Calling for a Miracle [The Order of Vampyres 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (3 page)

She turned and straddled his right leg. His face was flush with color, blood rising to the surface. She could scent it pumping under his flesh. She ground herself into his thigh to get closer to the smell. His back arched, pressing their hips closer. He lifted his arms and held his palms up, defenseless to her motions. With his chin tilted back, she could see the flutter of his pulse. Her gums ached and her belly tightened.

“Fuck, Larissa, maybe you should ask Steve if you can just do a couple more stage dances a night. I’m going to have to break skulls to keep the guys’ hands off you. You sure you never did this before?”

“Am I doing okay?” she asked as her thigh bumped the firm crotch of his jeans.

He offered a deprecating laugh, “Yeah, you’re fuckin’ doin’ okay. Maybe you should stop.”

“The song’s only half over.”

He looked into her eyes. His chest rose and fell with each breath. “You have no idea what you do to a man, do you?”

“I am a female. I can do nothing to a man. It is men that handle the doing,” she stated somewhat angrily.

“If you only knew how wrong you were. I think we should stop.”

“But you said you would help me practice.” She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to see how fast she could make his pulse race under his blood-heated skin. She seemed to be as fascinated with that tiny vein under the stubble covering his jaw as he was with her breasts. Only Vito seemed to still be struggling for politeness and forced his eyes toward the ceiling, thus exposing his throat even more.

Her pelvis touched down on his and he grunted as if in pain.

“Just a sip.”

Straining not to look at her, he asked, “What?”

“Vito, look into my eyes.”

His head quickly turned at the sharp command in her voice. His eyes locked with hers. “Just a sip, you will remember me dancing for you. Nothing more.”

His jaw slackened as his pupils dilated. Her fangs punched through her gums. Unable to wait a second more, she opened her mouth and snapped her jaw shut over that tempting pulse like an alligator locking its jaws on a fluttering butterfly. Vito grunted and jolted in his seat. She felt his body under hers, but focused only on the nourishment she took from his vein. She had never fed from a human being before, only her mother as a child and her husband as an adult. Vito’s blood tasted different, sweeter than an immortal’s, lacking potency, but making up for it in smoothness.

His hips began to rock. She catalogued the fact that, like immortals, mortals also found feeding from the opposite sex erotic. She shut her eyes at the memories of Silus feeding from her that were suddenly flooding her mind. Taking a few more sips, she carefully closed the puncture at his neck and wiped her mouth. He blinked several times and she stepped away just as the song ended.

“That was…” His eyes looked down and to the left as if he were searching for words. “That was amazing. Thank you, Larissa. I think you will do fine out there.”

She offered him a sad smile, already disgusted with herself for taking advantage of her friend. Sometimes she hated what she was. Her needs were satisfied, but at what cost? Her principles felt betrayed. “Thank you, Vito.”

Later that night Larissa climbed the steps of her dark, odorous apartment complex, still feeling guilty about Vito. She opened the door to her private dwelling and tossed her bag onto a chair.

“You should really lock your door, Larissa.”

She screeched in alarm and turned on the light. “For the love of God, Cain! You scared me half to death.”

“How was work, sister? Still dangling your bits for the entire English world to see?”

She gave him a satirical smile and headed into the kitchen. “No one sees my bits. I assure you they are covered the entire time.”

“Silus would be so proud.”

“You are in a mood. What are you doing here?”

Her brother plopped onto her couch and plucked up a book from her side table. He fingered the pages of the romance novel, opening to a random page. His eyebrows lifted in surprise and he turned the book to read the cover. “I came to see if you wanted to go hunting with me.”

More guilt. “Thank you, but I’ve already fed.”

He tossed the book back onto the table. “You really do need to start locking the door.”

She rolled her eyes and came to sit next to him. “I am vampyre, Cain. Nothing is going to hurt me.”

“Well, you should at least scan your place for emotions before you enter. What if I had been someone else?”

“I assure you, I can protect myself from the English.”

“I’m not speaking of the English.”

“Then what?” Suddenly she felt a quiver of fear. Her hand lifted protectively to her throat. “Does Silus know where I am?”

“No.” She let out a sigh of relief but before she could fully relax, he said, “The bishop is searching for you.”

“The bishop? Why?”

“Apparently when Silus appealed to him about leaving the farm to retrieve his disobedient wife, the bishop thought it would be better if he himself found you.”

“Why would that crabby old male care where I am?”

“Because you abandoned your duty, would be my guess.”

She let out an unladylike snort. “My duty to what? Live a millennium as nothing more than an object to entertain Silus Hostetler. No, I think not. I am happy away from the farm. I will not go back. I don’t care if the bishop himself comes to collect me. Besides, he was merely my spouse. It isn’t as though I abandoned my true mate.”

It was well known that a marriage was child’s play in comparison with the bond shared between true mates. Marriages were contracts by choice, well, a male’s choice most of the time. Being bonded, however, was a calling from God. There was no breaking the bond between mates. It was sewn into one’s soul, the need for the other. And while marriages were not entered into lightly among The Order, callings
were even rarer.

Cain laughed. “If Bishop King finds you, you won’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Well then I simply won’t be found.”

“Good luck with that. Anyway, you should be more careful about locking your doors and scanning.”

He was right. If the bishop was in fact looking for her though, no lock would keep him out of her home. Bishop King was some six hundred years old, at least five hundred and fifty years older than Larissa. If he wanted to find her, he would. And when he did there would be nothing Larissa could do to protect herself from such a powerful elder. Wanting to change the subject, she asked, “How is Father?”

Cain sighed and his usually jovial expression faltered under the honest weight of his concern. “Annalise tells me he is even worse than before.” Annalise was mated to their brother, Adam. She and Cain had shared some phenomenon of a bond that allowed them to share dreams. Vampyres typically never dreamed unless they were being called to their one true mate. No one understood why Annalise could share dreams with not just Adam, but his twin as well. Even still, it allowed her and her brother to have a connection to the farm from the outside world. There were no telephones or ways of communicating with the Amish of their order. It was the way they preferred to live, isolated and private. The dreams were a nightly link to their home and Anna had been keeping them informed of their father’s condition.

“He is losing weight,” Cain continued. “Adam tells her that Father is working slower than usual and seems horribly lethargic, yet Mother says he refuses to sleep for anything longer than a few minutes here and there.”

“That does not make any sense. Has Mother contacted the healer?”

“Yes. He suspects Father is developing some sort of allergy, but is unsure from what.”

Larissa frowned. Their kind almost never fell ill. Allergies were something mortals dealt with, not vampyres. “Will you go to him?” She wanted to go to her father, but could not. If she ever returned to her home, she would never escape again.

“If he needs me I will go. You know I would do anything for any of you.” That was true. Although Cain seemed the most careless member of the family, he was as loyal a brother as one could find.

She squeezed his hand and softly acknowledged, “I know you would, Cain. So do the others. That is why I thank God every day that you are still a part of my life.”

Cain squeezed her hand in return. He understood her message. A month ago she almost lost Cain forever. Through the grace of God, she was able to keep him. They all were able to keep him, thankfully, even if the others did not truly understand what a blessing he was.

He blew out a long breath. “Enough of this melancholy discussion. If you are not hungry, then I suppose I had better be off to find my dinner, and then I will hunt for some company this evening.” He tilted his chin to the side. “Perhaps they shall be one in the same.”

As he moved to stand, Larissa stilled him. “Cain, wait.” He settled back onto the sofa and looked at her. She swallowed. “Have you ever…Have you ever fed from a mortal?”

He laughed and she frowned. There was nothing funny about what she was asking. “Dear God, Larissa. What is it you think I am doing when I take women back to my bed?”

A vision of Silus and their bedroom popped into her mind and she cringed. “I know what man and woman do. Do not forget I am married.”

“And do not forget whatever Silus did, he did wrong,” he interrupted with unhidden distaste for her husband.

“Yes, well, still I was not asking about…that. I was asking about feeding.”

“My darling sister, they are one in the same. When a male feeds from a female, it is incredibly erotic. Did you not even have that with that bastard husband of yours?”

“Do not pity me, Cain Hartzler. He may have been a bastard, but I escaped him and he will never have me back. But to answer your question, no, what we shared was never…erotic. Perhaps it is only that way for males.”

He shook his head. “No, females experience it as well. I have been intimate with enough females of our kind to know.”

“You are a whore.”

“Perhaps, but I am a well-satisfied whore who feeds often and loves equally enough. You will not find a complainer in my long line of conquests, so I feel no shame for the way I am.”

“You really should try to be a little less proud, Cain.”

“This, from the Amish female gone stripper?”

“I do not strip! I dance.”

“Tomato,
toe-mah-tow.
”

“There is a difference.”

“Whatever. Anyway, back to what you were wondering about, so long as the other party is not being harmed, I see nothing wrong with feeding from a mortal. Just make sure you remove the memory. Besides, I find their blood is stronger than that of animals. If it is true, and the bishop is searching for you, it may not be a bad idea to find yourself a mortal to feed from, to keep up your strength. Perhaps you could bed one as well. I would hate to see anyone live their life with Silus Hostetler as their only reference for coupling.”

“I will not!”

“Awfully prudish for a stripper, ahem, my apologies. Dancer.”

“You are an evil brother.”

“Yes, and Adam is the angel. What is a boy to do with such an incongruent existence to that of his perfect twin? It really does keep me up at night, you know, thus all the company I must keep. They soothe me.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“I know. Now I must be going. It is getting late and if I want to find a partner for the evening, I had better get moving.”