She whispered, “Something’s happening here, Max. Do you not feel that? Your orgasms, my…” She broke off with a funny little laugh and leapt out of the bed.
As the day drew on, she grew increasingly restless. She prowled to the window, looking for any darkening of the eternal gloom. Yet she didn’t leave.
At last, she swung round from the window.
“Max, it’s happening,” she said urgently. “It’s happening now. It hurts, it always hurts so you mustn’t…” She broke off with a grunt of pain, dropping onto her knees with the agony. Before Max’s fascinated gaze, she tore off his shirt that she’d been wearing on and off all day, and then her beautiful, sexy little body began to change, lengthening and contorting, sprouting hair. At the same time, her face altered, her nose and mouth pushing outward, and her uncontrollable mewl of pain became an animal howl.
Her pain broke through Max’s paralysis. He went to her, touching her furry head, kneeling with her and keeping his hand helplessly upon her while the transformation completed. Eventually, she stood there, the small, graceful white wolf he remembered seeing with Will all those months ago. Gradually, her trembling body calmed. She turned her head up and looked at him with April’s eyes, large and liquid, unbearably sad, yet already resigned to his rejection.
Emotion rose up in Max like a tide, flooding him with self-knowledge, with feelings he’d neither known nor wanted. He slid his arms around her neck, burying his face in the soft fur of her head.
“April, my little wolf,” he whispered. “I would die just to bring a tiny bit of happiness to only one of your days…”
The wolf laid her head on his shoulder and softly licked his neck.
Chapter Six
The warmth of Max’s acceptance filled her as she ran, clothed her in calm and freedom. Never had she enjoyed a change like this one. Hard as it had been to accept herself, she had followed her instincts before tonight, done what nature compelled. But this night, running beside Max, there was an exhilaration she had never known before, even with Will.
Together, they sped along the long, broken roads, leaping over walls and through windows to scavenge for food, to hunt. Max was as fast as she, could jump higher so that he appeared to be flying, and had almost perfect balance. It was a joy to be with him like this, more gratifying still to sense his own enjoyment. Wryly, she thought they were both somewhat surprised to discover they were actually having fun.
In the shell of a recently burned out house, April could smell blood. Her hackles rose. She craved meat. And there were bodies still here. Even as she watched Max’s sensitive nostrils pick up the same smell, she caught another scent altogether, that of a living human.
Instinctively, she moved closer to Max, to give protection rather than receive it, but the touch of his hand on her head was indescribably soothing. And then, from an upstairs room, the human spoke.
His voice was loud and angry, terrified and pleading. He said, “Mummy!”
Max turned away with distaste. April only understood her fears when she recognized her own relief at Max’s reaction. She already knew he no longer killed when he fed, hadn’t for years -- apart from his lapse the night she first met him. Now she saw another line he didn’t cross. Yet these emotions played out only in the background of her mind. At the forefront was the child’s cry.
It paralyzed her, chilled her, drew her. Determinedly, she walked across the room to the battered stairs.
“April,” Max warned. Quickly, she trotted back to him, seized his hand between her teeth, drew him with her. He came so reluctantly, she knew he didn’t yet trust this side of her. She forgave him that. There was time. She hoped there was time for everything.
At the top of the stairs, they found the bodies, a man and a woman, spattered with congealed blood. And between them, a child, pointlessly tugging at their gory clothes to make them get up, cuddle him, feed him…
This was the everyday tragedy of violence Will was trying to end. Here, now, April saw with new sharpness that it had to happen. There had to be law here. Hell, right now she’d join Lara’s police herself…
Max’s fist closed on the scruff of her neck, holding her back. The baby stopped crying and stared at them from his dirty, miserable face. April looked up at Max, willing him to understand.
Slowly, his fingers loosened on her fur. He drew in a breath, stepped forward and picked up the child. The baby looked over Max’s shoulder and again said, “Mummy.”
April heard the whine of her own distress. In her human form she would have wept.
Hastily, she turned and trotted downstairs again. At the foot she stopped and watched Max carry the silent child. He looked neither awkward nor comfortable. There was no way of telling his feelings on the matter. Except that he did what she asked.
* * *
If Will was surprised to see Max enter his den carrying a child and shepherded by the wolf that was April, he didn’t show it.
The den was quiet, guarded by two watching wolves outside. This return to discipline and safety was clearly Will’s influence. In the months after the lupi had driven him away, they had fallen into the bad habits that had let the hunters get so close. Now they’d had enough -- their fear of death outweighed their fear of Will and he had, besides, given them new hope. Humans with influence spoke to them as if they were worthy of life, as if their point of view counted.
Lara was asleep on a cushion, the severity of her features smoothed out into a beauty that made her appear much younger. For the first time, April realized the other woman was not so much older than she was. It was just that Lara had always embraced her responsibilities, and April had always escaped from hers. That ended now.
At the far side of the room, two lupi were going through the painful transformation of morning. April’s change wasn’t far away. For the first time ever, she regretted it. Hunting with Max, just running with him, had brought them closer, given her a new pleasure she had never expected.
Max paused several steps into the room, taking everything in. His eyes lingered on the newly repaired ceiling.
Will, in his human form, came toward them. “Max,” he said, actually holding out his hand although his gaze was on the baby. “How -- unexpected.”
Max looked at the hand. “The infant? His parents were murdered and he seemed to be alone. April wanted me to bring him.”
“Then you and April have reached some -- understanding?” His hand was still steady. Slowly, Max stretched out his own hand and took it. The shake was brief but definite. Satisfied, April lay down, and waited for the pain to take her.
The touch of Max’s hand made it more bearable. In fact, it was curiously sweet to recover with him gently stroking her hair. He even took off his coat and wrapped it round her naked shoulders to keep her warm. Curiously, she smelled him on it now, subtle, spicy, faintly animal. Like herself.
Will watched this little tableau expressionlessly. Jane, one of the female lupi, had taken the child from Max, was feeding it from a battered plastic cup. Jane, April knew, had a child of her own. She swallowed, terrified.
Suddenly she felt very tired -- tired and dizzy and just a little sick -- and yet there were things to discuss before she could sleep.
“Will,” she said, and obligingly, he squatted down beside her and Max. “Will, Max is old, older than the war. He knows about the atmosphere, and radiation. He’s a scientist.”
It was nice, just occasionally, to be able to surprise Will. An excited gleam lit up his eyes. He said, “I’ve read some books and papers on the subject -- my brother finds things like that. It seemed to me it wouldn’t be impossible to disperse the cloud, and let things grow again.”
“I’d have to analyze the atmosphere,” Max said, “but in theory, it could probably be done, yes.”
“And you are prepared to help do this?”
Max shrugged. “I’ll look into it. But I’ll need equipment, instruments, chemicals, some books that I don’t have. Without these things, we might as we
ll let the world repair itself. Which it will in its own time.”
“Make a list,” Will urged. “I’ll get word to David to trawl for these things and bring them home.”
“I’ll need assistants too, humans or lupi.”
Like April, Will spotted the deliberate omission. “Do vampires hate each other that much?”
Max’s smile was twisted. “My dear Will, if this works, the chances are there will be no vampires.”
April’s head snapped up from his shoulder. “What do you mean?”
Max said nothing, just stroked her hair.
Will said, “You don’t know that. The old vampire myths don’t necessarily apply. You don’t make new vampires by biting people, for example. I don’t see any reason why the sun should damage you any more than the rest of us.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Max indifferently.
“It does,” whispered April, seizing him by the shoulders. “Max, when I asked you to do this, it never entered my head that I was asking you to wipe out your species!”
He didn’t look at her, only smiled slightly. “You need sun. The Earth needs the sun. My species would be no loss. I should know. Between ourselves, I’m heartily bored with the survival at all costs scenario. I’d like you to see the sun. Even the moon, which seems to control your transformation cycle.”
“Max…”
“We can build in protection as we go along,” Will interrupted. “I don’t want to wipe out your species, Max.”
“Then you are a single voice crying in the wilderness,” Max mocked.
“I want your cooperation, Max. You don’t need to kill to survive. Couldn’t you spread the word to other vampires what we’re trying to do?”
“I suspect they know what you’re trying to do, and frankly, depriving them of darkness is hardly likely to endear you to them further.”
The two men stared at each other. April tugged at Max until his eyes came reluctantly back to her. “Max, your people are older, wiser, more experienced and knowledgeable than any of us. If you remove blood lust from the equation -- by a constant supply of some kind that doesn’t involve killing -- would they not make superb organizers, teachers, doctors…?”
Something flickered in his eyes. She knew with relief that she’d made some connection. He said, “You’re asking for a denial of instinct, a complete change of lifestyle, attitude, habit…”
“Max, you were curious enough to come here three weeks ago. Since then you’ve had a pretty major lifestyle change yourself.”
“I have you,” he said simply, and her heart melted. I have you. There was something permanent in that. It would be all right -- he felt it too…
Unconsciously, her hand slid down to her belly and held. Unfortunately, the eyes of the two men followed. Snatching her hand away again, she sat on it instead, but it was too late. She felt the intrusive brush of Will’s mind in hers, and then he leaned forward abruptly and laid his hand on her tummy.
Max’s eyes narrowed. April hastily caught the vampire’s arm to calm him.
“Oh, April,” Will murmured, as he took his hand away again.
“What’s going on?” Max asked evenly, and yet April saw that he was waiting for a blow to fall. He didn’t believe in his happiness. The years of his isolation, his loneliness and self-loathing, hit her mind like a blow. The budding telepathy between them was growing, making everything harder -- and yet surely, ultimately easier.
She said urgently, “I was waiting to tell you when we were alone, when I was sure… Well, I think Will’s just taken care of the sure thing. He’s more sensitive than any of us… Max, I’m pregnant. I thought it was anxiety upsetting my menstrual cycle, but it isn’t. I knew today why I’d been feeling so strange, when you told me how I was different for you, that only I had received your seed since you changed…”
It was Will who touched her shoulder, protectively, as if warning Max. To remove any doubt, she said firmly, “Max, the child is yours, conceived when you escaped from here three weeks ago. It’s meant, Max. For some reason, we are meant to have this child, half-vampire, half-lupi.”
Max was staring at her.
Will said, “There has never been a cross-species child. I didn’t think this was possible. I thought the best we could do was tolerate each other, even love each other…”
His eyes flew to Lara, stirring restlessly in her sleep on the other side of the room. But April couldn’t spare attention for him, not then.
With difficulty, she said, “Max, you didn’t ask for this. You didn’t even think it was possible when we did it. I don’t -- I won’t -- expect more from you than you want to give. But you have to know I will do anything and everything to nurture this baby, to bring her into the world and make it better for her.”
A second longer Max stared. There was so little given away in his eyes that she thought in despair that she’d lost him. Then his breath came out in a shudder. In one sudden movement, he seized her in his arms, crushing her to his powerful chest.
“As will I,” he said unsteadily. “As will I. For both of you.”
* * *
“What a pity we can’t live here together,” April said with regret as Max once again opened the door of his flat for her.
“Why can’t we?”
“Because I refuse to live in a house I need someone else to help me in and out of! I can’t climb up here on my own, Max!”
“Actually you can,” he said, taking her by the hand. He led her into the back room full of books. “Like lupi, vampires always have another route of escape.”
Easing back the table, he lifted the loose rug underneath it to reveal a hole in the floor. There was a sheer drop to the floor below, but Max said, “I can easily put a ladder there. Then I can show you the route out. It’s a bit circuitous, but there are no huge jumps. Anyway, in the long term, if Will has his way, they’ll soon be repairing this building, people will move back in and be quite happy to be sharing a block with a vampire-lupi family.”
“You don’t believe that,” April observed.
Max shrugged. “Oddly enough, I don’t disbelieve it. It seems lots of things are possible now.”
April put her arms around his neck and he held her close, sweeping his hands down her back to rest on her buttocks. There was no pressure, but April pushed herself into him anyway. It was gratifying how quickly his cock hardened at this slightest touch. She decided to help it along, stepping back to unzip his jeans and reach eagerly inside. His breath hissed as her fingers closed around his growing shaft.
Smiling wickedly, April dropped to her knees and tenderly drew back his foreskin, increasingly excited by the tremors which shook him. Lowering her head, she took as much of his cock into her mouth as would go, glorying in its hardness pressing against her cheek and throat. She drew back, lapping at the now rock-hard stem, and slowly gliding her tongue upward to the velvet-soft head, swirling around it as the eager moisture trickled from its tip. April licked it, tasting him and loving it.
Taking the head in her mouth, she gave a gentle suck. Max groaned, twisting his hands in her hair, urging her on. Clamping her lips harder, she slid them down the long, thick stem, as far as his balls, sucking and nibbling as she went, then back up, increasing the suction until she pulled the head hard into her mouth.
“Christ, April, if you don’t stop that I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” she asked, coming up for air.
“I’ll come right now, into your mouth.”
“Do it,” she pleaded, and sucked him hard, relaxing her muscles to take him down her throat. Her effect on him drove her on. He held her head, guiding her as she lashed him with her tongue and massaged with her throat and lips. It was quick and wild, and his seed filled her. She swallowed it down as if it were nectar, rejoicing in the shuddering strength of his climax. It aroused her to boiling point.
He opened his eyes slowly. His hands dropped to her armpits, drawing her to her feet.
“Your turn,” he sa
id deliberately and began to undress her, stripping off the jeans and sweater she had put on at the lupi den, until she stood naked before him. Slowly, wonderingly, he placed his hand on her belly. Then he smiled and swept it up over her breasts, making her gasp with the sudden pleasure.
Shrugging off what remained of his own clothes, he stepped closer, letting her feel the length and continued hardness of his cock against her body. Who ever said vampires had no stamina? With a satisfied sigh, April reached up for his mouth. He gave her it willingly, twining his tongue around hers in a deliberately arousing dance while he slipped his knee between her legs. His thigh touched the hot wetness of her aching pussy. She moaned, rubbing herself against it.
Max smiled into her mouth and lifted her, sliding his hands around her buttocks and lowering her on to his cock. April cried out at the size of the thing filling her -- it was as if she forgot each time -- and wrapped one arm around his neck.
When he released her mouth, she lowered her head, burying her face in his neck as he began to walk with her to the door. Her lips found a vein in his neck and kissed it. She began to nibble it, licking and teasing, sucking the skin into her mouth while she almost fainted from the delight of his cock moving in her.
“Max,” she gasped out. “Bite me, feed from me!”
“No,” he said raggedly, “I won’t do that again!”
“But I want you to. I want to give you my blood, share it with you. But God, more than that, I want to feel it again. I lied, Max, I loved all of that first time. I want you to push into me and suck out of me together… aah!”
She broke off, her mouth wide with ecstatic shock as his teeth suddenly pierced the skin of her neck. Lifting her, he sucked her blood with his mouth and then thrust deep inside her with his cock. April felt again the pushing-pulling stream of pleasure, and cried out with the intensity. Max growled into her neck. They bumped into the doorway, but recovering, Max began to turn, spinning with her into the main living room while he fed and fucked her together.
They collapsed on to the bed, Max’s mouth still clamped to her neck and on his next thrust, April fell into orgasm. With a tortured gasp, he tore his mouth free of her throat, yet continued to hammer her through her screams of joy, holding her there while he reached his own massive climax.
Loving the Vampire Page 6
