by Seth Eden
The heat climbed fast, spreading through her body before it concentrated on rings of pleasure spreading out from her core. Faster and more urgent, something she simultaneously never wanted to end and now needed to bring to some kind of fruition.
She gasped out his name, felt his pleasure in the way he pumped and paused, feeling it, his head back now, his arms straight and muscles standing out, until he paused, an endless instant with back arched and head back, then drove himself into her, battering her, Cassi raising her hips and meeting his thrusts, rocking with him, urging them both higher until they came within seconds of each other, pulsing pleasure racing in a wave through her body, only releasing her slowly in little drops of pleasure, still tingling, still sparking as she gentled down. Her back had bowed and now it touched the floor again. Her hips had been thrust up and now they settled back down. With every change, her folds flushed with excitement, her body tingled, her nerves raced with pleasure.
Until they lay spent beside each other, heads together, arms around each other, bodies only inches apart.
But separate.
Before the invasion and since, there'd been hookups but little else. Jayce had been an exception, someone she'd loved spending time with, playing video games or hiking in the canyons above Los Angeles. They went to movies and plays, they ran on the beach, they talked about sharing a place together but at the time she had a roommate and a lousy job as a bartender and he worked in a warehouse and it didn't matter, they were together as much as they could be, and the days in front of them were endless.
It had never been as passionate as what she'd just shared with Michael, or maybe it had been but only right at the beginning, that passion burning off fast for shared pleasures, intimacies that came of knowledge of each other but mixed with that expectation that they had time.
They hadn't. Jayce had died early in the end of the world when there were fewer rules and more of the Vampyren, before the war dragged the entire planet into conflict. There were no rules yet, or none the humans could understand, everyone armed and dangerous and terrified. Humans fought each other, stocking up on necessities and insanities as they prepared for what most thought would be hostilities but short lived.
Mankind had always somehow fought its way back from the brink. But then, the brink had always been a place humanity had been pushed by humanity itself. This time the threat came from without.
Jayce had rushed a vampire that had grabbed a small child, a little girl following her mother on streets already littered with broken buildings and shredded cars. Her mother had never lost contact with her, never turned away, watching her daughter while she covered them both with a six-shooter Colt, warily defending a shopping cart of canned goods she needed to take somewhere.
The vampire had simply come out of nowhere, out of the shadows of the twilight that had settled too fast. One second on the street, only Jayce and Cassi and the mother and daughter and the other humans trying to make sense of what was happening, scrabbling for the means to go on existing.
The next the savage creature had the child and was biting her. She was already lost in that moment, too small and fragile to hold up against the brutish creature, but Jayce rushed him, swinging a Bowie knife, screaming about humans and life and humanity.
He slaughtered the Vampyren that had killed the child, spilled the stolen blood back out onto the street even as the mother screamed.
They tried and executed him on the spot. She had heard it but not seen it. Jayce had told her to run and nobody stopped her, she hadn't been involved and she was of breeding age. The gathering vampires let her go.
There was nothing she could have done. No way anyone could have saved him. The Vampyren even in those early days didn't allow the savage, uncontrolled attacks like the one that claimed the child, but they handled their justice themselves.
There was never anything she could have done. But telling herself that didn't ease the guilt and shame and pain that ached through her at night.
Now it washed free in a flood, her head against Michael's, her arms lightly around him, her hand resting on his ribs.
With Jayce there had been a more familiar pleasuring that existed in a shared belief they had time. With Michael it was a passionate coupling, intense pleasure with the knowledge there was no time. This was what they had.
It was all the more intense because of that. The desire more piqued because there would be nothing after it. she didn't expect she'd see him again. She didn't suppose without this pressure at their lack of time there'd be that much between them.
They were young, beautiful, scared, angry, passionate, attracted to each other, and had only one night.
Their eyes met. Mouths twitched into smiles, then came together. Hands began to stroke. Desire rekindled. Need drove them together. Again. And again.
Because there was only one night. And because one night was all they needed.
10
DANTON
A t night the wet air wasn't as intense. It was nothing like the desert of his home planet, but Danton breathed easier at night.
Patrols were punched up, everyone doing double duty, working in the enclaves or tank farms, breeding as often as they could be forced into the programs. He'd been with several human women lately, the trysts anything but consensual. The women were terrified, often drugged, often bound.
His heart pounded the whole time. Ever since the massacre at the amphitheater, ever since the rousing assembly when they renewed their pride and devotion to their homeland, their race, he'd felt a pride in every Vampyren action taken.
He and Lan trained together, ate together, toured together when they could, but there weren't enough Vampyren now so many were either dead, dying or in hospital. The massacre had dwindled their tanks further.
That meant more food for everyone – those women who were caught didn't talk. Several took poison before they could even be used as food.
The moods were ugly. But Danton felt renewed. His loyalty had been waning, his fealty in question. He had been uncomfortable with their mission on Earth.
No longer.
He straddled the bike, feeling the engine purr between his massive legs. Compared to human men, the Vampyren were like a human male facing down a charging rhinoceros or a grizzly bear. They were so much more huge, more muscled, dark skinned, long hair that tended to be black. They grew beards easily and their gold eyes missed little.
Still the human males, those left, attacked. By now most races would be down to the beta males, the ones like the local governments that did what they had to in order to survive and considered that public service.
This planet was strange. The men continued to attack. The women took arms and were violent even when not being mated.
He had started to admire their spirit before the massacre reminded him of who and what he was. Vampyren. Conqueror.
"I saw something down that way," Lan said, nodding. He was in a Jeep, barely fitting, but sometimes a vehicle was better for giving chase than a motorcycle. With two hearts, it was harder for Vampyren to be killed by a human weapon but not impossible, as the massacre had shown.
"I'll be right here."
Their post was in an area called Hollywood, a tribute to lavish excesses of the planet. In truth he liked movies, undiscerning between those that featured the Earth version of his own kind as demons and those that featured them as playfully wicked and silly. It was like a kind of porn for them.
He liked comedies, too, though he'd never even tell Lan that.
He wasn't expecting anything. Three a.m., the moon rode the skies and the city was silent. Humans largely weren't stupide enough to go outside at night unless desperation; drove them.
He waved Lan off, watched the taillights head down and turn onto another street and vanish through the maze of broken buildings.
He turned back just in time to see the motorcycle come tearing out of the wastes of Rodeo Drive where there should be nothing but the human stores that paid homage to their clothes
and beauty.
The rider wore a white tank top as if she wanted no part of blending into the night. Her helmet eclipsed her face, but a long, dark auburn braid whipped behind her in the wind of her passing.
The instant the bike was past him in the glow of a functioning streetlight he saw it: A star tattoo decorating her right shoulder.
Danton grinned savagely, remembering her up thrust middle finger and unapologetic stare.
He twisted the grips hard, revving the motor. She had to have known there were checkpoints everywhere now, had to have known she'd be seen and if not seen, at least heard.
It crossed his mind it might be a trap, but his firepower was better than theirs. He was bigger, stronger.
Angrier.
And the thrill of the chase was on him, making him laugh, driving back some of the anger in the astonishment that a human would act like this.
The night air washed over him. His blood ran hot. His pulse hammered. His hearts pounded. He caught sight of her turning onto Fairfax, too near the high school, and then taking a right and then another right and they couldn't actually be headed anywhere, was she insane?
Was he? Because his teeth were bared in what should have been a snarl but felt like an overjoyed grin.
He wanted her.
No, that wasn't right. He was Vampyren.
He wanted to catch her, to punish her, he wanted to see her in the ring facing the females of his kind, maybe blooded to bring up their blood lust and maybe freshly mated but denied the ritual biological carnivorous destruction of their mate.
He wanted –
He wanted to fuck her, and that fit both worlds, no matter how conflicted he might be.
He slammed the bike harder and hurtled into the darkness in her wake, closing the distance between them.
11
CASSI
T his was a shuttyshitty idea. Really, really shitty and stupid to boot. This got her no closer to finding her mother. It got her no closer to anywhere. She wasn't being followed, there was no Calvary meant to throw themselves into the fray once she was caught by the Vampyren who now rode on her tail like a comet's tail, so close she thought she could smell him.
T his wouldn't get her to the tanks where her mother was held, it would get her thrown into the tanks or, far more likely, into a breeding pit.
I f she was of use to them, she'd be bred with the vamps to produce more of them.
I f she wasn't, she'd be thrown in with random males to produce offspring for food.
I f she didn't conceive she might find her mother by joining her in the tank farms.
F ind a Vampyren, send back info via the communications devices buried in her flesh, GPS and the kind of listening that personal assistance AI's were famous for insisting they didn't have.
She was supposed to let him catch her. But without a doubt, no Vampyren would be stupid enough to not understand this circuitous nowhere route she was taking and was going nowhere. He'd expect a trap. She had to make it look good.
C assi stepped on the gas the way she'd never been able to when there was constantly traffic choking the streets. Now it was rubble and it was still a lot more clear than it had been.
For just a second, it was almost fun, this race.
T hen he had her.
F or a brief spell she thought she'd gotten away. The street opened up in front of her, one of the long main streets that cut through Los Angeles and she thought she might be able to beat him. She didn't necessarily have a better bike. She was just lighter on it.
T he Vampyren male chasing her was as enormous as they all were. Easily seven feet tall, they were all muscled, all dark skinned, with gold eyes and they were, uniformly, beautiful.
I t might be part of what most humans hated about them. They didn't have the power to mesmerize like the vampires from the movies. Instead, they terrified, with their brutality and size and –
P enchant to drinking blood.
T hat's when the mission – get herself captured, there were mikes right in her skin, nothing they'd find even if they were trying to find them, even if they cared, but humans didn't know where the Vampyren were taking their captives.
She didn't know where her mother was being held, for example. But this no longer felt like a good way to find out.
She was scared to death. Running was automatic. She leaned into the bike, took a corner so sharply she should have spilled, but she righted herself and kept riding and there was no way he'd think this a trap.
I t no longer was. Never had been. Except for her.
She went around another corner.
He was right there in front of her. Straddling the bike. Weapon at the ready.
She could try to run, but that gun would take her between the shoulder blades and set her alight. She could already feel it, the way her skin prickled, all her instincts that told her to run now told her to still.
"T ake your hands off the bike."
She glared at him, tempted to take both hands up in a double bird salute.
A nd something stirred in memory. A familiar voice? Or the way he held himself. She'd seen him before.
A somewhat hysterical giggle tried to break free. She thought maybe she'd flipped him off before.
T hat would be typical, wouldn't it?
"P ut your hands behind your head."
She wanted to complain that the bike would overbalance and fall if she did, but it wouldn't. It was her bike, a perfect fit. And he didn't care if she fell. There was that.
T hen her hands were on the back of her neck and the Vampyren was stalking toward her, only one of them and that made her wonder if there was a shortage, which made it sound like something someone might stock up on – Almost out of vamps, need to stock up – and so she was almost laughing to herself by the time he reached her.
She braced herself for the slap that would knock the smile off her face and the laughter out of her system, but as he got close she was distracted by his beauty. The gold eyes on him were slightly tarnished, a little brown around the edges, and his lashes were long. He had high cheekbones, like one of the superhero actors, the one who played the ocean guy, she'd never kept up with those movies, but he was so tall, so strong, so incredibly in shape. A man a girl could feel safe with.
I f only he was really a man.
I f only he wasn't the one she needed to feel safe from.
"What are you doing out here?" His voice was gruff but not horribly unkind and again she wondered why he was alone.
T hen she looked up and found him observing her and she was lost. Her brain tumbled over and gave up. Her heart beat double and then just too fast. She couldn't swallow and her mouth filled with saliva, like she wanted to lick him from head to foot, to submit to his dominance, to reach for him, to spread her legs, to draw him into her, to–
G ods. That was their danger and if that wasn't mesmerizing, she didn't know what was. He was deadly, utterly stone cold killer. It was like finding a great white shark something she wanted to touch. Finding herself wanting it.
F inding her brain had abandoned her.
And in that instant the idea of being controlled even intentionally made her so furious she pulled herself back.
"What, you don't think it's a beautiful night for a ride?"
She thought he might hit her then. The brutality of the invaders seemed to be the constant. But she saw his mouth twitch, just a little, at her comment.
T hat's interesting, she thought.
T hen he was behind her, taking her arms down, fastening them behind her back with zip ties like he was any beleaguered cop who had already used up his allotment of handcuffs and still had more rabble among the rubble to deal with.
She found herself arching her back, thrusting out her boobs, licking her lips the whole time he was manhandling her – vamp-handling?
She told herself to stop.
She told herself this could be the end of her life.
She found herself thinking, Touch me and tried to despi
se herself for it.
A nd couldn't.
12
DANTON
She was the same girl. He didn't know what to make of that.
He didn't know what to make of that with his head. His cock knew exactly what to make of it.
Why her? Why did she effect him that way? Did human females have a sort of pheromone too?
No one answered his questions because no one was near them and Danton was tempted to let her go. Release her and tell her to run far away and not come back because if she did he'd kill her.
Maybe she'd go. She seemed pretty stubborn.
And even as he thought of it, Lan returned, the Jeep pulling up beside them.
"Take her in," Danton growled thrusting her forward with his hands on her shoulders. That would get her out of his hair, and he could go back to the uncomplicated pride in position and loyalty to leaders that had so uncomplicated his last few days.
Lan shook his head. "She's your capture. Take credit. We'll switch. You take the Jeep. I'll take your bike. We can load hers in there."
Though what good it would do anyone Danton couldn't say. The girl was tiny even for human standards. Her bike would just collapse under a Vampyren. But they made the trade. She was silent once he belted her into the passenger's seat, and for the entire ride to the school where they'd headquartered. He found himself wishing she'd speak.
13
CASSI
"Why did you bring me here?"
"We're asking the questions," the vamp handling her question said for the third time. So far it was all they'd exchanged: Cassi demanding to know why they'd brought her to the high school and were holding her and the vamps asking where she was headed when she was stopped and why she didn't stop when ordered to.
On this round, when he asked, she said, "I wasn't ordered to stop. Nobody said anything to me. They just chased me."
The Vampyren sub-sub-possibly-sub-commander ran a hand over his face and looked like he wished he'd never seen her. "What did you think that meant?"