sleep that should have lasted hours yet. Shocked awake by his hunger, my hunger, our hunger, being fed.
Hands dragged me off of that pulsing warmth. Hands prying me away. I came to myself with Richard pulling me into the air, completely helpless. Verne still had my hand. He was holding on, trying to drag me back. His neck was bleeding. A near perfect imprint of my teeth sat in his flesh. His hand fell away as Richard pulled me off of him.
Verne's eyes looked heavy-lidded. He drew in a large, shaking breath and laughed. The low chuckle made my body react. "God, Jesus, girl, what the hell was that?"
I didn't fight to get back to him. I didn't fight to finish it. I lay passive in Richard's arms, blinking in a spill of morning light, staring at what I'd done to Verne's neck and not understanding.
When I could talk, I asked, "What the hell was that?"
Richard cradled me in his arms like I was a child. Since I wasn't sure I could stand, I wasn't bitching about it. I felt distant and light and horrible.
He hugged me against him, kissing my forehead. "Us being together has strengthened the marks. Jean-Claude thought it might."
I stared up at Richard. I was still having trouble focusing. "Are you saying that us having sex strengthened his hold on both of us?"
Richard seemed to think about that for a second or two. "It strengthened our hold on each other."
"Put me down."
He did what I asked. I slid to my knees, unable to stand, and pushed his hands away when he tried to help. "You knew and you didn't tell me."
"Would it have made a difference last night?" he asked.
I stared up at him, tears threatening, and I wanted to say yes, but I didn't lie. "No," I said, "no." Last night it would have taken a hell of a lot more than the knowledge that the marks would strengthen to keep me out of Richard's bed. Of course, last night I hadn't understood what it meant. Last night I hadn't just tried to eat my way through a man's throat.
I got to my feet and fell a second time. It wasn't lack of energy. It was almost like being drunk. But it wasn't a downer. It was defiantly an upper. "What is wrong with me?"
Shang-Da answered, "I've seen vampires do this. If they drink someone powerful or drink too much ... power."
"Shit."
"I'm feeling pretty damn good, myself," Verne said. He touched the bite on his neck. "I've never let a vampire do me before. If it feels that good, maybe I've been missing out."
"Better," Nathaniel said. "It can feel much better than that."
"It wasn't vampire," Richard said, "it was power. Verne's power, mine, Anita's, and Jean-Claude's."
"Sort of a preternatural suicide cocktail," I said and giggled. I lay on the floor, hiding my face behind my hands and fighting an urge to roll in the afterglow. I wanted to take the feeling and wrap it around my body like a blanket. And down the long, glowing warmth, I felt a darkness. I felt Jean-Claude like a black hole sucking in all our warmth, all our life. And in that moment, I knew two things. One, that he'd known when Richard and I made love. That he'd felt it. Two, that as he ate from our lives, we ate of his darkness. We drank that still, cold death as surely as he tasted the sun-warmed flesh and pulse of our bodies. And we all drew power from it. The light and the dark. The cold and the hot. Life and death. As the marks drew us closer, the lines between life and death would blur. I felt Jean-Claude's heart beat earlier than it had ever beat in over four hundred years. I felt his gladness, his joy in it. At that moment, I hated him.
31
Two hours later, Richard, Shang-Da, and I were tramping through the woods in search of biologists and trolls. We had until dark to get out of town, and since we really weren't getting out of town, we might as well continue with our original plans. We left everyone else behind scurrying like ants, packing, packing, packing. We would pack and leave. In fact, we were supposed to call the sheriff when we were ready to leave. Wilkes had kindly offered us an escort out of town -- before dark. After dark, I think the offer was a bullet and a hole somewhere.