Page 19

19

RAHIL

Caring for a preteen in a dilapidated house with no power, little food, and few useful sleeping areas was actually far less daunting than Rahil would have imagined. Lydia was worryingly fascinated by the idea of candles—apparently Mercer wasn’t a fan of letting anything flammable in the house—and pumped to sleep on what she called the “modern coffin” of old mattresses. She even accepted potato chips for breakfast like it was a perfectly normal choice instead of the only thing they happened to have in the cupboard just then.

Mercer texted a few times throughout the night, with short, punctuation-free messages that simply confirmed he was alive and asked for status updates. By mid-morning, he still hadn’t responded to Rahil’s request to come by, nor answered any of Rahil’s calls. He’d had a long night, Rahil told himself. He was probably finally asleep.

Rahil had no reason to interrupt that. He was simply feeling anxious and hungry because he hadn’t made time for a blood meal in a few days, and Mercer’s promise to think on his request ran through Rahil’s mind. He’d certainly just make things worse if he showed up now—get tangled in the shed trap, like he had the last time he’d invaded Mercer’s property in an attempt to check on him.

But this time, they had two projects to finish. And Rahil had Mercer’s daughter. Hunger or not, perhaps there was good reason to go…

As he threw on his coat, hood up and collar flipped to his cheekbones, he scowled at Lydia parentally, being sure to show his fangs. “If you leave this house for any reason that isn’t an immediate threat to your life, not only will I never turn you, but I’ll tell every single vampire in the entire city that you’re off-limits for life.”

Lydia didn’t even look up from her phone. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll stay put.”

“Me too!” Avery shouted from behind her. That they were already planning to be home for the next few hours and were willing to watch over the house and Lydia in it was a genuine miracle.

“And if you see anything suspicious—”

“Call you,” both of them responded.

“Good. And don’t blow anything up.”

“No promises!” Avery called after him.

He caught Lydia flashing him a sloppy finger as he stepped into the sun.

The sprint through the neighborhood barely registered to him, each lunge just a mechanism moving him closer to Mercer. By the time he reached the Bloncourts’ lot, the slight shaking in his bones only spurred him to step more lively. He vaulted up to the shed window—closed and locked now—to peek in. Some things had been moved since he’d left the afternoon before, but his heart sank as he found no sign of Mercer himself.

It was eerie not to hear Kat’s curious baying as he approached the back of the house. That door was locked, as was the front, the building dark and uncomfortably quiet. Rahil began to truly shake then, the beginnings of an ache settling into his muscles. He kept calling Mercer’s number, pacing around the shaded side of the house and trying to peer into the windows.

Through a slit in the dark curtains, a distant screen lit up.

Mercer’s phone.

It was on the ground, face up. Discarded. When Rahil squinted, he swore he could make out the silhouette of dangling fingers above it.

His heart rammed into high gear. He scrambled at the hinges of the window, pushing with all his vampiric strength. The metal locks popped. The glass slid effortlessly to the side as the screen caved under Rahil’s weight. He tumbled into the room, a pinwheel of limbs and adrenaline.

A massive shape lunged at him from the bed to his right, both hands outstretched. Rahil should have been able to dodge—his instincts were fast enough, surely—but another instinct caught him a moment too soon, his body recognizing what his brain could not. Fingers wrapped around his throat and the fabric of his shirt, closing down, warm and rough and—

Mercer froze. His hands loosened, and his eyes widened.

Rahil didn’t move either. He could feel the pressure of Merc’s fingers, so firm and yet gentle, and he could not have forced himself to pull away, not in a million years, not even if it meant trading his life for just one more second with all of Mercer’s attention on him like this. One of Merc’s thumbs shifted, gliding, slowly.

“Fuck,” he whispered. Then he retreated.

Like he hadn’t practically burst Rahil’s heart open and caressed it, he slumped back onto the bed and curled into a fetal position, one arm dangling over the side of the mattress and the other tucked around his head.

“Lydia?” he asked. His voice sounded strained; not just tired, but tight and gruff. Was that pain ?

“She’s fine. At home, with a friend,” Rahil said quickly, following it up with the more important question, “Are you?” As he spoke, he could feel his own fingers absently tracing the places Mercer had touched. Here, in his bedroom, his smell was intoxicating.

Mercer breathed out. He closed his eyes, wrapping his arm tighter around his head. “Normal.”

“I’ve seen you normal,” Rahil protested, “and usually it’s a lot… stonier. And more upright.”

The little groan Mercer gave was so weary that it made Rahil feel like he was overstepping. They had gotten close; somehow—preposterously—the situation with William and Rahil’s connection to Lydia had forged a bond stronger than merely a business partnership or a flirtatious acquaintance. But perhaps it was not enough for this .

Rahil had broken into Mercer’s house this time.

He leaned back, tucking his arms around his waist. Softer, he said, “I’m sorry. It looked like you were hurt, and I’d assumed it was William again—I can leave. But if you’d like help...” Rahil couldn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth. Him, help? With shed projects, perhaps, but not with this—not with emotions, or pain, or whatever it was Mercer was going through now. Rahil’s track record with that kind of assistance was astoundingly deadly. Somehow though, Merc chose another part of his statement to question.

“You, intruding?” Mercer groaned again. “Clearly, I don’t mind people breaking into my house . You don’t see any traps here .”

That was… a joke? Mercer was laughing at him.

Huh.

Rahil opened his mouth and closed it again. “There’s no reason to tie myself up if the hottest person in the room can’t keep his eyes on me.”

Mercer squinted at him from beneath his arm. “I can confirm that the migraine is the problem here, not your body.”

Mercer was laughing at him, and flirting with him? Well, not with him—that implied a togetherness. At him, then. Mercer was flirting at him.

Rahil’s heart couldn’t keep up with all these erratic adjustments.

“Well, um, that’s a shame, because I can only fix one of those things.”

He wasn’t sure Mercer could even properly see him through the bulk of his lashes and the wrinkles dropped low on his forehead, but a little tug came into Mercer’s lips. Then he groaned, his whole body going tight.

Rahil knelt beside him and, ignoring his instinct to lean toward Mercer’s neck, he laid a palm on Merc’s arm. “What can I do?” he asked, so firm yet gentle that he surprised himself. Had he been like this with Shefali, every time she’d failed to go cold turkey? He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want the answer to be yes.

“Curtains.” Mercer grumbled, covering his eyes once more.

Rahil closed the window despite the heat—he’d find a way to fix the lock later—and pulled the curtains across, turning the room to gentle blue shadows.

“Water?” Mercer asked. “The pink one.”

Rahil had no idea what the pink one was, but when he opened the fridge, he found a line of bottled electrolyte waters in three colors. Pink it was.

Mercer managed to sit up enough to sip it before requesting an ice pack next. The freezer held a variety of them, but Rahil found a series of small ones with a flexible cloth casing that formed a hat and brought the whole contraption. He helped Mercer pull it over his head until most of his skull was covered and two of the front packs slid over his eyes.

“Do you have medication?” Rahil asked.

“I could do another ibuprofen, but it probably won’t help.”

“Nothing stronger?”

Mercer grunted dismissively. “Already done. Mine works best taken at the beginning of the migraine and I was at that meeting with William. Been meaning to try a new prescription but…” His voice wandered, and Rahil thought he could fill in the ending for him: but he had Lydia to take care of and a shed of projects to finish and every time he went to the doctor, there was a chance that they would try to pin his migraines on his fae ancestry or disregard his pain entirely based on the color of his skin. “At least the aura has passed.”

“The what?”

“Vision… stuff. I go half-blind for a bit,” Mercer explained, clearly struggling to put better words to the issue. “I’ll be fine. These pass after a day or two.”

That didn’t seem fine to Rahil. If there was someone who could fix it, though, they would be a doctor, not him. He had other work to do. “If you can disarm the shed, I’ll grab Leah’s work to fiddle with here?”

Mercer made a sound of protest, but he pointed sluggishly toward his grounded phone. Rahil handed it to him, and a moment later Mercer let it fall onto the bed. “Done.”

“I’ll be right back,” Rahil promised.

He sent Avery a check-in text as he entered the shed, receiving a near-immediate response that was so positive he would have been suspicious if it was anyone else. There was an attached picture of them and Lydia with something that looked distressingly like blackjack. Lydia had stuck out her tongue for it. Rahil chuckled, recalling just how frustrated his wife—ex-wife—had been during the year Matt had decided to make a ridiculous face for every photo he was in, claiming it made them non-viable options for hanging.

To taunt him, Shefali had bought the biggest possible version of their Christmas photo that year and framed it above the fireplace, where Matt’s tongue had stuck out at every visitor until the day the movers came to take Shefali’s stuff away. Rahil didn’t know if she’d still had it hidden away somewhere when she’d died. He hadn’t asked.

He probably should have. He hadn’t kept many pictures of Matt, and now…

Rahil shuddered away the thought as he stepped into the shed, avoiding looking in the direction he knew Mercer’s holy silver to be, stashed with the fangs of a vampire Merc might have gone so far as to capture and murder, had he not lost the will. With utmost care, Rahil gathered Leah’s project from the back of the shed and closed the door behind him. After working there for over three weeks, he could make out the gentle whir of Mercer’s traps reactivating.

He thought he understood them a little better now, having seen the inner mechanisms of their creator’s other work. But there was still a long way to go before Rahil could reconstruct the little for Lydia device he’d selected from Leah’s pile of unfinished projects. Based on its size, he figured it had to be made for portability, and with its trap-like ropes, there had to be some defensive aspect to it. Something that could provide Lydia with a safe space, but also allow her the ability to chase after her dreams and find her own place in the world.

She needed that—deserved that. She was a good kid, with a good dad. She’d do better than his own children. Maybe she already was.

Mercer barely seemed to notice as he settled onto the floor beside the bed.

Rahil had been there to check the windows the day prior, but sitting with his—Leah’s—project, his focus broadened and his attention wandered to the details. The room held a standard mid-sized bed and dresser, with a potted plant hanging from braided rope in one corner and a landscape painting on the wall. For a man whose life involved creating the most beautiful and unique pieces of metal, wood, glass, and more, the space was oddly bare of such ornamentation, its aesthetic rooted in its simplicity. The more outrageous touches were the sheer extent of cream and blue pillows that spilled in waves over the sides of the bed, and a small cork board where Mercer had pinned up so many pictures of Lydia and Kat that the board itself was barely visible.

It was humble yet lovely, stony but soft: in all ways perfectly Mercer.

Rahil transitioned between glancing at his friend, collecting updates from Avery, and fiddling with Leah’s device.

He focused on the mechanical aspects first—those came easier to him, after so many decades transitioning to more and more complex pieces of equipment as electronics developed from massive boxes for simple functions to highly intricate computing systems that fit in the palm of a hand. Despite the complicated nature of Mercer’s coiling silver cords, and the enthralling sensitivity of Leah’s little sensors, his hands seemed to know instinctively how it was meant to go together, fitting piece after piece. It would undoubtedly require some adjustments for its software as well, some finishing touches perhaps—hopefully not a full construction, as Rahil was still motivating himself to better learn the programming end of things.

For the hour it took Rahil to finish the device’s hardware assembly, it seemed like Merc was asleep, but he finally shifted, pulling off the inevitably warmed ice pack hat. It left his curls in an adorable mess, the tight black curls sticking up at odd angles. He squinted at his phone, “You’ve been checking on Lydia?”

“ Merc ,” Rahil said, gently.

Mercer sighed. “Of course you have.”

Rahil stood, showing Merc the latest picture Avery had sent as he picked up the ice pack. “I’ll throw this back in the freezer for you.”

Mercer grunted his thanks, his smile weak but genuine. When Rahil returned, he was sitting upright, though barely. “I forgot, I have something for you.”

“Hmm?” Rahil’s heart did something terrible and wonderful, but then Mercer opened a notebook with pages of blocky text, schematics, and equations. He scolded himself. Of course the gift was simply to benefit their work.

“This was Leah’s. It should have notes on the project you’re finishing… somewhere.”

At the emotion in Mercer’s voice, Rahil’s original joy returned, softer and steadier. Merc had chosen to offer this up, this intimate piece of his past lover, for Rahil’s use. As much as it was practical, what with Rahil working on the project in order to protect Lydia, it was also vulnerable. A vulnerability that Mercer shouldn’t have been offering him, but still.

Rahil didn’t know what exactly to do with that—to run, for Mercer’s sake, or to stay for his own—and instead his body took over, accepting the notebook and perusing it slowly. It was practically a piece of art, with its sprawling notes and scribbles in the margins, so different from Mercer’s precise organization. There were pages and pages of them, too, dozens of different projects, each more genius than the last. Rahil was in awe, where awe looked just a bit like jealousy.

He glanced at Mercer. “Leah did this as a hobby?”

Mercer had already leaned his head into his hands, but he looked up, eyes bleary. “She could have gone for patents, made a lot of money. But she said the world didn’t deserve her technology until she could refine it past the point of misuse. Otherwise, they would employ it as swords instead of shields.”

“She sounds like she was as kind as she was brilliant,” Rahil said, and meant it. He leaned over to nudge Mercer’s knee. “It seems you had good taste.”

Mercer scoffed, and he must have heard Rahil wrong through his migraine because he grumbled a teasing, “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Oh, I’ve been flattered enough for one lifetime.” Rahil shrugged, fiddling with the wire he was supposed to be rerouting. “That’s what happens when you go on nothing but first dates for a decade.”

The look Merc gave him was entirely unreadable, cast behind his stoic blankness and the tightness of his pain, but there was a depth to his gaze that made Rahil nearly uncomfortable from its intensity. Uncomfortable, and hungry, like he was unfinished—not close enough; not open enough—as though he was meant to be peeled apart before the craftsman.

He tried on a smile, hoping the joviality would help.

It only prompted a question from Mercer. “Why no second dates? You have your fangs visible on your profile. I cannot imagine your matches don’t know what they’re getting into.”

“With me? Bah. No one can ever truly know what they’re getting into where I’m concerned. You weren’t even into me and I still managed to overrun your shed and corrupt your daughter. Imagine putting ‘falls into traps as a hobby’ on your profile.”

Mercer lifted one hand in submission. “I retract. You are intolerable after all.”

Rahil winked. “Good. At least we’re on the same page.”

In the quiet that lingered, he managed to connect a few more pieces of Leah’s device into place. Mercer rubbed his temple, his expression sliding in and out of relief. “You didn’t text them back, did you?”

“Huh?” His mind went to Lydia and Avery, and he nearly reached for his phone, when Mercer followed up.

“Your first dates. You get blood from them, and then you ghost them. You hypocrite.” His mouth was quirked as he said it, the final word gentled by laughter.

Rahil’s cheeks burned. One-night stands weren’t uncommon, not on the apps he used, but the idea of doing that to Mercer—and the knowledge that he would have, had Merc not been the one to ghost him first—seemed ludicrous and insensitive. Mercer was worth so much more than a single evening.

So much more than anything Rahil could give.

“I mean…” Rahil struggled to find words that didn’t paint himself as either the villain or the victim. There had to be more categories of person than that. “It was a useful way to acquire blood from consenting individuals, but I wasn’t looking for a… for a family. That was all.” He couldn’t meet Mercer’s gaze as he said it.

“I understand,” Mercer said, his voice weak. Rough. “With Lydia, even just the thought of bringing one person into a space we’ve shared with no one else for so long… It’s almost unthinkable.”

Rahil noted the almost , and his heart blistered. It was not his almost, but he yearned for it anyway.

“You’d mentioned your own kids yesterday?” Mercer asked. “Where are they now?”

Rahil had expected the question, expected to flinch and laugh, but the gentle ache in his chest and the desire to lean closer to Mercer, take comfort in the shape of his knee, the warmth of his skin—that he’d not expected in the slightest. “In the same cemetery as Leah, beside their mother.”

“God. I’m sorry, I should have—”

“It’s fine. It was—” My fault , he nearly said, but Mercer didn’t need to hear that too. “It happened a while ago. Well, one of them, anyway. The other feels as though I lost him years before I actually did. The last time he and I spoke, my ex-wife was on her deathbed, and our relationship had been all but nonexistent for the decade prior.”

“You had two… two boys?”

“Yes.” Rahil swallowed down the lump that threatened to rise. He should have been better at this; it had been a long time—long since he’d seen either of them, at least. But it had been just as long since he’d spoken of this loss with another person. “Jonah and Matt. Very white names. Blame my wife, and her English grandfather I suppose; he was a Matthew, too.” He said it affectionately. It had seemed like the right choice for the cultural climate of the time. To many people, it still did, and he couldn’t blame them for it.

The little chuckle that got out of Mercer was worth more than gold. Even unholy gold. Despite the pressure in his chest and the tightness behind his jaw, Rahil smiled.

“You had Jonah, Matt, and… have I forgotten your wife’s name?”

“Shefali.” He didn’t bother correcting Mercer—not ex, not late, just… wife. In a way, it worked. However far they moved from having known each other, he would still love her for what she had been to him. They were as impermanent as anything could possibly be, yet their ghosts were eternal. “Her name comes from the jasmine flower. I used to plant them everywhere I could. She pretended she hated them.”

“I can picture it.” Mercer chuckled, but it turned into a wince. He rubbed his fingers into the space behind his ears, working down along his neck. As though it were some kind of vampiric lingerie, the shield of his hands suddenly made Rahil’s hunger come alive again. This was not the time, he told it. But perhaps it could be time enough for something else.

Rahil set Leah’s project to the side, shifting onto his knees. He pointed to Mercer’s hands. “Does that help?”

“Hm? Rubbing?” Mercer groaned softly. “Yeah, for the moment. It’s just a band-aid.”

“May I?” Rahil held out both his palms as an offering. “I’ve been told I have very good fingers. And I promise not to take advantage of your glorious neck proximity.” He winked, hoping the joke wasn’t too much. After Mercer’s hesitancy around a potential bite, he worried…

“Please,” Mercer grumbled. “As though you could possibly intimidate me. I have seen you tied up, you know. And begging.”

All the blood rushed from Rahil’s head to exactly the wrong place and he couldn’t even fault it. He was sure Mercer could tell, too. “We could always do that instead.”

“My unholy gold counts on it, yes.” Merc snorted, but there was a humorous quirk to his lips as he patted the bed beside him.

A thrill ran up Rahil’s spine, then right back down again, settling low and aching as he climbed onto the mattress. He had to keep reminding himself that this was purely a medicinal act, as platonic as any touching of skin atop a bed could possibly be. But it was atop Mercer’s bed, and it was Mercer’s skin he was sliding his fingertips over, Mercer’s hair that was so soft beneath his touch. Rahil slipped into place behind his just-a-friend, counting to three to calm himself and ensure he’d properly repressed his hunger before he began to massage.

For the first minute, the world was just him and Mercer, his thoughts honed on the ways Merc’s body responded to the pressure—gentle noises and relaxing shifts and uncomfortable flinches all guiding Rahil’s hands. He forced himself not to think of what other ways he could invoke a similar pleasure. There were advantages to not being bound.

Advantages that were also supplied to his fangs.

In specifically not imagining every sexual route his hands could take, every moan and grunt and expression of bliss he might invoke, his mind detoured instead to the heaviness of his fangs, the thirst still roiling in his gut.

Mercer’s neck was so long and thick, the pound of his blood beneath the skin a steady, confident thrum. The taste taunted him. It would be easy to lean in now, to press lips to skin, then just a prick of teeth—let his venom drown Mercer’s migraine in soft bliss for a while. Let him feel as good as he deserved to, after all that he’d been doing to care for his daughter on his own.

Rahil wouldn’t, of course: consent was a bondage of its own, and as much as it galled him, it was just as sexy as the physical cords he’d let Mercer wrap him in so many times.

But he could still imagine.

So, he did.