The Hidden Mistress - An Erotica and Romance Paranormal/Historical Novelette (7 page)

After a moment, the baroness put one of her hands at the base of Marie’s back while her fingers moved slowly between Marie’s trembling legs. Marie groaned and quivered; the woman’s fingers were cool, but not uncomfortably so. If anything, feeling them against her own burning skin only stirred her more. She felt the baroness’s breath against her neck and knew baroness was as excited as she was. If she ever had doubted the baroness’s true interests, they were now on full display;

And the baroness cared nothing for Marie’s pained moans. Minute after minute passed while Marie’s gasps and moans echoed in the room, interspaced by the rattling windows and loud gusts of wind. She felt a tear fall from her face, then another. There was no pain, but the strain was draining her. The baroness seemed to know exactly when Marie was nearing a climax, and a moment before Marie would come, the baroness slowed down, refusing Marie what she frantically needed. It was making Marie feverish. She tried to speak, to beg and plead, but no coherent words would leave her mouth.

The baroness took Marie’s hair in her fist and slowly pulled Marie upright until she was kneeling with her back pressed into the baroness. It did not hurt – not much, at least – and Marie could sense the woman’s strength; resisting would have been impossible. Holding Marie close, the baroness moved her other hand around Marie’s hips and continued to caress her, quickly finding a rhythm that made Marie breathe with short, strained gasps.

In the storm of emotions that whirled in Marie’s mind, she felt strangely exposed and vulnerable. The baroness’s arms were like iron bands around her. To her surprise, the sensation plunged her pleasure into new depths, and soon, her muffled moans because loud cries. For minutes, her shouts rang in the room and blended with the sound of the storm – but the baroness was merciless. Over and over, she slowed whenever Marie was close to climaxing.

After a while, the baroness’s breathing became fast and heavy. Marie dimly took a little pride in that the baroness too was excited. Still, that would not save Marie from fainting; her faintness had grown into dizziness, and the light from the candles seemed to be dimming.

“Now tell me,” the baroness whispered against Marie’s cheek, “have your maid ever made you feel this way?”

Lost in a whirlwind of abandon and lust, Marie could barely make out what the baroness said. “She’s never – ” Marie managed before her sentence was lost in a long moan. She reached down to press the baroness’s hand harder against herself, but the baroness took Marie’s wrist and slammed Marie’s hand back onto the edge of the bathtub.

“I told you to keep still.” The Baroness’s grip was a steel clasp around Marie.

“Let go,” Marie growled. “I have to – I must.”

“You’re not allowed,” the baroness warned, then laughed close to Marie’s ear. “I knew you had a temper. I can taste it on your skin,” she added. “It’s almost too – ”

A sharp sting in the side of Marie’s neck made Marie yelp. “
Madame?
” Marie said hoarsely in surprise. Had the baroness bit her?

“Apologies,” the baroness whispered into Marie’s neck. “You are simply irresistible.”

Marie smiled between her sighs and cries. Apparently, she was not the only one who was losing control of herself. Pushing herself back closer to the baroness, Marie felt the other woman’s firm body against her own. Enough conditioner still covered them both to make their skins smooth and slippery. It was like being courted by a goddess come to life.

The baroness let go of Marie’s hair and turned her attention Marie’s breasts. Finding one of Marie’s nipples, she held it between her elegant fingers while she used her other hand to send bursts of pleasure through Marie. Once more Marie found herself balancing on the edge of a climax. If she came, she would be breathless, perhaps even faint, but the baroness did not let her over the threshold. As wonderful as it was, Marie knew she had little time left before the strain would overwhelm her and she would lose consciousness. Or perhaps her heart would stop outright. If so, it would be a perfect way to die.

Then Marie’s eyes strayed to one of the vases near the tub, and she screamed out loud again, this time in terror. Fear filled her arms and legs like stinging ice.

The curved surface distorted the reflection and gave Marie a view of most of the room behind her She could see the windows, the restless clouds and the half-hidden moon. There were the candelabras, next to the bathtub stood the sideboard, over there was the wine glass.

But the baroness was missing.

Gasping and racking in the baroness’s firm hold, Marie stared at the vase. She should definitely have been able to see the baroness. Everything else was there, warped but visible in perfect detail. Yet behind her was nothing. Marie was alone in the bath.

Only she was
not
alone, because at the same time, she had one of the baroness’s hands around her chest and the other between her legs, its every movement sending shockwaves of raw pleasure through Marie.

Everything came together with the force of a silent thunderclap. All her friends’ whispers of nighttime beings. Talk of feasts where the baroness had been present but never seen. This immense castle, hidden away in such a remote location. The sense of being watched, the maids’ odd behaviour, and the baroness’s otherworldly beauty. Even now, the word flared bright red in her mind.

Vampire.

The baroness was a creature of the night. They were real, and Marie had walked right into their trap.

But in the same moment that her understanding of the world was turned upside down, the baroness finally nudged Marie over the border and sent her collapsing in to a long, violent climax. Still gaping at the empty space in the reflection where the baroness should have been, Marie screamed in ecstasy while her body shook frenziedly, locked in the grip of a rapture so wild she feared her heart would burst. And then, at the peak of the orgasm’s strongest wave, the vampire bit her.

This time it was not a gentle sting. Holding Marie tightly, the baroness sank her teeth deep into Marie’s neck, and a sharp hurting shot through Marie whose body went rigid. It was as if the baroness’s held her soul between her teeth, and a sudden motion could destroy her entire being. But to Marie’s shock and horror, the hurt quickly blended with the ecstasy, and soon pleasure and pain were one. Marie’s vision started to blacken; soon, oblivion would claim her.

Or so she would have thought, because as the vampire drank from her, another rush followed in the wake of Marie’s climax. The vampire’s ferocious kiss brought the climax back, Marie came again, this time without any trace of self-possession. Shaking hysterically, she reached back and dug her fingers into the vampire’s thighs. She might die, but she wanted more. She
needed
more. There could never be enough. Her body was a cold void, and only the baroness could fill it.

Finally, the baroness let go, and Marie’s head slumped forward. Hanging limp from the baroness’s grip, her head lolled while the walls span around her, faster and faster. She was lost to the world. All she knew was a tornado of lust and blissful hurting. Darkness was rushing in from all sides.

When the baroness spoke, her voice was a faint wind in Marie’s ear.

“Remember this moment,” she whispered, “as the first of many to come.” The baroness’s lips touched Marie’s ear. “But next time,” the vampire added, “I will not to rush things so much.”

And with those words trailing her, Marie fell tumbling and spinning into a vast, cold blackness.

*

Marie woke up to the sound of thunder.

Her eyelids were heavy and her head ached. The need to sleep held her like a warm blanket, pulling her down. Only a faint red glow disturbed the darkness. Caught in the twilight between nothingness and awareness, Marie felt almost weightless, as if she was floating.

But she was hurt. Her neck was stiff and her body ached, the way it always did after a long day of horse riding. That was strange. There had been a dinner, in a strange place. Women had surrounded her. Beautiful and mysterious women, especially the tall and imposing...

Then the memories came back, and Marie sat up with a shriek.

She
was
floating, in a way. Resting against one end of the bathtub, she had been asleep or unconscious with only her head above the water’s surface. And across from her, in the other end of the bathtub, was the countess.

Smiling lavishly at Marie, the woman raised a long and exquisite leg above the surface and ran a bar of black soap down her calf. There were no sounds in the room apart from the wind, Marie’s quick breathing, and the gentle splashing of water as the baroness washed herself.

The baroness showed no sign of having attacked Marie moments before. Worse, the woman even had the nerve to yawn and show her teeth. They looked perfectly normal, but Marie knew the truth.  Before her was not a woman but something very different. A hellish creature risen from the deepest of France’s collective nightmares.

Vampire.

Marie knew she should be terrified. By any right, she should be disgusted, shocked, and probably in a state of panic. And on top of that, she should be furious. An unholy creature had lured her into its arms and then attacked her.

But while Marie was afraid, her fear was weighed down by a burning longing. For all the baroness’s grotesque hidden nature, and in spite of the woman’s evil scheming, Marie realized that she wanted to be close to the vampire again. She
had
to, or she would crumble and die.

In a flash, the weariness started to fade as desire took over, and she felt her body stir. As if the vampire knew Marie’s feelings, her smile broadened. 

Shivering and beginning to sweat at the same time, Marie understood what had happened: The baroness’s had put a spell on her. Marie’s friends had mentioned such things, but she had always dismissed their talk as rumours and superstition. How wrong she had been. Merely being this near the vampire made Marie want to grin like an idiot.

Worse, she wanted to do much more than smile. Only her willpower stopped her from reaching out to touch the vampire’s silk-like skin. Had the baroness asked Marie to throw herself from the windows, she would have leapt to do so.

Marie looked around for a way to escape. It was a pointless idea; she could barely stand up, and the temptation to stay would slow her down or simply hold her still. The conflicting sensations made her want to scream. She was not a toy. By birthright, she was a noble, born to be in charge.
She
was the one who controlled and demanded.

As she searched the room, she noticed a standing clothes hanger with a dress draped over it. Placed a dozen steps behind the baroness, the clothes hanger stood close to a wall and was half-covered in shadows. Then the shadows in the room shifted, and Marie realized that it was not a clothes hanger at all.

It was Sophie, standing quiet and as motionless as a mannequin. Thunder shook the windows, and Marie shrank back.
There are two of them,
she thought in panic. They had her surrounded in their lair.

Then Marie saw Sophie’s face: rather than mirroring the baroness’s insidious grin, Sophie looked stunned. Eyes wide and bright, the woman looked like a terrified rabbit. Sophie’s frightened expression did not make her any less gorgeous, but it left Marie even more confounded.

“You are awake,” the baroness said. She was still smiling. “I was afraid I had ruined you completely. Without even trying,” she added, shaking her head. “That would have been a tragedy.”

“You – you
monster
,” Marie said, still struggling not to move closer to the vampire. Gingerly, she reached up to her neck. Her fingers immediately found the twin holes that pierced her skin. “You tricked me into this.”

The baroness’s laugh was loud and deep. “Did I really?” she asked and returned the bar of soap back to its tray. “I can promise you,” she said, “that you entered my bath by your own will.”

“That is not what I mean.” Marie was angry now, but that did not lessen the urge to touch the vampire. “I thought you were in trouble, and you – you
used
me.”

“Did you not approve?” the vampire asked. Her face was innocent and her eyebrows high. “Then next time, I will not be so hasty.” A fierce light came into the baroness’s eyes. “Or so gentle,” she added softly.