PLEASE NOTE: This chapter has mild Mature Content
I jerked when I heard the strange voices in the house, my heartbeat skyrocketed and I had to force myself to remember the guests were planned. There was a knock at the nursery door.
"Carys," Alexandre called softly, opening the door a crack. "They've started to arrive. Do you want to put the baby in the crib for now and come get something to eat?" My stomach gurgled and Alexandre chuckled.
"Will we be able to hear her, over all that, I mean?" I worried and Alexandre looked at me with disbelief.
"Carys, we're vampires..." He replied shortly and I rolled my eyes at him.
"You know what's not what I meant. With all the noise and everything..." I hesitated looking at Mina.
"Carys, she'll be fine. Cornelius and I have more sensitive hearing, but you can't tell me your body doesn't give you signals when she needs you." He said looking pointedly at my breasts. I threw a pillow at him.
"Rude." I sniffed. I looked at my sleeping baby and worried some more about someone kidnapping her or harming her before Alexandre sighed in frustration and picked her up himself to lay in the cradle.
"If you're that worried, we can take turns watching the nursery, not that you won't have your eyes glued to it the whole time you're away anyway." Alexandre remarked.
"Ok, fine." I gave in and stood.
"Are you going like that?" Alexandre asked, eyeing my clothes.
"Hey, if they don't like braless vampire, they can deal with it." I said, tying my shirt closed again on the side. Alexandre stepped closer to me, his body against mine.
"I'm more worried about them liking it too much." He responded, running a finger across my chest. I sucked in a breath and then swatted his hand away.
"Boy, I'm hungry, and that means just as likely to take you down as a meal as anyone else. Now let's go before Mina's hungry again too."
The noise increased on the way down the stairs. I could see Cornelius was already enjoying himself. He had set up the ballroom to accommodate the guests with a variety of comfortable pieces of furniture, cushions and low wide puffy stools, all scattered about the room. He was currently on a sofa with two women and a man. One of the women was in his lap, straddling him and rubbing against him as he drank from her neck. I smacked him on the back of the head.
"I thought I said no orgies." I hissed and Cornelius pulled his teeth free from the pretty redhead, who moaned, eyeing me with disappointment as Cornelius pushed her back slightly.
"Right, only consenting adults, keep the noise down, low numbers of people at a time." He responded with a grin and began licking the blood from the neck of the belligerent redhead again. I hissed and swatted him again.
"That's not what I said, but what about all this?" I gestured to the furnishings.
"You mean the cookies and drinks table?" Cornelius asked feigning innocence. "I know I went overboard with the sweets, but our donors need to keep up their blood sugar." He kissed the redhead's neck and she groaned, bearing down on him excitedly again. I stuck my face right next to his ear and gnashed my teeth in warning.
"That's not what I meant and you know it. It looks like a brothel in here. What. The. Hell. CORNELIUS." I snarled. Cornelius had frozen, and carefully removed the redhead from his lap before responding, not bothering to turn to look at me.
"Oh that. I just wanted to make our guests comfortable. I mean blood loss and all, they might want to lie down..." He said carefully and I snarled again. Alexandre clapped him on the shoulder, making him flinch.
"You've awakened the beast Neil. I wish you luck." And with that, Alexandre chuckled and drifted into the crowd.
"Next time-this place will look respectable, not like one of your Bacchanalias. Got it?" I growled and Cornelius finally looked at me.
"I suddenly see why Alexandre likes you so much. There is so much hiding beneath your surface little fire nymph. Now here, I picked this one for you, I know how you like your florals." Cornelius shoved a brunette at me, who smelled like vanilla lavender. She blushed shyly and I righted her and glared at Cornelius.
"I'm sorry about him-he's a bastard." I apologized to her.
"Hey, I knew who my father was!" Cornelius shouted. "I think!" I snorted. The girl blushed again.
"No, no it was my fault. This is my first time at one of these things and I'm a little nervous. It makes me clumsy." She stammered. I led her to the end of the couch and had her sit down, walking around to sit myself.
"Is wrist ok?" I asked her gently and she blushed and nodded. "I'm not going to lie-this is going to hurt at first, but then most people find that it becomes pleasurable after that. If you want, I can try to hypnotize you so you don't feel the pain." I told her.
"No, I want to experience it all." She blushed again and I thought this is what I must have looked like to Alexandre when I first came here. I smiled gently and lifted her wrist and her heartrate increased.
"Are you sure?" I asked and she gulped and nodded. I held her wrist to my mouth, waiting for signs of her to withdraw, but she just took a steadying breath, so I let my teeth sink into her wrist gently and heard her gasp in pain. She tensed up slightly and then let out a soft little squeak as I began to draw the blood from the wound. I was about to ask her if she wanted me to stop when she suddenly groaned loudly, gripped the couch beside her and squeezed her legs together tightly. The scent of her arousal hit me hard, and my vampire side nearly took over as I drew the blood greedily from her wrist. I stopped after a handful of pulls and let the wound trickle to a stop, telling her to go get some juice and cookies to keep up her strength.
"No, don't stop-I... don't want you to stop." She pleaded and I smiled at her softly.
"Adjust to it slowly. Once you're use to being a donor, you can offer a little more, ok?" I gently instructed. She blushed, nodding, and then scurried off to the table of food and drinks. Cornelius chuckled.
"She would have let you bed her and drain her." He observed.
"Shut up you lecherous old incubus." I griped at him and threw a cushion from the floor at his head. I went in search of Alexandre or a new victim, whichever I came across first. My lust had just been awakened and my vampire side ached for more than just blood.
I stumbled across a scent that made my mouth water before I found Alexandre. It was like honeysuckle in summer mixed with something else. Some sort of fruit maybe? I followed it to find a young man seated on the edge of a rather large footstool. His hair was the color of honeysuckle and when he turned to look at me, I realized he was probably one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen. He smiled slightly.
"You're that girl, aren't you?" He asked me. I looked at him in confusion. "Yeah, you're that girl! You've been all over the TV! Hey, it's that girl, the one who escaped from the serial killer, only... OH MY GOD YOU WERE TURNED! That's how you survived!" The guy was getting more excited by the minute. He came closer to me and looked me up and down.
"Vampirism suits you, though you do look a little pale. You could use some more blood. Hey Rob! Rob, come over here! Rob seems to be a vamp fave. You ARE a vampire right?" He reached out a quick hand and gripped my wrist. I was too stunned to move. "Yup, super-slow pulse, almost couldn't find it. Definitely vampire." There was a bunch of excited chatter behind him and I decided now was the time to back away before things got out of hand. I turned and slipped through the small crowd surrounding me.
"Hey wait! Where are you going?! I have so many questions!" The man called. I turned.
"Listen, I'm sure this is very exciting to you, but try to keep this information to yourself, ok? The press is all over us, which is why we even had to do this thing in the first place. Plus, I'm starved and I only approached you because I was a little out of my head for a moment." I told him. He blinked.
"What do you mean?" He asked, confused.
"Apparently, I have a preference for floral fragranced people, and you smell like honeysuckle to me, which was really mouthwatering in the moment." I replied and he gaped at me.
"You actually want to feed from me?" He asked incredulously.
"Is there a particular reason I shouldn't?" I questioned him and he grabbed my hand and placed it on his chest.
"Use your senses." He instructed and I zeroed in on his body. He felt warm under my hand, but his heartbeat was too slow. I listened for it, it was faster than mine, but slower than a humans. Maybe thirty-five beats per minute. His breathing was slow and steady, but there was something off, decidedly non-human about him.
"What are you?" I whispered.
"I heard a rumor. I came here to see if it's true." He answered. "But no other vampire has ever desired my blood. They all feel it's tainted-so the question I should be asking is: what are you?"