Day 16- Band/Fan!AU Queen of the Damned Crossover Darcy/Pietro Rated E
Day 16
Band/Fan AU- Queen of the Damned Crossover
Darcy/Pietro
Rated E
Las Angeles, California, Present Day
The large, brown eyes of the Zebra stared back at Darcy, and she wondered if maybe there was something to be learned from the animal’s apparent peace in accepting that it was, and always would be, prey. Then again, perhaps the striped beast was simply calm at the moment because it was here, on this massive estate in Southern California, away from the sharp fangs and hunting eyes of its natural predators.
She glanced around the spacious courtyard once more and focused on keeping an eye open for a chance to slip away. There was the expected number of security guards and staff, as well as the other women that had won the VIP tour of the Palace Du Jour of the band The Vampire Pietro. Four of the five band members were due any minute for signing autographs and taking pictures with the group of contest winners, but Darcy was only there to see one person. Well, okay, technically he wasn’t really a person. He was a Vampire. It said so right in the name of his band. She knew most people believed that to be a gimmick or publicity stunt, but Darcy knew better.
She’d grown up all her life knowing that some of the things that lurked in the darkness really were just as terrifying and evil as all the stories said. She’d always believed those things should be treated with respectful caution and avoided at all costs. As a member of the Talamaska, her purpose was merely to observe, record and study things of a supernatural nature from a distance. She’d always thought this was the wisest course.
Until He had stepped from the shadows and into the light, piquing her curiosity and snaring her attention. She’d been given his journal by her mentor, David, who’d hoped that learning some of the ugly truth about vampires would quench her curiosity and scare her away.
He’d been so very wrong.
Which was why she was now here, with this Zebra. She’d hacked into the radio station doing the contest and guaranteed her winning one of the twelve slots that would assure her ability to get in close proximity with the one she sought. Only after arriving did she realize that would be easier said than done. Pietro, it had been announced after the winners had arrived, was resting up for the concert that the band was performing the following night out in Death Valley.
Well, if he wasn’t going to be making an appearance, she’d just have to find a way to get inside.
From the corner of her eye she noticed the band’s manager, a stocky middle-aged man with a clipboard, looking over the group a few minutes after the sun had gone down and the courtyard lights had come on. She shifted the bag on her shoulder, the weight in carried pulling on her as she looked around.
“Hey,” she called to a young teenage girl with enough metal in her face to give TSA a nightmare. “Check this out!”
The girl stepped over, suspiciously curious and Darcy handed her the zebra’s reins. She rubbed her hand down the beast’s velvety nose and then smiled at the girl. “You ever pet a zebra before?”
The girl shook her head and then looked up at the large animal, jumping slightly when it began to make its shrill yip-yip braying sound. Darcy smiled and moved over towards the manager, pretending to examine a large stand of pedestals that displayed the band’s exotic bird collection.
She eavesdropped on the man as he told one of the men to call the garage and summon a car.
“Pietro wants me to find him a couple of girls for the evening. It’s such bullshit, man. I’m not a pimp, right? Besides, there’s so much to do around here, the last thing I need is to have to run off to fetch him his nighttime entertainment.”
Sensing an opportunity, she grabbed the wrist of another of the winners, a pretty blond wearing a lot of make-up and a skirt even shorter than Darcy’s, and jerked her over to stand in front of the manager.
“Hey, watch it!” the girl hissed, and tried to pull away, but Darcy held on tight.
“You need girls?” Darcy asked, ignoring the other girl and keeping her fingers crossed that she would get with the program. “We’d love to meet Pietro, wouldn’t we?” she smiled brightly at the manager and the girl both.
The blond blinked at her for a second then looked between her and the guy with the clipboard and then lit her face up with a smile that matched Darcy’s own. “I’m a huge fan! He’s the reason I really wanted to meet the band! He’s so hot!”
Darcy nodded and tried to look as innocent and vapid as the other girl did. “Plus, we’re already here. You should totally pick us, and then you won’t have to make the extra trip.”
The guy only took a few seconds to look them both up and down, before deciding they met some kind of arbitrary level of hotness, and then nodded. “Fine, fine, good. Come with me, girls, but keep it down,” he whispered, eyeing the rest of the people lingering around the cobbled space. “We don’t need to advertise, okay. Don’t want the others getting jealous, right?”
“Sure,” Darcy said, winking conspiratorially and squeezing the other girls hands as if they were BFF’s who were making some kind of vow of silence.
“Alright, your names?” he asked and held a pen to his clipboard.
“I’m Candy!” the blonde girl cooed excitedly. She looked as though she was barely containing the urge to jump up and down.
“Darcy,” the brunet said, her full lips spread in a pleasing, luscious red smile.
“Follow me,” he muttered as he wrote their names down then nodded at the security guard at the door to the inside of the house and they moved into the darkness of the inside of the house.
The mansion was massive, and the hallways and rooms that they walked through resembled nothing so much as a lavishly furnished maze. Darcy was secretly relieved she hadn’t tried to sneak in and find her own way around. She’d have been lost for days.
After a few minutes’ walk they came to a huge room adorned with pillars and plush throw pillows and drapes of luxuriant fabric angled around the edges of the room. It reminded Darcy of the inside of a gypsy tent or caravan, only much, much more spacious and richly appointed.
“Make yourselves comfortable, ladies, Pietro will be joining us shortly. You can have a seat, or there’s refreshments on the table there in the corner-“
There was a brush of air against Darcy’s skin and several of the room’s curtains began to wave. She looked around quickly, and then there, in the shadows, she could make out the silhouette of a man, just over average height, but with wide shoulders and a firm muscular back.
“Oh, hey, there he is. Hey, boss, I’ve brought these nice ladies to meet you, just like you asked.” The man at Darcy’s shoulder announced. His voice wavered only slightly with the barest hint of nerves, but it was enough for her to pick up on. “This is Candy and-“
“Darcy,” she said, stepping into the light cast by a lantern fixture attached to the side of one of the columns. “My name is Darcy.”
The shadowy form turned and a pair of burning cold blue eyes locked onto her.
“You.”
The guy behind her sounded startled. “You know each other?”
“We have met,” The Vampire Pietro said, his eyes never leaving her face. “You should not have come here.”
“You want me to show her out, boss?” Manager guy said, reaching for her arm.
Pietro held out a hand to stop him. “No, Roger. Leave her. Take the other one.”
“But, I’m your biggest fan, Pietro,” Candy whined as Roger put and arm around her shoulders and started pulling her towards the door.
“It’ll be all right, sweetheart. How about I hook you up with some backstage passes, eh?” he cajoled as they moved into the hall.
“Really?” Darcy heard her ask, sounding more that appeased at the prospect.
Her eyes were still on Pietro as he slowly stalked closer to her, his white bleached hair picking up what little light there was in the room and reflecting it back in an affected glow. His wardrobe was now very goth metal rock, as opposed to the historic garb he’d been sporting the first time they had met.
“Would you like to explain why exactly it is you’re following me?” he asked, his voice smooth, and slightly accented.
Darcy pulled the bag of her shoulder and reached inside. Pietro didn’t move, but his eyes watched her every movement. When she pulled out the large hardbound journal and set it on a decorative coffee table, his eyes narrowed slightly.
“Why?” he asked simply, with the slightest tilt of his head.
She shrugged and let her now empty bag fall to the floor. “It seems like the kind of thing that should be private. If it were mine, I’d want it back, not sitting in some library for people to read whenever they wanted.”
He stepped closer, his body defiantly invading her personal space. “And yet, you‘ve read it.”
“Sorry,” she blushed. “I wasn’t really sure what it was when I began, and once I had started, well-“
“You found it to be a real page-turner, did you?” He said with a mocking lift of his lip. She knew he was trying to intimidate her, cow her into running scared from him. What she really wanted to figure out was why.
Straightening her back she looked up into his eyes, meeting them confidently. “The things that happened to you, to your family, your sister, and the way talked about how it felt to transform, to become so much more and yet still have lost so much…” She itched to place her hand on his chest, to see if she could detect a heartbeat beneath the cold stone of his flesh. “It spoke to me.
“What do you want from me, foolish mortal,” he whispered, his voice cold, but his eyes contained a desperation that she recognized as the echo of the very same ache she felt in her gut.
“Is it true you can read my thoughts and memories from drinking my blood?,” she asked, looking down through the mesh of his shirt to the pale flesh beneath.
“It is,” he admitted, moving around behind her to her other side.
She swallowed hard. “Then why don’t you drink and find out.”
Pietro was still and silent behind her right shoulder and she waited patiently, tilting her head ever so slightly in a suggestive hint.
“This is what you wish?” He asked finally, his hand coming up to trail across her shoulder and push her hair out of the way. “Do you know what it is you ask, I wonder.”
Darcy nodded slightly and swallowed again, her mouth like sandpaper and her heart beating impossibly fast. “I do.”
He pressed in close behind her, the length of his body a cool, firm pressure against her back. “Do you trust me?” the words slithered across her skin like a test and a promise.
“Yes,” she sighed and leaned back against him, her head tipping farther, giving him access to the pulsing blood just under the delicate skin of her throat.
“First, a taste, I think,” he said and before she could register his absence at her back he was tilting her chin up with his hand and leaning over to take her bottom lip between his. One sharp fang dragged against the slick, soft skin and she tasted copper.
There was pain, sharp and immediate, but it was quickly supplanted by a spreading warmth and a line of arousal that shot straight from her mouth to her groin, like brilliant flashes of heat lightning, dancing through her body.
Darcy poured all her intentions and wishes into the kiss that grew from his bite. Pietro’s mouth opened against hers and his tongue slid past her lips, searching for every last trickle of spilled blood. The flick of it against the back of her teeth was pleasant, his lips and body a comfortable room temperature, instead of cold, as she had imagined.
Her hands moved of their own volition to cup around his waist and she leaned into it, working to focus her thoughts on all the things she wished him to know as he sucked her lip again, drawing another pulse of pleasure through her body.
He jerked away, suddenly as if shocked but a live wire. Darcy opened her eyes and looked up into his, the whites widened inside the darkness that circled them like an ever present storm cloud. She could see in his surprise and awe that her message had gotten through, loud and clear.
There were things she’d never be able to speak out loud to him, words she’d never be able to combine coherently enough to be big enough to convey what she really wanted to say. This way, though…
This way he could see into her heart and see everything. He could see that she understood him better than anyone else ever had, except for maybe his twin. He could see that she longed for him to understand her the same way. He could see that she yearned to share his world with him, to feel things with him and experience everything the same way that he did. He could see that what she wanted more than anything was for him to not be alone anymore, and to lessen his pain by its sharing.
“How are you real, little mortal?” He whispered as his hand rose to trace along her brow and cheek bone and lips and the curve of her jaw with the lightest brushing of his fingertips on her skin.
“It’s always been this way for me,” she answered with a small lift of her shoulders. “The Talamaska studied my increased ability for empathy and telepathic connection, but they were never able to tell me why or how. I’ve always felt more, felt connected to everything around me, and yet never truly been a part of it. I understand your separation and isolation, because I am the same. I’ve always been different.”
“You truly are a gift,” he breathed as his hand came to rest against the upper curve of her left breast, right over her heart. The look of wonder melted from his face then and he turned a rueful half smile down at her. “As such, it would be a far greater crime that I am willing to commit to extinguish the flame of your life. I’m sorry. I cannot give you what you want.”
He eased away from her moving as smoothly as if he were gliding on wheels.
She felt disappointment and anger flare hot within her chest. “You would deny us both the thing we long for above all else? Why!?”
He turned and walked over to lean against a pillar and show her his back. When he looked back over his shoulder his words were once again cold, dispassionate.
“You have read my journal and gleaned from it a sliver of the essence that makes me who I am, and you may understand my suffering and wish to lessen it, but I think, perhaps, that you failed to fully recognize the source of my torment.” His face softened by the tiniest margin and he let feeling return to his countenance. “By taking your life and dragging you into the darkness I would destroy the very thing I find most precious in the world.”
His eyes begged her to understand, but she felt only the acute loss of hope.
“So we both continue to suffer alone? You’re going to send me away with nothing, then?” She took a step towards him and felt her burning frustration swell in her eyes, presenting as tears that gathered, but only threatened to fall. “You really are a cruel bastard to leave us both so unsatisfied.”
His gaze flared with rage and as he turned to her. “If all you seek is satisfaction, my little pet, you should have just said so.”
“That’s not what I-“ Darcy began, but Pietro was there again, driving into her space with the force of his immeasurable being.
“You ask too much!” he hissed and wrapped the fingers of one hand around her neck, not squeezing or hurting, merely holding.
She looked into his eyes and refused to show him the fear or submission he seemed to demand with every line of his body and curve of his brow. “I would ask for less, if I could,” she said, seeing her demands had brought him naught but more pain, and regretted being the cause.
“Would you truly be satisfied with less? Each discovery or bit of knowledge you uncover seems only to increase your hunger,” he teased, his thumb rubbing back and forth underneath her jaw. “Will it ever be enough for you?”
“Please,” she begged, sensing a crack in his defenses. “Anything would be better than nothing.”
Pietro simply raised one dark eyebrow and lowered his eyes to mouth. “You are so very, very young and naive. You will find, as you grow wiser, that that is not always true.”
“Please,” she exhaled. “Whatever you are willing to give..”
“Very well, girl. It seems I am unable to refuse in this, though you will not thank me later, I think. I am feeling selfish with my very existence a breath from ending. Thankfully, I will not be around to bear witness to the consequences.”
“Don’t speak like that,” she scowled. “I can’t stand to think-“
His mouth on hers, shut the words down, and pushed away the razor sharp weight of her concern against his no-longer beating heart. He lifted her and moved with her to the floor, their bodies cradled among the plush softness of a large collection of floor pillows. His mouth never left her, his hands on her skin and moving over the fabric of her tight dress with possessive caresses.
Darcy’s tongue dipped into the cavity of his mouth and snagged the tip of one fang. They gasped together as the pain gave way to pleasure and the taste of her blood burned down his throat like a shot of the finest whiskey.
Arousal, once again, ripped through Darcy’s body and she arched against him, pressing up against him as he hovered over her. He moaned as an echo of her desire spread between them as he continued to sip at the cup of her lips, the rush of red hot life disproportionate to the amount of blood he was actually taking.
It was a heady thing. She was a heady thing.
He moved away from the temptation the small cut offered and moved to press kisses both fierce and tender along her neck and shoulder. With the fluttering of her pulse just beneath the silken skin, however, this proved just a strong a draw and he had to fight to not bite into her so willingly offered throat. It was a struggle, unlike any he’d felt since he’d first been made a fledgling by his maker.
Pietro utilized his speed and strength to quickly remove her dress and lay it aside, back to licking and kissing her breasts before she even knew he was gone. She gasped at her sudden nakedness and flushed, her skin growing warmer by degrees under his mouth and hands.
“Pietro,” she moaned and he pressed a finger against her lips.
“Shhhhh, be still, little one,” he hushed, and to his amazement, she was. Her fingers moved to his hair, sliding in carefully and fingering between his whitened locks. She knew from his journal that the discoloration of his hair was not the effect of any die or bleach, but one of the side effects of his drinking from the mother of all vampires.
She gazed up at him as though she was seeing a fine work of art for the first time, or witnessing a miracle right before her eyes. Were he not already dead, her adoration might have killed him.
He hid from the intensity of her eyes by turning his face to her breasts, lush and heaving as they were. He pealed down the cup of her bra and latched onto one large pink nipple as though he sought sustenance he could only draw from her.
Darcy writhed in his arms, her fingers pulling and pushing against his tingling scalp as she unconsciously kneaded at him with her grasp still in his hair. Pietro drew the points of his nails down the flesh of her arm, not breaking the skin, but teasing the line between pleasure and pain as he continued to suckle at her breast. His tongue flicked and tantalized the point of it with his inhuman speed and agility and she responded with his name falling from her mouth in worshipful supplication.
He moved to the other side, giving her left breast the same treatment and turning the points of his nails to draw five little white lines of sensation from her knee up her thigh to the line of her underwear. He gripped the meager scrap of silk in his fist and ripped, exposing her hot, seeping center to the open air.
He took his time, exploring the curves of her breasts and thighs and stomach with his mouth and hands as he slowly but inexorably made his way lower on her body. She clutched at him and gripped any part of him that she could reach as he made every inch of her sing with pleasure.
After a time that was immeasurable to her lust clouded mind, he caved to her mewling and begging and placed his mouth between her thighs, in the very place she wished for most. Using lips and tongue, he tasted and teased, advancing her ecstasy and wringing cries of exultation from her as he drew her up the crest of her climax towards the crashing waves of her impending orgasm.
He slide two fingers into the slick opening of her pussy and began to fuck into her shuddering body with careful ferocity, hitting all the notes of her pleasure with skill and precision.
Just as she plummeted over the edge, he lost the fight to deny the sirens call of her blood beating sweetly beneath the porcelain flesh of her inner thigh. Just a little bit, it whispered to him, just a swallow or two will be enough.
Her skin and the flesh beneath parted so beautifully beneath his fangs and the burst of hot blood against his tongue brought a surge of ecstasy deeper and more powerful that any orgasm he’d had when he was alive. He was overwhelmed with the images and emotions of her memories as they flooded into him. He was only dimly aware of the bowstring taut curve of her beneath him as she clenched around his fingers and quaked with the strength of her completion.
Then, for a while, he knew nothing but her.
Darcy opened her eyes slowly as the world became a thing she could feel, once again. She felt completely wrung out, squeezed dry, and left weak and wilted by the heavy fist of pleasure. She remembered all that had happened with Pietro, remembered the way he had made her feel, made her come so hard she had blacked out, and felt her skin warm with the memory.
She sat up, noticing for the first time that she was curled beneath the sheets of a strange bed in a strange room she’d never been in before. She was naked, though she could see her dress and her bra folded neatly on the bedside table, next to a softly burning lamp. The remainder of the room was streaked with alternating shadows and golden light, indicating it was either early morning or evening.
She pulled herself from the bed, her limbs heavy with lethargy and dressed as quickly as she was able without tilting from the dizziness of her exertions. Once she was decent, she pulled her cell phone from her dress pocket and turned it on. With the device activated she was finally informed as to the time.
It was the evening of the next day, just after 7 pm. She’d been out for almost a complete 24 hour period. Panic shot through her as she realized that the concert would be starting shortly. The concert where Pietro expected the other vampires, the ones he had called out with the taunting lyrics of his music, to come and try to end his afterlife.
If she was to see him again, to try and help him however she could, she had to hurry. As soon as the sun was down he would be taking the stage, and preparing to fight for his life.
She had no time to waste.