Page 5 of Lucien

The young man finally seemed to notice there was someone else in the alley with him, opening his eyes as his head turned Luc’s way. Luc watched first in fascination as a myriad of different expressions crossed the man’s face in an instant—shock, delight, hope, awe—and then in increasing confusion as a wide smile stretched across full, surprisingly red lips.

What was that smile for?

No one had greeted the sight of Luc with a smile like that since…maybe ever. No one had ever reacted with such pure and simple delight to his presence.

Luc couldn’t tear his gaze away from the sight of it as the green-haired man slowly dropped his cigarette, crushing it under one booted heel, never taking his eyes off Luc as he crossed over to him with slinky grace. One of his incisors was crooked, Luc noticed.

It was infuriatingly charming.

“You came.” The young man’s voice was soft and smooth, almost melodic. Luc wanted to hear more. He wanted to lick the very air.

He wanted to—

He wanted torun. He felt as if he was caught in something massive and weighty and beyond his ability to bear.

But he just stood there, barely daring to breathe, and his monster remained just as frozen, caught in the man’s eyes, which were almost as dark as Luc’s own, hardly a border distinguishing between pupil and iris.

Luc was worried if he moved, if he broke his statuesque stillness, his monster might snap and eat the stranger right up. Devour him without a thought to the consequences. The man’s scent was just too delicious—cinnamon and spice with just a hint of peaches underneath—even with the disgusting cigarette smoke mucking it all up.

No wonder that cinnamon scent had been so hard to track down, with all those toxic chemicals masking it.

The stranger stopped just a hair’s breadth from Luc—much,muchtoo close, yet still Luc couldn’t move—and cocked his head, the movement of his hair revealing piercings all along his ear. “Thereyou are, monster. Where have you been?”

His voice was smooth and soft, and he asked the question like they’d known each other for a lifetime.

Luc didn’t know how to answer. “Hell” was what wanted to come out, of all things. “Utter hell. The depths of despair. Get me out.Helpme.”

But that would be an insane thing to say. This young man wasn’t really asking him at all. He couldn’t be. He didn’t know who Lucwas.

So why did it feel like he did?

Luc’s silence did nothing to diminish the man’s smile. He was busy running his eyes over every inch of Luc’s face, pausing at the sunglasses for a moment, his slender fingers twitching as if he was tempted to take them off.

Luc was tempted to let him.

Luc wasn’t sure how long they stood there, he and his monster both mesmerized, while the stranger seemed to drink in the very sight of him. But finally, at the end of his perusal, the green-haired man gave a long, deep sigh, then turned dark, glittering eyes to meet Luc’s. “I’ve been waiting for you, you know. What took you so long?”

And then the stranger leaned in and slammed his mouth against him.

two

Lucien

Luchadrun.Froma human. A mereboy. Like a complete, utter coward.

His monster was furious, raging at him for leaving the alleyway. But for the first time in a very long time, Luc was finding it easy to keep control over himself. He didn’t turn back.

We would have hurt him, he argued, trying to appease the beast within.

He had no doubt about the truth of his words. The minute their lips had touched—his and this man’s, thisstranger’s—a tsunami ofneedhad crashed over him. Luc had wanted…more.

He’d wanted to bite the strange young man. To sink his teeth into that slender neck. To fuck him into the wall. To claim his very soul.

We could have, his monster whispered, a new tactic from the roars of anger Luc had been ignoring.You could go back right now. Taste him again. Turn him. A new toy for us. A companion.

“If you don’t shut your trap, I’ll drive us straight out of this godforsaken town,” Luc snarled.

A woman walking past gave him a startled glance—talking out loud to his monster, a ridiculous move—but Luc paid her no mind. He needed silence in his head. He needed tothink.

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