Blood Mate

Blood Mate (A Razor's Edge Vampire Erotica Short)
Tamsyn Roe
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2023 Tamsyn Roe

Mathias came to an abrupt stop. His dark eyes widened as he gaped unapologetically. “Lord Rage? You’re attending this year?”

Rage glared at the younger, lower ranking vampire. They were well acquainted, but he wasn’t in the mood to explain himself. “Where is your Lord? Have you been freed from your life debt?” Rage knew full well Mathias had only been turned a century before.

Even with the incredibly slow heartbeat of their kind, Mathias’ cheeks reddened. “I still owe five decades to Lord Darkness. He… he’s here for the running, as well.”

Rage grinned. “Is he? Was he also ordered to attend by Prince Unforgiving?”

“I’m… I… My Lord requires me.” Mathias rushed away so blindly a branch slapped him in the face, breaking with the force of the preternatural speed.

Rage was annoyed to be here, but at least he knew he wasn’t alone in those feelings. What was Unforgiving up to? He looked around the meadow. There were a notable number of ancients who remained unmated. Rage had bristled at the command, but he guessed this year’s event was attended by more unwilling vampires than normal.

Screams rent the night stillness. Rage took a deep breath. The cool freshness filled his lungs and carried the scent of females and fear. He frowned. He’d imagined finding the woman the gods had made for him in a much more mutually agreeable fashion. Knowing the prince planned to use his power on him and the others forced into this event made Rage grit his teeth. “Damn you,” he muttered. “Why now?”

“Why now indeed?” Darkness stood beside him, as dignified and composed as ever. Darkness surveyed the crowd suspiciously. “I see more than a few confirmed bachelors here. Everyone here was born during the Crusades. We are the last of our kind -- the last vampires who can produce children with our bodies, not just our bite.”

Darkness, as usual, saw straight to the truth. And now Rage could see the prince’s reason too. “He’s breeding us.”

Darkness chuckled. “Only if the females are really our mates and we can resist the hunger. He’s playing a very foolish game. We aren’t like the bitten.”

“No,” Rage agreed. “We are not.” If the prince used the command, the angel’s curse would take hold, bloodlust would rise, and only death would quench the vampires’ thirst. Unless they found their mates, every woman in the grove would be die.

If one of the females were his mate, he shuddered to imagine her first impression. Red eyes and bared fangs rushing her with the intent to devour. He wouldn’t know she belonged to him until his fangs pricked her flesh. There was a possibility that one of his comrades would destroy his mate before he had the chance to taste her. The prince played at impossible odds.

“Look there.” Darkness pulled Rage from his damning thoughts. There was an expression on his friend’s face that reminded Rage of when they were young men fighting a foolish war for a foolish reason. In those ancient days Darkness was his boyhood friend, Henry of Westshire.

Rage turned in the direction Darkness pointed, curious to see what had put a very human expression on the vampire’s face. His supernatural hearing brought the woman’s fierce words to them clearly across the meadow.

“Take your filthy hands off me!” the small blonde screamed as one of the prince’s possessed minions, humans who no longer had a soul, stripped her. She kicked out. Another of the soulless picked her up. Her foot connected with the first one’s face and set him stumbling back. She bit the one holding her. He dropped her like a stone.

Rage grimaced, imagining the pain as her frail human body hit the hard ground. She kept struggling but in short work the two empty husks had managed to leave her naked. Once upon a time, a different gallant and pious version of himself would have rushed to her aid. The human he’d once been would have covered her pale perfection. As a vampire, he was able to put away morality and enjoy the sight of this fierce warrioress.