Cara MIA - Book One Of The Immortyl Revolution Part 7

A flame burned in those regions of ice. His lip curled back. I could've sworn he was fanged, his face taking on the predatory snarl of a panther, dark and lethal. My body prepared the way for him, weakness about the knees, wetness, nipples insinuating themselves through the black satin of my dress, heart pumping furiously.

"Yes-s-s," I answered, panting.

"Don't disappoint me."

He released me. The room kind of s.h.i.+fted sideways, leaving me dizzy and nauseous. "Oh G.o.d," I groaned, sinking to the table, holding my head between my hands.

"What is it?"

"Too much wine. Please take me home," I pleaded.

"Yes, of course." He helped me to my feet. My high spiked heels wobbled a little, so he took my elbow and steadied me, wrapping his other arm around my bare shoulders. The place was nearly empty, still I was embarra.s.sed, struggling to regain composure and walk out on my own power. Ethan retrieved my wrap and placed it around me, leading me outside. Once the cold air hit, I was better. Ethan hailed a cab and we piled inside.

"Feeling better?"

The abrupt change in character bewildered me. The panther exited and the gracious southern gentleman re-entered, but I sensed the predator waiting in the wings to spring. I turned, hoping to draw the gorgeous animal out again. "My old self again- tad warm in there."

He didn't make a move. He just sat there quietly, a mysterious little smile on that beautiful visage. Fully aware of the effect he had on me, yet patiently biding his time. What a tease.

My place was deserted when we got there, so I invited him in. He told me he couldn't stay long. It was late. I'd used that excuse myself before, but this time I was the one hoping for more than a good night kiss, and although I look a lot like her, I'd made it clear I wasn't Snow White.

I switched the lamp on, hanging my wrap carelessly on the back of the chair. Knowing I looked pretty tasty in the black satin, I sashayed over to him. From his lofty height, he smiled benevolently, a G.o.d on a mere mortal, and I approached to make a burnt offering of myself. Pure white Carrera marble, the cool planes of that face. But his chilly appearance was deceiving. As I pressed my body along his length, an inferno rose deep within, contained with exquisite control. Mmmm, he was hard and hot all over all over. I wrapped my arms around and tried to draw the fire into myself, but he touched me as if he were afraid I'd shatter to bits, taking reverential care as he placed his long warm fingers on my shoulders, only one elegant, teasing digit straying to stroke my decolletage.

"I must go back home for a while. I will return in April for you. Get rid of that leech."

I cried out as his finger teased my nipple. "Yes-s-s, of course. I can't stand him anymore."

"A bird of prey requires a master falconer."

I'll stop at nothing until you're mine.

That ardent promise, which in retrospect, sounded an awful lot like a threat, drained me of resistance. I was pulled in his...o...b..t, a helpless satellite, Callisto to his Jupiter. He picked me up in those arms like a child, small, helpless, utterly trusting, and laid me down on the sofa, kneeling by my side, tongue tracing a moist, warm path from collarbone to ear as he lowered my dress over my shoulders and b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Kiss me!"

"A kiss to build a dream on," he murmured, burying his face in my neck.

A jab of pain, like a pinp.r.i.c.k stabbed into my neck and then oblivion... "

Joe asked, impatiently, "So, that's when he did it?"

She shook her head. "Wouldja let me tell this the way I want?"

FIVE.

"Next morning, I found myself on the sofa still clothed, tingling all over. If we didn't make love, then I must have had the most incredible erotic dream.

Richard called, apologetic, begging me to join him for lunch at his place. He obviously planned on me as the entree and I didn't want to go, but Ethan had ordered me to break it off as soon as possible.

Richard fell to his knees and begged, burying his head in my bosom, his fingers maggots crawling over my flesh. I extracted myself from his arms and left- but he wasn't quite finished with me.

Ethan called from time to time and sent huge bouquets every day to my dressing room, the cards addressed to his "Bird of Prey." "Bird of Prey." Then, right before Ethan was due back, Richard got his revenge. Then, right before Ethan was due back, Richard got his revenge.

I awakened one morning, a few days before our last performance, very sick. I got up from bed, stomach flipping over, and ran to the bathroom to retch into the toilet. A cold sweat broke out as I sank to the floor, head between my knees. My period was almost two weeks late and I was always like clockwork. Now I had had to call Richard. He agreed to meet me after the show that night. I didn't tell why I wanted to see him. I really hoped I was wrong, but I was very scared. to call Richard. He agreed to meet me after the show that night. I didn't tell why I wanted to see him. I really hoped I was wrong, but I was very scared.

At the theatre, I threw up again in the bathroom. Another actress ran to call the stage manager, a thin, intense, dark-haired man with a cigarette perpetually glued to his lips. The curtain was held for fifteen minutes. When we finally went up, I had difficulty concentrating. It was everything I could do to keep from running off stage to vomit again. I struggled to finish the show. As I sat removing my make-up afterward, there was a knock at my dressing room door.

"Mia, your friend is here," called the ASM. "In the green room."

Ethan! I was overjoyed, until I remembered the new twist in the plot. I had to see him, even if it might be for the last time. Tears welled up, as I ran to the green room. I was overjoyed, until I remembered the new twist in the plot. I had to see him, even if it might be for the last time. Tears welled up, as I ran to the green room.

A vision glittered before me, dressed in impeccable evening clothes. As he held his arms out the floor gave way. He stepped forward to catch me, carrying me to the small beat-up leather sofa against the wall. Laying me down tenderly on it, Ethan felt my pulse and laid his hand against my abdomen. Voices buzzed and someone went to fetch a gla.s.s of water. Ethan waved them all away. "Leave us," he growled. Naked despair swam in Ethan's eyes when I looked up at him. "How long have you been in this condition?"

"A few weeks maybe."

"Anything I can do to a.s.sist you?"

I cried into his crisp white s.h.i.+rt. "You promised nothing would keep you from me."

"Best I let you go now. I'm sorry but I must." He caressed my hair.

I pulled away and rubbed at my eyes, sniffling. "I understand. It isn't your responsibility. It's Richard's kid."

Ethan frowned. "Have you told him?"

"Not yet."

He reached into his coat, pulling out a black leather card case. He took out a card. "You can reach me here should you need a.s.sistance. I deeply regret things didn't work out as we planned. Please- call if you need me." Kissing my forehead, he rose, leaving me desperate.

Richard met me outside in his car with an amused expression on his face, enjoying my dilemma too much. He wrapped himself around me, exhaling a solution mixed with cigarette smoke into my face. "Get rid of it."

My Catholic conscience recoiled in horror. "It's murder!"

He went on smoking as I stared out the window at the pa.s.sing traffic on the narrow street. "Fine, go to some home and give it up. You can kiss your career and your southerner goodbye, or you tell him it was a false alarm. I go on living on Katherine's money. Everyone's happy. What you wouldn't do to feed your ambition- a role on Broadway and a rich pretty boy on the side. I'll even pay for it, as long as you promise to keep your big Italian mouth shut."

I couldn't carry to term the child of a man I hated. No tender maternal instincts for this tiny monster feeding on my blood. I had to be free to join my Ethan. Demons howled at the windows calling me to dance with them. I let them in and opened my arms wide.

I lay there in misery, raw and bleeding afterward. I hated Richard for doing this to me, and how I hated myself. This was punishment for my sins. I was in h.e.l.l. Selena was right again. They took Richard's money and pushed me out the door. Richard walked me to the car and helped me inside. I couldn't lift my legs, slabs of dead meat. He lifted my feet into the car. I must've pa.s.sed out, because next thing I knew we were pulling up outside my building.

The cramps were worse. I couldn't rid myself of the feeling something had gone horribly wrong. He came around to my door and opened it. His eyes were cold gray disks. One of us had successfully distanced himself from the act. He got me to my feet. I stood on the sidewalk, blinking, disoriented. It was late afternoon. That mood of that long-ago Greenwich Village street was relatively serene. Waning spring sun bathed stone buildings in rosy gold light. Branches of still bare trees trembled gently in the breeze. The cerulean sky was dotted with fluffy white pompons of c.u.mulous clouds. At the corner store, buckets of multi-colored blooms burned brilliant as a Van Gogh. I've fixed that moment firmly into my memory. I wish I'd stayed there for just a moment longer.

The climb to my third floor walk-up nearly did me in. Cursing, Richard finally lifted and carried me the rest of the way. Depositing me on my twin bed, he tucked a pillow under my feet and covered me with a blanket. "Try to sleep."

I awoke alone in the dark. My head ached horribly with a sound like blood rus.h.i.+ng through it. Warm stickiness ran between my thighs, running and running, soaking the bed linens. Something was was wrong. I tried to sit up. My head swam. Nausea overcame me, the cramping unbearable. Where was Richard, the sonofab.i.t.c.h? I shouldn't have been bleeding this much. It was suddenly, sickeningly evident my womb was gus.h.i.+ng from the spot where the thing we'd made had been ripped. I was bleeding to death. wrong. I tried to sit up. My head swam. Nausea overcame me, the cramping unbearable. Where was Richard, the sonofab.i.t.c.h? I shouldn't have been bleeding this much. It was suddenly, sickeningly evident my womb was gus.h.i.+ng from the spot where the thing we'd made had been ripped. I was bleeding to death.

I struggled to roll over and grab the receiver of phone on the night table next to the bed. With shaking, chilled fingers I dialed Richard's number. It rang for an eternity.

I fumbled for the white card with Ethan's number on it. Somehow, I dialed the phone again. It rang and rang, until he picked up. "Yes?"

"Ethan, it's Mia. I'm bleeding- help me."

The phone slipped through my fingers as I sank to the mattress in terror, unable to move from the spot. A cold, black hurricane swirled in around me. I cried for help silently, my voice not obeying my will.

Then a presence filled the room. A large, warm hand soothed my forehead, smoothing the damp hair back. I floated above the bed. I figured I must be dying, because I hovered, suspended in mid-air about to be borne off to the afterlife. But was I in the arms of an angel or a demon? It couldn't be an angel, not after what I'd just done.

Through the fog of my semi-conscious state a voice flowed- rich and melodious- the voice of an outraged, avenging angel. His warmth enveloped me, staving off the creeping chill paralyzing my limbs. I struggled to open my eyes. Two frosty orbs of blue light looked down. I cried. He calmed me, kissing my forehead. "Hush now, rest my little broken bird."

I clung to him with what strength I had left. "Ethan- I'm so scared!"

"You're dying, little one."

"Don't let me die! I killed my baby. I'll go to h.e.l.l!"

"Hush, you're not going anywhere without me. Did he force you to do this?"

Tears rolled down my face, as I confessed, "I wanted you so desperately."

His voice took on this note of urgency, "Understand what I'm about to offer. It's not something to be taken lightly." I s.h.i.+vered. He held me closer. "Think Mia, before you choose. We haven't much time, but you must to do this with the awareness of what we're undertaking. You know what a vampire is?"

Why on earth was he asking me this ridiculous question? I reached in and pulled a name from the file drawer of my memory, a Hollywood icon. "Like Dracula?"

"A fairy story, Mia, look at me!" I opened my eyes wide and beheld the wonder he was. He spoke gently, not as forcefully like in the restaurant. "I'm what some call a vampire, but I'm a living, breathing creature- not a foul animated corpse. Immortal. I want you to become like me. You'll never suffer from illness and remain young forever. But there's a price, cara mia. cara mia."

I was still reeling, telling myself this must be a nightmare. "Drink blood?"

"We take the life force so we may live eternally. Are you willing to do this, to kill and drink the blood of living human beings to survive? Are you ready to accept this and join me forever?"

Intellectually, I understood what he was saying but I was motivated purely by the flesh. "Would you stay with me?"

"You'll be mine forever, to love and protect." Then he said the most extraordinary thing. "I need you so, Mia."

Well, that was all he needed to say. I was so terrified of being left alone and dying that his promise was the ultimate seduction. Eternity with that beautiful being? You gotta be kidding if you think I hesitated for a moment.

Taking great care not to jostle me, he laid me down on the bed and eased his body next to mine. The smooth swell of his perfect mouth met mine; rapture to finally be in his embrace, whatever the cost. Suddenly, his hands and mouth were all over me as he stripped the blood-soaked clothing from my torn body and licked me all over like an animal that's given birth. The delicious sweep of that warm, wet tongue aroused in spite of the chill overtaking my body. He panted and shuddered, tearing off his clothes as he licked. Boy oh boy, the splendor of that incredible form, smooth, white and spectacularly hard hard. He gashed his throat. Drops of the old delicious claret beaded up along the edge of the wound. My body screamed for it.

Cradling my head in his hands, he guided my mouth to the wound. Heat radiated against my lips. Wonder of wonders, a vampire not cold like death, but so warm, so alive. Boom, boom Boom, boom, his heartbeat was strong and vital. He tasted of the sea, the source of life. I sucked and sucked, couldn't stop myself if I tried, even though it was sickeningly hot and syrupy.

Then, a popping sensation started, a tingle in my flesh, goose b.u.mps on the inside of my body, rus.h.i.+ng through my veins and arteries. I actually felt my cells changing and healing.

The bleeding in my womb was stanched. It would never bleed again. A sharp metallic scent filled the air. Then, it happened, the moment of creation, an electric pulse galvanized my cells and gave birth to the vampiric. New awareness came over my awakened senses. No smell, no taste, and no texture you sense as a mortal ever comes close to the pure sensual, animal glory of the world we experience.

Ethan's fangs drove into my wrist, an exquisite, hot pain. A climax rocked my body- ten times stronger than anything I ever experienced with Richard. All conscious thought evaporated. All that existed was he and I and the blood pa.s.sing between us. Light blazed white-hot in him, around him and I rushed toward it headlong. It was the beautiful dreamtime state I couldn't remember that first night with him. Sensations invaded me, desire, joy, glimpses of heaven inside of the demon, then in the shadowy edges of his consciousness, something veiled... "

Joe stood up suddenly and rubbed his hand agitatedly against his forehead. "Whoa, now I have a few questions."

She swallowed hard. "Whatever you want to know, Doctor."

"You actually felt your body change?" change?"

"Like a million o.r.g.a.s.ms all over and inside of my body- alternately horrifying and beautiful, ecstasy from the inside out."

"You're some kind of empaths? You actually see inside of the psyche?"

The line of questioning irritated her. "It's different for everyone, but it's not so much something you perceive intellectually so much as something you feel reverberating through you. Sometimes I remember distinctly, other times... "

"You have some unique ability in this way?"

"I can see a lot more than most, but only if the other is unguarded. When someone keeps a demon very close, it's locked inside the subconscious and the only way you can see is if they are unaware, like when they're asleep or otherwise preoccupied, like really h.o.r.n.y."

"Doesn't seem possible."

She became very still. Was a tempest brewing? He watched for it yet her response was surprisingly clear and her tone ladylike.

"I'm sure you'll find it's just some biochemical magic. Can't you just smell the n.o.bel Prize?"

Standing in front of her place at the desk, he continued to marvel, "This is incredible! I thought it was all about strength and agility, sensory apparatus, but a way to see into the mind... "

"I don't read minds." She searched for the right words. "I... feel impressions of their memory. I'm told it's almost exclusively a female trait and rare at that."

He met her eyes. Dark mirrors glittered silently back. Before he couldn't hold her gaze for long, but he was unable to turn away now. "Incredible."

"There's a down side. Think about it."

"I can't stop thinking! There's so much I want to know. You perceive actual images?"

"Sometimes it's a scenario, a real cast of characters and setting and all, other times it's much cloudier. This first time, he was full of blinding light... but he was hiding."

"How could you tell?"

She shrugged. "That's how I remember it, like I was watching him on television. Suddenly the monitor went blank. When the picture came back, he'd switched the channel, new program."

"Did it reveal anything about him?"

"That he had a lot to hide. I just didn't know what. Eventually, I got around to figuring it out. Jungian psychoa.n.a.lyst, that's me. Dreams read and revealed, see the truth as it unfolds in gory Technicolor."

"There's a biochemical reason for dreams and for this- what do you call it?"

"Sharing essence."

"Apparently there's a chemical message sent to your brain via the blood exchange. Somehow messages from the brain of your partner are relayed to yours. Possibly the cerebral cortex is stimulated. The brains of syphilitics are sometimes tormented by spirochetes long after they are cured of the actual symptoms of the disease. They hallucinate, experience heightened s.e.xual desire but I'm inclined to think your dream centers are stimulated. Push the right b.u.t.tons in the brain and you can get all kinds of weird responses. The question is, what component in the blood carries this message to the brain, and so rapidly?"