Triquetra

by Marguerite Labbe

  My bed creaked and groaned. With every hard thrust, I wanted more and more. At the same time I wanted it to never stop, for me to stay joined with Kristair forever. It wasn’t just physical either; as good as his cock felt in me, and his body underneath mine, it was nothing compared to the way it was with our minds and emotions merged. It was nothing short of pure fucking ecstasy. Every sensation Kristair experienced, I did too. It echoed back and forth between us, raising the erotic tension to a stunning climax.

  Then Kristair wrapped his arms around my waist, and before I knew it, I found our positions reversed. My eyes widened as I stared up at the gleam in his eyes. He grabbed my wrists in one hand, pinning them above my head. “Surrender to me this time, mo chroí.”

  Before I could respond, he’d hooked his other arm under my knee, lifting me up, spreading me wider. My hands clenched together, a cry falling from my lips as he slammed into me again, his cock hitting my spot dead-on. “Oh fuck… oh fuck.” His mouth came down on mine, feasting, as he drove into me relentlessly.

  I couldn’t move. God, I could barely breathe. Kristair’s grip was iron-like and all I could do was writhe underneath him as his hips snapped against mine. My cock was trapped between our stomachs and every surge heightened the friction. My breath stuttered against his cheek, my inarticulate cries lost in the heat of his lips.

  My orgasm was looming, but I fought it off as long as I could, reveling in the tension of my body, strung so taut it bordered on being painful. I’d always mocked the idea of toe-curling sex, yet I couldn’t any longer.

  His mouth broke away from mine and he pressed his forehead against my own. I was mesmerized by the emotion in his dark eyes, which, so often, were unreadable. It was almost reverent and vulnerable all at once. It completely contradicted the way he was fucking me. As always, his tenderness toward me undid me.

  “Surrender,” Kristair whispered.

  “Oh fuck.” It was as if the soft command dissolved my control. My body went taut, arching against his. I shuddered and my orgasm screamed through me as he trembled in response. He buried his face against my neck, muffling his cry.

  We lay there, sinking deep into my sagging bed. Kristair’s body over mine was a comforting weight blanketing me. My palms ached and I realized my nails were digging deep into them and had to force myself to unclench them. Kristair’s hand had loosened around my wrists and I pulled away, wrapping aching arms around him.

  “Jesus, love,” I managed, smiling as he hummed against my throat. “That was—” The only warning we had was the ominous-sounding crack before the upper half of the bed dropped with a bone-jarring thud to the floor. The mattress half-slid off, sending us and the blankets tumbling.

  Kristair’s head lifted and the surprise on his face was comical. “That does it,” I bitched, giving him a mock glare. “See if I bottom for you again when you break my furniture.”

  “I’m sorry,” he replied, peering over at the bed leaning at a dangerous angle.

  “I’m teasing,” I said. “It was a piece of shit anyways.” As if to prove my point, the bottom half fell with a resounding crash.

  Our eyes met and we both started laughing, the sound filling the room. Oh man, Steve and Tony were never going to stop ribbing me over this. Still chuckling, I sat up, trying to disentangle myself from the sheets and my lover.

  Kristair eyed the damage, running a hand over his scalp. “I’ll get you a new one, Jacob.” He glanced at the clock on my dresser noting the lateness. “We can go tomorrow evening if you’d like.”

  “No, I wouldn’t like,” I replied, pushing back the irrational surge of irritation. “You don’t need to buy things for me. I’ve got a job. I can manage.”

  To my relief, he merely nodded and made no comment about my so-called job. I hated working in the cafeteria, but my scholarship didn’t cover any extra expenses and Lord knew Ma didn’t have any money to spare. Not that I would’ve taken it from her either, even if she’d offered.

  Kristair helped me clear away the remnants of the frame, stacking them against the wall, and we set the mattress back underneath the window. I was happy to just toss the sheets and blankets on the mattress in a heap, but Kristair frowned and started making it up.

  He was such a contradiction. Sometimes it seemed as if I knew him well, and yet, he still managed to surprise me. Maybe it was my notion of vampires or men with power that interfered with my perception of him. Whatever it was, the sight of him doing such a domestic chore was amusing.

  Kristair glanced up as he smoothed the wrinkles from the blankets and arched an elegant brow. “Why are you smirking?”

  I shrugged. “I have some laundry that needs to be done too, iffen you’re up to it.” My grin widened as his eyes narrowed. “And there are always dishes in the sink.”

  “You have your idiosyncrasies, brat, and I have my own,” he replied, setting my pillow neatly at the top of the makeshift bed.

  “Yeah, but yours are so much more fun to mock,” I said eyeing his bare ass. He was squatting back on his haunches. It would be so easy to knock him off balance onto the pristine neatness of my newly made bed.

  I yelped as his hands closed on me. He had moved so damned fast, all I saw was a blur of motion. I landed hard on my back on the mattress, feeling Kristair’s weight topple over me. Then to my horror, his hands started finding every ticklish spot he’d discovered. Laughing helplessly, I struggled to free myself and protect my ribs at the same time. Neither was working. “Kristair, you fucking bitch!” It would’ve come out much more forceful if I could’ve stopped laughing long enough to gather my voice.

  Kristair snickered and let up, rolling to the side and slinging his leg over my own. “Quit complaining. You got your wish.”

  “Which was?” I asked, wrapping my arms around his waist and tugging him closer. I was incredibly content, more so than I could ever remember being before.

  “Your bed is mussed again.” He laid his head on my shoulder, turning to press a kiss to my chest.

  “That it is,” I agreed, feeling pleased with myself. I leaned my cheek against the top of his head. “Do you need to feed?” I asked softly. I had no idea how often he needed to. I didn’t sense any kind of hunger or discontent from him, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

  “No, mo chroí,” he said. “Not for several more days.”

  My fingers skimmed down his spine. The day’s events seemed unreal now as I held him in my arms, beginning to get sleepy. From waking up alone, angry and confused, to the confrontation with the Syndicate, and the madness that followed, it had been nonstop. It was far away now, almost as if it had only happened in a nightmare. Who knew how much longer we had to live in peace before they retaliated against him?

  Kristair’s head lifted, his eyes searching my face. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked finally.

  “No.” I gave him a small smile. “I just want to kiss you for the rest of the night.” My hand slid up to cradle the back of his head, and as I tugged him down, my lips captured his. It seemed like the perfect way to end the evening to me.

  Chapter 17

  IT WAS the explosion that ripped me out of my slumber. The sun had just slipped below the horizon when the violent detonation rippled through the stones, which safeguarded me. Minute cracks zigzagged along the walls, ceiling and floor, spraying fine dust and bits of rubble into the air.

  Disoriented, I struggled to claw my way free from the confines of the rock and steel, and it took longer than normal for me to reshape my matter as my essence oozed from the walls. As I emerged, I heard the shrill cry of the fire alarms slicing through the air.

  “What is it, Kristair?” Jacob’s worried voice came to me. I had a clear vision of him sitting cross-legged on the pallet in his room, surrounded by notebooks and texts.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I replied, leaving the room and striding toward the embrasure at the far end of the hall. “I think a bomb has gone off at the cathedral.” I peered out of the cracked window, my eyes
trying to pierce through the billowing black shroud of smoke streaming up from several floors below me.

  “Are you okay?” His alarm was immediate. “I’m on my way.”

  “NO!” My response was perhaps a little more forceful than I intended and I felt his stab of resentment through his fear for my safety. I set my heart to beating inside of his chest so he would have that extra tangible connection to me. “I’ll be along quickly, I promise, mo chroí. I just need to make sure Kayla wasn’t in my office.” Concern for her colored my mind and I knew he sensed it.

  “Fine… just hurry the fuck up and don’t you dare think of shutting me out.”

  I chose not to dignify that with a response as I raced down the staircase. Kayla was usually gone by this time, but sometimes she stayed later so we could converse, more so now that Jacob and I had gotten involved and the imminent danger of my future had eased.

  The floor where my office was located was in shambles, with pockets of fire here and there. The Syndicate had been very quiet in the long weeks since our confrontation, which only confirmed my suspicions that they weren’t going to let it lie. Now, I had their rebuttal.

  The smoke was thick and acrid. If I had to use my lungs, I would’ve been overwhelmed in minutes. “Kayla!” I shouted, listening intently, but all I could hear were the crackling of flames and the creaking of tortured metal.

  I peered into my former office, keeping well back from the inferno. The reinforced door to my back room had been blown off its hinges. Smoke billowed, flames spat and surged, eating up the walls. The cold pit in my stomach eased a trifle when I didn’t see a figure amongst the wreckage of the desk and file cabinets. Step by step, I edged into the room, the nearness of the flames making my skin crawl. I had to be sure she wasn’t there. Jacob was still a presence in the back of my mind and his tension eased my own.

  A hard body slammed into me from behind and another took out my legs and we tumbled to the floor in a heap perilously close to the flames. I cursed at myself for concentrating so hard on the scene before me. I should have been expecting an attack. I should’ve sensed them lingering in the vicinity.

  I heaved them off me and rolled to my feet, snarling. They dared! In my own home? Putting my daughter at risk. I crouched down, taking in all five of them. Two circled around me, their eyes rolling back in fear from the chaos around them. The others stood outside the doorway, blocking the only other exit from the room.

  I cursed again. I should’ve known. They didn’t want me dead, but they did want me. If I had been slumbering in the other room when the bomb had gone off I wouldn’t have been killed—probably—but I would’ve been injured enough that I would have been vulnerable. They could’ve come in and collected me with no one the wiser.

  “I would’ve known,” snapped Jacob.

  I clamped down on my immediate response and concentrated instead on my foes. Time was ticking down. I needed to be sure Kayla was safe.

  “I’d love to accommodate you boys,” I said, eyeing the entrance and their positioning with regards to me. “But this is really not the time, nor the place for a good rousing fight.” There wasn’t much room for the three of us as it was within the tight confines. “This is your chance to leave before you piss me off any further. As you can see, your plan went a little awry and I’m not hurt.”

  “Then we’ll just have to fix that,” the one to my right responded. I leapt out of the way as they attacked again. Screw this, as Jacob would so colorfully put it. If they wanted to brawl in the middle of a bonfire then I would leave them to their entertainment. I doubted they could stop me or even catch a hold if I bulled my way through them.

  One grabbed my arm and I spun around, whipping him into the wall. He let out an inhuman shriek as he burst into flames. It was one of those mysteries about my kind I never did understand. How we could be so seemingly indestructible, but yet extraordinarily combustible at the same time. No human would’ve caught fire that fast unless they were doused with lighter fluid.

  I turned to bolt toward the door and tripped over something that caught my foot. Glancing down, I saw to my horror Kayla’s backpack peeking out from under the remains of my chair, the strap around the toe of my shoe, the leather smoldering. No…. I scrambled up, tossing rubble aside, searching with a lump in my throat. “KAYLA!”

  I had forgotten about my assailants and they pounced again, knocking me off balance. Hands held me down then attempted to drag me out of the room. “Kayla!” I fought back, roaring, masking the pain from the wounds they dealt me, so Jacob wouldn’t decide to take matters into his own hands again. There was a confusion of heat and sound, the taste of blood in my mouth as I latched onto one of my enemies.

  They were all on me, biting and clawing, inflicting savage gashes on my face and body. Inch by scrabbling inch, I was dragged away. I had no idea how they planned to subdue me, nor did I wish to find out. Kayla was somewhere close by. I had to get to her. Taking a gamble that my age lent me more fortitude, I rolled us toward the flames.

  The fire roared around us, a wild uncontrollable creature. Flames seared my back and I bit back a scream as the vampire over me erupted, engulfing me as well. The other three leapt away, two moving too late to avoid being consumed as well. Pain such as I hadn’t felt in a long time scorched through me. Dimly, I saw the last flee as I shoved what was left of the vampire off me.

  My fingers scraped on the floor as I tried to gather my wits enough to change form and sink into the stone to escape the agony racking my body. My mind spun as I executed the change more rapidly than I normally did. Then blessed cool relief washed through me as the fire was extinguished and the pain vanished for the time being.

  “Kristair! Kristair!” Jacob screamed my name, mentally shaking me, trying to provoke a response, his voice frantic.

  “I am here, mo chroí,” I replied, masking my agitation from him. That had been too close.

  “What the fuck happened? All I could tell was that you were fighting someone, but even that was fuzzy. Then you disappeared.”

  I sensed more than heard the sound of many feet climbing up the stairwells to this floor. The rescue teams were finally arriving. I pushed back the despair that threatened to swamp me. The chances of Kayla being alive were very slim. Still I had to keep trying until I knew for certain.

  “It was the Syndicate. They were waiting for me. They failed, however.” A note of fierce satisfaction colored my mental voice as I remembered the screams of the ones who had perished.

  “Are you okay?” Worry and uncertainty nagged Jacob. “Please come down, Kristair.”

  “I can’t. She’s up here somewhere.”

  Jacob was quiet, his frustration battling with his desire to help. I started to move through the rock toward the relative safety of the hallway. I didn’t dare risk any further injuries and my helplessness made me want to howl with fury. Lassitude crept over me and my progress slowed to a crawl before stopping altogether.

  It had been so many weeks since I heard the voices, I almost didn’t recognize them at first. They started as a vague awareness on the edge of my consciousness that grew steadily stronger. Then the whispers started. As before, I couldn’t make out individual words, but they were compelling nonetheless. I found myself listening intently, trying to discern their meaning. “Let go.”

  “What the fuck was that?”

  Jacob’s outraged voice snapped me out of their spell. A cold chill gripped my consciousness as I realized how close I’d come to obeying that order. My control over my own matter had slipped to the point where it was a struggle to regain a hold on myself. The lure to sink my mind into the mass consciousness that beckoned me was still there, strong as ever, but Jacob’s presence helped dilute the call.

  “Kristair!”

  “I’m still here, mo chroí.” Sluggishly, I started to move again, focusing my mind on one thing. Kayla wasn’t in my office. There was no sign of a body in there. Maybe she had gone down to the basement for a bite to eat. I clung to t
hat hope.

  “What is her cell phone number?”

  “What?” I paused in the midst of my journey, a process that was usually easy made more taxing by my injuries and the presence of the other entities who stalked my every move. I tried to detect where the firefighters were situated in relation to me. It certainly wouldn’t do for one of them to spot me exiting, but everything was muddled, confused.

  “Kristair, Kristair, Kristair. Home, Kristair. Come….” The whispers became clear for a moment before Jacob interrupted.

  “Come on, love. A chick like that has got to have a cell phone. She’s probably outside like everyone else watching the drama. Then you’ll know where she is and can get your dumb ass outta there like any sane person would.”

  Jacob had a good point and the sound of his voice was beautiful, familiar, and once again had the whisperers retreating in confusion. I rattled off the number and waited impatiently for the news she was fine. Then I heard her cell phone, playing a song that never ceased to annoy me. I’m sure that is the reason why she picked it. “Jacob, she’s in the library.”

  I began to move in that direction as fast as my waning strength would allow me. If she had been in there during the blast then chances were she was okay. From what I could see, the explosion had been concentrated in my office and living area. The Syndicate, no doubt, would wish to have access to the knowledge I’d gathered, not seek to destroy it. I held onto that belief, using it to drive me forward.

  Agony struck me anew as I emerged from the reinforced walls, though I had braced against it so it wouldn’t alarm Jacob. I slumped against the wall from the onslaught, my mind focusing on one single thought: pushing away the pain.

  “Kayla?” My voice was raspy as I stumbled away from the wall. I needed blood, before the desire for it overwhelmed my reason. Blood would heal me, give me new vitality, but first…. I called my daughter’s name again.