Incubus Dreams   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

He shook his head, but still didn’t move.

“Either you do it, or I do it… Wicked. We’re running out of time.”

“Do it,” Truth whispered, “do it.”

Wicked’s arm tensed. “Forgive me, brother,” he said, and pulled the blade out in one harsh jerk.

Blood welled up from the wound, thick, red. His body spasmed. I did what I said I’d do. How do you lay your body on top of a wounded man? The same way you do any man, if you don’t want to roll off. I laid myself on top of him, legs on either side of his body, while he spasmed under me, and fought for his life.

I laid my neck in front of his face, and he couldn’t control his body enough to feed. “Oh, shit!” I looked up and met his brother’s eyes. “Help me.”

“How?”

“Hold him up enough so he can feed.”

Wicked didn’t argue, he just moved around behind his brother, and raised his head and shoulders just enough off the ground. The spasming was growing less, but that wasn’t good, that wasn’t good at all.

Jean-Claude breathed through my body, “Kiss him.”

“What? ”I said out loud.

“What is it? ”Wicked asked.

“Give him enough energy to feed.”

“How?”

He was just in my head, not words, not exactly images, I just suddenly understood, because he understood. The vampires had a kiss of life long before we humans had artificial respiration. Once I’d thought you had to be asourdre de sang, or the person who made a vamp, to share energy like this, but I’d proven that it wasn’t true. If Jean-Claude hadn’t been so certain that it would work, I would have argued. I’d only done something similar to this once, and that had been with Asher, who was our sweetie, and who had fed on me before.

This vampire was a stranger to me, and not one of our line, but Jean-Claude’s certainty filled me, as if it were my own.

I looked into Truth’s face, and his eyes were beginning to glaze, as his body went still. I called power, or maybe Jean-Claude did, or we both did. It was hard to tell where one magic ended and the other began. I leaned over the vampire’s face.

“What are you doing?” Wicked asked.

There was no time to explain. I pressed my lips to the other vampire’s mouth. His lips were so still against mine. I kissed him, and felt his death. Felt that spark flickering like a match in the wind. I breathed power into his mouth. I forced it inside him the way you force air into the dying. I breathed into his mouth and thought, Wake. Wake to us, Truth, wake to our magic.