Love's Neglect

by Flynn Eire

  “And we’re doing this drunk?” Sam asked, nodding to the fucking liquor store setup on one of the tables. There were at least two hundred bottles of all kinds of boozes, some normal size, a bunch of flask-sized bottles, and tons of tiny airplane ones… Not to mention all the cases of imported beers and ciders.

  “No,” Roarke snorted, rolling his eyes. “Those are prizes. Win a fight, you get a tiny bottle or beer. Get into the finals, you get a handle, and you win one of the nightly tournaments and pick your bottle of the good shit.”

  I glanced around and saw lots of people seemed much happier to be there. Wow, he really knew how to get a bunch of men to want to play his games.

  “Not sure it’s fair your mate’s paired up with the lowest-ranked warrior, Roarke,” Drake called out, gesturing to the tournament diagram.

  “I wanted to get laid tonight,” Roarke joked even as he looked away. What was he hiding?

  “Actually I selected the rounds,” Alexander announced. “Along with Matteo. Wally was on light duty not too long ago, so we’re letting him match up lowest down.” He looked over to me. “But that also puts you up first. You ready?”

  “Yes, sir.” I stood up, a ball of nerves, and headed over to the marked-off area.

  Roarke intercepted me and rubbed my arm. “It’s no big deal. He was just saying there were no favorites. It’s no different than sparring in class or with the post-trans. That’s why we’re doing this. You’ll do great. Just try hard and learn.”

  “I like to learn.” I swallowed loudly and looked at Xana. He seemed bigger than I remembered. Was he always that tall? Suddenly Roarke’s lips were on mine, and I melted, dropping my sword and running my hands over his chest.

  He pulled away slowly and I blinked at him. “Better?” I nodded. “Good. Xana’s last here because he thinks bigger should mean something. You’re fast. Use it. He’ll go overhead and you know how to work that.”

  “I do.” I smiled widely, excited now. I grabbed my sword and hurried to the marked-out ring, shooting Roarke a glance over my shoulder. He was watching me like a proud mate just waiting to congratulate me. It was something new and it stirred a feeling in me I couldn’t put my finger on.

  Xana and I squared off, and the second we started, he swung at me from overhead and I spun out of the way. Blocking took energy, but a simple shuffle of my feet was no big and he wasn’t fast.

  “Call out the moves,” Alexander reprimanded when Xana didn’t after the first time. He started to and I wanted to laugh, he kept calling out the same move because that was all he did. He was like a guy with a sledgehammer, not a sword. I studied and watched as I dodged blows and then when he tried to get me again, I turned and lunged so my sword was right at his chest so it could slice between his ribs and into his heart.

  “Yield,” I demanded. Xana’s eyes bugged out, but he dropped his sword, nodding. I sprung back up out of my lunge and just about raced over to Roarke. He caught me and spun me around. “That was awesome!”

  “Way better than sparring with the same people over and over again and just going doing the same moves, right?”

  “Yeah, totally. And fighting while they were calling moves was amazing. It helped me plan so much better on what we’d done instead of just freaking about what was going to come,” I gushed and then kissed him. “How did you come up with this? Did one of your other camps do this?”

  “Yeah, I’d like to know that one too,” Matteo chuckled, moving up by us as the next pair squared off. “Alexander’s just about foaming at the mouth he’s so pissed you busted his warriors got lazy, and apparently Xana needs to learn a new move.”

  “Nope, got it all from Wally,” Roarke praised as he set me on my feet. “It was all his ideas I’d listened to and how he saw things that I just filtered through with how we did things.” He looked at Matteo then. “You were the one who had me call out my moves in a challenge though.”

  “Didn’t think you’d do it. We do it in training, but not even in sparring because it takes too much focus away and people can get hurt.”

  “Or even the playing field between warriors and post-trans,” Roarke chuckled as he nodded to Cornelius and Zibon who were already battling.

  “I gotta go claim my cider!” I exclaimed, kissing Roarke’s cheek before jogging over to the table. I picked one out and then found a seat on the bleachers, smiling when he joined me. He spent the whole time pointing moves and tricks out to me when it wasn’t our turn.

  It was an awesome night. Helios abstained because he was Wyrok, and the shock of it all was a post-trans took the title… Against a left-handed fighting Alexander who was not pleased at the outcome. Granted, Lance came from an old-money warrior family and had learned how to use a sword young, but still, it gave the post-trans a huge win and a lot of excitement that we could really make it through our upcoming tests.

  We had needed that and my mate had set it all up. How cool was he?

  * * * *

  “Oh fuck, babe,” Roarke moaned loudly as I sucked his cock. I had woken up wanting to show my mate some fun so I’d decided to give him a much deserved blow job while stretching myself out for him.

  Two weeks had gone by since he’d claimed me and I was never happier. I’d passed my warrior finals, along with Lance, Nate, Mark, Zibon, and Bowie. Verge had to wait a bit longer since he’d transitioned so much later than the rest of us.

  I’d found out after, but Roarke had paced outside my testing room the entire time, not leaving until I was done and the results were in. He’d been so nervous and wound up for me. That was love.

  We’d long since moved into our room and decorated to fit our style. I would never have thought interior decorating could be so much fun—mostly because there wasn’t that much of it—and I was finding I enjoyed doing anything with Roarke.

  Like giving head. I loved giving him head. I pretty much spoiled him with it the way he spoiled me with everything else. I didn’t think there wasn’t a day he didn’t wake up to it or hadn’t gotten it in the shower before work since we’d started having sex again.

  And I’d claimed him as well. It had been amazing and I was so overjoyed when I’d done it that I almost bawled with relief that we were truly going to make it.

  “Coming!” Roarke bellowed, fisting my hair and pulling me back from my thoughts. I kept singing as I swallowed him down, knowing how much he loved that. When he was spent, I pulled off slowly and flipped up the covers so he could see me. “Babe, you are just addicted to sucking my cock.”

  “I am,” I purred, slowly moving up him so he felt every inch of my body. “I’m not joining a program. I’m happy with this addiction. Just like my addiction of you fucking me like a caveman. I think I have a new one though.”

  “Oh? What’s that?” he asked and then growled when he tried to grab me and I rolled out of bed. “Leaving me hanging and wanting?”

  “You just got a blow job. I’m the one hard and leaking,” I reminded him as I grabbed a towel. I smirked at him and leaned against the door. “No, fucking in the showers and seeing who else we can piss off by being so loud and pornish before coffee.”

  Alexander and Helios had both made comments that they didn’t always want porn before coffee when they’d gone to shower and not only could hear us from down the hallway but then had to shower a few stalls from us. Their mates had to get up at different times now and again so they were left hanging.

  Nate and Matteo on the other hand normally just went at it in their own shower stall. We’d caught Lynx watching us a couple of times, and I didn’t give a shit because I think it turned Roarke on that Lynx was watching me and I was Roarke’s.

  Whatever. I was on the receiving end of that hot sex so I was good with it.

  “Wally, no,” Roarke warned, shaking his head and patting the bed next to him. “Alexander chewed me out and said if we didn’t curb it that I was going to need to start interceding with his mate and explain why Alexander kept interrupting Dimitri’s classes and draggin
g him off to have sex.”

  I thought about that a minute. “That’s cool. I’m scheduled to help with the pre-trans today before Rune needs me.” I shot him a wink and then darted out the door—naked and hard—ignoring his shouts to get back in the room. I turned on the water, and seconds after it warmed up and I got under it, I wasn’t alone.

  “You’re not the only one with an addiction,” he snarled as he pushed me up against the tiles. He kicked my legs apart and thrust into me hard. I cried out as I shivered, loving when he jumped me like this. He grabbed my hips and I moved my hands to the wall to keep from bashing my face into the tiles. I bit my lip to keep quiet but it didn’t work. Roarke was just too good at knowing what I needed to make it amazing.

  “Always porn before coffee!” Alexander bellowed as he yanked back the curtain of our stall. I blinked at him, not sure how to react when Roarke’s massive cock was buried in my ass and I was the loud one.

  “I’m working with Dimitri this morning so I can cover you jumping him,” I offered as I pushed my hips back to spur Roarke on. “Or stand there and watch and I can slip it into the conversation that you did when I talk to him.”

  “I am not…” Alexander trailed off and then nodded. “I like that idea better. My Dimika has been tired and distracted. Porn away.” He closed the curtain to give us some idea of privacy and we got back to it after chuckling that he really wasn’t going to watch but wanted me to tell Dimitri he had as if he was neglected.

  Then again, we were all neglected sometimes. It happened in relationships. I thought I had been with Roarke from the beginning and all it had taken was for us to wake up and talk to each other, find out the truth between us, and see what we really had. I was so glad I did and we cared enough to be honest instead of simply walking away, which might have been easier. Love wasn’t easy but it was worth fighting for.

  “I love you,” Roarke moaned before sinking his fangs into my neck. I cried out as I came, reaching back and holding his head to my neck. I loved this part. When he fed from me during sex, I felt as if I was providing him with everything he needed and wanted as a mate should.

  And I would always be the mate I should be to him because he was to me now.

  The End

  Sneak Peek: Love’s Confinement

  (Warrior Camp 6)

  Evan Maguire wants a change of scenery, a chance to no longer be treated like his soul’s been crushed—it hasn’t. Jumping at the chance to act as Councilman Ashton’s security, Evan leaves the warrior camp for South Dakota. But Evan isn’t prepared for what he finds on the Councilman’s ranch.

  Nothing stands out more than a refurbished bomb shelter, but what was meant for protection has been Theodore Aston’s cell for the past six month. To make things right, Evan calls in his friends and offers his strength to Theo as the vampire works through everything thrown his way.

  Embattled on two different fronts, Theo tries desperately to hold onto everything he needs—including Evan—to survive his traumas and undo the considerable damage his father’s done. Will one rival from his past destroy everything Theo has built and take it all away, while an enemy from his not so distant past convinces everyone that Theo isn’t who and what he says he is?

  1

  Getting sent out on assignments was my least favorite part of the job. I loved being a warrior… I was literally born into it, after all, but I also liked consistency. I liked knowing that Mondays we made supply runs that took forever because the camp was so far out in the middle of nowhere that it was a hike to any type of civilization. And there was Taco Tuesdays no matter the weather outside, and I had kitchen duty that day so I spent most of it chopping up tomatoes and cooking up enough ground beef to make up a dozen cows.

  Except things had been hard for me lately. I’d stepped outside my comfort zone and told a post-trans, Wally—who was now a warrior—that I’d had a thing for him and it had blown up in my face in an epic way. So now he, his mate, and just about everyone else was weird around me as if I was the lover they’d all cheated on or something. It hadn’t been that big of a deal.

  I was disappointed, sure, but it wasn’t as if I’d been in love with Wally and gotten my heart stomped all over. People get rejected. Shit happens. I simply wanted everyone to move on and stop giving me pitying looks and being weird around me.

  So when Alexander said Councilman Ashton needed a warrior stationed at his house because of some threats made against him and he had some big party coming up for his human cover, I think I shocked the crap out of him when I jumped at the assignment.

  “You feeling okay, Evan?” he’d asked me when everyone else was gone. “Do you need some time off instead?”

  “No, Alexander,” I ground out. “I need everyone to stop acting like my hamster was murdered and my truck was stolen and I just survived a bad country song. I had dinner with Wally and he still loved his mate. Life goes on and I’m good. Just send me out and maybe everyone will let this go while I’m gone.”

  He nodded, eyeing me closely. “As you wish. I’m sorry you’ve been made to feel uncomfortable. Everyone was trying to be conscious of your feelings when we have not always been so aware of each other’s in the past.”

  “That’s great,” I sighed when I realized he was serious. “It is and I’m glad we’re working towards being more like brothers around here instead of jerks who use and sometimes abuse each other now that Ben, Dean, and some of the others are gone. I am. But this isn’t Oprah either. My personal life is my own, and if it becomes something that conflicts with work, I’d talk to you. Making things a bigger deal than they are isn’t the way to go either.”

  “Agreed. Enjoy your assignment.” He handed me the file of the details and I left the conference room.

  I had been so eager to get the hell out of there for a much needed break from everyone I’d even left early, opting to take the seven hour—or so with stops—drive overnight. It wasn’t like the mountain roads were a problem with the vision we had as vampires and I wasn’t in some cute little compact. I was one of the few warriors at camp who had a vehicle of their own because it was the only allowance I’d ever asked for. I liked going for a drive now and again and I didn’t want to check who had what vehicle or risk messing anyone up.

  I needed the freedom of having my own.

  Pulling into the Ashton estate—which was less than an hour outside Rapid City, South Dakota—right before dawn, I saw it was attached to a massive ranch. That was part of their cover. Vampires rarely lived in the spotlight or in high volume cities where they could be targets for scrutiny because of their wealth. It was easier to act as if they were more reclusive business people.

  Less chance of getting caught drinking blood or silly things like that which could get us all busted.

  I pulled in past the gates, but not up to the house. There was no security or anything right as I came onto the property, and since I was early, I thought I’d start making some notes. Jacob Ashton was a damn councilman after all. There should be better security than what I’d already seen.

  Grabbing a flashlight, notepad, and pen, I hopped out and started from the top of my assessment. I was about twenty minutes into it when I noticed what looked like a bomb shelter by the barn.

  What the fuck do they have going on here? I didn’t feel the least bit bad when I flipped open the latch because, for one, I didn’t need permission as a warrior assigned to protect the councilman. The council had given me an all-access pass, and two, it was my duty to investigate any threat to vampires even if that meant checking into a councilman because he wasn’t above the law.

  And a bomb shelter that looked currently in use from the new door and recent scores of footprints to and from it, screamed something shady was going on. I pulled out my gun as I quietly opened the hatch, noting the way the hinges were well-oiled too. Seriously, what were these people up to? I was five steps down the staircase when I caught whiff of another vampire. My stomach instantly turned sour. I really wanted to think they we
re giving someone shelter there.

  I highly doubted it though. They had a huge house with ample room. I’m sure they could have found space for a guest.

  Sure enough, I got to the bottom of the stairs and saw a smaller male chained to a wall, his head drooped, and his chest not visibly moving. Oh god, please breathe. Just breathe. I rushed over to him and at the last second something stopped me from reaching him.

  “Don’t,” a soft growl ordered. I froze and then raised my flashlight again. Soft blue eyes were peeking out at me from behind his tangled, dirty hair. “They haven’t been feeding me.” I winced at how raw his throat sounded. It hurt just to hear him. “I’m not safe to be around.”

  “Jesus, I thought you were dead,” I whispered, squatting down out of range of his bite but still close enough to talk to him. “Your heartbeat is so faint.”

  “Not yet. They feed me just enough to keep me alive. He doesn’t want me dead, just compliant.”

  “Who?”

  “Councilman Ashton.”

  “Fuck,” I hissed, scrubbing my hand over my hair. “Okay, okay, let me get you some blood from the cooler of my truck and call in reinforcements. I’ll take him into custody immediately and get you help.”

  “You don’t know that I’m not a criminal,” he hedged, staring at me curiously.

  I met his gaze and frowned. “I don’t fucking care if you’re Jack the Ripper. Councilman Ashton is not judge, jury, and god. He doesn’t get to decide who to lock down in a bomb shelter and fucking starve even if it’s for a confession or information. We have interrogators and warriors that can read minds for that. Fuck him and whatever bullshit’s going on.” He opened his mouth and I waved him off. “Save your strength.”