Vampire vampire, p.14
Vampire, Vampire, page 14
A body fell, hitting the dirt, but Christopher ignored it. He was on the ground himself, kneeling beside the limp, blood-drenched body of the woman who represented everything he had ever wanted, everything he had spent centuries searching for.
Just everything.
Her beautiful ice blue eyes were closed to him. There was no light coming from them now, no life. Her skin was like porcelain, pale as death, her lips a cold bluish-gray. Despair gripped him, stealing his breath.
His blurring gaze slid to the wound in her neck. It was closing, its edges drawing together with cruel, sluggish delay. He glimpsed the ring on the bloodless middle finger of her right hand. The wedding band was healing her, but it was too little too late. She’d lost too much blood – so much more than he’d lost when Rafe stabbed him. The bastard had destroyed her jugular, and nature had drained her dry in seconds.
Christopher cradled her head with one hand and raised his other wrist to his lips. His fangs pierced quick and deep, and blood welled at the dual puncture wounds. He listened, his ears straining with Empyrean sensitivity to hear just one beat, one tiny sound of hope coming from the precious heart within Anna’s chest.
He pressed his wrist to her lips, but she was still and cold against him, and his blood merely welled in her mouth.
He listened.
Drink, he thought desperately, miserably, and with all that he yet was. Oh gods, please Anna!
The portal across the clearing pulsed. Something moved, shifting, changing. He noticed it as a fish notices a bird. It was out of his world, it was immaterial. All that mattered was Anna.
“Drink, damn it!” he roared, pressing his wrist to her mouth with more fervency, before he again stilled – and listened.
Ca-thump.
Christopher inhaled a cry of hope, as, drenched in tears and sweat, he hurriedly sucked the blood from his own wrist and leaned over her to place his lips to hers. He kissed her deep and hard, opening her up to him as he always did.
Beneath him, he felt something in her change.
Ca-thump.
He rose again, shaking with desperate, giddy, rampant emotion. Once more, he pressed the open vein of his wrist to her lips. This time he actually saw her swallow. Her throat was healed, the taut skin once more smooth but for the two puncture wounds he had given her last night. They remained, as if he’d marked her, claimed her as his, and even the magic of the rings both recognized and respected that claim.
She swallowed again, and Christopher almost laughed.
He’d lost so much blood and was going to have to give her so much of what he had left, and it was the most wonderful thing in the world that he had to do such a thing. It meant she was alive. It meant she was alive!
With shaking fingers, he brushed a golden lock of hair from her forehead. Beneath her closed lids, her eyes moved. Her lips parted, exposing the tips of her small, perfect fangs.
She thought you worthy of self sacrifice.
Christopher frowned. He blinked and turned to face the clearing and the portal behind him. A woman stood beside the portal now. She had purple hair – an Orion. She had been the one to speak in his head earlier.
She was dressed in fine robes and wore a circlet on her head. Royalty?
The woman looked at him with something he would not have expected an Orion female to show toward a male. It was respect. Perhaps admiration.
I must say that for once, I agree, she finished.
The woman turned toward the portal, and for the first time, Christopher realized that she’d come out of it in the first place. That wasn’t supposed to be possible. He assumed that Anna had opened the portal for some reason; it was an Empyrean ability. But only Empyreans could travel through Empyrean portals.
How had this Orion stepped through?
The violet-haired woman raised her hand and waved it before the swirling opening. Christopher watched as the scene on the other side changed, shifting from a throne room replete with male Orion slaves to a broad shore line and a sea at rising tide. The Orion woman smiled – and stepped through.
The portal slammed shut with a loud, electrical crash and fizzled out of existence.
Christopher remained where he was, a little confused, a lot relieved, a touch stunned. And then he felt something soft and gentle tentatively slide over his forearm. He looked down. Anna’s slim fingers gripped his hand and arm as if to pull him closer. He leaned in, tenderly brushing his lips across her temple. A pulse throbbed there, a sign of renewed life. Her mouth moved enticingly against his self-inflicted wounds as she pulled and swallowed, now of her own accord.
Slowly, Darianna Grace opened her eyes, shedding a beautiful blue light on Christopher’s otherwise dark and colorless world.
Epilogue
Christopher watched the chapel’s double doors with a growing restlessness.
The last few weeks had been a terrible blur. Anna’s ability to open portals had been swiped by the Orion queen, despite the fact that the Orion had not aided her, as per the deal. As far as the Orion was concerned, Rafe Calumn had belonged to her when Christopher killed him, and taking Anna’s magic was fair price to pay for the loss of her property.
It was frustrating, but there was no arguing with an Orion.
Despite all that had happened to her, Anna’s fierce sense of duty had seen her wanting to go back to Wolfen Down to help the people there fight against the despotism of the Knights Shade and their king. Christopher thought of the four men who had helped him escape the Keep tower, men who had died fighting for change, and he knew that Anna was right. These were good people, and they’d suffered enough at the hands of their government.
Alexander Dax had taken over the Knights Shade, and all of the laws that Christopher had put into motion had been repealed. The Knights were now more brutal and exacting than ever.
In a few weeks’ time, he and Anna would be riding into Wolfen Down, their combined Empyrean armies behind them. They would put an end to the tyranny once and for all.
Right now, however, right here, King Christopher Thorn was about to marry his soul mate. Just as soon as those doors opened and she walked down the aisle….
*****
Lillyenne Grace was a beautiful child; her thick golden curls cascaded over her shoulders and down her back and her golden eyes matched her mother’s. She appeared to be around the same age as a fourteen-year-old human though she was much, much older.
Darianna couldn’t stop looking at her little sister; she’d grown so much. She was so tall and held herself with such strength and, well – grace.
I’m so proud of you, she thought to herself.
As if her sister could hear her thoughts, Lillyenne turned to look at her over her shoulder and beamed brightly. Anna readily returned the smile, nodding once in encouragement.
Lillyenne squared her shoulders and turned back to the double doors that led to the grand hall beyond. Anna followed her gaze and experienced the briefest moment of panic.
This is it, she thought. This is really it.
Christopher Thorn, crowned monarch of the Thorn Kingdom, waited beyond those doors with a contingent of soldiers and servants. Royal blood from all over the Empyrean realm had come to gather here on this morning. It was an event they had been anticipating for hundreds of years. No business was open on that day; no one who could walk was going to miss this.
It didn’t settle Anna’s nerves any to know that most of her kingdom was waiting outside the Castle walls to congratulate the new couple.
But what scared her most of all was the thought of this not happening. She had the terrible sensation that, at any moment, something would go wrong. Someone would try to take this joy away from her.
“You look as though you might pass out,” came a deep, scratchy voice at Darianna’s side.
She regarded the ancient Empyrean who had addressed her. Jonathan had of course dressed in his finest attire. His back was arrow-straight, and his blue eyes shone bright. His fang-less smile was broad and perfectly white. He was one of her oldest friends, and Anna wondered whether there was enough time remaining in the universe for her to make up for all of the moments she hadn’t been able to spend with the ones she loved.
As if he too could read her thoughts, Jonathan pulled her into a warm and firm hug. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. A bit of her trepidation melted away.
Jonathan chuckled and shook his head. “Now now,” he said, gently patting her shoulder. They separated, and Anna looked down as he pulled something from beneath the vest of his uniform.
It was a book, bound in leather, gilded in gold.
“I was to give this to you if you looked as though you were getting cold feet.”
Anna stared at it, dumbfounded. It was the lavender-paged journal that Christopher had given her two hundred years ago. Yet, it was perfectly preserved.
She reached out with trembling fingers, and Jonathan let her take it. “The king wanted me to tell you that this is only one of many surprises he will fill the rest of your days with.”
Anna didn’t know what to say. She opened the cover and ran her hand gently over the first page. She could only shake her head.
After a moment, Jonathan touched her shoulder and gestured to the doors. “Now, my queen, you’d best get in there. There’s no point in delaying.” He laughed again, the sound entirely pleasant to Anna. “There’s no way Lord Thorn would allow anything to prevent this ceremony. Believe me, I’ve never seen a man more bent on getting married.”
Anna laughed quietly and it sounded like a trembling sigh. She closed the book and handed it back to Jonathan, who carefully slid it into its hiding place beneath his vest.
“Everything’s going to be fine, sis.” Lillyenne gently placed a hand on Anna’s arm. “I’m a little jealous,” she said, laughing. “I should be so lucky as to find a king as perfect as yours.”
“Not for three hundred years, young woman,” Jonathan told her sternly, nodding once to punctuate his point. Lillyenne, for her part, only grinned wider.
There was a noise at the doors, and Lillyenne jumped, spinning to face them.
Anna had jumped too.
This is it, she thought again.
“You are stunning,” Jonathan told her as the doors began to open, and Anna’s breath stilled in her chest. “I’ll be surprised if Christopher can draw breath to say ‘I do’.”
Anna had no idea where her own breath went as the doors opened completely and the grand hall stretched beyond. The aisle had been draped in white velvet; white roses graced every pew, and the air was heavy with their perfumed scent.
At the end of the long aisle stood a group of tall, strong men dressed in royal fineries, their broad shoulders decorated with the emblems of their office. They turned to gaze down the aisle as Lillyenne grinned ear to ear and strode confidently down the velvet walkway, a bouquet of white roses between her small hands.
Christopher offered the young princess a smile of adoration.
And then he lifted his gaze to the bride, who yet waited at the threshold of the grand hall.
Darianna could feel the heat of that gaze from all the way across the massive room. It speared through her, pinned her to the spot, scorched her to the bone, and claimed her irrevocably.
“He does cut an impressive figure, doesn’t he?” Jonathan whispered as he straightened, genteelly offered Anna his arm, and slowly began to walk them down the aisle after Lillyenne.
Anna couldn’t disagree. The sovereign of the Thorn kingdom was handsome, regal, and confident to a fault. And right now he was branding her with his storm gray eyes.
Darianna was so caught up in the pull of that magnetic gaze, she missed the whispered words of awe and admiration that spoke of the most beautiful bride in any land. She didn’t hear the women whisper about how the queen’s hair shone, nor did she notice when they talked about the radiance of her eyes and skin, or the perfection of her lacy, shimmering gown.
She missed the yearning in the men’s gazes as she moved with apt grace through the massive room.
But Christopher missed none of it. He didn’t have to take his eyes off of his prize to feel the longing in the room. He couldn’t blame them. Anna looked like an angel in that dress that bared her creamy shoulders and the swell of her perfect breasts. It hugged her curves as it draped, in the finest silk and lace, to the ground and pooled like water around her lithe figure.
His body responded to the sight of her more fiercely than it ever had. As far as he was concerned, this ceremony could not happen fast enough. He wanted to get her alone, in his room, in his bed so badly that he could almost taste her now.
Darianna’s mouth had gone dry. She licked her lips and tried to settle the rapid-fire beating of her heart. This wedding was a formality, nothing more really. She and Christopher had truly been bound since childhood. So, why did the thought of becoming the wife of handsome, powerful king forever make her legs feel weak and her stomach feel like liquid?
Because he looks like he wants to eat me, she told herself. And she almost laughed out loud. It would have been a strange laugh – half nervousness, half anticipation. Christopher had always looked at her with hunger. But this was different. It went deeper. There was a smug satisfaction to the tilt of his head and the curve of his smile. There was promise in the dark of his eyes.
And when she reached the alter and he held out his gloved hand, it was almost as if he were daring her not to take it.
But Darianna Grace had never shied from a challenge. Stubborn to the core, she laid her hand in his and couldn’t help the curve of her own smile as his fingers slowly – meaningfully – closed over her own.
The End
VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE
book two
Relentless: The Patrick Sinclaire Story
By Heather Killough-Walden
A word from the Author:
The Patrick Sinclaire Story was one of my very first books. I would date it to about eight or nine years ago. I wrote it chapter by chapter, and each day I placed the new chapter up on a free literature site. I wanted to know how people would react to this kind of dark romance. As you can imagine, given the success of stories like Shades of Gray and my Big Bad Wolf series, women were mostly grateful for the novella.
The story has been out of publication for quite some time and it’s now officially seen a good deal of editing, so those of you lucky enough to get a gander at the first draft will be pleasantly surprised.
Very pleasantly surprised.
In reading it, you’ll notice certain parallels between The Patrick Sinclaire Story and my other series. My ideas do come from somewhere, after all, and I do have my likes and dislikes.
- Heather Killough-Walden
Relentless: The Patrick Sinclaire Story
By Heather Killough-Walden
(A Chronology of the Seduction and Claiming of a Vampire Queen, as told by the queen in six parts.)
Chapter One: The Meeting
The glass of wine was growing warm in my hand. Gatherings like this weren’t really my thing. I had always been a more rough-and-tumble kind of girl. I cut my own hair, loved playing drums, drove a beat up Jeep, and did not own a single pair of jeans that didn’t have holes in it.
I glanced down at the wine glass and tried to figure out why I’d really come to the party that night. The fact that my boss had made the affair mandatory for everyone in the office probably had more than a little to do with it. But as much as I hated it, I had to begrudgingly admit to myself that like everyone else who was there, I too was rather curious about the party’s enigmatic host: The elusive and alluring billionaire Patrick Sinclaire.
All around me, people milled. There was a quiet buzz of excitement and a tension to the air that felt like the sleeplessness before Christmas morning. Patrick Sinclaire had attracted quite a bit of media attention over the last few years. He was a young thirty-something, wealthy beyond measure, handsome and charismatic, who for some strange reason was still single. He had no wife, no husband, no partner of any kind that anyone could put a finger on.
As far as I was concerned, that made him a lost cause. Widowed would have been something. Divorced another. But straight up single? Maybe I was jaded, I don’t know. Or maybe it was simple logic. For a man like that to not have settled down in some manner, didn’t there have to be something pretty seriously wrong with him?
Perhaps for this reason, I wasn’t as turned on by the idea of meeting up with Mr. Sinclaire as everyone else at the gathering appeared to be. It had been a long work week. What I really wanted to do was change into a pair of sweats, curl up on the bed, and watch ten episodes of Frasier on Netflix. My mind was tired. I yearned for that final moment between wakefulness and dreaming, when my fists finally unfolded and my teeth separated from their constant clenching and my eyelids fluttered shut….
“So, I guess you’re excited, huh?”
I opened my eyes, nearly dropping the full glass in my hand, and looked up to find one of my co-workers standing beside me. He tentatively held a nearly empty scotch on the rocks in his own slippery grip.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, realizing that I’d been day-dreaming about dreaming. How pathetic was that? I was embarrassed to be so tired.
“Aw, come on!” His eyes glistened with that shine that only the truly sloshed get. “You know what I’m talking about! I bet you can’t wait to see him!” His upper lip twitched with disgust. “That rich son of a bitch who hosted this blasted get-together just so he could show off his brand new mansion and his brand new courtyard and his brand new….” He opened his arms and waved them with grandeur, spilling almost all of what was left of his drink. “Whatever!” he finished dramatically. “Makes me sick.” He swigged the last of the scotch and gave his empty glass a dirty look.
