Necromancing Nim (38 page)

The few that weren’t appeared to be older, if not in body then in chronological age. They led the three of us up to the third floor, to a room where we could stay until the showdown fell on our heads. Overall, the place looked a bit rattier than you’d expect for a frat, but I suspected that was because the building was one of the older ones on campus. The humans had probably snagged all the best frat houses.

Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to the vampires we might want more than one room, but I didn’t feel up to arguing with them, and neither of the men said anything, either. We were left with one room, one king-size bed and me feeling very weird about it all. Worse, the room had no windows. Which was to be expected in a vampire frat house, but badness was coming. How could we be properly prepared without windows to monitor what was going on? It made me feel tight, anxious and claustrophobic, not to mention helpless. I went to the wall where a window should have been and stared at the crappy, flocked wallpaper for a few seconds. Completely useless, of course.

Sebastian sank onto the bed and rubbed his face with both hands. He looked tired. More than tired. Exhausted and beleaguered. I wondered if he was thinking about what was coming. I wondered if he was afraid.

“Are you guys okay?” I asked. “I mean, do you need to sleep?” They wouldn’t want to, I suspected, not with night falling and Serious Business about to be underway.

Colin sank into a chair. “It’d be nice, but I don’t think we can afford the time.”

Sebastian pushed his face into both hands. “I need to feed.”

I blinked. Put so bluntly it seemed so…blunt. Self-consciously, I rubbed my neck. The wound there was mostly healed, but a paper-light scab still clung to the bite marks. Sebastian turned his weary gaze up to me.

“Do you think you’re up to it?”

I considered. I still wasn’t sure if this afternoon’s queasiness had been because of the bloodletting or because of Pieter’s proximity. I didn’t know how long it really took me to recover from Sebastian’s feeding. I didn’t know if another feed this soon might be dangerous or even kill me. I didn’t know anything.

“I think at this point I have to be.” At Sebastian’s sound of quickly suppressed distress, I added, “I took all the vitamins. Do what you have to do.”

Colin gave me a sidelong glance. “Close your eyes and think of England,” he said, the words far from humorous.

“Not funny,” I snapped back.

Sebastian, ignoring our snipping, fished in his jeans pocket. “Here.” He held his hand out to me. Enclosed in his curled fingers was the stone.

I took it, perplexed. “You think this will help?”

“Try,” he said and slowly stretched out on the bed. It was more of a slow collapse than a languid recline, and I hesitated, worried. But he just closed his eyes and folded his hands across his abdomen.

I spared Colin a glance; he was still glaring in Sebastian’s direction, more pissed off than worried. I knew he was worried, though—more than worried. He probably felt much as I did about Sebastian’s situation, except worse.

I tried not to think about it. I wasn’t sure which thought I found more disturbing—that Colin’s feelings were likely very similar to mine, if amplified, or that Colin had feelings at all. Everything was upside down, fucked up, and ridiculously scary.

So I examined the stone. Opened the fingers I had automatically wrapped around its small, hard bulk and stared at it.

I hadn’t really given it a good, thorough perusal since I’d first encountered it. It seemed like an ordinary lump of rock, its tan surface uneven, even bumpy in places. I could have dug up any number of rocks just like it out of my yard back home. But as I regarded it, a luminescence took it over, the same light brown as the stone itself, but brighter, cleaner. Less dirt-like.

And I could feel it. A soft, pulsing heartbeat in my palm, a growing pool of warmth against my skin.

Lovely, I thought. It’s peeing in my hand. Of course, it wasn’t, but for a moment, it felt like that. Then it felt more like it was bleeding in my hand, and that seemed both much more gross and much more appropriate at the same time.

I heard Colin shift behind me but didn’t acknowledge it. The stone had my full attention. The warmth was sliding over my skin, up my arm, to my shoulder, my chest, flooding me with heat that seemed to leak into my heartbeat. It made me feel strange—warm and aroused and strangely strong, like it was pouring energy into me.

Colin cleared his throat. My head tipped slightly in his direction, but I still couldn’t drag my focus away from the stone long enough to acknowledge him more directly. I heard a slight rustling as he stood.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” he said, his voice low and careful.

I wondered if he meant me and Sebastian or me and the stone but couldn’t ask. Everything in me had drawn into the heat of the stone, the power it played through me. Vaguely, I registered the sound of the door opening and closing; then I was dragged down into the goldish light.

It was thick and heady, like nothing I’d ever felt before. The closest thing I’d ever come was intravenous morphine in the hospital once. But this left me clearheaded and focused, not muzzy and stoned. I felt my hand tightening on the small bulk, its knobs and bumps digging into my palm. A great deal of time seemed to pass—hours, days maybe.

Fingers brushed my shoulder. I barely registered the touch, but then a voice murmured against my ear, warm, damp air making words that seemed to form inside my head instead of outside it.

“Come with me.”

Sebastian’s touch trailed down my arm until his fingers tangled with mine where they cupped the stone.

“Come,” he said again.

It seemed a long time before I responded, before I was able to respond, before my fingers finally loosened enough on the bulk of the stone for him to take my hand firmly in his and draw me to the bed.

The stone seemed to buzz now, a faint vibration against the skin of my palm. Sebastian’s other hand came to cover it, so that he grasped both my hands in his, one hand closed over the stone so that we both held it.

I still felt disconnected, as if nothing happening were real. It was like the dreams I’d had when I’d been sick, under the influence of the stone and Pieter’s tainted bite. Except it didn’t hurt. In fact, it was just the opposite. The buzzing vibration of the stone through my body brought arousal rather than pain, even more so coupled with Sebastian’s touch as he pulled gently at my hand until I was next to him on the bed and he had his arm around my shoulders. His other hand still held the stone with mine, and slowly he lowered it between my legs.

After that, there was mostly a blur of arousal, need, his hand on me, the vibration of the stone, until he finally set it aside to replace its soft stimulation with his tongue. When he finally bit me, I felt no pain, no sense of weakness as he drank his fill. It was, in fact, more the opposite—a feeling of unquenchable strength when he took me, of growing power when he drank me.

Who knew an ancient mystical object could double as a sex toy? Yes, welcome to the weirdness that is my life.

No complaints, though. It left me weak and drawn out and utterly satiated, yet somehow full of latent strength that seemed to buzz along under my skin.

And as I slid down from the latest of a line of growing climaxes that had bled one into the next until one was nearly indistinguishable from the other, until they were one continuous plateau of orgasm, a hand stroked across my back. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t Sebastian’s hand. Another moment, this one the space of a startled breath, to realize it was Colin’s.

Oh. I couldn’t make any thought more coherent than that. Just…oh. And nothing about it seemed wrong as Colin kissed the back of my neck, avoiding the mark where Sebastian had fed, his hand stroking down my back, across my hip, until his fingers wove between Sebastian’s on the curve of my belly.

Just…oh.

Colin took the lead as he insinuated himself between me and Sebastian. Sebastian let him, moving to make room. Colin kissed me gently, then more firmly, and I could see Sebastian laying kisses down the line of Colin’s spine. God, so hot. I didn’t think my body could contain the blaze rising inside it. I mean, I’d watched gay porn before, but being right there in the middle of it was something else entirely.

Colin kept kissing me, though, making it harder to concentrate on what the two of them were up to. But I saw Sebastian heading down Colin’s body, to the small of his back and lower, and for a moment I was jealous that Colin was going to receive the benefits of that amazing tongue instead of me.

But Colin’s tongue had amazing talents too. It danced with mine, then moved down the line of my jaw. For a moment, I thought he was going to pick up feeding where Sebastian had left off, but he avoided the bite mark entirely. Then, suddenly, he buried his head in my shoulder and moaned. Yeah, I felt the same way about Sebastian’s tongue.

Colin shuddered against me, then pushed me down and shoved into me. He was thick and filled me in a manner I found quite satisfactory. But as he pounded into me, hard and demanding, I realized he was seeking comfort more than release, though the latter was inevitable.

Sebastian’s head appeared over Colin’s shoulder and Colin’s body lurched again. I blinked up at Sebastian, but his eyes were closed as he moved in a graceful undulation behind Colin. Interesting. I’d never figured Colin for a bottom. Or a middle. I guess he was at the moment. The combined thrusting was amazingly intense from my end of things, and for a moment, I wondered if I was going to split down the middle. Then I came in a rush of white-hot fire and decided I didn’t care.

We switched places a few times, Sebastian choreographing at first, then Colin taking over. At one point, I asserted myself and mounted Colin—yes, it is good to ride him like a pony—only to have Sebastian join us, coming over me and entering from behind.

I froze a moment. I hadn’t expected that. But he stroked my shoulders and kissed me on the back of the neck and waited until I started to move before he slid in any farther.

And lo, there was light in the darkness and all things holy were revealed to me in the biggest, baddest, most intense orgasm I’ve ever had in my life. I might have passed out. When I came back to myself, they were both still holding me, still inside me, and Colin leaned up to kiss me. Then Sebastian leaned down and Colin kissed him too. Somehow I insinuated my own mouth into the mix, and three tongues danced and sparred, a perfect circle of desire.

Finally—and I’m not sure how much time had passed—we lay tangled together, satiated and drenched in post coitum triste. It had been amazing, beautiful, and I wanted to do it again, but now there was reality to face.

In spite of the lack of windows, I suddenly knew full dark was only minutes away. And by the slow, roiling wrench beginning in my stomach, so was Pieter.

“You’ll be okay,” Colin murmured, and I didn’t know if he was talking to me, or to Sebastian, or to both of us.

And Sebastian answered softly, “It’s time.”

Sebastian had said he would know when he was ready, when the time had come for him to take the final step. I saw that knowledge there, wrapped in pain. His eyes ached as they met mine, and he lifted a trembling hand to cup my face.

“No,” I said.

“Yes.”

Colin laid a hand on Sebastian’s back, his touch gentle. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Sebastian—”

“It’s okay. Really.” He closed his eyes a moment. “I’m tired. I’m ready.”

“You’ll need the stone,” Colin said, and I knew then that he’d finally accepted the inevitability of Sebastian’s sacrifice.

I still had the stone in my hand; I held it out to Sebastian, but the vampire shook his head.

“You’ll have to do it,” he said.

“Do what?” But as soon as I asked the question, I knew. “Why me?”

“You know why.” He sounded like he was tired of explanations, tired of dragging it all out, tired of hurting, tired of everything. I couldn’t blame him. I considered the lump of stone in my palm and drew a slow, careful breath. Sebastian smiled wearily at me. I swallowed and nodded, and he nodded back.

I knew what I had to do. But before I could move toward him with the stone to get the process underway, a scream rose from beyond our door.

The three of us tensed, turning toward the sound. “Pieter,” I said, barely aware I spoke. “He’s here.” I could still feel him, though the bond was even weaker now, canceled out by the new, stronger bond with Sebastian. But the stink of him lingered, and I could feel it twitching at the back of my mind.

“Who’s with him?” Colin asked.

“I don’t know.” Another scream rose. “We need to help them.” I turned to Sebastian. “Do we do this first?”

Sebastian came to his feet, groping for his pants under the rumpled bedclothes. “Bring it.”

Colin started to protest, but he’d only managed the first syllable of Sebastian’s name before the other vampire cut him off. “We need to know what’s going on. If I’m down there… I think if it’s bad, if I’m down there it’ll help.”

Colin still seemed doubtful. “Just come on,” I said to him. I was fishing for my own clothes and, finding Colin’s jeans, threw them at him. More shouting echoed, more screams, voices raised in fear and in the sharp, staccato tones of someone trying to regain control.