Meridian
Page 1
MERIDIAN
Dissenting with his destiny as a Vampire Courtesan, Kutra “K” Lapin resolves to flee Los Angeles in 2125. His ticket to Meridian, the only human controlled city in an otherwise suprabeing-ruled US, is a transporter known as Tiger, who —by the way— has decided to keep calling K “Bunny.”
Three thousand miles of free-for-all superhighway separates Los Angeles from Meridian. In this journey, the courtesan and the transporter will face clingy former clients; bar brawls; Werewolf, Fae and Warlock outlaws; invisible, firebombing hovercrafts; discover unknown powers, and survive spells and enchantments, all to reach K’s freedom.
And perhaps, in the meantime, find a love that is beyond appearances.
Table of Contents
Blurb
Love’s Landscapes
Meridian - Information
Meridian
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Glossary
Author Bio
Love’s Landscapes
An M/M Romance series
MERIDIAN
By Gabbo de la Parra
Introduction
The story you are about to read celebrates love, sex and romance between men. It is a product of the Love’s Landscapes promotion sponsored by the Goodreads M/M Romance Group and is published as a gift to you.
What Is Love’s Landscapes?
The Goodreads M/M Romance Group invited members to choose a photo and pen a letter asking for a short M/M romance story inspired by the image; authors from the group were encouraged to select a letter and write an original tale. The result was an outpouring of creativity that shone a spotlight on the special bond between M/M romance writers and the people who love what these authors do.
A written description of the image that inspired this story is provided along with the original request letter. If you’d like to view the photo, please feel free to join the Goodreads M/M Romance Group and visit the discussion section: Love’s Landscapes.
No matter if you are a long-time devotee to M/M Romance, just new to the genre or fall somewhere in between, you are in for a delicious treat.
Words of Caution
This story may contain sexually explicit content and is intended for adult readers. It may contain content that is disagreeable or distressing to some readers. The M/M Romance Group strongly recommends that each reader review the General Information section before each story for story tags as well as for content warnings.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved worldwide.
This eBook may be distributed freely in its entirety courtesy of the Goodreads M/M Romance Group. This eBook may not be sold, manipulated or reproduced in any format without the express written permission of the author.
Meridian, Copyright © 2014 Gabbo de la Parra
Cover Design by Gabbo de la Parra
This ebook is published by the M/M Romance Group and is not directly endorsed by or affiliated with Goodreads Inc.
M/M Romance Group Publication
MERIDIAN
By Gabbo de la Parra
Photo Description
Anime-style depiction of two men embracing at night. A brightly lit, futuristic city is their background, as if they stand on a hill. One man is tall and blond, and the other is shorter with dark hair. They seem to have come to this place on the shiny motorcycle beside them.
Story Letter
Dear Author,
In futuristic/apocalypse USA, most cities are led by the supernaturals. We, humans, become the second class citizen. New York’s leader is a werewolf, Chicago is led by a warlock, and Los Angeles? Los Angeles belongs to vampires. Los Angeles human citizens are marked by numbers on their wrists, based on our blood type, and we must donate our blood on scheduled days for those vampires.
This is where I live. I’m 18 years old, I’m blood type AB, and I dream of going out of this city. I hear that there is still a city where humans still have controls, where they are able to keep the supernaturals out. That is where I’m going— with this bad boy on a bike, whom everyone knows as “Tiger”. I have a deep crush on him and well, on his bike (they both are just so sexy). Even if he annoys me by keep calling me “Bunny” (yes, I know I’m kinda lightweight). But heck, I’ll survive this road trip and who knows, maybe I’ll make him fall in love with me too *smile*
Notes:
Please keep the nickname of “Tiger” and “Bunny” in the story— basically I want this to be a futuristic/road-trip story, where the two MCs are going from Los Angeles to their destination, a haven city for humans, and along the way they banter, they fight some bad supernatural beings who try to stop them from reaching the city, they talk about each other’s lives and dreams, they discuss “classic” music (and by classic, you can make music from our time *lol*), they kiss, and they fall in love. It MUST NOT be sex heavy, in fact, sex could be kept near the end. Also, don’t make it a D/s or master/slave or depressing story just because humans are second class citizens… I don’t want to read humans are being used as slaves and suffered from their supernatural masters and such.
Tags: futuristic, road-trip, light sex content, young adult-new adult.
Sincerely,
Ami
Story Info
Genre: alternate universe
Tags: fugitives, futuristic, road trip, sex industry, supernatural beings
Word Count: 19,150
MERIDIAN
By Gabbo de la Parra
PROLOGUE
Los Angeles. 2120
“Welcome, children of the San Pedro neighborhood. Today is a very special day. Your Assignment Day has finally arrived.”
Fourteen-year-old Kupra Lapin wasn’t particularly excited about this day, or more accurately night, since all citizenship issues were conducted during the night, because the regents of the West Area were vampires.
The girl beside Kupra looked like she was about to receive the biggest ice cream cone her tiny mouth could devour. He didn’t know any of the other kids around since his foster family had just moved to this area, and the school year wouldn’t begin until next month.
“Okay, let’s introduce the Assignment Board…” The vampire lady started saying names that didn’t mean anything to Kupra. It wasn’t like they would ask if he remembered any of this except for his final assignation. Each person named nodded boringly without even truly looking at them. “Well, now. The moment you’ve been waiting for. Your assignation determines your future within the West Area. Embrace it,” she said cheerfully.
Clearly wishing to be somewhere else, the members of the Assignment Board sat, as incandescent orbs emerged from an urn in the middle of the dais where they perched. One of these bored vampires must be really old, because Kupra had heard once that only really ancient vampires had magical powers of this kind, and there weren’t that many of those here in America. They preferred the Old World. It could be just gossip though since he’d heard it back in the South Area.
Each luminous blob landed on a kid’s outstretched hands. The one landing on Kupra’s dissolved, and a little metal plate with a single word became visible.
; COMPANION
It was the modern word for courtesan.
****
CHAPTER ONE
Los Angeles. 2125
DAY ONE
“You sure you wanna do this? Thirteen hundred miles ain’t gonna go easy on your tiny butt.”
“Listen, Tiger. I’m paying for this. How my butt fares the trip is none of your business.”
“Ain’t you a feisty little bunny?” Tiger pinched K’s cheek, using an annoying baby voice that was grossly at odds with his imposing frame.
K pushed Tiger’s hand away. “Would you stop that?”
“Alright.” Tiger put his hands up in surrender. “Where’s my gold?”
“I’ll give you your first half in our first stop for the night, when we are hours away from the city limits.”
Tiger arched an eyebrow. “You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t trust anybody. Don’t take it personal.”
“I ain’t the trustin’ kind either. I just wanna be sure you ain’t plannin’ on swindlin’ me.”
“You have got to be shitting me.” K’s laughter was full of sarcasm. “You’re the shady character here.”
“Moving people around ain’t nothing shady, Bunny. I’m ready to go, but you need to show me the gold first.” Tiger narrowed those weird, violet eyes of his. You didn’t see that color every day in Los Angeles. Lots of red eyes, but violet was seriously uncommon.
“Fine.” K pulled up his blue T-shirt, allowing Tiger to see the slim gold bars secure in the girdle-purse fastened around his waist. “Satisfied?”
“Yeah.” Tiger gave a crisp nod. “Hop on then.”
K let go of the hem of his tee, straightened his canvas jacket and adjusted his backpack. This was a two to three days tops trip to Meridian, where humans were not second-class citizens but owners of their destiny. After four years of excruciating training and a year suffering the paws of male and female vampires having their way with him, it was enough. Many people would consider being a companion a glamorous job, but K hated it.
No amount of self-convincing would shake K’s revulsion for the race of those drugged bloodsuckers that had killed his parents a few short months after moving to the city, even if the actual culprits had been convicted and eradicated. Ten-year-old K was left in the hands of a foster family thanks to the vampires’ support system. Those strangers weren’t bad people, but K had been old enough to remember his real parents and not become attached to those strangers.
The only good thing about his profession was that his rates afforded him his freedom quicker than other occupations would have. He was sneaking to freedom in the middle of his quote unquote vacation, but he wasn’t going to argue semantics with himself.
Climbing onto the sexy-as-fuck bike, K wrapped his arms around Tiger’s waist. He didn’t know what was hotter, Tiger or his bike. He rested his head on Tiger’s wide back as the bike growled to life. The man was warm, a wonderful contrast to the cold bodies of his vampire customers. Good thing his helmet would protect him from Tiger’s long, blond hair whipping in the wind when they reached full speed on the road.
They zigzagged away from the park where they had agreed to meet without another word. Soon, they left behind the hundreds of ultratowers and those chivvying holoboards constantly advertising the wonders of living under the utopian Vampire Government.
Three hundred miles later, K’s ass needed a break. Deep in Arizona, they stopped at a diner off the superhighway.
“You clear about our cover?”
“Yeah, we are on our honeymoon en route to Mega-Vegas.”
“And?”
“We decided to drive to sightsee.”
It wasn’t common since the superhighway was essentially a free-for-all, but Tiger looked the part of road-warrior-husband perfectly. They were a pair of rough characters looking to add more adventure to their honeymoon.
“Perfect. Here, wear this.” Tiger took two rings out of his pocket and put one on K’s ring finger and the other on his own.
“This is so sudden.” K put the back of his hand over his forehead like someone overwhelmed by emotion. “Did we have a big wedding?”
“No,” said Tiger, narrowing his eyes and definitely trying not to laugh. “It was an intimate affair.”
“Shit. Can we eat now?” K wasn’t going to tell Tiger his legs and his ass were killing him, so he faked boredom.
“Sure, Bunny.”
K had met Tiger the previous month when one of his customers had introduced them, joking that Tiger could take anyone and anything anywhere for a price. From the get-go, the rogue had called him “Bunny” in his sultry Southern drawl, which his vampire customer had found hilarious. They shared drinks until the vampire decided to take K to more private accommodations to use his services. They bumped into each other two days later, during a sunny afternoon, and sat to have a coffee.
Of course, what had piqued K’s interest was the mention of Tiger’s bike during their previous encounter, and he was glad to be able to see the masterpiece in bright daylight. A sleek monster, the Owatatsumi 2100 was a classic and a connoisseur’s wet dream, and K knew about bikes as much as he knew about pleasure. Since K had already been contemplating an escape route, he took the chance, hoping the man was only loyal to profit, and asked Tiger how much it would cost to take him to Meridian.
When the four suprabeing groups (Vampires, Werewolves, Warlocks, and Fae) divided the United States among them, the 100th meridian became some sort of a limbo zone. Something about their common laws had reserved one thousand square miles radius out of all their jurisdictions, and humans, taking advantage of this esoteric technicality, had founded Meridian. One could think this should have caused a massive migration to this city, but not all humans were averse to live under supra-government; many thought it a blessing.
Luckily for K and Tiger’s cover, the business people of Las Vegas decided to exchange one desert for another, and moved and expanded the city to an arid area of Kansas, almost in the middle of the country, where a lot more people could come and enjoy the new gambling mecca, which consequently fell under the jurisdiction of the North Area governed by warlocks and was ninety miles north of Meridian.
So, yeah, they were honeymooners on their way to Mega-Vegas if anyone asked. Technically, citizens were allowed to travel between Areas for short periods of time, like for vacation or business purposes. Resettling was a different situation because it involved questioning and permits, especially in the West Area where citizens were basically food, even though they weren’t called that but “contributors”, as they were taxed in blood.
Transport from one Area to another was scarce and complicated to discourage wandering between them. That was why Transporters like Tiger existed. With so many obstacles, couples from different Areas were unusual, and this would make people wonder because they were going to see that K had the wrist numbers marking him as a citizen of the West Area, and Tiger didn’t have any visible telltales of his area.
Tiger was from the South Area (the Fae region), the place from which K’s real family had come. K never knew the reason his parents had moved to Vampire Los Angeles.
“You’re seriously creepy when you’re quiet like that.” Tiger chuckled.
“I’m sorry.” They had entered the diner, but it was his sore butt more than Tiger’s words that had taken K out of his reverie.
“Not a problem, Bunny.”
“You know, I have a name.”
“Using a single letter is too badass for a little bunny like you.”
“I’m big where it counts.”
“Of course you are.”
“Besides, companions can act as bodyguards for their clients, so you’re aware I’m not defenseless.”
“Never said you were.”
“How yah doin’, boys? What can I get yah?” The waitress was a wide woman with blue hair and hot pink spectacles. “I would recommend the lizard stew. It’s finger lickin’ yummy. I just had a spoonful myself.”
“Oh,” the waitress touched her ample chest. “I’m so sorry, love. I was looking at his wrist and didn’t pay attention to yours. Thought you were both tourists. What’s your type, love?”
In the West Area, everything revolved around blood type. Based on your blood type, you ate, exercised, and rested, everything to maximize your “happiness” and the wholesomeness of your blood.
“AB,” K said succinctly.
“Let me get you the list.” She punched several keys on her clipboard; a holographic menu emerged from the tabletop until it was floating at the perfect height for K to read it. “I’ll give you a minute to choose something.” She turned to Tiger. “You wanna tackle the lizard?”
“Bring it on.”
****
CHAPTER TWO
If everything went as planned, in less than three days, Tiger would be dumping his first charge in Meridian, after he had avoided the human city like the fucking plague during all his fourteen years of “transporting.” He didn’t want to know or learn anything about that city, but Tiger had recognized the desperation Bunny’s eyes had been trying to conceal. That touched a part of him he didn’t know was still active in some recondite recess of his soul.
With Bunny deposited in Meridian, Tiger would go back to Mega-Vegas and find a nice piece of hairy ass in the gambling mecca thanks to his pocket full of gold. He’d fuck to his heart’s content before leaving all his transporting days behind to find a good place to settle and become a decent man. Heck, he was even contemplating falling in love with a big, hardworking dude and forming a family. He would be twenty-eight in September, but that wasn’t too old to get settled and have kids.
As part of his trade, living on the crazy roads of the US, he had dodged bullets, swords, claws, fangs, and the occasional burst of dark magic, thus a cozy shack with the same sweet piece of ass waiting for him every day sounded like paradise.