Page 50 of The Death God
“This kitchen. The first time you and Rufus left us alone after we got here, and I boiled eggs.”
Gregory sipped his gin. “Boiling eggs makes you happy?”
“Perhaps not eggs, but to be able to…make something. Cook or bake and not have anyone telling me what’s allowed and not allowed. Being able to eat what I want to eat.”
“Or not eat?”
“What?”
Gregory narrowed his eyes. “You don’t eat nearly enough.”
He didn’t, he was most often too tired to have an appetite, but he didn’t want to talk about it, so he took another sip. His limbs were turning heavy, and he yawned. When he looked at Gregory again, he was grinning.
“What about you? Tell me a good memory.”
“I have more than two hundred years of good memories. Some bad too, of course, but what makes me the happiest is knowing I have time. I want to live, I’ve always wanted to live, which is why I begged to be turned.”
“How did you know who to beg?”
He grimaced only to follow it up with a grin. “I was searching for ways to prolong my life. As a teen, I saw a man shift into a wolf, so I was certain some of the tales I’d heard were true. I went searching for wolf people, hoping they could bite me, and I’d be like them.”
Thanatos scrunched his nose. “What? You wanted to be bitten?”
“Well, it wasn’t the bite as such, but I’d heard a tale about a wolf-man biting people and then having them turn into wolf-men.”
“Werewolves? Can they…spread it by biting?”
“No, it’s genetic. They’re not made, but back then I didn’t know.” He grinned, and a sharp fang peeked out from underneath his upper lip. Thanatos believed he did it on purpose. “After years of searching the shadiest places I could find, thinking these wolf-men must shy away from society, I met a man.”
The way Gregory’s voice turned from amused to cold made a knot grow in Thanatos’ gut. “And?”
“He told me I was beautiful. Queers weren’t exactly waving rainbow flags back then, but I got around some. I knew I looked good, and I could attract a certain kind of man. It might not be the kind of men I wanted to attract, but I figured I could get a handjob out of it or maybe a blowjob if I was lucky.” He grinned again, but there was something dark attached to it.
“We went into a dark alleyway, and I told him what was on the table. He laughed.”
A shiver of unease slithered through Thanatos, and he gripped the glass tighter.
“He had me against the wall. There was no way I could get out of his hold; he was too strong. But I must have screamed or whimpered or something because right as he was about to finish, someone slammed into him. I scrambled away, shaken. I’ve always been lean, but I was stronger than I looked, and that someone could hold me down without effort terrified me.”
Thanatos swallowed to keep the nausea at bay.
Gregory placed a hand atop his. “It was a long time ago, babe. I’m fine.”
Nodding, Thanatos hoped he’d continue the story.
“I looked around to see who had come to my rescue, and I was surprised to see it was a woman. Her long braids swayed with every move she made, and it took me several seconds to understand they were fighting, and they were moving way faster than anyone should be able to.”
“They were both vampires?”
“Yeah. Thinking back, I’m pretty sure the man was about to bite me when she attacked. He had fisted my hair and turned my head. I felt his breath on my neck. She picked the moment when he was the most distracted.”
Thanatos shivered and took another sip of his drink. “Did she win?”
“Barely. They fought for some time, the injuries looked pretty bad, and I was sure they’d both die from them. When he had her pinned against the wall, she pulled a dagger from her ankle and staked him through the heart. He dropped like a stone, and she hissed with fangs gleaming in the moonlight. I was petrified, certain she’d come for me next, but she fell to the ground a second later, bleeding badly from where he, more or less, had ripped her throat out. I hurried over and tried to stem the bleeding. She had saved me after all.”
Thanatos nodded. He wasn’t sure he’d call it saved since he’d been raped in a dark alley, but Gregory was alive, so maybe.
“She kept saying blood, and I kept saying I know, but you’ll be fine. Then she grabbed me and bit into my throat. I should’ve known. I’d seen the fangs, but…” He shrugged. “Maybe it was shock, or maybe I’m stupid.”
