Page 68 of By the Pint

It was indulgent knowing I could mentally fuck Dima and he wouldn’t know. That he could no longer read my thoughts as easily. That the only indication I was picturing myself perched on the end of his cock was my slightly elevated heartbeat, my slightly heavier breaths, and my raging, tented erection. Luckily for me, I’d worn my heavy winter coat, which hid the bulge well.

I had a feeling that Dima was waiting for me to make the first move, to tell him I was ready. Then, of course, I’d let him take over. Because, fuck, there was nothing hotter than bottoming to this vampire. All rainbows and dick jokes and bunny slippers, but underneath, a cold-blooded predator.

But I was stalling for some reason. Not giving into the temptation as readily as I thought I would.

I needed to know more about Dima, and my master first. Like what happened between these two men? Why Dima, man of a million smiles, involuntarily growled like a dog protecting a big bowl of biscuits every time Killian’s name was spoken?

I wanted to know why Killian had never mentioned he and Dima had history, even though they both saw into my thoughts. Saw that I harboured an almost lifelong crush on him.

The rain had slowed at the top of the volcano, but Dima still effortlessly held the shield above us. It was impressive. He was impressive. Stopping us from getting wet, while conversing with me, stroking my fingers against his, all the while his quilt floating a foot in front of us as it sewed itself.

“Now, tell me what your problem with Killian is,” I said, because the conversation was moving in a direction I didn’t want it to.

There it was again. That lip curl. The throaty snarl, almost too quiet to hear.

I didn’t mind talking about my turning, or my reasons for turning, but right then I’d been on the brink of being let into Dima’s head for once, and I wasn’t about to waste the opportunity.

“Well …” He closed his eyes and dropped my hand to scrub his fingers through his hair. Even though his body temperature was only marginally above that of the rainy February evening, I felt chilled by the absence of his touch.

“Okay, let’s go right back,” he said, resigned. “To the very beginning.”

I sat a little straighter on the platform, trained my focus on him. Dima was still smiling, obviously, but it wasn’t the megawatt toothpaste-ad smile I usually saw on him. It was the most cautious smile yet. If a smile could be cautious.

“I have no memories of being turned. I’m told it’s like being born. There isn’t a moment when you suddenly achieve lucidity. It comes in small increments. My first memories are hazy. I think a decade or two after being turned. I remember being in this big old farmhouse with Killian. Acres and acres, of land. This was back when Borderlands didn’t exist. When theland between the Mythic Realms and the Human Realms was violently contested. New boundaries being drawn up. Humans fighting fae and warlocks. It was a bloody mess. A playground for two adolescent vampires.”

Of course, Dima and Killian, would have looked the same back then as they did now, though my mind couldn’t help but turn them into teenagers. One tall and lean with muscles, the other smaller and willowy thin. I pictured their mischievous faces, heard their laughter.

“We were inseparable. We only had each other. Never saw our sire, which was a good job because we all know what happened to most of his children.”

Ronald the Skewerer was a case study in how to be an evil prick. An example of every horrific thing one immortal person could do, and then some. Village pillager, mass murderer, baby killer, baby turner. His greatest crime, by far, was the creation of an undead army of vampires. He had handpicked the brightest, strongest, fastest young men and women and had recruited them into his insurgency. An uprising against everyone not a vampire. Humans, fae, warlocks, orcs, centaurs, werewolves. Especially werewolves for some unfathomable, probably petty as fuck, reason. When Borderlands was formed five centuries ago, the laws changed dramatically, and vampires lost their privileges and their wild abandon. Ronald the Skewerer and most of his children were rounded up and executed.

“How did you and Killian escape?” Killian, my master of thirteen years, had never told me he was sired by the most notorious vampire in unliving history. I was beginning to realise this man, who I thought I knew, whose mind I thought I had great access to, had kept so much hidden from me.

“Killian and I never went to war on The Skewerer’s behalf. We never slaughtered an entire village for shits andgiggles, or anything like that. When they finally captured us, we signed a treaty promising that we would no longer harm humans or any other non-vampire species. We only wanted to have fun. Fuck about in the woods, follow young maidens and stable boys home. You know, for consensual … goodtimes.”

I nodded, even though I could only hazard a guess.

“That’s not to say we were completely innocent before that. We weren’t. I don’t think it’s possible to be a newly turned vampire and keep your murder virginity intact. We killed. But Killian and I had made a promise we would target only people we thought the Eight Kingdoms would be better off without. You know? The real bad guys. Slave owners, child employers, men that pushed around their wives. We’d convinced ourselves we were some kind of vigilante heroes. But we were so young. We had no idea about the real world.

“When they brought in the treaty, it became illegal to hunt. So, most vampires either went underground into hiding, or they made a pledge to only feed from animals.” Dima shuddered. “It’s not the same. Stag blood, or cow blood, but we were having way too much fun to go into hiding. We took the pledge. And we only drank from animals, though not livestock or pets because that was punishable by gaol.

“Occasionally Killian and I found a willing participant, human usually, with a bloodsucking kink, and we would feed from them. Sometimes fuck them at the same time. Because hormones. You have to feed from their wrist. Not their neck. They don’t recover from the neck thing. If it doesn’t kill them, it starves their brain of oxygen and they’re never the same. Learned that one the hard way.”

A bubble of nervous laughter escaped my throat, and Dima shot me an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, this is awful to hear. I realise the irony of only going after the bad guys, when my own death toll is probably close to thirty.”

Involuntarily, my hand slapped over my open mouth. Fuck, thirty deaths. A real predator. A killer.

“I’m not trying to excuse those things, what I did was atrocious, but it was a different time back then. Blood wasn’t as readily available as it is now and … Well, you’ll soon learn how desperate the urge can make you. If you let it, it will drive you feral. You’ll be a monster too.”

Is that it? Is that why you don’t want me to become a vampire? You don’t want me to be like you?I asked the questions quietly, like I was whispering into his mind.

Dima practically sighed into my thoughts.Another time, yeah? Let me finish telling you about Killian.

I nodded.

“Then Borderlands was formed. And suddenly this wasteland, the most dangerous parts of the Eight Kingdoms were slated to become this, this interspecies utopia. The founders, a fae and a human, Darren the Great and Todd the Enigmatic — and before you ask, no, I don’t remember which one was the fae and which one was the human.”

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