Fabien Read online

  I showed him my ring finger and asked angrily, “Do you think these mean nothing to me?”

  He looked down at the floor, his face sullen, his hand holding his red cheek and rubbing at it.

  “You look so beautiful,” he said with an emotion in his voice I didn’t like the sound of. It made me sorry I had just slapped him and I didn’t want to feel like that. I wanted to feel justified.

  “Just come with me to my party,” I begged with a strain to my words, “Louis, just come to mine!”

  “I’m getting a bonus this year and have to be there to collect it,” he argued, still looking sorry for himself.

  “Who cares? Are they really going to take it away, just because you don’t go to the Christmas party?”

  He lifted his chin and looked me in the eye, his big browns still so saddened. “I’ll stop by yours after I show my face, how’s that?”

  “Okay,” I said softly and looked away.

  I wanted him to just hold me and I felt pathetic feeling like this—confused and unhappy. I didn’t mean to hurt him but I didn’t want a baby!

  He cupped my chin in his hand while my eyes searched the room just so I didn’t have to look at him. “Jaimie, I love you.”

  “I know. I love you, too. But is it enough?”

  “What?”

  “Am I enough, Louis?” I challenged him.

  I maintained eye contact until he shook his head in disdain. “We don’t want to go to our parties off the back of another argument. Let’s leave it for now.”

  “Okay,” I agreed tiredly, and I self-consciously smoothed down the front of my cut-out red mini-dress, knowing it might have pushed his heart just a little too far over the edge.

  Perfect timing as ever, the taxi honked outside and I ran for my coat while Louis dashed out to hold it.

  LOUIS

  THE TAXI DROPPED me at the Royal York Hotel and headed on to The Golden Fleece where Jaimie and her bohemian colleagues were all meeting for a pub meal and drinks, then onto god knows where. One saving grace was that it was highly unlikely the city streets would be filled with its usual crop of drunk and dangerous hen and stag parties! Besides, my fervent hope was to get to her before they left the pub. Her… in that bloody red napkin she was wearing! Jesus she looked gorgeous in her robe, let alone that red-hot dress—creating what was already an explosive combination. She knew I loved her hair wavy and her eyes with dark kohl. She was more than foxy, she was ravishing. Worse was that I loved her and there were tons of bastards out there that only saw the tidy package on the outside, not the beautiful princess underneath.

  It was early when I got to my party and the only people around were a group of female admins who gave me the eye then proceeded to gossip, point and stare. I sat at the bar in the plush venue and made a point of waving, then turning away to amuse myself, chatting intermittently with the male bar staff. The girls thought I couldn’t hear their conversation across the large room we were using for the event, but I could.

  “How’d he end up married so young?”

  “Such a waste. Should’ve spread it about a bit before he got that ring on his finger.”

  “I heard she’s a right dog!”

  To that last comment, I almost got up from my chair, but I told myself that anyone who thought Jaimie was a dog was either jealous or simply hadn’t ever seen her in the flesh. My wife was a stunner and I knew she could have anyone she wanted, yet she’d married me.

  I recalled the night I met her at university, across the student union bar. I saw her dancing with a big group of girls wearing 21st-birthday sashes across their torsos and eventually, I followed her to the bar and before she could buy herself a drink, I bought her one. We found out we had some of the same lectures but while I was studying business management, she was studying retail and leisure management so we didn’t share the same seminars.

  I had no idea why I’d never seen her before! We got talking at the bar and before we knew it, we found a couch to sit in and got drunk on watery lager as we chatted about everything and nothing. I found she was a happy-go-lucky kind of girl and she told me I was too serious—all this was discerned within fifteen minutes of us meeting. She was right, too.

  On that couch, I put my arm around her shoulder and before we left the bar, we shared several passionate kisses. We left that place together and went back to hers, where we spent the whole night exploring an animal passion I’d never known before Jaimie.

  Wearing her pink frilly robe the next morning as I went down to the communal kitchen of her student place to make tea, I grinned when I encountered her flatmates who whispered, “It sounded like fun from what we heard.” I dove straight back into bed with Jaimie and the cups of tea went cold on the bedside table. I thought she was beautiful and I’d never met a girl before who didn’t swoon and lose her voice just at the sight of me. Jaimie and I could hold long, comfortable conversations from the word go—pity now we were married, that was no longer true.

  Back to the present. The hotel function room eventually filled up and I chatted with my mates, the ones who shared the same sense of humour as me and kept me sane throughout the day-to-day rigmarole that was office work. We talked briefly about our jobs at the insurance company, but it was only brief. Not too much shop-talk on Christmas Eve! Mostly we remarked on the extortionate price of bitter and the too-short skirt the office bike was wearing (not to mention the thong beneath which hid nothing from prying eyes!). The usual female suspects (not always single) were necking the usual (and not always single) male suspects on the dance floor, just in a slightly different variation on last year.

  Jaimie was right, the work’s do was always shit, and I didn’t know why I was there except to accept the bonus I knew I was going to be handed in a nice, shiny envelope. I was expecting a voucher for a weekend away in the Highlands. For a small supplement I was going to book Jaimie and me in for the coming new year weekend. We’d recently been distant with one another but with Christmas knocking on our door, I knew I had to make amends or else her new year’s resolution could have been to dump me. I knew she could have anyone and even if she didn’t want kids, well, I’d have to accept it, wouldn’t I? I couldn’t live without her batch meals, stupid slippers and tons of empty bottles of shampoo clogging our bathroom shelves.

  I planned to leave that do as soon as the presentations were made for Achievements of the Year. I knew I had won because I’d kept our department under the annual budget and basically my superior had mentioned I would be rewarded. Ben Doherty was all set for the M&S vouchers and Marie Cutler had won the customary food hamper, but the golden prize was mine all fucking mine.

  However, disaster struck. Just before my boss got up to cut the disco and hand out our envelopes, rounds of shots were brought over… and I remembered little after that. I didn’t have Jaimie with me to tell me when to stop and… it all got blurry.

  As I stumbled from the hotel around two a.m., I held the gift certificate in one hand, a collection of helium balloons in the other. I also remembered rebuffing the advances of several drunken females slurring their words, “Where’s ya wife luv? Gis a kiss darlin’. She don’t know what’s she’s missing… ya big hottie.” Those kinds of come-ons you think only dirty old women get away with.

  And fuck it. I also couldn’t get a taxi. Great. Walking it was.

  FABIEN

  EVER PREDICTABLE HUMANS… drinking, partying, up to no good. Christmas didn’t even have much to do with Christ anymore! I walked the streets that night seeking a feed because it was so cold, I needed something. I could go for several months with nothing but I was weaker than usual and this was not good. I needed to keep up my strength, I just never knew when another vampire might come into the hood and I’d be forced to fight. Not that anyone could rival me. You just never knew… and I especially didn’t want to cause any drama that might bring other vampires my way. Rumours always got back to Valdoria…

  I walked along the riverbank, hoping for some stray, and then th
is guy carrying a handful of balloons and a silly grin on his face passed me by. He didn’t notice I was not his own kind even though in the dark, my face was noticeably whiter and my eyes shone red against the deplorable moonlight.

  He even handed me a bottle of beer from his inside jacket pocket and I pretended to sip it as we walked through the night together. He rambled about nonsense and a wife he had waiting at home, all the while I was looking for a quiet little nook to pull him into. Just a bite. I reminded myself I couldn’t drain him completely, I didn’t do that—murder or changing wasn’t who I was, not anymore. It hadn’t been for 321 years.

  Hmm, a little lover’s retreat—I amused myself thinking—as we approached an allotment and I spotted a tall gate surrounded by high hedges. Before he even knew what was happening, I grabbed him by both arms and we flew over the gate and behind the foliage. For a moment he appeared disoriented until my lightning speed gave him no more chance to think or speak. I sank my teeth into his jugular and began drinking the nectar of his life force. My venom drew him under my spell and he went limp against me.

  When I fed, it wasn’t just fangs into flesh and bone, it was instinct and hunger fulfilled. It was delicious and I had to curb myself or risk getting too carried away. It wasn’t just blood I was drinking, either, it was parts of his soul and the meals and drinks he had feasted on.

  Luckily for me he was very healthy and his diet rich, giving me a good meal. I tasted alcohol too but this was only an added bonus. As I drank enough to quench my thirst but not too much that he would become ill, I reached the stage where I knew I should break away… but something stopped me. Often during the feeding frenzy an exchange of thoughts, memories and feelings would occur, it couldn’t be helped…

  In this man’s mind, this Louis I found out he was called, I saw images of a woman so much like Juniper, the human I had once loved. They looked just the same, with blonde hair and green eyes. I fed longer than was strictly safe to because as long as I remained latched on, I could see her face, blatantly at the forefront of this Louis’s thoughts. His wife I realised, was at the very forefront of his every thought. Just as my Juniper had once been.

  As I realised his blood was beginning to lessen in flavour, I used all my faculties of mind to yank myself from the delicious taste of his throat and throw his body back over the gate and onto the frozen grass of the riverbank. He wouldn’t feel pain or suffer, not for the first 24 hours anyway. After that he would feel the effects and have to sleep. Possibly for days.

  Absorbing the rich mixture of life he had given me, I drew on his mind’s memories and knew his wife, Jaimie, very much resembled my Juniper, the love I had lost. I knew the only way to break my curse was to find the reincarnation of Juniper, my one true love, the only girl I was able to restrain myself with. If I bit any woman, I would die because of the binding curse Leticia had put on my head. Which meant I couldn’t fornicate with just anyone and risk biting. After all sex and biting were too entwined in my nature, except for when it came to Juniper. She had been too pure to taint.

  Behind the gate I waited for half an hour before Louis sat up and looked around. I read his thoughts and discerned him thinking he had dropped unconscious from the drink. He plodded onwards home and I followed behind in the shadows, waiting to see where he and this wife of his lived. Soon I had my answer and I became determined to seek Jaimie and the possibility that she could free me of the dull life I had led for more than 300 years.

  JAIMIE

  MY CHRISTMAS PARTY was so uneventful it was laughable. We had a quiet dinner and sank some wines, exchanged Secret Santa gifts, then everyone started drifting away at ten. I texted my husband a couple of times but got no response. I didn’t have much faith in him joining our party after the second text was ignored, so I went home alone. I sank another wine while watching trashy TV on the sofa, then mooched upstairs and wiped off my make-up, sneaking into bed around midnight. No sign of Louis.

  Happy bloody Christmas.

  It was really late when he finally got home but I was only half asleep when he did, still subconsciously worried about him. He fell in bed beside me naked and I lifted the covers over him, hearing him snore within seconds of his head hitting the pillow. I finally fell asleep then too.

  IT wasn’t until dawn broke that things got interesting. I heard grunting and strange slapping sounds beside me. When I rolled over, I saw my husband was ghost-white and yet masturbating, hard. He was harder than I had ever seen him before in fact! He had thrown the covers off his body and every muscle in his arms and legs was working to bring himself to orgasm.

  “Ugh, that’s right,” he said, his eyes shut, clearly in sleep.

  I watched enraptured as he bit his lip and used his powerful fist to stroke himself. My bare mound tingling, I couldn’t help but enjoy the show.

  “So wet and hot,” he continued.

  I didn’t know if he was fully asleep, dreaming or having one of those night terror things… but I couldn’t just watch while he made use of himself. I’d gone to bed earlier feeling hot and aroused with that image of him in the shower still stuck in my mind. Alcohol in the mix was an added guarantee of arousal, too. Plus I couldn’t help thinking back to how he had reacted to seeing me in my underwear and stockings.

  While he sleep-wanked or whatever the term was, he also did something else I had never seen him do before. He massaged his own balls.

  I spotted sweat gathering on his chest and above his top lip. I wanted him badly, my breasts so tight and heavy on my chest. The tang of arousal in the air…

  I could smell his sexual pheromones fermenting in his skin, this only heightening my hunger. His scent was more like home than the house we’d tried to make ours.

  I managed to sneak my hand around his balls when he took his grip away to reach out above him, as if he was imagining touching my breasts.

  “Such naughty, bad breasts.”

  Oh my god. I had never heard him talk like that before! Pleasure rushed into my hairless pussy.

  Squeezing and manipulating his balls, he eventually took my hand and placed it on his cock. He put both his hands under his head but his eyes were still shut and he seemed under some kind of spell. I wasn’t sure what was happening… but he was looser than I’d ever seen him.

  “Pump my shaft, servile wench,” he said, and I wondered if this was an instruction to me or whomever it was he was dreaming about.

  Anyway I began to slowly drag my fist up and down his length and as I worked him, I touched myself. The sensation of my baldness was so new and naughty, the wetness so evident, so there.

  “Sit on me, you wanton female,” he said angrily, and I didn’t argue. I lowered myself onto his stiff cock and moaned with delight, having been given this opportunity to do what I wanted with him.

  All the while his eyes were closed, I closed mine too, focused only on the heat and fullness between my legs. It was so good. I’d never touched myself in front of him but I did that night.

  A DREAM

  EVERY NIGHT I wait impatiently to do my job and then finally be allowed to roam free outdoors and find myself a feast of my own choosing. Leticia requires me to dominate her nightly because she knows I am the only vampire in the coven not afraid to do so. One false move and I would be the one left for dead because she is most definitely the stronger. My power as a lover is that I can always usually tell what she wants. And she gets it.

  Our queen has no capacity for love but every capacity for pleasure. One day I wonder if I may fall in love with someone and then, what will happen? It won’t be easy for me to continue to be Leticia’s lover if I do find real love, finally. I’ve searched for love all of my life, whether as a human or immortal, and have secretly harboured wishes to gain it with another vampire. Yet our kind knows it’s hard to obtain. As vampires our nature is to enjoy everything we have been gifted and sexual appetite is one of our gifts. Few vampire couples remain monogamous and fewer declare their love. It’s seen as an emotion that could make
us weak and we cannot afford that. During daylight we are visible as different—no chance we could blend in—and that is why we keep Valdoria protected and sectioned off to any except those who are loyal.

  Leticia summons me to her chamber as usual and I am forced to fight her as soon as I enter her dark lair, filled with wood and fine materials becoming of a queen. Even one as hard-hearted as her requires fine cloths, it seems.

  She pins me against the door and the brutal sound of her biting into my neck irks for around a second before the pain gives way to immense, luxurious pleasure. My instant erection presses against her stomach and she feeds with more venom to arouse me even more.

  I tear her away from my throat, watching as she pulls back with hatred in her fiery red eyes, blood slipping from the corner of her mouth. She dabs at the small spillage and licks it from her forefinger, not wanting to waste a drop.

  “Fabien,” she chastises me, “you’ve been screwing too many peasant girls… your blood betrays you.”

  “What can I say?” I smirk. “I bite and fuck. It’s a heady combination.”

  She throws her head back laughing and I congratulate myself on once again managing to hide my true self—I would rather find true love than fuck thousands of times for nothing but the sake of pleasure and satisfaction. Yet my predicament is, I must keep Leticia satisfied because she chose me and therefore I cannot afford to fall for a single other soul or non-soul.

  “Ah, Fabien, you are my perfect mate,” she meows and flutters her extraordinary eyelashes.

  I have to give it to her, she is very beautiful. Large eyes and such a big, plump set of lips. The most exquisite breasts, a hairless pubis and long, elegant legs that have strength I relish.

  I do not love her.

  I could walk beyond the boundary any time I like. Yet I don’t. As long as I stay in Valdoria, I am protected and provided for and offered the most mind-blowing sex every night of the week with this truly unsurpassable beauty.