Carlos

"Fuck." John exhales, and his hold on me gentles. "Are you okay?"

I give him a light squeeze and release him, pushing him away to arm's length so I can look at him. "I am now."

"You're not hurt?"

"Nope. All healed." I tilt my head so he can see the side of my neck.

Gaze locked on the spot, he swallows hard, and a flash of red mingles with the autumnal hues of his mercurial eyes.

"John?"

Inhaling sharply, he breaks free of whatever had taken hold of him, and lets go of me. "Thank God for that," he says. "I've been losing my mind. David wouldn't let me near you."

David, having recovered from near strangulation with surprising grace, smooths the remains of his torn and rumpled clothes into a sad semblance of his usual pristine appearance as he approaches us.

"Have you heard of the marshmallow test, John?" he asks.

John takes a deep breath and turns to face him. "David, I am really not in the mood for one of your cryptic lessons right now."

David arches a brow at him. "Humor me."

"Fine. No, I haven't heard of it."

Clasping his hands behind his back disarmingly, David adopts the stance of a professor lecturing a class. "It's a famous experiment conducted at Stanford. A group of children were given a marshmallow and told that they could eat it immediately, or they could wait and receive an additional reward. The children were then left alone for a period of time. When the researchers returned, the children who had not eaten the marshmallow were given an additional treat. The researchers then followed the children for forty years, tracking their progress through life. Those who were able to delay gratification were markedly more successful throughout and in all measured aspects of their lives."

"What is your point?"

David nods at me. "Carlos is your marshmallow, John. To put it quite bluntly, you can eat him now, or you can wait and eat him later, with the additional reward of not killing him in the process."

"I'm not going to eat him," John growls. "Ever."

"Really? That is not a winning bet, I fear, no matter how you interpret it. The two of you share a blood bond. No blood will satisfy you the way Carlos' does, and you will never stop craving it—until you kill him or he is fully turned, that is. In time, you will learn to temper your desires, but for the first few weeks or months, it is better to be safe than to be very, very sorry."

John shakes his head. "I'm not like you, David."

Having overcome my shock, alarm, and relief, I finally speak up. "Don't I get a say in any of this? I'm too spicy to be a marshmallow, anyway."

David smiles at me. "Of course you get a say. The difficulty is this: I fear I will only be able to protect you for so long. Having witnessed our little display, you can see that John has already surpassed me in strength, and he has not been turned a week. Soon, I will have as little chance of stopping him, should he lose control, as you would have of stopping a freight train by standing it its path. I believe it is an effect of having fed from you while you were possessed by a powerful demon, but John is undoubtedly the strongest, and the most unique, vampire I have ever seen. I am simply not yet certain what that means."

"It means you can trust him," I say, surprising myself with how confident I sound. "I trust him, anyway."

David fixes me with a cold, calculated stare, making it impossible to guess his thoughts and sending a shiver up my spine. "Prove it, then," he says. "Just bear in mind that I may not be able to save you, should your faith prove misplaced."

I look at John, but I can't quite read his expression. I guess this will be a lover's leap after all.

Keeping my eyes locked with John's, I nod. "Fine. Show him."

Taking a deep breath, John closes the small distance between us so that we stand chest to chest. Fighting the instinctual urge to retreat from him, I hold my ground as his gaze flicks to the base of my throat and his eyes gleam red. Lifting his eyes to mine again, he pins me in place and leans in, gently brushing the hair away from my face, and whispers against my ear.

"Your heart's beating like crazy. Are you afraid of me?"

"A little," I breathe.

"Good."

"I trust you, though. With my life."

"I know."

He kisses me lightly—a brush of lips and a flick of his tongue—and breathes me in. A low sound, somewhere between a growl and a purr, rumbles in his chest, but he backs off.

I catch at his shirt and keep him close. "Is that all I get?"

"Carlos..."

"Kiss me like you mean it, John."

"Fuck."

He slams me against the wall, his hand at my throat and his body pressed against mine. With the air half knocked from my lungs, I gasp. He covers my mouth with his own, stifling breath and sound. His kiss is hungry, devouring, possessive, invasive, sensual, and passionate. My whole body screams 'take me now,' and if he did, I wouldn't care if David watched: he might as well be an inanimate object as far as my hormones are concerned.

All too soon, John draws back, pupils wide and black and chest heaving. Two short, sharp fangs show at the corners of his mouth, and one has cut his bottom lip, leaving a smear of blood. He licks it and moves towards me again, eyes angled at my throat.

"John..." David's tone carries a warning, but John ignores him.

I shut my eyes and tip my head back and to the side. I can't resist, and part of me wants to feel the sharp sting of his bite; an unbearable blend of pain and pleasure, and perfect submission.

His lips brush my skin; he kisses the side my neck, and the hot lick of his tongue sends a shock through my core that draws forth a soft, embarrassing moan.

He doesn't bite. Instead, he withdraws enough to meet my eyes, cupping the side of my face and rubbing his thumb over my bottom lip.

"Later, you're mine," he says, his rough whisper sending a shiver up my spine.

David sighs dramatically. "Honestly, John, was all that really necessary? I hope you know you're playing with fire, and this won't get easier. However, I believe you; something about you is different. I don't know if it's because of the demon, or because you were infected for so long before you turned, but you have an unusual level of control. Now, pull yourself together, the both of you, and get your minds out of your trousers. We have guests."

~ ★ ~

Half an hour later, and dressed in a set of stylish clothes in the latest fashion (either David has a great eye or he took my measurements in my sleep) I follow John down an airy flight of glass stairs to the floor below.

Everything in David's multilevel apartment has a clean, ultra-modern feel—from the neutral tones to the minimalist accents. It's not exactly cold, but neither is it warm and welcoming. What's missing, I realize, is the sense that the space is 'lived in.' Everything looks brand new, and there's not so much as a dirty dish to be found.

Near the bottom of the stairs, John stops so abruptly I nearly bump into his back. Looking past him, I see why. The 'guests' that await us are none other than Becky and Freya.

"How..."

David, who sits across from them on a cream leather sofa set, rises gracefully. With not a blond hair out of place, no trace of his earlier scuffle with John remains, and he looks like he stepped from the pages of a men's fashion magazine.

"You have made some interesting new friends, John," David says. "Ms. Hunter has just been telling me of her own connections. Her partner, Monsieur L'Amour, and I are but distantly acquainted, but he has my deepest admiration and respect. He is one of the 'old guard' as we say. As for our dear Rebecca..." He casts Becky a reassuring smile, to which she responds with a barely suppressed shudder. "Well, I am only surprised you kept your secret for so long. Becky would have made a fine huntress in another life. Though I suppose you might say she hunts monsters of a different sort, in her own way. Regardless, I believe we have nothing to fear for her having learned of our existence."

Shaking her head, Becky rises as we approach and goes to John with her arms outstretched.

"Everything makes so much more sense now," she says. "Why you never let me in completely, and all the weird shit that follows you wherever you go. Part of me wishes you had trusted me, but I completely understand why you couldn't."

"It's not that I didn't trust you, Becks," John says quietly, accepting her embrace. "It's just I didn't want to drag you into more trouble than was good for you. This isn't the sort of thing you can easily forget. Once you know what's out there, your world will never be the same."

Laughing a little, Becky draws away and carefully wipes her eyes with the pad of her thumb. "Didn't take you long to drag Carlos into the deep end, though, did it?"

"I was already drowning," I say, coming to John's defense. "If anything, he rescued me."

Becky nods. "I know. And I'm glad he found you, because you do the same for him."

John casts me a glance that holds the soft warmth and the promised heat of a banked fire, but—with the same calm focus I've come to expect from him—he keeps his mind on the present conversation. "So, what happened? I haven't, uh... been in much contact with anyone since the shit went down."

With a glance at Becky, Freya speaks up. "We handled it, with the chief's help, of course. The official story is that Carlos got hurt, and you took him to the hospital, and you've been on leave even since. Now, if anyone ever really digs, for whatever reason, things fall apart. But Coleridge has enough sway and enough connections to pull strings, and a surface-level check shows Carlos was admitted and treated for a gun-shot wound at Spring Lakes General."

"What about the Morellis?" I ask. "How did you explain a guy's head getting torn off?"

Becky shrugs. "Easily enough. We pinned it on Rexi. Said she'd gone insane and killed her brother, hacked his head off as part of her 'ritual.' The rest of it's true: Rexi shot you, we shot Rexi."

"Officially, I did," Freya says. Takes the heat off Becks."

Becky gives her a fond smile. "Which I appreciate."

John's brows lift. "And Coleridge bought all that?"

Freya laughs. "Hell, no. She's seen too much, and she doesn't like covering shit up—feels too close to corruption, probably—but she knows it's the only way. The truth is too crazy for most people to believe. She knows we're not the bad guys, and she trusts us. She's practically family now."

"Speaking of bad guys..." I glance at David and John. "The Morellis told me about their family. It sounds like there are more of them out there. What if someone comes looking for them?"

David opens his mouth, and John takes a breath, but Becky speaks first.

"We'll be ready, if they do," she says. "That's what friends are for."

"Friends?" John repeats slowly.

She turns her keen, dark gaze on him. "Sure. That's what we've always been, John, and what we still are. Friends. I know you were afraid you'd lose that if you told the truth, but the truth is that friends don't just dump each other over a little thing like vampirism. I trust you; I always have."

David chuckles. "I always knew she was a wise one, John."

Becky frowns at him. "You, on the other hand, I've never trusted and I still don't, entirely. But the dogs like you, and I trust them."

David's smile only widens, revealing double pairs of sharp teeth. "A wise one indeed." He turns to me and John. "And now, Carlos, it is time for you to go home."

John sits up. "Wait, what?"

David nods at Becky and Freya. "He will be in excellent hands, from what you've told me. I have done all I can for him; his wounds are healed, and he has a life to resume. Meanwhile, you will remain here for the time being."

"David—"

"That is not a request, John."

Something in David's voice changes, making the hairs on my neck stand on end, and all the warmth seems to flee the room.

John clenches his jaw and I brace myself for a battle of wills to match the battle of strength I witnessed upstairs, but after a moment, John looks away and the tension subsides.

"Fine."

"Good. Then it is decided." David stands and bows to Freya. "It was lovely to make your acquaintance, Ms. Hunter. Please pass on my regards to Monsieur L'Amour. Becky... A pleasure, as always."

Becky narrows her eyes at him and doesn't smile. "Likewise."

He turns to me and extends his hand. "Carlos; do take care, and do not fear—I shall send John along soon. There is merely some... official business we must attend before I can safely set him loose upon the world."

I frown. "What sort of business?"

John sighs. "The vampire council, if I'm right."

David nods. "Indeed. I must present John as my blood heir before he is officially recognized and receives the full protections due his class."

"His 'class?'" Freya raises her brows.

John shifts uncomfortably. "Yeah. David's a... Well, something like a prince, I guess. His bloodline is sort of a big deal, in the vampire world."

"Don't oversell it, John," David says dryly. "But yes, I am what you would call 'vampire royalty.' The council is nothing so organized as a governing body; more like a mob family, you might say: useful to have on your side; dangerous to have as an enemy. Regardless, it's best John starts off on the right foot, as it were."

"They know he's a cop, right?" Becky asks.

"Was a cop, surely," David answers.

"Is. Is a cop," John insists. "I'm not giving up my career over this."

David blinks at him. "Over... losing your humanity and becoming immortal?"

"Humanity, as a quality, isn't restricted to humans," John returns sharply. "Just look around." He nods at Freya, who shrugs.

David sighs and waves his hand. "Very well. Is a cop, for now. We shall see how things unfold."

John rises and draws me into his arms. "Will you be okay?"

"Yeah. I think so."

"Stay at my place. You know the code. Keep an eye on the dogs for me."

"So, I'm your dog sitter now?"

"We can play it that way, if you want."

A smile teases my lips. "I wanna play it lots of ways."

David sighs loudly. "And I am certain you shall. For the moment, I think you had best be on your way, Carlos. John's control is remarkable, I admit, but you are testing it, and I assume you'd rather not have an audience when you find its limit."

John kisses my cheek and squeezes my ass at the same time, sweet and sharp, and whispers near my ear. "He's right this time. I'll see you soon."

Reluctantly, I let him go; and with a few more words of goodbye, I follow Becky and Freya out to their rental car and return to the remnants of my life in Spring Lakes.