Thirst Ch. 11

"Mizrah...hey, baby," she purred to him, rippling and shuddering like a dragon in her pile of gold as he opened his eyes dreamily to smile up at her. "You wanna go again? I'm kidding, haha..." mostly kidding. This man left her absolutely insatiable, even if his blood filled and satisfied her in a way no mortal's could.

"Monroe..." Yusuf whispered to her, pushing to sit up - she helped him, holding him close in her arms and gently nipping at his jaw. "Are you...full...and sated?"

He'd taken to asking her this after they had sex and she fed from him - even if she hadn't, he'd query, like some sort of ritual. Monroe Carter cocked her head as she considered him, his seed flowing over her thighs and leaving thick, white stains on his dark blue sheets. "Yusuf Mizrah...you always give so much of yourself to me, my sweet, generous man. Yes. I'm very full of you, and wonderfully sated."

She'd really demanded a lot from him this time, and briefly disentangling herself from him, she brought that big plastic water jug he kept filled for when they mated and she drank from him; he'd need to rehydrate, and probably eat whatever it was he ate. "Go on, drink up you crazy-ass...didn't know a man could cum that much."

"You're damn good in bed," Yusuf remarked after draining a liter of water - she could feel the infernal calefaction in his veins as color returned to his flesh gradually. "And you didn't think I could."

"I didn't," she admitted. "I was just fooling around but...goddamn Yusuf Mizrah." Monroe Carter pulled his covers up and over the two of them, settling into his arms with immense contentment. "...who the hell are you?" she'd asked him that on their night together. "I just didn't think a man like you existed, and you shouldn't exist...dangerous for people like me you know? Before you came along I was completely, totally focused, weren't nobody could knock me astray. Then...there was you."

"I didn't think there was a woman like you, Carter - or like...I knew people like you existed, they have books and songs written about them, they're remembered long after people like me are gone." His voice was soft and reassuring against her ear, but the thought of him dying...

No. No God no, anything but that.

"Like I told you. I'm real happy when I'm with you. I don't care about any of the other stuff, I just want it all to leave me alone so I can just...hang out with you. You feel that too don't you?" His fingers tipped her chin upward to look into those coal dark eyes. "I know you're happy when you're with me too. I saw it in Villa Forte, and every night since."

No way to deny it. He was totally, completely right.

"Do you wanna leave this place with me?"

Monroe stared, an intake of breath cold against her lips.

"The hell you talkin' about? You mean just..." her fingertips sought his face.

"Just ditch the City. Get the fuck out of Pomdufond Parish, out of Louisiana and head somewhere else. Miami maybe. Cleveland, they got a bombin' music scene, or like...shit I dunno, Tijuana?"

...in another timeline, another unlife, she and Yusuf abandoned this place. She left the Syndicate without a word and never cared to know what became of them; she threw her responsibilities to the wind and they crossed the border, went South, and became night-legends in those parts - the Vampire-Lupine duo who changed the history of the West and went down as heroes in the darkness. She never looked back, and never had to, because she had him for all her years and she never felt cold, lonely or hideous again.

...but in this timeline, Monroe Carter wasn't that kind of woman. She couldn't just break away from the thing she'd sacrificed so much for upon the altar of ambition, and she couldn't abandon the people who needed her. Like Corra, or Sherman, or Little Samara especially.

"You know I can't," she admonished him in a voice soft as an owl's wings, sadness in her eyes as she cast that beautiful life back into the abyss of possibility.

That same sorrow was reflected back at her; he smiled wistfully and held her close for some time, and they both mourned what could have been.

"Well...okay. Maybe though," Yusuf began carefully, "you could help me out with something..."

Later she'd look back upon this moment with profound guilt, because of how eagerly she leapt to the ready; she'd know the unconditional desire to lighten his burden. In turn, when she finally did rope her into his conspiracies, in his heart would be that same altruism.

"Of course Yusuf," she'd said without thinking. "Anything, baby."