Bitten
————————Prologue————————
Averill left the tavern and slung her pack over her shoulder as she walked toward the livery a few streets away where she had quartered her horse. She was between jobs and while she still had enough coin left to live on fairly well if she was frugal, she had always preferred luxury to frugality. She rested a hand on the hilt of her long knife as she walked, making it clear that anyone who thought her easy prey would be mistaken. It was rare for thieves or slavers to work in a city the size of Bayford, especially with the size of the watch here, not to mention the heavy hand and dim view of thieves that the local nobility were well known for. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. She didn't want to present too easy a target for any that might be about and hoping to get lucky. It was still a few hours till sunrise, but she wanted to get an early start on the road before the farmers and merchants were up and hogging the roadway with their carts and animals. And as a result she was out and about when most people were still asleep and most of those still around were watchmen and the unsavoury drunks and night prowlers. She hated travelling when the roads near the towns were crowded, the press of bodies and the stink of animals and unwashed peasants was vile. She avoided places with a lot of people most times because of her heritage. Humans distrusted half-elves and elves largely ignored them, but hate crimes against half-breeds of any stripe were not unheard of, especially out in the frontier cities like Bayford. So she kept her distance and travelled when the roads were empty whenever she could and tried to leave well before sunup and arrive just before the gates were locked. She'd had to spend more than a few nights in the open, but she was canny and skilled, and had little fear of what might be in the forests.
Her lifestyle was fairly transient, constant travel from town to town along the Frontier borderlands and seeking employment with the various groups that crossed the margelands and went into the Frontier to the south of the settled lands. It was a good way to make relatively easy coin, but it did not lead to a life of comfort most of the time. She had stayed in posh rooms and enjoyed lavish meals and even been north to some of the great cities. And while those places were beautiful and the luxuries there were exquisite, she liked the life she led, though it meant a lot of travel. Her possessions were few, just what she carried on her person, and she was happy. Someday she would retire, save up some coin instead of spending it all and buy a house in one of the northern cities, maybe open a school to teach others her trade and enjoy a life of relative luxury. But not quite yet... she wasn't ready for retirement at her age. And skills like hers were always in demand and she could charge top coin for them for a long time yet; as a half-elf she would live three times as long as a human if she was careful, maybe even four. And she was both careful and good at what she did.
But for now it was time for her to move on, there were no jobs out of Bayford at the moment. The tavern keeper had told her that up north they were looking for blades for hire, and out in Severin's crossing, a new town that was sprouting up on the river Arncam in the east some adventurers had been sending out messengers looking for aid for some delve or expedition into the lands down that way. Adventuring paid well if you could accept the danger, and she had no desire to sign up as a soldier or mercenary and live that sort of life; far too much hassle. She turned down a side street and saw someone walking toward her in the dark and rising fog. Averill watched the other person with one eye while the other kept her surroundings under watch. It always paid to be careful; she had heard of people attacking even guardsmen when they got cocky enough... or drunk enough. And while she wasn't really afraid, she was very wary. The obvious distraction was a well-known tactic, one she had used herself to fair effect, and she was looking for anyone moving in the shadows or side streets as she gripped her knife a little more firmly. She got closer to the stranger and saw it was another woman in a long cloak. As she drew closer, Averill nodded in greeting and the woman looked up from under her hood. Averill was immediately mesmerized, freezing in place and staring at the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. She had stopped to stare at beauties before, but something about this one was different... and very much against her will. Inside, a part of her mind railed against her inaction and the dangers she was in, but she was so lost in the beauty of those eyes that she couldn't do anything about it. She felt something on her wrist, and her arm being moved away from her weapon, and the woman before her smiled and let her hood fall back.
Averill was in awe of the beauty before her; long elegantly pointed ears, slanted, exotic eyes and fine ethereal features denoted her as a full blooded elf. And to Averill's half-breed blood, elves were always the loveliest creatures in the world. Several of her past lovers had been elves of both sexes, and while their hubris was off-putting, they preferred half-breed lovers to humans or other races. Averill didn't object or even move as hands divested her of her pack and weapon belt, and the woman stepped in front of her and looked up at her with a smile. Averill was tall for a half-elf, standing just past five and a half feet, but this elf was barely five feet tall, if she was that. Averill gladly bent her neck to watch the enchanting woman and as the stranger reached up with small, slender hands and began to unlace her shirt. As she reached out her cloak parted and fell from her shoulders and the pure, radiant beauty of the creature was breathtaking.
She was nude under the cloak, her body lithe and trim and smooth, her skin nearly so pale that it was translucent. Her small breasts were topped with nipples so pale that they were nearly lost on her skin and she was clean and lovely in every possible way. Averill gasped and shivered in excitement and ecstasy as the woman unlaced her shirt and opened the front, baring her flesh. The shirt was stripped away from her, by whom Averill couldn't see, leaving her bare to the waist, her breasts firm and high on her chest and just large enough to droop a little and the small woman cupped one gently as she looked up at Averill and smiled, her mouth seeming to open too far for her fine-boned face. Her soft pink lips parted to reveal a crimson mouth and perfect white teeth. But something about those teeth seemed wrong, though Averill couldn't place just what, couldn't seem to focus on anything but the beautiful eyes that held her enthralled.
A part of her, that small, still awake part, was struggling desperately to regain control of herself as the woman leaned in closer. But Averill arched her back and presented her flesh for the elven woman. The tiny woman nestled her head between Averill's breasts, placing soft kisses on her heated skin and Averill felt a sudden moment of sharp pain. She gasped and sobbed, coming back to herself for a moment, wrenching her mind free and her eyes away from the tiny elf as her heart raced in terror.
"Vampire!" came to her mind and her arms came up to push the attacker away. But hands grasped her wrists, holding her arms still in an iron grip as the pain was drowned in a wave of perfect, complete pleasure.
She gasped as a powerful pressure centered on her sex and a throbbing, powerfull lust washed through her body, the vestiges of resistance drowning in the bliss of surrender as the small elf sucked the blood from Averill's breast greedily, as if she were nursing. Averill's spine ached from her hips up to her shoulders and she sobbed in pure joy as the hands released her wrists and moved across her body, touching her everywhere and seeming to send sparks across her skin. She moaned in pleasure and didn't flinch as her pants were stripped down her legs and she was lifted and then laid back on the cold cobbles among the slight morning mist that was slowly turning to fog as she looked up at her assailants.
Her pants and boots were stripped away as she lay on the ground, immune to the cold and the damp of the morning, the pleasure still radiating from her breasts, where the enchanting woman still suckled, and two more women looked down at the pair with the same crimson smiles, the pearly white of fangs bared in the night. Both were human, and both were stunningly beautiful. One had short dark hair, little more than a cap of dark ringlets on her head and the other was blonde with long, flowing hair past her waist. They wore simple white dresses that any peasant might wear and grey-blue cloaks that blended in with the night mists. The part of her that was still Averill knew real dread then. There had been rumours of a coven of female vampires that had been hunting all along the Frontier for decades. Their prey were always women, men were either slaughtered and left them to bleed, but women vanished, never to be seen again. And Averill was their latest victim, though she could not make herself understand why this was so bad as the pleasure that centered on her breasts began to radiate through her entire body.
The blonde woman knelt and Averill felt her legs being parted and the cool caress of lips on her thighs as the woman kissed her heated flesh and caressed her body. She had thought that Vampires would be cold, as they were undead, but their flesh was not much cooler than her own and as the blonde's bite pierced her inner thigh, Averill cried out in the throes of a sudden, powerful orgasm. She was no stranger to sex, but she had never felt anything like this before. Her legs were spread wide, and her sex was convulsing in ecstasy as the second mouth pierced the flesh of her wrist and the night above her dimmed slowly as her life was leeched out by the three women. She knew that she had lost a lot of blood, that she should be dying of it, that she should already be still and unconscious, helpless. But she was still awake, still aware and the powerful pleasure went on and on and on. The part of her that was still her was fading, the fight to regain her will was slowly being lost, and she didn't care. She felt a stirring at her breast and the small, enchanting woman rose to look Averill in the eye.
"OH, MY LITTLE ONE, YOU NEEDN'T WORRY... I WON'T LET YOU DIE. YOU WILL LIVE..."
The woman's voice was raspy and rough, completely at odds with her appearance. It was as if her throat was badly damaged at some point and had never healed properly. There was more, she spoke on, but Averill swooned, close to unconsciousness as she felt a hand caress her abdomen and slip down to cup and cover her still clenching, gushing pussy, slender fingers caressing her folds and delving her depths as the elven woman smiled and lowered down to kiss Averill deeply, her tongue parting the taller woman's lips and Averill felt a warm, salty flood in her mouth, and the taste of copper filled her throat as the kiss deepened. She swallowed on reflex and felt stronger and warmer as she returned the kiss with all of the fervour that she could muster and clenched at the hand that was caressing her with her thighs, clamping her legs together as a small finger delved her depths and caressed her most sensitive spots tenderly, as if the elf knew exactly where to touch, just how hard and exactly what to do. Averill moaned and writhed, her hands coming up weakly to try and caress her lover, but the woman at her arm, the one with dark hair, held one arm still as she sucked at the torn flesh.
