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"God . . . ," he whispered, "yes."
It came out so fierce, so hot.
"Yes . . . ?" she asked, her voice small, tremulous. Uncertain and afraid. There was hope, too, but it was tiny, fragile.
"Yes, yes, yes," he said. "Please, yes. I . . . need this. More than anything else in the world, I need this. To step back from the edge of the Pit. I . . . I . . . oh, please . . . yes."
Tears sprang into her eyes and rolled down her thin cheeks, and a strange, twisted, delighted laugh bubbled out of her. She showered his face with a hundred small kisses.
And then she was tearing at the duct tape, ripping it, sometimes bending to bite it. When he was free she pulled him to her with surprising strength, kissing him, touching him. Her need burned furnace hot, and Toys felt himself getting hard despite the eyes of the monster in the tube.
He stopped her as she shrugged off her lab coat. Toys took her face in his hands and kissed her long and deeply and sweetly.
"Aayun," he murmured. "I want you to be happy."
"I am now."
"Shhh, listen," he said, still holding her face so that she had to look at him. "I was so lost before I met you. So lost. You brought light into my life when I thought that kind of thing was fairy-tale bullshit. You're real, though. Talking with you over these last few weeks, making love with you last night . . . that's made me feel more alive than anything has for years. I've been dead for so long. I just haven't had the courage to lie down. I've been afraid of ending it all because of what I believe--what I know--is waiting for me. You, though, you made me realize why I need to be alive. To stay alive. To continue to live."
"I--"
"I'm already a monster, Aayun," he said.
And with a savage twist of his hands, he snapped her neck.
Inside the glass cylinder Abdul Fazir screamed a long and silent scream.
Toys sat down on the wooden chair, leaned his forearms on his naked thighs, and stared at Aayun. He tried so hard to weep but could not.
For him the tears did not start until after the place was burning.
Until after he walked the seven blocks from the warehouse Aayun had leased to use as her lab.
Until after he was in his lonely pew in the most remote corner of the church. The tears started then. He put his face in his hands and wept.
And he lived for years and years and years.
MAKE IT SNAPPY
FAITH HUNTER
"Make It Snappy" is set in the modern-day world of Jane Yellowrock, a Cherokee skinwalker, but a few years before Jane and Leo Pellissier meet. Leo, the vampire Master of the City of New Orleans, is attacked from a direction and by an enemy he never expected. This story introduces Katie (Leo's vampire heir), George (his human primo), the outclan priestess Bethany, and Leo, before Jane and her Beast begin to tame the MOC. It is a time when Leo's hubris runs free and his humans are little but cattle.
"Make It Snappy" is a rare look at the backstory of Leo, one of the heroes . . . or villains . . . who started it all.
Leo eased the girl's blond head off his shoulder. She was asleep, dreaming blissfully about their encounter, his mesmerism and the power of his blood assuring her happiness. He ran a hand over her hip. Her body was rounded and plump, the perfect vision of beauty until modern times. Now when he visited those sworn to his service, he was often offered scrawny, bony creatures with no curves, no soft and pleasing warmth. She murmured in her sleep, pleasure in her voice and on her face.
Many of his kind preferred the scent of fear, the unwilling, the blood-bound. He preferred his meals willing, even if only by bargain. This one came to him at dusk, when he woke, offering herself in return for a simple favor. He tried to remember her name as he dressed. Cynthia? Sharon? Simone? She had been an easy read, offering all of her past but for one small corner of her thoughts that was closed off and darkened, perhaps some trauma, some childhood fear. He'd left it there, in the depths of her mind, silent and untouched.
He strapped a small blade to each wrist, positioning the hilts in their spring-loaded scabbards. Shrugged into his crisp dove-gray shirt and black suit. Tied the contrasting charcoal tie. No denim or T-shirts for him. He had worked too hard for too many centuries to dress down in casual clothing, using comfort as an excuse for a crass lack of style. His uncle had taught him the social advantages of education, intelligence, and elegance, and while he was delighted the old Master of the City was dead, he wouldn't toss out the lessons learned at the knee of a dominant, successful Mithran, particularly his sire.
He smoothed back his hair as he walked toward the door. The sheets on the bed shifted when he reached the entrance, and he paused to look back. The young woman was sitting up, watching him, a hand at her throat where his fangs had pierced her as he fed. Her face was wan and uncertain. "You won't forget?"
Forget? His brow quirked up in amusement. The woman was his, with or without his compliance in her little family matter, her useless bargain. Women were such an easy indulgence. But still, he was concerned with her "favor" for business reasons, and it would not take him long to resolve it. "I shall do more than remember. I shall accomplish your request before the sun, ma cherie. Marcoise will no longer have the power to cause pain." A small smile lifted his lips. "Perhaps we may meet for dinner, just before dawn, d'accord?"
"C'est possible," she said in a schoolgirl French accent. She ducked her head, her long hair sliding forward to curl around her breast. "You know where to find me."
"I do." She had recently come to work in the Royal Mojo Blues Company, a music, dance, and cocktail bar catering to Mithrans, the vampire masters of New Orleans. As the Master of the City, he had right of first taste of all the new blood. Mixed with wine, he had found hers to be piquant, saucy, with undertones of currants and laughter. When she had begged a favor in return for a night in his arms, he had readily agreed.
