Met by Midnight: Shadow World Stories and Scenes, Vol. 1 (The Shadow World)

by Dianne Sylvan

  I continue my slow exploration of your skin, but you grow impatient and, before I can even react, you have me on my back. I recognize the smile you give me—it usually results in an embarrassing defeat in front of half the Elite.

  I start to speak but can’t—your teeth are already sinking deep into my throat and the pain knocks all coherent thought from my head. Something almost animal overtakes me and I hiss, flipping you off of me, reversing our positions again as I return the bite.

  We struggle for control, tasting each other again and again. A dark trickle of blood runs down from my neck over my heart, and you bend to catch it, the quick dart of your tongue and the warmth of your lips nearly enough to drive me mad with need. Fortunately you have no intention of forcing me to wait any longer. Your nails scratch lightly down my sides, and you shift downward, kissing your way along my torso and over my hip, giving me another mischievous smile and pausing for one agonizing moment before catching me with your mouth and plunging downward in one graceful, practiced motion.

  Despite what I said before, it seems I’m the one who will be screaming—at least, I’ll be first. And you were absolutely right—it doesn’t take long. Months of fantasizing have left me bare, like one exposed nerve, and it barely takes a moment to shove me violently over the edge.

  One night I’ll convince you to teach me how to do whatever it is you’re doing with your tongue, but right now, I’m too far gone to care. I’ve taken hundreds of people to bed but never felt anything like this. Even in the absolute depth of ecstasy I have always had a firm hold on my rational mind; it’s the curse of being born with what Lizzie once called my “near-blasphemous” intellect. But now I can’t think—there are no words for this. There’s nothing to analyze, nothing to debate; I can only feel…and it feels like every cell in my body is exploding at the speed of light.

  With one final flick of your tongue, you move back up the bed and lay down next to me, watching me fight my way back to coherence, licking your lips with a proprietary little smile on your face. Your eyes are practically glowing violet in the firelight.

  “You’re so beautiful,” you murmur, kissing the sweat from my forehead. Your fingers ghost over my skin and I can’t help but shiver. At this moment, if you asked me I would promise you anything, and I think you know that. Your appreciative gaze turns to wonder, and you say, “I’m really not dreaming, am I.”

  I shake my head, brushing my thumb over your lips. “Is it really that hard to believe?”

  “Of course it is. I’m not this lucky.”

  “Speaking of luck,” I reply, running my hand down your neck, “now we need to find something fun for you.”

  You smile. “I don’t need anything right now. Being here with you is enough.”

  The words make my heart skip, but I won’t be distracted: “Nonsense…tell me what you want.”

  Our eyes meet. “You,” you answer, just at a whisper. “Only you.”

  We kiss again, this time slower, but even more deeply, until we are both thoroughly lost in each other. I can feel myself sinking into you, energy-wise, and it’s as if your own power is made up of silken tendrils that wrap around me, lashing me to your side, where I will remain, at your right hand, until the world crashes down.

  I draw you to me, and you bury your face in my neck, fitting into my embrace as if you had always been there. I know in a few minutes I’ll have my energy back and be able to resume my quest to memorize and then make slow, delirious love to your entire body one inch at a time—I’ve always been quick on the rebound, though the brief gap does give me ample time to enjoy, or bring enjoyment to, whomever happens to lie beneath me.

  This time is different. This time I am almost afraid to go further—mingled terror that I might disappoint you, that you might, just might, not feel as strongly as I do, that in the morning you’ll regret having consorted with an inferior…

  You tap my forehead lightly with one finger. “You’re thinking too much again,” you inform me, gently but wryly. “I can practically hear it.”

  The glimmer of humor in your eyes is enough to shake me out of it, but with all those fears fitting so perfectly into the relentless litany in my head, I feel knocked off balance. I have to know, I have to ask…

  “Is it…” I look into your face, and your eyes meeting mine look very young indeed in this light. “Is it all right if I tell you I love you?”

  Again, I’ve surprised you. Your eyes widen and you make as if to draw back from me, but can’t, because my arms are around you and you are essentially pinned until I let you go. Right now I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do that.

  You turn your face toward the ceiling for a moment. I know I’ve crossed a line.

  Finally, taking a deep breath, you look at me again. “Only if you mean it,” you say. “Only if there’s no doubt in your mind or fear in your heart.” I notice that, perhaps due to the vulnerability you are feeling, your Irish accent shows through the words a little more than usual. That only happens when you are very angry, very drunk, or otherwise overcome. As a result your next words sound almost formal, even bound up as they are with centuries of pain: “But if you do mean it…if you can love a broken thing like me…then I will gratefully take you as my lover for as long as you wish to be taken.”

  I smile. You rest your face on my shoulder again so that I am once more speaking just beside your ear. “I love you,” I murmur, and punctuate each phrase with a kiss along your jawline, then the hollow of your throat, then over your heart. Saying the words is such a relief, I can’t stop. “I love your strength…and your grace...I love your mind…and your voice…and I intend to love your body as well…all day long, and hopefully every day after.” I return to your lips. “But I love you most in the broken places…it’s from there you’ve grown so strong.”

  You sigh into my neck. “Good,” you reply, tilting your chin up so you can look me in the eye again. The sadness in your eyes has caught fire and I am held absolutely spellbound. “Now…fuck me.” The mischief appears again, and you add, “That’s an order.”

  I don’t need to be told twice.

  Again my thoughts lose all coherency. No one has ever had such power over me. We join together over and over, neither of us able to get enough of the other, one sensation standing out and then blurring into the next.

  The way your hands grip the headboard; the hitch in your breath just before the earthquake hits us both; turning my head slightly to see the angel on one side of me and the demon on the other; my hand passing over the inch-long birthmark on your left shoulder blade in the exact shape of a crescent moon...I memorize every second I can.

  Cries into the darkness are interspersed with helpless laughter—I lose my balance at one point and end up elbowing you rather hard in the ribs, and at another point we both freeze mid-stroke as the bed makes an ominous groan that might portend its wood-splitting death. Vampires are, after all, notoriously rough on beds. I make a vague mental note that mine is sturdier, and next time, I’ll take you there.

  Finally, long about four in the afternoon, my entire body so sore and exhausted I can’t move another muscle no matter how much pleasure it might bring either of us, I collapse beside you, panting, tremors still racing through me. The pain is far too delicious to let heal right away—it reminds me very strongly of my fight training, especially in the beginning when you, for lack of a better phrase, pounded me into the ground every night for a month until I learned my lesson…although there are a few aching areas that are unique to today.

  I’ve told you I love you again since we started, more than once…and you have yet to say it back, but that’s all right. I can wait. Propped up on my elbow, looking down into your face at your half-closed eyes and the oh-so-rare contentment radiating from your skin, I know I have you. I have no idea where this will go—I’m not fool enough to believe in eternal love or soul mating or anything like that, whatever the legends about the Signets might say—but here, and now, we belong only to each othe
r.

  You lift up your hand lazily and touch my chest, tapping lightly on each bruise you’ve left there and then moving on to the next like you’re connecting dots. I look down, and as soon as you lift your finger from each mark, it disappears, leaving tingling warmth behind.

  “You said no one else knows you’re a healer,” I say, amused at how hoarse my voice is. “Why did you show me when you didn’t have to?”

  You’re already drifting off into a well-earned sleep, but you murmur, “I wanted you to know.”

  I can’t help but be amazed; you, who never share anything with anyone, have let me see a part of you no one else currently walking this earth has seen…well, possibly more than one part, if what you’ve told me about your sex life is true. “Thank you.”

  You reach down and take my hand, lifting it up to kiss the fingers, then lay it over your heart with a sigh. “Sleep now, Ó Lionáin.”

  I settle down next to you, but tell you, “You’ll have to teach me Gaelic…I have no idea what you just called me.”

  You smile with your eyes closed. “Dear One.” The words are low and drowsy. “The Anglicized equivalent would be ‘Lennon.’”

  I let my own eyes drift shut, sleep overtaking me, along with a deep feeling of peace from the continued quiet in my mind. “Lennon,” I whisper, letting the sound of your heartbeat lead me into the dark. “I like that.”

  Wrecking Ball

  Late 1942

  This is usually his favorite part.

  They tumble onto the bed together, David pitching sideways to keep from crushing him and landing facefirst in a pillow with a grunt.

  They’re both totally spent, of course—they always are. The minute one of them locks the door, with a whole day ahead of them and a night’s battle behind, they both know: no one is getting out of this alive.

  The sex itself is always punishing, relentless—and easily the best he’s ever had. They hurt each other. They make each other bleed in every conceivable way. He has always been an efficient feeder, out in the world—a quick strike and it was done before anyone could see, minimizing complications—but now he knows the intense pleasure of his teeth sinking deep into a thigh.

  David Solomon has already been quite an education.

  Since the monastery he’s never had much use for his body except as a means to an end. He’s turned it into a weapon of extremely selective (and expensive) destruction, honed every muscle as he would a blade. Oh, he’d had plenty of sex, but with rare exception it was almost always a commodity; letting someone fuck him was a useful way of getting what he wanted when the situation was too delicate for a decapitation. Men were so predictable; straight or not, all they wanted was a throat to shove their cocks down. It was all the same to him; he would use any of his other weapons with equal skill—for money, for information, for drugs…for mercy.

  There was a day in the House of God, deep beneath the world of the blessed in the cells and torture chambers of the Inquisition, that he got up onto his knees and sucked off the guard for the promise of food. He was so hungry—delirious with it, but not yet too weak to move—he would have done anything….and did.

  When it was done the guard shoved him back into the cell with a laugh. “There, that’s your dinner,” he said. “Maybe I’ll come back again for breakfast.”

  He had curled up in a ball, wanting desperately to vomit, but fighting the urge with all his will. He needed the calories. Between that and the scarlet-raw hours spent under the torturer’s hand, he had learned to switch off the connection between body and mind, with whatever happened to the former barely noticed by the latter.

  Now, seven hundred years and a world away, here in the firelit dark of David’s room he’s just as sore as he was that time, but he doesn’t feel sick. He feels like someone punched him in the throat, cracked his pelvis in half, and clawed all the skin off his back, and he’s happy.

  A strange word for a creature such as himself to use, but there it is.

  David turns over to face him, wincing—the bruises are already disappearing, as are the bite marks, but he’ll ache for quite a while.

  “Good thing we’re off until tomorrow,” he says, leaning in to nip Deven’s ear, “Walking right now would be hell…although I think you’d have it worse.”

  “Used to it by now,” he murmurs. “We’ve been at this for a month, remember.”

  “Has it really been that long?” David asks, but of course he knows—he’ll know it down to the precise minute, or more likely using several timelines depending on how one defined the beginning of their relationship.

  He knows David wants to reclaim the intimacy of that first night…and the most terrifying thing about David is how much he makes Deven want to surrender control over the situation, not just sexually, but emotionally. People give themselves to each other, and break each other into pieces. David already has his body, and the bare truth is he has Dev’s heart too, but it is vital he not know that. Not yet. Keeping those words unspoken is the only shield Deven has left against this lovely boy who could, so easily, possess him utterly.

  David isn’t just a slippery slope, he’s the goddamned Grand Canyon.

  This wasn’t the plan. He had craved David’s presence in his bed for months before he got it, and jumped in willingly, thinking it would be an intensification of their friendship, plus added benefits. Affection, pleasure, companionship…but not devotion, not like this. He didn’t have friends; just having David as one was more than enough. Then it turned out that David’s declaration of love wasn’t just pillow talk…he meant it, and scarier still, David Solomon never does anything halfway. Whether it’s learning a language, fight training, or falling in love, he goes for full immersion.

  He can feel David watching him. “Stop that,” he says. “It’s weird.”

  David answers reasonably, “I enjoy looking at beautiful things.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, fear clenches Deven’s stomach from the inside. “Someday you’ll let me in…someday I’ll find a way in.”

  “Into what?” Deven asks, but he already knows.

  “Into you.” He winds an arm around Dev’s middle and rests his head where his low voice at his lover’s ear becomes a secret, even if they’re just discussing the weather. “You nearly let me in when this started, but then you backed away from me. Don’t think I didn’t notice. I notice everything…like how rapidly your heart is beating right now.”

  “What do you want from me?” Deven asks, the words coming out almost as a plea. “I can tell you what will happen—you’ll see who I really am and you’ll run far and fast. I can’t be trusted with fragile things like the hearts of others. Why can’t we just enjoy this for what it is?”

  “Because I love you,” David says reasonably. “And with anyone else, I could be content with nights filled with combat and days filled with earthshattering sex. But not this time. Not with you.”

  Deven looks away. “What if that’s all you’re going to get? Would you end this?”

  David laughs quietly. “That would please you, wouldn’t it? No…but perhaps a change in strategy is called for. Perhaps trying to convince you I’m not going to abandon you isn’t enough. Perhaps…”

  They stare into each other’s eyes for a long moment before David says softly, “Perhaps the only way to get inside your walls is to take them apart piece by piece.”

  Deven’s eyes widen. He has no idea what that means, but he knows that David is perfectly capable of doing whatever it is…and if he allows it, if he doesn’t fight his way out of this bed and end this madness right now…

  “There’s something I don’t think you understand yet,” David says. He lowers his head to kiss a spot on his throat very familiar to their kind—beneath it lies the jugular, and a single bite right in that spot is death for one’s prey. David’s hand slides up around Dev’s neck until it’s wrapped around that spot, feeling for a pulse…then tightening, ever so slightly.

  The darkness in David’s eyes sends a shiver thr
ough his entire body as David says, very quietly, “You are mine.”

  Again, they stare. The words echo in Deven’s mind, making his heart race in frantic circles. This is not normal—David is many things, but possessive he is not. They’ve shared the power in their relationship relatively equally…but now Deven wonders if that’s true at all. He thought he had some control over things, keeping David at the proper distance…but when David wants to learn the intricacies of something, he methodically dissects and reassembles it as many times as it takes to understand.

  And that’s what he intends to do now.

  Even David, however, can’t manufacture energy from nowhere, and after cleaning out that nest of Blackthorn downtown and three hours of fairly savage fucking, David doesn’t have the wherewithal to begin a new undertaking. They fall asleep soon after that, and as he drifts off with David’s body pressed against his back, Deven hopes fervently that David will forget the idea of real intimacy and let things go on as they are, hot and loving in its way but not some sort of soul-mating.

  The problem, of course, is that David never forgets anything.

  *****

  There’s an attempt on the Prime’s life later that week, so Deven gets a reprieve, but David watches him closely, evaluating, trying to decide how best to approach this new research project.

  He had come into this without really considering what life would be like with Deven as his lover. Part of him had obviously thought that once he managed to get Dev’s clothes off, everything would fall into place, and there would be as many long, slow nights of delirious lovemaking as there were of scalding-hot sex. He had crawled into Deven’s bed that first night sure that all he had to do was tell him how he felt, and that while it would take Dev a while to feel secure enough to say it back, he eventually would.

  Naïve, perhaps, but David has always been an accurate judge of character—people are easy enough to figure out just by watching them, extrapolating patterns from their behavior. Humans and vampires both are made of patterns. They might have mysteries deep beneath the skin, but even the most complicated person manifests a limited number of behaviors in response to emotional stimuli.