Page 26 of Vanish Into Light

Behind him, Beck let out a deep, satisfied sigh. He petted up Lance’s sides with both hands, clean and dirty both, and that felt good; left his skin rippling with fresh shivers. He stroked over his hips, his ribs, and spent a long time massaging his chest. The hot water beat down on them all the time, and it was almost like a massage, too; he felt looser and easier than he had in months – in years, actually.

Something coiled around his ankle, and he knew it was Beck’s tail – but it didn’t inspire alarm. Nothing could right now, he didn’t think. His world had narrowed down to his view of the tiles below, the heat of the water, the weight of the body pressed against his back, the hands bringing him a softer, gentler sort of pleasure.

Beck leaned in and licked up the side of his throat. Nibbled lightly at the hinge of his jaw, fangs sharp, but not piercing. Then he gripped Lance’s shoulders and turned him.

Limp and unresisting, Lance turned to face him; allowed himself to be supported by the strong, lean arm that went around his back. Leaned into the hand that cupped his face.

Beck’s pupils had shrunk to catlike slits, and his lips were red and swollen from kissing, and he was impossibly lovely, water dripping off his horns and the ends of his hair. “Life is so very painful, don’t you think?” he purred. He touched Lance’s lip with the pad of one finger, and then leaned in to kiss him – gentle this time, soft and clinging. It was the way Rose kissed, sometimes, in her rare, soft moments. Lance opened easily for it this time; welcomed the thorough flex of his tongue.

When he drew back, Beck said, “Might as well find pleasure when we can, hm?”

Lance managed a nod.

Beck grinned. “Good boy.” He ducked his face down into Lance’s throat. Kissed him there. And thenbithim.

Lance’s skin gave beneath sharp fangs with a littlepop.

Lance gasped…and then everything went black.

SEVEN

Everyone’s veins had a taste. Blood wasn’t just blood.

Lance du Lac – Rosie’s Lance – tasted of determination. Faintly acidic, but gritty; a true and honest flavor, like the man himself. There was no trace of deceit there, no secret, burning desire. Because, though he’d tried to deny it to himself, and even, weakly, to Beck, his longing for passion wasn’t a hidden darkness. He’d suppressed it, yes, as would any military man. But his wants were not things to be ashamed of. Beck had shown him that last night. Shown him that his craving for dark counterparts, his taste not for violence in its own right, but for those who knew it well, was the sort of thing better indulged than repressed.

Beck swallowed, and thought he could still taste him – though that was probably only his imagination.

Dawn had arrived, such as it was: a watery silver hue coming on beyond the windows. The rain had stopped in the wee hours, and the faint sunlight illuminated all the many fractured, colored panes of the stained-glass portrait of Saint Michael in the great hall. The throne room, truly.

“You can’t sneak up on me, you know,” he called, voice echoing in the vast space.

Morgan stepped up beside him, smelling of clean steel, feeling like the pulsing of a power plant. “I wasn’t trying to.” A glance proved she was eating: more cake. Inhabiting a human body required a massive amount of calories, and every angel he’d encountered had preferred carbs and sugar over anything else.

Beck faced the window again. “Is it an accurate likeness? Of your true form, I mean.”

“It’s close enough.”

“I have to ask: why this particular human to serve as conduit? Why one so small and unassuming?”

The tines of the fork clinked on the plate. Sound of chewing, swallowing. “She was dying. Childhood cancer. She defeated it once, when she was four – it went into remission – but she’d just been diagnosed again. I thought: this way, her life won’t end in vain. In pain and illness.”

“What of her family?”

“They grieved, I’m sure. It’s a pity.”

“It is. It didn’t stop you, though, did it?”

A pause. “You hate angels more than demons.”

“I hate you both equally, rest assured. I just have trouble with the notion that what you do, you do for noble reasons, when you ought to just admit that it’s enjoyable being inside someone.”

The fork clinked again. Chewing, swallowing. She said, “What are you hoping to accomplish with Lance?”

He turned his head just far enough to see the faintest of furrows between her pale brows: that unlikely sign of life. Of investment in some human cause. “Accomplish? You’ve been on this plane long enough to understand the concept of pleasure for pleasure’s sake, haven’t you?”

Her head turned toward him slowly, and the movement was more bird than human. Her huge, luminous eyes regarded him seriously. “He doesn’t want what you’re doing to him.”

He let a dark chuckle escape, pleased by the way it deepened the notch between her brows. “Oh, he does, let me assure you. I’ve not cast a spell on him.” He looked back to the window to find the silver light faintly brighter, highlighting the sunbeams that flared up behind the image of Michael. “It’ll be better this way. Stronger. A united front.”

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