Beyond The Walls (NOW ON AMAZON!!!)

A Beginning

They made love slow and sweet, the rhythm graceful and fulfilling. Even after more than a century of celibacy, Hadley was delighted to find that she could still move like liquid, taking enormous and intense pleasure in her physicality and drawing satisfaction from each flexing and gentle thrusting and soft, lazy grinding of her body. It was not merely the usual pleasure of sex, but the subtle thrill of them both moving in sync with perfect oiled smoothness and familiarity, making her feel more alive than ever.

Hadley enjoyed her hands roaming over Ruqwik's body, marvelling at the strength of the vampire's bunched up, toned muscles and the silken smoothness of her skin, glorying in the hot touch of her hands, the branding heat of her lips all over Hadley's body, her cheeks, her mouth, her throat, her breasts, her torso, her thighs, and her molten core.

And then there was their minds. Open, intertwined and connected to the very core of their beings. Their feelings blending, mixing, merging, building to a beautiful climax.

It had been so long since Hadley had made love, but even then, she didn't remember it ever being this way. Never this good, this tender, this exciting. Never this satisfying. And when they were finally both spent, as they lay in the soft afterglow of lovemaking, Hadley realised it was because she had never been this open and this vulnerable with anyone else in her life.

"I thought you never wanted to go back to the Compound," Ruqwik whispered as she softly drew patterns on Hadley's back.

Hadley chuckled into Ruq's chest. "That feels like a lifetime ago."

"Technically, it was." Ruq replied with a little laugh. "Several, actually."

They sat in silence for a moment before Hadley finally said something.

"I can barely remember the person I was back then, but I do remember that I had wanted to shape my baby's life from start to finish," Hadley said, pensively. "I think about that often. How I thought that I could, or even had the right to. Then a... friend pointed it out to me. Reminded me that birthing a whole new being didn't give me the right to forcefully mould their life's path. My mother had done just that, and I'd resented it. That I couldn't see myself doing the same until it was pointed out was incredibly upsetting."

Hadley closed her eyes and got lost in her memories for a moment. As Jamil had said when she decided to come to Ruq's cabin, this was the third time she'd left the Compound. The second time was a few months after surviving The Hotel. Ghouls had made it into The Caves and Hadley was part of the team that cleared it out. The experience had been traumatising enough to cement Hadley's vow to never leave the Compound. However, it was also this experience that revealed parts of herself she'd lived to ignore and forever changed her relationship with Jamil for the better.

"A friend told you all this?" the vampire replied.

Hadley turned to face her and smiled. "It's a long story. But we have lifetimes for me to catch you up."

She sat up and hugged her knees. Even a century later, that final trip outside the Compound was still difficult to discuss, and she didn't want to ruin the moment.

Ruqwik turned to her side, propped herself up on an elbow, and chuckled.

"The one thing I remember more than anything else from that night is that you cut my head off," I said.

There was more than a little levity in her voice, shattering the sudden heaviness in the room. Hadley couldn't help but laugh.

"I was like sixty percent sure you'd heal, which you did!" Hadley defended with a shrug, laughing at the pillow that suddenly smacked her. Then Hadley turned serious again. "Why did you disappear, Ruq? You never came after me. You always did. You promised you always would. I really needed you. Those first few years were brutal!"