Necromancing Nim (33 page)

“Have a good dinner?” he asked when I came in.

“Good enough,” I answered. “What about you? What are the two of you doing for food?”

“Roland had a blood flight sent up from a place downtown.” His attention had already returned to the printouts.

“Good.” I didn’t need any more details. “What about that stuff?” I nodded toward the printouts. I didn’t want to know about that either, but asked on the off chance he’d found some way to get rid of the stone without sacrificing himself.

“I’m just about done, I think. Colin did a reasonably good job with his section. A couple of translations needed clarification…” He trailed off. “You’re going to be part of this. It’s okay if you ask questions. In fact, I should read through it for you.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay. I don’t really want to hear it all.” I stood for a moment, feeling at loose ends, then made my way across the room to sit next to him on the couch. “I don’t want to do this if it’s going to hurt you.”

He leaned back, setting the papers aside. “Not once have you asked what will happen to you.”

My eyes widened. I hadn’t, had I? How dumb had I gotten over the past few weeks? “Do I… Is there a reason for concern?”

He chuckled. “Well, you’re not going to die. Not if we do this right. I’m just surprised you didn’t ask.”

“Well, you kind of threw me with the bit about how you’re going to die and I have to help. I guess I assumed if I was helping, I’d still be breathing.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“So…what do I have to do? How is this supposed to work?” I didn’t want him to read out the translations, but I did want to know what was going to happen, more or less. It might help me plan my week.

“Your blood. Your attunement to the stone. You and I are both bound to the stone but in different ways. Me because I had it for so long; you because it healed you, changed your blood. My feeding from you has changed me. If I take the stone now, have it implanted, it won’t act for me the way it would with another vampire.”

“You having it implanted will destroy it?”

“Yes.”

“But it’ll take you along with it.”

“That’s the basic idea.”

Fighting tears again, I paused until I was relatively sure I could talk without my voice shaking. “So how am I supposed to help? I really don’t want to slice your chest open, Sebastian.”

He chuckled again. He slid an arm along the back of the couch behind me, and a moment later, I felt his fingers begin to toy with my hair. What the hell was that about? What was with all the touching all of a sudden? He hadn’t been this way last time he’d bitten me. Then again, he’d been more desperate.

“I haven’t had quite enough of you.” He paused, and at my eyebrow twitch, he added, “Of your blood.”

It seemed perfectly obvious to me that he’d made that particular pause on purpose, and I found it annoying. Why was he acting like this? I decided to focus on the obvious. “You need to bite me again?”

“Yes.” He sobered suddenly, and he withdrew his hand from its spot behind my head. “I’m sorry. I’m making you uncomfortable.”

“Little bit,” I agreed.

He picked up the papers and stared at them again. “I’m just used to… Well…I do feed on living—not victims. Donors? From time to time. Rarely.” He cleared his throat. “There’s usually a certain amount of seduction involved.”

“There wasn’t last time.” I paused to let that sink in, then added, “I’m offended.”

He stared pointedly at the papers, seeming to take the comment more seriously than I’d intended it. His embarrassment was endearing and made me feel like things had shifted back toward normal. “I’m sorry. That time was…abrupt. Usually there’s sex, or an approximation thereof. Before or after. Or during.” His gaze swiveled back up to mine. “I don’t kill them, you know.”

“I know.” I smiled. “I guess you do what you have to do.”

He swallowed. I thought he might be blushing, but it was hard to tell. “I’ll make it better this time.”

“I’m sure you will.” I hesitated, thinking the situation over. There was no point trying to talk him out of this. He’d give himself up, no matter what. “How much are you going to need?”

“About what I took before, probably at least twice more, maybe three times.”

“How will we know when you’ve had enough?”

“I’ll know.” He said it with a flat finality that made me think the signs would not be pleasant. God. I didn’t like any of this. Not one bit. I reached over and took his hand in both of mine.

“And you’re sure you have to do this?”

He gave a wry smile. “I’m the one who’s had the exposure to the stone. The process has been underway for a while. It’s why I’ve been so sick.”

“Really?” That made an uncomfortable kind of sense, but it still surprised me.

“Yes. The stone wants to be used. It punishes those who don’t use it. I’ve carried it for a long time, and it’s gradually eaten away at me. I didn’t really realize it—or admit it, I suppose, would be more accurate—until the sun exposure at the police station.”

“That’s why it was taking you so long to heal.”

“Exactly.”

I sighed. “So…you’re stuck with it.”

“Yes. Unless we want to wait another few decades for Colin to carry the thing around long enough.”

“Could we do that?” I had to ask.

His fingers tightened where I held his hand in mine. “No.”

I sighed. My stomach rolled and flipped over. I didn’t like it, but I knew what I had to do. Although, actually, what I had to do wouldn’t be bad at all. I just didn’t like what it would eventually do to Sebastian.

“Two or three more times, you said?”

“Yeah, something like that should finish things off.”

“Then maybe we should get started.”

It was his turn to react in surprise, his eyes widening; then a slow smile curved his mouth, and his hand moved in an easy motion, as if he wasn’t aware of it, pulling me a little closer. “Thank you.”

I tensed a little, then let myself relax against him. “For what?”

“For trusting me.” He lifted a hand then, deliberately this time, and stroked it over my hair. “Colin doesn’t. He thinks I’m being the noble martyr or some such bullshit.”

“No, he doesn’t. He knows you’re right. He just doesn’t want to accept it.”

Sebastian nodded slowly, mulling. “You might be right, at that.” And he bent forward and kissed me.

Sebastian’s lips were cool and soft, and his mouth tasted almost sweet. Different from Colin, but with the same minty overtones. I suppose when you live on other people’s blood, there’s a certain need for precautions against halitosis. He smelled vaguely of sandalwood and starched cotton, comforting somehow, exotic and homey at the same time.

And there I was thinking again, when I should be concentrating on the very handsome man whose tongue had just gently touched my lips. I opened my mouth to him and let him take me.

He knew how to kiss a woman. Come to think of it, he probably knew how to kiss a man too. Although, after a few centuries of practice, one would hope he’d figured all that out.
Stop thinking, Nim; you’re an idiot.
I let my hand move up under his shirt, and he eased me back down onto the couch.

His mouth slipped off mine and moved to my jaw, then down under my chin. “I thought you were gonna bite me,” I said, pressing the pads of my fingers into the groove of his spine. Slimmer and leaner than Colin, he still felt solid and manly, if not entirely warm. It felt good.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured against my neck. “I’ll get to that.” Then, abruptly, before I realized what he was planning, he scooped me up and carried me into my bedroom.

Sebastian laid me down on the bed and spread himself out on top of me. I met his blue, blue eyes and swallowed.

“Is this all right?” he asked. “I mean, I could just get right to the biting if you’re uncomfortable with…other…stuff.”

I had to chuckle at his oblique word choice. “No. I’m not uncomfortable. Surprisingly, actually. Will…um…” I wasn’t sure how to ask the question, and instead let my gaze slide toward the other bedroom, where Colin presumably still snoozed.

Sebastian followed my gaze and frowned, then nodded understanding. “It’ll be all right.” He dipped his head and kissed me again, mouth teasing and mischievous.

“All right, then,” I said and kissed him back.

I thought I knew what to expect from vampire sex. I’d banged Colin, after all, like a screen door in a hurricane. But I was beginning to think I’d made a mistake by taking control instead of letting him do his thing. Because Sebastian was, well…wow.

I was hesitant at first. He kissed and fondled me for a good five minutes before I finally worked up the nerve to fumble a hand into his pants. When I did, I found a pleasantly long, hard cock waiting behind the zipper of his jeans.

Yeah. He knew how to use that too.

I’d demanded control with Colin; with Sebastian, I just let him take the wheel. I have to say it was one of the better decisions I’ve ever made. He stroked and kissed and laved and nipped, teeth teasing my earlobes, my nipples, tugging at the dangling jewel in my belly button. Then he dove between my legs, and the whole world went away.

Sebastian knew how to do things with his mouth that had probably been forgotten hundreds of years ago and were now only accessible in ancient manuscripts written by Tantric experts in the mists of time. Or to people spread out naked underneath Sebastian. Which was, I have to say, a very good place to be.

His tongue curled in and out and around my folds, stimulating bits of me even I’d never thought to stimulate. His fingers got in on the act too, holding me open, slipping inside me, finding a spot that made me feel like my eyeballs were going to explode out of my head. I probably made a lot of unpleasantly loud noises. I probably annoyed the hell out of whoever was in the next room. I didn’t care. I just came. Repeatedly. Seriously. I lost count.

Finally, when I was sure he’d wrung every last quiver out of me, he lifted his head, then lifted the rest of him, and slid inside.

Colin had been thick and long; Sebastian was slim and longer. It felt like about a mile and a half of cock easing up into me. I let my back arch, and I probably squeaked or moaned or grunted or something else terribly unladylike. But damn, there was just no voluntary muscle control left in me at all.

He surged deep. Then settled into a rhythm that wasn’t forceful but wasn’t exactly gentle either. Deep in, slow slide out; deep in, quick backstroke, back in again like a cello bow stroking strings. God but it was good. And it didn’t take long for yet another orgasm to pulse through me, twitching all the way to my fingertips and probably to the ends of my hair.

Then he started all over again.

Three orgasms later, with him so deep inside I could practically taste him on my soft palate, he slid his teeth into my neck and drank. And I came again, letting out a guttural moan. He swallowed, and then he came too, his first time, which was good because it made me feel a little less guilty for hogging all the orgasms.

I don’t know how long he drank. Awhile. Long enough for three more convulsions that felt like climaxes, long enough for sparks to fly behind my eyelids. When he finally withdrew, I lay limp beneath him, drained and exhausted in the best way possible.

He licked my neck where he’d bitten me, which made me shiver again, then settled half on top of and half beside me, absently stroking my bare skin under the sheet.

“High again?” I murmured, rolling a little toward him.

He brushed a thumb across my nipple, which hadn’t quite recovered from being bitten earlier. It felt good. “Not as much as before.” His voice was dreamy and distant.

“How much more are you going to need?”

“Still not sure. One or two more feeds.”

“And you don’t know yet how you’ll know when you’re ready?”

He didn’t answer but turned his head to kiss my forehead. Shit. That was bad. Next time, or the time after, we were going to have sex again, and he was going to bite me, and something really, really bad was going to happen. Which would take a lot of fun out of the really, really good sex.

I swallowed and turned my head against his chest, kissing him midway between his nipples. I wouldn’t pry. He didn’t want to talk about it, so I wouldn’t. But damn. That was going to suck.

“Don’t,” he said quietly, and I nodded.

We lay quietly for a long time, me drifting in and out of sleep, Sebastian just holding me, hands gently playing with my hair, tracing my spine. It was sweet and quiet and almost enough to make me forget everything awful about our current situation.

Then Colin woke up.

The psychological profile of the vampiric human servant remains inconsistent. However, servants who are abused by their vampire hosts demonstrate similar characteristics to individuals involved in other types of abusive relationships. In cases where the relationship between vampire and servant is more equal, a different profile emerges, such that the term “servant” no longer serves as an accurate descriptor.
—
Vampire Psychology 101
, McGraw-Hill, 1987

Chapter Twenty-Two

I think I’ve mentioned before that Colin tends toward the side of grumpy, mood-wise. Apparently throwing his sleep schedule off so he had to sleep during the night had made him even grumpier. He stalked out of the other bedroom, sweatpants hanging dangerously low on his hips, sporting evening wood—maybe that was what was holding up the pants, come to think of it.