Chapter 6
Lorenzo slammed his bedroom door behind him.
Fucking Charlie Wever.
Ever since he’d returned to Lorenzo’s life, something had been off. His inopportune entreaties, his budding friendships with Maggie and Rachel, the reminders of their past—all of it had been grating on Lorenzo’s nerves.
But tonight had been a step too far. To appear at one of Lorenzo’s haunts expressly to badger him, and to ask the things he did—with such lightheartedness!
Charlie had asked him about his heartbreaks and his regrets, about losing people to secrecy, time, and pure awful chance; and he’d posed each question like it meant nothing to him, as if Lorenzo were simply a fascinating butterfly Charlie was pinning to a page, whistling while he worked.
His questions had stirred up something ugly inside, several lifetimes of loneliness and loss scrubbed right to the surface—and all of it, apparently, beneath Charlie’s notice.
And then, just as Lorenzo had perhaps been poised to make some reply,he’d shifted right into taking over Sal’s life.
Not that Lorenzo begrudged his friend any comfort in a difficult time—but he couldn’t help but notice that Charlie’s prescription had been the same thing he’d told Olivia: End it. Cut ties. Move on.
Charlie claimed such an interest in the sensitivities of Lorenzo’s heart, and in the lives of all supernatural creatures, when he was, in fact, nothing more than an overly meddlesome human who left nothing but emotional debris in his wake. Someone careless and cruel.
Some heartbreak in your past, I bet. Lorenzo took a deep breath, a leftover human impulse that had no real effect but still felt calming, as he tried to ignore the sound of waves in his ears.
He hadn’t known that the last time he ever saw his home under the sunlight would be the last time.
He could remember the moment he’d last seen the blue sky—just before it was washed away by a merciless wave that smelled of blood and musket grit.
But he couldn’t remember the final time he’d seen the sun’s light on his cottage, or on his wife’s hair.
He’d gone back to see them only once afterward, from a distance, hidden in the tree line; but the cottage didn’t look the same at night. The crash of waves was there, but the shriek of laughter was gone, and the warmth that clung to the stones so briefly after sunset.
Lorenzo looked exactly the same now as he had that night. The same as he always would, the same as he’d look in that picture Charlie had taken of him at the bar, so that he could get what he wanted from their arrangement. So he could move on.
With a sick twist in his gut, Lorenzo realized that it’d been days since he’d even bothered trying to come up with a plan to get his revenge on Charlie. In all the chaos he’d been causing, appearing randomly and trying to flirt his way into Lorenzo’s good graces, he’d actually forgotten.
Charlie thought it was so fun to meddle in others’ lives, to pry open their hearts and see what lay within. Lorenzo would see how he liked it.
He hadn’t turned on the lights in his bedroom, but that was fine; this would be easier in the dark. He lay on his bed, shaking out his limbs and trying to release any lingering tension in his body. He hadn’t done this in a long time, and he needed to focus.
It wouldn’t be as easy with Charlie as it would have been with a random human.
Charlie was studying the supernatural, had a vested interest in them, and had shown up time and again seeking information about them.
Clearly, he wasn’t as spooked by the paranormal as many humans were.
But Lorenzo was willing to bet Charlie still had a healthy fear of the unknown lurking somewhere deep within. He could use that.
He would need a bit of luck too. A vampire could only enter a human’s home when they’d been invited, and the same was true for their minds; he could only walk into a human’s dream if the human would have dreamt of him anyway. But he had a feeling Charlie would be thinking of him.
Closing his eyes, he sought to center himself and clear his mind.
Then he turned his focus to his own body—or more accurately, his corpse.
He focused on the desiccated blood in his veins, the piercing hunger in the core of his fangs, the dirt under his fingernails.
He felt the call of moonlight, the whistle of the wind, and felt his presence slip from his body and the physical world into someplace else. Into the ether.
He began to hunt.
He prowled, not in any place he could see or describe. He was a sightless, senseless animal following a trail more primal than scent, and he moved through the ether until he found something that felt familiar. Something that felt like Charlie.
He touched it, pushing against it, until it gave way.
Blinking, he realized he was in a dark alleyway.
The colors were a crisp duotone of black and red, and the pavestones looked wide, like they’d been distorted by a fish-eye lens.
Fog clung to the corners of the street, and something buzzed in the distance—an insect drone, too high-pitched to be soothing.
Yes, he was in the right place. This was Charlie’s dream.
Now he just needed to find his prey.
The alley stretched on endlessly as he walked; it had no real dimensions, of course, but he knew it would deliver him to Charlie eventually.
Dreams felt endless to dreamers, but Lorenzo had done this once or twice before, and he knew that they were more like conveyor belts, pulling the dreamer through surreality and sensation to whatever they were supposed to see. Charlie was here somewhere.
He stopped when he heard the sharp scream of metal.
A door appeared in the wall of the alley and then opened, party music and lights spilling out of it.
Charlie giggled as he stumbled out of the door and into the dream’s red evening, heaving a delighted breath into the frigid dark.
Lorenzo waited, letting the shadows cloak him from Charlie’s awareness.
He’d take his time. He wanted to do this right.
After a moment, Charlie turned and walked away from him, humming a drunken tune, his hands in his pockets. Lorenzo waited until he’d almost lost the sound of Charlie’s footsteps, then began to follow.
It’d been a long time since he’d hunted like this.
The dream helped him, wrapping fog around Charlie’s ankles, twisting what little light there was in the alley until it all seemed to pierce the eye, illuminating nothing.
The ambient noise around them dropped away, until the only sounds were Charlie’s breathing, the rustle of his clothes, and then—one of Lorenzo’s footsteps.
Charlie shivered and stopped short.
He looked over his shoulder, uncertainty in his eyes. Lorenzo waited, statue-still, concealed in the shadows. He could hear Charlie’s heart beating faster, his breath coming sharper.
When he turned back, he hurried down the alleyway, but Lorenzo kept pace easily. He let out a low, menacing growl, and Charlie jumped, his frame tightening. Lorenzo could almost feel the gooseflesh of his skin. This time, Charlie didn’t bother looking for the danger—he broke into a run.
Lorenzo descended upon him. He grabbed Charlie’s jacket and threw him against the wall face-first, keeping him pinned there with only a fist in his back.
Charlie screamed, fighting uselessly against him.
His lips didn’t move—dream paralysis, most likely—but Lorenzo could tell he was trying to beg for his life.
He snarled, baring his fangs, and fisted his other hand in Charlie’s hair. He yanked his head to the side and leaned close, ready to take a deep, painful bite—one that would surely jolt Charlie awake, and with a deep, abiding fear of vampires.
And then he realized—he didn’t just want Charlie scared of vampires. He wanted him scared of him.
He needed Charlie to leave him alone.
So before he bit, he spun Charlie around to face him and shoved him back against the wall.
A gasp broke out of Charlie’s throat when he saw who’d been hunting him.
His eyes were wide with fear. Lorenzo’s fangs were still out, his lips curled in a menacing snarl, and he knew his eyes were burning red.
He growled a low, deadly warning, and pushed closer to Charlie, trapping him in place.
He buried his hand in Charlie’s hair and yanked, baring his neck, licked his teeth, and leaned in.
Charlie shivered and pressed closer to him.
Lorenzo froze. But Charlie didn’t stop—he ran his hands up Lorenzo’s arms and dug his nails into his shoulders and the curve of his back.
Charlie’s heart was still beating a mile a minute, his blood pumping hot under his skin; but where before he’d been stiff with fear, straining to get away, now he pressed into Lorenzo, pushing back, away from the wall, chasing every place they could be crushed together.
His eyes had fluttered closed, and his breaths were fevered, frantic—each one rushing past Lorenzo’s ear as a hot, hungry sound.
And Lorenzo realized too late that the rest of the dream had shifted too—the air was boiling, the angles of the world seeming to liquefy around them so that they were pitched even closer together.
There was music, bass-heavy and drugging, and blood-red flowers bloomed all over the walls around them, lichen and soft, springy moss.
The dream swayed, and Lorenzo pressed more firmly against Charlie, seeking his footing. Charlie pulled him close. Yes, he breathed out.
Lorenzo felt it, his low, hot whisper, and swallowed back a coarse reply.
He didn’t need to breathe here—he didn’t need to breathe at all—but he was gasping anyway, for sanity, for mercy.
Charlie’s jugular was fluttering, the skin there slick and hot, and it wasn’t even why he’d come here, and—the scent of Charlie’s sweat was making him delirious.
Confused, overwhelmed, he leaned his forehead against Charlie’s.
Charlie opened his eyes and looked up at him. His gaze dropped to Lorenzo’s lips, to his fangs, and his pupils dilated. He wrapped a hand around the back of Lorenzo’s neck.
Lorenzo surged awake in his own bed, out of the ether and Charlie’s mind, covered in sweat.
He was still panting.