Vampires of Noctra(28)
unusual activity. Donté turned his full attention to Skye. Even after four weeks on his ship, the man was still an enigma. And even after fucking
him, he wanted him more than he had at the beginning.
"I guess I'm learning from you."
Donté studied him in the darkness, his eyes well accustomed to seeing quite clearly on the blackest of nights. Skye was so blond, so flush with
life, and so much an opposite to Donté.
Skye turned his face to the stars and Donté's attention fastened on Skye's throat. Donté's newest lover had now been on board the Night Stalker
for a month and still Donté had not fed from him. He bore no scars from the vampire's hunger.
"Do you still plan to join my crew? There's still time to leave. I can set you loose in one of the rowboats with enough food to last you until you're
picked up."
"Well, that would be better than when you found me." He looked at Donté. The vampire couldn't read his thoughts nor gain a sense of his
emotions. He still blocked them quite efficiently. If he'd fed from him it would be a different matter. But there was not that connection between
vampire and supplicant.
Donté held back from forcing the issue. He didn't quite understand why, but there was a purity in the relationship with Skye that he didn't want
tainted. Sometimes he didn't know if it was love or hate, or some odd mixture of the two. But to feed from him would change the relationship in a
way he didn't want to happen. At least not yet. Maybe it was the anticipation of what was yet to come. It heightened the sexual aspects of the
relationship somehow.
Skye crossed the space between them and lifted a hand to Donté's face. They were almost the same height, and tonight Skye's eyes appeared black
and bottomless, reflecting the night.
"Your coldness isn't like the others. I don't know why I'm so drawn to you." He learned forward and kissed Donté. It wasn't a kiss of possession
and domination as often was the case when the two of them came together in sexual battle. It was softer, more intimate. More soul-destroying.
Donté leaned into it. But then Skye ended the kiss all too quickly.
"I'll stay," he said. "Until I leave. Or until I die. One or the other."
"You're a fool to come with me, you know that. I may not be able to convince the others of my kind to leave you unscathed. I won't claim you as
supplicant, but I can't guarantee the others will honor my decision."
"I've offered myself to you and you've refused."
He stroked Skye's beautiful braided blond hair. The face and body of an angel. The mind of a warrior. He didn't belong in Donté's world. But Donté
couldn't bear to let him go.
"I have my reasons. Someday, maybe I'll share them with you." He again claimed Skye's mouth, sucking hungrily at his lips before releasing him.
"How did you become vampire? Who made you?"
Donté hated thinking about the past. There was no purpose in it. Not now.
"I met Savoir on Tortuga, or Turtle Island as you may be familiar with it."
"I thought you were in St. Domingue."
This was the part he didn't want to think about. "There was a slave rebellion on my uncle's plantation. I don't want to go into all the details, but
suffice it to say that Joshua cared enough to warn me and get me off the island. I ended up on Tortuga. That's where I met my sire. Where I was
turned."
He didn't want to remember how he and Sterling had returned to the plantation years later to kill the remaining zombies, including his uncle and two
cousins. It was then he'd discovered the truth about Sterling. And allowed himself to be turned after the horror of the massacre in order to find
Zoliel and have his revenge. That desire had turned into so much more than he'd expected.
"And you became a pirate."
"Yes. I became a pirate. It was on one trip when we were looking for the witch doctor that Sterling and I discovered Noctra by accident. It was
during a storm and we thought we were lost, but then the island just seemed to appear out of nowhere. It's since been settled by others of our
kind--Carrib vampires."
"Carrib? As opposed to?"
"Mainland or continent vampires. The ones you are familiar with."
"There's a difference? That I find hard to believe."
Donté smiled. "Would you care, even if you did know there was a difference? There are English and Spanish, humans of many cultures. You don't
think vampires carry some of the flavor of their cultures? That there might be differences?"
"I never thought about it, I guess."
"You assume we are all the same. Maybe you'll discover you can be wrong."
"That I doubt. Vampires kill with no care or concern. They all need to be staked out and beheaded."