The glasses were a little dusty, so she wiped them with a clean cloth before she put them into her large, black bag together with the silken cloth, a dusty bottle, a candle and the flask from her cold cupboard. Then she put on her cloak, because it suited the part, swung the bag across her shoulders and unbolted the door. Outside was the mess of rubble that she normally jumped over. It was trickier carrying delicate glass, but she managed it. Then, opening the outer door, she walked slowly up the steps.
She could smell him. Earthy and human and… him. She could feel his gaze on her too, sense his surprise and his excitement, but she didn’t look at him until she reached the top of the steps and turned.
He sat on the roof, with one elbow resting on his drawn up knees, his gaze unwaveringly on her through the darkness.
She said, “You should go home. Not all the predators of this place are as well-fed as I.”
“I’m relying on you to keep them away.”
“You really are from this city, aren’t you?”
“Off and on. Will you join me?”
Her heart beat even faster, causing her to pause before she risked any comeback, however sardonic. “I can’t make up my mind whether you’re insane or stupid.”
“Does it matter?”
No, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter in the slightest.
Bracing herself, she leapt up beside him, and in the same movement, sank down into a graceful pose with her legs bent under her. She certainly had his undivided attention… And now he had asked her to sit with him, she could set about educating him against her. Forever.
“So,” she said. “You’ll have a drink with me?”
Without waiting for his answer, she opened the bag and took out the silk cloth, placing it delicately over the dirt of the roof between herself and the man. His gaze seemed to burn her skin as she took out the candle, placed it on the cloth and lit it. Still she didn’t look at him, but delved back into the capacious bag for the glasses. The candle flame glinted amber off the doves’ eyes. The scent of his blood was strong, threatening to take over all her senses.
The man said, “I’d love to,” his voice at once amused and bewildered. Katia smiled faintly and brought out the bottle and corkscrew, very conscious of his scrutiny as she opened it.
“Chateau Musard 2005,” she observed, pouring generously into one glass. “An acquired taste with a cult following when I was young.” Into the other glass, she poured a tiny amount. “Of course, it should breathe a little first, but it’s a little cold for hanging around.”
Raising her gaze to his face at last, she held out the full glass. He took it, his warm fingers grazing hers in the process. Electricity sparked through her hand, ending up somewhere in the region of her stomach, but she ignored it, as she tried to ignore the pleasure she found just in watching his handsome face.
The man said, “I didn’t know you could drink wine.”
Called back to herself, Katia rummaged once more in the bag for her flask. “Oh I can drink a little, if I mix it with this,” she said, opening the flask and pouring a sizable quantity into her own glass. It glooped out, thick and red and unmistakable in the candle’s flickering light.
Raising the glass to her lips, she said, “I find the wine adds a little buzz.” And she sipped.
The man’s eyes crinkled at the corners. To her amazement, he was smiling. “You are a very bizarre person,” he observed. “Cheers.”
If Katia hadn’t already swallowed, she would have choked. This was not the reaction she had imagined. He should at this point have backed off in disgust, perhaps just let her play a little with him, insultingly, before he ran off and never came back to trouble her life or her dreams. But there he sat on the roof of her crypt, drinking wine with her from one of her favorite glasses and telling her only that she was bizarre.
“You think?” she said as lightly as she could manage. “But then, how many vampires have you known?”
“Before you, just the one. It was a brief acquaintance.”
She glanced at him thoughtfully. “I suppose the fact that you are still here to make mine, explains your somewhat… reckless behavior with me. Did he let you go too?”
“Not exactly,” the man said cautiously. He didn’t appear to be remotely fazed. “I managed to knife his shoulder to the wall.”
“You have quick reflexes,” she allowed, remembering again how he’d avoided her flying kick on the steps earlier that day. “But I can’t imagine your action slowed down a vampire for very long.”
The man shrugged. “Long enough for me to get out of his reach. And for my brother to come and help. My brother,” he added, taking another sip of wine and laying the glass on her silken cloth, “is a lupi.”
“Ah.” She regarded him with renewed curiosity. “And how do you feel about that?”
“About the fact that he’s a lupi? Or that he’s my brother?”
Katia considered. “Both.”
“I suppose I accept it. Always did.”
“You never envied his strength or powers? Never thanked God for giving him the mutant gene instead of you?”
The man frowned, as if thinking back. “No,” he said at last. “When we first discovered what he was, I protected him from the other kids who were so afraid of him they wanted to beat him up -- en masse you understand. Later, when he came to terms with his own gifts, he protected me.”
Katia caught a glimpse of affection, understated but terrifyingly deep. It pained her, bewildered her. And somewhere in her confused jumble of emotions was admiration. And jealousy. She said flatly, “You’d die for your brother. Even though he’s a wolf.”
“Even though. Because. Who cares? I hope I never need to. What’s your name?”
Startled by the abrupt change of subject, she looked down at her glass of blood and wine, swirling it gently, letting it catch the light of the single flame while she remembered who and what she was.
“Katia.”
“I’m David.”
“Well, David the human.” She sat back, regarding him over the rim of her glass with a return of mockery. It seemed to be her only defense. “What do you think of this wine? Have you tasted wine before?”
“Not often,” he said candidly. “I had some in the Dome City, but it wasn’t as good as this. I found some in a cellar once too, in the middle of a deserted farm. It’s pretty tasty. I’ll bring you a bottle.”
“You find a lot of things, don’t you?”
He smiled faintly. Fascinated, Katia watched the slight upward tug of his eyes and lips. “It’s what I do. There are still a lot of useful resources out there, if you know where to look. My friends nicknamed me The Archaeologist when we were young. You can learn a lot from what you find, too.”
Katia knew another flash of understanding. He traveled, searching, finding things because he was alone here. Whatever the affection between them, his brother was a pack animal. David was a loner.
She said, “Does it help?”
He frowned. “Does what help?”
“Learning things. Understanding why life is so crap now when it was so good before you were born.”
“Was it?” he asked.
“Oh yes.” Her lips twisted of their own accord. “No. Sometimes. It was different. Easier.”
“You remember life before the war?”
“Before, during and after.”
“Then you weren’t born a vampire? As my brother was born a lupi?”
“No.” She raised the glass, twisting it to catch the light from different directions. “I was ill, wretchedly ill like many others at the time who died of radiation poisoning. I didn’t die. But when I got better, I still couldn’t eat. Instead, I had a raging thirst for blood.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “The thirst I still have, and still satisfy.”
His eyes were steady, curious, compassionate. There was something else too that she couldn’t read, but what she chiefly noticed was what was lacking, what kept her blood lust at bay.
Abruptly, she said, “Why aren’t you afraid of me, David?” His name on her lips felt strange, yet exciting, like some forbidden pleasure of her adolescence.
His lips twisted into the characteristic half-smile she remembered so well from their first meeting. “I don’t know.” Releasing her gaze, he took a sip of wine and lowered the glass slowly. “I realize I should be. And I confess you are one very scary lady…”
“In a bizarre sort of a way.”
He smiled again, his eyes crinkling in a way that seemed to melt her entire stomach. “It wasn’t an insult,” he observed. “I like bizarre people.”
Katia widened her gaze deliberately. “So now you like me?”
It was banter, only banter, and he couldn’t have guessed her sudden ache as she spoke the words. But his face softened immediately.
“Katia. Of course I like you.” He moved, leaning across the space between them, and before she could guess his unguessable intention, he kissed her mouth.
Stunned, she didn’t stir. His lips moved across her mouth, warm and soft and dangerously sweet. Only when they opened, parting hers, did she react, reaching up her hands to push him away. An old gesture for an old situation. The vampire Katia would simply kill him. Bite him, drain him, dump him. She had forgotten who she was, and she let him in. His tongue probed, seeking hers. Tenderly, he explored her whole mouth, turning it over, drawing it into his, and Katia was lost.
The hands that should have held him for the kill, that should at the very least have pushed him off the roof, clung onto his shoulders instead. Her whole body melted under the onslaught of his kiss, leaving her weak and helpless in the grip of a growing storm of desire.
And yet apart from his mouth, he didn’t touch her. Still, a forgotten burning had begun in her stomach, drifting lower and flooding her with need. Her pussy was wet for him, as it had been in her confused, erotic dreams. Her whole body ached for his caresses, from her tight, pebbled nipples to her hot, aching clitoris. She smelled his blood, strong and enticing, heard it pounding in his veins.
Gasping, allowing his mouth even deeper invasion, she realized she wanted him inside her. Even more than his blood, she wanted his warm, human cock inside her cold vampire pussy, pushing, massaging her, making her feel, making her come. Like the dreams. Only better. Like this kiss that went on and on, filling her, killing her…
Slowly, his mouth released hers and hovered for an instant over her face. She stared at him. She didn’t know what to do. Her heart beat and beat like a drum in her head. It was all she could hear now -- that and David’s ragged breathing. Or was it hers?
His lips quirked upwards. “Thank you,” he said softly. “For the wine too.”
Then he moved back, rising to his feet only to crouch down again and drop off the roof.
Dazed with desire as much as disappointment, Katia watched him run back across the graveyard. She hoped he’d be safe.
Her eyes closed in pain and terror.
She hoped he’d be killed.
Chapter Five
Katia prowled long into the night, ignoring the familiar blood-thirst, trying desperately to restore her equilibrium. She had set out not to kill the man, but to defeat him along with her own growing obsession. And instead he had defeated her, with a little conversation, a little kiss. By reminding her of gentler times, of her own lost humanity, her own needs and desires, he was destroying her.
When at last she fell exhausted on to the couch and slept, her dreams were confused, overlaying present angst with people and incidents from her past, with blood spilled and taken. She wasn’t really sorry to be dragged into wakefulness by the banging on the door, though she did feel momentarily disoriented.
There was shouting among it now too, though not the riotous kind. The “Katia, open the door, I know you’re in there!” kind.
Max. It was Max. Damn him. The one vampire whose company she occasionally tolerated.
Swallowing, she wiped her hand across her face, feeling the heat and the sweat, and rose from the couch. Stumbling slightly, she found an old cloak and flung it around her naked body. Though Max had seen her naked many times in their distant past, and she was sure it now meant as little to him as it did to her, she had no intention of freezing her butt off just for the sake of his impatience.
“If you break my door in, Max, I’ll make a new one out of your head,” she grumbled, sliding the bolts free at top and bottom. She wrenched open the door with more invective on her lips, but her words died there unspoken, for outside her door, she beheld not only Max, but the lupi Will.
* * *
Katia lit the lamp and kicked her black jumpsuit to the side of the floor.
“Forgive me,” she said sardonically. “I don’t entertain much, and I wasn’t expecting guests.”
Looking around him, Max said disapprovingly, “Why do you live here, Katia? You have a sick sense of humor.”
“Why ask when you know the answer? What do you want, Max? And why bring your new friend to me? I’m presuming the king of the lupi is not your hospitality gift to me?”
Will, the mocked “king of the lupi,” only smiled faintly. He looked no more afraid of her than David had. Less, probably. Mind you, this Will looked quite like him. The eyes were wrong, and Will’s hair was silvery rather than golden blond, but there was something about the shape of his face that…
Shit, Katia, this is obsession! Snap out of it!
“What hospitality would that be, Katia?” Max asked with mock civility.
Katia laughed shortly. “Fair point. Sit. Spill.”
Max sat on the couch, although he glanced up at Will, as if uncertain. Will was wandering around her room, restless. Katia caught a whiff of his blood. Powerful, lupi blood. She remembered she was hungry.
Max took a deep breath. “We’d like your help, Katia.”
Katia blinked, and lowered herself to the couch, still grasping the cloak around her naked body. Neither of the men appeared to notice, which was hardly flattering.
“Both of you?” she mocked. “How could I possibly help you?”
“By your knowledge,” Max said, “of…”
Without warning, the door creaked. All three heads turned expectantly. Will even reached for a weapon.
David walked in, his coat swinging about his calves, his bag over his shoulder.
Katia’s fist closed convulsively on the fabric of her cloak. Her ears sang. She felt utter fury because she wasn’t ready for this. And she should have bolted the bloody door.
“What the fuck,” she said harshly, “are you doing here?”
David stopped in his tracks. But not, she thought, because of her inhospitable greeting. His eyes were riveted on her visitors, flitting from one to the other.
“That’s funny,” said Will the lupi into the stunned silence. “I was about to ask him the same question.”
“Boil your head, Will,” said David mildly, resorting to the sort of advice that Katia remembered from her own childhood -- which was what finally gave her the clue.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she exclaimed. “The king of the werewolves is your lupi brother?”
“Yes,” David said simply. He glanced from her back to Will. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
“We don’t,” Katia said flatly. “Max was just about to explain how I can help them. And it had better be good, because I’m hungry and I’m pissed off.”
To her consternation, David’s eyes laughed at her. “You’re beautiful when you’re pissed off.”
No I’m not, I’m ugly, I’m ugly all the time. Why can you not see that? I’m a monster!
Her throat closed up. No sound came out.
As if he took pity, David turned back to his brother. “Do you want me to go until you’ve spoken to Katia?”
“Yes,” said Katia.
“No,” said Will. “You’d better hear this too. I think you’ve probably sensed some -- tension between Lara and me.”
David
nodded, and sank cross-legged on the floor.
“The reason is,” said Will carefully, “that she is pregnant.”
David’s eyes didn’t waver, but Katia saw him swallow once, convulsively. “With your child?”
“With my child.”
Pulling herself together, Katia tried to regain a little control of the conversation. “And this is a big deal because…?”
“Because Lara, his wife, is human,” David said. “There aren’t any cross-species children that I know of.”
“There’s more,” said Will. “Max and April are expecting a baby too.”
Katia stared at Max. Something twisted in her stomach, but she was fairly sure it wasn’t to do with him. “You are with a human too?”
“No,” Max admitted. “I’m with a lupi.”
Katia blinked. “Little blond lupi? Like an angel with a dirty face?”
Max snorted on what might have been a laugh. “You could put it like that.”
“Well, don’t pin your affections there,” Katia said dryly, suddenly spotting a way to hurt the man who was tearing her apart. “She was at the club the other night with him.”
She jerked her thumb at David without looking at him. But Max took the wind out of her sails.
“I know. They were looking for you.”
Katia remembered to close her mouth.
Max added, “At least I can only presume it was you since he’s now here.”
“April’s an old family friend,” Will put in. Katia could think of nothing to say. Her stupid heart was singing, because he had been looking for her that night. Because -- oh just because…!
And when she risked a glance at David, he was smiling at her with a glint in his eye that made her pussy clench, especially when his gaze dropped to the gaping cloak, which she refused to grab at for the sake of any modesty.
He said, “You were there.”
She shrugged. “For a bit. I hate the place, but hey, it’s a free meal. So congratulations to the proud fathers, but I fail to see how I could possibly be of assistance.”
Max leaned forward to see her better. “You’re a geneticist. Why have there been no cross-species babies before, and is there anything we should do to ensure the safe birth of our children?”
Loving the Man Page 4
