Flesh, Blood, & Bone

He could see her, even from a height. Could smell her, the scent of roses in water. Could almost taste her in his mouth, the taste of cream and strawberries. But it was none of these things that drew him. It was the visions in her mind, the fire in his own head, as she dreamed of his life and his crimes, as she dreamed of his face and his voice, his hands and his teeth. She who had seen him more clearly than any creature living.

As he had seen her; during watchful nights and idle daydreams. She who was drawn from his dreams by a no doubt vengeful God–a vision of loveliness, small in stature, perfect in form. Her hair was as dark as his own, blue-black in its depths, her skin a fairness that the sun would never darken; his own an ivory perfection the sun would never seen. Only her eyes were her own, a deep green that reminded him of deep mountain forests and the scent of fir trees and holly.

He could see her in his mind’s eye as he saw her with his own eyes: flesh, blood, and bone. Satin flesh, and he knew how it would feel in his hands: as if it he had clutched a gossamer sheet, plunged his hands into it, wrapped it around him. Enough to warm him through the endless empty years. He could hear her heart beat, its viscous throb, the slow coursing of blood through her veins, and he knew how it would taste in his mouth, how it would glide over his tongue. And he could see her bones: the line of her jaw, the curve of her cheek, the fragile small bones of her hands. The conjoining of the pelvis, to cradle and give life...

That thought brought a flush of heat to his body and his gaze sharpened, banked coals flaring to a darkness that burned. He would take her tonight, and she would dream of him now...

And indeed, she turned abruptly in her sleep, sheets winding about her small form like a shroud. Her hands reached and clutched; her lips parted, and she sighed. Every motion was a small miracle to him, her life, her vitality; he watched her breasts rise and fall with each quiet breath, and he could time his heart to the rhythm. Snow crunched as he shifted his balance in the tree, and the utter stillness and darkness of the night enveloped him. He enjoyed winter: the bare branches, the cold silence, and most of all the long hours of the night. Summer nights were too short; he spent much of his time hidden from the sleepless sun, whiling away the heated hours in detested idleness.

He watched her, that eternal music playing softly in his head. She slept as guilelessly as a child, sprawled gracefully upon her bed like a princess in a tale, untroubled by care and bad dreams. He felt his lips quirk, and the slight baring of his teeth–but she knew even this of him, knew that when he spoke it was with hissing resonance and sharp pronunciation, with his native stress on t’s and the slow, considering pauses as he sought the words of her tongue. But too, it was his belief that most mortals’ lives were spent in pointless conversation, and he was as economical with his words as he was with his motions.

It was in his mind to take her, and his body as well; he could see her dreams as she watched his shadow form, as she heard the slow-drip-drip-dripping from the darkest corners of the room, knowing that it was not water that gelled so thick and black on the floor. His muscles were taut with the longing for her, and the painful quivering in his gut yearned only for her sweet body. In his mind as well was the longing for more than her body: it was for the soul that was born to know him, who had dreamed of him before she knew what it meant to dream.

He wanted her, and he would have her.

He closed his eyes, and saw himself through her eyes: the thickness of his blue-black curls, and the burning weight of his eyes, heavy with age and thick with knowledge. His face was never more than a blur, but she could see, and had seen, his body: carved from the finest alabaster, muscled as the statue of a Grecian hero. And she longed for it, as he longed for her, yearned for the touch of his hands, the press of his lips. Her body, who had never known the physical touch of a man, knew what it was to crave, to wake unfulfilled in the dawn. Through her eyes, he saw himself approach, flinging shadows aside like a cloak, and stand, towering over her, to extend a hand...

She was all but writhing in her sleep now, and the hunger was strong in him. He could see what she wanted, and it drew reactions in him that were primal and unreasoning; the remnants of his human instinct, and the hunger that was all of an immortal’s being. But he would wait. Wait until his heart matched her breath, waited until the uncoiling hunger in his belly settled down to sleep.

He watched the moon rising, bloodied on the horizon. He had all night, after all.

After a time, he woke her; watched her pad quietly to her dressing table in a thin nightdress that ill-disguised her curves. She peered into the mirror for a moment, her face still slack and soft with sleep, and then sat down to brush her thick dark hair. It fell in rippling waves to her hips; nearly to the floor when she was seated, and she brushed it to a satin sheen. Mechanically, and he could feel her ears straining for him as if they were his own. She knew he was coming, and she waited for him; she washed her face, rinsed out her mouth, carefully drying both on a nearby towel. And then stood before her mirror with eyes unfocused and unseeing, for all the world a marionette waiting the pull of its strings.

He appeared behind her without thought or predication, and she did not know he was there until his hands closed on her shoulders.

“You...” she breathed, and had time for nothing more, for he flowed around her like water and caught her red lips with his own. The kiss was everything she had dreamed and all he had imagined: sweet, heated flame, that licked his edges like paper and drew him down, and down, and down...

One of his hands caught the back of her head, slipping into the thick black locks of her hair, and her mouth opened like a flower.

He fed as he would have feasted, as if he had not had nourishment in centuries. And in truth, he had not; there had been no one in all that time who could satisfy him as this little one could. His tongue stroked the sweet crevice, exploring, tasting...his teeth caught her lower lip and he drank, kissed, took...

Then released her; all but thrust her away from him, for he would not take her life, not yet. She must come to him; she must surrender...and how badly he wanted her...

“You rob me of my control, little one...” His voice was as deep and musical as ever she had dreamed. She stared, wide-eyed, and with eyes so thickly fringed with black lashes that he longed to kiss them shut.

“How is this possible?” she murmured, and her small body trembled with his nearness. “I–I dreamed you...”

He did not reply; his eyes burned into hers, and she could see his face by the light of the candles. The face she had never seen, framing eyes as familiar to her as her own name. A face so lovely as to make angels weep with envy, chiseled and fine in every angle, pale and perfect and hypnotic. The face that had enchanted men and women for millennia.

His hand rose, outstretched for hers, and he purposely stepped back from the light of the candles, so neither his face nor his eyes were visible. She would come to him of her own will, or not at all.

Without hesitation, she reached and slipped her hand into his, gazing up at him as if to memorize every facet of his face, even in the shadows.

“Rachel...” he whispered, and allowed the resonance to creep back into his voice. “My Rachel.”

“Yes,” she whispered, and he drew her into his arms. She was tiny; her head scarcely reached his shoulder, and her curves were pleasant as he swept her up and settled her against his broad chest. Even if he had been a human man, her weight would have been nothing.

She was unbearably lovely.

Wordless, he crossed the room and laid her back in her bed, in those sheets that still smelled of her. Moonlight spilled over the bed through an open window, and he could see her face and body as clearly as day. The shine in her eyes was one of utmost trust.

He was standing above her, and then he was beside her; her nightdress was gone, and she helped him with the laces of his shirt, his belt, his heavy boots and trews. There was no time for her to be shy, not time for her to look down and try to cover herself with maidenly modesty. Her black hair fanned around them and spilled off the edge of the bed in a rich river, and he closed his eyes as he leaned down, inhaling her scent, tracing it from the roots of her hair to her chin, learning the aura of her hair, her mouth.

One hand tangled in her hair, and he pulled back, so her chin jerked up and her neck and throat were exposed. Delicious, as pale and creamy as he had dreamed, and he tasted the expanse from behind her ear to her collarbone, open-mouthed, drawing a ragged gasp from her. And again, learning every contour, nipping her earlobe in passing, lingering where her neck joined her shoulder. Her hands ran through his blue-black curls and held him to her, moaning softly at the sensation.

She was breathing harder, her breasts rising to press against the flat expanse of his chest, and he drew back to look at them, to run his hands flat over her nipples, until they hardened to stiff rosy peaks and quivered in the winter air. They looked like sugar-spun candy he had once seen, and he tasted them with lips and tongue, bringing a soft cry from her. He nipped them, teased her, rolled them softly between his teeth, careful not to injure her. Later, perhaps, but for now...

Instinct, he thought; it was not any conscious understanding that made her spread her legs apart as he roamed downward, kissing her belly button, her hips, sliding his hands over thighs that were as satiny as he’d thought they would be. He ran his thumbs over the outermost edge of her flesh, and she jerked, watching with wide eyes, moving with hips that understood what her body craved, even if she did not. He bent to kiss her there, flicking lightly with his tongue. Just once, and it was enough. She cried out again, and he slid back over her, to begin a new foray from the opposite side of her throat, to the untasted breast, and down again....

Her lips seized his on the third pass, and her sweet mouth begged to be tasted. More, her hips rolled upward, seeking the hard length of him that curved up toward his belly. He smiled into her mouth and taunted her, touching and withdrawing, rolling it over her, between her legs, but not into the crevice that pleaded so eloquently to be filled. His own body was tense, every muscle taut with the desire to plunge into her and be done with it. But she...she was too perfect to ruin with a moment’s expediency.

She was panting when he withdrew again, and he pushed himself up above her, propping himself up on arms that bore his weight easily, flexed with ridged muscle. It was as she had dreamed him, and he knew it: she had dreamed of his broad back arching as he moved within her, dreamed of the press of his chest and the marvelous strength of his arms. She had dreamed it, longed for it, and he let her see it now, coupled with the familiar flare of his eyes and the deep roll of his voice.

“Do you want me, my love?”

She did not hesitate; her small hands stroked his arms, his chest, his face. “Yes.”

He smiled, beatific as he leaned down once more to kiss her. “Tell me you want me, Rachel.” His lips brushed hers; his words into her mouth.

“I...” She was dazed with him, lost, and it took a moment for her eyes to focus, for her to meet his gaze and whisper, “I want you. With every breath...”

His own breath rushed out of him, and he bowed his head as if to say, amen. And then the cords in his neck stood out, his teeth bared, and he lunged into her, with an archer’s precision. She cried out, and this time it was pain, not pleasure, her nails sinking deep into his back and her teeth into his shoulder. She held perfectly still, and he could feel tears trickling from her face to his chest, though not a whimper escaped her. More cautiously, he eased back out, until only the throbbing tip of him was inside her; pressed inward, eased out, in, and out. She was tiny; unprepared, unused, but his own hunger was hard upon him, and it took every ounce of his self control to keep from thundering into her.

It did not help that he was well-endowed; he smiled sardonically to himself as he eased inward again. She could only accommodate half his length, though she was slowly adjusting to him; the tears tried in salty tracks on her face, and he could feel her fingers flexing with every thrust as the pleasure began to steal away the pain.

Then he was inside her, sheathed to the hilt, and pink-tinged perspiration dotted his forehead as he forced himself perfectly still. He eased her back against the bed, and kissed her, this marvelous creature that could hold him deep within her depths, could breathe with him, for him...her hips moved, urging him on, and after a long moment, and a breath, he needed no more urging.

The powerful muscles of his lower back, the steel cables of his legs, every shred of his strength, and he was moving into her like the tide, inexorable, unstoppable. Her whole body tensed and pushed with him, clenching and unclenching like a small iron fist, and he could not help it; he knew his eyes were as wide as hers, knew that he must look as foolish as any love-struck mortal. But every motion she made, every sound she produced...perfection in its rarest form, and he lost that hard-won control, grasping her to him and pounding into her with all the strength that was in him.

And he was murmuring her name, kissing her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, on fire with need and mindless with it. Pleasure beyond any and all he had every known, even that dark pleasure of feeding–she gasped and cried out in accord, and he could feel the end coming, building between them and overflowing like a dam about to burst its confines. Her nails raked him as she cried out, spasming beneath him; her legs locked at his hips and her inner muscles clamped down, drawing a gasped epithet from him, and an enormous lunge, backed by more power than even he knew he possessed. She nearly screamed with it, and he did it again, and again, milking the full length, and then withdrew from her, bared his fangs, and struck.

She was almost too far gone to notice, and certainly too far gone to understand. They were both climaxing, in a final rush that left him drained and exhausted, hungry for the taste of her blood. Still within her, thick and semi-erect, he drank, and it was likely that she did not notice; she lay as one dead, only her erratic breathing letting him know she lived. Her hands rose weakly to caress him, and he smiled as he drank, thinking how he would kiss her when this was done, how he would rouse her long before morning...

He had taken enough; he pulled back, washing the taste of her about his mouth, then bit his own tongue and let two drops of blood fall on her neck, instantly healing the marks of his teeth. With his own fingernail, he drew a line on his bare chest. Dark blood welled, and he helped her to it as a mother would help her infant to the breast. She was weak, from exertion, from loss of blood, and she swayed toward him, her eyes unfocused.

“Drink,” he murmured, one arm looping around her, the other brushing her hair aside. He kissed her, once, deep and long, and then moved her head down to his chest. “Blood...of my blood...”

Her lips sought and found, latched and drank, and he drew a sharp breath at the pain that intensified to pleasure, until it trod a bright and shining line between the two.

“Flesh...” he breathed. His teeth ground together as she nipped the edge of the wound. “...of my flesh...”

She fell boneless against him, her eyes wide and unseeing. Her lovely mouth stained with his blood. And that pale flesh, paler still, glowing in the moonlight, shining to match the stars. Her breath slowed, rattled, died, and he lay down beside her as she slipped into a sleep deeper than death. A sleep from which he would rouse her soon, with warm lips and knowing hands, and he would steal her away with the dawn.