Rare Vigilance (Whitethorn Agency)

“Atlas?” Cristian had stopped walking to watch him. “What’s wrong?”

He searched for the words as Cristian walked back to him. Found none. Tried anyway. “What Andrei said about me—”

“Shh.” Cristian’s finger pressed over his lips, cutting off the rest of the words he fought to free. “We are not talking about that tonight.”

He reached up and clasped Cristian’s hand in his, pulling it away so he could speak freely. “We need to.”

“No,” Cristian said stubbornly. “I don’t need your defense or confession or whatever else you have in mind to say to try to convince me of who you are. I know you.”

“From one taste?” Atlas threw back.

He growled when Cristian started laughing, furious at the flip response until Cristian reached out and rested his hands against his chest. “No, iubi?el,” Cristian soothed. “From every day you’ve spent by my side, even when I did my best to run you off. From your choice to return, no matter how frightened you were to face us again. And from the way you’re looking at me right now.” His fingertips pressed more firmly against his skin, over his heart. “I’ve lived long enough to know when it is a mistake to walk away from a man like you.”

“You should walk away,” Atlas whispered, meaning it with his whole soul. “I’ve made so many mistakes.”

“Maybe,” Cristian agreed, “but do you want me to?” He leaned in closer, eyes fixed on Atlas’s mouth. “Choices, Atlas,” he murmured. “Remember?”

Words could fail. Actions were safer. He leaned in, closing the gap between them, and captured Cristian’s mouth with his. The kiss landed like a lightning strike, all heat and shock, until Cristian’s hands reached up and clutched at Atlas’s shoulders. His lips parted and Atlas gave in, hungrily taking all Cristian offered.

He focused on the flex of Cristian’s back under his hands and the way he shivered when Atlas scraped his teeth over his lower lip. It took Cristian drawing away for him to come back to himself, and it took even longer for him to register the sound of trash rustling at the rear of one of the buildings.

Atlas wanted to give in again, to stop the world with Cristian’s taste and touch, but he’d relied on his instincts too long to ignore them now. He released his hold on Cristian and kept watching the area the sound came from. A shadow moved. A pair of eyes reflected out of the darkness.

The eyes hovered, shifted from side to side, but didn’t vanish. Atlas took a slow step back, forcing Cristian to move with him. “I don’t like this,” he murmured.

“Neither do I,” Cristian agreed.

They made a slow retreat, trying not to spook whatever was watching them from the shadows, but limited by the row of buildings and the river behind them. The thing gave a strange, warbling screech. The sound grated over Atlas’s nerves, dug into his darkest memories, and froze him in place. He’d heard that cry before. It had echoed out of the trees around the stretch of rural road in Romania the night his life ended.

“Atlas?” Cristian gripped his arm and gave a slight tug, urging him to continue their escape.

He couldn’t move, trapped somewhere between fight and flight. Couldn’t move, but could warn. Could perhaps save someone else this time. “Don’t run,” he whispered to Cristian. “It likes when you run.”

“The fuck—” Cristian started, only to cut off when the strigoi shuffled forward.

It was as if he’d stepped back in time to that night. The creature’s hairless skin still looked like tissue paper, so thin the vessels colored it in branching patterns, so sickly it seemed ready to tear from the slightest touch. Its clothes were torn, well worn, and still recognizable, unlike the ancient, shredded shrouds of those monsters he saw overseas. Its yellow eyes shifted between him and Cristian, weighing them and assessing the threat they each posed. It must not have been a serious one, because it took another plodding step forward.

It was a trick. Atlas knew from grim experience that it could shift in a moment, spinning and launching itself at whatever target it saw fit. Its movements now were slow and cumbersome, as if it couldn’t agree with its body on how to move flesh and bone easily. That would change in a breath.

He wasn’t ready to face it again. He had no knife this time, and he had Cristian to protect.

Cristian, who reached and clasped a hand around his bicep, reminding him he wasn’t alone. Cristian, whose expression was frighteningly serious, whose eyes flashed gold and whose lip curled up in disgust, revealing his fangs, as their enemy stepped closer. “What do we do?”

“Walk very slowly back to the car and try to get away.”

The hand around his arm tightened. “It’s far,” Cristian warned.

The breeze picked up from the river at their backs, blowing toward the creature, and Atlas dimly wondered if it could smell his fear the same way Cristian had smelled his longing and lust.

“We won’t beat it in a straight race,” Cristian said. “Maybe we can lose it out here.”

“Maybe,” Atlas lied. Once it caught their scent, there was no hope.

“Atlas!” Cristian’s hand on his jaw forced him to turn his head, to look away from the thing slowly closing the distance to them. It jarred him enough he actually looked at Cristian, saw his fear and, more importantly, his determination. “I won’t let it take you,” Cristian promised him. His kiss was sudden, firm, and over too soon. “Come on.”

The strigoi had paused to watch them, tilting its head at their exchange and scenting the air. Its lips peeled back from its fangs in a snarl of disgust at whatever it had smelled. Atlas flinched at the sight, freezing on instinct. Cristian got him moving again, pulling slow and steady on his arm. He led them down the sidewalk, avoiding any sudden movements. Atlas allowed Cristian to guide him, to do the thinking for both of them because, fuck, his mind could only scream over and over how badly he wanted to escape this. He’d survived the nightmare once. He shouldn’t have to face it again.

They were almost in line with the next building when the strigoi cried out. He saw its fangs glinting, watched the sinewy muscles beneath its skin flex and tense as it crouched, and he knew what would come next. He grabbed Cristian’s hand and finally gave in to the primal urge he’d been fighting since the creature appeared. He ran.