There was a simple kitchen up against the fourth solid wall, with a sink, a tiny amount of counter space, a small fridge and a range. It was the barest of necessities.
There was no television, no dining table and no other chairs.
“No books,” Nyanther added, aloud.
Jake picked up an iPad from the side table and waved it. “Yes, there is.”
Nyanther looked at the spiral staircase in the corner by the kitchenette. It was made of wood and looked as old as the rest of the house and just as worn. The tight, sinuous curve snaking upward made him think of the big iron staircase in Sabrina’s apartment. He closed down the thought and shoved it away.
“There are no chairs for company,” he pointed out.
“This is my place,” Jake said. “No one else gets to come here.”
“Ah.” Nyanther looked around once more, taking in the surfboards leaning up against the verandah railing and the wind chime tinkling musically, in the corner next to them. “This is the real you, then.”
“I suppose.” He said it cautiously.
“The business suit is a lie,” Nyanther pointed out. “The knife and the combat boots are temporary, according to you. Here, where no one comes, you can be yourself and this is what I find.” He waved his hand, taking in the room, the verandah and the beach beyond. “If this was the sixties, I’d call you a hippie.”
Jake grinned. “That’s a new one. My family uses different names.”
“‘Lay about’?” Nyanther guessed.
“‘Useless’, mostly,” Jake replied. “I’ve heard ‘a waste of oxygen’, too.”
“Are you?”
Jake’s expression grew darker and his eyes stormy. “I found out what really happened to my parents. It took twenty years, but I did it. I’ve killed two of the bastards and I fully intend to kill the rest. No, I don’t think I’m useless.” He let out a breath. “They’re never going to know, though.”
“Then you’ve figured that much out for yourself. Good,” Nyanther said. “If there’s a rule at all in our world, that’s it.”
“No one must know?” Jake shrugged. “There will be no need for anyone to know, once I’ve killed them all.”
“Once we have killed them,” Nyanther emphasized. “You’re not alone in this anymore. Although, in the interests of keeping up appearances, why aren’t you in your high rise office right now?”
Jake scowled. “I went to the board meeting. I couldn’t stand it after that. I came out here as soon as I could get away from the damn place. I needed to sleep, at least for an hour or so.”
“You have an apartment in New York, don’t you?”
“That’s for work,” Jake said shortly.
“And for women, I suppose.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Of course,” he said flatly. He had suddenly grown cautious. Nyanther could see it in the stiffness in his shoulders and the stillness of his body.
“You’re never tempted to tell the women about your secret life?” Nyanther pressed. “Whisper of your deeds and see the admiration in their eyes?”
“That’s not why I’m hunting gargoyles,” Jake said, his voice flat. He was growing angry.
“It would be a nice side benefit,” Nyanther pointed out.
“Shit, you don’t know me at all.” Jake pushed his hand through his hair, making the blond locks fall forward over his eyes. “I let them see the limousine and they just about fall into my lap. Most of the time, I don’t even need to do that. My family name is enough. Why would I share the one real thing in my life with them?”
Nyanther held up his hand. “I had to make sure,” he explained.
“That was a lesson?” Now he was truly angry. “How dare you?”
His fury triggered Nyanther into moving. Fast. He plucked the cup out of Jake’s barely moving hand, dumped it back on the table, then gripped his shirt in his fist and made himself slow down to human speed.
Jake’s eyes widened. “Fuck…!” he whispered. “I didn’t even see you do that.”
“Just one of a vampire’s many advantages over a human,” Nyanther growled. He shook him. Just a little. “There are no rules in this world you’re in, Jacob Summerfield. There’s no school, no college, no textbooks. No membership card or monthly dues. You’re in it now, whether you like it or not. Lessons are how we help each other survive, so if one of us who has survived for hundreds of your lifetime chooses to share their experience with you, you should be grateful and accept the wisdom, because it will help you avoid an early death. A senseless death really would make you useless.”
Jake swallowed. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
Jake’s body heat was radiating against Nyanther, the warm glow of a furnace in comparison to his coolness. Over his shoulder, Nyanther could just glimpse the curve of the stairs, for Jake really was the same height as him. Again, Nyanther tried to shut down the reminders and shunt the seductive thoughts away.
Was that why he kissed him? Possibly. He pressed his lips against Jake’s, his fist caught between their chests, his grip on Jake’s shirt holding him steady for Nyanther’s kiss.
As soon as their mouths met, Nyanther understood this wasn’t just a distraction from moody thoughts. How long as he had been subconsciously sizing Jake up? Measuring him? Had it started when Jake had slid onto the bench next to him in the diner, all fresh and slick from his shower? Or had it been earlier? In the forest, when Jake was standing over his kill, breathing hard?
Thought faded and the kiss intensified. Jake wasn’t fighting him and that made it better. Tentatively, Nyanther touched Jake’s lips with his tongue. He heard someone groan and realized it was him. His control was slipping, which was almost unheard of.
Jake shoved him away with surprising strength and staggered back, bringing the back of his hand up to his mouth and wiping. “I don’t…I’m not….” He swallowed.
Nyanther leaned forward and stroked his fingers along the hard ridge of flesh beneath Jake’s jeans. “Yes, you are,” he said flatly and let his hand drop. “Lesson number two. Self-denial is a luxury only humans can afford.” He moved over to the little side table, picked up the iPad and tapped through the screens quickly to find what he was looking for.
“I am human,” Jake pointed out. His voice was hoarse.
“You’re more than human, now,” Nyanther replied. “When you’ve accepted that, you can find me here.” He hefted the iPad, then put it back on the table. “Or you can come hunting with us on the weekend. We’re heading back north. It’s your call.”
Then he made himself leave before his disintegrating control disappeared altogether. He climbed back into the rental, his temper building. What was wrong with him? He had left the door open, when he should have shut Jake down, apologized and moved on. Playing with Jake this way was just as unfair as the long, sweaty nights he had thought of giving Sabrina. Neither of them deserved to get entangled in his life when his time was so short.
Chapter Nine
Jake didn’t step out onto the verandah to watch Nyanther leave. He wasn’t sure his legs would hold him up. So he put the tray on the floor and sat on the Ottoman, his hands between his knees and his head hanging, as he tried to get his breath back under control.
Was Nyanther right? Was he in denial? He could still feel his hand sliding over his cock through the denim. Just the memory of it was making his heart work hard once more.
Hadn’t he grown up thinking he was different from everyone around him? He had spent his life wondering why the things that seemed to matter to his cousins and second cousins he couldn’t give a shit about. The money was just the start of it. He hated what the money did to his life, the boundaries and expectations it put on him.
Wasn’t the search for his parents’ true killer just one of the ways he had secretly revolted against the family way?
And if this really was his private sanctuary, why had he invited Nyanther here? He was a trained hunter. Of course he was going to spot all the telling details and figure J
ake out.
None of it had anything to do with sex…and yet it all did.
When his phone warbled, the sound muffled, he cursed. It was his uncle’s ringtone.
…in the interests of keeping up appearances, why aren’t you in your high rise office right now? He could hear Nyanther’s deep voice in his memory, as clearly as if he had spoken right next to him.
Yes, why wasn’t he? That was all part of it. Pretending to be human.
You’re more than human, now.
He got to his feet. The phone continued to ring. Graham would hang on until it went to voicemail, then he would call again. Jake was used to the persistence, so he didn’t hurry.
Lessons are how we help each other survive.
He pulled open the junk drawer. The utensils and tools slid around with a heavy sound. He plucked the phone out from the mess and answered it. “If you’re calling because I’m not there, you’re right. I blew off meetings today. I’ll be in tomorrow.”
Silence.
“Jake?”
“Yeah,” he said heavily.
“I’m just calling to make sure you’re okay. No one knew where you had gone. You didn’t even tell Barbara.”
Barbara was the admin support they had assigned to him. Mostly, she had nothing to do. He didn’t know how to deal with people who were there to ‘support’ him. He was used to doing things for himself.
“I didn’t get any sleep last night,” Jake said. “I was barely functioning in the board meeting as it was. I had to get a few hours’ rest, sorry.”
Silence again. Jake wondered if he was imagining the surprise in it.
“Heavy party last night?” Graham said, at last.
Jake rolled his eyes. No, I was out killing a creature that humans think are cute stone myths hanging off the corners of their buildings. I drank coffee with two vampires and a woman, a hunter, who killed the demon who resurrected them.
Only, he couldn’t say it. He didn’t want to. He had told Nyanther the truth. He wasn’t doing this for the glory. The only emotion he had felt last night, standing over the remains of the gargoyle that Riley had called Bero was a fiercely hot satisfaction.
“I had a migraine,” he said, instead. “A bad one, like Mom used to get.”
He evoked his mother’s memory deliberately. Graham had been her older brother and when he could bring himself to speak of her, he always grew upset. The memory would distract him, now.
Graham drew in a rough breath. “You’re over it now?”
“I got to the board meeting, didn’t I?”
“You have to take better care of yourself, Jacob. Your health is important. And I’m not just thinking of the corporation now, when I say that.”
Jake gripped the phone, the slim edges digging into his fingers. He knew what Graham was not saying. He was talking about Brandy. God damn him to hell. Would Graham ever stop using her to keep Jake in line?
“I’ll be in tomorrow,” Jake said roughly and hung up before he said anything else or heard Graham’s response. He tossed the phone in the drawer and slammed it closed.
Then he opened the drawer again and shut the phone off. Then he slammed the drawer again and put his back to it.
He was back to breathing hard. He let his head roll back and blew out his breath.
You’re more than human, now. When you’ve accepted that, you can find me here.
Fine. Tomorrow, he would go in the office and be the most sincere heir apparent they’d ever seen. After five, though, all bets were off.
Screw ’em.
* * * * *
New York was too crowded. Nyanther was used to living where there were twenty-six people per square mile, not twenty-six thousand people per square mile, as there was here.
When he had first landed in New York, on Monday, he had been on edge, registering every little movement and noise and processing it. Not even a vampire could keep up that level of alertness for long, though. His senses had grown numb after a few hours of it.
So when he moved out of the apartment building door and climbed down to the sidewalk, he barely noticed the people hurrying past. This street was one of the last remaining cobblestone roads in Soho, a narrow lane with parking on only one side, quaint old lamps and tourists. It reminded him vaguely of the older areas in London, except for the distant spire of the Empire State Building he could see at the end of the street, peeping over the top of the buildings.
That was when Jake grabbed his arm.
Nyanther jerked around, his hand reaching into his jacket, then saw who it was. He let the knife go. “It’s not the weekend yet.”
Jake nodded. He was wearing another suit. The tie was loosened and the top button undone. “It’s Friday and I just put in eight hours at a desk with my name on it. I kept wondering when someone would step through the door and tell me it was all a cosmic joke.” He swallowed. “You’re right. I don’t belong there, Ny.”
“It’s your human role,” Nyanther told him. “None of us feels completely at ease pretending to be human. I can only tell you that it will get easier.”
There was strain showing at the corner of Jake’s eyes. “I don’t know if I can do it,” he said hoarsely. “This isn’t some kind of nine to five job I can leave at the office and go hunt on weekends. If my uncle gets his way, this is going to be my whole life. He was so pathetically grateful I showed, I felt sick. How can I let him get his hopes up?”
“I don’t know,” Nyanther said truthfully. “I’ve only had to play this game for the last thirty years and I didn’t have any family left to let down.”
Jake shook his head. “It’s impossible,” he said bitterly.
“We’ll work it out,” Nyanther told him. “Today is just the beginning. Play the game and give yourself time to figure it out.”
Jake curled his hand around Nyanther’s neck. His flesh was warm and Nyanther drew in a breath as his heart started to beat heavily. He didn’t move. He was afraid to.
Jake kissed him, right there on the street. Of course, this was New York, but it was Jake kissing him out in the open, he of the complicated family and self-denial.
It was a clumsy kiss. Hurried, intent only on delivering a message. Even so, Nyanther’s whole body came alive and on-line. Suddenly, he was hearing everything. Seeing every movement. He could almost feel Jake’s heat and aroma, playing against his skin.
“Inside…” Jake said urgently, his head close to Nyanther’s.
He fumbled the keys and almost laughed at himself. Such a human weakness! His fingers felt thick and uncooperative.
They climbed the stairs to the third floor without speaking and slipped into the silent apartment. Nyanther picked up Jake’s hand and drew him along the corridor, past Sabina’s room.
That was a conversation for later.
He pulled Jake into his borrowed room and shut the door. “I have a roommate,” he explained. “She’ll be home later.”
Jake nodded. “Welcome to New York apartment life.” He crowded closer.
Nyanther put his hand on his chest, halting him. “Give me a minute.”
“You?” Jake smiled, as if he had made a joke.
“You surprised me,” Nyanther admitted. “Let me adjust.” He dropped his hand. “There’s a thing about vampires…about triggering our defenses. I was ready to tear your throat out, there on the sidewalk. It takes a moment to get those instincts to shut down.” He grimaced. “Humans are food to us, especially when we’re in that state.”
Jake shoved his hands into his pockets, the jacket pushed back behind his arms. His cheeks were touched with red. “Newbie, remember?”
Nyanther nodded. “That’s why I am explaining, even though it feels to me like you would feel discussing sex with your uncle.”
Jake grimaced. “You won’t have to explain again,” he said roughly. “Does that mean…do you need…blood?”
Nyanther could feel his teeth descending by themselves. “That was where I was going when you arrived,” he con
fessed.
“I interrupted.” Jake took off his jacket and tie and unbuttoned the shirt. “Can you feed from me?”
Nyanther couldn’t help but watch as his tanned chest was slowly revealed. He was in spectacular shape. Jake filled all his spare hours with physical activities that would tax the average office worker and it showed.
Jake dropped the shirt. “It only seems fair you feed from me, as I dragged you up here.”
“No, you didn’t,” Nyanther said quickly. He moved closer. “You’ll like this,” he warned.
“I will?”
Nyanther grabbed his head and shoulder and bit. He was hungry and it was making him move faster than he would have preferred. If Jake had been a stranger, he wouldn’t have cared.
The blood filled his mouth. Hot. Spicy. Human thought faded as he fed. He fought to hold onto sentience so he could withdraw as soon as he’d taken just enough to satisfy himself and keep the cravings at bay for another few days.
He let his teeth withdraw.
Jake moaned, sagging in his arms. “Oh my god…!” he breathed.
“Keep still,” Nyanther told him. He licked the wound, taking up the last delicious drops of blood and healing the tear.
“Burns…” Jake muttered thickly.
“Healing, speeded up a hundred times.” Nyanther hefted him. “Take your weight,” he said gently. “You’ll be able to stand, now.”
Jake found his feet and straightened. His eyes were sleepy, hooded over. “I’m so horny, I could drill through steel right now. Is that normal?”
“There’s an aphrodisiac in a vampire bite. It makes a victim biddable.”
Jake pressed his hands to his stomach, down low and close to the bulging tent in his trousers. “How do you not end up with humans trailing after you, begging for more, all the time?”
Nyanther put his hands on either side of Jake’s face and looked into his eyes. “I make them forget. I can make you forget, if you want me to. Do you believe me?”
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