Emma's lashes drifted torpidly to her cheeks. Her arms were heavy with passion as she lifted them around his neck, arching her back as he dropped his silken mouth to her throat. Impulsively — perhaps instinctively — she angled her head to the side, her flesh thus stretched invitingly across her veins and bones. With a satisfied rumble Markus availed himself of every inch of skin she proffered, tongue brushing like hot silk beneath her upturned jaw. Then came the teasing pressure of long fangs at her collar bone, gentle yet insistent. He allowed only the smooth pearly length of them to skim athwart Emma's puckered skin, but never the hungry terminus; merely the threatening brush of his blades, but nothing more. When at last he pulled them away, her flesh unscathed, she was at once relieved and disappointed.
His midnight chuckle skimmed like a whisper over her flushed neck as he transferred his attentions to her heaving chest. Her heart fetched a languorous sigh that stumbled huskily from her lips. Strong hands delved lower, pleasure bound, whilst his mouth possessed itself of a febrile peak, rigid with anticipation. Eyes glazed with pleasure, she dug her nails into his scalp, alternately embedding and dragging them through his midnight hair, her fingers stiffening gloriously each time he trailed or paused a canine over her pebbled flesh. When he had kissed and venerated every inch of her breasts, he pulled her fists out of his hair and secured them above her head with her torn and discarded shift. He then bound them to the gargoyle at his bedpost, so that when she lifted her head back it was to see her fettered wrists clasped in the claws of a leering dragon. She shivered and returned her attention to the naked vampyre who had, meanwhile, settled himself between her parted thighs, bold and proud as the Greek warriors of old.
So transfixed was Emma (by that which she had heretofore only admired in renaissance art and sculpture) that she did not give her bound wrists another thought, for this was no David before her! And she had never thought to question the size of a man's... Well, she reminded herself, becoming anxious, this was no man after all.
Emma tore her gaze quickly away, blood quickening at her cheeks, and transferred it instead to his. With a knowing smirk he bent his eyes to her navel, a soft finger circling the crescent moon that lay just below it. Like an empty bowl it looked. So it was her birthmark that had interested him earlier when he'd doused the flames, how strange. She herself hardly ever gave it a thought. He, however, was distracted anew by the mark. A flash of tenebrosity fell across his brow of a sudden, but when another involuntary shiver rushed through her body he smiled — the shadows dissipating from his lineaments — and lowered his head to the birthmark. It was there that he kissed her thoroughly. There that he bit her gently, albeit not hard enough to pierce her trembling flesh. Again she was torn between relief and keen frustration.
Disregarding the mark for the nonce, Markus' lips thence roved over her hips, worshiping, as he'd promised, her body with his. He was on the whole reverent, teasing, and fearsome in his love-making.
Without warning, he dipped lower and was suddenly kissing her where she ached the most! Where she'd never imagined she might ever be kissed. A sinful kiss at the very gates of Heaven. Her whimper of surprise transmuted instantly to a groan of agonizing rapture. Though she wanted desperately to push his head away, her hands were not hers to control. And then, all too soon, she wanted never for him to cease his wicked assiduities. Feverishly she undulated and writhed, desperate for that elusive freedom in those silky shadows moving always out of her reach no matter how she strained to follow. And just when she thought she might shatter like a porcelain cup against the flags, Markus would pause his divine assault.
Emma was sure she might weep or rage or claw the feathers clean from his pillows (perhaps even from his dusky wings) if he persisted in maddening her thus. He seemed to revel in her mindless abandon. But, just when she was sure she could take no more of his rapturous brand of torture, she was delivered of her meed at long last. At that most euphoric crest of her ruinous cries, when the storm within finally abated with one final mighty thunderclap, tossing her splintered remains to the bottom of the sea, one of his wings shot out like a blade and severed her binding from the watchful black dragon. Had her gaze not been so befogged with her climactic release she might have witnessed the action as more than just a dark blur overhead. But the next instant she was lifted upright into his lap, his fingers vice-like at her hips, and her boneless legs folded around him so that her chest was now flush with his.
In this position, and with her hands now unbound, she was at liberty finally to bury her fingers in the dark beauty of his wings, savoring each luxuriant blade that encompassed his celestial adumbration. Markus, meanwhile, had caught her lips in a deep and fervid kiss, effacing her shattered thoughts altogether. But they were not to remain lost in the maelstrom surging around them.
The painful sting of white hot heat at her core — as of a bolt of lightening — ripped her from the dizzying beauty of the kiss. She gave a hiss of surprise and attempted to push him away, but he stilled her, his arms and torso like unyielding marble. He soothed at her neck with gentle fingers, brushed her damp hair out of the way, and whispered dark promises into her ear that ensorcelled her heart and quieted the pain some small degree. His silken pike she, in her delirium, had felt only a brief threatening moment before he'd thrust it home. Merciful Heaven, it hurt as nothing else!
"And now," said he, "for the kiss you crave most of all..." Ere his words had cut through the fog in her head, he swiftly latched his mouth to her throat and bit down. Hard.
Emma made no sound, save a heartfelt gasp, as his fangs penetrated with keen efficacy. Near as deep, she was sure, as that painful shaft yet embedded below — the cost of her blood now twofold demanded. However, the throbbing at her center subsided gradually as he drew steadily, ravenously, from her open vein, the wounds, both above and below, strangely benumbed by his sharp dark kiss. That she could find even a drop of ecstasy in such savagery was inconceivable, but such was the case. And from him she would have drawn blood also, but her nails, long and honed as they were, indented his flesh not even a little. Her nails were no match for granite, such as his seemed to be. Still, he gave an appreciative growl as she raked his back with hearty feline sighs and rhapsodies.
A signal, evidently, for the next movement of their dance, for he then began guiding her hips back and forth in long strokes that only indurated his flesh the more, and, likewise, spiked her own fever to ever higher peaks. It was with glorious affinity that they moved against one another — as though her body had been born specifically to fit his. The lusty rhythm of her heart, neither exhausted nor depleted by his ravening vampyre kiss, seemingly aroused his formidable appetence still more. How it was that his insatiability sustained her own mindless fervor she could not fathom, but it did. In that moment she would have died the happiest of women if he'd drank every last drop of lifeblood gushing hotly from her vein. A ferocious and forbidden coupling it was indeed. The carnal mutualism of a predator and his most ardent prey.
She was glutted on pleasure, the sweet delirium having once more swelled and coiled erratically within. The thunderous beats of her heart, the sound of his greedy breaths, and the fervent gale of his wings served as a beatific concert of their earthly union. Not even the storm that had battered the castle only hours before had raged with such passion as passed betwixt Emma and Markus.
With a mighty roar the denouement came, and he snapped his head back, releasing her throat whilst she herself unraveled around him, falling into him. She was obliterated and drained by an ineffable crash so fierce it shook her very soul.
It was during the amatory after-ripples that she felt herself being lowered back down to the mattress, her body wonderfully and indescribably limp as his weight settled beside her. Beneath closed lids she felt him nuzzle her neck with lapping kisses, so tender was her inamorato that she uttered a contented sigh, enjoying the feel of his finger as it gently traced her grimalkin smile.
"I almost forgot..." said he, lifting her hand to press the flesh of her inner wrist to his wolfish smile.
"Hmm?" she murmured, too deliriously sated to care one way or the other about what it was he'd overlooked. Far too abstracted to acknowledge the gnawing detail of his fangs lying just above her veins. Her mind was far more pleasurably engaged, namely her eager deflowering. And to have surrendered that which can be only once lost, that most sanguinary of jewels, Emma ought to have felt bereft, but she didn't. Not in the least. Her virtue she had gladly cast aside forever. There was a sort of freedom here in his arms and she relished it.
"Tis almost midnight."
"Hmm," she agreed with a yawn and a delicate stretch of the other arm, appraising him as he cocked his head to listen thoughtfully ... as though he could hear some far off clock tolling the midnight hour. Likely he could. At all events, he might have told her it was Christmas and she'd not have questioned him just then. "So it is."
"How remiss, I have not yet even wished you a happy birthday today."
Her birthday! "Oh!" With all that had transpired in so short a time, she'd clean forgot it was her birthday. And by all accounts there were mere seconds remaining of it.
"Happy birthday, my beautiful girl." Blazing new trails of hot kisses, he moved to where he'd bitten her only moments before. "No need to pluck another birthday bauble from my bracelet tree," he said with a chuckle. "There is no question now to whom you belong."
She stifled another yawn and threaded her fingers into his hair, eyes drooping closed. "I should be outraged at your audacity, but I find I cannot summon the will just now."
"Then I ought to keep you always naked in my bed."
She pried one eye open to glare at him. "I fear I do not have enough essence in my heart to sustain that whim, vampyre."
He leaned back from her, sitting up to drag an arrogant gaze over her rosy and sated flesh. "You persist in calling me what I am not. Perhaps now is the time to prove that I am so much more than a vampyre."
"That does sound foreboding," she said, sitting up to draw the sheets around her breasts, eyes shifting pointedly to his wings. "Have you not already done so?"
"Not by half," he replied, withdrawing from the bed with the graceful celerity of a giant wolf. "But you did profess a wish to see me without my guise of humanity, did you not? To see what no other mortal has..."
With her bottom lip now trapped precariously between her teeth, she replied that she did. Although she was no longer sure she was equal to any more surprises tonight.
"Then—" voice smokey "—so you shall." That said he instantly relieved her of all suspense.
Emma drew the blankets almost to her chin, watching with grim fascination as his body protracted and filled till finally he stood before her a veritable giant, his hair doubtless brushing against the lofty rafters. His wings, proportionately, had grown too, the spurs elongating and sharpening hideously. His feet and hands became almost claw-like and vicious-looking. The tips of his ears too had protract into tapered points that peeked out beneath unruly black locks, like the devilish horns of a satyr. She had often likened his flesh to marble, but at this moment it appeared wrought from flawless alabaster, as though he truly was a monstrous statue.
It was indeed an alarming creature that held her captive in its gaze, eyes filled completely with glittering obsidian. As Victoria's had been earlier. Wings notwithstanding, he was clearly not of this world. She was appalled by the fact that, apart from his hewn flesh, there was not an ounce of white on his body, least of all his eyes. Truly, he was magnificent and terrible to behold. He no longer possessed the lethal beauty of a vampyre; and yet, strangely, he was no less magnetic and seductive.
For all he was changed he was still Markus. His features, though proportionate to his colossal body, had not been transfigured beyond recognition and were still that of the Markus she knew.
"Good Heavens," she whispered, peculiarly unafraid.
"Decidedly not heavenly," he countered, lips quirking amusedly over long ivory fangs. Even his voice sounded far deeper, and far darker.
"Quite," she agreed, releasing the sheets and climbing from the mattress. Dilatorily she approached him, as one would a wild wolf, careful to gauge the beast for any sign of threat, but Markus only watched her with curious equanimity. She was a tall woman herself, but now the top of her head was only just above his navel. It was all she could do not to stare at his ... arbor vitae. Cautiously she brushed her fingers along his abdomen and the contours of his smooth and powerful thews, marveling at the very sight of him.
"Beautiful." The word fell from her lips as almost an inaudible sigh, but he heard her all the same.
"What a strange creature you are." It was his turn to appear awed.
She lifted her gaze up to those strange black eyes that seemed more than capable of devouring souls. Oddly, however, she was gratified by his appearance; for his beauty had been too angelic before, and she had sometimes found herself intimidated by it. But now? It thrilled her to know that he had admitted her behind the facade he presented to all the world. That she alone had now glimpsed what no mortal had. And he thought her the strange creature?! "I might say the same of you," she finally replied.
He threw back his head and laughed, but said no more. Then, his amusement spent, he lifted her up so that her gaze was level with his. It roused her heart to apprehend that, although he could easily smite her with the barest flick of his wrist, or slip of the claw, he was painstakingly gentle. After a pause he proceeded to the bed again, his body contracting instantly to normal proportions so that when he lowered his head to cover her mouth with his, he was once more the Markus of old. Even his wings had somehow retreated beneath the sinews of his back, or so it felt as she ran her hands athwart the naked span of his shoulders.
The subaqueous candlelight guttered out and they were once more veiled in night; but not before she'd seen the creamy linens bespattered in blood. Her blood. There was a feint grey blush on the horizon that filtered weakly through the casement. It was enough only to delineate his shape above her as her head fell back against the pillows.
"Will you ... bite me again?" she whispered.
"Do you wish me to?" he asked against her lips, pulling gently at them with careful fangs.
"No." She ran her hands up into his hair. "For the second act ... you are merely as mortal as I."
"As you wish." And so he did, his thirstful kisses no less heady for all they did not pierce.
As dawn broke steadily across the sky, as she sighed in her lover's arms, Emma allowed herself to forget for another moment what Markus was; and what she was to him. Moreover, that she was only one fleeting, inconsequential beat in the eternal rhythm of his undying heart.
After all, how on earth could a god love a mortal? Especially one he meant to devour.
🌟Having never written vampire blood kink, I was nervous for weeks about this chapter. Any feedback, good or bad, is much appreciated. It has taken thirty chapters to come to this point, but I can't say how many more chapters there are to go. I realize that this book, the dialogue specifically, is long winded, but it is a first draft, so I'll cut myself some slack. Anyway, I imagine I'll have a great many opportunities to rewrite before it ever gets to Amazon. Thank you for the support, my lovelies.
Your Question (should you choose to answer): Now that Markus is finally unmasked, what are your thoughts about his physical appearance? You can't accuse him of being handsome anymore, can you? But what is that? What is beautiful today was not considered beautiful yesterday. So what is beauty to someone who has lived to see thousands of beauties over thousands of years...?🌟