“Wake Up!”
The full moon illuminated the garden outside, Mark’s keen senses catching the most subtle of movement from his window two stories high. Small animals oblivious to his presence scurried to their activities, the distant howl of his animal cousins causing their movement to grow a fraction frantic.
He waited, unable to retreat to the bed that called to his tired body.
Zeke had been gone too long, so long a niggling sense of worry threatened to impose on his calm night.
He refused to tell Mark where he went almost every night, but he swore it wasn’t anywhere dangerous, and Mark trusted Zeke more than anyone, except his brothers.
A black-clad silhouette imposed on his keen eyesight, and he moved closer to the window. The proud shoulders, his body’s build, were all unmistakable even under the layers of darkness, and Mark breathed a sigh. Zeke looked at him, and he smiled.
His wolf let out a low whine, the sound a distinct warning that had Mark moving closer to the closed window, his smile fading into worry as he tried and failed to unlock it.
Pain tore through his fingers with the window’s resistance, his efforts growing more frantic by the second.
He could do nothing as the red-eyed monster appeared behind Zeke, his anguished scream constricted by the emotion clogging his throat.
The window continued to resist his efforts, so he tried to punch through the glass, but an invisible barrier cushioned his fist’s impact.
The figure behind Zeke smiled, a thin-baring of pointy, animalistic teeth before a single claw in its otherwise darkness-obscured hand, tore through Zeke’s neck.
The scent of blood floated through the barrier he couldn’t get through, and his powerlessness came through in a scream that shattered his heart as he watched Zeke crumble—
“Wake Up!”
His body had no choice, responding to the command that drew him away from the pain and loss following him into wakefulness.
His eyes adjusted to the room, not his room back home, but just as familiar.
Tears that spoke of a loss he couldn’t handle for much longer dampened his cheeks, the tight grip on both arms keeping him from falling face-first into the darkness that was his grief.
“Breathe for me.” Caster’s voice was soft, with none of the edge he was beginning to get used to.
He pulled him into his arms, and Mark didn’t try to resist. He wasn’t Zeke. He would never be, but the safety he offered eased the pain enough to keep him sane.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed away so long,” Caster said into his hair, drawing him further away from the grief.
He shook his head as much as the tight embrace would allow. “It’s not your fault.”
Caster released his hold. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Mark’s denial was automatic. He would be free to discuss the events of that night, his failure, only after his penance was complete. When everyone involved was dead.
Caster nodded his acceptance, and Mark realized he’d once again forgotten to guard his thoughts.
He moved away from the embrace he would spend all day in, needing a little bit of space to gather himself and erect that barrier.
Why had the dreams come back? Was it because Caster had been away from him?
The prospect of needing Caster in that way only added to his already unbearable pain.
He sniffed back his emotion. “Your uncle is making new vampires?” A distraction was necessary to aid in pushing the pain down where it belongs before he broke and shared everything.
Caster stared at him for a long moment, the distance between them minuscule, but somehow too great. “Yes. Dean told you.”
It wasn’t a question, but Mark nodded anyway. Caster reached for his hand, and he allowed the contact, the constant reminder of his loss retreating further away by the minute. He was so tired, so tired of trying to analyze this, of the consequences of his denial.
“Then don’t deny it.” Caster’s words were a cautious whisper. “Let me make it go away.”
Mark looked at their joined hands. “You said you didn’t want to be used.”
Caster’s chuckle drew his attention. “I can’t control this any more than you can.”
The intensity of his gaze, the promise of it, and the meaning behind his words were enough to trigger his submissive response to the dominance underneath the soft tone. Mark lowered his gaze, the covers, and the weight of Caster’s hand on his, too interesting.
“Look at me!”
The tone didn’t change, but the explicit command shone through nonetheless. The moment dragged on as he searched Caster’s expression for some assurance.
“I am going to take everything today. You have ten seconds to object.”
His breath caught, the words he needed to accept everything remained stuck, his mind awash with the significance of “everything.”
Caster smiled. “You’re running out of time.”
He shook his head. Wait, no. That wasn’t the response he meant…
“No?” Caster’s indulgent smile morphed into a smirk.
“No. I mean… yes.” He shut his eyes as the smirk grew.
The weight of Caster’s hand on his disappeared, and the same whisper of a caress the first time he touched him ghosted over his forehead. “I need a definitive answer. This won’t happen without your permission.”
He opened his eyes. “Yes.” There was no other choice. He would worry about the consequences of this later. Right now, he needed his strength, and it seemed Caster was the only one who could give it back to him.
Caster stared at him for a long moment, as if waiting for him to change his mind, and then the gentle pass of his thumb on his forehead moved to his lips. “You are mine for today. Other than the one rule you know, I have only one request.”
His exhale pushed through his exhausted body with ease as he nodded.
“You can’t think about him today. Can you do that for me?”
Mark’s response was easy, easier than he thought possible. The guilt of betraying the man he loved with everything in him coiled in his gut, angry and insistent, but he pushed it aside. He needed this if he would have the strength to remain standing.
“Is that a yes?” The gentle touch had moved to his jaw, and they were so close, Caster’s breath warmed his face.
“Yes,” he whispered, trying and failing to resist the temptation to taste his lips.
“Don’t resist—”
The minuscule distance between them fleeted away with the inevitability of the kiss.
Caster’s hand gripped the strands at the back of his head with enough force to cause a minor sting, but it too disappeared into the expert pass of his tongue, its call undeniable.
They’d kissed before, but this was different.
Dominant Caster was under the surface, colored by a tenderness Mark hadn’t known he needed.
Caster pushed him onto his back, and Mark went with little resistance, the languid but firm pass of his tongue stealing his breath. Caster was in control, and he gave in to his need to let go, give all of himself to the moment in its entirety.
The reverent kisses moved to his neck, and a long, low moan escaped his lips as Caster found the perfect place between his legs, his gentle thrusts the perfect rhythm for his aching cock.
Soon, his hips produced a rhythm of their own as he joined Caster in the dance that would lead him to inevitable pleasure.
Caster’s lips traced a path along his neck to his collarbone and back, and when Mark opened his eyes to beg for more, he was struck by the determination in his gray eyes, the red ring around the pupil larger than he’d ever seen it.
He moaned again when the press of Caster’s cock into his grew more insistent, but there was a silent challenge in those eyes, and he couldn’t look away. He held on to the conviction that nothing good could come from backing away from the challenge as he accepted his fate.
Caster did nothing to stop him from racing towards the inevitable orgasm. His name was a whisper on his lips, his hands a vice on Caster’s ass, holding him in place. The smirk came back, but he was too far gone in his pursuit of pleasure to resent it.
“Please.” He wasn’t above begging.
A nod punctuated by a sharp intake of breath was permission enough, and he crossed the edge that had denied him his pleasure, the sounds of his release lost in Caster’s mouth, the gentle kiss a world apart from the violence of it.
His body shook, and Caster held him through it.
The nightmare’s tension and its consequences floated above him as pleasure overtook all sense.
Then he sighed his contentment, his clothes soaked with exertion and the evidence of his pleasure. Caster smiled at him and rolled his hips, his cock still as hard as it had been when they started.
The look in his eye promised a day Mark wouldn’t soon forget. He waited for the guilt that often followed the pleasure, but it never came.