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He had only the vaguest recollection of them leaving the hospital itself.

Fuzzy images of fluorescent hallways, a blurry memory of Danny taking his work phone to give to Gabe in the parking lot.

They’d passed some kid in the hallway—and really, who was letting their kid wander around the hospital unsupervised?

—who’d looked weirdly horrified, which didn’t bode well for what Eric must have looked like.

But mostly what he remembered of the last fifteen minutes was the strong, comforting presence of Wolfe’s hand gripping his upper arm to guide him out, coupled with the terrifying looks the vampire had given to anyone who seemed the slightest bit likely to get in their way.

Eric had asked the question partly because he was curious—had Wolfe simply tired of giving him the pretense of freedom?—but mostly because he wasn’t ready to go in yet, to admit fully that he’d taken one meager shot at independence and ended up falling flat on his fanged face.

“I felt your distress.” Wolfe kept his eyes straight ahead, on the house in front of them. “I’d been feeling it since the moment you left, of course, but about an hour ago, it started to…peak. So I called your nurse friend and I came.”

Eric stared at him, at those sharp cheekbones, that aristocratic profile.

Wolfe said it like it was so simple. Eric had needed him, so he had come, without Eric even having to ask. No begging, not this time.

A memory came to Eric then. A two-week leadership camp he’d been shuttled off to between his sophomore and junior years of high school.

A few days in and he’d started having nausea and abdominal pain.

The nurse had told him he was only homesick, so he’d called his mother instead.

Told her he needed to come home, to go to the doctor.

She’d refused. She’d refused for three straight days.

What he’d actually needed, according to her, was that camp on his college applications.

The pain had finally grown to such an intensity that the camp nurse sent him to the ER.

It had been appendicitis. All the surgical consents had had to be signed over the phone because his mother couldn’t “just drop everything and be there in an hour.”

He’d woken up in recovery alone.

“Why this sadness, pet? You wish I had not come?”

Eric refocused his eyes to see Wolfe had turned to look at him, his head cocked.

He didn’t know what to say. He wished he regretted Wolfe coming to pick him up, wished he weren’t grateful to the very person who’d put him in this position in the first place. The fatigue he’d been feeling ever since he’d woken up was heavier than ever.

If this was what being a vampire felt like, then frankly, it sucked.

Eric pressed a palm against his forehead. “What am I going to do? We can’t be apart for half a day.”

Wolfe seemed to debate with himself for a minute, a strange stillness taking over his face.

Then he sighed, shaking his head softly.

“As lovely as it would be to have you thinking you need me so desperately, I’m afraid it won’t always be like this.

You’re newly turned; we’re…at odds. It’s all very unstable. ”

Unstable was right. “So what do we do?”

Wolfe arched a brow. “We bond.”

He said it so simply, like it was the easiest thing. Like Eric had any experience at all building a relationship that lasted for more than a few hurried, sweaty hours. “ How ?”

“How does any new relationship grow?” Wolfe waved a hand in the air. “Time spent together, conversation.” His eyes gleamed with a wicked glint. “Sex.”

A shock of arousal hit Eric in the belly, the fog of his fatigue shredding apart in an instant. Just like that, he was hardening in his scrubs.

What the fuck?

The unexpected arousal to such a simple word made him petulant again. “But I need to work,” he insisted.

Wolfe’s jaw ticked. “As I told you before, you don’t.”

“But I want to work?” It came out like a question.

Wolfe narrowed his eyes at him, obviously latching onto the uncertainty embedded in Eric’s insistence, before leaning across the console, unbuckling Eric’s seat belt. “Our first conversation to be had, then. Which we will have inside, in the comfort of our home.”

Again, he said it so simply. Our home.

And Eric just…followed him inside. Docile as a lamb. He watched as Wolfe selected (after very careful consideration, picking up and then replacing bottle after bottle) a suitable wine, fetched two long-stemmed glasses, and ushered him up to what Eric had started to think of as his bedroom.

Wolfe set the wine and glasses down on the bedside table, sat on the edge of the bed, and patted the spot beside him. “Sit, darling.”

Eric sat.

Wolfe poured the wine with all the flair of a fine restaurant’s best sommelier. “So. Why do you feel you need to work? Because if it’s a matter of money, we have enough.”

Eric tried to think, to find the words. He came up miserably short. “It’s just…what I do?”

“And they can’t survive without you for a few days? If it’s a matter of not losing your position long-term, it’s simple enough to compel whomever necessary into giving you short-term medical leave.”

Eric was having trouble focusing. Wolfe was here with him, and it was better than when he wasn’t, but it still wasn’t quite right. He shook his head, frustrated. “No, no. They can survive. It’s not like I’m the best.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Far from it.”

“Are you a terrible doctor, then?” Wolfe asked the question mildly, like it didn’t matter one way or another to him what Eric’s answer was.

But Eric couldn’t answer him. He was thinking maybe he should be in Wolfe’s lap. That would be better, right? Then he could nuzzle his head right there, at the crook of Wolfe’s neck, where that stupid suit stopped covering his skin, and breathe him in properly.

But that would be crazy. He had at least an inch and probably forty pounds on the guy; Eric couldn’t just ask to be held like a little baby.

“CanIholdyourhand?” The question fell out of his mouth before he could stop it, all jumbled up into a single word. But it was hard to be embarrassed when fierce satisfaction gleamed red in Wolfe’s eyes at the request.

“Of course, darling.” Wolfe turned the hand closest to Eric palm up in invitation. “You can touch me whenever and however you like.”

Eric grabbed at the offered hand. Took a deep breath. Scooted closer to Wolfe after all.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. His head felt infinitesimally clearer.

Wolfe took a slow sip of his wine with his free hand. “So you’re a bad doctor.” Again, he said it so mildly.

“No.” Eric swayed a little toward Wolfe, righted himself back up immediately. “I’m just not very good.”

“I see.” Wolfe offered the other glass to Eric, set it back down when he shook his head in refusal. “Do you lose an above average number of patients?”

“No.”

“Get an unusual number of complaints from your nurses?”

“No.”

“You’re not advancing in your career as you should?”

“I just don’t…care enough,” Eric concluded, fully pathetic.

“Pardon?” For the first time that afternoon, Wolfe sounded genuinely surprised.

“I don’t care like I should. I only went into all this because it’s what my parents steered me toward.

I’ve seen some doctors—like King, he can get really worked up after losing a patient.

Really despondent. I never get that way.

I just—I shake it off. I don’t think about them afterward.

I don’t beat myself up. And I fucking hate comforting the families.

I just feel like a fake, unfeeling asshole. ”

“Most of that sounds like healthy compartmentalization to me. I’d say it’s more likely your Dr. Kingman puts himself at risk for burnout.” Wolfe took another sip of his wine. “Makes him the worse doctor in my opinion.”

Eric laughed in surprise. “You can’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Everyone loves King. He’s very…” Eric waved his free hand in the air, trying to find the word. “Likable.”

Wolfe set his wine glass aside, huffing dismissively. “I don’t see anything very special about him.”

Meaning Wolfe saw something special about Eric?

Or did the fact that they were fated make him special enough, no matter what he was like underneath?

The thought should piss Eric off, but it was weirdly comforting.

He didn’t have to be good, or perfect, or friendly, or nice. His existence was enough for Wolfe.

How strangely freeing.

He sighed, placing their joined hands on his lap, toying with Wolfe’s long, elegant fingers.

If it didn’t matter what he was like—if Wolfe was going to accept him no matter what—he might as well get it all out.

“I was a really shitty doctor today, probably, but all I can seem to care about is my own shit. And when Danny first told me I had to drink human blood, I didn’t even think about killing people.

I was only thinking about myself. I think something’s wrong with me. Like I lack an empathy chip.”

“Mm.” Wolfe seemed to take that in without judgment, as he did everything Eric said. Then he smirked. “Do you think I sit around fretting over my lack of empathy?”

“I don’t know, do you?”

“I most certainly don’t. There’s nothing wrong with you, Eric.

Maybe you’re selfish.” He shrugged a shoulder.

“I find most people are. If I had to do the job you do, I would last barely an hour before murdering every patient on my caseload and fleeing into the night, off to find a better use of my time.”

It was a horrifying statement, so why couldn’t Eric find it in himself to be horrified?

Eric’s head found its way onto Wolfe’s shoulder, like it had a mind of its own. He didn’t have the will to pick it back up. “If you lack empathy, why are you being so comforting right now?”

Wolfe’s head came to rest on top of his. “But I’m not. I’m only speaking logically. It’s just your anxieties happen to be very illogical.”

What a dick.

“But you came for me, when I needed you.”

“I take care of what’s mine. And you’re mine, Eric. You may take your time to adjust, you may throw fits or try to hide in your work or deny it all completely, but you’re already mine. You have been since the moment I laid eyes on you.”

The thought was overwhelming, mainly in how appealing it was. That new beast inside him surged in agreement, a strange feeling like a cat’s purr rumbling in Eric’s chest.

He forced himself to let go of that hand, to stand up from the bed. “I’m going to shower again. I feel all grimy from the hospital.”

And he needed space. For just a minute, even if it was painful.

Because he was realizing fully that this was real.

This was happening: he was bonded to a vampire he didn’t know, who drew him in and frightened him with his intensity in equal measure.

Who claimed he didn’t know how to care, not in the traditional sense, but was still there when Eric needed him.

And while Eric wasn’t perfect—wasn’t even very good—he wasn’t a complete coward.

He was going to shower. He was going to take some deep, steady breaths before possibly screaming into a towel. And then he was going to get this vampire’s hands all over him.

They were going to bond , goddamn it.