Know Thine Enemy

CHAPTER Eleven



"We're going to try something different today."

Ryker barely heard him, more occupied with the bag of blood he had sucked between his teeth. Feeding times were becoming more sporadic, and, over the past few hours, he'd felt like his stomach had been eating itself in absence of blood. Just as he reached the point where chewing off his arm seemed a good alternative, Dr. Briggs entered the cell and tossed a day's worth of food into his waiting hands. Ryker typically wasn't one to guzzle down his dinner, but he likewise hadn't gone so long between meals since the war.

"Mmhmm," Ryker murmured, licking his lips.

"You know you're going to see Subject Beta again, correct?"

He nodded absently. A couple days had passed since the last experiment, and while he'd done his best to mask how anxious that made him, something told him the good doctor knew all. Perhaps that was why Briggs had kept them apart as long as he had.

"Excellent," Briggs mused. "Well, because of the wild success of our last test—and your enthusiasm in participating—my associates and I were wondering how you and Subject Beta might react if you were completely unobserved."

Ryker frowned, glancing up. "The f*ck does that mean?"

"Exactly what you think it means. When you see her, it will be without an audience."

"Without."

"Yes."

"What makes you think we'll perform if you're not threatening to take the rug out?"

Briggs shrugged. "Call it a hunch."

Ryker studied him for a long moment, his brow furrowing. This wasn't right. The doc wasn't the sort of guy to give if something wasn't in it for him—and time alone with Izzie was definitely a huge something. "The f*ck you have planned?"

"Pardon?"

"What is this? A joke? Some stupid jab at making us comfortable—"

The doctor chuckled and waved dismissively. "Don't be foolish. Why in the world should we care if you're comfortable?"

"Then what the f*ck do you have to gain?"

Briggs shrugged. "Based on how well you two have responded to each other, the amount of what we could gain is insurmountable. This is a simple bonding experiment. Who knows what doors that will open? Body language doesn't lie. And, even if this yields no results, we certainly don't have anything to lose."

Ryker considered himself fairly good at reading people—he'd been around long enough to know when someone lied, bluffed, or neglected to mention something he'd have to know. Yet looking at Briggs, certain as he was the bastard wasn't being upfront, he couldn't pinpoint exactly what he had in mind. What lay ahead. Or what to expect when he saw Izzie again.

There was no sense arguing. One way or another, Briggs held the ace, and Ryker would follow as long as Izzie was the doc's to gamble.

Once she was in the clear, though, once he'd figured a way to get her out, all bets were off.



* * * * *



Izzie's hands itched to remove the blindfold, but Briggs had told her to wait until instructed, or else he would reschedule this event with a different partner. As it was, she knew this give-them-privacy thing was an act. Away from the prying eyes of their captors, away from the unforgiving lights and the endless hope of a tomorrow that never came, the promise of time alone with Ryker was both invigorating and terrifying. She had no idea what he'd think, and, though living in the middle of whatever silent game they had going had driven her mad, the alternative—learning what he thought of her and her lack of bite to match her bark—was almost worse.

It had been two, maybe three, maybe a million days since she last saw Ryker. Since she offered herself to him, mostly in compliance with what the researchers wanted, but also in need of something she hadn't recognized within herself. Facing him was inevitable, but something she wasn't sure she wanted to consider without the cushion of supervision.

In the meantime, Izzie couldn't see a thing, and the floor wouldn't stop spinning. She hadn't moved from her seat on the mattress, but still the ground refused to stand still.

She hadn't been drugged before. After everything, there seemed little point in dosing her to get her to comply—she'd spread her thighs with nothing resembling a fight, and she knew the next time wouldn't be much different.

Her legs buckled.

Oh shit.

"Oh shit."

It was amazing how infrequently she'd thought of sex before. Now, every time she closed her eyes she saw Ryker. Ryker's lips and magical hands that knew just how she liked to be touched. Ryker's voice provoking her, talking her to orgasm. Ryker's intent gaze devouring her, making her feel like anything but a test subject.

And every time she thought of him, her legs wobbled and her skin tingled, and she felt warm and wet in all the right places.

Now she'd be alone with him.

Alone.

Izzie shivered, pressing her thighs together. Briggs might have drugged her to keep her focused on sex, but he really didn't need to go any trouble. The second Ryker stepped through the door she'd throw herself at him.

A door suddenly opened, and the air fell thick under the weight of a familiar sigh.

"Is that you?" she asked.

"Izzie?"

God, his voice. His voice did things to her she wasn't sure she really believed. "Are they . . . ."

"Said we're alone. Why are you blindfolded?"

"They didn't want me to see where they were leading me."

Izzie climbed to her feet when she heard him take a step in her direction. She did her best to ignore the twirling room.

"I'm gonna take it off," Ryker said. "Need to see your eyes."

"They told me not to."

"They can stuff it."

In seconds he was beside her, his trembling hands running up her arms until his fingers tugged away the fabric.

Izzie kept her eyes closed, her body shaking hard with doubt. His nearness did a number on her resistance. There were things she needed to say—things they needed to discuss. They might not get another chance like this, and even if it were a trap she'd be an idiot not to seize this opportunity. But damn, it was hard to focus—hard to keep her mind on anything but the gentle way he touched her, how his lips tugged on her *, how his hands palmed her breasts.

"We gotta . . . ." she heard herself say.

"Open your eyes, sweet."

"No." Izzie shivered and leaned forward, her hands finding purchase on his forearms. "They—they gave me something."

"What?"

"Some drug."

Ryker inhaled sharply. "When?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was in my food."

He swore. "F*cking bastards."

"They want us to—"

"I know what they want us to do."

"Ryker—" When she felt it safe to look, the room spun wildly, and she couldn't hold herself upright. But Ryker was there—his gaze intent upon hers, his expression set with concern and something else she couldn't name. Everything felt hazy and unreal.

Izzie sighed and slumped against him. "I'm hot."

He laughed nervously. "I'll say."

"All over."

"Izzie—"

"We need to talk, don't we?"

"Are you okay?"

She pursed her lips, tears stinging her eyes.

"No," she whispered. "I'm not. I'm hot and I need—this isn't me, you know."

"I know."

"I don't know where I am."

Ryker's lips found her brow. "We'll find us a way."

"I'm hot."

"You keep saying that."

"And I feel . . . ." Izzie blinked and wiggled, warm fluid gushing between her legs. "Can you . . ."

"What do you need, precious?"

"Touch me."

Were those words her own? She wasn't sure of anything anymore.

Ryker swallowed audibly. "They're not watching. I won't do anything if you don't—"

"No, please."

He swore again. "Another f*cking test, is it?"

"Yes."

"You're not yourself."

"No. But I'm hurting. It's so hot." Izzie grabbed at him, raking her nails down his arms in a mad attempt to keep him close, though his proximity made everything worse. "I'm me enough to know this isn't me, but I need—"

"Izzie—"

"Please." Izzie didn't even realize she'd closed her eyes again until she forced them open. Heat blazed across her skin, coaxing the fire in her belly to a raging inferno.

Logic had checked out. She just knew she needed him. Badly. And now.

A whimper accented in her voice pealed through the air, flavored with huskiness she'd thought only worldly, experienced women could produce. The sound was both foreign and familiar, a comfort and a thrill. It wasn't her, but it couldn't be anyone else. It was Izzie personified—trapped between reality and fantasy.

Right now, she was in the dream, and she needed him.

"Ryker."

"I shouldn't," he said, though one of his hands had found her breasts. Naked already—this wasn't a surprise. Briggs hadn't let her feel the inside of a shirt in what felt like years. Ryker wasn't naked, though. For whatever reason, the doctors had not demanded he forfeit his sweats.

"Help me," Izzie murmured.

"Help what?"

"Feel how hot I am." She seized him by the wrist and shoved his hand between her legs, rubbing her soaked flesh against his fingers. "Please."

Ryker's answering growl only made her hotter. His chest pressed against her breasts the next instant, his strong hands clamping around her upper arms.

"Make me forget myself. Make me forget why I'm here."

His head dipped, hot lips pressing a series of burning kisses down her throat and over her skin until his mouth wrapped around one of her breasts, teasing her mercilessly. His hand again fell between her legs, fingers dancing along her hip with feather-light strokes that betrayed his intent.

"Tell me to stop," he whispered.

"Don't."

"We don't need to do this."

"Yes, we do," Izzie replied. "I need you."

He growled again. "Part your legs for me, baby."

Izzie tossed her head back and obeyed mindlessly.

"Please," she gasped in a voice that hardly sounded like hers.

"I know what you need." Ryker spread her p-ssy lips wide. "They made you need this."

"Gahh—"

"You've become my weakness. Dunno how it happened. You're so strong."

Izzie choked a sob, thrusting her hips forward. "I don't feel strong. I can't fight here."

"Yes you can."

"Not like this."

"We'll get there." He glanced down. "You're gorgeous, you know? Such a pretty p-ssy. All pink and swollen."

"Ryker—"

"So wet for me."

"Take off your pants."

Ryker paused, his eyes going wide. "We shouldn't—"

"You do all the touching all the time. It's my turn, now." Izzie shoved him back just enough to grasp the waistline of his sweats and jerk them down. His cock was thick and erect, and the haze surrounding her head seemed to thin out a little. She settled back, her ass finding the mattress.

"Izzie . . . ." Ryker trembled, wrapping a hand around his length and beginning to pump.

F*ck, it was mesmerizing.

"I've never seen one," she heard herself say.

"What?"

She smiled shyly. "Well, I've . . . uhh . . . once. With Wright."

He growled. It sounded possessive.

"It was dark, and it . . . was weird. We didn't like doing it."

"Good."

"But I never saw his . . . ." Her gaze centered on Ryker's cock, new need stretching through her. "Are we—"

"No."

"You didn't know what I was going to ask."

"Won't enter you." At the words, his hand tugged harder at his dick, his eyes burning as though reflective of some inner war. "Not like this."

"They're gonna make us, you know."

"Then have them make us. That step is for you and me unless they take it away."

"I'm still hot."

Ryker glanced down almost apologetically and released his erection. In seconds, he was on the mattress beside her, his hand cupping her p-ssy, his fingers massaging her wet folds and sliding over her tender flesh until the pad of his thumb had found her *.

"Not gonna do it, but we can do something else."

"Something else?"

"I wanna touch you. I feel like a jackass for wanting it, but I do."

"Just do it. I can't take this." Izzie fell back, spreading her legs. "Please, Ryker."

He released another ragged breath, trailing a hand between her breasts. "We'll stop if you don't like it."

"No stopping."

"You say that now." Ryker slid to his knees, his face level with her p-ssy.





One long lap of her slit, and she was irrevocably lost.

"I'll try to do right by you, Izzie. I'll try to make you feel good."

"Make it less hot."

He chuckled. "Dunno about that."

"Ryker!"

"Lemme have this one thing," Ryker said softly, tonguing her *. "Lemme . . . ."

She couldn't deny him anything. The girl she'd known before this place—before their strange prison—was gone. A vision of something beyond the walls of her new life.

Something she couldn't have and shouldn't want, but needed all the same.

Then he kneeled over her, his cock nestled between her vaginal lips, his balls resting against her anus.

"Oh shit," she panted.

"Trust me, baby." He moaned. "Just lemme feel this."

She held her breath but didn't reply, waiting, every nerve in her body on fire. She waited with heartbreaking wonder as he sighed in pleasure, hooked his arms under hers and leaned forward until his brow pressed against her shoulder. Then he moved his hips against her, sliding the length of his cock against her p-ssy, and the world around her dissolved.

"Oh, my God," Izzie gasped, scratching his shoulders. "Oh, my God."

"So hot. So f*cking hot."

There wasn't an inch of her that didn't burn, that didn't sizzle with the feel of him moving intimately against her. His balls slapped her ass with every wondrous thrust of his hips, his cock massaging her wet flesh in a way his hands never could. Ryker's arms were around her and his brow was at her shoulder. If her heart pounded any faster it would break her chest.

She held him and for that moment, she could almost believe he was hers.

"God, Izzie. You really don't know how much power you have over me, do you?"

He didn't let her mull the thought over. Instead, his weight disappeared, and when she opened her eyes, she found his erection again in his fist.

"Need to come," he gasped, sinking two fingers inside her with his other hand, thrusting in time with the strokes he gave his cock. "May I?"

"Ryker?"

"Your belly."

She nodded before she realized she didn't know what he meant, and then it was too late. With a trembling moan, he spilled himself on her skin, and the sight, coupled with the look on his face, triggered her own orgasm. She tossed her head back and thrust her hips madly against his fingers, wave after wave of ecstasy claiming her whole. It was over before it began but seemed to last lifetimes, and the effect was so dizzying she feared she might lose consciousness.

Lose consciousness in a dream.

"You're so gorgeous," he murmured. His hand reached for her almost absently, his fingers spreading his spendings across her skin. "So f*cking gorgeous when you come."

"God . . . ."

Ryker exhaled slowly. "I wanna do this to you out there," he continued, rubbing the sticky fluid up her abdomen until he was cupping her breast. "I want to touch you like this, but out of this room. It's driving me outta my f*cking mind. Thinking of you like I do. Wanting the things I do. I'm going outta my mind and it's all your fault. And I can't stop—I can't do anything. You're consuming everything and I want . . . ."

She sucked in a breath, her eyes fluttering shut. He didn't finish his thought, and she didn't press the issue. The more he said, the more he professed, the more she had to lose. The more stake she put into a future they would never have.

"Izzie." The note in his voice was reverent, his sticky fingers pinching her nipple once before trailing down her flat, scarred stomach. "I'm marking you, baby. I'm marking you all over."

He was. The part of her that should have been disgusted was completely overpowered by the thumping of her heart and the resurging flood between her thighs. She'd been relegated to nothing more than a possession, and she didn't care. She didn't care what loving this made her.

"Do you think of me half as much as I think of you?" he asked hoarsely, as he gently rubbed his cum over her *.

The sensation split her apart, almost tickling but not, and ignited something within her she couldn't name. "Oh God!"

"That's not an answer."

Izzie found herself screaming, "Yes!" before her scrambling mind remembered the question. "Oh God, yes!"

"Do you get hot at night? Thinking of this?"

His right hand slid up her stomach as his other worked her p-ssy, eager fingers pinching her nipple. And it was too much. She was already slick and aching from what they'd just shared, and now he was going to make her come again. Just from touching her, he was going to send her spiraling over the edge. All the while, he utilized his power over her to unlock all her dirty little secrets.

"Ryker—oh God, please!"

"Do you?"

She nodded helplessly, and his breathing hitched.

"You're close again," he rasped, his thumb caressing her slippery * as his eyes swallowed her whole. "Just from this? Just from my touching you?"

"Ryker!"

"You are, aren't you?"

"Oh my God!" She thrust her hips against his hand, tears of pleasure scalding down her cheeks. Fire raced through her veins, hot spots of white blinking the room out entirely. Then it was only Ryker. Ryker's fingers pushing inside her drenched p-ssy, coating her insides with his essence. Ryker's thumb torturing her * as Ryker's hungry eyes consumed her entirely. He moaned when she moaned and gasped when she gasped, and, when she trembled into another blinding orgasm around his fingers, her cry of release was nearly drowned out by his pleasured sigh.

It lasted forever but was still over much too soon. The world slowly blinked back, and she discovered herself snuggled in Ryker's arms, her head cradled at his shoulder.

His fingers danced idly down the length of her arm, his hard breaths unmaking her completely, but he didn't speak. He held her but didn't speak, and she was glad. If he spoke, she'd be forced to talk as well, and she didn't know what to say. God, she doubted she could form words that made sense in any rational language.

She didn't know what had just happened. Her mind was numb, her body sated and wonderfully worn out. From the fight. From her inner struggle. From the phenomenal heights she'd reached and the fear of the inevitable fall.

The fall, however, could wait for now.



* * * * *



Shame with sex was such a Victorian notion, one he'd thankfully skipped on account of not being human. Still, resting with Izzie in his arms, sharing what they'd just shared, having taken advantage of her during some bout of drunkenness or chemical high brought unsettlingly human-like remorse to the surface of his psyche.

Ryker wasn't the sort of guy to ride out remorse, but somehow Izzie had thrown everything he knew into question. Perhaps it was being strong when others would be weak, or knowing what she needed and taking it, even if she hated the need in the first place.

His fangs itched, but he wouldn't let them out. Not now. He'd already taken too much.

"You still feel hot?" he asked.

Izzie shivered and hid her face against his shoulder. "It's wearing off," she murmured. "I just feel . . . I don't know."

"I'm sorry."

"I asked for it."

"No, you didn't. You didn't ask for any of this."

She trembled and shook her head. His skin felt damp and he had the horrible suspicion she was crying again.

She was so much stronger than she gave herself credit for.

Would she hate him if he bit her? Hell, would she even know what it meant? So much of his kind's mythology was bastardized by Hollywood, she might not know the transition between human and immortality took but three bites from the same vampire. What could Wright have known about the transformation, if anything? What would he have shared?

"Ryker?"

"Hmmm?"

"I'm not a whore."

His heart twisted. "I know."

"I feel like one."

"Liking sex doesn't make you a whore."

"I don't like it, though. I mean—I like what you do, but I hate this. I hate it so much. You're the only thing making it okay."

"Izzie—"

The room blazed with light without warning and something in him snapped. The hint of what was to come—the parade of labcoats and their f*cking tests. Mucking with his body was one thing, but Briggs and friends had put all else on the line, and he knew then, without a doubt, despite whatever they'd been told, their captors had watched the whole thing.

All of it. Izzie begging him to touch her. Izzie crying. Izzie thinking she was anything but what she was.

And it was too much. The girl belonged to him.

A snarl tore through his throat as his fangs descended. Ryker ignored everything—the gasp from the girl curled at his chest and the cries of protest from Briggs and his cadets. She wouldn't cry anymore because of him.

Not like this.In the end the choice was easy. Ryker rolled her over and buried his face in the crook of her neck, and before anyone could think to stop him, he sliced his fangs into her skin and drank deep.