Loving the Man

Loving the Man Marie Treanor

All rights reserved. Copyright ©2007 Marie Treanor

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Loving the Man Marie Treanor

The vampire Katia holds only contempt for humans. She has no reason to spare David, whom she encounters digging up pre-apocalypse “artifacts” on the edges of the City. And yet she lets him go. Her very desire drives her away from him.

But David has other ideas. A man with no mutant “gifts,” yet he is unafraid of either her superior strength or her vampire nature. Instead, he risks his life for a moment of her time, pursuing her relentlessly until Katia recognizes her own human passions, and her importance in the city’s past and future is revealed.

Chapter One

The man picked his way across the rubble like one who had been there before. Swift and sure-footed, he appeared to know exactly where he was going. This intrigued Katia, since she hadn’t been aware there was anywhere to goto . From her charred, glass-less window, she could see only a massive pile of rubble and boulders, interspersed with the odd steel rafter, torn and perished rubber and other general rubbish. It stretched as far as the other distant, ruined building, which had no doubt also contributed to the rubble at one time. On one side it sloped down to the toxic river, cluttering that up too, and at the other it just seemed to peter out. Eventually. Yet the man strode purposefully across this wasteland, occasionally using his hands to get over the most difficult terrain, but never hesitating or even pausing to check direction. His hair was blond, longish so that it curled around the collar of the long, wool coat he wore. And across his shoulder, he carried a ragged canvas bag. It appeared to be empty. Katia was hungry. But curiosity got the better of her. Through the eternal dusk, she had watched the man arrive in a bashed up little car, driving down the long, straight road from southern lands she had long forgotten. It was the unusual motion that had first got her attention as she had looked out over the bleak landscape and contemplated going back into the city for sustenance. The little car had kept going at a steady pace, swerving around craters and burnt out vehicles from the past, and hadn’t stopped until it parked on the clear area a few yards to the left of Katia’s window. She should have jumped him then and assuaged her hunger. Only entertainment had been lacking recently and the man’s oddity intrigued her. Getting out of the car, he had closed the door and locked it. Locked it! With a key! Now there was a blast from the past! But then, so was the car. Katia wondered where the hell he’d got the petrol. The man stopped and began to move boulders and lumps of concrete. He did it scientifically, picking them with deliberation and placing them rather than hurling them. Then, when he’d created a space -- a hole that amounted to a rough doorway -- he simply jumped through it. Katia waited no longer. Springing onto her window ledge, she leapt the short two stories to the ground. She was already running when she landed, sprinting across the difficult rubbled terrain far faster even than the man who had gone before her. Her long, black hair flew out behind her. Her body rejoiced in the exercise, in the uninhibited stretching of her limbs. At the man-made hole in the rubble, she paused and looked in without fear. She literally couldn’t remember the last time she’d been afraid. It was indeed a doorway. There was a short drop into what was left of a large store-room full of books and paper files and computer disks. Some of the shelves had buckled or been knocked over by a couple

of fallen ceiling rafters, but for the most part it was intact. And crouched among the rows of stacks was her man, a small battery torch in one hand and a short pile of books already forming at his side. Memory stirred. At the start of the war, they’d moved thousands of books and records from the universities and put them in a supposedly secure storehouse between the two cities. She’d never been here, never had cause to and, she recalled, no desire to. A long dead interest stirred and was quickly squashed. Learning and science were so far in the past -- for her and the rest of the world -- that they weren’t even worth remembering. However, they burned well, dry paper books. Useful for starting fires, though they burned too quickly to create warmth for very long… So was the man collecting firewood and fuel for his family? She didn’t expect him to sense her presence and he didn’t. After all, she’d picked up his own scent -pure human male -- as soon as he’d left his car. He wouldn’t be able to smell her and was almost as unlikely to see her in the gloom. Leaving him to carry on pulling books systematically off the shelves, Katia turned and picked her way back across the rubble to his beaten up old car. Interestingly, there was glass in the windscreen. The rest of the windows were boarded up with wood or battered metal sheets, leaving narrow slits on either side open to the air. Katia peered through the mud spattered windscreen, and blinked. It had been a long time since anything had surprised her, but the contents of the man’s car certainly did. It was packed to the gunnels with rubbish. Wood and metal scraps, what looked like various kinds and sizes of engines, flasks and containers of unidentifiable liquid, books, magazines, two small sheets of unbroken glass balanced on top of a pile of clothes or blankets. There were boots, rubber tires, a pump, something that looked suspiciously like a laptop computer, boxes full of objects piled on top of each other, almost to the roof. He could have a damn fine fire with that stuff. “Can I help you?” The voice spoke behind her, quiet, unthreatening, calmly amused. Yet instinct made her spin quickly to face him, before she remembered that he posed no possible threat to her. Irritated by her own reaction, she looked the man up and down. He was easy on the eye. Tall, even taller than Katia, lean as most people were now, but far from unfit. There was strength in the broad shoulders supporting the now bulging canvas bag and in the hands that held a large pile of heavy books to his body. And though his jeans were ripped at both knees, his upper thighs were covered tightly enough to show the powerful muscles there. Raking her eyes unhurriedly back upwards over his shapely crotch and hips, a flat stomach under the book pile, to his throat, she felt hunger stir. She could smell his blood, strong and spicy, calling to her. She saw the vein in his neck standing out, so prominent and delectable that it was an effort to lift her gaze to his face. She supposed it was the sort of face she would once have liked. Strong boned, good-looking, with intense blue eyes from which humorous lines spanned attractively outward. There appeared to be humor too in the set of his full lips as he regarded her with a slightly twisted smile. Katia repeated, “Can you help me? I suppose if anyone could, it would have to be you. Is there anything

youdon’t have in there?” “If there is, I’ll find it in the end.” His eyes didn’t blink as they held her gaze unwaveringly. “Good hunting?” she enquired, nodding at the pile of books in his arms. His gaze dropped instinctively and one of the books toppled off its precarious perch. Katia caught it easily, was grimly amused to see the impressed surprise cross his face at the speed of her movement. Playing with him, because she had been bored for so long, she opened the book. “Dewer, eh? The old prof would be outraged to see his worthy tome used as bonfire fodder.” “You speak with authority,” the man mocked lightly. “Yes I do, don’t I? He was a grumpy, self-important old bastard.” The man smiled, causing something she’d almost forgotten to stir in the base of her stomach. “You must be considerably older than you look.” “Considerably,” Katia agreed dryly. “So where have you come from?” “South,” said the man, still watching her. Unusually, she could read no fear in his eyes, which intrigued her before she realized he would have no reason to fear her. He had just arrived in the city. To him, she was just a woman, young and frail. “I should warn you to be careful in this city,” she said thoughtfully. “The people here don’t like their resources being removed. In fact, they’re as likely to kill you as not to get at yours, so leaving your car-full of junk in the street is not very wise. The people here use axes rather than keys to unlock doors.” “I know.” Reaching past her, the man slid his key into the door and turned it. Though his arm brushed against her breast, she didn’t move aside. She rather liked the feel of it. She watched him deposit his book pile onto the seat and reach round for the canvas bag. “You’ve been warned about this city? We don’t get many visitors.” “I’m not a visitor. I’m a returning native.” For some reason that shocked her. Yet she managed to smile as he straightened and turned back to face her. “Then can you work out what I am? Since I was personally acquainted with Professor Dewer who died fifty years ago?” The man shrugged. Apart from that, he stood very still. “Liar or vampire, it’s none of my business.” She smiled. “I could make it your business.” “You want a ride into the city?”

Katia stared at him, seriously beginning to doubt his sanity. “You’d offer a vampire a ride in your car?” “Maybe you’re a liar.” Surprised laughter caught in her throat. “I love an optimist.” She touched the coarse wool of his coat, tracing the line upward to his shoulder. “Maybe I can takeyou for a ride instead.” There was a pause. “I’ve no doubt you could.” He stood unmoving as her fingers trailed from his shoulder to the bare skin of his neck. She heard his breath catch and stepped closer, inhaling the warm, strong smell of him. Human male, clean, healthy… she could hear his blood pumping, calling louder. Her nose hovered around his throat, her lips parted. “Aren’t you afraid, human?” she whispered. His Adam’s apple jerked as he swallowed. “What do you think?” She gave a small, throaty laugh. Her hand moved down from his neck to his thick upper arm. Her other hand came up to hold its companion, and she pressed closer into him. Against her abdomen, his crotch was already semi-hard. Smiling into his neck, she moved her hips against his and felt his cock grow. “I think you should be afraid. Very afraid. Lying is one vice I don’t have. And I’m hungry. Very, very hungry.” She flicked out her tongue, licking his vein. She felt like purring. The scent of his blood filled her, excited her, but more than that, the taste of his skin on her tongue was delicious, a little salty sweat, a lot of earthy human male, and something else, something unique that tugged at her memories and yet was new and rare. She just knew he would be good… He stood still in her hold. Many did. The fear got them that way, paralyzed them. Others struggled in their terror, though it made no difference. She fed from them all anyway. Lovingly, she teased her tongue around the vein, pushing back over its pulse. She closed her lips over it, brushed it with her teeth. His breathing was no longer so even. Belatedly, the fear was kicking in at last, although below, against her abdomen, she felt his cock still growing. That felt good too. Parting her legs to fit it between her thighs, she moved against it, emitting a tiny noise of pleasure deep in her throat. This would be a good feed, the best in years… “What’s the matter with you, human?” she whispered into his skin. “Your reactions are slow. By now your manhood should have shriveled into your own body! Aren’t you afraid to die?” She nipped his neck with her sharp incisors, heard his breath hiss. “Or are you one of those sad humans wholike to be bitten? Do you get off on that, human?” Abruptly, she swung him round, pushed until he fell back across the car bonnet. She went with him, straddling him until her pussy fit neatly across his big, hard cock. “Or do you really, truly want to fuck me?” Though his breath was uneven, and his heart pumped faster than ever, his eyes were dark, unreadable. He said, “I don’t think you’re offering to fuck. And no, I’m not afraid of dying right now. I don’t believe you’re going to kill me.”

Katia pushed herself down hard on his cock, saw him bite his lip. She laughed cruelly. “Don’t you? Well, maybe you’re right. I might let you live. It depends how good you taste, how much I want to fill myself with your… blood.” Slowly, deliberately punishing him for his lack of fear, she leaned down to his neck once more, bracing her hands on his arms to hold any sudden jerks. Her lips closed on his vein, her teeth angled for the bite. For a second, she allowed the anticipation to flow, gave herself up to his heady scent, to the rare sexual thrill of his bone hard cock against her pussy. His heart beat under her, pumping that strong, sweet blood around his veins, just ready for her to drink. And if she was honest, she liked that he wanted her. Most men had the urge to screw her, until they realized what she was, what she could and would do to them. Then their cocks shriveled against her. His didn’t. Because he didn’t believe she would bite him? Because his desire for her was so strong? One or the other. It didn’t matter which. Did it? She could let him fuck her and find out. She could pull down his jeans and impale herself on that huge bone right now. God knew she was wet enough for it to slide in easily, despite its size. She could ride him while she drank from him. She knew she would come, quickly and easily. That would be a first for her. Defiling herself with a human. Did life get any lower? She should just bite him, drain him, kill him, teach him not to fear her power, to imagine she would let him live after… After what? Christ! With a gasp, she raised her head and stared at him. His eyes, his whole face, were curiously unquiet. Yet he didn’t stir, either to attempt seduction or escape. Only his lips moved, very slightly, in the faintest, most rueful smile. Move, damn you! Try to throw me off, attack me so I can kill you…! The smile began to die on his lips. Still he lay there, perfectly motionless. “Bastard,” she whispered, and pushed herself off him. Without looking back, she sprinted back to the building she’d first watched him from, leapt up through the window and kept running.

Chapter Two

David opened his eyes slowly. She’d really gone. For a moment longer, he let the warring relief and disappointment tear him apart. He’d told her the truth. He really hadn’t believed that she would kill him -- then. But there had been a time, just before she vanished, when that had all changed. Suddenly, she hadwanted to kill him, and David, who’d never doubted her ability, looked death in the face. And then she’d simply vanished, leaving him weightless and empty without the indescribably sexy pressure of her gorgeous body. Raging with unsatisfied desire, he felt dizzy with the knowledge that he was still alive. David eased himself off the car bonnet, adjusting his uncomfortable crotch. His hands shook slightly, but already he was beginning to laugh at himself, at the figure of fun he would have presented to any watcher, spread-eagled across the car bonnet. As he climbed into the car, he wondered ifshe was watching from some hidden vantage point, and every tiny hair stood up on the back of his neck. She was terrifying, her impossibly strong, supple limbs like steel when they gripped. Her eyes were inhumanly cold and callous, without pity or softness of any kind. Even when she’d rubbed herself so sensuously against his hungry cock, it had been calculating, mocking, like a cat playing with a bird. He was in no doubt that she held him in the utmost contempt. And yet she was the most beautiful creature David had ever seen. *** Driving into the city was another education. The suburbs looked much as always, relatively peaceful, the crumbling houses with their dead gardens mostly respectable in the unrelieved dusk. Then he had to stop at the security point. Security points had been there for a while now -- mainly to keep out the dangerous riffraff from the inner city. Normally, David avoided them, sneaking around the gardens and lanes in the deepest darkness, as some other inner city dwellers did to raid the suburban safe food centers. But since it was impossible to sneak anywhere in the beaten up old car, he simply drove up to the security barricade, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. It drew him lots of attention, especially when he said he was returning after a trip and meant to stay in the inner city. One of the security men said sternly, “It’s dangerous outside the city.” “It’s pretty dangerous inside,” David returned frankly. “Not for much longer. Amazing contraption,” he added, indicating the car. “Where did you come across it?” “South,” David said vaguely, moving his hand to the gear lever while the other security men peered in the windows. “It’s a lot quicker than walking. Is it all right to go through now?”

“Wait a minute! The Council may well be interested in what you have to tell, and in your vehicle… where can they reach you?” David blinked. “What Council?” “The City Council!” “We have a City Council now? Clearly I’ve been gone too long. Don’t worry about it -- I’ll find your Council.” Reluctantly, they let him go through, and that was when he began to notice that things weren’t right. For a start, although people stopped to gawk at his car driving through the gloom, no one attacked it. No one so much as thumped it on the way past. Even more astonishingly, people walked openly on the street, among them several men with red scarves on, walking in twos, who seemed to be regarded with a mixture of furtive awe and respect by their fellow citizens. And then he saw a food distribution centre. Open. Serving bottles of water and food parcels. Just like the suburbs. Several more of the red scarf people stood there, as if guarding it. Which was presumably why it still existed. “Will?” David murmured. “Where are you, Will?” Davie! Are you here already?It was Will’s voice, speaking excitedly in his head. He smiled, because his little brother was the person he loved most in the world. “Not sure. Doesn’t look like our city. I’m beside a food centre… and no one’s robbing it. Where are you?” At the old school… With the lupi then. “Can I stay there?” David asked doubtfully. Nowhere else will have you, Will said happily. *** “Bloody hell,” said Will, laughter in his voice as he grasped his brother’s hand and stared at the vehicle he’d just emerged from. “What is it?” “It’s a car,” grinned David. “In the old days, everybody had one.” For a moment, he scanned his brother’s face, savoring the pleasure he found in the reunion. David was a wanderer. He always thought he hated this city, and yet he always came home, because Will was here. And Will was -- happy. He’d sensed that, of course, during the brief telepathic links that Will could form with him. Most of it had to do with a girl. But there was more, David saw now. His idealistic little brother bristled with energy, radiated competence as well as confidence. Clearly there was a lot to talk about. Later. “Is it safe here?” David asked, jerking his head from the loaded car to the old school that the lupi had

adopted as their den some time ago. “Yes, of course… we’ll help you unload it.” “You’ll need to be careful with some of it,” David warned as a couple of men obligingly emerged from the shadows. “This is Max,” Will said, indicating a third man who materialized at his shoulder, a tall, dark man in a long leather coat. David lifted his brows. “Max the scientist?” “My reputation travels before me,” said the dark man dryly. “I haven’t been a scientist for thirty years and more.” David blinked at him. A flare of torch light flickered across night-black hair and a fine-boned face. If the man was thirty now, he was surely no older… “Max is a vampire,” Will said calmly. David’s heart lurched. He closed his mouth. “That’s funny. I met a friend of yours earlier today.” Max’s lips twisted. “Vampires don’t have friends.” “Stop being a cynical old bastard and help get this stuff out,” Will commanded. “After all, you’re the guy who knows if he’s brought the right things.” *** Later, when the contents of the car were safely stowed in one of the classrooms, the brothers left Max sifting through it and found a quiet place on the roof to talk. “So what’s this City Council then?” David asked as they looked over the blackening skyline. A ghost of a laugh came from Will. “I am. At least in part. There are humans and lupi on it so far…” “And vampires?” “Not yet. Don’t push it. Max is a one-off. I’ll tell you about him another time. The point is, we’re cleaning up the city. Bringing back the rule of law together with a fair system of food distribution. We have two water filters working in the inner city now too, and we’re setting up trade with safe food growers. If you’ve got connections there, I’d like to hear about them.” David nodded. “There are a few covered farms and orchards, especially in the south. They grow more than they need… in fact, I’ve brought some. I think it went straight into your kitchen.” Will grinned. “Thanks.” “And what about all this stuff you asked me for? This Max character can really disperse the cloud with it?”

“He thinks so. Something to do with ionized gas… But it won’t be an overnight job. I think he’s more impressed than he expected to be by the amount of stuff you managed to find!” “Yes, well, I aim to impress.” The city had looked like this since David could remember. The war had permanently blackened the sky, blocked out the sun so that nothing grew, even all this time after the war had ended. The people of the city lived by scavenging. Sick and hopeless, they drank toxic water and ate food that would have killed their parents outright. Wasn’t evolution marvelous? “Davie, what’s wrong?” David smiled faintly. “Wrong? Nothing.” “Liar. Something’s been bothering you since you arrived. I can feel it.” “Stay out of my mind, Will,” David warned. It was an old pact born of David’s obsessive need for privacy. “That’s why I’m asking. I’m not sifting, but I know you’re -- unsettled, shaken up.” David gave a twisted smile. “I met another vampire today. I thought she was going to tear my throat out and she didn’t.” Will frowned. “Did she feed from you?” “Not a drop. Something spooked her and she ran off.” The huge surge of unreasoning disappointment hit him again like a tidal wave. He could still feel her body pressed against him, sweet and sensual and dangerous. Her very scent lingered in his nostrils. Elusive, subtle, arousing, it felt now like a drug to which he had become instantly addicted. Will said, “Lara’s police, probably.” “No, this was outside the city… there’s a load of storehouses between here and the next city, great places for books. What bothers me --one of the things that bothers me -- is what was a vampire doing out there? No one goes there apart from the odd crackpot like me. Vampires need other creatures for sustenance.” Why had he been so sure in the beginning that she wouldn’t kill him? His only previous encounter with a vampire had encouraged the opposite belief. And then what had caused her to change? He could swear she had seriously considered draining him dry, before she had bolted. He wanted answers to these questions almost as much as he wanted the woman herself. The vampiress… Christ, this is insane. He swung away from the city view. “Talking of which, when do we eat? And when do I meet your Lara?” “Round about now,” said Will, nodding downward to the waste ground that surrounded the school. Following his gaze, David saw a girl striding across to the door, exchanging some laughing remark with one of the lupi. Her hair was tied severely behind her head. She wore dark jeans and jacket and a red

scarf around her neck like a badge. *** Dinner was a communal event. The whole pack -- or at least such of them as were not busy on other tasks -- ate together. David recognized many of them, received a few nods and even smiles of recognition, which was a first. Will had finally done something with his troubled pack of werewolves. He had given them the confidence, the pride not to resent anyone different from themselves, anyone “normal.” Like David. And like Lara, Will’s wife. Lara was a surprise. Not that she wasn’t beautiful and strong, as Will’s mate would inevitably be. She was both these things, and her beauty, of which she seemed totally unconscious, wasn’t just skin deep either. No, what surprised David was the bond, invisible but unmistakable, that already existed between them. Will hadn’t known the girl a month. The pack called her his mate, but to David, she was simply and inescapably, his wife. Right down to the sharpness of her tongue. Though she was welcoming in a pleasantly understated, almost shy way, David sensed a curious nervous tension in her, and his brother’s watchful reaction. Something wasn’t right with her. Even as the thought entered his head, a late arrival at the communal table took him by even more surprise. Entering the old dining hall like a whirlwind, she threw herself round the table to embrace him. “April!” he exclaimed, and she laughed, releasing him to throw back her shining blond hair. In fact, everything about her shone. She had always been lovely in her own wild, defiant, and occasionally sleazy way. But now she positively glowed. “When did you get back?” she demanded. “How are you? You look wonderful!” “So do you.” She gave him a playful thump on the arm. “Where’s Max?” she asked Will. “Gloating over the load of old junk that David brought with him.” But David didn’t listen to the rest of the conversation. Mention of Max had brought the vampiress back to the forefront of his mind. Not that he had truly forgotten her for an instant. *** Returning to the happy hunting grounds of the inner city, Katia was conscious of raging dissatisfaction. Still hungry, she felt no real desire to feed. There was no pleasure in the hunt. There never had been, she supposed. It had always been a means to an end, and who could blame her for trying to make it a little more interesting by playing with her victims for a little… Like she had played with the car man. Or tried to. Somehow, it hadn’t worked. He’d been too unafraid of her, toostill despite the raging erection in his pants. There should have been a little fun tormenting him about that, and yet somewhere the fun had disappeared. When she had considered sex with him. And the blood had become secondary. Damn him. He was just a man.

And she was old, much too old. “Vampire!” The accusation wrenched her out of her reverie. She had been walking openly in the streets, ignoring passersby. Occasionally people gave her a second glance, even stared at her. This had always been true. And old habits being hard to break, even in this new era of growing law and order, some people instinctively gave her a wide berth. But to be accosted in the street by a mad old man pointing into her face and screaming out “vampire” along with his spittle, was a new one. The few people nearby -- there was a new food centre just ahead -- all stopped and stared. One woman pressed herself into the crumbling wall beside her as if she could thus escape. Katia smiled. “So what are you going to do about it, old man?” she asked softly. “Vampire!” he shouted again. “Police, she’s a vampire!” Bored, Katia reached out and pushed him out of her way. The force carried him several feet across the road to the feet of the cowering woman, where he sat, still pointing and screaming, “Vampire! You stole my baby, my grandson!” “Old fool,” Katia murmured and walked on. However, one of those new red-scarved lupi stood in her way. “A moment please,” he said amiably. “The gentleman says you stole his grandson.” Katia stared at him. “What would I do with a child?” “Eat him! Drink his blood! Vile, disgusting, murdering creature!” screamed the old man, hurling himself to his feet again and bolting toward her. “Where is he?” Just for an instant, Katia sensed a genuine grief emanating from him. Though it wouldn’t have stopped her throwing him to the ground again, she didn’t need to. The policeman caught the old man and held him immobile. “Slow down there! Are you formally accusing this woman of murdering your grandson? Did you see her take him?” “Not her! A male vampire took him! Murdered my son and daughter-in law and took the child! A vampire and a wolf!” The policeman’s eyes flickered at that. Katia laughed. The lupi didn’t like to be called wolves. “I didn’t take your baby,” she said contemptuously. “I don’t eat children. There isn’t enough blood in them.” And this time she walked on without looking back. The lupi let her. They both knew she was stronger, but in this case, she was fairly sure he saw no reason to act against her. The old man was clearly mad, and in any case was now blaming a male vampire for his loss, imagined or otherwise.

Behind her, she heard the old man screaming, “You’re in league with them! You’re all in league against us! Bloody mutants steal our children and cover for each other!” Katia’s lip curled in cynical amusement. The lupi in league with vampires? In truth, any sort of co-operation involving vampires was impossible. They didn’t even work with each other. Although there was Max, she remembered thoughtfully. A couple of weeks ago, she had seen him leaving the club with a pretty lupi girl. And now there were rumors that he was involved with the Council, was thick with Will, the leader of the lupi. All the people, in fact, who were making vampires’ lives so difficult. A month ago, even that mad old man wouldn’t have dared accost her in the street.

Chapter Three

Katia sank her teeth into the woman’s neck and drank. The blood tasted good after her long abstinence, so good that she had to force herself not to take too much and make herself ill. The woman moaned in her arms, pressing her hard-peaked breasts into Katia’s, clutching her in the mingled agony and ecstasy to which she was addicted. While Katia fed, the music of the club pounded in her ears. She hated this place. It was too full of reeking, rank humanity and their unsavory desires. But it was an easy meal, increasingly important now that murdering or even assaulting people was being punished. Humanity, helped by the wretched lupi, was finding its feet, fighting back, combining to drive away vampires who killed in their neighborhood. Slowly, Katia released her suction on the woman’s neck. She mewled with disappointment. “Please,” she muttered incoherently. “Please…” She was offering more. “Thank you,” said Katia contemptuously. “I’m full.” She licked once at the wound to heal it -- no point in being careless with the food supply -- and pushed the woman away. To escape the heaving throngs on the dance floor, Katia climbed the ladder to the catwalk. Someone groped her almost as soon as she got there, his greedy fingers grasping at her breast from behind. Katia stopped. “Get your filthy hand off me,” she said softly. “Before I throw you through the fence.” He shouldn’t have been able to hear her through the fog of noise, but his hand disappeared with alacrity. Katia walked on without looking back. It was mainly men who prowled the catwalk, looking for sexual prey. From the dance floor you could only ever see a few inches in front of you. From up here, you got a bird’s eye view of the whole, horrible room, from the distastefully heaving, writhing mob who imagined they were dancing, to the band making the infernal racket that turned them on. And you could see new arrivals as they made it past the brutal bouncers at the door.

It was here that Katia’s attention was caught. She recognized the lupi girl who’d been here with Max. Max wasn’t here now, though. She was with another man. A tall, blond human just emerging from the bouncers’ search. It was her car man. The one she’d let escape. Instinct made her back away from the fencing that surrounded the catwalk. For some reason her heart rate increased. A sharp pain twisted through her stomach and gnawed there, paralyzing her. The man took the girl’s arm, saying something to her. The girl only laughed, grabbed his hand and pulled him among the dancers. But they didn’t dance. They pushed their way through, the man looking around him, examining faces, peering through gaps in the crowd. It dawned on Katia that he was looking for someone. For her? Her breath caught. Why should she even imagine such a thing? Why would a man look for a vampire from whom he had already escaped once? He would be looking for friends, perhaps people he had arranged to meet here, some welcoming party after his trip. Her stomach tightened. She could go down there,jump down there and land in between him and the lupi girl. She could hold him in her arms again, there on the dance floor, sink her teeth into that strong, earth-scented skin and take his blood from him. Would he still want her? Would he harden with desire, or fall apart in fear? And if the former, what then? In this place, what would prevent her climbing onto his big, stiff cock and… She gasped. It was time to leave. Past time to leave. Abruptly, she pushed her way back along the catwalk, jumped down the ladder in one easy movement, uncaring for the stares of awe and fear that followed her, and left the club before the man even knew she had been there. *** Katia turned her head on the pillow, and opened her eyes to find the man looming over her. Instinctively she drew back her arm to punch, but it wouldn’t move. Something rattled, something tightened around her trapped wrists. She was chained to her own bed, her arms stretched as far as they would go above her head. Her legs were spread-eagled, forming her body into a star shape, and she was totally naked for the man’s avid gaze. The bed sank under his weight as he sat down at her side. He wore only the shirt she had glimpsed earlier that day, and the frayed jeans. His blond hair fell fetchingly across his forehead. He was beautiful and sexy. And he’d made a terrible mistake. “What do you want?” she hissed. “You,” said the man. “I want you.” “You think these chains can hold me?”

“Yes, I do.” She tried an experimental yank on the chains, then a harder one with all her strength. They held. She snarled, “Do you have to tie a woman down before you can fuck her?” “Only the ones who want to drink my blood while I do it.” “You want me to drink your blood, human?” “No, I want you to come for me.” “I couldn’t if I tried!” He only smiled. Slowly, he lowered his mouth to her left breast and took her hard nipple into his mouth. He sucked it, flicking it with his tongue. Despite her protestations, moisture pooled in her pussy. Somehow, it seemed permissible to feel desire when there was nothing she could do about it. Christ, she liked having no choice… His hands roamed around her body at will, plundering her until her cold flesh heated like a furnace. Unhurriedly he moved his mouth to her other breast while his fingers slid up her thigh to her pussy. “Oh so wet, and hot,” he whispered, spreading her labia wide for his invasion. “I think you’ll come very quickly when I push my cock in there.” “I’ll bite it off!” she panted, tugging at her chains, but he only laughed. “Promises, promises.” He stood and with slow deliberation unbuttoned his jeans. His cock sprang free, huge and rigid, its swollen purple veins standing out like ribs. Seeing her fascinated gaze, he moved nearer to her, closing his fist around the shaft, swirling his fingers once around its dark head to wipe the drops of moisture gathering there. His breath caught with the sensation. So did hers. Trying not to pant, she acknowledged that she wanted that cock buried deep within her right now. She wanted to know what he could do with it. She wanted him to take her helpless body and fuck her to insanity while she lay chained and physically incapable of preventing him. He moved between her legs, and at the exquisite feel of his weight on her, of his hard cock at the juncture of her thighs, she closed her eyes tight, trying not to moan. She felt his cock nudge at her pussy and her eyes flew open without permission. He was already totally naked, muscles bunching at his broad shoulders. Supporting himself on his elbows, he kept his throat well out of reach of her teeth. He was smiling, his eyes clouded and hot with desire as he slowly, deliberately pushed his cock into her desperate pussy. Just as she wanted. God, it felt so good. His cock filled her, already bringing her orgasm galloping. “Come,” he commanded, withdrawing his cock almost entirely and pushing in again. “Come.” She came, wildly, arching into him, writhing as far as her bonds would permit. They broke while the orgasm still battered her but he didn’t notice. He just went on and on fucking her. She wept as she brought her freed hands down to strangle him. At her first touch on his throat he looked at her and smiled through his passion.

“Don’t cry,” he said. “Don’t cry…” Gasping, Katia woke and stared into the darkness. Her heart was pumping like a rabbit’s. Her skin was hot and damp with sweat. Between her legs lurked the afterglow of orgasm; in her mouth, the salty taste of her own tears. *** When David woke, he had the feeling that the argument in the next room had been going on for a long time. All was not well in his brother’s love life. Like most men, David didn’t dwell on other people’s relationships, but he was vaguely unsurprised that there were a few teething problems there. They had gone almost instantaneously from strangers to couple, and whatever bonds of love and constancy existed between them, they were both strong characters and still had to learn to live with each other. However, with perfect faith in his brother’s ability to sort it out, and no desire whatever to hear any of the details, David pulled on his jeans, shirt and coat and left the room. In the gutted lab where they’d parked all the stuff last night, he found Max, seated in the middle of it, a book open on the rebuilt bench. For a moment David watched him reading with total concentration. Max was serious about this. On the other hand, David knew the vampire was aware of his presence. He simply chose not to acknowledge it. David stirred. “It’s useful to you then?” he said mildly. “Might be,” the vampire admitted, glancing up at him. “But totally pointless unless we can get this stuff up into the atmosphere. I don’t suppose you know of any old missile silos?” David leaned his head against the door frame. “Thereis one, less than a hundred miles south of here. It’s already been done over, though. I broughtsome stuff from there…” “Is the structure intact?” Max interrupted. David shrugged. “It looks pretty damaged to me, but I don’t know what needs to work. I can take you there. But for what it’s worth, I found nothing that looked like solid fuel.” Max gave a slightly twisted smile. “Sounds like you knew what to look for. We may have to go there, if we can’t discover anything better.” “Which would be?” “The tether.” “The what?” “Tether,” Max repeated impatiently. “Like a space-lift, an elevator that stretches beyond the Earth’s gravity and therefore moves with the Earth. It’s the ideal way to release ionized gasses into the atmosphere, which would punch holes in the cloud to let the sun through… They were building one during the war, on the advice of myself and my colleagues. Up north. I don’t suppose you’ve traveled in the north?”

David frowned, thinking, dredging up old conversations as well as places he’d been. “A bit, but I never found much. Not many people either.” “It was always largely rural. Which was what I pinned my hopes on, then as now. The north was never bombarded like the rest of the country… Do you think you could find the tether if it still exists?” “Difficult.” David nodded at the books and papers scattered across the bench. “Would there be some clues in there to narrow the search?” “It’s possible,” Max admitted. For a moment he regarded David in silence. Then: “Will says you can read and write.” “Our parents were funny that way.” Max pushed his book across the bench to join the others. “These books and papers you brought -- they were well chosen.” “I aim to please.” “You have some sort of understanding of this material?” David shrugged. “Hardly. I can classify and collate. I’m just a finder.” “I’ll need help with that. Lots of help. And not just with finding the tether.” “All right. I’ll do what I can.” “There’s more,” said Max, apparently unable to stop now he’d made the difficult start. “Letting the sun in is only the beginning. The ozone layer may be damaged. The soil is certainly contaminated, so is the water, above and below ground. I don’t suppose you know any scientists, technical experts in the Dome or wherever, who could be enticed here?” “You’d be struggling,” David said frankly. “Safe people don’t want to travel. Don’t you have contacts here in the city… among your own people?” The vampire closed his mouth, an arrested expression in his eyes. David smiled slightly. “As to the rest… I’ll think about it.” Turning away, he left the den. He had his own fish to fry. It had been hopeless trying to look for his beautiful vampiress among the crowds of the club. April claimed to have found Max there, which astonished David almost as much as the fact that April, who’d barely acknowledged her own species until recently, had now committed herself to a vampire to the point where she carried his child. “It will be the first ever cross-species child,” she had said, so proudly that David knew a pang of grief. He rather thought her chances of carrying this child to full term were slim. But then, only days ago he’d thought the chances of surviving an encounter with a vampire even slimmer. Now he appeared to be working with one, and searching for another. David was born curious. He had grown up knowing the darkest haunts of the city, the hang-outs of the

mutants, the alleyways and wrecked streets most popular for preying on the weak, the buildings that attracted the solitary lifestyle of the vampire. As he walked, he saw some of those ruined houses being rebuilt and repaired. He even saw a couple of stalls bartering pretty crafted things -- candles, lace, knitted blankets. Will’s Council was beginning an economy, a building program, and perhaps most importantly -- hope. But he didn’t seeher . He tried asking a few casual questions, of both humans and mutants. But no one gave him very helpful answers. One man said, “Yes, I’ve seen her around. Wouldn’t get too close if I were you.” Another said, “Of course I don’t know where she lives! I don’twant to know!” One old man got vitriolic on the subject of vampires in general, and in particular on an imagined conspiracy between vampires and lupi to steal his grandchild from him. Something terrible had clearly happened to him, but since it was impossible to get much sense out of him, David did little more than pat him on the shoulder and promise to look out for the child. Then, turning away, he caught sight of her. A glimpse of a swirling cloak, of hip-length raven hair flowing behind as she swept round the corner and out of his vision.

Chapter Four

David ran. At the corner, he saw her walking up the next ruined street. A few people at work on their houses paused to stare at her. Passersby pushed themselves into the wall so as not to touch her. They knew what she was, so she probably lived round here, hunted round here. David strode after her. His heart hammering like a teenager’s on a first date, he could only admire her incomparable grace. She appeared to glide more than walk, held herself with a pride that totally ignored the people around her. She didn’t deign to acknowledge any of their reactions. David was fit, well used to traveling long distances over difficult terrain. Yet the vampire had no difficulty keeping ahead. However fast he walked, he never seemed to gain on her. At least he managed to keep her in sight as she swept up alleyways, slipped down narrow passageways, and crossed waste ground with quite astonishing speed. Once, she simply jumped over an impossibly high wall. David had to throw himself at it to grasp the loose stone at the top of it and haul himself over. Even then, there was a hell of a drop on the other side, but since she was disappearing into the doorway of a building, he had no choice but to drop down. He turned his ankle on the rough ground, and cut his hands on the rubble as he tried to save himself. Ignoring these, he hurried after his quarry.

At first, he thought she was somewhere in the building. There was no lighter shade of dark inside, to warn him about another exit. So, he pushed forward through the blackness, feeling for stairs or inner doors. It was the faintest creak that gave the truth away. Turning toward the sound, David stumbled down some steps and found the chink of paler dark. The door led out to some more steps and more waste ground, off which led three highly dilapidated streets. And some trampled, twisted railings into an area of dead parkland. He almost missed her. Then he saw her, a distant figure flitting between boulders. It could have been anyone, the glimpse was so slight. But something, whether the grace of movement or the shape of the figure revealed so briefly, told him it was his quarry. He hurried after her into the park, up the hill among dead trees and sticks, and huge, carved boulders, mostly broken or at least chipped. That was when he realized where he was. One of the city’s oldest graveyards. From the old books he’d found over the years, he even knew this one’s name. The Necropolis. Once it had been full of shrines to the dead, tall gravestones and impressive family crypts guarded by statues of men and angels carved by the city’s finest artists. Even now, you could make some of them out, tumbled and broken and semi-covered up as they were. Later, he might come back to admire. Now, he pursued his quarry around the hill until she disappeared down some steps leading into a stone crypt. He had time, as he ran the last few yards, to realize the stupidity of his own actions. But he couldn’t stop now. He retained enough sense to approach the crypt warily, allowing himself to recover some breath. He descended the crumbling steps slowly, resigning himself to chasing her through this building too. The sense of humor he had glimpsed at their previous meeting had probably made her lead him here, to this traditional vampire’s resting place. No doubt she was already out the other side and halfway back down the hill to the road. Reaching the solid iron door, David reached out and tugged it open. Within, he could make out a mass of rubble blocking the way in. No one could live here. There had to be another way out. David took a step inside. She flew at him out of nowhere. It was sheer reflex to pull back, ducking to the floor. Her feet whooshed past him like the air through his car windows, missing him by millimeters, and she came to land with incomparable grace in the doorway. David rose quickly, choosing for some reason to take his medicine standing up. Yet she stood still, her back against the open door. “You,” she said. “I knew it would be you. What do you want?” “To talk to you.” “You’re a creep, a stalker and a pervert,” she said matter-of-factly. David grinned. “Only through necessity.”

A sound that might have been laughter squeezed out of her lips. “So what do you want to talk about? Survivor’s guilt?” “Can we talk outside?” David asked. Once again she hadn’t killed him, but he wasn’t counting his chickens, and right here, he felt a shade too vulnerable. She waved her arm gracefully toward the outside step. David moved slowly. As many times before, he had acted from instinct in his pursuit of the vampiress, but he was hardly blind to the consequences. She could take him easily as he passed her in the doorway. As before, he sensed no murder in her, but that didn’t preclude her hurting him quite a lot, draining his blood until he was weaker than a kitten -- and even, if the rumors were true, changing him into one of her own kind by her bite. She kept her amazing eyes on him as he moved, as if searching for his fear, or his true intentions. For the first time, it struck him that she was uncertain, that despite her strength, she felt somehow threatened by him. He got a whiff of her body scent, faint spice and musk and something elusive he already associated only with her. She made no effort to stand back, so his arm brushed her body as he passed. He felt her heat, felt his own sudden desire. But she stood perfectly still, letting him pass. He took one step up the stairs, two. Then, relieved that she wasn’t going to molest him, he turned back to her -- and saw the door swing shut in his face. Instinctively he reached out to prevent it slamming the whole way. Too late and pointless anyway. It banged home. Laying his hand flat against it, as if this would somehow bring him closer to her, he bumped his forehead deliberately on his fingers. He said, “I’ll wait out here, then.” And found himself smiling. Because she’d fooled him so easily. Because she’d chosen to do so rather than to attack him. *** Katia thought at first that he’d get bored, that she just had to out-sit him, as it were -- and then move her home elsewhere when he finally left. She didn’t think that would be very long. Then she heard him climbing up on to the roof of the crypt, from where he would be able to see if she left by either exit -- the one he could see, or the one he couldn’t, or not yet… Well, if he was foolhardy enough he’d fall asleep. If he wasn’t, he’d take fright as the darkness deepened and run home to his woman and kids. Or to Max’s lupi woman, whom he’d been with last night. So she went about her usual home life. She lit the candles of her comfortable room, washed a few clothes in the bucket and hung them up. Then she plumped the cushions on her couch, and lay down with an old novel she couldn’t remember reading before. Weirdly, she rather liked the idea of him being there above her. It made her curiously, elusively… warm. She realized she would actually be disappointed when he finally gave up and left. When the darkness began to deepen into night, and still he made no move to go, the thought came to her that she could go out there to him. And warn him of the night creatures who haunted this place. He

wouldn’t know that no one would be stupid enough to attack him while he sat on her roof. Except the odd ignorant human thug, and for some reason she felt he could take care of those himself. For a few moments she sat very still on the couch, letting the ideas and the fears flow through her. Her heart beat too fast, making her breathless, like some poor human girl in the throes of first lust. Katia’s heartbeat should be slow, because she was a vampire. She could barely remember her last human lust let alone her first one. Until this man. Something about him moved her. She wanted him to want her, to see beyond what she had become to what was hidden and buried inside her. She was afraid that he would, terrified that he couldn’t. In truth, her real fear was that there was no longer anything for him to find. It had all got suddenly out of proportion. The changing of the city had depressed her, reminding her too much of whatcouldn’t be changed. And now this man was here, churning her up with hopes she couldn’t form properly even in her head. She wanted to scare him off forever, she wanted to know his name, who he was… She wanted to sit beside him in a pre-war bar, knees almost touching while they talked and drank wine and anticipated a delicious ending to the evening. Her breath caught on a laugh. She stood up and went to the wooden trunk in the corner, hastily removing the silken cover that usually lay over it. From inside, she took out two glasses, tall, delicate wine glasses with kissing doves woven around the stems. She’d found them in a house shortly after she’d changed. There had been no one to drink from there except a sick and dying old woman. So Katia had fed from her and put her out of her misery. The old woman had died with a smile on her face, and afterwards, Katia had let the remaining blood flow in this glass and toasted her in a macabre token of respect and compassion. Back in the days when she’d still known compassion. The glasses were a little dusty, so she wiped them with a clean cloth before she put them into her large, black bag together with the silken cloth, a dusty bottle, a candle and the flask from her cold cupboard. Then she put on her cloak, because it suited the part, swung the bag across her shoulders and unbolted the door. Outside was the mess of rubble that she normally jumped over. It was trickier carrying delicate glass, but she managed it. Then, opening the outer door, she walked slowly up the steps. She could smell him. Earthy and human and…him . She could feel his gaze on her too, sense his surprise and his excitement, but she didn’t look at him until she reached the top of the steps and turned. He sat on the roof, with one elbow resting on his drawn up knees, his gaze unwaveringly on her through the darkness. She said, “You should go home. Not all the predators of this place are as well-fed as I.” “I’m relying on you to keep them away.” “You really are from this city, aren’t you?” “Off and on. Will you join me?” Her heart beat even faster, causing her to pause before she risked any comeback, however sardonic. “I can’t make up my mind whether you’re insane or stupid.”

“Does it matter?” No, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. Bracing herself, she leapt up beside him, and in the same movement, sank down into a graceful pose with her legs bent under her. She certainly had his undivided attention… And now he had asked her to sit with him, she could set about educating him against her. Forever. “So,” she said. “You’ll have a drink with me?” Without waiting for his answer, she opened the bag and took out the silk cloth, placing it delicately over the dirt of the roof between herself and the man. His gaze seemed to burn her skin as she took out the candle, placed it on the cloth and lit it. Still she didn’t look at him, but delved back into the capacious bag for the glasses. The candle flame glinted amber off the doves’ eyes. The scent of his blood was strong, threatening to take over all her senses. The man said, “I’d love to,” his voice at once amused and bewildered. Katia smiled faintly and brought out the bottle and corkscrew, very conscious of his scrutiny as she opened it. “Chateau Musard 2005,” she observed, pouring generously into one glass. “An acquired taste with a cult following when I was young.” Into the other glass, she poured a tiny amount. “Of course, it should breathe a little first, but it’s a little cold for hanging around.” Raising her gaze to his face at last, she held out the full glass. He took it, his warm fingers grazing hers in the process. Electricity sparked through her hand, ending up somewhere in the region of her stomach, but she ignored it, as she tried to ignore the pleasure she found just in watching his handsome face. The man said, “I didn’t know you could drink wine.” Called back to herself, Katia rummaged once more in the bag for her flask. “Oh I can drink a little, if I mix it with this,” she said, opening the flask and pouring a sizable quantity into her own glass. It glooped out, thick and red and unmistakable in the candle’s flickering light. Raising the glass to her lips, she said, “I find the wine adds a little buzz.” And she sipped. The man’s eyes crinkled at the corners. To her amazement, he was smiling. “You are a very bizarre person,” he observed. “Cheers.” If Katia hadn’t already swallowed, she would have choked. This was not the reaction she had imagined. He should at this point have backed off in disgust, perhaps just let her play a little with him, insultingly, before he ran off and never came back to trouble her life or her dreams. But there he sat on the roof of her crypt, drinking wine with her from one of her favorite glasses and telling her only that she was bizarre. “You think?” she said as lightly as she could manage. “But then, how many vampires have you known?” “Before you, just the one. It was a brief acquaintance.” She glanced at him thoughtfully. “I suppose the fact that you are still here to make mine, explains your somewhat…reckless behavior with me. Did he let you go too?”

“Not exactly,” the man said cautiously. He didn’t appear to be remotely fazed. “I managed to knife his shoulder to the wall.” “You have quick reflexes,” she allowed, remembering again how he’d avoided her flying kick on the steps earlier that day. “But I can’t imagine your action slowed down a vampire for very long.” The man shrugged. “Long enough for me to get out of his reach. And for my brother to come and help. My brother,” he added, taking another sip of wine and laying the glass on her silken cloth, “is a lupi.” “Ah.” She regarded him with renewed curiosity. “And how do you feel about that?” “About the fact that he’s a lupi? Or that he’s my brother?” Katia considered. “Both.” “I suppose I accept it. Always did.” “You never envied his strength or powers? Never thanked God for giving him the mutant gene instead of you?” The man frowned, as if thinking back. “No,” he said at last. “When we first discovered what he was, I protected him from the other kids who were so afraid of him they wanted to beat him up --en masse you understand. Later, when he came to terms with his own gifts,he protectedme .” Katia caught a glimpse of affection, understated but terrifyingly deep. It pained her, bewildered her. And somewhere in her confused jumble of emotions was admiration. And jealousy. She said flatly, “You’d die for your brother. Even though he’s a wolf.” “Even though. Because. Who cares? I hope I never need to. What’s your name?” Startled by the abrupt change of subject, she looked down at her glass of blood and wine, swirling it gently, letting it catch the light of the single flame while she remembered who and what she was. “Katia.” “I’m David.” “Well, David the human.” She sat back, regarding him over the rim of her glass with a return of mockery. It seemed to be her only defense. “What do you think of this wine? Have you tasted wine before?” “Not often,” he said candidly. “I had some in the Dome City, but it wasn’t as good as this. I found some in a cellar once too, in the middle of a deserted farm. It’s pretty tasty. I’ll bring you a bottle.” “You find a lot of things, don’t you?” He smiled faintly. Fascinated, Katia watched the slight upward tug of his eyes and lips. “It’s what I do. There are still a lot of useful resources out there, if you know where to look. My friends nicknamed me The Archaeologist when we were young. You can learn a lot from what you find, too.” Katia knew another flash of understanding. He traveled, searching, finding things because he was alone

here. Whatever the affection between them, his brother was a pack animal. David was a loner. She said, “Does it help?” He frowned. “Does what help?” “Learning things. Understanding why life is so crap now when it was so good before you were born.” “Was it?” he asked. “Oh yes.” Her lips twisted of their own accord. “No. Sometimes. It was different. Easier.” “You remember life before the war?” “Before, during and after.” “Then you weren’t born a vampire? As my brother was born a lupi?” “No.” She raised the glass, twisting it to catch the light from different directions. “I was ill, wretchedly ill like many others at the time who died of radiation poisoning. I didn’t die. But when I got better, I still couldn’t eat. Instead, I had a raging thirst for blood.” She lifted her gaze to his. “The thirst I still have, and still satisfy.” His eyes were steady, curious, compassionate. There was something else too that she couldn’t read, but what she chiefly noticed was what was lacking, what kept her blood lust at bay. Abruptly, she said, “Why aren’t you afraid of me, David?” His name on her lips felt strange, yet exciting, like some forbidden pleasure of her adolescence. His lips twisted into the characteristic half-smile she remembered so well from their first meeting. “I don’t know.” Releasing her gaze, he took a sip of wine and lowered the glass slowly. “I realize I should be. And I confess you are one very scary lady…” “In abizarre sort of a way.” He smiled again, his eyes crinkling in a way that seemed to melt her entire stomach. “It wasn’t an insult,” he observed. “I like bizarre people.” Katia widened her gaze deliberately. “So now youlike me?” It was banter, only banter, and he couldn’t have guessed her sudden ache as she spoke the words. But his face softened immediately. “Katia. Of course I like you.” He moved, leaning across the space between them, and before she could guess his unguessable intention, he kissed her mouth. Stunned, she didn’t stir. His lips moved across her mouth, warm and soft and dangerously sweet. Only when they opened, parting hers, did she react, reaching up her hands to push him away. An old gesture for an old situation. The vampire Katia would simply kill him. Bite him, drain him, dump him. She had forgotten who she was, and she let him in. His tongue probed, seeking hers. Tenderly, he explored her

whole mouth, turning it over, drawing it into his, and Katia was lost. The hands that should have held him for the kill, that should at the very least have pushed him off the roof, clung onto his shoulders instead. Her whole body melted under the onslaught of his kiss, leaving her weak and helpless in the grip of a growing storm of desire. And yet apart from his mouth, he didn’t touch her. Still, a forgotten burning had begun in her stomach, drifting lower and flooding her with need. Her pussy was wet for him, as it had been in her confused, erotic dreams. Her whole body ached for his caresses, from her tight, pebbled nipples to her hot, aching clitoris. She smelled his blood, strong and enticing, heard it pounding in his veins. Gasping, allowing his mouth even deeper invasion, she realized she wanted him inside her. Even more than his blood, she wanted his warm, human cock inside her cold vampire pussy, pushing, massaging her, making her feel, making her come. Like the dreams. Only better. Like this kiss that went on and on, filling her, killing her… Slowly, his mouth released hers and hovered for an instant over her face. She stared at him. She didn’t know what to do. Her heart beat and beat like a drum in her head. It was all she could hear now -- that and David’s ragged breathing. Or was it hers? His lips quirked upwards. “Thank you,” he said softly. “For the wine too.” Then he moved back, rising to his feet only to crouch down again and drop off the roof. Dazed with desire as much as disappointment, Katia watched him run back across the graveyard. She hoped he’d be safe. Her eyes closed in pain and terror. She hoped he’d be killed.

Chapter Five

Katia prowled long into the night, ignoring the familiar blood-thirst, trying desperately to restore her equilibrium. She had set out not to kill the man, but to defeat him along with her own growing obsession. And instead he had defeated her, with a little conversation, a little kiss. By reminding her of gentler times, of her own lost humanity, her own needs and desires, he was destroying her. When at last she fell exhausted on to the couch and slept, her dreams were confused, overlaying present angst with people and incidents from her past, with blood spilled and taken. She wasn’t really sorry to be dragged into wakefulness by the banging on the door, though she did feel momentarily disoriented. There was shouting among it now too, though not the riotous kind. The “Katia, open the door, I know

you’re in there!” kind. Max. It was Max. Damn him. The one vampire whose company she occasionally tolerated. Swallowing, she wiped her hand across her face, feeling the heat and the sweat, and rose from the couch. Stumbling slightly, she found an old cloak and flung it around her naked body. Though Max had seen her naked many times in their distant past, and she was sure it now meant as little to him as it did to her, she had no intention of freezing her butt off just for the sake of his impatience. “If you break my door in, Max, I’ll make a new one out of your head,” she grumbled, sliding the bolts free at top and bottom. She wrenched open the door with more invective on her lips, but her words died there unspoken, for outside her door, she beheld not only Max, but the lupi Will. *** Katia lit the lamp and kicked her black jumpsuit to the side of the floor. “Forgive me,” she said sardonically. “I don’t entertain much, and I wasn’t expecting guests.” Looking around him, Max said disapprovingly, “Why do you live here, Katia? You have a sick sense of humor.” “Why ask when you know the answer? What do you want, Max? And why bring your new friend to me? I’m presuming the king of the lupi is not your hospitality gift to me?” Will, the mocked “king of the lupi,” only smiled faintly. He looked no more afraid of her than David had. Less, probably. Mind you, this Will looked quite like him. The eyes were wrong, and Will’s hair was silvery rather than golden blond, but there was something about the shape of his face that… Shit, Katia, this is obsession! Snap out of it! “What hospitality would that be, Katia?” Max asked with mock civility. Katia laughed shortly. “Fair point. Sit. Spill.” Max sat on the couch, although he glanced up at Will, as if uncertain. Will was wandering around her room, restless. Katia caught a whiff of his blood. Powerful, lupi blood. She remembered she was hungry. Max took a deep breath. “We’d like your help, Katia.” Katia blinked, and lowered herself to the couch, still grasping the cloak around her naked body. Neither of the men appeared to notice, which was hardly flattering. “Both of you?” she mocked. “How could I possibly help you?” “By your knowledge,” Max said, “of…” Without warning, the door creaked. All three heads turned expectantly. Will even reached for a weapon. David walked in, his coat swinging about his calves, his bag over his shoulder.

Katia’s fist closed convulsively on the fabric of her cloak. Her ears sang. She felt utter fury because she wasn’t ready for this. And she should have bolted the bloody door. “What the fuck,” she said harshly, “are you doing here?” David stopped in his tracks. But not, she thought, because of her inhospitable greeting. His eyes were riveted on her visitors, flitting from one to the other. “That’s funny,” said Will the lupi into the stunned silence. “I was about to ask him the same question.” “Boil your head, Will,” said David mildly, resorting to the sort of advice that Katia remembered from her own childhood -- which was what finally gave her the clue. “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she exclaimed. “Theking of the werewolves is your lupi brother?” “Yes,” David said simply. He glanced from her back to Will. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.” “We don’t,” Katia said flatly. “Max was just about to explain how I can help them. And it had better be good, because I’m hungry and I’m pissed off.” To her consternation, David’s eyes laughed at her. “You’re beautiful when you’re pissed off.” No I’m not, I’m ugly, I’m ugly all the time. Why can you not see that? I’m amonster! Her throat closed up. No sound came out. As if he took pity, David turned back to his brother. “Do you want me to go until you’ve spoken to Katia?” “Yes,” said Katia. “No,” said Will. “You’d better hear this too. I think you’ve probably sensed some -- tension between Lara and me.” David nodded, and sank cross-legged on the floor. “The reason is,” said Will carefully, “that she is pregnant.” David’s eyes didn’t waver, but Katia saw him swallow once, convulsively. “With your child?” “With my child.” Pulling herself together, Katia tried to regain a little control of the conversation. “And this is a big deal because…?” “Because Lara, his wife, is human,” David said. “There aren’t any cross-species children that I know of.” “There’s more,” said Will. “Max and April are expecting a baby too.” Katia stared at Max. Something twisted in her stomach, but she was fairly sure it wasn’t to do with him.

“Youare with a human too?” “No,” Max admitted. “I’m with a lupi.” Katia blinked. “Little blond lupi? Like an angel with a dirty face?” Max snorted on what might have been a laugh. “You could put it like that.” “Well, don’t pin your affections there,” Katia said dryly, suddenly spotting a way to hurt the man who was tearing her apart. “She was at the club the other night withhim .” She jerked her thumb at David without looking at him. But Max took the wind out of her sails. “I know. They were looking for you.” Katia remembered to close her mouth. Max added, “At least I can only presume it was you since he’s now here.” “April’s an old family friend,” Will put in. Katia could think of nothing to say. Her stupid heart was singing, because hehad been looking for her that night. Because -- oh justbecause …! And when she risked a glance at David, he was smiling at her with a glint in his eye that made her pussy clench, especially when his gaze dropped to the gaping cloak, which she refused to grab at for the sake of any modesty. He said, “Youwere there.” She shrugged. “For a bit. I hate the place, but hey, it’s a free meal. So congratulations to the proud fathers, but I fail to see how I could possibly be of assistance.” Max leaned forward to see her better. “You’re a geneticist. Why have there been no cross-species babies before, and is there anything we should do to ensure the safe birth of our children?” Katia ignored David’s curious scrutiny as he learned this new fact about her. Instead, she stared at Max. “How should I know? I’m not a midwife! I imagine there have been no cross-species children before because the species avoided each other like the plague. That and the fact that there just aren’t many children born any more. The radiation saw to that. Most of us are infertile.” “Is there still risk of genetic abnormality?” Max asked. “What, like you or me? Or him? Of course there is!” “I meant physical or mental deformity,” Max said dryly, “but I’ll defer to the answer given.” Will was staring at her. “Do you mean there is no reason why thereshouldn’t be interspecies breeding?” Katia shrugged. “We’re all the same species. Some of us have just been -- altered. And if you want my opinion, there will be more and more mutants born, not just of people like us, but of normal humans as the altered genes kick in. In fact…” She paused, frowning over memories she thought she had long forgotten. “It’s what they intended. Adapt the species to deal with radiation, with almost total

deprivation, then let evolution take its course. The new species will evolve from all of us. And as things settle down, there will be more children.” Will’s eyes closed. He seemed to be smiling. Max stared straight ahead, taking it in. It was David who looked at her. “What they intended,” he repeated softly. “You’re saying the mutations are nothing to do with radiation poisoning as we always believed? It was deliberate?” “Oh yes!” She laughed, a small, savage sound even to her own ears. “It was meant to be protection, just one of a number of experiments conducted across the country, across the world. Ask Max -- he used to track radiation clouds and try to limit their impact. They’d already built a huge protective roof over London -- the Dome to you -- and over some orchards and farm lands with imitation ultraviolet light. They were building an underground city somewhere too. Somewhere else, they experimented with small doses of radiation to try to increase resistance to its ill effects. Up here, they poisoned the water with genetically altered material. “Don’t look like that. It was all benevolentlyintended . They put a lot of work into it.I put a lot of work into it, establishing the strands that would withstand radiation and deprivation. But they went too early. The effect of the radiation already in the atmosphere was an unknown, and they didn’t give us time to do the tests. Someone panicked, and they put the genetic material straight into the water. “Some were affected quite soon, others not at all -- at least not visibly. In others, the altered genes became active later on, or in their children. Before it all descended into total chaos, we came to the tentative conclusion that it was something to do with the amount of radiation poisoning already in the individual’s system…” Her voice was calm, sardonic, with only the faintest edge to betray the churning fury she had imagined long gone. “So there you have it -- why this place alone is a comic book city of the damned.” She could hear their hearts beating, the man’s strong and quick, the lupi’s slower, steadier, more like the vampire’s. From nowhere she remembered her long-dead grandmother’s favorite saying: “We’re all Jock Tamsin’s bairns.” We’re all brothers and sisters under the skin, all God’s children.Not any more ,Gran , not any more … “Jesus Christ…” David whispered. Katia shrugged. “Quite the opposite. Though a step up on Frankenstein who at least didn’t create a monster out of himself.” Tearing her gaze free of David’s shock, she laughed at the almost identically stunned expressions of the others. “It’s a moot philosophical point,” she observed, “as to which is the real monster in this world. Man or mutant. The perpetrator or the consequence?”

Chapter Six

She stood up. “Well, I’ve waited a long time to make that speech. Now that I have, sod off and let me go about my evil life.” She walked across to the corner, deliberately drawing the clean bodysuit from the makeshift line. As she hoped, her obvious intention of dressing caused a general departure. After all, they’d got what they came for, and rather more information than they’d wanted. She heard the murmur of Will’s voice, and David’s, and movement toward the door. Damn it. She’d have to leave this place now. Too many people knew she lived here. She put one leg into her suit, then the other, drawing it up to her waist, where it hung by itself. Then, her back to the door and the departing guests, she let her cloak fall, supremely indifferent to their presence, to their leaving, to all she had told them, to all she had done, all she had become… The door closed with a quiet, definite thump. But his smell still lingered, like an echo. Katia closed her eyes, let her head fall back as if that would somehow expel the pain, ease the ache behind her eyes. A faint, brushing sound on the floor gave her an instant’s warning before his hands closed on her naked shoulders. “Katia,” David whispered. “Katia.” She couldn’t help it. Though her eyes squeezed shut all the harder, she let her head rest back against his shoulder. “I thought you’d gone. Why are you still here with the monster?” “There are no monsters here. That’s a story to scare children.” Blindly, she reached behind with her hand, touching his warm, rough cheek. “Oh David, you are so…” “So what?” “Wonderful,” she whispered. “Why can you not see what I am?” “I do see. I love you.” Her mouth opened, emitting a harsh gasp. “There is nothing to love! If ever there were, it’s long gone. There’s no love in me, David, no feeling at all…” “There is. There is.” His cheek nudged hers, his questing lips closing over her mouth. She couldn’t believe he was doing this now. Her whole world scattered in turmoil under the tender attack. His hands moved on her naked shoulders, turning her. Breaking the kiss, he touched the wetness of her face with such gentleness that the tears flowed faster.

“Vampires don’t cry,” she gasped out. “They don’t!” “I’ll make it stop,” he whispered. “I promise.” His lips replaced his fingertips, softly kissing the tears from her cheeks, her eyes. Through her wonder, she became conscious of her own bare breasts pressing into his coat, of his warmth seeping into her. Without meaning to, she moved in his arms, so that her hardening nipples rasped across the rough wool. She became fascinated by the texture of his skin, brushing her lips along the line of his jaw. At that, he stopped kissing her eyelids and returned to her mouth. She opened to him immediately, everything in her reaching out to him in blind, desperate need. The delicious weakness of last night’s kiss returned with a vengeance, only now it refused to be passive. This time she kissed him back, not only accepting his tongue in her mouth, but pushing hers into his, eagerly searching out every corner, licking his teeth, his cheeks, darting back to dance with his tongue. The kiss deepened as each fought for control. His tongue twisted around her murderous incisors. He sucked them as though they were normal and sexy to him. Desire flooded Katia. His fingers stroking up and down her naked back and sides sent wild shivers of pleasure straight to her core. She reached up to hold his face in both hands, writhing against him, pressing her hips into his until she could feel his bone hard erection in her abdomen. She moaned as his hand slid round to find her breast, his palm closing, gently squeezing, sliding over it until his fingers could pinch her nipple. She thought she would die of that pleasure. But when he bent to replace his fingers with his mouth, she caught sight of the pulsing vein in his throat and the blood lust rose with fury, mingling and blending with her sexual thirst until neither her body nor her mind could separate them. She closed her eyes to stop herself from falling on his bare, enticing neck, and when he turned his hand’s attention to her other aching breast, she began to tug off his coat with suddenly fierce impatience. Helping her, he managed to shrug it off while still sucking on her breast. Katia stepped out of the suit she had begun to put on with such despair only minutes before. That was all forgotten. Her only reality was the man who held her, her own raging need. Judging by his breathing, his urgency was as great as hers. While she tore open his shirt, and fastened her lips to his taut, male nipple, his fingers fumbled at his jeans, unfastening. Katia slid her hand down over his broad chest and flat, muscled stomach to help him. She loved the feel of him, warm and smooth, hard and deliciously sexy. As his jeans were pushed unceremoniously down over his hips, she finally got her hand on his cock. It was thick and long, as she’d seen in her dream, throbbing with heat, its blue veins straining against the skin. There was more to this life than sucking blood after all… A fresh flood of moisture poured down Katia’s thigh. Impatiently, she stood on tiptoe, writhing against his cock, rejoicing in his groan of need. Fitting it between her thighs, she wriggled until her clitoris brushed it. Her eyes closed with the rushing pleasure, but she wanted, she needed more. David’s hand stroked her thigh, then lifted her leg until it lay over his hip. Growling low in her throat, Katia jumped so that she could wrap her other leg around him too. He steadied himself with one hand on the wall, just before she impaled herself on his cock. It had been a long, long time for Katia. She had forgotten the feel of a man inside her. Had anyoneever felt like this? David filled her, reached impossibly far inside, stretched her to the breaking point. And yet the sensations bombarded her. Her muscles contracted and released quite involuntarily around his cock.

“Jesus Christ,” she said unsteadily. “If you move, I’ll come.” He smiled, suddenly more predatory than she. “Oh, I’ll move,” he promised. “And you’ll come.” His hands held her buttocks, kneading. Katia tried to rise on his shaft, but he held her still. “Sh-sh.” Looking into her eyes, he stayed perfectly still, and when she was also, she felt his cock twitching within her. Every tiny movement caused exquisite pangs of pleasure, leading her along that barely remembered road from the past, when bliss came from another person. She smiled. “That feels good…” His movements grew. His hips drew back, pulling out of her until she mewled with displeasure and then pushing back in. Her head fell on to his shoulder. “Oh God, David…” Heat curled and grew within her, causing her muscles to contract again around him. His hips began to move in slow, sensual circles, stirring her pussy into a melting pot of pleasure. She moved with him, meeting him, squeezing him. He walked forward, carrying her to the couch while she rose and fell on his shaft, drawing him deep inside her, massaging him and herself. He laid her down tenderly, kneeling between her legs. “Oh now,” she begged. “Now…” He smiled, and without releasing her gaze, he lowered himself into her eager arms, and kissed her mouth. He began to fuck her slowly, with strong, deliberate strokes, far more serious than what had gone before. His tongue pushed into her mouth with the same sensual rhythm, and she sucked on it, biting it in her passion. She came quickly, writhing and trembling under him as the blinding orgasm washed over her. His mouth left hers, his eyes avidly watching every expression on her face as she silently came and came. All through it, he continued his thrusts, even and strong, holding her there long beyond what she had thought was possible. And when her convulsions finally calmed, he reached down and grasped her buttocks, lifting her hips to change the angle of his penetration, still watching her every reaction as he found new and forgotten places within her. Only when she gasped out with the strength of the thrill did he begin to fuck her again, and this time, he pounded her in a desperate frenzy of passion, bringing them both to swift, astounding bliss. There had never been anything like this man coming in her arms, shouting out his uninhibited joy as his hot seed shot up into her womb in stream after stream. This time it was Katia who reached for his mouth, kissing him thoroughly as their climaxes slowly died and they came back to earth. More moving than anything was the fact that after only a moment, he shifted his weight off her, just as if she couldn’t bear it far more easily than he could bear hers… It was a long, long time since she had been treated like something breakable and precious… had she ever been treated that way? For a little while he was silent, gathering his ragged breath, but his arms still held her, his cock still nestled inside her. He laid his cheek on the top of her head so that his blond hair, damp with his sweat, fell across

her face. She smiled behind it, and slid her hand downward to rest on the curve of his hip. She liked that bit of him… In return, his hand moved from her waist upward to cup her breast. Lazily he said, “You are the most beautiful creature.” His thumb began to flick across her nipple, stirring her sated senses. But his words had brought reality back for her. “Now tell me it was a good fuck and bugger off.” She managed to keep her voice light, so that he would think it didn’t matter to her. He moved his head, leaning down to lick the nipple his fingers had just made pebble hard and erect. “I can’t do that,” he said apologetically. “Why not?” she managed. “Because I haven’t made you scream yet. All the books say you have to scream with pleasure or I haven’t done it right.” Laughter caught at the back of her throat. “Oh trust me, David, you do it right!” “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you’ve come at all.” She gasped as his hand reached down between her legs and found her wet pussy, already tingling with new desire. She said shakily, “You read some very peculiar books.” “I love the smell of you,” he observed, inhaling the scent of her breast before he sucked the nipple back into his mouth. Katia gave herself up to the stream of pleasure, letting her own hands wander over his body, finding the hard bones and puckered scars, the knotted muscles and coarse hairs on his chest and stomach. He began to slide out of her hold, his re-hardening cock leaving her at last while his mouth’s attentions traveled lower to her navel, and his hand stroked her thigh and her pussy. She gasped when his finger slid inside her. Shifting position, he lay between her legs and nuzzled the short, cropped hair of her pussy. Anticipation seized her. She was afraid to breathe in case he changed his mind, in case he didn’t like her that much… Strongly, his mouth moved among her folds, teasing apart her labia. As if there was all the time in the world, he covered her aching pussy in tiny kisses, occasionally pausing to lick her most sensitive parts. Slowly, he began to move his finger in and out of her vagina, while his tongue flickered back and forth across her clitoris. The pleasure was staggering. She writhed, pushing up onto his hand, into his mouth, which closed on her clitoris and began to suck. “Oh Jesus,” she whispered, moving with him. Another finger joined the first inside her. His other hand took hold of her bottom and began to caress, pressing down hard over her anus. While he sucked, his tongue flicked her clitoris and Katia came again, bucking wildly in his hold. Yet his mouth held on to her, sucking her harder until a new set of convulsions flowed from the embers of the last. Unable to bear it in silence any longer, she moaned, lost in a world of sensation that held only her and David’s terrible, tender mouth that drew orgasm after orgasm from her.

At last, when she thought she would die of it, she kicked upwards and sprang to her knees, dragging him up and rolling him over on his back. He looked slightly dazed, though his eyes blazed with lust and triumph, and his cock jutted out huge and swollen. Katia took it in her hand, rubbing her fingers across the blue, ribbed veins, purring deep in her throat when she saw the beads of moisture leak from its velvety purple head. Katia sprang onto him, straddling him. “Your turn,” she breathed. And watching him, as he had earlier gazed so avidly at her, she maneuvered her entrance over his cock and slid it slowly home. Her over-sensitized body shuddered. She took in his every expression of bliss as she sheathed him up to his balls and swiveled on him. He bit his lip. “Christ, that’s so good…” “And this?” enquired Katia, beginning to slide up and down him, squeezing him. “You can do that for as long as you like,” he said fervently. “I might prefer this,” she teased, moving on him in a different, circular motion that brought his cock in contact with justthat spot once more. Astonishingly, the spark caught again. “I can live with it,” he said raggedly. He groaned, throwing his head to one side, revealing the full, strong column of his throat. Katia’s gaze became fixed on the vein that pulsed there. Gasping, she fought her need to drink him, to taste him while he came, while she came. A low, animal growl sounded deep in her throat. She bent from the hips, leaning down until her hair fell about his head and shoulders like a tent enveloping them both. She found his throat, dragging her lips up its long, muscular column, tracing the path of veins until they closed on the one she wanted. The pulse pumped his blood under her mouth. She could hear it, smell it. The old hunger consumed her, galloping upon her more ferociously than ever because it was confused now with her sexual desire. Somewhere it had become one and the same need. She growled again, licking the vein lovingly, grazing it with her wicked teeth, teasing while she sucked upon it. David groaned. His head pressed backward, allowing her greater access. His whole body writhed under her, inflaming her even further with the knowledge that he moved not with revulsion but with desire. One big hand cupped her head, as if afraid she would move it. The other roamed across her back, her buttocks, kneading, arousing, pleading. His hips pushed upward, thrusting his cock deep within her. As the pleasure shot through her, so too did the beating of his blood, the sound of it, the smell of it, filling her. Katia bit into his flesh. He cried out, with pleasure as well as pain, and at last his blood flowed over her teeth into her mouth, strong and sweet and overwhelming. She rose on his cock as she swallowed, then as she sucked on the vein, drawing out another delicious mouthful, she pushed herself down on him, burying him up to his balls. The taste of him magnified the incredible pleasure beyond endurance. Thrusting suddenly with her hips, she rode him hard and fast, yet still maintaining the instinctive, rhythmic push and pull of feeding and fucking while the tide of pleasure rolled and exploded within her. David gasped, and through it all, she felt his balls tighten under her. Blood forgotten, she released his throat and smiled fiercely as he came with her. He held her bottom steady, slammed his cock into her and kept it there while the jet of seed shot up into her womb and the growls and groans of his joy filled her

ears. While his body still shuddered in the grip of his massive climax, she remembered his wound and pressed her trembling tongue to the punctures to heal them. Then she collapsed on his chest, smiling secretly under cover of her hair, because finally, she fully understood the sexual pleasure of the feed which had always eluded her before. Past glimpses of her fellow vampires screwing their prey while they drank were more comprehensible now. For Katia, there had never been joy like this, neither before nor after her change. Slowly, she pushed the hair back from her own face, so that she could see his. He was smiling too. She felt his hand in her hair, stroking. “Bizarre,” he whispered. “Totally bizarre. You are amazing.” “No, it’s you who are amazing. And bizarre. Do you have any idea what I could have done to you?” The smile faded, but slowly, lingering in his intense blue eyes like a pleasure that wouldn’t die. “But you didn’t,” he said seriously. “Did you?”

Chapter Seven

When David woke, he had no idea of the time. The lamp still burned, but Katia’s crypt was totally cut off from the world outside and even the faint variations between night and day were not visible in here. There were many things he needed to talk to her about, not least about how breaking up the cloud would affect her and her people. Instead, he just watched her sleeping face as she curled into his shoulder as trusting as a child. But it had been no child he held in his arms all those hours. It was a vital, passionate woman who answered his every desire, spoken and unspoken and even a few he hadn’t known he possessed. Unconsciously, he touched his neck with his fingertips, remembering her bite, the incredible pain and pleasure of her sucking while they made love. For some reason, he’d known she wouldn’t kill him or damage him -- and yet so lost was he in the throes of this astounding passion that he wasn’t sure the threat of death would have made a blind bit of difference. He had wanted all of her, including her bite. His cock stirred, growing against her naked thigh. As if she felt it in her sleep, she smiled. A sudden rush of tenderness paralyzed him, almost stopped his breathing. She had once observed that he would die for his brother. And he hoped it was true. But God, how much more did it apply now to her? This was total madness. It had always been -- the groundless belief that she wouldn’t hurt him in that first encounter, his subsequent, obsessive search for her, his desperation, his need to hold her in his arms, make love to her, make her his. His eyes closed. She wasn’t his. Amazing, beautiful, sexy as sin itself and more passionate than anyone

he’d ever known. But she was wild, untamable, utterly and fiercely her own creature. The loneliness he had sensed in her, that called to his, made no difference. Vampires were solitary creatures. It was amazing enough that she had let him sleep in her bed once. Vampires weren’t capable of relationships. Max is. Max sleeps every night at April’s side, as together as Will and Lara… But April was amazing too in her own way. She was powerful, a lupi. David had never had any difficulty in attracting women, only in leaving them when it was time to move on -- as it always was in the end. Yet to his exotic lover, he must seem pathetically ordinary. She had been lonely and needy and he had been there. This experience was a gift, a beautiful, wonderful gift that he should accept as such and move on before she changed her mind and killed him anyway. He let his fingertips trail across her smooth, taut cheek. He still didn’t believe she’d kill him. Moving his head, he softly kissed her lips. “Katia, I have to go.” Her eyelids didn’t flutter. They opened smoothly and her eyes stared directly into his. There was a pause while he tried and failed to read her expression. Then she said only, “I know.” “I promised Will I’d try and help with an electricity generator. And a radio. And Max’s project…” “You have many commitments,” she agreed distantly. Although she didn’t appear to have moved, she was no longer touching him. David wanted to take her back into his arms, kiss her until she gave off the same heat that had consumed him before. His cock was already one step ahead. Please ask me to stay. One word from you and I’ll consign Will and all his works to second place forever… Katia said nothing. David’s lip quirked upward. It was the best smile he could manage. He slid out of her bed and reached for his clothes. He saw no reason to hide his arousal from her. If anything, he hoped it would encourage her to jump him. It didn’t. She simply lay in bed and watched him silently. It should have shriveled him. Instead it made him even harder. With relief, he shrugged on the big coat that covered all his sins and slung the bag over his shoulder. Only then did he remember. Opening the bag, he took out the wine bottle inside and walked back toward the couch. “I came to give you this,” he said, laying it on the pillow beside her. “It’s one I found down south.” Her expression never changed. Nor did her eyes leave his. “Perhaps,” he said with rare difficulty, “you’ll share it with me some time.” Something flickered in her eyes, a glimmer of light and pain before the shield came down once more. “Perhaps,” she agreed. Slowly, because she was unpredictable now, he reached out and took her hand. He kissed her palm once, curling her fist around it as if that would somehow hold his affection. Then he turned and left her.

*** Because his mind was taken up with thoughts of Katia, it took a while before he registered the trouble in the street. Even then, he would have paid it no attention. Lara was there, and a few of her men, keeping things in order, but it looked uglier than anything he had seen since he came home. And at the centre of it was the old man he had met before. Complaining about the loss of his grandchild. Two of the policemen had him between them, while Lara faced down the crowd who appeared to be objecting to the old one’s arrest. Something about him tugged at David’s memory. Frowning, he pushed his way through the throng until he caught Lara’s eye. “Everything OK?” he shouted. “Sure,” she said, with rather more confidence than he was sure she actually felt. “Some misunderstanding. About a conspiracy to steal this gentleman’s grandchild.” The crowd quieted as if to hear this conversation. David recognized some of the people there. One man grinned at him. “Hey, it’s the Archaeologist! Found anything interesting, today, Davie boy?” “Well, I think I might…” He turned to the old man, casually offering his hand. “Hello again.” Surprised, one of the lupi policemen released the man’s arm, so that he could shake David’s. Frowning with the effort of remembrance, the old man said, “Do you know what happened to the child? Did you find him?” “I don’t know,” David said cautiously. “But I think we can help. I think we all can. Remind me -- who did you say had taken the child.” “A vampire,” the old man said defiantly. “And a wolf! A lupi.” David looked at Lara. She was frowning. “He didn’t say that before. He said it washis child, and he never mentioned a lupi…” “He’s a little confused,” David said dryly. “And somewhat -- inhibited I suspect by the presence of so many lupi to object to his accusations.” “He’s been stirring up quite a riot here,” Lara said grimly. “I think,” David said cautiously, “because no one will listen to him otherwise. A lupi and a vampire… mean anything to you?” “Yes, but they wouldn’t…” Lara began impatiently. Then, abruptly, her mouth closed. “Shit.” “In the den?” David asked quietly, and she nodded once. David turned to the old man. “Will you come with me? I think your grandson is safe and I can show you where.” ***

It took a while before the mob would let him come. But Lara had not managed crowds in the Dome City for years without learning anything, and in the end, the old man’s neighbor -- who had previously paid no attention to his complaints at all! -- accompanied them to the school. On the way, David had time to wish he could initiate telepathic communication with his brother, but the first contact always had to be from Will. However, there had obviously been some sort of communication, for as they approached the school, he saw Will emerge with a lupi couple he knew well -- and a child. *** Katia needed to get out. Her home smelled of David. Her bed, the very air smelled of him. She liked it that way, yet right now, she couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bear that the faint scent was all of him that was left. She couldn’t bear that it was over. He couldn’t wait to go. The bottle of wine and a vague offer to drink it with her some time couldn’t make up for that. He had brought her to life again only to break her heart. The dull grey that passed for daylight was beginning to give way to blackness again as she emerged from her crypt. Weirdly, she thought she could still smell him in the air. And since she had nothing better to do, she followed her nose. It led her westward, skirting the worst criminal and mutant areas until she came upon a small crowd of people who seemed to be working themselves up into a frenzy. David was not among them. And yet his scent still lingered. She began to think the smell was still on her body, in her essence. Either that or her imagination. A small, crippled man who had done her bidding in the past skulked around the edges of the crowd, wary of getting involved yet drawn to the excitement. Katia summoned him with a look. The little man brightened immeasurably, almost dancing toward her. “What’s going on? Where are these fools going?” “They’re following the Archaeologist.” Something jolted in her stomach, fearful, primal. “He took old George to find his lost grandson -- satisfied most of them, who went home… only the hardliners are left. They’re saying now that the Archaeologist is Will’s brother and a lupi lover, and so is in on the conspiracy…” “What conspiracy?” “Of the vampires and the lupi to keep his grandson from him.” Katia stared at him. “Why the hell would they do that?” “No idea. It’s all in his mind. His family was killed -- addled him even more than before… The rest of them -- reaction to unaccustomed authority, I suppose. Fear of giving up power to another species…”

“What power?” Katia sneered. Already moving away, she inhaled the scent of David, followed it. She paused briefly. “And by the way. We’re all the same species. Scary as it is to imagine.” *** Katia had no doubt that she could beat the mob to David, and once she was with him, no power on earth could harm him. In fact, she toyed briefly with the idea of dispersing them first, violently, before they even got to him. Stupidly, the only thing turning her from that plan was the notion that David himself would disapprove of it. After all, he and his brother were trying to bring the rule of law back to the city. So, in the wake of his footsteps she sped past them, a small noisy group, stirring up everyone they passed and collecting new supporters on the way. Fear for him still twisted through her with a sharpness none of her brain’s logic could assuage. Especially when she realized where he had gone. The lupi den, the old school. Some lupihad taken the child, then, though for what purpose, Katia couldn’t imagine. David would want to put that right -- though at what cost? If this stupid mob didn’t get to him, would the lupi themselves not turn on him for this betrayal? And how would that sit with Will’s new law? It didn’t make any sense. Lately, it seemed, nothing in Katia’s life made any sense. The old school had been repaired -- its once ruined side buildings rebuilt. Red-scarved lupi now guarded it all, lounging at ease around the recently erected gate. They nodded at her amiably enough as she approached. Of course, they couldn’t smell her. Vampires evaded their sharp senses. She paused in front of them, realizing they would let her in. She wouldn’t even need to damage either of them. For a moment she regarded them thoughtfully. Behind the calm mask, her heart was thundering, because she knew David was in there. She could smell him. The desire to see him, to be with him and stand at his side when the danger threatened almost overwhelmed her. And yet she schooled her face to show none of that. “Can I help you?” one of the lupi enquired politely. “Actually yes.” Now that she’d decided on her course of action, she could relax. Couldn’t she? “Can you take a message from me to Will?” Though they both looked slightly startled by this request, they nodded. “Thank you… Tell him that Katia says…” “Katia?” She whirled, angry at herself for not paying enough attention to sense the newcomers. She really had to pull herself together. Max and the little blond lupi -- April? -- had emerged from the side wing of the building. “Max,” she sighed, transferring her gaze to the lupi girl who regarded her with more curiosity than hostility. “Don’t let me keep you.” The girl said, “Are you looking for David?” If Katia had been human, she would have blushed. “No. I was only sending a message to Will. I thought he might like to know there’s a bit of a mob heading over here to retrieve some -- er -- stolen child.”

The girl opened her mouth, some disparagement almost formed there. Then she closed it again. One of the lupi guards said, “The one Old George has been going on about for weeks? No one pays him any attention.” “Actually,” said the girl ruefully, “they do. Katia -- you’d better come in.” She could have walked away. No one would have tried to stop her and if they had it would have made no difference. Instead, under the expectant gaze of the lupi and the challenging mockery of Max, she chose to walk through the school gate. Entering the school, she was geared up to face David. Instead, the first creature to catch her eye was a large, silver wolf loping across the hall toward her. She could feel the others watching her, their wary reaction to the vampire. They all knew what she was now, she could feel it. She paused. With the wolf were a lupi man and woman. The man carried a child about a year old. “The missing baby,” Katia observed, still watching the wolf. “Hello, Will.” April laughed. “How did you know?” “I can smell him,” said Katia indifferently. “Satisfy my curiosity. Why did they take a human baby?” “They didn’t,” said April. “Max and I took him. His parents had been murdered. I thought I was doing a good deed. I never thought of there being other family to care for him. And now Jane and Lawrence are -- rather attached to him themselves.” “Messy,” said Katia, keeping her voice deliberately careless. Her gaze was on Will. “And what are you planning to do with the mob coming for him? Or for David, or you, I don’t suppose they remember by now their original intention.” “The mob isn’t a problem,” April said, touching her arm to urge her forward. Katia drew back. She had come to speak to Will. Through there might be all sorts of things she didn’t want to see or think about. Like David. April said, “Please come this way. Trust me, you don’t want Will to change and talk to you. He’ll be naked and he’s such an exhibitionist.” Katia almost laughed. Instead, she chose to follow April, pausing only long enough to murmur, “Bad dog,” to the wolf. She heard the hiss of laughter between Max’s teeth. Of Will’s reaction, she was ignorant. “Why,” she began, as they went through a door into a distantly familiar kind of school corridor, “is the mob not a problem?” “We know about them already. Like you, the lupi are telepathic to varying degrees.” “I’m not,” Katia said at once. It was an ability she had long ago squashed. She had no desire to hear the thoughts of others, still less to share her own.

“You are,” said Max briefly. “If you nurture it, you can communicate with whoever you choose to.” They passed an open door. Inside, two people, a human woman and a lupi man, were working on what looked like a computer’s innards. “Where are we going?” Katia asked. “To see Old George. He’s in here.” She threw open the next door, adding un-necessarily, “With David.”

Chapter Eight

David was balanced on the windowsill, threading an electrical wire through a small hole. At the sound of April’s voice, he turned immediately. And his smile was instantaneous. He dropped his arms, jumping down from the sill. “Katia,” he said, such warmth and softness in his voice that something in her stomach melted. It’s relief, just relief because at least he isn’t appalled to see you here… Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of anything to say. It was George, sitting at a table in front of a largely dissected engine, who broke the silence. “You’re a vampire,” he observed. “I’ve met you before.” “You’ve accused me before,” she said indifferently, turning back to April. “And I’m here because…?” April shrugged. “Because David’s been talking to George. About what to do with the child. George has already seen the baby, and talked to Jane and Lawrence. So…” April walked forward to David, who seemed to be gazing only at Katia. It made her warm and excited and very, very frightened. “What have you decided?” April asked. “We think there’s a working space elevator in the north,” David said vaguely. April made a clicking sound of impatience with her tongue. Max said, “Really?” Katia let herself be amused. It eased the tension in her stomach. “And the child?” she prompted. George said ruefully, “I can’t care for a child. I’d like to see him growing up, and Jane and Lawrence are quite happy for me to visit. He’s better with their family. Better for all of us -- teach us some understanding and tolerance.”

Katia closed her mouth. “What have you done to him?” she demanded. David’s smile was twisted. “I listened.” “He’s good at that,” April observed. And Katia realized it was true. He never talkedat people. He didn’t even say very much. But he did listen. All George needed, it seemed, was someone to hear him as a person rather than as a lunatic, someone to understand and explain without prejudice. The difference in the old man, however temporary, was startling. It was a gift, Katia acknowledged. One far greater than telepathy or shapeshifting or living forever on a little stolen blood. What a pity she couldn’t bear his gift to her -- the gift of her own lost humanity. She said only, “Will the mob buy that?” April shrugged. “Of course they will. A mixture of Lara’s stick and George’s carrot.” She turned as if to leave the room, but paused to say over her shoulder, “By the way, Davie -- I’m pretty sure she came to save your thick hide. Hey, Will, nice to see you with your clothes on.” With the last, she scampered laughing past the lupi leader who stood in the doorway, his long, silver-blond hair glinting in the corridor’s flaring torch light. He was, Katia acknowledged, a very beautiful man. Yet he didn’t move her as his brother did. David. Always David… Will said, “Ignoring April -- thank you for coming.” “Hell, I was passing,” said Katia. “I expect the favor returned.” “What can I do for you?” he asked at once. “Well, you could keep your ‘police’ off my back when I go out for dinner.” For the first time, she saw a glint of amusement in his eyes. It was like a reflection of David’s. “Actually, we did want to talk to you about that.” “About what?” “A safe food source for vampires.” Katia said, “We’ve got one. It’s called the club.” Will nodded. Of course, he knew exactly what went on there. “That’s why we haven’t tried to close down that side of its operation. Would you -- do you think your fellow vampires would -- consider alternative methods?” “He means, would you drink stored blood from a cup rather than direct from a throat,” Max explained impatiently. “She’ll do antique glasses,” David observed.

Katia couldn’t look at him. With difficulty, she focused still on Will. “You’re offering to feed us?” “I want -- the Council wants -- to find a way for us all not only to survive but to thrive together.” Katia said slowly, “I think you’re a step or so ahead of the majority, Will.” Will shrugged. “Not really. It’s surprising how fast things move forward when you reduce the fear.” Maybe I need the fear… To cover her own confusion, she glanced at Max. “Do you go along with this?” “I don’t kill. Veins or flasks -- all one to me,” said Max indifferently. “But I’ve warned Will against driving the vampires into a corner where they start to kill more instead of less.” “Most vampires don’t kill now. It’s just plain stupid to exterminate your food source.” “Then you’ll help spread that particular word?” Will suggested. Katia said, “What will you do? Distribute bottles of blood from your food distribution centers?” “Don’t see why not. It’s all sustenance to someone.” “And what about the hunting instinct? You have it too.” “It can be channeled.” And the joy of feeding? Of sucking the blood from a warm vein… Unbidden, she remembered drinking from David while she drove herself onto his cock and fell into the most astounding orgasm of her life… “You can drink from him, occasionally, like a treat, if he likes it. I drink from April and believe me, it’s enough. It’s more than you’ll ever want again.” It was Max’s voice. But she was staring at Max and his mouth didn’t move. She felt her eyes widen. Fuck . “You never used to be able to do that.” “Telepathy?” said Will, glancing from one to the other. “You’re latent. So is David. We can communicate if I initiate it. One more thing, Katia…” Christ, could she take any more? With the talk of blood, she could hear David’s pumping through his veins. He was standing right beside her now, his body heat palpable. She wanted his hardness pressed into her naked body. She wanted him to make love to her again, fuck her while she fed from him. And after that she wanted… A wave of desolation swept over her. An interminable life without the only person who had come to mean anything in it. She mustn’t build up false hopes of him, they’d only destroy her.

She had to get out of here. But first, Will’s one more thing… “From your knowledge -- scientific and other -- do you believe the sun would be any threat to your people?” Against her will, Katia was drawn in. She gazed at Max. “That’s what you’re doing with them. You’re going to disperse the cloud.” He shrugged. “I’m going to try.” “And vampires are adapted to deal with its absence…” Involuntarily, she touched her own, alabaster face. “I would suggest we cover up as much skin as possible. And manufacture a lot of sun screen. But I hardly think we’ll burst into flames or disintegrate. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a dinner date.” “You might like to wait a bit,” Will said mildly. “Your mob is at the gate.” *** Already prepared for an anti-climax, Katia was surprised by how fascinating she found the next half hour. Will and David went out, with Jane and George and the baby visible but safely behind the gate. April went too to explain her motives, while Lara and her officers hovered unobtrusively, everywhere from the roof down. No way was a mob getting its unpredictable hand on the child. The brothers had them sitting down and chatting within minutes. By the end of half an hour they were laughing. They drifted off in ones and twos, taking George with them, but leaving the baby with Jane. The danger was averted. That was anti-climax, Katia supposed, and she was denied the opportunity to fight and protect her lover… Lover. She met David in the hall as he came back in with Will and the others. As though surprised, Will said, “Are you going?” “Yes.” She pushed between them. She couldn’t look at David. She couldn’t bear his indifference. “Can I come?” His voice behind her made her stop, but she didn’t turn. “Why?” “A glass of wine?” Her eyes closed. Then, opening them, she said, “There is a bottle,” and walked on toward the door. Though she didn’t hear him move, David was there to open it for her. They walked together through the city. In the blackness of the night, Katia’s vision was clearer than David’s, but there seemed to be more light now, odd pockets of electrical lamps, or torches clamped in brackets on walls. More changes. David said, “Max wants me to find him the tether.”

She didn’t ask what it was. “To release his ionized gasses into the atmosphere?” “That’s his plan.” “Is there such a thing?” “Well, that’s why it was so fortuitous running into George. Max knew they’d started building one -apparently on his advice. And in some of the papers I found, there is reference to its completion -- only they kept its location secret, and it was never used. Things obviously got out of hand round about then. But… turns out George actually worked on the construction team.” “Is he telling the truth?” “The truth as he remembers it,” David said cautiously. “He has some kind of dementia and his memory’s unreliable, but it ties in… I think I can find it from his description, see what state it’s in… Do you want to come with me?” Her graceful feet stumbled. She had been expecting to be let down gently. She had thought he was opening an excuse to leave her, because he was basically a nice man. She said shakily, “I can’t leave the city.” “Yes you can. You tried before, didn’t you? You got as far as the university store outside the city, where I first met you, and then you were afraid to go on. In case there was no food. In case life was even worse somewhere else.” And in case I never saw you again. She closed her eyes, as much against her own self-knowledge as against his insight, and felt his arm on her shoulder. “There’s no shame in that, you know.” She shook him off. “Stop being kind to me. I could kill you where you stand! I could kill you any time, just from a touch of PMS! You are a gnat to me, David, a gnat!” Oh Christ, why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? Why did she insult him just as she was beginning to trust him…? “Bollocks,” said David. She stopped in her tracks. “What?” “Bollocks. You didn’t come to the lupi den to preserve the life of a gnat you could have crushed any time the previous night. Or the next morning. Don’t get me wrong, Katia, I’m a modest man, but for some reason you don’t find me as ordinary as I find myself. Any more than I find you as scary as you think you are. That’s the bollocks. None of it matters if…” “If what?” she whispered. He touched her hair, pushing its weight behind her shoulder. “If you still have my bottle of wine.”

She couldn’t help it. She laughed. *** By the time they reached the broken graveyard, Katia was swamped with anticipation. There was wetness between her thighs, a tightness in her stomach that had very little to do with blood hunger and all to do with the feel of his fingers on her hand, softly stroking the sensitive skin between her thumb and forefinger as they walked up the hill. And the sway of his hips, and the sight of his long legs striding out with surefooted, easy grace… She loved watching him. And yet she ached to touch him. As they came up to her crypt, she cleared her throat to try and prevent her voice from shaking. “Do you want to come in or will I bring the wine out?” She heard his breath catch. “Neither,” he said. “Not yet.” And she was in his arms, his mouth on hers with enough intensity to make her sob. She was strong, far stronger than he, and yet the force of his passion made her stumble back until she fell against the crypt wall. He followed, pressing his hips into her, grinding. She felt his cock, already hard as steel, against her abdomen and wriggled to fit it between her legs, emitting a tiny moan of satisfaction when it did. Holding her with his hips, he cupped her breasts in both hands, grunting with obvious pleasure as his fingers found the hardness of her nipples. But clearly, he wanted more. Breaking the kiss, he pulled apart the top of her suit and slid one hand inside. She thought she would die of pleasure, just at the feel of his warm fingers on her naked breast. Freeing it, he turned to the other until they were both exposed. One he caressed with his hand. The other he covered with his mouth, sucking alternately hard and soft. Gasping with the joy of it, Katia fisted her hands in his hair. She wanted to bite his neck, suck his blood as he sucked her nipple, yet she couldn’t bring herself to change this moment of pleasure, even for another. And when at last he stopped of his own will, he lifted his head, saying raggedly, “You’re the only wine I need. I want to make love to you again.” She seized his face between her hands. “You don’t need to love. Just fuck.” “I can fuck anyone. You, I love.” Her throat closed up with emotion. She could do nothing but kiss him, latching her mouth to his and thrusting with her tongue, sweeping it around his mouth and teeth, sucking wildly. His tongue met hers eagerly, tangling, dancing, caressing. He groaned, grinding his cock harder against her. And this time she broke the kiss, pushing him away and leaping upward onto the roof. “All right,” she said breathlessly. “But fuck me anyway.” She heard the laughter catch in his throat, watched him throw himself at the wall, reaching up to the low roof to haul himself up. She didn’t help him, just stood watching him with her hands on her hips, taunting him with her mocking smile and her naked breasts. Leaping to his feet, he gazed at her unmoving for a second. “Christ, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, and reached for her. He pushed the body suit off her shoulders, tugged it from her arms and waist until she stepped out of it, kicking off her boots, until she stood before

him totally naked in the dark chill of the night. Yet she didn’t feel cold. Her whole body burned. She slid her trembling hands up his chest to his shoulders, grasping his coat to take it off. But before she could he whirled her around, dropping to his knees and drawing her with him. His hand on her breast drew her back into him; his other reached around and thrust between her thighs. Her pussy was so wet he could have bathed in it. He groaned, splaying his fingers across all her folds and valleys, and the hard, swollen bud between. She gasped, reaching behind her to his neck, his face. She was so close to the edge her whole body shook. Feeling it, he pushed her forward until her hands on the hard ground supported her weight. He grasped her hips, his cock nudged between her legs, and she moaned, pressing back into him. She heard his breathless, triumphant laugh and then he thrust his cock home. She cried out at the feel of it, massive within her, its force bringing so much pleasure that the pain of his roughness was wiped out. “Again?” he demanded raggedly. “Again,” she said fervently. “And then again and again and… ah!” She cried out once more as he began to fuck her hard, fast and furious, pounding into her so that his heavy balls smacked against her, and he had to hold her steady to bear the force of it. It was wild and she gloried in it, pushing back into him, writhing and twisting on his cock. All the while, strange, animal noises she barely recognized as her own squeezed from her lips. She didn’t care. She only cared for the feel of his cock, hammering her to a huge, overwhelming climax. It made her scream out into the night, a long, ecstatic howl while he pushed into her pussy one last time to reach his own orgasm. He fell forward over her with a bellow of pleasure, his hands roaming crazily over her breasts and closing, pulling her nipples in his ecstasy, dragging her into him as their bliss held them captive and helpless. Just at the end, he slid one hand lower to cover her pussy, pressing hard, and despite everything, she pushed back, shuddering. His fingers probed, finding her clitoris and stirring, bringing her back up there, while he closed his mouth over hers and kissed her long and deeply. When she could speak at all, she said breathlessly, “I’ve heard of fucking with your boots on, but this is ridiculous.” “Sexy though. At least you are.” “Are you going to keep them on all night?” “Is that an invitation?” “It’s an invitation to take them off. Along with the rest of your clothes.” He smiled, nuzzling her face. “Will you scream again?” “Only to encourage you.” His smile widened as he kissed her again. “I love you.”

She closed her eyes tightly.And God knows I love you … “Good,” he said against her lips. She drew back. “What?” He said, “You spoke in my head. Like Will does. Only he doesn’t say anything half as sweet.” “Oh Christ, David, what is happening to my life?” He smiled. “Fun,” he said simply. She stared at him. She thought of the last few days, of what they’d just done and all the possibilities of the night ahead. Of lots of nights ahead, and days too. Of going with him into the unknown, a new adventure in search of the tether and the sun. And she was forced to agree. Slowly, she sank back into his arms. Bring it on!

Marie Treanor

Marie Treanor was born and brought up in Scotland, but for some years moved around the UK working and studying. Now she is back home and happily married with three young children. Having grown bored with city life, she lives these days in a picturesque village by the sea where she is lucky enough to enjoy herself avoiding housework and writing stories of romance and fantasy. You can find out more about Marie and her books on her website: www.marietreanor.com, and by subscribing to her newsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marietreanornewsletter. She also shares the Sexy Delights loop with fellow Scottish author Kyla Logan. Find out more at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sexydelights. Marie loves to hear from readers, who can contact her at [email protected].