Niven’s eyes closed and his head flopped over onto his shoulder.
Still awash in the velvet embrace and I-might-swoon consequences of Jeran’s voice, I brought my eyes back to his.
“Okay. Now that you’ve put my evening’s entertainment out of commission, are you going to tell me what’s going on? How can you be here if you’re dead? How can you feel so real? And how do you know Niven?”
He leaned over and softly brushed my lips with his again, and cupped my fulsome breasts in his hands.
“It is impossible to speak coherently with you while you are naked. All I can think of is kissing you, licking you, tasting you – and causing you to scream my name in the midst of one of your supernatural orgasms.”
I palmed his firm ass and drew his hardness closer to me. “Well, that’s not a problem.” I pointed to the bed. “Let’s adjourn to my office and take the matter into consideration.”
He threw his head back and laughed, his emerald eyes sparkling.
“Ah, my delightful Zara. Ever the same. I have truly missed you. But what I wish to speak about is very important, so I would ask you to take pity on me and to cover up.”
I sighed dramatically, stepped back from him, and thought myself into my favorite sheer black negligee. The one with the plunging neckline and yards of see-through fabric, which was my favorite flying ensemble.
He shook his head, chuckling. “I suppose I should have been more specific, but I appreciate even this thin layer of distraction. Come. Let us retire to your roof where we might enjoy the night.”
He took my hand and thought us up to my deck. The moon was full and from our elevated vantage point all of Boulder was visible as twinkling lights. The cool air held the fragrance of sweet flowers.
He pulled two chairs together facing each other and we sat, knees almost touching.
He sighed, scanning me with his verdant orbs. “I hardly know where to begin. So much has happened. You probably remember that I was always interested in the unknown. I spent centuries seeking out those who had occult or metaphysical experiences so that I could learn from them. I read every book ever written on those subjects. I tracked down wise women, medicine men, and oracles. The more I uncovered, the more passionate I became about finding out for myself.”
Between the light of the moon and my enhanced vampiric night vision it was easy to watch the emotions flash across his face as he told his story.
“Yes. I certainly do remember your obsession with all things spooky.” I cradled my breasts in my hands. “Sometimes I actually had to stick the girls right in your face before you’d close your damn book and give me the attention I deserved.”
He smiled. “You always were impatient with my thirst for knowledge.”
I dropped my hands into my lap. “I have since found more interesting thirsts to quench. But please, continue with your tale.”
He nodded. “After we had our misunderstanding and you left me . . .”
“Ha! You mean the misunderstanding where I found you, yet again, exploring the anatomy between a woman’s legs with your tongue? That misunderstanding? Or maybe the one caused by my untimely interruption of coitus upheranus? Or maybe . . .”
“Yes, yes.” He stroked his finger along my lower lip. “You are right. I admit my appetites were often more than I could control.” He rose, pushed his chair out of the way and knelt in front of me. “I sincerely apologize for any pain I caused you. In the midst of it all, I dearly loved you. You are my true mate.”
His true mate?
The sincerity in his eyes tugged at my heart. I took a deep breath and shoved the ancient anger back down into its grave. No one was more surprised than me that he could still push my buttons to such an extreme degree.
“Hmm.” I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Apology accepted. It was centuries ago. Not worth rehashing at this point.”
He stood and paced, his energy manic.
“So, after you left, I threw myself body, mind and soul into a quest for answers to the big questions. I drank the blood of seers and prophets, shamans and wizards, witches and psychics. I began to have strange experiences, times when I walked in dimensions unknown to me as a vampire. Places I never could have imagined.
“I discovered a dimension filled with light. Light that was not sunlight. Light I could exist in. I met great teachers. It was there I began to learn about the different energy bodies we all have and how to send out parts of myself into other places, other times, other beings. I became adept at experiencing from a distance.”
He came and knelt in front of me again and laid a hand on my cheek, locking his eyes on mine.
“I did not face the dawn on purpose. It was a mistake. An accident.”
I raised my eyebrows. “An accident?” You’ve got to be kidding. How does one accidentally spontaneously combust? Jeran always was a creative storyteller.
He nodded, eased to his feet, and resumed pacing.
“I had gotten very good at splitting off parts of myself, of literally being in several places and times at once. It was just like moving through thought, except I left a vibrational portion of myself in every other location. As you well know, time is of little importance to a vampire so I made no effort to be aware of it.”
He walked over to the deck rail, held on to it, and let the wind blow his hair away from his beautiful face, remaining silent for several seconds.
“Is that it?” I got up and walked over to him. “That’s the end of the story?”
“No.” He turned to me, his lips curving gently. “I am simply enjoying the memory of having a physical body.”
He breathed in deeply. “As I said, time had no meaning. On the day that my physical body burned in the sun I had shifted from the dimension of light back to my corporeal existence on earth without awareness of the time. The moment I realized my error, I sent all the aspects of myself – except the physical – back into the light.
“I watched from that plane of reality as my body was reduced to less than ashes.”
His shoulders sagged and he lowered his head.
“Holy shit.” I took his face in my hands. “Are you serious? So if you sent the rest of you into the light, then I really am standing here with a ghost?”
“No. Not a ghost. Not as you commonly think of a ghost, in any case. What you see before you is a thoughtform – the result of all the willforce I could summon. All the etheric fragments of myself that I could gather, with the exception of one.”
“One?” I released his face. “One what?”
“One aspect of myself that has been held elsewhere. One that is carried by the young man in your bed.”
I stepped back from him, waiting for the punchline. “What are you talking about? Are you saying you’ve possessed Niven?”
He nodded. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
Well, that would explain why Niven seemed unusually appealing to me, and why he gave off such a unique vibration.
Jeran cocked his head and brushed my cheek with the side of his finger. “Do you wish to hear the rest of the story?”
“Oh, yes.” I lifted myself onto the railing and sat. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. I’m all ears.”
He laughed, flicking a lock of his dark mane of hair back behind his shoulder.
“I knew you would appreciate what I have gone through to reach this point in my journey. You are the only one who ever understood me. Who accepted my eccentricities. As I accepted yours.”
“What eccentricities?” I arched a brow. “I’m just your standard, extraordinarily sensual, beauteous vampire.”
He smiled and smoothed his hand over my hair. “Even though you were no longer willing to be with me, I never truly let go of you. One pleasant side effect of stumbling upon that dimension of light was that I could watch you from there.”
He stroked my hair with the tip of his finger. “Throughout the centuries, before and after the death of my physical body, I remained connected to you. You might say that you have had a master vampire perched on your shoulder since we parted. I know about the bizarre situation you have been dealing with. The one that caused you to spend so much time hiding dead bodies.”
Even though I knew that zapping him with my vampire gaze wouldn’t have much effect, I locked eyes with him anyway. I’ve always been suspicious by nature and hearing that he’d been symbolically “perched on my shoulder” didn’t answer any of my questions. I was just about to roll up my sleeves and begin the interrogation when he spoke again.
“It is because I am aware of the consequences for humans when you have sex with them and drink their blood that I intervened tonight with Niven. I could not allow you to destroy his mind. I intend to take over his body and I want it healthy, vibrant, and fully functional.”
I slid down off the railing and leveled the front of my body against his. “What the
hell
are you talking about? How can you take over his body?”
No matter what I thought about Jeran’s weird story, if it was even remotely possible that he could completely possess Niven, I definitely had opinions. I’d only begun to enjoy the succulent human and had no intention of giving him up so easily. Plus nobody – alive, dead or undead – was going to mess with me again.
Jeran’s lips spread in a wide smile. “I have been preparing Niven, in many disguises, during numerous lifetimes for this joining. He is actually a distant relative from my sister’s marriage. I attached an aspect of myself to his soul energy many centuries ago and have added to it as he moved through the wheel of birth and death. That is why he seems so compelling to you. I was sincere when I said you are my true mate. You share my soul’s song. I made sure he found you.”
“Well, now.” I stepped away from him, moving aimlessly around the deck. “Clever man. You’ve been planning this for centuries. Why not just take one of the millions of bodies in the meantime? Why Niven?”
“As I said, I have been adding fragments of my power to his vibrational pattern in each of his incarnations. By now, there is no mortal body more suited to me or more useful to me than his. I have been very patient. I wish to be human again.”
“What?” My jaw dropped and I turned in his direction. “Weren’t you the one who was always telling me how magnificent it was to be a vampire? How superior we all are? Isn’t that what you used as part of your sales job when you forced me to come over?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I believed that. It had been so long since I had been alive – human – that I had forgotten the joy of being in the physical.” His face sobered and became serious. “I no longer wish to continue forever. I want to live out a human lifetime and then experience true death.”
“Well, what did you hunt me up for? I’m a vampire. One of the things you don’t want to be anymore. What am I supposed to do with you?”
He moved excitedly to stand in front of me. “I wish to be your human companion. I am old and powerful. You will not be able to drain the combined essences of Niven and myself. We can be lovers again and I can experience what it is like to be on the other end of the fang. I can walk in the sunlight.”
Overcome with joy, he raised his hands over his head, threw back his head and laughed.
“I will be mortal again!”
I had to admit that this had possibilities. If I was honest with myself, I’d have to acknowledge that I had loved Jeran. Loved him so much that I let him bring me into his dark world. And there was no mistaking my attraction to Niven. To have him – them – at my beck and call as a willing blood and sex source, well, that might be delicious. It’d be interesting to see what would happen to all of Jeran’s powers.
He gazed into my eyes, sincere and vulnerable. “Are you willing to help me?”
“Help you?” I lifted a brow. “How can I help you? I thought you had this all figured out.”
“I do.” He nodded enthusiastically. “All except one small thing. In order for Niven’s physical form to be strong enough to accept the merging, it needs additional strength. Strength that can only come from the blood of an ancient vampire. Your blood, Zara.”
My blood? Well, I should have known Jeran would have an ulterior motive.
“Come.” He grabbed my hand. “Let us return to our sleeping vessel.”
We remanifested next to the bed where Niven slept. Jeran grinned and danced around the room, obviously beside himself with excitement. “The moment is at hand. I will lie next to him, you will offer your blood and I will speak the ritual words.”
Jeran stretched out alongside Niven and stared up at me expectantly.
A small frown crept onto his face. “Zara, you are going to help me, yes? You desire to be reunited with me as much as I long to be with you?”
I stood there, relishing the tremendous power I held over Jeran in that moment. Here was my chance to forgive and forget. To open my heart and admit that perhaps he had been the love of my life. Or my unlife – you know what I mean. And what about all the ways I could control him as a human? Now,
there
was something worth considering.
Bending over, I gave Jeran my warmest smile, ran my tongue over his lips, and kissed him deeply. I lifted a lock of hair away from his cheek and gazed into his eyes with love and sincerity.
I circled the bed, crawled up next to Niven and placed a soft kiss on his beautiful lips. Using my long, sparkling silver fingernail – doncha just
love
all the new colors they’ve come out with over the centuries? – I sliced along the vein in my wrist and held the dripping blood over Niven’s mouth, watching him take my life-force into himself. I felt my essence flow inside him and heard Jeran recite words in a strange language.
Suddenly there was a very loud sound, like a huge tree limb cracking or thunder right over my head, and then a burst of blinding, white light. In the few seconds it took me to raise my head and scan the room, Jeran had disappeared from the bed. I focused in on Niven who’d awakened, his eyes wide as saucers, blood running down his chin from his lips. After creating thousands of Brain Sucked Lovers, I’d witnessed enough traumatized faces to recognize one when I saw it. Talk about dazed and confused.
“Niven?” I smacked the side of his face a few times before he finally grabbed my wrist.
He bolted upright, blinking his eyes rapidly, reaching out for me.