“I asked for a woman,” Riggs complained.
“And we aren’t here to cater to your fragile ego,” Kyla snapped. “There’s a rotation. The goal is to keep each human away from their life for as short a time as possible. This man was next up, and that’s all there is to it.”
Riggs folded his arms, seething in the corner of the room.
I guiltily enjoyed the fact that he was so concerned about me biting some older man’s neck. I wasn’t the type to do things to make him jealous intentionally, but it admittedly felt good to see how much he was concerned about it. He wanted me all to himself, and I wanted to be all his.
Kyla sat across from me, blue eyes deadly serious as she explained what I was about to do. “It’s important that you understand you can’t drink as much as you’ll want. That can kill him. It’ll feel like you get thirstier the more you drink. You count to five, then stop. That’s the rule, okay?”
I nodded. “It won’t hurt him?”
“He won’t remember any of this. We also make sure the family finds an unexpected bit of financial good fortune when we return the humans to where we took them from. To cover any hardships that might come from their temporary absence.”
“That’s considerate,” I said. I had to admit I felt nervous. But even that felt distant. The feeling at the forefront of my brain for the last day had been pure elation with a mild sense of trepidation.
I was cured.
I was healthy.
I was normal.
Except all of those statements came with a catch. Cured, but cursed. Healthy, but I’d traded my condition for a new one. Normal, but only within the context of this new world.
I kept picking it all over, waiting for the sense of regret to set in. But I felt like this was right. I also knew none of my feelings about it would matter if we wound up getting ourselves killed trying to rescue Maisey and the others from The Coven.
“I’m ready,” I said.
Kyla led me to the man and showed me how to find the vein in his neck. I took a deep breath, then nearly screamed when I felt something in my mouth moving. As soon as I’d looked at the vein in his neck, my canines had started to elongate.
God. It was like a vampire erection.
I pushed the grossness of that idea from my thoughts and tried to focus on what Kyla had told me.
Cringing, I bit into his skin. I didn’t bite hard enough at first and had to put a surprising amount of force into it for my teeth to punch through. I tried not to let my lips touch the man’s neck for Riggs’ sake, but it turned out to be nearly impossible to suck the blood without using my lips to create a vacuum. I could sense Riggs shifting uncomfortably while I drank and counted.
One one thousand. Two one thousand….
It was like when I’d drank Ana’s blood, but different. This blood was more dry, as strange as that sounded. Less sweet and savory, but it still felt like I was trying to fill an empty well. Like drinking a glass of water after a long day in the sun. I could’ve drank until my stomach hurt. I wanted to. I-
Kyla pulled me off the man, smiling a little. “Don’t worry. Almost everyone forgets to stop their first time.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, only succeeding in smearing blood across my skin. I gave a guilty look toward Riggs, who either smiled, or winced. I couldn’t say which.
I let out a small burp, then blushed. “Wow,” I said, looking down at my hands. “I feel really good. Like I could run a mile and hardly break a sweat.”
“You could do more than that. Your body is changing. The first few feedings will accelerate the process. In a few more days, the change will fully take effect, and then you’ll grow stronger more slowly. But every feeding will make you a little stronger. It’s why the oldest vampires are the most powerful.”
I nodded. “Do you think the others will help us?” I asked Kyla.
“What do you mean?”
“Get back our friends.”
She lowered her eyes. “I don’t know, honestly. There’s a lot of politics. Things have been done certain ways for such a long time. Everyone fears an all-out war. They think humans would catch on—too many to clean up.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if the rebels will help. But maybe the werewolves would.”
Riggs lifted his head. “You could come with me, Kyla. We could ask the Silverbacks.”
“You didn’t exactly leave on the best of terms.”
“Once pack, always pack.” Riggs said.
The phrase seemed to hold some deeper meaning, because Kyla’s breath caught. She hesitated, then put her hand to her chest. “Once pack, always pack,” she repeated.
“So are we going on a road trip?” I asked.
“Pack your things,” Riggs said.
“Is it okay for me to go?” I asked. “Will I know when to feed again or how to-”
“I’ll be with you,” Kyla said. She gave my arm a squeeze. “I’ll keep you on track, okay?”
I nodded.
Riggs was smiling until he saw me looking. He quickly went back to his usual resting glare face.
“So we’re going to ask the Silverback werewolves to help us rescue our Maisey and the others from the cleaners, even though we don’t know where the cleaners are keeping them?”
“I might be able to help with that,” Kyla said. “One of the teachers here used to be a cleaner. She’s kind of a grump, but I think she’ll help if we ask.”
37
Sylvie
The woman’s classroom was a bricked in room with a few rows of desks and piles of books on every available surface. She wore a simple charcoal dress and had her black hair done up in a ponytail. She only looked about twenty or thirty, but I sensed she was much older. I was learning that was the way with vampires. It was almost like they seemed to “lock in” at whatever age they were when they turned. If they did visibility age beyond that, I guessed it was an incredibly slow process.
She had a hooked nose and a no-nonsense expression. “I have a class in five minutes, so this needs to be quick,” she said.
Kyla did her best to explain what we knew so far, and the woman listened, then nodded when she was finished. “They’ll be in Westwick. It’s a manor estate in the countryside much like this one. They use it as a home base, interrogation center, feeding reserve, and various other purposes. If they’re keeping prisoners, that’s where they would most likely be.”
“I thought nobody left the cleaners,” Riggs said.
The woman crossed her arms, giving him a dirty look. “They believe I’m dead. And I’d prefer it stay that way.”
We left the classroom and headed out to get Riggs’ truck while Kyla detoured to ask permission to leave. She apparently taught one of the classes at Blackridge, but she was already jogging to meet up with us by the time Riggs had the truck’s engine going.
“Wait,” I said. “I need to go get Gravy Boat.”
Riggs pointed, looking annoyed.
I followed his finger and saw the hairless form of Gravy Boat slinking into the truck. He crawled right into Riggs lap, circled, and laid down. Riggs didn’t even bother trying to argue with the cat this time.
I scratched Gravy Boat’s ears. “You’re smarter than you look.”
“Ugly, though,” Riggs added, because he had to insult the cat to make it seem like he wasn’t enjoying the cuddles.
“Is this safe? It’s already…” I checked the dashboard. “One in the morning. What happens when the sun comes up?”
“We’ll find a place to shelter when that happens,” Riggs said.
Kyla nodded. “You don’t want to get caught in the sunlight. Very few vampires can tolerate it, and even those are weakened significantly. It’s not the sort of thing you want to test, though.”
“Will I burst into flames or something?” I asked.
“Our condition is in your blood. It’s a transformation, and sunlight breaks the bonds that cause it. Your body is reconstituting itself to feed on blood. It bypasses yo
ur digestive system. It’s more like photosynthesis or solar power. Minus the sun,” she added with a grin.
“So I pull energy from the blood I feed on?”
“From any blood,” Kyla said. “But your body converts it into a new kind of cell, which breaks down in the sunlight. Too much exposure and, well…”
I nodded. “No sunlight. Got it.”
Riggs was already driving with his trademark recklessness. We nearly ran over several vampires by the time we got off the campus.
“Were you aiming for them?” I asked, clutching the dashboard.
“No comment,” Riggs said.
Kyla made a clicking noise of disappointment, and Riggs grinned. “That was a joke.”
“You’ve never been good at those,” Kyla said.
I chuckled. “He really isn’t, is he?”
“Don’t start teaming up on me,” Riggs said.
We all smiled briefly, and then the gravity of what we were doing seemed to settle on us at the same time. We sat in silence then with nothing but darkened road ahead of us and the grim promise of our uncertain futures.
“Are we going to get mauled to death when we show our faces to these werewolves?” I asked after a few quiet minutes.
“No,” Riggs said. “Most likely not.”
“It’s possible,” Kyla said.
Of course it was. Apparently, life with Riggs meant there was always a possibly of murder, death, capture, torture, and dismemberment. I really knew how to pick them.
38
Riggs
We had to stop at a motel before sunrise. Kyla helped me use the comforter to black out the windows and ensure the room would be safe.
Kyla slept on one bed and Sylvie climbed into the other with me. Gravy Boat was currently trying to worm his way into my sister’s arms. I saw her lift him and half toss him to the end of her bed several times, showing just as much disgust as I had towards the little beast. But he was persistent and kept trying until she gave up, falling asleep with a hairless cat ass in her face.
Little traitor. I thought I was the one you wanted to charm, I thought.
My sister being in the room unfortunately ruled out any possibility of acting on the nearly blinding urge to take Sylvie in my arms and have a repeat of our encounter back at Blackridge. Even with everything else going on, I could barely stop myself from taking her to the nearest bed, taking a fistful of her hair, and kissing her the way I knew she wanted to be kissed.
She’d worked her way into my brain like a catchy song, until I couldn’t go more than a few minutes without thinking of her. Dreaming of her. Lusting after her.
Having her small body tucked against mine wasn’t helping, but I still savored what contact I could get. I didn’t want to admit it to her, but I was terrified of what might come for us after sunset. The Silverbacks might well try to take us captive and kill us. Even if we convinced them to help, the cleaners might defeat us.
It was taking everything in my power not to selfishly take her and run somewhere they’d never come to look. But I couldn’t do it. No matter how much I wanted to protect her at any cost, Felix was like a brother to me. I couldn’t abandon him. I also couldn’t kid myself. Saving Sylvie at the cost of her sister wouldn’t accomplish anything. It’d break her fucking heart, and I suspected she’d rather die than go on knowing we’d abandoned her sister.
So the only choice was to fight. Together, at least.
“Are you scared?” Sylvie asked.
“You should be resting,” I said.
“I’m thinking about tomorrow,” she admitted. “I used to know exactly what my future held. Lots of hand sanitizer and indoor time. Now I hardly know what to expect an hour from now. It’s exciting, but scary.”
“That’s what being alive feels like,” I said. “Embrace it.”
She gave me a crooked smile, fingertips idly plucking at my shirt. “That’s some enlightened talk from the grumpiest man I’ve ever met.”
“I haven’t been grumpy for hours,” I said.
“That’s true. Ever since I let you sleep with me, you’ve been a little happier.”
I put my fingertip to her lips, looking to Kyla, who appeared to be asleep. “Don’t give her anything to gossip about.”
“Kyla doesn’t strike me as a gossip.”
“That’s her trick. She lulls you into spilling all your secrets and then blabs to everyone she knows.”
“Liar.”
I smiled, then lowered my voice. “You may be right. There seems to be a connection between my mood and your pussy.”
I slapped his chest. “Riggs,” I laughed.
I put my lips to her ear. “My only regret is that I didn’t take the time to taste you.”
She shivered, then audibly swallowed. “Maybe next time we can spring for separate rooms from your sister.”
If there was a next time. “Yeah,” I said. “Absolutely. We may need thick walls.”
“That’s big talk. I hope you’re planning to follow through on all these dirty promises.”
I kissed her, then had to summon all my willpower not to take it further, even as she pressed her small body against mine and I felt her breasts against my arm. Her legs wrapped around mine and I thought I felt the heat coming from between her legs and into my thigh. God. I desperately wished I could temporarily move Kyla to another room.
“We could be quiet,” Sylvie whispered.
“I’m not sleeping, and my ears are unfortunately very strong. If you two start humping, I swear to god I’ll pull the comforter off the window and fry us both.”
Sylvie’s eyes went wide.
I suppressed a laugh. “Maybe not,” I said.
Sylvie slammed her eyes shut and looked like she was willing herself to fall asleep.
I didn’t go to sleep right away. I lay there with my arm around her, enjoying the slow rhythm of her breathing and the warmth of her body against mine.
This small woman had gone from a stranger to being my world in a little over a week. I marveled at that. I hadn’t realized I was spiraling toward a dark place until she came along and violently yanked me out of it, but it was true, wasn’t it? She was fixing me, moment by moment.
I knew I had to protect her. I had to find a way to make this right, because she’d given me something worth fighting for.
39
Sylvie
Riggs worked on a gas station hotdog, a bag of chips, two candy bars, and a soda while he drove. I wanted to be jealous of the food, but my stomach was already betraying me. Just looking at it made me feel nothing. It was like staring at a mailbox and trying to summon up feelings of hunger.
That was a little sad. I wished I’d put a little more effort into enjoying what I guessed was my last meal as a human. My last time eating real food.
Just thinking about it was making me feel weird, so I rolled down the window to distract myself. Cold night air gusted through my hair and I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation.
Kyla nudged me a while later. “See that little town?” she asked.
I opened my eyes and looked over the rolling hills we were driving along. There was a picturesque town nestled between the trees. Some of the buildings went right up to a large, sapphire blue lake that was casting the moon’s reflection in several broken, wavering images.
“That’s where the Silverback’s live?” I asked.
Riggs nodded. “Home sweet home,” he said, voice laced with bitterness.
“So are we going to just knock on the town hall building or something?” I asked.
“They already know we’re here.” Riggs directed my eyes to the side of our car where I saw something darting between the trees in the shadows. When I looked closer, I realized it was several somethings.
“That’s not creepy at all,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Kyla said. “They probably aren’t planning to kill us.”
“Super comforting.”
We parked at the edge of town where a torn and fa
ded sign read, “You’re not welcome in Silverback.”
I quirked an eyebrow at that. What a shocker that these werewolves lived here by themselves. I couldn’t imagine why nobody bothered to visit.
“Come on,” Riggs said, motioning for us to get out of the truck and wait.
I tried to stop my hands from shaking as I followed him out. Vivid images of being mauled by a pack of werewolves kept assaulting my brain, but I trusted Riggs. He wouldn’t have us doing this if there was another way.
I looked around us. We were on a pothole ridden road that was barely wide enough for two cars. Tall waist-high grass grew on either side and less than a mile from that was what looked like endless stretches of gently rolling wooded hills.
Pretty. If I wasn’t worried this was going to be the place I died.
It was quiet, too. Almost like even the bugs had decided to head off for the moment until the tension passed.
I was about to ask Riggs something when three men seemed to simply form out of nowhere in the grass across from us. One minute, there was nothing, the next I saw them rising up bare chested and stern faced.
Two lingered back like guardsmen and the one in the center approached. He was smaller than Riggs, but there was a confident set to his shoulders and the glare in his eyes that told me he was no slouch among these werewolves. He had handsome features with what I’d come to see as the characteristic ruggedness of werewolves. Something about the transformation to a vampire seemed to soften people and make them appear more lithe and elegant. The werewolf transformation made them look like warriors—all hard lines, rough textures, and abrasiveness. I could see how both cultures must’ve naturally clashed.
“Pax,” Riggs said stiffly.
“Riggs,” the shorter man said. He had a voice like whispering gravel that made my skin crawl. “You and your bitch sister have balls coming back. I’ll give you that. But it looks like you brought us a plaything.” He slid his eyes toward me, tilting his head down as he took me in. “She’ll entertain the boys for a time.”
I Bite She Sucks Page 17
