Chapter 30
Every pull against his blood-channels was liquid honeyfire; to feed her while buried so deeply after his own release was another form of concentrated Paradise.
He closed the wound, though he would have liked to let her draw forever, and she nuzzled sleepily for the last droplets.
Every movement caused a subtle, wonderful reaction in the velvet fire enclosing him.
Lukas pressed his lips to the top of her tangled, adorable head, inhaling the fragrance of leman, night air, winter rain.
He reeked of battle, but it could not be helped. The relief of finding her was almost as exquisite as the deep sigh she gave, turning her chin and resting beneath him almost as if resigned.
Or almost as if...content.
No. Focus on what must be done. Clarity of thought was restored to him, the fear of quick instead of creeping ossification vanished. Losing even a sliver of this lucidity was an extremely unpleasant prospect.
Yet she lay quiescent as if satisfied, at least physically, and it was sweet to think at least he knew how to please her in one respect.
The rain hissed with ice, falling in waves against an abandoned house, and though mildew and disuse had settled in this place, it had once been well-loved.
The ghost of beeswax polish said so, as well as the solidity of construction and a faint, pale, nearly ineffable tang of his leman.
Nothing compared to the reality in his arms, of course.
..but she had lived here for some while, and the walls remembered.
What must it be like, to return? And to find a greiben hole on the mountainside—so she had listened to his explanation, resolved to test it?
He did not like her so close to such things.
A fledgling could hold off the excrescences long enough to gain escape, but she did not even have her fangs yet. A chill walked down his back.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured, singsong-soft, clearly lost in the narcotic haze of feeding. “We broke the stairs.”
He should apologize, Lukas knew. Yet he did not feel repentant in the slightest, not about this. “Better to break them than injure you.”
“I think you just like ripping clothes and smashing things.” A soft, experimental twitch—testing her surroundings, or thinking of escape.
Or both.
“Perhaps.” His arm tightened under her back. At least with his hovering, the night’s chill would not reach her skin—not that she would notice, with the Gift rising to the surface. He still longed to shield her from that minor discomfort. “The thrall is...energetic.”
“Thrall?” She even sounded curious, though she shifted again, hips performing a delicious little wriggle threatening to undo him.
“The mating instincts are very strong. Every sanguinant was mortal once, after all.”
“Mating, huh.” A pause, as she absorbed this. “I’m, uh, not gonna have little vampire babies, am I?” A tone of sleepy near-horror, though her maker’s claret would be insulating her from anything save warm relaxation.
Lukas could barely believe his ears, but the query made sense. The gaps in her knowledge of the demimonde were both amusing and mildly horrifying. “No. Sanguinant are bitten, not born. We do not...procreate.” Though the attempt is quite pleasant.
Another restless shift. “Can we at least move a little? There are splinters.”
“Slowly, in a moment.” He had to think very carefully about how to shift them both; the lower third of the staircase was very nearly a ruin. “I must find something to wrap you in, and we must travel some distance before dawn. I do not wish to shelter you here.”
“Yeah, I haven’t been home since…” A wave of trembling passed through her slim softness, tension fighting with post-feeding languor. “What are you doing here?”
“Following you, of course. Lift your arms...there. Hold fast, I will shift us both.” Lukas could now see how to untangle them from the forest of splinters.
She obeyed slowly, and he could not help but enjoy the event.
“Though while I was here, the warrens needed cleansing; I attended to that while you rested. They will not trouble you again; other greiben clans will dislike your possession of the gem, but it is not their elder. They will not dare pursue you.”
“No way.” Light, laughing slang. She clung to him as he moved, one limb at a time, with infinite care. “You’ve been busy. How did you find me?”
“You are my leman.” No more need be said. Lukas settled into sitting, his shoulders braced against the wall; she had cooperated beautifully, her legs wrapped about him, and gasped as they finished settling upon a patch of damp, relatively clean floor.
He could stay in this position forever, his lap full of leman, her heels tucked behind his hips, her head nestled below his chin.
He could tangle his fingers in her hair, slide his other hand under sodden cashmere—the jumper had held up remarkably well.
The greisoul was a hard warm lump pressed between them, though not digging, and best of all, he was still buried in her, as close as possible to the breathing, irresistible heart of all existence.
“But how?” Persisting, curious, his kitten even settled herself more firmly upon his shaft, the heat of her core enough to proof him against any chill even were he not sanguinant. “Tell me.”
Brave enough to demand, now. It was a cheersome turn of events.
“Do you think I could feed you and not find you? Your blood cries out to me, lady mine.” Ask for more.
Ask for anything, save escape. The rattling ice-rain intensified, and the problem of how to bring her to another lair before dawn was a troublesome one.
Though not entirely lacking solution.
“But…” She halted—perhaps in trepidation, though he made neither move nor sound to provoke such caution.
Explanations might soothe, and there was time.
“It was more difficult to find you after the fête, but I had a blood-trail then—the wound on your knee. Now you’ve been claimed, and fed.
Much easier.” His fingertips slipped through damp, curling silk.
The texture of her hair was a continuous marvel, as was her skin, the arches of her ribs.
“Rest. You are still very near mortal, and the rain may be less than pleasant until I find a vehicle to carry you in some comfort.”
“I’ve got a car.” Amazingly, his leman laughed, a low sensuous chuckle. “I can drive.”
“Let me have the honor. I am older, after all.” So easy to pretend he had some measure of her trust, instead of another mere temporary, tentative détente.
“Yeah.” Sobering now, a quicksilver turn of mood, though she still rested against him. “Sometimes you’re almost a funny guy, Lukas.”
It meant little—simply the warm lingering relaxation of her maker’s blood. Still, he was absurdly touched, and stung at the same moment.
There seemed nothing else to say. For that short while as the storm mounted outside, freezing wind mouthing the shattered doorway, he was at peace. Perhaps she was as well.
Though he did not think it likely.
* * *
The car was a heavy electric-blue item gilded with freezing, its interior saturated with her scent and a faint note of a previous owner underneath; clearly she had slept in its embrace.
Lukas decided not to ask its provenance, though he did note the plate number for later investigation.
The upholstery was a trifle damp; regardless, it performed its duty admirably, and with his leman—wrapped solicitously in a knitted blanket taken from the dwelling, which still held all manner of ephemera from her previous tenure—settled in the passenger seat, he was very nearly content.
Apparently the house had been sealed just after her brother’s misfortune, as if during plague times.
She had given a longing glance at the now-shattered stairs, but shook her head and turned away when asked if she wished to linger a few moments.
There’s an afghan on the couch in the den, I’ll just use that.
Carrying her swiftly under dripping, ice-freighted trees to find the vehicle was very nearly pleasant, though far colder than he liked.
Languid from feeding, she occasionally lifted a hand from the blanket’s protective depths, moving her fingers and staring in rapt fascination.
Still struggling to snow, the storm had to settle for a mix of small flakes and ice pellets with an increasingly rare fraction of liquid drops, but it would not be long before temperatures plunged and Boreas howled from polar wastes to take his due.
Despite the conditions, there was just enough time to reach the lair he had in mind.
Lukas focused on controlling the machinery, alert to the possibility of accident or impasse; really, the labour mortals spent on roads, when they could afford it, was one of the most compelling arguments for their status as a truly cooperative species.
A small army of large vehicles for spraying salt, spreading traction-grit, or scraping away snow was held in readiness to meet the challenge, and weather prediction was no longer solely a matter of sailors’ wisdom and guesswork—though plenty of the latter remained.
His prize stirred as the valley descent was completed, the car handling with aplomb a long, ice-freighted turn onto a highway heading south. “What happens if we get pulled over?”
Does that truly worry you? Still, mortals might look askance at a well-wrapped leman and her rag-clad protector.
Or perhaps not, since oddities of their own kind filled the night.
“There is no reason to do so, but I am well equipped for the eventuality. Should a simple piece of identification not suit, a little of the quietus will. We will be left to ourselves, never fear.”
“Great.” She drew the word out, perhaps with a hint of sarcasm. Which was another happy indicator; even outright mockery was better than constant, devouring fear. “Where are we going? We’ve only got half a tank.”
“South. Fuel is easily acquired.”
She shifted, gazing out her window at the trees left to shield denuded slopes beyond from the view of bored travelers. He thought the silence companionable, until she sniffed slightly, as if upon the edge of weeping.
Even the bravest of mortals, carefully shepherded through the Gift’s first stages, might well mourn for what was lost to them—though most fledglings actively sought the blessing, carefully chosen progeny aware of their own value. For a leman, caught and claimed, it was no doubt often otherwise.
“All will be well, Beatrice.” An awkward promise, of little use or comfort to her at the moment. Yet he was helpless not to offer it.
She did not reply.