Chapter 16: Lucian slowly slips his finger into Elara's asshole, teasing her until she's begging for more. He then pushes his cock into her ass, making her scream with pleasure.
The warmth was still a miracle. A week of sunrises, and Lucian still woke to it with a sense of quiet astonishment. The other sensations were less welcome. His stomach growled, a vulgar, insistent rumble. He needed to piss, urgently, a demanding pressure in his bladder. He felt fatigue in his muscles after a long walk, a gritty need for sleep that coffee only vaguely alleviated. Being human, he was discovering, was a cacophony of incessant, minor demands.
But it was all worth it for this: the right to lie beside her in the light, to watch the dust motes dance without fear, and to want her with a hunger that was more than just blood.
He watched her now, moving around her small kitchen. She was dressed for work, a soft blue sweater and a simple skirt, her hair in a loose braid. She looked like a painting of domestic innocence. He knew what throbbed beneath the wool and cotton, the places that grew warm and slick at his simplest touch. The contradiction was an aphrodisiac.
“You’re staring,” she said, not turning from the sink where she washed a single coffee cup.
“I’m cataloguing,” he replied, his voice still lower, rougher in the mornings. “The way your sweater pulls across your shoulders. The exact point where your skirt meets the back of your knee. I’m memorizing the map of you.”
She turned, a blush coloring her cheeks, but her green eyes held his boldly. A week of his human love-making had ignited a confidence in her, a flickering flame that was slowly burning away the last scraps of her guilt. “You have all day to memorize. I have to go mold young minds.”
“A tragedy,” he said, rising. He crossed the small space and backed her against the counter, his hands settling on her hips. He pressed against her, letting her feel the hard, immediate proof of his cataloguing. “I had other plans for this map.”
“Lucian,” she breathed, but her hands came up to his chest, not pushing away, but feeling the solid reality of him through his t-shirt. “I’ll be late.”
“I bought you something,” he whispered into her hair, inhaling the scent of her shampoo and her own unique sweetness. He nuzzled her neck, not with fangs, but with lips and the faint scratch of stubble. She shivered.
“What?” The word was a sigh.
“A gift. For tonight. To explore another part of the map.”
He felt the subtle tension in her frame. The part of her raised on scripture and stern lectures tightened. The part he had awoken, the part that clenched around him with such desperate joy, melted.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice small.
“A key,” he said simply, kissing her pulse point. “To a door you didn’t know was there. Think about it all day.”
He released her and stepped back, the picture of innocence. The bulge in his sweatpants ruined the effect. She swallowed, her eyes wide, a mix of fear and thrilling anticipation swirling in their depths. She left without another word, flustered, the ghost of his promise hanging in the air between them.
He spent the day in a state of restless arousal, the small black velvet box on the dresser a persistent focus. He ran, feeling the burn of human lungs. He ate an apple, marveling at the crisp, bright taste. He got a paper cut from a envelope and stared, mesmerized, at the bead of red that welled up. His blood. Mortal, fleeting.
When her key turned in the lock that evening, the charge in the air was palpable. Dinner was a quiet, tense affair. She talked about her children, about glue and glitter and lost mittens, but her gaze kept flicking to him, dark and unsure.
Finally, in the soft lamplight of her bedroom, he brought her the box. She sat on the edge of the bed, her fingers trembling as she opened it. Nestled inside was a delicate, pretty thing. A teardrop of deep amethyst crystal, with a delicate silver filigree base and a slender, almost invisible switch. It looked like a piece of artisan jewelry.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“It’s for your beautiful ass, Elara,” he said, his tone leaving no room for misunderstanding. He took it from her, his thumb finding the switch. A low, deep hum emanated from it, a vibration she could feel in the air. Her breath caught.
“I… I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to know. You just have to feel.” He knelt before her, pushing her skirt up her thighs. “I’ve been thinking about this all day. Thinking about this tight, virgin hole.” His fingers traced the seam of her panties, over the curve of her ass. “I want to open it. I want to fill it. I want to watch this jewel catch the light while I’m buried in your cunt, and feel it buzzing against me through your skin.”
The filthy, specific image shattered her resistance. A soft moan escaped her. He took that as consent.
He laid her back, undressing her with a slow, ritualistic focus. He kissed his way down her body, lingering at her breasts, her navel, the inside of her thighs. He spread her legs and feasted on her with his mouth until she was sobbing, her hips pumping against his tongue, her climax wetting his chin. He needed her loose, pliant, desperate.
He slicked two fingers with the cool gel from the nightstand. “Relax,” he murmured, massaging the tight, forbidden pucker. She tensed, a small sound of discomfort in her throat.
“Shh. Just breathe. Push out against my finger.” He worked with infinite patience, circling, pressing, until the tip of his finger slipped past the tight ring of muscle. She gasped, her body accepting the intrusion. He worked her open slowly, first one finger, then two, scissoring them gently, coating the clenching inner passage with slick.
“You can take it,” he coaxed, his own cock achingly hard. “You were made to take me everywhere.”
He picked up the plug, coating it liberally. The amethyst gleamed, wet and obscene. He pressed the cool, rounded tip against her.
“Now, darling. Let it in.”
She bore down, her face flushed with effort and shameful arousal. There was a moment of intense, burning pressure, a feeling of being stretched impossibly, wrongfully wide. Then the widest part of the plug popped past her resistance, and it slid home, the filigree base settling snugly against her. He flipped the switch.
The effect was instantaneous. Her back arched off the bed, a shattered cry tearing from her lungs. The deep, internal vibration buzzed through her rectum, a profound, shocking stimulation that echoed into her vagina, into her clit. It was overwhelming. She thrashed, overwhelmed by the sensations.
“Fuck, look at that,” Lucian growled, his eyes feasting on the sight. The jeweled end nestled between her perfect cheeks, humming, a blatant claim. He climbed over her, his cock, thick and veined, nudging at her soaked entrance. He positioned himself, the head catching on her folds. “You feel it? Vibrating right against my cock? Your tight little ass is milking me already and I’m not even inside you.”
He pushed in, a slow, devastating invasion. Her cry was continuous now, a stream of sensation. The fullness was incredible—his thick length stretching her front channel, the insistent, buzzing fullness in the back. Every thrust drove the plug deeper, made it buzz against new, sensitive nerves. He could feel it, the distinct tremor through the thin wall separating her passages. It massaged the underside of his shaft with every pounding stroke.
“Jesus Christ,” he snarled, his control snapping. He hooked his arms under her knees, driving her legs back, opening her ruthlessly wide. He fucked her with hard, deep, pistoning drives. The room filled with the sounds: the wet slap of flesh, the high-pitched keen of her pleasure, the constant, dirty hum of the toy, his own guttural grunts.
“You love it,” he chanted, pounding into her. “Your sinful little body loves it. Taking me in both holes. You’re my perfect, filthy angel.”
She was beyond words, her body a live wire of climax, one rolling into the next without respite. The dual stimulation was too much, too intense, a feedback loop of pleasure that bordered on pain. Her vision whited out.
The vibration, the clench of her around him, the sight of the jewel flashing with each thrust—it was too perfect. His release ripped through him with a force that felt violent. He shouted, a raw, broken sound, as he jammed himself to the hilt and poured into her, his cum pulsing hot and endless deep inside her womb, the convulsions of his orgasm timed with the relentless buzz of the plug.
He collapsed beside her, his body slick with sweat. For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing and the persistent, low hum. He reached down and switched it off. The sudden silence was profound.
He gathered her shaking form against him. She was crying, silent tears streaming down her temples into her hair. He kissed them away.
“Too much?” he asked, his voice husky.
She shook her head, burying her face in his chest. “No. It was… I’ve never felt so… owned.”
He held her, the monster in him satiated, the man in him humbled. He had lived three centuries of darkness, and now he found his worship in the light, in the warmth of her skin, in the terrified, joyous yielding of her body to his every dark wish. He was human. And this, he realized, this was the most human thing of all: to crave, and to be craved in return, in every forbidden way.
And this, he realized, this was the most human thing of all: to crave, and to be craved in return, in every forbidden way. The weeks that followed were a study in that craving, a mapping of her body’s responses that became his new religion. The jeweled plug saw frequent use, a dark secret that made her blush over breakfast, her body still humming from the night’s invasion.
One morning, weeks later, the light was different. It was sharper, clearer. Lucian woke first, as he always did now, his human mind still clinging to the ghost of his old perceptions. The sun cut across Elara’s sleeping form, and he saw her. Truly saw her.
Her skin, always pale, seemed lit from within by a soft, pearlescent glow. The curve of her breast, freed from the sheet, was fuller, heavier in his hand’s memory. He recalled her gasping just last night when he’d taken her nipple into his mouth, the sensitivity making her arch and plead in a new, desperate way. His gaze traveled down. Her stomach, always a flat plane of muscle from her anxious pacing and strict routines, now held the gentlest, undeniable swell.
A gasp caught in his throat, a sound of pure wonder. He didn’t dare give the hope a name. The curse was broken; that was the miracle. To ask for more felt like hubris of a kind that would get a man struck down. He just stared, his eyes tracing the new geography of her, until he felt her stir.
She woke to the weight of his gaze, to the tender, shattered look on his face and the unshed tears glazing his amber eyes. “Lucian?” Her voice was sleep-soft, edged with concern. She reached for him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He caught her hand, bringing her fingertips to his lips. He kissed each one. “Everything.” He shifted, his palm hovering over the gentle curve of her belly. “Look.”
She glanced down, confused. He guided her own hand to rest beside his. “Your skin. It’s luminous. Here,” he whispered, his touch feather-light. “It’s rounder. Softer.” He met her eyes, his own blazing with a fragile, desperate hope. “And you’ve been so sensitive. Your beautiful tits, they’re heavier. I feel it.”
Elara’s breath hitched. Her emerald eyes widened, not with fear, but with a dawning, immense realization. Her free hand flew to her mouth. “My period,” she whispered against her fingers. “I’m… I’m late. I thought it was just the stress, the change, all of you…”
A laugh burst from Lucian, wet and strained. “All of me,” he echoed, his forehead coming to rest against hers. They stayed like that, breathing the same air, hearts hammering a frantic, synchronous rhythm against each other’s skin.
His private physician, a discreet man named Aris who knew more about hematology than obstetrics, arrived at the townhouse by noon. The ultrasound machine was sleek and modern, its cold gel a shock on Elara’s warm skin. Lucian held her hand, his grip tight enough to bruise, his eyes fixed on the grey, shifting static of the monitor.
Aris moved the transducer, his face unreadable. Then he stopped. A rapid, fluttering rhythm, like moth wings against glass, filled the quiet room. Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. It wasn’t Elara’s. It wasn’t Lucian’s.
“There,” Aris said quietly, a smile breaking through his professional reserve. He pointed to a tiny, pulsing grain of light on the screen. “A very strong heartbeat. Measurements look perfect. About eight weeks.”
Elara sobbed, a single, joyous sound. Lucian’s vision blurred. He heard nothing else, saw nothing else but that flickering light and the rhythmic proof of a third heart in the room. His heart. Her heart. Their daughter’s heart. A miracle built from his darkness and her light, from his ancient craving and her sinful, welcoming flesh.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed, not caring about Aris, not caring about anything in the world except the woman before him. He fumbled in his pocket, pulling out a ring he’d carried since the first morning he’d woken in the sun—a simple band of white gold, set with a deep green emerald the color of her eyes.
“Marry me,” he said, the words raw, stripped of all pretense. “Be my wife. Let me spend this human life loving you, loving her. Let me be a father.”
Elara looked from the ring to his tear-streaked face to the screen where their future flickered. “Yes,” she breathed, pulling him up to kiss her. “Yes, a thousand times, yes.”
Later, after Aris had left with congratulations and instructions, they were alone in the sun-drenched silence. The awe softened, and the craving, that deep human current, rose again. He lay her back on the bed, his mouth finding the new fullness of her breast, his tongue circling the areola which had darkened to a deeper rose. She whimpered, her back arching, her fingers tangling in his hair.
“I need to be inside you,” he murmured against her skin, his voice thick. “I need to feel where she is. I need to be as deep as I can go.”
He entered her with a slow, worshipful gravity that felt entirely new. There was no frantic pounding, no desperate claim of ownership. This was a consecration. He pushed in, inch by devastating inch, until he was fully sheathed, his body cradling hers, his cock buried in the warm, wet heat that housed their child. He could feel the different texture of her, the profound softness.
“My filthy angel,” he whispered, beginning to move with long, deep strokes. “Mother of my miracle.” Each thrust was a promise, a prayer. She came around him silently, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes, her inner flutters a gentle echo of the heartbeat they’d heard. His own release followed, a warm, steady pulse that felt like a blessing, not a taking.
He stayed inside her long after, his hand splayed over the gentle curve of her belly, feeling the ghost of that other heartbeat between them. The ring sparkled on her finger. The future, vast and terrifying and bright, was upon them.