The Nightlife: Paris (The Nightlife Series) (15 page)

With a bar of honey-scented soap she painstakingly washed
his entire body, taking extra care and time with his cock.  The arousal stolen
by his momentary grief returned with her skilled hands.  He smelled her unique
pheromones signaling her arousal.

His mouth filled with teeth as he imagined what her blood
would taste like.  Reading his every nuance of thought, she rebuked him with a
finger poking at his chest.  “Do not bite me.  You can never taste my blood.  Never. 
Understand?”

He nodded yes, but his teeth had a mind of their own.

And then she kissed him, wrapping his whole being in light,
love, affection, bliss.  Her warmth flowed from her soft, loving lips down to
his groin.  She gave him a hard-on to pound nails.

“It has been a very long time since I enjoyed one such as
you.”

Anticipation and arousal flooded his body as she pulled him
from the pool and dried his skin with soft strokes from a fluffy white towel. 
And then she led him out to the bed.

“Lie down, I like to be on top.”  He did as he was told.

She straddled his face, and their hands flowed over each
other, touching, testing, silent mutual exploration.  He worshipped at her altar,
tasting her delicious vaginal folds, trying his best not to do what he really wanted,
to bite her.  She swallowed him whole, engulfing his erection in strange
tingles of warm energy.  The woman’s flesh crackled with static electricity,
tickling him at all points of contact.

Her hands flowed over his thighs, reaching down to slide an
electric fingertip straight up his ass.  As he jolted with the intense
sensations, she clamped onto his cock and sucked hard.  She sucked so deeply, he
thought she could have stolen his very soul through the head of his cock.  And
then she shoved her hips down, planting all that golden juicy flesh into his
face as she kissed the base of his erection in deep throat.

He lost it, clawing at her thighs.  His fingers and tongue
delved into her front and back at the same time.  She swallowed his orgasm,
sucking every last drop.  She liked it, lapped it up, and cleaned him thoroughly.

“For your sake, I hope there is more.  This is only the warm
up.”  She smiled at him over her shoulder while licking her lips and then
changed position.

He watched her flip around to grab his cock.  Her power
infused his groin and he grew solid in her hand.  She radiated tingling warmth
with every touch.  Then she closed her eyes as she glided down onto him.  He
growled with the squeeze of her warm flesh and the massage of her energy
flowing all along his most sensitive skin.  Happier than he had any right to
be, he grabbed her golden hips and pulled her down.

“Yes! 
Mon
dieu
that’s good!”  She moved with him.

Her strength, otherworldliness, power, and sexy purring
French brought on a pang for his lost love.  He wished Michelle was there to
take all his passions, all his strength.  But this one was strong too.  She
could take it just like Michelle.

And so he gave it to her.

In an instant he flipped her over onto her back and laid his
full weight into her.  She growled in his ear sending little static snaps of
energy flowing over him.  Her fingers traced a zinging line over his shoulders
as he buried his cock over and over, unleashing all his strength on this rare
and powerful creature.

And she took every last inch.

“Yes!  Don’t you stop!  Don’t you dare stop!  Give it to
me!”  She grunted and growled, her hips rising to meet him as he thrust home.

Electric sparks flew and he dug in harder and faster, driven
by her cries.  She gripped his thighs and the electricity from her fingers
flowed straight through to his cock, bringing him to an immediate and violent
climax.

Roaring his pleasure, he screamed, “Michelle!” and bit down
hard into her neck.  The richest, sweetest blood he’d ever tasted flooded his
mouth.  An orgy of flavor.

“Oh shit! 
Connard
!
 
Stop!  Damn you stop!”  She pulled and tugged on his shoulders.

But he’d clamped down into a tight embrace, and she couldn’t
pull him off.  He pumped into her harder and harder, emptying himself inside
her as he sucked down all that delicious syrup, the most wonderful blood ever.

“No!”  She screamed in his ear.

A blinding display of light and electricity blasted him up
into the ceiling.  He cracked his head and fell to the floor, rolling into the
impact to come back up on his feet.  He crouched there growling, slightly
dazed, claws splayed out, teeth bared.

She stood up from the bed, electric power crackling all over
her body and fingertips.  “You bloody idiot!  I hope you burn!”

Roiling nausea hit him and his stomach flip-flopped.  Within
seconds fire trailed out from his stomach to all his extremities, working its
way to the tips of his fingers and toes, to his very hair follicles.

He hit the ground, screaming and writhing in searing agony.

* * * *

Chapter 21

Michelle woke up alone, aching and fatigued, in the basement
of the Hôpital Supérieur.  Blood deprivation gnawed at her belly and filled her
mouth with lethal teeth.  Bloodlust hovered on the edge of her mind, driving
her mad with its singular compulsion.

She made her way out of the hospital into the parking garage,
and by sheer luck, caught a helpful young woman.  She waved to the woman for
aid, luring her prey in by pretense of injury.  She wanted this woman’s blood,
all of it.  Feeding deeply from her neck, Michelle fought the instinct to drain
her victim dry.  The intensity of her need almost overwhelmed her.

She pulled away and roared in the woman’s face.  “I am not a
murderer!  I am not a murderer!”  Her shouts echoed across the parking garage.

Strapping her desire in iron bands, she willed herself not
to shred her victim to pieces.  She stripped the woman’s jacket off.  She
needed a covering for the hospital gown in public.  She left the woman dazed
and bewildered, laid out on the concrete, but still very much alive.

Food.  Clothes.  Aaron.  She had a hazy shadowy recollection
of a moment in his arms, but the details of it escaped her. 
I will surprise
him
.

She headed straight towards the mansion, the last place she
left him.  A cab conveniently pulled up alongside to offer a ride.  “
Oui,
Monsieur, I have a great
need.”  She slipped into the backseat and waited patiently.  At the street
corner a block away from the mansion, she stopped him.

“Thirty euros, Madam.”  She leaned forward to wrap her hands
around him, jerking him up and over the seat.

He screamed, kicked, and squirmed while she fed deeply from
his neck.  She didn’t have any money.  Letting him live would have to be
sufficient payment for services rendered.  She darted down the street and
around the corner, out of the man’s sight.  Though still thirsty enough to
drain a man dry, her second feeding took the harsh edge off her desperate need.

She recovered her hidden key from the stone lion guardian
and entered the mansion.  She tracked Aaron’s scent downstairs to the basement. 
The bedding covers showed evidence of where he had slept, but the house was
vacant.

Her mind instantly reached out to find him but a black void
echoed vacantly where his love and lively intelligence had been.  A dread sense
of aloneness enveloped her.

“
Foutre
dieu!
” 
God damn!
  She sat down on the bed in pure shock.  “I
can’t find him.  He’s gone.  Where is he?”

Her mind raced to piece together what had happened.  The
warehouse.  Michael Jamison. Gun shots ripping into her flesh.  Devouring
agony.  A man’s face, inches away, screaming shrilly, his bloody entrails in
her hands.  And then ... nothing.

She shuddered and gasped at the horrid memory.  She reached
underneath her hospital gown to feel her chest.  The wounds had healed, but a
deep soreness remained.

She remembered Aaron’s frantic attempts to help her at the
warehouse.  Confusion swirled in her brain.  She must have died momentarily.

“Putain de
merde!”

Their bond could only be severed by death.  She recalled the
feral animal she had become after Julian’s death and knew true fear.  Aaron
could be a mindless animal overwhelmed by the severing of their bond, or the
unthinkable, dead.  She must find him.  But where to start?

The Hotel!

She dressed in a rush, grabbed a handful of cash from her
safe, and raced into the city.  She thought to run all the way there, but her
body needed a break.  Instead, she grabbed the first taxi she could find.

“The Hilton! 
Dépèche
toi!
”

The half-hour ride to the hotel drove her near insane with
impatience.  She shredded the upholstery in the taxi with the nervous flexing
of her razor claws.  Outside the entry, she threw fifty dollars at the cab
driver and made her way straight to the front desk.

“Monsieur Sinclair!  Have you seen Monsieur Pilan?  Has he
returned to the room?”

“
Non,
Madam, I have not seen him.”  He hurriedly typed an entry to the computer.  “He
has not requested a new key card.”

“I need a card please, hurry!  I lost mine.”  He looked down
at her shaking hands and simply nodded at her request.

“Here is the card, Madam, and I am calling the room now to
see if he is in.”

She flew up four flights of stairs and slammed through the
stairwell door.  Her feet slipped on the carpet as she skidded to a halt in
front of their door.  Swipe.  Her hand shook violently.  
Mon dieu!
 
Swipe.  
A green
light!

She flung open the door to find their room vacant, the bed made,
all in perfect order.  Aaron’s scent from several nights before had almost completely
dissipated with the changed bedding.

“Merde!”
 
She screamed at the top of her lungs and slammed her fist through the wall in
rage.

Alone again.

A solitary creature of the night.

Worse, the man she loved was out there somewhere, hurting. 
He needed her, and she had no clue where to find him.

* * * *

Urvashi stood beside her manservant Renault, watching Aaron
thrash about on the floor.  He turned to her and sneered, “What will you do
with this …
abruti?
” 
Retard
.

She stared at the young man suffering such intense torment
and shook her head.  She had such high hopes for Aaron.  “If he survives, he
will serve me.”

“I serve you.  Is that not enough?”  Renault looked offended
by the idea she would take another servant.

“It is not the same, Renault.  He is now mine.  He has
tasted my blood.”  She shook her head again. 
The boy has made me a fool.
 
How could I let this happen? 
“Get me a nurse.”

When Renault did not move she turned her frustration on
him.  “Now!”

“
Oui,
Madam!” 
He took off right away, head down.

He knew when to avoid her scrutiny.  He had served her long
enough to learn that much.

She had watched Aaron’s writhing agony for over an hour, and
though angry with the fool, he inspired her sympathy.  She knelt down beside
him and bathed him in cool soothing waves of empathy, siphoning off his
misery.  He quieted under her touch.  “Sleep,” she murmured.

He drifted off under the power of her suggestion.  Her hand
rested on his forehead, feeling his heat, considering the possibility that he
might survive.  The boy knew far too much.  She could never allow him to roam
freely with this knowledge.  Far too dangerous.  “Perhaps it is best you are
bound to me.  I might have had to kill you otherwise.  And what a waste that
would be.”  She stroked his beautiful pale chest, absorbing a bit of his
formidable power through her fingertips.  An alarming amount of power for
someone so young and impetuous.

He knew her true name.  No one but the closest of her
confidants knew her true name.  The name had been given to her millennia ago, a
passing jest by a wizened and acerbic Himalayan monk she met in a shrine
dedicated to Badrinath, one of many Persian Gods.

She laughed. 
I was such a horrible flirt.  Nara-narayana
never stood a chanc
e.

In her seduction of the wise old lecher, he affectionately
referred to her as Urvashi, “the woman who conquers the heart.”  Later, Vedic
poets and sages wrapped grand myths around both her name and the brief moments
of her eternal life they witnessed.  Of course, she assumed the name as her
own.  And the myths were not all fabrication.

She stood up and the room started to spin.  “Idiot vampire!” 
He had taken so much of her blood he left her dizzy.  “Why do they never
listen?”

She sat down before the vertigo felled her.  “How people
ever dominated this planet, I will never understand.”  She took deep calming
breaths, letting the aggravation bleed away.  This one shortcoming would surely
be the downfall of mankind, their inability to listen.  She had long feared the
day when world leaders would blast the planet to pieces in their ignorance and
hubris.  Probably a day like this, when she was too fucking lightheaded to
think straight because she’d let some fool boy steal too much of her blood.

She watched Aaron’s chest rise and fall.  “You had better be
worth all this trouble, Aaron Pilan.”  That is, if he survived.

* * * *

Chapter 22

Michelle roamed the streets of Paris night after night, in
search of Aaron.  She spent hours scrolling through her iPhone and the
television for local news that might hint of Aaron’s hunting activities.  Three
times she visited the scenes of violent crimes, scenting out the areas,
searching for some vestige of him, some clue he lived.  The first, a knife
fight, revealed nothing.  The other two locations, drug-related crimes, also
proved dead ends.  No signs of her lover anywhere.

She prowled endlessly through the nightclubs, brothels,
bars, and eventually took to the rooftops for a broader view of the streets.  Her
vigil stretched into a week, and each night that passed added to the depths of
her despair.  Loneliness raked at her chest, a constant ache.  She needed his
presence in her nightly routine, his touch, his comforting mind attached to
hers at all times.  She missed the lovely sensation of his breath on her neck
and his powerful arms wrapped around her.

Not knowing was the worst.  She had no idea what had
happened to him.  He must have experienced the psychic backlash of her death,
however momentary.  Breaking their bond would have been extremely unpleasant. 
She had lost her mind when it happened to her.

Never had she experienced this intense heartache and
loneliness, the feeling of losing a lover, a man who held a part of her own
soul.  He was out there, just out of reach, untouchable.  She needed Aaron like
no other.

A nagging insecurity festered.  What if he thought her dead
and enjoyed his freedom?  Even if she could find him, would he have anything to
do with her?  She had always been so confident in Aaron’s presence.  He had no
choice in the matter.  With their bond broken, everything had changed.

The unbearable angst twisted in her stomach.  She felt like
a lovesick teenager, hoping against all odds that he still loved her, that they
could be reunited, their differences magically resolved.  She knew he had loved
her, but now?  Without their bond?

She had enjoyed her power over him.  Perhaps too much.

The pain of her loss intensified with every passing night.  She
awoke night after night to blood stains on her pillow from crying herself to
sleep.  The note under the bedroom door indicated the ruined pillowcases had
been added to the room charges.

The lonely nights crept inexorably to the end of October,
Halloween.  She found herself standing in a nightclub, fulfilling the routine
of survival.  She forced herself to attend the wild festivities with a mind to
find someone to take away this gaping hole in her chest and relieve the lump in
her throat forever threatening tears of self-pity.  She needed a diversion.

“Hey there, looks like we found us a right vampire.”  A tall,
dark-haired man with an Irish-British accent slipped his arm around her.  His
fingertips brushed her left nipple.  She had dressed the part – a short black
Goth outfit, her eyes and cheeks darkened in the classic Goth-vampire look.

“
Oui,
and what would you do with me, now that I am found?”  She flashed him full-size
fangs, enjoying the one night of the year she could flaunt her true nature.

“Well, we have a VIP booth and a room at the Marriot.  You
should join us.”  He pulled her along to meet three other men in the VIP
section, all young, smiling brightly, probably college students.

She sat with the men for a time, on the Irishman’s lap,
letting his hands roam freely.  The warm bulge in his pants almost allowed her
to forget Aaron.  Almost.

Breaking all her rules, she enjoyed their company, laughed
at their jokes.  She connected with all of them, briefly.  Normally, she had never
allowed herself this simple pleasure.  Too dangerous.  But she had begun to
question herself, her beliefs, her motives, her rules.

Was it really so dangerous for them?  Or rather was it too
difficult for her?  She never wanted the commitments, the expectations and trappings
of relationships.  Mainly she hated the guilt.  She enjoyed playing with her
food, enjoyed their fear, their excitement, their adrenaline rush from her
animalistic needs.  To connect with them made them something more than food.  One
should not love an animal you intend to consume.

Aaron, in his crude and insensitive way, had been right. 
Though he may not have understood her as well as he thought, he pegged the
truth.  She avoided people by choice, not by necessity.  She masked her choice
in the color of necessity then convinced herself of the lie.

She could easily feed from several donors nightly and never
hurt them.  But she refused to build those connections and face the problems
when she failed to live up to their expectations.  She was no one’s friend
because she would not give of herself.  Friendships are give and take.  She
always took.

The Irishman pulled her from introspection with a passionate
kiss.  His hands slid up her dress to find her warm and wet.  She kissed him
back.  But it didn’t work.  They were not Aaron’s hands between her legs, not
Aaron’s lips on her lips.  This was not the man she loved, and though she had
tried, she could never forget.

Time to move on.

She bit him, gave him a sufficient dose of her euphoria, took
what she needed, and left her food shuddering in his VIP chair.

* * * *

Urvashi watched as Aaron’s raging fever threatened to boil
his brain and thrust him into convulsions.  He tossed and turned, thrashed.  In
his delirium he spoke the name Michelle, over and over.

Always it was this damned Michelle.  He loved his blonde
leech.

Urvashi had noticed the two of them together.  His unique
psionic signature grabbed her attention from several kilometers away.  He was a
very gifted telepath, scanning the city back and forth.  His psychic probe
flashed out to her, a powerful lighthouse beacon that drew her in.  His
indiscretion suggested he was oblivious to his psionic blasts zinging out in
all directions as he perused the thoughts of people around him.

In some ways she viewed him as an idiot savant, blissfully
unaware of the immense power he held.  Like a child with the keys to a
Lamborghini – able to start the engine and rev the motor, yet unable to harness
its full potential.  The boy lacked training and discipline.

The vampires were a disaster waiting to happen, but as she
watched the tragedy unfold, she decided to step in.  A shame to see so much
potential go to waste.  The boy had appeal.  His company could have been a
pleasant distraction for a few years.  But he had to go and do the one thing to
screw it all up.

“I should just let him die, it would serve him right.”

But in watching him, she couldn’t discount her intuition. 
This one was different.  His part in the grand scheme of things could be unique
and interesting.  Worthy of a closer look, a little extra effort.  That is, if
he survived the ravages of infection her blood had unleashed on his body.

The nurse Renault hired checked his temperature.

The old French battle axe accosted Urvashi.  “Madam, his
temperature is 104.  He should be in a hospital!  I have never seen such
disregard for a patient’s health in my twenty years as a nurse!”

“I know what he needs.  Do not question me!”  She reined in
her anger and impatience before she hurt the woman inadvertently.  She grabbed
the nurse and cut her wrist open with a sleight of hand gesture.

“Ow!  What are you doing?  Stop!  What are you doing to me?”

Ignoring the woman’s protests, Urvashi forced the nurse’s
bloody wrist up against Aaron’s mouth.  She rubbed the flesh around, smearing
red across his chin.  After a couple seconds his jaw unhinged and sharp teeth
clamped down on her open wound.

The nurse cried out, struggled, jerking on her arm to pull
away.  Aaron’s bear trap grip didn’t relent.  He held her arm tight to his
mouth.  He drank until the woman swooned, moaning and twitching.  She flopped
down onto the floor, her eyes rolled back into her head.

Urvashi had to pry the woman’s hand from Aaron’s grip.  “Now,
that’s exactly what he needed.”  She smiled at the nurse spasming at her feet. 
“See, he’s down to 99 degrees already.”  She showed the infrared thermometer
gun read-out to the twitching woman.

“I don’t need a nurse.  I need a couple of blood whores.” 
She spoke to herself.  The woman had passed out, and Aaron was too delirious to
understand.

She smiled at the relaxed vampire.  “I think we have a
chance with you.”  She flipped open her cell phone and hit an autodial button. 
“Renault, tomorrow night I want you to go to Pigaulle and find me two girls. 
Bring them here.”

“You cannot be serious, Madam.”

“I am serious.”

“Is this my bonus?  I would rather have the money.”

“
Ta bouche!
” 
Shut up
.  “Just do it.  And do not offer more than a hundred euros
each.”

* * * *

Looking down at the city from the viewpoint on the second
level of the Eiffel Tower, Michelle came to realize a certain truth.  She no
longer cared about her precious rules.  Aaron had turned her simple existence
inside out and upside down.  She still believed spending any significant time with
people could be life-threatening, for them, but it didn’t matter anymore.

She just wanted Aaron.

She didn’t care if he wanted a harem of bloodslaves.  She
would happily find him some isolated Malaysian island and watch him seduce all
the topless native beauties he liked.  Let them make a religion devoted to
“Aaron the Almighty,” their own personal island deity.  She only cared that he
returned to love her for the rest of their long lives.

Fuck the rules.

She thought of what she’d do if she found him.  Bribes?  She
had the money to offer riches, luxury cruises, vacations and expensive toys,
anything he might want.  If only she could regain what was lost between them. 
There was virtually no limit to what she’d do to have him back.

She continued to prowl the Paris nightlife, seeking
encounters with men here and there to stave off her depression, if only for a
moment.  She craved human contact, a kind face or warm hands close by.  She
needed the tactile sensation to keep her from the abyss, that terrible chasm of
heartache and loneliness.  Alone, without Aaron’s watchful presence to deter
the aggressive men, they descended on her like a flock of birds to a ripe
cherry tree.  She danced with all types, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Russians,
Italians, Scottish, British.  She rarely turned a man away.

Except for the Germans.

Their auras evidenced good, honest, trustworthy men, smiling
and jovial, but she could not overcome her prejudice born of those wicked
nights a lifetime ago.  She refused to dance with them, and she definitely
avoided feeding.  Her bigotry made her dangerous to German men.  Just to hear
their barking speech brought back memories of death, screams, and slaughter,
and how much she had enjoyed it.  They didn’t deserve her wrath for the crimes
of their elders.

* * * *

Urvashi saw the fear of uncertainty in Sophie’s eyes and
read it in her mind as the prostitute considered this strange situation. 
Sophie pointed to Aaron, naked, lying half submerged in the bathing pool,
seemingly asleep.  “You want I should bathe him, Madam?”

The scrawny crack whore looked like the type who would do
virtually anything for the price of a hundred euros.  Sophie looked to the
other girl, Dulce, to see if she was brave enough to go first.

“Both of you, strip, get in with him.”  Urvashi had been
forced to keep Aaron in the water most of the time to control his raging fever. 
And it would be easier to clean up the mess if he killed one of the girls.

She flashed the prostitutes a stunning smile, the very same
one that had enchanted Emperors of Persia millenniums past.  “He will take
turns with you.”

Sophie shrugged and gestured to Dulce.  “You first.”

Dulce, also too skinny for proper health, stripped her
clothes fast and efficient and slid into the pool naked.  Her nipples stood erect
in the tepid water.  Aaron didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.  Looking up at
Urvashi for guidance, she grabbed the bar of soap and began working a lather on
Aaron’s chest.

“Keep going.”  Urvashi winked at her.

Dulce worked her way below the waterline and began massaging
his cock in the soapy water.  He grew full-size in her hand.  She looked back
and forth between Aaron and Urvashi, “Do you want me to wake him?”

Urvashi smiled knowingly.  “He is awake.”

Dulce glanced back at Aaron to see his eyes pop open, a
feral gleam of anticipation.  She squeaked in fear and tried to back away.  He
tackled her into the water and latched onto her neck while he buried himself
between her legs.

She fought her way back up to the surface of the pool, spluttering. 
She brought Aaron with her, his cock thrusting into her like mad.  “Help!  He
is crazy!”

Urvashi watched the woman’s reactions gradually reverse. 
Instead of fighting, she embraced Aaron, moving in time with him as he pounded
her silly, never once releasing his bite on her neck.  Her aura screamed as
loudly as she did – ecstasy, euphoria, and orgasm after orgasm.

Urvashi considered letting him kill the prostitute, take all
her blood.  Not a bad way to go really.  Probably better than the woman should
expect with her lifestyle.  She would die in the next few years of an overdose
or venereal disease.  But then Aaron stopped.  He cradled the woman in his arms
delicately as she gurgled and convulsed.

How interesting
.  The beast had some modicum of
control, even in his fevered, delirious condition.

She turned to Sophie who had slowly backed away, her eyes
wide in shock.  “It’s your turn.”