The Bottom Rung

by Sam Hall

  “Unh!” I cried, my cunt snapping tight around him as he pushed forward, forcing them deep inside me. His lips settled back around my clit, sucking it inside, flicking his tongue around it. “Fuck, I’m gonna come,” I moaned. And then it happened. My eyes were wide, and through the skylight I watched the sun die in the sky, falling down below the horizon line. The moment the great red ball touched the water the most tremendous explosion of pleasure burst from my core, spreading in great galloping waves from my centre right up my spine until my scalp prickled in response.

  He climbed up on the platform, his body caging in mine and he put his mouth to my ear. “I want inside you.”

  “Yes,” I said, grasping his hips and angling him towards my still throbbing core. “Oh fuck!” I yelped as he worked his way in. There was less another build-up to another orgasm and more an immediate reigniting. I felt completely helpless as he speared himself inside me, my twitching core nothing in the face of his pounding movements.

  “Not going to last,” he said almost ruefully.

  “Just come,” I said and followed my own advice.

  Later, we lay entangled on the stony surface, our breathing finally beginning to slow. “Fuck,” I groaned, the rough scrape of the stone now apparent on my back, “most guys like to talk big, but you weren’t joking.”

  He laughed at that, tangling his fingers in mine and brushing kisses against my neck, “I’m glad you’re pleased.”

  “Next time we need to find somewhere more comfortable though,” I said. “As fun as desecrating ancient monuments is, it’s kinda rough on the back.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t think,” he said, moving off the platform and pulling me after him. “There’s a perfectly good bed through the doorway. This was just a little unexpected.”

  “You didn’t think I’d say yes?”

  “Right now? No, we seemed to be connecting and everything and I figured after a bit of time…”

  “I don’t have a bit of time,” I said, reaching down to collect my clothes. “Sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities.”

  “Gods, no,” he said with a smile. He moved in close, wrapped an arm around my shoulders and looked down at me. “I was hard as a stone that whole ride out to the werewolves, hoping that some sort of miracle would have you dropping your hand down lower.”

  “I thought I stank of frustration?”

  “How do you think I got so familiar with the scent?”

  “What is this thing anyway?” I said, looking at the platform. Now that I was a little more clear headed, I could see an outline of a body had been carved into the stone and that there was a small reservoir, right where the wet spot was. “Does that…?”

  “Collect the leftovers? Sure looks like it,” he frowned and walked around, taking another look. “Never really been in here much.”

  “We aren’t going to conjure up something from the nether realm, are we? This isn’t some kind of cursed tomb.”

  That had him chuckling. “Nah, magic’s dead, haven’t you heard? It’s just kinda peaceful. People don’t come here to bug me due to superstition; the underground rooms are well-insulated against the cool and heat. It’s like a cocoon sometimes, living here.”

  “Well, I for one would like somewhere a little softer to burrow down.”

  We retired to the bedroll he’d set up in the room with a door. The door was obviously a new addition, as was the fire pit and the kitchen. I almost felt weird, crawling under the covers with him. There had been no one since the McIntyres, they’d been my only lovers. Sex was too closely associated with blood or ownership in the Quarter, so I steered clear of it. I’d also been heartbroken when they’d chosen to be turned. I knew their reasoning was sound, but it didn’t stop me from feeling like they’d stolen something precious from me. Their change, it was the turning point, the end of childhood.

  I’d left the Crèche and gone out into the world after that, Marley in tow. I’d tried so many things to stay outside of the webs of the factions and failed at every turn. We’d tried to go back one winter, but they shut their doors on the two skinny kids. We’d left, there was no going back now.

  I ran my hand through the brown strands of Nathaniel’s hair, just liking the animal satisfaction of being able to touch someone without it meaning something else. I knew the boys would feel betrayed by what I’d done, especially as he was a vamp too, but somehow it was different. He’d always been a vampire; it was how I’d met him. In my mind, the boys were human, my humans. Just as fragile as me, just as beautiful. When they changed, they became the property of Rohan. By extension, if I was theirs, I was his as well. “It doesn’t worry you,” I asked, “that you didn’t feed from me?”

  He opened his eyes lazily and picked up my wrist licking the skin there, leaving the intense tingle of the symbiote on my flesh, sucking it so that the veins popped out proud, dragging his teeth across the skin until my breath came hard and I almost wanted him to bite me to bring that symphony of sensation to a crashing end. “Biting is just another sexual act,” he said in a low rumble. “I admit, sucking blood from a woman you are balls deep in- is one of life’s little pleasures, but it ain’t the only one. Maybe you don’t like sucking dick, maybe you don’t like anal, doesn’t mean you can’t have good sex, does it?” He rolled me over onto my front and covered my body with his. I felt the hard drag of his cock up my leg as he settled his lips against my neck. “We’re oral creatures, so many of our pleasures come from our mouths, I admit I will tend to suck…” his mouth closed over the skin of my neck and he drew my flesh in before releasing it, “and drag my teeth against your flesh, but I’ll never bite into you unless you want it. I can’t say I won’t ask though. Like right now.” He pushed my legs wide with his feet and then angled his cock to rub against my slick flesh. “Right now, I want to push my cock into that wet little volcano between your legs. You want that?”

  “Uh!”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Yes! Yesss….” The last reply came out as a hiss as he pushed himself into me. He grabbed my hips and pulled me back towards him, spearing himself deep inside me, his finger slipping around to rub at my clit.

  “Good answer.”

  I’d been off the yellow since we left the Crèche. Being stoned most of the time worked in the relative safety there, the world was too unpredictable for me to try that outside of it. This was the first time since that I felt like I’d replaced one drug with another. His skin, his kisses, were like a narcotic, I couldn’t just have one quick perfunctory caress to reconnect briefly, it always turned to two, three. It sometimes felt like floundering in mud, trying to get out of the bed to fulfil even the most basic needs such as going for a piss. He never pushed me, never tried to cage me in, but I couldn’t seem to stop responding to or initiating caresses.

  8

  Hesse

  Hesse Corp building

  Meridian City

  “Apologies for interrupting you, sir.” A man in a very sober-looking black suit and dark glasses approached Hesse as he was getting into his town car, about to head to yet another meeting with the Prime Minister.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “It’s the Crown Princess, sir, she’s insistent that she be allowed to visit the Quarter. Says there’s a temple there she needs to investigate for the upcoming Reunion ritual. The protocol is not to allow her access to the anomalous, with the exception of Reunion day, when she’s accompanied by a platoon of your soldiers. It’s just, it’s difficult to say no to a princess without causing offence.”

  Hesse’s eyes met the bodyguard’s, the sunglasses the man was wearing not enough to protect him from his boss’s cold, hard stare. “Stevens, is it?” The guard nodded. “I admit, I’m disappointed, Stevens. You came highly recommended, but I guess we do work in a more complex environment than the Parliament, don’t we? Let me spell this out for you, while the Prime Minister waits in his little office for me to arrive, and tell him how to run the country. Sasha, don’t
bother with the honourifics with me unless she happens to be in the room, Sasha is a relic. She’s never really put two and two together, but she’s as much an antique of the time before the Revolution, as any of the fine porcelain or gilt paintings we keep in the state museum. Treasures the citizens of Meridian City have decided to keep in a carefully controlled environment to ensure their longevity so they may be admired, studied, and at least in part, sneered at as an unfortunate artefact of the past. Sasha, in her little palace, built especially for her, is no different. People can’t pay an admission fee to gape at her, like they can the Horde King’s underclothes, yet. If I feel it will in anyway consolidate my position, I will make that happen. She’s not in any danger, nor actually need a security detail. By pretending she’s still relevant, we keep her where we want her, in a glass case, ready to be broken out if required. So, what I require from you is not to protect her from threats, as there are none where she’s concerned. Most of the good citizens of this city would struggle to remember her name. What I need from you, is to manage the princess, keep her where I want her, doing what I want her to do, without alerting her to her state or bothering me, are we clear?”

  “Of course, sir. My apologies, if I had any idea…”

  Hesse held up a hand to stop the man’s babbling. “I will say this once, in Hesse Corp, people who show initiative and the ability to read between the lines and come up with solutions, last longer than those that don’t. In any case, I have a solution to your problem. There’s a minor temple of Lyra and Kai in one of the less populous areas of the Quarter. A map showing the exact position, will be shared with your team. You may take Her Highness there when you have the manpower to facilitate this because it is the one place she actually could be in danger. She doesn’t realise it but sitting pretty on the other side of the Wall does not endear her to her ‘people’. I have found a man who was related, somehow, to one of the former staff in her family’s household to act as a caretaker of the site. He’s a vampire, but as trustworthy as any anomalous can be. Take her there when you have the resources to do so, let her press the flesh with one of her people and poke around in the old ruin. Should be enough to keep her busy. Now, Stevens, I am well and truly late and I only like to keep the Prime Minister waiting, when it’s a deliberate ploy to punish him for his recalcitrance. I trust you will manage this situation or have your resignation letter on my desk by the end of the day.”

  “Of course, sir, and again, my apologies.” The man’s words fell on deaf ears, Hesse turned on his heel and ducked into the rear door of the car held open by his chauffeur. Stevens watched the car go, the rest of his team coming to stand by him.

  “What a fucking dickhead. Fellas, looks like we’re planning a foray into the Quarter.”

  9

  Lethe

  Temple of Kai and Lyra

  Ground Zero

  The Quarter

  We were lying in bed on the third day, the light coming in through the small skylight was watery and grey. From the sound of it, it was raining outside, but inside there was a kind of peaceful immovable stillness. He lay naked on the bedroll beside me, a veritable visual feast. I could still feel the slickness of his cum between my legs, but I trailed my fingertips up his thigh along his hip bone anyway. It was the lightest of caresses, yet his cock twitched, hard against his belly, the veins standing out in stark relief against the angry red skin. My fingers slid over the rigid plane of his stomach, smoothing up and down over the ridges, leaving behind the ghost of sensation. I watched the muscles slowly contract as I went, sweeping down his other hipbone. His pelvis clenched, forcing his cock up proud from his stomach, twitching in the air as if begging for my caress. I smiled as my fingers dipped down, lightly shifting the hairs on his testicles, causing the skin there to tighten and roil.

  His hand grabbed mine, trying to bring it to his most tender of flesh. “OK,” I said with a smile, looking down into his slitted eyes. I granted his wish, sorta, letting my fingertips trail along his length, barely making contact with his skin. I watched his cock thicken, the skin losing any resilience, becoming more and more like tightly stretched satin over stone. “For the love of the gods,” he growled, “fuck me or suck me.”

  “Fine,” I said and threw my leg over his head, stretching over his body to lick at the angry head of his cock.

  “I should tease you for hours,” he mumbled against my thigh.

  “But you won’t.”

  “No, I ahhh....” I sucked his cock deep into the heat of my mouth, him returning the favour after I reached my limit. He was true to his words, no soft, brushing licks against my pussy. Instead, he seemed to bury his face in my cunt, straining to push his tongue deep inside me, wriggling then sucking my clit hard so I ground myself into his stubble. We each did our best to devour the other, curling our bodies into each other, gripping each other’s hips to deepen the contact. Breath came from the small gaps between us, a precious but forgotten commodity as we each strove to wring the most pleasure from the other. I achieved my goal first, his cock swelling only to shoot jets of cum down my throat, smothering my screams as my cunt spasmed wildly around his fingers, my clit stretched to an exquisite mix of pleasure and pain by his lips.

  “Is it always like this?” I said as we lay there afterwards panting. “I feel like...”

  “Like you’re lost at sea,” he said, tangling his fingers loosely in the hand I held up in front of me. “Like you’re caught in the waves, slipping up and down, rocked with the water, tugged down by an undertow so seductive you refuse to fight it?”

  “Yeah, like I have a life outside of this room. Do I not want to see the boys before I die? Do I not want to climb the spire one more time? Do I not want to feel the sun on my face? It’ll all be gone in what? Five short days but every time I go for that door…”

  “I’m dying to sink my teeth into you, but I’m almost afraid to ask.” He spoke the words into the skin of my neck, his body shifting to mould itself against mine. “I’ve experienced bloodlust before, the rush you feel for someone after feeding and fucking them for the first time before it just fades away, but this is already way more intense than that.” His mouth closed over my flesh, sucking it, my hips tipping back to align with his in response. “I’m afraid to add blood into the mix, fearing it’ll take me somewhere so deep, we’ll never get out of it. Fuck, now I’m hard again.”

  I slung my top leg back over his, spreading my hips wide, shivering when the cool air brushed over the overheated slickness between my legs. “Oh fuck,” he groaned as I lowered myself down on him, his hands closing over my nipples, capturing them in their grip as I slid his cock in and out of me at a languorous pace, dragging it slowly, excruciatingly, over the bundles of nerves inside. I whimpered as one hand went to my clit.

  “Shh,” he said, his touch little more than a butterfly’s wing of a brush against me. “Have to make it last. Have to stay like this forever.”

  10

  Nathaniel

  Kat’s house

  Witchbreed Sector

  The Quarter

  Kat looked up as the door to her little house opened. She smiled when she saw her brother. “I didn’t think you were going to make it,” she said.

  “Been a bit preoccupied,” Nathaniel said with a shrug. Her green eyes took in the relaxed set of his shoulders and the slight smile. It had been many years since she’d seen him like this.

  “What have you been doing, or should I ask who?”

  “Just got a little distraction happening at the moment. No big deal.”

  “Really? Because this,” she gestured to his body, “suggests otherwise.”

  “It’s just been a while. Y’know when you connect with someone like they’re an extension of you or something?” She watched the wrapt expression almost fight to take hold on her brother’s face, but he had it pushed down soon enough. “It’s just sex, really good sex.”

  “Bite her yet?”

  “No, I’m not sure I need to.”


  She cocked an eyebrow at this. Like most vamp’s, feeding seemed to almost top sex in terms of pleasure. “This must be quite the piece of arse. When do I get to meet her?”

  His face went blank again, all emotion wiped clean, “You probably won’t. She’s got one of those bloody tracers in her shoulder.” Kat shook her head, indicating she didn’t know what that was. “It’s a nasty bit of tech, fuses with the nervous system of the host and ensures compliance with whatever directive Hesse’s bully boys are going with at the moment.”

  “And if they don’t?” Kat said.

  “Their heads are blown off. Effective, really. She’s…she’s not the type to bow down and submit, so I’m trying to keep her as happy as I can until the end comes.”

  “You’ll end it for her?”

  “If she wants. We haven’t talked about it. I don’t even know her.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Look, I won’t let her suffer. Now, how’s the Cardinian connections going?”

  “Keen, feeling revolutionary,” she said, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. “It gets a little tiring, every time we try this, the people want to just rush right in.”

  “We’re hardly likely to make allies if we tell them the long-term plan,” Nathaniel replied. “Look, we’re thinking of equalising the human influence on the anomalous over the next two hundred years. Doesn’t exactly stir up fervour.”

  “Time breeds ignorance,” Kat said. “They haven’t seen the bloody hell of revolution; they just assume it’ll be a neat pathway to freedom and righteousness.”

  That made Nathaniel smile again, though this time it was a twisted, harsh thing. “So, anyway, what are we up to this week? I’ve got Sasha coming at some point to look at the ruins again.”