Page 147 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“Let’s go to bed.”

Henry’s room was next to Will’s. It looked just like Lorien had imagined it would. It was neatly laid out with very little in the way of excess… “mmmpph,” Lorien lost the ability to observe decor as Henry claimed him in another one of those dominant kisses.

They stripped the clothing from one another. Henry’s clothing was never nice because it was always getting torn when he shifted. It tore again now under Lorien’s eager hands. He bared his lover, uncovering a muscular form covered in tattoos and more than a few scars.

“Alphas take damage,” Henry said by way of explanation.

“So do vampires,” Lorien said. When absolutely naked, he bore some scars as well. The one at his neck was already known. Then there were three Luger marks across his chest where the bullets had torn through him.

“War wounds?” Henry reached out, hesitantly.

“I was not a good spy,” Lorien admitted.

“Tell me what happened?” Henry made it a question, and for that reason alone, Lorien answered him.

“I was behind enemy lines, with the Germans when I muddled the words schnitzel and shützen. I told them I was a meat soldier. Might have gotten away with that, but a second later I banged my knee on the desk and cursed in fluent English. Gave myself away in less than two seconds. Then…” he gestured to his chest. “The first time I died.”

Ninety years ago…

Lorien opened his eyes to the moon. He was dreadfully cold, all the way to the very middle of himself. “Is it not done yet? Am I still dying.”

“Oh no, sweet boy. You're coming through the other side.”

At first, he couldn’t see the speaker, but he liked the sound of the man’s voice. It was soothing in a way not many voices had been lately, the harsh guttural staccato of an impromptu German firing squad did little to soothe the nerves. God bless an American accent, even though this one did have a certain foreign lilt.

“The other side of what?” Lorien asked the question but did not receive an answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” he said.

“You're still there?”

“I’m not leaving you.”

The reassurance was enough for Lorien to relax, though he was still swept up in the strangeness of it all. After a time, his eyes started to adjust. There was a handsome man dressed in an officer’s uniform crouched over him. The dark eyed man brushed his hair back from his head tenderly.

“You’re going to survive,” he said. “Not as you were, but as something better.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Lorien said. He was beginning to become quite emotional. He’d held it together for the execution, his execution, but now he was confused and cold and… “I want to go home,” Lorien cried. “I want to see my mother.”

He was nearly thirty, but the cold hand of eternity had gripped him by the neck and he had known it was all over. Why wasn’t it over?

“Shh,” the man soothed him. “You’re going to feel so much better soon, my brave soldier. You’re going to feel new life flowing through your veins. It just takes time. Sleep now. Close your eyes and surrender.”

Lorien had a flash of memory. His last memory. Cruel faces and the dark voids of small handguns pointed at me. He'd closed his eyes, thinking it would be the last time, all pain and struggle being over. He’d been wrong.

“I did that once before,” Lorien said. “I don’t think I will do that again.”

The man above him let out a rich chuckle. “You are going to be one of the difficult ones, aren’t you.”

“Probably,” Lorien agreed. He closed his eyes in spite of himself and slid back into the cold sleep of the newly damned.

“If not for Maddox, I would have died,” Lorien explained. “A second time. If I’d been left as I was, I would have gone feral and mad and… I owe him almost everything.”

“He turned you?”

“No. Someone else did. I don’t even remember them. I think it was a woman, but sometimes I am not so sure. My memories of that time are faded and confused. Maddox stepped in and made sure I didn’t go mad and turn feral. There was a lot of predation and scavenging going on in the midst of that war.”