Bite Me: A Vampire Anthology

by Cain, Addison

  “We know that,” he said. “And I thought you had work.”

  “What I have,” Rado said, “maybe, is a way to get her back down there.”

  “Well, you’re eager enough to be rid of me, aren’t you?” November held the other vampire’s eyes, challenging.

  “The longer you stay here, the more trouble we’re in,” said Rado.

  “How are you involved?” asked Leo from behind crossed arms.

  “Because I’m going to be an accomplice if they find out she’s been up here for days and I knew about it.”

  November cocked her head the slightest degree and watched Leo’s roommate lie. Her partner had no idea he was living with a vampire. No idea what Rado’s real motivations were.

  And how much focus was it taking for Radoslav to sustain hypnosis the whole time he spoke? So that Leo would never see his fangs? There had never been a need for November to interact that way with negs. Nearly everyone underground was V-positive, and their pheromones didn’t work on each other, anyway. She’d never had to hide who she was.

  If she were to out Rado to his roommate, there would be chaos. Where did her loyalties lie? With the man who’d saved her ass from a beatdown and probably worse? Or the man who’d brought her in on a truth almost too horrifying to contemplate?

  She glanced between the two and frowned. There was no picking sides. And this was no time to launch everyone into a tangential argument.

  “So what’s the way, then?” asked November.

  Rado leaned his back against the door and hung his thumbs on his pants pockets. “I found another gate.”

  “What difference does it make?” Leo said. “She’s gonna have the same problems at all of them.”

  “A dead gate,” said Rado. “I don’t even think it’s registered.”

  November sat up straighter at this.

  “It’s old,” Radoslav went on. “Late nineteenth, maybe early twentieth century. It’s from the original underground. Foot traffic only. And none of that system was ever stable enough for cargo vehicles. It never got integrated.”

  “Sooo you’re saying … you take me through that gate, and then what?” Leo looked as skeptical as November felt. “I’m supposed to turn up at my post the next day? Like nothing happened?”

  “You can’t go back to GateSec,” said Rado. “Not now.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do?” Her voice had risen, and she was sitting forward on the cushion.

  “Disappear,” he said. “You’ll have help.”

  “What are talking about?” Leo tossed an incredulous hand at his roommate. “She has to ‘disappear?’ You’re out looking for unregistered gates? You’re a fucking night shift coder. What do you even know about what goes on down there?”

  Radoslav fixed his roommate with a long, unreadable look, and the tension in the room flattened out like a bootsole was grinding it into the floor.

  “Because I’m a goddamn vampire,” he said, at last.

  There was no change that November could see, but watching Leo’s eyebrows and jaw part ways told her Rado had given up any hypnotics he’d been holding.

  “What?”

  Leo shot to his feet, his chair barking back over the hard floor. November stood too, fight or flight responses crackling with the energy in the room.

  “You heard me.” Rado held steady and waded into the flood he’d caused.

  And here I was, not trying to step on any mines.

  “How?” said Leo. “How are you living on the surface?”

  November’s mouth turned in a grim smirk. She’d asked nearly the same thing. And from the drama involved, she could see why Radoslav wanted to keep a lid on the subject. Why he’d revealed himself now was beyond her.

  “It isn’t important,” Rado said. “What’s important is that she gets back underground. Soon.”

  “And you—I’m on fucking Fortizan!” Leo would not be deterred. “You’ve been living here six months; you’ve got fucking fangs!”

  The vampire exhaled through his nose. “There is a lot going on here.”

  “No shit!” Leo turned on November. “And you didn’t tell me, either?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought it would make things worse.” It was a slipshod apology, but she wasn’t going to bring up that Rado had threatened her. That was a moot point, now, and it would do nothing to deescalate the situation.

  “What else don’t I know?” Leo said, rounding on his roommate again.

  Radoslav closed his eyes and let out a breath. Opened them. “A lot.”

  Thick silence spread in the room, and November looked from one man to the other, the first exasperated, and the second fatigued. She let her gaze fall to the clean uniform draped over the edge of the sofa, and to Leo’s undershirt she’d been wearing for a day and a half.

  “You know what?” she said. “You two need to sort your shit out. I’m going to take a shower.”

  Rado gave her a single nod, and Leo slumped back into his chair. While she rounded the back of the couch, the other vampire was heading to pull out the table’s second chair.

  “There are some things that are going to be difficult to understand, Croix.” Radoslav spoke to Leo in the same low, patient tones he’d used to pull her up from the ground outside. “And you will not want to believe them.”

  She slid the bathroom door shut on the beginnings of a story she wasn’t ready to hear again, just yet. One more night. One more night where she could pretend things were normal. Where she didn’t have to think about disappearing. Or the Athanati. Or the entire night sky drowning her in awful, impossible truth.

  The water in the shower painted her in warmth, and November wasted time doing no more than leaning back against the enclosure wall with her eyes closed.

  Could she even go back to her apartment now? Everything she owned was there. All her books. She groaned and scrubbed at her face with her palms.

  And if GateSec was corrupt—well, more corrupt than she’d imagined—what service could she trust to contact her mother in U-Tokyo? Not her ID bracelet, that was for damn sure. How soon would her employer contact her next of kin after she was a no-show at her post?

  November lathered her hair and skin, rubbing and sluicing as though the onslaught of answerless questions would circle the drain with day-old sweat. When she finished and cut the water, the steam inside the shower walls clung to her like a held breath.

  In the quiet of the spray’s absence, the bass of male voices came through the wall. The pace and volume varied but, as she stepped out and toweled down, it didn’t sound like they were about to come to blows.

  With the words themselves muffled, all November could hear were tones. Undefined male sounds while she faced her own nude self in the bathroom mirror. The connection to her idle fantasizing on the couch stirred awake and stretched.

  Both.

  Gooseflesh spread on her arms and thighs. One more night. No complications.

  She wrapped herself in the towel and slid the door open a crack, listening before she reappeared in the middle of some new dispute.

  “… they were placebos this whole time, then she could have been influencing me, too.” Leo sounded concerned and still somehow helpless.

  “I don’t think she has,” said Rado.

  “How would you know?”

  “She seemed upset when she found out I’d been doing it.”

  They weren’t arguing, exactly. And November knew well that dogged effort to make sense of things that Leo was hanging onto now. She stepped out into the living area.

  “Ask her yourself,” Rado said, tipping a nod to where she stood.

  Leo turned his head to find her, but she was already moving to stand behind his shoulder. He leaned to look up at her. “Were you using hypnotics on me?”

  “No.”

  He shot a look back to Rado and shrugged. “How would I even know if she’s telling the truth?”

  Radoslav sat back in his chair and raised a brow. November lean
ed low and smoothed Leo’s shirt down over his chest with a palm on the opposite side from where she spoke at his ear.

  “Am I using it now?” Her question was for the other vampire, who shook his head.

  “Then tell me, Leo.” The wet ends of her hair soaked little dark patches into the fabric near his collar. “If you had another chance, would you fuck me again?”

  His intake of breath was answer enough for everyone in the room. And the energy between the three had shot off, perpendicular, down a lightless corridor. Anything could come of it. Or nothing.

  She came around her partner’s side and sank into his lap, her ass perched on his left thigh, knees crossed between his legs and arms linking around his neck, while November leaned sideways against his chest. The towel shifted against her skin, damp and scratchy, and she stared into searching, hazel eyes.

  “How much does he know?” she asked Rado without looking away.

  “As much as you do.” There were sounds of the other man shifting in his chair.

  Not ‘everything,’ though. It would do her well to remember Radoslav still had his secrets.

  “And do you want to think about it right now?” she said to Leo.

  There was the finest crease between his brows, and his lips had parted, whatever questions he had lost to confusion.

  “Because I don’t.” She tilted her head. Brushed her mouth over his, an invitation. “Want to think about it. Not right now.”

  His arm circled her lower back, fingers curling to hang on her hip. “He’s right there,” Leo reminded her from under heavy-lidded eyes, but that didn’t stop his other hand from slipping over her bare knee.

  “Is he?” November drew a wet line along his upper lip with her tongue.

  “She’s about to slide off your lap, Croix.” The vampire was still in his chair, but his voice had dropped an octave. “If you don’t put a cock in her,” he said, “I will.”

  “Fuck off, Rado.” Leo claimed a kiss, territorial, and she couldn’t help a smile. An erection was nudging awake against the back of her thigh.

  “Oh?” She teased when he broke it off. “You don’t want to watch me suck his dick while you’re inside me?”

  The grip tightened at her knee, and Leo bit off a growl. Gave her a fierce look. Another glimpse at some of the fire she might stoke. November pushed herself out of his hold and away from his chest. She went to her feet and abandoned the table and chairs.

  “I’ll be over on the bed while you two figure it out,” she said over a shoulder. “You both wanna get naked and wrestle for my favor, I’m happy to watch. Seems like a lot of extra work when we could all just share.”

  The steps she took, without looking back, carried November deeper into the gamble. A selfish move, but it was only a matter of time before her life became more oppressive than it already was, and she didn’t care.

  Before she made it past the sofa, a hand closed on her upper arm. Yanked to spin her around, and Leo was kissing her before she could speak.

  She came up on her toes to meet him, hungry, and his grip slid to the back of her neck. The kiss was work. An aggressive bid for supremacy, jaws and tongues on either side trying to force the other one back. She nipped him with her fangs and won a moan, and then a second set of bootsteps rounded the couch.

  A new hand tugged at the back of her towel, even while Leo moved to rough his mouth over her jaw, her throat. In a rasp of material, Rado made her naked and closed in to press her between the two clothed men.

  Gambled and won.

  “About time,” she said to the ceiling. Leo dropped his grip to take handfuls of her ass, and her heartbeat sped.

  “I told you,” said Rado, grazing knuckles along her spine. “Impatient.”

  She let her head fall back on his shoulder. “You’re a dick.”

  The vampire smiled. “And bitchy.” Thumb and fingers took hold of her jaw, and he pinned her there for a kiss. Leisure informed the caress of his tongue, the slow pressure of fangs at her lips. He tasted her like he had all the time in the world and, on some level, he just might.

  A mouth closed over one of her nipples and November groaned into the kiss. Her knees tried to give way, but Rado circled an arm below her ribs. Male hands groped her, cupping flesh, squeezing, pinching. Separating. A palm slid past her navel. Teeth worried her throat. There were fingers between her legs, smearing arousal, and November felt like she was trying to drown in midair.

  A tightening grip squeezed around her neck, just below her jaw, and November opened her eyes to find Rado staring back, from over her shoulder. The lines of his face had slackened and flushed with hunger.

  “You want to be used, Kitamura?”

  She gave a little hiss as Leo’s teeth found her nipple but didn’t break the other vampire’s gaze. “Do you?”

  He smirked and let out something of a chuckle. The clamp of his hand propelled her backward to the bed, and November made a quick, sharp noise when her flesh slipped away from Leo’s attentions.

  Her ass hit the edge of the high mattress and she faced off with two men. Leo had shed any sign of hesitation she’d ever seen in the man. He was already shouldering out of his uniform shirt, pulling the white undershirt off over the back of his neck. He held onto her gaze every possible second, as though if he looked elsewhere long enough, they’d all realize how bizarre everything was and go running in three separate directions.

  Rado had tossed his shirt over the back of the sofa, and November sank teeth into her lower lip to take in the pair. Maybe she did want them to use her. Maybe a little.

  The vampire was already working apart his fly. Climbing past her up onto the bed. He brushed fingertips over the round of her shoulder as he went, and November followed, turning to lean over the mattress.

  Knees spread wide, Radoslav knelt on the narrow bed and brought an erection out into his fist. The trough of his open fly plumped his scrotum at the base of the shaft. Hands were smoothing over her hips, the curves of her backside, and she felt Leo close in behind her.

  In a brief, floating contrast to the primal fog filling the room, Rado traced the back of a hand along her temple. Her cheekbone. For a heartbeat, his features were serene. Then he angled his hips forward, thumb and forefinger pinching to aim his cock.

  He smeared the tip along the line of her mouth, and November’s eyes traveled higher to find his. The grin he gave her unfurled slow, beautiful. He lifted his chin.

  “Suck.”

  The word went right through her chest, down past her navel, where it bloomed in her pussy. She ducked forward and took him in hand. Met him with her lips and gave as he pushed. Sucked.

  Rado groaned at the wet introduction, but there were palms on the backs of her thighs, even as she angled her head to better work her mouth over him. The hands slid lower, to her knees, and November felt Leo shift somehow.

  And then there was a tongue between her legs.

  She let out a muffled squeak, and Rado chuckled. “Such a gentleman,” he said from somewhere above. “I would have just fucked you.” And, emphasis on his point, gathered a hold on her hair, and stuffed more of himself into her mouth.

  Leo buried his face and—perhaps to show how he insisted on not being the bad cop—began to scour her clit with his tongue.

  “Mmph!”

  Her gate partner hummed, approval at her reaction, and wedged his knees between her ankles. Thumbs spread her lips and the man set about eating her like the shower had been only practice.

  November tried to keep her feet on the ground. She came up off her heels as she bent forward to let Leo do whatever the hell he wanted, but her back arched as far as it would to put her in line for the cock Rado kept feeding past her lips. After a point, she gave up trying to make a blowjob out of it. It was all she could do to hold herself up on her elbows while a randy prick scrubbed past her teeth, and the man behind her found places to suckle that had her knees trying to give out.

  The vampire fucking her face made some noise of
amusement. “It’s almost like he knows what he’s doing back there.” He repositioned his fist in her hair and slowed his motions, but the plump head still moved in and out. “Can you make her come?” he asked Leo.

  “Mm.” Her gate partner pulled off for a breath and she heard the smack of lips. “Let’s see.” He dove back in, and she moaned, but the noise wound up to a squeal when the wet pad of a thumb moved over her asshole.

  Leo latched onto her clit and began to suck in a rhythm. The grip on the back of her head became a palm, and the palm pushed until balls pillowed her chin. The cock did not retreat. The thumb caressed her in circles, teasing puckered flesh.

  “Wwmmnff!”

  Her knees hit the storage compartment doors under the mattress when her feet slipped.

  “Beautiful,” Rado said, and began plugging her throat again, deep and slow.

  Leo never pushed inside, but the moving pressure on her hole increased. The work of his tongue doubled down, and November saw stars.

  She wailed on the cock in her mouth and the orgasm flooded out of her. Covers bunched under her grasping fingers. The men didn’t stop until she did, her head falling between her shoulders to catch a breath.

  Behind her, palms slid up over her ass. Her gate partner was standing. Uniformed legs pressed her against the edge of the mattress. A warm cockhead pressed between spit-slick lips.

  November groaned when he pushed inside, unable to control the entry from this angle as she had their first time on the couch. There was a lot of him. And, sensitive flesh inside her swollen from climax, it felt like even more than that. He stuffed himself in to the root.

  “L-EO!”

  Rado chuckled at this, but her partner was helping her up. Getting hands under her shoulders to gather her close. He hooked an arm between her breasts, an anchor from rib to collarbone. “Just remember whose name she yelled out first,” Leo said as he began to fuck.

  “Relax, neg, no one’s trying to steal your girl,” said Rado. “Maybe just help you make her squeal a little more.”

  The bounce of hips against her ass didn’t change, and November wrote off the posturing as harmless. She twisted her head to one side, and Leo leaned in to take up her mouth, his cock soldiering in and out while they kissed, urgent and messy.