Royal Pains (Vampire Kings 2)

When the house was quiet and everybody had finally stopped fussing and asking questions, Will went to see his father. He’d once dreamed of being able to do this and now it felt like nothing more than a nightmare. He hesitated at the top of the stairs before proceeding down. He knew it was probably a bad idea. Maddox hadn't forbidden it, but he probably would not have approved.

“They let you come see me.” Ivan sounded surprised. If he noticed Will’s haircut, he didn’t comment on it.

“They don’t know I’m here. This room is soundproofed. Thick concrete walls. Reinforced doors. You could scream for the next ten years and nobody would hear you.”

“You betrayed me,” Ivan said, changing the subject.

“You hit me and tried to make me eat people, so maybe get fucked,” Will replied.

“Fair,” Ivan replied. “I wanted you to feel all the strength and power we have.”

“All that strength and power that leads to riding around in a shitty rusted pickup selling people’s wedding rings? I’ll pass.”

The insult did not go without retort. Ivan snorted and jerked his head up to indicate the greater home. “You’ve landed on your feet here. No need to hunt. No need to kill. Just put out for the big gay vampire. My son is a whore.”

Will took two quick steps toward Ivan and started untying him.

“What are you doing? You gonna let your old man go?” Ivan sounded hopeful.

Will was thrilled to dash that hope.

“I’m going to beat the fuck out of you, and I’m not going to hit a tied-up man. You’re pathetic enough as it is.”

Will tugged the rope free and immediately lost the rush for the first blow. Ivan clocked him in the jaw, hard, but Will had a stronger jaw than his father. He’d taken more beatings in prison than he could count, so the blow snapped his head back but it did not knock him out. He spun around to his left and kicked out toward Ivan’s knee. He missed the joint but caught the thigh and sent the older man over sideways.

They traded blows until their faces dripped with blood from cuts opened on brows and ears, lips and noses. They crushed one another nearly into oblivion, all their shared anger unleashed in the roughest and most feral of ways. Their strength seemed evenly matched right up until the point Ivan showed his hand again and unleashed his full force on the exhausted young whelp.

It had been a trap all along, and Will had fallen into it. He realized that far too late as his father pinned him down, his older man strength overwhelming Will’s exhausted form. Blood was running from a cut on his head, dripping down from the tip of his nose. A drop landed in Will’s mouth. Blood. Human blood. Then flesh. Human flesh. Ivan tore at the heel of his own hand and dropped a small chunk of it into Will’s mouth, right at the back where the swallow reflex was triggered.

“Taste it! Feel your hunger!”

Will tried to spit it out, but it was already inside him, spreading through him. It was just a taste, not enough to satisfy any hunger, but enough to suddenly ignite it. A burning that made his stomach ache as though he was literally starving.

“FUCKKK!” He screamed the word and curled up on his side, gripping his stomach as pure agony flashed through him.

Ivan flowed into his wolf form and burst through the barred window as if the bars weren’t there at all. He was gone in seconds, leaving Will to fresher, deeper agony than he had ever experienced before. He couldn't walk. He couldn’t even move. He couldn’t stop screaming.

It took almost an hour for anybody to find him. It was Maddox who noticed him missing and came looking, only to discover his basement destroyed and his mate shivering and sweating in equal amounts, bruises covering almost the entirety of his body, not to mention bite marks in a few nasty places.

“What did he do to you, boy?”

Will couldn't have answered if he tried. His teeth were chattering so much he couldn’t form a word. It was a relief to be scooped up into Maddox’s arms, to feel himself being made safe again, but the hunger was still there as he was carried up to a warm bath. He had the awful feeling the hunger would never go away, not until he did the unthinkable, the unspeakable, and the unforgivable.

“There is never a dull moment with you, my boy.” Maddox sat beside the bath, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, bared arms and hands in the water, gently washing and cleansing the many wounds Will had sustained.

Will still looked very sick, almost as if he’d been poisoned. But this wasn’t something Maddox could call the doctor for. This was something very much outside the boundaries of conventional medicine.