Between the Marshal & the Vampire(53)

"Don't curse, Mariel," murmured a pained voice from Vellum's right.

Vellum grimaced as he listened to Clay slide closer. He didn't want to, but he opened his eyes to look up at the former Marshal.

"It seems I owe you a blood debt," Vellum whispered, holding Clay's gaze. "I took your friend's life." The words burned like bile in his throat.

"Did you intend to?"

"I don't remember anything of that time. I was…transitioning." Transitioning into the horror that he was now. He was sickened by himself. His eyes burned in a way they hadn't in decades. "I never wanted to be a monster," he choked out, his voice thinning as the last of his blood fled his body. "I never wanted this. Never…"

Clay shut his eyes. "Damn fool vampire." He twisted around and snatched something from the ground. Vellum's heart gave a weak throb when he saw the knife that he'd used to behead his sire.

"Do it quickly if you can spare me any mercy," Vellum whispered raggedly.

Clay went pale and Mariel looked ready to faint. Clay growled, "It's not for you, idiot!"

He slashed the flat of the blade across the thigh of his trouser, wiping it clean. Before Vellum could stop him, Clay yanked the blade's edge across his own forearm where the sun had turned it golden brown. The smell of fresh human blood flared Vellum's nostrils.

"If you die, I will kill you," Clay muttered angrily before bringing his slashed arm to Vellum's lips.

There was no heroic denial. Vellum couldn't have resisted the blood had it been force fed to him by his sire—as it once had been. But this was Clay, and his blood tasted sweet for being a willing sacrifice. It dripped over Vellum's fangs and down his tongue and the moan that rolled up his throat could have been mistaken for one made during sex. It felt that good.

Only a trickle had made it down his throat before he was surging up, clutching Clay's arm to his mouth and piercing the man's skin with his fangs. Clay gasped and swayed, but Vellum couldn’t bring himself to stop. He did, however, make certain to press the special glands in his soft palate with his tongue. They released the aphrodisiac into Clay's veins that would instantly quell the pain and replace it with pleasure.

Vellum's cock lifted up high and firm, flush with blood and need, when he heard Clay's breath shudder with desire. He slid his hand to Clay's hip and between his legs, where he found the other male's cock. Vellum greedily cupped it.

"Vell—" Clay began, but couldn't do much more than moan as Vellum worked his hand over his stiff flesh. The thrill of dominance, of conquering this strong male, made Vellum growl. He crawled over Clay, caging him in muscle and bone. The former Marshal clutched at Vellum's sides with an iron, desperate grip. Vellum drank and he drank, throat moving greedily, but all too soon he could tell it would be too much for Clay to endure on his own. Vellum had suffered catastrophic blood loss. One human wouldn't be enough to fully revive him.

When he reached out blindly and stroked his fingers questioningly over Mariel's trouser-clad knee, she immediately said, "Yes."

Vellum withdrew his fangs from Clay and gently laid the nearly unconscious man on the ground to recover. Then he turned to Mariel, whose cheeks were flushed, and bore her down onto her back. He sank his fangs into her throat as painlessly as he could, and rode the undulation of her body as he injected pleasure into her.

While he appreciated the tight fit of her trousers, at the moment he wished for the easier access of skirts. She struggled to help him. Though it wasn't soon enough for either of them, she eventually ended up open and spread beneath him.

I nearly lost this, he thought as he dragged his fingers slowly through her hot, damp folds. Beneath him she was fever bright with passion and unashamed to touch him everywhere she could reach. Vellum couldn't remember when he'd last felt so connected to a woman. Or to a man, for that matter. The decades stretched back in his memory, but still, his life as a human was little more than a haze speckled with images that failed to stir his emotions. No, his true life was here, with these two.

He pushed into her with ease for she was more than ready for him. Her hands were demanding as he moved upon her and inside her. Her teeth bit playfully at his ear, making him growl. Her precious life blood continued to slip down his throat, granting him life, healing his wound. As the seconds passed, he recognized the softening of her body as she succumbed for the warning that it was.

"Thank you, Mariel," he whispered after he had withdrawn his fangs.

She smiled dazedly at him. He kissed her lips, and then he concentrated on driving her to orgasm.

It didn't take long. Within a minute, her cry of completion rang sweetly in his ears. She slumped, weakened and overcome, unable to keep her eyes open a moment longer. Vellum took care in redressing her. He set up a bedroll from their supplies and arranged Clay and Mariel to lie side by side atop it.

I could leave now, he thought as he stood looking down at them. Clay might track him for a while, but without knowing Vellum's ultimate destination the vampire was confident he could outwit them and lose them.

Instead, he buried his sire's body and burned the head, then cleaned up the evidence of their struggle. Only then did Vellum sit on the bedroll beside his two lovers and watch over them as they recovered their strength.

It was Clay who woke first. One moment the man lay sprawled, the next he was tensed and aware.