Darkness Embraced Part 21

The Dracule sat up and moved toward me. I realized she was about to kiss me and had a moment to fear, to think that the mouth in which she was about to kiss me with was not a mouth made for kissing, when the silk of her fur brushed my lips. Her maw opened and the ribbon of her tongue tickled my bottom lip.

"Kisss me, vampire." Her voice was a whisper of a hiss that sent her breath tickling against my mouth almost as much as her tongue had. "Kisss me and I wil change for you."

Her tongue danced against my mouth and this time, I opened to her. Her tongue slipped past my lips like some long and thin piece of candy. It flattened alongside my tongue, dancing a wet bal et in my mouth. I pressed my lips to her furred mouth and found it was too large for me to do what I wanted to do. I was not capable of returning her kiss. So instead, when she withdrew, I traced the black line of her lips with the tip of my tongue.

The Dracule growled, deep and rumbling. It was a sound far more animal than the serpentine hiss of her voice.

She pressed her mouth roughly against mine. I did not feel her change. One moment, a mouth too large to kiss was pus.h.i.+ng against me and the next I felt the soft ful ness of human lips. Her tongue spil ed into me, velvety and warm. I opened to her, kissing her back.

The Dracule spoke with a woman's sensuous mouth. "Is that better, vampire?" The blackness of her eyes receded to reveal gold irises slashed with branches of onyx lightning. Although her face was that of a beautiful woman, the long spaded tail that swayed behind her and the leathery wings stretching from her back were not. I leaned back to ful y see the pale body against mine. A dusting of obsidian fur covered the mound at her groin.

We knelt on the bed in front of each other. She looked down at me, craning her neck slightly. I pressed my stomach against the slight bulge between her legs, rubbing against her. "Yes."

The Dracule turned away and I touched her cheek.

"Show me your fangs."

Slowly, she opened her mouth. Her fangs were not so very different from a vampire's. The only difference was that she had elongated canines on both her upper and lower jaw.

She closed her mouth with an unhappy snap.

"Satisfied?" Without the long, thin tongue, it seemed easier for her to speak.

I gave her shoulder a light push and said, "I wil be."

She sank back on a bed of her incredibly long black hair and wings. I straddled her, brus.h.i.+ng my groin over hers. That node of furred flesh hardened slightly. I spread my legs wider, sinking lower on my knees until her s.e.x was nestled against mine.

The Dracule watched me with unnerving intensity.

I skimmed her s.e.x with mine, shuddering as her flesh swel ed between my legs, gliding through my wetness. I felt her against me and wondered if the flesh was large enough, st.u.r.dy enough.

A shudder rippled through the Dracule's alabaster form.

"Wil you fit?" I asked, circling my hips, dancing my flesh over hers.

The Dracule gave a breathy reply, "A little."

"Do you want me to take you inside me?"

Her eyes fel from my face to our touching groins.

Her hands found my hips, nails digging lightly into my skin. That one touch was sufficient. I shuddered, sheathing her engorged c.l.i.toral knot inside me, taking in as much of her as I could. I sat back on my heels and used the muscles between my legs to cinch like a snare around her. It would not work for long, for she was female and not a thing meant to be sheathed and cinched. But for foreplay, it worked considerably wel .

The Dracule's nails dug in more roughly. I cried out, grinding myself into the pain. The move made her slip out of me and I gave my own version of a frustrated sound.

"Rub against me," she said, removing her nails from my flesh. She left little tiny crescent imprints on my skin, but had not drawn blood.

Those magnificent eyes flicked over my shoulder and I turned to see what she was looking at.

Renata crawled in al of her pale, nude glory toward us.

"The Dracule makes a wondrous distraction," she said. "Would you cast me from your bed?" she asked the Dracule.

"I did not bargain for you," the Dracule said in a voice that was warm with agitation.

Renata's hand swept across my a.s.s and I s.h.i.+vered.

"I am not for you, Dracule," she said, turning an icy stare on the Dracule beneath me. "Do you not want Epiphany to writhe betwixt us? To watch her, trapped, a prisoner between our bodies?"

The Dracule licked her lips.

"When you put it that way, half-breed, it does not sound so bad."

I felt Renata move up behind me, felt the olisbos we had abandoned the night before pressing against my lower back. She buried her hand in my hair and jerked my head back, forcing an encouraging whimper from me.

Her breath at my ear made of my name a command, "Epiphany."

I lowered myself, trying to hold the Dracule's gold and black eyes while Renata sheathed herself inside me. Renata guided me upright, tickling her nails down my back. Her hands anch.o.r.ed at my hips and I lowered myself, guiding my s.e.x over the Dracule's mound. Renata fol owed, burying the olisbos inside me. The Dracule pressed against me, catching me by the shoulders and pul ing me down on top of her. I caught myself and was about to suggest a better position when Renata took me by surprise. Withdrawing the olisbos, she thrust her hips, impaling me with it. I gave a startled cry, body arching.

The Dracule seemed to pick up on some unspoken command, for her flesh rubbed my c.l.i.t and the pleasure was so intense that I squirmed.

Renata held me by the hips, held me stil by turning her supernatural strength against mine.

Trapped between the two of them, one like a wave of the sea and the other like the wild night breeze, it was no gentle lovemaking. I am vampire. I do not see shame in the acts of love between women and what they desired, I gave eagerly. When they pushed, I yielded. What they demanded, I surrendered. With their bodies connected to mine, I gave every inch of myself in pa.s.sionate abandon.

Renata found a rhythm, pounding between my legs as if she would leave her mark etched deep within the flesh of me. I tightened around her, ful , so ful .

The o.r.g.a.s.m felt as if it would burst, tearing me apart in a finale of bravura rapture.

The Dracule found her own rhythm, something slower and more sinuous than Renata's exquisite force, but no less dominant, no less as claiming.

Caught between their s.h.i.+ning bodies, between the forces of them, I came screaming, body tightening like an arrow ready to fly free of its bow.

When the o.r.g.a.s.m pa.s.sed, I felt the Dracule writhing against me, beneath me, her pale and slender body stretching under my face and torso. I swept my hands across her ribs and cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, driving my nails into her skin.

Her body went rigid as she cried out.

On the edges of her cries, Renata's laughter fol owed, thrumming through me.

Chapter Seventeen.

Afterward, we lay across the bed. Renata discarded the olisbos and climbed in to rest her body against the line of my back. The Dracule stretched out in front of me. She started to rise and I caught her wrist, pul ing her back down. Her tail brushed my leg, curling around it. In human form, her tail was as white as her skin. Renata reached out, idly stroking that alabaster tail with her fingers.

"Whose deaths would you have me spare? We bargained the rules of the bedroom, but you've yet to give me the names of those lives you seek to protect," the Dracule said at length.

"Did I please you so little as to only warrant the protection of three of our people?"

I raised my eyes and found the Dracule staring at me. Her expression was not a light one. I scooted forward, moving closer to her. I nestled my knee between her thighs, brus.h.i.+ng the love knot between her legs.

Of course, she could've gotten angry with me for invading her personal s.p.a.ce, especial y after the bargain had been fulfil ed. However, I did not think she would. There was more to the Dracule than anger and kil ing. So much more.

"If I ask the gender of the vampire who summoned you," I said, "wil you tel me?"

Asking the gender would narrow down the possibilities. I wondered, in the back of my mind, if Lucrezia had done it. She was power-hungry and mental y unstable enough to pul such a stunt. The Donatore, though stronger than normal humans and somewhat immortal, did not have any magic by which to summon the Dracule. If it were not so, I would not suspect a vampire had done the summoning.

The Dracule seemed to consider it. Slowly, she dipped her head forward and said, "I wil grant you that."

I traced the line of her jaw with the tip of my index finger. "And wil you stil grant the protection to three of those I care about?"

She blinked. "Yes."

I felt Renata's body tense next to mine. Her fingers stopped idly petting the Dracule's tail.

"Wil you extend that protection to the clan?" I asked. "What do you gain by kil ing our people?"

The Dracule's eyes flickered nervously, as if she wasn't sure how to answer the question.

"I wil spare al of your people...at a price."

Renata gave an abrupt laugh. "At a price," she said, "that comes as no surprise, Dracule."

The Dracule shot her a displeased look.

I traced the slight swel of the Dracule's shoulder, trying to distract her from her anger.

"What be the price?"

Ignoring the fact that Renata's arm was draped across my waist, the Dracule snaked an arm around the base of my back, lower than Renata's. She pul ed me closer to her and whispered, "I wil spare your people if you agree to bear my sigil."

"Sigil?" I asked. I knew a sigil had somewhat to do with magic, but I did not know what it meant for the Dracule. "What does bearing your sigil entail?"

Renata's cheek brushed my shoulder, her lips pleasantly and distractingly grazing the slope of my neck. "She is offering to bind herself to you. If you bear her sigil you wil be able to cal upon her whenever the whim strikes your fancy." She was silent for several seconds. "The only reason a Dracule would offer to bind themselves to a vampire is out of love. Truly, you have not fal en in love with my Epiphany so soon?" The words themselves were serious, but her tone held a thread of light amus.e.m.e.nt.

The Dracule narrowed her eyes. The look on her face made me s.h.i.+ver to the core. "I am not blinded by love of your Epiphany," she said in a voice gone low and rough. "I offer because she pleases me."

Renata sat up, nude and glorious and boldly facing the Dracule's look of chal enge. "You think to take Epiphany away from me?"

"Your claim runs deep in this one, half-bred Queen or no."

"If you think to win Epiphany's favor by referring to either of us as half-breeds, you are mistaken."

"I can speak for myself, Renata," I said, albeit softly.

The Dracule offered a triumphant look.

"Don't look so pleased with yourself," I said to the Dracule, "as I haven't agreed to anything yet, and my Queen speaks the truth. You wil not gain my favor or my compliance by cal ing one I care for a derogatory name such as half-breed. I'l not be wooed by petty insults."

The Dracule didn't look happy. I ignored it. "Why do you keep cal ing us half-breeds? She said that your kind were the beginning?"

"Would you like me to tel you a charming little tale?" the Dracule asked.

"If you wish."

"Once, long ago, the leader of the Dracule fel in love with a mortal woman."

"And?" I prompted.

"And the Dracule cannot love mortals," she said. "We crave their blood, and to love them eventual y leads to their death. Such is what happened with our King. He seduced his mortal lover and took her to his bed."

"And kil ed her?" I asked.

"While they were making love the thirst for blood came over him. He bled her to death. When he realized what he had done, he wept. He tried to return the blood he had taken by slitting his wrist and holding it to his lover's mouth."

When Renata had taken my life and had given it back to me, she had offered her wrist. It was one of the major acts in the rite of death and rebirth, in the siring of a vampire.

The Dracule continued. "He tried to sacrifice his own life for hers, and when he did not die he screamed his fury and cursed G.o.d himself. Azrael, the Angel of Death, heard the King's cries."

"What happened?"

"Azrael took pity on him. He asked the King if he would give his immortal life for the mortal woman to rise again. The King agreed and Azrael took the King's immortality and placed it inside the woman he so revered. Her name was Lilith. She was the mother of your kind."

"The King of the Dracule gave his immortality to us?"

"Yes."

It made me think better of the Dracule that once they had a king that had sacrificed his immortal life for a mortal woman he had loved and not meant to harm.

"That is why you cal us half-breeds," I said. "It upsets you that the youngest of us do not know our history and the eldest seem to forget. Your king sacrificed himself for our rebirth and none of us honor or acknowledge that, do we?"

Her eyes closed.

"Very few make the acknowledgement these days."

"We did not withhold our history to shame your kind, Dracule. There are stil those of your kind that regret your King's sacrifice," Renata said from behind me.

"But," the Dracule said, "the vampires should know of their origins. Despite those of us who hold you in contempt, we are the beginning and deserve to be acknowledged as such. Your pretty little vampires would rather pretend they were not born of the King's sacrifice than show lineage to us." She gave a bitter laugh. "Monsters and demons, they cal us. Did you know?"

Renata graceful y bowed her head. "I am not one of the vampires that agree with that, Dracule."

"Neither am I," I said. I placed my hand on the Dracule's hip.

"Then wil you bear my sigil?" she asked. "Wil you honor my mark?"