Charley’s mouth fitted over mine as if we were meant to be, and we spent several minutes warming ourselves up thoroughly. There wasn’t room for a fuck, and frankly at this point, I was too knackered to even care about an orgasm. When we surfaced for breath, I gave Charley the blanket. “There ya go. Hands beat paws from now on.”
“It’s magic, isn’t it?” he said wonderingly. “You lie down and sort ofthink,and then you’re someone, somethingelse. It’s amazing, that’s all.”
I raised my eyebrows at him and was amused when he blushed. “I’m still me,” I reminded him. “Just a different facet of me. It’s my nature, not magic. Magic is the Fae.” I shuddered.
“What’s the matter? Oh, fuck’s sake, you’re cold. I’m so stupid at times. Sorry.” Charley shrank against the seat back, waving a hand at my naked form. “C’mon, get wolfy.” He froze. “Hang on, the Fae? They exist too?”
I nodded quickly. “They do. I didn’t shiver because I’m cold. I have what, for argument’s sake, let’s call a healthy respect for them. They’re…” I didn’t know how to finish my sentence without freaking Charley out. I settled on, “…rather unpredictable, and prone to random acts of fuckery.”Translation: I’d rather eat my own eyeballs than have dealings with the two-faced, pointy-eared wankers.
My plan not to freak him out probably hadn’t worked. Swallowing audibly, he gave me a weak grin and repeated his urging for me to shift. Perhaps an oversized wolf in your bed was better than considering unpredictable beings with wings. He had no idea how right he was.
As soon as I shifted, we settled down quickly. The rear windows of my car were all fitted with privacy glass, so hopefully Charley wouldn’t be too uncomfortable as daylight approached. I fell asleep quickly with my nose tucked into his armpit, inhaling the soothing aroma of a man I’d come to think of asmine.
* * *
We wokewith the alarm I’d set. I quickly shifted and dressed while Charley dived behind a nearby tree to piss. It was still early, and deathly quiet on this dead end track. The frost had thickened while we slept, as had the mist, which was now a swirling fog. I switched the engine on, and set the heaters to a low level; enough to start warming the air but not so much as to overload the battery when the car was cold. I popped the tab on a Coke, and offered a second to Charley, who took it with a world-weary expression that said he didn’t think much of my offering. “Cold sausage roll?” I pasted on a smile.
“Urgh, go on.” He chomped it down in four bites. “There, I’ve eaten some breakfast. Satisfied?”
“Ish.” I knew he was probably stiff from the lack of space, so I didn’t let his snark affect me. “You could have a more liquid meal if you think you might need it.” Our eyes both tracked to the cool bag. Charley licked his lips, and seemed to be considering. “Not right now,” he said eventually. “Maybe tonight.”
“How do you feel?”
“Sort of thirsty, but also not really. Like, if I know I’m going to hit up a club and have a few vodkas, my mouth recognises the idea of the booze, and welcomes it, but I’m not in a hurry to rush out and get pissed. Does that make sense?”
“It does. And congratulations. Learning about that oncoming thirst is a big step in controlling your vampire nature, and preventing bloodlust.” I’d paid attention at Council meetings, and I was impressed that Charley appeared to have a handle on this so soon. Perhaps his human side helped balance the more extreme characteristics that a pure blood vampire would have.
He seemed to perk up after my little pep talk, and asked what we had planned for the day. I checked the time. “Before anything else, I’d better call Dalziel. He’s the vampire the Council want you to meet. I’ll do it now as it’s still almost dark. I don’t think he’s an obligate day sleeper, but it’s best not to antagonise him by coming off as ignorant before we’ve even met.” I found his number in my emails and pasted it in, then dialled.
A terse “Yes?“ responded after three rings. I took a breath and said calmly, “It’s Lucien Bradshaw. I believe you’ve been expecting my call.”
Dalziel Millar was the most senior vampire in the U.K., and quite possibly Europe, although I wasn’t entirely sure about that part. He was certainly senior enough to kick my butt into next week if the mood took him, and I’d been nervous about calling him up, but Justin, the head wolf at the Council, had insisted this was correct protocol. Dalziel’s frosty tone thawed when he heard my name, and we exchanged a few quick sentences which mostly consisted of his telling me not to be followed if I could avoid it. I assured him I was as confident as I could be that so far we’d flown under the Wyvern’s, and anyone else’s, radar, and that we’d be with him later that day.
I cut the connection and exhaled in relief. “That went all right.” I gave Charley my best wolfy grin. “Fancy a celebratory fuck? There isn’t much room, but we can rub off against each other.”
Charley rolled his eyes. “We can do better than that. How about we blow each other, then finish together?”
“Much better idea. Get your seat as flat as you can. And unzip.”
I made Charley come twice, which made me feel like a sex god, and turned him into an amenable puddle. We cleaned up as best we could, and returned his seat to an upright position.
“I need a hot drink of some kind.” I put the SUV into gear, and did a seven point turn to go back along the track, cursing myself roundly for having been so stupidly tired last night that I hadn’t done that before parking up. I knew better than to leave myself at a disadvantage, and facing backwards up a narrow dirt road was the epitome of careless. Luckily, nothing had disturbed our rest, but I wouldn’t make that mistake a second time.
We stopped at the first services we came to, where I bought us both large milky coffees and bacon rolls to keep us going. Charley wordlessly devoured both without any prompting, although he did hand me the bread from his roll. When I frowned, he pulled an apple from the cool bag, and crunched it aggressively. Smiling at how I couldn’t seem to help nurturing him, I double-checked Dalziel’s instructions, and not long after rejoining the main road, I took a right, and from then on we drove a series of minor roads in a vaguely north-east direction towards our destination. The sun was hidden under a dense layer of cloud, and with the added fog, it was a slow journey. Last thing I wanted was to roll the car on an unexpected bend.
We found the entrance to Dalziel’s estate, and I choked back a laugh. Pretentious git had a security camera mounted on the top of the stone wall surrounding the property, and a locked gate across the driveway. He was a vampire, for Chrissake. Who was going to try and take him out, a reenactment troupe with a bunch of wooden spears? Although, when I stopped sniggering, I figured maybe the reason he’d been alive so long wasbecausehe was pathologically mistrustful. As I knew only too well, just because you were paranoid didn’t mean they weren’t out to get you.
I jerked a thumb at the place. “That’s where we’re headed, but not just yet. It’s still too early. It would be polite to wait until the sun’s officially below the horizon. Fancy a walk, or shall we drive around a bit more?” Usually I’d be itching to stretch my legs, but the fog had morphed into a hazy rain, the kind of persistent fine stuff that would soak you to the marrow within minutes.
Charley shrugged. “Not fussed either way.” He was worrying his bottom lip again, a sure sign he wasn’t as chill as his slouched demeanour suggested. I was about to ask him what was on his mind, but stopped myself before I put my foot in it.Fuck’s sake, Bradshaw, you can be an insensitive jerk at times. He’s discovered the beasties from the old legends exist, and that he’s one of them. He’s wanted to answer for a murder he didn’t commit but has no way of proving he wasn’t involved in, he’s at the other end of the U.K. with only what he could grab in five minutes, after hiding out in a safe house, and if that wasn’t enough, his adoptive parents sound uncaring at best, neglectful at worst. Oh, and we’re meeting with the country’s most senior vampire within a few hours.
My internal pep talk over, we drove around the area for a while. Charley and I weren’t overly impressed with the local town — I guess it was big enough to be a town — but it had a few shops and a petrol station, so it wasn’t a dead loss. It was quiet though, and seemed friendly enough. Nobody stared at the car as if our arrival heralded the start of the apocalypse or anything, so I took it as a good sign. Presumably Dalziel had scouted the locale out before settling down in the arse end of nowhere. Your average vampire couldn’t blend in as easily as a shifter, so it made sense to have pretty chill neighbours. It didn’t hurt the place was roughly equidistant between Glasgow and Edinburgh either. Presumably Dalziel took himself off to feed, and big cities were where you found the easiest pickings, or so I’d heard.
Back at the gate, I discovered a buzzer, and pressed it. A woman’s voice answered, “Lucansburn Estate. How may I help you?”
She’d evidently been briefed about our impending arrival as she told me to wait for the gate to unlock and swing back, then to follow the driveway to the main house where she would meet us.
Charley craned his neck in all directions as we crunched slowly over the tidy gravel. “This place is massive. Is this bloke filthy rich or something?” His neck nearly did a 360. “Whoa, there’s some kind of tower over there. A real spooky-looking number. And so many trees! It’s like a whole park in here. Some kind of pine tree mating ground.” It wasn’t a bad summary of the estate from what I could see.
