She said, “Happy seven-hundred-and-fifty, handsome.”
He smiled, despite himself, and blew them out in a single breath.
~*~
Their city probably wasn’t actually a city: one red light, an intersection bisected by train tracks, and flanked on both sides by locally-owned businesses. A tattoo parlor, a tavern, several clothes boutiques. A vape shop, a bait shop, and an authentic butcher shop. A Mexican restaurant with a patio strung with lights where they had fajitas and Coronas every Friday. Anna liked to thumb through old vinyls in the secondhand store, and shop for antiques in the close-walled, pleasant-smelling shop next door to it.
Their attic overlooked a sleepy neighborhood full of single-story cottages that had once been built to house the mill workers – a mill long-since shut down. Lawns were weedy and cars were junky, and it was perfect.
When they first moved in, they earned some curious looks – well, Fulk did. Anna was sweet, and Southern, and adorable, and she fit right in. But Fulk, with his long black hair and his aristocratic features, and his British accent got a bit of curious attention. Eventually, though, the locals had decided he wasn’t all that exciting and they left him alone.
Around the city proper was a ring of chain businesses, fast food places and the Walgreens they’d gone to tonight, where the employees drove in from Carrollton or Douglasville, and didn’t know him. Like that poor cashier who’d thought he was a sex predator trying to abduct a college girl.
The real abduction had been a long time ago. And not entirely true, he didn’t guess.
The truth had been more sinister, actually.
But Anna had never been a victim.
She snuggled up beside him on the sofa and he turned his face to nose into her hair, scent her. She still smelled like sex and pine needles and a thunderstorm.
“Want to take a bath?” he asked. The clawfoot tub was just big enough for the two of them.
“Mm. Yeah. After this episode.” His girl loved her Seinfeld reruns.
Rain fell against the roof and the windowpanes, sealing them in together in their den of antiques and crumbling books and the nail polish bottles lined up in the dormer ledges. It was all so ordinary and human; the only monsters were them, just the way he liked it.
~*~
When they were pink, pruney, and clean, Fulk sat down cross-legged on the floor and Anna perched on the bed behind him, her slim legs bracketing his shoulders. She combed his wet hair, the gentle pull drugging him into a wakeful sort of sleep. She braided it, but not seriously, loose, undoing it as soon as she was finished and starting over.
Relaxed, he breathed deep and easy; slowly, her scent changed. From content and warm to something warmer, spicy. He smiled to himself when Anna brushed his hair back behind her shoulder and leaned forward to press a butterfly kiss against the bite mark she’d left earlier, the brief flash of tenderness a jolt that moved straight down his spine and settled in his hips.
Her lips skimmed inward, to the base of his throat, opened and tasted him there, her tongue wet and hot.
A growl built in his chest, a low, turned-on rumble.
“Fulk,” she whispered, helpless, needy.
He got up on his knees and turned around, stayed within the V of her open legs. She was wearing one of his shirts and nothing else, eyes glowing amber. He pushed the shirt up and buried his face between her thighs.
~*~
“Was it an okay birthday?” she asked, later, when they were stretched out on top of the covers. The thunder had moved on, but the rain lingered, a light patter overhead.
Fulk snuffled into her hair and held her closer, needing the skin-to-skin contact. “It was a wonderful birthday.”
“Not like summer in Paris,” she lamented.
“Better.” He’d never needed Paris, or any of the world’s cities they’d lived in. He only needed her.
She hummed, sleepy and content, and snugged her face into his shoulder; her lashes tickled.
They dozed for a while, sated for now.
And then his phone rang.
“Fuck,” he muttered, burrowing deeper into her hair, resenting the shit out of whoever was calling.
Annabel made a sound of agreement.
The call rang out to voicemail and then was silent. Thankfully.
And then it started ringing again.
Fulk was out of bed and across the room in three strides, snatching the hateful device up off the table. “What?” he snarled, when he answered, letting the wolf bleed heavily into his voice. An honest to God snarl.
Whoever was on the other end gasped. A throat cleared. “Um,” a female voice said. “I’m, um, trying to get in touch with Baron Strange. Have…have I reached him?”
Fuck. Fuck. He was Frank Stephens these days, legally; that was the name on their utility bills and magazines. No one alive right now knew him by his real name, much less his title. Save Anna…and certain members of the immortal community – none of whom he kept in contact with.
Panic seized him as he stood naked in his own kitchen; he half-expected search lights to beam through the windows.
“Fuck,” he said aloud, and heard Anna get out of bed.
“I’m sorry,” the woman on the line said. She sounded frightened. “I thought–”
“Who wants to know?”
“What – oh! Oh, yes, well. Um.” She cleared her throat again. He swore he could smell her terror through the cell connection. “My name’s Jennifer, Lord Blackmere, and I’m the personal assistant to Dr. Talbot with the Institute of–”
“I know what the Institute is.”
“Yes, yes, of course!” She tittered nervously. “Of course you do. I’m not sure if you’ve met Dr. Talbot before…” She paused, waiting for him to confirm, and then pressed on when he didn’t respond. “Right, well, he’s been made the head of field operations and he’s had great success at the New York base.”
Fulk had heard about New York; he guessed the term “success” was relative.
“He’s just acquired two incredibly sensitive artifacts,” she continued, “and he’d like to move them to a more secure location. He wants to set up an entire new base, actually. And he was wondering…”
Anna pressed up behind him, her skin warm and comforting. She slid her arms around his waist, smoothed her palms up and down his stomach.
“…if he could talk to you about your house.”
“What about my house?” he snapped, gaze swinging wildly from window to window. Shit, he was going to have to fight off an entire black-booted squadron without any pants on, wasn’t he? Not necessarily a challenge, but an embarrassment, for sure.
The woman gulped. “I’m sorry, is it not still abandoned? Dr. Talbot said you weren’t living there.”
Oh. That house.
“The manor?”
“Yes.” She sounded relieved. “Blackmere Manor. Is it available?”
“I don’t live there, if that’s what you mean.”
“Right. Great.”
“Why would Dr. Talbot want to use my manor as a base?”
“Um,” she hedged. “These acquisitions require…a particular kind of storage.”
His heart thumped hard. Anna covered it with her hand. A slow horror began to dawn. “Where did the good doctor get these acquisitions?”
In a timid voice, she said, “Romania.”
The bottom fell out of his stomach. Seven-hundred-and-fifty years on this earth, and he’d thought there was nothing left to surprise him. This did, though. This frightened him.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed. “Don’t tell me you bloody idiots–”
“Yes, Lord Blackmere,” the woman said, tone suddenly stronger. Bold, even. “We did. We have them – both brothers.”
“Fuck,” he whispered. A shudder moved through him…and then a wave of grim resignation. It had been so peaceful for so long, he really shouldn’t have expected it to last any longer. “Take the house,” he bit out. “Tell the doctor I’ll be there
in three days.” He stabbed the screen with his thumb to disconnect the call as she was thanking him.
He let his hand drop to his side, brought the other up to cover the back of Anna’s with it. Stood there with his teeth gritted, hating the world.
Well, not all of it. It had given him his Annabel, after all.
She pressed her soft cheek to his spine and said, “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can fuck off to Australia or somewhere. Live in the outback.”
He tightened his hand over hers. His sweet, sweet girl. “No, we can’t. But thanks for pretending, baby.”
“Always.”
~*~
Dr. Edwin Talbot stood on the wide top step of the manor house, watching the driveway where it emerged from the trees, bubbling with childish excitement. It was an effort not to pinch himself; he couldn’t believe this was finally happening. After decades of research, lobbying, brown-nosing; after countless sleepless nights and a ruined marriage, he had his position at the Institute. He had the brothers, waiting for him inside Blackmere Manor. And right now he was waiting to meet the oldest living wolf in existence.
He might faint with elation.
He cast another glance over his shoulder at the Gothic masterpiece of a home, its narrow, mullioned windows, its dangerous eaves, its rain-streaked stone façade. The stone gargoyles on the roof seemed to move if you squinted, their lips peeled back in constant snarls, wings spread threateningly. Tucked away deep in the woods outside of Richmond, the house couldn’t have looked more out of place in Virginia if it had tried, seemingly snatched off the cover of a novel, plucked from a dark and stormy English countryside.
The inside had been dusty and in need of a good airing out, cobwebs spun between the high-backed dining room chairs, but it was the most decadent, dark, romantic thing Dr. Talbot had ever seen. And the basements. Three levels of them: stone, and steel, and impenetrable. Exactly what he needed for his research and…containment cells.
He heard the rumble of an engine and whipped back around.
A dusty black ’69 Cadillac DeVille cruised up around the circular drive and came to a stop in front of the dry fountain. Under the layer of road dust, the car was flawless, not a single dent or nick. Lovingly cared for, obviously. It had probably only ever had one owner, after all.
The passenger door opened, and Dr. Talbot’s breath caught in his chest as he watched the baroness step out into the gray daylight. He’d seen photos of her, scratched and sepia-toned, but the photos had failed to make her seem alive, somehow. She stood looking up at the house, one hand on the car door, and she seemed like an ordinary girl: very pretty, dark hair curled at the ends, dressed in cutoffs and a man’s flannel shirt, scuffed black boots, a jangle of silver bracelets at her wrist. She looked young, barely out of high school. She looked like her skin would be warm if he touched it – like a person, and no longer just a legend they gossiped about.
The driver door opened, and a tall, slender man unfolded from behind the wheel. His shiny black hair fell to the middle of his back, pulled back along the crown to reveal his high forehead and cruelly beautiful bone structure. Aristocratic. A prince stepped straight from a painting. He wore a black shirt under a red leather motorcycle jacket. Polarized sunglasses with blue lenses. He walked around the car to his wife and revealed black jeans and combat boots. A bored rock star on a country vacation. Magnificent.
He took his wife’s hand and pulled her arm through his, shutting the car door with a negligent movement of his hips. Together, they ascended the stairs toward him. Lord and Lady Blackmere.
Dr. Talbot bowed deeply, his heart jumping in his chest. “My lord. My lady. Welcome.” He beamed at them.
The baroness smiled, cute and friendly. “Hi there. You must be Dr. Talbot.”
“Yes, I am. How lovely to meet you.”
The baron gave him a flat look, eyes hidden behind his shades. “Where are they?”
“Ah. Well.” He hadn’t been expecting niceties, exactly, but was still thrown by the baron’s cold disinterest. “In subbasements one and two respectively.”
The baron snorted. “And you think you have them contained properly?”
“Oh, yes, quite. The younger one is retrained, I assure you. And his older brother, well – that’s the reason I’m so glad you’re here. We’d like to wake him up.”
The baron snorted again, this one sounding more like a growl. “Why the fuck would you want to wake him up? Isn’t one bad enough?”
This was what Dr. Talbot had feared. He took a deep breath. “Bad is exactly my worry. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of my work” – he got a grimace in response – “but long story short, I’m trying to extract the medicinal properties from their blood. The younger brother is…volatile. To say the least. But I believe the older brother might be of great help to my project.”
“Hmm.” The baron nodded. Then he reached up and pulled his sunglasses off, hooked them in the V of his shirt collar. His eyes were bright blue. “You think he’ll help you.”
“Yes.”
“And you think whatever help he might – might – provide will outweigh the consequences of waking him up?”
“If the stories are to be believed–”
“Stories?” he barked. He stepped in close, leaning down into Dr. Talbot’s face, eyes flashing. Crazily, Dr. Talbot noted that he had two thin braids, one behind each ear, studded with tiny blue flowers. “How old are you, fifty? You’re a child, Dr. Talbot, an idiot kid with a hard-on for monster stories. What you brought back from Romania aren’t stories. They’re living, breathing animals, more dangerous and violent than you can even begin to comprehend. You have the scourge of the Ottoman Empire in your basement, and you want me to wake him up?”
“Well. Yes.”
“You’re fucking stupid.”
“Now, baby,” the baroness said. “Don’t be rude.”
Dr. Talbot smiled at them. “Forgive me, my lord, but before you pass judgement, there’s something you ought to see.”
~*~
The house looked just the way he remembered it on the inside. Dark, decadent, overdone. Someone had polished the floors, and furniture, and the massive chandelier that hung above the foyer. But now, unlike then, the place was teeming with modern people: Institute employees and researchers with pocket protectors and laminated ID cards on lanyards.
“Fulk, it’s as beautiful as I remember,” Anna said at his side. She walked with her fingertips resting on his arm, smiling as she looked at their surroundings.
Fulk wanted to smile for her sake, but couldn’t make himself.
Talbot led them to the room that had once been styled as a study – and which looked the same – and went straight for the soaring, seven-foot fireplace. The grate had been removed, and the old false back had been replaced with a heavy steel door that required keycard access. The hallway beyond was the same, though, old gray stone that led to a tight, spiraling staircase.
The first, main basement had been transformed into a lab. Banks of computer monitors, row-upon-row of steel tables topped with microscopes, centrifuges, beakers, hot plates, scales, and rack after rack of vials. Big walk-in refrigerators and cold storage bins. Biohazard labels everywhere. Techs in white lab coats and goggles worked with utter absorption, not looking up as they passed.
Talbot took them into a dark room with a projector screen set up, waved for them to sit.
Fulk chose to lean against the back wall.
Undeterred, the doctor got a film set up and clicked Play, the footage flickering across the screen.
“This is a cross-section of a pancreatic tumor, looked at under a microscope,” he said, which explained the amorphous blob. The clear, pointed end of a pipette entered the shot. Crimson liquid was piped onto the slide, a small puddle right beside the tumor. “This,” Dr. Talbot said, voice shaking with excitement, “is four milliliters of Prince Valerian’s blood.”
Valerian. A bone-deep flare of panic lit up Fulk’s body lik
e a switchboard. He ignored it. “You drew his blood?”
“Oh yes, he was actually quite cooperative.”
“Fucking idiot.”
“Fulk,” Annabel warned.
But the doctor didn’t seem to mind the name calling at all. “Watch,” he said, pointing up at the screen.
Fulk watched, and as he did, the blood slid over the tumor…and began to fizz like soda bubbles. And the tumor shrank. Noticeably.
Dr. Talbot turned to face him, the projector glinting off his glasses and his teeth as he smiled. “My lord, this is just one of many examples of the blood’s curative properties.”
“So it cures cancer. There’s a lot of shit vampire blood can do. Drain the fucker dry and go about your business.”
Talbot winced. “Well. It’s more complicated than that, I’m afraid.”
Fulk stared at him.
“What we’ve found so far is incredible, undoubtedly the medical discovery of the century – possibly of all time. But we’re in the early days of experimenting. Extensive testing is required to determine just how this blood interacts with human cells. We need to understand possible side effects. We’re still years away from synthesizing it into any sort of clinical drug that could be made available for widespread use. There are things like patents and funding to consider.”
“Of course,” Fulk said, deadpan.
Anna was sitting on a table, legs swinging, and shot him a raised-brow look.
“Thus far,” Dr. Talbot continued, “we’ve been testing with biopsies and tissue samples, yielding remarkable results, as you can see. But finding live test subjects who are willing to be injected is another matter entirely.
“The US military has generously provided us with a list of willing participants.” He made a sad face. “Veterans wounded in combat. They’ll try anything, no matter how dangerous and experimental.”
“And the government’s funding you,” Fulk said. “Wonderful. Then what the hell do you need me for?” He was already leaning back toward the door.
Talbot said, “I was just getting to that. Prince Valerian, as I’m sure you know, has a bit of a reputation.”
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