by Emily Reed
Megan turned her attention to the door. She stood quickly, releasing me. Waves of want pulsed off of her. I could feel her.
Pearl stood in the doorway, her pale eyes delighted. "You look beautiful, so bloody," she said, her voice warm. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but your father needs to see you, Megan.” Pearl glanced at me. “She’s about to bleed out.”
Megan turned to me. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry.”
I looked down at myself. The white robe was soaked with bright red blood. I lifted my hand to touch the puncture but Megan stopped me, taking hold of my wrist. My pulse beat against her strong, cold fingers. She leaned forward and licked the wound; it tingled, then felt tight, like a scar.
"Thank you," she whispered into my ear before standing. "I have to go."
"Wait, Megan." I grabbed at her hand before she could walk away. "Please let me go home. I need to be alone. I need to think." I glanced down at my blood-stained clothing. “This is all so confusing. I feel…so strange.”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. "It's not safe."
"Let Darling go home," came a voice from the door. I looked over and saw Megan's father leaning against the frame, Pearl standing behind him, watching us over his shoulder.
"But if she is bitten by a zombie—” Megan said.
"Then her decision will be made," he said, cutting her off. "Dimitri will take her. Megan, come with us now."
She stepped toward him, as if pulled, but turned to me before continuing. "Please," she begged. "Don't go. For me."
I'd never refused Megan anything. Our entire relationship I'd worshiped her, wanting only her happiness and comfort. To nourish her. Should I just stay here and do that? "I can't, Megan—I have to think without influence.” Tears choked me, grief cracking through the calm. “I’m so sorry I couldn't save you." She died. My best friend died. But still lives.
My head seared with pain, and I closed my eyes. The tourniquet tightened, easing the pain and stilling my thoughts.
"Now." Her father’s voice pulled Megan away from me. She stumbled toward him and they left, the door still open to the hall.
I don't know how long I sat there before Dimitri showed up. "She fed from you," he said from the door.
I looked up at him, the world fuzzy.
"Dimitri," I whispered.
"She took too much." He blurred across the room, stopping in front of me.
"I can handle it," I said. Who was he to tell me my best friend was a bad vampire? Arrogant, sexy, dead man. I hiccuped a laugh.
"You can't handle it. You are a human. Weak and fragile."
I looked up at him, hardening my gaze. "You don't know me."
A smile twisted his lips, but it did not extend to his eyes. "Megan is young and does not know how to keep you. If you were mine, I'd never let this happen."
I tried to stand, to show him I wasn't some weak little human, but I didn't get far. He caught me, his face suddenly close. He was looking at my neck. "She left a mark." He shook his head. "Such a shame."
"It's none of your concern.”
"Calm down," he said, and I instantly felt numb again.
"Boring," I said.
His eyes leaped to mine, his brows raising. "Boring?"
"This numbness you're giving me," I said, his lips close to mine. "It's boring."
"What would you like?" he asked, a sly smile crossing his lips. I didn't answer, just looked at his mouth, remembering how good it felt to suck on his lips.
His influence receded, seeming to flow out of me, and in its wake my own emotions tumbled out, tearing through me, too fast, too many. I squeezed my eyes shut, pain crashing over me. "Is that boring?" he asked, his voice laced with amusement.
"It hurts," I choked.
"How very human of you."
"Fuck you," I gritted, trying to push away from him, but he held me tight, his fingers wrapped around my arms.
"You need a bath." He swung me up into his arms, cradling me like a child. I didn't fight him. Hot tears pooled in my eyes and started down my cheeks. I turned my face into his chest and let the sobs come. "Shh," he said. "If you're going to cry like this, how will I trust you with your own feelings?” He shook his head. "If you were mine, this would not be so."
"I wish I was mine," I said into his chest, my fingers bunching in his shirt.
He stopped, and I felt him looking down at me. I peeked a glance at him, sniffling. His eyes flashed gray, and he licked his lips. "What did you say?" he asked, his voice low. I didn't answer. "You wish you were mine?" His voice filled with something that sounded a lot like hope.
"I wish I was mine," I said. "That I belonged to me."
His lips tightened, and his eyes shuttered. "This is the wrong world for that.”
Hunger thrummed through me, and I reached up, as if a force field pulled me, and ran my fingers into his hair. Dimitri’s grip grew tighter as his lips reached mine. A leap of energy jumped from him to me. I pulled back—wanting to see him, hoping to understand what was happening. Lust and confusion warred in his expression. "What are you doing?" he asked. "You are Megan's."
"No, Dimitri. I'm mine.”
He kissed me, squeezing me tight against his chest, so that I could barely breathe. He could crush me. Dimitri's strength was such that he could crack my bones, press the air out of my lungs, murder me with one embrace. That thought sent zings of lust through me.
His influence floated over my skin, entering me, taking away the confusion and shame I usually felt while in the arms of a man. But he wasn't a man. I couldn't suck the life out of him. It was already gone.
That fear I’d hidden in the back of my mind came up to the front and spread wings, stretching in the space left by that tourniquet. I’m afraid that I kill anyone who touches me…my foster father, Megan…that I steal their lives and make them mine.
A part of my psychosis, solved now in the arms of a vampire?
Dimitri groaned against my lips and pulled away from me. "Take me back to the bed," I said. His hair floated around his head he moved so fast. The sensation of unnatural speed, in his arms, felt totally right.
Dimitri slowed, laying me on the blanket with reverence, his weight suspended above me. His eyes—so blue, so pale, so cold and yet so hot—searched my face. I cupped his cheek, pulling him closer.
The vampire did not resist. And when our lips touched, I breathed in, and that current of energy flowed between us, strong and nourishing.
He found my breasts and released a low guttural groan, human in its desperation. "My God," he whispered, "you are not like any other woman I've ever touched." He spoke against my neck as he kissed down toward my breasts, following the trail of dried blood.
He pulled the nightshirt down, his lips soft and warm. His fangs scraped against sensitive flesh. I bowed up toward the incredible touch. His tongue swirled, rough and tantalizing. His hand traveled down my body, fingers playing over my skin before wrapping around my thigh. Then he paused.
Dimitri slowly, luxuriously, let his fingers slide closer, so that I moaned and pressed myself against him. "Impatient?" he mumbled against my breast.
"I need you.” It was true. There was something I needed from him. I'd never accepted how much I needed this, but now it seemed obvious—like when the chorus to a song evades me until it pops right into my head. My whole life, a part of me had been cut off. I’d been afraid of my own nature… my own power. But I could feel it now, hovering in the near distance. Waiting for me to claim it.
Dimitri moaned against my skin, his lips traveling down. His fingers crept closer to my center, and I arched uncontrollably. His palm flattened on my stomach, holding me down. Desire spiked as he blew gently between my thighs. Sweat broke out on my brow even as goose bumps raised across my sensitized flesh.
I wanted him so badly. It felt like there would never be an end to this torture. And then his mouth was closer, his lips just touching me. So soft. So good.
I reached out with my mind, urging him on, urging him to end this ache ins
ide of me, and suddenly, almost as if I'd made it happen, his mouth was on mine, and I could taste myself, and I lost all control. I yanked at his shirt, needing him naked, his smooth, hard flesh pressed against me.
He pulled me to the end of the bed as if I’d commanded him. Take me now! Dimitri followed my command. Pain and pleasure twisted into pure power.
He stared at the connection between us, his face unreadable, a stone sculpture, his carved chest rising and falling with labored breaths. I thought he didn’t breathe. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
I wanted more, faster and harder. All of him. I could never get enough—there was no amount of this that I could not take. That I could not absorb. Each thrust filled me with energy, so that I felt totally alive. So powerful.
His influence curled around mine, looking for ways in, for what I wanted. Who was controlling who? Keeping my eyes closed, I pictured what I wanted: for him to pick me up, throw me up against a wall, and give me the explosions of satisfaction that I knew would come.
His arms were suddenly around me, and then my back struck the wall, my head cradled by his strong hand—keeping me safe. Dimitri pressed himself up against me, his body solid, perfect, hard and thrusting. My legs wrapped around his waist. Energy built in me. I breathed him in, and he let me. He would let me take everything from him. Dimitri offered it…enjoyed it.
I held the power.
My orgasm ripped through me, and he broke the kiss, his eyes flashing gray and ice blue as he watch me. The orgasm seemed to go on and on. The speed at which he'd brought me to it, compared to the length of the experience, made me feel as though time was no longer what I'd believed it to be. Nothing was as I believed it to be.
He looked at me confused, pained, out of control...or under mine? His fangs out, pressing into his bottom lip, he kept moving into me. I felt his influence as he tried to turn my head and expose my neck. But I didn't want him to bite me. "No," I whispered. "Come without it." His body shuddered, and with one final thrust, he pushed himself deep inside of me, and his body shook. Dimitri pressed his lips to mine, the link between us a burning line of power.
He pulled back. There was a flush to his cheeks, his eyes gray, bright, human almost. My heart pounded against my ribs, pumping blood through my veins at incredible speed. I reached up and touched his face, and I felt that beat, that thump, leap into him. Dimitri flinched away, and when he looked back, his eyes were cold again. Ice blue and empty. “What did you just do?” His voice held the menace of a cornered predator.
Chapter Eleven
Energy vibrated through my entire body as Dimitri lowered the hood over my face. Wrapping my arms around myself, I closed my eyes behind the blindfold. The car rumbled to life. The wheels crunched over gravel and then we were on paved roads, the car humming along. Going home.
I wore a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that belonged to Megan, and I could smell her on them. And that wasn't the only thing I could smell. I could smell my sweat on Dimitri's skin— even though we’d both showered. I could smell the night—the animals that lived in the forest, the flowers that bloomed in the dark, the soil, the rot, the life…everything.
The Universe sings a song, and I can hear it.
I’d watched Dimitri dress, a rapt audience enthralled by the show. He really did move like a dancer—all controlled energy and elegant lines.
The vampire wore a pale blue collared shirt, just a shade lighter than his eyes. Eyes that kept wandering to me as he changed, flashing gray in the warm light of his bedroom. Dimitri’s bedroom. If my room had been built for a princess in a tower, his belonged to the master of a castle. It was in a turret. An honest to God turret, with windows all the way around.
His closet was as large as my bedroom at home, and I’d watched him dress through the open door. A linen three-piece suit. Who even wears a three-piece suit? Dimitri the vampire, that’s who—the most statuesque and elegant thing I'd ever seen.
I took in a deep breath, the fabric of the hood brushing my lips, desire stirring at the memory of him buttoning that vest, his eyes pinning me.
Dimitri laid a hand on my thigh, and I instantly felt calmer—and duller. "Stop it," I said through the hood.
"But I like to touch you."
“Just don’t try to control me.” Said the chicken to the fox.
He huffed a small laugh but did ease off. “How can you control my emotions?” I asked.
“It is impossible to explain to you.”
“Try me.”
Dimitri squeezed my thigh, his fingers burning. I put my hand over his, and he turned his palm so that our fingers could lace. “Pearl said you can control your own emotions and in time learn to control others.”
“It is something like that.”
“Come on, Dimitri. If I’m supposed to be considering becoming a vampire, I’d like a little more information.”
He didn’t speak for a long moment. I held my breath, waiting. “First, tell me how you did what you did.” His voice sounded almost unsure.
“Did what?”
“Made me feel.” His voice was so low I could hardly hear it over the tires whining over blacktop.
Something clicked in my brain. They can’t love or feel like me. “How can Megan still love me?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" His voice held a subtle tremor.
"She still loves me, but you can't love. Vampires can't love."
“Are you so sure she loves you?” His voice was haughty—as if I was a smitten foolish girl.
“Yes,” I answered, totally sure. “I could see it in her eyes, feel it against my skin, sense it in the path of her tongue on my skin, divine it from the crushing pull of her fangs—” I could feel his emotions, too. They whispered against my flesh, filled the space around us. And then I felt mine, weighted by his. And it was clear to me, in a single moment—I could see it all right in front of my blindfolded eyes, like a glowing map.
His emotions were a cloudy white mist all around us. Mine were a hot little ball of red at the center of me—right in my pelvis. I just had to stay there, and he'd never find me. No one would. I’d been hiding for decades—safe in my center.
We drove in silence as I stared at this new landscape, stunned I’d never seen it before.
"Megan can't sing anymore, can she?" I asked.
"I don't know."
He was lying. I felt the lie on my skin, the brush of it against the fine hairs on my arm. Saw the way the mist shifted to obscure the truth.
“You can take off your hood." He wanted to distract me. "We are far enough from the house. And besides, you've got one of the worst senses of direction I've ever seen. You couldn't find your way back there with a map," he said with a small chuckle, taking his hand off my leg. I felt anger at him. It was the first emotion to explode when given the space. I saw it like a rocket, arching out of me.
I pulled the hood off, turning to him. "What do you know about my sense of direction?" Before he could answer, I saw that the car was enveloped in smoke. "What is going on?" I turned in my seat, scanning the area.
"Fires," he said. "This part of the city is burning." He cleared his throat. “We kept you sleeping for a week. It’s been busy.”
A zombie came through the smoke, stumbling, half its face a gory mess, the other half splattered with blood, the one remaining eye swiveling in its socket. It stepped into our path and Dimitri swung around it. I watched as the creature swiveled and, arms outstretched, began to stumble after us. Soon it was invisible in the thick smoke.
“All this in just a week?” I asked.
"Sometimes the world changes in an instant."
"Yes," I agreed, thinking of my father's death and how my reality shifted. I ran my hand over where the wolf bit me as I tried to save his life. It had healed by the time they opened the cabinet. The tears in my clothing remained, but underneath, my skin was smooth.
Dimitri placed his hand on my thigh again. "I'm okay," I said.
"I told you, I like t
ouching you."
The smoke thinned revealing abandoned streets. "Are they evacuating the city?"
"Quite the opposite," Dimitri said. "They are quarantining it."
"Will that help?"
"Nothing will help."
I turned in my seat again, staring around, trying to figure out where we were. I recognized the street, but without people, it seemed foreign, like we were in a different world. Dimitri took a left, and I recognized the block—it usually bustled with people. Today, it was clogged with cars, their lights turned off, empty, blocking the street. Dimitri eased up behind them and then pulled to a stop. "We'll have to walk from here."
"Okay," I took off my seat belt. "Why would people just leave their cars?" Dimitri looked over at me, his eyes unfocused as he stared at me. "What?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," he answered, leaning toward me. He sniffed my hair. "There is something about you...I can't…" He shook his head, a brief expression of frustration crossing his brow.
I reached into the back seat for my violin. "I need to go home," I said, pressing my will against his.
He touched my cheek as I pulled the violin toward me, just a slight brush of his warm fingers against my skin before he turned to his door. Instantly, he was opening mine and offering his hand. I took it and stood.
Dimitri turned suddenly—a zombie appeared from the smoke, staggering toward us on unsteady legs. Once a man, the figure was bloated, the buttons on its shirt straining, his neck grotesquely mauled, part of his lips devoured. Dimitri grabbed it—the zombie struggled against him, straining its tongue toward me.
With what seemed like no effort at all, Dimitri dug his fingers into the zombie's scalp, turning it into a horrific bowling ball. I watched with fascinated horror as Dimitri pulled straight up, ripping the head loose from the neck. The body fell to the ground and Dimitri turned to me, the head in his hand, its jaw still working.
"There is only one way to kill a zombie," Dimitri said, as if we were suddenly in a civics class. "The heart does not matter." He held out his other hand, which grasped a still heart in it. Blood and gore dripped between his fingers around it.