The Strigoi Chronicles Box Set Read online

  The thigh was out of the question: flabby and mottled and streaked with fluids of the more carnal sort, it offered far too much resistance to my weakened condition. With her weak, thready pulse, I couldn’t be sure I’d get sufficient flow without resorting to extraordinary measures. Measures that required either her or me moving, not a prospect that appealed given the snarky jabs of lightning bolts striking willy-nilly with even the thought of changing position.

  That left the neck: did that. Vast bulbous fleshy pendulums: ditto.

  She moaned incoherently and slid down the ravaged thigh until her head lolled off to the side, one arm swinging, the other pressed against my chest. Pinned in place, I went for the money shot: the wrist.

  My host watched with interest, occasionally licking his lips, for whatever reason I couldn’t fathom. If he thought I was going to toss her in his direction once I’d gobbled the last dram of sustenance…

  Actually that’s exactly what he thought.

  Hungry eyes. Hard to describe but you know them when you see them. The bulge in his rough wool pants was the other clue.

  Decisions, decisions. Drain every drop and release the lump of flesh to the old fellow’s necrophilic inclinations, or be a gentleman and save enough to share while the vessel was still warm.

  Whether or not the young lady still counted as hale and hearty apparently wasn’t really a concern for the old goat. Lividity didn’t appeal to me personally, but to each his own.

  Giving one last pull on the wrist, I let it drop and rolled the body onto the floor, breathing a sigh of relief with her bulk finally off my leg, now down to throbbing with the occasional small spasm of violence to remind me of my place in the universe.

  The old fellow sidled close, head and eyes downcast, not out of fear … he simply couldn’t straighten up if he tried. In profile, I could see his mouth working, not unlike a fish out of water, but no sound emerged to compete with his slow shuffle toward the Mount Everest of his passion.

  Silence never really bothered me … I’d spent my entire existence amongst like-minded men who valued the inner landscape and felt little or no need to share. While with the wolves, I’d discovered social networking and an invisible world filled with beings for whom filters on thoughts did not exist, and every conceivable inclination spewed forth in a din worthy of a madhouse.

  Mindful of my aching limb, I moved out of the woodsman’s way as best I could, trying not to think overly much on the object of his lust. After watching Fane have at me with such enthusiasm, the randy old goat could very easily be targeting me instead of the fleshy mound at my feet.

  The bench hadn’t gotten any softer, the wadded up bits of old blanket serving as a pillow no less disgusting, but the familiar grunts and slap of flesh-on-flesh formed a nice backdrop lulling me into a doze.

  I wondered where my wolf had gone.

  “Father, Dreu. Dreu! Wake up.”

  “Uh.”

  I’m not a morning person, nor am I one to spend hours sleeping on a narrow bench wearing naught but my flimsy tunic. Been there, done that, have the splinters in my ass to prove it. I grunted again, hoping to get my point across.

  Fane ignored my ill temper in favor of prodding me none too gently to sit up, all the while muttering something, half in Romanian, half in fractured English.

  …shove my dick down your throat…

  …fuck you the… senseless.

  Grinning I said, “Now that’s got my attention. Do you have coffee to go with that?”

  The pup was not amused. To the contrary, his voice had taken on an edge I recognized: an alpha in full control of his faculties and expecting immediate obedience.

  We needed to chat about that sometime in the future. For now, the prospect of being bullied and mauled by this hulk of a lupine sent my libido through the roof.

  The bloom was still definitely on the rose.

  “We don’t have a lot of time.” A note of concern crept into his deep voice.

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly, the pack’s across the ridge, a half day’s travel if they’re still on foot.” On foot meaning the two-legged variety.

  “Can they shift?” A good question. I’d disabled them for a while but the odds were good, if Fane was back to operational, then the rest of the lynch mob on our tails surely would be also.

  Fane considered the question and frowned. “Elliot and Samuel, for sure. Some of the others are young, like me. It’s … it’s,” he paused, searching for the right phrase, “uh, hit and miss?”

  I nodded that I understood.

  Curious, I looked around for Her Largeness and Mr. Humpty. The room was empty except for us, a table and one chair, my bench cum bed and the smoldering remains of a fire long extinguished. Fane answered my unvoiced question with a shrug.

  Pointing to a cloth bag on the table, he muttered, “Put that on,” then darted out the door, I assumed to do reconnaissance.

  Sitting up was the easer part of the day’s program. Actually rising and ambling over to the table meant rubbing feeling back into the injured leg. The wound had closed over, leaving a ridge of pinkish knobby flesh that likely would resolve into a fairly substantial scar. I wasn’t complaining. It could still be leaking, and then where would I be.

  As it was, once the numbness dissipated, my brain registered the sensation of a steel rod running up and down the thigh, with all the flexibility of cold metal, an alien invasion of nerve and flesh. As support, it worked aces, but the feeling left me squirrelly and clamping my teeth to avoid uttering the ‘eeuw’ that sprang to my lips.

  Eeuw from a bad-assed Vampyr? The old man would be laughing his ass off, my old man, not Necrophiliac Nick.

  Where the hell was he, anyway … and the fair maiden? Their absence wasn’t bothering my lover boy, but I wasn’t keen on loose ends. They always, always came back to bite you in the nether regions.

  The bag on the table contained a pair of washed out jeans, a cotton undershirt of indeterminate age and usage, and a knit overshirt with three buttons down the front allowing enough room for my head and ventilation at my neck.

  A Henley. Why I would know that was best left for another day. Fane barged into the cabin growling, the sound raspy and deep, exiting his throat and arrowing straight for my groin.

  The tunic hid little or nothing from his appreciate stare.

  Before he could say it, I muttered, “I know, we don’t have time for that…”

  Nodding to his ‘get dressed’, I dropped the offensive tunic to the floor and considered the denim construction: stiff fabric, yet surprisingly pliable, with a metal contraption that surely threatened future enjoyment of my wolf’s attributes should I err on the side of haste.

  Wolfie spat something rude, the operative word being prost which I recognized from listening to Elliot, head dog, berating his packmates for being stupid.

  That, and muie might not get me to the railway station or shake loose the location of the nearest blood bank, but under the right circumstances knowing the term for blow job had its obvious uses.

  I was dawdling for good reason. These were jeans, something I’d never worn, never even touched in all my long years.

  Oh, I’d worn pants, of a sort, and on an as-needed basis: trews, loose-fitting Turkish pantaloons, even hosen. Open at the crotch, the hosen had been a personal favorite, allowing for rather impressive codpieces with which to impress and woo a papal legate or two.

  “Pentru numele lui Dumnezeu! What part of we are running out of time do you not understand?”

  Exasperated didn’t touch that tone of voice. He helped me ease the material over the injured leg, then roughly jerked the jeans up and over my deflated ego. Sucking in my gut and sending a prayer heavenward as he pulled the metal bits together left me with dignity in tatters and an uncomfortable sensation of being in a torture device ala the Inquisition.

  Whoever had owned these jeans had been on the diminutive side, leaving me to sing soprano in God’s heavenly choir. And the fact I
was forced to walk with a decidedly rolling gait had nothing to do with my injured leg and everything to do with squashed gonads.

  Fane pointed to the peg by the door, and said, “Put that on, it’s getting cold.”

  That being the heavy coat the old man had worn, even when cozying up to the roaring fire, or when slamming into every available orifice on my cast-off meal…

  “Should I assume our host no longer,” I held the jacket up, feeling a mixture of regret and distaste, “um, needs this?”

  Fane shrugged and waited impatiently for me to suit up in my homeless person togs. In any urban center, in any country on the continent, I would have simply disappeared, out of sight, out of mind. Such was the plight of the indigent and those for whom fortune would never wave her fickle fingers at.

  Perfect.

  Outside, the weather had migrated from a threat of fall to full blown winter. The air literally creaked with the weight of its icy burden, leaving nostrils struggling desperately to warm the assault before slicing soft tissue to shreds.

  The Vampyr cared little for such unpleasantries but the demon apparently liked to exercise some muscle memory of a workable, living, breathing organism.

  It was beyond irritating to wake up to each new day and not know which of the halves of the me were showing up for work.

  “The road is not far. Take that,” he signaled a direction with a gloved fist, “path, and I meet you near town.”

  Separating was never a good idea, especially given my delicate condition, so I objected, only to be overruled with a glare.

  “I need lay scent away from here.”

  That made sense, diversion often provided a tactical advantage and who better than a wolf to scent mark a direction that led somewhere else?

  Zane stripped and handed me his clothing. In that moment, all I wanted was to reset the clock and take advantage of the mountain of flesh on display.

  Licking my lips and making a real effort to gird my tightly packed loins, I gathered up the mass of clothing and turned toward the indicated opening through the dense trees.

  “Nu, nu…” Waving me back, he repeated, “Take that,” and morphing into a huge black wolf, he bounded upslope so fast I could barely track his movement into the forest.

  Take what…

  “Crap.”

  That was a rusted out hunk o’ Romanian junk, a Dacia, vintage early seventies, with tires bald to even my unsophisticated eyes.

  Again, I knew this from watching Romanian television while still the guest of the man my darling wolf was luring away.

  This, this horror was our getaway vehicle. Idle curiosity about where he got the junker, and the clothing, flailed in the face of other considerations, for there was one fly in the ointment, one little hitch to Fane’s grand design.

  I didn’t know how to drive.

  Chapter Three

  There’s a certain symmetry when the fates screw you over, not much is ever left to chance—no bolt holes, no quid pro quos or handy addendums with flowery language and robust, yet subtle workarounds.

  When you’re screwed, you’re screwed.

  Bless me father for I have enjoyed sinning…

  What I wouldn’t give to have the automotive specs and a video tutorial … hell, the damn tactical nuke had had step one, step two, boom imprinted on the faceplate of the device. The Romanian car manufacturer couldn’t afford a couple of cheap semaphores to indicate what the bits and bobs on the dashboard did?

  The key was in the ignition. Score one for my wolf’s foresight.

  Turning the switch counter-clockwise gave me a jolt, literally. The beast hiccoughed and ground its metal parts in ear-piercing fashion, then died. The Vampyr with Maman issues was ready to hoof it to town, scent trails and due-speed be damned.

  My other persona, not so much.

  Daddy’s evil demon spawn had come out to play. Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I whiled away a few precious minutes while the metaphorical horns and spiked tail argued with fangs and aversion to sunlight over squatter’s rights.

  I needed a decision, and I needed it fast. Dialing up 1-800-demon mentally, I awaited Michel du Velour’s timely intervention.

  It didn’t happen, though I felt the SOB lurking in the recesses, watching with interest. Almost the same way I’d felt him, way back when the delectable Divya had her nimble fingers bringing divine enlightenment to my needy prostate, raping my Vampyr half with exquisite stimulation. Freeing the wraith I’d kept hidden, even from myself.

  Watching that emergence, that explosion, that ode to joy so traitorous it still sent shivers of ecstasy up and down my spine, made me a prime candidate for a psychiatric intervention. I clocked a mental note to schedule that appointment once safely down the mountain and ensconced in the relative luxury of a quaint pensiune, awaiting my wolf’s pleasure.

  I wasn’t too proud to beg, to grovel, to make promises I’d never keep—especially if the man in Armani came bearing a change of clothes. Loose fitting clothes. Preferably silk. I liked silk, the feel of it, the sensuous…

  Shit.

  Pops was toying with me. How I knew that was one of my life’s little mysteries, but I wasn’t going to argue … much.

  I now knew how to handle the beast, the mechanics of it laid out in three dimensional splendor, there behind the eyelids as if on a viewscreen.

  Four speed manual transmission, which meant I needed to do a thing with my left foot while wiggling a rusted chrome stick with my right hand. The right foot got to communicate make it so in carefully prescribed steps.

  He cautioned about popping the clutch. If I knew what that meant I might be tempted to try it, me being the bad boy and all, but in the bigger scheme it seemed more important to get the beast onto the dirt road and aimed down the mountain.

  The stumbling block to my newfound illumination was the small matter of a wardrobe malfunction: the damnable jeans were still squashing my privates in a vice grip that made alleviating pain paramount, even above and beyond wanting to reunite with Fane in the most carnal of fashions.

  A functioning cock made for a happy Vampyr. A happy Vampyr was more willing to listen to his alter ego’s paternal advice.

  The demon made a snap decision and tore the metal fastener open…

  The silence was deafening, like a dense shroud of mist clogging every pore, rendering senses numb with viscous tendrils of retreat into that inner space where nothing exists but a pinpoint of agony.

  I focused on that point, honing it to a nail-on-blackboard kinetic thrill, magnifying it until my only option was to succumb to the last shreds of consciousness.

  Even Pops grimaced, though I sensed no remorse.

  Then I sensed nothing.

  The engine vibration coddled me back to level one of awareness: the one where I idly stared at the seeping, gaping wound oozing a precious stream of my life force onto the tattered remains of the cloth-covered seat.

  What should be pearly white droplets of seduction and invitation, instead assumed a roseate glow, and the love muscle, the demonhood, the cult of Dreu grew and expanded and hardened into a statue worthy of adoration and sainthood.

  Translation: I was well and truly fucked.

  And hungry … really, really hungry. But not for food, not even for a transfusion of O-neg.

  Priapism did that, offering up infinite possibilities for an almost infinite period of time, except forever without relief amounted to hell-on-earth.

  I know that for a fact, having been an unwitting victim of the condition a time or two in my long life. My solitary confinement in the cloisters had guaranteed withdrawal from all of my kind, leaving medical intervention—and very big needles—as my only option for surcease from pain.

  And with one thing or another, my attempts at auto-fellatio hadn’t worked out so the easing of pain from the endorphins in my system whilst pleasuring myself and aspirating at the same time was still on my bucket list of skill sets to acquire.

  Distracting as this littl
e dilemma was, the sad fact was that me and the metal contraption entombing my future with my darling pup were still stuck idling in a dense stand of trees, next to a shack, halfway up a mountain in western Romania, with a pack of very annoyed weres hot on my lover’s tail.

  If they weren’t on Fane’s tail, then me and my impressive love muscle were going to be ground zero for rape, torture and retribution for an unknown duration.

  Although, I hated to admit that saying Bite me to an enraged alpha and getting some relief had appeal; but, bottom line, pain without pleasure lacked a certain feng shui.

  Mesmerized at the steadily purpling mass of steel encased in over-stretched flesh, I apparently missed the first few raps on the driver side window.

  Tappity-tap turned into wham bam with the glass visibly bowing under the onslaught. My rescue squad had arrived, and none too soon.

  Muttering, “Hi, Rafe,” I nodded at the gorgeous vision of young, ripped and randy carrying a black bag and hopefully meds for demon-me. Vampyr responses I could deal with and sort of shut down when necessary. Mr Demon’s reactions to poking at his/my throbbing cock with a thin stiletto were a big unknown. Probably somewhere between root canal and amputation of a limb, without an anesthetic.

  “Can you move?”

  Grimacing at the stupid question, I choked out, “Do I look like I can move?”

  He grinned at Little Dreu poking through the steering wheel and said with a sneer, “Guess not.” After digging through the bag, he extracted a bottle of alcohol, some swabs and a very long syringe with a bulb at the end. Tsk, tsking, “This isn’t sanitary,” he proceeded to ice down my aching cock with the cooling elixir, sticking to the portion not gaping open. Inevitably some of the alcohol trickled onto the exposed, raw, oozing flesh.

  I screamed like a little girl.

  “That should do it.”

  Do what?

  Do me? Oh yes, Fane.

  Please…