Page 41 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
“Now I’m just more intrigued!” Valentine made a show of licking one of his fangs, like he was thinking of Shane on his tongue, in hismouth, and Andres had the urge to knock the pointed tooth right out.
He could feel Shane’s breath catch.
The other vampire laughed, and the barest flush sprang to his pale cheeks, gentling his haughty expression. “Relax, I don’t take what’s not offered to me. Though I must say, he looks born out of pure starlight…”
As he spoke, he reached for Shane, his long gold-tipped nails stretching eagerly toward the locks that dangled around Shane’s cheekbones, as though he might tuck them back. Andres could sense the tension that came over Shane like it was pounding in his ears. For all the times he had relished in Shane’s vulnerable flinches, this he could not stand.
He caught Valentine’s wrist, his grip tight and rough, and he lowered his voice beyond even the dark, sensual tones he’d been using, cascading into something truly menacing. “I will split open your skull if you touch him.”
Fear flashed in the other vampire’s eyes, and he flinched so hard his fangs retracted partway, the color draining right back out of his face. Andres was proud of that. Proud, at least, until it was echoed in Shane’s surprised yelp.
“Let him go, please,” Shane said, reaching for Andres’s wrist—reaching, like he might grab—
Andres instinctively yanked away. Shane’s fingertips barely brushed the back of his hand, the touch searing up Andres’s spine and tightening like claws into his lungs.
That was fine. He was fine.
Andres stretched his fingers, breathing in, then out. Fuck, how long had it been since someone’s mere grasping had triggered a panic response? How long since someone had tried to touch him like that to begin with… Had dared. He tried not to think about it.
“Give us a moment, Master Valentine,” Shane murmured.
Andres took the hint, stepping back with the barest of nods.
So did Valentine, his brow tight as he bowed to them. “Of course.”
He hurried across the room, toward a tall man cloaked in sheer blue and cuffed with silver, his bare chest defined despite the white beginning to pepper his dark hair. The human—Valentine’s human, Andres assumed—didn’t tremble or grovel, but wrapped an arm around him like an old friend, their heads close as they spoke. It was such an odd sight that it took Andres an extra moment to realize how imprudently he’d acted. He should never have let himself react with such obvious aggression. If he’d turned the place’s owner against them before they’d even spotted Tara…
But he knew, too, that if their success required him to let another vampire touch Shane without consent, he would have rather failed a thousand times over.
Except Shane seemed convinced thatAndreswas the one in the wrong here. His Cygnus stared at him with narrowed eyes, whispering through his teeth, “Did you not read the packet?”
“Thewhat?”
“The forms we signed!”
Andres suddenly worried they’d stated that the master of the house—who was still talking in low tones to his human—was allowed to partake in any blood brought on the premises. “I didn’t put my real name,” he admitted, “so it seemed irrelevant.”
“You’re a terrible journalist,” Shane grumbled.
“That’s probably because I’m a thief and a con-artist, but go on.” Andres could tell they were disrupting the flow of the event, standing in the open and having a hissed argument like an old married couple. Valentine’s human kept glancing their way. “Your insubordination is attracting attention,” Andres muttered, curving his lips into a smirk. He pinned one palm against Shane’s lower back, and gracefully fiddled with the chain on Shane’s collar with his other hand, giving him the softest tug.
Shane huffed, but as he leaned away with his shoulders, his hips came forward, brushing Andres’s. Andres could feel the thrum running through him, less like fear and more like… anticipation? “That’s not what they care about, master,” Shane breathed, tipping up his chin. “It’s a game.”
Did he just call Andres his… Andres knew his heart shouldn’t have leaped with such abandon, and it caught in his throat when the rest of Shane’s comment sunk in. “Agame?”
“Yes, a game.” Shane didn’t sound annoyed, but rather alight, his enthusiasm growing with each word. “It’s like a sensual form of LARPing. My contract was full of all the rules—lines we’re not allowed to cross, and safe words to communicate consent and refusal, ways to inform staff if we need intervention and how the staff themselves need to be treated. When the event host—Valentine—referenced starlight, he was letting us know that he understood he was pushing a boundary and if we objected he would back off. And then you did object, by sincerely threatening to murder him.” Shane gave Andres an adorableglare that melted as his gaze swept the room. “It’s all so… safe. And look how much everyone isenjoyingit.”
Andres’s heart pounded in his ears. His knees felt weak, suddenly. It wasn’t possible—Shane had to have misunderstood somehow. Of course the vampires would be basking in their own manipulative control, but their humans couldn’t bepleasedwith this.
He scanned the room again, searching for evidence that proved him right; he’d seen it when they’d first entered, he was sure of it. And the humanswerecertainly wearing less, preening and submitting and bleeding on command, but when he looked closer, he found one of them swooning as she was fed chocolates by her vampire, another giggling in their own lover’s lap as the vampire whispered in their ear. A man in the corner of their own parlor section looked nearly orgasmic every time his vampire kissed his wrist with their fangs.
They… were happy.
Somehow, Shane wasright.
Andres had painted these vampires as monsters in his mind, but everyone here seemed to be genuinely eager. Because they found joy in this, he realized, and perhaps because they wanted to be sure the people participating with them would find joy as well. And if what Shane said was true, and they were being protected by the rules of the establishment, giving them a safe place to act out their submission, without their blood being literally bought by a vampire who made a point of sneaking up behind them in the dark and turning their forced obedience into a fantasy…
Standing among them, Andres felt small and exposed. He rubbed his cheek beneath his mask, like that might dim the heat rushing through his face, and wished he could bury himself in the ground. He was right in thinking these people weren’t like him. They weren’t.
