Blood Kisses excerpt - Book 1 in the Dark Blood series, coming 15 October

 

“You act like you hate me and I don’t know why. All I did was love you. It wasn’t a crime.”

Ten years ago, the vampire Severin fell in love with the mortal Nikolaus in Vienna and abandoned him, rather than take his life.

He and his friend, Istvan, are invited to the vampire king Emil’s castle where he finds out that Nikolaus now belongs to Emil. Jealousy eats Severin alive. The twin lusts of blood and sex are intertwined for all vampires, ruling their lives. The only way to possess Nikolaus now seems to be to accept an invitation to share Emil’s pet for one night. But Emil is a despot, ruling all vampires with an iron fist. There is long, painful history between Severin and his maker, and a strange kind of relationship between the placid Istvan and the cruel Emil.

“I kept you safe.”

Storm clouds are gathering on the horizon, threatening all their lives. Severin can run, but if he takes Nikolaus with him, Emil will hunt them down and kill them. What’s a vampire in love supposed to do?

A dark, steamy m/m tale of unrequited love and longing, and vampire power games. The first in the Dark Blood trilogy

Themes: hurt/comfort, MM, scenes of MMM with MM ending. 

Warnings: violence, sexual scenes, spanking, blood play, double penetration.

 Buy here

 

Read the first three chapters

 

Chapter One

 

Bavaria, Germany, 1895

 

The place was crawling with humans. Vampires weaved around them, their cold beauty a stark counterpoint. The Schloss perched high on the rocks, looming sinisterly over the Bavarian forest and shunned by the locals. They said bad things happened there. They were right. Emil Meissner presided over it all. When he had one of his gatherings and you were invited, you went, no questions asked.

Severin Murnau pulled at his tight collar as he eyed new arrivals. He and Emil had history—five hundred years of it to be precise. Emil had history with all the vampires in Europe: he had made most of them, including Severin’s companion, Istvan.

Istvan caught Severin’s eye and smiled. Uncharacteristically pleasant for a vampire, he knew Emil better than most. They had been lovers on and off for the past hundred years. Severin didn’t know why either. Two more polar opposites you couldn’t find. Emil was all about control and domination. Istvan was laid back and at peace with the world, including humanity. He didn’t like to kill. Emil scorned him for it.

Istvan took two goblets of ruby-red liquid from the silver tray of a passing waiter and gave the man a lingering look. Human, his blood hot, rich and tantalising. Severin saw the same hunger in Istvan’s eyes as in any other vampire’s. He was no less of a beast, try as he might to rise above it. Nonetheless, Severin admired him. Istvan knew when to stop.

“He always outdoes himself,” Istvan said, indicating his glass, the beautiful guests, and the perfectly starched livery of the waiters. The somewhat drafty ballroom of Schloss Meissner was outfitted with silver decorations, strings of gas lights hanging from the walls and enough candles to burn the place to the ground. A string quartet played in one corner. On an erected dais, as self-proclaimed king, sat their host. Severin tried not to look.

“If you say so,” he said. Meetings with Emil were to be got through with gritted teeth. Far too often in the past they had nearly ended in his death. The first time they met, that was exactly what had happened.

 

Bremen, Germany, 1350

Emil had found Severin drunk outside a tavern in his home town. Everyone in the place was dropping like flies from plague and Severin swayed outside, clutching to the wall and wearing a ridiculous mask he had fashioned himself at home.

“That won’t save you,” said a scornful voice nearby and Severin lifted his head to see a tall, aristocratic gentleman in fine clothes.

Severin glared at him, drunk enough for a fight. The man stepped closer. His black eyes burned like obsidian. “However, I can give you guaranteed immunity if you like.” He smiled, showing two sharp fangs, and Severin started.

“I’m not that way,” he stammered as the man’s intentions became clear, because he’d only lain with women up until that point. But he had always looked at men and admired them in just the same way.

“Does it matter?” Emil said as he put an arm around Severin’s back and hunched him in close to the wall. “I think not.”

Severin stumbled. His head hit the wall and a helpful hand ripped his mask off and forced his chin up. He felt hardness against his hip a moment, the excited ghost of breath against his skin, before lips touched his neck. A flash of arousal shot through him, swift and shocking, and he clutched at the man’s coat, afraid and unsure.

Emil licked his neck. Severin groaned and a moment later the stranger gripped him roughly through his woollen hose, stroking his cock, squeezing.

Severin gasped and a moment later it was all over. He felt his skin stretch and break. His essence flowed into the stranger’s mouth and he bucked into Emil’s hand, light-headed and aroused against his will. Emil drank, swallowing steadily, and Severin held onto him as he grew weaker. Emil withdrew Severin’s aching cock. He worked Severin’s shaft hard, his palm rough and calloused and desperately exciting. Severin had never been touched by a man before. Nor had he been bitten by one.

The pain and pleasure mixed as one like nothing he’d ever known before. The ecstasy of being drunk from overwhelmed the knowledge that he was being murdered. Severin spurted into Emil’s hand with a cry and slithered to the ground, glassy-eyed, his heart labouring to a halt.

 

Bavaria, Germany, 1895

 

It was Emil’s fault that Severin now forever connected blood lust and human lust. It aroused him to drink and when he had sex, he longed to bite. The two needs were inseparable. It was Emil who had made them that way. Severin cast a resentful glance towards the dais.

King Emil sat there presiding over his subjects, on a jewelled throne no less, his suit made of velvet and his stiff collar pinching his neck. Severin would never deny the man was sexually magnetic, more so than other vampires. Tall and commanding, he wore his intense sexuality on his sleeve. He lay with both sexes, but preferred men. He was never short of a companion, vampire or human, and dominated his partners with an iron fist. Severin could testify to that.

He glanced at his friend who was looking at Emil too. Severin sighed. Istvan was his only friend. Vampires didn’t and couldn’t afford to have friends, but Istvan was different. He had picked Severin up when he was at the bottom and continued to hold him up. That was why his friend deserved better than Emil.

“Put your eyes back in,” he said good-naturedly.

A flush bloomed over Istvan’s pale skin. His amber eyes seemed misty. Nervously, he touched his chestnut hair.

Severin smiled and shook his head fondly. Perhaps he needed to find Istvan a mate to get him over this fascination with the dreadful Emil. His gaze took in Emil once more and sharpened with interest when he saw Emil was holding a length of chain.

Good God, the vampire had a pet attached to it!

A human no less—it was very popular among vampires at that moment, a pet on tap for blood and sexual services—a man kneeling on a silken cushion a few paces behind Emil, the chain attached to an iron collar around his neck.

Something prickled along Severin’s spine as he took in the pale, slight figure wearing an outfit of white silk that clung to his lean curves. The human’s face was downcast, delicate bone structure and sooty lashes emphasised by his cropped, glossy black hair. His small hands were folded together on his lap. He was motionless, barely breathing.

Severin reeled back, dropping his goblet.

It was the love of his life.

 

 

Chapter Two

 

Drenched suddenly in cold sweat, Severin stared. He knew this man like he was his own twin. As dark as Severin was blond, as pure as Severin was defiled.

Nikolaus.

“Severin?” Istvan steadied him by the arm as Severin swayed in shock. He looked down at the marble floor running crimson with blood as waiters hurried to clean it up, and the blood lust hit him without warning. His fangs snapped out, eyes turning red, and it was all he could do to stop himself darting across the room, throwing himself at the man who still held his dead heart and tearing into his throat the way he’d always longed to do.

Istvan’s fingers tightened on him. He had been in Budapest when Severin met Nikolaus in Vienna ten years previously and later picked up the pieces from the fallout of Severin’s affair. Hardly an affair in retrospect. He had barely touched Nikolaus at all. But knowing him over that short period of a few weeks, it was enough for him to lose his head and his heart in a way he never had in his life before.

Severin allowed Istvan to lead him out of the ballroom, through the French doors and onto the balcony that commanded views of the rugged Bavarian countryside for miles. He slumped against the stone railing, clutching with feverish hands.

“Emil’s pet?” Istvan questioned, tense by his side.

Severin nodded. “Nikolaus.” The name tore from his chest, leaving a jagged wound. Snow fell from the black sky, blanketing the hills and forests. Severin put his head back, opened his mouth, and tasted soft flakes on his tongue. “Oh God,” he said. “We must leave.” Even as he said the words, he knew he couldn’t go without speaking to Nikolaus just once, no matter what it cost him.

Istvan’s voice was gentle. “You know we can’t. It would be the ultimate insult. He’d kill us.”

“He wouldn’t kill you, you’re his favourite.” Severin bit his tongue against the bitterness he heard on it. Who was he to judge whatever strange relationship Emil and Istvan had? When had he ever succeeded in being close to anyone in the last five hundred years?

Istvan was silent.

“I’m sorry.”

Istvan gazed at the snowy landscape. “I’m not immune from his wrath, you know that.”

That was true. During lover’s tiffs in the past, Emil had almost killed Istvan. Severin rubbed his hands over his face roughly and gave a loud sigh. “I never thought to set eyes on him again.”

“I know. We must go back to the party. You must greet Emil as though nothing has happened. Once he’s seen you he’ll be happy. Maybe we can slip away early tomorrow.”

Severin swallowed. How exactly did he greet Emil with Nikolaus chained by his side without wanting to rip the vampire’s throat out for daring to touch what Severin had never had? Wanton, erotic images filled his mind of Emil entwined with Nikolaus, naked limbs writhing, the vampire’s teeth in the human’s throat, drinking, tasting that sweet nectar that Severin had always denied himself because of some misguided view of his love for Nikolaus. At this distance, he asked himself why. Why hadn’t he taken what he wanted? Made Nikolaus into his mate for all time. He didn’t know. It seemed obvious now, but Severin hadn’t been sure Nikolaus had wanted it. Maybe he had never felt the same intensity of feelings. Severin’s head hurt to keep raking over the memories. All he knew was that leaving Nikolaus had ripped him apart from the inside out and left him a shell.

Istvan touched his shoulder. “Come on.”

Severin turned and followed Istvan back inside, to the instrument of his doom.

 

Chapter Three

 

Vienna, Austria, 1885

 

The room was hot that night. A dance in progress at the Vienna townhouse of some socialite Severin didn’t care for. But he used these events to bring himself close to humans for a while. To remember what it was like to walk among them as the same, not different. He denied that it was in order to court victims of the highest class but he wasn’t sure he believed it. There had to be something more to it than that. After all, the social elite could be just as likely to be found with opium and alcohol in their blood as the lower order. Often more so. These toxins affected Severin. They made him weak, intoxicated, out of control. Sometimes he’d woken up in a dirty alleyway with a hangover after sipping from a tramp on the way home. No fun, unless he was particularly looking to forget everything.

Scandalously, he was alone that night. He didn’t have a lady companion who he could take to social events. He sipped carefully at a glass of white wine, taking minimal drinks, using it mainly for cover while he watched the humans on the dance floor. He would be a liar if he said he wasn’t attracted to both sexes. The everlasting link Emil had left him between blood and sex guaranteed he would take men as well as women. And that first man—Emil himself—still resonated within Severin. He still shivered and stiffened when he thought of the rough tussles he and Emil had engaged in from time to time since Severin’s death. But he had never bitten Emil or any other vampire. He didn’t know what vampire blood tasted like and he had never dared to ask Istvan. He was happy enough with the all-consuming fire that was human blood and he wanted it tonight. He wanted it badly.

A lean man of average height was dancing with a woman in white who was as tall as him. They made an attractive pair. He was dark, she was red. They were both pale and sun-starved like Severin himself. He stepped closer, following the curve of the dance floor to catch a glimpse of the man’s face and stopped short when he saw it. God in heaven, he was beautiful. Raven-haired and so fine of countenance, his porcelain skin almost translucent over bluish veins.  He twirled his partner around by the hand, smiling as she laughed breathlessly. The pulse in his throat hammered hard. Severin breathed in deeply, scenting the man. His cock thickened in his breeches. This was the one he had to drink from tonight.

Severin bided his time. He was loitering at the edge of the floor when the man and his partner came off and he caught his prospective victim’s eye. The man glanced at him, looked away, then glanced back over his shoulder as he led the woman away, blushing. Severin smiled. He took his glass outside into the cool spring air and sat a while in the gardens. He watched couples walking and eavesdropped on their private conversations with his superior hearing. One woman was with her lover, telling him she was pregnant and wanted to leave her husband. Another man was telling his partner what he wanted to do to her when they got home. Neither waited; they disappeared into the foliage quickly. Severin smiled and debated following. Once upon a time he might have joined in and killed both of them. Severin had once killed indiscriminately. A stern talking to from Istvan had stopped that. Severin saw sense in not attracting attention. He could hardly live in his beloved Vienna for much longer if he was to leave a trail of corpses in his wake. Now he survived on moderate amounts from a number of victims. He tried not to drain anyone dry but he slipped from time to time when he was at his most needy sexually.

He sat back on his uncomfortable metal chair and looked up at the stars in the black velvet sky. The beautiful man inside had seemed happy with his woman. Perhaps Severin should leave him be and go home now. But he didn’t want to go home hungry. What harm would it do to take a nip and leave the young man with little more than a headache? He didn’t have to kill him, did he?

He straightened up as he saw a pair of slender legs appear at the top of the terrace steps. The rest of the man’s body came into view—black suit, white linen. The moonlight shone on luminescent skin and for just a moment, Severin thought he felt his dead heart jump in his chest. He frowned, unsettled by the feeling. Victim, he reminded himself. A meal. Nothing else.

The man came down the steps and saw Severin sitting at the bottom instantly. He paused a moment, clearly torn, but perhaps good manners made him acknowledge Severin.

“It’s hot in there.” He spoke in a local accent. He was Austrian through and through.

Severin inclined his head. “And cool out here.”

The man made steady eye contact. His eyes were an astonishing violet colour, a sharp contrast with his black hair. He bit his lip a moment and Severin saw it blanch white, then fill with blood again and he wanted to taste more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life before.

“Nikolaus Mayr,” the man said, holding out his hand.

Severin hesitated. The way the blood stirred in his veins, he was not sure he wanted to touch this man yet. But he did anyway. “Severin Murnau.” Nikolaus’s hand was small and delicate. Severin thought he could have crushed its bones in an instant. He felt the human’s energy flow into him. The man was young, perhaps twenty-one. His clear complexion was fresh and dewy. He had years of life ahead of him if only Severin left him alone this evening.

Nikolaus slid his hand free. He coughed and looked away, pretending to admire the sculpted gardens. Severin considered him. A man who liked men and fought his hardest against his desire? Possibly. Severin was sure he himself would feel more guilt if he was human and not vampire. As it was, taking men didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. Both would get him killed in the end.

“Why don’t you sit for a moment?” Severin suggested, using his kindest, most seductive tone.

Nikolaus looked torn, posture tense as though ready to flee. Did he sense the danger? He sank into the chair beside Severin. Only the table separated the vampire from having his wicked way. He glanced around. They were too close to the steps. Anyone descending could see them. Nikolaus was lucky so far. Severin would have to lure him deeper into the garden, which he had no doubt he could do.

He glanced at his companion when Nikolaus sighed. “Are you unwell, sir?”

“Forgive me,” Nikolaus said. “I’m tired.” He passed a hand over his face and for a moment looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Severin licked his lips. “The lady you are with tonight, is she your wife?

Nikolaus laughed. “Good God, no. Anna is someone my parents force me to take on social outings. They expect I will marry her.”

Severin digested the words a moment. Here was a man trapped by social convention. “Do you want to marry her?”

Nikolaus bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He shook his head tightly.

“I’m sorry,” Severin said. He was dangerously close to feeling human emotions he had not known in five hundred years.

Nikolaus looked at him in surprise. “Why are you sorry? You don’t know me.”

Severin had upset him. “Forgive me,” he said and marvelled at the conciliatory tone in his voice. He could take this man by force if he wanted; why was he sitting here soothing Nikolaus’s ravaged soul like he gave a damn?

Nikolaus exhaled loudly. “No, forgive me. I’m rude.” He glanced up the steps. “I’m thirsty.”

Severin pushed his barely-touched wine towards him. “Please.”

Nikolaus took the glass and drank some of the liquid. Severin watched him swallow, Adam’s apple undulating, and his spine prickled with heady arousal. His cock filled and his balls started to ache for satisfaction. He had been intending to merely drink from this man but he wanted so much more than just a drink.

Nikolaus wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. He glanced at Severin with a shy smile that showed pearly teeth. That disused heart of Severin’s clenched and seemed to throb. “That’s good,” Nikolaus said.

“Finish it,” Severin said, thinking alcohol would loosen Nikolaus up, even if it would make Severin drunk too by proxy.

Nikolaus drained the last mouthful. He put the glass down and looked at it a moment. “I should go back inside.”

“Why don’t you take a turn around the gardens with me?” Severin suggested smoothly. “You look flushed.”

Nikolaus touched his own cheek self-consciously. He stood. “Perhaps a few minutes.” He set off walking and behind him, Severin smiled.