Cider: Book Six of LEVS - ON HIATUS

Prologue: Love in the wings

It was official. I, Sex Von Drachefeld, was a groupie.

I followed a rock band around for sex. No, really it was for love but I couldn’t deny that, damn, the sex was pretty smoking if you know what I mean--nudge nudge, kiss, kiss, can’t walk without the Healing light. Wingkitty could put a lip smack on you that could singe the ends of my blue hair. Yes, my hair was dyed blue once again this time I also had in coloured contacts that turned my jade green eyes a soft dove grey.

Now, why the hell did I do that? How do I explain it? I can’t without saying I am my own grandfather’s father’s grandson but not...damn. Trying to figure that out just left my thoughts all tangled up. To simplify.

I loved Claudius. He loved me. I loved my children and their group of significant others, aka surrogate puppy bros and human band mates. However, they were making me molt. My boys had started a band. They were pretty damned good. Well, of course, they had a musical education whether they wanted it or not. Are you going to tell Grandpa Carnage that you just don’t feel like playing the piano today? Not bloody likely. I might have been able to pry the winglets and puppies and kids, human not the goat kind, away from him when it came to self defense but the trade off was music lessons. Everyday, at a set time. When I say everyday, I meant everyday. Weekends, holidays, vacations and whatever else popped up. Considering how much Lex fought Claudius over music lessons, you would never have thought that they would be sharing a stage as well as screaming girls and guys plus people who were old enough to have been screaming for me in my heyday.

Which had come around again, hence the grey contacts and blue hair.

Pack Von D rocketed up the world wide charts with a remake of Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf.” It was a cool cover version and I don’t care if I’m skewed to favouritism, the video camera loved my boys. They got the touch of Papa Eddie presence when the world was watching. What made the song different from the original was that all three of them started trash yipping about each other’s genitals in Lycan in the middle of the song and the human engineer thought it was cool so he left it in. Of course, Lycans around the world thought it was hilarious and bought it up. The were the first wave, then the video got done.

Here’s where I came back into the dreaded fifteen minutes of fame. Of course there were vampire artists, musicians, directors etc. While they were jumping at the bit to get on board the Pack Von D gravy train, the additions of Carnage, Master Assassin and Riley, Black Fey to the musical group just put the kybosh on all things creative. Not that the bloods didn’t want to work with the PVD but they were too damned scared around Sasha and Riley. Finally, we were reduced to using humans. Oh, jees, that came out wrong. I’m not against humans, I just don’t hang out with them anymore. Well, technically, I never did – that would have been Xavier but since Armor’s abandonment, X hasn’t been exactly a barrel of laughs. Or out in the light of day. Mr Mopey Pants is a big drag on everyone and since he told me less than politely to fuck off several times; I’ve left him alone to work out how he was going to continue without that big brown ass of a vampire. You can’t help someone if they don’t want it. I know. I’ve been there. I’ll be there when X reaches out. He will eventually.

What the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah. Seth and I were goofing around on their video shoot back behind the stage. Of course the boys were all decked out like rock stars, tight leather, bare skin, spray on tats – except for Jax, his were real. He was proud of his mixed human heritage – English and Japanese. I just couldn’t see myself sitting through that pain. Also, I had a big doubt that the Blue Line liked having its carriers inked. I mean, look at the freaking long hair I get back with every phoenix burn! So the boys were all being boys and the girl was fake and uncoordinated dancing temptress. Well attempting to be a temptress. After about the thirtieth scream of “CUT” everyone broke for a cigarette and lunch. Seth was bored out of his mind. So was I. It wasn’t that hard to pole dance.

Forget the fact that Seth was now Liam, or would be Liam, when he came into his wings, which could be never depending on what the hell Orel Wessel had done to the body he was now inhabiting. Anyways, he was a kicking kid. Lex had hung with X. Seth hung with me. It could be because we were so damned alike. Claudia has laid down the law to both of us at the same time for the same thing. The Empress didn’t want to impede her children’s growth but she wasn’t expecting to be a grandmother before her children shook of the title of fledgling. PVD could tour and do all the stuff that burgeoning rock stars would do, only if there were a contingent of Loyal. Ping got in on it too. The boys were going to be smothered with Loyal and Alpha Packs until both Ripley and Sasha came up with a solution everyone could live with. They join the band and act as chaperones as well as bodyguards. I mean, the Black Death and Dark Fey--Wings and Blades and Magic. Sasha played the keyboards and Ripley took over the bass leaving Wolf to concentrate of just singing. That boy had pipes. I missed Haley.

Oh, so back to my blue hair. Seth double dog dared me. I mean, you just can’t ignore something like that. You gotta save face especially when it’s your kid. We had watched the uncoordinated woman enough to know what the choreography was supposed to be. Seth was a techno kid. I mean the entire crew was off eating and he was able to run the board. I was lit. I had playback and when I started to shake my groove thang, he was moving around with a little hand held camera.

I got into it. It wasn’t hard to take this stage to the penthouse in my mind’s eye. I know Sasha would dig it. I took a firm hold of the pole and used my momentum to swing around about three times before I skidded across the floor. This wasn’t so difficult. I swivelled forward on my hip and began crawling forward allowing my hair to spill around my head and sweep the catwalk.

“Work it…work it.” Seth’s encouragement made me laugh.

The top of my head collided with something solid and I screeched to a halt. Black on black. A hand caught me under my chin and raised my face up. I was still on my hands and knees on the catwalk. “What are you doing, Fallen?”

“Kiss him!”

I don’t know who the hell was yelling at us. “Kiss him!!!” I only had eyes for my vampire of love.

“You like?”

“You know I like.”

“Kiss him already!”

Sasha wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and hauled me forward right to the edge of the stage. I flipped onto my back because the position of trying to strain my neck backwards was...well straining my neck backwards. He leaned over brushing my hair back from my face, allowing his to swing forward. It should have been an awkward kiss. We were basically 69ing our mouths.

“PG 13, PG 13!”

Who the hell was that? I gave Sasha one last little nip on the upper lip and twisted my head around. It was the director. He had every camera zeroed in on us. When big and fake boobs came in and pouted oh so prettily that she was ready to try again, the director fired her and kicked her off the set. My goofing around with Seth and sucking face with Sasha landed me in the starring role of PVD’s debut video.

“You look familiar. What’s your name? How old are you? Do you need a guardian to sign a release?”

I just stared at him like a deer in the headlights. All I could think of is that the cat was out of the bag. Here was fifty-four year old Sex still romping around like a young buck when that damn poster was at least twenty years old. Sasha had a glazed look to his eye. It wasn’t going to be PG 13 for too much longer. Those arctic blues flared northern light hot for a second then he blinked.

“This is Edward.” Claudius pulled me off the stage right into his arms. Mmmmmh.

“Eddie.” Lex called out.

“Well which one is it?”

“Eddie.” I confirmed. I wasn’t going to be called Edward if I could help it.

“Your Lexie’s little brother?”

I raised an eyebrow in “Lexie’s” direction. I was about to say no when Seth piped up. He grabbed my other arm and pressed his head in. I know damned well he was drawing attention to the fact that all three of us have the same lack of hair pigment. “Eddie’s my big brother. Lex is my bigger brother.”

“And why is Dead hanging all over you?”

“Because, Eddie is mine.” Sasha said that statement plain and simple and with a little bit of undertone of darkness. That’s my vampire.

So, I ended up taking the place of fake boobs. The director said there were too many white headed hotties on the screen and since this was Lex’s gig I allowed myself to get pulled off to beauty school and my hair was koolaid’d blue. It didn’t matter that the man kept screaming PG-13 the tv stations rated us lewd, rude and if the video was shown it was after ten at night. It was a hit.

Now, Pack Von D was touring. All the girls were screaming and trying for my boys. Ripley turned out to be a little switch hitter who could pick up the slack and make all those who were persistent think they achieved their goals with a little bit of that fairy glamour dust. Pleasant memories but with no real substance nor repercussions. The only thing Sasha didn’t like was that some fans had overheard the boys talking to Ded and now every time he went of stage it was to the chants of Dead! Dead! Dead! I laughed my ass off thinking that the youth of America was called my love, grandpa.

So, I’m a groupie.

I heard the roar of the crowd as Wolfgang ended the set with his now infamous wolf howl. He actually said “thanks” to the fans. You don’t know what the PVDers howled back. It’s just like throwing out random words from a foreign language. I was glad that the Moms, let all three of them go on this impromptu tour. They weren’t the headliners and the rider that the band would not perform in sunlight might have dampened their success a bit but all three of them grew up as brothers even if they were three different species--a Vampire; a Human and a Lycan. I knew my council of advisors was a little taken aback that they could work together. I just told them that tolerance went far in today’s world.

I shuffled out of the way as the next band got ready to go on stage. Ripley even had a bounce in his step as he bounded by with the three. The scent of cloves filled my senses before I got a liplock slapped on me hard and urgent. He was sweaty and he absolutely buzzing with energy. He pulled back from his kiss and showed me a hint of fang. It’s been three weeks since I was able to ditch work and come here.

“Room 412. I’ll be there as soon as the Loyal and I secure the perimeter.” His voice was urgent and seemed to be an octave or two lower than normal. “I’ll be there soon, lubov moya.”

Damn I love it when he whispers in Russian. He took one step away then turned around and gave me another deep, long slow kiss. “Sex.”

“Oh yes, please.” He gave me a flash of fang, pressed the room card key into my hand then hurried after the rest of the band.

Right now I knew it was a little crazy. We were in the eye of the hurricane that was the usual life of the House of Von Drachenfeld. Everything was calm and peaceful. The boys were allowed to just be boys and would never take this time from them. Fate was fickle enough without me helping her alone.

When the shit hit the fan, it would so without my help. I slipped the card key into my back pocket. My life was complicated enough without the addition of blue hair and movie offers. Still this was my pod. I loved them and if I could I would give each and everyone one of them the moon if that was there heart’s desire. As it was, they wanted little bro Eddie to star in their videos and I wasn’t about to say no because...I was their Dad. Haley stepped up when I couldn’t. It was only fair that I spread my wings and shelter everyone I could.

That’s what you did for the pod that lived in the House of Von Drachenfeld. You gave them their dreams. The world would butt in soon enough; then, you just grab onto someone and hang on for dear life. My someone was coming to Room 412.

Tick, tock. Time was awasting. It was time to get intimate and interactive on an acoustical level with a certain black haired keyboardist. Here wingkitty, kitty, kitty.

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As always, read, review and enjoy!!!

July 29,2009
As you can see, I'm at it again!! I hope the slight additions help with the confusion. Tah