BloodStar

by Montoya, Cassidy

  Which would make it that much hotter. Goddamn.

  Marley was just a newborn to this life, and Anya had nothing to say about working within the confines of her new psyche. It was hard enough to remain functional with the enhancements of her five senses, harder still factoring in the evolution of her extra-sensory perception, but none of that compared to how the landscape of her mind was changing. Where once rolling hills and valleys represented the highs and lows of her life, now jagged mountain peaks and deep abysmal chasms stood: peaks when feeding, and the abyss, her guilt.

  And there was something else. She wanted Sam, too. There was no way she could turn her back on the heat of his lust while she fed.

  She would have him. Like it or not, that Hunter was hers.

  Sabian who?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sabian had arrived in New York City late that morning. The godforsaken Hunters were all over DIA and he'd had to hold out until they finally made themselves scarce after an entire night of wet-naps and, for the bigger one, trashy romance novels from three different kiosks. Halac's old partner seemed to have no love for his subordinate, but he didn't realize it was the rookie's constant movement and attention deficit that had made it impossible for Sabian to catch a flight until sunup. The big wall of an agent was around every corner Sabian crept, popped up at every ticketing gate Sabian stalked. The minute the Hunters vacated the terminal, Sabian was up-up-and-away on the first flight he could get.

  When Sabian deplaned into La Guardia airport, he found himself amidst a throng of passengers pulsing with the same desperation, pushing and jostling through the partitioned corridor. This one hoped to see the face of her fiancé smiling and waiting just on the other side of the doors, but that luxury had been missing in American airports for almost a decade, compliments of that doomed day in September. She would have to wait. Another, this one fit but miserable looking, wanted to get home in time to catch his wife with their tax attorney’s dick lodged down her throat, but he’d have to fight for a cab first. Again, hurry up and wait.

  Things didn’t change once Sabian was out of the terminal. As he navigated the streets of New York City, he could smell the despair, stresses of a million business-women fucking their way to the top, a million would-be Brad Pitts on their way to auditions, and a million kids who wanted only a few minutes with their parents but hadn’t the faculties to schedule an appointment.

  He'd pinned his sire down almost immediately. But knowing where Roman was meant little. Sabian learned over the centuries that Roman wouldn’t be found if he didn’t want to be. The old vampire could sense his childer, desperate fiends that they were, and from time to time, mostly for amusement, he played cat-and-mouse. But Roman couldn’t resist this particular childe. Sabian had no doubt that Roman give him an audience. They hadn’t seen each other for more than one hundred years, not since before Sabian spawned Anya, and Sabian was sure Roman’s curiosity would reign.

  He had to wait until sunset. Roman, though strong and savvy and one of the chronicled Elders, was still just another vampire. Somewhere in the city, human minions busied themselves with preparations. They were as eager for dusk as Sabian. Tonight was Halloween. Tonight, they would get to see their masters in full regalia.

  "So what do we do in the meantime?"

  Teichmann was eager to for action. Oh, Solis. Why was the fuckhead so committed to the asshole-father role when it came to their partnership? Teichmann knew they needed to get on that flight, but no. Homeland Security this and FBI that. Whatever, man. Now they sat their butts on the same two uncomfortable seats they'd claimed all last night, essentially with their dicks in their hands.

  Great fucking call, Solis.

  They had flashed their badges at every airline in the terminal, and still had no luck bullying their way on to a flight. They were booked to depart at six pm with a confident attendant telling them travel restrictions should be lifted by then. A six o’clock flight meant it would already be eight in New York before they even took off. They were losing actual chronological time to the vamps.

  "Jesus, Teichmann, patience."

  The agents decided to leave their side arms and cutlery behind. They didn’t want to risk any time lost proving their credentials (which they could with all the smoothness of a prom queen’s tits but it would still be bullshit). Leaving their weapons behind made Teichmann nervous and Solis pissy.

  Those fucking goombah’s better have some heat set aside for the two "Colorado Pussies," as they'd been labeled since the initial red-alert was called and during each subsequent check-in thereafter. Fucking stooges. He wasn't even from Colorado, just worked whatever detail Vanguard assigned him.

  Teichmann loved hooking up with the New York Vanguard. They were like a bunch of Mafioso henchmen but without the buffoon factor. They talked New York, they ate New York, and tonight, they better gun New York.

  There was no way to speed night’s arrival, no way to artificially set the sun, and nothing Sabian could do until his Kindred were freed from their daylight prisons. It was a desperate day made only for waiting.

  Had his brothers and sisters of the night been on sight to observe his patience, they would have seen the perfect, obedient childe, but they would have known that he marked time only out of self-interest. They would not have needed to feel his motivation, his intent to know his purpose. All vampires save only the youngest knew of the BloodStar. Sabian was infamous for his singular ability to detach from his sire, even when Roman called to him and commanded him.

  Roman, that eternal fiend Sabian had rebuked for centuries, was now the only entity on the planet that might be able to help him find Marley. The old bloodsucker had sired Sabian into the world of the undead more than three hundred years before.

  Fucker. Sabian still hadn’t forgiven him. But if Roman came through on this one, maybe. It wasn’t that Sabian was angry about being made Kindred, and he’d long since left Roman’s betrayal back in that Seventeenth Century London warehouse.

  It was the darkness. For all Roman knew, the day Sabian was changed would have been the last "day" Sabian would ever behold. Kindred were bound to darkness and Sabian had given no consent. Certainly, for reasons Sabian was still unwilling to classify, he personally wasn’t confined to cover of night. A very few vampires, specific and special, were able to function by light of day. There was discomfort, and without sunglasses there were minor repercussions, but Sabian was unafraid of pain and refused to shield his eyes. He would never take for granted his mysterious privilege.

  He would never shade himself from Helios.

  Roman had conspired all those years ago to keep Sabian from the light, and just because the curse didn’t affect Sabian, it didn’t mean the transgression never happened. But now Roman would have the chance to make amends.

  As the last rays ebbed westward, Sabian’s desperation turned to hope. The clock would mark the technical end of this desperate day for the pitiable humans chained to their vocations, but the setting of the sun would, in the true sense of the word, liberate those he sought.

  Not a moment too soon. Marley needed him.

  There were no Kindred on the street, only tedious humans in ill-conceived costumes to look the part. Plastic fangs, turned up collars, paste-white skin. All the better. Let the lamb embrace Hollywood, and his brothers and sisters would embrace the lamb.

  The pungent hotel room was an absolute wonderland for Sam. Fucking great, happiest place on Earth. Watch out Disneyland, this was the real deal. Two bloodsucking parasites for roommates, and the moaning, pounding sounds of a different breed of leech in the rooms next door. All the faked fuck me’s and yes, Yes, YES’s traveling through the paper walls only reminded Sam of his growing need to fuck Anya or Marley. One or the other—didn’t matter. Shit, both, at the same time, sideways in a gorilla costume even. Hell, it was Halloween, after all.

  The bloodletting frenzy of Marley’s need to feed left him wasted with Petey the Dog circles around his eyes. The affect on his psy
che was even more profound.

  He hated fucking vampires.

  But he loved Marley; that much was a done deal.

  Marley was the only vamp he’d ever known as a human before the Embrace. He knew her nature before the sickness of that black-blood infected her brain.

  Fucking bloodsuckers.

  Night fell over Billings, Montana, and Anya made herself scarce. Sam had no idea where she went. At least his little domestic curse wasn't quite so sketchy. Sometime during the long hours of her change, Marley found control.

  "I can’t help myself," she said after a forever of silence.

  Sam looked over at her, and saw…well, she looked like a beaten dog. "I know."

  "What are we going to do?" she asked.

  "I don’t know."

  "Are you going to kill me?"

  Okay, that was the last thing he expected her to ask. She’d have more of his blood soon—no way over it, no way under it—and he could see her trading the fucked up panther pose for a simple how about it?

  Maybe she would even open with the fact that she was starting to need him the way he needed her, but fuck that. Better left unsaid.

  For real.

  "You’re a Hunter," she explained. "And now I’m one of them."

  "Yes. One of them." Also for real. Fuck.

  "Sam?"

  "What?"

  She didn’t say anything, and he looked up, dangerous though it might be. So far her entrancement wasn’t deliberate, and she didn’t seem to know how much power her brand of the nudge packed. When she wanted something, he doubted any man, human or Kindred, could ignore it.

  She wanted permission. She wanted him, well, his blood at least, and she wanted it so bad she didn’t have the words. He knew he didn’t have a choice about this, but Jesus, she was so vulnerable all of a sudden. Sam was too exhausted to prop up his bullshit puffy chest anymore. It took work to push his training to the background. It was a betrayal to every Hunter he ever knew, including Franky, but so be it.

  He was falling under Marley’s spell and found no strength of will to stop it. Every time she pierced his flesh he (and that degenerate fuck in his lap, Sam Junior) drifted on a sea of ecstasy. And yeah, she was talking again, now. He was supposed to ignore her lips? The way her tongue maneuvered against her fancy new teeth to form consonants when it should be forming a funnel for his cock?

  Jesus, he didn’t even know where these thoughts came from. How much longer could he keep his hands from her body? Her body that was changing into…more.

  All Sam wanted to do was lay his hands on Marley’s calves and swipe his fingertips upward. Her legs would be so goddamn firm under cashmere skin. He could wrap himself around her, forget all the hate, and trace the tensing muscles in her lower back while she laughed.

  The last time she fed, she was crowded up against him so close Sam could feel her core temperature rise as his heat flowed into her flesh. That last feeding was only a few hours ago, and the blood that wasn’t siphoned from his veins had beelined for his crotch and stayed there, standing at attention, awaiting orders, making a goddamn flagpole out of his pants.

  Fuck it, he had only himself to answer to, and not without self-disgust. He wanted her mouth between his legs, tongue twisted all up and over Junior, fangs included.

  She was a vampire, and he was a Hunter. He was supposed to hate her. How many vampire whores had he resisted in his day?

  "Can I?" she asked, this time in a voice so fucking timid he would have donated a third of his salary to some goddamned dog rescue if she asked.

  Could she? Hell yeah, he bet she could. All sorts of Anabolic-label nasty crowded his brain, but he kept the erotic shiver out of his words. "Not too much. Don’t know when she’ll be back. I want to live to see what happens." He put a weak smile on his face to match the weak joke he’d made, all the while Junior flip-flopped in his pants like a fish out of water. How could she not notice?

  He sat in one of the two chairs, haggard and brain-fucked and ever the asshole-junkie. It was happening again. She moved to him, slowly, and oh—this time the wrist? All previous feedings were harvested from his bruised and battered neck, each one more erotic and needy than the last. What was different this time?

  Didn’t matter. Once she chomped he’d only feel bliss, the pussy-powered kind, and he wanted this particular pussy’s power so fucking bad logic failed him. It was only a matter of time before he gave up the inch, and Marley took the mile that ended his life.

  Never taking her eyes from his, she knelt before him and penetrated, her head tilted to the side and a trace of his blood outlining the suction point. The dam of training and artfully engineered resistance no so much broke as melted Terminator-Two style. Sam loved this woman, even if it was a nebulous kind of thing, ungrounded, dirty and tainted by what they both were.

  In seconds Sam’s eyes rolled back, and Sam Junior settled into a nice, starched up salute. Marley absorbed his longing as he lifted his eyes to hers. Did he see desire just as strong staring back? Did he see consent?

  Sam reached for her face with his free hand, and stroked her cheek. When she exhaled on a soft, close-mouthed moan, he let his fingers slide slowly down her neck to her collarbone.

  "Mmmm."

  "Oh, God, Marley. You have to stop." He breathed his resisted words, but his hand moved from her collarbone to her breast. Jesus Christ, so soft and perfect. He felt her nipple pucker under his touch. He needed to see, wanted something pink and female in his mouth.

  "Marley…"

  She did stop, but she wasn’t through with him. She was delicate when she withdrew her fangs, tender when she sealed the punctures with her tongue. Who knew first-aid could be erotic?

  Marley raised herself up, still kneeling between his legs, and placed her hand on top if his. She assumed control of its movements, and guided his fingers across her other nipple. His cock almost ripped its way out of his pants as he rasped in a breath and held it.

  She was right in front of him with a droplet of blood still on her lower lip. While her left hand guided his palm over both breasts, she took him by the back of his neck with her right hand and in one movement, crowded against him and pulled his lips to hers. The taste of his blood in her mouth set him on fire.

  "Marley…" he said against her lips.

  She pulled back and stood up. Sam thought she was having second thoughts about the hands, the kiss, maybe everything, but instead she climbed onto his lap, straddling him as he sat in the chair. She put her arms around his neck, and brought her mouth to his. She wasn’t soft, she wasn’t tentative, and she certainly didn’t ask permission for this. Yeah, she pretty much jabbed her tongue down his throat and demanded what she wanted.

  Loud and fucking clear.

  He responded by encircling her waist and squeezing her to him. She began a rhythmic grind against Junior’s campsite in his lap.

  Oh, fuck yeah. His arousal screamed for release. No wasting time debating the merits or dishonor of bedding a vampire. Marley was more than that.

  "Marley, I…" But he couldn’t finish. What would he say? That he wanted her? The mound in his pants already said that. That he loved her? She had to know, had to feel his intentions. She was Kindred now, after all.

  Would he tell her what he was really thinking? That she couldn’t take this back? That he’d be even more hell bent on killing Sabian, that he’d die to have her, die if he couldn’t?

  "Sam, don’t you want me?"

  "I do, but…"

  "But?" Marley didn’t stop grinding as she reached for her tank top, and skinned the fucking thing with so much grace Sam felt his cock weep the first fruits of passion. God, he had to hold on.

  The sports bra was next. Her nipples were inches from his mouth, the tight skin around the peaks the palest pink he’d ever imagined, peaches with his cream, thank you very much.

  She looked right at him. He wasn’t looking at her face (how the fuck could he), but he knew she wanted to see his reaction at what she w
as about to do. Marley put her hands on herself, starting at her ribcage, and slowly smoothed upwards. She cupped herself and ran her thumbs across her nipples.

  Sam growled. "Jesus Christ, Marley." He raised the circle of his arms from her waist to her upper back, and pulled her to him. Soft, stiff perfection against his tongue. He tugged at her nipples, nipped, and licked her up and down from her navel to her sternum. It wasn’t enough. He had to get his mouth against her center. He needed to get inside of her.

  Marley’s breath came fast. "God, Sam. I want you. Don’t you want me?"

  He thrust his cock up against the axis of her need and rumbled, "What do you think?"

  "Give it to me, then."

  Sam lapped at her right breast, then her left, and then put his mouth against her ear.

  "What about him?"

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Got him, thought Sabian. Even if he hadn't sensed Roman particularly, the event would have been easy to locate; that many vampires in one place and there was bound to be an energy signature in the atmosphere. Invitations to this sort of thing were never necessary for the commoners.

  Sabian exercised patience. He wanted his sire settled and relaxed with blood in his body, the more the better. Like alcohol to the human constitution, blood seemed to act as a truth serum for Kindred, and Sabian needed Roman with a loose tongue, not his usual penchant for mischief and misdirection.

  Sabian stood outside the huge, industrial warehouse for two hours, just giving Roman time. By now Roman would have felt him, but Sabian was more concerned about the Kindred masses in attendance. The immature vampires would mob and fawn with all the reserved refinement of a 1950’s crowd of teenagers at an Elvis concert (although Sabian had always been partial to the Beatles—his small contribution to British nationalism).