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  I knelt beside Jared. His eyes were now fully closed and his breathing was shallow and labored. His skin felt cold, looked slightly bluish, and I pressed my fingers against his wrist. His heart was beating, but not strongly. The wounds on his neck had stopped bleeding yet still were open and angry. I put my hand to my mouth in order to open another wound in a finger, but stopped.

  Think about it, Cord. You must be doing something wrong. You’ve done this before a thousand times and it always, always works. What’s different about this time ?

  But no matter how much I thought about it, as hard as I tried to remember, there was simply nothing else I could remember doing differently that I wasn’t doing now. It was very simple, really—you merely opened a wound and rubbed some of your blood over the mortal’s wounds. Within seconds, those wounds would close just as your own would.

  I shook my head and punctured my thumb.

  I pressed my thumb over his wounds, rubbed gently, and pulled my thumb away. Even as the wound in my thumb closed, the wounds in Jared’s neck remained clearly visible.

  I took a deep breath and tried not to panic.

  Jared opened his eyes again and smiled weakly. “Cord, buddy. I knew you weren’t dead.” He reached with a cool hand and touched the side of my face. “I just knew. Everyone said you were dead—they had a funeral and everything—but I knew.” His face clouded with confusion. “But how . . . I don’t understand . . .”

  “Shhhh,” I whispered, pressing my index finger against his cold lips. My mind was racing as I tried to figure out what to do.

  This was precisely why Jean-Paul had forbidden me to return to New Orleans. He was right again, as usual. Yes, I know you’re not from there, but you do know people who are, and they all think you’re dead. You cannot risk going back there. What are you going to do if one of them sees you? How are you going to explain being alive? There is no explanation, Cord, and you will have to kill them.

  And even though Jared had been one of my best friends, one of my fraternity brothers, I knew if Jean-Paul knew what was happening here, he would order me to kill Jared without a second thought. Kill him, and make sure the body was never found.

  If you don’t kill him, you risk exposing yourself. And everyone else in the vampire world—is that what you want, Cord? To prove to them that vampires DO exist? They would hunt us all down and kill us. It’s either him or us, Cord. You know what you have to do . . . and don’t worry. People disappear in New Orleans all the time.

  “I feel funny,” Jared said, shifting around on the couch. His eyes opened even farther. They weren’t as glassy and unfocused as they had been earlier; that at least was a step in the right direction.

  Maybe he would recover normally.

  I placed my fingers back on his wrist. His pulse felt stronger.

  The wounds on his neck were scabbing over.

  Well, that’s better—scabbing over means they are healing, but it’s still not normal. My blood should have healed the damned things! What’s wrong? Maybe Jared somehow is different than other humans?

  But that doesn’t make any sense. Humans are humans; their blood types might be different, but ultimately they are all the same. Vampiric blood could heal them, in small doses, without converting them. It has always been this way, and surely Jean-Paul would have told me there were some humans whose bodies reacted differently than the rest of them.

  Or he knew and just didn’t tell me for some reason. But why wouldn’t he? It didn’t make sense. But none of this made sense.

  “Kiss me,” Jared whispered, smiling at me. His eyes glittered in the light from the chandelier.

  “What?” I stared at him. “You can’t be serious.” My heart began beating faster, in spite of myself.

  “I want you,” he whispered. His smile grew wider, his white, perfectly straight teeth glistening. “I’ve always wanted you, Cord. Always. You never noticed, but I always did.”

  I gulped. In the three years at Ole Miss I’d known Jared, I’d never once gotten the slightest inkling he was gay, or even the slightest bit curious. We’d pledged together, shared a room at the house, and become as close as brothers. Almost from the moment we met during Rush Week, we clicked. Our personalities just seemed to mesh together. He was like the brother I’d never had. There wasn’t anything I couldn’t tell him, and vice versa. Jared had confided in me about everything, from his darkest desires to his biggest fears. Jared was the only person in the house I’d come out to—and he’d been supportive, even going with me to Memphis to a gay bar. It had been Jared’s idea to stay with his parents for Mardi Gras, and his idea to help me break away from the other fraternity brothers who’d also come down so I could go to the gay bars and, in his words, “get my gay on.”

  Obviously, neither of us had any way of knowing the trip would result in my becoming a vampire—well, Jared just thought I’d been killed, burned to death in the fire.

  I’d always been attracted to Jared but never considered acting on it—no matter how drunk or high either one of us might have been. He was one of the most beautiful boys I’d ever met in my life.

  And in the two years since I’d seen him, he’d somehow managed to become even sexier than he had been.

  And it was very tempting. How many times had I fantasized this very moment? How many times had I jacked off, imagining how it would feel to press my lips against his, to run my hands down his chest, or how his cock would taste in my mouth? He was beautiful; he always had been. The first time I’d seen him at fraternity rush I’d wanted him. All of my high school crushes were forgotten the moment I laid eyes on Jared, with his lean muscles and hard bubble butt. I used to watch him sleep in our room—he always slept on his stomach with that phenomenal ass up, so perfectly formed under the white cotton underwear he always wore. Sometimes it rode up a bit, revealing the smooth white skin with almost invisible golden hairs. He also had never had a problem with walking around in front of me in just his underwear or even nude. I’d always appreciated that fearlessness, that degree of comfort with me and my sexuality. Sometimes I wondered if he wanted me to try something, if he wanted me to make the first move, if the comfort I so appreciated was, in truth, an invitation.

  But I’d never touched him, never tried anything at all—no matter how much I wanted to. Because I couldn’t be sure, and the last thing I wanted was to offend him. He was the only friend I trusted with my truth—and I wasn’t willing to throw that away on the slight chance he’d welcome an overture from me.

  “Jared—”

  “I mean it.” He licked his lips. “I was too much of a coward to ever do anything before, Cord. I’ve always wanted you. That time we went to the bar in Memphis . . . I wanted to kiss you that night. It broke my heart when you died, Cord. And now you’re alive. I’m not going to miss this chance. I’ve been sorry ever since you died that I never had the courage to do anything with you.” He smiled again. “But now you aren’t dead.” He reached out and touched my hair. “Somehow, I knew you weren’t. I knew that wasn’t you in that house. I knew it. I knew I’d know if you were really dead.”

  Tears filled my eyes. Oh, how I’d longed to hear those words from him! How I’d longed to kiss him, to put my arms around him, to put my mouth on his cock, to let him fill me up with his. But this didn’t feel right; it was wrong, like somehow my biting him and sucking his blood had done this to him—was making him think and react in a way that wasn’t natural to him.

  But his wounds hadn’t healed, either. That wasn’t natural, either.

  He reached up and kissed me.

  It felt like an electrical current ran through my body.

  Not even kissing Jean-Paul had felt like this.

  I felt my cock growing hard inside my jeans, and as Jared’s tongue slipped in between my lips and inside my mouth, I could see he was getting hard, too. I reached down and caressed the thick hardness beneath the denim, and he moaned, never removing his tongue from inside my mouth. He began stroking my chest with his hands
, pulling and tweaking at my erect and sensitive nipples, and I pushed him back down on the couch, climbing on top of him, our hips beginning to move back and forth as we ground our crotches against each other.

  I pulled my mouth away from his lips. He smiled up at me. “I love you, Cord,” he breathed. “I always have.”

  Jean-Paul never said that to me. Not once, no matter how badly I wanted him to.

  I wanted to believe him.

  I wanted him more than I ever had before. Yet, despite the animalistic need driving me, threatening to take control of my mind and body, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. This somehow wasn’t right, and there was still time to stop this before it went any further—

  His hands came up, caressing my hardness through my pants, and pleasure shot through my body. His touch was gentle and sensual, and my rising desire pushed all other thoughts out of my mind.

  I reached down and undid my pants, freeing my cock. He smiled up at me and licked his thumb. He started running it over the head of my cock.

  “Ooooooh,” I moaned. It felt incredible.

  I pushed my pants down as he kept rubbing away. Unable to stand it anymore, I grabbed the front of his pants and pulled, the riveted buttons holding his fly closed popping and flying away. I got to my knees and yanked his pants down, freeing his long, beautiful cock. As I yanked, I heard the denim tearing and once they were free, I tossed them aside like the torn rags they now were. I reached for the bottle of lube that was always sitting on the side table, and squirted some onto his erection.

  “I want to be inside you,” he breathed as I mounted him, spreading my butt cheeks and lowering myself on top of his cock.

  The pressure against my anus was sharp and painful; then my muscles relaxed and I slid down, feeling his urgency filling me. I gasped and moaned as I continued to slide, settling down onto him when I felt his thick balls pressing against my cheeks.

  His entire body began to tremble, his eyes closing partway as I started moving up and down. He tried to push up into me as I went upward, but I held his hips down with my hands. He struggled against my strength at first, to no avail. I was much stronger than he—he had no idea of how strong, nor did I want him to find out. I was still not completely used to how much power my muscles now contained, and I was afraid if we started struggling, I might accidentally hurt him.

  “Your ass is amazing,” he whispered, tugging on my nipples and sending even more electricity through my body. “It feels so good—please don’t stop.”

  I smiled. The pleasure was so intense I couldn’t stop even if I’d wanted to. I reached down and stroked his chest, and his entire body convulsed, bucking upward. The thrusts were strong, intense, and it felt as though I were being split in two.

  I cried out, my head going back as he continued driving up into me. My entire mind was being consumed with the pleasure from his cock, which felt as though it were burning inside of me. No one had ever fucked me this way, not Jean-Paul, not any of the others in our little fraternity of vampires. The passion, the power—my eyes began to lose focus, and everything in front of me seemed to be seared with white, and I was vaguely aware that he was forcing me backward, never stopping with the thrusting, not once relenting, and the pleasure, my God, the pleasure, and I was on my back and he was on top of me, and in the mirror behind him I could see his powerful back, the fleur-de-lis tattoo on his right shoulder blade, his beautiful round white ass clenching and unclenching as he drove into me, as though he were trying to get his cock so deep inside me it might never come out, and I wanted him inside me, I wanted to feel his entire body consumed inside of mine, and I wanted the thrusting and driving to never stop. . . .

  And his lips were at my own throat, moving from the base of my chin to the hollow where my neck met my chest, his tongue darting out and dancing against my skin.

  And it went on, the pleasure building inside of me until I could barely stand it any longer—

  And his head went back and he screamed as his body went rigid, and I could feel him squirting inside of me, his body convulsing and racking with the pleasure with each spurt—

  And my own splashed out of me, raining onto my chest and my face and into my hair.

  He convulsed a few more times before collapsing on top of me, his energy spent.

  I lay there panting for a moment or two, enjoying his weight and warmth on top of me.

  His breathing became more shallow and even, and I gently pushed him aside, feeling his softening penis slide out of me. I slid out from underneath him and gently rolled him over onto his back, staring at his beauty as he lay there in the soft glow of moonlight coming through the stained glass just above the front door of the house.

  The wounds on his neck had reopened, and blood was oozing from them again.

  I grabbed a towel and wiped myself off, then bit the tip of my index finger. I rubbed it over the wounds, but once again, the wounds in his neck did not close.

  But the hole in my finger did.

  I don’t understand. It has always worked. What is wrong? What is so different about this time that the wounds will not close?

  He started murmuring in his sleep, tossing a bit on the couch.

  I walked over to the front windows and opened the red velvet curtains a bit, looking at the house across the street—the house where I’d almost died, a victim of the desires of the mixed race witch, Sebastian, and his thirst to combine the power of the vampire with that of his own witchcraft. I closed my eyes and remembered being tied to the bed while Sebastian violated my body and went through the mysterious ritual I had not understood until Jean-Paul and the others had come to my rescue. I remembered the feeling of dying, of my body going cold as Jean-Paul wrapped me in a blanket and carried me out of the house and back across the street, and the metallic taste of his blood as he fed me in order to save me.

  I tried to remember if my own initial wounds from him had closed that first night he had fed from me, that night when I’d run into him and his friends at Oz while the madness of Carnival raged in the streets of the French Quarter.

  Perhaps I’d taken too much from him. Maybe that was why the wounds wouldn’t heal. Jean-Paul and the others always warned me about taking too much—but they never said why.

  I started to turn away from the window when something flickered in one of the windows across the street. I spun my head back, but whatever it had been was no longer there.

  Now you’re imagining things. There’s no one there. The house isn’t habitable yet.

  Jared moaned in his sleep, and I walked back over to the couch. I knelt beside him and marveled again at just how beautiful he was.

  I had never let him know about my secret desire for him. Never, and I had always been so careful around him. And he’d always, always, been very clear about his own sexuality. If he’d even been the slightest bit curious, he would have told me. And there were any number of times we’d been wasted together, stumbling back to the room together with our arms around each other, and nothing had happened.

  Then why did he . . . It doesn’t make any sense. Was a connection of some sort forged between us when I took his blood? His life force? There’s so much I still don’t know about all of this. Jean-Paul was right—I should have stayed in Palm Springs with him and the others.

  I reached over and stroked his brow. He shifted again, and his eyes opened. I recoiled—they were no longer blue, but rather brown.

  He smiled at me. “Sebastian does not rest, Cord.”

  My hand froze on his forehead. “You don’t know that, Jared. You couldn’t possibly know that.” How does he even know about Sebastian in the first place? And what is wrong with his eyes?

  His eyes closed and he moaned. When they reopened, they were clearly blue. I must have imagined what I’d seen. Besides, it didn’t make any sense. Eyes couldn’t change color like that, could they?

  “I don’t feel so good,” he barely whispered as I started stroking his forehead again. “What . .
. what have you done to me, Cord?” He shifted again on the couch. “So cold, so very, very cold.”

  I allowed my other hand to come up and press on the jugular vein in his throat. The heartbeat was weak and faint.

  I’ve killed him.

  I felt tears rising in my eyes.

  I raised my wrist to my mouth and bit into the artery there. As my blood began to flow over my skin, I lowered my wrist to his mouth.

  I heard Jean-Paul’s voice in my head. You are too young to this life to create another such as ourselves. Your heart isn’t strong enough yet, so you must never ever try to turn a human until such time as I tell you that you can.

  But he would die unless . . .

  “Drink,” I whispered, parting his lips and allowing my blood to run onto his tongue.

  Jared’s eyes opened at the first taste of my blood, and color began to return to his cheeks. He closed his mouth around the holes in my wrist and began to suckle.

  I closed my eyes and allowed my head to fall backward.

  Whatever the risks, I had to take them.

  CHAPTER 2

  I gasped in pleasure as his lips closed even more tightly over my wrist.

  At first, there was simply a little bit of suction against my skin that made the hair on my arms stand up. It felt like nothing more than a simple kiss, Jared’s lips pressing against the inside of my wrist as foreplay. He was hesitant at first, but when my blood began to flow, it awakened a need inside him—a need I knew all too well, the desire to consume as much as he possibly could, to drown in it. His eyes closed and a low growling moan vibrated in his throat as his mouth worked. His tongue lapped against my skin, teasing me, and I closed my own eyes as the intensity of an extraordinary pleasure washed over me from head to toe. Every nerve ending in my body tingled, goose bumps covering every inch of my skin as my cock began stirring to life again. My nipples were hard and sensitive.