Shane woke groggy and slow, a slight pounding in his head and the back of his throat so dry he could barely swallow.
My god, the last time he’d felt this awful had been the hangover after his twenty-fifth birthday, which hadn’t been the least bit worth it since he’d done most of that drinking alone. He swore even his bones ached. His blood sugar was probably a mess. He groaned, rolling onto his back. His flannel pulled awkwardly across his chest. Fuck, why was he still wearing his clothes? What the hell had—
Maul.
Maul had tried to kill him. He could feel the pain of the vampires’ bites with such clarity that he had to rub his neck with both hands to convince himself the wounds were gone. The crook of his elbow felt raw and sensitive, and he wanted nothing more than to pinch it closed and tuck it against his chest and—and cry—god, was he crying?
Shane wiped a few hot tears from the corner of his eye before they could fall and pulled his knees to his chest. He’d almost died last night, and then… and then…
His vampire…
Hisvampire had found him. Had rescued him. Had brought him home and whispered sweet nothings to him, had removed his shoes and helped him with his insulin. That same vampire had let his fingers linger over Shane’s skin, the memory of his touch a tingling, uncomfortable thing in the morning—or possibly afternoon—light. Shane’s mouth felt like cotton, and he had to force himself to swallow. Something buzzed in his veins despite it though. The shiver that ran through him was half fear and half exhilaration.
He didn’t know what to make of it, so he forced himself to sit up instead.
Black spots and hollow edges assaulted his vision, but he breathed through it, squinting across his tiny, single-room apartment. It looked different. It was like everything had been shifted just slightly to the left, and it took him a moment to realize what it was: the place had been tidied. His laundry baskets were righted and tucked to the corner, the stack for Goodwill piled so neatly that it looked half the original size, his dirty plates and collection of cups removed from the desk and coffee table. Even the cat’s bowls had been cleaned and filled, the beast herself happily stretched across the couch. He couldn’t see the kitchenette from around its half-walls, but he had a suspicion of what he’d find in the sink.
He felt… he didn’t know. Violated and appreciated, annoyed and relieved all at once. His vampire—this relative stranger—had touched him, and touched his things, and yet he’d not only saved Shane’s life, but gone out of his way to clean for him, and god, this was so confusing. He didn’t know what to do with it. Fitting a phantom into his life had been easy—obsessions always were. This, however? This could ruin him, in the best way or the worst one, and he wasn’t sure he’d know which it would be until it was too late.
On his coffee table sat his phone beside a cup of water, his apartment key, and a note.
Don’t you fly too far, my little swan.
Love,
Your vampire
Shane stared at the final line, stared so long that his cat shoved her face into his fingers, purring. He scratched his void monster’s head absentmindedly with one hand. Your vampire.
His vampire.
By the afternoon, Shane felt remarkably better.
Whether it was the venom he vaguely recalled his vampire murmuring about, or the fact that he’d corralled his glucose levels back into range—without having to ask his endocrinologist how to adjust his dosages after being nearly exsanguinated, thank god—or the result of his body’s own natural regenerative properties, he didn’t know. The tidier apartment helped, too.
All that time didn’t lead him to any stronger conclusions about his vampire though. He still only knew that his insides turned light and fluttery every time he thought of his vampire’s arms around him, and that he was absolutely terrified of it happening again—terrified that it wouldn’t be the same next time, and terrified that it would. At about five in the evening, Shane had given up worrying about it. If his vampire came back for him, he’d deal with his feelings then. Instead, he turned his mind to the other fang-related problem: Frederick Maul.
Frederick Maul had tried to kill him.
The more times Shane repeated that, the angrier he grew. There was a vampire in his city with the power and influence to have a human he didn’t like drained to death. That was worthy of a story all on its own. The people of San Salud had the right to know about it.
His near-death experience still made him feel nauseous at the thought of seeing Maul again, but it had hardened something in him too. This was real, and it was big, and he was a part of it. Maul might have started it, made it worse by trying to have Shane drained instead of simply offering him useless information and platitudes, but Shane was going to finish it: with a front-page headline. The War on Blood was right; his own blood had become part of it.
If Shane was going to keep pressing in on a group clearly fine with disposing of him, he was going to have to take some precautions. Not the police, obviously—he didn’t want them fucking with everything until he was done with it, and knowing the way they reacted to all vampires as though they were Maul, they would only be learning of this when he had clear evidence of who was in the wrong and who was just an innocent bystander. And where his own vampire lay in that.
The events of the night were fuzzy, but he could recall his vampire’s stunned voice: “You’re killing him.”
Maul had given a reason as he’d pressed the needle into Shane’s vein. The crook of his arm tingled even through the thick fabric of the long sleeve shirt he’d donned, and he didn’t want to think too hard about why. “No family, no friends. It will take a while for anyone to miss you.”
No one to miss him?
Well, Shane could fix that. For the sake of this article, he could make himself a friend. He threw on his boots, a loose coat, and the fashionably ratty green scarf and shot off a text as he charged out the door.
Shane-anigans
Hey, weird question but can we voice chat?
Nat1
Sure? What’s up?
Shane-anigans
Just trying not to die. You?
“I want to come with you!” Nat shouted, loud enough that Shane had to turn down the single wireless earpiece he was using to chat with her.
It was a little odd hearing her voice when they’d been strictly messaging since their first meeting, but the fervor with which she’d listened to his vague explanation and jumped to his defense without a question as to his truthfulness or sanity made him happy. Not that he had told her the truth—or the whole truth, anyway—only that the black market blood dealer he’d wanted to interview had threatened to kill him but he’d gotten away with a friendly vampire’s help. No good would come from her knowing that help had involved carrying his nearly unconscious body away from an attempted murder.
His new friend was angry enough as it was.
“I’m just here to look around. No interviews, no blood bags.” Shane ignored that last thought, folding his arms across his chest at the uncomfortable tingling in the crook of his elbow. He gave his car a once over as he passed it, still parked on the street where he’d left it the night before, and kept walking. “Even if I was looking for vampires, I’m not putting you in danger like that.”
“I know a lot more about fighting them than you do.”
“Because you were a corporate security officer? Are vampires that into espionage?”
The line went silent, Nat clearly seething on the other end. If Shane were being fair, she probably did know quite a bit more than him just by having been a part of a security team. His fighting ability began and ended with the knowledge that the thumb belonged outside the fist. But he wasn’t planning to fight anyone.
“If you came, it would defeat the point. They could get rid of you and we’re back to square one.”
“At least I have someone who would come looking for me,” Nat grumbled.
“Rude.”
“But accurate. Backslash apologetic.”
“Oh my god, that does not work the same way out loud.” Shane glanced at the map on his phone. He was a block away from the place he’d been taken. His nerves were alight like firecrackers, but otherwise he felt oddly dead inside. “You have my location. If something terrible happens, you are free to come after me, preferably with back up.”
“If a vampire kills you, I won’t need backup.” She sounded like she meant it, the determination in her voice so strong he was momentarily worried for Maul instead of himself.
But then he turned into the alley, and all his anxiety slammed into him like it had been waiting for that moment. He forced himself to breathe, to keep walking, arms crossed tight to his chest. His bus had been fifteen minutes late, made later over the course of the trip, but he’d still managed to get there before the twilight quite set in, and he could see down the gloomy cement path well enough without his phone. Empty.
Maul wouldn’t be here anymore—that was how this worked: set up for a night, vanish for two, emerge somewhere else. It made it easy to serve a larger territory while simultaneously hiding their tracks from the people they didn’t want to find them. But just because they had moved shop didn’t mean there was nothing left to learn. And it was the only lead he had right now.
The chalk mark had been washed from the door.
“You dead yet?” Nat asked. “You should know I’m sharpening my stakes as we speak. I’m thinking black roses for your grave? That’s adequately dramatic, right?”
“I’m not dead,” Shane grumbled, but as he did, a noise came from behind him. Nothing. His skin prickled. No matter how he turned, it seemed as though eyes followed his back. He pinched closed his arm and rubbed his neck with a palm. Carefully, he tested the door’s handle.
He’d brought a lock picking kit that he’d been learning to use since the Vitalis-Barron gala, but the door swung open with ease. The place was dark—too dark, a creeping, engulfing blackness that seemed to seep into Shane’s lungs like the clamping hand of Maul’s goon. He flinched. Behind him, the noise came again.
Shane whirled around, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. Arms circled his waist and shoulders, a presence at his back. He screamed. The hold on him tightened, solid but not painful.
“Quiet yourself, Cygnus, it’s only me,” murmured a familiar voice, dark and sensual, so close to Shane’s ear that the warmth of his vampire’s breath tickled.
Shane went weak in the knees. The fight didn’t drain out of him but it transformed, his nerves tingling while his adrenaline coursed a path like fire up his spine. “Oh,” was all he managed. He was excruciatingly aware of his vampire’s hands on him suddenly, one palm cupping his hip and the other on the crook of his shoulder. Every impulse told him to turn, to behold his captor, but his body must have given it away because his vampire chuckled softly.
“Now, now, did I say you could move?”
A shudder rolled across Shane’s skin like goosebumps. So this was how it was going to be. Whatever had happened between them last night had clearly convinced his vampire that he had a right to Shane. The thought slid through him in a hot tremble, tightening his lungs and settling in his pelvis. His heart beat faster, echoing through his skull like the voices of the vampires who’d attacked him last night.
Through his earpiece, Nat seemed to be having a similar crisis. “Fuck, Shane, who is that?” She sounded genuinely panicked. “Talk to me, dammit.”
As she spoke, the vampire swept his fingers over Shane’s temple, brushing back his hair. Gently, he plucked out the earpiece. “What’s this?”
Shane looked over his shoulder, catching a flash of gala mask before his vampire moved to the other side. His breath came warm against Shane’s neck, and for a moment Shane felt pinned, surrounded, suffocating like the night before. But this was just one vampire—just his vampire—his guiding touch on Shane’s back so light that it could have been a breeze. Shane swallowed and tried not to sound like his soul was about to leave his body. “If you’d please hand that back, that call is my life insurance.” He held his palm flat, arms still mostly wrapped against his chest.
“Huh.”
In the twilight, he could vaguely see his vampire twirling the device out of the corner of his eye, a pale hand and darkly painted nails.
“Smart. Not smart enough, if you think you’re coming here for Maul. But smart.” His vampire ignored Shane’s outstretched hand, brushing back his hair once more to tenderly press the earpiece in place. Despite the fear still coursing through him, Shane swore it was the most sensual thing anyone had ever done with a piece of technology in his life. And he even owned one of those vibrators that linked to his phone. If his last boyfriend had known how to use it with half this finesse and confidence, Shane might have still been dating the man. Though why the hell he was thinking of that now of all times—
Nat shouted through the returned earpiece, “Shane, my god, if you’re dying—”
“It’s fine, everything’s fine,” he interrupted her. “I’m just being terrorized by the vampire who saved me last night.” He let a little snark sink into his voice, leaning back swiftly enough to bump his tormentor’s chest.
The vampire laughed. “You might want to hang up. Or don’t. Perhaps you like a little exhibitionism.”
Shane’s muscles tensed. Their kiss from months back still lingered on his lips and the memory of his vampire’s fingers on his skin last night made him tingle, but his stomach twisted at the thought of his vampire pushing for more, without being granted it first—of his nails digging into Shane’s scalp and his fangs forced through flesh the way Maul’s goons had, no slow buildup or soothing venom, his roving hands finding places Shane wasn’t ready for him to touch…
His vampire made a little broken noise of distressed embarrassment that sounded strangely familiar. “I’m just going to bite you, my little swan, tender as your lovely neck deserves,” he said, his tone somehow equally as seductive as it was reassuring. “I only take what’s owed me.”
What’s owed him. “Why would I owe you anything?”
“Phone first,” he replied.
Shane hesitated. How much did he trust his vampire? Not at all and, after the care he’d shown last night, also entirely. He would only discover which of those feelings was correct if he stayed. Hesitantly, he held up his phone. His vampire’s fingers slid over his.
“Hello, Shane’s friend,” the vampire said, chin tucked against Shane’s temple on the earpiece’s side. “I promise that I will return him to you shortly.”
“It’s all right. He can protect me,” Shane added with a confidence he didn’t quite feel. “I’ll call you back when we’re finished.”
The line went quiet for the moment, before Nat hissed, “Oh my god, Shane, don’t tell me you’re going to fuck this creep?”
How the hell she’d picked up on the very erotic way Shane’s entire body was reacting right now over the phone, Shane could not fathom, but at least he was fairly certain she couldn’t magically make out the flush burning in his cheeks as he answered. “I’m not.”
She didn’t sound like she believed him. “You’re just as bad as my boyfriend.”
God, he had to get off this call. “Talk to you soon.”
“Sooner than him,” she grumbled.
Shane pressed the end call button. His vampire immediately let him take back the phone.
Shane released a breath. His nerves lingered, tickling along his skin and highlighting each brush of his vampire’s hands against him, but giving in—and being rewarded for his trust with the immediate return of his phone—released much of his fear. It shouldn’t have, he knew. It was the same positive reinforcement that turned feral animals into pets. But he could reason to himself that if his trust had paid off once, it would pay off again. “You said I owe you blood?”
He tried to turn, but his vampire moved behind him once more, too fast for his eyes to catch in the dimness. As he did, he drew fingers across Shane’s shoulder that sent another shudder through him… one not altogether unpleasant. “I thought I implied you were to keep still,” his vampire chided, teasingly. “Are you so disinclined to do as you’re told?”
“When I don’t know why I’m being told to do so, yes, very much,” Shane retorted, though he had the sinking suspicion perhaps that was a lie. Whatever they were doing now seemed to have set his every nerve on fire as though his body was made for it.
“You’ll obey because you’re mine,” his vampire whispered into his ear, a single finger tracing along the collar of Shane’s jacket. “Bought and paid for, as of this morning. I traded Maul ten thousand dollars for all the blood your body will ever produce. I own that which gives you life.”
Shane’s heart sank. “That’s why you saved me. So you have a meal.”
“No.” The reply came fast, soft, his vampire’s tone so changed that he almost sounded like a person—sounded strangely like… But then his mouth brushed Shane’s ear, a tremble running through the vampire so strong that Shane could feel it in the hand he’d rested on Shane’s bicep, and all Shane could think about was lips pressing to his on that gala balcony and firm arms carrying him home last night. “I saved you because I didn’t want you to die. Maul had no fucking right to drain you.” Now he sounded dark, but in a new way, black as vengeance and the void. “I needed you to live, and this was all I could think to do, all Maul would respect. If I was anyone else, asking anything else, he probably wouldn’t have even allowed this.”
“Why would he accept it from you?”
“I bring him his blood, so he gives me leniency over what happens to it.”
He was Maul’s business partner—a central piece of the black market. Shane could have laughed or cried. He’d come to Maul looking for a source for his War on Blood article, and while Maul had tried to kill him for it, here was a vampire just as invested in the black market. This was the in Shane needed; if only he could lure his vampire into a strong enough sense of trust to take it.
But for the moment Shane’s vampire seemed more keen on taking him. His voice hadn’t lost the edge, but it had gone sultry again, sliding up Shane’s spine and nestling deep within his chest. “I saved you because I couldn’t watch you die. But I need blood to live, and I paid all I have for yours. So you’re going to deliver. That’s only fair, isn’t it?”
“For you, but not for me. You paid for my blood, but I wasn’t the one who sold it,” Shane challenged. “Can something be truly fair if it’s unequal?” As he asked it, he found that he didn’t want to prove a point, but simply to know what his vampire thought. He didn’t want to be caved to; he wanted to be understood.
“Perhaps not.” His vampire hummed thoughtfully, and his fingers drew little circles against Shane’s shoulders. He was warm, and he smelled lightly floral, like a gentle lavender perfume. “It’s not fair to force humans to give their blood up, but neither is it fair that vampires must pay and fight and steal for something they need just to survive the week. Perhaps fair is what you can wrangle back from the world, and nothing more.”
“So you’ll take my blood whether I agree to this or not?” It was a terrifying thought, but it didn’t scare him, exactly, and Shane couldn’t make sense of that dissonance.
The fingers at his shoulder transformed into a gentle squeeze, the lines of his vampire’s hands feeling along his collarbones and wrapping toward the back of his neck. His voice dropped into a growl. “Don’t ask questions that you don’t want the answer to.”
A chill rolled through Shane, but it only fueled the fire burning deep within him. Goddamn this vampire. His vampire, who was being a damned prick but in the best way possible. “Why not? Will my not knowing the truth change it?”
He laughed, gliding his fingers against Shane’s hair, so light that it was barely a touch. “Perhaps if it’s Schr?dinger’s truth.”
“A truth that only takes form once we know it,” Shane mused. “What a concept.” He could feel his vampire’s attention like the warmth of the sun, and he had the inane desire to lean into him. Then he was doing it, his back brushing a strong, sturdy torso. His vampire’s chest rose against him in a sharp intake, then fell with the slow release.
“Perhaps this truly is a kind of a Schr?dinger’s truth, because I don’t know it yet myself. What if I won’t know what I’ll do until you push me?” The darkness of his voice conjured visions in Shane’s mind, a vampire’s palm clamped against his mouth, lungs screaming, teeth in his neck as he struggled.
His stomach twisted, his desire turning to ash. Yet a part of him felt safer leaning into his vampire’s touch, his grip near Shane’s neck a comfort rather than a cage, like the imagined monster could never be him. Shane desperately hoped that was the case, for his own sake. “Is that the truth?”
“It’s a truth.” His hands followed the base of Shane’s neck, fingers forming a loose collar. “Push me if you must. I can promise you that there are lines I will never cross, but not where they lie.”
For once, Shane didn’t have a response to that.
He still held his arms pinned against his chest, but his vampire wrapped a little tighter around him to take hold of one of them—the one Maul had pressed the needle into. Shane’s instinct told him to hold it tight, keep the vulnerable skin tucked closed where no one could hurt it. But it seemed his vampire had other ideas. Gentle but firm, he nudged against Shane’s arm. His mouth fluttered over the back of Shane’s earlobe. “Let me have what’s mine.”
It was part demand—Shane couldn’t have ignored that if he’d tried—but it was part offer too, and perhaps just a little bit of a plea.
“Push me if you must,” his vampire had said, and Shane couldn’t bring himself to do so. Next time, perhaps. Next time, he wouldn’t cave so easily, wouldn’t let the slightest hint of gentleness and the smallest of rewards sway his courage. Next time, he’d get answers to all his questions.
But this time, Shane gave in. A chill washed over him, his fear building even as he forced himself to trust. It was dark now, the sky purple and the nearest lights too far down the wide alley to penetrate, and he could barely see the drag of his vampire’s hand down his arm as he stretched it out, but he could feel the pressure of it so blindingly that little else was worth his focus. His vampire pushed a thumb against the place where Shane’s pulse ran.
A whimper worked free of him, unbidden. He was embarrassed immediately—what the fuck had Maul done to him that he was overwhelmed merely by being touched inside of his elbow through a sturdy jacket? But the response seemed to please his vampire, the little instinctive tugging back of Shane’s arm making him tighten his own grip for just a moment before shifting it to press his palm against the vulnerable spot. Like a shield, Shane realized, as the sensation appeased some of his nerves.
“Does it hurt?” his vampire whispered.
“It’s the memory.”
“My poor Cygnus.” He let go, softly guiding Shane’s arm back into place, tucked once more against his chest. His hand remained, tracing the jacket fabric around Shane’s elbow. “I could bite you there, give you a new memory?”
Shane didn’t answer—he was too busy imagining it ten different ways, all of them gentle but not necessarily soft. It could be a tender offer, his vampire willing to take his time to help him acclimate, sitting with him in a place of safety, tracing the spot with his lips, waiting for Shane to tell him it was all right. Or it could be a protective demand. He could almost feel the way his vampire would tug his jacket off, teasing the skin with his nails while Shane shuddered, cooing “you’re mine, little swan,” in that voice of his that could have declothed emperors in another time. And what terrified him, more than needles or fangs, was that he didn’t know which of those outcomes he wanted more.
Or he did know, suddenly—knew he wanted to be laid bare, unfolded at his vampire’s whims in ways that turned him weak and helpless.
Merely imagining it made him yearn, made his knees wobble and his breath catch. The horror of that realization nearly doused the fire building in his pelvis. He shouldn’t want that. It would mean that his vampire—this stranger, whose right to anything of Shane’s was already hazy at best—was willfully taking advantage of him. He should not want to be taken advantage of—god, what was wrong with him?
From one thought to the next, his body had tensed so hard that at the roar of a nearby sports car, his flinch nearly jerked him out of his vampire’s arms. The sound continued rumbling as the vehicle slowed in front of the alley, turning towards it like they planned to drive down the center. With Shane and his vampire standing in the open door of the building, he doubted the owner had seen them yet. But they would soon.
“Fuck,” his vampire growled, and let him go with a little shove that pushed Shane properly inside.
He spun around. This time, his vampire didn’t tell him not to look. Not that Shane could see much in the darkness, just his silhouette: black leggings and calf-high boots, a lighter, lacy shirt under a long, tailored coat, all of it outlined by the sideways stream of headlights. His gala mask covered the upper portions of his face. A reminder of their last time together, perhaps? Or a sign that as much as he was asking Shane to trust him, his trust in Shane was so limited that he had gone for total anonymity, as though Shane might call the cops the moment he had a proper description.
His mask didn’t quite reach his mouth though, and the white of his teeth shone in the darkness as his lips pulled back, fangs already extended. “We’re about to have company.”