Ed prowled. Sam had never seen him prowl. Or kiss someone. Or touch anyone but him, yet now he was allowing this stranger to get very handsy on his ass and up the back of his shirt. The way Ed writhed into those touches caused spike after spike of ugly jealousy to tear through Sam.
It shouldn’t matter. He was always going to leave. Nothing could have happened between them, and if he’d let something happen, he’d still be leaving. He couldn’t change that.
But he also couldn’t stand the sight of Ed kissing another man, in his lap like that, tipping his head back to lick up his neck, and then—
Tearing into his throat with his teeth.
Sam froze. There was so much blood suddenly, but Ed was quick to lap it up and not let any go to waste as the man tried to struggle, tried to push him off, but Ed held him down with no effort at all and drank until the man’s eyes glazed over and he grew still.
The horror that churned inside Sam made him feel like he was going to throw up.
The missing persons, the bodies found, it wasn’t the Cramers.
It was Ed.
Sam backpedaled into an end table in his haste to get away, and Ed’s head snapped around, catching him standing there. His face was entirely different, twisted into an animal snarl with yellow eyes that glowed and fangs dripping blood onto his chin.
Two terrifying seconds passed with their eyes locked, and then Sam bolted for the front doors.
Chapter 2
ED WAS a vampire.
Ed was a vampire.
But that was insane—vampires didn’t exist!
Sam still had his backpack, the flash drive in his pocket, heart hammering thunderously as he ran and ran and finally saw salvation—only to be seized two feet from the front doors and whirled around so fast, he thought a tornado caught him. He was up against the wall in seconds, being held by his throat, feet dangling.
Then the backpack fell with a thud, and the stack of cash he’d taken spilled out onto the tiles.
“You were stealing from me?” Ed roared, yellow eyes blazing in the dark of the foyer.
They couldn’t be contacts, and those razor-sharp teeth didn’t look like plastic, but vampires were not real! If anything, Ed was a serial killer, and Sam was losing his mind after witnessing a murder.
“I-I’m sorry… I’m sorry!”
“It was all a lie?”
“You were going to kill me!” Sam defended. The blood still stained Ed’s fangs and mouth and shirt….
“Not you,” Ed said—soft, as if he meant it, hurt that Sam would ever think such a thing, even enough that his eyes dimmed and changed back to green like some movie special effect, but right in front of Sam. “Never you.”
“You killed him,” Sam said lamely, noting that while his feet touched the floor again, Ed didn’t release his neck.
“I had to. I have to. When the hunger gets too bad, I…. But not you. I wouldn’t have ever hurt you.”
“Wouldn’t have…,” Sam repeated. “But I stole, and I saw you, so… now?”
Ed’s eyes flashed yellow again, and Sam shook so hard he almost vibrated.
“N-no…. You can’t be a vampire! Vampires aren’t real!”
“Do I look like something else?” Ed growled, his eyes and fangs too plain before Sam to be smoke and mirrors or his imagination. “Tell me why.”
“I-i-it was a job! What I was hired to do. Before I met you. Before I knew you! Please….”
“Before you knew me…,” Ed repeated, soft again. “Then why did you still do it?”
“I had to,” Sam echoed Ed’s words. “They would have killed me and my friends.”
“Friends?” Ed spat in distaste.
“I won’t give them up. I don’t care what you are or what you do to me!”
The silence that followed was worse than Ed’s snarling. He just stared at Sam—with those eyes, those fangs, the blood. Sam could see it dripping onto the black-and-white tiles, making especially prominent splashes on the white.
But just when he thought his number was up, Ed’s eyes turned green again, and his fangs retreated, vanishing like a magic trick.
“What will you give up?”
“What?”
“Will you give up your employers?”
Sam blinked at him mutely.
“You said they would have killed you if you refused them. So tell me, who—”
“Brock and Celia Cramer,” Sam said in a rush.
Now Ed blinked mutely.
“I can give you the names of the others who work for them. I don’t owe any of them anything. They haven’t been friendly since I tried to back out.”
“You….” Ed’s grip loosened. “Your eye. That was them?”
“And a few bruises you didn’t see.”
Ed’s expression softened like his tone, and slowly, his hand fell away.
Sam turned his head toward the doors. “Does that mean—”
“No. You don’t get to just leave. Not after what you saw. Not after what you did.”
Fighting down the tremors that caused, Sam looked back slowly, trying and failing to rationalize away what had to be true—that real monsters existed as much as the human version. “What do you want, then?”
“You’re my assistant, aren’t you?” Ed said with a cold stillness overtaking the softness. “Add groceries to your duties. Starting with the people who hired you.”
Sam didn’t know what to say. He had no loyalty to the Cramers, but being part of what Ed would do to them…. Did he hate them that much?
“Well?”
“What about my friends? They wanted out too.”
“Tell me about them.”
“I won’t—”
“Not their names, but how many? Who are they to you?”
“There’s just three of us. I grew up with them, conned with them my whole life, they’re… family.”
That seemed to appease Ed, and he softened again. “I won’t touch them, but you tell them nothing about me.”
“What am I supposed to say? I’m meant to deliver everything tonight. Are you just going to tear through whatever club the Cramers are at and—”
“No. We’ll think of something else. But later.”
“What—”
“Bring everything into the living room,” Ed ordered, nodding down at the backpack and the stack of cash. “And don’t try to run again. I’m not done eating.”
SAM LOOKED like he might run anyway, battling that age-old fight or flight, but he finally chose submission. He steeled his expression impressively, given his shivering, and gave a short, affirming nod.
Ed turned to head back into the living room, trusting Sam would follow. Of course he would. He was terrified. Ed could have asked him to do anything right then. If he wasn’t still so hungry, that would have made him feel sick.
That Sam had lied from the beginning, only there to steal from him, stung deeply, but not as badly as having Sam look at him like that. Ed had known the illusion couldn’t last, but he hadn’t expected things to end this way.
Glancing back when he reached the patio doors, he watched Sam set the backpack on the sofa, very obviously trying not to look at the body.
“Empty it. I want to see what you took,” Ed said.
Sam did so. Besides the cash were various tools, Sam’s blazer from earlier, his laptop, a flashlight, and a collection of items from around the house that Ed knew were his—and valuable thanks to Sam’s cataloging—but none of them were pieces he would have missed. Miraculously, nothing had broken when the bag fell, since Sam had carefully wrapped all the delicate pieces.
It seemed so meager and pointless, though, to take so little when there had been far more at stake than Sam realized.
“Go get one of the washcloths and a towel from the master bathroom. You’ll know which ones. Wet the cloth, please.”
“O-okay.” Sam turned swiftly to carry out the task, no doubt relieved to be sent away.
Ed should kill him. If it had be
en anyone else, Sam would be dead already. But it wasn’t only sentiment that stayed Ed’s hand; he didn’t know what was going on. He had to learn more.
And he would, after he finished his meal. So much blood had already been wasted, spilling out onto the patio.
He picked up the man from where he’d fallen, deathly pale now but still clinging to life. At least there was that; blood tasted better when it was fresh.
Bringing the still spurting artery to his mouth, Ed drank greedily, trying to ease his mind and aching heart with the glorious sensation the blood gave him. He barely remembered the man’s name anymore, but feeding from him was like experiencing every intense emotion the man had ever had, every wonderful meal he’d ever tasted, every writhing body he’d ever been in rapture with. Taking someone’s life truly meant taking their whole life into him, and he never tired of how that felt.
The man’s pulse continued to slow, beat by beat, barely there finally, just as Ed heard Sam return.
Opening his eyes, he watched Sam while he finished eating, holding the man with ease and letting every last gushing drop fall into his waiting mouth until it was merely dribbles.
Sam had the dampened cloth and a towel—both red—and was trying not to watch or meet Ed’s stare. Ed had never let someone he didn’t plan to kill see him like this. It didn’t fill him with shame; he accepted what he was, but there was still regret.
Finished now, having taken as much remaining blood as he could, Ed let the man drop, and Sam flinched when the dead weight of the skull hitting the ground made an audible crack.
“If it helps,” Ed said, “he wasn’t a nice man.”
“I’m… sure he wasn’t.”
“Sam.”
At the more obvious command, Sam glanced up, and Ed took the cloth from him to clean his face, remaining just outside the patio doors to keep from tracking in any more blood. He began to wipe his mouth and as much of the rest of him as he could.
“I decided to skip the show. Didn’t sound as fun without you,” he said wryly. “Drinks don’t affect me, and dinner isn’t necessary, so I took a walk. I waited, watched, and made a careful selection. He was dragging a very young man, who obviously wasn’t in any condition to say no to him, into his car. I gave him a more willing option.”
Sam visibly relaxed at the explanation, at least a little, but while that had been Ed’s intention, he didn’t want to lie to him anymore.
“Don’t misunderstand. If I’m forced to choose between killing someone wicked or someone who’s a threat to me, I won’t hesitate. I’ve been around a long time for a reason.”
“How long?” Sam asked tentatively.
“Long enough to know the tricks. I do like swimming at night, but the extra drains are useful.” Ed gestured behind him to where the blood that had spilled, smeared on the glass doors and the chair, was mostly disappearing down the long strip drains around the pool that prevented excess water from leaking into the house. “And chlorine kills just about anything. But tonight, you made me stain the rug.”
Another tremor tore through Sam. “I-I’m sorry. I’ll help you clean it.”
“I’d appreciate that. I expect you to be my employee again until this is over.”
“And… when the Cramers and their crew are dead… it’ll be over?”
He was smart to be afraid, to expect that Ed would tie up loose ends afterward, but even if it was foolish to show mercy, Ed truly didn’t want to kill him. “I won’t hurt you. Or your friends. I promise. Unless you give me a reason.”
Sam nodded hastily.
“I’m a mess,” Ed said with a grimace at his ruined shirt and slacks, taking the towel from Sam now, not that it would help much other than to dry his face. “I’m not always so wasteful, but I was in a bad mood.”
That caused Sam to glance away again, even as he gestured weakly at the patio. “What, um….”
“I’ll take care of the body. And his car. I know what I’m doing.”
“Not very well,” Sam muttered.
“Excuse me?”
Sam’s eyes widened; he hadn’t meant to say that apparently, but now he couldn’t take it back. “They’ve been finding your bodies for weeks.”
“Those aren’t my bodies.”
“What?” Sam’s eyes flew back to him.
“You think the bodies the police keep finding are from me? Some of the missing persons maybe, but I don’t get caught.”
“Then who…?”
“I don’t know. You thought it was me?”
“Before tonight, I thought it was the Cramers. Maybe it still is.” He looked off distantly, but more in thought than in fear.
“Who are these people?” Ed asked. “What do they know about me?”
“I thought they were just typical gangsters, but I don’t know how they heard about you or how much they know. They wouldn’t tell me their source.”
“Someone else told them about me?”
“I guess so. Yes,” Sam said more certainly.
“Then we’ll have to play this smart. Get to work on the carpet. I need to take a shower.” Ed started to fold the cloth and towel, but then decided to only take the cloth and draped the towel over the body for Sam’s benefit. “When you’re done, find me upstairs.”
WHEN HE was done. When he was done….
Cleaning up the blood.
Sam knew a few secrets for getting out blood. Never this much, but the principle was the same. Steel brush, dishwashing detergent in the water. Ammonia. He attended to all the spots he could find on the carpet, then took a few minutes to clean the sliding glass doors and the tiles in the foyer.
There was blood on him too, on his shirt from Ed’s hands, that he scrubbed off in the kitchen sink. He was glad he had his gloves on, but when he was finished, he threw them away.
All that remained was the body.
The numbness and shock were starting to fade, leaving Sam shivering again. He could still run, but Ed would only catch him. And he wouldn’t spare him again.
He couldn’t be a vampire, he couldn’t be, but no other answer made sense.
Now Sam was his… what? Servant? Minion? He’d said “employee,” but it didn’t feel like that anymore, not when the threat of death was glaringly present on the patio.
At least Ed had covered the body. The man’s throat had become a mangled mess by the end. A normal human couldn’t have done that.
But now Sam knew what Ed had been hiding. Why he didn’t go out during the day, “sensitive to the sun.” Why he didn’t make friends. Why he didn’t eat. Why he had so much money and possessions, a mix of old and new, like a collector over many decades.
Or was it centuries? Ed hadn’t answered the question of how old he was.
Sam couldn’t risk dawdling for too long, but he felt an awful dread wash over him with every step up the stairs toward the bedroom. The door to the master bath was open when he arrived, Ed just getting out of the shower and moving to find a towel—naked.
Sam had never seen him shirtless, let alone undressed, but Ed was as beautiful as ever, with flawless skin, long white limbs, a lean chest, and a toned backside. Despite everything, the same desire Sam had always felt for Ed stirred in him, and he stopped in the middle of the bedroom, unable to tear his eyes away.
“Have some decency!” Ed spotted him with a yelp and flung the door shut.
“You… left the door open.”
“Only so I could hear if you tried to run again!”
“Then why didn’t you hear me coming?”
The door swung back open, Ed now in a fluffy white robe, flushed—no, blushing, with a peek of skin in the parting of the robe that proved the scarlet went all the way down. “I was listening for the front doors, not you skulking about!”
Sam smiled. He couldn’t help it. There was no coldness or real anger, just Ed’s usual flustered self. “You were getting pretty hot and bothered with a stranger a few minutes ago.” Before you tore his throat out, Sam didn’t say aloud. “
But indecency from me makes you blush?”
“I didn’t like him.”
“But you like me?”
Ed averted his gaze, hands fidgeting, like any other day when their flirting surpassed his comfort level. “I thought that was obvious.”
Oh. Then not everything had been a lie.
Just that Ed was human.
“You’re really a vampire?”
Ed raised his eyes. “You still doubt?”
“Well….”
In a blink, Ed was gone, and when Sam whirled around, he saw something like a blur moving about the room. Before he could question what was happening, a firm presence was at his back, and a quiet voice whispered beside his ear, “Yes, I really am.”
Sam gasped, and the next second, Ed was back where he’d started.
“Are you finished downstairs?” Ed straightened, back to serious.
“Y-yes. Everything but the patio.”
“Then—”
Sam’s phone vibrated, startling them both. As he pulled it out to check the message, he remembered the flash drive in his other pocket.
“What is it?” Ed asked, moving toward him.
“Uh….” Sam stared down at his phone. “My friends, checking in on me. I told them I’d message them when I was on my way to see the Cramers.”
“It seems like quite the long con for so few spoils.”
Sam hesitated, but then, after putting his phone away, he took out the flash drive and held it out to Ed. “That’s because the real prize was this.”
“You were in my safe?” Ed snatched it from him, shocked and angry again but quickly becoming flustered like before. “Then you saw….”
“Your picture of me? Yeah.”
Ed turned even redder. Did he blush easier because he’d so recently…?
Sam didn’t want to think about that.
“I just….” Ed closed his eyes and took a breath, wrapping his fingers around the flash drive. “I wanted something to remember you by.”
“You took all the photos downstairs, didn’t you?”
Their Dark Reflections Page 5
