proof that she was as sexually aroused as he was. Her smell had grown heavier.
He growled.
Her long, fang-ridden tongue snaked out from between her full lips and found his. The fangs scraped them, cutting the cold flesh. He didn't flinch. The blood from the man he feasted on earlier, which now filled his veins, beaded up in the cuts and the tongue tasted it. Her breath caught; a hiss of longing issuing from her mouth.
"It has been so long,” she said, her voice a husky whisper, “that I have been with a male of my species. I do not think that if any were alive today I would be able to mate with one. They would only be substance for me now. But you are more like me than my own kind, than anything else and...” Her hands clasped around his neck. “Make love to me."
His arms slipped around her and he lifted her up, cuddling her against his chest. He stared down at her. “What is your name?"
"Name?"
"What are you called? I am called Victor. Victor Bauer."
A very feline smile lit up her lips. “It has been so long since I have thought of myself by what I am called that it feels strange to utter it.” She cocked her head to one side. “Na'lesa. It means ‘song of the night.’”
"Na'lesa. I like it. It suits you more now than before. You are a song in the night.” He grinned. “I promise, you will sing for me tonight as I play your sweet body like an instrument."
Victor carried her to the back of the cave—where it was cooler and damp—where there was none of the glowing lichen on the walls. But his vampire eyes, able to see like a cat's in the dark, noticed that her golden skin darkened as her lust continued to rise. Her scent had grown even heavier, and it permeated the air like perfume. He fought the urge to back her against the cave's wall and take her like that. To sink his fangs into her. Instead he licked the saliva from his fangs and kept them in his mouth.
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