Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

much longer, but he didn’t stop. He moved them down over my eyes, my cheeks, until they were at my lips, moving as if his lips were an artist’s paintbrush and he was outlining the picture on his canvas. I had become his canvas in many ways, I realized. His lips grazed mine, and then he kissed me harder.
    The feelings that flowed through me came as a frightening surprise. They were frightening because they filled me with unexpected pleasure. He had often sat me on his lap, had comforted me when I went to sleep and had bad thoughts, and had worn the mantle of my father and protector as I grew up. I had never dreamed he would touch me in places girls reserved for other men.
    “Yes,” he said. He was like the love chef sampling his newest creation. “I can taste your sex. You are so ready, and Ava has been a good influence on you, hasn’t she?”
    “Yes, Daddy.”
    “I want you to understand that what you are doingtonight is carrying on a great history, enabling it to live. You bring immortality to me. You will truly be one of us now. Are you excited?”
    “Nervous,” I said, and he laughed. He had kissed me, held me, and looked into my eyes and had not seen what I had expected and feared he would see.
    “That will come and be gone forever after tonight.”
    He touched the ring Mrs. Fennel had given me.
    “These are all made out of the Patio stone. As long as you wear it now, you will be one of us and protected. Go now, my darling daughter, and begin to fulfill your destiny.”
    He released me and slipped back down onto the pillow.
    “I have to rest a while,” he said. He closed his eyes.
    I stared at him for a few moments. I could see the paleness in his face. I thought I even saw lines where there had never been any. And then, suddenly, his eyelids opened again, and instead of the ebony black, there was a blazing red. It stabbed me with an electric sharpness that penetrated my heart.
    I turned and hurried off like someone who had seen her own death.

19
 
Judgment Day
    “Did he give you his blessing? Wasn’t it wonderful?” Ava asked me when we started out of the house.
    “Yes,” I said, and got into the car.
    “And he gave you the family stone,” she said, nodding at my new ring. “I hope you realize how lucky you are now, Lorelei, and what a privilege it is to make sacrifices for Daddy.”
    “You’re not ever afraid? You were never afraid?” I asked her.
    I thought she might become angry again and snap at me, but she was quiet.
She simply won’t answer
, I thought. It felt like minutes of silence. “Of course I was afraid,” she finally replied. “But I instinctively knew that once I had completed myself for Daddy, I would never feel that sort of fear again. We don’t fear anything, Lorelei. We are aware of the renegades, but we don’t fear them. We prepare ourselves, remain cautious and alert so we can defend ourselves, but even that has no fear in it. You can’t imagine right now what you will feel once it’s over. You don’t have to try to imagine. I’ll tell you, because I am sure you’ll agree with me soon. You’ll feel like a goddess,immortal and invulnerable. There are times when I feel the whole world is here for me and me alone. The air was created for me to breathe. The sun was created to warm me, and the night was created to protect me. Everything is for me, only me. When you are filled with that feeling of euphoria, that exaltation and rapture, you will see exactly what I mean. So, yes, I felt fear once, but it is so far back in my memory I can’t remember what it was like.”
    What she said and the way she said it would probably make most people envious, I thought, but it didn’t give me the relief I sought as we drove on. Buddy was out there waiting for his lover, believing I would give him the crown jewel of life, the most cherished and important reason to live—deep, long, and everlasting love. He longed for me, while I approached with deception and the promise of deep, long, and everlasting betrayal.
    I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. I was as cold as stone. Every part of my body was attached to strings I could not see but knew were there, strings that Daddy would pull, that he had been pulling all my life. I would dance the dance of seduction, and I would embrace Buddy with the iron grip my sex now could employ. He had no chance of escape. His own heart would blind him and bind him for deliverance into Daddy’s waiting arms.
    “The moment you drove over to