Burnt Offerings(157)

Jason gasped.

She licked along his body, then suddenly her mouth closed over his ribs. I saw the muscles in her jaw tense as Jason's body spasmed against me. He collapsed against me, hands scrambling along the floor as if he didn't know what to do with his them, or with his body.

Yvette drew back leaving neat red holes. Blood dripped from the wound. She licked her lips and smiled at me.

"Does it hurt?" I asked Jason.

"Yes," he said, "and no."

I started to raise him up.

Yvette put a hand in the middle of his back. "No, I want him on the ground. I want him below me."

I smelled the sharp musk of fur. Jason tried to look at me, but Yvette forced his head down into my lap. She used him to support her body while she peered into my face. "What are you doing?"

"I am his lupa. I call the pack to his aid."

"They cannot help him," she said.

"Yes," I said, "they can." I slid down, wriggling under Jason's body. The little black dress ended up about waist level. Everyone was getting a great view of the hose and undies. Good that everything matched. But I could see Jason's face. I could feel his body a little more than I wanted to. But it was his eyes I wanted, his face. I wanted him looking at me.

I'd never tried missionary position with a man exactly my height. The eye contact was incredibly intimate. He gave a nervous laugh. "I've had fantasies like this."

"Funny," I said. "I haven't."

"Ooh, too cruel." His spine bowed, body pressing against mine. Yvette had taken another taste. The fear was back in full force, filling his eyes with panic.

"I'm here. We're here."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He drew in the scent of leaves, and fur, and dark places full of bodies that all smelled like pack. And Yvette struck again.

Jason screamed, and I raised myself up enough to see that the vampire had pulled a strip of skin loose so it flapped. Blood poured down his skin.

Jean-Claude came to the edge of the circle. "That is torture, not feeding. It stops here."

"No," Yvette said, "I will feed."

"Then feed," Jean-Claude said, "but do it quickly before our patience is at an end."

She crawled up his body, putting her weight on top of his, grinding me into the floor. The leather stitching over his groin was ground so hard against me that it hurt. His breath came in quick pants, fast and faster. He was going to hyperventilate.

"Look at me," I said.

Yvette jerked his head back by the hair. "No, look at me. Because I will hurt you, Jason. I will haunt your dreams."

"No," I said. The power swelled inside of me, and I spit power into her pale face. Blood flew in a long, shallow cut down her cheek.

Everything froze. Yvette raised a hand to her bleeding cheek. "How did you do that?"

"If I said I wasn't really sure, would you believe me?"

"No," she said.

"Then believe this, bitch. Finish this now or I will cut you up." I believed it when I said it, even though I wasn't sure I could ever repeat the performance. Only master vampires could cause cuts like that from a distance. I'd never even seen Jean-Claude do it.

Yvette believed me. She leaned close enough that the blood from the cut dripped onto Jason's blond hair. "As you like, putain, but know this, I will not put him under. For this--" she showed the cut to me by a turn of her face--"he will suffer."

"Ain't it always the way," I said.