by J. Emery
In unconsciousness, the vampire was angelic, wispy blond hair framing high cheekbones and even higher eyebrows. They pulled together in a frown. The faint shimmer to the skin was probably some kind of makeup, but there was something right about it. It fit the same way the dribble of blood at the corner of the vampire's mouth fit.
There were so many things wrong with this scenario that Morgan didn't even know where to begin. Instead he went into the kitchen to find a dishtowel to wrap around his wounded arm, knotting it with his teeth, before he collected his bag from beside the door.
2
Ezra moaned.
It was warm, so warm he could have cried.
His mouth tasted of blood. That was good too. Rich and coppery. Delicious. His tongue ran around his lips in search of any drops he might have missed and he groaned at the sudden pain that flared up along the side of his head. His jaw hurt. He didn't want to know why. Whatever the reason, it would be bad. He curled in tighter and willed himself back to sleep.
Something caught at his leg.
Ezra flinched upright, tangled in a blanket, every inch of his body protesting the sudden movement. His leg still wasn't cooperating like it should. He looked down. No wonder. A loop of chain wrapped around his ankle, closed with a small padlock like a perfect metal bow, the trailing end of the chain locked around a nearby support beam in the open living area of the cabin.
"I know you can probably break that if you're really motivated," said a voice, "but I suggest you not be motivated." The owner of the voice sat on the couch nearby, his gun pointed in Ezra's direction. His other hand lifted in a curt wave. "Hello there."
The bottom fell out of Ezra's world at the sight of the gun and the stranger and the fact that he had escaped one captor only to stumble directly into another.
"I was supposed to be getting laid right now." Ezra drummed his heels against the floor to punctuate each syllable. He felt like screaming. "That's all I fucking wanted. Why is this happening to me? Which ancestor's ass did I not kiss hard enough? Because whoever it was, I'm sorry."
The man gave him a startled look, mouth drooping open. His gun, however, stayed perfectly level.
Ezra blinked wearily at him. "You're a hunter, aren't you? I thought you people were a myth." It all made sense though. The gun. The chain. He had a hazy memory of biting the hunter right before the world went white at the edges. Ezra flopped back onto the floor and tugged the blanket around his shoulders, licking his lips again. The hunter was delicious, had to give him that. "What are you planning to do with me? You didn't kill me when I was down so you must want something."
"That depends on you."
The hunter—he hadn't denied it so he must be one—had lit the fire and if Ezra rolled onto his back and stretched his arms up he could feel the heat reaching back towards him. He pushed against the floor with his heels, but he couldn't get any closer. The chain cut into his ankle after he'd scooted only an inch or two. "That feels so good. Can't you turn it up? Or make it bigger? Whatever you do with a fire. I'm so cold, you have no idea."
"I'll get right on that," the hunter said dryly.
The hunter's eyes followed his every movement and Ezra was torn between the desire to hide under the blanket until he was all but invisible and wanting to keep those eyes on him, to stretch until they knew every single inch of his body as intimately as possible, to watch them turn hungry. Which was probably wrong on a number of different levels since this was a human—a hunter even—but he couldn't bring himself to care. The hunter hadn't tried all that hard to kill him so far so maybe that was a good sign? And surely there was no harm in just looking. Dreaming. Ezra snuck a peek over his shoulder.
The hunter looked young, but maybe that was due to his face. It had an open quality that was never going to seem particularly threatening. Short dark hair, golden-brown skin, thick brows above eyes the color of chocolate, and full lips that had settled into a perplexed smile as if that was his natural state of being. And he was built big. Sturdy, that's what Ezra's siblings would have called it. Which wasn't something that usually did it for Ezra—he thought, everything had been theoretical before—but he couldn't stop staring at those wide, tanned hands resting on the hunter's thick thighs. There was so much of him. Enough to drown in.
Ezra licked his lips. "Information?"
"Hmm?" The hunter's eyebrows rose.
He traced a coy finger along the grain of the hardwood floor. "You want information? Or were you after money? I could give you both." I won't, but I could, he added silently. Another shiver wracked Ezra's body so hard his teeth clacked together, fangs pinching his tongue. His own blood wasn't nearly as tasty.
"And why would you do that? Give me information, I mean."
"In return for letting me go? I can be agreeable. I could be even more agreeable if you unchained me." Ezra blinked long lashes up at the hunter. It wasn't difficult to look small and harmless. He'd been practicing that trick for years, ever since he'd figured out that fangs couldn't dim his sweet looks. Whisper-soft curls and big eyes went a long way with most people.
"The chain is to keep you from taking another chunk out of my arm. The first time was enough, thanks." The hunter held up the arm in question, which was now bandaged with a floral-print towel stiff with drying blood. Ezra's nose twitched at the smell of what lay beneath. Waste of perfectly good blood. He listed that way without meaning to. "You're not like any vampire I've ever heard of."
"Because you've met so many."
The hunter had the decency to look abashed. "Well, no. You're the first. But my family told me stories... about the ones they've..."
Ezra rolled his ankles until they popped. The shoes were a lost cause but he didn't think he could get the one off with the chain around his ankle. He needed to stretch. His dramatic flight across the countryside had left him chafed and raw in so many places he couldn't even keep track of them anymore. But at least he wasn't face down in a snowbank. He was cold but alive. And nearly free. One hunter with a gun wasn't a crisis. One attractive hunter, Ezra corrected while looking him over again. He could practically feel the flex of those thighs against his palms already, fingers digging in as he held on for dear life. His mouth watered. This time it had nothing to do with blood. He would be saving that mental image for later. "Whatever you've heard, it wasn't enough. Clearly."
"Meaning?"
Ezra forced his attention away from the hunter and glanced around the room. There were some paper grocery bags and a duffel bag across the room. He pointed at it. "Is that yours? You must have clothing in there. Give me a shirt and I'll answer your question." He pinned on an even sweeter smile and tried to project innocence. The links of the chain sifted cool through his fingers. The hunter was right. He probably could break it if he wanted. But sometimes the more dramatic option was the best one.
The hunter shot him a suspicious look, but Ezra was still visibly shivering so he stood slowly from the couch and went to do as requested, walking backwards until he'd gotten safely across the room. "Don't try anything." His jeans molded to him from rounded ass to thigh as he crouched to search in his bag. He came up with a rumpled burgundy sweater.
It hit Ezra in the face a moment later. "That was fucking rude," he grumbled, rubbing the sweater between his hands. It was soft and smelled faintly of laundry soap. Beneath that he could almost detect the scent of the hunter like it had been worked into the fibers with long use.
The hunter dropped back onto the couch. "There. You got your sweater. Now answer."
Ezra let the blanket pool around his hips while he peeled off his flimsy shirt. Some of the tears had been there when he bought it but not all. Looking at it, a little of that earlier excitement from when he'd first put it on flooded back, but soured now. Things were supposed to turn out so much different than this. He didn't really even know how many days had passed. Maybe one. Two? Maybe none? How long had he been unconscious? Ezra tossed the shirt aside. Shit. The sweater hurt as much going on as his shirt had c
oming off. He clamped his teeth into his lip to keep in the moan of pain. An answering noise from the couch made him look up.
"What the hell happened to you?" the hunter asked, head cocked in something between curiosity and dismay. He really did have the most open face.
Ezra frowned at him as he yanked the sweater down. "One answer for one shirt. That's two questions." It was too big almost everywhere and the sleeves bunched up around his hands, but the warmth was immediate and luxurious. He purred with pleasure, hugging himself tight. It felt like his blood finally pumped in his veins again, like he'd come back to life. "Oh, that's so much better." If a feeling could have a color, this one would have been gold. Bright. Perfect. Warm. Gold.
The hunter cleared his throat meaningfully and Ezra stilled. He'd gotten the collar worked up almost over his nose while he was nesting. He tugged it back down. "You still owe me one answer."
Until the first little fizz of energy lit Ezra from top to toe he worried that his plan might not work. Whatever the kidnappers had dosed him with, they'd been prepared. For a vampire, if not for him specifically. But the tingle wrapping around Ezra like champagne bubbles told him the drug was finally leaving his system. The storm might be a problem—he could hear the wind whistling through cracks, rattling windows all through the cabin—but he'd figure it out once he got that far. Even tired, he would make it work.
First, the hunter.
Ezra committed every inch of him to memory and then waved goodbye to what might have been. If only. Somewhere the ancestors were probably screaming in horror that he'd even considered it. He smiled. "Meaning don't believe everything you hear about us, especially from humans. But congratulations, darling. You didn't just catch a vampire. You caught the deluxe edition and I'm way out of your league. Thanks for the sweater."
With a smile and a wave, Ezra shifted into mist. The look on the hunter's face was priceless. He wished he could have taken a picture.
MORGAN STARED AT THE spot where the vampire had sprawled only a second before. The blanket curled around nothing. The chain stretched across the floor like a metallic snake, terminating in a now-empty loop. No vampire. It wasn't quite the same as vanishing into thin air. The vampire had made a faint white shimmer, twisting over on itself like smoke caught in a draft, before it had streamed towards the door and outside almost faster than Morgan's eyes could follow.
"What the shit."
He was nowhere near tired enough to be hallucinating and the look on the vampire's face as he disappeared—that too-smug Cheshire Cat grin stretching pouty lips, a wrinkle of concentration between high arched brows—was enough to confirm that all of this was really happening. That face was pure mischief. Not even the dark smudges beneath his eyes that were half ruined makeup and half exhaustion could disguise it.
Morgan made yet another quick circuit of the cabin because securing the area was what he did in times of confusion, but he already knew what he would find. Nothing. Just the extreme solitude he had come here looking for. All of a sudden it felt a lot emptier.
He fished in the kitchen drawers where he'd found the chain and locks, looking for the keys, and found a drawer full of hunting knives, coils of rope, a can opener of suspicious provenance, and a few other odds and ends that had no business in any normal kitchen. Trevor had said the cabin was fully stocked. Morgan had thought he meant for vacations, not hunting monsters. The spool of barbed wire beneath the sink struck him as overkill either way.
Keys located, Morgan gathered up the chain and refolded the blanket. He'd just dropped the blanket onto the couch when there was a knock at the door.
He frowned.
No one knew he was here besides Trevor and no way in hell was anyone driving out here in a blizzard. Morgan felt sure he was the notable, and ill-thought out, exception.
He opened the door.
The vampire stood on the other side, arms wrapped around himself, hands lost in the long sleeves of the sweater, and snowflakes melting in his hair. They looked like droplets of crystal. The vampire's leanness had been deceptive. It made him look small and fragile. But with those heels on he was very pointedly looking down at Morgan. It was likely he would have been taller even without them. His dark eyes fell on the coil of chain around Morgan's left hand and the knife he'd pulled before answering the door in the other. His lips twitched into something that was almost a smile. "You already know those won't work on me."
"Why are you knocking on the door? The lock is broken, which I assume was your doing." Morgan didn't return the knife to the sheath at his back. It might not do him any good, as the vampire had said, but it was a comfort to have the familiar contour of the grip in his hand. His very own stabby teddy bear. "And why are you here? Again?"
The vampire moved forward and Morgan's fist came up, ready to block an attack, but the vampire only stepped under his arm that held the door, brushing him aside like a beautiful, untouchable bubble. "It's not my preference, believe me. But the snow..." He trailed off meaningfully.
Snow whipped through the trees outside, wind so strong it blew sideways. Morgan's tire tracks were gone. So were the stairs up to the porch. The wind had piled a drift of snow up almost to the door. Two little ovals and two even smaller circles had been stomped flat by the vampire's heels. Everything else was sparkling white fluff. Picturesque and as impenetrable as a wall. No human could get through that without a snowplow at least, and apparently no vampire either.
"Shit." He closed the door and leaned against it to make sure it stayed that way. He was going to have to think of some way to fix it. But later. Vampire problem first. "You didn't have any trouble floating out of here a minute ago. Don't tell me this tiny bit of snow was too much for you."
The vampire flushed. He didn't so much move as blur. The knife twisted out of Morgan's fingers, and before he could wonder where it had gone he felt the tip pressed gentle as a kiss beneath his chin. Morgan didn't dare move. Breathing was also up for debate. The metal was cold against his skin. This close he could see the flecks of lighter brown in the vampire's irises, pupils swallowing all those shades of brown as they expanded. The tiny beauty mark high on one cheekbone. Another on the bridge of his pert nose. This close he could see everything. The vampire went on forever, an entire universe studded with fangs.
"You're not being very hospitable," he said in a quiet voice. The knife whispered against the leather sheath at Morgan's back as the vampire leaned in to replace it without breaking eye contact. "Where I come from that's considered rude." He hovered for a moment as though he intended to say more. Then the vampire turned on one precipitous heel and flounced over to the couch.
Morgan stared after him. He'd forgotten that he was supposed to be annoyed, but now the feeling returned and it had brought friends. "I didn't invite you here. This isn't a social visit. You're a vampire."
"Then maybe you should be nice to me before your neck starts looking like an all-you-can-eat buffet," came the tart response. It was partially muffled by the throw pillow he had hugged to his chest. "I'm hungry."
"You already ate. Me. You ate me," Morgan pointed out.
The vampire propped himself up enough to be seen over the arm of the couch. "I said I was sorry."
"No, you didn't."
"Oh. Well then I said it right now."
"No. You still didn't. That wasn't an apology." He didn't even know why he was standing there arguing with the vampire instead of trying to kill him. It was what he was trained for. No one would question it with the obvious bite taken out of his arm. Self-defense. Perfect alibi. He would be in the clear. But strangely that felt like giving up. Or giving in. One of the two. He was only in this situation in the first place because he had told his family he was done hunting monsters. For good. Breaking ranks with the hallowed family tradition. All of that was bullshit the second he started whittling stakes. If stakes would even work on the vampire, which was by no means sure. Hard to trust legends when the vampire just kept proving them wrong.
Morga
n dropped the chain he'd forgotten he was holding onto the table and fished out his phone. No signal. Naturally. He brought up Trevor's number anyway and hit call. That asshole was going to have some serious explaining to do if he'd known there were vampires out here. The call didn't connect, as expected, and the text Morgan tried to send went nowhere. Outside the wind howled like it had a personal vendetta against him, snow lashing the sides of the cabin, windows rattling. Exactly the kind of weather that made him want to huddle up and stay in, and exactly the kind of weather that made it impossible to do anything else.
Perfect. Just perfect.
His week of peace: hijacked.
The vampire was still on the couch, long legs swinging where they draped over the armrest as he did an incredible job of looking benign. It was almost possible to forget the way his fangs had flashed before latching onto Morgan's arm, or the way he had disarmed him without even trying. Morgan turned in the opposite direction. He needed time. To think. To plan. Might as well put away his groceries while he was plotting his vampire eviction.
When everything was in a cabinet or on the counter where it belonged he slapped a small saucepan onto the stove. His last meal had been breakfast before he left the city and between then and now the sun had set and he was starving. Morgan turned to grab the less nefarious of the two can openers he'd found and jumped.
The vampire sat on the counter beside the sink. The oversized sweater had slipped sideways on him, exposing the soft angles of his neck and collarbone. When he saw he'd been spotted he leaned forward with a wide-eyed eagerness that was only accentuated by the makeup left around his eyes. It was like being watched by a very large and curious animal. Morgan wasn't sure if he should worry more about an imminent attack or spooking the vampire.
What a strange creature of the night he'd wound up with.
And why did his face seem so familiar? Morgan had disregarded it at first. Surely there were plenty of other pretty men with pouty lips and fathomless eyes in the world. But the more Morgan studied the vampire, the more he felt sure he'd seen this particular face before. Somewhere...
