Blood Winter

by S. J. Coles

  With a small sigh, his gaze returned to the fire. “I’ve already told you, Alec. This is just the Blood. It does this to your kind. You can’t let go. Why do you think people get addicted?”

  “I felt this way before I drank it.”

  “I can’t see how that’s possible.”

  “Me either, but it’s true. It terrified me. Why do you think I ran away?”

  His eyes met mine. “You watched me kill someone—someone you cared about.”

  I pulse flickered in my temples. “I can’t explain it.”

  “You were going to shoot me over it.”

  “I was angry…and scared.” He continued to watch me. I moved cautiously to the other end of the sofa. “But then you saved me. Then when we…” I swallowed thickly. I wondered if more color had crept into his face or if it was just my imagination. “I felt something. Something real, between us. It’s insane, but I know it was there.”

  There was a long silence. I heard my own words going round and round in my head and they sounded more stupid with every repetition. My certainty weakened and peeled away. David’s disgusted looks and angry words came screaming back, along with Meg’s incredulous, disbelieving protests. But I knew, somehow, under it all, that this was something I couldn’t deny. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

  That scared me more than anything.

  “It’s not possible, you know.”

  His words were like ice down my neck. “What’s not?”

  He heaved a deep sigh and I thought I saw a suggestion of regret in his face. “Relations…between our kinds. They never work.”

  “The time on the sofa worked pretty well,” I managed.

  “For you,” he replied coolly.

  “You’re saying you felt nothing?” I didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. His eyes flickered but he didn’t speak. I shifted closer. He watched me move, wariness clouding the mask of his eyes. “Why, exactly, don’t they work?”

  “How many answers to that question do you want?”

  I shifted closer still. My leg touched his. My arm brushed his elbow. He watched me warily but didn’t move away. “If you look me in the eye now and tell me there’s nothing here, I’ll believe you and I won’t mention it again.”

  He shifted, his forehead creasing. He hesitated, then lifted a long-fingered hand and ran his thumb through the stubble on my jaw with a faintly wistful expression on his face. The touch sent lines of white fire darting along my nerves.

  “I’d forgotten how heated your kind can be,” he said softly, his fingertips sliding to my hairline, pushing loose strands back. “How you hold everything so close to the surface. It’s why it’s so easy to fall for you. But it can’t happen,” he went on, shaking his head and dropping his hand to my chest, like he’d push me back.

  “Why not?”

  “We’re too different.”

  Outside, the wind sighed and groaned. I could smell the clean, new upholstery of the sofa and the faint thread of icy freshness that was the scent of him. He was so weirdly, impossibly beautiful that it made me ache. I suddenly needed to taste him again so badly that it hurt. I stopped thinking and leaned forward, but he pressed his fingers to my mouth, holding me back.

  “You can’t understand me, Alec,” he breathed. “You have to stop trying.”

  “I understand you need something,” I whispered against his fingers.

  “What makes you think that?”

  I gently pulled his hand away and leaned closer. “You’re still here.”

  I held his eyes for a long time, watched them stare into mine and almost thought I could see the struggle raging in their depths. Then I kissed him.

  He let me lean close, explore his mouth, savor his taste. Maybe he was hoping the feel of his sharpened canines might put me off, but it just heightened the prickle of excitement down my spine. I kissed him deeper, letting myself drink in the alien feel of it, the faint, autumnal flavor of him. It lit bonfires along my veins, and I swore I could smell their smokiness in the air.

  I ran my hand up his leg. He put his own hand on top to stop it and broke the kiss. I was breathing heavily. My mouth felt bruised and hot. My lip stung where it had caught on his tooth. I had to blink a few times to bring him back into focus. His breathing was level, calm. There was no heightened color in his cheeks, no parting of his lips. My desire dampened, until I noted that his eyes had lit with a deep, dark fire.

  “We can do this…if you want,” he said softly. “But it won’t be like you expect.”

  “Do you want to?”

  His eyes watched mine. I searched them desperately for what he was thinking. I was a storm battering against a sea wall. After an achingly long minute, he threaded his hand into my hair and drew me to him.

  He kissed me. It was slow, deep and strong. He breathed in, inhaling me like the bouquet of a fine wine. He took possession of my mouth like he was entitled to it. He pushed me back into the sofa and climbed on top of me. He was a lot heavier than he looked. The weight of his frame crushed me almost to the point of pain. His kiss became powerful. He licked the cut in my lip and shivered. He gripped my wrist and shoulder. My wrist pulsed where he’d twisted it in Meg’s car, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Fear flashed through me. Then I gave myself up to it and lifted my hips so my swelling cock pressed into his thigh whilst I slipped my free hand under his jumper.

  His skin was cool and firm. I could feel the raw power in it. He didn’t react to the touch or lean into my caress. I was like a light rain on parched land, not enough to nourish what was underneath.

  He tightened his hands, digging into me like he was searching for something. His fingernails pricked my skin, but when I winced, he loosened his grip and shifted away. I pulled him close again, fighting back the dampening sense of futility that was rising underneath the burn of my arousal.

  I got my leg up and rolled him gently onto the floor. I tugged at his jumper and he allowed me to pull it over his head. His torso was lithe and toned, the muscles moving under the skin like iron beneath silk. His skin was the color of warmed milk, completely unmarked—no scars, not so much as a freckle. It was like he’d been painted or sculpted. I couldn’t imagine him being born, being a child or growing up whilst grazing knees and elbows, climbing trees, chasing friends around a play park. I was startled by the realization that I didn’t know if he ever had been.

  His fine hair pooled on the carpet and his hooded eyes burned into mine. I removed my own shirt and recaptured his mouth, reveling in the feeling of my hot skin cooling against his. As I continued to move against him, it slowly dawned on me that something wasn’t right. A tentative fumble at his waistline revealed nothing against my hand except the rough denim of his jeans.

  I had no idea what I was doing, no idea what he needed, what he wanted. He’d tried to tell me. I hadn’t listened. It was like a bucket of cold water dumped down my back. He must have felt me tense, because his face changed. He watched me for a moment, then he leaned up and brushed his mouth against my ear.

  “It takes time,” he whispered in a voice loaded with a desire so deep and dark it made me shiver. “Just go slow.”

  Flames erupted in my belly. I lifted his knee so I could settle more firmly between his legs and buried my face in his neck. I kissed the tender flesh and let my hands run up his legs and along his sides. He eased and, eventually, his breathing began to deepen and he started to move against me. I dared to slide my hand down again and his cock was finally growing firm under his clothing.

  “Touch me, Alec,” he whispered into my ear.

  I swallowed the helpless noise that rose in my throat and fumbled desperately with his fly that suddenly seemed far more complicated than any I had undone before. Finally, I got my hand into his pants and wrapped my fingers around his hardening length. His hands tightened on me and he let out a noise so low that I felt it in his chest.

  “So warm,” he murmured into my hair. “Gud, you’re so warm.”

  I groaned and kiss
ed him again, hard. I started to move my hand, causing him to inhale almost like he was trying to swallow me.

  I forced myself to go slow and focus on his smallest reactions. It was like learning to read with my hands. My patience waned and waxed, and my need grew sharp and dulled. I had moments of uncertainty that were like clouds moving between me and a hot sun, but they never quite managed to extinguish the warmth.

  The sight of the gradually mounting need in his eyes kept me going, like someone parched who sees an oasis on the horizon. His body slowly came more alive under my ministrations, like a forest fire spreading through dried undergrowth. I pulled his remaining clothing away. He did the same for me, languorously and with low noises, eyes heavy like he was dreaming. He rolled me onto my back, holding his weight off me with an elbow and burying his face in my neck, gliding a hand down to wrap it around mine as I pumped his cock.

  He guided me with his touch, his breath and, eventually, his panted words. His voice changed, becoming deeper, slurred, like someone drunk on red wine. I pressed the fingers of my free hand into the tender flesh of his lower back, drinking the sight and smell of him in through my skin, willing him to feel what I was feeling. He gradually sank his weight onto me as his need weakened him.

  It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. He brought something to the surface in me that was unfamiliar and a little frightening. He knew exactly how to touch me, look at me, breathe on me to keep me chained to his needs. I grew very aware of just how much older he was, how different, and how little I might ever be able to know about him. I remembered the feel of his Blood in my veins and knew, on a level of myself I didn’t want to acknowledge, that if I just had some more, I’d understand. I’d be on his level. This would become even more…real.

  He crushed me to him, sinking his fingernails into my skin, pulling everything from me with his body and mouth. I let him, being no more able to stop it than I could stop a landslide with my bare hands.

  I finally knew he was close when he slid his other hand between us to grasp my neglected cock. He was gentle, but the strength in that hand jolted fear up my spine. He breathed my name in my ear and worked the sensitive flesh in time with his own, chasing away the doubts. He gained speed and increased the pressure, mumbling something in another language over and over. The powerful muscles in his back and legs started to bunch.

  I threw my head back as my climax built, like a bushfire flooding a firebreak. I teetered on the edge of release, and for several tingling, glorious seconds, reveled in it, before hearing him groan deep in his throat. I forced my eyes open so I could watch him come, but he pressed his forehead into mine, arched forward into my hand one more time and let out a low, keening noise, hot and full of relief and a little desperation. Warm fluid spread over both our hands and I let go, coming hard in waves hotter than windblown smoke.

  When I was able to focus again, we were both lying on our sides in front of the fire, clutching each other, breathing like we’d run a marathon. I was scratched, aching and every inch of my skin was sensitive as a healing burn. His fingers, still gripping my upper arms, trembled. His face was pressed at the place where my neck met my shoulder. He brushed my skin with his teeth for the briefest moment before he drew away. Sweat plastered his fine hair to his forehead and jaw. His mouth was open, saliva shining on his lips. He breathed through his mouth like an animal, tasting the air between us. His eyes were dreamy, as though he wasn’t really in the room.

  Waves of sated desire flagged outward from my middle. I felt the question of whether it had been enough for him hover in my mouth but couldn’t find the breath to form it.

  His eyes flicked over my face and he leaned in and kissed me again, deeply but chastely. I wasn’t sure whether he was telling me something or just trying to reassure me. He prized his fingers away from my arms and stood, slowly, like someone moving through water. I watched, dazed, as he gathered his clothes and disappeared into the other room, closing the door gently behind him.

  I sat up stiffly, feeling drained, sore. I could feel bruises forming on my arms and wrists. My feet and hands were cold. I fumbled more wood onto the wood-burner then stared at the inner door, fatigue dulling my brain.

  I lifted a hand to gingerly finger my neck. The skin was intact, though it felt tender and over-sensitized. I had no idea what to think or feel. I dragged my jeans on then drank greedily from the kitchen tap. I hesitated, went to the inner door and knocked. No answer. I tried the handle. Locked.

  I glanced at the clock. A vast amount of time had disappeared, but it was still several hours before dawn. I sat and tried to not think about the locked door or what that last, slightly strained kiss might have meant.

  I slept. I woke. Dawn lightened the blinds. I ate a little, drank more water and spent the day keeping the fire going and chasing confused, dulled thoughts around the dark cave of my brain. I must have been more tired than I thought, because one minute I was watching the clock, waiting for nightfall, then I was being woken by the soft sounds of someone moving close by. I blinked the sleepiness away and saw Terje attending to the wood-burner.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” he said softly.

  I shifted on the sofa, trying to find something to say. The hard knot of doubt in the bottom of my belly seemed to block all my senses. Finally, he raised his eyes to mine. They were the color of flint in the low light. His pale hair was neatly tucked behind his ears. He was wearing the same jeans and jumper. I remembered the feel of his skin against my fingertips and the taste of his mouth. But the passionate creature who had given himself up to me on the carpet under my very feet was completely absent from the blank, otherworldly face now turned my toward me.

  I couldn’t think of what to say. I knew what I wanted to ask, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” He raised his eyebrows slightly. I dropped my gaze. “You left rather quickly last night.” He watched me closely but didn’t answer. I clenched my hands together. “I don’t understand,” I said softly, finally admitting it to myself.

  He stood perfectly still, his gaze unwavering. “It’s okay that you don’t know what to feel,” he said in a voice devoid of any intonation. “Our kinds don’t fit together easily. And this? Well…” He glanced around the room. “This is an unusual situation as it is.”

  “I’m sorry I don’t know what to do for you…to make it good.”

  His gaze came back to mine. “You’re overthinking this.”

  “Am I?”

  Something lightened the impenetrable darkness of his eyes. “Thinking doesn’t come into this. Understanding does. And you understand better than you think you do. More than most. That in itself is…refreshing.”

  Something lifted inside me. “I do?”

  A smile twitched up the corner of his mouth. “Don’t you?”

  I stood and went to him. His face, impassive and blank, was turned up to mine. My hands tingled at my sides, longing to touch him.

  “You should eat,” he said softly after a long moment. “Your blood sugar’s low again.”

  I swallowed. “And then?”

  One pale eyebrow arched. “Then?”

  I lifted a hand and ran a thumb over his slightly parted lips. “I want to do it again.”

  “It wasn’t what you thought,” he said softly after a heavy silence.

  “No.”

  “It takes a long time.”

  “It does.”

  “And I hurt you.”

  “A little.”

  He narrowed his eyes slightly. “So why…?”

  I leaned in and ran my lips over his ear. I brushed my fingers over his neck, feeling the life pulsing there. “I like to learn.”

  “Why learn this?”

  I chewed on that for a moment. “Life hasn’t felt…real for a long time. Feeling something, anything, real is a relief. It’s…good, even if I don’t fully understand it.” He let out a long, controlled breath. I pressed my lips to the skin
just below his jaw, just soft enough to touch, a half-taste. The smell of leaves and wine rose in my mind. The taste of sweet darkness at the back of my throat. The bruises on my arms throbbed.

  “I’m not giving you any Blood.”

  I ignored the slight chill of disappointment that ghosted through my chest. “I’m not asking for any.”

  He guided my head back with a firm grip on my chin. “You can’t pretend you don’t want it.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but couldn’t. The thought of feeling what he felt, burning as he burned, of tasting and feeling him all through me when we came together, made my mouth water and my heart pound. He traced the thoughts on my face, and I sensed that I was on the brink of failing some monumental test.

  “It was good with the Blood,” I said in a low voice. “Very good. But it’s you I want.”

  “You know nothing about me.”

  “I know how you make me feel.”

  He held himself very still. Slowly the memory formed in my mind of his face pressed to my neck, his mouth open, the hunger in his gaze, the way he’d licked the cut on my mouth. I took a shuddering breath.

  “What about my blood? Would that make it…?”

  His face shifted. “Alec—”

  “But…would it make it better—?”

  “No,” he cut me off, voice suddenly firm, an iron curtain slamming down behind his eyes.

  “But it’s what you want…?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, breaking away and pacing into the kitchen.

  “I…I don’t mind,” I said in a thick voice. “If it’s what you want…I think I could—”

  “Stop.” The word resounded louder than a bullet into body armor. “Stop talking about it. You don’t know what you’re offering.”

  “Surely it’s my choice—”

  “You don’t know what you’re offering,” he repeated. His eyes were very black, barely a trace of the silver iris showing. “Don’t ever mention it again.”

  “I’ve offended you.”

  He opened the fridge and took out a bottle without looking at me.