Dark Angel

by Bridget Essex

  So basically, my entire world had just been turned upside down, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  And that was without thinking about my current predicament.

  I tossed and I turned, and I couldn’t sleep. I worried about everything. I worried about my foster parents and my sister showing up at my apartment and not finding me. I worried about my cat, Tanya, and how I’d only left her two bowls of food (I always give her two bowls of food everyday, because she’s a growing girl with a growing appetite and a growing belly, and who am I to tell her how much food she should eat?), and how she’d probably already gone through the bowls and was probably now chewing a hole in the plastic of my loaf of bread on the counter, but she’d be so hungry... I worried about my job, about Henry Pine wondering if he’d made a mistake in hiring me because I just failed to show up to work one day and then never came back.

  I worried that I’d never see the important people in my life ever again.

  And I thought about Josie.

  I know it’s stupid. I was trapped in a large, strange-looking industrial-type house with several vampires, and with several more vampires on the outside wanting me dead. Josie should really have been the last thing I was thinking about. But I wasn’t really thinking about Josie, so much as the normal life we could have had together.

  I didn’t blame her, but it was hard not to at least consider the fact that the only reason I was in the wrong place at the wrong time…was because of her.

  I needed to not think about that, though. She’d broken my heart, but, God, I’d loved her. She hadn’t loved me back. We were obviously not meant to be. But no matter where she was and what she was doing right now, I really, truly hoped she was happy.

  Mostly. Part of me definitely hoped that the sex with that stupid, brainless jock, at least, was kind of terrible.

  I turned over onto my back again, pillowing my hands beneath my head as I let out a long sigh.

  Thinking about sex, of course, made me think of Elle.

  I wasn’t the type of girl who randomly had sex with women she’d just met. That’s not how I’d ever operated, and I didn’t think that compulsion was now alive and well inside of me. But I hadn’t been thinking about what type of person I was when I’d climbed onto Elle. When we’d kissed. I just knew, in that moment, exactly what it was that I wanted. And I’d wanted it with all my heart.

  I’d wanted Elle from the very first moment I’d seen her. It was a bone-deep need that I’d felt, and that I’d kept feeling. It wasn’t for the sex, though the sex was spectacular, and it wasn’t for her body, though she was utterly gorgeous.

  I was completely drawn to the woman with the smoldering, dark eyes and the indifferent smirk. There was something about her, even when she was acting like I meant nothing to her, that pulled me in.

  And I didn’t believe for a second that I meant nothing to her.

  I was here, after all, wasn’t I? She could have left me to die. She could have left me to die multiple times.

  I let out a long sigh and continued to stare up at the ceiling, feeling my heart turn inside of me, wanting something that was probably not very good for me. I was wanting her. And every instinct inside of me protested against that. She wasn’t good for me, I knew that, it was obvious.

  But it didn’t stop me wanting her.

  It didn’t stop the gut-deep need inside of me every time I thought of her, that invisible thread connecting me to her, tugging insistently.

  I breathed out, closed my eyes, and in my mind’s eye I saw her beautiful, haughty face soften for just that millisecond, saw her turn from me and pace in that large room, saw her push me off her lap and call for Alec because of…why? Why had she pushed me away?

  I wanted to make sense of it, and I couldn’t.

  That’s when I heard the door click open.

  I thought for a long moment that I was imagining things, my ears straining to hear, wondering if I’d just imagined the sound of the door opening. I sat up on my elbows, my heart pounding.

  Of course she was there.

  She moved like a cat, prowling into the room, and the door clicked shut almost soundlessly behind her. The room itself was not very well lit, and her face was mostly in shadow, but still, shadow or not, I could see her flashing eyes clearly. The flashing eyes that were narrowed, as if she was considering me, her gaze now roving over me slowly, brazenly.

  The top five buttons on her shirt were unbuttoned. And she was very slowly working on the sixth with her long, pale fingers. Yes, I took a moment to count those undone buttons as she walked toward me, her long legs devouring the space between us, her high heels clicking methodically against the concrete floor.

  I stayed where I was, propped up on my elbows, feeling my heart pound against my ribs as I stared her down.

  She didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. But when she reached the side of the bed, she paused, her head to the side, one perfect eyebrow arched as she stared down at me.

  She was asking. Asking if this was what I wanted.

  I rose slowly, sitting up in bed, trying to move gracefully, but my motions were hurried and short and a little jarring as I finally reached the edge of the bed, as I feverishly rose up onto my knees a little, placing my arms around her shoulders as I drew her to me.

  I kissed her hard.

  Her hands were so cold as they slid under the fabric of my shirt at the small of my back, her palms smooth and cool against my skin as she devoured my mouth, too. My heat and her cool seemed to merge together, and it was electric, our lips meeting, more electric than I thought it could be.

  This wasn’t the time or place to speak, and though I had a million things to say, none of them exactly came to mind as I pulled her down onto the bed, pushing her into the overly soft mattress and straddling her hips again as I climbed on top of her. I pressed her down onto the bed, and her mouth was in a smirk, now, but I ignored it, ignored her deep, throaty chuckle as I trailed kisses down from her mouth to her hard jaw, down to her neck.

  “They were right,” she gasped a little as I yanked open her shirt, the remaining buttons breaking and scattering onto the coverlet as I knelt there, then, and devoured her left breast with my mouth. She breathed out, and it caught, that sound. “You are feisty,” she said, laughing a little with her velvet voice as my hands sought the clasp of her black slacks.

  “I just know what I want,” I growled, finding the clasp at last and undoing it, unzipping her pants with one quick, feverish motion.

  Her hands moved too quickly for me to see, but they were around my wrists, then, in an iron grip, stilling me.

  She stared up at me, panting, her eyes narrowed, and her full lips open.

  “What do you want?” she asked in a low growl.

  Was she really asking such an obvious question? Maybe she wanted to hear it. I made a frustrated sound and sat back on my heels, still straddling her, Elle gripping my wrists as I stared down at her.

  “I want you,” I whispered, searching her flashing eyes.

  She didn’t let me go but sat up slowly, rolling up from her core so that I was sitting in her lap again. She let go of my wrists, snaked out her arms so that she was holding me tightly around my waist.

  “Why?” she whispered back, the word long and low in her throat, so low that it made me shiver.

  There were a million answers to that question. But I didn’t want to tell her any of them. I’d been vulnerable enough to her today, and the want was building so deeply in me that I had to answer that, long before I answered her. Why was she even asking me these questions?

  I gripped her shoulders and pushed her down, pressing my mouth to hers as my fingernails traced trails down her breasts, over the sloping muscles of her stomach, to move under her pants.

  I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to tell her that there was a bright, burning thread connecting me to her. That I couldn’t stop thinking about her or wanting her. I didn’t want to tell her that she consumed me utterly.<
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  So I consumed her, utterly. I pressed my tongue past her teeth into her cold mouth that electrified me. I tasted her, traced that tongue down her jaw, delighting in the taste of her skin, the soft coolness of it.

  My fingers found her panties, but the pants were too tight for me to dip my hand beneath them. In frustration, I tried to wriggle the pants down around her hips and a little lower with my one hand, but I couldn’t manage it. I rose up onto my knees, hooked my thumbs into her belt loops and yanked down.

  She laughed at that, chuckling that low, velvet chuckle as she obliged me, lifting up her hips so that I could slide the pants down to her knees, pulling them off with quick yanks for each leg.

  Elle rose up onto her elbows, draping an arm around my neck with a seductive little grin and pulling me down on top of her again as she kissed me fiercely. But whereas her mouth had been all softness a moment ago, the softness of lips and tongue, the hardness of her teeth where I expected them…something had changed, in that moment.

  I paused at that kiss, stiffening.

  My lips had brushed against something sharp in her mouth.

  I pulled back a little, and in the half-light stared down at Elle, whose wide, flashing eyes had narrowed, a half-grin tugging at the corners of her mouth, revealing wickedly sharp incisors.

  They hadn’t been like that a moment ago. They’d…somehow lengthened from one heartbeat to the next. Her incisors had…grown.

  I panted as I crouched over her, my fingers curled tightly around her hip, her bare legs beneath me, her body naked and smooth and cool beneath me. I was so turned on that all I could feel was the want pounding through me, the center between my legs slick.

  But staring down at razor sharp teeth isn’t really that much of a turn on, no matter what the vampires movies would have you believe.

  Elle seemed to understand my reason for hesitation at the exact same moment that I did.

  She sighed for a long moment, her form going stiff beneath me as she stared at me with a deepening frown.

  Hadn’t I been the one to offer my blood to her earlier? Without any knowledge of what that really meant? For all I knew, her drinking my blood would turn me into a vampire, something that—even though I didn’t know all the details right now—wasn’t something I’d ever really wanted for my life. But I’d still offered.

  And it wasn’t so much that it turned me off, seeing her incisors lengthen and sharpen. And it wasn’t so much the fact that I was heavily reminded of what, exactly, Elle was.

  It just reminded me of why I was here.

  I had questions that needed answers, but whenever Elle was around, all I found myself feeling was that invisible connection between us, and I knew exactly what I wanted, and all of my other troubles faded into the background as I felt the pull between us turn more insistent than something that I was able to ignore.

  Elle had stiffened beneath me, every muscle tense, but it wasn’t from desire. She stared up at me now with one brow raised, her full lips in a flat, hard line.

  “I suppose this isn’t happening, Cassandra,” she said with a sharp edge, nodding toward me straddling her with a note of sarcasm. “And I have other things to attend to, so if you’ll please excuse me.”

  I translated this to: get the hell off of me.

  I bristled at that, staring down at her as I sighed out. “I’m sorry,” I said, because I really did mean it. “I’ve been having a kind of rough week,” I muttered.

  Again, for half a heartbeat, her gaze softened. But it hardened again, just as quickly, and she rose up onto her elbows, her face an inch or so from my own. Her eyes were smoldering again, their dark depths lit from within by a slowly burning desire.

  Her teeth, sharp just a moment ago, were back to looking like normal human incisors.

  “Is that…is that involuntary?” I asked, one brow raised. “The teeth thing.”

  Her lips turned up at the corners, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “When I am…ah…desirous, sometimes I can’t control it.”

  “Oh,” I said in a small voice. I mean, I guess it made sense.

  “But I have a lot of willpower,” she said softly, slowly, her velvet voice murmuring the words like a spell as she held my gaze.

  I bet she did.

  I stared down at her, the want still building inside of me. When I kissed her, I forgot about everything else. When I tasted her, touched her, the terrible truth of my situation simply faded into the background, like it had never even happened.

  She’d saved my life. No matter at what cost, no matter the situation I now found myself in, I had to keep reminding myself: she saved my life.

  But I needed no reminders when I was touching her.

  But I had questions, questions that needed answers now. So I asked her. I leaned down, over her, my long, brown hair falling around her face like a curtain, merging with her own dirty blonde locks so that the colors wove together.

  “Why did you save me?” I whispered to her.

  She stared up at me, her dark eyes locked on mine. We stayed so still, my heart pounding through me, the want pounding through me, too, as I waited for her answer.

  I thought for a very long moment that she wasn’t going to reply. She stared up into my eyes, her lips in that calculating flat line again, her nostrils flaring as she breathed slowly and steadily, her stomach rising and falling against me. But I held my place, I held her gaze, and I did not move.

  And after what seemed like an eternity, she blinked. She breathed out.

  And she whispered in her low voice: “I felt you.”

  My pulse began pounding even louder through me. A million answering questions to that reply clamored for attention inside of me, but I swallowed them all down. I drummed up the most patience I could muster, and I kept my mouth shut.

  I waited.

  She breathed out again, shaking her head a little. “I felt you. You were afraid,” she said softly. “You drew me to you. I had to save you.”

  “What—” I whispered, but she was shaking her head again, pushing against me gently this time as she rose. I moved off of her, to the side, and sat on my legs as she got up, her body long and lean and lank, bending down in one graceful motion to retrieve her pants and panties.

  “You don’t have to go,” I told her in a small voice, but she sighed, almost regretfully, I thought, and turned away from me to pull her pants on.

  “This is not the time or place for intercourse,” she told me flatly. Intercourse. It was such a clinical word. Hurt roared through me, followed closely by intense anger. Hadn’t she been the one to come to my room? And unless she’d stopped by to borrow a shirt, unbuttoning those buttons with those smoldering eyes could really have only meant one thing.

  “You can’t keep running out on me,” I told her then flatly. “I’m trapped here. We feel this thing, whatever it is, between us, and we have to figure it out. I have to figure everything out,” I amended, “because I’m in the dark about everything, and if this is my life now, I need some explanations.”

  “No, Cassandra,” she said softly. She’d zipped and buttoned her pants, and she’d left her shirt hanging open in the front. A delicious few inches of flesh was visible between the two halves of her unbuttoned shirt, and she made no move to cover herself. My eyes were drawn to the swell and curve of her breasts that I could see, but I struggled against it and raised my eyes to her gaze.

  There was something I couldn’t quite understand there. Something at war in herself.

  She turned from me, glancing up at the ceiling, at the walls, all around her.

  “I have been gone from this place for fifty years,” she said, reaching out and trailing one long, perfect finger down the stained wood of closest post of the bed. She was gazing at me as she spoke the words, growling them out. “And yesterday, I came back. And I came back seeking vengeance for what had been done to me, for the injustice that had been leveled against me. I seek vengeance against Magdalena, and I need all of my wits about me,
and all of my power concentrated solely on that single goal. Otherwise, I will fail. I will not have my revenge. And I must have it.”

  “What happened?” I asked quickly. “Fifty years ago?” I continued after clearing my throat. She’d paused, not a muscle wavering, and she was staring at me intently.

  “Fifty years ago,” said Elle without a single bit of emotion, “we were in love. Well…” She rocked back on her heels and shrugged a little, the two halves of her shirt fluttering against her skin as I watched. “Magdalena and I were both power hungry and we both wanted Boston, to control it…to rule it. And that mutual attraction drew us together. I thought her power was delicious, and she craved mine, too.” It was so clinical, the way she was saying the words, but she kept her voice in a low, flat monotone. “She was beautiful, and I wanted her, so we fucked and we planned.”

  I winced at that with a little shudder. It was painful to hear.

  But a tiny voice, deep inside of me, wondered if that’s how Elle thought of me, too.

  “Alexander Grayson has controlled the vampire’s Council in Boston for a very long time. We thought that, together, Magdalena and I could overthrow him. Grayson keeps Boston safe, Cassandra,” said Elle softly. “If we had overthrown him, Boston would descend into chaos. We were bloodthirsty and hungry, and the vampires that we drew to ourselves and our cause were also bloodthirsty and hungry, and we thought nothing of mortal life.” She stares down at me with such intense ferocity that I lean back on my hands on the bed, breathing out with a shaky sigh. She broke the gaze and ran long fingers through her dirty blonde hair with a shake of her head. “Alexander Grayson is a good man. He keeps the darkness from eclipsing Boston, and most of the north east of this country. And we wanted to destroy him.”

  I waited for her to continue. Emotions warred within her now, but the cold, clinical part won out.

  “But Magdalena betrayed me before we could follow through with our plan to murder Grayson. She thought me too powerful. A threat. She didn’t think I was loyal enough to our plans together, and she was threatened by all that I could do. So she drugged me when I was least aware, and she made me sign a pact in blood that I must leave my city, my beloved city…” Her voice grew hoarse with emotion for a moment, but then she shook her head again, cleared her throat. “And she trapped me in a small pine box and bound that box in chains and shipped me far away, where it would take me years to get out of. I spent four years trapped in that tiny pine box. But I spent those years thinking, and then years more making my way up from nothing again. And for the fifty years of my tricked exile, I have considered what Magdalena did to me. For fifty years I have thought of my own revenge. And I must have it.”