The remainder of our stay in Paris is uneventful. We end up remaining in the city for four nights, and on the morning following our last night there, Eric is grumpy. The sun has already risen, and he watches me with exasperation as I gather my last few possessions into my small bag before going to the bathroom.
"Are you ready yet?" He asks, and I come from the bathroom a minute later to grab his hand.
He doesn't get any warning before we go, and I feel his head spin as we move. He says something in Swedish with irritation once we've stopped, and I give him a sickly sweet smile. "I'm sorry, weren't you ready yet?"
His resulting chagrin is a rare thing, and I chuckle as I give him a kiss on the cheek. "So, where are we now?" He asks, feeling that it is once again night time. Our bedroom has no windows, but the muted sound of crashing waves can be heard in the distance. The décor here is simple compared to the hotel in Paris, having all of the necessities but not necessarily all of the lavishness. It's all in calm earthy tones, and I know that everything will be comfortable as Niall assured me that it would be.
"The upstairs house is a little ways outside of the city of Evensk, Russia. It is one of Niall's safe houses, and we're in a completely underground level hidden for secret use. The city has grown a good bit over the last couple of decades, and I thought we'd enjoy seeing some sights."
The town sits on the coast, with mountains in the background, and I can smell the salt in the crisp air.
"We can stay here until the last two nights of our vacation. Then I'll have a final place to take us, but for now, that will remain my little secret. We don't have anyone around to interrupt or bother us here, and with the time change I just hope you can handle two nights in a row." When was the last time he fed from me? After a moment I vividly remember the last time, and feeling my emotions change, he gives me a wicked smirk. Pulling me to him, he starts kissing down my neck.
"I may be in need of a little pick-me-up." He whispers in my ear, and I hear his fangs click down. A shiver runs up my spine, and I lean my head slightly to give him more access as he starts licking and teasing my pulse point.
"There's no staff here to stock fresh blood like there was in Paris, so I hope you don't mind me being your only meal source." I say, caressing the back of his head with my hand.
He leans back just enough to give me a heated look. "I didn't touch the fridge in Paris, and I don't need it here either. I only need Sookie." My heart melts as he starts back at my neck, and I twist my fingers into his short golden locks.
A growl reverberates through his chest as I pull his hair slightly, while still holding him close, and his fangs sink into my neck a second later. He pulls hard on the flowing blood, his arms clutching me to him, like steel beans coated in silk holding me in place. I rub my hands over his shoulders, encouraging him, and his anticipation grows. A heat rises up my face as I can't help but release a quiet moan, causing the soft growl to change to a louder rumble of appreciation. I can feel his teeth sink deeper for a second before he removes them and keeps pulling on the wound. Through the bond, I feel his hunger, lust and admiration as he fully enjoys himself.
My emotions are on the rise as I also enjoy what he's doing, and suddenly I feel envious that I can't return the attention he affords my neck. There's something appealing about the idea of fangs, and I'm sure that he would enjoy it given how he'd reacted to a love bite I'd given him the previous night. His tongue runs over the marks, and I feel them heal as he cleans the spot, and he starts nipping his way downward. He kisses a spot on my shoulder, before gently biting down again, and I groan as his lust pours into me.
I also groan in my head, seriously lamenting that I cannot give him the same treatment. My blunt teeth make it too difficult to cleanly breach his tough skin, and it was rather messy as a result when I did it the once. The frustration eats away at me for several seconds, and I block the difficult emotions before they ruin the moment for him, bottling the growing feelings.
Suddenly it's as though everything is too much, and the hunger that I'm feeling from him becomes my own. The only word that comes to mind to describe this is bloodlust, and I feel an itching in my chest and gums as my light pours through me. The feelings lessen before I realize what I've done, and I can feel them.
I have fangs.
The small stream of healing magic that had been humming inside me before, constantly replenishing my blood, had reacted to my need. It had done more than heal, and gave me what I wanted.
It's as though on instinct that I know how they work, but I keep them out as I examine the bond. Eric doesn't seem to have noticed anything, and I realize that I blocked it all from him. Oh he has no clue what is about to happen.
He feels my slight mischief mixing in with our combined lust, and I pull myself up to lock my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. A moment before he had been hunched over with our height difference, but now his head is bent only slightly as he leans into me and stands to his full height. I feel the cool surface of the wall behind me, and he presses me against it gently as he continues to take my blood. His arms are like a cage around me, and I couldn't feel any more secure than in this moment. His growl becomes more sensual as he feels through my emotions in the bond, and I lean in to softly kiss his temple before moving to his ear.
"Eric?" I barely whisper his name, and the sexy growling drops in volume to indicate that he's listening. "Don't stop but… I have a surprise for you." He doesn't stop, but I feel him slow slightly as he waits to see what I'm doing.
A smidge of humor forms on his end of the bond as I kiss at his neck, and he quickly starts to enjoy what I'm doing before I decide to give him some of his own medicine. I feel him freeze as only a vampire can when I carefully scrape his flesh with the edge of my fangs. He starts healing the mark on my shoulder, probably to get a look at my mouth, and I move quickly.
"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this." I whisper, before sinking my fangs harshly into his neck. They are sharper than I realize, and the blood pools quickly into my mouth several times before slowing.
The feral snarl that erupts from him is quite the opposite of intimidating though, and somehow I am able to return it. His turns us, and leans himself back against the wall as his hands start to rub my back beneath my shirt. He quiets down slightly, enjoying the sound I'm making, and the marks on his neck disappear as I remove my fangs and breathe into his ear. "It seems that my magic has made me more like you… lover." I repeat the word he'd started to use again after our first night in Paris, and bite down gently into his neck again before pulling at the blood strongly. One of his hands moves to rub over the back of my neck as I continue, and his hold on me is nothing if not encouraging.
"Hmm, it would seem that you are bloodthirsty. Perfect." He rumbles in pleased contentment, his voice low, and a second later his fangs have been returned to my neck. In the moment as we drink from each other, our emotions merge, and I whimper against his neck at the force of it all. He hisses, rubbing against me, and a second later I find myself being pressed into a soft mattress.
We disengage from each other's necks, and I give him a lopsided grin as I feel my head spinning from having so much of his blood. His hands are braced on either side of my head, holding him up, and he chuckles as I pull him down for a kiss. Our fangs clash for a second, and then I feel him wrapping his tongue around one of them, and I'm thrown into a new sense of pleasure as I shiver all over.
"Do you see what you do to me?" He murmurs against my mouth, slicing his tongue on my fang a second later and causing me to growl softly again as his blood hits my taste buds.
He growls louder, kissing me fiercely as his hands start to roam over my body.
;';';';';';';';
The sound of the shower wakes me, and I find that Eric is no longer next to me. Smiling dreamily in the direction of the bathroom door, I think back over what happened before I slept. Eric caresses me through the bond as he feels that I'm awake, and I send the feeling back just as strongly. I quickly pull on the long t-shirt he had discarded earlier, and open the bedroom door. Going down the lit hallway, past several other doors to more bedrooms, I finally get to the underground living room and hit the switch on the wall. A panel in the wall slides inward, then into a pocket to reveal a staircase. It opens through a panel in the kitchen in the above ground house and I leave it open as I start making myself a meal. He comes up not long later, and gazes out the windows on one side of the house at the shore not far away.
When he goes outside, I don't think much of it, until I've finished my food and he still hasn't returned. I go through the door that he used, and walk carefully down to the water's edge as I look for him. "Eric?" I call for him, and in the strong moonlight I finally spot him neck deep in the water. "What are you doing? It's way too cold for that!"
I quickly correct myself in my head as I remember that the cold water wouldn't actually faze him. Probing the bond, I'm confused to find that he's blocking his emotions from me. "Eric?" I call to him a second time, and finally I see that he's coming back towards the shore where I stand. His side of the bond finally opens, and the emotions that flow through put me on edge as I realize exactly what he's planning. "Don't you dare!" I say, only half-jokingly, "You have to be freezing!" I take a step backward as I see the devilish smirk on his face.
A dark chuckle escapes his lips as I turn to go back to the house, and of course he's there, pulling me to his chest. I shriek as his soaked shirt and sweat pants immediately soak into the thin shirt of his that I'm wearing, and the cold is shocking. He laughs as I struggle in vain for a long moment, before I take us straight into the shower and turn to give him a quick kiss before I start to pull at his sopping wet clothes. At my prompting he quickly deposits them outside the shower door, and I give him an innocent smile before turning the hot water all of the way on and teleporting straight out to the bedroom. I hear him hissing as the hot water hits him, and feel the strong urge for vengeance coming from his side of the bond before I hear the water stopping. Stripping the cold and wet shirt I'm still wearing, I jump into the bed, and stretch out in the nude just seconds before he comes out. "Truce?" I ask hopefully, and he eyes me hungrily as he considers my question. Suddenly he's next to me, pulling me back against his chest, and I relax into him as I feel that the hot water did the trick. He growls softly as he nuzzles my neck, and I'm embarrassed when a yawn bubbles up in my throat.
"Are you tired?" He asks, and I hesitate for a second before I nod. "Then sleep. I'm not going anywhere without you." I can hear his smile and feel his amusement, and he starts sending me waves of calm to help me wind down. It's no time before I'm falling asleep again.
;';';';';';';
I feel Eric's hand running along my jaw, pulling my mouth open before he slips his finger in and rubs the roof of my mouth, causing my fangs to click down. He runs the same finger down one of them, waking me fully as he is inspecting my mouth. There's a genuine curiosity as he gets familiar with my new assets, and I snap playfully at his hand making him laugh as he wags his finger in front of my nose tauntingly. "Naughty girl. You had better be careful, or I might bite back."
Something in his words stirs the same thirst I had felt the previous night, and before I can think I find myself pinned beneath him. Stretching upward, I try to reach his throat, and sink back down disappointed when he doesn't let me. "You may not be vampire, lover, but your fangs certainly are. You need to get a handle on that thirst so you don't attack someone else." He says with a small smile as I pout comically for a moment. The thought of consuming blood from any other person but him, no matter if it is a vampire or human, puts a bad twist in my gut.
I frown before slowly leaning up, and he doesn't stop me from kissing him. He releases his weight from my arms, and I put them slowly up around him as he returns my kiss. Leaning down a little, I kiss his jawline, and move slowly down to his neck as he continues to loom over me. "I don't want anyone else." He feels the truth of my words as I whisper against his throat, and his chest vibrates silently for several seconds before I nip his skin. "I only need Eric." I say, mirroring what he had said earlier in the night, and his answering growl is the most enticing sound I've ever heard. He groans when I clamp down on his neck, and a feeling of bliss floods through him. My mouth slowly fills, and just as I swallow, he pushes my hair back and bares his fangs against my throat. He teases several spots, licking and placing hickies as he breaths deeply to pull in my scent.
I pull back minimally and whisper, "You're my Eric, and I'm completely yours." I'm immediately returning to my spot, and I try to make the same inviting growl that he had before. It is only a split second before his fangs slide home, and I rake my nails down his back.
When the sun rises not long later, we go to sleep together, with myself locked in his arms.
The nights we spend in Russia are perfect, with us exploring the surrounding area after the first night, and getting to know each other better by the night He watches me with a heated gaze as I finish putting the room back together, preparing to leave this place. "We'll have to come back here sometime. Maybe on the anniversary of getting my fangs?"
He laughs at this, and I grab his hand and lead him upstairs. Sealing the stairway back up, I turn to him in the kitchen, and adopt a serious tone of voice. "The next place we are going is not necessarily… on earth. So I'm going to need you to drink a lot of my blood real quick so that I can get you in past the barrier. You'll be okay once we get there, and I need you to not panic over anything."
"Are you taking me to fearie?" There's curiosity and a pinch of excitement coming from him, as well as a fair amount of uncertainty.
"Yes… and no. It's similar but it's another plane. It's a place of safety that few people can get to."
He nods, letting me pull him down against my throat and he's quick to bite. My fangs run down as he does, but I put them away as I tamp down my lust and wait until he's taken his fill. As soon as he pulls back I lock him in a hug, and he returns the embrace as I start swirling magic through the air. The pull of my teleport takes us away, and it's harsh passing through a portal and barrier all at the same time, but finally we make it through as the barrier accepts Eric.
We're standing on the back porch of the house, its glass paneled outer walls sending shards of sunlight everywhere. Panic rises into the bond, but Eric pushes it away as he realizes that the sun is not hurting him, and I giggle at his expression. "The sun here isn't the same as Earths sun. I don't really know how it works, but the sun in fearie and other realms is not harmful to vampires. I thought you might enjoy this as well." I say, and look pointedly behind him.
He turns with me still in his arms, and his mouth falls open slightly as he views the reason for our stay here. Seeming to stretch forever before it hits a stone wall in the distance, a maze garden of unrivaled proportions is laid out before us surrounding the house.
"The rules are no flying, and no using our bond to cheat. There's no other rules in this hunt." I say, before pulling out of his hold and disappearing from his sight as an animalistic growl rises in his chest. I feel mirth and excitement rising in him just before I close the bond and hide my location from him. Ending up on the roof at first, I look down, and watch him gaze out to the maze for a minute before he disappears at high speeds into one of the entrances.