"No, although all the Elders on the board can withstand the ward against religious objects and words." He looked at me sternly. "There are others like you, but who have kept their talent hidden. You revealed yours wisely...however now it can no longer be used to assist you."
I nodded in understanding. The box disappeared from my hand.
"If you can walk in the day...do not tell any Vampire. Not for 1 thousand years."
"Walk in the day? Is that really possible? I mean, well I guess it is, you just said...but how when our sleep is like death?"
"Our wake is like death, also. Remember that." He changed the subject. "I will show you my memories. This is a gift that only an Elder can give. Not even a Master can share his memories."
"Really?! Then I'll know what every other Vampire knows?"
"You will know what I know." He responded boldly.
I was confused, feeling there was more going on here than I was catching on. And right now I wasn't feeling very sharp. I relaxed and waited for Alexis to work his mojo. I don't know how he expected me to do this thing when I was half a step away from having an orgasm where I sat and my hunger was like a big empty pit in my body. Still, I sat quietly and expectantly.
Alexis just sat there beside me not moving. Then I felt a now familiar tickling in my brain and the next thing I know I'm seeing pictures.
No...it wasn't just that I was seeing pictures. I could smell and feel as well. I was in two places at once. I knew I was on the chaise but I was traveling some place with Alexis.
I felt that I was in his brain but I sensed him beside me. The power that Alexis possessed in order to show me something like this! It staggered me. It was awesome, frightening, but exhilarating!
At first it was only colors surrounding me. But then seamlessly it transitioned into sounds and then flashes of memories. Alexis/Me. We were the same.
We were a Babe, and then a child. We played and cried and eventually we loved. He was me. How much time it took...I couldn't say. Time seemed to stand still. One day we were tricked into an alley after a late night of drinking. A beautiful woman and she bit us.
I swooned but Alexis was at my back and steadied me. Wasn't I still on the Chaise? It was confusing now.
I blinked because now we were no more. We were gone but I could still think and hear and feel. We were joined by something that made us someone new. It wanted to be a human--used to be worshipped as a deity. It took the blood sacrifice. It entered us and lived through us. We were between this world and the world where the darkness existed. We took the form of the donor but could still revert back to nothing. We could move fast when we were nothing. With the donor link we could spread to others, mostly in limited doses. We could seep out of the donor's body and go wherever we wanted. As we have animated the donor's body we then could repair it, enhance it, manipulate it to our will...
I understood. We were not evil, we were not good. We were like a spirit or a ghost but not one that had ever been human. I understood. Some called us a Demon because they did not understand and they offered blood sacrifice and they made a pact to live forever.
Knowing what was in Alexis made me understand even more that I was not like them. I was something subtly different.
Alexis slowly withdrew from my mind.
I was trembling. I was more confused than ever. I understood everything that he had shown me, but it was not totally connected to me.
"Alexis...you said that I was more Succubae then most? What did you mean?"
Alexis had been observing me thoughtfully. Instead of answering he showed me something else. In flashes I saw people during a frenzied ceremony filled with music, decorated and nude so that I could not tell their origins. They drank human blood and fell into trances, then they had sex and drank more blood inviting the other to give them endless life. Eventually their invitation was accepted by others...
My shoulders relaxed. "Thank you, Alexis. I understand. We can be so many things but it doesn't really matter, does it? Because ultimately we are still the undead."
There was a hint of a smile on Alexis' lips. "You interest me. It is not always good to be...noticed by an Elder." He stared off into the distance and I didn't dare interrupt him.
"You could be my pet." He still did not look at me. I wasn't quite sure if he was even talking to me. "You could be my lover."
"I could be your friend."
Alexis didn't say anything. We just sat on the chaise together and stared at nothing.
"I will show you something else." He said finally.
My eyes turned to him but otherwise, I did not move. Now I wasn't sure if I should be afraid. I wasn't quite, but that was only because I was ignorant to the things other vampires knew. They knew to be afraid of Alexis. Despite everything I'd seen, I had not yet learned that.
He stood slowly and I was alarmed to see that he was breathing. He hadn't been before. He strolled away from me and when he turned he had lost the whiteness that was so otherworldly. His skin was sun kissed brown, his dark hair golden tinged just like mine was. His eyes, now, had whites but still they were ringed in gold, too. Definitely he was of some Arabic descent.
"How? How are you doing that? And you have the gold around you the way I do." Other Vamps were white, deathly white. But I was gold; not just my eyes the way other Vamps eyes turned gold, but my skin and hair also.
"This is how I began, too." Even his voice was different now.
Why is he showing me this? I was already physically attracted to him. He had me with just a desire to taste him again...
"It has been many years since I have touched another Vampire." He watched me seriously. "There is no need to. When you are a thousand years old...you have made love so many times that it no longer appeals. You find something new. Elders have found something new."
I watched him, thoroughly confused. That's when I felt a shiver go down my spine. I arched my back slightly and caught my breath. Something had traveled sensuously and slowly down my spine. I looked at him swiftly.
"What are you doing?" I asked breathlessly.
He smiled. "I'm making love to you." He said from his place four feet from me.
"O-kay." I felt a slight tugging on my nipple and gasped, staring down at myself. No, it wasn't like a tugging, it was coming from within; like my very cells had constricted to cause a tightening there.
My eyes grew wide and I braced myself on the couch as the sensation caused me to tighten involuntarily. The sensation moved from that nipple to the other then both. I groaned. Shit...whew!
A slow stroking sensation traveled down my belly. I kept staring down at myself trying to see the fingers that was making the sensation but could see nothing. I squeezed my knees together but it did absolutely nothing to stop that slow stroking from slipping between my clenched thighs and gently but insistently manipulating my sensitive flesh. I yelled out as the pleasure finally engulfed me.
My body fell back against the chaise as I panted and writhed. It was like a million tongues were licking me all over...inside...outside...upside down!
My fists gripped the material of the chaise, ripping it loudly. I was panting and moaning and groaning as something rolled inside of me filling me.
I remember my hips rising to meet empty air.
I opened my mouth and yelled as the orgasm spilled over me. It felt so wonderful but I craved lips to suck, something to run my tongue across, strong arms to hold me tightly as my man pumped into me mercilessly.
After a few moments I collapsed exhausted and panting. Panting not because I was out of breath, but good sex just made you do that.
I felt Alexis move towards me and I turned my face towards the raised arm of the chaise and squeezed my eyes shut in embarrassment.
"You did not like it?" His voice was slightly surprised.
"It felt wonderful..." I peeked at him. He didn't understand or remember embarrassment apparently.
"I can't do that to you." I said stating the obvious.
His brow furrowed and he sat down next to me. I moved my legs out of his way weakly.
"Something is wrong. What is it?"
"I...I feel human. When I make love I need to be touched." It wasn't an invitation, just a statement of fact. Still...I didn't know what I felt about Alexis actually inside of me. I didn't know if I wanted that even though I did want him.
I know...didn't make sense. I wanted Tony and I wanted Paul and now I wanted Alexis...but I didn't know exactly how I wanted either of them.
Shit! I forgot Alexis could read my thoughts.
He watched me intently and I couldn't read his thoughts. His hands reached out and he placed them lightly against my cheeks.
How long has it been since Alexis has touched someone in pleasure? I suspected many many years. I was pleased to be the one he had chosen to touch.
His hands were surprisingly warm. You didn't associate warmth with a Vampire, but evidently they could make themselves warm, make themselves breath and make themselves almost look human. I liked the way Alexis looked even when he was completely Vampire with the black eyes and deathly white skin. As a Vampire Alexis had a regal look. He had a face as smooth and hairless as a baby.
But as a human Alexis was damned gorgeous! His hair was longish and haloed his head. His lips were full and very very kissable.
His outfit this evening was a comfortable looking pair of black linen pants and a black high collared shirt that hung loose past his waist. It didn't give me much of an indication of how Alexis was built, although I could tell by his shoulders that he had a nice big chest.
The back of his hand traced my cheek but it was my lips that he studied closely. I closed my eyes as he leaned in to place his lips on mine.
It was chaste at first. I liked the way his lips felt on me; firm and soft at the same time; explorative. I sighed.
Alexis suddenly paused with his lips on mine and seemed to accept my breath into his body. His hand opened to cradle my face and suddenly his lips pressed onto mine and his kiss became insistent. His mouth opened, closed, lapped and sucked at me and I matched his every movement; it was like a dance. The kiss had its own life separate from us.
I felt him shiver. When was the last time he'd shivered; decades? Centuries? I pulled him to me until he covered me and then I could feel what was beneath his shirt.
Hard muscles. A wiry, very human back. I found myself running my hands down it loving the sculptured contours. Is that what always happened to Vampires? Did we always lose the last traces of fat to be replaced with hard muscles?
Did that mean the phrase: if you don't use it you lose it did not apply to Vampires? Alexis hadn't used his...but I really doubted that he had lost it.
His kisses had re-ignited the flame smoldering somewhere in the center of me into a blaze. It wasn't just sex that I wanted, but the taste of his blood, the feel of his hands on my body. I was so different than who I recognized myself to be. I lusted for touch, and sex and blood.
Alexis' shoulders hunched together suddenly in a knot of muscles. He growled and his head whipped around to something behind him. Something had put him on guard; some danger that I had not yet sensed.
When he pulled from me I almost didn't care what had caught his attention. I just wanted that need to be satisfied and I found myself pulling him back to fill my mouth with his kisses.
But Alexis had changed. And it took me a moment to realize this but when I did I pressed myself against the chaise in horror.
Alexis had transformed into a beast! Tony said that it was impossible but here he was. His knotted up muscles no longer had the appearance of human arms. His back had lengthened and his nose and mouth had elongated. Alexis had turned into a friggin' werewolf!
Well...maybe not quite, he didn't have the hair but he was bulked up and the growls issuing from his mouth were all animal. And those teeth! Was I just kissing that mouth? Where were those beautiful pouty lips?
My heart was apparently still in working condition because I heard it thumping against my chest. What was he looking at? I didn't see anything-
Then Tony appeared! It was like he materialized out of thin air.
Alexis was preparing to leap at the moment of Tony's materialization. But I was still holding on to him. When I saw that it was Tony my grip tightened.
Alexis snapped at me gripping my wrist between his fangs. I was expecting to be mangled in those teeth of his. But those massive fangs had not even punctured my skin. It was a warning.
I chose to ignore it.
"No!" I said gripping his shoulders or whatever you called it on a wolf/beast. "It's Tony!"
He released my wrist mere seconds before Tony reached Alexis.
Tony yanked Alexis. He grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and held him away from his body, growling and snapping.
I jumped up. This couldn't be good. Tony was eyeing me. "Are you okay?"
"Y-yeah." I stuttered. "What are you doing?"
Tony shook his head in disgust. "I thought I was saving your hide. I guess I was just cock blocking." He flung Alexis across the room as my mouth fell open in shock at his comment. "I'll let you get back to your beast." He said angrily then swung away from me.
Alexis slid across the marble floor but when he stood up smoothly he was Alexis again, only in a tattered shirt. His head was lowered and his eyes were furious as they glared at Tony's back. His face had darkened as if all the blood in his body was concentrated there and I knew that Tony had hell to pay.
"Watch out!"
But he didn't need my warning. He dropped to the ground in a roll. His teeth had dropped to almost fangs! Other then Alexis' beast I had never seen teeth so big.
Oh No! I backed out of the way. Alexis and Tony were at each other in a flash of movement that I couldn't follow with my eyes. I could hear them growling and snapping at each other, but I couldn't really see them. Their movement was super fast.
I wrung my hands trying to think what to do. Alexis was the strongest. He could think Tony dead...so why fight. It was some freaking man thing I'm sure.
"Stop it. Stop it! STOP IT!" I screamed.
And they did. Tony was on his back gripping Alexis' neck. Alexis, although back to his human form had grown the wolf teeth back and he had them poised to bite right above Tony's face. However, they were now both watching me in surprise.
"Dawn is coming! I want to get changed out of these bloody clothes and I need to feed. Paul is waiting for me. I need to go now!" I spoke urgently, hoping that one of those things would inspire them to stop.
Alexis pushed off of Tony and his teeth seemed to disappear back into his mouth. His tattered shirt had disappeared and I was able to see the ripples of his chest. But now I didn't care about all of that because their fighting had scared, and pissed me off.
Tony stood and straightened his lapels. "Alexis. Please accept my apologies."
"I should kill you." Alexis responded coldly. "But that would displease her." He turned his back and walked away from both of us. "Perhaps someday soon I won't care what displeases her. Oh, and Tony," he continued without turning. "You may have her pain."
Tony sucked in his breath and grimaced.
Oh shit! I had forgotten that Alexis had been holding my hunger.
And now Tony was holding it.
"Oh, Tony. I'm sorry-" He glared at me.
"For which thing? Running off with Alexis? Leaving Paul in a room full of Vampires?" I lowered my eyes. "Ignoring me when I told you how I felt about you?" Jeez. He was so right. I had turned into quite the self centered Vampire.
"I'll make it all right. I promise."
"Paul's waiting for you at the house. He wouldn't leave until I found you. You blocked real good, or else Alexis blocked for you."
I shrugged. "I don't know how to block. I don't know how to do much of anything."
He gave me a cold look. "I followed your orgasm. You did that real well."
I was mortified! I couldn't even say a thing. He had said exactly the right
thing to make me speechless.
He gripped my elbow and before I knew it there was a sickening spiraling sensation. I couldn't tell up from down but before I could think about it too hard I was standing in the Arabian Nights room that Tony had designated my suite.
He released my elbow. "I'll hold your hunger until morning. After that, you're on your own." He barely looked at me then disappeared.
My throat felt tight. I thought I was going to cry. I was so hurt by his actions. But I guess I had hurt them both by mine.
Paul was sound asleep on the silk cushions of the oversized sectional. There wasn't much more then forty-five minutes until dawn but I wasn't going to go to him stinking of old blood and another Vampire's kisses.