“You’ve accused me before,” she said indifferently, turning back to April. “And I’m here because…?”
April shrugged. “Because David’s been talking to George. About what to do with the child. George has already seen the baby, and talked to Jane and Lawrence. So…”
April walked forward to David, who seemed to be gazing only at Katia. It made her warm and excited and very, very frightened.
“What have you decided?” April asked.
“We think there’s a working space elevator in the north,” David said vaguely.
April made a clicking sound of impatience with her tongue.
Max said, “Really?”
Katia let herself be amused. It eased the tension in her stomach. “And the child?” she prompted.
George said ruefully, “I can’t care for a child. I’d like to see him growing up, and Jane and Lawrence are quite happy for me to visit. He’s better with their family. Better for all of us -- teach us some understanding and tolerance.”
Katia closed her mouth. “What have you done to him?” she demanded.
David’s smile was twisted. “I listened.”
“He’s good at that,” April observed. And Katia realized it was true. He never talked at people. He didn’t even say very much. But he did listen. All George needed, it seemed, was someone to hear him as a person rather than as a lunatic, someone to understand and explain without prejudice. The difference in the old man, however temporary, was startling.
It was a gift, Katia acknowledged. One far greater than telepathy or shapeshifting or living forever on a little stolen blood. What a pity she couldn’t bear his gift to her -- the gift of her own lost humanity.
She said only, “Will the mob buy that?”
April shrugged. “Of course they will. A mixture of Lara’s stick and George’s carrot.” She turned as if to leave the room, but paused to say over her shoulder, “By the way, Davie -- I’m pretty sure she came to save your thick hide. Hey, Will, nice to see you with your clothes on.”
With the last, she scampered laughing past the lupi leader who stood in the doorway, his long, silver-blond hair glinting in the corridor’s flaring torch light. He was, Katia acknowledged, a very beautiful man. Yet he didn’t move her as his brother did.
David. Always David…
Will said, “Ignoring April -- thank you for coming.”
“Hell, I was passing,” said Katia. “I expect the favor returned.”
“What can I do for you?” he asked at once.
“Well, you could keep your ‘police’ off my back when I go out for dinner.”
For the first time, she saw a glint of amusement in his eyes. It was like a reflection of David’s.
“Actually, we did want to talk to you about that.”
“About what?”
“A safe food source for vampires.”
Katia said, “We’ve got one. It’s called the club.”
Will nodded. Of course, he knew exactly what went on there. “That’s why we haven’t tried to close down that side of its operation. Would you -- do you think your fellow vampires would -- consider alternative methods?”
“He means, would you drink stored blood from a cup rather than direct from a throat,” Max explained impatiently.
“She’ll do antique glasses,” David observed.
Katia couldn’t look at him. With difficulty, she focused still on Will. “You’re offering to feed us?”
“I want -- the Council wants -- to find a way for us all not only to survive but to thrive together.”
Katia said slowly, “I think you’re a step or so ahead of the majority, Will.”
Will shrugged. “Not really. It’s surprising how fast things move forward when you reduce the fear.”
Maybe I need the fear…
To cover her own confusion, she glanced at Max. “Do you go along with this?”
“I don’t kill. Veins or flasks -- all one to me,” said Max indifferently. “But I’ve warned Will against driving the vampires into a corner where they start to kill more instead of less.”
“Most vampires don’t kill now. It’s just plain stupid to exterminate your food source.”
“Then you’ll help spread that particular word?” Will suggested.
Katia said, “What will you do? Distribute bottles of blood from your food distribution centers?”
“Don’t see why not. It’s all sustenance to someone.”
“And what about the hunting instinct? You have it too.”
“It can be channeled.”
And the joy of feeding? Of sucking the blood from a warm vein…
Unbidden, she remembered drinking from David while she drove herself onto his cock and fell into the most astounding orgasm of her life…
“You can drink from him, occasionally, like a treat, if he likes it. I drink from April and believe me, it’s enough. It’s more than you’ll ever want again.”
It was Max’s voice. But she was staring at Max and his mouth didn’t move. She felt her eyes widen. Fuck.
“You never used to be able to do that.”
“Telepathy?” said Will, glancing from one to the other. “You’re latent. So is David. We can communicate if I initiate it. One more thing, Katia…”
Christ, could she take any more? With the talk of blood, she could hear David’s pumping through his veins. He was standing right beside her now, his body heat palpable. She wanted his hardness pressed into her naked body. She wanted him to make love to her again, fuck her while she fed from him. And after that she wanted…
A wave of desolation swept over her. An interminable life without the only person who had come to mean anything in it. She mustn’t build up false hopes of him, they’d only destroy her.
She had to get out of here. But first, Will’s one more thing…
“From your knowledge -- scientific and other -- do you believe the sun would be any threat to your people?”
Against her will, Katia was drawn in. She gazed at Max. “That’s what you’re doing with them. You’re going to disperse the cloud.”
He shrugged. “I’m going to try.”
“And vampires are adapted to deal with its absence…” Involuntarily, she touched her own, alabaster face. “I would suggest we cover up as much skin as possible. And manufacture a lot of sun screen. But I hardly think we’ll burst into flames or disintegrate. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a dinner date.”
“You might like to wait a bit,” Will said mildly. “Your mob is at the gate.”
* * *
Already prepared for an anti-climax, Katia was surprised by how fascinating she found the next half hour. Will and David went out, with Jane and George and the baby visible but safely behind the gate. April went too to explain her motives, while Lara and her officers hovered unobtrusively, everywhere from the roof down. No way was a mob getting its unpredictable hand on the child.
The brothers had them sitting down and chatting within minutes. By the end of half an hour they were laughing. They drifted off in ones and twos, taking George with them, but leaving the baby with Jane. The danger was averted. That was anti-climax, Katia supposed, and she was denied the opportunity to fight and protect her lover…
Lover.
She met David in the hall as he came back in with Will and the others.
As though surprised, Will said, “Are you going?”
“Yes.” She pushed between them. She couldn’t look at David. She couldn’t bear his indifference.
“Can I come?”
His voice behind her made her stop, but she didn’t turn. “Why?”
“A glass of wine?”
Her eyes closed. Then, opening them, she said, “There is a bottle,” and walked on toward the door. Though she didn’t hear him move, David was there to open it for her.
They walked together through the city. In the blackness of the night, Katia’s vision was clearer than David’s, but there seemed to be more light now, odd pockets of el
ectrical lamps, or torches clamped in brackets on walls. More changes.
David said, “Max wants me to find him the tether.”
She didn’t ask what it was. “To release his ionized gasses into the atmosphere?”
“That’s his plan.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“Well, that’s why it was so fortuitous running into George. Max knew they’d started building one -- apparently on his advice. And in some of the papers I found, there is reference to its completion -- only they kept its location secret, and it was never used. Things obviously got out of hand round about then. But… turns out George actually worked on the construction team.”
“Is he telling the truth?”
“The truth as he remembers it,” David said cautiously. “He has some kind of dementia and his memory’s unreliable, but it ties in… I think I can find it from his description, see what state it’s in… Do you want to come with me?”
Her graceful feet stumbled. She had been expecting to be let down gently. She had thought he was opening an excuse to leave her, because he was basically a nice man.
She said shakily, “I can’t leave the city.”
“Yes you can. You tried before, didn’t you? You got as far as the university store outside the city, where I first met you, and then you were afraid to go on. In case there was no food. In case life was even worse somewhere else.”
And in case I never saw you again. She closed her eyes, as much against her own self-knowledge as against his insight, and felt his arm on her shoulder.
“There’s no shame in that, you know.”
She shook him off. “Stop being kind to me. I could kill you where you stand! I could kill you any time, just from a touch of PMS! You are a gnat to me, David, a gnat!”
Oh Christ, why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? Why did she insult him just as she was beginning to trust him…?
“Bollocks,” said David.
She stopped in her tracks. “What?”
“Bollocks. You didn’t come to the lupi den to preserve the life of a gnat you could have crushed any time the previous night. Or the next morning. Don’t get me wrong, Katia, I’m a modest man, but for some reason you don’t find me as ordinary as I find myself. Any more than I find you as scary as you think you are. That’s the bollocks. None of it matters if…”
“If what?” she whispered.
He touched her hair, pushing its weight behind her shoulder. “If you still have my bottle of wine.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed.
* * *
By the time they reached the broken graveyard, Katia was swamped with anticipation. There was wetness between her thighs, a tightness in her stomach that had very little to do with blood hunger and all to do with the feel of his fingers on her hand, softly stroking the sensitive skin between her thumb and forefinger as they walked up the hill. And the sway of his hips, and the sight of his long legs striding out with surefooted, easy grace… She loved watching him. And yet she ached to touch him.
As they came up to her crypt, she cleared her throat to try and prevent her voice from shaking. “Do you want to come in or will I bring the wine out?”
She heard his breath catch. “Neither,” he said. “Not yet.” And she was in his arms, his mouth on hers with enough intensity to make her sob. She was strong, far stronger than he, and yet the force of his passion made her stumble back until she fell against the crypt wall. He followed, pressing his hips into her, grinding. She felt his cock, already hard as steel, against her abdomen and wriggled to fit it between her legs, emitting a tiny moan of satisfaction when it did.
Holding her with his hips, he cupped her breasts in both hands, grunting with obvious pleasure as his fingers found the hardness of her nipples. But clearly, he wanted more. Breaking the kiss, he pulled apart the top of her suit and slid one hand inside. She thought she would die of pleasure, just at the feel of his warm fingers on her naked breast. Freeing it, he turned to the other until they were both exposed. One he caressed with his hand. The other he covered with his mouth, sucking alternately hard and soft. Gasping with the joy of it, Katia fisted her hands in his hair. She wanted to bite his neck, suck his blood as he sucked her nipple, yet she couldn’t bring herself to change this moment of pleasure, even for another.
And when at last he stopped of his own will, he lifted his head, saying raggedly, “You’re the only wine I need. I want to make love to you again.”
She seized his face between her hands. “You don’t need to love. Just fuck.”
“I can fuck anyone. You, I love.”
Her throat closed up with emotion. She could do nothing but kiss him, latching her mouth to his and thrusting with her tongue, sweeping it around his mouth and teeth, sucking wildly. His tongue met hers eagerly, tangling, dancing, caressing.
He groaned, grinding his cock harder against her. And this time she broke the kiss, pushing him away and leaping upward onto the roof.
“All right,” she said breathlessly. “But fuck me anyway.”
She heard the laughter catch in his throat, watched him throw himself at the wall, reaching up to the low roof to haul himself up. She didn’t help him, just stood watching him with her hands on her hips, taunting him with her mocking smile and her naked breasts.
Leaping to his feet, he gazed at her unmoving for a second.
“Christ, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, and reached for her. He pushed the body suit off her shoulders, tugged it from her arms and waist until she stepped out of it, kicking off her boots, until she stood before him totally naked in the dark chill of the night. Yet she didn’t feel cold. Her whole body burned.
She slid her trembling hands up his chest to his shoulders, grasping his coat to take it off. But before she could he whirled her around, dropping to his knees and drawing her with him. His hand on her breast drew her back into him; his other reached around and thrust between her thighs.
Her pussy was so wet he could have bathed in it. He groaned, splaying his fingers across all her folds and valleys, and the hard, swollen bud between. She gasped, reaching behind her to his neck, his face. She was so close to the edge her whole body shook.
Feeling it, he pushed her forward until her hands on the hard ground supported her weight. He grasped her hips, his cock nudged between her legs, and she moaned, pressing back into him. She heard his breathless, triumphant laugh and then he thrust his cock home.
She cried out at the feel of it, massive within her, its force bringing so much pleasure that the pain of his roughness was wiped out.
“Again?” he demanded raggedly.
“Again,” she said fervently. “And then again and again and… ah!” She cried out once more as he began to fuck her hard, fast and furious, pounding into her so that his heavy balls smacked against her, and he had to hold her steady to bear the force of it. It was wild and she gloried in it, pushing back into him, writhing and twisting on his cock. All the while, strange, animal noises she barely recognized as her own squeezed from her lips. She didn’t care. She only cared for the feel of his cock, hammering her to a huge, overwhelming climax.
It made her scream out into the night, a long, ecstatic howl while he pushed into her pussy one last time to reach his own orgasm. He fell forward over her with a bellow of pleasure, his hands roaming crazily over her breasts and closing, pulling her nipples in his ecstasy, dragging her into him as their bliss held them captive and helpless.
Just at the end, he slid one hand lower to cover her pussy, pressing hard, and despite everything, she pushed back, shuddering. His fingers probed, finding her clitoris and stirring, bringing her back up there, while he closed his mouth over hers and kissed her long and deeply.
When she could speak at all, she said breathlessly, “I’ve heard of fucking with your boots on, but this is ridiculous.”
“Sexy though. At least you are.”
“Are you going to keep them on all night?”
“Is that an invitati
on?”
“It’s an invitation to take them off. Along with the rest of your clothes.”
He smiled, nuzzling her face. “Will you scream again?”
“Only to encourage you.”
His smile widened as he kissed her again. “I love you.”
She closed her eyes tightly. And God knows I love you…
“Good,” he said against her lips.
She drew back. “What?”
He said, “You spoke in my head. Like Will does. Only he doesn’t say anything half as sweet.”
“Oh Christ, David, what is happening to my life?”
He smiled. “Fun,” he said simply. She stared at him. She thought of the last few days, of what they’d just done and all the possibilities of the night ahead. Of lots of nights ahead, and days too. Of going with him into the unknown, a new adventure in search of the tether and the sun. And she was forced to agree.
Slowly, she sank back into his arms.
Bring it on!
Marie Treanor
Marie Treanor was born and brought up in Scotland, but for some years moved around the UK working and studying. Now she is back home and happily married with three young children. Having grown bored with city life, she lives these days in a picturesque village by the sea where she is lucky enough to enjoy herself avoiding housework and writing stories of romance and fantasy. You can find out more about Marie and her books on her website: www.marietreanor.com, and by subscribing to her newsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marietreanornewsletter. She also shares the Sexy Delights loop with fellow Scottish author Kyla Logan. Find out more at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sexydelights. Marie loves to hear from readers, who can contact her at [email protected].
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