Omega’s Vampire Bodyguard: Tenebrae Brothers Book 2

by Oakley, Hawke

  The entire time, I continued rubbing his cock with my boot. Even though I had plans to make him cum with my mouth after I was finished, I was glad he enjoyed this as well.

  Caleb whined.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He popped his mouth off my dick. Saliva dripped from his lips. “I, um, feel like I’m gonna cum soon.”

  “Is that right?” I ran my boot up the length of his shaft and he cried out. “Then cum for me.”

  “I want you to cum at the same time,” he murmured. “Can I keep sucking you?”

  “Yes,” I said hoarsely.

  Caleb wrapped his mouth around my cock again with great enthusiasm, moaning the entire time. The burning arousal in my lower gut flared. My orgasm was about to hit me. I kept rubbing Caleb’s cock with my boot until the intense wave crashed into us at the same time.

  I snarled as I came, jets of my cum hitting the back of Caleb’s throat. Through the blur of stars, I was conscious of him swallowing as much as he could and licking up the mess.

  He moaned the entire time, and finally came a moment after me. His fist pumped furiously around his dick and ropes of white fluid splurted out until his hand and my boot were covered in it.

  When we both descended from our highs, I stared at the mess we had made. Caleb apparently noticed the same thing, as his face turned deep red with shame.

  “Oh. Sorry,” he said with a sheepish grin.

  I sighed and removed my boots to set them aside. I would deal with them later. “Don’t worry. I had as much to do with this as you did.”

  I helped Caleb to his feet.

  “Now come. Let’s get ourselves cleaned up, shall we?”

  12

  Caleb

  Something glinted in the darkness. Unable to move, I could only stare, frozen in fear, as the terrifying blur approached, moving too quickly than any human-shaped creature should be naturally able. The breath evaporated from my lungs, extinguished like a flame, leaving behind only suffocating smoke.

  I whimpered in fear. She came closer. Her fangs dripped with venom. I was caught like an insect in a spider’s web, unable to do anything except wait for my death.

  With her claws and fangs ready, Margaret lunged.

  A scream ripped from my throat as I shot up. A wave of consciousness rolled out and I realized it was a dream. A nightmare.

  The room looked unfamiliar, I thought with a prickle of unease. Then I remembered why.

  I came face to face with Adriel, who looked shocked. He’d only been in a vampire’s trance - not fully asleep like a human - so I wasn’t surprised my cry had roused him.

  “Caleb, what is it?” he asked.

  He put his hands firmly on my arms, and the pressure of his grip brought me back down to reality.

  “Breathe,” Adriel instructed.

  I felt dizzy, but I did as he told me. Soon the long, deep breaths settled the static of my mind and I was able to think clearly.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I was having a bad dream.”

  “I see that,” he replied, looking grave. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I held my tongue. Did I really want to tell Adriel that his mother was the one causing these recurring nightmares?

  “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine,” Adriel said. “But if it’s something I should know, tell me. We don’t keep secrets anymore, remember?”

  “Right,” I mumbled. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, no longer feeling tired and wanting to distance myself from unconsciousness. “It’s just hard to explain.”

  Adriel put his hand on my own. “I’m listening.”

  “Okay…” I sighed. “Ever since Margaret attacked me, I’ve been having these nightmares about her. About getting killed by her.”

  Adriel’s expression softened. “Oh, Caleb…”

  I stared at the sheets, feeling small and useless. “Sorry, I know she’s your mom and everything, but it freaked me out more than I thought it would.”

  “You know, she’s not my biological mother,” Adriel said. “To be honest, I wouldn’t even compare her to an adoptive one. My brother Theo is probably the only one out of the three of us who holds feelings like that towards her.”

  “I figured something like that,” I admitted. “I guess I just feel guilty that I feel this way about her.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Adriel said. “It’s a natural reaction to have fears about someone who tried to murder you.” His face darkened, and I knew what he was thinking even if he didn’t say it out loud: Someone who, as long as she’s alive, can still try to murder you.

  I played with the edge of the blanket.

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve had this nightmare, is it?” Adriel asked.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “And you suffered in silence all this time?” There was no accusation in Adriel’s voice, only sympathy and guilt.

  I shrugged. “I didn’t want to bother you, especially since things were weird between us.”

  Without another word, Adriel embraced me. He held the back of my head and stroked my hair. I let myself relax in his arms. The leftover fear from my nightmare melted away, and now I only felt warmth and comfort. My heart thumped happily in my chest.

  “I’m here,” Adriel soothed.

  “I know,” I said. Right now I was so pleased and content that I didn’t even care that my voice cracked.

  “I’d like to tell you something,” Adriel said after a moment of quiet. “But if you’d rather not hear a vampire story after your nightmare, I understand.”

  Curious now, I lifted my head. “What’s it about?”

  Still holding me against his chest, he pressed his lips gently to my temple. “It’s about my turning.”

  My heart flipped. It was an intimate memory for him to share with me, but I knew that realistically, it also included Margaret.

  So that’s why he asked first, I thought. He’s trying to be considerate in his own way.

  But my anxiety over Margaret paled in comparison to my curiosity. Adriel was a private man, I knew that already - it had taken him this long to understand and accept his feelings for me - so him offering to tell me the story of his turning must have been difficult.

  I smiled and cuddled closer to his chest. “I do want to hear it. Even if Margaret’s in it.”

  The room went quiet, with only the sound of my breathing and the gentle stroke of Adriel’s fingers through my hair breaking the silence.

  “It was a very long time ago,” Adriel began. His voice sounded distant, like he was in the deepest recesses of his mind, digging the memory out. “Centuries ago.”

  “Centuries?” I said. “Plural?”

  “Yes. Almost three,” Adriel replied.

  “Three hundred years,” I mumbled in awe. “That’s a big age difference.”

  He shot me a quirked brow. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”

  I shut my mouth and nodded.

  “Before I delve into it, I must warn you in advance that it’s not a very pleasant story,” Adriel said.

  “I figured that,” I replied. “I mean, just from what I’ve read in your books, turning into a vampire isn’t fun.”

  “It is not,” Adriel confirmed.

  “Still, I want to hear it,” I pressed. “I want to learn more about you.”

  If Adriel could have blushed like a human, I’m sure he would have. He cleared his throat politely.

  “I know now in hindsight that it was my own stupidity that caused this to happen,” Adriel began. “It wasn’t a safe time back then. Compared to modern times, it was chaos.”

  “Really?”

  “I lived in a small town with a curfew,” he went on, “because of the dangers roaming at night. Wild animals, bandits… and things beyond the knowledge of people at the time. Like vampires.”

  “They didn’t know about vampires?”

  “They did. But they didn’t know what to look for,” Adriel said, his mouth a tight line. “We
were taught to see an ugly, abomination of a creature, with grotesquely protruding fangs and leathery bat wings.” He paused. “The creature that attacked me did not look like that.”

  I withheld a gasp. An image flashed in my mind of Margaret attacking Adriel and I shuddered with a fresh wave of anxiety.

  “It wasn’t her,” Adriel stated. His eyes looked distant again. “She was the one who saved me. That night, a foolish feeling came over me. At the time, I was dissatisfied with the lack of freedom in my life. I was a grown, healthy man, and felt that a curfew didn’t suit me.”

  I listened with growing dread, knowing this story didn’t have a happy ending.

  “I gathered my notebook and pen, and set out to the field outside the town. I was a writer back then, the same as I am now - although I was unskilled and inexperienced - so I wanted to get a taste of the night sky, alone. I wanted to feel the moonlight on my face.”

  I watched him now as he closed his eyes, back in the memory of it.

  “Those were the sensations I needed to experience, to write down,” Adriel continued. “So I was lost in my thoughts. I wasn’t being careful. The other townspeople were paranoid, too cautious. I thought I was bulletproof, so to speak, that nothing would happen to me.”

  His hand tightened around mine. I stroked the back of his hand with my thumb, trying to soothe him in any way I could.

  “I didn’t see it coming. My nose was buried in my writing when it happened.” Adriel opened his eyes again, and they were dark and tormented, like he was prying open an old scar. “A vampire attacked me. A stray, just a passerby looking for a meal. A predator seeking prey. I didn’t stand a chance. I shouldn’t have.” Adriel’s eyes hardened now. “The only reason I’m still alive is because he was sloppy.”

  My skin prickled and I nestled closer to him for comfort. “How?”

  Adriel stroked my hair, as if I was the one recalling a difficult memory and not him. “He was too eager, and therefore careless. He must have been too hungry to think, and attacked the first human he saw.” Adriel paused and stared into the darkness. “It was violent, loud and brutal.”

  I winced in sympathy.

  “He shot out of the treeline, faster than anything I’d seen before in my life, and attacked me. I remember screaming and seeing blood everywhere. I didn’t know what was happening until after it was over.”

  “Over?” I asked hesitantly.

  “It was all a blur, but I knew at one point someone else had joined him. My first thought, hazy from blood loss and terror, was that another one had joined him. In a way, I was right - another vampire did come to me. But that one was Margaret.”

  “She saved you?”

  “Yes.” Adriel shut his eyes for a moment and continued. “She killed the vampire who attacked me in one quick motion, snapping his neck with her bare hands. She told me later - much later - why she did it. She said she couldn’t have clumsy and careless vampires like him roaming the lands. The more we were seen and understood by humans, the more difficult it became for us to live. She said we should stick to the shadows, and be as secretive as possible.”

  I nodded, as if I understood any of this. Like it wasn’t something out of a fantasy. Like it wasn’t reality.

  “What happened after Margaret… killed the other vampire?” I asked. Even just saying it out loud made me shudder. I imagined the woman I met, small and frail, being so powerful in the past - strong enough to kill another vampire like he was nothing.

  A bittersweet tenderness glowed in Adriel’s eyes. “She looked down at me. I was pathetic and broken, laying in a pool of my own blood. Dying.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why she saved me. Maybe she saw something in me that even I didn’t know about myself.” He frowned. “Or maybe she was just lonely.”

  I remembered that Adriel was the oldest out of the brothers. He had been by Margaret’s side the longest. They had been together for centuries, and now she was dying. I couldn’t imagine how hurt and conflicted Adriel must have felt.

  “Was it… painful?” I asked. “Your turning?”

  “More painful than you can ever imagine,” Adriel murmured. “I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody.”

  I pressed myself closer to his chest and wrapped my arms around him. “I’m sorry.”

  Adriel nodded and hugged me back. Neither of us spoke for a long while.

  “So the scenes in your books, of humans turning into vampires,” I said, “they’re all based on reality.”

  “Yes.” He stroked my hair, then dipped down to my back where he continued petting me in soothing motions. “And you’re the only human who knows that.”

  I smiled a bit.

  “Just in case you ever ask me to turn you,” Adriel said suddenly, “my answer will always be a resounding no. I refuse to put anybody through the pain my brothers and I faced.”

  “I get it,” I replied. “I wasn’t going to ask anyway. No matter how cool and sexy you are.”

  An impish smirk tugged at his lips. “You can be cool and sexy without being a vampire.”

  “Are you saying I’m cool and sexy?”

  “Cool?” He cupped my face. “Maybe. Sexy?” He leaned in closer so his lips were inches from my ear. “Absolutely. Especially last night.”

  I shivered. “Cut it out before you give me another boner.”

  He grinned at me like a snake. “Would that be so bad?”

  “I have work later,” I complained half-heartedly.

  His nose grazed the shell of my ear, and his warm breath made me shudder. “All the more reason to decompress, is it not?”

  “Wow, you got super horny once you finally admitted your feelings for me,” I teased. “It’s actually kind of funny.”

  A low, playful growl built in Adriel’s throat. “If you don’t want to fuck, then I’m fine with going back to sleep.”

  The way he stressed that word made my heart flip. “I do! Well, maybe not actual penetrative fucking, since I don’t have another condom, and I’m not sure if those suppressants actually kicked in, but…”

  Adriel paused. “They haven’t? But your heat ended a while ago, did it not?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “That’s what’s weird about it. Usually it lasts at least a week. I did take those suppressants, though, but they usually take a few days to kick in. My heat ended almost… too fast.”

  A brief flash of panic flitted across Adriel’s expression before he returned to normal. “I’m sure it was the medication.” He touched my arm and squeezed it. “In any case, we did use a condom during penetrative sex. You have nothing to worry about.”

  “You’re right,” I said, then chuckled. “It’d be kind of crazy if both Benji and I got pregnant with half-vampire kids at the same time.”

  Adriel quirked a brow. “It’s a bit too early in our relationship to think about that.”

  “I know. I was just joking.” With a yawn, I slipped back down onto the pillow and nestled against Adriel. “I’m gonna try to get some more sleep before my shift.”

  “All right,” Adriel said. He gave me a kiss on the cheek and murmured, “Goodnight, Caleb.”

  “Night…”

  I tossed and turned until I was comfortable. But although my body wanted desperately to fall back asleep, my mind was racing. A seed of doubt had been planted and it was all I could think about.

  It shouldn’t have been possible, but...

  What if I was pregnant?

  13

  Adriel

  Caleb shouldn’t have been pregnant. We took all the necessary precautions. That was what I kept telling myself, hoping that focusing on that point would make it a reality.

  Still, that didn’t stop me from mulling over it. It was a fact that his heat ended strangely early. Whether that was because he came pregnant - which was unlikely, given our condom use - or the heat suppressant pills began to work.

  Did he want a child?

  Did I even want a child?

  The thought never occurred to me
before now. We’d barely just begun a relationship. Could we really have a child so soon?

  Conflict stormed inside me. I was neither drawn to or pushed away by the idea. All I felt was a strange, awkward curiosity.

  It doesn’t matter, I told myself firmly. He’s not pregnant, so there’s nothing to dwell on.

  But as I settled down beside him, ready to re-enter my sleep-like trance, the tiniest voice in the back of my mind asked if that was really true, or if I was just lying to myself again.

  * * *

  Caleb’s shift had ended a few hours earlier, when we arrived home before dawn. The shift had been normal, if a bit awkward. Caleb’s friend and coworker Jess had questioned him about the incident with the robber. Although she came from a good place, I could tell her well-meaning interrogation was wearing Caleb down, so I intervened. Caleb told me afterwards that he was thankful for that.

  Now Caleb collapsed onto the couch to play videogames and wind down.

  Outside, the sun broke out over the land, coating the estates in golden light. Of course, I was viewing it from inside black-out curtains and heavily tinted windows, so as not to spontaneously combust.

  A curious tension hung in the air, like something important was about to happen. I placed my hand on the window.

  “Hey, do you wanna sit with me?” Caleb asked behind me. “You don’t have to play, but it’s nice just to be with you.”

  My heart sang at his words. Ever since I allowed myself to feel something for Caleb, I felt flashes of joy at things he said or did. They were like brand new pockets of color in a sea of grey.

  “Yes, I’d like that,” I replied.

  With my work notes in hand, I took a seat next to him and propped up my work on a side table.

  “I’ll be here writing, if you don’t mind,” I said.

  “No, why would I?” He blinked and curiously glanced at my notes. Biting his lip, he asked, “Is that the draft for book four?”