Dawn. He could have tasted her so many times. He could have broken her into pieces if he’d wanted.
The bar. The only one in town from what it looked like. All he had to do was wait for some stumbling drunk to come piss in the alley, and he didn’t have to wait long. Blood from a stubbly, unwashed neck, heavily laced with a potent combination of liquor and nicotine wasn’t the greatest, but it was blood, and he’d had worse.
He felt revived, but so fucking exhausted. Why did he feel like this. Why did he feel anything. Where was a goddamn window when you needed to shove your fist through glass just to prove it didn’t hurt.
He walked, and the night grew thin. The first flowing hints of orange sunlight began to erase the stars. The streets were empty, the light on the ground still gray. In the coolness of the predawn air, he felt envious of those who dreamed.
His gait quickened as he headed for the motel. Dawn, he thought to the rhythm of his feet on the street. Dawn, dawn, Dawn.
She slept, her body repairing itself. A flash of annoyed embarrassment overcame him. He regretted having shared a snatch of his childhood with her, however brief. As if tearful confession came naturally to him. He didn’t want her thinking they shared any sort of understanding. He didn’t want her expecting anything from him, not comfort or pleasure or compassion. He had nothing to give her.
It was sweet, though, the way she thought she could seduce him. Really fucking precious of her. She just had no idea about him.
She was already on his bed, so he lay down beside her. It was less trouble than moving her, and he didn’t allow their bodies to touch. For the first time in a long time he slept, dreaming the only dream he knew, of an alternate reality where he’d died young without any idea of the pain and sorrow he wished he’d never known.
Seven
Her memory of yesterday afternoon made Dawn feel odd and insecure. The fight between Tristan and Branek, the blood, the attack, crawling into Tristan’s unhuman arms like he would protect her from whatever terrors resided in darkness. She blamed her affection on delirium caused by loss of blood. On her intent to save Leila. On anything but sincerity.
She dressed in the bathroom. She hadn’t brought many clothes and they were getting grungy. She wondered when she’d be able to do laundry again. Maybe Tristan would take her to a laundromat. They would hang out beneath fluorescent lights, watching the dryer spin around and around. It was strangely funny to imagine him doing laundry, but surely he had to wash his things like everyone else.
“What?” Tristan asked when she emerged giggling from the bathroom.
“Oh, nothing.” She smiled. “I was just thinking of you doing your laundry.
His brow creased. “Why is that funny?”
“Because you’re a vampire.” Dawn let loose with laughter and clapped a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking.
“And vampires don’t have chores to do?”
“Domesticity”—she gasped, trying to hold her laughter in—“doesn’t come to mind … when I think about vampires. Oh my god.” She doubled over, barely able to get the words out. “I always think of them like in old movies, with widow’s peaks and … and … dark lips. And capes!”
Tristan looked dubious. “Well. I’m glad you find me so amusing.”
“I’m not laughing at you,” she assured him. “I don’t even know why this is so funny.”
“Neither do I,” he said dryly.
“It’s okay,” she gasped. “You look mostly like a normal person.”
“Mostly?”
Her laughter died off quickly. “Um. Well. You’re slightly better looking than most.” A stray giggle escaped as she stood there before him like a reprimanded child, only partially contrite.
“Do you want to eat or not?” he demanded.
Once they sat in the café again, her humor had evaporated. Looking across the table at him, she found it hard to imagine the innocent child he must have been once. Innocence was practically impossible to find once a person had lost it, and there was no evidence he’d ever had it.
Memories from her own childhood flitted through her mind, pictures of places and times whose context she had long forgotten. A grassy pond surrounded by swaying cattails out behind a motel with a green roof. The barest remains of a ghost town somewhere off the road in the desert, and a bullet hole-riddled car she had been convinced belonged to Bonnie and Clyde. Salt flats stretching off in deceptive distances. Petroglyphs on orange rocks.
What do you want to do with your life? She’d asked Zach that question once. She’d asked Leila. Yet Dawn didn’t even know how she’d have answered the same question. Whatever she wanted, whatever she needed, it was too elusive for her to identify.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked, trying to massage a headache away. That morning she’d thought he was asleep, lying there next to her, but he’d opened his eyes the second she’d looked at him.
“Not often,” he said. His fingers drummed restlessly on the tabletop.
She pressed the howlite to her lips and pretended it gave her courage. “Can you tell me about vampires? Like … crosses, or holy water. Do those hurt you?”
“No. Not even if someone believes in that shit. By the way, I have a reflection and appear in photographs. Don’t even think about asking me about garlic.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Her French toast came and she doused the plate with syrup. She’d ordered a side of bacon, too, and she dug into her food ravenously. Branek’s attack had taken a lot from her. “What about coffins?”
“That’s not even practical.”
“Aren’t you …” Dawn cleared her throat nervously. “Aren’t you dead?”
“Technically, yes. Undead, I guess you’d say. You have to die to become a vampire, but you don’t get buried. There’s no afterlife.” He considered that for a second. “This is my afterlife.”
“Is that what you really think?”
He gave a scornful laugh. “Why not? I’m living it. I died and there was no bright light or feeling of serenity. I didn’t look down on myself from somewhere up in the air. There’s no god of any sort. If I ever had any beliefs about what happens after death, I don’t now. Death is nothing.”
“That sounds … sad.”
The corners of his mouth pulled in, more grimace than smile. “It’s not something I’d recommend.”
“Do you know many humans?” she asked.
“No. I don’t take the time to get to know them before I drink their blood. Rip their throats out, in some cases.”
Dawn flinched. “I hope that means you’re not going to drink from me.”
“I hadn’t planned on it.” He looked up from his coffee. “It’s not always violent. It can be very nice. For both parties.”
“I’m sure all your toys would say so.”
“Some of them, yeah.” He grinned slyly.
She huffed. “Well. Don’t expect anything like that from me.”
“I would never.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. He didn’t appear to be joking, but then a tiny twitch at the corner of his lips gave him away. “You’re disgusting,” she accused.
His lifted his eyebrows, head down as he carefully tore the lid off a creamer. “I’m realistic.”
“You’re insane.”
“Not clinically.”
They were silent for a few minutes while she ate. Her headache had begun to dissipate and she was beginning to feel more like herself. Whatever that meant anymore.
“Your heart doesn’t beat,” she said thoughtfully. “Do you breathe? Do you do, um, other things?”
“I do everything. Just less of it.” His eyes flicked to her and he seemed not to like her expression. “Look,” he said, leaning toward her. “My heart does beat. A little. And I don’t need pity. My life isn’t some sad cautionary tale, all right? There was good stuff, too.”
Dawn nodded agreeably. “Like what?”
Tristan sat back again, relaxing. “Well … one time we were orde
ring pizza. Jared, Augusta, and I. Augusta wanted something different than the usual delivery chain. So we picked a random place in the phone book, called in our order, and went to pick it up. It turned out the pizza place was in the back of a strip club on Boulder Highway, and we had to walk through the club to get to it.” A smile tugged on his lips but he fought it off valiantly. “Augusta got the pizza while Jared and I just stood there staring at the dancers. They weren’t dancing yet, but they were walking around with their tits out.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen. We were allowed to charge whatever we wanted to Loftus’s credit card by then. Augusta had to shove us out of there, practically.”
Her heart ached for him suddenly, and she didn’t like it. She gave a careless toss of her hair. “I’ve heard you shouldn’t eat, drink in the bars, get tattoos, or talk to the women on Boulder Highway,” she blurted, not sure whether she was being serious or sarcastic.
“That’s probably true, in general. But that pizza was pretty fucking good.”
She looked down and poked at the rest of her food. Strange, breathless feelings seized her. Stupid compassion for a hapless boy who didn’t exist anymore. It was hard to grasp what a drastic turn her life had taken. Never had she thought she’d be shacked up in kidnapped exile with some guy she barely knew. Some vampire guy she’d let fuck her. That was before she’d known he was a vampire, of course, but she wasn’t confident it wouldn’t happen again.
“The night we met,” she began, but stopped when her heart began to pound rapidly.
He stared unfathomably at her from behind black lenses.
“Take those off!” she snapped.
He did, but she didn’t feel any less nervous being able to see his eyes. She cast furtive glances at the other diners, but no one paid them any attention.
“The night we met,” he said, blinking slowly. His gravelly tone made her stomach flip over. “I noticed you laughing with your friend. Then you noticed me, and there was something about the way you looked at me that made me think you could accept me. Almost without question, even if you knew everything about me.”
His expression gave nothing away. It took courage to meet his eyes.
“I would have fallen for you,” she whispered.
“What would I have cared? One human is just as meaningless as another, and I’ve seen so many of them.”
“Don’t be cruel.”
“It’s all I know. I think you accept me anyway, though,” he said. “Don’t you?”
Dawn shook her head, though not necessarily in response. “Please, Tristan. Tell me what’s happening to her. I need to know.”
“You don’t want to hear what I have to say.”
“Yes, I do. I need to.”
Something in him froze, then thawed a minuscule amount. He spoke without emotion, his eyes steady on her face as he watched for a reaction. “Jared would say he’s a romantic. He’s always dreamed of … well, the one. Obsessively. It was pretty harmless until he was about sixteen. That’s when he learned how to kill. And he liked it. Whenever a girl he chased made him angry, well … she didn’t last long after that. It was worse after he became a vampire.”
“Is he …” Dawn swallowed hard. “Is he going to kill Leila?”
“He seems to like her a lot. I doubt it.” He reconsidered. “At least not for a while.”
She let out a long sigh and slumped back in her chair. “That’s not very reassuring.”
Tristan blinked. “It was meant to be.”
Dawn sat forward again. “What’s he doing with her, then? You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t know what he’s doing. We all have our own tastes.” He made a face somewhere between a lascivious grin and a grimace. “Generally, we like to play rough.”
“I heard her screaming in the middle of the night.”
“The most soothing lullaby, I always thought.”
“This is old news for you, I guess, but Leila’s my best friend. That could have been me screaming, but you didn’t touch me that night in your room. You’ve barely touched me since. I was the one who had to come to you.” Dawn paused, looking intently into his eyes. “You’re not like them, are you?”
“Like I said, we have different tastes. And I do like it rough. Don’t try to turn me into your romantic fucking hero.”
She flushed angrily. “I’m not. And m-maybe I like it rough, too.”
He raised his eyebrows, amused, and leaned across the table to her. His voice was low and intimate. “Oh, yeah? You want to be thrown onto the bed? Or a table? There’s some fun stuff we could do the next time I tie you up. I would offer you some biting, but I’d probably break the skin.” He parted his lips and tongued the tip of one fang. “I’m not much into blood in the bedroom. What about you?”
“Uh …”
“What about a little hair pulling? A little pain to sweeten the pleasure? I’m open to a lot of things. I might even have tried some of your personal fantasies already.”
“Um …” Dawn glanced around, embarrassed. “Can we … can we not talk about this here? Can we go now?”
He slid his sunglasses back on almost violently. “Anything you want.”
She stood by him awkwardly while he paid the check, cheeks flaming. They walked out into the cool morning and he turned to her, smiling gently, but without humor.
“Dawn.” He touched her lightly on the chin. “Everything is going to be fine. I promise. You trust me, don’t you?” She smirked bitterly at him. “Good,” he said. He leaned down and brushed the barest of kisses across her lips. “It would be a mistake if you did.”
Back in the room, she kicked off her shoes and fidgeted. She was profoundly embarrassed, having never experienced a guy or a situation even close to this before. Nobody had ever said things to her like he just had. Silently she told herself to remain calm. She was the one using him. Not the other way around.
Tristan tossed his sunglasses down and turned to her. “What do you think? You want to try something new?”
“What? Like what?” she stammered. She didn’t know why she felt so awkward. She was twenty-three years old.
“Anything,” he said. “You can tell me what you want.”
“I-I didn’t know you needed an invitation.” Her voice shook slightly.
“I guess I draw the line at rape.”
She smiled unhappily, not knowing if she was about to do something she didn’t want to do. “I don’t know where my line is.”
“Lucky me, then. I can help you find out.”
Hesitantly, she nodded. She couldn’t help being intrigued. She wanted him. Part of her thought he might be bluffing or joking with his talk of roughness and fantasies. He wasn’t, though. He was the kind to always go through with anything, everything. And if she’d been bluffing back in the café, she wasn’t anymore.
“You’re new at this,” Tristan said, hiking her shirt over her head. He undid her jeans and paused to let her step out of them. “We’ll go easy. All you have to do is tell me when to stop.”
“Okay. But don’t bite me.”
“I won’t. Now get on the bed.”
Trembling, she eased herself back on top of the comforter. He took off his shirt and flung it aside before kneeling on the floor in front of her. Then he grinned at her and sank his face between her thighs. Her body bucked up in surprise and she let her legs fall open. She lay there in a rapturous state, enjoying the gentle, unhurried strokes of his tongue. For a while she needed nothing more. But then she began to ache, craving the release he wouldn’t give her. Putting her hands on either side of his head, she tried to coax his mouth into another position. He wouldn’t budge. He knew what he was doing to her. Her hands tightened in his hair, fingers threading through its silkiness. His tongue moved swiftly, taking her to a slow burn. She was almost there.
Suddenly he pulled away, leaving her unmoored and irate. She scowled as he tore open a condom and slipped it on.
“Do vam
pires need condoms?” she asked. “Can you get someone pregnant if you’re dead?”
“Can’t be too careful,” he said.
He flipped her onto her stomach. Swollen and sensitive from his attentions, she gasped as he entered her. His jeans were only partially down and she could feel their soft abrasion on the back of her legs. His weight crushing her comfortably into the mattress, he moved slowly in and out of her. She gasped at the incredible friction the position created. He kissed her neck and tongued her earlobe, making her shiver and moan.
After a few heated strokes, he stepped back and kicked off his jeans the rest of the way. “On your knees,” he said. Obediently she got on all fours and he positioned himself behind her. He held her by the hips, jerking her toward him each time he thrust. She liked it that way, fast and hard. Her breaths came at the same pace as his movements into her.
He removed one hand to grab the hair at the back of her head and tug. With her neck arched up and him ramming into her from behind, she felt trapped and uncomfortable. Her cry was strangled.
Finally he let go of her hair and started rubbing her ass in wide, greedy circle, his hand splayed across her flesh. Then he gave her a light, stinging slap that made her cry out. His fingers pressed into her skin and he slapped her again, harder. The sensation was shocking and not unpleasant, exactly, but painful enough that she wanted him to stop.
“Wait. Don’t,” she cried, squirming away from him.
He pulled out and turned her back over. “A little too rough for you?” he asked softly, stroking a thumb across her cheekbone.
She nodded, lost in the golden starry shape encircling his pupils. She felt incredibly young and inexperienced. She’d never done anything like that before. “I didn’t like those things. The hair-pulling or the slapping.”
“I think we found your line,” he said. “And it’s a lot closer than mine.”
“Yeah.”
He lowered his whole body over hers and leaned down for a kiss without entering her again. His tongue pushed up the underside of hers, opening her mouth wide. His lips were tender but forceful. He held her tightly up against him, one arm behind her, one hand cradling the back of her head. Their lengths pressed together. She wrapped her legs and arms around him, shivering pleasurably at his hair slipping down around them, tickling her ribs and shoulders.
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