AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I placed my finger on his chest and gently followed the faint line of hair down his stomach. His cock leapt, as if eager for my touch. I obliged.
“You could do both,” I murmured, then leaned forward and ran my tongue across the tip of him, tasting sex and eagerness.
“No,” he said, shuddering, “I don’t believe I can.”
From there on in, there was no talking, and I had absolutely no complaints. I might have spent many an hour longing for adult conversation, but sex and silence with a man I was so familiar with—and one of the few I’d trusted during the war—was far, far better.
And it was certainly far better than I remembered.
• • •
I left Sal’s place at six, well satiated, well fed, freshly showered, and wearing my own clothes—which had been laundered and repaired. If I’d had tabby rather than tiger in my DNA, I probably would have been purring right now.
Dusk was just beginning to settle across the skies, though the streets of Central were still as bright as day, thanks to the UVs kicking into full action as the night approached. I hurried down Victory Street, heading for the drawbridge and hoping like hell it hadn’t already been raised for the night. My little ghosts would worry if I wasn’t back by nightfall, and if I didn’t get out of this place before the drawbridge went up, I would be stuck here for the night.
The huge gatehouse came into view, and relief ran through me when I saw it was still down. But the guards were out of their houses, prowling about like beasts contained, their anxiety stinging the air. Obviously, the last pod of the day was late, and they weren’t happy. And they would stop me from exiting if they saw me.
I ducked into the nearest walkway, waited impatiently for several people to pass, then, when the coast was clear, drew the light around me. It would dissipate as quickly as the remaining sunlight once I moved beyond Central’s UVs, but that didn’t matter. I doubted anyone would chase me even if they saw me at that point, as they generally feared the dark far more than they feared losing one citizen to night and the vampires.
I continued on to the exit. The ends of the silver curtain that Central used in place of the more conventional portcullis gleamed brightly thanks to the lights that lined the gatehouse, but the sensors fitted into the thick metal walls didn’t react to my presence, though they would have, had I been full vampire. It had taken ten years to completely rebuild Central, and, by that stage, all HDP bases had been well and truly destroyed, and the déchet population decimated. It never occurred to them that some might have survived—hell, it hadn’t occurred to me, and I was one of the survivors—so they never built that possibility into their security systems. For which I was extremely grateful. Feeding myself would have been far more problematic had I not been able to make regular raids into Central.
I moved through the gatehouse and out onto the drawbridge. The last pod of the evening finally pulled into the station, and people began streaming toward the city, forcing me to duck and weave to prevent collisions. While the sunlight shield prevented anyone seeing me, I hadn’t physically disappeared; they would feel me if I collided with them. Once I was over the bridge, I jumped down into the rail yards and quickly traversed them. The farther I moved away from the lights, the faster the shield unraveled, until it had completely disappeared and I was visible to anyone looking my way. Pain flitted across my senses at the shield’s loss, but I kept running until I finally reached the Barra’s old watercourse. Though the possibility of being seen by a too-alert guard was now unlikely, I didn’t relax. Night had all but settled in, and the vampires would be rising. And while I was close to the South Siding exit and there were, as far as I knew, no enclaves in this immediate vicinity, that didn’t mean anything. There were who-knew-how-many old sewerage and transport tunnels under Chaos, and Chaos itself was within easy running distance. Just because I’d never seen any vamps near here didn’t mean they couldn’t get here altogether too fast if one or more of them happened to be close enough to smell my scent or catch the sound of my heartbeat.
Which meant I had better get a move on.
But I’d barely taken three steps when Cat appeared. Her energy whipped around me, filled with fear and panic and images of darkness on the move.
The vampires weren’t under Chaos.
They were attacking the South Siding exit, trying to get into our home.
Chapter 7
I reacted instinctively and without thought. My knives were in my hands before I knew it, and I was all but flying over the rocky, barren ground as I headed for the South Siding exit.
“Cat,” I said, “I need flares. And weapons.”
She raced away, leaving me alone with the night and the shadows. I half thought about dragging a veil around my body and becoming one with it, but I was heading for vampires, the one creature on this planet that could see through such veils—mainly because they were creatures of night and shadows themselves.
The closer I got to the exit, the more evident the sounds of fighting became. It was mixed with the sensation of fear and panic—my little ghosts were doing as I directed and protecting our home, but they were neither equipped for fighting nor very proficient at it. And if the hisses and snarls filling the air were any indication, then there was at least a score of vamps trying to gain access.
A score. And me armed with only knives and two small guns until Cat managed to get some more weapons . . . Movement, to my right. I swerved sharply but not fast enough. A body crashed into mine, sweeping me off my feet and down to the ground, where we rolled for several meters before coming to a halt. I raised a knife, but my hand was caught and held firm in a grip that was fierce and strong.
“Are you insane?”
The words were hissed, but the voice was nevertheless familiar. Jonas.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” I bucked as hard as I could, trying to get him off me.
“Rescuing you from stupidity, that’s what. Do you know how many vampires are down there?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing.” His legs tightened around me as I bucked again. “Don’t be a damn fool. It would be nothing short of suicide to go down there right now.”
I snorted and twisted my arms, trying to break his grip on them. “What do you care? You want me dead anyway, don’t you?”
