Authors: Lena Hillbrand
The Superiors (11 page)
Chapter Fifteen
Draven inhaled, almost giddy with the wonder of her fragrance, contained and undiluted in the small room all night. His mouth watered at the scent. He stepped into the room and closed the door. Cali slept sprawled out on her back. Her shift had ridden up, exposing a white hour-glass shape of her underpants between her legs. Her head lay turned to the side, her tawny hair spread on his pillow in tangles. He went to the bed and knelt beside it, unable to contain himself. He slowed when he saw the rash of wounds inside her arm.
Was there a correct place, a place that would scare her less or hurt her less? He always used the arm because of convenience, and restaurants wanted it that way. Other Superiors preferred legs or wrists, and those with their own saps could take from anywhere. He’d never had the luxury of so much choice. He let his nose lead him, lingering over the smell and the sound of the sap pulsing under his breath, pulsing with so much life.
A knock at the door interrupted his sensual exploration, but he ignored it. After a while it went away, and he bent over Cali’s sleeping body again. His lips brushed the skin on her collarbone and he felt her skin prickle, but she didn’t move. Her heart beat so loud, so blood-pumpingly full and rich. Without thinking, without even meaning to, he let his teeth slide into her. The veins in her chest lay close to the surface, so near the hub of life and so irresistible.
She started awake in the complete darkness and cried out, gripping a handful of his hair and pulling. While she wrenched at his hair, she began to struggle under him. He pinned her body with his own, turning so he could restrain her. She cried out again, kicking in a futile attempt to free herself. He had trouble keeping his teeth in her chest at such an awkward angle, the surface too hard and flat to get good purchase on the surrounding area. She continued tugging his hair until he covered her mouth and pulled out.
“Make no sound,” he said softly. “I do not wish to hurt you. Just be still, little sap, and you’ll hardly feel it.” His mouth went down on her again and he let his lips rest against her, feeling the throb of her skin with every beat of her heart.
She released his hair and lay still, stomach shaking, until he closed the entry point. He rolled from the bed, suddenly aware of the heat of her body under his now that he had appeased his hunger and could think more clearly.
He rubbed his head. “You’re strong again.”
“You scared me to death.”
“I did not mean to frighten you. I was only hungry.”
“Are you taking me back?”
“Do not be afraid. I have rented you for one more night.”
“Will you hurt me?”
“No more than I have to.”
She quieted, and he switched on the lamp when he saw her eyes roving blindly in the darkness. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, sitting up and pulling her shift down over her thighs.
“I have told you how much I like the taste of you.”
“That’s all?”
“Of course. What else would there be?”
“I don’t know.” She regarded him and then shook her head. “You’re just…I mean, it’s nice of you to do that. To get me out of there just so you can feed off me a couple times a day. You could do that when I was at the restaurant.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I do not like to see animals suffer. It makes me a bit sick.”
For once she kept her eyes averted in the polite custom. “Do you do this a lot?”
“No. Never.” She glanced up at him and a strange thought flashed through his mind.
Caramel.
“So why’d you do it now?”
“I have told you. Now you tell me, Cali. Why are you at this establishment? Did you run away again, from Estrella’s?”
“No. My vein is collapsing.”
“Your vein…is…collapsing?”
“Yes. From all the times I’ve been bitten in this same place,” she said, holding out her arm for him to see. Her vein only looked darker, bruised.
“Have I bitten you here?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“Does it cause you much pain?”
“Not that much.”
“Is there anything I’m not providing that a master should get for a sap? I’ve never had one of you before.”
“Shouldn’t you know that?”
“I probably should not have you here. If you would like to tell me, I might get what you wish for. If not, I will sleep soon.”
“Why do you sleep in the daytime?”
“Why do you at night?”
“That’s when I’m tired.”
“So we are different. You know this. I will be tired soon. You are well for today? You won’t run away?”
“What if I do? Why are you so worried?”
“I would be in some trouble, with the authorities and your place of employment. I could lose my job if they found out I rented a human. They would think it was for…carnal purposes.”
“For what?”
“To…mate with you.”
“Oh.” She looked down and pulled her shift further down her thighs.
“Have you mated with other humans yet? Do you have offspring?”
“What? No.”
“You’re of the correct age.”
“I’ve been working in the restaurants for a few years.”
“And if you go back to the Confinement, you will find a suitable mate.”
“I don’t know. I guess I could.”
“If someone were to buy you, they would have to procure a mate for you, then,” Draven mused. Or get her bred from someone else’s livestock so that she could reproduce, and then he’d have a sapling around, and they weren’t even good to drink from. They were completely pointless, a waste of resources. Or he could sell the offspring and get her bred again, but not until the sapling had enough years to live away from the mother. The whole thing seemed quite complicated. No wonder he’d never looked into it. He could continue going to the restaurants or the Confinement and keep life simple.
“I don’t want a mate. I don’t want to have…offspring.”
“Why not?” he asked, surprised at her directness again.
“Then I have to worry about the baby, and if it was okay, and if someone was mistreating it, and listen to it screaming when one of you bit it. And someone could buy it and I’d never see it again, or someone could buy me without it, and someone else would have to take care of it.”
“You have thought this over.”
He thought humans didn’t bond that way. Everyone always said they didn’t get attached to their offspring. They didn’t have emotions like Superiors anymore—they had been bred for docility and stupidity, to be simple brutes who wouldn’t try to escape or cause problems as they had in Draven’s time as a sap. They had instincts now, like animals. They had been animals, only they evolved. Just like he had evolved from a sap.
“It’s okay in the restaurants, but in the Confinement, it happens all the time,” Cali said.
“But you don’t get bothered as much at the Confinement.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I could have a job during the day instead of at night. I could have friends and see my family again, if any of them are still there. I could find a husband.”
“Wife,” he said, remembering the archaic word Byron had used. From before he had evolved. Sapiens still practiced that ritual, it seemed. “You would be a wife.”
“Yeah,” Cali said, looking at him strangely. “I mean, someone could split us up any time, but I could, if I wanted, get married.”
“Are you allowed to do this, then?”
“Of course. No one cares if I do or not.”
“Why would you do this, become a wife?”
“To be with someone. To have someone. I don’t know. It’s risky, and I don’t want to do it. My mother never did, either.”
“It’s strange to talk to a sapien like this. I’ve never talked to one of you so much. It’s almost like you’re a…person.” He paused, not sure if he heard a noise outside. From inside the bedroom, he couldn’t say. “Tell me, little sap. Do you know what caramel is?”
“Yeah, it’s, um…a kind of…” Her eyes had a faraway look, dreamy, and she smiled a bit. “It’s a buttery, sweet kind of treat,” she said slowly. “I had one, once, when I was very small. Someone gave me one, when she bought my sister and I was crying.”
“I keep thinking that you remind me of that.”
“Of caramel?”
“Yes. I do not know why. Perhaps I had it once, as well. Perhaps your sap reminds me of it. Or perhaps it’s your color. Your eyes.”
“Oh…I’m not sure.”
“Your hair is that color as well. You know, my dog was just this exact color,” Draven said, picking up a lock of her hair absently. He didn’t know how people treated their saps, where they kept them, if they talked to them. But he didn’t imagine this was the normal thing to do. He found her fascinating, though, in her ability to reason and comprehend and communicate. She didn’t seem very animal-like, aside from the tiny cries she made when he took her by surprise.
“Are you in need of more food?”
“I’d eat some, if you have any. I can get it myself.”
“I do not. I’ll go down to the store.”
“You will?”
“How else would you get food?”
“I don’t know…”
He shook his head. Perhaps she wasn’t so smart after all. He snagged his keys, then turned back and grabbed his sunglasses. Just in case. He returned long before he needed them. The sky was barely bluing in the east like the beginning of a bruise. Draven brought the food into his apartment and found Cali wiping the table with a wet cloth.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Cleaning up a little.”
“Why?”
“I guess I’m used to doing that during the day.”
“That is what you do when we’re sleeping?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. In the restaurants, that’s what they usually have us do.”
He had never really thought about what saps did all day. Back in his time, they had worked, but now they didn’t have so much to do. He knew that they stayed awake, but he had an idea that they didn’t do anything. Just as he was pondering this, a knock sounded at the door. He grabbed Cali and lifted her, crossed the room in seconds, and shoved her through the bedroom door. She made a cry of protest. He cursed her and closed the door.
After straightening his shirt, he shoved the bag of human food in a small space under the counter and opened the door. “Hello, Lira.”
“Hi, Draven. I came by earlier and knocked. How come you didn’t answer the door? I saw your car outside. I know you were home.”
He gave her a little smirk. “I didn’t imagine I’d see you again so soon.”
She looked around, taking in everything. Her nostrils flared. “The sap is still here.” She glared at him.
He closed the door behind her. “Quiet,” he whispered, barely audible. “I took her back. She was not well.”
“I smell it. I heard it make a noise before you opened the door.”
“She’s not here. Just her smell.”
Lira glanced into the trash can and wrinkled her nose. “This is human food waste.”
“You were here last night. I fed her, and took her back.”
Lira was quiet again. “I can smell it still here. What are you doing with it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, giving in. Women always pushed and bullied until they got their way. Easier to give in before the fight. “I might have drawn from her. Just once. Or twice.”
Lira studied him and he wondered if he should have kept quiet. He didn’t know Lira too well, really. They were neighbors who occasionally kept company, that was all.
After a thoughtful moment Lira smiled. “Can I eat from it?”
Draven had an almost irrepressible urge to say no. The thought of someone else drawing from Cali bothered him. He wanted her all to himself. But Lira was looking at him, expectant, her eyes sparkling with excitement. Something about it, about doing something forbidden with her, made her more interesting.
He smiled back at her, only a little, and they stood smiling at each other for a moment. He’d rather she left him in peace, but she wasn’t that sort. “Alright,” he said slowly. “She’s in the bedroom.”
They opened the door to find Cali sitting on the edge of the bed. Lira turned to Draven. “It’s on your bed.”
“I know. It’s alright. I like the smell of her.”
Lira wrinkled her nose. “Maybe at the table, but not in the bed.”
“I do not mind. Would you like to try it?”
Lira bit her lip and smiled, still uncertain. He took her hand. “Come. Not much, though. She is still weak. But you can take a ration. I just did so I don’t want to overdraw her again.”