Dancing in the Dark - 6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6.

I slip out from under Viktor, who tries to hold on to me even in his sleep. I gently push away his reaching hands and pad naked to the bathroom. Emma catches my attention as I relieve myself. She’s awake and is watching me, silent. I flush the toilet, wash my hands and then stand next to the tub, looking down at her.

“I know you’re holding out on us because you’re terrified of whoever it is you’re working for,” I say softly. “What you don’t understand Emma, is that what I can do to you is worse, much worse than anything they can ever do to you.”

“No it’s not. You don’t understand…you don’t…” she trails off, shaking her head. I look over my shoulder into the bedroom. Viktor had fallen into unconsciousness as the sun rose and he wouldn’t be waking again until it set in around six hours. I’d learned that fact about vampires early on, and it was one of the reasons I started and then maintained my nocturnal schedule for almost my entire life.

I get down on my knees and rest my arms on the side of the tub, my chin on top of them. “How’s your knee Emma?”

My question throws her for a second and she’s confused. Then she shifts her legs experimentally. “I…it’s…”

“It’s fine,” I answer for her with a smile, “because you got a good mouthful of me when you bit me. I don’t know what my blood will do for Viktor, but I know perfectly well what it does for humans.” I smile at the helpless woman in my tub. It’s a nasty smile, full of malice, one I’d practiced for nearly a hundred years before I got it right.

Under that smile the penny drops for Emma. I see it in her eyes now, the fear of me warring with the fear of her bosses. But she knows exactly how bad they are, and that’s still enough to have her take her chances with me. Oh will this ever be fun.

***

I drag the flechette lightly over Emma’s shin, all the way down to her ankle and around to her Achilles tendon. I pause here and wait for the blood to well before I continue. I’m still naked, sitting in the tub with her, and the woman is trembling in my hands, too exhausted now to even scream through her gag. Her whole body is covered in fine slices, blood slowly seeping through the cuts that are just deep enough to need pressure to stop the bleeding.

Emma wants to talk to me now; I can see it in her eyes. The first time we did this she was very brave. I have to give it to her, the woman is tough. Now though, all she wants to do is tell me who’s coming after me so I’ll let her die.

I check the time. It’s 6:20. Viktor will wake in thirteen minutes. I slice the flechette under her foot and trace a wiggly path up the sole to the tip of her toes. I wait again for the pain to set in. I reach over the side of the bath and what I grab there has Emma staring at me with wide eyes, whimpering and trying to squirm away from me.

I shake the bottle of salt over the cuts on Emma’s feet and legs, slowly moving up her body. She’s trying to scream again, but her voice is gone. I watch her throat as it slowly changes color and the cords and tendons stick out. She runs out of breath and her eyes roll back into her head as she passes out. I slice the palm of my hand and run it over all of her cuts. I have to slice it again and again to get enough blood to heal her. The salt on Emma’s skin rubs off on to me and I shiver at the sting. Emma’s skin heals over as my blood works its way into her system. The best thing about this is that the salt is in her now, and when she wakes up she’s going to feel like she has fire ants under her skin.

I leave her in her unconscious state in a tub full of her blood and mess. I duck under the shower quickly and rinse myself off. I walk back into the bedroom as Viktor comes awake. I can see him feeling for me while he’s still half asleep and I crawl over the top of him. He’s on his stomach and I kiss him in between his shoulder blades.

“Hmm,” he moans and turns underneath me, looking up with a smile. My eyes catch his multicoloured ones and my breath hitches in my chest. I lean down to kiss him gently, shivering a little when he returns my kiss, and then he rolls us over so that he’s on top.

I know what he wants, so I turn my head to the side and his fangs sink into me. The feeling of him pulling blood from me is exquisite. Yesterday when Viktor fed from me it was all about him needing to feed or die. Today, it’s foreplay.

Endorphins flood my system and make me putty in his hands and we spend the next forty minutes lost in heat and skin and sweat and passion.

After, Viktor wraps around me like a living blanket. I’m shaking a little and I snuggle my face into his chest, my right arm around his waist and our legs all tangled up. We lay there like that for a little while, the sweat on our skin cooling and drying in the warm room.

“Mark?”

“Yeah?”

“You want to go shower?”

“Yeah.”

But we don’t move. I can’t make myself let go of him yet. This feeling that’s rushing through me is delicious, and not something I’ve ever felt before. I don’t really know what a mating bond is, but I know that so far, I like it.

“Did you get her to talk yet?” Viktor asks lazily.

“She’ll talk when she wakes up. You want to play with her before we let her talk?” I ask softly, like I’m offering him the chance to play with a puppy.

“I just want her to die,” he says darkly. I think about how this woman has been a part of keeping Viktor prisoner and starving him almost to death and rage floods me. Viktor’s arms tighten around me as I tense and he whispers in my ear.

“Shh, it’s ok, I’m ok. I’m here with you, we’re ok,” his words calm me and I pull back to look up at him. He lowers his head so that we’re resting our foreheads against each other. That action more than anything relaxes me and I close my eyes and breathe in his scent.

“Let’s go shower,” I say, but instead of getting up I kiss him and forget that we need to be trying to find out who’s trying to kill us.