You nodded, before downing your own pint. Then you followed me outside. As we waited for a black cab to flag, it started to rain in a fine drizzle; I raised my face, allowing it to spider web over my skin. It’d been so long since I’d felt the freshness of rain washing clean the air: life.
You shivered; this time out of cold, rather than the horror of realizing that you were sharing this world with us parasites.
I shrugged off my coat, holding it out to you. Taken aback, you hesitated but then slipped it on. You looked dead stunning in it.
When I pressed closer to you, your eyes widened in alarm. “Trust me?” I whispered. Then I was gone into the night.
I was only away for a couple of minutes, yet by the time I’d darted back, that wankering tracker was already clutched in your whitened knuckles. “You…chowderhead!”
I smiled. “Sweetheart.” I held up a black leather women’s jacket with studs on its shoulders. “Swap?”
Slowly, you were calming, casting small, envious glances at the jacket. “Where did you find that?”
I ran my fingers through my damp hair. “Getting wet here. Show some appreciation, yeah?”
When you slipped the tracker back in your bag (and I should’ve bloody known the tech amnesty hadn’t included that particular device), you shucked off my jacket, exchanging it for the new one with almost indecent haste. It fitted you like a second skin. “Seriously, where?”
“I nicked it.”
You do a good impression of a ghost.
I took pity. “Don’t have a coronary. I left them the cash for it; I pickpocketed the cash from you before I left.” When you were silent, I reckoned that I was in for it. Then, however, you laughed — honest to God laughed — and I laughed too. Yet for me it was the absurdity of being tamed enough to break and enter and pay for the bleeding crime out of my pickpocketing. “What kind of Blood Lifer does that make me?”
“Mine,” you murmured.
Unexpectedly, you entwined our hands. Our lips were close. I hardly dared breathe.
Then there was a crash. A woman’s scream. Shouting.
Your fingers tightened around mine, as you swung around. “Whoa, what’s going on?”
“Don’t stare like that,” I hissed. “This is Peckham, not bloody Primrose Hill.”
I darted a sideways glance, whilst keeping you shielded with my body.
My fists ached for a barney. But I was here with you. I wasn’t free.
A gang of young gangsters in hoodies with purple bands on their arms were beating some Lewisham bird… Bitch, whore, slut… I flinched, as each verbal assault landed, as painful as every boot and clout.
It was a territorial display in defense of their manor.
Too late, however, I realized that we’d been spotted.
“Are you disrespectin’ us?” The leader — a tall bloke in purple hoodie and tight weave — turned to us. You panicked and backed up. The gang, like it had a collective mind, abandoned its last victim, who snatched the chance to pick herself up and limp away. The gang swarmed around us instead. The leader repeated, “You disrespectin’ us?”
There was no answer to get us out of this.
As the gang swaggered our way, they pulled out shanks that had been hidden in low-lying branches or stored behind piles of rubbish.
I took a deep breath. And hoped that you’d forgive me.
“A bloke who gets his jollies from beating on women doesn’t deserve no respect, you git,” I sneered.
You gasped. There was a silence, in which I wondered if I should’ve spoken slower.
Then everything kicked off.
The leader shot out his knife at gut level (practiced move that), but I dodged, snapping his arm in two places, before round housing him in the chest. Whilst he was coughing crimson, I thrust you into a side alley, flinching when I heard the bump as you landed on your arse. Then I stood ready to protect you.
It was sodding smashing not to be the damsel anymore.
My fangs were out of commission, but my fists and feet were still bloody there.
Adrenaline roared through me, like a forgotten friend.
I got in a hook to the next crew member’s cheek: it shattered. The giant bastard hollered. I knocked his blade bouncing harmlessly into the shutter beside my head, before kneeing him in the bollocks. Because in street fights, you fight dirty. When he went down, the rest rushed me.
I nutted the one in front, booted the one on the right, and took an elbow to the throat of the one on the left, who gurgled and collapsed.
I bounced on the balls of my feet, flushed with exhilaration. I needed this.
Plus, you kidnap and torture a bloke? He’s bound to have some issues to work out. This was better than therapy.
A scrawny wanker pounced on me, waving a samurai sword in my face.
I went at the samurai sod with a flurry of spear hands, before he’d even swung at me. He stumbled backwards, as if he’d suddenly grasped that he’d only been playing at being the big bad with his antique sword and now had come across the real thing. When I landed a strike to his throat, he slid face first into a dirty puddle.
At last, the only member still standing was the leader, even though he was scarlet mouthed and clutching his limp arm. He seemed determined not to lose face in front of the groaning remains of his gang. With his good arm, he struck out.
I grabbed the leader’s fist in a wrist lock, breaking each tiny joint in his wrist. He screamed as he fell to his knees.
I stared down at him. “Word of advice, mate: don’t go picking on strangers. You never know who they’ll turn out to be.”
It only took a light push on his forehead to topple the leader beside his comrades.
Still, there was you to face now.
To my surprise, you were leaning casually in the entrance of the alley, watching me. I wondered if you’d given my performance a rating.
I stuck my hands in my pockets. “I think we’d better…”
“…book it?”
You dragged me after you down the warren of side streets behind the shops. It was pelting down now. Even though I was soaked, I was still buzzing from the fight.
At last you stopped, shoving me up against a brick wall at the back entrance to a butcher’s.
“Look,” I said hurriedly, “I’m sorry about—”
“Thanks.” Your intense gaze met mine.
Questioningly, I tilted my head. Your lips were close to mine. All I’d need to do was…
You pulled back (of course you bloody did), even if you were still clutching onto me, as if my body was yours. Because no matter what other nasties you might do with it, you’d never kiss your slave, would you?
Then you suddenly hauled me closer, and we were snogging.
At that moment, none of it meant anything. Slave or Mistress. First Lifer or Blood. It never does when skin meets skin. It was just Light and Grayse. And you saw me.
So, it was a good kiss. To me, it changed everything. But to you...?
“If you would be so kind, some of us are trying to feed in peace.” A nasal but polite Turkish Blood Lifer popped his head up from further down the alley. He licked down the neck of a twitching First Lifer, who was propped up against a skip; she was probably one of the clubbers who hadn’t made it onto the bouncer’s list.
When you shrieked and tried to jerk away, I held you still by the wrist, regretting the bruising but juggling risk and prioritizing your life.
The look you shot me, however, told me that you didn’t appreciate it.
I shrugged. “Yeah, my mistake.”
Your eyes were now flint.
I started edging you backwards out of the shadows.
If I hadn’t been so — distracted — I’d have sensed this gentlemanly Blood Lifer earlier. Without my fangs, I couldn’t take him in a fight. More to the point, I couldn’t save you. Talk about making a bloke feel inadequate. Now also wasn’t the time to give you a crash course on Blood Lifer dinner etiquette.
It seems, however, that our Turkish friend was determined to educate me. “You know, young one, it is most inconsiderate to interrupt a fellow’s kill. I had no intention to do so with yours.”
I spun to you to say…I don’t know what. You looked like you might vomit. “Right, cheers, I’ll remember that.”
The other Blood Lifer inclined his head.
I slipped my arm around your stiff waist, turning you and frogmarching you away from the old git, whilst he set back to his dinner.
As soon as we were safely on a main road under the lights, amidst the bustle of partygoers and the fumes of double-decker buses, you wrenched away from me, like I was toxic. In a way, I guess I was. “Save her,” your voice was shaky. “Go back and—”
“She’s bitten, which means that she’s dead already.”
“And aren’t you just cut up about it?” You snarled.
“Hey,” I jabbed my finger at you, “I’m an innocent party here, remember?”
Your gaze slid away from mine. “I was a moron to forget what you are and why I had to buy you. Marlane warned me that it was my duty to…that I had to put you in your place fast. I guess I get why now.”
“Grayse…” I tried to reach out to you, but you only backed away.
“Home.”
So, it was back to puppy dog orders then? Even after…that kiss?
You didn’t utter another word on the way back to the apartment. I gave up trying to talk to you.
Touching freedom and then knowing that it was being taken away again, made captivity harder to bear.
By the time that you and I were climbing to your apartment, I felt like I was returning to Abona. When I heard the front door being closed behind me and the security system click in...? I was hit by a tsunami of panic: heart racing, chest tight, and dizzy waves.
No escape, no escape, no…
We stood in the darkness, until you simply said, “My bedroom.”
After that moment in the rain when we’d snogged, I’d reckoned coming back here wouldn’t feel the same. I’d saved your life tonight (twice), although blinkered as you are, you couldn’t see it.
You’d kissed me too, let’s not forget that.
It’s not as if I was mug enough to imagine that you’d declare undying love. But maybe you had seen me (beneath the sticky labels).
You’d tasted some of my world tonight…and that was the problem. I only knew one woman who’d embraced it, and no one can ever be her.
My mistake.
When I wandered after you into your bedroom, I watched as you stripped out of the leather jacket that I’d nicked for you. You stuffed the jacket violently to the bottom of your wardrobe like it was toxic too. That stung.
Then you circled me, without warning, predator-like. “Strip.”
I jumped and then stared at you, as if I must’ve misheard. “Grayse…?”
You didn’t reply.
A sick numbness, like dying from the inside out, took grip, when you pulled the tracker from your tote and swiped it on.
Your sister had bloody taught you how to use the tracker…? And now you were threatening me...?
My night, your rules?
I still didn’t budge.
When I saw your finger descend, however, I hauled off my jacket, tossing it pooled, like a black tar version of Heartbreak, on your bedroom floor.
Your gaze was so cold; how could I ever have doubted that you were a Cain?
“Everything.” I wasn’t in control of my own body as I kicked off my trainers, stumbled out of my socks, and dragged my t-shirt over my head. Your photos were watching: your smiling, innocent face, as if you were any other kid. My fingers fumbled with the button flies on my jeans in my fear. I risked a peek at you. You were determinedly not averting your gaze whilst I undressed, like it was some kind of test. Right, no bloody flinching or trembling. When I stepped out of my boxers and stood there naked, except for my slave ring, I found myself staring into the grinning face of my rival — the Alpha Geek — from his place of honor on the wall. Victorious, he was laughing. Humiliated, I blushed. Would you ever demean him like this? What would you do if you knew someone was going to do…this…to your human? “Lie down.”
I lay on my back with my hands at my sides — palms up — and my legs spread wide apart (as I’d been taught), unresponsive on the bed.
I felt suddenly dead small.
I stared up at the ceiling unblinkingly. If you wanted a toy, you’d have to operate it yourself.
Still in the floral dress, which I’d picked out, you settled beside me. Your hair was curling at the ends, as it dried from the wet.
When you leaned over me, I was flooded in gorse and sunlight, but it no longer smelled of escape or freedom — it burned.
First, you caressed the tips of your fingers down my cheek. Then, your hand ventured lower down my chest, pausing to twist one nipple.
Hard.
My fingers curled and uncurled convulsively. I schooled my features to blankness. There was no sodding way that I’d let you see the damage you were doing to my head.
It wasn’t like this was the roughest treatment I’d ever received, even as your fist tightened around my flaccid, frightened cock and began pumping it to hardness; Ruby had enjoyed playing games, which had left me sore for days. It wasn’t as if I’d had much say with Ruby, being bound by my wrists or the mental bondage of the ties of election. This, however, was different because there wasn’t even the illusion of choice.
How was I meant to deal with the fact that the woman doing this to me had only hours ago kissed me like I was a free man? Kissed me like she believed that my name truly was Light again?
If you did…this…you’d be completing the process started at Abona. You’d shatter me for real into Sir’s whore.
And you? I could never love a woman who forced a slave.
When you leant over me, your hand still working on my cock, I could feel your breath across my mouth. Your lips were moving closer, as if you were seeking another kiss. Didn’t you understand what you were doing? That this wasn’t about love but power?
Buggering hell, no…
Your mouth was about to violate mine.
Christ in heaven, if you were intent on fucking me, please let you not do it with your lips soft against mine.
That’s when I started to shake.
I felt, more than saw, you back off. When our gazes met, I recognized the surprise in yours, as if you couldn’t understand my distress.
I reckon it’s that more than anything, which did it: I couldn’t stop a tear escaping down my cheek.
You studied me for a long moment, before your vice-like grip let go of my cock, and you pulled back sharply. “I can’t… I have to but I can’t do this…” When you stumbled from the room, I heard a door bang somewhere — it might’ve been the bathroom — and then there were sounds like… So, I wasn’t the only one who needed to puke. I lay where you’d left me — an abandoned toy — too confused and frightened to do sod all else. At last, I heard hesitant shuffling footsteps in the doorway. We stared at each other. “I’m sorry. I promise, I won’t…do that again. Get dressed and go to bed.”
This time you couldn’t look away fast enough, as I scrambled to pull on my clothes.
And I haven’t spoken to you since.
Nothing’s ever as simple as a kiss, is it? How can I trust you that I’m now safe?
16
MAY 24
“What are you doing?”
I peered out at you from under the duvet and shrugged.
The neon blue ivy was glowing brightly, casting my cell in the role of enchanted forest.
You hesitated on the threshold, toeing the floorboards with your bare feet. I’d never seen you in fuzzy pink pajamas before: you looked kind of vulnerable. There were bruise colored rings around your eyes, as if you’d been getting about as much sleep as me.
You ran your fingers through your mop of hair. “So, do you want to watch TV? I’ve made popcor
n.”
In the weeks that I’d been incarcerated here, I’d come to reckon that you imagined the TV to be nothing but a flat screen on the wall: another one of your designer pieces…more art than function.
I leapt out of bed, snatching the olive branch in both sensory deprived hands.
The lounge was lit by mango scented candles in glowing pools. The furniture was skewwhiff. It was clear that you’d been doing your own chores.
About bloody time.
Still, I couldn’t help the momentary kick of pride in how much better I’d been at them.
You padded to the sofa, passing me a bowl of popcorn. I pulled a face when I smelled that it was neither sweetened nor salted. Then I carefully perched on the opposite end of the sofa.
The space between us felt like a chasm.
The muscle in your cheek twitched.
“Here,” your hand reached towards me, holding…
Bleeding hell — no — you’d promised.
You were holding the tracker and pointing it right at me.
I waited for the pain. But instead, there was only something pressing insistently into my palm, your arm around my shoulders, and your voice ringing over and over: Light, Light, Light…
I’d been shaking again. When had that started?
I stared down at the object in my hand: the tracker. I nearly hurled the hated thing as far from me as I could. Then it penetrated my fogged mind, however, that the Manx symbol was missing. I nudged it tentatively with my thumb: there were buttons too, rather than a touchscreen.
“The clicka.” Why did your voice have to be so tender? “For the TV.” You were right: it was only the TV remote. Your arm still hadn’t left my shoulder; I didn’t shrug it off. I’d dropped the bowl, and the popcorn had cascaded over the sitting room floor, but you didn’t order me to clear up the mess. “I reckoned you could choose, you know, a channel for us to watch. A movie maybe?”
When did I have a choice? Even my night out of the apartment had been nothing but smoke and mirrors.
For so long, I’d stumbled from grief to grief. Yet now you handed me this gift of choice, as if it was a common penny...?
When I broke down, shuddering with sobs, you simply held me, even though I doubt you understood my tears.
Rebel Vampires: The Complete Series Page 34