Chapter One
The vampire coiled the rope around the human’s wrists before guiding his arms up above his head. There the vampire looped the rope around the bed post to tie it into place. It left the naked human bared, splayed out and vulnerable–
The shrieking, sudden climax of ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ jolted Luis back to himself.
He jumped guiltily, ripping his hand away from his cheek where it’d been resting while he watched, riveted, what was happening on screen. He felt the sting of his nail cut skin as he did so.
He slammed the laptop shut and grabbed for the phone on his bedside table. The ringer was silenced, but his heart was pounding as if his mother, the caller, had caught him.
Luis moved his guitar off his lap, whole body jittery. He was supposed to be looking up new sheet music, not porn. Definitely notvampire porn.
He’d got sidetracked by social media though, and one thing had led to another and…
His cheek burned from more than the embarrassed flush. He reached up to touch it and found wetness.
Blood.
“Shit,” Luis got up and headed to the bathroom.
In the mirror there was a small cut on the curve of his cheek, just low enough that it was going to sting like hell when he had to shave. He’d meant to cut his nails a day ago and put it off.
Great.
Luis went to the linen closet, to the second shelf for his travel medical kit. It was stuffed behind the new box of syringeshe’d bought last week, with some of the laundry fresh towels stacked haphazardly on top. When he tried to weasel it out, everything went toppling onto the floor.
He sighed. The closet had needed reorganizing for months, but he’d kept putting it off. Seeing the surplus of needles and gauze and bandages depressed him.
Problem for a later him.
Luis took the kit to the counter and retrieved the antiseptic wipes and a pack of bandaids from within. There wasn’t a lot of blood, it was more papercut than anything, but it still stung.
He made quick work to clean, disinfect, and then bandage it anyway. Then he paused to frown at his reflection in the mirror. The bandage only made it more noticeable.
And on a Friday of all days.
Luis took the bandaid off.
In the bedroom, his phone chimed with a voicemail.
Great. Perfect.
Would a bare wound be offensive to a vampire? Luis didn’t know.
He put the supplies back in the kit and stuffed everything else haphazardly back in the closet. When he retrieved his phone, Luis petulantly deleted the voicemail without listening to it and swiped away the additional reminder on his phone that saidBLOOD!that was five days overdue.
More problems for later him.
Ten minutes later, resentfully scarfing down a second protein bar to serve as dinner, Luis's phone started ringing again. He reached to turn the thing off before recognizing the song playing was ‘Libertango’ and not ‘Night on Bald Mountain’.
“Hey, I’ve only got a few minutes,” Luis said as the call connected and a video lit up the screen.
Cassie, his best friend, grinned at him from the other side. Then her expression faltered. “Oh shit, what happened to yourface?” Cassie’s huge cloud of dark hair obscured most of the background as she leaned in.
Luis forced himself not to think about the video. “Uh, just nicked myself shaving. I’m fine.”
“Ouch, and on your pretty face too,” she frowned.
Luis didn’t dignify that with a response, finishing the last of his bar.
