Page 23 of Ever Dark Academy: Vol. 1

He knew it was Ryder touching him. The man--or Vampire--was a mass of contradictions. He seemed to want to protect Grayson. Picking Grayson up as if he was a toy. Standing between Grayson and danger. Touching him as if his hands should be an anchor for Grayson. And they weirdly had been. He didn’t like being touched, but when Ryder had done so… he’d felt safe.

But safety was an illusion.

Then there was the Ryder who looked at him out of narrowed, burning silver eyes as if he suspected Grayson of something. There was hunger in his clenched jaw and parted lips. Ryder seemed wild in those moments as if about to lose control.

The two aspects of him shouldn’t be allowed to exist in one man–one Vampire–but they did. And that meant that any safety that Grayson felt with him had to be fought. The Vampire was a predator. Through and through. No matter that he could be gentle. No matter that he seemed to have a desire to protect. He was still a creature who drank blood, who fed on Grayson’s kind.

“What happened between you two back there at the church?” Demos asked, and his voice was now located forward and to Grayson’s left.

Grayson couldn’t just hear him, but also the hum of tires on the road, and the faint thump-thump as they passed over sections of highway.

We’re in a car. Demos is driving. I’m in the backseat, probably lying down and Ryder is in the front passenger seat, Grayson realized even as the blue world did not change. Am I asleep? Unconscious? Somewhere between the two? Yeah… must be. Used too much of my power and now I’m here.

“What do you mean? There was nothing,” Ryder’s voice had gone all growly and low, which gave lie to his words.

Demos noticed it too. The duality. But he seems to think it’s unusual for Ryder to be the way he was with me.

Demos let out a bark of laughter. “What do I mean? Don’t you play me, boy! I know you down to your bones and I swear I thought you were going to take Grayson right then and there with our enemies all around us. Now Grayson is beautiful and he’s got that doe-look you like so much, but when we’re about to battle? You have never been so distracted as that before. So what is the deal?”

Ryder made a sound. Was it pain? Grayson remembered the burns on the bear’s front. He had known that bear was Ryder. He’d known more than that. He’d known that Ryder was in danger. Being in the closet--why did he put me there?! I wasn’t safe there! Small and horrible and… he didn’t know. He didn’t have any idea. And I got out--had been hard.

Staying still and silent in the dark while the sound of fighting was going on had been almost impossible. But then he’d heard the triumph in that female Vampire’s voice, faint though it had been. He’d blown open the door to the closet and then… then he’d moved with a certainty that he’d never had before. He’d shattered the back door to the church and sent the stakes flying at her before he’d even seen her. He’d known where she was. He’d known.

They know now too, Grayson realized. They know what I can do and they aren’t scared… but they’re going to take me to the Ever Dark and there’s nothing I can do.

“His blood would be useful right about now,” Ryder answered, this time a mixture of amusement and discomfort.

“Blood we took off those homeless was not enough, I know, but it would have been too dangerous for them if we took more,” Demos reminded him. “And you did not want to stop and find a club–”

“No, we need to get Grayson to the Ever Dark. Plenty of willing Acolytes there to feed me and heal this,” Ryder answered.

Grayson could faintly smell the scent of burning flesh. He thought of Ryder’s perfect chest all blackened and weeping fluids.

“It could have been loads worse if Grayson hadn’t… well, hadn’t staked that Horys Vampire,” Demos said almost casually, but Grayson knew that the emotions behind those words were not casual. These two men were friends, brothers, and the devastation of losing the other could not likely have been calculated.

Grayson wondered what it would be like to have someone you could trust like that. Was their kinship an illusion? If it was tested would it last? But, more importantly, caring that much for someone else was dangerous. Because it meant you were not free to get out of a situation. They counted on you. You counted on them. Definitely dangerous.

“She was much more powerful than I thought,” Ryder answered. “She was able to send lightning out of her hands.”

“We’re sure she’s dead?” Demos asked after a moment of digesting this news.

“I hope not. I want her alive to be questioned. But she’s dead enough that she won’t get out of the trunk. Nor will the others. Got to find out who they are. The Eyros will do it,” Ryder answered. “Or… the Kaly. Whichever, I suppose.”

A chill went through Grayson. The female Vampire was just feet away from him in the trunk of the car and he was unable to even move, let alone run if he needed to.

“The old dude was a lot tougher than he had any right to be either,” Demos said and Grayson assumed he was talking about one of the Vampires he fought. “Not good that he got away.”

“They got the drop on both of us.”

“Not my finest hour, that is for sure,” Demos said quietly. “So you didn’t answer my question. What is the deal between you and the little one?”

There is no deal! Grayson huffed. And I am not little! These two are abnormally big!

Ryder let out a sigh, but then said, “I don’t know. I felt like I was losing control--”

“Felt like or were?” Demos countered.

“I was. I fixated on him like we used to do when we were young fledglings just out for our first hunts,” Ryder admitted.

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