Authors: SM Johnson
All he could hope for was some truth to what DeVante said about healing. That their blood healed, sometimes even from the inside out.
Just as he had the thought, something twisted in his stomach, and he bent over the table in surprise. What the hell? He felt like there was a small animal inside his belly trying to claw its way out. It hurt. It hurt a lot.
He wrapped both arms around his stomach and doubled over the table. It was a bad feeling, and he had no idea what it meant. He hadn’t danced with anyone or taken any blood since the night he woke up, so maybe this was the vampire part of him screaming for fuel. It was screaming for something, at any rate, and he knew nothing about keeping this body alive.
After a few minutes, the pain subsided, and Tony was able to sit upright again, relieved. He hoped Roderick could explain it when he showed up.
Meanwhile, Angel danced again. She had a perfectly beautiful body, and she knew how to use it. He thought that if only Lily had such confidence, maybe she’d manage to be an adequate vampire. Or at least one that could survive.
Angel winked at him from the stage and tossed her head toward the side of the stage. Tony looked over, and saw a tall, thin guy wearing a cowboy hat leaning against the jukebox. What was she telling him? Was that Callum? Tony fixed his gaze on the guy.
Look at me.
He willed it, and the guy looked over at Tony, jerked his head to the side as if startled, then looked again.
Come over here
. Tony said inside his head, locking the guy’s gaze with his own.
And just like that, the guy headed for Tony’s table. He sat down, and said, “Hey, kid, wow. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
Fake southern accent. Slim, Randy, whatever. The guy with the skinny dick. “Tonight, or ever?” Tony asked.
The guy smiled a friendly smile and said, “Well, just... you know. Thought maybe you had a rough night with the boss.”
“Oh, I did,” Tony said. “And no thanks to you.”
“Aw, come on, kid, I opened you up for him quite nicely.”
Tony wanted to cringe, to blush, because this guy had gone where none had ever been allowed. He didn’t do either, just kept his eyes steady on Slim. “Did you know he was going to kill me?”
Slim squirmed in his chair for a second. “Come on. He didn’t kill you. You’re sitting right here. And pretty enough for another go, I reckon.”
“Did you know?” Tony asked again. “Did you know how it would go down?”
“He ain’t exactly gentle,” Slim said. “I told you that.”
“He dumped me in an alley, practically dead. That wasn’t part of any deal I made. So now I want the cash I was promised.”
Slim had the balls to look shocked. “You mean this is a shakedown? You’re here because you want money?”
“He owes me the money,” Tony said. “But that’s not why I’m here. You can’t use somebody and leave them for dead. I mean, what the fuck? I’m gonna spit in that asshole’s face.”
“Aw, you don’t wanna do that, kid. He’ll hurt you for sure. Heck, he’ll be pissed as hell if he finds out you were here at all. I’ll make a deal with you.” He reached out to smooth a hand through Tony’s hair. “Come on back to the office, I’ll see if I can scare up some cash, then you can blow me in return, and we’ll call it even. You don’t want Callum finding you here. Trust me.”
Tony pretended to think about it. The money didn’t matter, not now. But if he went with Slim, he could feed from him. And since his stomach still had kind of a weird ache, that seemed like an okay idea. Seemed like Roderick should be here by now, but whatever. Tony could go looking for him later.
“All right. Lead on.”
Slim grinned and led the way backstage, then through a doorway into an office. He bent behind the desk to fiddle with the combination of a small safe.
Tony squeezed in beside him. “Hey, Slim, don’t move, okay?” He leaned delicately over Slim’s hunched body and licked his neck.
“Oh, you’re getting’ fresh already?” Slim asked, and laughed.
“Of course,” Tony answered, and let his sharp little teeth explain the rest, all by themselves.
Tony left him lying on the floor next to the safe, breathing. Well, he was pretty sure Slim was still breathing.
The pain in his stomach was gone, so that particular little mystery seemed to be solved. When tummy hurts, it’s time to eat. He supposed he should have known that, but it wasn’t any kind of hunger pain like he’d ever had before Roderick killed him, saved him. Whatever. It was something altogether different.
***
He was gone. Roderick knew it the moment he woke. What the fuck? Tony had promised not to disappear. Shit. Here we go again. This day-walker fledgling thing was getting old, fast. But what the hell could he do about it? Tony certainly had more strength than a mortal—maybe he even had the strength of a vampire, in which case nothing so simple as tying him up would be effective.
Damn. Where would he have gone?
Looking for Callum, that was the obvious thought, but they knew where Callum would be. He’d be at the strip club, tonight. That’s what they’d been told.
Oh Mavis, remind me not to make day-walkers. This shit is nothing but trouble
. He knew his prayers didn’t work, but hoped they at least amused his great-grandmother.
Now he’s in the same mess he started from—trusting Tony, only to have him disappear again. Wait here or go to the club? That was a no-brainer. He was terrible at waiting for anything.
He parked himself on a stool at the bar, and two minutes later watched Tony come out from behind the stage and walk past the jukebox. The kid was licking his lips, which was not something that gave Roderick comfort. Roderick whistled, sharp and loud, and Tony looked right at him, startled, then headed over.
Well now, there was one way to get the attention of a thought-disabled vampire.
“Callum won’t be here until tomorrow night,” Tony said, in greeting.
“Damn it, Tony, I hate waking up and finding you gone. You promised.” He felt a little cheated, getting himself stuck in charge of a fledgling who wasn’t open to him. Everything would be so much easier if Tony were normal.
Tony rolled his eyes at Roderick, and Roderick hated that. “Well, don’t panic. You found me. And I found Angel. And skinny-dick guy.” He pointed to a girl sitting at a table with a lone fat guy.
“Well good for you. She’s cute, whatever. Were we looking for her? Because I didn’t think we were looking for her.”
“I wanted to see her, Roderick. She was the only one at the party who treated me like a person.”
“Forget about the party, Tony, none of it matters.”
“But it does! It was a shitty party, it’s a shitty way to treat people.”
“Yeah? So what? Now you want to take revenge on anyone who had anything to do with it? Let it go. There’s no point. Now, what about Callum?”
“Angel told me Callum won’t be in tonight, so we’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“What about the other guy, the one with the skinny dick?” Roderick asked.
Tony shrugged but didn’t look Roderick in the eyes.
“Tell me.” Roderick willed Tony to turn his head, meet his eyes. Of course Tony didn’t. Roderick had to reach out to Tony’s chin with his hand, and turn his head.
Tony glared into Roderick’s eyes. “He’s in the office. I guess I needed some blood.”
“Shit! I told you not to feed without me.” Roderick was right; he’d been licking his lips. For sure. “I’m gonna have to start locking you up when I sleep. You can’t go around killing people. Didn’t we talk about this? Because I’m sure we talked about this.”
“It’s okay. Don’t panic. Geez, you get excited. I didn’t kill him. He was breathing when I left.”
Roderick sighed. “So we have to do this all over again tomorrow night?”
“Yup,” Tony said.
“Well, shit. Now what?”
“I don’t know. Teach me something about taking care of myself,” Tony suggested.
***
The Tenderloin district was not nearly as degraded as its reputation, but was not a bad place to stake out young prostitutes, both male and female. They were not hunting prostitutes, of course, but the customers attempting to buy favors from the ones that looked extra young.
DeVante believed that having a cause would keep Lily alive. If she could feed on people she found morally reprehensible, then perhaps going too far and killing would not be so devastating when it happened. Because it would happen. It happened to the best of them, even when they took care and were mindful of the needs of the hunger.
They had staked out a girl who could have been fifteen, or could have been younger, and when they watched her pleasure a middle aged man with her mouth, Lily went white with rage. DeVante had to hold her shaking body tightly to him so she didn’t explode that anger all over the street. “Wait,” he’d murmured into her ear. “You shall have your moment.”
When the man drove away from the young prostitute, DeVante scooped Lily into his arms. They followed the silver Lexus to a health club, of all places, where the guy parked on the street.
“Nice,” Lily murmured. “Let’s go defile a young girl before working off some calories. Like it’s just a normal part of a normal day.”
“Take him,” DeVante urged. “Before he steps away from the car.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. She was out of DeVante’s arms and on the guy the moment his feet touched pavement. DeVante smiled when she shoved him back inside the car, then dove in after him, fangs seeking throat, voice growling obscenities. She called him every name in the book. And then she backed off, pushed herself out of the vehicle, and leaned back in, still snarling at him.
DeVante could see the guy struggling to sit up, waving his hands around his head as if he were trying to ward off a swarm of gnats.
Lily was ranting. “You sick perverted fuck, what, can’t get a woman your own damn age? I swear by all that is holy and unholy, if you touch another little girl I will find you and kill you. Do you hear me? Fucking kill you. And I won’t be nice about it, either, not like tonight. You’ll beg me to get it over with, you sick fuck. Are you hearing me? Tell me that you’re hearing me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the guy gasped, holding out his hands. “I hear you. No more girls. I swear.”
Lily slammed the car door closed, leaving the guy inside.
When she rejoined DeVante, she was smiling. “Wow. That was great.”
“You did not kill him.”
“No. No way. What I did was worse. He’ll be jumping at shadows for months.” She looked up at DeVante, positively glowing. “You sly bastard. You’re right, I can do this. I can.”
She insisted on trailing the girl on the street, and terrorizing two more men, before calling it a night. And even then, he was hard pressed to convince her to leave the girl alone, because Lily wanted to scoop her off the street and ferry her away to some imaginary safe place. Like his house in Oakland. Tomorrow there would have to be more teaching, more practice at holding her back, more obedience. But tonight she had tasted success, and DeVante would let her hold onto it for this little while.
Chapter 31
How to surrender completely
They were staying in tonight. Just thinking about the evening ahead caused the compression of Reed’s dick in his jeans, and made the mere act of walking a riot of erotic sensation. When Daniel arrived, Reed collared him, then hustled him directly to the loft. He tugged at Daniel’s shirt, sliding his hands beneath the fabric to roll and pinch Daniel’s nipples. There had been a moment when he thought Daniel would resist, but it passed. “Take off everything but the collar,” he commanded. “Then kneel in the center of the bed, facing the foot, and wait for me.”
Reed unbuttoned his jeans and moved to his dresser, yanking the top drawer open and scrabbling his hand to the very back. His fingers found the soft wrist cuffs immediately. He pulled them out and debated what to do first; take his clothes off, or fasten Daniel into the cuffs and tie him to the bed. Decisions, decisions.
Cuffs, he determined, Daniel helpless before him, Reed still clothed and obviously in charge.
When he turned and saw Daniel waiting on the bed, his stomach clenched and his cock jumped to attention. The boy knelt as instructed, hands covering himself loosely, head bowed and eyes downcast. Reed wished intensely in the moment that he had the ability to draw. He thought for a split second about taking some photos of Daniel. And almost laughed because, although the thought would have stopped him cold a week ago, tonight it seemed like a distinct possibility.
This boy might be the most beautiful boy in the world.
Reed attached one of the wrist cuffs to the right side of the headboard, then walked around to the left side and placed the other one. Daniel stayed perfectly still on the bed, not watching, just exuding quiet calm.
Reed sat on the bed next to Daniel and without speaking used his hands to urge Daniel onto his back. Daniel was loose-limbed and compliant, allowing Reed to place first his right wrist, then his left, into the restraints. He arranged Daniel on the bed like a luscious gift to himself; Daniel’s head propped just so on a pillow, his arms loosely suspended from the iron bed frame, legs bent so the flats of his feet rested on the sheet, knees parted wide enough to expose his softly furred balls.