Fallen - Prologue. Prologue

The boy is beautiful. Of course he is. If he wasn't he wouldn’t be here. I always choose beautiful boys. I am like a connoisseur of fine wine, and there are many similarities I find; full body, sharp flavour and great head. I always pick the very best I can find and I have not found one like this in a long time. Perhaps I have been looking in the wrong places.

I have spent too much time in high class restaurants and on ‘the circuit’. Aristocratic blood may not be blue but it is rich; too rich for the system in the end. And they are all the same, on the inside. There are no truly beautiful people left among the very rich.

And so I eventually got bored of playing the aristocrat and started playing the whore. Not technically of course. I give my body as and when I choose, not on the whim or for the money of anyone else. I take whatever body I choose too. No one resists me, no one can. No, when I say I have been playing the whore I meant playing with the whores.

There are some pretty little whores when you know where to look, and some of them are even clean, not that disease means much to me other than that it spoils the taste of the blood and makes the body less robust. The main benefit of a whore is that they are usually alone. By and large they are on the streets or living in squats, eking out an existence by selling their bodies for enough for the next fix until either a trick turns nasty, the fix blows out their brains or age or disease makes them unable to get any more tricks.

I find whores convenient when I’m in a hurry but pathetic and sad. They are certainly not worthy of bringing into my home and gracing my stable.

However, now and again I find a pearl among the swine. This one isn’t a whore at all. I have saved him from that. He was about to succumb, I could tell. I could smell it on him; his fear, his doubt, his need. He was in a bar, one of those dark seedy ones where you can hide in the corner making one drink last all night until you find someone prepared to buy you another one.

And he had no trouble finding people prepared to offer. He is, after all very beautiful. And I mean beautiful. There are a lot of pretty boys out there, a lot of handsome ones too. But there are very few truly beautiful people, girls or boys, especially on the inside. It’s sad how many people, even the very young are rotten on the inside these days.

I sat and watched him for a very long time, feeling the fear and uncertainty swirling around him, wrapping him in a cocoon of misery. I simply watched and waited and gently nudged the right sort of people over at the right time to crank it up just the right amount.

He was on the point of leaving, sunk in terror and misery so complete that he would have been lucky to last the night; when I slid into the booth with him, tasting and smelling the miasma of distress and pushing a JD across the table towards him. He looked up at me and for the first time in centuries I had to restrain the shiver that passed through me.

It was dark in the booth and he was wearing black. I could smell that the brightness of his hair was natural and didn’t come from a bottle, and the redness of his lips came from nothing but the pressure of his teeth. His skin was pale and flawless, his build neither to large nor too small, too muscled or too slender. His nose was straight, his lips full, his chin pointed and his cheekbones high. He was far more than pretty and when I looked into his eyes...

Lay aside the darkness that swirled in him, its scent an aphrodisiac of the finest calibre. Lay aside the hopelessness that made him vulnerable and sweet. Lay aside the fact that my trousers were already twitching at the smell of him. His eyes... right from the very start his eyes were something else.

I have never seen eyes like them. They are large and thickly lashed, over arched by finely defined brows and they are... they are... deep and bright and turquoise blue. I have never seen anything so beautiful, so strange or so corruptible.

He didn’t smile at me. He was too far gone for that. He watched me suspiciously as his long slender fingers closed around the glass.

“What’s this for?” His voice was light and soft, musical like a breeze through aspen.

“You tell me.”

“I... I don’t...”

“It could just be a drink, a no strings attached token of appreciation for your beauty. Or it could be an offer, or a down payment.”

He glared at me and he was so close to throwing the drink in my face. The emotions pouring off him were arousing me to the point it was getting hard to control myself. He smelled so good.

“What do you mean?”

“Come now. Don’t pretend innocence. I know exactly what you’re looking for and I’m more than happy to oblige. I have been looking for a... companion and I am tired of the vapid, spineless fools on the other side of town. I came here looking for someone with strength and passion... and you came here looking for someone with money. It seems to me as if we could do business.”

“Business?” He says softly, his perfect lips twitching and a tear forming in the corner of his wonderful eyes. “Is that what it is? Is that all it is?”

“What else?”

He looked up at me and it seemed as if he was going to say something but he didn’t. I could feel the turmoil, the exquisite torment of his soul and in that moment his fate was sealed. Of course it always had been. From the moment I laid eyes on him there had been no doubt at all that he would be leaving with me: but that was the moment I decided that not only would he be leaving the bar with me but that when I walked away he would be coming with me and I wouldn’t be leaving his body in the alley outside.

I watched for the instant he cracked. I saw the hope die in his eyes; the pride, the self preservation; everything fell like a house of cards as he picked up the glass and drained it in a single gulp. Slamming the empty glass down on the table he glared at me. “Alright. You have a deal. Whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want,” I said slowly, my eyes flashing in the darkness and I saw his widen. “You should be careful what you promise to strangers, they might just take you up on it.”

“Yeah well... right now I really couldn’t care less.”

“Oh I have no doubt about that.” I leaned across the table and laid my hand over his. He shuddered but didn’t pull away. I caressed his knuckles with my thumb and savoured the trembling. “I won’t hurt you,” I said and I meant it; I always do.

He raised his head to look at me with his bright blue eyes and something... uncomfortable squirmed inside me. There was something about that look that made me feel hot. For a cold blooded creature like I that is not a small thing.

Leaning further I raised my hand and laid it against the side of his face, letting my fingers slide into his hair. It felt silky and cool against my hand. His eyes, locked with mine, flickered as my fingers brushed the nape of his neck and he gave a little sigh. He barely noticed when I got out of my seat and slid in next to him, nudging him deeper into the darkness. No one gave us so much as a glance. If they had they would have seen nothing. I drew the darkness around us to make sure of that.

Still keeping my eyes locked with his, drawing him in and making it impossible for him to look away, I gently pressed him back against the seat and leaned over him. There was a flicker of fear in the aqua depths as I ran my fingers down his jawline to his throat while I brushed his lips with mine. For a moment he tried to pull away, tensed against me but then a number of things happened simultaneously to make any further resistance impossible.

First my hand, which had stroked down over his shoulder, moved quickly and expertly to the front of his trousers or, to be more precise, inside the front of his trousers. Secondly I breathed into his open mouth, saturating him with my breath and thirdly my fingers found the pulse in his throat and released an enzyme which was absorbed quickly through his skin into his blood.

The combined effect of the three events was that the boy jerked and stiffened, trying to push me away but it lasted only moments before he completely relaxed, his head falling back and his eyes rolling. Anyone watching at that point might have thought I had drugged his drink. They would have been wrong. I had no need of crude chemicals when I was more than capable of inducing extreme intoxication with nothing more than my body.

At that point the boy was virtually unconscious and highly susceptible to anything I wanted to do to him or suggest he do with, to or for me. I pulled back and looked down at his totally relaxed face, his blue eyes half closed, gazing dreamily into nothing. That same uncomfortable feeling squirmed in my stomach as I found myself wanting to touch him. Never being one to deny myself pleasure I did just that.

I took my time, running my fingers through his hair, over his face and throat. I opened his shirt and took my fill of his smooth tight body and then I released his manhood and took my fill of that too. The boy moaned and shuddered as I played his body and the scent of his sex and his arousal rose, intoxicating me with its sweetness.

Completely insensible to what was happening to him, aware only of the sensations that rippled through him the boy was mine to do with whatever I wanted. As I manipulated his hot erection with one hand I gently turned his head to one side with the other and brushed the hair away from his neck. The skin was creamy pale and smelled so sweet. I licked it and inhaled deeply, smelling the blood that pounded just beneath the skin. Licking and kissing and sucking I manipulated his neck with my mouth as I manipulated his cock with my hand, raising him higher with every stroke. Moments before he ejaculated I slid my fangs into his throat and I tasted the divine sweetness of the chemicals the orgasm released into his blood.

The boy whimpered and writhed weakly under me but he was lost, completely lost. Any slight chance he might have had to escape was long gone.

I didn’t take too much from him. That wasn’t the plan, just enough to make him mine. Then I sat back in my seat and, after tidying him, took time to savour my drink. It was nearing closing time and the crowd was thinning. Now and again someone looked towards the darkness of our booth but they saw nothing but shadows.

The boy moaned softly and stirred. I smiled because that was, in many ways, the best part, the part when they realise what I’ve done to them.

“What... what happened?” he asked in his musical voice. “I feel... I feel strange.”

“Of course you do.” I said smiling at him, making sure that my fangs were extended and visible. His eyes widened and he tried to get up but he had no control over his body. He did however, notice the unmistakable signs of what had just happened to him.

“What did you do to me?”

“I gave you what you wanted.”

“Did you fuck? What the hell did you think I wanted?”

“Release.”

“Okay... I’m released... now let me go.”

“You’re free to leave whenever you wish.”

“I can’t and you know it.”

His eyes flashed defiance at me. It was wonderful. Most of them were docile by that point, at least cowed. They were always afraid and he was afraid but he didn’t show it. He would have died rather than show it. It was magnificent. Those amazingly blue eyes were steady on mine, the exquisite chin jutted and the cupid’s bow lips were pursed.

“How wonderful. You think you can fight me. Do your worst little man.” And he did. Goddamn it if he didn’t try to get up out of his seat and walk out of there. I watched with amusement until exhaustion overcame him and he sank back.

“What have you done?” He demanded again. I just smiled. I like to play with them.

“Why?” He said after a while, softly as if mattered.

“You’re very beautiful.”

He bit his lip and looked up at me, those incredible eyes fringed by lashes as white as his hair. He was astonishing. “That’s not an answer.”

“Isn't it? I thought it was a good one. It was good enough for me.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go away and leave me alone, but you’re not going to do that are you?”

He was bright too. “No.”

“Are you going to drink my blood?”

“I already have.”

His eyes widened. “You... you have?”

“I like to drink blood that is young and fresh and full of sex.”

He closed his eyes and groaned. “I remember...”

“Lucky you.”

“So am I... am I a... am I like you now?” I had to laugh at that.

“Like me? Trust me you will never be like me and you should be grateful for it. No, you are not a vampire like me, nor will you be. It takes more than blood and sex to make a vampire. Not much more I grant you but there is a whole lot more ritual involved. We wouldn’t want people being turned right left and centre now would we?”

“Could I... I mean could I be...?”

“You could but it’s very unlikely to happen.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not likely to survive for long enough.”

He looked at me for a while with narrowed eyes. “If you are going to kill me why haven’t you done it yet?”

I smiled: he’s feisty this one. It takes a lot to scare him. “I have other plans for you... for now.”

“Other plans?” he asked nervously, still struggling to show no fear even though I could smell it in him.

“You don’t need to know what they are.”

“Let me go.”

“Persistent. I like that. Not enough to let you go but...”

I don’t know whether it was pleasure or pain but I felt compelled to lean over and kiss him again. He moaned and tried to break away until I breathed into him and he was forced to relax.

“Fuck you, son of a bitch. You’ve drugged me.”

“No...” I touched his throat and released more of the enzyme into his blood. He moaned and shivered, his eyes fluttering and rolling. “Now I’ve drugged you.”

He should have been incapable of speech but he forced his eyes to settle and focus on me, which in itself was a hell of a feat and managed to speak a few words. He said. “Fuck you.”

I laughed and got to my feet. “It’s time to go my friend. On you feet now.”

At my command his body shuddered and hauled him to his feet. He swayed and almost fell and I steadied him against my side. “Easy now, we have a long way to go.” He gave me a look that clearly said. “How the hell do you expect me to go anywhere like this.” I stroked the back of his neck and he passed out.