Potsie, please make sure you read your messages. I agree that this is definitely a very "Dark Eric" fic. I apologize for not making that clear enough in the opening chapter author's note. As far as reviewing goes, it seems to be that way for me. I don't really get many reviews on most of my stories. It is what it is, I suppose. I guess people don't feel like they need to encourage me because I write so fast. *chuckle*
9. Interlude
Eric wasn't particularly subtle with his torture techniques. He was more of a 'beat them senseless and rouse them with a bucket of water and do it again' kind of guy. He'd killed Torcer, and all they had left now was Beckham.
That was why he left the man's interrogation to the lovely Pam. She had a real knack with silver, and could draw out a vampire's torture for multiple nights before she got bored and started to get heavy-handed.
It had taken Beckham three nights of torture and two days of the bleeds to talk. His new place of residence was Bill's dungeon.
He was feeling, if not joyful, at least improved. He had information, and he had chastised his human. But he was mystified by the change in her, which had gone in exactly the opposite direction from what he had intended and expected.
It was... a change he liked. Very much. But it was a change that flew in the face of everything he knew about humans. And he knew quite a lot about humans, particularly human women. He had used the technique with great success many times. It was brutal and heavy-handed, and while it was sexually stimulating, it was generally distasteful.
Yet he did it because the life of the human was at stake. The purpose of terrorizing them was to generate instant obedience and subservient fear. He would never admit that he had intended it in such a fashion. Terrorizing humans was fun for vampires, without any real purpose except gratification. Such an excuse gave him excellent reason for terrorizing his humans into abject obedience.
He stood outside Alexis's house and pondered the alteration in her. It was not the fear he expected. Quite the opposite, in fact. He felt in her not the fear or the trauma he could expect. There was no lingering paranoia, no emotional turmoil. In fact, she felt calm and peaceful for the first time since he had been able to sense her.
Her irrational and excessive fear of vampires would no doubt remain. When she saw him again, it would surge with a tidal power as it always did. What had been done to her could not be undone.
But without his presence, he sensed in her the beginning of a simplistic trust. It baffled him because it was almost as if she understood him. As if she realized his intent and the purpose behind his attack on her and trusted him because he had not carried out the threat she had expected. He knew she had thought he was going to kill her—he'd meant for her to believe so.
Yet there he stood outside of her house, sensing not fear, but trust. It engendered unexpected feelings in him that he didn't understand. The protectiveness and the protectiveness intensified as he savored her emotional state. He needed her obedience because she was in danger and she had endangered Pam.
He'd always been torn by the change in his humans before. A part of him wounded by their terror and their reaction. He'd resented feeling forced to terrorize them in order to save them. He asked so little of them, and he gave them so much. Humans were simply too young to be obedient. No matter how long they lived, they retained that curiosity, that rebelliousness.
He wondered if he would be forced to become even more creative in forcing her compliance. He knew that he could glamour her. He had done it before, but only once. The resulting creature, once told to obey him instantly and without hesitation had been an empty and broken soul. It still haunted him.
With humans, there was no way to win. If they remained disobedient, they had to be punished. They were not considered 'pets' for no reason. They had to be trained to obedience or they would die to the predations of other vampires.
Alexis had come so very close to death that he shivered to think of it. Obedience. Such a simple thing, and so very, very difficult for them. They were all the same, ultimately.
Except she wasn't. She was different, and he was finding it likeable. Very likeable.
He pulled the second remote for the house out and turned the alarm off. He walked into the house and into the dining room, leaning on the door frame and watching her read. She was drinking something that smelled like mint.
She put the book down, and he grinned. She was thinking about him, if he knew her at all. She was aroused and conflicted.
Her head dropped onto her hands and she sighed. His grin widened. She was definitely thinking about him, and missing him. He walked up and pulled a chair out so that he could sit down.
She gasped and looked up. Knowing he was a vampire was enough to set off the terror alarm in her, and he waited for her to get it under control.
Her pretty, heart-shaped little face lit up with a smile, but he was irritated that she was wearing glasses.
"We have things to discuss," he told her. "Go put your contacts on and take that out," he flopped the braid at her. "You should not be wearing either, since you are not working or working out."
Her face reddened, and she looked away. "Yes Eric."
She walked out of the room and he felt triumph and pleasure, unexpected and acute. No argument, no delay. Maybe he would keep her. He smiled again.
When she returned, she looked beautiful. Her hair was down and it shifted with her movements like a living thing. Her eyes were large and luminous in her face, and he found her arousing. She needed new clothes, though, still. He would see to it, and soon.
Her heartbeat thundered in his ears. "You replaced my refrigerator," she said, smiling at him through her fear. She was brave for such a timid creature, he thought.
"The color and style pleases you, I presume?" he asked.
"It's great, thank you," she answered. "The other one still kept things cold, but the water chiller didn't work anymore."
He was over it. She liked it, that was all he cared about. "I will be gone for a few nights," he told her, serious now. "One of the vampires talked, so we have contact information. I will be following it, likely into Mexico."
He felt a strong stab of worry and concern from her. "You must stay here and wait. Do not do anything foolish," he told her.
"I just wanted to help," she said. "I'm sorry."
She was genuinely contrite, not fearfully so. She puzzled him in many ways.
"If I know you are safe, I will be able to do what I must do," he told her, standing up to pull her into his arms. "You are a distraction I can not afford when I am in a dangerous situation."
He was lanced by a piercing fear and he pulled back to raise an eyebrow at her. "What is it, little doe?"
"She's probably dead. Maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe you should just-"
He cupped her face in his hand. "Are you worried about me?"
Her face flooded with color. He grinned. He kissed her, delighted by the realization. It was childlike and uncomplicated, and he was yet again surprised by her unexpected reactions. "You will have to give me something to take with me," he told her.
"But what-"
"Come, and I will show you," he told her.
She followed. A moment later, he got the question he'd expected from her earlier. She was timid, but definitely not stupid. "How are you getting in here?" she asked. "The alarm didn't warn me last night or tonight."
"If I told you, I would have to kill you," he said, intending it to be cryptic yet joking.
He felt her terror and considered kicking himself. She was glamoured to be terrified of him, some things would never amuse her.
"Okay," she said. Nothing else. He led her to her room.
Opening the door, he broke his wrist open. "Drink."
She paled and backed away. He stared at her. She stepped up and obeyed and he felt a strange thrill of power and a corresponding, awesome humility. The simple obedience was to be expected, but it felt as if it had been won. He healed the wound and pulled her against him.
He wanted her to remember this night. To remember him.
When he kissed her, it was with a living, growing longing that struck at the core of him where some of his humanity still clung in tatters. The part of him that had lived with the memory of failing his father and his mother and his sister.
He would find out what happened to her sister. He would not fail her as he had them.
Then he was lost in the sea of her emotions. He stripped her, then himself, and dropped her on the bed. His blood was beginning to take effect on her, and as an extension, he was drunk on her powerful emotional state.
Her body was even more beautiful than he expected. He would never have imagined she would be so slender and sleek under all of those oversized sweaters and baggy pants. Well, he had imagined it, but not really suspected it might be fact.
She was responsive to his touch. So much so that he was finding it difficult to control himself and take it slowly. He trailed kisses down her neck and licked the marks of his possession of her. He cupped one breast before teasing her nipple with his tongue. When she gripped his head and pulled him closer he groaned.
She was alive with her longing for him and he could hardly bear it. Above him came a sudden sound and he looked up. The air was heavy with the scents of ocean and flowers.
She sat up, staring around them in wonder. Their bed lay at the foot of a waterfall and beyond them in the other direction was the shore of the ocean. Surrounding them were tropical flowers, burgeoning with fragrance. The parrot above them called again, and gulls answered in the distance.
"What is this place?" she asked.
"My blood. Your dreams."
Her eyes met his. "It's a shared dream?"
"More like a hallucination, I suppose. Yes. Your mind built it." He smiled. She had a magnificent mind, as she did a phenomenal body.
"It's daytime," she said. She brushed his hair off of his face.
"Most humans do not build such perfect images," he told her. "Yours are vivid and remarkably clear."
"I've dreamed being here with you many times," she whispered.
He kissed her, aching with the sweetness of it and confused as to why that might be so. He slipped his hand down between her legs and found the spot he was looking for quickly. She gasped and squirmed under him and he smiled at her.
He trailed kisses along her body, feeling her, tasting her, smelling the sweetness of her. Her skin was soft and she smelled faintly of lavender and some sort of fruit. She was intoxicating and he thrilled in simply touching her and tasting her and discovering how responsive she really was.
He found her to be so wet with her own desire that she was almost too slippery to enter. When they were joined at last, he found her meeting and joining his rhythm and lost himself in the ancient song of sexual union. This time, he took his time, stroking into her slowly and watching her heavy-lidded eyes as she tried to take him in while he teased her by going slowly.
When she said, "Yes, Eric," this time, it wasn't submission, it was longing and it took his breath away. She said his name with unreserved and unpracticed passion.
He had ill-used her because he was a vampire and he made love to her slowly and deliciously because he was a man. He didn't know if he would ever return to her. When he left, he was going deeply into the underworld of his own society. A place where even a thousand year old vampire had reason to be cautious.
Morning was approaching when he laid down beside her several hours later. He looked at the blue sky with puffy clouds in it and he ached with memories. Her imagination was so exquisite and detailed that he almost forgot he had to go to ground.
He would find a place nearby, he decided, and pulled her onto his chest.
"So how does a Swedish princess come to have brown eyes and brown hair?" he asked, kissing her on the head.
"My father was a Mexican official. I think he raped my Mom, but she always denied it. He tried to get custody of us once, but she won in court. He stole Haley from school once, though. He had her for almost a month. I guess I'm just the suspicious sort, because I think he did something to her during that time, too. She wasn't the same when Mom got her back."
"What's his name?" he asked, rage burning in him like fire.
"Alphonsio Lopez de Cordova. He kept to the old traditions and is from a well-known family." She shifted against him and he felt he was drowning in the heat of her body.
But the regret underlying her words tugged at him, and he fought the impulse for one more quick ride before dawn.
"My mother married a man named Richard when I was nine. He raised us. He was a good man. When Mom died, he just seemed to fade away. He had a heart attack two years after she passed and then it was just me and Mormor and Haley." She kissed his chest and he sighed.
"I must find a place to go to ground," he told her.
"I have a cellar," she informed him. The vision around them turned to mist and she watched it go with a strange look of wonder on her face.
He dressed and let her lead him into the kitchen and through a door he had thought was simply a pantry. It led down into the cool Earth. He found himself unsurprised that it was meticulously clean, without even dust. It was not damp as most cellars were, but instead it smelled faintly of pine and the walls were lined with wine and ancient casks.
In the back was an old but clean and serviceable leather sofa. He stretched out on it, his legs hanging off of the end.
She was nervous. "Do you need anything? Is there anything you want? Should I bring a blanket?"
"Nothing. Just keep the sun out," he answered. "I am dead. I do not require comforts in the day when I am in the Earth."
She nodded and left. When the light went off, he found that it was even more tomb-like than he had guessed it would be. Yet it was clean and dry and he doubted anyone would know it was even there. He checked to be certain the light indicated that the alarm system was activated, and then let the day take him into the sleep of the dead.