Page 67 of Lair

But I don’t feel that this time. This time I feel a great upwelling of unfairness, of disgust at my helplessness, obliterating all thought.

This time I feel rage.

I claw out, a sudden raking of my nails that draws blood, and Jason snarls and his next smack sends me crashing into the wall. I try to knee him in the groin, but he pins me brutally against the nightstand and yanks my legs apart, bumping the lamp and sending shadows leaping as he gropes at his belt buckle, his breathing harsh now, mechanical and full of hate.

Nothing, then—nothing at all—has changed.

The old animal terror is screaming through my veins and out of my skin when I’m abruptly released.

I drop to all floors, dazed, and look up to a sight that refuses to conform to logic: Jason’s feet. Jason’s feet, suspended in the air.

The pale, withered shape of Adrian is standing above me, lips snarled back and eyes hazed a ferocious black, his clawed white hand somehow holding a flailing Jason in the air by the neck.

Awe sweeps through me.

Jason’s head suddenly snaps to the side—crack—and his body goes limp. A thud of dead weight and Jason is staring at me, one cheek to the carpet and one arm folded under him at an unnatural angle, his eyes wide, glazed, and full of horror.

Adrian sways, and when our eyes meet for the briefest of moments his face gentles—and he drops to the floor, the light leaving his eyes from that final expenditure of energy. My whole body stiffens.

“No—no!” I scramble over, and Adrian’s eyes droop as I cradle him. “Don’t you leave me, Adrian Voper. Don’t you fucking dare!”

His eyes laze open—and droop again. My stomach freefalls. Panic descends on me like a shroud. What will keep him here, in this moment? What can I say?

What I’ve been longing to, for so long. What I’ve been holding myself back from saying.

“I love you, Adrian.”

It comes out as a low, throaty sob, and so I say it again, louder. “Do you hear me? I love you, goddamn it!”

That does it. His eyes fight open; I see bright sclera and the gorgeous blue that thrilled me the first moment they lit on me. I laugh brokenly and smooth the limp hair back from his face. “That’s right. You come back to me now. Come back to me.”

A faint smile spreads across his features—and his eyes shut again. Not enough. Too far gone. There’s only one thing that can bring him back now.

Jason is still on the floor, feet away, his eyes craned at me in his paraplegic state.

A numbness expands in me. The words echo in my head: I cannot change what he is.

When I press Jason’s wrist to Adrian’s mouth, his nose takes the scent of skin and blood immediately—but he restrains himself.

“It’s all right,” I whisper, the words ragged. “Please. Do it. For me.”

A long, long pause. And then Adrian clutches the wrist to him as his mouth opens to do its work.

I sit there, lip trembling, and stroke my lover’s hair as he nuzzles into flesh, a warm wetness soaking into my dress.

I cannot change what he is.

It takes him half an hour—an hour, an eternity—to slake his thirst. By the end Jason is as drained and pale as a cavefish, and multiple times Adrian vomits blood onto the carpet, so frenzied is his feeding. By the time he lets Jason’s wrist flop from his smeared mouth, he is bloated and near insensate with satiation, hooded eyes fluttering.

I wrestle him into bed and lie back beside him, my hands at my heart, and try to reconcile how I’ve gotten here.

Back where I started: lying in terror beside a man I cannot change.

My fear is so intense that a great calm descends upon me, a cleansing mercy that leaves me clear-eyed and resolute. Next steps simplify in my mind, arrange themselves into manageable impossibilities.

Think now: He is what he is, that cannot be resolved. And you would never forgive either of you if you stayed with him.

You have saved him, though. There is that, at least. You can go on, content in knowing that he is out there, somewhere, even if it means you are apart.

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