Andres was tearing Shane apart.
He was a monster; he could feel the guilt and horror already lodging in his chest so thoroughly that he nearly told Mercer no then and there. They didn’t need this final piece. They didn’t need any of them, truthfully. They could wait outside the place Tara worked and catch her as she left, or they could break in through a window, grab her out of a dressing room, follow her home even—anything that didn’t involve going through the front doors.
He’d just wanted to dress Shane up and pretend his little swan really belonged to him for a night, wanted it so badly that he’d convinced himself to ignore his growing fear that Shane was simply putting up with his nightly feeding because he didn’t know how to deny him.
But now Shane had gone paler and paler, his breathing shallow and his body stiff, clearly afraid in a way he’d condensed into tiny trembles and whimpers before now, and as much as Andres loved him vulnerable, he did not love this. He hated this, in fact.
He’d never meant to hurt Shane. Andres had added that last piece in—despite the growing cost—because he’d thought it might give Shane something new to bear in place of the old memory. Something to prove that his life didn’t belong to Maul, or to any of the vampires who’d tried to take it. Except that instead, Andres supposed, it just seemed like he was putting even more claim on Shane himself.
And Shane clearly didn’t want that.
Andres wrapped his arms across his stomach, taking a slight step back. “We, uh, we don’t need this one, it’s fine.” He was sounding like unsexy Andres, like the dork who spent an entire night testing out different kinds of nail polish just to miss the closure of the bar he’d been planning to wear it to. “We’ll stick with the first three we measured for. The wrists, at least. Perhaps we’ll hold off on the choker if—”
“No.”
It took Andres a moment to truly internalize Shane’s objection, and a moment longer to answer with a parroted, “No?”
Shane’s throat bobbed, and despite everything, Andres couldn’t help tracking the movement with his gaze, his attention settling on the pulse that he’d pressed his fangs into so many times already. His little swan trembled once, glancing down. And that should have been Andres’s cue to back off. To listen to the rational, ethical side of his brain screaming at him that what he was doing to Shane had been a mistake long before his little swan’s face had gone pale and his tension mounted.
Instead he found himself sliding his fingers ever so delicately around the center of Shane’s neck, slowly closing them, giving no pressure, only the barest sensation of skin on skin. He waited for the quiet inhale, the tiny tremble, but then came what he did not expect: Shane leaned against him, his eyes closing, and very slowly, he tipped his head back.
His voice so rough it was barely his own, Andres amended, “We’ll take the choker after all.”
Despite the relative peace that wrapped up their meeting, Shane walked like he was trying to outpace a monster far faster than Andres, his jacket bundled against his chest and his arms tight. “You make me go through all those measurements and then don’t even let me see the design after?” he complained. “I have a right to veto what I don’t like!”
Beneath his grumbling, he seemed to be masking something as closely as Andres concealed his own face, and Andres fought down the lingering suspicion that perhaps he had frightened Shane more than he was willing to let on. He’d said yes to the collar to appease Andres, obviously, though whether he was doing so out of affection or fear, Andres couldn’t tell. With the way he was still shuddering—so gloriously, but shuddering nonetheless—beneath Andres’s touch, Andres was growing worried it might have been the second. “As though I would ever pick you something that didn’t compliment your loveliness perfectly,” he replied, opening the driver’s door. “Besides, is this not how presents normally work?”
Shane scowled and slid into the passenger’s seat.
It was hard to tell whether the rust on his cheeks was a blush, with the greyscale of Andres’s vampiric night vision fighting the dim lighting from the porch. And his contacts were annoying him again. He tried not to rub the edges of his eyes beneath the mask as he climbed into the car.
The engine felt a little too loud in their silence. Andres had already turned onto the next street when Shane finally asked, his voice small and hard, like he was fighting to hold it in place, “Do you expect me to wear them all the time?”
“Wear—what?” The wheel suddenly felt slick in Andres’s grip. All the time. Wear them. Oh fuck. No wonder Shane was on edge.
The guilt that bloomed in Andres’s gut came almost as fast as a vision of just that: Shane lounging in his bed in nothing but the chains, laughing in his kitchen with the ornate pieces sparkling against his lounge-wear, having them hidden beneath his clothes as he shopped, feeling the constant reminder that he belonged to Andres. But he didn’t—it was just his blood Andres had bought, and that hadn’t even come with consent.
“They’re for infiltrating Tara’s work,” he clarified. God, he really was a monster. “I told you that?”
Shane made a sound that was impossible to pinpoint, flat and hollow and a little something else. Relief? Annoyance? Discomfort? “But you said—” He swallowed the words, breathing in and out, and started again. “You said that Mercer is making what we’ll need to access Tara’s work, and other things. And then you measured me for a collar. I assumed…”
“Ah.” Andres groaned. “In my defense, that was an accurate and literal description. Mercer does make things besides the jewelry we’ll need for Tara’s work. Though, I, um, apologize for scaring you. It was not my intent.”
“I see.” Shane stared out the windshield, his gaze unfocused. “Do tell, where the fuck are we going that you need me in a collar and cuffs to get in?”
Andres had the impulse to drag a hand through his hair, but the cords of his mask were still wrapped around the back. “It’s kind of embarrassing.” He laughed bitterly. “And you’re going to hate it.”
“Try me?” This time, Shane seemed almost as curious as he was horrified.
Well, Andres was about to change that. “So, ah, apparently at this underground theatre-dining experience where Tara Williams works, the vampire attendees dress their humans in fancy chains like blood slaves and feed on them as though they’re the old gothic predators from the movies. It seems to be more or less a consensual ordeal, though how eager any of these humans could truly be, or how honorable the vampires, I don’t know.”
Sure enough, Shane’s hollow tone returned. “Well… fuck.”
It made Andres want to reach across the center console and pull him close, to tell him that he was safe, safe from anything he didn’t want to do or any act he wasn’t willing to give. But it was already a lie, wasn’t it? Andres had broken that for his own desires multiple times—perhaps every night, every night he asked for Shane’s neck and let him bear it while shuddering, still too afraid to admit that if Shane told him to stop, he would do so in a heartbeat. “You don’t have to…”
“No, I can—” Shane paused, his throat bobbing, and he started again. “I want to talk to Tara. If this is how we do it, then we do it.”
“I’ll be gentle.” He could promise that, at least. “Whatever we have to do, I’ll be gentle with you.”
“I know,” was all Shane responded with, his gaze out the front window, arms curled against his chest.
Andres wanted, desperately, to change the subject, but he struggled to find a conversation starter that Shane hadn’t already told the Andres from the Fishnettery over text. There were so many things that he wanted to ask, too, so much depth he wanted to build off. But the masked him had none of that friendship with Shane, only poetic musings and the ability to make him wilt.
And, apparently, to put him in chains.
It was Shane who finally bridged the gap, asking about the only thing he could know they had in common. “How is Maul?”
Andres ran a hand through his hair. “He asks about you every few days, but your lying low has helped; none of his goons have spotted you out and about. Hopefully they’ll ease off soon.”
“And then?”
“And then I don’t have to worry about you constantly.” He knew Shane would want a different answer, one that gave him the green light to keep writing about the black market blood trade, but as long as Maul was a fixture in his life—in the lives of so many of San Salud’s vampires—he didn’t know what other answer he could give. “Let’s focus on Vitalis-Barron. We find out enough about that, and you could probably even write an article on it.”
Shane grumbled under his breath, but his sullenness seemed more feather-ruffling than full on rejection.
“Maul is already pissed that our sales are plummeting. If I don’t do something, he will, and his target won’t be the big pharma researchers, it’ll be that little charity blood bank that’s giving away free bags in Ala Santa.” That, and his own employees. The ones who weren’t Andres, anyway.
“Sincerely, fuck Maul. Jose’sis such a wonderful place. I got the sense they’re really trying to do good there.”
“You’ve been?” Andres wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Shane had wormed himself into the vampire community’s cracks with a vengeance.
“I donated when they first opened—I’m not allowed to at regular blood banks, but they have vamps on staff there in case I got too low, and I had my insulin handy. I was going to return when I hit the 56-day mark. Though with you biting me regularly, I suppose I don’t have to wait for my blood to replenish the regular way?” He said it almost hesitantly, like he was waiting for Andres to object.
And a part of Andres wanted to—not in order to stop him, just to say the words: your blood is mine and mine alone. But if Shane could help another vampire, one not so well off or long established as himself, then Andres would always support that. “If you want to keep donating, I’m fine with that. While my venom’s good, though, it’s not magic. You could probably go no more than every week or two—start with two, to be safe. And tell me when you do. I’ll take good care of you that night.”
“You’ll take care of me, hmm?” It was soft and low, and so smooth that Andres couldn’t quite pinpoint the emotion behind it, but when he glanced over, the little tip of Shane’s mouth could have been a smirk.
“I…” Andres swallowed.
“That was my street,” Shane said.
Andres swerved before realizing he was far too deep into the intersection to turn.
Shane lifted a brow at him. “If you’re intending to chain me up in your bedroom after all, then you should know that I have a very disturbed cat and two entire human friends, one of whom will certainly come for you with a stake.”
Andres made a sound between a laugh and a snort. “Ah, yes, a vampire’s two worst fears: angry cat and pointy stick.”
As he turned at the next light, though, he couldn’t dislodge the sinking feeling in his gut. He had wanted that. Had wanted it, not like a joke or an excuse but a deep, burning desire, black and ugly, and dear god, he could never let Shane know. He pulled up in front of the apartment, and Shane popped the door open but continued just to sit there, glancing between the keys in the still-running engine and Andres.
“This is your apartment, isn’t it?” Andres asked, confused.
Shane scowled. “So you put me through all of that and you’re going to just drop me off and drive away?”
“I’m sorry?” Andres blinked. Did he want his room tidied again? Andres supposed that was an understandable retribution for making him sit through a collar fitting without being sure exactly what it was for.
“Well, are you going to feed on me, or do you secretly have another human you’ve spent ten thousand dollars on?”
“I’ve been seeing you so consistently that I can skip a night or two,” Andres said. Besides, Shane was literally covering all the normal places Andres would have fed from. It made Andres want all the more to unfurl him, to make his little swan loosen for his fangs one shuddering muscle at a time. But it was beginning to genuinely terrify him that by doing so, he was hurting this brilliant, sharp, intimidating human who’d consumed his life like a raging comet. “I figure after everything I put you through tonight, you’d enjoy a break.”
“Why would I enjoy that?”
“Why wouldn’t you enjoy…?” It hit him finally like a sledgehammer. “Are you saying you want me to bite you?”
Shane groaned, leaning both elbows against the car console, his head bowed and his palms cupping his neck. “My god, yes.”
Andres’s heart beat a little faster, hungrier. “But you’ve still been acting so on edge every time I do?”
If his doubts were wrong and Shane’s trembling, his whimpering, his quiet submission, were all signs of desire and not fear…
“Have you never been afraid to want something before?” Shane whispered, still cupping his neck as he leaned closer.
Andres’s skin felt as though it caught fire. “Every time I look at you,” he breathed.
“Then look at me.” Shane watched him as he said it, moving forward another inch. It felt like a thousand miles, like a star burning toward Andres at the speed of light. His own Cygnus constellation, dark eyes and lips outlined in the glow of the lamps and the passing cars. Shane still cupped his neck, arms tight and breath held.
Andres felt alive like never before. Gently, he drew two fingers along the back of Shane’s wrist. He slipped them between skin and fabric, nudging at Shane’s pulse. “Give me your hand, my little swan.”
The shudder that ran through Shane was immaculate. He obeyed, sliding his wrist into Andres’s grip, letting Andres pull his arm across the console, making him stretch and bow until he was forced to look up to see Andres. Even then, Shane held Andres’s gaze, afraid, clearly… but not of him.
Andres laced his fingers over the backs of Shane’s and held it to his heart, bringing their pulses as close as they could come, imagining he could feel them settling into the same rhythm. He could hear Shane’s, beating through his neck in a soft but rapid thud-thud, calling to him. He grinned. “Your other hand, too.”
Shane made an indignant sound, but he peeled his fingers off his neck, holding them out almost sullenly. He was the most beautiful creature Andres had ever seen, in his simple burgundy shirt with the split in the collar unbuttoned, his hair half up, and his lips quavering, his gaze so fixed on Andres that he seemed enraptured, enthralled, owned. He was Andres’s, if only for that moment.
Andres drew Shane’s other hand away from his body as well. He lifted it to his lips, kissing his fingers gently, one side then the other. With each turn he slid a fang just a hair into the flesh, presenting Shane with a burst of venom, building it with every new love nip. Shane’s tightness eased away in a series of hums and whines, and he sprawled across the center console, resting his head on the steering wheel as he gazed up.
Andres flipped his wrist over, pressing his nose to the soft underside. Sunshine. Of all the ways he could describe it, even held to his mouth, Shane’s scent was still best summed up by that single word, the feeling of basking in a warmth beyond oneself, beautiful and loving and reckless all at once. “You are an impeccable mystery,” he whispered.
Shane responded with an almost delirious, “Uh-huh.”
When Andres sank in his fangs and took his first, perfect taste of Shane’s blood that night, Shane moaned like he’d been, not just fearing this moment, but waiting for it. Wanting it. Andres hadn’t hurt him after all.
The thought made his heart soar and plummet all at once. He could keep this up, this and this alone. No fantasies of chains or demands of obedience, not once their excursion to Tara’s work was complete. He could be content with just this—just his fangs in Shane’s flesh, and the little happy sounds Shane was making.
Andres licked the wound closed, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go, cupping Shane’s wrist gently. Shane reached for him, sliding a hand along his jaw. Andres didn’t pull away, not until Shane slipped two fingers under his mask and tried to lift.
“No,” he said, slow and gentle.
Shane stilled, lounging against the wheel with the lamplight on his face as he stared up into Andres’s darkness searchingly. He glided his thumb over Andres’s cheek. “This isn’t just for the drama,” he concluded, so awfully brilliant and terribly genuine. “Do you not trust me to see you? After I’ve obeyed you in everything… do you still think I’d turn you in?”
“If you wished to be free of me, I could never have stopped you.” He saw on Shane’s face the truth that his swan had always known that, and felt for a moment, a little lighter, a little free. Then the feeling collapsed into reality. “But I still don’t want you to look under the mask. I’m afraid you won’t feel the same about the person beneath as you do with me.”
“So this is permanent?” For all the vague and empty tones Shane had taken that night, Andres could hear the displeasure in this one with a certainty that scared him.
“Be patient, my little swan.”
Until when, he didn’t know. How quickly would this all fall apart once he revealed to Shane that the vampire making him shudder was his harmless disaster of a friend after all? He still wanted—needed—that thrill and tension, all the more now that he had confirmation that his little swan wanted the gentle coercion and the venom that Andres was giving.
But the way Shane’s attention went to his phone as soon as he was out of the car made Andres’s heart leap once, then again at the little buzz of his own cell after.
It was such a lovely contrast to the unread melodramatic message from Maul that sat below it, and despite everything he’d just told Shane, a part of him forgot he couldn’t simply text him please be safe and see you soon 3 as Shane unlocked his apartment door; forgot so thoroughly that he was halfway through typing the message before he realized what he’d done.
His chest ached with each backspace.