Every time Kilian thought he had grasped the magnitude of Stephen’s powers, Stephen dropped some new piece of information that made him reconsider everything. Stephen was powerful enough to magically record others on base, but goofy enough to use his phenomenal cosmic powers to play a ridiculous practical joke. Kilian sank into his chair. “That implies you can use your magic outside these rooms.”
“I can. My demon can do pretty much anything it wants, as long as I don't object.” Stephen said easily, as if that wasn’t absolutely terrifying.
“Could you leave?”
“I could.” Stephen shrugged and grabbed a can of soda off the end table. “I won’t. I know the cost other people are going to pay when I lose control, and I would prefer that Mia and her goons be the ones to pay that price and not some poor innocent mother in Saskatchewan with the bad luck of renting some apartment next door to the place where I'm hiding.”
It broke Kilian’s heart that Stephen considered his loss against the demon a ‘when’ and not an ‘if.’
Stephen poked a finger in his direction. “Don't you dare feel sorry for me because I can repeat my little trick. Trust me, not everyone had a fun time. Well, I did, but everyone else? Nope. Not even a little. I'm pretty sure most of the people on base have given up sex in general after that.”
Kilian could imagine. Sounds that were sexy in the bedroom were awkward anywhere else, and he knew that because a few of the guys from his first team had enjoyed porn a little too much. The soundtrack made polishing his boots an exercise in awkwardness. But Kilian had been able to walk out of the barracks; here in the Arctic Circle, everyone had been trapped with those sounds on a loop. Maybe that wasn’t goofy. Maybe that was sadistic. “I'm sure most people don't want to hear those kinds of noises when they're trying to eat breakfast.”
“You're not wrong. Now tell me why you feel guilty about feeding on those assholes because they were already dead. Basically. Even if they’d had their souls, killing those three would not have been tragic-worthy. People who are willing to risk their souls to summon a demon generally have some pretty awful things planned. I know soldier-you was happy to kill them, so I don’t know why vampire-you is nursing any guilt.”
“I understand they were dangerous.” Kilian’s unit had handled witches more than any other category of supernatural. The witch he had been hunting on that last mission had used a lamia spell to steal the life force of thirteen children, leaving them to wither and die as doctors put them on life support and med-witches tried to unspin the magic. But eliminating a threat and eating someone were two very different actions. Teams did one daily; the other was unforgivable.
“Kilian?” Stephen scooted down to the near end of the couch and then rested a hand on Kilian's arm. “If you want, I can go back to playing video games, and we can pretend that we’re not locked into this weirdly intimate relationship, but I would rather talk to you. You tried to take out the threat. You had my back by distracting the other two witches when you could have stayed at the door and kept out of the way. That, by the way, was not the smartest move.”
“I'm not going to retreat while you handle three magic users by yourself.”
“Everyone else on this base would,” Stephen whispered.
“Then everyone else on this base is an asshole.” Kilian didn’t add that any werewolf would die before it would allow a member of the pack to stand alone. If they had isolated Stephen to that extent, it meant that the wolves around here considered him an enemy, not an ally. Maybe that was tactically wise because werewolves were not effective at handling internal threats, but it broke Kilian's heart a little bit. Stephen deserved better.
“Eating people is not a flaw that most can forgive.”
Stephen pulled his feet up under him on the couch and patted the seat cushion next to him. If Kilian had had an ounce of common sense, he would have run fifteen feet the other way. Clearly he was a moron because he settled next to Stephen.
“It doesn't matter why you eat someone, because once you cross that line, people don't forgive.” Kilian couldn’t believe that he had to explain this.
“You're a Judas vamp. Hell, all vampires require blood. Why does it matter how you get the blood?”
Kilian gave a mirthless laugh. “Trust me, it matters. All human beings require blood, but if they are running low, they get a transfusion. When I feed, they prefer I do so out of a bag so they can pretend it's the same.”
“But it’s not,” Stephen said.
“It’s not,” Kilian agreed softly. When humans needed blood, they required the cells, the hemoglobin and other sciency things. Kilian could produce those at a terrifying rate using the building blocks his body still digested from normal food. He’d be eating larger meals for the next day or so after that injury. But when he drank blood, he absorbed the magic of a person. Magic was the thread that stitched his body back together and the fuel that animated it. But too much magic left a Judas vamp drunk on power. That was why feeding on a witch or a werewolf was so much more powerful... more addictive. If there had been an Alcoholics Anonymous for vampires, Kilian would’ve been back on his one-day chip.
Stephen shoved him with a foot. “Oh no. You are not allowed to go all melancholy. My life sucks enough without you having a major depressive episode. So let's get one thing straight. You have zero reason for feeling any guilt. Zero, zip, zilch, nada, nyet , and I'm not entirely sure that means none, but you get my general meaning. You are not allowed to feel guilty about this. Any of this.”
Kilian scrubbed his face with his hand. “I'm fairly sure emotions don't work that way. You can't turn them on and off.”
“I don't know. Have you tried? Have you put real effort towards turning off the depression?”
Kilian stared at Stephen for a good minute before saying, “That is incredibly offensive to anyone who has ever suffered a depressive episode.”
Stephen scoffed. “I’m hosting a demon that can eat souls, and you’re concerned that I’m not speaking respectfully about depression. I am deeply bothered by your priorities. Deeply.”
“Being evil is no reason to be a dick,” Kilian shot back, his sarcasm getting ahead of his manners.
Stephen laughed. “There’s the asshole I remember fondly from my childhood. Do you remember that time during the fair that you were trying to knock down some bottles at one of those booths and you tried to hit me with the baseball? The carnie made you climb in the pony pen to retrieve it. Good times.”
The guilt made Kilian crankier. “I missed on purpose because I just wanted you to go away. I was trying to impress my date.” That had been either Morgain or Jeannie. Or maybe Trish. It was so long ago. All three had been dark-haired beauties who had dropped Kilian after a few dates. He had been awkward and angry at that age.
“I don't mean to be a dick, but I don't understand your distress. The witch was dead before you ever put your fangs into the body. If you want to feel guilty, maybe you should feel guilty about biting me.”
Kilian winced. “I do. That was unforgivable, and I'm pretty sure Mia agrees with me on that point.”
