by Fiona Zedde
The wolf was still for an instant before she slowly raised her head, kissed the soft flesh of her lover’s belly, and then tenderly, carefully, withdrew her fist. Kylie’s thighs trembled. She didn’t realize how stiffly she’d held herself against the wall, her legs pressed together as the two lovers shared their passion. Would she ever find lust and tenderness like that for herself? She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip and slowly backed away from the sight of them.
While the women cooed together, lying in the bed with their legs tangled, foreheads lightly touching as they talked softly, the end of their lovemaking, a gentle denouement, Kylie slipped quietly out of the apartment.
She clambered down the side of the building, shielded in darkness, keeping as quiet as possible. Her feet hit the sidewalk, then seconds later, she smelled jasmine, a perfume mixed with the tang of blood.
“Did you see anything up there you like?”
Kylie only just stopped herself from whirling around in surprise. How the hell did Julia know where she was? “Are you following me?”
“Yes.”
Her honesty never failed to surprise Kylie. Julia stood on the sidewalk in six-inch heels and a couture cat suit, all in black. A tiny creature made average sized by the towering heels and even bigger attitude. She put her hands on her hips and fell in step with Kylie.
“Why?” Kylie asked, irritated at Julia’s presence and its threat to her afterglow.
“Because I wanted to. And because I think this behavior of yours is a little risky. What if the humans saw you?”
“But they didn’t see me. They never do.” Kylie looked at Julia. “When did you start worrying about humans?”
Julia scoffed, a laughing sound that swept her head back to show off the slender length of her throat, the strong jawbones. “I’m hardly worried about humans, little one.” She smiled widely then. “But it does pay to be careful around any creature. Especially when you’re trespassing on their territory. Anything on this earth can become vicious.”
“But not everything is dangerous,” Kylie said. “Besides, it’s harmless. Watching is just something I do every once in a while when I’m bored.” She’d rather cut out her own tongue than confess to Julia how often she spied on humans without actually stalking or killing them.
“Watch yourself, little Belle,” Julia said with an intent look. “You don’t know quite everything in this big world of ours.”
“Don’t call me that!” Kylie snapped. But she knew she was wasting her breath.
“Fine, Kylie.” Julia drew out her name, exaggerating each syllable. “Take care of yourself. Your mother would be very displeased if anything happened to you.” An unreadable look crossed her face. “And she’d probably blame me.”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. She doesn’t care about me as much as you think.”
“Oh really?” Julia made that laughing noise again, only this time there was no amusement in it. “She loves you more than everyone in this clan. God help us if it ever came down to her choosing you over us, Silvija included. You would win every time.”
Kylie made a dismissive noise and kept walking, deciding to ignore Julia and her nonsense for the rest of the night. It was, after all, what her mother would do.
Chapter Fourteen
Kylie decided to go back to Atlanta.
It wasn’t even a conscious decision on her part. She spent that day in her bed, pressed between Liam and Violet, marinating in their warmth and the combined scent of their bodies that drew her down into sleep like a gentle lasso. But she fought its pull, thinking for far too long about her night both in Atlanta and in New York. About Olivia. The threats Silvija had made. The short nature of human life.
Olivia would die soon. Kylie could see that as clearly as the first flush of sunrise. She wanted to save her, to keep her in the world for as long as possible, but she would never damn Olivia to an existence like the one she had. Never.
So, in the heat of her daytime bed, she made the decision to defy Silvija. But did not have the heart to tell her mother.
Kylie stepped out of the cab from the airport well after ten o’ clock. With butterflies dancing in her belly, she stood looking up at Olivia’s window and wondering what she could say after how they left things the last time. The hurt look on Olivia’s face had made her ache in return. She clenched her fists tight in her jacket pockets and crossed the street, heading for Olivia’s apartment and the easy climb to the balcony.
Within moments, she was inside the apartment, smelling that sweet and bitter scent that had seduced her that first morning. Olivia slept. As usual, she slept only on one half of the big bed, her slender body on top of the sheets tonight, sprawled on her belly and wearing a thin black camisole that rode up her thighs, the lace edge resting on the gentle curve of her bottom. She hugged a pillow to her chest, leaving the other half of the bed to the three pillows stacked end to end in the shape of another body.
Music played from the iPod and small speakers on the bookshelf, the same song, like the soundtrack to a merry-go-round. Like a memory.
Kylie sat on the bench in Olivia’s bedroom listening to the music, a song by Lizz Wright, lulling Olivia through sleep. Her childhood. Kylie thought of her childhood in Friendship. Playing basketball with Tracy-Anne and Kenya on the playground with her socks drooping around her ankles and the smell of the orange Popsicle she’d eaten at lunch still clinging to her hands, making the ball sticky when it was her turn to grab it and try for a basket.
Tracy-Anne and Kenya laughed, wild like seahorses, tossing their short tufts of hair while Kylie missed her shot. They laughed when she made the shot, too. The rubber ball slammed into the backboard, rattling the chains of the net.
In Olivia’s bedroom, Kylie stirred. Her childhood in Jamaica was different from any Olivia might have had. No PTA. No minivans rumbled down the dirt road near her school to signal a homemaker mom’s arrival. No, they had nothing in common in their pasts. But the smell of amaretto from Olivia’s evening drink still lingered in the room, so strong that Kylie could almost taste it, a small thing anchoring them together in the present.
A soft noise pulled her from her thoughts. Olivia waking. She opened her eyes, the long lashes blinking once, twice. The corners of her mouth curved up.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Olivia said.
Kylie bit her lip to reel in her smile. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” Olivia closed her eyes and smiled again. She pushed the covers aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Sleep scent clung to her, warm and tempting, creating an illusion of softness around her that tugged Kylie from her seat on the bench to crouch at the bed’s edge.
“Do you want to come out with me tonight?”
The invitation sprang from Kylie’s lips whole and unplanned. But with it given, she realized how much she wanted to share the night with Olivia. It was barely ten thirty. And from the smell of her skin, she had been asleep for at least four hours.
“Do I?” Olivia repeated.
“Come with me.” Kylie moved closer toward her on the bed.
The days and nights of being in Olivia’s small apartment had been pleasant, creating an intimacy between them that the night had the potential to shatter. She reluctantly remembered the only time they had been in the night together, the blood in the alley, Olivia’s frightened eyes. But after being in New York and talking with Rufus, Kylie wanted to do more with Olivia. Damn the risks.
“Okay.”
They left the apartment at Kylie’s suggestion, but once they stepped out into the night, Olivia took the lead.
She took Kylie to a sex club.
Kylie’s eyes widened as she and Olivia walked together into the club. It was a large, converted warehouse space with brick walls and a maze of rooms. There were windows and mirrors everywhere. All the better to see the sex on display.
There were couples, triples, quads, and more of every conceivable mutation. Male and female and everyone in between
, their bodies prettily presented, their hunger and pain for everyone to see. Kylie wanted to grab Olivia and bring her closer, protect her from the brutality and naked sexuality around them. But she had brought Kylie here. Was this the type of lovemaking she liked? Was she like Belle and Silvija?
“My mother comes to places like this sometimes,” Kylie said.
Olivia looked around, her face calm, although Kylie could almost taste the shock and surprise on her skin.
“Does she bring you with her?” Olivia asked.
“No.” Kylie quickly shook her head, disconcerted by the thought of coming to a place like this with Belle. “She doesn’t.”
Olivia looked at her. “But she brings someone else with her?”
“Yes. Her lover. Well, her wife.” It wasn’t that Kylie wanted Belle to bring her to places like this. Places that she didn’t care for, but sometimes she wished that they would do something together. She cleared her throat. “She and Silvija got married years ago.”
They walked through a narrow hallway with glassed-in rooms on either side. In one room, a pale woman was tied up and hung upside down, naked, with her legs spread and tied to the wall on either side of her. A thick, wooden beam in the center of the room held her body steady for whatever was to come. Rope twined around the beam and around her throat, her ribs, and hips. Her hands were tied behind her back. Her pussy was completely shaved and dripping wet, the orifice slightly open and reddened as if she’d just gotten fucked. Her long black hair brushed the floor, and her eyes were wide with bliss. A latex-clad woman, dark-skinned and short-haired, sat on a nearby wooden chair, reading out loud from a paperback. She wore latex from throat to ankle, her feet clad in six-inch black heels. A big, green dick was strapped to her hips. It glistened with a mixture of pussy juices, spit, and lube.
“That’s nice.” A smile ghosted across Olivia’s lips. “I imagine marriage to be this wonderful state of constant happiness and sex.” She laughed softly. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it looks beautiful from the outside.”
She didn’t seem at all impressed by or interested in what was happening between the two women. Following her lead, Kylie pulled her own attention away to focus on what Olivia was talking about. Right.
Marriage: The greeting card.
Sometimes, it did seem like Belle and Silvija’s life together was like that. Their front was a united one. And even when they fought, it was almost like teasing, one of them invariably wearing a smile, even if there was blood involved.
Kylie opened her mouth. “It does seem nice enough. But does a marriage like that make room for anyone else?”
“What do you mean?”
As they walked through the house of sex, she found herself telling Olivia the beginning of everything. How her mother had disappeared when she was a child. The rumors of Belle abandoning her for sex with a dangerous stranger. Kylie skimmed over how she was turned, but found her mouth curling down as she talked about her existence now with her mother and how everything seemed to be about Silvija.
“You should tell her how you feel,” Olivia said, her voice low and soothing. A delicate counterpoint to the harder sounds around them, of sex and effort and pain. “She won’t know there’s something wrong unless you tell her.”
Talk to Belle? That happening was about as likely as either of them becoming human again. She pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Olivia pursed her lips. “Oh, you’re one of those.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, now you’ve got something to say.” Olivia lightly tapped Kylie on the shoulder with a finger. “I mean you’re not a talker, but you expect everyone else to know exactly what’s wrong with you and know how to fix it. If they don’t, then they’re the bad guy.”
“That’s not true,” Kylie said with a quick shake of her head. At least she hoped it wasn’t.
Olivia looked at her in silence, her lashes low over dark eyes. “I wish it wasn’t true, because a quality like that will lead to a very lonely life.”
“I don’t need anybody anyway.” Kylie shrugged.
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother.”
They walked in silence past a room with a doctor’s examination table. A man was spread out on the table on his back, naked and panting, his arms tied above his head by thick rope and held in a masked woman’s fierce grip. His legs were spread and a woman dressed in a white rubber nurse’s uniform stretched his anus open with a speculum. The man released a trembling moan, begging the women for more of what they were already giving him.
Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Who knew Pap smears were for men too?”
Kylie didn’t bother asking her what a Pap smear was. If it had anything to do with the wicked-looking chrome instrument holding the man’s ass open, she didn’t want to know. She startled when Olivia took her hand. Olivia led her away from the scene to gawk at something else. If she hadn’t heard Olivia’s hiss of surprise, she would have thought Olivia had seen this sort of thing a hundred times before and was simply bored by it.
“Is this the kind of sex you want?” Olivia asked.
With their fingers still intertwined, Olivia tugged Kylie through the seemingly endless club. So much sex. So much decadence. But Kylie felt utterly removed from it all.
“I—I,” Kylie stuttered. “I don’t know.”
Her feet stumbled to a halt outside a room where a woman, angelically beautiful with curly black hair and artificially long lashes, was tied up and gagged on an X-cross. Her naked brown body already wore several long, sluggishly bleeding slashes. There were surface wounds along her ribs, her arms, and between her breasts. A woman who was dressed as a lumberjack, complete with massive and tattooed forearms, held a sharp knife between the angel’s spread legs. The angel whimpered in fear, but her pussy was swollen and wet.
There was a fierceness to this sort of lust that seemed perfect for the way of the pack, of vampires. Slaps meant love. Blood was devotion. Manacles were a symbol of forever. But despite her dependence on blood, despite the fact that she was her mother’s daughter, Kylie didn’t know if these hard things were for her.
Olivia’s touch soothed her. “You don’t have to know. I just wondered.” She paused. “I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, I just thought with the, you know, the fangs, the blood”―she gestured to the sexual decadence and domination around them―“that this would be your kind of thing.”
Kylie shook her head even as embarrassment touched her cheeks. “I’ve never done any of this.” And she could not imagine herself in such positions, open and vulnerable.
They walked through the dungeon, Olivia leading her by the hand. The bodies and sounds settled into the background—the lash of leather against human flesh, moans and gasps of pain, the wailing music of pleasures Kylie had never allowed herself to imagine. It was all a background to the light of surprise in Olivia’s face, the way the skin around her eyes tightened just the tiniest bit when she saw something she didn’t like. The slim grace of her back in the black halter dress as she pulled Kylie along through a narrow corridor packed with the night’s revelers.
Soon, they were through the hall then walking past the woman at the door who once again gave Kylie a suspicious look. Are you old enough to be in here? Kylie bared her teeth and allowed Olivia to pull her out into the cool night. They left behind the pounding bass and the barely visible front door for the lamp-lit streets. Olivia drew a deep breath of air, then another. She didn’t release Kylie’s hand.
Olivia took her barely a half mile away to a hill with a house—tall, white, and stately. For sale and empty. It reminded Kylie of the house where she and her mother had found the photographer and his pretty model. She abruptly remembered the feel of the chase, blood in her mouth, the girl’s unfocused eyes staring up at the dark sky.
She and Olivia sat in the creaking front porch swing and looked toward Midtown, the slender tower of the Bank of America building rising up from Ponce de Leon Avenue.
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br /> “I love it here,” Olivia said.
She tucked her feet under her and sighed softly, her scented weight swaying toward Kylie. “I was born here, you know,” she said glancing briefly at Kylie before looking back out into the night. “But even though I went to California for both my degrees and loved it there, I couldn’t imagine living any place but Atlanta.” She smiled. “It’s the perfect city.”
Kylie smoothed fingers over the knee of her jeans, hyper-aware of Olivia’s breath and honeyed scent. They’d stopped holding hands long ago, but she could still feel the imprint of Olivia’s fingers on hers. She cleared her throat. “I’ve never been here before,” she said. “I only came because of something I saw on the news. A museum opening.”
Olivia tilted her head back in the swing to look at her. “I didn’t know you were into art.”
Kylie thought of the ruby necklace she’d taken, the cold fire of it in her hand, how the human men had chased her to get it back. “I’m not. Not really. I like how certain things make me feel.”
“That’s the point of art. It makes you feel things.”
“I like to steal,” Kylie confessed abruptly. “That feeling is the closest to being human that I know.”
Silence whispered between them. The porch swing creaked. The night breeze toyed with Kylie’s heavy hair.
“Being human isn’t a bed of roses you know,” Olivia said finally. There was something dark in her voice, an ache. “Look at me. I’m human. I’m dying.”
The chains of the porch swing creaked rhythmically as they rocked.
“I have a tumor inside me,” Olivia continued. “I’d rather be undead, like you, than face a painful death at the mercy of some disease that I can’t control.” Her voice was low and rough, pain tearing through her words. “I would give up my humanity at any time to be free of this disease.”
Olivia’s words filled Kylie with a quiet horror. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be like this.” Kylie shook her head. “But I guess it’s impossible for you to really know.” She looked away from her. “It’s hell.”
