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There’s a celebration down below.
Krolock can hear the rush of human voices, the clumsy stumble of their steps, even from his perch on the tavern roof. The wind carries with it the scent of pines, bent low in winter’s grasp, battering the humble village below in snow and ice. Were he still living, he would have surely frozen to death, so long has he knelt, unmoving, on the rooftop.
Beneath the noise, the crush of drunken shouting, he can hear Sarah’s heartbeat – a steady tide, receding and swelling in turns; he can hear the breath that fills her lungs, the sweep of her hair as she runs a comb through it. That unremarkable comb, with four missing teeth. He can picture her perfectly in his mind; in a plain linen chemise, her auburn hair tumbled about her shoulders, the pale length of her neck obscured in its curls. He’s watched her perform this nightly ritual so many times now, he doesn’t need to look in the window to see her.
He does anyway.
Shadowed by the eaves, he hangs from the roof’s thatched edge with ease, obscured from her sight completely. His dark hair and cloak swirl about him in the wind, which rattles the latched window he peers into. As if it would keep him out. As if it would keep her safe. If he intended her harm, that is. He tells himself that each night, and each night the promise rings hollower.
Krolock has only taken notice of Sarah in the recent years, when she sprang from adolescence into adulthood, like a flower from the snow. She’s lovely, yes, but it’s not just her loveliness which snares him like a rabbit in a trap. He’s seen – and had – men and women far lovelier. None of them, though, not even in his long un-life, have had eyes like hers. Dark and luminous in turns; eyes like the night itself.
Those eyes glance up as she turns in her seat, staring straight at him. She can’t see him, not really, not with his magics obscuring him from her human sight. She knows he’s there. She always has.
Her gaze is mesmerizing. Hypnotic as it is, Krolock still slides his eyes down the length of her throat, the twitching pulse beneath her jaw, that artery most tender, the sweetest when split open. Saliva fills his mouth, flooding the spaces between his teeth and tongue, despite his efforts to swallow it down.
She smells like blood. She always does. All humans do. But tonight –
Ah, yes, his lips twitch in understanding. A woman’s blood always smells sweeter during her courses, tastes even better. He could never resist it. He’s led stone-hearted men into his arms and lured bitter widows to their doom with mere suggestion, but the allure of a woman during her courses enthralls him better than any vampiric magic. Perhaps it is magic.
His dead heart seizes beneath his ribs when she stands.
For a moment, he thinks she can see him. He can’t decide if he likes that or not.
Of course, he does.
Of course, she can’t, no matter how keenly she stares.
In her hand she clutches the comb until her knuckles turn white. Behind her, the oil lamp she’d placed on the side table sputters.
“Are you so cowardly that you won’t even introduce yourself to the lady you spy on?”
He almost laughs. Yes, there’s a fire in her that draws him in like the proverbial moth.
Using unseen hands, he slips the latch on her window free, bounding into the room on soundless feet. Below them, the tavern continues its uproarious celebration. He keeps himself concealed with magic, though if she looks hard enough, she might see a faint shimmer when he moves.
“Are you an Angel?”
He does laugh, this time. He laughs with surprised mirth, which swells his chest and rattles off the rafters.
“No Angel, I.”
Her eyes narrow. “Not a devil either. So, what my Papa says is true. There is a vampire up in that castle.”
He doesn’t take his gaze off her as he begins to pace, circling her slowly, his fingers itching to touch. Unbidden, his fangs emerge from his gums, pulsing in time with her heartbeat. He stares at the spot just beneath her ear.
“And what else does your Papa tell you?”
He already knows. Stay in your room. Don’t go out at night. Don’t talk to anyone.
So lovely has she grown that her dear Papa has resorted into locking her here, in this hunched little room, barely bigger than an attic. As tall as he is, he must bow his head as he paces. He stops just behind her; he knows she can feel the brush of his velvet cloak, the tickle of his hair on her shoulder.
Her breath stutters. Her little heartbeat thrums.
He almost wants her to run. He closes his eyes –
Pinned between his body and the wall; nowhere to go. His teeth in her neck, sweet hot blood gushing down his throat, her unfeeling hands grabbing at his hair –
Sarah turns, looks him square in the face. He swallows.
“He tells me that vampires like to seduce pretty young women before killing them.”
He’s about to reply, but she beats him to it, reaching out as if to touch him.
“He says they like to seduce pretty young women before killing them because they’re cowards. Is that what you are? A coward?”
He knows Chagal has said no such thing. He’s too stupid for such complicated thought.
His daughter, however, is not stupid.
Too curious for her own good, perhaps. Too brave.
Krolock morphs himself back into the shadows, out of her reach. Her eyes flick from one corner of the room to the other.
If it were any other human – no, human or not, he’d rip them open, crack their ribs and pull out their hearts for accusing him of cowardice. He hasn’t existed for as long as he has by hiding, like a mole in the dirt, or by running at the first sign of trouble.
She amuses him, though. His rage dims, a smothered ember, leaving something else flickering in its place. He ignores it.
There’s a violent crash down below. She startles, dropping the comb, her hands coming up to clutch at her chest. Despite her brave front, he knows she’s scared. He can taste it in the air. Her fingers tremble where they grip her chemise.
Such a flimsy thing. He can make out the swell of her breasts, the half-peaked buds of her nipples, and that ember he tried to ignore flares. It would be easy to sweep her up, rend her clothing like so many cobwebs, and suck those perfect, rosy buds until she screamed. Until she bled.
Sarah steps forward, her lips in a firm line. She approaches him despite her fear, or perhaps because of it.
“Will you not even show me your face?”
He should leave. Now.
Her fingertips brush his cloak. How small she is. He towers a good head above her, so much that even at her full height, she barely reaches his collar. His back hits the wall; there’s nowhere to go. If he were human, he’d be trapped.
He’s not human, though. He could slip out the window with none the wiser. Or simply push her away. He doesn’t want to. So, he stays, lets his magic ebb, just enough that she can glimpse through it, now more a veil than a mantle.
When he was a living man, he’d been handsome. Now he likens himself to a corpse, fresh in the grave. Pale. Cold. His once black hair is streaked with gray and gone dry as straw; though he hasn’t aged more, he hasn’t aged any less, and if he could see himself in a mirror, he’d know the lines around his eyes have only become clearer against his pallid skin. His gums have pulled from his teeth so much that even the human ones look ghastly. When he’d first been turned, he was almost thankful that no mirror would remind him of what he’d become.
This, the eternal beauty of death; the irony burns hotter than any flame.
Krolock expects her to turn away, or scream, or simply stare like a dumbstruck animal, like so many have before. She doesn’t do any of those things. Were he still alive he might have startled when, slowly, her hand reaches up, fingertips lighting on his cheek, then the other. There’s a mischievous, almost wicked smile on her face, and suddenly he wants to kiss her. A real kiss, as a living man might.
She does that for him.
At once, the smell of her blood and the taste of her mouth assails him utterly; her lips are clumsy, and chapped from the cold, but so warm and alive, and like a puppet on a string, he responds without thought. Immediately he sweeps his tongue past her lower lip, his fangs catching on the crease, and the first taste of her blood makes his head spin.
He could spend the rest of miserable eternity right there, with his fangs in her lip and her blood on his tongue, her body swaying in his grip. Krolock swears he’d do exactly that, repeats it like a vow when her arms come up around his neck, her fingers slipping through his hair.
Sarah makes a little noise when he sucks her tongue, twitches slightly when he draws more blood from the swell of her lip, moans fully when he grasps her hair and twists her head. The beat of her pulse is as loud as a drum, only grows louder when he slides his mouth to her ear, is almost deafening when he sucks on that little spot beneath her jaw.
It would be easy to tear into her throat. It would be easy to simply drink until her heartbeat ceased, easy to take his fill and leave her body there on the floor.
Her hand wedges between them to slip, just slightly, beneath the band of his trousers, that first touch makes him want more than something easy, more than to simply quench his terrible thirst. He’s no longer a living man, and the only lust which calls to him is the lust for blood – he was a living man first, however, and his body hasn’t forgotten it.
At the first hesitant brush of her fingertips on his cock, she gasps and withdraws.
Sarah stares up at him, her own blood on her chin, and through her chemise he can see her nipples have hardened to neat little buds, her neck flushed beneath the collar.
“How interesting you are,” he tries to hide the amusement in his voice, the simmering pitch. “Your father warns of seducers in the night, yet here you are, the seducer yourself.”
Her lips quirk up a little.
He reaches out, slowly enough for her to withdraw – and hooks his finger at the collar of her gown, pulling it down, first from her shoulders, her collar. She bites her lip. He watches her face as he drags the cloth lower, over her breasts, until it gathers at her waist, where he stops. She wriggles her hips, smiling, stepping out of the gown as it pools at her feet. Her skin gleams soft in the light, a line of gooseflesh erupting on her arms, and he wants to taste the path those bumps make from her shoulder to her wrist. Instead, he takes her hand and kisses it, her skin salty-sweet, tugging her closer so he can wrap his arm about her waist, and leans in to kiss her again. She bites his lip, sucking it between her blunt human teeth. Tit for tat.
She grasps the lapels of his waistcoat, urging him to the side. He bends when she does, steadying her as she sits on the edge of her bed. It’s naught but a rickety frame and a mattress of straw. Her kisses turn slower, her hands sliding down his chest in an arc that makes him shudder. He watches her through half-lidded eyes as her fingers find the ivory buttons of his trousers, and surely, she can feel how painfully hard he is. It’s been decades. Centuries. The only touch he’s known for ages has been the struggle of his prey, their hands clawing uselessly at his face, the guttural lurch they all do in the end. Nothing so gentle as her palm cupping the bulk of him, her lips pressed sweetly to his. Nothing so warm as her breath on his cheek when he pulls away, her eyes drowsy, full of hunger. She chews her bottom lip, and the image of her pink mouth around his cock turns his belly. He nearly crumbles right there, his hands itching to be in her hair to guide her forward. Yes, she’d surely know how desperate he was then.
But that would be selfish. He’s had his fill of selfishness.
He stops her hand, takes it in his to press another kiss to her wrist. Her blood sings hot and sweet beneath her skin. Sarah looks on, brow twisted in confusion – his heart does a little stutter. “Lie back,” he tells her, running his knuckles down her cheek, “I have a different sort of kiss to give you.”
Her wicked smile says more than words can. So, Chagal’s innocent daughter isn’t as innocent as she seems, he thinks, watching her lie back on her stiff straw bed, hair fanned about her shoulders like a rich red cloak. His palms slide easily up her thighs, across the velvet crease between her leg and hip and back down again. The candlelight creates arcing shadows beneath her breasts, her ribs, her lovely white neck; Krolock allows himself a bit of selfishness, leaning down to take a rosy nipple between his lips, a deep grumbling groan working up his throat when she presses up against his bite. He works the little bud between his teeth, sucking hard enough to surely bruise, before going to the other and back again. The world becomes lost to him. The whole town could tear down her bedroom door and he’d be none the wiser.
She tugs at his hair, bringing him back to the moment. He’s tempted to chastise her for her impatience. After all, it’s been centuries for him: What’s a few moments to her? He slides the flat of his palm across her hip, pressing down until she stills. He lays his head between her breasts, listening to the wild beating of her heart, the rush of air as she breathes, relishing the noise she makes when he runs a single finger between her sex. She’s full and ready, so sensitive that she physically jerks when his thumb presses against her sticky clit. Had she been touching herself before he came to her window?
Just the thought makes his knees weak. Kneeling as he is, he can at least hide it from her. He unfastens his cloak, letting it drop to the floor behind him, briefly palming himself through his pants for a sliver of relief. Sarah stifles a little laugh, moving to hook her calf around his hip, drawing him between her open thighs. “You were saying something about a kiss?”
Krolock stamps down an annoyed grunt. How impatient! How easy it would be for him to leave her like this, with her thighs open in the cold winter air, alone on an uncomfortable bed. In a moment he would be gone, slipped as mist through the window with her none the wiser. But the unbidden image of her fingers working herself to an orgasm he wouldn’t see softens his ire. He tugs her further down the bed, pressing her legs to open more, enough so that he can bend between them with only minor discomfort. If he were in his home, in his bed, with its rich (if moth-eaten) linens and feather pillows, he wouldn’t have to kneel on an uncomfortable wooden floor.
But it all becomes worth it when he parts her with his fingers and licks, a long sure swipe from bottom to top; salty-warm-bitter, and so soft and so very wet, he nearly spends right there and then. It has been far too long.
Her breath shudders. He can feel the beat of her pulse beneath his lips, taste the thickness of her desire on his tongue. It’s almost better than blood. Her hand covers her mouth to muffle a moan, but he pushes it away. There’s enough noise down below that she can’t be heard anyway, and Krolock intends to savor the memory of this for decades to come. Unless she invites him in again.
He would risk it. He would risk that and more to feel her under his tongue, or her body beneath his, to see her come apart with his fingers or mouth or cock. It’s been so long since he’s had any sort of warmth, and if he were reckless, he’d simply whisk her back to his home. But a virginal girl gone in the night without a trace? The villagers would know it was him. They have an uneasy truce as it is. So Krolock contents himself with this, works his tongue over her more firmly, takes her throbbing clit between his teeth and sucks as if he could draw blood through that alone. Her thighs clamp around his ears, toes curling against his back. When he’s sure she’s wet enough, he touches the tips of his fingers against her; not enough to penetrate, as for now he won’t do anything to her which can’t be undone, but enough that he feels her gasp and tighten her hold on him.
It’s not long before she’s simply grinding against his mouth without thought, her groans and pleas lost in the noise from the crowd below them. He hasn’t even given her his name. Her chants of please and yes and there suffice enough, and if they meet again, he promises to hear his name in their place. If they meet again, he’ll have her on his bed, not the sad scrap of a thing she’s on now. He’ll have her on his bed in every which way, and on the floor and walls too if she wishes it. He hopes she does. She becomes impossibly wetter, fuller beneath his mouth when he tongues her opening and presses his thumb to her clit, her cries reaching a sweeter pitch when she fucks his face in earnest. The bed squeaks and squeals. He’s had whores with more restraint than she, as even the most brazen of them would make a token attempt at modesty – but not Sarah. No, the beauty fucking herself on his tongue and fingers is more spirited than any woman he’s ever had, and it fills his head with ideas so profane their suggestion would make even the Devil blanch.
Would she let him bruise her with a riding crop? Could she fit his cock down her throat? Would she let him have her virgin arse, once he’d had her cunt?
If he was hard before, he’s absolutely aching now. His kisses grow sloppy, graceless, her wetness covering his face from nose to chin, her taste and scent and warmth suffusing him from head to foot. She comes apart the first time with his tongue in her cunt. The second with her clit between his lips. The third, finally, with a hoarse shout, when he shoves two fingers inside her up to the knuckles, uncaring of what he might sully – he’s determined to have her anyway. Perhaps not tonight, but soon. As for himself, he unbuttons his trousers with such force that a few of them scatter to the floor, but it’s no matter; it takes only three hard strokes before he’s coming, with such intensity that his vision blacks out for a moment.
Her eyes are bright beneath her drowsy lashes when he looks up at her. There’s a charming flush all the way from her face to her breasts, her nipples red and well-bitten. He quashes the urge to sink his fangs into her soft thigh. Instead, he kisses the tender inside of each, letting his tongue slide along the curve of her hipbone just to hear her breathless laugh. She moves as if to pull him to her, but he stalls her with a hand pressed firmly between her breasts. He tsks her like a mentor scolding a student.
“Not tonight,” he tells her, loving the way her lips look when she pouts, “But perhaps another, in a bed finer than this one.”
She shivers, and he can only imagine the visions that fill her head at such a suggestion. She lets him pull away, first to don his cloak, then to gather her fallen chemise and hand it to her. The cloying, feminine scent of her will surely linger on him for days to come.
Standing, with her still seated on the bed, she looks so lovely, and so lonely. With care, Krolock brushes one red curl beneath her ear, bending to kiss her temple.
He could simply make her forget this. Convince her in dreams that this never really happened, that he was just a summoning of her desires and her own fingers. He can’t bring himself to do it, not when he pulls away and she grins, leaning up to take his bottom lip between her teeth, releasing it with a wet, satisfying sound.
“Until next time, then.”
Krolock straightens his clothing, brushes his hair from his face in what he hopes is a convincing attempt at neatness. Even if members of his court did find out, none would dare to voice it, but he wants to leave her with an image of him that’s half as charming as she thinks he is.
The noise from downstairs is uproarious as ever. His footsteps are silenced completely as he goes to the window, unlatches the flimsy fastening, and slips out into the winter night.