Sweetest Perfection

A fit of hunger seized him, a seizure swelling in his chest. He was forced to pause mid-sentence, his writing utensil poised before the board unmoving. It was happening far too often of late; he would need to feed more lavishly in the near future. The routine he had adopted had done little to satisfy and even less to suffice his needs. He closed his eyes, willing the constricting pains away. He inhaled a slow, hissing breath and released it softly, eyes opening, but the hunger had him in its terrible jaws and he knew he could not conclude what he had begun.

With a sigh of resignation, he replaced the cap on the dry erase pen and set it back in its metal tray. He turned to face the audience's inquiring eyes behind him.

"I am afraid I cannot complete the lecture notes this evening. Class is dismissed."

There were exclamations of glee as well as a few groans and much stretching of sore muscles as a fair half of the students rose from their seats and made for the double doors in the back of the chamber. A happy chatter ran through the room with them. The college professor sighed and settled himself tiredly in his high-backed leather chair, fingers steepled in a familiar motion of meditation. It was a simple 'mind over matter'. He would have order; he would regain control at any cost. The feeling fled his being, though still not entirely, but it would be enough; for the moment.

His eyes reopened to gaze over a handful of students who were leisurely strolling out, for they had no plans to attend to this evening and were content to remain behind in the hall.

Among the students that had stayed, one in particular had always managed to steal his attentions and stir an exotic emotion from deep within him. She was unique amid the balance of his students; a distinctive sort of style which she alone seemed to pronounce. She held the air and demeanor of one twice her age but detained the grace and beauty of one half it.

Auburn hair spiraled down in tight curls to frame an elegant, almond- shaped face; fierce green eyes lit with the brilliance of intelligence and youth. She was above the height of an average woman, but still not quite tall enough to rival him. And yet, for all of her mind and beauty, she was a rather shy individual; for all her kindness and good nature, he could sense a dark aura within her; an aura which enticed him. She had no idea of the effect she had on him. All of her alluring charms passing undetectably through him. She created a current of energy which left a hazy swirl of the lightest and darkest shades of color in his mind's eye. Her milky complexion left a tepid fervor of perspiration on his brow, even though he could feel no heat nor chill. She made him feel alive.

His eyes traveled over her, taking all of her in, relishing in the thrill that crept up his spine. His stare rose fear within him. Perhaps he had allowed his carefully premeditated precision stray too far into his interest. He hardly dared to look; apprehensive that a mere touch would shatter the delightful enchantment he had lain for himself. But for all his rigid control, he could not stay his roving eye.

Her choice of attire this evening accented her lithe body and he could feel the recurring emotion stir in him again, raising the hairs on the back on his neck. She was dressed entirely in a black, lace gown; her hair which was usually bound behind her head fell free to the extent of her shoulder blades. She had also chosen to adorn a few trinkets and even a light mask of cosmetic's, gently enhancing the beauty which was already present. She intrigued him. It appeared she had taken a profound interest in him as well as her gaze met his and held it. She smiled warmly at him and he found he longed to return the endearment but found he could not.

As the last of the students left, she remained behind. He drew a sharp breath-they were to be alone together. This was at once a joyous happenstance but it also presented a dangerous circumstance. He felt great ecstasy in her presence, but feared he would be unable to control dining on the rich draft of life-blood which ran through her veins.

She approached him and he could sense the pulse of her heartbeat quicken slightly. Then it was in truth; she held an interest in him and it was not unwelcome.

He smiled up at her, leaning back nonchalantly in his chair; the pleasant sound of creaking leather rose above them as an amiable advocate of dialogue.

"May I ask of the occasion?" He gestured at her attire and she glanced over herself unconsciously. Her smile became saddened.

"Ah well, it is the anniversary of my father's passing." Her soft, medium toned voice like that of the patter of rain on glass fell sweetly into his ears. The intonation sent a pleasant sensation to prickle the fine hairs on the back of his neck. It took a brief moment for him to comprehend her statement.

"I am sorry to hear that." And he truly felt a remorse for her like he never had for any other human being. She nodded silently, accepting his sentiments. She drew a breath, her eyes falling uncharacteristically to the floor and her hands clasping shyly behind her back, and he knew an inquiry was close as hand. Her striking eyes traveled over him and he soon knew the question as well and he was already inventing an excuse.

"I could not help but wonder if you are all right," an anxious undertone laced her voice, "it seems you are dismissing classes earlier and more often than not of late."

He sighed an affirmative, running his hand through short ebony hair which had begun to streak with grey; a betrayal of his true age. "I have found it difficult to focus."

As he said it, another convulsion of hunger seized him. He sat up quickly, gripping the arms of his chair with clawed hands. A panic rose in his breast as quickly as the hunger had risen in his body. He fought it viciously; deigning that he may delay his hunger and not lose his poise before the young woman. Just before he thought all control had been lost, the fit subsided and he slumped back into his chair, his composure returning with agonizingly slow languor. Her eyes flickered over him quickly, heart fluttering. Excitement welled in him at the young heart that beat with innocence and life, until another apprehension dawned on him. This young woman was perhaps the most perceptive and insightful he had ever met in his years of life. She could puzzle out an equation at such a velocity that he, himself, had difficulty keeping in step with her computations.

"Something is the matter." She spoke. Fear had crept into her voice. Alarm for her welfare or for his wellbeing? "Will you not tell me?"

He settled in his chair with uncomfortable grace, sighing and closing his eyes as he went.

"I am afraid I cannot."

Her eyes pierced through his gaze in near indignant challenge; as if the gaze would crack him of his nerve and he would concede to her whims. When no obvious nor subtle indication of the intended rupture came, she resigned to another subject of conversation. She turned her gaze to look elsewhere as she bit her lower lip.

"Perhaps we could, that is, you and I visit a café and chat over a cup of tea?" Her heart quickened at the intimation and his hunger leapt within him again uncontrollably-twisting, maddening, contortions of inhuman necessity. He strived desperately to banish the gnawing awareness but it was not to be perturbed so easily. He stood quickly, chair falling over with a shocking crash as it collided with the floor; his finger-nails growing in length as he clawed at the desk to remain in command. It was a futile battle. A single ant would have had more success in battling a goliath beetle, than he with his hunger.

"Saebrielle, please go." A note of plead had entered his voice and he spited himself for it. The young woman took a hesitant step away from the bureau. He had frightened her, he knew, but she was not to be turned aside so easily. The action provoked a sudden determination within her, he could sense it undeniably, and it rose to contour her features as she stood firm on her defiance. She crossed her arms before her, pencil-thin eyebrows slanting into a frown.

"No. I.I have been concerned for you Professor Vanesh, and I am not leaving until you tell me what is the matter."

Vanesh made an audible hiss through clenched teeth.

"You foolish girl, this is no time for your cheek. I am trying to protect you-" he struggled with another eruption of the searing sensation; he could feel his canines elongating in his mouth, the eye teeth unsheathing from their uncomfortably snug homes. His irises became that of vermillion; a red so dark it was nearly indiscernible to the black of his pupils.

"Protect me from what?" her voice betrayed a twinge of fear and she gasped suddenly, frozen in place like a deer in the headlights. Her eyes went wide as he faced her, but she could do naught but that. She had not been granted even so much as the scream which had become caught in her throat. He smiled, exposing the horrific fangs which should have only been that of horror fictions, and his remarkably vivid eyes openly ravished her body.

"Protect you from myself, I am afraid." He chuckled pleasantly. "But now I see that I have your full attention, I would not mind a feasting. It has been so long since my last." He closed the gap between them and appeared before her within the instant. "You have long managed to hold my interest, my dear." He began to pace around her like a predator teasing its prey for its own cruel amusement. "But now I feel I cannot control this need." he reached out and brushed a lock of hair which had strayed to her face and tucked it gently behind her ear. The action revealed the column of white skin of her neck. The same hand traveled down her cheek, over her neck, around the curve of her breast, and came at last to rest of her slender waist. As he did so, Vanesh circled behind her, raising his other hand and drawing the sharp nails across her neck. Oh, not pressing quite firm enough to draw blood, much as he wanted it. The caress rose dimples all across her skin and she exhaled a shuddering breath, relenting to close her terrified eyes for an instant. He could feel them genuflecting beneath their lids; her horror furnishing a pleasing tang of sweet premonition in his mouth. She tilted, attempting in a frivolous escape; his will sent her careening right back.

It surprised him how well she resisted him. Never quite enough to escape his crushing will entirely, but the strength of her spirit vainly trying to overthrow his power enthralled him. The aura he had sensed from her since the start of the semester must be something special indeed to defy an undead. She never ceased to fascinate him. An overwhelming temptation for her rose in him like a suffocating fever.

"Saebrielle" he sighed huskily onto her neck, arising another wave of dimples on her skin. He deftly inhaled the fragrance from her hair, mixing in stark contrast but curiously fragrant aroma, with her fear. Her lips parted to ease her labored breath; each shallow pant passing more quickly than the last as he drew her body tightly against his in need to suppress this yearning ambiance. Fear had claimed her, as he his hunger.

He firmly took hold of the base of her skull and tilted her head to one side. His lips parted as he gently kissed the wildly beating pulse in her neck. He would savor this moment for eons to come. His lips curled back, fangs poised to strike when her voice fell softly from her exposed throat.

"Please," she sobbed, "don't do this."

A solitary tear slid down her cheek. He paused in his strike, lips falling back into place. How could she possibly speak? He had had complete control over her ever since he had stood from his chair. No. No one would deny him of her, all the others of his kin had wives; he had been left alone for far too long. She was to become his intended.

A pang of sorrow seared through his dead heart; he had never given her the choice, just as he had never been given the choice of this life; enslaved to serve the overlord. His thoughts dwindled to that of primeval hatred of the existence that had been forced upon him and his attentions fell upon the woman who stood with her shoulder-blades against his torso, her back arching in resistance to him; straining to be free. She did not realize it, he thought, he was going to give her a most rare gift: to live as an immortal, he with her, and she with him; for ever and an eternity. They would love each other-until true death do they part.

"You will be mine and nothing is to stop me." He hissed scathingly, fangs striking out and singing home in Saebrielle's neck. A cry of pain filled the air, but Vanesh's ears were closed to everything except the beat of Saebrielle's heart. Her wildly beating heart had spilled more than he could consume and a portion of the crimson liquid streamed down her neck and onto her chest to stain her black gown. The beat faltered and slowed as she moaned and slumped against him, collapsing from the grasp of life and into the open arms of death. Her weight was nothing to him and he held her firmly to him with supernatural strength. This was the most deadly portion of the affair; he had to summon her from death, back into her body but resisting life insomuch that she could be unbound from both of the sublimations.

He entered death, searching hurriedly for her spirit among the millions that floated listlessly in the nothingness. She would be closest to the gateway to life; his red-eyes flickered over the souls until he had found hers at last. With a tremendous effort, he defied the longing tendrils of death and propelled himself through the oblivion until he reached her spirit. He swiftly cut a small shard from the spirit with sharpened claws where a heart would have been found on a spirit, but it bucked with the action. The motion surprised him; this was a most peculiar reaction for a spirit-form. It parted what may have been a supposed mouth and shrieked a soundless scream. He hastily thrust the spirit from himself and retreated with the prize. The spirit itself, would be left to wither in death until Saebrielle had completely passed into the gates; but he would not allow that to happen for many, many a century to come.

Vanesh reentered life, tenderly placing the shard in her dead heart with his will. In the next moments that it took for her to become undead, he surveyed his bride whom he held in his arms as if they were frozen in the dip of the tango; her head thrust back as if in bliss and he leaning languidly over her. She was so very beautiful, even in her death. A jolt of pleasure surged through him at the knowledge that she was forever his and his alone.

She inhaled suddenly, gasping the air, fighting for life; her breasts rising steadily with the motion. She exhaled, her eyes opening. Saebrielle gazed up at him with piercing crystal blue eyes. Her lips parted with a shudder of chill which spilled over him and rendered him immobile. Elongated eye teeth peeked out of her lips as she moved silkily from his grasp and clasped his hand in both of hers, kissing it gently.

"My lord." She hissed; her voice deep in her throat, a musical resonance in his ears. Vanesh closed his eyes and tilted forward, capturing both of her lips within his own. She returned the kiss with a ferocity he would never have deemed her capable of. He could not get enough of her, he wanted her now; he would take her this instant! Vanesh forced Saebrielle backward until a wall stood behind her. He pressed her against the cold stone, grinding his hips fiercely into hers. A soft whine emitted from her throat. His lips slid from the corner of her mouth and down her cheek to slip finally onto the spilled blood of her neck; the sweet nectar which had quelled his hunger and bound Saebrielle eternally to him.

An exclamation of pleasure escaped her mouth as he nipped the skin beneath her elegantly curved collarbone.

"Sweetest perfection." he murmured, breath fanning over her skin. She chortled softly. "What is it, my love?" Vanesh inquired, barely able to draw away from her tantalizing skin to gaze into her hauntingly luminous eyes. A delicate smile curled the edges of her lips.

"I have died on the same day as my father." She shook her head softly. Vanesh was, for the first time in his years of life as an undead, unsure of how to respond to such an observation. "How ironic." She sighed and drew close to him, placing an open-mouthed kiss on his jaw. She could feel him tremble in anticipation, but perhaps she would toy with him a little- Vanesh, however, would not allow her. His irresistible will tugged at her and forced her to mimic her first kiss to him. He chuckled, a pleasant rumble in his throat.

"Sweetest perfection."

Fini

A/N: I suppose I have always been a romantic about vampires (a girl can dream;) and I could not resist writing something about them, but I didn't want it in a usual setting or a time long past. So why not a college setting? It's new, it's not cliché, and it's just as sensual (I hope!). Never underestimate the power of the darker side of man.
At any rate, I hope everyone likes!
Please review!

Blackfire 18