Page 107 of Total Creative Control

“Any time,” Faolán says softly, hiding his pleased smile.

Lewis swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat.

Skye was him. Aaron was writinghim.

He clicked into the next story without even registering the title. This was a longer one that started in Skye’s point of view.

As he read, his stomach knotted, heart thudding hard.

Skye kept to the shadows because shadows were all he deserved—the bright lights of fame and fortune were for others, for those who had lived unstained lives. For the blameless.

Then, later:

“What’s wrong with hot chocolate? It reminds me of happier times.”

In truth, it reminded him of home, of the summer heat of Rosenhelm in the years before his turning. And of his mother, who had died defending him. Not that he’d ever confess as much to a human like Faolán...

And finally:

Skye had become a man before his time, on that dark night when his world had been torn apart and he’d woken to a crimson dawn with his family slain and the blood of monsters running through his veins. The night that had changed him forever, and that haunted him still.

It was as if Aaron had looked through Skye and seen Lewis, seen the parts of him he hid from the world but that bled onto the pages of his scripts and into Skye Jäger.

Seen him more clearly than he’d ever been seen before.

I think I know you very well, Lewis. And you know me...

He was jolted from the story and his thoughts by the shrill ringing of his phone from the kitchen.

Charlie, again. Fuck.

Lewis stumbled into the kitchen and snatched the phone off the counter. “Isn’t it the middle of the fucking night over there?”

“Lewis, there you are.” Charlie’s tinny voice buzzed down the line like a wasp, his displeasure clear. “Didn’t you get my messages?”

“It’s Saturday morning,” Lewis said, by way of an answer.

“And that’s why we pay you the big bucks!”

Telling himself to stay calm, not to react, Lewis prowled back into the living room. “What do you need, Charlie? I’m busy.”

A chilly silence. Then, “I’ve had some fantastic ideas about tackling really serious LGBTQIA+ issues. Well, credit where credit’s due, it was Mils who came up with this idea. I adore the way women think. So empathetic. And don’t you justlovecracking open the glass ceiling for them? Anyway, Mils was thinking that with the gay vamp character, what if he’d literally been hanged for being gay? Like two hundred years ago, he’d been caught in the act, and—”

“Nope,” Lewis said, cutting him off.

A disgruntled pause. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not creating a gay character who’s been executed because of his sexuality. That still happens in the world in case you weren’t aware. It’s not fucking entertainment.”

Stiffly, Charlie said, “Well, what Mils was thinking—and obviously, it’sheridea, not mine—was that this would be a way to use our platform to highlight—”

“I said no, I’m not doing it. You want to tackle that issue, make a documentary. Was there anything else?”

After a silence, Charlie said, “Yes, actually. I commissioned some audience insight work, which has beenamazinglyuseful, and as a result, we’re going to change Faolán’s name to Harker. It got a much stronger response for ‘masculinity’ and ‘capability’ among the 25-35 male demographic.”

Lewis closed his eyes, locking his jaw against a curse. “Let me guess, because it sounds lessgay?”

“What? God, no. Jesus, Lewis, the idea hadn’t even occurred to me.” And now he sounded smug. “Harker is actually a reference to Jonathan Harker from—”