“It doesn’t matter,” Eddie said.
“Fine,” I said. “So. You guys want to keep your little city balance and your undead under wraps. That’s fine. Truth is. I need a scoop. Or two. Or three. And I’m going to get it. Otherwise, I will advertise this hickey on my neck. And the whole thing goes sideways.”
Everyone stared at me for a moment or two, until Nagi started laughing.
“She has spirit, this one,” he said.
“Guess there’s not a way out of this one,” Eddie said.
“Well, there is,” Brother Aleister said. “We could break her pretty neck and hope the next bearer comes around in another hundred years or so.”
There was a bloodthirsty look on his face, that for whatever reason, aroused me.
“Too many deaths already,” Vic said. “A thirteenth? And her, of all people? The Regional Council will be here yesterday.”
“Fuck it,” Eddie said. “Fine. Welcome to the Council, sweetheart.”
I smiled.
* * *
Eddie offered to take me home. I grabbed onto his back, feeling the purring hum of the motorbike between my legs. It was nearly daytime by the time we got back to my apartment.
“You want to come up? Maybe step into the shade for a bit?” I asked.
“The sun doesn’t bother me,” he said. “It’s my bloodline.”
“Coffee, then?” I asked.
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“Eddie,” I said. “Come up these goddamn stairs.”
“Oh,” he said. And then his face rearranged. “Ohhhhhhhh.”
And maybe it was the dying crescent moon on the horizon—maybe it was the stress, the trauma. I wasn’t sure. But he came up after me. We kissed by the front door, his strong hands holding my sides and my arms. We flung clothing off like crazy people, and he walked me backwards to my bed, pushing me back.
Kissing, touching, hands roaming, bursts of warmth like clouds soaring through my skin and tingling my nerve endings all the way down to my toes. He dragged his canine teeth against my throat, and I moaned underneath him, moaned at the danger of it, moaned at the way he felt against me, all force and flame and fury.
And as he picked me up, lowered me onto his manhood, slid inside, I fell away into myself. There was nothing in the room, but Eddie and me—I imagined myself straddling a pedestal. The sun and the moon were beaming down on me, my bare breasts gyrating, heat inside me and beneath me, hair loose and flying free, and I moaned, long and loud, and he moaned, too, thrusting, and soon there was nothing but the two of us together in a blank spot of nothingness as the cosmos thundered and soared in our veins.
* * *
He lit a cigarette, dangling it from the edge of his lip as a long arm came around to grip me tightly. He smelled sweaty, musky—masculine, with a copper edge, like beef. I felt satisfied, in some primal way I’d never known, and I nestled back into his side.
“How’d you know we weren’t going to kill you?” Eddie asked.
“I didn’t,” I said. “But I figured. I had talked with Brother Aleister before. I get what you’re doing here. You’re not monsters. You’re just people. Different people and you’re having trouble holding onto your peoplehood. And I get that. God knows I’ve had enough crazy times in my life. I think Rebecca really did show me that, though. She was so broken. I almost talked her down, Eddie. I almost got her to move on. I think I’m going to need therapy after seeing this.”
“I might, too,” Eddie said, voice somber.
“We went through a lot for this,” I said.
“You more than me, maybe,” Eddie said.
“You want to help me think of how to pitch this article idea to my boss?”
“No,” he said. “I will, anyway.”
