Maul was here—at his home. Maul knew the townhouse, of course; he’d first purchased it fifteen years before he’d begun renting to Andres. Andres just hadn’t expected him to physically show up. He’d text and call and email, leave enough voicemails that it filled Andres’s inbox, and ultimately demand that Andres come to him, but he’d always left the house be.
That Maul had decided to change that now chilled Andres to the bone.
As he showed the live video to Shane, the text Maul was clearly typing into his phone arrived.
Frederick Maul
I see your car is out front and the lights are on. If you don’t open the fucking door soon, I will.
Shane paled, glancing between the bend that turned the living room into the entry space, and back. “I can hide.”
“He’ll smell you.” Andres licked his lips. “I hadn’t bitten you yet when he found us in the alley, but your blood scent is in the air now—will be for minutes yet.”
Shane breathed in, then out. “This is fine. I’m supposed to be here.”
“Yes, restrained to my bed.”
“Do you—”
“No, I don’t own chains.” Andres could feel the panic rising in the back of his mind, a slow, monstrous creep that was surely building toward whatever disastrous nonsense his body had decided was now the proper reaction to anyone making the first move to touch him. Now it wanted to join him for this too. Goddammit.
He startled as the doorbell rang again, every nerve in his body seemingly shouting for attention at the same time. Banging followed, and the vibration of his phone.
“Fuck, he’s calling.”
Shane slipped off the barstool, snatching up a towel to clean his shoulder as he spoke. “You’re letting me wander the house. I’m well trained, okay?” He said it with such calm certainty that it almost sounded reasonable.
Somehow, it was enough to snap Andres back into form. “Right. Good, yes.” He nodded, and began tousling his own hair, unbuttoning his top two shirt buttons. “Just in case he comes in, put on that piece on the mannequin and take off as much as you can under it.” The transformed gala cloak was loose, lengthened and layered by lace, and he’d subconsciously fit it to Shane’s basic proportions in the first place. It would fit. “If he comes in, act like I was just…”
“Ravishing me?” Shane suggested, a quirk to his lips despite the situation.
It steadied Andres. He layered his voice with a growl, letting it pull him into character—the character Maul knew, stronger and more aggressive and far less compassionate than the vampire underneath. “How much of you is mine?”
“All of me,” Shane replied immediately.
The door rattled like it was about to cave in.
Andres ran for it. He untucked his silky rosé-colored shirt from his high-waisted black pants, fiddling with the belt area as he opened the door. “Goddammit, Maul—”
Maul barreled into him.
The shove caught Andres so off guard that his body took a moment to respond, but as the full force of his panic caught him, he reacted much as he had with Shane, lashing out with his vampiric strength like it was his last chance to defend himself. This time, at least, it might have even been true.
Maul crashed into the door frame with a yelp that was half snarl.
Andres growled right back despite the tightness of his chest and the tunneling of his vision, forcing himself to bare his teeth and stare Maul down. “What the hell?”
The other vampire scowled, fangs out. “You were at that fucking blood bank, talking to the fucking owner.”
“Talking to him about Vitalis-Barron, you fool,” Andres snapped. “Doing the job you fucking gave me!”
Maul’s eyes narrowed. “What does he know about them?”
“He worked there for years before turning. He’s one of the best resources I’ve found!”
Maul still looked skeptical. “That better mean you finally have something useful.” He paused, his attention shifting. He sniffed. “That’s the human I sold you.”
“Yeah.” Andres wiped his mouth with his hand. A smear of blood came off his chin. He scowled. “You have really great timing, you know that?”
Maul snorted, and he seemed almost back to his usual mundane assholery when something clearly clicked in his head. “You were with someone at Jose’s,” he accused. “I thought you were keeping him contained.”
“In a manner. He’s useful. And I spent my savings on him, so I might as well get my money’s worth.”
As Andres spoke, Maul maneuvered past him, continuing into the living room like he owned the place. Which, technically, he did. It was all Andres could do to keep up with him, slowed first by the lingering panic still threatening to take him over, then by the sight that met him.
Shane looked perfectly undone. His hair was mussed in the most majestic way possible, his cheeks lightly flushed. He’d wrapped Andres’s long necklace of rose gold and ruby around his own neck so many times that it was nearly a collar of its own. The layers of black and red, silk and lace, fell from his shoulder on one side and flowed around his petite body in a way that did nothing to hide the curves and angles beneath. He’d buttoned it low against his chest, one leg slipped gorgeously out of the side slit and the other propped up, the fabric bunched around his thigh. The fifteen-year-old in Andres wondered if he angled his body enough, whether he could see right up—
No, fuck, as delicious as Shane looked, swathed in the robe Andres had made with his own hands and spread out like he”d been brought near the verge of coming and denied at the last moment, this was not the time for lust.
Shane sat up with a little whimper as Maul entered, pulling a pillow in front of him. The tension and fear that grew in him with each step Maul took was so real that Andres couldn’t be sure his words weren’t just as genuine. “Don’t let him touch me, master. Please.”
“Your money’s worth, huh.” Maul looked almost impressed, his gaze clearly roving Shane’s body like he was seeing all the places Andres’s hands had grabbed, imagining something Andres wanted no part in.
It made him sick. “He gives himself to me freely,” Andres clarified. “He enjoys the way I… care for him. Don’t you, my pet?”
Shane ripped his gaze away from Maul long enough to land on Andres with such submissive longing that Andres wanted to wrap him up and kiss him until he was breathless, make him whimper and squirm through more orgasms than he’d ever had in his life, and shower him with soft affection after.
“You can come to me now,” Andres told him, a depth to his dark growl that it would never have had if they’d kept their relationship masked and mysterious.
Shane all but flung himself at Andres, his robe whisking around him in a dance of fabric and lace. It settled as he tucked himself against Andres’s chest, pressing under his arm like that alone could hide him from Maul. Andres let him, holding him so tight he could feel the press of the little glucose monitor on the back of his arm, and kissing the top of his head.
Maul looked mildly disgusted. “You do actually care for him? How adorably pathetic.”
“You wouldn’t understand.” Andres bared his fangs. “You’ve never loved anything with flesh and blood.”
“Fair enough.” He shrugged. “Enjoy him all you want, just don’t come crying to me if he’s your downfall. If he’s my downfall though…”
“As I said, he does as he’s told,” Andres retorted. He steered Shane in front of him with gentle tugs and nudges. “Show him, my pet. Give me your neck.”
Shane’s obedience was immediate and flawless, his little sigh so immaculate even the best actor couldn’t have mimicked it. He tipped back his head, and Andres angled it sharply to the side, making him stretch. Shane didn’t protest, didn’t so much as tense, letting Andres hold him in place with a thumb and finger pressed into the soft spots underneath his jaw. With slow precision, Andres pricked a single fang into Shane’s skin.
Shane did tense then, but only for a second, loosening himself under what Andres hoped wasn’t too terrible a discomfort as he dragged that fang up the length of Shane’s neck, cutting a long, thin line through his skin. Blood began to bead from it. Andres licked it, sealing it as he lapped the blood.
A sound left Shane like he’d been shown something beautiful for the first time in his life, and once Andres had finished, Shane caved against him, his lashes fluttering.
Maul watched with growing fascination. The edge of his lips quirked. He took a step toward them, caressing one fang with his tongue. “If he listens to you so well, then tell him to let me bite him.” He smiled. “Just a little taste.”
The tremble that ran through Shane then was not the least bit sexy, and Andres could feel both their heart rates increase in tandem. And yet Shane didn’t squeeze the hand he wrapped around Andres’s. He would do this, Andres realized, love and horror intermingling. The mere thought of Maul still haunted Shane, but he’d suffer Maul’s bite if it meant he and Andres could be safe here.
But there was no fucking way Andres was going to trade any part of Shane for that.
“Go to hell,” he snapped. “Your fangs don’t belong in him. He is mine now. If you wanted him so badly you shouldn’t have sold him off.”
Maul opened his mouth, but Andres cut him off.
“No.” He scooted Shane behind himself, closing the final step between himself and Maul. “I think I’ve been insulted enough for one afternoon.”
One more step and they’d be fighting.
He hoped it didn’t come to that. God, if it did, could he win? Before this, he would have had a fair chance, but with the way his body had been reacting lately…
Maul watched, his lip curling. His fingers clenched. Then he laughed. “You really aren’t that boy I turned,” he said. There was no humor in his voice, only truth. “But you’re still my subordinate. Do you have something on Vitalis-Barron, something concrete and useful, or not? Because if you don’t, I’m sure I can find another little thief who wants my paycheck, a house, and a plaything.”
Andres felt the threat like a kick to the gut. His fingers ached to run through his hair, curl his head down, pull back into the corner like it could protect him, even though he knew it couldn’t; knew it like the grip of Maul’s fingers into his collar when Andres’s early jobs hadn’t gone so well, the hiss through his boss’s teeth as he’d shouted why did I even turn you if you were just going to fuck everything up, huh? Andres wasn’t certain how far this particular threat expanded—whether Maul was prepared simply to fire him and kick him out of the house he technically owned, or to dispose of him the way Andres suspected he occasionally did with his less desirable underlings and create himself a new Andres, fangs and all. Either way, Andres couldn’t push Maul that far. He would follow through, if not this time, then next.
“Andres,” Maul said, flat and deadly.
Andres swallowed. “I’ll send you what I’ve found.”
But his boss didn’t budge. “Then send it.”
Andres didn’t have to ask whether he meant now. He withdrew his phone casually, like it wasn’t killing him to hand over such delicate material, and tried not to flinch when Maul tipped the edge of his screen in order to see it. The sent message made his gut sink.
But Maul would learn all of this once Shane’s article came out. He was an asshole, and a selfish bastard, and whatever he did with the information Wesley and Vincent had gathered, it would not be for the betterment of his community, but it would help them. It had to. Maul wanted vampires on the streets, if only so they could pay him.
Maul checked his phone, huffing as though only half-satisfied with the wealth of information Andres—and others—had risked so much for. He didn’t bother with a farewell. Nothing slammed on his way out, only the subtle click of the door opening and closing.
Andres had to creep around the corner to check that he was truly gone. He slid the lock into place again. For all the good it would do them.
He leaned against the wall when he returned, breathing in and out. It felt as if his body had forgotten how. He ran his hands through his hair, finally, holding them atop his head as his chest heaved. “Fuck.” But he hadn’t taken the worst of it—he hadn’t been the weakest or had the most to lose. His attention went to Shane, and his own worries didn’t seem to matter as much. “Are you okay?”
Shane dropped onto the ottoman. He crossed his ankles, wrapping his arms around his stomach. For a moment it looked like he was going to curl up—to curl himself right out of existence—but his gaze met with Andres’s and he nodded slowly. “I think so, now that he’s gone.”
“I’m so sorry—”
“There were nice parts of that, you know,” Shane cut him off, gentle but determined. “If he hadn’t been here…” He shifted, loosening a little. His robe fell off one shoulder again.
“I wish he hadn’t been. The way he looked at you—threatened you?” Andres growled. “I should have done more than just stand up to him. If I could have done more…”
“You did plenty. You made me feel safe, so thank you,” he said, as though Andres had done a damn thing other than order him around and force him to bleed.
It soothed him still, let the adrenaline slip away. He tucked his hair behind his ears and let his fingers drop to his sides. They were safe. Safe, and together. “I don’t know what you have to thank me for. You carried the performance. You were magnificent.”
“Only because I have someone worth being magnificent for.” Shane unfolded more at that, leaning back on his elbows. His robe shifted a little farther off one shoulder.
Andres’s gaze tracked over the bared skin, and—god, he was hungry still. He could taste the last traces of Shane’s blood in his mouth, that complexity of umami with a burnt edge and a hint of sweetness, and with the tension broken, the fear over, he could envision every sweet sigh and eager tremble of Shane’s submission anew. Just the thought made him feel stable again. “We could keep on what we were doing; no Maul, just us.” He added, quickly, “If you’re up for it. I don’t want to push you into anything you aren’t ready for.”
The little smirk to Shane’s lips made his heart swell. “Should I change out of your outfit first, or?”
“It’s yours now.” It had always been Shane’s, if Andres was honest with himself. “You look absolutely incredible in it.”
“I think I’ll look just as fine out of it, too.” As though his words weren’t enough to ruin Andres, Shane leaned a little further back, and slowly, purposefully, he dragged one foot up the side of his other ankle, along his calf, and under his knee, holding Andres’s gaze as the fabric that had covered his legs rose up, piling higher and higher before tumbling in a pile around the base of his thighs. From the wisp of tawny curls that peeked out, he’d taken Andres’s instructions to de-clothe very seriously. “I hear if I give myself to my master, that he’ll take care of me.”
Never in his life could Andres recall having gone so hard, so fast.
“Will this be a level of activity I need to prep for?” Somehow Shane made glucose and insulin levels sound sexy.
“Don’t worry, my pet. You’re not going to be allowed to do anything but moan.”
Andres drew himself off the wall, the lightness in his head stabilizing with his nerves. He approached Shane like a predator, fangs out, showing off his desire in the way he raked over Shane with his eyes. He propped one knee on the ottoman, then the other, placing Shane between his legs as he leaned forward.
“You’re mine; my little swan.” He brushed a few locks of Shane’s hair back and tipped his chin up, closing in on him. “I’ll do what I will with you.” Lips brushing Shane’s cheek and fingers wrapped around his neck, Andres whispered, “You will deny me nothing.”
Shane’s lashes fluttered, his muscles loose enough to be conformed to Andres’s pleasure, awaiting him in the way Andres had learned to recognize over the weeks. He knew Shane was ready for this—knew, too, if he wasn’t, that his partner had the words to stop it and the trust that they could always reroute. It came as no surprise when Shane confirmed, “Nothing.”
As his mouth opened, Andres kissed him.
They’d kissed in so many soft ways since Shane had accepted him as Andres, easy and tender and perfectly wonderful, but this time Andres took Shane’s mouth like he’d done during the first deep kiss that night on Shane’s couch, like he truly owned Shane, pressing against his tongue, tugging at his lips, bloodying him with venom-filled nips until each ravishment was a battle between his feeding and the healing saliva he was rendering into Shane’s mouth. He wanted Shane to taste him. To drown in him. To know exactly who he belonged to.
Shane moaned and trembled, giving himself over like he’d never had another purpose in life. His whole body went weak for Andres, except the knee he settled against the front of Andres’s pants, not pressing, but offering. Andres obliged, grinding into Shane’s shin as hard as he could without unseating his little swan, relishing in the ungodly satisfaction it dragged out of his cock despite the layer of fabric between them.
The fact that it was Shane’s shin and not a more sensual position was a thrill all its own, ripe with the knowledge that he could give to Shane by denying him, just as he was about to give to him directly, tenfold.
Andres slipped his arms around Shane, lifting him up without breaking the kiss. Shane made a sound of surprised delight, melting against him as Andres carried him to the stairs. He left a trail of pink nips along Shane’s jaw and he didn’t have to ask for his little swan’s neck this time, Shane giving it the moment his mouth made contact. He sipped from Shane in short drags, one for each step, careful not to overwhelm him.
He flicked on the switch for the fairy lights that roped the room’s ceiling corners and laid Shane in the middle of the bed, his little swan’s head amidst the arrangement of fancy red and rose gold pillows. Shane smiled. He lounged immediately, his arms draping over his head and his foot rubbing once more up his legs. For every time Andres had imagined this, the reality was even better: the red of Shane’s well-kissed mouth, the blood-marks of Andres’s lips on his skin, no reaching hands to accidently trigger Andres’s panic, only easy supplication, the strands of Andres’s necklace wrapped around his neck—that, he decided, was staying.
Everything else, though…
“You think you can wear something this lovely and get away with it?” Andres growled, fiddling with the lower edge of Shane’s robe—a lower edge that was not hanging particularly low at the moment.
Shane basked in the question like a cat in the sun. “I was only trying to please you, master.”
“You will certainly please me.” Andres slipped out of his jeans, leaving his underwear—floral patterned in maroons and pinks—and his rose gold socks on, his silken button-up hanging loose around his hips as he climbed over his little swan.
Shane quite clearly devoured him with his gaze, a fresh flush coming to his cheeks as his attention finally settled on the bulge between Andres’s legs. Andres smirked at him. “Did I say you could look yet?”
“No,” Shane breathed, and averted his gaze obediently.
“I hardly said you could look away, either. You should see what your future holds, my little swan.” Andres perched on his knees between Shane’s thighs and pressed his thumb into Shane’s mouth to turn his head back towards him, and as he did, he repositioned himself, drawing up his cock until the tip nudged out the top of his underwear.
The little sound Shane made, desperate and timid, was pure perfection.
“Let me see what I’ll be having from you, my pet.” Andres drew his thumb out of Shane’s mouth, trailing over his lower lip and down the front of his throat. The robe was held together with a few small ties and buttons, which he worked free as he moved down, slowly unveiling Shane from the center of his sternum to the little glucose monitor on the back of his arm. He outlined each rib as he had earlier, this time working downward, drawing his fingers along the soft curve of Shane’s hips and into the line where his pelvis met his thighs, slowly peeling back the fabric that had bundled there.
Shane was as magnificent below as he was everywhere else, light brown curls neatly trimmed around his slit, and the spread of his legs already revealed the two-inch length of himself, ripe to be played with.
“This is fun.” Andres swirled his fingers through his little swan’s lower hair, gripping it ever so gently as he slid Shane’s slit further open.
Shane trembled beneath the touch, his lip pulled into his mouth. He didn’t budge, though, letting Andres admire him.
“Tell me,” Andres purred, giving Shane a smirk that showed off his fangs. “What are you?”
Shane’s muscles pulsed, the moisture inside him beading around his edges. “Yours.”
“And what am I allowed to do to you?”
“Anything.” It was a plea, one that shuddered through Shane as Andres pressed the tip of a finger into him, drawing his wetness up toward that little glorious clit-dick.
“What am I allowed to do?” he asked again, grasping it between his fingers, gentle but firm. He rubbed directly against the head.
Shane cried, soft and staggering, his hips giving a little buck, but he replied with purpose, “Anything! I’m yours. You can do whatever you wish to me.”
Andres let him go. He drew his finger back down, massaging it into Shane’s folds just to see where it would make him tense with pleasure. It was quickly obvious that Andres’s nails were an ungodly length for it, though—even if that was also just the right length for trailing teasingly and gently scraping. But Andres had more than nails.
He stole a pillow from the head of the bed and slid it under Shane’s ass, lifting him enough to breath against him, letting this muskier version of his swan’s scent merge with that of the blood still lingering on his lips. He bared his fangs. A little quaver ran through Shane, but he didn’t protest when Andres gripped his thighs, forcing them further apart and holding them in place.
Andres pressed his lips to Shane’s tender flesh, then his tongue, roughly, and finally slipped in a fang. It was just a prick, the angles awkward for much else, and he didn’t even bother trying to feed—blood wasn’t the point. He’d had enough for one night—now he wanted to give back.
As his venom flowed into Shane, his little swan gasped, his brow tight and his lips parting so beautifully. A shudder rolled through him as he tightened and released. The sigh that slipped out of him came between fast and steady breaths of desire.
Andres licked the tiny prick closed, once, twice, and a third time just to see Shane squirm. The added pressure on the place his venom had just been released was clearly doing something for him. Andres ran his tongue over the fang. “How many of those do you figure it will take you to come?”
“Oh god,” was Shane’s response. He tipped his head back.
“Give me a number,” Andres commanded. He slipped his fangs into the soft skin half an inch above his first placement, and let Shane have another dose of venom.
He whimpered, his toes curling, and his answer came out tight and desperate. “Fourteen?”
“Fourteen it is then.” And Andres got to work.
Shane languished with pleasure beneath each administration, a sea of delicious sounds and tremors. By the seventh prick, he was curling his back, his arms tucking around his head and he lifted his gaze to the ceiling with the sound of a suppressed moan.
“Look at me, my pet,” Andres ordered him. “You will look me in the eyes while you come apart.”
Shane swallowed, and brow tight, lips parted, he stared back at Andres. The pink in his cheeks deepened, but he breathed, “Yes, love,” and it sounded more like a promise of eternal submission than any utterance of master or mistresses ever could.
He broke at prick twelve, crying out as his body tightened. Andres didn’t let up though, sliding the last and largest two doses directly into Shane’s clit before he’d finished. As he lay limp and panting, his clit twitching and swollen and the robe splayed beneath him, Andres sat back up. He fiddled with the hair between Shane’s legs, massaging two fingers along his folds to keep him gently quivering.
“I am going to fuck you, pet,” he said, as dark and sultry as he ever had before. “You don’t get to decide whether I do, only where I do it… here.” He leaned forward as he said it, pressing the two fingers now musky with Shane’s wetness into his mouth and dragging them once along Shane’s tongue for emphasis. Shane swallowed after, his lashes fluttering in time to the bob of his throat. “Or here.” Andres slid those same fingers against his little swan’s front hole, coating them in a fresh layer of the slickness. He drew them further back. “…or here.”
As he rubbed the rim of Shane’s asshole, he felt the shudder that ran through his little swan like a physical ache of desire, so bright and hot and strong.
“There it is, then.”
And Shane whimpered.