Thirst Ch. 08

"Yeah? What's that matter to us? He's cute...looks like he could also be led down a dark path." She gave the Lupine a saucy wink before leaning back, crossing her legs easily...enjoying the way his eyes crawled shamelessly over her. Monroe toyed with the diamond in her bellybutton suggestively, chewing the tip of her tongue with thoughtful, bright eyes.

"We mess with one, we mess with the whole flock, so we just gotta be...y'know. Cunning

Monroe considered teasing him for being afraid of a gang of mundanes, but thought better of it; the fact that he was trying to use his brain instead of just...rushing in to something, dick to the wind and screaming, was heartening. Instead she stroked the back of his hand gently, looking thoughtful. "Alright...so you want I should play nice with him? Mizrah, are you..." she made a motion with her fingers like a pendulum swinging left and right.

"No," he answered with a chuckle. "Just bat for the one team, but...I'm not embarrassed or shy."

"Ohh, so you ain't all jittery about a threesome? A devil's threesome even, Mizrah?" She queried, suddenly very intrigued. She'd actually never done that before, even though she'd always wanted to.

Mizrah's sultry little smile as a response just intrigued her even further. What a man of surprises. The night was still young, and it'd presented no reason for them to enjoy only one of the appealing choices lain out for them...frankly it was smarter to spread her feeding out anyway.

"What about you? Ain't you gotta put something or someone in that stomach?" She was making more of an effort to mime a normal person, to echo the concern she felt for him.

"I'm fine," came that easy reply and coy smile that made her immediately suspicious.

"...are you really fine, or you just being tough and shit?" Monroe poked her finger lightly into his shoulder, turning her nail back and forth and enjoying the way the muscle shifted.

"I am fine. It's a little complex with us, it's not just about eating. Being satiated is like..." he was adorable when he was thinking, it'd been so long since she thought of another person that way. "There's happiness too. I've been more sated since I met you."

Monroe's cheeks burned. She took his hand and brought it to her lips, nipping gently at his knuckles. "Alright. That was smooth. Sweet man. Point in your favor Cyrus."

"I mean it you know," he said with a serious expression.

How did he know she was doubting his words? She froze what she was doing, mulling over it. You'd think it would just be easy to accept his praise, but the thing she'd become and the mental image she'd built of herself were ingrained in her mind as...repulsive. Disturbing. An evil, dead thing that didn't bring joy to anybody, let alone deserving of it herself.

"You're happy, spending time with me, is what you're saying?" She asked carefully against his hand, not yet prepared to enter the trap of his gaze.

His fingers snaked gently along her chin and jaw, usurping her choice as they made electric eye-contact. "I love spending time with you...it uh...okay, I hope I don't regret this," Yusuf mumbled, and she felt like she was standing on a beach, watching a storm front moving in with baited breath. There, the mask slipping aside again, a glimpse of something vulnerable to rejection beneath. "I'm happy when I'm with you, and when I'm not...I'm not very happy."

Yusuf Mizrah was right to worry; she wished he hadn't said that, because even though she wanted to cry from delight, the darker part of her mind whispered on reflex: you can control him. Long had she wondered if that part of her had always lurked in her heart, or if it was an extension of the Beast unleashed when her first death opened the cage of her soul. She hated the way she filed this bit of truth - that he was dependent on her for more than just getting off - in the same part of her mind as was constantly seeking ways to advance the Cause, to preserve her own unlife.

Nonetheless she allowed herself to feel the emotions that fluttered in her silent, atrophied stomach: the giddy excitement that someone she liked and wanted felt this way for her, the anxiety of doing something uncool before this man, and the anticipation of his perfect physique for her to feast upon. She closed her eyes and nuzzled her cheek against his hand with a contented, quiet sound. "Why's it gotta be so complicated?" She asked the question with a bitter taste on the tip of her tongue.

"Cuz you and I are complicated people." His touch against her cheek was soothing in a way she'd all but forgotten, and she realized she'd been smiling into his hand for a few seconds. Monroe's lips were given that shape that less than a dozen people had seen, the honest happiness, and she tugged him up from the table.

The plan was relatively simple as they laid it out, how they would go about slaking their thirsts both human and otherwise. Alchemy, first; Monroe's parched throat and veins called for the clean, pure blood of a young woman and that leggy girl had caught the attention of both. It would be easy to pull someone like her into their web, and already Monroe could feel the anticipation of those soft curves under her hands and her swan-like throat yielding to her teeth, all the while enjoying Yusuf's skilled touch and that thick, pierced cock of his

Sexual desire flitted through the vault of her unholy mind, making it difficult for her to keep her hands off Mizrah's body so...she didn't, using their closeness as an opportunity to run her hands over his chest, his arms, to trace her fingers along the waistband of his jeans as they walked.

After Alchemy, she reasoned, the Eagles would be found at their favorite roost on Allapattah and South Grand, where some of The City's most notorious street racing went down; everyone who knew this town knew they were part of the bartime circuit. If the Eagles were digging their claws into that venue, then the handsome Cleon would be as well...the other little apple of her eye, a treat she anticipated since she would be the center of his and Yusuf's attentions; she'd never articulated this forbidden fantasy.

Caught between two powerful, male bodies, peeling her clothes off, four hands running over her naked flesh and the knowledge they were going to put their all into making her night...the hardness and tingling heat of their penetration, her mind stickily dwelling on the details of how their cocks may feel different in her hands, her mouth, her sex, already slick with excitement.

Monroe Carter leaned her head against his shoulder, smiling when she felt his hand snake around her waist. For a little while, at least until they reached Alchemy, she just let herself do more than pretend...she believed her own carefully crafted, elegant tower of lies, that the Blush of Life was doing more than telling a fairytale.

Monroe told herself this little story, that they were just two people out on a date...two normal people in their 20s who were really hot for each other, finally doing something more intimate than even the sexual connection they shared.

She crafted, in the workshop within her head, this whole set of experiences they could have together and let herself hook on to them as they talked about everything and nothing - the economy, the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, whether tapioca was a viable replacement for other grains. They'd wake up, side by side...she'd set a plate of her grandma's haut-swamp cuisine before him, he'd do manly things like tuning her motorcycle's engine, shirtless of course. She'd watch laughter lines and age mar her youthful face because she didn't need the Blush of Life. She'd sit at their kitchen table, fingers wrapped around an espresso, and just listen to him as he stood in the golden sunlight - shining and dark, muscular and beautiful and hers.

...but she was dead. That truly beautiful dream was reserved for the living, and it would always be a bitter ache in her chest.

At the crosswalk when they waited for the walk signal, when he was whispering all the incredibly lewd, hot things he was going to do to her when her clothes came off and she was grinning widely, she made herself forget who she was - the leader of a revolution, a woman Damned to night until she withered to ash, a hateful undead thing.

She'd earned that right, hadn't she? She'd forced herself to survive, to tolerate so many nights...now, finally, she could just enjoy one, and believe that she was his girl, and he was her man.