Damn the world. He would have stayed.
❖
She didn’t wake with a snarl or a start the next evening. Lucien was ready for her anger. Ready to face her claws. But Makeda didn’t bare them when she woke. She opened her eyes to the thatch ceiling above them, not even looking at Lucien where he lay beside her. He heard her inhale and knew she smelled the blood in the pitcher next to the bed. But she didn’t move.
Lucien didn’t move either. His realization the night before had changed everything, and he held his feelings carefully. He felt almost as fragile as she looked.
She said, “I was in a bad place last night.”
Her hand lay limp at her side and Lucien took it, tracing the fine veins that rose like rivers beneath her skin. He didn’t know what she wanted or needed from him, so he just listened.
“I got off the phone with Dr. McTierney and looked around the lab.” She swallowed. “I realized there was nothing more for me to do, so I walked around the island. Then I walked again. And again. And again. And… I started to realize that this is what my life is now. Every night. Waking in darkness. Going in circles. Years passing. Decades. And eventually, I would be completely alone.”
“Never,” Lucien whispered. “You’ll never be—”
“My family will die. My mother and father I expected, of course. Every child faces that. But my sisters. Their husbands.” She paused. “Then their children. Even their grandchildren. They will all die. And I will be left alone.”
Lucien didn’t remember his human family. He was the second son of his father and not the heir to any land. Lucien hadn’t been expected to have a wife or children. He’d been expected to be a warrior. When he’d died and been reborn, he’d left nothing behind.
“Did you truly want children?” he asked softly.
“Yes.” She paused. “I don’t know. Maybe not. But the possibility was still there.”
“You can still be a mother, Makeda. Look at Saba.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No, I suppose not.” He laid his head down next to hers, rubbing his cheeks on her curls. “I love your hair. Have I told you that? Do I pull it at night?”
“No. You’re easy to sleep with. You never bother me.”
Then clearly I’m doing something wrong.
Lucien didn’t say that.
“This is my fault,” he said. “You’re too isolated here. Your geography is limited. Your circle of companions is limited. I should have recognized that and—”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Don’t try to absolve me,” he said. “It is my fault. I’ve been so focused on work I haven’t been taking care of you.”
“Kato is—”
“You are not Kato’s responsibility.”
She finally turned to look at him. “I don’t want to be your responsibility either, Lucien. I don’t want to be an obligation.”
“Makeda…” He breathed in her scent, the subtle play of pheromones mixed with her skin and hair. The orange oil in her soap and the cinnamon in her toothpaste. Aromas he’d now associate with her for eternity. “Don’t you know you are far more than an obligation to me?”
“Am I?” Her eyes and voice dared him. “Or am I a challenge? A vampire to seduce for variety? To prove you can? Because you have a type, Lucien, and I am not it. I stopped being anything close to it when my heart stopped beating. So why me? What makes me so special?”
He smiled. “Everything.”
“Nothing. You didn’t order Baojia to change me because of some great passion. You aren’t madly in love with me, and you never were. So what about me is special? Nothing. And once we leave this place, I won’t be in your face every night, you’ll grow tired of the challenge, and you’ll move on to something else.”
He propped up his head and looked at her. “You’re not going to believe anything I say, are you?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m not a liar, and I never have been. I told you I needed you.”
“Because I’d made a breakthrough.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Is that what I meant?”
Makeda frowned. “You said I might be the only chance of curing this disease.”
“And I was right. You were the one who found the solution.”
She said nothing, clearly trying to reconcile his words and his coldness the night she’d been changed.
He leaned over and brushed his lips against hers. “Let me remind you what I said next. ‘Did you think I was going to let you just die?’ Did you, Makeda?”
The memory of his terror the night she’d lain twisted on the cliffs collided with his fear from the previous dawn. “When I tell you I ordered Baojia to change you because you matter—because you’re unique—you should believe me.”
Her eyes were a riot of confusion. “Self-delusion doesn’t count as honesty.”
So stubborn. He smiled. “Skeptic.”
“Yes.”
“I do think I’ll enjoy proving you wrong, Dr. Abel.”
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy trying, Dr. Thrax.”
He leaned down and captured her mouth with a grin still on his face, delighted by her skepticism. He didn’t try to make his kiss fleeting or easy as he had before. Lucien took her mouth boldly, biting her lips until she let him in. His tongue delved into the heat of her mouth and he fantasized about tasting other lips, imagined her shaking and weak beneath him when he brought her to orgasm. He wanted to make her crazy with lust, then watch as she abandoned the control she wrapped like armor around her.
He would seduce her body as she’d seduced his mind. He’d teach her the pleasures of an immortal lover. Teach her how he filled long nights when he had leisure. He’d tease her body for hours, prolonging her release until she was begging for his bite.
And Makeda would bite him.
His body grew impossibly aroused at the memory of her teeth in his neck. It had been far more intoxicating than he’d imagined. The pull of her lips against his skin and her tongue licking his blood. He’d felt her bite with a thousand nerves brought suddenly and violently to life.
“Not tonight,” she whispered. “Lucien, I can’t…”
Her emotions were too volatile. Her control was still on the edge.
“Not tonight,” he said. “Just kiss me, Makeda. Don’t think of anything else. Just kiss me.”
“Yes.”
Lucien rolled over Makeda and braced his body over hers, letting her feel the weight and the strength of his arousal. She shoved slender fingers in his hair and gripped hard, forcing a groan from his throat. Her knees lifted and pressed against his hips as her pelvis arched up. Her heat seared him, but he still felt her, slightly removed, an observer to her own passion.
He would make her mindless if it was the last thing he did.
Lucien gloried in the challenge, but it wasn’t just the challenge. He reached up and cupped her cheek, brushing his thumb across the dark gold ochre of her skin. His heart swelled that she was there, lying under his body, vibrant with amnis and humming with life.
She was alive.
Forever alive.
And she would be his.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They swam the next night, across the lake and down a river thick with silt, the red-brown water opaque even to vampire eyes. But Makeda no longer needed her eyes. She felt everything as she swam. The herds of hippopotamuses and lazy slither of crocodiles. The quick darting fish and swooping birds that skimmed the lake.
And as she swam, Lucien’s presence was behind her. He clasped her ankle with a gentle hand, letting her lead them toward the falls he’d described but taking the lead when they needed to exit the river to avoid human construction or traffic. They moved so quickly the scents of humans didn’t even register over the living smells of the Nile. They passed the lights of the city and moved deeper into the countryside. The moon rose and the stars grew brilliant in the sky.
Makeda stopped and floated in
the river, turning her back to it as she gazed into the blackness.
“I always thought they were white,” she said.
“They are.” Lucien linked his fingers with hers as they floated downstream. “And they’re not. They’re every color.”
She glanced at him. “Do you remember what things looked like as a human?”
“Not really. I used to hold on to memories of daylight so tightly. I had one of my mother walking across the courtyard. I don’t remember if she was beautiful, but she was very tall and had dark red hair. When color photographs and motion pictures came, I think I lost those memories. I remember having them, but I can’t really see them anymore.”
“Because you had something more immediate to take their place.”
“Yes.” He rolled over and floated on his belly. “There are no humans around here. Not for miles. You can relax.”
“And at the falls?”
“I doubt it.”
A tension she didn’t realize she’d been holding on to eased. “I’m terrified I’ll kill someone.”
“It’s almost certain you will at some point,” Lucien said. “Killing is unavoidable in our world.”
Makeda sat up in the water, floating with no effort. “Then why do we exist? How does your conscience allow you to—”
“I save more than I kill,” he said. “Is a cost-and-benefit analysis allowed?”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
“We’re predators, Makeda. You’ll discover that the more you grow into your new life. The more you understand your abilities and limitations. We’re predators,” he said. “Like all the powerful.”
She turned in circles and scanned the darkness that was no longer so dark. What would have appeared black to her human eyes was now a layered landscape of grey. “You’re saying humans are predators too.”
“The most powerful are rather blatant about it.” He shrugged. “At least we’re predators for a reason other than our own power.”
“Fine. But the question remains, why do we exist?”
“Why does the lion?”
“To maintain balance in an ecosystem, apex predators must always exist,” Makeda answered. “But lions don’t eat other lions.”
“But they do maintain balance,” he said. “We don’t have to kill to eat, and most of us don’t. The truth about our existence would have been discovered long ago if we did. Now we’re myths and legends. Predators who can walk side by side with our prey.”
“But we are monsters.”
“If something has the ability to think and to reason, it has the ability to be monstrous,” Lucien said. “Why aren’t all human beings benevolent? Why do even the best of them sometimes do things they abhor?”
Makeda frowned. “No one is perfect. That’s human nature.”
“Of course it is,” Lucien said. “And humans—like us—can be monstrous. That some of our kind choose not to be—even with our greater strength—is the reason we exist. I believe we do what the lion does. We maintain balance.”
“We keep the human monsters in check?” Makeda asked. “And who keeps us in check?”
Lucien grinned. “The sun, of course. And that, yene konjo, is a lesson in humility. We may have the ability to prey upon humans, but we need them to survive. And the very thing that gives them life will kill us faster than anything else.”
“Even Saba?”
“Even Saba. She can cloak herself and survive longer than most, but even she can burn.”
Makeda heard it then, a growing roar in the distance. “The falls.”
He grinned like a boy. “Do you want to ride them?”
Her heart began to thump. “Can we?”
He turned and patted his shoulders. “Get on my back. I’ll make sure you’re not hurt. You may just be getting friendly with the Nile, but these falls have known me a long, long time.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he turned his face. With a quick kiss, he swam into the growing rapids. Dodging rocks, logs and the remains of fishing boats, Lucien swam them closer to the edge. She could hear the falls. Sense the excitement of the water and the dropping away of the—
“Oh my God!” she cried as the edge appeared suddenly before them. “Lucien?”
“Hold on!” He laughed. “Don’t you trust me?”
She squeezed his neck so tightly she would have crushed his larynx if he’d been human. Then the water enveloped them, the current sucked them down, and the river threw them over the edge and into nothing.
❖
Makeda lounged on the bank, her body resting in the shallow water as the mist billowed around her. It kissed her skin and clung to her hair. She had never felt more powerful. Lucien walked naked into the water. The current had ripped both their clothes off when they went over.
He’d been right though. She didn’t have a scratch on her. When they’d landed, they plunged into a massive pool that appeared below them, the falls sucking them down, then shooting them up and toward the edge of the gorge. Whether that current had been subtly directed by the earth vampire standing before her, she didn’t know.
“It used to be bigger,” he shouted.
“Really?” Makeda eyed his naked form, which was very very nice. “It seems pretty big already.”
He put his hands on his hips and turned to her. “Before they built the dam—”
“Oh, you were talking about the waterfall?” She nodded. “That makes more sense.”
Lucien paused for a moment, his mouth agape, before he threw his head back and laughed. “Who are you?” he asked between breaths. “And what have you done with serious Dr. Abel?”
She lay back in the river, the air around her filled with living water. “I feel amazing here. More alive than I have since I woke that night.”
Lucien moved slowly, prowling toward her. Makeda had never seen him look more predatory.
She’d never felt more like prey.
Lucien crawled over her, caging her body with arms and legs coated in copper-red water. His hair was dripping, and his eyes were narrowed on her lips. “I’ve always thought,” he said, his voice rough, “that the most beautiful places in the world are where earth and water mate.”
“You mean meet?”
“I mean mate.” He lowered himself and kissed her. Makeda felt the pulse of his amnis over her whole body. She was lying on the edge of the water, lush grass at her back, covered in mist and Lucien. He explored her mouth with leisure, his body a broad wall of muscle over hers. She felt surrounded, the earth at her back, the water filling the air.
And Lucien.
He tasted of salt and earth. Makeda could scent his blood and her own arousal. She could feel his heart beat against her breast. His hands tangled in her hair, and his body was warm and solid. Enticing. And she was so hungry.
Her body was alive with need. He explored her face with his lips. They were both drenched, and when she opened her eyes, rivulets ran from the corners. She didn’t know if they were her tears or the river’s. It didn’t matter. The river was her. She was the water. The sky. The mist. She felt it then, the universality of her element, infusing the air, the earth, and the space between her body and Lucien’s.
Desire engulfed her. She arched her back and let out a low moan. Her skin felt too tight. It couldn’t contain what she felt when his mouth was fused to hers. Her body was at once familiar and foreign. She’d become a creature of need.
“Say yes,” he said when he released her mouth. “Say yes, Makeda. This thing between us isn’t a challenge for me or a weakness for you. Don’t you feel it?” He linked their hands together and pressed Makeda into the earth. She gasped and arched under him. “Don’t you feel it, Makeda?”
She’d been overwhelmed by her own senses. She couldn’t think. She felt too much. Too much!
Makeda opened her eyes and saw the wheel of the Milky Way through clear eyes, the ordered constellations distracting her as the crashing water urged her to lose control.
Let go.
The earth was beneath her. It hummed under her skin. She felt it. How did she feel it? Living. Breathing.
This is eternal life.
“Yes.” She wanted Lucien. Wanted everything. She hungered not for blood but for the endless night and satisfaction of an entirely different appetite.
Lucien took her mouth, an edge of desperation coloring his movements. He parted her thighs and rocked between them. He bent and tasted the wet skin of her breast, running his tongue over the slick flesh before he traced a path back to her neck, sucking so hard she arched up again.
“Come in me.” Her trembling hand found his shoulder.
“Not yet.”
He was relentless. His teeth scraped over her breast again, and she cried out. His fangs teased her, the edge of pain bringing her hunger to aching focus. His fangs disappeared and his lips were warm. His body was hot, his skin a fever making the mist rise from his bare shoulders. Her thighs gripped his hips, her pelvis arching up as he twisted his body and tormented her.
“Lucien, please.”
His mouth left her breast and his smile was evil. “Not yet.”
Infuriating man!
The relentless lips drove her to madness. He teased her neck again, licking out over her pulse and pressing his chest against her breasts. He sucked hard at the tender skin of her neck, and Makeda let out a small scream of fury and hunger. Her fangs, already long and throbbing, sank into Lucien’s shoulder and he roared, driving into her with one hard thrust.
Yes!
Makeda’s head fell back and she released a harsh breath. She felt him, hot and full within her, the relief and the madness sweeping any rational thought away. She couldn’t think. She only knew his driving possession fed the relentless hunger that had stalked her since the night they met.
“Again.” He released one hand and pressed her face to his neck. “Here, Makeda. Bite.”
She bit and sucked his blood, the hot surge of his life filling her mouth as he filled her body. He groaned and kept his hand on the back of her head as she fed from him. He tasted of salt and red earth spiced with the scent of cedar and coffee. Lucien filled her senses until she was mindless and surrounded. As she drank, his amnis enveloped her, entering her blood until she was intoxicated.