Because the Night (The Night Songs Collection)

by Strassel, Kristen

  Tristan healed fast, and the blood congealed almost immediately. He still had the knife in hand, his arm stretched out loosely, making it just out of my reach. I couldn’t pull myself away from him enough to get it. I brought my bloody lips to his mouth, biting down hard on his lip. Laughing, he pushed me back by my shoulders, the sharp blade dangerously close to my own skin. I flinched, not wanting it to cut me.

  “Take it.” His voice was barely more than a raspy whisper.

  He handed me the knife. My hands trembled around the handle, which looked and felt like it was made of bone. The edge of the blade still glistened with his blood. I didn’t want to know where he had gotten this knife from. I looked from the blade back to Tristan who looked impatient, waiting for me to do something, anything.

  I slowly brought the blade down to his skin, hovering in the small hollow between his collarbones. He swallowed hard, and with the small distance between the knife and his skin, the usually invisible rise and fall of his chest was magnified. It took everything I had to keep my hand steady. With a blade of this quality, a heavy hand would do serious damage.

  I rested the blade against his skin, seeing the blood pool on either side of the blade on contact. I ran it down a few inches. Tristan’s hips bucked under my legs. I traced along the wound with my left hand, and then brought my bloody fingers up to my mouth. Electricity flowed through my body. I’d never felt such control in my life.

  I hinged down by my hips, writhing slightly against Tristan’s groin, and sliced the blade in a swirling pattern down the length of his chest, my tongue following my designs closely not to waste a drop of his blood. I could see every tiny vellus hair on his abdomen stand to attention. He shuddered below me. Drunk on blood and power, I curled my spine back so I could work at the taut muscle below his belly button.

  Before I had a chance to continue, he grabbed me hard by my wrists, pulling himself up from underneath me as well. Tristan pushed me in front of him, on my knees, and guided my face down towards the pillows. He undid my jeans, pushing them down roughly while suspending my lower half in mid air. I dropped the knife beside me on the pillow, not wanting to slice myself open. Once he had me back down on my knees, he slid my panties down to my knees and parted my thighs.

  “You need to quit that job.”

  “This isn’t the time to talk about this.” I could barely speak.

  “It’s as good a time as any.” He ran his hand lightly down the outside of my thigh, tracing it back up to the curve of my behind. “It’s dangerous for you to be there.”

  “Why?” I wished he’d just stop talking. This was torture. I could barely process anything he said right now.

  Tristan moved up my body, so his mouth rested against my ear and his arm loosely wrapped around my waist. “Because the longer you work there, the more outrageous I’m going to act when I come visit. The thing on the bar? Nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you next time. In fact, Calliope, it’s going to go something like this.” He moved his hands up to my breasts.

  I wriggled free, annoyed. “Don’t ever call me that.”

  “Why?” He seemed generally surprised. “It’s adorable.”

  “It’s horrible.” I knelt down a bit more comfortably. “And people only call me that when they’re contemplating my death.”

  “Maybe that’s what I’m doing, Calliope.” He grazed his teeth against the scar tissue on my neck.

  I shuddered. From the use of my full name, to what he said, to the sensation of his teeth against the very same spot he’d punctured so violently before, I did my best to hold in my scream. He’d find that way too amusing.

  “That’s it. We’re done.” I reached down to pull my panties up. “I’m not doing this anymore.”

  He scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

  His hand moved over mine before I had a chance to finish the task. His other hand brought my hips back up in the air. I didn’t protest. His tongue made its way into the curve of where my thigh met the curve of my bottom, and all the breath left my body. The top part of my body went limp as he worked his mouth around, sucking and teasing. I couldn’t help but be terrified; those sharp teeth in such a delicate area. What would he do? Once he pushed his tongue inside me, I didn’t care anymore. I concentrated on breathing, because if I didn’t, I might forget. His fingers explored and massaged me as he worked his magic with his tongue.

  He kept his hands on me as he withdrew his mouth from me. With him behind me, I couldn’t see what he was doing, and I kind of liked it that way. The surprise and the Bloodlust intertwined made everything that much more intense. I could see through my legs that Tristan had risen up straight on his knees, now stripped bare. With a push, he entered me and I gasped as he moved against me. Inside me.

  My muscles pulsed and I saw stars as my body collapsed on the bed. He followed my body down, not quite finished yet. I wasn’t even sure I was on the same planet. When he reached his climax with a groan, he wrapped his arms around my ribcage and buried his face in my hair.

  Neither of us moved or spoke for a long time. I couldn’t measure time right now. I didn’t care.

  “I want to keep you safe, beautiful.” His raspy voice broke the silence. “I know I have a funny way of showing it, but it would kill me if anything happened to you.”

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Stillness greeted me as I made my way down the walkway towards my apartment. Nothing about it comforted me. After all the extra activity this week, something seemed odd. Maybe it was just the Bloodlust.

  As usual, I had to dig to the bottom of my purse to retrieve my keys. Why did everything I used the most always wind up underneath everything else? A strong, coppery scent overwhelmed me as I put the key in the lock.

  Blood. But where? Nothing looked odd. A gentle breeze made me jump. I held my breath, chilled by the smell.

  The lights were still on in the room but Janelle didn’t greet me. She must have fallen asleep at her computer. I headed over to her bed with the intention of shutting off the lights and pulling her blanket over her and stopped short, screaming.

  Blood soaked her entire bed. The black and white zebra print had become obscured by the dull reddish brown of drying blood.

  I couldn’t stop screaming.

  Her body lay broken on the bed. Her neck, sternum, and belly looked like someone had gnawed on it. Her eyes still held the expression of shock, wide open, and her mouth was frozen open in a silent scream. Her blood soaked through her hot pink shag rug.

  I fell to my knees, sobbing, screaming still. I hugged myself hard to make sure that this was real and not one of my nightmares.

  Someone banged on the door, responding to my cries. It took me a minute to realize what they wanted. I crawled to the door, pulling myself up by the handle. I couldn’t speak when I opened the door. I’m sure my face said it all.

  It was Lindsay, our next door neighbor and one of Janelle’s friends. “Callie, what the hell is going on?” I still couldn’t speak. “Callie, let me in. Something is obviously very wrong.”

  Lindsay pushed her way passed me, which was just as well. I couldn’t move. Seconds later she started screaming as well. I leaned against the door jamb and my body slid silently back down to the floor. I might have fainted.

  A sleepy crowd began to gather in the hallway. No one could sleep through such shrill alarms. I looked up at them blankly, still too stunned to speak.

  “What the hell did you do to her?” Lindsay crawled over to me, yanking my face to hers by my hair.

  “You think I did this?” I could barely manage a whisper.

  “Aren’t you involved in some crazy fucking blood ritual?”

  I registered murmurs outside. “I didn’t do this.”

  I leaned my head back against the jam as people stepped over me to comfort Lindsay. No one seemed to care about me. Everyone would rather believe the rumors. And I was the outsider, the weirdo. The one involved with the vampires. Which they all clamored to use to their advantage
until it was time to start pointing fingers. I forced myself to look back into my apartment, now flashing blue and red from the emergency lights outside the window.

  I hadn’t noticed before that her posters had been ripped off the wall and a message scrawled in its place. I screamed again when I read it, startling the crowd.

  The bloody writing said I came for you.

  I knew my body was headed to the floor but I faded into blackness before I hit it.

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  I woke up in the complex clubhouse. Someone had wrapped me in a blanket, and placed a cool cloth on my forehead before laying me on the couch. It took me a minute to realize where I was. The smell made me jump, the harsh detergents in the cloth and blankets, the stale beer and spilled food wafting up from the couch cushions, the slap of sex coming from my own body. The copper blood smell stuck in my nose.

  Janelle was dead.

  The door to the common room had been closed and the TV shut off. Two women I didn’t know sat uncomfortably across from me. They’d probably been willing me to come to. They had folders and papers in their lap. One was a police officer. The other I recognized from the complex office. They didn’t want to comfort me.

  They wanted to interrogate me.

  I didn’t say anything. I blinked to make sure what I looked at stayed the same. They reeked of coffee, something I would kill for right now. My head pounded. I really wanted to be alone, able to break down at the loss of Janelle without an audience, but that was a luxury that would have to wait.

  Lennon and Amanda huddled together in the corner of the room, an odd union, comforting each other.

  “Would you like some water, Callie?” One of the ladies asked me. She seemed kind enough, almost motherly. I nodded, and then winced. Would they piece it together? That my roommate was dead and my boyfriend was missing?

  I scooted up on the cushions when she came back with the glass of ice water, not sitting up completely yet. The room spun even with that slight movement. The cold water almost hurt my dry throat on the way down. I could feel it making its way through my body, bringing it back to life. I took several large sips as the ladies sat and watched. When I put the glass down on the coffee table, they took that as a signal I was ready to talk.

  “Can you tell us what happened? What you saw?” The same lady who brought me the water asked.

  “I came home from a friend’s house and found her like that.”

  “Do you know what time?”

  I thought about it for a minute. “It was late. Everything happened fast, so minutes before the ambulance showed up.”

  “Was there any sign of forced entry? Of a struggle?”

  “The door was locked.” Who would lock the door after such a thing? “I don’t know if there was any struggle. I’ve never seen anything like that before. She was exactly as I found her, so I guess you would be able to tell? I don’t know.”

  “This is just a formality, but you are her roommate, so we have to ask you where you were last night.”

  “I was at my friend’s house.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  I sighed. “Tristan Trevosier.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come up with a better story than that, Callie?” The officer looked annoyed. The other lady looked shocked.

  “No.” I didn’t let her intimidate me. “That’s where I was. Call him.”

  “We will.” Matter of factness returned to her tone. “One last question for you before I leave you with Susan. Can you tell us why you have blood in your hair?”

  My eyes widened as my hand darted up to the crusty curls matted with blood. I hadn’t even looked at myself before I left Tristan. It had been dim in the apartment, the lights from the street below offered enough lighting without being harsh. I should have known after slicing him with the knife I’d be covered in his blood.

  I took a deep breath before trying to explain myself. “Tristan is a vampire.” The officer rolled her eyes, I’m sure she’d dealt with her fair share of vultures and crazy vampire related nonsense in the past. “So when we are, um, together, there’s blood involved.”

  “Do you know that participating in blood play is a misdemeanor in Nevada?”

  “I didn’t.” I wanted to turn to see Lennon’s reaction but I couldn’t without drawing any unnecessary reactions.

  “Whether or not your friend, Tristan, is a vampire or not we don’t legally recognize. But we can regulate the blood play. You’ll probably be charged, but you won’t go to jail. You’ll just have to pay a fine, since this is your first offense.”

  I nodded, falling back into the scratchy cushions. It was all too much for my brain to process.

  “Thank you for answering my questions, Callie.” The officer said as she rose. “Here’s my card if you remember anything else you think may help the investigation. And I’m sorry about your roommate.”

  The other woman, Susan, watched the officer leave the room and close the door before turning back to me.

  “How are you feeling?”

  She couldn’t be serious. “Horrified, devastated, terrified. Sick.”

  Susan nodded. “Of course. Unfortunately, your apartment is now considered an active crime scene, and we can’t let you in right now. But as soon as the police are done with their investigation, we can reevaluate whether or not you would be able to keep the apartment.”

  My mouth dropped as my mind wrapped itself around her words. I already planned to never return to that place. Then I processed I could possibly be facing homelessness.

  “I need my things.” My whole life was in there.

  “I understand.” Susan nodded. “It will only be a couple days at most.”

  “You can stay with me.” Lennon volunteered from the corner. I never loved her more than I did at this moment.

  I looked down at my rumpled, dirty clothes, the smell of my union with Tristan sickening me. I pulled the dirty blanket around me, more protectively than for warmth.

  “I need my clothes.” I had been robbed of everything. I just wanted to feel clean.

  “Can your friend lend you something for the time being?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” There was no use fighting with her.

  She got up to head back into her office now that she could check me off of her list of things to do for the day. “Just so you know, what you do with him is a sin.”

  “What did you say?”

  “It’s a sin. Your boyfriend belongs to Satan. He’s going to drain your soul. He will leave nothing for God.”

  Stunned, I pushed my head back on the pillow. Susan wasn’t the first person who didn’t approve of me, but she was the first to mention my inevitable eternal damnation.

  “What a fucking bitch.” Lennon cradled my limp body in her arms as soon as Susan left the room. Amanda stood in the back, her face gray from the shock of the morning. She asked us to keep her posted if we heard anything, and headed back home to sort things out for herself. She would hear from different people than we would. Maybe together we could piece things together.

  All the blinds were still closed in Lennon’s apartment, a side effect of a nocturnal human lifestyle. Her perfume hung heavily in the air. Immediately I felt at home. As I would expect from Lennon, she’d decked out her adorable place in mid century and retro décor.

  I collapsed on the couch, reminded too much of Blade’s living room, and began sobbing all over again. Lennon sat on the cushion next to me and rubbed my back as I cried. Finally I could let go and mourn Janelle.

  Once I exhausted myself, still gulping for air, I looked up at Lennon, wiping my face on my sleeve. She smiled sadly at me. “What’s your poison, doll?”

  “What?”

  “If I was having the shit day you are having, I’d want to get drunk.”

  She actually made me smile. “No. Thank you. Just water please.”

  Minutes later Lennon returned carrying a tin tray with a tall glass of ice water garnished with l
ime and a pink curly straw, and what looked like a martini for herself.

  “Cheers.” She clinked her glass against mine, getting my lips to curl up once again. “Tell me what happened.”

  I recounted the whole awful morning for her, dissolving in to tears once again. “The worst part is they were coming for me. Janelle didn’t deserve this. No one does. All these people, the crazy girl at the show, Blade, and now Janelle keep getting hurt. Or killed. All because of me. And now I’ve dragged you into it!”

  “No.” Lennon reassured me as she rubbed my back again. “Sweetie, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt you.”

  “But they do!” I cried. “The girl at the bar said she wanted to teach me a lesson, and there was that horrible message on the wall above Janelle. They wanted me. And Talis is torturing Blade to hurt me. If she’s behind all of this,” I gasped for breath. “She needs to stop fucking with everyone else and just come for me. It’s not fair.”

  “I don’t know. She hasn’t been in the bar since that night we saw her with Blade.”

  “Of course, she’s been gunning for me.” My face dropped back into my hands. “I want Blade so bad right now. And I can’t have him. I want Tristan, and I can’t have him until sundown since he’s a God damn vampire. And you know what else? I don’t care anymore if no one understands how I feel about both of them. It’s no one’s business but mine.”

  “That’s my girl!” Lennon’s voice brightened. “You don’t have to answer to anyone!”

  “But I do. Everyone. All the time, yelling at me, saying horrible things. Even that office lady. They have no idea what’s going on. And if it wasn’t for you, I would have been stuck with nowhere to go until Tristan woke from the dead or whatever he does.”

  “You can stay here for as long as you want.”

  “Thank you. You don’t know how much that means.” I touched Lennon’s hands and met her eyes, which shined with unshed tears. “Did you know that blood play is a misdemeanor in Nevada?”