I Bite She Sucks

by Bloom, Penelope

  I sensed relief from Riggs through the strange blood bond, but he ignored her and went to me, clutching my shoulders and looking me over. “Are you hurt?”

  “I was,” I said, tapping my head. “But I apparently heal really fast. We should go, right? To Westwick?”

  Riggs shook his head, pointing toward the trees. “No need, it appears.”

  I saw them all coming. It looked like the entire pack of Silverbacks along with a small army of maybe fifty vampires in the rebel uniforms of gray and red. I noticed Vladimir and Ana among them. Some of them were bloodied slightly, but none wore as much of it as Riggs.

  Ana and Vladimir approached us ahead of the rest of the group.

  Ana dipped her chin slightly to Kyla, then again to Riggs and I. Even though she said I wouldn’t feel much of a bond, I felt a strange connection to her then—like being close helped me to understand how she was feeling. I felt triumphant but sad, too. Deeply sad. Like having my insides clawed out.

  “Thank you,” Ana said. “Revenge won’t bring our son back, but now we know he can rest. That will have to be enough for us.”

  Vladimir looked over his shoulder toward Westwick, then spit on the ground. “Clean that, fuckers,” he muttered to himself, then pulled Ana along with him as he walked past us.

  At the back of the approaching group, I saw the people I was looking for. Maisey, Felix, and Fang. They all looked dirty, but otherwise healthy. I rushed toward Maisey, ignoring the vampires and werewolves I had to run past to reach her. I slammed into her with a tight hug, surprising myself as tears came along with the laughter.

  “I can’t believe you’re okay,” I said into her hair.

  “I don’t understand how you managed to get all these people to come rescue us.”

  “It was a whole thing,” I said, pulling back from the hug to get a look at her as I laughed and wiped my eyes. “There was a battle in the forest for Alpha status. A betrayal. Last minute alliances. It was wild, and I can’t believe any of it worked.”

  Maisey’s eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “Sylvie… Did you?”

  I grinned, then titled my head as I curtseyed. “That’s Vampire Sylvie, to you.”

  She hugged me again, even tighter this time. “Oh my God. I can’t believe you did it. I’m so happy you did.”

  I smiled when she pulled back. “Except that you didn’t really need to make yourself a vampire after all, did you? Sorry about that.”

  “And grow old while my sister with her young, flawless vampire skin outlives me? Hell, no. I would’ve still wanted this.” She softened her expression. “Nothing can split us up, now.”

  Riggs came up beside me, sliding his arm around my waist. That earned a raised eyebrow from Maisey.

  “Is this what it looks like?”

  Felix was by Riggs’ side and he shook his head. “If you knew Riggs, you’d know just how strange it is to see him trying to legitimately mark a mate.”

  “Excuse me?” Maisey snapped. “That’s my sister you’re talking about. Mate,” she muttered. She looked to me, speaking as if neither of the men were present. “I’ve learned way more about werewolf vulgarity and brashness than I ever wanted to know while I was trapped here, by the way. Disgusting creatures.”

  Felix grinned, but didn’t correct her.

  “It’s what it looks like,” Riggs said. “And more.” He planted a kiss on my neck, drawing a heavy blush from me.

  “Where is Lazarus?” Maisey asked.

  Riggs stood a little taller. “He’s dead. You two are still technically marked by the Cleaners, even with his death. But we can wait at Silverback or Blackridge. Whichever you prefer. They won’t dare come for you there, and in a few weeks you’ll both be fully protected by the treaties. Assuming they still stand,” he added with a little less certainty.

  “Is all of this that big a deal?” I asked.

  Felix answered. “There hasn’t ever been a true cooperative breach of the truces from werewolves and vampires. The Coven will know the line has been drawn in the sand after this. They may decide it doesn’t suit them to wait us out any longer. They may think it’s time to try to strike while our alliance is fresh and hope to divide us.”

  I wrapped my arms around Riggs, holding tight to his slim midsection. I wasn’t sure I particularly cared what happened in the big picture. We’d saved Maisey and Felix and Fang. We even had places to wait out the month of pursuit from the cleaners.

  To me, the distant sense of possible doom was nothing new, I guessed. I’d just traded possible future death by disease to death by angry Coven vampires. At least this version came with a much, much more exciting life.

  “Where is Steve?” Maisey asked.

  Felix made a face. In that moment, I realized something else might’ve happened in the time they’d been locked up together. Something that made Felix want to groan with annoyance to hear my sister ask about her old boyfriend. That was interesting.

  “Steve is at Blackridge,” Riggs said. “He came to see you often, from what I understand. But you weren’t exactly coherent while they were helping you recover.”

  Maisey nodded. “Can we go there?”

  “Yeah,” Riggs said. “From the sound of it, I need to go tell Ana and Vladimir that I appreciate the help they provided. I think we all might owe them our lives. Unfortunately,” he added with a twist of his mouth.

  I squeezed his arm into a hug. “Oh, come on. Having reasons to be grateful isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

  He grumbled. “It means I owe them. I don’t like owing people.”

  “Speaking of debts,” Maisey said. “Are you still planning to extort us for money now that your bodyguard duties have been mostly completed? Although, I have to say I’m asking for a discount since you let me get kidnapped.”

  “And me,” Felix said.

  Riggs chuckled. “A self-respecting werewolf shouldn’t have been allowed to be taken captive alive, Felix. Did you bend over before, or after they took you?”

  “They surprised me,” he said. “Fuckers came out of the shadows and restrained me. Wasn’t a thing I could do.”

  “Speaking of werewolves without any self respect,” Riggs said.

  Fang came jogging toward us and managed to sneak a hug from Riggs before Riggs could stop him. “I knew you’d rescue me.”

  Riggs groaned, shoving him out of the hug. “I rescued the others. Your rescue was an unfortunate side effect of my efforts.”

  Fang grinned. “You know I like it when you play hard to get. Anyway, I got so much good shit for the blog from all of this.”

  “Blog?” Felix asked.

  “Trade secret,” Fang said with a wink.

  “He writes werewolf fan fiction under a pseudonym online. He told me when he was drunk one night,” Riggs said.

  “Bro,” Felix said, looking hurt.

  Riggs shrugged. “Last weeks’ post was pretty good though. I’ve got to admit.”

  Fang clapped a hand to his mouth like a maiden in shock. “You read my blog?”

  Riggs folded his arms. “Tell a soul and you’re dead.”

  Fang crossed his heart with his fingertip, then walked off, fist pumping to himself.

  “Where is everyone going?” I asked.

  A minute ago, the graveyard had been busy with activity as the Silverback pack was regrouping and mingling with the rebels. But now there were only a handful of others remaining. I’d felt like we were safe, but seeing so few people around reminded me how close we still were to whatever forces had clashed at Westwick.

  “Getting the hell home,” Riggs said. “Come on.” He went and got Kyla, who was talking with a rebel vampire, and ushered her into the truck with us. Maisey and Felix hopped in the bed of the truck with Gravy Boat, who was showing obscene levels of affection to Maisey at the moment. The hairless little bastard liked to pretend he didn’t care if we lived or died, but he was showing his true colors right now.

  “To Blackridge?” Riggs asked.
<
br />   I nodded. “For now.”

  47

  Riggs

  I stretched out, groaning as my back popped and the stiffness drained from my legs. I was comfortable between silky sheets with Sylvie’s small, soft form at my side. The windows were blacked out as was standard at Blackridge, but I could sense the sun had set. I took a few minutes to admire Sylvie before I woke her.

  Adorably, she’d taken to sleeping on her back with her arms crossed over her chest like she was in a coffin. I wasn’t sure when or why it had started, but it had been a couple weeks now since our encounter at Westwick and she was still doing it.

  Vampires. Bizarre fucking creatures. But now I loved one of them, crazy or not.

  My feelings for Sylvie had completely re-written that part of my brain. I guessed hearing my sister’s real story had helped somewhat, even if it did confirm my worst suspicions about what they’d done to her. At least my sister hadn’t betrayed us for them on purpose. That helped, I’d realized.

  “Syl,” I whispered, running my fingertip down the gentle slope of her nose. It had become something of a routine for us. She wrinkled her nose at me, smiling sleepily and rolling to face me. Her hair cascaded across the pillow, wafting her sweet scent toward me. “The sun set.”

  “I can feel it,” she said. She put her small hands on my chest, running her fingers through the hairs there before she squirmed closer and tucked her forehead against me.

  I wrapped my arms around her, holding her closer. I found myself thinking of all the things I’d imagined I wanted in my life. Power. Leadership. Success. Money. I’d imagined all the things in my life that would make me happy. They’d always been so complicated. I’d pictured moments where I would look around and realize what kind of throne I’d built for myself.

  Then I’d left the Silverbacks and my aspirations had changed. All I wanted was to become someone else. I wanted anonymity. Oblivion.

  But I was struck in that moment as my arms were around Sylvie and she wiggled closer, giggling softly. I was struck by how this was what I should’ve been striving for. This moment was it.

  For as long as I could remember, I’d felt hollow in more places than one. Everything was just an attempt to fill those holes. I was always stuffing violence and accomplishments into them, thinking it might plug the gaps. But Sylvie had gradually filled them all, one by one. She was what I’d needed all along, and now she was mine. I’d already sworn it to myself a thousand times, but I swore it again.

  Nobody. Nothing. No fucking force on this planet was ever going to take her from me. She was mine, and that claim was for life. And in our cases, “for life” might as well mean for eternity.

  She arched her neck back so she could see me, wiggling out of my grasp. She tapped my chin, then my temple. “Is wolfie in there?”

  I wanted to roll my eyes, but I already felt him stirring. Letting my wolf rise to the surface was as simple as letting go. The trick was not to let go completely. He could have some control, but not all of it. I felt my skin start to radiate heat as he rose to the surface and knew my eyes would be flashing yellow.

  Having him at the front of my mind felt like being power drunk. The things I wanted didn’t seem to have any barriers anymore. Nothing mattered quite as much as taking what I craved, and Sylvie knew exactly what she was doing.

  She met my eye, then bit her lip and arched one eyebrow. When she breathed in, it forced her chest against her pale blue night shirt, highlighting the hard points of her nipples.

  And that was all it took for the next hour to be spent in bed with her, devouring every inch of her soft curves in complete fucking bliss.

  If there was another goal or something greater to strive for, I didn’t care.

  This.

  Just this was all I needed.

  48

  Sylvie

  The vampire world wasn’t governed by food times. It was a strange distinction that didn’t seem important until I’d lived it for a few weeks. It made me realize how much my human life had been dominated by the need to sit down and eat three times per day.

  I had to admit I missed it a little, but Riggs kept me tied to that world with his insatiable appetite. The man was a bottomless pit for food, and I found it endearing. In some ways, it was like he ate enough for both of us. At least that was my romanticized way of seeing it.

  Once we’d settled in here I managed to get my hands on a fresh collection of books. I’d been thoroughly pleased to find that vampires and werewolves had their own works of fiction that were completely closed off from the human world. There was a whole new world of stories to dive into, and between my time with Riggs, Maisey, and the new friends—yes, actual friends—I was making on campus, my nights were completely full.

  I’d admitted to Ana that Riggs and I made a regular thing of me drinking his blood. She hadn’t approved, but she agreed to keep it between us, which meant I didn’t have to keep making up excuses for why I didn’t need to feed on the rotation of humans they brought through Blackridge.

  Riggs and I were at a stone table in the grass square overlooked by the towering structure of Blackridge. Lightning bugs fluttered around with fat bottoms glinting on and off between the tall grass and flowers. But there were no birds. No airplanes flying overhead. No rush of cars on a nearby street.

  The world of vampires was quieter than anything I’d experienced before. It felt like I’d taken one big step out of civilization and landed in a sort of hidden utopia.

  Yes, there were dangers in this world too. There was still The Coven and all the threats it posed. There were even sub-cults I’d since learned about that threatened the world I was building. I’d even been given vague hints that vampires and werewolves weren’t the only supernatural creatures humanity was in the dark about. For some reason, nobody would give me a straight answer on that front—even Riggs. I sensed danger when I asked them, and if it was dangerous, I could count on Riggs to be overprotective about it.

  “Are you itching to get to Silverback?” I asked.

  Riggs was working on a huge sandwich. He’d arranged for a portion of his pack to stay at Blackridge with us. I was fairly sure the only real reason he’d done it was to retain the services of one of the cooks, who was sending out pack members daily to gather supplies to keep them all happily fed. “They need their Alpha eventually,” Riggs said. “But I’ll make them wait as long as you need.”

  I grinned. “I’ll be ready soon. As long as you promise we can come back.”

  “Any time. Ana and Vladimir have assured me of it.”

  I reached across the table, grabbing his hand. “You might be the best thing that ever happened to me. Do you know that?”

  “Considering the state of your life and health when I found you, I don’t know how high a bar you had set for that title.”

  I swatted at his hand. “That’s not nice.”

  “But,” he said, setting his sandwich down—which was rare. The man hardly ever stopped eating once he started until all the food was gone. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, too. And I’ve lived a long life full of blessings. Nothing has come close to finding you.”

  “I sort of found you, actually,” I said. “Remember?” I mimicked throwing a paper airplane.

  “Yes. I remember the love letter slash suicide note you wrote and threw out your window. You know, I’ve never asked. Was that for me? Or were you throwing it to someone else?”

  I hesitated. “Of course it was for you.”

  Riggs smirked. “Liar.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed it. “My lovely little liar.”

  “My grumpy, hungry, hairy, big, overprotective-”

  Riggs cleared his throat.

  “My lovely big protector?” I tried.

  “Better,” he said.

  49

  Epilogue - Riggs

  * * *

  Four Months Later

  My wolf was in full control of my body. I’d shifted and was dashing through the wo
ods with the cool evening air in my fur. My Sylvie still slept in Silverback, and this was my time to bond with The Pack. We all ran free through the trees, letting our wolves breathe.

  Being in this form was always strange. It felt like being a passenger, which was how I imagined my wolf felt most of the time. Him, with all of his impulse and power, forced to sit back and watch me wait to act on what I wanted and let my cravings pass me by when they weren’t convenient. It was an alien way of life for him, just like his complete disregard for consequences could be for me.

  I found my mind wandering while he took us down toward a stream and drank from the crystal clear, cold water. As usual, my thoughts went to Sylvie and something that had been brewing between us for months now.

  Werewolves didn’t exactly marry. They bonded and mated. To us, the distinction was important. One was a contract on paper and some flimsy words that half of humans disregarded and tossed aside when it suited them.

  A bond was different. A bond was for life. A mate was for life.

  Naturally, Sylvie still wanted to get married. She hadn’t said so in exact words, but I knew my Sylvie well enough to pick up on it. It helped that my blood flowed in her from our weekly feeding, which I’d come to thoroughly enjoy, as odd as that sounded.

  Each time she drank from me, I was gifted glimpses of her mind and emotions—little snapshots of her memories seen through her eyes. She said she felt the same, and the feedings had only drawn us closer, not to mention giving an interesting third dimension to our sexual encounters since we knew any moment might come rushing back to us from the reverse perspective. That had taken some getting used to, but neither of us were complaining. It helped us learn to better please each other.

  It had been during one such feeding that I’d sensed her real desires for marriage. She respected what I’d told her, but she grew up human and in a culture where she learned to crave the ceremony. And I’d come to thoroughly enjoy giving Sylvie exactly what she wanted.