Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
Each new step in this night was a mass of confusion and bizarre changes. Zack had hoped that the people who loved him would still accept him, and yet Takashi’s blatant yearning for him was surprising. As Zack held on to his hand, he felt the pop-up growing larger and larger in his mind. He didn’t receive a direct image, but Takashi’s lust inspired a vivid desire to pin Takashi up against a wall and kiss him until they were both panting.
Only neither of us breathes. So that’d be a while . A longing for more than a kiss grew into a fiercer urge.
He’d died. He could admit what he wanted, at least to himself.
He wanted to fuck Takashi until they were both hoarse from screaming. He wanted to shred his clothes and bend him over. He wanted to do the same to Roger, too—to take him by the hair and yank his head back while he fucked him hard from behind. To feel the way either of them would clench around his cock. To overwhelm them until they were begging for release. To fucking own their bodies like he hoped he owned their hearts.
The feedback loop that had died for a moment flared to brilliant life. Zack pushed Takashi up against the bathroom wall. Takashi moaned with a soft, desperate sound that Zack had only heard Roger make him do before.
The fact that he hadn’t elicited that specific moan as a mortal but had as a vampire threatened to flip a switch in Zack’s mind. Anger attempted to infect his thoughts, but he channeled it into a fierce shield. What do I want? I want to be in fucking charge . He grinned at Takashi, showing his fangs.
The pop-up grew . Takashi liked him like this. That little thought threatened to resummon the self-doubt that Zack had given an interior voice to for far too long. It wanted to cut through Zack’s bond with Takashi and grind his hopes for their relationship into dust.
I’ve turned him on before . He just hadn’t had the inside track to his lover’s desires. Now he knew which motions, which caresses were exciting without having to exchange a word or wait for a moan. The emotional reaction came first, the body illustrating it soon after. Slowly, Zack put his hand on Takashi’s shoulder, his thumb on the base of his throat, and confidently held him up against the wall while he grinned wider. His smile felt as wicked as his fangs were sharp.
Takashi tried for a kiss.
But Zack leaned just out of his range. The loop was building, and Zack was determined to stay in control. He could keep his head above this. Doing so was surprisingly fun.
“No wonder you chaffed under those rules,” Takashi said. “You’re a Dom.”
“Aren’t all vampires?” Zack asked.
“We all play the dominant in public, but some of us find no happiness within that spectrum.” Takashi relaxed against the wall, spreading his legs just a little and generally opening his body language. “And some of us like variety.”
“I take it that means you’re a switch.” Zack nipped at Takashi’s lips, accidentally catching one between his fangs. Takashi gasped, and a drop of his blood struck Zack’s lip. Reflexively, he licked it. Takashi’s blood was … appealing. He ran his tongue over where the drop had been, but no taste remained.
“Careful,” Takashi said. “Blood sharing is a powerful bond, and you won’t find my blood as satisfying as a mortal’s.”
“Does vampire blood always taste weird?”
“Think of it like cola. A bubble, a fizz, but really nothing gained.”
“Okay, but I practically lived on that shit.”
“You enjoyed the sugar.” Takashi chuckled. “You didn’t live because of it.”
“I don’t know. Life gets pretty boring without sugar.” Zack pulled Takashi’s bottom lip between his teeth. He intended to lightly graze a fang against his tender flesh, but he went deeper. A small trickle of blood welled upward. An apology rose to Zack’s tongue as he began to pull away, but the scent of blood fanned the burning hunger in his core. He licked Takashi’s lip. The bit of blood wasn’t enough. Didn’t ease the hunger. I need more .
Takashi put his hand on Zack’s chest and shoved him. Zack stumbled backward three steps.
How dare he , a new voice in Zack’s mind declared. It sounded like Seamus.
That voice couldn’t be trusted, and yet, there was something right about it. Zack needed blood, and Takashi had it. He narrowed his eyes and rushed toward him, even as the rational part of his mind cried out for him to stop. Logic was a burden when the thirst was carving itself through his soul.
He rushed toward his prey. Takashi started to move, started to use that vampire speed to match what Zack had done. But he was too slow. Zack closed the distance and wrapped his hand around Takashi’s throat. He slammed Takashi up against the wall, and the surface cracked. Bones snapped, too, and some distant part of Zack screamed. He growled to shove it further away and opened his mouth, readying to sink his fangs into flesh.
The screaming part of his mind grew louder and louder still, as if someone had shoved a microphone into its hands and continued cranking the volume. I can’t lose him. I can’t hurt him. I need him. He’s going to leave me. He’s going to hate me. Everyone’s going to hate me . The strength of that voice wasn’t natural, not anymore, but Zack couldn’t purge it. He staggered away and put a hand to his head. The climbing fear broke through, and logic put itself back in the forefront.
“I’m sorry,” Takashi said softly. “You were going into a frenzy. I had to break it.”
“Oh.” With his mind precariously balancing, the impact of what Zack had done finally hit him. “Shit. Fuck. Are you okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to?—”
“It’s all right.” Takashi stepped away from the wall and smoothed his hair.
But there was a small pop-up coming from him. Zack hovered over it and could see the shape of Takashi’s new fear. His voice broke as he said, “You’re scared of me?”
“That’s reflexive.” Takashi raised his gaze to meet Zack’s, and the pop-up window shrank. “I should have been faster than you.”
Was Takashi scared of him because there was something wrong with him? Or because of the near miss on the blood frenzy? Zack couldn’t have killed Takashi by drinking his blood, but it wouldn’t have been pleasant. And what if I hadn’t just drunk his blood? Feeding frenzy vamps are dangerous and unpredictable. I’ve got to keep control . Especially if he was strong. He’d been nearly as quick as Seamus at the graveyard, and now he had outpaced Takashi without trying.
No, nothing was wrong with him. “Maybe it’s the blood they’ve been feeding you. Maybe it’s made you weaker.”
“It’s the nature of you . Do you understand how a vampire is made?”
Zack rolled his eyes. “Seriously?”
“You know the mechanics, of course. But what about the metaphysics?” Takashi asked.
Zack started to bite his lower lip but felt his fangs and stopped. No wonder vampires practiced stilling their motions. The wrong one was too freaking destructive. “A vampire drains their victim, then offers their blood. It forms a connection between the sire and sireling because essentially, the vampire plants like a runner vine in the new vampire. The bond between sire and sireling fades when the magic in the new vamp finally has its own roots.”
“That is a more practical understanding. We are talking of magic. The reality is a little more … well, come here.” Takashi sat on the lip of the tub and turned on the water until it was pouring in. “Imagine the tub already full of hot water. It’s all the way to the rim, slipping over the edges now and then. That’s the spirit of a mortal creature. We vampires feed on blood, but we also?—”
“Use the blood to drink from the spirit,” Zack said. “It’s why you and Roger never had to have much of my blood once we really got together. Our connections were deeper, so while you still needed the blood for access, you didn’t need as much of it.”
“It’s also why overfeeding from any source tends to make them lifeless, not just bloodless,” Takashi said. “You can steal what brings a person joy by draining away their passions until the very essence of it is gone from their soul. It’s what we feed on.”
“So much for not feeling like a monster,” Zack grumbled.
Lightning-quick, Takashi took his hand. A flash of wanting to soothe popped into Zack’s mind. “The more aware you are, the more control you can exhibit. Passion has its own wellspring in a healthy spirit. And you can take care of your pets and nurture their passions, help them grow.”
“Passion’s like a jet in a hot tub, and I got to make sure it doesn’t break,” Zack said.
“Exactly.” Takashi turned off the tub. About six inches of water were in it. “If I were being thorough, I’d fill this whole thing to make my point. But think of when we feed like reaching in and unplugging the tub. We drain what we need, and if we’re not careful, let the whole tub loose. When we make another vampire, we go as close to empty as we dare. The sire then offers their blood, giving that connection to their spirit and putting their magic in place of the drained spirit. You have to be willing to give , and the sireling has to be willing to take . In most cases, the relation winds up about this much of the tub—pretend it’s cold water instead of hot here. This burst of cold brings down the ‘temperature’ of the remaining spirit, making the person a vampire, and over time, death and the growth of the vampiric magic continues cooling the spirit out and finishes refilling the tub.”
Zack shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He had a bad feeling he knew where this was going. None of my sirelings have ever drawn from me like you did , Seamus had said. “You think Seamus offered me more than usual?”
“He offered, and you took—and I find no fault in that, Zack.” Takashi turned on the water. “You had the opportunity to know what was happening to you, which helped you.”
Slowly, Zack joined Takashi and sat on the lip of the tub. Takashi was staring down at the water. “How’d you become a vampire?”
Takashi managed a weak smile, no joy reaching his eyes. “I ran away from home to become a trapeze artist with a traveling circus. My childhood wasn’t terrible, not in the least, but my parents were struggling, and I didn’t want the future I saw with them. The trapeze was exciting. Almost as exciting as the feelings I had for the boy performer. So I hid in the circus’s wagons. When the performers eventually discovered me, they were furious, but I refused to tell them where I came from, and the ringleader had too much of a heart to drive an immigrant boy away. I practiced with an untampered passion, even when my first two years were nothing but endless chores between those late-night practices. Eventually, I became what I wanted. I was even performing with the boy I’d fallen in love with.
“Some performers of our merry band were shifters. It’s a lot easier to ‘tame the lion’ if the lion’s a natural-born were-lion who has full control of his senses. We’d heard tale of Taliville, and the management believed it would be the perfect place to winter. I knew of vampires, was told not to venture out into the night on my own, and knew that the town didn’t have a mayor but a vampire mistress, Nell.
“We were set to perform for New Year’s in order to keep our skills sharp and garner some of that sweet applause we all lived on. The boy I’d secretly loved found out. He … he wasn’t happy about it.” Takashi paused.
Zack reached out and put his hand on top of Takashi’s. When Takashi glanced his way, Zack tried to smile. “He was an idiot?”
“A bigot as it turned out,” Takashi murmured, his smile still broken. He was trying, though, and he held on to Zack’s hand. “I don’t know if he let me fall on purpose during that performance or if it was an accident. Nell certainly blamed him. He was the one she’d brought to my grave for my first kill, so I never had a chance to ask him.”
Zack winced. “Brutal.”
“We are not kind creatures by nature,” Takashi replied. “But my making was a mercy. Nell thought me a light too beautiful to leave the world, so when I fell forty feet to the hard ground, she rushed to my side. If I hadn’t taken her blood, I would have had an eternity of painful minutes left on this earth.”
“You didn’t die instantly on hitting the ground?” Zack scoffed at himself. “I mean, of course you didn’t, because you had time to drink her blood. But was there any chance you would’ve lived?”
“No.” Takashi waited a long beat before continuing. “I wanted so badly to live, and Nell gave me her magic. I had a bit more than the average sireling, and the metaphorical water was far colder than what most sirelings receive.” He turned off the tub. “I think you had the same cold but something more like this volume.”
The tub was half-full. With the size and depth of the tub, it was enough water for Zack to submerge himself. And it was far, far more than the amount it had been before. He stared at the depths. “But he’d have to offer this much.”
“He would.”
Zack reached for the water. The memory of his last mortal moments began, but he focused on the present rather than letting it sweep away his mind. “I wanted the strength to destroy him. I wanted to avenge us. Why would he give me this much? What’s the point in setting all this up? What’s his angle?”
“I’m not sure, but figuring it out is my priority.” Takashi linked his fingers with Zack’s and squeezed. “I am grateful I won’t have to do it alone.”
“Roger’s out there,” Zack said. “We could break out of here. Steal my dagger back and run.”
“Close your eyes,” Takashi said.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Zack sighed and did so.
“Raise your right hand.”
Zack did.
“Now your left.”
“What is the?—”
“Just listen to me for a moment and do what I say.”
“Fine.” Zack raised his left hand.
“Drop them both to your lap. Head down, head up. Turn left.” Takashi kept the instructions quick. “Where’s Seamus?”
“Down a floor and one hundred and eighty feet to the north,” Zack said without thinking. Startled, he opened his eyes. “How the fuck did I know that?”
“You’re a brand-new sireling. You’re connected that deeply.” Takashi’s gaze was on the water for a long, long moment. Then he seemed to come back to himself. “You need to get cleaned up.”
“Will you help me?” Zack asked. “Feels like the dirt is everywhere.”
Takashi grinned, and this time, there was a bit of happiness in his eyes. “I’d be happy to, so long as we can keep ourselves from a lust spiral.”
“Eh, no promises.” Zack stripped off his filthy suit jacket. “It’s better to think about that than everything else going on in my head.”
“I’m sure we can put our focus elsewhere.” Takashi helped Zack pull his shirt off.
Zack kicked off his shoes and unbuckled his belt. “What do you think Roger’s doing right now?”
“I like to pretend he’s holed up in a cozy house a million miles away from here,” Takashi replied.
“That would drive him nuts. He hates being alone.” Zack shucked his pants and stepped into the water. It was impossibly hot, but rather than feeling like it was scalding him, the heat sank into his bones and was delightful. “Fuck, that’s good. I’ve never really been a bath person, but?—”
“It has a way of warming us,” Takashi said. “Maybe Roger’s taking a bath.”
“Maybe you should join me,” Zack said with a grin.
Takashi shook his head. “Don’t start.”
“Fine.” Zack sank into the bath. “But first chance we get, we’re buying a hot tub and doing whatever the fuck we want in it. Including fucking.”
Takashi laughed, and there was a soft note in it that Zack had never heard when he was a mortal. Was it new? Or was it some trick of his voice that Zack’s enhanced hearing could now detect? Either way, Zack had brought it out of him, and that warmed him as much as the water.