Chapter 5

Technically, the date had transitioned to Hallowe’en when a hesitant knock woke Aurora from a half-remembered dream. Despite not remembering all the details, her pelvic floor pulsed and her nipples tightened.

It would be sixteen hours until tiny ghosts and goblins frolicked through the neighbourhood begging for treats. The sun remained hours from the eastern horizon.

The knock repeated, echoing through the almost-empty house.

There seemed little point to donning her silk robe.

Sighing, Aurora rolled from the bed and padded downstairs.

There was no need for subterfuge. The girl on the other side of the door could hear her hammering heartbeat, could scent her witchy blood, could scent her fear, could scent her unease, could scent her deep arousal.

“Have you decided?” An ethereal contralto drifted through the closed door.

“Decided?” Even while she whispered, she knew Luna could hear her voice clearly on the dim porch.

“Decided if you’ll let me in if I knocked?”

Aurora held little doubt the knock was only polite. This creature possessed the physical strength to reduce the door to toothpicks, if she so desired. Aurora remained silent, although her decision had never really been in any doubt.

“I need you,” Luna breathed. Her voice resonated like a timpani in Aurora’s mind.

Aurora opened the door. Luna’s eyes widened as she noted Aurora’s nudity, but also didn’t appear overly surprised.

“I need you, too,” Aurora whispered.

Without speaking, Luna insistently pushed Aurora against the wall, Luna’s fingers winding into Aurora’s hair. Luna kissed Aurora fiercely, both women already moaning.

As with the first time, losing her vampire virginity as she thought of it, there was no hope of holding back her climaxes. This time, Aurora satisfied Luna first, lying achingly between Luna’s thighs, her tongue coaxing bliss and a scream from Luna. Afterward, switching positions, Luna caressed every centimetre of Aurora’s quivering bare skin, from her toes to her fingertips, before allowing her tongue to find Aurora’s centre. A series of climaxes crashed over Aurora, her body arching against Luna’s tongue and fingers, over and over and over again, until even while she desired more, her body undeniably refused.

Aurora collapsed into the bedsheets, and Luna crawled up to lie silently beside Aurora.

After she’d recovered a little, her breathing mostly under control, Aurora instinctively offered her arm again, accepting the sharp pain of the puncture and absorbing the resulting euphoria. This time, she touched Luna’s hair earlier and for a moment, she was certain Luna would refuse to detach, draining her of her lifeblood before she could unmake the creature. Celeste’s warning clanged through her mind.

She’s tasted your blood and it might not be tomorrow, or even in a week, but she will not be able to stop herself.

Very reluctantly, Luna released her grasp upon Aurora’s arm and sighed heavily.

“I haven’t fed since the last time we were together,” Luna whispered. “I’m so very hungry.”

Aurora hoped the snack would hold Luna. She desperately wanted to trust her.

“Tonight,” Aurora breathed. “Tonight, you can have more.”

“Promise?”

Aurora nodded. “I promise.”

Luna sighed and licked a final trace of Aurora’s blood from her lips. With a sharp click, her canine teeth retracted.

The vampiress lying beside her could take as much as she liked, if she so chose; the thought chilled Aurora to her core.

Even so, Aurora drifted back into sleep, where she savoured oral sex with a beautiful vampire, tangled in satin sheets. While she climaxed in her dream, her exhausted body outside the dream could not.

Luna silently watched Aurora slumber.

Aurora’s orb remained hidden and inert.

Before the first light of dawn, Luna silently left, dressing efficiently, carrying her shoes, and disappearing again into the shadows of the morning.

Exhausted, even when Luna pressed her lips to her forehead, Aurora slept through Luna’s fleeting departure, lost in dreams.

The final batch of children costumed as pirates, skeletons, and witches knocked sharply on the door. Aurora adjusted her wide-brimmed hat, checked her pale makeup in the mirror. She’d been a witch her entire life and never, not once, had she or any of her brethren worn the stereotypical pointed hat. In fact, beyond her grandmother, whom she already knew, Aurora doubted that she would even recognise another of her sisters. Aurora turned from the mirror, sighed impatiently and opened the door.

“Trick or treat!”

Aurora feigned surprise and set to dropping miniature candy bars into each outstretched orange and black bag. The ghouls of the evening appeared to have plundered well, each bag brimming with sugary treats. Every child, including even the youngest, thanked her politely as the treats joined their siblings in the jumble of the bags.

The final child, maybe ten years old, still flat chested but perhaps beginning a growth spurt, sported long, straight black hair, pasty makeup, a long black cape and extended canine teeth. She struggled with her words, given the prosthetic teeth.

“Twick or tweat,” she mumbled, holding out her bag.

For a moment, panic gripped Aurora’s heart.

“And what are you supposed to be?” she finally asked tentatively, controlling the effect of her hammering heart upon her voice.

The girl looked up, her eyes bright, disbelief shining there that Aurora was actually unable to identify her costume; the clothing and makeup were particularly well done. Her eyes reminded Aurora of Luna’s.

Nosferatu?

“I’m a vampiwess,” the girl announced proudly.

“Indeed, you are,” Aurora responded as calmly as she could, while dropping an extra candy into the girl’s outstretched bag.

“Thank you! Happy Hallowe’en,” the girl sang as she turned and scampered to catch up with her friends.

The only subsequent visitors would likely be far too old to trick-or-treat, and would wear hoodies instead of pirate costumes.

Aurora sighed heavily, closed the door and doused the porch light.

There was no point in delaying further.

The wide-brimmed pointed hat lay askew and forgotten in a dim corner of the ensuite bathroom upstairs. Aurora’s cheeks glowed a healthy pink from scrubbing off the pasty, macabre makeup. She drew her hair up into a loose and practical ponytail at the nape of her neck. A simple white tunic draped her otherwise unclothed body, caressing her skin as she stood barefoot at the kitchen granite counter.

She stared warily at the mocking concoction resting on the granite.

It was perhaps the least appetizing mockery of drink she’d ever considered ingesting. Fumes of vinegar, sulphur, and gelatin wafted from its thick surface. The consistency reminded Aurora of congealed bacon grease.

Celeste had warned her this evening might not be entirely pleasant.

Sighing, Aurora grasped the glass, closed her eyes, pinched her nose and lifted the glass to her lips. She tilted her head back in one smooth motion and poured the vile substance into her mouth.

It tasted worse than it smelled.

She swallowed anyway, gagging, fighting the urge to vomit with every ounce of will she possessed.

The substance burned all the way down her esophagus, igniting her stomach as if the fires of hell had descended.

“Jesus,” she whispered.

She nearly dropped the empty glass on the counter, catching herself at the last second. She doubted she could summon the will to clean up glass shards, and she wore nothing to protect her feet. The glass clattered to the countertop, but failed to shatter.

Moaning, Aurora sank to her knees and then lowered herself to the tile, placing her back against the cupboards and drawing up her legs to her chest, rocking herself as her stomach insisted the goop should rise. She seriously did not want to taste the reverse process, so she gripped her abdomen and rocked until the burning subsided and she could think again.

If the evening proceeded worse than this, she gravely doubted her own prospects of survival.

Forty-five agonising minutes later, Aurora stood unsteadily in the foyer, regarding her pale complexion in the mirror. A frightened, nauseated, miserable witch stared back at her.

Slay her or unmake her.

Those were her options.

Or do nothing. But that really wasn’t an option, was it?

The puncture wounds adorning her pallid forearm throbbed in time with her elevated heartbeat.

Aurora gathered her resolve. She hadn’t consumed that vile substance to bail now.

She released her ponytail and pulled a faded hoodie over her tunic, raising the hood over her loose hair, casting her face into shadow. Bending, she pushed her bare toes into comfortable beige Keds, quickly lacing the shoes to her feet. As she straightened, she fought another wave of nausea with a pathetic groan, praying it might be the last. Over the last hour or so, the waves had loosened their iron grip on her stomach, appearing less and less frequently, with less and less intensity.