23. Vampires are Sexy
23
VAMPIRES ARE SEXY
SAYAH
A lthough the past several minutes have been unreal and blurry, as though I’m living in a dream state, I’m now fascinated with this man and his story, determined to know everything.
Vampires exist. One is sitting in my living room.
And I have fucked him.
I have to know everything about him now.
“So, how old are you, really?” I ask as we sit on the couch, drinking my non-alcoholic wine from swirling blue glasses.
“Two hundred and eighty-six. I was born in 1737 and made a Vampire in 1773. I celebrated my fortieth with a beer during the American Revolution.” He grins as though he’s making it up. Still, I know that he’s telling the truth.
“And you were born in Italy?”
“Yes.” He smiles, taking a sip of his wine. “I was raised in Florence with my two sisters and two brothers.”
“And how? How did you come to be a vampire?”
Dom rearranges his legs to face me better, setting the wine glass on the white-washed barn-door coffee table. “My mom is a powerful witch. She had lost a few kids before my oldest brother was born, so when she became pregnant with him, she put a spell on him, thinking it would protect him in the womb. When he survived, she did the same for all of us kids, and each one of us was born with this spell in us.
“We were all at Ollie’s bedside when he died at twenty-nine, leaning over him, crying. He was still maybe ten seconds, then he gasped, shot up, and grabbed Hattie by her neck. His eyes were white, those long pointy teeth coming out of him, almost killing my sister; blood was fucking everywhere. We hadn’t ever heard of vampires. We didn’t know what the fuck this was. He would’ve killed Hattie if my dad hadn’t socked him in his face, knocking him out. When he came to, his eyes were normal, his skin was peach again after being gray from being sick for so long, and the broken nose from my dad—healed. Then he started walking around,” he says, animating his arms around with the story. “Like nothing had ever happened. We were baffled.”
“So what did you do?” I ask, leaning in, picturing the first one of them turning for the first time and thinking how scary that would be.
“We didn’t know what to do! My mom felt it had something to do with her spell, so she returned to that shaman. He told her what was to be our protection in birth made us immortal in death. The shaman had heard of creatures like us. He said that because the spell was done with blood and the moon, those became our slavers. But that didn’t sink into my mom until Ollie went outside in the middle of the day and nearly burned to death. We got the fire out in time before it left any real bad scars, but you can still see them on his arms, legs, and stomach. Stark reminders of why we can’t go into the sun.”
“I can’t imagine being without the sun.” I tilt my head, trying to imagine a life in the dark. It bristles me to no end. I feel so bad that Dom can’t go in the sun.
“Who cares about eternal life if you have to live in darkness for the rest of eternity?” he responds solemnly. The way his posture crumbles, his eyes glisten, and his mouth turns down lets me know he misses the sun as much as one would miss the rain if they couldn’t have it anymore. “Scarlet has tried a few things over the years, trying to spell amulets and talismans to try and help us meet the light again. Nothing’s ever worked.”
“No? What happened.”
He rolls his sleeve and points to the swirly and beautiful skin under his ink. “Got burned real bad. It’s not fun. You burn from within. Then it bubbles up into flames if you stay in it too long.”
“Holy fuck. That’s awful.”
His face is reflective like he is reminiscing on the last time he tried entering sunlight.
“What’s it like to be a vampire? You said you don’t like killing, so do you eat animal blood like in Twilight ?”
“You know, I’ve never seen that movie.” He chuckles, the slight wrinkles on the side of his eyes scrunching together. “I heard they sparkle, and I couldn’t handle that.”
The image of this handsome man in front of me glittering in the sunlight is enough to cause me to laugh out loud. “Same,” I reply, setting my fake wine down as I shovel my feet under me on the couch, hugging a pillow.
“But to answer your question, yes and no. It isn’t sustaining, so it’s like eating a few grapes for you. Human blood is satisfying and filling; we don’t have to kill to get fed. The only time I kill, it’s people like those guys in Vegas. I choose the bad ones, those who don’t deserve to live. Other times, I get by with animal blood or feeding on someone enough to sustain me. Then I veilweave them to forget, and it's as though they never met me.”
“Veilweave? What’s that?”
“We have magick in our voices that enchant people to do what we say. They can’t refuse; they are spellbound.”
“So, like casting a spell on someone with your voice?”
“Exactly.”
“Wouldn’t everyone within earshot be hexed then?” I ask, wrinkling my brows.
“Not exactly,” he responds, leaning in closer to me. His eyes bore into mine and again I feel calm, like I’m falling into them. I want to do anything this man wants me to do. Anything. “We pull you in real close like this. Then unlock our magick, like clicking a lock open. Because of our eye contact, you feel drawn to me when I whisper to you. Like you would do anything I asked of you. I would then say, ‘Raise your arms,’”—my arms shoot up above my head of their own accord—“and voila. You are veilweaved.”
“That’s fascinating,” I reply, looking up at my arms chilling in the air.
“You can put them down now,” he says, releasing me from my compulsion.
“What other powers do you have?”
“Like all vamps,” he smirks, leaning back into the couch cushions and propping his arm over the one between us, “I can heal fast. I’m strong; I have a wicked sense of smell and hearing. I can veilweave people and manipulate memories.” His eyes pinch as though he’s trying to remember everything. “We all have that way of making you feel completely at ease, not scared. Making you easy prey.”
The way his gaze turns sinister toward me is sexy.
Come eat me up, Mr. Vampire Man.
Frigid feathery kisses dance along my spine as I scoot closer to him. “What’s the difference between the blood?”
The green of his irises retracts and compounds into a vertical shape as he tracks something across the room. “Human blood is more sustainable. I can go twice as long without blood when I drink it. It’s because of a person’s life force. Their memories. Sometimes, I see them when I drink their blood. And if I drain them completely, I can take on their traits.”
The memory of him being utterly different in Vegas after he killed those guys shoots through me. Even his walk was different. “Is that what happened in Vegas? After. . . ?”
His expression turns sad and discouraged. “Partly,” he replies softly. “And also partly because I don’t like taking human lives. I detest it.”
“So you veilweaved the people at the party to tell you who the guys were? And then again to forget you were there?”
He nods .
“How could you veilweave so many people at once then?”
He shifts a bit, cocking his head to the side. “With larger groups, we can expand our magick. Directing it to a larger crowd is harder since it’s both the eye contact and the voice. I turned the music off, stood on a chair, and projected my veilweave outward. It, like, covers them like a net. Then I said to forget I was here and that a fight broke out, and the dudes turned on each other.”
“So you could totally rob banks if you wanted?”
He laughs, the features of his face softening. “I could. Definitely.”
“Well,” I say, leaning into him more. “If you ever need a partner in crime, I’m your girl.”
Pulling me into him, he kisses the top of my head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Laying my head on his chest, I can hear his heartbeat. His skin is warm. He smells delicious. I want to kiss more answers out of him. I unbutton his shirt and kiss his chest. “Have you ever veilweaved me?” I ask in between my kisses.
I feel his heart rate pick up. When he doesn’t answer, I look up at him.
The nod he gives me is riddled with shame.
My own heart drops. “When?”
“The night of our first date,” he confesses, his voice shaky. “There had been an attack. Grimspawn. They were eating a woman. I was able to save her and divert them, but you saw things you shouldn’t have. So I veilweaved you to forget the altercation.”
I lean back from him, scratching my head and swirling my hair into a messy bun. Having someone you are falling for being able to fuck with your mind whenever they want is disarming. Having that power over someone is unsettling. And the fact that he altered my memory to think that I had fainted bristles me.
“Can you give memories back?” I ask, trying to hide the hurt in my voice.
“I can,” he replies.
“I’d like to relearn it.”
“Are you sure?”
Taking a deep breath I nod. “Yes. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”
“Okay. Hold still.”
He draws closer to me, his eyes focusing on mine, and I feel I’ll fall within them. As his razor-sharp focus dials in on something profound in my soul, the lost memory of the night comes rushing back. I remember him almost kissing me, us running to the alley . . .
I teetered behind him on unsure feet, following him to where he heard the noise. Finally, we reached a place where four buildings met, and the alleyway was dark. There was a woman on the ground and a hooded man standing over her. I couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing because three other men and one woman were blocking my view, watching whatever was happening on the ground.
Dominic moved so fast I didn’t know he had released my hand. The hooded figure who was standing over the woman on the ground was flying. It landed hard against a giant metal dumpster.
The three hooded men acted as though they were as bewildered as I was and went to make a move on Dominic. Stealthy, he thwarted all three as they came at him, punching one so hard he fell to the ground and hit his head on the pavement with an offensive crack. Dominic’s body moved so fast I couldn’t see him connect with the other two; as they barreled at him. He used a roundhouse kick to one of the assailant’s faces, who went flying in one direction, and the other soared toward the back door of another establishment.
My mind was racing a million miles a minute, and all I could think about was going after the girl.
Watching this go down, the woman backed away and headed toward the alley exit. While Dom was fighting the one man who had gotten up from the doorway and was coming at him again, I went for the female.
My heels were rhythmically clicking on the ground, and when the woman turned to look at me, I swore her eyes were glowing red.
It must have been the light, but I would never know because the woman was on me, pinning me to the ground.
I scrambled under her weight and blocked her punches to the face, trying to get back up and get the upper hand .
All I saw was the woman shooting up and away from me, falling upward into the dark of the night.
I had yet to learn where the woman landed or if she even did.
Dom was there, holding out a hand to help me up.
As I got to my feet, Dominic was gone again, and I thought I must have hit my head on the pavement, for when I looked, he was over at the woman on the ground.
I gained my bearings and walked over to them when I was pulled in the other direction.
My hair flew before my face, and I couldn’t see. I think I screamed, but when I gained my vision back, I saw that it was Dominic who was pulling me away from the scene.
Minutes later, we were sitting on a park bench. Dominic held my face, speaking into my mind, veilweaving me to forget everything I saw.
I’ve been gazing at nothing in particular during the resurfacing of the memory. It’s so odd to have a memory you don’t remember doing in your head. It’s fuzzy and crumpled around the edges and almost seems like a memory of a movie I’d once seen rather than something I lived through.
I slide my gaze back over to Dom, who’s waiting, anticipating my relearning the memory.
“So weird,” I say.
“Isn’t it? My siblings have done it to me a time or two.”
“Can I ask you something?” I say, putting his hand in mine.
“Anything,” he replies.
“Please don’t ever take a memory from me again without asking me first, okay?”
All levity diminishes and he holds my stare sternly. “I promise.”
“Thank you. So, who was the woman with the red eyes?” I ask, pulling my hair from the messy bun and flinging it over my shoulders.
“She was the warlock controlling the grimspawns.”
Letting this uneasy, tangled feeling wash over me, I say, “Grimspawn?” That word is flickering in my memory. I remember reading it in my grandmother and Mama’s grimoires.
“Fucked up creatures that are basically reanimated dead things, sorta like zombies,” Dom answers and almost shudders at their memory. He pulls me back to him so I’m leaning on his chest. “They eat people and take on youth and memories of those they eat, ultimately changing into the person they fed on. Eventually, though, those faces melt off, and they’re just like these faceless creatures with sharp-ass teeth.”
“That sounds awful.” Thinking of these awful things, knowing they’re out there lurking, sits uneasily in my bones. I don’t like thinking about evil monsters roaming the world my kid lives in. “Who the fuck makes these things?”
“Warlocks,” he says, playing with my hair, twirling a long tendril around his finger. “Dark warlocks. Behind every monster is a witch or warlock.”
“Why would anyone want to make something so evil and deranged?”
“I know it’s linked to an ancient curse. But I don’t know what that is. We’ve been fighting grimspawn all our lives. But we don’t know much more about them. We feel the warlocks use the grimspawns to live forever without having to do any of the killings. Their life forces are connected somehow.”
“How do you kill them?” I ask, unbuttoning another one of his buttons and feeling his soft skin.
“Grimspawns can be killed in the way you’d kill a vampire. But the warlocks keep making them and we don’t know how to kill them yet. They have magick too powerful to get near them,” he answers. His voice steels, frustration lingering in the inflections—as though he’s tried hundreds of ways to kill them before and has come up with nothing.
“And how do you kill vampires?” I don’t mean for the octaves in my throat to go up a few notches, like I need the information for nefarious reasons. But. I’m cuddling with a vampire. A girl needs to know how to defend herself.
He puffs his chest out to get a better look at my face and grins suspiciously, his perfect white teeth gleaming. “And why, pray tell, would I tell you that information?”
He tickles me, and I squirm.
“You know, in case you decide to get wild. Ya girl’s gotta know what to do in that situation.” I laugh as his tickles abate. “No, but for real. Just in case I run into another vampire that isn’t as charming and fucking sexy as you.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he says.
I lean my head on his chest again.
“Pretty much everything you heard is false—except the sun. Sunfire projectiles—weapons infused with sunlight can kill us. We can be killed by silver-laced anything because it fucks with our regenerative powers, and some vamps have lethal allergies to it. Cut off our heads, and we’re fucked. We can’t look into mirrors that aren’t spelled.”
“What?”
“Yeah, mirrors!” He laughs. “I don’t know why that’s a thing. But if we look into a mirror that isn’t spelled, we’ll see our actual age and become it.”
“No way!” I say back. “So, like, is there some vampire you made that didn’t know and is walking around all ancient and decrepit?”
His chest heaves with laughter. “I would imagine so, yes.”
“OMG, I would totally do that to someone who fucked with me. Like not tell them about the mirror thing and have them get all old and ugly!” I’m laughing so hard my stomach cramps.
“Next time some bitch crosses you, I’ll turn her into a vampire for you, and we won’t tell her!”
“What? I have a few people in mind right now.” We let our laughs hold us captive for a few seconds. “So what do you do to stop it? I mean, you look fine as hell for a two-hundred-and-eighty-six-year-old. I, myself, don’t feel a day older than thirty, and you’re over here making two hundred look good.”
The sly smile and stricken gaze he gives me flickers butterflies to life in my stomach. “Hattie. She can make people see what she wants them to see. So she spelled mirrors for each of us. In spelling these mirrors, we only see what she wants us to see when we look into any mirror—so long as our spellbound ones are near us.”
“Wow, that’s fascinating.”
He takes my neck gently and tugs my face toward his. “You’re fascinating,” he growls and lights me up inside.
Taking my lips into his own, my core tingles and his charisma floods me. He’s so fucking sexy, and being a killer, a predator who could end me with a flick of his wrist, excites me to no end. I feel his tongue slither onto mine, and I moan, his lovely mouth destroying me.
He’s still grasping my neck, and his other hand wanders down my shirt and pinches my nipple, sending charged little ripples right to my clit.
Arching my back, he finds his way into my pants and slides his finger from my opening to my clit, swirling his fingertip gently at its center.
The hand that was around my neck reaches into my shirt and pinches the other nipple, causing exquisite pain to send my vision to the stars.
Writhing in pleasure, he covers my breast with his mouth, biting and gripping firmer to get a better mouthful.
I almost cry out but remember how sound carries and stifle my scream.
Coming back up to me, he slows down, pulling my lower lip into his.
“Mmm,” he says, his sultry lips still wrecking me. “I could eat you right now.”
Peppering kisses down his neck and reaching over to feel his cock, I say, “Please do.”
Growling, he takes my lips hungrily for a few seconds before he lets go. Holding my face in his hand he pulls me away. “Not here. Not yet. I don’t trust myself with you just yet.”
Slipping my hands down his pants to feel his erection I reply, “You’ve already had me. You can handle it.”
Laying his head back and closing his eyes as my hand rubs down his length, he moans. “Yeah but now you know who I am. And I want your blood. I want us to wait until I get used to you knowing and can fuck you without killing you.” He looks at me as I drop my lips around his dick and make his throat rumble in response. “Fuck,” he hisses, arching his hips so I can take him deeper.
I hold his eyes with mine as I slide my tongue down the backside of his dick and then take him deep again.
Back up to the tip, I say, “What were you saying?” as I play with him, my lips brushing against his sensitive skin.
“Sayah, fuck,” he moans, holding my head while he thrusts upwards.
Looking at him again, I wiggle my tongue at the tip of his head to hear that sexy growl again.
He retains my eye contact as he bites his lower lip, pushing my head back down.
I grab onto his hips and fuck him with my face until I bring him to the brink of cumming and stop, pecking kisses up his stomach to his lips. He grabs my face and kisses me hungrily, wildly bucking up and flying us to the other end of the couch.
The sensation is terrifying and tantalizing at the same time and he ravages me with kisses, breathing deeply and desperately at the same time.
I wrap my leg around him and pull him closer to me, his hardness rubbing the seam of my jeans right against my clit. I quiver violently as he rips off my shirt and devours my tit with tongue and teeth.
I am about to pull his pants off when he suddenly pulls his head up and looks at me, his eyes white and his fangs out.
I jump violently.
Realizing this, he flashes off me to the other side of the couch.
Sitting up quickly, I watch as he hangs his head, runs his fingers through his hair, and collects his breath.
“Dom?” I ask quietly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m so sorry, Sayah. I knew this was a bad idea,” he admits, pulling his head up and looking at me. “I was afraid the beast would take over. ”
“Oh, honey,” I say, covering my boobs up and scooting in closer to him. “Your beast is fucking sexy. I’m here for it.”
He looks at me like no one has ever seen his darkness as beautiful. “Really?”
“Oh my gods, yes. Dom, your darkness is what makes you you. I adore everything about you. I see your beast as an extension of you and he is sexy as fuck. Albeit, it is a little scary when caught off guard, but, honey, you can bring that sexy motherfucker to my bed anytime.”
His face shatters with levity as he chuckles at me. “Sayah, you’re one sick fuck, you know that?”
“You adore me and you know it,” I reply grinning, laying us back against the couch again.
Granted, it was pretty fucking terrifying seeing him like that up close and personal, but I’m more than a little turned on by it.
I want to know what fucking a vampire is like now that I know he’s a vampire.