Chapter Eight
Vladimir
Grant falls asleep earlier than usual the next day—earlier than me, at least. I lie on my back, staring up at the ceiling as I reflect on the night we have just had.
He was not wrong to change the plan. I know that.
He did appear to get Jakob’s attention and keep it, though I cannot see how all eyes in the club were not on him at all times.
Still, we need to be certain that Jakob has not chosen another target already.
We must return to the club tonight, and I will need to be careful to keep a low profile.
I want to look at Grant, to be sure he is still sleeping, but I don’t dare. I might be seized by the urge to stare at him all day, and I need to rest as well. Instead, I slip from the bed and take my phone into the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind me.
Jeremiah picks up surprisingly quickly for someone who also should be sleeping. He does not sound as though I have woken him when he greets me curtly either. “Everything all right?” he asks.
“Grant went off script last night.”
“Is he okay?” The alarm in his voice is real.
“Yes, of course. He is fine. Asleep. I just—” I sigh and then explain to him everything that took place at the club. The human. The bodyguard. Jakob.
“What’s your plan now, then?” Jeremiah asks when I’ve finished. I am still angry, I realise, though not really at Grant. I should have taken better charge of this job. What if this fae never even shows?
“We return tonight. Grant believes that Jakob will be looking for him.”
“That’s because he’s got good instincts. And even more power than both of us. Trust him, Vlad.”
“I do trust him.” I do. This is simply not a situation he should be so involved in. Not for another hundred years, at least. “This is new to him.”
“What, flirting?”
I growl. Jeremiah chuckles in response.
“Don’t get too worked up there. Grant might begin to believe you care.”
“I care.”
“How much?” Jeremiah’s voice is firm, and my words fail me. “How much, Vlad?”
“What?”
“How much do you care about him? I know you’ve said you don’t know why you turned him, and I guess I can believe that, but you’ve spent fifteen years with him. It didn’t take me that long to realise I need Paxton by my side.”
“I—” I shake my head. “He knows.” He knows that I will protect him. He knows that I have cared for him, that I will. I can provide.
Telling him how I feel? It was enough before he knew our bond might be more than other vampires experience with their sires or turns.
Telling him how I feel will have him shouldering an unnecessary burden.
If he does not feel the same way—and I do not see how he could—then he has to live with the knowledge of my feelings, without—
Without loving me back.
“Have you ever considered that you don’t actually know everything, Vladimir?” Jeremiah asks.
“Yes.”
“Keep an open mind, then.” He huffs. “And keep an eye on Grant. He won’t want to disobey you, but if he sees a way to prove himself, you know he’ll take it.”
“I know.”
Jeremiah hangs up without saying goodbye and I sag back against the sink, head spinning.
Even if I were ready to tell Grant about my feelings—and I do not believe that I ever will be—this would be the worst time.
We are on a job. We are back in the place where he grew up, a place that clearly holds dear memories for him.
It can all wait. We find this fae, and then I will think about it all again.
Grant wakes before me, sometime in the day, and he is quiet enough that I do not wake until an hour or so before the sun goes down. He is sitting over on the stool, silently looking at something on his phone, and I take a moment to really take him in.
His dark hair is messy from sleep, falling in his eyes, but he hasn’t pushed it aside, so he doesn’t care.
The T-shirt he has been sleeping in is a few sizes too big, falling down one shoulder and exposing the line of his collarbone.
My mouth waters. I want more than sex. I will always want more from him.
But right now the urge to touch him seizes me, and I know better.
“You’re awake!” Grant says, and his grin makes me swallow hard.
“Yes. How long have you been up?”
He shrugs. The T-shirt slips a little lower. “An hour or so, I guess. Didn’t sleep well.”
I sigh and get out of bed. “You need to feed.”
Grant groans. I pick up my towel—I need to shower before I dress, but I will not have him go hungry.
“You could have done so before I awoke.” I put blood bags in the fridge when we first arrived.
Grant has never fed from anyone but me; turns can feed from their sires, and it is the best way to teach control in the first few tumultuous years of their vampirism.
We have not done that for some time. It is too close. Too intimate. The blood bags more than suffice.
“I’m not even hungry.”
That matters not, even if, like every time I hear them, the words make me frown. There is no satiation for a vampire so young. Everything is about hunger. Were Grant at thirty or forty years turned, I might be more inclined to think nothing of it.
He needs blood. We all do when we are first turned. Even after the initial turning, there are so many changes taking place, so many adjustments… It all takes time.
I turn a glare on him. “Eat, Grant. I am not asking.”
He huffs and sets his phone down before he takes the bag out of the small fridge. “Fine. Happy?”
I cross my arms over my chest and watch. I will wait all night if I have to. I am not risking him getting close to Jakob without having every advantage at his disposal.
Grant glares back at me, but eventually, he tears into the bag and drinks. It takes him a few minutes to finish it all, and there is no ravenous hunger of a vampire in him, not in the way there should be.
I push the knot of worry aside. Fifteen years, and there is nothing wrong with him. This is just how he is. And I do not wish to unravel that mystery because once everything has been revealed, it is out in the light for anyone to uncover.
“I really wasn’t hungry,” Grant protests when he’s done. “I know to eat when I am.”
Except I do not remember him ever asking for blood. He has never complained of hunger clawing at his insides. His eyes have never glowed from the sheer overwhelm of it.
“I am certain you do. But I will have us going into tonight with every advantage at our disposal.”
Grant nods. He does not truly believe me, but that matters less to me now that he is fed.
I leave him out in the bedroom and let myself into the bathroom.
My shower is quick and efficient, and when I step back out again, a towel wrapped around my waist, I find Grant staring at his laid-out clothes, clearly deciding what to wear.
He glances up at me, and his eyes go wide. He presses his lips together, cheeks going pink, and I sigh and reach for my bag. There is little else I can do. We truly have no privacy, no matter how much either of us would like to think otherwise.
“I need something just as attention-grabbing as last night,” Grant says, staring resolutely down at his clothes. He turns a baleful gaze on me. “Can you help?”
Part of me does not want to, even as I know I would give Grant anything he ever wanted. I place the shirt I am holding gently back down and take a step closer to the bed. Grant swallows hard, but I will dress in a moment, once this is done.
“What do you feel most comfortable in?” The more comfortable he is, the more confident he will appear.
Grant purses his lips and picks up a coral-coloured satin shirt.
It resembles the one he is currently wearing, aside from the fabric and the fact that it is long-sleeved.
I nod, then choose another mesh top for underneath and a pair of trousers that, while not tailored, might pass for it underneath the club lights.
“They’re very…” Grant frowns, trailing off.
“Very what?”
“Modest?”
I huff. “The strategy we have in mind is for you to have the upper hand, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“You left last night before he could glean so much as a word from you. Tonight, you hide all that he desires.” I tilt my head to one side. “Well, not entirely. Wear the shirt as you usually would.”
Grant blushes at that, and I do not know why.
He dresses, always, as though he has just strolled from the nearest beach, despite the fact that we have lived in London for the entirety of his vampire life.
I do not mind, though I wonder how I did not connect that he might be from some coastal town in the first place.
No, I might even admit I like it. He reminds me of what the sun once felt like when it beat down upon my upturned face.
It is not a feeling I sharply miss, not with Grant so close.
He retreats into the bathroom to shower and change, so I take the time to dress, and I am fastening the top button of my shirt when he emerges. The dark sweep of eyeliner makes his eyes look even bigger, and a swipe of gloss on his lips, slightly parted, has my insides quivering for a taste.
I banish the feeling with a raised eyebrow. “Well?”
Grant steps up beside me so he can look in the only mirror in this room. My breath catches at the sight of us side by side. True hunger has long since been buried in my past; I have always been a careful, cautious vampire.
For a second, I feel it. I see a future we could have, where this would be no job, and there would be no other vampire involved at all. Just the two of us, taking the time to indulge in some pleasure or another.
“Let me help,” Grant says, and he snatches up my tie before I can utter a sound in protest.
I do not protest, either, when he slides the fabric around my neck, leaning in so he can tie a rudimentary but neat knot at the base of my throat.
He scowls as he does it, brow furrowed in concentration, but his fingers are quick and deft and, all too soon, he is smoothing down the silk and adjusting my collar and taking a single short step away.
“Thank you.”
I do not want to do this. I do not want to take Grant to a place where others will look upon him as though they can make him theirs. I do not want Jakob to get even closer than that, this dangerous vampire, who will wear his desire freely in his attempt to seduce another victim into his schemes.
Grant must read some of it from my face, or maybe siphon it from our bond. “I’ll be fine, Vlad,” he says. “Just got to get him a bit worked up. And you’ll be there.”
“I will.”
“So, it’ll all be fine.”
“We need ground rules.”
“Ground rules?”
“He cannot touch you.”
Grant lets out a bark of laughter, but it sounds strange. “Vlad, we can’t—I’m not going to, y’know. I’m not going to do anything with him, but I need to find out who this fae is, don’t I?”
He does. We discussed kidnapping Jakob, threatening the identity of the fae out of him, but there is every chance she has been hiding herself whilst in the club and therefore might see us take him, and there is also a chance Jakob does not know.
Our best chance is for Grant to get closer to Jakob and meet her himself.
At least that way, we can ensure our intel is truthful.
“You do,” I admit. “I will watch out for the fae. For danger.”
Grant squeezes my arm, and the grin he aims at me feels genuine and makes me swallow hard. “I know you will.”