Chapter Nine

It was very weird trying to navigate a destroyed, unfamiliar building with only a distant, flickering purple light for guidance. And Nico was barefoot. And he was trying to stay in the utter blackness of Dimitri’s shadow as he felt his way across the rubble. His pace was a laughable crawl. He wasn’t any kind of fighter. He didn’t go for runs. Hell, standing up too fast made him pass out. The idea that he could flee in any way was absurd.

Still, he moved as fast as he dared, sliding his toes across the rock so he wouldn’t trip over anything surprising and causing a hell of a ruckus as a result.

Dimitri was talking.

Nico tried to listen in as he moved, groping around in the darkness for anything taller than his hip. He caught only every third word from Dimitri, but the woman’s voice was clearer. Not that he understood a word of what was going on.

Dimitri was bluffing about being a Sire, or something.

Nico didn’t get the impression it was working.

His knuckles smacked into rock about shoulder-high. Nico put his hand on the face of it—the remains of a wall—and worked his way around to the dark side where he could lean against the stone and take a few gulping breaths.

What did he have? Nothing. Not even goddamn shoes. If he got out of this he was never taking his sneakers off again.

What did he know? He knew Dimitri was terrified, that the woman was trouble, and he knew he couldn’t get back to his apartment.

He had absolutely no idea what to do next.

He tried not to whine in despair, but Nico did sink down to the ground and tuck his face into his knees. He wrapped his arms around his legs and rocked a little, trying and failing to count his breaths.

He didn’t ask to be in this mess. A few hours ago he hadn’t even known vampires existed. No one had warned him he could turn into a Sire and have someone else depend on him for life.

This wasn’t fair!

Nico didn’t even have a cat, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t built for this kind of responsibility! He was fucking disabled and stuck in the goddamn vampire dimension about to be eaten by a demon witch. What the FUCK?

His watch beeped twice. Heart rate above 180.

He took a too-deep breath automatically, but it shuddered the whole way in as Nico fought not to burst into tears. He was truly at the end of his rope.

But sobbing about it wouldn’t help and he leaned his head back against the wall and took another shuddering breath.

Fighting broke out behind the wall. An abrupt crash of sound and fire and crackling ice. Rock blasting out into the darkness and raining some distance away. Nico tucked himself into the smallest ball, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried his best not to think. He concentrated on the bond in his chest, on the way it surged and shifted but remained steady. As long as the bond was there, Dimitri was alive—that was all Nico cared about.

Another crash of rock. Snarling sounds, like there were animals fighting and not intelligent people. An explosion of purple light that crept in on the edges of Nico’s vision even with his eyes closed.

And then complete silence.

Nico didn’t move for several heartbeats.

He realized, once his own brain settled down enough to hear his own thoughts, that he ached. A lot. His hips and knees were upset. His knuckles. His back.

A rock tumbled somewhere nearby, clattering into the eerie darkness. But nothing and no one responded. Nico poked at the bond in his heart and realized Dimitri was some significant distance away.

As Nico’s normal pains began to reassert themselves, he wondered if it was Dimitri’s proximity keeping them at bay? Or was it the power he generated as Dimitri’s Sire? Just the adrenaline and endorphins from all the sex finally dissipating?

Whatever it was he could feel the effect wearing off. Exhaustion setting in its place. Creeping in on the edges. He tried to remember what the meditation video said, about relaxing his muscles from the top down. He counted his inhales and exhales until he felt more like himself.

He almost reached for the vampire. It was an instinct of some kind. A need to be close that he only stopped at the last second with a gasp.

Following Dimitri here had been a critical mistake. Nico wasn’t about to do it again.

He looked up and realized there was no purple light. No light of any kind. He only knew there was a stone wall behind him because he leaned on it.

Which meant wherever Dimitri had gone, he’d taken the witch with him.

Following him was a stupid move. Dimitri knew where Nico was and when it was safe, he’d come back for him. Boyscout basics 101: when you’re lost, stop moving and prep for rescue.

He stretched his legs out and leaned his head on the wall again. He dug a rock out from under his butt and tried to get comfortable.

His bond with Dimitri was still in turmoil. Wherever he’d gone wasn’t safe right away, or the witch was being persistent. Nico resisted the urge to push into that connection to get more information, but he hated not knowing what was going on.

It didn’t take Nico long to get bored. In a place with no light, without his phone, and absolutely no intentions of sleeping, he found himself tapping on his own thigh pretty quickly to pass the time. There wasn’t even birdsong or insects to listen to. Nico could feel a soft breeze on his face, but no whistling. No trees rustling gently in the night.

It was creepy.

The temperature was comfortably cool, like a summer night. The kind of night you might go camping under the stars. Nico looked up. Then blinked several times in confusion. There was nothing overhead. No clouds, no stars, no moon. Nothing at all. Just darkness that extended forever in every direction.

He realized, belatedly, that he couldn’t even see his own hand in front of his face. How did Dimitri move around when he’d first arrived? Before that witch with the purple fire showed up? Could he see in this?

Rubble clattered down a slope behind him. Nico shot to his feet, then stopped with one hand on the wall because he didn’t want to get away from it and lose himself in the darkness. It would be so easy to get turned around.

He couldn’t hear anything else, though. No breathing. No other loose rock. No crackling ice magic.

“Dimitri?” he asked, his voice an octave too high. Then he kicked himself and checked the bond. Dimitri was still miles away.

Instead a new voice, male, hissed through the absolute blackness. It purred with an ominous kind of pleasure that put Nico’s hair on end. “Fortunately… No.”

“Who are you?” Nico squeaked. “What do you want?”

He backed into the wall, feeling his heart climb, once again, into his throat. And then the obvious came to him. It was a vampire, probably. And he was here to eat Nico.

Wasn’t that exactly what Dimitri had tried to warn him about?

And he couldn’t even hear anything, that was the worst part. He didn’t know how close or far the vampire was. He didn’t know what direction he was being stalked from. Or, his traitorous brain offered, if there were more than one.

“I’m no one important,” the velvety voice purred. It was closer, on his left. Nico flinched away, but fear kept him close to the wall. There was nowhere to go.

Then the voice was right beside his ear. “And I’m hungry.”

A helpless, low moan trickled from his mouth involuntarily.

There was a gentle touch on Nico’s cheek. He flinched again, and released a squeak of alarm. Claws scratched ungently down his chest, catching at his shirt and tearing slowly through the fabric like he was a sweet to unwrap.

The claws scratched over the edge of Nico’s jeans, then paused as they found the growing bulge at the front.

The liquid-soft voice had a touch of curiosity. “Are you… enjoying this?”

“Oh my god,” Nico said, which wasn’t an answer but might as well been a confession. He’d been blindsided by the fear, but as the vampire’s claws turned to cup his bulge and lift… the points poking through and touching him—he shuddered against the wall in equal parts pleasure and terror. His breath rushed out of him in a gibbering plea—for his life? For more? He didn’t know.

The voice hissed with soft laughter. The claws in Nico’s jeans tightened, just a hair, just enough to encourage him to stand on his tiptoes to relieve the pressure.

His cock swelled in the confines of his jeans, though, and he knew the vampire could feel every throb, as though his heartbeat lived in his erection.

The claws on his junk didn’t move, but a second hand scratched claws down his bare chest, the poor shirt having fallen to either side. The vampire left hot, stinging lines across Nico’s skin. When a claw hooked briefly against his nipple, Nico sucked air through his teeth and bucked into the vampire’s grip.

“Oh, my,” he whispered into Nico’s ear. “You are going to be fun to play with.”

Nico gulped for air. “Please—“ He gasped, “Please.”

“Please, what, my little snack?”

Nico felt the puff of breath against his jaw and tilted his head away. He wanted to get away… right? He wasn’t offering himself up as food… was he?

The vampire slid closer. His hot tongue licked a sudden stripe up from Nico’s collarbone to ear. He trembled under the touch and let out another involuntary whine.

But he couldn’t tell anymore if it was fear or anticipation.

“I must confess,” the vampire purred. “I was here to investigate rumors that the Black Rose Court had been wiped out by a witch.” That hot stripe of a tongue again up Nico’s neck. “I didn’t realize they’d been hiding a little masochist in their halls this whole time.” His voice was like crushed velvet on Nico’s skin. It made him shiver. “Tell me, did you serve the Sire of the Black Rose? Did he like to drag his claws down your skin before he drank your blood?”

Nico’s breathing hitched. “N-No. Dimitri—“

“Ah yes, of course, you mentioned him.” The grip on Nico’s cock and balls tightened ever so slightly. “Really, it’s too bad he’s not here.” Nico felt the edge of the vampire’s nose. The puff of his voice. The curl of his smirking lips. “We could share you…”

There were fangs on the other side of those lips. Sharp fangs ready to bite and drink Nico’s blood. His eyes fluttered closed and he swallowed a moan of desire.

He couldn’t stop his cock from flexing, though. Couldn’t stop the first drops of precum that wet his cockhead and gave him away. Couldn’t stop the way his asshole flexed in preparation. He had to hold his breath or he’d start begging.

Nico reached out. One of his hands found an arm and he grabbed it hard, not to push away, but just to hold on to something while his body burned with arousal. The pleasure was overtaking the fear, now. He was going to do something incredibly stupid.

He hoped Dimitri would forgive him.

Nico really hoped he’d live long enough to ask for forgiveness in the first place.

His other hand swept down the vampire’s body until he found the rising erection and knew he had a chance.

He let his voice quiver—it wasn’t hard, he was shaking with desire. The vampire holding him up could feel every little twitch of his muscles. Every flex of Nico’s cock in his jeans. So when Nico spoke it was unsteady with need.

“Let me suck your cock.”

The vampire hummed, considering. “Do you think I’ll take your pretty mouth and forget about feasting on your blood?”

“No—“ Nico’s grip tightened on the vampire’s cock. It jumped in his palm. “No, let me suck you. Let me lick your cock. Let me get you wet…” he trailed off, dragging his hand up the shaft he could feel under his fingers. He felt the vampire cant his hips closer so Nico had a better angle. He squeezed the hardening shaft.

And Nico placed his bet: “So you can fuck my hole when you bite me.”