Almost shyly—but with some aggression—she latched her fingers around one of his wrists, then guided him between her legs, where she pressed his fingers against her.
She was already slick, and he leaned his cheek against her breast, flattening it, her nipple near his mouth as he groaned. Her arousal . . . it took him over, and he stroked her through the linen of her nightclothes until her hips wiggled with each coaxing rub. Her excitement built in him, too, and he found himself tearing at her pants so he could get at all of her: the wetness of her sex, the tightness as he slipped a finger into her, priming her just as she was priming him.
He heard his shirt tear as she pulled at it, and he took his fingers from her and, mindless, put them to his mouth, where he sampled what she would bring him with her blood.
Her. Mariah. So different than any other taste.
An implosion sent white spots over his sight—a red background needled by pure blankness—and he went back to her sex, inserting two fingers into her now. Then he rubbed his body back up hers so he could come in for the bite. If he brought her to climax, a bite would have that much more impact in him.
He rged his thumb against her clit, and she gave a little cry. He could see in her eyes that she was fast losing what composure he’d given her with his sway, but he was beyond restoring it.
He worked her toward climax with his fingers, his gums pounding around his fangs, and she panted, back arching, as if she were fighting decimation. Her nails cut into his neck, letting blood, but he’d heal within moments.
Still, the scent of his own blood combined with her drove him onward, and, bending to the underside of one of her breasts, he gnawed gently before opening his mouth wider.
He heard her suck in a breath, her pulse suspending on a throb, her nails digging into him—
He sank his fangs into her, and her hips lifted as he pushed his fingers farther inside her body, curving them up to find a spot that would get her hotter. When he found it, she mewled, sounding so far gone that he didn’t recognize the sound of her as he sucked, sucked, dizzier and dizzier.
Then she came, renting him apart inside with her heat, her taste, which seemed at one with him, something he could call and it would answer.
Blood trickled down his neck from her nails; it tickled his skin, and everything faded, melding together in his sight as the red lifted and his fangs receded.
He was close to going under, blacking out, but his body was too awake to let him go. He was lifted, not weighed down.
After removing his fingers from her, he raised them to touch his neck. She’d scratched him hard, and as he looked at her, she was still hitching in quick, shallow breaths, shaking. It even seemed as if she were about to explode again.
And there was . . .
He didn’t believe it at first, but there was terror in her eyes.
“Mariah.”
Without another thought, he peered into her, swayed her, and she accepted it, her body relaxing until she sank against him.
Yet even as he held her, she still looked up, watching him. Did she think he might take more blood or force an exchange?
Shamed by that, he sat her on the counter so she wouldn’t fall, pressed his fingers to the breast wound to start healing it with his energy, wiped the rest of the blood off with a nearby cloth, then adjusted her clothing around her—what was left of it. He’d forgotten all the better parts of him, and now he doubted he’d ever be able to find what he was looking for out here, so far away from where he’d started.
Why hadn’t he been able to keep himself together?
“You should eat something,” he said, almost awkwardly. “Drink fluids. Rest. Make up for what I took.”
“Okay.”
“You’re still afraid of me.”
She shook her head. But no matter what her answer was, he could see that he was right, and he moved away from her, not knowing what to do now. She looked like Abby had at the times she’d thought she was alone, preoccupied by an ominous worry, an agitation about what might come next with him, though he’d never dared to touch her like he had just done with Mariah. A bite with Abby would’ve been far gentler.
But as Mariah sat there, holding her top over her breasts, everything about her struck him hard—her skin, her rhythms, the way she’d made him feel worthwhile, even ith a nearbas in an uncommon manner.
In the bubble of this reality, Abby seemed to be no more than an idea.
Mariah got down from the counter, wobbling slightly from the blood loss, and headed toward her private quarters, where he knew he wasn’t allowed to follow. Not this time.
Remorse, he thought. This was what it surely felt like.
Was she going to tell the rest of the community what he was now that she definitely knew? Was she going to force him out of her home because he couldn’t contain himself?
Based on past experience, he wouldn’t even be able to get into the part of her mind that allowed him to sway her into forgetting. . . .
Gabriel wasn’t sure where to go, though he seemed to be headed for the workroom, which was funny, because that was where she usually went for composure. But he thought it might be a good idea to wash Mariah off him before Chaplin woke up and sensed what had happened.
Before the rest of the community knew what they were truly dealing with in Gabriel.
17
Gabriel
By the light of a lantern, Gabriel pumped out some water and rubbed it over himself until he thought all hints of Mariah were gone from him. Then he got dressed again, taking care to adjust the bandages around his head, keeping up the masquerade. But as much as he wanted to look human in those bandages, he felt in the core of him the approach of sunrise, which couldn’t have been more than two hours away by now. He thought it might be wise to be buried outside, as Chaplin had wanted, when the day arrived.
Until then, he decided to lend a hand with Mariah’s hydro-crop, hoping that going through the motions would create room in his mind for something other than this new situation he’d put himself in. But her blood was inside him, and he couldn’t stop moving under the palpitating burn of it.
Unlike any other blood he’d ever taken, hers was like old cocaine to him. It was a powder he’d tried during his more experimental human days. He might’ve even gotten addicted, too, but for the world’s calamities. After that, chaos itself had been enough stimulant.
As he sheltered himself down in the workroom, he cleared his mind for a while . . . until one of the last people he ever expected to see in Mariah’s domain descended the stairway behind Gabriel, the light from a solar lantern suffusing the cavern.
It was the oldster. But why was he here? Had Mariah already told the others about Gabriel taking her blood? Had the community already planned to run him out with machetes and stakes before Stamp could get wind of the monster and drag the authorities over here to ruin the residents’ lives as they knew them?
Gabriel stopped packing some tomatoes into a tub and braced himself to endure the consequences of his hunger for Mariah. But when he turned around, the old man smiled, and that didn’t seem to Gabriel to be an introduction to a run-him-out.
The other guy gestured toward the staircase. “So I came into Mariah’s place through a trapdoor. Sue me. I couldn’t contact Chaplin on the visz, but that’s because I found out the pup is still sleeping off those drugs.”
A worst-case scenario came to Gabriel. Maybe the whole community was actualy up there with Mariah while the old man was down here making Gabriel think everything was hunky-dory until they could spring a trap on him when he returned. It sounded like the kind of half-assed plan the Badlanders might whip up.
He almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. His harbinger of doom: a feisty slip of an oldster, armed with only his flapping gums. Then again, it wasn’t wise to underestimate anyone in this day and age.
“I take it Mariah doesn’t know you’re in her home,” Gabriel said.
“No, she hasn’t a bit of an idea. Mariah
’s abed, and good thing, too. The girl had a . . . hard night.” The oldster rubbed his knuckles over his whiskers, as if measuring out everything he was saying. “It’s just that I’ve been thinking since our last conversation. Thinking long and hard. That’s why I thought it important to seek you out.”
“To announce the miracle of you thinking?”
Gabriel was just testing the other guy, and the old man chuckled. But the sound died quickly as he shuffled his boots.
“Why don’t you just come right out and tell me, old-timer,” Gabriel said. He hoped that he’d truly washed Mariah off him, including the blood that had gotten on his shirt from those already-healed nail marks.
Once more, the old guy cleared his throat, then started up again. “I just wanted to assure you that we’re doing something besides depending on you. I’ve persuaded the others—minus Pucci and Hana, of course—to arm up with all we’ve got in the common area. They’re watching their viszes diligently, too.”
“You came here to report that?”
“I also wanted to talk more, one to one. Mariah and Chaplin were still with us at the end of the gathering, and I thought privacy wouldn’t come amiss for what I want to say to you.” The oldster waited, as if reluctant to go any further.
“So you wanted to talk to me about . . . ?” Gabriel prodded.
He glanced back toward the staircase, then at Gabriel. “Well, you’re bent on finding out what you can about Annie, then getting on out of here, right?”
Some kind of dull twang hit Gabriel. “That was the plan. Then Stamp came along.”
The oldster looked gratified to hear that Gabriel gave a care, and that seemed to encourage him. “I got to wondering . . . Just what did you find in Annie’s place? You’ve been there. Zel told us.”
Just from saying the woman’s name, the oldster shuffled around a little more.
Gabriel pretended not to notice. A blind fool locked in a box could see how the guy had eyes for Zel.
But why was the oldster even quizzing him about this? Could it be that he and the others wanted to know if he’d figured out anything about who Annie was?
Could it be they were nervous that he did know?
Gabriel decided to be honest. “I didn’t find a whole lot at Annie’s place. I suppose you wouldn’t be much more of a resource, would you?”
“Afraid not. She came out here to leave something behind, like all of us. She was friendly, but not too friendly. Made most of her conversation with Hana, but that’s about it.”
“Maybe I should chat with Hana then.”
“Not worth yourwhile. Even after Annie left, Hana didn’t have much to say. She told us she’d promised Annie discretion, and she aimed to preserve it.”
Hearing Annie’s name frustrated Gabriel. He was already on pins because of Mariah, and the agitation weakened his restraint. He found himself looking at the oldster, into the oldster, not caring if he was caught or not.
But once again, he was blocked by that black wall that all of them seemed to have erected against him.
Ringing with the denial—and with the disappointment of even reverting to a vampire trick—Gabriel went back to the tomatoes, picked up the tub, and started to walk away, pushing back the desire to spring at the old guy and throttle him human-style until the truth did come out.
The oldster halted him with a question. “You love your Abby? That’s why you came all the way out here to find her?”
Gabriel just nodded, but instead of seeing Abby in his mind’s eye, he saw Mariah. Still felt her on his skin, her blood even now throbbing through him.
The old man continued. “I’d probably go to the far reaches for someone like that, too.”
“Didn’t you?” Gabriel asked, meaning Zel Hopkins.
The oldster seemed to understand just who Gabriel was talking about, his skin going ruddy. “I came out here on my own a long time ago, when the sky began to figuratively fall.”
“Long enough not to be in the facial recognition database that Stamp was using.”
He grinned. “I had a few friends who knew how to hack computers. Let’s leave it at that.”
Gabriel allowed the old man to go on.
“I was the first,” he said, “and the rest trickled on out here. I let them in if they seemed to my . . . liking.”
“And Zel was to your liking.”
The other man laughed, but it was a reflective sound, not his usual amused cackle. “She’d never know it.”
“Then why don’t you tell her?”
“No, no.” The oldster swatted at the air, and Gabriel heard the man’s heartbeat string together bump after bump, disturbed by this very discussion. “It’s enough that she came here and hasn’t left. Not that Zel or I would ever swagger back into civilization, anyway. She’s no spring chicken, but she’s not quite as useless as I am in my waning years. Still, the hubs are no place for anyone over forty. If it was hard for oldsters there before, it’s even worse now.”
No doubt, Gabriel thought. Recently, it’d become commonplace for all oldsters to be locked away in rest homes, which were casually referred to as “pounds” now. Everyone knew that once admitted, the ancients were put down like unwanted dogs. No one talked about it. Society just pretended that it didn’t happen, and it allowed the pursuit of happiness to continue for those who were young and rich enough to afford it.
“No sense of respect from the young back in the hubs,” the oldster added. “A fifteen-year-old can post most kinds of work on the Nets—especially in graphic arts, which was my bag. They can get a job without a lick of experience, so there’s no laboring a person’s way up the ladder of success these days. And who could stay caught up with all that technology except for the young?”
“Phased out,” Gabriel said. “But you made it here instead.”
“That I did.” The oldster shrugged. “Don’t you let me catch you gossiping with the others about this.”
“Don’t they know?”
“Just the basics. But talk leads to conjecture, and I don’t need anyone coming up with stories about me.” He kicked at the dirt. “And I don’t need any foolish stuff circulating about me and . . . anyone.”
“I know how you feel about getting too personal.”
As the oldster nodded in confederacy, Gabriel got caught on the words he’d just said. I know how you feel . . .
For the first time since Abby—and in spite of how he’d lost his control tonight—he thought that maybe he was closer than ever to feeling. Even as a human who’d chased away emotion and pain through the flow of drink, he’d been looking to feel.
The oldster was aiming himself toward the stairs. “Guess I should scoot before Mariah wakes up. She sleeps in fits and starts. That’s what Chaplin told Zel, anyhow, and I predict a privacy-monger like her’d throw a fit if she caught me skulking round.”
“Why do you think she sleeps that way?”
Another shrug. “Because, as much as we try, sleep doesn’t get us away from the living nightmares. But we have to try, anyway.”
Without elaborating, the oldster departed. All the same, Gabriel knew exactly what he was talking about.
Living nightmares. Everyone was just doing their best to get through them, no matter who or what they were.
As he picked up the tomato tub and went to set it by the stairs, he couldn’t help remembering what he’d managed to glimpse in Mariah’s head when she hadn’t been guarding herself properly: a younger Mariah cowering. A wave of red.
Again, he felt her blood stirring in him, but even though that much of her was a part of him, he couldn’t absorb anything else about her.
He felt dawn coming upon him and headed for the stairs. But the oldster had distracted him from keeping good track of time, and Gabriel sank to the ground at the foot of the steps, knowing he’d never make it all the way up before rest claimed him.
At least he was away from Mariah, he thought as a black yawn seemed to envelop him, sucking up all his energy until .
. .
When he awakened at dusk, fully aware, his gaze fixed on the cavern wall, which was lit from a lantern burning illumination from behind him, for some reason.
Then his skin tuned in to another presence.
A hand on his waist. A warm body stretched out against his back, nearly fitting to him except for a vibrating chasm of inches.
Mariah.
18
Mariah
The only reason I knew he was awake was that his body stiffened under my hand. Otherwise, he wasn’t breathing.
I had sneaked down here out of . . . I don’t know. Gluttony? Neediness? A spark of addiction that made me finally appreciate all the stories I’d read about being with someone?
Or maybe it had to do with what Gabriel had given me earlier—a sense of peace. Floating on a calm lift of water, my hands spread to the sky, my body weightless and held up by something other than my own exertions. I’d been so tired of living that his peace gave me rest. I was even experiencing remnants of it now, my thoughts dizzy, my body soft and sharp at the same time, as if I were still being raised from the inside out.
It was almost like the time I’d smoked feyweed, shortly after arriving in the Badlands. What Gabriel had given me temporarily made me forget everything that hurt. But it was more, too, like a song that played in me, bonding me through notes both high and low.
At any rate, I’m not sure if I’d meant to awaken him by coming down here. I’d just wanted to put my hand on Gabriel because it felt nice. I’d just wanted to be next to someone because it made me feel that I wasn’t so alone, I suppose.
“Mariah,” he whispered, and there was a choke to the way he said my name.
Now I felt as if I’d been caught doing something naughty, too intimate. So I covered my discomfort by saying, “I saw the oldster sneaking out the trapdoor earlier. Was he talking to you while I was asleep?”
“He just wanted to make more plans about Stamp.”
Bloodlands Page 17