Page 52 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
The boardwalk life echoed through his ears, distant laughter and muted music. Pain throbbed behind his jaw, building in the back of his throat. He sucked in air and let out anger.
“You fucking—” Shane spun as he shouted it, turning so fast that his shoulder rammed into Andres’s chest. The vampire stumbled in surprise, eyes wide, and Shane took that as a sign to keep going. “Asshole. YouknewI didn’t recognize you from the bar. You knew, and you just left me in the dark? For weeks,” he shouted, “you’ve strung me along. All the while, pretending you were my—my friend?!”
That’s who he was pissed at—Andres, hisfriend. His vampire had been clear that there were hidden parts of himself; a literal mask to be removed. But Andres? Andres had presented like that was all they were, just a thoughtful human with big emotions who liked Shane’s odd takes on life. They’d become a solid, sure part of Shane’s everyday life. And all the while they’d known they owned Shane, had been whispering sweet nothings to him and demanding his neck in the darkness.
The bastard—
Shane pushed both palms against Andres’s sturdy chest, enough to force them backward. “You fucking—” He shoved again, for good measure. “Manipulative—” And again. “Asshole!”
Andres’s expression stiffened. “Shane…” They said, gentle, cautious, but as they did, they grabbed for Shane’s arms.
“Don’t touch me,” Shane snarled. “I’m not done yet!”
He was so, so fucking done, though, done being deceived and coerced, done being stared down by those dark, tear-stained eyes of Andres’s, just as deep and beautiful as his vampire’s but twice as soft and so uncertain it hurt. When Andres tried to step toward him again, not reaching this time, just holding up their palms in a gentle onslaught, Shane grabbed them instead, locking around Andres’s wrists like he could transfer the confusion and pain and fury in his chest into his vampire’s flesh if he just held on tight enough.
Like he could keep his almost-lover and his traitorous friend there long enough to truly be done with them both.
But as Shane latched onto Andres, the motion send a visible shock through them. Their fangs slid out, and faster than Shane could track, they jerked from his reach with such force that it flung Shane backwards. Shane hit the boardwalk railing with a crack. Pain shot up his back. He whimpered, struggling to stand, that new fear creeping back in, harsh and debilitating and—
“Step away from him, bloodsucker!” The command came from down the boardwalk, far too near for comfort, though Shane wasn’t sure there was any distance at which he’d find comfort in the police, especially not one already fondling the hilt of his gun. “Hands on your head.”
Andres stepped away, lifted their palms to the side, their chest wide open. An easy target. They said nothing, but they looked weaker suddenly, looked like the tear-stains that had begun to form in their makeup.
Shane’s heart squeezed.
“I said stop,” the cop shouted, as though by retreating, Andres was secretly preparing to lunge for his neck. His grip tightened on his gun.
Everything else Shane felt toward Andres was nothing compared to the chilling rush that overtook him then. He was not done with Andres—he was not done with them at all. And he would sure as hell not be rid of them like this.
Shane stepped out, sliding himself neatly between the approaching cop and Andres, both his hands spread out from his body in a pacifying motion. “Please, officer, what’s wrong?”
The cop gave him one look, then another, his gaze catching on Shane’s neck. On the visible bite mark. “That creep been feeding on you?”
“Yes, but—I let them.”
There was so much more Shane could have said: that he craved his vampire’s bite, dreamed of his vampire’s hot breath on his neck and the pressure of his tongue, yearned for the way he’d whisper in his ear:you’re mine.
But the cop deserved none of that, so Shane told him the simple truth. “It was consensual.”
“That didn’t look consensual.” He still had one palm on his gun.
Shane’s vampire—hisAndres—had pushed him, had held him in place, but they’d listened to him too, had let go when he’d asked. He didn’t know what that meant. Didn’t know if it could mean anything in this moment. “We were arguing,” he pleaded, “that’s all.”
The cop hesitated. His gaze strayed behind Shane once more, and he shook his head. “There’s been a disturbance involving vampires in this area. I’m sorry, I have to take him in.”
The thought made Shane sick and angry; far angrier than he could ever have been at Andres. For Shane, a simple arrest would have been merely inconvenient now that all his legal documents had been fixed with his proper gender, but for a vampire… There was a reason they now built windows into holding cells, and it wasn’t for the view.
From down the boardwalk, the cop’s partner jogged toward them.
Shane could still sense Andres behind him, waiting uncertainly in their tear-stained makeup. He slipped his hand behind his back and made a shooing motion to them. Run, he wanted to shout. Run, dammit—can’t you see I’m not done with you yet?
And Andres did.
The cop cursed, bolting after them as he drew his gun, but the split second he had to take to dodge around Shane was enough for Andres’s vampiric speed to carry them across the boardwalk.
Shane watched long enough to see them cut down a path toward the main street and vanish between the buildings. Then he broke into a jog himself. Neither officer tried to stop him. That was worse somehow—worse being alone.
By the time Shane reached his car, he was shaking, trembling from head to toe. He was too afraid to check his glucose—there was nothing he could do about it now, except pick at the bag of emergency fruit gummies he kept in his glove box. Through the miserable, resentful bitterness in his mouth they tasted like sweetened wax. He drove in a daze, cycling between the same series of thoughts and emotions; anger at Andres’s lies, fear of them and for them in equal measure, and a numbing uncertainty about what to do for any of it.
