Let Them Eat Cake.

by Ravyn Wilde.

Prologue.

Standing still, Michael breathed in the cold air and enjoyed the night. He felt invincible. Hungry. Using his vampire senses to search the area for blood and s.e.x, he paused at the sight of a woman silhouetted under the streetlight in front of him. She hadn't been there just a moment before. Perfect.

She looked incredible with all that amazing curly blonde hair and big t.i.ts. Tearing his attention away from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he glanced down. Her long, lean legs ended in small, dainty feet that were sheathed in high-heeled sandals and he swallowed hard as he imagined those legs wrapped tight around his hips while she rode his c.o.c.k. Using the wondrous gift of preternatural eyesight, he noticed that her toenails were painted to match the fire engine red of her leather miniskirt. He moved toward her and watched with male satisfaction and appreciation as she straightened and then stuck out her chest in flagrant invitation.

The dark twin discs of her nipples pushed against the sheer white fabric of her halter-top, the large mounds overflowing their small restraints, the plump naked flesh a teasing distraction. He salivated and let his teeth lengthen. She would be his tonight.

She bent her head to the side and looked at him, then nodded once.

He smiled to himself. Such a coy little move was guaranteed to attract him.

He strode in the woman's direction, wrinkling his nose in distaste when he caught a caustic whiff of foul odors. Some dog must have turned over a garbage can nearby, he thought. He started to turn away from the woman, distracted by the strong smell, but she moved again and drew his attention back to her.

She shifted and bent slightly at the waist, exposing more cleavage, and the offending scent was forgotten as he hurried to her side. "h.e.l.lo, sweetheart." He moved to put his arm around her, but she stepped back before he could touch her and silently shook her head.

"Wait. A game. See how long we can go without talking...touching." The mental message flickered through his mind in impressions, not words. She must be an immortal of some sort, one who preferred long drawn out games and no verbal communication. Not for the first time he cursed in frustration that his vampiric gifts did not include species recognition. He shrugged and nodded at her. No problem, sometimes a thrill could be found in waiting and revelation. He was willing to play this any way she wanted as long as the end result gave him what he craved from her.

He quickly led the way to his little house down a nearby side street. He spent the time contemplating everything he wanted to do to the gorgeous woman behind him. Stopping before the front door, he relaxed. Here, they would have privacy and all the time he wanted to slake his l.u.s.t and blood hunger. He wouldn't hurt her, but he planned on using every inch of her fantastic body to meet his needs.

He moved through the hall to his bedroom, tore off his clothes and laid on his back across the bed at her bidding. He watched with rapt fascination as she stripped, groaning in antic.i.p.ation at the thought of all her pale flesh covering his. At her first touch to his arm he felt her power lock him in place. All right! In the past, he'd immobilized his lovers by using his own hypnotic vampire ability as a form of bondage, but he'd never taken the submissive role. This could be cool. He liked new experiences. His c.o.c.k strained in expectation at the turn of events as he imagined this sensual creature having her way with him.

The knowledge that he was powerless to stop her from doing anything she wanted to him sent a surge of l.u.s.t to his groin. The only parts on his body he could move were his eyes and eyelids. His c.o.c.k seemed to be working as well.

The woman climbed on the bed beside him and moved to straddle his knees. He strained to move his eyes and follow the vision of arousing white flesh and swaying b.o.o.bs. He wanted to watch as she bent over him, watch as she placed her full pink lips on the pulsing crown of his thick shaft. He groaned as she swirled her long red tongue over his c.o.c.k and licked the small slit, taking him deep within her wet heat. The fierce ache in his loins grew, spreading from his b.a.l.l.s to punch from his c.o.c.k to his chest and further. He felt as if the top of his head would fly off with the intense pleasure.

In a sudden flash, the wet suction of her lips went from exquisite delight to unbearable agony. He could feel his energy being drawn from his body in voracious gulps to pour down her throat.

He struggled against her psychic hold, tried to move...fought to at least scream against the horrific pain. Every time her head moved up and down, he felt his life force being drawn from his body-and nothing he did could stop this infernal flow. He panicked, his suffering excruciating. He closed his eyes and attempted to stay conscious and fight against the pull of her lips. Who or what was she? He was immortal, had lived for decades and was destined to live centuries more. He never planned to face his own mortality. Never thought to face death. True death. It wasn't fair! His mind cried out in anguish at the pain and injustice. This had to be some sort of sick prelude to s.e.x. He couldn't believe he'd lived this long only to die as some preternatural woman gave him a b.l.o.w.j.o.b. G.o.d, he had to make her stop before she killed him. Please stop. Please oh please oh please stop the pain! He begged silently.

When he was close to losing consciousness and almost drained of life, he felt her pull away, felt her climb up and lean over his face. Oh, yes. Yes! It's done, he thought. The tortuous pain and agony finally ended. Breathing a sigh of relief, he gagged on the rotten smell when he took air into his lungs, opening his eyes, expecting to see the woman's plump lips raised in a smile. To get an explanation of what she'd done and why, and have her restore him with her blood. But instead, the monstrous aberration hovering above him had his mind screaming in desperate terror.

In numbed revulsion he watched, helpless as the creature bent to his arm and sank her sharp teeth into his flesh. OhG.o.dohG.o.dohG.o.d, this can't be happening. He knew he was going to die and there wasn't a d.a.m.n thing he could do about it. He closed his eyes against the brutal agony and the sight of the grotesque creature he now feared. In desperation, he struggled against the undeniable certainty that he would die a horrible death. The next flash of pain seared his mind. Stark and blood red, the brutal a.s.sault continued, and he felt the tearing suction as the meat was viciously ripped from his body. He listened in escalating horror as she fed.

The slurping, sucking and swallowing noises caused terror to rise in his gut like acidic bile, panic choking him as pain swamped his sanity. His mind shattered as she twisted his arm from its socket. The wrenching loss of his immortality left him cold-blissfully unfeeling. The mental anguish came to a standstill as the unknown monster bent to his neck, and his last thought was one of relief. Final oblivion came as she tore into his jugular.

Chapter One.

Let them eat cake...

A hedonistic and sarcastic reb.u.t.tal to the unsolicited information her peasants were starving, those words had been splashed across the newspapers of the day, accompanied by a very unflattering drawing. Her enemies had used the phrase to define her and even her friends believed her capable of the sentiment. That one sentence had followed her through all the years of her life and death.

What a b.i.t.c.h!

She'd been a royal pain in the b.u.t.t-self-indulged, self-absorbed, a cla.s.s-conscious b.i.t.c.h of a sn.o.b. Or so they said.

The guillotine served as her wake-up call. Thank G.o.d she'd discovered Luscious Lucian's secrets and managed to seduce him into her way of thinking. She'd needed those years-two hundred and twelve of them, to be exact-to grow up. She'd only been thirty-seven when she lost her head. Still somewhat immature and self-centered, although nothing like her very public depiction. She wondered if the media campaign, designed by the French aristocrats and carried out with the sole intention of turning a nation against her, had been the first of its kind. She guessed it didn't matter now. The added centuries to her life had helped her mature and evolve into the woman who could stand here and look at the city she protected...

And have the words "Let them eat cake" stand for something far different. In her heart and soul she cared for these people. Mortal and immortal alike. She wanted nothing but the best for them.

Let them eat cake.

She no longer played the role of despotic ruler. She was Sentinel.

"h.e.l.lo, sweetcheeks." The male baritone voice belonging to Matt intruded on her introspection. She loved listening to him-his voice sounded rich as mola.s.ses and dripped with sin. She turned to watch the show as the cover-model boy-toy strutted with ingrained confidence across the penthouse garden. His body all tanned perfection and muscled temptation showcased in tight black jeans and a black tank top. The hair falling around his shoulders looked golden, long and bad-boy tousled.

"You are soooo not subservient enough," she mumbled.

"Darling, I can do subservient with the best of them. You just don't have the proper dangly bits to make it worth my while." Matt smirked as he did a little girly flip of his hair.

She hit him.

He laughed.

"Wake up on the wrong side of the coffin this evening, luv?" he questioned impudently.

She shook her head. She would not explain to Matt the nightmare she'd been plagued with yesterday, or how she'd begun this night with a feeling something new-something Bad with a capital B-had come into their area. He would only worry and nag her to death. Not to mention she would somehow have to explain to him why she had been dreaming. In all her centuries of undead life, she'd never dreamed. How weird was that? She was f.u.c.king two hundred and twelve years old for Christ's sake, and it seemed a little ridiculous to have started that very human trait now.

She'd created a fiend the night she turned Matt into a half-ling and made him a vampyr's human servant. Two fiends, she amended, as she could hear Laurel coming to find Hardy. Brian coming to find Matt-they made the cutest couple.

She sighed. The perfect human servants for her-a weird cross between a Jewish mother and Dracula's Igor. Snorting to herself, she turned to watch the dark side of the beefcake duo as he came into sight. Her gift of nearly eternal life only enhanced what G.o.d doled out in spades at their birth. Brian was as dark as Matt was golden. He had long, jet-black hair, with moonlight pale skin and a s.a.d.i.s.tic sense of humor. The hard body was as toned and sculpted as Matt's. Her bookends.

Matt and Brian started out many years ago as f.u.c.k buddies and ended up as lifelong partners. Longer than lifelong partners, considering the fact they'd been with her for almost thirty years and didn't look a day over twenty-six-the age they'd been when she met them. In mortal years they were in their early fifties. They would age over an almost endless period of time. At least as long as she lived, they would.

"You're salivating sweetcheeks," Matt said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Sure I am, I'm hungry," she countered.

"Well, I am not going to be your snack tonight," Brian stated. "Go fang bang some appreciative human male."

"Wonderful idea," she said, hopping up onto the four-foot brick wall surrounding the penthouse garden s.p.a.ce. She turned to smirk at the two of them as she leaned back into the wind and plummeted backwards off the edge. She smiled as she heard Matt's indrawn breath and his verbal cry...

"I f.u.c.king hate it when you do that!" he shouted.

Her girlish giggle rippled through the night. d.a.m.n she loved the two of them. She couldn't conceive of living without their irritating and drool-worthy presence. She took a few minutes to remember the first time she met Brian. Tall, gaunt and sad Brian. Brilliant and driven Brian. Grieving Brian. She'd run across him in far away San Francisco one night, a night shortly after she realized she would need help in the new era-an era of technology and change and the dawning ability to be able to trace and doc.u.ment a person's life to the nth degree. Doc.u.mentation and tracking were dangerous words to a vampire. She needed someone to help her get new IDs and hide her electronic trail as much as possible.

Brian had been sitting in a deserted park at midnight, sobbing his heart out. She had been drawn to his pain and wanted to help alleviate it. She lightly probed his mind to find the source, thinking she could help in some way. She hadn't understood. His love was dying, wasting away from a new disease that struck h.o.m.os.e.xuals hard. AIDS.

She felt ashamed that she hadn't even known it existed. She was vampyr and human disease couldn't touch her, but somehow she believed she should have known about this new threat to humans. She didn't realize she'd begun to distance herself from humanity. Not allowing anything to touch her. But Brian's suffering touched deep chords of compa.s.sion within her. She used a little mental push to ease his acceptance of her comfort, and she held him and let him cry out his pain and anger. Let him use her arms to provide a small amount of balm for his soul. It was easy to convince him that she was someone with whom he could share the burden of agony.

How well she understood what it meant to be alone at a time like this. She'd had no one to hold her when her children died...or any of her friends and family. And because everyone who knew her thought she'd been killed at the guillotine, she couldn't even go to them during their last hours-except when they slept, alone and oblivious to her presence. She'd been unable to say final goodbyes and there'd been no one to hold her when she cried, as she had held Brian.

When he could speak, he spilled out his fear and desolation for his mate's trial of fire. He railed at the unfairness of it, the waste of such a brilliant mind and compa.s.sionate spirit. What he hadn't realized was the fact he also carried the first stages of the horrific disease.

She experienced her first epiphany as she held Brain in her arms. Halleluiah, chorus of revenants...a bolt of energy struck her. Her peek at Brian's mind showed her he was a marvel with technology in all its confusing aspects. He actually understood all the contraptions and mysteries of this new age. And now he always would. He lived his life with a pa.s.sion for newer, faster and more complicated gadgets.

And Matt had been a financial genius, at least in Brian's perception. She'd wanted to meet this paragon for herself.

She had seen, met, talked to and spent several nights with the couple. Even riddled with the wasting disease of AIDS, Matt did indeed possess an intelligent mind-and the promise of a gorgeous body. Nice visceral benefit, that. It wouldn't have mattered. She fell in love with both of them.

The safe, "I'm home and I'm your mother-sister-best-friend-in-the-whole-world" kind of love.

The kind of love that convinced her to have a serious, "I can save you both, but you will have to stay with me for the rest of your life, please say yes" kind of conversation.

And they did say yes. And now they alternated between making her life worth living and irritating the h.e.l.l out of her. Sometimes doing both with the same breath. She sighed and decided she'd been dancing down memory lane enough for tonight.

Blood-starved, she turned her attention back to the city and contemplated the role she wanted to play this night. Should she become the avenger G.o.ddess and find some sc.u.m preying on society and terrorize him, so her snack would be laced with the lovely spice of fear? Or did she feel like a vampyr nymph tonight? Ummm. Blood with the robust undertone of l.u.s.t...

Tonight l.u.s.t won out. The fear and unseen terror of her dreams killed any craving she might have to sample the spicy essence of fright as it ran over her palate.

Aha!

Flying low over the city and using her preternatural ability to pull the night's camouflage around her, she sighted her "Big Mac" swimming laps in a pool behind a large house on Sn.o.b Hill. With a fast swoop she landed on the lawn, concealed by lilac bushes. She glanced down at her jeans and tank top and decided a more overt statement would be needed. With a thought she quickly made a wardrobe change, and when she walked over to the pool she wore a thong bikini with teeny, tiny, sparkly fragments covering her nipples. Subtle she was not.

Her dinner came up out of the water without making a sound and climbed from the pool. Vampyr mojo sure took care of the courting phase. She allowed the well-built man to pull her into his arms and rub his length against her. Well! He was certainly happy to see her. When she wanted to, she affected mortals this way. He bent over to kiss her and she dodged his mouth, going straight for the jugular.

This guy didn't need a lot of foreplay. She licked her tongue over his cool, wet skin...savoring the slight tang of chlorine and the remarkable horn-dog taste of him. She could feel his blood pulse against her mouth as it beat just under his flesh. Her fangs dropped in readiness and she started to salivate in antic.i.p.ation. Using a light touch, she probed the surface of his mind. She didn't want to become his best friend-she just needed some idea of what turned his crank. What fantasy got him hot and bothered? Okay, got it. Not a very imaginative fantasy, but after all, this was his gig.

With a thought her itsy, bitsy bikini became a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. Eww. Catholic college schoolgirl uniform, thank you very much. She played his fantasy out in his mind long enough to stir his l.u.s.t to the boiling point and then sank fang.

The release of life-giving blood felt o.r.g.a.s.mic. Well...o.r.g.a.s.mic for him. She drank her fill of the salty-sweet nectar as she held him cradled in her arms. Minutes later she left him sprawled on one of the lawn chairs with a happy smile and a limp d.i.c.k. He'd been sooo easy. He would recover in an hour or so with the wispy memory of great s.e.x and a small hickey on the left side of his neck. She forgot all about him the minute she returned to the air.

Maria started for home. She thought it too early to go to her nightclub, and she wanted to take a bath and soak away her dinner's scent and the last traces of her horrible dream.

She loved flying. Well...maybe flying wasn't the correct term. It's not like she flapped her arms. Gliding? Soaring? Whatever. She loved the feeling of freedom and being one with the night. It could be almost as good as riding her vintage chopper.

Or she loved it until she hit a pocket of malevolent essence too reminiscent of her day-sleep nightmare. It made her lose focus. She plummeted several feet before she could give herself a mental pinch and regain control. Merde! What is that?

She opened her senses and scanned the area frantically, trying to find a trace of the evil pulling at her energy enough to almost knock her out of the sky. What the h.e.l.l is in my city now? As Sentinel, she was serious about the duty of watching over anyone living here, and she worked hard to protect the inhabitants from sinister monsters. She was sometimes able to track a psychic trail when evil hunted, whether the taint came from a very human serial killer or something else. Right now she would bet on something else.

Very few humans-Hitler or John Wayne Gacy maybe-put off vibes like this, no matter how mean and bad they tried to be.

She just couldn't seem to pinpoint the source. It felt like a dark blanket covered the area, instead of being concentrated in one specific spot. And then it was gone. In its place she was left with the realization that something had died to feed it. I really don't want to see this, she thought as she moved over the spot screaming death to her psychic senses. She would always know where the dead bodies lay, a necessary if somewhat morbid fact of her vampyr existence. She landed a short distance from the lump of clothing lying on the ground in a deserted alley. Steeling herself for the nasty duty she needed to perform, she took a deep breath and moved forward.

Mon dieu! Oh G.o.d, ohG.o.dohG.o.d. She was going to be sick. She'd seen plenty of dead bodies before. Been responsible for several of them herself. She had no problem with death if it came from natural causes or as punishment for severe crimes. But both men and immortals could do horrible things to each other without reason or for personal gain. However, this fell beyond even her experience.

The poor soul in front of her had been turned inside out, and most of its body parts appeared to have been consumed. Unrecognizable as a living, breathing human being, it now looked like a ma.s.s of flesh and broken bones. One of the bones stuck straight up and Maria looked at it for a moment in confusion. Something was...oh, yuck. The bones appeared hollow, as if the marrow had been sucked right out of them.

Ugh! What could do this? Who could do this? In over two centuries of life, she'd never seen anything so horrific.

She would expect the area to look like a blood bath. She stood right next to the body, and the ground from wall to wall was paved. With her preternatural senses she would see even small traces of blood. Smell it. So...where was the blood? Oh, jeez. Somehow the lack of any body fluids made this whole thing seem even worse. She didn't want to examine the psychology of her thoughts. As if her own need for red corpuscles made her in some way responsible for this atrocity. She started looking around, trying to sort out the scene in her mind. At first glance, she detected the lack of blood and internal organs...saw only a few pieces of muscle tissue with a small stack of sucked-out bones. d.a.m.n!

Then she noticed strands of hair, and hands missing their fingertips. It looked like someone had taken a bite from each one. The hair was long and blonde, the hands were pet.i.te and adorned with a couple of cheap silver rings. A woman.

Maria forced herself to look closer. Smooth hands. A young woman. It didn't take long for the realization to dawn that she couldn't fight this depravity alone. She wouldn't take the chance of letting whatever did this get away because she didn't have the skills or the know-how to track a criminal. She could and would help...she didn't even consider walking away from this battle. She knew with the certainty of all her years this wasn't a kill-once-and-move-on sort of creature. She would somehow kill it once they figured out what had done this, but she was so out of her area of expertise when it came to tracking something that didn't leave a scent trail.

Give her a rabid werewolf or rogue vampire or human killer any day, and she could handle them with one arm tied behind her back. You just found its smell and then tracked it by scent to contain or kill it. But whatever did this hadn't left behind a whiff in the alley other than the aroma of death. She didn't have any idea which way the-what? Creature? Worked for now-had gone. Or where it came from. She needed help. This would require aid from both preternatural sources as well as some human a.s.sistance. If nothing else, her Council needed to be warned.

"Brian," she called along her mental path to her human helper.

"What's up, oh mistress of the night?"

"I need you and Matthew to call a code one Council meeting for tomorrow night. Make it for 9:00. The later hour will give the vamps time to feed. Make sure you include the human list, and try to verify that everyone gets the message either by email receipt or by talking to him or her if they don't respond electronically. Clear the theater room at Sins of the Flesh if it's booked. I also need you to see if you can't get a hunter to-"

"Slow down, sweetheart. Are you okay? Are you safe?" Brian frantically cut her off.

"Yeah. I should be. I think it's gone. It should be gone."

"You are not making me feel all warm and fuzzy, Maria. Use those creepy vampire senses and make sure you are safe. Then tell me where you are and I'll bring you an a.r.s.enal and Matt and I will back you up."

Maria took a moment to scan the area. Nothing. No evil presence, no lurking menaces. She felt sure she would sense the same malevolent aura she'd experienced earlier if it was out there. I hope. She did detect a couple of humans out for a stroll, and worked to set psychic guards on the alley to keep intruders out. She did not need to deal with ma.s.s hysteria at this point. Not in her job description.

"Maria. Where'd you go? You are scaring me, sugar."

"I'm here. I'm okay. The coast is clear and I just made sure all the little blood donors stayed away."

"Okay, humor. Better. Where are you so I can come get you?" he demanded.

"You are not leaving the house tonight. Where is Matthew?" she asked, frightened for her friends.

"Right beside me, putting a backpack of toys together in case you need them. I don't know why we have tons of these death packs in the house if you leave without taking one. It sort of defeats the purpose."

"You're right and I promise you can nag me later. For right now I want you to stay home. I don't know what the h.e.l.l is going on, and until I do I want you two locked up and safe. If you feel strange or hear anything out of the ordinary, I want you to call out to me without trying to check it out yourself. Do not wait. Do you understand me, Brian? No Rambo-esque moves tonight."

"Honey, I don't do butch. I'll call you if I need you. Now, what else can I do for you to get you home soon?"

"I don't remember where I stopped in my list of demands." Maria could feel Brian's concern and near panic for her safety.

"You asked me to contact a hunter."

"Yes, call Charlotte. She'll take your word when you tell her I need one without talking to her myself. Tell her I'll get in touch with her soon, but we definitely need a hunter now. And call Bill, the Chief of Police. Tell him it is very important he meet me at the coffee shop on Third and Main. Tell him he needs to bring his gun and a camera...maybe a backup gun for me. The threat seems to be gone for now, but I don't want to be here without a weapon if it comes back. Tell him I believe the problem will end up not being human, but I really need his help."