Page 83

Gabe

G abe eyed the blood bag in his hands, cool to the touch and almost frosty on the outside from the blood bank’s refrigerators. He’d seen an untold number of these bags in his career in medicine—had ordered them for patients time and again—but he’d never in his life expected to be drinking from one.

Danny was eyeing him sympathetically from his spot in the driver’s seat. “Kind of weird, huh?”

Gabe’s brother had fetched three blood bags in total, leaving Gabe to sit in the parking lot while he did it (“What if you get all hangry and bitey?”). He’d caught the blood bank workers at shift change, only needing to compel one person to look the other way while he pilfered their loot.

Now they were pulled into the parking lot of a small park near Danny’s house, well away from the streetlights. Gabe sighed, running his fingers along the edges of the bag. “‘Weird’ is putting it lightly.”

“We could go back to the house,” Danny offered. “Heat it up. It’ll taste better that way.”

Gabe shook his head. “No. I, uh, want to get it over with.” He also didn’t want to hurt Soren’s feelings if he ended up gagging over the taste. Drinking from Soren had been one thing. Gabe had been lost to lust and pleasure, to the need to claim his mate.

Drinking blood from some random person felt a little different. Gabe was committed to the whole vampire-for-eternity deal, no doubts about it, but he just needed to…sit with it for a minute. The whole blood-drinking thing.

When a minute had turned into five, he glanced at Danny, his younger brother still waiting patiently. “How do I…?”

He hadn’t been making a conscious decision of it before, back in the forest.

Danny looked confused before realizing what it was Gabe was asking. “Ohh. Let your demon out? Just…um, I don’t know…relax? It wants to come out. You just have to let it.”

Relaxing. Cool. Totally Gabe’s strong suit.

He took a deep breath before letting it out slowly.

He focused on the buzzing sensation that had been building under his skin since their return to Danny’s house.

It wasn’t the gut-wrenching need from when he first turned, when Soren had been missing, but it was still a form of…

craving . A kind of hunger Gabe had never felt before, bone-deep and distracting as hell.

He could feel the change as it happened, subtle but unmistakable. His vision sharpened, details in the dark car becoming clear as day. His incisors lengthened. Gabe ran his tongue along each one carefully.

He didn’t look at his brother. He wasn’t ready to see Danny’s reaction to Gabe’s second face. Instead he tore a hole through the blood-filled pouch, taking a small sip.

A noise came out of him, some sort of weird growl.

Danny was right—it probably would have been better warm—but it wasn’t the worst thing Gabe had tasted in his life.

It fulfilled some deep need. Soothed that itchy craving.

Gabe finished the bag in a few greedy gulps.

The buzzing under his skin dampened with each swallow, until it was gone, along with the blood.

“You want more?” Danny asked, holding up a second blood bag.

Gabe shook his head. One had been enough. He wanted to go home.

He wanted Soren.

Gabe… pushed the vampire back inside. He wasn’t sure how he even did it, but it retreated easily enough, satisfied with the blood he’d given it. He could feel its eagerness to return to Soren as well.

“Okay,” Danny said easily, placing the bag back into the mini cooler he’d brought. “We’ll have it in the fridge just in case. And really, you should be okay feeding regularly, if it’s anything like it was for me. Just make sure Soren’s with you your first time.”

“To stop me from going too far?”

“That and, uh…” Danny blushed, shifting in his seat. “Just in case you get…worked up.”

Gabe coughed. “ Oh . Um, okay.” One of the downsides of becoming part of the vampire world was turning out to be all the intimate details he was learning about his brother’s sex life.

Danny laughed awkwardly, then cleared his throat, his eyes on the steering wheel, where he was drawing little invisible patterns. “So you and Soren, huh?”

Gabe sighed happily. “Yeah.”

“I guess it makes sense,” Danny offered up.

Gabe’s brows rose. “It does?” He knew it made sense to him , but he was surprised Danny saw it that way.

“Mm-hmm.” Danny looked up from his invisible drawing. “I’ve never seen you so easily intimidated by someone. I should have realized it was attraction. I just thought you thought he was…creepy.”

Gabe laughed. “Well, I did. Sort of.” He ran a hand over his face, trying to fight back his smile. “But I also thought he was so beautiful it hurt .”

Danny’s dark eyes were searching. “And you’re happy? You didn’t feel pushed into this?” At Gabe’s frown, he rushed on. “I just need to hear it from you, okay? When it’s just us. It was a shock. You have to see that.”

Gabe nodded slowly. He did see. “I mean, circumstances might have pushed me into it, but I would have done it anyway. Eventually. I want him. I want to be with him.”

Danny made a sound of acknowledgment. “You’ve just been so…hesitant…about vampires is all.”

Jesus, Gabe really had been a jerk.

“Well, yeah. I mean, it’s weird as hell.

My own body doesn’t make sense to me anymore.

” He gave Danny a tentative smile. “There’s something special about you, Danny.

That you accepted it so easily. But life is weird.

And scary. And unexpected. I feel like I’ve had the rug pulled out from under me repeatedly since I was a teen.

At least this was my choice. He was my choice. ”

Danny smiled at that. “Well…wow.”

“I’m happy with him.” Gabe shrugged. “He…soothes me.”

“Soothes you?” Danny gave him a questioning look.

Gabe ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. All that jagged anxiety, that nervousness, that fear… It eases up when I’m with him.”

Danny’s face fell in an instant. “Anxiety? Gabe, you never told me…”

Of course Gabe hadn’t. He’d somehow gone through his whole adult life thinking feelings were meant for shoving under the rug. Not for sharing or processing or any of those other supposedly healthy things.

He tried to find the words to explain it. “I just— I thought…I thought I was supposed to be the one looking out for you . The older brother. I didn’t want to worry you; I wanted to take care of you.” He sighed, leaning back against the headrest. “But I fucked that up too.”

Danny hummed, nodding. “Yes, you did.”

Gabe stared at his brother in disbelief. “Asshole,” he accused, voice full of affection.

Danny smiled at him, then gave a little sigh, looking out the car window. “We don’t know each other very well, do we? As adults.”

“Not in some ways, I guess,” Gabe agreed. “That’s my fault too.”

“Well, we’ve got time now,” Danny said. He laughed then, clear and bright. “We’ve got so much fucking time.”

“Yeah.” It was a nice thought. More than nice.

“I want to tell Mom about Soren.” Gabe surprised himself with his own words.

“You do?” The hope and happiness in Danny’s eyes were like a knife to the gut. Gabe had been so resistant to anything involving their mother for so long.

“Yeah.” Gabe nodded. “I know she might not— I know it might not mean anything to her. But it feels…important. To tell her.”

“She’d have liked Soren,” Danny said earnestly. “I mean…before. He would have made her laugh.”

“She might have been confused by it. I never got to tell her I was bi. I don’t know why I waited.”

Danny shrugged. “She wouldn’t have minded. She would have wanted you happy.”

Happiness. It had become such a foreign concept over the years.

“Should we go home to our guys?” Danny asked.

Their guys. Gabe grinned at the thought.

Happiness didn’t feel like such a foreign concept anymore.

Gabe stood in the doorway of his one-bedroom apartment, watching Soren closely as he took it all in for the first time. He’d been intending to stay in Soren’s room again, but Soren had warned him that it could get…uncomfortable.

(“You might find there are drawbacks that come with the combination of excellent vampire hearing and sharing a house with your brother and his insatiable husband.”)

They’d left Danny’s quickly after, promising to come to brunch that weekend. When Gabe had pondered aloud why they were having brunch when now literally none of them needed food to live, Soren had elbowed him in the ribs and told him to hush.

And now Gabe had Soren here. In his home. For the very first time.

Looking around with new eyes at the blank walls and cheap Ikea furniture, Gabe realized it wasn’t much of a home at all. There was no character to it. No sense of comfort. No style. No life .

“Uh-uh,” Soren said from his spot in the living room, crossing his arms. “No way.”

Despite the fact that he’d been thinking literally the same thing, Gabe went on the defensive. “It’s not that bad.”

Soren widened his eyes, waving a hand around himself in demonstration. “It’s tasteless. A ridiculous bachelor pad.” He pointed to the TV area. “You have an Xbox, but you don’t have a single rug .”

Gabe shrugged. Who needed rugs? “My living area wasn’t really a priority before. I worked and worked out and tried not to be here more than necessary.” He walked into the living room, tugging Soren closer when he reached him. “We’ll get a house.”

Soren arched a blond brow. “I choose.”

Gabe wrapped his arms around his mate, pressing a kiss to his neck. “You choose. I’ll get you any house you want.” Gabe could sort of afford it. He was still paying off the massive student loans he’d accrued in med school, but…well, he’d make it work.

Soren shot him a haughty look. “Oh, Highness. No, no, no. I’m the rich one in this relationship. I’m the vampire sugar daddy.”

Gabe’s brow furrowed. “Vampire sugar daddy?”

Soren giggled to himself. “Inside joke. Point is, I pick the house. I buy the house. You just sit there and look pretty.”

Gabe’s frown deepened. “I’m a doctor .”

Soren shrugged. “Be a doctor and look pretty, then.”

Well, Gabe already had that covered, more or less. If Soren wanted to be the big spender in their relationship, Gabe had no qualms about that. He pressed another kiss to Soren’s neck, unable to help himself. “Want me to give you a tour?”

Soren gave a theatrical shudder. “No need. I’m nervous to even see your bedroom. It’s going to be double-digit thread-count sheets and crusty tissues everywhere.”

Gabe sighed. “Once again, I’m a doctor , not a frat boy.”

Soren seemed unconcerned with the distinction. “Just point me to the bathroom. We both need a shower.”

“We bathed in the lake.”

Soren gave him a horrified look. “Good lord, frat boy. That doesn’t count as bathing .”

Just when Gabe had finally gotten used to “Highness.”

“I refuse to let ‘frat boy’ be my new nickname,” Gabe insisted, not proud of the petulance in his voice.

“Like you have a choice.” Soren wiggled out of his hold, tugging on his arm. “Shower now.”

They did, giving each other lazy hand jobs under the hot spray, Gabe reveling in the sensation of giving pleasure to his partner and feeling that pleasure through the bond, his mate’s satisfaction enhancing his own.

No wonder their sex in the woods had been so explosive. It was a whole new level of intimacy.

Soren snarked at him for his scratchy, mismatched towels, but there was little bite to it—Gabe’s vampire was too blissed out postorgasm. Soren was always softest after sex.

They lay on Gabe’s stiff, unyielding sofa afterward, Soren on Gabe’s chest, Gabe running his fingers along every reachable inch of Soren’s soft skin, just to feel it.

“You never wanted anything homier?” Soren asked drowsily.

“I didn’t see the point. It was just me.” Gabe tilted his chin down to look at Soren. “What kind of places did you like to stay in, over the years?”

Soren pursed his lips. “Lavish hotel rooms mostly. I didn’t stay in any one place long enough to want a proper house. Never had roommates either, until here.”

Gabe smirked down at him. “I think you like it. Otherwise, you would have found your own place by now.”

“Finding my own place would have meant acknowledging I didn’t intend to leave,” Soren said seriously.

Gabe was so glad Soren had stayed. He told him so for good measure.

“What do you want now?” Gabe asked. “A mansion?” He could see Soren in some massive old Victorian, waltzing down the stairs in a silk robe and fur overcoat.

Soren looked at him like he was insane. “That would be tacky, in a town like this.” He ducked his head into Gabe’s chest then, a habit he had when he was about to say something he would consider “mushy.” “We could find someplace close to Danny’s,” he muttered. “That might be nice.”

Gabe decided wisely not to tease him about it. “Yeah,” he said simply. “That might be.”

His own apartment was on the other side of town from his brother’s. When he’d moved back to Hyde Park, it hadn’t seemed like a priority to be physically close to his brother’s place. Now he recognized it as just another one of his subconscious avoidance tactics.

Soren hummed in thought. “A little nicer than Danny’s though.”

“Hey,” Gabe protested. “That’s my childhood home.”

Soren giggled. “And your childhood home is little. And quaint.”

“ You’re little and quaint” was Gabe’s super mature response. Take that, vampire.

“I’m little. I’m not quaint ,” Soren said indignantly. “I’m gorgeous and chic and way too good for this town.”

Gabe couldn’t argue with that. He pressed a kiss to Soren’s head. “You are.”

Soren settled down at his easy agreement, burrowing even closer into Gabe’s body. Gabe almost wanted to tease him about being so snuggly, but he didn’t want to give Soren any reason to stop.

Eventually Soren broke the silence. “I never thought I’d let myself belong to anyone again.” He said the words softly, almost as if to himself.

Gabe frowned, his fingers pausing their dance along Soren’s skin. “You don’t belong to me.”

Soren shrugged one delicate shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

Gabe did know. But still…

“If it makes you feel better, tell yourself I belong to you . I don’t mind that.”

He watched in delight as the tips of Soren’s ears reddened. “I guess we can both belong to each other,” Soren said eventually, mumbling the words into Gabe’s chest again.

Gabe could definitely live with that.

He rubbed his nose into Soren’s soft hair, breathing him in. And then, because he could, he said, “I love you, brat.”

“Ditto.”

“Did you just Ghost me?”

Soren giggled. “Such a good movie.”

Much later in the night, a whispered “I love you too” came from Gabe’s chest region.

Yeah, happiness was definitely not a foreign concept anymore.