In the Blood

by Abigail Barnette

  “I wore that ring for decades. Because it was Melina’s.”

  She closed her eyes, let him accept her weight. “Pretty name.”

  He made an affirmative noise and continued, “In times it seemed I would lose myself, I would hold this ring and I would feel her presence with me. Until the night we met.”

  He released her and stepped back. “I cannot believe there isn’t some connection. We are of different times, Cassandra. I am a superstitious man. I believe in fate.”

  Her throat went dry. It took all her composure to rasp out, “You think I…was fated to meet you?”

  Usually, it annoyed Cassie when people dodged her questions, but when Viktor did it by hauling her up against his chest, her toes barely touching the floor, and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe, she didn’t complain. He said more with one kiss than he could have with a hundred words, and she opened her heart without caution.

  His hands slid down her back, over the curve of her ass, then under the tails of the shirt as he let her back down. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back, raising her arms to let him pull the shirt over her head. When she opened them again, he caught her gaze, held it as he cupped her chin in his hand and traced her lower lip with his thumb. Need turned his eyes into fathomless pools, and he lowered his lips to hers once more, settling them there for only a moment before moving on to her ear, her throat.

  She wondered, just for a moment, if the passion that gripped him was really for her, or for the woman he suspected she had been. As his mouth descended on the hollow between her collar bones, she dismissed those concerns for a later time. Now, she needed his hands on her, his mouth. Needed to lose herself in his touch to feel real.

  He gripped her thighs and boosted her up, urging her to wind her legs around his waist. He held her effortlessly, and she marveled at his strength. He buried his face against her breasts, nibbling and sucking a path between the two. His hard body was cold against her, but warming from the heat trapped between them. Trusting in his strength, she leaned back, arching into his kisses. He sucked one hard nipple into his mouth, his eyes closed as if he savored the most delicious morsel he’d ever tasted.

  Sensation ricocheted off every nerve ending. She pulled herself up, curving over him as she delved her fingers into his hair. His cock prodded against her ass and she shivered in anticipation of him filling her.

  It was so different this time. Though he’d lost none of the tenderness he’d shown her before, there was a new desperation to his desire. He devoured her, consumed her with his passion and intensity. When he looked into her eyes, his gaze could have burned her; when he touched her, he did.

  “Fuck me,” she begged, gripping his shoulders. “Just fuck me.”

  He carried her the few steps to the office chair and dropped into it, and she rose on her knees, straddling his lap. One cold finger slid down, parting her and circling her clit, wringing a shudder from her.

  “Do you know what it does to me, to hear how much you want me?” He pushed a finger into her clutching channel, stroked her rippling walls. “To feel it?”

  She moaned, undulating her hips against his hand.

  “Tell me,” he prompted, another finger opening her, stretching her. “Tell me what you want.”

  She wanted him. So much more than just the physical need that pulsed through her entire being. She wanted all of him. “Love me,” she begged, knowing that if he wished, he would hear her true meaning.

  He froze beneath her for a split second, and her stomach dropped. She’d gone too far. Now he would reject her.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he gripped her ass, lifted her so the broad head of him rested at her opening. All he had to do was ease her down and her swollen flesh would part to welcome him inside.

  Instead, she wriggled from his grasp, dropping to her knees in front of him. His expression of momentary confusion evaporated into a smile that she returned as she gripped his cock. Slowly, she stroked her hand up his shaft, then leaned forward and curled her tongue around the tip. The sound he made, a strangled inhalation of surprise, sent darts of arousal straight to her clit. She marveled at that. She’d never felt anything close to pleasure from going down on a guy, but she wanted to make Viktor feel as incredible as he made her feel.

  She worked her tongue from the very base of him to the head in fluttering strokes, dropping to repeat the action over and over, until his hips rose off the chair. Only then did she open her mouth wide and draw him in, rubbing the roof of her mouth in circles over the tip of his cock. His size made the job a bit tricky, but when she looked up at his face and saw his head thrown back, eyes closed, she figured he wasn’t complaining. She took her time, sucking and swirling her tongue around him, pumping him in her fist as she swallowed him deep, until finally he buried a hand in her hair with a groan and urged her to stop.

  “Do you want to fuck me?” she asked, sliding her mouth up his shaft one last time.

  With a growl that was almost frightening, he lifted her to her feet and laid her back on the desk. Briefly, she worried about the things she had seen on the desk: the ring, the computer, all his papers and work. He swept them all aside and, as he didn’t seem to care about them, she couldn’t bring herself to, either. Especially not when he drove into her, over and over, his hands on her shoulders to stop her sliding off the desk with the force of his thrusts. He filled her so completely, but still she gasped for breath and ground against him, seeking more. She needed all of him, all of his cock, all of his body, all of his soul.

  His mouth tight with determination, he pounded into her in long strokes, blood-tinged sweat standing out on his forehead. She panted beneath him, helpless to do anything but hold on and surrender to the force of his long-controlled passions. She gripped him tighter with her legs, her cunt, strained up to meet his punishing thrusts. The hot, tight spiral in her pelvis expanded, contracted, and she came, screaming his name.

  He groaned and buried his face against her neck. Through the trembling aftermath of her orgasm, she felt his teeth graze her skin, then tighten. With a roar of denial, he pulled back, thrusting against her harder, just once, and she couldn’t hold back her whimper as he pulsed inside of her.

  “Cassandra,” he rasped, breathing heavily as he supported his weight on his arms above her. “I am sorry. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m perfect.” She leaned up, and he met her lips with his, the hungry, desperate need between them abated, if just for now.

  He withdrew from her body and lifted her to carry her to his bedroom. As they walked, she felt the silky wetness against her thighs and gasped. “Oh my God. We didn’t use a condom.”

  “No, we did not.” His expression was tight. “I apologize. It is unforgivable that I would put you at such risk. I do not carry disease, if that alleviates your worry. My body cannot sustain a virus.”

  “What about emergency contraception?” she asked. “Can vampires, you know…get someone knocked up?”

  “That is a good question. I don’t know.” Viktor balanced her on one arm and pulled the bedding back with the other, lowering her gently to the crisp sheets. “I will have Anthony procure something for you in the morning.”

  She settled against him when he joined her in the bed. “Did you have any children? When you were human?”

  “No,” he answered quickly. “No, Melina could not… We conceived twice, but the babies were stillborn.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Her heart ached at the thought. Had that truly happened to her? “Isn’t that the sort of thing I should remember? If, you know…”

  He traced a line down her bare arm with one fingertip. “Maybe it is something you don’t wish to remember.”

  Snuggling closer, she asked, “Tell me about her. If you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” He lazily stroked her back in wide circles. “I so rarely have a chance to revisit her memory with another person. It reminds me that she was real. After almost a century, the past begins to seem like a
dream, or a fairytale.”

  “It doesn’t take that long,” she corrected him. Her own past seemed like an entirely different lifetime. “What was she like?”

  “She was short,” he said simply, indicating a spot on his chest. “She only came to here.”

  “I was thinking more, what did she act like? What did you love about her?” If anyone had told Cassie a week ago that she would be grilling a client for personal information, she would have turned in her resignation right then. But Viktor wasn’t just a client. Not anymore.

  He sighed. “Ah. Well, she was very stubborn. She argued with me often.”

  “And you loved her in spite of it,” she finished for him.

  “No.” He kissed her forehead, letting his lips linger there. “I loved her because of it.”

  “I can’t imagine that. Someone loving you because of your bad qualities.” She yawned, almost unable to fight the pull of sleep any longer.

  “Try,” he whispered against her hair. “You may find you don’t need to imagine.”

  That was a step she couldn’t let herself take. Not yet. Instead, she let his gentle hands at her back and his soft breath against her hair lull her into sleep.

  Long after Cassandra had drifted off in his arms, sleeplessness forced Viktor from his bed. He went to his office and set to right everything he had swept from his desk. He hoped the computer still worked. If not, he would send Anthony out for a new one later. When he came to the ring, shining placidly against the carpet, he hesitated.

  His hunger for blood had lessened. His soul had certainly benefited from Cassandra’s presence. Would the ring still burn his skin? Did he dare try? With trembling fingers, he lifted it from the carpet, waiting for the invisible flames to lick him, the excruciating pain to reverberate up his arm. But there was nothing. No burning, but no gentle presence, either. He ground the cross engraved on the band into his palm over and over, anticipating the sting, but none came.

  “Mr. Novotny?” Anthony, reporting for his morning duties, stepped through the door. “Anything I can do for you before I check in with the Conclave this morning?”

  Viktor rose and straightened. It wasn’t the first time Anthony had found him morosely contemplating Melina’s ring in the middle of the night, but it was the first time he’d seen him crouched on the floor amongst hastily strewn papers, clad only in pajama pants. He did not relish the human seeing him so undignified. “Yes, there is.”

  As Anthony came closer, Viktor sprang at him, gripping his arm and twisting it behind his back as he slammed the human’s head into the desktop. Pinning the man, Viktor leaned over his back, fangs extended. “If you ever intrude upon Cassandra’s privacy again, for any reason, I will kill you. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  To his credit, the human did not scream in terror or weep for forgiveness. “I did what was in the best interest of the Conclave. I had to know.”

  With a flick of his wrist, Viktor tossed Anthony from the desk. He landed across the room, near the door.

  Though he struggled to appear unaffected, Anthony’s hands shook as he straightened his jacket and tie. “You’re right. I overstepped my bounds. I’ll leave her alone from here on out.”

  Viktor nodded, feeling no need to further explain himself. “See that you do. You’re dismissed.”

  When Anthony had gone, Viktor picked up the ring again. He expected that it would scorch him, that precious increment of humanity snuffed out from his rough treatment of the human. Instead, it rested cool against his palm, and that confused him further.

  He left the ring on the desk and returned to his bedroom, locking the door from the inside. There was no need to allow Anthony the luxury of intrusion. When he reached the bedside, Viktor stopped to gaze down at Cassandra. She did not sleep, though she pretended to. The commotion from the office had likely woken her. He indulged her ruse, content to watch her breasts rise and fall beneath the sheet with her carefully measured breaths. Even in the darkness of the room, she glowed. Maybe it was a light only he could see.

  It did not make sense when he applied the cold logic that ruled every other part of his life. He did not need to question his feelings, as sudden and ill-planned as they were. He was drawn to her with his heart and not solely his mind. At least he knew he was still human enough to feel that reckless impulse.

  Sliding into the bed beside her, he kissed her, slowly, gently. Let me love you, he urged her silently. Let me love you, not some façade you’ve constructed to hide from the world.

  As if in answer, her arms encircled his neck, her fingers delved into his hair, drawing him closer. There was none of the desperation he’d felt in her kiss before, none of the pain or longing to forget where she was. She wanted him, with all of her soul. Whether or not that soul also belonged to Melina didn’t matter.

  Viktor rose to an empty bed. How had he not heard her leave? He did not look through the apartment for her. He knew he wouldn’t find her.

  He dressed himself in a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He felt no need to go through the motions of putting on a suit, tying a tie, fastening cufflinks. It would not make him feel any more human. Only one thing would, and she had left.

  Anthony waited for him in his office. “She left this.”

  Viktor took the folded note from his assistant’s hand. “Thank you. Will you excuse me a moment?”

  Once Anthony had gone, Viktor unfolded the paper. The sight of her cramped handwriting wrung a sad smile from him.

  Viktor,

  I didn’t want to leave like this, but if I had waited for you to wake up, I might not have left at all. We both know what we were thinking last night. I need to find out for sure.

  I’ll be in touch.

  He refolded the paper and tucked it into the pocket of his shirt. Then he reached for Melina’s ring.

  The intercom buzzed. Could the man not give him a moment to mourn? He hit the button and gave a terse, “Yes?”

  “Mr. Novotny, there’s something you need to see on channel six.”

  Of all the things Anthony would interrupt him for! Cursing, he reached for the remote to the sleek black television hung in place of a picture on the wall. The video that appeared stunned him.

  “Here in Brooklyn, some questions remain unanswered,” the reporter finished up, her image superimposed beside a sketch of what was unmistakably a Minion. A label across the bottom of the screen declared, “City Reeling After Violent Animal Attack”.

  With a shock of dread, Viktor realized where the reporter stood. On the street, in front of Cassandra’s building.

  Chapter Eight

  Even the biting cold couldn’t persuade Cassie to push the buzzer at the address she’d hastily scrawled down. The woman inside expected her, but that didn’t quell Cassie’s desire to run home to her apartment and climb under the blankets and never emerge.

  What had happened to her life? One day, she was a call girl. The next, she was unemployed, standing on the street in front of a psychic’s apartment building, ready to go in and see if she was the reincarnation of a vampire’s dead wife.

  God, had she lost her mind? From the moment she’d looked up “psychic” on Viktor’s computer—she was surprised it had actually worked, after the way he’d pushed it off the desk the night before—she’d felt like she must be going crazy. First, she’d ventured into the city, alone, not knowing if those Minion things would still be after her. Then, she’d come to a stranger’s apartment after one phone consultation and quit her job at 4-1-2.

  There was still time to call the club and act like it had all been a joke. Ha ha, I was just pretending to quit! Fooled you! Please take me back, I don’t know how I’m going to pay rent. But she couldn’t do that. 4-1-2 was a good job for a lot of women, but not for her. Not anymore. She’d spent too much time pretending to be someone else in order to please her clients. She hadn’t had time to figure out who she was.

  And now she might be someone else. She blinked back sudden tears. Had Viktor known? Had
that been what he’d wanted from the beginning? Was that why he’d come to her rescue?

  This is so stupid. She should swear him off completely. No, she should go back to him. Let him protect her from monsters she’d thought had been all in her head. She could pretend to be Melina. She could pretend to be anyone. She’d certainly had enough practice to pull it off. But no, she couldn’t do that. It was crazy, but she wanted him to know her, possibly to even love her. She had braved a city swarming with Minions to get her answers. To chicken out now would be to abandon her progress entirely and go back to the Cassie who spent her days in the grip of anti-psychotics and sedatives. She couldn’t be that person again. Not if she wanted to be with Viktor, and she did. God help her, she did.

  The only way she could do that was to find out who she was, really, and the gnawing feeling in her stomach seemed to suggest that the answer to that was very complicated. Maybe the woman inside would be able to help her. She just had to get the courage to push the buzzer.

  The door opened before she had a chance to make that decision. A young woman with a chic haircut leaned out into the freezing cold. “Are you Cassie?”

  The woman in the doorway didn’t look anything like what Cassie had expected. When they’d spoken on the phone, she’d imagined an older woman with frizzy hair, wearing some throwback to Flower Power. To be confronted with a perfectly pulled-together and fashionable New Yorker threw her off substantially. “I am. Are you Maya?”

  The woman nodded and motioned her inside. “Come on in.”

  Cassie followed her into the small, modern lobby. “I’m on eight,” Maya said as she pushed the button to call the elevator. “You were having second thoughts about coming, weren’t you?”

  It probably wouldn’t do any good to lie to a psychic, so Cassie said, “Yeah. I’m just not sure about all of this.”