In the Flesh

by K D Grace

  With the preternatural senses I was still trying to get used to, I could not only see the tension tightening Magda and Alonso’s bodies, but I could feel the change in their breathing, in their blood pressure, even a change in the very scent of them. They were nervous. They were afraid, both tensing to pull Annie away from me should things go tits-up, which I knew with the pounding of my own heart was a very real possibility.

  I don’t know exactly how it happened. It was all so fast, but I lowered my mouth just to kiss, just to touch that place where her heart beat in her throat with my lips, maybe with my tongue… Then there was a moan that sounded like someone in agony, and I was suddenly on the far side of the bed, up against the wall, trembling like a leaf in a Cumbrian storm.

  Annie’s eyes were huge and round as Magda all but jerked her to her side and stepped back beyond the threshold with no less preternatural speed. But just as Magda pulled her through the door, Annie grabbed the molding and stopped progress long enough to turn to me. “I’ll see you soon, Susan. I think we’re long overdue for a girls’ night in, you know, a nice bottle of wine, a good chinwag? She can drink wine, can’t she?” she asked Alonso.

  He offered his usual calming smile. “Do not worry, my dear Annie, our Susan will be able to drink wine, though she may no longer find its taste to her liking.”

  Annie gave a little hiccup of a laugh. “I can’t imagine Susan Innes ever being dead enough not to revel in a good glass of Malbec.” She blew me a kiss as Magda all but pulled her bodily through the door, and then I found myself sobbing in Alonso’s arms, even as I smelled his confusion.

  “My darling girl, whatever is the matter? Why are you weeping so? Do you not wish to enjoy a good chin-wagging with dear Annie?”

  “Of course I do,” I blubbered, “but you saw what just happened. You had to pull me off her. I’m not safe. I’m not safe!”

  “Of course you’re not safe, my dear scribe, and neither am I, but I promise you I did not pull you away from Annie. You backed away yourself, and a good thing the wall was stone or you would have gone right through it in your efforts to keep her safe.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “Talia said there was no indication of the Guardian being present when Susan fed from her, and she should be able to sense Him if anyone could,” Magda said. “Even Alonso hasn’t been able to discover if He’s there. Certainly no one else who’s fed her felt anything unusual—aside from the obvious bloodletting, that is.”

  I stepped back around the corner at the sound of Magda and Michael’s hushed conversation. I knew they were nervous about the fact that we’d had no clear evidence that the plan had worked, that the Guardian had been trapped inside me when I was changed. Since everyone had assured me that He couldn’t be killed, then the only possibility was that He was trapped or that He’d escaped—a possibility that we all feared more and more as each day passed without any definite knowledge of his whereabouts. But then again, the truth was that none of us really knew what to expect.

  I listened in silence as only the dead could, knowing that if it had been Alonso and Talia talking, or even Reese, they would have known I was eavesdropping. Sadly the connection with Michael through his mark seemed not to work any longer. I assumed that was due to my change. Though in all fairness I’d been avoiding him like the plague, and the fear of a repeat of what that link had allowed last time had prevented either of us from trying to connect, so I listened undetected.

  “Is it possible He got away and is lying low until we least expect it?” Michael asked in a whisper I could have never heard when I was mortal.

  “I don’t see how He could have,” Magda replied. “If anything, Susan and Alonso’s plan was much better than ours. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”

  Michael used some very colorful language in response to that. “Do you think that’s why she won’t see me, for fear the Guardian might still use the link between us?” Even in the quiet whisper, I heard the pain in his voice, pain I’d caused, pain that made me feel like my own heart had been ripped from my chest.

  “She won’t see you because you were a fool last time she did. She doesn’t want to hurt you.”

  More cursing. “She won’t! She won’t hurt me, but between the damn vampire and his people and you and yours, I can’t get close enough to tell her. I can’t get close enough to apologize.”

  “Sorry, but that’s what she wanted. Besides, you know there are way more variables involved now that she’s a vampire, now that there’s been no evidence of the Guardian in over a week. Everyone is playing it safe. You’re at risk too, you know, after what He did to you through your link with her.”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “Maybe there is no link, not any more. Not now that she’s...”

  “Now that she’s dead?”

  I don’t know if Michael flinched at Magda’s choice of terminology, but I did. I still couldn’t quite get used to the fact that while my heart most definitely beat, albeit much slower, I didn’t need to breathe. Alonso was teaching me, however, that the living were not comfortable when one did not respire, as he put it. Superfluous respiration was essential in order for a vampire to blend in with the living, so I respired. Or at least when I remembered to, I respired.

  Respiration was only one of a million things I had to learn, unlearn, or relearn. I had to learn to slow my every movement so that it didn’t startle the living, so that I didn’t crash into things, break things, frighten the hell out of people, or seriously injure someone. I had to learn to hold objects gently in order not to crush them. I had to learn to touch things tentatively. I had to learn to move much more awkwardly than I was now actually capable of in order to blend in and not frighten mortals. I had to learn to live in the night and protect myself from the sunlight. Most terrifying of all, I had to learn to manage the hunger so that I could feed without killing, even if I had to hunt to do it.

  It was the learning to be gentle and handling things carefully that tripped me up in my attempt at eavesdropping. As I stepped back into the corner, further out of their sight, I accidentally knocked over a small ceramic figurine sitting on the edge of one of the many full bookshelves Alonso had liberally located around his home. In High View, one was never more than a few feet from a good selection of books.

  My reactions had improved to the point that catching the figurine before it hit the floor was no problem. The problem was holding the delicate figure of a horse and rider without crushing it. This I was learning to do, but it didn’t come automatically, and the thing shattered in my hand, emitting a loud crack overshadowed by my hissed “son of a bitch” as the shards bit into the flesh of my hand.

  Both Michael and Magda were on me instantly, reminding me with their own preternatural speed, that they were no more human than I was.

  “Jesus! You’re bleeding!” Michael said, taking my hand in his.

  Try though I might, the fact that Michael was touching me, the fact that his touch was as wonderful as I had remembered, as I had ached for it to be again, I couldn’t take my eyes off the racing of his pulse in the vein of his neck.

  “Leave it.” I jerked away. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. I have to go.”

  Magda, who never missed anything, already had her mobile out, calling Alonso as I turned to flee. But as fast as I was, to my surprise, Michael was faster. He grabbed me by the arm in an effort to pull me back, ignoring Magda’s command to let me go.

  “You’re not fine, Susan. It’s a bad cut. It needs tending.”

  “I heal fast.” Or at least I hoped I did. “Now let me go.” Truth was, the sight of my own blood and Michael’s attention to it both frightened me and aroused the hunger in me, a situation Alonso had warned me to be very careful in. And the crazy thing was, I wanted to fuck Michael senseless almost as badly as I wanted to drink his sweet rich angel blood down in thirsty gulps. Almost as badly as I wanted to open the vein above the swell of my breast and feed him from my blood, make him drunk from my blood, drunk with lust
for me. My nipples hardened to agonizing points, pressing against the cotton of my blouse, and I wanted Michael with an ache that was physical.

  I wondered if Alonso knew that women could be every bit as possessive and protective of what belonged to us as men could. But we could be a hundred times more vicious if need be.

  I shoved him away with such force that he landed with a hard whump up against the stone wall, and the oxygen left his lungs, along with more colorful language. Then I turned to run. I barely made it to the stairs before he was on me, grabbing my arm and pulling me back to him with surprising strength. “You’re not going anywhere until we talk.”

  I could smell his blood, hot and earthy and summer berry sweet racing through his veins; I could smell my own blood, already drying from the wound on my hand, now healed, and hunger—both physical and sexual—nearly drove me to my knees.

  I mumbled something about me not being safe as I elbowed him hard in the ribs, then turned and tore up the stairs with dangerous untested speed, Michael only a hair’s breadth behind me.

  Over our struggle I could hear Alonso on the phone, arguing with Magda. Fucking hell if the man didn’t tell her to leave us alone, to let us sort it out! Dear God, was he out of his mind? How could he tell her that when he knew what it was like, when he’d been where I was and knew the worst?

  At the top of the stairs, I shoved my way into the bedroom where I’d stayed before Alonso moved me underground for protection from the sunlight. It was a place I still liked to go after dark, to enjoy its exquisite view of the night sky. “Go away, Michael,” I yelled, slamming the door behind me. “You don’t know what I’m capable of. I nearly killed—”

  My words died in my throat with a little yelp as I turned to find him already standing by the bed, hands fisted at his side, chest heaving, eyes blazing.

  “And you don’t know what I’m capable of,” he replied, moving toward me so fast that even my preternatural vision couldn’t register his motion. He had me in his arms before I could even blink. “You think you’re the only one who struggles with power?” He pushed me against the wall and held me with one arm across my chest while he quite literally ripped his shirt off with the other hand. “I’m an angel, for fuck’s sake! And, mortal or not, I’m still more than a match for any damn vampire. Didn’t your maker tell you that? Or was he just wanting to keep you all to himself?”

  “Don’t you blame Alonso for this. The choice was mine to make. He didn’t want to, and you know damn well I nearly killed you—would have killed you if…”

  With a flick of his thumbnail, he opened the wound above his left nipple—with ease this time and, as the blood welled, I completely lost my train of thought as the ripe fruit scent of it overwhelmed my senses. I cried out and fumbled for the doorknob in a desperate attempt to get away, even as he held me firmly.

  “You think I can’t handle you? You think you’re too much for me?” He curled his fingers in my hair and reeled me into a kiss that would have been fatal if I hadn’t already been dead. Then he pulled away, breathing like he’d been running. “That’s the trouble with you damn vampires, you’re so fucking arrogant.”

  I shoved him with enough force to send him careening backwards over the bed and on to the floor behind. “Oh, and you goddamned angels are so full of humility!”

  “I didn’t say anything about humility.” With terrifying strength, he grabbed the heavy wooden bedframe, an antique that must have weighed as much as a small lorry, and turned it upside down with a loud crash. “Did you ever hear me say anything about humility?”

  When I made another run for the door, he tackled me, pinned me on my stomach with my arm up behind my back, me screaming and fighting and bucking until I unseated him just long enough to roll over and crabwalk back toward the door. Before I could gain my footing, he was on me again. He straddled me, wrapped his legs around mine and spread me into a Judo hold from which it was no trouble at all to feel his full erection.

  If that didn’t have my vampire heart racing, the blood running down his bare chest did. Just before he could get a solid hold on me, I bucked him off and shoved him back. His head hit the edge of the upturned bed hard enough to cause a hissed stream of expletives.

  Quickly, I straddled him, with him cursing and roaring like an angry bear. The instincts of the predator took over, even as the scent of our lust nearly overpowered the scent of blood. I ran the flat of my tongue up from the waistband of his jeans, following the trail of fresh blood, careful not to miss a single drop as I lapped my way up to the wound. It was a shallow wound, enough to trickle freely without the danger of him bleeding out. Enough to make me work for my snack, and it was a surprise to discover that it was just a snack, albeit a very tasty snack. This was about play. This wasn’t about life and death. Even predators played, didn’t they? With a shock, I realized this was about sex, this was about possession. This was about the balance of power we had to find before we destroyed each other in ways that were far worse than the physical damage we could cause.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Michael’s groan was pure lust as I took the first deep taste of him. With the taste of his heart’s blood, for a split second, it wasn’t lust I felt. It was Michael’s agony at my death, that he’d been helpless to prevent. It was his anguish at me shutting him out. It was all the pent-up feelings of more lifetimes than I could imagine, down through the ages when I only existed in his horrific knowledge of eternity in an instant, the agony of endless ages of waiting, only to be denied.

  Alonso had warned me that there was so much more in the blood than just nourishment and lust, that the knowledge of the whole of a person’s existence was contained in the blood, and even beyond, the history of their people. He told me that a vampire could access such information in that first ravenous sip, but I’d never had the presence of mind to do so before, though I’d quite possibly taken only from people who knew how to shield their own inner workings.

  Alonso hadn’t yet taught me how to preserve the privacy of the person upon whom I fed, and Michael was suddenly wide open, laid completely bare to me in a rush of information that was heartbreaking and terrifying and amazing all at once. There were glimpses of his relationship with the Guardian, there were flashes of him with Magda, there were images that made no sense in a context of anything that had ever been mortal.

  Then, just as suddenly as it had flooded my consciousness, it was gone. It was as though a heavy curtain had descended, and what remained was the pleasure of nourishment and lust, twinned with the bond that I quickly realized had not been broken by my death after all.

  I acted more on instinct than on any real knowledge of what I did, tearing open the front of my blouse and ripping the bra as easily as I would a sheet of rice paper until my breasts were exposed. I sat up, still straddling him, and opened my own heart’s blood to him with a sharp flick of my nail, pulling him up to me to feed. To my delight, he took what I offered with a swirl of his tongue and an opening of his lips. He sucked hard and bit, just as he had when he had given me his mark.

  With a sharp cry of surprise, he pulled away enough to meet my gaze, lips wet with the sheen of my blood. “It’s still there. My mark.”

  “Stronger than ever,” I said, nodding to the wound over his heart. “Because now you wear my mark as well.” I pulled him back to me and felt the tight, delicious, almost painful pull of his lips and nip of his teeth, and it was as though he did the same between my legs. I felt it down there as surely as if his face were pressed between my thighs, as surely as if he fed upon my most intimate self.

  Careful not to pull away just yet, I lifted my bottom and fumbled open the tight strain of his fly, feeling the hiss of his breath against my breast as I freed him, slid aside the crotch of my panties and guided him home with a deep duet of a groan. And he truly was home as I rode him and he rose up to meet me, kneading and cupping my breasts while he suckled. How could I ever not have realized that he was my heart and my only home?

 
; “Not too much,” I said, pulling away, him following me up with a groan of protest. “Too much will make you drunk and I don’t want you drunk. I won’t be done with you for a very long time yet.”

  He sealed the wound with a press of his tongue as he’d seen me do and offered an evil chuckle. “Then for your pleasure, I’ll do my best to stay sober, Susan.”

  With that, he guided me back to him. Again, instinct took control with the first taste of him, and I sipped and licked and nipped until his whole pectoral muscle tensed and rose with each breath he took. Each breath which now came in heavy gasps and sharp little pants as though he battled for control. His nipple rose tight and dark pink beneath the brush of my chin, and I broke free from my feeding occasionally to give it a worrying lick or a sharp nip, just to hear him pant and moan, just to feel him surge inside of me before I returned to his vein.

  His cock filled me so completely, and the glide and move of the two of us was so in sync, so deeply connected that time went away. Everything went away but Michael inside me—what I had craved and longed for for the length of my own eternity, which seemed desperately long before Michael filled it.

  I arched over his body, and with a large hand curled in my tangled hair, he held me tight to the wound at his heart as I took from the nourishing flow of him, all the while undulating and shifting against the powerful rise and fall of him beneath me.

  “I won’t go away, Susan, so you best get used to it.” He fisted my hair and pulled me away just enough that I was forced to look up into his deep ocean eyes. “You’re mine. The vampire might be your maker, but I’m the one who waited an eternity for you. I’m the one who’ll feed you. I’m the one who’ll give you what you need. I’m the one who loves you.” He licked the taste of himself from my lips with a possessive tongue.