Novi, Michigan
He still tasted Gabriel’s blood. The flavor seeped through the responsive flesh of his tongue, thoroughly soaking it. The persistent fluid lingered in the crevices between his teeth. With a twinge of reluctant guilt, Raiden licked the roof of his mouth. He expertly circled each bloodied tooth with his tongue, shaking with stolen pleasure.
Fucking delicious.
Pausing a moment to savor the last remnants of his exquisite meal, he glanced over at Gabriel’s fast-asleep figure.
He tastes even better than he smells. Raiden looked down. Fresh blood was a potent aphrodisiac.
“Mmm,” he grunted before he could stop himself. To get a better view of his creation, he repositioned himself on the couch. Gabriel’s eyelids suddenly opened, only to close again seconds later.
Shit. Raiden’s heart thudded fitfully in his chest, the beats resonating in the hollows of his ears. He’s not supposed to wake up yet! It took me at least two hours.
The last ounce of blood forced its way down Raiden’s throat. Muffling a groan, he crossed his legs and pushed the tip of his elbow into the head of his erection. He grimaced in a combination of sexual frustration and outright irritation. There was definitely a downside to the heightened excitement vampirism afforded him.
Raiden wished he could have found the balls to snap Gabriel’s neck. It would have been so much easier that way. Biting his lip, he watched the actor’s eyes reopen. He had absolutely no idea what to do or say. Gee, I’m sorry about the mix-up—I accidentally mistook you for a non-acquaintance, fed on you, and then recognized you too late to save your life. I had no choice other than to turn you into a fellow blood junkie. Can we still be friends?
Raiden did not think that spiel would fly.
Gabriel looked more alert now, but he was blinking in that owlish, sleepy way that suggested his brain was relatively clogged with sleep. Raiden decided to stay silent until the actor addressed him. Though he told himself that this was the best way to handle the situation, his conscience knew better.
What I mean to say, Gabriel, is that I would have killed you, but I was probably too high on your blood to think of a clever enough place to stash your corpse.
He twisted his lips to avoid laughter. On some level, he felt genuinely awful for entertaining such thoughts, but on another, he did not give a flying fuck. After all, humanity was only a passing notion to him, something he liked to try on for size and model in the dressing room, but never really felt compelled to buy.
Or at least, that’s what you tell yourself.
“What the fuck did you do to me?”
Raiden yelped in surprise as the raspy voice bulldozed through the silence. Gabriel remained in a prone position, but the stiffness in his body, coupled with the awareness in his face, indicated that he was fully awake. He sat up, his unnaturally green eyes brimming with determination.
“Answer my question.”
Raiden swallowed. He had not anticipated their conversation would begin like this. Already, he felt that Gabriel had somehow stolen the upper hand.
“Don’t you—don’t you remember anything?”
Gabriel refused to break eye contact.
“I hope not,” he cryptically said.
Raiden smelled a little fear on him, but not enough, considering the events of the past hour and a half. He began to worry.
“So, what exactly do you remember?”
Nervously, Raiden twirled strands of hair around his fingers. Now that the bloodlust had worn off, he was feeling more than a little awkward. Usually, he managed to keep his cool around others, but Gabriel’s abnormal reaction to the turning flustered him. He had predicted tears, violence, and even the possibility of being thanked (after all, Gabriel’s profession revolved around maintaining a youthful appearance—and now he would never need Botox again), but the actor’s apparent lapse in memory left him at a loss.
“Look, I recently hit my head,” Gabriel said. “I must be experiencing the complications of a concussion.”
“Why do you think that?”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “Because what I remember could not have possibly happened in reality.”
“Um . . . I don’t really—I can’t—um . . . ” Raiden trailed off, reluctant to rehash the night’s proceedings. In any case, the last thing he wanted was for Gabriel to cause a scene, though he knew it was probably inevitable.
Taking a deep breath, he sidled a bit closer and put a tentative hand on the actor’s knee. Gabriel’s body stiffened, but he did not move away. Raiden decided to lay all the cards out on the table, since he could not weasel his way out of this situation.
“We were supposed to meet for dinner tonight. I was running late. I was hungry. I stopped to get a bite to eat—I didn’t know it was you. When I saw your face, I realized my mistake. You were so weak, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want you to die. So . . . c’mon, you must remember what happened! Don’t make me say it.”
“Oh, I think you need to say it.”
Gabriel’s expression was stony. Letting out an exasperated sigh, Raiden rubbed his temples in frustration.
“Fuck! Gabriel, I turned you into one, okay? I made you like me.”
“One what?”
“You know what!”
“No, I have no idea what you mean.”
Raiden glared at him. He had lost all patience. “Jesus! I turned you into a vampire! You want me to shout it to the streets? You want it on a banner? You want me to make you a fucking T-shirt?”
“Where are my clothes?”
He seriously doesn’t remember? Raiden openly gawked at him, but then decided to go along with the conversation’s unforeseen shift in course.
“They were too dirty for you to wear.” He averted his eyes in embarrassment as he remembered undressing and bathing Gabriel’s unconscious, filthy figure. He had avoided looking at Gabriel’s nakedness as much as possible. His nose, however, informed him that not only had Gabriel wet himself, but he had also busted a nut inside his pants. Of course, this was a perfectly natural reaction to undergo during the change, but Raiden pitied him all the same. In his bedroom closet, he had managed to locate a pair of loose, long shorts and a baggy shirt: hand-me-downs from one of his first Detroit victims. After dressing the still-unconscious Gabriel, Raiden had thrown the soiled garments into the bathtub.
“I don’t care how dirty they are,” Gabriel was saying, “give me back my clothes.”
“What good is that going to do? I already told you what happened, and you should remember anyway.”
“Just give me the clothes.”
His temper flared. Retrieving the sopping pile of material otherwise known as Gabriel’s clothes, Raiden tossed them at him. “Here.”
“There’s blood all over these,” Gabriel stated, incredulous. His face finally began to show some sign of the horror Raiden had anticipated.
“Were you even listening to me? I turned you into a fucking vampire!”
Raiden tried to lower the volume of his voice, but he could not keep annoyance from raising it up again.
Holy shit, this guy’s dense. He’s got more air in his head than a blow-up doll.
“Where’s the bite mark, then?” Gabriel brought a hand to the side of his neck. He looked down as his fingers grazed the surface of a makeshift dressing that covered the skin over his major artery.
“The bite mark is beneath your bandage. It might be healed by now, though.”
“You call this thing a bandage?” Gabriel scoffed, having by now discerned that his “bandage” was nothing more than a few sheets of toilet paper stuck to his skin with Scotch Tape.
Raiden blushed. “It’s the best I could do.”
Gabriel leapt to his feet and regarded him with an accusatory stare. “You bit me!”
“I told you I did!”
“Why would you bite me?”
“Listen to my words. I. Am. A. Vampire,” he said in an exaggeratedly slow voice, drawing out each syllable
Gabriel crossed his arms. “You’re . . . a vampire?”
“Yes. And now, so are you.”
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