Page 45 of Love Bleeds

Collin looked a bit unsure as he turned back to the cabinet to get glasses for everyone. "It's just... I don't know how much you remember about your time as human. You said it wasn't much so you might not remember that Luke is straight and I thought you should know."

Crimson's thoughts screeched to a halt. Luke was straight? No, that couldn't be right. If he was, why would he have kissed Crimson?

Maybe this was something Luke was hiding from his siblings?

He couldn't explain why Luke would hide his sexuality from his gay brother, though.

All he knew was that he'd kissed Luke, and Luke had kissed him back.

"Look," Collin said. "I don't know what's going on with you two, and whatever it is, it's your business, but I don't want you to accidentally pressure him into anything he's not comfortable with because you don't realize that your relationship was strictly platonic before."

Crimson nodded, even as his brain scrambled to process Collin's words. He'd been so sure that his relationship with Luke had been more than platonic.

And now his sire's words made a lot more sense.Someone who didn't deserve you.Had he said that because Luke had never responded to Crimson's feelings? He grinded his teeth. He couldn't help it. Thoughts of his sire made him feel tense all over. It didn't matter what Nicolai thought. He'd only been trying to mold him into something like Silas.

Crimson shuddered.

"I'm not going to do anything to Luke that he doesn't want me to do," he promised, if only to direct his own thoughts away from Nicolai. "Thank you for telling me."

"You don't have to thank me for that." Collin handed Crimson a stack of forks and knives to place next to the plates. "Just... Be careful, okay?"

Crimson nodded again. Of course he would be. He never wanted to do anything to pressure Luke. That wasn't the kind of person he was. Not now, and obviously not back when he'd been able to produce his own blood rather than being forced to feed on that of strangers.

As he helped Collin set the rest of the table, he only hoped that he hadn'talreadydone something that Luke wasn't comfortable with. What if Luke was truly straight? What if it was just his guilty conscience that made him want to be something else for Crimson?

Crimson's stomach clenched at the thought of Luke touching him out of some misplaced sense of pity.

He needed to talk to Luke, and soon, but people were streaming into the dining room now. So many people. Crimson got the feeling that he might have known some of them in his past life, but they were all strangers to him now. It wouldn't have been so bad if the same had been true the other way around, but they looked at him with recognition in their eyes. Recognition and a sense of sadness for what he had become.

That part was hard to swallow.

Crimson wasn't happy that he'd been turned either, but he'd made... well, he hadn't exactly made his peace with the fact, but he'd accepted his new reality as unchangeable fact, as an objective truth, no matter how inexplicable it appeared. Having his fate questioned by other people time and time again, though… that was tough.

So he sat in a chair at the dining room table and tried not to catch anyone's eye until Luke entered the room. Just looking at him, up and walking, a smile tugged at Crimson's lips.

No matter what anyone in the room thought, for Luke's safety, becoming a vampire had been worth it.

Even if Luke might never feel the same way for him.

As his friend sat in the chair next to him and Crimson suppressed the urge to reach for his hand, he knew this was another objective truth he'd accepted a long time ago. He wasn't going to mope over the fact that Luke might be straight. Instead, he would count himself lucky that he'd gotten to kiss Luke at all. If those few kisses were all he was ever going to get, he would cherish their memory forever.

He would love Luke any way that Luke let him, and he would never ask for more.