Page 20 of Wolfgang

WhenWolfeknockedpolitelyon the bedroom door before opening it not as politely immediately after, Eric was still seated on the bed. He was no longer even slightly tempted to go around fiddling with the windows, because apparently physical escape was pointless and might end with him murdering people (and besides that, the freaky fact that escape seemed to be, deep within him, completely unwanted).

So Eric sat there and took the vampire in—reallytook him in—for the first time, not as a detached professional, not as an unhinged kidnapper, but as a…potential partner?

As amate?

The idea seemed so preposterous. And yet the moment Wolfe set foot inside the bedroom, something in Eric finally unclenched, for the first time since Wolfe had left him there. That restless agitation he’d been feeling from the outside—from Wolfe, according to Danny—finally eased as Wolfe looked him over in turn, a weird, covetous glint to his eyes.

And that inner part of Eric—that new, slinking, starving presence—finally seemed to relax. Well,relaxwas a relative term. It changed its focus fromWant Wolfe backtoWant to be touching Wolfe right this minute.

Eric could understand, even without the weird bond part. His “mate” (he still couldn’t seem to take that word seriously) wasn’t exactly classically handsome, but hewasstriking. High, sharp cheekbones. Those strange eyes, brown in some lights and almost red in others. He was slighter and an inch or so shorter than Eric, but he held himself with the kind of steely posture that made boarding school instructors so intimidating.

Aristocratic—that was the aura he gave off. He even had a pocket square all artfully arranged in that crushed-velvet suit pocket.

Meanwhile, Eric was wearing a terry-cloth robe.

That didn’t seem to matter to Wolfe though. He was looking Eric over like he was something edible, and it was doing weird things to Eric’s junk.

Come to think of it, he sort ofwasedible. Or at least he had been. Did vampires bite each other?

Eric met Wolfe’s eyes and drew in a sharp breath as a wave of… something…washed over him, from the outside, in again, through their bond. A fierce sort of possessiveness that made all his nerve endings light up.

It was a little shocking in its intensity.

“Jesus,” he breathed.

Wolfe held still in the doorway, not a hint of that insane possessiveness showing in his expression, other than the gleam in his eyes. He hid the inner crazy well, this guy; that was for sure. “Did the young nurse overwhelm you?” he asked, searching Eric’s face for his answer.

You overwhelm me, Eric wanted to say.How much you seem to want me for no reason overwhelms me. But that felt weird to admit out loud. Especially when the guy didn’t really want him, right? It was just their inner vampire bits—their inner beasts, Wolfe had called them—connecting to each other or something.

When Eric didn’t answer him, Wolfe tipped his chin at the blood bag next to Eric on the bed. “You haven’t fed yet.”

Eric shrugged. “It’s cold.” He didn’t know how he even knew he had a preference for warm blood. It was just a feeling. The cold blood felt…wrong.

“Come, then. We’ll heat it up.” Wolfe turned in the doorway, presumably to head to the kitchen downstairs.

Eric considered staying where he was. He could enact some sort of hunger strike until any of this seemed remotely real. Or until Wolfe finally apologized for scaring him, for changing his life irrevocably without even asking.

But that day might never come, right? He tried to think back on his old psych classes in med school. Could Wolfe even feel guilt for what he’d done?

Eric had no idea. So he followed, blood bag in hand, docile as a fucking lamb.

It shouldn’t be surprising, really. Eric had seen this before, from an outside perspective: patients or families—ones who had just received some unexpected, horrible diagnosis—experiencing a strange period of calm, one where the information was just too huge to properly process.

He supposed he was in shock, more or less.

Add to that the strange satisfaction he felt coming from this new inner beast at Wolfe’s presence, and Eric was just…surprisingly chill.

He wondered how long that would last.

He stood dumbly and watched as Wolfe removed a saucepan from one of the cabinets, his movements all very precise—graceful, even. When Wolfe held up a hand, Eric placed the blood bag into it, watching as Wolfe sliced through the plastic and poured it into the pan.

This was weird, right? This was the weirdest fucking thing to ever happen to him, and he had once seen an attending reach into someone’s open chest cavity and massage their heart for CPR.

But he may as well use this opportunity to get some answers. “So you didn’t intend to turn me?”

Wolfe spun to face him, one hand still on the saucepan handle. “I did not.” When Eric only stared, he gave a small sigh, stirring the blood with a wooden spoon before continuing. “I wanted to observe up close, I suppose. I wanted a taste.”

Eric ignored how the blatant sexual undertones of that statement made his spine tingle and his cock thicken. His horny fucking body couldn’t be trusted, and the wordobservetriggered something in his brain. That feeling of being watched, standing on the porch. “The roses,” he said. “That was you?”

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