Shadow Phantoms - H.P. Mallory Page 0,11
could not see myself with a woman other than my tempest. Even in her absence she had gelded me.
But I could have it no other way for the truth was that from the moment Bryn and I had come together, there was no other woman for me. And that had not changed just because we had parted.
I would drink from other women—yes. Such was a necessity for a vampire, but drinking blood for my survival was as far as I would go.
In this self-restraint, I was very much at odds to my surroundings. As Denise and I left my state room and walked through the corridors of the cruise ship, I could not help being aware of the suffusion of sexual activity all around.
Vampire senses are particularly potent and I could hear, through the cabin doors, the rhythmic breathing, the moaned names, the growls and grunts of lust and the fierce smack of flesh on flesh. In fact, because there was little around here in the way of propriety, I also caught sight, through open doors, of writhing bodies, each room seeming to detail a different page of the Kama Sutra; one on one, one on two, two on one; three, four, five to a bed. One room seemed to have an open-door policy; join in if you happened to be passing.
Such sexual promiscuity was not confined to the rooms; we passed a couple who had apparently been too impatient to find a bed and decided the wall would suffice, while a couch in one of the lounges was hosting a tangled three-way. The air was thick with the smell of sex; the scent of pheromones blended with sweat and massage oil. You could taste the arousal in the back of your throat. With me going through the longest period of abstinence in my adult life, it was a miracle I did not burst. Instead, I quite wanted to weep.
But this was day to day life onboard my flagship.
Yes, my days living upon the seas were a far cry from the life I once led in the stately home of Kinloch Kirk upon the Scottish coast, when the Queen of the Underworld was still alive and still keeping the peace. Now things were… different.
When Bryn demanded I leave Kinloch, I was at a loss as to what to do with my life. I had never been a man well-suited to inactivity, but I had become accustomed to just that once Bryn banished me from my home, my love and my daughter, Rowan. Just the thought of my little one made my heart feel as if it were in a vice.
Thus, I needed a project. And I found one.
I was, as far as anyone seemed able to ascertain (and as long as no one could locate Laucian), the last of the Master Vampires. Well, the last with any sort of claim to authority and power over a race that was now spread across the world. The vampire world was in as much chaotic disarray as were all the other supernatural factions following the disappearance of the last queen of the Underworld, which had led to the dissolution of the old alliances, and the fall of the Underworld itself.
Without the leadership that the Underworld had offered, vampires had reverted to their natural habits; to kill. I will not pretend myself to be any better than I am; I am a reformed killer. But that was then and this was now; the world had become a less violent place and draining humans on a whim was frowned upon. The benign influence of the Underworld had allowed vampires to be themselves, but with limits. The Underworld coalition allowed us to be part of something greater. Now on our own again, we were suddenly once again just killers, and it would only be a matter of time before we became public enemy number one, and the vampire hunters returned.
Someone had to take charge. And the last Master Vampire was the obvious choice.
It had not been easy, but I think it would have been considerably harder if the last queen of the Underworld, Jolie, had not done such a good job. Under her wise guidance, vampires had become more used to working together and being ‘subjects’ of someone. They now welcomed the return of an authority figure, even if what I offered was nothing like Queen Jolie’s rule.
The name I chose for our league was the Vampire Coalition; an independent vampire state. To stop prying mortals