Begin Again (Saint Lakes #5): A M/M Fantasy Romance about Shifters and Vampires

by April Kelley

  The t-shirt bunched up around the bottom, the white skin of his abdomen showing. Blood began to pool around his head, coating his hair until it couldn't hold all of it and then it moved on to his shirt.

  The hand on his shoulder left, and strong arms lifted him from his hiding spot. Fane buried his face in Ramsey's shoulder, needing the strength. Ramsey's steps were purposeful and sure, indicating he had a distinct destination in mind.

  He used his arms to crawl up Ramsey's body, pressing his face in the crook of his neck.

  No matter how close he got to his mate, it didn't erase the memories.

  "They won't leave me alone," he whispered, his lips moving against Ramsey's skin.

  "What won't?"

  "The memories. I have them all, and I don't want some of them. I need to go back to where I was before."

  Ramsey stopped walking. His hands rubbed down Fane's back and then up again. "You don't want to remember?"

  "It's better if I don't."

  “Oh, sweet. I’m so sorry.”

  Fane heard footsteps nearby, and then his mate began talking again. "Can you take his headache away?"

  Fane barely heard Ramsey or paid attention. He just knew he wasn't talking to Fane which was good. Fane could get into his own head space a lot easier if people just left him alone.

  "I can try. Let me just look in." Fane knew the person who spoke was the witch, Lucas. He was partly to blame for Fane's memories. The other person was his mate, although Fane blamed himself because he had acted on instinct when he bonded. Bonding got the healing started.

  Fane felt someone else in his mind as if his mind had a window and someone peeked in through the dark. It pissed him off, so he projected that and the person left just as quickly as he arrived.

  "He definitely doesn't want me intruding. I don't think I can help anyway. The headache is happening because he's healing. After he does that, he'll be fine. The only thing is for Garridan it took months to heal and for the headache to go away. For Fane, it seems he's healing at a faster rate. Not sure why."

  "Training," Fane murmured, answering Lucas.

  "What?" Ramsey’s deep voice whispered right next to his ear.

  "Sensei's training."

  "Sensei?"

  Fane nodded. "Just want to go back. Shouldn't have bonded." Even as he said it, he gripped Ramsey even tighter.

  "Lucas, can you look in and see what's going on. He barely makes sense."

  Fane lifted his head and turned towards the blond witch with the kind eyes. Kind or not, Fane wouldn't let the witch in again. Not if it meant more pain. He flashed his fangs and hissed just to get his point across. "No more healing." He couldn't take it if there were more bad memories. The last one would break him if it didn't stop.

  Lucas held up his hands. "I won't fix anything else. I'm just going to look in. See if I can explain things to your mate, so he understands what’s going on with you."

  Fane didn't want him seeing his thoughts. What if they had the power to break everyone? He couldn't let that happen, so he imagined a wall so large no one could get over it. In front of the wall, he imagined himself flipping off anyone who came close.

  Lucas tried entering but then pulled back again, sucking in a breath.

  Ramsey looked from Lucas to Fane and back again. "What? What did you see?"

  "Nothing. He blocked me. No one has ever been able to do that."

  Fane lay his head back down on Ramsey's shoulder, but he turned just enough to meet Lucas' gaze. "It's too much to know."

  "But if you let someone know how you're feeling then we'll be able to help you." Lucas smiled with that same kindness he held in his gaze. It put Fane at ease with him in a way he hadn't been up to that point.

  Maybe telling them one thing might help in some small way. "Father had Sensei killed."

  "Who's Sensei, Fane?" Ramsey asked.

  "Not a who. What. Sensei was my teacher."

  "What happened?"

  "Took me away from father when I was eight years old. Father found us, though. He killed Sensei and sold me to the humans."

  "Why'd your Sensei kidnap you?" The word kidnap sounded so dirty as if Sensei hadn't saved Fane the night he came and took him away. It was the single most important moment of Fane's life.

  Fane hissed at Ramsey for using such an ugly word.

  "Fane."

  "No." He wouldn’t talk about it anymore, and there was nothing even his mate could say to make him.

  Chapter Six

  Fane's headache lasted for two solid days, and he spent most of that time in bed, just laying like a slug. He needed to move, even though the sun hadn't come up yet. He lifted his head and looked around, testing his headache.

  The physical pain had dimmed yesterday even if the pain from reliving his past had not. He felt itchy under his skin and couldn't sit still. He sat up and drew his legs to his chest. Sensei had always said that sitting like that left him closed off to his thoughts and emotions.

  He focused on the big body next to him, pinning him against the wall as if protecting him from everyone in the house.

  Fane touched Ramsey's big shoulder, seeing if he would wake up. When he didn't even move, Fane sigh. When a giggle escaped, he slapped a hand over his mouth which just made him giggle even more. Once he got started, he couldn't stop, and he wasn't sure why.

  "Shh, go back to sleep, sweet."

  Why Ramsey called him sweet, Fane didn't know. Fane wasn't sweet. A tiny parasite lived inside him, and sometimes it was too full to feed. Fane didn't feel so raw when the parasite rested. His nerves weren’t frayed at the edges and he didn't fidget. The parasite had slept while he had the headache, quieting his thoughts. When the parasite ate at him, it swept through him until there was nothing left. Survival had been the only thing he could think about.

  Energy zinged through his body so quickly he couldn’t keep up with it all. He’d like to blame it all on gaining his memories, but he had always had extra stores of energy ready to take over his mind.

  Before the starvation, Sensei gave him tools to quiet things down. The only good thing to come out of Lucas fixing the fracture was remembering what those tools are.

  "Can't sleep."

  Ramsey turned over on his back, his gaze meeting Fane's in the dark. "You want to talk."

  Fane nodded. Talking was one of those things Sensei said would help, but Fane couldn't tell Ramsey about his life before Sensei. Maybe he'd be able to tell eventually, but not when the rawness made him feel unsettled.

  "You haven't bitten me. Don't you want to bond with me too?"

  "You're mind needs to heal first."

  Fane shook his head. "I won't get better than I am."

  "You're already more coherent, and your eyes seem clearer than before."

  "I'm not like you or the rest of them. Sensei always said the way I am is okay. I don't know if you'll like me once you find out that this is as good as it gets. And you're my mate so you should like me. At least a little, right?”

  Ramsey smiled. “I like you.”

  “I tried to kill myself once. Sensei found me in the dojo. I took a razor blade to my wrists. You know, like humans sometimes do but that doesn't work on a vampire. I started healing before Sensei even found me."

  If the abrupt change in topics annoyed Ramsey, he didn’t show it. "How old were you?"

  "Nine years old. I remember because Sensei bought me a coat for Christmas. And I wore it for the first time that day. My first Christmas gift made me..." Fane waved his hands in the air, twirling them around. "Nervous."

  Ramsey's eyebrows drew together. Fane had a sudden urge to smooth the wrinkle. He wasn't one to deny himself, so he ran a thumb over the creases. That didn't take them away.

  "You didn't receive gifts before then? Not even one?"

  Fane shook his head. "I think my mother gave me gifts when she was alive. Probably. I don't remember."

  "What happened to your mom?"

  "I don't want to talk about it."
Fane turned his head, his cheek laying on Ramsey's bare chest.

  "Okay. Let's talk about something else."

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know. What's your favorite thing to eat?"

  Fane shrugged. "Sensei made a stacked grilled cheese sandwich. He made it every Wednesday for lunch."

  "Why Wednesday?"

  "Sensei said that routine was important for me because I didn't have to be anxious about what was coming at me next like how it was with Father. With Sensei everything was scheduled. Meals. Learning. Training."

  "It wasn't like that with your father?"

  "Nope. And I don't want to talk about it."

  "Okay, so tell me what a stacked grilled cheese is."

  "Ham, onions, tomato and a lot of cheese."

  "Are you hungry? We could make that."

  "What day of the week is it?"

  Ramsey chuckled, his chest jostling Fane up and down. "Monday."

  "Then no. It's not grilled cheese day yet and not lunch time."

  "What did you eat for a late night snack on Monday?"

  "Nothing. If I couldn't sleep, I woke Sensei and we did our routine in the dojo."

  "Do you need to do your routine?"

  "Yes. But Sensei isn't here." The knowledge that he'd never see Sensei again lodged in his throat, stopping his breath. Wetness leaked out of his eyes and gravity pulled it down to Ramsey's chest.

  Ramsey ran his hand down Fane's back. "I'd miss my mom if she were gone."

  "Sensei loved me. He gave up everything for me."

  "What did he give up?"

  "His job. Father's coven. Mama because they were mates."

  Ramsey's body tensed. "Your mother was Sensei’s mate?"

  "Yes. She cleaned my father's house. I came before Sensei. We lived above a store in an apartment. I played with the neighbor while mama worked." One day she just never came back home from work. One day he had a mother and the next he had met his father for the first time.

  The second he walked into his father's big house he had wanted to play and run. But that's not what happened. The two years he had lived with his father was hell.

  "Father locked me in a cage. The kind you keep pets in when they’re misbehaving. For two years. I had problems after that. I couldn’t sleep and my mind wouldn’t stay quiet. Always noise. Always. Even now.”

  “You’ve been through a lot of trauma, sweet.” Fane knew Ramsey referred to the lab and then the prison. Some of the energy working through his body might have to do with all that, but most of it came from before when he lived with his father. "Did you tell your Sensei what your father did?"

  "I didn't have too. He saw." Fane lifted up, straddling Ramsey's lap. "Sensei would tell me to begin training. It'll help quiet my mind."

  Training without Sensei would be weird, but he still should do it. Sensei would tell him he needed to begin again. "You're not broken unless you stay down, kid. Start over." Fane looked down at Ramsey and noticed the slight smile on his face. "That's what Sensei would say."

  "He sounds like a smart man. Do you want company?"

  "Only if you want to."

  "I'd like to see what you're training entails."

  Fane held Ramsey's hand as he pulled him down the stairs. He stopped halfway up to look at the pictures hanging on the walls. One, in particular, caught Fane's attention. He looked from the picture to Ramsey and then back again.

  The boy in the picture had on a t-shirt and shorts. He held a basketball in his hands.

  Fane looked at Ramsey again. "This is you."

  Ramsey smiled which he did a lot. Fane wasn't sure what he did to earn such a beautiful look, but he definitely liked it. "Yeah. That's me in junior high school. We won all-state that year."

  Fane had no idea what all-state was, and it didn't matter. "You’re thinner in the picture."

  Ramsey chuckled. "Hadn't shifted yet. Shifting came a year later."

  "I remember school. Mama dropped me off every day. I went to a human school, though." Fane began to walk again, but Ramsey tugged on his hand. Fane stopped and turned, waiting for him to speak. “When did your mother die?”

  “When I was six years old. As I said before.”

  "You didn't go to school after she died, did you?"

  "No." He turned and started down the stairs again.

  "Do you know how to read, Fane?"

  Fane giggled. "Of course. Sensei taught me. He taught me language arts, history, and math. Mr. Scully taught me several of the sciences."

  "Who's Mr. Scully?"

  "My teacher, Ramsey." Fane rolled his eyes.

  "What else was he?" Ramsey had a hint of a laugh laced through his words.

  "I don't understand your question."

  "Was he human?"

  "He's human. A professor."

  "What's his first name?"

  "Robert. I think. I'm not sure."

  "How old were you when you saw him last?"

  "Nineteen or Twenty. Maybe Eighteen. Around that age."

  "And how old are you now?"

  "Twenty-four. How old are you?"

  "Much older than that."

  "You don't look it."

  "Paranormals age slower than humans."

  "I know. It's an epigenetic shift in a genome that developed over time. Probably has something to do with surviving harsh climates and humans hunting us almost to extinction. Aging slower gave us time to repopulate. It's just like the fact that I don't need as much blood as I used to. My body got used to not feeding and then taking in a lot all at once while I was in the lab. After that, when I was in prison, the guards didn't have to give me bagged blood nearly as much as a normal vampire. My physiology changed which just goes to show how quickly paranormals adapt to changing conditions."

  When Ramsey released his hand, Fane turned to find out why. Ramsey stood there staring at him as if he had two heads.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?"

  "You...how the hell do you know all that?"

  "I was taught. I just told you. Mr. Scully, remember?"

  "But that's beyond what I learned in high school, Fane."

  "Science is easy."

  "It wasn't for me."

  "But we're not the same. Learning stuff is easy for me. It’s quieting my mind that’s a difficult task."

  "Oh." Ramsey smiled and held out his hand to Fane, which he took. He let Ramsey pull him into a hug. Fane's arms came around Ramsey's waist, and he lay his cheek on Ramsey's chest. "I'm sorry, Fane."

  "For what?"

  "For underestimating you. It won't happen again."

  "I don't know what you mean, but okay."

  Fane turned when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He tensed and prepared himself to defend his mate if needed. A big blond male who smelled like fire carried a human down the stairs, cradling the human close to his chest.

  The fire smelled dangerous, and he moved in front of Ramsey, hissing as the man came down the stairs.

  "Nice meeting you too." The blond rolled his eyes.

  Ramsey put a hand on Fane's shoulder and turned him into his chest once again. Fane wasn't sure if Ramsey held him that way so often because he wanted to protect Fane from others or the others from Fane.

  "He makes fire," Fane whispered.

  Ramsey didn't respond, acting as if Fane never said a word.

  "Is Jules okay, Ladon?"

  "Can't sleep anymore and crying."

  Fane wiggled around enough that Ramsey took the hint and let him go. When the Fire maker came down the stairs, Fane went up to him. The hiss sort of just slipped out, his more primitive nature still taking over. He couldn't control that part of himself, especially when such a powerful shifter was close to his mate.

  Still, he had enough presence of mind not to attack him. Anyone who held a human the way the fire-maker did had enough sense not to attack blindly.

  "Don't get close to my mate."

  The fire-maker just shook his head. "No worries, little dude. H
e's my brother and my Alpha. I wouldn't ever hurt him. Or you. Now get out of my face. Please."

  Fane hissed again and took a step closer to him. The human in the fire-maker's arms interested Fane. He looked sad with his eyes all red rimmed and his forehead crinkled with anguish. "What's wrong?"

  The human met his gaze and then looked over Fane's head at Ramsey. Fane deciphered the look to mean the human thought he was a threat. "I won't hurt you."

  The human looked at him once again. "Okay."

  Fane touched the human's dark curls with the tip of his fingers just to feel if they were soft. "Hmm. You are soft. Are you injured?"

  "No. My mates are asshole pricks."

  "Why?"

  "Hacen is prejudice against shifters, and Thomas just goes along with it. Nothing I say fucking matters and I'm just tired of the whole thing."

  "Maybe you're using the wrong words to express yourself to them."

  "What do you mean?"

  Fane took a step back and then another until he was leaning against Ramsey. "Mating is biology. That's all. You still have a will of your own. Ramsey doesn't want to mate with me because I'm crazy. He has decided that despite what his body is telling him to do."

  Ramsey's strong arms gripped his shoulders and turned him around. Ramsey looked at him in such a way that commanded him to hold his gaze. Fane swallowed. If the fire-maker was strong, his mate was doubly so. Fane could see why his clan made him Alpha.

  "I never said I wouldn't mate with you and stop calling yourself crazy."

  "It’s been true since father’s cage."

  "I'm starting to understand that you've had problems before going feral—"

  Fane held up a finger. "I never went feral. Vampires physically can't go feral. We starve, and it changes our physiology enough to—"

  "Yes, Mr. Science, I get it. And it's not my point."

  "Then what is, Monster?" Fane sighed. All he wanted was to train. Now more than ever because his thoughts were a jumble.

  Ramsey laughed and held him close. "Monster."

  "It's what you are. And if anyone is feral, it’s you. Your monster has been on the surface for days. I can feel it even through the partial bond."