BloodStar

by Montoya, Cassidy

  Sabian pulled to the curb as far from streetlamps as he could, and cut the lights in the Viper. The engine was still running, but he took his foot off the brakes. No doubt the agents were trolling the side streets, all pissy they hadn’t been able to keep up. Vanguard Hunters were forces of nature almost as crafty and deadly as Kindred…if they felt passionately enough about their crusade.

  Halac’s old partner sure as hell did.

  Sabian turned to Roman, and bent him forward at the waist, adjusting his sire’s stiff body for the right leverage. He grabbed the stake from where it met Roman’s back, and yanked it free. Physical volition returned to Roman immediately, and he put his hands on his knees, bent over even more, and proceeded to hack great clumps of black blood, spitting the yield right their on the floorboard. A nice little parting gift for the insurance adjusters to tally.

  "Better?"

  "Give me a minute," said Roman. "Just give me…a minute."

  Shaking his head, Sabian said, "I don’t have a minute. Will you be okay?"

  "Eventually, yes."

  "I thought they were going to catch us. They could have taken your head, Roman."

  "No, they couldn’t."

  "Christ, I don’t even want to think of it."

  "You’d find her again," said Roman, letting his head fall back against the headrest.

  "Not good enough."

  Roman looked to Sabian, inquisition plain in his eyes. "I thought you said you were bound to her, no matter what."

  "You’re right," Sabian clarified. "I’d find her, but I want her now, with this body, with these memories. I want her as I am."

  Roman nodded, and then lifted his shirt. He examined his wound, which was already scabbing over although it would take longer to mend the internal damage.

  "Get out," said Sabian.

  Roman looked at him, eyes wide with surprise. "Here?"

  "I have to go."

  Roman shook his head, and rubbed his face. Finally, after fidgeting with his clothing and checking his pockets (all contrived to irritate his childe, no doubt), he stepped out of the Viper and onto the sidewalk. He smiled at Sabian with amused disapproval, and shut the door.

  There were no goodbyes. Sabian peeled out into the same storm he’d been running himself ragged through, and didn’t look back. The sun was posturing to rise, and Roman looked up and down the street for a suitable place to pass the daylight hours now that it was too late to get back to his New York lair. He looked back in the direction of Sabian’s departure.

  "See you in another hundred years…or not."

  Above him, clouds still eclipsed by darkness began to dump their bounty.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sabian had no idea if the Vanguard had regrouped and organized more agents for the airports by this time, almost two hours after the raid on the warehouse. It was five-thirty in the morning, and the sun already peeked over the horizon.

  He had seen one agent, but only one. Sabian didn’t need confirmation about the young man dressed for travel in comfortable jeans and worn tennis shoes; Hunters always testified against themselves. They couldn’t help it.

  The Hunter checked his watch every thirty seconds, felt in his pockets for his weapons (they were not yet beyond security checkpoints—surely there would be an agent placed deeper in the bowels of the airport, too), and generally looked regimented like only Hunters and soldiers do.

  His nerves were wrecked even before he slipped past the guy. He just wanted to get on a plane already. Something had changed with Marley. He didn’t know what it was, but something was different. He could still feel her. She was alive, but she felt wrong. He could sense Anya, too, and goddamn if they weren’t back in Fort Collins.

  At least one mystery was solved. He might never know how Anya had managed to ward off his seeking energy, but he wouldn’t need to know if he got Marley out of this because he’d never let her out of his sight again.

  "You’re not understanding me. I need a flight to Denver." He’d been playing this fucking game with this pig of a ticketing agent for five minutes now.

  "I understand, sir, but the blizzard shut down everything east of the Rockies. We’ve been told no flights out to the Midwest until tomorrow morning. That’s the last I heard."

  "Tomorrow morning? Jesus, that’s twenty-four hours."

  "I know, and I am sorry. Usually they give us worst-case scenario and then an update around noon. It could be earlier than tomorrow," she said hopefully.

  "What am I supposed to do?"

  "I can get you into Vegas. We have a flight leaving in half an hour." When Sabian rolled his eyes, she said in a whisper, "Sir, if you need to get out of New York, you should probably take this flight. I heard they are about to shut down all outbound flights, know what I mean? The storm is already here and getting worse, and I’m telling you, in a hour you won’t be able to go anywhere."

  Marley burst through her apartment door just before sunrise. Empty. She searched the tiny place while Anya walked around as though every surface was covered in ectoplasmic slime, looking in disgust at what Marley called home.

  Shit. The sun.

  Marley was a whirling dervish as she covered every window with the heaviest blankets she could find. It would have to do.

  Then she went to her room, took off her jeans and boots, lay down on her bed, and closed her eyes. The passage of time was different now, and to compound the disorientation, she hadn’t figured out how to make her new body sleep yet. So, she waited…and wanted. Marley had no idea how bad she wanted Sam until she found herself idle and without him for the first time.

  Anya walked in, and Marley looked up to her sire, waiting for the next string of commands.

  When Anya said nothing, Marley asked, "What time is it?"

  "Time shouldn’t matter to you anymore."

  "God, can’t you ever just answer a simple question?"

  Anya smiled. "The only indicator of time that should concern you is the position of the sun in the sky. I don’t know what time it is because I don’t care what time it is. But I can tell you that the sun is past its highest point in the sky. Take it for whatever you want."

  Jesus, how many hours had she just been lying there? There had to be a way out of this. She couldn’t take eternity with Anya. No wonder Sabian cut the bitch off.

  "Samuel is back."

  At that Marley shot up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "When? Where is he?" She immediately regretted her reaction when she saw the satisfaction in Anya’s eyes.

  "You must be so tormented, caught between two lovers."

  "Yeah, whatever," said Marley. Damn, if Anya had seen through her so easily, what would Sabian think?

  As if he was ever going to show. Yeah, right.

  "Ha. It’s going to be the disappointment of a lifetime tonight."

  "Tonight?" Holy. Shit.

  "Mmm Hmm." Anya sat down beside Marley, and put her hand on Marley’s bare thigh, slowly stroking upward.

  "Take your hand off me."

  "I don’t think so."

  Marley tried to forcibly remove Anya’s hand, but found she couldn’t, even with her new strength. Squirming didn’t get her any further.

  Anya’s fingers caressed closer to the top, feathering the inside of Marley’s thigh and lingering just a moment when her pinky brushed against—oh God.

  Marley tried to want this to stop, but fuck, it felt so good. So right. Anya wagged that little finger and a moan escaped Marley’s lips before she could stop it.

  Anya smiled. "You like that?"

  Marley only nodded, unable to stop herself from lying back as Anya prowled up the bed. The vampire leaned into her exploration, hands weighing heavier with each swirl around Marley’s sweet spot. It wasn’t just her pinky anymore. Anya cupped the top of Marley’s sex and massaged that little mystery with the heel of her hand. Marley felt the orgasm gathering in her core.

  Jesus, five more seconds, and…and…

  Just as the releas
e grabbed hold and threw her into the crest of the wave for the ride, Marley caught a glimpse of her grandmother’s pendant dangling from Anya’s neck right in front of her face.

  "Ohhhhh, God. You. Fucking. Bitch. Whore." Marley panted through the electric pleasure, head thrust back and breasts pushed forward. She would have that pendant back, even if she had to separate Anya’s head to get it, but the bitch wouldn't stopped kneading at her, and the fury Marley felt made her want to fuck more than fight. The very center of everything she was burned, was positively on fire—not for Anya, but provoked by the vampire all the same.

  Sam was downstairs. God, should she just call his ass up here to join the party?

  "He won’t."

  "How did you know—will you stop that already?"

  But Anya didn’t stop. She simply slowed the pace of her concerto, eased up on the pressure a bit.

  "I have something for you, childe."

  Marley couldn’t help herself now, fully lust-lost, shackled by vampire libido. Her hips pumped up, aching for the pressure Anya was denying.

  "Oh, pleeeeease," whined Marley, desperate for another release.

  Anya slowed, her thumb right on target through Marley's damp panties, and the force increased in direct proportion to the decrease of movement until Marley moaned and writhed, trying to do with her own body’s motion what Anya was not. Then the vampire took her wrist to her mouth, bit, and then offered the dripping flesh to Marley in silent command.

  "I don’t want to," said Marley even as her eyes rolled back with pleasure.

  "Just a taste," whispered Anya, and pushed her wrist softly against Marley’s lips. When Marley turned her head to the side and kept her mouth closed, the black blood smeared Marley’s cheek, but she couldn’t stop herself from licking her lips. Anya’s hand started its rhythm again and Marley gasped. At the moment Marley’s lips parted to suck the air that would help her bear the weight of the impending orgasm, Anya shoved her wrist to the fledgling’s mouth. This time she took hold and fed.

  God, it was fucking amazing. She was going to come again. Marley was about to let go of every molecule in her body, liberate the lot of them to soar upward through the convulsions when Anya replaced her dripping wrist at Marley's mouth with her lips. Marley kissed back and shuddered when Anya slipped her fingers inside Marley's panties and started working her fast, skin on slippery skin.

  Yes, goddamn, she was going to come, right now…right now…but it didn’t happen. No more than two seconds before Marley made it, Anya denied her the pleasure and yanked her fingers away. Anya marched into the bathroom, and Marley sat up, breath coming fast and hard. She looked around in confusion. She needed to come, had to, but Anya came back wiping her hands on a towel.

  "Sorry, pet. You just don’t do it for me, but I bet Sam would be willing to pick up where I left off. I’ll send him in."

  "No," yelped Marley, but Anya was already heading downstairs. Marley stood in a swoon, desperate to release the tension Anya worked up between her legs but not wanting Sam to see her like this. She found Anya's towel discarded on the floor by the bedroom door, and put it between her legs to wipe some of the bloody wetness her sire had coaxed. Even the feeling of the towel brought a shudder to her, and she was shaking it off when Sam walked into the room.

  Solis and Teichmann caught a plane departing just three minutes after Sabian on another airline, beating the shut down by half an hour. The flight to Vegas was short, only three and a half hours, but they’d been forced to circle overhead for another hour and a half before being given the green light to begin their descent. It seemed every flight headed anywhere near the Midwest had been rerouted to McCarran Airport.

  When they finally landed, the captain thanked them for choosing the airline even though for most on the plane it was by chance rather than design, each so desperate to make some progress toward home any flight to Vegas would have sufficed. They were given the local weather report, wished luck on their endeavors, be they business or pleasure, and asked to throw any last minute trash into the bin just outside.

  Solis grumbled at the slow motion chaos the entire time the passengers deplaned. Fucking Las Vegas? Were they kidding? Who flies into Vegas if they want to get to Northern Colorado? If they drove the speed limit (which he wouldn’t, of course), it would be another twelve hours before they got to Fort Collins.

  "Hey man, look on the bright side," said Teichmann. "At least it’s daylight."

  Solis looked at his partner and didn’t want to acknowledge the lame look of delight on Teichmann’s face. He knew what the big Hunter was going to say.

  "Get it? The bright side? Because it’s daylight?"

  Teichmann didn’t even pretend he wanted to drive which was a blessing from the good lord above. Twelve hours at the most, maybe 9 at the least if he really boogied, but they had to cut up and across the Rockies. What a fucking nightmare.

  "What do you want?" asked Sam.

  "Nothing. I didn’t ask for you. She lied."

  He looked into Marley’s dead eyes (he had been training himself to think of her that way) and saw something, but not enough of a something to use valuable energy sorting through the bullshit. The BloodStar would arrive this night, he was sure of it. Anya had been saying it all morning, and he believed her. The endgame was imminent. He didn’t need to get wrangled in by Marley’s bullshit. From the moment he walked through Marley's door just after dawn, not long after his two vampire escorts had arrived, a long day of not closing himself in this very room and going ape-shit all over her body had begun.

  As Sam turned to leave, cold and silent, Marley reached for him. He turned back to her, torture plain in his eyes at the touch of her hand to his wrist. Fuck, she was going to say something. He was convinced she didn’t know when she was doing that vampire entrancement thing, but if she pulled that shit on him, he wouldn’t be able to resist, training or no training.

  Fucking bloodsucker. She wasn’t allowed to do this to him, wasn’t allowed to say anything meaningful, not at this point. There was a divide the size of the Mediterranean between them now, and he preferred the distance.

  "What time is it?" she finally asked, embarrassment plain on her face.

  How fucking lame. Where were Marley’s big balls now? Good. He was glad she felt so small. She’d need to learn some humility for those times she came up against one of her older, more savage leech cousins.

  If she lasted that long. It was entirely possible none of them would walk out of Marley’s apartment alive tonight.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Sabian knew he was better off taking the terrain on foot. He could have rented a car and with his reflexes would have made good time—better time than the Hunters who wouldn’t just leave him the hell alone—but it wouldn’t have been fast enough.

  His traitorous mind waxed tragic as he ran. Sabian was a deep thinker (three hundred years to ponder the ways of the world demanded it), but he wasn’t obsessive like so many of his Kindred cohorts. Only one subject got caught on a loop—Marley. As both the desert of Nevada and the Utah frontier screamed by, his imagination hemorrhaged disaster.

  The sun was going down just as he began his ascent into Glenwood Canyon, that majestic western ingress to Rocky Mountain splendor. In no less than three hours, no more than five, he’d be in Fort Collins. The storm had passed, and evidence was all around, under foot and falling from trees.

  Sabian's storm would rain down soon enough.

  Anya ignored Sam. That Hunter was becoming a moody motherfucker. Marley must have turned him down, or maybe it was the other way around. She just didn't care. He could lie on that travesty of a couch for the rest of his life, back to the world and eyes closed, and it wouldn't bother her in the slightest. Sabian was coming. That was all that mattered.

  She could feel him now. God, he was close. Not yet close enough to hear his bloodsong, but soon. Trivial vampires the world over raved about her sire and his bloodsong. The sound was ethereal, almost opiate. She couldn
't wait. Tonight, when Sabian came stomping down the mountains and into the straightaway that would lead him to this door, she would revel in his music and wrap herself in the melody.

  Never mind the refrain. That little ditty would be laced with the open-sore bounty of a thousand demons from hell. She might be crazy, but she wasn't stupid.

  Christ, it really was too late to turn back now. She knew what she should do—leave, right now, right this minute. She could simply slip out the front door once the sun cleared the horizon while Sam and Marley consummated their puppy love, and let the triad work it out for themselves. Again. She was never meant to be in the middle. Sabian had told her that a thousand times.

  But she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. It came down to one thing; she would not be without her man, not another night unless death demanded her company instead. She would not live in this shell of humanity knowing that on the inside she was a monster unloved, even by the monster that made her.

  And honestly, fuck Marley. One way or another that bitch always came back to poison any and everything decent. What had always been would always remain unless she took care of the problem. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. That red-headed bitch would pay. She couldn’t just hide in her bedroom, not from this.

  Anya's blood more than any ambient lighting told her that finally, the sun had gone down. Sabian was coming, and she had business to attend to. Everything had to be just so, nothing less than perfect. Never too concerned about appearances, Anya walked out of Marley’s condo in a baby T-shirt and black leather pants. With the sun down and a blanket of snow all over the city, the meager twenty-seven degrees outside was dropping fast, but whatever. She had no need for warmth unless it came from a vein or her man.

  Before the sun rose again, she would have both.

  Sam’s wake of silence dissipated into a sea of disapproval, and Marley was left with one option—if she wanted him, she was going to have to take him.