Page 19 of Clay White
It was hard to find the right words, especially with him so close, touching me. Apparently becoming undead hadn’t loosened my tongue. “I’m afraid because of that core self you were talking about. It’s flawed.”
“They all are. Otherwise we’d be gods.”
“But there’s darkness there. A lot. What if I act on it?”
Another light pass of his fingertips over my skin, making me shiver, but not with fear or cold. My entire body had become an erogenous zone. “Every sentient being on Earth has that darkness,” Marek said, “and we all have the potential to act on it. I think there’s not much likelihood ofyoudoing so.”
So Marek had faith in me. This was an interesting thing to know.
But I stepped away from him nonetheless. “How will I eat?”
“There are a dozen packets of blood in that cooler,” he answered, pointing. “Enough to keep even the newly risen satiated for a few days.”
“And when it’s gone?”
“Your appetite will ebb soon to more reasonable levels. There are ways to obtain more packaged blood, but ultimately you won’t find it satisfying. The same is true of animal blood. They will sustain you without truly filling you.”
“So then?”
His response was quiet. “You could hunt. This city houses a great many homeless people, and those so far at the fringes nobody notices their absence. You could feed off them for a long time before the Bureau came after you.”
“No.”
“Good,” he replied, smiling. “Then I can teach you to hunt the way I do. Nobody dies. No more harm done to them than if they’d donated to the Red Cross—and the rewards are better than cookies and orange juice. Or….”
“What?”
A slight hesitation before he spoke. “Or I hunt for us both, and you feed from me. If you’re willing to remain with me, that is.”
I realized I was licking my lips. “You want that?”
“Desperately,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“I honestly don’t know. I’ve been drawn to you since the moment I saw you in the club. I don’t know why. It’s never happened to me before. But I wanted you, and nothing since has diminished that.”
There are enchantments that can cause instant attraction. They’re illegal, and the Bureau arrests anyone who provides or procures them, but people use them anyway. It was possible someone had cast an enchantment like that on Marek and me. But I couldn’t imagine who would do that, or why, or how. And in any case, that kind of false love always evaporates quickly. My desire for Marek hadn’t abated even when I thought he’d betrayed me, and it hadn’t faded away when I died. In fact, now that we were tied by blood, I never wanted to leave his side.
I set the gun on a counter. Perhaps someday I’d want it, but not now. “Yes,” I said—to being drawn to him, to staying with him, to feeding from him. Yes to it all.
As if in a goth version of a corny romance, Marek and I flew into each other’s arms.
Kissing when we both had fangs was… interesting. Erotic. Our blood mingled in our mouths, increasing our passion exponentially. When I imagined what it would be like to feed from Marek while he fed from me, while we fucked, I almost came then and there.
“I should probably eat first,” I gasped after pulling back a bit.
Chuckling knowingly, Marek took my hand and led me to the cooler, lifting the lid and then handing me a packet. I used my fangs to tear it open and then chugged the contents. Cold and plasticky. It reminded me of those prepackaged sandwiches sold at airports and convenience stores—soggy bread, limp lettuce, the meat and cheese hardly more than tasteless paste. Those sandwiches had filled my stomach when I’d been hungry and without other options, and now the packaged blood would do the same.
I polished off six of them and Marek had two. My stomach was full and the need within me had faded. Well,oneneed. Because when I looked at Marek, an entirely different hunger consumed me.
This time I tore his clothes right off, and although he could have stopped me, he didn’t try. He was too busy running his hands over my skin as if claiming my body as his own. I didn’t try to stop him.
We didn’t make it back to the bedding in the office but instead ended up rolling together on the hard tile of the kitchen floor. We kissed and caressed, nipped and scratched. My newly enhanced senses made everything so muchmore, but so did the knowledge that this wasn’t just a quick fuck with a stranger. This beautiful, enigmatic, astonishing creature was mine if I wanted him—which I did—and I was irrefutably his.
Vampires need not worry about safer-sex practices, and I discovered that bits of fleeting pain made the pleasure even sweeter. He entered me using nothing but spit for lube, and I clutched his ass and bit the tender juncture of his neck and shoulder. We climaxed together, screaming our bliss so loudly that I believe the building trembled.
Then we looked at each other. Smeared with blood and semen and dirt from the not-especially-clean floor. Our skin dotted with bite marks. Our hair snarled into knots. And we laughed together. That felt as good as the sex. Better, even.
