A Drop of Red (32 page)
From the look on his face, she could tell he wanted to come into her badly, and in spite of herself, she opened her mind, allowing his deluge of colors and affection to push out all her weak, debilitating thoughts.
After sensing her upheaval, he walked over to her, took her jaw in his cool, cupped palm.
I do need you,
he thought.
he thought.
Too intimate, too close to the target. Scarier than any Underground.
Dawn nudged him out of her, her vision going normal until he reached out with his other hand to bring her back to him.
Back to the red haze of being linked, back to the swirling patterns of a prophecy in motion.
Let me be more than your penance,
he added.
Just this one time, Dawn, before you leave.
he added.
Just this one time, Dawn, before you leave.
His lips were inches away, so near that she could feel each of his breaths on her mouth. Her skin became a field of nerves, sensitive, electric, and when he rubbed a thumb over her cheek, she grabbed at his robe for balance.
But just as she started falling, he scooped her up and eased her back to the wall in one fluid motion. Then, against the climbing net, he raised her hands and slowly inserted the strands through her fingers, so she could stand on her own.
She gripped the mesh, looking into the fires of his gaze, linking to him and seeing how much he hungered for her tonight, even if he’d already taken blood. Seeing how, inside the warrior, there was a seed of doubt that this might be the one Underground that caused him to fail in his mission, that this might be his countdown to Hell.
He leaned forward to nuzzle her temple, and she could hear him suck in a breath at the sweat on her skin. Then he dragged his mouth down, tasting the salt of her.
It felt like someone was plunging heat into Dawn, up and down, up and down, as she clung to the net. She was getting wet, plumped, with every kiss on her jaw, then the vulnerable spot below it.
His arousal was building, too—she could feel it prodding her belly.
He knew how to get to her, knew how to break her down.
She let go of the net with one hand to stroke his cock through the thin material of his trousers.
A tremor wracked him and, just like every other time he started to feed, he waged battle with the vampire. Costin, the monster who had hated what he’d become after his initial blood exchange with the dragon. The creature who’d engaged in a bargain to cleanse his soul before Dawn had forced him to become a monster again.
He buried his face in her neck and pulled at her sweatshirt, and she sensed another force in him, flexing, heaving to get out.
Jonah.
Maybe she could stop
this
at least.
this
at least.
“Keep him in,” Dawn whispered. “Stay with me, Costin.”
The sound of his name energized him and, with a harsh inhale, he raised his head, his eyes a startling silver.
“Costin . . .”
she said, easing into his mind at the same time to strengthen him.
she said, easing into his mind at the same time to strengthen him.
With a snarl, he took her sweatshirt and tore at it, then ripped at her tank top, her bra, baring her breasts while her nipples hardened in the cool air.
She worked off the rest of her clothes until there was nothing left but rags around them on the floor. Then he kissed her, hard and hungry, wrapping her braid around his fist and pulling back her head, exposing her neck.
She clasped the net again, knowing she might need every bit of strength she had for tonight’s reconnaissance. But she would give him blood if he wanted it. Would give him almost anything.
Almost.
He lapped at her throat, gnawing, sucking, but his fangs hadn’t come out yet. He was quaking to keep them back as he kept nibbling, and she kept thinking his name, over and over, delving one hand into his hair and jerking his lips to hers.
Costin,
she thought.
Stay with me, Costin. . . .
she thought.
Stay with me, Costin. . . .
She opened her mouth, deepening the play of tongue and teeth. Feasting, pulling hair, arching against him so her skin met his—her breasts on his smooth, taut chest.
He pressed a palm against the small of her back, bringing her hard against his erection, where her bared sex rubbed against the covering cloth. She got the material even wetter by leaning back and grasping at the net again, wrapping a leg around his hips and grinding into him.
His tip jammed against her clit, working her to a stiff pierce of anguish.
She pulled at the net, rocking, riding.
“Bite me,” she said on a groan.
He took her by the hips and rammed against her even harder. “No . . .”
Forceful, determined not to lose it to the monster he wouldn’t accept.
She grabbed him by the hair again and brought them face-to-face.
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
He stopped driving against her, but his tip was still between her folds, where she was drenched and slick.
All she wanted was to feel the needled pop of his fangs, the moment of entry that always seemed to stun her for a second no matter how many times it happened. A bite gave her courage and purpose, filled her with brutal strength even as it floated her into a darkness that felt right at home.
But every time he bit her, she had another chance to climb out of that blackness, even though she always found herself falling back in. . . .
As he looked at her, he loosened his hold, no doubt seeing that dark spot in her.
A tightened knot of panic made her grip his hair all the harder.
“You want to, Costin,” she said, churning against him. “Come on.”
His body clutched, wracked with ecstasy, and it forced a streak of unrestrained thoughts from him.
She hasn’t changed from when we first met . . . still self-medicates by using another body. My body . . .
But then he spoke out loud, as if his pained voice could make her forget what she’d just heard, make him forget that he knew she’d heard.
“If I lose the last of my control . . . He’ll come.”
Jonah.
“He won’t take advantage of any weakness or openings,” she said, her mind still back on what she’d heard in his mind. It was one of those secrets Jonah had been talking about, one of those buried things Costin had been keeping from her. Now she knew it, and she wished she didn’t. “He knows I don’t want him around.”
His body jerked, as if he’d been slammed.
It was Jonah beating against those inner walls that kept him captive.
Damn him. Damn him for putting more distance between her and Costin. Damn him for wanting to do more damage now.
She pictured the darkness inside of that body, pictured Jonah trying to get out during a moment that should’ve been just between her and Costin.
She pictured her mental fist, which she could pound
in
to that body, not at it.
in
to that body, not at it.
And she did.
Bam.
Bam!
With each strike, Costin jerked, but she could still feel he—not Jonah—was still with her.
Still.
Costin.
At the force of the assault, he dropped her, but Dawn only fell back against the net, catching at it.
Grimacing, Costin pressed his fists to the center of him, as if to keep Jonah in during one last-ditch effort.
“Costin?” she said.
He doubled over, hand outstretched, hair covering his face.
“Costin!”
He looked up, searching her frantic expression, his own a mask of anguish as he pulled at his robe, then stilled.
Panting, he felt around his torso.
“Silent,” Costin said, coming to look at her with edged wonder. “He is silent and accepting that you don’t want him to emerge.”
Dawn kept breathing hard, her mind shut. The skirmish had excited her, and she wanted to use the sexual energy to drive out the demons, the thoughts she’d heard from Costin.
To show him that becoming her own self-fulfilling prophecy wouldn’t hurt her.
In return, Costin looked unbearably drawn to the power she’d exhibited—power that he hungered for, no matter how hard he tried to contain it.
She eased toward him, touched his cock.
His eyes drifted closed as she stroked him, undid his fly, then reached inside to coax him out.
He pulsed in her palm, engorged.
Cupping her hand, she moved up, down. . . . “Costin,” she whispered, hoping, needing. . . .
He shuddered, his fangs straining out just past his parted lips.
Bite.
The thought shattered open her mind, blasting into his.
Even in his craving-muddled head, she saw clearly that he couldn’t resist, and he slid his hands under her bare ass and pulled her to him. But he didn’t target her neck—he went for her mouth, his barely emerged fangs scraping her lips as he consumed her with a raw kiss.
His fingers dug into her cheeks, and Dawn moaned into him, absorbing the scratches and nips as she grappled with the net behind her, trying to get hold of it again. When she did, she gnawed at his lower lip, an animal asking for more.
He obliged her by reaching back between her legs, where she was throbbing, slippery, ready.
As he thrust two fingers into her, she opened her mouth on a gasp. They breathed together, mouth to mouth, his fangs stretching to full length as his body shook.
“Do it,” she said, offering her neck.
Instead of giving her what she wanted, he rammed his fingers higher into her, lifting her to her tiptoes.
She grunted, wiggled her hips forward until the tip of his cock was ensconced in her folds again. Then she pulled at the net, flexing, and he growled, his fangs gleaming, his eyes all pale heat, his excitement building until all shared thought bled out to a field of white between them.
As pressure expanded inside of her, she levered forward and latched her mouth to his neck, biting at
him
until he groaned and slipped his fingers out of her, then replaced them with one sliding, rough thrust of his cock.
him
until he groaned and slipped his fingers out of her, then replaced them with one sliding, rough thrust of his cock.
Choking on a tight moan, Dawn took up his rhythm, matching him drive for drive, white, hot, melting down to coat him.
An endless blank consumed them as they worked toward a climax, swipes of red jabbing through the white of their minds with each hammering pound.
Another slice—
Another cut—
Another—
Then, with a gush, their minds joined in one flowing wound as they slid to the ground, clamoring for breath, sweat connecting their flesh.
Bleeding into each other, out of each other . . .
Bit by bit, they came down from their linked crash, their minds turning white again, his come—as lifeless as cleansed water—dripping down her thighs.
She angled her neck to him one more time.
In what felt like a final swipe, he thought,
Love doesn’t hurt like this—
Love doesn’t hurt like this—
I think it probably would, Costin.
She’d cut him off before he could injure the peace she’d found in the white. But as he began to pull away, she brought him against her, holding to him even though she knew he wouldn’t bite her, wouldn’t give her what she’d wanted more than anything.
Darkness over the blankness, a taste of something she shouldn’t want at all.
Mostly though, she wrapped her arms around him because she was going out to poke at a vampire nest and see what came out from below the ground tonight, and she wanted to give him as much as she could before she might be gone permanently.
It wasn’t much, but she tried.
And when she did go, his eyes were topaz. Sorrowful, maybe even a little angry that the two of them weren’t able to function in any other way.
But they were topaz.
She would remember that later when they turned blue again.
TWENTY
. . . YOU SURELY PAY
WHILE
night shrouded the outside world, the gray cat licked its paws in a buried room far, far from the girls’ regular meeting area, which they had left empty in favor of their house beds for the time being.
night shrouded the outside world, the gray cat licked its paws in a buried room far, far from the girls’ regular meeting area, which they had left empty in favor of their house beds for the time being.
Well removed from the other tunnels, the cat’s small domain was dotted by lanterns that seethed light over the rock walls, where the bent shadows of hooks and blades hung from the ceiling. Although the cat could see quite nicely in the dark, light bred the abominable silhouettes that made the coming ritual all the more exciting.
The creature rolled to its side, rubbing its face against the porcelain claw-footed bathtub. Lethargically, it gazed across the room at the drowsing Blanche, who rested in the depths of a silken cuddle chair. She had been charmed into sleep for over a day now, her black hair spread like darkness, her skin pale against the pink silk.
So young, the cat thought. So pretty.
Then it recalled the night before last, when Blanche’s limbs had entangled with “Wolfie”’s while they’d tumbled over the floor, playing. . . .
And playing.
The cat hissed, bolting to its feet.
Too
young.
Too
pretty.
young.
Too
pretty.
Yet when the creature looked once more at the shadowed blades, it was able to shake the envy off its fur. It arched its back, hissing again in preparation to will itself into a more human shape—the one the cat left behind whenever it came under the ground to watch over the much lovelier girls.
As a cat, the vampire didn’t cast such an appallingly drab image in the mirror. As a cat, it could actually fool itself into forgetting the beauty it kept losing month after month.
But the ritual was at hand, and it was finally time to shed this animal appearance. . . .
The creature slipped and slid—elongated bones, elastic skin—into its humanlike form, stretching and adapting to a faded disguise that it used aboveground.
When it caught its reflection in the oval, gilt-edged mirror across the room, it shied away.
Yet then, ever vain, the vampire crept closer to the looking glass.
It turned its face this way and that, then leaned closer, even while the glass announced every imperfection that had settled upon the cat-vampire since the last ritual.
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