Page 91 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
He seemed unable to find the strength to finish that thought, and Andres didn’t push him. Maybe once he had a therapist to help him process. Perhaps the Starlight Club knew someone.
“She loved you,” Shane added, looking utterly miserable.
Andres squeezed his hand. “I had been a terrible cousin to her in recent years. I’m glad she had you for a bit.”
That seemed all there was to say, at least for now. Shane pressed his lips to Andres’s fingers and set both his hand and his plate into his lap. “Now finish eating. And rest. I have a final edit to do, but when I’m done… I could pick up my collar from the apartment, and then you could lay there like you own my world and guide my head between your legs, and order my mouth to good use?”
“Well, now Icertainlywon’t be resting,” Andres grumbled and smirked.
Shane sent out the article and received an immediate offer for a permanent position at The Star—not the ordinary way these things flowed, Andres learned, but Shane’s exposé was far from ordinary. Then they just had to wait.
Most of the vampires came back for that evening, everyone alight with anticipation for the morning’s release. It was still an odd feeling to have so many people in his home, so many hands constantly trying to help him around, bring him things, dote on him like he was about to die instead of steadily recovering. The middle-aged Starlight polycule were the worst about it, forcing their love on him like they’d realized his own parental relationships were abysmal and were determined to make up for it.
It was odd, watching them together—odd in a beautiful way, their relationships so deep and complex that Andres thought they could spend years in his living room and he still wouldn’t fully grasp it.
It seemed Maddox was Valentine’s human in a far softer sense than Andres had first imagined, their relationship composed of lingering touches and cuddles. That, too, was so different than the sharp, aggressive thing Maddox had with his other vampiric spouse, Diego. He approached their relationship like a man prepared to cut out his own heart for his lover at a moment’s notice, yet still one who knew every curve and edge of their love and used it to keep them both safe. When he was gone, Diego and Valentine bickered like an old married couple whose attraction had vanished to leave a deep platonic love behind. The three came together to interweave their affection perfectly, a vibrant family unit so tight it seemed destined.
Andres could see hints of himself and Shane in all three relationships, and places where they were in the process of becoming their own thing. And he loved it. He and Shane had started with their obsession and turned that into love, and with time, they could keep growing it. They could be old together, and this fiercely into each other, and this deep and knowledgeable of who the other was.
They had so much to look forward to.
And with the release of Shane’s article, they could both hope the future they were entering would be a little brighter in other ways as well.
35
SHANE
Change that lasted was often a slow but steady thing, a constant push forward. Shane reminded himself of that every day as the media cycle churned and the uproar blistered.
Vitalis-Barron was everywhere now—on TV, in every newspaper, plastered across social media. Just as Andres had feared, some people had used Shane’s exposé to platform their own hatred, with factless fearmongering responses a dime a dozen. But there was real, honest investigative work being done as well, some of it Shane’s own as he continued to track down more of the friends and families of the vampires Vitalis-Barron had murdered.
Everything had changed, and yet nothing had. What Vitalis-Barron was doing was not technically illegal—not when their lawyers could argue that regulations on the ethics of research were written about humans, not vampires—but the right court case could change that. And there were plenty in the works.
Still, the article had donesomethingimminently important: it had told the vampires of the world, and everyone who loved them, exactly what to expect from within Vitalis-Barron’s walls. Volunteering flyers were shredded and physical ads vandalized. Safety systems sprang up across the city, and a list of everyone who worked for the lab’s vampire hunting acquisition’s team was plastered across the internet. If a few hunters went missingbecause of it, well, Shane certainly wouldn’t shed any more tears than the few he’d cried quietly in the bathroom for Natalie.
Whatever became of Vitalis-Barron’s legal battle, they would have to work ten times as hard for every vampire they wanted to hurt, and any time they succeeded, the world would know. It wasn’t enough change—not nearly enough—but it was a useful first step.
And Shane’s exposé wasn’t the only progress the vampiric community was experiencing either. Andres was seeing to that. Piece by piece, he was pulling Maul’s city-wide blood trade territory back into place, wielding the strength and aggression of his vampiric persona like a weapon against anyone who threatened to turn the selling of blood into a system for profit.
With both their jobs in hyper-mode, it meant he was with Shane a bit less, but that just made Shane savor every moment they had together, from lazy afternoons exchanging poetic theories and soft kisses in the townhouse kitchen, to early mornings in bed, where Andres’s mouth would take on a very different purpose, rose gold gleaming at Shane’s wrists and little ornamental chains draped across his bare skin.
He fiddled with the one on his right wrist now, repositioning the fabric of his Starlight Club outfit beneath it. Tonight’s event had been a small one, an artistic, unstructured gathering held in the secluded warehouse-style brewery owned by one of the wealthier human members. Dark silk curtains were strung through the space, creating a whimsical labyrinth that let patrons appear and vanish like sparkling ghosts. It was so different from the gothic parlor setting of the first event Shane had attended, yet somehow every bit as beautiful and magical.
It also happened to land on the three-month anniversary of the night Andres had bought Shane’s life from Maul, though Shane couldn’t imagine the Starlight Club owners were aware of that.Shanecertainly hadn’t told them.
At the beginning of the night, he’d worried that interacting with their family in such a sensual setting would be awkward now, but the moment they strode in, Valentine smiled at them like he was on the hunt for a half-clothed delicacy and Shane forgot for a moment that the older aro-ace vampire had openly admitted his sensual prowess here was all an act.
His gaze lingered across Shane’s body, one edge of his lips quirking over the point of his fangs. “I see you brought your little swan; just as beautiful as ever,” he murmured, reaching casually for Shane’s jawline.
The shiver that ran through Shane was so different from their first time—not a fear of what Valentine might want from him, but a thrill of how Andres would react. How he’d protect Shane, as he always did, claiming him body and blood and soul.
A snarl rose in Andres’s throat as he caught Valentine’s wrist with two fingers, a clear message despite the lack of pressure. His other arm tightened around Shane’s waist, slipping beneath the fabric, trailing possessively. “I think you’d know by now that he bleeds only for me.”
That was true, both in the game and out—at least, it would be until Shane was ready to start donating to Jose’s blood bank again. With the amount of time he volunteered there, he could feel his body moving slowly but surely towards acceptance once more. Any week now, he hoped his blood bags would be waiting for a vampire in need, though he was determined—as he assured Andres and Clementine and Valentine and Vincent and Diego and every other goddamned fanged creature of the night who’d decided they cared for him—that he wouldn’t push himself toward anything he wasn’t ready for.
As the night winded down, Shane stepped onto the balcony overlooking a now empty patio. The lights were turned low, the sky awash with stars. A soft breeze swirled through the blossoming trees, twirling up a few of the fallen flower petalsand sending them dancing around his sandaled feet. Shane closed his eyes and just breathed. It smelled of the arriving summer.
Perhaps change did come slowly, but they’d get there. And every step along the way—bright or bloody, quiet or chaotic—would be worth it. In the moments between, they had to find the time just to live.
