by Kaia Bennett
“We wouldn’t poison ourselves.” She stared, hypnotized by my explanation of history she’d never known existed.
“Who’s ‘we’? You were never one of them, but even if you were, ask yourself why the richest humans would give a single shit about people like you?”
I could almost hear the wheels turning in her mind, her disbelief peppered by the ugly truth. Of course, humans would poison themselves for power. Her mind shifted through atrocities like flash cards fluttering into my mental landscape.
Tuskegee. The Holocaust. Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Poisoned food and water. Stolen native lands and animals hunted to extinction.
“They’ve been working on stronger and faster strains of V-Sep since the Eighteen-hundreds, even though they lie and say they haven’t. I swear, the Victorians had a psychotic obsession with us.”
Evie nodded, tucking her chin deeper into the collar of her coat. “I’ll bet. I’d be obsessed too, if I could kill the thing hunting me.”
I shoved away from the heat of her body, the palpable weight of her rage. So I wouldn’t have to look at those accusatory eyes, I trained my gaze on the bustle of life passing by the alley.
“Sometimes, I think compassion is the real sickness, ‘cause only someone blinded by that useless sentiment could see humans as victims. They’re not obsessed with killing us, Evie. They’re obsessed with the power we’re born to. That’s why we’re allies. We’re business partners.”
Evie closed her eyes. I saw school texts and movie reels in her mind, revealing destruction in a collage of suffering. World War I, and slavery, bombs bursting, musket fire, tribes fighting tribes, whips and chains, rape and murder. The legacy in our blood, hers and mine. Murder and rape and savagery at the hands of the people she thought she belonged to, by humans. Humans working with vampires.
“If that’s true, you’d think your kind would take better care of the poor, the hungry, the sick and the outcasts that could infect you. Seems pretty stupid to be business partners with the people trying to kill you.”
I’ve been saying the same shit to my father for over a century. On that we’re in agreement.
I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of being right, though her eyes narrowed at me as if she’d heard the thought anyway.
“They target the turned, because most true born don’t care. We’re too strong to kill and have more money than most humans can dream of. So, they formed a truce with us at the expense of the turned. Public hunting grounds are set up around places where weak humans congregate. The turned eat the expendable humans, the expendable humans infect the turned. Sometimes, there’s a lost witch mixed in there. When the humans get lucky enough to find a pretty little thing like you, they show us some generosity. You know, grease the hinges for good business. They trade that witch on the red market.”
“Stop. I don’t want to hear anymore.”
Bitterness uncoiled within me like a snake and bared its fangs.
“Why? Does it hurt your feelings?”
“Shut up.” She shook her head and bit her bottom lip. Blood beaded on the red surface.
“You’ve been agonizing over killing, and given half the chance, those humans would lay you at the feet of men like my father.”
She tried to pass me, but I shook her till her teeth rattled and pinned her to the brick wall like a disobedient child.
“That’s right. They’d shake my father’s hand and say ‘good trade’, for some money or a few enemy secrets. Maybe they’d have their fill of you first, pass you around a few hundred times, before tossing you on the auction block.”
“I said stop!” She swung. I caught the punch and slammed the offending fist against the wall. A shriek of pain erupted from her lips.
That’s right. I’m not some invalid sweating and starving to death, baby. This is the man you remember.
I bit down hard on a sweet spot in her mind, sank the venom of truth in, and watched her burn from the inside out.
“Humans hate you as much, if not more, than they hate us. That’s what you waste your empathy on? I’d almost feel sorry for your kind, if I didn’t know better. But, you and I both saw the same vision. Witches weren’t so innocent, either. Were they?”
Fat flakes clung to us now, tangling in my hair, sitting heavy on her coat and kissing her eyelashes. She said nothing, and finally, disgust rendered me mute. I flung her wrist away from me, ignoring the strange twinge in my chest as she cradled the bruised joint. For the first time since that night in the motel, when she’d rolled through my mind and made me come against my will, I was too livid to touch her.
I didn’t give a damn about the history lessons or the humans.
I didn’t care about the witches, beyond their taste, or the wolves, beyond their ability to kill for a fee.
I cared about her naïve beliefs, even though I didn’t want to. I cared that she hated what she’d become so much, she’d cast humans as innocents. They were kudzu with voice boxes. They bred like weeds. They died, and ten more popped out to take the place of one. So fuck Evie’s empathy. Her gift made her a crazy hot fuck and a defenseless lamb. I’d be dumber than her if I let her make me feel something for humans.
Vaughn and Liam used to be human.
I ignored my contrary thoughts, battling the influence of the empath at my side. I didn’t want to think anymore.
We walked in silence through a cyclone of white, dipping into the Bryant Park tunnel. We stomped through the panel at the rear of the building, mounted the stairs to the attic and unlocked the door with my key. In the dark hallway, I felt Evie’s hand on my cuff.
She looked as shocked as I did to see her fingers curling around the leather. I raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t know. I thought it was just a vampire disease. Like some kind of cosmic checks and balances for your cruelty as a species.”
I tilted my head, devouring the sight of her sucking her bottom lip into her mouth.
“I thought you were just monsters. I didn’t know—”
“We are monsters, Evie. Just that. Born for the kill, and we make no fucking apologies. I don’t need or want your pity. I deal in fear, witch. Fear,” I whispered and towered over her, pressing my groin against hers, “tears, and this.”
I reached between her legs with my full speed, and she gasped, clamping around my hand. Her eyes went completely black.
“You got some fear for me, baby? You gonna cry? Because you know how much I love it when you cry.”
She looked like she might. She grabbed my collar, bracing herself against the relentless caress of my hand. Her heat scorched my hand, her breath touched my lips. I nearly kissed her. I knew she wanted me to.
I licked just inside her upper lip, teasing her bloodlust before pulling away.
“I think I’ll let you suffer tonight. Maybe your conscience will feed you. But the next time we feed, you better take your fill. There’s no place for weakness here, Evie. The hunger only gets worse.”
I left her, staring. Shaken.
But my mind wouldn’t stop repeating her stupid question.
What about Vaughn and Liam? They used to be human.
What about my brothers?
17
Evie curled into an armchair by the fire, reading voraciously from the shelves lining this former witch haven. She’d tucked two volumes into her travel bag in preparation for our departure Sunday or Monday, but reading didn’t completely distract her.
Every once in a while, she’d startle, returning to the real world to stare at the grandfather clock beside the paper-laden desk in the corner. The hands ticked down to the night’s festivities like a children’s game humans liked to play. Red light. Green light. I’d seen vampire kids play the same game with real speed on their side, zipping around open fields under the watchful eye of a patriarch.
“Do you think they’ll cancel?” Evie stared out the window at the blanket of white. Candles winked, casting undulating shadows against the windows and the navy gauze cur
tains.
“No. She won’t cancel.” Stark slowed his never-ending chewing. Vaughn and I laughed at Evie’s wish for a snow day.
The party would be a saving grace if I could escape watching the wolf eat. Did wolves always eat like this? He wouldn’t stop. Mouthful after mouthful of meat and vegetables. Sandwiches. Salads, forkfuls of sausage—which Vaughn enjoyed mocking him over, offering to exchange one edible link for the one dangling between his legs.
I watched the wolf pace and chew, pace and swallow, caught somewhere between fascination and disgust. Meanwhile, I alternated between napping and reading V-Sep research by a nineteenth century physician named Dr. Gordon Byrd. From the looks of the text, the good doctor had been on the ground floor of humanity’s failure to control vampirism and paid a hefty price.
Vaughn had pinged off the walls since breakfast. He’d gone hunting with us this time and Evie couldn’t get away fast enough when Vaughn finished off our kill. I took her to the library in silence, but an electric current passed between us every time her knuckles brushed mine. Disgust and arousal did battle within her. Her thoughts whispered against mine, like bodies writhing in the dark. She’d sated one hunger, but the other had been building since the second rite, embers of lust breathing under her icy rage.
You’re the best. No one fucks me better.
She didn’t want to go to her bedroom, and I caught glimpses of why, against her will. Fingers would roam, would slide into her wet pussy while she relived all the ways I’d fucked her, all the ways she’d been used by Vaughn and Liam. The orgy she’d witnessed during our visit with Sundara distracted my little bond witch. She alternated between devouring information on her ancestors and daydreaming about brutal sex.
I glanced her way. She held my gaze, staring through me, and into the past. A whole forest ablaze and my fingers sparking her skin danced inside her mind. The sensation of my hands on her body in our shared memory made her cross her ankles and slam her thighs together.
I want to hear you begging me to fuck you, Evie.
I wanted her weeping, but in a strange shift, I wanted her crying for me to touch her. I wanted her begging me to let her come. She’d only ever hated herself for wanting my touch. What would happen if she admitted she needed me inside her? What would happen if she let herself feed this hunger, too?
The ding of a text message sliced through our mental wrestling match. Six forty-five. Sundara’s escorts were waiting for Evie and Stark in the tunnel.
“Time for you two to go.” I lifted my head from Vaughn’s lap and sat up. I pulled my hair over one shoulder and stretched, wondering if I should braid the length tonight to meet Sundara’s dress code. I hadn’t worn a suit in a while.
Evie wanted to argue. The faint buzzing of panicked half thoughts, images of flight and rebellion, circled my mind like a fly. She leaped to her feet, took a deep breath, and shoved her feet into her boots. Snatching her coat off the couch, she lifted her chin and marched out without making eye contact with me or Vaughn. Stark strode to the kitchen and put his constant companion—a plate—in the sink before doing the same.
“Time for you and me to get ready.”
Vaughn smiled, then yawned. “You couldn’t have argued about the suits? Every time I put on a tie I feel like I’m getting ready for my bar mitzvah.”
I rolled my eyes and stretched to my full height, stripping on my way to my room. I wore black on black. Only the silken shimmer of my lapel and tie broke up the inky palette. I left my hair free, swept the length away so the strands blended into the suit, and went to get Vaughn.
Vaughn went the more traditional route, with a Sixties twist. Crisp white shirt, skinny black tie. Loafers without socks. The look fit his rangy build and his desire to undress as soon as possible. He chose a white handkerchief, one he’d enjoy soaking red or stuffing into a screaming mouth. A pack of Marlboros and the silver belt buckle Liam used to like best rounded out his look. The Rolex Liam would’ve chosen, like a preening teenager, covered Vaughn’s left wrist.
He traced the outline of the belt buckle in the full-length mirror. Vaughn must’ve been thinking the same thoughts I’d dwelled on. How strange to be going to Asylum without our little brother. Loss tempered the thrill of anticipation, the rapturous feeding waiting on the horizon.
“He’d want us to enjoy ourselves.” My words held the finality of an edict. “So fuck and kill and feed. For him. We’re still here and we take what we want.”
Vaughn nodded. Licked his lips. He snuffed out the melancholy shimmering in his eyes and smiled a wicked smile.
“Let’s party.”
We donned black knee-length coats and hit the tunnels, brushing melting snow from our clothes as we traveled the familiar route.
Instead of going to the main club we traveled an extra mile until we entered a hidden door for favored guests. The staging area for Sundara’s performance could’ve been another club in its own right and so needed room to spread out from Asylum proper.
The door led to an elevator and the elevator led to another world. Beyond the bodyguard who checked us in, neon hues shifted, bathing the massive ballroom in pinks and reds, blues and purples, greens and golds.
Gorgeous, naked, collared slaves walked between patrons. They carried drinks for humans and wolves. Some trays were laden with knives or straight razors for vampires to choose from. Acrobats swung from the high steepled ceiling on a variety of perches surrounding the guests. Aerial silk performers swayed and spun high above the floor.
The music pulsed, primal but slow. The hushed hum quickened the blood and complimented chatter and moans.
Chaise lounges covered in scarlet leather encircled the three-hundred-sixty-degree curtain concealing the stage.
Quickies commenced in some corners, audience members priming themselves before the main show, and the fuck-fest to follow. Opera-style private boxes climbed the walls, supported by Grecian columns and bracketed with black gauze. Two-way mirrors glittered beneath the curtains.
These premiere seats were twice as large as even the most expensive box at the nearby Metropolitan Opera. Several vampires and their prey could lounge on bed-sized chaises. Toys were available, restraints were built into the rooms, and the club took care of clean up. A guest could watch the show below from the private windows, or watch the monitors for Sundara’s indulgent close ups. I’d expect nothing less from an ancient attention whore, covetous of the glamour in every century she’d lived, and emblematic of them all.
Fire eaters and fire dancers twirled inside violent flames around us, nude except for glittering gold oil, and the dangling jewels in their headdresses and around their hips. They gyrated to the beat and the call of the fire in a way that made me think of Evie, visions of the past circling my mind like smoke.
Vaughn licked the oiled skin of a fire dancer, a vampire from the way her pupils dilated when she saw who risked her expert spins to claim a taste. Vaughn locked eyes with her as he used one of her flames to light his cigarette. Once the show started, everyone would be up for grabs. I’d usually be searching for prospects at this point, but my eyes were trained on those boxes. Which one is Evie in?
We strolled through this sanctuary, for Vaughn’s sake, watching other vampires taste their prey or tease their pets. I gave in to old habits and ran my fingers over the bleeding thigh of a slave writhing in orgasm over her mistress’s fingers. I sucked the sweetness from my fingers and shared a smile with the vampire vision of beauty. True born, I guessed. Sundara made a few exceptions once in a while, like she did with Vaughn, but this woman I didn’t recognize couldn’t be one. She could afford a front row seat. A visiting queen from Asia I guessed, her angled eyes shining black and her pale pink dress a gauzy suggestion around her slender curves.
Queens—true born vampire women chosen because they have the ability to breed our future heirs—are as rare as gold after the gold rush. They travel from territory to territory, free of the constraints or borders, but unable to rule on their own. T
hey live a life of luxury. They also live a life solely to breed. A visiting queen could be traveling for fun. She could’ve been sent here for my father to breed with, too, but my father had chosen his heir.
What if she was sent here for me? Dad wouldn’t have invited her without giving me a heads up. Would he?
The taste of her slave’s witch blood curdled in my stomach.
The queen slid her fingers out of the slave, just as the poor girl had been about to come, and sucked cream from her fingers. She licked her pale pink lipstick clean and spread her slave’s legs wider, so wide the tendons strained under the coral tint of the queens nails. The slave opened her own angled eyes to see who she’d been offered to. Vaughn and I stared at the glistening redness, teased to torturous levels of arousal.
“Won’t you join me for a drink?”
Does she recognize me? I couldn’t tell and didn’t get a chance to ponder further. An usher tapped me on the shoulder. Dressed in a tuxedo with white gloves he must’ve sold his soul to keep clean, he handed me a note written on creamy stationary. A key card had been taped to one side, the other marked with Sundara’s decadent cursive:
My love, don’t keep your mate waiting. She looks almost as beautiful as I do. Box number two.
I craned my neck to search the boxes, inspecting the sweeping gold numbers in the center of the black baroque designs until I found ‘two’.
I licked my lips and looked down to see Vaughn kneeling between the slave’s legs. He tasted the blood pumping in the artery leading to her sex, and then her cunt. His groan at the mingling of flavors made me think of Evie, the weight of blood rushing to my shaft in answer. The queen lifted her chin, the porcelain perfection of her face shimmering in the shifting light. Her gaze offered something I recognized. Something uncomplicated and sorely missed. Heartless, feral pleasure.
“Box two.” I tapped Vaughn on the top of his skull, and he lifted a fist in the air with a grunt to signal he heard me, his face still buried in witch pussy. I hurried for the stairs, ignoring the heated stare on my back.
