HELLO here’s a little segment that takes place partway through the novel! I could explain and give context but 1) no time!! and 2) I’m curious how comprehensible this is if I give, like, no background.
HERE YOU GO!
It’s from Killian’s point of view, because so far the fiction in this newsletter has been the Killian Fan Club/Hate Group (i.e. from Sasha and Rae’s perspectives) and it’s time for a change.
Enjoy!!
Like a fish yanked out of water by a hook through its mouth, I woke. The remnants of a nightmare were already fading from my mind too quickly to parse, leaving behind only a sense of unease. That said, I tended to wake with a sense of unease on most days, so maybe there had been no nightmare at all.
And then the memory of last night bloomed like a head wound, and I realised that today was not ‘most days’.
Swift on the heels of memory was disbelief — which, as it happened, was easily dealt with by shifting slightly in bed, turning my head, and seeing the unmoving form beside me.
Bony limbs sticking out from my duvet. Vulpine cheekbones half-covered by the neon peach paint splatter of her hair. Sleeping, even though vampires didn’t need to.
A faint ocean’s roar in my ears as I considered the details of Sasha Easterly —
In my bed —
Just as she’d been when —
I sat up gingerly as my memory sharpened into painfully brilliant detail, taking several breaths and willing my brain to slow down. To not spark into flames as it flicked through last night.
Sasha, perched on the armrest of my favourite chair, sinking her fangs into my throat and drinking her fill, one hand on my shoulder and the other on the back of my neck as she pressed me into the seat. Like she was holding onto me as well as holding me in place. The echo of the crowd at our show — our tiny, improbably magical show — still ringing in my mind, its thrill now joined by a different kind.
Ill-advised, irrepressible. A familiar temptation and a familiar denial.
Steady breaths.
Sasha pulling away, her tongue licking across the wounds she’d made, the sensation teetering on the edge of bearable. ‘You okay?’ she’d said, her voice a breathy whisper, tinged with a post-performance rasp that had an alarmingly corrosive effect on my resolve.
I nodded. ‘Keep going. I mean — if you want — if you still need —’ I met her eyes, semi-voluntarily, which was a big mistake because that meant seeing her face mere inches from mine, and right after feeding too, with her pupils blown out in those amber-green irises, a touch of colour beneath the dusting of freckles on her cheeks, a lazily blissful smile on her lips — mouth still scarlet with my blood — her breath like a desert breeze across my skin as she leaned toward me —
I turned away, angling my head back, offering her my throat again. Closing my eyes, I dug my fingernails one by one into my palms.
Get a grip. Don’t do something stupid. This is just like every other time —
Her body pressed into mine. I felt her practically nuzzle against me like a lover.
We didn’t do that.
Why wasn’t she —
‘Are you sure?’ she murmured into my neck. ‘I can stop.’
I shook my head, swallowed — instantly regretted it, because the last thing my vampire bandmate needed was one more phosphorescent flare signalling my fraying sanity in her hands — and got some words out in what I considered an impressively level-headed tone. ‘I’ll let you know if I need you to stop.’
‘Okay.’ She nodded, and pulled me into a fleeting embrace so brief I wondered if I’d imagined it. ‘Thanks.’
Dear fucking god, just do it, I found myself screaming silently. Why all the politeness now? Now that I needed her to be done with me before I lost my mind —
‘Any time,’ I breathed, my voice sounding not quite like my own.
I felt her smile against my skin, felt the pricking of her teeth pressing at my partially-healed puncture wounds, not quite breaking through — and then she pulled back and — did she just kiss my neck —
Before I could react, she was reopening my blood vessels. I exhaled gratefully at the distraction, the bright metallic pain that could take my mind off —
Sasha lifting her head, licking my wounds clean as best she could, one hand still on my shoulder, the other having somehow found its way into my hair —
Sasha, watching me as I touched my fingers to my neck, sending a healing spell to close up the damage, just as I’d done countless times before, and truth be told, it wasn’t even the first time I’d caught her staring like that, so why did —
I stared back, unable to look away, the sight of her crimson-stained mouth siren-bright. She was leaning closer. The pins-and-needles sensation of magic stitching my skin back together was still lingering, phantom-like, when I felt her hands strong and sure and pulling me toward her, and for one second I could hear nothing but my own deafening pulse, and then I was leaning to meet her —
— tasting blood —
— the tang of copper layering over the watermelon scent of her shampoo, a bizarre juxtaposition that was several orders of magnitude less unreal than the kiss, than the feeling of her mouth on mine, her tongue dragging across my lower lip.
I couldn’t help but shudder.
We broke apart. I opened my eyes to find her watching me, her expression intent, an ambiguous smile flickering on her mouth. The hand that was on my shoulder had drifted to my chest, was splayed right over my heart.
I could feel my pulse beating against her palm.
Could still feel the ghost of her kiss.
With absolutely no idea what I was going to say, I opened my mouth — just as she blinked and looked away, her smile faltering, a near-imperceptible tremor in her fingers as they trailed down my neck and she let go.
I realised that for the first time since we’d met, Sasha Easterly was lost for words.
The thought sent a wicked thrill through me. I was grinning before it occurred to me that maybe I was wrong, had somehow misread everything, but by then I was already talking — or rather, trying to, because instead of words, what came out of my mouth was a hoarse and strangled croak.
She looked up. Amusement danced in her eyes, and just for a moment, the ambiguous smile became a little less ambiguous.
I cleared my throat and tried again.
‘That was new.’
She blinked, her gaze darting from my eyes down to my mouth and back.
I reached for her hand, lacing my fingers through hers. A grin solidified on her face, bright enough to match mine.
‘Is new good?’ she asked with a tilt of her head.
I frowned, pretending to think about it. A non-pretend idea popped into mind and before I could second-guess it, I wrapped my other arm around her waist, pulling her from her perch and into my lap.
She landed harder than I anticipated, with a yelp of surprised laughter, the side of her shoulder hitting me in the chest and a reflexively flailing arm almost earning me an elbow to the face. I let out an involuntary huff of laughter, and then came the question once again of whether I’d made some kind of disastrous misjudgement —
— and then she shifted in my lap, throwing one arm around my shoulders and turning to face me, and the expression on her face was enough to still my racing thoughts, if not my racing heart.
‘I think new is good,’ I said.
She beamed, unwinding in my arms. ‘Good.’
I kissed her forehead, before forcing my features into a mask of utterly insincere sobriety. ‘But I’m not quite sure.’
The smile on her face turned cryogenic, tension instantly flooding her limbs. I felt almost guilty as I pulled her closer to me and continued, through a grin so broad it hurt. ‘So I think it’s best we check, just in case.’
And there it was, Sasha’s best smile — but now there was no camera, no stage, no audience.
Just me.
Just us —