Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Elias’s eyes never leave Kyle’s.
He doesn’t even seem to draw breath as he listens.
“He warned me about this a long time ago. Tristan. It was our only rule. No blood. And I’ve broken it, disrespected it, abandoned my principles. In the pawnshop, the way I attacked the gunman … I wonder if maybe I wouldn’t have lost control and done that … had I not been strengthened by blood.”
The silence at Kyle’s back tells him he just got Elias’s full attention.
Until Elias says: “You really believe all of that shit?”
Kyle turns. “What?”
“And it’s Mr. Pile of Ashes who told you this?”
“He had a name.”
“You’ve told me enough about that guy to give me an idea who he was. How about I propose a different interpretation of his so-called wisdom?” Elias comes up to Kyle’s face. “What if he was lying to you?”
Kyle parts his lips.
Then doesn’t speak.
“Amazing,” breathes Elias, studying the look in Kyle’s eyes. “You really never considered it? He had that much power over you, you never even questioned his words?”
“Of course I questioned him. All the time. I just …” Kyle throws his gaze to the floor. He thinks back, recalling all of the different conversations he had with Tristan about blood, about Them, about why he and Tristan had to survive without it.
Could Tristan have been hiding something from him?
Why does it all of a sudden seem so perfectly possible?
“Maybe he was limiting you, too,” says Elias. “Keeping you in a cage. He didn’t want you to realize your full power. Blood isn’t destroying you. It’s what you need. Your body’s telling you that, isn’t it? Your mind’s telling you. Teeth are telling you.”
Elias puts his hand on Kyle’s chest right then.
Kyle grabs his hand at once, eyes snapping to him.
“Don’t deny who you are,” finishes Elias.
The two men stare into each other’s eyes, the silence of the house taking over.
Kyle fights an instinct to defend Tristan, even now, even after everything, to insist that he’d never lie about something so fundamental about their nature, so important. If they needed blood, wouldn’t Tristan have been drinking it himself?
Then Kyle’s mind races into the past like flipping pages of a book, all the way to the cover, combing every moment they spent together. Small moments when Tristan might have been out of sight. Or went on a walk without him. Or took a trip to a neighboring town, then came back strange, different.
Energetic. Moody. Inspired. Aloof.
Could he have been drinking blood behind Kyle’s back? Seeking victims, then hiding them? Tristan was good at hiding things, after all. He was a master of stealth, a thinker, a planner.
But he was also honest, wasn’t he?
Honest in the ways that counted.
His lazy sincerity, his calmness, his misty blue eyes …
“No,” says Kyle. “He wouldn’t have lied about something like this. I know because I’ve experienced the blood taking me over. Each time I taste it, I’m less myself. I feel it, to my bones, this whole time you and I have been together. I—”
Elias takes hold of Kyle’s face right then and shuts him up with a kiss.
Kyle fights it for half a second, gives in, then finally pushes away. “Elias, stop. I’m not—”
“I don’t care if you get mad at me. I don’t care if I’m trying to compete here with a fucking century-long boner you’ve got for this stupid Tristan. That guy was lying to you. He was lying to you and holding you back. He’s not here. I am.”
Kyle shakes as he stares into Elias’s eyes.
Mom. Dad. Kaleb.
How long has it been since he’s said those names? It used to be his nightly ritual, until he lost the letter, lost the ring, and lost himself to Elias, this man whose true identity he still does not know.
But Elias doesn’t truly know Kyle, either. The truth about his family. What happened to them. If Elias knew, would he be so certain of his opinion that Kyle should drink from his veins?
Would he even stand to be in this house a second longer?
“What I did in that pawnshop … to that criminal …” Kyle swallows. “It wasn’t the first time I lost control … blacked out.”
Elias continues to hold Kyle’s face. “And?”
“I told you my younger brother died.”
Elias’s thumb strokes Kyle’s cheek, voice softening. “Yes?”
“But I didn’t tell you how.” Kyle’s every muscle tightens, to his fingertips, to his legs, even to his heart. “I’m the one … who took his life.”
Elias’s thumb stops.
His eye contact doesn’t break.
He waits for the rest.
“I lost control,” Kyle chokes out. “The day I became what I am. I blacked out. With Tristan, he was there. I … I drained them dry. Killed them all. My mother. My father. My brother. All of them. When I came to, all around me was carnage. I left my house dressed in blood, their blood. I’m a monster, Elias.”