I jumped the flights of stairs so that I could get to the top as quickly as possible. When I reached my floor, I sprinted down the hallway to my apartment. I threw open the door, and Brian’s sailing body slammed into me.
“Shithead,” he muttered. “Oh! Hello!” he exclaimed when he saw me. “Pardon my language. It’s about time you showed up to help.”
A fist caught Brian in the jaw as he finished his sentence and he rolled off my lap right as I gathered myself to jump. My take off was smooth. With arms outstretched and teeth bared, I grabbed a thick handful of the fawn’s hair. I flew over his head, and the tendons in my shoulder screamed in protest as I hit the end of the slack in my arm.
Crap! I winced, but my grip held and my force pulled the fawn off balance. He curled into a ball on my stomach as we rolled through the kitchen. When we hit the counter, he uncurled and pushed my shoulders to the tile. His lips were pulled back in a snarl, but when he saw who I was—only with a shirt this time—he relaxed his face and his eyes softened. A playful growl escaped as I arched my back and pushed off the floor, reversing our positions so he couldn’t get away.
“Hello, again,” I laughed.
Brian came in, rubbing the back of his head, doubled over in pain. The fawn didn’t seem to notice.
“You’re much more beautiful close up,” he mused, stroking his thumb across my cheek.
I noticed absently that his voice sounded quite a bit different than it had this morning. He almost looked surprised for a split second, but he recovered so quickly that I began wondering if I had imagined it.
Brian straightened with some effort and a warning snarl rumbled at the back of his throat. Still, the fawn ignored him.
“Why are you with this savage?” he asked, nodding at Brian.
His voice sounded normal. I must have imagined that, too.
I dug my fingers into his shoulders until he started writhing on the floor from the pain.
“Because I love him,” I snapped. “He’s my friend and my partner. Don’t you dare ever suggest that he’s nothing more than a dangerous beast.”
“So is this”—the fawn pointed between my outraged expression and Brian’s low growling—“what Xanor meant when he said you two were mates?” he asked breathlessly.
I slapped him across the face.
“You should know better now, fawn.”
Then I turned to look at Brian.
“Perhaps I don’t want to catch a son, after all,” I said. “Making one would be much more fun.”
Brian simply nodded in agreement. He was hurting—bad.
“Get out,” he ordered. “Now.”
“What’s the matter?” the fawn taunted. “Don’t want your girlfriend being so close to another vampire?”
“Nope. My wife was close enough this morning.”
“Oh, I see,” the fawn mused. “You knew Xanor, didn’t you? That’s why you flipped out when—”
I smacked him again.
“Shut up and get out,” I snarled.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The fawn wriggled out from under me and leapt to the door and down the hallway. I watched him round the corner, looking for a tiny silver scar that would have marked the entry of Xanor’s teeth into his human flesh. There was nothing that I could see, but maybe he was just moving too fast. I rocked back and sagged against the counter.
“Did you know Xanor?” I asked quietly.
Brian was silent, staring at the television.
“I hate being like this,” he whispered. “I want to be human again.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked nervously. “What’s so bad about being a vampire?”
“I didn’t want to be,” he snapped. “You are the only reason I haven’t killed myself yet.” He looked into my eyes and his tone shrunk to barely audible. “If it wasn’t for you,” he confided, “I’d be rotting in some overgrown field.”
The picture burned me. Don’t, I pleaded silently.
“Did you know Xanor?” I repeated.
“Yes,” Brian sighed. “He made me.”
His shoulders fell when he came and sat next to me, as if sharing with me who his creator had been was a huge burden he had finally rid himself of. Or at least found someone to share it with.
“I was barely twenty-three. Me and my brother were leaving the bar when we saw a little couple trying to flag down a car,” he said. “It looked like theirs had broken down. My brother pulled over and went to see what was wrong. I followed him. While my brother was bent over inside their hood, the man pulled out a gun. He shot my brother twice in the head; me three times—once in the leg, twice in the chest.”
I shivered. I had always wondered how the three silver-dollar-sized holes had the guts enough to mar Brian’s beautiful skin. Now I knew.
“My brother was dead, that much was obvious,” he continued. “But I was still alive, laying on the gravel in shear agony. I looked up when I heard tires approaching. It was Xanor, though I didn’t know it at the time. He came over to me and asked if I wanted to live, to have a new life.”
Brian buried his face in his hands. His voice was choked with tears when he continued.
“I said no. I just wanted him to go away and let me die, but he didn’t listen. He just bit me and drove off.
“At first, it didn’t really hurt. But a couple of minutes later…”
His voice trailed off. I knew what happened next. He’d gone almost mad, chasing after anything that had even an ounce of blood in it. Somehow—he never told me—he learned how to tolerate his cravings, and went around acting like he was just another normal human.
He had also made me. He was the one who had dealt with me in my insanity. When I had first met him, it was obvious he was different. It was weird though. As much as I grew to love him, he kept watching me like I was some kind of prey. I’d had no idea then just how right I was.
Brian had explained everything before he bit me, how he was a vampire, what his life was like being around me, the constant battle he fought to keep himself from killing me. I confessed that I was in love with him and that nothing could keep me from him. If he was a vampire, I was going to be a vampire. I’d had no problem making the choice. He also admitted that he wanted me to be a vampire, so that he wasn’t in such a struggle, so that we could exist together for the rest of eternity. I had leaned my head on his shoulder, opening up the perfect opportunity for him to bite me, right there. He took it. He’d kissed my neck before he whispered an apology against my pulsing vein, then pushed his teeth into my flesh. Now, I was his, body and soul.
But I’d never heard his side of the story, how he had become a vampire. I watched his body shake with the tremors of his quiet sobs, partly lost inside my own head, and wrapped my arms around him.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “Baby, I love you, and that’ll never change.”
I softly hummed a haunting lullaby over him, closed my eyes, and leaned my cheek on the top of his head. His trembling body slowly stilled. As I drifted off along with him, only his fractured breathing broke the silence that surrounded us.
