Resurrection

by Lissa Kasey

  Seiran sucked in air, trying to calm his anxiety and racing mind. They didn’t have to be anything. Sharing blood would be important to keeping Gabe sane, but they didn’t have to be what they were. If they’d really been anything at all. Did he want that? He didn’t know what the fuck he wanted in that moment.

  “Maybe we can get this over with?’” Gabe teased.

  Chapter 17

  He headed down the stairs, and Seiran trailed behind slowly, closing and locking the door behind him. He didn’t need his kids running around in Gabe’s space. Not that they ever visited the basement when they had an entire wing to themselves. His mother’s over-the-top choice for the house had seemed stupid at the time, but years later, filled with teenagers and almost teenagers, there was never enough space.

  “It wasn’t like a sex party or anything,” Seiran said as they entered into the living space below. There were still boxes everywhere, though a few things appeared to have been opened and rifled through. The bed was made instead of covered in a dust cloth. The room cluttered, but not as lifeless as the storage space it had been.

  “No,” Gabe said with a light laugh. “It’s more like meeting all your buddies out for drinks.”

  “Except the drink is people,” Seiran said from his spot near the stairs. He didn’t think he’d be able to negotiate for someone to feed Gabe. Wasn’t sex and blood the same thing to a vampire? He thought he was grown-up enough to handle it, but had to admit to himself that some things were just ingrained. Gabe wasn’t really his, hadn’t ever been. What right did he have to demand?

  Gabe paused to look back at him. “Sex does not equal blood. Or vice versa. I suspect that was my doing? That you think that way?”

  “I am under the understanding that being bitten hurts without it?”

  Gabe nodded, looking thoughtful. “My fault. I’ll work on that.” He took off his shirt, and it was so much like a striptease, even though Seiran knew it wasn’t meant to be, that his mouth watered. The body wasn’t all that different. He didn’t have the same super defined muscle that Seiran could remember, but none of the tone had really been lost. Gabe looked healthy, but without endless abs and the superhero arms that Seiran knew had been fantasies generated by media stereotypes rather than memories. There was a familiar scar on his chest, beneath one pectoral muscle. Seiran knew it was from being stabbed with a spear, but not all the details of it.

  He couldn’t peel his gaze away as Gabe kicked off his shoes, and his hands went to the button of his pants, unhooking them, and shoving them down to reveal royal blue undies that encased an incredible ass, and outlined his cock, which was partially hard. He was far too pretty. Seiran hugged himself, trying to tell himself it was okay to react, his body did what it did. He didn’t have to actually play out any fantasies, even if his cock was hard as a rock and begging to be touched. And what an unusual feeling to have after so long. He’d rarely found anyone at all appealing. But right this minute, his body was on fire.

  It had to be exhaustion. Yeah, that was it. It had been a long day. Lots of terrible things. He was tired. Inhibitions lowered due to weariness. Sure.

  Gabe headed into the bathroom and turned on the water, but he didn’t shut the door. After a moment steam began to fill the room, fogging up the mirror. Seiran tried to look away when Gabe shed the last bit of clothes, but that ass was amazing. Stuff of legends and memories he hadn’t been sure were real.

  “You can join me,” Gabe offered as he stepped under the spray of water in the giant walk-in shower. It wasn’t as big of a bathroom as the one Seiran had, but still a stone inlay of wide-open space to bask in the heat of the multiple shower heads.

  “Maybe we should do this another time?” Seiran said softly, though didn’t move from his spot clinging to the wall beside the stairs. It gave him a view of too much, and he should have walked away, but his head swam with a thousand scenarios. “You really didn’t sex up any of the cibos?”

  “No,” Gabe said. He washed under the spray another minute, before rinsing off. He shut off the water and reached for a towel. “Since they weren’t mine, that would have been rude. And not all cibos are into that. Some just want college money.”

  Seiran did not watch him painstakingly dry every inch of his body. He didn’t. Well, he did, and barely breathed the entire time. Where was the air? Did this room feel claustrophobic all of a sudden?

  Gabe wrapped the towel around his waist and looked up. Green gaze finding Seiran, and it wasn’t a condemning stare, or even a teasing one, instead it was filled with heat. Seiran pressed himself to the wall to keep from trembling. He shouldn’t still feel this way after all these years. The pain, being abandoned, those last few days, weeks even, of Gabe unraveling, cruel comments, and the complete shutdown of everything they had been.

  Gabe crossed the room, not adding clothes or anything as he made his way to Seiran. Not stalking exactly, but Seiran still felt a vague sense of unease. Wariness. I am vampire, be afraid.

  He didn’t stop until he stood close enough to touch, so close in fact, that Seiran could feel the warmth and moisture from the shower lingering on his skin. The scent of him clean and fresh.

  Gabe touched Seiran’s face, his palm warm, fingertips soft as they seemed to trace his cheek and the side of his lips. “Over with, you said?” Gabe asked.

  “I mean, it seems important that we…” Seiran trailed off, not sure what to do. Those green eyes, intense, and bringing back so many memories. He wasn’t sure whether to run away or throw himself into Gabe’s arms. “I’m not a kid anymore,” he said.

  “No,” Gabe agreed. “I’m grateful for that.” He leaned in close, his lips only inches from Seiran’s, the warmth of his body heating Seiran. “Remember that first kiss?” Gabe asked. “When you asked me, who kisses like that?”

  Seiran sucked in a deep breath, but smelled and tasted only Gabe. Did he remember? Maybe it hadn’t all been a lie or an act.

  “You remember?”

  “Do you?” Gabe wanted to know. His hand went to Seiran’s throat, his thumb still caressing Seiran’s lower lip, though they were so close, all Seiran could see was Gabe’s eyes, his head tilted a little as though ready to kiss him. He didn’t think he’d say no in that moment. Despite the danger. Gabe could hurt him. In a thousand ways. The hand on his throat indicated that with subtle strength.

  “Yes,” Seiran admitted. “No one kissed like you did.”

  “Do,” Gabe corrected and captured Seiran’s lips with his own.

  It was a few seconds of floundering. Seiran unsure what to do, sink into the warmth or fight. But Gabe pressed him into the wall, the heat of his body, relaxing as well as stimulating. And Seiran let himself fall into the kiss. Devouring is a word he’d thought for a long time described Gabe’s kisses. And that was true enough. But the dance of exploration, Gabe’s tongue in his mouth, exploring, wasn’t brutal, though it wasn’t delicate either. It was a duel of their tongues, and reminded Seiran of things he’d long forgotten.

  It felt like coming home after a long trip abroad to stop some crazy witch magic. He hadn’t done one of those trips in years. The feeling, intense and familiar; he couldn’t hold it back.

  Gabe broke the kiss, his fingertips running down Seiran’s cheek. Had he been crying? Fuck, he hadn’t meant to look weak. But Gabe didn’t pull away. In fact, his grip on Seiran’s throat tightened a little. Seiran sucked in air, instinct rather than need. Gabe wasn’t really stopping his airflow, more keeping him in place. And that hold felt like iron, immoveable. He should have been afraid.

  Gabe kissed one cheek, and then the other, gently lapping away the tears. “I have a handful of memories of you crying.”

  He remembered. Seiran trembled.

  “I don’t like seeing you cry,” Gabe said. He breathed out a long sigh, and turned his face into Seiran’s shoulder. Seiran wondered if Gabe would bite already, and tensed. “Are you afraid?” The hand on his throat tightened again, this time cutting off Seiran’s air a bit.


  He swallowed hard, his body reacting not in a bad way, but aching for more. Man, he was messed up. “Not afraid of anything,” Seiran said quietly.

  “No?” Gabe placed a tiny kiss on the side of Seiran’s jaw and worked his way down, decorating Seiran’s neck with soft kisses. “You smell divine. The revenant says we could feed on you for a long time. Glut ourselves with your blood and magic.”

  But if the revenant was in control, he wouldn’t be this contained. Seiran sucked in a narrow breath and called a bit of power. Nothing harmful, just a reminder, as he shifted the world around him to create a growing wave of ivy that sprouted from the bits of organic material in his clothes, and the cotton terry of Gabe’s towel. The vines wrapped around Gabe in small hugging bands, harmless right now, but Seiran could change that at any time.

  “Kinky,” Gabe said with a light laugh, not easing his hold at all. His eyes flashed black for a second, and then the vines began to fade, falling away as Seiran’s power was dispersed.

  Seiran gasped because that shouldn’t have been possible. Gabe should not have been able to control Seiran’s power.

  “You’re my Focus,” Gabe reminded him. “That means what is yours is mine, and what is mine is yours.” He loosened his grip a little but didn’t pull away. He was completely nude now, towel gone, and Seiran’s shirt half destroyed, so it was skin to skin, or at least chest to chest. Seiran’s heart rate ratcheted up, a bit of fear rolling beneath his skin. What if Gabe could control his power? What if he went out of control again? Who would stop him then? The power of a master vampire and the Pillar of Earth at his fingertips, he’d be unstoppable.

  “You are afraid,” Gabe nodded lightly. “It’s good to fear vampires a bit. The darkness inside is never completely gone. It always hungers.”

  Seiran felt the slight skim of teeth along his throat. Nothing that broke the skin, just the barest of touch. And he wanted it bad. To be bitten, taken even, and reminded of what they’d been before everything had gone to shit.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Seiran whispered.

  “No,” Gabe said. “It’s you that you fear. Losing control, becoming the monster the witches think all males with power will become. Hurting your kids, or the world, even when the world rejects you.” Gabe’s body pressed him into the wall, and Seiran bit his lip to keep from begging for more. The heat of Gabe’s cock pressing into his hip telling him there was a bed a few feet away, they could…

  “You don’t know me at all,” Seiran said.

  “Hmm,” Gabe murmured, and kissed Seiran again, diving deep until Seiran was panting, the small bits of air from Gabe’s hold and the kiss leaving him gasping, spots of darkness popping around his gaze. Exciting and terrifying all at once. He was so hard it hurt to be wearing pants, even though they were made with some stretch. Not enough give.

  Seiran interlaced his fingers through Gabe’s hair, the length unfamiliar, but soft, even with the still dampness of it. It gave him something to hold on to as he returned Gabe’s kiss, his body begging for a thousand things he wasn’t ready to voice.

  Gabe lifted him, hand leaving his throat and going to his hips, pressing them together. Seiran couldn’t help but wrap his legs around Gabe, the need to get closer, to be touched, loved, an irresistible desire. Gabe turned and carried them to the bed, lips joined, bodies pressed so tight together that they fell on top of the mattress in a tangle of limbs. Gabe’s weight pressing down on him, feeling so good and wrong all at once.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to give in so easily. But as Gabe unbuttoned Seiran’s jeans and shoved the fabric down, everything away, baring him, and then pressing heated flesh to heated flesh, Seiran could only cling to the shocks of need. His legs were still tangled in his clothes, even as Gabe took both their cocks in one hand and stroked them together, grip just this side of pain, the kiss not ending. Seiran trembled, waiting for the pleasure to erupt into an orgasm. Waiting for Gabe to sink his body inside Seiran’s and the bite of pain from being fucked and bitten. Too long, Seiran thought, since he’d had that sort of pleasure. He could handle it just this once, right?

  Gabe’s weight holding him down felt like a thousand forgotten dreams coming back. Seiran’s brain stuttered with worries that this was just sex, that Gabe didn’t really remember him, that it was just some fling. But his body screamed, yes, more, take everything.

  Gabe broke the kiss to trace a line down Seiran’s jaw with his tongue. Would the bite come soon? Seiran couldn’t stop thinking about it, wanting it. His body thrumming with a dozen needs all at once. Gabe reached down and shoved the last bits of fabric off Seiran’s legs, freeing them. Seiran wrapped them back around Gabe’s waist, needing him closer. His ass clenched in need, wanting him inside, begging to be filled—the heat between them something he didn’t know how it could possibly be natural—but he couldn’t refuse. It was like clinging to the last raft on a storm swaying ocean. Have it or die.

  “Please,” Seiran whispered. He wanted Gabe’s hand back at his throat. He wanted to be flipped over and taken hard, reminded of the weight of Gabe on his back, the feeling of Gabe’s cock splitting him open, the bite of his fangs on his throat. Seiran wasn’t a kid anymore. It was okay to want. He was bonded to Gabe forever. Not something they could break. Why not indulge? Why not enjoy? He trembled with need.

  “Please,” he begged again, opening himself, his mind, his body, the bond, everything, just to be touched again. Loved again.

  Gabe wrapped him up in strong arms, kissing again, even as he lifted Seiran and carried him further onto the bed, reaching for the pillows and the drawer beside the bed. A tube of lube dropped down beside them, and Seiran stuttered for breath, wanting so much and lost in the glide of skin on skin while Gabe kissed him, ran firm hands over him. He worried briefly if Gabe would hate the changes the years had brought.

  “Beautiful,” Gabe muttered, and flipped Seiran over, pressing himself to Seiran’s back, then rising to kiss a short line over his shoulders. “This is what you want?” Gabe asked, his cock sliding between Seiran’s thighs, hot and branding, making Seiran’s body clench with need. The tip of Gabe teased Seiran’s balls with rocking kisses as Gabe held Seiran up.

  “Yes,” Seiran agreed. He wanted so much. But hated the idea that Gabe was only doing what he wanted. He wasn’t some toy to be played with and put aside.

  Gabe laughed and sank teeth into Seiran’s shoulder. He didn’t break skin, but it was close and Seiran nearly came at the edge of pain dotting the intense roll of pleasure. Gabe picked up the lube and opened it.

  “How old is that?” Seiran wondered even as the sound of the slick made his body clench with need again. He gripped the sheets; glad Gabe’s arms were strong enough to keep him upright. He thought he’d feel a bit mortified to find himself face down, ass in the air begging for it, even if that’s what he really wanted to do in that moment.

  Gabe turned the tube over. “Fairly new, I’d say. Since the expiration is in two years.” He reached back with the slick, running his fingers over the crease in Seiran’s ass first, spreading the slick in small circles around his hole, teasing.

  “Fuck,” Seiran snarled. “Don’t need the teasing.” He wanted Gabe in him. Now.

  Gabe pressed a finger in, not gentle or slow, but a firm digit inside, spreading the slick and finding Seiran’s prostate. Seiran’s body clenched around Gabe’s finger, trying to keep him inside, needing so much, and knowing it had been a long time. Gabe’s fingers wouldn’t fill him. Not like Seiran wanted them too. He needed that hot branding dick in him bad. Even if it hurt a little at first. That was okay. He liked that first edge of burning discomfort. The pleasure much more intense then. It had been so long, he even wondered if that was right. Toys could only replicate so much.

  “Toys?” Gabe muttered, seeming to catch the thought. “We’ll have to play sometime.” He removed his finger and pulled Seiran back so Gabe could have a firm grip on his hips. Gabe’s cock slid ove
r Seiran’s hole a few times, teasing as Gabe moved his hips and forced Seiran to stay still with a brutal grip.

  “Stop teasing me,” Seiran growled. He reached back to grab Gabe’s hair and tug.

  “I thought you liked teasing?” Gabe said as his cock pressed into Seiran.

  “Fuck.” Seiran froze, trying to relax as the girth of the intrusion bore down on him. Maybe he should have been prepped a bit more. That did hurt, but not in a bad way. The stretch intense, burning, and so fucking good. He tried to keep from clenching around Gabe’s dick, but couldn’t help it. He’d clench and then unclench, body sucking Gabe deeper, until finally, he felt spread wide, filled completely. Gabe’s balls pressed to Seiran’s taint.

  Gabe held them there. Seiran’s body gripping him in surges as the pleasure rolled through him, begging for more. Gabe kissed the side of his face, and neck, seeming to be waiting for something, even as Seiran kept his grip tight in Gabe’s hair, and pressed his ass back into Gabe as though needing more.

  Something released in Seiran’s body, and Gabe slid in a tiny bit more. The clenching and gripping inside less tight and more a dance of erotic need. “There we go,” Gabe said as he slid his hips back, sliding out while Seiran’s body tried to keep him inside. “So responsive.”

  “Don’t…” Seiran begged him not to stop.

  Gabe pushed back in a few times, a slow test of the friction. Too slow for Seiran’s wants. He wriggled his hips trying to get more, but Gabe held him firm. Then Gabe adjusted his hold, shoving a pillow beneath Seiran, and rising to a kneel for a better angle. Seiran had to release his grip on Gabe’s hair. Gabe’s teeth playfully clipped Seiran’s shoulder again as he said, “Ready?”

  Seiran was more than ready, for anything, he didn’t even know what he was agreeing to. Whatever. He made a noise that he hoped was affirmative, and Gabe slammed into him. It wasn’t soft or kind, or sweet, or romantic. What Gabe gave him then was the pounding he’d craved. Brutal, fast, far faster than he could have moved if he’d been human, and deep, the angle changing with a tiny roll of his hips as he shoved inside.