Blood Song

by Kara Sharpe

  The sound of Finn’s moans made Elijah’s cock throb, the sharp sweet crack of each cry of pleasure counterpointed by the slick noises of the lube as Elijah stretched Finn carefully, planting long kisses on Finn’s slack mouth over and over, chasing the sharp sugar traces in the taste of it.

  “Now, now, that’s enough. Do it now,” Finn demanded, reaching to grasp Elijah’s wrist. “I need you, please.”

  Elijah nodded, moving his hand away and staying still as Finn shifted position, sitting up and guiding himself down to sink slowly onto Elijah’s cock. The hot clench of him was dizzying, and Elijah let out a low moan.

  Finn remained still for a long moment, his breath coming in high gasps and broken little sounds, his eyes screwed shut as he lost himself in the wave of sensation.

  Perspiration-damp locks of hair stuck to Finn’s forehead, making him look younger and sweeter than usual, almost angelic. That impression was shattered a heartbeat later when he opened his eyes, giving Elijah a wicked, feral grin as he undulated his hips, fucking himself down with predatory hunger.

  Elijah’s fingers gripped at Finn’s hips hard enough to bruise and he bit his own lip to stinging, but two could play at that game. He thrust up, matching Finn’s voracity with his own, friction and sweat creating a lewd percussion with every movement of skin against skin.

  Elijah moved one hand up to tangle in Finn’s hair, pulling him close for more kisses, fucking Finn’s mouth with his tongue in time with their thrusts. As they broke apart Finn bit back a moan, pressing his mouth shut as he threw his head back, clearly overwhelmed.

  “Don’t hold back,” Elijah urged, pressing his face against the whipcord-tense muscle of Finn’s shoulder. “I want to hear you.”

  “More, more. You feel so good,” Finn babbled, nails scrabbling against Elijah’s back.

  Elijah laughed, the sound surprising him as it broke free into the air between them, and complied. He grasped Finn’s cock where it bobbed between them, stroking it eagerly.

  “Are you close?”

  Finn made a noise of assent between clenched teeth, nodding his head. Elijah grinned, lifting his hand away from Finn’s cock and pausing his thrusts. Finn wailed.

  “What was that? I couldn’t hear what you said. I told you I wanted to hear you,” Elijah reminded him.

  Finn’s eyes flashed with anger, the threat somewhat spoiled by the fact they rolled back in his head a moment later thanks to a pointed snap of Elijah’s hips.

  “I was close until you stopped!” Finn objected. Elijah suckled lightly at Finn’s collarbone and began to work his cock again, letting Finn fuck himself down onto Elijah at the same time.

  Elijah could feel his own climax building, his whole body tensing with the same thrumming, vital energy he’d feel just before a concert, a sense of imminent release. He sped his hand up, their bodies rocking together.

  “That’s it. Come for me now,” he ordered, right as he felt himself tipping over the edge. Finn shuddered in his arms, thighs shaking as his body obeyed the command, come coating Elijah’s hand as his own orgasm coursed through him, shattering and perfect, the two of them utterly in sync in this moment.

  Finn’s breaths were harsh and wet, a gasp or a sob trying to escape. They remained as they were for a long moment, Elijah rubbing soothing, meaningless patterns against Finn’s back. Then he eased their bodies apart, letting Finn rest as Elijah went to grab a washcloth to clean the worst off both of them.

  “You didn’t bite me,” Finn noted. “Usually when we have sex, you bite me as well.”

  “I thought I would now,” Elijah said. It would have been embarrassing for him to admit to Finn, but he always liked these moments of quiet closeness afterwards very much, when they were just together, not arguing or fucking or bargaining, just existing in the same place at the same time.

  This time, when Elijah bit Finn, the bite was a deep kiss rather than an attack, a point of connection where their bodies flowed together, sharing pleasure and life as Eli suckled gently against Finn’s skin.

  Somehow he knew that this would be the last time. The knowledge hurt, but it was a strangely beautiful kind of hurt, the elegiac loveliness of something that was made all the sweeter by its impermanence.

  Elijah collected objects and avoided people because fragility and impermanence frightened him, but now that he was confronted with what should have been a heartbreaking example — one last time with this strange, wonderful man — he was surprised that he felt as much joy as sorrow in the moment. Being a part of the world often meant losing, meant saying goodbye. But it was better than not being a part of the world, despite the cost.

  Maybe Finn was right after all. Maybe he and Elijah were just the same in the end, with the same pain to learn to let go of.

  After he’d finished tasting Finn’s blood, Elijah dressed and packed his bag. Finn didn’t seem surprised at that. Maybe he sensed the finality in the moment too.

  It wasn’t until Elijah was about to leave, his hand on the door handle, that Finn spoke to him.

  “I’m gonna stay alive. I promise.”

  27

  FINN

  That promise sustained him through the hard shit that came next.

  Step one was fixing things with the band. Finn called a meeting after their next sound check, a few days after Elijah left. To Finn’s surprise, Jess and Curtis and Damien all showed up for the meeting, and he realized how sad it was that things had gotten to the point where even all four of them voluntarily being in the same place was noteworthy.

  “We’re gonna find a way to make this work,” he told the others, conviction making his voice passionate. “No more living like there’s no tomorrow, like we’re breaking up the band in the next ten minutes. Shit’s been rough for all of us, but we’ll get through it together, not by pushing each other away.

  “I don’t want Crystal Pulse to end like this, and I don’t think any of you guys want that either. I hope you don’t, anyway. So let’s start making a better plan for what comes next, instead.

  “We need to talk a lot of shit out, and I think we’re probably gonna lose the label before all the dust settles. I don’t think there’s any other option than that — the things we’ve gotta change are not things they’re gonna be happy about us changing.

  “But we’ll survive. I know we will. One way or another.”

  The next major move Finn made to un-fuck his life was looking up the journalist who’d interviewed him right as things had started with Elijah, the one he’d been pretty sure was a fan. It wasn’t hard to find her email address online, and she seemed surprised but pleased when he dropped her a note asking if they could have a follow-up chat.

  “I have to ask, why me?” she opened with when he dialed her number.

  “There’s some stuff I was afraid to talk about then — hell, I’m still afraid to talk about it — that I want to get off my chest now. I got a good vibe from you, like you’ll give me the chance to say it all the way I want to. That you’ll give a shit about making sure the story gets written properly.”

  “I’ll do my best. Thank you for trusting me.”

  He took a deep breath. Here went nothing. “So there was this girl, Eva. She wanted to be a chef when she finished school…”

  Piotr yelled a blue streak down the phone at Finn when the interview came out. It turned out that assholes in expensive suits could swear even worse than rock stars when they had a mind to.

  But Finn wasn’t frightened of him and his bullying anymore. Crystal Pulse would find a way to survive, no matter what, and the fans would stick with them.

  Or, if they didn’t, that was okay too. Finn wasn’t afraid of whatever came next, even if it was difficult or frightening. He wasn’t going to live his life in fear.

  28

  ELIJAH

  His home felt as empty as ever. No, even more empty, because Elijah couldn’t pretend it was anything else than what it was: a dollhouse for a play-act life that he’d set up to convince hims
elf that he didn’t need people.

  Every trinket he filled the space with was a memory of a time he’d been somewhere alone, when he’d left with an object instead of a connection. They were beautiful, but they didn’t make him happy.

  He donated an extravagant sum of money to the province where he’d lived so many lifetimes ago, during his own brief, true lifetime before becoming a vampire. That made him feel a little better, the thought of his money helping other young men like the one he’d once been, like his brothers had been.

  It was surprisingly easy to find information about his family tree. Elijah wasn’t ready to contact any of his living relatives, not yet, but it was surprisingly pleasing to discover what they had done with their lives, how far around the world the different branches had spread. Maybe someday he’d be ready to connect with them again, just a little bit. He hoped so.

  Emelie called often, more than Elijah could remember her doing in the past — checking he hadn’t gotten himself into trouble again, probably.

  “I have a job offer for you,” she said at the start of one such call. “I arranged that extra Crystal Pulse gig out of necessity when you needed to put a lid on the situation, but it was kind of fun to put something like that into motion.

  “Since then I’ve been thinking that maybe I should get into the world of music more. If that’s something you’d be interested in being in charge of, we could set up a company.”

  “I don’t need you to make up a job for me, Em,” he answered, though he couldn’t help but smile at the gesture. “I’m at a loose end, not in desperate need.”

  “It wouldn’t be a vanity position. I’d expect results, you know.”

  “I know. You always do.” Elijah thought about it for a beat. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

  “Do think about it. I hate how sad you’ve been since you got back.”

  “Sad?” he blinked in surprise. “I haven’t been sad. Flat maybe, but being in the doldrums isn’t sad.”

  Emelie made a sound of disbelief. “Eli, I love you, but you’re an idiot.”

  29

  FINN

  It was the last date of the tour. They’d come so far from where they were when it began. It felt to Finn like he’d gone through the worst parts of hell and somehow, against all expectations, managed to come out the other side.

  Not unscathed, not entirely, but every rock star worth his salt needed at least a few interesting scars, right?

  The shouts of the crowd rose up like the welcoming roar of the ocean, an endless sea of faces turned towards him, all smiling, all ready for the music to wash over them and transport all of them, audience and band alike, to that place just a little bit beyond easy coherent description, where the joy of happy crowds all united in a moment’s delight took place.

  At the bar after the show, Jessica snapped her chewing gum and sipped her drink, frowning.

  “It adds too much of a perverse edge to my whole ‘broken doll’ aesthetic for me to be ordering virgin cocktails.”

  Finn bumped his shoulder against hers. “I’ve never known you to be opposed to a perverse edge in anything, I’m surprised you’d start now.”

  She smiled. “Okay, you got me there.” Her face grew more serious. “I’m thinking maybe I should look into one of those twelve-step things. Get some structure into getting this monkey off my back. But don’t they want you to be all about God and stuff? They might not want a gross weirdo from a band doing their program, especially if they want me to believe in things I’m not really sure about.”

  “I don’t know for certain,” Finn told her. “But I think they’re a bit more flexible than that with spirituality, don’t worry. And even if twelve-stepping and going to anonymous meetings doesn’t end up being the right thing for you, the fact that you’re taking this so seriously means you’re on the right path. I believe in you. I’ll do whatever I can to be there for you.”

  Jessica might have been on the road to recovery, but Finn wasn’t so sure about himself. He’d confronted the things that were fucking him up, certainly — and made an enemy for life in Piotr in the process — but he’d managed to create a whole new problem for himself on the way there.

  Finn had made a lot of mistakes in his life, some that would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he was starting to suspect that letting Elijah walk out of that hotel room was going to wind up right near the top of that list. The pain of the vampire’s absence in Finn’s life was like a needle lodged in his heart.

  The thought of never seeing Elijah again felt as if it were a physical injury, a missing organ or torn muscle — something inside Finn that had gone fundamentally wrong. Something that would never heal, not truly.

  But he’d survive it. The band was okay, Jess was okay, Finn was okay. They were all a little worse for wear, but they’d made it through. A broken heart wasn’t the end of the world.

  30

  ELIJAH

  Visiting Emelie was a welcome break from the solitude of his own company for Elijah.

  It seemed so strange to him that so much had changed for him since the last time he’d been in her lavishly appointed penthouse, even though only a short span of time had passed. Time was funny like that. He’d gone on for so long, unchanging, and then changed all at once.

  “I’m guessing that you’ve been avoiding anything about Crystal Pulse recently,” she said by way of greeting as he stepped out of the elevator, gesturing for him to follow her into her study. She was in one of her casual outfits, which meant no royal business was scheduled for that night.

  “Yes. Cold turkey seemed the best way to go about it. Otherwise I was just prodding my own bruises,” he agreed. He was dressed down, too. There didn’t seem much reason to bother making an effort, not when he didn’t really have a lot of contact with anybody much.

  “Well, I need you to watch this new interview they’ve done,” she said.

  Elijah’s heart missed a beat. Surely Finn hadn’t started with his vampire jokes again? The way they’d parted, Elijah had felt certain they’d come to an understanding.

  Emelie laughed kindly at his expression. “No, no, don’t worry. It’s not a bad thing. You’ll understand in a minute.”

  She gestured for him to sit down and then opened her laptop, the interview already cued to play. It was with Jessica, and Elijah felt both disappointment and relief at that — seeing Finn would have been painful, but Elijah couldn’t help but want a little bit of that exact pain.

  “It’s a new era for the band,” Jessica explained, sounding cheerful. “We’re all doing a lot better. We’re writing a lot of new material, because we’d like to do an album about the stuff we’ve been through.”

  She laughed. “We’ve been dropped by our label, though, so we’re back to hoping our mp3s go viral. We’re not that worried about it, though. These things sort themselves out, and I think we all needed a bit of time before we thought about any more tours or shows anyway. It’s for the best.

  “And if we have to go back to playing basement shows like we did in our earliest days, that’s fine too. Finn never got to experience that era of the band. Maybe it’d be good for his ego to get a taste of it.

  “Actually, speaking of Finn, can I hijack this interview just for a minute? I need to get a message out to someone.

  “Elijah, if you’re watching this, give us a call. Boys are idiots.”

  The interview ended after that and Emelie closed the laptop. “I’m inclined to agree about that,” she remarked in a dry voice. “Boys are idiots.”

  “Wow, with wisdom like that I can see how you ended up ruling a city,” he sniped back, equally dry, but his heart wasn’t in the banter — all he could think about was Finn, talking to Finn again, more time with Finn, his body against Finn’s again someday, Finn’s blood in his mouth. A future with Finn.

  “The band doesn’t have any more shows scheduled at the moment, but I took the liberty of finding out where their rehearsal space is.” She handed him a slip of pap
er with an address printed on it. “It’s a studio downtown. They’ll be there tomorrow night.”

  As evening fell, Elijah made his way to where Crystal Pulse were learning how to be a complete band again, instead of a group of broken people playing music together.

  He was afraid of ruining that. He didn’t want to remind them of the bad times, when all of them had been falling apart.

  But he couldn’t stay away. Not if there was a chance. Not if there was even the smallest likelihood that Finn might want him back.

  He knocked on the studio door. Despite the soundproofing, his acute hearing picked up the voices inside, and his pulse picked up as he recognized Finn’s.

  “That’ll be the food. I’ll get it.”

  Then he was there, standing in the opened doorway, staring at Elijah in shock.

  All the things Elijah had planned to say were forgotten instantly. For one long second, then another, they just locked eyes.

  “I love you,” Elijah blurted, because all his other words were gone.

  “Am I dreaming again?” Finn asked quietly.

  “You dreamed about me?” Elijah couldn’t stop the grin curling on his mouth. “I could pinch you, to prove I’m real.”

  Finn grabbed him into a devouring kiss, hands bruise-tight on Elijah’s arms, a laugh rumbling in his chest. “No, don’t pinch me. If it’s a dream, I don’t want to wake up.”

  They kissed and kissed, and Elijah knew he was never going to get tired of this, not if it went on forever.

  For the first time, forever sounded like barely long enough.