Don’t Bite the Messenger

by Regan Summers

  He rubbed at his side and I knew he was exaggerating. He hadn’t complained after his back had been shredded and he’d spent hours sitting in the snow during the daytime. There was no way I’d hurt him.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had it out for me.”

  “I told you five minutes ago that I didn’t like you,” I said. “What’s a girl gotta do to convince you?” He sat and roughly, but not too roughly, pulled my leg straight. He moved faster now, finishing my foot and sweeping up around the knee. At least I was toned from surfing and jogs on the beach. His hands slowed, his thumb sliding up and down the outside of my knee.

  “What is this from?”

  “Surgery,” I said. “Tore a ligament when I fell skydiving.” His hands continued up my thigh.

  “You fell out of an airplane?”

  “No. I jumped out of the airplane. Landed on a steep bank and the chute dragged me down. Quick fix. I was able to drive within a week.” An automatic, but whatever.

  “The scar on your arm?”

  “Broken glass.” A rum bottle that a boyfriend had thrown at me. I’d ducked, but he’d thrown it hard enough that a ricocheting shard had gone deep. The douche bag hadn’t let me go to the hospital, and the scar was far uglier than it could have been.

  “And the shoulder?” Cigarette burns from dear old dad. I shrugged.

  “Don’t remember. Had them since I was a kid.” My memory didn’t supply the usual queasiness I got from thinking about those marks, mostly because my here-and-now senses were focused wholeheartedly on his hand skimming the junction of my thigh and pelvis. Exactly how diligent was he going to be in his search?

  He turned, switching to my other leg and starting at the foot. His touch was firmer this time. I smiled.

  “Once McHenry gave us your name, we were able to find records.”

  My mouth went dry. I sat up, grabbing his arm. “You didn’t hurt him, did you?”

  “No. He also believed you were dead. He gave your name up willingly, hoping, I think, to clear it.”

  I slumped back, relief washing through me and leaving me limp. Good old McHenry, protecting my secrets until the last. I should send him a fruit basket.

  “Good to know that at least one person believes in me,” I said primly. Malcolm’s hands stilled again.

  “Many of the records we found, once we had your name, were in police databases and at medical clinics.”

  “What do you want me to say?” I looked away. Malcolm’s fingers absently drew circles against the outside of my thigh. I glanced down, wondering if he’d notice if I moved myself lower and to the right. “I got my ass handed to me for years. Dropped those people like the pieces of shit they were and picked up hobbies that frequently landed me in urgent care. End of story.”

  He was quiet for a few minutes, kneading the back of my thigh. I bit back a groan.

  “I didn’t believe you’d been enthralled.” Energy poured out of his hand, stinging my flesh slightly before it settled in, languid and smooth. I squirmed as my entire body heated in response.

  “Then why are you doing this?” The intensity of the current picked up, radiating up my leg.

  “As you said, I am not my own man right now.” He let go of my leg and took one of my hands between his, his thumb stroking the inside of my wrist. He was so large, a solid shadow filling the room, but his touch was as light as a breath. I had seen him in the midst of a fight, had seen what he was capable of, but with me he was utterly gentle. “It is torture to have to touch you like this.”

  “Little FYI, Mal,” I said without any heat, “when you’re trying to tell a girl you’re sorry, don’t tell her it’s torture to touch her.” I licked my lips, trying to gather my courage.

  He made a frustrated sound and ran his hand back through his hair. I could almost see his energy crackling around him. Fortune favored the bold. I sat up. His eyes tracked the falling blanket before he turned his gaze to the floor.

  “Bronson ordered you to check me for bites?” I asked. He nodded. “And to do that you have to be very thorough?” He looked back at me. I raised an eyebrow. “Did he order you to be clinical about it?”

  “Twice now you’ve told me you hate me.”

  “I said ‘dislike,’ and didn’t you tell me that you’d never believe me when I said things like that?”

  He stared at me, expressionless. But he wasn’t closing himself off from me again. Oh no. I heard his energy snap an instant before it hit me, coating me like warm oil. And then he was on top of me, slamming me against the bed, his mouth against mine. He kissed me like he’d really missed me, like he truly wanted me. It was better than that first night. His mouth slanted over mine, his fingers threaded through my hair, and I moaned when I tasted him.

  “I thought you were gone,” he murmured. I shook my head, and he lifted up on his elbows, smoothed a strand of hair back from my cheek. “I can smell the sun on your skin.”

  I ran my thumb over his lower lip. “I wonder if you can taste it?”

  He tossed aside the blanket he’d covered me with, and warm night air plucked at my suddenly sensitive skin. I shoved him onto his side, rolled against him and scrambled to undo the buttons of his shirt.

  “Slow down,” he said, his hand gliding down my back. “We have time.”

  “Slow?” I licked a lazy line up the hard column of his neck. “Like this?” His hand tightened on my ass, squeezing. I bit down lightly, and he shuddered.

  “Or like this?” I stretched up and brushed my lips against his, then reached down, gripping him through his pants. He groaned, pressing into my hand, and I smiled against his lips. “I can go slow. But I’m really good at fast.”

  “Fuck it.” He stood, undressing in a few quick motions that bounced me onto my back. He knelt on the bed and looked down at me, his eyes filled with swirling gold smoke. He lowered himself, covering me slowly with heat and hardness until his sculpted arms rested on either side of my head. His chest barely touched mine and I arched to brush against him.

  He flicked his tongue against my lips. I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled until his mouth met mine. I rolled my hips up, cradling him between my thighs, savoring the building desire. I couldn’t remember ever wanting anyone as much as I wanted him.

  Malcolm rocked against me until the delicious friction made me tear away from his mouth so that I could breathe. He slid down my body, hands feather light, mouth hot and insistent, and every single nerve lit at his touch. He slipped a hand beneath my hips and looked up. A silent request for permission. How chivalrous. I nodded. He lifted me, tilting me toward him, and at the first sliding press of his tongue, I threw my head back, crying out.

  He played me until my body ached and my blood churned through my veins, but backed off each time I began to crest. He pushed my hands away when I reached for him, trying to pull him closer, raised me higher when I arched toward him. I yelled something incoherently threatening and he chuckled, lowering me to the bed and covering my body with his.

  “Why?” I groaned, running my hand down his thick chest, over the ridges of his stomach, lower.

  “Speed bump.”

  “Hate. Those. Things.” I took his erection in my hand, stroking. His eyes half closed and his lips parted. I guided him toward me, rose to meet him and sucked in a breath as he slid inside me, slowly. So maybe slow could be good.

  We stared at each other for a minute, motionless but for the quick rise and fall of our chests. I ran my fingers along his jaw, traced his lips. His fangs extended, pressing against my fingers. I barely registered the possibility that Malcolm might want to bite me when he began to move, and I could no longer focus enough to worry.

  He surrounded me, his energy coursing over my skin as he filled my body. My blunt nails dug into hard flesh as I pulled him close, surging up to meet each long thrust. Heat burst through me, and every muscle tightened as I shattered around him.

  I opened my eyes—which I didn’t recall closing—and laughe
d softly. Malcolm’s hand twined in my hair. His forehead rested against my collarbone. He rocked gently. My smile faded. He was moving in time with my pulse.

  “Malcolm?”

  He shook his head, hair sliding across my throat. I dug my heels into the bed, trying to push myself out from under him. His hand tightened in my hair, and I stopped. He growled, the sound drilling into the bones of my chest. I began to tremble, spilled pleasure giving way to icy fear. He raised his head. His eyes were closed and a deep line ran between them. His fangs had fully dropped, wet and wickedly curved. He opened his eyes…and struck.

  I screamed, caught between his arms, beneath the unyielding weight of his body. I squirmed upward until I could turn to see what he’d done. He raised his head, and I stared at the jagged twin slashes in his arm. Adrenaline and relief coursed through me.

  “What the fuck did you do that for?”

  His eyes fixed on me, the golden glow diminishing. And then he plunged inside me again, and I cried out for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.

  Chapter Six

  “Oops,” I murmured, cracking an eyelid as the sun pierced the house, suffusing my “bedroom” ceiling in mellow light. “Guess we’re stuck here until nighttime.” I hadn’t thought about the logistics of an open floor plan surrounded by windows throughout the night. Then again, I hadn’t been thinking about much.

  Malcolm shifted behind me, his hand closing on my hip and pulling me flush against him. I stretched my arms over my head and pressed back, eliciting a groan and a nip to the back of my neck from him.

  “I like the way you think,” he said.

  “Do you? I couldn’t really tell if you were enjoying yourself.” He laughed into my hair and I smiled. His hand skimmed up my side, followed the curve of my arm and twined with my fingers. I looked up, my eye inevitably drawn to the marks on the inside of his arm. They weren’t as angry now, the punctures closed and halfway healed. Leave it to me to race into bed with a vampire thinking I would figure out the logistics as I went.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked, running my forefinger between the worst of them, the deep, slightly torn set of punctures, the first he’d made. His arm slid away from me, and he propped himself up on it and pulled me onto my back.

  “Not compared to how it would have felt to hurt you.”

  “Holy shit.” I widened my eyes. “You are such a sap.” He snorted out a laugh, pulled me against his chest and then rolled onto his back, wearing me like a blanket. I almost had enough energy to portray one.

  “I don’t have the temperament of most of my kind,” he said. “I believe there is more to life than blood and money.”

  That sat between us for a moment. He was an anomaly in his world. I barely belonged anywhere. I stroked the smooth skin of his shoulders, closed my eyes when he kissed my forehead. His energy danced beneath my skin, warm and filling me with a curious alertness. I had never encountered a vampire who emitted this sensation, at once soothing and—separately—stimulating, like his excitement was bleeding through to me. They always felt cold and expectant, as if their energy was coiled and ready to strike. But then, I’d never allowed a vampire to get so close. I’d never, not even with Lucille who kept me at a distance with her casual jokes about blood, let my guard down around a vampire. Before I was a runner, I’d done everything I could to steer clear of them.

  “What are you thinking about?” Malcolm asked. I took a deep breath.

  “Do you remember, back about thirty years ago, there were a bunch of run-ins between vampires and the police within a few months’ time? Brutal killings somewhere in Norway, and that gang that tried to infiltrate Tokyo?”

  “I remember,” Malcolm murmured. “The Butcher of Bergen. He’d been a serial killer in life. That hadn’t changed with his undeath.”

  “Do you remember what happened after?” He shifted beneath me.

  “A PR campaign. Charitable deeds. Good press. And the Blood. How old were you then?” Comprehension weighted his tone, and I swallowed hard.

  “I wasn’t born yet. So, vampires come out with the announcement that the Blood can cure terminal illnesses and most of the really nasty stuff. And people are lining up for it, being wheeled into hospitals, walking out weeks later. Everybody knows about it. My mom gets pregnant at nineteen, and my dad’s not much of a provider. She becomes a back-alley feeder, selling her blood so she can make rent.”

  My mother had short, ridged scars all up and down her arms and legs. When I was little, I’d thought that was normal for moms, like a couple of stretch marks on the belly. I shook that memory off. She’d also decorated a soft, sweet nursery, as if she was living in some fairy-tale ending instead of a basement apartment with an asshole. I’d hold that old Kodachrome photo, tracing my fingers over the purple gossamer butterflies she’d painted on the pale, yellow walls. They’d lost the lease and had to move months after I was born. I had no memory of the room.

  “She got sick, and one of her customers offered her his blood as payment. They both believed the hype that it was a medical miracle…” Malcolm’s hand tightened on my lower back and he actually growled, a low noise that reverberated through his chest. It was like lying on a shaved bear. A really hot shaved bear. I stroked his arm. “She got better and, a couple months later, I came along. Fat and healthy and immune to vampire influence.”

  “How did you learn you could do it?” he asked, his voice tight.

  “I was about five when my dad got fired, and things got bad. She went back to selling blood. Sometimes she took me with her.” I shrugged, awkwardly since I was lying down. She thought it was safer than leaving me home, a testament to how much of a dick my dad could be. Or maybe she didn’t see the vampires that crept up on me, trying to lure me away with promises of candy and toys and, when that didn’t work, with the frigid blast of a suggestion. The first one had been so surprised when I’d stood there, little fists balled up, sweating from the effort of resisting him, and said no. He’d actually backed away. If he’d been religious, he might have crossed himself.

  “You’re lucky,” Malcolm said, wrapping his arms around me. “This is not public knowledge, but the University of Philadelphia ran tests using the Blood with pregnant women. The results were not ideal. It’s meant to repair a finished body, to return it always to the state in which it was changed, not to aid in development. Your mother must have ingested very little. Where was she when this happened?”

  “Juneau. How do you know about the test if it’s not public knowledge?”

  “I acquired a copy of the results.”

  “You have a bad habit of acquiring things that don’t belong to you.”

  “It is a honed skill, not a bad habit.” He stroked my hair. “Thank you, Sydney, for telling me. I know how hard it is to decide to trust.”

  “How long can you stay?” I asked, idly drawing a figure eight on his shoulder and pretending that I wasn’t enormously relieved by his reaction. Just because he was a freak didn’t mean that he would accept the reason why I was one.

  “I leave tomorrow for Los Angeles, and from there to Santiago.”

  “Chile?” I turned my head and nipped at his jaw. Beneath me, under the tangled sheet, his body stirred. “What’s there?”

  “Tall mountains. Lovely cathedrals. Good wine.”

  “Fascinating. Thank you, Mr. Travel Agent. I mean, what’s there for you?” His lips brushed my forehead. He had been amazingly careful with me all night, barely touching me at times. After his description of what had gone on in Anchorage, and watching him direct his hunger at himself, I’d felt precious, like a delicate treasure. Nobody had ever touched me like that. No man had ever restrained his urge for violence, not with me. Of course, that meant I’d had to take matters firmly in hand.

  “Bronson’s holdings have been under duress.” He patiently worked through a tangle in my hair. “Local gangs have been making moves, trying to seize territory after the last earthquake. He’s been slow to react, with the war in Alaska.
”

  “He has holdings in South America?” I asked.

  “In most of the larger cities near the poles.”

  “Is that where you came from? One of his other places? I don’t remember seeing you before…well…” I rose up, crossing my arms on his chest and looking down at him. Bronson and his small army occupied Anchorage in the wintertime, then left in the spring. I’d never wondered where they migrated to, never cared before. I ran a couple of packages a day—usually to the human contractors and security firms that renovated and protected his possessions while he was out—and spent the rest of the summer sleeping, trying to keep up with Rogers and his parkour obsession, and obsessively pouring over car magazines.

  Malcolm opened his eyes to slits, a smile languidly making its way to his mouth. “Before the night you wantonly kissed me in front of enemy scouts? I’d been up once or twice before for meetings and special events. But the last few years, I’ve mostly been in Scandinavia and South America.”

  I wanted to ask him what he did in those places, how exactly he’d come to serve Bronson and how long ago that was. But I didn’t, probably for the same reason that he hadn’t asked me any more about my past—though the records he’d dug up couldn’t have been pretty. He’d tell me in time if he wanted to, and I wasn’t opposed to baby-stepping into the trust thing. I laid my head down on his chest, but I wasn’t tired anymore. His arms slid around me.

  “When can you come back?” I asked, then held my breath. His coming back wasn’t a sure thing. His showing up at all was a fluke. No, not a fluke. Worse. He’d been sent to find me.

  “Soon,” he said, ignoring my sudden tension. “It will depend on the extent of the problem, and I probably won’t be able to give you advance notice. You’ll be able to stay out of trouble?”

  “I’ve done fine the last few months,” I said mechanically. I hadn’t, strictly speaking. I’d been pushing myself in the water, running up on other cars, trying to get them to race just for something to do. Stretched out with Malcolm, the warmth of the day permeating the house, I had no desire for such things. But once he was gone, when I was alone again…