Skin Trade

what he hid behind when he didn’t want anyone knowing what he was thinking.

“What?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I will take you to your friends, but if the other hungers are rising more than the ardeur, then you need to be even more careful to eat solid food, and…” He faltered.

“What he’s trying to say is that to make certain you don’t try to attack your human friends, you need to feed the ardeur more regularly, as well as eat more real food.”

“You think I should eat before I go to sleep tonight?”

“I think a midnight snack wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Wicked said.

“Agreed,” Truth said.

“Crap,” I said, “I really didn’t want to do some of the people you brought from St. Louis.”

“I think a little sex with willing men is the lesser evil here, Anita.”

I nodded. Let’s see, sex with more men, or trying to tear the throats out of Edward, Olaf, and Bernardo. Let me think… out loud I said, “I know it’s the lesser evil, but I still don’t have to be happy about it.”

“If you were happy about it, you wouldn’t be you,” Truth said.

“But if you were a little more happy about it,” Wicked said, “you’d have better control of the ardeur in the first place. You have to embrace your vampire powers to truly use them well.”

“You know, if we’re just going to chat, then put me down.”

“I think the lady is tired of talking,” Wicked said.

“Then to action,” Truth said, and I felt that push of energy skyward. The sand and tiny gravel swirled upward from the force of it so that we left the ground in a cloud of it.

I had a dizzying glimpse of the ground falling away beneath his boots. A wave of nausea tried to crawl up my throat. I closed my eyes tight and leaned in against his chest. The nausea was less, though my pulse was still trying to crawl out the side of my throat, my heart beating so fast it hurt my chest. I fought not to tighten the arm around his neck too much. But I couldn’t keep myself from getting a handful of his shirt, as if the thin T-shirt would really help if everything went to hell. But sometimes, when you’re really scared, illusion is all you’ve got. Cling to it, baby, cling to it.

60

I WAS ACTUALLY able to open my eyes before we got to Vegas. I just had to keep my gaze very steady on Truth’s shoulder or the sky. I could even admit that being up in the dark, surrounded by stars, was beautiful. It was the ground being so far away that spoiled it for me.

Truth had asked only once if I was all right. When I’d answered yes, he had let it go. I knew he felt the fear in my body. There was no way to hide my heart rate and pulse from him. But before we landed, those had both quieted. I was still scared, but I guess I couldn’t stay at that level of fear without either a full-blown panic attack or fainting.

The stars began to fade, and at first I thought it was daylight, even though I knew the time was completely wrong for it; then I realized it was the lights of Vegas. They rose against the sky like a false dawn, draining the light from the stars, turning the black sky pale. The city rose above the night like a permanent dawn, always pushing against the dark, keeping the stars at bay.

Truth had to go higher just to keep above the buildings. Some of the roofs were so close, I think if I’d leaned out I could have touched them. As afraid as I was of heights, I still had that perverse urge to reach out. I made my hands cling tighter to Truth, and he seemed to think that meant I was more afraid.

“We will be there soon,” he said, and his voice sounded strained.

I looked at him and almost asked if he was all right, but if he wasn’t, what could I do? We left the tall buildings of the Strip behind and flew over normal houses and shops. We were flying over Anywhere, USA. Then the land began to open up, and the first thing I saw was the twinkling runway lights at the airport. For one moment, I thought Truth was going to use them, but then he began to angle toward buildings that were on the edge of it. I wouldn’t have recognized the building from the air, in the dark. I was a little worried about that whole rolling-on- the-ground part, with concrete and buildings to hit. The ground rushed up, and I had to close my eyes or be sick. Then I realized it wasn’t just the visual but the swooping feeling in my stomach. I opened my eyes to find a building at our side, and Truth hit the ground running. He stumbled slightly on impact, but kept moving forward, with me in his arms. The run slowed, and finally he was able to stop, still hidden in the shadow of the building. I had a glimpse of the street with a spattering of cars driving by, their headlights cutting the electric-kissed dark. Truth moved us back a short way into the shadow of the building, so we’d be less visible from the street. At our back was the open area that surrounded the airport.

He leaned his back against the building, as if he were tired, hugging me closer the way you would a child.

“You can put me down, Truth,” I said.

He opened his eyes and blinked at me, as if he’d been far away in his head. He put me down and let me slide out of his hands. He leaned against the building, his chest rising and falling as if he’d been running. Vampires didn’t always breathe, or have to, so the fact that he was breathing heavily meant either he was tired or something else.

I touched his bare arm with my fingertips. His skin was warm to the touch. “You’re warm.”

“Touch me where I wasn’t holding you against me,” he said, voice breathy.

I reached up and touched the side of his face. His skin was cool. “So it was just my body heat warming you up?”

He nodded.

“Why are you breathing like that? How much energy did this use up for you?”

He swallowed hard enough for me to watch his throat work. “Enough.”

“Shit, you should have let Wicked bring me.”

He shook his head, still leaning shoulders and arms against the building. “It wouldn’t have mattered. You fed more deeply than I thought, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked at me with those gray eyes that almost never looked as blue as his brother’s. “Just as we can take less blood, or more, in a feeding, so with the ardeur. You were like a vampire that had not fed in too long. You needed more.”

“But a vampire can only drink as much blood as his stomach can hold,” I said. “The ardeur doesn’t work like that, does it?”

He just looked at me.

Shit. “How hurt are you?”

“Not hurt, just tired.”

“Fine, how tired are you?”

“You need to go to your police friends,” he said.

“I can’t leave you on the street this weak. You can’t even stand up. If Vittorio’s people found you now, you’d just be a victim for them.”

His eyes went all vampire on me, gray light shining in his gaze. “I am no one’s victim,” and he was angry when he said it, and then his eyes went back to normal and he began to slide down the wall. I caught him, steadied him. He put a hand on my shoulder, and I felt his body fight to stay upright.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“No, it’s me that’s sorry.”

“Flying takes a great deal of energy, and carrying someone takes more. I had forgotten how much more.”

“So it’s not that I fed, but that you did something strenuous afterward,” I said.

“Yes, it would have been good to simply sleep afterward, or feed myself.”