The Seventh Taking

A semi-serious attempt at fantasy.

*****

She watched him watching her, and the thrill of his attention toasted her insides. She loved that burn. It meant there would be more than enough heat between them, if he pushed all the right buttons. If he knew what to say, what to do, how to be with her. His lips kicked up in a wicked grin, as though he knew what she was thinking.

She didn't know what he was, if he was more than the human male he appeared to be. Her special talent was wholly tactile, and she would give him more pleasure than he could ever imagine, if First Touch showed him worthy. She knew he wasn't Vampir. And yet, his blood called to her, singing a melody only she apparently could hear, as none of her sister Vampyrs even noticed him sitting there.

She quirked a brow at him, and asked, "Am I amusing to you?" She tried to sound outraged, but could only manage faint surprise. The thought that she was not in control with him startled her, unnerved her, and aroused her bloodlust and desire. He must be magical, if he could so disrupt her normal emotional controls. His reply was as unexpected, and as delightful, as he was.

"I find you enthralling. You are a flame to me."

She leaned forward, knowing the neckline would sag just enough to tease his eyes with the vision of her full caramel breasts, and then she added fangs. Just a hint of them, as she felt her lusts rising inside her like wildfire. Would he cringe at this rather public display of her "Otherness", or would he be drawn to her hungers?

His eyes slid slowly down from hers to take in the diamond-sharp tips of her fangs, just visible inside her parted lips. He licked his own, and heat swelled her pussy lips with fiery blood. The heated warmth of her breasts caught his eyes next, and he leaned forward and said,

"I love that rosy flush beneath your skin." His hot breath fanned her lips, and her fangs elongated further without thought or consent on her part. He trailed a finger down the side of her flushed cheek and stopped at the juncture between her lips, where her fang glinted invitingly.

"What impressive incisors, my dear!" He pulled her bottom lip down, leaned all the way forward, and licked her fang.

She gasped. How did he know, she wondered, that her fangs were a strong and powerful erotic zone? She inhaled sharply, but was still out of breath at the end of her exhale. She needed to slow her breathing, to calm down before she ravaged him without finesse. She wanted this man...this whatever he was...and she had no plans for releasing him, ever. He was her trigger, her synthrophos...her mate.

"All the better to taste you with, my dear!" She wanted him off balance, as he had made her, and she watched his expression as she slowly regained control of her breathing. Nothing changed, except that now his eyes glowed. What was he? He licked her fang again, turning her face fully to his, and kissing her deeply, before she had breath to speak, or will to resist. His mouth was hot, and she lost herself in its depths, letting him take what it seemed he needed. Because she needed it, too.

"How much longer are you going to make me wait?" he demanded suddenly, his voice growly, like a grumbling lion.

"Wait?" she inquired innocently, knowing instinctively what he was demanding. If she had needed any further indication that this one was hers, his question made it abundantly clear. And raised her already raging blood pressure to the danger zone. If she were pitched any higher, she could kill him in the taking. That thought sobered her. She found herself reluctant to let this one go as easily as she had her first mate.

Her kind mated often, as their lovers were almost always human, and could not be turned, by law. Very few found the One True, what humans called their Soul Mates. Those mated pairs lived eternally, almost. She had long since given up on finding her own One True, but she preferred not to have too many new bed partners. She was a conservative among her sisters.

"I am not patient by nature." His voice, hungry and hard, broke into her musings. "Take what we both want, and begin the ritual. You know who I am to you now. I have always known. It is time."

She opened her mouth to speak, to question his words, his knowledge, but he raised one finger to her lips, and stopped her before she began.

"I burn for you, mo stór!" His voice was gravelly with hunger now, and her limbs trembled with need. She could hear his blood coursing though his veins.

"Come with me!" She could say no more, so she stood, and took the hand he touched her with. And suddenly she knew what he was, and she trembled even more. His thoughts slammed into her as she held him, and she stumbled. Before she could right herself, he was there...and they were in a space she did not recognize.

"When I am on this side, this is my home," he said, answering her thought. Another thought, and they were both naked and lying on his enormous bed. He was much larger than she had realized. Everything on him was oversized, not just his truly impressive erection. It seemed normal for a male as large as he to have a tool like that hanging between his thighs. Anything less would have been an anti-climax, a cosmic joke, a punishment.

"You are beautiful, too, mo stór!"

His words and his hand pulled her into his long body. She could hold out no longer when he reached down and licked her fangs, one after the other, moaning as he did so. As though his actions were arousing for him, too. She groaned and turned her mouth into his pulsing vein, latching on like a newborn at the breast and suckling. He arched into her mouth, and while she took his vein greedily, she was dimly aware of his hands moving her.

The fire that lit in her core snapped her out of her haze, and when he pushed her face back against his neck and thrust into her, she screamed in orgasmic bliss, her body trembling uncontrollably. She could feel his own orgasm seeding her womb as she drank from him. Each time she went to pull away, to stop the taking, he groaned and pushed her back into place.

"I will kill you!" she whispered. "I must stop!"

"You will kill me if you stop before I am full!" he replied. "Drink!"

As she sucked from him, he took her, his big body thrusting up into her, slamming into her core over and over, sliding over the nerves that kept her cumming as he rocked into her. She had never been with someone like him before. He gave and he took, though what he was getting in exchange for the pleasure of his blood and his seed, she could not say.

Finally, with a fierce roar, he froze inside her, his cock throbbing so hard she felt it, adding licks of flame and small bursts of orgasms to her exhausted body. She slid her tongue over the puncture wounds, which disappeared immediately. She lay atop his big, broad frame, panting and shivering with the aftershocks, his cock still erect inside her, his arms tight around her, his breathing as erratic as her own. She was replete, and she sensed that he was too, at least for the time being.

"You are unlike anyone I have ever been with before," she murmured. "I'm happy that you are an Immortal."

She felt the light kiss he dropped on her hair. "I am happy that you finally saw me. It has been a long, long wait, mo stór. Too long!"

She raised her head, puzzled. "Finally saw you? We've never met before tonight!"

His smile was indulgent, his eyes knowing and at peace. "I have always been here, mo stór."

When she raised her head to ask, he smiled again and quieted her. "Later. Now we need sleep. The ritual will not be complete until the seventh taking. We have less than twenty-four hours to complete it. Rest. I'll need you again very soon!"

She didn't know she had fallen asleep until she awoke from a dream that had left her wet with unmatched lust. And he was there, as though he knew her need, filling her, and drawing her to his vein. She bit down, hard, more hungry, it felt, than before, and she fed from him as he filled her with his seed. He stayed inside her, hard, though his come oozed from her sex after each orgasm. How he managed it she did not know. And where he found the strength to bear her feedings was an equal mystery. But really, what did she care? He did not seem affected, only ravenous for whatever it was he was receiving from what she saw as a very one-sided bargain. She would not look a gift horse in the mouth.

After the fifth taking, he spirited her to his enormous bathroom. The tub was a whirlpool, scented with her favorite flavors, hot, and steaming.

"How did you know?" she asked as he lowered her into the tub and onto his lap.

"I told you. I have always been here. I know everything about you. And you have always known me."

She had to protest that. "I have not! We didn't meet before yesterday at that party."

She turned her head to gaze into his eyes, almost as though he had compelled her to do so.

"Think about your dreams, mo stór. Remember them, from the very first one, when you attained your majority. Think about who was there with you."

He stroked her hair as he spoke, soothing her, and she let herself drift in memory. Her dreams had begun when she turned twenty-five, the age all Vampyrs came into their full seductive powers, and were inducted into the Sisterhood. She was always alone, but for a presence she felt that somehow made her feel safe. and even though each dream presented a new danger for her to overcome, the presence was always there to guide her, to comfort her, to calm her. And when, at the end of the dream sequence, she found her completion, that presence was the heat between her thighs, the breath in her mouth, the warmth that cocooned her, and made her blood flow.

She looked at him again as realization hit her. "That was you? All this time?"

Instead of an answer, he wrapped his arms around her and she felt him, just as she had in her dreams. His breath heated her cheeks, his hands slipped between her things and raised her core temperature, and with a thought, her blood warmed. He removed his hands, and still her body rose in heat to reach a climax she did not understand. And when he kissed her, she burst into flames, and cried out into his mouth.

"Bite me," he demanded huskily. "Now."

She turned in his arms and bit down, sucking his essence into her, tasting the sharp sweetness of his need. And then she felt it...a slow burn that started in her throat and expanded into her chest, down to her vitals, that lashed her into a frenzy of need so cutting she cried out in fear against it.

"Relax, mo stór, and let it happen, I am with you, and nothing can harm you now."

She rested her head on his chest, feeling him inside her, though they were not as yet physically joined. The fire burned her, tore away the last of her walls, slid inside her core and rushed into her pussy, filling the lips, branding her from the inside out. And when she screamed as she came, he thrust into her, his cock thick and hard and as hot as the inner fire that drove her. She rode him, feeling every inch of his length as he thrust up into her, his shaft like steel, cutting through her like butter, sealing as it sliced, taking her, remaking her for him alone. her orgasm was so powerful it drove her into unconsciousness.

When she came back to herself, they were dressed in red garments. Hers was made of the finest silk, overlaid with lace. It covered her from neck to heels, diaphanous and revealing, as she wore no underwear, so the picture of her lush body was clear for any to see. His was made of ermine-trimmed satin, and she knew he was nude beneath it as well.

"It is time, mo stór," he said, and extended his hand. She took it, and he led her down a thick white carpet to what she now recognized was a kind of altar, behind which stood twelve warriors, armed to the teeth, all dressed in black, and a priest in white robes.

"My Lord," the priest said, stepping forward, "are you ready?"

"I am, Father."

"Then let us begin."

She heard his voice in her head as the mating rites began. He was the Supreme Ruler of his race, yet he promised her his life, his heart, his soul, before he spoke the words aloud. But when she tried to respond in kind, there was a gap, an emptiness. She began to panic, but he calmed her. At the seventh taking, he told her, she would receive the gift, and she and he would be one in mind as well as body.

She had been through this ritual once before, thought not with a mate of his status, and knew it well enough to know it was the same for all supernaturals. She spoke her vows with pride, and as she did, a hunger for his flesh and blood arose within her like none before it had been, not even when she had first noticed him watching her. It was incisive, slicing into her control, shredding her concentration, wiping her mind clear of anything except the urgent need for his body and his blood. She was glad that he was there inside her head to help her through to the end, when the priest pronounced them One.

He turned to look at her, and his eyes were flashing fire, golden and intense, commanding her to speak.

"I am to you the One True," she said, and sank her fangs onto his chest above his heart. His blood was hot and sweet. He hissed, and then groaned, before she released him and licked his wounds closed.

"I am to you the One True," he replied, and lay his hand over her heart. A searing pain flashed through her, followed by a bright light that heated her core. She gasped and fell into his arms.

When she awoke this time, they were lying on a high wide bed, surrounded by translucent curtains, in the middle of a high-ceilinged chamber. The witnesses were there to see the ritual completed, and to care for them in the afterthroes. Her sisters by blood, his brothers by blood, stood at the head and foot of the bed and watched as he turned to her and spoke the final words of the ritual.

"I am to you the One True, Niamh of Donagh. I take you here, before my kin, the witnesses to our joining."

"And I am to you the One True, Egan of Coillough. I accept you here, before my kin, the witnesses to our joining."

His mouth on hers removed the restraints he had helped her keep on the hungers that had assailed her earlier. She growled as she kissed him back, her fangs lengthening and nicking her lips and his. He sat up and lifted her till she was straddling him, and with a wave of his hand, they were naked.

"My staff is the symbol of my strength and my eternal devotion. I give it into your keeping." His voice was deep, and hoarse with need.

"My sheath is the symbol of my strength and my eternal devotion. I take into it what is mine."

As soon as she stopped speaking, he raised her hips and thrust up into her in one deep, powerful move, and settled her there, unmoving, till he felt her muscles clamp around his length.

"Ride me, mo stór," he commanded her, and raised placed his hands on her hips to help her meet his thrusts. They started slow, getting the best feel, finding the best motion, and then he sped up, and she went with him, the bloodlust rising in her as he moved.

"Now, mo stór. Bite me now!"

She struck, rapacious in her hunger, and as she fed from him, she felt the magical weaving together of their souls.

"Open you eyes, Niamh. Look at me. See with me. Be with me when we become One."

She obeyed, releasing his vein, a cry of triumph ripping free of her as she saw his inner light coil round hers in the space between them. It was a golden flame, bearing the colors of their eyes, and the color of their heated blood. She keened as she rode him higher and higher, feeling his response in her sheath and in her womb, feeling his cock spurting as she convulsed. Their bodies clung to each other. Her walls gripped him, unable to release him till the joining was complete. And as they came, he roared and pulled her under him, slamming into her

without mercy, all finesse lost, and only the primal need remaining. They were locked together by the power and the fire of his essence. The orgasms came rapidly, one after the other, at once draining and filling them, and they cried out in unison at the pain and the pleasure of their joining. Their bodies shook as the waves of ecstasy rocked them. At last, the union complete, he collapsed beside her and pulled her close, both too weak to move.

How long they lay there, tangled in each other's arms, trying to catch their breath, neither knew. She felt too tired to tell him that she could sleep for a week, but was not surprised when he spoke softly in her ear,

"You won't be needing much sleep, mo stór. Now you have me inside you, and I have you inside me. An hour or two each day should suffice."

Still too breathless to speak, she opened her mind again...and he was there. She could feel him and hear his thoughts, most of which made her blush, and she was not a newly mature Vampyr. But she could sense his age, as well, and realized she was a mere youth to him.

Their siblings came and led them both down to the steaming bath that was beyond the curtains, and washed their sweaty bodies. Soothing salts in the water rejuvenated them, and when they led them out again, they massaged thick, luxurious creams into their skin, from neck to toes, before withdrawing.

Egan led Niamh back to the bed, upon which had been laid out trays of fruit, cheese, meat, and wine. They sat cross-legged and fed each other. She smiled as she thought back over the last twenty-four hours.

"A penny for them," he murmured, and fed her the last green grape.

"I am just amazed at how this last day has turned out. I was not expecting it. I should have known..."

"You did, subconsciously, and that is why you were drawn to me. You knew it was time." He lifted the glass to her lips, and after she had taken another sip, he signaled for the siblings who remained to remove the food, and then they were alone.

"And now," he added, drawing her across the space the trays had occupied and into his lap, "it is time again."

She chuckled. "Insatiable, aren't you?" she teased, and then gasped when he licked her fang.