The Vampire Sands Flashback to death day - how Sheldon Jeffrey Sands became
a Vampire
The sun will rise soon. Not that I care. Day. Night. It's all the same to me. With these eyes, I see just as good in the dark, although sunglasses help with the pain during the day. Give me a good dark and rainy day and I'm happy.
Dark and rainy. The thought reminds me. It was dark that last day I lived as a human. Dark. Rainy. A Devil's Day, the peasents called those days back then.
\\/\/\//
1665 October 24th
The second son of Lord Winston and Lady Emily Sands, Sheldon did not have to concern himself with living up to the family name. From a early age his nanny had called him a trouble-maker, a rake, a ne'er-do-well. Sheldon took it upon himself to live down to her expectations of him. There wasn't a serving girl who hadn't thought she was the first to lure him out to the hayloft for a tumble. Hot young bodies. Sweating. Writhing in pleasure amidst the fragrant hay. Heaven for the young Lord Sands.
He found playing the part of the innocent boy paid off well. Timid smiles. Looking down at his feet. Pretending not to understand the innuendoes. He had the act down perfectly by thirteen.
Age just gave him a larger arena for his romantic and rowdy activities. He had his mother wrapped around his little finger and finagled a great deal of his inheritance from her when he was eighteen. She couldn't resist his smile or his pout. Like most females.
She called him her darling little angel. If she only knew. As it turned out, it was a good thing he got his inheritance early, since in actuality, he would die before his dear mother.
Lord Winston, Sheldon's father on the other hand, always had a look of disappointment on his face when he looked at his younger son. Sheldon was slight of build, taking after his beautiful mother. Winston was well over six feet tall and built like a blacksmith.
When he was younger, somewhere around the age of seven, Sheldon had thought if he just forced himself to eat more he would get big and strong like his father. By fourteen he figured that would never happen. Not only would it never happen, he was glad of it. He had begun to loathe his father, the pushy brute, and his elder brother who took after his father like a delayed twin.
Sheldon also vowed he would never treat women the way his father treated his mother. He would never make a woman cry.
He broke that promise. Not intentionally. But they did cry when he left them.
The night of his death was dark, threatening rain. His turning wasn't a seduction. No drawn out courtship or flirting with a vampire. No. It was revenge actually and mercy. And his face again.
Women and some men told him he was beautiful. He didn't think so. He avoided mirrors and dressed in whatever he fancied. The crowd of friends that had formed around him once he hit London thought he was progressive. They tried to copy his attire. His inflection. His turn of phrase. That only confused him. He didn't understand the attraction, really. He could be totally obnoxious and they'd still follow him.
Shortly before his demise his closest friend, Jack Grovener, told him he had the elusive gift of charisma. Sheldon pondered that concept. At first he was disinclined to credit it, but the more he thought, the more he realized that stupid blind charisma might explain things.
He had been drawn - not in a physical way - to a brilliant philosopher, Charles Higgins. The man attracted him the same way Sheldon attracted his circle of friends. Higgins was a light in the darkness for the youngest Sands. Questioning everything from the Church to existence itself, Higgins opened doors in Sheldon's mind. And windows.
The night of his death, began for Sheldon at a bordello in London. The Smallest Rose catered to the rich. The owner was said to be Lord Alexander Mason's eldest daughter, Julie. Sheldon had never met her, but found the rumors a little too farfetched to believe. He'd met the Jennifer. She was brainless. Obviously she played a part, protecting the authentic owners of the Rose. And her face was rather plain.
Quick to write people off, Sheldon wrote her off in a heartbeat, despite her huge dowry and her obvious interest.
He'd took to sleeping with the older whores. They had more character and knew things the younger women had yet to learn.
But before bed came cards. Sheldon had the ability to memorize every hand played in a deck, which caused his ability to calculate odds at winning to rise dramatically as they went through the deck. Some games were chance. He avoided those. It was games of skill he focused on.
It was a Wednesday evening, only half-way to midnight, when a huge brute of a man entered as part of a group of men and women. They orbited around a delicate woman with dark features and eyes. She didn't need a whip to command them. A glance. A softly spoken word did the trick. Sheldon, who appreciated control when he saw it, was intrigued.
She came to his table and he stood along with the other gentlemen. There was something about her dark eyes that he wanted to drink in. She wasn't the world's most beautiful woman, though she drew him like a magnet. Charisma, he idly thought, retaking his seat but not taking his eyes from hers. Her glance was like a hook in his heart, drawing him in. He studied her as he pretended interest in the cards.
Her skin was pale. Almost blue-white. And her thick dark lashes made her liquid brown eyes stand out. She smiled at him, and he wondered if they would end up together that night. There was a promise in eyes like those, in lips that were stained pomegranate red. He watched as she touched her bottom lip with her tongue. He held his breath. Heat stirred in his belly, shooting downward. Careful, Sands, he told himself. The night is still young.
The large man whose muscles caused the fabric of his coat-sleeves to stretch tightly around them, appeared to notice the overly long glances between the woman and Sheldon. He started to step forward, but she merely took a deep breath, and he paused.
The young Lord Hamilton made introductions. Her name was Lady Lilith Chadwick. Sheldon's mind went back to tales they told children to frighten them about a demon named Lilith. He smiled, inclining his head to her as Hamilton introduced him to her.
"Enchanted, madam," he said. He meant it.
She pulled a fan from the folds of her golden skirt and used it with the expertise of a courtesan. He wondered if she was one.
The large man who seemed jealous of her attention was introduced as Jacob Atherton. No title. Sheldon wasn't surprised. The man had the build and bearing of a bull.
Another chair opened at their table within the hour. By that time, Lilith's foot had found Sheldon's calf and he wondered how far up she would go. His attention kept being drawn from his the cards in his hand to the sensations shooting into his groin, but he didn't miss a single play and won the turn.
"Thank you for a good evening," Mr. Ogilby said standing. His face had grown progressively paler as he lost hand after hand all evening. He'd lost over ten thousand pounds and Sheldon wondered if he would go out and kill himself.
The large man, Atherton took the vacated seat. This put Sheldon between Atherton and the Lady Lilith. The man had a strange odor to him and Sheldon identified it as horse. He raised a handkerchief to his nose to fend off the stench. Apparently the fellow wasn't familiar with bathing or colognes. He also appeared to have no talent at cards, for he proceeded to lose one hand after another. At least he was consistent, Sheldon thought as his own fortune grew.
Slightly before midnight, Atherton lost yet another hand.
The hulking fellow, simmering in loss for over an hour by then, turned and looked angrily at Sheldon, who was once again gathering in the winnings.
"I don't know how you're doing it." Atherton let it hang there, not quite calling Sheldon a cheat.
"I use my brain. Something I'm afraid you were born without," Sheldon said, tired of the sod. He heard Lady Lilith try and fail to suppress a laugh.
Atherton's eyes widened and his chin jutted out. "You're a dead man," he said in a very low whisper.
"Tisk," Sheldon waved a long-fingered hand. "Learn to lose, Mr. Atherton. It will happen again, the way you play."
The large brute stood up so quickly, Sheldon had difficulty following the motion.
"Jacob!" Lilith spoke in a very soft voice, but it caused Atherton's hot gaze to turn to her. "Enough," she said evenly.
With a guttural growl, he left the table.
"What a relief," Sheldon said, turning back to Lady Lilith. "The man smelled of horse and God knows what else. I think he sleeps with the pigs out back."
The other gentlemen at the table laughed and concurred.
"You are not afraid of him?" Lilith asked, her gaze going up and down from his eyes to his thigh.
"I'm not a fighter by choice, but I know how to protect myself," Sheldon told her. He touched the sword that hung at his left hip.
"He is." Her lips slowly went up into a smile.
"Would you care to leave?" Sheldon looked from her to the door. "I'd be glad to escort you to your next location."
The Lady inclined her head.
Sheldon stood and turned to Mr. Hamilton. "Would you see that my winnings go into my account?"
"My pleasure."
Sheldon stuffed a handful of gold coins into his jacket pocket, grabbed a bottle of champagne from the table, and offered Lilith his hand.
The other members of her entourage knew to stay behind, apparently, for Sheldon and Lilith left alone. Her carriage waited downstairs. The rain had begun to fall in cold torrents. He swiftly followed her inside, wondering where she resided, as a man dressed in black and silver livery held the door open for them.
Rain pounded down on the roof of the carriage, making speech almost impossible. It was a good thing the two inside had no need of speech.
Sheldon took her in his arms, took a drink of champagne directly from the bottle, then shared it with her in a kiss. She was responsive, her hands trailing over his body, finding his growing hardness and encouraging it with a little sigh of pleasure.
"You're cold," he whispered, nibbling on her earlobe. "I'll warm you up."
She laughed at that. "My dear, very young Mr. Sands," she said slowly. "I would love to see you try."
The carriage continued on through the storm, not all of the rocking and jostling due to the condition of the roads.
They arrived at the estate Lilith called home. Servants came out with lanterns to see them in. The bottle of champagne was empty and Sheldon found everything rather amusing.
Taking a candelabra, Lilith led him herself, dismissing the servants. Her room was only a flight up. He had not paid much notice to the entrance hall below, but her room was so sumptuously furnished, that it did attract his attention. Thick rich curtains covered the windows and surrounded her oversized bed. A fire burned in the huge hearth, but its heat did little to dissipate the cold in the large room.
"You live better than King Charles, I do believe," he told her, helping her remove her cloak.
"Live? I know what life is all about, Sheldon. I assume, since we've made love, I can call you Sheldon now." She smiled, looking like an impish school girl as she moved away form his hands.
"You can call me anything that pleases you." He followed after her, easily catching her about her small waist.
They stood close to the fire and he bent slowly to brush her lips with the lightest of kisses. "You're still cold."
She smiled. "You promised to warm me." Her petite hand reached to follow the line of his jaw and pass lightly over his lips. "You have the mouth of Lucifer."
He smiled. "Is this from personal experience?"
"Oh, yes." She put both hands on his shoulders and urged him over to the bed, circling around until it was he who fell back on the high mattress. Quicker than thought, she climbed upon him, her fingers working to undo his breeches, his waistcoat, and pull his shirt tails free, all the time her lips teased his, brushed against his neck, caressed his ear lobes.
He smiled as her lips, still cool, left a trail of fire down his bare chest and her hand took hold of him. Rising up on her knees, she came down upon him and a gasp escaped his parted lips. His eyes closed. His head fell back, his long dark hair pooling around him. All the while, she moved rhythmically on him. He felt he should do more. He should somehow do something to bring her the same pleasure she was giving him. In the grasp of passion, he was helpless. Her knees held him as she moved upon him. He enjoyed the role of sex slave to this mysterious woman.
Their love making seemed to go on for a long time. She whispered praise for his body, his face, his voice, every aspect of his person. At times she spoke in some foreign tongue. He didn't really care what she said as she took her pleasure and gave it back to him.
After a time everything seemed to go faster, get hotter, more intensely pleasurable than he could bear. His back arched off of the bed as a low throaty sound escaped his parted lips and she dove forward, taking his gasp into her mouth as her own body shuddered. "La petite mort," she whispered.
Feeling utterly spent, he put his hands on her waist and turned her over, so that they lay facing one another. He touched her nose, her eyes, with his kisses.
"Should I go?" he asked her.
"No, you may stay." She looked at him with those dark eyes of her sparkling in the fire's light.
He sat up and removed his clothes, helped her remove hers, then lay studying her. "You have the most beautiful skin. It's like porcelain." He ran a finger along her shoulder, down to her waist, then held her hip with his hand. "You're still cold."
"No, I'm perfect." Her voice was hushed. He could barely hear it over the sound of the storm outside.
Without warning the door burst open. Jacob stood there. Sheldon's anger flared brightly. The way the firelight illuminated the big oaf, his eyes seemed red with the flame.
"Get out," Lilith growled at Jacob.
He ignored her and rushed, hands outstretched toward Sheldon with such speed that he seemed to cover the distance from the door to the bed, a good fifteen feet, in only two heartbeats.
Feeling the man's large hands around his throat, Sheldon momentarily expected the fellow would try to strangle him or break his neck. He began to fight back and kick. He might as well have tried to fight the stone walls. Jacob, as it turned out, had neither strangling or neck-breaking in mind. He slammed Sheldon into the mattress and followed him down, digging his teeth into Sheldon's neck.
Pain. Fire burning into his neck. All Sheldon could do was breathe. His arms and legs no longer obeyed him, and the heavy brute knelt with one knee on his chest so that even breathing was an effort.
With every beat of his heart he could feel his life slipping away. The monster was sucking his blood! Faster and faster Sheldon's heart beat, taking him to a dark passive place where the promise of pleasure was just around the corner.
The sound of something crunching overpowered the sound of the storm lashing the windows. The terrible feel of Jacob at his neck left. The weight fell away with a soft thump.
Feebly, Sheldon tried to stem the flow of blood gushing from his neck. Blackness was swimming before his eyes. He heard Lilith call his name. Felt her hands on his bare chest. Then her cool lips on his neck, kissing him. The pleasure exploded in him, taking him down with it into a throbbing ecstasy.
"Drink." Lilith's voice filled his world. One hand cupped his head.
He opened his eyes. Lilith knelt beside him backlit by the fire's light. It turned her dark hair into a red-rimmed halo. She held something to his lips. A hot wetness trickled into his open mouth. He tried to turn his head away, but he was unable to move.
"Drink," said again. "Drink or die."
His lips felt the porcelains smoothness of her and he drank. With each swallow, the excitement grew. Something huge welled up within him, a bliss too pure for comprehension.
"Now you will pass through the darkness," she said, her lips brushing against his ear. "I will be on the other side."
He exhaled, then felt as if his body grew hollow. He wanted more of her. More of the elixir she fed him. More of her brilliant self. Yet his eyes closed, and he could no longer hear his own heart as he fell into the sleep of the undead.
The sun will rise soon. Not that I care. Day. Night. It's all the same to me. With these eyes, I see just as good in the dark, although sunglasses help with the pain during the day. Give me a good dark and rainy day and I'm happy.
Dark and rainy. The thought reminds me. It was dark that last day I lived as a human. Dark. Rainy. A Devil's Day, the peasents called those days back then.
\\/\/\//
1665 October 24th
The second son of Lord Winston and Lady Emily Sands, Sheldon did not have to concern himself with living up to the family name. From a early age his nanny had called him a trouble-maker, a rake, a ne'er-do-well. Sheldon took it upon himself to live down to her expectations of him. There wasn't a serving girl who hadn't thought she was the first to lure him out to the hayloft for a tumble. Hot young bodies. Sweating. Writhing in pleasure amidst the fragrant hay. Heaven for the young Lord Sands.
He found playing the part of the innocent boy paid off well. Timid smiles. Looking down at his feet. Pretending not to understand the innuendoes. He had the act down perfectly by thirteen.
Age just gave him a larger arena for his romantic and rowdy activities. He had his mother wrapped around his little finger and finagled a great deal of his inheritance from her when he was eighteen. She couldn't resist his smile or his pout. Like most females.
She called him her darling little angel. If she only knew. As it turned out, it was a good thing he got his inheritance early, since in actuality, he would die before his dear mother.
Lord Winston, Sheldon's father on the other hand, always had a look of disappointment on his face when he looked at his younger son. Sheldon was slight of build, taking after his beautiful mother. Winston was well over six feet tall and built like a blacksmith.
When he was younger, somewhere around the age of seven, Sheldon had thought if he just forced himself to eat more he would get big and strong like his father. By fourteen he figured that would never happen. Not only would it never happen, he was glad of it. He had begun to loathe his father, the pushy brute, and his elder brother who took after his father like a delayed twin.
Sheldon also vowed he would never treat women the way his father treated his mother. He would never make a woman cry.
He broke that promise. Not intentionally. But they did cry when he left them.
The night of his death was dark, threatening rain. His turning wasn't a seduction. No drawn out courtship or flirting with a vampire. No. It was revenge actually and mercy. And his face again.
Women and some men told him he was beautiful. He didn't think so. He avoided mirrors and dressed in whatever he fancied. The crowd of friends that had formed around him once he hit London thought he was progressive. They tried to copy his attire. His inflection. His turn of phrase. That only confused him. He didn't understand the attraction, really. He could be totally obnoxious and they'd still follow him.
Shortly before his demise his closest friend, Jack Grovener, told him he had the elusive gift of charisma. Sheldon pondered that concept. At first he was disinclined to credit it, but the more he thought, the more he realized that stupid blind charisma might explain things.
He had been drawn - not in a physical way - to a brilliant philosopher, Charles Higgins. The man attracted him the same way Sheldon attracted his circle of friends. Higgins was a light in the darkness for the youngest Sands. Questioning everything from the Church to existence itself, Higgins opened doors in Sheldon's mind. And windows.
The night of his death, began for Sheldon at a bordello in London. The Smallest Rose catered to the rich. The owner was said to be Lord Alexander Mason's eldest daughter, Julie. Sheldon had never met her, but found the rumors a little too farfetched to believe. He'd met the Jennifer. She was brainless. Obviously she played a part, protecting the authentic owners of the Rose. And her face was rather plain.
Quick to write people off, Sheldon wrote her off in a heartbeat, despite her huge dowry and her obvious interest.
He'd took to sleeping with the older whores. They had more character and knew things the younger women had yet to learn.
But before bed came cards. Sheldon had the ability to memorize every hand played in a deck, which caused his ability to calculate odds at winning to rise dramatically as they went through the deck. Some games were chance. He avoided those. It was games of skill he focused on.
It was a Wednesday evening, only half-way to midnight, when a huge brute of a man entered as part of a group of men and women. They orbited around a delicate woman with dark features and eyes. She didn't need a whip to command them. A glance. A softly spoken word did the trick. Sheldon, who appreciated control when he saw it, was intrigued.
She came to his table and he stood along with the other gentlemen. There was something about her dark eyes that he wanted to drink in. She wasn't the world's most beautiful woman, though she drew him like a magnet. Charisma, he idly thought, retaking his seat but not taking his eyes from hers. Her glance was like a hook in his heart, drawing him in. He studied her as he pretended interest in the cards.
Her skin was pale. Almost blue-white. And her thick dark lashes made her liquid brown eyes stand out. She smiled at him, and he wondered if they would end up together that night. There was a promise in eyes like those, in lips that were stained pomegranate red. He watched as she touched her bottom lip with her tongue. He held his breath. Heat stirred in his belly, shooting downward. Careful, Sands, he told himself. The night is still young.
The large man whose muscles caused the fabric of his coat-sleeves to stretch tightly around them, appeared to notice the overly long glances between the woman and Sheldon. He started to step forward, but she merely took a deep breath, and he paused.
The young Lord Hamilton made introductions. Her name was Lady Lilith Chadwick. Sheldon's mind went back to tales they told children to frighten them about a demon named Lilith. He smiled, inclining his head to her as Hamilton introduced him to her.
"Enchanted, madam," he said. He meant it.
She pulled a fan from the folds of her golden skirt and used it with the expertise of a courtesan. He wondered if she was one.
The large man who seemed jealous of her attention was introduced as Jacob Atherton. No title. Sheldon wasn't surprised. The man had the build and bearing of a bull.
Another chair opened at their table within the hour. By that time, Lilith's foot had found Sheldon's calf and he wondered how far up she would go. His attention kept being drawn from his the cards in his hand to the sensations shooting into his groin, but he didn't miss a single play and won the turn.
"Thank you for a good evening," Mr. Ogilby said standing. His face had grown progressively paler as he lost hand after hand all evening. He'd lost over ten thousand pounds and Sheldon wondered if he would go out and kill himself.
The large man, Atherton took the vacated seat. This put Sheldon between Atherton and the Lady Lilith. The man had a strange odor to him and Sheldon identified it as horse. He raised a handkerchief to his nose to fend off the stench. Apparently the fellow wasn't familiar with bathing or colognes. He also appeared to have no talent at cards, for he proceeded to lose one hand after another. At least he was consistent, Sheldon thought as his own fortune grew.
Slightly before midnight, Atherton lost yet another hand.
The hulking fellow, simmering in loss for over an hour by then, turned and looked angrily at Sheldon, who was once again gathering in the winnings.
"I don't know how you're doing it." Atherton let it hang there, not quite calling Sheldon a cheat.
"I use my brain. Something I'm afraid you were born without," Sheldon said, tired of the sod. He heard Lady Lilith try and fail to suppress a laugh.
Atherton's eyes widened and his chin jutted out. "You're a dead man," he said in a very low whisper.
"Tisk," Sheldon waved a long-fingered hand. "Learn to lose, Mr. Atherton. It will happen again, the way you play."
The large brute stood up so quickly, Sheldon had difficulty following the motion.
"Jacob!" Lilith spoke in a very soft voice, but it caused Atherton's hot gaze to turn to her. "Enough," she said evenly.
With a guttural growl, he left the table.
"What a relief," Sheldon said, turning back to Lady Lilith. "The man smelled of horse and God knows what else. I think he sleeps with the pigs out back."
The other gentlemen at the table laughed and concurred.
"You are not afraid of him?" Lilith asked, her gaze going up and down from his eyes to his thigh.
"I'm not a fighter by choice, but I know how to protect myself," Sheldon told her. He touched the sword that hung at his left hip.
"He is." Her lips slowly went up into a smile.
"Would you care to leave?" Sheldon looked from her to the door. "I'd be glad to escort you to your next location."
The Lady inclined her head.
Sheldon stood and turned to Mr. Hamilton. "Would you see that my winnings go into my account?"
"My pleasure."
Sheldon stuffed a handful of gold coins into his jacket pocket, grabbed a bottle of champagne from the table, and offered Lilith his hand.
The other members of her entourage knew to stay behind, apparently, for Sheldon and Lilith left alone. Her carriage waited downstairs. The rain had begun to fall in cold torrents. He swiftly followed her inside, wondering where she resided, as a man dressed in black and silver livery held the door open for them.
Rain pounded down on the roof of the carriage, making speech almost impossible. It was a good thing the two inside had no need of speech.
Sheldon took her in his arms, took a drink of champagne directly from the bottle, then shared it with her in a kiss. She was responsive, her hands trailing over his body, finding his growing hardness and encouraging it with a little sigh of pleasure.
"You're cold," he whispered, nibbling on her earlobe. "I'll warm you up."
She laughed at that. "My dear, very young Mr. Sands," she said slowly. "I would love to see you try."
The carriage continued on through the storm, not all of the rocking and jostling due to the condition of the roads.
They arrived at the estate Lilith called home. Servants came out with lanterns to see them in. The bottle of champagne was empty and Sheldon found everything rather amusing.
Taking a candelabra, Lilith led him herself, dismissing the servants. Her room was only a flight up. He had not paid much notice to the entrance hall below, but her room was so sumptuously furnished, that it did attract his attention. Thick rich curtains covered the windows and surrounded her oversized bed. A fire burned in the huge hearth, but its heat did little to dissipate the cold in the large room.
"You live better than King Charles, I do believe," he told her, helping her remove her cloak.
"Live? I know what life is all about, Sheldon. I assume, since we've made love, I can call you Sheldon now." She smiled, looking like an impish school girl as she moved away form his hands.
"You can call me anything that pleases you." He followed after her, easily catching her about her small waist.
They stood close to the fire and he bent slowly to brush her lips with the lightest of kisses. "You're still cold."
She smiled. "You promised to warm me." Her petite hand reached to follow the line of his jaw and pass lightly over his lips. "You have the mouth of Lucifer."
He smiled. "Is this from personal experience?"
"Oh, yes." She put both hands on his shoulders and urged him over to the bed, circling around until it was he who fell back on the high mattress. Quicker than thought, she climbed upon him, her fingers working to undo his breeches, his waistcoat, and pull his shirt tails free, all the time her lips teased his, brushed against his neck, caressed his ear lobes.
He smiled as her lips, still cool, left a trail of fire down his bare chest and her hand took hold of him. Rising up on her knees, she came down upon him and a gasp escaped his parted lips. His eyes closed. His head fell back, his long dark hair pooling around him. All the while, she moved rhythmically on him. He felt he should do more. He should somehow do something to bring her the same pleasure she was giving him. In the grasp of passion, he was helpless. Her knees held him as she moved upon him. He enjoyed the role of sex slave to this mysterious woman.
Their love making seemed to go on for a long time. She whispered praise for his body, his face, his voice, every aspect of his person. At times she spoke in some foreign tongue. He didn't really care what she said as she took her pleasure and gave it back to him.
After a time everything seemed to go faster, get hotter, more intensely pleasurable than he could bear. His back arched off of the bed as a low throaty sound escaped his parted lips and she dove forward, taking his gasp into her mouth as her own body shuddered. "La petite mort," she whispered.
Feeling utterly spent, he put his hands on her waist and turned her over, so that they lay facing one another. He touched her nose, her eyes, with his kisses.
"Should I go?" he asked her.
"No, you may stay." She looked at him with those dark eyes of her sparkling in the fire's light.
He sat up and removed his clothes, helped her remove hers, then lay studying her. "You have the most beautiful skin. It's like porcelain." He ran a finger along her shoulder, down to her waist, then held her hip with his hand. "You're still cold."
"No, I'm perfect." Her voice was hushed. He could barely hear it over the sound of the storm outside.
Without warning the door burst open. Jacob stood there. Sheldon's anger flared brightly. The way the firelight illuminated the big oaf, his eyes seemed red with the flame.
"Get out," Lilith growled at Jacob.
He ignored her and rushed, hands outstretched toward Sheldon with such speed that he seemed to cover the distance from the door to the bed, a good fifteen feet, in only two heartbeats.
Feeling the man's large hands around his throat, Sheldon momentarily expected the fellow would try to strangle him or break his neck. He began to fight back and kick. He might as well have tried to fight the stone walls. Jacob, as it turned out, had neither strangling or neck-breaking in mind. He slammed Sheldon into the mattress and followed him down, digging his teeth into Sheldon's neck.
Pain. Fire burning into his neck. All Sheldon could do was breathe. His arms and legs no longer obeyed him, and the heavy brute knelt with one knee on his chest so that even breathing was an effort.
With every beat of his heart he could feel his life slipping away. The monster was sucking his blood! Faster and faster Sheldon's heart beat, taking him to a dark passive place where the promise of pleasure was just around the corner.
The sound of something crunching overpowered the sound of the storm lashing the windows. The terrible feel of Jacob at his neck left. The weight fell away with a soft thump.
Feebly, Sheldon tried to stem the flow of blood gushing from his neck. Blackness was swimming before his eyes. He heard Lilith call his name. Felt her hands on his bare chest. Then her cool lips on his neck, kissing him. The pleasure exploded in him, taking him down with it into a throbbing ecstasy.
"Drink." Lilith's voice filled his world. One hand cupped his head.
He opened his eyes. Lilith knelt beside him backlit by the fire's light. It turned her dark hair into a red-rimmed halo. She held something to his lips. A hot wetness trickled into his open mouth. He tried to turn his head away, but he was unable to move.
"Drink," said again. "Drink or die."
His lips felt the porcelains smoothness of her and he drank. With each swallow, the excitement grew. Something huge welled up within him, a bliss too pure for comprehension.
"Now you will pass through the darkness," she said, her lips brushing against his ear. "I will be on the other side."
He exhaled, then felt as if his body grew hollow. He wanted more of her. More of the elixir she fed him. More of her brilliant self. Yet his eyes closed, and he could no longer hear his own heart as he fell into the sleep of the undead.