Blacker than Black Read Free

floor, and walls. A single doorway mars its seamless lines. The vampire palms his security panel, stepping aside as the door slides open soundlessly. He meets my gaze, and his craving sluices over me again. Like it did back on the boulevard, but stronger this time. The wave of hunger is so immense, so powerful, so endless . . . No doubt about it, he had it masked when he approached me on the street.
    I step through the door and wonder if I’ll ever see Jhez again.
    Everything is black. Obsidian, onyx. Unrelieved. My favorite color, and its unexpected appearance relaxes me. The absence of all light, the presence of all color. The philosophical insinuations of this vamp’s lair soothe my agitation. Lull me. I close my eyes and take a slow breath. Stirring air, the faint rustle of cloth, lets me track my john as he follows in my wake.
    The door closes, the latch engaging with a faint click. Tension ripples up my spine: the clawing, adrenaline-driven desire for self-preservation. My eyes slide open. And although my visual senses are useless, other ones—smell, touch—increase to accommodate. There’s incense burning somewhere, a blend of herbs reminding me of musk, of earth. The same scent that assaulted me in his glossy bubble of a car. The lesser concentration gives my surroundings a light, spacious feel, even though I can’t see anything.
    The vampire steps past, a shadow of greater density and presence than all the others, his touch on my elbow disembodied as he guides me forward. A rush of adrenaline heightens my senses further. Even my best efforts don’t negate all emotion. A residue of fight or flight remains, along with faint traces of confusion, wariness, distrust. No doubt he’s strong enough to sense it all pulsing from me in heady waves—like getting a whiff of gourmet coffee before taking a sip.
    His hunger slams against my aura, all finesse gone, and the force of it knocks the air from my body. So powerful my knees give out, but I manage to turn the sudden collapse into sitting down on his couch. Random stroke of luck that I didn’t hit his coffee table or a floor lamp. My skin crawls beneath the caress of his gaze. I catch a faint glint of his yellow eyes refracting what little illumination there is as he sits just out of arm’s reach.
    My resistance is short-lived and feeble. He pierces through it with ease, penetrating my residual defenses, dominating my will. Pleasure swells and I ride the waves, desperately retaining that sliver of awareness, of coherent thought, as he scours me, strips me of every shred of energy, sanity, dignity.
    He thought I was strong. Beneath the onslaught of his hunger, I’m not. I underestimated him. It’s a mistake that could cost me everything. His breath is moist against my neck, and I exhale raggedly. Grateful for the tactile sensation, anchoring, grounding.
    “Don’t worry.” His voice is rough, hoarse, keyed low. A thread of tension in his tone. “I won’t take it all.”
    My mind spins, startled, as his lips drift down over my collarbone. The sensation solidifies my shredded sanity.
    He didn’t have to do that—but he did.
    I feel his lips curve into a smile against my shoulder before his teeth clamp onto me. His breath and tongue sear along my flesh like fire. My body is limp with exhaustion, uncooperative. I fight oblivion for just a moment longer; it’s all I need to take my price. My hands frame his face, dark wavy hair like silk against my skin. He doesn’t notice my fingers tightening in his hair. Or if he does, the lethargy of energy thrall makes him unable to care.
    The lack of resistance makes it easy to slide a foggy dark tentacle of my own inside his defenses. So easy, in fact, that I slip deeper than I intended. The heat of his core scalds my aura as I nip a small sliver of the vampire’s chi. Slick as lava glass and just as sharp along the jagged edges, a dark shade of blue-black somewhere between midnight, indigo, and the strange hue of maroon