WIP Wednesday

I stopped for a bit working on this week because I thought I found my plot bunny for an upcoming pax at Amber Allure, but that didn't pan out, so I'm back to my vampires again.

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US Marine Curtis Lenske hung from the wooden cross on the opposite wall. His clothes had long since dried, and his once-white shirt was gray with grime. Blood caked his feet where they had caught on either the sand or something in the sea, but other than a few scratches along his heavily muscled arms and an abrasion over his left cheekbone, no other injuries marred his succulent body.

Felice hovered at the door, waiting for him to notice her presence. To the casual observer, his bowed head might indicate sleep, but she knew better. His telltale heart thudded too quickly to be unconscious, and the minute twitches of his fingers weren’t reactions to dreams. She itched to stand before him and drink him in, but this required patience. She had a strong feeling that Curtis Lenske was not a man who broke easily.

It took nearly five minutes of standing there silently for him to finally lift his head. When he did, he did so slowly, deliberately, like his skull weighed far more than the norm, and he stopped the second his icy blue eyes could meet hers through his lashes. There was no other reaction from him. No taunt. No smile. No grimace of fear. He merely waited, as she was, staring at her with the expectation that she would speak first.

Another five minutes passed where neither of them moved. In that five minutes, her nipples tightened to hard peaks and her stomach growled twice. She spoke only because she was hungry and for nothing else.

“No begging?”

He didn’t even blink. “For what?”

Felice shrugged. “To be set free, perhaps. Many men have hung from that particular cross and wept for their liberty. I would not presume that you’d stray far from your predecessors’ path.”

“But you didn’t let them go. Which means you’re not going to let me go. So again I ask you, for what?”

She liked his boldness. Confidence with a fearless attitude to back it up. It was no wonder Octavian had wanted this one as a prize. A disposition such as this combined with that physique made him quite valuable.

“What do they call you?” Long strides took her across the room, his scent more pungent with each step. By the time she stood in front of him, her mouth had watered twice and her pussy was wet. “If I’m going to keep you, I’d like to know what to call you.”

His penetrating eyes narrowed. “You know my name. You took my tags.”

“Your name and what you’re called are two entirely separate things.”

“And what do your vamp pals call you?”

“Mistress. A few have permission to use my name, but I try not to encourage that.”

WIP Wednesday

I'm still working at Throne of Thralls, the het vampire story I posted the beginning to last week. Felice has blown up the boat of a rival vampire, but is sticking around as long as possible to make sure there wasn't a survivor...

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The others grew restless when the night began to warm. Sunrise approached, and none had fed. Felice had chosen her companions for this excursion carefully, but even they had their limits. The lack of bodies to wash to the shore and her command for diligence had taken its toll. She was about to give them leave to hunt in the last hour before dawn when a fresh scent caught her attention, and she stiffened, taking a step closer to the water.

Gerard immediately stepped forward as well. “What is it?” He craned his long neck, dark lanks of hair falling against his thin cheeks. “I don’t see anything.”

“Don’t look.” Felice closed her eyes and breathed in. “Smell.”

The others crowded around, too close for her comfort, but she was too absorbed by the incoming aromas to tell them to disperse. Blood, coppery and rich, pumping hard, pumping fast, spilling into the sea as quickly as it could gobble it up. Flesh, scorched and succulent, enough to make her taste buds water and her fangs itch. And sweat. Salty. Hot. The kind of sweat that came from muscles exerting themselves so strenuously that the body was forced to cooling measures.

Someone had survived the explosion. Someone who was now swimming to shore.

A human.

“Get back,” she hissed.

Immediately, they retreated, though the fresh prey tensed their reflexes so they stayed at the ready, just a couple meters behind her. Her features shifted, canines descending, eyes silvery as they turned to the edge of the water. As hungry as her minions were, the spoils were her to take, if she wished, and they knew that. Any moment now, the human would emerge from the sea, and she would know at a single glance whether it was worthy enough to feed from.

And there it was.

The sound of splashing water broke the calm first. Then came the pale slice of an arm through the surface, followed by the bob of a head. Someone fair. Another stroke. More details. The arm was powerful, a circlet of thorns tattooed around the biceps.

A man.

Felice smiled.

He reached the shallows and crawled rather than swam, coughing up water in one breath, gasping for air in the next. The muscle shirt he wore was no longer white, torn along the back and stained with soot and ash, and from his neck dangled silver dog tags that jingled in the silent night. Corded muscles bulged where his arms continued to work, and his dark blond hair was cropped to a mere stubble. Military. He had to be. He had the body of a soldier and the stamina of a fighter.

Then he looked up. Eyes the color of blue ice found her unerringly in front of him, and his sensual mouth twisted into a scowl.

“Well, shit,” he muttered. “Another fucking vampire.”

WIP Wednesday

I've been finishing up other projects and doing editing, so my WIP Wednesday posts have slid to the wayside. However, I'm in the midst of a new project and getting back on track, so today, I'm sharing the opening of it. It's called "Throne of Thralls," and it's a het vampire erotic romance.

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Without a moon, the Mediterranean lapped like black ink against the sand, barely disturbing the fine grains. The tourists would be out in full force in the morning, and the sun would turn the sea into the crystal blue of postcards, but for now, everything on the Toulon beach was still and silent, including the small coterie of people staring out over the water. There were five in all, but Felice Dautin was the sole woman of the group. The night swallowed everything but her outline, and she held her head high as she kept her gaze fixed on the horizon.

Soon. She anticipated it would be a splendid display.

From the city behind her, the soft hum of sleeping humans tried to distract her from the passage of time, but as always, it failed. She had not risen to her position of power by being weak. Their wait might be precautionary at best, but it served its purpose. She would watch, unblinking, unfailing, until she witnessed the destruction she’d worked so hard to gain.

A human would have missed the explosion. It might have seen the flare of orange streak across the horizon, but the yacht was too far away from the shore to be visible, and the blast was sucked away by the distance.

But none of the five were human. And when the Serendipity detonated as Felice had planned, all five vampires heard it.