Dion groaned, no longer able to keep his eyes open. “I won’t last long,” Dion moaned. “I’m gonna blow.”
“Me too,” Guy said.
He pulled out just as Dion began thrusting for the home stretch. Guy—jerking rapidly—slapped my ass.
“Spread his ass,” Guy said.
Dion obliged.
Almost as soon as I was on display, Guy blew, coating my ass and hole with his load.
“Fuck,” Dion roared. “Here it comes.”
He slammed my prostate so hard I blew.
My ass tightened.
Dion thrust.
He collapsed against the couch and sighed as I pressed along him, panting in an attempt to get my breath back.
“You ok?” I managed.
“Mmhmm,” he replied, slightly cracking his eyes.
I pressed a quick kiss to his lips, then pulled off him, grimacing at how wobbly my legs were. Guy caught me before I could stumble. “I’m gonna shower,” I said.
“Go ahead,” Dion managed, seemingly near delirium. “I’m not…going…anywhere.”
I chuckled as I started toward the bathroom.
Judging by the patter of footsteps, Guy followed.
“My couch is gonna smell like come for weeks,” Guy said.
“Admit it,” I chuckled. “You enjoyed it.”
He smirked and finished padding the rest of our mess off Dion. The man—who had succumbed to exhaustion shortly after our tryst—was passed out along the couch, breathing deeply beneath a thin blanket.
“Sorry I joined in,” Guy said as he tossed the rag into a nearby laundry hamper. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” I laughed. “That felt awesome.”
“Just checking. It’s not like I’m Dion or anything, but—”
“You’re still packing,” I finished. I melted against his body and pressed a long, slow kiss to his mouth. The fading sensation of warmth lingered on his lips. “Did I do ok? I mean… considering?”
“Considering he passed out,” Guy said, briefly glancing at Dion, “you did fine. Better than I expected, actually.”
A smile crossed my lips. The remark, regardless of its implications, was genuine, and sweet in its intention. I took hold of his hand and led him toward the bedroom, only pausing to turn off the lights before sliding into the room.
Once inside, I kissed him. Though spent from earlier, his ability to respond stirred my heartstrings. His strong hands, his reassuring grasp, his attentive affections and his forward but gentle advances moved me—I pulled back to look at face and saw that his second irises were glowing, his face basking in the light emanating from my own eyes.
“I love you,” I whispered, pressing another kiss to his lips.
“Do you really mean that?” Guy asked. “I mean…considering all you’ve gone through?”
“I thought about it,” I said, balancing my weight on my knees, “and you know what I realized? I fell in love with the situation—at least at first. That’s why I stayed, and why I didn’t try to run away. But then something happened.”
“What?”
“I realized I was in love with you.”
He bowed our heads together and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m so scared, Jason,” he whispered, tightening his hold on my body. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” I said. “Tomorrow, we’ll wake up, have breakfast, figure things out. Then you’re going to teach me everything I need to know to kill Pierre. Ok?”
He nodded.
We spread out alongside each other and stared into each other’s eyes—not speaking, only watching.
I don’t know how long it lasted.
I eventually fell asleep.
“So,” Guy said, turning and spreading his arms about the room. “This is it.”
“We’re in a fucking freezer,” I managed through chattering teeth.
“You need to learn to use your abilities, Jason.”
“I know, but how the hell are we supposed to get anything done here?”
“We’re as close to the elements as we can get.”
“We’re in Texas. It hardly snows.”
“Down south you mean.” I bit my lip to keep from responding and managed only a low growl instead. The smirk that appeared on Guy’s lips couldn’t have pissed me off more. “Look,” he continued. “Like it or not, this is the easiest place we’ll be able to do this. Almost every Kaldr on this compound learned here.”
“Did you?”
“Not…really.”
I couldn’t keep the sigh from pooling out my lips. Standing in a giant freezer—amidst the sentinels of industrial-grade refrigeration units—wasn’t exactly the way I’d planned to spend my morning, but I suppose I couldn’t do anything about it. This was necessary—especially if I wanted any chance in hell of making it into the Howler’s new den and killing Pierre.
“Ok,” Guy said, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s start.” He stepped toward a long table upon which he’d placed several glasses of water and spread his hand over the nearest. “The first thing you’ll want to know is that putting energy out is much harder than taking it in. When projecting away from your body instead of into it, the energy difference is going to put a strain on you. Remember when I killed that guy in Austin?”
“Yeah.”
“That was putting energy out. I literally gleaned nothing when killing him because I was freezing him, not feeding from him. A feeding would’ve never caused such injuries. If anything, it would’ve turned his insides to mush.”
I nodded.
Guy pressed a hand over the rim of the glass. “Temperature is going to play a huge role in how you fight somebody. The amount of energy you’ll have to manipulate just to shift liquid in these glasses will likely give you a headache. It’s only going to be worse if you have to draw it from unconventional places.”
“So what do I do?”
“You know how the human body is sixty-percent water?” Guy grinned. “Watch.”
The water surged in the glass beneath him, then shattered the vessel which it was in.
“Enough practice and you won’t have to touch anyone. It’s harder, of course, but once you get the hang of it, you can easily scramble someone’s brain.”
“Sounds barbaric.”
“When Howlers have to reconstruct their entire skeletal system and the Sanguine have to drink blood and eat corpses, you start to appreciate being a Kaldr.” Guy smiled. “So…considering Amadeo taught you how to heat moisture by touch, I want you to attempt to shatter this first glass with the same mechanism.”
“All right.” I narrowed my eyes and concentrated. The tug, though slight, was noticeable, and I wasn’t sure if it was working. However, the beads of sensation along my skull seemed to indicate such.
“It may seem stupid,” Guy began to say, “but there’s a reason you see Sanguine and Witches and Kaldr use their hands while casting. It focuses the energy—or at least helps to.”
I raised my hand and extended my arm toward the glass. This time, I imagined I was a wizard—concentrating the flow of magic through my arm and out toward the glass. This time, the sensation hit me like a truck, to the point where a stabbing sensation tore through my eye sockets.
“Easy, Jason. You’re still learning. There’s no rush.”
I held my arm steady and paced myself through the motions. Rather than a solar flare igniting from the Sun, I envisioned the glass as an ocean and the floor as a volcanic nexus. From the depths ash was pumped, fire released, then quelled and its heat distributed throughout the water.
The relief was instantaneous.
When the glass shattered, I blinked, unnerved that I hadn’t anticipated the response.
“Excellent,” Guy said.
“How do I know when to stop?” I frowned.
“When the glass shatters,” Guy smiled. “Or, in other cases: when the person is dead.”
“Yes. Which is why freezing is the preferred method.” He gestured to the following glass. “Next.”
This was more difficult to visualize, given that it was almost impossible to see water as it actually froze. Rather than attempt to evoke the image of Everest or water crystallizing in the sky, I imagined the vacuum of space—its suffocating nature, pulling the liquid along, then freezing it in place. This time, the glass shattered with such velocity I was struck, though thankfully only on my shirt.
“It gets easier once you learn to associate the actions with the sensations.” Guy glanced at the three remaining glasses, then nodded. “Ok. Let’s try something different.”
I collapsed a watermelon with thought.
I mummified a carrot by will.
I wrapped my hand in a gauntlet of ice and punched a hole through a cantaloupe.
Sweat beaded down my face. My head ached. My muscles weighed down my body. I pulled in long, laborious breaths as I evaporated the remaining ice on my fingers and grimaced as the numbness began to seep away.
“All right,” Guy said after a moment of observation. “I think we’re done for now.”
“How did I do?” I asked, forcing a smile through my exhaustion. “Was I ok?”
“I think being an English major helps you tremendously here. All that reading, all those metaphors. You have so much you can pull from in terms of visualization. You did better than most people starting off.”
“I have a good teacher.”
“And I have a willing student.” Guy looked over at the results of my practice. “Go ahead and go back to the house. I’ll clean up and meet you there.”
“You sure? I can help if you want.”
“I’m sure, Jason. It looks like you could use some sun.”
Nodding, I turned and started for the stairwell that led out of the archaic refrigeration cell and forced myself to lift my legs regardless of the fact that it felt like I’d fall over. My muscles screamed, my bones burned. The ligaments leading down my knees to my ankles felt more elastic than jelly. Yet, somehow, I was able to clear the stairwell and exit the compound—where I rose, majestically, to the blinding surface.
My body tingled.
The dappled rays invigorated my senses.
I felt, now more than ever, alive.
After taking a moment to gain my composure, I made my way toward the ranch house’s back entrance and stepped through the door.
I was face-to-face with Elliot Winters. “Jason,” he said.
“Sir,” I replied.
“I take it Guy’s been instructing you in the way of our people?”
“Yes sir,” I nodded, unnerved at being alone with a man such as him in a private space.
“Will you be requiring the need for warm flesh?”
I swallowed, at first unsure of what he meant. The air of unease and the surreal aspect of what I’d just experienced erected a wall of doubt within my mind, and I couldn’t discern his meaning. Finally his meaning broke through the haze of doubt, and I said, “No, sir. I’m fine. Thank you.”
Elliot stepped aside and waved a hand as though gesturing for me to pass. I did so without question—and didn’t look back even when I turned and ascended the stairs to the east wing.
By the time I stepped into Guy’s flat, my head was spinning.
“Shit,” I muttered, pressing a hand to my brow.
Sparks of nausea erupted along my temples and gravitated into my stomach as I forced myself through the living room and toward the bathroom. Each step brought with it a crumbling sense of control—of dread for the impending explosion that was to come. I coughed, pressed a hand to my chest when hot air rose through my throat, then forced my mouth shut.
I ran.
I only just barely made it to the bathroom before bile exploded from my mouth.
I gasped, breathless, as I deposited the meager contents of my stomach.
I stayed there for what felt like ten minutes, clutching the countertop with one hand and the toilet seat with the other, before rising.
When I caught sight of my reflection, I almost couldn’t believe it.
“Shit,” I whispered.
My reflection was a phantom unlike anything I’d ever witnessed. Ashen skin, sunken eyes, bulging veins, dark, almost-blackened lips….
This couldn’t be me. It just couldn’t.
I looked—
Dead.
I shivered as the word whispered through my conscience.
I had just managed to flush the toilet and begin washing my face with the hottest water possible when the door opened and someone stepped into the flat. “Jason!” I heard Guy call. “Are you all right?”
“In here!” I managed, grimacing at the sound of my own voice.
The pad of his footsteps echoed through the impossibly-silent household. The only disturbance came when the door opened, then when Guy sucked in a lungful of air as I lifted my head. “Fuck,” he whispered.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Jason…this isn’t right.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Jason, Kaldr are only supposed to look like this when they’re near death.” Guy brushed a hand across his face as I turned the water off and went to work drying off. “I’ll go get Dion.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t argue with me, Jason,” Guy said, stepping forward. “You can’t just brush this off like it’s nothing. You put this off any longer and—”
I grabbed his hand.
The transfer of energy was instantaneous.
My eyes watered and my chest surged with heat.
“Jason,” Guy said. “Stop.”
“Just…give me a little bit,” I said, fighting to keep my eyes open.
“Let go, Jason.”
“Guy—”
“I said let go.”
“Why are you—”
He took hold of my shoulder, ripped my hand away, and cast me aside.
I collided with the shower wall—dazed, breathless, and struggling to maintain my balance.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that Guy’s veins had risen above the skin on his face. His hand was a blackened viscera of gangrene flesh.
“Guy,” I whispered.
“I’ll be right back,” Guy said, slowly backing out of the bathroom. “Stay here.”
“But I—”
He didn’t respond.
Moments later, the flat door slammed shut.
I lost control of my legs and collapsed to the floor, my only saving grace the fact that I had the shower wall as support.
Once on the cold blue tile, I cried.
This wasn’t salvation.
This was Hell.
It took the combined efforts of two warm flesh to return me a somewhat-normal state. Both men were breathless as I finished—reeling from the energy exchanged between the three of us.
“Thank you,” I said before they shambled out of the living room and out of the eastern wing.
Nearby, Guy continued to siphon energy from one of the giant Nordic men who could regularly be seen working in the fields. Head down, fingers snared within the giant man’s hand, Guy took slow, deep breaths as energy was exchanged and the dead flesh on his left arm returned to life.
By the time it was over, the Nordic man appeared ready to collapse.
“Thank you,” Guy managed, the frost on his breath visible only for a moment.
The albino giant nodded and sauntered out of the room.
Amadeo—who’d been keeping watch from the open threshold—sighed and closed the door. “Are you all right?” the man asked.
“I’m fine,” Guy said, tentatively flexing his fingers.
“You’re lucky you’re strong. Such wounds can kill lesser Kaldr.”
“I’m sorry,” I said from my place on the opposite side of the room, struggling to rise but unable to do so.
“This isn’t your fau
lt, Jason.”
“But I—”
“Reacted only as you should have,” Guy interrupted. “I pushed you too hard. I’m lucky you’re not dead.”
Shell-shocked by my near-death experience and horrified that I could’ve taken Guy’s life because of it, I opened my mouth to speak, but found nothing could come out. Instead, only a stunted, incoherent whisper of gibberish emerged—marking the true nature of my disbelief.
Amadeo settled down on the armrest beside Guy and set a hand on his upper back. “Should I summon additional flesh?” he asked.
“No,” Guy said, shaking his head. “That won’t be necessary.”
“There are more willing to serve their prince.”
“I said no goddammit!” Grimacing, Guy exhaled and pressed a hand over his face. “I mean no, Papa. There’s no need to bring anyone else.”
“What about you?” Amadeo asked, lifting his eyes to face me.
“I’m fine,” I said. “But thank you.”
After standing, Amadeo allowed his hand to remain on Guy’s back for a few short moments before he walked toward the door.
The moment it was closed, I sighed and once again struggled to stand.
“There’s no point in moving when you’re so weak,” Guy said, looking at me for the first time since returning to the flat.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know I would—”
“It’s ok, Jason. Shit happens.”
His dismissal didn’t seem intentional. Wrought with exhaustion, his voice was low and devoid of its normal strength. His eyes—bright from the magic but crossed with harsh red lines—held my gaze, but otherwise offered nothing in the way of reassurance. It was, undoubtedly, a look of guilt, and regardless of my role in the events that had taken place, there was nothing I could say or do to fix it.
I sighed, the residual effects from feeding making my lungs tingle.
Guy ran a hand through his hair and stood unsteadily. “Here,” he said, stepping forward and offering a hand. “Let’s get you in bed.”
“You want to touch me after what just happened?
“Your body reacted to the instinctual urge to feed. It leeched off me because I had reserves. You’d’ve done the same had it been a human—except in their case, you probably would’ve killed them instantly.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
His Kiss of Darkness Page 8