by Seth Eden
“I wasn’t prepared for that,” he said quietly, as they drove along the highway back to Urbana. “I don’t know what I was expecting… It wasn’t that.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Tess whispered, rubbing her teary eyes. “That’s the thing. I’ve seen worse.”
When they returned to Urbana, Kal hesitated before getting out and Tess did too. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and glanced over at her, wondering if she was as loath to be alone right now as he was.
“I’m staying in a dorm across campus,” he said quietly. “With some others in the resistance. Far enough from the breeders. Do you want to—"
“My dorm is mostly empty,” Tess said flatly. “Let’s go to my place.”
“Alright,” Kal said.
It was hard not to assume that something might happen between them. He felt a kind of energy between them already that was both comforting, and a real turn on. He even liked her short hair. Vampyren women never wore their hair short, and the men didn’t either. But Tess’s short hair framed her pretty face; its heart shape and her plush pink lips. Until they investigated the creche, he had a hard time not thinking about fucking her and biting on those plush, pink lips.
Kal followed Tess through the dark into the big, brick building that had formerly been a college dormitory. He’d heard something about that. This had once been a bustling university, a place of learning. There were tons of them around in America. They had universities on Vampyr but they were pretty utilitarian. You learned a lot of military stuff and you were given a trade. If you were somewhere in the royal line, you might get a chance at scholarship. There wasn’t much room for the humanities on Vampyr. But humans were always making and studying art, reading, making movies, and stupid TV shows. Humans had a teaming universe of distraction, some of which Kal found absolutely fascinating. He tried to imagine the college full of bright-eyed young people going about their day and worrying about exams. But the thought only depressed him.
“Crystal’s got the big dorm down the hall,” Tess explained as they climbed the stairs. “I’ve got the other big one. We kind of have run of the place. But the electricity doesn’t always hold up. Good thing it’s warm.”
It was hard not to think about all those kids crowded into their tiny rooms as he followed Tess to her room. She cast him a nervous smile when she unlocked it and let him inside. The place was pretty big and there was a comfy looking bed in one corner, but it was otherwise very spare, besides some toiletries and food items on a plastic crate against the wall and some folded clothes on the floor.
“Someday I hope to have a chair,” Tess said. “But at least I got a nice bed. I don’t know how they swung that.”
“It’s not bad,” Kal said, shrugging. His own dorm had a smaller bed but more furniture. He thought it luxurious considering. After he deserted his unit he’d spent some time sleeping in cardboard boxes under freeways.
“I’m not one to complain,” Tess muttered. But he knew without her saying so, that she meant she had no cause to complain after seeing how the children in creches were treated. “Do you want a drink?”
“Sure,” Kal said, but the thought made him smile to himself. Vampyrens didn’t really have alcohol. They had a kind of mead they drank on special occasions but it didn’t make them drunk. Human alcoholic drinks had been a revelation. He thought they were fun, if dangerous. But there was something pleasing about the way Tess casually poured something brown from a bottle into two plastic cups.
“Crystal gave me this bottle of whiskey,” she said. “Said I’d need it. I think she was right.”
Tess handed him a cup and bumped hers up against his, which he’d learned a while back was some kind of tradition. He took a sip of the whiskey and coughed as it burned going down. Tess laughed and nudged him.
“Hope you can hold your liquor,” she said.
“I doubt it,” he murmured. He eyed her up and down as he drank. He was about a foot taller than her but that only served his imagination. He could so easily pick her up and carry her around, brace her up against a wall. She’d be light as a feather to him.
Tess was wearing a shirt over a tank top and now she took the overshirt off, ever so casually, as if she just happened to be warm. Her tank top accentuated the curve of her breasts. She was a little more voluptuous up close than he’d thought. He glanced away, imagining that human women must be really sick of Vampyren men lusting after them.
He could turn on his pheromones whenever he wanted. She’d be practically helpless than. He hated how temping that idea was as he drained his cup. The whiskey loosened him up a little and when he glanced down Tess was staring at him like maybe he already turned on his pheromones. She sat down on the bed and took off her shoes and socks, setting them aside.
“Turn them on,” she said, standing up again. The corner of her mouth turned up, and she stepped in closer. “Go ahead. I’m asking you to. Turn them on.”
Turning on pheromones was as easy as swallowing. The glands under Kal’s ears twitched and he could sense the pheromones radiating from him. It affected Tess immediately. She gasped a little and her eyes dilated as she approached him. The implication of what was about to happen made Kal harden in his jeans.
“That feels good,” Tess whispered. She was close enough to touch, and she didn’t hesitate as she rested her palms at his tight abs, feeling them through his shirt. She slid her hands up his chest and around his neck. “Please.” As if to make utterly clear her intentions, she stepped away again and shimmied out of her tight jeans and her underwear. He breathed in, his cock aching for release.
He picked her up, and she wrapped her legs around him as they kissed. The odd part, to Kal, was how familiar it felt. It was meant to be a casual dalliance; just two people who had seem some shit together communing, using sex to feel a little better about their shitty circumstances. It was that, but it felt like more. Kal wrapped his arms around her as she explored his mouth with her tongue. Her kisses were wet and deep. He found himself chasing the taste of her and then pulling away again, too curious for the taste of her skin as he licked a line down her throat.
There was a perfectly good bed right there, but Kal liked how she felt wrapped him around him. He followed his impulse and braced her against the wall, their breath mingling as she scrambled to help him unzip his fly and pull out his cock. He wasted no time, guiding himself inside her and feeling her tremble. Her plush lips parted and he bit one lip and then the other as he filled her. He held her up against the wall with one hand, the other massaging her breast through her shirt as she pressed into him. The tight heat of her engulfed him, and he found himself losing control, the humming connection between them sending him close to the edge. He grabbed her around the waist now and quickened in his thrusts and she nodded, breathless, and seemingly unable to speak.
“Tess,” Kal managed to say, and she screamed as he pounded into her one final time before he came, filling her, still rocking against her as she clung to him. She was shaking through her own orgasm and they came down together, entwined. He kissed her softly and rested his forehead against hers, both of them still trembling a little before he finally let her down.
“Stay with me tonight,” Tess said. Her voice was too high and soft. He could tell she was afraid to ask it of him and it made him want to stay.
He didn’t answer, instead he toed off his shoes and stripped off his shirt before crawling into her bed. She climbed in after her and he spooned up behind her, the feel of her little body in his arms as satisfying as the sex had been. He felt as if he’d been chasing something inside her and he wasn’t sure if he found it yet. He hoped she’d let him.
“You’re not like other Vampyren at all,” she murmured.
“I bet you say that to all the boys,” he cracked. He’d picked that phrase up from a human he’d known on-the-run who flirted with him and let him take her blood sometimes.
She giggled at that and he smiled against her neck as they both fell asleep.
/> The rap on the door jerked them both out of their sleep and Mark’s voice rumbled from the other side of the door.
“Kal?” Mark said. “Are you in there?”
“Oh shit,” Tess mumbled sleepily. Kal kissed her hair absently, as if after only one night they were now a couple. It certainly felt that way. “I’ll talk to him.” He climbed over her in the bed and his too large limbs spilled out on the floor. He chuckled at himself as got to his feet, rubbing his eyes as he went to the door of Tess’s dorm. His hair had come loose from its braid and his jeans were unbuttoned and unzipped, revealing the triangle that led to his groin. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. But it was only his brother at the door and he sniffed, rolling his neck as he threw the door open.
“Markole,” Kal said wryly. “You need something?”
Mark looked him up and down with raised eyebrows. “That did not take long.”
“Markole,” Kal said, narrowing his eyes. The corner of his mouth turned up, betraying his amusement. It was not so bad to be teased by his brother. “What is it?”
“There have been Lucian spotted about a hundred miles from here,” Mark said. “I need all the men I can get. My unit’s been called down and Loren’s. Well, you haven’t met Loren yet. You will.”
“Ah…” Kal shook his head. “I deserted my unit. I’ve told you this. I show up to fight alongside you, I’ll be arrested and executed.”
“No, you won’t,” Mark said. “Who would report you? Loren and I are the commanders and we’re not going to. We just need men. Kal… it’s the Lucian.”
“Alright, alright,” Kal grumbled. He was older than Mark, by just a few years. It never felt that way, though. Mark had always been more serious and more dutiful. But Kal had admired that about him, even if now, he feared it might get him killed. “Let me get my shirt.”
When he turned around, Tess was already dressed and watching the two of them with a matter-of-fact expression. She was holding his shirt and boots and now she handed them to him with a nod. “Try not to get killed, okay?”
“I’ll do my best,” he muttered, and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek, running his thick fingers through her short hair.
Mark was in a rush and Kal found himself hopping in the hall as he struggled to put on his boots and follow his brother at the same time. He had not fought with a real unit in so long. There was a risk of not just getting killed but embarrassing himself but he couldn’t think about now as his brother marched down the hallway with Kal stumbling after him.
“This is Loren,” Mark said later, once they’d climbed into the Humvee full of men. “He’s on the regional Council. Actually, he’d like to talk to you and Tess about that creche when there’s a chance.” Mark threw a pile of armor at Kal to wear and he caught it neatly with a little grunt before gaping at Loren, who looked more intimidating and much more by the book than his brother.
“You’re on the… Council?” Kal said sickly.
The other men were ignoring them, all seeming pretty on edge about the possibility of facing Lucian. Mark, Kal, and Loren huddled at the back of the Humvee on the little bench, speaking in hushed whispers.
“I’m not going to tell them you’re a deserter,” Loren said, waving a hand. “I’ve been working with the resistance myself. That’s why I want you and Tess to report on what you saw at that creche. I think there’s a chance they’ll actually listen.”
“I don’t,” Mark muttered.
“Listen, I was up for execution by the Council,” Loren said. “Now I have a seat on it. Anything is possible. We’re stirring things up over there. If the old leadership tries to run this world business as usual, the Lucian are going to slaughter us all. We have to work with the human populace. It’s a matter of survival. We just have to get them to see that.”
“Alright,” Kal said, pinching the bridge of his nose. The thought of speaking to the Council was about as enticing as this potential battle with the Lucian was, but if it would help the children he saw mistreated in the creche, he couldn’t really refuse. “Fine. I’ll do it. I assume Tess will too.”
“Okay,” Loren said, nodding. “That’s sorted out. Now about these Lucian…”
The battle turned out to be a lot of hurry up and wait. Loren had been given word that the Lucian were camped out in the thick woods of rural Indiana. Finding them while remaining unseen was difficult enough, but hiding in a ravine while wearing the bulky armor of a Vampyren unit reminded Kal of how little he missed being a soldier.
“There aren’t very many,” Mark whispered to Loren, as they peeked over the edge of the ravine into the thick woods where a small number of Lucian were sitting around a fire, gnawing on what appeared to be the limbs of some large deer.
“They must be scouts,” Kal said. “They’re mostly out west, right? They’re sending scouts.”
“Well, they’re not going back where they came from,” Loren said. He motioned to his men at the end of the line to sneak around to the other side of the campfire. They were far enough away that their scents and commotion wouldn’t alert the Lucian. That was one of the first things Kal had heard about them. You had to stay back, way back, because Lucian were as sensitive to scent and motion as they were stealthy. And when you attacked, you had to move fast.
“We move on my mark,” Loren whispered.
Kal braced himself, summoning up his strength for battle, and in minutes, there was blood in the dirt. Once Loren gave the signal, they didn’t try to be quiet. They had double the men of the Lucian so they weren’t worried about their numbers. But they weren’t taking anything for granted either. That was good, because the Lucian entered into the fight with a kind of swift and dispassionate brutality that probably surprised even Loren. When the Vampyren attacked, the Lucian didn’t seem surprised. Kal suspected it was their nature as he ran into the fight. If they’d seen the Vampyren company beforehand, they would already be dead.
Kal swung his sword and narrowly missed some razor sharp talons trying to slit his throat. The rest of the fight was a blur of blood and breathlessness as Kal kept getting thrown into the dirt, the wind knocked out of him before he forced himself to his feet again. He never felt what Vampyren referred to as “bloodlust” while fighting the humans, it was one of the many reasons he’d left. But now he lost time, minutes of his memory simply disappeared as he went after the Lucian full force. At one point he stood in mud up to his knees, the still beating heart of a Lucian in his hand. He didn’t remember cutting it out, and he dropped it, the dried blood on his face feeling sticky and uncomfortable as he ran into the fray again.
When it was over, they had lost three men but all of the Lucian were dead.
Kal was in a heap in the back of the Humvee trying to collect himself and grimacing as he held a wad of cloth to the deep gash in his side when Loren sat down next to him.
“So tomorrow you and Tess will come down to the Council to report on the creche?” Loren said, as if they’d just been in the middle of the conversation.
It took Kal a second to even remember what he was talking about. He wanted to get stitched up and take a shower and make love to Tess again. His head felt scrambled. Loren handed him a packet of blood and said, “Drink. You need your strength.”
“I don’t trust them,” Tess said later.
“You think I trust them?” Kal said, they were eating in the cafeteria alone. Tess didn’t seem to trust many people, except the ragtag resistance bunch that lived in Kal’s building. Now she was railing against the Council as the two of them ate their dinner alone at a table that seated twelve. “I deserted my unit. If they decide to get nosy and that they don’t like me, I’ll be dead by tomorrow night.”
“Your brother wouldn’t put you in that kind of danger,” Tess said, though it sounded more like a question.
“No, he wouldn’t,” Kal said. “Not deliberately.”
“I’d just rather bust those kids out than go the Council begging them not to treat children worse than dogs,” Tess said d
ryly. “But what do I know?”
“I know it’s more satisfying just to do it that way,” Kal said. “But another creche will just take its place It’s… it’s…”
“It’s Whack-a-Mole,” Tess said. “Yeah, I know, I know.”
“Whack-a-Mole?”
“Nevermind,” Tess said, chuckling. “At least we’ll be together, I guess. But if they shut me down over there, I’m freeing those kids.”
Kal leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. Another thing he liked about humans; they were more freely affectionate than this kind. He was getting used to that. “That is why we brought you here.”
That night Kal and Tess made love again and this time it was slower and more deliberate. Tess rode on top of Kal this time, which was a position that baffled him but which he ended up liking. That night he was exhausted by the time they fell asleep together in her bed. But at least he wasn’t thinking about ripping out that Lucian’s heart as he kissed the back of Tess’s neck, reveling in her scent.
The next day, the two of them made an attempt to look presentable. Or rather Kal made an attempt, still tentative about the prospect of being immediately caught out as a deserter. He borrowed one of his brother’s vests and wore the more formal and easily distinguishable clothes of a Vampyren and combed his hair, rebraiding it. He even trimmed the bit of beard he’d grown out. For all this, he was mercilessly teased.
“They’ll never suspect you,” Tess said, as they rode back to Chicago in the resistance’s SUV. “Not when you’ve trimmed your beard.” He rolled his eyes at her as they sat together in the back but it made him laugh at least. “I’m the one that’s been on-the-run for freeing kids! I should be more worried than you.”
She’d expressed as much to Loren, Kal knew. But Loren had assured her he’d given the Council a fake name and profile for her. He wasn’t about to tell the Council he was helping out a woman who’d been liberating children from creches whenever she got the chance.