Page 17 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
He was Maul’s business partner—a central piece of the black market. Shane could have laughed or cried. He’d come to Maul looking for a source for hisWar on Bloodarticle, and while Maul had tried to kill him for it, here was a vampire just as invested in the black market. This was the in Shane needed; ifonly he could lure his vampire into a strong enough sense of trust to take it.
But for the moment Shane’s vampire seemed more keen on takinghim. His voice hadn’t lost the edge, but it had gone sultry again, sliding up Shane’s spine and nestling deep within his chest. “I saved you because I couldn’t watch you die. But I need blood to live, and I paid all I have for yours. So you’re going to deliver. That’s only fair, isn’t it?”
“For you, but not for me. You paid for my blood, but I wasn’t the one who sold it,” Shane challenged. “Can something be truly fair if it’s unequal?” As he asked it, he found that he didn’t want to prove a point, but simply to know what his vampire thought. He didn’t want to be caved to; he wanted to be understood.
“Perhaps not.” His vampire hummed thoughtfully, and his fingers drew little circles against Shane’s shoulders. He was warm, and he smelled lightly floral, like a gentle lavender perfume. “It’s not fair to force humans to give their blood up, but neither is it fair that vampires must pay and fight and steal for something they need just to survive the week. Perhaps fair is what you can wrangle back from the world, and nothing more.”
“So you’ll take my blood whether I agree to this or not?” It was a terrifying thought, but it didn’tscarehim, exactly, and Shane couldn’t make sense of that dissonance.
The fingers at his shoulder transformed into a gentle squeeze, the lines of his vampire’s hands feeling along his collarbones and wrapping toward the back of his neck. His voice dropped into a growl. “Don’t ask questions that you don’t want the answer to.”
A chill rolled through Shane, but it only fueled the fire burning deep within him. Goddamn this vampire.Hisvampire, who was being a damned prick but in the best way possible. “Why not? Will my not knowing the truth change it?”
He laughed, gliding his fingers against Shane’s hair, so light that it was barely a touch. “Perhaps if it’s Schrödinger’s truth.”
“A truth that only takes form once we know it,” Shane mused. “What a concept.” He could feel his vampire’s attention like the warmth of the sun, and he had the inane desire to lean into him. Then he was doing it, his back brushing a strong, sturdy torso. His vampire’s chest rose against him in a sharp intake, then fell with the slow release.
“Perhaps this truly is a kind of a Schrödinger’s truth, because I don’t know it yet myself. What if I won’t know what I’ll dountilyou push me?” The darkness of his voice conjured visions in Shane’s mind, a vampire’s palm clamped against his mouth, lungs screaming, teeth in his neck as he struggled.
His stomach twisted, his desire turning to ash. Yet a part of him felt safer leaning into his vampire’s touch, his grip near Shane’s neck a comfort rather than a cage, like the imagined monster could never be him. Shane desperately hoped that was the case, for his own sake. “Isthatthe truth?”
“It’satruth.” His hands followed the base of Shane’s neck, fingers forming a loose collar. “Push me if you must. I can promise you that there are lines I will never cross, but not where they lie.”
For once, Shane didn’t have a response to that.
He still held his arms pinned against his chest, but his vampire wrapped a little tighter around him to take hold of one of them—the one Maul had pressed the needle into. Shane’s instinct told him to hold it tight, keep the vulnerable skin tucked closed where no one could hurt it. But it seemed his vampire had other ideas. Gentle but firm, he nudged against Shane’s arm. His mouth fluttered over the back of Shane’s earlobe. “Let me have what’s mine.”
It was part demand—Shane couldn’t have ignored that if he’d tried—but it was part offer too, and perhaps just a little bit of a plea.
“Push me if you must,”his vampire had said, and Shane couldn’t bring himself to do so. Next time, perhaps. Next time, he wouldn’t cave so easily, wouldn’t let the slightest hint of gentleness and the smallest of rewards sway his courage. Next time, he’d get answers to all his questions.
But this time, Shane gave in. A chill washed over him, his fear building even as he forced himself to trust. It was dark now, the sky purple and the nearest lights too far down the wide alley to penetrate, and he could barely see the drag of his vampire’s hand down his arm as he stretched it out, but he could feel the pressure of it so blindingly that little else was worth his focus. His vampire pushed a thumb against the place where Shane’s pulse ran.
A whimper worked free of him, unbidden. He was embarrassed immediately—what the fuck had Maul done to him that he was overwhelmed merely by being touched inside of his elbow through a sturdy jacket? But the response seemed to please his vampire, the little instinctive tugging back of Shane’s arm making him tighten his own grip for just a moment before shifting it to press his palm against the vulnerable spot. Like a shield, Shane realized, as the sensation appeased some of his nerves.
“Does it hurt?” his vampire whispered.
“It’s the memory.”
“My poor Cygnus.” He let go, softly guiding Shane’s arm back into place, tucked once more against his chest. His hand remained, tracing the jacket fabric around Shane’s elbow. “I could bite you there, give you a new memory?”
Shane didn’t answer—he was too busy imagining it ten different ways, all of them gentle but not necessarily soft. Itcould be a tender offer, his vampire willing to take his time to help him acclimate, sitting with him in a place of safety, tracing the spot with his lips, waiting for Shane to tell him it was all right. Or it could be a protective demand. He could almost feel the way his vampire would tug his jacket off, teasing the skin with his nails while Shane shuddered, cooing “you’re mine, little swan,” in that voice of his that could have declothed emperors in another time. And what terrified him, more than needles or fangs, was that he didn’t know which of those outcomes he wanted more.
Or he did know, suddenly—knew he wanted to be laid bare, unfolded at his vampire’s whims in ways that turned him weak and helpless.
Merely imagining it made him yearn, made his knees wobble and his breath catch. The horror of that realization nearly doused the fire building in his pelvis. Heshouldn’twant that. It would mean that his vampire—this stranger, whose right to anything of Shane’s was already hazy at best—was willfully taking advantage of him. He shouldnotwant to be taken advantage of—god, what was wrong with him?
From one thought to the next, his body had tensed so hard that at the roar of a nearby sports car, his flinch nearly jerked him out of his vampire’s arms. The sound continued rumbling as the vehicle slowed in front of the alley, turning towards it like they planned to drive down the center. With Shane and his vampire standing in the open door of the building, he doubted the owner had seen them yet. But they would soon.
“Fuck,” his vampire growled, and let him go with a little shove that pushed Shane properly inside.
He spun around. This time, his vampire didn’t tell him not to look. Not that Shane could see much in the darkness, just his silhouette: black leggings and calf-high boots, a lighter, lacy shirt under a long, tailored coat, all of it outlined by thesideways stream of headlights. His gala mask covered the upper portions of his face. A reminder of their last time together, perhaps? Or a sign that as much as he was asking Shane to trust him, his trust in Shane was so limited that he had gone for total anonymity, as though Shane might call the cops the moment he had a proper description.
His mask didn’t quite reach his mouth though, and the white of his teeth shone in the darkness as his lips pulled back, fangs already extended. “We’re about to have company.”
8
ANDRES
