For the Dead Travel Fast

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Castle woke to the gentle nibble of her teeth on his neck. He chuckled as he opened his eyes; she lifted her head and smiled at him, licking her teeth. He wound his fingers heavily through her hair, but she unwound his grip and kissed his knuckles, pressing her body to his to make him rest.

"It's only sunrise," she told him quietly. "We have time this morning."

The last he'd known it had been lunch time. And now early morning. He was overheated, as always these days, and heavy with the new changes his body had undergone during phase, but it always felt good to have her lying beside him, as if she weighted him to the earth, kept him here. He closed his eyes and drifted a moment.

She licked the crease in his chin and nibbled at his five o'clock shadow, humming something he couldn't catch. She was industrious but carefully undemanding, her nips both gentle and suggestive.

He was tired, but he knew what she wanted—hadn't he given consent with his fingers in her hair?—so he curved his hand in the back of her pajama pants and squeezed. "Go on," he said, or thought he said. His voice was roughened with phase.

She nudged under his jaw. His heart thumped in anticipation. She slipped her teeth into his skin, sinking into him like sliding into a still lake, a slow exhale of frustration through her nose as she got what she'd wanted.

His heartbeat slowed, his eyes grew heavy, the slow sink of her teeth was a pleasant pressure.

She inhaled, and with it came the thread of sensation up through his chest and into that suction of her mouth, almost as light as a tickle, a whisper of feeling that made his toes curl and his heart pound faster. And then the rush: the heady headlong ride down the mountain as the seduction in her bite and the curve of saliva against her tongue hit his blood.

Castle moaned, drawing her closer, crushing her ribs in an effort to hold her down against his neck. She pushed back, breaking his grip just enough that he was unable to demand more than she would give, and yet it was still so good. So intense, a whirlwind, a maelstrom. He didn't bother trying to stave it off, as this was exactly what it was supposed to be, and as his ecstasy mounted, her hand helped him along.

He came with a shout, bucking under the slow chafing of her fingers, her lips already close over the bite, licking him clean. He collapsed to the mattress, trembling with letdown and phase recovery, while she kissed his neck, his collarbone, his neck once more, healing the bite mark and petting him too.

He found some kind of orientation and moved to help her out.

"Not that. Shower," she murmured, batting away his hand. "No, babe, believe me, I got mine. It was just as good for me."

He was heavy-limbed and stumbling as she led him across the carpet and onto the tile floor of the bathroom. She started his shower and helped him strip, her fingers cool and strong and his own hands thick. She put him inside it and came in after, reminding him to soap up, handing him shampoo, talking softly and low until he came around again, until he was aware and attending.

"We're doing what?" he asked, finally hearing her.

"We have an appointment with the people at the Salt Lake, the manmade lake they built for transitions. It's inside the cliff dwellings."

"The native pueblos? And we get to go in there?" Oh man, his voice had just squeaked like an adolescent.

She kindly made no comment, verbal or nonverbal, about his excitement. "They have this caldera, is that what it's called? I think so. Where the earth collapsed and formed a bowl?"

"Technically made from a volcano," he reluctantly corrected.

"Ah." She wasn't fazed though, continuing with her prepared speech. He could always tells when she had rehearsed things to tell him, when she was laying out her points. He kinda thought it was adorable, but no, he was paying attention. He was.

"The Hopi call it a kiva, this big round gathering place inside the pueblos, usually built of masonwork, stone or bricks, in a big round bowl and used in public gatherings. There are a handful in the pueblo beside Transitions, and the tribal council, the elders, they designated one of the kivas for the vampire community."

"Oh?"

"Yes. The final phase of transition is there. It's a ceremony." She flushed, apparently excited by their having been invited. "Walt says it follows mostly Blackfoot tradition, because they consider us the Children of Katoyis—that's what they call vampires—and that there's even a Blackfoot tribe, the Kainai Nation, who used to be called the Blood People, because they were so bloodthirsty, which some of the native vampires trace their lineage back to."

"Hey, that's cool. Is this in a book somewhere or was Walt just talking?"

"Walt, but I did look it up on the First Nations website, and that's all true, the Blood People tribe, and the Katoyis Blood Clot Boy, those are considered well known folklore. But the vampire side of things, that I don't know."

"No, of course. Walt isn't a vampire though."

"No, but he has family," she added. "He's asked to stand up for us in the ceremony, as our guide in the kiva, just as he promised at the beginning of all this."

"That's…" His throat closed up. She was opening the shower door and grabbing towels for them; he followed more slowly, surprised by how much it touched him, this ceremony, Walt's guidance. But also surprised by how much Kate wanted it, to be a part of what she had used to disdain as the horde. "That's..."

"It's cultural appropriation, yes, I do know, I realize. But I also think they're right that we have a part in this—"

"No, no I wasn't going to say that," he promised hastily. "I'm touched. It's very special, being invited into that kind of thing, knowing that Walt wants us there and will stand up with us."

"Yes, I thought so too," she said softly. She wrapped herself in a towel and hugged it against her chest. So earnest. "It means that we… matter to them. We matter to them, not just for our blood samples or the antigens we're creating, but as people, as a new vampire family, adopted into their midst." Her eyes were vulnerable as she looked away, her face touched by the pale morning light.

He couldn't not touch her, folding her in his arms and pressing close. "I'm so glad." He wanted to say more, but he found the words were stolen by her earnestness, by the willingness to believe in the magic of these people.

"I never thought I'd want to part of things." She sighed, her breath fanning his ear. "Being a vampire had always been a mistake I'd made, getting burned, flying too close to the sun. But here, they work together, side by side, humans and vampires, and there's none of the pain and secrecy, none of the torture I kept finding in the vampire world in New York."

"They're a family," he murmured, his fingers in her damp and tangled hair. "Royce showed you the opposite; he left you alone in it." And Castle would never forgive the man for that.

Kate stepped into him, a little shiver. "He did." Her fingers cupped his elbows, her head tilted to his. "But I'm so glad. Or I'd never have you, and this. Us. Here and now."

"Let's not give Royce too much credit," he grumbled.

She laughed softly, her lips dusting his cheekbone. "So you'll do it? The ceremony at the kiva lake?"

"Yes of course," he murmured. "Is it just me, in the last transition? Because I think you should be part of it, in that water with me."

She stroked his sternum with her fingertips. "Yes, I can... I think they assumed we would do it together."

"Good." Briskly, he rubbed her arms with the towel, then kissed her cheek and stepped back. "Let's get dressed." He clapped his hands together in relish. "We have an appointment with destiny."

She rolled her eyes at his melodrama, but he saw the flush on her cheeks and the excitement she was trying to mask.

He was excited too. After their separation and the LokSat conspiracy, plus the secrecy and withholding she'd done about being a vampire in the first place, they needed this ceremony, an official way to bind them together once more.

It would be a renewal of their vows.

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