Legacy (Endlessly Book 2) (6 page)

6
pending connection

I woke up from a dream of Verloren and me together and felt warm breath on my face and a warm body against mine. I was in bed with him. Maybe I was still dreaming. His breathing was rapid and shaky and I could see his face only dimly close to mine. Light from our living area cast a feeble glow into the bedroom. Verloren smiled sleepily. I felt the first faint memories returning.

“W-
what happened?” I asked.

“You’re a fainter,” he said.

“I fainted? Why?”

“Hania says every dragon reacts differently to a complete loss of energy. Some aren’t affected, some tire, while some, like you, pass out. For a
while I could’ve sworn you were in a coma. You’ve been completely unresponsive for over twelve hours. The world could have ended and you would’ve slept through it. I was worried you might not wake up.” He struggled to keep his eyes open.

“You look tired,
” I told him.

“I was too worried to sleep. Your body temperature dropped. Coylene and Hania thought you might have spent so much energy that you’d gone into hibernation. They checked you over though, and said you would wake soon enough. They thought it might take a day or two. I’m glad it didn’t.”

I ran my hand down his naked chest and stomach. His breathing shuddered and he trembled as he held my face and kissed me.

“You dreamt about us,” he said
.

“You were watching again?” I covered my face with my hand.

“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s a compliment that you can’t get enough of me. Strange how it draws me to you whether you’re asleep or awake.”

You know what’s weirder than my erotic dreams affecting you?
I asked.

What?

I held up my hand, ignited a black flame as big as a baseball and I put it out. My cheeks tingled as I buried my face in his neck.

“What do you need me around for?” he asked.

I nibbled his neck and took it upon myself to show him.

I woke later to a rapid beating on our door. I looked over at Verloren sleeping and crept out of bed, pulling a blanket with me. The knocking quickened. I went to the door, cracked it open, and drew the blanket around me. As Jason peered through the crack, his face lit up at my nakedness.

“Keep it down,” I whispered. “You’re going to wake up Verloren.”

“It’s ten o’clock at night,” Jason blared. “What did you do to him, you fucking succubus?”

Others stood behind Jason. As laughter poured in from the hallway I heard Verloren stir.

“You woke him up,” I snapped at him. “He didn’t sleep while I was passed out.”

I tried to shut the door, but Jason pushed it open. If I’d forced it, the door would’ve cracked. Jason strode in.

“You’re so obnoxious,” I hissed, pulling the blanket tighter.

I heard Verloren dressing. Out in the hall, Jason’s companions headed for the gym.

“Passed out?” Jason sneered. “Was that what was making
so much noise? You passing out and your boyfriend guarding you? That was a lot of moaning for someone who was unconscious. Some of our friends have acute hearing, and they heard it all.” He grinned and looked me up and down.

I had never been more embarrassed in my life, not even when Jason had seen me naked after my first shift.

Verloren appeared in the bedroom doorway, shirtless and rubbing his eyes. “What’s going on?” he yawned.

Jason chuckled
and said to Verloren: “You ever notice when she’s mad she flaps her wings. It’s like watching a prissy girl stamp her foot. Come on. We got some take out.” He bounced on his heels, clapping his hands together.

His wall slipped and I glimpsed a fleeting thought. I
studied him. His rumpled, spiky hair looked more unkempt than normal. I sniffed deeply and smelled a woman. I slid my lip over my fangs and smiled at him. “Why are you so happy, Jason?”

His smile faded. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, just like you don’t worry about what Verloren and I do?”

Verloren shook his head, puzzled. He was still sleepy enough to let all of this go right by.

“Lex,” I said.

Verloren straightened up and pointed at Jason. “Ha! I knew it!”

“Oh shut up! Both of you!” He sneered as he turned to leave. “Get dressed and down to the fucking dungeon. By the way, Ash, Christina left. She would have said goodbye, but you were too busy fucking.” He slammed the door and stomped down the hall.

As we heard him grumble
, Verloren and I both laughed. We were glad Jason finally had a way to blow off steam. He’d been really grumpy.

We dressed quickly and made our way to the cells. I heard people talking as we approached.

Cory was saying: “Fabi is going to be so pissed off if we don’t hurry up before she gets back.” He was saying this to Hania, Sarah, Jason and Lex, while Jesse stood nearby. My stomach sank at the sight of Jesse.

Why is he here?
I asked Verloren.

I don’t know, but you’re not the only one that doesn’t like him.
Verloren pulled me close. His body tensed as his mind flickered with images.

Verloren locked his premonitions away from me, not allowing me to help him interpret them. Though I had ope
n access to his mind, he refused to share some things. He shook his head and smiled. He knew what I was looking for.

They’re too random and inconsistent,
he thought.
No reason to take them to heart.

His thoughts didn’t calm me. I knew he’d seen something bad, but all I could detect was black steam.

Sarah stared at the humans while Hania and Lex stood by her, talking. Cory’s mind was occupied with worries concerning what Fabi would say about eating humans in the compound. When he sensed my mental invasion; he slammed up a wall, glaring at me.

Jason stood behind Lex, pulling on her belt loop. He wrapped his arms around her. Cory snickered, making kissing noises. Jason aimed a kick at him, but Cory dodged it, laughing.

Sarah had a firm grip on the human minds. Both were male and I saw, in her mind and in theirs, that they were rapists. This was her revenge on Kale. I couldn’t blame her and I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t bother to conceal her thoughts.

Everyone else looked at us.

“You and Cory first,” I told Sarah. “Take the one you want. Verloren and I will share.”

When the cell door opened Sarah walked in, jaw clenched. She never broke her stare. She grabbed one man by his shirt and pulled up. He was twice her width and a few inches taller. I noticed this monster was extremely good looking. Why would such an attractive man want to drug and rape unconscious women?

“You might not want to watch this,” said Sarah, but none of us looked away. She grabbed hair on either side of his head and mentally let him go. He started screaming immediately. As he clawed at her wrists Sarah stood still, a grin snaking across her lips.

Cory laughed at t
he victim. Lex’s body shuddered as Jason’s grip on her loosened. Lex’s trembling seemed like that of a seizure. It was her way of absorbing the evil. Sarah let her victim struggle and scream for half a minute. He begged for his life, offering all that he had in return. Sarah enjoyed his terror.

In the blink of an eye, Sarah twisted his head into an unnatural position. His screams faded into gurgling noises. She bit deep into the front of his throat
, crushing his vocal cords.

While Sarah fed I examined the other man. This meal’s eyes had already grown huge and glazed over. Sarah’s mental grip on him loosened as I took over the bond. Though his thoughts we
re in complete confusion, he still struggled. I read his mind and felt surprise that Sarah hadn’t taken this one. He was pumping adrenaline, begging for forgiveness, and in his desperation he’d become fixated on God. He seemed to think redemption was still an option. As Sarah finished hers I laughed at our meal.

“God
?” I sneered at him. “You want God to save you? You lost those good graces when you laid your filthy hands on that first poor girl.” I glanced at Verloren with this silent thought:
Make sure to take this one’s soul.

Verloren nodded. He could absorb the soul in a way similar to that of a demon. This wasn’t from being a vampire; it came from his other identity, that of a born knowing.
I assumed he could claim souls because he could see what they were. I hadn’t inherited this trait because it wasn’t a part of the vampire virus.

Sarah handed her broken victim to Cory. He hurried down the hall with it, wanting to get into his apartment before Fabi caught him.

Verloren stepped into the cell as Sarah stepped out. As Verloren took the man’s hand and I stood beside them, Verloren took control of the twisted mind. He lifted the man’s hand and bit into his wrist, but drank only a third of the blood. I sensed Jesse nearby and looked around to find him staring at Verloren. The demon’s face never wavered.

The human’s mind struggled. I sat down beside him, laid my hand on his neck, and felt the clamminess of fear. He panted and his pulse raced. As I bit into his neck I rummaged through his mind, hearing his last pleas for forgiveness.
There is no redemption for you,
I told him.
You’ve wasted your life on evil. We are putting an end to it. There’s nothing for you beyond death.
You will not come back.

Verloren laid his hand on the man’s shoulder. Just as I finished
, he took the soul. The heartbeat weakened and stopped. I laid his head back. We all watched his face. Verloren stepped out of the cell, leaving the rest to Jason. I slid away and licked the blood from my lips.

“Please be careful, love,” said Verloren.

Everyone backed away from the cell except Jason as he closed the cell door. It took less than two minutes. In that time the man’s eyes turned milky white. His pupils and iris darkened into gray then black. His jaw and fingers twitched. His mouth opened and shut. He did not breathe and he had no heartbeat. He lifted his head slowly. His jaw slammed shut, chipping a tooth. He sighed. The fragment fell to the floor. He did this again and lurched forward, slamming into the bars of the cell.

Jason’s eyes flashed yel
low as he stumbled back. “Holy fuck!”

The victim turned his head mechanically, staring
at Jesse. He snapped his teeth and slammed his face into the bars again. Blood dripped down his chin. He bit off his tongue. Lex let go a disgusted grunt. The man chewed up what was left of his tongue as bits of it fell to the floor. His jaw kept snapping, sending bloody teeth out through the bars. He reached for his tormentors, not noticing me. He groped and wailed. I trembled at the pain in his mind.

“That’s enough,
” I said.

He dropped his arms.

“Sit,” I told him.

He turned toward me, his teeth snapping as he slammed his mouth shut. When his mouth opened again, it was nothing but a bloody hole. A long stream of red-tinted drool dangled from his lower lip. As the monster stared at me unblinking
, Verloren whimpered. The man stumbled to the bench, stared at me, and snapped his mouth shut.

“That i
s some seriously fucked up shit,” Jason said. “Like, straight out of a fuckin’ horror movie.”

Verloren’s anxiety built as I examined the man.

“Now you have seen it,” Hania said to Jason. “If he were set loose without Ashley’s instructions the virus would spread like wildfire.”

“What would happen if she didn’t kill them?” Jason asked.

“No more experiments!” I shouted. “We’re not like Kale. We don’t destroy lives just to satisfy our own curiosity.” I gazed at the zombie. “I would never turn someone unless they asked for it.” My thoughts turned to Sarah who’d had this life forced upon her. “Who in their right mind would be willing to sacrifice themselves just to see what would happen? If my bite created a mental connection with this thing, what would it do to the living?”

No one answered. I reflected on the pending connection between Jason and myself.

The dead man stared out through empty eyes. I placed my hands on either side of his head. He didn’t struggle or think. Except for his snapping teeth he was quiet, and even that sound ended when I crushed his skull.

Jason opened the cell door. I let the dead man’s body fall across the bench. I glanced at my gore-covered hands, then at Jason.

Some things are left better unknown
,
I told Jason.
Especially with that demon around
.
This is your last chance. You don’t have to eat him. I know how irritated you get when I’m in your head. This might make that even more annoying. I might glimpse your thoughts without even trying.

Jason slid past me, keeping his mental wall up. Verloren and I started back to our apartment to cle
an up. Sarah walked behind us. Her mind was closed off from me too.

When I looked back the others were following. Jason carried the corpse, his face as sad as any pallbearer’s. His eyes met mine.