Chapter Four
As soon as Hilker spoke, Isaiah’s mind tumbled through every possible implication of mouth and different.
Lips to skin, lips to metal, lips to… But Hilker was looking at him very closely now, and it wasn’t his lips he seemed focused on, rather his fangs.
Venom? Did Hilker want more venom to study? He was aware that Hilker had taken some, milking him like a snake during the first month he’d been down there, but he’d seemed to have learned what he could from that and moved on. Perhaps he had something new in mind for Isaiah’s venom now, though.
Something worse.
Isaiah had met one of the Vitalis-Barron lab escapees before he’d vanished again just as suddenly, one fang entirely removed, all the way down to the root and the venom sac, leaving his upper lip a mess of scar tissue and untended infection.
The thought of his old agony returning with a fang amputation made him nauseous and shaky.
Besides, he was too pretty for that. Even if he never got out of here, never saw himself in a mirror again, having his own physical appearance ripped away from him…
“I don’t—” Isaiah had to find a way to say no without angering Hilker. “You can’t take anything from me, understood?”
Hilker’s smile only widened. “You’ll give this willingly, don’t worry.” He hopped off the table and tapped the place he’d been sitting. “Now, scoot your ass.”
Isaiah felt his face flush, and he cautiously moved further down the table until his legs were draped over the foot.
He still had no idea what Hilker was getting at, but his whirling mind supplied him with a thousand reasons why he wouldn’t enjoy it.
This was Hilker, after all. There was hardly anything to enjoy here.
But he’d agreed to these terms, and he couldn’t be sure that if he backed out now, Hilker wouldn’t take that as an opening to do whatever he planned, but worse.
As meticulously as if he were preparing for surgery, Hilker rolled the cuff of his right sleeve, folding the button-up to his elbow.
He had a nice forearm, Isaiah couldn’t deny that—thin, but still toned, like he found time to lift weights between all the other things he seemed to be doing with his life. Did he even sleep?
Now that Isaiah thought about it, Hilker had been looking more and more tired for the last few months, though he thought the dark circles beneath the man’s eyes were starting to clear now, finally, leaving just the fine wrinkles of stress and middle-age.
One sleeve rolled up, Hilker scooted the step-stool behind Isaiah and began, absurdly, to climb onto the table too.
A suspicion of Hilker’s intentions flickered in the back of Isaiah’s mind, but he was too preoccupied by trying to twist to keep the scientist in his line of sight to focus on anything else.
He was met by both palms on his shoulders, turning him purposefully back toward the table’s foot.
It was like the gown undressing all over again, Hilker’s presence looming behind him, but this time he could feel Hilker’s palms, his arms, his chest shifting up to press against Isaiah’s bare back.
A thousand shudders ran through Isaiah all at once.
Oh god, had he agreed to this? He had a growing suspicion he might know what this was, but he didn’t dare admit it to himself. The idea felt too much like hope.
Something tight and gross built in his throat.
Isaiah tried to swallow it all down, but the emotion came back a thousandfold as Hilker wrapped one arm around Isaiah’s waist, his opposite leg cradling Isaiah’s thigh, and suddenly it was too fucking much.
Someone was touching him—holding him—like he hadn’t been held in months, a firm, soft presence wrapping around him, pulling him close, and with Hilker behind him, he could almost imagine it was no one or anyone, just someone, folding around him the way he’d ached for every night as he stared at the ceiling and listened to Landon’s tiny snores.
Isaiah sniffled, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning into the embrace, closing his eyes and squeezing his own arms across his chest.
“Sh, now. You’re nearly there,” Hilker whispered. His fingers brushed the side of Isaiah’s cheek, and it slammed reality back into him like a downpour.
And yet…
Hilker pushed his thumb against Isaiah’s lips. He spoke into Isaiah’s ear, his breath hot and sweet. “Open for me.”
Shit, had he really... Isaiah hadn’t dared to dream it, but he’d been right.
It made sense with all the other pieces of Hilker—from his obsession with vampire research to the way he looked at Isaiah—that he would be this kind of human.
The kind that yearned for the bite. Perhaps the venom, too.
If that was all he wanted, though, there were other ways about it.
But no, he wanted this from Isaiah, entangled with him, skin to teeth.
“You’re asking me to…” Isaiah couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, his voice already so soft he wasn’t sure if Hilker could hear at all.
“Do you need me to spell it out?” Hilker asked, and it sounded nearly teasing.
But Isaiah understood: he understood that this was by far the least of all the evils that could have come from his haphazard trade. Opening his mouth around Hilker’s wrist, he carefully bit down.
In moments, blood flooded his senses. The freshness of it, the sting of the sweetness, so saccharine it was toxic, the feeling of flesh in his mouth and the constant ebb and flow of a pulse, all fought for Isaiah’s attention as he took one long drag after the next.
Between each swallow, he pressed his fangs in a little deeper, spiking Hilker with a bout of venom.
It served him right for the hand he was stroking through Isaiah’s locs and the soft taunting he whispered into Isaiah’s ear.
“You like that, don’t you? I know you don’t want to, but you do. I’m fresh and warm and you can’t help yourself…”
Isaiah didn’t want to admit just how right Hilker was, nor how good it felt to be held as he fed, his hair touched and his desires seen, like he was a person again and not simply a walking, talking lab specimen.
Of course, Hilker was only doing this for his own benefit—it wasn’t for or against Isaiah in any way—but nonetheless it benefited Isaiah, too, and that benefit felt good.
He took his time dwelling in the sensation of it, his eyes closed as he let their surroundings fade away, until it was just pressure and taste, breath and heartbeat.
All too soon, the internal twinge in Isaiah’s gut told him that he’d had enough.
He took three final, long drags of Hilker’s blood and carefully retracted his fangs.
Little dribbles of scarlet continued to rise from the marks he’d left in Hilker’s pale skin.
Cupping the back of Hilker’s hand in his, he steadied the man’s arm enough to lick over the bite marks. They sealed in an instant.
A shudder rang through Isaiah, and he let Hilker go, scooting himself forward. Before he could pop off the table entirely though, Hilker caught him by the waist. His breath brushed over Isaiah’s ear. “Do you feel dirty, drinking my blood?”
Isaiah swallowed. He couldn’t bring himself to meet Hilker’s gaze.
“But you liked it,” Hilker continued, letting him go. “You wouldn’t accept it so willingly otherwise.”
Isaiah liked Hilker’s blood, despite knowing who it came from, despite how the memory of his touch was quickly turning towards disgust now that Isaiah had his wits about him again, despite the way its remnants in his mouth made him want to wipe his lips for stains—despite it all, he liked the taste.
And that Hilker tasted this good confirmed something for Isaiah, a fact he had been avoiding since he first caught sight of the man, back when his cruel scientific rationality had come in conflict with Justin and Clementine.
But he recognized it now, as undeniably as he understood Hilker’s own callous desires: Isaiah was attracted to the bastard.
If not for Landon, Isaiah was certain he’d be spiraling.
He was attracted to Hilker. To fucking goddamned Hilker.
Of course he was.
It was obvious in hindsight; the man was book smart, arrogant, pushy in a gracefully conceited kind of way, a little older, a lot complicated, and—somehow—able to make Isaiah feel like he was being degraded without actually harming him in the process.
And he wanted Isaiah. He was everything Justin wasn’t, and it was intoxicating in the worst way.
It didn’t mean Isaiah had to give him more than he had been willing to before this revelation, though.
No, Hilker could want Isaiah, and Isaiah could want him back—physically, anyway—and still be strategic and distant about it.
Besides, for all his wanting, he also despised Hilker, which made this easier.
“Did you hear me? Hey, whipping boy?” Landon called, giving a soft bang on the side of the wall. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you walked away.”
“Sorry, yes, I hear you.” Isaiah winced, wrapping himself tighter in the fuzzy blanket he’d traded away his dignity for. It smelled of Hilker: of coconut lotion and sap. Isaiah absolutely refused the instinct to rub his face in it. “Can you maybe repeat that last thing?”
“I said, to your great fucking disregard, that I’m getting a new book with dinner. Super full of ass-o-lades, I bet.”
“Asso… Accolades, you mean? Like prizes?” Isaiah guessed. It certainly wasn’t the first time Landon had incorrectly pronounced a word they’d recently read, and he doubted it would be the last.
“Yeah, that.” Landon made a little indignant sound. “A-ck-uh-lades,” they said, sounding out each syllable with the tone of an eyeroll. “What I mean is, I could read—”
“Yes!” Isaiah felt a knot loosen in his gut at the thought. “Please, yes.”
“Will you beg?”
Isaiah knocked against the wall, chuckling. “My liege, read me the book, or I may cry.”
“Good enough.” Landon laughed. “You don’t even know what it is.”