Despite everything, Andres had never felt this alive.
He’d wanted to be sure that Shane was on his way to recovery, keeping an eye on his glucose levels as he took a crash course of videos on diabetes management, and by the time he’d slipped out of his apartment it was late morning, the sun blazing like a warning signal in the sky. It had taken nearly the entire drive home for its delayed poisoning to finally hit him. The intense aches and pains felt like his body was dying one cell at a time—probably was, for all he knew—but at least he’d always been immune to the shakes it imposed upon other vampires, letting him grit through the agony as he slowly worked on his upcoming sewing video.
All the while he thought of Shane.
Twelve hours ago, his little swan had been a haunting fantasy. Now, he’d put Shane’s number in his phone, and bought a year’s worth of his blood.
Andres could not stop wondering if he’d taken too many liberties in saving Shane, if maybe he should have found Shane his car, deposited him there, and left without a word, without a touch, without basking in Shane’s exquisite helplessness and pushing that opening as far as he dared. But then that memory would backpedal him into questioning whether he’d done this all wrong in the exact opposite way, if letting Shane out of his sight for even a moment was a mistake. He could have come home with his little swan still. No collar, perhaps, but he could have slept beside Shane and made him breakfast, could have asked Shane to be his breakfast, if only for a little taste.
He shoved back the thought with a groan.
His cat merped at him.
Andres scowled at her. “Yes, princess?”
Her Imperial Majesty Queen Camilla Lestat Varney Augustus Tepes twitched her fluffy white tail from her perch at the top of her cat tree overlooking Andres’s sewing setup.
With a sigh, he leaned over to pet her. When she gave his fingers an extra sniff, he chuckled. “You smell his little black devil, don’t you? They’re feisty. I bet even you couldn’t boss them around.”
Camilla took that as a sign to rub her face all over his hand. He let her until she grew bored and tucked her head back into her bed. Andres’s thoughts immediately returned to Shane. Even if he could never morally justify his fantasies, Andres was still going to need to feed—and if he came to Maul for blood now, his boss would ask questions Andres didn’t want to answer. Questions like what he’d done with Shane’s body, where I tucked him into bed with a kiss and let him keep living his dangerous journalist life wouldn’t be an acceptable answer. Besides, Andres had wiped out his savings.
And Shane kind of owed him.
Based on his reactions that night, Andres thought that his Cygnus wouldn’t be entirely opposed to the idea of fangs in his neck—fangs and perhaps lips, an arm tight around his middle and the dark, sensual gala voice Andres had used as he’d rescued Shane. Andres just had to make sure that was the only version of him Shane saw. No tear stains, no broken complaints, no frazzled attempts at humor.
Andres had to be Shane’s vampire from the gala.
As he stared across the living room, to the mannequin that displayed his reforged cloak from that night, his gaze caught on the mask still hanging from one side, and he smirked. Shane would get his gala Dracula all right: all teeth and flirtation and felonies.