The Baritone’s Rival (The Vampire Impresario #2)

19. Oscar

Chapter 19

Oscar

T here were few signs that the old building had once been a church. Other than the steeple-like transom over the door and the two stained glass windows, it blended seamlessly into the city block. This was the third night Oscar and Lillian had sat across the street. Their vantage point was a long-shuttered yoga studio. It still smelled of incense and sweat.

Lillian was some kind of monster, and not because she was a vampire. She could sit there staring for hours at a time without moving or speaking. After half an hour, Oscar would get antsy and pace around the room.

Tonight was no different. They’d arrived at dusk, and now it was nine o’clock. For the third night in a row, no one had gone in or out.

“Who’s watching Trent?” Oscar asked, desperate to fill the silence.

“I thought you didn’t want to hear about him,” Lillian answered without taking her eyes off her target.

“I…I was just checking in. I assumed you put someone on it.”

“Alan and Pip.”

“Oh. Good.” Alan and Pip were two vampire brothers that had come over from the London coven. They’d been recommended by Freddie’s old coven master to beef up security. They seemed nice, if a little bro-ey for Oscar’s tastes.

He couldn’t be annoyed at Lillian providing the bare minimum of information, considering that he’d asked to be kept out of it. Even so, he was unable to tamp down the instinctual need to check in on Trent, to make sure he was safe. That would probably never go away.

“Maybe Justin was lying about where the covenhouse is,” Oscar said, changing the subject. “Why would vampires choose to live in Canarsie, of all places?”

“Because the Azarian coven was gone, and their old covenhouse was taken over by a bunch of Brits.”

“Hey!” Oscar pursed his lips. The Grosvenor coven wasn’t just from the UK, even if Freddie and Lillian started it.

“And a few annoying Americans.” Lillian reached out and smacked Oscar on the arm. It stung, but he didn’t mind. It snapped him into the present moment.

“How many nights are we going to sit here and stare at an empty building?” Oscar stretched his arms over his head, fighting off a yawn.

Lillian sighed, staring a little longer at the old church.

“No more. Come on.” Lillian jumped up, heading to the door, the hardwood floor creaking as she stepped. Oscar trailed behind, glad to be out of the rank studio. Their vampire senses meant that he could detect every scent each sweaty aspiring yogi had left behind in the room. It was embedded in the architecture. He needed a break from the stench.

They bounded down the stairs and out to the first floor, stepping onto the sidewalk from the narrow hallway. Standing next to each other, they drank in the sight of the old sanctuary. The facade was a deep red brick, matching the rest of the block, and no light spilled out from the two large stained-glass windows. Without illumination from behind, Oscar couldn’t decipher what they depicted. All he could see were human figures with halos.

Halos. There were no angels, not in his life. Instead, it was just shades of hurt and anger. Elliott was proof of that. And Trent…

Oscar should let him go. That would be smart. There were too many obstacles: he was human, he was straight, he was competition. Yet the one encounter with Trent, before it was rudely interrupted by his ex, had been exciting. Emotional, even. It wasn’t a typical hookup, and Oscar didn’t know what to do with that.

He also didn’t know if he could let Trent go. His demon inside would push to be near him. At the very least, he’d have to be in the same city, or he’d be in literal pain. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his long life trailing behind the mate that rejected him. And when Trent died…

He shouldn’t dwell on that.

“I’ve never seen you think so much in the whole time I’ve known you.” Lillian smiled, her teeth white against the city night.

Oscar shook his head. “I hate it. I want to go back to what I do best: partying and fucking.”

Lillian crossed the street to get a closer look. “I don’t think the fucking is giving you what you need.”

Oscar shrugged, not answering. It didn’t matter if she was right. There wasn’t an easy fix.

Reaching the front steps, they split, each going to one of the windows. Oscar peered in through the muted kaleidoscope of color. There was no movement, no flicker of light. He couldn’t see in through the thick glass.

“Once Elliott is dead, will you give yourself a chance?”

“What?” Oscar stumbled, catching himself on a nearby shrub. “A chance at what?”

“You know…”

“I do not.”

Lillian rolled her eyes and walked a few feet to her left, bending down to where a tiny basement window nestled inches above the ground. It had been fully hidden from their vantage point across the street.

“A chance to feel something real for Trent.”

“Dammit, Lil,” Oscar said, moving to her side. “Matchmaking is supposed to be Anthony’s domain. It’s a coven master’s mate thing, not a head of security thing.”

“I could give two shits if you date anyone, Oscar. But Trent is your mate. A vampire who can’t be with their fated one is a pathetic husk.”

“Well, that was harsh. I?—”

One growl from Lillian stopped the words on Oscar’s tongue. She tapped on the glass of the window. Inside was some kind of basement common room.

“Let your eyes adjust,” she said. “That’s a couch, and a few folding chairs. A coffee table. What do you see on top of the table?”

Oscar peered into the darkness, his vampire sight allowing him more clarity than any human sense could achieve. His gaze fell upon an array of small rectangles covering the long, flat, dark-stained wooden surface.

“Shit.” Oscar punched the brick facade, and bits of red stone flew off, forming a cloud around his hand. “Pictures. Of me. And of Trent.”

Lillian nodded. “They might be old. They might not mean anything.”

Oscar sniffed, hoping to catch a whiff of fresh scent, some clue they could use, but all he got was diesel and rotting garbage. It smelled like New York.

“Or Elliott could be even more obsessed than before.” Oscar frowned.

“I think we need to end the stakeout. There’s more to learn inside,” Lillian said, standing up from her crouch and turning away from the old church. “We’ll come back with more people and force our way in.”

Oscar’s attempt at a mindless hookup had been a failure.

Not that he’d gone in with high hopes. But Trent had rejected him, and finding someone to have sexy times with had always made him feel better in the past. So he’d hit the apps, and it wasn’t long before he found a handsome jock to spend the night with. He was twenty-five, a hunky day trader who might as well have had “work hard, play hard” tattooed across his chest. A perfect candidate for a meaningless hookup.

That was the plan, anyway. The plan quickly went awry.

It was the odor. The man just didn’t smell right. It wasn’t that he smelled bad , per se, but Oscar yearned for the coffee and citrus that was Trent’s natural musk. Still, Oscar had powered through.

Until the guy had touched him. The minute the man’s fingers clutched at Oscar’s shirt, pulling it up and running along the skin of his lower back, he knew he couldn’t go through with it.

It wasn’t right. He didn’t want that man. He didn’t want any man. He wanted Trent.

But Trent didn’t want him.

A quick apology and he’d rushed out of the guy’s apartment and gone back to the covenhouse. In a perfect world, he would have slept, but Oscar was finding that sleep was a rare luxury these days. But even vampires needed to catch an hour or two every so often.

His lack of sleep only amplified the pervasive dread he felt as he marched toward his doom. His doom being a rehearsal with Trent.

Also, why were they still doing the damn duet in the first place? They were trying to keep space from each other. Both of them had more important problems. Elliott was still alive and was likely still planning to kidnap him and kill Trent. Why work on the song at all?

In a word, Anthony.

The legendary persistence of the coven master’s mate was brought to bear on the two of them, and there was no escape. At least, not for Oscar. Trent could probably move to Japan or Holland or something to get away. But Oscar was stuck with his coven, and with Anthony.

“Right on time!” Anthony cried out with delight as Oscar entered the studio. Trent and Julie were already there. Trent hunkered down in the far corner on a short stool, his blonde hair covering his eyes. If Oscar didn’t know better, he’d say that Trent was sulking. That wasn’t really Trent’s way, but it certainly looked like it.

Oscar pulled out his score from his shoulder bag and sighed, avoiding eye contact with his unrequited mate. It was only an hour of rehearsal. He could survive an hour.

“Why don’t we start at the top?” Anthony asked, a smile in his voice. Oscar glanced at Julie, who was wearing a wry smirk. Shit. Had Trent told her that they’d hooked up? Did everyone have to know about this? So many cooks, while Oscar and Trent were attempting to shut down the damn kitchen.

“Why are we doing this?” Trent asked, and Oscar chuckled inwardly. He was definitely sulking. At least Oscar wasn’t the only one being tortured by this rehearsal.

“We should be working on our audition material for next week,” Trent continued. “That’s what I would be doing if I didn’t have to be here.”

“Well, you do have to be here. Because if you aren’t, you’ll fail the assignment,” Anthony said, not even looking up from scribbling away in his notebook.

Trent sighed loudly. Oscar couldn’t help but be tickled. He’d never seen Trent so overly dramatic. It was in total opposition to his normal Midwestern calm, and it was hilarious.

Oscar opened his mouth to make a snarky comment, but Julie launched into the introduction, her strong, slender fingers coaxing real power out of the aging grand piano.

Trent and Oscar sang.

Dio che nell’alma infondere

Amor volesti e speme,

Desio nel core accendere

Tu déi di libertà.

A lot had happened since the last time Oscar and Trent had sung this together. They’d been attacked multiple times. They’d had sex. They’d been betrayed. They went to Maine and came back home again.

Trent’s eyes were buried in the score that rested in his hands. He was avoiding eye contact with Oscar, but Oscar knew the man. Trent was an artist. Singing activated the parts of his heart that he walled off. So Oscar waited.

As the music swelled, Trent raised his eyes, his blonde lashes fluttering, beautiful in the shimmery lamplight of Anthony’s studio. Oscar felt privileged to stand there as that powerful, rich, luscious tone poured out of Trent. He basked in the beauty of the sound.

He’d heard Trent sing before, of course, and in the cabin, Trent had even sung for him. They’d practiced this duet before. But Oscar was getting to sing with him, now with full knowledge of what they were together, and the possibility of the mate bond stretched between them. Oscar could almost see it shimmering in the air.

Oscar stepped closer as the end approached, the harmony and counterpoint building the tension between them. He couldn’t look away. Trent was sexy, of course, and incredibly handsome, but more than that, he was beautiful . His soul opened up when he sang, and Oscar was able to bathe in the pure feeling that he exuded. Finally, the duet reached its climax.

Insiem vivremo, e moriremo insieme!

Together we will live, and we will die together.

As they cut off that final note, Oscar couldn’t hold himself in anymore. He lunged for Trent, crashing his lips against those of the handsome baritone, devouring him. Trent gave as good as he got, his need as powerful as Oscar’s own.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Oscar was aware of Anthony and Julie sneaking out, but his mind was a blazing pulse of white, synapses failing to fire as he was consumed with feeling.

It was perfect. And then it ended.

Trent pushed Oscar back with a gasp.

“Please…please…I can’t…I can’t do this…”

His words hit Oscar with such a force that he staggered away from his mate. How could Trent not recognize how special this was? Oscar had done his best to stop it, but he’d failed. They were made for each other.

Trent was shoving his music into his backpack as fast as he could, avoiding eye contact, fumbling as he rushed. He was almost out the door when Oscar couldn’t hold in the words any longer.

“Why do you hate me so much?” Oscar heard his voice crack as he spoke. “Trent. Please. What is wrong with me?”

Trent stopped suddenly, as if hitting an invisible wall. Oscar waited as Trent stood frozen in place. When he finally turned back, tears ran down his face.

“I don’t…I can’t hate you…I…”

He was breathing hard, unable to get the words out, and it was getting worse. Oscar went to his side, hugging Trent and whispering in his ear.

“I’m here. You’re okay, everything’s okay. Slow breaths, honey. You can do it.”

“I want to trust you. So badly. I want to,” Trent sobbed. He was holding on tight now, his strong arms locked around Oscar, leaning against him as if he couldn’t stand on his own.

“Shh, you’re okay, you don’t have to talk.” Oscar ran a hand down the back of his neck, petting him, calming him, doing anything he could think of to relieve the pain radiating off his mate.

“I…I do. I do.” Trent pushed back from Oscar, using the nearby wall for support. His face was red with tears, and there was real fear in his eyes. Oscar’s stomach clenched at the sight of it.

“I have to say this.”

Oscar nodded silently. Whatever Trent needed to do, he would be here.

“My mother is dead because she was my stepfather’s mate.” Trent started to shake, the tremors threatening to overwhelm him, but he took several deep breaths, encouraging them to subside. “Worse. It was so much worse…”

“Someone decided that my stepfather had gotten too ambitious. We were never certain who, although there were some obvious candidates. He’d risen too quickly in the Madison coven, jumped over vampires who’d been waiting years to move up the ranks. So they killed him.”

Trent gasped, swallowing his tears, and Oscar stepped forward. Trent held up his hand to stop him.

“I didn’t know him that well. If I’m honest, I wasn’t that sad. I was excited that maybe we would leave the covenhouse. But…”

“But a vampire and their mate don’t survive when the other one dies.”

“No…” Trent’s whisper was almost imperceptible. Then he slid down. He collapsed to the floor, his legs crossed and his back against the wall.

Oscar stayed frozen in place. As much as he needed to be there next to him, Trent wanted physical distance.

“But it’s not instantaneous,” Trent continued. “It would have been so much better if she had just…died. Instead, sh-she lost her mind.”

Trent buried his head in his hands. Oscar had never felt so helpless. This man was his mate, the one person he was supposed to protect and support at all times. But the walls between them had been too great, and this final barrier…Oscar worried it would be too much for Trent. That it would break him.

After a moment, Trent raised his head, his eyes red from crying.

“At first, it was small things. She had trouble remembering my stepfather was dead. She’d ask where he was. She couldn’t focus. But then she became violent. My stepfather had turned her when they married, so she was a full-fledged vampire. She would wander the halls. She attacked other vampires out of nowhere, covenmates, friends of hers. But she was a brand new vamp. She didn’t have the strength to take on any of the other vampires in the coven.”

Muscle movement rippled through Trent, a tremor starting from the ground and shaking his body. “So she went for me.”

He hugged himself tight, squeezing his eyes shut. The hurt was so raw and so intense, and Oscar could feel it in his gut. His mate was in pain.

“I almost died. Luckily, someone came in at the right moment and pulled her off me. They had no choice. They did what they had to, and even if I’d been against it, I was too injured to know it was happening. They took off her head and burned her body.”

Oscar couldn’t help himself. If Trent stopped him, so be it, but the pain was too intense to not at least try. He lowered himself to the ground and wrapped his arms around his human.

Trent collapsed into him, burying his face in Oscar’s chest. It was astonishing, this man who was stronger than any Oscar had known, being this open, this vulnerable. All he could do was be there with him.

After a few moments, Trent lifted his head and spoke. His tone was quiet, his shaking voice showing the deep fear that still lived in him.

“Oscar, I…I want to trust you, so badly. I want to believe that we could be something, that we could be mates. But everything in my body wants to run away at the thought. My past screams out that being here, being with you, can only end in grief and death. I don’t know how we could escape it.”

Trent mumbled those last words into Oscar’s shirt, and Oscar was struck with how like a lost child he was at that moment. Oscar loved how ambitious Trent was, how put together he was. But right then, he needed someone to take care of him. Oscar’s soul yearned for both parts of the man: the tough and the fragile, the driven and the vulnerable. He’d do anything to be with all of Trent.

He ran his hand through Trent’s hair, watching his long fingers wend their way through the tousled blonde locks.

“I don’t know what the future holds,” Oscar said. “We don’t have control over so much. But we have control over this: we are here together, now, in each other’s arms. That can be enough.”

Trent looked up at Oscar, his eyes wide and his cheeks marked by the evidence of tears. There was an emotion there Oscar had never seen before in Trent. Hope.

Oscar basked in his mate’s beatific expression, not wanting to say more for fear of breaking the moment. He cradled Trent’s face in his hands, his fingers gently brushing away the last of his tears, lightly running over the bandage on his cheek that covered his injury from the attack in the cabin. The man was perfect.

He hadn’t realized how desperate Trent was until he opened his mouth to speak.

“Oscar, please…I need you to kiss me. Please.”