Envious Of Fire (Kissing With Teeth #2)

Epilogue. Truly Nowhere.

Elias, pinned against the wall, naked, arms spread out.

Kyle, gripping the left arm. He smirks. “Ready?”

It isn’t Elias to whom the question is directed. It’s his partner, Drake, who holds the other arm. “Hell yeah.”

Elias sucks in air, steeling himself.

Kyle and Drake bare teeth, then plunge upon either wrist.

The grunt that Elias issues is deep and visceral—and charged with heart-pounding excitement. No matter how much he fights, he cannot free himself from Kyle and Drake, who hold him to the wall with comical ease. He’s their captive, to be drank from, to be fed upon, to be enjoyed and used as their blood boy for as long as they wish, in whatever way they wish, until they are satisfied.

And Elias wouldn’t have it any other way.

Kyle experiences every bit of Elias’s excitement secondhand. Every time he rakes his teeth over Elias’s skin, taunting him. And drags his tongue over a sensitive spot, causing his muscles to flex and tighten. It’s as much of a journey of pleasure to Kyle as it is to Elias, who relishes in being made to bear every second of it.

But the feeding pales in comparison to the sex that follows.

When Elias is most vulnerable, charged with frustration.

And Kyle and Drake are at their strongest, fueled by Elias’s blood coursing through their bodies.

Elias is now totally helpless, wrists strapped to the bedposts as tightly as he’s ever desired with absolutely no chance of escape. Only his legs are free, each of which Kyle holds as he pumps his cock inside his boyfriend with vigor. Straddling Elias’s chest is an equally energized Drake, whose own cock is pummeling deeply into Elias’s mouth, relishing in the slick, warm sensation.

The three of them are one.

Kyle thought he had discovered a new high when it was just his and Elias’s pleasure filling his heart. With the hot addition of Drake’s puppy-like excitement and limitless, unbound pleasure, it’s a wonder Kyle can bear it all without exploding in seconds.

But when they finally do, it’s incalculable how much pleasure Kyle is overwhelmed with. As their orgasms stretch on with wave after wave—Elias’s over his own abs, Drake’s in Elias’s mouth, and his own inside Elias—Kyle wonders if this feeling could last forever. Pure, boundless, incomprehensible bliss. The kind that, for a fleeting second, Kyle worries no one on earth is meant to know, like a sip of nectar stolen from the gods.

Kyle collapses against one side of Elias, spent. Drake on the other. Elias, the seed of three men all over him, inside him, full of sweat and out of breath.

“Wow,” moans Drake, running a hand through his blotchy pink-blond hair, wet from exhaustion.

“I feel so used,” groans Elias, happy grin spilling over his face. He turns. “How about you, babe?”

Kyle hasn’t quite recovered yet. All three of their emotions still rocket around inside of him. Playing with his heart. Dancing in his nerves. Swimming through his blood. They’ve done this so many times by now, and Kyle can never get used to it. It’s the first time, every time.

“Can someone untie me?” Elias then asks. “I think I can’t feel my wrists anymore.”

“You got it, blood boy,” calls out Drake, already back to full energy, hopping off the bed to oblige.

Sometime later, Kyle and Elias are in the bathroom together, cleaning up. Elias catches Kyle by surprise in front of the mirror, bringing his arms around him from behind. “You smell so good.”

Kyle smiles sleepily back. “Yeah?”

“It’s barely midnight. You look like you’re crashing.” He puts his head on Kyle’s shoulder, the two of them gazing at the sweet reflection of both of them in the foggy, post-shower mirror. “Still exhausts you, huh? All three of us and your Reach?”

“There are worse things to have to suffer,” says Kyle, leaning back against Elias and nuzzling his head against his shoulder.

“Like my sneak-attack kisses ?” asks Elias before demonstrating with an onslaught of them on Kyle’s neck, causing him to forget his aches and instead give in to laughter.

Elias has become so in tune with Kyle’s feelings, knowing just what he wants at all times, it’s almost as if he has his own Reach.

Perhaps that’s exactly what being trapped in a town together for nearly four months will do.

Has it really been four months already?

An hour later, the three of them, Elias, Drake, and Kyle, lean against the back of the couch, side-by-side, cuddled within the same big blanket, as they watch snow flutter past the window, a cup of coffee in Elias’s hand, a bottle of beer in Drake’s. Outside, a string of colorful Christmas lights dangle from the finished front porch, which nearly extends to the road and covers the entirety of the driveway like an awning. A long picnic bench sits in its center with a powered ceiling fan overhead. Along the edge of the porch are normally sitting an arrangement of potted plants—rosemary, aloe vera, lantana, prickly pear cactus—but all have been brought inside for the colder months, three of which surround the record player, currently playing a vinyl of AC/DC at low volume. Upon a pile of blankets by the front door sits their cat, bathing herself.

“I’ve always hated cold weather,” says Drake. Then he lays his head on Kyle’s shoulder with a sigh. “Maybe I just lacked the right people to enjoy it with.”

Kyle feels a pang of Drake’s sadness. Over the past months, it comes and goes. “Thinking about them tonight?”

Drake struggles with his reply for half a second before leaning toward the truth. “Not as … much as usual.”

“I tell myself a story,” says Elias, like a suggestion. “I decide Vegasyn fell like the Roman Empire. My mother is freed. No one can touch her anymore.” He shrugs. “See? Easy as that.”

Drake takes a swig of his beer, squints through the window. “The story I’ll tell myself is … my family found a way to survive. Laz isn’t as bad on his own as he feared he’d be. Salazo realized he didn’t need a pet at all. The rest of my aunts and uncles took up my suggestion of robbing a blood bank. Not ideal. Still ethically terrible. But the tradeoff is not hunting humans anymore. They’ve all taken off to California, holed up in a sizeable condo with their stolen riches used to pay for it, set for life, and the only thing they keep in their fridge is an endless supply of O-positive, and maybe a little AB-neg for rare occasions.”

Elias and Kyle sit with that for a while. “Disturbing in parts,” says Elias. “But acceptable,” says Kyle, nodding.

Drake smiles, satisfied. “Though …” His smile wavers. “If we are being honest here, I’m not sure where La-La fits into all that. Oh, I know! He’s a yoga instructor offering midnight sessions at a private resort where half-remembered D-list celebrities go.” Kyle and Elias remain silent. Drake peers at them. “Too soon?”

Kyle closes his eyes. In the house next door, he picks up with ease the fluttering heart of his brother and the calm and collected temperament of Raya. The pair have grown a lot closer over the months, and if it weren’t so cold and snowing, Kyle’s certain the five of them would be sharing a midnight meal right now.

There’s a third presence in that house. Nico’s energy runs hot and cold. He hasn’t adjusted well to being a demipire. His moods are all over the place and unpredictable. He sometimes won’t even wake up for the night, preferring to sleep straight through for days without eating. Kyle and Kaleb have had many conversations about what to do. Raya seems to be the only one who can get Nico to talk, and even then it’s a tricky endeavor.

Sometimes, Kaleb catches Nico crying in his sleep.

Nico keeps insisting he’s fine.

Drake slips out from under the blanket, heads for the kitchen. “I’m gonna bake a big, fat batch of cookies to take with us to the bar. We’re still going, right? No, don’t stop me,” he clips before Kyle or Elias say anything. “I don’t care how many of them Nico refuses to touch, I’m gonna keep making them until he finally decides to forgive me for saving his life and gets his booty out of that house one of these nights. I mean, it’s December. There’s a ton of snow. How does that not scream ‘come out and play’?”

Kyle slips from the blanket, too, then stands at the archway leading into the kitchen, watching Drake as he opens drawers and cabinets, pulling out all sorts of bowls and spoons and mixes. “He just needs time,” says Kyle. “It took me years before I was finally okay with my transformation. And I even asked for it.”

“I was fine the day it happened to me.” Drake drops a spoon on the floor, picks it right back up. “Five second rule.” Then he goes to the fridge for eggs. “Anyway, I already told the three next door to come to the bar tonight. It’s up to them. But cookies won’t eat themselves. Should I put chocolate chips in them? Cade and Layna love them. So does Jer. At least he seems to. Would be easier to know if he could speak or communicate at all.”

“Don’t forget Silas,” says Elias, now hugging himself with the entirety of the blanket. “He loves your chocolate chip cookies.”

“Who cares about that brat?” mumbles Drake as he cracks an egg over a bowl. “He’s been getting too close with Layna.”

“Was sure she and Jer would get back together,” says Kyle.

“Oh, you know teens,” says Elias. “Break up one sec, make up the next. What do you expect when your universe gets shrunken down to a small town you can’t leave? They’re playing musical chairs. Silas, Logan, Layna, Jeremy, Mariah. Just a matter of time before they all date each other. Hey, aren’t you guys cold??”

Kyle and Drake share a look. “Must be a demipire thing,” says Kyle with a shrug. “Yep,” agrees Drake. “I’m not cold at all. Still considering going out there right now and dancing in the snow.”

Elias narrows his eyes. “Demipire.” Shakes his head. “Still not a fan of the word. Sounds too much like the full thing. Or like you have a vampire mom and a human dad or something.”

“Well, Raya likes it,” says Kyle, “and we need to call ourselves something to distinguish us from Them .”

After saying that, Kyle peers at Drake, who is now busy at the counter stirring ingredients. He wonders suddenly if Drake might feel odd whenever he talks that way, casually referring to Lazarus and the other vampires as “Them”, as if his family is something to be detested, to be separated from, to be reviled.

Kyle has found himself wondering lately how many families of vampires are out there in the world. Or loners who don’t wish to belong to any family. Is it thousands like Lazarus believes?

“What do you think?” asks Kyle, coming up to the counter.

Drake shrugs. “I don’t care what we call us, as long as these cookies come out badass. And also that Silas chokes on one.”

Moments later, cookie dough sits spread out on two trays in the oven. Every cookie looks different, lumpy and uneven. Some blobs with just one or two chocolate chips. Others with too many.

Kyle and Drake stand back, watching them bake.

Then Drake sighs. “Yeah, fuck this, let’s dance in the snow.” He grabs Kyle’s hand and drags him to the front door despite his protests, Elias watching them as they fly outside, wide-eyed.

That’s how two men end up dancing in the snow covering the street in the dead of night. Kyle shouts out while Drake holds him by both of his hands, spinning around, then letting go, sending them flying back. This happens too many times, but soon, Kyle is laughing more than protesting, and then it’s him instigating the fun. A moment later, Elias comes out of the house bundled up in a puffy jacket, beanie, and scarf, and the dancing quickly converts into a snowball fight. The three men laugh as they battle each other in the street under the misty, starless night sky.

There’s a moment when Elias and Drake chase one another around with snowballs in hand—Elias shouting, “Come and save your boyfriend, Kyle!” and Drake laughing maniacally—that Kyle finds his eyes drifting to the house next door.

He thinks of Kaleb and his new life here. Raya, her departure from the House of Vegasyn—and from Tristan’s side. Nico and his difficult adjustment to being one of their kind now.

It’s times like these that make Kyle nearly forget the reality of the situation they’re all in. How so many citizens in Nowhere are still scared and unsure. Wondering if this is how they’re going to die, spending all the rest of their days in this town, waiting for supplies to run out. And despite all the mayor’s and Chief Rojas’s reassurances, no one truly feels reassured.

All they can do is make the most of their days—and their cold nights—by acting like they’re on a permanent vacation together.

A permanent vacation in the middle of truly Nowhere.

“Oh shit, I forgot about the cookies!” Drake darts back to the house as Elias and Kyle sit in the middle of the road on a mound of snow, watching him through the front window as he flies into the kitchen to salvage his babies. Kyle and Elias turn to each other as the snow gently falls.

“Do you ever feel like …” Kyle second guesses his question, changes his mind. “Never mind.”

“What?” Elias pulls away, brushes snow off the top of Kyle’s head. “Safe space, babe. Something on your mind?”

Kyle glances at the house next door again. “Something feels so different about tonight. I can’t put my finger on it. Like … this little paradise we built … is about to …”

“Fall apart?” suggests Elias too casually, then shrugs. “I hope not. I want this to last forever. Isn’t this amazing? No care in the world for what’s happening outside the shroud. All I want to do is have sex all day long, build covered walkways over the whole town so you guys can go where you want even during the day …”

“The shroud and the cold weather make it pretty overcast most of the time, anyway,” Kyle points out.

“Not overcast enough to prevent a tragic accident, and no, we won’t go there,” he adds with a laugh. “I don’t know what about today is special for you , but I can tell you, every day I spend with you here feels special to me. Perfect.” He gives Kyle a gentle kiss. “A part of me … hopes Cade and Layna … never figure it out.”

Kyle gazes into Elias’s eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He stares off the other way down the street, where in the far distance, the edge of town resides, the place where no one can penetrate to the other side. “I can’t help but worry … what may await us on the other side of that shroud. What might await us out there in the world. What if it’s changed? What if a war has broken out between all matters of supernatural beings? What if the whole human race is already wiped out and there’s just …” He lets out a sigh fringed with anxiety. “… nothing left out there?”

Kyle stares off at the dark, hazy nothingness, too. He doesn’t want to consider that possibility. He wants everything out there to be okay. He wants to believe the world is still there for them—if someday the citizens of Nowhere are allowed to rejoin it.

This can’t be the end of everything.

Drake bursts out of the house. “Cookies!” he declares, lifting them in the air cheerily.

Moments later, they meet up with the others at the bar, which is overly decorated for the holidays courtesy of Cade. Many from around town are also here, making the inside feel cozy and warm when the trio arrive. Drake and Mikey, who have become rather brotherly over the past few months in every way short of a secret handshake, meet by the jukebox and argue about the music. After greeting Leland and his girlfriend Becks at the bar, Elias and Kyle make the rounds to see the familiar faces. Jeremy and Mariah—formerly known as Blood 304—sit in a booth in the back corner, absorbed by something on Jeremy’s laptop, likely the computer game they’ve been bonding over, despite his still being unable to speak. Silas, one of the two teenage boys rescued from Vegasyn, sits at a table with Layna, both of them sharing a basket of nachos and laughing together.

“I’ve been so restless lately,” says Cade when Kyle joins her at the bar. “I keep going to my computer thinking I might chase one more lead digging into my family tree, then am reminded all over again that none of us have internet. You’d think the stupid shroud wouldn’t block all cell and internet service, too. Isn’t keeping us trapped here bad enough? No, no,” she quickly says, lowering her voice, “I’m not trying to work anyone up. I’m just tired of all the side eye my daughter and I get. Isn’t it better to be stuck here and alive than hunted and fed on by murderous vampires?”

Kyle takes Cade’s hand. “Don’t overthink it. No one in town is mad at either of you for what you did. You saved us all.”

“Yeah, well, be that as it may, we’re also everyone’s only hope of lifting this damned shroud.” Cade lets out a sigh. She’s clearly had a long day, and this night keeps getting longer. “Just when I thought Layna was on to something this afternoon, nope, it falls through. I think between me and her, we’ve tried something from every single page in that damned grimoire. Nothing, nada.”

“You’ll find the solution someday,” Kyle reassures her. This is a conversation they’ve had many times already.

“I swear, it’s like the book is a computer that just shut off. It’s not responding to anything we’re doing, and I’m out of blue and white candles and burned every last stick of incense there is in this place. Don’t even get me started on the sage.”

Layna laughs too hard at something Silas says, then casually peers over her shoulder at Jeremy in the corner of the room, whose complete attention is glued to his laptop, Mariah clinging to his arm, watching as well. When Layna returns her attention to the nachos and whatever Silas is saying now, she seems distracted, and each of her smiles comes forced.

Kyle feels the heaviness inside her heart. Not that it takes his Reach to see the misgivings in her eyes, too.

“It’s weird for me as well,” says Cade quietly, having followed his line of sight, words nearly drowned in the noise of the room. “If you ask me, I think Layna felt too much guilt over what she did to Jer Bear, and when Mariah showed up after losing her own boyfriend, the two just bonded in their mutual silence and grief.”

Kyle peers at her. “You don’t think they got weirded out by their own parents dating?”

Cade’s mouth drops. “What? Me and Juan? We’re not—!”

“C’mon. Everyone knows.”

“We’re not a thing!” she protests through an outraged laugh, realizes she caught Leland’s attention behind the bar, then lowers her voice to a whisper. “ We’re just friends, we had a sort of fling-thing months ago, it’s over, we’re just friends .”

“Does that include or exclude the secret walk in the park you two had just last week after closing the bar early and you—?”

“This conversation’s over,” Cade decides, gives Kyle a playful flick of her fingers on his arm, causing him to laugh, then heads off to work the room and catch up with others.

The curly-haired sisters who run the bakery enjoy the tray of cookies Drake brought, eating the majority of them. Drake and Mikey, who have finally agreed on the music, dance badly in front of the jukebox nearby. Leland keeps appearing to want to join them, but is afraid Becks will get on his case again about “acting like a man-child all the time”. Doctor Mei, who looks like she’s hit her limit in both socializing and drinking, catches Kyle’s eye just before slipping out the door, giving him a little wave as she departs with a couple of her friends.

That’s when Kyle spots someone unexpected outside through the front door: Patrick. He leans against a streetlight smoking a cigarette in the cold, wearing a long coat but not seeming to mind that it’s barely closed, his sunken eyes staring off, unshaven face, messy hair. It was a controversial but necessary decision on Chief Rojas’s part to finally pardon Patrick and release him from his jail cell. Seeing as he can’t depart the town anyway, Patrick is more or less still incarcerated, only now with a much larger cell.

The longer Kyle watches the man, the more bothered he feels. He can’t hold back anymore. Something about this night is spurring him on. Maybe playing in the snow earlier. Or seeing his friends having fun. Or the weirdness between Jeremy and Layna. Or the whacky dance Drake is trying to pull off now and the fact that Leland, at last, stopped holding back and hopped the bar to join them by the jukebox, much to Becks’ eye-rolling chagrin.

Kyle slips out the door into the street. Patrick notices him at once, flicks his cigarette, then sighs. “Fucking cold night.”

Kyle leans against the wall nearby, nods in agreement, even if he feels little of the chill himself. “This is my first winter here.”

“It’s when they come out, y’know.”

Kyle peers at him. “They?”

“Yeah. Veins as cold as ice. Hearts as cold as ice. The cold is their fucking temple. Bloodsuckers. Born out of demon’s ice, all of them, they come with the cold. It’s the night my wife and child went missing, a night just like this one, so cold, you can’t feel your toes.” Patrick takes a drag from his cigarette, blows into the biting air. He licks his lips, turns his head toward Kyle. “I’m not going in there, don’t worry. Not making that mistake again.”

“I understand,” says Kyle automatically.

“Even with our shared hell, no one in this town likes me, nor do they give a shit what I’ve been through.” He lets out a bitter snort. “Not after I held the precious chief’s son at gunpoint in that pawnshop however many ages ago. Not after shooting you in the face. Don’t they know I didn’t have a choice? Wouldn’t they do the same damned thing if their families were being held captive by a psycho vampire named George? What the fuck kind of vampire name is that, anyway? George? Fucking kidding me?” He lets out another breath of smoke, coughs, wipes his reddened nose. “I’m convinced my family’s dead now. I did it all for nothing. George killed them. And I’m stuck here in this place … stuck here like I might as well have died and gone to Hell. This town … everyone in it … all of it can just go fuck itself.”

Kyle lowers his eyes to the ground, to the snow. He isn’t sure where to start. “We’re all cut off from our lives now. Some of us have our loved ones here. Some of us don’t. We’re all in the same boat whether we see it that way or not. And besides—”

“Is it true you know George?”

Kyle freezes at the question, stares back at him questioningly.

“I hear things.” Patrick pushes away from the streetlight. He pitches his cigarette at the snow where it sizzles out. “You’re one of them . So tell me. You know George? You’ve spoken to him?”

After a second’s hesitation, Kyle sighs out the words, “Yeah. I know … who he is. I know the sick bastard.”

Patrick licks his lips, spits at the snow, rubs his nose. His eyes are like hardened chips of ice as he stares Kyle down. “Do you …” His words are soft suddenly. “Do you know what he’s … done to my family? Do you know if they’re … if they’re s-safe?”

He wasn’t serious earlier about thinking them dead.

Patrick is clinging to hope. He’s been desperately clinging to hope since the day he stepped foot in this town. It’s the only thing left that’s warm inside the man’s soul. That precious, fragile hope. Despite this tough act he’s putting on right now, behind his wall of bitterness and contempt for everything and everyone, he’s just a weak, terrified man who bears a mountain of pain and guilt.

Kyle can see it all in Patrick’s eyes.

Perhaps that’s the reason Kyle says: “Yes.” Patrick is glued to Kyle’s every breath. “Yes,” he repeats, “they’re … safe. I heard it. From George. I … heard your family … is waiting for you. They are somewhere safe. They … They can’t wait to see you again.”

Tears explode from the man’s eyes.

He clenches his teeth and turns away at once, pressing hands to his face. His body shakes from his sobbing. Kyle only stands by the door to the bar, watching Patrick, numb.

“Thank you,” says Patrick finally after collecting himself. He peers partway over his shoulder. “Even if …” He sniffles. “Even if you’re lying to me. Thank you.”

Kyle frowns. “Patrick …”

The man says no more, walking away, disappearing down the snowy street. Kyle stands there watching him go, wondering if he did the right thing.

And why it doesn’t feel good.