They had made the news. Police all over the country would be looking for Lina—looking for them.
Oh, God, Tessa thought, shivering, and no matter Rene’s reassurances, she still found herself glancing around the room or over her shoulder, as if she somehow expected to find armed SWAT members standing there in the shadows, waiting and ready to attack them.
Part of the problem was she was still on edge from her nightmare. Her mind had been troubled, tormented after what Brandon had told her that night, but she’d found some fleeting comfort in Rene’s company, wrapped in his arms. Enough so that she’d thought she could take refuge at least for a little while in sleep. But her mind had other ideas.
She’d dreamed that she was outside in the night; the air was crisp and almost wintry and her breath had fogged about her face in a dim, hazy halo set aglow by the light of the moon. She hid among some tangled shrubs, a dense line of bushes marking the rear perimeter of a yard behind a small one-story bungalow. Most of the windows save one were darkened; from the way the light bounced and skittered through the one that remained illuminated, she could tell someone was awake, watching TV.
It was a small house in a small neighborhood full of cookie-cutter homes, each one squat and box-shaped with stucco exteriors painted in southwestern-inspired colors. The backyard had a sparse lawn of mostly crabgrass and weeds, with plastic children’s toys left scattered about—a picnic table here, a pint-sized playhouse there, to the left, a rust-spotted swing set and to the right, a red tricycle with yellow plastic streamers protruding from each handlebar.
She dreamed of creeping close to the house, crouching alongside the back wall beneath one of the darkened windows. Here, she raised onto her tiptoes and sniffed, drawing the scents from inside the house, faint but discernable, against her nose. Pork chops for dinner, breaded and fried, with some kind of cheesy casserole baked in the oven. Laundry detergent, fabric softener, cat urine and something else—something sweet. Something that had drawn her out of the shadows and to that place, that house, that window.
Blood.
It hadn’t taken much effort to pry the screen away from the window, or to hook her fingertips against the sill and pull herself up. She caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the glass and drew back in start, because it hadn’t been her face she’d seen. It had been Monica Davenant’s—Martin’s first wife, her eyes rolled over black, her fangs extended, her jaw dislocated from the full effects of the bloodlust.
Somehow Tessa had dreamed of being Monica, of slipping her fingernails between the window pane and frame and, with the strength of the bloodlust, giving a sharp, swift enough jerk to snap the metal locking mechanisms like they’d been made from spun sugar. The window slid obligingly open and Monica had wriggled her long, narrow frame through, shimmying on her belly like an enormous snake, her extended pupils drowning her eyes but filling her sight with a nearly photo-negative view of the room beyond, one in which every scrap or hint of light, no matter how slim or meager, was detected.
She saw toys everywhere—on bookshelves and a small tabletop, a dresser, overflowing from an oversized laundry basket in one corner. Posters of Dora the Explorer and the Disney princesses lined the walls, along with a “Grow-with-me-Elmo!” height chart. To her right was a toddler’s daybed, with a painted white and faux brass metal frame and frilly, pink and white covers. A little girl lay tucked beneath the sheets, her dark hair spilled about her head against the pillow, her thumb tucked in her mouth as she slept.
Oh, God, Tessa had thought, because she’d realized what was going to happen, what she meant to do. She could smell the little girl’s blood—to her keen nose, it was as thick and sweet as vanilla, the irresistible, warm fragrance of cookies baking on a cold afternoon. Oh, God, no, don’t!
But even though she’d tried to stop herself from moving, she’d crept forward, slithering in the darkness, the sound of her own breath growing rapid and sodden, choked with eager slobber. She’d watched in helpless horror as her shadow had grown long, spilling across the little girl’s bedsheets, and then the child had stirred, her eyes blinking open dazedly. There had been one moment of bewilderment that had shifted quickly, almost instantaneously to stark terror as the girl had realized what was at her beside, and then Tessa had heard Monica’s voice in her mind, her words hissing with icy malice as she’d reached out, forcing herself into the child’s head and stifling her mentally.
How sweet, Monica said, closing her hand against the girl’s nightgown and jerking her out of the bed. Fresh meat.
And then Tessa had awoke, her eyes wide, a scream poised in her throat. She’d found herself staring up at the ceiling of their motel room in Tahoe, the low sound of voices and the dancing play of light against the plaster from the TV set filling the room.
As she knelt on the floor, her head against Rene’s leg while he charged the battery in his prosthetic knee, memories of the dream returned to her. This was probably because of her proximity to Rene’s thigh, the femoral artery that lay nestled deep beneath the meat of his muscles there. She could sense it through his flesh and clothes, the heat of his blood, the fervent rush that waxed and waned with every pounding measure of his heartbeat. He’d been right when he’d rescued her from Martin. She needed to feed. The longing to had stirred even before that—the morning Rene had fallen in the bathtub and cut his lip. It had remained with her ever since even though she’d tried to repress and ignore it, a little whispering, scraping voice in the back of her head. The bloodlust.
Giving in to her sexual desires for Rene hadn’t helped, either. Every time she grew aroused physically for him, the bloodlust became likewise aroused. He was half human—he felt like another of the Brethren to her in her mind when she’d sense him, but his body—his blood—smelled human to her, and there had been moments in which she’d grown so tantalized by the fragrance of him, the awareness of his blood coursing through him, that it had been a nearly painful struggle to hold herself in any semblance of restraint.
Like right now.
“No offense, pischouette, but if you keep doing that, I’m going to have to haul you up here into my lap and rip those pants off you.”
She glanced up, snapping out of a reverie at the sound of Rene’s voice. She’d been nearly mesmerized by the rhythmic flow of blood within his thigh, so much so, she’d drifted into a nearly fuguelike state, the bloodlust within her stoking. She realized that she’d been stroking Rene’s inner thigh, sliding her hand against the weathered denim of his jeans, less than half an inch away from his crotch. And, to judge by the considerable swell she could see there, straining against the zipper fly, he hadn’t minded.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
It also didn’t help that whenever Rene was sexually aroused—like right now—the rate of his blood flow increased exponentially. His heartbeat quickened, his respirations sharpened, and his body released a cocktail of adrenaline and other hormones into his system that, for a Brethren, made him absolutely intoxicating.
“Don’t be.” He reached for her, his voice low, growing gravelly with need. “Come here, pischouette.”
She wanted to tell him no, because she could already feel her gums begin to swell and throb, the tips of her canine teeth beginning a slight but inexorable descent. She let him draw her to her feet. He cupped his hands against her face and drew her toward him, kissing her. He tasted sweet, the rush of blood infusing his skin, his tongue, and she pressed herself against him, kissing him fiercely, wanting to slake even an iota of that desperate urge with the taste of him.
“Mon Dieu, woman,” he whispered, nearly muffled by her mouth as she reached between them, jerking against his shirt, yanking it up from the waistband of his jeans. She caught the panels of cloth in her hands and ripped it open wide, popping buttons and seams loose, leaving his bare chest exposed.
God, I want him, she thought, leaning back long enough to shrug her way out of her own shirt, to cast it over her shoulder. She splayed her fingers against his chest, drawing them firmly along the contours of his muscles, following the plane of his abdomen until she reached the button of his fly. She kissed him again, tangling her tongue against his, helping shove his jeans down as he raised his hips from the chair. He moved to unbutton her pants, but she pushed his hands away to do it herself. She had to hurry; she was desperate for him now, her body caught in some strained limbo between the bloodlust and physical need. If she didn’t take him, if she didn’t grind herself to one hell of a massive orgasm against him, she was afraid of what she’d do, of where her desires would take her next.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she breathed, her voice hoarse and trembling. She’d shoved her pants down and kicked them across the room. Now she straddled him, shoving her knees down between the arms of the chair and his hips, and crouched with him poised to enter her. He strained to kiss her, craning his head back.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” he said, and as his hands draped against her hips to guide her, she fell against him, impaling herself along his hot, hard length. His voice dissolved in a moan that she muffled with a kiss as she moved into a quick, grinding rhythm against him.
“Tu es étonnant, femme,” he gasped, over and over. You are amazing, woman. “Goddamn, tu es étonnant!”
He moved his head to kiss her shoulder, but as he did, it left the side of his throat exposed to her. God, she could smell the blood pounding through his carotid artery, she could damn near hear the resonant rush of it, and she caught him by the hair, curling her fingers tightly and holding his head pinned at that angle. Her gums ached now, sharp and distinct pain as her teeth dropped, and she leaned toward him, feeling her breath flutter against his sweat-glossed skin.
“Rene, stop,” she whispered, but as she spoke her lips danced against his flesh, and the blood was so tantalizingly within her reach, she salivated unconsciously. Rene drove her harder and harder against him, digging his fingers fiercely into her buttocks. He was nearing climax; she could feel it in the tension that had suddenly steeled the muscles bridging his neck and shoulders. She could hear it in the way he gasped for breath; she could sense it in the jack-hammering of his heartbeat and smell it in the ambrosia of adrenaline, hormones and blood that his body radiated in thick, hot waves.
She opened her mouth, letting her lips settle against his throat as she might have to feed; letting her tongue press against the frantic point of his pulse, the tips of her teeth just barely nipping his flesh.
“Tessa!” he gasped, and when he came, he hit that spot deep within that always sent shudders of pleasure almost instantaneously through her. She dug her nails into his shoulders and writhed, grinding against him, keeping him at that glorious place as the bloodlust within her was obliterated—drowned in the sudden, wondrous throes of release.
As they subsided, she huddled against him, wide-eyed with the horrified realization of what she’d done—of just how close she’d come. Oh, God!
She could feel her teeth withdrawing, her canines sliding back into her gums, and she pressed her lips together in a thin line.
Oh, my God. She closed her eyes, stricken and ashamed. Oh, God, I…I almost hurt him…I nearly bit into his neck!
“Mon Dieu,” Rene said with a breathless, shaky laugh. “Another time or two like that, pischouette, and you’re going to kill me.”
He kissed her shoulder, running his hands up and down the length of her spine, caressing her. God help me, she thought, clutching his shoulder, keeping her face turned away. God help us both, you’re more right than you know, Rene.