The Selkie Ch. 05

She owned me.

Marika broke the contact herself as she immediately leapt back up to my side after I came, her still wet face directly against my sweaty skin.

She roughly licked my tender neck with her magic tongue and grazed her sharp teeth over the pulsing veins theirin, while her inhalations of my scent were extremely audible. She seemed to be teasing herself with my post-orgasmic chemically-enriched blood.

"Soon, Aud. Soon I will drink my fill from you," she confided, still breathing me in so blatantly that I trembled. I forced myself to nod acceptance, taxed by the effort of moving my head. What she'd just done to me was just caring for me, whatever was to come would be for her.

Her licking barbed tongue left my neck to carefully cover the every last inch of me in her saliva and my own secretions. She occasionally returned to the source to get more of my fluids to add to the mix coating my entire skin.

Yeah, it was exactly as strange as it sounds, but her licking tongue was warm and soothing, and brought me down gently into a happy repose. Being physically marked as hers felt extremely good in that moment.

Marika eventually finished scent-marking me to her satisfaction and rose to leave me there.

"Wait," my voice croaked at first and stayed quiet, "please stay with me?"

She nodded with a new grin, took her shirt off over her head and pulled off her jeans, and climbed back into bed. In my first brief view of her naked body, I saw she was completely hairless, completely fit, and completely gorgeous.

She spooned me from behind and idly caressed me. Even right after being so completely satisfied, her naked body inspired lustful thoughts in me. But I didn't know if she'd even want anything like what I wanted to do.

Everything she'd just done to me had been clearly for my gratification alone. Nor had I ever heard of a vampire enjoying sexual gratification before. Then again, what definitive source would I have consulted previously?

"Do you like sex, too, Marika?" I decided to at least ask the question.

"Very much so." Her knuckles ran over my belly. "After passing through the first years of primarily bloodlust, vampires rediscover other lusts as we mature. Wine, food, women, men, art, sport, battle. Usually whatever we enjoyed in life." She kissed my ear. "But maybe we should wait until you can move of your own volition?"

"Okay." I drifted into sleep in her arms. Having crossed the Rubicon into being her "pet" willingly, if temporarily, I didn't look back.

Marika left before I woke, but wrote me a note.

Dear Aud,

I have to be gone for a few hours. Your trailer is stocked, but you can order anything by adding it to the wishlist on your kindle. Please make yourself at home.

-Marika

I instinctively locked the doors on both sides of the fifth wheel first thing, grateful that she'd provided me with my own securable space.

I went for clothes next. The spacious and opulent trailer had been designed like a large well-appointed studio apartment and the wardrobe was indeed stocked with everything from cotton shifts to modern gowns. I threw on some khaki slacks and a green pullover.

Then I raided the fridge. Surprisingly, several bottles of strong liquor and vacuum-sealed jars of weed and powders took up the bulk of the shelf space. I was honestly searching for food though, so I grabbed a couple eggs and an orange, found oatmeal in a cabinet, and fried, boiled, and peeled. The pilot light had already been lit and plenty of cookware was readily available, so it wasn't a challenging endeavor.

I watched an insipid movie on the kindle while I ate, mostly out of stubborn refusal think about anything deep.

A loud voice called me back to my real life, vampiric but not hers. "Come out, come out, wherever you are, werebeast!"

I am not naive or stupid, so I did not obey the shockingly unfriendly and unplayful voice bidding me to leave the admittedly meager safety of the fifth wheel.

I peered through the blinds to see a half dozen vampires had come inside Marika's house and shut the stone door behind them. They swaggered about as they catcalled me, appearing drunk or mad or both. Clearly, the lot of them were far younger than Marika, but even one fledgling would be more than I could face mano-a-mano. No way on earth would I be coming out to meet them.

The basic lock on the door would grant me a couple key seconds as they broke in. With the speed of experience in involuntarily surviving shitty situations, I ran back to the fridge, pulled out three bottles of Everclear, uncapped them, and stuffed multiple paper towels deep into the 92.5% ethanol solution. Then I turned on one of the gas burners.

Any vampire dumb enough to come through that door was getting torched in liquid fire. And the second, and possibly the third. By then, I'd have to play by ear whether or not the fire in the trailer would force me out the back door.

I watched them draw closer.

"She must be in that trailer."

"Get out here, werebeast!"

"Don't make us come in after you!"

The front door jiggled, but wasn't ripped off its hinges. I stood with a bottle in hand.

My dear Aud feared something. I raced back to my house to find it infested with inferior specimens as had Odysseus on his return to Penelope. Six weak and foolish vampires abused the xenia of my home by trespassing and planning to steal from an elder vampire. Worse, the honorless bitches would attack my dear little selkie together as a gang of cowards, despite her palpable fear and her belonging to me. Wholly intolerable.

I lack the patience and subtlety of Odysseus in dealing with trespassers.

"Just pull it open already."

"I'm not damaging her property."

"Yeah, we're here in protest, not to break shit."

"Fuck it, just break open the door already."

The lock broke and the outer door swung open with only the screen door separating those awful creatures and me. I held the paper towels near the flame.

"Aw, shit!" one of the vampires shouted and the one at the door backed away.

Marika was home.

"You are on my property without my permission," she spoke to the assembled interlopers formally, but anyone could see she was pissed. "Now would be the time to relate the emergency that brings you uninvited into my house and justifies threatening to attack my werebeast."

I set down the bottle, turned off the burner, and watched the show through the screen door.

She had placed herself between the trailer and the other vampires. Of the six, one was already kneeling in surrender, but the remaining five had spread out and taken fighting stances.

Marika didn't wait for them to act. She rushed the nearest, yanked it off its feet, and broke its back over her knee before dumping it to the ground.

Another ran at her from her side, but she dodged sideways, tore its arm off as it passed, and sent it sprawling to hit its head on the stone ground and crack its skull open. The arm she tossed aside.

`The remaining three had the sense to approach her as a group, but clearly hadn't fought together enough to have a set strategy. Marika blocked the first couple disorganized swings, then balled up her fist and punched one so hard in the eye that the socket and cheek bones jammed into its brain, felling it instantly.

She turned to the next, reached into it and pulled out part of its spine from the front. The fifth, seeing this, dropped to its knees in surrender.

"Both of you, stand." The rage in Marika's voice struck as painfully as her blows and the two still conscious vampires cringed but stood immediately.

"I assume you weak young fools all share a Sire?" Her words were clipped, as though checking her anger was difficult. A long second passed. "Speak!"

"Yes."

"Collect your fellow idiots and all their parts," she gestured broadly at the fallen vampires in pieces around her, "and return to your Sire. Tell her of your trespassing and attempted theft and that I defer the matter to the judgement of the Rada."

"We weren't stealing anything. Werebeasts are communal property," the one that had fought answered back in defiance. "You're bogarting it and we won't stand for it!"

Marika grabbed it by the throat and lifted it from the ground.

"That werebeast is mine. The blood in her veins is mine. You came in my house with the express purpose of stealing what is mine." She threw it to the hard stone floor and I heard its bones snap.

"I have agreed to the Prepatent Initiative, and therefore you will leave with your lives. Submit yourselves to the judgement of the Rada."

The last unbroken vampire helped the other to its feet and together they began removing their fellows.

I stood in shock at the purely violent physicality Marika was capable of exacting in her anger. Logically, I knew she would be stronger and faster than young vampires, but seeing the delta for myself was illuminating and terrifying.

Marika knocked politely on the screen door and pulled me out of my dark thoughts. I asked her in.

"Are you okay?" She gathered me in her strong arms, kissed me, and smelt of my neck.

"Better than them," I indicated the broken trespassers.

"I am sorry they frightened you." She let me go, but held my hands so she could lock in on my eyes with hers. "Such things should not happen here. Not to you."

"Meh." Importantly, she can't read my mind, just my chemical reactions. She couldn't know that the fear still racing through me was due to her and not the trespassers. A gang of vampires threatening to break down my door frightened me as well of course - because I'm sane - but seeing her literally tear five other vampires apart was much more eye opening. "I suspect that I'll live."

"Good." She noticed the stuffed bottles on the counter and arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah," I shrugged, "I don't know what the Prepatent Initiative is, but I certainly haven't agreed to it."

She exhaled a laugh. "I only meant to save you, but that pack of fools owes me thanks for keeping them from makeshift Molotov cocktail hour."

"You're not mad?" I'd not attacked her and I wouldn't, especially not with the knowledge that my status would downshift to "communal property" without her claim on me. I wondered though if she might rethink giving me access to fire and other vampire killing resources since I'd shown myself willing and able to kill.

"Entering a vampire's territory without permission is considered a hostile act and becomes a kill or be killed situation without mitigating circumstances, so you may defend against intruders at will. Let them face selkie wrath and die at the hands of prey for all I care." She ran her fingers through my hair, lightly scratching over my scalp. "And I would know before you did if you decided to kill me, dear Aud."

I nodded as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders. She probably would. Even in that moment, if I were to turn the burner back on...

Her arms lowered and tightened around me, not painfully, but enough to immobilize me. "It is especially easy if I only have to feel your arm flex toward fire." She kissed my shoulder.

"You made me think of it," I accused back.

"So I did, little selkie, but put it out of your mind." I did. At the very least, I no longer viewed killing her as a viable option unless necessitated by an escape attempt.

I still had in my mind that I should try to run at some undefined future point. When I stood some reasonable chance of succeeding.

Particularly as I began to see my current situation less and less as something I should run from, facing those perceived impossible odds of escape - with nowhere and no one to run to no less - grew increasingly unfathomable. In the meantime...

"What were you watching?" Marika asked to change the subject, pointing to the kindle.

"Uh," I looked at the screen, "Bridesmaids?"

Marika made a clicking sound with her tongue. "We could play one of several video game systems on the big screen in that cabinet?" That did sound better.

We'd played for a couple hours when her head popped up.

"Excuse me." She paused the game and stood. "Actually, no. Come with me, but do not speak."

I followed her outside to find about a dozen other vampires (clearly much older than the last pack) and Geber and a few other immortals whom I hadn't met yet. All the non-vampires bowed their heads and folded their hands as they stood, so I followed suit.

"Kneginja, Rada, Sheriff, welcome," Marika greeted and bowed slightly to each in turn.

"Thank you for opening your home to us," the Kneginja answered, presumably with exaggerated formality due to the earlier trespass. I recognized its voice as the one Marika had officially asked to keep me.

"Of course," Marika nodded.

"Those that violated your property this morning were of my line," one of the Rada spoke. "I apologize for them, thank you for your forbearance in not killing them outright, and recommend that each spend a year in hunger as punishment and relinquish their worldly goods to you in recompense."

"Fair answer," Marika agreed, "But fair warning, should anyone else violate or attempt to violate my property going forward, I will end them." Her hand gently rubbed the back of my bowed neck.

"Done then," the Kneginja confirmed. "But we have more to speak of."

"Those six fuckwits thought it'd be just fine to traipse about on an Elder's territory, take what they wanted, and then live to tell about it. Par for the fucking course with this stupid Prepatent Initiative," The Sheriff blurted, as though it was taking all she had to hold back as long as she had.

She was over six feet tall, ebony black with tight broad braided cornrows, and wore lead-lined leather from head to foot. I couldn't help instantly liking her.

"The trouble is," another of the Rada pointed out, "They did live to tell about it. We can't know if they'd be weeded by natural selection or if they're just taking advantage of our lenient policies."

"We'll need cannon fodder soon enough. What does it matter?" another asked.

"Because even cannon fodder has to face forward and march when told," The Sheriff answered in clear disgust. "Not to mention all six incompetents are supercentenarians and still didn't leave a scratch on Marika between them. We're breeding caged tigers."

The conversation continued in much the same vein, with nothing decided, other than continuing to wait as Geber's research progressed.

They all left and Marika brought me back into the trailer. We sat back down in comfy recliners facing the big screen, but didn't resume playing.

"What's the real goal of your expansion and research?" The conversation outside didn't make sense without a substantial ulterior motive that greatly exceeded speeding organizational growth. "You're not just building a bigger nest to carve out more territory."

"The doppelgänger may be right." She patted my forearm affectionately and dismissively. "You may be too smart for your own good."

"You didn't answer my question," I rebuked her petulantly, not noticing at the time that she quoted a conversation she shouldn't have heard between me and that sociopath.

"I did not." She gestured and I understood that she wanted me to sit in her lap. Even before I'd become conscious of her desire intellectually, I'd obeyed her whim physically.

"Why not?" Don't think me rude. I'm just a Daughter of Eve as it were. Put me in an Eden (or a comparative Eden) with no immediate somatic needs or permanent dangers and tell me there's one thing I'm not allowed to know or do.

I'm going to try the fruit eventually. It'll be the only thing I can think about until I do.

"Because I legitimately like you and I don't think it'd give you any peace of mind." I believe that to be true, that Marika likes me. Not really in the romantic way two humans like each other, but as she said, like a treasured pet.

"I might be more useful to Geber's project if knew its real purpose," I suggested, scooting back to be flush against her hard body. One of her arms wrapped around my shoulders over my collarbone. The other snaked under my green sweater, but her hand stayed against my lower ribs.

Her fingers - just the cool pads and not the sharp talons - ran over my side. It struck me that Marika could make me feel physically better, could understand what my body wants, could bring me more passing pleasure than any human lover I'd ever had. Even mortal women I'd stayed with for decades never learned to play my body so skilfully. There's really no substitute for millennia of experience, even if that talent was developed to support her predatory habits.

"I doubt it. You still think of yourself as human." I don't actually. Not really. Not since Ina died. No more than educated humans consider themselves the same as other hominids at least. "You are returned from the Land of the Houyhnhnms, but still consider yourself a Yahoo and are manifestly not ready for the Rada's 'modest proposal.'"

"I'm not human, but I do put disproportionate importance on the value of their mortal lives, by vampiric standards anyhow. What does that have to do with anything though? What's your endgame?"

"My 'endgame' personally? None. I care neither if more vampires are made or not, nor if more humans die or not," Marika paused. "But the Rada disagrees widely amongst ourselves as to what to do with the knowledge of how to identify potential vampires and/or the bloodlines of potential vampires once we have it."

"Well, what are the options on the table?" I held my breath, sure I wouldn't like her answer.

"The least ambitious option is simply incentivizing candidates to move to a nearby city and procreate, thereby increasing our odds of readily and rapidly finding available recruits. The most ambitious option is isolating candidates forcibly while reducing the general human population."

"'Reducing the general human population' how?" Even humans recognized that they were overpopulating the earth, but to exterminate them like nuisance wildlife...

Marika exhaled in indifference and the complete lack of empathy in her voice sent shivers down my spine.

"Pick a Horseman."