Blood Winter

by S. J. Coles

  “How can you expect me to get things right if you don’t explain—”

  “I’ve tried to explain—”

  “Try again,” I insisted, my own voice hardening. He turned a set, blank face toward me. I was very aware of the bottle of human blood in his hand. The way he held it slightly behind himself told me he was too.

  “I’m not drinking from you, Alec,” he said in a voice with an edge fine enough to slice metal. “Don’t ask me to again.”

  “But I’ve heard that for your kind, it can be—”

  “I don’t care what you’ve heard.”

  “You said I could understand. Help me understand.”

  I thought for a minute he was going to hit me, but he remained deathly still, unblinking eyes fixed on mine. He only spoke again after a moment long enough for me to begin to wonder whether I’d ruined everything.

  “It’s true that some of us find human partners for that. And, yes, the act, the taste… It…heightens things.” The way his eyes flashed lit a fire in my insides but his mouth remained a hard, unforgiving line. “But it’s dangerous and wrong. And I find it distasteful. Kindly do not mention it again.”

  A roll of emotion that was equal parts relief and disappointment tumbled from my brain down to my belly and back again. “Okay, Okay,” I repeated, stronger this time, putting a hand on his arm. “I won’t.” I stepped closer, bent my face close to his. “Help me find other ways to please you, then.”

  His eyes, so close to mine, glinted. “Being stranded here is not good for you,” he murmured. “You wouldn’t be so fixated on this if we were back in the real world.”

  “The real world is overrated,” I replied and closed the gap between us, opening my mouth to his. Like last time, he let me in, let me drink in his taste and smell, not responding but not resisting either. He was cooler than the previous night, the taste of him like a fresh, light wine. I tried not to think about the bottle of blood in his hand and how consuming it might change the taste and feel of him. I tried not to imagine what it might feel like if right at the moment he came, his teeth sank into my neck.

  I firmly shelved the thought and backed him against the kitchen counter, trying to speak to him through the kiss, desperately seeking a way to reach him. After a few minutes, he dropped the bottle and ran his long fingers up my neck into my hair. He tilted his head back to allow me to deepen the kiss. I sensed him letting me coax him, tease a response from him like one would do to draw a wild animal from its lair.

  I reined myself in from pressing too hard, instead easing him up onto the countertop. Again, I was surprised at his weight, but he moved with me, sitting back and pulling me to him. I leaned in between his knees, ground myself into his groin, needing the contact but stopping myself from being demanding with an effort. I was used to leading, taking control and setting the pace. Holding back was hard, but as the kiss continued, his grip on my hair tightened. His long eyelashes fluttered against my face.

  I moved along his jaw to his neck, breathing him in, mouthing the throb of his pulse. His breath was hot against my ear. I was unable to stop myself from tasting him, even though it reawakened the yearning for his Blood. The thought was dizzying but I didn’t let it show, instead hurriedly moving on from his throat to tug at the neckline of his jumper and lavish attention on his collarbone. His chest was flush against mine as he inhaled. Trembling threatened to take over my limbs and I repressed it, focusing intently on what made him push against me or caused his breath to catch, making myself take it slower than the night before.

  I was rewarded by him tugging at my clothes, more feverishly this time. We stripped our tops away then his mouth was hot against my jaw, my shoulder. He spread his fingers wide against my back, pressing his skin to mine as though he could drink in my heat through his pores.

  My control took a hammering when his long fingers went for the button of my jeans. I dropped to my knees to keep out of his reach, instead undoing his buttons and taking his gradually hardening length into my mouth. He gasped, his whole body going rigid. I heard him make a noise low in his throat that was almost enough to send me tumbling off the edge on its own. I adjusted the way I knelt to relieve some of the pressure on my own arousal and sank myself into the taste and feel of him in my mouth.

  I was slow and meticulous. His breathing got heavier as he grew harder. He arched off the counter. After a few long moments, he threaded his fingers through my hair. His grip grew almost painful. He muttered something in his own language. His voice was low, guttural, coming from somewhere deep inside him. I resisted undoing my jeans with a force of will I’d never known myself to possess before.

  I knew I was good at oral. I’d been able to reduce David to a quivering mess in a matter of minutes whenever we’d done this together. But Terje burned slower but hotter, like a furnace gathering power. I was generous with my mouth and hands, keeping the rhythm steady and intense. It was no longer a case of staying patient. Every second was better than the last, just listening to him. His voice became ragged, his breathing hitched. I shifted when my knees began ache, but I didn’t allow myself to pause.

  He started to pant. The noises he made were of a higher pitch. The foreign words took on the tone of desperate prayer. He leaned back on the counter, gripping the edge, his knuckles standing out white.

  “Alec.”

  The wood splintered in his grip with a dull crack. His back arched. The sound of him saying my name was all it took to finish me off. My whole body shivered, trembled, gathered itself just under my gut and poured out in waves against the restraining fabric of my clothing. Despite my body and mind reeling over themselves, I didn’t stop until warm, smoky fluid spilled into the back of my mouth as he let out a series of high-pitched whimpers.

  I rose, shakily, to my feet, the heavy taste of autumn fruit on my tongue. I didn’t have time to wonder at the alien nature of it. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me in for a fierce, wild kiss, bruising me, his sharp teeth catching my tongue. He panted against my mouth, murmuring nonsense syllables, swallowing desperately.

  “I need more,” he said, one hand on my back, fingers digging into my flesh, the other sliding down the front of my jeans. “I want more, Alec.”

  The sated embers of my desire rekindled and a low groan escaped my throat. He crushed me to him, fingernails digging into my skin, but the pricks of pain were like candle wicks igniting in deep, swirling darkness. He kneaded at my slowly reawakening erection. His own was stiff against my stomach.

  “What do you want?” I breathed into his neck. “Tell me.”

  “I want you in me,” he panted into my hair, his voice so low and loaded that it no longer sounded like his own. “I want you to take me, like you would one of your own. Make me feel human again, Alec.”

  I moaned, reclaimed his mouth and leaned into him, like I could do what he asked just by crushing us both against the kitchen counter so hard that we might sink into each other. He pushed at me, not exactly gently, tearing at my remaining clothing as we stumbled back to the sofa. The heat from the fire flushed my naked skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat now radiating off his flesh. It was like he had stepped out of a scorching shower or was running a fever.

  We fell onto the sofa and he rolled me on top, arching up into me and moaning in the back of his throat. His calm and composure had evaporated, transforming him before my eyes. I knew a moment of fear when I took in the naked hunger in the deep, dark eyes and open, tooth-filled mouth. But then he tightened his fingers in my hair and kissed me hard, wrapping a leg around my waist to draw me closer, and I closed my eyes and willed the fear away.

  I sucked on two of my fingers whilst a thunderstorm built in my lower belly. He watched me do it with something dangerous burning in his eyes. I kept my eyes locked on his as I slid my hand down and began to press against the tight ring of muscle at his entrance. He breathed in sharply.

  “Is this right?” I whispered, heart skipping around as I slowly worked in a finger. �
�Is this really what you want?”

  “Gud, Alec,” he panted, closing his eyes. “Go slow.”

  I made myself obey, preparing him with one, then two and finally three fingers. My own neglected cock quivered and ached where it pressed into his leg. I took deep breaths and buried my face in his neck, breathing in his bright, fresh scent, and I shut my eyes to listen to his gasped words and incoherent sounds, which stoked the storm in my belly to a crescendo.

  “Terje,” I breathed. “I’m gonna… I mean…Christ.”

  He wasn’t listening. He was moaning in Norwegian, pushing against my fingers with his head thrown back into the cushions.

  “Now, Alec,” he said. “Now.”

  I gritted my teeth to still the trembling climax and slid into him. I moaned into his shoulder, the hot tightness enveloping me with a completeness so exquisite that it nearly undid me. I took a long moment to lie there, revel in the feeling and fight back the tidal wave that threatened to have me coming hard at the slightest movement.

  “You have no idea how this feels,” Terje breathed into my ear. He slid his hands down my back almost reverently, like he was handling something precious but delicate. “I wish I could show you…”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll…” He pushed against me and I groaned aloud.

  “Breathe,” he whispered, his lips against my face. “Breathe deep, Alec. Make it last.”

  I drew a breath right into my belly and started to move. Heat sparked along every nerve and vein. The thick, smoky-sweet taste of his Blood filled my mouth again, and the memory of how it had made me feel flooded me. I couldn’t fight it, didn’t want to fight it. It slowed everything down, even as it dialed every sensation up to an almost unbearable ferocity. Knowing that must be how he was feeling now caused my mind and body to explode like a match dropped into dry kindling.

  I thrust hard, reveling in the feel, the sound, the entire all-encompassing absolution of it all. He met my movements with his own, murmuring my name over and over, running his tongue over the skin of my neck and shoulders. When he was no longer able to form words, he just keened into my ear, holding onto me with an almost palpable desperation, and I could only guess at the power of what might be building in him.

  David had been my first. Being with him had been like a much-anticipated spring after a hard, lonely winter. Everything had been new, bright and exciting, even when it was sometimes clouded with uncertainty. I never knew when a cold day might follow a bright one. But it had been a time of hope and discovery and, whatever I had said to myself, to Meg or even to him, it was a time in my life I still mourned the loss of.

  Brody had been a summer holiday on some exotic, overseas beach, all dizzying sights and smells, soaring heat and crashing, warm waves that smelled of ocean and city breezes all at once—as refreshing and passionate as it had been fleeting and unsubstantiated.

  Terje was the languorous autumn that follows any overheated summer, clinging to the earlier season’s sultriness with warm, leisurely winds, heavy with the smell of sun-warmed heather and seasonal fruit. He was like heated, fragrant and enriched days with the prospect of smoky bonfires and fiery sunsets, even though those days inevitably fell into long, cold and sometimes stormy nights.

  I sank myself so deeply into the experience that part of me wondered whether I would ever surface again. But even that part of me didn’t care. Sweat stood out on my skin and I pressed my forehead to his, taking from him as he took from me, no longer able to think and not needing to.

  Eventually, his face changed. His skin was flushed and damp, his eyes hooded and entirely black, no trace of the silver irises remaining. He thrust against me and gripped harder, crushing me deeper. Sensing he was reaching the edge, I reached a hand between us and grasped his trembling length.

  He cried out, threw his head back and came in my hand, his entire body shaking and stiffening like he’d been electrocuted. His body tightened around me like a fist, undoing whatever had been keeping me in control. I let everything go and tumbled off the precipice with him, moaning his name into his mouth.

  Afterward, we lay tangled on the sofa, for a long time in silence, staring into the flames dancing behind the dull glass of the wood-burner. Our breathing was in time, our pulses gradually slowing and the sweat was cooling on our skin. I was lying on top of him, my head on his chest, one of his hands in my hair, the other still resting on my lower back. I could hear the low, deep thump of his heart, slow but loud, like a distant drum. His sweat smelled like a stream in spate, too fresh to be human.

  The skin on my arms and back stung with new scratches. It was a sharp counterpoint to the low, dull throb of tired muscles and the pulse of bruising where he’d held on too hard.

  “Tell me about the boy,” he said, barely above a whisper.

  I blinked, his words penetrating my stupor like stones dropped in a still pond. “Who?”

  He took a deep breath. It stirred my hair as he exhaled. It was another minute before he spoke again. “The boy in the basement. The one who died. Tell me about him.”

  I raised my head. He was gazing into the fire. His skin was pale again, all the color and heat fading as we lay still. The bottle of blood was still where he’d dropped it on the kitchen floor. “Why do you want to know?”

  “He was obviously important to you.”

  I resisted the urge to shift away, the thought of Brody intruding like a sudden, damp fog. “I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

  His face was once again a closed mask. “I want to know what he was like, what you felt for him.”

  I shifted onto my elbow, taking a moment to marshal my voice. “Why?”

  He ran an index finger down the side of my face and along my jaw, his eyes following it like I was a book he was reading. “I hardly remember what it was like to feel the way you feel,” he whispered.

  I stared at him. “You mean…you did once?”

  His eyebrow twitched. “Are you asking if I was once human? Of course I was.”

  “I don’t know anything about…” I stumbled. “I didn’t assume anything. No one really knows much about how you…” I trailed off, searching his face, which was unreadable and blank apart from the sparkle in his eyes.

  “We don’t…reproduce,” he said after a long moment, a corner of his mouth twitching. “Not in the way you do.”

  “So how do you make more…” I fumbled. “Like you?”

  Whatever had been warming his eyes vanished like a black blind being drawn over a window. “I can’t tell you.”

  “You can’t?”

  “It’s dangerous for you to know. No humans know. It’s part of the agreement.”

  I took a moment to absorb that, watching him closely. “So what we just did… That’s not for reproduction?”

  “Even humans would struggle to reproduce, doing what we just did,” he said, the glint back in his eye.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” he said, brushing his lips over my cheek, my forehead. “And the answer is no. That is just for the feel of it. Simpler in a lot of ways.” He paused. “More complicated in others.”

  I took a deep breath. “Brody and I hadn’t known each other long,” I said quietly. “He was part of a plan to force me out of Glenroe. But I didn’t know that at the time. I liked him…or thought I did.”

  “I’m sorry you had to see what you did,” he murmured. I glared at the carpet, fighting the images. “I’ve upset you.”

  I shifted away. The need to touch him was still unsettlingly strong, but the thought of Brody gave the feeling a sharp, bitter edge. After a moment, he sat up next to me, snaking his arm around my waist and pressing his face into my hair.

  “Tell me,” he whispered.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He sighed into my hair. “You don’t know how wonderful it is,” he whispered, “to feel the way you feel. Even your pain is beautiful.”

  “You feel things,” I sa
id, a little bluntly. “You can’t pretend you don’t. Not now.”

  “I feel,” he said, tilting my chin so I was looking into his face. “Of course I feel. But not the way you do.”

  “How do you feel?”

  His eyes glittered. “Haven’t I shown you?”

  I frowned. “I still don’t understand what this is, what I’m doing…who you are.”

  He ran a hand slowly over my bare chest while brushing the knuckles of his other hand against my cheek. “You can’t know any of that,” he said softly. “Not really. They’re things you can feel but not know.”

  “Tell me. Tell me how you feel.”

  He tilted his head. “Slowly. Deeply. Strongly,” he said in a low, breathy voice that caused my stomach to clench. “There aren’t really words for it.”

  “Do you like being this way?”

  “It’s all I know. Has been for a long time.” His eyes went over my shoulder, gazing into the shadows of the room. “But I like to try to remember what it was like before. Most don’t.”

  “What do you remember? Of being human?”

  His eyes narrowed in thought. “Not much. That life…it sort of fades, after a while. I was in love—once, I think. Your sort of love. But I don’t remember much about it.”

  “Was it with a man or a woman?”

  His eyes returned to mine, again with that wry glint. “Does it matter?”

  I picked at a loose fingernail, trying to figure out if it did. “I didn’t feel much for Brody,” I murmured. “Nothing real, anyway. But the other man you met. At the distillery…” I could feel his eyes on me. I stared intently into the stove. “David. He was important. Once.”

  “Once?” I withdrew from his arms to start gathering my clothes. “Did you love him?”

  I padded around, pretending to look for my socks. “Yes.”

  “What was that like?”

  He watched me, his arms on the back of the couch, his chin resting on his hands, gazing at me with a soft light in his eyes.

  “Wonderful, at the beginning. Terrible at the end.”