In Blood We Trust (2 page)

Not like us.
The leader shot his comrade a pointed look.
None like us, them.

They had been programmed to know that, like other humans, they were the superiors. They had been infused with Special liquids to make it so; it made them run faster, be stronger, and use their minds better, and it was only a matter of time before the monsters that were acting as if they had established a temporary new world order above ground would realize their moment was fleeting.

And
that
realization would come when the Witches made their way outside to find any surviving Witches who might still be in other hubs.

Other Witches . . .

The leader's mind clicked, then opened to a piece of data that the group had downloaded before the monster attack.

An image of a tall young man with dark eyes, dressed in a quaint old Shredder uniform with leathered armor, a bandolier, and elevated FlyShoes. He was holding a chest puncher as he peered into the camera lens of one of the few new Monitor 'bots that had recently been assigned patrol duty out in the New Badlands.

Johnson Stamp,
the data read.
Shredder: retired.

The leader felt a tingle of shared awareness travel around his circle of Witches. Besides other sentinels who might still be out there, perhaps there would be old Shredders, even if the government had done away with them after the monsters had been beaten into hiding and near extinction years ago. Even if this particular slayer, Johnson Stamp, was suspected of having gone against his government severance rules and taken up some rogue hunting out in the nowheres.

No matter what Shredders used to be and what Witches were now, they would all have a common purpose—to contain monsters. This would be their first directive—survival. Then, afterward, the Witches would revert to their usual priorities, which included replacing all the old Shredders, even if it called for eradication.

Do away with the old model in favor of the new for the sake of humanity.

The leader glanced down at the Cyclops—its broken mouth working as if to say something to the pale beings it saw around it, its innards bunched around its midsection. Its eye glared as if it, like the dying Monitor 'bot that had captured Johnson Stamp's image, were committing the Witches to memory.

The leader grabbed his knife from the Cyclops's gut, yanked it out, and stabbed at that eye, twisting the blade, blinding it.

Then, as one, the Witches walked away from the monster, efficiently shutting out its pitiful, fading moans.

I
woke up that night, my arms and legs tangled in the sheets of the bed that I'd been assigned to in our liberated asylum.

Even during the fog of post-sleep, I felt him right away, on my bare skin. Or maybe I should say
through
my skin—on top, under, in.

Gabriel.

As he lay behind me, still in the throes of vampire rest, he didn't make a sound. That was because none of the vampires I'd met so far needed to breathe to survive. Animation kept them “alive” or “undead” or whatever they chose to call it. But those of us in the monster community who lived under the title of
were-creature
were pretty much the opposite of a vampire, what with our strong ties to the humanity that ruled us whenever we weren't in creature form.

But just listen to me, claiming myself as a were. Hell, ever since I'd messed up and taken part in a brief exchange with the mysterious monster we'd rescued in this asylum a couple of weeks ago—a cipher named Subject 562 who turned out to be the mother and father of our blood monster line—I couldn't really call myself a normal were-creature anymore.

I, the stupid and impulsive Mariah Lyander, was now a curiosity for my community. I was even more of a pariah than ever, although the others—the Red blood-drinking monsters and the Civil non–blood drinkers—seemed to respect me for kicking 562's ass in the end with Gabriel's help.

We had psychically joined together and broken 562's sanity, using Gabriel's newfound ability to freeze minds. That full-moon night, when I'd first changed into a form that I could access only once a month, seemed so damned long ago.

I didn't like to think of what everyone had described to me: long teeth, a split tongue, flowing hair, four arms, and cravings that went beyond even a normal monster's.

Yeah, I'd really done it by allowing 562 to exchange with me. Hell, I wasn't even your garden-variety werewolf anymore when the moon
wasn't
full. I'd been testing myself over these last couple of weeks and, thanks to my origin, I could call up my new nonlunar form at any time, like when I got pissed off. Or when I got too excited.

This one featured big teeth in a huge mouth. Claws. Fast and mean.

No, in any case, I wasn't quite a werewolf anymore at all.

Now, as I lay here next to Gabriel in bed, I didn't move a muscle. I hardly breathed, wondering when he would sense that dusk had fully fallen. I pressed my face into my pillow while his mere presence sent my blood rushing, heating, as if it were waiting for him to put his fingers on my back, where the blood would gather at his touch. His imprint.

Our strange link.

My instincts told me that I should probably slide off the mattress before he did wake up. But when was the last time I'd listened to my conscience? It sure hadn't been present when I'd been off-guard enough for 562 to bite me in a rapid, willing exchange that I had barely even registered.

My heartbeat twisted as I heard Gabriel stir.

Awake.

I felt his fingertips skim over my spine, and I shivered as the blood rushed there, mocking the shape of his touch.

“I can hear your pulse,” he said.

He'd told me once that my body's rhythms sounded like musical chaos to him, that it was like no other's. He couldn't resist the volatility in me; it was what drew Gabriel, but there were times I wondered if that could ever be enough in the long run for us. Or if it was
too
much, and it'd already led us to places we never should've gone together.

As I pressed my face into my pillow, he slipped his fingers over my back, to my waist, going even farther, inserting his hand between the mattress and my belly. My stomach muscles jerked. My blood did, too, as it tumbled from one part of my body forward, rolling over itself to get to him.

An ache pierced me low, stabbing and swollen. It was almost as if my blood were doing two things at once: trying to get out of me and go to him, as if it couldn't stand to be inside me anymore. Yet it seemed like it was also attempting to bring
him
into
me
.

When Gabriel traveled his hand a little lower, my blood jammed to a sharp point between my legs, and I groaned, burying my face in my pillow even more.

His thoughts mingled with mine through our link, which had always grown stronger when we did sex.

No blood,
I thought back.
Don't even ask for a taste.

His vampire sway should've been enough to get me to surrender, but I was resolute these days. 562's blood had made me stronger than anyone or anything I'd ever known. Even so, I was already damp for him.

I resisted Gabriel, not wanting to lose control of my body, becoming that new nonlunar creature.

Even though the full moon and my more dangerous shape was twelve nights away, I knew that if my passions got the better of me tonight, I'd still regret it.

Got to stop now . . .
I thought to Gabriel.

He was patient, waiting for my answer. But he wouldn't be that way for much longer if he kept rubbing me like this.

I told myself to pull away, but somehow, I wasn't doing it. I kept thinking that whenever we got together, we always managed to tear ourselves from each other before it got lethal, and we'd be able to do it this time, too. Gabriel would just go for his animal blood–filled flask at the side of the bed, drinking down the sustenance while he slid into me, giving me pleasure in that way while I held back my monster. It was a risky game that we'd won so far.

One night, though . . .

As I started to tremble, my mind kept grabbing at logic, even though it seemed as if emotion and need were eating it right up.

Gabriel had changed so much during these last months, just as much as I had, his bloodlust growing and growing as a maturing vampire. What we had wouldn't end up in a good place.

I'd first met him in the New Badlands, out in the nowheres, when he'd been able to masquerade as a human well enough. He'd contained his thirst, holding on to his humanity as best as he could back then. He'd even been a hero to our secretive were-community, going up against the Shredder who'd wanted to slay every last one of us.

But even as he'd been so noble and honorable, he'd met me, and I'd brought out the worst in him.

Maybe that wasn't altogether true, though. Since coming upon other vampires here in the urban hubs, Gabriel had been schooled proper. He'd learned that vampires eventually let go of their humanity, anyway, and his escalating need for blood and the lack of caring about it was only natural.

Yet something inside Gabriel was still fighting his instincts—I could feel the push and pull inside him even now through our link as he pulled me backward, closer to him, where I could feel the buzz of his bare skin. His remaining humanity was the only reason he still drank from that flask instead of sinking his fangs into me. Besides, he knew that if he tasted the blood of 562, he might get even nastier than any regular old vampire.

Obviously done with all the waiting, he coaxed his fingers between my thighs. I held my breath. Then, even though I should've stopped him, he delved between my folds.

Up, into me.

I sucked in that breath while my blood flooded and tingled, hurting in such a nice, scary way. He churned his fingers in and out, and my hips moved to meet every stroke.

I clung to my logic while I still could, but the heat was taking me over, a pounding that would lead to a burst, an explosion into my new form . . .

From the back of me, his stiffness probed between my thighs, and I knew that this was the time to leave that bed, but I didn't. I parted my legs, because I was his already.

My blood was his blood.

Thudding in every place that his skin touched mine, I started the change I so wanted to hold back.

First, there was a blue-tinged wanting . . .

Then something that had been building for the past couple of weeks—a bigger hunger that just got redder and redder by the second.

A craving unlike any I used to feel, and it split me down the middle in a streak of cruelty, a need to hurt . . . especially those who'd hurt me.

But somehow I shut out that hunger, angling my head into Gabriel's arm, where my cheek met his skin.

Smooth. Cool. No scent.

Vampire.

I bit into him, not rough enough to break his harder-thanhuman skin. Just enough to warn him that we were getting to a point of no return.

He growled, and if I turned round, I'd see that his eyes had gone from their usual silver to a blazing red, that his fangs had popped, changing him from a seemingly human drifter to a seething devil.

He pushed his fingers into me harder, and I groaned, trying to hold back the meanness that was about to come out in me in a series of boiling, stretching, agonizing pulls.

His fangs scratched my shoulder.

“No,” I said out loud now, my voice low, garbled.

God-all, he wanted a bite. I wanted it, too, but I wouldn't be limited to sinking my teeth into one of his veins. My bite would rip, tear, decimate.

And I had the feeling it wasn't regular blood I wanted, either. That split of cruelty prying me apart needed a certain sort of blood tonight—hot, violent, brutally earned—and I pushed back at the craving as Gabriel took his fingers out of me, using his hand to spread my legs even wider.

He probed at me from the back again, and I winced. At the sound, he teased a little more, slipping against me, sliding until I couldn't take it anymore.

“Gabriel.” My voice on the edge, a warning. My vision gone to a pulsing violet.

Laughing low in his throat, he thrust into me, and I clutched at the sheets, yanking them off the corners of the bed, rocking my hips back against him, wanting him to go deeper so I would forget everything else.

But that was the human side of me, fighting this other . . . thing.

He rammed in again, and I moved with him—one drive, two, more, again . . .

My blood buffeted me from the inside out, forging toward him, beating against my skin like fists even as I drew
his
own blood to my skin.

He bent to my neck, fangs scraping my flesh.

“No!”
I grappled for his blood flask, not really knowing where it was, only knowing it had to be close.

But then he drew himself back, in striking position.

I tried to move before he could bite, yet he was faster than I was in my mostly human form, and his fangs needled my neck before I dodged out of the way.

In a crash of white, our mind connection went blank, like a lightning strike that had wiped out all power. But I didn't need to read his thoughts to sense the anguish in him.

He had reared back from me, as if something had jerked him away, and when I got to my knees, one of my hands pressing against my slight neck wound, I saw that he was tearing apart the bedclothes on his way to where he'd stored his flask near the edge of the mattress.