by Aimer Boyz
Inside the store, customers waited in line chatting with friends, or swiping at their phones. The lucky ones had staked out the leather armchairs in front of the fireplace. Three baristas worked behind the counter, but Symon only saw one. Despite the nerdy apron, Michael looked good, the green straps accentuating the width of his shoulders. Symon clenched his jaw against the memory of those shoulders under his hands, that body under his. He waited his turn, stalked his prey from the order line, closing in on Michael one customer at a time.
“One Tall Toffee Mocha,” the woman ahead of Symon said, pulling her wallet out of her purse. "One Latte Macchiato, Grande. To go.”
Marker in hand, Michael asked, “Name?”
“Janice.”
Michael scribbled on two cups, checked the screen on his cash register. “$9.27,” he said, taking the woman’s ten-dollar bill. He caught sight of Symon and the dimple was out in full force, Michael beaming at him over the woman’s shoulder. “Coffees on the left, at the end of the counter,” he said, handing the woman back her change. “Thought you didn’t drink coffee,” he said, as Symon took Janice’s place at the counter. The small tilt at the corner of his mouth said he knew damn well what Symon drank.
“I’m not here for the caffeine.”
“No?” Michael asked, his dimple threatening to break free.
“I’m here for you,” Symon said, with all the enthusiasm of man reporting for a dentist appointment.
“And you sound so happy about it.” Michael leaned over the counter, lowered his voice. “I can change that,” he said, before glancing to his left, to a man Symon assumed was his supervisor, and morphing into the über professional again. “What can I get for you, sir?”
“When do you get off?” Symon asked, rethinking his phrasing when Michael grinned at him. “When are you done here?”
Michael checked his watch. “Fourteen minutes.”
“I’ll wait.”
Symon took a seat as far away from the other customers as he could get. He watched Michael shuffle coffee cups, hand out muffins, and wondered what the fuck he was doing here.
Human interactions fell under two headings: blood or business. There was no subsection for sex and dimples, no column for dating or boyfriends. Because Symon didn’t date. He didn’t hold hands, or cuddle, or share stories about his first crush, and he wasn’t ever going to meet Michael’s friends over brunch. He caught himself smiling every time Michael looked over at him and pulled his phone out because, no. He wasn’t playing this human game. His eyes on his cell, a thought struck him with the force of a sledgehammer to the head.
Stuffed full of Receding Hairline’s blood, and still, he had come here, to Michael. The restless, uneasy feeling was gone. Apparently, sitting here waiting for Dimple Man was where he was supposed to be.
Shit.
In the dark and distant past, Symon had once been blood bonded. His body had turned on him, refusing any blood but Etienne’s. Appalled and furious, he had forced himself to feed on strangers only to end up shaking with revulsion and spewing his food into the nearest chamber pot. While Etienne’s blood had been a delight to the senses, Symon was not one to live under any kind of leash. As soon as he’d thought Etienne was ready, he’d turned him, severing the blood bond. He’d been free to hunt again, this time with his fledgling at his side.
Humans had an expression, ‘Once bitten, twice shy’. Because Symon attributed the blood bond to the multiple feedings he had drawn from Etienne over the weeks of their cross Atlantic sailing, he’d never again allowed himself to feed from the same prey more than once. As pretty as Michael’s offer had been last night, and God and Satan above, Symon had loved that Michael had wanted his bite, he’d had to refuse.
He couldn’t believe he’d successfully evaded the blood bond for centuries only to be caught in this—
“I think it’s dead.” Apron replaced by his parka, backpack on his shoulder, Michael made his announcement with all the gravity of a soap opera doctor, but his grey eyes were lit with laughter.
Symon followed Michael’s gaze to the empty coffee cup in his hand, the empty cup he’d found on the table, and repeatedly stabbed with a plastic stir stick. He dropped the cup, grabbed his coat off the back of his chair, and pocketed his phone. “Ready?”
“Yep.”
They walked into the night together, their steps automatically turning in the direction of Symon’s hotel. Hands in his pockets, Michael spoke to the interlocked bricks at his feet. “So…This is weird, right?”
That was one way to put it. Personally, Symon would have gone with insane, but— “Yeah.”
Their boots hitting the icy sidewalk with a satisfying crunch, they passed a bakery, a Celtic shop offering afternoon tea, and an Italian restaurant before Michael spoke again. “Okay, here’s the thing. This isn't going to work, not long term, but I’m thinking…we can make it a holiday thing. You know, like March break without the beach and the sun. While you’re here, we do this,” he said, linking their hands together. “When the festival is over, you go back to Italy and I apply to grad school. No harm, no foul.”
Symon looked down at his hand in Michael’s. It felt good, it felt right, but feeling wasn’t fact. This wouldn’t work long term; Michael had that right. It never had.
Etienne, with his incomprehensible worship of all things human, had wanted to pretend it could, but Andrew had known better. The redhead had sought Symon out, and crossed over into the night. They were happy, his blood children. Stupid happy because Symon knew that eternity would shred them, break them. No relationship could withstand the abrasion of time.
Vampires were not alone by choice.
Forever was a child’s dream, but for now, for so long as Symon was in this snowball of a town? “Okay.”
“Okay? You mean it?” Michael asked, searching Symon’s face. “Really?”
Symon laughed. “What do you want, an affidavit signed in your blood?”
Michael tugged Symon to a stop, raised his hand, and let it hover at the nape of Symon’s neck. “I could see for myself?”
“I could rip your heart out through your rib cage.”
Michael’s Adam’s apple tried to climb out of his throat, but he matched Symon stare for stare. “That’s a no?”
Symon grinned, tucked the threatening away. “So, how does this work?” he asked, as they crossed King Street, the sprawling mass of The Prince of Wales waiting for them on the other side. “I mean, when we’re not fucking?”
Michael shrugged. “You watch Game of Thrones?”
“Game of Thrones?”
Chapter 10
SET BACK FROM the sidewalk, protected from the elements under a portico of cream-painted pillars, the main entrance to the Prince of Wales Hotel expressed understated luxury. A set of burnished wood doors, dressed in etched glass and impeccably polished brass kick plates, greeted guests with all the quiet refinement of a Grande Dame.
Michael, substituting for the hotel’s red-vested doorman, pulled one of the doors open for Symon. “After you, Fido.”
“Don’t call me—” Symon threw his arm out, keeping Michael behind him, keeping him safe. He scanned the lobby, noting the two staff members working the front desk, and the couple sitting opposite reception, heads bent over their phones. Music and laughter filtered into the lobby from the Churchill Lounge, but Symon saw nothing that warranted the alarms going off inside his head.
“What’s up?” Michael whispered at his back. Symon shook his head and Michael took the hint, going silent.
The elevator doors swished open and Symon pivoted to face them, putting himself between the elevator and Michael. Three young women, bridesmaids in matching hideous dresses, spilled into the lobby. They glanced at Symon as they passed, but Michael was the one who got the serious eye grope.
“Friends of yours?” Symon asked, sotto voce, not turning his head.
“Jealous?” Michael asked, at Symon’s ear.
The Prince of Wales was old, old
er than Canada itself by three years. A rambling affair of red bricks and ivy, the hotel was a mystery of narrow hallways and interconnected staircases. The building spread out across a city block, but it only had three floors which worked in Symon’s favour now.
Michael on his heels, Symon ran for the stairs. The cold dread grew as he climbed, tension tightening his very skin. Symon gathered his power, sent it out, searching for the uninvited nightwalker. Nightwalkers, plural. There were two vampires in his suite.
His hand grabbing at the bannister, his boots skidding on the carpet runner, Symon halted his mad dash up the staircase. Michael charged on ahead, turning back when he realized Symon wasn’t beside him. “What?”
“Wait here,” Symon ordered. “No, go home,” he said, thinking that Etienne had been right. Julian could do more than pout; he’d sent the welcome committee waiting in Symon’s suite. The little shit was flexing his fangs and Symon wasn’t taking Michael into that. “I’ll text you later.”
Michael’s face set. “Yeah. No.” He took off up the stairs.
Fuck. Where was the submissive when you needed him?
Symon could have blown past Michael, left him behind while he investigated the duo in his suite, but he wouldn't leave Michael unprotected. Wouldn't take a chance with his human's life. Plus, the stubborn ass would probably follow him. Symon tried to be annoyed about that, but taking the stairs with Michael at his side, he found himself smiling.
Only a handful of people, human and otherwise, knew Symon well enough to care about his safety, and no one worried about him. Why would they? Six centuries of accumulated power made Symon the next best thing to indestructible, but Michael didn’t know that. His human was worried about him.
He’d be worried about anyone, he’s a nice guy.
Symon stopped smiling.
They hit the third floor together. Michael at his shoulder, Symon strode down the hallway to his suite. He could almost taste the vampires on the other side of his door—a very familiar taste.
Adrenaline still punching his heart, Symon slowed to a stop. Of course, they were here. What had he been thinking, telling them a meal had been interesting? He blamed himself. And Andrew, because this ambush had the redhead all over it. Only a baby in the night life, Andrew was still so fucking human. It annoyed the crap out of Symon.
“You okay?” Concern put tiny creases at the corner of Michael’s eyes.
Symon nodded, gestured at the door to his suite. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
Michael looked down the hallway, back at Symon. “You know someone’s in there?”
“Yeah, it’s a package deal. Fangs, blood, sensing when another nightwalker is on your stomping ground.”
“So, they’re…like you?”
Symon set his hands at Michael’s hips, tugged him closer. “No one is like me.”
“Yeah, he’s one of a kind,” a voice said. A voice that had them turning as one, to find a man walking down the hallway towards them. At just under five foot eleven, Andrew was still as slender as he had been at twenty-four. The red-gold hair had grown darker over the years, his shoulders wider, and the green eyes more confident. The cute boy-next-door had evolved into an attractive man. Now thirty-three, Andrew didn’t look a day over thirty, and thanks to Symon, he never would.
“Hi, I’m Andrew,” the redhead said, offering Michael his hand. “A friend of Symon’s.”
“Michael.”
“Where’s your keeper?” Symon asked. Not bothering to wait for Andrew’s answer, he stalked off.
Andrew grinned at Symon’s departing back, turned to Michael. “My partner,” he said, as they followed in Symon’s wake. “Is keeping an eye on the Japanese stock market. Etienne’s a financial planner. He reads stock markets the way most people read bedtime stories,” he said, catching the door to the suite before it slammed shut behind Symon, and holding it open for Michael. “You’re surprised,” he said, reading the look on Michael’s face.
“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t think vampires were financial planners.”
Andrew went still. He didn’t quite manage the statue effect the older vampires could achieve, but Symon was proud of his fledgling. Not that he had trained Andrew, that had been Etienne, but still, blood will out.
“He knows?” His eyes locked on Michael; Andrew addressed the question to Symon. Neither man answered, but whatever Andrew saw on Michael’s face had him turning on his sire. “Are you fucking kidding me? All that shit about keeping the Eternal Secret and you fucking told him?”
Symon hadn’t told Michael a damn thing. Dimple Man had sucked the information out of his head, but he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t say anything because he’d promised to keep Michael’s secret.
“Tell no one,” Andrew continued, eyes blazing, and voice raw with emotion. “That’s the deal, right? I can’t believe—”
“Andrew.” Etienne abandoned his seat by the fireplace, crossed the small sitting room to his partner. Six feet tall with dark hair and darker eyes, he moved with fluid grace. Wide shoulders, narrow hips under quietly expensive clothes, Etienne was the tall, dark, and handsome beloved by fortune tellers.
“He’s known this guy a whole two minutes,” Andrew said, curling his hands into the front of Etienne’s sweater. “And he fucking told him. He told him, Etienne.”
Michael caught Symon’s eyes, tilted his head at the door.
“No,” Symon said, pressing a hand to Michael’s shoulder. “Stay.”
Michael stripped his coat off, but he stayed by the door, trying to give Andrew and Etienne at least the illusion of privacy. Symon dumped his jacket on an antique desk, wandered over to the pair of corner windows, and pretended to be absorbed in the snow-covered park across the street.
“You lived in the shadows for centuries because of that fucking secret,” Andrew ranted. “You walled yourself off behind a charade, alone, because of him. And after everything you’ve sacrificed, he fucking changes the rules. How can he—?”
“Shhh, Little One,” Etienne said, wrapping Andrew up, and holding him close. “Yes, I lived in isolation, but that was not Symon’s fault. He did not invent the Eternal Secret. It has ever been our defence against the hunters. You were born into an age of scepticism and science. You cannot conceive of what it meant to be Vampire when humans feared us, pursued us with stake, and flame.” Etienne stepped back, held Andrew’s shoulders, and his eyes. “Symon was trying to protect me.”
“He did a fucking shit job of it,” Andrew said, shrugging out of Etienne’s hold.
“And yet, I am here,” Etienne said, fingers slipping to the pulse point in Andrew’s neck. “And so are you,” he added, and turning from his partner, he offered his hand to Michael. “I am Etienne. It is a pleasure to meet you, Michael.”
“Etienne,” Michael said, shaking Etienne’s hand.
“Please forgive my partner. His language deteriorates when he is—”
“Pissed. Oh, my God, the world won’t end if you say pissed,” Andrew said, managing a facsimile of a smile for Michael. “Please forgive my partner. He lives in a Merchant Ivory film.”
“I live in a condo,” Etienne corrected. “With you,” he added, and left them to join Symon in his window alcove.
“Beloved,” Symon said, greeting Etienne.
“Sire.” Etienne took the hand Symon offered, pressed his lips to the pulse at Symon’s wrist. “Blood of your blood, ever and always.”
His fingers over the pulse in Etienne’s neck, Symon completed the ancient pledge. “Blood of my blood, ever and always.”
Formalities over, they moved into each other’s arms with the ease of years shared, Symon’s face tucking into the curve of Etienne’s neck. A part of each other’s lives for more than two hundred years, there was no one Symon trusted more. Etienne was friend, and family, and all the home Symon would ever need.
Across the room, Andrew and Michael were talking about them. Through their bond, Symon sent—
They think we’re
hot together.
Andrew does. Your Michael is jealous.
Yeah. He is.
So mature.
Symon grinned and reaching up, he tugged the elastic out of his hair spilling the blond over Etienne’s shoulder.
“I think they heard us,” Andrew said, noting Symon’s little display.
Symon snorted, moved out of Etienne’s arms. “We heard the drooling.” He pulled his hair back, snapping the elastic band around it.
“You guys should do book covers,” Andrew suggested. “You know, the kind of book that comes with a warning, for adult readers only. Now, if you had your shirts off and one of you was in chains…Oh, yeah.”
“Are you three…?” Michael asked, looking from one vampire to the other.
Etienne was across the room, standing in front of Andrew before Michael even saw him move. “That would be a no,” Andrew said, stepping around Etienne and leaning back against his chest, Etienne’s arms encircling him. Andrew crossed his arms over Etienne’s, his hands locking on Etienne’s wrists. “Think of us as family with Symon in the role of Dad.”
“Dad?” Michael asked, looking over at Symon. “Not the first image that comes to mind.”
“This doesn’t look paternal to you?” Symon asked, gesturing at his torn jeans and biker boots.
Michael looked at the blond ponytail, the sapphire eyes, and the body that belonged to a teenager. “Uh, have you seen my father?”
Symon laughed. “No, but my realtor is working on it,” he said, crossing the room to drop down into the one armchair by the fireplace. Etienne and Andrew moved to the love seat, leaving Michael with no place to sit. Symon held out his hand inviting Michael to his lap.
“You know I’m bigger than you, right?” Michael asked.
Six centuries strong, Symon could easily support Michael’s weight, but seeing past the man’s shoulders would be a bit of a problem. “I hate this century,” Symon grumbled, giving Michael his seat, and settling himself on Michael’s lap. “Happy now?”
