The Font (7 page)

He turned to her and suddenly she was caught up in his eyes again.  Naya cursed herself in her head.  How was it that she kept falling into the trap of his gaze?  Even Heriolf was unable to do this to her.

Meanwhile, she was drowning in those soft brown orbs, the color of rich earth from which verdant growth sprang to carpet the world in green life.  She could almost smell the forest and meadow, feel the breeze in her hair.  Here was safety and freedom and joy, of bright days in the sunshine and joyous nights under the moon.

The deep voice that spoke was as soothing as a fall walk in the woods.  “You will lie with me, Naya.  There is no reason to fear.”

The words seemed to brand on her mind, sapping all will from her.  She tried to pull away from their influence, but his speech was sticky, sappy, clinging to her brain.

“Surrender.  You feel only peace.  Warmth.  Contentment.”

Her mind swam in the current of his command.  Floated in it, like a cool stream wandering the woods in the summer.  She wanted to flow with it, ride along.  She couldn’t.  She was in danger.  “Please,” she managed to whisper. 

“You don’t want to fight.  You are safe.”  His words were a balm, taking away the last mote of fear.  She gave herself to the gentle insistence of them, knowing they were true.  She had nothing to fear.  “Safe,” she said, convinced of the fact. 

“Very good.”  His approval made her soul sing.  She wanted nothing more than to please him.

Naya felt him lift her in his arms, and she felt protected by his strength.  She sank down to the ground with him … no, not the ground.  A soft, silken bed.  He laid down in it, covering himself with her slight body.  His scent, like that of dry autumn leaves, was pleasant.  She sighed to feel him beneath her, his body firm where she was soft.  They fit together nicely, she thought.

“Sleep now, Naya.  Sleep deeply until night falls again.”

She slipped down the slope of his words into a dark tunnel, as close and comforting as a mother’s womb
,
and knew no more.

Chapter 4

             
Naya opened her eyes to pitch blackness.  She knew
right away
she wasn’t in her room at Heriolf’s stronghold.  Where in the world was she?

             
She tried to raise her head but almost immediately bumped it painfully against something.  She was enclosed in something like a car trunk or – a coffin?

             
Her hands scrabbled to get an idea of her surroundings, and she realized she was lying on top of a man.  Her memory finally returned, and she knew her companion in the dark was the traitor Elisha, who had kidnapped her to weaken and destroy Heriolf.

             
She pushed against the lid of the casket, but it wouldn’t budge.  Then she felt carefully around, thinking there had to be some catch that would free her from its confines.  Nothing but the softest satin greeted her fingertips.  She bumped about searching every minute inch that she could reach and still found no way to spring the lid.

Her heart drummed.  Elisha would wake hungry, and she had no doubt he would feed on her.  A normal vampire’s strength was twice that of a human’s, and Elisha had already fed from her once.  He still would not be as strong as Heriolf, but to render her helpless he didn’t need to be.

Did he possess a weapon on his person?  Naya ran her hands over the motionless body beneath her, searching for a knife or a gun.  She couldn’t help but note the softness of his hair, the firmness of his arms and shoulders, the width of his chest.  Lower still, she searched the waistband of
his thoroughly modern jeans,
not
at all
in keeping with his old-fashioned bearing.  Her face warmed to be touching him so close to where his manhood was, that delicious part of him she’d gotten to know much too briefly.

He had no weapons
she could find
, not even the knife she’d seen him use against her guards at Heriolf’s mansion.  There was nothing she could def
end herself with.  Naya wasn’t
sure she could kill him anyway.  It seemed wrong to even think of attacking the man who had woken her body.

She trembled at the memory of t
he way he’d felt inside her, moving in and out
with confidence
as if engag
ed
in a dance they’d done
together
a thousand times.  Naya thought the glamour he’d used on her didn’t explain the rightness of their coupling, of how her body had responded so ardently to him.  As she replayed the encounter in her mind, her hands again explored him, discovering him now that she was able to do so.  Again she wished he had been as naked as she when he’d taken her, so she’d know the silk of his skin against hers.  She felt a rush of wetness between her legs and moaned.

Elisha was
cold in his temporary death.  He’d been warmer before, especially after he’d taken her blood.  Naya slid up his body and pressed her mouth to his slightly parted lips.  She wondered at the thoughts she was having about this traitor who had stolen her blood, her virginity, and ultimately herself.  How could such a calculating brute seem noble to her after all he’d done?  And she even desired the fiend!  But when she compared Elisha’s unwavering yet conscientious force to the brutality she’d witnessed Heriolf display many times over the years, she couldn’t help but wish it had been the younger vampire who had taken care of her, rescuing her from abusive
foster
parents. 

Naya made herself stop caressing and kissing Elisha.  She was being as much a traitor as he was with her disloyal thoughts.  It was Heriolf who had saved her, Heriolf who had conducted her to adulthood, Heriolf who guarded her with fierce protectiveness.  If he seemed a tyrant at times, too bloodthirsty and cruel, it was because the former Viking had come of age in a time when all men must kill or be subjugated.  Her allegiance must remain with him.

Naya would have continued her self-counsel on faithfulness but for the ending of the day outside of the church.  All thoughts fled as Elisha’s chest rose with his first breath of the night.

* * * *

             
Elisha felt the warm body on top of him immediately, heard the rush of living blood flowing through veins.  The terrible thirst was upon him at once, and he moved lightning quick to find the soft neck of the woman, to sink his fangs in, to bring that rich, sweet nectar into his mouth.

             
The delightful elixir flowed over his tongue, and he closed his arms tight around the jerking body, holding her still so that he could feed without struggle.  Her sobbed cries of, “Please, Elisha, please,” were nonsense syllables to him.  All his being concentrated on pulling on the small wounds he’d made in her flesh, of coaxing her blood to fill his mouth that he might gorge himself on its vitality.

After a minute or two
,
another hunger asserted itself.  Elisha became very aware of the softness of the body against his, and the desire in his loins roared as loudly as his thirst.  He freed his burgeoning cock from its suddenly too tight confines.  Pushing up the softer fabric that shielded her tender flesh, his groping fingers found the downy swirls of her pubic hair, and further in, the molten wet core of her entrance.  He possessed no thought, only instinct that told him she was his for the taking.

He immersed himself in that moist center of her with a groan.  She cried out in return, her fists gathering the collar of his shirt.  Elisha moved her to heighten his pleasure, pulling her hips down to greet his as they bucked upwards.

Friction.  Heat.  Tightness clenching around him.  Wet.  The tang of blood. 
Softness yielding to his flesh.  All his senses were bound in euphoria, heightening towards elation. 
T
he channel that held him tightly yet submitted to his need clutched him with a strength that brought him to ecstasy’s door in an instant.  A woman’s cry filled his casket, and then the sleeve enclosing his penis flexed against him, milking him, coaxing him as he had enticed its owner’s blood.

Elisha released the woman’s throat to groan as his cock pumped out its juices to join hers.  And th
e woman – Naya, it was Naya who
s
e
sweetness he enjoyed – came anew, her sex spasming harder yet as she screamed his name.

Her breath was labored for awhile after that.  She lay limp upon him, her sheath offering tiny shudders as she recovered.  They were quiet for a bit, coming back to themselves little by little.

When Elisha realized what he’d done to her again, all the glow from gratification left him in an instant.  He reached between two panels of the silk lining his casket to press the lid’s release.  As soon as it swung open, admitting the comparatively brighter environs of the sacristy, he pushed Naya to a sitting position, carefully withdrawing his penis from the warmth of her body.  He arranged her clothing for her so that she was modestly covered once again.

He couldn’t look her in the eye.  “I’m sorry,” he offered, knowing how weak his apology was. 

Her tone held no blame.  She almost sounded kind.  “You
had to
kn
o
w this would happen if you woke with me
on top of
you.”

Elisha
shook his head
. 
“I have better control than that.  But the taste of your blood, the smell of you…”

He made himself stop.  It sounded too much as if he blamed Naya for what was entirely his fault.  What was she that her warmth drove every sane thought from his head?

Elisha’s guts curled in on themselves with guilt.  He should not have closed her up in the casket with him. 
But there had been no choice but to keep her close, and he had dared to hope he might not succumb to the hungers of his immortal, parasitic body.  He’d been a fool. 

“I regret
hurting you, Naya
.  I was brought up to respect women, not rape them.”  He sighed.  “I’d offer to let you castrate me, but it will only grow back.”

“How old are you?” she asked.  She clambered out of the casket and shook her long hair to cascade down her back.

Elisha stared at her for an instant before standing himself.  He wondered if she was in shock.  Surely she should be sobbing or trying to kill him now, not carrying on a conversation as if he hadn’t just fed on her blood and body.

“Elisha?  You don’t wish me to know your age?”

He licked his lips, discovered a drop of her blood on them and swallowed it with reverence.  He said, “I was made vampire over 200 years ago when I was 33.”

She looked at his nose, and he realized she was avoiding his eyes.  “Did you wish to be one?”

Remnants of the old pain whispered to him.  “I wished to die.  I had lost my wife and children to tuberculosis and felt I had nothing to live for.  When the vampire came for me, I gave myself freely.  I thought he would kill me, not make me immortal.”

“You must have hated him.”

“At first.”  Elisha almost smiled at the memory.  How he had railed when he awoke to find himself still on Earth!  “But my sire was as lonely as I, having lost his own children during his mortal life.  He saw my pain as a reflection of his, and wanted me for his son.”

“And Heriolf sent him to his final death?”

“
Thaddeus
was the last of the holdouts on the council who opposed Heriolf’s bid for sole power.”  Elisha’s hands tightened into fists.  Anger swelled within him.

“Why did Heriolf let you live?  He had to know you might want revenge.” 
Naya’s
eyes were narrow in obvious suspicion.

“My sire was wise.  As a member of the High Council, he was always under the threat of attack from ambitious vampires.  He kept our relationship secret from others, forcing me to do the same.”  Elisha blinked against a sudden sting in his eyes.  How far
Thaddeus
had gone to keep him safe he’d only discovered recently.  “He must have known Heriolf would come for him.  He sent me to Europe to see to his business ventures there.  I remembered thinking any lackey could have accomplished the errand he had me do.  When I got back, he had been dead for a year, and Heriolf had seized all the power for himself.”

“So Heriolf never even knew your connection to your sire.”

“No, and I have bided my time since, waiting for the right moment to attack.”

“When did this happen?  When did Heriolf become Savannah’s lord?”

“
Seven
years ago.”

Naya started.  “When he began taking my blood.”

It was Elisha’s turn to interrogate.  “How long did you know Heriolf before he began feeding from you?”

“I was five
when I met him, so twelve years
.  He came along shortly after I was
taken in as a foster child
by an awful couple.  They were human,
and
he was introduced
to me
as
my foster father’s
uncle.
”