by Alana Melos
“I can’t,” I said, pulling my eyes from him with some effort. “Not that I like admitting I’m less than perfect, but I’ve never done anything of that magnitude before. A few small changes, but… not what would be needed here.”
“Regulus then,” Adira insisted. “He can.”
“I’m not sure you’d want him to,” I replied. “He’s got no love for you and yours. No ill will I don’t think either, though.” That was something, at least.
“He’s got the experience,” Adira replied, her voice smooth. “I’ll pay him.”
“That’s something he might consider, but it would have to be a lot of money,” I said as I nodded. “It’s not too late and he should be home by now. I’ll give him a call.”
I stood and moved away for the illusion of privacy--she had heightened senses so she’d hear everything we said over the phone anyway--I called Ger. The phone rang a few times until I thought it was going to go into voice mail. When he picked up, he was breathless. “Reece,” he purred, his voice breathy. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you tonight.”
“I found Mauler,” I stated. “He’s all… well, he’s captured, but his mind is all messed up. As unlikely as I thought it was, Rory’s in there. Somewhere.”
He laughed, a throaty, rich sound. “‘Unlikely’,” he said. “I should have bet you on that.”
I ground my teeth and schooled myself to patience. “Adira wants you to help bring out what’s left of his psyche,” I said. “She’s willing to pay.”
“Oh, I think we might be able to work something out,” he breathed, still husky and low, as if he were trying to catch his breath. He paused for a moment, then said to someone else, his voice muffled as he talked away from the phone receiver, “None of your business. Keep sucking, slut.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course it wouldn’t take him long to find his own amusement for the night. I’d had thoughts about heading over and having one of our marathon sessions, but fuck that now. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s second place or back up plan. “Tomorrow then,” I said. “I’ll pick you up around nightfall. I’m sure Adira will want to be up for that.” I glanced over to her, saw that she nodded in agreement, then looked back to the groggy wolf who growled at her. “Get lots of rest, Ger,” I said.
“Of course,” he replied, then hung up.
I pocketed my phone with a sigh, then returned to the others. “He said he would,” I told her, even though she knew already. “After you guys work out a price. I have no idea what he might want, but I’d be prepared for something big.”
“You’ll help too, won’t you?” Adira asked. She looked to Rory who continued to stare at us. His lip curled up in a silent snarl.
“I don’t know how much help I’d be,” I replied. “But I can keep tabs on what Gerard’s doing at least.”
“Then it’s settled,” Adira said, her voice brisk and hopeful. “I can keep him under control until then. As soon as it’s twilight, I’ll expect the both of you.” She shook her head as she looked at her changed packmate. “I don’t know what that thing did to him.” She turned her red-rimmed eyes to my own, “If you can’t fix him, get what information you can about the creature. We need to know if the pack is in danger or if they need to move.”
“The pack?” I scowled. “They kicked you out, Adira.”
“Because they abandoned me does not mean I abandoned them,” she said, her voice cool and serene, so much like the old Adira I knew.
I nodded. Loyalties like that didn’t change overnight. “We’ll see what we can see.” I held up the burner phone I’d taken the time to prepare while she’d been gone. “This has got my number, Rebekah’s, and Gerard’s in there. Rebekah will help if you need it. Gerard’s chancier. He might not even answer. But, you know, just in case.” I tossed it on the bed next to Rory’s feet.
“Thank you,” she said with her slim, knowing smile. “Until tomorrow.”
There wasn’t any more that needed to be said. It looked to be an impossible task, but Imperial City was a town where the impossible happened every day. After saying my goodbyes, I took off for home. Well, one of my homes. I felt low and dirty somehow, with this anger I couldn’t quite shake, so I headed to my hideout in the Wastelands. The Wastelands was ruled by the local scum, gangs, and ghouls, metahumans who were too disfigured to live normally in polite society. It was a dangerous neighborhood, but the fucking white hats usually didn’t bother with patrolling there. The more changed a person was, the more powerful they tended to be… and some of the ghouls were really damn ugly. As a consequence, it was usually the safest place for a black hat to bed down at. Plus, it was closest and I was tired.
This storm had dumped a bunch of snow everywhere, and I expected the streets to be packed dense and tight, yet as I flew over, I was able to see the pavement of the Wastelands illuminated by the street lamps. I landed in front of the apartment building where I rented and looked around with surprise. The streets were perfect and the ghouls and normies alike walked around minding their own business. Huh. Maybe the city could learn a thing or two from them. There were still places blocked in downtown proper from all the damn snow.
I walked up, brooding over the night’s events. It’d been up and down, back and forth all damn night. Frustration rolled through my mind, coupled with anger, jealousy, want… affection and worry. As hard as I tried, these… these things kept popping up from the blanket of not-feeling-much, throwing my stride off. I had to get rid of them. These emotions were crippling me, making me make bad choices. They were screwing everything up! One of the strongest emotions I felt was disgust for myself and my head. That dirty feeling just wouldn’t leave me, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it.
Reaching my floor, I stepped into the hallway as the light bulbs flickered, giving it an eerie feel. I didn’t bother pulling out my keys. I didn’t keep keys for this place. Instead, I moved to telekinetically pick the lock, having memorized the layout for the tumblers long, long ago. Just as the lock clicked open, the lights went out and someone grabbed me from behind. I threw my elbow back, connecting with a solid slab of muscle as strong hands turned me around and shoved me against the wall. Seeing who it was, the fight went out of me all at once.
“Your flair for the dramatic and manhandling is getting boring, Nos,” I said.
The thrill of adrenalin changed and the rush of desire swept through me. On the heels of that… more frustration. When was this ever going to change? Did everyone walk through life a whole bundle of these useless things? Were they always at the mercy of their whimsical emotions? I almost laughed at that… or cried. Capricious Whim was my handle, and damned if I wasn’t living up to the name now.
He didn’t say anything. His dark red eyes bored into mine. They glowed softly with power. He must have spent time feeding after the fiasco earlier. He didn’t look weak. No, he was strong and powerful, a predator. The vampire pressed me back into the wall, holding me just a few inches from him. Cold radiated from him, seeping into my warmth even through the clothing and armor. This lust I knew and welcomed. I wanted him. I wanted to cut him open, to feel my way around him as I straddled him, fucking him in multiple senses of the word. I wanted him to take me, to sink his teeth into me and drink deep, swallowing as much of me as he could. I wanted to fight him for dominance, to scratch and bite and claw and kick so that our fucking was as much a brawl as it was having sex.
Those desires were reflected in him. I’d never met a more perfect killer, and for the second time tonight, I burned with desire. I knew I shouldn’t give into it. Submitting would be a terrible mistake, and I’d always managed to pull myself back from the brink of insanity before concerning the vampire... concerning this vampire at least. The memory of my time with his Axis counterpart hung strong with me, and I wondered how much more wild my Nosferatu, the real Nosferatu, was. It’d be like riding a storm, trying to tame something uncontrollable.
I licked my lips. He mirrored the action, but the way he did was obscene, t
he last sight of a victim before a cannibal ate him. Oh so slowly he pushed further into my space until our bodies were touching, pushing past my boundaries heedless of permission. Hunger and lust fought in his thoughts, melding into a single obsession, an obsession for me. Though his hunger was of the flesh and mine of the mind, they played against each other perfectly. I wanted to feel deeply. He wanted to drink and eat deeply. Both of us had the nigh uncontrollable urge to consume. What was it they said… the hottest fires burned the brightest? This fire would leave both of us ash. There would always be a fight for dominance. He’d never submit to me, and while I toyed at the thought of submitting to him, I couldn’t. My arrogance wouldn’t let me.
His cold hands moved to my neck, cupping it as if he was going to twist my head off in a single powerful motion. I kept my mind locked on his, looking for any signs of unacceptable violence. The vampire didn’t know this, but I knew his biggest weakness apart from the sun. All those movies about vampires being killed by being staked were close to the truth. If their heart was pierced by anything, it would render them unable to move as the mystical connection between their essence and their body would be temporarily severed. I had seen it in Nazferatu’s mind and filed that away for protection. It didn’t matter how big the object, nor what it was made of. It was part of the mystical trade off for their speed, strength, and abilities. Whenever he went into battle, he never covered his heart. Ever. He almost never wore a shirt, just his leather vest with his sword strapped on his back. He flaunted his weakness for all to see.
So, even though he was stronger and faster, there was nothing faster than the speed of thought. Part of me thought I should withdraw from his mind to keep it a dangerous game, but the smarter part prevailed in this. I shouldn’t have even feared though, as his hands slid down to my collarbone and felt the flesh there, his thumbs playing along the major vein and artery in my neck, feeling my pulse. They crested the barely healed over bite, sending shivers of pain and lust over my skin.
We were so close. He was a wild, chaotic ideal for me, quite unlike my other lovers. He would be a storm, a tempest, a lightning strike. I couldn’t think of any other analogies for him save for nature ones. He was a force of nature. I don’t know how long we stood in that hallway like that. My body burned for him. My mind wanted to swallow his, to feel his threads and mingle them with my own, to feel what he felt, intensely and deeply. I wanted to take the only part of him which mattered and make them mine.
Unable to pull away, but unwilling to bridge the distance, I stood there waiting for him to make his move. His thumbs kept stroking my neck softly, tracing the line of blood just below the skin. The bite on my neck echoed with soft pain, the right kind of pain, reminding me of how good he felt, how right his bite was.
His right hand moved down, sliding over my body. I still wore the Kevlar armor, so he couldn’t cop a feel. He skipped over the armored sections quickly to my hip, then curved around and grabbed my ass through the heavy jeans. His hand roughly massaged me, his talons playing at tearing the fabric as he did. The other hand moved down and soon both were cupping my rear, making my legs spread open as he lifted me up and put himself between my legs. I groaned as the hard outline of his clothed cock rubbed against me. He gyrated his hips, withdrew, then thrusted again. He was large, and dangerously hard. Thoughts of what he wanted to do to me flitted through his mind and into mine. His keen mind envisioned us naked, covered in blood and wounds, fucking as if it were our last day on earth.
I wrapped my legs around him and bit my lip as he kept thrusting against me, making sure I felt every hard inch of him. My desire joined his tempest and I delved deeper into his mind, letting the layers of age wash over me as I sank into him in the truest sense of the word. His lust was cold and dry, but no less intense than my wet heat. His feelings ran deep, wells of emotion buried underneath time, laying there waiting to be discovered like a silver coin covered with grime. It shone. He shone, like the sun. My heat warmed him as his cold tempered me and suddenly I was possessed with his need to consume, with our need to consume. I plunged into his mind heedless, throwing away all the restrictions I’d placed on myself, all the rules I’d followed. I wanted to take him. I wanted to own him. Whether it was from me or him I couldn’t tell any more. Everything tangled together in our delicious friction. I reached with my hands, bringing them to his cold shoulders and digging in as I held on for dear life as he rode me, banging my back against the plaster wall. My nails drew blood, but the pain only spiked his desire, made it fresh.
Nosferatu went in for my neck as he ground his length into me. The bite made me shudder with desire, the lovely jagged ends of pain piercing me, holding me still in his grasp as he began to drink for the second time tonight. My blood flowed into his mouth, and he sucked on the wound, drawing more to the surface. He let go and bit again, higher this time so he pierced the jugular. I didn’t care. That hunger… the need… I echoed it, needing more from him than he was willing to give.
Instead of my hands, I reached with my mind. I needed him, all of him… every bit which made the vampire real to me. Every part of his psyche, his thoughts, emotions… all of it. They were mine. I luxuriated in power and started ripping through his mind without a care, trying to separate him from his body. I remembered telling the Axis Nosferatu I wasn’t a cannibal, but maybe I was… just not in the traditional sense.
Pain lanced through the left side of my head, shocking me out of Nos’s mind. He let up on his bite, alarmed and suspicious at what he’d felt and my sudden movement. It didn’t stop. Red hot agony pooled behind my left eye and temple, radiating out from there, infecting me. My mouth opened, but no cry came out. I couldn’t make a sound. I saw nothing but red… bright, blood red, this horrible liquid torture which consumed my every thought within seconds.
And then, there was nothing but black.
Chapter Six
I’d like to say I woke up fully alert, ready to kill, but the truth was I didn’t want to move from bed. That was unusual for me, since I normally had much to do on any given day. Today, my eyelids fluttered, but wouldn’t open. The bed I lay in wrapped me in warm comfort, playing a sweet melody as my head pounded an angry rhythm. Maybe if I went back to sleep, the pounding would go away.
It wouldn’t. I had to move. Rallying my will, I made my eyes open to my safehouse, the one I’d been standing outside of with Nosferatu. From the other room, I heard low chattering, like someone was talking on the phone, or maybe the television was on. Turning my head with the greatest of care, I spied my armor and clothing from the night before tossed carelessly aside on the floor. Irritated by the sight, I struggled to sit up. Although my body felt more or less fine, if a touch weak from blood loss and lack of food, my head moved in a discordant pattern with my body, as if it were going in slow motion.
I’d been pushed to my limits before with my ‘pathy, and this is what that felt like, except more severe. I didn’t even attempt to do a scan. The voice outside stopped, then laughed, and resumed its conversation. Pretty sure it was actually someone, and that someone must be a friend, I concentrated on moving to get to the bathroom. I had painkillers stored there. They were meant for actual wounds like gunshots, but they’d work to subdue this headache.
Calling it a headache was putting it mildly. As my feet hit the floor, the soft thud echoed through my body, making my head pulse. Each heartbeat spread agony into new parts of my head, which I didn’t think was possible since the pain seemed to be everywhere. The light from the window hurt my eyes, piercing me with bright steel daggers of sheer torture even though the light wasn’t much at all. The faint rumble of conversation in the other room thundered through me, sending a herd of rampaging horses through my head.
Yeah, it was that bad.
When I finally stood, I wobbled. Nausea overtook me. All I was able to do was stand there, willing myself not to throw up even though that tinny saliva pooled in the back of my throat. When the urge to vomit subsided, I slid my feet across
the cold linoleum floor to the bathroom. I forewent the light and opened the medicine cabinet there. My fingers found what I was looking for from memory, and I pulled out a bottle of heavy duty pain killers. Dry swallowing four, I set the bottle on the edge of the sink and waited, my hands gripping the white porcelain basin so I didn’t fall. I didn’t trust my legs enough to move to sit down on the toilet.
Time stretched on. The pain eased enough so I had the ability to think clear thoughts again. My fingers and toes felt a little buzzy with the effectiveness of the painkillers. I realized that I was high with some amusement. Then, my thoughts turned to last night, and what had happened before I passed out. Even now, through the aches in my head, my body responded with want. My mind did too, that indefinable hunger which drove me reared its head. After I forced it down, I attempted a small telepathic scan of the area around me and winced… but at least it worked. A familiar mindprint sat nearby: Michael, Nos’ human half.
I turned to leave the bathroom and realized something my pain haze hadn’t let register with me: I was stark naked. Groaning at the fun he must have had stripping me, I shuffled into the small bedroom and grabbed a robe from the back of the door. After tying it securely, I steeled myself and opened the door.
Michael sat there on the couch, legs splayed open as he made himself comfortable in my space, talking on the phone. At my movement, he stopped abruptly saying into the phone, “She’s up. Gotta go.” After hanging up and pocketing the phone, he grinned wide at me. “How you feeling, sexy?”
“I’m alright,” I said as I eased down into a chair. The pain had faded into something manageable, though now a pleasant buzz replaced it. I was definitely high. As I looked at his ugly face, I wondered exactly what happened after I’d lost it.
He must have seen the question, which told me another thing: I wasn’t too good at maintaining my normal neutral expression. Ah, well, the drugs had been necessary. “You weren’t looking too good before, babe,” he said, gently leering at me. “Nos let me take over, so I could get you inside.”
