by Willa Okati
He’d been right in his guess, he expected. Aydn looked as if he’d died and been re-born unalive around Darien’s own age. He could tell from the small lines just beginning to form at the corner of Aydn’s eyes and the one silver hair that threaded through locks as honey-dark and tumbling gorgeous as he’d dreamed. No, better.
And if he’d ever thought Yanof was handsome, her brother had her beat by a good mile. Faces like his belonged in paintings and on statues, as did his tight, lean body, barely hidden by a see-through tunic and thin linen trousers. His was the most beautiful male face Darien had ever seen, even with the cloaked look in his silver-gray eyes and the inscrutable expression on his unbearably kissable lips.
Looking at the fallen god, Darien felt himself -- with an all-too familiar bump and bolt of lust -- tumble utterly down from grace.
The man’s expression had changed from wary hostility to regarding Darien with curiosity and a sort of measuring consideration. His eyes changed from wary to mischievous, sparkles dancing like silver lights. His mouth quirked up in a half smile.
“You,” he said after a long moment to evaluate the dilapidated stranger waiting slack-jawed at his front door. “You’re Darien, I take it?”
Darien shut his mouth hastily, although he thought he might go weak at the knees. The man’s voice was rich and textured as the finest old whiskey. He’d had a sip of smoky mulled heather ale once, at a captain’s retirement party, and the sound of that voice reminded him of the taste.
Though he was still held stunned by the vision in front of him, Darien’s cock twitched. Voices… he’d always had such a thing for beautiful voices. This one, soft and warm, cultured and so sharply intelligent, went straight for his groin with the accuracy of a crossbow bolt.
He gave himself a hard mental shake. Vampire! Remember? Vampire! They can spell you with their eyes and their voices. Don’t you give in now, Darien -- you’re not some green kid going out on the streets for the first time. What does it matter if he’s the most fuckable thing you’ve ever seen? Don’t fall into his trap! Tame? Tame, my ass.
The vampire -- Aydn -- narrowed his eyes. “You don’t look much like the picture my sister gave me, but I suppose we can put that down to your exertions in getting here.” He tilted his head to the side. “It was only a crude, street-artist sketch after all, done by her description.” His mouth quirked again. “All the same, the face is just what I pictured.” His eyes lingered on Darien’s mouth. “No,” he said, thoughtfully. “Better.”
Another pause fell between them. The vampire might have had thirty years to learn the skills of masking himself, but Darien had ten years of practice in peeking behind masks. Written on his face, Darien could see suspicion warring with resentment, both fighting with pride.
Aydn tugged at a small disc on a loop around his neck. Not exactly a necklace, but close enough. He wouldn’t have been able to take it off without getting a nasty shock, kind of like being struck by lightning. Darien had seen a couple before in his time, on “tamed” vampires run wild again.
“Do you see this?” he asked. “I’ve been deemed safe for as long as you’ve walked the streets hunting my blood brothers and sisters. I don’t feed on humans. I haven’t tasted one in over a decade.” A grimace twisted his mouth. “But I’m still not trusted, am I? I’m one of the unclean. My sister leaves for a weekend, and I get to enjoy your dubious and odiferous company.”
Darien blinked at the vampire. He’d never heard one talk so much or with such evidence of education. Or anger, without fear of being smacked down for his rudeness.
Aydn scowled at him. “I don’t need a keeper. That’s what I’m trying to get you to realize. I’m tame, I’m safe, and I’ve got my own work to keep me busy. You’re here for the sake of appearances and appearances alone. Do you understand me?”
Darien managed to nod numbly. He’d just been snubbed by a vampire. His brain told him that much. His cock ached to follow after the creature like a puppy, begging for attention, and his heart stung with the realization that next to this specimen of male beauty, he’d been judged and summarily rejected.
“What was that?” Aydn snapped.
“I -- I understand,” Darien said, before common sense righted itself. “You look here. I’m an officer of the law, and I --”
“You’re a common guard jumped up above his station,” Aydn scoffed. “Don’t think you can fool me with all that ‘Special Agent’ rubbish. My sister might have pulled the wool over your eyes, but trust me, all she wanted was for someone’s head to get so swelled they’d actually walk into this place.” The gray eyes hooded. “No one trusts someone like me but my own kind.” He hissed, eerily like a snake. “Do you?”
Darien matched the vampire glare for glare. “No.”
“What do you plan to do about it?”
“Keep you in your place.” Darien drew himself up to his full six feet two inches, two more than the vampire, and folded his well-muscled arms over his chest. “Do my job. Are we clear?”
They matched stares of distaste for a moment before the vampire turned aside. “Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. Understood?”
As if Darien was going to let the vampire do a thing without his knowledge, now that he’d met the creature. “Fine,” he lied.
“As long as we start off with that as a given.” Aydn finally stepped back from the door. As he moved, his body shifted temptingly underneath the sheer fabric of his tunic and pants. He looked lean and narrow as a lathe, but in a way that suggested there was plenty of wiry muscle hiding under his clothes. Darien knew from past experience how strong vampires could be. “Come in, then, Darien.”
“Isn’t that my line? Pretty damn strange, a vampire inviting a human inside.”
“It’s not your house.”
Fair enough. Darien managed to look away from Aydn and felt something like an enchantment being broken. He shook his head once, wincing when droplets of sweat went spraying. For all that, he stepped boldly inside. It was the cool and glorious other world that he’d pictured, full of richness and color and texture, but when he turned to look at a picture, Aydn was in his way and all he could look at was the vampire.
Vampire, looking back at him through narrowed eyes, his expression once again otherwise unreadable. “Make yourself at home, I suppose,” he said, the words jumping out in small bolts. “Shower if you like. I’ve eaten but there’s plenty of food. I suspect my sister simply doubled the rations I take in during a week and convinced the maid service to fit it into the refrigerator. You can sleep in the third bedroom upstairs; it’s the one to the far end of the hallway.”
His hosting duties done, he turned abruptly. A tight ass, toned and shaped just right for a man’s hand, flashed at Darien. He felt his cock jump again and made a soft sound that he just couldn’t help.
It earned him a curious glance from Aydn, before the vampire waved his hand in dismissal. “You can check my clearance status on the register in my sister’s study, but I have permission to receive visitors. Other tame vampires, like myself. We only have each other for company.”
Darien stiffened. “No one said anything about more than one vampire. And how can they come here without their keepers?”
Aydn shut his eyes and shook his head. “Gods, for the old days,” he murmured. “My kind used to be feared and respected and make no mistake, we will be again,” he said angrily. “Check the damned register, like I told you. I have standing permission to have these two over. They come in through an old servant’s entrance -- that should please you -- and they’ll leave the same way.”
“I will check,” Darien warned Aydn. “If I find out you’re lying to me, I’m putting you under cell arrest.”
“You could try.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Is that a challenge?”
They faced off again. This time, Darien was the first to look away, unable somehow to face the fire in those gray eyes. “It’s all in the name of good works,” Aydn
mocked him. “These two never learned how to read. There’s a chance that one could work for Creed, and one for Robhain. You do know those names, don’t you? Tonight is one of their scheduled lessons.”
His mocking tone said everything his words didn’t: Look how good I am! How reformed! I’m the very model of a well-behaved hell beast! Darien ground his teeth together. He swore he’d only take so much of the attitude before he let himself loose, and then -- then --
“We have a lesson scheduled for tonight. On the register.” Aydn went on mocking Darien. “You wouldn’t know about such things, of course. Being just a guard, how could you be informed of the way things work in my circles?” He sneered. “My chambers are in the cellar, at my choice, for the privacy. Unless the need is urgent, don’t bother us. Are we clear?”
Darien nodded. Damn. Usually he could do that thing called “talking.” Even “giving orders.” He thought he’d love to tear into the arrogant vampire, but for some reason he found himself tongue-tied. Maybe it was being reminded of how low he really was when he’d been so puffed up before.
But, Gods-damn it, he was human. The vampire wasn’t. There was a pecking order, and he had the sharp end.
Could he say any of that though? Nope. “Fine,” he managed through gritted teeth. “I will be checking. And I’m going to be the one who lets them in through the back gate, just to make sure they don’t bring any helpless little presents.”
“Whatever you like.” Aydn glanced him up and down again. Assessing him as if he were a piece of meat. No, no. If that were all his look contained, Darien knew he could handle it. There was something else to the way Aydn measured him up. Darien’s cheeks heated a blazing red when he thought -- no, he had to be imagining -- those long-lashed eyes lingering for a moment on his half-hard cock. His uniform pants were worn thin, and they didn’t hide much.
No, though. Couldn’t be. Even if he was so handsome that… no. The extra leer in his look was all Darien’s imagination. Had to be.
“Right, then.” Aydn turned about sharply, clearly done with the conversation and heading for a stone door at the end of the hall. “Find your own way around. I’m off.”
Darien stood stock-still in the foyer, watching that ass sway away from him, and although he wasn’t a religious man, not really, prayed to any Gods who might be listening that he came back to his senses soon.
He was pretty damned certain that lusting after her brother was really not what Yanof meant by “watching after him.”
When the vampire was gone, Darien’s head cleared a little. He shut the door behind him, and in the wash of cool air, caught a whiff of himself. He winced. Shower first. Definitely a shower.
Leaving his bag by the door for easy retrieval later, he went searching. He had to open more than a few doors, but eventually he found a bathroom with everything a well-groomed woman could possibly need. Including, to his relief, a shower big enough to hold him and hot water at the tug of a lever. Really hot water.
Darien stripped down, carefully folding his clothes to be stowed in a separate bag for taking to the laundress at the Guild. He wouldn’t sully the place with the smell of a man’s sweat, or socks and tunics tossed casually around.
To his dismay, once he was naked Darien found it a little embarrassing to use the commander’s cloister, but he was glad he hadn’t stumbled across one Aydn would use. Just then he needed to scrub a hundred unwanted -- definitely, truly, unwanted -- images from his mind as well as the dirt from his body. Surrounded by the vampire’s soaps, maybe a bathing oils, a comb… he couldn’t have tolerated that.
As it was, he had to unlace himself carefully around his erection.
He changed his mind as he stepped underneath the spray. No hot water for him, tempting though it might have been. Traitor body! Cold, he needed cold.
The jets of water were powerful, making him gasp in pleasure-pain when they gushed against his skin. Chilling him from the outside in.
Thinking about the way that felt, it was easier to forget the thought of those gray eyes looking up at him through tangled lashes. His attitude so mature and worldly-wise, but those eyes so secretive… begging for punishment…
He refused to touch his cock. He wasn’t going to whack off in the Commander’s shower. Especially not thinking about her brother. About what he’d look like on his knees, lips parted like a flower and slender fingers reaching up to…
Stop it, Darien. Stoppit stoppit stoppit!
He inhaled a handful of deep breaths. Centered himself. The ritual usually helped before a dangerous assignment.
Then, he pictured Rohan, who had left him, and his indignant cock started wilting into limpness with the opening of that old hurt. Good! He lashed himself with pictures of the way his lover left, driving out each image of that beautiful vampire -- on his back with thighs raised, on his belly, legs spread open wide, bent over the back of a chair -- for each picture that tormented him, he replaced it with a memory of his own betrayal. His shoulders started to sag, and his dick finally, reluctantly, lost all interest in playing.
Good.
Darien figured maybe he’d have come totally to his senses by the time he was out of the shower.
And it was not deliberate that he chose comfortable clothes for the night. A light, faded blue tunic that fit just right, smoothed into pants so old they clung to him like gossamer. It would have been better to leave his uniform on, he thought once he had dressed, so he picked up his own necklace of tags and hung it around his throat. A decent compromise.
His feet were clean, so he left them bare. Glad he had a short haircut, he left that to air dry. A glance down at his pants told him his prick was behaving. His mood had gone down too, but at least he wasn’t tripping over his tongue.
He had some books with him to be studied, working on his training for advancement. Last night’s personal observations still had to be written up, and he had to check the office for that register Aydn was talking about. He’d do that first of all. Then, he’d take his paperwork out to the gate to wait for the arrival of keepers and “tame” vampires, if the yarn Aydn had been spinning him was true.
Good as the carpet felt, though, it was odd going without anything on his feet. Darien sat down to fish a pair of socks without holes from his pack. He’d have to wash his boots off. Maybe there was a pump out back, and… and…
He didn’t mean to fall asleep.
Darien only realized he’d been out when he woke up to a sudden thump. Sitting up straight, almost saluting, he caught himself in time. His nerves, trained for combat, had him instantly wide awake and busily cursing himself. The sun had set outside. Who knew how long he’d been out?
He tilted his head to listen intently. There it came again, a solid, heavy thunk, followed by the sound of male laughter and high female voices coming from people who obviously thought they couldn’t be overheard. Understood, no; overheard, yes.
It didn’t sound like studying to Darien. It sounded like a fucking party. He stood, his jaw hardening. Not on his watch, they didn’t.
The loud thunk sounded again, followed by a burst of laughter. Darien’s mind was made up. He’d just sneak down the hallway to that cellar door and take a peek down the stairs. If they were up to no good, he’d just have a word or two with Aydn, that was all.
Darien grinned to himself, savage and humorless. Yeah. Sounded like a plan.
All the same, his palms were damp as he planted them on his thighs and rose to his feet. As he walked, he thought, and by the time he reached it that stone door loomed awfully large in his mind’s eye. He swallowed, feeling strangely that opening it up would probably be the worst idea he’d ever had.
Damned if he could stop himself though.
He was careful, opening the door. No noise. If they’d settled down so quickly, it still didn’t mean anything good. Could mean they were enjoying a late, or early, dinner. One that had been alive.
Darien quickened his steps.
The stairwell turned out to be the
kind with curving walls, perfect for hiding behind one bend of and just taking a casual, careful peek down below. He moved so silently on his bare feet that he was sure they wouldn’t have heard him, then eased his face carefully around the curve of the wall to see what was what.
His jaw dropped at the sight of what surely to damned mercy looked like an orgy, Aydn in the middle of two lusty, full-breasted vampire women.
And if he was teaching them to read, it was with Braille and his tongue.
Darien saw blood red. He didn’t stop to think before he spoke, just barked: “Aydn! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Chapter Four
They didn’t hear him. Staring down at the tumble of bodies fucking and being fucked, Darien guessed he shouldn’t have expected them to even notice he was there. Out in the open, he couldn’t help but stare. Was this what vampires did together? Even “tame” ones?
He’d thought about it a time or two in the past. Everyone did. Most of them remembered the old days, when vampires roamed freely. Some people said they were ordinary except for the blood drinking stuff. There had been one vampire who worked at a hospital until he found himself a sweet piece of ass to turn, and then he went over to working among his own kind.
Others said they were wild. No holds barred in anything. From the times Darien had caught one feeding, he’d been inclined to believe them. If they didn’t have it in mind to change someone into a vampire, they tore into necks with a kind of savage joy that had made his heart stutter. No one should feel that good unless they were having sex.
Maybe, to them, it was mostly the same thing.
Just from the way Aydn looked, he might have expected something like this to go down. What else would he have been interested in, if he couldn’t feed or fight? Darien was rarely attracted to women, but if he were, he’d have had to admit the two vampiresses were gorgeous examples of their breed. And sex happened. People -- well, not-people too -- had urges, and they acted on them so far as they could.
