by Tina Folsom
If he actually were Zane, Oliver would have probably shut up instantly, but Eddie wasn’t that lucky.
“You sure? I feel awful about what happened. Maybe I was wrong and just reading too much into—”
Eddie whipped his head toward him and glared at him. “I said I’m fine. So get off my fucking case!” He felt his jaw clench and his teeth grind against each other. His neck muscles bulged and his hands balled into fists. If there weren’t so many witnesses around, he would know exactly what to do with those fists.
“Sorry, man,” Oliver quickly pressed out and turned to stare toward the front of the room, where Gabriel was getting ready to address the employees.
Gabriel cleared his throat and knocked on the wooden table to get everybody’s attention. The whispers in the room subsided and it went quiet.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice. I’ve called you to alert you to a potential problem we’ve been made aware of. In the last week or so we’ve had an unusual influx of new vampires into San Francisco. Nobody knows these newcomers, and we’re not quite sure what to think of them. It’s just a gut feeling some of us have, but all these newcomers seem to be connected, like a clan.”
Eddie listened attentively. A large clan was descending on San Francisco? The last time a group of strange vampires had come to the city, they’d brought blood whores with blood that made vampires high. It had led to carnage.
“While they could be entirely harmless, I want us to be prepared. A large group of vampires coming to our city and not integrating into our way of life can spell all kinds of trouble. We don’t want a repeat of what happened with the blood whores. I’m therefore going to have to add to your workload.”
Grumbles went through the assembled.
Gabriel raised his hand to stop them. “I know you’re all exhausted because you’ve been on extra shifts in the last four weeks, patrolling to round up all the vampires addicted to the blood of the blood whores. But thanks to your thoroughness, we believe that the task has been accomplished. I wish I could give you all a break, but I’m afraid you’ll need to continue with your patrols.”
Eddie looked around, and while there were a few vampires who mumbled complaints to themselves, most seemed willing to accept their new assignments. Eddie didn’t mind the new orders. Since he wasn’t assigned to any particular client at the moment, he was glad to have something to do. Otherwise, Thomas would only have added extra training for him. And since Thomas always trained him personally, it would have meant spending more time with his mentor.
“Considering the concerns we’re having about this,” Gabriel continued, “I’ve assigned everybody who’s not protecting a client to the patrols, including management. You’ll all be patrolling in pairs. I don’t want any of you out there on your own. That’s a strict order. You don’t stick to it, you might as well pack your things. Is that understood?”
Everybody nodded.
“Report anything suspicious immediately. And make sure the newcomers don’t know they’re being watched. We have no idea how they’ll react. I’ve posted a patrol schedule out on the board in the hallway. You’ll find the name of your assigned partner on it. Questions?” Gabriel swept a look over the employees, but nobody spoke up. “Dismissed.”
Eddie got up from his chair as the crowd started leaving the room. He headed for the board, eager to find out who Gabriel had paired him up with. He sure hoped it wasn’t Oliver. Even though he normally liked the guy, at the moment, he couldn’t stand being with him, because Oliver’s presence constantly reminded him of what he’d overheard.
Eddie squeezed through the vampires crowding around the board and searched for his name on the two sheets of paper.
Please let it not be Oliver, he prayed silently. Even Zane would be better than Oliver. At least Zane didn’t talk much. In fact, the guy was as taciturn as they came. And that suited him just fine right now.
His eyes moved down the list of names until he finally found his own. Then he shifted his gaze slightly, reading the name of his partner next to it: Thomas.
“That’s just great!” he grumbled to himself, not bothering to hide his displeasure, and whipped around only to bump into Thomas.
His mentor looked at him, startled, then let him pass, and approached the board, scanning the list of names himself. When he turned seconds later, there was an odd look on his face. He looked back at Eddie, who still stood there as if frozen to the ground. Their eyes met.
Eddie knew then that he’d hurt Thomas. And he felt like shit because of it. Thomas had never done anything wrong, never treated him badly. He didn’t deserve how Eddie was treating him now. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of ever since overhearing Oliver and Blake: that he’d overreact and in the process hurt Thomas’s feelings. He didn’t want their relationship to change. He liked having Thomas as a friend, but how could he continue as before, knowing what he knew?
He ran his hand through his hair. How was he going to make it up to Thomas? He had to somehow apologize, but he didn’t know how.
10
He and Eddie were scheduled for their first patrol the next night. Thomas pulled on his boots and tied them, sitting on his bed. His mind went back to the night before when the assignments had been handed out. Eddie had looked less than pleased about being paired up with him. Not just not pleased, he’d looked positively pissed off.
Thomas searched his memory to figure out whether he’d said or done something to insult Eddie, but couldn’t find anything. Everything was as always. They hadn’t had any confrontations or disagreements. In fact, they rarely ever disagreed on anything. They both enjoyed the same things: riding their motorcycles and working on their computers. Eddie was a great student when it came to anything related to computer software. He particularly liked hacking into systems, and Thomas enjoyed teaching him.
Thomas rose from his bed and snatched his leather jacket from the closet. He couldn’t fathom why there suddenly was tension between him and Eddie, when over the last year they’d lived together like the most agreeable roommates. Shaking his head, he walked out of his room and knocked on Eddie’s door.
“You ready?”
The door was opened immediately. Eddie appeared, dressed in leather pants, a black T-shirt and a leather jacket. Involuntarily, Thomas had to smile. His colleagues often remarked that they looked like twins with the way they dressed. Only today Thomas was wearing a white T-shirt instead of a black one.
“Rock n’ roll,” Eddie said and brushed past him, barely looking at him.
Thomas nodded and followed. “We’re assigned to the Castro, so there’s no point in taking the motorcycles. We’ll walk.”
The Castro was just down the hill from Twin Peaks. It wouldn’t take them long to get there on foot. And once there, it would be easier to patrol, not having to worry about where to leave the motorcycles.
“Fine by me.”
In silence, they left the house and hiked down the hill until they entered the Castro. It was still early and relatively quiet. The bars were half empty, and the shops were just closing up.
Thomas had often patrolled with Eddie in companionable silence; however, tonight this silence seemed full of tension. Eddie’s breathing was uneven, and Thomas could hear his heart beating erratically. As if something were bothering him. Thomas tried to ignore the feeling of uneasiness and concentrated on his task: watching the people around him.
His senses were alert and sharp as always. For several hours, they wandered through the Castro, first through the commercial area, then the residential one, then back again to the area that was filled with bars, shops, and restaurants. The shops had closed now, but the bars were hopping.
“It’s a bust,” Eddie said next to him.
“Sometimes finding nothing is a good thing.”
Eddie shrugged but didn’t reply.
Thomas continued to survey the area, turning into a side street—it was a dead end. There was a boarded-up shop in the middle of a block, a
restaurant to one side, and next to it, at the end of the block, there was a construction site: the frame for the three-story apartment building was already up. A Porta Potty stood in front of it, a tool shed next to it. A retaining wall about twelve feet high framed the other side of the street. Thomas glanced up and down the cul-de-sac and was about to turn back, when he saw a movement in the shadows.
He laid his hand on Eddie’s forearm and turned to him, motioning him to be silent, then pulled him into an entrance way. From their hiding place, Thomas peered out to the spot where he’d seen the movement. Had he imagined it or was somebody there?
He held his breath and waited, Eddie by his side.
A few seconds later, another shadow moved, and this time Thomas could clearly see the person. His aura identified him as a vampire, and the light that shone onto him from a streetlamp confirmed that he wasn’t anybody Thomas knew. He could be one of the newcomers Gabriel had mentioned.
Next to the strange vampire, another one appeared. They looked around, then moved toward the boarded-up building, when two more joined them. The first vampire pried one of the boards away from a window facing the construction site, then squeezed inside. The other three followed.
Thomas glanced at Eddie. “Ever seen those guys before?”
“No.”
“Let’s check them out.”
Carefully, they advanced on the building. Thomas checked his boot, where a silver knife was hidden in a protective sheath. Then he stuck his hand into his inside pocket, verifying that the wooden stake was where it was supposed to be.
Waving Eddie to follow him, he walked to the other side of the boarded-up house the four vampires had entered. Without making a noise, he walked around it, Eddie on his heels. All windows were nailed shut with sheets of plywood, but as he reached the back of the home, which opened to a small garden that was filled with building materials, he noticed an open door.
He approached it with caution, then pressed himself to the wall next to it and peered inside.
He heard voices.
“ . . . without the boss’s approval.”
“But that one’s ripe for takeover,” another tight voice said.
“I’ll advise him of it. If it fits into our plan, we’ll take it.”
Thomas strained to hear their low voices and felt a strange stirring in him. The dark power in him seemed to be awakening without any provocation, drawn out by the aura of the four strange vampires. He closed his eyes for a moment to try to push it back down.
“Never mind that. Whatever we can get, we’ll take it. The more we take, the stronger we’ll be when the time comes,” the second voice replied.
A sound behind him echoed in the night. He swiveled his head. A board on the heap of building materials Thomas and Eddie had passed closely only moments earlier had shifted and caused the noise. His gaze collided with Eddie’s, who motioned to the open door.
From inside, the voices suddenly stopped. The four strange vampires had heard the noise too.
Grabbing Eddie by the sleeve of his jacket, Thomas dragged him away, jumping over the low fence into the adjacent property. They were behind the construction site, facing another retaining wall.
“Shit,” he hissed under his breath. There was no way out from the back. They’d have to make their way through the partially constructed building, where they would be seen by the other vampires.
At the sound of footsteps, Thomas whipped his head to the side. The four vampires were already approaching, though he couldn’t see them yet. Which meant they couldn’t see him and Eddie yet either.
One thing was clear: the vampires would suspect that they’d been overheard. And they wouldn’t look at them kindly. “Gotta fight them,” he whispered to Eddie.
His young friend shook his head almost instantly, pushing him farther into the corner they were backed into, farther away from the approaching vampires. Thomas glared at him.
“Too many!” Eddie whispered back.
“I’ll use mind control,” Thomas suggested. It would even out the playing field. Four against two weren’t great odds, but if he could fight them with mind control, he and Eddie had a chance of winning the confrontation, should it come to a fight.
“No you won’t! Too dangerous. Follow my lead.”
Before Thomas could protest, Eddie pushed his back against the wall, then pressed his body against Thomas’s and kissed him. Stunned, Thomas froze. This could not be happening! He had to be dreaming, hallucinating. But everything felt real: Eddie’s hot lips on his mouth, his tongue pushing against the seam of his lips, demanding entry, one hand at his nape, holding him close, while Eddie’s other hand circled around Thomas’s waist to draw him into his body.
With a groan, Thomas parted his lips and invited Eddie in. When their tongues met, his entire body erupted in flames. Blood shot to his cock within seconds, bringing him to a full cockstand faster than he could have uttered a single word.
This was his dream come true.
11
Eddie realized that what he was doing was crazy, but he hadn’t seen any other way out. He wouldn’t allow Thomas to fight the four vampires with mind control. The last time Thomas had engaged in a mind-control fight with Keegan, his maker, he’d nearly died. And fighting four vampires with conventional means was suicide too. No, he owed him this.
And the deception might just work: after all, they were in the Castro, where gays behaved with a little less restraint than in the rest of the city. What they were doing here wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary. With a bit of luck, they could fool the four strangers into thinking that they were just some horny homosexuals who couldn’t wait to get into each other’s pants.
As long as they made it look realistic.
Eddie angled his head to dive deeper into Thomas’s mouth. To his surprise, he didn’t feel disgusted about kissing a man. On the contrary, he loved Thomas’s masculine taste, the firm stroke of his tongue against his, and the corresponding hard press of his hips. His lips were warm and welcoming, his breath hot and titillating. Lust shot through him, desire welled up. It was all for a good cause, he told himself. It had to look real, or the vampires would never believe it.
Allowing a moan to come over his lips, he released his hold on Thomas’s waist and brought his hand to his own leather pants, popping the button open. If he had to show his naked ass to the four newcomers to make them believe he and Thomas were lovers, then he’d do just that.
Without wasting another minute, he pulled the zipper down and tugged on his pants.
Thomas’s hands stopped him. Eddie wanted to protest and make him understand why he needed to do this, when he felt Thomas’s hand slide onto his ass, tugging on his pants.
In the front, his leather pants caught on something. Eddie’s breath hitched when he realized instantly what had happened: his pants had caught on his erection which had created a massive bulge under his Calvin Klein briefs.
Fuck! He had an erection? How the fuck had that happened? But before he could follow that particular thought process, he felt Thomas’s hands move to his groin, gripping the front of his pants and pushing them down. As one hand brushed over the bulge, Eddie hissed, “Fuck!”
releasing Thomas’s lips for a moment.
He inhaled sharply, but then Thomas’s lips were back, his tongue thrusting back into his mouth, exploring him, sparring with him. God, he’d never been kissed like that, with such passion, such power, such determination. No woman had ever done that. Was that how men kissed? Was that what it felt like?
Before he knew what he was doing, words he had no idea he was going to say came over his lips. “Touch me!”
His moaned command was followed by Thomas’s hand slipping into his briefs, pushing them down. Cool air blew against his cock a split second before a warm palm wrapped around him and squeezed. A bolt of electricity shot through him. His fangs descended without warning, and his hand gripped Thomas’s nape tighter, pulling him closer for a deeper kiss.
&n
bsp; Thomas’s second hand pushed his briefs down fully, then palmed his ass. Fuck! He should make him stop, tell him that he wasn’t wired that way, that he couldn’t do this. He wasn’t gay!
This was all just to fool those vampires. But he couldn’t stop his body from reacting to Thomas’s touch and kiss. A kiss he, Eddie, had started.
Of its own volition, his cock pumped into Thomas’s hand, thrusting as if he were thrusting into him, while he stroked firmly against Thomas’s tongue, sucking it, as if he were sucking Thomas’s cock instead. The thought shocked him. No, he couldn’t think of something like that.
He didn’t suck cock! He ate pussy! Right! Only, at present he couldn’t remember when he’d last even seen a pussy.
Thomas’s hand worked him perfectly. As if he knew exactly what Eddie needed. The right pressure and firmness, the perfect rhythm and speed.
An enthusiastic “Yes!” came over his lips as he came up for air, only to lock lips with Thomas again a moment later. As he intensified the kiss, Eddie suddenly felt Thomas’s tongue swipe against one fang. White-hot heat shot into his balls. Then Thomas repeated the action.
“Queers!” he suddenly heard a voice somewhere in the distance.
“Disgraceful for a vampire!” another voice added.
The footsteps moved farther away. The threat was over, but Eddie was unable to pull himself out of Thomas’s arms.
“Come!” he heard Thomas growl as he squeezed Eddie’s cock harder and faster, while he continued to lick his fangs.
Eddie had known that fangs were a vampire’s most erogenous zone, but he’d never experienced it himself. Now that he felt it, he realized that he had no defenses against the sensual onslaught of Thomas’s caresses. He was powerless to stop him, because all his body wanted was more: more of Thomas’s kisses and his touch.
His hips worked frantically, thrusting his erection into Thomas’s willing hand. He was aching now, aching for release, and had reached a point where he didn’t care who was delivering it, be it a man or a woman. All he needed was an orgasm, or his entire body would go up in flames.
