Vampire Dreams Revamped (A Sons of Navarus Prequel)

VAMPIRE DREAMS
REVAMPED
(A Sons of Navarus Prequel)

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Gabrielle Bisset
Cover Design: Talina Perkins

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Chapter
One
London, 1850

Brandon Ridley stood on the front steps of
his sire's eighteenth century home waiting for the butler to
answer. He shuffled his weight back and forth, impatient to get
this evening done and over with. Since the night Vasilije had sired
him, he'd been one of the few of his vampires to be required to
stay nearby, basically at his beck and call at all times. Vasilije
called it being one of his favorites. He called it burdensome on
the best of nights.

As the door opened, an elderly gentleman
with a full head of steel grey hair peered around it and smiled.
"Mr. Ridley, sir, it's a pleasure to see you. The master is
expecting you."

Walking past him, Brandon smiled in return.
"Thank you, Stanton. How are you this evening?"

He noted the weary look on his face and
wondered what Vasilije's poor butler had been put through that
night. A strait-laced Victorian man, he was for sure an odd fit
with the most hedonistic pleasure seeker Brandon had ever
encountered.

"I am fine, sir. The master is in his parlor
with his guests. May I take your coat?"

Shaking his head, Brandon patted the man on
the shoulder. "No, I don't plan on staying, Stanton. But thank you
all the same."

"As you wish, sir."

The sweet smell of incense and opium hung in
the air, and Brandon had to steady himself against the wood paneled
wall outside the parlor as the heady fragrance hit him. It was
going to be one of those nights.

One step into the room confirmed this. The
sounds of some exotic melody floated softly through the air from an
instrument foreign to Brandon, mixing with the smoke and erotic
smell of sex that permeated the parlor. On the red velvet sofa near
the fireplace, his sire sat as if he held court with half a dozen
naked women and men surrounding him. As he spoke, they hung on
every word. Brandon didn't recognize any of them and studied each
to determine whether they were vampire or human.

Or something else. One never knew at
Vasilije's.

"Brandon! Come! Sit next to me."

All six heads turned to see who had so
easily supplanted them, and Brandon saw by the looks on their faces
that they were disappointed. Dressed in his usual proper attire, he
looked more like a solicitor than a reveler at the night's
debauchery. As he took his place on the sofa next to Vasilije, they
were dismissed with the mere wave of a hand and walked away sulking
to find their own enjoyment.

"We started without you," Vasilije said with
a grin as he caressed his tongue over the razor sharp tips of his
fangs.

"That's quite all right. Did I miss
anything?"

His sire arched one eyebrow and leveled a
penetrating stare at him. "You'd miss everything if it weren't for
me, Brandon. You'd stay in that dreary house of yours with those
dreary servants and drink your port. You're a vampire, not some
boring widower waiting to die. Why don't you act like it?"

"Why do you keep me around if you find me so
boring? You have other favorites."

Vasilije looked over Brandon's shoulder and
smiled broadly. "I do. Here's one now."

Turning, Brandon saw Delilah, another of his
sire's favorites. Stunning, with long pale blond hair and a body
that Brandon was sure must drive most men to complete distraction,
Delilah was as vicious as Vasilije was decadent. And she hated him
as much as he did her.

"Brandon, I see you're wearing your coat.
Leaving so soon? Too bad."

Behind him, Brandon heard Vasilije's deep
chuckle. Delilah was nothing if not consistent. From the moment
Vasilije had sired her, she'd been jealous that he had others he
preferred, even over her. If she thought she could get away with
it, she would have staked all of Vasilije's favorites long ago.

"Delilah. So nice to see you again."

She sashayed past him and sat on Vasilije's
lap. In some ways, she could look so innocent, like she did now as
she twirled the ends of his jet black hair around her dainty
fingertip. But just beneath the almost childlike surface was a
nasty woman.

"Vasilije, why did you want me here
tonight?" he asked as he avoided Delilah's cold stare.

"It's time you fed. I haven't seen you in
weeks. And I feel like it's my duty as your sire to ensure you
leave that house of yours every so often."

He was right. It had been weeks since he'd
fed from another vampire, and the lack of the blood of his own kind
was beginning to take its toll. The fact that the opium nearby was
having an effect on him already told him he better feed soon.

Eyeing Delilah's attempts to distract
Vasilije with her hand between his legs, Brandon stood to leave. He
could go another night. "I can come back another time. You look
engaged."

"Not in the least. Delilah, go find
something else to amuse yourself with until I'm ready." Vasilije
roughly pushed her hand away from his crotch and tipped her over
onto the sofa. "But don't make me come look for you,
understand?"

Just as the earlier half-dozen disappointed
souls had moped away after being dismissed, Delilah left in a huff,
but not without first shooting Brandon a nasty look. As Vasilije
watched her leave, he chuckled again. "She's quite a spitfire,
isn't she?"

"She's a bitch, Vasilije. Plain and simple.
You can sugar coat it all you like, but she's a bitch. And she'd
stake me in a heartbeat if she thought you'd let her."

Turning back to face Brandon, Vasilije held
out his wrist as an offering. "She knows better. I've never staked
any of my vampires before, but I'd make an exception for her if she
even touched you."

Brandon drew his fangs into his mouth and
took hold of his sire's arm. Slowly, he sunk his teeth into the
tender skin of his wrist and through the vein until the blood of
the one who'd made him began to seep into his mouth. Even though he
needed this to keep him connected to their world, he knew this was
more for Vasilije than for him. For whatever reason, his sire
preferred him above all others and this was never more true than
when he was giving him blood. What had been an everyday occurrence
for years was now often only a monthly event, but the pleasure it
brought him was still as evident as the first time he'd given
Brandon blood. He saw the look of pure satisfaction on Vasilije's
face that he wore whenever he fed him, a look that had a touch of
pride to it also. He enjoyed him, and although Brandon wasn't sure
why, he accepted his sire's care, no matter how intrusive it
became.

His relationship with his sire was an odd
one, but Brandon preferred to think of Vasilije as an older brother
more than a creator. He could be cruel and vicious, sometimes even
bordering on sadistic, but he knew no other vampire whose sire
protected them more fiercely than Vasilije did him. They were as
different as night and day, yet even after more than two hundred
years, Brandon was still able to find something in him that he
respected and even loved. He had given him this life, and for that
alone, he should be thankful.

What he hadn't given him was the chance to
sire in a very long time. In that, he ruled Brandon's life with an
iron hand. While his other favorites, even Delilah, had been given
free reign to sire as long as Vasilije approved of the intended
human, Brandon had been refused time and again for years. The
result was that he was alone, as he had been for ages, while
Vasilije and the rest of his vampires sired as often as he
chose.

When he finished, Brandon thanked Vasilije
as he had every time he fed from him and moved to leave. Just
thinking about how lonely his life was made him want to get away
from the selfishness of those around him, none of whom were ever
alone, it seemed.

Vasilije's hand clamped down on Brandon's
forearm. "No, I want you to stay. You never have any fun, and
tonight I will make sure you will."

Brandon had heard a command like this from
his sire before and knew there was no chance of escaping what he
had planned. There were worse things than a night of debauchery, he
told himself. At any rate, this couldn't be worse than another
night alone.

Vasilije led the way up the stairs to a room
on the second floor. Intended as a sitting room, it served an
entirely different purpose this night. As he opened the door, he
whispered, "I have some old friends here tonight. If you see
something that you'd like, just say the word and it's yours,
Brandon."

What he saw was an orgy or something close
to it. Against the walls were men whose faces he couldn't make out
in the dim candlelight and an assortment of women around them. Some
of the bodies were half-clothed, while others were completely
naked. Brandon strained to recognize any of them from the doorway,
but stepping into the room he saw a familiar face to his left.

Vasilije's friend Terek, who Brandon had met
a few times over the years, sat naked with five women positioned
around him. Four massaged fragrant oil into his limbs, with a fifth
in charge of oiling his torso. On an average night he appeared
foreign, with his olive skin and green eyes that resembled dazzling
emeralds, but as Brandon watched him now, he seemed like a Persian
king surrounded by dutiful slaves who lived to serve only him.

"Terek brought his women with him?" he asked
Vasilije, who watched with a satisfied grin.

"No, he doesn't expose them to this kind of
behavior. They're his, not a show for the rest of us."

Brandon stared for a minute more and watched
for any sign of fangs. He saw none. "They're all human?"

"Of course. But if he wants to sire them,
they'll be added to the thousands he already has," Vasilije said
matter-of-factly.

The meaning of the statement wasn't lost on
Brandon. Unlike him, Terek merely had to desire a human to be his
and it was so. To have that kind of power must be incredible,
Brandon thought to himself as he watched the women rub the softly
scented oil into every inch of Terek's body. As a vampire turned in
the mid-fourteenth century by a Muslim trader, Terek had spent a
good portion of his life far away from the English world.
Everything about him, from his looks to the way he carried himself
to his hard, muscular body told of the exotic and powerful he'd
encountered in his travels.