Feral Darlings

Supper

“We don’t even have any food!” Mal grumbled as he stalked into what passed for the kitchen.

Immortals had no need for rooms to prepare human food, so the expansive metal space that had once catered to the military was largely unused and gathering dust. Ezra, though, had said there were tins of food and long-life biscuits that had been abandoned by the military. He found an unopened packet of cookies and placed them on a tray as he filled the kettle.

“Why am I the one doing this?”

Mal posed the question to the empty space as the kettle whirred into life, recalling his brown-haired lover. It had been Ezra on his knees earlier. Ezra who’d sucked Mal’s cock dry, and Ezra who’d brought the woman there, so why shouldn’t it be him in the kitchen tending to her?

“Because he was so keen to stay with the human.”

Ezra had practically commanded his ‘pale god’ to bring her supplies.

“He wants to soften her up.” His tone was reproachful. “Ezra never did like taking anything by force.”

Mal’s lips curled as the water boiled. Such tolerance wasn’t a problem he’d ever suffered from. While he rarely took pleasure in the hunt anymore, he’d earned quite the reputation for his sadism in the past.

“That’s why I gave up on women.” Finding an old teabag, he shoved it in a clean cup and covered it with hot water. There was no milk, so their little guest would just have to make do.

Women were too easy prey. They folded when they might have fled and screamed when they should have been running. Men, at least, offered him a hint of a challenge, although the idea that any mortal could outrun him was laughable.

Carrying the tray of tea and cookies out of the large kitchen, he considered the woman Ezra had brought home. Mal could see the logic in feeding her. Her blood would taste much better once she’d eaten, and keeping her sugar levels high would give them the possibility of keeping her alive, so they could enjoy her for longer, but he couldn’t abide foolish sentimentality. Toni was food—whatever Ezra might think.

Approaching the room where Ezra and Toni were, Mal paused and listened. His vampiric life had blessed him with a great many assets including a heightened sense of both sight and hearing. He didn’t need to strain to overhear Ezra’s conversation.

“I know you’re scared, Toni.” Ezra’s tone was soft as he attempted to mollify her.

Mal’s jaw tightened. There was no need for either of them to pacify the tiny mortal, but then, that was Ezra. Towering at well over six feet in height, and with a well-built body, Ezra didn’t need to placate anyone. But he bent to Mal’s will whenever he was instructed to. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to. However strapping he was, Ezra reveled in his submission to Mal, and Mal had relished the many decades his lover had succumbed.

That was Toni’s fate—to be food for the two imposing vampires, and whether she believed in the divine or not, he and Ezra were gods as far as she was concerned. Ezra could do anything he wanted to overcome her. He had both the brute strength and the charisma, but instead, he chose velvet words.

“What are you going to do to me?” Toni’s voice trembled.

“How are we doing in here?” Mal carried the tray over the threshold, interrupting Ezra and Toni’s interaction.

Ezra glanced up. He was still there, sitting beside the human, still imitating a far lesser being than he truly was.

“Toni’s a little worried.” Ezra’s brow rose.

“Is she?” Mal wanted to laugh.

Toni had good fucking reasons to be worried. Mal hadn’t sought the unexpected meal she presented, but knowing she was there had awoken his primal craving. The hunger for human blood, so easily ignored before, was loud and raw again. It pulsed behind Mal’s eyes; a destiny yearning to be fulfilled. Placing the tray down by Ezra’s thigh, he had to physically restrain himself from launching at the same pulse throbbing in her neck that had previously indicated she was alive.

“Please just let me go.” Toni was in tears as Mal settled on the couch.

“Go?’ Mal snorted. “Go where?”

“Heading outside is not a good idea.” Ezra’s tone was haughtier than before, but he still maintained that soft, insistent resonance. “You know what happened to you before.”

“I’ll walk!” she countered futilely.

The human was pitiful. Mal couldn’t resist his disdainful reproach. “You’ll die before you even make it a mile from here.”

Her brow furrowed, but before she could speak, Ezra interjected.

“We’re nowhere near your camp, Toni. I took you away from there.”

“So where am I?” Her anxious gaze flitted between the two of them.

“Hundreds of miles away.” Mal was fast getting bored with the conversation.

“What?” Toni’s eyes were as large as saucers. “H-how can that be right? You can’t have carried me for hundreds of miles.”

“You haven’t told her, then?” Mal directed the query to Ezra.

Of course he hadn’t.

“Told me what?” she asked before Ezra could reply.

“Who we are,” Ezra answered quickly.

“ What we are,” Mal corrected. “There’s a hierarchy in this big, bad world, Toni, and we’re top of the food chain.”