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Blood Claim
What Vampires Will Do For Desire
#2 in the Blood Series
Other Erotic Tales from MLR Press
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An Adrien English Mystery #3: The Hell You Say
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Fearless
Goldsands
Diary of a Hustler
Love Hurts
Ardennian Boy
Bond-Shattering
California Creamin’ and other stories
A Bit of Rough
Out There in the Night
Details of the Hunt
Blood Desires
Sucks!
Lola Dances
The Ties That Bind
Coming Soon:
Man, Oh, Man Writing M/M Fiction for Kinks & Cash
Pulse
The Good Thief
Hostage
Tusks
Kingsley & I
Footsteps in the Dark Partners in Crime #3
An Adrien English Mystery #4 Death of a Pirate King
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2008 by Angela Fiddler
Copyright 2008 by Jet Mykles
Copyright 2008 by Laura Baumbach
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Published by
MLR Press, LLC
3052 Gaines Waterport Rd.
Albion, NY 14411
Visit ManLoveRomance Press, LLC on the Internet
www.mlrpress.com
Cover Art by Deana C. Jamroz
Editing by Judith David
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN# 978-1-934531-54-9
First Edition 2008
CONTENTS
Winner Takes All
Wolfe's Recluse
Gift of the Raven
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Winner Takes All
Laura Baumbach
"All you have to do is nod and I'll end this quickly."
William Pray stared back into Malcolm Crane's harsh blue eyes and made very sure he didn't move a single muscle that could be taken as a sign of agreement. He wasn't going down that easily, no matter how much agony he was in. He couldn't afford to.
Malcolm huffed cold air into William's face, making his eyes water. “You never did know when to cut your losses and surrender graciously, did you, William?"
"Just a part of my charm."
Malcolm grinned and then buried his fangs deep into William's exposed shoulder, sucking blood and life from his opponent, just a little, just enough to weaken him further. As he pulled back, he tore viciously at William's skin, leaving a gaping wound that trickled precious blood onto the tarpaper roof of the abandoned apartment building. The wound showed no signs of healing anytime soon.
He ran a fingertip through the puddle of blood created beside William's battered face, drawing crude symbols on the roof's surface just far enough away that William could see them if he strained his neck and rolled his eyes. Malcolm knew William wouldn't be able to resist looking, and he couldn't. All vampires knew the ancient language. It was part of the conversion, a genetic imprint passed on to the newly converted, innate knowledge all vampires possessed after their awakening.
The symbols leapt from the gritty surface, their meaning searing into William's brain, unlocking his final waning reserves of vampiric strength. He surged up, his one still-functioning hand around Malcolm's thick throat. It was a pathetic attempt, but one William had to make. He managed to catch Malcolm by surprise, enabling him to throw the vampire off enough to roll on top of him, pinning Malcolm to the rooftop.
He tightened his fingers around Malcolm's windpipe before he remembered vampires as old as Malcolm didn't need to breathe. A malicious smile on Malcolm's face chilled William to the bone.
"Poor choice of defense, but I applaud your efforts to fight back.” Pale gray-blue eyes studied him thoughtfully, a sudden intimate interest beyond the approaching victory lighting them. It would have made William blush if he'd had the blood to spare.
"You always could surprise me ... in so many ways.” Malcolm's stare turned colder still, and his lips twisted into a biting smirk. “I hope it's a trait you've passed on to your offspring."
William tried to pull back, but Malcolm held him in place and rolled them over together. A sharp metal roof vent impaled William through the back, and he screamed into the humid, still dawn-tinged air, the sound more an animal than human. With a powerful thrust, Malcolm used his considerable weight to crush William all the way down to the to the tarpaper surface.
Malcolm Crane had been taken in his thirty-second year of life during a bloody, vicious Celtic war. A celebrated, successful leader and brutal warrior, his body had been preserved for all time in its hard, thick-muscled perfection, honed by a human life of battle and grueling physical labor of the ancient times. Malcolm was broad, hard, and chiseled like a statue that paid homage to the perfect male form.
William's body reflected his prior life as a photojournalist. He was medium height, slender of build, with a keen mind and zero fighting skills. The most exercise he had ever done as human was jogging. He was no fighting match for Malcolm and he knew it, but there was more at stake than his undead existence. The blood markings Malcolm scrolled into the rooftop told him as much. But the pain, the pain was unbearable, agonizing, consuming.
Through the haze, William sensed Malcolm staring at him. He blinked to clear the tears of agony away and face his executioner with as much courage as he could gather.
He'd gambled everything he had in this long-awaited battle with Malcolm—his fortune, his power, his property and his very existence. He hadn't lost easily. Partly because that wasn't what Malcolm would want and partly because William had hoped if he gave the ruthless ancient a glorious win, the old warrior would be merciful and not take everything William's losing would entitle him. He had only been a vampire a few short years, but he had planned wisely, accrued power and wealth trying to make up financially for his sudden absence from his mortal life. He had been a creature of the night covertly arranging to pay college tuition.
William didn't care about his power or even the properties and money that he had hoped would go to his mortal heir, but there was one thing William didn't want Malcolm to claim. One very important thing he had to protect even if it was with his last breath. But he knew now that was lost as well. Knew it as clearly as he knew he was moments away from slipping out of existence.
He shuddered with the effort to pull in a breath deep enough to make his words heard, not caring if they sounded like a plea. “Don't make it hurt. Don't make him suffer, please."
Malcolm ran two fingertips down William's less damaged cheek, the touch sensuous and possessive, but with an element of hesitation.
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"Why should I do that, William? What has earned him that privilege?"
Lying inches from Malcolm's handsome, angular face, with Malcolm's weight crushing down on him, William accepted the intimate touch in death that he had refused to accept in life.
He had always been attracted to the man physically, but Malcolm's sometimes brutally cruel warrior nature had been too great a barrier for William to ignore. It had even brought them to this closing chapter in their relationship. In the long run, Malcolm did not take rejection well.
"My dying request.” William shivered and gasped, life draining away alarmingly fast, but he found enough will to lock stares with Malcolm hovering over him. He watched as Malcolm's cold glare churned to something dark, heated, and unspoken. “If you ever loved me at all, show him mercy."
The dark look froze, quickly replaced with a bitter stare. “Mercy?” Malcolm chuckled and traced the outline of William's swollen lips. “What is that?"
"Yes, mercy.” Malcolm's fingers moved with William's mouth as he talked, and William didn't bother to shake them off, even going so far as to let his tongue flick against them as he moistened his lips between words, using all the weapons at his disposal to sway the vampire. “Have you lost touch so completely with humanity that you forget the meaning of the word? Isn't that one of the coveted traits of the finest of warriors? Mercy with victory?"
Malcolm's response was low, guttural, and cruel. “You know nothing of being a warrior nor of me!"
Now, even with nothing left to lose, the older vampire's ability to thrust paralyzing menace into mere words still made William cringe, but it didn't stop him from fighting back with more words of his own.
"I know you've won. I'm not sorry to leave this life. You've won this battle and, with it, everything I possess. If you're still are a true warrior, show him mercy. Don't lose touch with the human you once were, Malcolm. Don't lose yourself completely to this unholy existence. Please, don't make him suffer because of me."
"Always the altruist, even now when brute strength would have served you better.” Malcolm's sneer had lost some of its sharpness, the bitterness replaced by a glimmer of something William read as grudging respect or maybe veiled affection.
He used it to push home his point as his last breath escaped his crumbling body. “You are the most powerful, Malcolm, the winner. But what will show the better man? The brutal winner or the merciful one?"
Malcolm's nostrils flared, his cold eyes narrowed, and William's heart sank. “Brutal or merciful, the winner still takes all."
With a last defeated sigh, William's spark of unearthly life faded and his body turned to ash, dissolving under the weight of Malcolm's body, leaving the ancient vampire lying in the dust of the man who had once been his most steadfast detractor and his unachieved fondest desire.
His own hand was full of the ash that had once been William's left hand. Malcolm rolled the gold wedding band left behind in his palm. He read the inscription, then slipped it into his pocket as he rose to his feet. He didn't even try to brush the ash from his clothes.
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Malcolm couldn't believe the young man's name was actually Hunter. Hunter Pray. It was absurd and yet fitting at the same time. Since Hunter's father's demise five months ago by Malcolm's hand, the young freelance photographer had become the ancient vampire's hunted prey. Hunter was the last chip to be cashed in from the deadly high-stakes game that Malcolm and William had played and that William had lost. The twenty-four-year-old was the final acquisition for Malcolm. The one he had saved for last. The only remaining piece of his rival's most treasured possessions to claim. And the sweetest.
He had even begun entering Hunter's apartment while he slept, just to unnerve the human, play with him. He would enter by the perpetually open window and stand in the shadows until, even in sleep; the young man would sense a presence. Then he would vanish faster than Hunter's reactions could track him, always moving slow enough that the human's disoriented senses registered the flash of movement, the rustle of cloth, the swoosh of air as he departed out the sixth-floor window in the twenty-story apartment building. He knew from experience how unnerved it would leave his victims.
That was just the first three nights.
Now he came to marvel at how like the father the son was. William had had a small dimple in the corner of his mouth that never relaxed, not even in slumber. Hunter possessed the same dimple and the same full, deeply pink lips. So, entranced, Malcolm started watching Hunter from a distance during his waking hours as well.
When awake, the human's eyes shone with the familiar, intense, consuming interest in life that William's had held, and Hunter's physical mannerisms mimicked his father's—rapid, impatient, energetic, and impulsive. Malcolm almost regretted his decision to end the existence of a human so enamored with living. But then, that would make the prize all the more sweet, wouldn't it?
Hunter was a beautiful young man with an underlying thread of confidence Malcolm could actually feel in the air when he got physically close to Hunter. The one time he allowed Hunter to see him face to face, he had been intrigued by the way the young man's gold-flecked hazel eyes met and held his. Intrigued and aroused.
The brief glance had been startlingly warm and open. It darted over his own sharp-boned features, wandered up to his closely cropped hair, and then dropped to his pale lips, moving on up to linger on his gray eyes with a stare that could have been interpreted as attraction if Malcolm had been prone to romantic notions. He wasn't. He couldn't even remember what romance and love felt like anymore, but he suspected it was right about then his interest in Hunter began to shift from quick-meal-and-prize-won to something more ... intimate.
He had planned very carefully so that he could savor every moment of this victory kill. Malcolm imagined the young man's blood would be sweet, full of youth and strength, with a fervor for justice just like his father's—only better, innocent and untainted by even a short time as a vampire like William's blood had been.
Malcolm stalked him nightly. He followed Hunter home from his evenings out with friends. He sat in a darkened corner of the large, solemn reading room at the local library where Hunter spent most evenings reading, apparently researching some isolated, war-torn North African region. It was all unimportant, but Malcolm knew the value of learning about a victim. Plus he enjoyed watching Hunter in everyday moments, unguarded and relaxed, like now.
Face down, Hunter shifted and stirred under the thin covers, distress on his slumbering face, his senses already picking up on the intruder at his side. His nude body twisted in the sheets so that his lithe frame was outlined by the shroud of blue linen. A frown marred his forehead, and his lips parted to allow a soft gasp to escape.
Malcolm could smell the apprehension on Hunter's breath and in his sweat. It brought a slight twist of pleasure to one corner of his mouth. He picked up a pair of discarded jeans from the foot of the bed and brought them to his face. Pressing the button-fly crotch to his cheek, Malcolm inhaled the rich, musky smell lingering in the soft, well-washed fabric, delighting in the scent that was primitive and base, a dried, faint mix of Hunter's sweat and hormones.
It was pure and earthy, untainted by the tobacco, drugs, or alcohol that seemed to plague most of the humans Hunter's age. It was a natural aphrodisiac—ambrosia promising that his blood would be as sweet. Knowing he would have to leave soon when Hunter awoke, Malcolm couldn't resist moving closer. He tossed the jeans to a nearby chair and silently stepped to the head of the bed.
Hunter was short, like his father, not more than five feet eight, but the one hundred and forty-five pounds on his frame were lightly muscled and well-defined. One hand curled loosely under his chin, his faintly shadowed jaw framed by tousled fawn-brown hair that curled at his neck and fringed the wrinkled pillowcase.
A faded old scar under Hunter's right eyebrow glistened with a bead of sweat. Malcolm wondered what injury had had the pleasure of drawing this man's blood for the first time. He had a
sudden urge to lick the tiny crevice of raggedly healed flesh.
First he imagined the taste of Hunter's terror-fueled sweat. Then his imagination questioned what the sweat would taste like pooling in the scar when created by wild passion and lust instead. Malcolm felt his passion rise, and the long-forgotten stirring in his blood almost made him recoil.
His prey stirred again. Hunter rolled onto his back, signaling the man's sleep-laden mind had finally registered his presence and was about to awaken. Dressed in black, a mere layer of darkness in the gray and black shadows of the room, he watched and waited until Hunter had actually started up in bed, disoriented and panting, to stare into the corners of the bedroom. Only then did Malcolm swoosh out the open window.
He heard the tap-tap of the window blinds swaying in the draft of displaced air along with a tense, “Who's there? Damn it, answer me!"
* * * *
"Who's there?” Hunter sat up in bed, staring into the deepest shadows in his room, searching for the source of growing disquiet that had invaded his life lately. “Damn it, answer me!"
But the bedroom was dark and empty. He knew it would be—it always was—but he couldn't shake the feeling that there had been someone, something, watching him. If not watching, than waiting for him. The last ten days of this feeling were beginning to play hell with his sleep.
"Freaking nightmare!"
Ten days had passed since he began to feel eyes on him, sense a presence with him in empty rooms. Sometimes it was beside him when he awakened at night, hair and sheets plastered to his skin with a sheen of sweat, even though the bedroom's air was cool and pleasant, a gentle breeze from his habitually open window. He'd close the window, but there was no reason to. There was no balcony, no fire escape, no trellis or drain pipe for an intruder to use, and he was too high for easy access. An intruder who got into his bedroom through the window would have to be able to fly.
Throwing back the damp sheets, Hunter swung both feet over the edge of the mattress and sat naked, hunched over his knees. He rolled his shoulders to shake off the tension and ran his fingers through his hair, grimacing when they came away clammy with sweat. Sighing, he turned on the bedside table lamp and made another quick visual scan around the dimly lit room before standing up.