Envious Of Fire (Kissing With Teeth #2)

5. The V Word.

—?—

“Like, I dunno, when is it too soon to ask someone out?”

Kyle chuckles. The question comes from Leland. The two are hauling bags of trash from the party to the dumpster behind the bar. “If you’re feeling it …” starts Kyle.

“When did you get the balls to ask Elias out?” Leland takes one of the heavier bags over his shoulder and thrusts it into the dumpster with a grunt of anguish. “Shit, man, I’m outta shape.”

“Is this about Becks?” teases Kyle as he throws his own bag into the dumpster—with such incredible ease that Leland gives him a baffled look.

Then he straightens up. “Is it that obvious?”

“More than,” laughs Kyle. “Everyone knows. Cade’s seen the sparks since Fourth of July. Something about how you kept eyeing Becks over your plate of barbecue you barely touched.”

“Wow, I forgot about that party. Burned the fuck outta my hand like an amateur, flipping a burger.” Leland rubs his sweaty head of hair, wrinkling up his sleepy face. “Didn’t realize it was so obvious. Did you notice back then, too?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Why not?”

“Party was in the afternoon.”

It’s slow to dawn on Leland. “Oh, right, because … right.” He lets out a flustered laugh that dances around his throat like a bird caught in a tight place. “Shoot, we should hold all of our parties at night. They’re more fun. Sun’s too hot, anyway. Hey, you haven’t been here more than six or so months, right? You haven’t even seen it snow yet.”

Kyle shuts the lid of the dumpster. “Can’t imagine a single flake of snow dropping in a place like this.”

“Well, they do. I mean, it isn’t Canada, but it snows. Did I ever tell you that’s where I’m from? Well, my parents, at least. I was born here. Not that you asked for my life story. Just, seeing as you’re opening up so much more to us now …”

Kyle can feel Leland’s emotions flying around wildly. He throws him a smile and puts him at ease. “I appreciate anytime you open up to me. I like learning more about my friends.”

“Friends? Yeah, of course, we’re friends.” Leland lets out another strained laugh. “I’m too damned insecure about Becks suddenly. Did you know I went a straight three months before I realized Becks was short for Rebecca? My dumb ass thought her name was literally Becks. If only I knew whether she—”

Something crashes loudly at the end of the alley.

Kyle turns at once.

Nothing is there.

Leland presses against Kyle’s back, his eyes wide. “Did you see something?” he whispers, alarmed. “What was that?”

“Don’t know.”

They remain still, neither daring to draw a breath.

“After that incident with the ring stuck on your finger last Friday,” Leland whispers, clinging to Kyle, trembling, “I’m a little freaked out by coming back here. I keep thinking—”

Kyle shushes him, continuing to focus. When nothing else seems to move, he uses his Reach, seeking any presences in the alley. All he finds is the rippling fear from Leland, still clinging to his back, and the cheerful energies from their friends inside the bar. He senses nothing else.

“Do you think it came back?” whispers Leland. “That dark, creepy ghost-thing you said you saw out here that one night?”

“No,” says Kyle after a pause. Then: “No,” he repeats with more confidence. “Because of the deal, we’re being left alone. We shouldn’t have any reason to fear. We’re safe.”

Leland nods. “Yeah, deal, right.” Then he squints, leans in closer. “What deal?”

Kyle lets out a breath of relief, puts on a smile, and turns to slap a reassuring hand on Leland’s back. “Don’t worry about it. It was just a mouse … or something heavy settling in the other dumpster. Didn’t Sylvia throw out her old TV yesterday? Let’s finish closing up and go home.”

Leland returns a nervous smile, not fully convinced, but the two head back in anyway.

It’s only half an hour later when Kyle and Elias are making the short drive home. The entire town is asleep, and the drive is slow, windows rolled down, radio off, nothing but the night in their ears. Kyle lets his arm hang out of the window, feeling the air brush over his fingers like soft hair. His Reach still senses no one but the quietly sleeping people of Nowhere between the vast, empty spaces of nothing at all.

“I should visit Patrick,” says Kyle suddenly.

Elias half turns to him. “The fuck …?”

“He’s an innocent participant in all of this. He’s suffering for no reason at all, sitting in a jail cell, worrying about his …” Kyle’s voice cuts off.

“His family,” finishes Elias, “which George already ate for a light supper.” When he reaches the next stop sign, he puts the vehicle in park and turns to Kyle. “Are we just gonna forget he shot you pointblank? In the face?”

“All on George’s orders.”

“Patrick was told to steal an hourglass. Not kill you.”

“He panicked. He recognized that I was … what I am.”

“A nice and patient guy who took a bullet in the face for a kid whose birthday we just left? Jeremy could be dead right now. What would you even say to Patrick?”

Kyle wonders the same thing. Is it guilt that drives him to want to talk to him? Pity? Does he even have a good reason?

“I would tell him …” Kyle feels a pinch of doubt. “Lies.”

“You’d what?”

“Lies,” he repeats, quieter. “I’d say his family’s okay. I’d say they’re somewhere safe. That I hope he gets to see them soon.”

“Why would you say all that?”

“Because I know what it’s like. To lose your family. To lose the love of your life. To think … nothing is going to be okay again. Is it such a crime to want him to have a little peace? If it wasn’t for my kind, he would be home right now, happy, with his wife and …” Kyle swallows, ashamed suddenly. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. Forget it.”

Kyle grows still when Elias caresses his face unexpectedly, gently stroking his cheek with a soft thumb. “You are beautiful, you know that?”

“Elias …”

“And it wasn’t your kind who did this to Patrick. It was the other guys, the assholes who think they run things around here. You’re not one of them. Look at me.” Kyle turns, guided by the gentle pull of Elias’s grip. “You’ve got a heart that’s as deep as the ocean. It’s no coincidence why you’ve got the gift you do, being able to feel what others feel. And you know what else is interesting about the ocean? No one’s ever been deep enough to truly know it.” He leans over to put a kiss on Kyle’s lips. A fever takes him over—a fever Kyle senses immediately. Elias’s mouth drags down Kyle’s neck, places another kiss, then lower, breath shattering as his passion ignites. “Little bit of mystery, I gotta admit, makes you pretty damned sexy, too.”

Kyle sighs with a sort of exasperated delight, half a laugh. “If you can’t turn every situation into something sexual …”

“You make me crazy,” groans Elias.

Kyle takes hold of his man by the face, peers into his eyes. “That was really sweet, by the way … what you said about the ocean and my heart and all that.”

“My love for you is boundless.” He grins in Kyle’s face, the kind of grin revealing more playful thoughts. “For now, let’s go home and … pick up where we left off before the party.”

An assault of happy anticipation rushes up Kyle’s neck—all of it belonging to Elias. Sometimes, the Reach can be a bit too helpful, exhausting Kyle. “Babe …”

“You can visit Patrick tomorrow, if it’s still bugging you.” He kisses again. Then again. He is unstoppable. “I was thinking we could … be more … creative tonight. Like what we talked about that one time, when I was … well …”

Kyle lifts an eyebrow, already connecting to the thought. “Really? The personal blood bank thing?”

“Call me a freak, whatever you want … I’m not gonna deny it, all of it turns me on.” He leans in closer and puts the softest kiss on Kyle’s neck, another on his cheek, working his way back to his lips. “Isn’t it obvious … how much I want you to just … own me?”

It’s difficult to resist Elias when all of his desire surges into Kyle so powerfully, as persuasive as if it’s his own. Even Kyle’s cock responds, pressing against the confines of his pants, like it only obeys and listens to the beating of Elias’s hungry heart.

“I think we …” Kyle struggles to maintain composure. “It’s important that we don’t …” Elias is diving for more kisses in his neck. As Elias’s heart races, so does Kyle’s, feeling entirely out of his control. “We need to try and—”

Kyle spots something in the road ahead, standing beneath the streetlight—a featureless shadow in the shape of a person.

Kyle leans forward, alarmed.

But the figure is gone.

Did he see anything at all? Or was it just a trick of his eyes?

Elias, clueless, still searches for places to put kisses. He has peeled back the neck of Kyle’s shirt meanwhile, pressing warm lips to his cool chest. Kyle, distractedly enjoying it, lets out his Reach to capture anything nearby, to sense someone there.

It finds nothing.

No one but them.

Elias’s face appears in front of his, eyes narrowed and deep. “I’m driving us back home right now, we’re going in the house, you’re gonna tie me down to that new bed of ours so tightly I don’t even have a dream of escaping, and my body is gonna be your juicy piece of meat to suck and nibble on all night long.”

Whatever Kyle thinks he saw, it becomes just a daydream of a thought as he falls into Elias’s gaze. Kyle barely breathes as their twofold desire swells, seducing him with his own thirst.

Perhaps it’s now that Kyle makes the decision: he won’t let his paranoia and fear rule him any further.

And he cannot bear another moment in this vehicle.

In the blink of an eye, they are home. The noise of them bursting through the door scares Little Lion from her peaceful slumber on the couch, sending the poor cat skittering into the kitchen for cover from a danger she hasn’t yet identified. Elias’s clothes, piece by piece, are peeled off and dropped along a path down the short hallway, through a door, and to their recently-acquired bed, upon which Elias falls back, naked. Four neckties snatched from Elias’s pile of belongings find their mismatched selves securing his wrists and ankles, leaving the young man’s delicious body stretched spread-eagle over the bed.

The muscles in Elias’s abs and chest flex and collapse with his every quick breath, showing his excitement. Already, every inch of his golden brown skin gleams with sweat in the moody lamplight, eyes locked on Kyle, anticipation rippling out of him and filling the room like an electrical storm.

“You like it, huh?” asks Kyle, slowly circling the bed from side to side like a pendulum, with his face playfully pensive. “I can tell. You’re significantly more excited than usual.”

“I’m all yours.”

“Do you realize how vulnerable you are right now?”

“I trust you.” Elias is out of breath. “I can take it. I can take any of it, any amount of it, all of it, all you got.”

Where will Kyle bite first? How many places will he taste? Will Elias be capable of enduring as many hours of this as he allegedly craves? These questions circle the room as Kyle does.

The next moment, Kyle straddles Elias’s chest.

And he holds a fifth necktie. “What’s that for?” asks Elias.

Kyle grins. “It’s no fun when you know where I’m planning to taste you.” He places the tie, blood red and silky, over Elias’s eyes, knotting it behind his head.

“Oh man,” says Elias, his grin as adorable as ever, bringing out his lone dimple. His heartbeat accelerates. His breathing changes for the more erratic. “Oh man, oh man …”

Still straddling him, Kyle feels Elias testing his restraints—a little tug of an arm here, a pull of a leg there, learning quickly that he’s gotten exactly what he asked for: a tight predicament with zero give and zero chance of escape. He feels utterly and happily helpless, as giddy as a child, yet fortified with a kind of heart-pounding bravery of anticipating what’s next.

Kyle brings his lips softly to Elias’s chest. The second they touch, every bit of Elias’s senses zero in on the spot, like birds in the sky creating a perfect formation, an arrow, listening with laser-like attention. Kyle takes advantage of that by being extra teasing as he runs his lips slowly down Elias’s exposed body, taking his time in choosing where to first bite, making his man yearn for it. Kyle knows each and every pull of Elias’s desires, and he delights in them. He finds his lips at Elias’s swollen cock so soon, pulsing and full. The moment Kyle puts a kiss on it, he hears Elias suck in air. It is both like kissing steel and velvet, the texture soft, the form unrelentingly firm, powerful. Kyle kisses it again, and again, Elias reacts with electrical awareness of every touch, movement, and breath from Kyle’s lips.

It isn’t long before the teasing becomes torture. “Kyle, you know what you’re doing down there, making me wait …”

A smile plays over Kyle’s lips as he continues to kiss Elias’s cock, up and down its length, with excruciating patience. “You are all mine to enjoy, aren’t you? For as long as I want?”

Elias gives his arms a tug, his legs, the neckties unforgiving in their knots, barely half an inch of give. “Please …”

“I know I’m making you crazy. And I plan to savor every tiny bit of it.”

“Please bite,” Elias begs. “I’ve waited for this all night, all damned night … I couldn’t take another minute of being at that party, I need your teeth in me, I need you to suck me.”

Kyle hears a noise by the door, pulling his attention.

The cat sits there, glaring, tail twitching.

“What?” Elias lifts his head up, the only part of him that has any freedom, if it weren’t for the blindfold. “Is it something at the door?”

Kyle smirks. “I guess Little Lion is worried for you. Should she be? Do you think you’re in … danger?”

Elias drops his head back to the bed, tired of it. “Kyle, I’m begging you, fuck, just bite , even if you start there, even if you start with my dick, I’m begging you, please …”

The cat lets out a distressed meow.

Kyle glances again. He’s not sure if he’s ever actually heard her make a sound before, not even a full-breathed hiss.

What is it about this night that makes everything so odd?

“Babe …?” moans Elias.

Kyle slips off the bed, moves to the door. The cat scuttles away, then glances back over her shoulder, meeting Kyle’s eyes. Kyle closes the door, says, “Sorry, Little Lion,” then returns to the bed, where his focus quite suddenly lands on Elias’s thick, muscular thighs. He slides right back between his man’s legs nearly undetected, then brings his lips to the left inner thigh, causing Elias to jerk with surprise—though with the restraints, he moves impressively little.

It only takes one kiss for Kyle’s thirst to reignite. He opens his mouth fully, baring his teeth, relishing in the taste before he has even allowed any to touch his tongue.

And finally, he bites.

Elias sucks in a breath, delirious with that specific, exquisite cocktail of pleasure and pain. The neckties creak as Elias pulls upon them, tightening them more.

Kyle’s teeth sink deeper.

The taste holds such a powerful sway over Kyle. But blood is more than just its taste, which is admittedly an acquired one. Blood is also literal life that coats Kyle’s tongue, that ignites his soul, that charges his body with a vibrant and incalculable force that makes him feel capable of anything. He is more powerful with the blood. Each dream in his heart becomes unlocked and effortlessly possible.

Kyle didn’t do drugs or illegal substances as a human. Not even a single puff of weed. But he can imagine the feeling he gets upon tasting blood with his new, transformed self is something akin to the mind-altering madness that is giving oneself to the deadly embrace of a thing that shows you paradise just as easily as it can kill you.

It’s a risk he assumes every time he tastes blood.

The risk of losing himself to the thirst.

Something Tristan warned him many times over the years would be dangerous to do.

It’s why they hardly ever tasted blood. Only human food, as inadequate as it was in satisfying any interpretation of appetite. For reasons Kyle could never fully understand, Tristan was adamant they stay as far away from blood as they could. It hastens our transformation , he said repeatedly. I will try with every fiber of my being—including my unforgivably blond hair—to keep us human for as long as I can . Or rather … as human as we can call ourselves even now when we are so clearly … not . Yet Kyle, despite his unwavering obedience, often found himself curious about all the dangers Tristan neglected to elaborate upon.

It took meeting Elias for Kyle’s curiosity to be satisfied.

It took Elias begging to be bitten for Kyle to throw caution away and sink his teeth in, indulging himself, tasting the taboo.

Many times. Over many nights. Over many weeks.

Does it change Kyle? Does it stain his soul, or tamper with his heart, or transform him deeper into the inescapable clutches of their cursed and terrible nature?

Will Kyle someday become one of Them?

“Babe, mmm , can you, ouch , bite somewhere else?”

Kyle stops, lifting his face from Elias’s thigh. The mark his teeth left is deep, appearing like a bruise, sickly and reddish.

He is horrified at once. “Oh … I … think I …”

“My thighs are pretty amazing, huh?” says Elias, grinning, then wincing. “But yeah, that spot’s a bit sore. Can you—?”

In one second, Kyle is about to express all the doubts he’s been suppressing since their argument less than a week ago that nearly split them up. The last thing he wants to do is inflict real pain on the man he loves. He wants to stop. He worries he was right all along and one day, he will go a step too far. He wants to grab the first aid kit from the bathroom.

The next moment, he is overpowered by a resurgence of Elias’s deep desire for Kyle to continue, to bite him somewhere else, to bite him everywhere else, no matter the cost.

Elias seems to enjoy even the soreness and the pain, as if it’s nothing more than sore muscles after a tough workout.

He wants Kyle to make every other vulnerable part of him just as bruised.

The sexual appetite swelling between them reverberates—Elias’s driving Kyle’s, Kyle’s driving Elias’s, the pair of them in a deadly dance with an increasing tempo that has no chance of slowing until someone kills the string quartet.

Perhaps this is the first moment Kyle recognizes how truly dangerous his own gift can be, how it renders him susceptible and vulnerable to anyone’s emotions within reach.

Even still, Kyle finds himself on Elias’s chest again, chooses a spot, ignores caution, sinks his teeth into an arm.

Don’t they both deserve this?

Haven’t they been afraid for long enough?

Kyle feels Elias’s strong bicep flex under his teeth, which only helps in directing the blood more easily, as biting into muscle isn’t the most efficient way of getting blood. But the bite is far more important than the blood, and Kyle enjoys a subtler taste, putting himself in a frenzy of yearning as he sucks harder, Elias fighting against his restraints, pretending to resist as he bears the pain.

“Babe …”

Kyle releases Elias’s arm, this time less easily than before, a flicker of annoyance passing over him at being interrupted.

Until he sees the mark on Elias’s arm, worse than the last.

“Am I … Am I biting too hard?” breathes Kyle.

A cocky grin spills across Elias’s face. His smile is somehow sexier with the blindfold, as if it brings full focus to the strong shape of his lips when they curl at the corners. “Think a little rough play is gonna scare me? I told you I can take it, right?”

“I know, but—”

“Hey, hey.” Elias lifts his head slightly. “I’ll tell you when it’s too much, alright? Besides, you can feel me every moment, too, using your Reach-thingy.”

Hearing that self-given name for Kyle’s gift is strange. He should never have said it the other day after they returned from Las Vegas. Elias knows just about everything now, the only soul in the world to whom Kyle has confided all of his truths—other than Tristan, who is forever no longer in the picture.

“Yes,” says Kyle. “You’re being amazing. Communicative. I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“Well, if you wanna look at it another way, you’re hurting me with my consent.” Elias’s lips curl up deviously again. “Just think of it like guys who like spanking. Whipping. CBT.”

Kyle blinks. “CB-what?”

That causes Elias to let out a boom of laughter. “I swear, Kyle, the clueless jock comes out of you in the funniest times, and I just can’t help but find it so damned adorable.”

“Pretty sure you made that up,” mutters Kyle with a frown.

“Hey, how about you tease my rock hard cock some more, give my balls a bit of a torturing squeeze … show me just how helpless I am.” He smirks, lolls his head to the side, chuckles. “You will figure out quick what those letters mean.”

Kyle moves over Elias. “You mean this big ol’ thing?” he asks, taking hold of Elias’s cock. Elias sucks in air. “And these?” His other hand clutches Elias’s balls, squeezes. When he hears Elias grunt—and feels his heart leaping with a desperate hope for more—Kyle obliges, squeezing even harder. “Is this what you want so badly? You enjoy suffering?”

“Yeah, babe, I do, I really fucking do.”

Kyle finds it easy to fall into the role of a dominant lover, when his every action is coached silently by Elias’s emotions, and he knows how badly Elias craves it. It isn’t Kyle’s usual way of expressing love, but with knowing how much Elias wants it and feeling his every wave of overwhelming pleasure when Kyle gives it, it isn’t difficult to enjoy.

Kyle brings his lips to Elias’s, one hand still gripping Elias below with unforgiving pressure. “I just realized how much I like making you moan. I think it’s my new favorite sound.”

“Then you’d better keep giving me reasons to make it.”

Kyle squeezes harder, thrilled by the way Elias provokes him, taking on the challenge. He finds himself drawn back in, as his lips drag down Elias’s chest and become affixed to one of his nipples—a known sensitive spot on his body. Kyle runs his tongue over it, causing the tip to harden. It feels like he’s licking his own nipple, the way Elias’s pleasure spills back into Kyle. He lingers there, mesmerized by the reverberating bursts of pleasure each time he licks, putting the pair of them in a trance of anticipation, with the constant threat of his strong grip on Elias’s balls, ready to stun him with the pressure of another firm, punishing squeeze.

Kyle bites. Elias responds with a whimper, body bucking.

The taste of Elias is always surprising, always not enough, tempting Kyle to abandon all control and drink his fill. What is his fill, exactly? How much is enough? Will he ever know?

Then comes the sound again.

Kyle lifts his head from Elias’s nipple, this time glancing at the bedroom window, covered by an off-white curtain.

A shadow quickly passes, unmistakable.

Kyle flies from the bed at once, sweeps the curtain out of the way, the blood of Elias’s nipple still fresh on his lips. He is quicker this time to cast his Reach out like a net, determined to find someone. But after ten frustrating seconds at the window, he is pained to sense nothing but the neighbor in the house next door, nothing but Elias on the bed behind him. Prickles of dark suspicion race up the back of his neck that have nothing to do with his Reach. Just like the alley behind the bar when he was with Leland. He knows he saw something.

“Kyle?” calls Elias from the bed, confused.

“Sorry.” His gaze lingers in the backyard for a while longer before turning back to the bed. “Thought I saw—”

He stops.

Someone stands at the bedroom door.

Something.

Very tall, maybe eight feet. Completely naked, with skin that is absolutely, alarmingly white, smooth in places, chalky and rough in others, like white clay and porcelain, with only the slightest reprieve from the whiteness at his thin, pale, pinkish lips. Long, straight, jet black hair running down either side of his gaunt face, over his broad shoulders, to his slender waist, the texture appearing more like wire than human hair. His eyes are needles of smoky grey, eyelashes barely visible, eyebrows thin and straight. There is very little muscular definition to his body, chest flat, nearly concave, his arms reedy and long.

He stands there perfectly motionless, as if painted against the bedroom door at his back, which is still closed. Did it ever open? Did he teleport in here, or enter so quietly, neither Elias nor Kyle noticed?

“Uh, Kyle?” asks Elias again, still bound to the bed, limbs stretched as far as limbs go, clueless.

“Elias, don’t move.”

Elias turns his head to the left, to the right. “That a joke?”

The very second Kyle makes a move for the bed, the figure appears at the end of it without seeming to have taken a single step. With a cold, detached expression, he stares down at Elias’s completely exposed body.

And his nipple, which still bleeds.

“Who are you?” demands Kyle, though for as confident as he tries to be, his voice is swallowed in a pool of dread.

It’s only now Elias stirs. “Wait, what? Someone’s there?”

From the figure, Kyle senses absolutely nothing at all with his Reach, as if he doesn’t exist, made of literally nothing, not even air, a complete vacuum. “Who are you?” Kyle repeats, harder.

It is with clarity and an unexpectedly deep, masculine tone that the figure answers: “Lazarus.”

Kyle watches Lazarus stare at the beads of blood gleaming where Elias was bitten. Lazarus doesn’t seem the least concerned with the human on the bed, only the blood, nothing else in the room existing, not even the air within it.

Kyle can’t help the panic bubbling up inside of him. It’s compounded now with Elias’s, who starts tugging with distress on his restraints, shouting, “Kyle?? The fuck’s going on? Who’s there? C’mon, you’re freaking me out.” But the restraints still have no give—just as he so helpfully requested when he was in the mood. It’s safe to say he is no longer in that mood.

If Lazarus is what Kyle suspects him to be, and if not being able to sense anything with his Reach is any indication, Lazarus cannot be reasoned with like a human. He is far from human.

So it’s with wild courage that Kyle shouts, “He is mine!”

Lazarus turns his grey, needle eyes upon Kyle. “That so?”

Kyle is taken aback by his surprisingly human, casual tone. It causes Kyle to respond similarly. “Well, yeah. He’s mine.”

Lazarus frowns, then turns to the bed again, to the sight of blood, as if it exists by itself without the accompaniment of the human—of Elias, who has grown entirely still himself, breath held, listening. Lazarus moves his head, and all his hair shifts like a curtain of razor-thin cables, not a single tangle in them.

“You don’t plan to drink it all?” asks Lazarus. “There is so much left in its veins. I can still hear its heart pumping.”

“K-Kyle …” whimpers Elias.

Before Kyle can mutter a word, Lazarus is at the other side of the bed, stretched over it, his mouth latched upon Elias. The room fills with Elias’s shouts, a mixture of pain and terror. The next second, Lazarus is on top of Elias, creating a new wound at his chest, biting with such an opened mouth, Kyle literally sees his teeth coated in blood. Then Lazarus swoops to Elias’s neck, blood still running from the nipple, the chest, and now from the creature’s thin, greedy lips as he laps up blood.

It happens so fast, the moment Kyle shouts out and lunges at Elias, Lazarus has flown from the bed and now stands nearly face-to-face with a completely stunned Kyle, towering over him with shocking strength and unsettling focus, his odd, grey needle eyes bearing down, streaks of red on his lips and chin. “You’re wasting time playing games with your dinner. His blood is good quality.”

“K-Kyle, untie me, please,” begs Elias, “untie—”

“He’s … not just my … d-dinner .” Kyle’s back is against the window and its curtains. “I keep him alive. He lives with me.”

“So it’s your pet?” asks Lazarus, sounding annoyed.

“I’m no fucking pet!” cries Elias over the rattling noise of pulling against his overly tight binds again, barely budging, as if he has any hope of overpowering them.

“You’re starving yourself needlessly,” states Lazarus as he drinks in the sight of Kyle from head to toe. “Look at you. As squishy as a centipede. Weak. Frail. Slow. You can’t even fight me off properly. Why do you do this to yourself?”

“I’m …” Kyle edges along the wall, trying to get to Elias. “I am just trying to live my life in peace. I didn’t invite you here.”

“But you did,” says Lazarus. “I could smell you, for so many nights. I crept upon the perimeters of your life, I watched, and I grew frustrated. You’re so young, you should seek those of us who can help. It isn’t wise to live here with your food, like sleeping on your dinner plate.” He peers back at the bed, wipes blood off his chin, licks it off his fingers, sneers. “These games are so childish.”

By the second, by each word uttered from Lazarus’s thin, terrible lips, Kyle grows sicker. “He isn’t just my food. It’s not a game, and it’s none of your business. You need to leave. Now.”

Lazarus’s eyes sharpen.

“I’m … not like you.” Kyle continues inching along the wall, determined to get to the bed, to free Elias, to protect him with whatever means he has, despite his crumbling confidence in being any match whatsoever against this powerful being. “I’m not like that. I’m not a … a …”

“What?” Lazarus slowly strolls, the first time Kyle has seen him use his actual legs, following Kyle along the wall, keeping himself between Kyle and Elias, as if suspecting exactly what Kyle is attempting to do, a step ahead of him. “You’re not a … what?”

Kyle grimaces. “You know what.”

“Look at that disgust on your face. Why are you disgusted? Who made you hate what you are? It is power . It is control . The blood is our only god. Why can’t you even …” A gleam of anger darkens his eyes. “… say the word?”

“Because it’s not what I am. It’s not who I’ll ever be.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be. I’m human. Mostly. And I’ll stay as human as I can until—” Kyle stops, his patience run out. “I don’t owe you answers! I didn’t invite you here, no matter what you say. I want you gone. You’re all supposed to leave us alone. That’s the deal Tristan struck with Lord Markadian.”

“Deal? Tristan? What are you talking about?” Lazarus lets out a boom of laughter that surprises Kyle. “I think you may have me mistaken for something else entirely. Do I look like a man who strikes deals with Lords? Do I look like a man who needs permission from anyone or anything to do as I please?”

Elias yanks even more urgently against his binds, grunting, hardly moving for as stretched as he is. Blood pools at his neck where he was last bitten, red streams down the side of his chest.

Kyle holds his breath. “You’re … You’re not one of—?”

“I do what I want. I live how I want. No one governs me. Look at you. You can’t even say what I am.” He emits another terrible boom of laughter that fills the room like a drum. “This is why we have such words. Like human … or pet. You are a child. Maybe it’s why you still play with your food and suppress the thirst in your being … why you cannot even bring yourself to utter the word that which fucking defines you …”

A flash. Lazarus is upon him, long hands crashing against the wall on either side of Kyle’s head with such strength, cracks in the paint and plaster shatter outward from his palms like spiderwebs, the ceiling over their heads shuddering, dust raining down.

“ Vampire ,” states Lazarus, baring fangs, then plunges into Kyle’s neck.