Blood Rules (15 page)

I
let Gabriel drag me only so far out of the main graveyard and into a darkened lane before I wrested myself away from him.

He made as if to grab me again, then held his hands up, clearly realizing that he was going too far. Round us, those figures in the walls—cryptic and far too curious—slithered nearer. It was like they were attracted to us.

Nosy? Or . . . lonely?

Maybe they felt that last quality in me.

Gabriel glanced at the interlopers, then at the lane in general, as if looking for somewhere private—a place where shadows weren't pressing down on us. With one sniff of the air, he seemed to determine a perfect spot, pointing to a building on the corner that seemed to have all of its decrepit walls intact. The door to it was open.

Even in my human form I could smell the more pleasant aroma of the space. When we went inside, I saw it was an herb house, with ropes of dried tawnyvale hanging from the ceiling and draped over scrawny chairs and tables. The herb had a mild, sweet fragrance that probably did its part to cleanse the diseased odor from some of the homes of the living dead in this necropolis. Probably the people who still cared enough about smelling decent were the ones who used it.

Gabriel closed the door to the shadow creatures outside, and I stood amidst the herbs, which brushed my shoulders.

“I realize,” I said, “that Taraline would've proven to be a lot of baggage, but couldn't we have heard her out?”

“If there's a cure for dymorrdia and we find it, then we can always come back here, just like I told her. Listening to her beg wouldn't have gotten us anywhere tonight.”

There was a slat in the roof, and it lent a bit of drab sky through the herbs. It was enough to allow me to really take a look at Gabriel.

The good guy, with his laconic, easy way of moving. The gray eyes, which didn't seem to have much in the way of emotion right now.

Even as a vampire, he'd always seemed far more human than I was. But not right now.

“It's almost like you couldn't get away from her fast enough,” I said.

He looked flummoxed by that, but I was puzzled, too. After all, wasn't Gabriel the hero who came to everyone's aid? Or was that only when he thought his rescuees were entirely human and somehow deserved a second chance?

What was it with him and his own inner monster . . . ?

The questions butted at my lungs, wanting to get out of me once again, just as they had back in the Badlands when I'd confronted him about Abby.

I couldn't hold it back this time, either. “If I didn't know better, I'd think that you despise even a woman who's lost her human appearance.”

He cocked his head, frowning, and through our link, I could feel him scattering, then trying to construct the right emotion within himself. As if a semblance of feeling would help him figure everything out.

“Gabriel?” I asked, wishing I could help him know just who he was.

Who
any
of us were.

He righted his head from its tilt, looking at me straight on. “No need to say more. I take your meaning.”

Did he? Because I had a lot more I could've contributed. But I refrained from telling him that maybe, in death, Abby was the only “human” who'd always remain perfect for him. He'd never seen her change into anything else. He'd never seen in her the monster he'd despised in his own self. I even thought that she was kind of like a Madonna to him—a painted image to worship from a comfortable distance.

That was the saddest part, because I could never be that innocent and untouched ever again. I'd been his whore, and maybe that was all I'd ever be to Gabriel—something he wanted with every fiber of his needful body but something he didn't want, just the same.

Mortification descended on me. A whore. My prim mother would've dug herself a hole and stuck her head in it if she could see me now . . . especially if she realized how much I didn't even care so long as Gabriel wanted me again.

The link between Gabriel and me felt like a tangle of live cords that were getting frayed under heat and wear. But they were intact enough for me to detect in him the closest thing a vampire could feel to sorrow. Heaviness, numbness—his own punishment for falling short of what he truly believed he could still be.

A good man.

But he'd never be that again unless his creator was killed and he went human. The tragedy of that gripped my heart, squeezing what felt to be every last bit of blood out of it.

I moved toward him, the tawnyvale skimming my shoulders and head. “We're going to find all the answers we need. We've just been traveling the toughest part of the road, but it'll get easier. You'll see.”

He barely smiled, as if recognizing a cosmic joke. Or maybe he thought it was funny that I was the one selling optimism these days.

But I didn't give up. “We
have
come a long way in a short time.” I stood right in front of him now, where our link was expanding, just like lungs taking a stifled breath. “We didn't have much direction when we started out, but now we know where we're headed.”

“And here I thought
I
was the speech maker.”

He said it with an appreciation of how things used to be when he'd first come to the Badlands. He'd been our great hope, and then our conscience.

Was
I
sounding like that now?

I almost laughed. Not me. I was still a killer who needed to be stopped. Nothing more, nothing less.

Even so, I grinned at Gabriel, thankful we'd avoided another blowout. Again, he looked like he didn't know how to take my smile.

Trying not to be put out by that, I took off my backpack and glanced round the room, thinking that a bit of tawnyvale wouldn't come amiss if I stowed it in my bag. Gabriel could use it until we got away from the necropolis and the smell abated.

“How long do you think it'll take us to get to GBVille?” I asked. When I thought about what Taraline had told us about the asylum, my excitement pulsed, making me feel ultra-awake. The hub wasn't that far off, and I felt like I could fly there right here and now.

He was back to being the gallant. “Two nights, if we can speed our way along for part of the journey. But maybe we should take a rest before we head out. You've been pushing yourself.”

“I'm not tired.”

“You don't have to wear yourself out as penance, Mariah.”

I looked into those gray eyes of his, not because I wanted to go inside his mind, but because I wanted him to see the truth in my own gaze without having to use any vampire tricks.

His pulse became mine with one fierce jerk as our connection ramped up. It was like my heart was on the outside of me, exposed.

I don't exactly know what got into me then, but I went and did it—I touched the back of his hand, where his skin was pale and cool, the matter underneath harder than any human's. The contact gathered his blood under my fingertips; I could feel the rush of pressure with every passing thud in my chest, in my belly.

I could feel what I did to him.

My temperature pushed upward, as if it meant to spike through the ceiling if I didn't stop it. But when his gaze turned bloodred, I didn't have the will to control myself.

Brain-addled, I reached up to him, wanting to brush my mouth over his. Just once. If he pushed me away, I'd accept it. But I wanted to know what he'd do now that his eyes had gone vampy and our link was yelling at me that he wouldn't say no.

I got closer . . . closer, and when my lips touched his, our connection imploded—an electric burst that left my mouth tingling. It pressed with zinging insistence against my sex, making me ache in such a good way.

The electricity branched out from my lowers, taking hold of the surrounding cells, then all my muscles, up through my skin, breathing heat.

Pounding, stretching . . .

Change was on its way.

Surging with primal need, I grabbed what I could of his short hair as my fingers lengthened with the onset of my change. He groaned against my mouth and, from our link, I knew that he was trying to pull himself back. But everything about me was going with him, sucked into his body, fusing and not letting go.

My sight began to go bluish, and I stopped myself there, on the cusp of absolute change. I have no idea how I mustered the strength. Could be that this connection with Gabriel had bolstered me—that our link had twined through us during these last few nights as an understanding between us had started to grow. The connection seemed to have taken over the peace he used to give me—it'd become something else entirely.

I wasn't sure what, but I liked it.

Nonetheless, my control beat at me. “Gabriel?” I asked against his mouth, my voice warped, but still my own.

The pierce of his fangs scratched my lips, sending my willpower to wavering as I tasted a hint of my blood. He obviously tasted it, too, and our link folded back into itself for a lulling moment, as if collecting itself, reveling in the lust for more.

Then it burst outward, enveloping and then attaching us completely.

He grabbed my hair now, bringing the length of my body to him with his other hand. My pulse thumped against him, and my heat gathered his blood to his groin, making him hard.

I wiggled against the ridge of him, loving the feel, missing it, because the last time I'd experienced such a thing with him, he'd held some affection for me.

He hadn't known what I was yet.

We stumbled backward, bumping against a table strewn with herbs, and he lifted me onto its surface, spreading my legs and forcefully rubbing up against my sex. Our link battled with itself, as if he were trying to keep some order while my chaotic vitals tried to tear us into scraps.

As he rocked against me, I leaned back on the table, arching against him, wrapping my leg round him to get everything I could. His hardness agonized me, sending sharp nips of pleasure up, then out . . .

I moaned, and in my state, the sound emerged like a tiny, building howl.

He buried his face against my neck, and I knew it was because he was lured by the pulse there. Alive. Hungry.

He wanted a bite.

Wickedly, I wondered what would happen if he took my blood and I took his. An exchange. A werewolf and a vampire combined . . .

I dashed away the idea, then reached up to fumble with the catches on my blouse. When it gaped open, the famished sheen of his eyes nearly sent me to really howling.

My nipples went hard as he visually devoured my breasts. Our link turned itself inside out again, flipping my stomach while he cupped me, circling his thumbs over me, our imprint heating through his hands and into my skin. Wherever he moved, a burst of my blood followed, and it made me go wet, needful.

Wanting to give him the same pleasure, I went for the fly of his trousers. I coasted my fingers over the bulge there, and our link surged, swelling the stiff spot between my legs.

As he hissed in feral response, I undid his fly, taking him out, tracing him and knowing that the imprinted blood flow would drive him even further. My hands were hot, pounding, and they'd be sending the same beats into him.

His fangs had fully emerged by now, and when he leaned his head back in utter ecstasy, they were white in my near-animal vision.

Our link huffed like driving steam, almost to the point of scalding my skin. God-all, I was nearer to a change than I'd ever been without giving in to it. But this felt too nice to ruin, with my fingers on him, with his cravings blasting me onward and keeping me strong at the same time. I wanted to be a part of him in every way, so I did the unthinkable—I raised my hand to my chest and drew a lengthened nail down my skin.

He smelled blood the moment it bloomed over me, and with a wild growl, he lifted me to his mouth, latching to the wound. I cradled his head, urging him to drink while our link spun, as if he were trying to pull himself back again but couldn't gain traction.

Spinning and spinning . . .

His thoughts surged through me:
Can't escape . . . animal . . . monster . . . that's all I'll ever be . . .

The very idea seemed to shake him, and he raised his head, my blood on his chin and mouth. We connected gazes, and I fell right in, although there was no peace for me to cling to inside him.

No temporary cure for me.

All I heard were more of his thoughts:
Gluttony. Stop now . . .

But I didn't want him to stop. So I offered my neck to him.

My pulsing vein.

He paused, our link pounding violently. That must've been what pushed him, because suddenly he was on the table, poised above me, his eyes livid as he pulled me to him.

Needing something to hold on to, I reached up with one hand and grabbed a strand of herbs. With the other, I held the back of his head as he struck fang into my neck, the sting of his entry making me growl and pant.

The herb strand broke, and we fell to the table, where, with every suck, my body contracted, as if it were getting ready to explode.

Another suck, another painful, pleasure-filled draw of sustenance from me to him, his mouth against my neck, my blood gathered round the bite, swirling and heating . . .

A howl palpitated in the center of me, a gale of whispers, then a low moan of growls, stronger, higher, until—

I cried out, digging my nails into his shirt, then tearing through the cloth until I ripped at his skin.

He kept sucking, ramming against me, and I rode every movement, whimpering for more, splinters abrading my own back through my blouse. My were-body was already starting to push out the wood and heal as he thrust me farther, farther down the table, until I started hanging over the side.