Blood Wine (The Blood Bond Series Book 2)

by Aimer Boyz

  Nothing. Michael lay in his arms, a broken rag doll. “Michael Santos, you die on me and I’ll fucking kill you,” Symon said, his fingers clenched in Michael’s hair.

  A tremor, a flutter of movement so small Symon thought he was imagining it. Afraid to hope, afraid to fucking breathe, he stared down at Michael. Watched and waited for some sign, some indication that—

  Michael’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his neck. His eyes snapped open, a furnace of red. He grabbed at Symon’s arm, brand new fangs shredding Symon’s wrist. Michael was back, but no one was home. The eyes staring up at Symon were wild with hunger. His fledgling was starving. “That’s it, Prey. Drink,” Symon said, soothing a hand over Michael’s back, whispering words the newborn vampire couldn’t understand.

  Michael was all instinct and no finesse. His fangs scraped bone and Symon clenched his teeth against the pain. He leaned back against the seat, slowly raised the arm Michael was chewing on. By careful degrees, Symon brought his arm to chest level, and Michael rose onto one knee, mouth sealed to Symon’s wrist. He lifted his arm higher still and Michael straddled him, following the blood. “Blood of my blood, ever and always,” Symon said, tilting his head to the side, offering his neck.

  Michael, or rather the newborn who would be Michael if they got this right, flung Symon’s wrist away and lunged for the pulse beating under his ear. It hurt. Of course, it fucking hurt. Michael didn’t know how to make it not hurt. He didn’t know anything, but the hunger.

  “Just like that, baby,” Symon murmured, wrapping his arms around Michael, and rocking him gently. “You’ve got it.”

  You’ve got me.

  Now and forever, whether Michael wanted it or not, they were connected. Michael was a child of Symon’s blood and always would be.

  Symon closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, forced calm into his fledgling. Michael’s rigid frame melted against Symon, his claw-like grip on Symon’s shoulders relaxed. The frantic pull on Symon’s neck eased into a lazy draw, more pleasure than pain. Symon sighed into the feeling, intent on enjoying this, the first and last time Michael would ever sink fang into him. Vampires didn’t feed on each other.

  Etienne and Andrew, deviants that they were, ignored the taboo on biting. Andrew had always been a bitter, even when he walked under the sun. Etienne had encouraged the fetish and still did. Disgusting. But even they, matching pair of perverts that they were, didn’t feed on each other.

  The soft sucking slowed, stopped. Michael sagged in Symon’s arms, his head lolling on Symon’s shoulder. Symon cupped the back of Michael’s neck, his thumb over the pulse beating under his skin. Strong, steady. He brushed his fingers along the side of Michael’s face and Michael curled into him, nuzzled his face into the collar of Symon’s jacket. Symon smiled at the fledgling in his arms, traced the corner of Michael’s lips.

  Heavy eyelids struggled open. Grey eyes stared up at Symon. Michael’s eyes.

  “Blood of your blood, ever and always.” Michael recited the ancient pledge. Letter perfect, but for the addition of one word.

  “Yours.”

  Chapter 22

  FLEDGLINGS WERE BORN to the night with the archaic pledge in their mind, on their tongue. More than mere sentiment or symbol, older than time itself, the ritual words marked the transition from human to vampire. Blood of your blood, the essence of what it meant to be undead.

  Symon had been elated when Etienne survived the turning and recited the oath. He’d been happy, for Etienne’s sake, when Andrew spoke the same pledge, but hearing those words from Michael’s lips…he was sliced open. Michael’s words searing into him, becoming part of him.

  Yours.

  Symon wanted it to be true. He wanted everything the word implied, but Michael didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t understand yet. Life, as he knew it, was over and Symon had been the one who killed it.

  “Mine,” Symon said, breathing the word against Michael’s lips, watching as the grey eyes closed, as Michael stopped breathing. Undead.

  Symon shifted out from under Michael, popped the passenger door open. Knee deep in snow, the truck door a shield between him and the wind, he wrestled Michael’s body into position, and strapped the seat belt around him. He hadn’t wanted this for Michael. Not like this. Not with Michael bleeding, and dying, and unable to make the choice for himself, but shit happens and then you die.

  Or not.

  Symon trudged through the kind of snow that needed skis, or snowshoes, or a freaking dog sled. The freezing white stuff stuck to his jeans, crept into his boots as he trekked around the hood to the driver’s side of the truck.

  Six hundred years of power came in handy when you needed to shove a truck up a ditch and back onto the road. Symon swept broken glass off the driver’s seat, slid behind the wheel, and turned the key still sitting in the ignition. His eyes on the road, his mind on the newborn in the passenger seat, Symon told himself he’d done the right thing. He couldn’t help wondering though, what Michael’s decision would have been. If he’d been conscious. If he’d been given the choice. Worm food or sun allergy? He thought Michael would have opted for door number two, backpack full of sunblock on his shoulder. No question about it.

  Almost no question.

  Symon refused to feel guilty. He’d saved Michael’s life; more or less. His human owed him big time, like hand-over-your-first-born big time. Michael should be sending him thank you cards until they stopped making stamps. Symon wasn’t the bad guy here. Michael had been unconscious, not unwilling.

  Who are you, Bill Cosby?

  It wasn’t like that. Was it?

  Symon knew Michael. He knew the scent of his skin, the taste of his cock, the tight grip of his ass. He knew the smartass smirk and the submissive smile. He knew what those grey eyes looked like bright with laughter and dark with lust. Symon remembered every word his prey had ever said to him. He knew Michael’s schedule, the hours he worked, the days he didn’t. He knew about his human’s passion for architecture and history. He knew Michael had spent high school playing hockey and jerking off to images of Adam Lambert. He’d met the man’s parents, for fuck’s sake. Symon even knew which grad school Michael had applied to, but he didn’t know if Michel could handle the night life, if he even wanted to. Somehow, the topic hadn’t come up when they’d been painting each other’s bodies with cum.

  Thumbs beating against the steering wheel, Symon waited for a snow plough to clear the intersection and took a left at Kurtz Orchards. His mind a sickening collage of images: the truck’s smashed window—and blood, the broken fence post—and blood, an unconscious Michael—and blood, he drove the remaining few blocks to the Prince of Wales, parked behind the hotel. The sky was that lighter dark that promised daylight; he was running out of time.

  Michael slung across his shoulders, Symon sprinted for the nearest entrance, and took the back stairs. The hotel was just waking up, staff starting to move about in the kitchen, but there were no cleaning carts in the hallways. No bellhops wrestling luggage into guest rooms. Symon managed to sneak Michael into his suite without anyone calling the police.

  In a matter of minutes, Michael’s blood-soaked parka was sitting in the bathtub and Michael himself, washed clean of both his blood and Symon’s, lay tucked up in bed. Symon checked that the blackout curtains covered the window completely, and closing the door behind him, left his prey to recover.

  In the sitting room, he picked up the phone. “Good morning. Would it be possible to deliver an order of whole wheat toast and Earl Grey tea?” Vampiric influence didn’t work on the phone, but tipping like a drugged-out Saudi prince, did. Symon wasn’t surprised to hear, “Certainly, sir. Right away.”

  A quick shower, most of it spent scrubbing Michael’s blood out from under his fingernails, and Symon was pulling on the hotel robe and opening his door to breakfast.

  “Good morning, sir. Room service.” Laden tray in hand, the room-service waiter stepped over the threshold.

  “Good morning,�
� Symon said, motioning to the coffee table in front of the fireplace.

  Average height, average weight, with rounded shoulders and thinning hair, the waiter was forgettable. The kind of guy who was used to reminding people of his name. Not the most appealing meal Symon had ever seen, but he’d eaten worse.

  “Whole wheat toast,” the waiter said, setting the tray on the table. “Butter, jam, Earl Grey tea with milk and sugar. If you’d like to sign here,” he said, offering Symon the bill in a leather sleeve. “If there is anything else you need, please don’t hesitate to—”

  “Yes, actually,” Symon said, scrawling his signature, and tucking the pen into the leather sleeve. “I need a little…” He slammed a hand into the waiter’s chest, pushing him down onto the sofa. “Blood,” he said, sliding a hand into the man’s hair, and pulling his head to one side.

  There was no attempt at defence, the waiter never even saw Symon move. By the time he realized he’d been shoved, it was too late. Symon’s fangs were at his throat. The tea he’d ordered was destined to grow cold, but the waiter was warm, and Symon was starving. With the sun an up-and-coming danger, he didn’t linger over his meal. Fast, but neat. He couldn’t risk getting blood on the waiter’s pristine white jacket. That would lead to questions and vampiric influence was a delicate house of cards. Too many questions and it crumpled into the lie it was.

  Symon closed the wound, listened for any sign of stress. As hungry as he had been, he wondered if he might have over done it, but no, the man was good to go.

  Forget.

  “Excellent,” he said, pressing a hundred-dollar bill into the waiter’s hand. “Thank you.” Sincerely grateful, Symon locked the door behind his unknowing blood donor.

  Careful not to disturb Michael, not that he expected him to wake anytime soon, Symon dropped his robe, and climbed into bed. Propped on one elbow, he traced the still lips, the cold cheek of his, not his human he reminded himself, his fledgling.

  Symon had wrought the change, witnessed the transformation and still, he had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea of Michael as a nightwalker. Yes, he’d thought about it, wondered what if, but he’d never seriously considered the possibility. He curled into Michael, buried a smile in his shoulder, and settled down to die.

  There was no going back. Michael would wake to the night, have one serious fucking meltdown, and Symon would be there for him. He wouldn’t abandon his child, leave Michael lost to himself and a danger to others.

  Golden light streaked across the sky taking Symon’s last thought.

  I am not my sire.

  ***

  Symon sat slouched in an armchair across from the bed. Head resting against the back of the chair, legs stretched out before him, the very definition of relaxation until you noticed the eyes. Vigilant.

  Focused on Michael, Symon sipped at his wine, waited for his fledgling to wake to the night. With a newborn, there was always a bit of gap between sunset and awakening. The body had to adjust; it wasn’t easy rising from the dead.

  “Hey.” Voice all warm and sleep-rough, Michael smiled at Symon. “What are you doing all the way over there? Come back to bed.”

  Tell him.

  One look at that smile, at the sleepy invitation in Michael’s eyes, and the words caught in Symon’s throat.

  Coward.

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell Michael that the day was lost to him. That he would never again feel the sun on his face, or eat a chocolate chip cookie, or look at his mother without seeing the pulse beating in her neck.

  Symon poured a glass of wine for Michael, crossed the carpet to his side of the bed.

  “Not that I expect you to know this,” Michael said, taking the glass Symon offered. “But wine? Not a breakfast drink. What time is it anyway?”

  “Five-thirty.”

  “Five-thirty in the morning?” Michael set his glass on the night table, burrowed back under the duvet. “Good thing you’re dead or I’d have to kill you.”

  Symon reclaimed his seat, sipped at his wine, waited.

  Michael exploded out of the bedding. “You’re awake.” He glanced at the window, but the dark on the other side of the glass didn’t tell him much. This time of year, five-thirty in the morning and five-thirty in the evening looked the same. Dark.

  “I’m awake.”

  “I slept the entire—Fuck.” Michael tossed the covers, his feet hitting the floor with a thud. “My manager is going to have a shit fit. I’m so fired. Where’s my phone?”

  Symon nodded at the flat screen and the dresser sitting under it. He’d put Michael’s phone and his clothes there, most of them. The sweater he’d been wearing hadn’t survived the carnage.

  Michael lunged for his phone, unlocked it. “Rachel’s going to kill me, I was supposed to be there at one.” He swiped at the screen—and crumpled. Teeth clenched, face contorted in pain, Michael fell back onto the bed he’d just leapt out of.

  A supporting arm around Michael’s shoulders, Symon pressed his glass to Michael’s lips. “Drink.” The minute traces of blood in the wine wouldn’t be enough to sate the hunger, but they would help with the pain. Vampire Tylenol. “Here,” Symon said, taking the empty glass. “You need to eat,” he said, handing Michael a second glass, the one he’d set on the night table.

  “Eat?” Michael groaned. “If you say food, I’ll barf all over you.” He drank the second glass down in one shot and proceeded to lick the inside of the glass clean. He didn’t seem to be aware that he’d gone all vampire on the empty wine glass, but that little display dragged a smile out of Symon.

  Michael shoved the empty glass at Symon, curled into a ball of misery. “God, everything hurts. I should have gotten the flu shot. Everyone comes into Starbucks and they bring their germs with them. People suck.”

  “You don’t have the flu,” Symon said, sitting on the bed, and drifting his fingers through Michael’s hair. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “Yeah? Tell that to my head. Even my teeth hurt.”

  Not his teeth. It was his fangs that ached, but Michael didn’t know that yet. Symon picked up the hotel phone. “Send someone up from maintenance, please.”

  One hand at his temple, trying to rub the pain away, Michael frowned up at Symon.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Ordering dinner.”

  “What? No. Tired of me already?” Michael said, struggling to sit up. Symon tucked him against the headboard, shoved pillows at his back. Shoulders hunched, eyes dull with pain, Michael attempted his smartass smirk. “Blood’s not so special anymore?”

  “Yeah, so bored,” Symon said, sitting at Michael’s side. “I didn’t order dinner for me, Prey. I ordered it for you.”

  Michael laughed; a sputter of sound bisected by pain. “Hope you ordered fries with that.”

  “You can’t have fries.”

  “What the fuck, Fido? You sound like a funeral director. I’m not dying.”

  “No, you’re not dying, and you never will.”

  Michael made a point of glancing over at the wine bottle Symon had left on a side table. “How much wine have you had?”

  “Not enough.” Of course, Michael didn’t believe him. You’ll never die. Who said shit like that? “Michael.” Symon held the grey eyes with his own. “You slept through the whole day.” Not entirely accurate, Michael hadn’t been sleeping. He’d been dead.

  “So? I was up all night. By the time we left the winery this morning, I’d been awake—”

  Finally.

  Symon had been prepared for Michael to wake to the night with the accident on his mind and a scream on his lips, but he should have known better. When had this man ever reacted the way Symon expected him to? As shaken as Michael looked right now, Symon was more than happy to see the memory of the accident enter front and centre. It would make explaining the whole undead thing a lot easier.

  “I was driving.” Michael looked right at him, but Symon knew his fledgling only saw the YouTube v
ideo in his mind. “Deer in the middle of the road…ice…can’t stop.” Michael bailed on his trip down memory lane, reached out for Symon. “Oh, my God, Symon. Are you okay?”

  No.

  “I’m fine. The air bag deployed and even if it hadn’t.” Symon flashed his fangs. “Vampire, remember?”

  “I remember.” Michael trailed his fingers over Symon’s jaw, cupped the side of his neck. He didn’t know yet that he was a full-fledged member of a very exclusive night club, but his body did. He sought the pulse in Symon’s neck the way a human child sought the nipple. Excellent instincts.

  Michael pulled away, hands massaging his temples. “Any wine left?”

  “Yeah, I’ll get it.”

  Michael’s recent upgrade meant he could track Symon’s movements in the Vampire quickstep. The days when things appeared to pop out of the air were gone, as were the days themselves. Michael knocked the wine back. Symon had to smile when he spun the stem in his hands, licking the inside of the glass. Fucking adorable.

  Empty glass on the night table, Michael sank back into his pile of pillows. “Wine causes headaches, it doesn’t cure them. What’s in this stuff?”

  Had he never told Michael? Symon thought back to that first night…

  “What’s with the wine? I thought you guys were all about the haemoglobin.”

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  That would be a no, then, he hadn’t told Michael. Symon fetched the wine, held the bottle out so that Michael could read the label.

  “A Little Blood. You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope,” Symon said, setting the bottle down. “What did you think it meant?”

  “I didn’t take it literally. I thought it was some genius idea your ad company came up with. Holy shit. I’m drinking blood?”

  “No. You’re drinking wine with traces of blood. Minute traces, not enough to fix the way you feel right now. You need more.”