Foxx growled. Fuck a duck… Was he going to lose this argument?! NO! He refused! Foxx didn’t care if there was some logic there. He didn’t care if he was wrong. By the Goddess, he refused to lose! Even if it meant he could accidentally get blownup by some bastard who was just trying to kill his asshole of a boyfriend!
“Oh, look, we are here!” the dhampir drawled as the cabin appeared through the trees.
Foxx took a deep, calming breath. “This isn’t over,” he ground out.
Harlow just smiled and said nothing.
Glaring at the fucker out of the corner of his eye, he didn’t say more as he followed the small gravel drive to where it ended, just before the docks, and parked.
Let it go, for now…I’ll let it go for now, he thought with irritation while he eyed the area. Lake Gallows was sparkling in the moonlight. In the distance, you could hear the sound of water rushing over Galley Falls.
The first time he’d been here, Foxx hadn’t had the time to walk that far on the property to actually see it, but according to Harlow, about a mile back, if you followed the narrowing of the lake past the cabin, you’d run into the falls.
The cabin itself was built on a bit of an incline, and there was a decent sized green lawn out front. A large stone path led from the docks up to the two front steps. The two-bedroom, one bath house was only one story, and a mix of wood and stone, with a covered front wooden porch. Past the lawn and the cabin, the forest sprung up fast and thick.
While Harlow jumped out of the Jeep and headed around to the boot, Foxx reached into the back seat to grab his duffle, before quickly getting a blood bag out of the refrigerator that was built into the middle of the seat.
Getting out, Foxx approached Harlow, who was standing there with the boot open. The body bag with Micah in it was on the ground. The dhampir glanced at the blood bag with a raised brow.
Foxx shrugged. “Hate to have to feed the bastard, but he won’t wake up without it.” He looked over at the lake before his eyes flicked to the forest around them. “How close is your nearest neighbor?”
He could see a house in the distance at the far side of the lake, but the woods were too dense around the rest of the property for him to see past.
The dhampir pointed towards the lake, saying, “Nearest is that house on the other side. While noise does carry pretty well over the lake, I soundproofed the cabin, so…it doesn’t really matter.”
Foxx giggled. “Oh good, then we won’t have to be quiet. Let’s get Micah chained up and get this shit done.”
Harlow hummed. “Scriptured chains or…?”
His head tilted. “You have…more than one type?”
The dhampir shrugged. “I have a variety.”
“Well, Mr. Boy Scout, since he's been drained dry, and I only plan on giving him enough blood to wake his ass up, whatever chains you want will be fine. He’ll be too weak to even handle rope or duct tape, for that matter. Though, in my opinion, duct tape is stronger than rope.” Foxx blinked. “OH, do you have duct tape? Because that hurts for sure.”
“Do I have duct tape?” Harlow scoffed, as if offended Foxx even asked, as he opened a hidden panel on the right wall of the boot. Foxx’s brow rose at the rows of different types of tape the man revealed, along with various other questionable binding materials.
He giggled, and with a smile, he said, “So prepared. I love that in a man.”
The dhampir grinned. “Which is why you should appreciate my camera installation.”
Foxx’s smile dropped. “Fat chance of that,” he hmphed. He grabbed one of the rolls of duct tape and started towards the cabin, but stopped as something occurred to him.
He eyed Harlow. “I realize you may want to hit him for the whole changing thing, but…let me handle things until we get the information we need. You don’t really have much control right now, and as sturdy as vampires are, you may accidentally kill him.”
“Right.” The dhampir grimaced and, as if the word was foreign to him, slowly muttered, “Restraint…”
Harlow held Micah’s head back, hand clamped on his jaw to keep it open, while Foxx slowly trickled drops of blood into his mouth.
“So…how long will it take—” Harlow was cut off when Micah jerked in his hold, the man’s eyes opening on a dry gasp. “Not long, apparently,” he snorted.
“Yeah, that's pretty much how all of my kind reacts on waking up from massive blood loss,” Foxx drawled, sounding bored as he quickly went over to set the open blood bag in the sink, before returning to his previous position in front of Micah.
Micah stared blankly for a moment at Harlow, before his daze cleared and his eyes widened, the man letting out a barely audible scream.
Releasing his hold on the vampire’s hair and jaw, he wiped his hands on his pants. The man had not…felt clean.
Huh…guess Foxx was right, he thought, as Micah jerked uselessly in the chair.
