Strawberry-A Vampire Romance Page 2

  A tongue licked across the lowest point of my neck, right where my pulse beat. A frisson of desire ran through my body, startling me. I reminded myself this was just a job. Stay professional.

  The vampire-men crowded around the table, crawling up onto it to get better access to me. A hot mouth sucked at the flesh of my right breast where the gown had fallen off my shoulder and left it bare. I gasped at the sensation and then screamed. I wanted to strike the man off me but kept in character. This is what I was being paid for. I knew what I was in for. It wasn’t the first time I’d put up with being kissed or fondled for a scene. Hell, my first part had been a high school student making out with her boyfriend in a car. I died in the first five minutes of the movie. Standard old slasher pic, you know the ones. That had been one of the ones that had gotten all the way through production. And straight to DVD.

  My mind wandered as I tried to relax into the role as the men played their vampire game.

  Then the first man bit me.

  They didn’t bite hard but they weren’t exactly gentle either. That’s going to leave a mark. I was sprawled on the table, teeth nipping at me in three places. Their plaything. I let myself go limp with a quiet moan like a victim finally overcome. I silently congratulated myself on how realistic it sounded. Hot hands tangled into my hair and warm tongues slid across my skin. Someone tugged my hair a little harder and I gasped, arching my back. I suddenly realized there was a reason for the highly sexual reaction to vampires as portrayed in so many movies. This was surprisingly, undeniable, hot. Fake fangs pulled at the bared flesh of my cleavage, arms and neck. Little shivers stole up and down my spine, making me whimper, and a delicious ache built inside me. It was so unexpectedly provocative I hardly even realized that I’d almost entirely lost my composure. I was legitimately beginning to enjoy myself, and not just because I loved acting. I had just about decided that I really needed to get laid soon when an icy finger ran up my thigh, yanking me out of the delectable stupor I had tumbled into. I felt a cold nose press against my neck and breathe deeply. I heard a small grunt of desire.

  “Stop. This one is mine.” The smooth, cultured voice seemed to spear through my body, deep and commanding.

  My eyelids, gone heavy during the biting, slammed open to see my vampires falling back, their faces gone blank. It looked like someone had just reached in and erased them from within. Lights on, nobody home.

  A new man stood above me, silhouetted by the dim scarlet glow of the lamp behind him.

  Just another player? Something seemed different, and a primal instinct to escape invaded me again and I tried to scramble back across the table, but the dead, cold hands dragged me back and up into his arms. I’m hallucinating, I insisted to the panicking, animal instinct in my brain. He was probably wearing cooling gloves or something to give the illusion of being corpselike. A hardcore player, more so than the other vampires who had fallen back. Except that even in the dim light I knew he wasn’t wearing gloves. His lips whispered against the side of my neck. I shivered at the coolness of his breath. He was stronger too. No matter how much I struggled against him I couldn’t get his fingers to budge. It was like he was made of stone.

  I heard him inhale deeply, his mouth just below my ear.

  Then his teeth sunk deep into my neck.

  This was no small bite. Pain went from searing hot to icy cold, both sides of it so intense I screamed in agony. I closed my eyes as the pain made my vision swim, threatening my consciousness with the sudden fierce agony. I thrashed and kicked but his arms locked my upper body in place, immobilizing my chest and one of my arms. I flailed the other arm ineffectually, trying to push him off. I could feel the blood leaving my body in the strangest sort of internal suction. Gradually, my struggled lessened and I opened my eyes, my throat hoarse from screaming. Dizziness started to overwhelm me.

  The silent players stood there, vacant, and I stared up at their emptied out faces over the attacker’s shoulder, wondering where the help I had been promised was, how this could be happening, was I going to die?

  My fingers curled weakly in the fabric of my attacker’s shirt, still feebly trying to pull him off me or maybe just trying to steady myself. It was getting hard to think, like my brain was filling with fog and cobwebs.

  Fake lightning. Fake mist. Real blood.

  Darkness spun up from the floor.

  I saw one last candle, spitting its fire in the grotesque candelabra and then everything went black.

  Chapter Two

  Death... death is... Death tastes like coconut.

  Wetness, on my lips, on my chin.

  I opened my eyes as coconut water dribbled from my slackly open mouth. It was being fed to me by a blank-eyed creature with a nest of black hair, the grey face of an English schoolmarm, and a wide, wicked grin. Her lips were coated in a blood red lipstick, so badly applied it smeared up her cheeks and on her teeth. At least, I hoped it was lipstick.

  What is going on? Am I dreaming?

  The last thing I remembered... I had been bitten. Bitten by what, a real vampire? All reality and reason had fled my world. Vampires didn’t exist. I, Kitty French, did not believe in hocus pocus like that. I was a thoroughly modern woman. I was simply in the grasp of some lunatic who believed himself to be a blood drinker.

  Thirst raged in me. I didn’t know what was happening, but if I was thirsty I couldn’t be dead. I tried to focus on the room I was in but pain sank like talons into my throat and shoulders.

  “Garrrrrgggggg,” I got out before the woman doused me again, the juice spilling from the spoon and down my chin. My tongue instinctively shot out, lapping at the liquid falling down my face. It wasn’t enough to soothe my parched throat. My vision was fuzzy but gradually starting to clear. If I didn’t struggle and didn’t move my head much, the pain faded to a throb that I could handle. Barely.

  My arms were restrained above my head. I stared upwards at the complicated contraption of heavy black chains connected to a pulley system. It made my neck ache and stab with pain though, so I let my chin drop back down to staring ahead, trying to see what else I could find out with the rest of my body. My toes curled and I realized that I was able to touch the floor and that my ankles were not shackled. I had the use of my feet but that hardly seemed to matter given the chains and cuffs binding my wrists. By stretching I could set the balls of my feet on the ground and take a little of the weight off my strained shoulders. I almost cried in relief as the strain lessened.

  I looked wildly around at my surroundings: there was a slide-in electric stove and a Traulsen G-Series refrigerator that I would have envied if I had not been scared utterly shitless. The granite countertops were immaculate, the small appliances incredibly expensive. The irony was that I was in, without a doubt, my dream kitchen. Except that I was strung up from the wall instead of the fine hunk of cured Spanish pork that should have been there.

  The woman who looked like Halloween warmed over, spoon feeding me coconut juice, was also out of place. She belonged in a haunted library, or a rundown, creepy sideshow. Not what appeared to be a fairly modern high-end home. The rich colors in the cherry cabinets and slate tiled floor just seemed to wash her out further. Her blank look jarred my memory. The fake vampires had worn that same look when the one with the cold hands and really sharp teeth came...

  My gaze whipped to the left and there he was.

  I half expected to see a grotesque monster. The media has shown so many types of vampire, that when presented with what could potentially be the real thing, I didn’t know what to expect. Not that there was such a thing as the real thing. Whether monster or man, he wasn’t what I expected.

  Only the white, lifeless skin made him seem anything but human. It was pristine, like alabaster or fresh, unyellowed ivory. The kind of skin Victorian women and goths would have killed for. He had swept back hair of a deep brown like rich, peaty earth. The color was too rich to ever be mistaken for black. It was like really good, really dark chocolate. His eyes were f
ringed with lashes so thick it looked like he was wearing mascara on them and so long that when he blinked they seemed to sweep his cheeks. His face was built of sharp angles and high cheekbones.

  His long body was clothed in all black: silk shirt clinging to his broad shoulders and accentuating his narrow waist and black jeans that outlined his lean legs and hips. He couldn’t be anything but human, I tried to reason. When I met his eyes though, there was nothing there. No humanity, not even curiosity. Even the crazy vagrants on the street didn’t have that sort of look, no matter how long gone their minds seemed.

  This man’s eyes were a true black. Deep and endless, they drew me in, inhuman and so cold I felt goose bumps shiver up my skin.

  Under normal circumstances I would have found him desperately handsome. But not now. Not this inhuman thing that all parts of my soul wanted to run from.

  He stared hungrily at me like a chef preparing a particularly expensive cut of meat. At least it appeared to me that the sensual way he ran his eyes over my body was akin to the way I eyed rich ice cream.

  “You need to stay hydrated. The coconut water will help. Drink,” he said.

  The spoon actually made it between my lips. I swallowed greedily. I needed to get rid of the burning in my throat. One spoonful wasn’t enough, but it did help.

  He nodded. “Good girl.” His condescending voice prickled the hairs on the back of my neck and made my face twist into a snarl.

  Not doing it for you, monster.

  I glared at him, hating that he ordered me to do the thing I wanted and needed. Hating that I couldn’t refuse him. Anger rose in me. I hated him thoroughly and I was already planning what would happen when I escaped and got back to the city. I was going to report his kidnapping ass to the police and enjoy it when they dragged him off to rot in jail.

  The kitchen was lit by weak, early morning sunlight but he stood in a small pool of shadows, his face turned away from the windows. The hanging vertical shades allowed dusty bars of lemony yellow light in and I stared at it, trying to think past the immediate situation and to my future survival.

  I managed to look down at the condition of my body. My filmy night gown was stained where dried blood pooled on one of my breasts. I didn’t feel pain or signs of violation anywhere except my neck and was glad that my lacey g-string was still on. That was a start. The amount of dried blood worried me though, and the dizziness I was fighting made a little more sense. How much blood had I lost?

  At least I will die wearing nice underwear. Be proud, Mom, be proud.

  More juice hit my cheek. “Ssnaa....” My throat was so sore I could not speak. My hand automatically tried to go there, to comfort the wound. The chains made a musical rattle of protest at the motion and the reality of my situation struck me hard.

  Terror exploded inside me. Black, blinding terror that sent me into a writhing, kicking, scratching, frenzy that was short-lived due to the fact that I could not scream nor move in any real direction and the only thing the thrashing about accomplished was to make my arms and shoulders ache even more. My wrists felt the strain as I scrambled to find my footing again and ease the pain. Exhaustion and despair poured through me in waves.

  Tears seeped from my eyes but they did not fall. I blinked them back. I wouldn’t let that monster see me weak. I managed to scrape out a raspy, “Why?”

  It was a damn good question. I mean all I had done was try to earn a living. No way did I deserve to be chained up in the kitchen of a vampire.

  No, just a vampire poser, I reminded my blurring brain. I was just thinking of him as a real monster because I hated the idea a real human would do this to me. But I knew the world was full of human monsters who would do this and worse. My eyes went back to his ghastly pallor and the way he stood so far back in the shadows. Maybe he was just a whack job who had taken the whole thing way too seriously. Looking at the woman who was haphazardly feeding me I thought she could just be a junkie. Then again the players at the LARP scene had definitely not been junkies. There hadn’t been time to slip them something. Hypnotism maybe?

  If I could accept hypnotism as an excuse, I might as well believe it was real vampiric compulsion, just like I’ve seen on so many movies. Could he be a real vampire and the woman his human thrall? My mind was going back and forth like a ping-pong ball.

  I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. I daren’t know. I wanted some other explanation, so I asked again, “Why?”

  “What’s your favorite food?”

  I stared at him, bewildered by the response. And what a question to ask a die-hard foodie. What was my favorite food? Lobster tail drowning in fresh drawn butter, couscous plump and rich with leeks and the mildest of cheeses? Maybe simple freshly baked bread still warm from the oven, its outside brown and slightly crisp and its middle delightfully chewy, slathered in the best French butter? The strangeness of the question sent my mind into a tailspin.

  He didn’t seem to take my not answering as an offense. “Mine is strawberries. Or, it was, back when I could still partake in food.”

  I was confused. I mean who cared what his favorite food was? I could see him asking about mine. Perhaps this was like death row and I was going to get a first-class meal before he punched my exit ticket to the next world, but why was he telling me about his? If he really was a vampire then I knew what his current favorite food was, regardless of what it had been in the past.

  He tilted his head, examining me. “If you found a strawberry plant that grew the most exquisite berries in the world, so ripe, so plump, so perfectly sweet with just a hint of tartness lurking in their firm red flesh, would you strip it bare? Would you tear it up from the roots to gorge yourself on the fruit? No, you would tend it, care for it, so it would stay alive, and continue to grow and bear fruit so you could savor the taste of its berries until the end of its short season. ”

  I did not like where this was going. My head shook side to side, denying him. I refused to draw the parallels he was trying to make.

  His eyes met mine, their black so deep, gaze so intense that my whole body shuddered. “You are my strawberry. I will keep you alive as long as possible and you will be my only food until you finally die. There is something about your blood, something so delicious I can’t bear to part with you or consume you all in one meal. I aim to have you as long as possible.”

  I could not even speak. I could do nothing but stare at him. Was this really going to be my final fate? Run away from my family to a place I had no friends, to work for a few years in meaningless roles, and then die to some crazy, some monster who thought I tasted good? I didn’t have to respond though because he turned away, saying over his shoulder, “It is too late in the morning for me to have any strength left. I will see you this evening.” Then he disappeared as if he had never been there at all.

  For what? Dinner? My neck ached and the thrall dipped the spoon into the juice again, splattering it against the side of my nose that time. With the vampire gone, she stood there confused for a moment then walked away, her arms and legs jerking like a possessed marionette that had been let off of its strings. I stared at the remains of the coconut water, lying just out of reach. It was all I could do not to whine like an abandoned dog.

  I watched her clean the kitchen and it became clear she wasn’t going to come back to feed me. I called to her, begged her for help, for freedom, for my life, scratching my tender throat bare. She made no sign she even knew I was there as she mechanically scrubbed and mopped before she left the room with a vacuum cleaner tucked under her arm, carrying it like a load of groceries.

  Alone in the kitchen I let myself cry. Tears trickled down my cheeks, stinging the wound on my throat as the moisture loosened the dried, caked blood. I could only imagine how I looked, mascara running down my face, one side of my body drizzled in blood. I forced myself to stop, blinking rapidly and sniffing hard to stop my nose from running. Hanging around indulging in a big tear-fest was only wasting time. Tears wouldn’t help me now. What would help me w
as to get out of these chains and out of this crazy house. My eyes went to the rack of kitchen knives on the bench nearby. It was a heavy butcher’s block that held a full set of blades. I glanced up at the pulley system, trying to judge how far it would let me move. If I could just reach a thin fillet knife I could try to open the cuffs that were against my wrists. And if that didn’t work, maybe I could defend myself from the vampire when he came back to eat me.

  The chains had some give, and when I pulled hard they ran through the pulley system and let me bring my arms down and move, but it took a lot of effort. When I didn’t pull hard enough the pulley started reeling me back in. My muscles shook and strained from the effort. The metal made a harsh whispering sound as I tried to creep along the floor to the counter. I was brought up abruptly by the bonds though, just inches from the counter and the knives. I strained against the shackles with everything I had, bracing against the wall with my feet, hoping they would break or come undone but that only served to exhaust me. The chains reeled me back in and left me hanging with my face pressed into the cold tiles of the wall.

  My head buzzed and there was a distant roaring in my ears. Something warm and thick dripped down the side of my neck and trailed down, soaking the top of the night gown. I’d torn my abused neck open again and it bled freely. The light faded out around the edges of my sight and I groaned, too weak to keep on fighting although every part of me wanted to. The last thing I saw was the thrall’s clown-from-planet-crazy smile coming closer and widening. Strange, I hadn’t even heard her come back. Had she just been watching me this whole time?

  Don’t bite me, you bitch, I thought but then I was gone.