KITTY
She would have sucked on anything at this point.
A squirrel. A deer. Even a mouse. Anything that had blood, she’d have drained it dry just to rid herself of the dizzy, terrible feeling of the hunger.
In the city, ever since she’d turned, it had been easy to subsist on a diet of party gals and guys brought home from the dance halls.
She’d glutted herself every weekend and remained strong for the ensuing week.
She wasn’t proud of her routine back in Ironberg, but it worked.
And truth be told, it was rapturous. She’d felt strong, powerful, and desired.
But now, she’d let herself get too depleted. She might have been able to bound over the rocks to catch a mountain goat three days ago, but now her preternatural strength and speed had dwindled. It was bright morning, but even the light seemed to be fading, going dim behind her sunglasses.
She might be about to pass out…
“You alright?” Bo asked, his low, warm voice calming her.
“Fine. I’ve just never gone this long without—” she stumbled again but caught herself before she fell. “…without blood.”
Bo tilted his head back. He did that sometimes, she’d noticed.
The same way she occasionally tore her eyes from the trail ahead and looked up into the mountains before them—gray and grim and towering—Bo seemed to also take in their surroundings somehow.
Was he smelling the wind? Listening to echoes?
She didn’t know. But although Kitty steered him around the worst of the obstacles, he seemed to navigate this treacherous, steep trail with relative ease.
“We still have a long way to go, don’t we?” he asked.
“I’m not the greatest with maps,” Kitty admitted, “but it looks like it, yes. Another day of hiking at least.”
She looked up, taking in the trail ahead.
Striations of gray granite rose on either side of them like waves of stone, and the pass cut between them, a slit filled with slippery shale and jagged hunks of granite.
On their right, the mountain was especially steep, rising nearly vertical and blotting out the morning sun.
Here, the occasional pine or aspen had found purchase and gave them handholds to grab onto as they hiked.
But ahead, the terrain grew even more bleak and barren, with no greenery to be seen.
Even for a man with sight and a vampyre gal with good shoes and a belly full of blood, it would have been tough going. But as they were? It was hell.
She sighed. “And it’s only getting steeper.”
“We’ve got this,” he said, putting her hand on his arm. “Let’s go.”
Kitty gave a little whine and began trudging on.
At least she had Bo to hang onto. He was stocky, with thick arms, bulky shoulders, and legs that must have been like tree trunks beneath those pants, for he climbed with the stolid, relentless strength of a draft horse.
The feel of his muscled forearm under her hand…
the smell of him… like earth and leather.
And beneath it, flowing, thick, sweet—the blood… God, the blood.
“You’re trembling,” he said, turning so that his lips were almost against her ear as he spoke.
“No, I’m not,” she said. An obvious lie.
The path was even steeper now, and a chunk of shale suddenly slipped out from beneath Kitty’s feet.
Bo caught her in his arms. Her face was against his chest. She could feel, hear—almost taste—the beating of his heart.
And it made her whole body ache with desire.
She felt her teeth growing long. She tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he held onto her until she looked into his face.
“Kitty,” he said, his voice low and gentle. “You can’t go on like this.”
He was right. She knew he was. And at that self-admission, the blood hunger came roaring in with even greater force.
It was like a buzzing squadron of planes in her mind, a thousand ravenous engines thundering and whirring, making it impossible to think.
The world spun in a dizzy circle around her.
She felt her teeth, so long and hard now that they ached.
Her nipples pricked hard against her bra.
“Let go of me,” she started to say. “You don’t know what you’re doing. I—”
Before she could finish, there came a terrible sound from overhead and a shadow passed over them. She looked up to find a pair of wings spread wide against the blue.
“Dragon!” she whispered, too terrified to give her words full breath.
“Down!” Bo hissed, yanking her into a crouch.
Kitty’s eyes were still trained on the sky. “It’s circling back around!” she said.
“We need to take cover!” Bo said.
Kitty scanned their surroundings. “There!”
Not ten feet away, the stone of the cliff face parted, leaving a wide, horizontal gap.
“Come on!” she grabbed Bo’s hand, and they both ran in that direction, crouching and stumbling over loose stones as they went. When they reached the opening, Kitty pulled Bo down, putting a hand on the top of his head to keep him from smashing it on the rocks above, and guided him inside.
The cave penetrated some fifteen feet into the cliff face, but it was very low, perhaps only three feet in heigh.
In a panic, they both crawled, rolled, and shimmied as far back as they could.
When they finally went still, Kitty was on her back, Bo lying on top her, both of them staring out toward the slit of light.
There came a whoosh of wind and a thud as four reptilian feet hit the ground.
The dragon took a few slow steps, prowling and sniffing the earth like a hound on a scent.
Kitty held her breath, grabbing Bo’s shirt in a balled-up fist.
From the time they were born, every child in Admar was told horror stories about dragons, the monsters across the sea. Though Kitty had never been so close to one before, terror of them was ingrained in her, down to her very bones.
She’d been shaking before from exhaustion and blood hunger. Now, she trembled with fear as well. And it was hard to keep her tremulous breathing silent.
Outside, the stalking dragon suddenly stopped and gave a low growl.
A tiny peep of fear came from the back of Kitty’s throat. Bo held her tight as a swaddled baby and put one thick finger to her lips. He pressed his body against hers—comforting her. But it was his cock she noticed most pressing against her—hard as the rock around them.
She reached a hand up, running it through his hair. Her lips were against his neck now, and she could feel the blood pumping inside him.
He shifted, bringing his mouth to her ear.
“Do it,” he breathed.
She shook her head, but she was trembling so much now that it was a spastic, chaotic motion.
He pressed his body down on her harder and she felt him through his pants, pressing against her. Hard. Insistent.
“You think we can run or fight off a dragon with you like this?” he whispered. “We need you strong. Do it. I know you want to.”
Her mouth was already open. Her tongue already against his salty skin. She felt the blood pumping between her legs, felt herself wet, aching, starving for him.
I can’t.
I shouldn’t.
I—I—
But her teeth were already sinking into his neck.
The blood hit her tongue, filling her mouth, thumping into her throat, and it felt like a burst of color in a black-and-white world.
God, he was delicious. She could taste all of him in his blood.
Farm fields. Strength. Gentleness. Power.
Somehow, it was all there, sweet, beautiful, pure.
She drank him hungrily, sucking his neck, now licking, lapping him like a dog, feeling the sweet, metallic stickiness of him covering her face, drizzling down her lips, her chin, her neck.
Breath hissed between his teeth and she knew he was feeling it, too. The rapture of her venom would be rolling through him now, stronger than any opiate, sweeter than any pleasure.
But the blood was never enough. Not with a man like Bo. She wanted more of him. All of him.
Her hand slipped down, into his pants. His cock was thick. Heavy. Its tip already moist, dripping with desire. She ran her hand up and down its shaft once, slow, and felt a shiver run through him.
His hands found her shirt and yanked it up, exposing her breasts. He lowered himself, his cock slipping out of her grasp, and took one of her breasts into his mouth. The heat of his sucking made her arch her back with desire.
“I need… I need…” she whispered. But he responded before she’d even finished the sentence, putting his wrist to her lips.
She bit and drank as he moved to her other breast. The blood from his neck drizzled onto her chest and he rubbed it onto her skin, his fingers tracing gentle, slippery circles around her areolas.
It was too much.
“Now. Now,” she hissed, yanking up her dress.
He was taking his pants down, too.
He was a gentle man. A quiet man. A calm man. But he wasn’t gentle now.
Roughly, he pushed her thighs apart, brought the thick head of his cock against her and slowly, slowly pushed it inside her. She moaned, her lips still on his wrist as she sucked faster.
His hand went to her ass, squeezing as he pushed himself into her deeper, deeper, filling her—until she felt full in every way.
Brimming with blood. Throbbing with him.
He gave a slow roll of his hips, sending heat pulsing into her belly.
He sat back a little, his rough, mechanic’s hands tracing down her breast, down her belly, to find the plump pearl between her legs.
He pulled his wrist from her hungry lips and brought it down there.
She felt the hot blood drizzle down his hand, making her even more slick.
Then his fingers were rubbing, making cruelly light circles.
And he began moving inside her again. Deeper now. Harder.
“Oh God,” she gasped, her legs trembling.
She brought a hand to his pumping ass, pulling him deeper, deeper into her. With her other hand, she grabbed his hair, pulling his neck to her lips once more.
He was fucking her hard now, his cock so thick, so rigid, it almost hurt. But those fingers on her clit kept moving, that blood on her tongue kept pumping, all of it rising to an ache, a scream—a—a—
Her mouth fell open as she came.
The world froze.
She felt like she was falling. Flying. Burning up.
But Bo wasn’t done with her. He kept going, his teeth bared. Fucking her harder. And harder. And harder—as if he, not her, were the predator. The hunter. The master. And she felt her pleasure rising again.
“We shouldn’t we... we…” but her voice trembled, and she couldn’t speak. Bo pushed himself inside her harder and deeper than before, and she felt him let go, his hot, thick liquid filling her. She wanted it. All of it, just like she wanted his blood.
He slowed as her pleasure ebbed away, as she seemed to float back down to earth.
Her nipples prickled, pleasantly raw in the chill air.
Her pussy ached deliciously. Her mind felt sharp, clear, and focused from the blood.
And she was able to see with vampyric vision how beautiful Bo was.
The graceful, west Admite shape of his eyes.
The muscular thickness of his neck. The squareness of his jaw. The black sheen of his hair.
She took a deep, steadying breath.
“Wow…” she whispered. “I did not expect that.”
But Bo’s head was turned toward the entrance of the cave. He seemed to be listening for something. “The dragon… it’s gone?” he said.
Kitty’s eyes went wide. She’d completely forgotten there was a dragon twenty feet away; that’s how good Bo had been. She looked out, frozen, watching, listening.
But she saw no sign of the beast.
“It left,” she said.
Then, she laughed. Then Bo was laughing, too, both of them cracking up until tears filled their eyes. When their amusement ebbed, Kitty put a hand to Bo’s cheek and guided his full lips to hers for a kiss.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” she said. “I needed that.”