Chapter Twenty-Four

Robbie

I wished I had a dungeon or dark tower somewhere overlooking an enchanted forest. It was strangely unsatisfying to only have a hotel room, which felt a little cramped with the four of us. I had Commanded the vampire to carry Theo, who had been pretty out of it from a combination of sexual release and blood loss. Every time I bit him in the past, the euphoric effect had lasted for at least half an hour, and many times afterward he would fall asleep. I was happy that was what had happened this time because as much as he normalized it, I did not want him to see me using Commands. It just felt depraved to tear someone’s will from them, regardless of how necessary it was. Now, Theo was comfortably resting in the bed. I had seen to him first.

Abi lay next to him, also asleep. Hers was a Commanded sleep, and I still felt sick at having to use the ability on her. But she had pleaded and begged to be allowed to leave with Eli, obviously under some Command of his that I wasn’t sure how to break. Yet.

Eli. He sat at the small round table, completely under my Command.

I sat across from him, wrestling with all my inner demons. Intrinsically I felt that using Command on others was wrong. But I also loathed this vampire to my core and wanted to destroy him for what he had done to Abi.

Finally, after I calmed myself long enough to think straight, I asked, “What did you do to my cousin?”

The vampire was ramrod straight backed in the chair, and his gaze hadn’t left me since he had followed my orders to sit after we got into the room. He had remained motionless, silent, and I had no doubt he would kill me if he could. But I also felt the strength of my Command was more powerful than anything he could fight against.

“I ate her,” he said simply, his tone condescending.

“Why?” As soon as I asked it, I felt really stupid. It was obvious why he had eaten her. I wanted to know why her. He was in a gay club; why hadn’t he gone after a guy?

Before I could clarify or think of something more intelligent to ask, like how specifically he was mind controlling Abi and how I could get him to end it, he answered, “Because she, like you, smells delicious. I would have taken her to my home and made her my pet. You’re the mage’s pet. She would have been mine.”

I blinked in shock. It was too much information. We smelled delicious? Also, that was the second time someone had called me Theo’s pet. My mind flooded with many responses and new questions. “Why do you say that I’m Theo’s pet?”

“Aren’t you?” the vampire asked, one eyebrow raised. The stillness of his pose with his hands folded elegantly in his lap was unnerving.

I shook my head in protest. “I’m his boyfriend.”

The vampire remained quiet. Detached. Staring at me with his beautifully unearthly purple eyes that weren’t quite as luminescent as they had been in the alley. Was blood the only way to get his eyes to shine like they had? I realized that he did not blink at all, which should have set me on edge, but for some reason calmed me in a peculiar way. His smooth skin was like marble, and his full lips were set in an expression that was serene. I found myself wondering about him. How had he become a vampire? How old was he?

Wait. Pet? Someone else had called me a pet earlier that night. “Is that bartender your pet?” I asked. Was that jealousy in my voice?

“Indeed,” Eli confirmed, a soft smile playing about his lips.

What did this mean? My mind worked overtime on the conspiracy theories. “Did you send him after me and Theo?”

Eli had a look of infinite patience and addressed me as if I were a child. “Only for clarification for I needed to know if you belonged to that mage. As your blood is his, but that one is unclaimed.” He jutted his chin toward the bed. “She simply smelled too good to pass up. As do you. A weresnake? Nüwa –” he sounded out the term deliberately slowly. “–I believe she called herself. Delicious.” He punctuated this last part with a deep inhalation. –

★

A full-body shiver encompassed me. I should be sickened that this vampire had “hunted” Abi. Sickened that he was smelling me. Calling me delicious. I’d never thought about Theo as if he were food. Though…once when I had been basking in serpent form, enjoying the sunlight and warm stones in the backyard, Theo had come out to say hi. It’s just instinct to taste the air in serpent form. It’s a sense that is fundamentally different than any human senses. And he had smelled delicious. In that form I could tell that his blood was different than the cow’s blood I normally drank, or the field mice I could sense scurrying in the field, fearful of me.

Then it occurred to me. “Wait. Theo doesn’t drink my blood.” I frowned, trying to figure out what he was talking about. I certainly wasn’t going to admit to him that I had had Theo’s blood. What would it be like to be kept by Eli as his pet? To be…bitten?

“No?” Eli looked past me to the bed again and I had to fight the urge to look back at Theo, but I didn’t want to lose sight of the vampire. Didn’t want to look away…

“He’s human,” I offered lamely.

“Tsk, tsk, neonate. Do not be so naive. Your boyfriend,” he emphasized, his tone dripping with disdain, “is one of the most powerful mages around. He can use your blood as you use his. It was folly on my part to try to take your…cousin. I apologize.”

No part of me believed he was sorry in the least. I still wanted to kill and maim him, perhaps not in that order. But did I? He seemed so civilized. Nice even?

“Tell me about the Nüwa?” he asked tenderly.

“I…” I had never confided in anyone except Theo and Maggie. “I’m…” Eli was so kind. He wanted to hear more. “I’m the only male. Nüwa are all female. I should have never been born.” The admission was a flood and with it were tears of shame, of self-loathing.

“Oh, child.” Eli’s tone caught me. Held me. “How beautiful you are, then. One of a kind.” Eli’s expression had changed to that of adoration and something else. “Tell me more, young Nüwa. Inimitable Nüwa.”

Breathing shallowly through parted lips, I wet them with the tip of my tongue. “What do you want to know?” With the back of my hand, I swiped at my cheek.

“What do you do, my unique boy?”

I wanted to tell him everything, but there was nothing. I went to school. For accounting. That wasn’t exciting enough to tell Eli. What could I tell him to impress him? What else did I do? I spent my days and nights hanging out with Theo. Theo…

I glanced back at the bed where both Theo and Abi were sleeping peacefully. Abi… I spent time with her. Hanging out, playing video games, going to movies, shopping…planning a wedding…

“Listen, I need you to fix Abi. She’s engaged and can’t be your ‘pet,’” I begged, struggling with the next part. That I would be his pet. I wanted to…

Before I could consider how to broach that subject, Eli replied, “No.”

My breath caught. “No?”

“You do not want that, my pet. You do not want me to release her. And…you do not want me to release you.”

I splashed water on my face, staring at myself in the mirror. What was going on? Abi…Theo… I didn’t want to leave them alone for longer than necessary. Alone with him. But he wasn’t moving. He was still under my Command. And besides, they were safe with him. We were his pets…

But Theo wasn’t.

I willed my erection to go away, trying to focus on anything but Eli’s eyes that hovered in my mind’s eye, his voice like satin across my skin. When he revealed that I was his, it was an instant aphrodisiac. I had only felt like that once before. It would be so easy to retract the Command. To go with him and Abi and live with them. But…Theo? My mind swam in a state of confusion with the only anchor being Theo. He was my salvation. My strength. The love of my life that nothing would ever be worth stepping away for.

But what was going on? I had been talking to Eli…Eli… His ebony hair looked like it would be soft. I wondered if his skin was cool to the touch, like in movies. In the alley he had moved so fast. What else could he do? Could he turn into a bat? Could he fly?

I shook my head, smacking my face and plunging my hands into the cool water, and splash my face again. Why did I feel this way?

And then I spotted it. Sitting beside the sink. My watch. When had I taken it off? I picked it up and studied the face which had been broken… The memories came flooding back.

Eli had carried Theo, as I had Commanded. Abi had dutifully followed, pleading with me the entire way. Then once we had gotten to the room Eli had asked Abi to convince me to come with them. She had taken my hands in hers and started talking, then quickly unlatched my watch, sliding it off me and using the clock on the bedside table to smash the face, telling Eli that this was the only thing keeping him from convincing me. I had Commanded Abi to sleep and Eli to sit. Then he had begun talking…

His Commands were subtle. A thought occurred suddenly, and I burst out of the restroom. Eli was still tranquilly sitting, having not seemed to move an inch. Abi and Theo were still asleep, Theo snoring softly. I smiled at him, wanting to reach out and touch him, to snuggle in behind him. For a multitude of reasons, I did not want Eli to see any of that, so I grabbed Theo’s glasses from the bedside table.

The glasses were set for Theo to do whatever magical things that he did, but I had worn them a few times in the last month when learning about Commands. Through them I could see…

Abi had a swirling prismatic aura around her under bars of gold that I had already come to recognize as my own effect. It was a visual representation of the two mental effects on her. My golden rods were always so substantial. When I had been studying with Maggie and Abi, I had seen that each of our effects was different. Maggie’s was soft and manifested in greens and blues. She was able to work Commands into a person’s natural aura so that they were part of the person’s own thought process.

Abi wasn’t quite as practiced as Maggie, and hers were often in shades of reds and blues. While she was able to get people to believe that the thoughts they had from her Commands were their own, her impetuousness often overrode that, and left people bewildered, though not suspect. My Commands were much different. The Commands I issued were instant, unquestionable. Like with Brent and George. Brent would never have moved again had Maggie not helped or I not lifted the Command. George would have never touched another drug in his life. Nothing subtle about those. And I had no doubt that Eli would be sitting in that chair for the rest of his unlife unless I lifted the Command.

Glancing at the vampire, I noted the golden bars rooted him into the chair. They ran through him and seemed like they might be painful. The mixed feelings I got from that made me frown and return to the restroom to study myself in the mirror. I could see the polychromatic wisps floating around me. Eli’s. I found myself smiling as I stared at the tendrils. They were comforting, sensually erotic, welcoming. I mentally plucked one off me, watching as it dissipated. My lips curved into a knowing smirk as I began dismissing each one, flicking them off as if they were pieces of lint.

Once the last one was gone, I physically relaxed. I could dismiss them, at least from me. I would need to work with Abi. But, I thought I would be able to do it. Maybe.

I came back out and sat with Eli, studying him.

Just a man. Sure, he was a vampire, and handsome though definitely not my type. I chuckled to myself. Theo was the only man I had ever been with. Ever wanted to be with. I guess I didn’t have a type at all.

I had never been the kind of person who wanted to feel superior to anyone else. Better, stronger, faster, smarter? That wasn’t me. Maggie said it was “negative core beliefs” and that I didn’t think very much about myself, all a product of my childhood. But in this instance, Eli had tried to attack me like he had attacked Abi. To make me his pet. And he had failed. I wondered if he could tell. He sat quietly, not giving any hint one way or another.

“I’m sorry,” I started, choosing my words carefully. “What you said…that I’m your pet…”

“Yes?” he asked quietly, seeming to stare through me.

“It was arousing,” I admitted, even as my cheeks burned with embarrassment.

Eli tilted his head, his thick dark hair swinging to the side. “Are you not used to belonging to someone? I will care for you, every day for the rest of your life.”

I had to swallow hard. It was a perversion, what Eli was saying. A farce to manipulate. I belonged to Theo. My mind, body, heart.

As he spoke, I saw the tendrils of influence from Eli caress me, wrapping gently around me. I felt my resolve softening, wondering why I was annoyed with him. Curiously, I mentally nudged off the multicolored vine that had wrapped around my middle, watching as it dissolved.

“Care for me?” I glanced up, caught by his piercing stare.

“You would like that. You and Abi. My new pets. My home is in Stinson Beach and big enough for all of us. Though, we should be going soon, my pet.” The vampire’s voice was melodic, and I wondered if I sounded like that naturally to Theo. He had once told me that I did. Eli still hadn’t moved, and I could see he was still paralyzed by my Command.

“What about Theo?” I asked, playing along. I wondered how much of his Commands I could take before I was compelled to act, but it was interesting to see it in effect.

The beautiful Commands from the vampire continued to roil around me, into me, as he tried to lull me into a place of complicity. “Do not worry about him. We will leave him here, safe and sound. There’s no reason for him to come, now, is there? You don’t want him to come with us. You’d like for him to stay here, right?”

Inwardly I scoffed even as I nodded absently, enjoying the play of his abilities and my increasing skill at shrugging him off.

“Robbie!” Theo’s cry startled me so much that I almost fell out of the chair. My head whipped around, and I found him sliding out of bed. “Sugar, get away from him.”

The sound that I made was dark, a laughter that accompanied a knowing smirk.

Eli smiled. “It is too late, Mr. DJ. Theo, is it not? I will let you go with no ill will, but I’m keeping these two.”

Theo’s murderous glare had me standing and moving to him. “Babe, it’s okay. Eli and I have just been having a little conversation.”

“Robbie, where’s your watch?” Theo grabbed my arm, holding it up, his grasp tight.

“It got broken when he Commanded Abi to talk me into being his pet. He wants Abi and me to move to Stinson Beach with him. I’m assuming so we can feed him until he kills us.”

Theo roughly pushed me behind him, turning to face Eli. “What?”

I saw past him that Eli was sitting calmly, still quite securely under my Command.

“It’s okay, Theo.” I ran my hand across his broad back. “I’ve learned a lot in the last hour. Apparently, his Commands work through conversation. They’re not instantaneous. But I don’t know how long he was talking to Abi, or if his Commands wear off. They haven’t faded from Abi yet.” I studied my sleeping cousin, giving a small sigh.

Theo turned sideways so that his back was never to Eli, covering the sides of my head with both of his hands and staring into my eyes before gently plucking the glasses from my face and studying me. “Sugar?”

Melted by his worry, I assured him, “I’m fine. Eli here has really been working hard.” I raised my head in time to see the vampire’s rather smug look transform to shock. “I think I’ve got a lot to learn from him. Not the least of which is how to help Abi.”

I nodded to the glasses, and Theo put them on and studied Abi. “See? I Commanded her to sleep. At least until I’ve got a handle on this.”

Theo gave a half smile, shaking his head and turning his attention back to me. It was his look of pride that always gave me a fluttering in my middle, and I enjoyed a swelling of joy—the kind I get when I’ve made him proud of me. I was a little addicted to that look. It was why I strived so hard in school and rushed home to show him everything from my scores on tests to projects that I worked on. Nobody in my life had ever taken an interest in me like Theo had. I shot the vampire a look as I felt an unpleasant wave of violation. Eli was a fiend. He preyed on people, manipulated them into believing that he cared about them. That he loved them. Only so he could eat them. Lowering myself next to Abi, I pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen over her face. My beautiful, strong cousin had been reduced to a simpering pet. The anger that rushed through me threatened to overwhelm, and I took a deep breath.

“Eli, I need you to remove the Commands you’ve placed on her,” I said, my gaze slowly sliding from her to him. “Neither of us is your pet.”