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“Drew. That’s his boss. Word is Carson’s masterminding a big new campaign for Drew’s team.” Joe turned back and stared at Mathias. “Can I go now? I’d like to go now.” He scratched at the underside of his bicep through his shirt, fingernails managing to break the skin somehow, scenting the air with his sweet blood.

Gums retracting from his teeth, Mathias was briefly tempted, his interest only lasting until he deliberately nicked the inside of his lip with an incisor. The blood in his mouth still carried notes of Carson, a delicious flavor that would be further diluted if he fed on Joe now. He was hungry, but that was an everyday thing since turning, a gnawing rat trying to carve through his insides to get what it needed. He knew a body couldn’t subsist on one individual, not if they didn’t want to drain them dangerously, something he’d been careful of with Carson. Joe was friends with Carson, and a reminder of that shaky link helped drive home the wedge keeping his hunger separated from his willpower. “You should go now. Eat, you’re too thin. Take care of Carson in the same way.”

“Okay, man. Okay.” Joe didn’t look over his shoulder as he hurried out of the short alley, and Mathias saw the lines of his body relax when the weak sunbeams landed on his shoulders, knowing instinctively that the predator he’d somehow escaped couldn’t pursue there. Mathias eased the other direction, sighing with his own relief when the door closed behind him, shutting out the sun.

Head down, he focused on the garbage-strewn floor as he made his way through the outer areas and to a stairwell. His footsteps echoed, doubling around him until each footfall started a cascade of noises. It wasn’t the first time he’d used Joe to check on Carson since the night at the warehouse, which carried a set of restrictions to keep from forever altering Joe. But even as his obscene control grew over the man, Mathias knew he would continue.

What would be the worst outcome? He’d flayed himself with these ideas for weeks now, since discovering Carson and recognizing the connection between them. I groom him for a companion and lose the pieces that make up his humanity and personality.

Mathias bit off a rumbled complaint threatening to grow into a howl. He wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t risk turning Carson into a Renfield, a day-walking extension of his own will and psyche. And not just because that would mean losing what made the man so addictive. Carson would be so changed that, instead of finding himself satisfied, Mathias would have to begin the search all over again, with no guarantee of a prize at the end.

He knew from talking to other sires how uncommon it was to find what humans referred to as a soul mate. The other half of himself, a part that completed him and together they made a whole. As trite as that sounded, it was at least partially true. For an aging vampire, it meant having a free-will companion who could be trusted, where the chemistry between them would hit pause on the insanity of the sun. That jealous bitch reaped many of the blood early in their lives, true. But she also harvested vampires who’d existed past their understanding of society, who grew beyond their ability to morph or cope with the changes. Her Call grew with every year, and in times where transformation happened in the human world at breakneck speed, that Call was desperately attractive.

So if not a groomed companion, his only hope to be with Carson was if he could bring him into the fold, so to speak. Not turned, not Renfielded, but a more symbiotic existence at his side. Carson’s blood would keep his insanity at bay, and Mathias’ essence would calm the craving Carson probably already felt.

Something moved ahead, releasing a long-drawn-out scrape of claws on metal. Mathias pulled until he could feel the absence of breath and life accompanying this intruder. He sifted through the scents, finding the expected putrescence, wafting from slow-rotting garbage of decaying bits from the lives of those who inhabited the buildings above him. Rolling the air across his tongue, he tasted it, the weak thread strengthening until he wondered how he’d missed it even a moment ago.

“Rolf.” Quiet, scarcely stirring an echo, his murmur fled in front of him as Mathias leapt forwards, keeping pace with his own voice until he flashed along just behind the fleeing camp mate, one of his own, who’d followed him deep into the underbelly of this town that had been their home for not very long. Not long enough, he argued with himself, knowing the reasoning was a result of his longing for Carson. Even now, speeding through the concrete ways and tunnels chasing one of his own, the draw of Carson was unmistakable. No matter how high the sun stood in the sky, he longed to walk underneath her if it meant he’d burn at Carson’s feet.

He reached out almost leisurely, the action at distinct odds with the racing pump of his legs, nails elongating at his unspoken demand until he plucked at Rolf’s nape. The curve of a nail slipped around the front of Rolf’s throat and he pulled, knowing the threat would be clear: Continue at risk of decapitation.

Unsurprisingly, Rolf planted his feet at the same time Mathias did. He stood firm, allowing the rushing wind of their passage to flow around them, hems and collars flapping noisily. When all had quieted, Mathias ordered simply, “Speak,” hoping Rolf understood that his existence rested on the next few seconds.

“I followed you.” Volumes of meaning in those words, and yet not enough to warrant judgment, so Mathias waited. Impatiently, true, his nails dimpling Rolf’s skin until the grip should bruise. “When you took them home. The second one calls to me...but I went no further with your boy.”

“Joe.” Mathias thought back to that night, the crazy moment he’d recognized Carson standing along the back wall, an attendant of the reaping. The unsettling encounter on the sidewalk that he and Rolf hadn’t spoken of weighed on one side of a scale in his mind. On the other was Mathias’ realization that caring for Carson meant ensuring his friends were likewise safe while impressing on them the boringness of their night spent at home, alone. Far away from the simulacrum of a club he’d designed to trick the minds of those who longed for oblivion. Still, his focus had been on what was his—Carson. “You took what you needed.”

“You didn’t forbid it. The boy only, that’s what you claimed.” Rolf wasn’t mistaken, and Mathias hummed softly as he released his hold. “I—I keep going back to him.” The man’s hunger was explained, as was his need to serve another like Rolf. “I know what I’m doing, and that you’ve said we mustn’t, but, Mathias, he’s so beautiful when I hold him and feed. The look on his face, in his eyes...I can’t get enough of it.”

“Will you cease if I tell you to? If I forbid it, will you obey?” Rolf turned and looked at him, ducking his head to seem less tall, less threatening, subservient in his own way in front of his sire. “Can you?”

“I would.” Rolf nodded, and Mathias felt his resolve even as he knew the man would have to break the oath that very night if given the chance. “I will, Mathias.”

“How much did you give him?”

Rolf’s head rocked back in a telling move at the question. He hadn’t realized Mathias knew as much as he did. Rolf was younger than him by only a decade or two, while still older than Zeke in turned time.

Older doesn’t mean wiser.

“Was it just the once?”

“Not too much.” Rolf hesitated, then finished with “Either time.”

Mathias closed his eyes for a moment. Twice wasn’t unrecoverable, as long as it ended there. Joe’s body would take time to repair, but it would, as long as he was left in peace.

“Did you let him drink from you?” He blinked and sharpened his gaze, even in the dark able to see details that shouldn’t be there. Like the compressed flesh around Rolf’s throat where bruises would be growing if vampires bruised. Blood was too vital to allow it to be wasted by seeping into damaged tissue. “How, Rolf?” He allowed an edge of command to drip into his voice, knowing he didn’t need it, but the reminder to Rolf wouldn’t be amiss right now.

“My tongue, delivered with a kiss, soft and sweet and delicious.” Rolf’s features softened at the memory, something that shouldn’t have ameliorated the risks he’d taken, but Mathias understood the need, the desire, the overwhelming instinct to create a connection. “Not as much the second night, not knowing what I risked on his behalf. A taste, no more, something to draw him to me as I saw the boy was drawn to you. It’s...difficult.”

“Yes, it is. But you were foolish and risked us all with your wanting.” Mathias pressed Rolf against the cold concrete wall. Their scuffling footfalls were the only sounds in the tunnels; not even the rumbling of overhead traffic made it down this far. “And I cannot fault you, not really.” He pulled back and Rolf followed, not allowing any room between them, pressing himself against Mathias. Giving in to the man’s unspoken desire, he cradled Rolf in his arms. “Not when I face the same quandary and desires. I’ve not fed the boy, not yet, but I will. I know it. You know how that draw calls.”

“You’ve resisted, truly?” Mathias nodded his response, and Rolf’s limbs tightened around him. “That’s why you’re the only sire I could follow, Mathias. Because of the strength you have and give so selflessly to those around you.”

“I want to.” His whispered confession died before it traveled more than feet away from where they stood, and Mathias dropped his head in shame. “He’s so tempting.”

“Will you turn him, then?”

This was asked with no censure, not from Rolf, who saw the change as a path to betterment in life. He’d been a convict before being turned, facing the monotony of life witnessed through a tiny one-foot-square barred window. Then he’d gotten ill, and the jailers turned him over to the little clinic within the prison’s walls. Gina had been watching him for weeks, maybe longer, perched on top of a guardhouse so she could see into the cell, witness to Rolf’s slow physical decline.