Love In Death

by Elizabeth Stokes

  “Well, if he’s been wanting to get rid of me for all this time, why doesn’t he?”

  Xander grinned sheepishly. “He hasn’t had the chance,” he said. “Ever since I acclimated to this life, and when I figured out what his plan was, I’ve been keeping my eye on you.”

  Allison grinned back. “That’s what I thought,” she said, and her mind flashed back to all those nights when she woke up sensing Xander’s presence in her bedroom, smelling his scent on the sheets. He had been watching over her all this time.

  “We could lure him to me,” she said, getting quickly excited about her plan.

  “You mean use you as bait?” Xander asked, looking horrified for a moment. Allison saw the wheels turning in his head for a few moments, weighing the options, calculating the danger.

  “Yes,” Allison said, leaning forward to kiss him. It took him a moment to react, and he kissed back, reluctantly.

  Then Xander broke the kiss, and he’s the one who stood up this time.

  “No,” he said, walking away from the bed. “It’s too dangerous. I lost you once. I don’t want to lose you again.” Xander paused for a long time. Then he said, “He would kill you.”

  Allison thought back to the revelations she had just heard and understood. Xander had marked her. There was some of him in her blood now, and the five pints of blood coursing through her veins would no longer be a commodity for The Sieve. He couldn’t harvest from her, but he still wanted her out of the picture. She would be killed and left, undrained, unused.

  Allison looked across the room to Xander’s perfect naked form, facing away from her, staring out the window. He looked so beautiful, lit by the moonlight, his skin glistening. She rose off the bed and let her robe fall to the ground. Then she walked over to him, naked, and pressed up against his muscular frame.

  Allison ran her hands over his back, then atop his muscular shoulders. She kissed him between his shoulder blades, feeling his cool skin beneath her lips.

  She reached up to his face and turned him around. Xander resisted at first, then turned. She looked into his eyes, which had grown redder, as if he was ready to weep.

  Allison reached behind his neck and pulled him close to her. She kissed his lips, and he kissed back gently.

  “I want to do this,” she said softly in his ear.

  “Too dangerous,” Xander said quietly.

  “I love you,’ she said, looking deep in his crimson orange eyes. “I want to be with you forever. And if we don’t take care of The Sieve, this will never happen.” She kissed him again, then said softly, “We will find a way to make this happen.”

  Allison kissed Xander’s lips, then his cheek, then nuzzled against his neck. She planted soft kisses along the nape just below his chin, and she felt a slow, steady pulse beneath his cold skin.

  So, your heart does still beat, Allison thought.

  She pressed gently on the pulse with her pursed lips, then she let her lips open slightly and her teeth touched his skin.

  Suddenly, Xander stiffened. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, looking suddenly angry.

  “I was just...” Allison said, realizing she wasn’t exactly sure. “I want to be with you forever.”

  “Not that way,” Xander said, holding her away from him. “I don’t want this life for you.”

  Allison looked up in his eyes, puzzled. “I love you, Xander Reese. And I want to be with you. Forever.”

  Xander stepped away and walked over to the bed. He grabbed his jeans and slipped them on. “Not this way,” he said. “You don’t know how tortuous this life can be.”

  Allison watched, dejected, as he buttoned his jeans and threw his shirt and coat on without buttoning either. Even though this was all new to her, she knew their relationship was not possible in its current state. Maybe for a few years, but soon she would age past him, and she would eventually die. But seeing Xander ready to flee, and having just gotten him back so very recently, Allison would say anything to keep him here.

  “Okay,” she said, rushing over to him. “We won’t do that. You keep me this way, whatever it takes. I just don’t want to lose you again.”

  Xander pulled away from her when she came over to him. “This was a mistake,” he said, slipping his boots onto his feet. “I put you in danger by revealing myself to you. I shouldn’t be here.”

  “No!” Allison yelled, rushing over to him. She couldn’t lose him again! “Don’t!”

  But before she could reach him, Xander leaped over the bed towards the open window. He soared across the room, gaining lift like a glider as he sailed out of the apartment. Allison turned towards the window and ran after him, but by the time she reached the sill, he was far out of her reach. Xander’s form surged into the night sky, growing ever smaller against the stars. He did not look back, even when she cried his name.

  Allison felt her knees buckle, and she stumbled backwards onto the bed. Her head slammed back against the pillow. She lay motionless for a few moments, letting the realization that Xander was gone again sink in.

  Then the tears came. It felt like her heart had been ripped from her chest and pulled through the window with her departing lover. Allison grabbed the sheet she way lying on and wrapped it around herself. She sobbed, still smelling Xander’s scent in the room.

  Allison did not know how long she lay in her cocoon before she finally cried herself to sleep.

  CHAPTER 5

  Hours passed.

  Then days passed.

  Then weeks passed.

  There was no sign of Xander. He no longer visited Allison while she slept. She no longer saw him in her dreams, either as he was before he died or in his current form. She no longer woke sensing his presence in the room. She no longer woke in the middle of the night finding her window open when she had sworn she had closed it.

  Xander was gone.

  Suffering from heartache, Allison struggled to maintain the schedule she had kept for the past year, tracking down The Sieve.

  But the trail had dried up. The warehouse where she had found his harvesting set-up had been cleared out. Even the dead bodies of the emaciated men that Xander had killed that night were gone. Officially, no crime had been committed, aside from Allison’s breaking and entering, so there was no investigation.

  There was no record of any further activity, even through illegal channels. The credit account that she had traced to the warehouse had been closed, and any connection to a real person had vaporized.

  Allison expanded her search for The Sieve to surrounding suburbs and even other cities, hoping he had moved on but not very far. Unfortunately, Allison found no leads. She couldn’t even find any dead ends.

  She even ran a search based on what the emaciated man had called The Sieve. Oh, the Seigneur is going to be so pleased when he gets back, the emaciated man had said. Allison learned that a seigneur was an archaic term for a lord in the French feudal system. However, the term had not be used for more than 200 years, not since before the French Revolution. Perhaps this was an old title The Sieve used for his minions, Allison wondered.

  Even armed with the knowledge of the true nature of The Sieve, she could find nothing. No amount of creative thinking or clever detective work – legal or not – turned up anything. It was as if The Sieve, along with her undead lover, had disappeared.

  CHAPTER 6

  Allison opened her eyes. Although she knew that everyone dreamed every night, she hadn’t remembered her dreams for weeks, even right after she woke up. This night was no different.

  Something had woken her, though. Was it a sound? Was it a smell?

  Allison turned to look at the window, and she gasped.

  It was open.

  Had she closed it before falling asleep, she wondered. It was not uncommon for her to leave it open, just in case Xander came back. But tonight had been particularly chilly, and she was sure she had closed it.

  And perhaps that is why she woke
up, she realized. Because it was very chilly in her bedroom.

  “Xander?” she called. There was no answer.

  Allison waited for several seconds, then called again, louder: “Xander!”

  She heard a noise ahead of her. A mixture of elation and nervousness filled her. Then she saw movement, and she sat up.

  A figure stepped through the doorway into the room. Allison smiled and got ready to jump off the bed and into Xander’s powerful arms.

  But then she froze. As the figure got closer, it didn’t seem right. The figure was shorter, perhaps her own height. And it was ghastly thin, much more slender than Xander was. She cowered back into the covers as the figure stepped into the light.

  A gaunt face with a pointed nose and sallow eyes the shade of rust grinned at her.

  “Hello Allison,” the figure said in a chilling French accent.

  “Seigneur?” Allison said softly.

  The Sieve grinned even wider as he stepped up to the foot of the bed. “Merci,” he said, bowing slightly. “I always appreciate it when I’m addressed properly.”

  Allison looked around for an escape, but she saw none. Her guns were safely stored in her closet. Even the small pistol she kept in her night stand seemed a mile away, with The Sieve being only a few feet from her. Even if she could have reached them, Allison didn’t know if they would even do her any good.

  “I wouldn’t go for your weapon, Miss Pratt,” The Sieve said. “Didn’t your boyfriend tell you what we are?”

  Allison could not respond. She looked to the side of the room where the window was propped open. Could this be an escape? Could she make it out onto the fire escape before The Sieve could catch her?

  The Sieve did not give her a chance to find out. Impossibly fast, he seemed to instantaneously travel from the doorway to atop her on the bed, his bony hands gripping her arms.

  She tried to scream, but before she could, The Sieve put a hand over her mouth.

  “Sleep...” he said softly.

  And she did.

  † † †

  When Allison opened her eyes, everything was blurry. She felt constricted, as if she were encased in a cocoon. She blinked her eyes, hoping things would come into focus. Then she realized that it wasn’t a problem with her eyes. Something was restricting her vision as it was restricting her movements.

  Remembering what happened right before she lost consciousness, Allison knew what it was. She was wrapped tightly in yards of cheesecloth.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” Allison heard the French accented voice of The Sieve say. She saw a blurry shape reach for her face. The bony claw of a hand ripped a hole in the cheesecloth so she could see.

  Allison saw that she was suspended above a wash basin in the exact same set-up she had seen at the warehouse. Next to The Sieve, she saw a tray with the same chilling assortment of cutting tools.

  Allison looked into The Sieve’s rust-colored eyes. She wondered if he realized that Xander had marked her. The wound in the neck from when he had bit her during their love-making had long since healed, but a scar was still visible. Had he looked for it?

  The Sieve grinned at her, showing a set of jagged, crooked teeth.

  “I know you’ve been marked,” he said. Then, off her bewildered look, he said, “That’s what you’ve been thinking, isn’t it? Whether I know that you’ve been bitten already?”

  Allison said nothing.

  The Sieve nodded and tapped his temple with a skeletal finger. “Or didn’t your boyfriend tell you that we can get inside your head?”

  “Why the elaborate set-up, then?” Allison asked, trying to put forth as much confidence as she could.

  The Sieve laughed. “Just because I’m not able to harvest your blood doesn’t mean that I can’t give you the treat of being a victim. You’ve been chasing me for so long, mademoiselle, I think you’d feel cheated if I didn’t give you the proper treatment.”

  “You’re a monster,” Allison seethed.

  The Sieve grinned even further. “I know,” he said, then shook his head. “I would have thought you could have come up with something more clever than that."

  The Sieve then stepped over to the table with the cutting tools and picked up a surgical scalpel. He lifted the blade and looked up at Allison, and she watched in amazement as he slowly hovered up to her.

  “I want you to feel all of it,” he said, and brought the scalpel close to her neck.

  Allison refused to close her eyes. She refused to give him the pleasure.

  He was so close to her face that his rust-colored eyes filled her field of vision. They squinted as he smiled.

  And then suddenly he pulled away remarkably fast. She heard The Sieve shriek, then heard the clatter of the blade as it fell to the floor.

  Allison looked up to see The Sieve flying backwards into the air. He was flailing his arms, trying to grab behind him. And that’s when she realized what was happening. A dark, cloaked figure was holding The Sieve from behind. Two powerful legs had wrapped around the killer’s abdomen and locked ankles. One arm was hooked around The Sieve’s neck, and the other hand was wrenching his head to the side. The Sieve’s eyes were wide in pain, and the teeth in his mouth had elongated to reveal a hole of fangs.

  And then Allison caught the image of the face behind the wailing head of The Sieve... Xander.

  Xander’s face was twisted in concentration. The pair spun around in the air, Xander refusing to let go, and The Sieve reaching back with his hands but always missing Xander’s face.

  The Sieve continued to shriek, and Xander growled like a wild animal. He flexed his powerful arms, and The Sieve’s shriek reached a peak before being drowned out by a grueling tearing sound. The head of the killer seemed to topple off his body as Xander flung it to the side in a spray of black blood.

  The shrieking stopped, and the headless body of The Sieve fell limp in Xander’s arms.

  Xander let the body fall to the ground, and he slowly floated over to Allison. She felt a flood of so many emotions come over her... anger, terror, confusion and relief. But most of all, she felt love.

  “You didn’t leave?” she asked Xander as he reached up to rip open her cocoon.

  Allison fell into his arms, and she hugged him.

  “I told you,” Xander said. “I could never leave you.”

  Xander leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips. Allison kissed back. Then a second later, she broke the kiss.

  “How did you know he had me?” she asked.

  “It was only a matter of time before he’d find you,” Xander said with a grin. “I’ve been watching you this whole time.”

  Shocked, Allison said, “You used me as bait?”

  Xander continued to grin. “It was your idea,” he said sheepishly.

  Before she could say anything else, Xander kissed her.

  In the middle of kissing him, Allison said, “Don’t ever leave me again.”

  “I could never leave you,” he said.

  They kissed again. Then Xander touched her lips with his fingertips and said softly, “Sleep.”

  And she did.

  CHAPTER 7

  Allison opened her eyes to something brand new. She was in bed, but instead of seeing the claustrophobic buildings of Cleveland outside her apartment window, she saw a beautiful mountain landscape covered with a blanket of snow glistening in the moonlight.

  She rolled over in bed and reached a hand across to touch Xander’s chest. He looked like he was sleeping, but the moment she touched his chest, he opened his eyes.

  “Where are we?” Allison asked.

  “Nepal,” Xander said.

  Allison looked stunned. Xander grinned and added, “It’s a very exclusive resort.”

  Allison decided not to question anything at this point. She was just happy to have him back. She hugged him, feeling the cool flesh against hers. Xander traced his fingers over her breasts and then up her neck, lingering on the scar from where he had bit her weeks ago.


  “You know,” he said, “this doesn’t just mean you belong to me. It also means I belong to you. We are one person now that we’ve shared something so intimate.”

  Allison hugged him tight. “I just don’t want to lose you again,” she said.

  “I told you that I will never leave you again,” Xander replied.

  “But you did leave me,” she said.

  “I know that’s what it looked like. But I had to make sure you believed I was gone. Otherwise, The Sieve would have never come for you.”

  It all became clear as Allison remembered something The Sieve had said: Didn’t your boyfriend tell you that we can get inside your head?

  Xander touched Allison on the chin and turned his face towards his. “But I will never leave you,” he said. “Ever again. We belong to each other. Forever and always.”

  Then they kissed, entwining their arms together. Allison let herself fall back onto her pillow, leaning her head back and exposing her neck. Xander stroked her arm gently with his cool fingers and nuzzled against her neck.

  For the second time, Xander bit gently into her skin, and Allison felt a ripple of pleasure travel across her body. She wrapped her arms around Xander as he slowly suckled on her neck.

  His skin, so cool to the touch, became warm once again as she shared herself with the love of her life.

  CHAPTER 8

  Allison never considered herself a night owl, but like everything in this world, a loving relationship can change that.

  In fact, Allison used to enjoy waking up early, sometimes before dawn, giving her enough time to brew her morning coffee and enjoy it while reading with the sun’s first rays cutting through her apartment’s blinds. It was one of the many sacrifices Allison had to make to have a relationship with Xander that approached anywhere close to normal.

  If Allison didn’t shift her schedule to sleep through much of the daylight hours, her and Xander’s paths would never cross. When they first started down this unconventional road, Allison’s body kept wanting to keep regular hours. She’d find herself dozing off in the wee hours of the morning, only to wake up in an empty bed full of regrets, the window open and only Xander’s soft scent on the sheets to remind her he had been there.