Volume 14

DISCLAIMER: This story contains adult content.

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"Are you upset?"

He was standing over me. We had rented a hotel room in the middle of Harlem. I didn't have much money on me. I managed to swipe a woman's wallet without her looking. She wouldn't miss the 30 dollars. I gave the rest of the wallet to the guy at the convenient store. Maybe she'd come looking for it and find it with him.

30 dollars was all we could afford and it showed. The place was roach infested. There was only one bed and it looked like it was in shambles completely.

"We'll be ok. Your wounds will heal and then Roxanne and the others will come back to get us."

"Why come my blood doesn't bother you?"

"It just doesn't," I explained. I didn't want to go back into the idea of Lilith again. Carter asked questions but I knew he asked questions sometimes to things that he really didn't want to hear. That had always been a big issue of his.

"So how will they know when to come back. Besides, how will we get the door open?"

"There is where you come in. Maybe you can try to remember. Maybe you can dream and try to see again how the door opens to Eden. If not I will call Boston."

"What's in Boston?"

"A friend by the name of Belial. If I can get a phone to Belial, he may know just how t

open that door."

I'll sleep under the bed if you don't mind. I just have to make sure no light hits me when

morning comes."

"We still have a few hours until sunrise."

"I suppose."

I hadn't even looked at the time. I was upset. I didn't want to show it but I was. David was dead. That was the most upsetting thing of all. I couldn't believe it. I had just begun to like him. I had just begun to understand him and now he was gone from us. I couldn't help but keep seeing Giovanni's face. I couldn't help but remember how he just didn't seem to care at all. Was this the way of the vampire. You love someone one day and they you completely abandon them.

I had begun to think about my own love affair. What if Arie tired of me in the same way that Giovanni tired of David? An eternity was an awfully long time...

"You thinking about him aren't you?" Carter asked me.

"You mean David?"

"No...I mean the other one. Don't make me say his name."

"Do you even know his name?"

Carter laughed steadily and nodded, "You think I won't know the name of the guy that did this to someone so close to me."

I paused. Carter's laugh wasn't a happy laugh. I had seen the laugh before. I wanted to be careful of what I said to Carter. We hadn't seen each other in a long time but I was sure if I thought about it, we could still have that connection that we had before. We could still obtain that perfect connection.

"He didn't make me like this. Carter are you...embarrassed that I am what I am now?"

"I don't know..." he answered, "Are you happy?"

I nodded.

I was grateful for his honesty. I got up off the bed and looked into the mirror. It was wrong what the old fairytales said. A vampire did have a reflection, but the reflection was different than a normal human's. The reflection was blurry, almost transparent depending on the way you looked at it. It would be hard to describe if you didn't see it yourself.

"I am content. It wasn't like I made a very good human."

"What do you mean?"

"Carter you know what I mean," I stated, bending my head down being reminded of all those truly embarrasing moments, "I was always trapped behind my music. I was always trapped behind some misconception of reality that doesn't exist. Life was a paradox and there I was, unimpressed by anything but the next chord on an instrument."

"Your music was beautiful."

"And it went unnoticed. I walk the same shadows that I did when I was a human," I told him with my arms crossed, "I used to hide from the sunlight even then. At least now I have a justifiable excuse."

"Your music was beautiful...to me..."

Carter had gotten up. There was a heaviness in his voice. I wondered if he was about to cry. Maybe not, but there was still some sort of burden in his voice. It drowned out his strength and seemed to be pushing a weight onto his words.

"You will never understand the truth Carter."

"Then tell me."

"I loved you all my life," I stated and turned to him all of a sudden taken back by my own courage, "I worshiped the ground you walked on Carter. Every morning I woke up, thinking you'd notice that maybe I was a little bit taller. Maybe I was a little bit more handsome. Maybe I had grown up and you could see me as more than just a little brother figure. But you knew this didn't you? Eh? Answer me..."

He didn't answer...he just turned away and kind of put his head down.

It was so reminiscent of the night that I had died. All this time and Carter was playing the same tricks. He was carrying off again with my heart, taking my heart and twisting it to make me feel so insignificant.

I continued talking though...it was too late to stop, "What I wouldn't have done to make you speechless in the right way. You know. This lack of speech here is all wrong. What I wouldn't have done to make you want to be with me all night. I wanted to be your lover, but I'll always be your little brother won't I?"

"What's wrong with being my little brother, Adam?"

"Someone doesn't fall in love with their brother, Carter. I was in love with you. Can you at least acknowledge that? Just for a moment. I don't want anything from you now. You understand. Our lives have diverged, but I just want you to understand. I was never your little brother. Your admirer, yes. Your rejected romance, yes. Your little brother...no...never."

"I should go to sleep," Carter said, "So I can watch out for you during the day."

"You are ignoring me."

"No. I'm listening to you. So...is that it?"

He had asked me as though everything I was saying was a burden to him. I could see the emotion drowning him. He was forcing eye contact, I could tell. It was like looking through a thin sheet reflective mirror. He was just showing me something for the time being. He was just putting up anything for me to look at. Carter hadn't even put any thought into it himself, let alone put any thought into it for me.

Carter turned around onto the bed. He ruffled with the thin, ripped sheets on the bed until they completely engulfed his body. I sat there watching him in all his masculinity. Things had come to my mind that I had never experienced before. Evil things had come into my mind. They were evil but they were out of the question of course. I had loose thoughts of perhaps turning him. I would turn him into a vampire like me and perhaps then he would see the effect that he had a young mind back then. Now he didn't understand.

No...I wouldn't get into that.

I walked into the bathroom. My thoughts turned back on Arie. I loved Arie for being something that could finally take my mind off of Carter. Regardless of how intense my feelings got for Arie, I had a feeling that in the back of my mind I would always have a connection to Carter. That is what I worried about. Arie could give himself to me, forever seemingly. Carter WOULD not do the same thing. Sexuality was perhaps into the question and perhaps other issues but why had I elaborated this grand idea into my childhood for something that would never ever happen.

I walked into the bathroom. Vampires didn't excrete. There was nothing to really excrete. I hadn't done so since I turned. I figured it was one thing that I didn't really miss about being human. I did miss however the feeling of hot water. As I took a shower now, the hot water still seemed cold on my pale skin. It hit me and I shivered. It was a strange thing. I thought about Arie more in the shower. I thought about the moment we first made love until my penis got hard in my hand. Then under the cold water, I began to stroke my shaft using the soap in the shower as a catalyst for sensation. Images of Arie's hard abs, flowing hair, long fangs, strong abdomen and shapely ass started to form into my mind. I could see his dick now. I could see the soft curves. His cum had a salty taste but it was also sweet and creamy. I could see his expression now as I lick everything off of him. I could imagine him biting into my inner thighs like he had done when we made love in Boston. The thoughts of teeth marks right under my pubic area sent vibrations through me. Then he would lick my wounds like a tender predator.

I orgasmed. The flow of semen squirted from my body into the drain exiting in swirls and it seemed like I was closer to Arie. Bite me Arie. Take my life...

The lights began to flicker in the bathroom.

On...

Off...

On...

Off...

I didn't really think anything of it. It was cheap hotel. I grabbed a towel and wiped myself walking out onto the floor of the bathroom. That was when the lights began to flicker again. On...off...on...off...

Then I felt it, but only for a moment...before she was standing right there...

Lilith!

I had gasped. My breath was short and I struggled to maintain it. The steam from the bath didn't help either. I could see she had no expression on her face as she looked at my reflection in the mirror. What better was that she definitely had no reflection. It wasn't blurred like mine. I looked from the mirror to her body and then back to the mirror. She had no reflection.

The bathroom was small...intimate...too intimate for her to have just appeared. It made me afraid of her. Before I had felt her presence. What if we only felt her when she wanted us to feel her? What if she really wasn't as detectable as we thought she was?

"I am not your enemy," she stated and then smiled immediately, "There are those who should consider me their enemy and they have proven not to be so fortunate as you. Those who call my enemies are not here, doubting me. There would be nothing to doubt if you were my enemy. My intentions have always been distinctly perceptible."

"You are Arie's enemy...so you are mine as well."

She turned to me. I didn't look back at her. Her gaze was a little too much. It felt the same as having a hundred people turn to stare at you at one time. It was the same amount of intensity as standing naked in a room of formally dressed people. No, I had turned to look at the mirror which was the only place in the room that she seemed not to have dominion.

"Is...that...so?" she asked me and laughed.

"I love him."

" I love him too," she explained, "I love all my children equally. However in the wild, a wolf must kill the weak, dying cub. It is an act of love equal to tending for the strong vibrant cub. You are the strong vibrant cub and all others are the dying. I am mother. I gave them life and so I can take it away."

Her voice reminded me of a snake. I didn't move much in her presence. I didn't want to. I was afraid out of my mind. The sweat trickled down my face. My body temperature had risen to a temperature that I was so sure couldn't be obtained in this afterlife. Perhaps she noticed my nerves because she turned her body completely to me. I watched all this in my peripheral vision of course. I didn't dare turn to look at her in her face.

Before long I could feel her hands on my skin. Her skin felt like leather. It was smooth and rough as the same time. She ran her index finger from the cup of my lips to the base of my chin and then back again in steady quick movements. It was almost as though she examining a sculpture.

She said something then. It was in a language I didn't understand.

"What was that?" I asked.

"You are made up of love," she stated, "I can smell it all over you. The stench has always intrigued me. That was what separated you from Belial. He was the prototype but you are the epitome. It is love that separates. Your love for Carter is boundless."

"I love Arie."

"For what?" she hissed in a way that sent shivers up my spine, "I am waiting for Carter to declare himself yours. You must corrupt him. Arie is already a damned soul. Where were you going earlier..."

"You mean where did we mean to go before you came and killed David?"

"You hate me, don't you?"

"Yes..."

"No, you don't, you fear me. You fear me in the same way that Carter fears you. I've learned how love and hate intertwine so well together. The lines try to be so defined by these humans and their literary devices but there is no line. Hate in it's purest form is a sister to Love. It's all those other things such as reason, motivation and silly intellect that are the opposite. In reality, love and hate are one in the same."

I closed my eyes. I hoped she would go away if I closed my eyes. She was putting my nerves too much on edge. Just the thought of her being around troubled me. I knew that she hadn't come to kill me but it didn't matter. This was someone that was killing my friends. This was someone that was threatening the love of my life. Her presence was horrifying.

"Please spare Arie..."

It was the only thing that I could think about at the moment.

"There is no such thing and you know this. So by the way...where were you going?"

I didn't answer. She couldn't know about Eden. She couldn't know because then she would try to stop us. I couldn't have her stop us. I couldn't have her interfere in what we were doing.

"We were trying to find a new shelter."

"Why? The vampires will all die. That makes no sense. Nothing else is new. Everything is old for them. Did I tell you they killed my Belial."

"Are you serious?"

How could Caesarion let them kill Belial? What was going on in Boston? Hadn't he kept any sense of control. Belial was important. The knowledge he knew was

"Yes. I went to save him from his prison and they opened up the sun to Belial. He told them some things he should not have. Now the Furious are on their way here. They want revenge for the deaths. They are on their way for you..."

"The furious?"

"William, Meeka and Caesarion, the oldest of my children left."
"Fuck."

"I've come to warn you."

"You can kill them. Can't you?" I asked, "At least get rid of William and Meeka."

"No. I can't do such things. Everything has a time and place. Everything has an orderly chaos. The order of deaths have been randomly selected. Now Belial is dead. My beautiful Belial. But my Adam is still around. However like I said, you are the important one. You are the epitome of my new vampire. You must stay alive."

"How am I supposed to survive the Furious? They've been around forever."

"You have no choice but to survive."

Her face turned in a way that suggested she was paying attention to something else. I figured out what she was paying attention to immediately.

"Don't hurt him..."

"Carter. I would never. We need him. You must protect him, you understand Adam. Belial may have told them some things before he died. Don't allow him to die."

"If Arie was here..."

"Arie is a walking corpse. Like the rest of them. It is time you take you to realize that. Let Carter consume your mind. Let him eat your thoughts. Digest your romance. He's out there right now. I can smell his eyes watching the door. He's wondering what takes you so long, most likely. What makes a man watch a door now Adam?"

She smiled at me as though she was leaving a thought in my head.

I hadn't realized she had left the actual idea that I was on Carter's mind until she turned away and walked out the bathroom door. She closed the door behind her lightly.

I sat there for a minute and two minutes later there was a knock on the door.

"You ok?"

It was Carter. I walked over to him and opened the door. Lilith was gone. It was as though she had run across the room and exited before he could see her.

"You didn't just see..." I asked but before I could finish I could see the blank face on Carter's face.

"See what?"

"Never mind. Hey, while I'm asleep you mind getting me some clothes. Stuff like that..."

I hadn't really waited for an answer. I knew Carter usually did most anything that I asked him to. I started to get dressed, picking up some clothes off the floor that I already had. It wasn't look from sunrise. I was thinking about telling him about Lilith's warning but why worry him. It wasn't like the vampires could travel by daylight anyway.

I turned around for some reason to catch him watching me. I had felt Carter's eyes on me. Being a vampire was different. Lilith was right. Humans were predictable. They were so read.

"There is no way to open the path to Eden," Carter told me.

He had said it in a way as though he was unleashing some huge burden to me. He didn't look me in my eyes. He was embarrassed. A second or two passed from when he said it to me before I answered. I watched him look at the floor, as though he was upset. Maybe he was ashamed and regretful. The emotions were pouring from every crevice of facial expression.

"What do you mean Carter?"

"The place I took you, it was in my dream, but I never told you that sometimes I hear...a voice."

"What kind of voice?"

"The voice sounds like mine. I used to think I was just thinking, but the voice isn't mine, Adam. Remember when I left that party. That voice told me to leave. Maybe if I had took you with me, you wouldn't have to be looking for this false hope."

I looked at him shaking my head.

"False hope? No...stop it Carter. You are sounding ridiculous."

"No, listen, ok? There is no way into Eden," he explained to me, "That way that I showed you was an old door. The voice told me so. It told me it once was the way to Eden, but not anymore, because the sins of mankind has locked it...forever."

"No..."

I dropped to my knees.

The weight was a lot to bear. I looked at my hands. All I could see was Arie in them. I had let him down. I had lead him on this cat and mouse game. I had fed them false hope because I believed in him. I believed in Carter.

Tears were falling from my eyes. It was all a lie. The beautiful dream that we were all looking for was all a lie. There was no Eden.

There was no sanctuary.

"Why would you do this to me?" I asked him looking around, " I thought you cared about me. You don't I assume."

"That's a lie and you know it, bro."

"STOP IT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs putting my hands on my head and backing up into the wall, "Don't you see what you've done? Arie is waiting somewhere for us. He's waiting for us to take him to Eden. I promised him sanctuary and happiness. And you were lying to me?"

He dropped to his knees as well.

He didn't come close to me though, he kept a distance but he tried to make eye contact, "I was going to figure something out, Adam. I was trying not to let you down."

"You fed us lies..."

I could kill him if he weren't Carter. I could kill him if I hadn't cared so much about him in the past. My fangs had come out. My blood was pumping hard. I tried not to think about it but with every tear drop my vision blurred with rage.

"This is about your lover isn't it? Maybe he won't die."

"He will!"

"Well you still have me."

"Till when?" I asked laughing immediately, "Until you marry some woman. No, maybe until you get a Grammy. Or maybe until you spend your last day an old raisin wrinkled in the sun while I'm still young...the same age...alone in the darkness."

"You...you can turn me."

"It's not so easy as you are making it sound, if not there would be a ton of vampires. To turn someone would take an expertise I don't have. Besides, why would you want to be a vampire Carter...aren't you a big Christian now?"

"Yes, but I'd do it for you..."

The tone in his voice seemed to make me stop crying. I was upset. There was no way I could really hide the fact that my dreams had just been crushed. David had died chasing nothing. I didn't know how long I had with Arie. Hell, I didn't even know if Arie were alive now.

"You would damn your soul...for me? Why?"

Our eyes connected. We had connected millions of times before. He was my Carter after all. Before all the problems that had torn us apart, I knew that he was my oldest friend. He was my confidant. So what was going on now that was so different.

"Yeah, I would, if that meant you didn't have to be lonely. Adam you should know some things."

What was this? Was this Carter trying to make me feel better like he always tried to? I remembered the night that Lilith killed me. I remembered that that day Carter was in the car trying to make me feel better. That day Carter was trying to let me know that I wasn't such a loser. He was trying to let me know that I was someone.

Those were probably lies too, just like this. He was willing to sell me anything to make me feel better about myself.

"I'll be fine."

Carter's arm got up and started playfully scratching his head as though he was trying to bring up a thought, "I didn't mean to, you know disrespect you the way that I did earlier, when you were telling me your emotions. I wasn't ignoring you."

"Oh you weren't?"

He would say anything to make me feel better. We were kneeling on the floor of a dirty hotel room and I was covered in tears that I was so sure a vampire couldn't cry. Of course he would want to make me feel better.

" I was just...thinking and it was a lot to take in. I apologize."

"It's ok. I'll always forgive you Carter and you know this," I explained to him, acknowledging even further that Carter had a special part in my life.

"I'm not done yet."

Tension. He was staring at me with his well-defined pink lips slightly parted. His eyes were smiling in a tender way. It was the tender almost unnoticeable way you smiled when you hear a song that you haven't heard in such a long time that you never really knew you liked so much until now that you've missed it.

I got up off the floor struggling to get up as a matter of fact, "You can be done. You know that?"

He grabbed me by my arm.

Carter was a human and his strength definitely didn't seem like it used to be. He couldn't hold me if I really wanted to pull away. I knew that and I think he had a feeling of it as well. Usually he would have just pulled me back down, but now he was just tugging at me, as though asking me to voluntarily return to where I was.

I did return to where I was. I hadn't looking at Carter. I couldn't lie. There was something so...beautiful and timeless about him. It was timeless because I was attracted to Carter no longer how much time has passed. No matter how much he pissed me off, I knew how I felt about him. Why come I felt this tension now? There was never this tension before.

"I hate that you turned into what you are now," he explained, "I didn't hate it because I felt like you were something unpure now and something unholy. It was because it would bring a rift between us. That is what I feared most."

"Nothing will bring a rift between us Carter."
"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Then what about this Arie guy?"

"It's a different type of relationship. It's a different type of love. You know that."

"No."

"What?"
"It's the same type of relationship. Adam, for years, I've tried to hide certain...things...from you. They were feelings that I had tried to resist for years. My faith had caused me to resist them. You know I've always been very spiritual. So I resisted those feelings...in his name. Then while you were in the bathroom, after you just opened up to me, I heard that voice again. You know the voice that sounds like a reflection of me but isn't me. That voice is God. So I ask my guiding voice a question that I had dared not ask him before. It was a question that I was so sure was so wrong to even utter, but you saying what you did make me ask this question."

"What question was it?"

"Dear God, is it wrong for me to feel the way I feel for him," Carter told me causing my mouth to drop open in complete and utter shock, "Is it wrong for me to love him, not as a brother...not as a friend...but as a lover."

"You asked him that?"

"Yes. And you know what he told me?"

"What?"

"He said, son, you've wasted your entire life asking for due for all your hard years of worship. You've waited your entire life wondering why I haven't given you the love that you feel like you deserved. That voice said, son, that bible doesn't speak all the words I have written. It has been tampered with. Because of those things, you have not seen that I gave you your due before you even began your worship. He was talking about you...you are my gift. You are the happiness that lets me know that God loves me."

His eyes had been slowly watering the entire time. I tried to stop it but slowly I realized my eyes were watering to. I felt like a wimp. I wanted to stop. What kind of vampire was I sitting here tearing up with him. Still, I couldn't.

I had never heard anything so beautiful or so heartfelt.

"I don't know what to say..."

"Good."

He leaned forward into me and he kissed me. He didn't kiss me on the cheek like a brother would. He didn't kiss me even on the lips like a brother would. Carter kissed me in a more romantic way that I was sure he'd ever kissed anyone. His hand circled around my head and he supported my neck long enough to dip me back and stick his tongue in my mouth. Our tongued massaged several times. They massaged on one another softly.

I wasn't stopping him. On the contrary, I was getting excited. Who knew that I would ever kiss Carter. CARTER! Our bodies seemed connected all of a sudden as though streamed in happiness.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I thought that was what you wanted."

He was looking at me with this weird look as though confused. It was probably my facial expression. Maybe something on my face was giving it away. It was shocked.

"It was...it is..."

I couldn't lie. I didn't have any other thought in my head at that moment. I stopped caring about Lilith at that point. I didn't even remember Arie. I didn't even care that the Furious vampires were on their way. I didn't care about anything.

All I cared about was when Carter walked over to me and wrapped his hands around me.

He started to kiss me. First he kissed me on my lips, over and over.

Then he moved down kissing me on my neck. The taste of his lips were perfection. It sent shiver through my spines. I never got these feelings when I was human. The vampire was so sensitive. My penis was never so erect when I was human. The vampire's body new sensation far past human. It can't be described.

He leaned me up against the window...kissing me several more times. He had started to stimulate me with his kisses. His tongue was sweet. His scene was flirtacious amusing. I could almost smell his hormones raging. He wanted me...yes...I was sure about this.

Carter laid on his back, "I want you to do me. I want you to be my first..."

I was sure he had never been with a man before. No one had taken his butt. He turned around, laying flat on his stomach. His body was tender. I laid on top of him, clothes on at first. We whispered things to each other. I couldn't repeat those things. They were too many things. They were more passionate things than anything. Everything that I had meant to say to him for all those years is what I said to him now.

His rubbed my hands underneath his cloths, reaching the smalls of his back rather quickly. The buttocks was erected, sticking into my abdomen with this sense of longing. He was already moaning as though with anticipation.

"I love you."

The immediate sense of the word was something that didn't seem too soon. If anything it seemed overdue. If anything it should have happened a long time ago.

"I love you too."

When finally entering him, you couldn't imagine the sensation. The vampire body lasts longer during sex. You controlled your body so much better. In some ways the vampires seemed more human than a human. The vampire is more in sync with pleasure.

He had moaned and the moaning had turned to screaming. I found myself wanting to bite him more and more. My fangs were out and desperately scraping against the back of his neck as I entered his body, thrusting over and over into his muscular frame. He enjoyed it. He held onto the bedposts.

He screamed.

He howled.

I felt like a predator in a way as it happened. I bit into him and he moaned louder than ever. I didn't suck his blood, no...I let it drip out of the his broken skin. I let it drip out and I licked it with my tongue.

Then I orgasmed and turned him over to see that he has orgasmed as well on the bed without no real penis stimulation.

"I never...that was...Adam...Eden...I...Jesus...amazing...Adam...Adam...Adam..." he stated before he passed out into a deep sleep.

Maybe it was from the loss of blood or maybe it was from ecstacy. I wasn't sure, but either way he was pleased.

I got up to shut the blinds and looked outside to see someone. It was Lilith. She was standing out far in front of the hotel room parking lot.

Lilith...

She was just looking up on me. She was pleased. She had a smile on her face. Had she been spying on us? The blinds had been open. She could have seen some things from the parking lot. She could have seen him kissing me. Did she see what I had done? She was happy. All of a sudden I didn' t feel like Adam any longer. I felt like Eve. I felt like I had just corrupted someone that shouldn't have been corrupted.

I felt wrong...I felt low. But what about what Adam said. He said his God had come to him and said it was right for him to be with me.

What was right?

What was wrong?

What had I just done?

I closed the blind. I closed all of them.

Then I looked back at the bed to see him. He was beautiful. I wish I could sleep with him, but I couldn't chance some sunlight sneaking past the blinds in the morning. I had to be completely sure. I grabbed a pillow off the bed and snuck underneath the bed, away from the sunlight. I slept under Carter and I just thought before my thoughts rocked me to sleep.

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"WHERE IS HE!"

I had woken up to screaming. My heart paced immediately. The voice was familiar but not too familiar. I had not heard it too many times.

"I don't know..."

It was Carter. Shit. My heart paced immediately. What should I do? How had I slept through all this shit? Was Carter in trouble. Then all of a sudden it clicked to me who the voice was. The voice was the Furious William.

William was here...