Eternity and a Year (16 page)

“It won’t burn you,” Sophia said, reading Carrie’s shocked expression. “You’ve got
your
heart.”

Carrie relaxed. Of course it wouldn’t hurt her. She’d just forgotten…

“Well, we listened to your plan,” Brendan said, “and the answer is no.”

Sophia began to protest, but Carrie succeeded first. “Brendan,” she pleaded, “I think we should do what Sophia says.”

“No, Carrie,” he replied sharply.

“But if we don’t—Brendan, I couldn’t bear to live if she killed you, even if I somehow survived!” She clutched the hem of his shirt. “You said we would be together for eternity and a year. You said—”

“I know what I said, Carrie, but I won’t risk getting you killed so
she
,” he cast a dark look in Sophia’s direction, “can finally have her revenge.”

“The plan is as much for your sake as it is for my satisfaction,” Sophia said dryly. “Carrie is right. If you two don’t help me, you’ll probably both die.”

Brendan glared at Sophia, his brow furrowed.

“Please, Brendan,” Carrie said, rising to kiss his jaw tenderly, beseechingly.

* * * *

Carrie blinked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were watery after a painstaking, first-time contact insertion, but they had been turned a rich, dark brown. She did not feel surprised as she stared back at herself. She had yet to become accustomed to her red, vampire’s eyes and still thought the brown looked more natural.

Brendan’s reflection glared fiercely beside her own. He stood behind her with his hands placed protectively on her shoulders, silently broadcasting his disapproval. He had begrudgingly agreed to Sophia’s plan the night before and risen early this evening with a frown on his face.

“What do you think?” Carrie asked.

Brendan glowered.

“You used to tell me how much you loved my brown eyes,” Carrie said wistfully.

His death-grip on her shoulders loosened a little. “The contacts look nice on you,” he said, “but they’re not quite the colour your eyes used to be.”

“They make me look human, though, don’t they?” she asked.

“A human who’s never seen the light of day.”

“That’s all right. I’ll take care of that with some makeup, next.” She opened a drawer beneath the sink and rummaged through it until she found a bottle of liquid foundation. She held it up to the light and surveyed it with a scrutinising eye. “I used to get upset sometimes when the store sold out of the lightest shade,” she said, “because that was always the only one I could wear. But now…it looks really dark, compared to my skin.”

“That’s the idea, isn’t it?” Brendan asked.

“I guess so.” She began to massage it across her cheek. Five minutes later, she had thoroughly coated her face and neck. “Well?” she asked, meeting the eyes of Brendan’s reflection.

“You might fool her,” he admitted reluctantly.

Carrie dusted her cheeks with a rosy blush for good measure.

“Now what?” Brendan asked when she’d finished and packed her cosmetics away.

“The blood,” she said.

Brendan sighed and walked out of the room. When he returned, Carrie stood waiting, completely nude.

He set down the container he had retrieved from the refrigerator on the sink counter. It was a square, plastic food container three-quarters full with blood. Sophia had provided it the night before, and Carrie preferred not to speculate on how she might have obtained it.

Carrie tensed as Brendan dipped four of his fingers in the scarlet liquid and dragged them across her midriff, smearing it with scarlet. He repeated the process several times, coating her belly and the lower halves of her breasts. It trickled over her skin, meeting the hair that grew between her legs and tickling the tops of her thighs. It felt good…better than she wanted to admit to herself.

“Are you done?” she asked when he paused. She wasn’t sure how much more of it she could take. The combination of Brendan’s touch, the tantalising blood and her own ready nudity had quickly ignited a torrid, familiar desire. If this went on any longer, she feared she wouldn’t be able to suppress it.

“No,” he replied, cupping one of her breasts with his bloody hand. He traced the outline of her areola with a fingertip, painting a crimson circle around its edge. Then, he bent, sighing with desire, to wipe it away with his tongue. Carrie’s nipple sprang up hard within the circle, rising to meet his mouth. He closed his lips around it, sucking the last traces of blood away.

She sighed, too, half with pleasure and half with longing—longing for him not to stop, and longing to taste the blood herself.

He repeated the process on her other breast, painting it and destroying his simple masterpiece. Carrie buried her hands in his hair and pressed his face to her breast, sighing as the scent of blood rose to her nostrils and his fangs pressed against her flesh.

“I guess we should get going,” she said half-heartedly as he straightened and wiped the red from his chin then licked a smear off the back of his hand. She deliberately thought of Isadora, fierce and crazed, using the fear and anger the memory incited in an effort to quell her lust and remind herself why she shouldn’t give in to it. It wasn’t very effective.

“You can’t get dressed until the blood dries,” Brendan said. “Bend over the sink.”

“What?”

“Bend over the sink.”

A couple of bright red droplets dotted the smooth white surface of the porcelain bowl, sliding lazily down its sides towards the drain as Carrie obeyed, trembling slightly with anticipation.

Brendan pulled his zipper down and stood behind her with his cock in his hand, guiding it towards the blood-slick opening below Carrie’s jutting buttocks. She moaned, hoping his lust would be satisfied quickly. She didn’t want to arrive late, leaving Sophia to fend for herself against Isadora—not with potentially life-threatening danger looming ahead. On the other hand…

“Oh,” she gasped, watching her reflection shudder and her breasts drip scarlet onto the pale porcelain. “Mmm…”

She scrabbled against the countertop, finding no hold in the smooth surface. He gripped her hips tighter and pressed himself into her, hard. She cried out, bowing her head over the basin as she gripped its edges, bracing herself for the coming strokes, which pushed her smoothly to climax, never lessening in their intensity as Brendan followed her to orgasm.

When he withdrew from her body, she turned and seized long locks of his hair on either side of his face, drawing him to her. His mouth tasted faintly of the blood he’d licked from her skin, and she had to resist the urge to release venom, which would have made her thirst unbearable.

“I think you’d better get dressed,” Brendan said when she finished. A spark of fresh lust shone in his eyes.

“All right,” she agreed, picking up the pile of neatly folded clothing that waited on a small shelf between stacks of clean towels and washcloths.

“One last thing,” she said when she’d finished dressing. She reached into a drawer and withdrew a bottle of perfume, spritzing the hollow beneath her throat and the insides of her wrists generously. “I think this’ll help hide the fact the blood I’m wearing isn’t exactly fresh.”

“Are you ready now?” Brendan asked.

“Yeah,” Carrie replied. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Ten

“So what is it we’re supposed to be doing again?” Carrie asked, smiling nervously as she laid a hand on Brendan’s chest. The third storey of Brendan’s old haunt was dark, but Carrie could see well, now she had vampire’s eyes.

Brendan pressed his hand over hers, creating an X shape over his still heart. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m a little scared,” Carrie admitted. In fact, she was very scared. The only reason she wasn’t absolutely terrified was because of the lust that still burnt within her. It crowded her mind, dulling her natural sense of fear.

“Me, too.” He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close.

“Do you think she’ll show up tonight?” Her voice rose an octave at the thought of a half-insane Isadora bent on revenge.

“I don’t know,” he said, stroking her hair.

Carrie drifted slowly to the floor, and Brendan followed, so they landed in a close tangle. “I guess we’ll just have to behave amorously until she shows up…or all night, if she doesn’t,” he said with a grin.

Carrie returned his smile as he grabbed the blanket on which they’d made love during the first night of his return and spread it neatly across the floor. She shifted onto it at his urging, kicked off her shoes and lifted her hips as he gently pulled her pants down over them. He left her shirt undisturbed in order to avoid exposing the band of dried blood that circled her midriff, in case Isadora really did come.

Carrie tensed when his tongue dipped between her thighs. She was still aroused from their spur-of-the-moment lovemaking in the apartment bathroom, which had happened less than an hour ago.

“Relax,” he said between deep, thorough tongue-strokes that made her clitoris swell like a tiny balloon.

She sighed and willed her muscles to soften, shutting her eyes and focusing only on Brendan’s mouth pressing hungrily against her body’s threshold. Worries crept into the corners of her mind as she bore down, pressing her shoulders against the floor and her crotch against Brendan’s willing mouth, but his skill dispelled them, bringing her close to an orgasm that had been building since she’d kissed him just before they left the apartment. He responded with enthusiasm, tasting the slickness that his efforts had incited. She gasped and he withdrew, softening his tongue as he dragged it across her clitoris. His breath came out in a rush, stirring her hair. She cried out in earnest now, and he pressed his mouth hard against her, holding her still by her thighs as her hips rocked in rhythm with her climax.

He rose a minute later to lie beside her, seeking a kiss. She gave it to him, pushing her tongue past his lips, entwining it with his.

He laid a hand on her hip and thrust it upwards, letting it disappear beneath the fabric of her shirt. “Good,” he said, “no bra.”

“I thought it would only get stained if I wore one,” Carrie replied, watching the shape of his hand rise atop her breasts, stretching the fabric of her shirt.

“Touch me,” he whispered, his lips tickling her ear as he spoke, half-moaning and half-commanding.

Carrie slid her hand to Brendan’s groin, and she was surprised when it met the smooth rod of his penis. He must have undone his fly while he kissed her. She wrapped her fingers firmly around his shaft and moved them from end to end, feeling the soft tickle of his pubic hair and the firm swell of the head of his penis in turn.

“Oh, Carrie…” he breathed. “I love you.” He squeezed the breast he was grasping, straining her shirt at the seams.

“I love you, too,” she replied as he kissed the side of her neck, licking and biting it lightly.

Moments later, Brendan had stripped off all his clothing and lay between Carrie’s open legs, poised on the brink of penetration. “I think I like this,” Carrie said, “you being naked and me still wearing something. It’s usually the other way around.”

“I like it better the other way around,” he replied, lowering his head to bite playfully at one of her nipples through its cotton cover. She gasped, and he lowered his head again, sucking each of her nipples in turn and soaking the fabric so it lay in wet circles over them, clinging to their erect forms.

Carrie grasped his buttocks, pulling his hips towards hers, urging him to enter her.

A sharp sound coming from the staircase would have stopped her heart, had it not already been still.

Both Carrie and Brendan’s heads snapped to the right, where the staircase provided the only entrance into the room. Another small sound sent Carrie quivering, and the head of Brendan’s penis brushed against the slick folds of skin between her legs. A low, quiet moan rose from somewhere deep in his throat. Then, panic welled within her as a dark head surfaced from the stairwell.

Gleaming, red eyes surveyed Carrie and Brendan’s apparent predicament, and a cruel smile curled the corners of Isadora’s mouth as she laughed, surprisingly loudly. Her pale bosom heaved above the neckline of a simple, black sheath dress like the one she had been wearing the only time Carrie had seen her before, and her face took on a slightly crazed expression.

“You stupid bastard,” she said. “I knew I’d find you here.”

Brendan bent his head to speak quietly into Carrie’s ear. “Whatever happens,” he whispered, “I love you.” He punctuated his claim by entering her swiftly and fiercely, reaching her cervix in one stroke then withdrawing immediately.

Carrie gasped as he left her body and threw her arms around his neck. “I love you, too,” she breathed. She wanted—desperately, absurdly—for him to re-enter her, to somehow dispel her fear with his comforting strength.

Isadora laughed again and stepped above the top stair, moving towards Brendan and Carrie with surprising speed. Brendan tensed, covering Carrie with his body, and Carrie braced herself beneath him for the coming blow.

She was not touched. Brendan, however, absorbed the force of Isadora’s furious kick, tumbling off Carrie and across the floor with a sickening crack. Carrie winced, expecting to be next, but Isadora leapt nimbly over her.

Isadora advanced on Brendan, who clutched his bare right side, his entire body contorted. He struggled to his feet, grimacing but steady nonetheless, and Carrie bit deep into her lip, restraining a cry of anguish for him as he braced himself for another blow.

Isadora struck him hard across the jaw, and his head struck the brick wall behind him with a heavy
thwack
. She caught him by the hair as he reeled forward, yanking his head back so he was forced to meet her eyes. Isadora was so tall they were almost level. Brendan leered and struck her forearm with his, freeing himself and losing a small handful of hair to Isadora’s grip as he did so.

“Normally, I enjoy it when my victims put up a fight,” Isadora said to Brendan, who faced her from a corner, ready to strike again. “But you look like you’re ready to surrender yourself to me.” Her eyes travelled down the length of Brendan’s nude body, stopping deliberately where his erection endured, having begun to subside only slightly in the few seconds that had passed since he’d left Carrie’s body and Isadora had begun her attack. She lunged forward, and Brendan struck out at her face, his hand curled into a powerful, tight fist.