Viola Grace - Saguinary Seduction, page 20
At first, Kendryck could not believe his eyes. As the youth got closer to the predator, he wanted to shout to turn back, though it was impossible Therry did not see the big feline. The hunter closed his mouth and watched the scene.
Without any fear or hesitation, Therry walked next to the panther. The black feline did not even turn to acknowledge his presence. Instead, it kept eating as if no one was there. When Therry reached it, he knelt next to it and bit in the carcass.
Kendryck was even more amazed. The scene seemed unreal. The man next to the beast acting just like the predator itself was an unlikely sight. Yet, Therry was really eating from the panther’s same plate. And, even more incredible, the beast did not seem to mind. After a few more bites, the predator turned to its side, as if only then it became aware of the man.
Its tongue lashed out and licked Therry on his neck, practically covering half his head.
He turned to the beast. “You’re tickling me,” he said playfully.
The predator insisted, this time accompanying the tongue with a paw. The caress was gentle, claws retracted. Therry laughed and he rolled over just as the feline came almost on 178
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top of him. Together they tumbled, the predator always careful not to crush Therry under its weight.
Watching their twists and turns, Kendryck saw the incredible transformation with his own eyes. The elegant beast first shrank, shortening its long length to a human size. Away went the tail and the pointed ears, while arms and legs replaced paws. The muzzle lost its animal traits, adapting to the new body. In a matter of seconds, the beast was gone. In its place, stood a slender woman with long dark hair, her naked body twisted under Therry’s firm grasp.
When the transformation was complete, the youth laid her on her stomach, then covered her, biting deeply between neck and shoulder. She raised her ass, pushing against him. He kept biting, blood seeping from the tender flesh, while she moved faster, sliding sideways. Therry did not wait any longer.
Kendryck saw his cock hard and ready. With a swift move, the youth shoved into her. They were in a frenzy now, focused only on their frantic movements and on pleasure.
Kendryck watched fascinated, bow and arrows abandoned at his side. He had no doubt it was a celebration to invoke life’s renewal, a reassurance that blood had not spilled in vain. This awareness made them move faster to a quick release just like cats making love. When she screamed and shook, Kendryck knew it was over.
They laid still, their tensions gone.
Shaken more than he cared to admit, Kendryck felt weak.
His legs trembled when he threaded his way back to the village, confused and scared for the first time in his life. In the next three days, he did not dare leave his tiny house. On the one hand, he wanted desperately to talk to Therry, to receive some sort of plausible explanation. On the other, he wanted to vanish off the face of the earth. Something about the scene he had witnessed scored close to home…too close for his taste.
Animals that turned into human beings sounded more like a fairytale mothers told their children to scare them away from doing the wrong thing. It did not seem possible in the real world. Yet, an insistent inner voice vouched to the contrary as 179
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if he not only had to believe what he saw, but even that it might be related to him…somehow. Frightened of this thought, Kendryck was on the verge of leaving the village.
More than once, during those agonizing three days, he went to the door, resolved to leave the world behind forever. More than once, during those agonizing three days, he retraced his footsteps, falling on the bed in a stupor.
Yet, sleep escaped him, his mind too busy reviewing the flashing images. He tried to stop them, pretending not to see the panther turn into a woman, a tiny one at that. And Therry had known all along. Perhaps this hurt most of all. The man who had shown him a different side of life had betrayed him in the end. Better yet, he had played the hunter since the beginning. Everything had been a lie, starting from the pitiful cry for help up to the last unbelievable transformation scene.
How could he use me like that? Kendryck wondered dejectedly.
Silly me, I even thought we were sharing something special.
He needed to confront him. Killing him was also a good solution, though in his heart he knew it would be his last option. In spite of the situation, he missed the love they had shared, the intense physical closeness, even the tea ritual. After those experiences, loneliness was heavy, almost unbearable.
His footsteps automatically led to Therry’s hut. The place looked deserted, but Kendryck had learned to distrust the solitary appearance that Therry maintained on purpose. So, He did not even knock and went inside.
The fire blazed. In the half-light, Kendryck’s eyes swept the empty room. The leather skins looked forlorn, almost as lonely as he felt. But he was not alone. From the second room, one Kendryck seldom saw, he heard noises. He smelled sex. The scent was unmistakable, heavy on the sour side and stale.
Kendryck turned. Therry stood on the threshold, naked body gleaming in the firelight.
“I’m glad you came,” he said softly, not at all embarrassed.
“Yeah…well,” Kendryck took a step back, “maybe it was a mistake.”
“No, hunter, please don’t go.” Therry stretched his arm.
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“We need to explain.”
“We?”
The woman came out behind Therry. Her long black hair partly covered her naked body. Kendryck took another step back, but the woman was on him faster than light. She did not seem dangerous, but the hunter trembled at the thought of what she really was. With a gleam in her eyes, she smelled him slowly, taking her time, running her nose over his body’s length.
“You were right, love,” she said at last, turning to Therry.
“He’s one of us.”
“I told you, Tammy.”
Kendryck raised his voice in anger. “I’m not one of you.”
He waved his knife in front of her face. “And I’m definitely nothing like you.”
Unimpressed by his show, Tamara looked coldly at him.
“You don’t even know who you are,” she spat, while returning to Therry.
Kendryck took another step back, undecided on what to do next.
The youth looked at him, green gaze searching his face.
“Hunter, I really think you should talk to us,” he grabbed Tamara and caressed her back, “for your own good.”
Kendryck watched them for a second, images flashing wildly in his mind. She was a wild beast that only Therry had the power to tame. And his training was purely physical and had been for the past three days. Yet, despite his efforts, the beast was still hungry.
Kendryck had smelled her sexual hunger. Now, prey to his own tensions, he felt tempted to go along with the situation, just as Therry suggested. Slowly, he moved to the leather skins, brushing against them on his way. When Kendryck sat down, Therry set Tamara on the other end, then went to the makeshift fireplace and began his ritual. As usual, he first checked the fire, then the water and after it boiled, he handed them two scalding cups of freshly brewed tea. Finally, taking his own cup, sat between them.
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“All right, hunter,” he started slowly. “You know about Tamara now.”
“How could you hide something like this from me?”
Kendryck asked, hurt by the betrayal.
“Had I told you, what would you have done, hunter?”
“I would have done justice. That’s my job.”
“Justice? What kind of justice? The human kind?”
“What other justice is there?”
Therry sighed. “Human justice is a hollow word, hunter.
I’m surprised you haven’t learned it by now. Tamara was only trying to protect her space from human invasion. That’s why she killed the members of your team.”
“And what about the animals she ate, animals raised by humans?”
“Nature’s way commands that you feed on other animals in order to survive. She was only obeying it.”
“What is she exactly?”
Therry turned to Tamara. With his free hand, he ran down her head, curved around her breast, partly hidden by hair, then down to her stomach. “She feels like my sister, not because we share any blood relation or heritage, but because of our species,” he said softly, “my lover, my mate.”
Tamara curled against him like a cat.
“But you don’t—”
“No, hunter, I don’t turn into an animal like she does. But I’m the only one she recognizes when she’s in that altered state.”
“How is it possible?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I—” She stopped, searching for words. “I…feel the need first. Then, I taste blood in my mouth and the craving increases until I have to satisfy it. It’s like a…blood lust and when it becomes irresistible, I change.”
“Blood is what drives the transformation. When she doesn’t feel bloodthirsty, she’s normal. Otherwise, she roams the countryside as my beautiful black panther.” His hand slipped under her and rubbed her skin. She sat up, opened her 182
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legs wider and brushed against him with her own movement.
Kendryck could not help feeling a growing arousal. Therry and Tamara acted naturally and like true animals, they felt neither shame nor embarrassment. The limitations imposed by human conventions did not apply to them. And Kendryck liked their game. He cleared his throat. “But we have to stop her,” he objected. “She can’t go around and kill innocent lives just because she’s thirsty.”
Therry pulled Tamara closer. “I told you,” he said, looking at him, but focusing his efforts on her, “she killed only to protect herself.”
“The poor woman mangled the other night was hardly a threat.”
Silence fell in the room, broken only by the fire’s crackle.
No one moved for a while.
“I didn’t kill that woman,” Tamara finally said.
“Then what…who…did?” Kendryck’s voice faltered.
Tamara raised her eyes, fixing a cold stare on him. “I think you know who did.”
Cold sweat broke on Kendryck’s forehead. A shiver ran down his back, while his heart skipped a beat. “I—”
“Hush, hunter.” Therry moved closer. His mouth bit Kendryck’s neck, his teeth sinking in, breaking through the skin and drawing blood. Time stopped as Kendryck first fought, then surrendered to an unavoidable truth. Angry blood rushed to the hunter’s head, his senses spun, his stomach tightened. Heat replaced the coldness. His need increased as his limbs tensed, feeling more powerful than ever before. “I want her,” he whispered in Therry’s ear.
“Thought you’d never ask, hunter.” Therry grabbed Tamara and shoved her to Kendryck. “She’s all yours.”
The hunter pushed her down on the leather skins. Her ass, round and tight, was enough of a temptation, but Kendryck did not really care where he would take her. He wanted to possess her, be inside her tight flesh, to use her body to get in touch with his own. With a sigh, he shoved into her, then bent on her neck. His teeth bit into the soft flesh, the taste of blood 183
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exploding in his mouth. He felt her become wetter and warmer the more blood he drew, his cock drowning in her softness.
She raised her ass and moved to get him further inside, accelerating their rhythm. Her mouth was also busy, Therry’s bursting bulge sliding inside out.
It was all over too fast. Kendryck slammed faster into her before literally spilling his entire being when he felt her contract in pleasure spasm and saw her mouth filled to capacity. Spent, he collapsed on top of Tamara, drowning in his own satisfaction, feeling finally at home.
* * * *
He woke up in darkness, whiskers tickling his face. Come on, let’s go. I’m hungry, the voice sounded in his head, clear as if it had spoken.
He obeyed and followed her. He stretched, eager to try his new shape, and jumped outside. The front paws hit the ground first, soon reached by the hind ones. He coiled on himself for a second, gathering energy for his next jump, then broke into a wild chase across the forest, free at last.
Therry watched the panthers disappear in the bushes and smiled.
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till half asleep, she felt his long, strong fingers caressing her Sbosom through the soft, sensuous Egyptian cotton sheets.
Covered with calluses from his years of splitting rails, those hard, rough hands awakened…
Splitting rails?
President O’Neill had never split a rail in his life. Splitting hairs in a political debate, certainly, but rails? That sounded like another chief executive entirely.
Wide awake now, Evelyn O’Neill sat bolt upright and pushed back the blonde hair that had fallen over her high forehead. Clutching the sheets to cover her bosom, which rose and fell with agitation beneath the lacy nightgown, she exclaimed, “Mr. Lincoln!”
Jumping up from the bed where he had been lounging beside her, he threw his long, lanky frame into the padded rocking chair, his craggy face twisted in consternation. It was not an unattractive face, she realized, then hastily reminded herself that his wife was her best friend.
“Dang it, I thought you were my Mary a-lyin’ there,” he explained as he dragged on his trousers and pulled the suspenders back over his shirt. “Sorry for the mistake. If you can just throw my boots to me, I’ll be on my way.”
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Still holding up the sheet with one hand, she reached down with the other and tossed him the objects in question.
“Well, I surely am sorry,” he mumbled, his head lowered as he hastily pulled them on. “But you were all alone there and I thought you were Mary, fixin’ to surprise me. No offense meant.”
“None taken,” she assured him. “We all know that this is the Lincoln Bedroom and many other people have seen you here, since…well, you know. I should have been prepared.”
“And I should have pulled the sheet off your face before goin’ for you.”
The fact that some people might faint dead away at being awakened to find Abe Lincoln’s ghost tugging their sheets down obviously did not occur to him. It aroused her curiosity, however, about a happening that was well known to her sister witches.
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir…well, it was a famous event…is this why Queen Wilhelmina fainted when she saw you here?”
“Oh, no, she just opened the door and saw me in the hallway,” he quickly assured her. “But she should not have been so surprised. This is the Lincoln Bedroom and, just like you were sayin’, lots of people have seen me here. Funny that you never did.”
“I have spoken to Mrs. Lincoln often, of course,” she replied, in a rather defensive tone, glancing up at her predecessor’s portrait in its gilded frame. “But I am sorry that she is not here tonight.”
As a First Lady, she was used to being tactful. If Mary Todd Lincoln had been waiting in her customary place behind the frame, she would have picked up the bronze Abe Lincoln figurine from the marble-topped bedside table and thrown it at him. She had been known for fits of jealousy even before they died, and with much less reason.
Considering that, Evelyn did not regret Mary’s absence at all. They were close friends and she wanted to keep it that way.
Death might not have divided them, but the eternal triangle 186
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certainly could.
* * * *
The room became even more crowded when her two Secret Service guards ran into the room, guns drawn. The female led her partner, having been alerted by the super-sensitive hearing. “Oh, you are that Mr. Lincoln,” she said, hastily holstering her weapon and extending her hand. “It is a great honor to meet you, sir. I am Ylenia Vyrdelek, the First Lady’s bodyguard. This is Matt Mader, my partner.”
He stared at them dubiously before offering his own long hand in return. “You aren’t going to faint dead away?” he asked.
“Why should I?” she answered, with a shrug.
“Well, I am what you might call a spirit.”
“And I am a vampire.”
To Evelyn’s surprise, it was Honest Abe who drew back in fear.
“That foul German species,” he muttered and ran his long fingers nervously through his coarse black hair.
“Transylvanian,” Ylenia corrected him, in an accent that was, indeed, closer to Russian than German. “And that was all Charlotte Bronte knew about it when she wrote Jane Eyre in 1847. But lots of other books were written about us later. Even Bram Stoker’s version of Dracula was much more flattering, even if that gave us plenty of grounds for a libel suit.”
She smiled in a way that made him hold his hand out happily again.
“You look more like a charming elf,” he told her, bending awkwardly over her slim fingers. Secretly, he thought that she looked like a little boy, with her dark hair chopped into wisps around her heart-shaped white face, which seemed to be half covered by her immense black eyes. Her navy suit with its mannish white silk shirt only emphasized her very girlish appeal.
“And you are…also a vampire, or perhaps a werewolf from 187
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Transylvania, Mr. Mader?” he asked, as he extended his hand toward the male.
“No, I’m just an ordinary Secret Service agent, from Milwaukee,” Matt answered. “I’m not one of the first female agents, let alone the first vampire.”
His brown crew cut and ever-watchful pale grey eyes helped convince the late president that he was speaking the truth.
Making him even more imposing, the man loomed over his partner as, indeed, he probably towered over everyone, Mr.
