Chapter 49
She woke to movement and through the fog of sleep blurred eyes and the shadowy room saw the dulled light glint off the blade as Cael used it to slice Elior's wrist, startling the vampire awake.
"I had thought to feed her without waking you," Cael apologised. "You are tired, Elior, and need to sleep."
"Oh," Elior was still half asleep, his response to the wound more instinct than alertness. "Thank you."
As the scent of blood hit the air, Ashlynn felt her mouth salivate. Her head ached, and her ears were filled with a roar of sound, as if the ocean were trapped within her skull. Elior sagged back onto the pillow, his eyebrows raising as Ashlynn seized hold of his wrist like a famished beast sucking against the wound wetly. Both men stared at her in surprise.
"Her eyes just flared," Elior said, alert now and fully awake. Ashlynn mewled and pressed against his body as she drank from him, one hunger sparking another, and she felt him harden against her in response with triumph. "That is good, isn't it?" Cael replied. "It means she is turning."
"Yes, it is what is meant to happen, but it is earlier than normal. I wonder," Elior said thoughtfully, half distracted by Ashlynn's attempt to seduce him. His pupils were almost back to normal after his sleep, the intoxication wearing off. "If Cecelia turned faster than normal. F-k me, Ashlynn,"he groaned as she released his wrist with one hand to stroke down his body, closing her hand around him with determined purpose.
"It could be the effect of Ashlynn's blood," Cael pointed out. "It affects you, makes you stronger and faster, and then you in turn feed her the more powerful blood..."
"That is true," Elior considered it and then grunted under Ashlynn's touch. "All of my children were made before I encountered Cecelia, and aside from Lucian and two traitors, we three are all that have drunk from the font." "What happened to the traitors?" Cael wondered.
Elior's grin was feral. "They died slowly."
As fast as the hunger had seized her, it ended and Ashlynn licked her tongue over his wrist, feeling the wound close. Another sign, she thought with excitement, that she was turning. She released him and closed her eyes. "I feel hot," she told them. "Not like sexy hot, but like hot hot. Though I feel sexy hot too."
"As the body temperature cools, it is not unusual for the child to feel hot," Elior told Cael. "Immersion in cold water helps."
"A cold shower?" Cael shuddered. "You can go in with her."
"It makes no difference to me what the temperature is," Elior shrugged and rose to his feet. He picked Ashlynn up and carried her into the bathroom, holding her with one arm whilst he started the water. She held herself upright, just, still weakened from blood-loss, her legs unreliable.
"You are doing so well," he stroked her cheek.
"You did this now because you told us what you had done," she observed as he stepped into the water, and sighed with relief as the cold flowed over her, easing the tightness of her skull and chasing the roar of tidal sound away. "You didn't have to. I would not have betrayed you, Elior."
He sighed heavily. "I could say that we did discuss this before, over the phone during the battle for Vampire Square, and you asked me to turn you and Cael then, Ashlynn," he reminded her peeling the wet strands of her hair back from her face. with gentle fingers. "And now, as we wait for my military to seize command of this world, we have the peace and quiet for such a thing.
"But I would not be telling the entire truth." He admitted. "You might be my mate, but your parents are pack, you were raised a wolf, and pack loyalties lie deep. Now you will be vampire and bound to me in more than one way. There will be no confliction of loyalty for you."
"Which is why you didn't turn Cael first, because he has no confliction of loyalty, he has no loyalty whatsoever except to us," she smiled and reached up to lay her hand against his cheek. "I love you, Elior. I kept your secret about the military from my father, though, honestly, he already knew. I would have kept this secret too."
He pressed his lips to her forehead. "I am quite sure that I don't deserve you, Ashlyn Cohen-Jovil, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to be a worthy mate."
"A long life," she replied. "Filled with lots of sex."
He laughed and lifted her so that she wrapped her arms and legs around him. She moaned as he adjusted his angle and stroked into her. "Lots of sex," he agreed, the muscles of his arse bunching beneath her heels as he thrusted. She gripped him as tightly as her exhausted legs could, keeping him close so that his pubic bone ground against her.
"Yes, lots of sex," she agreed on a moan as she came.
She fell asleep whilst he carried her from the bathroom to return her to the bed.
The most delicious scent woke Ashlynn. For a moment she lay breathing it in, almost tasting it on her tongue, trying to work out what that scent belonged to. Her stomach knew, and she felt it grip with sudden voracious hunger. She opened her eyes, tracking the scent to the man who lay next to her, and dragging her tongue across the glorious sweetness of his skin with a purr that came from deep within.
"Mmm, yum, mine," she purred against his skin, dragging the points of teeth up the bicep of his arm, her instincts telling her where the blood vessels flowed strongest beneath the skin and flesh, where best to sink her teeth. She remembered Elior doing the same to her once, when she had accused him of using her for her blood, and understood now how he had done so, so expertly. She just knew exactly where to bite, and with how much pressure, to get to the rich liquid that would satisfy her hunger.
She knew exactly how it would feel to sink her teeth into her mate, could imagine the hot spill of liquid that would result, and her mouth salivated as a deep throb set in between her legs. Hungry and horny, she thought. She was definitely both of those things.
"I already have one blood sucker gorging on me, I don't need two of you." Cael grumbled his semi-conscious complaint when her teeth pricked him. He lay on his back on the bed, his eyes closed and his skin pale, and grunted as she crawled over him to nuzzle beneath his chin, feeling the rough bite of his stubble on her tongue as she tasted the salt of his flesh.
"F-k me, you smell good," she traced her way from the curve of his neck to his shoulder and back to where his pulse kept rhythm beneath his ear, stroking her hands down his body to close over him. "I want to taste you whilst I f-k you, long and hard," she breathed into his ear and felt him twitch in response as the blood flowed downwards. "Good boy."She began to slide down his body, licking and sucking as she went, tasting the hard point of nipple, the hollow between stomach muscle, the dip of belly button before she reached her target with a lascivious grin.
"Uh-ah," Elior plucked her off the devil by the waist, lifting her with ease, and set her onto the seat, pushing a cold bag of blood into her hands as he kneed the mini-bar fridge shut. She looked at the plastic-sealed blood with a confused feeling of having been cheated, the tasty warmth of Cael stolen and the poor substitute offered in his place. "It is not as nice as what you had in mind, but I am in the middle of turning Cael so I cannot have you snacking on him. Therefore, be a good succubus and drink the bottled blood."
Grumbling, Ashlynn sank her teeth into the bag, viciously ripping it open. "Oh, my f-king lord," she exclaimed as the smell struck her, and she poured it into her mouth greedily. As the bag emptied and the edge of her hunger sated, she lost enthusiasm. Compared to the delicious scent of Cael, the bagged blood had the appeal of bran-flakes over a bacon and egg feast, and she found herself eyeing off the prone form of the devil contemplatively as she licked her fingers clean of the last drops of spillage. "Does everyone smell that good to you, Elior? Or just Cael? How have you resisted gorging on us?"
"As you get older, you develop self-control," he was amused watching her. "But Cael does smell particularly edible to me, as do you, still," he leaned over her and breathed in. "Mmm, yes. Still tasty, even as a vampire."
"So, does he taste as good as he smells?" She licked her lips. The devil was still half hard, and she thought she could fix that, and satisfy two urges at once.
"He is delicious," Elior's lips curled at the corner.
"Can't I...?"
"No," the vampire was firm. "Have another bag of blood if you are still hungry. The mini-bar fridge is fully stocked."
"You remind me of my mother, suddenly," she complained. "It was always, have another piece of fruit, and not that delicious piece of chocolate cake laying on the bed... Fridge, I meant. Do not eat the chocolate cake in the fridge. Cael's on the bed, the cake was in the fridge."
"I am a delicious piece of chocolate cake," Cael sniggered.
"Vampire Cael cake," she agreed. "All warm and gooey."
"What does that make you?"
"Vampire steroids. I pump them up like action heros," she held out the empty bag to Elior, who handed her a second. "Does Cael make you stoned?" She asked him as she ran her tongue over her sharper premolar and canines experimentally before using them to pierce the bag pleased when it was neater and did not waste as much.
"Not to the same extent as your blood, but he does taste much better than humans, and his blood has a nice kick to it, like a shot of whiskey," the vampire stalked his way to Cael, and covered the devil's body with his own as he sank his teeth into his neck. Cael groaned, but closed his arms around the vampire, holding him against him in an embrace.
"Does it make you horny? Watching you do that makes me incredibly horny," she commented watching avidly. "All that skin, and hair, and man flesh pressed together. God, it is pretty."
"Not as he was with you," Cael replied as Elior's mouth was full. "My blood does not have the same effect on him. But he does get excited."
"Yeah, he looks excited." She commented as Elior's hips twitched, pressing against Cael as he drank. "I really want some," she sucked on the bag with dissatisfaction. "This blood tastes like plastic."