Blood Ex Libris Page 10

  Orgasms. I’ve had innumerable, multitudinous orgasms over the past nights. You’d think they would start to get boring. They never do.

  As Sandu moved his fingers at different speeds and in different patterns of touch, the orgasms changed accordingly: from sharp punctuations of pleasure, to flowing falls down the well of bliss, to waves crashing and dragging me out to a sea of deeper satiation.

  Some endless time later he’d subsided to moving his fingers almost-not-at-all inside me, his tongue gently flickering again over the now unbroken skin of my arm. The waves of pleasure slowed inside me, gentle now: little intertidal sighs. I was replete but still regretful when his fingers slid from inside me. Being caught up in his arms and cradled against his body, however, more than made up for it.

  But, still he was rock hard. Something had to be done about it. Languidly, I tilted my head up and kissed and kissed him: lips, face, neck. He submitted to the attentions contentedly. I took a deep breath, let it fully out, took another deep breath, and another. And down I went into the water, pulling his hips into a position comfortable for both of us, taking his cock as far down my throat as I could, in one fell swoop.

  I had inadequate experience in the art of fellatio, so once I’d run through my limited repertoire, I just started making things up. But it didn’t take long: I was feeling only the slightest strain on my lungs by the time he bucked wildly in my grasp, and I felt and tasted the blood come spurting out of his cock.

  His hands reached for me, drew me back up. “Sufleţel!” he gasped, as I emerged, the saltwater running down my face, pulling my hair heavy down my skin. I gasped in air, and let him pull me into his arms.

  Chapter Eleven

  He was murmuring things in Romanian. It’s a pretty language, but I wanted to understand what he was saying. I shifted my face a little from where it pressed into his neck and interrupted him.

  “Sandu. English, please.”

  “Sorry, sorry! I was just telling you that I am as happy as I have ever been. There has been much suffering in my life and much loneliness, but now I am blessed with the deepest connection, that of a patar and his frithaputhra.”

  “A what? And a what?” My questions were slightly muffled by being spoken into his neck again. Our arms were wrapped around each other, our bodies pressed tightly together. I guess am’r regulate temperature better because, after all this time in the hot tub, I was not overheated. Nor was I all pruney, and I ought to have been. More changes in my body? If Sandu loved soaking as much as he seemed to, this was for the best.

  “Those are not Romanian, but terms we use within the am’r. ‘Frithaputhra’ means ‘beloved child.’ It is the term for the one who is made am’r-nafsh, and still used after they become am’r since a child is always of the parent. And ‘patar’ means ‘maker,’ and is the term you will use for me.”

  “Oh, I will?” I asked lightly, but I was a bit shaken by the formality of it all and the realization of how little I knew of the world I’d just entered. The hot sex was real, but now it was over, and there was a metric fuck-ton of other realness I needed to know.

  Sandu looked confused at my words, but he shook his head slightly and said, “Oh, you may still call me by name, but I am now your patar. I may call you ‘frithaputhra’ as a term of affection, but I have many other sobriquets for you as well. These are the terms of our relationship, like ‘husband’ and ‘wife.’”

  Gulp. So I had just married Sandu? No, I’d more than married him, we were tied together by blood. Random bits of vampire lore flooded my brain. I had to ask, “Um, if you die, will I die too?”

  Sandu stared at me, dismayed. “What you think you know of vampires will make it more difficult to impart to you what is real and true. Nu, my death would not cause your instant demise. Our connection is such that you would miss my vhoon, as I hope you would miss me as a person. And the more vhoon a patar can share with his frithaputhra, the more strength I can pass to you and the greater our bond can become, but that is all. Forget the myths and the stories. I have much to teach you, but we must leave now for my home.”

  The last shocked me into the nasty remembrance of it being, well, technically Monday morning now. I had to go to work in six hours or so. “Sandu. I don’t understand. We are at your home, aren’t we? And I can’t go anywhere but to my home. I don’t have any clean clothes, and I have to open the library at 9 A.M. I need you to drive me back to Centerville.” I paused. “You said I still can go out in the sunlight. I’m, um, ‘am-ur-naffshhh,’ is that how you say it? So I can still do the stuff normal humans do, right?”

  Sandu’s eyes betrayed his internal struggle in the pause before he answered. “I suppose you could live as a ‘normal human’ if it is what you truly want to do, Anushka. You can go into the sun, but you will now experience photosensitivity. You will crave the dark, and you will crave things you do not understand because I have not had time to teach them to you. It would be bad for you to be alone at this time. This is the most dangerous period for an am’r, and you must stay with your patar so he may keep you safe, help you become stronger, and instill in you the knowledge you need to stay alive for many centuries to come.”

  “But, but… I guess I understand, maybe, but where do you want to go? Can’t I just go to work during the day, and you can teach me at night right here?”

  “Draga mea, you hardly begin to understand.” This was said tenderly, and I could not take offense, despite feeling freaked out and bristly. “I must go, and you must come with me. This is a matter of life and death, important to many more than you. I am needed, da, but you also are needed for the future of the am’r. I promise to explain it all, but you must trust me now as you trusted me at the start of this night. As you trusted me when you left Beowulf’s with me. You have done a great thing this night, and you cannot go back to ordinary things, or you will do harm to yourself. To us both. You must go on with the great things, as strange or daunting as they might seem.”

  I sat there in shock for a while. To the minuscule extent I’d considered my future with Sandu—my post-third-round-of-sex future—I’d thought this am’r stuff would come into my life in bits and pieces. It would add spice to my life, not change it. While my life could do with having a kinky bit of secret passion added to it, it was not the sort of life that included running off into the unknown. And this was not the general and distant sort of unknown. This was a specific and immediate unknown. The only thing I knew for certain about it was that I was not ready for it.

  I moved my hands in the tub like I was treading water, enjoying the sensation of water flowing through my fingers. I lifted my head and used my new sense of smell on the night air, sorting through the amazing scents of earth and flowers and saltwater and cedar and Sandu. I looked up and saw the stars as I had never seen them before; they seemed sharper, blinking with every color of the rainbow. I’d made a choice, even if I’d done so with as much forethought as your average puppy gives to eating a dropped piece of meat. I’d told myself I wanted to be a new Noosh, to “be the heroine of my own story,” to become spontaneous, fearless, and free!

  OK. I can’t flail about in terror because the story is starting to unfold around me.

  So, we packed. Sandu packed a sleek tablet, requisite cords, and a selection of neatly folded black clothing into a sleek modern carry-on suitcase, while I hunted around the house for my clothes, some of which I put back on—not the unwashed panties—and my phone, which was dangerously low on charge. He locked up the house with the big old-fashioned key while I muttered about how criminal it was to leave his books in such a state. He promised me we’d come back and store them all safely and properly, exactly to my specifications.

  We climbed in the Aston, and I found out how much better driving in a supercar is when you are am’r. Am’r-nafsh. Whatever. Sandu was no longer driving too fast; it was just right. I rolled down the window, and the wind whipped insanely around me. We didn’t talk at all on the way to my house. I needed the time to not th
ink, to not plan, but to just enjoy the acuity of my new, improved senses, and my new sense of health and vitality and delight in life.

  It was all go-go-go at my place. First, phone on the charger. I crammed as many pieces of clothing as I could into my old college duffel bag, and grabbed my laptop and a handful of battered old paperbacks—all comfort reading, and none involving vampires since I thought I might need some of that in the days to come.

  I put on makeup at the same time as I packed it and got dressed in leggings and a flattering tunic sweatshirt that would be comfy for whatever kind of travel we were about to embark upon. Sandu, for his part, disapprovingly eyed my haphazardly-packed duffel and murmured about buying me suitable replacements. He also ascertained I had a passport. I had a strange feeling that if I hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been a problem for him. I wondered if being involved with the am’r was going to be a bit like being involved with organized crime.

  The hardest, weirdest part came next. I picked up the still-charging phone and hit Zuzanna’s icon on the main screen. Her muzzy, sleepy voice came on just before it went to voicemail. “Noosh. Fuck. What time is it?”

  “Zuz. It’s, oh, it’s 4:30. Sorry, but I had to call now. Can you open the Haw-Fuck-My-Life for me?”

  “Can I— What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got to go away right now. I need to take that vacation time I never take. I’ve got about two months accumulated. Anyway, I’m taking it now, I’m afraid. With no notice. I’ll need you to take over for me. And, um, put in the paperwork, too.”

  “Noosh, what the actual fuck is going on?”

  “If I tell you, you won’t believe it. Just put ‘long-distance family obligations’ on the paperwork.”

  “You don’t have any family. And you can’t not tell me! I’m your best friend.”

  I took a breath. “I’m running off somewhere with a prince of an ancient lineage. Actually, he’s ancient, too because he’s a vampire. You might have heard of him—he’s called Dracula. Anyway, we’ve been having an orgy all weekend, and now we’re off to save the universe or something.”

  She was silent. “Noosh. Are you high?”

  “I wish I was. It’d all make more sense. That’s all I’ve got for you, Zuz. Can you help me? Please?”

  “Only if I get every detail of the full story when you come back from your, um, vacation. And I mean every detail, including which drugs are involved, because I think I’d like to try them.”

  “I’ll bring you some drugs as a thank-you gift. Love you, Zuzu!”

  “Love you, Noosh. Go have some fun, whatever it is. You seriously need it.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m a big loser. Well, off to go do something about that. Bye!”

  Sandu hustled me out the door. We whooshed in pure hedonistic pleasure in the Aston to Blackacre Airport. Passports out, and it turned out that sometime over the weekend, Sandu had booked us tickets and set up a flight itinerary, ending up in Romania. I found this out as we checked in. He’d not told me directly where we were going, and I’d not asked since by this point in time, our destination seemed superfluous, but I was not at all surprised. He said he was going home, after all.

  Airports are even less fun with am’r-nafsh senses. Human…erm, vhoon-kee smells different than am’r blood, which was the first shock—or rather, the first shock was that I could smell the difference. Second shock: people who have been working all night stink. I could smell their sweat, could smell what each person had eaten that was now coming out their pores.

  And this was a nearly empty airport; a rush-hour scene would have killed me. And of course, there were the scents of the airport itself: decaying garbage, various oils, metals, and plastics, and the repugnant odor arising from the carpeted areas. One early-morning traveler in front of us in the security queue was a woman wearing an obscene amount of makeup, cheap perfume, and hairspray at this hour of the day, tottering on wedge heels she’d never learned to wear properly. The combined miasma of her products nearly killed me, and Sandu had to hold me up while the sweaty-and-onion-scented TSA worker checked her ID.

  Ms. Vulgarity waved her hands about with impatience, mixing the stenches and wafting them into choking smog around me. “It will get more bearable, dragă Noosh,” Sandu murmured to me. “You will learn how to manage the new sensations. See if you can smell the vhoon under it all.” I practiced reaching under the unpleasant—ranging to downright nasty—top notes and looking for the base notes of the kee blood rushing through the veins of everyone as we passed them. It wasn’t easy, but I could do it! It got a little easier as I practiced, which was an excellent distraction for me. Everyone’s blood smelled a bit different. Will I learn to differentiate blood types in the future? Of course, that means I’m contemplating a weird future. I’m getting used to all this way too easily, but then, I’ve been finding this whole thing far too easy ever since Sandu outed himself as Dracula.

  Dracula traveled first-class. First-class in every way. We went through the shortest lines with the least hassle possible in modern air travel. We spent twenty-five minutes in an admiral’s club—which at this hour smelled more of cleaning products than people, for which I was grateful, although it taught me astringency could be a painful nasal experience—before getting paged to be in the first group to board.

  Once we were settled on our flight to JFK and I was looking out the window, I was able to enjoy another new, improved sense: vision. I watched in wonder as morning twilight turned the sky blue-gray, the first hint of pink surrounding a pale yellow glow where the sun would soon be, when abruptly sunrise became more than just a pretty visual to me. I slammed down the plastic window-shade and turned to Sandu in panic. He was opening the first-class travel kit and taking out the eye mask in a very determined way. He looked weary, wearier than I’d ever seen him look. “Are you OK? The sun’s coming up! Do we need to do anything?” I hissed at him.

  A wan smile softened his face a little. “All will be fine. I can survive sunlight. It is painful, like a terrible migraine throughout my person, but I will not spontaneously combust or turn to ash or anything so dramatic. And have I not told you before? I can cross running water, too.” He chuckled—not his melty-chocolate chuckle, but it still made me feel a little better. “Now, please let me sleep. It will make the pain more bearable. You could use the sleep as well, micuţo, for your body and mind have had much alteration and much transformation—as much change as anybody could stand. Rest will help bring some order to the chaos you now feel and bring you some stability and peace. Somn uşor, vise plăcute. Good night, sleep tight, you would say.”

  “You too, Sandu.” I paused awkwardly. “My, um, patar. And my, um, my love.” He turned, and his brilliant smile chased the gray exhaustion from his face, his eyes radiating happiness.

  He stroked my hair and whispered, “Sufleţel!” Still smiling, he settled the mask over his eyes and let his head fall back on the headrest. He seemed to be asleep, deeply asleep. If he was breathing, I couldn’t tell.

  I couldn’t fall asleep quite as fast. I was like a five-year-old after too much birthday cake. My brain was whirring, but I couldn’t concentrate on individual thoughts. I passed up champagne and warmed nuts, but after the first plastic cup of water before takeoff, I asked for several more glasses as soon as we were up, realizing I’d never been as thirsty in my entire life. I played with the free travel kit and donned the free earplugs and eye mask, wishing they had free nose plugs as well since the recycled air just whooshed the scents of all the people and their food around, adding a nasty stale note to the already noisome atmosphere. I let back the seat and moved the pillow and blanket around to optimize my position, enjoying the opportunity to have more than one setting in a plane seat. The thrum of the engines finally lulled me to sleep.

  I was awakened by a flight attendant telling me to put up my seat. I slowly put my earplugs and eye mask away, but afterward, Sandu was still dead to the world. I was nervous about waking a sleeping vampire—“Am’r!” I c
ould hear him correcting me in my head—but it had to be done. I placed my hand on his shoulder hesitantly. His head immediately turned to me, and moving like an automaton, he pulled off his mask. If he did not quite snarl at me, the look in his eyes was quite close enough, but immediately, the animal anger in his eyes was replaced by first awareness, followed by warmth and affection, then wry humor. “Ahhhh, Noosh. I apologize for leaving you in such an uncomfortable position. In my country, we say, ‘Hai să nu dezgropăm morţii,’ which means quite literally ‘Let’s not disturb the dead.’ My people understand such things well. But we have now between us the most intimate bond, and you need never fear any harm from me in any circumstance.”

  Something he had said over the past three days niggled. “Sandu, who are your people, Romanians or am’r? Can they both be your people?”

  His expression changed to something I would almost call forlorn. “The am’r are my people. I am one of them, and I fight with them against all others. But I am Romanian as well; I love my birth-people, and I will work to their benefit as long as I exist.” He gave a sad smile. “That they love me in return, that they still write poems and sing songs to me, keeps me more kee than most of the am’r. I have a connection to my first life and to the evolving kee world, which most am’r shrug off deliberately or lose over the passage of the years. I cherish it. When we go to the country which is still mine, I hope I can teach you to cherish it as well.”

  “So, the whole Impaler thing doesn’t bother people anymore? I mean, I remember reading that you were constantly fighting with the, um, was it ‘boyars?’”

  “The ‘whole Impaler thing,’ as you put it, was a serious propaganda campaign against me. As I told you before, the invention of the printing press came at just the right time to allow the invention of international anti-Drăculea propaganda. They took stories of what I had done to protect my people and distorted them. Some things they made up with their own twisted imaginations. My people know what I did for them, and they do not forget it. I can be both Romanian and am’r.”