Vamp

Copyright @ calibeachgirl

All rights reserved, 2012

Thanks to my copy editor estragon and my friends Elliot and Bill for their support...

A supernatural love story... was it so strange that two women would love one another?

The Summer of 1953

Central Park, New York City...

Apprehension made her sound belligerent. "Ambrosius, why do you keep coming back? I told you I'm not interested. Why don't you leave me alone?" She desperately searched for a policeman, knowing she wouldn't find one, knowing it wouldn't have made a difference. It never did.

"It's just 'Ambrose', now. I wanted to..." he started to say. It was always the same, each time they met.

"It would have been better to just leave it. The past is over... it's dead." She gazed at Ambrose and his wolf through her dark sunglasses, her only protection against the bright light. Ever since that night, after her hair eventually turned white and her eyes gave up their color, she looked like an albino. So many years, she had been forced to come out only at night.

Even on such a warm day, she wore her clothes black, altogether too somber yet reflecting the existence she knew she had but so necessary to gain all the warmth she could. She always felt cold. She hated New York.

"The past is never dead," he disagreed, as he had done once before. "It's the past that makes us what we are today." For a quick moment, anger flashed across his face, and disappeared. He never showed emotion... except that one night, an eternity ago.

Lorelei jumped to her feet from the park bench, her small lunch still in her hands. "I... I have to be getting back," she said, looking to see if anyone was near.

"Aren't you going to finish your lunch before you go?" There was a cruel little smile of satisfaction on his lips, which made it clear it had been his intention to leave her unsettled.

She glanced at the half-eaten sandwich she still held in her hand. "I'm not very hungry, any more." She threw it toward the gathering flock of pigeons near the bench and grabbing her bag, she set off blindly, desperate to leave him behind, sensing doom if she stayed any longer, sure that he had no intention of letting her escape so easily.

A strong cool hand settled on her elbow, bringing her to a halt and quickly swung her around. "You're going in the wrong direction," he smirked. His grip tightened on her arm and would have hurt... if she could still be hurt... physically.

Her arm burned from his cold touch; she was unsure that she would be able to stand if she stayed there any longer. Lorelei began to walk as quickly as she could toward the park gate, anxious... no, desperate to leave him behind.

"What have you been doing... since you left me?" Ambrose asked, easily keeping pace with her, without effort. "I think leaving without even saying goodbye not to be very loving."

"If I had stayed, it wouldn't have worked," she muttered, desperately. "We would have ended up hating each other, so much sooner." 'Again', she thought, thinking of the same dance they did every time they met.

"I don't hate you," Ambrose said, sincerely. At least, he believed it, no matter how many times he had hurt her.

"Perhaps I feel that emotion enough for both of us. I did love you... once." She looked down at the ground, wondering if the tears would come, this time.

"But, not enough to let me live with you. You wanted me but on your terms and I couldn't live with that... I really couldn't live with that."

She thought that ironic, as if they were really living, anymore.

They had reached the small bookstore she owned and she fumbled with the keys, trying to open the locked door. "Please," she said, "just leave me."

"So... why haven't you married... on YOUR terms?" he softly enquired.

Without thinking, she said, "I have... I just forgot to mention it." Lifting her hand, she showed him the false gold ring on her finger, opened the door, stepped through and locked the door in his face. A futile gesture, she knew. No locked door or window had ever kept him out if he desired entrance.

Somehow, her wobbling legs carried her through the aisles of books into the back room where she sank on the nearest chair and covered her face with her hands. If she could cry, she would, but as she had learned, to her dismay, the undead don't easily cry.

She hated him... hated him. His words had burned in her cold, dead heart for centuries. "All the love was on my side," he had said, so very long ago.

But, it hadn't been. She had loved him fiercely, with every part of her soul... the soul he had taken from her, damning her for eternity.

From their very first meeting, it had seemed a twisted fairy tale romance, starting with what seemed love at first sight. They had met that cold, winter day in England, two months after 'Holy Innocents' Day'.

**********

Late winter, 1632

The English countryside...

It was a miserable night; a lazy wind cut through her too-thin hooded cloak and blew melting flakes of snow into her face. Head bent, she had hurried down the stone steps of the church and ran directly into him... him, who had not been there a moment before.

The impact sent her reeling and after she stumbled backwards, she ended in a heap in the mud before the great stone building. Before she could gather her wits, the man was crouching before her, an apparent look of concern on his pale face. "Pray, forgive me, lass," he said, "methinks thy countenance be sad... art thou hurt? Be not dismayed, for succor is at hand."

She looked at his features; the pale skin beneath the thick, white hair, his crooked smile that immediately made her want to kiss it and her heart skipped a beat.

It was the most interesting face she had ever seen, certainly that of a nobleman, albeit not one she recognized from the area. His eyes... his eyes shone like bright, burning red-hot coals; one look at them and she was lost.

"Art thou hurt, lass?" he asked. She heard him without hearing him. It was in her mind, her soul, her heart.

"A thousand pardons, kind sir," she said, "I did not see thee."

"'Tis a forgivable sin, methinks. Allow me," he said, quietly without speaking. He put his hand out and helped her to her feet. "Thou art as a gracious moon, but what doth thy beauty serve?" She heard him, once again, in her mind. "Thou livest too far away to reach there, tonight. We shall find a room at the inn."

"Thou dost what thou mayest," she replied, caught in his spell.

Without concern, wrapping her cloak around her tightly, seeking warmth, she followed him down the lane to the Boar's Head Inn. There was an air of toughness and strength about him. He looked confident without being cocky.

"With the strumpet, it will be more," said the keeper and then, her rescuer stared at the man and scowled.

"If thou proceedest in insolence, I will slay thee and use thy scarlet robes to carry thee out of this place. Thy courage ye may try by combat, if thou durst."

"Me apologies, m'Lord. Let me show thee to thy room, the best in the house."

Unconsciously, she had been favoring her left foot and now, after standing in the relative warmth of the inn, she gave a gasp at the swift sharpness of pain.

He stooped and his long, cool fingers moved gently but purposefully over her ankle, pressing and probing. "Methinks nothing's broken. It be just a sprain. I see 'tis starting to swell, already. I will help thee once we've found our bed."

Lorelei looked at him, still unaware that he had not truly spoken once. "No... there's no need, kind sir."

"'Tis the least, lass... Lorelei." He knew her name although she had never told him and yet was not surprised.

They sat side by side on the bed, sipping the warm, dark ale that the keeper had brought. The room was silent yet their conversation continued. She looked at his face in profile; it had a strange, stark masculinity that thrilled her and she not once thought it difficult to be sharing a room with a man she had just met.

His hands smoothed over her ankle and the dull, burning pain disappeared enough that it was as if never there.

When he drew her into his arms, her lips parted with a soft sigh. She was his and he knew it. There never was a question, either from him or her, once they had met.

He moved closer and kissed her face, her closed eyes, her throat... he lingered at her throat and she felt his fingers open her cloak and slip it away from her body as he buried his face against the warm swell of her breast. She made a sigh, somewhere between a gasp and a groan and soon every inch of her skin was burning while his breath made her shiver and her nipples firmed and ached for his touch.

Her eyes closed, her dark lashes lying on his cheeks, his mouth travelled over the soft curves, seeking, until it found its goal and he suckled deeply while she gasped and shuddered at the feelings he was causing and then she felt the bite, she felt the skin tear as the burn started and filled her soul.

She wanted to say 'I can not stand it,' but couldn't and yet understood that she would become the latest lover in a long line of mistresses.

"Thou art mine," he said. "Why ring not out the bells aloud throughout the town, to celebrate the joy that we hath enjoyed?"

She had no answer for him and lay supine, awaiting his continued transgressions upon her body.

Catching her lip in her teeth, she wished fervently that she had never met him... yet, what was she to do? Pain lanced out through her at the thought, pain that clearly showed through her face.

"I know not where I am, nor what I do," she whispered.

He lifted her chin and looked deeply into her eyes. "No?"

Her usual honesty brought the truth. "No."

His cold kiss stopped her words and then with careful fingers, touched her breasts. His manner was now so cool that she wondered if he had finished with her. Perhaps he only liked experienced women. Close to tears, she found herself unable to ask him, unable to speak at all.

She wished she was still in his arms, transported for that short moment into a magical world of passion and delight... but now, his hands, his kiss, had grown cold and impersonal.

"'Tis only I that must be disgraced."

He swept her back into his arms. "Let us dine royally at this golden feast," he said, in her mind, and sunk his teeth into her breast, once again.

The following morning, he appeared to be his normal self, as she now knew what his normal self was and he told her they were to slip away. For the rest of the day, as they traveled to the next town in the country, she prayed under her breath to a God that had abandoned her to her own damnation.

"How can I suffer hell so to prevail?" she cried in her heart. "My breast I'll burst with my grief." No tears really came. Her time for crying had come and gone, seemingly forever.

"If I could only die," she said.

"Thy hour is not yet come," he replied, "nor will it, now."

"Oh, would I were to die... the shame hereof will make me hide my head."

Before he could answer, the carriage hit another pothole in the lane and she bounced her head against the roof.

At one time, such violence would have hurt her yet, now, there was nothing. She marveled at the strange turn of events and wondered if she would even be missed as the carriage carried her farther and farther away from the small village she had lived her entire life. Perhaps, her brother might care... perhaps not. She no longer cared.

That evening, they arrived at the outskirts of Canterbury, and as she alighted from the coach, her nose wrinkled in disgust from the putrid smell of sewage lying on the cobbles.

"Virtuous Madam," said the driver, "since your ladyship is not at leisure..."

Whatever else the man would have said sank into silence as her companion glanced at him. "Beggin' your pardon, sir," the driver said.

With a flap of his traveling cape, Dracolya led her into another of what became a long line of inns until one day, they finally arrived in London.

The closer they journeyed toward the capital and King, speeding into town to beat the sunset, the more his countenance shifted. As she watched, his features were now handsome and clean-cut, his face strong and well defined, his hair white, yet he looked fit and healthy and virile.

And... he turned to smile at her. When they reached the Swan, a black and white half-timbered inn on the outskirts of a small, once prosperous village, he took a room for three nights. After a walk and a late meal, they climbed the wooden stairs and he followed her into their room, which lay under the eaves. There was a faded patchwork quilt on the bed and sheets that seemed clean. The casement windows, with their leaded panes, were thrown open to the night air.

After staring out toward a distant copse of trees, etched dark against the sky, Ambrosius turned abruptly to gaze upon her. Something in his face made her breath catch in her throat and the small scars on her breast burned when in a level voice, almost casually, he told her they were to be married.

It was towards dawn when, utterly content, she lay in his arms and he once again spoke to her in her mind. "We'll get married as soon as we reach London."

She was surprised. Marriage? It had never seemed a part of their malevolent bargain.

It was all she could do to just nod her head. He gathered her into his arms and just held her tightly, his cheek against her hair. When at last he kissed her, she expected the burn of his bite and the fear made her stiffen but then, she returned his kiss with eagerness, a feeling of melting against him, once again, holding nothing back.

All through the time they had been together, they had not consummated their relationship and if he had intended to wait until they were married, her innocent fervor was enough to tip the scales.

He kissed her deeply before lifting her onto the high bed and though she was inexperienced, she became an equal partner, matching his passion with her own. His hand spread over her shining hair and he cradled her head against his chest with tenderness, a tenderness he had kept hidden until now.

After a while, he raised her chin, gazed into her still delicate face and gave a low murmur, his mouth closing over hers. He kissed her with a combination of hunger and need, warmth and passion. She prepared herself for the bite she knew would come before the night was through.

Lorelei put her arms around his neck and held him, returning his kiss, clinging to him with the same overwhelming need, a hunger that was born in hell and felt like heaven.

Ambrosius lifted her high in his arms and began taking her clothes off without haste. When she was totally naked, he rolled her onto her stomach and smoothed his hand down the line of her spine, measured her slim waist, followed the smooth curve of her hips and the cheeks of her buttocks and then her long, slender legs to her narrow feet. He let his lips follow his fingers, his pointed white teeth giving her an occasional small bite.

She squirmed and gasped, finding the stroke of his tongue in the sensitive hollow behind her knees, and then her toes.

"Sir," she started to say, trying to explain she couldn't stand much more but he kissed her, once again. He planted a series of moist bites along the length of her throat before dropping to the swell of her breasts and there, he sucked for a moment, raising her to a fever pitch and yet she felt her skin grow cold. Spreading her legs a little apart, he worked his way down the silky whiteness of one inner thigh and back up the other. Even when she felt his weight, he lay motionless.

"Is this what thou truly wants? Thou must be sure."

She listened to him, knowing how aroused he was... she marveled at his sense of control.

"Yes, yes... I do."

Lorelei pressed her lips to his and wound her arms around his body, pressing her breasts against his chest. His exploring mouth swept over hers with a surge of cold passion... the more he demanded, the more she gave, answering and anticipating his every move. Her lips parted and her tongue entwined with his in a silent dance.

Her long legs entwined with Ambrosius', her seeking hands slipping beneath his shirt to stroke and caress his strong back. Her kisses moved lower, across his jaw and down his neck, biting on her own journey of discovery. The tip of her tongue, flicking out to tantalize, savored the warm, salty taste of blood.

He moaned with pleasure, shifting so that his body covered hers. He settled on top of her with a deep, hungry kiss, seeking blood of his own. It felt so good, so perfect, to hold him close. As he kissed her and kissed her, sucking the blood that now freely flowed as his hands roamed over her, inch by now pale inch, and suddenly, he slid between her legs.

He lifted a hand and skimmed the now creamy white skin on her shoulders and bare breasts, her nipples now pale white and taut against his touch. She closed her eyes and arched her body up against his, seeking the cold, hard arousal he offered her.

Holding her breasts in both hands, he lowered his head and slowly bit one nipple, drawing dark red-brown blood that slowly flowed to his lips, his tongue tasting the metallic flavor as it quickly clotted on his face.

Her body rippled with the shock, as if struck by lightning, a special shake that brought only the most intense sensual pleasure she had ever felt. Ambrosius' tongue swirled lazily around the tip of one now bloody breast and then the other. Wave after burning wave moved through her body as she felt, for the first and last time, a heat gathering between her legs, between her thighs, at the once fertile center of her womanhood.

She slipped her hand between their bodies, managed to cover his rock-hard erection, and felt his body shudder in her arms.

Any doubts that clouded her mind earlier disappeared with her desire... she simply wanted to make love to a man and knew she'd never felt the same again. She had to make love with him, there was no doubt in her heart and she'd remember the next moment for the rest of her damned life, no matter how long her eternal nightmare might last.

He slowly slipped inside her and she gasped at the first shock of their joining and gripped his shoulders tightly. He kissed her neck, running his teeth against her skin as he took her virginity once and forever.

She stared up at him, her eyes wide with tears, for the last time. She didn't know what to say. He began to move slowly, easily deep within as she closed her eyes and gave herself over to him, body and soul... to the sensation of being joined with him.

Her arms circled his back instinctively and her legs wrapped around his hips. She felt the controlled power in his body as he set a slow, tantalizing rhythm. She matched each powerful thrust with one of her own, in a slow, sensual dance that both filled and gave birth to a desire deep within her.

Then the tempo of their movements quickened; she surrendered to the mysterious power he had over her as his body drove deeper and faster. Wave after wave of coldness burned through her and she felt her body cleave to him, their rhythm growing wilder and fiercer. As she surrendered herself totally to him and her own deep need, the pleasure grew so intense, so sweet and so agonizingly sharp. She yearned for release yet wished it could last forever.

Finally, she felt herself shatter in his arms and she cried out in ecstasy, her body trembling as a cold dagger flashed through her, leaving her shaking with pleasure again and again in its wake.

Awakening slowly, Lorelei gradually became aware of a feeling of physical satisfaction, one that she had never known before.

Stretching, she discovered the slight stiffness, the tenderness, the ache, that a night of uninhibited lovemaking left in its wake. Lorelei touched her cold skin... skin with pallor of winter's gray sky... skin with tiny scars even now disappearing.