From: Karin Welss Subject: Between the Scenes (1/1) I'm posting this Miklos story for a friend who wishes to remain anonymous... please direct any comments to me & I'll pass 'em on. :-) -- kw ------------------------- This story is an interlude to the events in "A Fate Worse Than Death." WARNING: PG-13 Contains some sexual material. BETWEEN THE SCENES Sunset. Miklos Savran opened the big steel shutter over the black-painted front window of the Raven, letting in a sliver of light from the dusk-dimmed street outside, and started taking down chairs and putting out fresh coasters and matchbooks. The quiet hours from now until opening were like a leisurely breakfast, a time to fortify himself with silence against the coming onslaught of noise and gathered bodies, thirsty customers both vampire and human clamoring for his attention -- and God help them all if he gave one the liquid sustenance intended for another. He checked himself in the mirror over the bar. The charcoal and black brocade of his vest concealed his inhumanly thin frame, the deep V of its front emphasizing his slender neck, framed by the ironed white cotton of his shirt. He reknotted the narrow black ascot higher, pulling the collar of the shirt tantalizingly closed, savoring the feel of the black silk sliding against his neck as he adjusted it. He saw the front door opening in the mirror first, turned as Janette entered, wrapped in her dark cloak. The sun had been down only minutes. Where had she been? Janette saw Miklos' curious eyes on her, but she said nothing, merely moved past him to the bar. She dropped the cape in one sinuous movement, laying bare ivory shoulders framed by the red velvet of her newest fashion creation. She leaned over the bar for a bottle, knowing from a thousand years' experience that Miklos' gaze was wandering over her stretched body, putting from his mind any questions he was thinking of asking. But when she turned to face him, his liquid black eyes were locked on her clear grey ones, with no hint that they had strayed. "Where were you?" he asked, his unique accent making a poem of the three words. "Out." She poured herself a glass. It was an act of willpower to keep her hand from shaking, to keep from drinking straight from the bottle, letting the soothing liquid dribble over her. She would never be seen like that -- not by Miklos, not by anyone. But she knew he saw the tensing in her smooth shoulders that betrayed the struggle. Miklos' gaze caught on the red blisters along her forearms where the cloak had failed to cover her. Only one thing would draw her out into the sun and send her back in this state: "What did Nick say?" "I don't want to discuss it." She drained her glass, and Miklos lifted the bottle before she could reach for it, filled her goblet expertly. Born to greater things than bartending, he was nevertheless a man who did anything well, even this. Janette took the glass in hand and started toward the back. "If he comes in, tell him I've gone out. You're in charge." Miklos stepped in front of her. He was her junior by many centuries, yet there was an ancient power in him, the legacy of a long line of Hungarian princes. His hand caught her arm and gently touched the fading blister, his cool skin like an ice cube, soothing the burn. "Is he worth it?" he asked softly. "You know how it is in familiies," she answered, not pulling her arm away. "He's thoughtless as a child, but..." "But he still loves you," Miklos finished. Janette looked up at him in surprise. "Yes," she answered, with a sureness she hadn't felt in a hundred years, "Yes." Miklos bowed his head in mute acceptance. He released her arm and started to turn away, to turn back to his bar prep, long dark curls falling into his eyes, obscuring whatever was lurking there. Janette grabbed him by the edge of his vest and turned him back to face her. He said nothing, merely brushed a stray fallen lock away from the curve of her neck, and then he leaned toward her. She felt the tiny exploratory nip, and then the explosion of sensation along every vein, every artery. She lifted up onto tiptoe, her hands clenching on his upper arms in a grip that would have crushed bone on a normal man, and sank her teeth into the exposed side of his neck. Some say blood tastes of rusted iron, but that's a human notion -- they have so little sensitivity to nuance. LaCroix had always tasted of cinammon and tobacco and, when he chose, the thick sweetness of apricots; Nicholas of clear spring water, cold as moonlit snow; Miklos had the tang of wet earth, richer and darker, a smooth blend of mahogany and leather, clogging her senses with the smell of the grave, sweetened and lightened by her own honeyed blood as it come rising back through him, so that their joining had the warm and smoky taste of good whiskey. They stayed like that a long moment, a single circuit, the fluid of life passing from one to the other in its ancient dance. Then Miklos' hand moved to the gold strap over her shoulder and found the bat-shaped clip with the edge of the red velvet bodice in its teeth. The chill touch of his fingertips slid over her breast, making her shiver, and then his slender fingers closed on the clamp, taking control. A lifetime of memories made Janette pull back suddenly, breaking the connection. Her hand clamped over the tiny tear in her neck where she had ripped it from him, the interrupted flow continuing between her fingers. Miklos said nothing, just reached for a clean bar cloth. Ignoring the flow on his own neck, he tugged her hand gently away from the leaking bite and wiped her fingers one by one, with care that was half-parental, half-sensual. Janette felt her pulse quicken against her will as his hands brushed the delicate webbing between her fingers; the added heartbeat caused the two tiny punctures at her carotid to flow anew, and Miklos brushed the bar cloth gently as a feather across them. Janette looked up at him, his black eyes in his pale face gazing down at her without reproach, without demand. The twin trickles of blood -- his blood, her blood, both -- on his neck had reached his usually immaculate white collar and left a half-circle of red; he ignored it, his attention locked on her. "Placetna, Magistra?" If it pleased her, he would be ruled by her. She waited a moment, taking in his tall form bowed before her, strength in submission. With one hand she held him by the wrists, trapping his hands between their bodies; with the other she tore away the thin black silk ascot that protected him, tugging the bloodstained shirt collar from the elegant curve of his neck. Bending her mouth to the soft exposed flesh just above his collarbone, she was met with his exquisite tortured gasp as her fangs sank into the sweet untouched skin. She gasped herself as he returned the embrace, burying herself in honey and earth, the cool brown taste of the grave. Content now to rule. The End