by Ari McKay
Arden’s voice broke the tableau. “Julian… you’re bleeding.”
Thomas sucked in a startled breath, and he reached up and pushed against Julian’s shoulders, his expression suffused with worry. “You’re hurt? Get off me so we can see how bad it is.”
“It’s nothing.” Julian rolled to one side but winced as a sharp pain in his back gave lie to the statement. He reached behind him, feeling the cool sticky wetness on his shirt, and when he looked at his fingers, they were stained red-black. “It’ll stop in a minute.”
“Let me see.” Thomas sat up and scooted around to kneel behind Julian, and he lifted the hem of Julian’s black T-shirt. “It’s a pretty deep wound. I’ve got some first aid supplies at the house. We could go back there and get this cleaned up and bandage it.”
While Thomas’s concern was rather appealing, Julian shook his head. “Just watch for a moment. You’ll see. Vampires heal fast, so long as we’ve fed adequately. The bleeding should stop in a moment, and the wound will close. What we need to do is get the salt and holy water and make sure that whatever residue is left from that glyph is cleansed. I’m just glad none of us triggered the trap by accident. It could have killed one or more of us.”
Arden was practically plastered to Eli’s side, and Harlan had both arms wrapped around Whimsy.
“At least me getting bit by that demon taught us to be careful,” Harlan said lightly. “That was a good catch, Thomas.”
“Thanks,” Thomas said, but his attention was riveted on Julian, and he touched Julian’s back with gentle fingers.
Julian could feel the wound healing. “See? It’s getting better already.” He looked at Eli. “Brawn came through. How about if you bring Arden’s SUV closer? We can cleanse this and get back to the farmhouse. I want to finish up and be gone before dark.”
“On it,” Eli said, and he sauntered back to the SUV with Arden tucked under his arm.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Thomas peered at Julian with concern. “No internal injuries?”
“It wouldn’t matter much if there were,” Julian said. He shrugged slightly. “Undead, remember? Most of what’s inside me hasn’t worked for centuries.” Of course his cock did still work, which was, at the moment, both a blessing and a curse.
“Right.” Thomas rocked back on his heels. “Well, I guess that means it’s time for me to learn what the salt and holy water are for.”
The loss of Thomas’s warmth behind him was worse for Julian than the injury, and he glanced back, concerned that he’d somehow upset Thomas by mentioning he wasn’t actually, in the strictest sense, alive. “I’ll show you,” he said quietly. “If you’d like.”
“Yes, please,” Thomas said as he stood up, offering a shy smile in return.
Relieved that Thomas didn’t appear angry or annoyed, Julian got carefully to his feet. He looked around at the debris littering the pasture and shook his head. “Good thing we brought plenty of salt. Hopefully you can sense where there might still be dark magic among this mess. We want to make sure to wipe out every trace. They left that glyph as a message, and a warning.”
Eli drove the SUV up, and between Harlan, Eli, and Thomas, they scattered salt over the entire area. Thomas pointed out areas where the dark magic had survived the explosion, which they doused with holy water; then Julian asked Thomas and Whimsy—who was sensitive to the dark magic—to walk the area again to make sure every trace was gone.
When they both pronounced the area clean, everyone loaded back into the SUV and Eli drove back to the farmhouse.
There were still a couple of hours until sunset, but Julian told Arden, Eli, Whimsy, and Harlan they didn’t need to stay. “Thomas wants to pick up a few things, and we’re going to see what Micah might have left behind that could help.”
“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay?” Whimsy asked. “We could help load up whatever you’re taking so you don’t get caught here after dark.”
Julian looked at Thomas. “Would you prefer they stay? Was there much up in the attic?”
“I have no idea,” Thomas said, shrugging slightly. “Grandpa never let me go up there, and it hasn’t been a priority since he died. But if there’s a lot, we can take what we can today and come back for the rest another time.”
“All right, then. You four are off the hook for now. I’ll text you when we leave, though. If you don’t hear from us before sunset….”
“If we don’t hear from you, we’ll come back ready to kick ass,” Arden replied.
“Pretty much.” Julian smiled slightly, then got out of the SUV.
Within a few minutes, he and Thomas were alone, standing on the porch and watching as the others left. “I guess we should get started,” he said, turning to Thomas. “First, could I borrow a T-shirt? I wouldn’t want to get blood on anything I brush against.”
“Of course.” Thomas pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the front door. “Come on up to my bedroom. I’ve got plenty of shirts that would fit you.”
Julian trailed along in Thomas’s wake. He did glance into each room as they moved, wanting to make sure nothing was lying in wait for them. He didn’t see anything disturbing, so he followed Thomas up the stairs to his bedroom. The room was on the small size, especially compared to what Julian was used to, and most of it was taken up by a bed with a handmade headboard and footboard and covered with a colorful quilt. A plain antique dresser stood against one wall, and an oval mirror hung over it. There were a couple of framed photographs and several stacks of books on the dresser and a braided rag rug next to the bed, but there weren’t any other personal knickknacks.
Thomas went to the dresser, opened the middle drawer, and pulled out a light gray T-shirt. “Here you go,” he said, holding out the shirt. “The bathroom is down the hall on the right if you want to wash off the blood before you put it on.”
“Thanks.” Julian accepted the shirt, then headed toward the bathroom. He pulled off his bloodstained T-shirt, then dropped it into the sink and turned on the cold water. He glanced over his shoulder to check the wound in the mirror and saw it had nearly closed, so he took the hand towel hanging next to the sink, dampened it, and cleaned away the blood.
As he slipped Thomas’s shirt on, he drew in a deep breath. The cloth smelled clean, but there was an underlying trace of Thomas’s own scent clinging to it. Wearing the shirt felt intimate, which was strange to Julian. He’d worn friends’ clothing many times, but it had never felt as personal as slipping on something that had once adorned Thomas’s strong body.
After cleaning up the bathroom, Julian bundled up his shirt and the towels he’d used, then returned to Thomas’s room. “Once the wee folk clean the towels, I’ll return them to you,” he said, watching as Thomas folded clothing into an old-fashioned suitcase.
Thomas glanced up, his eyebrows climbing. “No rush,” he said. “I’m not coming back here to stay anytime soon. I might not come back at all.”
“I can understand.” Julian smiled sympathetically. “You don’t have to make any decisions now, though. You might feel different in fifty years or so.”
“I might.” Thomas acknowledged the point with a slight nod. “I’m not going to rush into a decision, but aside from a few memories with my grandmother, I wasn’t happy here, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as a farmer. I’d rather have a fresh start somewhere else, complete with new towels.”
Julian snorted. “All right. Tell you what, I’ll gift you with an entire set of the most luxurious towels money can buy,” he said, dropping the bundle on the floor. “When you’re done with that, we should look in the attic. I’m going to set a timer on my cell phone just to make sure we don’t get so caught up that we stay after sundown. It’s likely the demons won’t come back, but I don’t want to take a chance.”
“I’m almost finished,” Thomas said as he tucked a stack of white cotton boxer shorts into the suitcase. “I’m not going to bother taking any toiletries since I’ve got everythi
ng I need at home already.” He glanced at Julian uncertainly, biting his lip. “I mean, uh, at your place.”
Julian stepped closer. He hated to see Thomas in doubt, especially while standing here in the house that had been the source of so much unhappiness for him. He lifted a hand to brush Thomas’s cheek. “My home is yours for as long as you want,” he said huskily.
Thomas’s expression softened into a smile, and he leaned into the touch. “Thank you, Julian. I feel like your house has been more of a home to me than this place ever was.”
The way Thomas seemed to relax, the way his lips turned up, and, more than anything else, the trust in his beautiful eyes were Julian’s undoing. He had always prided himself on his detachment, on the cynical distance he kept from almost everyone. But Thomas had managed to creep in under Julian’s defenses, and before he could stop himself, Julian groaned, then leaned in and captured Thomas’s lips with his.
Thomas gasped, but surprise didn’t keep him frozen long. With a soft moan, he wound his arms around Julian’s shoulders and parted his lips, returning the kiss with far more enthusiasm than finesse. But Julian wasn’t concerned with any lack of skill, not when Thomas was pressing against him, and he fought to keep himself under control as he twined his tongue with Thomas’s, deepening the kiss. Thomas slid his fingers into Julian’s hair as he surrendered, silently offering to give whatever Julian wanted to take.
Julian had had many lovers over the course of his long life. Most of them had been acquaintances, and a few, like Arden and Whimsy, had been friends. As a rule they had all been men of experience, skilled in giving and taking pleasure, and there were few pleasures Julian hadn’t explored thoroughly. Yet Thomas’s innocent, untutored response ignited a flame of desire unlike anything he’d ever felt. Thomas was his, and Julian wanted to claim him, to take Thomas’s innocence and introduce him to delights Thomas never could have imagined.
But he had no right to do it. No right to even want it.
Reluctantly Julian pulled back, but slowly and gently, aching with regret. Thomas deserved so much more. He deserved a chance to live life on his own terms, not go from being under Micah’s rule to being a slave to Julian’s desire. No doubt Thomas would enjoy it, at least for a time, but too much stood in the way, not the least of which was Julian’s guilt.
His hand was still against Thomas’s cheek, and he brushed his thumb against Thomas’s kiss-swollen lips. “Are you okay?”
“Never better,” Thomas said, a satisfied smile curving his lips as he sifted his fingers through Julian’s hair.
“Good.” Julian smiled, even though he felt an ache inside. He knew he had to tell Thomas that this was wrong, but he couldn’t bear to hurt him. If this had been, as he suspected, Thomas’s first kiss, Julian wasn’t heartless enough to taint the memory of it with his own doubts and regrets. “We should get what we can from the attic and go soon.”
“Okay.” Thomas withdrew reluctantly and turned his attention to closing and latching his suitcase. “This is all I’m going to take for now. I need to update my wardrobe anyway. I might come back for some books later, but your library is more than enough to keep me busy.”
Julian moved to the door, wanting to keep himself well clear of the warmth of Thomas’s body and the temptation to pull Thomas into his arms again. “Arden can take you to an elven tailor if you’d like. They make the best clothing you’ll find anywhere. Plus it doesn’t need to be cleaned.”
“Really?” Thomas’s face lit up with interest. “That sounds perfect… but also really expensive.”
“Everyone should have at least one elven-made outfit,” Julian replied, then found himself wondering if Thomas would notice if Julian never returned the T-shirt he now wore. “So, are you ready to storm the attic?”
Thomas picked up the suitcase and headed toward Julian. “Let me take this downstairs right quick, and then I’ll be ready. There’s a small staircase to the attic behind the door at the end of the hall if you want to go on up.”
“All right.” Julian followed Thomas out of the room, then turned toward the direction he’d indicated. Even though they were likely safe enough in the daylight, he opened the door to the stairway cautiously, looking for signs that anyone—or anything—might have come through recently. There was a light switch just inside the door, so he flipped it on, revealing a set of narrow, bare wooden stairs leading up. It seemed safe, so he moved upward, stopping as he reached the top to once again gaze around for anything unusual.
Small windows under the eaves provided faint light, but Julian could see quite well in the dimness, despite the cobwebs obscuring the glass. There were boxes and trunks stacked all around the big open space, and he boggled slightly at the amount of stuff, all of it coated in thick dust. Of course, Carters had lived in the house for generations, and at one point the family had been larger. Still, it was a daunting sight, especially to someone like Julian, who placed great value on books but little else.
He peered at the floor and was rewarded with the sight of a faint trail of footprints in the dust. They were probably from when Micah had come up to retrieve the feather, since there was a lighter layer of dust settled in the marks. The prints were farther apart, showing that Micah had likely been in a hurry.
A few minutes later, Thomas entered the attic and moved to stand next to Julian, and he looked around, visibly perplexed. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Julian pointed to the footprints. “Look. I think that’s where your grandfather came up to get the feather. I hope that he kept all of the demon-hunting paraphernalia together. Shall we follow the trail to see where it leads?”
“I didn’t even notice that,” Thomas said, smiling wryly as he peered down at the tracks. “I’ve got a lot to learn.”
“You pick up things quickly,” Julian replied. “Let’s see where he went.”
The trail led them to a far corner of the attic. Julian stopped as they neared the wall, pointing out to Thomas how things there weren’t stacked neatly as they were elsewhere, and patterns in the dust showed where things had been dragged. Several heavy chests were lined up against the wall, all made of stout wood with iron bands. “Well, it’s not pirate treasure we’re after, but those wouldn’t be out of place if we were. If you were a betting man, would you wager money on your grandfather having locked things away in those?”
Thomas studied the chests for a moment, and then he squatted in front of one of them. “This must be the one where he kept the feather. He was so rattled by your visit that he forgot to lock it,” he said, tapping a heavy iron padlock, which hung loose.
“Excellent deduction.” Julian stepped behind Thomas. “Why don’t you go ahead and open it? I’m not going to touch anything. It would be just like Micah to have had spells put on things to zap anyone who wasn’t a Carter who touched them.”
Thomas removed the padlock and lifted the lid of the trunk. Inside was a jumbled mess, as if Micah had rummaged through the contents and never returned to set it to rights. The trunk mostly held books with old, cracked leather covers, along with a few wooden boxes of various shapes and sizes as well. Thomas picked up one of the books and flipped open the cover.
“Look! It’s a handwritten compendium about different types of demons,” he said, his face lighting up as he pored over the book. “It even outlines ways to kill them.”
Julian leaned over Thomas’s shoulder, examining the book with interest. “Excellent! I might have a lot of this information already, but it’s always good to have corroboration. We can take this whole chest with us.”
“Should we take all of them?” Thomas glanced up at him. “I know where Grandpa kept his key ring, but even if the keys for the locks aren’t on it, surely we can figure out a way to break into them.”
“Absolutely.” Julian looked around the rest of the attic. “Let’s look in a couple of the regular boxes just to make sure there’s nothing interesting in them, but I’m willing to bet these chests have most of what we’re hop
ing to find.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Thomas said, as he closed the book with obvious reluctance and returned it to the trunk.
It only took the a few minutes to determine that the nearby boxes and crates held only mundane items, the cast-off detritus of generations of Thomas’s relatives. It took a little time to get the four big chests down and loaded into Julian’s SUV; Thomas was very strong and Julian even stronger, but the chests were large and seemed to weigh a couple of hundred pounds each. By the time they were finished, they were both covered in dust and the sun was beginning to set. Julian called Arden to let him know they were finished while he waited for Thomas to lock the house, and they managed to put the Carter farm several miles behind them before darkness fell. He had a very bad feeling about the farm now, and was more than a little worried the demons might know about Thomas’s existence. Once the wards had fallen at midsummer, nothing would have prevented the possessed shifters from getting to the farmhouse; and if they had, no doubt they would have caught Thomas’s scent and realized that a member of the Carter family had survived after all.
They had a way to go to get back to Castle Schaden, and Julian, for one, had a lot to think about. And while he should be focused on finding the cauldron, destroying the demons, and making certain no one he cared about died in the process, his attention kept straying back to the kiss he and Thomas had shared. While Julian was used to dealing with thorny problems, he wondered if the presence of one innocent demon hunter in his life was going to create more difficulties for him than an entire horde of demons.
Chapter Seven
ALTHOUGH Thomas liked the Gothic design of Julian’s house as a whole, his favorite room was without question the library. It was two stories tall with a fancy catwalk all the way around the room about halfway up, and there was a protective ironwork rail to prevent any falls. Julian’s massive book collection was housed in vertical columns of shelves that were glassed-in and framed by rich wood paneling. In the center of the room was a cluster of antique chairs with tea tables in between them, and large round windows let sunlight stream in to show off the gleam of the hardwood floors.
