“Is he not much more peaceful now than he was a moment ago?” Haruka reasons. “Regardless of the result, this is obviously better than his suffering.”

“Should I have fed him one last time?”

“You could try now?”

Bringing my hand up to my mouth, I will my fangs out and bite down. When I gently pull Jae’s chin with my free thumb and place the open bite marks down to his mouth, I feel his tongue lap against my skin, and he instinctively sucks. Amazing.

“Why have you decided that Jae will be first-generation when he fully awakens?” Haruka asks.

“It makes the most sense, doesn’t it?” I say quietly, looking down at Jae’s contented, sleeping expression. “Even if his mother was a fully repressed vampire, Jae’s father was human. He can’t help but be lower ranked. I think first-gen is best-case scenario… I’m aiming a little high because his blood tastes so good to me. Maybe we’ll be equals? He could be second or third, though.”

“Hm.” Haruka turns and walks toward the door. I’m about to ask if he disagrees, but he cuts me off. “Sydney has lunch prepared. When you are finished, shall we eat and let Jae rest?”

I feel the holes in my palm heal, so I bring my hand up to my own mouth and lick the rest clean. Jae is sound asleep. “Yeah. How long do you think he’ll sleep?”

“I cannot be sure. Time will tell.”

Thirty-Five

Junichi

“Do I have to go back?” I’ve never thought of myself as a coward. But shit… maybe I am? “Can I just call? Write ‘Fuck you’ on some fancy letterhead and mail it?”

“No—you have to do it in person, Jun,” Asao says, absently twisting his beer glass against the wooden table. “Don’t say ‘Fuck you.’ Send the request directly to Ren’s parents so that they’re primarily involved in the meeting. Avoid talking with him alone since that doesn’t seem to go very well. Haruka or Nino will need to go with you, too, since you’re under their realm and your father is gone.”

“Fuck me.” I sigh, leaning my head back against the booth wall. I should have done this a long time ago. This is what I get.

“Is he still texting you?” Asao asks, bringing his beer to his lips.

“Every damn day.”

It’s Monday. One week since I last saw Ren. Five days since Jae fell asleep. He’s still sleeping now at Haruka’s house. I go to see Jae every day, and I’m close by now—in a bar in the historical quarter a couple blocks from the estate. Jae is lifeless and cold. His breathing is so shallow, I have to lean down and put my ear to his mouth to feel the subtle warmth of it. I do this every time I walk into the room. It’s my new habit. It makes me anxious because he literally seems dead, but Haruka isn’t worried about it, so I keep my cool.

Ren doesn’t usually text me this much. If I’m home, his typical text pattern is once every seven days. He knows I’m probably running on fumes by then and thinks he needs to remind me that I need to feed—like I don’t fucking know that. I still always push it two more days. Three if I can manage it. Just to spite him.

If I’m traveling in Europe, he doesn’t bother me at all, because he knows I’m feeding from some first-gen or whoever. I’m not at my best when I do this, but it’s fine—like what I imagine to be a bad case of seasonal allergies. I feel shitty and unfocused, but I can manage. Plus, Ren will be there to put me back in optimum health once I get home.

He’s harassing me now because he’s worried. Or he feels guilty? I’m not sure if Ren is capable of guilt. That would require his acknowledging fault in something. I went to him for our regularly scheduled feeding that day, and he decided to play fucking games and didn’t feed me. Now it’s been an extra week and I still haven’t been back to feed. He’s getting frantic.

What he doesn’t know is that I fed from Jae the morning before he fell asleep. I admit, I was being greedy. I’d already fed from him Monday morning. Wednesday morning, though, he was naked and sprawled out on his back, taking up half my bed. Fast asleep. He’d been there with me all night, but it was like waking up to something sweet and delicious that had been delivered to me—warm, buttery pancakes with syrup and fresh peaches. Breakfast in bed.

I snuck down underneath the sheets, pushed his ankle up to bend his knee and bit down into the inside of his thigh. Right on the little brown mole that’s always tempting me. He woke up on a sharp inhale, laughing in the golden sunlight and threading his fingers into my hair. Then I did some other things to him because he tasted divine and I couldn’t get enough of him.

I find myself catering to Jae like this all the time. I don’t know why… maybe because he doesn’t demand anything of me, so it’s easy to give freely? Or maybe because I find him so damn delightful? I want to comfort him and make him laugh. It’s strange. I’m not usually a selfish lover, but I’m not usually this unselfish, either. I’m literally pleased pleasing him.

Even though that was five days ago, I still feel great. Stable and energized. My skin tone is the right color and I’m not drying out yet. Maybe this is what it’s like when you’re feeding from someone you don’t secretly despise? Their blood nourishes you better. It soaks in because you’re not internally rejecting it. You can last longer because you feed more frequently.

I asked Nino how long he can go without feeding from Haruka. At first, he said he didn’t know because they feed from each other almost every day. The lovebirds. Must be nice. But then he remembered when he was abducted, it had been five or six days since he’d fed from Haruka and Nino’s health tanked. His body was under severe stress during that time (and his tongue was eventually vanished from his mouth), so he’s not sure if that’s a good example. There was a lot going on.

I’ve been obsessively calculating and spreading out my feedings for decades now. It’s strange to imagine not having to do that. Most vampires don’t do it. I’m an anomaly because of the way I avoid Ren and try to maintain my freedom. This unattached lifestyle comes with a hefty price.

Feeding from Jae twice in the same week… I’ve never been able to do that. Never let myself do it, anyway. I’m sure Ren would be more than happy to feed me multiple times per week—to wrap himself around me like a snake and have me in his suffocating grasp more often. Fuck that. Fuck him.

“Contact his parents,” Asao repeats. “You’re ending a decades-long formal contract, so it’s appropriate for you to do it this way—to sit down with all of them. And you can circumvent Ren’s tantrum.”

I sigh, picking up my beer. “Yeah. You’re right. I have to do it that way.”

Asao smiles. “This is good for you.”

“Mm.”

“You’re officially choosing le petit doctor?”

“Stop calling him that.”

“He’s cute. He reminds me of a vampire in his twenties—excited and naive. He doesn’t have that ‘dead behind the eyes’ thing we get as we grow older. Like he hasn’t had his heart broken.”

“Nino doesn’t have that either.”

“Nino’s never had his heart broken,” Asao reasons. “The first creature he truly loved, loved him back.”

“I don’t know, old man—we all have our cross to bear. Jae flares up at me occasionally. He has triggers.”

“As do you. You’re ready to bond now?”

My body naturally clenches up at this question. I’ve been thinking it. Letting the idea roll around softly in my mind for over a week now, but I haven’t said it aloud.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” That’s the best I can do for now.

“Wow.” Asao sits back, making a show of his amazement. “That’s huge, Jun. Usually you can’t say ‘no’ fast enough. Like you’re flicking a damn gnat off your shoulder.” He does this now, quickly flicks an imaginary gnat off his shoulder. “No.”

I laugh. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Ren is a self-absorbed brat. But what about le petit doctor is changing your mind? After all these years?”

“Well…” I pause, considering. “He smells good. My nature is drawn to him—”

Asao waves me off. “No no no. This isn’t the first time your nature has been provoked. You’ve ignored that before—coconut blondie, remember? What about Jae makes you give in to it this time?”

He’s right. This thing with Jae… It’s more than just instincts. It started out that way, when I first saw him and felt the immediate attraction and pull. But now, it feels different.

I rarely do work in America, because being a vampire, brown and male there is generally uncomfortable. There are many humans who take offense to that distinct combination, and they aren’t shy about letting me know. But I got a request to design a gown for a pop star in Miami. For the Grammys. She was a purebred vampire of Puerto Rican descent. Pretty female with a small face, petite curvy frame and warm blonde hair down to the center of her back. She was nice and smelled like almonds and toasted coconuts. Delicious.

I didn’t touch her. I felt the pull toward her inside me, my nature flipping all around in my stomach like a fish out of water. She watched me intently with large greenish-gray eyes. She felt it too. But I ignored it. Kept it professional, friendly, and finished the job without flirting with her at all. She was purebred. No fucking way. I never saw her again. She asked me to design another dress for her a few months later and I declined—told her I was too busy. I wasn’t, though. I could have fit her in if I’d wanted to.

A similar thing happened with a first-gen male I met in Morocco. He was the same height as me with deep brown eyes and flawless black skin like midnight. Gorgeous. His scent reminded me of lemon bars with graham cracker crust. What the hell is it with me and desserts? God…

I did touch him. We spent a couple nights together. He offered his blood, so I fed from him because I was in dire need of a decent feeding at that point. His blood tasted like a zesty, creamy smoothie. It was so good it scared the shit out of me. I was only in Morocco for a week, but he got clingy fast. I ended it. I hurt him. He didn’t understand it, and I could see why.