A Dance in Blood Velvet Read Online Free PDF Page A

sweeter than tormenting ourselves with words.”
    * * *
    The bed under its shadowed canopy was never used for sleep.
    On the cover their limbs shone with creamy luminescence in the darkness, moving, undulating. Their desire for each other felt human, sensual, compelling. Nothing to do with blood. Strange and wonderful that this pleasure hadn’t been lost with their humanity - but then, it was a passion that could take dark, deceptive paths.
    Charlotte had been a shy young woman of twenty when Karl met her: secretive, wary, sharply intelligent. He hadn’t set out to seduce her, but neither had he tried very hard to refrain. A double sin, for while she worried about the potential disgrace, she was unaware that Karl, by his very nature, knowingly placed her in mortal danger. Unforgivable. Yet their attraction had been too thrilling to resist. Never would they forget their first time, in all its forbidden ecstasy... Karl so careful to ensure that she shared his exquisite pleasure. So cautious not to harm her, in any way. Resisting her innocent fervour had been impossible; delighting her, effortless. And at the end, protecting her from the peril of his blood thirst - sheer agony.
    Now, though, they knew each other completely and held nothing back. Savage and divine was the fulfilment of this long dance. As Charlotte’s head tipped back, her hair falling golden-bronze across the pillow, Karl felt her cling to him as he let go. The convulsive waves were delicious, human, deceptive... for they left him defenceless. Transported by bliss, Karl felt a surge of deeper lust, the vampire’s true need.
    When Charlotte was human, Karl had forced himself with every thread of willpower to turn his face from her neck. Excrutiating to resist: worse to have hurt her, or to admit that his suppressed urge for her blood had twisted into sexual desire and back into blood-lust again...
    Ah, no longer. Now he let the feeling flood him. His face dropped to her throat and he bit, one swift savage action.
    Then her blood was in his mouth, sharp and sweet like the juice of pomegranates. He could taste its colour: garnets, shining berries. Ah, God. Ecstasy. But a few sips only... to take more would weaken her. Just the very sabre-edge of rapture.
    In the same moment, as Charlotte gasped her own pleasure - as her mouth opened with the cry - her lips and tongue latched hot onto his neck and her teeth stabbed into him. For minutes, blood passed between them; a circle of pleasure so extreme it verged on pain. Too powerful to be borne for long, while the exchange lasted it swept away everything else. This was the Crystal Ring in its deeper, hidden sense; a ruby-thorned rosary of paradise.
    They broke the circle, lay gasping in each other’s arms. Blood was scattered like jewels on their throats and breasts, while their wounds were already healing. Hair dishevelled, they lay gazing at each other. Every emotion shimmered between them. This was peace, chaos, contentment, yearning. An addiction that must be sated again and again, a lust that some would condemn as demonic; this was the nature of their mutual obsession.
    And at the end of all, it was love.
    * * *
    In the deepest layer of the Crystal Ring, Andreas lay like a sea creature on the ocean bed, rolling with every surge of the tide. Half dormant, he could barely move or think. He could only endure the hideous crawl of eternity. Waiting... for what?
    Somewhere in another time, he was talking rapidly, angry and distressed. The words and the setting eluded him. And then - Karl’s face. Karl’s hands on his shoulders, and the enchanting tranquillity of his eyes.
    “Andrei, don’t do this,” said Karl.
    He heard himself answer, “But Kristian took everything from me! He took my poetry, gave me this horrible darkness and his sick puritanism in its place! How can I bear it?”
    “But what’s to stop you writing poetry, as you did in life?” Karl was always so reasonable, curse him.
    “You don’t