Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) Page 6

  ‘You’re going to have to work on that if you plan on sticking around here. Pummel has rules.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘It’s each to their own around here. Pummel’s strict about that. He also keeps his nearest and dearest closest. The further along this end of the row you are, the more relevant you are. As you now know, Pummel and Homer’s quarters are on the other side of this wall,’ she said, cocking her head to the left. ‘You don’t go up there. The lounge will be fine though, as is the kitchen.’

  Turning left into the small recess, she unlocked the door to the right and stepped inside.

  The room was no more basic than he’d expected. The double bed was shoved up against the wall in the top right-hand corner, the small window directly ahead casting minimal light on the foot of it. The duvet was flat, the pillows misshapen. Ahead was a small double wardrobe. Another door was in the corner directly to his right.

  Wandering over to take a look inside, he was met with an outdated en suite. It was mouldy, dark, dank, no curtain on the tiny dark-green plastic shower enclosure tucked behind the door. But at least it had a toilet and a sink. Like so many of the larger houses in that area, it had once been converted into a bed and breakfast or guesthouse. He switched on the extractor fan which remained silent.

  ‘You got lucky,’ Tatum announced. ‘There aren’t that many rooms that come with an en suite. Anything that’s in here is yours.’

  ‘Unless I want to ask permission from a corpse, right? What happened to him?’

  ‘He got beaten up behind the courtyards last night. Someone broke his neck.’

  Eden looked back around. Suddenly he didn’t feel so bad. ‘Like you said, lucky for me.’ He stepped over to the sash window and slid it up to look at the brick wall of another building beyond the alley, the row of small courtyards below.

  ‘I’ll get the bedding changed for you and get someone to give the room the once over,’ she said. ‘Help yourself to Tracker’s clothes for now, but you’ll be able to afford your own soon enough if you stay in with Pummel.’ She eased up onto the four-drawer chest beside the bed. She crossed one shapely leg over the other as she reached for the cigarettes and lighter that had been left there. ‘So what are you going to offer him?’

  ‘What does he value most?’

  ‘Knowing the area,’ she said. Placing a cigarette between her full lips, she lit up. She cast the lighter on the table beside her, inhaled steadily before resting her arm on her knee as she drew it against her chest, the smoke twirling into the air. ‘Affiliations with the third species or witches could be useful. Getting your hands on goods. Contacts who can get things across the border – smokes, alcohol, the good stuff though, not the crap they shift in.’ She exhaled a lingering stream of smoke as she rested her head back against the wall, surveying him under her thickly coated lashes. ‘Herbs are a definite. Protection. That’s a big bonus for him. You’ve got to know how to handle yourself enforcing those rackets around here, especially with all the sires. Those vampires get precious over their feeders. You ever had any dealings with the third species before?’

  ‘Once or twice,’ Eden declared, opening the wardrobe, feeling Tatum’s cool gaze observing every move he made.

  ‘Then you know how to look after yourself.’ She raked him slowly with those penetrative eyes. ‘Not that I hadn’t worked that out already.’

  He stared at the wall behind the bed, at the peeling wallpaper, the damp patch on the cigarette-smoke-stained ceiling. But he wasn’t there to stick around. He was there to get what he wanted and then get the fuck out. ‘Anything else I should know?’

  ‘Just know that once you’ve pledged an allegiance, you’d best stick to it. I’m guessing Pummel’s already warned you that you don’t go near Jessie.’

  ‘Jessie?’

  ‘The brunette at the pool table.’

  Finally he had a name.

  He strolled over towards her but maintained his air of nonchalance as he threw his jacket onto the bed, opened the top drawer of the bedside table. It was packed with foil packets – the one item Blackthorn was given freely in copious supplies.

  All cons were made sterile before they were abandoned into Blackthorn. It was the only act of mercy the authorities showed – not just to the potential victims, but the potential kids caught in the middle. They put it forward as a human rights initiative. What they meant was politics got messy if kids were left to run around Blackthorn – and transferring them elsewhere in the locale complicated their perfect segregation system. What it subsequently proved was that, in the Global Council’s eyes, no one was born free. You were born to a class and nothing changed that.

  The free supplies were subsequently added security – an effective measure in light of the potential of sexual disease being rife and the lack of medical support a guarantee.

  ‘Is she Pummel’s?’ he asked, closing the drawer again.

  ‘She’s none of your business,’ she said, her curtness frustrating. ‘Remember that and you’ll be okay.’

  Persistence would have aroused suspicion. He was there and he was in; that was step number one. The focus was on getting to step number two.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ he asked.

  ‘Four years.’

  ‘How did you get to the exclusive end?’

  ‘Like everyone else who’s here – I made myself indispensible to Pummel.’

  He braced his hands either side of her thighs. ‘By fucking whoever he asks you to?’

  ‘Let’s make one thing clear,’ she said, spreading her thighs either side of his in a slow and languid move. She exhaled a cloud of smoke in his direction. ‘I pick and choose. And I always get first choice.’

  Substance fumes seeped into his head and into his system – fumes that reminded him of his past, his misspent youth.

  He hadn’t grown up in Blackthorn, but he may as well have. Lowtown had already been rife with corruption several years before his older brother, Billy, had been born. So by the time Eden had come along three years later, the disintegration of any remaining civility amidst the deemed underclass had begun.

  His parents struggling more and more to find any legitimate work over the years, witnessing his father return home after too many unprovoked beatings, too many sleepless nights listening to his mother cry, had hardened Eden – physically and mentally. Whereas his father had been ground down by the system, Eden had become determined to fight it. He’d learned how to talk the talk. He’d learned how to survive on the roughest streets of Lowtown, even venturing into Blackthorn on occasion. He’d learned how to get what his family needed – primarily illegally because there was no other option. He’d learned to run fast when he’d needed to, and to stay and fight when that was the better option. Eden needed to be the one to take control because, despite being the eldest, Billy was made of softer stuff, so Eden had learned how to defend and protect him too. Over time, Eden had earned a reputation that meant he got even more of what he wanted. It was about survival, because his survival meant his family’s survival.

  Now was no different.

  Luckily – as he felt Tatum’s thighs locking around his – he’d also learned a lot over the years from the women who found his hard edge, coupled with his charm, appealing. He’d turned it to his advantage, making the most of willing partners ready to teach him that extra skill or take him that one step further. He’d subsequently handled more than his fair share of women like Tatum – those who were anything but the feebler sex. And he had thrived on it.

  They had become his weakness, his guilty pleasure. But they had also taken a part of him that only with age had he learned he’d lost. Sex, for him, was now void of the connection granted only to the privileged. Sex hand in hand with love was as elusive as love itself. Love outside of his family, at least.

  ‘So you’re not here to test my mettle then?’ he asked.

  Her smile was as toxic as the fumes that now filled his senses. ‘Would you like that? It’d certa
inly give me some clues as to what nickname I can give you.’

  ‘I don’t need a nickname.’

  ‘Anyone who’s anyone doesn’t operate by their real name around here.’

  ‘So what’s your real name?’

  She smiled again. ‘What you see is what you get with me.’

  And he knew exactly what he’d be getting. ‘Those numbers tell me I’m to watch my back.’

  ‘Depends if you stay on my good side.’

  ‘I’m not interested in your good side.’

  She tongued her upper molars as she smiled again. She pulled his T-shirt up slightly to rake her gaze over his torso, survey his abs. She smirked in approval as she ran her hand over every groove of his chest, traced her fingers down to his wound – a wound that fortunately looked far older than less than a day.

  ‘Someone take a dislike to you in the penitentiary?’ she asked, running her finger along the stitches with the fascination of a child who enjoyed plucking the wings from live insects.

  ‘A lot of people take a dislike to me.’

  ‘Do you care?’ she asked, reaching down to single-handedly unfasten his belt as she exhaled another mouthful of smoke into the limited space between them.

  ‘Not much.’

  She popped the buttons on his jeans, easing the front of his shorts down to free his stirring erection. Her eyes flashed with approval as she looked back into his. ‘I’m already coming up with a few nicknames.’

  ‘Keep it to one syllable. It makes it easier for when you’re screaming out my name.’

  She laughed. ‘That’s a big promise.’

  ‘Which I always keep.’

  She bit into her bottom lip as she wrapped a surprisingly soft hand straight around the base of him. ‘You been with a woman since you got out?’ she asked, slowly sliding her hand up and down in well-practised strokes.

  Fortunately he’d never had a problem with blatancy – even less so in such deft hands. ‘No.’

  ‘How long were you in?’

  ‘Too long.’

  ‘Then clearly,’ she said, parting her thighs further as she eased even closer. ‘I’m going to have to do something about that.’ She tongued her molars again, her breaths heavier as she took a firmer hold of him, experimenting to find the pressure and angle he preferred.

  But he caught hold of her wrist, eased her hand away. ‘You might want to reconsider before you go any further.’

  ‘Sweetie,’ she said before exhaling a curter stream of smoke. ‘If it’s my honour you’re worried about, you’d be better worrying about your own.’

  ‘I don’t do honour,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’m very likely to hurt you. I’m very likely to overstep the mark. And I’m more than likely to get to the point where I don’t give a fuck. Your choice.’

  Her eyes flared, her pupils dilated. ‘You say that with such gravity.’ Almost closing her lips on his, she coiled her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and tugged slightly. ‘Just know I can have you out of this place in the next hour if I choose. The same as I can have your guts hung out on the washing line in the morning sun if you don’t please me by the end of the night.’ She gently licked his lips. ‘So enough of the small talk, con. My room’s right above this. I think we’ve wasted enough time, don’t you?’

  He took the cigarette from her hand, placed it between his lips to take an experienced and steady inhale before exhaling a slow mist of smoke around her. It had been a long time, years, since he’d given up. And right then he needed to remind himself why. ‘Callous little bitch, aren’t you?’

  Her eyes flared again. But then she leaned closer. ‘Like you wouldn’t believe,’ she said, sliding her hand down to his erection again, this time cupping his balls and squeezing slightly. ‘And I would love to damage you.’

  ‘You so much as make me wince and I’ll show you how callous I can be.’

  She exhaled off a terse laugh, but her eyes glimmered with curiosity. ‘Is that a request?’

  ‘It’s my way of telling you I get the feeling you’ve been getting your own way around here for far too long,’ he declared, stubbing out the cigarette. He reached for the open bottle of wine and knocked back a mouthful, the liquid as potent as he’d expected. He licked the remnants off his lips before he ran the lip of the bottle up her inner thigh, his gaze following its journey.

  He heard her hold her breath as he slid the bottle higher, finally meeting her sex.

  ‘You think you can put me in my place?’ she asked, her tone dripping with anticipation, her lips parted, her breaths shallow.

  In the toxic haze of smoke and alcohol, it was an enticement that was easy to bite hold of; the kind of game-play he’d had an addiction to for longer than he could remember.

  He pulled the bottle away and took another mouthful. ‘Only one way to find out.’ He indicated over his shoulder towards the door, his eyes locking back on hers. ‘Whenever you’re ready. Unless you’re having second thoughts?’

  Jessie turned left up the stairs, disappearing into the shadows before Tatum noticed their stare-off.

  Passing Pummel’s room, she leaned back against the narrow wall by the window: the window she had caught a glimpse of Eden through only the night before. The same window she’d also seen the glimpse of the crates from – crates being delivered to the cellar Pummel rarely used except for his most secret dealings, dealings that even she was excluded from overhearing. Weapons, substances, trade-offs – Pummel had been involved in it all over the years. He was clearly up to something, though she had obviously missed it amidst her distraction with bigger concerns.

  And now there was Eden in the mix too.

  She held her palm over her heart, hating the unnatural pace he evoked.

  She ascended the narrow, dog-legged staircase to her attic room and locked the door behind her. Her stomach churned, her head felt light, an oppressive weight making her shoulders and neck ache. The unsettled feeling was worse though – even worse than it had been those past few days since it had all started again.

  She kicked off her ballet pumps and perched on the edge of her white, metal-framed bed that lay central to her room. Reaching under it, she pulled out her sketchbook. Sitting crossed-legged facing the door, the breeze from the open window flowed through the bars and the headboard behind her, reminding her of a world beyond as she flicked through the pages.

  There, drawn by her own hand, he lay asleep, his eyelashes thick with a slight upward kink. And there were more, many more, all of them drawn those past two days, even before she had laid eyes on him. She ran her finger along his jawline, up to his lips, the paper cold and lifeless in comparison. It was unmistakeably him.

  He was a part of it somehow. Though how, where, when and why remained as much a mystery to her as the rest of it – fragments of a puzzle she couldn’t fully understand, was not intended to understand.

  Throwing her sketchbook aside, she fell onto her back to stare up at the beamed A-frame ceiling as she clutched her head. It couldn’t be coincidental – the visions returning only days before and now him appearing soon after. But whether for better or for worse remained as elusive as those visions themselves.

  Hands behind her head, she drew her knees upwards, her feet sliding over the comfort of her duvet before she locked her knees against each other.

  Despite the evidence played out in front of her down in the lounge, her gut still told her there was something different about him. If nothing else, there was definitely something different in her reaction to him – her jealousy at watching Tatum toy with him, at knowing she was with him now, told her that. But beneath the jealousy, something else had stirred – something she hadn’t felt before.

  Because now, alone in her room, the unfamiliar stirring in the lowest depths of her abdomen was undeniable. The heat pooling there as she thought of him not being a kind lover or a gentle lover was unsettling. The back of her neck and her chest surged with heat. Her breathing became shallow. She rested the back of her hand a
gainst her forehead, tucked her wrist between her legs as her muscles clenched. She closed her eyes, imagined Eden in her room, his hard body pressed against hers, as it no doubt was against Tatum’s. She imagined it was his hand, not her wrist. Imagined he was there with her now. Imagined what could have happened if she hadn’t warned him off down in the lock-up. When, instead of being intimidated by her strength, the fact she wasn’t human, it seemed to have turned him on more.

  She curled into a foetal position, raised her knees to her chest and slid her wrist back between her legs. She squeezed her thighs together, feeling a shot of pleasure deep inside as she lifted the fingers of her free hand to her lips again, lingering on where he had kissed her. Kisses that were now no doubt all over Tatum’s body; Tatum’s lips no doubt tasting every firm, hard and smooth inch of his.

  She yanked her wrist away in frustration. She rolled onto her back, let her legs fall flat, stretching them out with an almost defeatist sigh.

  She forced herself upright, resting back on braced arms, her fingers digging into the duvet.

  Swivelling her legs over the edge of the bed to place her feet on the rug, she gripped the mattress either side of her, her train of thought causing acridity in her mouth.

  He’d been there a few hours and already he was throwing her off balance, daring to penetrate through her well-guarded walls. Only now she felt mocked, discarded, as meaningless a commodity as Pummel instilled into her every day, as she reminded herself what Eden indulging himself with Tatum really meant. Tatum who would leave her signature marks all over his body – marks that would heal far too quickly.

  Somehow she had to get him back to the lock-up as soon as he’d finished. That was unavoidable now, regardless of what her vision of him had meant.

  She stepped over to the window. She gazed across the rooftops and out towards the hub of Blackthorn beyond. Whilst music and yells spilled from rooms below, out of open windows and doors, she rested her head on the bars, breathing in the cool night air as she gazed up at the dense pollution that blocked the stars. It was the busiest time of night but, now more than ever, it still felt like the loneliest place in Blackthorn.