Pillars of Magic

Ipulled on a pair of nice jeans and a semi-sheer sweater. There was no point in dressing up too much since the clothes would be on the floor in less than an hour anyway, as long as I could convince Gabe that fucking was better than a movie at home. When he called yesterday to ask me out, that’s more what I had in mind, but had agreed to dinner and a movie anyway.

I locked the door to my dorm room and glanced around, hoping that no prying eyes followed me. The whole building was co-ed, and more than half of the residents were witches. Female witches were the norm and made up the entirety of the Dominion, the governing body of magic. I had the misfortune to be the only male on campus studying magic, but since I was the last living witch in the Rou line—my mother was the regional director of the Midwest Dominion branch—I had to break the boundaries or my mom would kill me.

The girls tried to drive me out through pranks and teasing, just to prove that guys couldn’t be witches. History proved that men just weren’t as powerful as females when it came to magic—most men. I wasn’t most men. It was why I had a single room to myself: no one wanted to bunk with the pariah of the whole campus.

So far all the pranks had been minor. Nasty notes slipped under my door, people tripping me in the hall or pushing me whenever they passed, lots of name-calling and reporting me to teachers for things I hadn’t done. I could handle it. It was all kid stuff.

“Hey, Seiran.”

I turned around, expecting someone to throw something or curse my existence. Ryan Federoff—one of the offensive linemen for the football team—lingered in the hall. He was in my math class but had never said more than two words to me. In fact, he hung with some of the witches who spent a lot of time tormenting me, like Rose Pewette, who was the Pillar of earth. She seemed to take the “mean girl” concept to a whole new level.

“Hi,” I said carefully as I waited for the punch line and hoped it wasn’t my face.

He smiled and his face lit up, easing some of my anxiety. “Going out?”

“Just for a while. Meeting a friend.” I tried to be casual. Ryan was cute in that rugged sports-star sort of way. Long face with lots of angles and a bulky body—probably from steroids—but he wasn’t unattractive. He was sort of considered a catch by most of the Dominion girls since he came from a Dominion family. Good bloodlines and all that crap. Sometimes I wondered if they were breeding horses with the way everyone talked about who should mate with who to beget what. It was a relief to be gay and not have to worry about the baby gig. Life was enough stress without all that hassle.

Ryan crossed the hall as I headed for the door. He fell in step with me. “A date? Is it serious?”

Was he hitting on me? The guys at school rarely spoke to me. Ryan couldn’t have known me well enough to know that I didn’t date seriously, but I didn’t want to give him the impression that I was easy either.

I gave him a wide, but fake, smile. “Just meeting a friend.”

“Call me sometime and we can get a drink.” He touched my arm and ran his fingers down the edge of my sweater’s soft fabric until they reached my wrist—like he was going to take my hand. It was an odd move. Did he think ’cause I looked like a girl that he had to treat me like one? My long hair did not mean I liked flowers and long walks on the beach—long fucks on the beach maybe…

“Sure.” I didn’t mention to him that I wasn’t old enough to legally drink in public, but he wasn’t really looking for conversation over alcohol anyway. His body language said sex in a thousand different ways. He’d do for a one-off some night I didn’t want to leave campus. It was college after all. The time to explore the world and our sexuality. Maybe he’d never been with another guy. I wasn’t really good at breaking in firsts, but I’d give it the old college try. But not tonight. I’d already made a promise.

He gave me his number and walked me to my car, seeming very gentleman-like for a jock. “Later,” he said.

“Later,” I told him and watched him head off down the path leading to some of the other dorms. I felt like someone was watching me. It was a heavy apprehension weighing at my shoulders. I tried to shrug it off, but the unease that tingled a warning down my spine had become a way of life. I’d have to hit the books harder to see if there was a spell that could tell me if I was paranoid or really being stalked by someone. I preferred the former.

I unlocked my car, sighing at its broken-down exterior. My meager savings from mowing the neighbors’ lawns and walking pets had paid for the car. My mother gave me enough money for food and gas each month. It was at her insistence that I studied magic. Her coercion had been the kind I couldn’t say no to since she could be very demanding. Living on campus had been my only chance to escape her constant supervision, but I’d traded one prison for another. Some days I wondered if there would ever be an end.

Only two things really helped me find peace: sex and shifting into my lynx form to run free on the new moon. The second was illegal by Dominion law. Witches were not allowed to shift, since—unlike lycanthropes—they had a tendency to not want to return to human form. But sex could be easily procured, as I planned to do tonight. Gabe was always a pretty sure thing, ever since I became legal. And if Gabe wasn’t up for play, apparently I had a backup plan in Ryan Federoff.

Unlike on campus, I’d be safe from scathing glances at Gabe’s. He was a two-thousand-year-old vampire. Anyone who messed with him deserved to have their throat torn out.

I drove to Gabe’s and parked in the lot of his condo, beneath the light, and hurried to the door. Somehow the unease had followed me, at least until I rode the elevator up to his loft. The door was cracked open for me—he could do that because he lived in a secure building on the good side of St. Paul.

His place was all wooden floors, granite counters, and endless windows that overlooked the city skyline. Beautiful, if you liked that sort of thing. As an earth witch, I preferred trees, but who was I to tell a vampire how to live?

The first thing that hit me when I entered was the breeze from the open balcony door. We rarely went outside at this height, and because it was late October, the wind was a little more than cold. Usually we retired quickly to the loft above, where his king-sized bed would be turned down for the night. Or he’d fuck me into the wall beside the door or sometimes even on the kitchen counter. Wherever was fine with me so long as we got on with it.

He’d been my only repeat, the only guy I ever came to more than once. I didn’t know if it was because of his pretty words, his firm round ass and amazingly sculpted shoulders, or the lack of fear I had when in his arms. Either way, my body seemed to really like everything he did, and my commitment-phobic head didn’t gripe too much. As long as he didn’t mention the L word.

“Hey,” Gabe said, his slightly accented voice coming from the balcony doorway. He stood in a casual, cover-model pose with strong arms crossed over his chest. And he looked like a model with his blond hair in an array of curls and green eyes glowing with a light of happiness that I only got to see on rare occasions.

“We’re watching a movie on the balcony?” I crossed the room, stripping off my shirt as I moved, showing off my flat stomach and ever-ready nipples. Maybe I’d get them pierced, attract more attention to them. No one ever touched them as much as I’d like. I’d never have a six-pack, just didn’t have the right body type for it, but I could work with what I had.

I reached him and stretched up on my tiptoes to kiss his lips lightly. He pulled me in closer, pressing a hand at the back of my neck, weaving his fingers through my long black hair, and slipping his tongue into my mouth to duel with mine.

“Hmm,” I sighed happily into his lips.

He pulled away and stroked my cheek, looking so serious for a minute it brought on a sense of panic. If he said the words, I’d be out the door. But he knew that. It had happened before. So he just said, “You look great.”

I rubbed my erection against his thigh to remind him that I felt great too. “Can we skip the movie?”

“I made you dinner.” He pulled away and headed out onto the covered balcony where a small table sat decked out like one from some sort of fancy restaurant. White tablecloth, red roses, fancy plates, and a cart beside it that was sure to be filled with gourmet cuisine.

The whole sight made me cold. “What is this?”

“Just dinner.” He motioned toward the chair. I hesitantly took a seat and watched as he served the meal. After he returned to his seat, I picked up my fork and dug in to the yummy-looking dinner. The salmon was moist and flaky in a rich cheese sauce with steamed vegetables and a flavorful couscous mix. Gabe poured wine for both of us, a soft white that tickled my palate nicely with the taste of the food.

I dug in while he studied me. He sipped at his own glass of wine, swirling it occasionally, and tapped his fingers lightly on the table. Gabe wasn’t usually so physically animated. He was more of a talker. His silence was beginning to make me nervous.

Finally I put my fork down and stared at him. “What’s going on?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“So what’s the deal with the romantic dinner, then?”

“No deal. I just wanted to spend a nice evening with you. One that didn’t just revolve around sex.” He got up and went to the cart. “Ready for dessert?”

Dessert was simple. Fresh vanilla ice cream with strawberries and chocolate poured over the top. He set the dish in front of me and returned to his chair. Instead of putting my spoon in and going to town on the sweet treat, I picked it up and moved to his side of the table. He slid back enough to let me plop into his lap, then held my dessert bowl for me. I dipped my spoon into the concoction, hoping to get this evening moving in a more familiar direction.

I sucked on the spoon, swirled the cream around in my mouth before swallowing, and pressed my lips to his. Gabe didn’t hesitate to let me in and then deepened the kiss. His normal flavor tinted with wine made me smile into his mouth. He cupped my ass with his free hand, and I massaged his neck and cheek with mine. He offered me the bowl, encouraging me to take another sugary spoonful, and I did, lapping and sucking at the spoon, playing with it to find every drop. Our eyes were locked to each other’s—mine probably as lust-filled as his. His erection ground into my thigh, and mine begged to be touched.

The chilly Minnesota air made me shiver. “Let’s take this inside,” I said, slipping off his lap and tugging him away from the table. He left the bowl there and followed me, pressing kisses to my hair as we went.

We only made it as far as the stairs to the loft before he shoved me against them, unbuttoned my pants, and slipped his hands inside. I sighed as his warm grip enveloped me.

“Heavy on the QuickLife tonight, eh?” I said, meeting his endless kisses. The bottled synthetic blood staved off his hunger and kept his temperature up and ready even when I wasn’t feeding him.

“Always prepared for you,” he breathed against my skin. He bathed my neck and chest in kisses. When he finally reached my aching nipples and sucked one into his mouth, I arched against him, throwing my head back in ecstasy.

When he moved to the other nipple, I reached up to run my hands through his hair. I hated the smell of his stinky herbal shampoo, but it was so him I couldn’t complain much about it. As he bowed his head to reach my nipple, something across the room caught my eye.

A wall calendar pinned up beside the door had big red Xs marked over each day of the month until today, which was circled. Gabe kissed down my stomach. I tugged gently at his hair. “What’s today?”

“Hmm?” he answered. “October twenty-sixth.”

“I know the date. But why do you have it circled on your calendar?”

He sat down on the stair beside me, still rubbing my lower abdomen. “Older vamps like me have a hard time keeping up with dates. So I have to write things down.”

That still wasn’t an answer. He tried to kiss me again, but I pushed him away and crossed the room to look at the calendar. Did he have something important today that he didn’t tell me about? Why did he insist we go out tonight, on a Tuesday of all nights, if he had other things going on? Written in the big red bubble was Anniversary.

My heart jumped faster in my chest, and my mind raced to recall the dates, but all I remembered about that Halloween party was that it had been on a new moon two years ago, when I was sixteen. Panic took hold of me as Gabe wrapped his arms around me from behind. “It’s nothing, Sei. Let’s go to bed.”

“What anniversary?”

His silence was answer enough.

I tore myself out of his arms and grabbed my shirt. “The anniversary of when we first met?”

“Why is that a bad thing, Sei?”

I shrugged the shirt over my head and rubbed my eyes. “Anniversaries are for couples.”

“They’re for friends too. We are friends, aren’t we?”

“Friends who fuck. Not friends who celebrate the day they met. What’s next, the celebration of the first time you did me?” My lungs tightened and I could almost feel the world closing in around me. Relationships and I did not work. Gabe deserved better anyway. There was so much about me that he didn’t know. It was better if he just thought of me as an indiscriminant slut.

“Don’t make this more than it needs to be, Sei. I just wanted to spend the night with you⁠—”

“You’re the one who made it more than it needed to be. Fancy dinners, flowers, what else were you planning? Asking for a domestic partnership during the afterglow?” The idea nearly brought me to my knees. Didn’t he realize that he’d get tired of me if I stuck around?

I couldn’t stay. The hope in his eyes made my heart break. When he learned who I really was, he’d hate me, and I couldn’t bear that. I wouldn’t expose him to my fucked-up head.

I stomped to the door. “Don’t call me.”

“Sei….”

“Find someone else to play house with you, Gabe. I’m going to find someone to fuck me.” I slammed the door, feeling childish, but couldn’t help it. I wouldn’t really find someone else, since my heart was racing and I needed some time to calm down, but he just made me so mad sometimes.

My whole body shook as I made my way down to my car. The tremors had started after my mom got the promise from me that I’d attend the university and study magic. It was getting worse all the time. I wondered how much longer I could hide it. The world seemed to be falling apart around me. People hated me at school, I couldn’t go home to my mother, and now I didn’t even have Gabe to rely on for occasional, comforting, uncomplicated sex.

I started the car and took off for the dorm. Once there, I went in only to grab a book, then headed out on foot toward the all-night café near the library. At least this late at night, I could probably find a nice hidden corner to relax for a while.

When I was halfway to the café, someone stepped onto the path, and I ran right into a broad chest. He grabbed my arm to steady me. “Sorry,” he said.

“S’okay,” I told him. He was a big guy, probably over six feet tall, with long blond hair, and he wore a heavy jacket. He smelled of strong deodorant and a spicy aftershave. I had to rub my nose to keep from sneezing. Stupid oversensitive sense of smell.

“Can I walk you somewhere? It’s pretty late.”

I moved around him and headed toward the café. “I’m fine, thanks.” When he didn’t follow, I let out a heavy sigh of relief. Why had I become so jumpy? I had sex with vampires, lycanthropes, and humans. Any one of the batch could easily hurt a small guy like me, but instead it was the dark that made me afraid. Where was the logic in that?

The café was a welcoming light in the distance. When I finally reached the door and went inside, I felt safe again. I ordered a cup of hot cocoa and found a nice little corner table. The barista knew me well enough to come over and wipe down the table for me.

I gave her a strained smile and opened my book to get lost in a hot romance with man-on-man action. The main character was lavishing attention on his lover’s silken, turgid rod and playing with the puckered skin of his love hole, when the chair across from me screeched and someone dropped into it. I glanced up, blinking to focus on the bigger picture of the room.

Ryan sat across from me. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Meeting your friend here?”

“No. Saw him earlier. That’s over.” I looked back down to my book, not really in the mood for sex anymore. Maybe another night. Hopefully Ryan would get the point.

“It’s almost 1:00 a.m.”

“Yeah. It’s late.”

“Can I walk you home?”

I stifled a sigh. Why did everyone think I needed to be walked home? Was he that hot for me? He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who had to beg. I shrugged. “Sure.” I bookmarked my page, got up, and pushed in my chair.

He motioned for me to go ahead of him and waited for me to toss my trash before opening the door for me. The door-holding thing really annoyed me, but I kept my mouth shut. He had no need to court me, I didn’t do long-term. And Ryan wasn’t the kind of guy I’d keep even if I could. No, that would have been Gabe, but I couldn’t let Gabe’s sentimental crap bleed all over my night.

We walked side by side down the path, neither of us saying anything. But halfway to my dorm, he did grab my hand and lace his fingers through mine. The intimacy of the act made me push closer to him, having read him right, bumping hips. My body was waking up and thinking a little play wouldn’t be so bad tonight after all. As long as he hadn’t shrunk his dick, maybe he could wear me out enough to sleep for a few hours.

“You’re pretty hot, Seiran Rou,” Ryan said as he tugged me off the path and toward a big tree. He flipped us around so my back was to the tree and pressed up against me, all heat and man.

The flattery wasn’t something I needed or enjoyed. Also, I tended to be pretty blunt. “So you know this a one-time gig, right?”

He touched my face, brushing my cheek with callused fingers. “I hear you don’t let anyone double dip.”

Not many even got to single dip—a hand job or a blow job were okay—but I let him kiss me anyway. He tasted of alcohol and cigarettes, neither a flavor I liked. He stepped back, smiling at me in an odd way. And then he smashed his fist into my face.

The blow knocked my head against the tree. I saw the flashing stars of consciousness trying to leak out of me as my legs gave out. I slid down the trunk of the tree. He kicked me in the stomach, doubling me up and making me heave cocoa all over. Ryan’s laugh sounded far away. He began pounding me, just not the way I would have liked. My ears rung, eyesight faded in and out—probably my eyes swelling shut—but the hits kept coming to my head, stomach, arms, and hips. I rolled into a ball to protect myself.

The ground beneath me pulsed in reminder that it waited for my command. I took a moment to focus my power and breathed a calming flow of air before kicking out and nailing Ryan in the knee. I heard a satisfying pop and a cry. All I could think was “Wrong venue, asshole” as I pulled strength from the earth to help heal. The earth rolled through me, mending and giving strength but hurting and draining me as it went. It was a cycle. If I wanted the earth to help, I had to give it something in return.

Ryan leaned against a nearby tree, babying his left leg. “I’m going to fucking kill you, Rou. Fucking freak. Look what you did to me.” He moved toward me, hopping and putting very little pressure on his injured leg.

I touched the ground, directing the magic toward him. A tree root broke up through the ground suddenly enough to trip him. He went sprawling, landing only a few feet from me, screaming the whole way down. I scrambled up and backed away.

“What the hell was that?” Ryan tried to get up, but his left leg was now turned at an unnatural angle. “You broke my leg.”

“How did it feel to kiss a freak, asshole?” I asked him, resisting the urge to kick him in return for the beating he’d given me. “Maybe next time you’ll fuck with someone who can’t kick your ass!” It had to be the adrenaline talking, because I couldn’t believe what I had said. I was so sure he’d hop up any second and beat the shit out of me. I turned and ran, heading for the dorms.

“Rou!” Ryan’s voice screamed behind me. I didn’t stop. My heart hammered and lungs burned. The pain pushed me to the edge of darkness several times, and only fear kept me moving. I got to the main door of the dorm and stopped to suck in deep, painful breaths. My ribs were broken for sure, at least one on each side of my chest, and flashes of pain and light kept bouncing around my head, so maybe a concussion too. If it weren’t for the power of the earth coursing through me, I probably wouldn’t have made it at all.

“Sei?” a soft voice whispered from a few feet away.

I staggered, trying to make out the towering figure and praying that one of Ryan’s friends hadn’t somehow followed me. There was probably more than one bastard out tonight.

When strong arms reached me and kept me from falling, I had to swallow the panic. The concrete beneath my feet wouldn’t interfere with my magic, and I could take on anybody so long as I was in contact with the earth. But if I did something crazy, my mom would know. She’d realize I was faking not having much power. She might even kill me for using it.

“Sei? You’re bleeding pretty badly, and I think you have a collapsed lung. I need to take you to the hospital.” The figure sounded worried and somewhat angry; his touch was strong, but darkness ate at the edge of my vision. Something hot and annoying ran down my face. Blinking didn’t help. It wasn’t until the towering figure picked me up and carried me toward the parking lot that I realized it was blood on my face and Gabe carried me—I smelled his stinky shampoo.

“Gabe?” I asked.

“I got you. Let me help for once, please.”

“Okay.” I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes, letting the pain take over as the earth recalled its power and I lost the fight against unconsciousness.

The trip to the emergency room was a first for me. I had three broken ribs, a concussion, a nasty cut on the side of my head, and a dislocated right wrist. My left lung had taken some damage, but wasn’t collapsed, and so long as I breathed slow, normal breaths, it didn’t ache all that much. Gabe stayed while the doctors patched me up and gave me pain meds.

A cop came by to ask about the attack and told us that Ryan had come in with a broken leg, but was claiming he’d fallen trying to get away from me. Said I tried to hex him or something, which I denied. The officer sounded angry when he talked to the doctors about me before he entered the room. I heard him grumble, “Letting a male witch enroll was just asking for trouble. Now we have one of our best offensive linemen out with a broken leg.”

It wasn’t until he walked in that the rage fell from his face and turned to pity. I guess a cop was a cop. I didn’t need that from anyone, especially a judgmental asshole like him, so I answered his questions as quickly as I could and waited for him to leave.

When I was finally released, it was almost dawn, but Gabe was still at my side. He drove me back to the dorms and even walked me to my door inside the building. “You should go,” I told him. The sun and vampires didn’t mix. The fading night trickled through my window when I opened the door to my room.

“Your door has locks, right?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

He leaned into me, giving me a soft hug before kissing my head on the undamaged side. “I’m sorry for scaring you last night.”

A hoarse laugh escaped me. He scared me? I scared me. I’d pulled the roots out of the ground with a thought and broke a man’s leg. I hadn’t been able to do that two years ago. What was wrong with me? “I’m sorry you had to rescue me.”

“Not your fault. Call me, okay?”

I nodded, and he left. I watched him through the window as he headed toward his car, and prayed he would get home in time. The first edges of light were beginning to brighten the sky in the east. When he vanished from sight, I closed the door, locked it, and crawled into bed.

What a horrible night. If only I weren’t a terrified idiot, I would have been at Gabe’s all night. Instead I’d gotten my ass handed to me by some brainless jock, then gone to the hospital to have eleven stitches in my forehead and a million bandages. I’d seen enough of my reflection at the hospital to know my face was black and blue. How unattractive for anyone, especially someone as beautiful as Gabe.

I dozed for a few minutes before startling myself awake by thinking I heard the door. By the light coming from the window, I saw it was still locked up tight. I reached for the phone and dialed a familiar number. Gabe answered on the third ring.

“Hey. You feeling all right?” Gabe’s voice was soft and sleepy. The sun always made him that way.

“Yeah. Just tired.”

“Mhmm. Me too.”

“How’d you find me?” It didn’t worry me so much that he followed me. I didn’t want to think about what might’ve happened if he hadn’t.

“You ran into a friend of mine on campus, and he called to tell me that you looked distressed and distracted. So I drove out. Wanted to make sure you were okay. It’s my fault you were out of it.”

I let that settle for a minute, trying to decide if it bothered me, but it didn’t. “Can we watch a movie tonight? At your place?” Maybe cuddle on the couch in front of his theater-size TV with a bowl of popcorn and a warm protective body under a soft fleece blanket. If I’d been more awake, I might not have asked, and that would have been a tribute to the shame I already felt just for calling him. I’d need a few days to heal before I’d be up to anything strenuous again.

“Sure. Want me to pick you up after dark?”

“Yes, please.”

“Okay.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“And Gabe?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“Always.”

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The cold crackled through the forest like glass shattering, rendering all else silent in the dark. The trees stretched skyward, their barren branches a testament of their will to survive even the most brutal temperatures. Everything else hid away seeking safety.

Find shelter. Get warm.

My paws froze and stung, turning numb from the bitter chill. Even my heavy coat couldn’t keep the cold from freezing me to the core. I staggered but kept running. The forest had changed. It was not the sanctuary I’d bonded with these past few years. Gone was the soft embrace I’d come to crave and the gentle, welcoming touch of Mother Earth’s power.

Yet I kept moving with no direction to my flight. Just an onward movement that meant distance. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t outrun the past or the pain.

Confusing memories from a different life swirled inside my head. Bloody flashes and the expression on his face—betrayal?—refused to let the earth steal humanity from me. I wanted to lose myself in the animal and forget that I’d ever been human.

Find shelter. Get warm, the voice in my head persisted.

His heart had stopped beating under my hands. Blood had heated my skin and stained me with something that could never be removed. Breathing had become almost impossible when his eyes had clouded over. His death, my madness.

How many days had I wandered, teetering between this life and the animal nature I sought to alleviate the grief? Every once in a while I could hear the howl of the dogs pursuing me, scent them in the distance as they were ready to rip me limb from limb as penance for my crime. The Dominion, Tri-Mega, the Ascendance, and probably the humans too, all seeking my death.

I deserved it, having killed everything I loved. I prayed for death. That would stop the pain, right?

Find shelter. Get warm.

A dark farmhouse in the distance beckoned as a possible break from the bitter cold. It was shelter. Might not be warm, but my gut wanted me to obey the voice. Hopefully no one was home else I’d be forced to hurt people again just to escape. I trotted around the house and discovered the scent of humans was old. If any had been there, it had been weeks, maybe even months earlier. I carefully slipped inside and forced myself to shift back to human flesh.

My skin ached like cold fire burning through my extremities. Fur was warmer, the lynx more prepared for the cold, and though this form was bigger, it felt small, compact. Too small to hold everything I had been and keep the pain from leaking through. Emotions rained down like golf-ball-sized hail. There was no stopping the tide this time. A human brain had far too much capacity for thinking, blame, anger, and self-loathing.

I cowered in the corner, curled around myself, crying, freezing, unable to find the motivation to keep going. My heart ached with accusations of murder.

Get warm. Find food. The voice’s demand changed. Was I hungry? I was still cold, but that was only fair, right? He would be forever cold, alone. I’d hated to leave him.

The farmhouse was silent but mostly clean. The water ran, and the thermostat sat at an even sixty degrees. The fridge was barren, but a heavily loaded stand freezer and well-stocked pantry proved this was more of a vacation home. I pried open the tab on a can of peaches and wolfed the fruit down. My stomach growled like I’d swallowed my lynx instead of just changed shape.

When had I last eaten? Days ago, probably. Without him, none of the mundane things mattered. The thought of him brought a rise of nausea and the memory of his last moments. I shoved the can aside and found my way to the only bathroom, and had to fight my rebelling stomach when it wanted to force up the fruit. I gagged and refused to let go of the food I ate.

You need to eat, the voice in my head told me, but I couldn’t.

A scalding shower washed away some of the dirt but none of the grief. Wet footprints followed me like his ghost had latched on to me as I searched the house for warmth and comfort—neither of which I deserved. A chest in the upper bedroom held flannel shirts that I could wear like an old-style nightdress. They smelled a little musty, but heat was more important. Would the shivering ever stop?

There was a vague memory in the back of my brain that reminded me I’d had the shakes before this. From cold? Did that mean I was always cold?

The reflection in a dusty old mirror was not kind. My hair was shorn close to my scalp, eyes shadowed in deep black hollows with the lack of sleep only days could bring. My weight had dropped, giving me more of a sallow complexion and a gaunt stretch to my face. Gone was the beauty he’d spent years coveting. He likely would have turned me away now anyway. Better that he was gone, right?

I sobbed. Was this what I’d become? Some kind of fugitive?

Earth Pillar. I laughed bitterly through the tears. That hadn’t changed anything. Love didn’t conquer all. Gabe was dead. Jamie probably was, too, since I’d shot him. If I had any sense of justice at all, I’d pull the rifle out of the closet—I smelled the gunpowder—and off myself right now. Maybe it would lessen the pain, but then, I didn’t really have a right to stop my suffering after what I’d done to them.

My hands shook so hard my fingers were numb. I couldn’t find the strength to reach for the end, despite the tears, the memories, and the loneliness. Rest. Things will be better when you wake. I curled up in the foreign bed and cried myself to sleep, wishing for the chance to just feel his arms around me one more time.

I love you. Sleep.

Using the weights at the Y wasn’t the same as using them at the gym, mostly because the few guys in the weight room were more casual lifters than the two guys with me. Rick and Michael looked like the bodybuilders they were: bulging muscles, veins, and necks rounder than their heads. No matter what Seiran said, I was not nearly as obsessive or large as my workout buddies. I curled 40lb dumbbells, they did 60lbs, but I could see how that would intimidate a small man like my brother, who could only do 15lbs on a good day. Nothing wrong with that, he was fit for his body type.

People stared, though. We always stood out. I sometimes convinced myself it was the muscles and impressive sets that made everyone stop. Other days I wasn’t so sure. Rick and Michael wore super tight shorts and tanks, outlining every well-defined ridge of their bodies. I was in running pants and a T-shirt just loose enough to cling. Sei didn’t like all the muscles on display. They made him nervous. Or maybe it was just the way Rick and Michael joked and teased him like he was their little brother too. They bitched at me for walking on eggshells around the kid. Said I acted different. But they didn’t know what Sei had been through.

I put the weights away, wiped everything clean, and stretched a little before heading for the shower to wash off the sweat. Neither Sei nor Kelly was in the locker room yet. I’d probably have to drag them out of the pool. The second the sky had dropped its first snowflake of the season in the Twin Cities, the two had been perpetually at the pool. It was the one amenity that Gabe’s building didn’t have. At least not an enclosed one that could be used during the winter.

Rick and Michael headed to the track to go around again. They’d only met me here today so I wouldn’t have to be in the weight room without a spotter. Admittedly I didn’t meet them as often. What used to be four or five days a week was down to two, and that was only if I was sure Sei was busy elsewhere.

I had lunch planned with the boys, so we had to get cleaned up and downtown before the lunch crowds swarmed. Sei would freak if we were shoved into a corner surrounded by noisy, smelly people. Large groups and small places always made him twitchy. The last few months of heaped-on shit hadn’t changed that. I’d been pushing Gabe to convince Sei a vacation would be nice. Get Sei’s mind off the past, and maybe ease some of the never-ending tremor that often ghosted through his limbs.

After the shower, I yanked on a clean pair of black pants and a T-shirt. The rest would just make me sweat, so the button-up would have to wait until I got the boys out of the water. I had to pause in the doorway of the pool room because Kelly was squatting with his back to me. The lithe muscles of his legs strained, and the tiny Speedo did little to cover that small, tight butt of his or the lean length of his back and strong shoulders. The line of his neck was mostly hidden by his bleached blond hair, which was cut in a sort of skater punk versus surfer do. The strands looked darker wet, clinging in an almost taunting way. It begged to be brushed away from his tanned neck.

I swallowed back a moan when he shifted his weight and dropped to one knee. His strong hands worked at Sei’s back, massaging the probably aching muscles. Sei had been attacked by a rogue witch a couple weeks ago and had really hurt his back. The doctors said he would heal. I knew spinal bruising took a lot of recovery time. The injury could have been so much worse. He could have been paralyzed. The thought made me shudder.

Sei relaxed into Kelly’s hands, a long sigh releasing the tension like a cork had been pulled. Most of the time it was me who did the massaging, but I couldn’t begrudge Kelly the right to touch him. They were best friends. I found them curled up together asleep on the couch more often than not, or even in one another’s beds, though Sei never looked at Kelly with more than a friendly smile, and he seemed to be okay with that. It wasn’t sexual, but it was a bond. Sometimes I had to fight the compulsion to separate them, usually after I had some horrible realization about how security in the building sucked or that someone could get to them in the pool if I wasn’t around despite the security Gabe hired to discreetly follow them around.

There was a time or two I admitted to worrying about Kelly’s motives. Sei had been betrayed before, countless times. But nothing in Kelly’s eyes ever said calculating killer or even sociopath. Which is what he would have to be to have fooled us all. So my worry began to expand to Kelly too, watching and protecting him to keep my little brother from experiencing heartache at the loss or betrayal of another friend. Never mind the fact that my body had other ideas as to why Kelly needed watching.

Kelly was carved like the runner—and swimmer—he was, lithe with strong shoulders and narrow hips. His arms were toned, not muscled like Rick or Michael or even close to my definition, but no one would have thought he was anything but fit. Without a shirt and mostly naked, there was no denying just how fit he was.

I sighed.

I would not lust after my baby brother’s best friend. It just wasn’t right. Kelly was one of the few people Sei had ever trusted in his whole life. The two talked like magpies, only shutting up long enough for Gabe or me to get food into them. There was no hesitation when they were together. They got into everything and Sei did things no one expected him to ever try. Like swimming in a public pool where there might be germs.

Getting Sei to open up to others was more important than whatever my stupid body demanded, especially since I wanted to curl around a man more than ten years my junior. I was the grown-up and had to act like one.

“Jamie!” Sei called, seeing me. He was sprawled on his stomach across a lounge chair that had been covered in towels. He wore board shorts and a T-shirt. I noticed the tear on the side of the shorts and mentally noted I’d have to go online to order him a new pair. The tear was low. Near the knee and only minor, but I’d either fix it or replace it anyway. I was a little surprised he hadn’t noticed it already and insisted on changing.

Sei’s smile lit up the room. There should have been the noise of other children, swimmers, and chatty parents. But Gabe donated a sizable amount of cash to keep the area closed and clear for Sei to play. Kelly plopped down in the chair beside where Sei was sprawled out. Sei rolled over instead of trying to push himself up. “Good workout?”

“Yep. You guys have fun swimming?” I sat carefully on the end of the Sei’s lounge chair, picked up his towel, and rubbed his head with it. His trunks were still slightly damp, but his skin appeared mostly dry. Drops of water hung from his short dark hair. He had thick, silky hair that anyone who cared about hair wanted to have. I knew he missed the length. Sei spent hours brushing my hair. I even let him braid it in interesting ways just because it was nice to have time close to him, even if he only did it ’cause he missed his.

I wondered, not for the first time, if he’d grown up brushing his mother’s hair, which had been long and straight until about three years ago. Sei hadn’t even begun to grow his hair long until he graduated high school.

“Kelly did like a billion laps,” Sei said, interrupting my wandering thoughts, then took the towel from me and flung it around his shoulders as he got up.

Kelly wrapped his towel around his waist and stretched. “The water was so nice.”

“Warm,” Sei said. His weight had dropped low enough that he didn’t have enough fat to insulate his bones. I was working on that, feeding him as much as I could and wrapping him in blankets when he wasn’t in Gabe’s lap, at school, or at work.

“You two better go get ready. We have to get to lunch.” I grabbed up their bag of water stuff and followed them to the locker room.

“I just need to shower off the chlorine.” Sei headed for the shower, stripping out of his trunks and shirt on his way to the back of the tiled shower stalls. Kelly followed suit, and I couldn’t turn around fast enough to not see his toned ass and the white outline of his tan. Shit.

“I’ll be out here,” I told them, trying to ignore their banter and laughter as they showered beside each other. The three of us shared a locker, so I pulled out all their stuff, lined it up on the bench, and then checked the rack by the shower for fresh linens. Gabe or I usually called ahead when we knew Sei would be coming so they could clean things, put extra attendants on duty, and clear the pool area. Gabe joked about buying a building and turning it into a private pool just for them. The idea had merit, like better security and little chance that someone had peed in the pool before we arrived. But Kelly did occasionally use the track and the weight room to work out. And Sei followed him like a little duck from place to place. So anything Gabe did would have to be more than just a pool. Maybe I could convince him to buy a gym. Go in on it with him. It would give me something to do as I got older, bored with nursing, or Sei didn’t need me anymore.

“So you’d really go to a game with me?” Kelly asked Sei as they were leaving the shower. I didn’t dare turn their way for fear of what I’d see. My mind filled in lots of blanks for me to go with the round little ass Kelly had and his warm, golden skin. The two were close in height, only a few inches separating them, but Kelly was broader in the shoulder and more defined.

I needed to stop thinking about him.

“Yeah. I’ll go. I can’t promise to understand it, but hot men running across a field in tight pants, sure.” They had to be talking about football. As far as I knew, the only football happening right now was college games, since the Vikings had already tanked their season, but it was Kelly’s favorite topic. I heard the sound of clothes rustling. Maybe if I thought really hard, I’d imagine something other than Kelly dressing. Of course he’d slide his pants up those lean legs, hop in to straighten them, and snap the jeans up over his crotch before pulling the shirt over his head and smoothing it over his flat stomach…

“Jamie?” Sei touched my arm gently, something he didn’t do often, but it brought me out of my fantasy. “You okay?”

“Of course.” I glanced over him, making sure he was dressed warmly enough for the cold.

“Ready to go?” Kelly asked. At least he was dressed too, even if the jeans he wore were a little tighter than I thought was stylish right now.

I was more ready than he could know. I picked up their things and led them to the car, letting them chatter away behind me. If I breathed and meditated, I could brush it all off. The image of Kelly’s ass wasn’t burned in my brain. It would fade. I’d seen a lot of asses in my lifetime. Why was his any better than any of the others? I sighed again and stuffed our bags in the trunk of my car, got in front, and started it.

“Want me to drive?” Kelly asked. He slid into the backseat beside Sei, but made a motion to open the door and get out.

“No. I’m good.” I needed something else to focus on other than the blond man in the backseat. Maybe after lunch I’d call an old friend of mine who liked to wrestle and didn’t mind taking care of a little wood. Christ, I was feeling like a teenager. And hungry. At least it was lunchtime.

The restaurant was quiet when we pulled in just after 11:00 a.m. The host seated us in a booth with views of the whole room, which I appreciated. Sei and Kelly sat across from me, ordered veggie egg rolls as an appetizer, and continued talking. It would be okay. I could handle it, though my gut churned as I stared out at the room. Watching people and making sure Sei was secure always made me feel normal. It gave me purpose. Though I was a little on edge, like a slightly overwound spring. Maybe I should have just done some boxing with the guys instead of the lifting. My overactive libido was probably because I hadn’t been spending as much time in the gym.

Between looking after Sei and my studies, time simply wasn’t on my side. How long before the scale would start inching up? I hadn’t checked in weeks. Shit. I was probably already up ten pounds, maybe as much as fifteen. Had my clothes been tight? Rick and Michael usually noticed, but they hadn’t said anything. Were they just trying to be polite?

Silence brought my eyes back to the young men sitting with me. “Huh?” I asked, since both of them stared at me with questioning gazes.

“You’re kind of spacey today,” Kelly remarked.

“Yeah,” Sei agreed. “What’s wrong, Jamie?”

“Nothing. I’m not sure what you mean.” I hated to see that worried look in Sei’s eyes. He had enough issues without adding mine.

“Okay. What are you going to order, then?” Sei prompted, holding up his menu.

Thankfully I’d gone over the menu online before planning on coming here and knew what I was getting. “The chicken with peppers and rice.”

“I totally figured him for the steak,” Kelly said.

Sei’s face crinkled up in a look of distaste. “Beef is so bad for you.” Which was why I wasn’t getting it—not because it was bad for me, but because Sei believed it was bad for me. “The tomato avocado sandwich looks good.”

“I’m getting the steak.” Kelly smiled at us both. “I promise not to keel over from a heart attack before lunch is over. Jamie could probably use the extra protein too, since he lifted today. The extra iron will help his muscles build and repair too.”

Sei looked my way with a raised eyebrow. “Maybe you should get the steak.”

I searched his face and words for any sign of disgust or judgment, but there was none. “Yeah, okay.”

Sei’s smile lit up the table. Kelly winked at me and returned his friend’s grin as we ordered and passed off the menus.

When the food came, I cut into my medium-well steak, loving how the juices ran out onto the plate. How long had it been since beef had crossed my palate? The first piece melted in my mouth. I stole a glance toward Sei and Kelly, fearing I’d find them watching me in a disapproving way. Food was fuel, not pleasure. Fuel, I reminded myself.

They were engaged in conversation about a Magic Studies class. Kelly occasionally glanced my way, throwing sweet smiles in my direction. Did he know he was flirting? Was he flirting? The only people who usually looked at me like that were flirting. Fuck, I was out of practice.

I went back to my steak, enjoying food for the first time in ages. Not that I didn’t like the things Seiran made, but he made a lot of rabbit food: lean proteins, super grains, veggies, and fruit. It was healthy and all whole foods, which weren’t bad. But I’d been secretly adding more healthy fats to his diet. Even making him chocolates with coconut oil and almond butter. He needed the omega-3s to help his mental balance just as much as I did.

Kelly pushed the last of his steak toward me when Sei grabbed the dessert menu. They picked out some monstrous chocolate flowing cake and ice cream mix of which I had only two spoonfuls. Half of Sei’s sandwich sat on his plate, taunting me more than any sweet treats ever did. How much time would I have to spend in the gym tomorrow if I ate that sandwich on top of the steak I had? The waiter came back, and Sei asked to have the sandwich boxed up. I paid for lunch despite their protests and we made our way to the car. If I were lucky, my stomach wouldn’t growl until after I got up to my place and could have a protein shake.

A text chirped on my phone just as we pulled into the condo. I dug out the phone while I pulled their stuff out of the trunk. The words made my stomach clench. My mom was asking for a visit. I swallowed back my sigh and headed inside to put everything away. Kelly and Sei found their way to the counter, books on magic spread out. Sei took his role as a mentor to Kelly pretty seriously. He had a few new titles to study himself, since I’d given him some of my favorite books that had been gifted to me by our father. They were old and probably outdated, but were better than a lot of the highly edited Dominion-approved texts.

“Sei, I have to go out for a bit,” I called to him after a minute. “Need anything?”

“No. Bye, Jamie. Be safe.”

Kelly waved to me as I made my way out the door. Gabe wouldn’t be up for another few hours, so there really was nothing to stop me from seeing my mother. She really wasn’t as bad as Tanaka Rou. Logically, I knew my sister Hanna would make a better mother; after all, I’d raised her to care about others. None of that stopped the dread from filling me as I got in my car and steered it toward my mother’s house.

I pulled into the driveway of the suburban house and had to take a deep breath. Was this ever going to get easier? Finally I got out and approached the door. My mother threw open the door. Her deeply bronzed skin looked like she spent hours every day sun tanning, but it was her natural color, just like mine. Her strawberry-blonde hair contrasted beautifully with her dark Native American eyes. Her mother had been a delicate Swede and her father a Native American warrior with weathered skin and eyes that told the tales of generations. I missed my grandfather suddenly. Odd since I’d barely known him—my mother’s father had been a kind man. I was thirteen when he passed away less than a year after my father was put to death. My grandfather had never looked at me with judging eyes.

“Momma,” I said and wrapped my arms around her in a gentle hug.

“Come in, come in.” She wriggled free of my grip and led me into the house. “Have you put on weight? You always were such a big boy. How about I make you some green tea? That’s supposed to help you lose weight and gain energy.”

I flinched. It really wouldn’t matter how I answered, she’d do it anyway. I sat down at the kitchen table while she made tea. The steak I had for lunch threatened to come back up.

“Have you seen your sister? She’s positively glowing. I’ve been telling her for years that a baby would do that for her. I’d all but given up on having grandbabies.”

“Hanna is excited for the babies. So is Sei.”

“Smartest thing that boy ever did,” my mother mumbled.

“Don’t start, please.” She gave me her disapproving look. I gave mine right back. “You wanted me to visit.”

“Millicent has a lovely daughter…”

“No,” I interrupted before she could continue. “No setting me up with anyone.” Hanna was fulfilling the obligation to have a baby and continue the Browan family. The responsibility had really never been mine. Being a male child born to a Dominion family always sucked. We were mostly invisible unless a union could be made with a good family. At least I hadn’t been first wave like Sei had. Or an only child. I needed to call Hanna and thank her again just for being born.

“You need a strong Dominion girl to take you in hand. Spending all that time with that Rou boy isn’t making you any friends. If he weren’t Pillar, Hanna wouldn’t be having his baby. So sad Tanaka was only left with that boy. He’s so flamboyantly gay too. She couldn’t even find a girl who would be willing to marry him.”

“Sei is what he is. He’s strong and I don’t just mean powerful with magic. He’s dealt with more shit than anyone I know, his mother being part of that shit. If she’d just let him be who he was, he wouldn’t have half the issues he does. Not that he’d be any more willing to marry a girl since he does prefer boys. And with all the snobby witches in the Dominion, I’m beginning to agree with him.” The silence of the room made the blood pounding in my ears all the louder. Had I really said that out loud?

“Are you telling me you’re gay?”

Technically, I was pretty sure I was bisexual at this point in my life, but whatever. The older I got, the less labels mattered to me. “If I get to choose who I spend the rest of my life with, it will be someone I love. Not someone who can have my child or is a good union between families. And before you say anything, yes, I’d like to have children someday. But Sei, my baby brother who I adore, has proven that not everything has to be the way the Dominion wants it to be. If I have kids, I will not allow boys to die or be cut. They will be raised to learn about their powers, about the Code, and with a healthy knowledge of magic in general. They will be respected for who they are, not discriminated against because of what they are. Their parents will love them no matter what sex they are born. Gender is nothing but a stereotype.”

My mother’s face was blank, and she sat so still I worried I’d really shocked her into having a stroke. Finally she said, “You think I don’t love you?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Sometimes it seems like it. Other times I really don’t think so. I’m Dominion born and you didn’t stay with my dad because you had me. Though I’m not sure why you kept me.”

She frowned at me.

“I’m just tired of trying to please everyone.” And I realized in that moment that I really was. Sei’s and my battles weren’t really all that different. Sure, he was pressured in the limelight by a tyrannical mother and mine was more subtle, but it was still discrimination, hate. I was tired of caring for people who hated me just for being me. Fuck.

I let out a long sigh and my stomach grumbled, reminding me of other wars I was still fighting. It was time to pick my battles. This one with my mother was one I obviously wasn’t winning. I got up from the chair. “I really need to go.”

“Don’t leave angry,” my mom said and grabbed my arm.

“I’m not angry. I’m just tired.” I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “We can’t always live for others. Sometimes we just have to make a choice for ourselves. Sorry, Momma.” I left with that, getting in the car and heading back to the condo. The drive gave me time to stew in my own misery for a while. Was I angry? Did I have a right to be? She’d done her best, though I often wondered if appearances mattered more to her than the happiness of her children. Wallowing in my own misery was not going to do anyone any good. Maybe I’d go up, take a nap, and then see if I could shove more food in Sei. There had to be something I could do to eradicate the dark circles that still lingered under his eyes.

After parking in the underground lot, I made my way upstairs, taking the actual stairs all the way up to my loft without stopping. Maybe if I could work up a sweat, I’d work off some of the steak I ate. The flight should have winded even me, but I arrived without a drop of sweat and still breathing normally. Damn.

The place looked so orderly, kitchen untouched other than the blender that I used several times a day for protein shakes. The living room sat empty with a large-screen TV that I never turned on and a brand-new leather sofa that saw dust bunnies more than my ass. I mounted the stairs up to the loft, kicked off my shoes, threw myself on the bed, and tucked a pillow over my head to block out the light. Sleep must have taken me fairly quickly, because the next thing I heard was the sound of soft voices talking below and moving closer.

The soundproofing to the loft could have rivaled a bomb shelter, so I knew the noise wasn’t coming from neighbors. Then a dark head peered up over the edge of the loft. Sei rewarded me with a sunny smile. I moved the pillow and tucked it under my head. “What are you doing up here?”

He climbed the rest of the stairs up and leaned down to grab a few things from Kelly, who followed him. They had a tray full of food. I tried to get up, but Sei pushed me back down.

“Rest. We made you dinner.”

The idea of eating in front of them made my heart pound in fear as my mother’s words from circled through my head. Had I put on weight? What did they always tell me in therapy? Weight was just a number. I couldn’t control how other people saw me. Yet the idea of Sei and Kelly perceiving me with the horror and disgust the world dropped on overweight people made my heart hurt. “I can meet you guys in the kitchen. Did you eat?”

Kelly set the tray in front of me while Sei stacked the pillows up behind my back. The plate was heaped with eggs, golden and fluffy, three peanut butter banana muffins, and a glass of milk. Everything smelled so good my mouth watered, and I felt like a buffalo for even thinking about eating it all.

“I knew you weren’t feeling well,” Sei told me. “You should have said so. I made eggs ’cause they should be easy on your stomach, and the muffins are flourless, just like you like them.” He touched my forehead. “You feel warm, but you always feel warm.” His face scrunched up like he was thinking. “I can get you an icepack if you want. Or more blankets.” He glanced around the room, probably looking for my spare bedding, which was actually in drawers under the bed. “Maybe from downstairs?” He picked up the fork and stabbed some eggs and brought them to my lips. “Eat, please.”

“No kidding.” Kelly said. “Have you been eating anything other than protein shakes? There is nothing in your fridge.” He cut the muffin in half and added some butter and honey to it. “You looked a little shaky today after you came out of the weight room.”

I swallowed half the eggs and devoured a muffin, but was unwilling to continue and make a pig of myself despite the gnawing hunger clawing at my gut. Sei blinked at me from where he sat near my legs as Kelly pulled open another muffin. “Don’t you like it?”

“It’s great, Sei. I’m just full.”

“That is a lie.” Gabe came up the stairs and leaned against the rail. His green eyes looked at me in challenge. I wanted to throw something at him, but that would only make Sei suspicious. He raised a brow at me, a question. Did I want him to tell them? I shook my head. Not yet. Maybe someday, but not yet…

Sei looked between us and then finally back at me before lifting another bite of eggs to my lips. “Jamie, eat.”

And so I ate every last bite. After the last of the milk went down, I was finally satisfied, but not overly stuffed. None of them looked at me with any disgust or judgment. They all just looked concerned. Gabe took the tray away, and Sei curled up next to me on the bed, his stomach pressed to my hip, head on my chest. “Are you still hungry, Jamie? I can make some more eggs.”

“No. I’m good.”

“Sleepy?”

Actually, I wasn’t. He’d never sat so closely without twitching nervously or having to do something with his hands, like braid my hair or flip through a magazine. It was nice. Even Kelly was fawning over me with concern. “No.”

“Movie time,” Kelly said. He got up and tugged me out of bed. The three of us stumbled down to my unused sofa where Gabe was messing with the wires of the TV and DVD player, which I’d never plugged in.

Finally the movie was going, and I realized it was the kid’s movie, Meet the Robinsons, which was all about being accepted for who you are. It was one of Sei’s favorites. The two boys curled up next to me, one on each side, Gabe sat on the far side of Sei, and we settled in to watch the movie.

Only when it came to a close and both Sei and Kelly slept peacefully against me did I realize the movie meant something to me too. Sure I was different, and unlike Sei, I didn’t have a terrible past of people abusing me. But right this moment, I had a family who accepted me for all the flaws I had. I felt myself smile and fight back tears for a moment. So maybe Sei wasn’t the only one with self-esteem issues in the house. I was pretty sure they were all okay with that.

I crept away from the group to the kitchen, wondering if there was a mess to clean up. But of course since it had been Sei cooking, the place was spotless. There really was no food in the fridge. Not even frozen chicken in the freezer. How had I let that happen? I closed the fridge to find Gabe standing beside it, a business card held out in front of him. A very familiar business card.

“It’s not that bad,” I protested quietly.

He didn’t speak, just swept his gaze over the counter which was filled with jugs of protein powder and a very well-loved blender. When had it gotten so bad? Sei’s kidnapping maybe? The gunshot? I shook my head. I couldn’t blame anyone else for this. I sucked in a deep breath and took the card. My therapist could help get me back on track, before things got worse.

“Do I need to check the closets?” Gabe murmured quietly.

I shook my head. No. I couldn’t let it get that far. Not again. Not when Sei was finally in my life and he needed me to look after him. He and Kelly were curled up sharing a blanket now. I had Kelly to take care of too. And soon there would be babies. I had to be strong for them. Work on this. I typed the number into the phone.

Islipped on a pair of heeled calf-high boots and rode the elevator up from my boyfriend Gabe’s private apartment to the open lobby. The daylight shone through the main entry as the doors opened. Winter was in full swing, which in Minnesota meant endless cold and snow. The waiting spring crackled through my veins like icicles hanging from a roof waiting to melt. Soon the ground would sprout flowers, trees, and grass. Critters would leave their dens to mate. I’d feel every bit of it, and it couldn’t happen too soon for my liking.

The doorman nodded to me as I opened my mailbox and flipped through the junk. A letter-sized manila envelope with my name on it gave me pause. I shoved the rest of the mail back in the box. Gabe would deal with it later.

As I made my way to the car, I opened the letter, wondering who I knew in California. The return address had no name, just a handwritten street and city. Inside, on thick paper with a fancy letterhead, the words looked like legalese. Something about a trust?

I folded it up haphazardly, stuffed the letter in my pocket, and headed to the last class of my college career. The past few years of troubles at the university made the decision not to pursue a master’s easy. I was ready to walk away. My professors spoke grandeurs about my graduation, and how I should give a speech. After all, I was the first male to ever graduate from the magic degree program. The thought of all those eyes staring, judging, just made me shudder.

The class passed as uneventfully as most had in the past few weeks. A survey for the teacher, a few final yawns from the class, and happy hugs for all the girl cliques as I made my way to the door. No one tried to hug me, which I was grateful for. However, waiting outside the classroom, the tall, muscular blond that was my older brother, Jamie, looked like he wanted one.

Someone nudged me. I glanced over to find Kelly, my best friend and Jamie’s lover. He winked at me and nodded his head in Jamie’s direction. I sighed and walked into Jamie’s waiting arms. His hug could probably have crushed a boa constrictor, but it was warm and it was real.

“Congrats, Seiran. It’s over. My baby brother—the first male witch to ever graduate with a magic studies degree.” Jamie smiled. “No more school, at least until you decide to go for another degree.” He could talk, since he had two.

Kelly patted me on the back. “You’re so lucky to be done. I’m just starting.”

I’d given him as much advice as I could. The years alone at school, alienated, hated, and discriminated against, had taught me a lot. For the spring semester, there would be three male students entering the magic studies program at the university. Dozens had already signed up to test and could be entering in the fall. The idea that I helped others find the courage to step up made me a little less shaky, but I’d never planned to be anyone’s leader. If anything, my childhood had taught me to keep my head down and try to go unnoticed. So much for that.

“Wanna go to lunch?” Kelly asked, his hand firmly nestled in Jamie’s. He walked proudly beside me, ignoring the glares coming our way. People’s opinions didn’t bother him much. I wished I was more like him. “I’ll drive. I can even drop Jamie off later to pick up your car.”

“Sure.” I wasn’t hungry, but I’d eat because I knew my body needed it. Now that school was finished, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Sure, I could work at the Bloody Bar and Grill as long as I wanted, but it wasn’t my passion. Not even when Gabe, who was also my boss, allowed me to change the menu, as he often did.

The Dominion, the head of magic in general, had offered me a job as a paper pusher, answering phones and filing. I think they really just wanted to keep me from doing anything important, yet as the first male to be welcomed into their elite female society, it almost felt like a big deal processing papers, delivering things. Had I really gone to school for four years just to become a desk clerk? Sure, it would be an easy job. But after all the pain and suffering I’d put up with, I wanted more. Not that I had to be Regional Director like my mother, but something more important. Something worth giving up all of my previous goals.

I was so lost in thought that we’d gotten all the way to Kelly’s new car and I was in the backseat with Jamie sitting next to me before he poked me back to reality.

“Huh?”

“You’re sighing. What’s up?”

“Nothing.” The whole work thing and “what do I want to do with the rest of my life” was an issue for everyone, wasn’t it? What did I want to do? Kelly worked at the bar now too, but he had great aspirations of creating an equal camp environment for growing witches, female and male. He was majoring in magic, minoring in business and psychology, and was so laser-focused that sometimes I thought he and I lived on different planets. He was super focused until it came to my brother. Then there was the look he got on his face whenever Jamie was around. They both got kind of goofy, which made me smile and feel lonely at the same time. Suddenly I missed my boyfriend.

If it were nighttime, Gabe would be sitting next to me, but even though he was a vampire, he needed to sleep too. I’d snuggle up with him later, so long as I could get Sam, Gabe’s newly changed mentee, out of the apartment for a few hours. I knew they had to spend time together; it just bothered me how much time that was.

Jamie nudged me again. “You’re sighing again.”

I gave him a sideways glare. He could have sat up front with Kelly and left me to my brooding, but lately they both had begun to push. They followed me around and prodded me into speaking when I really just wanted to figure myself out. “Just thinking.”

“About?” he asked.

Nothing I was ready to share. Instead, I pulled the letter out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Do you understand this?”

Jamie read it through, seemed surprised for a moment, then flipped it over as though looking for more writing. “It’s a letter asking you to attend a meeting in California, just outside LA.”

That part I got, but it didn’t stop my stomach from clenching up when he said it out loud. “What kind of meeting?”

“Looks like a relative has passed away and he’s leaving you part of his estate. So as one of the trustees, you have to attend.”

“Who is it?” Kelly asked while he steered us to the restaurant he’d chosen for lunch.

“Charles Merth.”

And my dad—our dad—had been Dorien Merth. I knew little about him other than his name and that he’d been executed for supposedly trying to hurt my mom while she was pregnant with me. “Was he related to our dad?” I tugged at Jamie’s sleeve, trying to see the letter. How did he get that information out of all that legal jargon?

“His younger brother. I’ve never met him.” The tone of Jamie’s voice sounded odd.

“Are you mad ’cause I’m a trustee? What does that even mean? Why would he give me something? I’ve never heard of him.” Whatever this stranger was leaving me didn’t matter if it came between us. Jamie and I had worked too hard to get this far. Sure, we didn’t always get along. He was too touchy-feely for me and I was too reserved for him, but most of the time we fit okay. I liked when he played big brother and took care of me when it came to the small stuff like rides and food, and he liked that I let him. I didn’t want that to change.

“Why would I be mad?” Jamie leaned over and gave me a rib-shattering squeeze before stuffing the letter away in his pocket. “The letter says you need to go to California. We’ll have Gabe call his lawyer to work out details. Hopefully, they can just read the will over the phone or something. I don’t think it’d be wise for you to travel out of state right now. Not with all the press you’ve had in the past few months.”

I’d never been to California. Never been anywhere, really, just Minnesota and Wisconsin in my earlier party days. Funny, since, at twenty-three, I should have had many more party days to go, but that was all behind me now, just like school. Was a life of mindless work all I had ahead of me? And why was some guy I’d never met giving me something when he’d never shown any interest in me while he was alive?

We sat down for lunch and discussed unimportant things like what crazy baby items we had bought for my twins. The babies would be arriving in a few months. They had been conceived through artificial insemination, and Jamie’s little sister, Hanna, was carrying them. She and Jamie had the same mother, but different dads, and Jamie and I shared the same dad. I hoped for my babies it would be less confusing. Family was family.

Jamie and Kelly held hands and gave each other occasional kisses. People stared. I drank tea and ate what I could. The earth slept underneath a layer of ice and cold. I couldn’t even turn to its ever-pulsing warmth for comfort. All I wanted was for the sun to set so I could be out in the open with Gabe. Sometimes he could chase away the growing melancholy and assure me it was simply the change of the seasons that affected me so badly.

Unfortunately, he spent more time with Sam these days than me. He had an obligation to fulfill as Sam’s mentor to the vampire world. Gabe had warned me that it would take up some of his time. I guess I just never thought it would be the time he normally spent with me.

Jamie pushed a piece of cake in front of me. It was red, blue, orange, and yellow, and had white frosting with rainbow sprinkles. “Stop sighing and share some cake with us.”

Kelly handed me a fork, as somehow I’d missed the waiter coming to ask us if we wanted anything else. Three forks, a giant piece of cake, and us, hmm. I dug in and shared with my friends, riding the edge of their happiness as if it were my own. Maybe a sunny vacation would be good. I wondered if I could convince Gabe to go. He’d been so wrapped up in Sam and whatever was going on with the Tri-Mega, he always seemed stressed. We hadn’t even had a weekend together with just the two of us for months. Well, a few weeks. I missed him.

Kelly dropped Jamie off at school to pick up my car. He left saying something about going to the gym. Kelly declined his invite. He’d rather run or swim than lift or do squats. I was of the same mind, but thought maybe we’d go to the Y for the heated indoor pool over the weekend.

I stopped by Gabe’s underground place to grab my forgotten book reader. Sam sat at the counter, glaring at an open bottle of QuickLife. His stillness made him look like the vampire he was. Glazed eyes, waxy skin, pale coloring—was he getting enough to eat? Gabe never looked so inhuman.

Sam flipped through a giant tome of a book, but didn’t seem to actually be reading it. I wondered if it was a book on vampires. So much about them was still a mystery. Did I have to be one to learn all the details? Did being the focus of a master like Gabe not win me any brownie points?

I could probably have asked Sam if I could look at the book, or even if it really was about vampires, though it looked ancient and somewhat ominous. But that meant talking to Sam. I sort of avoided doing that until I had to. His very existence annoyed me. He couldn’t help the position he was in. Hadn’t asked for it. Gabe was trying to help. And I really didn’t wish the guy dead. Or undead, or whatever the hell vampires classified themselves as now. I just wanted more time with my boyfriend.

Sam didn’t glance my way as I grabbed my reader and headed back upstairs. The place smelled like him now, not Gabe. I would have taken Gabe’s smelly shampoo any day over that musky crap Sam seemed to bathe in. Kelly said he couldn’t smell it. Didn’t know what I was taking about.

I couldn’t even cook in the kitchen down there anymore because everything had been tainted by that smell. Gabe assured me it would pass, saying it was just something new vampires had. I wasn’t so sure. But it was his home, so if he could tolerate it, I guess that was all that mattered.

My phone rang with an unfamiliar number. I frowned at it, though it had been nearly a month since anyone had harassed me. Maybe someone I knew had changed his number. “Hello?”

“Hello, Seiran,” a smooth voice came across the phone. My brain took a few moments to register where I’d heard it before.

“Tresler.” One of the Tri-Mega head vampires was calling me. My heart pounded, and my blood felt like ice water running through my veins. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m interested in how you feel about being Gabriel’s focus.”

“Is he in trouble?” We’d had a little trouble with the Tri-Mega a few months back. They didn’t want Gabe claiming a focus and starting a nest of vampires without notifying them first. I sort of got the impression they would kill us both if we did.

“Of course not. He’s filed all the correct paperwork. We’ve approved his request to form a nest.” He sounded amused. “I wonder what interesting vampires will he create, being bound to the most powerful earth witch in the world.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m the most powerful witch in the world.” There were five Pillars. I was only one of them.

Tresler laughed, which sounded creepy and intimidating, even over the phone. But I suppose any guy who could probably melt your brain by just looking at you should have a scary laugh. “So unexpectedly modest.”

“Is there something I can help you with?” I finally said after a moment of silently debating how to reply.

“Have you seen any unusual vampires around lately?”

Was this a trick question? Was I supposed to be looking for unusual vampires? I sort of let Gabe handle all of the vampire business. Especially after the death of Andrew Roman, who had been trying to torture Gabe for years. Vampires were bad news. Except Gabe, of course. “No.”

“Good.” He hung up.

What the hell? I shoved my phone in my pocket and made a mental note to ask Gabe about Tresler’s odd behavior. Last I heard, the Tri-Mega had little to no value for human life, even when that human was the focus of another vampire. We were expendable, easily replaced, nothing but food. Most of the vampires around Gabe didn’t act that way, but then I got the feeling he wasn’t exactly the norm either.

When I walked into my condo, Kelly sat sprawled out on the couch watching football. I’d never had cable before he moved in with me. Now we had every sports channel the area offered, and the TV was always on with some sort of game. The only one I refused to listen to was basketball. The squeaking of shoes on the floor just made my head hurt.

“You okay?” Kelly asked, glancing my way. “You’ve been pretty quiet today. Figured you’d be thrilled to be done with school.”

“I’m fine,” I promised him. Uncertain of what my future held, but I’d manage. “Just sort of—” I had to think for a minute. “—drifting.”

Now he looked at me, hazel eyes studying my face so long I had to look away.

“Wanna talk about it?”

I had never been a talk-it-out sort of guy, and maybe that was the problem. But I’d learned that no one wanted you to unload your issues on them. My mother always taught me that when I got emotional, I should be silent. Now that was sort of my normal setting.

“I’m gonna go take a bath,” I told him and headed to the bathroom. I turned on the jets in the tub and waited for the steamy water to fill up before stripping down, putting a clear plastic baggy over my reader, and settling into a new book. Surely some hot guy would get his ass pounded by a warrior with a huge rod. That was the kind of escape I needed. Reading wouldn’t give me answers, but it’d give me time to not wallow in my own indecision.

My mind wandered a few times to the letter. My uncle had left me stuff. Why hadn’t he left anything for Jamie? Was Jamie just not telling me he got a letter too? What had my father been like? I knew he’d been one of the leaders of the Ascendance, but everything I knew of the Ascendance reminded me of Andrew Roman, who had been an evil man. Where had the corruption begun? Had my father known? Had his brother been involved with the Ascendance too?

Kelly popped into the bathroom sometime after 5:00 p.m., probably to be sure I didn’t drown. Which was silly, since he was the most powerful water witch in the world; it was unlikely I’d drown while less than twenty feet from him. But he checked on me a lot no matter what I was doing.

The Dominion, the leading body of magic, was still discussing our Pillar ceremony. Since we were already Pillars, I wasn’t sure what was up for discussion, but whatever. They did like to blow a lot of hot air around. Kelly was okay just being Kelly for now. And I liked that.

He sat down on the side of the tub, face guarded, but eyes looking me over like he was waiting for me to fall apart. I wasn’t that fragile. Not anymore. “Gabe stopped by. He wants to go tree shopping,” he said.

I groaned. Was it that time of year already? “I hate how people insist on having a dying tree in their living room, decorating it like it’s a fucking clown, and then throwing it away.”

Kelly’s hoot of laughter almost made me drop my book reader. I carefully set the device aside and turned off the jets in the tub. The bubbles still surrounded me, giving me that sleepy warmth I loved from a bath, but the pruney look of my fingers meant I’d been in the water far too long.

“Don’t tell me you actually like Christmas?” I asked, more than a little worried I’d have another red-and-green freak on my hands.

“No. We are strictly Solstice folks in my house.” He pulled a giant fluffy blue towel off the shelf and held it out to me. “A clown? For a tree? Really?”

I pushed the buttons to drain the tub and rose carefully, taking the towel and wrapping it around me. The hot, damp air of the bathroom was cold compared to the warmth of the water. “How would you feel if someone put a star on your head and covered you with silly hanging ornaments?”

“Okay, Scrooge. I can expect no presents from you, then?”

Did I need to get him presents? I was new at this friend thing. I opened my mouth to ask, but he held up his hand.

“No worries, Sei. We’ll exchange Solstice wishes. Okay? Gifts are not needed.” He gestured to the room, even though it was just the bathroom, and said, “This is my gift. I don’t have to live with my folks. I don’t have to live on campus with those assholes. My best friend doesn’t look down on me for being gay or a witch, and I have a guy who likes to wake up with me. What more could I ask for?”

I glanced down at his battered Nikes. “New shoes?” He went through shoes sort of fast.

Kelly’s burst of laughter made me smile. Living with him was a breath of fresh air most days. He smiled easily enough, laughed a lot, and didn’t let much get to him, even when I was in a pissy mood like I was now. “Sure. Buy me some shoes. I’m a size nine, but get dressed, please. We need to play nice with others, your boyfriend included. Clown tree or not. We don’t have to think the same or even like the same things to love them. We just have to be supportive.”

I sighed. He was right. Damn, I hated when he was right. Kelly was so much better with people than I was. He knew when to play nice and when to turn on the fake charm. My charm had lost its autopilot button weeks ago and I was still struggling to get it back.

I trudged to my room to dress for the cold evening coming my way. For Gabe I’d do my best to find holiday cheer when all I wanted to do was sleep.

The cold night brushed against my skin with the sharp clarity of fresh needles as I walked through the bowels of downtown. It was the coldest winter in thirty years. I should have worn a heavier jacket, but it wasn’t like I could freeze to death. One of the few benefits of being already dead.

I flagged down a cab and had it take me to the edge of downtown St. Paul. My brain was running on high gear—a million things flying through my head—and I just needed some time away from people. The shit in my head wouldn’t bother most people, but I had to meet Gabe, my mentor, at a club later and make nice with someone I had yet to meet in person. Should probably show up for work for a few hours too. Though since Gabe was my boss, he wasn’t likely to fire me if I didn’t.

I would rather have been out stalking the night. What was the point of being a vampire if I couldn’t be all dark and brooding when I wanted to be? That should be number one in the vampire rule book. If there was a rule book, which there wasn’t.

I’d break all the rules anyway. It was one of the things I did best.

Not many wandered around downtown St. Paul at night, especially not in late February. There were drunks who shouted things that made no sense while they stumbled out of the bars. Homeless who hid in corners, buried in heaps of dirty clothes and praying they’d live through the frigid night air one more time. Prostitutes smiled and flirted, then cursed when I ignored them. I’d grown up here. Riverside to be exact.

The multicolored high-rise towered over the Mississippi only a few miles from Gabe’s fancy condo, but a millennia away in class. Living with eight siblings and my parents in a small two-bedroom apartment had been a nightmare. Then I’d met Matthew, my first boyfriend and the first extreme fuckup of my life. I thought I’d found a way out. But false promises, abuse, and heartbreak killed those dreams. The stain of what he’d done to me—made me do—covered me with a film that never washed away. It was worse than remembering the way Andrew Roman had fed on me over and over again like I was some automatic refilling soda pop machine. I was something to kick and beat or feed on. Not a person.

Then there had been Caleb who had used me to get to Seiran. Because of course everyone wanted Seiran. He was beautiful, powerful, and perfect. I sighed.

My track record was for shit. There had to be some giant bull’s-eye on my back that pulsed in neon red for only creeps to see. I was done with all of that. Relationships, men, sex, the whole deal. I was dead now and no matter what the world at large thought, that just wasn’t sexy. Just because I could still get off didn’t mean I needed to. What appealed to me was something much darker. And I was smart enough not to voice my desire to anyone in my life. They were all too goody-two-shoes to let me have any fun. Instead I’d taken to stalking the recesses of my old stomping grounds. Hiding my bit of play. No one got hurt. Not really.

The streets hadn’t changed much in the years that had passed since my hopeful escape. I wondered if my folks still lived in the same cramped apartment. Would they look at me and scream monster? Run away in terror? How had they ever survived in neighborhoods that ate at the weak like maggots on roadkill?

Footsteps echoed mine. I couldn’t help but smile as I fed my depression into the blood lust that plagued me from the moment I’d been reborn. They didn’t know the freak they were stalking could and would eat them for breakfast.

Literally. I hadn’t eaten yet today.

I turned down an alley I knew had no outlet and slowed my pace, letting them follow like I was unwary prey. They would think they had me cornered, and an easy target. Two, maybe three—all bigger than me by the sound of their feet crunching the icy pavement—followed me. The crunching of snow echoed in the dark cold as I closed my eyes and leaned against the building, letting them come to me.

“Hey, Chink! You’re in the wrong neighborhood.”

At least they’d gotten my heritage right. Maybe it was because they were Vietnamese themselves that they could tell. Not that it mattered. I’d eat them anyway, white, black, yellow, hell even purple. Everyone was on the menu.

“You hear me, punk?” The leader demanded. The other two shouted and joked in a language I didn’t understand, but didn’t need to since I was sure it was taunts and insults.

I heard him all right. More than he could imagine. The pulsing of the first attacker’s blood ran excitedly through his veins, quickening his heart and making me lick my lips. He was aroused by the idea of beating the shit out of me, which would make my taking of him so much sweeter. He’d be first because the gush that always came from a surprise attack was the best. The other two might run, but this one would be mine.

Gabe hunted using sex appeal. He’d taught me how to seduce others, draw them close, feed and then fill them with memories of pleasure. I preferred something a little darker. Fear tasted better than pleasure because it was real. No false hopes or dreams were smashed to put it there, even if it soured the blood sometimes.

One of them slammed a bat against the wall near my head hard enough to shake ice from the side of the building. It shuffled around us in the eerie silence of the night, sliding to the ground and crackling like shattered glass. I waited. Letting the hunger grow as they surrounded me, hearts racing, words an angry mash of sound. I didn’t need to see them to know how they moved or where they were. My own fears seeped away as I let the monster out. He was hungry and I was willing to let him go even if it were only for a few minutes. No death, I reminded my other self firmly before letting the red haze settle over my brain.

When I opened my eyes, they gasped. I knew what they saw. The glowing red gaze of a true predator. Gabe had never shown me this side of himself—though I was sure he had it. All vampires did. Matthew had lived in this state, which had probably driven him mad. Roman had only let the beast out in the end when rage tore away his control. I’d spent months perfecting the slip of self in secret—afraid my mentor wouldn’t approve and would cast me out. Only when I let go could I truly feel free.

I grabbed the first by the jacket, twisted the arm with the bat until a satisfying pop told me I’d broken his bone, and set my fangs to his neck all in one smooth move. With my arms wrapped around him, he didn’t even struggle against me. He just let me suck mouthful after mouthful of his hot blood. It stayed sweet a little longer, maybe because he was slow to realize his mistake or even too stupid to get that he’d just become the prey.

One of the others came at me, like he could help his friend. I kicked him away, landing a solid hit to his ribs that had him sliding back several feet then tumbling feet over head several times. Too much strength. I hope I hadn’t broken him by accident, but he shouldn’t have tried to interrupt a feeding. That was vampire intel 101. He struggled to his feet then turned to run for the entrance of the alley clutching his ribs like it hurt. Maybe I’d broken a few though I hadn’t heard the crack.

I licked the wound closed on the first and reached for the third who had yet to run. He stumbled backward, falling on his ass as he realized he should have run the second I took his friend. He reeked of fear.

Bloodlust was strong in the young. I could gorge myself on all of them and still not be satisfied. Their fear poured like honey, strong onto my tongue, a slightly bitter aftertaste telling me that I should move on to the next. But they had a lesson to learn and I was nowhere near full. I gave them memories of glowing eyes—the monster I was sure I was. This is what a vampire was meant to be. Not sex and beauty, but ugly and terrifying. Death wasn’t meant to be pretty.

The second disappeared around the corner as I let the third go and silently instructed them to head to a clinic nearby to tend any wounds. The first would need his arm set, but he wouldn’t start feeling that for a while yet. Not that it mattered to me. These three had been out looking for someone to harass. They’d made the mistake of choosing me. The third had pissed himself. At least I’d already let him go so he didn’t splash me. I hoped it froze to his dick and gave him frostbite. Maybe this little scare would make them think twice about harming someone else in the future.

I headed to the end of the alley determined to clean myself up and calm my heart before reaching the club where I was supposed to meet Gabe. He’d know I already fed. But I had to take the edge off. With my belly full I could think again. The rush of breath from my lungs formed a white mist that made me smile. For a few minutes I could almost feel normal. Perhaps that was the answer—gorge myself on blood until I felt human again. Only the lingering copper bite of pennies on my tongue reminded me that I’d just fed on the blood of a couple of thugs who six months ago would have beaten me to a pulp.

A shadow stepped into my path. Had the second come back? I almost ran into him when he didn’t move, but he was larger than any of the thugs had been. For a minute I thought he was Gabe who had somehow found me lurking in the nastiest areas of downtown. I’d never hear the end of it if he caught me roughing up ‘civilians.’

“You could use some polish, but not bad for an amateur.”

He was dark, not blond like Gabe. I looked him over, taking in the designer pants—pressed just perfectly—Burberry coat, navy in color, and chiseled face, strong chin with dark stubble. His eyes, a warm brown, were lined with thick black lashes. Dark hair, curled just slightly, fell around his ears and across his forehead. Damn but I was a sucker for tall, dark, and handsome. It was what drew me to Matthew. This guy had trouble stamped all over him.

The stranger reached out to slowly drag his thumb over the edge of my lips. In the pale light of the street lamps I saw he drew away a bit of blood. I was usually neater than that. He didn’t seem bothered, and in fact, licked his thumb then sucked on it briefly. “Thugs do have a certain vintage.”

My cock hardened making my pants too tight. It’d been a long time since that happened. Shit, who was this guy? Couldn’t be human. No human would willingly lick the blood of some random person off a stranger’s face. “Who the fuck are you?” I demanded. Gabe had introduced me to every vampire in the cities. He informed me it was so no random vampire would kill me for being rogue because they didn’t recognize me. I figured it was more so I knew who was a potential enemy. Not everyone liked the fact that Gabe was setting up a nest and calling all his old buddies home.

“You may have heard of me, Sam. I’m Maxwell Hart. Call me Max, please. We never got to formally meet while you were visiting Los Angeles. Though I know you were there with your master. I would have loved to spend some time with you. See how your transition to our world is coming along.”

Right before Christmas Seiran had gone to California to learn more about his dad. Maxwell Hart had been there, introduced himself to Seiran before Gabe and I arrived. In fact, Sei said Max had been a part of the Ascendence—the ruling body of male witches—killing other witches to steal power and make more powerful male witches. Only when it came down to it, Max had handed his power over the institution to Sei asking that the earth Pillar fix the corruption of the organization. Sei still didn’t know why. He said many times that Max was scary powerful. Maybe even stronger than Gabe. I didn’t have Sei’s witch powers. I was just an amplifier. Plug me into a witch and we could make crazy trouble. But on my own I didn’t know Houdini from Cris Angel. Hell, I couldn’t recognize another vampire when I met one unless he bit into someone in front of me. Or apparently licked the blood off of me.

“Does Gabe know you’re in town?” The words sounded a bit more clipped, and angry, than I thought they should have since I was facing a crazy powerful vampire alone. But my survival instinct had always been for shit.

He shook his head slightly. “I have not presented myself to him formally. However,” he gestured to the darkened street around us. “Walk with me?” I nodded, whatever, and fell into step beside him. “I’ve not breached any protocols yet. I’m on the west side. He’s claimed the east. The west is yet unclaimed. Odd since it’s such a big city.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting the west side as it was mostly abandoned warehouses and homeless. Gabe didn’t have enough vampires to claim the east side, but the Tri-Mega demanded he begin building a nest since he had a Focus now. “So you’re planning on claiming the west side? Not much here, you know. Maybe Minneapolis would be a better option for you.”

He shrugged. “You probably know the area better than I. Though I think Gabe and I do not much run in the same circles. We are both businessmen, but my businesses aren’t as nice as his.”

“Bars really aren’t that nice. Lots of drunk assholes.” I followed along with him wondering if he’d sought me out to try to get something out of Gabe. Sure, hurting me would piss off my mentor, but Max would be better off fearing the witch than the vampire. Sei was sort of possessive and convinced he had to be my friend no matter how many times I’d beaten the shit out of him or tried to kill him. Some people were just gluttons for punishment. “Gabe won’t let you break the law here. The Tri-Mega has sort of put him as de facto leader around here. They hold him responsible for everything.” Which was stupid and unfair, but he didn’t really have a choice. One man couldn’t control one city by himself and technically Gabe had two since Minneapolis was just as empty of vampires as the west side of St. Paul. Maybe vampires didn’t like the cold. It was a lot of layers to peel off of prey, but I didn’t mind.

“What makes you think what I’m doing is illegal?”

“The whole Ascendance killing witches thing.”

Max nodded and sighed. “I suppose that makes sense.” He checked his watch. “I’m actually headed over to look at a new business venture. Since no humans are allowed there are a different set of rules and legalities that don’t much apply to the other among us with the norms. Would you like to come?”

I’d been to my share of nonhuman clubs. They were a lot like watching snow—fascinating for the first few minutes—and then just more of the same. A lot went on in those places: drugs, sex and blood for sale. None of which I needed, but I was curious. I did like watching other monsters if just to prove that I wasn’t all alone. “Just for a few minutes.”

“Understood. Feel free to leave whenever you’d like. I would hope we can become friends. Maybe I can become a backup if you need help or advice of the vampire kind. Should your mentor be unavailable, of course.” He pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Call any time.”

I took it and stuffed it into my coat, wondering if he really meant it. “If you’re looking for someone to help you get at Sei or Gabe, I’m not your guy.” I told him honestly. “They’ve been good to me. Even when I’m a total shit. I won’t invite you into their house, or try to get them to meet with you, and if you don’t want the witch to turn you inside out and feed your innards to the nearest tree, you’re better off leaving me in one piece.”

Max laughed, strong and hearty, throwing back his head. He stopped a moment later and shook his head at me. “No mincing words, eh? I have no use for those sorts of games, Gabe, or his Focus. My plans are larger and involve only vampires.” He shrugged, “And for the moment—shifters.” He led me down an alley where a brawny man stood at a nondescript door. He nodded to Max, barely spared me a glance, and opened the door for us. “I assure you, my interest in you is purely curiosity.”

“About what?”

“Your power and how it’s slipped through the cracks.”

I shrugged. “Not Dominion born. So I couldn’t tell you where it comes from. No one in my family has anything like it.”

Max nodded. I followed him down a long hallway and to another door. He opened it and the noise hit me first. Cheering, shouting, and the smack of flesh hitting flesh. Not the soft slap like porn. No this was bone hitting muscle wrapped bone. The door closed behind us, blocking me in with the echoing thud of a body hitting the ground in the distance. What the fuck?

Max proceeded forward through a far doorway. As I moved closer the smell of sweat and drying blood wafted toward me strong enough to almost be visible. If there was one thing I hated about being a vampire, it was that everything smelled so awful. And this place stank.

The room was cavernous. A warehouse converted into a fighting room. Cages spread out across the open space. Wire bolted to the ground and looping all the way to the ceiling in intricate design over a concrete slab created elaborate fencing around each ring. Everyone moved to cluster around a new fight that seemed to just be starting in the back corner.

“Just in time for the final fight of the night,” Max said. He smiled at me. “If you ever feel the blood lust getting to you, come here and the smell will kill it fast enough. Shifters stink, though their blood tastes all right. Not as good as witch blood, but better than those punks in the alley.”

The stench made me a little queasy. I hadn’t blown blood chunks since the first night of my change and wasn’t going to do it now.

“It’s really awful,” I agreed. I didn’t think I could get past the stink to try tasting a shifter. Did they all smell that bad? Like wet, sweaty, dog piss?

No one noticed us as we stepped in close to the last cage. I moved around to the edge, away from the others in case I needed to bolt. I had to breathe slowly to filter out the smell. Not like I had to breathe it was just habit. But, God, the smell. Gross.

Inside the wire ring something that looked like an overly muscled version of a horror movie wolfman stood, flexing his semi-furry arms and throwing spittle from his elongated snout. He wore nothing. His oddly bald sex hanging large and heavy between his legs, showing arousal. Maybe the fight got him off like that guy in the alley? His hands curled in a mix of human and wolf with long sharp talons and his legs hunched, bent wrong like a dog. Nothing about him was appealing. I wondered where all the romanticism with shifters came from. In comparison, a witch who changed flawlessly like Seiran, Jamie, or Kelly was so much more beautiful. Perhaps it was magic that made the difference. Science could only make humanity uglier, but magic—that was a dark beauty that created some of the most heavenly and devilish things in the universe.

A man moved across the ring, yanking off his shirt and pulling on a pair of boxing gloves. I couldn’t imagine how they’d help him against the shifter. He looked scrawny compared to the hulking, fur-covered monster across from him. He couldn’t be human though, since Max said this was a non-human event. Fight clubs for supes. The gambling portion of it probably made it as illegal as hell. The man in the corner with fists full of money probably worked for Max. But local law enforcement wouldn’t care. So long as none of the norms were hurt, they’d turn a blind eye.

“Who’s the human-looking guy in the ring?” I asked Max. “He’s not really human, right?”

“Not hardly,” Max replied. “Almost vampire, but not quite.”

Was that even possible? The man was handsome enough, broad in the shoulders, medium brown hair, and just the slightest of red haze to his eyes. A vampire then, even if Max said no. Did any other creature have that red haze when they let the monster out? I couldn’t recall anything from all of Seiran’s lessons.

The bell rang and the fight began. I didn’t watch. The beautiful man would fight the beast. Would he live or die? Did it matter? We were all monsters here. I turned away overwhelmed by my depression again. I was just like them, wasn’t I? I may not look so scary on the outside, but the monster inside had claws just as sharp and bigger fangs.

I made my way out, sucking in the deep cold air.

“No one dies,” Max told me, having followed me out. “At least not often. Accidents do happen.”

“I don’t want to be just another monster,” I told him.

His smile was sad and somewhat self-mocking. “But we are, aren’t we? I do a lot just to feel. You’re young. You still pulse with emotion. What you saw inside scared you, depressed you, and yet excited you. I long for all of that.”

Was that all I had to look forward to? An eternity searching for emotion? “I don’t want to be like that.” It was probably rude to say so, but the truth. “Empty.”

“Happens to all of us in time. We live so long the world kills us from the inside out.”

“Are you looking for a way to die, Max?” I had to ask. Gabe mentioned he’d been nothing but a walking corpse before he’d met Seiran. Max probably wasn’t any younger.

“Looking for a way to live, my young friend. Call if you need me. I can show you things that Gabe would not dare.”

Because Gabe was one of the good guys and Max was just fire I’d already burnt myself with twice. “Thanks,” was all I offered as I headed back out into the night. It was getting late, and I had to get to the club before midnight. Gabe expected me to meet with the cibo I’d approve before the night was over.

I stopped at a gas station to clean up. The attendant didn’t say anything about the bottle of water and chewing gum I bought. Though he did give me the stink eye when I asked for the bathroom key. Did he think I was gonna camp out in the crapper for the night? I would rather have found a dumpster to sleep behind.

When I stepped inside the stink nearly had me hurling again. Did they ever clean this place? I went to the sink and washed my face, taking time to scrub away small bits of blood spatter. The hunger must have been bad to make me so messy. At least my shirt and jacket were still clean. I could only imagine what it would be like to go meet the cibo with some other guy’s blood on me. Sort of like paying for a second whore when the come of the first still stained the skin.

The mirror made me look so ordinary. I’d fed so my eyes wouldn’t turn red even if I willed them to for at least a few more hours. Though I did try. Sometimes I let the monster out and just stared at him for hours. It still shocked me when I’d fall out of a weird trance and find only myself in the mirror.

I popped a half dozen pieces of gum. The strong cinnamon of it would kill any lingering blood and it burned my tongue. The stuff was nasty, but it was the one thing that Gabe swore by that I always used.

I made my way to the club hoping that the guy I’d spoken to online a couple dozen times wasn’t some clingy jerk who wanted to be my vampire groupie. Gabe wanted me to have a regular blood source. Someone to feed on that would help me build a bond with humanity. I didn’t care either way. Humans weren’t all that great. I’d spent most of my life being one. Vampire wasn’t much of an upgrade.

The last thing I needed was someone fragile that wanted me to be his savior. I was no one’s hero dammit. No matter what Gabe and Sei tried to convince me of most days. I was okay being the bad guy. At least the role fit.

Waking up to a dozen media outlets on his doorstep was the deciding factor. Seiran had been working on getting the twins bathed and dressed. Alone for the weekend, and off work, had sounded like a good idea. He could play with his kids, read a book or two, maybe watch some anime, and relax. Then Prince Ariellen arrived with a dozen white maned horses pulling a carriage full of flowers glowing with fairy firelight.

The media ate it up. Broadcasting on repeat, the parade to Seiran’s off the beaten path house was followed by cameras like it was a royal wedding. Which resulted in a dozen phone calls and endless buzzing at the gate. At least the wards were keeping everyone out.

“It’s fine,” Seiran assured Jamie over the phone as he tugged a shirt over Mizuki’s head. Sakura sat on the floor a few feet away, her little hands gripping the colorful fabric of her jumper. The pattern was bright and of her favorite Disney movie. At least she was occupied.

“I’m not sure I like you traveling that far on your own,” Jamie said.

“Um, hello. Adult here,” Seiran said, more than a little annoyed. He’d never asked to be a single dad, but felt like he was doing okay at it.

“A trip to South Dakota to escape a fae prince?”

“They’ve been asking for me to visit for a while.”

“You can’t stop the pipeline.”

Probably not. The big corporate interests wouldn’t listen to Seiran as the Pillar of Earth any more than they were listening to the tribes they were trying to steal land from. “The kids should see the forests.” Before they were destroyed too. All of it would be gone in a few years. The sadness of that burned within Seiran. The Goddess was angry at the constant destruction, but other than tearing the world apart, what way was there to get anyone to listen?

“Seiran…”

“It will be fine.”

Sakura got up and began to wander away as Seiran tugged Mizuki’s shoes on. “Kura, stay here please,” He asked her.

She looked at him, eyes big and blinking blue.

“Please stay with daddy,” Seiran said. She turned and wandered close, snuggling herself around his arm.

“We go bye-bye,” Mizuki said.

“Yep. Play in the trees?” Seiran asked. His kids’ affinity to earth magic was already beyond what most witches could ever hope to have in their lives. Mizuki touched Seiran’s hair and strands of flowers wove through it, the ends turning green where they fell over Seiran’s shoulder.

“Hey now,” Seiran said. He caught Ki’s hand and kissed it. “Leave daddy’s hair alone please.” It needed to be cut again. He’d been doing it regularly, but in the past six months or so it had gotten a bit out of hand. His kids thought the green of his Father Earth persona was more fun. The Dominion didn’t want that on TV, going to great lengths to filter his presence and that of his children, from the media. He wasn’t certain if that was to his benefit or theirs.

“We will be fine,” Seiran had to assure Jamie a dozen more times before he would finally go back to focusing on what he and Kelly were doing, which was interviewing for a surrogate to have their child. “Go. You have things to do.”

Jamie’s sigh was long, but Seiran could hear Kelly in the background urging Jamie to get moving, they had people to talk to. “Call if you need me.”

Seiran wouldn’t, but promised anyway.

The gate bell rang again. Apparently, the Dominion wasn’t saving him from the media frenzy of having a fae prince at his door. Maybe they had helped set this up to force him to choose?

He opened his phone to the app and answered the video callbox. “Hello?” If it was the media again, he’d be hanging up. But it was a fae and not the prince.

“Good morning, Sir,” the fae began. Seiran’s couldn’t tell much about them from the video as they were too close to the camera. “His Highness, Prince Ariellen, has arrived.”

Like Seiran had expected him or something? “Wonderful. Is he willing to come inside without all the media and guards?”

“That would be highly irregular, Sir.”

“I’m certain a Prince as mighty and powerful as he, does not fear for his safety in my home?” Seiran said it as a sort of challenge. He was not going out to meet the prince, which would likely end up in some sort of elaborate proposal in front of a thousand cameras. One did not turn down a fae lord so publicly.

“Of course not,” the fae said, their gaze shifting backward. They stepped back and Seiran could see Ariellen now. Beautiful was something the fae did well, even if a lot of it was glamour. Ariellen was very much the fae the media sought and loved, very pale, blond, and ethereal. He walked and talked like royalty, although Seiran was unsure which court he actually belonged to.

“Your Highness,” Seiran greeted. “Will you come inside? I’m preparing my children for the day.”

Seiran didn’t miss the prince’s flinch at the mention of children. He knew what the fae thought of humans in general, especially the higher court fae. He was a tool to be used, his children were inconveniences. Humans were little more than pets, and badly trained pets at that. While Seiran wasn’t exactly human, he had no desire to be on their leash.

“Of course,” Prince Ariellen gave a slight bow. “I would be honored.”

“Alone,” Seiran said. “No horses, or guards, or media.”

Anger touched Ariellen’s beautiful face, and a glimpse of what was beneath the glamour rippled through, though Seiran knew it was unlikely anyone else would catch it. He was not going to be tied to one of them for the rest of his life, no matter what the Dominion and the government at large demanded.

“I apologize for my humble surroundings and requirements,” Seiran added. “My children must come first, as my culture demands.”

The mask was back in place and Ariellen bowed again. “Your wish…”

There was a gasp in the crowd and movement, but Seiran couldn’t see much from the small camera. Only a flash of red. Hair perhaps? Bryar?

“I will escort the Prince,” Bryar said from somewhere off camera.

“You dare?” The other fae said.

It was better this way. Safer really, since Bryar’s presence leant not only a backing of the fae, even if he wasn’t some high court prince, but a set of eyes to record what was said and done. The fae could not only coerce with ease, but use magic to steal a person’s mind.

“By the Pillar’s will,” Bryar said.

“He has access,” Seiran agreed. “Bryar, if you could show Prince Ariellen into the parlor, please? I’ll be down with the children in a moment.”

“Of course,” Bryar said stepping close enough to actually be seen on camera. The media was probably eating this up. Bryar playing up his warrior persona, looking gigantic and looming in armor the color of a reflective beetle shell. Most would never know that the form he spent most of his time in was less than six inches in size.

Seiran turned off the app, and finished with the kids. He glanced in the mirror, had to brush away the flowers and shove back the earth energy that turned his hair green, and prepare himself to greet a prince. It was not how he had planned his weekend.

Asharp tug of death magic brought him to the surface. Not yet aware, more a hint of actual sleep as he fell into a dream about a handsome lover, he glided on the edge of the memory. For a while the images were sweet, if a little disjointed. Time made little sense as the scope of the dreams bounced from place to place.

The second tug dragged him out of the dream and forced a thump of life into his chest. His heart starting, as though it had been stopped for years, stuttering and wheezing back to life, aching in a way he couldn’t recall ever feeling. Not that he recalled much.

He gasped, but instead of air, found dirt filling his lungs. He choked and flailed, reaching for anything to clarify his awakening. The surface was close, hands grasping at nothing, released from the soil and his imprisonment. He struggled to crawl free, drowning in earth, and a rolling chaos of mixed memories.

After reaching the top and extricating himself, he lay there, staring into the darkness, trying to put pieces into place. Spitting out dirt and sucking in musty air, he tried to understand where he was.

He’d crawled from a grave; that much was clear. But he was in some sort of stone tomb, walls thick and muffling any sounds of life from beyond. The door almost imperceivable in the pale light. Only the most delicate hint of brightness appeared around the edge of some square near the top.

A vent? The thought fell into place, giving him definitions and images, but no underlying structure. He knew what it was, the technicality of it, but not any recollection of seeing it before.

His heart beat so slowly he was tempted to crawl back into the earth, wrap it around him like a blanket, and return to sleep. Why was that a comforting thought? Did anyone enjoy being buried alive?

Though he didn’t exactly feel very alive in that moment. More a pain riddled corpse, grasping for anything solid. Was he some sort of zombie? Another word that brought definitions and images to his mind. He hoped he didn’t resemble the shambling, rotting corpses he could recall from movies. And further back, he vaguely recalled something very similar in real life, though much more horrific, yet still familiar.

He sucked in air, the feel of it cooling his throat, clean, but also heavy in his lungs. As if he hadn’t breathed in a long time. Distantly he heard an alarm. Muffled and quiet, it was some sort of beeping. Just annoying enough to make it harder to think. He lay there for a while, trying to put thoughts into place. A thousand faces and memories ran through his mind as sharp as shards of glass, broken, scattered, and missing in some places.

He couldn’t remember even the basics, his name, or the names of any of those faces. Why he’d been buried. Or how he’d been able to crawl free of the grave.

The smell of dirt, cool and earthy, eased a bit of his growing anxiety, but the hint of a scent, wafting through the vent high above, made his stomach growl. It wasn’t even a delicate sound of passing hunger. No, it roared like some ancient monster needing to feed. The growl was followed by a pulse of hunger surging through him so strongly that even his teeth hurt. He touched his lips, wincing as one of his teeth cut the edge of his lower lip. He didn’t bleed, it just throbbed with a dull ache.

Blood. That was what he smelled. What he craved. He groaned at the idea of the thick, hot liquid pouring over his tongue.

Voices approached and he listened hard to try to make out what they were saying. It was an unusual jumble of sound, with heavy accents he couldn’t understand, even while straining to hear them. What he did catch was the smell of blood and the steady beat of at least one pulsing heart. He pushed himself up, ready to crawl toward the door, needing to feed.

It opened before he could do much more than turn his head toward it. Then it closed again, leaving one man inside. This one didn’t have the steady heartbeat, his was slower. Nor did he smell as divine as whomever had been outside.

A lamp turned on, low, but still too bright for his eyes, and he flinched. Yet the man held something that made him crawl forward. The smell so good that he had a visceral need to get there, take it. Drink.

He swallowed hard, throat dry, his thirst begging to be quenched.

The man said something, but he couldn’t understand it at all. He couldn’t feel any fear from the man, more irritation, but the man held out a cup. And that cup was everything he wanted in that moment.

It was hard to hold, his hands—fingers stiff and unyielding—didn’t want to move. The man actually pressed the cup to his lips, tipping it to let the heat slide into his mouth.

It was heaven. Everything narrowed to the liquid fire of that cup. The delicate flavor of chilis and chocolate hidden beneath the copper bite of blood. He couldn’t remember how he knew what any of that was. Only that the warmth of it trickled down his parched throat, slowly awakening nerves, filling his body with growing sensation, and added aches. He hurt all over. Every part of him an echo of pain, as though he’d slept a thousand years and the joints and muscles were being forced to move, stretch, and function.

Then the cup was empty.

He cursed, tipping it, hoping for more. It barely touched the hunger; only began to awaken his senses. Not enough to clarify anything. Or give him much strength at all, though when the man took the cup away, he tried to fight it. But the man was stronger and set the cup aside before sitting down on the stone lip of the crypt beside the light.

It wasn’t so terribly bright anymore, in fact, it didn’t illuminate much about the man. Only that he was young, with dark hair and eyes, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. All items that were boxes checked on a list of things that only partially made sense in his head. Words becoming images or vice versa, without an understanding or memory as to how or where.

He put his head back on the dirt and sucked in air as the heat of the blood trickled through him, a slow drip of living energy. Barely enough to touch each nerve.

“Boss says you’ll need more blood,” the man said. “But since my guy was the closest non-vampire supe, you’ll have to manage on that tiny bit till we get you out of here. I don’t share well outside our ménage.” The man’s words began to make sense, an almost secondary recognition, that the language he was hearing wasn’t his first, but still something that had been learned. “You in there? Boss said it could take a bit to sort through the mess. And you’ve been down a long time. Glad you showed up back here instead of at the house. That could have been bad.” The man sat with his hands in his lap, still enough that if he hadn’t been speaking, he wouldn’t seem to have been moving at all.

“Gabe?”

The name startled him. That too, felt visceral, his. A piece locking into place, his mind grasping it. He was Gabe. Had been Gabe for a very long time. Of that he was certain, though everything else was still a jumble. Almost overwhelming were the memories that rolled with the name. More faces, names, events, snippets of broken bits of his past, emotions dancing with an intensity that almost made him pass out.

Gabe teetered on the edge of darkness for a few minutes. There was too much. Too much everything, but not enough clarification.

“Luca tastes great, right?” The man said. “But it will be your only taste. If anyone else had been closer I wouldn’t have shared. He’s mine.” The last bit was said with a deadly edge. “We get a bit possessive. He likes me getting all caveman. Says it makes me hotter and he loves being thrown on the bed, or against a wall, so I can screw his brains out.” The man trailed off, staring into the distance. A voice crackled into his ear from an… earpiece. Something else Gabe wasn’t sure how he recognized.

“Car is ready. Does he need a box?”

The man stared down at Gabe, expression mostly blank, but he reached up to push a button and said, “No. He’s mostly mobile. How much blood does a vampire need when they come back? I don’t need much.”

“If it’s not from his Focus, he’ll need a lot. And he was down a lot longer than you ever have been.”

“Ronnie is not going to be feeding him any time soon,” the man said.

“No…” the headset crackled a slow response. “We’ll get him to Max. Get him fed and back on his feet. See where his head is before exposing him to the witch.”

“I’m not worried about the witch,” the man said. “Give me a minute to get him moving.”

“Sam, be careful. He’s weak, but that doesn’t mean he’s not lethal.”

The man, Sam, let out a sarcastic laugh. “I’d be thrilled to put him back in the ground.”

“Not forgiven?” The voice crackled through the line. “He might not even remember.”

“Too bad for him then. He’s got a lot of bullshit to make up for. And I still fucking feel our bond. How is that possible when he cut me off?” Now he sounded mad, though he still didn’t move from the ledge.

“Those sorts of bonds are never completely gone. Not until true death. It’s similar to a past lover and how you always remember bits of them, good and bad.”

“Ain’t loving this shit,” Sam said. “Fuck, things were going well. Why now?”

“Some things will always be a mystery.”

Sam stopped chatting with the voice in the earpiece and stared down at Gabe. Gabe sucked in air, his chest aching as the slow beat of his heart steadied, though his hunger was barely eased. He felt more in control, though very disoriented and tired.

“I’m a vampire,” he said, his voice little more than a raspy whisper. Not a zombie, but still undead, tied to the grave and death. The boxes in his head checked as he filled them with what he knew about vampires. The lists were long, but had a lot of holes. More missing pieces.

“I was disappointed, too. It’s not all the phenomenal cosmic power that romance novels lead us to believe,” Sam said. “But here we are.”

Gabe tried to sort through his thoughts to clarify. “I went to ground.”

“Yes,” Sam agreed. “Better late than never, I guess. How much do you remember?”

That was a loaded question. “Too much? And not enough? Nothing fits together.”

Sam let out a long sigh. “You look like shit. All zombie-like. But your eyes aren’t red. They’re black, meaning you need blood, and the revenant is close. If we put you in a car, will you attack anyone who’s not a vampire?”

“I don’t know,” Gabe answered honestly. He felt as if his control was in place, but he knew that the hunger was intense enough to take over. “Maybe not?”

Sam reached for the button again. “Bring the box.”

Box?

“Once I open the door, I’ll need you to get in the box,” Sam instructed. “We will add grave dirt to it.” He waved his hands at the contents of the tomb. “I think you came back here because it’s where your grave dirt is. I know Ronnie added most of it from your apartment after he moved everything out. I’m glad you woke here. Waking up in the witch’s backyard would have meant war, I think. Especially with the kids there…”

Kids? Witch? “Vampires aren’t allowed to touch witches,” Gabe whispered, feeling something tug at his memory. The glimpse of a face, there and gone. Too fast to catch much of it.

Sam laughed. “Yeah? Maybe in the old days. I haven’t seen that in a book anywhere, and Max insisted I memorize that shit. I’ve read them all. Maybe something from your sire?”

The woman’s face popped up in his mind, clear, but with no name. The emotions, however, were potent, as Gabe felt himself lurch upward as if to attack. He stopped himself only inches from grabbing Sam, though Sam hadn’t moved at all. The thought of her made him homicidal. Good to know.

“That’s a trigger, yeah?” Sam asked after a moment.

Gabe cycled through a handful of memories attached to that face. “She was a monster.”

“Who said you couldn’t touch a witch?”

“Yes.”

“Funny. Since you’re married to one.”

Married? Gabe grasped at the thought, again the flicker of a face, but not enough to really see it. “I don’t remember.”

“Ronnie will love that. Play dumb. He might forgive you sooner. Or put you back in the ground.”

“Forgive me. What did I do?” A thousand things echoed through his head all at once. The noise becoming too loud. Too many things. Deaths even. Monstrous acts. He caved in on himself, rolling up into a ball and trembling in the wake of too many memories trying to find a place in his mind.

Before he knew it, he was in a box, the scent of dirt surrounding him, and the lid slid closed as Sam stood over him. “This is seriously bad timing.”

Gabe wanted to ask questions, but the top closed and he felt sleep drag him down. The comfort of the small place, dirt and darkness, letting him chase back some of the scattered memories. He let it all flit away for a while, resting with the memory of a dark-haired stranger who’d been his first kiss.

Curious how clear that was. That moment, though obviously a different place and time. Gabe felt the box moving and the pull of his grave letting him go as he was carried away from it. Even with the dirt in the box, mixed with soil from the grave, he knew the distance meant something. A strain on his control, rising hunger, but total exhaustion.

He tried to follow the memory of the dark-haired man. Older than him, but only by a few years. Gabe sat on the edge of those thoughts, similar to a faint dream, watching the man grow and go off to battle, and finally watching him die.

That ached, similar to a wound to his chest, deep and piercing. Raw. He cringed away from it, trying to relax and ease the feeling, though he was lost in the sensation of dying all over again.

Killing people in video games was easy. Sure, sometimes complicated moves were required, buttons to push, or intimidating bosses to beat, but the cleanup was nonexistent. People didn’t vanish or dissolve into dust in real life. An intentional lack of realism, perhaps?

Real life required being creative, and actual death was messy. People bled and left behind evidence like hair and skin cells with everything they touched.

“I don’t know what else you wanna know,” the guy whined. Tied to a chair with hemp rope, he wriggled, causing the bonds to cut into him and make him bleed. He had already sung a long sad tune of why he was what he was. Con didn’t care. He’d heard every excuse there was.

Traffickers were all worthless pieces of shit. Didn’t matter what or who they trafficked. Could have been drugs, people, magical artifacts, didn’t matter. They ruined lives. That was their job.

“Piece of shit,” Con said. Did he know what Con wanted to know? Didn’t seem like it. Con’s job as a retriever often led him down dark and twisting paths through the bowels of the shit-stained sewers of the world.

“I’m looking for a book,” Con said for the hundredth time. “On old magic. Has a sort of trinity looking thing on the cover.” Pictures, brief glimpses of it from aerial cameras or something faded on someone’s desk, led everyone to believe it was one of a handful of particular books hidden by the Dominion to limit witches and retain control of the entire world of magic.

“There are some books in a crate… it’s in a bunker. Haven’t cataloged them yet,” the man said, scrambling for something to tempt Con as he continued to struggle against the ropes. “Might be what you’re looking for.”

“Yeah? Where’s this bunker?” Out here, in the middle of nowhere Arizona, desert stretched for miles in every direction. It was why Con chose this location, away from everyone. His phone left at his hotel. The car was something that only halfway ran. He found it in a repo lot, and he’d hot-wired it. The car was old enough that it had none of those electronic parts or trackers featured in newer vehicles. Because getting rid of a body was the hard part of real life killing.

“I can take you there…” the man said.

“Naw,” Con said, feeling a chilly wind rise, contrary to the warm night. It always brought gooseflesh to his skin and a stir of something in his chest, like a ghost sliding through him. He wasn’t haunted, though sometimes it felt that way. “Tell me where it’s at. What do you need books for anyway? Can you even read?” The sand rose, the wind picking up tiny pieces and pelting them at the man like small shards of glass.

The man gasped, and lowered his head, spitting out dirt and sputtering.

“Freak windstorm,” Con said as he folded his arms across his chest. “Best start talking before we are both sandblasted.” The sand didn’t touch Con, a mild wind swirling around him in a protective bubble, gathering any shred of hair or skin cells of his own to him like static electricity. Years of practice, and a few specific runes tattooed into his flesh, clarified his power. He didn’t have to cast spells much anymore. He was a walking spell.

The man stammered and protested as the wind assaulted him with sand until his face was bleeding and he choked on mouthfuls of the stuff. Con waited. He’d rather be home playing games, snuggled with Sam, or fucking Luca. But he needed that book. He hadn’t failed a mission since he’d begun working for Hart and didn’t plan to start now. Getting rid of one more trafficker was a side bonus, like extra points in a video game’s secret Easter-egg quest.

“Fine,” the man wheezed through the assaulting wind. “I don’t know if the fucking book is there…” He rattled off a location, and Con let the wind die down long enough to ask a few more questions, refining. Something was still shady with this dude.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Con prompted. Was the place booby trapped? He was a doughy, boring incel type of guy who got off on stealing magic artifacts, selling them to the highest bidder, and shipping them overseas to be used in some war. This guy didn’t seem smart enough to build traps. Last time Con had encountered something like that, it had been over in the Middle East. Now those were some deserts. The loose sand, a thing of beauty to be used effortlessly by the wind.

“Nothing. Just let me go.”

That wasn’t happening. Con studied him another minute, watching the man continue to bleed and squirm. He offered no other information, but Con would use the lead he got, and hope it led to another, because this whole dog and pony show was for shit. He wondered briefly if Hart was fucking with him, sending him on some wild-goose chase. Con had studied the pictures; most of them old, faded, and yellowed, of photos taken half a century or more ago. They rumored it to be a book on necromancy, one of the forbidden magics.

Real? Or just a carrot to dangle in front of him? Con longed to talk to his sister again, but as a walking corpse? He didn’t wish that on anyone. Hart, the mob boss of the vampire world, made the rules and was always digging for new sorts of intelligence. A collector of magic and information rather than people. He took a lot of the darkest artifacts and books out of circulation, burying them in the depths of his vaults. Was that the plan? Con didn’t think so, but he’d also learned to not ask a lot of questions.

He turned and headed back toward the road. He had parked the old car a half dozen yards away from the trafficker. Evidence was the hard part of real life killing, Con thought again as the winds rose, punishing this time, like a hurricane in this tiny area of the desert. A freak storm it would be called by anyone watching radars. Massive wind gusts and pelting sand, wiping away all traces they’d been here at all.

He got no satisfaction from the kill, and since the whipping wind swallowed the screams up, they never haunted his sleep. Not like the early days when he could hear his sister in his head begging for help and he hadn’t known what the fuck to do about it. He’d been young, stupid, and helpless. He was none of those things anymore.

Wind stripped everything. Sand sliced through flesh, bone, and metal alike. The car deteriorated under the assault. Leaving only a shell of it buried beneath the shifting sand. The body of the trafficker, and even the thrift store, wood chair, broken down into nothing but shards. The wet pieces of what had once been a person easily absorbed by the bone-dry dirt, burying the remains deep. Out here in the arid heat of Southern Arizona, the sand wasn’t as free and wild as it was in places like the Middle East. Care had to be given. Bodies didn’t vanish in real life like they did in video games. But breaking it all into pieces no bigger than the sand itself and scattering the remains, made it hard for forensics to piece together the puzzle Con painstakingly tore apart.

Morning was coming, and he had an address to check out. He turned and found his backpack near the road, stripped out of his clothes and stuffed everything inside. The change was fast, the new moon easing the stretch of bones and flesh to feathers and talons. The pack was only a few pounds, but he had to work hard to find something he could lift in his other form. He’d crafted this bag himself, and it was getting worn with use, but still endured.

He stretched his wings out to a nearly six-foot span and snatched up the bag before taking off. His night vision in this form was sublime. Every desert critter a bright spot of heat on the run from him, but he’d rather eat a pizza than some rodent.

Finding the book came first anyway, an enigma into the pieces of the life beyond. The weight in his grip kept him flying low, and his brain focused on a very human fact even when he would have loved to fly the early morning thermals for a while. As a great horned owl, the night and early morning were peak times for play, and without Sam in his raven form to watch over, Con could have lost himself in the desert, dancing on the thermal glide of the winds. He could be an owl or a hawk and didn’t know any others who could pick their changed witch shape. His sister’s gift, now his.

Focus, he reminded himself, while the wind tugged at him in the swirling energy of freedom. Book, food, rest. Then maybe home to fuck his guys, if they were home. Hart kept them running all over the fucking world. Con wished they had something to bind them closer together.

Technically, he could submit to being Sam’s Focus, allow the formal bond that required biting and blood ties, but he still couldn’t bring himself to accept fangs piercing his skin. A thousand needles for tattoo art, but not fangs. How Sam didn’t hate him, Con wasn’t certain, but they worked around it, as Luca loved being bitten. Vampire bites and sex went together like peanut butter on toast.

Con landed some distance from the hotel, an off the highway rattrap that didn’t have all the modern conveniences of surveillance and tracking transactions. He had already paid for a week in advance in cash. No one would notice him leaving in the early dawn hours.

Con changed and tugged on his clothes, hating how tight they felt after a flight, and headed back to his room on two feet rather than on wings. Being human was heavy. Physically and mentally. As the owl, life was simpler. It was one of the few times he’d really understood Rou and his constant struggle to just be. The owl didn’t have conflicts about being bitten by a lover, or what the world found socially acceptable. It just owl’ed all day. The desire to shut his human mind down and just accept that simplicity always lingered when he changed. It would be easy to let it all go and just be the hawk or the owl. He sometimes wondered if there were witches who completely lost themselves to their shifted form and never returned.

Did the Pillar of Air have that struggle, Con wondered, as he knew Sam often battled the same need to fly. Why did no one talk about what it meant to be a high-level witch and the struggle for balance with their element? It couldn’t simply be because he didn’t have official Dominion training. Rou and Harding had full training, degrees in magic and all that bullshit. Both Pillars, despite being male witches, and Con knew they battled with the call of their element. It was some sort of unspoken bane not found on forums or even mentioned on the deep, dark edges of the web. Frustrating.

It was why Con always took the retrieval jobs for information. Sometimes it was just a jaunt to a library across the world to snatch a book hidden away. Other times it was breaking into the estates of rich witches, unlocking enchanted safes, and stealing all their sacred artifacts. Those were fun. Not because he felt he ever really found anything super informative, but because the Dominion witches were bitches who thought themselves invincible. Until Con waltzed into their homes and robbed them blind without leaving a trace of himself behind. Everyone thought earth had all the power. Wind moved earth all the time, shifting landscapes, building and destroying mountains. Everyone underestimated the wind. Con used that to his advantage.

He gathered his things, the last bits of his short stay, and got into the rental. The drive up to Vegas would take him a while. He mapped it out on his phone, the bunker just outside of Henderson. Hopefully, he could drop the rental off in Vegas and head home before noon. He didn’t do planes unless he had to. Overseas was necessary, but in the USA, he drove. And his real car was parked in a private lot in Vegas, ready for his drive home. Not a quick trip, since his main drag was in Minnesota. Sometimes they lived in Cali, sometimes in Italy, but with the fall sweeping in soon, he wanted to be home, visit his sister’s grave, and ready himself for the cold rise of winter.

His stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten. But there wasn’t much open at five in the morning, and he didn’t think a gas station burrito would be the best way to spend his day driving. Highway 40 was the straight shot up, but if he took 93 it would give him a chance to lose any suspicion that might arise from seeing him. Caution was key. He decided he’d weave a bit, make a few stops, and arrive in Henderson hopefully unannounced, find the book, and head home.

The plans of mice and men and all that…