Now Comes the Night

by P. G. Forte

  “I thought they’d be useful for packing things up.” Conrad’s voice was once again neutral. “I know we’ll need more, but I thought these would do for a start.”

  “P-packing?” Damian’s voice sounded faint, but he was pleased that at least it wasn’t noticeably shaky. “Who…or, perhaps I should say, what is to be packed up? And…and why?”

  “Well, the household, of course. In preparation for moving. I would have thought that obvious.”

  “Not so very obvious. Are we moving then? It’s a little ahead of schedule, is it not?”

  “It is. But I’ve thought a lot about it, these past few days, and I’ve decided it’s for the best.”

  “I see. My, what a…what a very decisive weekend you must have had. I’m quite taken aback by all these sudden changes.”

  “I want to make a fresh start for us, Damian,” Conrad said, taking a step forward as he did and moving so quickly Damian was startled into taking a step back. They both jerked to an awkward stop. Embarrassed, Damian dropped his gaze as Conrad continued. “A new beginning. A second chance, if you will.”

  This time, Damian was almost positive he could hear a faint, plaintive note in Conrad’s voice. “Do you?” His heart beat fast in eager anticipation. A fresh start…for the two of them? Could it be?

  “Yes. I want that more than anything.”

  “And…couldn’t we do that here? Now? Do we really have to wait until we move for that?”

  “I think so. I don’t see it happening any other way. I think it’s important that we put the events of last week behind us, you see, and I’m not sure that can happen if we remain here. This place…I fear it will always hold too many memories.”

  Damian hesitated. “Not that many memories, surely?” Oh, but why was he even arguing? Why could he not just agree—quickly, before Conrad changed his mind again? He should be jubilant about this sudden turn of events! But, while a part of him was, another part wanted to protest the timing. “I mean, after all, we’ve only lived here for two years. That’s not so long a time.” At the moment, in fact, it seemed unfairly short, tragically so. Damian’s heart sank at the thought of never seeing Paul again, of having to cut things off so soon—no, no. It was too cruel, unless…

  Unless that was exactly what Conrad intended?

  How much did Conrad know? How much had he guessed about Damian’s feelings for Paul, or about where Damian had spent this past weekend? Was that what this was about? Did Conrad mean to force Damian into choosing between them? Or was Fate merely up to her usual tricks once again?

  Conrad sighed. “I know it’s not a very long time. And it’s mostly Marc about whom I’m concerned. I’m sure he’ll be more comfortable in a new environment. But, I truly believe it’s in everyone’s best interest if we leave this place behind us as soon as possible. It’s been…an exceptionally turbulent two years. Don’t you think so too?”

  “Marc? Ah. Of course. I should have realized.” It was all Damian could do to conceal his bitter disappointment. Dios mio, what was wrong with him? How could he still be so foolish? At Conrad’s first use of the word “us” Damian’s heart had filled with hope, his dreams had grown new wings and taken flight…

  He really should have known better.

  He should have realized immediately that Conrad was referring to all four of them, that he wasn’t speaking only of himself and Damian. That he wasn’t speaking of himself and Damian at all. Damian should just be glad he was still included, and stop feeling so damned sorry for himself. “I beg your pardon. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Then we’re in agreement? And you’ll begin researching new locations for us? At once?”

  “Of course,” Damian repeated, scarcely aware of what he was saying. “Whatever you think best.” He’d have to see Paul next weekend, as planned. He’d have to explain, somehow, that he could never see him again…

  Conrad sighed. “Very well then. I’ll leave everything in your capable hands.”

  Damian shrugged disinterestedly. “As you wish.” He would never see Paul again. His mind shrieked in protest, but then an irrational spark of hope lodged itself in Damian’s heart. Perhaps it need not come to that after all. If he was in control of finding them a new home, he could choose its location, could he not? He could make sure it was within a reasonable distance, somewhere close enough to be convenient, close enough that he could make periodic trips back here to see Paul.

  He could at least salvage something, preserve some small part of their relationship, keep a portion of the happiness he’d so lately found. In fact, now that he thought about it, this might even be an improvement. Putting a little bit of distance between Paul and Conrad could hardly be called a bad thing. All things considered, it might even be a very good thing.

  Conrad paused on his way out of the kitchen. “It is good to have you back, my dear. And I do hope you weren’t too inconvenienced this weekend. The children were quite put out with me over your absence, you know. I don’t think they ever would have forgiven me if you’d stayed away much longer.”

  The children. Ah, yes. It was almost amusing how every conversation always found its way back to them, Conrad’s sole reason for wanting to keep Damian around. It was almost as though Conrad had to make quite certain Damian never forgot that fact. As if Damian ever could. His heart heavy, Damian nodded. “Sí. I missed them too.”

  Over the next few days, Damian threw himself into the business of moving. He spent hours researching likely locations, and even more hours plotting, planning, packing…and preparing for his upcoming rendezvous with Paul.

  Damian had decided it was best not to say anything to him beforehand. He wasn’t hiding the fact. It wasn’t as though he was purposely avoiding Paul. He was just too busy to go out looking for him, too busy to try and explain what was happening, far too busy to argue, and so he’d decided to keep to the schedule the two of them had discussed.

  He’d go to see Paul on Friday. He’d spend the weekend with him and use the time to gently break the news of his impending move to the boy. A little sex, a little venom, a few kisses sprinkled in between and Damian was convinced he could bring Paul around to seeing this change in a positive light, to accepting this new arrangement as a good thing—which Damian was mostly confident it was.

  It was going to take some effort on his part, a little persistence and a fair amount of luck, but he was optimistic for their chances. He could make this work. He could keep Paul in his life for another few years, maybe even more than a few, and keep everyone else happy as well. After that his and Paul’s prospects grew dimmer, but when had that ever not been the case? Eventually, Damian would no longer be able to hide the fact that he wasn’t aging. Eventually, he would either have to tell Paul the truth or tell him good-bye. It was not the first time he’d had to do something like that, but it would possibly be the hardest. Mercifully, that day was still some years in the future. Right now, things were looking up.

  Or so he kept telling himself for almost four days, until Paul showed up at the house unannounced and threw all Damian’s plans into disarray…

  Damian was in the dining room, carefully packing away his fine china, when the doorbell rang. “Why don’t you run and see who’s at the door, chica,” he suggested to Julie, who’d been assisting him. “Then maybe you can go and get started on your room,” he added as she headed for the door. “As soon as I’m finished in here, I’ll take you to get something to eat.” The girl had barely left his side all week and seemed generally as eager for this move as he was, which was not very much at all. It would do her good to get out of the house for a while and he could certainly use a break as well.

  The dishes he was currently putting away had only ever been used on special occasions, like those rare instances when he’d successfully managed to persuade Conrad to throw a dinner party. That had occurred very seldom in the past few years and if Conrad stood firm on his new edict, these dishes might very well stay packed away forever. Which made th
e task at hand more than a little bittersweet. This domestic arrangement the four of them had enjoyed over the past ten years had been a brief moment in time, but a happy one. He was sorry to see it end.

  “D? Are you here? Where are you?” Footsteps in the hallway and the sound of Paul’s voice calling his name filtered into the dining room.

  “Paul?” Damian hastily put down the plate he’d been wrapping and hurried across the floor. He reached the door just as it opened. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, thank God.” Sighing in relief, Paul pulled Damian in for a quick hug. “You’re all right. I was so worried.”

  “Well, of course I’m all right.” Damian held him away and eyed him curiously. “What’s going on? What’s this all about?”

  Paul shrugged, looking suddenly sheepish. “I dunno. I guess… It’s just that I hadn’t seen you or heard from you in days and… Okay, so, maybe I panicked a little. But I couldn’t sleep, you know? My bed’s just too damn big when you’re not in it. It’s too empty. I kept thinking, what if he’s hurt? What if something’s happened to him?”

  “Quiet now!” Damian reached around Paul to push the door shut. “Really, Pablito, I’m sure your bed is no larger or more empty than it was last week. Besides, why should you think anything had happened to me? We agreed we’d see each other this weekend, did we not? Why should you be so concerned just because you hadn’t seen me any sooner than that?”

  Instead of answering, Paul reached up to frame Damian’s face. His hands were gentle, tender and so was the kiss he pressed to Damian’s lips. Or, at least, that’s how it started out. Soft. Slow. Sweet. But Damian had been far too busy in the past few days to eat very much and the taste of Paul’s mouth hit him hard. Hunger surged in Damian’s bloodstream, swelling swiftly in intensity as his body recognized a familiar source of food. His source. All his.

  Driven by need, by sweet, sweet addiction, Damian pushed Paul back against the door. He twined his fingers in his hair and gently tugged, exposing his neck. Paul offered no resistance, eagerly canting his head to the side. Damian pressed closer, letting his lips and tongue trace a leisurely path along Paul’s neck. He would risk so much for this. Happily. Willingly.

  Paul groaned in pleasure. “Oh, yeah. God, I’ve missed this. You don’t even know…” Before Damian had even located a vein Paul had stiffened. An angry-sounding gasp left his lips and he pushed Damian away. “What the fuck is going on here?” Paul’s expression was grim as his gaze took in the room with all the boxes and empty shelves. “What are you doing? What’s all this stuff?”

  “Never mind about that,” Damian snapped, struggling to keep his fangs concealed, to keep his hunger under control. “It’s nothing important. We can discuss it later.”

  “We can discuss it right the fuck now. Are you…packing? Holy fuck, Damian. Tell me you’re just redecorating and needed to get stuff out of the way. Please.”

  Damian sighed. “I was going to tell you this weekend.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Calm down, Pablito. It’s not as bad as you think. We’re just…moving.”

  “Moving? I don’t fucking believe this. And you weren’t even going to tell me, either, were you? You were just going to disappear. Just like last time. Just like the time before that.”

  “Of course I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you this weekend—didn’t I just say so?”

  “Oh, bullshit, Damian.” Paul glared at him. “You were not! You would have told me last weekend if that were the case. What happened, huh? Did I get too close? Did I get you to open up too much? Was I moving too fast? What?”

  Damian shook his head. “This has nothing to do with last weekend.” That was not quite true, but it was close enough. “And the reason I didn’t tell you then was that I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know?” Paul’s voice rose with every word. “And you expect me to believe that?”

  Damian had opened his mouth to answer when the door behind him swung quietly open. The words died on his lips as Conrad poked his head into the room to ask, “Damian? What’s going on? Is everything all right in here?”

  Buenísimo. Damian closed his eyes in irritation and despair. Suddenly, his hopes of salvaging the situation seemed so much dimmer than they had only a moment earlier. “Everything’s fine.”

  “The hell it is.” Paul scowled briefly at Damian before redirecting his glare at Conrad. “This is your doing isn’t it? You son of a bitch, I should have known you’d pull something like this. You just couldn’t stand to see him happy, could you?”

  Conrad’s eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You think you have everybody fooled,” Paul continued. “But I know what’s really going on around here. I know what you are. And I know what you’ve done. Did you really think you could get away with keeping that kind of thing a secret forever?”

  “Damian?” Practically stuttering in surprise, Conrad turned to him. His eyes, wide with disbelief, demanded an explanation. “What is he talking about?”

  Damian sighed wearily. “Calmly, querido, please. It’s not at all what you think.”

  “Oh, here we go again!” Paul threw his hands in the air. “How is it you always know what everyone else is thinking? Maybe you’re wrong. You ever think of that, D? Maybe I mean exactly what he thinks I mean.”

  “No.” Damian shook his head. “I assure you that’s not the case.”

  “Why don’t you enlighten me then?” Conrad directed the question at Paul. “What do you think this is all about? Let’s start with that.”

  “It’s about him, all right?” Paul pointed at Damian. “It’s all about him. You think you can just treat him however you want, that you can beat him, scar him, fuck with his head. I don’t know what you’re holding over him that has him thinking he has to stay with you, no matter what, but you’re both wrong. And if you so much as touch him, ever again, I swear I’ll fucking smash your damn face in.”

  Conrad’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Charming. And you’re very welcome to try that, by the way. Well, my dear,” Conrad added, speaking to Damian now. “It appears you have acquired a champion. How very sweet.”

  Damian nodded in resignation. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Hey!” Paul raised his voice to get their attention. “What are you apologizing for, D? You didn’t do anything.” He turned his glare on Conrad once again. “Listen, you got a problem with what I said, why don’t you take it up with me? And don’t talk to him like that. He’s not your damn slave.”

  Conrad’s jaw tightened. “Ah, yes, so I keep hearing.” His voice was so ominously quiet it raised the hair at Damian’s neck. Paul seemed not to notice.

  “Yeah, it’s real funny, isn’t it? Joke all you want. You won’t be laughing when you figure out you’ve lost him.”

  “No, I’m sure I would not be.”

  “Paul, please,” Damian begged in a last-ditch effort to get Paul to shut up before he got them both killed.

  “And I know what you’re up to with this move too,” Paul continued, undeterred. “You think you’re gonna break us up. You think you can just take him away from me and no one’s gonna stop you.”

  A small smile contorted Conrad’s lips. “I see. So, now it’s you who thinks he knows what’s in my mind? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “You’re damn right, I do. You think you own him, but I love him. I’ve always loved him. And I’m not about to let him go. Especially not to someone who treats him like crap, who doesn’t come close to deserving him.”

  Damian had bitten his lip so hard he’d drawn blood. Every word out of Paul’s mouth damned him further, and hammered home the implausibility of Damian’s plans. What had he been thinking? How had he deluded himself into believing this relationship could ever work?

  It didn’t matter that Paul loved him. It didn’t matter how Damian felt about Paul, either. Conrad was his sire. It was really as simple as that. For better, fo
r worse, and for as long as Conrad lived, Damian would belong to him, heart and soul. That was an incontrovertible fact of vampire life. It was a truth he’d been forced to accept long ago. A truth he’d conveniently put from his mind these last few years. It didn’t matter if it was what either of them wanted any longer. That choice, once made, was virtually irreversible.

  He really should have remembered that.

  Conrad sighed. “Yes. I can see that you do care for him very much. And, whether you believe it or not, I sympathize. But I need him too, you know, much more than you realize. Besides, you’ve known him for what, a little over two years now? That hardly qualifies as ‘always’. Take it from one who knows. You’re a young man still. I’m sure, given a little time, you’ll find someone else who might help you get over your feelings for him. We cannot always have everything we want in this life. And believe me when I tell you, in this case, it’s for the best.”

  Paul snorted. “Nice try, asshole, but it hasn’t been just two years. I’ve been in love with him for eight years now—almost ten. That’s like…a third of my life, almost. So how about you go and find someone else and leave the two of us alone?”

  Conrad’s face had gone blank. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Yeah, you heard me.” Paul smiled triumphantly. “Guess you didn’t know about that, did you, gramps? And, you know something else? Maybe I was just a kid back then but I wasn’t ever so stupid I couldn’t see him for what he was. I never forgot him. And, in all that time, I never found anyone who came close to taking his place. So excuse me if I don’t just roll over and let you take him away from me again.”

  Wordlessly, Conrad turned to Damian for an explanation, but Damian had been stunned into immobility. He could not find a single word with which to save either himself or Paul. He gazed beseechingly at Conrad, silently begging him for mercy.