The Discarded

The Reject 9 - 3

Walking away from the vampire, he made his way to Anastasia. A wash of heat rushed to meet him, the Ebon Flame responding to her temper. "Took you long enough," she said as he came up behind her.

His hands moved down her sides and onto her hips, spandex hot from inhuman body heat, muscles hard and ready under his fingers. Pulling her close, he felt the tension that tightened her into a taut cord of power. She was beautifully soft and as lethal as an Egyptian Asp.

He wouldn't jump into that fight. A man didn't get old by picking fights with jealous women. "Close your eyes." The words were the tones of training, smooth, edges ground down to a buttery soft tone with hints of darkness and moonlight. "Feel the tide of hunger that runs through your soul. The fire that burns and churns below the surface. The birthright of your race. Taste its needs on your tongue, raw and weeping, begging for release." She relaxed under his words as he wove a world outside the one they lived, a world of the mind.

Heat radiated off her in waves, caressing across him, sweat prickling in its wake. Ebon Flame churned under the surface of her skin as his whispered words washed over tortured flesh. "Hold the hunger, the gluttonous need to devour. Now, call to your needs and desires." Heat surged from her as Anastasia joined the twin hungers. "Wallow in their vicious darkness, the conviction that nothing can stand in your way. No man or woman will deny you what you want. No amount of blood will stop you from taking what's yours. The world will burn until it bows to your need. Twist your needs with the Ebon Flame, make it one hunger."

The flame surged, fighting the will that held it, wearing away at the threads binding it to flesh. Cesare felt the tipping point, the hair's breath from it flying out of control. "Now." The whisper snapped Anastasia's eyes open, hands flying forward, black flames roared in twisting streams of hateful desire. Exploding down range, it hammered into a dummy, blowing it apart in splinters of burning wreckage. Before the first had hit, the second stream was already on its way, the two seeming to merge into one, blowing apart the dummy behind it.

Slumping back, Anastasia sagged in sudden exhaustion. "Good. But we need faster, harder, stronger, and deadlier. Let's start again."

They went over it again and again, until she was wrung out and he was the only thing holding her up. Even when she couldn't stand, when her legs wobbled and her arms shook with weariness, she kept working. Calling flame, sending it tearing down to burn through the bamboo men.

Hours later they were working under moonlight, swathed in the velvet darkness that had swept the clearing of the sun's taint. "That's enough for tonight." The soft words brought a groan of exhausted relief from the girl.

Holding onto Anastasia, he turned to Alexandra. "Can you give us the night? We need to take care of something ... personal."

The vampire's eyes darkened, emotions deep and caustic stirring their depths. Studying them, Alexandra nodded, shouldering her bag as she left the training field without a word. She was pissed, and he'd pay for that later, but something's you just had to do. He needed to feed Anastasia, and the thought of Alexandra watching was enough to make even Cesare's nerves twang in protest.

As the vampire disappeared into the corridor of thorns, Cesare picked Anastasia up bridal style and carried her over to the wall of trees. The Season of Hunger gripped the earth with deathless fingers, winters claws still bleeding the wood of life. For all that, Anastasia gave off enough tainted heat to keep him warm and far from cold.

In the deeper shadows of the trees, the shades of midnight sheathed them. Cesare sat down with his back to the pine tree, Anastasia slipping from his arms and straddling his lap as she nuzzled his neck. Flush against each other, they were caught in an embrace as telling as it was intimate.