Trent
This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed
as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
World Castle Publishing, LLC
Pensacola, Florida
Copyright
© Kathi S. Barton 2016
Hardback
ISBN: 9781629893709
Paperback
ISBN: 9781629893716
eBook
ISBN: 9781629893273
First
Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, January 11, 2016
http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com
Licensing Notes
All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in articles and reviews.
Cover:
Karen Fuller
Editor:
Eric Johnston
Editor:
Maxine Bringenberg
Table of Contents
1224
AD
Johanna, Joe to her few friends, moved as
quickly as she could to the heap of trash that had been put out only moments
ago. It might have been filled with nothing more than a few scraps of food, but
it would be enough to fill the hole that seemed to be forever in her belly. And
maybe if she was lucky enough, she’d find a pair of shoes with only a few holes
in them, or a coat. But before she could get close enough to see, she saw
Abraham and another man. It did not look to her as if they were friends.
At first she thought they were having
relations. It wouldn’t surprise her if they were. Abraham would do most
anything for a bit of coin or food. She did not care for the man overly much,
but she would help to keep him safe even if the man didn’t seem to think he
needed her. But before she could move around the two of them, she saw that Abraham
held a man at knife point.
The man he held she did not know, but she did
know what he was. A vampire. There were plenty of them about now, feeding on
ones such as herself and Abraham when they needed food. While she knew very
little about his kind, she did know that he would kill the man that held him if
he only moved just a little. Looking into his eyes, she spoke to him.
“Please do not harm him.” The man stilled in
his slight struggle to look at her. “He is only hungry, as are the rest of us,
and would otherwise leave you alone.”
“He has a bit of coin, Joe. More than we could
have a fine meal on. I’ll share it with you should you help me. I promise I
will this time.” Joe looked at Abe and shook her head. “You just stand there
and I’ll slice his throat and we’ll find us a meal, you and me.”
“Abe, this man has done nothing to you save
come to this place of death and sadness. Let him go before he hurts you.” To
the man, she spoke again. “Please. Do not harm him. He is not a nice person,
but he is all that I have here.”
Blood moved down the handsome man’s throat,
staining the collar of his white silk shirt. Joe knew that just the cost of his
shirt would have fed her and Abe for many days. His small nod was all she
needed to let out the breath that she’d been holding. Looking at Abe again, she
took a step toward him, speaking softly, her hand guiding his away from the
throat of the stranger.
“You don’t want to kill him, Abe. Should you
do that, the food that you eat from this will taste bitter and will make you
sick for a long while. You know this.” Abe growled at her, telling her to go
away. “I cannot and you know that. Should this man kill you for what you have
done, then I will have one less person that I know here, and I have so few now.
Please, let him go so that you and I can go to the dump that is still warm from
the house.”
She didn’t think he was going to do it. He
looked determined, his face set. When his belly growled, hers did as well. It
was a sound that she was sick of. When Abraham stomped his foot at her, she
wanted to remind him that he was a grown man and that he should act like one.
“I need a fine meal, Joe. I was never meant
to be like this. I am a great man.” She’d heard the stories before. He’d come
from a grand house, the servant to a great man. But it was, like other stories
she’d heard in her life, a lie. A fabrication of something that was a dream to him,
a way to make him seem more important than he really was. But his lies, like
his stories, had long since given her a headache. Joe had given up on dreams.
They were useless without any way of making them a reality. “I will make his
death quick if that would make you feel better.”
“Nay, it will not and you will know it.” Joe
glanced at the man, who watched her carefully. “Allow this man to go about his
business. Perhaps he will give you a coin or two for your troubles. Would you
let him go for that?”
“I should have it all.” Joe shook her head
and told him to be reasonable. “I am not going to let him go without all his
coin, Joe. You cannot ask me to do such a thing. It has been years since—”
“Then I will quit you.” He looked at her
then. “I will no longer come to your aid should you become ill again. I will
not give you a part of my blanket when I have none to share with even myself. You
will be on your own. And you know that no one else will help you either, Abe.
You have made many enemies here.”
Taking the last two steps to the two of them,
she put her hand on Abe’s hand again. When he didn’t fight her, she moved the
handmade silver blade from the man’s throat, but did not look at him. As soon
as he was free he leapt from them, then fell to the ground. Joe stood in front
of Abe.
“Please don’t harm him. He is starved.” The
man held his neck and nodded while blood poured from between his fingers. She
knew that he would die soon. No matter what he was he should get himself healed
or he would bleed out and die there as the sun came up to take him. “I will
trade myself for him.”
“Send him away.” The voice was cultured, hard,
and full of hate. Her fear of the man, now that he was free, doubled. “Send him
away, Joe, and come to me.”
Nodding, she turned to Abe and then back to
the man. “Coin. Do you have a coin or two that you can spare to give to him? I
should hate to have lied to him.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a very
beautiful change purse. She could tell that it had been made with a fine hand,
and that the beading work alone was done by someone who loved their job. If
only she could have such a job. Shutting down that thought, she reached for the
three coins in his palm and took only the two that she’d promised Abe he could
have. The man grabbed her hand before she could move away.
“Give them all to him.” She shook her head
and turned to Abe. Giving him the two gold coins, she turned back to the man
when he said her name. “Why did you not take the three of them, if only to have
one for yourself?”
“I did not say that I would take one for
myself. I do not lie. No matter how hungry I am.” He nodded, his face pale now.
“What do I need to do to help you?”
“You would still come to me, even with your
friend safe?” She told him that Abe was not her friend. “Then pray, why did you
save him?”
“I did not want him dead by your hand. I do
not want anyone dead by your hand. Your kind have been killing us off for years,
and I should like to be able to think I have saved one. Even if it was just Abe
the thief.” He nodded but said nothing more. “What do you need of me?”
“You know what I am, so you know what I
need.” She nodded and moved closer to him. “Come to me. I should like to have
you drink from my wound if only to draw some of the poison that Abe has put
inside of me. The silver of it even now is racing in my veins to kill me.”
He was weaker than she’d thought. But she
knew that even in his weakened state, he could still kill her. Once, not long
ago, she’d seen one of his kind tear a man’s head off even with a stick protruding
from his belly. And then he’d stood and pulled it from him as he drank greedily
from another that stood too close.
Moving to sit on the ground near him, Joe
leaned into his neck and could smell his soap. Not that she’d had any chance to
have such a thing. She tried her best to make her way to the river at least
once a week, no matter what the weather was, to clean herself and her clothing
as best she could.
As soon as she put her mouth over the large
cut, he curled his hand in the back of her head and pulled her tightly against
him. His blood didn’t taste as she’d thought it might. There was a coppery tang
to it, but it was warm and filled her belly nicely. Trying not to think of what
she was doing, she lifted her head from his neck when he lifted her and fitted
her over his lap. Her legs on either side of his hips, she was in a position
that she was sure was going to get her raped if not killed.
“I shall not take what is not freely given to
me.” Nodding, she watched his eyes as they darkened. “If you are coming when I
drink from you, I will not need as much to fill me to heal. Do you know what I
am asking you to do?”
“You wish to have sex with me?” He nodded,
then shook his head. “I do not understand you. Should you not like to have sex
with me? I am free of diseases. Not that I wish to have it with you, but I did
give myself to you in Abe’s place.”
“I only wish for you to come for me. Have
your pleasure as if we were having sex.” Joe still had no idea how that worked.
“And I am aware of your body. Not only are you free of anything that would kill
you, but you are a virgin as well. I would guess you have had to work very hard
to keep yourself in such a state.”
“There are not a lot of men that wish to
touch someone such as me.” He asked her why. “I’m not what is considered a very
well-endowed woman. I am…too skinny, and most think me a boy.”
“You are not a boy, and that would not stop
most men that I know should you have happened to be one.” He watched her face
and she felt herself heat in embarrassment. “You are very strange, Joe. A human
that would help a vampire even though you know that it could cost you your
life.”
“I have not much of one anyway, my lord. This
is all that I have.” He pulled her body to his again; this time she could feel
his hardness. “You wish me to come, but as you have said, I have no knowledge
of how this will work.”
“I will do the work, little one. You will be
my savior and I will give you pleasure.” His laughter made her hurt with anger,
but he only pulled her to him again. “I should like nothing more than to show
you the delights of having me inside of you, but if I do not feed from you
soon, I will still be here when the sun rises. Tilt your head for me and I
shall bring you to peak. Your blood will be much stronger and tastier for it.”
Tilting her head as he had directed her to,
Joe felt the heat of his breath on her. When his tongue lapped at her pounding
pulse, she put her hands on his shoulders to hold on for the pain of what he
was going to do. As surely as she was sitting atop the man, she knew that he
was going to kill her.
The bite was gentle, almost like a deep kiss.
And when he drew deeply on her throat, taking her blood into his mouth, she
moaned before she could think that he’d hear her. As he pulled her to him
again, she could feel his hardness getting thicker, his manhood touching
something deep within her even though she was as dressed as he was.
When he commanded her to come, Joe found
herself rolling her hips up to his body, riding him, she supposed. The feeling
that he was giving her, the way that his hardness kept pressing against her
womanhood, made her hold tighter to him. She knew that something was going to
happen and it was going to tear her apart. As soon as she felt it take her, the
feeling that she’d been reaching for, her scream of release—for that was all
she could think of it being—nearly had her sobbing.
~~~
Noah drank deeply of her. She tasted like a
fine wine to him, her blood spiked with her release as well as the virginity of
her body, something he’d not had in more years than he could remember. As she
rode him faster, coming again and again, he knew that he could take her, slam
his cock deep within her and she’d let him. But, like her, he’d made a promise,
and Noah prided himself on his word. But to have her, all of her, was making
him greedy for more. When she went limp in his arms, he knew that he’d taken
too much from her weak and starved body. And the numerous releases had taken
their toll on her. He had to save her, even if it was from herself.
Sealing the wound at her throat, he looked at
her. She was pretty in a too thin sort of way. And the fact that she believed
that men thought her a boy had him thinking that she had something inside of
her that kept her from harm. But someday, and he’d bet soon, she would run out
of whatever it was and she would be as dead as most of the humans in this part
of town. Laying her beside him on the ground, Noah stood up and took to the
skies to free himself of the stench of the man who had held him.
He should have killed the man, and it had
been his intention. But he’d heard her coming toward them and had paused to see
if she’d be a tastier meal. When she pleaded so prettily for the man’s life,
not only had Noah been impressed, but he’d been curious as well. Especially
when she’d told him that the man was not her friend. Going back to the place
he’d left her, Noah did the only thing he could do…he picked her up in his arms
and took her to his home.
“My lord.” His butler and friend Michael
looked at the woman, then backed away from her. She did smell, but not as badly
as he’d smelled many times before. “You have killed her? And why, pray tell, have
you brought her body here?”
“Nay. I have brought her here because…well,
I’m not sure why I have. But I should like to have her fed and well bathed. She
saved my life tonight.” Michael looked at him, then at the girl with a new kind
of interest. “Had she not taken my blood into hers to drain the poison of
silver from my body, then fed me, you would have been without a master and I
would be like the dust that is now on my boots.”
He carried her up to the second floor. Michael
was asking him what had happened, and he told him everything. The man had been
in his service for many years and there was nothing that the man did not know
about him. He was, in a word, his friend. His only one, he supposed.