Vampire U (8 page)

A loud bang sounded as a fist punched through the van's wall just to the right of the vampire's head.  Mander's arm came through the metal all the way past the elbow, then wrapped around the creature's throat and pulled him back against the wall.

The vampire's crimson eyes went wide with alarm, and he grabbed the arm, gouging it with clawed hands.  The van rocked on its wheels as Mander pulled him 
through
 the side of the van, tearing a hole in the panel with a tortured squeal of metal.

The sensation of another being in my head disappeared like a bubble bursting.  I let out a relieved moan, but fear filled me as I began to comprehend the vampires' power.  They could control minds.  How could I hope to fight against something like that?  I slumped against the door again, gasping for breath as I listened to the two vampires snarling and tearing at each other.  Then, just as suddenly, the sounds stopped.

I felt a sudden rush of fear for Mander.  Had he lost?

Warily, I leaned into the van and peeked through the hole.  Mander held the other vampire by the throat in a high, one-handed grip, dangling his feet above the floor.

"Who sent you?" Mander said.  His voice was quiet, but it had changed, taken on a lower, rumbling tone.  I could see a red glow in his dark eyes now, as though the mask was slipping, a harsh reminder that whatever he said or did, Mander was no more human than the rest of them.

"Alex," his captive hissed as he writhed like a snake in Mander's grasp.  "He wants the girl."

Mander's eyes narrowed.  "He would never move against me.  It violates our code."

"You... were supposed... to die," the vampire said, struggling to talk as Mander's fingertips dug into his trachea.  "The Elder would think you had left us.  No one would care.  All know of your doubts.  Your weakness."

Mander bared his teeth in a snarl of rage, and he threw the vampire over the van.  Like his friends, this one burst into flames.  His burning body hit the concrete, and white-hot fire devoured him until nothing remained but memory and smoke.

I fell into the van's bench seat, breathing hard, shocked by all that had happened.  Just minutes before, I had still doubted the existence of vampires.  Now I'd seen three die firsthand and learned far more than I wanted to know.  Outside, the Terrebonne's big screen creaked and moaned in a soft wind.  The ruined van's engine had stalled, and now it hissed its final breath beneath the soft pings of cooling metal. 

Mander groaned and slumped to his knees, holding one arm across his stomach.  I saw the wet gleam of blood on his hand.

"Mander!"  My anger, fear, and confusion dissolved.  Whatever he was, whatever his sins, he had saved my life, and when I saw him weaken, I acted without thinking, scrambling around the ruined van and into the darkness.  "What is it?  Did they hurt you?"

Mander lifted his arms, and I saw that his white dress shirt had been torn apart and soaked with red.  Deep, wet gouges ran across his abdomen in ugly, jagged lines.  I reached out my hand, but he slapped it away.  "Don't touch them."  He winced in pain, and every word seemed a struggle.  "I need to... go somewhere safe.  And I must... feed."

A chill ran up my spine at the last.  "Do you mean..."  Of course he did.  "How long can it wait?"

"It won't," Mander said.  "I can't control myself much longer.  You need to leave."

"If I go, your friend Alex will find me.  What then?"

"Get out of Baton Rouge," Mander said.  "Go today."

"And what happens to you if I leave?"

"That doesn't matter.  Go, Danielle.  If you stay, I won't be able to stop myself."

I didn't know if it was the intensity of my attraction toward Mander or my inability to leave questions unanswered, but something made me stay.  Cursing myself, I offered him my bare arm, the way I'd seen it done in movies.

He looked at it, then up at me.  "You don't know what you're doing," he said.

"We don't have much time," I said.

Mander took my arm in his cool, smooth hands.  For a moment he just stared at the tender flesh of my inner wrist.  It seemed I could feel the blood flowing through the veins there, pulsing to the beat of my heart. 

"Damn me to hell," he muttered, then lifted it to his mouth.  I braced myself for a bite, but none came.  He gently brushed his lips along my skin as though savoring the warmth of the life running through my veins.  Then he kissed the inside of my wrist.  The touch ran through my nervous system like electricity.  Every part of me felt suddenly more alive, more aware.  I could see every detail of his fair skin, could feel the warm stir of air as the wind moved past the hole in the wall.

I could feel Mander, not just where he touched me, but all of him.  His hunger for my blood, his desire for my body, were as plain to me as my own feelings.  Our eyes met, and I understood fully the price I would have to pay.  I knew in that moment that if I didn't run now, I would never escape.

"Still you stay?" Mander said.

I nodded.  "Take what you need."

Mander didn't bite my wrist.  Instead, he pulled me closer.  The sudden move snapped my head back, exposing my neck.  As fast as a striking rattlesnake, Mander's teeth found my throat.  I gasped as his teeth pierced the smooth, tender flesh there.  Pain flashed, brief and bright, and then something else replaced it, a warm, sweet wonderful sensation that rushed into the wound and spread out through my body.

A memory flashed through my mind, the image of Morgan with her head rolled back in unimaginable ecstasy as Vic fed on her.  It hadn't made sense; his teeth should have hurt her.  But now I understood.  A tornado of pleasure roared around me, its roaring funnel obliterating all other sensation.

I knew I would pay a terrible price for this, just as Morgan had.  By tomorrow, I would be another pale ghost, a servant of the secret vampire brotherhood that preyed on the students of Romanus University.  But the ecstasy of Mander's bite left me unable to care.

As Mander drank from my body, taking my blood in deep, hard pulls, I knew a bliss better than any drug.  It was like every orgasm I'd known in my young life condensed into one perfect moment that seemed to go on forever.  It radiated outward from the puncture marks in my neck, lighting every part of me aflame with a hungry desire for more.

My heart hammered in my chest, and even as blood left my body, my neck flushed with heat.  My breasts seemed to swell against my bra even as my nipples stiffened and poked at the silk cups.  Gooseflesh rippled along my arms, and I became aware of a warm, throbbing wetness between my legs, a sudden craving to let Mander violate me in other ways.

I felt a new awareness of him, a sense of another being not invading my mind, but sharing it.  His emotions swirled in my head like a red storm.  His desires, hungers, and pains were mine to know and understand.  And I knew that mine were his.  I saw his affection for me, not just a physical attraction, but something more profound, maybe not love, not yet, but the beginnings of it.

My trembling hands reached out to touch him, slipping down his lean, hard chest and into the shredded tatters of his shirt to touch the wounds there.  To my surprise, I found only smooth, unbroken skin across the hard pack of stomach muscles.  I felt a thrill of delight that he had healed himself with what he'd taken from me.  As he finished healing, Mander's fangs slid out of the holes they'd made, his need sated for the moment.  He raised his head and met my eyes.  My soul wanted to dive into those black pools, to swim in the ageless wisdom I saw there.  His lips glistened red until his tongue flicked out and licked them clean.  Then he kissed me, full and deep.

As his tongue slid into my throat, I pressed my body against his, trying to get closer to his body.  I felt the punctures on my neck seal themselves shut despite the hot blood flowing just beneath the surface.  His cool skin seemed to draw that heat like a magnet; every part of me fought to touch more of him.

My need seemed to arouse a new hunger in Mander, and he came alive.  His mouth explored my lips, my neck, my collarbone, his kisses infused with a new passion.  He reached down and pulled my shirt over my head, casting it aside atop the strewn rubble left by the van.

I sat alongside him, my chest heaving as my breasts strained against a plain white bra I'd never intended to show any man.  When I saw the desire gleaming in Mander's eyes, I'd never felt more beautiful.  He dipped his head again, and I stroked the careless tumbles of his hair with one hand as he kissed the smooth, soft slope of my breast.

My other hand slid lower, down over the waistband of his trousers until it reached the bulging length of his manhood.  I cupped that hard swell, relishing the feeling of its eager pulse against my hand.

Mander tensed as I rubbed against him.  A low growl escaped his throat, a deep feral sound that both frightened and aroused me.  He pulled the cups of my bra down to expose firm dark nipples, and he took one in his mouth, biting gently.  I gasped as the sharp edges of his teeth brought me to the edge of pain, but then Mander's tongue flickered out, and my head rolled back in a low moan as he coaxed pleasure out of my breast as easily as he'd drawn the blood from my veins.

His hands slipped behind my back, stroking my pale, smooth skin.  Two deft fingers brushed against my bra's clasp, and it popped open.  I let it tumble over my shoulders, fully exposing my chest to his attentions.

Mander's hands moved lower and grabbed my buttocks.  He gave them a firm squeeze, then lifted me with the same casual strength he'd shown before.  He lowered me onto his lap, my legs straddling his body, our faces nearly touching.  My firm breasts brushed against his chest through the ruins of his shirt, and the crotch of my black tights pressed against his erection, damp warmth on cold steel.  I rocked back and forth, grinding myself against his engorged shaft, thrilling at its girth.

My want became so desperate that in that moment, nothing else mattered - not my roommate's condition, not the vampires of Beta House, not even my own impending damnation.  I reached down between us and grabbed for his belt buckle with hurried, jerking movements.  Swinging a leg over his body, I clawed at his pants, pulling them down to reveal a pair of boxer briefs straining to contain his cock.

Whether it was the roller coaster of near-death events, the supernatural revelations, or some strange toxin released into my bloodstream by Mander's bite, I felt a boldness bordering on reckless abandon.  My whole life, I'd kept my virginity, saving it for a man I'd never met, the man I hoped to marry.  Now I stood and kicked off my sneakers, then peeled my black spandex tights down over my hips, revealing myself to this monster as I'd never done for any other man.

I stood above him then, naked in the shadows of the Terrebonne's ruined structure, silhouetted by a shaft of sunlight spilling into the cavernous hole left by the vampires' attack.  I felt no shame, no need to hide myself.  Mander looked up at me with undisguised lust, and I fell atop him with hungry enthusiasm.

Any pretense of grace or control had left me.  My kisses held all the subtlety of punches thrown by barroom drunks as I attacked his mouth with my own.  My bare legs wrapped around his hips, and my hot sex pressed against his shaft through the infuriating fabric of his underwear.  Soon, he was soaked with my moisture.

"Fuck me, Mander," I breathed in his ear.  "Fuck me now."

"Danielle," Mander murmured in my ear.  "No."

I jerked my head back, certain that I'd misheard him.  "What?"

The strength I'd admired before thwarted me now.  He took me by the arms and lifted me off him, then stood.  "You have no idea how badly I want this," he told me.  "But it cannot be.  Not yet."

My mind reeled with confused frustration.  "Please, Mander," I said, climbing to my feet.  I pressed my body against him, doing all I could to entice him.  I felt desperate, even though I didn't know why.  I reached for his cock again, but he brushed my hand aside.  "Don't you want me?"

"Your mind is twisted by the feeding," he said.  "Your body's desire is a reaction to my bite.  If I take advantage of it, I'm as bad as the rest of them."

"Be worse then," I pleaded.  "I want you so much it hurts."

The vampire surprised me by sweeping me into a tight hug.  "I know," he whispered in my ear.  "But your virginity keeps you safe from us.  No matter how hard it seems, as long as you remain pure, no vampire can control you for long.  Your will remains your own."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  Where was the lustful beast I'd seen just moments before?  Anger gnawed at the edges of my desire, and a fog lifted in my mind.  My desire was real, but so were the dangers.

So were 
vampires.

I looked up into Mander's eyes, those deep and unknowable caverns of wisdom.  All that I knew about the nature of reality had been swept away in less than twenty-four hours.  And my reaction was to fuck the vampire who had destroyed my life?

Feeling dizzy, I pushed away from him.  "I don't know what I was thinking," I lied.  I still felt horny as hell, but there was room for other thoughts in my head now.  "What did you mean about my virginity keeping me safe?"

Mander tossed me my tights and turned away so I could dress in private, as though he could sense my newfound self-consciousness.  "We're predators, Danielle.  We feed on those weaker than ourselves.  Your innocence gives you the strength to fight us.  A wolf would rather survive another day than to challenge a lion among sheep.  Nothing is as important as survival."

"If that were true, you wouldn't be here," I said.  "You took a chance by coming to meet me, and now they want to kill you."

Mander snarled.  "I must risk my life in order to save it.  I told you before; the vampires of Beta have grown too bold.  They prey too openly.  If greed and lust expose us, we'll be eradicated."

"So what will you do?" I asked as I struggled to fasten my bra with trembling fingers.  "You can't kill them all."

Mander shook his head slowly.  "No, I can't."  He spun to look at me as I pulled my t-shirt back over my head with a fleeting pang of regret.  "But we can."