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  He doesn’t want to let Adrian go, especially now that things are so dangerous out there. He… he doesn’t want anything to happen to the young man, that’s all. Anything worse than what’s already happened.

  “Would you like to meet Emelie?” he asks Adrian sometime around midday, when both of them have slept a little — enough to ascertain that neither of them are very sleepy, anyway. “I’m certain that she’s still awake, and I think today is a time when she’ll be in desperate need of distractions from her thoughts. Her remaining human, Winter, is a voracious reader. Perhaps the two of you will get along.”

  In these daylight hours, Emelie can’t continue the search personally, confined behind the heavy blackout curtains that decorate every window in her penthouse in the same way they border Xavier’s home.

  Adrian doesn’t hesitate before nodding agreement. “Sure, if you think that’ll be helpful.”

  As soon as Xavier and Adrian reach the upper level, Xavier’s phone rings with a call from Nova, likely responding to a text he’d sent her earlier in the day.

  “I’m sorry, I have to take this,” he apologizes. Adrian shakes his head.

  “It’s cool. I’ve never been fazed about meeting new people. Find us in a minute when you’re done.”

  Xavier steps off into an empty room to take the call, explaining rapidly what he’d wanted to discuss with Nova. He’d been thinking about an offhand comment Adrian had made — one of the many, many offhand comments Adrian had made, as he seems to have an inexhaustible supply of them — about social media.

  He tells Nova to reach out not only to local associates and allies, but also to worldwide contacts. See what trackers and cookies they have built into their technologies that might be utilized in the search for Lennon.

  For all Xavier knows, Katerina is self-centered enough to have a public presence online, or one of her faction has let themselves be seen on a camera linked to a facial recognition database.

  Nova agrees with the suggestion, and promises to keep Xavier in the loop with anything that results.

  Moving through to the library, Xavier puts his phone down on the table and stands, listening as Adrian chatters on cheerfully, as if he was making an ordinary visit with friends of a friend. Emelie and Winter both look shattered, ill from grief, but Adrian gives no indication that he’s noticed this is the case.

  “…Volunteering at the shelter has its gross side, obviously, same as anything involving animals does. My life is filled with so much cleaning up of so many, many disgusting things. And it can be sad too, sometimes. Not every story’s got a happy ending.”

  “That’s why I can’t imagine myself ever working at a place like that,” Winter agrees softly.

  “But it’s way more good than bad,” Adrian promises, steering things back into brighter territory, correcting as soon as he realizes the error he’s made. “I get to see people and their future pets meet for the first time and connect — there’s this moment you see sometimes where they just click, and it’s like seeing magic happen. That’s worth cleaning up a bit of poop, you know?

  “Anyway, as far as gross goes, my bookshop job has way more grody stuff in in than you’d expect. Ugh.” Adrian gives a theatrical shudder. “Working in retail is a crash course in how disgusting some people are, honestly.

  “Like, okay, there was this one guy and he calls up and says he wants a copy of this one particular book, and I’m like oh sure, we have a few different editions of that.

  “He wants to know what they smell like. At first I don’t get it, I’m like what? and he repeats exactly the same question: what do they smell like. Then he explains it in more detail, in case I still don’t understand — he wants to order the book, but he needs to know what the different copies we have in stock smell like, and is really mad when I’m just like they smell like old books, dude, I don’t know what else to tell you.

  “So he drives like, two hours to come to the store in person and give each copy a big sniff. Then he ends up buying two of them. So I guess he got what he was looking for, and I’m perfectly happy never knowing anything more about it.”

  Emelie comes over to stand near Xavier. “Let’s go in my study for a while, shall we?”

  He nods. Winter clearly wants to object, but Adrian distracts him with a ready “Hey, so, Xavier said you’re a reader. What kind of stuff do you like? Was that your copy of It that I got to borrow?”

  Xavier follows Emelie out of the room and down the hallway to her study.

  “I want to expand importation operations,” she says. “It’s a global economy, we need to keep pace with all the things that means. More warehouse space, more dock influence, more of our people in the customs system.”

  “Em, we don’t have to do that toda—”

  She gives him a hard, mirthless smile. “The world doesn’t stop turning just because my heart’s broken.”

  She sits herself behind her desk, gesturing for him to take his habitual spot opposite her. “I’m thinking of investing more in scholarships as part of my philanthropy. I like nurturing new talent, and it never hurts for people to owe you a favor right from the beginning of their rise to power. Now, about my arts patronage, I want…”

  It’s another hour of busywork before exhaustion gets the better of Emelie and she slumps in her seat, pinching the bridge of her nose beside her eyepatch. “I can’t stop thinking about what they’re doing to him, Xavier.”

  “Come on, let’s go see what Adrian and Winter are up to,” he answers immediately, standing up. He knows the pain can’t be delayed forever, but until they recover Lennon’s body the agony of not knowing what’s happening must be corroding at Emelie’s heart like acid.

  Both young men are sitting much as they were when Xavier and Emelie left them earlier, although each is now absorbed in the screen of their respective phones.

  Xavier doesn’t even realize that anything’s amiss about this scene until Adrian notices him by the door and gets up, looking abashed.

  “Uh, you have a copy of The Shining in your Kindle library now. Sorry about that,” he says, walking over and handing the phone to Xavier.

  “How did you even use this, though? I keep it locked.”

  “Guessed your PIN,” Adrian shrugs. “1947. It seemed obvious.”

  18

  ADRIAN

  After they say their goodbyes to Winter and Emelie, Adrian’s heading back towards the elevator when Xavier stops him.

  “Here, this way's more convenient for going down,” he tells Adrian, opening a door that reveals a narrow of stairs behind it.

  They head down together, Xavier going first, addressing Adrian again without turning around. “It’s almost nightfall. I’ll be heading out to search again in a few hours.”

  “Will you be okay without sleep?” Adrian asks as they step into Xavier’s apartment.

  “Yes. I don’t need sleep every day if I’m feeding regularly.”

  The words, despite being a simple statement of fact delivered neutrally, make Adrian’s cheeks heat in a bright blush as he remembers the last time Xavier fed.

  “You… um, you can have more, if you need it. The search is important, right? I want to help.”

  “I’m fine,” Xavier says again. He sounds exhausted, but that doesn’t necessarily come from actually being tired. Sometimes it’s just that everything you gotta carry feels really heavy.

  Adrian knows what that’s like.

  Well, if Xavier doesn’t want to feed, maybe there’s something else Adrian can do to help out.

  He takes Xavier’s hand in his own, leads him to the deep, soft couch in the living room. Guides him to sit down, then climbs on top of him, knees resting either side of Xavier’s thighs.

  Xavier lets out a soft groan against Adrian’s lips as their mouths collide in a kiss. His hands are at Adrian’s waist, pulling up his shirt, touching the strip of bare skin he exposes as he does so.

  He’s always careful with his strength, when he touches Adrian like
this. Vampires are so, so much more powerful than humans, but Xavier never lets that difference in toughness translate to Adrian getting hurt when they’re intimate, even when Adrian whimpers and grinds down against Xavier’s growing hardness like he’s doing now.

  He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He had Xavier’s phone, and all he did with it was download a book he’s read a half-dozen times before. He didn’t text anyone for help or call the police or post about what was happening.

  But… well… it’s just… aside from abducting Adrian, Xavier seems like a good guy. He’s loyal to Emelie, who seems like a much better person than the other really powerful vampire Adrian’s known.

  He’s never seen a vampire who’s obviously spent hours crying before. That might seem like a stupid reason for him to trust her, and by extension Xavier, but there it is. Adrian does.

  He’s got to stop thinking. Having too many feelings about it is just going to fuck him up. This isn’t some fairytale. Getting good sex out of a fucked-up situation is all he’s going to think about right now.

  “So good, you feel so good,” Adrian babbles, rocking harder against Xavier. “Want to fuck you right here. I’m still so open. Still ready. Fuck back into me right now.”

  Xavier shucks his own pants off, barely lifting his hips from the sofa, as Adrian momentarily climbs back off the couch to shed his own. Then he climbs back on, bare thighs bracketing bare thighs, and positions himself to sink down onto Xavier.

  He was telling the truth, he’s still looser and more open from the last time they fucked, but the stretch of it still makes him hiss with the good, good burn of it.

  Adrian smears clumsy, needy kisses against Xavier’s mouth as he fucks him, rocking as he tries to find the right angle. Then he does, and Xavier swallows down the broken moans and gasps as Adrian rides the waves of shocky pleasure.

  “I’m not going to last long with you looking like this,” Xavier warns.

  “Then make it count,” Adrian retorts, and Xavier does.

  19

  XAVIER

  As night falls, Xavier decides not to lock Adrian away in the bedroom. There’s very little in the apartment that he could get into any kind of real trouble with, after all.

  When he says as much to Adrian, he gets a wide smile of delight in return.

  “Nice. Then I’m going to attempt laundry. Which is probably going to be a hilarious adventure, just warning you in advance so you’re not surprised by the whole place being full of soap bubbles when you get back. Can I have another outfit to wear while I wash all the filth off these?”

  Xavier provides one, then heads out to resume the search for Lennon.

  It’s almost seven hours later when his phone buzzes with a call from Nova.

  “Your idea of using wider tech may have given us a lead,” she tells him when he answers. “Nothing I want to tell the Queen about just yet, but I thought you’d want to be the one to investigate.”

  She sends through a set of coordinates in a park not very far away, along with several images of varying resolutions showing angles of Katerina in the area.

  As Xavier heads towards the location, he considers the fact that eventually their opponents — not Katerina and Davis, perhaps, but they’re far from Emelie’s only enemies — will become semi-competent in using these same technological tricks as an advantage, rather than them presenting a weakness.

  Xavier and the rest of Emelie’s court will have to make certain that they stay ahead of the curve as the world progresses and changes. The thought doesn’t especially concern him — for all that they’re frozen in time, vampires are infinitely adaptable to their environment. They’ll endure. They always do.

  Among the scattered trees and litter of the park, Xavier finds Lennon almost exactly where Nova’s prediction suggested to look. The man has been drained, savagely, with bites and bruises in a constellation across all his skin that Xavier can see.

  He is alive, but barely and not for long. That much is obvious. Even if Xavier called for an ambulance immediately, the odds would be stacked against Lennon.

  Even if he survived in the short term, his stay in the ICU would leave both him and Emelie exposed and vulnerable — both to follow-up vampire attacks, and to questions about how Lennon came to have injuries of this nature.

  Despite all that, Xavier knows with every cell of himself that if Emelie had been the one to find Lennon, she would have tried with everything she had to save him.

  But that’s part of what Xavier’s role is, isn’t it? To protect his Queen from the goodness of her own heart, those times when it works against her effectiveness as a leader. He’ll bear this sin so that she doesn’t have to.

  That’s why Nova didn’t want Emelie to know, yet. Because this is Xavier’s task to carry out.

  Xavier lifts Lennon’s unresponsive form as carefully as he’s able and carries him back towards the apartment building, grateful for the almost-dawn even as its weak rays sear his skin. There’s nobody out at this hour, this in-between when vampires have retreated and the daylight world is only just beginning.

  He doesn’t hesitate before selecting his own floor instead of Emelie’s. As soon as the elevator door opens, he raises his voice into a shout.

  “Adrian! Go in your room and lock your door until I come and say otherwise!”

  The command must have sounded urgent enough to preclude any questions, because he hears the pad of bare feet as Adrian runs to instantly obey.

  Xavier doesn’t want Adrian to see what comes next. It seems stupid, the idea that Xavier wants to protect him from anything, after everything that’s happened so far, but that’s nevertheless the truth.

  Seeing someone die and be reborn is enough to traumatize anyone. Xavier himself is always discomfited by witnessing it.

  He wants to say something to Lennon. To explain himself, perhaps. To justify the monstrous act he’s about to perform. Apologizing seems wrong — how can he say that he’s sorry when he isn’t sorry at all, when this is simply what must be done?

  “It’s okay. For her.” Lennon’s voice is a cracked rasp.

  Xavier shouldn’t have underestimated one of Emelie’s humans. Of course Lennon understands. Even barely conscious and clinging on, he understands.

  Lowering them both to the floor, Xavier repositions his hold on Lennon and bites as carefully as he can into the flesh of his neck.

  There’s almost nothing left. A lively, generous life, reduced to so little. Sorrow makes Xavier’s chest ache.

  Life is such a frail, delicate, vulnerable thing.

  Lennon’s life force reaches its tipping point almost immediately, and Xavier pulls away. Lennon whimpers.

  Tearing his own wrist open with his teeth, Xavier offers the wound to Lennon, waiting until he opens his mouth wider and begins to lap at the cut.

  Exhaustion is catching up with Xavier, or perhaps a less tangible kind of weariness. He’s so tired of violence, of loss and sacrifice and the need to make terrible choices. He’s so tired.

  Lennon will need human blood after this, and soon — at least enough to give him back his coherency, so that he doesn’t present a danger to Winter before they go upstairs.

  When Xavier judges that Lennon’s had enough of Xavier’s blood that the turning will hold, be pulls away gently and lifts Lennon’s body once again, carrying him through to lay him on the sofa.

  He goes to Adrian’s door and knocks lightly. “It’s me.”

  Adrian opens the door immediately. “You found Lennon?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I get it,” Adrian cuts him off. “You want me to feed him, right?”

  “From a glass,” Xavier specifies. “Directly would be too dangerous.”

  Adrian nods, his usual continual patter quiet for once. “Okay.”

  Xavier bites Adrian’s wrist open, so the wound will close easily and cleanly. He can feel that the touch makes Adrian shiver, even in circumstances as dire as these.

  “That s
hould be enough,” Xavier decides when they’ve filled a large mug. “Go lock yourself away again.”

  “No, I’ll come with you,” Adrian replies, walking ahead of Xavier in to where Lennon is still on the sofa.

  “Got you a snack,” he says, gesturing to the mug in Xavier’s hands. Lennon grabs it gratefully, gulping the contents down without hesitation.

  Then he drops the mug to the floor and buries his face in his hands, a long animal sound of pain welling out of him.

  Adrian is seated beside him on the sofa in a second, hugging him. The two stay like that for a long time, Adrian silently holding on as Lennon sobs and sobs and sobs.

  Xavier stands and waits, ready to intervene if new instincts overtake Lennon’s ability to reason and he strikes out at Adrian. That moment never comes, though, and after a long time Lennon sits back, spent and empty.

  It’s not until then that Xavier takes out his phone and calls Emelie.

  “I’ve found Lennon. Everything is going to be all right. We’ll be there in a moment.”

  “A moment? What? Where are you—”

  He ends the call and offers a hand out to help Lennon stand from his place on the sofa. “Come on, let’s go see her.”

  Adrian gives them both a concerned frown. “Do you want me to come too? As, you know, immoral support?”

  The joke earns a small smile out of Xavier. He shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. I’ll be back later.”

  20

  ADRIAN

  When Xavier eventually comes back down from the level upstairs, he goes into his room and crashes immediately. Adrian knows he should do the same — you’re meant to take it easy after blood loss, right? — but after everything that just happened, he feels like a live wire. He couldn’t possibly sleep.

  With the laundry done and the variety of streaming services and Blu-ray choices thoroughly investigated already, Adrian feels almost obligated to snoop around the rest of the apartment.