From A.M. Manay:
Luka and November landed hard
on their behinds in a pitch dark room.
Luka tried to stand up and promptly bonked his head on the low ceiling.
He swore and whispered,
"Where the hell are we?"
"Under the church,"
November replied. "The one where I
was hiding when Nigel found me."
"They're probably
watching it," Luka scolded.
"Yeah. Good thing we didn't use the door, then,
huh?" she retorted, then stuck out her tongue.
"Fair point," Luka
allowed. "If we keep quiet and
leave the same way we came in, I suppose we'll be alright."
"That was the idea."
November stretched out on the
floor. Luka joined her, still rubbing
the back of his head.
"Do you think the humans
will know we're here? I mean, that we're
here in the Bay Area, not right here, specifically," she clarified. November sounded fretful and a bit shaken,
now that the immediate crisis had passed.
"Maybe not. I checked before we left the library. William's folk had disabled all the exterior
cameras before they struck. Same at the
hotel. Raina swept up the evidence left
behind: weapons and phones. A couple of
wallets. We turned them off and chucked
them in your bag to go through later. We
might have missed one, but hopefully Birch grabbed it before any humans
could. The car wreck might be an issue,
if it was caught on camera. And they'll
wonder why no one was in the wreckage.
But since all the vehicles were stolen, the drivers fleeing the scene is
not too hard to explain away. It comes
down to whether we have any luck, really."
"Great," November
replied bleakly. "Surely, I'll have
some of that one day."
"Are you alright?"
Luka asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I routinely execute family members who are
beating other family members to death, after I kill a couple of strangers in a
parking lot. Totally normal Tuesday for
me."
"You don't have to be
all sarcastic about it," Luka scolded.
He turned on his side to face
her, propping his head up on an elbow.
She stared stubbornly at the ceiling, her hands tensely entwined in the
edges of her jacket, her breath shallow.
"You defended yourself
and your allies. You did nothing
wrong. You were magnificent," he
said. He reached over and stroked the
side of her face. His fingers snuck down
her neck. He expected her to bat his
hand away, but she did not.
"Maybe I don't want to
be magnificent at killing people," she countered.
"It beats the
alternative," he replied, studying her closely. "Besides, we are predators. A thin veneer of civilization covers a
violent nature. Same goes for the
humans, the fairies, and the werewolves.
We kill. We feed. We fuck.
We love. We hate. Pretty much anything we do is motivated by
the hunger for one or more of those things."
"What a heartwarming life
philosophy."
"I try," he
replied, bemused. "Your fangs are
still showing, by the way. It's been an
hour or more since you killed Emil. Your
body agrees with me that you're a predator, even if you don't want to accept
it."
"Well, so are
yours," she retorted weakly. Her hand flew to cover her mouth.
"Too bad Nigel isn't
here. He seemed to cheer you right up
after you killed Fernando," Luka teased, grinning widely. "Battle is quite the aphrodisiac. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"Oh, shut up,"
November snapped.
"Of course, it isn't
really Nigel you want right now. You
don't want sweet Nigel trying so earnestly to please you. Not today.
Today, kitten, you want it to hurt.
Today, you want to punish yourself.
For killing Emil, sure. But
mostly for surviving when Ilyn died."
Luka's voice was serious now, the playfulness having disappeared
entirely.
"You're out of your
mind," November protested weakly.
"Am I? I saw you let that arrow hit you, in the
parking lot. You saw it coming. You inched over just enough so it wouldn't
kill you. You let another one of the
bastards cut you twice before you took her head off.
"It's been so difficult,
I'm sure, now that your leg doesn't hurt like hell. Nothing to distract you from the stabbing
emptiness and the constant struggle to act like you're just fine: brave
November, savior of the world. I don't
know if the others can see it, but I can.
My poor kitten. Let me help
you. I'll give you a little
respite. Ease your sorrow, for a little
while. Let me be your self-destructive
impulse. Just for now."
November closed her eyes,
that tiny movement acknowledging the truth of what he was saying, even as she
refused to reply. Luka's lips
twitched. He waited: silent, patient,
utterly still. He knew he had her.
"Bite me," she
finally whispered. "Hurt me."
Not wanting to give her a
chance to change her mind, Luka didn't hesitate. He was on top of her before the words
finished passing her lips. She arched
beneath him as his fangs tore into her shoulder, right next to the spot the
arrow had pierced a few hours earlier.
Vampire venom soon flooded her eyes with temporary bliss.
November wriggled out of her
jacket and flipped Luka over, pinning him to the floor as she pulled her
blood-stained gray T-shirt over her head, revealing a hot pink bra
beneath. "If you ever lord this
over me, if you tell the others . . . so help me, I will rip your face clean
off."
"I wouldn't dream of it,
kitten. A gentleman never tells,"
Luka replied, eyes bright with amusement.
Catching sight of her glare, he added, "You have my word. I've never lied to you, kitten."
"Good," she
replied. "Now take off some clothes
and pull my hair or something before I come to my senses."
In the blink of an eye, she
was once more on her back. "Happy
to oblige," Luka whispered.
Sexpossessed by Ian Saul Whitcomb
