To Have and to Hold - 19. Chapter 19

afterwards... afterwards there are angels.

What Comes Next.

I wake very suddenly and lie still, afraid to move. There was a dream, I was flying, soaring, laughing. I can’t help but smile, but the smile does not last long, it freezes and fades as the fear slams into me again because, before the dream, before I was transported to a better world, in this one... in this one Marc was....

I am too afraid to move, to extend my awareness, to touch him. His arm is lying across my stomach and it is cold. I am soaked with the foul liquid that seeped from his wrists in the night and as I turn, very slightly, it trickles down my side. I can feel that the bed on which we lie is wet, soaked with it. It makes my stomach turn but not as much as the memory I have of the time before I slept, the time when I held Marc in my arms and watched him die.

My heart twists in my chest and I choke on tears. The memory of the fall, the flight is trying to impose itself over the pain of loss and separation but I will not allow it to sooth me. It is only a dream and dreams are all I have now.

I lie until it is unbearable to lie any longer and then my fingers, almost of their own accord, reach down to stroke his arm. I can almost imagine that it trembles under my touch.

I let my hand run up his arm and turn to look into his face, burying my fingers in his hair. He looks so peaceful, so beautiful that it makes my heart weep, the tears spilling from my eyes in floods. His eyes are closed, his lips parted, for all the world as though he is just asleep and it tears at my soul. I caress his cheek with my thumb. It is so soft, so beautiful but so cold.

The sun has gone down. Outside the world is dark and cold, as dark as my soul, as cold as my heart. I close my eyes, surrendering to the despair that overpowers me. The pain is so deep, so intense, I don’t know how I can survive it.

I pull him into my arms, crushing him against me as I shake uncontrollably, the sobs torn from me by a physical agony like a fist slamming into my heart. I moan and grind my teeth, clenching my jaw against the pain, the sorrow, the loss. And then... and then...

“Kai.” It is a whisper, a breath, not even a sound I hear with my ears. Pulling back from him I stare down into his face and his eyes, his wonderful, glorious, beautiful eyes, flicker and open and he stares at me... and then he smiles and the pain is washed away.

“Marc. I thought... I thought...”

“Almost.”

“What happened?”

“I... don’t know. It was... it was the... On the first day, the very first day after the changing, when we were making love I... I imagined.... well at least I though I imagined it... I was on the edge of a cliff, a chasm... and below was... was... flames, a pit filled with flames. I was afraid, terrified, and I hesitated. And then... and then it was too late and I was pulled back.

“It happened again, and I was still too afraid to jump. Shade told me, on the night I first fed... he said that I shouldn’t run away from you or only death would follow and that I should jump from the cliff. He came to me again...” he paused and looked puzzled for a moment. “I’m not sure what time has passed, but it was in the church. He reminded me and told me that I should call for you that night and before sunset the next day the transformation would be complete.

“I didn’t understand, none of it, not until it was almost too late. Then I dreamed and when I woke I knew what to do. Only... only I was too weak, too close to the darkness. If you had failed, if you had faltered for a single moment... The darkness was so close, I could see it, see the hands reaching for me and I was so sick, so weak, so hopeless I almost went into it willingly.”

As he speaks his voice grows stronger, his eyes clearer and brighter and there is something about him, a new life, a new dimension, and suddenly I dare to hope.

“What does it mean? That dream, about the cliff, the wings, what does it mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what it means. But I do know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

He smiles and stretches like a cat in my arms. I hear his joints pop, almost feel the strength return to his muscles.

“I’m not dying any more.”

“Are you sure?”

He grins, a wicked feral grin. “Want me to show you?” Stretching up he presses his lips against mine and the hand that held my heart releases me and is gone for good. He is no longer cold but warm, soft and compliant; fluid as he wraps his arms around my neck and presses his body against me.

We are slick with the foul green ichor and his sodden bandages trickle down my back as he hugs me. I pull away.

“Perhaps we should... er.. clean up a bit.”

At first he looks surprised and then his eyes wander down to our bodies, the bed and he leaps back, the same look on his face as I saw the first day, when he saw the blood.

The bandages have come loose and he pulls at them, his face twisted with disgust and horror. Underneath his wrists are whole, the skin unblemished. There is no sign there have ever been wounds there.

He raises his eyes to mine and they are wondering, shocked. I am grinning like a fool, I can’t help myself. This is the proof I needed, the evidence that I can cling to, that I can believe in. He is going to be alright. He is going to live.

Stifling a whoop I leap, clearing the bed in a single bound and I carry him with me. We don’t wait for the shower to warm up but stand under the stinging, bitingly cold droplets laughing and crying, clinging to each other, shaking with the enormity of it all.

When the shower eventually warms we wash each other and I have never experienced anything more sensual in my life than his fingers massaging shampoo into my hair and then probing deeper to my neck, my shoulders before sliding downwards, rubbing soap into my back and then around my sides and down over my belly. With a groan I lean back, my head on his shoulder and he leans forward to kiss me. We are locked together, pressed against the wall and I can feel him hard against me.

Unable to bear it a moment longer I turn and pinning his arms against the wall behind him crush his lips beneath my own, forcing them apart, taking possession of him. For a moment I feel a flicker of doubt. After what he has been through, so recently, perhaps I should be gentler. I ease off but he growls and bites my lip, grinding his hips into mine and I am smiling as I slam him back into the wall so hard I feel his breath expelled from his lungs with a hiss.

When I let go of his arms I am already sliding down his body, falling to my knees. With his arms still above his head he groans, pressing his head back against the wall and arching his back.

I lap at the clean, crystal droplets that run down his belly from the shower and he trembles beneath my lips. He tastes of soap. He groans again as I dig my fingers into his tight buttocks and take him into my mouth. He is salty sweet and trembling, his cock twitching beneath my hands and lips as I play with him, raising the energies then letting them recede until he is half delirious, moaning and shaking so badly I am afraid he will collapse and then I let him take it all the way, holding him, pulsing in my fist as I slide up again to kiss him, possessing his lips as he shudders and his eyes roll back. I crush him against me as his body jerks and convulses again and again and I feel warm, sticky wetness between us, on my belly.

At last he shudders and is still, half fainting, letting his head fall forward onto my shoulder. He whimpers close to my ear and it is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

“Are you alright?”

He whimpers again, breathless, beyond speech and nuzzles into my neck, kissing me with light brushes of his lips, his breath sweet on my skin. With the tip of his tongue he licks the water from my shoulder, water, soap and sweat, and I shiver.

His lips grow stronger, his caresses more certain and his teeth graze the skin at the base of my throat making me gasp. He raises his head to look into my eyes and there is a fire in him that I have never seen before. Most vampires have a red glow in their eyes when they are aroused, it is something to do with the blood, something to do with the fire, something I have never enquired about but merely accepted. Now his flame is no longer red, it is golden and it is burning brighter than anything I have ever seen. Is there an answering flame in me?

If I thought about it, it would terrify me and so I don’t think, I simply close my eyes and abandon myself to the caress of his hand running over my back, his lips again at my throat. He bites me gently and then harder making me grunt and twitch against his hand which has slid between us and is grasping me firmly. I pause a moment to wonder how he has managed to lower his fangs without the stimulation of blood but the thought is swept away when he twists around, slamming me into the wall at the same time biting deeper. I would have fallen if he had not been holding me, his arms stronger than anyone I have ever known, crushing me against his body so I can hardly breathe.

The exquisite agony in my neck releases as he withdraws his fangs and laps at my blood, the scent of it drives me wild and I struggle in his arms, growling, all conscious thought leaving me, replaced by instinct and passion.

With enormous strength that I usually keep locked safely within I fling him away from me sending him crashing through the door of the shower cubicle to fall and slide across the floor until the wall stops him and he lies, half dazed. Before he can recover I am on him and there is a moment when fear flickers in his eyes, but it is a moment only and then he is clawing at me, lifting his head to bury his teeth in my neck again, his nails in my back raising his hips high so that I can bury myself in him.

It is the first time I have entered him since the rape and I am too far gone to be gentle. It must hurt him, given the damage that Merticus did to him but the pain does not stop him, in fact it seems to add to his frenzy.

We are like animals, writhing on the floor of the bathroom. Blood and sweat and the juice of our bodies blend to make a potent mix that assails our senses and drives us to heights of arousal neither of us has experienced before. Marc seems to be so aware of my body, of the sensations that buffet it, anticipating them, enhancing them that it is almost as though we are one creature. The beast with two backs I have heard it called and this is it.... this is IT.

I am shocked by how much control he has, given that he is so young, so inexperienced. He manages to take me to the point of release and back twice before he locks his legs around my back, raises his hips and clenches his muscles drawing me into him and biting me at the same time so I have no choice, no will, no thought and I am driven over the edge to explode with an orgasm so intense that I do what I have never done before, that I have only heard of and scorned, I pass out.

*-*-*

When I open my eyes Marc is leaning over me, looking down, his eyes anxious. There is blood on his face and his hair is wild. He looks savage, primal and I reach up and pull him down, crushing him against my chest.

“Fucking hell! Fucking HELL Marc! That was.... that was....was.... fuck!”

“I thought I’d hurt you.”

“Hurt me? No. There is only one way you could ever hurt me, and that’s by leaving me.”

“No. I won’t do that, never. I won’t leave you again. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Good.”

There are tears in my eyes, running down my cheeks. Only hours ago I had held him in my arms and watched the life leave him, as surely as I had once watched the sun set. I had felt it, looked into his eyes and seen it. Death had come for him, it had taken him by the hand and led him away and somehow, somehow this amazing creature had found his way back.

I hug him tighter and he winces. “Hey, give me some room to breathe.”

When I release him he leaps to his feet and stands over me, a slender god with burning eyes and hair of red flame.

“Come on. I want to do something.”

“What?”

“You’ll find out.”

“What are you planning?”

“You’ll see.” He holds his hand out to me and I take it although I don’t need to, don’t use it to leap lightly to my feet.

In silence he throws on clothes that we find neatly folded in drawers in the bedroom. Ours are foul, spoiled. Then he waits impatiently for me to lace up my boots. I am going nowhere without them, they hold secrets.

“Come on Kai. Come on.”

“Where are you going?”

The voice, soft though it was startles us and Marc spins, ready to strike then relaxes laughing. We had both forgotten about Beth. Marc takes her in his arms and swings her around. “Out. You can’t come, not this time.”

“Are you better now?” She looks confused, puzzled.

“Yes, all better now.” He stops spinning her and she looks up into his face, raising her hand to touch it as if afraid her eyes are lying.

“Yes... you are. Why didn’t you die?”

He laughs. “With anyone else I would get offended at a question like that. You almost sound disappointed.”

“No, not disappointed, of course not disappointed, just surprised.... in a nice way.”

He gives her such a tender smile that I have a pang of jealousy which annoys me as it is unworthy.

“I don’t know Beth. Something happened, something wonderful. It changed me.... changed me forever. I don’t know how but I can feel it. There was no room for the poison in the change and it just.... just... fell away. I was remade and here I am... whole and perfect... for a time... until I unperfect myself again.” He frowns. “I don’t think that was a real word... and I have no idea what I’m talking about. All I know is that I feel damn good.”

Releasing Beth he grabs me by the arm and drags me out of the house. All I have time for is a quick smile and shrug to Beth who watches us go with shining, shocked eyes and a smile.

I had been under the impression that Marc was unfamiliar with the place where the house was but he seems very sure of where he is going. He is holding my by the wrist and practically towing me. It is all I can do to keep up.

The streets are empty, there is no one around. It must be very late, or very early depending on your perspective. He won’t tell me where we are going and soon I have no breath to ask as he is going faster and faster seeming to be more and more eager to get where we are going.

In the end we are running, fast and wild. I feel exhilarated and I can feel Marc burning with it. The houses fall away, as do the factories and we are on the cliff path heading towards the headland, a finger of grassed rock which juts out over the sea. I love coming here because you can stand, with your eyes half closed, hearing the sea pound on the rocks, in front of you and on both sides behind you and it feels as though you are completely surrounded. The energies are awesome.

As we head out onto this finger of land I expect Marc to slow but he doesn’t, if anything he speeds up and we are flying, our feet barely touching the ground. As the edge of the cliff approaches I realise what he is intending to do and my stomach drops through my feet. No. A dream is a dream. Reality is a sudden long drop onto vicious, sharp, spiky rocks; sharp teeth open in welcome.

“No. Marc you’re insane. Stop!”

I try to pull back, try to break free but we are going too fast, have gone too far and suddenly there is nothing beneath my feet but air and, far below the crashing waves, the gaping rocks. I close my eyes and I am falling.

There is a tearing burning pain across my back. I must have blacked out and hit the rocks because I am no longer falling. I must be hallucinating because I don’t feel any pain, I don’t feel anything, nothing is real, nothing except Marc’s hand in mine, and then I hear him whoop and something is pulling upwards on my hand.

I open my eyes and I am skimming the waves, my feet inches above the crests. I look up and the sky is blotted out by wings, great black wings and, above them stretching soaring white ones.

“We did it Kai. I knew if we didn’t think about it, if we just did it, then it would work.”

“Fuck Marc, you dragged me off a cliff. What if it hadn’t worked?”

“It would have been a quick death and we would have been together. But I knew it would work, I KNEW it. And it did. Look at us. Fucking hell Kai.... we’re FLYING.”

And we are. We are flying. We fly out over the sea, keeping low so that no one can see us from the shore. Even now, even as wild and feral as we are, we are wise enough to realise that it would not be a good idea to be seen, not by humans and not by others like us. Is there anyone else like us?

About a mile offshore there is an island. There is nothing on it, just birds and a few scrubby trees. No one lives here, no one comes here, no one looks here and so we are safe and we sit, arms around each other, our wings entwined, folding around our bodies like the softest, warmest blankets. Marc rests his head against my shoulder and I am happier than I have ever been, filled with a peace so profound and so deep that it is holy.