Blood Wine (The Blood Bond Series Book 2)

by Aimer Boyz

  “More wine?”

  “More blood. Michael, the maintenance guy is for you. You have to feed.”

  Michael went still, the no breathing, no blinking kind of still only vampires can do. Symon watched. Waited.

  “No.” Voice low, Michael spoke more to himself than to Symon. “No. That’s bullshit. I’m not…” The grey eyes rose to meet Symon’s, begging Symon to tell him the monsters under the bed weren’t real.

  “Your truck slid into a ditch,” Symon said, taking Michael’s hand in his. “Your air bag deployed, but it wasn’t designed to protect against side impact. A fence post smashed through your window, the broken glass cutting your neck open. You were bleeding out. There was no way an ambulance would get to you in time. I couldn’t just sit there and watch you die.

  “You are Vampire.”

  Chapter 23

  MICHAEL CRASHED. TOTALLY shut down. The blank expression on his face said, ‘processing, please wait’.

  “Okay,” Michael said, talking to himself. “Okay,” he repeated, tossing the sheets back, and getting out of bed. He pulled his clothes on with the kind of speed he wouldn’t have been capable of the night before. Not that he was in any condition to notice that, the man was in shock, and who could blame him? Symon got that Michael wanted out of here, that he needed time to himself, but he couldn’t let a newly made vampire loose among humans.

  Michael stomped into his boots, shoved his phone into his back pocket. “What happened to my sweater?”

  “Same thing that happened to your parka,” Symon said, pushing the door to the en suite open. The cryptic answer earned him an impatient look as Michael strode past him into the washroom and stumbled to a stop.

  It hit you full on. Macabre. Disorienting. The mind struggling to understand what the eyes were seeing. The pristine white of the bathtub juxtaposed against the blood-soaked clothes, an art gallery of savagery. Michael’s parka was stained the dull brown of dried blood. Patches of thick, wet, red lingered in the hood and along one shoulder. His sweater looked like something dug up from an evidence locker.

  “This…is all mine?” Michel asked, unable to look away from the gore in the tub.

  “Yeah,” Symon nodded. “Your parka got most of it, but your truck’s not looking so good either.”

  “I don’t remember any of this.”

  “No, you were unconscious.” He’d been unconscious and then he’d been dead, but Symon didn’t say that.

  Michael stared down at the rag that used to be his sweater. “My mother gave me that, for Christmas."

  The words weren’t much more than a whisper, but Symon heard. He moved into the washroom, stood at Michael’s side. Together they stared down at the mess in the tub and it felt like they were standing at a graveside, mourning the life Michael had lost.

  “Can I borrow something of yours?” Michael asked, turning his back on the crime scene in the tub.

  “Second drawer,” Symon said, following Michael into the bedroom. He didn’t think anything of his would fit, but the more time Michael spent looking, the longer it took him to dress, the better.

  Michael rifled through the drawer, pulling out the few sweaters Symon had brought with him, and measuring them against his chest. He settled on an oversized knit that Symon had purchased specifically for this trip to snow country. It wasn’t oversized on Michael. It hugged his biceps and skimmed his chest, worth every penny Symon had paid for it.

  “I’ll get it back to you,” Michael promised. “Car keys?”

  “Coffee table.”

  Michael marched into the sitting room, grabbed the keys.

  “Where are you going?” Symon asked, trailing him into the sitting room.

  “Home.”

  “No. Sorry. You can’t go home. Not yet.”

  “Look, Symon,” Michael said, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “I need to get my head around this. I need time, alone.”

  It was a reasonable request and Symon wished he could grant it, but— “Have you ever killed someone you loved?” he asked, closing the distance between them. “Wept over their body, hating yourself with every breath?”

  “What? No.”

  “I have.”

  “Symon,” Michael said, reaching out, Symon’s horror story putting his own on the backburner.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Symon said, taking Michael’s hand in his. “It’s not safe, not for you, not for—”

  A knock at the door. A voice announcing, “Maintenance.”

  Don’t even think about leaving.

  Michael’s mouth dropped open.

  Surprise.

  Symon grinned at his fledgling and went for the door, swinging it open. “Hi.”

  Work boots, jeans, and a T-shirt sporting a red furry monster and the words ‘Raised on the Street’. Symon barely noticed the T-shirt, but what was under it had his full attention. The maintenance guy wasn’t a guy. He really hoped Michael wasn’t a picky eater.

  “It’s the shower,” Symon said, leading the woman into the bedroom. “It worked fine yesterday. It’s probably something…” Symon caught the woman’s eyes.

  Sit.

  The woman sank onto the bed and Symon tipped her chin up.

  Sleep.

  He caught the woman as she fell, laid her across the bed.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Michael asked, hovering in the doorway between the sitting room and bedroom.

  “You have to feed,” Symon said, angling the woman’s head over the edge of the mattress.

  “Are you insane? I’m not…I can’t. No,” Michael said, backing up until he was standing in the sitting room. He looked through the open doorway into the bedroom, revulsion on his face and hunger in his eyes.

  He’s new to this. Don’t take it personally, Symon told himself, but that disgusted look on Michael’s face pissed him off. If it wasn’t for Symon and his disgusting diet, Michael would be laid out on a stainless-steel slab in the morgue. His parents would be picking out a coffin, his mother—

  “I can’t do this,” Michael said, shaking his head, eyes stained red with hunger.

  “You can. I’ll help you.”

  Blood of my blood. Ever and always.

  Symon concentrated on helping Michael through the transition. Closed his mind to the possibility that Michael wouldn’t be able to adjust to the night life, that he would hate himself and Symon, and that by saving Michael he might have lost him for ever.

  “She’s asleep. If she remembers anything, and she won’t, she’ll think it’s a dream. I’ll talk you through it,” Symon said, motioning for Michael to join him. “You won’t hurt her. I swear it.”

  One on either side of the woman, they knelt by the bed. With a gentle touch, Symon turned her head away from Michael. He didn’t need to see the vulnerability sleep gave her. Didn’t need to see her face at all. Not tonight. Not until he learned to think of humans as prey.

  Michael’s blood-red eyes followed the fragile arch of the woman’s bare neck, locked on the pulse beating just under her ear. He winced as his fangs broke free.

  As a human, Michael’s beauty had captured Symon from across a crowded bar. In vampire mode, with the tips of his fangs grazing his bottom lip, and predator stark on his face, Michael was stunning. Frame his image in gold, pop him on a wall in the Louvre, and let the tourists worship him from behind velvet ropes, stunning.

  He was also scared shitless.

  Symon tucked a loose curl behind Michael’s ear, smiled past the nerves he hadn’t expected to feel. “Ready?”

  “No,” Michael said, but his tongue slipped between his fangs to lick at his bottom lip, and his eyes were on fire. It was now or never, and never wasn’t an option.

  Your fangs will do most of the work. Let them. It’s a high like no other, don’t try to fight it. Now, bite.

  Michael set his mouth over the woman’s carotid artery, bit down. With practice, he would learn to monitor his prey’s heartbeat, but for tonight, Symon did it for hi
m. He listened for that ever so slight hesitation in the rhythm of the woman’s heart, the irregular stutter that meant stop.

  Feed your pleasure back to your prey. It’s the least we can do.

  Symon watched the sleeping woman’s lips part on a sigh that morphed into a smile and he smiled with her. It had taken him nights of trial and error to figure out how to repay his prey in some way and Michael had managed it on his first feeding. Symon couldn’t have been prouder. This, he thought, watching Michael feed for the first time, this is our version of Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child. Less halo and more blood, but still—

  The woman’s heart hesitated; Symon curled his hand around Michael’s shoulder.

  Michael, enough. Stop. Retract your fangs. Lick the wound closed.

  This was the tricky part, because enough never felt like enough. Symon clenched his fingers in Michael’s hair, prepared to haul him off his prey if he couldn’t stop on his own. He expected any fledgling of his to take care with their prey, but more importantly, Michael needed to know he could hunt without hurting anyone.

  You want her to walk out of here the same way she walked in? Stop.

  Michael pulled off his prey and Symon breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. You did well. She’ll be fine. How—?”

  Michael slapped a hand over his mouth, raced for the en suite.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Symon eased Michael’s prey onto the bed and went after his fledgling. “Michael?” he called through the bathroom door. “You okay? Michael?”

  His only answer was the scrape of a boot on the marble floor, and gagging. Not what Symon wanted to hear. Worried, needing to know how Michael was, he opened the link between them, and Michael kicked him out. He shut the link down, blocked the bond between sire and fledgling, and he shouldn’t have been able to do that. As full of surprises as ever, his fledgling.

  “Michael?” Symon called, knocking on the door. He considered just barging in, but Michael had shut the door for a reason. He didn’t want Symon in there and apparently, he gave a crap about what Michael wanted, because he didn’t bash the door in.

  The toilet flushed, water ran in the sink, and the bathroom door opened. “Can I go now?” Michael asked, not looking at Symon.

  “Are you okay?” Symon asked, reaching out to Michael, only to have him pull away.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You look like shit. What happened?”

  “Nothing. Nerves. It got real, real fucking fast,” he said, throwing the words at Symon as he walked out of the bedroom. “I’ll text you tomorrow night.”

  “You’re not going home,” Symon said. “You’re not leaving this suite.”

  Already half-way across the sitting room, Michael spun on his heel to face Symon. “I’m not going to eat anyone if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m full,” he said, his mouth curving into a sneer. “Thank you for ordering dinner.”

  As recently as last night, that same smartass comment would have been a prelude to the Dom/sub games they liked to play. Michael on his knees, that make-me taunt in his eyes. The contrast between that Michael and the one standing before Symon now was painful. The grey eyes were shell shocked, the smile bitter. The sarcasm that had once been an invitation to play was now a protective shield that pushed him away. Regret pummelled Symon, punches that blamed and hurt, guilt rising like bruises, but he couldn’t fall under the beating. Not now. Not when Michael needed him.

  “It’s not about eating people,” Symon said, taking the armchair, and motioning for Michael to sit. Michael, of course, stayed right where he was. Arms crossed over his chest, he looked lost, and scared, and fucking stubborn.

  “Control doesn’t happen in a night,” Symon said. “It takes time to learn to move among humans. To think about anything but the pulse in their necks, the blood in their veins. Walking out now wouldn’t be safe for them, or for you.”

  “How long?”

  “A month, maybe two. There’s a lot to—”

  “No.”

  “Michael,” Symon said, striving for patience. “You’re a danger to yourself and to everyone around you until you learn to control the hunger.” He tried their link again.

  Let me help you.

  You’ve helped me enough.

  Direct hit. It had Symon gasping on the mat, down for the count. He told himself this was just Michael trying to deal with the mind-fuck of waking up undead. If it was more than that, if Michael blamed Symon for consigning him to the night—he didn’t want to know.

  “I can’t see my family?” Michael asked. “My friends? What, I’m your prisoner now?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Symon said. “Let’s up the drama, because that will help.”

  “Fuck you, Symon. I just gnawed my way into a stranger’s neck and drank her blood. I think I’m allowed a little—” Michael cut himself off midsentence, glanced at the doorway leading to the bedroom. “Shouldn’t you be waking her up?”

  “Shit.” Symon bolted for the bedroom, scooped the maintenance worker up, and carried her into the sitting room. “Get the door.”

  Michael opened the door to the suite and Symon set the woman on her feet. Hands on her shoulders, he shook her awake.

  Forget.

  “Thank you,” Symon said, slipping his usual tip into the woman’s hand as he ushered her out the door. Vampiric influence whispered, but money talked.

  “Smooth,” Michael said. It wasn’t a compliment.

  “Lesson one. You can’t leave food hanging around like that. You clean up the take-out. Always.”

  “Surprised you didn’t just put the left-overs in the trash,” Michael muttered.

  “Nah, she’s recyclable.” Symon grinned; Michael didn’t. Apparently, his sense of humour had been left behind with his humanity.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Symon. She’s a person.”

  “Of course, she’s a person. We don’t eat animals. That’s disgusting.”

  “That’s disgusting? And what you just did isn’t?”

  “What I just did? I wasn’t the one chewing on that woman’s neck, Prey.”

  “I didn’t want—”

  “Tell me that human’s blood wasn’t the best thing you’ve ever tasted,” Symon said, grabbing a handful of Michael’s sweater, and propelling him backwards. “Tell me you don’t want more,” he said, slamming Michael against the nearest wall.

  Michael’s mouth opened on nothing. Symon watched guilt and shame fight it out on his fledgling’s face. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said, letting Michael go, and telling himself to calm the fuck down. What had he expected? That Michael would switch from beer to blood as easily as he’d change Gelato flavours? That he’d thank Symon for dropping him into a world he hadn’t known existed a week ago? Yeah, because that’s how it worked.

  Etienne and Andrew had both had years to learn about the night life, to decide if it was what they wanted, but Michael had been presented with a fait accompli. He was allowed a freak out or two.

  “Uh, so, learning curve,” Michael said. “You’re saying I need a tutor?”

  Yes, that’s exactly what he was saying. Michael needed a teacher, a protector, a guide to the night and Symon could do that. Wanted to do that. “Yes.”

  Michael nodded, took his phone out, and swiped at the screen.

  “What are you doing?” Symon asked, thinking that Michael would have to talk to his parents, yes, but not yet. Not while he was still getting his head around the impossible.

  “Texting Andrew.”

  Chapter 24

  “ANDREW?” SYMON REPEATED the name like he’d never heard it before.

  “Red hair, green eyes, calls you Dad,” Michael said, tapping at his screen. “He’s a teacher, right?”

  Andrew was a teacher, yes, but he wasn’t Michael’s teacher, and he wasn’t going to be. That was Symon’s job. “Andrew’s a baby. He’s never even hunted without Etienne.”

  True, but not because Andrew was incapable of feeding
himself. Andrew was an excellent hunter. He dined with Etienne because he didn’t like to eat alone.

  Michael shrugged. “He knows more than I do, and Etienne will be around if we need help. I think we’re good.”

  “I am your sire,” Symon said, possession in every syllable. Michael was his.

  “Yeah,” Michael said, his eyes sliding away from Symon’s. “I know.”

  How had Symon missed it? Michael wasn’t hell bent on leaving because he needed time alone. He was desperate to get the fuck away from Symon. Without Symon in his face, he could pretend that nothing had changed, that he was still human, until the hunger rose again.

  Symon should be the one standing at Michael’s side as he learned to embrace the night, but he wasn’t going to beg for the privilege. If Michael wanted Andrew to be his guide to the night life, no problem.

  “Look, Symon, I get that—” Michael’s phone vibrated, he glanced at the lock screen. “It’s Andrew,” he said, reading the text, and sending a reply. “I’m going to stay with him and Etienne for a bit.” Obviously relieved to have an escape plan, he smiled, even managed a laugh. “Take a crash course in Vampire: Lessons and Lore.”

  “Okay,” Symon said, fingernails cutting crescents into his palms. “I’ll drive you.”

  “Nah, don’t sweat it. I can take the truck.”

  Seriously? An hour ago, Michael had patted the sheets and told Symon to come back to bed. Now, he couldn’t stand to be in the same car with him? “Not a good idea. The driver’s side window is shattered, and you don’t have a coat. You’ll freeze before you get to the highway.” Okay, yes, he was overstating the case. Michael wouldn’t freeze, vampires didn’t, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant drive.

  “I can take a bus,” Michael argued. A fish on a hook, he twisted and turned, trying to get free and it hurt more than Symon wanted to admit.

  “Think about it. Two hours on a bus surrounded by humans. A heart beating beside you, in front of you, behind you.” Michael looked like he was going to be sick again and Symon knew he’d made his point. “You ready for that?” He wasn’t. Of course, he wasn’t. No newborn vampire would be.