A much put-upon sigh sent a shiver down West’s spine.
“Augustin, please. Ice can be used to sooth a dry throat.”
“Ohhhhhh, I get it. He
is
awake!”
“Come on, let’s get the ice,” a third man said.
West had no idea who anyone was, and could only put a name to one voice, that of Augustin. He listened intently for footsteps and heard only one set. His hearing seemed to be very clear for some reason. There was the whisper of a door opening, then the soft
click
as it was closed.
“You can keep your eyes shut if you prefer, West. It is understandable to want to hide from what has happened.”
West bristled and before he knew what he was doing, he’d pried both eyes open. He found himself glaring at the attractive man in the suit. Just as quickly as his anger had welled up, it vanished. He wanted to please the man speaking to him, and an incomprehensible hunger was forming in his gut.
“It’s the need to feed. I can help you with this, but soon you will have to take your sustenance from another. I cannot bond with you more than I have by making you.”
Bond with me?
“What—” West closed his eyes again as fiery pain filled his throat. No speaking until that part of him was healed up.
“I have a mate, and so I will not take another lover. You will find that you want to please me, and want me in a sexual way, but that will ebb. It is the bond between a sire and his fledgling. Once you have sorted out what has happened to you, you will be able to control the impulses you are now feeling.”
What West was feeling was sheer terror. The whole
wanting anyone in a sexual way
brought back vivid memories of being attacked. He didn’t know all of what had happened to him, which was both more terrifying and relieving. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Something wet and warm plopped onto his lips. West didn’t question—the need was too strong. He opened his mouth and coppery liquid dribbled in.
Some part of him realized it was blood and recoiled, but the rest of him rejoiced as he grabbed at the arm pressed to his lips. He opened his eyes the moment he began to suck like a hungry baby, pulling in long drafts of blood.
No, no, no, no! What the eff are you doing?
West told that voice to shut up. He moaned as he swallowed, the blood coating his sore throat, the taste of it bitter yet sweet as honey.
He couldn’t look away from the intense gaze of the man he was feeding from.
“You are scared. It will get better. I wish there had been another way, but…” The man shook his head slightly. “You have had enough. Find your control, find your core, and cleave your way to it. You haven’t lost the essence of yourself.”
West wanted nothing more than to make the man proud of him. The hunger in his belly was gone, his throat hardly hurt. He disengaged his fangs—
“No!” West shouted, grabbing his head with both hands.
How had he become the thing from his worst memories?
Chapter Two
“He’s going to want you,” Abernathy said.
Claude would have liked to be able to deny it, but lust was a factor in the relationship between a sire and those he created. It wasn’t irresistible, however. “It is the natural order of our kind, yes, but we are rational beings, no more given to the weakness of the flesh than any other men.”
Abernathy snorted, turning from watching West sleep to smirk at Claude. “Which is all fancy-speak for you won’t be jumping his bones.”
“Nor he, mine,” Claude felt compelled to add, even though he knew Abernathy was laughing at him just a little bit. “West is repulsed by the very thing he’s become. He will hate me quite thoroughly, since I turned him.”
“But you had to,” Abernathy argued. “What? He’d rather be dead?”
“Quite possibly,” Claude murmured, his ears attuned to his fledgling’s beating heart. The elevation of West’s pulse was a giveaway as surely as the way his breathing sped up. “After what was done to West, it is true he may have preferred death over becoming a vampire. Had I allowed him to die, however, then his poor siblings would have been left without anyone to care for them. For that matter, we could have not gone after the children. If we were evil beings, we wouldn’t have…at least, we wouldn’t have done so and left the young ones alive.”
There was a definite, low growl that escaped West’s lips but he didn’t open his eyes.
Claude hoped West was truly comprehending what was being said. It would be so much easier to get on with their lives if West didn’t want to kill him, or be exceedingly difficult.
To that end, Claude stood then walked to the door. He opened it and called out, “Any time now, Augustin.”
“Yeah, yeah, keep your drawers on. Oops! Probably need to watch my mouth,” Augustin groused. “Come on, kiddos. Dog-pile your brother!”
West’s eyes shot open just as the sound of rapid footsteps filled the bedroom, along with squeals of delight and some murmurs of concern.
“West!” shouted the oldest girl, Gennie, as she elbowed aside her brothers.
The girl was fast and a tad mean in her quest to reach West first. She tripped a couple of the other kids before she leaped onto the bed.
West’s eyes had sprung open seconds before, and he tried to catch his sister but soon ended up buried under a pile of squirming, chattering—and to Claude’s horror, in some cases sobbing—children.
One of those sobs might have been West’s, considering where a knee landed.
Or it could have been a cry of joy. Claude didn’t know, but he tried to catch West’s attention. He wanted West to see, to acknowledge that Claude had done this for him. Not just Claude, but the vamps and humans here.
“We would not let you be separated from them,” Claude finally had to settle for saying, then repeated it loudly again when it seemed West didn’t hear him the first time.
But Claude’s desire to be acknowledged quickly faded as he saw the love the siblings shared, the relief and yes, joy on West’s face as he embraced all of the children in a big, unwieldy hug.
His own ego couldn’t compete with that. It made
him
warm with emotions to see West and the children so…happy. Relieved. Claude didn’t think the words mattered. It was what was being felt that was important.
He slipped from the room with Abernathy, leaving West to spend time with the ones he loved.
Chapter Three
“Aw, come on, Axel! You got a head start! Let’s go again!”
Roger ‘Axel’ Majors rolled his eyes at his ex-boyfriend Jukie. It’d been that kind of competitiveness, along with the whining, that had put an end to their romantic relationship. Luckily, their friendship had survived, though with the way Jukie was pouting, it might not make it for much longer.
Jukie tossed back his glossy brown hair, pushing it out of his sweaty face. He swiped at his brow and continued arguing. “You didn’t
really
win, you know. You got an early start—”
“No, I didn’t,” Axel snapped, his patience worn thin. Sandboarding in the desert heat was enough to make anyone cranky especially if it entailed listening to hours of complaining too. “Yolanda was clocking us, and she’ll tell you the same thing.”
“Yup,” Yolanda agreed. “Jukie’s a sore loser, nothing new there.”
“Fuck you,” Jukie muttered, flipping Yolanda off as well.
Yolanda threw the clipboard at Jukie in a movement so fast, Jukie didn’t have time to duck.
“Fuck!” he yelped as the impromptu weapon made contact with his chest. “Ow!”
“Learn some manners, asshole,” Yolanda snarked, turning away from them. “I’m done here. We’ve been practicing for hours and I’m ready for a long, cool bath and some good food and booze. See y’all at Concho’s.”
“You cheated,” Jukie muttered, kicking the clipboard.
Axel wanted to tear his hair out. “I did. Not. You’re slower, that’s it. Maybe you need a better board.”
Or more patience and practice.
“We’ve got three months before the next competition—”
“Fuck that. You’ll cheat there too.” Jukie narrowed his eyes at Axel. “Maybe someone should make sure the judges know what to watch for.”
A chill washed over Axel. “Jukie, what’s going on, man? You know I don’t cheat and I couldn’t in a competition anyway. I’d be DQ’d for jumping the start. You
know
that. Are you…” Axel hated to bring it up because it was just going to piss Jukie off more but they needed this shit worked out. “Is this about us breaking up?”
Jukie snorted. “Us breaking up? Nah, not at all.”
Axel sagged a little in relief.
Jukie whacked him with the clipboard, catching Axel on the jaw with the flat back of it.
“Hey!” Axel threw his hands up to try to avoid another blow to the face.
“This is about
you
dumping
me,
you fucking fuck!” Jukie caught him on the side twice.
Axel wasn’t a violent man. He hated blood and boxing and anything remotely involving violence.
And now he knew he really hated being on the receiving end of it. It was just too bad he didn’t know jack shit about defending himself.
“You don’t get to ditch me, asshole,” Jukie snarled.
There was an insane light to his eyes, and spittle flew as he shouted.
Axel had known Jukie had a temper, but not like this.
“Jukie, stop. Stop—” Axel grunted as the edge of the clipboard was slammed into his belly. “Fu…”
“You were lucky to be with someone as hot as me.” Jukie hit him again then backed away when Axel fell onto his butt. “You’ll never get another guy as attractive as me. You can’t beat this.” He slapped himself on the ass.
Jukie had been a lazy and selfish lover. Axel doubted now was the time to point that out.
“Have fun finding your way back.” Jukie looked at the clipboard, then at Axel, before turning on his heels and leaving.
Axel didn’t even have the breath to plead with Jukie, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have bothered. Hopefully, now that Jukie had thrown his hissy fit, he’d get over it. That was the way the idiot had always acted in the two years that Axel had known him. Tomorrow Jukie would be full of regret and sweet as sugar.
And Axel would let whatever this was go, because that would be easier than arguing. He sighed and watched Jukie ride off on his ATV. Axel was fairly certain he knew his way back. They weren’t too far off the main road. He could also follow the tire tracks Yolanda and Jukie left behind.
That was the theory, anyway, but he yelped when he tried to stand, his ribs aching like a mother. Well, he would call Yolanda. She’d had plenty of experience with Jukie and his fits, since they’d been friends before Axel had come along. Maybe she wouldn’t mind coming back to help him get up.
Axel dug his cell phone out of his pocket and cursed when he saw the shattered screen. Of course he couldn’t have just cracked it. The screen was a mess of fractures and spiderweb-like lines. He also noticed it didn’t light up when he pressed the buttons on the side.
“Oh, come on!” Axel shook the phone. Pieces of the screen went flying. “Crap!”
It took him a while, but he finally got to his feet. “I gotta have better taste in men,” he mumbled as he slowly made his way to his ATV. He always did pick the wrong guys, but Jukie had made so much sense—or a relationship between them had. They were both devoted to the sport of sandboarding, they lived close to each other, had the same goals and—
Axel huffed in irritation. He needed to let that particular dream go. Jukie wasn’t the man for him. Maybe no guy was.
“Great. Now I’m turning into
that
guy.” The one who depressed everyone around him with his shitty attitude.
There was more to life than finding the partner you wanted to spend your life with. That was what Axel kept telling himself as he whimpered his way through getting on the ATV. The vehicle started and he almost wept in relief. He reached for a bottle of water, intending to soothe his parched mouth and throat.
Pain shot up from his ribs. “Ow! Damn it, mother f—” Axel hissed and shut the vehicle down before he slowly got back off the ATV. He needed water. Overheating in the desert was a real risk. He took a bottle from the small cooler strapped onto the back of his vehicle. Even twisting the lid off the bottle caused his side to ache.
“Fucking Jukie and his fits.” Axel drank half the bottle then tucked the rest back into the cooler. He carefully got back on and started the engine—only to have it sputter and die.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Axel growled at it. Luckily the engine caught the second time. If it hadn’t, he’d have worried he’d been poxed or something. Axel always took care of his vehicles and his equipment. The ATV was top of the line—in his cash range, at least—and he made sure it was babied like a vehicle should be.
Which explained exactly nothing about why it died on him a few minutes later.
“Argh!” Axel started to throw his hands up in the air but remembered the sore ribs just in time to stop himself. He checked his watch. It was a little after five p.m. He had a couple of hours to get back to the road. The last thing Axel wanted was to be out in the desert at night.
Chapter Four
“Fuck Jukie, fuck this desert—” Axel slapped the seat of the ATV. “And fuck me for being stupid in the first place!” He had maybe ten minutes of light left before the sun set completely. Axel was more than a little scared. He’d never considered himself Mr. Butch and there were
things
out in the desert that could get him.
“I should have taken shop class,” he muttered, jiggling the battery. “But,
noooooo
, I had to take art because Cody Williams took it.” Despite his nervousness, Axel grinned. Cody Williams had been a stud and eventually, he and Axel had had a few fun months together before deciding they wanted to do more exploring. “Need to email that bastard and see how he’s liking married life.” Cody had found his Mr. Right and ‘put a ring on it’ in about the same amount of time Cody and Axel had fooled around years ago.
Axel wasn’t jealous. Not of Cody or his husband Morgan.