by Alana Melos
“Ha, a book wolf, I like that,” he grinned, then shrugged. “It’s different… so many different choices your world had, but you still almost ended up the same as us.”
“I wouldn’t say almost,” I replied.
“Then you haven’t read much history,” he retorted. “What did you want to speak to Adira about?”
Rubbing the scars on my neck absently, I answered with the truth. “About the vampire blood… and the effects. It’s still… well… just about that.”
“I’m already here,” Adira said, peeling herself from the shadows. I scowled and did not jump at all. I might have been just a little bit startled. Lulled in by the false sense of security by being around allies and being worn out, I had forewent telepathic scanning.
“It’s been a month or so,” I said, turning to her. “Why hasn’t the… feelings for Nos faded?”
Adira sat down near the head of the bed, not having anywhere else to sit. She had ditched the cream colored scarf at some point to let her glossy black hair flow free. “It should have,” she said, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards.
“Well, they haven’t,” I complained. “You said they would fade soon.” There was just a tiny bit of whining in my voice, but I’d put off my training with Ger for this long because I hadn’t have my full abilities at my disposal because of those obsessive feelings I had to have walled off.
“It would have faded when the blood worked its way out of your system,” she said as she unbuttoned her coat. “At the longest, it should have taken two or three days… perhaps as many as five if you drank a lot of his blood.”
Three days…? My mind raced and I turned inward for a moment to look at those invading threads in my mind. Still the two greens, winding in and out of the emotional threads which made me who I was… they hadn’t changed hardly at all since I’d returned from Axis. As much as I wanted to deny what that meant, I couldn’t. I did have feelings for him, above and beyond what the vampire blood had done to me. The blood, and probably fucking him, had just brought it out to the forefront. I turned my senses outward again to see Adira and Rory both watching me. Her eyes were cool, though her lips kept that small smile. Rory, on the other hand, sat there tensed, as if waiting for me to explode.
“I… I see,” I said, trying to put all this together. My mind before had been perfect. I felt only what I needed to feel at any given time and that was it. It had been the perfect machine for getting what I needed out of life,and now things were out of whack. First, the… the fear, which I still hated to admit I had experienced at all. And now, what was this? Jealousy? Obsession? Was this the closest I could get to friendship? Love? It didn’t look like what I knew love to be. More like… infatuation or limerence. What in the hell was going on with me, and why now?
Rory reached over and shook my knee in a friendly way. “You look like your puppy was just killed,” he said. “Relax.”
“I can’t relax,” I replied, my fingers twisting the edge of my skirt. “It’s… I don’t think I can explain.” Nor would I to them. It wasn’t any of their business. Adira laughed outright and I gave her a nasty look. “What is up with you in the fucking shadows everywhere anyway? Doesn’t anyone get any privacy around here?!”
“I’m watching my wolf, little pet,” she replied, still chuckling. “I’m never away from him.”
“Hey there,” Rory said, reaching with his other hand and fondling Adira’s calf. “You two ladies be good. We’re all friends here.”
Adira simply smiled and leaned over to the big man, kissing him thoroughly. I watched, waiting impatiently for them to be done as I still didn’t know if they were keeping us here, or if I could start nosing around some fixers to see if I could get the information I needed. When the kiss broke, Rory sighed happily.
“There, see?” she said, her voice smoldering. “I’m good. I am calm. The scent of blood though, is distracting.” She glanced to me, arching a brow.
I fingered the bandage on my shoulder. The vampire blood did work pretty well, but I didn’t want to take any chances with being mind fucked by her. “Sorry about that, I’ll try to bleed somewhere else.”
“We can fix that readily, you know,” she purred. “One drink won’t affect you… much.”
Scowling once more, I scanned her surface thoughts. Unlike Nosferatu, whose mind was as old as the hills, she felt much like Rory did: young and vibrant, eager for sex and violence, though not without an undercurrent of sadness. The main point I took away from my scan was that I sensed no deception, at least not on the surface.
“You just want to get me under your thumb,” I snapped anyway, insecurity of all things rearing its ugly head. A wave of conflicting emotions swum up in insecurity’s wake and I remembered how good the blood had tasted and how well it had worked to heal me. It also charged me up and fueled my powers, better than anything else I’d encountered. If my thoughts about Regulus were correct and he was under the gun by some elite force… I might need that extra oomph to rescue him. Was he worth it? No, absolutely not. But the ease of mind which came with his rescue knowing he couldn’t betray me was.
At the same time, the sensation of being somewhat beholden to the Axis version of Nosferatu battered against my head. What we’d had was special. It was like… oh, I suppose it was like having sex with your first love, and then having them beyond your reach. Having sex with someone else would be a betrayal of that, somehow. I shook my head, trying to clear it. Where in the hell were all these thoughts coming from?
“If that were true, we’d simply make you drink,” Adira said, her voice sultry practicality. “Instead, as a show of good faith and a reward for bringing this information about Oberst Richter, I am offering to heal your wounds.”
“If you want, that is,” Rory amended. “I’m not saying vamps don’t do things with ulterior motives, but it’s your choice.” He squeezed my knee, then patted the spot, but didn’t remove his hand. I got the impression he fancied himself playing referee between us.
“When you’re done with the Siren, I should get going,” I said, but didn’t move. Feeding was pretty sexual for vampires from what I gathered and the thought of having sex with Adira intrigued me. Though her rounded features and bigger nose played up her heritage, it wasn’t her good looks but her strength of will which drew me in. It wasn’t even a vampire thing--it was her. Confidence, even arrogance, was one of my big turn-on buttons. I was a sexual creature and tonight had been a frustrating night… and by my count it was barely past ten! It wouldn’t be a bad thing….
As my body reacted to my thoughts, Adira flashed me a smile. Her teeth were uneven and her fangs were out, but the smile entranced me nevertheless. Guilty thoughts were pushed aside only to rebound like a boomerang. When had I ever felt guilt? Why should I start now? I wasn’t promised to anyone, nor anyone to me, and that was the way I liked it.
“You need strength,” she said, shifting on the bed. The vampire raised a hand and stroked my cheek. Since Nosferatu had always been icy to the touch, I was surprised to find her fingers were only slightly cool. Perhaps she had just fed a lot and the blood of her victim warmed her, or maybe vampires were always that way… more alive the younger they were, growing more dead and removed from humanity the older they got.
“I need to find Gerard,” I said, half turning my head towards her fingers. The mood shifted in the room, heavy with tension of a different sort. It wasn’t just Adira either. Rory’s fingers slid up from my knee to my thigh, curling around my flesh as he stroked me softly, just a breath away from my sex. “Anything could be happening to him.” He could be spilling my secrets now, though doubt niggled at my mind. He could have also gotten away, thrown himself through the window and out the balcony. I couldn’t search for him like this, tired and aching. I’d hit a couple block radius at best. When I’d drank from Nazferatu in Axis, I’d been able to cover almost all of Berlin with the boost to my ‘pathy.
“You need to be strong,” Adira said, echoing my thoughts.
She withdrew her fingers and the nails sharpened into talons. With a quick swipe, a line opened in her throat on the side and her thick blood trickled out, looking black in the dim light. “Drink, and heal, and be powerful.”
That’s what made my decision. The one thing I lusted after more than sex was power. When she tipped her neck to the side, I moved in and licked from the top of her breast up the trail of blood. Tasting it… it wasn’t the pure liquid sunshine I’d had before, but it energized me. As I caught every drop of the spilled blood with care, I shifted so our chests brushed against each other. When I reached the cut, I latched my mouth over it and sucked. The blood came out in a rush, filling my mouth. When I swallowed, it was like drinking the finest whiskey, the type which warmed you without burning all the way down your throat. One of her hands moved to my hair and combed it out carefully, urging me ever onward. A rush of power buzzed through my body, like I was connected to an electric line.
As I drank her down, lips grazed my neck. I knew it was Rory, but I didn’t care. Power and sex were a heady mix, a cocktail which couldn’t be denied even if I had wanted to. When I opened my mind to them to scan their emotions, I sensed nothing but desire. There was no duplicity, no ulterior motives. Both of them merely wanted me, though in different ways. I ‘knocked’ on the surface of Rory’s mind asking a brief question, May I?
He bit my neck lightly as he thought back to me, If you want? Confusion surfaced for a moment, bubbling through the haze of desire, but submerging again as my hand found his clothed chest and I pulled him closer to me. His desire was simple and straightforward: he wanted to fuck. The supernatural soldiers from Axis were all creatures of their desires and the bonds they’d forged through battle and sex made them strong, a single unit. He wanted to bring me into that and he knew of no other way. There wasn’t an initiation, nor a test to prove my worth… just the bonds of battle and love.
When I switched my attention to Adira, ‘knocking’ lightly on her thoughts to ask, May I? she drew back a little, narrowing her eyes at me. I licked my lips to get every drop of blood on them since she had pulled away, taking her deliciousness with her.
“What for?” she asked, choosing to talk aloud rather than telepathically.
“Rory wants closeness, a pack, and this is how I forge my bonds,” I said as I gazed into her deep brown eyes. I didn’t need to be telepathic to read the suspicion, but Rory raised his head from the crook of my neck.
“It’s nothing, Adira,” he said. “She’s been in my head lots of times.”
“I don’t seek to control, only to share,” I explained. I could have told her about my rules and how much I hated mind control even though it was a tool in my own toolbox, but words meant nothing. Actions spoke. Actions built trust. Those who believed what someone said at face value was a fool.
That first step still had to be taken and I bit my lip waiting. Her blood affected me, though not as strongly as Nazferatu’s had. I wanted her. She sat there looking so beautiful, even with the darkness clouding her eyes. I wanted her to trust me, to let me in. Fake those feelings might have been, they were still there, pushing aside my obsession with her master for a short time, at least.
“You may,” she said after several long moments. “But at the first sign of treachery, I will snap your neck.”
It’s nothing like that, I told her, bending to kiss her lips. She licked what remained of her blood off of my lips before plunging her cool tongue into my mouth. Rory pulled back, lowering my hand with his as he stripped off his shirt and cast it aside. When he rejoined us, he pulled me away to kiss Adira deeply. I watched them, the first inklings of jealousy blooming in my heart. Maybe I couldn’t feel any affection without the negatives attached. Maybe it just wasn’t in my nature.
When he broke the kiss with her, he kissed me. Unlike the vampire, he ran hot and his kiss seared my cool lips. Our tongues danced together as we wrestled for control of the embrace. I sensed his wildness just below the surface, a beast barely contained. He left me gasping, only to be cooled by Adira once more as she kissed me and made me hers… at least for a little while.
I plunged into her mind and tasted her desire. She loved Rory as she loved all her pack, but since she had been partnered with him, she missed women. Both the vampire and her human host were lesbians. Chasing the thought down, flashes of her memories whipped through my head. I saw the Axis Nosferatu approach the young Adira in her Syrian home after a group of men had beaten her for both rebuking their advances and for being different. They didn’t know how different, which more than likely spared her life. The vampire offered her power to do what she wanted, when she wanted, and only asked for loyalty in return. To her, there was no choice. She couldn’t stay in that place and live.
The fanatic loyalty Nazferatu inspired made sense to me now. He looked for outsiders, for people who didn’t belong to make his children. He gave them what they were lacking: a family. The wolves… they just folded them into their coven, making them extended family, so to speak. And so, when I say that to Adira her master and her family were her whole life, I didn’t mean it in a derogatory way, that she scorned all else and concentrated only on people. It meant they were a part of her… that a hurt done to them was a hurt to her. Their goals were hers and hers was theirs.
I had never seen such fierce devotion in anyone. This took only a heartbeat to see. I trembled from head to toe, overwhelmed with the force of such emotion. As I pulled myself up from her memories, the thought of having a woman finally again thrilled through me, yet tainted all the same since he was there… her host’s thoughts. Although Adira started out preferring women, over the long years of being dead she had lost her preference: meat was meat. Her host, on the other hand, didn’t like they were paired with Rory. She liked him well enough, but the thought of a man was abhorrent and she did her best to shut out the times he, or any other man, embraced them. Adira remained considerate enough not to have actual sex, but she needed to be close to her pack, to touch and be touched by them.
I strengthened the veil between Adira and her host body--whose name was Huraiva--helping to block the unwanted sensations. Huraiva felt my presence and rallied for a moment, then saw I was a friend and thanked me as I withdrew. Adira looked at me, her head canting to the side for a moment.
“You should show us how to do that,” she said, touching my cheek.
“I don’t know if you can,” I replied, my fingers roaming Rory’s shoulders. “Naz… your master seemed to dominate his host, and my Nosferatu works with his. I think it’s something you need to figure out, how to strike a balance.”
The wolf stopped what he was doing for a moment to slide off the bed. He straightened my legs and began to tug off my long boots. “I don’t know what you two are talking about,” he said with a cheeky grin. “But I’m going to get you both more comfortable. And more naked.”
I let him pull off my boots and rub my feet for a moment, which was sheer bliss. Adira merely watched, her hands roaming my half naked body, taking her time and feeling her way around. When he was done with me, he switched his attention to his regular partner, slipping off her shoes and rubbing her feet much as he had done with me. It was an act of submission for him, as much as he could muster being the alpha wolf he was. Plus, he enjoyed it, knowing he was giving us a simple pleasure, one which meant much to Adira and could be repeated anywhere, passing a secret message between the two of them.
When he finished with that, he worked his way up Adira’s body, each of his hands running up one of her legs until he reached the top of her slacks. He unbuttoned them and tugged them down along with her panties with her help, leaving her beautiful long legs free and her sex exposed. Adira leaned back and opened her legs for him and I continued to stroke her body as she stroked mine, feeling her through the softness of her shirt. I shifted to lay down next to her and kissed her cheek, content to watch their emotions as Rory worshipped at her altar.
He nuzzled her cold skin, then planted a soft kiss high
on her hip. The heat of his passion inflamed her and even without my telepathic touch, I could see their threads tangle together in shared desire. She opened herself to him as he kissed and stroked her skin, then wrapped one of her hands around the back of my neck and pulled me to her for a kiss. I took the lead on this, savaging her mouth with their reflected passion, wanting them, wanting to see them both, feel them both. Her pleasure began to roll through me, heightened by my touch, my kisses. This was what she wanted, to be loved and adored as the center of our attention. Rory licked and nuzzled her pussy, throwing her legs over his broad shoulders as he pleasured her. I took her hand in mine and put it over my breast. She rubbed me through my bra, little whimpers in the back of her throat.
Through the veil, I sensed the approval of Huraiva as Adira fondled me. I tried my best to keep some sensations blocked through the veil, so she felt only me. It probably made for a weird, disjointed connection, but she hungered for it. She wanted more. I wanted more. With a hand, I unhooked my bra and took it off so Adira could run her hand over my bare breasts. My nipples were already hard from foreplay and each pulse of pleasure from the vampire made me sway with desire. Her breath hitched and she drew me closer, wanting me to shift up. When I acquiesced, Adira licked one of my nipples, causing me to bite my lip and moan. She tongued it well, running the tip over the sensitive skin. Each graze of her lips and cool wet mouth sent a jolt of pleasure through me, straight to my sex.
When she nipped me, I jerked, not expecting it. “May I?” she asked smoothly, her voice hoarse from lust. I hesitated then nodded, knowing what she wanted: to bite me. Since she was a vampire, she’d be able to find me ever after… but it was a trust thing. She trusted me to be in her head and I had to return it. It wasn’t just her vamp blood in me talking; it was what allies did and I wanted to keep on their good side. At least, I felt pretty sure it wasn’t the vamp blood talking.
The vampire took a mouthful of my breast and bit down. Moaning with desire, I bucked my hips, wanting something to fill me. Pain and pleasure mixed and I loved every second of it. I couldn’t help but to radiate my ecstasy to the two of them, which tipped Adira over the edge. She gave soft muffled cries into my breast as she came. Rory continued to pleasure her until she shoved at his head and simply drank me down as her body trembled with the last ebbs of her orgasm.