All Things Except Blood

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  Alinar Publishing

  www.alinarpublishing.com

  Copyright ©2007 by Kallysten

  First published in 2007, 2007

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  All Things Except Blood

  Kallysten

  Copyright © 2006 Kallysten

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The right of Kallysten to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published July 2006

  Second Edition February 2007

  All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Tracey W

  Cover by Kallysten

  ISBN

  1-906023-21-2

  978-1-906023-21-8

  Dedication:

  With my heartfelt thanks to Margaret and Sigrid for their help and support.

  Prologue

  Eyrin rarely waited so late in the afternoon to feed. Patience had never been her strong suit, especially when hunger and lust were both troubling her, and she was slowly growing restless. Earlier, she had closed the book she had been trying to read and observed the faces around the common room until she could have drawn all of them from memory alone. Now she wanted Ian to arrive so she could get on with her day.

  She could have chosen someone else, of course. A few humans had entered the common room even as she waited, and some had approached her. She had declined their offers with a polite smile and returned her gaze to the doorway, seeking Ian. Yet as time trickled away, she couldn't help but wonder whether she had been wrong in thinking today was his turn to come to the lair. A youngster could have taken his place in the cycle, or an elder given up hers, disrupting the usual schedule. Or he could have simply been ill, and have traded his time with someone else.

  The reasonable thing would have been for her to feed from the first human who passed the door and be done with waiting. Ian would be disappointed, certainly, if he finally arrived, but it might also teach him not to come so late. After all, why should she care if he didn't get what he expected from his visit to the lair? She had no explanation to give to anyone, and certainly not to him. Whom she fed from or took to her bed was no one's business but her own, and—

  "My lady?"

  Startled out of her internal ramblings, Eyrin looked up to find a snowy bundle in front of her. She had noticed other humans shivering as they had come in, others standing by the fireplace before they left again, but she hadn't realized the weather was so bad. It was atypical, so late in the winter.

  "You're here later than usual,” she commented as she watched Ian brush the snow off his coat and unwrap the scarf woven around his neck and face. The wild curls framing his smooth face made him appear younger than he was, but his broad shoulders and the bold look in his dark eyes as he looked at the world around him belied that impression.

  "The snow—” he started to explain, but she didn't let him finish.

  Standing abruptly, she gripped his hand and pulled him after her toward her bedchambers, muttering the whole while about him catching his death in the cold. Humans were so fragile, a gust of snowy wind had them toppling over.

  The flames still danced high and bright in the fireplace, but she threw in some dry branches. Tiny showers of sparks rose, crackling.

  "Get closer to the fire and undress,” she admonished Ian. “Get warm. How long did you walk in the snow?” She stepped back and leaned against her bedpost to watch him as he shed his clothes.

  "Only a couple of hours,” he replied, drawing a chair closer to the fire for his clothing. “It was cold before that, but not bad. The wind—"

  His words ended in a soft gasp when Eyrin ran a single finger up his spine. His skin wasn't as cold as she had feared. In any case, she intended to warm him soon enough.

  "Are you too tired to make your offering?” she asked, sotto voce. “I could find you something to eat while you rest if you wanted.” The tip of her finger was still her only contact with him. It traveled over his shoulder as she moved around him, and it was now lazily sliding over his collarbone.

  "I'm fine,” he assured her, maybe a little too fast. “I am ready."

  Even though it was his wrist that he was offering her, his words took a whole different meaning when Eyrin glanced down. His cock was hardening, bobbing lightly under her gaze. With a grin, she took his wrist and gently led it to her mouth. She could feel his body tense in anticipation of the bite, but she was careful—always—and if he shuddered when her fangs pierced his skin, she was sure it was less from pain than from excitement.

  She took slow, shallow pulls on his blood. Her hunger demanded more, faster, but it would end too soon if she obeyed her instincts. This way was more exciting, both for him, if his straining dick was any indication, and for her, as she watched the flush spread over his body. It was with regret that she stopped drinking and carefully ran her tongue over the puncture wounds to help them heal. She thanked Ian with two kisses, one on the inside of his wrist, right over the renewed scars, the other on his lips, brief but searing.

  Getting out of her clothes took no more than seconds; sliding in bed with Ian, barely any longer. The sheets were cold at first around them, but Ian's warmth quickly spread as they reacquainted themselves with each other. Eyrin was still learning his body, which spots to caress with her lips, which to stroke with a finger or her palm, but he always responded beautifully to her touch, always tried to respond in kind even if she preferred guiding his hands on her.

  If it hadn't been so late, Eyrin would have taken her time and teased Ian and herself by refusing to let him enter her until she had brought him to the edge and back at least a couple of times with her hands or mouth. But as it was, she would have too little time to play.

  Her leg hooked over Ian's, she pushed him onto his back, rolling with him so that she lay on top of his body. His mouth immediately sought hers, his hips pushing up to press his cock harder against her belly, but she evaded both attempts by sitting up astride his thighs. Ian hissed when her hand curled around his dick but he remained still, or as still as he could be when she was touching him like this.

  She had been thinking of him, of taking him inside her again all afternoon; reality seemed more than a touch better. She lowered herself on him slowly, as slowly as she had taken his blood earlier, and for the same reasons. To feel him stretch her, fill her with warmth and strength always made her forget she didn't need to breathe.

  "Eyrin..."

  She wanted to smile as he murmured her name, and stopped herself by leaning down to press her lips to his. He never said her name unless they were in bed, and when he did it gave her silly ideas such as being able to feel the sun on her skin where he touched her.

  The first roll of her hips took Ian by surprise and he groaned. He accompanied the second one by arching up into her and pushing his tongue into her mou
th to play alongside hers. On the third one, his hands found their way back onto her body, cupping her right breast where she gave him enough room by resting on her forearm or sliding down her back to cup her ass.

  Having not seen one another for weeks, they kept things slow, making the reunion more intense to delay what their bodies were crying out for. Yet soon enough, they had to yield. Sitting up again, Eyrin increased the rhythm of her hips, rising higher on her knees, bearing down onto Ian more fiercely with each thrust. Taking hold of his hands, she led one to the apex of her legs and he flicked the bundle of nerves there with his thumb almost feverishly. The other hand she led to her mouth, and kissed his palm before drawing the inside of his wrist to her lips. She trailed a fang over it, barely hard enough to leave a mark, only piercing when the frantic beat of Ian's heart warned her that he was about to come. He cried out his pleasure, arching up one last time to meet her, and she groaned hers the next second, collapsing on top of him, her body trembling as she rode the waves of her orgasm.

  The heat of his body was all around her, under her, inside, and she could almost have believed the heartbeat against her chest was her own, long forgotten as it may be. Sliding off his body and to the side, she watched him; eyes wide open, breathing ragged, he was quite simply lovely.

  With a pained groan, he rolled onto his stomach, getting closer to her in the process. She took the opportunity to rest a hand in the middle of his back. Warmth and slight tremors greeted her. Lovely indeed.

  "I should go,” he said after a while, his murmur half-muffled by the pillow and totally unconvincing. “The snow was calming down but it's still a long walk. Night will fall and—"

  Her quiet laugh stopped him. “The sun will have set by the time you get out of this room, Ian. And I'd better get ready myself or the Master will have me scrubbing the stables."

  Stretching her arms above her, she sat up and pushed the covers off both their bodies. Ian started protesting, but his complaining died off as she walked over to the fireplace and picked up the pot of warm water that stood to the side of the hearth. He had rolled onto his back again and she could practically feel his eyes on her backside as she poured steaming water into her washing basin. She might have stretched her limbs more than strictly necessary while she ran a wet cloth over her skin, grinning when a small groan escaped him.

  She only turned back toward Ian after she had dried herself with a towel, and couldn't suppress a shiver at the lustful fire in his eyes. If there had been time, she wouldn't have minded putting his renewed erection to good use. Ian was young, still, barely over twenty years of age, but he had learned fast. He would make a village girl very happy some day.

  "I need to go get my orders for the evening,” she said, shaking her head slightly at the detour her thoughts were taking. “Be ready ten minutes from now, no later. I'll take you back to your village on my way to the hunt, or find someone who will."

  With brisk gestures, she braided her hair, tying it off with a large ribbon that hung just above the curve of her ass. She could feel it brush there as she slipped her clothes on, as light as a caress from Ian's hand. His touch was stronger, when he stood and came to her as she was preparing to walk out of the room, but not by much. His hands on her hips would have held a fluttering bird with no more force.

  "I...” he started, and blushed brightly as he hesitated. “I am glad I could give my offering to you again."

  It wasn't the way he had meant the words, but Eyrin couldn't help teasing him by resting her palm against his cock. Trapped between her hand and his stomach, it twitched hopefully even as Ian shuddered.

  "I'm glad of it, too,” she smiled, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to his lips.

  He tried to deepen the kiss, his hips pressing forward into her hand, but she stepped back and evaded him.

  "Be ready in ten minutes,” she repeated her admonition on her way to the door, throwing a last smile at him when she slid her cloak over her shoulders. She almost missed his last words as she closed the heavy door behind her.

  "I'll miss you."

  Shaking her head at his foolishness—and her own—she walked to the common room, her stride determined even though she would have much rather spent the night in the lair with Ian than gone out to hunt in the snow. Time would seem long, until his next visit.

  Chapter One

  The sun had just been peeking over the horizon when Ian had left the village, and it was high in the sky now that the Master's lair appeared in the distance. It was a long walk, but one that Ian, and all the villagers, accomplished willingly when their turn came. It was an honor to fulfill this responsibility and offer blood to the Master and his Childer.

  Children too young to take part in the rotation often pestered the adults with questions about what it felt like to present the gift of blood, whether it hurt, and when they, too, would be allowed to go to the lair. Older villagers who had grown past the giving age were often heard claiming they were still fit enough to perform their duty.

  To Ian, vampires had always been a little frightening. He had not been one of those who asked endless questions and listened in awe, and instead it had been with some trepidation that he had taken his first trip to the lair. More than five years had passed since that day already, but he remembered it as though it had only been a week earlier.

  The road was the same, the dirt packed by the countless feet that had traveled on it, but it didn't seem as long as it once had. The trees, that first time, had been bare, the leaves shaken off by a cold autumn wind that had kept him shivering until he had reached the lair and the roaring fires inside it. Today, everything around him was green, full of a late spring life that perfumed the air and made it thrum with energy. He remembered how, that first time, he had almost turned away when reaching this same twist in the road, and had only continued when reminding himself of the shame he would bring upon his family by shirking his duties. Now, he almost wanted to run these last few hundred yards, simply to be there sooner, and have a few more moments to spend in Eyrin's company.

  Just thinking about her made him smile. There were beautiful women in Ian's village, some of whom easily smiled at him and tried to start a conversation whenever they saw him. However, while he knew that soon he would have to court one of them, or let one of them court him, none of them made him smile like Eyrin did.

  The Master had chosen her from Ian's village so long ago, the grandchildren of those who had once known her, now had grandchildren of their own. Yet she remained, in all the villagers’ minds, one of theirs. Thanks to her, to her acceptance of becoming a vampire, they remained safe, protected from the demons by the Master's clan. They all spoke of her fondly, even those who had never done more than see her in the lair, easily recognizable from her long, dark red hair. The legend said that her hair had once been brown, but had turned red when she had first taken a blood offering from a human. Ian always smiled, when he heard that tale retold in hushed tones to wide-eyed children. He knew better than to believe the story anymore. He had asked Eyrin about it once, and she had laughed, half amused, half incredulous, when assuring him her hair had always been this color.

  He had sought her, the very first time he had come to offer his blood. The pact's rules said that he might make his offering to a particular vampire, or let any vampire choose him instead. The one thing that had sustained him, on those last few hundred yards before he had reached the lair, had been the thought that it was someone from his village who would take his blood. Somehow, the idea of it had been soothing, but not as much as her smile, or the quiet words of comfort she had given him before piercing the inside of his wrist. He had returned to his village grinning like an idiot, already counting the days until he would see Eyrin again. He'd been fifteen years old, and besotted with a vampire ten times older than he was.

  He had seen her four times a year, since then, and had managed to offer her his blood every time, save for two, when he had arrived to the lair late enough that she had already fed from someone e
lse.

  That was why he had taken the habit of departing with sunrise, to reach the lair as early as he could. It also gave him the chance to spend more time with her, talking, sometimes playing Stones and Water on a board of finely polished wood with game pieces he had sculpted himself. She had taught him to play, and although he wasn't as good as she was, he won often enough. For years, she had regarded him as a child, until, almost a year earlier, he had tired of it and reminded her he was old enough to marry and have children of his own. He could still see in his mind the shock etched on her face when he had ended his speech with an awkward kiss pressed to her lips. She had taught him to kiss better, the next time he had returned. She had taught him about more than kisses.

  Ian's body was tense in anticipation when he reached the lair at last and pushed the wooden door open. The building was angled in such a way that sunlight never passed the door to threaten the vampires inside, and the small openings high on the stone walls were covered by light fabric for the same reason. Some light still shone through, complemented by candles and torches all around the lair, but Ian had to blink a few times once he had closed the door again until his vision adjusted to the apparent darkness inside. There was enough light to read by, and some vampires were doing just that in the common room, heavy volumes resting in front of them. But after the bright sunlight from outside, the lair always seemed darker than it really was.

  Fingering the wreath of tiny flowers he had woven as he walked, small enough that it would fit on Eyrin's wrist, Ian advanced into the common room where vampires and humans usually met. His eyes ran over the dozen faces there, but of those that turned toward him with eagerness, none was Eyrin's.

  He felt a pang at that. Could she have fed already, and retreated to her bedroom? Could she have taken the human she had fed from with her, as she had taken Ian a few precious times? He knew better than to ever ask if she had other lovers. It didn't mean that he never wondered.