Chapter 1
Justin stood naked in front of his mother’s crypt. His body, soaked in blood, shimmered in the moonlight. The shine of his muscles rising and falling with the catch of each breath seemed to grow more intense. He didn’t move toward Cecilia. He waited for her to take him. He waited for Cecelia to open her arms in invitation.
Cecelia wept to see his beauty. Her mouth watered and her body tensed. She could reach out and touch him. Reach out and caress his beautiful face dripping with his gift.
She hadn’t fed for longer than she could remember. When had her tongue last pressed against the clotted scarlet drink that nourished her body? The definition of his body cast shadows over the rouge blood, cast shadows that invited her to explore, invited her to cling to him to satisfy her lust.
Her hand reached out to touch his body, but he did not feel clammy the way she had expected. Instead his flesh was satin. She took a deep breath to catch his scent, but it was not there. Again she stole big breaths of air. Finally she opened her mouth and drank in air, hoping to find it tinged with a sweet, coppery salt. But no.
Frustrated, she used both hands to push hard against his chest, losing the feel of him as he fell away and her casket lid flew open.
Opening her eyes, she saw a fractured light fixture dangling from the paint-starved ceiling. This had been home to Wil and Keith long ago when they had been human, she thought. She remembered Keith as a grumpy old man who had been transformed into a crippled vampire. Instead of coming out of his vampiric sleep a whole man, he had become an invalid dependent on his son, Wil, to push him around in a wheel chair. The fool of a son did his father’s bidding even though his father had always been distant to his only child, blaming him for his mother’s death while she was in labor. Now as vampires they wandered the world. Souls lost and bound to the earth.
She placed her hands on each side of the coffin and brought herself up to a seated position. Looking around the room, she knew Justin’s body smeared in blood had only been a half-dream. A vision that frequently came to her upon awakening. Sometimes she found herself calling out his name, wanting him to be there, praying that he could take away the pain.
Cecelia climbed out of the coffin. Birds chirped outside the window, reminding her of the solitary state in which she existed. The sun was going down, but there still would be at least another hour of sunlight. She was loneliest in daylight when she couldn’t hide.
From a dresser she took a silk lace-trimmed shawl and covered her head and shoulders. The rest of her body was swathed in a simple white cotton top and pants. At the door to her bedroom she stopped to listen for Justin. He walked lightly and moved with such gentleness that he barely disturbed the air around him. Opening the door, she caught no hint of his scent or of his movements.
He had said that he would find her father. Tell her how her father lived without the wife and daughter he had loved. Perhaps Justin would even speak to her father and bring back sentences in her father’s own cadence. Maybe she could smile again at the sound of Daddy’s words.
Cecelia left the room and the house to visit the willow tree under which Wil had buried her mother, his first vampire kill. Her naked feet crushed grass and weeds and insects that wandered in the wrong territory.
The tree appeared to dip lower upon her approach, unable to offer anything more than regret. She sat under the tree. The grass on the ground was spotty with large bald areas totally devoid of life.
“Mommy,” she whispered, wanting to rest in her mother’s arms once again. A breeze touched Cecelia’s cheek, and she pulled the shawl lower over her face. She didn’t want her mother pandering to her needs and vices. “Only your arms surrounding me as if I were again a blameless child.”
Justin called her name as his long legs stretched in a steady gait. She looked toward him, anticipating the solace he would bring in the guise of her father’s life.
He stopped in front of her and took off the dark glasses that hid the emerald color of his eyes. She watched as they clouded over into a darker, murkier color.
“I went to the house where you once lived. The house has been sold to a young couple with an infant. They bought the place months ago from an elderly man. A broken man, they said. A man that they were sure looked far older than his true years. He sold at a low price, saying that he wanted the house to shine again with the happiness a family brings. They have no idea where he went. It seems he was burdened with the needs to retain the past and to vanquish it.”
“If I were to return to him, what do you think he would do?”
“Cecelia, you know you cannot. He would think himself either mad or haunted. Never would he believe that you were really within reach.”
Cecelia nodded her head.
“And Sade’s old house?”
“Burned down like the one in San Francisco.”
San Francisco, the place she had lived with the historical Marquis de Sade. His vampire blood allowed him to continue his brutal tortures and rapes. Sade had taken her from this small New York town, promising a fancy, luxurious life. In truth, she found degradation and isolation as one of his vampire followers.
“He destroyed anything that could be traced to him, except for me. And he’ll be sorry one day, Justin, that he didn’t take the time to find me.”
As Cecelia began to rise Justin reached out a hand to steady her. She grabbed onto his hand with a firmness that forced her to feel the sharp bones in his fingers and the scaled flesh that covered them. Fingers that had been used to stake his own mother, forcing her to lie in her coffin, awaiting her half-breed son’s ultimate judgment.
“Why don’t we bring your mother here? We could live in this abandoned house.”
“No, Cecelia. You are a ghost to most of the people who live in this town. Regular feedings have revived your beauty.”
He was right; even her hair had grown back, and the tattoos had started to fade. She had removed the decoratives from her flesh and the piercings had begun to close.
“What do I do, Justin?”
He stared at her; his eyes had lightened into emerald green once again. He had pushed his flaxen hair back behind his ears, and the sculpted features of his face seduced her. Do we hide in our passions? she wondered. Obsess about each others’ body until sated? But I could never be satisfied with you, Justin. I would want more with each quiver of flesh.
“You are beautiful, Justin. Even your eyes that covet me.”
He would not stalk her. He would allow her to choose the time. He stood waiting, as in her half-dream. Only this time he was dressed in tight jeans and a black muscle shirt that clutched his chest.
“How do you control your desires, Justin? Do you ever take what you want?”
“I took my mother’s life.”
“That’s only temporary. You yank the stake from her heart and she’s back.” Cecelia moved closer to rest her breasts against his chest. “Have you ever had a woman, Justin?”
“The women I have had sleep deeply,” he said, and turned away to return to the house.
What did he mean? she wondered. She was tempted to call out to him but knew he would never answer her questions. Questions she had asked him so many times. Was he afraid she would die from his overwrought passion? She had survived the Marquis de Sade; certainly Justin couldn’t reach the same heights of wicked pleasures that Sade had pursued. 
