There was no better sound in the world than the chain unlocking from Shane’s door.
Despite all the ways he had managed to push Shane—showing up on the mere chance he’d be let in, asking for his arm, for his eyes, for his heart—Andres still hesitated at the threshold. “May I?”
Shane grinned. “I happen to know vampires like you don’t need to ask permission to enter their humans’ house.”
So he did, letting the motion carry him further, reaching for Shane and wrapping him up in a shaky hug. It wasn’t sensual or erotic, more relief and hope and a flood of other emotions that welled in the backs of Andres’s eyes, and when Shane returned the hug, Andres had to kiss the top of his head to hide how ridiculously he was blinking away the tears.
“Sit with me,” he whispered as Shane withdrew, not a question or a command, but a plea. “I don’t want to stop holding you.”
“You’re a sap.” Shane laughed. He nudged his shoulder into Andres’s. “It’s very cute.”
They moved to the couch, settling beside each other like it was the most natural thing in the world. It felt like it—felt right. It occurred to Andres that perhaps there were other questions they needed to answer now that everything was out in the open. And he found, oddly, that he wasn’t afraid anymore. He had his Cygnus, not as a bought body or a play-acting human pet, but as a partner—as just Shane—and now that they were here, he found it was what he’d wanted most all along. “Do you prefer me sappy? I know I’ve been demanding, and—correct me if I’m wrong—you seem to enjoy that, but it’s a role I enjoy playing, not the person I am underneath. I can stop it.”
“Please don’t stop it permanently.” Shane pulled his legs onto the cushions and leaned against Andres, his knees resting on Andres’s thighs. “I loved what we did at the Starlight Club. Like twelve out of ten, something I didn’t know my life was missing until now. It was exhilarating, and so damn hot. And as long as we have rules, like they do, and we know when it’s appropriate and when it isn’t… then maybe we can have our sappy, equal partnership and when we’re both in the mood, I can still be your blood slave?”
Blood slave.All his guilt and shame would have made him recoil from the phrase, if not for the hope on Shane’s face. Andres’s heart soared. He was allowed to want to take what his little swan was happy to offer. “So you’d like to go back, then? Have nights where we dress up and play the part someplace like the club?”
“Yes, but maybe not just those nights, and maybe not such a strict separation of the two?” He bit the inside of his lip, tucking his knees against his chest and cupping the sides of his neck, but as he did so, he leaned onto Andres’s shoulder, looking up at him through soft lashes. “As I said, I really enjoy you taking control, master.”
Andres’s little swan, his magnificent Cygnus, was curling himself up on purpose. The two of them weren’t basking in the mysterious thrill of darkness and anonymity, or even the sensual pretense of the club, but sitting on the couch beside a coffee table stacked with used dishes, a cat giving them annoyed glances, as casual as any couple and bare as their hearts would allow. And Shane still wanted this.
It made Andres yearn, for more, for him.
“Is that so, my pet?” He took hold of Shane’s thighs and hips, and, gentle as ever, nudged him forward, tugging Shane up and into his lap.
Shane let himself be unfurled, and when Andres pressed his legs apart, he whimpered beautifully. A part of Andres wanted to keep pushing him, to see what Shane would do if he slipped a hand beneath the fabric that pooled around Shane’s navel, what noises he might make, how he might tremble then—but there would be time for that later. Instead, he pulled Shane flush to his hips with one arm wrapped around his back and the other cradling his neck.
“And if you do disobey me?” he whispered, fiercely holding Shane’s gaze. “What should I do with a little swan who doesn’t submit to his master?”
Shane’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his breath noticeably lighter. “I have no plans to be anything but perfectly and utterly submissive.” He leaned closer, his breath on Andres’s lips, cheeks pink. His fingers skimmed along the front of Andres’s shirt. “But if I displease you, then you can punish me with your fangs or your touch, if you’d like.”
Andres responded with a smirk and a growl, deep and low and sensual, but the swell of affection in his chest warmed it in a way he hadn’t anticipated, and the sound turned to a laugh, fresh tears brimming along the corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry, I just—this is wonderful, Shane. You are wonderful. I spent so much time worrying that you wouldn’t want this, and now here you’re asking for it, because you have the freedom to do that, and I have the freedom to accept it, and—”
Shane kissed him.
It was so quick, a brush of lips as sudden and soft as the one Andres had given him on the balcony months ago. It caught in him like a blow to the chest, his mouth tingling long after Shane had pulled back.
A flush deepened in Shane’s cheeks. He looked down. God, he was perfect, with his hair half fallen from its pins and the top of his outfit shifted out of place from being pulled onto Andres’s lap, one of his chest scars still peeking out the side.
Andres caught a few of his stray hairs, tucking them gently back. He traced up the length of Shane’s soft jaw and through his waves until he was cupping the back of Shane’s head, and whispered, “Open your mouth for me, pet.”
Shane looked at him again, finally. Without question, his lips parted.
Andres stole them. He pressed his tongue against Shane’s and caught the next breath from his lungs, dragging forth a moan that he echoed himself, lower and more graveled. Shane returned his aggression with a hungry obedience, moving always with and never against, letting Andres tug and tease and lick. His fingers tightened into Andres’s shirt and Andres could feel every tremble and shift, every whimper and groan.
He tasted like he smelled: like sunshine and all the brilliance and bitterness of living, and it made Andres hunger for him—not merely for his blood but for his essence and the wetness between his legs. The latter, he’d have to ask for, but there were parts of Shane’s body he knew were his, not because he’d bought them, but because they’d been given freely.
Holding Shane’s head firmly in place, he pressed his fangs into the soft skin inside Shane’s lip. The sound his little swan made was transcendent, and Andres sucked; sucked and bit until Shane was putty in his arms, both their mouths faintly red. By the time he finally let go, his whole body was alight with a throbbing ache, caught somewhere between total satisfaction and eternal yearning.
Shane leaned into him, forehead resting against Andres’s cheek. He breathed hard and his shoulders shook, but he seemed deliriously happy, spent in a way that was akin to orgasm. Andres ran a hand down his back and along his side, just holding him. His thumb brushed Shane’s scar, and he let it linger there.
“Tell me about this?” he asked, “The surgery, the transition? I’d like to know. I’d like to know you.”
“It was hard,” Shane replied. “And beautiful, and ugly. Perfect and messy. It was so much. Transition is more complicated as a diabetic too—the hormones threw my blood sugar all out of whack—and it took a while to get to my top surgery, because of the extra risks. When I finally did start it all, I left a great internship at a newspaper in LA, and I couldn’t bring myself to go back—to tell them all that I wasn’t actually a woman like they thought and watch them struggle to change their perception of me or reject the new me altogether. I’ve grown a lot bolder since, a lot more ready to claim who I am. But it’s still hard.” His voice went small, his shoulders sinking. “I wonder, sometimes, if I ruined my career because of it. I should have been braver. I should have taken what I wanted regardless of what people thought of me.”
Andres wanted to wrap him up, to press his lips into Shane’s hair and tell him that he was magnificent, then as he was now, and he realized with a sudden wave of joy, that he could. So he did, cuddling his little swan and whispering tenderly, “You need more than just bravery in this life. You need safety too.” He held Shane close, feeling his heart beat, his blood pump. Love, and life. “Everyone has always known there was something queer about me, but it’s taken me a long time to actually tell my family about my nonbinary gender nonsense. They still don’t know about the vampirism. I think they don’t really know me at all, anymore, and it feels safer that way. Some people aren’t worthy of certain parts of you, and that doesn’t make you any less yourself.”
“Very few people could possibly be worthy of you.” Shane lifted his chin. Their lips brushed, not in a kiss, but a smile. “Because you, Andres, are magnificent.”
Having the words Andres had used to describe Shane’s transness earlier repeated back at him broke something inside him—or perhaps, it didn’t break, but it mended; mended in a way that felt like being torn asunder, seen inside of for the first time in his whole goddamned life. “And you were always worthy of all of me. I made a mistake in ever worrying otherwise.”
“I was,” Shane agreed, staring at him so intently it was impossible to look away. “But how could you have known that?”
“I…”
“It was still a real fucked up thing to do, don’t get me wrong. I think I understand now, though, and I forgive you. You are so magnificent,” Shane repeated, running his thumbs over the skin of Andres’s sternum. “And I’m so fucking obsessed with you. And I know we need work—goddamn, we need work. But I want to do that work with you, for you. For us.” His brow lifted, and he pulled back enough that they could lock eyes properly. “We’re an us, right?”
Andres felt like he owned the world. “I figure if I’m not allowed to bite any human but you, the romantic exclusivity is implied.”
“Good.” Shane kissed him softly, then relaxed against his chest, nuzzling into Andres’s neck as though he were the vampire. His lips brushed skin and the touch shivered through Andres, landing pleasantly between his legs. Andres played with Shane’s hair, and for a moment they just sat like that, entwined and contented, until Shane finally asked, “How old are you? I was just thinking how vampires don’t always look like they’re aging and you could be twenty-five or seventy and I might not be able to tell.”
Andres laughed. “I’m thirty-four.”
“Ah, yes, just as I predicted, you’re ancient.” Shane fiddled thoughtfully with the collar of Andres’s shirt. “I’m only twenty-five. Is that a problem?”
“I think if that’s dubious enough to be an issue, we’re already fucked,” Andres said. “We’re both adults with jobs and a space of our own. I was a year younger than you when I was turned, and I went through a lot of growth in the few years after,”—he had Maul to thank for that, for better or worse—“but I don’t think I’ve changed much mentally or emotionally since.”
“How did it happen?”
“My vampirism?”
“Yeah.”
Andres shifted a little, his muscles fidgeting like they were trying to shrug out of the conversation. Which was ridiculous, because he was fine. For all the ways his vampirism had hurt—still hurt—it was ultimately a good thing. He’d found stability through it. His few memories of its inception weren’t even painful, just flat.
He was fine. He could talk about it.
He really did shrug then, almost accidently dislodging Shane’s head from his shoulder in the process. “I was stupid, and significantly more reckless than I am now. I tried to con Maul. When he caught me, he had his subordinates do it while he watched.”
Shane sat up. “He what?”
Andres saw his panic in the way he tucked his arms around his chest, fingers pressed to the sides of his neck so mechanically it seemed he didn’t even know he was doing it. Shane had suffered something he felt was similar under Maul’s hands, and it clearly lingered in his bones, haunting him. But Andres’s turning had done the opposite for him. “He saw something in me that he thought he could use,” he said. “And we both know I’m stronger now that I’ve turned. I’m not afraid of him.”
“People die from the turning,” Shane protested. His lower lip quivered.
“I didn’t die.” Nausea twisted in Andres’s stomach, and he fought the urge to run his fingers through his own hair by playing with Shane’s instead. He’d been doing that more and more lately, and it felt solid. Felt like existing.
“Andres…”
“I’m fine, I promise.” He was done talking about this. He cupped Shane’s chin and kissed him between his tight brows, then along the side of his nose, following the trail of his freckles across to his temples. Shane didn’t unfurl himself, but he relaxed enough that Andres could fit his hands beneath Shane’s and press them away from his neck. He bared his teeth, letting his fang graze down Shane’s jaw, into the soft space just beneath. “And I’d much rather not be human if it means I can do this to you,” he whispered, giving Shane’s hair the softest tug on one side.
Shane trembled as he breathed out, and he went limp in Andres’s grasp, allowing Andres to tip his head until his neck was laid bare, pale skin and light freckles and the small purpling bruises of his ill-closed bite at the club with the gentle pulsing of blood beneath. Andres kissed him just above the place he’d bitten last, then just below, circling the spot so gently that by the time he’d finished, Shane was shuddering against him, fingers gripping in his shirt like that was the only thing holding him to this plane.
“What a magnificent constellation you are, my pet.” Andres left a little possessive growl in his voice. “I’m going to bite you now.”
“Please,” Shane muttered. “Please, take from me anything you desire.”
The offer—the demand, for that was what it was, bundled in Shane’s submission and his beautiful vulnerability—was everything Andres had ever wanted. Just before he sank in his fangs, he whispered back, “I desire all of you.”
He drank Shane up, gentle and purposeful, and took him in, every soft sound and beautiful line and the intoxicating scent. Holding him close, knowing that he wanted this, not merely from a masked felon but from Andres, was intoxicating, euphoric. He swore he felt like himself, fully and utterly, vampiric and genderless and powerful, for the first time in… ever.
He took his time sealing the wound after, the knitting of Shane’s skin with each tender kiss and press of tongue seeming to heal something in Andres too.
As he licked the last of the blood off his lips, he realized Shane tasted slightly different. Less sweet than usual. He didn’t put the pieces together, though, until Shane nearly collapsed when he tried to stand up after, and Andres felt his life flash before his eyes. He helped lower him back down.
“Your glucose!” Andres’s voice quavered, and for once, he didn’t care.
Shane seemed far less worried. “I should have eaten something when I first got back,” he grumbled, checking the glucose app on his phone. He scowled at the number it gave him. “Fuck.”
“I’ll get your juice,” Andres said, and bolted for the kitchen.
He sat with Shane while he drank and half-carried him to the bathroom after, collecting his pajamas as Shane peed. Andres had to argue him into brushing his teeth, but five minutes later, he was laying Shane into his bed with a kiss.
“You’re such a mom,” Shane complained.
“It’s the gender nonsense,” Andres replied.
Shane laughed.
As Andres tried to step back, though, Shane grabbed for his hand, giving it a soft squeeze. “Stay until I fall asleep.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Andres reassured him. He stole a pillow and blanket from the mound beside the twin-sized mattress, and—wishing sulkily for his massive bed back home, not to watch Shane writhe naked but to cuddle him up with his soft pajamas and tired smile—he settled on the ground, fingers still laced through Shane’s.
Shane was his, for real now. If he could help it, now would last a very long time.