His eyes, when they met hers, were almost those of a stranger. But not a dangerous one, not like what he had been before he had left with Michael.
The emotion was there, yes—passion laced with lust and bewilderment, as if he had as much trouble believing this was happening as she did.
“It’s all right, Damon,” she said, pulling him down again. “I’m all right, and I want this. I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.”
Whatever had made him hesitate, her words broke the spell. He bent to kiss her navel and continued below, working toward the powerful ache that only he could cure. He reached her tight nest of curls and slid his tongue into the tender depression beneath.
Alexia moaned as he tasted the soft, moist flesh, stroking and exploring. She tangled her fingers in his thick hair, urging him to drink deeply. He licked his way to her entrance and dipped in, just for an instant, before working back up to her clitoris. He took it between his lips and sucked, drawing Alexia to a nearly unbearable pinnacle of need. Pleasure became pain, pain pleasure. She began to throb and tremble, balancing on the brink of a fall that would never end.
But when she stepped over the edge, Damon was there to catch her. She felt herself pulse wildly against his mouth, felt him lick the moisture from her swollen lips as if it were the only sustenance he would ever need.
But he wasn’t finished, and almost as soon as it was over she felt a renewed ache between her thighs—an overpowering need to be filled with everything Damon could give her.
He licked his lips, savoring the sweet taste of Alexia’s body. He was not ignorant of the many flavors of a woman, but never had he experienced it this way before. Not even with—
He pushed the memories away. Alexia deserved everything he had to offer her, and he needed to be inside her as much as he needed blood to stay alive.
Positioning himself over her, he unzipped his fly, too impatient to remove his pants. She spread her thighs wide to accommodate him, and he settled between them, his cock briefly resting between her stomach and his. Then he lifted himself, shuddering as her hand found him and guided him in.
His need was too intense to control. With a long, slow thrust he entered her, listening to her gasp of surprise and moan of pleasure as she felt him begin to move. She was tight and very wet, and he knew for all her casualness about sex that she hadn’t been with a man for a long time.
But she didn’t ask him to be gentle, and for all his efforts to move slowly, his hunger continued to drive him. He thrust deeply and pulled out, thrust hard again, and all the while Alexia gripped his shoulders and urged him on. Her head rolled back and her eyelids fluttered. She cried out his name.
When she finally came again, pulsing hard around his cock, he followed her quickly, pumping fast to fill her with seed that could never create life. He released his breath and buried his face in her neck, still tucked inside her, reveling in the scent of her perspiration and the hot femininity of her sex.
But this wasn’t only about his pleasure, his need. He lifted himself up again so that he could see her face. It was flushed and relaxed, but when her eyes opened and her lips parted to display her teeth, he knew she wasn’t really seeing him. She wasn’t aware what was happening when her incisors grazed his neck, pressed gently down and pierced the skin. She had no idea that she was saving herself as she licked up the blood and sucked it from his veins, but for him it was pleasure even beyond pushing deep inside her body, and he knew it was the same for her.
He wasn’t forcing her. Her own body was doing what instinct told it to do. She was keeping her promise to him, and he wasn’t going to stop her, not even if she hated him afterward.
A strange feeling overwhelmed Damon, and it was so unfamiliar that he didn’t recognize it until he heard his heart beating in time with hers.
It was joy. And as he felt Alexia’s tongue trail over his skin and his blood flow into her mouth, he knew this moment, this emotion, would never come again. When she jerked again beneath him in a third orgasm, her thighs locking around his waist and her gasps of pleasure mingling with his, he thanked whatever gods might be that they had found each other for this brief moment in time.
* * *
When Alexia woke, everything had changed.
She felt it first in her heart, beating strong and steady for the first time since her patch had been stripped from her skin. Next she noticed that the pain under her arm was gone, and when she felt the wound she found it cool and dry to the touch, hardly even a trace of a scab remaining. Her whole body hummed with energy and an inexplicable happiness.
Breathing in a lungful of late-morning air, Alexia realized that all her senses had been renewed, sight and smell and hearing, as if she had taken one of the illegal drugs that were said to create a sense of oneness with the world that could change a human’s experience for a lifetime.
But the only drug she had ingested was her joining with the man beside her, sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion, his expression so relaxed that she realized just how much he had suffered trying to protect her and keep her alive. Here he had no masters, no ugly memories...only peace, for a few precious hours.
She had new memories now—good memories of lying beside Damon, quivering with excitement as he found all the most sensitive spots she’d forgotten, tasting her breasts and farther below, where his tongue had searched out the very center of her need.
And she remembered him moving inside her, fitting so perfectly that she could imagine it was her first time, her first lover, and there could never be another. She remembered her own moans and cries as he thrust deeper, harder, carrying her into a white-hot sun of pleasure beyond description.
After that...Alexia sighed, closing her eyes as the warmth of the rising sun, creeping over the hills to the east, bathed her face and shoulders. There had been those few moments of utter bliss at the end, an explosion of sensation that had blotted out all thought and consciousness, everything but that eternal moment of ecstasy. She could still feel her body humming with it.
Had Damon felt the same thing? Did it really matter? They had comforted each other, giving and taking in equal measure. That was all anyone could ask.
More than she had ever asked for. Or could ever expect to come again.
Unwilling to wake Damon, Alexia rose silently and went for her pack and canteen. Her balance had returned, along with the strength in her legs. She knelt to pick up the canteen and realized it was nearly empty. So was Damon’s. Almost certainly he had given her most of the water when she’d been ill, but she was pretty sure even Daysiders needed to drink something other than blood.
There was a creek within two kilometers of their current location, but it lay at the foot of the hills to the east, at the edge of the very same valley where the illegal colony stood. Even though she and Damon had been left alone for over twenty-four hours, Alexia had no illusions about the risk they would be taking just to replenish their supply of water.
The very idea that she could be thinking of taking a hike through the hills startled Alexia. She paused to take stock of her body again, listening to the even throb of her heart, the clean feel of air in her lungs, the healthy hunger that reminded her how long ago she’d eaten.
Her first thought had been right. It was exactly as if she’d taken a drug. The most powerful drug anyone could imagine.
The canteen dropped from Alexia’s hand. She touched her mouth. The taste was faint, almost imperceptible, but it was there.
Blood.
She shook her head fiercely, but the idea would not be dislodged. Surely it was impossible. She couldn’t have done it without being aware of it.
But she hadn’t been fully aware the first time she had offered herself to Damon, when she’d been too ill to know what she was doing. And there was that blank spot in her memory at the very pinnacle of the night’s lovemaking.
Could sex with Damon have so completely erased her inhibitions, everything she believed in?
How many
other things you once believed have you abandoned? she asked herself numbly. Would it be so incredible that her body, in a state of ecstasy and abandon, should seek what it needed...especially if the one who could fulfill that need was not only willing, but eager to give it?
She turned to look at Damon, struggling with the urge to shake him awake and demand an answer. His face was still peaceful, as innocent as any Daysider’s could be. Almost content.
Was he content because he had finally gotten her to do exactly what he wanted without forcing her? Had he taken something else for himself in the process?
Probing her neck and shoulders with her fingertips, Alexia could find no tenderness that would indicate the presence of a bite. No, Damon hadn’t bitten her. But that didn’t mean she—
Alexia dropped her head into her hands. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she wasn’t really one of the forty percenters after all. Her illness had been temporary, and she would have recovered, anyway.
But she knew in her heart that wasn’t true. Because of the “nice lady,” who had saved her life so long ago.
Recognizing the danger of letting herself fall into her own dark thoughts, she pulled on her pack and considered what she had to do. She couldn’t afford to forget that the shooters were probably still out there, even though they’d left her and Damon alone all night. But if the Daysider was right, the colonists would attack them only if they approached the settlement.
As long as she could walk and fire a gun, she would finish this mission, no matter how hard it was to accept what she had done to keep herself alive. What Damon had let happen.
And she could finally see Michael to his rest.
For a few moments she watched Damon intently. She could see he was sleeping lightly now, and that meant he would be able to smell or sense any enemy who intruded on the camp. She had to trust he would be safe. She untied Michael’s VS130 from her pack and set it down at Damon’s side along with the pistol he had given her the previous day.
Turning away with a heavy heart, she picked up the faint trail she had followed yesterday, working her way back to the place where Michael had died. The scrapes in the ground that marked the struggle were still there, and so were the spatters of blood, now crusted over and disintegrating into the soil.
But Michael’s body was gone.
Alexia shrugged out of her pack, dropped it at her feet and rushed to the place where her partner had lain. There were more marks in the soil but no additional blood, no indications that someone—or something—might have dragged his body away. No sign that the Orlok, or others like it, had returned to finish off what it had killed.
She sank onto her haunches and ran her fingers through the dirt, blinking away the tears that had come without warning or purpose. Michael was dead. What happened to his body didn’t matter, not to him. But the hideous image in Alexia’s mind made her bend over with the dry heaves. She fought the nausea and got to her feet.
Damn Damon for not letting her bury Michael. Her partner would have been safe if he’d had the decency to allow a brave man a little dignity.
But anger wouldn’t help her, or Michael. Maybe she could find something he had carried—some token to return to his kin in San Francisco. She knew he had an uncle, a cousin, people who would want something to remember him by.
And maybe there would be enough of him left to bury.
Clearing her mind of all distracting thoughts and emotions, Alexia searched for a trail. She found one among the dense thickets of scrub oak to the north. It smelled like Michael and traces of blood, and another stench that made her choke on her own breath—the same smell that had left its traces where Michael had died.
Orlok.
Alexia forged ahead, though her stomach cramped with horror. Surely there must be some trace, she thought. That thing couldn’t have—
A glitter of metal caught the late-afternoon light, and Alexia moved under cover to search for the source. Nothing else moved, so she advanced slowly to the tree limb where the metal hung suspended from a cord or strip of something she couldn’t quite make out.
It was leather. The metal was a buckle. Michael’s buckle, the one he had bought on impulse at a street fair, back when he had seemed so lighthearted and carefree. The buckle had been cast in the shape of a grotesque parody of a Nightsider, more devil than leech, with a long, narrow face, slitted red crystal eyes, and protruding fangs.
Alexia pulled the belt from the branch and clenched the buckle in her fist. The edges bit into her palm. Dry-eyed, she tucked the belt into her pack and kept going.
She found bits of her partner’s clothes as she went on, boots here, shirt there, the small pieces of gear he had carried close to his body. The stench of Orlok grew stronger, yet she saw nothing of the creature or Michael’s remains.
Still she went on, tireless, grim with purpose. It was just past sunset before she began to sense that someone was following her.
She turned, carefully unslung her rifle and lifted it to her shoulder. But when her pursuer came into view, she nearly forgot the weapon was in her hands.
The thing was neither human nor Nightsider. It was lean and nearly hairless, bulging with muscle and tendon beneath pale skin, its face nearly as long as the creature on Michael’s buckle. One of its long-nailed hands was pressed to its chest, the other curled into a fist at its side. It opened its mouth, and she glimpsed rows of serrated yellow teeth.
Then she met its eyes, and she saw something she recognized.
No. Alexia swallowed and backed away, the rifle pointed toward the ground. There were two kinds of dhampires: those who needed the patch and those who didn’t. The ones who didn’t could be converted by a vampire’s bite. That was why Aegis always sent out teams consisting of both subtypes, so that one would survive in almost any situation.
Michael was of the second type. He hadn’t been bitten by a Nightsider. An Orlok had attacked him, supposedly killed him. But he hadn’t died, despite his terrible wounds. He had changed...into one of them.
Aegis had never been sure of the Orloks’ nature or origins; it was believed they were directly connected to Erebus and Nightsiders because they were, essentially, creatures of night that lived on blood—thus the name “Orlok,” taken from the old tale of the grotesque vampire Nosferatu.
That was exactly what this creature—this man—appeared to be.
“Michael,” she whispered.
The thing who had once been her partner swung its head from side to side, advancing on her slowly. She continued to retreat, unwilling to shoot even to wound.
But the Orlok didn’t attack. It—he—stopped several meters away, still swaying, and opened its mouth. Sounds came out, sounds almost like words.
He was trying to talk.
Alexia’s heart wedged in her throat. “Michael,” she breathed. “Do you know who I am?”
His head bent ever so slightly. A nod. A moan of pain and sorrow. He moved closer, a purpose in his eyes she couldn’t mistake.
“You don’t want to hurt me, Michael,” she said, speaking low and steadily as if she were quieting a cornered animal. “We were...are friends. We’ve risked our lives for each other.” She lowered her rifle farther and held out one hand. “I want to help you.”
The creature’s mouth twisted in something like the old grin. He continued to advance, and Alexia braced herself. If it came down to killing or being killed, she knew which one she had to choose.
But Michael stopped again, just within reach, and lifted his fisted hand. He opened his long, distorted fingers and showed her what he held within them.
At first she didn’t know what it was. The device was about the size of a large earpiece, but almost featureless. When Michael held it closer to her face, she recognized the tiny mic.
A communicator, but nothing like the one she carried, or like any she’d seen before.
Was it some new model Aegis had devised? And why had her partner been carrying it? Electronics seldom functioned well in the Zone, and sh
e’d known nothing about it.
With a grunt, Michael seized her wrist with his free hand and dropped the device into her palm. His touch sent shudders of revulsion through her body, but she didn’t break away, and after a moment Michael retreated. He gestured at the communicator, his mouth working.
Coming.
Alexia jerked. Michael hadn’t spoken. The word had appeared inside her head. She stared at his contorted face, wondering if she were beginning to hallucinate.
Signal, the voice in her mind said. Attack.
Pressing the heel of her palm to her temple, Alexia tried to force the voice out through sheer strength of will. But Michael—what had been Michael—was still there, half civilized, half savage. And sinking quickly.
Warn, the voice said. War.
Warn whom, about what? What signal, and what attack? Was he asking her to send a signal to Aegis with this device? Was he telling her that war was coming?
There was no way to know, because all at once the voice went silent, and Michael shuddered again. It almost seemed to Alexia that his body was changing before her eyes, bending, writhing, slowly losing the last vestiges of humanity. She tried to approach him, but he backed away, shaking his head from side to side like a dog with a burr in its ear. Then, without warning, he loped off into the night-shrouded wood.
Alexia pushed the communicator inside her jacket and ran after him. She knew in her heart she couldn’t save him, but she couldn’t let him go down alone.
She was so intent on finding him that she nearly tripped over the man on the ground before she realized he was there.
Damon, she thought, wild with fear.
But it wasn’t Damon, nor Michael. Her nostrils filled with the scent of Nightsider, and she stumbled back, pulling her rifle from her shoulder.
The Nightsider moved slightly, his pale, unbound hair fanned across the ground, his ascetic face drawn in pain. He didn’t seem to be armed, and he was clearly injured; she knew Michael might have attacked him, but there were only a few tiny spots of blood on his clothing.
Then she recognized what was wrong with him. He had been in the sun. Blisters disfigured what would have been handsome features, and his once-dark eyes were milky with cataracts.
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