Until the night I met Henri Dauterive, I lived in a world devoid of light. My own choice, of course. I preferred the night and stayed in the shadows during the day. I hid from anything that might reveal what I was.

Henri stumbled into me as I crossed Canal Street on my way uptown. Already inebriated, he was on his way down to the Quarter. I don’t know why I turned to follow him. Maybe it was nothing more than easy prey. Maybe it was fate.

It wasn’t hard to over power him. He wasn’t a large man and he was soft. As I leaned in to take him I caught the scent of a woman on his breath. I kissed him to taste her. He was so shocked at being kissed by another man that he didn’t even struggle.

Bourbon and sex. Interesting, but not what I was after. As my lips left his I turned him so his back was against me and covered his mouth with my hand. I sank my fangs into his throat. He struggled ineffectually for a few minutes as I drew what I needed from him.

My eyes grew wide as I drank him in. In his soul was a blackness so thick it dimmed my vision. Pedophilia. Incest. Infanticide. Cruelties beyond anything I’d seen in ages. I choked on him and nearly let him go. Then she was there, a candle burning in the midnight of his dark, chaotic essence.

Long, soft black curls, caramel colored skin, large, surprisingly light, green eyes, and sensuous, full lips. A beautiful child on the verge of womanhood.

It was her I had tasted in his mouth and I could smell her now on his body. He used her barbarously and she enjoyed it. He had taught her to love pain. My fingers clenched, digging into the skin around the corner of his mouth and he whimpered pathetically. I was enraged.

As I snapped his neck his last thought exploded inside my head. “Evangeline, mi aime jou.” The sick love he felt for her flashed through me like the heat from a solar flare. Grunting, I shoved his lifeless body away from me and fell to my hands and knees, breathing heavily.

I was suddenly aware of how empty my own soul was. I felt the crushing loneliness that I had for centuries denied. I ached for her. I pined.
Evangeline.

It wasn’t hard to find her. She was his niece and Henri had moved into their Garden District home to take care of her and her mother after his brother’s death. For weeks after I had taken Henri I stood in a corner of Evangeline’s room at night after I had hunted and fed. Just being in the room, listening to her breathe and watching her dream eased the constant ache in my chest as it stoked the fire in my loins.

Two nights before I had taken enough from her to leave her weaken and carried her to their family mausoleum in Chalmette. The few minutes that she lay on the steps of the tomb, staring blankly at the marble angel that guarded the door, while I waited for her to choose between eternity with me and death with Henri, felt longer than the thousands of years that I had endured without her. When she had finally said yes to me I was on my knees again.

I had brought her here to the old plantation house I call mine on the edge of the bayou and once again had spent hours watching her sleep. When she awakened late in the afternoon I had made love to her before finishing what I had started the night before, making her forever mine.

Standing naked in the French doors that opened onto the balcony, I turned to look at Evangeline. She was asleep lying on her stomach with one arm bent under her head, the sheet barely covering her lovely buttocks and one leg. I wanted to wake her. While the act of physical love was always pleasant, I never climaxed. Until making love to Evangeline I had thought it impossible for a vampire.

Three times now I had achieved an orgasm while thrusting into her lush body. They were dry, of course, but the sensation was mostly the same and all three times had left me trembling in her arms like a callow youth. The second time it had happened my body was wracked by dry sobs while she held me.

The sun was rising and I turned away from the sleeping form of my lover to watch it for the first time in years. The fiery orange orb was just beginning to rise over the cypress trees by the river when Evangeline called my name, her voice tinged with panic. I turned to see what was causing her to sound so distressed.

She stood a few feet from me at the edge of the patch of light that that was creeping across the floor from the open doors as the sun continued it’s climb. Her chest was heaving and her eyes were wide with fear.

“What’s wrong?” I asked immediately on edge as I tried to determine what danger she had sensed.

She stared at me, confusion clouding her green eyes. I stepped toward her and my shadow fell across her. “What is it, cher?” I asked as I pulled her against me.

“I thought . . .” She was staring past me toward the door.

My eyes followed hers and I laughed softly. My fingers under her chin lifted her face and I bent my head to press my lips to hers. “You thought that our kind burst into flames when the sunlight touches them,” I said stroking her silken hair.

She smiled sheepishly and nodded, her arms sliding around my neck.

“It’s a myth,” I said placing my hands on her beautiful face as I leaned down to kiss her again.

Her lips parted beneath mine and I explored the sweetness of her mouth groaning as her tongue met mine. My hands left her face to glide down over her back pressing her firmly against my body. Her skin against mine enflamed my passion for her.

I lifted her off her feet as I deepened our kiss. She wrapped her legs around my hips and her heady scent filled my nostrils. I was undone by my need for her. I turned and pressed her back against the wall. Reaching between us I guided my hard cock to her cunt.

I pushed into her and she moaned as my hands grasped her firm ass cheeks and I began to thrust into her. Her fingers wound into my hair and she kissed me fiercely. Heaven couldn’t possibly feel any better than Evangeline. Her mouth on mine, her hands, her breasts pressed against me, her hard nipples teasing my chest as I moved inside her.

Her breath was coming in whimpering gasps as she rotated her hip against me. The sounds she was making drove me to thrust deeper into her. The tight sheath of her cunt contracted around my cock and I pushed her harder against the wall wanting to lose myself inside her. She felt so taut and . . .

“You’re wet,” I said frowning in my confusion.

“Mmmmm hmmm,” she murmured, her hands sliding from my hair to cup my face as she tried to drag my lips back to hers.

“You can’t be,” I muttered huskily.

She snorted a little laugh. “But I am, cher. You make me wet,” she breathed. “Gabriel, give me your mouth.”

I turned my lips back to hers and shuddered with pleasure as she sucked my lower lip between hers for a moment before pushing her tongue into my mouth again.

My legs were trembling as I felt a tightening in my balls and I knew that even with the supernatural strength that I possessed this girl was about to have me on my knees again. I turned with her in my arms and stumbled toward the bed. Evangeline laughed when I tore the mosquito netting from it’s metal rings and dropped her onto the tousled sheets. I followed quickly after and instinctively slipped back into her body barely missing a stroke.

She wrapped her legs around my hips and I pounded my cock into her. Everything in me was straining toward her as she met my savage thrusts. My breathing grew more ragged and my rhythm quickened. Evangeline held me tightly in her arms and pressed her lips against my neck.

She began cooing to me, her lips close to my ear, her breath stirring my hair. Had I the presence of mind I would have been able to translate her Cajun French, but my mind was taken over by the completely animal instinct that drove me to thrust harder and faster as my body sought the exquisite release that only her body could afford me.

I ran my hands up over her ribs to her arms. Sliding my hands along her arms I slowly pushed them above her head. My fingers twined with hers and I pulled her hands down to her shoulders as I pushed up to look down at her. The tension in my loins built to a critical level.

I thrust into her fast and hard. The loud groan starting in my throat with the beginning of my orgasm turned into a surprised grunt as I felt my testicles tighten and release a thick rope of semen that rushed through my pulsing cock and exploded from the tip into Evangeline.

Her eyes were as wide as mine and I knew that she had felt it, too. I started to shake my head in denial when another spasm took hold of me and another shot of cum erupted from my throbbing cock.

I collapsed onto her and pushed as deeply into her tight cunt as I could while continuing to climax. She wrapped her arms around me and held me tightly as my body trembled so violently that my teeth chattered.

I kept my face buried in her hair as my breathing calmed and returned to normal. She stroked my hair softly with one hand and ran her other over my back. I kissed the side of her neck and rolled onto my side pulling her into my arms.

She nestled against my chest. “You’re wet, too, mon ange,” she murmured, her voice slightly amused.

“It’s not possible,” I murmured shakily against her raven hair. “This doesn’t happen.”

Her laughter was crystalline. “You keep saying that, my love.”

I laughed, too, and shook my head. “You continue to confound me.”

Her hand cupped my cheek as she tilted her head and pressed her lips to mine. “It was destiny,” she said when she had laid her head against my chest again. “Fate put Henri in your path and led you to me. I am made for you.”

I held her tightly. “I have no doubt that you are.”

Her hand brushed lightly across my abdomen and I trembled as she closed her fingers lightly around my limp penis. She trailed kisses along the path her hand had taken and I moaned loudly when her lips brushed against the head of my cock.

My body’s response was immediate and profound. Evangeline’s tongue circled the tip before she sucked me deep into her mouth. My cock stiffened and she moved her head slowly up and down as she stroked the shaft.

I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the sensations her hand and mouth were causing, groaning softly when she began to massage my balls with her free hand. My hands cupped the back of her head urging her to increase her tempo and I began to thrust my hips up to meet her downward stroke forcing my self deeper into her willing mouth.

Her tongue was like velvet undulating against my hard cock as she sucked while lifting her head before plunging back down. Her fingers tightened on every upward stroke as though she were trying to milk the semen from my testicles.

“Evangeline,” I moaned, “I’m going to cum.”

She pushed her mouth as far down as she could and forced the head of my cock into her throat. My back arched and I thrust my hips up as my balls released a torrent of semen. She lifted her head to hold just the head of my cock in her mouth, milking me with her hand as I continued to cum.

When she was satisfied she had everything I had to offer, she laid across my chest with her face close to mine. Smiling triumphantly she opened her mouth and extended her tongue to show me the small amount of semen that remained there. My hands cupped her face meaning to pull her in to take it from her in a kiss so I could taste it for myself.

Her tongue vanished back into her mouth and she swallowed greedily, laughing as I rolled with her to pin her beneath me. My lips met hers and hers parted for me. My tongue explored her mouth seeking the lingering flavor and I moaned softly when I tasted myself in her sweet mouth.

“Do you believe now?” she asked as I moved to lie beside her cradling her in my arms.

“I believe it’s happening,” I said kissing the top of her head. “I just don’t know how.”

“Does it matter?” she asked as she lightly caresses my shoulder.

“No,” I murmured against her hair.

“Will you be able to give me a baby?” she asked her hand still moving soothingly over my skin.

I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t think it was possible, but closed it again. I obviously didn’t know
anymore what was and was not possible.

“I don’t know,” I finally answered.

“I had a baby,” she told me, her voice filled with a quiet sadness. “He was stillborn.”

I didn’t say anything. I knew of the child she’d borne her uncle. I had seen how he’d taken the baby he had himself delivered and left Evangeline alone in her room. I knew that he had sat for several hours holding his son. I had felt the pride he’d felt as he looked down at the infant sleeping in his arms.

And I had seen him wrap the blanket over the baby’s face before pressing his hand firmly over it’s mouth and nose to suffocate the evidence of his incestuous relationship with his niece. He had buried the small bundle in a flower bed in the back yard and told her that the child had been born dead.

I held her tightly and gently rubbed her back trying to rid my mind of the memories I’d taken from Henri. I had not felt the need for sleep in centuries, but I could feel it overtaking me now. With Evangeline nestled in my arms I closed my eyes and slept.

I awoke alone in the bed that, before this day, I had never used for anything but making love to Evangeline. I rose and found the trousers I had discarded earlier and pulled them on before going in search of her.

She had found the library. My favorite room in the house I had ‘inherited’ from the previous owner, it was the only one that was free of dust. She was perusing the vast collection of books, some already there and some that I had added to my collection in the years I’d lived in the house alone.

With a look of pure joy on her lovely face she held up the book in her little hands and I smiled. She held a rare copy of Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Longfellow that I’d found on a serendipitous trip to a bookstore on Dauphine Street. I knew that her father, a teacher of Literature, had named her after the heroine of the epic poem and she in turn had taken my name from the same work.

“I love Longfellow,” she said curling up in an over stuffed arm chair that threatened to swallow her small frame.

“Yes,” I said leaning against one of the shelves as I watched her page reverently through the book.

“My father named me after her,” she murmured as she began to read.

I smiled indulgently at her. “I know, though you put me more in mind of The Quadroon Girl.”

She looked up from the book, a seductive little smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Will you have me for your slave and paramour?” she asked.

I crossed the space between us and dropped to my knees in front of her looking up into her beautifully mesmerizing green eyes. “I’ll have you for my mate, my love.”

She closed the book and set it on it’s spine between her thigh and the arm of the chair. Winding her lithe arms around my neck she leaned forward and brought her face close to mine. Her honeyed breath caressed my lips and teased my nostrils.

“I’ll be your slave,” she offered softly. “I’ll do anything you want.”

I dragged her from the chair and into my arms, my chest rising and falling rapidly. Breathing wasn’t a necessity, but I was unable to deprive myself of her heady scent. She offered herself to be my slave, but I knew it was I that was the slave and her willing captive.

I kissed her deeply, holding her tightly against my chest. She wound her fingers into my hair and circled my tongue with hers. With one hand I stroked her silken hair while pressing her firmly against my body with the other.

I smiled as I lifted my head. “We should hunt,” I said.

She laid her head against my shoulder. “I have no thirst,” she murmured as she trailed kisses over my bare chest.

I frowned. I hunted nearly every night out of habit, but, new as she was, feeding should have been an imperative for her. I held her slightly away from me and searched her eyes.

“You’re not hungry?” I asked somewhat skeptically.

She looked up at me with guiless, clear green eyes, a slightly puzzled smile curving her lovely lips. “No, cher, but we can hunt anyway if you thirst.”

“You confound me yet again, love,” I told her as my hands moved from her shoulders to cup her cheeks. “You should be ravenous.”

She laughed, a clear, ringing sound. “I am, my darling,” she said, a mischievous light gleaming in her eyes. “I hunger for you.”

I shook my head in wonder before lowering my head to capture her alluring lips. Her arms snaked around my neck and she held me fast as she opened her mouth and deepened our kiss. I was lost in my beautiful lover again.

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