Undaunted

by HELEN HARDT

  “Please…”

  I lay on the bed and pushed her thighs forward, exposing all of her beauty to my view. I closed my eyes and inhaled.

  Once.

  Twice.

  One more time after that.

  Then I opened my eyes and beheld the dazzling flesh before me. A feast. My cuspids were already elongated, sharp as ever, but that didn’t stop me. I swiped my tongue from the sweet pucker of her anus all the way up to her clit.

  She writhed beneath me, moaning. Her sounds fueled me, made me want her even more. I sucked on her clit, sucked her swollen labia into my mouth. My teeth nicked her slightly, producing tiny pops of capillaries. This only made me crazier. I shoved my tongue deep into her heat. I longed to sink my teeth into all that lusciousness and feed. She was so engorged, so filled with warm, delicious blood. My fangs scratched a few more places, and I lapped up the traces so perfectly mingled with her juices—a concoction unlike anything I’d tasted, so full of Erin, so full of life.

  Her pussy had never tasted as delicious as it did this day.

  “Please, Dante. Please. Let me come.”

  Under different circumstances, I would have commanded her not to come until I told her she could, but I could not deny her today. I sucked her clit hard and shoved two fingers into her wet pussy. The contractions started instantly, her walls suctioning around my fingers, making me vibrate all over.

  “Come, Erin. Come for me, baby. Give me the first of many orgasms you’re going to have today.”

  “I want to touch you. Want to feel your hair between my fingers, push your face into my pussy.”

  I couldn’t help a smile. My face and chin were slick from her nectar, and my fangs sharp as ever. “Move your hands from that headboard, and you will pay.”

  I half expected her to move. Erin was willful, and her curiosity might get the best of her.

  But she didn’t. Her hands remained gripped around those rungs of cherry wood.

  Too bad. I had a few ideas in mind of how I might punish her—punishment both she and I would immensely enjoy.

  I slid up her body and clamped my mouth to hers, letting her taste herself on my tongue. My cock slid between her juicy folds, and though the urge to enter her was great, I held back. Still, I was determined to savor every moment before I found the ultimate climax.

  This time the kiss was hard and passionate, not those gentle kisses we’d shared in the shower. I wanted to give her everything with this kiss—the taste of herself on my tongue, the love in my heart I felt for her, the life flowing through my veins that I partially owed to her. Life. I wanted to give her life. Life like she’d never known before. And when I gave it to her, I would take back my own life in part.

  The raw desire in her kiss cleansed me even more, took me to another plane of existence, the plane where there was no hurt, no suffering, no brute violence.

  I finally broke the kiss, and we both drew in a much-needed breath. Her body was flushed pink and warm, coated with a sheen of perspiration. Her fragrance had strengthened even more around us, cocooning us in an invisible shield of musk.

  I slithered my tongue over her neck and shoulder, the saltiness of her sweat a complement to the musk already on my tongue. Her beautiful breasts awaited me, the nipples hard and straining. I took one between my lips and sucked. Hard. The other I twisted between my thumb and forefinger, relishing the moans from her throat.

  “Take my blood, Dante. Suck it there. From my nipple.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Erin

  Yes, those words had left my throat. I wanted it more than ever.

  But his head popped up, his fangs still elongated. “Baby?”

  His eyes were smoky and heavy lidded. Yes, he wanted to do it as much as I wanted him to. I’d felt his teeth scrape the lips of my vagina, felt his need to take my blood then. He’d wanted to.

  “I want every part of me to be yours today. I want to feed every part of you from every part of me. Because as you feed from me, I feed from you. I become more yours, and you become more mine.”

  My words surprised even me, but I felt them with all my heart and soul. He needed me this morning. Though I knew why, I didn’t know the extent. He would tell me later. I trusted this. And I trusted him with my body.

  “Please, Dante.”

  He bent his head down over my nipple once more, his fangs hovering over my flesh.

  “Do it.”

  “I want to, baby. But I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You could never hurt me. Bite me. Take what I’m offering.”

  He sank his teeth into the edge of my areola.

  No pain anymore. Only the pleasure, and a soft moan left my throat. My nipples were hard and straining as he took my blood there, and the sensations were so great that they traveled like lightning into me, into the very core of me, down to my pussy where they burst into my clit like water shooting from a geyser.

  Too soon it was over. He released me and licked the small puncture wounds on the top of my breast.

  “No,” I said. “More. Please.”

  “I’ll take more, but not from here. You have an entire body full of arteries and veins and capillaries. I won’t be greedy.”

  “But I want you to. I want to feed you.”

  “You will. I know what you’re feeling, Erin. I’m feeling it too. That raw need and desire for me to take your blood, for you to give me your blood. You believe me now, don’t you? That this bond originated with you?”

  “I believe it originated with both of us.”

  He smiled, his fangs still out, and damn, he was the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on. How was it that fangs could be sexy? But oh, they were. At least on this man.

  At least on this vampire.

  He moved down my abdomen, his fangs scraping me lightly. Goose bumps erupted on my flesh, and I imagined tiny rivers of blood forming in the wake of his teeth. He wasn’t breaking my skin, of course, but in my mind’s eye, I saw the blood, felt the blood.

  Part of me wanted him to draw blood. I wanted to feel the puncture, the scratches, the intense pleasure-pain.

  He continued down my left side, kissing my thigh, my knee, my calf, to the top of my foot and then to my toes. “Every part of you is delicious, Erin. Every part of me wants every part of you.”

  I closed my eyes on a sigh. “Take whatever you need. Please.”

  “I plan to.” He kissed the tips of my toes on the other foot and then moved upward, kissing my calf, my knee, the top of my thigh again. He slid upward, gave me a quick kiss on my mouth, and then said, “You can release your hands now. Turn over onto your stomach and grab the headboard again.”

  I wasted no time following his orders. Once I was situated, gripping the rungs of my headboard once more, I turned my head to the side and closed my eyes, determined to give in to every ounce of pleasure he was willing to provide.

  His lips, tongue, and teeth traveled over the back side of my body, and he nipped at my neck, my shoulders, my upper arms. Again I imagined the rivers of redness, aching for him to puncture me. He did not, but the flutter of his lips and tongue, the scraping of his fangs, sent me quickly into Nirvana. My pussy was on fire.

  Empty and on fire.

  “Please, Dante.”

  In truth, I had no idea what I was asking for. I wanted his cock, but I also wanted his lips, teeth, tongue. I ached for him to release me, so I could torture him as he was torturing me. I didn’t have fangs to sink into his flesh, but I did have teeth. One day, I would bite him and take his blood. Not because I needed it, but because I wanted it.

  Because I craved it.

  He pressed on, making me arch when he tortured the small of my back and then the cheeks of my ass. Down my thighs his lips went once again, back up, and he stopped at the back of my knee, pressing kisses into it. Then back up to my ass, where he pressed his tongue in the crease, over my asshole.

  If he’d told me he wanted to fuck my ass at that moment, I would’ve said yes. But
upward he moved, gliding his tongue over my back and shoulders once more.

  “Bring your knees up, baby,” he said. “Show me what I long to see.”

  He lifted his body off me a bit so I could comply, and in an instant his cock was inside me.

  “I want to fill every empty crevice of your body, Erin, until you want no one but me.”

  I already wanted no one but him. And he filled all my emptiness so exquisitely.

  “God, Erin!” He pushed into me.

  Again.

  Again.

  Again.

  The climax started in my belly this time, attacking my pussy with a lightning bolt and then radiating out to my limbs so that even the tips of my fingers tingled.

  He fucked me hard, as hard as he ever had, plunging and surging, taking me.

  I went willingly.

  And when he took me to the highest peak once more and then thrust hard into me with his own orgasm, he leaned down, his body warm against my back, and sank his teeth in the flesh of my shoulder.

  I flew higher. As he took my blood, he gave me so much more in return. With each tug on my flesh, my pussy throbbed harder in climax, and as he swallowed the nourishment he craved, I was nourished as well.

  Too soon, he removed his teeth.

  I’d sunk deep into my pillow, still grasping my headboard. No. Don’t want to leave yet. Want to stay here, joined, where no one can hurt us, where peace and love are all that matter.

  His warm hands covered mine, slowly releasing my fists. Then he rolled off me, and I turned to face him. His lips and chin, as usual, were smeared with my blood. And as usual, I leaned toward him and kissed him. Just a peck, but I needed to touch him at that moment, touch my blood on his lips.

  “That was incredible,” I said.

  He smiled, his fangs still elongated. My God, he was gorgeous.

  “Incredible doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

  I let out a tiny giggle. “I’m not sure there’s a word in the English language that can describe that.”

  “I know there’s not. I love you so much, Erin. Thank you for today.”

  “You don’t ever have to thank me.”

  “I know. But I can’t help it. You’ve given me so much, so much that I don’t even deserve.”

  “What makes you think you don’t deserve any of this?”

  He closed his eyes, and for a second, I thought I saw the beginning of a tear in the corner of one of them.

  But then he opened them, and though they were a little glazed over, they were dry. “My father. He died for me, Erin. He died so I could live. How can I be worthy of such sacrifice? How can I ever repay him for that?”

  “I don’t think he expects payment, Dante.”

  “No, I don’t think he does. But he went through so much for me. Because of me. His body…” He squeezed his eyes shut, and this time I definitely saw the beginnings of a tear. But he opened his eyes and sniffed it back.

  “What is it? You can tell me.” I cupped his cheek.

  Then I listened.

  I listened as he described the condition of Julian’s body. How he’d memorized every bruise, every scratch, every scar, every mutilation.

  I gulped back the nausea that threatened me more than once.

  If the captors had done this to Julian…

  Couldn’t go there. I couldn’t. Not when he needed me to be strong.

  Strength. He needed my strength right now, and I would not let him down.

  Still no tears. He was holding them back. I could tell. I admired his determination.

  “It’s okay,” I said, stroking his face. “Let it go, Dante. It’s okay to cry for your father.”

  One tear fell, but he shook his head. “I can’t. My father died for me. I can’t let him down.”

  “How does grieving for his life and what he went through let him down?”

  “I can’t allow myself to—” He shook his head again. “I just can’t.”

  I wasn’t a psychiatric nurse, but I knew bottling something like this up inside a person never led to anything good.

  But now was not the time.

  Dante was strong, stronger than perhaps even he believed.

  “I’m here for you,” I said. “Tell me what you need.”

  “I need to sleep. Here. Next to you. For a few hours. Then I’m expecting a phone call.”

  The phone call came late in the afternoon. Dante and I washed up quickly, and then I accompanied him to the mortuary to pick up his father’s remains.

  Julian was oddly absent during this.

  “Why isn’t your father here?” I asked.

  “Why should he be?”

  “These are his remains.”

  “No. He doesn’t think of it that way anymore. These remains aren’t him. In a way, they never were. We aren’t our bodies, Erin.”

  That was deep. A little too deep for me at the moment. I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “That’s the only thing keeping me from freaking out now,” he continued. “That the torture my father endured only happened to his body. Not to him. Not to the essence of who he is.”

  I nodded. Did Dante feel this way about the torture that he had endured? I didn’t want to think about the specifics, but after he’d described the condition of his father’s body, I couldn’t seem to not think about it.

  I swallowed down the thought as best I could. “Do you believe that?”

  “I have to,” he said somberly.

  Then I understood.

  He had to in order to cope right now. If he let his guard down, if he truly mourned for what his father had endured, he wouldn’t get through the next few days of filing in the probate court to claim Julian’s estate.

  What about after that?

  What if he never mourned?

  What if he never faced what had happened to his own body? Perhaps we weren’t our bodies, but our flesh was part of us, at least while we were living.

  Dante had to accept that eventually.

  I sighed. Nothing much I could do except take things a day at a time. A minute at a time if need be. I would be there for Dante, and if he needed to suppress his pain, I’d let him.

  For now.

  But not forever.

  He gripped the gold urn containing Julian’s remains as we stood by my car in the mortuary parking lot. “Now what?” he said more to himself than to me.

  “You want to scatter them somewhere?”

  “Not without my sister,” he said.

  Then a cool rush of air at the back of my neck…and a voice.

  I gasped when Julian appeared in front of us, a few milliseconds after his voice had registered in my ear.

  “You and your sister may do what you wish with most of them,” he said to Dante.

  “Most of them?” Dante said.

  “Yes. A small amount belongs to someone else.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dante

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The voodoo priestess.”

  “Bea?”

  Julian chuckled. “You didn’t think she’d cast that shield around the cemetery for nothing, did you? I told you she would be well compensated.”

  “With…”

  “Vampire ashes are a powerful addition to any spell, at least according to Bea. And they’re difficult to come by, as you can imagine.”

  “But if no one knows we exist…”

  “Bea does. She always has, mostly because she’s a medium and has been inhabited by vampires as well as by humans.”

  Erin scoffed. “You mean you got her to agree to help you without promising her the entire urn? Did you glamour her?”

  My father smiled. “I can see why you might think that, but no, I didn’t. Glamouring isn’t used unless it’s absolutely necessary to accomplish a greater good. For example, I glamoured the guards at the cemetery so Dante could recover my body and claim my estate. He and his sister need the money. But if Bea had refused to cast the shield, I could have found an
other way to protect Dante and River.”

  “She agreed when you offered her your ashes?” I said.

  “I asked her what payment she required. She’s the one who brought up the ashes. And yes,” he said to Erin, “she wanted all of them. But I convinced her that my children needed to have most of my remains. Measure out one ounce and put it in a zippered plastic bag. Then take it to Bea under the bridge. She assured me they will be used only sparingly.”

  “I’m tempted to give her regular old ashes,” I said. “How would she know the difference?”

  “Give her what was promised. A man whose word is nothing is nothing himself.”

  “But you’re…dead, Dad.”

  “My body is dead, Dante. I am still me, and I will not go back on my word. I taught you better than that.”

  I nodded. “You did, and I’m sorry. I just hate to part with any part of you.”

  “Those crumbs in that urn aren’t me, son. Surely you know that by now, having seen me in my ghostly form.”

  Erin brushed her fingertips over my forearm, infusing me with her warmth. She said nothing, but the simple touch was a comfort.

  I cleared my throat. “I know.”

  “Bea protected you and your cousin last night. Don’t forget that.”

  “Maybe she didn’t. Maybe we just got in and out quickly and no one realized we were there.”

  My father shook his head. “I’m sorry. You’re wrong. The dark presence was there.”

  Ice prickled the back of my neck. “Dad?” I rubbed at it.

  “That’s not me. That’s your own body warning you. You believe me. Don’t you?”

  “I believe you, Julian,” Erin said. “After everything I’ve seen recently, how can I not believe you?”

  “She’s a smart girl, Dante. Hold on to her.”

  I had no intention of ever letting Erin go, and my father knew we were bonded by blood anyway. But I got what he meant. “I won’t.”

  “I’m coming with you to see Bea,” she said.

  “No. It’s not safe for you there. Those vamps—”

  “—don’t come out during the day,” she finished for me.