Page 11 of Love Bleeds

At least he would be sparedthattonight.

A knock came at his door, pulling him out of his thoughts. He looked up, confused, because the only vampire who ever came to his room was Nicolai, and his sire never knocked. "Who's there?" he asked.

"It's Silas."

"Come in," Crimson said, even though he wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to see the other vampire.

Silas stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "I just wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?"

"Our sire told me what you did for me."

Crimson suppressed a groan. Of course Nicolai had told Silas, because Nicolai had wanted Crimson to care about Silas, he wanted them to be friends. So he could them against each other. "You know he's doing this to manipulate us."

Silas seemed to consider this for a moment, then said, "You'll go mad if you keep thinking like that." He walked over to the bed to sit, still a bit unsteady on his feet. Crimson couldn't help but wonder if that was the aftereffects of yesterday's events or if their sire had done something else to him in the meantime.

But Silas was right. He was going to go mad if he kept thinking about that.

"How do you stay sane?" he asked the other vampire, then wondered if maybe that had been the wrong question to ask, because he'd seen the way Silas acted around Nicolai. There was some evidence to suggest that Silas had lost his mind a long time ago.

Silas picked at a piece of lint on the sheets, as if he wasn't quite sure how to respond. "I... when you stop resisting, then..." He trailed off.

"I don't think I can stop resisting."

"You will," Silas said. "I'm not saying that to be mean. I just know. Because I've been there and... Anyway..." He got up from the bed again. "I just wanted to let you know that it's really not so bad. You'll get through it." He hesitated. "And also, I'll be your friend if you want that. We're brothers now, right?"

"Right." Crimson gave Silas a smile, because what else could he do? It would be good to have a friend in this place.

Even if shaking hands with Silas made him feel like the noose was tightening around his neck.

Then again, after what he'd done to his former friend, he probably deserved that.