Met by Midnight: Shadow World Stories and Scenes, Vol. 1 (The Shadow World)

by Dianne Sylvan

  But intimacy has terrified Deven into struggling against what should have been inevitable…

  …because he knows Deven loves him. Knows it in a place so bones-deep even his centuries of cultivated emotional distance wouldn’t even try to deny it. He knows, because they are much alike in that way: neither lets emotion show, neither allows it to rule him. It’s a very important skill for a warrior and leader, but it makes for a lousy romance. And with three hundred years’ experience, David is an expert at seeing beneath that kid of shield.

  There’s no way they can continue as long as either of them is fighting so hard.

  The absurdity of being the one craving emotional intimacy isn’t lost on David. Every lover he’s ever had, up to and including Anna, has complained about his unavailability. He’s quite aware he’s excellent in bed—he’s made a thorough study over the years involving both female and male subjects both in single spies and battalions—but outside of it, he’s about as dreadful as Deven is…well, almost.

  He watches the Second-in-Command take reports from the lieutenants, so comfortable in his position of power, and wonders: what would it take to undo him?

  Any wall can be broken down; the question is where to apply pressure, and how much.

  The problem is a lack of data. He can figure out how people will react based on what he knows of their behavior and histories, but Deven is so incredibly old there are huge gaps in David’s knowledge about him. Most people, even vampires, have a much more limited span of years in which to fuck themselves up or let the world do the fucking. It’s possible he’s missed something important that lives in those gaps…he’s going to need more information.

  A short time later, David settles into his chair and accepts the drink Deven holds out. David is very fond of this chair—it and its mate have been the site of long conversations and equally long blow jobs. Before, one or both of them had typically ended up asleep there; now, it was far more likely that one or both of them would end up on his knees in front of it, nails digging into thighs, neck growing stiff from repetitive motion.

  He’s inclined to go down that path right now, but holds off for a moment, watching his lover stare into the fire, running through the facts as he knows them.

  Born in Ireland, around 1300, exact date of birth unknown. Family: farmers at least three generations back. Bore little resemblance to either parent; born with healing ability; feared and hated for same by superstitious morons. Sold to the Church, to an uncle determined to beat the queer out of him. Obviously it didn’t work.

  Caught by uncle in bed with another boy, handed over to the Inquisition, or whatever they called it in Dublin back then. Prisoner for three months, tortured for a confession of Satanism he never gave. Saved from death by a vampire who bought him from the Inquisition.

  Sold, bought: The beginnings of a pattern emerge. David frowns.

  “Who was the last before me?” he asks, breaking the silence so abruptly that he actually startles Deven.

  “Last what?”

  “Your last lover. When, and whom?”

  It’s obvious as soon as the question is out that it has struck a nerve. “Why?”

  “I want to know.”

  For a moment he doesn’t think he’ll get an answer, but then, “Define lover.”

  David’s eyebrow lifts. “Surely you’re old enough to know what that word means.”

  He makes an irritable noise. “It’s imprecise and you know it. Do you mean actual emotional connection? If so, we’re talking the mid 1800s. If you just mean sex, regardless of duration or quality, then, the night before you.”

  If he were anyone else he might find that annoying, but they both know David appreciates precision. “Let’s say multiple nights with the same partner.”

  He watches a very long timeline run through Deven’s mind before he sighs and says, “London, early 1902, for a few weeks.”

  “What was the nature of your relationship?”

  Deven’s face takes on that quizzical look that for some reason always makes David want to laugh. “What is this, a job interview?”

  “Don’t I have a right to ask?”

  “It was mutually parasitic. He had something I needed, I had something he wanted.”

  David manages a smile. “Well, I know what you had…what did he have?”

  Deven doesn’t answer right away; he seems to debate himself over whether to be honest or not, but given his determination to hold David at arm’s length, he apparently decides to lay it out. “Vampire-grade laudanum.”

  David stares at him for a minute as understanding squeezes the air out of his lungs. He has always known that Deven had a certain appreciation for painkillers of all sorts, but…

  They are connected enough, energetically, that David gets a second-brief and hell-dark flash of memory, viewing it through Deven’s eyes: a man standing over him in a damp room with mold climbing the walls, the smell of rot pervasive. With one hand, the man dangled a glass vial, keeping it just out of reach; with the other, he opened his trousers.

  Yes. Anything. Just give it to me.

  It’s too much. David can barely breathe—the desperation in that moment, the agony, begging for release from the pain of simply waking up night after night, unable to say no to the high, no matter what it cost…he contrasts all of that with the calm, regal creature sitting opposite him, warrior and leader, his friend.

  David’s voice is barely steady. “You consider that…walking disease a lover?”

  The look he gets is remarkable: confusion. Deven honestly has no idea why he’s upset to learn that he was an opium whore. “You didn’t specify emotional connection, only duration,” he pointed out. “You also didn’t ask about quality.”

  Silence. David weighs this information against what he already knows about Dev’s past before he asks, quietly, “Have you ever been with anyone who actually loved you? Who didn’t see you as something to buy and sell…have you ever been cherished?”

  Again, confusion, but this time edged with pain. Deven pushes himself up from the chair and turns toward the fireplace. “Why are you asking this?” he demands without looking at David. “How can you know anything about me and think I have a fairy tale history? It didn’t matter, David. It never matters. It’s only a body. A weapon, a tool, currency—it’s only worth what people will pay. What difference does it make?”

  David looks away, asking softly, “What am I, then?” His hands have gone cold, and he grips the arm of his chair where he’d carelessly thrown his coat earlier; he doesn’t know whether he wants to get up and leave or just needs something to hold onto. “Is that why you can’t say you love me—because you’re just whoring yourself again? What are you paying me for?”

  Deven turns back to him, and David sees the horror in his face—he has talked himself into a terrible corner, and now he understands the import of what he’s said to the man who loves him. The words were knives—Dev’s body isn’t his only weapon, and he is first and foremost a warrior. To his credit he doesn’t try to talk his way out, just puts both hands on the back of his chair and bows his head, eyes closed.

  “I told you,” he finally says. “I told you I would break this.”

  Their gazes meet. David has never seen this kind of anguish in his eyes before. He wanted to push David away, but it seems the thought of actually hurting him to do it was not in the plan.

  David doesn’t let him off the hook; he just waits, not bothering to hide how he feels. He, too, has spent most of his life afraid to let anyone see beneath the shield, but he really thought this was different…special. In this, as with everything, he stubbornly refuses to admit he might have been wrong. He might just have gotten himself into something that was beautiful but intolerable.

  Unsurprisingly he doesn’t hear movement; he just feels hands take his, and looks up to see Deven kneel in front of him. The hands slide up his forearms and wind up touching his face; they’re trembling slightly, and David looks up, not sure if he wants to see
, but compelled to.

  His heart breaks, this time from something very different.

  Tears. The wide, lavender-blue eyes staring up at him are full of tears. He hadn’t even known such a thing was possible.

  “Forgive me,” Deven whispers, running his hands down to David’s shoulders, then back to his hands again, lifting them and kissing them over and over. “Forgive me…please, forgive me.”

  Please. I need it. Anything you want…please, just give it to me. I need it.

  No. He won’t be another dealer, forcing his dick into Deven’s mouth in return for a fix. He won’t punish Deven for being who he is. He has felt the scars on his lover’s back a hundred times—he won’t be another one.

  It’s either love or nothing.

  David leans forward until they are a scant inch apart, and brushes his lips lightly over Deven’s, the contact just barely a kiss. Deven closes his eyes, waiting—for absolution, for punishment, for a pronouncement that their relationship is at its end or, just maybe, for forgiveness.

  David wraps a hand around the back of his neck, finding a particular spot and rubbing it gently—light pressure, something he discovered is both deeply soothing to the Second and, oddly, astonishingly intimate. It has the desired effect; a good 60% of the tension floods out of Deven’s body, as much from the relief that David isn’t going to walk out—at least not yet—as from the touch itself.

  “Bed,” David says just above a whisper.

  They both rise. Usually by this point they’ve got half their clothes off and at least one of them is already bleeding. David presses a hand against Deven’s back and steers him toward the bed without making a move toward the usual.

  Once there, David slides both arms around him and they stand that way for a while, the smaller vampire’s heart thudding against David’s chest. He’s no longer on the verge of panic but is still apprehensive, and David doesn’t reassure him just yet; that vulnerability is rare and precious and David needs it to stay, just a while longer.

  David’s hands run along his waist and up beneath his shirt, lifting it up slowly, taking his time and enjoying the warmth of the skin he exposes. They’re both wearing the same outfit—they almost always are, except on the rare occasion they go out with the other Elite for a drink after shift. David is hardly antisocial, but given the choice between drunken retellings of battles he had already been at and a half-dozen screaming orgasms in this very room, well, there’s really no need for debate.

  The shirt lands on the floor at their feet and David removes his own and adds it to what will become a pile. The two garments are identical except for size and the rank insignias fastened to the collars, and underneath them are a few similarities: they’re both pale, as vampires are wont to be, and muscular, as warriors are. There it ends, though. David is broader, built like a grown man, while Deven has the deceptive slenderness of young adulthood, just after the beginning of the phase when men start to thicken and develop a shape. He’s caught eternally between two states, but only in the strictest physical terms; as David is well aware, particularly tonight, he left his youth behind a long time ago.

  He certainly fucks like an adult.

  Then of course there are the tattoos. David has kissed that angel’s mouth dozens of times, dug his nails into the demon’s throat. He has every line memorized—muscle memory, fingers and tongue, lines he would know anywhere, even blind.

  He eases Dev down onto the bed, onto his back, and silently sets about removing the rest of his clothes, one item at a time. Losing the shirt means exposing the first layer of weaponry: his belt is home to two throwing stakes of his own design, two curved knives, his sword of course, and another pair of smaller blades. David has always found it remarkable that the sheer volume of weapons he wears doesn’t interfere with the economic grace of his movements—such a small body covered in so much metal should by all rights be awkward or at least jut out at odd angles, but over the centuries the Second has turned concealment into an art form.

  Deven starts to reach up to help, but David smacks his hand away, eliciting a quiet laugh—a good sign. For his part Deven doesn’t seem to know what to make of David’s change in technique. David runs his hands over Deven’s torso, down and around with the press of a palm to find another blade—he’s probably the only other person on earth who knows where all of them are.

  The orderly stack of weapons on the night table grows throughout the next twenty minutes, but David knows there are more—he’ll just have to get more clothes off to reach them.

  He removes Ghostlight among the last few; she has saved her bearer’s life a thousand times and deserves the respect due a great warrior. David had left the central space on the table bare for the sword, surrounded by her comrades-as-arms. He unbuckles the sheath and slides it off slowly, enjoying the feel of the leather and the feel of eyes watching his every move.

  Piece by piece the rest comes off too; divested of all his pointy friends, and the mantle of authority that the uniform drapes over his shoulders, Deven looks vulnerable again. He lies back in the pillows, watching David silently, still unsure what is about to happen…they have deviated so far from their script already, all bets are off.

  They’ve been naked in front of each other hundreds of times—long before they were sleeping together, there had at least been glimpses and clandestine staring in the locker room…or there had been on David’s part, anyway. He knows that Deven tries very hard not to be obvious; this world is not kind, and it doesn’t want him in it. But like everything else the removal of clothing between them is usually hurried, and he can tell that Deven feels exposed.

  Good.

  “Don’t move,” David commands quietly.

  Pale eyes meet his. Finally Deven nods but doesn’t speak.

  David reaches over and picks up one of the knives. He presses it very lightly into his lover’s skin: they’ll start with something Dev will understand.

  The blade glints in the firelight as he draws it, very carefully, near where neck and shoulder meet—too far out toward the arm to be good for real feeding, but perfect for what David wants: blood wells up along a two-inch cut.

  He watches, waiting, admiring the depth of scarlet shining against pale muscle and bone. He’s tasted that skin many times, but for just a moment he’s envious of a trickle of blood as it rolls slowly down over Deven’s clavicle. David bends and catches it with a swipe of his tongue, then follows the rivulet back to the wound that has already closed by the time he reaches it.

  It tastes incredibly old—no, aged, like wine. There’s an undertone he’s never been able to quite place, something that makes him think of both the giant coastal redwoods and something uncannily like cookies baking. The combination is strange and irresistible, and he opens the cut again, and again.

  Each time his mouth connects with skin Deven shudders and makes a sound that’s half whimper and half curse. His hands clench the sheets. David can sense he’s both aroused and anxious—being laid bare like this isn’t what he knows, isn’t what he signed up for. David is well aware of that, but also aware that he hasn’t tried to move away. Deven knows that if he puts up the least amount of true resistance that will be the end of it…and he also knows that, regardless of size, he could easily best David in a fight.

  He doesn’t move.

  David sets the knife aside and kisses him hard, letting him taste his own blood. Relief: surely this means David is done playing around and will go back on script.

  No such luck. David lifts out of the kiss and immediately turns his lips to other pursuits, lightly and delicately grazing them along Deven’s jaw, then up to his ear. Dev’s ears are extremely sensitive—David had nearly caused an incident one night in the locker room by walking up when no one was looking and blowing very faintly on one. He’d only meant to give a silent, quick promise of what was to come after shift, but Deven’s knees had actually given out. David had told him he hoped none of their enemies ever got wind of it, or their next battle would be
short and rather ridiculous.

  He nuzzles, like a lion greeting his mate, and presses his teeth into the lobe, this time earning an audible groan. Carefully, with the lightest scrape of teeth over skin, he works his way down Dev’s neck and chest, kissing a meandering path over the landscape. He lays claim to every inch of flesh that he can.

  His own body wants desperately to speed things up—every tiny tremor that runs through Dev seems to reverberate in David’s dick, which is painfully hard already. He pushes that need aside for just a little longer. He’ll have plenty of opportunities for the usual…he might not have a chance like this again.

  He makes his way down to the hip vicinity, then wanders back up again, pausing to flick his tongue at Dev’s navel—he’s ever so slightly ticklish there, but just now David knows the sensation is so heightened it just registers as intense sensitivity that causes the Second to twitch like he’s been shocked. There are more scars here, too—faint, faded, but still present like ghosts tethered to a long-gone deathbed. David doesn’t know what caused the long white line over Deven’s hip bone, or the slightly shiny patch off to the left, though they were almost certainly acquired in the dungeon of the Inquisition. He is aware of precisely one scar that Dev got elsewhere—along his wrist, one that looks like a botched suicide attempt but that Deven swears was from falling out of a tree.

  David pauses to kiss each scar lightly. They are the closest thing to a memoir David will ever get from him, a topographic map of trauma that never had a chance to heal.

  He lifts his eyes. “I know you’re afraid,” he says softly. “If you really want me to stop, tell me and I will.”

  A long pause. A decision. Then, barely a whisper: “Don’t stop.”

  David nods, then inclines his head toward the bedside table. Taking the hint, Dev gropes in the drawer without looking and hands him the lube.