The Renegades (The Superiors)

by Lena Hillbrand

  “Cali,” he said. He turned to her with a pained expression and put a hand on his chest. “I’ve only not wished to slow or weaken you. I could never tire of you. You’re the most delicious sap I’ve ever tasted and…sometimes when I’m most hungry, I fear I’ll be unable to stop if I start drawing from you. I’ve only gotten sick because I’ve been eating…other things.”

  In her surprise, she forgot all about her tears. “You can eat other things?”

  “Sap from animals, and it’s dreadful, really. I get sick from it, but I can use some of it, and it gives me more strength than eating nothing.”

  “Then just take it from me. Please? It’s the only thing I’m good for, anyway.”

  “Yes,” he said. “You are quite good for that.” He rested his hand on her knee. “For other things, as well. Only… at times I fear…my mind no longer functions as it should. I forget your purpose. It’s not your fault, Cali.” He turned to her and touched her neck, then ran his knuckle up under her chin, sending a shiver all through her. He drew her chin up and fixed his eyes on hers, and for a moment neither spoke. The lights of the city behind her reflected back on the surface of his dark eyes. His breath whispered across her cheek, cold and faint, and his gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered in a way that made her uneasy. She leaned away from him, and his hand dropped back to her knee.

  “You’re bleeding,” he whispered.

  She turned away and busied herself with cleaning the snow from her shoes so he couldn’t see her embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she said, “But it’s not like I can help it.” She started to rise to go inside the tent, but Draven’s arm slid around her, and he pulled her back down next to him.

  “Come here,” he said softly. “Don’t say that. You smell delicious, even more so than usual. It makes me so hungry I could—”

  He jumped up without finishing his thought and practically dove into the tent. He knelt inside, jerking his sleep sack from one of the packs and muttering under his breath. Cali watched, wary of his anger and again not sure what she’d done. She couldn’t help it if she had her stupid woman’s days and for some nasty reason the smell made him hungry. He could eat if he wanted. She’d never stopped him.

  She crawled inside the tent and reached out to put her hand on his back, but he brushed her hand away. “What’d I do?” she asked.

  He stopped moving and took a deep breath as he ran his hand through his hair. “Just… don’t touch me,” he said, then added quickly, “It’s not you.”

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered, trying to hold back the ache in her throat that threatened more tears.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, tossing his sleep sack onto the floor of the tent. It unrolled like a snake in front of him.

  Cali shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “Only…something is wrong with me. I shouldn’t—I’m not thinking clearly. Perhaps I’ve…forgotten, and I thought of you like—a person.” His eyes had gotten all strange and intense again, and desperate. He looked scary, like some kind of wild animal but worse, like one that knew it was wild and shouldn’t be.

  “I am a person,” she said. “I told you that. Why won’t you believe me?”

  He shook his head but didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t see what’s so different about us anyway, besides what we eat and that you’re stronger,” she said.

  “Because it’s wrong,” he said, turning back to his sleep sack. “You can’t just—you’re a different species. It’s wrong to think we’re the same.”

  “I don’t see why,” Cali said, sitting cross-legged on her sleep sack. “We’re built the same and we talk the same. You don’t hold conversations with cats unless you’re crazy, but you have no problem standing here talking about right and wrong with me. And we look the same. So tell me what’s so different, because I don’t see it, unless it’s something under a girl’s clothes. I know it’s nothing about men, because I’ve seen plenty of men and I’ve seen you, and you look just like a man to me, all over.”

  Draven threw the two backpacks to the edge of the tent. “Get in your bed,” he said. He didn’t look scary now, just determined. “And don’t say those things. You do not know what you say.”

  Cali looked at him and then at her hands. “I know what I’m saying. I’m saying you should talk to me because I want to learn to do the things you do, and I know I can. Even though I’m only human.”

  “You may very well mean that, but it’s not what I heard. You can’t imagine what I think when I hear you talk like that.”

  “So tell me.”

  He slid inside his sleep sack, then leaned up on one elbow to zip the tent. After a moment’s hesitation, Cali crawled into her sack. They lay in silence for a few minutes. She could hear him breathing and knew he hadn’t fallen asleep yet. “Well?” she said. “Tell me.”

  “You don’t want me to,” he said.

  “Yes, I do. Why would I ask if I didn’t want to know?”

  After a pause he said, “I can’t. It’s wrong and you will despise me. I should have let the trackers take you back, but I didn’t, so I think you should go back to Byron tomorrow. I don’t know what happened to me, but something inside my head is wrong. I don’t think…straight…anymore, and he would never think of you the things I’m thinking.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re saying anymore.”

  “Nor do I,” he said, and in the dark he pulled her close. “Those thoughts… I frighten myself and I’m frightened for you, Cali. I killed two men, two innocent men, to save a sap’s life. I’m a traitor to my race, and at times I imagine I don’t much care, just so long as I have you and…” He stopped speaking and began shifting around. His usually silky voice came out rough when he said, “Put your head in my hands. If I don’t eat soon, my head will fly to pieces.”

  He cradled her head in both hands before plunging his face into her neck and biting. He drove in suddenly, without any preparation, and not very gently, either. Usually after the initial pain when he broke the skin, she liked feeding him. At first it had scared her, like when any Superior bit her, but now that she knew he wouldn’t hurt her more than he had to, she could relax. Now when he fed, lying still and quietly stroking her, it put her in a peaceful trancelike state. Except that time when his mouth had been warmer than her, it had been more than peaceful. Almost blissful.

  But this time he moved while he drank, pushing against her neck and pulling back and pushing until his chin pressed into her neck and she choked. He pulled back, but pressed forward again with the next breath, sucking at her skin until it hurt and making these noises like an animal eating. His words flashed through her mind, about him not being able to stop and being scared for her. Her hands batted at him, and she began to struggle, but he only pressed his body harder against hers and let out a growl, the vibration of sound starting deep inside him and moving up him and through his mouth into her, and all the way down her body. A sudden fear, a new and nameless fear, charged her like an electric shock and she cried out.

  Draven jerked his teeth from her vein, flung himself to the other side of the tent and lay there sucking in big loud breaths that sounded almost like sobs.

  Cali squirmed out of her sleep sack and, holding one cold hand against her throbbing neck, opened the tent and staggered out. Her legs almost gave way when she stumbled from the tent. Her whole body shook, and her breath burst out raggedly as she made her way far from the tent. She stopped to relieve herself when she’d gotten far enough away that her legs had regained some of their strength. When her heart stopped hammering and she’d talked herself out of her terror, she looked around, wondering if she could make a run for it. Daylight had spilled over the horizon and flooded the land, but she didn’t see any place she could go to escape the cold, or even any place to hide. Maybe she could find a place by evening, when Draven woke. She still didn’t know exactly what had happened, just that Draven had never scared her li
ke that before.

  Even though feeding Superiors had always scared her, at home she’d had some protection. She knew Superiors were not allowed to kill humans, and that even the ones who hated her, like her old master, valued humans enough that they’d keep her alive so they could go on drinking her blood. But Draven was different. He didn’t answer to any law. He did whatever he wanted, even turn against his own race. She was out here on her own with him, and if he killed her, he could just bury her body like he had those two trackers, and no one would ever know.

  If she stayed, somehow she’d have to find a way to trust a murderer, or at least trust him not to murder her. What other choice did she have?

  Snow had soaked both pairs of socks she wore, and the ache in her feet had become unbearable. She’d been foolish to run away like that, blind as panic, without taking the time to put on her shoes. Without having fully come to a decision, she started back. If she ran from Draven, she’d have to do it later, when she’d prepared, not in a moment of fright.

  By the time she made her way back to the tent, the sun on the snow nearly blinded her. Clumps of snow had stuck to the wet fabric of her socks, and she had to stop and tear it free before opening the tent. She climbed in quietly, hoping Draven had already fallen asleep and wouldn’t tell her how foolish she’d been. He lay on his back with one arm thrown across his eyes. She crawled inside her sleep sack and leaned up to zip the tent.

  She lay in the dark, waiting for him to reprimand her, but he didn’t say anything. After a while, she couldn’t stand the silence, not knowing if he was awake or how mad he’d gotten when she ran away from him. “I need some things,” she whispered. “For my woman’s days.”

  “I’ll get them tomorrow.”

  So he hadn’t fallen asleep.

  She waited for him to say more. Lying next to him in the agony of anticipation, hardly daring to breathe, she let the time spin out its silence. Every time she thought he might speak, her heart rolled over. She would let him speak first, and stay quiet until he did. But then she’d probably never get to say another word in her life.

  When she couldn’t stand it a moment longer, she asked the question she really wanted answered. “Are you going to kill me?” she whispered.

  A shiver went all through her into her deepest roots when he answered softly, “Not intentionally.”

  Chapter 38

  Draven lay awake for quite some time after Cali’s breathing had deepened and she slept. He thought about what he’d said to her, what he’d done to her, what he’d wanted to do.

  He’d almost told her, spoken words that would terrify her more than anything Byron would have done to her if she’d lived a hundred years. If he said the words in such a way as they came into his mind, she would imagine something very different from his true intentions. He’d not been thinking of that. Of course he hadn’t. He’d been hungry, so hungry, and she sat so near to him with her tantalizing aroma, and she acted like such a woman, and combined with the exhaustion and the hunger… He’d simply wanted her without having to weaken her.

  It was natural, the thought that had flitted through his mind. He had wanted to reassure her, convey that he valued her. But she was so easy to talk to, too easy. What he’d almost said… Though he’d said it before, the accompanying thought this time frightened him. That he was even capable of the thought...

  It was only natural, though. Of course it was. He had wanted what any starving man would want upon savoring food. Nothing more.

  Perhaps he could justify that thought, but he’d hurt her as well, and finding an excuse for that proved more difficult. When he’d drawn from her, she’d struggled, but he had been unable to stop while she lay before him, mouthwateringly perfect, sweet and salty and warm, so full of life and the ability to give life…

  He should have stopped. Now he had terrified her and she would ask to go back. Though he despised the thought, he recognized its wisdom. He no longer trusted himself. Since the murders, his mind’s ability to remain as orderly as the world that created it had deteriorated at an alarming rate.

  A subtle shift had occurred inside him, and he couldn’t quite fit the pieces back in place as society dictated—stay there, live here, do this, say this, think this. Now, boundaries blurred. The line between the right thing and the wrong thing, instead of remaining steadfast and static, wriggled like a snake making tracks in the sand. Cali had a valid argument in one regard. He did talk to her about morality. To ensure his own clarity of mind, he must continue to do so—and often. As he’d found it difficult to maintain boundaries in his mind now that he’d killed a Superior for a sapien, it seemed of dire importance to speak them aloud and establish some sort of record.

  Her sap had tasted so good, though. Too good. He wondered if she felt the way he had when the tracker drew from him. Could she feel her strength flowing out with every press of his tongue? It must be dreadful for her. But it was so wonderful for him.

  Her sap satisfied him more completely than anything he’d ever had. And now, after he’d had his fill, his body had found contentment while his mind twisted in turmoil. If only a stronger connection linked the two, a direct line from one to the other, as it once had. But he’d smudged all the lines and cut all his ties with society, and now he could never go back. He’d betrayed his own kind, his own race, for a piece of livestock.

  But wasn’t it almost worth it? When her sap leapt into his mouth, the richness and life and delicious thickness of it sliding down his throat...the warmth of her throat under his lips and her breathy gasping sounds…her quickening pulse throbbing against his tongue, the way the sap welled up when he pressed against her veins again and again…and again. He’d wanted to strive for that memory forever, the vague impression of containing such vitality, of flowing, pumping with hot blood…

  Her scent clung to him still. Though he’d stopped his breath, he could not escape it. She was in his nostrils, in his mouth, lingering on his tongue like a word he could not quite recall, a feeling he could not quite express, a forgotten memory he could not grasp though he strained until nearly maddened with the effort. Fresh, pure life throbbed inside her, pressing itself into him at his whim, as if her sap were more willing than she…if only he could somehow get at it…that taste, so enchanting… Perhaps she would allow him one more taste, a small one…

  Some time later, he awakened and unzipped his sleep sack. Inside, his body had retained more heat than he’d expected. The heat of Cali’s sap inside him. Her scent, strong and insistent, filled the tent until its walls bulged with the strain to contain it. Instantly ravenous, Draven clawed his way out and escaped the tent. He stood breathing the cooling air of evening until his head cleared. Cars buzzed intermittently on the highway, but as of yet, only a few. The sun had just slipped past the horizon, and the sky beyond the mountains glowed orange and gold.

  Cali extracted herself from her sleep sack and stepped outside to join Draven. She yawned and began stretching her body this way and that as if challenging him not to look, adding an unnecessary amount of moaning and sighing. Her overwhelming scent leapt onto him, taunting and cruel. Even after last night’s feast, he wanted more, perhaps more than before he’d eaten. His desire, his craving for her, overshadowed his physical hunger.

  “Can we find some water?” Cali asked. “I’d like to…you know. Bathe.”

  His mind balked at the thought of losing that heavenly scent, but he knew it was imperative. His cravings gnawed ceaselessly at his nerves, wearing on his attention, threatening to overcome reason itself. “Very well,” he said, before returning to the tent. When Cali returned from relieving herself, he handed her a bag of water and another filled with dried meat. Their wealth of supplies had dwindled considerably. “Eat, drink,” Draven said.

  Cali took the bags and settled herself in the doorway of the tent to eat. She concentrated on her food, avoiding Draven’s eyes. The air between them stretched thin with tension, and neither spoke while Draven rolled the sleep sacks and squeezed
them into their tiny bags. He cursed himself for frightening her so, and started to speak several times but stopped himself. Finally, when it became clear she would not speak first this time, he forced himself to address her. “Regarding…my actions this morning…I am sorry I drew an inappropriate amount. You are simply…”

  “Simply what?” she asked when he didn’t go on.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, now careless as he tossed anything on the tent floor into their bags. The correct words would never find voice on his clumsy tongue.

  “What?” she insisted.

  “You’re…ahhhh, delectable,” he said, stopping to look at her directly for the first time since they’d awakened. Of course she had not tried to entice him to look at her. How foolish a notion. She would neither notice nor appreciate his eyes on her.

  “What’s that? Delectable.”

  “Irresistibly delicious.”

  “Oh.” She squirmed a bit and studied her food.

  “I’ll not let myself become so hungry again,” Draven said. “It was irresponsible.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you wish to go back? This is perhaps the last chance you’ll have.”

  When she failed to answer, he reminded himself she had every reason to want to leave. He had failed her. He’d promised something he’d been unable deliver, and she’d suffered in consequence. He’d struggled for her survival, killed one of his own defending her, and still she’d suffered more. Worse yet, after he’d killed to protect her, he’d been the one to hurt her. Byron would never lose himself as Draven had that morning. Byron kept himself under firm control at all times.

  If, by some unforeseen turn of events, he managed to hold onto Cali, he could never give her the life he’d dreamed of when he’d decided he would have her. When he’d decided to buy her, his life had contained nothing of interest, certainly not the notion that in a few short years, he would become a kill-on-sight criminal. But he had. He had become a murderer. Never again could he join Superior society, reclaim his position, exist among his own kind. Once someone discovered the trackers’ deaths, he would be forever wanted, and hunted, until the day of his capture and execution. He knew he should tell her all this, but the words, as usual, formed only in his mind and would not take shape in his mouth. So he nudged Cali until she let him move past her, where he stood waiting for her to rise so he could collapse the tent.