16
Lathan
The next few days go by relatively slowly, but somewhat normally. There’s a difference Lathan feels in Kylo, but he can’t quite discern it as he’s acting more cheery than he was Monday night.
Wednesday morning—day five after his last feast—Lathan’s starting to feel the itch in the base of his throat for blood. That Friday night, after their date—not counting whatever of Trevor’s blood he swallowed while ripping him apart—was when he last consumed it. And because it was Kylo’s blood, a living being with warm, fresh circulation, it’s lasted longer in his system.
This time, though, it makes him nauseous. Disgusted. He’s repulsed by the thing he needs to survive…or what he thinks he needs. I need to try controlling it…pretend I don’t need it. Maybe that’s the key. Maybe that’s why Mom and Dad pretend. Maybe it works.
His guilt sits in his throat, and has been since Kylo was taken advantage of the first time. It’s much worse now. And he does everything he can to train his mind and body away from the increasing urge. He doesn’t want blood. He doesn’t want to even think about it. It reminds him of how this all started, how hurt Kylo’s become, and he hates himself for it. Hates himself for what he is, just like his parents.
But he doesn’t show an inkling of this. In fact, he’s rather upbeat—as upbeat as Lathan can be, that is. Staying supportive and positive for Kylo. I need to be his rock right now.
He uses heavy dose eye drops to keep his redness at bay, but that only does so much. By the end of the week his eyes are undeniably pink, irritated, but without the eyedrops they’d look much worse. He uses them several times a day to look as hydrated as possible and make sure Kylo stays off his back.
He missed the cafeteria’s biweekly blood bag on Monday, and when he realized it, that’s when he decided he’d miss today’s, too. And next Monday’s. He wants to see how long he can go, and then push it even further. He’s just hoping that Kylo doesn’t say anything about his still-pink eyes.
He returns to their room in the afternoon, once his classes finish for the day. He can’t say he’s learned anything this week, but he feels a little better settling back into his academic routine. And it serves as a distraction from what happened, from Kylo’s pain, and from his growing thirst. He hasn’t heard any updates from his parents, and normally he wouldn’t expect to, but they’re working to keep Lathan’s name out of Trevor’s case. He doesn’t know how they’ll do it, but he hasn’t been reprimanded by the school yet, either, so he guesses no news is good news.
Still: he killed somebody.
When he sees Kylo at his desk, he tosses his bag to the floor and moves to him, pressing a kiss into his hair from above. “Class end early again today?”
Kylo removes his earbuds before Lathan crosses over to him. “Yeah.” He shrugs. “Oh, hey! Luke from my computer science class said there’s a party goin’ on tonight. You wanna come with me?”
Lathan stiffens. The thought of Kylo going to a party, at all, makes him feel a certain way now. But that sinking feeling is almost too much to bear when he thinks of him going alone .
“Sure. That sounds fun,” he says, though it brings him anxiety. But he needs to be encouraging for Kylo, and if he wants to go out, that’s a good thing, right?
“Sweet!” Kylo says with his toothy grin. They’ve never partied together before, but Lathan can feel Kylo’s excitement—likely thinking it’s an ode to how they met. The thought only makes Lathan more uncomfortable.
Kylo bounds over to his side of the beds and pulls something out of the bag still stuffed under the frame. He pops back up, holding a baggie of pre-rolled joints in the air and waggling his eyebrows. “Wanna make tonight extra fun?”
Lathan looks over at Kylo’s mischievous expression, and then the baggie. He mentally hesitates, but forces a smirk. I guess a few drags won’t hurt.
◆◆◆
Lathan looks around at the yard, the front of the same house where they first met. He remembers kicking at the curb, and having a stoned Kylo hop down from the deck and offer his neck to him. He glances at the bushes that line the side of the house, where he sunk his teeth into him, and then blinks away the memory—while he’s glad he met Kylo, the rest is still full of shame for his actions, and guilt for where it’s led the unsuspecting werewolf.
“Isn’t this nostalgic.” Kylo beams at the old Obscura residence house, one of the few originals to still be standing. He shimmies his shoulders giddily up the walking stones, spinning to face Lathan, swaying to the thrumming beat cascading from inside. He laughs at himself and tugs Lathan close, reaching to cup his face with a kiss.
For the first time in a week, Lathan feels less cold, hollow. He adores the way Kylo moves, and his body language reminds him of who he was before everything happened. It’s the first time they’re in public as an official couple, but he can’t help but smile as Kylo manually moves Lathan’s hips to the music.
Inside, it’s busy. Bodies dance in front of the two behind the little DJ stand, cobbled together with what looks like equipment accessible to music production majors. Coloured lights flash and flicker above. People are chatting, kissing, or drinking along nearly every wall, disposable cups in their hands and lined down the kitchen counter with the booze and snacks.
Lathan enters behind Kylo, amused as his boyfriend dances up the steps and into the main room. It brightens his hurting heart to see him enjoying himself already.
He looks around at the cliques drunkenly laughing and leaning on one another, at the couples grinding and kissing. His chest burns for Kylo, for more of his touch, more of his kisses, but he’s not pushing anything.
“Want a drink?” he asks, nearing Kylo’s ear.
“I’d love one.” He tilts his head into his raised shoulder cutely.
Lathan steps away to go fetch a drink for him, only comfortable doing so as the kitchen is open, and he can keep an eye on Kylo. He isn’t alone, in a house full of people, but if he’s out of reach, Lathan gets nervous, too.
As he plucks a cup and scans over the options, an excitedly loud nickname reaches the kitchen from the party, and it makes him tense. Because that’s what he calls Kylo.
“Ky!”
A broad man, taller than Lathan, emerges from the edge of the dancing crowd, grinning ear-to-pointy-werewolf-ear. Loose tank top, with arm holes lowly cut down his ribcage, and backward cap make Lathan frown.
“Man, it’s been a while, huh?” he says to Kylo, holding a drink in one hand, the other shoved in his baggy pocket. “How’s it goin’?”
Kylo offers a signature smile, but Lathan can tell he isn’t as comfortable as he was just bobbing to the music by himself. “Yeah, uh, I’m alright. How’ve you been?”
Lathan grabs a bottle of rum from in front of him, but hones his sense of sound onto Kylo’s conversation, isolating it from the rest of the party—a skill vampires are privy to.
“Good, good, yeah,” the man says, nodding a bit dramatically to his own words. He motions his cup at Kylo. “You look good. I mean—you always look good.”
Lathan’s jaw flexes at the gym bro’s sleazy flirting. He’s a fucking ex , he realizes, and hurries to finish pouring the mixed drink.
Kylo chuckles, and his ex clearly accepts this as an invitation. His grin grows, and Lathan can see those wolfy fangs from the kitchen. “You know,” he says, glancing back at the party behind them, “these things always remind me of you.” He looks at Kylo again, this time his eyes wandering. “Make me miss you.” He cocks his head, his thoughts clear behind his eyes. “When the party’s over, why don’t we go back to my room?”
The can of cola nearly falls to the floor. Lathan fumbles with it, and it fizzes, hissing up at him from within the aluminum. He feels his ears getting hot as he brings the cocktail to happily interrupt the conversation being had. After what he’s just been through…
“Oh, whoa.” Kylo flicks up a hand between him and his ex-boyfriend. “Sorry, but I’m with someone now.”
“Oh.” He seems surprised, and leans away from Kylo. “No, sorry, I didn’t realize.”
Lathan appears at Kylo’s side, holding the red plastic cup out for him. He doesn’t have one for himself, deciding against drinking if he’s going to be smoking later—that, and his sudden need to race back to Kylo. He’s gentle as he hands the drink off, and then his gaze snaps to their company with an unfriendly expression.
“Thanks.” Kylo brings the alcohol up to his face, looking between the two men, and then suddenly hesitates. “My boyfriend. Lathan. And this is…Jake,” he settles on saying, averting his eyes and taking a swig.
Lathan continues to stare Jake down, standing so close to Kylo that their shoulders touch.
It takes the muscled werewolf a moment, looking Lathan over, to react.
“A vampire ?” Jake releases a drunken, bellowing laugh, falling a step back with the force of it. He shakes his head, finding Kylo again and eyeing him promiscuously with a tilt of his head. “Damn. And from our time together, I was under the impression you loved being with a wolf.” He moves on to Lathan with a deepening fanged grin. “Full moon and all, baby.”
Kylo sputters and coughs into his cup, and Lathan narrows his eyes at Jake. The fuck does that mean? He almost opens his mouth, but refrains, for Kylo’s sake. Glancing at Kylo’s flushed face beside him, flaming beet-red under the spectrum of party lights, there’s something he doesn’t know, and then feels stupid for being on the outs of it. It makes him angry, that this ex is implying something sexual straight to his face that he had with his boyfriend.
“I think you should step away now,” Lathan bites at Jake. It’s the nicest way he can think of how to say fuck off before I hurt you.
Kylo hums in agreement, swallowing down another gulp of his drink and clearing his throat, probably burning from choking on the carbonation. “I think that’s enough for tonight, Jake.”
Jake shrugs, raising his cup in a solute to them both. “A fuckin’ vampire,” he sneers as he turns back to the crowd, shaking his head.
As he leaves, Kylo slams back the contents of his cup, drops the empty container down on the ledge beside him with a heavy fist, and takes a breath. “You. Me. Blunt. Now.”
Lathan’s breathing has become jagged. Angry. He targets Jake on the dancefloor with his leer, dancing and throwing his arms up with a small group of other wolves. Though he makes the effort to keep his pupils from pinning, it’s the same scratchy, icky feeling that triggers them to shrink.
What a fucking piece of shit.
He turns, forcing himself to look away, a hand on Kylo’s back to push him along and find a place to smoke.
You dated this trash?
Out onto the deck, like the last party where Lathan saw Kylo smoking alone, he crosses his arms, leans against decaying the railing, and stares annoyedly into the night air.
Kylo joins beside him with a sigh. “Sorry about that… Haven’t seen him in so long, I kinda forgot he went here.” He lets out a laugh-like breath. “I broke up with him last year before I met you. While he’s a lot of things, a threat isn’t one of them.”
Lathan stays quiet; he knows Jake isn’t a threat in the way Trevor was. He also knows he’s a piece of shit, though. His comment, with cocky eye contact, makes Lathan more frustrated than he can comprehend. Full moon and all? What does that mean? Do wolves— can wolves have sex when they’re transformed?
The thought has never dawned on him to consider, but now the more he thinks about Jake’s comment, the clearer the image becomes.
“I can see why you broke up,” he mumbles.
“Yeah, he’s not exactly the relationship type.” Kylo digs into his pocket and pulls out a lighter, then extends a hand, a simple gesture asking for their stash. Lathan pulls the baggie from an inside compartment of his leather jacket. He watches Kylo pick out a joint and light it, pulling the embers as he inhales the first puff. He lets the smoke settle within him, tilting his head back, and then blows a circle to the moon. Pinched between two fingers, he offers it to Lathan.
Lathan takes it, pausing briefly before bringing it to his lips. While vampires get drunk too easily due to their low blood volume, he hasn’t told Kylo that drugs like marijuana actually increase their thirst, as it plays with blood vessels. This is why Lathan usually doesn’t touch the stuff—especially now, trying to suppress the burn for blood—but after the interaction he just had with Jake, in particular, he needs something to take the edge off. A little should be fine , he tells himself.
He takes a puff and passes the joint back to Kylo, keeping his eyes down. “Did he mean what I think he did?”
Lathan waits for Kylo to inhale the smoke again, closing his eyes as he exhales into the void of the yard. “Yes,” he sighs. “Yes, he did.”
Lathan tries to keep his breath steady. He avoids looking at Kylo, instead at the trees and the darkening night sky, full of twinkling stars and iridescent swirls of passing clouds. He struggles to imagine the logistics of the act, knowing what Kylo looked like, acted like, in his wolf form. Picturing two of those, in a sexual act…the idea of enormous, aggressive beasts—
“So you’ve…done that.”
He hears Kylo take a second drag from the joint before he answers dryly. “Yeah.”
Lathan rubs the side of his arm, quiet. I guess…that makes sense. Vampires have their own thing with blood sucking. I just can’t picture it.
And then he realizes he hates, most of all, that it was Kylo’s ex to mention it.
To taunt Lathan with the image of him and Kylo together, in a way Lathan can never offer.
Without a word, Lathan snatches the blunt from Kylo and sucks in from it thoroughly, like he’s drowning his thoughts in the smoke and the pull. He doesn’t want to be at the party anymore. He’s uncomfortable, and pissed, and thirsty.
Shit.
Kylo takes the roll back from Lathan when he holds it too long, staring out at nothing; he ingests a longer drag than either of them have, blots it out on the railing, and shoves it away. His eyes are now starting to redden as the high takes form in his body, and part of Lathan relaxes with the notion that his own bloodshot stare will blend under the guise of weed.
Kylo gives Lathan a slight smile before pushing himself off the railing. “I’m gonna head to the bathroom. Be right back.”
Hanging his head, Lathan can see the tall blades of grass and the pesky weeds, thriving late in the season, perform for him, rustling and pirouetting amid the breeze. It’s cool, a nice break from the heat of the long days, and causes his lids to droop. Did he like it? he finds himself wondering, mulling over the way Jake phrased the taunt. Is that something normal for wolves to do with their partners?
His heart drops into his stomach, splashing acid up his throat. Is that something they do with…mates?
He’s never asked Kylo if werewolves actually have mates. If they’re predestined, like a fairy tale Lathan can never be a part of. Or if they’re chosen, forged through bestial activities he’s only now learning about.
Even if mates don’t exist, he worries, now, that he’s not giving Kylo what he wants. What he needs. Is it a need? An instinct? Fuck, I don’t know.
“Wanna dance?”
Startled out of his woe, Lathan looks back at Kylo after a moment—starting to recognize the delaying effect of the drug—tilting off the doorway, that heartwarming grin on his face. I don’t really dance, he thinks, but he can’t say that to him. His happiness is all he wants, and even a semblance of it right now is more than enough for Lathan to humour him.
Well, that and the pot. It’s a strong batch, already constricting arteries and vessels and making him feel airy.
They slink back through the house, through the circles of friends, the horny couples, into the heart of the living room. The music shifts and they find a spot inside a heavier bass, thudding the floor beneath their feet. The DJ bounces her shoulders to her mix, mouthing the clusters of lyrics, as a bleached-blonde guy bops beside her, cup in his hand.
Kylo twirls on his heel, jumps, swerves to the song, until it dissolves into something a bit slower, a bit more Lathan’s speed. He mimics Kylo, his sway, keeping time with the beat. Big, dilated pupils consume Lathan’s moving body, and Kylo reaches out, grazes a hand down Lathan’s chest, leaving a line of fire down his sternum. He pulls Kylo closer with the tips of his fingers on his waist, beginning to lose himself in their consumption. Everyone around them blurs into a group of motion instead of individual bodies.
The lights strobe with the rhythm. Kylo whirls, pressing his back against Lathan’s chest and taking his hands, guiding them around his body as he dips and grinds on him.
Lathan exhales against the press of Kylo’s body. He’s been scared to touch him, wanting to give him space, give him choice, so the tease drives him hot. The marijuana slows his processes, though, and it takes him entirely too long to realize that the longer they dance, the more turned on he’s becoming; his irritated thirst tries to refocus through his hormones. He runs his hand from Kylo’s hip to his lower stomach, holding him against him tightly, his ass to Lathan’s pelvis.
Lathan realizes his semi-erection at the same time the blurred crowd around them starts to pulse. He’s too aware of his body, in too many ways—there’s so much blood in the room, flowing through so many people, and his vision starts to warp with need. He’s losing his head, and finds it impossible to climb back to the top of his control while he’s stoned and aroused, his grip on the rocks slipping to dust.
He finds Kylo’s wrist and tugs on it, a little harder than he means to. His lighthearted laugh fills the gaps of the music as Lathan pulls him through the room. The atmosphere around them flies by, though they’re only walking, dodging people’s dance moves, their abrupt arms, the sloshing of alcohol in those raised hands, and it starts to dizzy Lathan.
Not knowing where to go, Lathan leads Kylo up the stairs. Some of the rooms are locked, and he tries a few of the doors—smart of those who live here. But he finds one that swings open easily to what looks like an unoccupied room, with just basic furnishings.
He pulls Kylo in and then turns to shut the door and twist its vintage lock, falling against it, breathing heavily. The pulse in his head starts to alleviate, enough to catch his breath and swallow the aridity of his throat.
“Sorry,” he says, turning to Kylo again. “I just…I don’t know.” He doesn’t know how to say he needs a minute away from everyone without it being obvious as to why. But they’re in a bedroom, just the two of them, and suddenly Lathan’s eyes widen, because that is not what he means.
But Kylo rushes at him before he can explain himself, shutting him up with his mouth as he kisses him. His tongue melts Lathan, and he slides down the door a few inches. He matches Kylo’s passion and desire, even though he’s surprised by it. And it takes a few beats to register that surprise, to reel back and try and focus his vision on him.
“Is this what you want?” he asks, trying to give him a chance to register it all, too.
Kylo smiles, and it’s as soft and genuine as he’s ever known it to be.
“All I want is you,” he breathes, pressing himself into Lathan’s body again. “Badly.”