Frostbite

by J. Emery

  "What's your name?"

  The vampire looked surprised at the question. "My name?"

  "Yeah. If you're going to lurk in my cabin I should at least know what to call you." Morgan gave the vampire a wide berth as he headed for the cabinet where he'd stashed the soup. His mother had always taught him it was rude to eat in front of guests without offering them something. She would probably make an exception for vampires. Morgan took out a second can of soup anyway. "You do have a name, right? Everyone has a name."

  The vampire bit his lip, one fang exposed. They were shorter than the stereotypical fangs Morgan expected thanks to the movies and there were two on each side, the first set bracketing the vampire's front teeth barely pointed at all. It was the next set that were the real threat. They were only a little longer than the teeth around them. Discreet. And ridiculously sharp, as Morgan and his injured arm could attest. Morgan wondered how the vampire wasn't constantly cutting himself.

  "Well, I suppose there's no harm in telling you," he said finally with a shrug. Morgan's sweater slipped down even more, one shoulder protruding from the loose collar like the tan summit of an unscalable mountain. "Ezra."

  "No last name?"

  "Not at the moment. My family isn't here. I'd rather not invite them in."

  Finally a sentiment Morgan could relate to. "Fair enough. Then I'm just Morgan."

  Ezra held out a hand, palm down, as if expecting Morgan to kiss the back instead of shake it. Strange thing was, he was tempted.

  3

  "You'll notice I didn't devour you in your sleep," the vampire said tartly as Morgan padded blearily into the little kitchen. He already perched on the counter beside the sink like an attractive gargoyle. He'd spent half the night before sitting in the same spot, watching Morgan make dinner and then watching Morgan wash the dishes, occasionally breaking the silence to ask a question in that haughty voice of his.

  Morgan shot Ezra a look snippy enough to match the vampire's tone, raised eyebrows and all. He'd slept like shit and he wasn't in the mood. Having a vampire loose in the house was bad for his beauty sleep, who'd have thought? All night he'd tossed and turned, expecting the vampire to spring through the bedroom door despite the chair wedged under the knob and the line of salt on the floor. None of it would work if the vampire wanted in. Salt wasn't even for vampires—it was for spirits—but the routine comforted him just as much as the knife beneath his pillow. By the time Morgan had finished vampire-proofing the room, he'd been too exhausted to do anything besides fall face first into bed.

  He'd thought.

  Wrongly.

  When he wasn't jumping at every sound, the few hours of broken sleep he'd gotten had still been filled with the vampire, and he had no plans to analyze what some of those dreams had really meant.

  He turned away to search for where he'd hidden the cereal yesterday while he was unpacking. There was a quiet patter of bare feet and then the vampire's breath brushed Morgan's neck.

  "I could have, you know."

  Morgan fought down a full body shiver. Cereal. He needed cereal.

  "You had that whole bed to yourself and you made me sleep on the couch like a bad puppy," he went on, body pressing so close that Morgan could feel every too-slow breath he took. "It was cold."

  "I'm not sharing a bed with you." Where was the fucking cereal? Morgan slammed the cabinet and moved on to the next, but Ezra stayed pinned to his back. He didn't radiate cold anymore. Now he was all warmth. And those lips... He had a way of pulling at them with his teeth whenever he thought that left them pink and plump and shit, it was too early for this.

  Morgan spotted the supersized bag of cereal slumped on its side behind the cans of chicken stock and soup and grabbed it up. "And in case you missed it, we're not friends. We—you and me—we are what you call enemies."

  Breakfast secured, Morgan swung around to glare at the vampire. Who was still directly behind him. Had he gotten closer or was it only the new position that made it seem that way? They were practically chest to chest. If he rocked forward an inch they could be kissing. So easily.

  Morgan narrowed his eyes. "I'm gonna need you to take five steps backwards. Right now."

  Ezra huffed, wilting slightly before counting out each step. They took him out the doorway and he stood there looking lost, like he really was the bad puppy Morgan had left out in the cold.

  Vicious killing machine, Morgan reminded himself. Dangerous predator. Literally took a bite out of you less than a day ago.

  But all he could see were the big hopeful eyes and the sleep-ruffled hair and the big gaping hole in the vampire's story. Ezra had never explained what he was doing in the middle of nowhere, dressed like sex, muddy, and half frozen. The vampire was playing him. Absolutely. Definitely. Playing him. But there was also a story there somewhere and Morgan was curious despite himself.

  He swore.

  He was going to regret this. But how was that different from any other day?

  "Do you eat cereal? I have enough for both of us."

  EZRA SAT ON THE COUCH with his legs folded under him, watching through lowered lashes as the hunter spooned cereal into his mouth and chewed in thoughtful silence. He'd offered Ezra a bowl. It wasn't blood so he didn't strictly need it, but Ezra had accepted just to be nice—a small bowl, no milk since it didn't agree with him. He picked at it with his fingers.

  Oatie Rings. Not even name brand, this came in a plastic bag with an overzealous mascot of some kind of undetermined animal. Possibly a squirrel. Or a possum. He might have asked which it was meant to be, but the hunter was barely tolerating him as it was. Ezra kept his mouth shut except to insert another piece of cereal into it. It tasted like slightly sweetened sawdust. Then again, so did most food that wasn't blood. Sweet sawdust. Salty sawdust. Occasionally he even had fruity sawdust. On the scale of sawdust-flavored non-blood foods, Oatie Rings earned a solid six. At least they were dense enough to give him that pleasantly full feeling he'd been missing for days.

  Outside, the wind had calmed as the blizzard moved on. Everything was beautiful and snow glazed, pine branches and oaks draped in mantles of silvery white. A brilliant glare kicked off the pristine snow. It looked idyllic.

  Absolutely perfect.

  It would have been beautiful if he wasn't stranded in the middle of it.

  Ezra set down his bowl and wandered to the window. When he pressed a hand to the cold glass it left a foggy outline. One, two, three, four, five fingers in relief like the handprint of a ghost.

  He had meant to leave yesterday when he misted but the moment he hit that cold, cold air he had condensed again and landed ass first in the snow. He'd chalked it up to lingering exhaustion until he tried again last night while the hunter slept. Ezra could still move fast if he had to and he could still shift to mist—both skills he'd mastered when he was barely out of diapers—but now traveling farther than the tree line around the cabin left him struggling to maintain the shape. Maybe it was an aftereffect of whatever they'd drugged him with. And maybe it would go away after a little more rest. But maybe it wouldn't.

  Which left him... stuck.

  Ezra blew on the glass, dragging one finger through the fog to draw a frowning face.

  He'd never liked waiting. He'd spent most of his life doing it and it never got easier, never got better, never got less... frustrating.

  He breathed on the glass again, turning the first face he'd drawn into a ghost of itself, then scribbling it out.

  He might convince the hunter to help him. He had driven to the cabin, which meant he was capable of driving Ezra back to the city if he couldn't mist all the way there. The alternative was waiting for family to find him. And yell at him for being stupid enough to get kidnapped in the first place.

  He preferred the hunter.

  Ezra glanced back at Morgan over his shoulder. Stubble sparkled against the hunter's jaw where it caught the sun streaming in the window, and his mouth settled into his habitual smile in between bites of cereal. The
hunter's eyes shifted to meet his. Ezra felt that look straight down to his toes.

  "So I've noticed you're not on fire," the hunter said once he'd swallowed. His eyes raked over Ezra from tousled head to bare toe. "What's up with that?"

  Not the question he had been expecting. "It's a myth. Obviously. And a good thing too. I've heard burning is a terrible way to die."

  The hunter settled back in the chair and munched another bite of cereal, mulling it over. "And you got here how exactly?"

  "I... walked."

  "All the way from the city. In a blizzard. In five-inch heels."

  "It wasn't snowing when I started," Ezra said, ignoring all the rest of what he'd said. He folded his arms over his chest. He was glad the sleeves covered his wrists. The chafing had faded but the bruises still circled his arms like bracelets and he still didn't want to talk about it. Not to the hunter. Not to his family. Not to anyone. "Why are you here? This isn't your cabin either."

  The hunter looked momentarily nonplussed. "How do you figure?"

  "It doesn't smell like you. That means it's not yours. So I have as much right to be here as you do." He resisted the urge to finish the statement with a snotty so there. It had always seemed like such a foolproof debate ender when he was eight.

  "That's not how ownership works." The hunter laughed, nearly dumping the dregs of his cereal bowl in his lap before he set it down on the side table. "I'm borrowing the place from a friend. You—you're a freeloader who may or may not be planning to murder me in my bed. And what were you doing last night, calling for reinforcements? I heard the door open, so I figured you finally bolted. But here you are," he drawled. His eyes pinned Ezra to the spot. The hard edge in them made Ezra want to get on his knees and give everything away, even things the hunter hadn't asked for.

  Ezra pulled at his lip with his teeth. It still stung where the skin had split. "I needed air." He padded back to the couch and threw himself onto the cushions. The hunter's gaze followed him.

  The hunter grinned. "I really am enjoying this game where you pretend like you're not imagining opening me up like a juice box as soon as you don't need me anymore. So what is it you actually want?"

  Ezra puffed up with indignation. "I am not doing that."

  "I'm just saying, I hope I was tasty because you're not getting at these sweet, sweet veins a second time. The blood bank is closed."

  The memory of his blood flooded Ezra's mouth, tantalizing and rich and so hot, like swallowing the sun. He'd never drunk directly from a human before. He licked his lips.

  More.

  The word hung in the air. How many days had it been since he had fed well?

  More. More. Please give me more.

  The hunter laughed. "You've got a little drool."

  Ezra blinked, memory fading, and slapped at his face in horror. There was nothing. He didn't feel anything.

  The hunter walked his bowl to the sink, still laughing even when Ezra threw a pillow at him.

  SNOW HAD PILED UP ALMOST over the roof of the shed on one side, Morgan stood up to his knees in the crunchy topped drifts, and the drive leading to the road was still less of a path and more of a wishful thought.

  So basically, he was screwed.

  And stuck with a vampire who may want to kill him. The jury was still out on that one.

  At least the snow was pretty. Perfect and crisp in a holiday movie too-good-to-be-true kind of way.

  He collected a handful of snow, the cold stinging his bare fingers as he packed it together. The ball fell apart immediately. It wasn't wet enough to stick together. He let it sift through his fingers in a shower of sparkles.

  The vampire was...

  Morgan scratched the back of his neck with one icy red hand. The vampire was like a grumpy puppy, all bitey and exuberant, and if there was a nefarious plan there, he was having a hard time seeing it. He'd accepted the cereal Morgan had offered like it was the greatest gift he'd ever received.

  The Training dictated caution and so did experience. You didn't trust a monster unless you wanted to see what your internal organs looked like as external organs. He'd heard about it happening. Not every hunt had a happy ending. Many of them ended up bloody on the wrong side. Even when it wasn't fatal, it sure left a lot of scars. Morgan had plenty of those already and wasn't in the market for more. His father would have gotten stake happy with the vampire at the first opportunity. His mother and sister would have been right behind him.

  "That's not me anymore," Morgan told the empty yard, each word leaving his mouth as a puff of white. He wasn't a hunter anymore. He'd quit. He'd quit the second he pulled that printout of his class schedule at the community college out of his pocket. There was no going back after that. His parents had treated it like a declaration of war. Weren't they supposed to be happy he was trying to better himself? He had expected surprise. Maybe even disappointment that he was stepping aside from the legacy they thought they were building. Theresa was around to carry it on anyway. He hadn't expected anger.

  So screw it. If that's how they felt maybe he wasn't a hunter anymore. Maybe he'd never been one.

  Which meant it wasn't his job to kill any vampire who wandered into his path. Inviting them to impromptu slumber parties in the middle of a blizzard, also probably not his job.

  So where did that leave him?

  He had a course list burning a hole in his pocket, but deep in his heart he doubted college math classes could make him a civilian any more than swimming lessons could transform him into a merman. What if every cell of his body already knew what he was and he was just fooling himself? That's what his family thought. He didn't want them to be right.

  Last time Morgan had turned around, the vampire was watching him from the window, breath fogging the glass. Now he stood in the open door instead, staring out with a blank stillness that suggested he had been there a while.

  "Coming out?" Morgan asked. He didn't need to raise his voice. The snow laid a hush on everything. Silence sparkled and cracked like a layer of ice as he spoke. At least he was still getting a small corner of the peace he had been looking for.

  Instead of answering, Ezra disappeared.

  "At least close the door," Morgan called. "You're letting all the warm out."

  In response, the door creaked slowly shut seemingly under its own power.

  Morgan shook his head.

  He retrieved the snow shovel, but his attempt at clearing the drive was short lived. Cold wetness seeped into his boots, his toes were going prickly and numb, and nothing short of a snowblower was going to move that much snow in one day. He was going to murder Trevor when he got back.

  Morgan stomped the snow from his boots and wedged the cabin door closed behind him with another pointed look at Ezra. He was on the couch with his legs pulled under him as though he'd never moved, a paperback in his hands.

  Morgan brushed off the rest of the snow clinging to his calves before he toed off his boots. "That's mine."

  "You left it on the table," Ezra said serenely as he turned a page without looking up. A thin smile played over his lips at whatever he'd just read.

  Morgan went to make hot chocolate. Without thinking he took down a second mug and set it beside his. Why, he didn't know. The vampire had eaten the cereal he'd offered but not the soup. Was hot chocolate vampire friendly? And why did he care? "So tell me more about these special vampire things you can do."

  "What is it you wish to know?" Ezra leaned in the doorway. He'd been ten feet away only a second ago and Morgan hadn't heard him move. Ezra shoved a hand through his thick hair and frowned when it immediately flopped forward onto his forehead again.

  "I don't know. Can you all do that disappearing thing? How many of you are there? And why haven't I ever heard of any of this? Last I heard, vampires were all but extinct." He poured out the hot chocolate into the two mugs, glancing at Ezra before topping both with a handful of mini marshmallows. He popped a few more into his mouth. The first sip of chocolate was too hot, scalding
his tongue, and more liquified marshmallow than anything. He could just make out the cinnamon in it. It smelled like memories.

  The vampire took the mug he offered and stared into it like he suspected a trap. He jabbed at a half-submerged marshmallow. Licked the sweet off his finger. "Most can turn to mist, but not all. And many can do more."

  "Can you?"

  Ezra arched an eyebrow. Morgan took that as a no that he was too proud to utter. "And you haven't heard of us because we don't wish you to. There are any number of clans these days. They all do their best to be beyond human notice. It isn't hard. Humans don't notice much even when we're right under your noses." He took a dainty sip of his hot chocolate. His tongue ran along his lower lip to catch a drip. "Though I really shouldn't even be telling you this much."

  "Then why are you?"

  "Truthfully?"

  Morgan nodded.

  "Because I'm bored and it doesn't matter. You can't touch us even if you wanted to." Ezra blew over his mug before taking another sip.

  "Well that's ominous."

  He laughed lightly. "You have no idea."

  EZRA FELT BLOATED AS a tick, but instead of blood it was chocolate filling his belly. It wasn't the same, not at all, but he liked the overfull feeling it gave him, like he'd just had the biggest and best meal of his life. He lay back on the couch with his hands on his stomach. If he listened hard, he could almost hear it sloshing.

  "That's impossible," Morgan said. His eyes were wide and his hot chocolate sat, half-finished and growing cold, on the table beside his chair. He looked bigger all hunched up like that. Sturdy and reassuringly soft. Ezra wondered what it would be like to slide his hands under that flannel shirt, to travel the rounded slope of his stomach up to his chest. He wanted to know if there was hair there and what it would feel like under his fingertips. Soft? Coarse? His own chest was bare so he didn't know what to expect.