The next day Kristina brings Merle her breakfast in her new bedroom and asks if she wants to come and torment Oberon again. 'You could find out more about Blood Rites.'
But Merle gives her a firm negative.
Later, when Kristina returns, wantonly dishevelled and flushed, Merle says, almost thoughtlessly, 'So who does Cole perform his Blood Rites with?'
Kristina picks up an apple left over from breakfast. 'Me. Or Oberon sometimes, but mostly me. There's only three of us left here.' Shrug. She brings the apple up to her mouth and sinks her fangs into it.
'So, are you Cole's lover?'
Kristina pulls the punctured apple out of her mouth with an expression of distaste. 'Ew. I really don't know how you can eat these things. Darius doesn't take lovers.'
'But you said yesterday about the Blood Rites. About how vampires need another vampire ...'
'He does that with me. Like I just said. God, does he ever. Fuck, you know. With the psych-powers. Woah. You ever had sex with someone who could read your mind? Like nothing I've ever ... In fact, what with him and Oberon I'm having to double up on my plasma packs to keep my strength up. But I'm not Darius's lover.' Kristina stops and smiles. A smile that's more resigned than happy. 'Vampires usually bond. Completely. Like a life-mate type of thing. To a vampire a lover means someone exclusive. Someone forever. And, like I just said, Darius doesn't take lovers.'
'Why not?'
'Probably because it would ruin his smouldering locked-in-a-dungeon-for-twenty-five-years-lonely-freak image.'
That night Merle dreams about Darius again. It isn't like the dream she had before – all hyper-real with him appearing to be right there in the room. This dream is far more wispy and loose. She's lying next to him, with him propped up on his elbow looking down at her. She doesn't know where they are, some nameless dream-scape. All she knows, all she is sure of, is that she's in love. In the dream, she is utterly in love with Darius Cole.
Dream Darius runs the backs of his fingers against her cheek. They are deliriously cool against her heated skin. She's blushing. Her face is hot. Darius smiles down at her.
'I love to see your blood under your skin,' he says. His voice sounds like it had the first time she dreamt about him. Like it's coming from somewhere else.
Darius is wearing the same dark clothes as ever. Merle is wearing a revealing froth of a white dress – rather like the one Kristina wears. Darius says, 'I know another way to make your blood rise to the surface.' His voice is soft, muffled and cracking with desire.
His hands are on the hem of her slutty dress. He pushes it up almost to the top of her thighs. She squirms a little at the exposure, but lets him do as he wishes. With her skirts out of the way, Darius strokes the pale flesh where her thighs give way to the planes of her slim boy-hips. She's so aroused. Wet under the lace. Wet inches from his fingertips.
She hears the noise first. Then sees it. Then feels the sting. Then realises that he has just slapped her. Very hard. Looking down her body, she sees a pink mark appear high on her thigh.
But there's someone else in the bedroom.
'Oh,' Darius says, his voice full of weakness and desire, 'you are too beautiful.' And he bends his head and runs his cool tongue over the heated place he has made.
There is someone else right on Merle's bed. But she can't open her eyes. She can't leave the dream. She knows that Darius is going to make love to her.
She sighs under the touch of Darius's tongue.
Someone else. Not someone in the dream. Someone in reality. A weight next to her on the mattress. Someone kneeling there.
Merle opens her eyes. The dream splinters. 'Darius?' she says, still half sleep-headed.
It's very dark in the room, no moonlight with the curtains so tightly closed. Merle can just make out the bed canopy floating above her before someone is on top of her. Holding her down, pain in her neck.
She cries out, but the sound is trapped by a hand on her mouth. She writhes and fights, but whoever is holding her is too strong ...