Chapter 6
ALEXANDER
Alexander certainly hadn’t expected to get into one of the most tragic stories he’d heard in quite some time over dinner, but the young man in front of him was doing more to tug at his heartstrings than any other human had since he could remember.
Tobias’ parents and siblings had died in some kind of accident – he wasn’t clear on the details, and Alexander couldn’t bring himself to pry – and it was clear Tobias blamed himself for their deaths, even though he was trying to seem chipper.
Reading a person’s truth wasn’t one of Alexander’s skills, but immortality gave one the benefit of getting quite good at reading expressions and the nuances of eye contact.
“It was a long time ago,” Tobias finished lightly, as if he were giving a review of a not-particularly-interesting movie he’d seen and wouldn’t recommend. “I’ve gotten used to the circumstances, and even though I think of them all the time, I’ve moved on.”
Alexander didn’t believe that statement one bit.
It was the forced acceptance that got to him.
It was more than a stiff upper lip – Tobias’ blasé attitude verged more on defeat than anything else, as much as he tried to hide it.
None of Alexander’s family had ever died, not his mother or father or any of his siblings.
One of the things he’d never quite grasped about mortality was what it meant to grieve a person, instead of the loss of freedom or agency or any of the thousand things that being a Damianos had taken from him.
His father may have sneered at Alexander’s longstanding habit of only drinking blood from his sexual partners – no matter how much Alexander insisted that it tasted better straight from the vein, and that keeping familiars was a fantastic way to get sustenance without needing to kill a new human every other day – but as much as humans amused him, he’d never loved one. Losing one had never hurt.
He’d done an awful lot to keep his feelings for anyone well away from emotions like love. One taste of his blood and his father would know about such a devastating vulnerability, and then Alexander would be even more at his mercy, having given Vladimir the keys to Alexander’s own destruction.
But sitting in front of Tobias, that promise to never truly care for another creature was feeling very hard to keep.
Tobias was hurting, even as he tried assiduously to hide it. And fuck Alexander, because he’d thought this would be another mortal to amuse and delight him, a distraction from his furious father and all his obligations, but now he wanted to make it better.
Alexander had never wanted to help anyone before. Certainly not a mortal.
But there was something about the way Tobias’ mouth turned down and his brow pinched, his teeth worrying at his lip like he was trying not to cry, that made Alexander feel like he’d taken a stake to the chest. Tentatively, he reached across the table and ran a finger along the ridge of Tobias’ wrist, the delicate bones twitching as Tobias pulled back just slightly before stopping himself.
“I’m sorry.” Alexander withdrew his hand, suddenly embarrassed at the turn the dinner had taken. Why had he started with such melodrama? He should have kept things light and fun like he always did, but his father’s mission had clearly left him out of sorts.
“Sorry for what? It’s not your fault, is it?
” There was a rough edge to Tobias’ voice, but he flipped his palm over and hooked his little finger through Alexander’s as he was withdrawing.
Something in the contact stirred heat in his core, and he would have said something to lighten the mood and show Tobias just how interested he was in more than a sad story, except the waiters arrived with their first course.
The bowls of soup that were slid in front of them looked enough like blood to turn Alexander’s stomach, but the reviews online had specifically mentioned the tomato and red pepper medley, so he chanced a spoonful.
While it was delicious – and warm enough to send a little flare of heat through his chest – he lost all sense of time and place when Tobias raised his own spoon to his mouth, flicked his tongue out, and moaned out loud.
Alexander would have sold his soul to take the place of the spoon.
The sight did something to him that he’d not experienced before, not with any other mortal that he’d ever wined and dined.
It sent a surge of lust through him, but also a surge of fierce protection.
He wanted to wrap Tobias in his arms and protect him from anything bad that could happen to him ever again.
Alexander was riveted as Tobias pulled the spoon into his mouth, hollowing out his cheeks, his blue eyes fluttering shut and his lashes lying heavily on his cheekbones.
With the setting sun, and the candles the waiters were lighting with long tapers, the arches of Tobias’ cheekbones were highlighted in flickering shadow.
It was like the man had been born to paint the most appealing picture possible.
Like he’d been crafted specifically to capture Alexander’s attention.
He wished any number of artists he’d known over his very long life were here to immortalise this in paint or marble or whatever medium could possibly capture this human’s utter perfection.
But the waiters departed until it was just the two of them again, so Alexander had to be satisfied with pulling out his phone to take a picture.
“What are you doing?” Tobias’ eyes shot open and he slid the spoon out of his mouth with a pop, smirking.
“Capturing a delightful moment.”
Alexander could see that Tobias was trying to calm himself.
With a dramatic eye roll, and flick of his hair, he said, “If you needed wanking material, you should have just asked. I have a whole album on my phone and I could have shared any one of those with you. I guarantee I’ve shot something far more flattering. ”
“Christ!” The insouciance stole a laugh from Alexander, and the melancholy mood was shattered. “I like you, Tobias.”
“I knew you were a man of impeccable taste, Alexander.”
They polished off the first course, which the waiters replaced with artichoke dusted with pecorino and decorated with radish. Alexander thought it the best moment to entice Tobias to tell him more about being a librarian.
“Professor, you see,” he explained, clearing food from the corner of his mouth lavishly, “it’s all a mystery to me, how it gets organised and stored. I just show up, get the books I need, and then leave them in a slot for some poor librarian to sort out when I’m done. How do you manage it?”
Tobias chuckled and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a finger.
Alexander wondered if he needed them to see, or if they were part of a fashion trend.
“Well, computers help quite a bit. Before online card catalogues, everything was done by hand. What an utter mess, and don’t even ask about the time before the Dewey decimal classifications.
Then it was just prayers and guesswork.”
“You’re speaking like you were there.” Alexander chuckled. It was charming, how mortals sometimes acted like they had any sense of history at all.
Tobias’ face flickered with the barest sign of annoyance, and he reminded himself that Tobias might be touchy about things like age – he didn’t even know how old Tobias was, although from looks alone he’d guess mid-twenties – and that he shouldn’t prod him too hard.
After all, the night was turning into exactly what he’d wanted – a diversion from thinking about his father, and potentially a longer-term distraction if they seemed like a compatible fit.
“Well, I wasn’t,” he said testily. “But could you imagine if you were? What an utter headache.”
Alexander could remember, because he’d been there watching monks illuminate manuscripts.
But he always gave his human paramours a few weeks to warm up to him before using the barest powers of suggestion to start bringing them around, exceedingly slowly, to the idea that he was a vampire born in the Middle Ages.
“My question is, why libraries?” He speared his fillet of Hereford beef and cut a sliver, dipping it into the accompanying red wine sauce.
He ignored the way it dripped off the steak like congealed blood and stuck it in his mouth, chewing.
“Oxford is well known for its bookshops. You could have been spending your days fondling smut and romance books, rather than tomes on mathematics and politics and whatever else you’re in charge of.
Then there’s the issue with the students, and I can attest to them being a handful. ”
Tobias stuck his fork and knife out and stole a corner of Alexander’s fillet, so he did the same with Tobias’ sea bass, letting the flaky fish melt on his tongue. “How did you know my affection for smut, professor?”
Alexander shrugged but couldn’t suppress his smirk. “Not-so-wild guess.”
“Well, to satisfy your nosey disposition, it was an accident of Human Resources. Or you could call it that. Blackwell’s didn’t want me.
I somehow got through the process at the Bodleian, and so now I’m hanging onto this job for dear life.
Before, I was in a few different libraries after getting my degree, some open to the public and others privately owned.
” Tobias paused and chewed on his stolen beef meditatively.
“You seem rich enough to have a library in whatever estate your family has owned since fifteen-whatever.”
Alexander swallowed hard enough that he almost started choking, because the thought of Tobias at Rothburn anywhere vaguely near his father was enough to turn his stomach in a way he didn’t care to examine. “You presume my family’s wealthy.”
Tobias shook his head. “No presuming required. I’m sure your salary as a university professor didn’t pay for all of this.”