Blood Faith Read online

  “Don’t tease,” Winter scolds her. “It’s none of our business.”

  “Indeed,” Xavier bristles curtly, taking the book from Winter.

  “Be careful, Winter,” warns Emelie. “He doesn’t like having his honor defended by a human.”

  Xavier decides his wisest course of action is to simply ignore them both. “I’ll be back shortly,” he says, and returns upstairs.

  Adrian takes the book from him with a look of surprise, offering a stammered thanks. Xavier simply nods.

  “You’ve doubtlessly read it before, but it should provide adequate distraction for the time being. Do you have any requests for what kind of food I should bring for you, later tonight?”

  Adrian looks absolutely thrown for a loop, as if Xavier asked him if he wanted to fly to the moon. “Um… spaghetti? Would that be okay?”

  Xavier nods. “Certainly. Until later, then.”

  “Yeah, uh… later…” Adrian replies, sounding quite bewildered.

  When Xavier returns in the early hours of the morning with the promised spaghetti, work complete for the night, it’s to find Adrian sprawled on the sofa, reading the novel Xavier gave him.

  “Ahh, this smells so good, oh my god. Pasta is food of the gods. I can die happy just from having smelled this,” Adrian rhapsodizes as he sets a place for himself at the table.

  “Or you could try eating it, see if that’s even better,” Xavier suggests, deadpan.

  “Now let’s not get too ambitious here,” Adrian jokes back, sitting down. “So how was your evening? Thank whoever it was who gave you the book, by the way. I’ll try not to dog-ear it or anything.”

  “I will. They’ll appreciate your consideration, I’m sure.”

  “Was it Emelie?” Adrian asks. Xavier shoots him a sharp look, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. “I figured that must be another vampire, since you mentioned her name when you saved me from that Davis guy. Is she a friend of yours?”

  Xavier decides the wisest reply is to simply not reply at all. Adrian, of course, takes his as an invitation to continue talking.

  “Someone should tell Davis to get a hook prosthetic where he’s lost his hand. Might as well be a pirate and a vampire at the same time, right? Two Halloween costumes for the price of one.”

  He eats another mouthful of spaghetti before speaking again, the dinner scarcely more than punctuation for his rambling thoughts at this point. “Do vampires grow back their hands when things like that happen, or are they gone forever? How long would it take to grow back? If you’d had a transplant when you were a human, like a lung or something, and then you became a vampire and got injured and the lung had to grow back, would it grow back like your original one, or like the transplanted one you’d had when you died?”

  The monologue, paused only when Adrian is chewing or swallowing his meal, continues throughout the remainder of the spaghetti and then into the process of rinsing his cutlery and plate and disposing of the take-out container.

  Adrian must hate the quiet. Xavier, on the other hand… well, it isn’t that he likes the quiet. He’s just accustomed to it.

  “I always liked reading at night. I’ve been kind of thinking about doing a night class. I never did anything after high school, but community college always sort of interested me, you know? I like learning things. I guess vampires would have no choice but to do night class if they wanted to study. Do you guys care about that kind of thing, like diplomas and degrees? Are there job applications and resumes when you want to take up a position in the underworld? Did you have to submit references when you became… whatever it is you do when you’re not here?”

  Adrian has wandered onto thin ice again. The more he knows, the more complicated trying to decide his fate becomes. Xavier gives an exasperated growl.

  The room goes instantly quiet.

  Xavier looks over towards Adrian. The young man has gone completely still, pulse jumping in his throat, the very picture of cornered prey.

  His pretty eyes are blown dark with want, and the rush of power and dominance that Xavier feels is heady and overwhelming.

  He’s moved closer before he’s even realized he’s going to move, crowding Adrian back against the wall behind him. This close, he can hear Adrian’s rabbit-fast heartbeat, smell the intoxicating perfume of his fear and arousal.

  “Please,” Adrian whispers, one hand moving up to rest against Xavier’s chest as if to push him away. It stays there without pressure. Even if he did push, it wouldn’t be enough to move Xavier. But he doesn’t push.

  A second time. “Please.”

  Xavier leans in, the kiss he plants against Adrian’s mouth hard enough to shock a moan of surprise out of the human. Adrian gives back as greedily as he gets, parting his lips and sucking Xavier’s tongue in deep, hands grasping at Xavier’s upper arms now to keep him from pulling away.

  Xavier drags his teeth against the inside of Adrian’s lower lip, a scraping nip vicious enough to draw blood, startling another broken moan for his trouble. The taste of it is instantly delicious, sublime enough that the petty annoyances of Xavier’s night fall away to nothing. All that matters is this, the thundering rush of Adrian’s blood, so close, so seductive.

  “Stop, stop, I don’t wanna come from just that again,” Adrian protests, even as his fingers clench harder against Xavier’s arms as if to draw him closer. “Do you wanna fuck me?”

  Yes, of course Xavier wants to fuck him. Whether it’s a wise course of action to do so is an entirely different matter.

  But then, wisdom went out the window before Adrian ever set foot in Xavier’s apartment, so it may be too late to start taking it into consideration now.

  “Let me blow you,” Adrian says, voice cracking with desperation. “Please.”

  12

  ADRIAN

  “Come on, let me suck your cock,” Adrian begs again, palming Xavier through his impeccably-tailored dark slacks, feeling the hard thick length beneath. “Please, please let me, fuck, God, I swear I’m good at it.”

  The babbled words make Xavier pause and pull back, prying away slightly from where his body had been pressed against Adrian’s a moment earlier.

  Adrian’s thundering heart lurches with panic, terror that he’s come on too strong or said the wrong thing. He’s been saying the wrong things all night, he knows that, but now he needs to say whatever Xavier wants to hear. He can’t mess this up. He needs it like breathing.

  When Xavier’s eyes meet his own there’s no reluctance or hesitation to be found, thank heaven, just thoughtful amusement and keen interest.

  “All right, come on then,” he agrees, stepping back so that Adrian’s no longer supported against the wall by borrowed strength.

  He walks towards Adrian’s bedroom — if it’s appropriate to call the room where Adrian’s been kept prisoner ‘his’ bedroom, which he’s pretty sure it isn’t, but whatever, he’s way too lust-drunk right now to care about the finer points of nomenclature — and Adrian follows along, pulse still racing double-time.

  This apartment must have super high-tech air conditioning, because the air always smells clean and fresh in every room, not too hot and not too cold. Everything perfectly regulated and orderly.

  Adrian can’t help but think that eternity would feel very, very long, with everything so perfectly in place like this.

  His melancholy train of thought gets derailed when the crash of Xavier’s mouth against his own disrupts the calm entirely. He lifts Adrian’s weight as if it’s nothing, tossing him down onto the bed and climbing on top of him.

  His tongue fucks into Adrian’s mouth, his hand coming up to cradle Adrian’s jaw at precisely the angle Xavier wants him at.

  The touch isn’t cruel or painful, but not gentle either. Xavier’s going to take exactly what he wants from Adrian, and Adrian knows that he has no say in the matter, can’t do anything except to try keep up.

  He moans helplessly, his own grip scrabbling at Xavier’s shoulders and upper arms. A
drian feels like his whole body is going to explode from pleasure, like all his plans to get to actual fucking are going to be undone when he comes apart from nothing but the slick forceful press of Xavier’s tongue against his own, the taste of stolen copper in the kiss.

  Adrian feels desperate for more, but the pace Xavier has set for them, the unpredictable rhythm of his tongue, is hypnotizing. Not like being enthralled, but better and sweeter than the high Adrian usually feels during foreplay.

  Begging for more would mean that this would have to stop, and Adrian doesn’t think he could stand that. He genuinely feels like pausing for long enough to strip them both of clothing would kill him, because that would mean they wouldn’t be touching, wouldn’t be kissing. Xavier would have to stop using Adrian’s mouth like a warm and willing hole to taste and lick into.

  “You need fuck my mouth, please fuck my mouth,” Adrian manages to gasp when Xavier lets him up for air. “I know vampires are meant to be the ones with oral fixations but I think I’m gonna die if you don’t choke me on your cock in the next five minutes.”

  Xavier groans, sucking a sharp and violent hickey against the soft junction of Adrian’s jaw. “Please, please stop talking,” he growls, the rumbled predatory sound making Adrian’s dick throb almost painfully.

  Xavier doesn’t break the skin this time, nipping and sucking in the same ways a living lover would instead, giving the side of Adrian’s neck the same ruthless, thorough exploration he’d given to the inside of his mouth.

  Adrian’s hips buck up, rutting against the hard solidity of Xavier’s thigh. The edges of his vision are flaring with stars, everything swimming and blurring, his nerves overstimulated.

  He knows this is just making everything worse and more complicated, right when he should be as single-minded as he can be, but Xavier’s mouth and hands and body are driving him crazy and his whole being is aching to be touched, he’s starving for it.

  If this is Adrian’s fate, to be captive prey to this guy, he might as well get something out of it.

  “I have to go get lube. Take your clothes off,” Xavier orders before standing, his appearance still surprisingly composed for what they’ve been doing.

  Adrian’s hands are shaking almost too much to untie the drawstring of his pants, but he manages somehow. When Xavier returns from his own bedroom a minute later with lube, Adrian’s already back on the bed, naked and exposed.

  Xavier stretches him open meticulously, but not especially gently — the pace of his slick fingers is enough to have Adrian panting and clutching the sheets when they’re at two.

  “You have to fuck me now, please,” Adrian begs. “I’m gonna explode otherwise. Not in a sexy way, either, like it’s a metaphor for coming. I’ll actually explode, gore all over the walls. Actually, that might still be sexy for vampires, huh?”

  Xavier ignores Adrian’s babble and also his plea, continuing with the same pace of stretching. He hasn’t mentioned condoms, which Adrian guesses means it’s probably not an issue, disease-wise, and even if it is… well, it’s not like kidnapping someone and drinking their blood is exactly maintaining safe barrier methods against fluid transmission, so it’s a little late to care really.

  Finally, finally, Xavier slides inside him, kissing Adrian as he does so, biting at his lips. Not a vampire bite, just a lover’s bite, a hunger for feeling and touch.

  Impaled and filled, Adrian’s mind finally goes blissfully quiet. He sucks on the end of Xavier’s tongue, which sends a shiver through Xavier’s body that Adrian can feel where they’re joined.

  Xavier rocks back a little and then thrusts deeper inside, and then it’s Adrian’s turn to send shivers through them both.

  It’s been way too long since he’s been fucked like this, where it’s so intense that he almost can’t handle it. Xavier uses him hard enough that all he can do is hang on, riding the pleasure to a jolting, shuddering climax that makes Adrian shout himself hoarse when it slams through him.

  “I gotta shower,” he says almost the instant Xavier pulls free, climbing off the bed and escaping into the bathroom. He can’t meet his own reflection in the mirror.

  Adrian can’t believe that his facade of being a normal person has fallen away from him so easily.

  It’s not that he regrets fucking Xavier. He couldn’t regret anything that felt that good. His whole body is still singing with the pleasure.

  But that’s the problem. No reasonable person would be happy about this. Adrian’s even more damaged goods than he realized.

  Disgusted at himself, he climbs into the shower, letting the hot water pummel him until he can’t think anymore.

  13

  XAVIER

  Xavier doesn’t bother to return to his own rooms to sleep. He likes this, lying here beside Adrian, the young man’s hair still damp from his earlier shower.

  He’d forgotten how soothing it could be to be able to hear the thrum of living blood nearby.

  Vampires are perhaps unique among predators in that they flourish best when their lives are intertwined with their prey. Maybe that makes them parasites more than predators. It’s a long, long time since Xavier learned biology at school.

  Winter might know the answer, if Xavier remembers to ask about it.

  Adrian is a restless sleeper. Perhaps it’s Xavier’s presence causing that, but Xavier doesn’t think so — everything about the young man is restless, all the time.

  So much about him is strange. Despite himself, Xavier is becoming more and more curious about him, about how resilient he’s proving to be in his current circumstances.

  He’s still watching him when Adrian stirs, some time later, and opens his eyes.

  “Oh, hey. You stayed. I didn’t know if you would,” he says, stretching like a lazy cat.

  “How do you know of us, despite not being a part of our world? That’s extremely rare, you know.”

  Adrian gives a derisive snort. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most of what’s out there is pretty garbage. Who’d want to stick around in it forever? Being immortal sounds like a lousy time, frankly.”

  “I didn’t ask why you weren’t immortal,” Xavier clarifies, sitting up. “Our world — the vampire world — is more than just my kind. We have human associates and pets, as well.”

  Adrian gives a sudden loud laugh, a bright and blithe sound surprisingly devoid of cynicism. He sits up as well.

  “Okay, listen, I may be kind of a garbage mess of a human being,” he chuckles. “But I don’t feel like it would do my self esteem much benefit to enter into a situation where someone called me their pet.”

  Xavier doesn’t bother to respond to this, waiting for Adrian’s amusement at the notion to pass, knowing that silence will be a sufficient indication that Xavier’s not going to be so easily deflected from getting an answer to the question he’s asked.

  After a long moment Adrian sighs, training his gaze on the bedclothes as he answers.

  “My brother is. Part of your world, I mean. He’s older than me by a few years, old enough that when our mom passed a decade ago he got custody of me.

  “Lee — that’s my brother — did whatever he had to in order to make sure we had money, and I guess that’s how he wound up meeting this vampire.” Adrian goes on. His voice has gone flat, emotionless, like he’s recounting dry facts that he has no personal connection to. “He was nineteen by then, which made him too old to be interesting to her, but I was thirteen and…”

  He pauses. The silence stretches for long enough that Xavier wonders if that’s all that Adrian has to say, but then the words begin once more.

  “I don’t want you to think that I hate him or anything. I’m not angry. He gave me a good life. I probably wouldn’t have managed to stay in high school long enough to graduate, if we hadn’t had the money we got from my blood. I don’t hate him.

  “I just… I just don’t want to be a part of the world that he’s in. All the awful violence and head games and shit. As soon as I got old enoug
h that she — the vampire, I mean — wasn’t interested in me anymore, I got myself the hell out of there. No more underworld for Adrian, thanks.

  “But we’re okay. Lee and me, I mean. We talk on the phone sometimes. I don’t hate him,” Adrian insists again, like he’s double-checking with himself to make sure that the statement is still true.

  “Maybe you should hate him.”

  Adrian gives another of his bright laughs. “I’m not taking interpersonal advice from the man who chained me to a bed.”

  Xavier smiles as well, willing to concede that he’s perhaps not in the best position to tell Adrian what is a forgivable sin against him and what is not. But he still feels that using a younger brother as a bargaining chip in the quest for power is the kind of act which doesn’t deserve forgiveness or redemption.

  Xavier reaches out, turning Adrian’s chin so that his downward gaze meets his own.

  “Even if my opinion isn’t one you put weight in, I feel you’re very wise in your decision. Emotional bonds between humans and vampires are invariably a bad idea, sooner or later.”

  Adrian tilts his head where it rests in Xavier’s grasp. “Why do you think that?”

  Xavier bristles at the question, dropping his hand from where it touched Adrian’s chin.

  “What kind of question is that?” he asks the young man curtly. “It’s objectively correct.”

  “Well, yes, obviously,” Adrian agrees. “But why do you think it?”

  Xavier gets up. “I have things to do.”

  14

  ADRIAN

  That’s the end of any afterglow right there, and the start of another stretch of being locked in a room with nothing in it to distract him from his boredom.

  Adrian starts by pacing the space, like a tiger circling its cage. Okay, not so much a tiger. Like a canary. If canaries paced, feeling frustrated at themselves because they can’t keep focused even when their life depends on it.