A moment later he pulled away and looked down at her. “I won’t be that rough with you again unless you ask me. But if you’re all right to keep going, I have more for you.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
This time he had her against the wall, pinning her wrists above her head. Wanting him deeper, she curved one leg up around him. The wallpaper scratched lightly at her back. In this position they were nearly eye-to-eye, and he didn’t flinch from her gaze. He barely even blinked. She saw no mercy in him, none of the tenderness she’d experienced in his kiss. Who was he? Who was she when she surrendered herself to him?
Hands tightening on her wrists, he came fiercely, and only then did he break eye contact. His head fell down into the crook of her shoulder as he spasmed inside her. She felt his teeth graze her neck and she cried out, expecting a bite, but he only pressed his mouth hard against her skin, groaning for what seemed ages. She’d have marks later.
Her arms fell to her sides as he released her wrists. She felt ashamed without even knowing why. Tristan was still against her, nuzzling her neck. He made low, satisfied sounds, his hands kneading her waist. Her lips rested on his shoulder, not quite a kiss.
“Tristan. I didn’t—”
He straightened away from her. “I know.”
She averted her eyes, beginning to feel miserable. Frowning, she started to move away, to go clean herself up, but he grabbed her wrist and held her in place. “Hold on. We’re not done.” He lowered himself to his knees before her. “Beg me for it,” he whispered. His eyes were wicked in his humorless face.
Heat rushed up from her thighs and she struggled to maintain a neutral expression. “Beg?” she echoed calmly.
“Yeah. You want it, don’t you? You want me to make you come with my tongue?” She nodded. “This is part of the game, if you want to play.”
“I-I do.” Dawn pursed her lips, looking down at him. “But I’m not going to beg,” she said, lifting her chin stubbornly. “I think it’s kind of weird— Oh!” she yelped as he slipped an unexpected finger inside her. Her hands flattened against the wall. “Please, oh, god, please.”
“That’s better,” he said.
All her thoughts and doubts slipped away when his mouth was back between her thighs. He drew one of her legs over his shoulder to give himself better access. She pressed her foot into the corner of the bed, toes curling. Her hands found no purchase on the wall so she held his shoulders. He cupped her buttocks with both hands, controlling the subtle gyration of her hips. He licked her into oblivion. Her legs weakened with tiny tremors. As she came, she gradually slumped to the ground, tangled up with him, skin against damp skin. She lay there a moment, catching her breath.
More than anything she wanted to languish the day away in his arms, and maybe even pretend they were in love. It would have been nice to forget all the unpleasant things crowding into her life, but she didn’t allow herself the luxury. Without a word she extracted herself from their embrace and stumbled into the bathroom. She closed the door between them and got in the shower, turning it as hot as she could stand. She stood beneath it, letting the steam shut her off from the world, and hoped the rushing water would hide the sound of her crying.
Afterward she hurriedly pulled on her clothes and went out to stand before the mirror. Her sunburn had faded into a burnished tan. She lifted her shirt. It was oddly satisfying to see the blotches where the hot water had made her lightly tanned skin red.
Letting her shirt fall back down, she turned her head to see both sides of her neck. Tristan had left some light purplish marks, but there was no evidence of Branek ever having bitten her.
“The bite heals fast,” Tristan said from a few feet behind her. “It’s like we were never there.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” She looked at his reflection and saw he was fully dressed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going out.”
“You’re going to leave me here alone?” The plaintive tone of her voice alarmed her. Turning, she straightened her spine and lifted her chin a notch. Fear would not debilitate her. Emotion would not cloud her common sense. Not anymore.
“I won’t be long. Unless you’d rather …” His eyes fell to her neck.
“No,” she said sharply.
He grinned unpleasantly. “I didn’t think so.”
“We went over this already.”
“We did.”
He paused, studying her for a moment. Swiftly he leaned in to kiss her, brief and just hard enough to stir her into wanting more. She’d parted her lips for him just as he pulled away and left a cool, faint disturbance of air in his wake. Dawn didn’t call after him or try to stop him, no matter how much she didn’t want to be alone. The door slammed shut behind him, the sound fading into silence.
“You stupid bastard,” she muttered.
Dawn’s hair was mostly dry by the time she realized Tristan hadn’t bothered to restrain her. For the first time in days she was on her own. She pulled on her green and white shoes, opened the door, and stood staring out at the depressingly sunny parking lot. An elderly couple walked to their car, glancing unseeingly at her. Her body pulled forward in her desire to escape, but she held on to the doorframe. After a moment’s hesitation, she darted back into the room, grabbed the ice bucket, and began to walk calmly beneath the breezeways in search of the ice machine.
In those moments, a warm wind ruffling her hair, the sun on her face, she could almost believe this was how things were supposed to be. Tristan did not exist in her world. Or he did, just in some other capacity. A non-toxic one.
She hadn’t lied to say she would have fallen for him. It was obvious to her, if only from the way she acted around him now. Like this was just a romantic getaway for two and she was getting ice for the champagne. It was clear he wasn’t her hero. She just didn’t know why she wanted him to be anyway.
God, she’d really messed with her own priorities. If she’d wanted control, now she had it. She imagined calling the police from the lobby. They would come in a quiet blaze of red and blue lights. They would arrest Tristan upon his return. In the police station, she would sit beneath harsh green-tinged lights and tell them all the things he’d done, all the threats he’d made, albeit undelivered. They’d contact Metro and a handful of officers would collect Leila. Everything would be great. Maybe there would be therapy, but at least they’d control their own lives once more.
So why couldn’t she? Why wouldn’t she? She envisioned these things as ice clattered into the bucket, as she walked back past closed doors, as she jiggled the handle of the room and realized she didn’t have a key to get in. The front desk clerk would give her one.
She knew why she didn’t make any effort to run or call. Why she slumped down against the door, holding the bucket in her lap. It was because there wasn’t any point. It was because she would never be free.
The answer surprised her even as she realized how true it was. And how depressing. Maybe one day he’d let her go and she’d live her life and never see him again. She knew it wasn’t realistic to believe she’d ache for him till the day she died, but right now it certainly felt that way. That was annoying. She considered herself independent and a feminist. She didn’t like the idea of relying on another person for one’s happiness.
Not that Tristan would ever make her happy. Why was it so hard to remember he was a psychopath who’d kidnapped her?
Dawn was still sitting there by the time Tristan returned, a tall, slim figure dressed all in black. His long-legged lope across the parking lot was leisurely but purposeful. With his head hung low, hair shielding his face, he seemed only aloofly aware of his surroundings.
Maybe it was the amber wash of the lowering sun, or just the memory of him in her arms, but she thought he looked incredibly lonely. When he reached her, she was going to suggest they run away together. She would have a specific place in mind and enough money in her bank account to get there. And she would know for certain what kind of life a desperate
human and troubled vampire could lead together.
He came to a stop in front of her. “What are you doing out here?”
“Waiting for you. I locked myself out.” Everything else she’d planned to say vanished from her mind. She knew running away was impractical anyway.
His eyes fell to the ice bucket nestled in the crook of her elbow. The lid was missing and all the ice had melted. “And you didn’t try to escape?” he said dubiously.
She gave a pained smile. “Didn’t you want me to stay?”
Leaning one arm against the wall, he gazed down at her thoughtfully. “I didn’t think it would be so easy to get you to trust me.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, I don’t need you to trust me. I only need you to fear me.”
“I don’t.”
A narrow, cunning smile crept onto his lips. “Not yet.”
“If I don’t fear you yet, don’t you think you’re doing a pretty bad job as a psychopathic kidnapper?”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Maybe you’re a liar. In and out of church.”
All of a sudden she was sure she hated him. He was a bad man. Rotten and heartless. Somehow the past few days had begun to seem almost normal. She’d existed contently in the sensual torpor of a mad dream. She was the one to have dreamt it, maybe to make herself feel better when faced with horror.
But the worst thing of all was that he’d made her care. She didn’t know if she’d ever forgive him for that.
Or herself.
Her skin grew hot as he lowered himself to a crouch in front of her. He laid one hand on her shoulder and squeezed it affectionately. His eyes were both fond and questioning, as if he were trying to read lines on her soul. The water tipped out of the bucket as she pressed her fingers to her lips, staring at him. Did she trouble his thoughts the way he troubled hers?
“It’s time to leave,” he said softly. He stood back up and waited for her.
This attachment she felt for him was embarrassing. She didn’t know him. What she did know was damning.
Against all reason, she cared enough to stay with him. For him. Maybe even to save him, lame as that sounded. Because he did need saving, didn’t he? And so did she. But who, Dawn wondered, was going to save her?
Eight
The drive back to Las Vegas was bleaker, somehow, than the one upstate. Dawn dwelled on her mistakes and tried not to blame herself for them. All the blame belonged to Tristan. To Branek and Jared and Loftus and whoever the hell else was an evil vampire.
Night fell as they drove and there was nothing but blackness outside the windows. Tristan didn’t stop this time, except once for gas. It was countless miles of headlights and road lines whipping beneath them. The mountains were one-dimensional paper cutouts.
Dawn watched the city appear from the darkness, a low, flat expanse of multi-colored lights spread across the valley. The skyline of casinos had little context in her daily life. She didn’t even know the names of some of them, and there was always something new being built. They added to the golden, sparkling beauty of the city at night. The sight filled her with comfort.
Tristan drove into town, back to the house of psychos. At night it was softly illuminated by lights shining up from within the slate paths. Dawn heard a chilling, alien noise in the eerily silent darkness as she exited the car—a girl’s plaintive cry for help.
“Who was that?” she demanded, eyes searching the impenetrable, deep green shadows surrounding the house.
“No one. A peacock,” Tristan said. “Haven’t you ever heard a peacock before?”
“No. Obviously.”
It was dark inside, and there wasn’t a sound except their footsteps crossing the foyer to Tristan’s room. She’d spent just one night there and it felt stranger to her than the generic motel rooms had. She walked in and the air on her arms grew colder.
“I’ll need a blanket this time,” she said, staring at the bed and wondering if she would sleep in it with him.
“I’ll bring one for you when I get back.”
“You’re getting blood?” she asked, turning to face him. He stood by the door, one hand on the knob, prepared to pull it shut and lock her in.
He knit his brow and looked away from her. “Yeah.”
“Wait.” Her teeth tugged on her lower lip. I wanted to say … I needed to know …
“What?” he asked before she could gather her thoughts. “Are you volunteering?”
“No,” she snapped. “Get that idea out of your head already.”
“It’s a matter of trust, is it?”
“It’s a matter of I don’t want to do it.”
“You know,” he said slowly, “everything is different here. You and I can’t be the same as we were these past few days. It just … it won’t work, Dawn.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I get it.”
His brows lowered cruelly. “Good. I’ll go now. I might be back before morning. We can fuck if you’re awake.”
She chased the closing door but she wasn’t fast enough. “I hate you!” she shrieked, rattling the knob and pounding her fists on the wood. “Don’t you dare lock me in here! Don’t you dare!”
Her voice grew hoarse as she shouted obscenities at him. Eventually she slumped against the door, her fists aching, her eyes teary. Exhaustion and emotional turmoil were weighing her down, pressing on her shoulders, and Dawn wanted more than anything to sleep. The reality of being someone’s captive was harder to believe than dreams. She felt her way through the dark and pitched herself onto the bed with relief. She wept into the pillow until she fell asleep, too exhausted and sad for fear.
“Dawn.”
She could have been sleeping for hours or days. This was a room in which day and night meant nothing.
She thought about getting up, but there didn’t seem to be any point.
“Dawn.”
“Hmm?”
“Dawn, are you all right?”
The voice was out of place, but the face she knew. Leila sat on the edge of the bed, gently nudging Dawn awake.
“I was asleep,” Dawn said, her voice creaky. “I’m not all right.”
“You were crying.”
“Hmm?” Dawn brought the tips of her fingers to one cheek and they came away wet. “Oh. I was.”
“It must have been a sad dream.”
The words had the strange effect of causing Dawn’s lower lip to begin trembling. Her eyes squinted themselves shut and her mouth twisted, as if she were experiencing profound pain. But she felt numb from the inside out.
“It was,” she sobbed into the pillow. “God, it was.”
~
In the small hours of the morning, after he’d had his fill of blood, Tristan sat in the family room with Augusta and Branek. They spoke by the light of a single green bulb Augusta had screwed into the table lamp.
“I’m so bored lately,” she complained. “All I do is read romance novels. They make me not even want to bite anyone anymore. I didn’t even know you could get tired of drinking people’s blood.”
“You can’t,” Tristan said.
On the surface he appeared lazy and content, but inside he felt restless. He’d felt this way before, as a human, and he’d cured the feeling by practically abusing himself with various substances. He couldn’t do that as a vampire, but he could have run around the city all night, biting neck after neck until he was bursting with blood. Even that probably wouldn’t have satisfied him. Something troubled him down to his core, a place he’d never really cared to examine.
“Have you ever tried … you know.” Augusta lowered her voice conspiratorially and leaned forward. “Hospital blood?”
“Fuck no,” Branek declared, throwing out one arm for angry emphasis. “It’s not even warm. It’s from a bag in a refrigerator.”
“It still came from a human.”
“It’s not the same!”
“God, I was just asking,” Augusta said mildly. She turned to Tristan. “So how was your litt
le trip?”
“Did you ever get some of that sweet neck for yourself?” Branek asked, chortling with mischief.
“What neck?” asked Augusta.
“That human girl he’s been toting around. Embarrassing himself, by the way.”
“I haven’t bitten her,” Tristan said.
“Not yet.”
“Come on. You may like to mix fucking and feeding, but I don’t.”
“Yeah, Branek, that’s gross,” Augusta chimed in.
“Thank you, Gus.” Branek turned back to Tristan. “Don’t you remember anything Loftus taught us? It’s us against them, and we’re so fucking superior. It’s like now you want to go skipping through fields of daisies or something.”
Tristan rose to his feet and socked Branek in the jaw. “I owed you that,” he said. He meant to sit back down but was suddenly aware of the rage burning wild inside him, clogging his throat, making his eyes sting. His words were growls shaped into familiar syllables, delivered through clenched teeth. “For breaking my nose, and biting Dawn. I never said she was for sharing, dick. If you touch her again, I’ll rip out your fucking throat.”
“Oh, she has a name now?”
“Just keep your fucking hands off her.”
“It’s funny how you think you could stop me if I didn’t.”
Tristan finally felt calm enough, though just barely, to sit again. He wiped a hand over his mouth to clear spittle from the corners. He heaved a sigh and his chest felt hollow. “I would, Branek. You don’t even know.”
“How interesting,” Branek said, not sounding interested at all. He looked hurt, strangely, but was trying not to show it.
An unexpected laugh escaped Tristan’s throat. “Do you think I betrayed you? Is that why you won’t let go of this?”
“You didn’t betray me, Tristan. You just betrayed our entire lifestyle.”
“Anyway.” Augusta blinked her fire-colored eyes and smiled at Tristan. “Speaking of humans … Loftus sent you to find Fallon, didn’t he? Is he coming? Did he ask about me?”
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