Page 35 of Missing Piece (Neon Scars #2)

W hen Vincent woke up still holding Adam in his arms, he noticed his human’s face was somehow at peace, even among a constellation of bruises.

The only thing he felt was a strange calm.

The discomfort and dissatisfaction he had spent years avoiding giving a name to were gone for that brief moment.

If he had only closed his eyes and continued to breathe in Adam’s scent to lull himself back to an unneeded sleep, he could have reveled in that bliss a little longer.

But then uncertainty crept in and forced him to take in the scene in its entirety.

The room smelled of alcohol and sex, and the human that had wormed his way, however unwittingly, into his heart was curled up so beautifully amongst sweaty, blood-stained sheets, several stitches torn in his back and smeared with dried blood.

How much of what had happened between them was the alcohol? He had never experienced a human being the aggressor like that….

Or was that whole display just his own lack of control? How would Adam react when he woke up?

Why was his heart thumping behind his sternum so hard it hurt?

He had to step out to clear his head.

Vincent’s bare feet crunched the gravel outside the farmhouse, his steps tracing a restless path.

The cool October air bit at his skin, but it did nothing to soothe him.

His hands raked through his hair, a futile attempt to untangle the knots in his mind.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he mumbled to himself as another text chimed from the burner phone—the sixth one that hour. He ignored it.

We claimed him. He’s ours now. The beast seemed far away, almost sleepy and diminished. Delicious. Warm. Willing.

Vincent looked down at his own hands, his jaw taut as he tried to recall if he had used his ability accidentally before Adam jumped on top of him.

In the early days of learning how to control himself, even the faintest lewd thought would trigger the warming of his hands and an accidental brush of his fingertips could render a human into a quivering puddle of desire.

But he had mastered the ability when he tamed his beast.

Well, when he thought he’d tamed it.

Did I let it slip? Did I want to let it slip?

A wave of rare nausea washed over him. Had he become a monster like his maker?

He dug his nails into his palms as he balled his fists, faint memories brushing at the edge of his consciousness that made his lower back ache—his maker’s hands, the chains, the way pain had been disguised as teaching.

Not the same. You asked permission. Maker did not. The beast was louder, agitated as it batted the memories away and flooded his mind with the sensation of Adam’s body against his.

He clung to that distinction as his pacing resumed, more agitated than before as the rocks and gravel dug into his feet.

Vincent knew what he needed to do. But how could he?

He had already set the tone of their interactions when he drugged the human and tried to have a second chance at glory days that he no longer found glorious.

If given the chance, free from threat and violence…Adam would reject him.

He couldn’t risk it.

The device in his pocket vibrated again. Richard. Vincent ignored it, the relentless alerts a physical manifestation of the other vampire’s taunts. Another buzz. And another. He pulled the burner phone out, the small screen flashing with Richard’s name.

LeBlanc : You must have a lot of questions. Let’s have a chat.

LeBlanc : Surely you can’t be ignoring me for that sad little toy of yours. Just break his legs if you’re worried he’ll escape.

LeBlanc : Whatever you think of me, allow me the opportunity to explain. I think once we have a chance to clear the air, everything will make more sense.

LeBlanc : Mr. Bellenger, I have waited a long time and traveled a long way to meet with you. It is in your best interest to hear what I have to say.

LeBlanc : Don’t make me come to you.

LeBlanc : You won’t like the results.

The beast clawed at his insides, demanding blood, demanding they hunt down such an arrogant creature who dared threaten them. Kill him. Rip his throat out. Show him why they feared us.

His old self would have already hunted Richard down, would have torn through his followers like paper and painted the walls with their blood. The Vincent of decades past never would have allowed such disrespect to go unchallenged.

But that version of him hadn’t known peace.

Hadn’t felt the weight of a human’s head against his chest or experienced the strange warmth that came from caring for another being.

The quiet life he’d built here, the freedom to only don a mask of ruthless strength when he wanted, had given him space to breathe, to think, to feel something beyond rage and hunger.

Weak. Soft. They see it.

The phone continued its insistent alerts.

Vincent stared at Richard’s name on the screen, his jaw working as he wrestled with his instincts.

His beast was right about one thing: his reputation had suffered during his self-imposed exile.

Perhaps that’s why Richard felt bold enough to make his move now.

They don’t speak of our cruelty anymore.

Without fully processing the decision, his thumb swiped across the screen.

“What do you want?”

“Mr. Bellenger, you finally grace me with a second from your well of time,” Richard said.

“You have thirty seconds. Go.”

“Whatever you think you know about me, do yourself a favor and dispose of that notion. Once we have a chance to really talk face-to-face, you’ll see that we have much more in common than you realize—”

“You’re really wasting time on this? Twenty seconds left.”

Richard sighed. “I see you’re still as defiant and rude as ever.”

Vincent stopped pacing. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know, I had considered gettin’ your attention other ways.

I could have sent letters, could have just shown up at your door.

But I wanted you to see what I’d built, what I’d accomplished.

All the wonderful things I heard about the great Vincent Bellenger, I thought you’d be impressed.

Every person I asked for a story about you tended to end with the words, and I quote, ‘fuck Vincent Bellenger’.

I thought you’d appreciate my flavor of defiance against those stuffy old city vamps, but it appears I was wrong in my estimation. ”

“You’re using a lot of words to say a whole lot of nothing.” Vincent scanned his surroundings as he made his way back up to the front door, unease making its way into his already roiling emotions. The farmhouse’s windows glowed warmly in the darkness, a reminder of what he stood to lose.

“How ‘bout this? I let you set the time and place and we have us a quick chat. We can meet at that fine den of sin you run on the county line, or we can meet at that lovely farmhouse—”

“The fuck you will,” Vincent snapped. “I don’t care what you have to say to me. I’m not interested. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing, you can say to me that will make me want to hear you out. Do yourself a favor and get the fuck out of my territory.”

His grip on the phone tightened as silence fell on Richard’s end. The beast paced beneath his skin, restless and hungry for violence. The wooden floorboards creaked under his feet as he stepped back inside the farmhouse.

He is a threat to our power. To our human. Kill him. Shred him. Make them all afraid again.

“Now, now, Mr. Bellenger, there’s no need for that kind of language—”

“Do you not get it? If I hear from you again, I will nail you to the fucking ground and peel off your goddamn eyelids so you can watch the sun come up. Leave. Us. Alone.” Vincent knew he was losing control over the beast, but he didn’t care.

“My, my, that’s quite the threat, now isn’t it?”

“Your thirty seconds was up a while ago. Are you done?” Vincent kept his tone steady in spite of his frayed patience.

“All this hostility over a few humans? I thought you’d outgrown such…sentimentality. The Order teaches us that attachments to mortals only weaken us, but between you and me, Vincent, and we can speak freely here, I think you and I both know there are more important things than ideology, don’t we?”

Richard’s voice shifted, becoming slick with amusement.

“Then again, I suppose we can do this the hard way. If you don’t agree to meet me when I’ve already conceded to time and place, then I’m afraid this could be a painful experience when we do finally meet.

This wouldn’t be your first time finding freedom and purpose through pain, now would it? ”

The words hit Vincent like a physical blow. His stomach twisted as fragments of memory flickered through his mind—chains, blood, screams that might have been his own. The beast snarled in his head, pushing past those memories with a singular demand: Kill.

“What did you just say to me?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, a moment that seemed to stretch into an eternity, before Richard’s reply came through with a finality that made Vincent’s insides churn.

“Goodbye, Mr. Bellenger. I’ll see you soon.”

The line went dead.

Vincent stood motionless, his hand still gripping the phone as if it were Richard’s throat.

* * *

Find him first, the beast insisted, pushing against Vincent’s control.

I need to calm down. Vincent made his way into the room Adam had previously occupied, a strange tightness in his throat when he eyed the chains still coiled on the bed.

He hesitated for a moment before sitting in the same spot he usually occupied when he would sneak in to watch Adam breathe.

He ran his fingers over the chain, the metal cool and familiar against his skin.

Would it be possible to start over?

A knock on the open door kept his mind from wandering too deep.

Luka leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest and eyebrows raised.

Matteo stood beside him holding the box of medical supplies, his face ashen, the circles beneath his eyes a slightly deeper shade of purple than they had been the day before.

?You know he has a little lock pick hidden inside the pillowcase, right?? Luka signed.

“I do,” Vincent said, a wry smile working its way onto his face.

He had found it right away the night he first discovered he could no longer resist the desire to kiss the human, after Adam had fallen asleep.

He had snuck in to make sure Adam was not too cold and saw that he was having some sort of nightmare, drenched in sweat and his normally grumpy face contorted into a mask of sadness.

He wasn’t even looking for contraband then, he just felt an overwhelming urge to lay beside Adam and hold him.

Past Vincent would have tormented a trial with it, using it to pry out an eye or pop off a toenail or two. But now? All he could think was how clever his human was.

?Adam is cleaned up and stitched again, and I gave him an antibiotic in case all that ‘exercise’ you did causes any issues. He’s in good spirits,? Luka signed. He paused, his hands neutral for a moment as though there was something else he wanted to say.

“Yes?”

Luka shrugged. ?I was going to ask how the sex was—?

“Shut the fuck up.”

Luka started to sign a response, but Vincent’s was distracted by Matteo.

His usual gentle expression was replaced with a vacant stare, his eyes pitch black, fixed on the inside of the medical box.

Vincent recognized the look: the glazed-over eyes, the subtle tremble in Matteo’s hands.

It was the look of a starving predator on the brink of losing control.

Going to snap, the beast murmured, a low rumble in the back of Vincent’s mind. Soon.

Even Vincent, who had often been annoyed by Matteo’s aversion to blood bags and the lengths Luka went to in order to keep his twin fed, felt a pang of sorrow.

Luka moved with practiced speed, snatching the box from his twin’s grip and setting it aside. He cupped Matteo’s face between his palms, forcing their eyes to meet in that peculiar way they had.

After a moment, the blackness in Matteo’s eyes receded, replaced by confusion. He blinked a few times, as if waking from a dream, then his hands moved. ?I’m okay.?

?No, you’re not.? Luka glanced at Vincent, his brow furrowed with concern. ?I’ll try and fix this. You take care of Adam.?

Vincent watched them go, his mind cycling between Adam sleeping vulnerable upstairs, Richard’s threats, and Matteo’s deteriorating control. Too many variables. Too many ways to lose everything.