True Knight

by Patricia Logan

  I held out my hand and gestured to him to come and sit on the bed. “It’s freezing in here. Please come up here and we’ll talk. I hope you now believe that I’m not planning on hurting you.”

  He frowned. “I don’t know anything of the sort.”

  “Romeo, if I wanted to hurt you, I would have drained you already. As it is, I’m only sorry we got off to a bad start.” I gestured to him again. “Please, come up here and let me wrap you up in these blankets. Your whole body is shivering.”

  He stared at me for a long minute and then finally got off the floor and walked over to the bed, sitting down on it. I smiled and reached for a fuzzy throw blanket, reaching out slowly to wrap his shoulders with it. He took it and snuggled in.

  “Come on. Lie down with me. I won’t touch you unless you want me to, Romeo.” I deliberately moved away from him, crawling over to the other side of the bed, and getting under the covers. I glanced over to him and patted the bed beside me. “I won’t bite.”

  A trace of a smile played across his lips as he finally moved closer, sliding his long, muscular legs under the covers and turning on his side. I slowly reached for the comforter and drew it up over the throw blanket he still wore and tucked him in before turning to face him with my head propped in one hand.

  “Now what? We just look at each other?”

  I smiled salaciously. “We could do more but I don’t think you trust me,” I said with deep regret.

  “I’m trying to trust you,” he said, honestly. “This is all a lot to accept. It’s like five minutes old and just the thought that I’ve been walking around in a world filled with supernatural creatures is kind of a lot to take. If I hadn’t seen your fangs, I would have thought everything you were telling me were lies.”

  “I understand that. I handled things wrong. It was my fault. I should have never brought you home when I was as hungry as I am but the moment I saw you, I just knew I had to have you. You’re…” I paused, dying to tell him that he wasn’t human, not all human anyway. “You’re special.” Based on what he’d said, I was clearly right in believing that he didn’t know he was supernatural himself.

  He smirked, snuggling deeper into the pillow. “It’s not your fault. That is, unless you compelled me.” He raised his head and narrowed his eyes. “Did you?”

  “No. I didn’t.” The truth was, I suspected I couldn’t have compelled him if I’d tried. Supernatural beings weren’t subject to my powers but how could I explain that to him since he didn’t seem to know he was anything other than a normal man.

  “Okay, well, I suppose I should tell you that I wanted you the minute I saw you too.”

  I smiled widely, moving ever so slightly closer to him. Tentatively, I slid my foot over and touched his. His eyes widened for a second before he relaxed, not moving away.

  “Why aren’t you cold?” he asked.

  “What?” I was momentarily startled. I hadn’t had conversations with previous lovers so this pillow talk was all new to me.

  “Vampires are dead, right? Why aren’t you cold?”

  It was a great question. “I can regulate my temperature so that I’m as warm as you are. I can’t explain how it works. The dead giveaway—forgive my pun—is that I have no pulse or heartbeat.” I turned my head slightly and pointed to my jugular vein. “Look close.”

  Romeo’s eyes zeroed in on the vein before they lifted to mine. “May I touch your chest?”

  I snorted. “You had my cock in your mouth a half hour ago. Yes, you may touch my chest.”

  I watched his arm sliding across the sheet under the covers. A second later, he placed his palm between my pectorals as he felt for my absent heartbeat. After a minute, he sat up and moved closer before lying down again. Only twelve inches separated our bodies and faces and I felt the familiar tingling in my gums again. I willed my fangs to stay right where they were. He trailed his fingers along my largest scar from my collarbone to my bellybutton and I shuddered, trying not to launch myself at him. After a moment, he glanced up at me.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he said, leaving his hand where it was. “How did you get the scar and why isn’t it healed? Aren’t vampires supposed to be flawless and perfect?”

  I sighed. “We heal very fast. I heal faster than most vampires because I’m very old. That applies to new wounds. Old scars—that is, scars that were on us when we were turned—never go away.”

  “How old are you and then tell me about the scar,” he said. He was beginning to warm to the conversation and so was I.

  “My human life was taken on the Isle of Ruad in 1304.”

  Romeo frowned. “You’re over seven hundred years old?”

  “Yes. I was killed by a knight of the realm. His name was Sir Robert.”

  “He was your… what do you call it? Your maker?”

  “Yes. I was also a knight of the realm. When my human life ended, I was on one of the final crusades to the Holy Land.”

  “Where is the Isle of Ruad? Part of the Holy Land?”

  I nodded. “Modern day Syria—basically the northwest portion of the country on the Mediterranean coastline. The Knights Templar set up an outpost there and that’s where I died… but the scar came years before.”

  “You were a knight… a medieval knight,” he breathed, somewhat in awe. “How old were you?”

  “When my human life ended? Twenty-eight. I’d been in the Holy Land for almost four years with my father and my uncle when a handsome young knight rode into our camp one night.” I smiled. “He seduced me away from my sleeping elders and for some reason, he decided not to kill me and instead turn me into what you see here.”

  “Wow. It’s all so hard to believe… and the scar?”

  “I was struck with a broadsword which nearly cleaved me in two. I’m sure that had been the barbarian’s intent. He very nearly succeeded. I hovered between worlds for nearly a month before my fever broke.” I smiled. “We had terrible doctors in our camp—if that’s what you could call the butchers they were—and of course disease and filth were rampant. My father brought in a local woman who treated me with an odd combination of powders after I became feverish. If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have lived. I learned later that my uncle feared the woman would use witchcraft on me. After I recovered my father told me of the fight he had with my uncle. If it hadn’t been for my father’s love for me and his willingness to try anything to save my life, I would have died. It’s kind of a miracle I survived at all.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” His gaze slid over my face. “You’re very interesting. In fact, this is all very interesting. I’m actually not afraid of you.”

  I chuckled, capturing his hand as he moved to pull it away from my chest. I flattened it against my belly, needing to keep him close. I could feel the small capillaries in his fingers throbbing again. I was going to have to eat soon or risk hurting the beautiful creature in front of me.

  “I’m so glad you’re not afraid. The last thing I want is for you to be afraid of me.” I let go of his hand and slowly reached for his face, gently cupping one side of his jaw. “I want to see you again, Romeo, but I have to go now.” I glanced at the clock on the table. We’d talked a long time and it was now past midnight. I glanced back at him. “I won’t be able to see you again until I eat. Everything about you is too tempting. Your scent is everything. You have no idea how hard this is for me.”

  He smiled. “You don’t kill when you drink from someone? Really? Is that true?”

  I nodded slowly. “I’ve done it in the past but not for a long time. Like I said before, I’m not a killer… at least in vampire form.” I couldn’t help but smile at that. I’d killed hundreds of men as a human man but only a few as a vampire.

  It was fucking ironic.

  Romeo pulled his hand back and I missed his touch instantly. When I saw him reach up to brush his fingers over his jugular, my heart would have stopped—if it had been beating.

  “Drink from me, Vincent. If you won’t kill me and
you won’t take too much, I’ll give you my blood,” he said.

  I gaped at him. “Why would you do that?”

  “Does it hurt?”

  I nodded. “I’m told the initial strike is painful but then…” How was I going to tell him how his body would react?

  “Then?”

  I sighed. “Humans find the experience orgasmic,” I finally said.

  He grinned widely. “Is that right?”

  I nodded. “It’s the truth.” I raised an eyebrow, noting the lust in his beautiful brown eyes. “If I drink from you, you’ll most likely climax.”

  “That would be a shame,” he said, smirking.

  I was crazy about him.

  I moved closer, bringing our bodies into contact. Romeo’s cock was hard, thick, and already leaking at just the thought of being bitten. I stared deeply into his eyes.

  “You’re sure?”

  Romeo nodded and before he had a moment to take it back, I dropped my fangs and struck.

  Chapter Five

  Prosper Woods Chronicle. Letters to the Editor:

  “Yesterday I found a giant mound of bear scat. Can someone tell me why Prosper Woods is plagued with this when everyone knows bears don’t shit in the woods?” Signed, “Asking for a friend.”

  Greg

  “We’ve got a big problem,” Floyd said.

  I watched my alpha pace back and forth in front of the bonfire we’d lit in a clearing on pack land in the woods. The town of Fredrick is where we made our home, five miles from Prosper Woods. The town was much smaller than Prosper Woods by far, housing only members of our werewolf pack and their families. My best friend Sam Jackson sat beside me on one of the benches we’d set up in a horseshoe around the bonfire.

  All twenty-three adult members of our pack gathered at the bonfire once a month on the full moon to run through the woods and hunt. We usually hunted for small animals but if there was a deer nearby, that’s where we’d turn our attention. Floyd had called us together two weeks into the month which had to mean there was something important going on. I settled back on the bench where I sat beside my best friend and waited for our alpha to elaborate.

  Floyd Reardon was a big man, standing almost six foot five inches, an inch shorter than me, the tallest member of our pack. When he changed to his werewolf form, Floyd was nearly as big and wide as I was but as our alpha, he had the ability to change into his half wolf half man form as well. That made killing him nearly impossible because it was when he was strongest, standing nearly seven feet tall in that form. I was awed by him when he took this form and it was a beautiful thing to watch him take down a large animal during a hunt. I’d seen him rip a massive wild boar into tiny pieces with only tooth and claw.

  No one challenged Floyd. Not only was he a man with great strength in his changed form, but he was one of those rare individuals who commanded the obedience of every pack member. As alpha he was the law and no one questioned his decisions regardless of how cruel they seemed sometimes. Floyd Reardon was a fair alpha most of the time but even when he was at his most cruel, he demanded submission from the rest of us. Only a fool would challenge the man though many outsiders had tried. I’d watched many men from outside packs fall by the swipe of Floyd’s claws.

  “A vampire has moved into Prosper Woods,” Floyd announced.

  A cacophony of murmurs began around Sam and me as me as the pack members began to look around at each other and talk. When Floyd raised his hand, everyone shut their mouths.

  “How do you know?” Clancy asked. Clancy Barrows was the oldest member of our pack, sixty-eight in human years. He’d lived through the reign of five alphas, Floyd’s being his last. When Floyd turned and glared at him, Clancy shrank back on the bench, casting his eyes to the dirt.

  “I saw him out in front of his new antique store in Prosper Woods. He and the sheriff met and talked a while before driving off in separate vehicles.” Floyd turned to me. “Has he been in the saloon yet?”

  I frowned, shaking my head. “I don’t think so but how would I know, Floyd? The only newcomer is the sheriff and he’s a nice guy. He’s no vampire. Sheriff Harmon smells as human as any other I’ve ever met,” I replied.

  “Greg, we all know you ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed,” Daisy said.

  I turned to look at her as some of the other pack members began to chuckle. I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck as she smiled at me. Daisy Mae had been a high school crush of mine and if there was a meaner bitch, I’d not met her. The gap between Daisy’s two front teeth had always distracted me, but I’d grown to overlook her teeth when she’d hit puberty and grown a massive pair of knockers. She became super popular with the rest of the kids in my school as soon as they’d begun to grow, and it was rumored that she’d taken a lot of them to her bed.

  She was right though. I wasn’t very sharp.

  “That’s enough out of you, Daisy,” Sam said from beside me.

  I turned to look at him and smiled, leaning over to bump him with my shoulder. He always stood up for me.

  “Stop defending him, Sam,” Daisy said. “We all see how you sniff around his tail all the time.” The others began to laugh at her vitriol but everyone stopped when Floyd bellowed.

  “Shut up! Every eye up here, wolves!”

  I turned to look at our tall alpha who was silhouetted by the fire that crackled behind him, shooting sparks high into the air. The wide clearing on pack lands was the only place we felt safe to gather. At one time, our pack had been large, occupying not only Frederick but also Prosper Woods. These days, we lived in only Frederick, having severely reduced numbers.

  Tales passed down from sire to pup told of a time almost a hundred years ago when our pack had been attacked by hoards of vampires who killed off most of the men and drove away the rest, leaving our females and pups to starve. Little by little the few families left had moved out of Prosper Woods to Frederick which was smaller and more secluded in the backcountry. As wolves with other packs passed through town, they were offered land or businesses and encouraged to stay and breed. They’d eventually mated and started families of their own but our pack was nowhere near the size it had once had been when the Frederick pack had numbered in the hundreds.

  “We need to kill this vampire before he kills us!” Floyd shouted. “Do you understand the danger he is to us? Do any of you understand?”

  “He’s only one vampire, Alpha,” I said, speaking up. When all the wolves turned toward me and snarled in my direction, I shrank back on my bench.

  “One vampire will bring more vampires,” old Clancy said. “You may not know it, Greg, but my grandfather and grandmother were slaughtered by only one vampire. No! Floyd’s right. We need to kill him before he kills us.”

  A twig snapped in the tree line behind us. I raised my nose to the air and took a long sniff. I was surprised when the scent of a human male, sweaty, filled with fear and alcohol, hit my nostrils. Almost immediately, I felt Sam stiffen beside me.

  “Human,” he said, under his breath as the rest of the pack began to stand up.

  “Alpha?” Renaldo asked.

  I turned to glance at the large wolf who was Floyd’s second. He was a massive Hispanic man with tattoos all over his body. I’d never liked him or the way he drove his Harley Davidson down the road at a hundred miles per hour, weaving in and out of lanes and scaring human families on vacation in their RVs just for the laughs it gave him and the two other wolves who were his best friends, Rudy and Mike. Every time they came into the saloon, it drove tourists out because the three of them were a scary-looking bunch. They always ordered drinks and demanded that they be free, telling me that Floyd had no problem with it because they were the enforcers of our pack.

  The truth was Renaldo and his friends were nothing more than vicious thugs.

  “Take care of it, Renaldo,” Floyd said, nodding to the woods. “And leave a message for the vampire while you’re at it.”

  I knew what that meant and I hated t
he very thought of it. One inebriated human was no match for three wolves. Not only that, killing anyone was a dangerous business. Surely there could have been another way to handle the man’s trespass. Floyd could have talked to the man to see what he’d heard. Maybe he was so drunk he wouldn’t remember anything about stumbling onto the bonfire the next morning. Drunks did have blackouts. Working in the saloon—I saw it all the time. If the man could be reasoned with… but I was only a beta and a downright stupid one at that. I had no say in these things. Nor should I.

  Seconds later, I watched Renaldo and his two friends strip and go through their change as they dropped onto all fours and fur sprouted from their skin, viscous claws from their fingers. In less than a minute all three were wolves. Their eyes glowed bright yellow and in moments they’d run out of the clearing heading for the trees. The pack was silent, listening to the crackle of the fire. I felt Sam practically vibrating beside me and when he leaned over to put his arm around my shoulders, I was comforted. I looked up into the sky, awash with stars, breathtaking in shades of blue and purple as I listened to the heartbeats of my pack. After two minutes, I heard a bloodcurdling scream from the trees. My heart did a flip-flop and Sam tightened his grip around my shoulders. I felt a single tear trail down my cheek before I brushed it away, disgusted—for the first time in my life—to be a wolf.

  Romeo

  I tried to brace myself for what was coming but when Vincent’s fangs sank into my neck, all I could do was gasp. Pain roared through my veins for a few seconds and I felt like I was going to black out. I struggled to get free before realizing that I was caught in the vampire’s viselike grip. For several seconds I was certain that what I was feeling was the beginning of the end of my life. When the pain suddenly began to ebb, I realized Vincent had withdrawn his fangs and was beginning to suck.

  The agony slowly began to be replaced by something else. I felt his lips against my neck, firm pulls from his mouth, and the overwhelming knowledge that I was suddenly, acutely, necessary to the man in my arms. He still held me in his grip but it no longer frightened me. It thrilled me. I grabbed his wide shoulders, digging my fingers in, holding him to me, twining my legs with his as I sought to somehow be still closer to him.