CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO || TOBIAS
A nnie opened her eyes and gave us a puzzled smile, her face lighting up with recognition. “I thought you guys were a dream.”
“We were,” I told her, giving her hand a squeeze. “There might be a lot of questions. We were never here. Do you understand?”
She nodded, giving us a smile that transformed her whole face. “Are you sure you’re not angels? Because it sort of seems like maybe you are.”
“He might be,” Bryan said, gesturing in my direction. His voice was thicker than usual, almost hoarse, like he was on the verge of tears. All the color had leeched out of his face and his eyes were wide. His expression was just shy of panic. But his walls were firmly up, blocking off his thoughts. But none of that was surprising, was it? Being out of body for the first time is never a fun experience. Bryan took a deep breath, as though to steady himself, and added, “But I’m definitely no angel.”
“Doesn’t matter what you are,” Annie told him. Though she had just been comatose and literally dying, with her spirit recently lingering in the otherworld, Annie looked bright-eyed and refreshed, like she’d just woken up from a long nap. She added, “Thank you. I know that probably sounds pretty stupid, given what you guys just did for me. But I mean it. Thank you.”
Something clenched in my chest, and it felt so hot and vital that it might blot everything else out. We had saved her life. Bryan’s blood had healed her completely. And we had convinced her to come back. And I didn’t need any magic to tell me what I could plainly see. Annie was going to recover without any problems. Maybe I—we—couldn’t fix everything. But we had fixed this one awful thing.
“We’ve got to go,” I told her, my own voice getting thicker. “But you’ll be okay now. Remember, we weren’t here.”
With that, I took Bryan by the hand and led him out of the hospital room. He didn’t protest. I broke the enchantments I’d placed on her door with a wave of my hand as we exited. They were my own spells—and set with the intention that they’d be easy for me to remove later—so it was effortless to unweave them.
When we passed the ICU nurse I had enchanted earlier, she looked up at me, only mildly interested. “Oh, are you done now?”
“Yes,” I told her, feeling out for the compulsion I’d placed upon her. “We’re done. Your patient is going to live. You should call a doctor, just to be on the safe side. And if anyone asks about us, you don’t remember anything except that it seemed like we belonged here. You don’t remember anything that might get you into trouble.”
The nurse nodded.
I nodded back, then shot Bryan a ‘let’s go’ sort of look.
He had a hollow, faraway look to his eyes. Weird. Maybe he was feeling all of the feelings because of what we had just done. That was normal and expected, right?
I turned and walked down the hallway, with him following behind me. As I walked, I broke the compulsion on the nurse with a few muttered words. The memory of us ever being there would fade rapidly.
“Not so fast,” Bryan told me the moment we got around the corner. “We’ve got business to attend to.”
I hesitated for a moment, glancing over at him. His expression was strangely dark and intense—fucking hot—but his eyes were filled with unshed tears.
“This room is vacant,” Bryan told me, pointing at a door just down the hall. He gestured vaguely to his ears. “Vampire hearing has its perks.”
“We should go in there, then,” I replied, immediately understanding what he wanted.
He returned my smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Then he backed me into the room.
As he had told me, the room was indeed vacant.
He pushed me up against the wall and I barely had time to seal the door handle so that it wouldn’t turn for anyone but us before his mouth was on mine.
We’d kissed passionately in the hotel room, while we had made love. We had both been desperate, hungry for each other, filled with need. This was different. It was more urgent. Demanding. Greedy. Desperate.
My lips parted as his tongue swept my mouth. My cock began to stir at once and I wrapped my arms around his waist, drawing him so close to me that our bodies were pressed up against each other. I returned his kiss with force, claiming him just as he was claiming me.
He put his hand on my already hard cock through my jeans and rubbed it, the delicious friction causing me to let out a groan of pleasure.
“I need it again,” he told me, as he began to fumble for my belt. “I need you to make love to me. Or, screw that. I need you to fuck me so hard I can’t even think.”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I pulled him in for another kiss, taking over his attempts to get my belt off. I had my pants unbuttoned and my cock free from its confines in a matter of moments.
Bryan broke our kiss, pulling away. Then, before I could react—or bend him over then and there—he got down onto his knees and took me into his mouth without any hesitation, all the way down my shaft.
I let out a sharp gasp and stiffened as the wet heat from his mouth enveloped my cock. Pleasure practically caused my toes to curl. Fuck. It was like heaven.
If it was possible, I went even harder as he stroked me with his lips and tongue.
As he sucked me, something animalistic took over, shutting off the rational parts of my brain, and all I wanted was to be inside of him again.
“Get up.” My voice came out rough and hard.
Bryan obeyed me immediately but hurt filled his eyes. His walls collapsed again, for an instant, but long enough for me to hear him wondering if he wasn’t good. And there was something else too, buried beneath that. Something so much more raw and afraid than should have been possible. Was he really so afraid I might reject him?
“You were perfect,” I told him. “Your mouth is incredible. But I need to be inside of you again. Right now.”
Wordlessly, he nodded, his eyes going dark with sudden desire, the hurt draining from them immediately. He fished the bottle of lube from his pocket and held it out to me. I hadn’t even seen him grab it off the nightstand when we’d left the motel room.
I bit back a smile as I realized that he must’ve been planning to go again all along.
I unbuttoned the fly of his jeans, pulled down the zipper, then turned him around so that his back was to me. I pulled his pants down to mid-thigh, exposing his bare ass.
Bryan had neglected to put on underwear. More evidence of his plans. It was actually really fucking hot.
My cock leaked pre-cum and I was so hard it practically hurt.
I put some lube on my fingertips and massaged it onto—and then into—his hole. It startled me, yet again, to find that he was so warm. Even warmer now that he’d fed on the blood bag earlier.
Bryan let out a low groan as I worked one finger into him, and then two.
Then I lubed up my cock and slid it into him, right there in the center of the hospital room. He took me easily. Though I tried to go slow, the moment my head was inside of him he bucked down on me, taking my entire length in one go.
“Fuck!” I snarled, as his velvety wet shaft surrounded me. The heat was a perfect blend of relief and torture, and something animalistic seized me.
“Shit,” he panted. “That feels even better than before.” Then he paused, biting his lower lip before adding, “Please don’t be gentle with me. I need you to make me forget everything.”
That was all I needed to hear. I grabbed his hips and drove myself into him as deep as I could go, drawing a low, needy-sounding moan from his lips. Then I pulled almost all the way back out, and back in again, reveling in the sensation of being inside of my mate. Of claiming him. Of making him belong to me.
I loved the dirty little sounds that my cock worked from his mouth as I slammed it in and out of him. I picked up the pace, fucking him mercilessly.
Bryan came first, working himself furiously with his hand as I fucked him. His moans became sharp gasps as his orgasm crested. His walls dropped for an instant and I felt the echoes of his pleasure.
It sent me over the edge.
I held his hips firmly in place as I drove deep once more, releasing inside him with a strangled groan. My climax was white-hot and blinding, blotting out everything else.
I pulled out of my mate and turned to the sink to grab some paper towels from the dispenser, but Bryan had already beat me to it, moving at vampire speed.
We got ourselves cleaned up and we dressed again in silence.
Thank you, Bryan said, speaking into my mind. Those two words seemed way too small to contain the depth of emotions I sensed from him.
I glanced up to meet his eyes, startled that he had dropped his walls again on purpose. I was even more startled—and alarmed—by the dark thread of fear that laced his words. It was so incongruous. Was he afraid of what we had just done for Annie? Or was it something else?
“Any time. And a lot more times if you’ll let me.”
“That was hot as fuck, and yes please.” I was pleased to sense that all of Bryan seemed to be in agreement about that bit, at least. He swallowed and his smile went all wobbly. “But that wasn’t what I was thanking you for.”
“I know.”
Bryan gave me a small smile, a little steadier this time. Then he slid his hands around my waist, pressing our bodies close again. He planted a kiss on my lips. “Good.”
He smells so good. Why does he always smell so fucking good? It’s like torture. And his pulse is right there. Fuck. If only I could…
“You can,” I told him, sensing the depth of his need, of his desire. The blood bag he’d consumed earlier hadn’t been enough, after all. Or maybe it just wasn’t as good as the real thing. I added, “If you want to feed from me, I trust you. I’d let you do it.”
He stiffened, then pulled back. The wall slammed down, setting my teeth on edge.
“I know that.” He avoided my gaze. “But I’m okay, for now.”
I knew better than to push him, so I simply nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
Whatever was between us now—it was raw and tender and fragile, but more real than anything else I’d ever felt. It had become the most important thing in my world, in fact. And we needed to talk about it and what it meant for our futures. But making sure that he was happy and kept safe was even more important than any of the fears or worries I had about tomorrow.
My phone rang while Bryan was still getting dressed.
I glanced at the screen and slipped out of the room, into the hallway.
“The hunters suspect what Bryan is,” Ethan informed me, without any preamble. “I’ve been watching them for a while now. They’re debating. One of them wants to just leave town and forget they met you, seeing as how you guys rescued them. The other one wants to—”
“He wants to hunt Bryan,” I finished, fear flooding through me. “To hurt him.”
“Yeah.”
“What did they decide?”
“Well, they haven’t yet. They’re actually kind of pissed at each other right now about it. But, um, you guys can’t cross paths with them again.”
“Why is that?” I gripped the phone so tightly that it was painful, tension rocketing through me. “What did you see?”
“Look, if you see them again, there’s a really good chance that Bryan will end up killing the pale one.”
“Michael,” I supplied, letting out a long breath. I crossed to the other side of the hall, lowering my voice. “You’re saying that Bryan kills Michael?”
“It’s a real possibility—the mirror is a little cagey on whether it actually does happen, but it was clear that it could happen.” He let out a sharp exhale. “Michael wants to check all the motels in town. He figures you guys will be holed up somewhere. He’s planning on roughing up the front desk workers to get them to give him information on where you guys are staying. He’s going to find you, no problem.”
“Fuck,” I whispered. “How much time do we have?”
“Not much—my suggestion is to pack up and leave town immediately.”
“Right,” I muttered, hanging up with Ethan.
When I turned around, I saw Bryan standing there, looking even paler than before.
“You heard all of that, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” he replied. He let out a little laugh that didn’t sound funny at all. “God, I’m such an idiot. Playing house here with you, pretending like I’m not the most dangerous thing in this entire fucking town. Pretending that I get to just fall in love like a regular guy and let you make it all better, after everything I’ve done.”
“Bryan, that’s not true. You are good. You’re—”
“No. Clearly it is true,” Bryan gestured to the phone in my hand. “According to a magic fucking mirror that’s never wrong. The hunters aren’t really the problem, are they? I’m the problem. Hell, maybe your vision only happens because I’m attacking them and they’re defending themselves. Maybe I deserve to let them stake me.”
“You know that’s not true,” I pleaded, horror flooding through me at his words. “Bryan, please just listen to me. We’ll leave town. We’ll find some other bad guy to vanquish. Or we’ll rent an apartment and live like regular people. Or we’ll do anything else you want. And I’ll come with you. I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
Bryan swallowed hard and something in his expression crumpled. He sucked in a deep, gasping breath and his eyes brimmed with tears. “Yeah, Tobias. I know you would.”
But the way he said it wasn’t reassuring. It was resigned.
Icy fear began to thread its way through my veins. The wall stood between us, cutting us off from each other. Bryan’s inner thoughts were a mystery to me. But his expression was brittle and ghastly, like he was barely holding himself together.
I took a step forward, wanting to draw him into my arms.
Bryan lurched back from me with so much force that his back slammed into the wall behind him. He stared at me, pain twisting his face into jagged and sharp edges.
“Let’s go back to the motel, then,” Bryan whispered, sounding miserable. “Look, can you pack everything up? I didn’t bring much. We’ll be in and out, ten minutes, tops.”
“I can replace everything you brought. We should just start driving.”
“You’re right.” He gave me a thin smile. “And I even know that. But I have to go back anyway. So we might as well pack up and remove all traces we were ever there.”
“Why?” I asked, hating how raw my voice sounded. How much of my naked fear my words conveyed. “Why would we put ourselves—why would we put you in danger like that? What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to do it because we don’t have any other choice.” Bryan took a deep breath, as though to steady himself. “I’m going to hypnotize Liz—the front desk clerk—into leaving the motel early. If she’s not there tonight, the hunters can’t mess with her for information.” He paused, then added, “She’s actually a really good person. And I can’t let her get hurt because of me. She’ll at least be safe. Then we’ll leave town.”
Somehow, that last part didn’t really sound like a ‘we’ at all.
As Bryan turned and led the way out of the hospital, with me trailing helplessly after him wracking my brains for something—anything—I could say to fix this, I had the horrible feeling that there weren’t any words I could say that he would believe. It was as though what Ethan had told me about the future—what Bryan had overheard—had entirely wiped out what we had just done for Annie in his mind.
I was afraid he had given up. Not just on me—but on us . But my worst fear was the one that was most likely. I was afraid that Bryan had given up on himself too.