Shane’s vampire still wore his mask, only the fine edge of his jaw and the elegant line of his lips visible below it. He smiled as Shane slipped into his passenger seat. His fangs gleamed in the low light.
He had on a long leather jacket over a lacey red button-up that showed off the lines of his musculature beneath, and Shane fought very hard not to admire him too much in it. It looked custom-made for him, the same exquisite mix of feminine and masculine, the red and black matching the polish of his nails and the dark liner around his eyes. He was, undeniably, far too beautiful for his own good—and his own good seemed to be other people’s morally ambiguous.
Yet Shane couldn’t dislike him for it.
If anything, his possessiveness was thrilling. The desire and the sensuality of it left Shane’s heart pounding and his knees weak and a deep, unconquerable ache between his legs that no vibrator could sate for long. That this was apparently what his sex life had been lacking all these years should have left him far more uncomfortable than it did.
The fifteen-minute-old unanswered text from Andres felt more shameful by far. Shane should have been running headlong after his new friend. They were the safe crush: a simple, kind human, a little tired and lonely but genuine and lovely. They were the option Shane should have been letting himself fall head over heels for, would have been flirting with far more were he not still feeling the brush of his vampire’s lips from months past.
As warm and giddy as new messages from Andres always left Shane, even the most sensual imagining of them—their appearance now a blur of tear-stained make up and dark lashes in Shane’s memory—couldn’t stoke the kind of yearning that Shane’s body seemed determined to build for a vampire whose face he’d never seen at all; who pressed up against Shane’s boundaries and so possessively demanded his skin and blood and submission. And for all that he should have been battling those feelings down, instead Shane was beginning to hope that his vampire might take even more… might take his mouth, as gentle and forceful as he’d taken over Shane’s life.
He pushed back the intrusive vision and tried to focus on where they were and whatever the hell they were here for. Shopping, his vampire had said. Well, this did not look like any kind of shopping he’d ever experienced.
As they drove toward the edge of the city, the tight blocks of the artsy districts turned to hilly suburbs where each house looked as if it were built in a different era. They pulled up at a picturesque single-story home with no fence around it, a hedge separating it from the next lot on one side and a patch of forest on the other. It looked familiar.
“This way,” his vampire said, leading him around the back.
“Please tell me we’re invading someone’s private property for a reason.” Shane grumbled the words under his breath, feeling self-conscious at the light on in the kitchen window, spotlighting a young teenager obliviously doing her homework. At least his vampire had a mask on.
“We’re not invading. We have an appointment.” The path around the back split toward a patio overlooking a scrubby grass lawn, but his vampire continued walking deeper into the yard, past a line of trees and toward another tall, barnlike building. He paused at the wide rolling door and knocked.
“Now will you tell me what we’re here for?” Shane leaned closer, trying, just a little, to get in the way.
His vampire had the gall to shush him, and his hands were somehow shifting Shane back, moving him with barely a touch. He knocked again to no answer.
“Hello?” He gripped the handle on the sliding door, starting to drag it open.
“Careful!” came a shout from behind them. A broad middle-aged man with brown skin jogged through the tree line, waving. “I’d closed up for the night before you called. Don’t want to set anything off,” he explained, as he typed something into his phone. A faint buzz sounded. He put the device away. “That should be better. Now, where were we?”
Shane’s vampire slid an arm around his shoulder, a light touch that never quite settled. “This is my—this is the human I mentioned.” He twirled a lock of Shane’s hair between his fingers in a way that felt just a little bit possessive, tipping his face toward Shane’s ear to add, breath hot and voice husky, “Mercer occasionally works with vampires on special projects. Like what we’ll need for Tara’s work access, and… other things.”
So they needed something from him to reach Tara—a lock picking tool or a faked ID badge, perhaps, if the issue was access—but why he had Shane here for it was unclear. Unless Shane wasn’t here for that.
“Andother things,” his vampire had said. But what kind of other things…
Mercer didn’t look the least bit fazed by any of this—not even the mask Shane’s vampire was still adamant about wearing. He held out a hand, and in the small porchlight above the shed, Shane finally recognized him as the person who’d ordered him off this very property in the daylight after refusing to answer questions about his vampiric customers.
Mercer seemed to register it at the same time. “You’re the journalist who came poking around here a couple months ago.”
“That wasn’t my finest moment,” Shane admitted, though technically, he still didn’t regret it. He moved through the motions, taking Mercer’s hand and trying not to cringe.
Mercer shook with a firm grip, calluses spread across his strong fingers. “Seems you found yourself a vampire without my help.”
“He found me,” Shane admitted.
Mercer said nothing to that. His biceps strained beneath his tight t-shirt as he shoved open the sliding door like it weighed a ton—perhaps literally—revealing a darkened interior.
“Please don’t hate me,” Shane’s vampire whispered, lips brushing Shane’s ear.
“How comforting.” Shane almost wished he did hate his vampire—or even just feared him properly. That, at least, would make so much more sense.
Mercer flipped a switch on the shed’s wall.
Bright white lights illuminated the wide space, revealing a series of tables and instruments, hanging tools along one wall and supplies of metal and wood and gems in cases against another. Something that Shane could only describe as a furnace had been built out of the back, open windows on all sides. And the shop was most certainly in use. A dozen different projects lay about, spaced perfectly into tape-designated workspaces or laying atop velvet cushions, each unique and lovely and at least partially metal.
Shane pressed his fingers to his lips. Whatever his vampire was intent on ordering here, it would certainly be beautiful. He glanced at Mercer and motioned to the tables. “May I?”
The smith nodded. “Just don’t touch anything.”
“Go on,” his vampire added, like Shane needed his permission. Or perhaps just as an encouragement. Fuck, with that voice of his, so smooth and sultry like he was a moment away from kissing Shane’s throat or commanding his complete submission, Shane couldn’t tell.
He dipped his head and stepped between the tables. His gaze swept across the smith’s creations, jewelry and figurines, armor and weapons. A little sculpted wizard boasted an opal as the top of her staff. A set of the most delicate knives were halfway through having silver vinery worked up their hilts. Beside them lay a silver rocket-shaped piece with textured ridges and an elegantly fashioned base that was so ornate it took Shane a moment to realize its purpose, though not much longer than that to imagine it. He felt his cheeks warm and avoided his vampire’s gaze.
Oddly, his second impulse was to tell Andres how he’d rate them all, ordered by practicality—what use were knives that dainty, really?—and beauty—why put so much detail into something that would be hidden in a toy box when it wasn’t pressed into the dark, tight space it was made for? It felt rude to pull his phone out, but he memorized everything as he moved. He’d text it all to Andres in delicious detail later. Right before losing himself to very specific fantasies involving a few of these objects and a bed that wasn’t his.
Behind him, his vampire and Mercer spoke in casual tones.
“You’d mentioned on the phone,” the smith was saying, “that you wanted openings for your fangs. Were you thinking little custom-sized tooth gaps, or a segment large enough for your full mouth?”
Fang gaps.
A tremble ran down Shane’s spine. Even after so many of his vampire’s blissful bites, with a stranger in the room his mind suddenly jumped to the claustrophobic feeling of being held in place while Maul’s goons sunk their teeth into him. But he trusted that his vampire wouldn’t let anyone else bite him. Custom-sized sounded incredibly specific. Whatever he was having the smith build, if it was for Shane, then it was meant for his vampire’s personal feeding.
A shiver ran up Shane’s spine and suddenly he could feel the pulse of his own blood through his neck like a heartbeat. This couldn’t possibly be about Tara Williams. Perhaps Shane’s vampire had also been thinking too long and hard on the state he’d told Maul he was holding Shane in. Perhaps he’d decided to act on that.
Shane thought of chains and his body rushed hot and cold. He slipped a hand against the edge of the table to keep himself standing. His vampire had brought him here, introduced him to the very person who would be constructing these. That couldn’t be standard procedure for suddenly locking up your human. And now, after so many days? None of that added up—it just didn’t. But he couldn’t get the thought out of his head, the way it settled between his legs and tingled up his spine and fluttered, unwarranted, in his stomach.
And all the while, his vampire and the smith were still plotting.
“What’s the difference, practically speaking?” Shane’s vampire asked.
“Well, let’s put it this way: is it just the act of sinking fangs into your human that you want—whether you’re both after the pain or the envenomation or a combination of the two—or is it the full feeding experience? Some couples find the custom-sized fang openings attribute a stronger sense of ownership, especially if this is the only skin your human’s showing with optimal vein-contact, but as you can imagine, a mouth full of metal isn’t practical to actually feed through.”
Ownership.
“Yes, right, that makes sense,” his vampire replied.
Wait, some couples? Shane’s mind snapped back to their introduction. Oh. Did Mercer think they were together? It wasn’t an entirely incorrect assumption. Shane had bundled up all the feelings his near-constant texting with Andres had been trying so aggressively to spark in him for the sole reason that he was already claimed, if in the oddest, least socially acceptable way possible.
And now the vampire who’d claimed him was buying him something with fang gaps.
“I’d like to still be able to take a full meal from him, so the larger spaces would be preferable.” His vampire glanced back at Shane, his lips tight and thoughtful.
“Alrighty.” Mercer jotted in a notebook. “You were thinking five pieces, so I assume you want a gap for each traditional vein access point? I’ll need measurements too if…” His gaze shifted to Shane, brows lifting.
“Come to me.” His vampire uttered it like a command, dark and sweet in a way that brushed across Shane’s skin and fluttered deep in his chest.
He should have been put off by it—his vampire, ordering him around in front of people, like he owned Shane’s whole being instead of just the blood he’d bought without Shane’s consent—but goddamn him for wearing that sheer lace beneath his long coat and looking at Shane through the slits in his mask of blood-red whirls with such a wreckage of desire and admiration and confidence. Shane found his feet moving, his head dipping obediently. His cheeks burned.
He shot his vampire a scowl as he stopped in front of him and grumbled, “I’m here.” Shane was here. For better or worse, it seemed.
His vampire maneuvered him using a few gentle nudges, positioning Shane’s back to his chest as they’d done so many times before, not quite touching, but so close that it felt like a promise pricking along Shane’s skin. “Thank you, my pet,” he murmured in a voice that poured like molten gold through Shane’s chest. His breath hovered over Shane’s pulse. His fingers seemed unsure whether to start tipping Shane’s chin or fiddling with his hair. Finally he murmured, “Lay your head back for me.”
Shane was pointedly aware of the smith watching them, looking so professional with his notepad and pen. He’d caved to his vampire in every one of their clandestine meetings, but having an onlooker changed the dynamic, or perhaps just sharpened it. Made it real.
Shane breathed out and tipped back his head.
The very tips of his vampire’s fangs pressed against his neck. From the edge of his vision Shane could see the smith leaning toward the spot with a flexible measuring tape. His muscles went stiff, something sharp and aggrieved rising up in his chest at the sight of someone—someone not his vampire—coming toward his throat, but his vampire’s fingers slid beneath Shane’s and his anxiety eased. Mercer was just human, just taking simple measurements that required barely the softest brush of the tape against Shane’s vulnerable throat. And Shane’s vampire wouldn’t let anyone hurt him.
Shane didn’t have to be told that. He’d lived it.
The smith must have still picked up on his insecurity, though, because he shifted back, instructing Shane’s vampire on how to take the measurements along Shane’s neck instead. For that alone, Shane wanted to trust him. To trust them both, despite the obfuscation and the power plays. Between his vampire’s touch and his soothing commands and Mercer’s professional scrutiny, Shane felt both appreciated and dominated. The sensation curled like a happy little fire through his torso and rested, tingling, between his legs. It only grew with his mounting suspicion of what they were appraising him for.
His breath caught and he could feel his blush deepening, burning across his cheeks and down his neck. His head was still tipped back, his vampire’s fingers on his neck. As he flinched instinctively, his vampire slid into a gentle grip behind his jaw, steadying him.
“Just one more, my swan,” he whispered, his mouth pressed so deep into Shane’s hair that it could have been a kiss.
Shane’s body betrayed him, relaxing into his vampire’s chest like he belonged there—belonged to him—and he let himself be measured for the collar.
He was in shock—that had to be it. It would hit him soon, just how wrong this all was, how much danger it surely meant he was in. Then, Shane would be afraid. Then, he’d run.
It hadn’t happened yet when his vampire nudged his head back up, helping straighten and turn it for a final measurement as he and Mercer discussed mobility and weight—“He has such a lovely neck, I wouldn’t want to clutter it.”
Mercer stepped back, motioning to Shane’s wrist with a casual, “May I?”
Shane stared at him, his whole body strangely alight. Shock. This was just shock.
“Can he measure your wrist, my swan?” his vampire murmured, hands running up and down Shane’s shoulders without really touching him. But he needed to be touched. God, he needed to be touched.
Shane grabbed his vampire’s arm, trying to tug his hand closer, to show him he was allowed this. With a sound so deep it seemed a sob, his vampire yanked free. The shock of it—the speed and strength—left a flutter of genuine fear in Shane’s chest for the first time that evening.
But then his vampire whispered again, this time pleadingly, “Cygnus?” He sounded so hesitant. So much like… someone else. “I’ll take your hand.”
Shane couldn’t put a face to that voice, though. He found himself nodding limply, offering over his wrist.
The smith looked questioning, pausing for a moment longer before beginning measurements for the cuff. These were quicker, culminating in an awkward amount of Shane’s vampire and the smith deciding just how far up Shane’s forearm the cuff should run and whether to include loops to his fingers. When Mercer commented on a bondage addition that could let his vampire pin those fingers to Shane’s palm, both Shane and his vampire responded with such definitive overlapping ‘no’s that it defused the tension that had been building between them. Mercer finished recording his notes on Shane’s wrist manacles—“ornamental cuffs,” he called them.
Chains then, but not restraints. Whatever this was, his vampire expected Shane to accept and obey willingly.
Shane felt too many types of fire at once, the heat of his vampire’s gaze even behind the mask and the ache that went straight into his core, the indignation that his vampire was painting them as co-conspirators in this and the hunger to keep being his regardless, to hear his vampire say you’re mine in a way that rewrote his existence without trampling his agency.
Shane wanted this, he realized with a chill so sharp and pure it felt like an orgasm. He wanted this, he was just pretty sure he didn’t want it quite like this. That it was all happening around him without his initial agreement held a slimy aftertaste, the moment of waking from a nightmare to find he’d enjoyed something about the experience. And he didn’t want that, dammit.
Mercer cleared his throat. “You had mentioned something delicate to highlight the medium basilic vein—that’s the one inside the elbow.”
Fuck.
That vulnerable patch of skin was not something his vampire had demanded access to again. Shane’s flesh began to crawl there, the memory of the way he’d gone weak in the alley when his vampire had asked for it warring with the desire to tuck his arm tighter and crawl into himself. He started to do it too, his hands curling upward, and he hid the motion by pressing his palms to his face. His cheeks were beginning to burn, and he could already feel the way Andres would draw him apart for it, pull his trauma into little glittering pieces and build him something new from its ashes.
And that, he wanted, too.
As much as he hated himself for it, as much as he knew the knowledge that he’d given in would cling like grime to him later, Shane wanted, more than anything, to be undone.