Memories of the silver cuffs sent phantom pain zinging around my wrists, and it was all I could do not to thrust my hands under the table. “Hopefully, beheading isn’t much of a risk these days,” I said, the image of an old-fashioned executioner in a black hood forming in my head.
“It’s one of the few ways to kill an immortal.”
Something about the way he said it gave me pause. “Are there other kinds of immortals?”
He nodded. “Vampires, witches, and Fae. Witches are mortal, but they can work magic. They pass it down through blood, so they’re very particular about marriage. Everything is arranged.”
“Sounds romantic,” I said. “What about the other kind?” I hunted for the word. “Fairies?”
Jesse gave me a look as he took a long pull of his beer. “God, never call them that.” He set down his bottle. “The correct term isFae, and most of them are more ancient than you can wrap your head around. They retreated to Undersomm when the humans stopped worshipping them.”
“Undersomm?” I asked as the hair on my nape lifted. It was silly, but something about the odd-sounding word made me wish he’d never said it.
He nodded. “It’s a separate realm accessible only to the Fae or those they take with them.” Shadows moved quickly through his eyes as he added, “I’ve never heard of anyone enjoying that experience. Time passes differently there. The Fae areold, and they operate under a different kind of moral code. Fortunately, they dislike moving around the human world, and they mostly keep to themselves.”
I let all the information he’d thrown at me sink in. “What about the vampires?”
Jesse grimaced as he used the edge of his thumbnail to dig at the label on his beer. “They don’t keep to themselves. Not that they have much choice. They need to hunt.”
Humans. He meant hunt humans like a lion hunts a gazelle. “So it’s like the movies?” I asked. “They drink blood?” My stomach stirred, trying to decide how it felt about that.
“Yes. Vampirism is a virus just like lycanthropy, but it operates differently. Like us, a human turned by a vampire will revert to the physiological age when they’re the strongest and most capable of survival. But vampires are the living dead. Their hearts don’t beat. They don’t need to breathe or even blink, although they can if they want to. They survive exclusively on blood.” Distaste flickered through Jesse’s eyes. “The vampire houses keep pets around so they have a ready source of food.Some pets want to serve, but others are taken against their will. When a vampire exchanges blood with a human over a certain period of time, the human becomes dependent on the vampire’s blood to survive. It’s like being a drug addict. If they don’t get that blood, the withdrawal will kill them. Then it’s up to the vampire to turn them. Only a master vampire can turn a human. They rarely do, so most pets die from withdrawal. It’s an excruciating way to go.”
The steak I’d eaten formed a rock in my gut. “You’ve seen this?”
“A handful of times over the years.” His jaw tightened, and he stopped picking at his beer label. “Pets who’ve been with their masters for a long time exist in an in-between state. They’re still mortal, but their lifespans are extended. The few I’ve encountered had been abandoned by their master and banished from their house. They were already in the early stages of withdrawal.”
“Why would their masters abandon them?”
“Any number of reasons,” he said. “They broke a rule or fought with another pet. Sometimes, they offended one of the lesser vampires who serve the master. But most often, it’s simply cruelty. The houses are competitive places, with pets vying for the vampires’ attention. Most mortals who serve want to be turned, and they’ll go to great lengths to win their immortality. But unless a pet is exceptionally beautiful or talented in some unusual way, the masters are unlikely to turn them. There are numerous stories of master vampires stringing a pet along, letting them grow old and desperate to be restored to their youth, only to throw them into the streets once they’re too frail to feed from.”
Jesus. Maybe I’d lucked out when the rogue attacked me on the jogging trail. “And you found these…people?” I asked. I couldn’t make myself say “pets.”
“Yes.”
Foreboding slipped down my spine. “What did you do when you found them?”
“The humane thing.” Jesse pushed back his chair and stood. “I have ice cream. Do you want chocolate or vanilla?”
“You mean you killed them?”
He picked up his plate. When he rounded the table like he meant to collect mine, I grabbed it and got to my feet.
Jesse stopped, his expression inscrutable. We stared at each other, tendrils of tension snaking between us. “Yes, I killed them,” he said quietly. “They were beyond help. I did what their masters should have done, and I put them out of their misery.”
The tension swirled thicker. He watched me, clearly waiting for condemnation. I tried to imagine him snapping an elderly, strung-out human’s neck. Maybe it was mercy, but it was also murder. And not the kind in a movie or video game. No, this was real world shit. Finding a shovel and digging a hole because you had to dispose of a dead body shit.
And it was my life now.
Thou shalt not kill.How many times had I seen that Commandment? But the Bible didn’t say anything about werewolves. Or “pets.” Suddenly, the memory of Welch’s screams echoed in my mind. He’d cried out for god when I tackled him to the ground and sank my jaws into his femur. But god hadn’t answered. Welch would never know it, but Jesse—a man Welch would likely disparage if given the chance—had saved his life.
“Chocolate,” I said finally, my voice as quiet as Jesse’s had been. “I’ll have chocolate ice cream.”
His gaze softened, and for a second I thought he’d step forward and kiss me. Instead, he nodded toward my chair. “Sit. I’ll get it.” He tugged my plate from my hand and left the dining room.
I stared after him, a strange feeling swirling in my chest. Maybe it was disappointment at the aborted kiss. But there was something else, too—a current running underneath the letdown. As I pondered it, the clink of plates and the sound of running water drifted from the kitchen. The odd feeling built, fluttering in my stomach like those tense minutes on the football field just before kickoff. Fuck, was I losing control again? Except this wasn’t anger. It was more like…anxiety or something. Which, okay, I had plenty of reasons to feel anxious. I’d been turned into a werewolf. School was up in the air. I probably wasn’t welcome at my parents’ house anymore—not that I cared. Good riddance and all that. But even a dumbass could figure out that being uprooted from my ordinary, suburban,humanlife and dumped into Jesse’s supernatural world was a head-spinner.
The sound of a fridge door closing echoed from the kitchen.
