by R. B. Fields
“Can I get pregnant?” I ask him. What if the answer is yes?
He shakes his head. “No.”
I want to be skeptical, I should be skeptical, but it rings true. “Please,” I whisper.
He presses himself against my opening, then slips inside, my body stretching to accommodate him, inch by inch, agonizingly slow. I move my hips, urging him deeper inside me, but he resists. He draws his lips to my nipple, his fingertips to the apex of my thighs, every nerve in my body on fire with need, aching, pulsing, yearning — I’ve never been this wet. And then all at once, he drives himself into me, thrusting, and I open my legs wider, needing every inch of his dick, but I won’t last long, not while he’s tonguing my nipples like that, not while his fingertips are dancing on my swollen clit. I want to come on his face. And then I want him to fuck me until I come again.
He stops abruptly as if he’s heard me. “Your wish is my command,” he says, and pulls himself from my depths, leaving me cold and throbbing with need.
“We’ve already established that isn’t … .ahhhhhhhhh … .”
I didn’t even see him move, but he did — his mouth lashes over my pussy, his tongue buried in my wetness. My insides are liquid, a hot shuddering ache. His fingers find my G-spot, soft and spongy and tender — Oh god.
Bite me, I think. He nips at my clit, sucking it between his teeth, and I’m done — I’m pulsing around his fingers, screaming, my hips bucking off the bed, but he holds me still, lapping at me while I ride out my orgasm. He’s still working me with his fingers when he rises above me once more. He lifts my hips, spreading me wide. And thrusts into me to the hilt.
I cry out, still quaking, but he meets my rhythm pulse for pulse, drawing out every agonizing throb of my orgasm. I can’t do it again — I don’t have it in me.
He lowers my hips and slips out of me. I reach for him — Goddammit, he’s not doing that again — but he turns me onto my side, careful of my bandaged arm, and lowers himself onto the bed behind me.
His lips find my neck. He dips his fingers in my wetness and brings them to my nipple. His other hand snakes between my legs. I point my knee at the ceiling as he eases his cock inside me once more.
He fucks me slowly this time, the tip of him hitting my G-spot exactly where I need him, and before I know it, I’m building again, the pulsing throb of the ocean inside me — warm, he’s so warm. He moans in my ear, just once, but that’s all it takes; I go over with him, our bodies shuddering and slick with sweat, Silas whispering my name into my hair.
8
Dawn
I lie in the bed and stare at the ceiling, the sweat salty against my chest. His thick arm is wrapped over my rib cage — possessive. Protective. Of all the one-night stands I’ve had, this is by far the best … and the strangest.
What was all that about anyway? Did Silas actually read my mind? It sure seemed like he did, and what had he said to Draynor when we arrived? Something about not being able to read me. Mind reading … .is that a thing he can do?
Tell me your secrets, I think at him.
No response. His arm remains wrapped over me, his bicep hard as stone, his chin tucked into the hollow between my neck and shoulder.
Your mother was a snowblower, I try again.
Nothing. Lame. I clear my throat. “So … do you have other things to do? Projects to work on, piano to practice? Other women to save?” I frown as a thought occurs to me. “Do you do this a lot?”
He laughs and pushes himself onto one elbow, his eyes glittering in the light of the moon as he traces my ribs with his knuckles. “No, you are definitely my first human, at least as a vampire. But I knew I wanted you the moment I smelled you on that boardwalk — I was shocked when you didn’t run from me.”
I bring my hand beneath the sheets and trace my nails over his hip, then lower between his legs. Is he hard again already? I can get used to that. “I thought you were there for Mikael; let’s be honest, he is better looking than I am.” When he chuckles, I say, “It seems like you’d at least try stalking a lady vampire instead of a human.”
“Female vampires are rare. They almost always live on their own — they have little use for us when they can procreate with humans.”
Procreate with — “Wait, you told me I can’t get pregnant!”
“You can’t — that’s not a choice a male vampire gets to make. But once a female is turned, they’re able to birth either a full vampire or half-human half-vamp offspring. But the process is lengthy. Very few female vampires decide to get pregnant.”
“Seems like a good system, all that … choice.” I wrap my fingers around his dick and squeeze to emphasize my point. “But what about you? Why can’t you get a human pregnant?”
“A glitch in evolution, I suppose. The leader has control there and must agree to allow any offspring into the hive. If we could just go out and spread our seed, strong and randy and morally corrupt as many of us are, humankind would vanish from the face of the planet. Women — human women — can’t survive the birthing process, and they can’t choose not to ovulate … at least not without chemical assistance.” He sighs, but I can’t tell whether he’s responding to my touch as I work him up and down, or if he’s reacting to what he’s telling me. Hopefully, the former. “The spawn of vampire and human never end up on the side of good anyway,” he says. He moves his fingertips up over my breast, leaving trails of gooseflesh. “You should get some sleep. We leave tomorrow for upstate Vermont; I’ll get you everything you need.” He pinches my nipple gently, and I feel it between my legs — an equally gentle ache.
“Maybe we should stay here,” I say. “You know this area, and you already said this house gives intruders fewer places to hide.”
“Mikael’s group will find us either way.” No inflection. He’s already resigned himself to it.
That’s not comforting. “I get the distinct impression that your brothers don’t want me to come with you.”
He raises an eyebrow. “They’re not really my bothers, not in the human sense of that word, though we are not less family for it. But they do want you to come.”
“Yeah, in the most literal non-euphemistic sense of that word.” I wink, but it’s not really funny — tension is building between my shoulders. “Maybe Draynor will tolerate me riding along, but he didn’t look like he wanted me to. And what about that Markula fellow? He sounds mean.”
“He’s not. He’s just protective. Of all of us.” His gaze has darkened, but he rolls my nipple between his thumb and forefinger and draws his lips to my shoulder. “And I’m sure they all want you to come in every sense of that word.” His mouth finds my clavicle. He runs his tongue over the vacant space between my breasts.
My skin is vibrating again, my blood pulsing in time to his movements. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure. And they are pretty hot,” I tease.
He smiles at me, mischievous, and rises above me, planting his knees on either side of my hips. He’s fully erect, a spot of wetness glistening at the tip of his gorgeous cock. “You’re welcome to visit them next if you’d like.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs and lowers his mouth to my throat, shifting slowly down my body, warming my ribs, then my belly button with his breath. “I already told you,” he says as he settles his face between my legs. “We share everything.”
9
Draynor
The day dawns with a brilliant sun that warms the hair atop my head and soaks my flesh in heat — the motorcycle glints between my legs. The stones on the driveway gleam.
“You can be out in the daylight?” she asks, glancing over her shoulder as Silas follows her from the house.
Humans. “Of course,” Silas says.
I have no idea where that notion came from. Every other apex predator from the big cats in the forest to the soaring birds of prey have no issue with sunshine. What sense would it make for evolution to choose sunshine as the mode for our destruction? But humans need to believe there is an e
asy way to destroy us — it makes them feel less afraid. I have often gotten the sense that when they look at us, they see things they would rather ignore. The possibility of death without heaven. The dark recesses of spirit we carry heavy on our souls.
But their wide terrified eyes may simply be because by the time they’re interacting with a vampire, they’re only one breath from eternal darkness.
She’s not afraid, though. Dawn follows Silas down the porch steps, shoulders held high, boots clomping on the stairs. Her black tank top and khaki-colored skirt are terrible choices for a bike — maybe the clothes were all Silas had, though I’m not sure where he got them. I am sure I can smell the sex on her, the sweet tang of musk, and the sweeter, mildly metallic scent of her blood. But there’s more beneath the surface — muted, but she and Silas have a deeper connection that wasn’t there last night. It’s as if their muscles are speaking to each other, their blood pulsing as one organism, undaunted by the space between their flesh. It is a bond more akin to the merging of two souls.
I have never felt this before, not in him, not in any of us, but it is dangerous for him to be that close, and more dangerous still to take her with us. Yet, I don’t know what choice we have — we’ll not leave Silas. “She’ll ride with me,” I say.
She turns to me, eyebrows raised as if I’ve surprised her, and perhaps I have — her shoulders are tense, her spine rigid despite the night she spent with Silas. But I have a theory; I need to see if I’m right.
We’ve heard the term — inamorata — but that’s impossible; she is not a vampire, and a soul mate, a beloved, is always a vampire. None of us have met ours. But this is something, something deep, and consequential — he’s smiling at her, laughing now though she hasn’t said a word out loud. And when she moves toward me, her boots crunching on the gravel, he snorts — “You’re right on that.” Can he hear her the way he hears his own thoughts? Have his powers returned after a night with her? I cannot tell. I’m not a psychic, but I have my own set of skills.
Every hive needs specialists.
“I didn’t know all of you rode bikes,” she says, accepting my spare helmet. She waves off my leather jacket despite her bare shoulders; a coat might be uncomfortable with the bandage — one of her biceps is wrapped in gauze. I don’t need the jacket, don’t need a helmet either, but if you want to get humans to do things, you have to mirror acceptable behaviors. Humans rarely look out for their own best interests, and even fewer resort to things like common sense. It’s a shock they’ve made it this far. This is not to say I’m anti-human — I used to be human — but they have a number of fatal flaws, not the least of which is ego. The belief in their own invincibility.
But this woman … I don’t know what to make of it. Of her. She might be a danger to us, the way she can dampen vampire powers, the way she shut me and Silas out. And she survived Mikael’s attack, something no human should have been able to do. In the wrong hands, she could be a weapon.
She climbs onto the back of my bike, her hair brushing my neck above the collar of the jacket, her smell in my nostrils sweeter still — it makes my gums tingle around my teeth. This is another thing humans get wrong: We don’t just have two fangs like a snake might. Though I’m sure that makes for a sexier myth, no shark kills with two teeth — he attacks with them all.
I slap the faceplate on my helmet down, listening to the grumble of the bike. We all look up when the door opens and slams shut again — Markula. I’m tall, burly, but Markula is enormous like a bear — nearly seven feet tall with arms like tree trunks. He’s already in a helmet and full leathers despite the sticky mugginess in the air, hiding every inch of his body from the sun. Of all of us, Markula hates the sun most. Hates humans the most, too.
“Is that him? Your leader or whatever?”
I laugh. “He likes to think so.” But it’s true, he is our leader, even if he doesn’t like to accept that responsibility sometimes. Markula has a tendency to let his own agendas drive him to rather unhealthy places. Sometimes I think this makes him more human than the rest of us, though I’m not brave enough to say that aloud — not to a Warrior.
Markula climbs onto his hog, the vehicle dwarfed by his bulk. He nods to us, and we roar down the drive, through the tunnel of trees, and into the brilliant morning.
Eight hours in human time is nothing to a vampire — we are patient. I suppose when you’re human, you feel the need to create more moments of joy and shun the slightest bit of discomfort because you only have a limited time to experience anything at all.
This is not true for our kind. We have an eternity to fill with any emotion that comes. Even the darkest feelings can be interesting — pain can be a way to enhance the pleasure when it inevitably returns.
Dawn presses herself against me, her hands clutching my leather jacket near my naval, and the pressure of her fingers spreads upward through my rib cage and lower, deeper through my loins, tingly and hot. I cannot remember the last time a living human has touched me, but I remember enough — this is not how it’s supposed to feel. No wonder Silas is so taken with her.
I focus on her hands, listening to the pulse of her blood — trying to feel it inside me. This is my gift. I was a doctor once, and even in human form, I could tell where it hurt. I can internalize the pain of a grieving mother as if it is my own. I can feel a gunshot for miles, the agony as the bullet pierces flesh. But more useful, this gift lets me know the intentions of others in the area — I cannot tell their location the way Markula can, which is why we work so well as a team, but I can sense malevolent intent in the muscles around my heart, feel the revulsion the way a human might react if they smelled a decaying carcass. I can feel love, too, like the gentle caress of silk.
But I cannot feel her. In my five hundred years as a vampire, she is the first to be able to hide herself from me. And yesterday, when I tried to get inside her veins … all I felt was heat.
What I don’t know is whether she’s doing it on purpose. And I cannot see her while she’s sitting behind me. This suddenly seems a crucial piece to the puzzle, for I realize that it isn’t just that I can’t feel her — I can’t feel anything. The woods are silent and dull, though I know creatures stalk those paths. They may not be any danger to us, but I should be able to register their presence.
I pull to the soft shoulder, and she pushes the visor up and stares at me questioningly. The other bikes grumble past, but Silas turns to look over his shoulder; he pumps his brakes.
“Can you drive?”
She frowns, her eyebrows inching toward the middle of her forehead. “Yes, but it’s been years.”
It’s as if this was meant to be. I get off the bike and climb on behind her, and then we’re off, the waning sun casting yellow streaks along the road.
She finds the gears jerkily at first, but soon we’re roaring after the others through the emerald hills — so much like the hills where I was born. Of course, there were no roads then. And no food.
But I’ve never had a problem finding food as a vampire.
I push the thought aside and listen to the woods — still nothing. She’s blocking me. But at least now I can focus my full attention on her; even the road is quiet. While the early morning boasted moderate traffic, mostly trucks filled with hogs off to slaughter and the occasional barrel of just-picked plums, the highway is virtually deserted now. I rest my hands on her hips and listen to the steady throb of her heart, focus on the whoosh of air easing in and out of her lungs. If I close my eyes, I can sense the places she holds tension, but I cannot tell much else — nothing of use. I cannot tell her intentions.
But I am quite aware of the blade.
She has it strapped to her thigh, and the edge of my hand vibrates painfully when it grazes the handle, even through her clothing. I can see the holster when the wind whips her skirt aside, the leather molded to the knife’s edge. I want that weapon away from me, anywhere but here — it feels … threatening. Is it my imagination? Blades aren’t generally of partic
ular concern to vampires.
I lean closer, my face in her hair. She smells of nature, not the sickly sweet odor of already picked apples, the stink of impending rot, but like the just bloomed apple flower — she is future and past all at once. I circle her waist with my big hands, feeling the steady throb of her abdomen in the pads of my fingers.
She keeps her gaze on the road. She keeps her hands on the throttle. Focused on the street. If she lets go, I have no doubt that I can correct a swerve in time, and if the worst happens, I can snatch her from the seat and spirit her away from an oncoming vehicle.
I will not have to. I can’t feel her, Silas can’t read her, but I can tell from the easy way she holds the handles and the tightness at the top of her spinal column that she is well able to concentrate through distractions. I do not know what she does for a living, but I would guess it is something that requires such a skill. A surgeon, perhaps. A pilot. Some profession where shifting all focus to one central thing is necessary.
“Why do you guys live together? Is it just a family thing?” She’s yelling but she doesn’t need to — the timbre of her voice is like a song, rising above even the growl of the engine.
“Yes.”
She nods, but the answer surely does not satisfy her. Is she anxious or bored? I can’t be sure. “Can Silas read your mind?” I ask.
She goes still. Wind whips by us, whistling through the fine lines in our helmets. Finally, she says, “I guess he can now. He couldn’t before.”
“Before what?”
I want her to say it. Did she bewitch him? All of us? That’s my best guess, especially with the way I’m responding to her blade — it would make sense if the weapon is hexed. Instead, she snorts like the grunting pigs we passed this morning. “Silas said you’d be able to smell it. That you’d know we had sex.” The blood pulses lower in her body — remembering?