by Rena Marks
The arch of my foot connected. Surprise rolled across his face, followed by the sudden sting of pain.
Then he let loose. Ignoring the obvious hurt of my reopening his healing injury, he charged with deadly intent. I was a lot smaller than him and it was easy to reach for my neck.
I collapsed before he could touch. Dropping flat on my back to the ground, I raised my leg to connect with his crotch. In the brief seconds it took for more pain to register, I had flipped to my feet behind him.
He leaned onto a steel table before him, knuckles whitened as he gripped the edge. Veins protruded, twisting down his pale forearms like ugly blue worms.
This time when I kicked, it was at the point where his back lined up with the edge of the table. There was nowhere his bottom half could go, pressed the way he was against the edge. The force of my kick shifted his upper half, separating his spine with a snap.
He dropped, face-first, involuntary muscle spasms jerking his extremities. His bloody spine protruded from the wound caused by the sharp tear of jagged bone through the flesh.
Given enough time, he could heal. But for the extent of his injury, he didn’t have that kind of time. His breathing was labored as he suffocated slowly, his nose pressed against the cold floor, paralyzed and unable to lift his head to breathe. I lifted it for him by a wad of hair clenched in my fist.
“Bitch,” he gasped. “There’s something you should know before I die.”
While I didn’t respond, warning bells sounded deep in the recesses of my mind.
“Your mom was the best lay I ever had. Enjoy my genes. You’ll like your sex with a little pain.”
Swirling clouds of black marred my vision. His words had to be untrue. I knew he was just trying to goad me into a quick and merciful death for him. I reached for the tiny cord of bone exposed from the wound on his waist. In slow motion, I watched as his head dropped back down to the floor.
Not many people knew that Experiment A3 wasn’t one of the children screened and taken from happy parents.
Not many knew that I’d been borne to a single mother, who was easy enough to commit to a mental institution for the terrors locked within her mind, for her child to be taken and raised by the government. A3 had been set up to enter the experimental training camp.
Not many knew it was my goal to find out why.
The monster was dead when the harsh fluorescent lights flickered and went off. I was hardly in the pitch black for a second before the emergency yellow lights replaced them with the dull glow of amber.
Guards and white lab coats burst into the laboratory, guns drawn. My hand still held the monster’s bloody spine. It resembled the skeleton of a fish.
The human males had been trained not to show emotion. Yet, several of them looked incredulous when they realized what the ripped, shattered bone was that I held in my grasp. Then, disgust washed across their faces, as if they hadn’t taught me the horrific violence I used to survive.
“A3?” The voice was hesitant, instead of neutrally commanding as it had always been. “Please, come this way—”
“My God! Dr. Morozov…he’s…dead,” one of them exclaimed.
The keen of the emergency sirens stopped suddenly, leaving a thick silence behind like heavy cotton jammed into my ears. There was a faint ringing left in my head that mimicked the constant wail, like an echo. I fought the urge to shake my head clear.
Other than the ringing, there was complete silence in the lab. Along with the stench of blood.
“Someone get a hold of Dr. Fokusovich,” another said.
Guns were still drawn. I knew they suspected I was responsible for the doctor’s death. And I know they had never guessed I was capable of ripping out a vampire’s spine.
“A3?”
“My name is Afton.” My voice surprised me. It was so young, childlike. Somehow, somewhere, I’d forgotten the fact that I was thirteen.
The doctor who’d spoken to me looked confused. “I don’t understand, A3.”
“I am no longer a letter and a number. My name is Afton.”
Once again, I watched emotion flash over their normally impassive faces. I could visualize the wheels in their brains turning, pondering the question, who would be the first to search my records to find what my original name had been.
“You are calmer, bella. Relax, my love.”
“All right, Afton.” The doctor said slowly. “Please. Come with me.” At last, the very beginnings of respect.
I was calmer. The fight was done for now.
Chapter Five
I awoke curled onto Ethan’s chest, my body directly on top of his. “Your fever’s broken,” he commented.
“Must have, if I woke up,” I agreed.
I dropped my head back onto his chest and closed my eyes for some much deserved rest after the hell I had just relived.
When I woke next, Ethan and I were alone. I was still balanced on his chest, my arm wrapped around his waist. “Where are the rest of your vamps?” I asked, wondering if any others may have seen me in the throes of my fever.
“Bella,” he chided. “Surely you don’t think we nest together constantly? Like insects? Sometimes we require privacy. You and I are no longer in the main cave but in a dugout extension.”
I tightened my arm around him. I was grateful for the privacy—after all, I’d been a loner all my life. Getting used to swarms of people was extremely difficult for me.
“I’ll bet there’s one thing you don’t know about yourself,” he said.
“Tell me?” My voice was curious. Being a successful experiment was based on the fact that I studied every aspect of myself, every detail, while remaining as detached as if I studied a bug under a microscope.
“If you are spoken to while dreaming, you respond. You will answer any question I ask without reservations. Do you remember?”
“No,” I said, trying to recollect what I’d told. “There was one time when I heard your voice but I don’t remember an actual conversation with you.” Suddenly the situation struck me as humorous. “How ironic! To be injected with truth serums which my body rejected. To be constantly interrogated and studied to see if I told all, when all they had to do was talk to me while I slept.” I laughed.
Ethan’s hands rubbed up and down my back. I was very aware of how nestled I was in his warmth. How safe I felt. For even I couldn’t exterminate Ethan. Nobody could get to me through the ancient vampire.
Not that I had anything to fear. I took care of myself, always.
“I was surprised the first time I saw you, bella,” he murmured.
“Why?” I said lazily, enjoying the spicy scent that was pure Ethan. My cheek was pressed against his chest, one of his fingers twirled a lock of my hair.
“We’d heard so much about the Original Extinguisher. And the rest of the Extinguishers that we had already fought were tough enough, we wondered what you could be like.”
I thought back to the day I’d first met Ethan. He wasn’t what I’d expected either. He was a mass of contradictions. More tough, human guy than evil vampire creature.
Deadly attractive.
Arrogant as hell.
And he warmed my frozen libido like no other.
“I’d never seen such a tiny thing take on so many vamps and still fight without flinching.”
“Your group was toying with me.”
“Yet you scared the hell out of us over how much you could take. And you still got away. It was astounding, a human girl breaking from an entire clan of vampires.”
“I was sixteen,” I scoffed. “No longer a girl.”
“But not yet a woman,” he countered softly.
It was true. I had been a virgin. Technically. I’d never been with a man but my body was not a stranger to being probed. For over time, I’d found out what bred meant.
“I can tell when you think about something.”
“Stop psychoanalyzing,” I snapped.
“It’s not a weakness to share.”
&n
bsp; “I have nothing to hide,” I said in my haughtiest voice.
“Just your fears.”
“Excuse me?”
His voice rumbled in his chest. “You have always known my greatest fear. But you’ve never told me yours.”
“Maybe you never asked.”
“Maybe you never shared.”
It was very possible that he’d asked and I changed the subject. It was something I’d do, after all. I knew exactly what my greatest fear was but did I want to reveal it? Knowledge was power. If someone knew too much about you, they had the ultimate weapon with which to hurt you.
He remained silent, waiting for my answer. My mind worked a hundred miles a minute, wondering if I wanted him to have the power over me.
Of all the people in the world, I trusted him the most. But he was still…a vampire. Different from me in every way. Yet alike in the way we were both outcasts. I couldn’t trust humans, either.
I spoke quickly. “My greatest fear is to die. Not alone, like your fear.” Yes, I had remembered his greatest fear.
To die alone.
“The actual passing, the idea of death. To just cease. To not even be a memory in the minds of anyone you’ve touched.” It was close enough to my real fear of whether or not I had already died. For what would happen if I died again?
“You will always be remembered, bella. An Original Extinguisher.”
“Such a thing to be remembered as! I had no choice. I did nothing,” I mocked.
“That is not true. You had the will to live. Not an easy feat. Trust me, I’ve lived a very long time.”
I smiled grimly. “Do I truly live, Ethan?”
“What do you mean?”
“I hold you at arm’s length. And you…” I paused, unsure if I wanted to divulge this much information. “I trust you more than I’ve trusted anyone else in the world. I’ve shared more with you than any other person. Yet it’s still not enough.”
He brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed my fingers, small in his much larger hand.
“It is enough. For you, bella. It’s enormous…for you. Don’t feel as though you can’t share enough. I will always want more of you, will even demand what you cannot give. You just move at your own pace.”
He was giving me permission to be me? He truly baffled me. It was why I loved him.
Yet I would never tell him.
For now I enjoyed being wrapped in his arms, the scent of his skin beneath my nose. I didn’t want this to end, the excuse for us to be alone. Together.
I breathed in perfect sync with the rise and fall of his chest. A mood was taking over me; my insides were liquefying and swelling.
Ethan’s hands had stilled in their easy rubbing of my lower back. He’d sensed the slow change of my mood and waited for me to make the next move. For, dammit, my body hummed with adrenaline from facing the fight in my dreams. My loins curled with fever. He knew exactly what was going on. Ever since the drug Yohimbine had been introduced to my system, marking me forever by permanently dilating my eyes, I’d been helpless after the surge of adrenaline left me. It left me…insatiable.
“I don’t want this,” I said quickly.
“I know, bella.”
So easy. He was giving me a choice, always setting his own wishes aside.
“Well, perhaps what I really mean is I’m not yet ready for this.”
One of his clenched fists opened, splaying across the base of my spine, warming me with moist heat from his palm.
His voice was deep. “When will you be ready for me?”
“I’m not sure, Ethan.”
“Know this, my love. I will liberate your body as it craves, nothing more, nothing less. Simply the mechanics of release. We do not need to even speak of it after.”
No lovemaking? Just a raw need assuaged? The offer tempted me with its simplicity.
“No real sex? No penetration?” I asked, wanting it completely spelled out.
“No.”
“And what do you get in return?” I was aware that my voice was completely distrusting. No one ever gave something for nothing. Not in my world. In fact, he knew better than to give me something unconditionally. I wouldn’t respect him for that.
“I wish the pressure relieved too.”
That was a setback. Now this was getting more like sex. Mutual orgasms. I had to think about it carefully but my arousal was getting even greater at the prospect.
“No mouths? Just…hands?”
“As you wish. You stroke me, I will finger you.”
Wham! The coarse words were so unlike Ethan’s normal speech, they unleashed instant lust, wetting my insides and uncurling waiting desire. My fist clenched against his chest and I dragged it down to the heat of his loins.
His erection was raised between us, pressing through the thin, soft material of his pants. He groaned when I brushed against it briefly to untie the laces at his waist.
My breasts fell heavy against his chest. I was wearing an oversized shirt of his and as far as I could tell, nothing else. My legs felt bare against the softness of his pants.
I rolled off him so I could fumble with the string of his waistband, frantically pushing the material down. He shoved his own pants off and his erection sprang forth.
Rolling atop me, he dragged it down my thigh.
I could have the fire assuaged with him pounding into me. No, I panicked. Resist the urge. Not yet, not while I was so overwhelmed with lust that I couldn’t make a sensible decision.
Ethan sensed my fear.
“Lie back,” he instructed. “Part your luscious thighs for me.”
I raised the knee furthest from him and let it drop to one side, spreading my labia apart. His eyes lowered to the view.
His lids appeared heavy, as if it were too much trouble to even bother holding them open. One hand pushed my shirt up roughly over the tops of my breasts.
The rough handling was exactly right. Exactly what I needed. The reminder that this wasn’t lovemaking, wasn’t even sex. Just a basic function, a release.
Now I felt naked and exposed and…helpless. The last sensation fired lust in my loins.
Ethan ran his fingertip through my slit. I gasped a shocked breath at the sheer eroticism of the straightforward act.
“So hot and wet,” he said in a strangled voice.
He dipped his finger into my entrance slightly, just enough to catch moisture to smear over my clitoris. He began to rub his forefinger over the sensitive nub.
My body yearned for release. Each caress of his finger heightened the slickness, preparing my sheath to receive him.
But that couldn’t happen. Not while I was mindless with lust. I would regret the complete sex act.
“You won’t let me lose control and fuck you senseless?” I asked him. It wasn’t him I worried about but my own lack of control. I had a vision of me writhing over his body, him buried deep within my aching cunt, while I ground against him with wild abandon.
His voice sounded pained. “I promise.”
I would have to trust the vampire. At this moment I didn’t care much but later, much later I would. And I had trusted him in the past.
As if he sensed my need, he inserted two fingers deep into my pussy, using his thumb to continue to rub my glistening pearl. My hips arched wantonly to his hand but I couldn’t stop or even worry about my reckless behavior.
Faster, faster, he swirled his finger over my now-throbbing clitoris. I wanted to beg him to bring me, hard and sure. I wanted to clench his fingers, to grip them as I would his cock.
He was rubbing his cock against my thigh, thrusting it as if he were inside me.
“I want your cock in my mouth,” I said.
“Not this time,” he muttered, teeth clenched. “You’re too crazed to know what you really want.”
He dropped his head to my breast. That in this moment he could honor my original wishes was a huge turn-on.
This was too delicious, too overwhelming. I moaned loudly, gasping
when he rubbed a finger against the lip of my cervix.
“Feel good, bella?” he said, breath hot against the curve of my nipple.
“You have no idea.”
His mouth opened and sucked my erect nipple against the warmth of his tongue. He sucked the peak harshly, wetly, insistently.
“Oh my lord,” I moaned. I was so close to climax I was almost distracted as to which would bring me first, the clever fingers working my body as swiftly as I could work my own, or the insistent sucking of my breast. “Don’t stop,” I begged, so close to the edge. My head thrashed from side to side helplessly. “Yes, Ethan. Please.” He was going to do it, make me climax hard and sure, it was looming within reach.
“Ethan, baby, make me come,” I begged.
His rigid erection was bulging against my leg. His hips were twisting and pumping masterfully against me and all I could think of was, what a waste that he wasn’t thrusting that beautiful cock deep inside me.
“Bella, you’re going to make me come so hard…keep going,” he said, breath heaving. “Fuck yourself on my hand.”
I was thrusting my hips against his hand, grinding my clitoris against his thumb, hoping against hope his nail would flick harshly against the sensitive bud.
I was completely gone and knew exactly what I wanted. It was Ethan. I wanted the broad head of his cock knocking against my cervix, I wanted to lick the swollen shaft clean after he fucked me senseless. I had visions of climbing onto his face, pulling aside my labia to lower the exposed pink skin into his waiting mouth. Turning around so I could swallow his cock at the same time as he licked me, riding him until my breasts bounced and my body quivered with aftershocks.
He exploded with a roar, ejaculating on my thigh with warm, wet heat that spread wickedly. There was a moment’s regret over the idea that the delicious hot cum could be spreading into my womb at this moment. I cursed my stubbornness.
My climax overtook me. It hit hard, searing through my body with a frightening intensity as if it struggled to incinerate me from the inside out. I clenched around his hand, warm wet waves spiraling on and on until I arched my back and screamed with pleasure.
The release was better than expected. My racing heartbeat calmed and Ethan stretched out, turning over and pulling my head onto his chest.
