“Come lie down with me and I’ll tell you everything.” I pat the space beside me and Declan approaches, toeing off his shoes and climbing onto the bed. He stays dressed and that’s fine.
“Are you a vampire?” he asks.
I nod.
“Did you make me a vampire?”
I nod again.
He scrunches his nose and looks around my room. I don’t think there’s anything special. A nice waterfall bedroom set I acquired in the twenties, and stacks of books and records that I’ve used to keep myself entertained if I wake up too early. I’ve read them all. Listened to it all. I have thick blackout brocade curtains over my windows, and I want to know what he thinks of the place, but I don’t want to ask him.
“Who do you live with?”
“My parents. Two brothers.”
“How do you have parents?” He winces. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know,” I chuckle sympathetically. “My biological parents are long gone, though I imagine William and Birdie are technically my biological parents, too. They made me.”
“Did you make me?” Declan whispers, chewing his lip between his teeth. His canines glint in the light, a pink film coating them from all the blood he’s drank.
It makes me so fucking hard for him.
“I did.”
“So are you my dad?” He raises an eyebrow.
“It doesn’t work that way.” I smile, even though I’m not sure I should.
“How does it work then?” He relaxes a little with the question, leaning against my chest. I wrap an arm around him and he rests his cheek against my shoulder.
“Simultaneous bites make an heir. Singular bites, a mate.”
“A mate,” he croaks.
“Yes.”
“That seems impractical.”
“What?” I laugh. “How do you figure?”
“Wouldn’t a person, or a vampire, I guess…wouldn’t they just have dozens of mates running around if that were the case?”
“Not just a bite. It’s a sex thing really. Bites during orgasm.” My voice goes soft at the end, like it’s an embarrassing thing. It’s not, I mean, it’s all chemical and biological, and it makes sense when you think about it. And I’ve had a long time to think about it.
“So because I came?”
“Because we both came,” I correct. “Together.”
“Could you have…you know, not bitten me?” There’s a teasing inflection in the question, and I wish I could see his face. Declan draws shapes on my bare chest with the tip of his finger and, for the first time, I think this might all work out.
“I didn’t want to.” I shift my weight so we’re looking at each other, and I really need him to understand how sorry I am. “I held off. I was biting myself so I wouldn’t bite you, but when you made me come, I couldn’t stop myself. It was that or let you bleed out.”
“Well, thank you, I guess, for not letting me do that.”
“I wanted you from the first moment I saw you, Declan. But I didn’t want for it to be like this.” I untangle from him and stand up. I need there to be space between us because my shame is too fucking heavy for his shoulders.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, and I relax in the familiar stillness of the near-dawn. But then he’s there. His fingertips against the small of my back and they’re not hot like they used to be, but they temper me just the same.
