Page 29 of Johann

She seemed to come to some conclusion then, nodding sharply. “You’ll do. Come with me.”

That…wasn’t right. Johann shook his head. This woman may have been above his station, but that was taking things too far. He didn’t want to go anywhere with her, this person who studied him like an insect. Or a meal. “Oh no. I’m sorry, but I have to get back.”

“You will come with me now.”

The sharp edge in her voice had Johann’s heart rate speeding. He tried to step back, but the fence was directly behind him, and he only ended up feeling all the more trapped. “I beg your pardon”—she’d liked that he was polite, right? Maybe if he was polite, she’d leave him alone—“but I won’t.”

The woman pushed up her hat then, and Johann caught only a flash of brown eyes before they…changed. It was like her pupils expanded rapidly, the black taking over. And then she smiled, and her teeth were sharp. Like a demon’s.

Like a beast’s.

Jay opened his mouth to scream, but she spoke before he could, those black eyes on his, her voice much rougher than before. “You’re not afraid, little lad. You aren’t frightened of me.”

The tension seeped out of Johann’s muscles in an instant with her words, his mouth snapping shut of its own accord. Of course Johann wasn’t afraid. Why would he be?

“What’s your name, little one?”

“Johann. Johann Barre.”

“You’ll come with me,” she ordered, not offering up her own name. “You won’t complain.”

“I won’t complain.” Of course Johann wouldn’t complain. Why would he?

Her lips twitched into a satisfied smile. “We’ll try you out. If you please me, I’ll grant you a gift. Eternal life. Eternal youth. Would you like that?”

“No, Madam,” Johann answered honestly. He knew how the natural world worked, the ordinary cycles of men and beasts. To live forever would be…wrong. Out of order.

But she corrected him instantly, the smile dropping from her face. “Youwouldlike that. Tell me so.”

“I would like that.” And suddenly, just like that, the idea of eternal life sounded completely fine. Not unnatural at all.

She turned from him then, gesturing imperiously with one hand. “Come along.”

So Johann followed the finely dressed woman off his uncle’s property, to the carriage waiting for them on the dirt road. With every step, he felt…wrong…in his own mind. Like there was a tiny, dark corner that knew hewasafraid. Very afraid. But he couldn’t quite access it and found it difficult to even want to try.

It was months of that, as Jay learned how to be a proper gentleman under Veronique’s compulsion. Months of hidden, inaccessible fear. A knowledge that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be but that he couldn’t quite find it in himself to care about the way he should.

It turned out Veronique had a very special talent, even for those of her kind. It wasn’t every vampire who could control a human’s mind for such an extended period, with such little effort.

When she finally turned Johann—granting him her unwanted gift—the compulsion no longer worked on him, but by that time, he was in a foreign country, surrounded by bloodthirsty strangers, suddenly quite literally bloodthirsty himself. He simply had to adapt, in order to survive.

As he saw other vampires in the den turn their humans, as he saw the way some of those matches turned out—those newly turned vampires who were too hostile to their makers put down like dogs—Johann realized it could have been much worse.

Really it could have all been so much worse.

nine

Alexei

Foolish,ridiculous,obsessiveAlexei.

Even knowing Jay wouldn’t be working that morning—that he had the day off and would in fact be at Alexei’s apartment later that day—couldn’t seem to stop Alexei’s new habit of stalking the coffee shop. He associated it with his little vampire barista, and that seemed like enough to keep him in its thrall.

On top of that, not seeing Jay the day before had been torture.

Alexei had already been obsessed; he knew that. But now that he’d heard the desperate, eager sounds Jay made when touched? The lost, blissed-out look, the frantic movement of his hips when chasing his release?

Alexei was a fucking goner.

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