Oh.
Like a vampire.
Finally, Val released the seal he’d made of mouth and throat with a suckingpopand tipped his head back against the edge of his cot. He exhaled in a long, low groan, eyes shut, mouth curved up in a smile…red and wet with fresh blood. He licked his lips. “MyGod.”
Rooster thought he might be sick.
“Do you know how long it’s been?” Val’s voice came out dreamy, satisfied. He cracked his eyes open to blue slits. “Hell,Idon’t even know how long it’s been. Too long.”
Rooster took a step back.
“Oh, relax. Bring me another one.”
“What? No.”
Val chuckled. “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”
He pushed the man – the body; it was no longer breathing, the skin an awful gray color now – off his lap and got to his feet with only a little wobble. He looked much steadier; the shakes had receded. He shut his eyes again, expression blissful, as he pushed his hair back with both hands. His face was flushed now, deep spots of color under each cheekbone. The scratches on his wrists and neck seemed paler, as if they were healing by the second.
He wiped his palm across his mouth, and then looked at it. And then licked the last traces of blood off his skin. “Mm.” His gaze flicked up to Rooster, and he smirked, all teeth. “Horrified?”
Rooster didn’t respond.
“Step aside.” He gave a dismissive flick of his fingers, and when Rooster stepped back, Val bent down and hauled the second unconscious guard up by his collar like he was a doll. Like he was nothing.
Rooster’s stomach convulsed and he turned away, unable to watch.
He could hear, though, and that was almost as bad. The quiet, wet sounds that, if he shut his eyes, could have been almost sexual.
He swallowed his rising gorge. “Look, you need to hurry up.”
A pause. A slurp. “Don’t rush me,” Val said, voice thick. Thick withblood.
After an eternity, one in which any number of things could be happening upstairs, Rooster heard the body hit the floor with a meaty thump.
“Ah,” Val breathed on a satiated sigh. “One more.” When he moved past Rooster to get out of the cell, and into the hallway, moving to the third guard, his steps were the rolling strut of a predator. All shakiness and exhaustion had left him. In tattered rags of clothes, his hair a snarled mess, he had the bearing of a king, as he pinned the guard with a foot to the groin – the man came awake with a shout of pain – and bent to lift him up into an embrace as gentle as a lover’s, as strong as a monster’s.
Rooster shut his eyes, and finally, it was finished.
Val walked up to him, grinning, lips, and tongue, and teeth red. “Now, what will we do about your problem?” he murmured in a voice like silk.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Rooster said, hand tightening on the grip of his pilfered gun.
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it, darling.”
Rooster started to move – shove him, shoot him, duck him, something – but Val was too fast. His hands closed on Rooster’s shoulders, an immovable grip, and before Rooster could react in any way, Val lunged in and kissed him.
Butkisswas too kind a word. Val attacked his mouth. Rooster had time to register a press of lips, the oily heat of fresh blood, a tongue shoving roughly between his lips. The copper of bloodinsidehis mouth.
Then Val pulled back, his grin awful. There was a fresh, weeping bite mark on the inside of his arm. He’d bitten himself?
Rooster wanted to vomit. He started to spit.
“It’s not theirs,” Val said. And then: “Swallow that.”
Rooster did, only because his throat was convulsing, hiswhole bodywas convulsing. A shudder rippled through him, as exhilarating and pleasurable as an orgasm.
Val clapped him on the shoulder. “Wipe your mouth.” He did the same for himself. “And let’s go.”
