Resurrection_Part One of the Macauley Vampire Trilogy

by Rebecca Norinne

I felt like he was going to say more, but he stopped, stood, and walked back to the fire, turning his back on me. I realized he stared at the flames when he was thinking, and I wondered if he had always done that. Sadly, I couldn’t say.

  “I want to be with you, but I’ll understand if you can’t,” he whispered, alluding to what he’d said before.

  He could make love to me, but he wouldn’t love me. It wasn’t the best proposition I’d ever heard, but it also wasn’t the worst. I wondered if I could make him change his mind.

  Don’t be a fool, the voice in my head shouted at me. You’re not the first woman to think that about some man and you certainly won’t be the last.

  And yet I’d come this far and knew to the depth of my soul that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t have stayed behind … not knowing what I did now. I would have walked through fire for him, and knew that maybe I already had.

  “I can’t let you leave me and I sure as hell don’t want to leave you. But you have to understand, this is terrifying and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid,” I explained.

  We were entering unchartered territory and no matter what happened between us moving forward, I had to be completely and unequivocally honest about my feelings. I never wanted him to doubt my intentions or think I wasn’t fully cognizant of the situation I put myself in. I needed him to know I wasn’t walking into this blindly. I was quite literally putting my life in his hands and I knew exactly what that would mean to him.

  “But I’m going with you. For as long as I can, it’s you and me. You don’t have to love me like you loved her, but I know you care about what happens to me and for now, that’s enough.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t give you more right now. Maybe in time, once we figure this out. Maybe when—if—your memories return, things will be different. But now, you’re too different. You’re my Ceara … but not.”

  “Do you know I dreamt about you before I even knew you?” I asked, my head cocked to study his reaction. He needed to know I’d been awakened to him before tonight, that our connection had pulsed to life in my psyche before he’d planted the visions in my head. “I wanted you even before tonight,” I said, heat rising to my cheeks.

  “I couldn’t have known it then, but I’ve been looking for you my whole life, William” I told him. My voice getting stronger, I continued. “The second I laid eyes on you, I was pulled to you in a way that I’d never been pulled to anything before.”

  My next words, spoken in Irish Gaelic, rose up from somewhere deep inside of me and spilled from my mouth. Not knowing what I was saying, it flowed through me, this feeling of rightness. I wasn’t going to fight it anymore. I’d given in to my feelings wholeheartedly, unabashedly. “Ní féidir liom throid sé. Ní féidir liom a shéanadh é. Thabhairt suas mé féin a thabhairt duit.”

  On a shocked intake of breath, William turned and I saw something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Disbelief? Awe? Hope? Whatever it was, he nearly glowed with it.

  Slowly, deliberately, he drew near and cupped my face in his icy, pale hands. When he leaned in close and stared into my eyes. “What did you say?” he asked, his voice laced with something dark and dangerous.

  My knees shaking, I admitted I didn’t know what I’d just said. “The words just came out. I couldn’t hold them in any longer.”

  William’s eyes glowed with cerulean fire and flicked between mine. “You told me you surrender yourself to me.”

  “I do,” I answered, feeling that electric spark flare to life between us once more. “All of me, for all of you.”

  William groaned low in his throat and I imagined that’s how he’d sound when he claimed me for the first time. I clenched my thighs together and tried to ignore the pulsing in my clit but that only made it worse.

  “Who told you those words?”

  “No one,” I said, understanding dawning. I’d stumbled into a potential landmine I hadn’t seen coming. “I know zero Gaelic; I’ve never heard them in my life until they came tumbling out of my mouth.”

  William’s hands slid from my cheeks and he circled my delicate neck in the span of his palms. He didn’t put any pressure, but the threat was unmistakable nonetheless.

  I whimpered and with my eyes begged him to believe me. “It’s not me William. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s … it’s … oh god.” I closed my eyes on a stifled sob. How to explain to someone what was happening to you when you couldn’t explain it to yourself? I opened my eyes to find him staring back at me. “It’s her.”

  He winced and stepped back, dropping his hands from around my heck. “Who sent you,” he demanded harshly, his eyes sparking with heat. “Why are you here?”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat. I’d thought we’d been having a moment, but clearly I’d been wrong. Or rather, we were having a moment, it was just an entirely different one than I’d thought. He wasn’t besotted by me. He was deathly angry, his fury barely leashed.

  Taking a chance, I stiffened my spine and squared my shoulders. “You’re not listening. I think it’s her. Or me.” Growling, I ran my hands roughly through my mop of curls. “What I mean to say is, I think the words came from somewhere deep in side of me, the place where her soul resides.” When he didn’t strike me dead, I took it as a good sign and continued hurriedly. “I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t explain it to you, but I felt in my heart that you were the person I’d been looking for, that everything in life had somehow led me to you and that I wasn’t going to fight it. I was just going to go with it, wherever it may lead. I was putting myself in your hands, for better or worse.”

  William stepped forward. “Say it again.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” I answered. “I don’t even know what I said, what the words were.”

  He leveled his gaze with mine and commanded me to try again. “Say it again Olivia.”

  I felt an unfamiliar lethargy settle in my limbs and my skin prickled with tension. “Thabhairt suas mé a thabhairt duit. Géilleadh d'anam ris dom. Tugaim mé féin a thabhairt duit. Thabhairt duit féin dom.” The second the words escaped my lips, I nearly collapsed but William caught me in his strong embrace.

  “Did I say it again?”

  “No.” His jaw twitched.

  “Oh.” There was no use hiding my disappointment. “If you don’t believe me, look inside my head. You can see I’m not lying to you. No one sent me. No one told me to say these things to do. Please believe me.”

  “I do,” he whispered, planting a kiss on my forehead. “Dear god, I do.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  Not that I was complaining mind you, but it’d been touch and go back there for a few minutes and I’d been terrified.

  “The words you just said to me—” he cleared his throat and swallowed hard.

  “Yes?

  His eyes captured mine and held them. “They’re the vows Ceara and I shared the night I made her mine.”

  “At your wedding?” Fear and something else lanced through me.

  “No. Before that.” He smiled. “We anticipated our vows by several months. I couldn’t wait to have her but Ceara wouldn’t let me claim her without sharing vows that were even more sacred to us since they weren’t mandated by the church.” He shook his head.

  “What do they mean?”

  Gathering me to closer, he translated. “’I surrender to you; surrender yourself unto me. I give myself to you; give yourself to me.’ Maybe those were our real vows.”

  My heart ricocheted against my ribs and I yearned for more contact. I wanted to know what it would be like to kiss him. I wanted to remember what it had been like to lay with him and take him into my body. I wanted him to remember what it was like to take me, to lay claim to me as he’d said.

  The air around us shifted and I felt it pulse with something new and terrifyingly wonderful. A storm was brewing and I wanted nothing more than to be swept into it.

  “My love,” he whispered reverently and I could
feel the rush of his breath caress my lips.

  “I’ve waited hundreds of years for you.”

  “Take me upstairs William.”

  He chuckled. “I want you too, more than you can ever know. But not here. Not yet.”

  Obviously William was immune to the passing of time. What was a few hours when he’d lived for centuries? For me, I felt like if he didn’t go upstairs with me right this second I might spontaneously.

  I growled. “Please,” I begged.

  “Be patient my sweet girl, we have a lifetime ahead of us.”

  And we did, but just the remainder of this one. Every second of every day I moved one step closer to death. I’d been obsessed with it my entire life but only now had it really mattered. While I would age, William would remain the same, forever. Eventually I’d wither into a hunched crone. wasting away to nothingness before him. We had zero time to waste.

  “My room is paid for through the end of this week so I can come back and get my stuff tomorrow.”

  “You can use my car anytime you need to.” He paused, as if weighing his next words. “Please know I will never hurt you again. Please believe me … Olivia.”

  I didn’t think the words were for my benefit alone. I couldn’t help feel he was trying to convince himself as much as, if not more than, he was trying to convince me. I was ready to make the leap of faith, regardless of the outcome.

  “I know. I trust you. But let’s go now before I change my mind.”

  Part Two

  Chapter Nine

  William

  Five years earlier

  Some days I wondered what it was all for. For years I’d lived in a beautiful, protected house in Dublin, roaming the streets at night in search of prey, able to move among humans without anyone suspecting what I truly was. I had a life many of my kind envied and I thought I was content. But the truth was, I was bored with this modern era, and I didn’t enjoy the way humans had evolved with the times. Everyone was obsessed with their online profiles and how many likes their Facebook pages received. The men I did business with were crooked charlatans who didn’t believe in what they sold and the women I met were insipid and brainless, constantly on the lookout for a man to pamper and spoil them senseless. I missed the good old days.

  The only upside to the dawning of the millennium was a sexual revolution that made it easy for me to fuck as many women as I pleased without having to woo them first. I’d learned to reign in my strength a long time ago, but with my ennui came sloppiness. A bruise here from holding onto someone too tight, a small nick of my fangs there. Thankfully the women I bedded were into rough, aggressive sex because they thought they had to be to satisfy their men. None questioned my particular appetites, nor did they complain when I tied them up. Little did they know it was for their own protection. I couldn’t very well have my hunter/prey instincts kicking in when my cock was buried in some woman’s pussy.

  Yes, I was bored but I knew it’d pass. It always did. If things weren’t great, they were at least reliably monotonous. And then she came into my life.

  Nadia.

  I met her at the theater. A gorgeous, exotic Eastern European beauty, she was on the arm of some aging politician. Dark and luminous, she stood out in a sea of blandness and I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes off her. Bored with every one and every thing around me, she was something unfamiliar. A shiny new plaything.

  In the ensuing weeks, we saw each other at one event or another. What was known in our circle as professional girlfriend, Nadia didn’t remain attached to one man for long, and speculation ran rampant she was actually a high-class escort from Russia. I couldn’t have cared less what her origins were since she’d never know mine. After a handful of superficial conversations at cocktail parties, she made the first move.

  Excusing myself for the evening, I stepped out into the cold winter air and walked to my car. Turning the corner, I sensed her presence immediately, her desire for me wafting on the night’s wind, her body language an open invitation. I looked her up and down, showing my appreciation. When I reached her, she leaned into me and slithered her long, lithe up and down. My cock responded, throbbed with need. Feeling me hard and ready against her thigh, Nadia licked the side of my neck where my pulse would have been, had I one. She dragged her tongue to my ear and bit down on my lobe, harder than what was normally considered polite foreplay. Then, breathing into me, she whispered, “I know what you are.” When I froze, she continued … undaunted. “I want you to fuck me and I want to come while you feed from me.”

  My gums ached for the briefest of second before my fangs descended into deathly points. Breathing hard, I moved away from her even though I wanted nothing more than to take her right there, up against my car. Fists clenching and unclenching, I took three more steps back and ignored the throbbing in my dick. Nadia was the first woman in over three decades to immediately recognize me for who I was and, it appeared, rather than recoiling from that knowledge, she’d sought me out and begged me to fuck her. The offer was the most tempting I’d heard in over twenty years but I knew I couldn’t give in. These types of opportunities didn’t just fall into your lap. I didn’t think she could be trusted.

  “Who are you, really? And don’t say you’re just an escort because we both know that’s a lie.”

  “Who, me?” she demurred. “I’m just a woman who knows your kind when I see one. A woman who’s had your kind in my bed and wants it again. Desperately.”

  “My kind?” I asked, at war with my instincts to give her what she thought she wanted and be done with it. Stupid girl obviously didn’t understand the razor’s edge that she traversed. You did not taunt the big, bad vampire and expect to walk away unscathed.

  Nadia closed the distance between us and slid her bare arms around my neck. Her lips hovering dangerously close, I could barely control my reaction to her. In fact, I control it at all. My lips pierced the inside of my bottom lip as I tried to hide them from her. Knowing how I struggled, she snickered and licked the other side of my neck, lathing her way up and over my jaw to find my mouth. She kissed me then, just a feather light dusting of her lips. I didn’t fight her, but I didn’t give in either. Not until she bit my lip and the pain unleashed my monster. Groaning my capitulation, I captured her mouth in a frenzied kiss.

  “Fuck me, vampire,” she whispered against my mouth.

  And so I did, right there, her black, silk dress hiked up around her waist as my cock rammed into her, relentlessly. I continued to kissed her hungrily, not caring if anyone saw. She pulled at my shirt and then her nails ripped into me as she dragged them over my muscles, leaving red streaks across my chest. She licked at the wounds she’d left behind, taking the minuscule droplets of my blood into her mouth, savoring it like a fine wine. I ripped the front of her dress and claimed her heaving, luscious breasts, teased her nipple with my fang.

  “Yes, please. Oh god, please,” she begged me.

  I knew what she was asking for but it had been over a hundred years since I’d sunk my fangs into a woman while fucking her. I fed for sustenance but since I’d never been able to share who I was with the partners, I’d always held back.

  But now Nadia knew what I was and wasn’t afraid. In fact, she probably wanted me more so because of it. I’d heard about women like her—vampire whores who’d go from one of us to the next, seeking the one who would eventually change her—but I’d never been with one. I could never be that man but maybe I could give her what we both wanted so desperately now.

  Nadia sobbed in my arms, begged me to do it. Lifting my head to look at her, never wavering from my driving thrusts, I made my decision. “I’m going to drink as I empty myself into you,” I growled, my eyes alight with fire.

  She threw her head back, showing me her vein, and I did as she begged me. I felt my incisors break through the barrier of her taut skin and her blood rushed into my mouth, a heady mixture of warmth and spices I’d never tasted before. I moaned out my need and truly let go for the first time in
over two centuries. Nadia wrapped her legs around me tighter, her own orgasm rocketing through her while I poured my barren seed into her and drank of her life force. As the after-effects of my orgasm receded, I grinned wolfishly and asked her when we could do it again.

  Things progressed with Nadia quite well from then on. Because she knew my secret, I was less guarded when I was with her and that affected my outlook on other areas of my life. Business was booming and in all regards, I considered myself a happy man. But it took almost a year for our association to become anything more than a sexual relationship. Nadia had very specific requirements on what she wanted from a man, and I’d fought them tooth and nail. For months on end we met at parties and she was always on the arm of someone else only to sneak away at the end of the evening for a night of passionate, uninhibited sex with me.

  She played the pursuer, me the pursued, a reversal of roles I found ironic. I tried to stay out of her mind, but I knew she got off on dominating me, bringing the big, bad vampire to his knees. It made her feel powerful and in charge. A force to be reckoned with, something I knew she didn’t feel in the normal course of her life.

  While our relationship was incredibly physical, I didn’t drink from her nearly as often as she liked. The less I took of her, the more Nadia wanted me to do it. She’d told me that first night that she’d wanted me desperately, but I hadn’t thought she’d used the literal meaning of the word. But now I could see there was something unsettling about her desire for me to bring her both pleasure and pain while we fucked. If I accidentally bruised her wrists while holding her hands above her head as I took her hard, she savored the experience all the more, her orgasms sapping her energy to the point of exhaustion. When I fed from her, she asked me not to be gentle, telling me she wanted to be bruised for days to come. I chose to ignore what was brewing between us which was a huge mistake.

  Eventually Nadia began spending the night at my house while I slumbered three floors below, locked behind heavy steel doors she could never open. Regardless of the physical connection between us, I wasn’t comfortable with her getting too close. I would never trust her—or anyone—with my life.