Vampire Babylon - Break Of Dawn Part 23

This had to be the guy whom Eva suspected of bugging her chambers. He was a mean-looking lug.

As they left, Dawn noticed that Eva was walking a little too casually to fool anyone.

When they were well away, her mother whispered, "Sorin is the second-in-command. Don't be intimidated. And Dawn?"

Her daughter continued going right past her, but Eva cut her off at the pa.s.s.

"The Master wants you alone this time," her mother whispered, "so if he doesn't behave, just call my name. I mean it."

Whoa. So suddenly Eva didn't think Benedikte would be such a good boy? What was up with this? What had the Master told her during their latest Awareness connection?

As they both headed back, Dawn thrust her mother's strange offer to the back of her mind.

Where she stored all the junk she didn't want to sort through. After a subdued Eva left her daughter at the door to Dawn's fugly chambers, Dawn knocked, thinking she would just get this meeting over with. Afterward, she could go back to the tunnel exit to see if she could figure out how to open that wall panel herself.

Not that she would probably manage to do it without getting caught by Eva or scary Sorin. But how could her mother have shown her an exit without expecting Dawn to take advantage?

Just another thing to mull over. Maybe Eva was being as c.o.c.ky as she'd been with storing the machetes in the open.

She opened the door by touching the wall where Eva had done the same earlier. Then she walked in.

A trickling from the fountain in the corner hinted at a peace she wasn't feeling while she took a few more steps. The peac.o.c.k feathers decorating the walls and sticking out of gla.s.s vases trembled in a breeze from an overhead fan.

"Hey, Bene?" she yelled.

Something . . . someone stirred from behind the veiling that draped her sunken bed.

And out stepped the last person she expected to see. Her heart seized.

Matt Lonigan, dressed in his new denims and his untucked khaki shirt, kicked at a bedpost with his boot. He shrugged, as if resigned and somewhat amused by his situation.

"Here I am. You get what you ask for, I suppose."

Astonished, she couldn't move. She thought she saw profound disappointment heft a weight onto his shoulders when she didn't run right into his arms.

He thunked down to the bed, where he came to rest his forearms on his knees. "After Eva took you, I went outside and . . . There they were. I don't remember much after that."

Dawn blew out a breath, coming to her senses. Matt was the only person she could depend on, so his presence should've uplifted her. But it didn't because, now, he could be in real danger down here.

Speaking of which, where was the possessive Benedikte? Was he leaving her and Matt alone as a weird peace offering?

Or was he watching to see if she took some kind of unexplained bait?

First things first. She went to Matt's side, her bandaged knees sinking into the silken mattress. "You okay?"

Now he was all aglow. "Yeah, they didn't touch a hair on my head. I have no idea what's going on, though."

Tentatively, she reached out to finger a brown bunch of strands. "If they'd hurt you-"

Without warning, he captured her hand in both of his, pressing it to his forehead and closing his eyes. "Dawn," he whispered.

His intensity stunned her, shooting her through with a slow warmth. Matt-the only person around here who really cared. Her pulse started hammering, pelting away at her veins as if to smooth out all the hard feelings she harbored for the rest of the world.

"How've they been treating you?" His lips brushed against the sensitive underside of her arm.

You getting this, Costin? You see how I can still feel?

"Aside from hanging around with a psychotic mother and being gaped at by her freak master?" Dawn laid her free hand over Matt's arm out of instinct. "I'm fine."

His head had shot up, blue eyes wide and full of . . . anguish? What had she said to cause that?But just as quickly as the emotion had come, it was gone.

"I've had better nights," she added, still scanning him, "but considering everything . . ." She shook her head. "Okay, aside from meeting Jesse Shane, I can't say it's been great."

"Jesse Shane." His tone seemed forced.

"Yeah, he's one of the undead movie stars, but," she continued, going for some levity, wanting to make him smile again, "don't be jealous. He's only a vamp."

Just as a grace note, Dawn ran a hand over Matt's cheek.

That was when his gaze seemed to get even bluer, deepening and heating.

"Matt?"

His breathing quickened.

A gasp fought its way out of Dawn's chest, but before it could escape, Matt swung her to her back, knocking the air out of her. He pushed her hands over her head, straddling her hips with more aggression than he'd ever shown, his eyes narrowed so that she couldn't really see them.

In her mental chaos, Dawn's body responded, her s.e.x nudging to a hard ache. She wanted this kind of anger, wanted to take it inside and mold the heat into the tight ball that was already burning in the pit of her belly. She didn't care if the Master was watching from behind some hole in the wall, didn't care if anyone was.

See, Costin? Do you see me?

"You're all I can think of," Matt said, tightening his grip on her wrists. "Not being able to be around you . . . You don't know what it's . . ." He choked off.

His bulk made her feel as insignificant as she deserved and, as he hovered over her, she fed off of his feral longing.

"You really missed me?" she asked, breathless.

With a strangled moan, he moved back on his haunches, then leaned back his head. His posture imitated an animal ready to cry out. But when he caught sight of himself in the mirror above the bed, he stiffened, gaze locked to his reflection.

He stared, face wracked with something like devastation caused by what he was witnessing.

"Matt?" she said.

Whatever it was that'd been holding him back seemed to break loose at the sound of her saying his name. He bolted forward, buried a hand in her loose hair, and fisted it until she winced. Then he crushed his mouth to hers in a hard kiss.

That was all Dawn needed.

As they bit at each other, sucking and fighting for dominance, she imagined what they looked like in the mirrors above and surrounding the bed. Two foes fighting, meeting on a primitive field where they would draw blood.

Costin, she thought, just watch me.

Spurred on, she reached up to grab Matt's shirt, hauling him down and rolling him to his back. Now she was straddling him on hands and knees, her spine arched while the ends of her loose hair scratched his face."You've made me wait for you a long time," she said in a voice that was too raw to be her own. "You'll pay for that."

And for what he'd done when he tried to get her to wear that Eva-like dress.

Still on her knees, she slid down until her p.u.s.s.y skimmed over his arousal. She rubbed, the ridge of him skidding against her, separating her even through her jeans. She pressed harder, needing more.

He gave a small grunt, then reached up to flip her on her back again with a breath-stealing thud. She could tell she'd pushed him beyond endurance-no more gentleman Matt. He was all flesh and blood now, stripped of civility.

As he bent her legs and whisked off her boots and socks one foot at a time, she watched in the overhead mirror, her image a blur, almost unrecognizable.

Are you watching . . . ?

Dawn fumbled with her b.u.t.ton snap and zipper, helping Matt to rip her jeans off. When they got to her panties, he hesitated, breathing raggedly.

"d.a.m.n it," Dawn said, taking the initiative and removing those, too.

For one odd moment, he averted his gaze from her bare skin, then locked eyes with her. Even in the wildness of his irises, she could see that he wanted all of her, not just an easy lay.

Oh, G.o.d, it was the last thing she needed to know. In rebellion, she sat up and began undoing Matt's fly.

"No," he ground out, sliding his hands behind her thighs.

By lifting Dawn, he urged her back to the mattress, bending her legs at the same time. The air caressed her s.e.x, hot, wet. . . . She was ready for him to tear her apart.

When he bent to kiss the inside of her leg by the knee, he seemed so tender that Dawn couldn't watch. Pushing back from him, she flipped to her stomach.

"Do it," she said.

Once again, Matt paused. Then his hands made contact with the backs of her thighs, upward, over her a.s.s.

She imagined a different pair of hands there: invisible, connected to a body that was only lived in part-time. Costin . . . Jonah . . .

who . . . ?

She made a low sound of thwarted yearning, opening her legs.

A pair of very solid palms coasted downward, cupping the curves of her cheeks. Then Matt's thumbs slipped between her legs, separating her damp folds and delving in.

Dawn pushed her face into the mattress, biting, tasting the sheets. In her mind, she was in a different room, a different house.

Costin . . .

"Dawn," said Matt's voice.

She opened her eyes as he pressed her c.l.i.t, ma.s.saging it until she gathered the sheets in her fists.

While Matt continued working her with one hand, he slipped his other palm below her hips, raising them. Then she felt him sink down between her thighs, nipping the sensitive inner flesh. His mouth was so warm and wet, so real.He was quaking now.

She closed her eyes again, not wanting to picture what that meant, what emotion he might be investing while she felt empty.

Almost intuitively, she groaned in response to what he was doing to her. She'd be an actress for him. He couldn't know that she was imagining another man between her thighs, kissing her higher, higher. . . .

She thought she heard a swishing sound. Then more kisses-these cooler, like pinches, flickers of pain-took the place of Matt's mouth.

He traveled over her thigh, her a.s.s, her waist, her back, up to her neck, and she pressed her face into the mattress even harder.

His breath came cool and heavy against her ear, and she remembered how he used to love to play with the blood-moon earring there. Her mind swam as she fought to imagine Matt-this was Matt, not anyone else-making her skin raise with goose b.u.mps.

"Dawn . . ." he breathed, tickling her neck until her jugular pounded in time with her s.e.x.

Then she felt it-a scratch like a razor, like- She heaved in a gasp, pushing herself up and catching a hint of . . . another man besides Matt? . . . in a mirror next to the head of the bed. Her mind pushed out a bolt of confused shock, and the mirror cracked, fragmenting the image.

Whipping around, she heard the same strange sound, like the one the Elites made when they changed form, and just as it ended, she found Matt. He looked just as shocked as she was, except maybe he was thinking about the shattered mirror . . . or her sudden withdrawal.

Even though her body was one connected, brutal heartbeat, she closed her legs and covered herself. Then something shifted in her memories, creeping to the front of her skull like a thick, viscous flood. Something that'd been bothering her about the night Ca.s.sie had killed Breisi.

"You found the Vampire Killer?" Matt had said when she'd come to ask him if he would help her hunt down Eva. "I saw what was on TV."

Dawn's forehead throbbed. On the sly, Eva had told her that Ca.s.sie's attempted broadcast of Breisi's killing had not gone public.

No one could've said that they'd seen the Vampire Killer on TV. No one but an uninformed member of the Underground who didn't know that Eva had told Dawn the truth about the transmission plans.

Oh, G.o.d.

Dawn armed herself, forcing a casual smile that almost split her face in half. Meanwhile, she sought her clothing, trying not to fumble as adrenaline screeched at her to run. "I got carried away. We're Underground, maybe being watched. What a time to forget."

Acting!

But her pulse was screeching.

Matt took a look at the mirror Dawn had mind broken, his breath coming fast and heavy. "I'd think that you, out of anyone, would . . ." He planted his hands on his hips as he remained kneeling.

She got dressed. "I don't want to be vamp entertainment. That's all."

"Okay." Matt knitted his eyebrows. "I can understand. Another time, another place . . . ?"

Her skin was crawling over her bones. "Right. Maybe when things are more settled." He started to tremble again.

Fear struck a vibrating chord, resonating through her own limbs. "Don't be angry," she said.

"There doesn't seem to be any pleasing you." His voice had changed, warped by embarra.s.sment or rejection or whatever he was feeling.

"Matt . . ."

Out of the blue, his body faded gracefully into another form. It happened so quickly and effortlessly that Dawn's brain didn't catch up to real time until it was too late.

Sitting on his knees before her was the form of Benedikte. This was what she'd caught in the mirror- She gaped, jumped back, away from him, far, far away.