Page 14 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
As he stared across the living room, to the mannequin that displayed his reforged cloak from that night, his gaze caught on the mask still hanging from one side, and he smirked. Shane would get his gala Dracula all right: all teeth and flirtation and felonies.
7
SHANE
Shane woke groggy and slow, a slight pounding in his head and the back of his throat so dry he could barely swallow.
My god, the last time he’d felt this awful had been the hangover after his twenty-fifth birthday, which hadn’t been the least bit worth it since he’d done most of that drinking alone. He swore even his bones ached. His blood sugar was probably a mess. He groaned, rolling onto his back. His flannel pulled awkwardly across his chest. Fuck, why was he still wearing his clothes? What the hell had—
Maul.
Maul had tried to kill him. He could feel the pain of the vampires’ bites with such clarity that he had to rub his neck with both hands to convince himself the wounds were gone. The crook of his elbow felt raw and sensitive, and he wanted nothing more than to pinch it closed and tuck it against his chest and—and cry—god, was hecrying?
Shane wiped a few hot tears from the corner of his eye before they could fall and pulled his knees to his chest. He’d almost died last night, and then… and then…
His vampire…
Hisvampire had found him. Had rescued him. Had brought him home and whispered sweet nothings to him, had removed his shoes and helped him with his insulin. That same vampirehad let his fingers linger over Shane’s skin, the memory of his touch a tingling, uncomfortable thing in the morning—or possibly afternoon—light. Shane’s mouth felt like cotton, and he had to force himself to swallow. Something buzzed in his veins despite it though. The shiver that ran through him was half fear and half exhilaration.
He didn’t know what to make of it, so he forced himself to sit up instead.
Black spots and hollow edges assaulted his vision, but he breathed through it, squinting across his tiny, single-room apartment. It looked different. It was like everything had been shifted just slightly to the left, and it took him a moment to realize what it was: the place had beentidied. His laundry baskets were righted and tucked to the corner, the stack for Goodwill piled so neatly that it looked half the original size, his dirty plates and collection of cups removed from the desk and coffee table. Even the cat’s bowls had been cleaned and filled, the beast herself happily stretched across the couch. He couldn’t see the kitchenette from around its half-walls, but he had a suspicion of what he’d find in the sink.
He felt… he didn’t know. Violated and appreciated, annoyed and relieved all at once. His vampire—this relative stranger—had touched him, and touched his things, and yet he’d not only saved Shane’s life, but gone out of his way to clean for him, and god, this was so confusing. He didn’t know what to do with it. Fitting a phantom into his life had been easy—obsessions always were. This, however? This could ruin him, in the best way or the worst one, and he wasn’t sure he’d know which it would be until it was too late.
On his coffee table sat his phone beside a cup of water, his apartment key, and a note.
Don’t you fly too far, my little swan.
Love,
Your vampire
Shane stared at the final line, stared so long that his cat shoved her face into his fingers, purring. He scratched his void monster’s head absentmindedly with one hand.Your vampire.
Hisvampire.
By the afternoon, Shane felt remarkably better.
Whether it was the venom he vaguely recalled his vampire murmuring about, or the fact that he’d corralled his glucose levels back into range—withouthaving to ask his endocrinologist how to adjust his dosages after being nearlyexsanguinated, thank god—or the result of his body’s own natural regenerative properties, he didn’t know. The tidier apartment helped, too.
All that time didn’t lead him to any stronger conclusions about his vampire though. He still only knew that his insides turned light and fluttery every time he thought of his vampire’s arms around him, and that he was absolutely terrified of it happening again—terrified that it wouldn’t be the same next time, and terrified that it would. At about five in the evening, Shane had given up worrying about it. If his vampire came back for him, he’d deal with his feelings then. Instead, he turned his mind to the other fang-related problem: Frederick Maul.
Frederick Maul had tried to kill him.
The more times Shane repeated that, the angrier he grew. There was a vampire in his city with the power and influence to have a human he didn’t like drained to death. That was worthyof a story all on its own. The people of San Salud had the right to know about it.
His near-death experience still made him feel nauseous at the thought of seeing Maul again, but it had hardened something in him too. This was real, and it was big, and he was a part of it. Maul might have started it, made it worse by trying to have Shane drained instead of simply offering him useless information and platitudes, but Shane was going to finish it: with a front-page headline.The War on Bloodwas right; his own blood had become part of it.
If Shane was going to keep pressing in on a group clearly fine with disposing of him, he was going to have to take some precautions. Not the police, obviously—he didn’t want them fucking with everything until he was done with it, and knowing the way they reacted to all vampires as though they were Maul, they would only be learning of this when he had clear evidence of who was in the wrong and who was just an innocent bystander. And where his own vampire lay in that.
The events of the night were fuzzy, but he could recall his vampire’s stunned voice:“You’re killing him.”
Maul had given a reason as he’d pressed the needle into Shane’s vein. The crook of his arm tingled even through the thick fabric of the long sleeve shirt he’d donned, and he didn’t want to think too hard about why.“No family, no friends. It will take a while for anyone to miss you.”
No one to miss him?
Well, Shane could fix that. For the sake of this article, he could make himself a friend. He threw on his boots, a loose coat, and the fashionably ratty green scarf and shot off a text as he charged out the door.
