Entre l'Amour et la Mort, Chapter 25, part 2

[sav8801]

It took an unexpectedly long time for Ivy to come back, so long in fact that I began to wonder whether I should get up and go look for her by the time she finally showed back up, a pleasantly exasperated look on her face.

"She will never know how close she came to getting tossed in the trash..." Ivy sighed as she walked in, her eyes brightening as she got me back in her sight. "Or how happy I am she can annoy me enough to consider dumping her in there again."

"You really did that once?" I asked, giving her a semi-reproachful look. Despite myself, I did find their sisterly antics kinda funny.

"Don't give me that look. It wasn't a spur of the moment thing, it was a carefully planned revenge. It's not like I tossed her down a garbage chute, and I made sure there was something soft enough to pad her in first. I'm not sure she saw it as a real kindness, though. I still remember the smell. God, mom wanted my ass on a plate when we fished her out. It would have been interesting to see if she still fits, though. I think she really was five the last time." She added with a nostalgic smile.

"Oh, God, and here I thought Robbie and I were bad..." I chuckled quietly. "The two of you are terrible."

"I know. What can I say, I didn't take kindly to my lipstick being used as crayons back in those days."

"As opposed to now? Are you going to toss me headfirst in the nearest trash container if I use your makeup to draw?"

"It's all a matter of context. If you absolutely need it to, I don't know, lay down a circle to save our hides, of course I won't mind. If you use my lipstick eleven times in a row, to draw stick figures on the back of a cereal box like she did, though, I think I'll have other things on my mind than throwing you in the trash... like backing out of the room slowly." She smirked at me and sashayed closer, but as the space between us lessened so did the swaying of her perfect hips and the intensity of her sexual aura. She was cool as a cucumber by the time she sat down next to me, at the other end of the couch, her efforts to keep space between us and keep her hands (and fangs) to herself obvious. Her eyes were still roaming my body, though, and her eyes showed enough black to betray how ravenous what she saw made her. Swell...

"You didn't hold the thought, did you?" She framed it as a question, but it was really more of an observation.

"No, I didn't." I confirmed apologetically after a moment of chewing my lip. "It's not that I'm blaming you our anything because I pretty much asked for it, but... I wasn't really ready to go there, Ivy. Not yet."

"I figured as much." She sighed, looking a little disappointed about it as she reached for the wine to console herself. "Well, the little taste was fun at least. It would be wiser if I kept a little distance for now, though." She added when I reached for her to stroke her back.

"I didn't want to lead you on like that. And yes, it was." I grinned wickedly, because I it had been and she deserved to know I enjoyed it. My answer to her offer of a blood tryst was 'not yet', and I meant 'not yet', not 'never in a million years'. If things between us kept progressing, I knew sooner or later Ivy would get to taste my blood again. "I still don't see why it should mean you have to stay all the way over there, you know." I invited her, crooking my finger at her with obvious enticement. Perking up, the vampire shimmied over to my side of the large couch, looking like sex personified even if she moved like some kind of invertebrate, and straddled my lap with boneless grace, her long legs settling on either side of me and her arms slinking around my neck. I inhaled sharply at my new helplessness, but the feeling of unease was mixed with more than a little excitement. Okay, so I was used to being the one doing what she was doing, and from this angle Ivy didn't exactly look harmless, but the very nice view of her cleavage and the way her whole body was within easy reach convinced me I should try and work the position.

"You want to 'keep me company' some more, don't you?" Ivy tilted her head curiously and asked in a smouldering tone, her eyes going black and smoky. Feeling smarmy, I thoughtfully lifted my gaze to the ceiling, as if I had to ponder my answer, smirking mischievously.

"Bah, not you in particular. I'll be happy with just your mouth, actually." I sassed her, grinning from ear to ear when a cute pout bent her lips, making her plump lower one look eminently kissable.

"I'm afraid they only come in a package deal, Dear Heart." Ivy pulled back when I tried to go for her scrumptious mouth again, keeping it ju-u-ust out of my reach. "You need to buy the whole thing."

"Aw, you mean I absolutely have to get this too?" I clucked my tongue and asked, putting my arms around her and taking her godly butt in hand. Firmly, I kneaded it through her soft dress pants, then trailed my fingers upward over her sides, until my hands were on her ribcage and I could brush my thumbs against the underside of her breast, making the vampire hiss in pleasure all throughout. "And this? What a bummer." I nuzzled her cleavage and sighed dramatically, moving one hand a little higher and to the side, to trace the contour of her small, perfectly shaped boob. "Okay, then. I think I can work this, if I really have to." I sighed dramatically. Keeping the farce going was getting more difficult by the second (godly butt and chest, I tell you), especially with the vampire's face so close to mine, her every reaction so raw and clear it almost felt like I was touching myself. Unable to resist, I squarely palmed the sinful weight of her breast and fervently captured her lips, kissing my favourite vampire deeply, wisely keeping my tongue away from her fangs this time around. I was not getting entangled that way again tonight, but that precaution didn't stop me from singing "Rachel and Ivy sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G" in my head with goofy giddiness, a mood my gorgeous vamp hottie quickly picked up on.

"I'm glad you're looking so much better, let me tell you." Ivy purred in my ear during the brief pause she granted me between two kisses to gulp in some much needed air. "As fun as it was to play doctor with you, I like you a lot better healthy and naughty. Sick and depressed was not a good look for you."

"I'm not, most of the time." I panted in reply, smiling wryly as the vampire's suckling lips delightfully sealed around my earlobe. "Give the sun a few hours to rise, though, and you'll feel like you're making out with roadkill again."

"I never... What?" Ivy frowned in concern at my self-derisive joke, the grip of her hands framing my face becoming firmer and gently pulling me away so she could take a closer look at me. "What do you mean?"

Shit, I forgot poor health turns her off... I mentally kicked myself at the sight of the thickening rim of brown surrounding her fiery black pupils, a small part of me unable to believe we'd reached a point where that was a phenomenon I'd be unhappy to see.

"I'm not even sure, to tell you the truth. Ever since... that day..." I paused with a shudder, remembering the fateful night Ivy died and Nathalie bit me, my body rebelling against the memory of the vampire's venom flooding my veins, of my every sensations becoming one of torturous agony, my every emotions turning into despair so deep even death would offer no refuge from it...

"Sorry. It's nothing, I shouldn't have mentioned it." I apologised as I shuddered hard and snapped out of it. The moment had passed, but it was too late. The naughty mood had broken just as surely as when Erica woke up. Ivy's look of concern deepened as she dismounted me, and a little bird told me I wouldn't get to keep her mouth company again, if at all, until I gave mother hen the rundown of my condition. "I've been getting sick in the morning ever since Nathalie bit me." I admitted, grumpily letting go of her, the cut on my pouting lips pulsing mildly painfully in protest at being separated from Ivy's.

"How sick?" Ivy inquired in a voice that suffered no question, her eyes focused so sharply on me it felt like she was using her gaze like a scalpel to dissect me. "Your body temperature's normal, your heart and breathing sound fine, your blood tastes the same as I remember and I can't smell anything off about you. I don't understand. What's wrong, what are your symptoms?"

"Nausea, dizziness, headaches, fatigue, soreness. I need shades whenever I go outside during the day, too, or my eyes water too much to let me see anything." I enumerated them dully, staring into my wineglass. I had pushed them out of my mind while we were making out, and in the wake of that lovely experience, being reminded of what would hail my body in a few short hours was doubly unpleasant. "Feels like the flu, I'd say, just with a day-night cycle that turns it on and off. It's peachy, I tell you, but I doubt it'll kill me. There. Can you get back here now?" I finished dismissively in a single, hurried breath, took a small gulp of wine and turned my body back towards the vampire while fidgeting with the high collar of my shirt, hopefully sending the clear message I wanted to go back to our earlier activities rather than dwell on my strange affliction.

"So it's actual daylight that's causing the problem? No symptoms during the night?" Ivy reasoned, not taking the hint I wanted her mouth back on mine, not moving wordlessly as she ran down hypothesises in her head. "Huh."

"'Huh', what? Does that sound familiar?" I asked. Somehow I got the feeling she'd done more than just rule out afternoon sickness as a possible cause of my mysterious ailments, as much of a relief as it was to know I wasn't pregnant with Marshall's baby. He was the last guy I had sex with after all, but I could've told you that wasn't the case myself. I'd worn a contraception amulet that night, along with other protections. I'm ditzy, and I'll be the first to admit it, but not when it comes to that aspect of safe sex. My sex life will leave me bleeding out on the floor or extra-crispy from a surge of ley line energy long before it knocks me up, and now that I think about it, that's a blessing in disguise. I mean, God help the child stuck with me as a mom...

"It might if you could... No. You can't be..." Ivy muttered, obviously confused by whatever new idea had cropped up in her usually incredible mind.

"What's impossible?" I pressed her worriedly, the air on her face making me uneasy. Ivy was the vampire, and a vamp had afflicted me with... whatever this was; she had some clue what was wrong with me, and it freaked her out, despite her usual placid demeanour.

"Well, off the top of my head, there's something other than the flu those are symptoms of. It would beg the question how you could be suffering from light sickness, though."

"Light sickness?" I exclaimed in a strangled voice. "But that..."

"Only affects undead vampires?" Ivy completed for me. "I know. It's undeniable how well it fits, though."

"No way! I mean, don't you think I'd notice if I suddenly turned into a vamp? I'm a witch... well, mostly a witch, anyway... That's not even possible!" I blurted out, the ludicrous idea that my strange affliction was the same that affected vampires suffering from less-than-lethal exposure to sunlight stealing away what eloquence I had.

"That's what baffles me. If witches could be turned vampire, well you wouldn't have needed Nathalie's intervention. I would have been teaching you to drink blood a few days after your demon attacked you two years ago." I must admit that the way she said that mildly crept me out, and not strictly because I really didn't want to be a vampire; under the concern and puzzlement, I could tell that the thought of little old me as her personal lily-white red-headed blood-drinker shall we say, intrigued Ivy.

"Not to mention that if that if you truly suffered from light sickness, unless you slept in my room for the past weeks, it would have been fatal rather than unpleasant. Your flimsy little curtains wouldn't block out enough sunlight to let you survive the day..." The vampire thought out loud.

"So you have no idea how that's possible?" I asked, completely dismayed. "But... you're the vamp. You gotta have some clue. I mean, don't you have all the same parts as Nathalie?"

"Not really. Rachel, you have to understand how different Nathalie is from most vampires out there. The woman is in a league of her own. Her master was created by one of the last Firstborns. In case you don't know, they're the monstrous original vampires everyone who knows of their existence pray went extinct long ago. There may be a few of us more ancient than she is, but out of all vampires living in the open, she's the closest to them, only two steps removed from those monsters. She gave me a nice boost when she helped me cross over, but I'm nowhere near as strong as she is."

"Crap on toast..." I muttered, staring into my wineglass and cursing the impending drive home. Don't drink and drive, kids... only I sure felt like drowning my worries all of a sudden. Crippling diseases and I have a history, a none too pleasant one at that. Light sickness could quickly turn debilitating.

"I know someone who might be able to help." Ivy offered with an appeasing brush of the back of her hand against my cheek. "Someone who's been with Nathalie long enough to make sense of what she did to you."

"You mean Angel?" It didn't take me long to figure out whom she meant, but I clearly surprised her by saying the elven scion's name. "I know Nathalie loaned her to you."

"Ah. So you've met my new magical friend. That sneaky little elf..." Ivy said, referring to that locator charm that allowed her to track down Erica. I knew she hadn't gone to someone reputable for that grey charm... but it was the fondness she displayed that made my eyebrows scrunch up. "What? Can you blame me for taking advantage of such a gift? She helped me gain a lot of ground, and to do so much more smoothly than I would have managed otherwise." Ivy defended herself, (perhaps wilfully) mistaking the reason why I was looking at her sideways.

"You sound... fond of her." I asked, my voice nearly a growl. Angel was gorgeous, powerful and had centuries of experience on me, no doubt with both genders (what, you don't think a few hundred years is a long time to grow curious?). Maybe I was jumping to conclusions, but half the time I had no clue why Ivy lusted after me so; I sure as hell didn't need that kind of competition.

"Well, a beautiful elf with a list of deadly skills longer than your arm and a willingness to do whatever I ask of her without question... why wouldn't I be fond of her?" Okay, she has to be leading me on. Not even I'm that oblivious... I thought as I nearly started foaming at the mouth from her admiring observations and that airy question.

"Aww, that's so sweet. Are you jealous by any chance, Dear Heart?" She asked me, her voice all petulance and sugary sweetness. My scowl deepened and I grunted something inarticulate but somewhat affirmative in response, which made the vampire giggle and reach for me despite the impersonation of a rabid dog whose favourite bones got stolen I was pulling. "So very poetic, that you're the one getting worked up over someone looking at me for once... Oh, Rachel, there's no need for that. I didn't sleep with Angel, I never even gave the idea serious thought. You know I only have eyes for you, my lovely little witch. At any rate..." she continued good-naturedly while I slouched away from an attempted kiss. I kept trying to pout but I was unable to stop my lips from quirking a bit at the tender attraction in Ivy's eyes, which she had no qualm backing up with a pacifying hand on my knee despite my averting the kiss, inching it up just enough towards my thigh to make my heart rate pick up. "I'm hoping she can tell us more about Nathalie's abilities, and the effects of that venom of hers. If she can provide you with treatment, I'll have her tell me what's needed, and you'll be fine."

"With my luck, I've got some kind of vampire cancer no one's ever even heard of." I scoffed. "I'm so screwed, aren't I? I'm going to spend the rest of my life pale as white linen because I want to puke my guts out whenever it's sunny out. Huh, n-no offense, I gu-guess you're even more diurnally challenged than I am nowadays... please stop looking at me like that." The vampire's mood flipped right on its head. Glowering, she gave me a dark look and a slight bemused smile that made me shiver. Sheepishly, I righted myself to plant a little apologetic kiss on the barely quirked corner of her mouth. "Sorry." I mouthed almost wordlessly, yelping when Ivy's hand snaked around to the back of my neck and crushed my mouth back to hers for a hungrier and much deeper kiss. I melted into her, happily letting the peeved vamp take the slight out of my hide, at least until I gasped in surprise when her hand none too delicately found its way beneath my shirt.

"What are you- whoa!" I protested breathlessly and clutched at her cool exploring hand through the fabric of my clothes, purely out of reflex and embarrassment because even though it was a bit rough, her sudden assertiveness turned me on. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Cool off there! Not that this isn't sorta nice, but what do you think you're doing? I don't mind if you look, but I don't remember saying you could touch."

"It's the rule, honey." Ivy purred at me, for now indulging my meagre defence. We both knew what would happen if she wanted that boob-grab bad enough. "You burn me about my intolerance to sunlight, I get to touch your breasts." I almost snorted at the silliness of that statement, but the dead seriousness with which Ivy said it gave me pause. Her hair wasn't the only thing she could grow fast; her perfectly manicured fingernails were now wickedly long and sharp, and if she took offence, well, I doubted she would hesitate to use them on those pink little buds they were closing in on...

"I don't remember agreeing to that particular rule. When did that come to pass? I think I missed the meeting." I played along, partly because of that, partly because very few things that resulted in Ivy touching me were bad in my book.

"It's been in effect ever since we started sleeping together and you've decided to be tactless. I do happen to miss the sun, you know." She stated, not sounding all that hurt to tell you the truth. Impatiently, the vampire wiggled her hand in my grasp, forcing me to tighten it to keep her from proceeding further.

"And what about the flipside of that arrangement? Under which circumstances do I get to cop a feel, worry free?"

"If I ever happen to be tactless about your demon heritage, of course." Ivy responded like that was the most obvious thing in the world. "You can feel free to grope me wherever you want, if I ever burn you about children or demon smut."

"So basically never?" I panted whiningly, Ivy having decided she wanted to enforce her silly rule now. Her hand slipped beneath my bra, covering one of my small, unimpressive breasts and giving it a nice, firm squeeze. "Like you'd ever slip up about that..."

"Your problem, not mine." Ivy shot back before roughly shifting our bodies to the side and trapping me between her and the back of the couch. "Now be pretty, be quiet and let me get my reparations."

"That was so demean- ah!" I gasped, instantly forgetting to be offended when she gave my stiffening nipple a hard tweak with the nail of her thumb.

"Pretty and quiet." She admonished me strictly. "You're only doing one of those right."

"Would it kill you to pay me a compliment that's not freaking backw-OW!" I asked rhetorically, only for Ivy to respond with another hard tweak. "Goddamnit, Ivy, those are attached! If they're starting to peel off, you're doing it wrong! Watch it or let go!" I warned her and instantly Ivy's rough insistence died down... or rather, she focused it elsewhere, her thumb twirling on the stiff peak of my breast becoming smooth and at least careful enough to make my head spin. Forcefully, the vampire pressed her lips to mine to swallow my pleasured cry, and swung one of her legs over mine, pressing herself closer to leave me nowhere to pull away... not that I'm sure I would have if I could. All of a sudden, I wasn't sure just how far Ivy was intending to go, but part of me sure felt curious to find out since it was clearly my body she was zeroing in on, and not the blood in my veins. My skirt was hiked up so high I was pretty sure the rational part of my brain would die of embarrassment if someone walked in on us now...

Crap, where does she think she's going with that leg? I thought deliriously as it slipped between both of mine, nearing very sensitive parts of my anatomy. I have to admit I liked the idea, but if we were going there, I wanted a door that locked and a real bed, at the very least. Couches are great in a pinch, but having sex on them twice in a row was getting ridiculous.

"Maybe we should follow Erica's suggestion and take this to your room?" I managed to pull my mouth away long enough to suggest breathlessly, quivering for mutual nakedness, to feel the vampire's heavenly skin on mine again. I yearned for her mouth to have more to explore than my face and the patch of skin she could reach on my neck, for her fingers to touch me directly, not through the material of my shirt. I wanted... I needed to have her again (well, maybe 'be had by her' would be more accurate), now, today, and I didn't care if we did it in her parents' house. They'd sure given me a show earlier, and besides, vamps are supposed to be open about sexuality, yes? We were just going to be VERY open, is all.

"So you do want to spend the day, Dear Heart?" Ivy thoughtfully ran a long tapered finger down the bridge of my nose, over my kiss-swollen lips and my chin then back up along the line of my jaw to the back of my ear. Using her fingernail she then traced a delicious path to my collarbone over the side of my neck that was free of vamp scars, murmuring with sultry curiosity. "Are you sure that's wise?"

Seeing as I'll probably give myself carpal tunnel syndrome if I have to sleep alone, I'd say so, yeah... I could only think it, having no breath to spare for the sardonic reply; my actual reply was a jerky, ridiculously eager nod.

"All day, all alone with me, naked, locked in a dark room, at my complete mercy? Or lack thereof." Ivy kept breathing in my ear, her hand on me stilling to let my complete focus go to the sensual grey silk of her voice, overflowing with vampy aural tricks that nearly made my eyes roll back into my head. God, I have no idea if it's possible to talk someone into an orgasm, but Ivy sure was coming close... no pun intended. "You're not a little worried I'll try to sneak a taste? That I'll wake up at sunset feeling peckish and see you lying there next to me, warm, relaxed, sated, deliciously... defenceless?" She moaned the last of her words before taking my earlobe between the tip of her upper and lower fangs, giving it the gentlest of nips while I trembled, lost in lust that made all rational thoughts impossible. She could have described the manner in which she planned to disembowel a hundred newborn kittens in all the gory details with that voice, and I still would have moaned and writhed for more beneath her.

"Yes... no... what was the question again?" I panted, lost and pleasantly dizzied in a haze of desire and vampire pheromones, only vaguely aware that what she was saying should have at least given me a second's pause. It didn't, not really.

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Ivy chuckled, mocking my state and obviously pleased with herself she could get me this worked up with nothing but her voice and a teensy bit of touching. "Shall we retire for the day, then?" She asked as she got off me and the couch, her hand offered.

"You were just trying to get off on my fear again, right?" I asked as, with a little distance between us, I was able to think somewhat clearly again (and get my skirt back down to a height that didn't flash my panties to the whole wide world). Her hand felt warm and dry as it enveloped mine. Ivy gently tugged me close, one of her arm coming around my waist, the other lifting my wrist that wasn't covered by my metal bracelet to her mouth so she could plant a little kiss on it. Never letting go of it, she made twirl around like we were dancing, letting it slip away from her grasp as I exited the spin with a little giggle.

"You would make a lovely breakfast in bed." Ivy studiously arched a brow and answered cryptically, leaving it at that.

"Oh, that's nice... In your dreams, Tamwood."

"That goes without saying, doesn't it? You've starred in the nicest of my dreams for longer than you know." She replied as she turned around to sashay out of the room, her tone stoking the fire she had started in the pit of my stomach. I was still throbbing for her touch, though, so I let the vamp's idea of a pleasantry slide and followed her downstairs to the basement (the actual one, not her mom's lair, thank goodness), my eyes bolted to her seductively swaying hips. Mr Randall and Mrs Tamwood had already retired for the day, and Erica was fast asleep in her second floor bedroom, so the house was still and quiet, lit for the most part only with what little light could make it from the street through the windows. My steps sounded loud as we made our way to a door in the kitchen that led to Mrs Tamwood's lair and the estate's undead living quarters, the basement lacking that raw and unfinished quality most would associate with a traditional basement. Instead, everything was done in the same style as the rest of the mansion, the same polished woods, the same brass doorknobs and the same colours and tones adorned the walls. There was secondary living space living space down here, kind of a complete apartment minus the kitchen, really. Several couches surrounded a colossal TV plugged with a state-of-the-art sound system. Several doors connected this space with other side rooms, one of which I suspected was a bathroom, if the whiff of soap and other beauty product I caught was any indication. It was a lot nicer than any apartment I'd ever rented, that's for sure, but honestly, I was too focused on the vampire before me to really care about my surroundings.

"Through here." Ivy directed me to one door in particular she held open for me, a beautiful one made of massive tooled wood and adorned with a shiny brass handle. With one deep, steadying breath and a tip of my head at her gentlemanly gesture, I walked past her and into our room.