Rogue

by Eden Bradley

He bent and licked up the length of Rogue’s spine, tasting the rich, metallic blood that seeped from his many wounds. It was like rain and liquid silver on his tongue.

  Rogue moaned softly.

  Ramsey’s cock twitched and he smiled to himself.

  He wrapped an arm around Rogue’s neck, pulling him up to his knees, pressing his body against his chest. He murmured into his hair, “What have you learned, young one?”

  “That I will do almost anything for you, as long as you fuck me like that,” Rogue slurred.

  He laughed. “So very near death and yet still you defy me.”

  “I told you I have my charms.”

  Ramsey laughed again as he released him. Rogue fell to the ground, barely catching himself.

  “Julian, take him to my quarters.”

  He obviously needed another lesson in manners, and he would be only too glad to teach him. But he knew it was more than that. Much more. Rogue had indeed charmed him.

  Is that what he was going to call this falling sensation—as if his heart had been hurled off a cliff?

  He grimaced, wiped the young vampire’s blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Not liking it wouldn’t make it any less the truth.

  Chapter Five

  Rogue fell onto the big, round bed covered in dark red velvet as Julian released him. He rolled onto his back with a groan, every quickly-healing bite mark feeling the velvet as if it were sandpaper against his skin.

  Julian had hosed him down in an enormous white marble shower stall that was part of the Gardens’ holding pen before toweling him down and dragging him here.

  His head was spinning. What an experience that had been, fury and desire an incandescent conflagration in his system. He’d nearly died. He’d hated it. He’d loved it. If he were completely honest with himself, a small part of him had known he would.

  Ramsey.

  Yes, because it was him. It was at his command that he’d run in the Capture Gardens. It was at his command that the other vampires had given chase—or had given way, as Chiara had. As she’d had to.

  Had he ever come upon such a creature as Ramsey in his hundred years?

  Of course, the other members of the Council all held a great air of command, but something about the exquisite Ramsey made him shiver all over, as if some current ran beneath his skin, like a river dragging him helplessly into its depths. And he could sink like a stone—or swim with that lovely, damned current.

  Ramsey entered through the pair of heavy, ornate double doors bearing the club’s dragon sigil at one end of the large room. His shirt was still stained with Rogue’s own blood, his dark lips beautifully full.

  Rogue found himself wanting to kiss those lips. To taste them, to bite them.

  His cock stirred in his damaged body. He sighed.

  Ramsey unbuttoned his shirt as he sauntered toward the bed, then pulled it off, revealing his strong arms, his tightly-muscled abdomen, his dark skin gleaming like polished wood.

  Beautiful.

  Had he ever seen a man—a vampire—more gorgeously made?

  Ramsey dropped down into a plush velvet high-backed chair, the same deep red as the bed cover. He turned to pour himself a glass of wine from a decanter on the small table next to his chair. He took a sip, settled back into the chair, all impossibly cool elegance.

  “Tell me, young one. What is it that makes you fight so hard?”

  Rogue tried to shrug but he didn’t have enough strength yet. “My anger is always with me.”

  “Not always.”

  “No. Not always,” he agreed.

  “There was that moment when you turned yourself over to me.” Ramsey was watching him closely as he swept his long, silky dreadlocks over his shoulder. “Would you really have let me kill you?”

  “Could I have done anything else?”

  “No. But would you have done so with a will?”

  “I do everything with a will. Death could not force me to obey any more than your Council could.”

  Ramsey laughed. “So much confidence.”

  His laugh…there was an edge of vulnerability to it, as if that was one of the few moments when he was entirely himself. Why did it make Rogue’s pulse race?

  “So tell me,” Ramsey insisted.

  “What? Why I’m angry? I thought we discussed this when we first met.”

  “That you are bitter about being Turned and left with no human memories?” Ramsey shook his head slowly, pursing his plush lips. “I don’t believe that’s everything.”

  Rogue struggled to sit up, made it up onto his elbows. His head swam, but the anger was there, lending him strength. “You want to know everything? You can see it if you drink from me. You can see every detail. You can force it from me.”

  “This is one thing I don’t want to force from you. I want you to give me your truth of your own accord.”

  “Why?” he demanded.

  The older vampire was quiet for several moments, his brows drawn. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I want to talk with you. Know about you. The fact that you violated the grounds of my club should be enough—that you violated the rules of the Council. That you be appropriately punished, then sent on your way. And yet…” He shook his head once more and said again, “I don’t know. I only know that you…draw me.”

  Rogue locked onto his gaze. “As you do me.”

  “We are a strange pair.”

  “We are,” Rogue agreed. “The king of this castle—a standing member of your Council, of the community of vampires—and a thieving outsider with no place in the world.”

  “Is that how you see yourself?” Ramsey asked, his features softening.

  It was those small glimpses of tenderness that got to him. But why should it? He didn’t understand.

  Or perhaps he did.

  “You are the first creature—human or vampire—who has truly ever shown me any kindness ,” he admitted. “I know you had Adriana warn me about Chiara, Ramsey.”

  The older vampire stood and approached the bed. He reached out and laid a hand on Rogue’s cheek.

  “Say my name again,” he told him quietly.

  Told him.

  Rogue blinked, his chest pulling tight. But he whispered, “Ramsey.”

  Ramsey climbed onto the bed with him, leaned in and brushed his lips with his. Oh, his were all soft, sweet velvet. He could taste a trace of his own blood on that lush mouth.

  Lovely.

  Ramsey kissed him again, pressing his lips more firmly this time, but still gently. He pulled back an inch, and they both held perfectly still, inhaling each other’s breath for several long moments before Rogue tilted his chin to be kissed again.

  It was every bit as lovely as he had imagined, as he had yearned for. He felt the heady power of the older vampire—his age, the pure force of who he was. And he felt something else, an opening up as Ramsey allowed himself to be vulnerable with him. It was something entirely new—anyone being vulnerable with him, other than those he played these power games with, when he was the Top. New and intoxicating.

  When Ramsey pulled back and sat on the bed, staring at him, Rogue asked, “What about you? What makes you so angry?”

  “Me? I am not angry.”

  “You are…hard.”

  He swore he saw Ramsey’s expression fall for a moment before he pulled himself back together.

  He nodded. “I suppose I am.”

  “Hardness is always a defense, I believe,” Rogue suggested.

  Why did he feel this need to know?

  Ramsey nodded. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  Ramsey went quiet, his eyes on the velvet coverlet, his fingers twisting the end of one of his dreadlocks. He stayed that way for so long Rogue began to think he wouldn’t answer. Finally he said, “I have my pain, as we all do. Mine is… My pain runs too deep. Too deep to speak of it.”

  “Which is why you won’t allow me to drink from you?”

  Ramsey’s tone harshened. “
I don’t allow any to drink from me other than my oldest friends. Aleron. Ever. And even they do not know everything.”

  “You want no one to see. I understand.”

  Ramsey pushed himself off the bed, his hands fisting at his sides. “How can you when you have no memory of what it is to be human? To be that fragile? To love within the fragility of human existence? How can you truly know pain when you have no knowledge of being vulnerable in the only way that truly matters?”

  Rogue winced a little. “Perhaps I don’t. But you can tell me of yours, share it with me, and then perhaps I’ll know that much.”

  “No.”

  Ramsey turned his back to him and began to pace. He strode toward the wall of windows that seemed to be present in every room of this glass palace, sweeping a lamp from a table with his hand. The shattering glass echoed on the marble floors.

  Rogue struggled, but he managed to get up, and found a little of his strength returning as he went to stand beside him. The sky was shrouded in clouds, what had been the sunny morning now obscured, cloaked in gray. He didn’t know why but he laid a hand on Ramsey’s shoulder. The vampire flinched, but Rogue didn’t remove his hand.

  “I am very good at keeping secrets,” he said. “Who would I have to tell? Who would listen to a nobody like me?”

  “That is…not the point. I don’t tell anyone. I never speak of this. Never.”

  Rogue moved in closer, until he could feel the fabric of Ramsey’s trousers against his naked skin. He whispered against his cheek, “But you want to. I can feel it. You have the same desires as I do, you feel the same inexplicable connection. More than desire. I know you do.”

  Ramsey turned to him. He saw the confusion in his startling green eyes. Ramsey’s hand shot out and he grabbed a handful of Rogue’s hair, pulled him in closer, whispered, “Yes.”

  “And you don’t like it any more than I do,” Rogue suggested quietly, “which is part of why you handle me so roughly now. Yet, here we are. Wanting each other. Wanting to know things we shouldn’t care about, but do. I don’t understand it. Do you?” He paused, searching the older vampire’s face. “Tell me. Make me understand. Make me, Ramsey.”

  That did it—his asking to be made to. He saw the command harden Ramsey’s features, then he softened, nodded as he released his hair. He took Rogue by the shoulder and led him back to the bed.

  “Sit,” he told him.

  Rogue did so, loving the authority in his tone, but also not wanting to ruin the moment, to disrupt even the air around them lest Ramsey change his mind.

  Need to know. Everything about him. Need to be inside his head as much as I need him inside my body.

  He let that thought be. Inexplicable, as he’d said to Ramsey only moments ago.

  Ramsey began to pace, his booted heels making an echoing thud on the pristine marble floors.

  “It was a very long time ago. I was Turned in the year 1790. I was thirty-one years old—a man with a family. Three children—a boy and two girls. They were so young. And my wife…I loved her,” he said harshly, his accent thickening as he spoke.” I loved them. You have no idea how fiercely one can love a child. They were my bébés.” He swept his long dreadlocks from his face, held them back. “I could not go back to them after I was Turned. How could I? I would have frightened them to death. I was a monster.”

  “You think we’re monsters?” Rogue asked, curious. It was something he had long thought himself.

  “Monsters. And gods. But in those days, before our kind revealed themselves to the world, how could we have appeared any other way?”

  “Did you drink human blood? Or were you one of those that survived on the shallow blood of animals?”

  “Oh, I drank from humans. I was most savage. New Orleans was the perfect city to hunt in. There were always the docks—the thieves, the whores, the drunkards. People no one would have missed. And there was no one to stop me. You see, I was myself Turned by a rogue vampire.”

  “And your family?” Rogue asked quietly. “What happened to them?”

  Ramsey shook his head, stopped to brace one arm high on a window-frame. He bent his head and remained quiet for several moments. Rogue could hear his strangled breath as he fought to get some emotion under control, and it made his heart surge in his chest. He wanted to go to him, but he didn’t dare.

  Finally Ramsey said, “She was pregnant when I was Turned. I kept watch from a distance, but that night I heard her screams. I watched through a window as she gave birth to another fine, strong son in a pool of her own blood. I had to leave—the draw of the blood was too strong to resist. But not before I watched her die.”

  He pressed his head against his arm, so hard Rogue expected to hear bone crack.

  “Do you see, young one?” His voice was thick with unshed grief as he turned back to face him, his eyes blazing, gold a flame against the green, a sheen of blood over the irises. “Do you see why I cannot speak of this? It breaks me. I lived broken for so many years. Too many, watching generation after generation live and die. I had to leave, but I didn’t know how. And then I met Benjamin.”

  Suddenly Ramsey was at his side, grabbing his wrist in a tight, hurting grip, yanking him to his feet. “See me, Rogue.” His voice was a harsh whisper. “You know this much. Know it all. Know me.”

  “You want me to…?”

  Ramsey pulled him in tight, and his bare chest pressed against the gorgeously fine, dark skin of Ramsey’s chest. His cock came to life, hardening between his thighs. But his heart was beating with as much emotion as lust. And his blood was singing—something that happened only when vampires shared in pain play. But this was no kink. The pain he felt was in the older vampire’s heart, so keen and sharp that his blood couldn’t help but respond.

  He laid a hand on Ramsey’s chest, iron-hard with ancient vampiric muscle. His heart was like thunder beneath his palm. Ramsey’s hand snaked around the back of his neck, pulling him in, forcing his lips to his throat.

  “Do it,” he murmured. “Do it before I change my mind and rip you to shreds so that no one will know my secrets.”

  Rogue quickly closed his lips over the smooth flesh. And bit. Tasted the centuries in Ramsey’s sweet, sweet blood.

  Centuries…

  His head spun as together they sank onto the floor and images filled his mind, as he saw Ramsey’s past through his eyes.

  He could feel the pulling rhythm of the sea even though they were still docked in New Orleans. His heart was heavy, yet he knew this was right. He couldn’t bear it any longer, to watch them live and die. How many generations of his children, grandchildren?

  Pain like an ever-present virus in his heart. How could he leave his family? But how could he stand to do anything else?

  He inhaled, pulling in the salt air along with the other smells of the dock: fish and the human stench of unwashed bodies. The nervous energy of the thieves. Stale ale and rum.

  “Are you so sad, love?” Benjamin asked from behind him, and he felt his gentle hand on his arm.

  But he could only shake his head.

  “Come. Come to the cabin with me. Drink from me.” After his silence, more gently, “Ramsey. You will feel better if you feed. Let me soothe you.”

  Benjamin’s palm slid under his high collar and around the back of his neck, his warm human hand soft against his skin, making him shiver. He turned to smile at his lover. He could see Benjamin’s hazel eyes gleaming in the moonlight, the heavy fringe of dark lashes, the smooth velvet of his coffee-colored skin. He reached out to stroke his cheek.

  “It is so difficult, leaving this place. Everything I know. Them. My heart is breaking. I do not know how to bid farewell to them. They are my family, even if they have no knowledge of me now—of me as anything more than a lost ancestor. Am I mad to even consider that I might stay here and…? I don’t even know what I’m thinking.”

  “You are grieving.”

  “Yes. I feel as if I am betraying them, somehow, my lost family. Even thoug
h they cannot know me in this form.”

  “It is too hard for you here. It will be better in Europe,” Benjamin said quietly. “And we will be together.”

  He brushed his fingertips over Benjamin’s jaw. “Forever. I will Turn you once we arrive in France and I have no need for your blood, my love, as promised. You are the only reason…you lend me strength I would not have without you.”

  Benjamin smiled. So beautiful. And yet…

  He turned back to stare over the railing at the city he had always known as home. Grief was a searing heat he would never forget.

  “I will never forget them,” he murmured, more for his own ears than anything else, a pledge he made to his own shattered heart. “Never.”

  His vision blurred…Time spun…Pain ground into him like a relentlessly pounding hammer.

  “Benjamin…no!”

  Hot tears poured down his cheeks, tears of blood he could taste as they ran into his mouth. How could this have happened? They knew of the fever on the ship. They had kept apart from the other passengers. They had been so careful. How…?

  In a panic he pressed his cheek to his lover’s limp body, listening for any sign of life, but he remained utterly still.

  He rocked him in his arms as the ship creaked, rocking on the ocean, utterly powerless.

  He shook his head. “No…no, no, no…No!”

  “No!” Rogue’s throat burned, his chest wrenching at what he’d seen, what he’d felt. He pushed hard on Ramsey’s chest and the older vampire pulled back.

  “Rogue…”

  “I’ve never felt such pain in anyone,” Rogue said, shock still coursing through him like some physical sensation. He could barely breathe. “I didn’t know.”

  Ramsey shook his head as he got to his feet, wiping at the small trickle of blood on his neck.

  Rogue watched him. How did one survive the centuries with such a burden? His own bitterness, his anger, was already burden enough.

  “Maybe it’s better I remember nothing of my life,” he said

  Ramsey turned to him, his form silhouetted against the night sky. “Yes. Perhaps it is. This is what I was trying to say to you earlier.”