Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Finally, the blood was gone and the filth was gone and there was nothing but Will standing in the shower naked, vulnerable, and beautiful.
Maddox took a towel and handed it to Will. He turned away, giving Will some privacy. As much as it hurt to maintain physical distance, he knew that pushing Will would only trigger another outburst he would have to be disciplined for, and not only would that be unfair, it would be counterproductive. More than anything, he wanted Will to come around, but there was so much hurt to be overcome, and none of it would be healed by cruelty.
So many impulses warred within Maddox. The urge to comfort, the urge to control, the need to dominate and the desire to be intimate. Will had always evoked this chorus of emotion inside him more than any other man in any other time, and merely being able to be with Will now felt like a blessed relief.
“I’ve got you some clothing,” Maddox said.
Will looked at his old clothes and shook his head. He did not plan to put that old identity on.
“I’d rather stay naked.”
“I have no objection to that, of course.” Maddox smiled broadly.
Will grabbed the nearest pair of jeans and shoved them on, glaring at Maddox all the time. They were loose around the waist, for though he had become more muscular as a beast, he had lost weight in captivity and in the wild. His body fat was low, as well as his mood.
Maddox did not mention that he looked even hotter in those jeans than he had naked. Clearly Will did not want to be appealing to him in the moment, though he could not help it. He was dark, moody, brooding, and absolutely brimming with pain, all qualities Maddox found inescapably attractive.
“Well,” Maddox said. “Dinner time, I think.”
Will grinned for the first time. It was not a pleasant smile. It was a smile with bits of people in it.
“I already ate.”
10
Back at Gideon’s mansion…
“The fuck are you doing!?”
Carter spun, winked at his phone, and pulled finger guns. The smile on his face faded instantly as he picked up the phone and stopped the video. He ignored Chauvelin’s hysterical question and set about updating his social media.
“Hey! Give that back!” He acknowledged Chauvelin’s presence for the first time when Chauvelin grabbed the phone out of his hand and began thumbing through it, in the way only complete assholes do.
Chauvelin was shorter than Carter. It did not take long for Carter to regain possession of his phone by placing his hand on Chauvelin’s head and just reaching in and grabbing it back from him. Carter was quite powerful for a fledgling, due to the blood in his veins. Maddox was one of the three eldest vampires known to Gideon’s coven, and so the one made with his blood shared a particular intensity with him.
Chauvelin might have been weaker and smaller, but he had eyes, and he had not missed the little notification that indicated VampireCarter had five million followers.
“Christ!” Chauvelin exclaimed, as appropriately scandalized as any Luddite. “Did you know this little shit has been broadcasting the private, secret worlds of our lives to five million humans?”
“I knew Christ,” Gideon drawled. “You know what nobody ever talks about? What a fan he was of hummus. That man adored hummus.”
“I thought hummus was invented in the 13th century,” Ray said.
“You think everything was invented in the 13th century,” Gideon sighed.
“Your lords,” Chauvelin interjected. “If I may be so bold as to bring it to your attention, Carter is not only revealing himself as a vampire in these videos. He is potentially giving away your location, oh esteemed Maker.”
Gideon’s upper lip curled with just a hint of disgust at Chauvelin’s unapologetic bootlicking. Of course, he was due respect from all lesser vampires, but Chauvelin had a particularly nauseating method of groveling. He was a clout chaser, a brown noser. He was everything creatures of power despise and yet he could not see it because he was so absolutely inept at reading others.
“There are many people on the internet capable of using very small visual cues to locate people and things. Once, a group of young internet activists pinpointed a flag in the desert using nothing but the position of the sun and contrails from flights.”
He was not speaking a language either Gideon or Ray were familiar with. Gideon was only passingly familiar with powered flight, having encountered it in the Second World War, and slumbered since.
At one time, sleeping a century meant waking up in much the same world one had gone to sleep in, but these days, sleeping a hundred years meant waking up in a world so rife with technological wonders one barely understood how any of it worked. Humans now spoke across the world in an instant, and though they rarely said anything of obvious importance or weight, it was clear that great cultural shifts were occurring due to this technology.