Sharing blood was a tenuous, intimate thing, and more experimental than Whitton’s manufactured blood, but he couldn’t let Laurie kill. Not tonight.
The artist tasted like aged paper when Decker sunk his fangs into the vein.
I pray I’m right, and you can return home to make your paint with these hills.
Laurie watched with a starved hunger in the slack curve of his jaw. Fists clenched at his side, feet rooted to the ground.
The artist's heartbeat slowed, steady, pulsing. The blinding need to kill, toconsume, never surfaced. Decker trembled when he pulled away and smoothed his thumb over the bite.
He was alive. All those years, all that death, and all he needed was another like him to ease his thirst. Another like Laurie.
Standing, he approached until he and Laurie were chest to chest, a twin pair of flame-red eyes and shaky hands.
Decker tilted his head to the side in silent invitation.
Laurie’s touch ghosted up his arm, fragile and cautious. His breath skimmed over his neck when he leaned in, hovering above the vein pulsing with fresh blood not yet absorbed.
“Will it hurt?” he whispered.
Decker’s lips brushed his temple. “Be gentle.”
His hand slotted against the other side of Decker’s neck, tangled in the wind-blown strands of black. A wavering breath slid over his skin.
It’s just Laurie.
Decker closed his eyes. This time, he was prepared.
He latched onto Laurie’s arm until he felt bone under his fingertips. Pain ripped through him like Elias’s fire and he grit his teeth, fully held up by Laurie as he drank, hands against his spine, pressing closer, closer. The heady rush lapsed, edging away like receding water until pain disappeared and his body sagged like one of the drunkards at the saloon.
Too much. He needed to retain some blood.
Decker gasped out his name, scrabbling at Laurie, fingers hooked into the corner of his lips until he pried his mouth away, leaving a leaking gash.
Ragged breaths left Laurie’s parted, blood-rimmed mouth.
Eyes bleary, Decker held his head to stop the spinning. He’d done it. Fed without killing. They would be alright.
Laurie dragged the back of his hand across his face, leaving a red smear. He blinked, lips parting when his gaze flickered to the unconscious man. Stumbling back, blood pooled from the fang sank into his lip.
“Laurie.”
“No. No—I can’t—”
“Laurie.” Decker reached for him. This time Laurie didn’t flinch away. He gathered his bloodied, torn hands in his own. “I will take care of you like you are my own, I will let no harm come to you, as long as you will have me, Laurie Lane,” Decker whispered.
“As long as I will have you?” Laurie’s voice cracked. “And after that? After the sun destroys me in front of my chapel I cannot enter?” He plunged ahead, heedless. “Why did you do this to me?”
“You have a life here.”
“I had unrealized ambitions, not a life.”
“It was enough—”
“Why did you turn me?”
“We needed you,” Decker said.
“Bullshit.” Laurie paled, like the fear of damnation from a filthy mouth was worse than what he had become.
