by Kallysten
“Fangs away,” she repeated, her eyes locked with his and her voice stronger, filled with the ineluctability of his obedience.
Jack’s fangs retracted. He still didn’t know how to consciously make it happen, but something inside him knew and that same something couldn’t resist such an order from his Sire. Neither could it resist the pleasure he saw rising through her again, her hips moving in time with his, her mouth open on a near-continuous moan.
He tried—oh, how hard he tried!—to push her over the edge again before the wave swept him but he couldn’t fight pleasure any longer. One last thrust was his undoing. He jerked forward, his body thrumming from his orgasm while locked like a curved bow above Angela. His vision swam with red and black as his cock pulsed inside her and he could barely see Angela when she rose, as quick as a striking cobra. She bit his chest above his heart, so quickly he barely felt her fangs scratching him but he did feel her suck his blood. The sensation of her mouth latching onto him, as it had when she had turned him, sent another shudder through him. It matched Angela’s own when she finally found pleasure again, and it was with a moan that she lay back down on the bed, her lips stained red, eyes hooded but still burning bright.
As their eyes met, Jack waited for unease to surge inside him. To do something so intimate with someone he knew so little—with someone who, hours earlier, he would have called an enemy—was very much unlike him. There was no awkwardness, however. No discomfort. Nothing but contentment, sexual pleasure doubled by the newfound pride of satisfying his Sire.
For a few seconds, they continued to breathe hard, both still staring at each other. Angela pushed lightly against Jack’s hand; not hard enough to dislodge him but as a punctuation to her words.
“Let go of my hand,” she said, and as before there was something in her voice that Jack couldn’t resist.
Compelled to obey, he released her hand and pushed himself off her, rolling to lie by her side.
With a languid sigh, she sat up, moved higher up on the bed, and reclined against the pillows. Pleasure still suffused her features and her eyes gleamed like gold when she held out her hand to Jack and offered him her wrist.
“Go ahead,” she said in a low voice still vibrating with pleasure. “Bite. You can have as much as you want.”
Now that Jack’s hunger for sex had been appeased, he found his hunger for blood was all but tearing him apart. A deep shudder shook him when he took Angela’s proffered hand. He held it almost reverently. The inside of her wrist was pale, fragile-looking, and it could have felt wrong to mar the perfect skin. It might have, if he hadn’t been so hungry.
“Neatly, now,” Angela said as he leaned in closer to her wrist. “Bite once then retract your fangs and drink. Don’t spill.”
He wasn’t sure whether it would be as easy as she made it sound, but he tried. His fangs had extended already; he laid his mouth over her wrist and watched Angela closely. She didn’t flinch when he pierced her skin, merely nodded her approval.
“Now your fangs,” she reminded him.
Jack only had a second to think he didn’t know how to retract his fangs before they did. At once, blood spurted into his mouth and he moaned.
Earlier, when he had accidentally cut himself and tasted his own blood, the flavor had been unexpected and amazing. He had thought Angela’s blood would be the same yet he couldn’t have been more wrong. Like Angela had said, it was better than anything he had ever tasted in his life. But she hadn’t mentioned it would satisfy his hunger like no food ever had.
It sounded stupid the moment he thought it, but if life had a taste, this was it: bold and strong, coating his tongue, filling him with power. And it wasn’t just the taste that caused him to moan. The strength of Angela’s blood seemed to flow right into his being. He could feel it awaken his body, warm it from the inside out and soon his cock began to fill again.
He continued to take slow but deep pulls on Angela’s blood until the bite wounds started closing right under his tongue. Sated, he finally let go of her wrist and stared at her in wonder, feeling a little drunk, a little high.
“Pick up a stake.”
For a moment, Jack was sure he had to have misheard. The words made no sense.
“What?” he asked, confused.
Angela continued to look at him coolly; her eyes seemed as deep as wells. “Your weapons are on the floor,” she said. “Take one. Now.”
Jack started moving before he even knew it. Her last words had taken that strange inflection again, that tone he couldn’t resist. Thrall, a small voice whispered at the back of his mind, drawing from lessons learned at the Academy years before. Her gaze, piercing down to the core of him, and that carefully inflected voice made it impossible for him to disobey. As she had said earlier, she could order him to kill a human, and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing to stop himself.
He reached down and picked up the crossbow, lying just within his reach. Then he sat with the crossbow in his lap and looked at her questioningly.
“Kill me.”
The words had come out in the same strong voice if slightly less compelling this time. Jack pointed the crossbow toward her heart before he could even think. His hands were shaking too much to get a good aim and part of him was glad for it. He didn’t want to kill anyone like that, forced by that irresistible voice, so hard to deny even when Angela wasn’t using her power at full strength.
“Go ahead,” she insisted. She still hadn’t moved an inch, as though she were the one controlled and pinned by a few words. “You wanted to do it earlier. Do it now. I won’t defend myself.”
Jack shook his head, trying to push away the compulsion to follow her orders. Was it all a trick? A test? He couldn’t understand what was going on.
“Why?” he asked, confused. “Why would you let me… why would you want…”
Angela allowed a few seconds to pass before she finally answered on a calm, almost detached tone. “I told you. I can feel my Sire’s death. Every minute of every day.”
She didn’t add that the pain was enough for her to wish to die; she didn’t have to. Jack could connect the dots. He also knew that if he killed her he would feel this very same pain himself, just as she had said earlier. However he wasn’t afraid of that. The possibility that he might be crippled by her death wasn’t what made him lower the crossbow and try to explain.
“I had to do it, to kill him,” he said. He couldn’t remember ever feeling the need to justify what he did before, but now he had to give a reason. “It’s my job and—”
“It was,” Angela interrupted, not unkindly. “And you don’t have to explain. I understand. It was my job too, long ago.”
Comprehension came out of nowhere. It was so unexpected and yet so completely obvious that Jack could hardly believe he hadn’t figured it out earlier. This was how she knew about the Academy and what students were taught there.
“You were a Special Enforcer,” he breathed, and despite the surprise in his voice, it wasn’t a question.
“We weren’t called Special Enforcers back then,” she said with a small shrug. “But yes, I was.”
Jack thought fast, trying to piece things together. She knew about the Academy training but she hadn’t worn the title… That had to mean she had been part of the very first Academy graduates. The first five or six classes had simply been called ‘Enforcers’ before ‘Special’ had been added to their official job title.
“I went after him like you did,” she continued, her tone almost detached; she might as well have been telling someone else’s story rather than her own. “But I wasn’t as lucky as you were. He beat me and turned me.”
Jack could almost see it. In his mind, Angela seemed younger—but maybe that was the wrong word. She wouldn’t have aged a day since dying. Not younger then, but more innocent. He imagined her wearing the same gear he had: dark clothes, carrying stakes and cr
ossbow. And a sword; she seemed the type to use a sword. She would have approached Carlo looking for a fair fight, the same way she had fought Jack. He wondered if her awakening had been anything like his. From what he knew of Carlo, he doubted it had been as pleasant. And after that…
“You said he forced you to kill,” he said, looking intently at her face to catch her reaction. “So…that means you didn’t want to kill when you first woke up? Like I don’t?”
She didn’t even blink. “Something like that, yes. But don’t let that fool you. I killed. Against my will, at first. And then I grew to like it.” Her eyes seemed to burn as she added, “It’s been a long time since I regretted taking a life. I knew my Sire would be killed eventually. I know I will too. And that’s all right. I deserve it.”
Jack was both confused and conflicted. Angela was a killer; he had known it when he had started hunting her, but that wasn’t the end of it. Once she had hunted murderous vampires and died because of it, as he had. She had been unwilling to kill, as he was. She had been forced to kill by her Sire, but she had said she wouldn’t do the same to him. She had been a victim, now she was a killer; yet she still believed she had to be punished. He didn’t know what to think about it all.
“If you’re going to kill me,” she said, still as calm as a frozen pond, “go ahead. Now’s your chance. You’ll never have a better shot.”
She was right, of course. She was just inches from his crossbow and showed no intention to stop him. It would be his choice: kill her and live in pain forever or accept her as his Sire.
Just hours earlier, he would have killed her without waiting for her to explain, because explanations didn’t matter. If he had known all this before being turned, it wouldn’t have mattered. He wouldn’t have hesitated; his hand wouldn’t have slowed, not for a minute. Proof that a vampire had killed or a confession was all he needed to do his job. Throughout his entire career, he had never lost a minute of sleep wondering if he was doing the right thing. He had always been sure that what he did was not only good, but necessary.
But now…now he understood the hunger. He understood how deep, how encompassing it was. He also understood the hold a Sire had on a Childe and how Angela could have been forced to kill against her will…at least at first.
He could kill Angela for being what she was, for being unable to master her instincts or to resist her Sire’s orders. And if he did that, he might as well kill himself too.
Very slowly, he cocked the gun-like trigger of his crossbow. He considered Angela a few seconds longer then fired. The bolt flew, too fast for the eye to see. It embedded itself with a heavy thump into the headboard three full hands to the right of Angela.
She never flinched. The extent of her reaction was to turn a delicately arched eyebrow at the stake and cluck her tongue.
“I actually like this bed, Childe. Did you need to damage it?”
Jack blinked. He wasn’t sure what surprised him the most: that he had made his decision without knowing he had, or that Angela seemed more concerned about the furniture than she had been about her own life. Had she known he wouldn’t kill her? Had she controlled him for that, too, without Jack even realizing it?
He examined his own mind and his decision—and it was his decision. There was no doubt in his mind. He was her Childe, yes, but that wasn’t all there was to it. She had said she would let him feed in the manner he chose; that had to mean she was open-minded. Maybe instead of punishing her for what she had done, he could try to change her. Maybe he wouldn’t have to choose between the convictions that made him the man he was, and the person who had made him what he was now.
Under her amused gaze, he leaned over the edge of the bed and set the crossbow on the floor again. He would keep it, because it was a good weapon and he was attached to it, but he doubted he would use it much from now on.
He lay down next to Angela. She rolled onto her side to face him, although their bodies didn’t touch. He watched her; she watched back. Neither said a word. Again, Jack waited for the awkwardness to rise between them; after all, they still didn’t know much about each other, and there they were, linked by a bond that would never break, not even when one of them died. Yet all he felt was a deep calm, a peace that he couldn’t remember ever experiencing before.
Jack wondered if Angela knew what would come next; he certainly had no idea. It was a new feeling for him. He had always liked to plan everything and stay in control; an uncertain future was the very last thing he would have ever wanted. Strangely enough he was not worried.
* * * *
At first, Daisy tried to keep herself busy. She started clearing away the empty glasses and plates, what was left of the food and drinks. But every time she returned to the dining room, she couldn’t help but look at Woods and Jack, both of them very still as they sat opposite each other. And each time, she remained standing there a little longer, wondering yet again what her friend was seeing. The fourth time she gave up and sat down, turning her chair so that she faced them both.
Jack’s face was lined with fatigue, the dark shadows under his eyes even deeper against the pale skin of his closed eyelids. Expressions fluttered over his face; for the most part they didn’t look like happy ones. Woods’ features, in contrast, remained devoid of emotions. His head was bent down toward his clasped hands, as he had done all evening on the balcony. The position was part of his ritual, she supposed, as was the outward calm he showed. She could see how it would be more reassuring to the people he read if he appeared calm when they slipped out of the vision. Especially if, like Jack, they jerked awake abruptly, with such tension inside them that they jumped to their feet.
“It’s…it’s a trick,” Jack said at once, staring at Woods. “It’s…not possible. You just showed me this to scare me or something. If that’s your idea of a joke—”
Woods shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said very quietly. “I wish it wasn’t true, but I’m afraid it is.”
Sitting very still on her chair, Daisy unconsciously held her breath. They seemed to be unaware that she was there. She knew she ought to move, say something, attract their attention somehow. It was the right thing to do, before she heard something that was not hers to hear. At the same time, she was curious about what had upset Jack so much. Had he seen his break-up with Lydia?
It wasn’t long before he said more than she had wanted to know, but by then it was too late.
“But I can’t…” Jack practically choked on the words as his legs seemed to give under him and he sat down again. “I don’t want to die.”
Daisy pressed a hand to her mouth and silenced the gasp that clawed at her throat. Jack had seen his own death? How did that fit the whole ‘most important decision’ theme?
“Nobody does,” Woods said, still calm—how could he bear to remain so calm? “But at least you’ll have a second chance; that’s more than most people get.”
With a flash of insight, Daisy knew exactly what Woods meant. Jack was a Special Enforcer. He dealt with vampires all the time. And to become one, to get a second chance, he would have to die.
“When?” Jack asked, as though he hadn’t heard Woods. “How long do I have?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack sprang to his feet again. “You don’t know?” he demanded, his voice rising in pitch on the last word. Without warning, he grabbed the front of Woods’ shirt and pulled him to his feet too. “What do you know? Why do you show people these images? To destroy their lives?”
Alarmed, Daisy stood and approached them. Woods was already prying Jack’s fists off him. Daisy rested a hand on Jack’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
“Jack,” she said urgently, “come on, calm down.”
His eyes turned to her, wide and a little wild. “Calm down?” he repeated, a touch of hysteria in his voice. “After what I just saw?”
He shook his head and stared ahead of him, as if h
e were not seeing anything. When he blinked and focused on her again, his expression was haunted.
“A vamp is going to turn me,” he said blankly. “I’m going to die in the worst possible way a S.E. can die.” His words were colder than the bleakest winter.
Daisy flinched when she heard him confirm her guess. She wished she knew what to say, but nothing came to mind, at least nothing useful. She glanced at Woods, trying to get his help in calming Jack, but he had taken two steps back with a wary look on his face, much like he had earlier that night after Brett’s vision.
The memory of Brett’s reaction gave Daisy an idea. Maybe she was wrong, maybe it wasn’t a decision that was hers to make, but she didn’t know how else to calm Jack.
She snapped her fingers in front of his face, pulling him out of his staring. “Do you know the vampire who did it?”
“What? No, I don’t. I’d never seen her before.”
“What did she look like?” Daisy asked. “Describe her to me.”
Jack looked confused for a second but then he nodded. “Yes. I should remember. So when I see her, I can stop her.”
From the corner of her eye, Daisy saw Woods jerk, as though he were about to interrupt, but he didn’t say anything. Jack started his description, his brow progressively more furrowed in concentration.
“Brunette,” he said, and he sounded sure. But when he added, “long hair…” there was already a note of doubt in his voice. He rubbed his temple with two fingers. “Wait, I think it was long…or maybe shoulder length?”
He looked at Daisy as though she held the answer, but she knew better than to try to reply. “How about her eyes?” she asked instead.
“Gr…green? Or maybe gray? I’m not sure. It was dark.”