Loving the Man

by Marie Treanor

  Katia bit into his flesh. He cried out, with pleasure as well as pain, and at last his blood flowed over her teeth into her mouth, strong and sweet and overwhelming. She rose on his cock as she swallowed, then as she sucked on the vein, drawing out another delicious mouthful, she pushed herself down on him, burying him up to his balls. The taste of him magnified the incredible pleasure beyond endurance.

  Thrusting suddenly with her hips, she rode him hard and fast, yet still maintaining the instinctive, rhythmic push and pull of feeding and fucking while the tide of pleasure rolled and exploded within her.

  David gasped, and through it all, she felt his balls tighten under her. Blood forgotten, she released his throat and smiled fiercely as he came with her. He held her bottom steady, slammed his cock into her and kept it there while the jet of seed shot up into her womb and the growls and groans of his joy filled her ears.

  While his body still shuddered in the grip of his massive climax, she remembered his wound and pressed her trembling tongue to the punctures to heal them. Then she collapsed on his chest, smiling secretly under cover of her hair, because finally, she fully understood the sexual pleasure of the feed which had always eluded her before. Past glimpses of her fellow vampires screwing their prey while they drank were more comprehensible now. For Katia, there had never been joy like this, neither before nor after her change.

  Slowly, she pushed the hair back from her own face, so that she could see his. He was smiling too. She felt his hand in her hair, stroking.

  “Bizarre,” he whispered. “Totally bizarre. You are amazing.”

  “No, it’s you who are amazing. And bizarre. Do you have any idea what I could have done to you?”

  The smile faded, but slowly, lingering in his intense blue eyes like a pleasure that wouldn’t die. “But you didn’t,” he said seriously. “Did you?”

  Chapter Seven

  When David woke, he had no idea of the time. The lamp still burned, but Katia’s crypt was totally cut off from the world outside and even the faint variations between night and day were not visible in here. There were many things he needed to talk to her about, not least about how breaking up the cloud would affect her and her people.

  Instead, he just watched her sleeping face as she curled into his shoulder as trusting as a child. But it had been no child he held in his arms all those hours. It was a vital, passionate woman who answered his every desire, spoken and unspoken and even a few he hadn’t known he possessed. Unconsciously, he touched his neck with his fingertips, remembering her bite, the incredible pain and pleasure of her sucking while they made love. For some reason, he’d known she wouldn’t kill him or damage him -- and yet so lost was he in the throes of this astounding passion that he wasn’t sure the threat of death would have made a blind bit of difference. He had wanted all of her, including her bite.

  His cock stirred, growing against her naked thigh. As if she felt it in her sleep, she smiled. A sudden rush of tenderness paralyzed him, almost stopped his breathing. She had once observed that he would die for his brother. And he hoped it was true. But God, how much more did it apply now to her?

  This was total madness. It had always been -- the groundless belief that she wouldn’t hurt him in that first encounter, his subsequent, obsessive search for her, his desperation, his need to hold her in his arms, make love to her, make her his.

  His eyes closed. She wasn’t his. Amazing, beautiful, sexy as sin itself and more passionate than anyone he’d ever known. But she was wild, untamable, utterly and fiercely her own creature. The loneliness he had sensed in her, that called to his, made no difference. Vampires were solitary creatures. It was amazing enough that she had let him sleep in her bed once. Vampires weren’t capable of relationships.

  Max is. Max sleeps every night at April’s side, as together as Will and Lara…

  But April was amazing too in her own way. She was powerful, a lupi.

  David had never had any difficulty in attracting women, only in leaving them when it was time to move on -- as it always was in the end. Yet to his exotic lover, he must seem pathetically ordinary. She had been lonely and needy and he had been there. This experience was a gift, a beautiful, wonderful gift that he should accept as such and move on before she changed her mind and killed him anyway.

  He let his fingertips trail across her smooth, taut cheek. He still didn’t believe she’d kill him. Moving his head, he softly kissed her lips. “Katia, I have to go.”

  Her eyelids didn’t flutter. They opened smoothly and her eyes stared directly into his. There was a pause while he tried and failed to read her expression. Then she said only, “I know.”

  “I promised Will I’d try and help with an electricity generator. And a radio. And Max’s project…”

  “You have many commitments,” she agreed distantly. Although she didn’t appear to have moved, she was no longer touching him. David wanted to take her back into his arms, kiss her until she gave off the same heat that had consumed him before. His cock was already one step ahead.

  Please ask me to stay. One word from you and I’ll consign Will and all his works to second place forever…

  Katia said nothing. David’s lip quirked upward. It was the best smile he could manage. He slid out of her bed and reached for his clothes. He saw no reason to hide his arousal from her. If anything, he hoped it would encourage her to jump him.

  It didn’t. She simply lay in bed and watched him silently. It should have shriveled him. Instead it made him even harder. With relief, he shrugged on the big coat that covered all his sins and slung the bag over his shoulder.

  Only then did he remember. Opening the bag, he took out the wine bottle inside and walked back toward the couch.

  “I came to give you this,” he said, laying it on the pillow beside her. “It’s one I found down south.”

  Her expression never changed. Nor did her eyes leave his.

  “Perhaps,” he said with rare difficulty, “you’ll share it with me some time.”

  Something flickered in her eyes, a glimmer of light and pain before the shield came down once more.

  “Perhaps,” she agreed.

  Slowly, because she was unpredictable now, he reached out and took her hand. He kissed her palm once, curling her fist around it as if that would somehow hold his affection. Then he turned and left her.

  * * *

  Because his mind was taken up with thoughts of Katia, it took a while before he registered the trouble in the street. Even then, he would have paid it no attention. Lara was there, and a few of her men, keeping things in order, but it looked uglier than anything he had seen since he came home. And at the centre of it was the old man he had met before. Complaining about the loss of his grandchild.

  Two of the policemen had him between them, while Lara faced down the crowd who appeared to be objecting to the old one’s arrest. Something about him tugged at David’s memory. Frowning, he pushed his way through the throng until he caught Lara’s eye.

  “Everything OK?” he shouted.

  “Sure,” she said, with rather more confidence than he was sure she actually felt. “Some misunderstanding. About a conspiracy to steal this gentleman’s grandchild.”

  The crowd quieted as if to hear this conversation. David recognized some of the people there. One man grinned at him. “Hey, it’s the Archaeologist! Found anything interesting, today, Davie boy?”

  “Well, I think I might…” He turned to the old man, casually offering his hand. “Hello again.”

  Surprised, one of the lupi policemen released the man’s arm, so that he could shake David’s. Frowning with the effort of remembrance, the old man said, “Do you know what happened to the child? Did you find him?”

  “I don’t know,” David said cautiously. “But I think we can help. I think we all can. Remind me -- who did you say had taken the child.”

  “A vampire,” the old man said defiantly. “And a wolf! A lupi.”

  David looked at Lara. She was frowning. “H
e didn’t say that before. He said it was his child, and he never mentioned a lupi…”

  “He’s a little confused,” David said dryly. “And somewhat -- inhibited I suspect by the presence of so many lupi to object to his accusations.”

  “He’s been stirring up quite a riot here,” Lara said grimly.

  “I think,” David said cautiously, “because no one will listen to him otherwise. A lupi and a vampire… mean anything to you?”

  “Yes, but they wouldn’t…” Lara began impatiently. Then, abruptly, her mouth closed. “Shit.”

  “In the den?” David asked quietly, and she nodded once.

  David turned to the old man. “Will you come with me? I think your grandson is safe and I can show you where.”

  * * *

  It took a while before the mob would let him come. But Lara had not managed crowds in the Dome City for years without learning anything, and in the end, the old man’s neighbor -- who had previously paid no attention to his complaints at all! -- accompanied them to the school. On the way, David had time to wish he could initiate telepathic communication with his brother, but the first contact always had to be from Will.

  However, there had obviously been some sort of communication, for as they approached the school, he saw Will emerge with a lupi couple he knew well -- and a child.

  * * *

  Katia needed to get out. Her home smelled of David. Her bed, the very air smelled of him. She liked it that way, yet right now, she couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bear that the faint scent was all of him that was left. She couldn’t bear that it was over.

  He couldn’t wait to go. The bottle of wine and a vague offer to drink it with her some time couldn’t make up for that. He had brought her to life again only to break her heart.

  The dull grey that passed for daylight was beginning to give way to blackness again as she emerged from her crypt. Weirdly, she thought she could still smell him in the air. And since she had nothing better to do, she followed her nose.

  It led her westward, skirting the worst criminal and mutant areas until she came upon a small crowd of people who seemed to be working themselves up into a frenzy.

  David was not among them. And yet his scent still lingered. She began to think the smell was still on her body, in her essence. Either that or her imagination.

  A small, crippled man who had done her bidding in the past skulked around the edges of the crowd, wary of getting involved yet drawn to the excitement. Katia summoned him with a look. The little man brightened immeasurably, almost dancing toward her.

  “What’s going on? Where are these fools going?”

  “They’re following the Archaeologist.”

  Something jolted in her stomach, fearful, primal.

  “He took old George to find his lost grandson -- satisfied most of them, who went home… only the hardliners are left. They’re saying now that the Archaeologist is Will’s brother and a lupi lover, and so is in on the conspiracy…”

  “What conspiracy?”

  “Of the vampires and the lupi to keep his grandson from him.”

  Katia stared at him. “Why the hell would they do that?”

  “No idea. It’s all in his mind. His family was killed -- addled him even more than before… The rest of them -- reaction to unaccustomed authority, I suppose. Fear of giving up power to another species…”

  “What power?” Katia sneered. Already moving away, she inhaled the scent of David, followed it. She paused briefly. “And by the way. We’re all the same species. Scary as it is to imagine.”

  * * *

  Katia had no doubt that she could beat the mob to David, and once she was with him, no power on earth could harm him. In fact, she toyed briefly with the idea of dispersing them first, violently, before they even got to him. Stupidly, the only thing turning her from that plan was the notion that David himself would disapprove of it. After all, he and his brother were trying to bring the rule of law back to the city. So, in the wake of his footsteps she sped past them, a small noisy group, stirring up everyone they passed and collecting new supporters on the way.

  Fear for him still twisted through her with a sharpness none of her brain’s logic could assuage. Especially when she realized where he had gone. The lupi den, the old school. Some lupi had taken the child, then, though for what purpose, Katia couldn’t imagine. David would want to put that right -- though at what cost? If this stupid mob didn’t get to him, would the lupi themselves not turn on him for this betrayal? And how would that sit with Will’s new law? It didn’t make any sense. Lately, it seemed, nothing in Katia’s life made any sense.

  The old school had been repaired -- its once ruined side buildings rebuilt. Red-scarved lupi now guarded it all, lounging at ease around the recently erected gate. They nodded at her amiably enough as she approached. Of course, they couldn’t smell her. Vampires evaded their sharp senses. She paused in front of them, realizing they would let her in. She wouldn’t even need to damage either of them.

  For a moment she regarded them thoughtfully. Behind the calm mask, her heart was thundering, because she knew David was in there. She could smell him. The desire to see him, to be with him and stand at his side when the danger threatened almost overwhelmed her. And yet she schooled her face to show none of that.

  “Can I help you?” one of the lupi enquired politely.

  “Actually yes.” Now that she’d decided on her course of action, she could relax. Couldn’t she? “Can you take a message from me to Will?”

  Though they both looked slightly startled by this request, they nodded.

  “Thank you… Tell him that Katia says…”

  “Katia?”

  She whirled, angry at herself for not paying enough attention to sense the newcomers. She really had to pull herself together. Max and the little blond lupi -- April? -- had emerged from the side wing of the building.

  “Max,” she sighed, transferring her gaze to the lupi girl who regarded her with more curiosity than hostility. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  The girl said, “Are you looking for David?”

  If Katia had been human, she would have blushed. “No. I was only sending a message to Will. I thought he might like to know there’s a bit of a mob heading over here to retrieve some -- er -- stolen child.”

  The girl opened her mouth, some disparagement almost formed there. Then she closed it again. One of the lupi guards said, “The one Old George has been going on about for weeks? No one pays him any attention.”

  “Actually,” said the girl ruefully, “they do. Katia -- you’d better come in.”

  She could have walked away. No one would have tried to stop her and if they had it would have made no difference. Instead, under the expectant gaze of the lupi and the challenging mockery of Max, she chose to walk through the school gate.

  Entering the school, she was geared up to face David. Instead, the first creature to catch her eye was a large, silver wolf loping across the hall toward her. She could feel the others watching her, their wary reaction to the vampire. They all knew what she was now, she could feel it.

  She paused. With the wolf were a lupi man and woman. The man carried a child about a year old.

  “The missing baby,” Katia observed, still watching the wolf. “Hello, Will.”

  April laughed. “How did you know?”

  “I can smell him,” said Katia indifferently. “Satisfy my curiosity. Why did they take a human baby?”

  “They didn’t,” said April. “Max and I took him. His parents had been murdered. I thought I was doing a good deed. I never thought of there being other family to care for him. And now Jane and Lawrence are -- rather attached to him themselves.”

  “Messy,” said Katia, keeping her voice deliberately careless. Her gaze was on Will. “And what are you planning to do with the mob coming for him? Or for David, or you, I don’t suppose they remember by now their original intention.”

  “The mob isn’t a problem,” April said, touching her
arm to urge her forward. Katia drew back. She had come to speak to Will. Through there might be all sorts of things she didn’t want to see or think about. Like David.

  April said, “Please come this way. Trust me, you don’t want Will to change and talk to you. He’ll be naked and he’s such an exhibitionist.”

  Katia almost laughed. Instead, she chose to follow April, pausing only long enough to murmur, “Bad dog,” to the wolf.

  She heard the hiss of laughter between Max’s teeth. Of Will’s reaction, she was ignorant.

  “Why,” she began, as they went through a door into a distantly familiar kind of school corridor, “is the mob not a problem?”

  “We know about them already. Like you, the lupi are telepathic to varying degrees.”

  “I’m not,” Katia said at once. It was an ability she had long ago squashed. She had no desire to hear the thoughts of others, still less to share her own.

  “You are,” said Max briefly. “If you nurture it, you can communicate with whoever you choose to.”

  They passed an open door. Inside, two people, a human woman and a lupi man, were working on what looked like a computer’s innards.

  “Where are we going?” Katia asked.

  “To see Old George. He’s in here.” She threw open the next door, adding un-necessarily, “With David.”

  Chapter Eight

  David was balanced on the windowsill, threading an electrical wire through a small hole. At the sound of April’s voice, he turned immediately. And his smile was instantaneous.

  He dropped his arms, jumping down from the sill. “Katia,” he said, such warmth and softness in his voice that something in her stomach melted.

  It’s relief, just relief because at least he isn’t appalled to see you here…

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of anything to say. It was George, sitting at a table in front of a largely dissected engine, who broke the silence. “You’re a vampire,” he observed. “I’ve met you before.”