Atonement

by Tanith Frost

  And that, I find, makes me a little sad. Not the reminder of my own loss, but that the living could lose it. I can imagine how it happened, though. The light slowly draining, even as the people who came here paid their tithes and held their fundraising suppers and judged those who experienced the light differently. Closed minds and hearts. Closed doors. A dying community, and a building left to rot.

  Now that the sun is shining through the windows, lighting the pews up in patches of red and green, there’s something almost holy again about this place. Not the kind of energy that would drive us out. It’s more akin to what this place might become when nature reclaims it, after the roof has collapsed and been replaced by a canopy of tree branches, when Mother Nature has washed clear the IN MEMORIAM name plates from beneath the windows.

  The kind of sacredness I feel under the stars.

  I take it all in, ignoring the musty scent of the carpet and the mild feelings of weakness and pain from sunlight the dark stained glass does an excellent job of filtering out. When the living let this place die, they left a surprisingly secure fortress for enemies of the light.

  “You believe in God, then?” I ask him. I never have before. It’s never mattered.

  He leans his head back against the wooden divider behind us. “Not in the sense I was supposed to when I was alive. But now that I understand the power that’s in us and in the life we lost, I acknowledge that there’s something there. Something that wants nothing to do with us, certainly. But I don’t have answers beyond that.”

  I knock the toe of my boot against his lower leg. “Not the worst way to be, maybe. I overthink everything.”

  He smiles. “There’s no shame in asking questions. If there is, we’re no better off than whoever let the light die here. Take off your boots.”

  “Sorry?”

  He scoots around so he’s sitting in front of me. “We should check your ankle.”

  I wrinkle my nose. Among the benefits of being dead are the fact that bacteria aren’t especially keen on hanging around our un-rotting flesh, making illness and bodily odours less of an issue. We don’t sweat much, either, possibly thanks to the fact that our bodies don’t give a damn about overheating unless we’re on fire. Still, whipping my old boots off after wearing them for a few days doesn’t seem appealing.

  “Aviva,” he says, obviously noting my hesitation. “I’ve bandaged your wounds. I’ve seen you throw up blood and coffee on separate occasions. I’ve…” he trails off. “It’s fine.”

  I scowl at him, but unlace my boots. “You reading my mind, too?”

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “Genevieve has a gift.”

  “Fantastic.” He grimaces, and I imagine he’s running through his mental record of his thoughts since he met the old vampire.

  Nice to know he’s as uncomfortable with it as I am, even if he habitually guards himself. I’ll have to ask for lessons.

  “Could have been worse,” he says as he pulls my sock down and runs his fingers over my ankle. The swelling has gone down, but I flinch when he presses hard on the bruise.

  I almost defend myself, pointing out that I haven’t been complaining and don’t need his platitudes. Then I realize he’s not reassuring me.

  He’s reassuring himself.

  I stretch forward and take his hands in mine. “It could have been. It wasn’t. You trained me well.”

  He clears his throat. “I abandoned you last year.”

  “I survived. And you had your reasons.”

  “I was scared.” He looks up at me, questioning. Wondering whether that changes how I see him, maybe.

  “I know.” And I do. I knew he was afraid of feeling something he shouldn’t for me, and I think I’m beginning to understand it now, myself. The further I stray from the path I assumed I was on, the riskier this all seems.

  I study his face in the dim light. He’s as breathtakingly handsome as he was the day I met him, but that’s not what draws me to him now. Not pure physical desire, though that’s there, too. It’s just him. His power. His uncertainty. His willingness to take a chance on me, over and over. His strength. His darkness, which I feel reflected so perfectly in myself.

  I cross my legs and pull myself closer to him. “Daniel?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you scared now?”

  “More than ever.” He looks away. “Not of the Blood Defenders or Helena Slade or Viktor. I can deal with them. I’m still not sure about you.”

  He’s only touching my ankle, but it’s sending electric tingles up my thighs, reminding me of what I’ve been missing out on while we’ve been apart.

  I squeeze my eyes closed. I could just accept that he feels something for me, figure things out as we go along. But if he feels anything for me, it can’t be based on a lie. If he likes me for myself, for my differences and my weaknesses as much as the strengths he sees in me, I need to know that includes all of it.

  Every mistake.

  Every scar.

  And I need to know I can trust him.

  “Daniel, there are a few things you should know about what happened at the sanctuary after you left.” My voice cracks. “I slept with Silas.”

  His skin turns paler than it usually is, and his jaw muscles tighten.

  “He wasn’t what we thought,” I add. “I mean, he was a complete asshole in a lot of ways, you weren’t wrong about that. But the werewolves have reasons for being the way they are and for hating us. We got past that, though, and he became a friend. With certain benefits. He helped me out of a few tight spots.”

  He nods slowly. “Anything else?” I can’t read him now, and his voice isn’t giving me anything, either.

  “I fed on him.” Daniel winces, but I go on. “I was starving after the elders pulled Delvin and the other stock back to town. It wasn’t easy for an alpha werewolf to let it happen, but he did. That’s the only reason I had the strength to get through what came after.”

  “Well.” Daniel rubs the back of his neck, then sits in silence for long enough that I want to scream at him to say something.

  “I can’t say I blame you for taking blood where you could get it,” he says at last, though it’s clearly hard for him. “Obviously it helped you survive. I could even thank him for that if he were here.”

  “Good.” God. I hadn’t realized how this was eating away at me until it came out into the open.

  “As for the rest of it,” he says, and his brow furrows. He looks at me at last, but I wish he wouldn’t. Anger or indifference would be easier to stomach than the struggle I see in his eyes. “I can’t say I enjoy the thought of you with anyone else, vampire or not. But that’s my problem.” He seems to be studying me in a new light. “I have no right to dictate who you should want or what you do. I made you. I don’t own you.” He sits up straighter, and a wary look crosses his face. “He was in human form when you—”

  “Yes. God, yes.” I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. It’s okay. Of course it is. Did I really expect him to be possessive?

  That’s not what we are.

  He leans back against the communion table and takes my other foot in his hands, tracing small circles over my skin. “Does Miranda know?”

  “She does. There’s not much I was able to keep from her. She wasn’t pleased.”

  “No. It’s rather a major breach of… well, everything. But you haven’t hurt anyone. You did what you needed. What you wanted.” He narrows his eyes. “You haven’t been worried about telling me, have you?”

  “Oh, no. Not more than twenty hours a day.”

  He nods slowly. “And what’s the other thing?”

  I freeze. “The… other thing?”

  “There’s more to it than sex and blood. Important things, certainly, but there’s something else.”

  I grit my teeth. “How do you know?”

  “You were dreaming yesterday. When I checked on you, your eyes were closed, but moving. You took a breath.”

  It feels like there’s
a rock in my stomach. No point trying to hide now, though. So I tell him everything, from our last phone conversation at the sanctuary to the day our clan abandoned me with two packs of werewolves. The power that flowed through me when Silas died, my connection to his pain. The scar it left behind.

  “It doesn’t affect me much,” I hasten to add when he doesn’t react. “I think I’m able to stretch my feeds out longer, but nothing has changed, essentially. I’m still me. Still a vampire. I still crave blood as much as I ever have. I’m just…” I shrug. “Hardier? Though having that power in me isn’t pleasant. It’s like how our power turns aggressive in the presence of theirs, but it’s always happening in me.”

  He frowns.

  “And I dream, which isn’t much of an advantage as far as I can see.”

  Daniel stands and paces around the table. “What’s their power like?”

  “You didn’t feel it when you were there?”

  He turns back to me with that look of his, the one that threatens to dig far deeper into me than I want anyone to see. “Not as you seem to. I feel the instinctive aversion you describe, certainly. But not their power as a distinct entity.”

  I chew my lower lip as I think that through. I never asked another vampire whether they sensed it. I assumed we all did.

  “It’s too bright and forceful,” I tell him. “Too hot. And the void in me recoils from that. It’s like one big predator meeting another and wanting to fight. Silas’ blood was a bit like that, too. His life was like a human’s, but so much more. I guess I sort of got used to it when I stayed with all of them, even if I never learned to like it. And whatever it is that’s in me isn’t exactly like how it feels being around a werewolf. It’s more like a scar or an echo or something. But I still have this war going on inside of me. I’ve had to learn to contain it.”

  “No wonder you’ve seemed so troubled.” His smile is tight. “I wouldn’t have known it was there if I hadn’t seen you dreaming. There’s certainly nothing repulsive about you, if that makes you feel any better about it.”

  I stand and limp toward him. “I’m glad to hear I’m not nauseating you.” Despite my attempt at humour, my voice is a little shaky. “That’s all there is to tell. So does knowing all of that make you less scared?”

  “Oh, infinitely more so.” He brushes my hair back from my face and tucks loose strands behind one ear, then rests his hand against my cheek. Long moments stretch out as he looks deep into my eyes. I want to look away.

  I don’t. Instead, I open myself as well as I know how. He can’t read my mind, but maybe he can feel me as I feel him, at least a little.

  “You’re right,” he says. “You’re still you. Maybe more so.”

  “You’re really not upset?”

  His fingers trail down my throat. I shiver. “There was a time when I’d have been horribly jealous. Maybe I still am, but I’ve learned a few things over the course of my life and death. Every experience helps form who we are.” Creases appear beside his eyes, though he doesn’t quite smile. “I’ve watched you grow since the day I took you for training, discovering your power, building your armour, expanding your ideas of yourself and the world. I’ve admired you for it. I’d become comfortable in my ideas about our world and who I was before I met you, and you… you were like a bomb thrown at the walls of the fortress I hadn’t even realized I was constructing.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment, Daniel.”

  “Maybe it’s not. You’re not something I asked for. I’m entirely sure that you’re destroying me.”

  “But?”

  He leans closer, and I shiver as his lips brush the curve of my ear. “But nothing can last forever. Not even me. And after a year apart, I’m certain that your sweet destruction is preferable to a thousand years of safety without you.”

  I turn my head and catch his lips with mine, wrap my arms around his neck, and pull him close. Rising on my toes sends a sharp pain up my leg from my injured ankle, but I barely notice it. I tangle my hands in his thick hair as his hands caress my back under my shirt, pressing my body against his.

  His tongue traces my lower lip. I tighten my grip, holding him tight as I tilt my head so my fangs scrape his flesh, giving him a deeper taste of my venom. His kisses grow more urgent, like he’s just remembered the absolute bliss of what we’ve been missing out on for so long. I pull my sweater and t-shirt over my head as his nimble fingers undo my belt and my jeans, which he slides over my hips. They fall to the floor, and I kick them aside.

  Faint goosebumps rise on my arms and legs as I stand exposed in the chill of the abandoned church, clad only in the pretty but impractical black underthings I was wearing when we left the home.

  Daniel steps half a pace back, leaving room for him to trace my curves with both hands as he studies me with the eye of a collector eyeing a piece of fine art. “God, you’re beautiful,” he whispers.

  It’s not the hunger he’s approached me with before, which would be far more acceptable for a vampire. The awe in his voice now is borderline sacrilege.

  I reach behind me and unhook my bra, letting it join the rest of my clothes on the floor, then slowly unbutton his shirt and strip him to the waist, trailing kisses up his stomach and chest as I expose the pale skin, running my fingers over the hard planes of his body. Energy stirs within me—my power, waking my body, heightening my awareness of his touch, the cool, lifeless skin beneath my hands and tongue, the sharp sting of bliss as he tilts my head back and sinks his fangs deep into the flesh of my shoulder.

  I draw a ragged breath and close my eyes as his poison diffuses slowly outward from his bite. He licks away the thin, weak blood that oozes from the wounds. Entirely useless for feeding, but it’s blood. It’s me.

  He slips a hand between my legs and draws one finger slowly over the crease beneath the silky fabric, teasing. Exploring.

  I reach for his belt, but he pushes my hand away.

  “You told me last time that you wanted to take things slower,” he murmurs against my neck.

  “I was so wrong. I need you. Now.”

  “No.” He pulls me closer to the edge of the platform and moves to a lower step, then drops to his knees, placing gentle, adoring kisses on my lower belly as his hands cup my ass. His lips trail lower, and he hooks his fingers under the thin fabric of my panties. I curl my fingers tight into his hair, silently pleading him to move faster as the fabric slips lower, exposing me one torturous inch at a time until gravity takes over and the silk and lace fall.

  He opens me with his tongue, tasting my desire like he tasted my blood. My thighs part, inviting him deeper, allowing him to trace every sensitive fold and crease, though he carefully avoids the spot where I most want to feel him.

  “Daniel, please,” I gasp as I brace my hands against him, taking some of the weight from my rapidly weakening legs.

  He slips one hand between my thighs again, and his fingers join his tongue in his explorations, alternating smooth caresses with quick, flickering touches. His other hand seeks out my left breast, massaging and pinching in perfect time with his motions below.

  I’m halfway mad with his teasing when he slips one finger into me, quickly joined by a second. He’s still perfectly in control, following my cues—the gasps of breath I don’t need, the little moans I’m trying to hold back so as not to wake the dead—increasing speed and pressure. It’s as though my power, my senses, and my self are all concentrated in one point of my body. It’s only when he focuses his tongue and finally touches me exactly where I need him, sending waves of pleasure radiating through my cold body, that I’m aware the rest of me still exists at all.

  I bite my lip hard enough that my right fang draws blood as I try to keep from crying out. My legs tremble. He moves his hands to my ass, supporting some of my weight, but doesn’t stop.

  Thank God.

  I open my eyes. The cross on the wall seems to be looming over us, its stark, bare lines casting an imaginary shadow.

  In anoth
er time, another place, another lifetime, I’d feel ashamed of my exposed skin and the pure lust I’m drowning in. But not here. Not now.

  My body is not a sin. It is a temple for those I wish to invite to worship. This is rapture. This is heaven.

  I tilt my head back and let go, pressing my body harder against him, leaving myself helpless and trembling under his touch, releasing the dangers of the world outside, letting it all drown under waves of pure ecstasy.

  But I need more.

  “Stop,” I gasp, and pull him back by his hair. He withdraws his fingers and rises. I expect a smug grin, something that acknowledges his victory, but whatever’s going on in his mind leaves no room for humour.

  He kisses me again, long and deep, and I taste myself mixed with his venom. I melt against him.

  I hate that he makes me weak, but I never want it to stop.

  He bends slightly and picks me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist. He turns and sets me on the communion table, then leans forward, forcing me to lie back in a patch of red stained-glass light that covers my face and my upper body in a wine-coloured blush.

  It’s not an altar, but I feel like a sacrifice. I tremble as he steps back, partly from the cold, partly from orgasmic aftershocks… and fear. The way he’s looking at me scares me. There’s no joy in it. Only raw desire and determination.

  I could ask whether he’s okay. Instead, I arch my back and stretch my arms over my head, displaying everything he wants. Someone once told me that we are chaos; today, I am temptation.

  He’s dropped the pretence of control. His hands move impossibly quickly as he undoes his belt and strips his lower body, and then he’s running his hands up my thighs and pulling me closer as he steps into the red light that washes over his skin. He places one hand against my chest, holding me still as he enters me with a series of slow thrusts, each one deeper than the last until he’s filling me, watching me, daring me to look into his eyes.

  I don’t. I watch his body as it moves against mine, muscles contracting and releasing, faster and then slower. It should be weird that he’s not breathing, but this, too, is perfectly right. He’s like me. Cold skin, no heartbeat to confuse things, no weakness to hold him back. Even the daylight outside is no match for the energy flowing between us.