“I’ve killed a man now, too,” she said.
“Keep it up and you’ll lose count.”
After a moment she asked, “What makes you happy, Tristan?”
“Nothing much.” He considered for a moment, then added in a quiet voice that was equal parts confusion and disbelief, “Nothing but you.”
“How?” she demanded irately. “How do I make you happy?”
“I don’t know. I like being with you.”
She snorted lightly. “You have a funny way of showing it. Besides, you don’t make me happy.”
He pulled her close and kissed her neck, an earlobe. She let him do it, keeping one hand on his chest to push him away if necessary. “Tell me what to do,” he whispered as his lips moved in a hypnotic rhythm over her skin. “Tell me how to make you happy. I’ll do it.”
“Figure it out for yourself,” she scoffed.
She let him keep kissing her for several moments. From time to time she pushed him away, savoring his wordless protests before she let him move back. Though she enjoyed his caresses, scattered thoughts of Branek began to make her intensely uncomfortable. She found herself struggling against Tristan without even realizing it.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, pulling his body away from hers.
“It’s not you,” she whispered with a shake of her head. From the look in his eyes, she knew he understood.
She thought for a moment before rolling herself up to sit on top of him. In this position, she held the power. Pausing, she considered the mechanics of her fangs and the possible damage they could do to a body part that was nowhere near the neck. They were sharp enough to draw blood, obviously, and long, but not too long to hide in a narrow smile.
A smile wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, though, as she undid Tristan’s jeans and tugged them down his narrow hips. A line of dark hair trailed down his stomach. She looked at his penis, already hard, then cut her eyes to his face. He lay there watching her, his hands hooked comfortably behind his head.
“Go ahead,” he invited.
With her fangs it was hard, she discovered, to put her mouth all the way around him. Impossible, even, unless she really did want to draw blood. He curved a hand over the back of her head as she ran her lips up and down the shaft instead. Her tongue came out to circle the head and his hips undulated gently. Soft groans emitted from his throat.
It was unclear to her why she was doing this, but she didn’t stop. For her, the act was almost scientific. Clinical. This wasn’t something she’d particularly enjoyed doing with Zach. He’d never returned the favor anyway, and she’d been too timid to ask. With Tristan she didn’t much mind, and she’d never had to ask for pleasure from him. It seemed he liked to give it as much as receive it.
Tristan had barely finished when she swung off him and went down the hall to the bathroom, where she rinsed out her mouth and let cold water run over her swollen red lips. She felt so freaking alarmed. What the hell was the matter with her?
Other than the obvious, she thought bitterly.
The aftereffects of Branek’s rape were still fresh in her mind and body. His gross violation was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to her. She didn’t know how to make herself feel better in the wake of it. He’d robbed her of control and getting it back seemed so far beyond her. The more she tried to reclaim it, the more it slipped through her fingers. She hated how weak and needy she felt. A blow job? Why had she done that? It wasn’t like she was juvenile enough to believe sucking a guy off would make him fall in love with her. Just a short while ago she hadn’t even wanted Tristan to touch her as they slept.
But she was in love with him and had been for some time. She was only now admitting it to herself. It frightened her—and made her angry—to feel that way for him and know he didn’t love her in return. Whenever they were together, she might let herself believe something wonderful would happen between them, something other than sex. Though she hated the way he’d treated her, she longed for him to prostrate himself before her and declare his undying love.
Of course that was a stupid hope. In one way or another, he’d made it clear she meant little to him. How long before he shunted her off to the side, abandoning her for something or someone more interesting?
“Come on,” Tristan said when she emerged, his voice detached, as if nothing had happened at all. “Let’s get blood.”
Las Vegas wasn’t a city for walking. It was for driving. From the freeways, a person could see the entire inelegant sprawl of strip malls and stucco suburbs stretching off toward the mountains. Nevertheless, Tristan preferred to walk to find his prey rather than drive. He found it easier to go unnoticed on foot and easier to hide if necessary. This and other bits of vampiric wisdom he imparted as they prowled beyond the neighborhood. Don’t act in haste. Don’t lose your head. Make sure no one sees you. Get the fuck out. Basic rules, but necessary.
They passed over a group of young teenagers hanging out in front of a drugstore. “I don’t drink from children,” Tristan muttered.
Dawn allowed herself to picture how his life must have been, trapped under Loftus’s influence and driven by his own dark desires. He would have consumed blood heedlessly, wantonly, reveling in power, never disciplining himself beyond following his few rules. Was he the same now, or was this man showing her how to live a good guy? Did he want anything from her? What did she want from him? He was still a stranger to her.
Their prey this time was two retail workers who’d gone out behind their store to throw away trash and paused to socialize by the dumpster. Tristan drank from one while Dawn occupied the other, awkwardly, by asking for directions. When Tristan had finished, he held the other down so she could drink. She cried for what she did, and for how terribly she loved the blood. It tasted salty and wonderful.
They didn’t kill the two, much to Dawn’s relief, only left them unconscious. They would wake up confused but not permanently harmed.
It was disorienting how invigorated she felt. Almost intoxicated. She turned to Tristan on the street, suddenly ravenous for him. She grabbed him to her and luxuriated in a long, slow kiss beneath amber-tinged sodium lights. Her hands slid up into his thick silken hair. He curved one hand possessively around the back of her neck and pressed in for a harder kiss, flavored with a devastating passion. Dawn didn’t care about the traffic and that anyone driving by could see them practically mauling each other. He was the fucking dark prince of her dreams.
She stepped away from him and glanced down the street. She swiped a hand over her mouth. “It’s getting cold out,” she said, realizing it for the first time. She’d lived in Las Vegas all her life and considered the mid-sixties practically frigid. The lower September night temperatures didn’t bother her as they would have, though, if her blood were still hot and human.
Her eyes drifted off toward the center of the city, though from their low vantage point she could see nothing but a familiar blue beam striking up into the starless sky.
And something else, further to the west. A great semi-circle of red fading up into the navy sky like a sunset, only that hour had long passed. It had the uncertain flickering quality of fire, yet there was no black smoke to accompany it.
“What is that?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s … a festival,” she said uncertainly.
“Maybe,” he agreed.
Back at the apartment, in her room, she undressed in a square of moonlight while Tristan watched. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he was cloaked in shadow. “I want you to come over here,” he said with dark tenderness. “Would you?”
She would, because even though he didn’t love her, she liked how she felt in his arms. Where it didn’t matter if he loved her, and it was easiest to believe he did. She settled herself astride his lap. His hands stroked greedy caresses over her hips and ass and up her back. Pulling off his shirt, she pressed her lips hard against his. As always in his arms, she didn’t think about wha
t would happen after. She gave herself over gladly to the sensations he aroused in her. There were ladders of kisses on her skin, hands mapping heat. Her forearms rested on his shoulders as his fingers caused ruthless waves of pleasure.
He leaned back on the bed and she helped him get his jeans off. His hardness pressed against the inside of her thigh and she waited in unbearable suspense while he put on a condom. When he entered her, he sat back up and held her against him. Her hands slid up the sides of his face and into his hair. She rode him for her pleasure until her thighs quaked with the effort, and then he lifted up his hips to thrust. His broad shoulders and flat-muscled back were smooth beneath her hands, his long hair fluid between her fingers. She moaned with abandon and let her mouth fall upon his.
Though she hadn’t liked Tristan pulling her hair, she had the sudden urge to do it to him. “Can I?” she asked, wiggling her fingers between the strands.
“Pull it hard,” he suggested softly, his hips still rising rhythmically into her. “Scratch me. Slap me. Do whatever you want to me if it makes you feel good.”
She squeezed her hands a little to make his hair tug lightly at the scalp. She didn’t feel quite comfortable doing the other things to him, so she bent her head down and nipped at his earlobe. He moaned his approval.
Pressure mounted. She arched her neck, exhilarated. He was dark and insatiable. It felt forbidden to want him so wholly. Before him, she hadn’t known it was possible to feel such profane desire. Their cold bodies burned.
The world was constricting to a single, fierce point. She breathed. She breathed his name. Her ears filled with a distant roaring thunder. The smallest of gasps passed her lips. Some long tremulous moments passed, aftersparks burning through her, and her reddened vision cleared.
He was looking at her, eyes hot. “I could do that with you all day, you know.”
She glanced away. “I’d die.”
They lay down wordlessly, rapt by the achingly new yet familiar contours of each other’s bodies. She might have known him only for moments, or for always. With him it was difficult to tell, sometimes. It was why he unsettled her so. Wavering between trust and doubt, she both drew away from him and immersed herself without fear of emotional consequences. But he’d come for her, and she would wait for him every time. Fear and inconsistency weren’t enough to drive them apart. It was something more than sex keeping them together. It had to be.
Later, she swam out of sleep to curl herself closer to him. His arm tightened around her in response. His was a comforting presence beside her, the press of their undead bodies creating a warmth she never wanted to leave. He was close enough that she didn’t need her glasses to see his face clearly. To see him smile at her. She ran a finger down one sharp cheekbone, her lips parted to say … something.
But no words came and she leaned away, onto her back. Without her glasses she could barely see, but she noticed a dark shape suspended in the air just beneath the ceiling. She placed a hand on Tristan’s stomach, meaning to turn back to him, but then the shape resolved into the upside-down figure of a man. A pale face with shadowed eyes and heavy brows appeared, mouth opening in a fanged grin.
You’re mine, Branek said, his voice a whispered hiss for her ears only. We are bound now, and you will come for me.
With a scream, Dawn tore herself from Tristan and jumped from the bed. She snatched her glasses off the nightstand and shoved them onto her face. Frantically she searched the now-empty ceiling. Tristan sat up and followed her gaze, but there was nothing to see.
“He was here!” she insisted.
“Who was?” he asked calmly, watching her.
“You were awake, weren’t you? You never sleep.”
He reached for her, drawing her back onto the bed and into his arms. “I was. But I didn’t see anyone.”
“I’m not his,” she said fiercely, lips moving against his bare chest. “I don’t belong to anyone!”
“You belong to yourself,” he said.
As morning approached, Dawn couldn’t decide whether seeing Branek had been real or a hallucination. She guessed it didn’t matter. His figure above her had been so clear. What did he want from her? What kind of power did he hold over her? He had made her into a vampire, and she wondered if he would be able to coerce her or force her into things against her will. She would need to be strong if she ever faced him again.
She allowed herself to relax. Tristan lay on his back with one arm around her shoulders, holding her to his side. “What do you dream?” she asked.
“You know I don’t sleep.”
“You have to sleep sometimes.”
“I dream of dying.” He was silent for a long time, fingers lightly stroking her arm. “But once I dreamed of you. We were walking beneath a sunlit sky. We stopped and looked at a house. It was ours, or it was going to be. I never saw what it looked like. I guess it could be anywhere.”
“Funny,” Dawn said. “I had the same dream.”
“What’s funny is that I dreamed about living in the suburbs.”
“What’s wrong with the suburbs?” she asked, indignant. “I grew up there.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little domestic for a vampire like me? You couldn’t even think about me doing laundry without laughing.”
She smiled. “I also dreamed I could speak Chinese. And something about boots. And a bakery.”
“Tell me more,” he said.
For a time, the room contained everything they needed. Beyond the window, the city glowed with malevolent light.
Fourteen
Late in the morning, when they finally woke, the red luminescence was absent from the air over the city. The sun was not particularly harsh that day. Cars rolled on pavement. Nobody mentioned the redness on the news. Maybe no one had seen it but Dawn and Tristan. She hoped that crimson glow in the night had come from a dream of demons.
Dawn imagined how the two of them looked together as they walked along the street in broad daylight: he, slim and tightly muscled, wearing black jeans and a plain black shirt, his dark brown hair blown lightly back; she in jeans tight on her curvy hips and a low-cut top, her head rounded by the short cap of chestnut hair. Both of them tall and expressionless, he in black sunglasses, as always. Was this what vampires looked like? Did she appear as dangerous and beautiful as Tristan? What did people think to see them?
They needed blood often, as he’d said. At least once a day, but more was always better. She stalked with him and they found their prey in a couple of city workers routinely landscaping a neighborhood park.
“We won’t always find convenient pairs,” Tristan said, subtly warning her that one day they would kill again.
Cars with oblivious drivers whizzed past on the rise of the freeway. The smells of sweat and cut grass wafted in the air. A child’s playful shriek from the playground pierced the still afternoon. Each of them drank comfortably behind the park restrooms.
The sun was hot. It made Dawn feel heavy, pressed upon. She had never minded the heat, even though Las Vegas sun was a draining force in the dead of summer, making the city into a wasteland of heat waves and sticky asphalt. Late September was less harsh, of course, but suddenly Dawn felt the need to lie down in the shade and sleep, and die if necessary. She was no longer a creature of the sun, but of the moon. Summer was no longer her domain.
“That feeling will pass,” Tristan said, but it wasn’t much assurance.
She took deep breaths as they walked back to the apartments to get Tristan’s car, their shoulders bumping, fingers brushing. It was time to find the others.
The room was in an actual hotel, slightly more upscale than the motel rooms Tristan and Dawn had occupied on the road. Loftus’s credit card was on file. Jared was supposed to work on getting a supply of cash to operate from, Tristan said, though it seemed Loftus had no interest in tracking them down to finish killing them. He’d have found them already. Either he didn’t care or something else occupied his attention. And Jared’s attention seemed
focused more on Leila than on cash.
Dawn and Tristan walked down the second floor hall until they came to room 213. Tristan unlocked the door with his card key. The room, decorated in unfortunate shades of burgundy and teal, was cold and quiet. Augusta and Fallon were there. Fallon was tied to the bed in the same way Dawn had been, once. He looked miffed. She glanced at him with sympathy, but he ignored her.
“You’ve been gone forever,” Augusta said.
“What? You didn’t enjoy your time alone with Fallon?” Tristan teased darkly.
Augusta scowled. “That’s not the point. Did you see the sky last night?”
“The red light,” he said. “We’ve seen it.”
“It’s Loftus, isn’t it? I don’t know what else it could be. But … what is it?”
They both turned to Fallon for an explanation. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. He paused. “But I do know it’s because he brought my mother back to life.”
“It was our blood that revived her, wasn’t it?” Tristan said. “The blood of four vampires combined.”
Fallon shook his head, his pale hair scratching on the pillow. “It wasn’t just the prima materia. My mother wouldn’t have returned to Loftus on her own. I beseeched a demon to inhabit her body alongside whatever remains of her soul. It moves in her skin. It sees through her eyes.”
Augusta, her fire-colored eyes wide, sat down on the bed beside him. “Are you talking about … hell?”
“Yes, but not strictly in the Biblical sense. I’m not so foolish as to believe there’s only one version of hell.”
“So … what are we supposed to do?”
“Kill him,” Tristan suggested. “Just like he tried to do to us.”
“He’s our father.”
Tristan smirked, unimpressed. “Only legally. And really, how much respect do any of us have for the law?”
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