sanguineangels (57 page)

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“I told you Malachai used to be a magician before he was made into a vampire. He could create illusions, but when he crossed over that power became more substantial. Not that it matters. He’s dead.” Aria helped me. I was soaked with bog water. My hunger burned within my veins, as my body used the blood I had taken earlier to heal itself. I needed more if I was going to be completely recovered by dawn, or whenever I awoke from my slumber.

“What was that?” Aria asked. Her talons extended as she searched the remains of the swamp.

“I didn’t hear anything. Can we just go?”

“No wait. It’s coming from over there.” She pointed to a tree.

I tried to hone my senses to the area she indicated, but everything was fuzzy from the blood loss. I just shrugged my good shoulder as she went up to the tree and came back with a writhing bundle.

“Look, what we have here,” she purred.

“M-m-master,” the boy whimpered.

I groaned. It was Joey the junkie. Aria offered him to me, but I turned my nose up at him. There was no way I was going to take anything from one of Malachai’s brood, especially this one, who got off on just the thought of being bitten.

“Suit yourself. It’s a shame to waste a good meal.” She smiled.

Before I could protest, Aria’s claws cut through Joey’s neck. His cranium flew like a Frisbee across the swamp and plopped somewhere in the water. A second later, I heard the swishing of alligators going after the morsel. His body stood erect, blood erupting from a geyser in his throat. Aria opened her mouth wide to catch the blood, and then let the deadweight drop, his body folding like a lawn chair on the ground. Aria licked her fingers clean and smiled at me.

“What?” she asked as if nothing had happened.

I shook my head, disgusted over the display. I really wasn’t like her in any way.

“What was the quarrel between you and Malachai anyway?” I willed my wings out so we could venture back to the city.

“It was over nothing, really. We had this game. Whoever could lure in the most humans in a century won. Well, I won by one mortal. He lost. He never let it go. He was such a sore loser, going on about how his honor was hurt and how I was a woman and all that bullshit. Finally I had enough so I left.”

Both of us flapped into the night, our wings making slight swishing sounds against the breeze.

“I’ll never understand what makes you guys tick. When this is over with I want nothing more to do with any other vampires.”

I yearned for Veronica to be back in my arms, but I was no closer to having that. Malachai didn’t help. The only real lesson I learned coming to this place was how perverted other vampires were. I just wanted everything back to normal.

Aria laughed. “You can say that now, but one of these days you might be knee deep in a brood yourself. Don’t discount the future. Things have a way of coming back to you. Just you wait and see.”

“Is that a prophecy from the Delphic Oracle or are you just saying that?”

“Oh, I’m not telling. You’re the psychic, you figure it out.”

I groaned, not even acknowledging her, and moved even more swiftly into the night, to a soft bed where I would lay down my head and fall into a dreamless sleep.

My name is Ronnie.

“Ronnie,” Devon called my name.

His voice was smooth and strong. I melted inside as the syllables of my name twisted around on his tongue. I gazed up at him and then bowed my head, rubbing up against his knee. He ran his fingers along my spine and I shivered. The sensation made me want him then and there, but I waited expectantly.

“Your child is coming for you. Do you know this?”

“Yes, Master. I’ve sensed her in my dreams.” I paused, my voice nothing more than a whisper so it wouldn’t hurt my Master’s ears. I knew my child was coming for me. In my dreams I had seen her fighting with an Ancient. Devon knew she was searching because she wanted me back, but he did not have the daymare visions I had. He was not blood-bound to her. He hadn’t given her a new life. I had wondered if he had dreams of me, being able to track me over the years, but somehow I knew he hadn’t.

When I woke that night to the glorious rays of the moon, my child had been on my mind. In the vision I had, I felt fear for her. That was strange and I surmised Veronica had somehow unshackled herself and was running rampant in my mind. I hadn’t wanted Brenna to get hurt. Something in me desired to comfort her, and even as I woke to greet the night, I had troubling emotions. I should have gone to my Master, but he wouldn’t understand. He would think that I was turning into my human counterpart, that I was turning into a meat-lover, too.

“What is it, Ronnie? You have something on your mind. I can read it in your thoughts. Tell me; I won’t be angry.”

I sighed, looking up at my Master briefly to get a read of his face, but it was as blank as uncarved marble. Veronica turned as I mulled over the decision of whether or not to tell Devon how I felt. I decided against it. I didn’t think it would be the best. I didn’t want to fall out of favor.

“It’s nothing, Master. I only fear for you if she comes. I wish nothing to happen,” I lied, lowering my head, hoping he had not been monitoring my thoughts as I said this. I felt ashamed. For the first time I lied to the one who had brought me into this glorious life, where I was a god to the mortals we fed on. I simply did not know how to tell him the truth. I did not want to appear weak, but the more I thought of my child, the more I craved to be reunited with her. In my visions, I experienced feelings for her. This was not related to my human side. I truly felt something for the girl. I wanted to nurture her, and as much as I loved my Master, I felt something was wrong.

His hand ran down my spine again. I responded, but for the first time his touch elicited no true thrill. The more I thought of this, the more I realized he didn’t care for me. I worshipped him, showed him kindness, was an obedient servant; but now that he had me back, he was bored. It seemed our rutting was only to relieve his tension. Inside I cried out in frustration.

See what have I been trying to show you for years
, Veronica whispered in my thoughts.

I whimpered, trying to ignore her, but her words echoed in my thoughts. I leaned against his leg, but it was only to regain my composure. My Master thought it was to get more attention. He patted me again, his claws digging into the vertebrae of my back. He traced the curve of my muscles and went to my ass, swiftly inserting his talon into my asshole. I drew in a breath and backed into his talon as he impaled me. I heard him sigh as if doing me were a job. Within a second he had withdrawn his talon and mounted me, sticking his cold, hard dick into my cunt. He reared up against me and I participated as expected, but this time I took no enjoyment from his touch. For the first time, I distrusted my Master. I closed my eyes, wondering if my human side was actually right.

My Master withdrew from me, but it was an automatic response. He slapped my ass and mumbled something, dismissing me. It was all I could do to keep from hissing at him. I held my forked tongue and crawled away, back to the corner in which I slept. I sat, closing my eyes, trying to figure some way to warn my child before she came here, before she was broken and turned into something like myself. I did not want to see her get hurt.

I curled my lips at this thought. No, my Master would not turn her into a slave. She would outsmart him. I knew this. As the sun rose over the horizon, signaling my sleep, my only thought was of her.

My name is Brenna.

My nostrils flared at the scent of crackling bacon. The smell of it turned my stomach. I yawned, wondering what day it was. The last thing I remembered was my shoulder aching after my confrontation with Malachai.

Then I had fed, drinking from a victim who crossed my path. My attack had been vicious, but like my first victim, I could not kill him. Even then, with the wounds I had sustained, I took another, drinking until I was sated, leaving my prey alive. Aria laughed at me, as I had been so vicious with Malachai. I paused, looking up at her, blood dripping on my naked breasts, and growled. Aria made the comment that I wasn’t as different from her kind as I thought. I projected a mental slap into her mind and she quieted down after that. I finished my meal, sating my hunger. Blood surged through my system, renewing some of my strength. It cleared my brain, moving away the cobwebs so I could focus. It warmed me, making my heart speed up as the blood settled in my system.

I licked my lips again as I thought of the thick, salty fluid. My stomach growled, but then the smell of eggs wafted to my nose and the contents of my stomach threatened to come up. The thought of what Aria was doing in my kitchen made me get out of bed.

I stretched, noticing the stiffness of the muscles in my arm and my leg where the werewolf had clawed me and Malachai had almost severed my arm. When I examined the wounds, only faint pink marks remained.

“Humph!” I was impressed with my body’s ability to heal. I slipped on a robe.

“Hi,” Aria called, chipper as the morning sun trickled in through the shutters.

I winced at the light, letting my eyes adjust to the brightness. “What the hell are you cooking?”

Aria smiled as she moved breakfast onto two plates and offered one to me. I picked up a piece of bacon, sniffing it. The hardness cut into the ridges of my fingers. The scent of it impaled my nose, causing me to sneeze. Never before had I smelled something so hideous. The burnt pork, which I used to eat on occasion, held no appeal to me and reminded me of burned rubber. I dropped the piece of blackened meat, marveling that it didn’t break when it hit the porcelain plate.

“You should have some. You’ve been asleep for two days, so I thought you might be hungry. I hope you don’t mind.”

I shrugged, listening to her chomp on the bacon, grinding it between her teeth like broken glass, pounding it to dust. I cringed at the creaking her jaw made as she swallowed the meat. I didn’t understand how she ate the stuff when all we needed was blood to survive.

“How can you eat that?” I finally asked.

“Just because our bodies don’t need this stuff to survive, it doesn’t mean we can’t take in human food. Most of us lose the taste for it, but it helps when you’re eating in public. Then there are no questions. Besides, I find that what humans eat is delectable. You still drink things, so why not eat? Besides, don’t you wonder what chocolate tastes like now that you’ve changed? Trust me; mortals don’t know what they’re missing. It really is better than sex. Well, human sex anyway. So why not have some?”

I scanned my plate one more time and knew I couldn’t eat the bacon, but the eggs looked edible. I grabbed the fork and popped a few of them into my mouth and chewed. Their rubberiness was nothing new to me, and their taste was the same, still disgusting, but I swallowed them anyway. I took another bite of breakfast and saw Aria smile. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. It seemed this time they were easier to eat, probably because I didn’t need their energy to keep me going. It made me wonder what other foods tasted like. It was awkward to have the food lingering in my stomach, weighing me down as though someone had lined my belly with stones.

“Silly.” Aria laughed at me. She had been monitoring my thoughts as I examined the effect the food had on my body.

“What?”

“You have to think about digesting the food. It doesn’t happen automatically anymore. Just tell your stomach to start. It’ll get the juices going. If not, you’re going to have it sitting in there for as long as you want. I have to warn you though, it’ll be quick. Our bodies normally expel anything that is unwanted.”

I eyed her, willing my body to focus on the food in my stomach. Nothing happened at first, then my body responded to the foreign substances. She was right. It was quick. My stomach lurched forward, like I was going to puke, and then I heard it gurgling, sputtering, like a motor turning over, and my digestive juices started, working on the food.

“How do we get rid of it, after it’s digested?”

“What do you think the toilet is for?”

“Oh!”

A few minutes later I found myself in the bathroom, getting rid of the food. Aria had also said it a was up to me to think about digesting and then it would be gone, so theoretically I could wait a year before I had to dispel the food, but I didn’t think that was a good idea.

Back in the kitchen, Aria gave me a devilish grin. “I told you.”

I started to respond when images flashed in my head. At first I ignored them, thinking them to be memories of the other night, but this was different. The pictures raced in my head like neon signs. They were pieces, only fragments. They filled my head with heat and pain as I tried to make them out a second time. Soon they came too fast, and all I could do to stay conscious was to let them flood over me.

I saw images of someone’s feet. There were white walls, a black rug. There was a painting on the wall of spattered colors, but when the image came again, I realized it was the splattering of blood. There was a taloned hand, pointing at a window. I couldn’t see what it was. When I tried to focus on the object outside the window, all I saw was a box, brown and gray in the distance. It was too bright to see. The sunlight streaming in the window blinded me when I knew it shouldn’t have.

There were feelings mixed in with the flashes: hatred, pain, anguish, love, and determination. I tried to understand where it all came from, but I ended up with a black wall. My eyes rolled up in the back of my head. I thought I smelled the scent of burning hair, and when I looked down at my skin it had blackened and crisped. I shrieked and fell, landing hard on the floor. I pulled my hand into the darkness out of the light, huddling in the corner. While this happened I wasn’t exactly me, I was someone else, someone who sent me these visions. The pain was so overwhelming I didn’t know where I was. I screamed again, and then felt someone shaking me. I looked up, seeing the shadow of a man, but it was only an outline in my blurred vision, and then Aria was there, holding me. The man backhanded me, sending me across the room. I hit the wall hard, bending the sheetrock behind the paint. I tried to look up to please my Master, but when I gazed up it was only Aria, looking down at me and calling my name.

“Brenna, are you all right?” Her hand was shaking me. I cowered in her arms as she held me, afraid that he would beat me again. I had woken him and this was my punishment, but maybe I had accomplished…something. I didn’t know.

Suddenly a sharp sting across my face brought me back to reality. I opened my eyes, growling at my assailant. Instinctively my fangs descended. I raised my hand to slash at my attacker but found it held fast.

When my eyes focused, Aria held my wrist. Her fingers were clawed as well. Her eyes had begun to bleed red, her beast awakening, ready to defend her if she had to.

“Brenna.” Her voice was thick as she yanked at my hand, cutting into my flesh as her talon pierced my skin. I was intrigued by the blood moving down my arm. It trailed like oil down my flesh, which I expected to be burned, but it wasn’t. I touched my arm, ignoring the stickiness, and felt the cool, perfect flesh underneath. It had all felt so real. I touched my cheek, smearing red liquid on my face. No bones were broken. There was nothing wrong with me. I stared into Aria’s face, her eyes were now totally red, and as she breathed I saw her forked tongue protruding between her lips.

The scent of my blood permeated my nose, as I know it filled hers. I watched her tongue darting out, caressing her lips as her grip on me tightened. I stared into her eyes and offered my healing wrist to her, the blood seeping as the wound had began to close. She hesitated. Her hand trembled, the only movement she displayed, and then after a moment she brought my wrist to her waiting lips. She inhaled the scent of my blood as if testing the nose of a fine wine. Her tongue wrapped around my flesh, taking in the last bits of blood. I moaned, pressing my wrist against her lips, begging her to suck harder, and she complied.

My hand found her breast and rubbed the nipple as it rose against my touch. I grabbed her hand and moved it to my sex. I was hot and freezing at the same time as she drank out my life. Her fingers found my nub, her other hand pulling loose the tie of my robe. She sucked my blood and worked me for a few moments. I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensations. My free hand sought her moist depths, so I could make her come, but she clamped her knees shut as my hand reached her. She pulled away from me, letting my wrist drop and backed away. I whined my sorrow.

I waited there, letting out a few ragged breaths. When I had calmed down I addressed her, resting my head against the cool tile floor.

“Why did you stop?”

“It’s not right. You didn’t know what you were doing. If you truly wanted me, it wouldn’t have been like that.”

I laughed. I was getting lectured by a vampire who was turning me down because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I wondered when the last time had been for Aria. Maybe it would explain why she was so cold. She thought she was high and mighty just because she was over a thousand years old. Here I was giving myself to her, doing her a favor, and she didn’t want me.

I growled, exposing my fangs. She knew I was angry, but it didn’t seem to matter.

I laughed, more hissing than anything.

“Brenna, snap the fuck out of it. Damn it, girl. Stop tripping on the superiority complex already and tell me what the hell happened!”

It had all come on me so fast, I didn’t know. It wasn’t like me to treat Aria so. She had helped me. Pangs of guilt rose, burning me, but I dismissed them as I looked at my hand again, marveling over how it had not been burned. The images didn’t make sense, but the man in them did. I knew him as Master, but I knew him in other ways, too. He was connected to me through blood. We had been one. I had looked up into his face when I had been dying. For kicks he had given me a trace amount of his elixir, lining my lips with it, just enough to taste, to keep me in my body as I waited for either death to take me or for Veronica to make up her mind and let me become one of the undead.

Then it all clicked. Veronica sent me the images. The burn wasn’t on me. Why did she burn in the sunlight? Her tolerance was high. Then I remembered what she had told me, of how bestial vampires had no tolerance in the sun. The way she attacked me the other night made me realize that her other half was more in control than her mortal self.

She was loyal to Devon. Something must have caused that to change. I felt the anger and humiliation in the images. Something transpired in her brain to make her realize what an asshole he really was. That gave me a bit of hope. Maybe she wasn’t totally lost to me. I dreaded the thought of killing the one who made me. She would not want her bestial half in control. If that happened, I would take her head, sending her soul to heaven where it belonged. Maybe then she would be reunited with her sister and the family that was taken from her. This was an improvement over what had happened the last time I encountered her. My Master—my love—was still alive, and it seemed the demon in her wanted freedom as well. If that were the case, then I would gladly give it to both of them. Cold tears seeped out of my eyes before I realized what was going on. Veronica had done her best and in her own way contacted me. I knew there was hope and that made my spirits soar. I gazed up into Aria’s eyes, which had gone slightly back to normal.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what happened. I thought you were someone else.”

“I figured that, the way you acted. What happened to you? I heard you scream. Are you all right?”

I nodded slowly, realizing how I must look. I got up, helping Aria at the same time. I gave her a quick hug and led her into my living room. I marveled at the sun as it shined onto my skin and didn’t burn me. Veronica’s feelings still lingered in my mind. I pushed them aside and thought of things that were in the images. Obviously she wanted to show me something out the window. That was why she was looking out it. Also, there was a large box thing. It looked like a warehouse. I sighed. That was mostly the whole section. There had to be something else.

“So what happened?”

“Veronica contacted me. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. She wants me to come and get her. I just know it.”

“It could be a trap. Devon could have told her to contact you.” Aria reclined on my couch, out of the direct light of the sun.

“There was so much anger and hatred toward him. It couldn’t have been a trap.”

“So then you know where she is?”

I sighed. That was the only problem. “Isn’t there any way I can sense her? Trace her through my blood?”

Aria shook her head. “The only way you can trace someone is through a mental connection. You would think since we are bound by blood it’d be easy, but it isn’t. Nothing is simple. If Veronica reached out to you and found you mentally, you should’ve been able to follow the connection back and find her on the other side. But—”