Rare Vigilance by M.A. Grant

Chapter Sixteen

“Nothing,” Cristian declared a few nights later when he slid into the backseat of the car with two heavily loaded duffel bags.

“What?” Atlas turned around in his seat, only to lose his train of thought at the sight of Cristian in worn jeans that clung tight over his thighs and a soft t-shirt that hugged his shoulders. His forearms were on display again. It wasn’t like Atlas hadn’t seen them before, but every time, he found himself distracted by the curve of the muscle, the taper of the wrist, the dusting of hair that caught the light. It was infuriating.

“Ioana told me nothing,” Cristian went on, as if Atlas knew what he was talking about.

Atlas did not. “Nothing about what?”

“Your lovely interlude at Rapture,” Cristian said. “I might have lied and said you were worried you’d upset her with your conversation and had asked me to check in on her. Don’t worry. I made sure you came across as thoughtful rather than needy.”

“I’m so grateful,” Atlas mumbled and started the car. Cristian hadn’t given him a destination, but duffel bags meant a visit to Nell, and Atlas had gone there enough he could probably drive the route in his sleep.

“What were you two even talking about?” Cristian asked.

“Feeding,” Atlas said.

Behind him, Cristian went so still he could have been mistaken for a statue. “Oh? Anything in particular?”

“I learned feeding from the vein is different than a bag.”

“Blood is a carrier for emotion and memory,” Cristian said. “Outside the vein it loses those things and becomes sterile quickly. It’s why donors are so important to us.”

“And the bond, right? Is that why donors get to choose what’s shared during a feeding? She said that I would always be able to see into your head, but could keep you out of mine if I wanted.”

“That’s true,” Cristian said carefully. “What happened between us at Hahn Lake was my fault. You seemed calm and reached back quickly, and I assumed you wanted us to share in the bond.” His next words were so soft Atlas strained to catch them. “Once I saw what you were thinking of, I knew you hadn’t meant to let me in at all. I wish I’d broken it off sooner.”

Retreating from the conversation was tempting, but seemed wrong considering Cristian’s genuine apology. Atlas took a breath, and said, “It wasn’t just your fault. I didn’t know feeding you would be different from what I felt during the attack.”

“Atlas,” Cristian whispered, his voice low and aching.

He rushed on, desperate to get them back on track. “When I told Ioana the bond wasn’t there, wasn’t even offered, between me and the creature, that’s when she froze. It was...it was like she knew what I was talking about, but when I tried to ask her about it, she said she wouldn’t talk about it.” He tapped his hands on the steering wheel as they drove through the dark streets. “What do vampires fear the most? Other than the sun, obviously.”

“The Council?” Cristian guessed. “A bunch of ancient beings happy to kill you if you break their rules is fairly frightening.”

Atlas shook his head. “No, not frightening enough.” He made another turn, this one a little sharper than normal so he could slip in under the yellow light. The duffel bags slid into the door with an odd, crinkling sound. “There’s got to be something else, something so scary no one will talk about it... Like a...a bogeyman, or something.”

Cristian snorted in amusement. “A bogeyman? Please, Mr. Kinkaid, don’t make me lau—”

He cut off so suddenly Atlas twisted around to check he was okay. Cristian stared vacantly out the window at the passing buildings, lost in his own head.

“Mr. Slava?” Atlas asked, refocusing on the road. The riverfront and warehouse loomed ahead of them, but Cristian hadn’t noticed yet. “Cristian?”

“When I was young,” Cristian said slowly, “Andrei used to tell me stories he had heard when he was a boy. Mother hated it. They were always dark and bloody and would keep me up all day. He loved telling them to me over and over again. Except one. There was a story he only told me once. It was about monsters, vampires who gave in to the bloodlust and changed. You could always tell they were out hunting because of the screams they’d make from the darkness.”

Atlas remembered the odd wails echoing around their convoy in the forest. His skin prickled and he rubbed a hand over his jacket sleeve, trying to will the sensation away.

Cristian didn’t notice his unease. Every word he spoke stuck into Atlas. “If they caught you, they would drag you off into the night and eat you. Or, if the sire wanted, they might turn you so you become a strigoi too.”

Strigoi.Atlas mouthed the word, feeling out the syllables. Finally, a name for his nightmare. “Why would strigoi be in Scarsdale?” he asked, proud when he didn’t flinch as he said the word.

“That’s what I can’t figure out,” Cristian replied with obvious frustration. “It would be nearly impossible to keep them a secret here. Father does a regular census of vampires in our territory. He tracks violent crimes and assaults. He bought out most of the local medical groups and doctors so he’d know if anyone came in with injuries. He hired an advertising firm to encourage donors from other territories to visit Scarsdale on vacation. He runs the fucking blood drives at the local high schools, Mr. Kinkaid. We have a regular surplus so no one has to go hungry. That’s what was attacked at the clinic.”

He ran a hand through his hair and laughed. “My father’s one of the most hated vampires on the Council because he runs his territory well enough no one can demand to absorb it.” His eyes widened. “If there are strigoi here, and if he can’t prove he’s not responsible for their creation, the Council will happily overthrow him. No one, even his allies, would stand by anyone who creates such creatures.”

Atlas’s throat was dry. He wiped his clammy palms on the thighs of his slacks. He tried to breathe and calm the rising nausea. “Who would benefit from his fall?”

“Everyone?”

“No, I meant who would...what did you say? Absorb his territory?”

In his heart, Atlas knew Cristian’s answer, but it still lodged like a poisoned arrow when he heard, “Mother’s family. The Wharrams.”

He thought he’d known what evil was. He’d thought Decebal fit the description, thought Cristian was a monster, and he agreed so easily to a deal with the devil. Bryony played his anger and guilt with an artistry he’d had no hope of comprehending. She’d used him, just as she was using those creatures who nearly killed him. They were all nothing but tools at her disposal, and he had no idea how to go about fixing the damage she’d already done.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“Prove to Father that the creatures hunting here are strigoi. Stop anyone else from getting hurt.” Cristian gave him a bemused look. “What else could I do, Mr. Kinkaid?”

He worried Cristian wanted him to respond, but the man was unbuckled and exiting the car before he could find any words. Atlas accepted the bag Cristian offered him and followed him toward the warehouse, still lost in thought. He needed to escape the Wharrams’ clutches for good. He needed to ensure Cristian and Bea would be safe from them, no matter the cost.

The door cracked when Cristian neared, and he smiled when he saw Nell peering out at them. She looked cleaner than the last time Atlas had seen her, and smelled much better. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a series of intricate braids that joined together into a soft plait resting over her shoulder.

“Artie? Is that you?” she asked Cristian.

“Artie?” Atlas whispered.

Cristian hushed him before saying to Nell, “Who else would it be?”

“You hadn’t come in so long... I was worried,” Nell said.

“I’m fine. Promise.” Cristian smiled and pointed to her hair. “That’s lovely. Who did it?”

Nell preened, running her fingers over the plait. “Peggy. She said we shouldn’t put off washing it for so long next time.”

“I agree,” Cristian said easily. “I know you’re most comfortable with her, but don’t forget everyone else who’s willing to help.”

Atlas swallowed against the lump growing in his throat. The way Nell nodded and stroked her hair reminded him of his grandmother. He’d never forget her pleasure when the assisted living facility’s hairdresser stopped by for rare appointments, or when Bea would have a free afternoon from work to come in to wash and dry her hair. Peggy, whoever she was, took the same loving care of Nell as Bea had with his grandmother. Cristian gave a teasing tug of the plait, which was as gentle as his smile. “We want to take care of you.”

“Best prove it then. Did you bring the good stuff?” she asked him.

“Of course,” he said, lifting his bag a little higher. “And Mr. Kinkaid has the rest.”

“Mr. Kinkaid?” Nell asked, eyeing Atlas nervously.

“I’ve told you about him before,” Cristian soothed. “Remember? Atlas?”

The name rang a bell. Nell lit up and swung the door open widely. “Oh, this is Atlas. Oh, Artie, you were right. He is a pretty one.”

The back of Cristian’s neck went pink. Atlas was positive he was blushing too, though he prayed Cristian wouldn’t notice.

“Evening, ma’am,” Atlas murmured to the older woman as he and Cristian slid past her into the building. The halls were dark thanks to the boarded windows and Atlas swore when he bumped into something with his foot.

“Atlas?” Cristian asked, somewhere to his right.

“Give me a sec,” he bit out. “Light transitions give me trouble.”

“Shit, sorry. I forgot you wouldn’t see as well,” Cristian said. “Close your eyes?”

Atlas obeyed. Even through his eyelids, he could tell when Cristian turned on his phone flashlight, illuminating the area. Cristian waited patiently while Atlas tried to adjust. Eventually, he cracked open his eyes and slowly began processing what he could see within the circle of light, as well as in the gloom beyond.

“Is this okay?” Cristian asked. Nell stood off to the side, watching their interaction with interest.

“Yeah. Tilt it down?” The pain of the flashlight faded a little as Cristian obeyed. Atlas took another moment for rough shapes to appear in the darkness around them before asking, “And off?”

It still took longer than he wanted to see once the flashlight went out completely. Fortunately, Cristian had been cautious in following his directions, so the rough shapes around them took on more detail and form as the seconds ticked by. The interior was surprisingly clean in comparison to the outer facade. Atlas had hit a cardboard box, one of a small stack near the door. They weren’t dumped there, but carefully arranged to form a strange kind of wall. A blockade of some kind?

“For the sun,” Cristian told him. “Helps keep it out of the inner halls in case something happens here in the front and they have to get out through the back.”

“Oh. There’s an exit in the back?” Atlas asked as they followed Nell farther into the building. Interior walls were repaired with anything solid and light-blocking that could be found. There were other people living here, most of them waving or calling greetings to Cristian as he passed. Atlas wondered how long Cristian had been coming here to earn such a warm welcome.

“Leads down into the sewers. No real way out of there, but at least it’s safe from the sun,” Cristian said.

“Angelica watches over us down there when we need her to,” Nell said from her place up front.

Cristian’s shoulders tightened and his head dropped. Atlas wanted to reach out to brush a hand over his shoulder, to check if he was okay, but there wasn’t a chance. Nell carried on as though she hadn’t said anything upsetting. She opened up a door, leading them into a large open room.

Patched chairs, rickety tables, and other miscellaneous furniture were scattered throughout the space. Two fridges chugged in a corner of the room. Cristian crossed to the first and set down his bag, so Atlas took up a place by the second and copied Cristian’s movements to unzip his own.

“I got what I could,” Cristian said to Nell, but Atlas lost the rest of the conversation when he saw what the duffels held. Underneath the reusable cooling packs were carefully packed blood bags.

Blood. Cristian was bringing Nell and the other vampires in this building enough blood to sustain themselves without having to go out. It must have been from the surplus he talked about.

Atlas wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. What had he done by aiming the Wharrams at the clinics Cristian visited to pick up food for these vampires? It wasn’t difficult to see the ripples. Mary had been killed when she went out to hunt. How many others had been forced to go out to feed because Cristian’s drop-offs stopped? And how many had been lost to strigoi or dawn while they were out there? He’d been wrong...so, so wrong and he couldn’t even apologize about it. Cristian was better than Atlas had known, so much better, and the way he joked and teased Nell even though she couldn’t even remember who he was and kept calling him the wrong name made the guilt inside Atlas twist and tighten until he could barely focus on transferring the bags into the fridge.

“Artie?” Nell’s voice broke him from his thoughts. The older woman sat at one of the chairs, her arms clasped tightly around her, watching Atlas with concern. She looked from him to Cristian. “Artie, is your Atlas all right?”

“I’m fine, ma’am,” Atlas promised Nell. He looked to Cristian for backup and tried not to ogle at the way the denim clung to him as he crouched at the fridge, transferring bags with the speed granted from familiarity with the task.

“Leave him, Nell,” Cristian said without looking at either of them. He stretched to grab the last of the blood bags out of the bottom of the duffel and the fabric over his thighs strained—

“Oh,” Nell said, with a sniff. Atlas flushed with embarrassment from being caught and returned to the task at hand. Nell kept talking. “That’s much better. Atlas, darling, you should look at Artie more often. How lovely. Burned sugar and salt and now what else—?”

“I’m sorry?” Atlas asked.

Nell glanced away from him to Cristian, as if he would answer her, but he didn’t. He knelt there with the fridge door open, empty duffel bag at his side, staring at Atlas like he’d never seen him before.

“Close the door, Artie, or you’ll waste all the cold,” Nell reminded him.

Cristian closed the door and swallowed hard. “Sorry. And Atlas is fine, just like he said.”

“I know that now. Can’t you smell—?”

“Of course,” Cristian soothed. “This isn’t the first time.”

“Ah, to be young again,” Nell said.

What the fuck did that mean? Was there something more to smelling him than noticing his shampoo or cologne? Suddenly nervous about what exactly Cristian might be able to scent on him, he announced, “Let me just finish putting these away and we can head out.”

Cristian nodded and finally moved, rising in a fluid, graceful motion that somehow ended with him flipping the empty bag over his shoulder like it was a designer jacket instead of a dusty mess. Atlas finished stuffing his fridge with the bagged blood and stood, grimacing a little at the pull on his scars when he pushed up from the floor. “Ready to go, Mr.—Artie?”

“I guess so,” Cristian said. He gave Nell a hug. “We’ll see ourselves out. You stay here and have some dinner.”

“No wandering off,” Nell said, hugging him back. “I remember. You worry too much, Artie.”

“I worry the correct amount. And please eat something,” he said. “You’re getting thin again.”

Nell waved him off. “I’ll eat when I’m good and ready.” Atlas was surprised when she folded him into a hug as well. She released him faster than she had Cristian, and gestured toward the hall. “Now, get back home. Tell Ioana to bring her cards next time. Betsy and I want to teach her whist.” She smiled at Atlas. “So glad you finally stopped in. Make an honest man of him, will you? A mother worries, you know.”

“I’m trying, ma’am,” Atlas agreed easily, though he wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. “It was nice to meet you too.”

There were more vampires up and about in the halls as they headed back toward the front entrance. Word must have gone around that the fridges had been restocked. Cristian kept his head down and kept walking, quietly evading any thanks that could come his way. He didn’t speak again until they were back at the car, tossing the empty bags into the trunk. Cristian closed it up and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “So...that was Nell.”

“It was nice to finally meet her.”

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Cristian asked, tilting his head toward the dilapidated sidewalk running parallel to the river. Back in the riverfront’s heyday, it must have been a beautiful place to walk. Now, it was another reminder of an era. Atlas wondered if Cristian could remember what it looked like before, if those overlays of the past ever got stuck in his mind. Cristian read his wandering thoughts as hesitation. “A short one, I promise. I’d like to see if there’s a sign of anything sniffing around. And we could talk.”

Talking meant he’d have time alone with Cristian, away from the house, away from whatever persona Cristian felt he had to put on in front of others. Because the man he was here, with Nell, was the Cristian Atlas suspected existed underneath the fancy clothes of business meetings and the faked debauchery of Rapture. This man was not at all what he appeared from a first impression. This man could convince Atlas to change his mind. Had convinced him.

He would probably regret this, but agreed anyway. “A short walk.”

Cristian nodded, kicked at a clump of weeds growing out of the cracked pavement at Atlas’s feet, and turned, leading him on toward the river. It granted Atlas too-tempting a view of strong shoulders nipping down to a lean waist, of those perfectly filled out jeans, and God help him, he wanted.

“You know,” Cristian said conversationally, “I thought we could talk to each other on this walk.”

Atlas huffed and kicked a pebble toward the river. It skittered off the low curb and back onto the sidewalk, where Cristian delicately stepped over it. He used it as an excuse to slow his pace, waiting for Atlas to catch up to him so they were walking side by side.

“Fine,” Atlas said. “Why does Nell call you Artie?”

“You know, that’s what I like about you, Mr. Kinkaid,” Cristian said. “You go straight for the jugular, like us.” His smile was charming and wicked, and Atlas wanted to deny the comparison, but it was already too late. “Her son, Arthur, died a while back. Nell never could grasp it. When she started calling me Artie, I just went with it.” He brushed hair out of his eyes. “I know I shouldn’t, but the idea of her being alone for the rest of her life is—”

“Awful,” Atlas murmured. “Especially if she doesn’t understand what happened to him.”

“Exactly. Nell’s lived long enough, been through enough, she has a hard time keeping all her memories organized. It happens in older vampires, especially if nutrition hasn’t always been good.”

“Is that why you bring her and the others blood?”

Cristian scuffed his feet and frowned off into the shadows created by the two buildings they were passing. “My mother is the one who started the outreach. Doctors in other territories found a regimen of proper nutrition helped older vampires like Nell who suffered from memory loss or mental confusion. There was no guarantee, but Mother thought it was worth it, regardless. Even if their minds never fully heal, they’ll be satiated and less likely to wander away to hunt. It’s safer for everyone in our territory.”

Atlas shook his head. “I still don’t understand why you can’t tell your dad about this. You’re continuing her work.” When Cristian ducked his head and tried to pick up his pace, Atlas reached out and took gentle hold of his arm. He pulled him to a stop and waited for him to look up so he didn’t have to guess at his sincerity. “You deserve to be acknowledged for what you’ve done.”

“Maybe,” Cristian hedged, “but I can’t rub this in Father’s face.”

“Or get him to acknowledge it at all?”

“It’s complicated.” He gave a half-hearted tug against Atlas’s grip. They both knew he could have gotten free if he wanted.

“Why?”

“Because my mother died doing this,” Cristian ground out.

Atlas released him, shocked and bitterly angry at himself for forcing such a confession. Cristian didn’t seem to notice. He was busy looking toward the warehouse they’d walked away from.

“There were donor shortages for a few decades. Blood was hard to come by, and it had been over a month between Mother’s visits. She stopped to pick up blood from our contacts at the blood bank. They were behind schedule and she should have come home instead, gone out the next night, but she didn’t because she was worried about everyone here. She didn’t want anyone going hungry for another night. She dropped off what she could and was driving home when sunrise broke. She got back inside the house and we tried everything we could, but the burns spread...” He swallowed hard.

“Cristian,” Atlas whispered, his mind racing back to the warehouse where they’d found Mary’s ashes.

“No matter how many donors fed her, no matter what the doctors did, the damage was too great. She couldn’t heal from it. It took three days, Atlas, and there was nothing left of her but ashes.” His expression was earnest. “I don’t intend to go out like that, I swear it. I’m careful every time I come here. But if I say what I’ve been doing, if I come clean about it, Father wouldn’t be able to separate the risks I’m facing from the memory of her death. I can’t ask him to carry that worry. Ioana said he almost lost it when he thought I wouldn’t get back to the house that night at Rapture. If he loses me, he’ll have nothing left of her.”

He remembered Cristian’s arms around his waist on the motorcycle. The way he’d pressed against Atlas as if he could crawl inside him and take refuge against his spine. He remembered Cristian’s fearful hiss as they turned into the shaded lane of the property, narrowly avoiding the sunlight. Now, knowing how Angelica died, knowing what Cristian had feared as they waited outside Rapture, knowing how deeply Cristian had trusted him to get him home before he suffered a similar fate... Atlas could barely breathe through the tightness in his chest.

Fuck. This was more than simple physical attraction. He abandoned the sidewalk—and his place at Cristian’s side—to pace the ragged, empty yard in front of one of the nearby dilapidated buildings. He was used to self-denial, had spent a lifetime perfecting it. Refusing to take the toffee treats sitting in a pretty glass jar in his grandmother’s assisted living apartment so she’d have them for the bad days. Turning down offers to spend weekends at the beach with his high school friends because he and Bea both worked. And now, another abnegation. Cristian was someone he couldn’t have, no matter how much he longed for him.

“Atlas?” Cristian asked.

Habit made him turn back to the man to check he was still safe, and he must have looked miserable about it because Cristian sucked in a breath. A second later, his pupils dilated and he took another inhalation, this one slower and deeper.

“That’s what she meant,” he whispered. “All this time and I didn’t know that’s what it was—”

“What are you talking about?” Atlas protested. Nell’s odd interrogation came back, her insistence that she smelled something different about him when he looked at Cristian. Burned sugar and salt... Cristian scented the air again, as subtly as he could, and Atlas flushed, suddenly, horribly exposed. “Stop smelling me.”

“Sorry,” Cristian apologized immediately, though he swayed a little as he tried to get himself back under control. “But—”

“What?”

He took a deep breath. “Is that all it takes? Is telling you the truth all it takes to get you to look at me like that?” he asked, courageous in a way Atlas would never know. He took a cautious step forward, sliding so, so easily into Atlas’s space, and tilted his head up, his lips a breath away. Waiting. Giving Atlas the chance to move, to flee, or to surrender and close the distance between them.

“How am I looking at you?” Atlas asked, desperate to keep his head and not do something foolish.

“Like I’m finally worth the risk.” Cristian smiled, a tentative quirk of his lips. “You have an impressive poker face, you know. No matter what I did, I could never tell what you were actually thinking. The scents didn’t tell me anything either. But maybe I’ve just been reading you wrong this whole time...” He trailed off and lifted his hand, brushing the backs of his fingers lightly down Atlas’s temple, his cheek. He moved as though he feared Atlas would lash out against him, but Atlas couldn’t have stirred if he’d wanted to. And he didn’t.

Please, he thought, closing his eyes and leaning into the next hesitant touch, don’t stop.

“Atlas,” Cristian chastised gently, thumb caressing Atlas’s jaw, “Why do you want to hold back?”

“I haven’t earned this.” He dared to crack open his eyes, wishing he was brave enough to admit the truth. God, if he told Cristian what he’d done, who he was really working for, this would end. Selfishly, he hedged with, “I’m supposed to take care of you.”

Cristian’s smirk was positively filthy. “I promise, I am not opposed to you doing exactly that,” he said, though his fingers were still impossibly, sweetly gentle on Atlas’s skin. “Anything else?”

“And it’s a conflict of interest.” God, Bea would skin him alive for even considering breaking her cardinal rule.

“Well, hiring and hiding our vampiric nature from a man whose life was ruined in an attack isn’t exactly best practice either. I don’t think this is a typical job.” His blue gaze turned suddenly serious. “You’re right though. This is a job. Your job, and your choice. If you want to stop, we will. I’ll never bring it up again. Though I’d prefer you not quit, as you really are the best damn agent we’ve ever worked with and it would be an absolute cock up trying to replace you—”

He wanted to laugh, or maybe to curse, at the absurdity of Cristian’s rant. But there was so little space between them and his focus was elsewhere. He may have been good at self-denial, but he wasn’t a fucking saint. He reached up and caught hold around Cristian’s wrist, stilling his movements.

“Mr. Slava, stop talking,” Atlas commanded, tilting his face down until the words brushed against Cristian’s mouth. He shut his mouth so quickly Atlas heard his teeth click together. “Do you remember what I said that first night?”

A flash of understanding crossed Cristian’s face. Atlas felt his damnation breathing at the back of his neck, waiting for the right moment to lunge. But, God, if he was going to fall, he’d do it on his own terms.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. Cristian trembled in his grip, so he slid his thumb over the pulse point of his wrist, soothing as best he could. “Do you understand?”

“Atlas,” Cristian breathed.

He stole the rest of it from Cristian’s lips and when the man sighed and opened for him, he took everything offered. There was no room for remorse here, in this still, sweet place where slightly chapped lips pressed to his, where their tongues tangled as they stepped closer and closer, until they were pressed against each other, so close they seemed to breathe together. He nipped at Cristian’s lower lip, earning a growl of want for his teasing. He’d given up his hold on Cristian’s arm and reveled in his desperate attempts to cling closer still, to touch every part of Atlas possible.

He lost himself to the kisses, mind blissfully blank. Cristian’s fingers were threaded through his hair, angling his face down, and there was a slight pressure against his lower lip, then a pinch—

Atlas jerked back at the same moment Cristian swore. He carefully probed at his lip with his tongue, tasting the faintest trace of blood, and tried to relax through the adrenaline spike.

“Sorry,” Cristian said.

Atlas could just make out the tips of fangs as he spoke, enough to need a moment to breathe, to remind himself who he was with. Apparently, that was too long, because Cristian stepped back, putting space between them. Shit, he could probably smell the flash of fear Atlas had fought down. Hopefully he’d also smell how that fear was gone now.

Cristian’s lips were full, wet and shining in the moonlight. Atlas flicked his gaze higher, tracking the way he dragged a hand through his tousled hair, trying to set it to rights. “Are you okay? I wasn’t trying to—”

“I know,” Atlas assured him. “I’m fine.”

His pulse slowed and the haze of need faded. Every moment he didn’t have the distraction of Cristian’s body under his hands made it easier to pull back.

The lopsided smile Cristian offered him couldn’t distract from the apology and regret in his eyes. “We should make sure nothing else has passed through the area,” he said.

“We should,” Atlas agreed. He let Cristian walk away first, taking the moment’s respite to adjust his clothes and try to clear his mind from the want still coursing through him, a current he couldn’t fight free of.

Their search was an exercise in futility. There were old tracks, scuffed and scraped about by vampires or humans or animals who had explored the area after. They found some claw marks gouged into the masonry of one of the warehouses, but an exploration amidst the piles of industrial junk inside revealed no nest, no signs of feeding, nothing except a patrol of the area. He should have been relieved to find such limited signs of the strigoi’s presence. But controlled behavior didn’t fit his memories of the Romanian attack, and ended up putting him further on edge.

Cristian, of course, noticed on their way back to the car. “There’s no point worrying over it now,” Cristian said. “All we can do is keep checking in.”

“That’s not enough,” Atlas argued, all his frustration over their broken kiss, the strigoi, and his battling between guilt and desire, sparking under his skin. “They’re at risk—”

“Far less than us,” Cristian said calmly. “You saw the prints, just like I did. It wandered through and out when it didn’t find any easy prey. Nell and the others are safe inside that building. We are the fools walking around outside.”

“Goddamn it,” Atlas grumbled. He dug in his pocket for the keys and unlocked the car so he could swing open the rear door. “Get in.”

Cristian hesitated, then sighed, then slid into the backseat. He waited for Atlas to take the driver’s seat and start the car before saying, “You should try to use please. Don’t think I’ll start obeying all your orders, Mr. Kinkaid.”

“Why’d you obey that one?”

“Because I’m fond of you,” Cristian said drily. “And because anyone with half a brain can see you’re spiraling. I can’t decide if it’s because of the strigoi, or because of us.”

“There is no us,” Atlas said on reflex. He winced. Considering the slightly swollen nick in his lip and the fact that he now knew what Cristian tasted like, it wouldn’t take much for Cristian to decimate the lie. He braced himself for the verbal onslaught.

“Fine.”

Atlas blinked and turned around in his seat, stunned by Cristian’s easy surrender. “What? No arguments? No attempts to convince me otherwise?”

Cristian made a face. “What would the point be? Friends or lovers, you’d still be in my life. And, maybe, years from now, you decide to give us a shot.”

Cristian spoke as if the span of time was inconsequential. Atlas, so familiar with restraint, struggled to imagine the discipline that would require. He tried to brush it off with a joking, “Come on, Mr. Slava, you would wait that long on the chance I may change my mind?”

His obvious doubt made the attempted humor fall flat, and he expected Cristian to be offended. Instead, it drew a genuine smile to the other man’s face. “Why does that surprise you? No matter what you may believe, you are worth waiting for, Atlas.”

He wasn’t prepared for a gentle admonishment over his questionable views of self-worth. He wasn’t prepared for the steadiness in Cristian’s voice, his gaze, his conviction. He wasn’t prepared to be so known.

There was only one way to respond. He focused on driving them home. Cristian gave him the space and silence to process. Back at the mansion, he let Atlas park and exit the car first. He waited patiently while Atlas paced beside the car, tugged at his cuffs, and finally opened the door for him. He climbed out gracefully, barely leaning into Atlas’s space, but it was enough to steal the breath from his lungs.

Cristian smiled and tugged the car door free from Atlas’s grip so he could close it. Behind him, the front door of the house opened and Andrei stepped out, looking even dourer than usual. “Cristian,” he called, “your father would like a word.”

“Coming,” Cristian called back.

The car blocked most of their bodies from Andrei’s view and Cristian mercilessly used it to his advantage. He slid past Atlas, brushing his fingers down his arm on the way. His fingertips caressed Atlas’s knuckles, flitting lightly over the scarred skin. The unexpected touch was more than a momentary goodbye. It felt...private. Decadent. He wanted to reach back and held himself in check through sheer force of will.

Cristian’s smile grew wider and he laughed. “See you in a minute,” he promised.

Andrei’s lecture began as soon as he was in range and continued all the way into the house. Alone in the quiet outside, Atlas released a shaky breath, tilted his head back, and lost himself in the stars overhead. The vastness of the night sky, the scent of chamomile, and the terrifying possibility Cristian had offered hung over and around and within him. He stood and let those things grow, even though it meant his world would never be quite the same. Minutes passed. Workers passed. Some of his doubts and fears passed. And when the door opened again and he heard Cristian’s teasing voice calling him in to join the meeting, he was willing to obey.