His face is halfway swallowed by a large pillow as he opens his eyes. He doesn’t move. Instead, he breathes in. The delectable, smoky and cinnamon-laced scent of Nino pours into him, drowning his senses in the most satisfying way. He rolls onto his belly under the warm comforter and shifts his face directly into the pillow.
Haruka inhales deeply, then exhales a loud, contented groan. He smiles against the puffy material.
Pulling Nino’s aura from his body the previous night… He cannot easily describe it. Simple words are inadequate—useless in painting the exquisite masterpiece that is Nino’s essence. Maybe if he tried in Latin, or arranged a new language entirely? He has pulled Yuna’s aura in the past. Many, many times. But the experience of releasing her aura versus Nino’s? The two events are incomparable.
It was like magic. Fizzy, bright and golden. Champagne inexplicably laced with fire. The energy had rushed from Nino’s body like a spell. It was so pure and filled with deep affection, it was almost cleansing as it warmly caressed and wrapped itself around Haruka’s frame. It had intentionally enclosed him, as if it were seeking his own aura within him—a beautiful entity desperately searching for its long-lost friend.
Haruka’s nature had unexpectedly responded, pounding fiercely within him. He’d needed to stop feeding from Nino to concentrate, otherwise his nature would have unwrapped itself from its imposed knot and rushed from his body.
The bedroom door creaks open and Haruka lifts his head from the pillow. Sensing Nino there, he sits upright. The overcast sun washes the room in cool, filtered lighting. Nino is fully dressed, his coppery waves neatly swept back and his sides freshly tapered. To Haruka, his handsome friend always appears effortlessly stylish and casual. Unassuming, as if he’d innocently stepped off the pages of a men’s lifestyle magazine.
“Good morning,” Haruka says, rubbing his palms down his face.
“Good afternoon.” Nino frowns, pouting.
“What time is it?”
“Twelve forty-five.”
Confused, Haruka scratches the back of his head. His hair is standing straight out instead of lying flat. He can’t imagine how ridiculous he looks. “Why did you not wake me?”
“I tried.” Nino’s eyes widen as he walks into the room and toward his corner desk. “You scared the hell out of me this morning. Your body was ice cold and you wouldn’t budge no matter what I did.”
Haruka laughs as he drops his hands from his meager attempt to quell his hair. “If I expend much energy, sometimes I need to sleep deeply to compensate for the loss of it.”
“I know that now,” Nino says, bending and unplugging his laptop from the wall. “I called Asao because I was worried and he told me. I thought I was going to wake up and have a nice, cozy morning with you—but instead I woke up next to a corpse.”
After feeding deeply from Nino the night before, Haruka thought he might not have needed the recuperation time. Perhaps withholding his aura during the feeding had expended an additional amount of his energy?
“I apologize, Nino. Is it too late for us to establish a more appropriate morning greeting?”
Nino pauses with his laptop and plug wrapped in his arms. He grins, then walks toward him. When he’s at the side of the bed, Haruka lifts his face. Nino bends down and places two swift kisses on his mouth. “Hi.”
“Good afternoon,” Haruka says, feeling the warmth of his affection for Nino glowing all throughout his body. Somehow, and even though they established the intimacy only a few hours earlier, kissing Nino feels completely natural. Like doing something one way when a different way may have been better all along.
Nino stands straight, contented. “I’m grateful you’re not dead.”
“It would take a considerable amount of starvation and trauma for me to truly die. You need not worry.”
“Right.” Nino smirks, walking backward toward the door. “We need to get these intent surveys stuffed and mailed out today. G will be back tomorrow, and he’ll definitely want to drag you all around Milan to introduce you to everyone. Let’s work in his office in the main house, since the formal seal and supplies are down there. Can you meet me after you’re dressed?”
“Of course,” Haruka says, obedient.
“Let Luciano know if you need coffee or anything. I’ll see you downstairs?”
“I will be there shortly.”
Nino closes the door. Haruka stretches his arms up in a yawn. He cannot remember the last time he’s felt so healthy, rested and generally alive.
When Haruka eventually walks into Giovanni’s elegant office in the main house, Nino has organized and laid everything out to accomplish their work for the day: surveys printed on parchment paper, a stack of corresponding envelopes, a wax seal and calligraphy tools to stamp the documents with the Bianchi Clan’s crest.
Nino has been busy this morning—drafting professional letters to introduce themselves and their research objectives. He’s also composed a second page with the agreed-upon survey questions. Fifty letters are already personally addressed to vampire couples across Florence, Milan and Venice. At present, Giovanni has acquired a list of three hundred contacts, and according to Nino, his brother will soon communicate with the purebred leaders of Rome and Sicily.
Throughout the afternoon, they type and address more letters, then stuff and seal envelopes while discussing potential next steps should the surveys yield the desired information. Nino also suggests that they rearrange the older articles of Lore and Lust so that the sections are further classified by each vampire couple’s rank. Haruka isn’t sure if he is willing to commit to this. It sounds like a lot of work. As such, he will inevitably procrastinate.
“I think it’d be much easier to find specific entries if we reorganized it,” Nino proposes. He is sitting at his brother’s desk and typing on his laptop. “Then, maybe you could consider having it reprinted? Maybe even distributed? What if Gael told other vampires and they come after you, too?”
Leaning back against the soft leather sofa, Haruka folds his arms. The low coffee table in front of him is cluttered with papers, stacks of envelopes and the wax seal. “My hope is that Gael’s reaction to the research is the exception and not the rule. Mass distribution is tricky since the information in the manuscript is sensitive. It is a matter of privacy.”
Nino shrugs. “We can change the names to numbers? Or only use first names? I just think valuable research should be shared. Why keep all this insight a secret? And you don’t even oversee a realm right now to help other vampires if they have questions.”
Haruka raises his eyebrow. In the silence, Nino glances up from his laptop. He smiles, sheepish. “Obviously this is not a criticism. I’ve never overseen anything other than my bar and right now I’m not even doing that.” He laughs, scratching his head before he goes on.
“What I’m saying is, maybe other realm leaders—good ones, vampires that are reputable and trustworthy—would benefit from receiving a copy of this? G told me he’d love to see it, and my father’s eyes practically bulged out of his head when I told him about it. I think the book has the potential to benefit the population. Like a roadmap to bonding. Maybe it’ll help put everyone’s fears at ease?”
Everyone’s fears. The decline in purebreds. A lack of successfully mated couples, and therefore, a deficit in thriving purebred families. Much hysteria, all rooted in bonding. It amazes Haruka. From his perspective, bonding was the biggest mistake of his life. “I understand your argument.” He sighs. “Let me have some time to consider it.”
“Sure, no pressure.” Nino looks down at his laptop and continues typing. “Just offering an alternative perspective. Speaking of my father, I think he wants to talk to you again sometime before you leave. He really enjoyed meeting you the other night.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
Domenico Bianchi is gray and weak in his vampiric aura. Still, an undeniable air of dignity radiates strongly from the sophisticated male. To survive the loss of a mate is extremely rare considering your primary, practically bespoke source of nourishment is cut off when they perish. To be so dependent upon someone then have them disappear can create great trauma for a bonded vampire’s complex biology.
“Nino, I hope that I do not come across as callous, but how has your father survived this long without his mate?”
“Well. It’s… kind of complicated.”
Silence. Haruka blinks. Nino is always exceptionally transparent, so this rare instance of confidentiality feels odd. “Alright, understood.”
“I’m sorry, Haru. But I can tell you that he misses Mom a lot. I guess I favor her in some subtle ways, so he talks about her whenever I sit with him… which isn’t as much as I should, but…” Nino shrugs.
Haruka isn’t certain, but when he had sat with Nino and Domenico, he noticed that the dynamic of their relationship felt odd. Nino’s father had seemed very grateful to have them both sitting there, as if he didn’t usually receive guests.
“Do you not visit your father often?” Haruka asks. If his own father were alive, Haruka feels certain that he’d still be living in Japan. Perhaps he never would have left. His father had been an incredibly loving and doting vampire.
“I don’t.” Nino sits back in his chair. “Our relationship is a little strained. G would be mad if he heard me say this out loud, but remember I told you that my uncle attacked me?”
“Of course.”
“He and my father were identical twins, so the dynamic of the entire situation was uncomfortable. I didn’t tell you this, but the reason my uncle stopped feeding from me was because my mother walked into my room one day and saw him doing it. No questions asked, she went primal. She literally ripped his throat out right in front of me. I’d never seen that side of her before. It was terrifying.”
Haruka keeps his breathing even as he digests the horrific details of Nino’s childhood.
Nino stands from the desk, then moves toward the couch to sit beside him. “After Mom died, Father just… I don’t know. He’s hands-off with me. I think it’s guilt? He’s never pressured me to do anything or encouraged me to learn the aristocracy or socially engage. I ended up keeping to myself—lots of time with private tutors or on my own, indulging in human pop culture. But Father pressures and restricts the hell out of Giovanni, which of course creates tension between G and me… and there’s some more weird tension because G really likes Cellina, but she feeds me. Soooo that’s the story of my messy family!”
“The situation is indeed multifaceted,” says Haruka. “But perhaps any complex, emotional relationship is guaranteed to have some element of… messiness?”
