“You’re… alive,” I said, running my fingers down the trail of blonde hair along his abdomen. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Guy said. “Don’t you hear my heart beating?”
It was a low staccato beneath the fine expanse of his chest. Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump, thump thump. The life there was palpable—comparable to the rise and fall of our chests—but for some reason there was always that lingering question in the back of my head, the one that caused common logic to falter in favor of the supernatural aspect of Guy’s existence.
Guy was freezing cold. He fed off the body heat of humans to sustain himself. He could bleed, yet never die from age. The mixed contrast was baffling. Before, I’d never even heard anything about the Kaldr, let alone a race of Norwegian ice-people who could possibly resemble them.
I rolled over and straddled Guy’s chest with elbows to look him in the eyes.
“Why’d you ask that?” he said, voice faint with strength, but attention fixed and centered on me.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe it’s the concussion. I just wanted to know.”
“You can ask anything you want, Jason.”
“I know.”
Guy smiled and slid an arm out under me, cupping one hand along my hip and curve of my body. “It’s kinda surprised me how relaxed you’ve been about the whole thing.”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Well… ask me now, then?”
I settled back down beside him and took hold of his hand, feeling the rough, fresh callouses on his palms as I laced our fingers together, then proceeded tentatively—unsure if his level of alertness would allow for such a detailed conversation. Eventually, I fell into full swing, and asked everything I could think of.
They fed off the warmth of human beings—only human beings. The sun offered some comfort, as did heat, but was nothing in comparison to the primal energy drawn from the flesh of a victim. Arteries and major sources of blood flow were particular candidates during feeding—the neck, the wrist. He made a snide sexual remark before saying that his manipulation of water depended entirely on the amount thereof and if he could manipulate the air around it. Humidity was good for that, he said—snow even better, which they could control complete and outright.
“But you can kill people,” I said.
Guy nodded.
He described it like feeding—monstrous, uninhibited, an adrenaline rush even the greatest sex on the most illegal drugs couldn’t give you. Though he could kill that way, he said, the person would only resemble a pale version of themselves—not like the frost-bitten, near-gangrene appearance my assailant had developed.
“That was from giving,” Guy said.
“But if you can kill the same way by taking, why not take?”
“Because that requires oral contact.”
I nodded and bundled against his side, content with his warmth and the peace of the situation.
“But if you need people to feed off of,” I said, “and there’s only Kaldr here… how do you—”
“Sex.”
I tilted my head up.
“Given that we’re still partially human, we have the innate need to screw around. The friction between two people—even two Kaldr—is the second best source of energy compared to feeding.”
“Is that why you were so eager to jump me in the shower?” I chuckled.
“Nah. I just wanted to screw you,” Guy grinned.
He settled his arm around my shoulders and tilted my head so his brow was buried in the tufts of my hair.
He didn’t say anything afterward.
His breathing indicated sleep.
I closed my eyes and breathed.