Loving the Vampire

Loving the Vampire Marie Treanor All rights reserved. Copyright ©2007 Marie Treanor Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. ISBN: 978-1-59596-608-7 Formats Available: HTML, Adobe PDF, MobiPocket, Microsoft Reader Publisher: Changeling Press LLC PO Box 1046 Martinsburg, WV 25402-1046 www.ChangelingPress.com Editor: Crystal Esau Cover Artist: Karen Fox

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Chapter One In the midst of a fight, a non-combatant is a rarity. In this particular battle, he was inexplicable. He stood at ease, high up on the ruined church roof, leaning his shoulder against the broken spire, a black, still silhouette against the eternal dusk of the sky. Only his coat seemed to move in the breeze. April’s first thought was that he was one of the hunters, a sniper awaiting his moment. And the hunters had guns. Several wounded lupi would testify to that, including the one who lay writhing in agony at her feet while she staunched his bleeding. Fortunately, the hunters were all disarmed now, dispersed or taken. Apart from the one on the church roof. Having lost the battle, his intent must surely be assassination. Will. Tugging the makeshift bandage tight, April swung round to shout a warning. At the same time, she drew the sling from her pocket and fitted her last hand-picked stone into it. It was a long shot, and a difficult angle, but she thought she could do it. As she took careful aim, his head moved in her direction. However, fortune smiled, because he clearly despised her skill, not even troubling to crouch down. April swung the sling around her head, three times, and released the missile. It flew true -- high, fast and accurate. She thought at first she’d hit him. His body seemed to sway backwards, but beyond that he didn’t stir. He certainly didn’t fall. Hastily, she looked around her for cover. Lara and Craig were carrying the wounded lupi back inside the old school that had become their den. Although the fighting had stopped, the battle zone heaved with organized chaos as the victorious lupi celebrated in raucous song and laughter. Some marched their prisoners toward the school. Wounded hunters and lupi were carted off and in among it, the odd scavenger poked around for food, or for something to sell. Inevitable squabbles broke out over the spoils. Will was nowhere to be seen. April knew him well enough to realize he wasn ’t off celebrating his victory. He could reemerge any time and probably would, if only to put an end to the scavenging, and then the sniper would… The sniper, however, did not appear to be armed. Which made him not much of a sniper. Frowning, April stared up at him. She couldn’t tell the direction of his gaze, but he didn’t seem to be an immediate threat. Certainly, he made no retaliation against her… So what the hell was he doing there? A rogue lupi, waiting to see which way the wind would blow? Someone from the city just out to watch the spectacle? The ordinary city dwellers had stayed away. They had been notable by their absence on either side. Jack had thought they might join the hunters, though April could have told him otherwise. They were far too afraid of the lupi for that. Jack’s hunters had been largely strangers and incomers like himself, plus the odd crusading nutter from the city. They didn’t understand the people of this city any more than they did the creatures they tried to kill. As the thoughts swept through April’s brain, she was already running toward the church. She paused only long enough to grab a few more stones from the ground, and sped the rest of the way with the sling grasped ready in one hand. In the other she held the knife she always carried. She hadn’t used it today. She preferred to bring down her opponents at a distance with the sling. Besides, she couldn’t help feeling it wasn’t truly her fight. It was Will’s, and to a lesser extent her father’s. On the other hand, she did care about her friends, particularly Will, which was why she chose now to deal with the watching stranger herself. That, and sheer curiosity. If her quarry saw her coming, he made no move either to hide or to meet her. The last she saw of him before making her way inside the church, he still stood in the same place, his coat billowing around his knees. The inside of the church was gutted. At the front, a door had been ripped off its hinges, providing April with a glimpse into a small, wrecked, slightly charred office. She could see it in the pale, flickering glow of several candles and a burning torch spread around the church. Someone was living here. At the back, where April entered, the spiral stairs leading up to the bell tower were almost completely rotted. The wood left couldn’t bear much weight. Clearly, discretion here was the better part of valor. Placing one wary foot on the first step, April called out, “Hey, you up there! Come down!” Let him break his legs instead. Not surprisingly, nothing happened. It seemed the idiot must have broken all the stairs getting up there, and was now stuck. April aimed her sling at the circle of grey gloom above her head. “Did you hear me, Shit-for-Brains? I said, get down here! Slowly, or I’ll knock your head off.” “I am down here,” said a cool, soft voice behind her, causing her to whirl around and lose her footing on the rickety step. Instinctively, she grabbed at the wall for support and dropped her sling. Oh bugger! But there’s still the knife… The man stood quite still, only a few feet away. His coat was made of black leather, long and luxuriant. His gaze followed

the bouncing sling, then rose slowly up to hers. Something jerked in the region of her stomach -- something like fear, or perhaps recognition, though of what or whom she couldn’t begin to work out. He was tall, lean and pale even by the city’s standards. Oddly translucent skin stretched tautly over fine, high cheekbones, a straight, arrogant nose and strong, slightly pointed chin. On his broad forehead was a faint discoloration, like a fading bruise -the only blemish she could find. His lips, which began to smile faintly, were thin, yet looked almost sculpted into a perfect shape. And his eyes -- his eyes were dark brown, the kind that are meant to be soft and warm, like a dog’s or a seal’s. They weren’t. April shivered. He said, “Although I hesitate to answer to -- er -- Shit-for-Brains.” “Well, what do you expect to be called when you stand on top of a rotting roof in the middle of a fight? Who are you and what are you doing here?” “I’d like to ask you the same questions.” “Yes? But I’m the one with the knife.” “Good point,” he acknowledged, watching April stroke the weapon with one loving finger. “Concisely made.” April didn’t take her eyes off him. He was too still, too poised, and though she couldn ’t smell him, every other sense shrieked danger. He stirred, though only to lean his shoulder casually against the wall. The flickering torchlight shadowed his face, emphasizing the unspoken threat. He kept his gaze on her too. Cold, hard eyes, and yet April was sure she could read mocking amusement there. Perhaps she was meant to. But worse than that there was a weird, devastating attraction to his person. To put it bluntly, he was sexy as hell. Even his voice… “My name is Max and I was watching the -- er -- fight.” “Why?” His arched eyebrows lifted slightly. “I wanted to see who would win.” “And were you pleased by the outcome?” He laughed, a faint hissing sound against his gleaming white teeth. “No.” “Then you are a hunter?” “You could call me that. But then we’re all hunters in this city, aren’t we?” “One way or another,” April allowed, “but we don’t all hunt lupi with the sole purpose of extermination.” “Yes, that is ungentlemanly.” Stung by his levity, April snapped, “If you’re not one of Jack’s boys, what are you doing here? Do you want the lupi dead too? And another thing, how did you get down from the tower so fast?” He smiled slightly but didn’t answer. His eyes left hers, dropping to her lips, her throat and the rest of her body in a way that made her wish she was better covered. Body-hugging stretch jeans and a vest might have been all right in the heat of battle, but now that she was alone with a large, insolent stranger, they no longer seemed terribly suitable. Annoyingly, her body heated under his gaze, and yet her nipples hardened against the fabric of her top as if she were cold. “I’m waiting!” she snapped. His gaze came unhurriedly back to hers. She had no way of knowing if he liked what he saw. Again he smiled. “Little wolf,” he said softly, “I don’t need to answer your questions.” He spoke the insult like a caress, inflaming her twice over. She took an angry step closer, brandishing the knife. “What the hell makes you think that?” Ignoring the weapon’s threat, he leaned forward against it until she almost felt his breath tickling her cheek. Every tiny hair stood up on the back of her neck. She inhaled his scent and again got -- nothing. Yet her other senses went into overdrive. Her breath caught in fear and a sudden rush of unwelcome, overwhelming desire. He said, “I’m bigger than you are.” And straightening, he turned on his heel and walked out of the church. Totally enraged by this blatant disrespect, she launched herself after him, cannoning into his legs in a flying tackle that brought them both to the ground. Fortunately, April landed on top and surprise kept him immobile long enough for her to twist his arm up his back and lay her knife lovingly along the side of his throat. “But I’m tougher,” she said, “and less stupid.”

*** Meanly, April wanted to push him inside the lupi den, so that he fell and provided her with an entrance. She wanted to punish him for something. For having such a tall, straight back and a loose, graceful stride so enticingly controlled, like a cat’s… Watching him from behind during the short walk from the ruined church, she had found herself wondering what was beneath the long, leather coat he wore. Surely a good, tight arse, muscled and… “Hey, April, what have you got there?” It was Will, coming quickly toward them with his arm loosely around Lara. With relief, April lowered her knife and stowed it in her jeans pocket.

“Don’t know. Calls himself Max. Found him spying from the roof across the road. He isn’t armed.” But he’d watched her mockingly as she’d checked and only smiled when she discovered the semi-hardness between his legs. April had pretended not to notice either of those reactions, merely signaling for him to move forward. But once behind him, she knew her face flamed. His hardness turned her on, because it could only be for her. Will paused before the stranger. Two tall men sizing each other up. Unexpectedly, Will said, “Nice coat.” The stranger smiled. “Thanks. Finest wolf hide.” April’s breath caught. A sudden silence fell in the bustling room. All the lupi looked up from whatever they were doing and then an angry mutter began to ripple toward her prisoner. But Will only smiled back at him. “Liar. Don’t I know you?” “No, but I know you.” Max glanced about him. Calmed by Will’s response, the lupi all returned to the tasks in hand -cooking, eating, sorting weapons, tending wounded, standing watch by the broken windows. The stranger brought his gaze back to Will’s. “Leader of the pack,” he mocked. “Again. But will they still need you now the battle is over?” So he was aware that the hunters’ threat had given Will his chance to reclaim leadership of the lupi. Why did that make her even more uneasy? Will said, “It wasn’t really a battle. More of a…” He smiled, his gaze flickering to Lara. “… police exercise.” His nostrils twitched once. The stranger’s thin lips curled. “Getting my scent, wolf?” Will’s breath caught. “No. April, move away from him. Craig, I need rope.” “Surely not to tie me up?” mocked the stranger. “I apologize if it breaks the rules of hospitality you’re used to. But I’m afraid I don’t trust vampires.” Vampires? April’s mouth fell open. No scent. She’d got no scent from him at all, and she should have, even unchanged like this. There was latent threat in every movement he made -- and didn’t make. And yet… The stranger’s eyes flickered once to her and she closed her mouth with a snap. Will had hooked an old chair with his foot and dragged it to Max. Obligingly, the “vampire” sat in it, saying conversationally, “Is that not an unfair prejudice in someone expecting equal rights for lupi?” Whatever he was, he seemed to know all about Will. Will shrugged. “I’m willing to be proved wrong. But I’ve never yet met a vampire with any moral values whatsoever. You count no one a friend and see no one that is not a meal. I’m not saying it’s your fault, but when you have to kill to survive it makes other species suspicious.” “Moral values? In this city? My dear Will, why single out vampires? Even you are hardly above criticism. When I last saw you, you were mating with the little wolf here. And yet here you are now, smelling of this -- woman.” His eyes fell thoughtfully on Lara, who merely raised her eyebrows at him and sneered as only Lara could. Max laughed. Unable to keep silent, April blurted, “But he can’t be a vampire!” “Why can’t he?” asked Lara, the newcomer to the city. “If you guys can be werewolves, I see no problem whatsoever with vampires, zombies, killer squids, creatures from the black lagoon…” “He isn’t strong enough,” April interrupted. “I know I took him by surprise, but he couldn’t put up much of a fight. And he didn’t even try to feed from me. Vampires are supposed to be five times as strong as men -- at least twice as strong as lupi.” She didn’t look at the stranger as she spoke. His aura was all strength and arrogance and, stupidly, it seemed almost like betrayal to reveal the truth. Lupi were far stronger than ordinary humans, and April had long ago learned how to look after herself. But taking Max had been too easy. Will said quietly, “He doesn’t have the strength because he hasn’t fed recently. Look at him -- even for his kind he’s skin and bone. Which makes him all the more dangerous if you get close enough. He must not be untied tonight while we sleep, do you understand?” “Damn,” said the vampire. “And here was I hoping for a banquet. You couldn’t just pass me a wounded hunter?” “Christ,” said April, understanding at last. “That’s what you were waiting there for. To feed on the blood of the dying…” The vampire laughed.

*** April was impatient to be gone, but since she had promised to meet her father here, she felt obliged to hang around. She rarely stayed long with the pack -- they thought it was denial, a refusal to accept what she was. But actually, what April refused to accept was that she had to be like anyone else at all. So she was lupi, a “werewolf” created by some freak of radiation poisoning that occurred during or after the war. That didn’t mean she had to live herded in a shed like cattle. There was some affinity with the others, a recognition, but even more than Will himself, April was a loner. She lived with

her family because she loved them -- but also because she had her own room there, and privacy. She wandered occasionally, especially when the call was strong -- she had even wandered from the city once and traveled south in search of a different, more acceptable life. But all she had found was that a different city didn’t make a different person. And home was still with her human family, not her species. Now she wanted to be gone because of the vampire. Disgust with what he was -- surely the vilest of all the city’s mutant species, a creature who drained the blood of others to live -- warred with shame because her body had certainly warmed to his. Even when her father came, she couldn’t leave immediately, for he brought some other people, men and women from the Council he was forming, and there was a big conference between them that included Will and Lara and herself. The other lupi listened in, mostly quiet, though occasionally one would ask a question that Will either answered or passed to one of the humans. The humans, apart from her father, were wary of being here. Clearly relieved by Will ’s veneer of civilization, they nevertheless looked as if they expected their hosts to transform into wolves at any moment. In fact, only Will, the strongest of them, could do so by choice. It was one of the things that had scared them into rejecting Will last year. The other lupi, including herself, were compelled by what they believed were the phases of the moon, although since the war had permanently darkened the skies, no one could prove it. The humans were particularly interested in Will’s plans to make the lupi enforcers of law and order, although one woman did point out that this would be hard for most people to accept. Lara said, “To be honest, a little fear can only help us at this stage. The lupi are extremely disciplined when they choose. I have experience of law enforcement in the Dome City and I’m more than happy to advise all I can.” “Then you are -- human?” one of them said curiously. “Entirely,” Lara answered calmly. One man leaned forward, a youngish, serious person. “I have different concerns. If the lupi enforce the law, however successfully, and they all -- transform -- for several nights a month, does that not give our massive criminal elements free rein for those nights?” “Well, no,” said Lara, before anyone else could speak. “Whatever form they take, the lupi are more than capable of protection and apprehension. What we might have, of course, is a communication problem on those nights. Now in the beginning I don’t believe this will matter -- you have such major problems here that any clean up, with or without communication, has to be better than nothing. But in the longer term, as things improve, and people begin to understand what is and isn’t acceptable, we will need humans in the force too, to partner and complement the strength of the lupi.” “In fact,” said Will, as the humans took that in with varying degrees of doubt and hope, “I would suggest Lara leads this force.” Henry, April’s father, blinked at that. “That would certainly make the force more agreeable to humans -- but will the lupi accept a human’s command?” April laughed. “Of course they will, when the human concerned is Will’s woman.” For some reason, she glanced across at the vampire. She had noticed him before from time to time, listening in. If he hadn’t been tied to the chair, she could almost have imagined he was the vampire representative on the Council. Now he was looking directly at April, and when she met his gaze his hard eyes lightened unexpectedly. In fact, they almost sparkled. In spite of herself, April’s stomach twisted with sudden desire. She wondered how formidable he was at full strength -- the thought was delicious and terrifying. The muscles in his tied arms flexed. She saw them straining at the ropes and felt almost sorry for him -- until the ropes snapped. The vampire rose to his feet. His bound legs he freed by simply stamping on the chair once. It broke in pieces. The unexpected crashing of the wood drew everyone else’s attention at last, but April was already on her feet, running toward him before she could properly think. The knife was in her hand. Will’s belated warning, “April, no!” rang in her ears as she flew to recapture the vampire. He caught her in his arms like a lover, only he didn’t dally. In the instant April struggled to bring the knife into position, he began to run with her for the door. Craig and two other lupi blocked it. Undeterred, the vampire increased his speed impossibly, sweeping April up off the ground. The next instant, he simply ran up the wall, crashing out through the ceiling in a mighty jump that left April’s stomach several feet below.

Chapter Two The cold, rushing air struck her like a blow. The vampire ran across the roof with astonishing speed, completely unhampered by the burden that was April. Numb, she made no effort to free herself, and by the time she realized he was going to jump, she could do no more than twist uselessly in his arms. Then he leapt off the roof into space. Jesus, I’m going to die . Without permission, her hands clung to him. Well at least I can die in the arms of a man who hasn’t had time to piss me off . Hysterical laughter rose up in her throat and choked off with the jolt of landing. And then she was flying through the air once more as he ran over the more rickety, semi-vanished roof of the next building. It seemed she was not going to die today. Or at least not yet. The ride was exhilarating, crazy, like being swung round in circles by her father when she was a child, like running alone and free through the city the first time she had changed, like surrendering to the dizziness after a wild orgasm -- all these rolled into one. It helped that she couldn’t do a thing about it except hold on for the duration. If she killed him at the wrong time, she ’d die too. Besides, it might have been a weird way to have fun, but fun it undoubtedly was. Struggling against the force of the air, she turned her face up to see him. His cold, sculpted features were perfect, the dark eyes which gazed into the distance unreadable. Only the slightly parted lips seemed to hint at any sort of emotion or exertion. There was a faint bruise on his head, the only obvious injury from crashing through the lupi’s ceiling. Pressed into the hardness of his chest as he ran, April could feel the pumping of his legs, the flexing of his shoulder and chest muscles against her breasts. Her nipples grew hard with the feel of him. She should have been cold, and yet her whole body became suffused with heat. Unable to escape, forced to hold on to him, she could only give herself up to the strange, languorous pleasure of his pounding, speeding body moving against her, of his thick arms like steel bands around her. She should have been petrified, and instead she had the insane urge to put her lips to the strong column of his throat, to shift position so that his hand would close fully over her eager breast. Closing her eyes, she laid her cheek on the leather lapel of his coat, to let herself wallow, just for a moment, in sheer sensual sensation. She had to snatch her breath back from the wind as he jumped again, and this time when he landed, he glanced down at her. “Enjoying the ride, little wolf?” “If you call me that again, vampire, I’ll cut out your dead heart.” He laughed and his muscles bunched, giving her some warning that he was about to jump once more. “My heart isn’t dead,” he said, slowing the pace and then stopping altogether. April’s pulses hammered. She was shaking from reaction -- though to what particular event she was too confused to tell. Unexpectedly, the vampire pushed one hand under her to tug at his shirt. His knuckles skimmed her covered nipples, making her gasp at the shooting pang of pleasure. At the same time, he let her slither to the ground against his body. The leather coat fell around them both, enveloping her with him. His heat invaded her flesh. She hadn’t expected him to be warm. Against her abdomen, she could feel his cock, harder and bigger than before. And Christ, it seemed to be growing further. Her excitement rose unbidden, releasing a flood of hot moisture between her legs that she hoped he couldn’t smell. A lupi would. He had pulled his shirt open, revealing his muscled, naked chest with its faint scattering of dark hairs that she could make out only too easily, even in the gloom. Half fascinated, half frightened again, she glanced up at him. He took her trembling hand in a cool grip, casually forcing the knife from her fingers. She had clutched it all that time. As it clattered on the flat, concrete roof, she cried out at her own stupidity, the betrayal of her body ’s hunger. She had been too long without a lover. The vampire did not let her hand go. Instead, he dragged it upward to his naked chest and pressed it there. “Not dead,” he repeated, low, and she realized she could feel the slow, regular beat of his heart under her palm, strong and steady -- as if he hadn’t just run and jumped a mile across buildings carrying her not inconsiderable weight. Her eyes widened. “Then you’re not…?” “A vampire? Of course I am,” he said, squashing her unreasonable hope at birth. “But my organs still work. My body’s no more dead than yours. Is it?” His skin felt warm and smooth under her hand. When she spread her fingers, they brushed against one stiff, male nipple. Her breath caught. “No…” “And guess what?” The vampire smiled. “It’s supper time.”

Taken by surprise again, April wrenched instinctively backwards. New fear twisted through her with a vengeance. But his grip was strong. Straining and writhing against him only made her hot and increasingly conscious of her own arousal. And his. She saw in his gleaming eyes that he recognized her awareness. Abruptly, he dragged her to the side, then spun her round until something cold and hard pressed into her back -- a sort of dilapidated chimney. The vampire pushed his hips into her, effectively holding her prisoner. Angry and afraid, she still couldn’t prevent her overwhelming reaction to his body. It was strong and hard and scary, and she wanted it. She wanted the huge, steel-like shaft pressing into her stomach to be thrusting between her legs instead, to push inside her and give her this one wicked release. The strength of the desire shocked her, drawing some of her fear. When his hand pushed her hair back from her throat, she took a swing at him. He saw it coming. Despite her own speed, he was faster, catching both her hands and grasping them easily behind her back. His massive strength was overpowering -- but April had no intention of giving up. Foiled physically, on more than one level, she fell back on her wits. “You faked it all,” she gasped out, to distract him with his own cleverness. “You let me take you at the church so you could find out what we were doing.” “True,” said Max without a great deal of interest. His free hand smoothed the skin of her throat, his fingers seeking and finding the favored vein. “Why?” she demanded. “What’s it to you?” “I hear things. Neither lupi nor ordinary people thrive on chaos. Vampires do.” “Because you leech on us!” “Leech implies clinging,” said Max indifferently. “My use for people doesn’t last that long.” As he swooped his head for her throat, April said desperately, “And your use for me? What is that? You brought me here just to feed from me?” He paused. For an instant, something flickered in his dark eyes and was gone. “Not just. But feed, certainly.” “What else? You think my dead body will influence the lupi? Influence Will?” “It might, but I didn’t say anything about killing you.” April stared. “You tear the throat from your victims, drink their blood until they’re drained. That’s how you live.” “You know best of course. Hold still.” “You’re playing with me!” she accused, writhing again in a vain attempt to evade his mouth, which began to tease her throat. His teeth grazed softly against the skin, sending intense sparks of sensation shooting right to her core. Sounds from below, running feet, shouting, told her the lupi were out looking for her. Her heart thundered. There was hope now of escape though at what price she couldn’t guess. She didn’t know the vampire at all, or any of his kind. She had no true idea what he was capable of. His tongue lapped at her skin, making her shiver with some new, fearful pleasure. To cover it, she blurted, “The lupi are coming. They’re out looking for me.” “I hear them,” he said, lifting his head slightly, allowing her a glimpse of his long, pointed incisors. “So what is it you want? Why did you take me?” “Why did I take you? Partly to annoy Will because he is making my life difficult. And partly … I’ve had the scent of your blood in my nostrils all day, strong and sweet, and I want to taste you.” Something fierce jolted inside her. She wished it was disgust. His words were vile, and yet the way he said them was overtly sensual. As if drinking his victims’ blood was a sexual experience. Curiosity twisted through her, hot and wicked, fighting with the fear. “What are you going to do?” she asked hoarsely. Her voice shook. “You choose. I had thought to take you back to my lair for a few days of pleasure, but now… I’m not sure I can wait that long.” He lifted one hand, slid it deliberately inside her vest and closed his palm on her naked breast. April gasped in shock. His touch was electric. “Now I think I’ll have to drink here while I fuck you. Two delights in one.” His hand moved, brushing her nipple in slow, delicious circles. It made her weak, unable even to pretend a protest. More terrifying than anything was the fact that she didn ’t want him to stop. She couldn’t bear him to stop. His hips moved too, grinding his pelvis into her. He whispered, “While your people search for you, I’ll make you come, so that you have to bite your own screams to keep them away.” April moaned. A breath of laughter touched her ear. His free hand smoothed over her upper thigh and came up firmly between her legs, making her gasp again. Through her jeans, her swollen clitoris throbbed against the side of his hand. He drew it back and forward slowly, in a sawing motion that almost undid her. “What do you say, little wolf?” April swallowed. “You’re asking my permission? Now? After you abducted me?”

“Permission? No. I know what you want. I just have a notion to hear you say it.” “You’ll wait a long time!” April got out with what defiance she could muster when his hand was stroking fire between her legs. He only smiled. A cruel, predatory smile. “Then I’ll just have to settle for the scream, and the drink. Unless you say no.” His hand left her breast to yank down the opening of her jeans. Below, she could hear voices she recognized. Craig, Ella, calling to each other. “What if I just shout out to them?” she whispered. “Will you let me go? Will you kill me?” His fingers pushed inside the gaping jeans, found the hot wetness of her pussy and he smiled with pure satisfaction. “Do you want to find out?” “I asked, didn’t I?” “Then I’ll tell you. Nothing, but nothing will stop me from fucking you now. ” With the words, he thrust his finger deep inside her and she moaned aloud at the extraordinary pleasure. “Sh-sh. You don’t want to be interrupted at this point. Trust me.” “Trust you? Aahh!” She tried to bite off the gasp as he pushed another finger inside her and twisted. He said in her ear, “I hear the lupi have exceptional stamina. How much can you take, little wolf?” As he spoke, his thumb began to circle her swollen clitoris, flicking across it while his fingers thrust in and out. “Oh Jesus,” she whispered, as the orgasm began to roll. She didn’t know what to do with herself. Instinct made her reach for his mouth with her own. And yet, afraid of betraying her pleasure, either to him or to her friends below, she drew back at the last minute from his blazing eyes and buried her face in his chest as she fell apart. The vampire’s mouth found her neck. Through the unbearable intensity, she felt the sharp probe of his teeth, adding impossible new pleasure to her over-sensitized body. She gasped out as they pricked and sank into her. The pain of it filled her for an instant, yet it was still part of the pleasure, even as the orgasm began slowly to fade. His hand left her pussy and her mouth opened in a silent cry of loss. Her hands gripping his shoulders as if they were her only lifeline, scrabbled frantically in supplication. But it wasn’t his hand which she felt between her legs now -- it was his cock, hot and thick, sliding immediately into the welcoming wetness of her pussy, filling her, reaching impossibly far inside her. The fading fire began to catch again. He withdrew, sucking on her neck, then thrust in while he swallowed her blood, withdrew and drank, pushed again in an unstoppable rhythm of terrible, forbidden pleasure. This time, her climax tore her apart. The vampire groaned into her neck as if in pain. His whole body shuddered and rocked as he came, shooting hot wet seed deep inside her. With another low, smothered groan, he tore his mouth free. Somewhere, she was aware of his trembling tongue, touching the wound, licking, and then his hands were on her face, forcing it upwards, and his mouth seized hers. She could taste her own blood, and sobbed aloud at the weirdness of what was happening to her. But his lips were fierce, forcing hers apart, and she could only cling to him, meet his stroking tongue with hers, kiss him back with her own passion and gratitude for the astounding pleasure. Her knees began to give way. As they buckled, he sank to the ground with her, still inside her, his mouth still locked to hers, and April realized with a rush of joy that it didn’t need to be over. She had never known pleasure like this in her life before. The intensity was killing her and suddenly she couldn’t live without more. As their kiss broke, she rolled and straddled him. His face was dark with passion, his eyes black in the darkening gloom. And yet she could almost imagine he was confused. Certainly, for the first time that day, she felt more in control than he was. April squeezed his cock between her strong vaginal muscles and gasped at the renewed pleasure. “Again,” she said fiercely. Something blazed in his eyes. It might have been triumph or joy. His hands came up and held her hips. His eyes gazed unblinkingly up into hers. And yet for a disconcerting moment, he didn’t seem aware of her. Her breath caught. She tried to rise on his still hard shaft, but he held her steady. She squeezed him again and saw the pleasure cross his face like a pain. He moved, rising to his feet, lifting her off him in one smooth action. “Another time, little wolf,” he said. “Don’t forget to put your pants back on.” Briefly, her mouth was crushed again under his, and then he left her, stepping back and fastening his jeans as he went. Then he simply turned his back and ran right off the roof.

Chapter Three Max breathed hard as he pushed open the door of his lair. He’d run the whole way, far faster than was necessary just to lose the lupi, who couldn’t pick up his scent anyway. But not fast enough to block out from his mind the lost, devastated face of the girl. Or to smother the exultant joy of his body. Kicking the door shut, he threw himself onto the couch that doubled as his bed and tried to breathe deeply. No wonder she’d looked bemused. He knew what he’d given her, and it was nothing to what he’d received. Unable to be still, Max sprang up and paced around the dark room, without even taking off his coat, more like the restless lupi he’d been insulting all day than the cool, still vampire he’d become long ago. What was it about that girl that had triggered his release? Vague, distant memories swam at the back of his brain, of girls in his youth, before he ’d turned, of sexual release, ejaculating unwanted seed into rubber condoms, or otherwise avoiding impregnating the girl in question with either babies or disease. Safe sex they’d called it. Well, sex with a vampire wasn’t exactly safe. You’d most certainly suffer a spot of anemia, and more likely than not turn up your toes altogether. But you sure as hell didn’t get pregnant -- because the vampire had no semen. Or so Max had always believed. His sexual encounters throughout the last decades had given his body pleasure enough, but it was inextricably associated now with the blood. Or was. Until tonight, he had all but forgotten about the joyous release of ejaculation. Pausing by the window, Max looked down through the darkness over the ruined city. It was night. You could tell because the dusk of day became black, lit up sporadically by bursts of flame as something else was set alight for warmth or malice. Through the unbroken glass of his window, the streets seemed a long way down. Below this flat, the building was wrecked. Most of the stairs had gone, and the lift hadn’t worked for twenty years. Most of the doors and floorboards had long ago been taken and burned for fuel. It didn’t bother Max. Inevitable shadows skulked among the surrounding ruins and rubbish, scavenging for food, searching for victims. Max made a pretty scary shadow himself. It was rare that anyone even troubled to fight him any more. Even other vampires, during the odd clash over territory or victims, no longer took him on. A long time ago, this power would have made him feel triumphant. Now it just bored him. Everything bored him. Except that girl. He wondered if he were changing again. Not back to what he was, that was impossible. But onward, into something, someone else. Maybe someone who didn’t need blood to survive. Maybe someone whose survival meant something. Annoyed at himself, because his thoughts were hovering perilously close to Will’s overheard discussions, Max thudded his forehead against the glass. Bloody Will. Max had told April the truth -- mostly. He had taken her through annoyance with Will, not just because the lupi was trying to civilize the city, but because Will was trying to manipulate Max. Max wasn’t stupid. He knew he’d been tied up and left to listen to the discussions. Although it was why he had let April capture him in the first place, Will had meant him to hear. There was no other reason for Max to have been there. He should have been killed or seen off lupi territory. Instead, he’d been privy to the discussions of the newly formed Council, and he ’d been allowed to escape so that he would pass the word to other vampires. Or so that he would think about it and come around on his own. They needed the cooperation of the vampires, because no one was strong enough to overcome them, not even the lupi. And so from spite, Max had taken April when he chose to leave. Because she was nearest. Crap! He’d willed her to look at him, deliberately let her see him burst his bonds, so that she’d do exactly what she did -try to recapture him. If he’d really wanted to hurt Will, he’d have taken the woman, Lara. But it was April he’d wanted to hold, April whose blood he’d wanted to drink, whose hot sexy body he’d wanted to sink his hungry cock into… Max’s breathing quickened again with the memory. He’d done it. He’d fucked the little wolf, and drunk from her. And given her so much pleasure she’d demanded more. Her lovely, piquant face swam before his eyes again, clouded and flushed by passion, her eyes smoldering with heat, her lips, swollen from his kiss, parted and pleading like some kind of lustful angel. “Again.” More than anything that filled him with ferocious pride. He’d wanted her again. He’d wanted -- still wanted -- to explore lots more possibilities with her, and to know he’d won that right from the girl who began as his enemy. And yet he ’d walked away. Because he couldn’t deal with what she’d done to him. He, who had overcome all the pain flung at him over the decades, physical, spiritual and emotional, could not deal now with a normal orgasm.

What he needed to do was go out and find some other woman. Fuck her and feed from her, and experience the release again. Then he could forget her. So why did he still see her face, hurt and lost as he’d bolted from her? Abruptly, Max swung away from the window. At the last moment, something caught his eye and he glanced back down at the street. One man weaved an erratic path toward the building, occasionally drinking from the bottle that dangled precariously from his clumsy fingers. Totally inebriated. He’d have to be, to be walking alone around here. Just beyond Max’s building was the ruined wall of another, lower building. Two shadows crouched on top of it. A third detached itself from the darkness of the ground and came up to the drunk. Amiably, the drunk offered him a drink. The third shadow took the bottle and promptly swung it at the drunk. Max smiled sourly. He realized he was hungry. He’d hardly fed from April at all, and he had been particularly abstemious the day before in order to appear pale and hungry to the lupi. Annoying to think he needn ’t have bothered, that Will would have sent him an invitation if he’d imagined he would come. The drunk fell like a stone under the bottle, just as the two shadows on the wall jumped down to join their mate in robbing him. “Home delivery,” Max murmured, reaching up to open the window. As he’d done a thousand times before, he simply leapt off his twentieth floor, and dropped, landing a couple of seconds later on the grimy ground. Despite the recent energy he’d expended evading the lupi, his body rejoiced in the exertion, instantly springing up from the landing crouch and sprinting forward. They didn’t even see him coming. The first, he plucked off the unconscious drunk and threw across the road. Vaguely surprised by the unexpected movement, the other two glanced up from their sporadic searching and torturing of their victim. Their eyes looked blank with shock in the darkness. Their mouths fell open in perfect synchronicity. One tried to rise, as if he actually meant to fight. Max slammed him against the wall and held him there with one hand around his throat. With his free hand, he jerked the other man’s arm behind his back and reeled him in. He bit into the man’s neck and drained him almost instantly, ignoring the fingers that scratched and scrabbled uselessly on his hand, his chest and face. Dropping him with deliberate distaste, he turned his attention to the man pinned to the wall. Max disregarded his terrified gurgling. Without hesitation, he wrenched the man’s head aside and bit into his throat, and drank. Despite the semi-sexual pleasure of the feed, his senses were well aware of the sound behind him. The third thug was escaping. With a last, strong pull on the second man’s wound, Max let him fall, and turned. He caught the third man on the run. The flailing fists on his chest were less than nothing to him as he again drank his fill. That done, he heaved all three bodies as far as the broken bridge and threw them off into the toxic river below. The drunk, he ignored. He would remember nothing in the morning anyway. In Will’s world, he thought savagely, there would be no more victims. Where was a vampire without victims?

*** Will said slowly, “He barely touched you.” April swallowed the rising hysteria. “It didn’t feel like barely,” she managed, pushing Will’s hands away from her throat. They were back in the old school and the relief and curiosity of the others was no help to her desperate confusion. She was held together by a very thin thread. “But then I’m not used to being bitten.” “Perhaps we scared him off,” Craig suggested. “He didn’t strike me as an easily scared off sort of a man,” Will said drily. “He deliberately put himself in our power to find out what he wanted to know, and then simply left, cool as you please. Quite an exit too, ” he added, thoughtfully, with an upward glance at the damaged ceiling. April, feeling Lara’s gaze uncomfortably sharp on her, moved away from the others and sat down on a distant cushion. She was shaking. “Why did he take you then?” Lara demanded. “If he only wanted to frighten you, why bother? It seems sort of -- beneath him.” “Revenge?” Craig suggested. “Because April captured him earlier? Must have hurt his self-esteem…” “Hardly,” April interrupted. “He let me capture him. He wanted to be brought here because he wanted to find out what was going on. He said he wanted to annoy Will.” She flickered an almost apologetic glance at Lara as she spoke. The older girl was frowning. “He said something else,” Lara remembered. “Earlier, when Will was discussing morals with him. He said he’d seen Will mating with you.” “He knows I’m not Will’s mate, and you know that’s all in the past,” April muttered. She didn’t feel strong enough for tantrums -- from Lara of all unlikely people. “But why did he say it? Why did he remember it? Has he got a thing for you, April?”

April laughed harshly. “A thing? Christ, he despises me -- is that enough of a thing? Will, I’m going home.” She sprang up, heading without further ado for the door of the school. “Wait, I’ll come with you,” Will said at once. “I don’t want company,” April said rudely. “I’d rather go alone.” “Then wait one more moment, April. If you have some rapport with the vampire, I need to know it. We can use it. We need his people on our side, or at least acquiescent, and for that, we need to know them. We need to understand how -- or if -they can live without harming others.” “Send him a letter,” April advised. “Trust me, there is no rapport.” With one trembling hand, she pushed the fallen hair out of her eyes. Then, glancing at Will, she hesitated. “Except perhaps with you. He may not like you or what you’re doing, but I’ve a feeling he respects you.” “And yet he took you,” Lara pointed out. April’s lips twisted. “That wasn’t respect. I’m not even a worthy meal to him, am I?” Lara opened her mouth to say something, then, uncharacteristically, she closed it again on silence. Will said, “Do you know where to find him?” Turning for the door, April shook her head. “If you see him again, speak to him, April.” “I won’t.” “April!” She laughed harshly. “I won’t see him again.” He’d made that very plain, and the most lowering thing of all, worse even than that she’d begged him for more sex and been rejected, was that beyond anything in the world, she wanted to see him again.

*** Lara scored out one of the names on her list, frowned, then wrote it back in again. Hell, she wasn ’t in the Dome now. Here, they needed all the officers they could get. It would be time enough to ditch any of the volunteers if and when they proved themselves unsuitable. Throwing down her pen, she glanced for the umpteenth time at the closed door. For a little over two weeks now, this room had been her home -- bedroom, study and haven from the alien yet wondrous world outside. A bare classroom in the old school, repaired and secured, softened by a few items Lara had introduced -- things she had brought from the Dome or been given by some of the friendly lupi women -- a bright, warm blanket for the mattress, two colored glass dishes for candles, a photograph of her long dead parents, a lace cover for the repaired school desk that was their only furniture. It was a world away from her old life, and yet it was home, because she shared it with Will. And without Will, as now, it was curiously empty. Not for the first time, Lara wished Jack, her brother, had stayed. But he had felt his position too untenable here. Arriving as leader of the hunters’ crusade against the lupi, whom he’d regarded as a mutant menace, he couldn’t now throw in his lot with them as Lara had. And yet his public defection from the hunters at Will ’s persuasion had done much to win Will back into favor with the lupi. He was on his way home now, without her, and she’d heard nothing since he’d left. But Will went from strength to strength. He had led the battle against Jack’s remaining die-hards, and his own brand of charisma had done the rest. Now he was undisputed leader of the pack, accepted on the Council, his work and his views respected, as Lara and her trainees began their fight against the city’s incessant crime. Without warning, the door opened silently and a silver-grey wolf padded into the room. Lara smiled, jumping up and going at once to lay her hand on the creature’s head. In her embrace, he changed, as painfully as others of his kind, and yet more quickly, she now knew. When he lay calm and naked in her arms, his cheek against one breast, his hand possessively caressing the other, Lara said, “Did you find him?” “Max? No. Nor any other vampires. It doesn’t help that we can’t scent them! Has April been in?” Lara shook her head. “I’m worried about her,” she admitted. “She’s being very odd. When I went to see her at Henry’s, she clearly wanted to throw me out. She seemed very restless -- and in my opinion, not entirely well.” Will nodded. “That’s what I got too… Do you think it’s something to do with Max?” “I don’t know. It’s been more than two weeks… Unless there’s something going on there we don’t know about, I don’t see how it could be.” Will said, “I think there’s something we don’t know about.” Lara sighed. “So do I.”

*** In most of her life’s crises, April had simply run away from them. Discovering she was a lupi, she had refused to acknowledge it for months, and for months more had hidden it from her family and friends. Later, uncomfortable with the lupi, she ran home to her parents’ house every night she didn’t change -- and even some that she did. And when Will had become too much -- when she knew they shouldn’t be together -- rather than discuss it with him, she had simply left the city. Again, after taking up with Jack in the Dome City, she had run away when he got too intense and she couldn’t return his feelings. It had never

entered her head that Jack might follow. But then, that had brought Lara here to Will, and they were meant to be together, so running away had some uses. But Max… Max was one crisis that had run away from her. For nearly three weeks, she avoided the lupi. While the full Council began to take control and the first safe food distribution centers and official water filters were set up in the inner city, April barely went out, just sat in her room alone, brooding. Then, when she felt the stirrings of change, and knew she had one more night only before the wolf took over, she opted for the greatest escapism the city had to offer. The club. In her bedroom mirror, her reflection gazed back at her provocatively. A slight girl with long, blond hair falling loose around her naked shoulders, slender body encased in a short, tubular white dress that clung to her every curve. Long, white gloves that covered her elbows would prevent her having to touch some of the filth one found in the club, and added to the angelic impression. Lara once said she looked like a fallen angel. Well, tonight she felt like one. And she was hunting. Not prey, but a man to make it all go away. To make Max go away. Swinging a short shawl around her shoulders, she slipped quietly out of the house. She had no desire to be seen by her parents. Worrying them was not part of her plan and despite everything, there was still a thrill in stepping out like this, in walking alone through the city’s dangerous streets. She was armed with her knife and sling in the silly little bag that dangled casually from her wrist, and she was lupi. It had always been enough. It was a long walk to the inner city and the club. The security on the suburb’s edges was stronger now, but they all knew her. Warily, they let her pass without even a warning to take care out on her own. They knew what she was, and she could smell their fear as much as see it in their eyes. Will had his work cut out to wipe out prejudice against their kind in these ordinary, decent people. April walked away from them, smiling. She was always polite to such people. She never allowed herself even to tease them -- except for the odd time she couldn’t resist wrapping herself around their petrified legs when she encountered them after a change. During her brisk, cold walk, she sensed the inevitable watching shadows, but no one approached her. She had long ago worked out that when she dressed like this and walked alone, the many predators of the city took her for a decoy and left her well alone. She couldn’t rely on that, of course, and never had. But the risk was part of her escape, part of the thrill. As she finally walked up the crumbling steps to the club entrance, the door opened for her, slamming her into a wall of rhythmic noise. The bouncer nodded his recognition and held out his hand for her weapons. Provocatively, April lifted her arms to be searched. He took his time about it until April began to consider him as a prospective partner for the night. He was a strong, brutal sort of a man -- she had seen him in action against trouble makers -- but in his silent way he had always treated her with respect. Well, maybe. Let’s see what’s inside first… She slid out of his hold, already swaying her body to the thudding beat. Casually, she opened the silly little bag he had ignored, and tossed him the folded knife and sling squashed in there. He caught them deftly, his mouth twisting into a smile. April laughed and walked into the sea of bodies. Her immediate goal was the bar and a drink. Like Pavlov’s dog trained to salivate for ringing bells, this place and this music made her crave the bad, mind-numbing alcohol made on the premises. It was slow progress through the heaving, writhing dancers, but it wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it all made her hot and sexy, ripe for all the club’s experiences. April gathered the heat of the bodies around her like a comfortable cloak, reveling in the fierce, blaring music that came from the stage and the freedom that she found only here. Recognizing her, a few people grinned as she passed. A man she’d met here many times grabbed her by the waist and kissed her mouth before she slid away, laughing. As she turned back in the direction of the bar, something caught her eye off to the right -- the swinging of a coat behind a concrete pillar. It might have been a freak parting of dancers allowing the light from the braziers above to strike it at an odd angle. It might have been her memory playing tricks. But in that brief glimpse, it looked like Max’s coat. It was long enough and it was the right color. April’s heart gave one lurch, as if trying to leap out of her mouth, and began a loud, thundering rhythm to rival the band’s. Now was the time to do what she did best -- run away. Turn your back, don’t look. Don’t spoil this night. Go on to the bar, drink, dance, forget… For a moment, she stood quite still among the heaving throngs, allowing herself to be nudged to one side or the other as the dancers buffeted her. She licked her suddenly dry lips and swallowed convulsively. The beat of her heart was deafening, yet so erratic it interfered with her breathing. Slowly, she made her way toward the pillar.

Chapter Four Flaring light from the braziers, which hung on chains from the high ceiling, cast grotesque shadows across the faces of the dancers she brushed past. April barely noticed them. Beyond the pillar was an empty space. It was too much in the shadows and you couldn’t see the band from this side of the huge room. And it was directly under the mezzanine catwalk from where the more predatory types eyed up their prospective partners. As privacy went in the club, behind that particular pillar was probably as good as it got. April squeezed out of the crowd into the dark space beyond. Now she stood outside the comfort zone of the dancers, she felt curiously aloof from them. Even the music seemed to be coming from another place. Max held a woman in his arms, a tall, gorgeous brunette, whose head was thrown back against Max’s leather clad arm, her eyes closed, her mouth wide open in ecstasy. Or pain. Max’s face was lost in her neck. But April knew him, and not by the coat, or even by his non-scent. By the shape of his tall, lithe body, by his posture, by the way his hips pressed the girl back into the pillar as he fed from her. April recognized all of that because she had known it herself. It came to April slowly that the powerful rush of emotion overwhelming her was not fear or anger or outrage. It was jealousy. How had it come to this? One brief knee trembler -- albeit a staggeringly good one -- and she actually wanted this depraved creature to bite her? To kill her? Now she wished she’d run away. And now she fully intended to -- only the vampire lifted his handsome head and looked directly at her. His eyes blazed with the passion she remembered. April felt sick. What had she imagined? That she was somehow different for him? That he had actually regarded her as more than a meal? And a means of annoying Will. The vampire licked a spot of blood off his upper lip and smiled. She hated that smile because it made her heart lurch again and set off butterfly dances in her stomach. In spite of everything, she felt herself grow wet for him. Slowly, he released his latest victim and let her slither to the floor. Numbly watching her fall, April ’s eye came to rest instead on the vampire’s crotch. His jeans were still fastened. “Don’t you fuck all your food?” she enquired. “Only the most enticing morsels.” Unhurriedly, he came toward her. April pushed past him and knelt by the woman on the floor. Her pulse fluttered a little erratically, but she was still alive. With unsteady hands, April turned the girl’s head and saw the tiny marks in her neck. It wasn’t exactly ripping the throat from his victims. “Just the way she likes it,” the vampire observed. “What? She asked for this?” April said sarcastically. “Actually, yes. Haven’t you been here before?” She had heard that this sort of thing went on here, yet somehow she had cocooned herself from it. There were even people whose job it was to match up partners. She herself had been approached once because a man wanted a pretty bed partner with the stamina of a werewolf. She had laughed it off. “She paid you to bite her neck?” “If you like. I get her blood, she gets to live -- along with the gratification, the thrill, whatever it does for her. A lot of people like it.” “A lot of people are sick,” April said firmly, rising to her feet. Max stayed where he was, though his eyes devoured her. He said, “That’s funny. I had the impression you rather liked it too.” April laughed deliberately, and waited until his gaze came back to her eyes before she said, “No, Max, it was the fucking I liked.” Something leapt in his eye that made her fiercely glad. He said, “Would you care for some more?” It was hard, but she held his gaze, keeping her own cool and amused. “With you, Max? Hardly. You don’t have the sexual stamina I need. I’m a lupi.” And turning her back, she walked away from him, back into the soothing, anonymous sea of weaving bodies.

*** An hour and two untouched drinks later -- the smell made her feel sick -- she had almost forgotten about him. There was a certain desperation in her dancing, a hectic determination in her enjoyment of the club, but it worked. In a constant state of semiarousal -- helped, it must be admitted by her sighting of the vampire -- she danced like a demon, drifting from man to man, happy to wrap her body around theirs, to feel their hard erections through her clothes, let them run their hands over her body as she

danced, and then to move on to the next. If she still searched for a bed -partner, she had forgotten. The aim now was only to obliterate Max, whom she had just deliberately offended to the point of no return. Men forgave any insult, she had discovered, except those aimed at their sexual prowess. Her current partner had a grip on her hips and seemed more concerned with grinding his erection into them than with the music. Bored by this, April covered his hands with hers and removed them. He seemed startled by her strength. April laughed, lifted her arms high and danced away from him in search of a new partner. The man ahead with the tattoos -- he moved like a sexy cat… Before she got there, arms slid around her from behind, hands closed lightly over her breasts. A man ’s erection nudged against her bottom. Smiling, April turned her head to see who her new partner was -- and looked into the dark, gleaming eyes of the vampire. “Dance with me now,” he whispered in her ear. “What’s the matter, Max? Run out of willing victims? ” And yet she made no effort to remove his hands. Her pebbly nipples grew even harder under his touch. They actually ached for his caress. “How much blood do you think one vampire can take?” “Lots. Lots and lots.” She was babbling. For behind her, his hips had begun to sway, moving her body with them in a slow, sensual dance. His hands moved too, softly skimming his palms across her nipples, caressing around them in beguiling, maddening circles through the thin fabric of her dress. Without meaning to, she let her head fall back against his shoulder. She danced with him, gyrating her body in the leisurely rhythm he ’d begun, pressing back with her hips to feel the full length and breadth of his hard cock on her buttocks. His lips kissed her ear. His teeth nibbled her lobe. Her eyes closed as she began to lose herself in this sensual world. The movement of his clothed body was intoxicating, his tender, clever fingers wickedly arousing. One of his hands swept down from her breast, across her waist and taut flat stomach, coming to rest over her pubic bone. Instinctively, she pressed upward into his hand, emitting a small, grateful moan. He whispered, “Come with me. Let’s do it slowly this time.” “Are we talking feeding or fucking?” she managed. “You can choose. We have the whole night.” “I thought I wasn’t good enough prey for you to take to your lair for pleasure.” Annoyingly, she couldn’t keep the pique out of her voice, but Max swiftly distracted her by gliding his hand downward between her parted legs and dragging it slowly back up to its previous position. April gasped aloud. “I don’t want to take you. I want you to come. And then I want you to come.” A breathless laugh escaped her. “Do you think I’m mad?” “Only for this. As I am.” “For what?” “This.” The hand still on her breast moved aside and slipped between their bodies. His coat fell forward around her sides. She felt his knuckles on her back, on the softness of her bottom as he unbuttoned his trousers. Understanding what he intended, she gasped out. She meant to object, to point out that she wouldn’t do this here, even with his long, enveloping coat to hide the mechanics of the act… and yet no words came out, only a weak moan of desire as the back of her dress rucked up and she felt the heat of his hard, ribbed cock against her flesh. “Here?” she got out. She shouldn’t do this, not again… “Here,” he agreed. “First. After all, it’s why you come to this place. For the thrill. Sexual thrill.” She couldn’t deny it. There was freedom here. No one cared what you did on the dance floor. She had seen couples screwing here before and wondered vaguely what it would be like. Although, of course, it wasn’t what she did… was it? Only the preliminaries should be gone through here… Except Max didn’t appear to agree. His cock nuzzled between her legs, seeking her entrance, and she was too weak with desire to stop him. In fact, as it rubbed against her clitoris and she gasped aloud again, she thought she’d probably punch anyone who tried to stop him. Standing on tiptoe, she parted her legs further. His hand tightened on her pubic bone, lifting her. His other hand returned to her breast, fully closing, and his huge cock slid home, sheathing itself in her hot, soaking pussy. April moaned aloud, reaching behind her, winding her arm around his neck while she watched his fingers fondle her breast through the white dress, the prominent outline of her nipple peaked for his delectation. She wanted his touch on her naked skin… later, oh yes later, but this now, this was… incredible! “You’re forgetting to dance,” he whispered, swaying his hips and making her gasp with fresh sensation. April danced. Every small movement brought blinding pleasure from his cock within her while his hands continued to work their magic on her breast and between her legs, subtly teasing and sliding over the fabric of her dress. And all the time, the music blared on, its heavy, thumping rhythm vibrating through the floors adding to the wild, glorious experience.

The vampire’s lips kissed her cheek. His mouth slid down to her neck and closed over the beating vein he had invaded before. If preventing him biting her would stop him fucking her too, she couldn’t do it. His mouth on her throat was delicious. Her head didn’t want this, but her body did. She wanted to feel again that terrible push and pull of his feeding and fucking, while the pleasure tore her apart. But he didn’t bite her. His mouth clung, she felt his tongue and teeth. But he didn’t bite. Inside her, his cock stroked, and his hips, his hard abdomen thrust into the yielding flesh of her buttocks. April came slowly, shuddering and trembling with bliss, completely helpless in the throes of an orgasm that went on and on while they danced. As the world began slowly to right itself, April realized he hadn’t come. She felt his cock withdraw and heard her own tiny mewling sound of displeasure. He smiled into her neck and lifted his head a little. She twisted around until their eyes met and the blazing heat in his overwhelmed her. She managed to say, “Is this the bit where you run away?” The vampire kissed her mouth long and thoroughly, reaching into every tiny corner with his tongue, caressing with his teeth. “No,” he said hoarsely, when the suction broke. “This is the bit where you come with me, and I take this sexy, maddening little dress off your tantalizing body and make love to you. For a long, long time.”

*** The bouncer at first looked disappointed when he saw her leaving with another man. He handed her back her knife and sling in a resigned sort of a way, while his hostile gaze switched to the vampire. Startled, he glanced straight back at April. Unexpectedly, he caught her arm, vehemently shaking his head. “What?” April asked, as if amused. But she knew. He was warning her about Max. For the first time, she wondered if he knew what she was, and if it would make any difference to him. Usually, it made a difference. Max preceded her down the rickety steps. In a detached sort of a way, April realized she could probably damage him from this position, if not kill him. Stab him from behind… Was it really possible to kill vampires? Right now, she neither knew nor cared. Bemused with sexual pleasure and the excited anticipation of even more to come, she could no more attack him than herself. A shadowy woman glided up the steps toward them. In the flaring light of a nearby fire, April caught a glimpse of very long, dark hair and a gaunt yet strikingly beautiful face, long, shapely legs encased in some dark, clinging all-in-one garment. Her eyes flickered over both of them without much interest. “Max,” she murmured on the way past. “Katia,” he returned. In an upsurge of stupid jealousy, April tried to catch the woman’s scent and met -- nothing, except some faint echo of the tingling sensation she associated with Max. Understanding prickled. “Is she…?” “Yes,” said Max, turning at the foot of the stairs and reaching for her. “She is.” In the city, especially at night, you kept both arms free to deal with attack. Max put one arm around her inside the shawl, thus hampering both of them. But then, who would attack a vampire? Except through an ignorance that was liable to be fatal. Picking her way through the churned up stones and rubbish, April said, “So why are you doing this, Max? Did my jibe rankle that much?” Max’s lips twisted. “Vampires are not known for sexual stamina,” he confessed. “Why not?” she asked curiously. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine being disappointed in him. His very presence was deeply sexual. Max shrugged. “Too interested in the blood. It ’s a handicap, though hardly an insurmountable one in the right circumstances.” “And what are those?” “Wanting it enough.” She flicked a glance up at him, but it was too dark to make out his expression. “Do you?” she blurted. She stopped, reaching up to seize him by the shoulders. “Do you want it enough, Max? Without the blood?” Grasping her buttocks, he pulled her hard against his rigid cock. “With and without. All ways, any way,” he growled and delved into her mouth. Everything in April leapt to meet him. With new excitement, she found his incisors with her tongue, and licked them experimentally. Sucking on one and then the other, she felt ready to explode again. The vampire began to walk forward, still kissing her. She didn’t notice the way he took. She had become totally absorbed in him and it made no difference that she knew it was the most foolish thing she’d ever done in her life. Right now, it was worth the risk, worth even death. The vampire lived in one of the rare tall buildings still standing. It had no windows left that she could see, and some of its walls were completely open to the elements, but somewhere in here, he had made his lair. Through the outer door, the building was a mess. The walls had been hacked and burned and painted on. From the first floor, there seemed to be no more stairs, though some dangled precariously over the open stairwell, banister and all.

April shivered. Somehow, she had imagined Max would live in more comfort. More like her father than like Will. Max didn’t speak, just caught her in one arm and ran with her up the first flight of stairs, after which he didn ’t seem to stop, just leapt upwards through the air to the dangling step in the middle, which he used as a springboard for another jump. Numb with surprise, April lay passive in his arm. There was a bump as he found some sort of foothold in the wall, and then they were soaring again, coming in to land, finally, on the very top floor. Here, there was a closed door. Releasing her, Max opened it, and ironically bowed April inside.

Chapter Five It wasn’t a big flat, but she had been right about the comfort. There were old, soft carpets on the floor, better ones than her father possessed, and paintings on the wall -- dark, rather beautiful paintings that she needed time to look at. He appeared to live in one room, a spacious apartment with windows all along one wall -- glazed windows. “Too high up to get broken?” she hazarded as he moved around the room lighting candles against the gloom. “No. I replaced them twenty years ago when I discovered this glass.” Startled, her gaze flew back to him. In appearance, he looked no more than thirty. He stood very still, watching her take in his person and his home. “Twenty years? How old are you, Max?” He shrugged. “How long is a piece of string?” She caught her breath. “Do you remember the war, Max?” “Yes,” he said indifferently. “So you weren’t born a vampire? Your parents weren’t vampires? You just -- changed?” “As you say. Though there didn’t seem much ‘just’ about it at the time -- a lot of illness and rage and unquenchable hunger. Some die during the change.” Abruptly, he began to walk across to the window, his back to her. “Is it -- is it the blood that keeps you young like this?” “I have to suppose so. It’s all I can stomach, and if I don’t take it, I weaken fast.” April sank down onto the big, soft sofa. For the first time, she caught a glimpse of his self -hate, a contempt for what he had become, and yet she herself felt no loathing, only compassion -- and curiosity. He’d lived a long life already, a full and painful one. There were massive, hidden depths to him, depths she had unconsciously sensed on their first meeting without understanding. Questions bombarded her so fast she didn’t know which to ask first. What came out was: “What did you do in the war?” Turning back to her, his lips twisted. “Do you mean, was I a brave warrior in the service of my country? Yes, there’s an alien concept for you -- country. It’s where we all used to live.” He shrugged off his coat and threw it over a chair. Under it, he wore a plain black shirt and jeans. His limbs were long, his hips slender. He was sex on legs. April swallowed. “Were you?” she asked, raising her gaze determinedly back to his. “A soldier?” “No. In those days I wasn’t much of a fighter. In fact, I vaguely recall not approving of war at all. But hey -ho, time passes.” Her questions bothered him. She could tell by his flippancy, his sudden restlessness. Then he realized she was watching him and came and threw himself onto the sofa beside her. She said, “What were you then? What did you do?” “I was a scientist. I tried to find ways to limit the effects of the enemy ’s weapons. With what success, you can see all around you. Are you going to ask me questions all night?” She smiled, curiosity in temporary abeyance as her pulse began to race once more. “Why, is there something else you’d like to do?” “Yes, I want to take that dress off.” His hands on her thighs shocked a gasp from her. He pushed his fingers up and under her dress, and lightly grasped her hips before sliding them higher on either side of her waist, up and over her breasts where they lingered, his thumbs flicking across the hard, excited nipples before she lifted her arms and let him remove the garment altogether. Beneath it, she was totally naked. He didn’t speak, just gazed. Once, April had thought his eyes hard and cold, but they didn’t seem so now. They were fiery hot, blazing with lust. For a moment, April kept her arms raised, letting him look. Then, abruptly, he lowered his head and took one anxious nipple into his mouth. April closed her eyes, drowning in sensation. His tongue gently flicked it, licked it, then his lips closed more strongly and he sucked while he caressed it with his tongue. April moaned in pleasure, dropping her arms around him, running her fingers through his black, surprisingly soft hair. Tugging up his shirt, she managed to burrow inside it. He smiled around her nipple before leaving it and moving on to the other. With one hand, he shoved at the back of the sofa and it fell back to form a bed. April fell with it and he lay on top of her, between her spread legs. His upper body weight he supported on his elbows, but the lower was all pressing down on her pelvis, and she could only arch into him. His hand swept down from her neck, over the entire length of her body, stroking the softness of her thigh and knee before gliding round and inward to the heat between her legs. April had hold of his shirt, and when he suddenly moved down, it came right over his head. He smiled, reaching for her leg

to adjust its position. Muscles rippled across his shoulders and back. April wanted to touch them, but she couldn’t reach, and in any case his nibbling at her inner thigh was distraction enough. April held her breath. She wondered if he would, if it would enter his head to … oh yes! His lips had moved inward, teasing around the sensitive folds, parting them, spreading her open. April’s fists closed convulsively. She thought she would die if he didn’t… His teeth, sharp and cool, grazed her clitoris, making her moan at the novel sensation. When his tongue flickered across it, she writhed in his hold. He tightened his grip on her hips, then in leisurely fashion, he licked her. April gasped, and gasped again. “Max, Max, please!” she whispered shakily. Her trembling hands moved through his hair, stroking, pleading. Max slid his lips along the length of her sensitive petals, probed once at her entrance with his tongue, then slowly returned to the hard, swollen bud and unhurriedly took it into his mouth, and sucked. April came in huge, galloping waves, bucking under his mouth, writhing upwards into him. She felt his fingers there too, sliding in and out of her, pushing her over the edge again and holding her there. Then, quite suddenly, he moved, withdrawing his mouth and his fingers and kneeling to reveal the full size and arousal of his angry cock. While April still lay helpless in the throes of her orgasm, he took hold of her behind the knees and, yanking her hips off the bed, he thrust his cock straight into her. April cried out at the incredible sensation. She hadn’t believed her climax could possibly intensify but it did. He filled her, and the sight of him kneeling above her, the muscles of his broad shoulders rippling, his naked chest heaving, was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. Smiling as the world began to right itself, she said tenderly, “It’s all right, Max -- come. Come now. Fuck me and come.” Something flickered in his clouded dark eyes, something that looked oddly like desperation, or fear. But before she could properly register that or question it, he pulled back, almost leaving her body before he thrust back in, hard. April moaned. Without speaking, he fucked her in a slow, hard rhythm that gave her excruciating pleasure. Sighing and mewling, she wrapped her legs around his hips, hugging. He grasped her buttocks and began to increase his speed, his eyes never leaving hers as he thrust in and out of her body, catching every spark of pleasure and uniting it with the rest until the swirling delight caught fire once more. His balls tightened. He finally let go with a huge roar and emptied his seed into her. His whole body shuddered, inside her and out. It was so overwhelming, April wanted to weep. Still trembling, Max lowered himself into her arms, burying his face in her neck. She heard her own breath hiss with tension, but he didn’t bite. Instead, she thought with alarm that he was weeping, and caught at his shaking shoulders, pushing up his head. His eyes blazed down into hers, but the vampire wasn’t crying, he was laughing. “Oh it’s you, little wolf,” he whispered. “It’s you.” And took her mouth in his. April had never known such massive sexual satisfaction. Still warm with after-tingles, until he kissed her she thought she couldn’t take any more. But his mouth, at first kissing with the passion of gratitude, quickly became deliberately arousing, his tongue teasing and dancing with hers, biting her lips. Inside her, his cock didn’t seem to have softened at all. April growled deep in her throat and pushed at his shoulders. She was almost surprised when he lifted his weight and rolled off her. She followed immediately, climbing on top of him and lowering herself back on to his rigid shaft with an exquisitely long, slow slide. “Again, vampire,” she demanded, “and this time, I won’t take no for an answer.” He smiled, thrusting upward inside her, reaching so far that she gasped. “I didn’t say no,” he pointed out. “I only said later. This,” he added, reaching up to cup her breasts, to brush his palms against them and watch them harden into peaks once more, “is later. And this is the slow one.” It was. As if what had gone before had got the fast and furious preliminaries out of the way, they took their time now, exploring and enjoying each other’s bodies to the full. Max teased her, bringing her to an impossibly desperate state of arousal before granting her release. Her only comeback was to treat him similarly, much to his evident enjoyment. Only then did they fall asleep in each other’s arms. As she drifted off, April wondered what Will would say now about sleeping in the vampire’s presence. In the vampire’s bed, in the vampire’s embrace, with his softening cock still cozily inside her body.

*** Max awoke heavy and lethargic from satisfaction. If it resembled anything, it was that long distant awakening the morning after he’d lost his virginity. Smiling to himself, he moved his body lazily, throwing out one arm to find her. But the bed was empty. Max opened his eyes. The room was empty too, but before he could panic that she’d left, he caught sight of the open door -- the door he rarely passed through now -- into the small room that held his books. They lined all four walls, from floor to ceiling. Through the doorway, he could see her dressed only in one of his dark shirts which revealed the entire length of her strong, graceful legs. Her hips rested against the corner of the table while she read from one of the many tomes that made up his past life. Something twisted inside him that he was unwilling to analyze. It was far preferable to concentrate on the growing heat of

his body as he gazed at her legs, the awakening stir of his perky, predatory cock. It was her. It was definitely her. In the weeks after he ’d taken April from the lupi’s den and known his first full sexual release for decades, he’d explored the possibilities. He’d tried screwing a couple of the women he’d fed from. Like April, they’d been willing enough, pretty enough -- he’d even thought of April while he’d fucked them, and that together with the blood had brought him the little climax, as he now thought of it. But his seed, as it were, had not flowed. For some reason, it only flowed for April, his fierce, vulnerable little wolf… Max felt like growling. Rising from the bed, he walked naked across the room to the doorway. As his shadow fell on her, she glanced up, alarm and quick desire chasing each other across her beautiful face. “Oh! Max, I…” She broke off as he reached out and tugged once at the shirt she wore. The buttons tumbled to the floor and the shirt gaped open to reveal her pert, rosy breasts. Under his heated gaze, the nipples hardened into tempting peaks. Giving in, he bent his head and kissed one. Her breathing quickened. He felt her fingers in his hair. Max placed his hands on her buttocks and lifted her properly onto the table. When he nudged his cock between her legs, she was already hot and wet for him. Triumphantly, he pushed into her, glorying in her deep moan of pleasure. She gasped out, “I thought you vampires had no stamina.” “I’ve been asleep,” he explained, and thrust again, just to hear her moan again. But she didn’t. She growled, wrapping her legs around him and writhing on his cock, driving him wild with her squeezing, teasing muscles. Things took their inevitable, blissful course from there. When she came, crying out her joy, her eyes closed with the intensity of her pleasure, it pushed him over the edge too. He thought he’d never get over the joy of emptying himself into her. Opening her eyes, she said throatily, “Good morning to you too.” Max withdrew his cock and lifted her gently to the floor. She reached her arms around his neck and kissed his lips once, then pressed her forehead to his. “Oh, Max,” she said helplessly, “what the hell are we doing?” He felt the involuntary upward tug of his lips. “I don’t know.” She slid away, bending quickly as if to hide her feelings from him. She picked up the fallen book from the floor, staring a little blindly at its cover. Then she said slowly, “Interesting stuff, Max.” “You can read,” he observed. “Many of us can in the suburbs. My father made sure of it. Just in case there was ever anything for us to read again. This is all about the Earth’s atmosphere, some hole in the ozone layer…” “Before the war, it was the Earth’s biggest atmospheric problem.” “Did you fix it?” Max smiled slightly. “Not me, personally. With the right -- behavior -- it closed again. Unfortunately it was too late to do any good, since we’d already decided to destroy ourselves and the atmosphere rather more spectacularly.” She looked at him straightly. “Can you fix that too?” “Apparently not,” Max said drily, taking the book from her fingers and replacing it on the shelf. He heard her intake of breath. “Will thinks it can be fixed. That there is a way to let the sun back in.” “Will is an eternal optimist.” “Is he right?” Max paused, irritated. “How should I know?” “You’re the scientist!” “Was,” he corrected. “Now, I’m the vampire.” “Are the two mutually exclusive?” She was churning him up, dragging him out of his sexual fantasy into the real world. Into a world he had opted out of long ago in any meaningful sense. Survival per se was a poor meaning, no meaning at all… Abruptly, he turned away. She said, “Will you talk to Will? See if his ideas are possible? Help us?” Max paused in the doorway. The pain was so intense he couldn’t speak. Or at least he thought he couldn’t. But before he meant to, he’d said, “Is that why you came?” She didn’t answer. The silence filled him, crucified him. He sensed her movement behind him, wondered how he would bear her leaving, and then she slid round in front of him, seizing him by the shoulders, burying her face in his naked chest. “I don’t know,” she whispered, and he saw the tears trickling down her cheek. “I don’t know why I came with you. I don’t know why I let this happen. I just know I -- God, Max…” Helplessly, he closed his arms around her and held her, bemused, almost numbed by the understanding that she felt so much like he did. Through the numbness, some strong emotion struggled to get out. Gradually, with awe, he recognized it as happiness.

Max sank his lips in her hair. “I’ll talk to Will,” he said. “Give me today to get used to it, and I’ll talk to Will tonight.” “Not tonight,” she said quickly, dashing her hand across her wet cheek. “That is, tomorrow would be better.” Max turned up her chin to see her face better. “Something tells me this is not anxiety to spend longer in my company.” Her laughter was just a little unnatural. “I have to go soon. But I can come back tomorrow.” A flood of tenderness rose in Max with his understanding. “Tonight, you change. You become the wolf.” “You won’t like me when I’m hairy,” she said lightly, drawing herself out of his arms. “I’d like the opportunity to find out.” “Max, since we met, you’ve called me ‘little wolf’ with so much contempt that --” “It’s not contempt,” he interrupted. “That is, perhaps I tried to make it so, because I wanted you so much -- and yes, I wanted to annoy Will too. Do you know, I saw you with him? Before we met, long before. I saw you run with him, two wolves in the city street as the darkness began to lighten. I saw you change and make love in a ruined building. And I wanted you. To feed from, to make love with… you see we mutants all have our little idiosyncrasies.” She was staring at him. He said, “I let you both go then. I suppose I despised my own weakness, but not you, April, never you.” He never meant to say all that. He had been too long without company. One night with this girl and he was spilling his frozen heart, revealing feelings he didn’t even know he had. She came back to him slowly. Almost wonderingly, she took both of his big hands in her small, delicate ones, and turned them over as if examining them minutely. With difficulty, she said, “I’ve never changed in front of anyone. When it began, I hid in my room. I’ve never lived with the other lupi, so I never changed with them either. Even Will. I would change back with him, but I never became the wolf in his presence, or anyone’s. It’s… it’s private.” “It’s shame,” he said, holding her still as she tried to jerk away from him. When she couldn’t, she hid her face in his chest instead. “Even now, I can recognize that. I haven’t forgotten it. But there’s no need for yours. Whatever you are, whatever you become, is still beautiful.” “Oh Max, you won’t say that when I…” “Stay here. When the time gets near, and you still want to go, I won’t stop you. If you stay, we can go together to see Will tonight.” A shudder of laughter shook her body. She lifted her head. “Are you trying to bribe me, vampire?” “Yes,” said Max blatantly.

*** It was like a stolen day. Max went out only once to get her some food, which he took from a passing man in the next street while he drank from him, thus killing two birds with one stone. To spare April, he had to slake his thirst on someone, and he had no intention of telling her where her breakfast came from. While April fell on the bread and the tinned soup his victim had managed to find somewhere, Max watched her and they talked of things he hadn’t even thought of in years. The pleasures of small talk, of getting to know someone through their opinions and their little, unimportant life stories. Something that had been dead in Max for years began to stir again, and he didn’t know if he liked it or not. Either way, there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. Except make love to April, and that he did with slow, joyous abandon. Afterwards, as she lay contentedly in his arms, her limbs wrapped around him and her head on his chest, he languidly stroked her hair. “You’ve spoiled me for all other women, you know.” She smiled, and curled her tongue around his nipple. “Because I’m so beautiful and wonderful in bed.” “Yes.” She stopped teasing and lifted her head to look up at him uncertainly. “Max, you don’t need to say that stuff.” She was right. There was enough chemistry between them without him baring his soul and leaving himself vulnerable. But for some reason, the words would no longer stay silent. “Actually I do. And it’s more true than you know. April, you’re different for me, and not just because you’re so beautiful and sexy. You’re the only woman who’s given me a complete orgasm since I changed.” April stared. “You never screwed anyone in all these years? I don’t believe you! For one thing, you’re far too good at it!” “Who’s flattering who now? I didn’t say I hadn’t screwed anyone.” She snorted derisively. “And none of it gave you any pleasure, of course!” “Yes it did. Mixed with the blood-drink, it can be quite -- thrilling. I just don’t -- didn’t -- ejaculate, if you want a clinical term. I got used to it. The drink became the main object, if associated with sex it was a bonus. But I never gave any woman my seed before you. Or since you,” he added ruefully, slightly ashamed now of his determined search for sex over the last three weeks. She didn’t say anything, just continued to stare at him, a thousand unreadable expressions flitting across her face. Her

parted lips swollen from kissing him, her face still clouded with passion, her beauty bowled him over afresh. Max ached and ached. She whispered, “Something’s happening here, Max. Do you not feel that? Your orgasms, my…” She broke off with a funny little laugh and leapt out of the bed. As the day drew on, she grew increasingly restless. She prowled to the window, looking for any darkening of the eternal gloom. Yet she didn’t leave. At last, she swung round from the window. “Max, it’s happening,” she said urgently. “It’s happening now. It hurts, it always hurts so you mustn’t…” She broke off with a grunt of pain, dropping onto her knees with the agony. Before Max’s fascinated gaze, she tore off his shirt that she’d been wearing on and off all day, and then her beautiful, sexy little body began to change, lengthening and contorting, sprouting hair. At the same time, her face altered, her nose and mouth pushing outward, and her uncontrollable mewl of pain became an animal howl. Her pain broke through Max’s paralysis. He went to her, touching her furry head, kneeling with her and keeping his hand helplessly upon her while the transformation completed. Eventually, she stood there, the small, graceful white wolf he remembered seeing with Will all those months ago. Gradually, her trembling body calmed. She turned her head up and looked at him with April’s eyes, large and liquid, unbearably sad, yet already resigned to his rejection. Emotion rose up in Max like a tide, flooding him with self -knowledge, with feelings he’d neither known nor wanted. He slid his arms around her neck, burying his face in the soft fur of her head. “April, my little wolf,” he whispered. “I would die just to bring a tiny bit of happiness to only one of your days…” The wolf laid her head on his shoulder and softly licked his neck.

Chapter Six The warmth of Max’s acceptance filled her as she ran, clothed her in calm and freedom. Never had she enjoyed a change like this one. Hard as it had been to accept herself, she had followed her instincts before tonight, done what nature compelled. But this night, running beside Max, there was an exhilaration she had never known before, even with Will. Together, they sped along the long, broken roads, leaping over walls and through windows to scavenge for food, to hunt. Max was as fast as she, could jump higher so that he appeared to be flying, and had almost perfect balance. It was a joy to be with him like this, more gratifying still to sense his own enjoyment. Wryly, she thought they were both somewhat surprised to discover they were actually having fun. In the shell of a recently burned out house, April could smell blood. Her hackles rose. She craved meat. And there were bodies still here. Even as she watched Max’s sensitive nostrils pick up the same smell, she caught another scent altogether, that of a living human. Instinctively, she moved closer to Max, to give protection rather than receive it, but the touch of his hand on her head was indescribably soothing. And then, from an upstairs room, the human spoke. His voice was loud and angry, terrified and pleading. He said, “Mummy!” Max turned away with distaste. April only understood her fears when she recognized her own relief at Max ’s reaction. She already knew he no longer killed when he fed, hadn’t for years -- apart from his lapse the night she first met him. Now she saw another line he didn’t cross. Yet these emotions played out only in the background of her mind. At the forefront was the child’s cry. It paralyzed her, chilled her, drew her. Determinedly, she walked across the room to the battered stairs. “April,” Max warned. Quickly, she trotted back to him, seized his hand between her teeth, drew him with her. He came so reluctantly, she knew he didn’t yet trust this side of her. She forgave him that. There was time. She hoped there was time for everything. At the top of the stairs, they found the bodies, a man and a woman, spattered with congealed blood. And between them, a child, pointlessly tugging at their gory clothes to make them get up, cuddle him, feed him… This was the everyday tragedy of violence Will was trying to end. Here, now, April saw with new sharpness that it had to happen. There had to be law here. Hell, right now she’d join Lara’s police herself… Max’s fist closed on the scruff of her neck, holding her back. The baby stopped crying and stared at them from his dirty, miserable face. April looked up at Max, willing him to understand. Slowly, his fingers loosened on her fur. He drew in a breath, stepped forward and picked up the child. The baby looked over Max’s shoulder and again said, “Mummy.” April heard the whine of her own distress. In her human form she would have wept. Hastily, she turned and trotted downstairs again. At the foot she stopped and watched Max carry the silent child. He looked neither awkward nor comfortable. There was no way of telling his feelings on the matter. Except that he did what she asked.

*** If Will was surprised to see Max enter his den carrying a child and shepherded by the wolf that was April, he didn’t show it. The den was quiet, guarded by two watching wolves outside. This return to discipline and safety was clearly Will ’s influence. In the months after the lupi had driven him away, they had fallen into the bad habits that had let the hunters get so close. Now they’d had enough -- their fear of death outweighed their fear of Will and he had, besides, given them new hope. Humans with influence spoke to them as if they were worthy of life, as if their point of view counted. Lara was asleep on a cushion, the severity of her features smoothed out into a beauty that made her appear much younger. For the first time, April realized the other woman was not so much older than she was. It was just that Lara had always embraced her responsibilities, and April had always escaped from hers. That ended now. At the far side of the room, two lupi were going through the painful transformation of morning. April ’s change wasn’t far away. For the first time ever, she regretted it. Hunting with Max, just running with him, had brought them closer, given her a new pleasure she had never expected. Max paused several steps into the room, taking everything in. His eyes lingered on the newly repaired ceiling. Will, in his human form, came toward them. “Max,” he said, actually holding out his hand although his gaze was on the baby. “How -- unexpected.” Max looked at the hand. “The infant? His parents were murdered and he seemed to be alone. April wanted me to bring

him.” “Then you and April have reached some -- understanding?” His hand was still steady. Slowly, Max stretched out his own hand and took it. The shake was brief but definite. Satisfied, April lay down, and waited for the pain to take her. The touch of Max’s hand made it more bearable. In fact, it was curiously sweet to recover with him gently stroking her hair. He even took off his coat and wrapped it round her naked shoulders to keep her warm. Curiously, she smelled him on it now, subtle, spicy, faintly animal. Like herself. Will watched this little tableau expressionlessly. Jane, one of the female lupi, had taken the child from Max, was feeding it from a battered plastic cup. Jane, April knew, had a child of her own. She swallowed, terrified. Suddenly she felt very tired -- tired and dizzy and just a little sick -- and yet there were things to discuss before she could sleep. “Will,” she said, and obligingly, he squatted down beside her and Max. “Will, Max is old, older than the war. He knows about the atmosphere, and radiation. He’s a scientist.” It was nice, just occasionally, to be able to surprise Will. An excited gleam lit up his eyes. He said, “I’ve read some books and papers on the subject -- my brother finds things like that. It seemed to me it wouldn’t be impossible to disperse the cloud, and let things grow again.” “I’d have to analyze the atmosphere,” Max said, “but in theory, it could probably be done, yes.” “And you are prepared to help do this?” Max shrugged. “I’ll look into it. But I’ll need equipment, instruments, chemicals, some books that I don’t have. Without these things, we might as well let the world repair itself. Which it will in its own time.” “Make a list,” Will urged. “I’ll get word to David to trawl for these things and bring them home.” “I’ll need assistants too, humans or lupi.” Like April, Will spotted the deliberate omission. “Do vampires hate each other that much?” Max’s smile was twisted. “My dear Will, if this works, the chances are there will be no vampires.” April’s head snapped up from his shoulder. “What do you mean?” Max said nothing, just stroked her hair. Will said, “You don’t know that. The old vampire myths don’t necessarily apply. You don’t make new vampires by biting people, for example. I don’t see any reason why the sun should damage you any more than the rest of us.” “It doesn’t matter,” said Max indifferently. “It does,” whispered April, seizing him by the shoulders. “Max, when I asked you to do this, it never entered my head that I was asking you to wipe out your species!” He didn’t look at her, only smiled slightly. “You need sun. The Earth needs the sun. My species would be no loss. I should know. Between ourselves, I’m heartily bored with the survival at all costs scenario. I’d like you to see the sun. Even the moon, which seems to control your transformation cycle.” “Max…” “We can build in protection as we go along,” Will interrupted. “I don’t want to wipe out your species, Max.” “Then you are a single voice crying in the wilderness,” Max mocked. “I want your cooperation, Max. You don’t need to kill to survive. Couldn’t you spread the word to other vampires what we’re trying to do?” “I suspect they know what you’re trying to do, and frankly, depriving them of darkness is hardly likely to endear you to them further.” The two men stared at each other. April tugged at Max until his eyes came reluctantly back to her. “Max, your people are older, wiser, more experienced and knowledgeable than any of us. If you remove blood lust from the equation -- by a constant supply of some kind that doesn’t involve killing -- would they not make superb organizers, teachers, doctors…?” Something flickered in his eyes. She knew with relief that she ’d made some connection. He said, “You’re asking for a denial of instinct, a complete change of lifestyle, attitude, habit…” “Max, you were curious enough to come here three weeks ago. Since then you ’ve had a pretty major lifestyle change yourself.” “I have you,” he said simply, and her heart melted. I have you. There was something permanent in that. It would be all right -- he felt it too… Unconsciously, her hand slid down to her belly and held. Unfortunately, the eyes of the two men followed. Snatching her hand away again, she sat on it instead, but it was too late. She felt the intrusive brush of Will ’s mind in hers, and then he leaned forward abruptly and laid his hand on her tummy. Max’s eyes narrowed. April hastily caught the vampire’s arm to calm him. “Oh, April,” Will murmured, as he took his hand away again. “What’s going on?” Max asked evenly, and yet April saw that he was waiting for a blow to fall. He didn ’t believe in his

happiness. The years of his isolation, his loneliness and self-loathing, hit her mind like a blow. The budding telepathy between them was growing, making everything harder -- and yet surely, ultimately easier. She said urgently, “I was waiting to tell you when we were alone, when I was sure… Well, I think Will’s just taken care of the sure thing. He’s more sensitive than any of us… Max, I’m pregnant. I thought it was anxiety upsetting my menstrual cycle, but it isn’t. I knew today why I’d been feeling so strange, when you told me how I was different for you, that only I had received your seed since you changed…” It was Will who touched her shoulder, protectively, as if warning Max. To remove any doubt, she said firmly, “Max, the child is yours, conceived when you escaped from here three weeks ago. It’s meant, Max. For some reason, we are meant to have this child, half-vampire, half-lupi.” Max was staring at her. Will said, “There has never been a cross-species child. I didn’t think this was possible. I thought the best we could do was tolerate each other, even love each other…” His eyes flew to Lara, stirring restlessly in her sleep on the other side of the room. But April couldn ’t spare attention for him, not then. With difficulty, she said, “Max, you didn’t ask for this. You didn’t even think it was possible when we did it. I don’t -- I won’t -- expect more from you than you want to give. But you have to know I will do anything and everything to nurture this baby, to bring her into the world and make it better for her.” A second longer Max stared. There was so little given away in his eyes that she thought in despair that she ’d lost him. Then his breath came out in a shudder. In one sudden movement, he seized her in his arms, crushing her to his powerful chest. “As will I,” he said unsteadily. “As will I. For both of you.”

*** “What a pity we can’t live here together,” April said with regret as Max once again opened the door of his flat for her. “Why can’t we?” “Because I refuse to live in a house I need someone else to help me in and out of! I can ’t climb up here on my own, Max!” “Actually you can,” he said, taking her by the hand. He led her into the back room full of books. “Like lupi, vampires always have another route of escape.” Easing back the table, he lifted the loose rug underneath it to reveal a hole in the floor. There was a sheer drop to the floor below, but Max said, “I can easily put a ladder there. Then I can show you the route out. It’s a bit circuitous, but there are no huge jumps. Anyway, in the long term, if Will has his way, they’ll soon be repairing this building, people will move back in and be quite happy to be sharing a block with a vampire-lupi family.” “You don’t believe that,” April observed. Max shrugged. “Oddly enough, I don’t disbelieve it. It seems lots of things are possible now.” April put her arms around his neck and he held her close, sweeping his hands down her back to rest on her buttocks. There was no pressure, but April pushed herself into him anyway. It was gratifying how quickly his cock hardened at this slightest touch. She decided to help it along, stepping back to unzip his jeans and reach eagerly inside. His breath hissed as her fingers closed around his growing shaft. Smiling wickedly, April dropped to her knees and tenderly drew back his foreskin, increasingly excited by the tremors which shook him. Lowering her head, she took as much of his cock into her mouth as would go, glorying in its hardness pressing against her cheek and throat. She drew back, lapping at the now rock-hard stem, and slowly gliding her tongue upward to the velvet-soft head, swirling around it as the eager moisture trickled from its tip. April licked it, tasting him and loving it. Taking the head in her mouth, she gave a gentle suck. Max groaned, twisting his hands in her hair, urging her on. Clamping her lips harder, she slid them down the long, thick stem, as far as his balls, sucking and nibbling as she went, then back up, increasing the suction until she pulled the head hard into her mouth. “Christ, April, if you don’t stop that I’ll…” “You’ll what?” she asked, coming up for air. “I’ll come right now, into your mouth.” “Do it,” she pleaded, and sucked him hard, relaxing her muscles to take him down her throat. Her effect on him drove her on. He held her head, guiding her as she lashed him with her tongue and massaged with her throat and lips. It was quick and wild, and his seed filled her. She swallowed it down as if it were nectar, rejoicing in the shuddering strength of his climax. It aroused her to boiling point. He opened his eyes slowly. His hands dropped to her armpits, drawing her to her feet. “Your turn,” he said deliberately and began to undress her, stripping off the jeans and sweater she had put on at the lupi den, until she stood naked before him. Slowly, wonderingly, he placed his hand on her belly. Then he smiled and swept it up over her breasts, making her gasp with the sudden pleasure.

Shrugging off what remained of his own clothes, he stepped closer, letting her feel the length and continued hardness of his cock against her body. Who ever said vampires had no stamina? With a satisfied sigh, April reached up for his mouth. He gave her it willingly, twining his tongue around hers in a deliberately arousing dance while he slipped his knee between her legs. His thigh touched the hot wetness of her aching pussy. She moaned, rubbing herself against it. Max smiled into her mouth and lifted her, sliding his hands around her buttocks and lowering her on to his cock. April cried out at the size of the thing filling her -- it was as if she forgot each time -- and wrapped one arm around his neck. When he released her mouth, she lowered her head, burying her face in his neck as he began to walk with her to the door. Her lips found a vein in his neck and kissed it. She began to nibble it, licking and teasing, sucking the skin into her mouth while she almost fainted from the delight of his cock moving in her. “Max,” she gasped out. “Bite me, feed from me!” “No,” he said raggedly, “I won’t do that again!” “But I want you to. I want to give you my blood, share it with you. But God, more than that, I want to feel it again. I lied, Max, I loved all of that first time. I want you to push into me and suck out of me together… aah!” She broke off, her mouth wide with ecstatic shock as his teeth suddenly pierced the skin of her neck. Lifting her, he sucked her blood with his mouth and then thrust deep inside her with his cock. April felt again the pushing -pulling stream of pleasure, and cried out with the intensity. Max growled into her neck. They bumped into the doorway, but recovering, Max began to turn, spinning with her into the main living room while he fed and fucked her together. They collapsed on to the bed, Max’s mouth still clamped to her neck and on his next thrust, April fell into orgasm. With a tortured gasp, he tore his mouth free of her throat, yet continued to hammer her through her screams of joy, holding her there while he reached his own massive climax. “I took too much,” he said, when he could speak. “I didn’t mean to… it will leave you weak for a few hours.” “Then I’ll just have to lie here and let you pleasure me. ” She stretched like a contented cat. Max smiled, slowly withdrawing his cock and settling down at her side, his head propped up on one hand. “It’s the least I can do,” he agreed. “But I am serious. We mustn’t do this too often, with the child to…” “Which?” April interrupted. “The feeding or the fucking?” “Well, I meant the feeding, but both if necessary. There are clearly other ways to bring each other sexual fulfillment. Now,” he said, spreading his fingers across her pussy, “about this pleasuring…” April purred. “Yes please.” “I have a question first,” he said, removing his hand and examining the moisture on his fingers, made up of her own cream and his semen. April caught his hand and brought it to her breast. Giving in, he began to rub the moisture into her nipple in slow, sensual circles. She swallowed. “What question?” “If the lupi mate for life, how come you and Will are not still together? How come he has made Lara his queen of the werewolves, and you are now the expectant mother of this vampire’s child?” “Will and I were never for life,” she returned. “Like humans, some of us need to kiss a few frogs … I think we both wanted to be mates, because we are fond of each other and hell, it was fun. But there was no recognition there, no bonding like…” She broke off, looking away. “Like Will and Lara,” she finished. “And you and me, April?” His hand paused, yet she was still painfully conscious of her tingling, erect nipple. “What do you recognize here? Don’t be afraid, just be honest. I’ll keep my word to you and Will -- and the baby -- whatever you say.” “Max…” She took his face between her hands. “Max, I don’t want to burden you with this lupi mate-for-life thing! I’m yours -- just yours -- for as long as you want me -- no longer. But if you want complete honesty…” “Nothing else,” he said. “Ever.” “Then I love you. I’ll love you as long as I live, because I’m a lupi and you are my life mate. That doesn’t…” The rest of her speech was lost in his mouth as it fell fiercely on hers. “Then this vampire is happy,” he whispered against her lips. April smiled and, now that serious matters were concluded, closed her eyes, waiting with sweet anticipation for the pleasuring to begin again.

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].