Unable to resist, he moved closer to her. She glanced questioningly up at him as his fingers slid over her cheek to wrap around her neck. With a gentle tug, he pulled her toward him and kissed her again. A small sound escaped her but she didn't fight against him. Her palm flattened against the place where his heart would have beat if he were human. He'd never once thought about the lack of a heartbeat within his chest but the instant his lips touched hers again, he had the sensation of his heart doing a brief kick against his ribs. He'd kissed many women over the course of his life but never once had he come close to experiencing the feeling of coming alive like he did when his mouth connected with hers.

  Needing more of her, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her flush against his body. Grasping hold of her chin with his thumb and forefinger, he nudged it open so that he could taste her. Her fingers jerked on his chest as his tongue slid past her teeth and into her mouth. She tasted sweeter than the blueberries he'd once picked and eaten out of curiosity as a child. His tongue stroked leisurely over hers as he relished in the delicious sensations that she aroused in him.

  He'd never get enough of her. The thought hit him from out of nowhere but once it took hold he couldn't shake it free. It became as forceful as a tiger gripping hold of its prey. A low growl escaped him. He pressed her even closer and his fingers slid up to bury themselves in the hair at the base of her skull. Her fingers curled into his shirt, her tongue slid out to brush hesitatingly over his. His heart seemed to give that same strange beat again as electricity sizzled over his skin and the hair on his arms stood on end.

  An outraged gasp sounded from nearby. It barely pierced his passion-induced haze as Genny opened her mouth even further to his invasion, allowing him to take further possession. Another gasp, followed by a shooing sound broke through to Genny though and she reluctantly pulled away from him. She tilted her head back to look up at him, her swollen lips curled into a smile.

  She turned away from him and he followed her gaze to a group of human women standing nearby. The look on the women's faces clearly stated that they thought he and Genny were the lowest form of life. Atticus's hand tightened in Genny's hair as he instinctively took a step closer to her. No one was ever going to look at her in such a way if he had anything to say about it.

  The women's eyes widened, they all took a step back before turning and hurrying away from them. Genny's bent head rested briefly against his chest before she looked up at him again. "The human race is amusing but they are extremely prudish about such silly things," she said.

  "Hmm," he muttered but he was still fighting the urge to rip out the throat of every one of those judgmental women for looking at her like that.

  "Come on," she said and stepped away from him.

  She ignored the offended and gaping looks from everyone they passed for the next hundred feet but he glowered at all of them. Genny chuckled when the humans turned away from him hastily. The roads became increasingly cluttered as they drew closer to the crowded market area of the town. Chickens, dogs and sheep moved as freely through the throng as the people did. Men and women loudly shouted to the passersby as they hawked whatever wares they were selling. The rancid and feral smell of body odor and animals was overwhelming. The disheveled humans, who had dirt and manure streaking their skin and clothes, made his skin crawl as they jostled against him. Standing here now, he was acutely reminded of the reasons why he stayed away from the human villages, as the smells and sounds assaulted his acute senses.

  The narrow street finally gave way to reveal a large clearing. More wooden carts were set up within the clearing but they were set up in a much more accessible circle. People moved more freely through here, the sounds were a little dimmer and he was able to walk without being forced against the unwashed masses. He could only imagine what diseases they might be spreading throughout these confined areas and he was extremely glad that he wasn't able to catch them.

  The clanging of swords rang in his ears. His attention was drawn toward where two men were sparring in an arena set up at the edge of the clearing. Shouts of encouragement and groans of disappointment filled the air as the men battled in the increasing heat of the day. The clouds had parted; the sun now beat down upon them and dried the mud caking the roads. Being so close to humans and all the overwhelming scents was making him increasingly edgy. He jerked his arm back from a man that brushed against him and smiled to reveal a mouth that was missing most of its teeth. If humans weren't necessary for their survival, he never would have come into contact with them. As it was, he preferred his food clean, pretty, and willing in more ways than one. None of these people fit that description, the only one that did wasn't human.

  His gaze drifted down to Genny as she continued to stroll through the crowd with relative ease. She was used to being here, this was how she survived in her world; this was who she was. The class distinctions between them were exceptionally broad but he found he didn't care about any of that as he watched her move. She deserved better than this.

  "Genevieve…"

  "Genny."

  "What?" he asked as he took an abrupt sidestep in order to avoid a steaming pile of manure.

  Her eyes were sparkling when she tilted her head to look up at him. "I told you before call me Genny, I much prefer it."

  Looking into her eyes, he realized he didn't care how many piles of manure he stepped in if she continued to smile at him like that. "Genny then."

  He grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her toward him when a large man came barreling through the crowd and nearly collided with her. A rumble of warning made its way up his chest but the man didn't pay them any attention as he pushed people out of his way. "Humans," Atticus snickered as the man stopped before the bread cart and demanded two loaves.

  "They are amusing to watch," she murmured and began to make her way through the crowd again. "They are very set in their ways and have such strange customs."

  He laughed and went to take hold of her arm when another man brushed past her but faster than a human could blink, so fast that even he almost missed it, she slipped the money purse from the belt at the man's waist and slid it into the pocket of her mantle. She smiled at him and waved her fingers when she caught his incredulous look.

  "They are also easy to take money from," she whispered.

  Atticus stared at her as he tried to understand who and what she was. He couldn't imagine having to steal for money, wealth and privilege had always been a part of his life, but then that wealth had been pillaged from others centuries before he'd ever been born. Watching her now, he realized just how much of the world he'd never paid any attention to, never even thought about before.

  "Do you do this often?"

  "Whenever it's necessary," she said as she folded her hands into the sleeves of her mantle.

  "Does no one take care of you?"

  Her head shot up, her eyes narrowed upon him and she thrust her chin definitely out. There was fire in her raven eyes as she glared at him. "I don't need anyone to take care of me."

  He took hold of her arm and stopped walking. "How long have you been doing this for?"

  "Since I was old enough to have to."

  He brushed back a strand of her black hair as it blew across her face and tucked it behind her ear. "Your mother…"

  "Don't," she whispered. "I've had it better than a lot of our kind living in the villages. My mother's not loving, she's not caring, but then most of us aren't, are we?"

  "No, most of us aren't," he agreed as he trailed a finger down her velvety cheek. Most vampires were not caring creatures but as his fingers brushed over her bottom lip he realized that this was the most tender he'd ever been with someone else.

  "But we have the capacity to be, if we so choose." Her lip began to tremble beneath his finger as her eyes searched his gaze.

  "Do we?" he couldn't help but ask. He pulled his hand away and took hold of hers.

  "I care for and love my sister." A wistful smile played across her lips before she took a step away from him.

  "True," he agreed.

  "Come." She tugged on his hand, pulling him further into the center of the circle of stalls. He followed her through the crowd toward a stall with bolts of cloth set out on top of it.

  "Genny," the dowdy looking woman with gray hair standing behind the cart greeted. "So good to see you."

  "You also Matilda," she replied as she pulled out one of the purses she had just stolen from inside her pocket and placed it on top of the cart. Matilda's chubby fingers were surprisingly nimble as she grabbed the purse and slipped it into her pocket. She glanced at Atticus questioningly before turning her attention back to Genny. "I will see you soon."

  "Thank you," Matilda said. "Tell Camille I said hello and I hope to see her soon also."

  "I will, maybe she'll come with me next time."

  "That would be lovely," Matilda said and turned her attention to another woman that had approached the cart and was admiring the colorful array of cloth.

  Genny turned away from Matilda and began to make her way through the crowd again. "What was that about?" he inquired.

  "When I was eight, and in the Easton village, I used to go to the nearby human town to find money. Matilda caught me stealing from there." He dimly recalled that the Easton village had been a vampire village about forty miles from here. Vampires often rotated out of the villages scattered throughout the country, or even into other countries after five to eight years in order to avoid drawing unwelcome human attention to themselves. "I was much younger and slower then. Instead of turning me in, Matilda taught me how to be speedier and more subtle about it before I lost a hand for my crimes. How embarrassing would that have been?" She gave a little laugh. "It was humiliating enough that Matilda, a human, had caught me to begin with."

  The fact that she had been eight and forced to do such a thing was something that he didn't know how to comprehend. Even if she'd lost her hand because she'd been caught by the humans, she would have healed with remarkable quickness. She most likely would have been put down by the vampire race afterward for putting their way of life at risk by possibly exposing them.

  "That wouldn't have been good," he agreed.

  "She often watched Camille for me too, while I was working the crowd, so to speak," she said with a mischievous smile. "We left the Easton village before I turned nine. I ran across Matilda again when we relocated to this area six months ago. She had moved here five years ago to sell her cloth and I think she may have also encountered some trouble with the law."

  "Why are you giving her money now?"

  "She may be a human but she's a good woman; she helped to keep Camille and I alive back then. She's getting older now and I like to give her whatever help I can."

  He stopped walking and tugged on her hand when she took a few steps forward without realizing that he wasn't beside her anymore. Her eyebrows raised questioningly as he stood and stared at her. He knew men that had enough money to buy a palace or even a small country and never would they have willingly given that money away in order to help someone that wasn't their family. Most of them wouldn't even help their own family.

  "What is wrong?" she inquired.

  He shook his head but he couldn't tear his gaze away from her. "Nothing is wrong."

  "Why are you looking at me like that then?"

  "What am I looking at you like?"

  "Like you have no idea who I am," she smiled at him but he sensed the uncertainty behind it.

  "I don't have any idea who you are; I've never met anyone like you." Her head tilted to the side as she stared at him. "I think I might scandalize the humans again."

  She laughed but it faded away when he pulled her closer, clasped hold of the back of her head and kissed her like she was the last woman on earth. When he'd kissed her before it was because he'd been curious to know what she would feel like, but now he kissed her because he could not stop himself. He kissed her now because he had to taste her, to touch her, and feel her against him. He kissed her because he needed this woman in a way that he had never needed anyone else before.

  Offended gasps sounded around them, but he completely ignored them as he tilted her head further to the side and kissed her until her knees buckled and his arm around her waist was the only thing holding her up.

  - CHAPTER 5 -

  Atticus shrugged out of his heavy, wet cloak and handed it to a passing servant. The man bowed his head before hurrying away. An unsettling feeling rattled in the pit of his stomach as he looked around the massive entranceway of the manor. Sunlight filtered in through the holes cut into the walls up above, revealing the rushes covering the floor and the golden chair set up on the dais across the way. A large table with twenty chairs surrounding it was set up in the middle of the room. Perhaps, if this had been a human home, the table would have been used often; this one was rarely sat at though and was mostly for show. It wasn't something he'd ever thought about before but this empty table seemed like such a waste to him after having just left Genny behind.

  His family's coat of arms, a dragon encircling a golden cross with a wolf at the bottom of the cross hung on the wall above his father's chair on the dais. The house of Valdhai, the house of vampires that he belonged to, was written in red across the bottom of the shield. For the first time he realized the amount of money that was in this one room alone, and this manor was the smallest of his father's numerous properties.

  He strode across the room and up the set of stairs on the right hand side of the building. He was almost to the top when his father's voice halted him. "Where have you been?"

  Stopping in the middle of the stairs, he looked up to where the formidable man stood in the hall above him. They got along well enough, but then they mostly just avoided each other until it became necessary that they did speak. He glanced down at his muddied boots and gestured at his wet clothing.

  "Riding."

  "We must talk."

  "Can't it wait?" he inquired.

  "No."

  Atticus reluctantly finished climbing the stairs to join his father. He'd been an inch taller than the man since he was in his teens, but recently he'd also become broader and more developed through the shoulders and chest. Though he was taller and larger, his father's age meant that he was still more powerful than he was. Over time even that would change as the power of the pure vampire blood flowing through his veins developed further.

  His father turned away when he stepped off the last stair and led the way down the hall. Atticus studied the back of his father's head as he followed him. His light brown hair curled at the edge of his shoulders and was longer than he normally wore it. A servant standing beside his father's private solar opened the door for him and then stepped aside. Atticus nodded to the man before entering the room and the servant closed the door behind him.

  He wasn't surprised to see his Uncle Nyles and Merle already in the room. Merle's expression was one of boredom, he had his arm draped over the back of the chair and his legs sprawled out before him. Atticus tried to cling to the pleasant memory of the day he'd spent with Genny but he had a feeling not even the memory of that last kiss would get him through whatever it was that his father and uncle planned to discuss.

  He slid into the chair next to the ornately carved one at the head of the table. His father was not a king but his marriage to Atticus's mother and the recent king's death, had made him one of the most powerful vampires in the world. His father's family was third in the bloodline, but at four hundred and ten he was now one of the oldest in existence. He liked to remind others of this fact by creating throne inspired chairs that were only slightly smaller than the king's actual throne would have been.

  Atticus folded his hands on the table and leaned forward while his father settled into his chair. His sable brown eyes were intent as he focused briefly on Atticus before turning his attention to a serving woman in the corner. He waved her forward. She brought forth four goblets and a tankard of wine that she placed in front of his father. Atticus barely glanced at the bite marks on her wrist and neck while she poured the wine.

  The marks in her flesh pricked his appetite but they also caused a strange sensation of aversion to twist through his stomach as the potent scents of sex and blood drifted off the woman's skin. Her scent was far different, and far less appealing, than the clean aroma of asters and rain still clinging to his skin from his time with Genny. He adjusted his position so that he was further away from her as she placed his wine before him.

  The serving women that stayed with them, and supplied them with blood in exchange for a place to live and high wages, had never bothered him before. They were born into this role; their families had been attending vampires longer than any of the human servants had been alive. They were bred to keep their secrets and see to a vampire's needs, no matter what those needs might be.

  All he wanted was to get even further away from her though as she leaned over him. Her ample cleavage was almost on full display in her low cut dress. The smile that had been on her face fell away when his upper lip curled into a sneer. Merle chuckled as she recoiled and hurried away to place Merle's glass before him.

  "I don't think he likes you dear," he said and patted her on the rear.

  She smiled at him but her gaze fell nervously back on Atticus. "Leave us," his father commanded crisply.

  The woman scurried out the door like a kicked dog. "There has been a decision made about the king," his father said.

  "Oh and who is the newest sacrificial lamb?" Atticus inquired sardonically and took a sip of the sweet, red wine.

  His father's eyes focused on him and for a split second Atticus had the unsettling notion that it was going to be him. He was too young, even with his bloodline there was no way that all of the aristocrats would have agreed to appoint him to such a position, not yet anyway. His father's eyes narrowed over the bridge of his hawk-like nose. His was the face of an aristocrat with its sharp angles and high cheekbones. Atticus saw very little of himself in his father's face; he had taken after his mother with his hair coloring and eyes, even his facial structure had been more similar to his mother's softer bone structure than his father's.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165