by Thomas, Ian
He struck out, catching her about the throat, lifting her up, and driving her down to the floor. With his other hand her caught her wrists and crushed the ulna bones in both arms. She cried out. To Ben she wasn’t the vampire who had just torn up his body, but a young person who’d been seduced by a sicko into this darkness.
Could he do that to Jason? It would make the darkness less lonely. But Jason’s just a kid. Like this girl. The manifestation of a greater monster’s psychosis, robbed of their innocence, and remade to be evil.
At least Matteo had asked.
But then failed him. A greater sin?
“Are you going to finish her?”
“No.” Ben released her and stood up. He was a mess but he gave it no mind. Remaining on the floor, Holly waited for her arms to heal.
“Why not?” Henry asked, still sitting on the couch.
“Because that’s what you want. For the thousandth time, I’m not a killer.”
“Disappointing.”
“Only to you.”
“You can’t have a bloodless revolution you know?”
“That may be so but my fight isn’t with her. She might be an annoying whelp, but it’s probably a worse punishment to leave her with you.”
“Then we’ll be going.” Henry stood up. “Come along Holly, I think we’ll leave Benjamin to lick his wounds.”
“I could help him with that,” she purred, having caught the taste of something powerful in his blood. “Unless you only like boys.”
“One second you’re fighting me, the next you wanna fuck me?” Ben demanded, stunned. “You’re not gonna last very long.”
“That a threat?” she asked, finally healed.
“More an observation.” Gentlemanly, Ben extended a clawed hand to her, helping her to her feet. “Now getalong little lady, you got your own big bad wolf to worry about.” Ben’s tone was mocking. Sizing Henry up, he’d almost become convinced the man wasn’t a werewolf. No wolves wielded magic.
Well there had been one.
Colton.
But he was dead, some five years now. His death ended the Pack War.
Once they had left Ben allowed himself to change back. Pain tore through him. For a second he wondered if her silver tips had indeed been poisoned. But it was just the traces of silver in the wound searing his nerves as he healed. Limping to the bathroom, he steadied himself on the vanity and looked at himself in the mirror. His naked form was bloodied, crisscrossed with red slashes, some open, some still healing. Henry had been toying with him, throwing an inexperienced vampire at him, full of arrogance and new power. And not just to see if he’d kill her, but whether Ben would do it easily. Or whether he’d resist killing her.
Had he failed the test? Or would Henry strike at him again somehow, come at him differently to elicit the desired response.
Ben wasn’t sure. As he stepped into the shower, the water painfully sluicing over his skin, he realized he had a bloodied hotel room to clean, a body to heal, and a strong need to see Jason again.
XXXVII
“Couple of things.” Jason pulled his jacket tighter around him and leaned into Ben.
“What’s that?”
“First, since we’re not dating or doing anything like that, the High Line is sending mixed messages. And secondly, the High Line in late September is insanely cold.”
Ordinarily, Jason would’ve prepped some kind of speech. Worked through the scenario in his head, written it like a script. Back and forth. Preempting Ben so that he got his point across. Especially since things with Mitch had been spontaneous. And disastrous. Turns out spontaneity was not Jason’s thing.
But this thing with Ben…
When Jason got the text to meet, he did drop everything. Wasn’t hard he was only studying and when he saw the message, he felt himself stiffen.
“I’m warm enough for us both,” Ben said.
“Again, mixed messages.”
“Okay then, maybe we can find a quiet place for you to go down on me.”
“Better,” Jason conceded. “But only just.”
“Truth?”
“Please,” Jason replied.
“I figured this would be deserted, which it plainly is.” They’d been on the elevated railway-turned-park in the biting cold for almost 15 minutes and barely seen another person. Presently, they were tucked up where the High Line ran through the upper floors of the Chelsea Market. “Neither of us really wants anyone else knowing about this dalliance.”
“Dalliance? You can just say fucking.”
“I’m from a different era.”
“Obviously.” When he slipped his hand behind the waistband of Ben’s jeans, the man clenched as if to further underline the comment.
What was he doing? Well he knew his actions, but the situation? Ben had caused so much pain. To some really good people. More pain than an entire cult of messed-up demon worshippers. And yet here Jason was, alone with him. Not just alone with him, but in a ‘dalliance’. Mostly it was fucking, but dalliance felt less…questionable.
“And I wanted to hang out.” Ben’s voice was quiet. For someone who’d been upfront about this not being a ‘thing’ Ben seemed to be looking for strings.
Maybe they’d been wrong about Ben. Was McLachlan more of a threat than everyone knew? From what Jason had heard he’d physically become a demon. Even wielding a fiery sword.
“Oh really?”
“Yes really,” Ben replied. “Never knew you were this insufferable.”
“Hidden depths.”
“Being the bad guy gets lonely…hanging out seemed like a good idea.”
“And…”
“And I’m heading to London for a couple of weeks.”
“There it is.”
“Can we get back to the hanging out?” Ben asked, kissing Jason. “Or the fucking?”
“Sure, just not here.” Jason pushed away from the wall where Ben had pinned him. They started walking to the 14th Street exit. “So London huh? How’s that factoring into your evil plans?”
“Not sure yet. Full moon’s coming up and might be better if I’m out of town.”
“That big of a deal huh?”
“Not really. Not at my age. And not after all the sex.”
“Which there will be more of?”
“Of course. But just some loose ends I need to tie up.”
“So Julie then?”
“You’re a lot smarter than you look,” Ben said with a smile. “Yeah, feel like she wants something more but she’s just not saying.”
“And that’s why I’m gay,” Jason said. “Love women to death. Some of my best friends are women. But not everything’s on the table with them.”
“Lotta good things as well.”
“I don’t doubt it. But like this, us, whatever. Pretty sure she’d freak if she knew we were fuck-buddies. Whereas I don’t give a shit if you screw her. I know what we are and where we stand.”
Ben took a second to reply. Had he heard the lie in Jason’s words? “Can you maybe explain it to her like that? There’s a possessive streak I’m not so good with.”
“Really? The hundred and fifty year-old wants the twenty year-old to handle his penis-related matters?”
“Well, you’ve been doing a good job of it so far,” Ben smiled.
“Speaking of jobs.” Jason shoved Ben into a dark doorway and slid his hand back down Ben’s pants. “My hand’s cold.”
While his hand worked on Ben’s cock, Jason nuzzled into the other man’s neck. The taste of his skin like warm caramel. Kissing his way up to Ben’s mouth, Jason saw his eyes were pitch black with gold irises. That he could possibly bring Ben’s wolf-form to the fore emboldened him. He gripped him, sliding his hand up and down.
“Benjamin?” a voice behind them asked. “Is that you brother?”
“He-Henry.” Ben yanked Jason’s hand out of his pants and pushed the younger man behind him. “How’s it going?”
“Good, just out for a constitutional, p
erhaps get a bite to eat for Holly here. You?”
“Kinda in the middle of something,” Jason said forwardly.
“No shit,” Holly spat. Jason took her as former mean girl in high school. He knew the type. Queen Bee in her little realm with her pink lips, smoky eye, and ombre hair, she’d probably struggled when she hit the real world. Hence the sugar daddy she was draping herself over. Not that Jason was one to talk, he realized. Except Henry did look a good five years older than Ben so the age gap between them was more obvious.
“Come up with that all on your own, did ya?” Jason asked.
“Uh, Jase,” Ben cautioned.
“Yeah Jase,” Holly said, sneering at his name. “Once you’ve left your mark on him, then maybe we’ll pick this up again.”
“Now, now, Holly.” Henry’s hand on her waist drew her back. “That’s just your hunger talking.”
“Maybe I should fix that,” she said aggressively.
“We gonna do this again little girl?” As Ben stepped forward, her face contorted and teeth grew into fangs. “Shoulda staked you when I had the chance.”
“Would’ve been a waste of a stake,” Jason muttered, forgetting vampires and wolves had acute hearing.
“I’m gonna rip–”
“No,” Henry said, breaking his silent study of Jason. “You won’t. Sorry to have interrupted your evening gentlemen. Perhaps we can do this again under different circumstances.”
Holly’s face changed back to normal. She raised her middle finger to her lips and blew a kiss to Jason and Ben as she walked backward. Jason noticed the fingertip was painted silver. With a smile, Henry turned and walked after her.
“Figured vampires would be cooler,” Jason said. Ben turned and sealed his mouth with a kiss. “What’s that for?”
“Mainly to shut you the hell up,” Ben said. “They both have good hearing. She won’t hesitate attacking you.”
“Like she did you?”
“How’d you know?”
“Your fear.”
Ben undid a couple of buttons on his shirt to reveal the healing scars where she had slashed him the previous night. Gently Jason touched them.
“So not silver nail polish then?”
“No,” Ben said, remembering the fight. “Actual silver nails.”
“Whatta bitch.”
“She’s just a young vampire hanging with a creepy wolf.”
“He’s a werewolf?”
“Yeah,” Ben said.
“Fellow bad guy means you’re not lonely,” Jason said, repeating Ben’s words back to him. “But hey if you need to shut me up again go for it.”
Ben didn’t respond though his expression softened. “I get that John’s death hit you pretty hard but you’re kinda all over the place. Mouthing off to them. Screwing around with me. That’s not you. Well, not what I know of you.”
“You know shit.”
“I know a nerve when I hit one.”
“Maybe I’m over being nervous.” Jason thought back to Rowan reading his cards. The Nine of Swords. The anxious figure waking. “Maybe I’m finding out who I really am.”
“And this seems okay to you? Sneaking around with a werewolf on the most wanted list?”
“You know if it makes you feel better to keep calling yourself the bad guy. Go for it. I’m not gonna stop you. But I’m also not entirely convinced.”
Pausing for a second, Ben looked the young man over. “Hey, when I get back there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Can’t we talk now?”
“No, because I think we need to have lots of sex,” Ben said, kissing him. “Besides, let me get some of my shit tidied up first and then we can talk. It’s all good, don’t worry.”
“What? Sorry, you had me at ‘lots of sex’.”
Laughing, Ben drew him from the doorway and hailed for a cab. The cold wind tore at them as the cab approached, but as Jason stood on the street, close to Ben, he didn’t feel it, his mind full of cups. Ten to be exact.
XXXVIII
When Dylan plonked the three pint glasses on the table, Freddie knew the night had gone on too long.
“Was supposed to be a quiet drink.” He eyed the beer warily. “Not getting rat-assed.”
“Objection!” Dylan said, wavering on his feet.
“Overruled,” Freddie replied before James could chip in. That would be if he was paying them any mind instead of eye-fucking anything and everything that wandered into his line of sight. “What’s going on with you?”
“Drinking. With my friends.”
“There’s drinking and then there’s getting legless.”
“That is such a stupid expression. Legless. What does it even mean?” Dylan pondered loudly as he steadied himself on Freddie.
Pointing out the irony of Dylan asking that question while trying to remain upright without aid of person, table, or stool, was a wasted effort. To Freddie’s mind this was the third night in a row they’d gone drinking. The first had been a pub crawl he’d bowed out of, leaving James and Dylan to it. Weathering Annie’s anger would have almost been bearable given the state he’d found Dylan in the next morning. Disheveled, hungover, and reeking like a brewery, he’d made Dylan extend his personal leave a couple of days just to recover. Which only prompted another bender the following night. Surprisingly, James matched Dylan drink for drink yet in the morning had the clear head and glow of someone at a tropical resort. If this was going to continue, James was gonna have to share his hangover cure-all.
“You’re supposed to be back in the office tomorrow,” Freddie said. “We have briefs to file, depositions to take, and about a million emails to deal with.”
“Ah’m fine,” Dylan protested, a little Texas slurring its way into his voice. “Ah’ll be fine. Y’all gotta chillax. Fuck, I hate that word. But you, Fredrick J. Highbrook the Third, need to chillax the fuck out.”
“My middle initial isn’t J.”
“K?” Dylan asked. “L?”
“Freddie,” James said, finally joining the conversation. “Mate, I’m only lookin’ out fa him. Ya go home. Spend time wi’ that lovely wife of yo–” A smile from a young woman nearby interrupted James. He stood up, took a slug of his beer, and started to leave. “Maybe gimme a few minutes.”
“Ah’m all good.” Dylan sipped his beer, his eyes staring off. “Ah’m just in the wrong country is all. Don’t get me wrong. Love y’all like a brother, but she’s pretty amazin’ and Ah’m here.”
“Who?” Freddie asked, struggling to keep up. “Julie?”
“Hell no!” Dylan practically spat the words, recoiling from the table, and swaying on his feet. “Hayley.”
“Who’s Hayley?”
“This girl. Woman, really. Just awesome.” A goofy grin graced his features, eyes still staring off into space. The problem, Freddie saw, was that the direction of Dylan’s stare was a group of rough, East End types in the corner.
“False alarm.” James slid back to the table and broke Dylan’s stare. “She’s ‘ere wi’ someone.”
Feeling very happily married, Freddie struggled to remember his time in the single world, trawling bars, and shagging with impunity.
“Is it such a good idea to be jumping into something so soon after Julie?” he asked, hoping Dylan’s drunken state may have some sort of truth serum effect.
“Ya talkin’ a rebound?” James challenged. “Bloody hell, ya should see the amoun’ of tail he’s bin getting’. Do a man proud dat would. Unless he’s bin doin’ it wrong mind.” Seeing another likely lass James sipped his beer quickly. “Ah-yup, we’re on.” And slipped away from the table.
“Maybe moving in with James was not the best idea you’ve had.”
“Trust me, Ah’ve had worse.”
“For example?” Freddie prompted.
“Hookin’ up with that crazy bitch so she didn’t fucken ruin mah brother’s life. Stayin’ with her all these years. Putting mah life on hold for what?”
“I though
t you and your brother didn’t get on.”
“Nah, we do. Always have, always will. Just a little engineered chaos to keep her claws out of him.”
“I didn’t know,” Freddie said surprised.
“Why would you,” Dylan said, suddenly sounding sober. “I never told anyone. My burden to bear.”
“Hold on,” Freddie said, his anger rising. “You – the best man at my wedding – never told me this. So you gave up a chunk of your life to stay with that cow to save someone else?”
“Something like that,” Dylan said absently. “Swear to god, that man is screwin’ his way through the greater London area. Y’all know he suggested a foursome last night? Ah mean Ah’m no prude or anything but that’s taken the term ‘roommate’ a little far.”
“Then move out,” Freddie said, distracted for the moment. His brain was still churning over Dylan’s admission, he just knew he had to let it go for the moment.
“Hell no, his place is sick, and he’s only charging for utilities. Who’s gonna walk away from that?”
“But the foursome?”
“Ah didn’t do it. And Ah think he was joking around,” Dylan replied as Freddie laughed. “Well, mostly. Something of a man-whore is old James.”
“Speaking of which,” Freddie said. “He’s been gone awhile. Might just have a look-see.”
“Stop playing Dad for once and loosen up.”
Walking away, Freddie needed the space to properly think about Dylan’s revelation. If anyone understood family dramas, pressures, and – for lack of a better word – bullshit, it was Freddie. Though from the way Dylan had always told it his family were pretty sitcom-perfect. All, that is, except his brother. Or so he had been led to believe. Dylan was reckless, selfless, and possibly the smartest person Freddie had ever known. But to give up years of his life to be with someone he didn’t really like, purely to keep her away from his brother, was extreme. Even for Dylan.
_ _ _
Alone at the table and feeling every one of the twelve pints he’d consumed on an empty stomach, Dylan was ready to head home. When Freddie returned, he decided, that’s exactly what they’d do. This was the third pub they’d been to so far. The quality of which had slowly declined the more drunk he’d gotten. Time to call it. He needed to sleep and get back into his life, get out of this post-Julie limbo. He hated that even after everything she still impacted his life. Admittedly it had been twelve years. Which was gonna leave a mark. That much he’d known going in. Correction, he’d suspected it; but at the inexperienced age of seventeen his hubris had gotten the better of him. And now at twenty-nine after losing a huge chunk of his life to a fool’s errand, Dylan almost didn’t know how to operate without Julie.