Come to me, p.4
Come to Me, page 4
“And dangerous. Do you not know what lurks in the forest?”
“All manner of wild beasts,” she admitted. “But surely they only come out at night?”
“Some walk by day.”
“Then I shall have to trust you to kill them for me.” The nuns again called: “Samira! Samira!”
Nicolae frowned. “An unusual name.”
A smile flashed across her lips, even as she glanced, worried, in the direction of the unseen nuns. “Yes. It means ‘She who entertains.’”
“Does it?” he said, and he stepped closer. The frown was still between his brows. Samira felt his skepticism again asserting itself, trying to break the spell of the dream. “I think I have heard it once before....”
Summer solstice! Samira cursed silently. Why can he not just enjoy this?
“They will find me. I must go!” The girl turned quickly, her skirt swirling with the movement, and hurried away from the calling voices. Her quick movement startled Nicolae out of thinking about her name, and he set off after her. The silent pursuit drew up deep predator/prey urges from within him, his blood heating with the need to possess the girl.
The voices fell away behind them. After a few minutes of hurrying through underbrush and pathless forest, they came out of the trees and to the edge of a brook. Its surface glittered with sunlight, its banks green with tender ferns and grasses.
The girl set down her basket. She grasped hold of the neckline of her blouse and billowed it in and out, fanning herself. “I’m so hot.”
The power of speech was quickly abandoning Nicolae’s dream self, his animal instincts rising to the fore. His eyes went to the neckline of the girl’s blouse and stayed there, his mind torn between wanting to watch her and wanting to pull her to the ground and plant himself between her damp thighs.
The girl untied her blouse and touched the dewy skin above her breasts. “I wish I could lie down in that water,” she said. “It would feel so good, rushing over my skin. So cool. It’s tempting, don’t you think?”
“I would not mind if you wanted to do that,” he managed to say.
“Oh, I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be proper. I shouldn’t even be here, talking to you.”
He shook his head. “No, you shouldn’t.”
“You won’t hurt me, though, will you?” she asked, wide eyes looking up at him, full of innocence.
His throat refused to work for several moments, and then he managed, against all his desires, to growl out, “You shouldn’t trust men you meet in the woods.” He pointed with his chin back in the direction from which they’d come. “You should go back to them. Now! Before you’re sorry.”
Samira muttered in frustration. What was this? Nobility? The wench was begging to be taken. What was wrong with him? Samira felt a sting of rejection, as if it was she herself he did not find tempting enough to take advantage of.
The girl stepped closer to Nicolae and parted her lips. She put her hand on his chest, then trailed her fingertips down to his groin. “They never let me near a man.”
He was already hard with desire, and moaned as the dream Samira’s hand pressed over him through his clothes. His hands came up and tugged the kerchief off her head; then he dug his fingers into her braided hair and tilted her face up toward him.
Samira felt herself on the verge of victory and shivered with pleasure. Nicolae’s desire was doubling and trebling, pushing him down the path toward release, and creating an echo of delight in her own ethereal body. The innocent-girl-gone-wild fantasy never failed to push a man to the brink. Never!
“Take me,” the girl begged. “I want you to be the first. Take me, quickly, before they find us.”
Nicolae’s desire froze. It went cold within him, the burning heat of it flaming out. He stared at the face of the girl—at Samira’s face—and suddenly shoved her away from him.
“No!”
The girl stood staring in shock at the rejection, just as Samira herself mentally gaped at what had just happened. No? He was saying no?
“Get away from me,” Nicolae said, backing away from the girl, shaking his head in refusal. Tremors ran through his body, and a sick, nauseated feeling was uncoiling in his gut.
It was fear, Samira realized. What in night’s blazing stars was wrong with him?
“We’ll be quick, they won’t catch us,” the girl said, going after him. She pulled the gaping neck of her blouse down over one shoulder, freeing her arm and one breast.
Nicolae barely glanced at it, his eyes making frantic scans of the woods around the small clearing, as if seeking either intruders or an escape route.
“They won’t find us,” the girl said, and Samira put all her power behind the words. “It’s all right. They won’t find us.”
Nicolae wasn’t listening, the force of his fear blocking out everything but its panicky need to flee.
Maybe it wasn’t the threat of intruders that was scaring him. Samira cursed that black wall that had hidden his innermost desires from her. There was something back there that scared him to death.
Could he be a virgin, terrified of humiliation?
“You don’t have to do a thing,” the girl said, reaching out and touching him. Her hands slid down to his hips, and she dropped to her knees. “Just let me touch you.” She reached up under his short tunic, her hands brushing against the folds of the linen loincloth exposed by the gap between the legs of his hose. She plucked at the ties of his hose, even as Samira plucked at the strings of his desire, trying to recapture the tension.
The girl pulled his fear-flaccid member out from under his clothes and licked her lips. She looked up at him with wide eyes and shivered in delight. “You’re so big!”
He looked down at her, and at his own shrunken self, and his dreaming mind rebelled at the dichotomy.
The grass around them darkened and turned to a stone floor. Walls appeared, and angry, unseen men began shouting, their weapons clanging as they ran by outside, orange torchlight flickering through an uncovered window. Nicolae jerked away from the girl, stuffing himself back inside his garments. “Damn you!” he said to the girl, and dashed to the wall, leaning against it and carefully looking out the window, as if afraid to be seen.
Samira fought against the strength of Nicolae’s mind, trying to force back this dark scene. Grass and ferns began to sprout through the floor. The wall against which Nicolae leant turned transparent, forest appearing on the other side. The sound of voices faded.
Nicolae stood blinking in confusion beside the brook.
Samira took the clothes off the girl and let her hair loose from the braid. Naked, with ruby hair down to her waist, she walked up to Nicolae. “You’re safe here, with me. Safe,” the girl repeated.
The fear faded from Nicolae’s blood, but it had stirred him halfway to waking. The doubts were again crowding his mind, the magic acceptance of dreams dissipating. Logic was taking over. He frowned at the girl, and then recognition hit. “You!”
Samira grimaced, and quickly changed the girl’s appearance. Now she had shoulder-length black hair, and was taller and heavier, her breasts full and ripe. The girl and Nicolae were now standing in a simple bedroom, with white sheets folded back invitingly on the bed.
“Come,” the girl said, taking Nicolae’s hand and trying to lead him to lie down.
He yanked his hand away, staring at her as if she were covered with the pox and had just offered to share a dose with him. “Succubus,” he hissed.
“What nonsense are you speaking?” the girl asked, appearing hurt, and she turned half away from him, as if suddenly shy of her body.
He backed away from her. “Succubus,” he repeated.
Samira muttered in frustration. The man simply refused to have fun. What was wrong with him?
There was only one thing to do: bring on the harem.
The scene changed to one of golden light and marble floors. Jewel-toned cushions and carpets were scattered through a vast room, brass braziers burning incense, trays of dates, figs, and almonds offering up their treats to dozens of semi-nude women. The women lounged on the cushions, gauzy veils barely concealing breasts and loins, gold jewelry heavy on their necks, arms, and ankles. Each woman was unique, as if she’d been plucked from a different corner of the globe, and yet each one was equally hungry for the touch of a man.
“Nicolaaeeee,” a blonde called, reaching out her arm toward him as she writhed in frustrated desire on the floor. “Please, Nicolaaeeee ...” She touched herself between her legs, her eyes closing as she arched her neck in pleasure.
Nicolae’s eyes widened, and his heart took on an erratic, hurried beat. Heat flushed his body and his manhood came to life, hardening as he watched the woman pleasure herself.
A dark-skinned Nubian called him. “Nicolae, please!” She was on all fours, her rounded buttocks toward him, her legs apart to show her sex. She looked back over her shoulder at him. “Please!”
Samira felt Nicolae’s desire swamping all thought from his mind, his doubts inconsequential in the face of so much potential pleasure. He stepped toward the Nubian.
Yes! Samira had him now! The stronger his desire grew, the more strength she had to make the dream vivid, and the harder it should be for him to break free.
Twin girls from India lolled together on a carpet, one licking the other’s breasts. A pale, freckled Scot massaged oil over her own body, while an Oriental girl nearby fondled an ivory phallus in her hands, and then stroked it against the Scot’s inner thighs.
The imp of vanity came back to life inside Samira as Nicolae moved toward the Nubian. She didn’t want to watch him enjoy himself with one of these women; she wanted to watch him make eager, frantic love to someone who looked like her. She’d failed earlier, but he was aroused enough now that nothing would stop him.
In the center of the room Samira created a dais, upon which was a tall marble bench: an altar, almost, draped with silks in burgundy and gold. Sitting in the center of the bench was Samira’s double, wingless and naked, scarlet hair flowing in waves down her body and marking the entrance to her sex. Samira made the details fade on all the other women in the room and pooled the light around her double.
Nicolae’s eye could not help but be drawn to her. She felt his sense of recognition and used her powers to dull the associations that came with it. All he knew was that he’d seen her before. The faint sense of familiarity drew him toward her, a mental intrigue adding to the pulsing hunger of his body.
He approached like a supplicant to a goddess, his movements slow and reverent. As he drew near, the girl lifted her hand and held it out to him, inviting him to come to her. He dropped to his knees in front of her, and she lowered her hand to his head, combing her fingers through his hair.
Nicolae’s gaze touched greedily over her body, and he put shaking hands upon her bare knees. The dream Samira parted her thighs and slid forward, offering herself up to him. He raised his eyes to hers, a question there. Samira guessed he’d never done such a thing in his waking life. Her fingers still in his hair, the girl coaxed his face toward her loins.
Samira felt the confusion and wild excitement course through Nicolae, and finally caught a glimpse into his secret desires. This was something a deep, private part of him had always wanted to do but had never found expression for. A feeling of raunchy wickedness flowed through him, a wild urge to invade and possess. He bowed his head down to the garnet curls.
Samira made her double writhe and groan, her apparent pleasure driving Nicolae’s passion and confidence yet higher. His sense of mastery and control made his erection an almost unbearable burden that he would have to use; would have to drive into this girl until he found his fulfillment. Samira felt the echoes of his desire, and derived her own pleasure from it. As she made the girl contort in pleasure, though, she wished she knew firsthand what a woman would feel as a man like Nicolae lapped at her sex.
Nicolae rose up from between the girl’s legs and lifted her so that she was lying lengthwise on the bench. He undid his hose and freed his member, and then climbed on top of her, finding his place between her parted thighs, his arms braced on either side of her body. The head of his erection pressed against the dream Samira’s damp entrance, the muscles of her sex contracting in butterfly kisses against his flesh.
When Nicolae reached his climax, Samira would get a charge of energy: It was what kept the succubi in existence. The pleasure of men was their food, their sustenance. But as hungry as Samira was for it, there was something else she wanted from Nicolae first.
Her double on the bench met Nicolae’s gaze. “Say my name,” she said.
The tip of Nicolae’s erection pressed into her, gaining slight entrance. The girl squirmed back, until he was once again outside her. “My name.”
“I don’t know it,” he said, voice hoarse, as against his volition his hips pressed him once again toward her.
Again she withdrew, Samira’s dream power making it possible where in waking life the girl would have found herself well filled. “You do know it,” she insisted.
Part of Nicolae tried to think, but his body had precedence, locking him inside the animal instinct to mate. Animals had no names, only flesh meeting flesh, need meeting need. “Tell me,” he gasped, muscles quaking as he both tried to hold himself back and tried to find his way inside her. He was not one to force himself upon a wench, but all men had their limits.
The girl lifted her hips, brushing her slick folds against his erection. He groaned, the pressure building inside him, begging for the encompassing warmth of her body that would push him to release. “Samira,” she said.
“Samira,” he repeated, the name nothing but sounds to him as he said them, his whole focus on pushing himself deep inside her.
She arched against him then, her hips angling to draw him inside. As he slid home, he said her name again, “Samira.”
And stopped, eyes widening. He stared down at the girl in horror: at her eyes, at her hair, at her mouth. “Succubus,” he hissed, and with all his strength he fought against the tide of his body’s lust and started to pull out of her.
The girl wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him within her, rocking her hips and contracting her muscles to give him a pleasure he could not refuse.
“God damn you, no!” he shouted, and wrenched himself away.
The harem flickered and disappeared, replaced instantly by darkness and the distant sounds of battle.
Samira was too stunned to react for a long moment, and then the hurt and humiliation again set in. Even in the throes of the strongest passion he’d felt in all his life, the thought of her was enough to revolt him. Embarrassed beyond bearing, Samira reached throughout his mind and broke the bonds of memory to the dream she had created for him, so that he would remember nothing of it when he woke.
Nicolae had turned his attention to the distant battle, his dream self decked out in armor, a sword in his fist. He was shouting for his men.
Never had Samira failed so spectacularly. Never had a man so thoroughly resisted her wiles, rejected her proffered pleasures. It was as plain as the full moon to her that the reason he had done it was because of who and what she was. He’d been enjoying himself in the harem until she’d put her own face there among the humans.
What a fool she had been, to seek even a moment’s attention from a mortal man. He would never see her as anything but a loathsome creature.
In the real world, Nicolae groaned and rolled onto his side. Samira fluttered into the air in a panic. He was waking up, and she did not want to be there when he opened his eyes.
She flew to the window embrasure and perched inside it, closing her wings behind her to scurry through the narrow opening, the stone scraping at her naked sides.
From outside the tower she looked back in the window. Nicolae was sitting up now, blinking at the empty room around him.
She still wanted to have him look at her, and for him to speak while gazing into her eyes. She wanted him to say her name and ask her what her deepest fears and wishes were. But that was not the way of the succubi. It went against every premise of their existence.
Why then did Samira want it so? And why was it so clearly impossible to have?
With a whimper of distress, she pushed off from the outer wall of the tower and slipped away into the Night World. She was going back where she belonged.
Chapter Three
Lac Strigoi, Moldavia
As Nicolae fully woke he felt his awareness of some alien presence wink out, like a candle quickly snuffed. He wasn’t sure how he knew he was now alone, but in an instant he was certain of it. He groaned, and let himself collapse back onto the floor, staring up into the pitch-black darkness beneath the peaked tower roof.
His balls ached with unspent desire, and he was fully hard. He had an almost unbearable urge to relieve the pent-up lust, but with an effort of will he kept his hands at his sides. He was at a loss to explain why he was in such a state, not to mention how he had ended up on the floor. He closed his eyes, trying to gather his wits. The last thing he remembered, he’d been sitting at the table, reading.
As his head slowly cleared, his sexual hunger subsided, disappearing back into the far corner of his soul from which it had crept. He hadn’t allowed himself to feel such things for over two years. Why it had happened now, against his wishes, he didn’t—
The succubus. His eyes shot open and he scrambled up off the floor, turning round and staring into all corners of the dimly lit chamber. God in heaven, he remembered now: there’d been a succubus here! Was she well and truly gone?
That sexual hunger hadn’t been his at all. More likely it had come from her.
Samira. That’s what she’d called herself.
Saints protect him, he hadn’t known that succubi truly existed, much less that such a she-devil would stand bold as daylight in front of him and introduce herself by name. Had he somehow summoned her without realizing it?
Filled with new energy, he hurried back to the table, and to the book he had been reading. The entire visitation was coming back to him now, in all its frightening detail.
