Thirst Ch. 04

His eyes had ridden the line of her spinal cord down to the curve of her ass. Athletic and svelte, it was nonetheless tightly rounded and almost pure muscle. Last night, before she'd sworn off him that time too, he'd bounced a quarter off of it while she was reclining naked, on her stomach, reading one of his copies of Jacobin . She'd turned those big, bright amber eyes of hers upon him, black-painted lips pouting slightly, and asked him if he was "simple".

She stopped in front of the tinted window of their seedy little hotel room, looking out over the River, hands on her hips. From where he reclined, he could still see the telltale slickness of their recent lovemaking trickling down her inner thigh, the swollen lips of her sex between her thighs and that wonderful, engorged node. Mizrah didn't want her mad at him...he wanted her to be close, like the other night when they'd just...hung out together. It'd felt so normal after the abnormally good sex...yeah, he'd had to cajole her into staying near, that there wasn't anything wrong with them watching Three Idiots . She'd been skeptical of the Bollywood Comedic-Romance at first and more than once said it was 'dumb as hell', but...

When she laughed - really, truly laughed, not that bitter mocking thing she did - her voice got all husky and boisterous. Monroe's teeth flashed so white, just perfect; for someone with hard resting-bitch face, she had an amazing smile.

For now she was peering at his reflection hawkishly through the glass of the window...and since he had her attention, he thought he'd try to break the ice-wall she'd put up. "I know that look," he purred at her in that special voice...subtly shifting the structure of his vocal cords in a way he knew thrummed in a person's body with a crackle-pop in his throat. "You're either getting all pissed at yourself, or ready for round two."

"Neither." Her voice was sharp like an arrowhead, clearly meant to sting his heart and send him back; he knew it was an act. Mizrah was a persistent, patient creature, and he just smiled at her knowingly.

He'd neglected the Hunt over the past few days, but without established Territory of his own it was a bit hard to get the dangerous meat his soul craved; if there weren't other Accursed Beings to hunt - Skittering and chittering Twitchlings, yowling and hissing Colony, or leather-winged capricious Nachten - then his next best option was the flesh of Man. That, of course, came with its own dangers...so instead, the same behaviors he used to pull in prey were turned against her. He was somewhat conscious that he was doing it, but it felt so good he didn't really care. Maybe it was kind of unfair to be pursuing her like this, but...she wanted him, and he wanted her.

All the while there was this growing, gnawing ache in his gut that he soothed by pumping his savagery and vice into her.

She stormed off in this cold, totally imperious way that was utterly sexy because she was doing a really good job of acting like she didn't want anything to do with him...but again, he could smell the game. "I'm getting out of here, and we're never doing this again , Mizrah." Slamming the bathroom door behind her, he noted that she didn't lock it. He leaned his head back on the loveseat they'd stained with their fucking, staring upward at the periwinkle-painted ceiling.

" The smell of your death is so near / but your breath mists the glass, from so far..." he sang quietly to himself. It was the accompaniment to a melody sung by a person who'd been a vital component of his life...more than a friend, more than family, but that was over now. Nobody could sing like she had now that there was only death. Dead packmates, dead dreams, a whole Great Lake filled with corpses that nobody knew about...nobody except him, the survivor of that horrible war.

Just keep smiling Mizrah. That's what he did. Bereft of the things that he should have had, there was this...dead woman for him to chase. A dead end, a corrosive thing to mix with the unnatural energies of The Curse but he didn't care. She was beautiful, she was a passionate, smart rebel against a pile of systems they both hated, and she fucked him with incredible skill and vigor. That's why he drifted after her to the bathroom door, leaning against the edge and knocking loosely against the frame with his knuckles.

"I don't get why you're so angry every time we do this," he called to her playfully. Admittedly even this part was a diversion, entertaining in its newness; Mizrah had never willingly dealt with a woman like her before. "It's not like I'm twisting your arm to get you into bed."

"Nuh-uh, mmm-mmm. Nope, don't even start that shit." Damn, okay she sounded kinda serious now. Mizrah rolled his eyes as she continued, checking his nails idly. "You're clear on exactly what you're doing, and the risk you're taking with your own damn sorry skin. That's what I don't get." Mizrah considered the possibility that, in addition to worrying about herself, she was concerned for his well-being. That couldn't be, everyone knew Leeches were conniving, utterly self-absorbed and stricken with a different type of paranoia than gripped Accursed Beings like him...but it was a pleasant fantasy.

"Same risk as you're taking." He opened the door and slid inside, leaning against the frame after closing it behind him. He gazed at her through the shower curtain, the silhouette of her tight, strong body standing there under the water, scrubbing at herself with soap that smelled like new car and lilacs. "Monroe Carter, leader of the rebellion, thought you'd be used to living dangerous...you losing your edge?"

"It ain't the same - god damn, you think playing the fool is cute or somethin'? It ain't bad enough you go and get me hooked like some mothafuckin' dealer."

That's not fair! He thought with some measure of reproach, but she was hot under the collar and interrupting her to point that out wouldn't help. Besides. He wasn't mad, even as her fists clenched and she began hauling at him - he kinda deserved it, it was true. Every other woman who's ever said "no", he backed off, and he was being kind of a bastard.

"What if I took too much from you again? Hmm?" Her fingernail jabbed against the shower curtain like a stinger. "What if you didn't get up, or what if some, I dunno, crazy Lupine self-preservation instinct kicks in and you go ape-shit? One of us would end up dead, the other would soon follow and there'd be war in our halls again."

It didn't work like that, and that was the sinister nature of the Kiss - normally at the edge of death, a Werewolf's survival mechanism kicked in which meant either violent, unrestrained animal frenzy or flight with no regard for anything in his path. The pacifying effects of the vampire's bite, and the world-shaking pleasure it brought, suppressed that trigger, and if she had taken enough blood from him that first night he'd be dead. She'd left him with just enough, however, that he was able to stay alive and regenerate it all - he'd been ravenous after, deathly thirsty but Mizrah had come out of worse.

She didn't need to know these things, better she presumed his near invincibility...he stressed her out enough with the drama of rejecting him, which he knew she didn't actually want to do, only to be seduced afterwards. "If I'm not worried, you shouldn't be either babe. You know, for someone leading a liberation movement, you really subject yourself to a lot of restriction...no wonder you're all pent up whenever we see each other."

"Fuck. You ." She pulled the shower curtain open, glaring at him as water flowed down her shining, wet skin. She was so incredibly distracting, it was like her voice was coming through a wall as she yelled at him. His eyes ran up from her thighs, her belly, finally to her face, taking a breath to try and get a word in. "You are fucking with my life . Do you hear me? I got people relyin' on me, and nuh-UH!" Monroe interrupted fiercely, refusing to break eye-contact as she shoved him roughly by the shoulder. "DON'T INTERRUPT!" She continued yelling at him and he sort of...tuned it out.

Man, she was really mad. He felt kind of bad actually, but her flashing teeth and eyes...her passion...it got his heart pounding again. Maybe he was some sort of weird masochist, or just going through a bizarre phase because he never really put up with this sort of thing before, especially not from girls he was involved with. Nah...usually he kind of set the tone, set the rules and, most importantly, boundaries. He didn't really want boundaries with Monroe, however.

The minds of creatures such as Monroe were clearly and distinctly cloven between their conscious Ego and the base, self-serving, barely-sapient mindscape known as 'The Beast'; it was a state of instinct that arose after death, an ill-understood result of the mind arising from beyond. Broken and cracked, perhaps. Accursed Beings, from Werewolves to Chiropterae, existed in a state of grand unity with their savage instincts; there was no distinction for them between higher thought and the powerful thrust of biology, which is why shutting her up seemed entirely rational.

Mizrah stepped into the shower, finding her hips with his hands and pushing her back against the wall as he kissed her fiercely. Whatever she was yelling about was interrupted, garbled protest disappearing into a drawn out sound of frustrated passion. It was amazing for some reason, this kiss that was like any other kiss with a mortal woman...no fangs, no magic, but certainly fireworks, exploding in his heart and stomach. They'd just had sex, but only one time, so it was easy - natural, really - for him to feel aroused a second.

Her svelte, muscular dark arms pounded clenched fists against his chest, and he knew if she really wanted to she could shatter his sternum, pound his ribs into bits...that's the type of Vampire she was, with her unnatural strength. It was a doomed show of rebellion against her desire for him, and sure enough he felt her fist opening against his upper abdomen. For a woman such as she - hard as nails, a calculated revolutionary - Mizrah found it almost poetic that the indignation and fury seemed to smolder away when he kissed her.

Good...feel my muscles, feel my teeth against your lips, feel how hard you make me, even minutes after we finished...you want my strength, you want my lust. Take it from me...it does me no good.

It couldn't be more than just...idle chasing, right? Like when a dog went after its own tail because there was nothing else to do, or when a man stuck on a desert island started talking to a corpse because there was nobody else; but that wasn't fair to Monroe.

A dead person shouldn't be able to drag her nails through his stubble in that gentle, soothing way that was on the edge of affectionate. When she finally mustered the strength to break their kiss, her hypnotic gold eyes glared at him with the brightness of a python's...not the glassy stare of a corpse. Normally, her voice was smooth and hard like low-heated tempered glass, a no-nonsense tone heavy with conviction. The husky, gentle way she asked him "why d'you do this to me?" spoke of her complexity and contradictions, while a cadaver was a simple, straightforward thing. That voice made his belly flutter.

And yet...he wasn't the only one to utilize the skin he wore as a mortal to mask the Night-Thing beneath. Both had seen past the trappings that allowed them to take their hunt among the Herd itself, and while she certainly made a show of pushing, neither one had run away yet. "Don't forget, you made the first move." It tickled him to remind her of that.

"Not true at all, ya'll rolled on up to me like some Basra Cassanova, cocky-ass fool smirkin' like you big." It was getting hard to hear what she was saying again, especially when her thumb brushed the corner of his mouth. "We're not s'posed to be doin' this Yusuf," but their lips had already met again.

Her leg linked around his, opening herself to him as she ground her hard nub of desire against the underside of her penis. She exhaled in low, shaky pleasure at the way his frenum ladder, and the swell of his shaft, pressed against her. It drove him wild, the sensitive pillar of his flesh throbbing against the hot, silken caress of her vulva. Her body was a work of art, but...Mizrah loved the heat between her thighs. It might sound both odd and also obvious but hers was especially proud, the shape of her lips tantalizingly filling out her underwear. The swollen, prominent hardness of her button was drove him wild - it was round and shiny, large as the tip of his finger.

Mizrah felt his heart beat against her chest, and yes it was dangerous and transgressive, but he'd always given convention and the whole wide world the bird. "There's no one here but us," he reassured her earnestly, speaking against her mouth. She laid her head against his shoulder, closing her pretty eyes and resting her cheek against his chest.

After leaving all the bodies floating in the water, he had nobody else to care about besides her. Until the day she finally decided to break from him, or her fears came true, he'd keep giving her his blood and his seed. He'd keep pursuing her.

Like it or not, his heart throbbed for Monroe Carter, swallowing him down with each draught.