Page 49 of Inhuman Natures #1

Rake

“Be careful not to ingest any of the blood yourselves,” Kit said from where Shaun had helped him into a half-destroyed armchair.

Rake watched Kit’s legs spasm, realising that his vampire healing had kicked in.

The back of Rake’s head tingled, reminding him of his own injury.

He resisted pressing a finger to it, even though part of him wanted to.

Careful to heed Kit’s warning, Rake lifted one of DJ’s limp arms and brought his wrist to his mouth. Shaun did the same on DJ’s other side, meeting Rake’s eyes.

Shaun’s fangs slid out, and he sank them into DJ’s soft flesh before his face contorted. “It tastes horrible.”

Rake sliced DJ’s skin open with one fang.

Rank blood filled his mouth. It wasn’t hard to avoid swallowing it, seeing as he couldn’t stand the taste at all.

Any time he got enough in his mouth, he spat it out over the side of the sofa.

Rake didn’t care about ruining the vintage rug—the house’s interior had been damaged beyond recognition already.

He and Shaun continued to pull the poison from DJ, switching up to new veins every so often to target the different areas of his body.

Exhaustion filled Rake. He was battered and beaten from the fight, but Shaun was worse.

He kept listing to the side, and hadn’t removed the hand pressed to his abdomen.

Every movement had him wincing. Shaun needed more blood to heal.

Torn between his responsibility for both Shaun and DJ, Rake lifted his head. “Lie down, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ve got this from here.”

Shaun blinked slowly. “Are you sure?”

“You look like you’re going to pass out on me. The last thing I need right now is for you to be unconscious, too.”

Shaun’s face cycled through emotions. Relief, guilt and, finally, understanding.

He slumped on the sofa with his hands around his stomach and curled into DJ.

Rake spared a glance for Kit, making sure he hadn’t died on them.

Kit’s face was blank, even as his legs continued to right themselves.

Judging by Rake’s own throbbing skull, it had to hurt. Kit, however, betrayed nothing.

Rake went back to his task, DJ’s blood tasting cleaner with every suck. He didn’t notice DJ was awake until the weight of a familiar hand brushed his head. “Rake?” DJ croaked, voice sounding worse than it did after he pulled an all-nighter.

“Deej, you’re all right,” Rake said, looking up.

DJ’s eyes were wide, his pupils so large they eclipsed the brown. He sprang to his feet. “What happened? Shaun! How are you here? Where’s Lawrence?”

“He’s dead,” Shaun said. “Proper dead. Dead dead.”

“That’s the important part,” Rake said. “He’s gone, and we’re all still here.”

“Well, apart from Lynette,” Kit said, pointing to a pile of ash in the middle of the floor. DJ had stepped right through it, spreading the dusted bones across the rug.

“I’m standing in Lynette? Mistress Lynette?” DJ said, voice rising. In his panic, he walked through the ashes again.

“Oh,” Shaun said, pressing a bloody hand to his mouth. Rake couldn’t tell if he was trying not to laugh, or was horrified. Maybe both. Either way, Rake needed to take control of the situation.

He sprang from the sofa and picked up a wriggling DJ, bringing him back to the couch and putting him back between him and Shaun. “It’s okay,” he said.

“‘It’s okay’, he says,” DJ cried. “I just walked through a dead vampire. There’s another dead vampire somewhere else in the house. Oh, and to top it all off, I’m a vampire. I also— Wait, you picked me up. You’re a vampire. Oh my god. We’re all vampires. Jesus.” He threw both hands over his face.

“Um,” Rake said eloquently.

“I was too late to get him to a hospital in time,” Shaun said. “So, yeah, he’s a vampire too.”

DJ scrabbled to bring Shaun into their embrace, the three of them lying on the sofa in a tangle of limbs. Shaun shook like he was cold, and DJ vibrated with excess energy. They were all covered in drying blood and gore, which made Rake’s skin itch, but he held them both close.

After a few seconds, DJ started to sob. “I’m so sorry I almost killed you.”

“What?” Rake grabbed DJ’s face with both hands. “That wasn’t you. You weren’t in control. That was all Lawrence.”

“It would have been by my hand! Or… teeth,” DJ said, letting out a wet laugh, which led to more crying. Rake kept holding him, pressing DJ’s face into his shoulder as Shaun br acketed him in from the other side.

“It’s okay,” Rake said again, not knowing what else there was to say.

“We’re all together, and that’s what matters,” Shaun added.

DJ turned his head towards Shaun. “I was losing my mind when you disappeared.”

“Me too. About you, I mean.”

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” DJ said.

“I’m fine, in case anyone was wondering,” Kit said loudly.

DJ grinned. “It’s good to see you too, Kitty boy.”

“What the fuck did you just call me?”

“Kitty boy.”

“If I could walk right now, I’d come over there and slap you.”

“Kit, what happened with Lawrence’s new creations?” Shaun asked, providing an obvious distraction.

“We corralled them into one place,” Kit answered, still glaring at DJ. “That’s when it became apparent DJ wasn’t with them. Still don’t know how they got to the other side of the city so fast, though. They were running around Hove, terrorising the pensioners.”

“Tunnels,” Shaun said.

“What now?” DJ asked.

“Lawrence has been in Brighton much longer than we thought. Dug some tunnels from the basement.”

“He kept the new vampires down there,” DJ confirmed.

“It must have been how he got to your flat so close to sundown,” Kit said.

All four of them turned in unison at the sound of multiple footsteps coming from the front door .

“If you’re looking for a fight, come back tomorrow!” Kit called.

The living room door opened with such force it flew into the wall, smashing to bits.

Boris, Winnie, Julia and a couple of other vampires rushed into the room, coming up short at the sight of them.

Most of them appeared stricken. Rake had forgotten until that moment that Lynette had recreated them all.

“Oh, god,” Julia cried.

Winnie got to her knees next to the pile of ash that had been Lynette. “I sensed her death. I didn’t want to believe it.”

“How did this happen?” Boris demanded, approaching Shaun. “How are you still here and she isn’t?”

“Lawrence always enjoyed playing with his food,” Kit said drolly.

“I’m really sorry,” Shaun said. “He was too fast. Too strong. We got him in the end, though.”

Boris’s jaw set, and he glanced at his companions before focusing on them once more.

“You all need to leave this city. There is enough on my plate with the mess Weston made with the new creations. Not to mention the sheer number of humans we’ve had to compel to forget what they saw tonight.

We’ll be spending weeks clearing this up.

” He let out a heavy sigh. “Fucking cameras everywhere these days.”

Rake’s blood ran cold. “This is our home. You can’t make us leave!”

“Brighton is overpopulated with vampires. I have every right to tell you to join a nest elsewhere,” Boris said, arms flexing as he stood over them.

Jumping to his feet, Rake got right in Boris’s face. Or, as close to his face as he could, seeing as Boris was around six and a half feet tall. “You aren’t in charge here.”

“I am with Lynette gone.”

“We swore no oath to you.”

Boris drew himself up, towering over Rake. “I was her second in command. You’re new to this, so I’ll give you some grace. You have twenty-four hours to get the hell out of my territory.”

“But we have four months left on our lease,” DJ said quietly.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine. Pay it off with the profit you’ll make from this place,” Boris grunted.

“What?” DJ asked.

Boris rubbed a hand over his face. “You, that one over there”—he inclined his head towards Kit—“and Shaun are all Lawrence’s creations, are you not?”

“We are,” Shaun confirmed.

“Then you’ll inherit his holdings. Along with the others, I’m sure you’ll stand to make a tidy sum, even if it is split fifteen or so ways.”

Rake looked around at the state of the blood-spattered house. “We’d need to clean the place up before putting it on the market.”

“We have people,” Boris said. “They can deal with it. We’ll get everything to you once you’re gone. In fact, let’s make it a condition of your departure. Leave, and we’ll make sure his assets get to you with haste.”

“And what if I don’t want his tainted money?” Kit asked. He stood, but was gripping onto the seat behind him, knuckles white .

DJ raised his hand as if Boris were their teacher. “Would just like to make it clear that I’m happy to take the blood money.”

Kit’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing more, so Rake spoke up again. “What about our jobs? Our lives are here.”

“You’re dead,” Boris said. “You cannot go out in sunlight. How were you planning on getting to your job?”

Oh. That hadn’t occurred to Rake yet. “We’ve missed work today,” he said, slightly horrified by how much fear that struck in him.

“Our managers will be wondering what the hell has happened to us. They might have sent the police round already for a welfare check.” Knowing the cluelessness of their managers, however, Rake guessed they’d just assume they’d forgotten he and DJ had booked some annual leave.

“Boris, please give them longer to sort this all out,” Shaun said, voice strained. “I’ll go tonight, but they can’t just disappear. It’ll look suspicious.”

“You’re not leaving without us,” Rake argued.

Boris grunted. “Fine. Be out of Brighton by next month, or you’re going to be facing a bigger problem than having to quit without notice. We’ll help you deal with it if the police have got involved. You know where to find us.”

Winnie stood up, a vase cradled in her arms. Most of Lynette’s remains were gone from the carpet. She nodded to Boris and the others. “Let’s go.”

Boris gave Rake a hard stare before ushering the others out. Julia was the only one to look back, though the devastation on her face made Rake wish she hadn’t. He’d been so close to having to deal with that emotion himself that it overwhelmed him .

He looked down at Shaun and DJ, where they sat together on the sofa. “I love you both,” he blurted. The prospect of losing either of them made him want to hurl himself on the mercy of the sun.

“Me?” Shaun said, pointing to himself, like Rake was confused about who he was speaking to.

“Yes, of course you . Both of you.”

“Aw, I love you both too,” DJ said, reaching out to grab one of their hands in each of his and squeezing tight.

Shaun’s eyes began to stream with blood, and Rake panicked until he noticed the smile on his face. “I don’t think I knew what love really was until I saw you two interact at the club,” Shaun said. “I feel it now.” He rubbed at his chest. “It’s a lot, isn’t it?”

“It’s right,” Rake insisted.

“It is,” DJ agreed.

Rake noticed Kit leaving the room out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from his guys. He stayed focused on Shaun. “Are you going to say the words?”

“Rake, you can’t make him say he loves us until he’s ready!” DJ hissed.

“He’s ready,” Rake said, confident.

After a brief hesitation, in which Shaun seemed to psych himself up, he said, “I love you both so much.”

DJ nudged his shoulder against Shaun. “Yeah, you do.”

Rake smiled to himself, then kicked at a stray cushion, wincing when it hit a decorative plate on the mantel, knocking it down with a resounding smash. “Whoops,” he said, then looked around the room. “What a fucking mess.”

“At least we don’t have to clean,” Shaun said. “I don’t think I’m emotionally ready to hoover up Lawrence.”

A quiet snort of laughter sounded from the hallway. Despite everything, Rake felt like they might just all be okay.