Absolution: A Dominion Novel

by Lissa Kasey

  Starving, but I shook my head. Oddly enough the smell of the food wasn’t bothering me as much anymore, but maybe that was because Luca smelled pretty damn good. He must have gone home because he was wearing different clothes. And like mine—his bruises were gone.

  “That smells amazing,” he said to Seiran. He turned my way and smiled at me, though I was pretty sure he couldn’t see my eyes through the sunglasses.

  Jamie trudged into the apartment from the door that led to the underground parking lot with grocery bags in hand. Kelly and Sei went to work helping him put things away as the food cooled on a rack on the counter. Jamie’s long hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and he looked like the sort of guy who did personal security rather than the nurse he was. But he did work as Seiran’s private bodyguard whenever Gabe wasn’t around. The two of them looked nothing alike, Sei and Jamie, though they were biological half-brothers, sharing the same father. Jamie was brown all the way around, skin more tan than white, pale brown hair, brown eyes, and so muscular that he always looked like he could burst out of his clothes any minute and become the Hulk. He was attractive in a male physique sort of way, but way too much man for me.

  Beside me Luca, dressed in fitted jeans, a snug T-shirt, and a draping zip-up sweater, open and hanging off his shoulders, made my mouth water. I knew what was under those clothes. The tight ass, the flat, muscled stomach, the smooth chest and long legs. Fuck, I longed to have him wrapped around me.

  Luca must have felt the intensity of my gaze because he looked my way and gave me a sexy smile. He flicked his eyes toward the bedroom I used, and I shook my head. I was not getting off with him while everyone else could hear.

  Gabe took a small dark cooler from Jamie and popped it in the freezer. I returned to my silent brooding over not being able to make Kelly think I was moving his hair by thinking about it. They all began to dish up and Sei offered food to Luca who accepted quickly.

  The microwave whirred and I suspected Gabe was warming a QuickLife. I hoped he didn’t want me to drink it. A second later he set a mug steaming with dark liquid down in front of me. It smelled like blood, old blood. Gross, dirty blood. At least QuickLife smelled clean, fresh. It had always been a bit like water, bland, with a horrific aftertaste. This was…I swallowed back a gag. Gabe laughed. “It’s real. Human. Not as fresh as from the vein, but not as bad as QuickLife.”

  Real? I put the cup hesitantly to my lips. The first sip had me sputtering and coughing. The guys in the alley had tasted better than this. I took another sip. Okay that was really awful. “Why is it so bad?”

  “Donation blood is not the same as someone you’d be naturally drawn to feed from. We may think we choose someone based on availability or even appearance, but it’s the smell that draws us. You do it now, gravitating to those more powerful like Seiran, Luca and even Con.” Gabe pointed out.

  I gulped. Was he going to say I couldn’t live with Con anymore? That I was a danger to him? I really didn’t want to be part of their romance novel by living with Sei and Gabe full-time.

  “We’re not always lucky enough to find willing donors that we’d prefer. This is what all vampires used before QuickLife.”

  “And after they become civilized,” Luca whispered. He sat down beside me with a plate full of food. “Bet that stuff doesn’t taste as good as me.”

  Understatement of the year.

  “Wear something nice for tonight,” Luca said.

  “What’s tonight?” Was I working? I glanced at Gabe who was typing on his laptop at the counter beside Seiran.

  “I thought we’d do a little dancing. At least until your deadline is up and we can actually talk about vampire things.”

  “Deadline?” Seiran asked. “What deadline?”

  “It’s no big deal,” I told him, not wanting them involved.

  “If I don’t answer his one question the way he wants by eleven tonight I turn into a pumpkin and get the country boot in my ass.”

  Suddenly everyone’s eyes were on me. “What?” I demanded. Wasn’t I allowed to make my own damn decisions? Feeding was a lot like sex, intimate, and dangerous, opening yourself up to the other person like that. It was only fair I got to pick who that was. I sighed and pushed away from the table not able to handle being in the room a moment longer.

  I texted Con who was still upstairs at Sei’s place. He had it closed up tight so all I had to do was make it from the elevator to the door before I burst into flames. “I’m going to hang with Con for a bit. Make sure he’s not weird about this morning.” I knew he wouldn’t be. He’d never had a chance to see the bloody clothes. But it made for a good excuse. I left the mug of nastiness and everyone’s prying eyes behind as I jumped in the elevator and headed up ready to run for the door.

  The metal double doors slid open. Light blasted me with blistering heat from the entry. I practically flew past the few random people that always seemed to linger in the building’s mailbox area to where Con waited with the door to Sei’s apartment wide open. He let me run past him into the shielded living room where he’d hooked up an Xbox to Sei’s rarely used TV.

  I should have brought up the mug of old blood. The added sunburn just made me hungrier. Con sat next to me and handed me a controller. We played in comfortable silence. He never expected me to talk about my day or what was bugging me.

  The smell of fresh blood and ink tickled my nose. “You get a new tat?”

  He nodded. “Beau is working on a picture of Cat for me. It’s gonna take a few months since there’s so much detail and color. But I had to have her close, you know? I sort of feel like I failed her and maybe I can keep her alive like this. Even if it’s just in my head.”

  I should have said something inspiring like she wouldn’t have wanted him to mourn, but I didn’t know the girl at all. So I just said, “Sorry.”

  “No worries. We’ve all got something right?” We went back to playing and not talking.

  The smell of Con’s blood made me salivate even though it was laced with chemicals from his new art. If what Gabe said was right about me gravitating toward the strong, then Con was a more powerful witch than he let on. God, I was such a monster. He’d just lost his sister and I wanted to jump him. Not just his blood, but his body. He was that lanky sort of guy that made most people wary. Covered in tattoos. His face lots of angles, sharp, high cheekbones, eyes set just a little too wide for his face. The mess of dark hair falling around his face softened the edges a bit. And he had a great mouth, lips pale rose and defined. I’d dreamt more than once about having them wrapped around my cock. Fuck. Maybe if I just fucked Luca already, some of the sexual tension would ease.

  The silence that stretched between us for the next few minutes was almost painful. Finally Con broke the silence. “So how did it go with your cibo? He’s pretty hot. I’d do him. Seems nice.”

  “He’s kind of pushy.”

  “And you don’t like pushy?” He asked because he knew I did.

  “He wants to have sex with me.”

  “I want to have sex with you. That’s not a stretch you know. You’re an attractive guy.”

  “Vampire,” I corrected him.

  He sighed and took the controller from me; pausing the game by pressing the start button. “I know. I don’t blame you for what happened to my sister. I don’t blame you for being a vampire. No matter what you think, you are not a monster. Not so long as you still feel something for other people, even if you hurt them. Cat had lost that. She hadn’t even been undead that long…”

  “I am a monster. Didn’t you hear? I attacked a couple guys in an alley last night.”

  “Not unprovoked, and yes, Kelly told me. It’s like a game of telephone around here. No secrets. They came at you, you rewarded them with the fight they wanted.”

  “Wasn’t much fight in them.”

  “Not the point. But yeah I heard.”

  I wished I was home so I could retreat to my room to analyze all the whirling thoughts in my head. Con’s presen
ce was usually soothing. But learning he wanted to have sex with me just added stress to our relationship that we didn’t need.

  “Con. You and me. I can’t do that.” I’d break him. My best friend. Hell, my only real friend. No matter how much I wanted him…

  “Hey, I hear you there. Maybe you can bite Luca and do me? I don’t mind being held down.” And now I had more fantasies of him I didn’t need. I opened my mouth to protest, but he put his hands up in mock surrender. “I know vamps have this whole thing with sex and blood going together. I just want you to realize you’re not a bad looking guy and most of the time—when you’re not being a dick—we all like you. So it makes sense that this Luca guy would be interested.”

  “Even though he’s super-hot? Guys like him never looked at me before I became a vampire.”

  “Because most guys are idiots. That should not be a surprise to you. Dead or alive, men are wired by their dicks. You don’t come across as prey, and that’s what most guys want. Someone easy. Not dangerous.”

  “I’m dangerous?”

  Con shrugged. “Bad boy vibe is alive and well with you. Work it.”

  That was news to me. I’d never considered myself a bad boy. Just a not nice guy. “You’re the one covered in ink.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m a bad boy. I’m more by the book.” He looked me over again, gaze traveling down my body like he wished I was naked in front of him. “For most things. You strike me as the kind of guy who’s read the rule book and said fuck it, then set it on fire.” Argh, so much sexual tension.

  I shook my head at him and took back the controller to un-pause the game. “Kill some zombies damn you. You’re supposed to have my back.”

  “I do, my friend.” And we played.

  Chapter 7

  Seiran arrived an hour or so later and kicked Con out. He shooed me into his room with the command that he would be helping me prepare for my date. A date with Luca. How did that happen? He hadn’t even asked, just assumed. Not like it was a bad thing. He was good looking, smelled good and tasted like chocolate and spice. I should be excited. Instead I was nervous.

  “You’re pretty grumpy. If I give you some blood will you stop being so miserable for five minutes?”

  “I don’t need your charity, Ronnie,” I groused at him needing to be contrary just because teasing him actually felt good. “Go back to your Roman lover and leave me to my brooding.”

  Seiran grabbed my hair and yanked me around hard enough to hurt. I had to meet his eyes or have the hair ripped from my scalp. His grip wasn’t human, and even as a vampire I couldn’t free myself. Shit this was the Father Earth power. Apparently, I’d pissed off the earth witch.

  My filter must have been malfunctioning because I said, “I thought you didn’t like it rough, Ronnie.”

  “You’re a really ungrateful little bastard, Sam. Gabe is bending over backwards to keep the Tri-Mega and Dominion from just putting you out of all our misery. And you spit in his face.”

  “I never asked for—”

  “Not done,” Sei interrupted. “None of us want you dead. You don’t even want you dead cause if you really did, you’d have found a way by now. So why don’t you pull up your big boy britches and suck it up. Do this thing right.” He shoved me onto his bed and climbed on top of me, holding me down, like I had a chance to move anyway. He could crush me if he wanted to. “You’re making Gabe unhappy. Unhappy Gabe means unhappy Seiran. You know what happens to people who make Seiran unhappy?”

  I sighed. It was about time the witch showed his true colors. I’d pushed him hard before but apparently not hard enough. “You fuck me up. I get it.”

  “I don’t think you do.” He closed his eyes and suddenly the room went black, or maybe that was just my sight. I fell out of myself and landed hard in a heap—surrounded by dirt and wood. A grave. The feeling of life poured into me like Luca’s blood magnified by ten thousand. I gasped as it kept coming until I was sure I’d burst. Then it was torn away and I died again, slowly, painfully, lungs gasping for air and cold bitter water filling them. He slammed the life back into me again just as I was ready to give up to death only to pull it away again. The cycle continued several times until I was sure it was going to be my fate to live it forever, then as suddenly as it’d begun it ended. I sat in the dark, all sense of feeling gone. I couldn’t move, or even scream, it was just a void. Was this the true death?

  “It’s your choice this time, Sam. No more blaming others. Do you want to live or die? The earth is willing to take you back. I can give you to it.” Seiran’s voice whispered in the dark.

  Christ, anything had to be better than this miserable emptiness. Was this what Con was talking about? How a vampire truly lost his humanity? The void of everything? No pain or joy. Fuck. I wasn’t ready for this great box of all-consuming nothingness. I wanted to live. Even if that was as a blood sucking vampire freak. Christ Almighty I wanted to live.

  The room came back into focus and I sucked in a deep breath. Seiran sat beside me, no longer holding me down, but his arms around me. I trembled. He stroked my head like I was some frightened child. I suppose in a way I was. Dead at nineteen. Stuck undead forever just shy of drinking age. Tears seeped down my cheeks. It was an odd feeling, but it’d been so long since I’d let myself feel something other than anger.

  “It’s okay. You’ll make it. You’re strong enough. I know sometimes it feels like you’re not, but you are,” Sei whispered to me. He smelled good but the bloodlust had faded. Not that I could have attacked him even if I wanted to. He got me like no one else did. Had been through a lot of the same horrors. Matthew had twisted us both. It had just taken me longer to realize it.

  “Those memories don’t control you. The bad things he did to you don’t define you. Being a vampire probably sucks, but it’s better than the alternative. Kelly didn’t want you to die. Gabe and I don’t either. I know it’s hard but can’t you stop living in the past and try to find something to make yourself happy?”

  “With Luca?” I asked him. “You get that he’s Max Hart’s kid, right?”

  He sighed. “I wondered about that, but whatever. With Luca or someone. I sorta hoped you and Con would bond.”

  “We have bonded—as friends. Romantically, that’s not happening. He’s breakable.”

  “He’s not. If he was, Andrew Roman would have broken him.” Seiran sighed. “You realize he’s probably powerful enough to be the Pillar of Air, right? And that you’re an amplifier? Meaning you’d make him stronger? As much as we claim we are human, witches aren’t. There’s something more in our DNA. It makes us less breakable the more powerful we are.”

  That was a sad truth. I’d seen plenty a dead witch in my time, but regular humans were little more than ants on the spectrum. I really had to stop thinking of Con that way. “He’s terrified of vampires. Of being bitten. That’s become part of sex to me.” And fuck didn’t I hate that.

  “So bite Luca and fuck Con. Hell, fuck them both. They’re attractive, right?” He stared at me. “You strike me as more of a top than a bottom. How did Matthew convince you otherwise? That monster never bottomed.”

  And wasn’t that the truth. “I’m verse.” I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation with Seiran. If there was any person on the planet I was less sexually into, I had yet to meet them.

  “And have two hot guys who’d give it to you anyway you want. I sort of thought your sparring with Luca had come to that…but he said no.”

  “He offered.”

  “And?”

  “Why did I say no?”

  Seiran nodded.

  “It’s still weird for me. Being dead…”

  Seiran waved a hand at me. “But you’re not really. I’ve seen plenty of dead. Vampires are something else. Magic? I can feel it through the earth whatever it is that animates you guys. I think you have to get out of that mindset. You’re reborn as something different. But dead is dead. Dead is unmoving, rotting, reclaimed by the earth.”

&
nbsp; “Which just proves the dead thing. Since you feel me through the earth.”

  “I feel it from regular people too. Different, but not all that different. A vampire’s connection to the earth is stronger.”

  “Are you saying I still have a soul?” I’d wondered about that. The whole church thing had been part of that morbid curiosity. Growing up with the extremes of Christianity had really warped my head in a lot of ways. It was a constant battle, the right and wrong of things like sex, blood, and death. All things that had become part of who I was now.

  “Maybe? I think it’s more complicated than that. We consider it your spirit, but even that is a mild term compared to what I feel in the links bound to the earth. When someone passes, sometimes the spirit stays. Not like a ghost, but energy. Strong energy. Our theology is that the earth reabsorbs the spirit to continue its growth. So, if you still have spirit bound to your flesh then you’re alive, aren’t you?”

  I thought about that for a minute. Maybe the whole blood thing was an attraction to that energy. Maybe vampires scented it instead of felt it like Seiran did. “This is so confusing.”

  “Life?”

  Well yeah, if that’s what I was truly doing. Unlife sounded stupid. “I guess.”

  “Love is complicated too,” Seiran sighed. “Doesn’t conquer all, and all that shit.” Were he and Gabe having problems? “But you’ll be open to someone, right? Live beyond what Matthew did to you.” His voice hitched a little when he said Matthew’s name. “Do you think I feel any different about the way he abused me? That I don’t know the number he did on your head? He left you wounded and you are refusing to heal.”

  It wasn’t about Matthew. He was ancient history. Wasn’t he? I was undead now, but still Sam. And who would want me. Fuck it was still about Matthew. Damn him. I hoped he was suffering in the foulest pits of hell. “I’m so messed up.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Sei joked. “Now you have a hot guy who’s waiting downstairs to go out with you in a normal sort of way. Maybe he’s not the one. But you’ll never know if you don’t try.” He pushed himself up off the bed. “He even promised to not push for sex, which is probably unheard of for a guy like Luca. That guy is sex on two legs. Whatever reason he volunteered to be your cibo isn’t from some sort of obligation or trick.”