A Midnight Rose

First off, an apology: life has been crazy this past week and the only time I have been at home has been to sleep! But thankfully I have a lot more time on my hands now so I will be able to post more frequently.

Secondly, thank you all again for your comments and your votes, they are always appreciated and I do hope you take the time out after reading the latest instalment to vote and comment on this one too!

Enjoy... mochadesire

Chapter 5

The scream split his mind like a lightening bolt. It was blood-curdling, piercing, and it almost made him smile to think someone was in such pain.

He sat up instantly, shock still, as the echoes of the cry reverberated around his mind. Where had it come from?

He concentrated hard, trying to pin-point the origin as the echoes became whispered clues in the dark recesses of his psyche. They circled alluringly, almost within reach to impart their knowledge yet just far away enough to taunt him.

Something clicked. Images washed over him, wave after wave, imprinting themselves into his memory.

Michael smiled slowly, showing his tiny, sharp teeth to a dark and empty room. His vicious fangs were elongated to full potential and they flickered like glittering diamonds in the moonlight.

The Twins would be pleased, he thought. Flinging off the crimson sheets from his king-sized bed he rolled off the mattress to place his feet on the frozen, stone-flagged floor. In a blink of an eye, he loomed menacingly over the desk of his tired-looking secretary; a young vamp of only three years.

"What can I do for you Sir?" she stammered, desperately rubbing the sleep out of her eyes to stare bleary-eyed at his naked torso.

Michael smirked. Though cute, this girl didn't have what it took to be a permanent fixture on his staff. He made a mental note to be rid of her.

"Tara, darling," he purred seductively. She shivered at his tone. "I need a ticket to the States and I need it yesterday." The girl blinked at him once, before burying her head and clacking away at the keyboard in front of her furiously.

"There is a flight leaving in two hours Sir," she said in a meek tone, "Would you like a first class ticket?"

Michael rolled his eyes with impatience. "Of course," he snapped, savouring the flash of fear that shot across the woman's face.

He spun without another word back towards his room, appearing there as if out of thin air. Throwing a bag together, he began to laugh, peals of pure evil ringing through the low rafters.

Allaine my dear, he thought, I'm coming to get you...

***

Rowan felt like she was waking up from a decade of sleep. Dark waves washed over her as she gradually clawed towards the light of consciousness.

Blinking slowly, she opened her eyes to gaze blearily at the drapes of the canopy bed she was lying on. The drapes were a gorgeous deep red, not a blood red, more of a warm autumnal one. The sheets beneath her ruffled as she stretched luxuriously like a cat. She felt wonderfully sated.

Rowan rolled over onto her side where she came face to face with a heap of solid muscle. She smiled shyly to herself, remembering tracing her fingers over that same muscle earlier, which she now recognised to be Luke's abdomen.

She lifted her chin towards his face and murmured, "If I wake up like this every time we have sex, we are never leaving this bed."

She expected a chuckle or at least a self-satisfied male smirk from the vampire but as her eyes rested on his face, she saw nothing but horror mixed with a healthy dose of shock.

His green eyes were wide and his mouth that had kissed her so sensually, was hanging wide open. "What?" she asked, unease growing inside of her.

Luke couldn't believe it. After her terrifying screech, Rowan had passed out only to wake up a few minutes later as if nothing had happened. He had lain there throughout the entire ordeal, his chest pounding, as he waited for her to wake and explain. However, no such luck for him. Her cerulean gaze was almost serene with only a touch of concern as she met his stare.

"Can you honestly tell me you remember nothing?" he croaked hoarsely. She sat up on the bed, drawing the sheet that she had wrapped around her close as if in modesty. Rowan frowned, her nose crinkling.

"I remember one of the best nights of my life," she said slowly, smiling wickedly at him. She threw in a seductive wink for good measure; but that did nothing to sway him.

Luke leapt off of the bed; unable to understand what was going on. He began to pace the breadth of the room in front of her, blissfully unconcerned of his nakedness. She watched, avid, as the muscles in his torso and legs clenched and relaxed with each movement.

Luke was muttering under his breath. He paced a little and then stopped, looking at her sharply, and then pacing again. He looked like he was fighting an internal battle. He stopped pacing suddenly and came to crouch in front of Rowan.

He sighed, hanging his head. "Are you human?" he whispered carefully. His mate looked taken aback.

"Of course!" she exclaimed scornfully, bunching up the covers so that they covered her swaying chest. Suddenly the room felt very close, as if the walls were moving in on her. Luke's gaze was intense, sharp enough to seem like it could drag the information he needed from her mind, whether she knew it was there or not. He had looked expectant and now he seemed disappointed; if not disbelieving.

Luke chose his next words carefully. He did not want to frighten Rowan away again. "When we had finished... urm-having sex," Rowan wanted to laugh he seemed so uncomfortable, "You, well- you screamed and blacked out. And I don't mean a scream in a good way," Luke rushed out, staring Rowan straight in the eye as he said it.

He saw no lies in her azure eyes. Instead he saw the shock ingrained in the flowing lines of her face, the wideness of her eyes, the flutter of her full eyelashes.

Rowan shook her head. "I don't remember that," she muttered hoarsely. Luke was looking at her intently, as if in deep thought. Picking up one of her stray hands, he began to stroke the knuckle absent-mindedly.

"The scream didn't sound human," Luke whispered, almost too low for Rowan to catch. She gasped and snatched her hand out of his grasp. He looked at her sharply in surprise at her sudden withdrawal.

"What are you saying Luke?" she asked icily. "Are you saying I'm lying?" She struggled to stand, attempting to keep the silky sheet wrapped firmly around her to preserve her remaining shreds of dignity. "I have been human all my life and trust me when I say that I am not an otherworlder!" She punctuated her words with sharp jabs to Luke's bare chest.

Luke held his hands up in surrender. "

La mia rosa

," he placated, slowly retreating as she advanced on him, fury blazing in her eyes, "I am not calling you a liar; trust me, I am just as confused as you are."

Rowan seemed satisfied for the moment. The anger she felt slowly seeped away and in its place was burning curiosity.

"Do you know anyone who may understand what happened?" she asked quietly. Luke raised his hand absent-mindedly to stroke the line of her jaw with the pad of his thumb. She bit her lip.

Cocking his head, he said, "I will get my best people searching." He paused as if in thought. "I guess that means dragging Philippe away from the gym for a while," he added drying.

Rowan giggled; she was glad that the tension between them had dissipated somewhat. A voice in the back of her mind wondered whether it would always be so hot and cold between them; whether they were forever cursed to either hate or love each other.

All thoughts fled her mind when she felt the smooth sheet that she had been clutching so tight around her body, be tugged loose. She heard Luke pull in a breath harshly as the material slid over her luscious breasts like a waterfall. She shivered as it whispered across the smooth planes of her abdomen to pool delicately at her feet.

Luke bit back a groan. All thoughts of anxiety and fear had fled from his mind as soon as the silken sheets had slithered away, revealing to him her body in all its glory. Earlier he had been too quick to appreciate it but now he felt like he could stare at her all day and still not get bored.

The head of his swollen penis brushed insistently against his lower abdomen but for the moment he ignored it's almost painful throbbing.

"Stand in the middle of the room," he ordered hoarsely. Luke was surprised he could even form words right now; the woman before him literally took his breath away.

Rowan frowned slightly and considered refusing. But then an idea flashed through her mind and she fought back a sly smile. Instead, she dipped her head in obedience and moved past him to stand centre stage.

Luke gasped harshly again. Flicking all her hair over one shoulder, she looked back at him through her full eyelashes to see his mouth hanging open slightly.

"What is that?" he croaked, his eyes wide and blinking fast. She still had her back to him as he approached her. Reaching out, he traced along her back, not following the angles of her muscles, but instead the dark inked lines that swirled across them.

Luke hadn't noticed Rowan's fourth tattoo until she had walked past him just moments before. Whereas the rose was sinfully seductive and the two Chinese symbols he had noticed on each wrist were small and simple, this final one was the complete opposite. Almost spanning the entire of her toned back, it was one of the most beautiful pieces of art he had ever seen.

Luke knew that not everyone liked tattoos, some seeming to think that they were vulgar and unnecessary. Indeed, he had previously not thought much of them: most of the ones he had seen on women seemed frivolous and he remembered thinking, in some cases, that they would seriously regret their decision to get ink come their forties or fifties.

But this one was different. He saw for the first time that body ink could be a form of art and that if it was; this was certainly the Mona Lisa of the tattoo world. He saw clearly that it obvious meant something to Rowan, that blood, sweat and tears had gone into this piece to make it magnificent.

The tattoo was a phoenix. Erupting from roaring flames that billowed from around her waist to the nape of her neck, its wing tips brushed the top corners of her shoulder blades so that if she were to look over one shoulder, she would be able to see the soft, curving feathers. Predominantly black and red, Luke noticed other subtle colours. The flames extended all the way from a dark crimson, through a piercing yellow, to an electric blue. The mystical bird itself redefined the term 'all the colours of the rainbow'. To Luke it seemed that each individual feather was of a different colour, but that each one slotted together perfectly to make a collage of pigments. It shouldn't have worked, but it really did.

Rowan had stood silently whilst the vampire had stared in wonderment at the work on her back. She knew that there would be time to tell him the story behind it and all of the other ink spanning her body, but for now, she wanted to have a bit of fun with him.

Spinning around quickly, she almost stumbled against his hard chest when she realised how close he was. She could feel her breath against his warm, golden skin when she breathed out; she could feel the bristles of the light spattering of hair that was flecked across the upper part of his chest tickling her cheeks and she could feel his engorged member prodding insistently against her stomach.

Recovering from her initial surprise, Rowan winked cheekily at a stunned Luke before she dropped silently to her knees. Facing his groin she wondered not for the first time how in hell it had fitted inside of her. It wasn't huge, but it was certainly much bigger than all of her past conquests, and she had thought some of them had been on the large side. Maybe it's a vampire thing, she thought absent-mindedly, before running her fingertips lightly across the taut, bunched muscles of his thighs. He's pretty tense, she thought wickedly with slight smile.

The second Rowan had dropped to the floor Luke had bit his lip so hard that it had begun to ooze blood. Once there, she had seemed to pause, as if unsure, and Luke had considered telling her it was okay. But then she had begun to trail her slender fingers across the fevered skin of his upper thighs and all rational thought fled Luke's mind. He didn't know how simple things that she did got to him so badly but right now, her innocent administrations were enough to make his eyes roll back in his head.

Rowan enjoyed teasing Luke. Every little grunt or gasp, every roll of his eyes, were like fuel to her fire. However, she took pity on him when his legs started to shake and his stifled grunts became a little more urgent.

Swiftly, she bobbed her head and sucked the entire mushroomed head of his hard-on into her warm, moist mouth. She looked up through her eyes to see Luke's reaction as she continued to lick lightly against the ridge at the base of the head whilst it was still in her mouth. His eyes were shut but his jaw was rigid and clenched. His nostrils were flaring widely and his fists were tightly balled.

She let his head go with a satisfying pop and heard a sharp exhalation of breath. Once again she looked up at Luke to see him gazing down at her with smouldering eyes. The emerald of his pupils had darkened to a deep moss green, almost black. She shivered at their intensity.

Maintaining eye-contact, she slowly enveloped his member again, drawing it as far as she could into her mouth. His dark orbs narrowed to slits and the tension in his jaw returned. She kept staring at him as another inch slipped past her lips. She felt the tip of his cock pushing against the back of her throat and the formation of a small tear as it fought against her gag reflex.

Rowan persisted. Swallowing, she fought to get yet another inch. It was her eyes that rolled back this time as she felt his large head slip down into her throat. Both of them groaned simultaneously.

Luke could have roared when his felt his erection slide down Rowan's scorching throat. As both of them had moaned, the vibrations in her throat made him almost lose balance and all the muscles in his body clenched tightly. Girls had managed to deep-throat him before, but none of them had done it like Rowan. As he met her cerulean eyes once again, he could see that she really wanted to please him; and that it was arousing her at the same time. Breathing in harshly, the cloying scent of her arousal hit his nostrils.

Rowan rumbled gently in her throat, knowing that the vibrations caused would be immensely arousing for Luke. Her eyes widened slightly as she felt his cock harden just that little bit more. How could he possibly get any harder, she thought wildly. Slowly she began to rock her head back and forth so that his throbbing pole was moving gently back and forth between her stretched lips.

She began to stroke his length with her tongue as it passed over it again and again. Every time she felt his bulbous end pass into her mouth she would suck lightly, varying the pressure and intensity with every pass.

Luke could not think straight. Rowan pleasured him like a skilled courtesan and yet he could tell that she was simply following instincts. He reached down to stroke the delicate line of her jaw again, lifting her chin slightly so that their eyes met.

"If you keep that up sweetheart," he whispered tightly, "I'm not going to last long." She released his cock with another loud pop that elicited another animalistic moan. She cocked her head with a slight smile before rising up to his level.

"That was the point," she purred seductively in his ear before backing away slightly as if to peruse his reaction. He did not disappoint.

With a quiet roar that was purely masculine, he grabbed Rowan roughly and threw her back onto the bed before following quickly. Luke's eyes were glinting softly in the low light, his short hair slick with the sweat that had beaded his brow.

"What had come over you

la mia rosa?

" he asked softly, swiping his rough tongue along her collar bone. With a seductive gasp, she replied, "This is me accepting that I am your mate. This is me not wanting to hold back anymore."

Luke stilled, frozen by the power of her words. He knew that she was placing an enormous amount of faith in him with her acceptance and he suddenly felt a shiver of fear that he might not be able to live up to all her expectations.

These tiny fears were pushed to the back of his mind however, when she pulled him close to her. Their heavy breathing the only sound in the room, Luke placed a sweet and tender kiss on her swollen, pink lips.

"Finally," he murmured with a grin which she reciprocated whole-heartedly. He thought that in that moment she was the most beautiful he had ever seen her; hair in disarray, lips dark pink was abuse and a light sheen covering her smooth skin. Briefly reminding himself to ring Philippe, Luke smiled again. It may have happened quickly, but by god did it feel right.

***

"This had better be good," Philippe grumbles good-naturedly down the phone. He had been working hard in the gym when his private mobile had rung insistently. At first he had ignored it, instead choosing to increase the weights he was now bench-pressing in the ultra-modern, well-equipped gym in the basement of the vampire lord's mansion. However, three phone calls later, he had decided that it was probably important.

"Leave it Philippe," the voice was equally grumpy. Philippe smiled down into the device; Luke was obviously having trouble with his lover again. It amused him greatly that the two clashed as much as they did, even though it was painfully obvious that they were meant for each other.

Philippe snapped back to attention at the melancholy sigh he heard emitted through the phone. "I know that sigh," he said, "Something is really wrong." For once, Philippe was sombre. He had heard no hope in that exhalation; Luke seemed completely at loss.

"We seem to have a problem in determining what Rowan is," Luke started slowly. "Well, I say we, but I have only recently discovered that she may not be as human as we all seem to think she is. Unfortunately for us, Rowan is none the wiser." There was a pause. Philippe waited for his friend to continue with bated breath, the cogs of his mind already beginning to whirl.

Luke took up his story again uncertainly. "We had just finished- well you know- and then all of a sudden just out of the blue, she screams this... inhuman shriek, almost like the banshees of old." His voice shook a little. "It was one of the single most haunting experiences of my long life. Never have a heard a sound so devoid of all human emotion and yet so anguished at the same time. Then she just collapsed on the bed; she fainted clean away."

Philippe mused, completely baffled. "Did she remember this when she woke up?" He heard a harsh bark of laughter, the phone line crackling with its intensity.

"Yeah, I wish," Luke said resignedly. "She doesn't remember a thing. This made her particularly aggressive when I started saying that I didn't think she was human."

Philippe snorted. He could just imagine what Rowan had been like. He got the feeling that the raven-haired beauty lived by the philosophy 'shoot first, ask questions later'. He almost felt sorry for Luke having to be on the receiving end of her rage but then remembered that Luke could give as good as he got.

"Luke, I'll be in your office in just a second," Philippe affirmed before disconnecting the call. He felt that this would be a conversation better had face to face.

Slinging on a vest, he sped to the wood-panelled room on the second floor of the house where Luke was waiting for him. Upon seeing his friend's state, Luke smirked. "Jesus, Philippe, you couldn't have had a shower or something? The sweat is still dripping off of you for fuck's sake!" Philippe shrugged. Despite being immortal, he still adopted the mentality that life was too short to do tomorrow what you could do today.