From award-winning British fantasy author Freda Warrington, A Taste of Blood Wine (Titan Books, May 2013) is the first novel of a gothic vampire melodrama.
To celebrate the return of the critically acclaimed Blood Books in collectable paperback and e-book edition, Titan Books and Freda Warrington are serialising two rare and risqué stories set within the universe of the Blood Books across a series of websites and blogs.
We’re publishing the third part of a short story called Little Goose. Read the rest of the tale here: http://titanbooks.com/blog/freda-warringtons-blood-wine-tour/
Little Goose: Part 3
By Freda Warrington
I wanted… oh, more than their blood. I wanted to climb inside them, to know how their minds worked, to see through their eyes and feel the sensation of nerves and sinews as they worked. Impossible. I had a nickname for her in the dark, Little Goose; for I did love her, in my way, which I suppose for vampires is a kind of envy; trying to recall how it was to be mortal, to reach into them, but forever separated by that thin cold sheet of glass, as if I were pressed flat against a museum display case, panting for treasures beyond my reach.
For weeks Rebecca played a nervous game, keeping me away from her father. I must never be seen with her in public. He came rarely to her flat – correction, her loft apartment, for that is the fashionable thing, to make homes in old factories – but when he came, I must not be there.
‘Why? You are not sixteen.’
‘He thinks boyfriends will stop me working. He scares them away! It’s less trouble if he doesn’t know, believe me.’
As I have said, I didn’t stop her working; far from it. The vampire’s kiss wreaks strange wonders on the mind. Zombie-eyed she would stagger from our bed to her studio – set on a gallery against the apartment’s wall of windows – and work, work, work like some mad Rumpelstiltskin character in a fairy tale. The more often I pleasured her, pleasured myself on her body and blood, the more feverishly inspired she became. From the prosaic equipment of cutters and polishers, blowtorches and pliers, drops of shining perfection emerged.
The first book in Freda Warrington’s Blood Books series, A Taste of Blood Wine, is out now from Titan Books, £7.99. Read the rest of the short story Little Goose here: http://titanbooks.com/blog/freda-warringtons-blood-wine-tour/
© Freda Warrington
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