Royal Pains (Vampire Kings 2)

“Where are you going to go?” She was fishing for information now, information he had no intention of giving her.

“I don’t know. I’ll find somewhere to den up.”

“Ivan…” She spoke his name as he went sliding out of the booth.

“What?”

“Don’t do anything stupid. Please.”

He winked and left. No promises.

Lorien and Chauvelin were playing cards together. This was a common vampiric activity to pass the time. Vampires knew every card game humanity had ever invented. However, there were a few that held greater significance to them as a species. Lorien had decided to teach Chauvelin his favorite of them all.

“Do you have any fives?” Chauvelin asked the question after having inspected his hand for a good two minutes at least.

“Go fish,” Lorien said.

“You never have any of the cards I choose.”

“It’s a matter of luck.”

“I don’t believe in luck. Everything can be controlled when you want to control it bad enough.”

“Now you sound like Maddox.”

BAM! BAM!

A pounding knocking at the door interrupted them.

“Were you expecting someone?” Lorien asked Chauvelin.

“No, but then again I’ve never expected any of the visitors I’ve gotten here. Something about this place encourages people to just…”

“HELLO!” A male voice called out from the foyer.

“… walk in,” Chauvelin finished.

Lorien and Chauvelin left the parlor, which was currently furnished with a couple of crates and a bit of carpet snagged out of a recycling truck and proceeded to the foyer where they met a man who was not wearing a shirt, or shoes, and barely qualified as wearing pants because he was in the process of taking them off too.

“Sorry,” he said. “I hate wearing clothes inside. Just feels wrong.”

Lorien and Chauvelin exchanged glances. The guy was hot in a filthy homeless animal sort of way. Lorien had never met him before, but something about him felt immediately familiar. The guy finished getting naked and strode between them, swinging in the breeze without any sense of shame.

“I’m here for my meat, meat,” he patted Chauvelin on the head on the way past.

“You must be Will’s father,” Lorien deduced. “Ivan, is it?”

“Yes. Need a place to stay, you offered this one once, remember, short stuff?” Ivan turned back to Chauvelin, who was too busy trying not to stare at Ivan’s sculpted, muscular ass.

“Ye… yes. I remember,” Chauvelin stammered. “There are still a lot of free rooms. Take your pick.”

“I’ll just sleep by the fire,” Ivan said, going into the parlor where their cards still sat. “Oh, cards. Cool.”

“I’m Lorien,” Lorien introduced himself. “I’m the prince of New York.”

“I’m Ivan. I’m the emperor of I don’t give a fuck.”

Lorien laughed. “You and your son are really cut from the same cloth.”

“Yeah,” Ivan agreed. “And it's only a matter of time before everybody knows it.”

“So you still want him? Even after everything he just did? That’s why you’re staying in New York, I take it?” Lorien was immediately curious. He’d left just after Will turned up and was greeted like the second coming, but he’d heard all the nonsense about the father.

“Family is family,” Ivan shrugged. His eyes alighted on a bottle Chauvelin had scavenged from somewhere. “Is that whiskey?”

It was whiskey. And that made it a party.

16

The Collar

“There is one last thing we need to do before bed,” Maddox purred the words against Will’s neck as they snuggled together in his bedroom. He had decided to decommission Will’s room and make his bedroom the space they shared. If Will was ever out of his sight again, it would only be for a matter of minutes, of that he was certain. He had washed his traumatized boy thoroughly and dried him nicely and now his wild little wolf felt so domestic cuddled up naked beneath the fine cotton sheets.

“What? Beat me?” Will sounded resigned to that particular fate.

“No,” Maddox smiled. “You’re missing something around your neck, boy.”

“Ivan cut that off…”

Will’s explanations were unnecessary. Maddox reached over into his drawer and pulled out a piece that suited his boy much better. He’d had it made not long after retrieving Will from prison, but the time to give it to him had never been right. Now it was. Their relationship had reached a new level of intimacy, one where they truly chose one another. Maddox wanted to celebrate that.

“Holy shit,” Will breathed as he laid eyes on his new collar for the first time.

It was blue, to match his eyes. It was a very soft leather inlaid with golden symbols that Will could not understand but looked ancient. Something like runes, but older still.

“What do these say?” Will ran his thumb over them, finding them lightly indented.

“This is the writing of my youth,” Maddox said. “It has been lost now, but I still know the meanings of the marks. This collar declares you to be mine for eternity.”

Will felt a smile rising to his lips. He was so happy to be back with Maddox, so happy to feel safe and as though the worst of himself was under control again. It was going to take a lot to pull him from Mad’s side.