Page 216 of Dragon Slayer

Val situated himself against the ornate, carved headboard of his bed, and pulled Arslan down to sit cradled in his lap. The boy trembled head-to-toe, hard shivers that left his teeth clacking together, but he tipped his head back and exposed his throat, completely trusting.

“It’s alright,” Val murmured against the warm skin of his neck, and kissed him there. “It’s alright, I’ve got you.” He opened his mouth, and touched with just the tips of his fangs, breathed over the spot, humid, preparing.

Arslan looped an arm around his neck. Loose at first, tentative, and then tight, fingertips digging into Val’s shoulder.

Val bit.

Living blood.

He’d had it, a few times, from his family’s wolves. But most often the blood was spilled into cups. To drink blood straight from the vein was an intoxicating temptation. Headier than wine, than hallucinogens; it hit his own blood like lightning, streaking through his veins, flooding him with a breathtaking shock of energy. A sense of invincibility. A predatory urge in the back of his mind, something insidious and instinctual: drain him. A holdover, from the days of his father and uncle nursing from wolf’s milk.Drain. Feast and eliminate a potential enemy all in one.

But this was his dear sweet Arslan, and aside from that one, frightening flicker, he was never in danger of over-drinking.

He took slow, gentle sips, and then pulled back to bite his own wrist, and press it to the boy’s trembling lips. “Drink, darling.”

He did.

They went back and forth. Arslan stopped shivering, and began to drink with more fervor, gripping Val’s neck tight with one hand, and his wrist with the other, his body warm in Val’s lap. Arousal stirred, a natural reaction, and Val could smell it on the boy as well. But they ignored it, and pressed on, drink for drink.

Nestor stood with his back to the door, a barrier that wouldn’t be very effective if someone tried to force his way in. When Val glimpsed his face, briefly, he noted a stricken expression. It couldn’t be helped.

And then…

Arslan’s scent changed.

Slow-blooming, like the opening of a new spring flower, his scent shifted from boy to vampire. A hint at first, and then a flood of scent, and Val felt something like satisfaction, a rich swell of positive emotions.

He pulled back, and licked the wound clean, clotting the blood. When he lifted his head, Arslan stared up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, gaze wondrous for all that it was exhausted.

“I feel…”

“Hush,” Val said, feeling his own energy flagging. “Rest a bit.” He stretched out on the bed, Arslan cradled to his chest, and cast one last, tired, fading look toward the door.

“I’ll keep watch,” Nestor said gently.

They slept.

Val woke to a moonless dark, able to pick out shadows, the shapes of furniture, and the faint glow of Nestor’s eyes. He sat on the floor, leaning back against the door, but rose smoothly when he realized Val was awake.

“Your grace?” he whispered.

“Yes,” Val said, just to acknowledge him. He pushed up on an elbow and touched Arslan’s face, which woke him immediately. His scent marked him as a young, healthy vampire. Val felt a little groggy, but otherwise unharmed. “How do you feel?”

Arslan took a breath and sat up. Lifted his hands and stared down at them. His vision would be sharper; Val had no idea how dull a human’s sight was, only that he could see clearer and farther than his mortal companions.

“I feel…” He lifted his head, and grinned, teeth flashing in the dark. “Oh, your grace, I feel wonderful!”

Val chuckled. “Good. Up you get. Make sure your legs are steady.”

Within a few minutes, Arslan was leaping in place, steady as the young soldier he might have been if not for castration.

“I’m afraid,” Val said with regret, perching on the edge of the bed, “that the turning can’t rectify everything.”

Arslan paused. “It can’t grow my…parts…back, you mean.” He flushed, afterward.

Val chuckled, though sadly. “It might. Who’s to say? I’m not an expert. But don’t count on it, my dear. That’s a very old, well-healed wound. Connections can be healed, fresh, bloody injuries. But something like that…” He shook his head, and wished he knew more about his own kind. His parents had been loving, had educated him well – but that had only been his boyhood, and they’d been firmly rooted in the human world. Human history, and the ways of human nobles.

That raised another point he wanted to make. “Arslan,” he said, and the boy – the vampire – came to sit beside him, close, their sides pressed together. Val had always found him comforting, but the effect was greater now, knowing they were of the same kind; he supposed his own scent would be a new, welcome comfort as well, for Arslan’s newly heightened senses. “There are things I must tell you.”

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