Antithesis: The Vampire Alliance Book Three - FIRST DRAFT COMPLETED

Antithesis Chapter 10: Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan May 2013

Eve Blakethorn-Sullivan, May 2013

Blinking the rain from my eyes, I try to ignore the deluge pounding down around me. It’s not easy to disregard as I’m already lying in a growing puddle, but at least the downpour will dampen my scent. With the sheer number of Enforcers, Paladins and Strix on the street it’s far wiser to remain hidden than draw any attention to our position on the roof of the Eldon Square shopping centre.

Rob’s fingers find mine as we lie side by side, pressed into the roof surface. He growls, low in his throat as we watch the humans huddle in the road, caught between the Senate roadblocks. They had poured from the door of the bar, Tiger Tiger, and from The Gate entertainment complex, chased by Senate thugs. Even outside there is nowhere to run. The Senate are far too effective to allow escape.

Although the rain muffles all sound, I can still hear the pleading cries of the humans as they beg for mercy. Of course, the Senate know no mercy. These people may as well be dead already, it would be better for them if they were. Their lives will become a living hell once they’re taken to the farms.

I wish I could help them, save them, tear apart the Senate thugs currently herding them from the restaurants and casino and into the cargo areas of a convoy of black vans. Feeling Rob’s hand tighten around mine, I know he senses my desire. He warns me against any move with his touch. Do not move, do not do anything reckless, do not throw away my life. It’s a bitter truth to swallow, that there’s nothing I can do here, nothing at all. The enemy forces are too great and there’s only us.

Of course, I don’t need the reminder. I’d known exactly how this would play out from the moment I dreamed it. I also know that there’s no benefit to be found in trying to interfere. I’d only come tonight because I had to confirm it, confirm that what I’d dreamed would actually come to pass. I’ve had only a handful of dreams which may or may not be prophecy and Johan hadn’t expected the Senate to escalate matters, not yet, so I’d needed to see. Seeing is believing, after all.

Johan had expected the Senate to keep their actions low key, rather than forcing the human government into carrying out some form of retribution against all of vampire kind. Taking individuals, couples, even families as they had been doing was one thing, but emptying an entire publicly accessible building? The Senate don’t fear human vengeance, or so it would seem. This taking of human slaves en masse only goes to prove it and it’s clear the Senate are willing to do anything to shape Britain into their horrifying ideal.

Below us a man breaks away from the crowd of terrified humans, seeking to charge through the line of Enforcers blocking access to a side street. A Strix grabs him as he collides with the line, preventing his escape. The super-soldier is easily distinguishable by the red armband around his bicep, which is an addition to the standard black Enforcer’s uniform worn by ordinary vampires and paladins.

I wince but can’t pull my eyes away as the man’s head is yanked jarringly sideways and his neck exposed. The Strix buries his fangs in his hapless victim’s neck, biting savagely. He takes only a few swallows before tearing out the man’s throat and throwing him to the floor to bleed out onto the rain drenched street. Other mortals scream, their fear increasing at the sight and the realisation that there’s no escape. They are, most likely, vampire fodder. 

Shuddering at the sight, I’m truly revolted. My blood created that, the monstrosity who follows Charleston’s command for pitiless brutality without question and without remorse. I’m responsible.

“I hate that those things are technically part of my line,” I breathe, more to myself than to Rob.

“They were created using synthetic blood and venom, they aren’t really yours.” The reply offers little comfort as the synthetic compounds had been made to replicate my blood, no one else’s. Those creatures had to be part of someone’s line and when it comes down to it that someone is me.

“They aren’t anyone else’s. And there’s Hardy,” I remind Rob, “he’s mine no matter what spin you put on it.”

“You didn’t choose,” he answers simply, “what he did violated the rules.”

Snorting I repeat the word, “Violated. That man has violated me in just about every way he could dream up. I will see him and Upton dead. I swear it.”

Feeling his eyes boring into me I roll onto my side, tearing my gaze from the street to meet his searching look. What does he see when he stares at me like that, assessing, worried and more than a little sad.

“You’re so much harder than you were,” he points out, and not for the first time. I wonder if he’s remembering what I had done to the Enforcers to glean information, or what I’d done to Donal in my anger. “I know you’ve had to be but I wish you hadn’t ever had to face what you’ve faced. I’m sorry.”

My fingers trace his cheek, feeling its curve and the roughness of stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave off earlier. “It’s not your fault Rob, you were a pawn too. It would have always come to this, or worse, sooner or later. What if they had placed someone truly Senate in my path rather than you? What would I have been if I’d been introduced to this world by someone else, someone who’d brainwashed me into the Senate way of thinking?”

Brushing his lips briefly over mine, Rob then smiles and shakes his head. “Evie, you’d never have fallen for it. You’re too good and you wouldn’t have let yourself be taken in by them.”

“Like I didn’t let myself be taken in by Donal?” I ask, looking away from him again and back at the atrocity playing out below. “I’m so sorry for everything I did, everything I’ve done since you...” My voice trails off, it’s still hard to talk about his execution. It’s hard to talk about what I’ve done too. I’d been so angry at Rob’s ‘whore’ remark when we’d gone to rescue Dom. I’d said things I regret, and now I’ve calmed down my guilt, the guilt I’d felt every time I bedded a John, takes precedent. I should never have betrayed him the way I did.

Gripping my chin lightly, Rob turns my head so he can kiss me again. I guess he’s calmed down too since that night at Delectable. “I admire your ability to survive and your willingness to fight. I love you. I’m sorry about what I said the other night. Truly sorry.”

Despite the pouring rain and the evil going on in the street I can’t help but smile as his tongue parts my lips and teases mine. This act of intimacy is comforting; it helps me to believe that Rob genuinely wants me, despite my many sins. Sometimes it’s hard to have faith in that because of all the ways I’ve betrayed him and all the ways I’ve changed. Right now he doesn’t seem to mind what I’ve done though, and who am I to argue with his persistent urging as he kisses me deeply.

Is it bad that we can get used to living in this world? Is it bad that we can kiss as the people on the street are rounded up like stray sheep? Does it say something of the flaws in our characters or is it basic survival, this ability to continue on with normal things, with love and lust, despite the darkness all around? When Rob’s arms wrap around my body I feel safe and warm despite everything, even though I’m not safe at all. Rob’s kiss deepens and I moan softly as his hand slips under my sodden jacket and t-shirt.

Even though I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve been intimate since his miraculous return to life, Rob still feels familiar to me. The pressure he exerts on my hungry mouth is slightly firmer, slightly more determined than Tul would be. It’s not that Tul embodies anything less than strong, masculine perfection, but everything about Rob’s touch is slightly more demanding. I don’t mind complying with his demands.

“I’m pleased you two are taking the situation seriously,” Tul murmurs as he drops down beside me, the reprimand sounds stern but his emotions are coloured with amusement and desire. It doesn’t stop him delivering the bad news, unfortunately. “There are Enforcers, Paladins, Strix and Redeemers all over the streets surrounding this building. Until they leave I suggest we’re pretty much stuck here.”

Rob shrugs and announces matter-of-factly, “There are worse places to be.” He kisses me again, his hand still roaming over my body.

When I frown at his answer he studies me questioningly. “What?” he asks, “Eve? What are you thinking? You’re worried.”

“Do you think it makes us bad people, being able to do this, to,” I pause as I consider my phrasing, “find solace with each other while those people in the street are being captured, enslaved, killed?”

Rob and Tul glance at each other as they consider my question. “It’s not the same,” Tul answers finally, “but we played card games while sitting in the trenches next to the guns we’d used to kill men who wanted to be at war no more than we did. We played card games, while hunkering in the mud because standing up might have led to a bullet to the head. Propriety only really works in times of peace. Otherwise there’d be nothing to do but sit in respectful silence, mourning and anxious, until all hope fails.

In times of war you may as well find what joy you can, even in the most improper circumstances, because if you let those moments pass you by you may never again get the opportunity to recapture them.”

Rob’s fingers trance patterns on my stomach but he doesn’t look me in the eye as he admits, “June nineteen seventy one was a bad month. There were rebellions against the Senate nationwide and I signed more death warrants in that one month than I have in any other. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t find excuses to save the arrested people without drawing suspicion. Of course I saved those I could, lessened sentences where possible, but I couldn’t release everyone our ‘courts’ had condemned.

My name, my signature, condemned innocent people alongside those who were simply fighting for freedom. That month they went to the executioners block and I went to Glastonbury festival with Keep, despite the evil and the suffering I was allowing, because I needed something to remind me why I had to remain an infiltrator. I needed to be reminded what I was fighting for.

This would be wrong if we didn’t care about those people in the street. However, we do care; we simply cannot do anything in this moment to help them.”

His voice is gentle and he kisses me lightly before continuing, “That’s not to say we won’t try to help them when we have a way to do so, but in order to help them we need to have our own reasons for making the world a better place. For me, personally, my reason to try is you.” He hesitates before adding, “It’s us, the three of us. With that in mind I’d like to celebrate what we have any time the opportunity arises. That way, if I die when we do try to help those people, at least I’ll die knowing I made the most of what I have now.”

I look up at my men from my position lying on the rain drenched roof of the shopping centre, studying them, awed by them. They’re both so much older than I am. They’ve seen the world change so many times and they’ve survived so much, what do they want with me? Surely they deserve more? Perhaps it’s better not to ask. Perhaps Rob is right and I should just enjoy it, celebrate it while I have the chance. Maybe Tul is correct, maybe I should just take what joy is offered to me while hiding behind the parapet, because sooner or later I’ll have to fight and who knows if I’ll survive?

Shirking of my jacket and pulling my t-shirt over my head I ignore the rain which has already soaked me to the skin anyway. “Let’s make the most of it, then,” I murmur as I unclasp my bra.

Pushing me onto my back, Tul smiles as he lowers his head, licking the beading raindrops from my skin. Despite being a vampire his tongue is warm compared to the cool night air caressing my flesh. It sends fire and heat to my core even before Rob undoes the button of my jeans, peeling the sodden denim from my legs. His fingers search out the apex of my thighs, rubbing me through the fabric of my thong as Tul sucks my nipple, his tongue expertly circling the hardening tip.

Squirming under their attention I pant softly, “Why is it that I always end up naked first?”

They laugh at my query before they strip too, and I slip out of my thong. Rob and Tul are beautiful as their skin glitters with raindrops and moonlight. With their solid, masculine, immortal bodies they may as well be gods. Bathed in silver light my husbands seem more perfect to me with every passing moment. Everything about them ignites love, lust, a yearning so deep it’s almost unbearable.

Unable to resist, I find my slit with my own fingers, rubbing the swollen nub of my sex and feeling my own wetness. They both gasp as I touch myself, as I stoke the flames of my need and theirs. My body arcs as I shift, moving against my own hand. Their silvered eyes swirl, impassioned with desire as they watch me.

“Evie,” Rob moans, entranced, incapable of drawing his gaze from me as I explore my own body, one hand pressed firmly against my core, the other squeezing my breast.

Tul kneels between my thighs, his hand trails up my leg, stroking over the path of my femoral artery as he looks on me with longing, with hunger. I can feel his craving and I revel in his thirst for my blood, for me.

“Yes,” I breathe, as if he can’t feel my compliance, as if he will ever need permission.

His fangs break my rain-damp skin, severing the capillaries around the artery. My body still recognises his venom, recognising that he’d made me, and pleasurable fire spreads through my bloodstream. His body recognises my blood too, the blood that had turned him into something else, something stronger, and an electric current ripples through him as well.

“Tul,” breathlessly I say his name, longing to taste him as he tastes me.

My need isn’t just mine, not anymore, not with our mixed blood joining all three of us. When Tul straightens, tilting his head to expose his throat, he expects me to come to him but I hesitate as Rob hunkers behind him. I watch, fascinated as Rob stokes his thumb over Tul’s pulse point, the place I want so badly to bite.

“If you can’t fight it, embrace it. Right?” Rob asks and my breath catches. He’s serious, he’s willing, and that sends another flood of warmth through my body. I want to see them, to watch them together. Maybe it’s curiosity, maybe it’s just our intertwining emotions, but I want this to happen and not just because it might save our relationship.

Tul’s eyes blaze silver, reacting either to my rush of need or to Rob’s. He moans as Rob presses his mouth against his pulse point. Rob’s fangs penetrate his flesh causing his blood to well deliciously and his body to vibrate with lust. Then Tul takes Rob’s wrist, biting him with as much hunger as he had me and I wonder if they’ve ever done this before. Had they ever fed on one another, other than during Tul’s change? Have I changed them so much? Can they really do this?

Their eyes flick to me; maybe they sense the train of my thoughts. Rob draws back, saying cautiously, “Keep was right last time; we can embrace what this is or we can try to ignore it. I think ignoring it would be as effective as ignoring our need for blood or denying our vampirism. This is what we are, as long as we’re together. While we’re like this I need you both.”

Tul licks Rob’s wrist, cleaning the last of the blood from it. “We’re bound to each other, the three of us, that’s how it should be. I,” he pauses as his lips curl in a nervous half smile, “I agree with Rob, ignoring this isn’t going to work forever but if this feels right then why not go with it? Are you ok with that?”

How can I be anything but ok with it as my body burns at the sight of them, despite the chill of the rain? When I manage to speak my voice is rough with desire, “You’re both incredible.” Squirming in desperation on the rain soaked roof I admit, “How could I not be ok with it, with you two?”

Grinning, Tul scoots over to pin me down, stopping my squirming as the delicious weight of his body presses down on mine. “Good answer,” he comments simply, “because nothing in the world is going to make me give either of you up.”

Pushing upward I flip our positions so he’s under me instead. He groans as my naked body slides over his. “I’m pleased because I have plans for you. Both of you,” I amend before kissing Tul’s jaw, his throat, his collar bone. I lick my way down his body, thrilled as he moans my name. His pulse is racing frantically long before I reach his solid shaft.

Pausing just before I reach my mark I glance back at him through the veil of my loose hair. “Eve, don’t stop,” he begs urgently and I wet my lips, giving him a seductive smile before I finally curl my tongue around his tip, drawing a low moan of delight from him.

As if stopping had ever been on the agenda. Pausing is the furthest thing from my mind, especially when Rob comes up behind me. He places a line of kisses along the length of my spine before pressing his fingers into the warm folds at the apex of my thighs again, confidently exploring my willing body.

“Oh,” I gasp as he finds my clit, swirling his thumb over my sex in a way that has fiery desire flooding my body and pooling exquisitely at my core.

It amazes me, the speed at which these men can make me desperate. Rob’s barely touched me and I know I’m ready for him. I ache for him so strongly that each second without him inside me is torturous. As Rob strokes his fingers along the length of my slit I shudder, purring at the sensual torment.

Struggling not to beg Rob to fill me, I use my tongue to tease Tul instead, stroking and sucking until Tul groans under me. “Take her,” he growls at Rob, voicing my needs for me.

My anticipation is so intense I can barely draw a breath as Rob positions himself, his tip brushing my entrance. With one stroke he slides into me, penetrating and filling me. He stretches me deliciously but I need more, I need him to add to the coals burning in my core so the heat can spill out and consume me.

“More. Deeper. Harder.” Tul urges in a growl as Rob withdraws and plunges into me again, repeating the action over and over until we feel the pulsing fire in my belly flare achingly hot.

“Oh God, I’m going to, I need...”

Rob presses his hand to my mouth, silencing me as he continues to pound into me up to the hilt, stretching me wide as I begin to contract and pulse around his shaft. “Shh, the Enforcers...” I can only just comprehend his warning as he struggles not to cry out in exaltation himself.

With one more thrust I shatter. When Rob enters me again my thoughts fly apart as my body reaches its trebling, burning climax. Tul groans under me as Rob fills me with his seed and my limbs finally give out as wave after wave of intense rapture scorch me.

When the sensation finally fades I roll off Tul, lying on the roof beside him and letting the rain cool my flushed skin.  Rob collapses at Tul’s other side, panting as he struggles to catch his breath, despite what he is, what we are.

Once our racing heart beats have finally settled back into their usual rhythm Tul grins, “That’s still bloody incredible you know.”

Laughing I roll towards him, “You barely participated.”

“Oh, I know,” it’s only when he responds that I notice his eyes are still glowing silver white and despite climaxing with Rob and I his emotions are still laced with hunger. “However, I fully intend to make the most of round two once you’ve recovered from round one.”

Amusement and love swell inside me as I grin at Tul. Beside him Rob chuckles before turning to Tul and placing a chaste kiss on his shoulder. Is that simply coming from me? Does it matter? Watching them together I realise, with absolute certainty, that this is exactly how I want us to be. Resting my head on Tul’s other shoulder I take Rob’s hand. Our entwined fingers rest on Tul’s stomach as we curl our bodies around his.

“I suspect you wouldn’t have put money on this, a hundred years ago.”

Tul’s fingers trace patters on my hip as he smiles, “Personally, no, but a hundred years ago he would’ve gambled on just about anything.”

“Not this,” Rob comments dryly, “even I would have thought this impossible. Then again, I never was very good at gambling.”

A pang of jealousy causes my chest to constrict. Turning to me they both frown, concerned as they study my expression. “I wish I’d shared as much as you have. I wish I’d lived your lives with you.”

“A century ago the world was a different place, this wouldn’t have worked. Even if it had, if you’d been there we may have lived different lives, we may not have joined the war when we did, we may not have become vampires,” Rob murmurs.

“Yes we would,” whispers Tul as he pulls me more tightly against his side, “Eve was born to be what she is, she would have turned us, either way.”

“You think some things are just meant to be?” enquires Rob quietly.

There’s is something ludicrous about lying, naked, on a roof and in the rain, considering the possibility of destiny. However, as the idea of a mortal and the last Strix having a child is equally as incredulous perhaps it’s not so strange. Aemiliana believed her fate had been sealed, could mine be too?

“I know some things are just meant to be,” I admit. “Not all things, but some things. It’s why I don’t like seeing the future. I fear the thought of finding something horrible there, something I can’t avoid.”

It’s a grim thought and not one I wish to dwell on. Mentally shaking myself I force myself to recapture some of the joy I had been feeling just seconds previously. “But as far as the immediate future goes, I believe I was promised a round two?”

Laughing, Tul pulls me up so I’m on top of him. “So you were.”

It’s many hours later when we finally slip back into the Alliance compound. Zachary eyes us as we unsuccessfully try to sneak past his wall of CCTV monitors. He turns back to the console as he mutters, “It’s a good job vampires can’t die of hypothermia really. Seriously people, have you never heard of keeping it in the bedroom?”

Rolling my eyes I stalk past his desk, muttering, “It’s not our fault Felicity and Craig were already tearing each other’s clothing to shreds when they came past earlier.”
Zach looks up at me, “You know it’s unsettling that you know that, considering you weren’t here to witness it.”

“Oh, I know,” I tell him, turning back to him as we make our way to our room. “Believe me, I didn’t need the visual any more than you did.”

“That’s what you get for giving him relationship advice,” Tul teases, “but at least it shows he isn’t really avoiding her.”

“After the porn show that’s just been zapped directly into my brain, I think I’d rather he were avoiding her,” I gripe. Although truthfully I should complain, after all, they aren’t the first couple to enter headquarters in a state of lusty partial undress. Blushing, I remember doing much the same with Tul once after we’d been hunting. “We’re never doing that again, those poor spectators.”

It takes Tul a second to figure out what I’m banning, but when he does he simply leans towards me and places a firm kiss on my lips. “Prude.”

Well, that’s a new name for me.