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Lestat took a liking to Daniel, when he could drag himself from his grief long enough to socialize. As the nights had passed, Daniel’s fresh-faced curiosity had made him alternately a fascination and an irritant to the island’s immortal occupants. Naturally, Lestat had loved it. Lestat loved nothing more than someone he could corrupt.
It gave me no surprise then, to see the two seated on one of the downstairs sofas, Lestat talking endlessly about something I didn’t care to hear. His words weren’t what he was really speaking with, anyway. It was the gleam in his eye, the tilted edge to his smile, that carried meaning.
He was flirting, obviously. Flirting comes more naturally to the vampire Lestat than waking with the sunset. Even more obviously, Daniel was falling for it. No creature that walked the earth could help but fall for his charms. It was as unstoppable as the endless march of time, as unstoppable as the way he fell so quickly for lover after lover, the affection for one never fading when he found another. I had tried to change the course of Lestat’s affections before, and despite years and years of effort, it had gotten me nowhere. There wouldn’t be any use in trying, now.
Louis came to stand beside me, the two of us hovering at the edge of the doorway, but not quite venturing in. I glanced at him, wondering why he had decided to approach me; it wasn’t as though I had seen much of him, since this whole mess had begun. He looked so lovely, even under the yellowed light of the hallway. For the first time in days, he hadn’t cut his hair. The pink to his cheeks and the sadness in his eyes told me he’d just come back from hunting.
“You wear jealousy well,” he said.
He didn’t look at me as he spoke, but across the room at our darling ones, where Lestat had evidently just said something astonishing. Daniel’s eyes were wide, and he was looking at Lestat with a sort of senseless admiration, underpinned by a desire to know, to understand. He’d looked at me that way, a few times.
“He’s thinking about taking Daniel with him,” Louis said, with all the gravitas of a remark about the weather.
“I know,” I said, “but he won’t.”
“Oh, that’s good to hear,” he laughed softly. “I didn’t think you would allow that, but with you, I’m never sure.”
There was such depth of feeling in his eyes, his steady melancholy framed by a gentle glow of warmth. I had seen that look from him more often on this island than I had in years and years. Being with Lestat again was good for him; I couldn’t possibly deny it. He looked more like himself, like someone I had loved. I’d been telling myself for decades now that I didn’t miss him, and I hadn’t. I hadn’t missed the hollowed-out shell he had become in my company. Nonetheless, it was good to be near him now, and to see life in him, rather than mere existence.
“Do you want to go first, or shall I?” Louis asked, finally turning to look at me.
I felt the corner of my mouth twitch up in a smile, knowing exactly what he meant. I was more than a little glad his sentiments about the situation echoed my own.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
He smiled at me for a moment, and then he was walking past me into the room, his pace leisurely but his target perfectly clear. I was hardly two steps behind, but rather than approach them directly the way Louis did, I instead passed by with an air of indifference, heading for the stairs that would take me to my suite of rooms.
My path took me around the back of the sofa, and as I walked I brushed the nails of one hand lightly over Daniel’s shoulder. By then, Louis had effectively gotten Lestat’s attention, sliding onto the sofa beside him, and I watched from the corner of my eye as Daniel turned to see me walking past them.
I said nothing as I reached the stairs, but a soft sigh may have left me when I heard him stand and follow. I walked down the long halls and through the door to the suite, adoring the sound of his footsteps behind me. When I reached my bedroom – our bedroom, on a fortunate night – I took a seat on the edge of the bed.
I was unfastening the top two buttons of my shirt when Daniel reached me, and without a word, I raised one nail to my throat. The first press sent a flash of pain through me, and a fierce burn of anticipation. The blood dripped slowly down my chest as I cut a familiar line into the skin. I didn’t need to do this, not anymore, but the smell of it bloomed through the air, and I knew it was irresistible to him. Indeed, Daniel looked at me with heat in his eyes sufficient to match my own.
“Come here,” I said.
With a soft sound, he all but stumbled to me. He caught the drops of blood with his tongue, and then his mouth sealed over the cut, as though he were still my mortal runaway. He drank hungrily, as he always did, when I gave him my blood in this brutal, wonderful way. His tongue pressed hard at the cut, bringing dull, aching, wonderful pain along with it. I sighed, bringing a hand to his head, not holding him still but simply holding on. Then, he came up with a gasp, and his lips pressed a soft, slippery kiss onto my skin.
“I want more,” he growled into my ear, as though it weren’t enough that his mouth dripped with me.
I grabbed him and hauled him up onto the bed, hard enough that he bounced when he landed. I climbed on top of him and pulled his shirt from him, sliding my hands up his stomach and chest with a shaky breath. He finished opening my own in seconds, and I let it fall from me slowly, my body intolerably hot. My hands roamed over him, scratching lightly at his shoulders, his hips where they peeked up from above his belt. I felt acutely where my hips rested atop his, where his hands came up to my back, where his hair bristled under my fingers.
“Daniel,” I sighed, “my Daniel.”
I looked at him and saw a steady, low burning sort of desire. One of his hands ventured down to tug at my waistband, and when I didn’t object, he grabbed greedily at me with both hands. Spoiled as I had been for his company these past few weeks, I nonetheless felt myself shake, just once. He was mine. If all else faded into nothingness, I knew by the blood in our veins that he was mine.
Sitting up, I let him pull the remainder of my clothing away, and then my hands crawled across him as I divested him of his own. Truly, he was beautiful. Even before the dark trick, he had been beautiful, looking at me from a dimly-lit cell. He all but glowed under the modern light fixtures of this fantastic age.
He was so solid, now. The stone of his body wasn’t quite the etched marble of mine – not yet – but there was none of the mortal softness I’d come to know. The dark gift looked good on him; the shine of his hair, the wicked intelligence in his eyes, the skin that grew colder and whiter each night…it was breathtaking. I couldn’t help but pull at him, so he lay atop me, so I saw nothing but him when I looked up.
He kissed me furiously, now, pressing me down into the pillows so they bunched up behind me. I wrapped my arms around him, my nails pressing gently at his skin. I hadn’t tasted him yet, I realized, and so I bit down on his lip and took it into my mouth. The noise he made sounded so helpless, it drew a shudder from me. I took hold of his hand and moved it down between us, not in the mood to be patient.
“You know what to do,” I said.
Without a word, he obeyed. A quick slice, a rush of warmth, and then I felt the breach of his blood-slickened fingertip as it entered me. For a minute, no sound left me but the unsteady hitch of my breathing, as my body rolled faintly in unison with the press and curl. Steadily, the soft moan growing in the back of my throat was loud enough to be heard, and then as a second finger joined, my back curled upward with a shout.
I let my head fall to one side, so he could see the whole of my throat, and I let my voice resound freely through the room. The whole island could have been listening, and I wouldn’t have cared. He kissed at my neck, hot and impassioned but bloodless, the press of his lips punctuated by the occasional brush of his teeth. My hips kept moving with him, and I could feel heat building under his fingertips that I knew would unwind, if I let it. But tonight, that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him, and a different part of him than this. I clutched at his back, hard enough that my nails dug little red lines into his skin.
“Fuck me,” I hissed.
Thankfully for us both, he followed my instruction, and the absence of his fingers was followed by another quick slice, another flow of heat. My head fell back again as he slid slowly into me, and a long, satisfied sigh left my lips. When he moved, I moaned loudly and reached for the back of his neck, trying to move him down to my own. He understood, but again I felt only his lips and tongue, an unbearable tease that wasn’t nearly enough. I could have struck him; he was doing this on purpose, he had to be. My eyes stung; I fought it.
“Don’t you dare make me beg,” I said, and my voice sounded tighter than I would’ve liked. “Do it, damn you, I need it.”
He bit down so quickly, I gasped aloud. He drank deeply, and one hand came up to my face, caressing my cheek softly as though in apology. I clasped it in my own without even thinking, a gesture more intimate than the situation really warranted, but I hardly noticed. As he drank from me, he lapped at the edge of the wound with his tongue, the way he always had. I hadn’t taught him to do that, but I adored the feeling of it. The heat he had built up was only growing stronger, as my whole body was moved by the shift and press of his own. If I lived another thousand years, I couldn’t possibly have had enough of this feeling.
With his other hand, he lifted one of my legs at the knee, and it gave him just enough of a change in angle that I felt him even deeper. With a high pitched cry, I completed the gesture with both legs, wrapping them around his back. The rumbling snarl it got me resonated through my neck. He drove into me with such force I cried aloud, and as unnecessary as it was, I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. I squeezed his hand with my own, squeezed his body with my legs, and did everything I could to pull him closer. He wasn’t close enough, he was never, never close enough.
“Yes,” I gasped, “god yes, I want more. Give me more. Make me come, Daniel.”
He actually raised my hips a little with how suddenly his pace changed. I was gone, then, entirely gone, unable to do anything but hold onto him. It was excruciating, how good it felt, and I knew from more than the sounds he made that Daniel understood. I knew in my blood, he tasted my bliss, the way he made me senseless with it, how much I loved it, how much I loved him. He was mine. He was mine.
My back snapped upward, and it pressed me harder against him as my breath stopped entirely. A bolt of absolute ecstasy shot through me, hot and electric, and it spread and pulsed through my body with such sweetness, I could think of nothing else. At my ear, under my skin, I heard Daniel’s voice start to shake, and quickly I snapped my head to face him and bit down on this throat.
It hadn’t completely left me, and the sharp, delicious heat followed me down into the swoon with him. It seemed to break something in him, so that in moments, another hot strike of bliss went through us both. I tasted his carnal delight, his hunger for my body, the rough and unrefined embrace of his love. He needed me, god, he needed me, and that alone sent shocks through me as I drank him.
We separated almost on instinct, once it had rolled through us. But then he looked at me with something close to heartbreak, and I wondered with some trepidation what the swoon had shown him. It wasn’t always as immediate, as physical as it had been for me this time, when we joined like that. I kept my expression blank, even as he gently squeezed my hand – neither of us had entirely let go, it seemed.
“You know, if you don’t want me to leave, you could just say something,” he murmured.
My eyes stung again, and it was much more difficult to fight. I gripped him by the arms and shoved him onto his back, climbing on top of him in a flash of movement. I just looked at him for a moment, feeling not for the first time that of all the curses the dark gift brings, the veil of silence is the worst of all. He only looked a little afraid, but he didn’t move, didn’t try to push me off of him. He wouldn’t have been able to do it, but he’d gotten into the habit of testing his boundaries, recently.
“I love you,” I hissed, the words pressed between my teeth like a curse.
Before he could reply, I kissed him. My body was awake again, and I wanted more. The second my hands moved, he wrapped his arms around me. I hummed against his mouth and rolled my hips against him. He groaned, lifting himself up to meet me, and any further discussion was quickly forgotten. There was only the feeling of Daniel, of this beautiful body that my blood had perfected.
He was mine, and I intended to take what was mine.