Invite Me In #2 (Patreon)

Part 1

“Nice place you’ve got here,” the vampire said. “Cute. Like you.”

Liv, straddling the vampire’s lap on the sofa, thought it must be a true sign of malevolence that the wretched creature would make her endure small talk and call her cute on top of everything else. Especially when, frankly, she fully suspected there to be some subtle contempt in the vampire’s words.

Liv’s home was small and cosy, and probably in need of some tidying and a good hoover, but it was hers. She didn’t need a monster’s opinion on it. She didn’t need a running commentary to prove how her supposed safe space had been so effectively rendered useless. Violated. She hated seeing the way the vampire studied her innermost sanctum, her expression still so cold, so lovely, so revealing nothing. She could come back at any time she wanted, now.

So, Liv didn’t acknowledge the comment.

“Are you a messy eater?” She focused on keeping her hands steady as she deftly tied her hair up in a bun, keeping the strands away from her throat. “Because I like this top. So, if you’re going to get blood on it, I’m going to change into—”

“Take it off.”

Liv froze. The tension, which had been coiled inside her ever since she first saw the vampire, tightened further.  She met the vampire’s eyes uncertainly.

The vampire leaned back against the sofa, one hand casually steadying (warning? Restraining? Smug?) on Liv’s hip. It was cold even through Liv’s jeans.

“You don’t want to get blood on your clothes.” There was no amusement on the vampire’s face, no sign whether she was taunting or being quite serious. “Take it off.”

Liv hadn’t meant it like that, she really hadn’t. She did like the top, sure, but maybe she’d also just desperately needed to fill the silence with something else. To buy herself a moment of time to dart upstairs, to splash cold water on her face, to scream into her pillow or maybe just breathe without the vampire looking at her.

“On second thoughts,” she swallowed, “this top is—”

“Olivia.” The vampire sighed. “Didn’t you promise to be such a good girl for me? Take. It. Off. What a delightful idea. Thank you.”

Liv swallowed. Her stomach swooped. She resisted the urge to correct the vampire, to snap that nobody called her Olivia anymore. It was Liv. Just Liv. She resisted the urge, too, to demand how the hell the vampire knew her name. She’d probably looked at Liv’s file at the hospital or something, found her name in the same way as she’d found her address. Liv couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than being followed home.

Why did she ever bring up the stupid top? It felt absurdly intimate to pull the soft material up over her head, to stay straddling the vampire’s lap like she might do a lover, with only her bra for cover. It wasn’t even one of her ‘expecting company’ bras, not that the vampire would even care because she was hardly some date for Liv to impress with her sexy lingerie. Liv still felt an embarrassed prickle of helpless heat and fury on her cheeks – the instinctive awkwardness of being exposed in front a beautiful woman. Even if that woman was a monster.

She felt the vampire’s black gaze rake over her. It was almost…appreciative? No. She must have been wrong. The hunger that flickered across the vampire’s face was just that. Literally that. Blood thirst. Nothing else.

“Not worried about your bra?” the vampire asked, raising a delicate eyebrow. She traced the edge of the material with her fingertip and Liv tried (failed) not to react. “They’re not cheap.”

“It’s fine.” Her voice was pitifully hoarse.

“No, no,” the vampire said, and her voice was still annoyingly smooth. “We’re all ladies here. I know how annoying it is to get blood on a favourite bra. So difficult to get it out again!”

Liv glared at her, feeling like her very blood was on fire. She hoped it burnt the vampire’s mouth.

The vampire looked back at her, impassive and expectant and so utterly sure of her own control. Of course she would be. She was an ancient vampire. Liv might snarl all she liked but it didn’t change the situation. It didn’t change that the vampire was an apex predator, and Liv had already revealed what she was willing to do to keep her town safe. If Liv was a flame, then the vampire was happily warming her hands on it, toasting bloody marshmallows.

“Not worried about your clothes?” Liv bit out, even as she reached to undo the bra behind her back. “I guess the stereotypes of vampiric taste are vastly overrated. Or do you simply miss the old days too much to care about modern fast fashion?”

The vampire’s lip curled, with a flash of amusement, and Liv willed herself to stop.

It’s been a while since I’ve come across a human with so much stupid fire still in them. It almost makes me feel warm again.

Liv could not, would not, be the reason that the vampire stayed in town after their evening was done. Even if the vampire hadn’t meant the words, she couldn’t risk it. It didn’t matter if Liv wanted to babble and pretend she wasn’t scared, it didn’t even matter if the vampire believed it or not. Not if the price of it was too high.

So Liv did as she was told, letting her clothes in all their pitiful defence fall to the floor, and tipped her head to the side, closed her eyes and braced for the bite.

When she felt the vampire’s lips, they weren’t at her jugular. She pressed something that could be mistaken for a kiss above Liv’s racing heart, against her collar, her shoulder.

Liv’s eyes flew open. Her hands jerked in her lap to – what? What was she supposed to do in this scenario? “H-hey,” she tried, painfully aware of the squeak in her voice, the stammer.

“Hm?”

“My throat’s up.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Liv didn’t know what to say to that; so dry, so disdainful, because of course a vampire would know where all her major veins or whatever were, but. But. Liv stared at her. She felt the vampire’s hands move, caressing down her thighs over her jeans. She felt her legs twitch, where she sat, because she knew how dangerous that feather-light touch could be.

“Fear is a rather particular taste,” the vampire said, after a long moment. “It’s bitter in the blood. I find that blood tastes best when balanced out by other flavours.”

“Other flavours.” Liv’s head spun. Because that meant – surely that didn’t mean?

“Of course, the bite helps,” the vampire said. Her teeth grazed sensitive skin and Liv’s breath gave a little hitch. “As we discussed, some humans rather enjoy the company of my kind. They’re…” she kissed Liv’s neck, “responsive to a vampire’s venom. But you…”

“Me.” It was almost a plea.

The vampire’s fingers snaked into her hair, tipping Liv’s head to the side again, gently enough, but with an impossible strength that Liv couldn’t have moved if she tried. It made the gentleness, the care, worse. It masqueraded what this was. 

“You ruined my plans,” the vampire said. “You hate my kind. So I think I’d rather make you squirm the old-fashioned way first, just to drive in how much you’re going to despise yourself when you find you love this. When you find you can’t stop thinking about it, despite yourself, in the deep, dark, lonely night. There has to be some punishment for your defiance still, no? What better way than to show you what you truly are?”

What she truly was? Anger sliced through her, along with something infinitely more complicated.

Liv shifted in the vampire’s lap. If the vampire had meant to offer her agony, she could have coped with the notion. Certainly, she’d even expected to end up with her throat ripped up, permanently scarred, for the vampire’s strength to leave bruises. Alive. But reminded with every breath for the rest of her life that it was only because the vampire had spared her. 

This was…

“That wasn’t our agreement,” Liv said, before she could stop herself. “I just said you could drink. You just asked to drink. I only spiked some blood bags, my blood makes us even-”

The vampire laughed, and there was still no warmth to the sound.

Liv stopped talking.

Monster. What kind of person thought they could negotiate, reason, with a monster? This was an ancient, not some newborn who still remembered what it felt like to be mortal. To the vampire, the very fact that Liv had defied her, had thought that it was a human’s place to deny a vampire anything, was cause enough, wasn’t it? Blood alone did not make that perceived disrespect even between them. This was about more than some blood bags.

The vampire kissed her lips, hungrily, and Liv felt the taste of blood on her tongue as the vampire bit down then. Not hard. Or, at least, not hard enough to do anything but send a shiver of excitement through Liv’s body, to make a small sound catch against her teeth.

Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? She hated vampires, she really did. But vampires were…this vampire was…it felt…

There was a rush.

She was not a born hunter, immune to a vampire’s effects, she was just some idiot who worked at the hospital and had managed to drive away the myriad newborns scrambling around looking an easy meal. Who didn't want someone else's family torn apart because they fell beneath the thrall of a creature that loved nothing.

And Liv didn’t mean to kiss her back, she didn’t plan on it, but she surged forwards anyway. She found herself cupping the vampire’s face, not sure if she’d initially held on for dear life or to shove her away.

The vampire kissed her breathless, triumphant, and then pulled back. Their eyes met. Liv could imagine what she looked like, panting, trembling, eyes wild with fear but not just fear. Some heady cocktail. Some betrayal. Some want, because that was the problem. Want. Desire. For this – this thing in front of her!

Liv squeezed her eyes shut.

“Next time you plan to send some newborn running away from your town,” the vampire whispered against her ear, rocking her hips up. “Think about this. Think what you could feel instead. Think of me.”

Then she bit down on Liv’s throat, and Liv saw stars.