by Kim Dare
* * * *
“Liam?”
Liam tried to open his eyes. One side of his face was still a mass of pain, but somehow he managed to pry both lids up.
A nurse stared down at him, barely disguised horror in her eyes. The rest of her expression was cheerful and reassuring, but that didn’t quite conceal how she really felt. Even while his vision remained blurred, Liam recognized her. She didn’t belong in this part of the hospital at all—she should have been up with Marcus. “Jenny?”
The nurse crouched down by the side of the bed so he didn’t have to tilt his head in order to see her properly. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” Liam murmured, but he couldn’t make the words sound convincing. “Can I go home now? I…”
She made any other words pointless when she shook her head. Liam didn’t have enough strength to fight about it.
“I do have a nice surprise for you, though,” Jenny said, with an even brighter smile.
Liam frowned slightly. He’d been to the hospital lots of times. There had never been surprises involved before. He wasn’t at all sure he was capable of dealing with any other shock to his system.
“Someone has come all the way down here, especially to visit you.”
The words turned the world slow and sticky. The air around Liam congealed. There was no oxygen in it. A vacuum pulled every molecule of it from his lungs. In slow motion, he managed to shake his head.
That movement woke up other muscles. His shoulders came to life. His arms pushed against the bedding, trying to scramble away from the idea.
He couldn’t be there. Ralph never came to the hospital. In all the times he’d sent Liam there, he’d never once come to visit. He just tossed him in a taxi and paid off the driver. That was the way things were supposed to be.
Twisting his head, Liam looked around the room for any sort of escape route, but there was only the door leading into the hallway, and that was the door that Ralph was going to walk through at any second and…
His back pressed against the pillows hard enough to send waves of pain rebounding through him, up through the cleft between his buttocks and into every other part of his body. Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Something squeaked against the freshly mopped floor.
A wheelchair came into view, a blanket tucked neatly around the legs of whoever was sitting in it. Liam dragged his gaze up to the person’s face.
Marcus…
Liam turned his head toward the nurse, but his eyes remained locked on Marcus’ face for far too long.
“No!” Finally he managed to look across at Jenny, eyes pleading. “No, Jenny, I… I don’t want to see him. Please, tell him to—”
“Liam?”
It was too late. The strong, deep voice already emanated from inside the room. Liam turned away from it as quickly as he was able, painfully rolling his body toward the window and turning his face into the pillow.
The cotton was soft, yet it scraped against his injured face like sandpaper.
Another squeak of rubber wheels against the lino floor sent a second wave of panic through Liam. No. He might have been able to take the rest, but the idea of this sort of pain invading his one refuge, of Marcus seeing him like that—that would make it real. It would make it inescapable and—
“Leave us.”
“Liam?” Jenny asked.
Turning his face farther into the pillow, Liam tried to hide from her as well, as tears flooded his eyes. Gentle fingers stroked through his hair. A moment later, he felt something touch his hand. Hard plastic gradually wormed its way beneath his palm. “Just press the button if you want me. I’ll be right outside. Okay?”
A moment later, the door into the tiny room clicked closed. Marcus was still there. Even while he refused to look in the other man’s direction, Liam could feel the vampire’s presence. The room wasn’t quite the haven Liam remembered Marcus’ room being before the other man woke up, but an unexpected calmness slowly seemed to settle over the space as the seconds passed.
No one said a word. Liam frowned into his pillow. Unease quickly began to bubble inside him. Marcus remaining silent because he slept was one thing. Marcus silent when he seemed to have put so much effort into coming to talk to him hinted that all wasn’t as well for the other man as Liam desperately wanted it to be.
Very slowly, he forced open his eyes and turned his face away from the pillow. The world remained blurry for a few seconds. As it cleared, Liam saw Marcus sitting directly in front of him, studying him very seriously.
Liam closed his eyes again, knowing what the other man must see when he looked at him and hating the whole world for that right then.
Something brushed against his hand once more, but it wasn’t plastic this time. Marcus’ hand slid into his, just as Liam had held the other man’s hand so many times over the last few months, on those occasions when he’d needed human contact and hadn’t thought the other man would know or care that their fingers were wound together.
“I’m sorry,” Liam whispered.
“Hush.” The word was gently spoken, but that didn’t make it sound any the less like an order. Liam had no doubt that Marcus expected it to be obeyed. “You have nothing to be sorry for—except not waking me before you left.”
Liam pried his eyes open once more. The other man’s hand was bigger than his, his fingers longer, they wrapped around his hand perfectly, completely encasing it and protecting it from the world.
Liam didn’t try to make any sort of excuse for anything else. There didn’t seem to be any hope that the other man would take any notice of it if he did. Liam had the distinct impression that Marcus wasn’t the type of man to accept excuses under any circumstances.
Silence descended. It remained until Liam couldn’t stand it anymore. “It…it’s good you’re feeling well enough to get out of bed,” he whispered.
Marcus lifted his other hand and very slowly moved it toward Liam’s face. There was no threat in the gesture—probably because Marcus seemed to be working very hard to ensure that was the case. His fingertips carded through Liam’s hair, brushing it back off his face.
Liam almost smiled at the gentleness, until he realized that the other man was merely trying to get a better view so he could assess the damage more easily.
“How much pain are you in?”
Liam shook his head and ignored the way the gesture made his head ache all the more. “I’m fine, I just—”
Marcus’ fingertip came to rest against Liam’s mouth, quickly silencing him. It pressed against a part of his lips that weren’t split, but that still didn’t make the touch entirely painless. Somehow, Liam managed not to flinch.
If he pulled back, he had the horrible feeling that Marcus might take his hand away, that the vampire would never want to touch him again. Liam couldn’t let that happen. He needed Marcus’ touch far too badly to risk losing it.
“Vampires and humans are different,” Marcus said, his expression very serious. “Vampires are stronger, more resilient. We don’t feel pain the same way humans do. Even so, I’m not a fool, Liam. You’re not fine.”
Liam swallowed rapidly, unable to look the other man in the eye when he spoke to him like that. It brought back far too many memories, not of his time with Ralph, but of a life before that, of those times when he’d been caught being naughty as a child. His eyes turned watery at the memory. If his parents could see him now…
“Try to answer my question again,” Marcus ordered. “How much pain are you in?”
Liam turned his attention back to Marcus’ hand. When he’d been really little, his mother had held his hand when he’d been sick. That had made him feel better too. He found himself tightening his hold on Marcus’ fingers, scared that the other man might try to take them away.
He was completely incapable of lying. “A lot,” he whispered. He was in a lot of pain. “The doctor said they can’t give me anything too strong because they don’t want to mask any indications of a concussio
n and…”
Marcus shook his head, freeing Liam from the responsibility of finding more words to add to the end of the sentence. The vampire was silent for a few moments. He stared down at Liam’s hand, his expression emotionless.
He was obviously deep in thought. Liam didn’t interrupt.
Several seconds passed by. Liam risked another glance at Marcus’ face. The vampire wasn’t staring at his hand anymore; he was staring at his neck. Liam had never seen such an intense expression.
No!
Without thinking, he snatched his hand out of Marcus’ hold and covered his neck.
No!
Something inside Liam screamed the word so loudly, it drowned out any other thoughts in his head. No, he didn’t want the vampire’s teeth inside him. He didn’t want any part of any man inside him ever again.
Liam closed his eyes very tightly, cowering away from Marcus until his back hit into the cot-like railing on the far side of the hospital bed. Tucking his head down, Liam protected his neck as best he could. He curled into a ball as his whole body started to shake.
Sweat broke out on his skin. His breathing sped up. Liam’s heart raced faster and faster. His ribs screamed. Half the muscles in his body seemed to moan in pain, but all he could do was try to force himself into as small a space as possible.
“No…”
Liam could barely gather enough breath to do more than whisper the word, but that made no difference to how loud the screams were in his head, how real Ralph’s hands felt against him. Pain burned inside him, and it was almost impossible to believe that Ralph wasn’t right there, his body pressed against Liam’s back, and his cock forcing its way inside him.
“No…” It was half a protest, half a sob.
“Liam.” Something came to rest on his shoulder. “Liam.”
Liam tried to twist away, but whatever it was still lay on his shoulder, impossible to shake off. Whimpering into his blanket, Liam gave in and stopped trying to escape.
“You’re safe now. No one can hurt you now.”
The hand on his shoulder slowly warmed the skin beneath it. No pain followed. Liam shuddered as he frowned into the darkness behind his eyelids.
He heard something behind him and whimpered.
The hand didn’t move. “Liam’s going to be fine,” the person in front of him repeated.
They sounded so confident, it was impossible to dismiss their words entirely. The idea that nothing would ever be fine again suddenly had competition inside Liam’s mind.
Another noise behind him made Liam uncurl slightly.
“It’s okay, she’s gone. It’s just you and me now.”
The hand on Liam’s shoulder didn’t move. It just lay there, reminding him that Marcus was still sitting alongside his bed. Very gradually, Liam’s panic began to drain away.
He uncurled far enough to lift his head a little. He opened his eyes. Marcus’ expression was still impossible to read.
Keeping his left hand where it was, Marcus extended his right hand toward Liam, palm open and upraised as if to prove there was nothing in his grip.
He brushed clumsily at the skin beneath Liam’s eyes with his thumb. The vampire obviously wasn’t used to wiping away another man’s tears. There was no reason why he should be.
The man before him once more became the same person who had lain in the bed he’d visited. He had nothing to fear from him. Liam uncurled a little more and stopped trying to cover his neck.
He brushed away the tears himself, ashamed of their presence. Both of Marcus’ hands retreated in response.
“I’m sorry.”
Marcus said nothing for several long seconds.
Working entirely on instincts, Liam shuffled closer to him, wanting Marcus’ hand to return to his shoulder, needing Marcus’ hand in his in a way he’d never needed anything before.
“I can ease your pain,” Marcus finally said. “If that’s what you want.”
Liam frowned slightly, staring up at the other man through watery eyes, unable to make any sense of his words.
“You know what I am,” Marcus said, with that same great care. “Vampires would have died out a long time ago if the bites placed on humans from which they fed hurt—or if they didn’t heal quickly. My bite could ease some of your pain and help you heal—but having me feed from you right now… If you’re not ready for that…”
Liam stared at where Marcus’ fingers interlinked as the vampire rested his elbows on the arms of his wheelchair. The other man’s hand had felt so good in his. He’d felt safer than he had in as long as he could remember.
If Marcus wanted his blood in exchange for that then… Liam took a deep breath. It wouldn’t be so bad. It wouldn’t be anything like what happened with Ralph. Teeth weren’t the same as…
Liam closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he knew he wasn’t going to refuse the other man anything he wanted. But, as more of the vampire’s words forced their way through the fog of pain and sank properly into his mind, Liam began to frown. “No.” He looked up and met the other man’s eyes with all the determination he could muster. “Not if you’ll feel my pain when you…”
Marcus shook his head and Liam’s words faded away. “That’s not the way it works.”
After three years in a hospital bed, Marcus had thought he understood everything there was to know about feeling helpless. He’d been wrong. Wide awake and out of his bed, all he could do was sit there and watch the emotions flicker through Liam’s eyes.
Knowing exactly how to help his prey, but not being able to do so without Liam’s permission, made every muscle in Marcus’ body tense. But at the same time, to demand the right to help him, to take away the choice to accept or refuse his offer—it would have made him no better than that bastard, Ralph, or whatever people who didn’t know he was a complete bastard referred to him as.
An acrid taste flooded Marcus’ mouth reminding him how bitter an experience being awake and back in the real world could be, but he took care to keep his expression completely impassive.
No pressure, no judgment, just complete acceptance of whatever it was Liam needed from him. If that was a feeding, fine. If it was not to feed, that had to be fine, too. As those thoughts circled around and around in Marcus’ mind, he lost track of whom he was trying to convince.
As unnatural as it felt, as unvampire-like as it felt, Marcus remained perfectly still and simply waited, with more patience than he’d ever known he possessed.
Finally, Liam met his eyes. Their gazes only locked for a second, but that was all the time Marcus needed in order to realize that Liam had made his decision. Reaching out to him, he took Liam’s hand in his once more, taking great care not to accidently crush the fragile bones as his anxiety levels doubled over and over again.
For a fully grown vampire to be nervous about a feeding…
Marcus knew he should have been ashamed of himself. It was pathetic! But at the same time it wasn’t just any feeding. It wasn’t even about it being his first feeding in three very, very long years. Liam wasn’t some anonymous submissive in a human leather bar. The boy wasn’t just looking to get whipped and screwed and bitten.
“It has to be a vein?” Liam asked, very softly.
Marcus nodded, forcing his mind to simplify the whole task down to its most basic components. “Yes.”
“My neck?” Liam’s free hand went up to his jugular.
Marcus’ mouth watered at the prospect, but he forced himself to shake his head. “Any vein. Your wrist would be fine.”
Liam’s attention immediately went to the pulse on the inside of his wrist. Marcus didn’t follow his gaze; his focus remained all on the boy’s face. He seemed to relax somewhat as he realized Marcus wasn’t going to jump on his bed and pin him to the mattress as he bit.
“There’s a natural anesthetic in the bite which will ease your pain,” Marcus explained again. “And it will release endorphins and help you feel calmer too.”
Liam swallowed
. His teeth nibbled at his bottom lip as he seemed to give the whole matter careful thought. Then, very slowly, he took his hand from Marcus’ hold.
Holding back his disappointment, determined that Liam should see no hint of how much it hurt to know that the other man was too shaken to accept the only help he could give him, Marcus leaned back a fraction in his chair, letting the canvas behind him support his weight, allowing his muscles to relax.
In that same slow way, Liam turned over his hand and offered it back to Marcus, palm up—vein up.
For an incredibly long time, Marcus sat like a fool, while the other man offered him everything he had ever wanted. His own movements were even slower than Liam’s had been when Marcus finally reached out to him.
Marcus ran his thumb very gently over the spot where he could see Liam’s vein pulsating. “You’re sure?” he asked.
Liam nodded. “As long as you’re sure it won’t hurt you,” he whispered.
Marcus shook his head. “Let me worry about me, okay?”
Liam didn’t nod the way he usually did when anyone asked him a question. That particular response had always seemed to be as instinctive as his habit of agreeing with everyone, but there was something in him that wasn’t willing to accede to that request.
He wasn’t willing not to care about someone—even about someone who’d never given him the slightest reason to give a damn about him.
“If you say stop, I will.” It was the first time Marcus ever remembered saying such a thing—the first time it had ever occurred to him that a prey might change its mind and want him to stop.
Liam did nod his acceptance of that point, a jerky little bob of the head, but Marcus’ words seemed to do little to really reassure the boy. Helpless to do anything else to help him, Marcus didn’t give Liam any extra time to get increasingly nervous about it before he bowed his head over the offered wrist.
It took all the strength Marcus had been aware he possessed, and more, to make sure he didn’t kiss the skin before he let his teeth scrape across the pale creamy surface.
He had permission to bite, not to make the feeding about anything other than that.