Tears of Blood (3 page)

Chapter
4

Los Angeles, 1978

Sarahi sat in the semi-dark nightclub.
A disco ball hanging from the ceiling threw dizzying lights over the couples on
the dance floor. She was seated at a table, sipping a martini while her
companions made out beside her. Linda, a black woman with an enormous afro,
dressed in a white jumpsuit which clung to her every curve, had arrived already
under the influence. Guillermo, a skinny Hispanic man with a pencil-thin
mustache who wore a powder blue leisure suit had snorted a line the moment he
sat down at the table. Now they were both so high it didn’t matter to
them in the slightest whom they were groping.

Sarahi felt slightly revolted by the
scene, but was unable to leave until her hunger was satisfied. She tugged on
the neckline of her loose and backless metallic silver top. The chains which
held it across the back tickled her skin. It was hot in this room, and not just
with passion. Her polyester pants clung to her sweaty thighs. Easy pickings
came at a price.

At last the sharpest edge of her
hunger was satisfied. She rose, no longer desiring a full feeding, and headed
for the door.

The man looked up. "Where you
getting off to, Sarah?"

"I’m going home,"
she told him. "I’ve had enough for tonight."

"Don’t go," Linda
urged. "Stay. We have some gooood coke." She waved a tiny glass bottle
in Sarahi's direction. "You can have some."

Sarahi shuddered. She did
not
want any cocaine. "No, thank you."

Guillermo grabbed her arm.

"Let me go," she told
him softly. She could throw him off easily enough, but that would raise
questions she couldn’t afford to answer. She tugged gently, hoping to
dislodge his clinging hand.

"Don’t hurry off,"
he said. "Stay."

"Let me go, Guillermo, or
I’ll hurt you," she told him. He laughed.

Guillermo’s condescending
chuckle turned to a gasp of disbelief as a huge dark hand clamped down on his
arm, forcing him release her.

"She said she was
leaving," a deep, rumbling voice said behind her.

Oh Lilith, that voice. Sarahi closed
her eyes and then opened them, turning to look at the familiar face she
hadn’t seen in over fifty years.

"Lucien!"

"Sarah, do you know this
dude?"

"Yes." No more needed to
be said.

"Come with me." Lucien
extended his hand to Sarahi. She took it without hesitation, following him out
of the building to the street.

Outside, it was hot, but not as hot
as the club had been. Not as hot as Sarahi felt. She threw her arms around
Lucien and pulled him down, kissing him hard, unable to control herself.

He kissed her back for long moments,
cradling her in his arms, making love to her mouth. Then he slowly lifted his
head.

"Where have you been?"
she asked him.

"Avoiding you."

"Why?"

"I had to. I’ve
sworn..."

"I know. But Lucien, why are
you here then?"

"I
couldn’t...I..." He closed his eyes. "I couldn’t stay
away. How do you draw me to you, Sarahi?"

"Do I have to tell you? Surely
you know, you feel it too."

"I feel something I
don’t understand. How do you do this to me? Do you use your powers to
make me feel this way?"

"No, Lucien. I can’t
create desire from nothing. It comes from you. And I’ve done nothing to
enhance it."

"Then what is it?"

She smiled. "It’s
simple, my angel. It’s love. I love you, and you love me too. And you
want me. Don’t deny it."

"I can’t deny it any
longer." He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the obsidian depths
glowed with a love which reflected all she felt.

She cupped his cheek in her hand,
letting centuries of adoration and longing express themselves on her face,
showing him he was not feeling this alone. "Then come with me, Lucien.
Come away. Be with me."

He looked at her doubtfully, passion
warring with uncertainty.

Sarahi felt stung. As long as
she’d waited for him... but how could he know? "Do you still think
I do this with anyone? Lucien, do you know how long it’s been since I
invited a man to my bed?"

He shook his head.

"The last man who made love to
me was Alexander. I was mourning his death the day we met in Rome. It’s
been almost two thousand years."

She held out her hand, waiting,
holding her breath. Slowly, hesitantly, he placed his huge dark hand inside the
whiteness of her little palm. Their fingers laced together. In a blink, Los
Angeles disappeared.

They rematerialized standing on a
little patch of blasted and withered scrub. In front of them an endless stretch
of rust-colored sand gave way to low foothills. The Mojave Desert. And just to
the right, a travel trailer sat in the partial shade of a shriveled little
tree.

"Where are we?" he asked
her.

"This is my place. I come here
to be alone."

She led him up the clanking metal
step, through a cheap screened door which banged noisily against the siding.
They entered and she led him straight to the back, where the built-in bed had
been covered with a thin blanket the color of the desert sand outside. She
tossed it aside to reveal cotton sheets in a sunset orange.

Sarahi reached for the edge of her
blouse, but Lucien grasped her hand gently. She looked at him, a question in
her eyes.

"Let me." His words,
dark with passion, brought a smile to her lips, and when he lifted her blouse
over her head, she raised her arms, helping him, wanting nothing more than to
be close to him.

Under a shirt like that, she could
not wear a bra. At the sight of  Sarahi’s naked breasts, Lucien to
sucked in an unsteady breath. She smiled. He reached out slowly and cupped one
full globe in his big, dark hand.

"It’s beautiful,"
he told her. She could see the question in his eyes, and gently showed him how
to caress her, guiding his fingers to her nipple. Her breath caught as he
fondled the distended nub. She had forgotten how sharp the pleasure could be.

"Oh, Lucien," she moaned
softly, "that feels so good." She stripped off her pants and went
to the bed, stretching out, ready for him. She looked into his eyes and saw it;
there was no going back. The bare truth of what was to come added to the song
which was coursing through her body. She felt him in her core and her skin, in
her blood and her bones. She felt his energy taking possession of her being, as
if he were already in her.

Then he undressed himself with
aching slowness, revealing the body she’d hungered to taste for untold
centuries, and climbed onto the bed beside her, pulling her into his arms.

"Hmm," she sighed
against his mouth as he pressed her close to him. "I love you,
Lucien."

"I love you, Sarahi."

"Touch me again." She
rolled to her back and urged his head down to her breast, feeling the coarse
thickness of his close-cropped curls. His mouth opened around her nipple with
no further urging, and he sucked it in, lashing the tender peak with his
tongue, making her writhe with pleasure.

While he tended first one aching
breast and then the other, she stroked her hand down the hard dark muscles of
his chest, lower, and found what she wanted. His erection was huge and thick,
and she wrapped her fingers around it, stroking him, first gently, and then
with increasing speed and pressure.

Lucien groaned. "Stop,
love."

"Why?"

"It’s too much."

"Oh..." she’d
forgotten he’d never made love before, and this new stimulation would
bring him to culmination quickly if she wasn’t careful. Another time, once
he had learned the ways of loving better, she could caress and fondle him. But
for now, it was time to bring centuries of longing to an end. She opened her
thighs, slipping them to the outside of his, and urged him over her, loving the
weight of his massive body pressing her into the bed.

She took hold of that heavy sex
again, and guided him to the long-ignored opening of her body.

"Take me, Lucien," she
urged. He arched his hips slowly, and Sarahi cried out with joy as he filled
her like no one ever had before. The pressure of his penetration was sufficient
to set off in her an orgasm the likes of which she had never imagined, and she
wept with pleasure at its strength.

The ecstatic clenching of her
internal muscles was more than sufficient to bring Lucien to the first climax
in his entire existence. He groaned at the unexpected sensation, and lowered
his mouth to hers for a long and perfect kiss.

Chapter
5

Mojave Desert 1978

Sarahi sat on a metal folding chair
outside her travel trailer. Hunger gnawed furiously at her belly. It was
insane. She should have been able to go many weeks between feedings, even half
a year if necessary. But now, after only six weeks, she felt as though
starvation was setting in.

Or maybe her reserves were low
because of her grief. She’d never had such a beautiful night as the one
she had spent with Lucien, but when she woke in the morning, he’d been
gone, his honey sweet love draped over her body like a blanket, but his
powerful presence no longer beside her in the bed.

She’d grieved that desertion
like she hadn’t grieved in centuries, not since Alexander. Her poor
darling. He’d loved her with a passion unequaled among human men, her
warrior, named for the emperor, beautiful, blond and strong. But not strong enough.
Tears flooded her brilliant green eyes as she remembered the day she’d
realized his will wouldn’t last, that he was turning. It had taken every
last ounce of her resolve to take him past the point of loss of soul, all the
way to destruction, but she’d done it. She’d killed him to save
him.

She had thought this time would be
different. Nephilim were stronger than men, and semi-divine. Lucien should have
been able to withstand her needs. But he’d left her. In some ways it was
harder than Alexander’s death, because with Lucien she’d dared
hope. But he was gone. Her hunger grew, but she felt no desire to fill it. She
was nearly nauseous with the gnawing in her belly, but the thought of pursuing
other food, of seeking out people coupling in dark corners and feeding on their
passion, actually made it worse. She gagged at the thought.

After Lucien, no one would satisfy
her again. She wondered if, in this present apathy, she would actually starve
herself to death. The way she felt, it wouldn’t take long, and she
honestly didn’t care.

She closed her eyes and willed sleep
to come. The desert sun beat down on her milky skin. She couldn’t burn,
so what difference did the heat make? She inhaled the clean, hot scent of the
desert; of exotic flowers and scrub and the endless, baking sun. And then a
familiar scent wended its way through to her senses. Her eyes shot open.

A dark shape knelt above her, the
sun shining on ebony skin gleaming with sweat. He’d shaved off his hair,
completely gone, but those burning dark eyes boring down into hers were no less
intense for the weeks which had passed.

"Lucien?"

"I’m here, my
love."

"Where were you?"

"I am still one of the
nephilim. I have work to do."

"Killing my sisters."

He didn’t try to deny it.
"Yes."

"Why didn’t you kill me,
Lucien, when we met? You should have."

"I couldn’t, Sarahi.
You’re not like the others."

"How could you know that from
such a brief conversation?"

"I knew before you opened your
mouth. It’s your aura, love. It’s so beautiful. No one evil would
have such a lovely pink aura. Evil makes it black, but yours isn’t even
purple. It shines like the sunset. I could never kill such a beautiful
soul."

His lips met hers. They kissed for
endless moments, and at last Sarahi’s appetite was satisfied. She was
full to overflowing long before he lifted her simple cotton sundress over her
head, lowered her to the ground, and covered her with his body.

By the time his hands went to her
breasts, lifting the heavy globes to taste and pleasure her aching nipples, the
only hunger she felt was her own desire for her lover. She traced her fingers
over the smoothness of his shaven skull, down the back of his neck, between his
powerful shoulder blades.

***

Lucien shivered as her skillful
fingers tickled and aroused him. This time he wanted more. He’d spent
more time than he should have over the last six weeks observing the men who
were drawn to succubae, wanting to learn what they knew so he could use it on
his own beloved.

He trailed his lips down the center
of her body, kissing her belly, dipping lower. Sarahi moaned and parted her
thighs so he could move lower yet, kissing the scarlet curls, parting them with
his tongue, tasting the lush aroused wetness of her intimate folds. He found
the swollen center of her pleasure and worked it with delicate precision,
bringing her to a hard, shrieking climax.

Sarahi clawed at the earth as her
pleasure washed over her. Her whimpers of delight nearly shattered his will. It
was time for him to be insider her again. He ran one last thorough lick over
her heated flesh before working his way back up the midline of her body,
pausing a moment over her belly as though listening to some unknown sound,
before shrugging, moving on. At last he was on top of her. She twined her legs
around his hips and urged him closer.

He needed no further instruction. He
knew just where she wanted him, where he wanted to be,  and he entered,
filling her completely. Her nails clawed his back as he pulled and thrust into
her tight, clenching flesh. Another, wilder peak broke over her, and she
wailed, the sound of her ecstatic cries carrying on the desert wind as he
pounded into her until his own climax took him.

Heart thundering, Lucien withdrew
from Sarahi’s body and rolled them onto their sides. He looked into the
beautiful green eyes of his beloved. She sighed with satisfaction.

"Is everything all right,
love?" he asked her.

"It is now," she
replied, her voice slow and sinuous as she trailed her fingers over his heated
flesh, "but next time you need to go, love, please tell me. I
didn’t know where you were. I thought you had left me."

"I could never leave
you."

"Then all is well." She
pressed her lips to his shoulder.

 "Are you certain?"

"Why do you ask?"

He cupped her belly.
"Something felt strange here."

"Well, I have been unusually
hungry."

"Oh." He glanced away,
trying not to think about how she must have satisfied her hunger in his
absence.

"But I didn’t feed. I
couldn’t. I only wanted you."

He looked at her, confused.
"What does that mean?"

"I have no idea. I worried I
might be losing control of myself, but that should take months."

"Lie back."

Sarahi rolled onto her back and
Lucien pressed his ear to her belly. His eyes narrowed. "Love, can
succubae conceive?"

"Not that I’m aware of.
Only mother is strong enough for that."

"Mother?"

"Lilith."

"Ah, yes. I recall. Sarahi,
there is something alive inside you."

Her delicately arched brows drew
together. "What?"

"If you were human, I would
say you were with child."

"No succubus has ever
conceived a child."

"Nonetheless, I believe that
you have."

"It cannot be."

"Feel for yourself."

Sarahi closed her eyes and reached
inward, considering. Her eyelids flew open; her jaw dropped.

"Lucien!"

"I know." He gathered
her tenderly into his arms and carried her inside the trailer.