36
Somewhere on the Road
He needed to feed. Nikita had known that for hours – for days. He should have fed after he let Alexei feed from his own wrist, but things had been hectic, and when Sasha offered his throat, he’d refused. There would be time later, he’d thought. When it was quiet, when it was just the two of them, and he didn’t have to let the others see him made vulnerable by his biological need for the blood of living things.
And now, because of that pride, and his long fast, he felt like he was shaking apart at the seams. He had to feed now. That or pass out.
He’d pulled over a few miles back and let Trina drive. She’d sent him a sharp look – much like the look she was giving him now.
“I think you need to eat something,” she said in a reasonable tone.
He coughed a laugh. “Yeah. You could say that.” His hunger went deep; he felt it in his veins more than in his stomach. He made an abortive movement toward the door handle, hand shaking so badly that he wrapped the other one around it. He opened his mouth, panting – his chest was so tight – and felt his fangs against his tongue, fully extended.
A glance toward Trina proved that she’d seen them. But she held herself admirably still. “What kind of sandwich do you want?”
They were at a gas station with an attached Subway, its familiar green and yellow neon letters too bright to his fevered eyes.
He shook his head.
“Nik. What kind of sandwich do you want?”
He didn’t want a fucking sandwich. He didn’t need a fucking sandwich. He needed Sasha’s skin under his fangs, hot salty blood over his tongue and down his throat. A greater weakness: he needed Sasha’s fingers running steadily, repetitively through his hair, his quiet, Russian murmurings that it was okay, that he wanted Nikita to drink, that he would feel better after and that they would always be brothers, no matter what.
He swallowed with difficulty and said, “Turkey. On wheat. Bacon. Avocado if they have it. Lettuce, vinegar.” Each word was an effort.
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” She opened her door, and then hesitated. “Will you be alright?”
“I’m not a child,” he bit out.
“No. But you look ready to faint.”
He cursed in Russian and she muttered something in English he couldn’t make out.
“Sit tight.”
He snorted.
The car door shut.
He watched her walk to the building, hair shining beneath the white glow of the security lights, and slipped down deeper in his seat. Deep enough that he could only see the people milling around the gas station from the waist up.
It turned out that was all he needed to see.
The station was crowded with weary travelers: families emptying fast food bags from their minivans; a group of teenage boys in a mud-spattered pickup, blasting some country/rap abomination too loud; a few businessmen in ties and crumpled white shirts; truckers double-handing coffee; a farmer; a painting crew; an ambulance crew. And two guys parked up at the curb, hands stuffed in their pockets, people-watching in a predatory way; they raised an awareness in Nikita, stirred his own predatory instincts.
The night pressed in, fighting the halogens for supremacy, sealing the station off like the desert oasis it was. In a weed-choked, Interstate-adjacent neighborhood full of too-long shadows and flickering streetlights, the big, shiny BP was a beacon that drew travelers forward…hinting at a safety that was only a mirage. Because it drew hunters and prey both
Tonight, the hunters had picked their target; now it was only a matter of singling them out from the herd: two teenage girls in short-shorts and tank tops, rubbing their arms against the chilly night air, laughing and teasing one another, and not paying attention to the men watching them.
Nikita was very, very hungry.
A slapping sound on the roof preceded Lanny’s face thrusting through the open window. “You coming in or what?” he asked.
Nikita held up a hand to stall, watching. The girls finished gassing up their hybrid and headed for the convenience store, heads thrown back, laughter echoing off the concrete around them. When they’d disappeared inside, the men pushed off their car and followed, faces ducked, hat brims pulled low.
“Are you hungry?” Nikita asked, and heard the growl lying just beneath his words. He’d waited too long, and now it was too late. God forgive him; Sasha forgive him.
Sashka. At another time, he would have let himself slip into a coma. But not now, not when Sashka needed him, was being…
He snipped the thought away, cleanly. He couldn’t right now. And turned to face Lanny. He thought his eyes must be dilated, because Lanny drew back a fraction.
“Am I hungry? Yeah, I’m hungry. That’s why we’re going to get food,” he said like Nikita was an idiot, hooking a thumb toward the Subway.
“No. Not that kind of hungry.”
Lanny stared at him a moment, carefully blank…and then his own pupils widened. “Yeah,” he said, voice gone a little rough. “I could eat. We’ve got a cooler…”
“No. That’s gone bad by now. We need fresh.”
They studied one another. “I thought you didn’t believe in that,” Lanny said.
“Sometimes, there are exceptions.”
Slowly, Lanny nodded.
“Get the others. Meet me inside.”
He worried his legs wouldn’t hold him, but an invigorating blast of adrenaline swept through him, giving him the energy he needed to climb out of the car and cross the parking lot, push his way through the glass door and into the maze of chilled drinks and junk food. Knowing that he would feed, the anticipation of fresh, restorative blood, strengthened him temporarily.
He scanned the low aisles and didn’t see his target; but he saw, at the mouth of the hallway that led to the restrooms, a few bags of beef jerky knocked to the floor. Carelessness? No, a struggle. He inhaled and caught a whiff of fear sweat, the kind that came on suddenly. He headed to the back, heard the bell behind him, scented the others in his…in his pack. Lanny, Alexei, Jamie.
The hallway was empty of people, but full of scent: male, female, fear, arousal. An emergency exit, the door blocked open with a brick, the alarm disengaged.
Nikita pushed through, and found what he’d expected: both girls pressed up against the rough brick wall of the building, tears shiny on their cheeks in the glow of the light above the door. Bruises were already coming up on their faces, hard slaps to quiet them. The men pinned them down by the arms, and the girls, just teenagers, were too terrified to scream or fight back.
The girls saw him first, eyes wide, wild, full of terror.
He put his finger to his lips, stepped up behind one of the men, and grabbed him by the back of the neck.
“Hey!” he shouted, and threw an elbow back, tried to wrench around. He couldn’t shake Nikita loose, not when he dug his fingertips in hard enough to draw a gasp from the man. His hands loosened, and the girl wriggled away.
“Go,” Nikita told her. “Take your friend.”
The other girl was loose, too, because the first man’s friend had spun and was coming at Nikita with bravado that almost outweighed his sudden fear.
“What the fuck?” he demanded. “Fuck you.” He threw a punch–
That Lanny caught in the palm of his hand. The man had put all his weight behind it, but it landed on Lanny’s skin like a love tap. Lanny closed his hand around the man’s fist, and squeezed until Nikita heard the crack of bone breaking.
The man screamed.
“Shut him up,” Nikita said.
Lanny cocked back a fist.
“No, like this.” Nikita turned the man that he held, who scrabbled and cocked back his own intended swing – it never landed. The moment Nikita locked eyes with him, he pushed his intent out through his eyes. You are mine. Listen to me. Be calm. Submit. Rasputin’s gift; Rasputin’s evil.
The man went totally still.
Beside him, Lanny struggled, unfamiliar with the power.
Alexei stepped in beside him. “Here, bratishka,” he told Lanny, and laid a hand on the struggling man’s neck, catching his eyes with his own wide, dilated ones. “Shh, shh.” The man went limp, swaying on his feet.
Alexei ran a hand up into the man’s hair, dislodging his cap, exposing his throat on both sides. “Come,” Alexei said, sweetly, cajoling, “feed.”
Lanny looked drugged-out. Turned on. It was the bloodlust. He bent his head on one side, and Alexei on the other. Sire and offspring feeding together.
Nikita looked over and saw Jamie at the door, hand braced on the wall. His eyes were huge, chest heaving as he breathed. Hungry, and terrified, and revolted, but so hungry.
Nikita extended a hand toward him. His fangs scraped his lip and tongue when he spoke. “Come here, little one, and have some.”
Jamie hesitated, but hunger won out. He took one halting step, and then another, and finally he slid his hand into Nikita’s and let himself be pulled in.
Nikita let go of his hand so he could cup Jamie’s neck, the back of his head, his soft hair. Guided him up to the still man’s throat. “Here. Bite hard.”
He watched with something like fatherly pride as Jamie leaned up on his toes and fastened his fangs into the man’s neck. He waited until the young one had a good grip, was feeding properly, and then dipped his head and pressed his face into the other side of the man’s throat. He felt, and saw, and heard the pulse jumping just beneath the skin. Waited a heartbeat for a guilt that didn’t come, and then bit.
His hand was still in Jamie’s hair, curved protectively around his nape, as he drew hard on the vein that pulsed into his open mouth, and drank.
~*~
Trina was next in line to order at the sandwich counter when the boys all came trooping through the door that connected Subway to the convenience store next door. She looked at them – and then did a double take.
They were all in the same state: eyes fever-bright and too-wide, cheeks flushed, mouths dark and slick, like they’d been licking their lips. They looked drunk, high. Freshly fucked. Jamie’s hair was all rumpled.
They moved loose-limbed and relaxed, long rolling strides that carried them toward the back of the line.
Trina snagged Lanny’s sleeve as he passed her. “What’s with you guys?” she whispered.
He looked at her uncomprehending a moment; his pupils were blown. Then shook his head and grinned a slow, lazy grin that melted her insides. “Miss me?”
She kept her voice firm. “Lanny. What did you do?”
“Nothing that ain’t natural,” he drawled. “Hey, can I cut?” he asked the woman behind her.
“No, you may not,” she said.
Lanny chuckled and shifted out of Trina’s grip. “See you outside, sweetheart.” He went to the back of the line to join the others.
Jamie stood with his shoulder pressed against Nikita’s arm, leaning on him.
Alexei licked at something on his thumbnail, content and pleased with himself.
The tableau they made: like every eighties vampire movie, Kiefer Sutherland with his mullet and eye makeup. Like…
It clicked into place for her then: they’d fed.
She turned away from them, jaw clenched, hands curling into fists. What had she expected? They’d come down here with nothing but old blood packed in a cooler. They’d behaved beautifully at her family’s place. They were about to walk into very real battle, and they had to feed. She knew all of this. Logically.
But emotionally, she felt something shake loose inside her. It felt like fright, so she stubbornly told herself it was anger.
She ordered her sandwich and chips and drink, and went to sit out in the dark on a picnic table to eat them. She forced each bite down, appetite gone.
When the guys emerged a few minutes later, Alexei was laughing at something Lanny said, head tipped back so the halogens caught the gleam of fangs still extended. She felt her body coil and tense, ready for flight, as they trooped over and sat down around her, opposite her, beside her. They seemed to emit more heat than normal humans; she swore she smelled blood, though it had to be her imagination, because there wasn’t a speck on any of them anywhere.
“You shouldn’t sit out here alone,” Nikita scolded, and took a huge bite of sandwich, spoke around it. “It’s dangerous.”
She set down her own food and passed a glance around to the four of them. “Dangerous,” she deadpanned. “Right.”
Jamie had the grace to blush and look down into his Doritos.
Nikita’s stare was a challenge.
Lanny said, “Aw, come on, what did you think was gonna happen? And they were totally rapist motherfuckers.”
“They…what?”
Beside her, Alexei laid a soothing hand on her arm; she fought not to twitch out from under it. “Do not worry, Ekaterina.” His accent was especially pronounced; he sounded drowsy and sated, and very, very Russian at the moment. “We surprised two fiends in the act of assaulting young girls. They did not suffer, and it was well-deserved. And now we are fed.” He smiled broadly, a fleck of mustard on his lip. “Everyone wins.”
“It’s a little late to get a conscience now,” Nikita said. His gaze didn’t quite meet hers, though. A muscle twitched in his cheek. She read it as guilt.
She took a deep breath and let it out slow. “I…” She trailed off, shook her head. What could she say? They were her friends, her family – her lover, even. She knew what they were, and what they had to do to survive.
“I’m not angry,” she said, and she wasn’t. Just bone-tired, suddenly. Emotionally drained in a way that left her feeling small and hollow. She was a naïve child playing with elemental forces she couldn’t fully understand or control.
She stood up and took her trash to the can at the curb. Wrapped her arms around herself and walked slowly back to the cars, still parked at the pumps, totally in the way. The crowd seemed to have thinned, though, more late-night truckers than families at this point. She moved past the Expedition, all the way to the opposite curb, staring out through the little copse of scraggly fruit trees in the wide median that separated the parking lot from the highway beyond.
A whippoorwill called. A cool breeze lifted her hair. Under the smell of spilled gasoline and truck exhaust, it was almost peaceful.
Lanny had always had the purposeful, bouncy walk of a boxer, and vampirism hadn’t changed that. She heard him coming, and tensed in anticipation.
He stepped around in front of her with one smooth movement, so his moon-silvered face became her view.
His hair had grown longer than he usually let it get, thick, loose curls on top that she wanted to twine her fingers through. One fat loop fell onto his forehead and stuck to the faint sheen of sweat there. He carried himself loose, painless, confident. There was something artfully rumpled about him now that she hadn’t seen before: not the glazed, bourbon-induced slouch of a late night, but a self-assured sprawl. A magnetism.
She wanted to put her hands on him.
“Are you freaking out?” he asked.
“No.” His eyes seemed to shine, wide and hungry as a junkie’s. “Are you?”
“I–” He shifted forward a half-step, and beneath the loose satisfaction lurked something that still wanted. Another step. Another. His body bowed, curving to make space for hers, face above hers now, and…oh. She got it, then.
“Okay, awkward question. Does feeding get you all…” She made a gesture.
He let out a breathy laugh and grinned, teeth flashing; she saw the sharp tips of his fangs. “Guess so.”
Trina felt her pulse speed up, felt her palms tingle with anticipation. She was a grown woman, a homicide detective, and she told herself, firmly, that she wasn’t someone who got off on danger. She wasn’t drawn to bad boys.
Then she reached up and fingered the curl of hair on Lanny’s forehead, threaded it back into the rest of his hair.
The smile fell off his face and a sound very much like a low purr filled the space between them; she could hear it rumbling in his throat.
“Probably be a bad idea to run right now,” he said, voice strained.
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Um. But, you can go, if you–”
She pushed both hands through his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers.
He hesitated a moment, stock still. But then she teased at his closed lips with her tongue, and he came alive. Shifted in close, pressed against her, and she felt the play and ripple of muscle under his clothes. His hands latched onto her waist, and his mouth opened against hers. A possessive kiss; wicked flex of his tongue.
She expected him to taste of blood, but he didn’t. Only sweet red wine vinegar. Once she’d thought it, though, she couldn’t chase the thought away: he’d drank blood from a man’s throat.
It hit her like she was learning it for the first time: Lanny was a vampire. She was kissing a vampire.
She tightened her hands in his hair until he grunted against her mouth and lifted her off her feet.
He carried her effortlessly, up over the curb and into the trees, their swaying, dappled shadows. He pushed her up against a gnarled trunk and broke away from her mouth, trailed his lips down the side of her throat. She felt the faint scrape of his teeth, and when sensation spilled through it, it wasn’t cold fear, but hot, reckless excitement.
They’d circled one another awkwardly ever since his turning. She’d put off this moment, holding him at careful arm’s length, because she’d thought it would frighten her to let him in close, skin-to-skin, within striking distance. She’d thought it would be awkward, strange, and terrifying. But when he closed his mouth over her neck and sucked lightly at her pulse, liquid heat gathered low in her belly.
She tipped her head back against the bark of the tree and opened her eyes to see flashes of starlight through the leaves. She couldn’t bite back the breathless sound that left her lips, electric with sensation.
His hands moved over her, restless but gentle, up under her shirt, over the bare skin of her stomach and waist. He unfastened the button of her jeans, but only tipped his fingers into the waistband, shaking with restraint, but waiting for her.
“Trina,” he said against her throat, lips skimming back up her jaw, searching for her mouth again.
“Don’t stop,” she said, just before he kissed her.
He didn’t stop.
He hesitated, just one more endless second, lips still against hers, fingertips shivering against the sensitive skin just under her waistband. And then something in him snapped. She felt the break in the way he surged against her like a whip-crack; pushed her back hard against the tree; shoved his hands down inside her jeans and gripped her ass; hiked her up higher against the rough bark, and fastened his mouth to her throat.
She panicked, for just a second, when she felt the damp heat of his mouth against her pulse. Felt the faint scrape of his fangs dragging across her jugular. He’d just done this, hadn’t he? Bitten a man and drained his blood.
What was to keep him from…
Why wouldn’t he…
Did he even have any self-control…
When he pulled back, she realized her heart was racing, breath coming in quick little bursts, but it no longer had anything to do with arousal.
His eyes seemed to glow in the shadows, more reflective amber than their usual brown. “Trina.” His voice fell warm and honeyed against her face, and she felt her anxiety ebb in response. “I would never,” he said. Face pained. Sad. The face of a man who’d lost something important, rather than gained a whole new lease on life.
She took a deep breath, chest aching for him. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“…Yeah. I do.” And she did, she just…
The next kiss was yet again different. He leaned in slow, and kissed her deep, and wet, and lush. Messy, his tongue hot in her mouth.
“I would never hurt you,” he murmured against her lips.
She pushed her hands through his short hair and held him to her; melted against him. She’d wanted this for so long, had wanted him, a constant urge, a grab in her belly and a tightness in her lungs that she’d never allowed to fully bloom for fear that the let-down would crush her. It was that, she realized, that still haunted her; her own self-control. He wouldn’t hurt her, she knew that. She wasn’t afraid of his fangs in her throat; she was afraid that somehow, now that she finally had what she’d always wanted, that she’d manage to screw it up, and that Lanny, strong and healthy again, would find someone else. Someone better.
That was too painful to think about. She shoved it, and every other extraneous thought, firmly away.
“Lanny, I need you.”
“You got me,” he whispered back, like a promise.
He put his arms around her and held her close while he turned and put his back to the tree. Sank down so he was sitting in the grass at its base, Trina on his lap, straddling his hips.
He pressed gentle, sucking kisses to her jaw, and throat, and along her collarbones when he tugged her shirt to the side. Until heat gathered like a weight low in her belly, and she was rocking against him, teasing herself against the hard line of his erection through both their jeans.
Getting her jeans and underwear off was awkward, her movements drugged and clumsy. Lanny tried to help, and chuckled when she accidently elbowed him in the face.
“Oh, are you alright?”
“Pretty sure I’ll live,” he said with a laugh, and pulled her in close, closer, his hands warm and heavy on her hips. “Hey, come here.”
One hand slid in, along the join of hip and thigh, calluses on his fingertips sending goosebumps racing across her skin when he touched her inner thigh.
She tried to kiss him again – and it turned to a gasp instead, lips hovering above his, when his hand went right there. Fingers teasing against her damp folds, teasing them apart.
That had been the big surprise the first time – the only time – they did this. A part of her – a disappointed part – had always worried that Lanny would be the sort of guy who pawed at a woman down there. Clumsy, inexpert, just a lot of wild groping while he asked her how good it felt.
Instead he was almost delicate. Exacting.
He worked her with his fingers until she was riding them, chasing for more, panting. “Attagirl,” he murmured against her temple, and kissed her there.
She shivered all the way down to her toes and reached with shaking, clumsy hands for his belt.
He hissed when she wrapped her hand around his cock.
“Hey, do you think vampires can get humans pregnant?” she asked.
His voice was tight, strained, hips lifting as he sought friction. “Like…I don’t think? I dunno. Nik said it…shit…wasn’t likely.”
She froze. “You asked him?”
“Well, yeah!” Even in the shadows, she could see that his jaw was clenched, his gaze desperate.
She had to bite back a sudden giggle.
“You’re mean,” he protested.
“I know.” She guided him to her entrance and sank down slow.
She rode him, hands braced on his shoulders, denim of his opened jeans rough on the insides of her thighs. His hands skimmed, restless, across her ass, and hips; down her thighs, and then up under her shirt, over her waist. Small, almost-pained sounds built in his throat, little growls and grunts, and he lifted his hips, chasing her when she pulled off, back bowing when she slid back down.
It wasn’t the rough, frantic fucking she’d expected when he first touched her in the shifting shadows, but something more real and imperfect. And because of that, it was better.
For a little while, for a few minutes, they didn’t have to be cops, or crusaders, or humans or vampires. They could just be themselves; friends and lovers. A stolen moment.
When he reeled her in for a kiss, and called her baby, she resolved to steal a whole lot more. All that she could.
~*~
The others were still at the picnic table when they walked back, smoking. Nikita sent them an unreadable glance, and Jamie blushed a little, but no one commented on what they’d so obviously been doing.
Trina blinked when she realized a pale-haired figure in velvet waited at the end of their table. “Val.”
“Having a public tryst? How classy,” he said, dry and faintly amused.
“How long’s he been here?” she asked Nikita.
Val made an affronted noise. “I’m right here, you could ask me yourself.”
“A few minutes,” Nikita said, shrugging. “He says it’s important.”
“It is,” Val huffed. “It’s a trap.”
“What’s a trap?” Trina asked.
“It–” He flickered. Jumped and skipped like a TV with rabbit ears, and his voice cut out. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. And then he froze. And then was gone.
The warm, gooey, post-sex flush drained out of her in a heartbeat. “Val?”
Jamie got up and swiped a hand through the space where his projection had stood. Nothing.
“Val?”
But he was gone.