United Mates of Morgana 1

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Vampires and werewolves have long been at war on Morgana, but

Elijah Gray has plans to change all that. His campaign to unite the

bloodsuckers with the warm-blooded beasts they have long

viewed as food is a tough sell, particularly to Tobey Lennox, a

stubborn werewolf who is dead-set against making any fanged

friends…until he realizes Elijah is his mate.

When Elijah and Tobey fall in love, they are in for a bumpy ride.

Prejudice against interspecies mating runs deep on Morgana, and

Tobey and Elijah's unorthodox romance results in Morgana's first-

ever political sex scandal. Can love overcome prejudice? And

what’s to become of Morgana if its inhabitants can’t find a way to

live—and love—in harmony?

Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Paranormal,
Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 42,867 words

BLOODSUCKER AND THE

BEAST

United Mates of Morgana 1

Ellen Ginsberg

EVERLASTING CLASSIC

MANLOVE

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Everlasting Classic ManLove

BLOODSUCKER AND THE BEAST
Copyright © 2012 by Ellen Ginsberg
E-book ISBN: 1-61926-266-5

First E-book Publication: January 2012

Cover design by Les Byerley
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BLOODSUCKER AND THE

BEAST

United Mates of Morgana 1

ELLEN GINSBERG

Chapter One

Elijah’s hands were shaking as he stepped up to the podium. They

always did before a speech. No matter how many he gave, no matter
how well each rally turned out, the time would come to open his
mouth, and he’d find it dry from nerves. This time, however, he had
particular cause to be terrified. After months of hard work, passionate
speeches, and careful planning, the United Morgana campaign had
nearly reached an end.

This might be the last speech he gave.
Elijah stared out into the arena where several hundred spectators,

representing Morgana’s three sentient

species—vampires,

planeswalkers, and the werewolves who had arrived on the plane
during the war—were gathered to listen to him speak about the future
of the plane. Some of those gathered seemed hopeful, but many of
them looked skeptical. If the vote for a United Morgana was going to
pass, he would need to convince a lot of people today.

Elijah grasped the podium to steady his hands. There, he thought,

problem solved. He could do this.

He had to do this.
He was going to do this.

Ellen Ginsberg

He took a deep breath and began.
“Citizens of Morgana, vampires, werewolves, planeswalkers,

welcome. Only a few months ago, we were fighting against each other
in a brutal war. Now we are gathered peaceably together. I consider
that progress for our plane. Still, we have a long way to go.”

Some of the audience grumbled and growled at that. A long way to

go was putting it mildly. The crowd was divided into clusters of
same-species groups. Each species kept its distance from the others,
glaring and growling and snapping at each other. With this crowd, he
might have better luck speaking bluntly.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Elijah said, smiling at the crowd

and defensively holding his hands up. “I’m a vampire. So a lot of you
pretty much hate me.”

The frank admission drew a few laughs from the audience.

Powerful vampires weren’t exactly popular on Morgana after what the
former Vampire King, Murdock, had done to the plane. Murdock was
evil incarnate, and the result of his sadistic rule was an interspecies
war that destroyed much of the plane and made its remaining
inhabitants distrustful of each other.

Elijah wanted to make Morgana a better place to live. So when the

war ended, he got to work drafting a plan that would allow vampires
to peacefully coexist with the other species. Along with a small
interspecies group, he had drafted a proposal for ensuring that
vampires could feed without hurting the other species and a set of
rights that would be guaranteed for all species on Morgana under the
new democratic government. Elijah firmly believed that his campaign
for a United Morgana was going to restore interspecies harmony and
guarantee peace on the plane.

He just had to convince the citizens of Morgana to vote for it.
“Murdock was a parasite and a monster, and he made this plane

hell for just about everyone living on it. But not all vampires are like
Murdock. We feed off the living, but we are not parasites. We have
come back from the dead, but we are not monsters. We have been

Bloodsucker and the Beast

granted the gift of an afterlife, and I intend to use it for good. To
believe that fate kept me here for a reason. To look out not only for
myself and my species, but all the species that are fated to be here on
this plane. We have the capacity to be monstrous, but we also have
the capacity to be angelic.

“Believe this about me and my people, and we will do the same

for you. You all may have been called beasts or bleeders or
bloodsuckers or fateslaves or mutts in the past, but in the weeks to
come, you have the choice to be monsters or angels. To sink to the
lowest and most derogatory nicknames you’ve been slandered with or
to show the citizens of this plane and all the supernatural realm who
you are. You are a person. You have value. You have rights, and
those rights are the same as anyone else’s on Morgana or any other
plane of existence.

“In two weeks’ time, each of our separate kingdoms will vote on

whether or not the plane will be united in a democracy. And in spite of
our differences, if this vote passes, the Bill of Rights and the Humane
Bloodletting Act will guarantee that all species on Morgana will be
free to live without fear or distrust of each other.

“We are standing in the shadow of evil, and evil is all around us. I

believe that we can overcome that evil if we stand together. Let us put
our petty differences aside and set our faith in the future. Let us make
Morgana great again.”

Elijah straightened himself from where he leaned over the

microphone. For a moment there was silence, a silence that lasted too
long for Elijah’s comfort. He held his breath as he waited.

And then the applause started.
Thank God. Elijah let out his breath in a whoosh of air as the

United Morgana staff members began snaking their way through the
arena, handing out pamphlets that explained the United Morgana
campaign and the various liberties protected by the Bill of Rights and
the Humane Bloodletting Act. The pamphlets also outlined how
vampires in the new Morgana would be expected to use blood from

Ellen Ginsberg

blood banks and nonsentient animals in order to feed without
threatening the lives or liberties of its warmblooded citizens.

Elijah glanced over to the side of the stage where Luke Sheridan,

a planeswalker who served as his right-hand man at the United
Morgana campaign office, was waiting to moderate the Q&A portion
of the event. Catching Elijah’s eye, he smiled and gave a thumbs-up.
Luke had been Elijah’s best friend since he was a kid and had been
one of the first planeswalkers to join the United Morgana campaign.
Having taken over as Elijah’s unofficial campaign manager, he
insisted on having audience members submit written questions only,
which Luke would sift through and read to Elijah aloud, provided that
Elijah had a ready answer for them. He’d explained to Elijah that this
would prevent any unpleasant surprises from happening and keep
things from getting too heated. He’d been to democratic planes
before, and he claimed that he’d seen too many scandals and too
much mudslinging to handle things any other way, but knowing Luke,
Elijah wondered if this particular system didn’t just appeal to his inner
control freak.

As the applause died down and Elijah’s shaky breathing returned

to normal, he kept his eye on Luke. A slight nod from the
planeswalker signaled he was ready to start reading the questions, but
Elijah hardly made it two steps from the podium when something in
the arena caught his attention. At the edge of the stage, a cluster of his
campaign workers were detaining someone who was trying to climb
onto the stage. It was a small someone from what Elijah could see, but
it didn’t change the fact that three big vamps were barely able to keep
his arms and legs from flailing wildly.

Whoever the little guy was, he was fighting like a son of a bitch.
Rather than striding smoothly off the stage as planned, Elijah took

a few faltering steps toward the scrappy young man scrambling to get
onstage.

“Elijah!” Luke whispered from behind him, his voice irate as hell.

It figured. Luke hated when things didn’t go according to plan.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Elijah waved a hand behind him to shut Luke up, a flippant

gesture that he guessed was only going to piss off the thin
planeswalker even more. He didn’t care, though. His attention was
fixed elsewhere.

“You can’t go around promising us rights and then failing to

deliver them!” the unruly audience member shouted. He kicked his
arms and legs wildly, thrashing in the arms of the campaign workers
who struggled to shut him up and calm him down. “How about the
right to free speech? Is that on your Bill of Rights? You can’t call this
a public forum if you’re going to censor half the questions the public
wants to hear. I’m a citizen of this plane the same as anyone else, and
I have a few questions for—”

“What kind of questions?” Elijah had hardly intended his question

to be heard by the entire arena, but he felt the weight of several
hundred eyes turn to him as he spoke the words. In his absorption in
what was going on offstage, Elijah hadn’t noticed that the applause
had died down altogether and the audience had been waiting in
silence for whatever came next.

Which, apparently, was dependent on the maniac flailing around

in front of the stage.

“Ah, ladies and gentlemen, if you’d please turn your attention

back up here, we have a procedure that will ensure that a broad
spectrum of questions will be answered in an orderly fashion.”

Luke had made an admirable attempt at regaining control of the

audience, but it was too late. The scrappy little interloper had already
broken free and was climbing up the side of the stage to meet Elijah
eye to eye, and the audience was far too engrossed in the spectacle to
turn away.

Now that he’d gotten a good look at the guy, Elijah couldn’t turn

away either. Short and slender, with scruffy brown hair framing his
boyish face, the only intimidating thing about him was the
determination in his eyes as he stormed toward Elijah, fists clenched,
shoulders squared.

Ellen Ginsberg

It was actually kind of adorable.
Elijah let his gaze linger on the little guy, long enough that he

started to feel his cock harden in his slacks and immediately had to
derail his train of thought. There was no way he was getting an
erection in front of this many spectators. He was pretty sure he’d had
nightmares about this exact situation in middle school.

Public forum, public forum, public forum. Elijah repeated the

words to himself, trying his best to will more professional thoughts
into his head while his brain reminded his dick exactly what he was
supposed to be doing here. He straightened his back and tried for eye
contact with the young were. When he succeeded in locking gazes
with the wolf, Elijah saw that he had one blue eye and one green eye.

More professional thoughts were not forthcoming.
“What’s your name?” Elijah blurted out, then remembering

himself, added, “I mean, maybe you should introduce yourself to me.
To us. All of us. Everybody. Since we’re in a public forum.”

“My name is Tobey Lennox, and I’m a werewolf. Not a beast or a

mutt or a mongrel, as you so eloquently pointed out.”

A werewolf, Elijah reminded himself, hoping that would kill the

sexual tension. It didn’t. His cock was still half-hard in his pants and
threatening to inch its way conspicuously upward with each passing
moment he spent in proximity of the young were. Fuck. Against his
better judgment, Elijah stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you,
Tobey.”

Tobey took a step back from him. “I don’t want to shake your

hand,” he said. “All I want is answers.”

Elijah stiffened at the coldness in Tobey’s voice, but he nodded.

“What are your questions?”

“You keep talking about this new future, this new government for

Morgana. And this government is supposed to be better because it’ll
be one united government for the whole plane, and we’re all going to
vote on who runs it. Is that right?”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Elijah nodded. So far, so good. “That’s right,” he said. “An

interspecies group will work out the specifics of the government and
then we’ll elect officials by popular vote.” He had a feeling, though,
that the little were was only getting started.

“You’re the one who started this United Morgana campaign, you

and a bunch of vampires. And you were in charge of working out the
Bill of Rights, and without that, we wouldn’t even be considering a
united plane. So if someone is going to help figure out what that
government is going to be, it’s obviously going to be you. And I’m
guessing that when it comes time to elect a leader, you’re going to be
a frontrunner for that, too.”

“Well, that’s a long ways off, but if I choose to run, I thank you in

advance for your support.”

“You don’t have my support. You have my attention. This plane is

almost two-thirds vampires. If a vampire takes over ruling the plane,
and vampires decide what kind of government we have, then who’s to
say you won’t just give yourselves as much power as Murdock had?”
Elijah opened his mouth to respond, but Tobey wagged a finger in his
face, continuing right on with his tirade. “And don’t tell me this Bill
of Rights, because my guess is once we aren’t voting as separate
kingdoms anymore, you and all the other vampires who got voted into
office are going to spend every waking minute figuring out how to
repeal it because, if you don’t, you’ll probably get voted out of office
by all the vampires who elected you in.”

Elijah’s mouth hung open. “Wow. You are really very articulate

and thoughtful. Those are very intelligent concerns.” Elijah was also
pretty damn certain that it was time for him to respond to those
concerns, but he didn’t have slightest idea how to go about doing that.
As a result, there was an uncomfortably long silence that followed his
remark. Out in the audience, he saw that the werewolves and
planeswalkers who had once nodded along with his speech were now
starting to grumble with apparent discontent.

Ellen Ginsberg

Tobey turned and addressed them directly. “He just spent a lot of

time telling us how he knows what Murdock did to the plane and what
happened during the war, and how he understands our pain and what
we all went through, but that we can get past it if we all work
together. You’ll notice he didn’t ever mention any specifics, probably
because he knew that if any of us stopped to think about what
Murdock did to us, we’d never trust another vampire again.

“I’ll remind you all now. Before the war, before myself or any

other werewolves arrived on Morgana, Murdock encouraged his
vampires to hunt the planeswalkers almost into extinction. When the
plane was overrun with vampires, Murdock set his sights on
tormenting the species on other planes of existence. Vampires can’t
travel to other planes without the help of planeswalkers, so Murdock
made a treaty with their ruler. He offered the planeswalkers protection
from the vampires if they agreed to kidnap werewolves from the wolf
plane and bring them back to Morgana as slaves for the vampires to
feed from.

“I was one of those wolves. I was kidnapped off my home plane

by a planeswalker and brought here to be sold to the highest bidder.
Werewolves have near-perfect immune systems, so me and my kind
were the ideal food source for the vampires. I can bleed for a long,
long time without running out of blood.

“I was brought here to serve as a living, breathing blood bank for

the vampires that bought me, but that wasn’t always enough for them.
They used me for their personal amusement, tortured me, and let their
friends drink blood from me sometimes two or three at a time.
Through all that, I knew that even if I was ever rescued, if anyone
ever freed me from that nightmare, I could never go back to my home.
Time passes slower on Morgana than on any other plane. Over two
hundred years passed on the wolf plane before I was finally freed
from my captors and allowed to return home. Only by that time, I
didn’t really know what I’d be going home to.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

“Like a lot of the werewolves who were captured before the war,

this is my home now. I don’t like living on a plane with the same
vampires who bled and tortured me, but I take comfort in the fact that
the maniac vampire who allowed his people to do this to my people is
dead. And now you’re saying you want to put another vampire in
charge of my future, and that’s going to make things better.”

Tobey’s voice was raw by the time he finished his testimony.

Elijah could understand why. He was turned too late to see the worst
of what had happened to the werewolves during the war. He’d figured
some pretty terrible things happened to the wolves who were sold to
vampire families as feeder pets, but he’d never heard the details
before. Now that he had, he felt a little sick to his stomach.

Tobey turned to Elijah directly. A moment ago, he’d been fierce

and confident, but his manner had seemed to deflate in the silence that
passed between them. “After all that I went through, after all that…”
Tobey’s impassioned torrent fizzled there, and he shrugged, now
looking more than anything like a scared kid on the verge of tears.
“How am I supposed to trust you?”

Again, Elijah remained silent. United Morgana’s official plan for

the abolition of unsolicited blood drinking involved the development
of blood banks and research into making animal blood more palatable.
Elijah could have recited the lengthy proposal word for word, but
even in his head, the words rang hollow. All that was simply a plan to
prevent future abuse, if it passed and if it was abided by. Regaining
the trust of the other species on the plane was another matter
altogether, one that Elijah hadn’t the slightest idea how to help with.
Still, in that moment, he wanted that young wolf’s trust more than
anything else in the world.

“You’re not supposed to trust him.”
The angry snarl in the voice that came from the back of the arena

had everyone turning their heads to look at who had spoken. Elijah
cringed when he saw who it was. While he and the folks at United
Morgana had spent the months since the war ended trying to work out

Ellen Ginsberg

a plan for peaceable coexistence on the plane, Cade Matthews had
been busy forming the Vamp Power movement. Vamp Power was a
group of extremist vampires who vowed to return the plane to the
glory days of Murdock’s rule, guaranteeing the vampires almost
unlimited power at the expense of everyone else’s freedom.

Seeing Cade and his army of vampire thugs—most of whom had

been turned in their late teens and seemed to have never matured past
that age—causing a ruckus was the last thing Elijah needed now.
Elijah signaled to security to move back toward where Cade and his
group had entered the arena, but he had a feeling they weren’t going
to leave quietly.

Cade directed his words at Tobey now, but his eyes, piercing blue

and narrowed to slits, were directed at Elijah. “You’re not supposed to
trust him or any other vampire, and I’m not supposed to beg you or
any other warmblood for a taste of what I need. I’m certainly not
going to go around drinking from animals like some disgusting street
urchin. I’m a vampire. You’re a warmblood. You can’t expect us to
get along because it’s unnatural. We’re all simply supposed to fight
for our survival until the best and strongest have won the battle.”

“Easy for you to say when the plane is overrun with vampires,”

Tobey shot back at Cade. “What are you going to do for food when
you’ve taken over Morgana?”

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out. We always do.”
“Like Murdock did?”
Several of Cade’s thugs were already starting to scuffle with

security, and the heated words shouted between Cade and Tobey were
beginning to rile the audience. Many of the wolves were sprouting
claws and fangs, and things could really go south in a hurry if tempers
didn’t cool down soon.

“Okay, this is why we need a Bill of Rights,” Luke said into his

handheld microphone. “If we don’t lay down some ground rules,
we’re going to find ourselves right back where we started before the
war, and I don’t think anyone wants that.”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Cade snorted. “Speak for yourself, fateslave. I was perfectly fine

with the arrangement we’d worked out.”

It was starting again. The slanderous nicknames each species had

for the others were beginning to rear their ugly heads again. Luke,
who was usually even-tempered, had balled his hands into fists and
seemed to be fighting off the urge to shout at Cade after what he’d
just been called. Although, in the grand scheme of things, fateslave
was nothing compared to how a vamp might have insulted a
planeswalker. Had Cade referred to Luke as bleeder, Elijah and his
group would have a riot on their hands.

Elijah took the microphone from Luke and spoke into it. “You

know, we really don’t endorse hate speech here, so—”

“Really?” Cade pointed to Tobey. “Fur-face over there seems to

think you endorse all kinds of free speech.”

Tobey growled at that insult so violently Elijah had to grip his

wrist to keep him still.

“Okay, well, this is a private rally, so if you have comments or

questions for us, we’d be happy to answer them afterward.”

Elijah nodded to the United Morgana workers on security detail,

and they filed back toward Cade to escort him out of the arena. Cade
jerked away from them violently, thrusting a thin, bony finger out
toward the stage, toward Tobey. “So you’ll let that tail-wagger speak,
but not one of your own kind? So typically Elijah Grey. You might
have fooled a lot of people here with your nice-guy campaign and
your pathetic speeches about saving the plane, but beyond all the
rhetoric, you’re nothing more than a self-hating vampire.”

“That is obviously untrue,” Elijah bit out.
It was completely true. Like every other vamp on Morgana, Elijah

had been a planeswalker before he was turned. His conversion had
happened during the war, only five months ago. One minute he was
helping in the rebellion against Murdock and fighting against the
vampires, and the next minute he was a vampire. His world had been

Ellen Ginsberg

turned upside down when he’d been converted, and getting used to
that hadn’t been easy. In fact, it had completely and utterly sucked.

No pun intended.
Tobey scowled across the arena at Cade with as much grit and

bravado as his small frame seemed able to muster. The sight would
have made Elijah smile if he wasn’t so worried about the fight that
seemed seconds away from erupting. “Don’t call me fur-face,” Tobey
shouted, narrowing his eyes at Cade. “Bloodsucker.”

Fuck. That settled it. Elijah tugged at Tobey’s hand, holding on

tighter than he’d like once the wolf started struggling against his
touch. He leaned in to him and lowered his voice. “Really gotta
caution you against using that word if you want to keep things civil
here.”

But it was already too late. It seemed that every vampire present

had heard the taunt and reacted. Before Elijah could do any damage
control, the entire arena had exploded into claws and fangs and fur.
The growls of weres, the hisses of vamps, and the shouts of the
planeswalkers echoed through the arena as the once-harmonious
crowd deteriorated into the scene of a riot.

Not waiting to get caught in the center of the fray, Elijah darted

sideways off the stage toward the edge of the arena, where many
nervous spectators were already heading for the exits. His hand was
still wrapped tightly around Tobey’s as he made his move, and he
jerked the smaller man along with him for a moment. The growls and
snarls and snaps of violence began to echo around them, and although
Elijah meant to release his unintentional captive, he instead found his
hand closed protectively around Tobey’s. A bloodcurdling scream
echoed from behind them, and Elijah tugged harder, pulling Tobey
away from the action even as the noise of battle caused his claws to
burst free from his fingertips.

“Ouch!” Tobey yelped, wrenching his hand away.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Elijah’s eyes widened as Tobey rubbed one hand with the other

until they were both smeared with blood. Immediately, Elijah glanced
down at his claws to where five tiny drops of blood lay glistening.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, glancing down at where his claws had

bit into Tobey’s skin. Even as he apologized, every cell inside of him
yearned to close the space between them and suck at the tiny, perfect
holes that dotted the back of Tobey’s hand. Elijah tried so hard to
keep a safe distance from Tobey, but that was about all the restraint
he could muster. His fangs had popped out, his claws were clicking
against each other, and his eyes, probably yellow as hell by now, were
fixed and unmoving on those tiny drops of blood, even as Tobey’s
wolfen immune system worked to close the wounds.

As soon as Tobey’s eyes met with the undoubtedly predatory look

in Elijah’s, Tobey shifted, sprouting fur and fangs and claws of his
own and landing in the dirt on four paws. He bared his teeth at Elijah,
his scruffy ears pressed flat against his head, his skinny legs splayed
out in front of him. His tail—or the small stump of a tail he had—
stuck straight out behind him, completing the unmistakable gesture of
aggression, but all Elijah could feel at the sight was a sudden and
heartbreaking guilt.

“Tobey, come on,” called a stern and familiar voice.
Elijah looked up to see Mitchell Craven snapping his fingers at the

smaller wolf. The wolf turned and cocked its head and finally trotted
away from him, giving Elijah a final, suspicious backward glance as
he did.

He watched Mitchell and the little wolf join the rest of the Craven

clan, waiting until they disappeared out of one of the exits to turn his
attentions back to the tiny drops of red dotting his fingertips. His
claws had retracted when Tobey left his sights, but his fangs were still
cutting his gums, itching for a taste of those drops. Knowing what he
did about what happened to Tobey during the war, the desire to lap
them up made him sick. Elijah hated the thought that Tobey probably
thought him no better than the bloodsuckers who had tortured and fed

Ellen Ginsberg

from him during the war. Still, he could not ignore the feel of fresh,
warm blood sliding between his fingertips as he rubbed them together
or the scent of it, richer and more mouthwatering than any he’d
smelled since he’d been turned.

He gave in and sucked the digits into his mouth, hating himself for

the gesture.

Elijah’s heart hadn’t beat for a full five months, but as he tasted

the blood he’d drawn from Tobey, he could swear he felt it clench,
felt it pulse with something resembling the life he used to know.

He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth to savor its flavor,

wanting to preserve the feeling it gave him, of warmth and sweetness
and being once again so very alive, for as long as possible.

Then it receded, and he felt the stillness of his heart and the

coldness of his body as keenly as he ever had before.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Chapter Two

Under the dim lights of the bar, Tobey closed one eye, then

squinted it, then opened both eyes and blatantly stared. Nope, nothing
worked. No matter how much time passed, he couldn’t get over it.
Mitchell Craven, his best friend growing up and the werewolf who
he’d consequently spent most of his adolescence half in love with,
now had three grown sons and basically looked like Tobey’s dad.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.” Tobey shook his head. “You

used to be this scary warrior wolf. Now you look like that guy from
the Earth plane.” Tobey furrowed his brow in concentration. “You
know, the one with all the puppets. And the sweaters.”

“Mr. Rogers?”
Tobey snapped his fingers. “That’s the one.”
Tobey grinned, even as his friend rolled his eyes at him. All in all,

he was pretty proud of the Earth plane references he’d gleamed from
the Internet and heard firsthand from Mitchell after he returned from
the Earth plane.

Mitchell and his mate, the planeswalker Adrianna Craven, had

only just returned from their trip to the Earth plane, where they had
been hiding out as refugees since the war began. The interspecies
couple had pretty much singlehandedly started the revolution against
Murdock’s reign of terror and kicked off the interspecies war on
Morgana. Unfortunately, since time moved faster on the Earth plane,
the months they had spent away from Morgana translated to thirty-
one years of being stranded on a plane with almost no other shifters
and where, unlike on Morgana, most people were apparently
heterosexual.

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It was really just too weird for words. Tobey eyed his friend, who,

unlike most men in the supernatural realm, had preferred women for
as long as Tobey had known him. Now that he’d spent time away
from Morgana, Tobey wondered if Mitchell had been more
comfortable on a plane where other guys didn’t give him hell about
liking girl parts. “So…when you were on the Earth plane, did you
have like…bros?”

Mitchell raised an eyebrow at Tobey. “Bros?”
Tobey furrowed his brow in thought. He thought he had that word

right. “Yeah, you know, like…guys you like watch sports with and
talk about boobies or whatever.”

That drew a smirk from his friend. “Really, Tobey? Boobies?”
“Or whatever you call them!”
Rolling his eyes, Mitchell chucked a pretzel from a nearby bowl at

his friend. Laughing, Tobey dodged the salty assault. “Okay, okay!
Jeez, sorry.”

“If you’re asking because you’re jealous, I assure you your

position as best friend is thoroughly secure. I had very few friends on
the Earth plane, and all of them were totally lame.”

Tobey’s eyes rounded. “Humans can’t walk?” That was certainly

news to Tobey, but when he saw his friend sighing and shaking his
head, he caught his meaning. “Oh, right. Earth plane lingo. Got it.”

As both men sipped their beers in comfortable silence, Tobey

glanced around the bar. Sticks ’n Stones was a bit of an anomaly in
planeswalker territory. Unlike the vamps, who had no use for
farmland and had developed their territory into a sprawling
metropolis, the planeswalkers were naturally more agrarian. Their
creature comforts were limited to a few sparse pubs and general
stores. Things were certainly more developed back on the werewolf
plane where Tobey and Mitchell had grown up, but this had its merits,
too, Tobey supposed.

“Well, I’m glad you’re back,” Tobey said, then, realizing that

neither of them would be on Morgana to begin with had it not been

Bloodsucker and the Beast

for the war, he corrected himself. “Glad you’re here, I guess.
Especially after last year...”

Tobey stopped short, realizing the heavy turn the conversation

was about to take. He shrugged, busying himself with his drink. With
his hulking frame and intimidating strength, Mitchell had made it his
business to keep his best friend safe for the first twenty-four years of
their lives.

He just hadn’t been there for the twenty-fifth.
“I’m glad I’m here, too,” Mitchell said meaningfully.
Tobey sighed. “So…you’re seriously going to vote for that

asshole Elijah Grey?”

Mitchell rolled his eyes. “I’m voting for a united plane, not Elijah.

And for the record, he isn’t an asshole.”

Tobey sighed. It wasn’t the first time they’d been over this. Ever

since Mitchell returned to the Earth plane and heard about Elijah’s
campaign, he’d insisted that Tobey check out the United Morgana
rallies. Supposedly Elijah had done a lot during the revolution to help
Mitchell and Adrianna organize the warriors on the wolf plane and
bring them back to Morgana to fight Murdock. That was when Elijah
was a planeswalker, however. He had been turned by the vamps
during the war, and it was anyone’s guess where his allegiances were
now, no matter how sincere he seemed…or how charming and
attractive he was.

“Yeah, I remember you telling me that. And I remember telling

you all vampires are assholes. In fact, I think I told you that two
months ago, right before your son-in-law refused to claim the
werewolf throne and lead the werewolves like he was supposed to.”

Mitchell smiled. “He did lead the werewolves. He said that we’d

be more than happy to vote as a kingdom on whether we wanted a
United Morgana. You just don’t like what he’s leading us toward.”

“Yeah, a big peace-loving democracy with a bunch of

bloodsuckers who want to eat us for dinner. Sounds great,” Tobey
grumbled. “You know, you used to agree with me on this.”

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“And I used to be a headstrong twentysomething bachelor with no

family to support and a future mate to impress. I’m not the same guy I
was back then. I’m older now, and I just want to settle down and put
the war behind me.”

“Easy for you to do when you weren’t here for the worst of it.”
Tobey winced at the harshness that had crept into his tone and

what he’d just blurted out. When the war had broken out, part of the
reason Mitchell and Adrianna had fled to the Earth plane was because
Adrianna had recently discovered she was pregnant and they wanted
to ensure their baby’s safety. Tobey didn’t want his friend thinking
that he held it against Mitchell for protecting his family, especially
given the not-so-secret feelings he’d had for Mitchell before he was
mated.

“I’m sorry,” Tobey began. “That came out—”
“It’s okay. I know what happened to you during the war. Just

don’t go writing off an entire species because of it. Certainly not
Elijah Grey.”

Tobey cocked an eyebrow at Mitchell. “Why are you so adamant

about this guy?”

Mitchell smirked. “I don’t know. Maybe because I saw him

flirting with you onstage in the arena.”

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. That was a public

forum. All he did was answer my questions, and he didn’t even do a
very good job of that. He certainly wasn’t flirting with me.” Tobey
glared at Mitchell. “Was he?”

Mitchell didn’t say anything, but Tobey doubted he would have

listened to his friend if he had. He was too busy remembering the
protective way Elijah had grabbed his wrist when the riot broke out at
the arena. And the way his claws had pierced his wrists afterward,
Tobey reminded himself, feeling his stomach flip-flop. It was strange
the way that had been happening all day. Mitchell used to be the only
one who did that to him.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Staring at his friend now, Tobey realized that Mitchell was right.

Things were different now, not only for Mitchell, but between the two
of them. Tobey wasn’t the same guy who used to follow Mitchell
around, and Mitchell wasn’t the same headstrong warrior he’d had
such a crush on. Not only was Mitchell older—a lot older, actually—
but he had Adrianna. He had his sons, too, and all three of the Craven
boys had mates as well.

Suddenly, Tobey felt very alone.
Mitchell must have seen that in his expression because he laid a

sympathetic hand on Tobey’s shoulder. “Everything okay?”

Tobey sighed. He didn’t want Mitchell’s sympathy anymore, or

his pity. He’d always been small and had always had a penchant for
getting into trouble. Mitchell had come to his rescue more times than
he cared to count, but Tobey didn’t want to make things difficult for
his friend or stand in his shadow anymore. Mitchell had his own
family to take care of, and Tobey needed to be his own person.

“Yeah,” he said, sliding off the barstool. “I think I’m going to

head home, though.”

“Want me to walk you?”
Tobey shook his head. “I’ll be fine by myself.”
Mitchell looked at him with guarded eyes but nodded his

agreement all the same. “Okay.”

Smiling bravely at his friend, Tobey slipped out the door and

started out toward the Dead Zone, the place he’d been staying since
the war ended. It wasn’t exactly the safest part of the Fatelands, being
much too close to vampire territory to really be safe. The war might
be over, but there were still vamps who lingered at the borders of the
territory, looking for a vein to suck. After what had happened to him
during the war, he sure as hell wouldn’t offer his, but he doubted
anyone he’d encounter lingering in the war-ravaged and poorly tended
fringes of the Fatelands would understand that if they caught him
wandering there alone at night. Tobey could take on one or two

Ellen Ginsberg

vampires, but if they ganged up on him, he would be hard-pressed to
defend himself.

It was stupid of him to walk alone, but he did it anyway, step after

loud, echoing step, past the small, lit-up town square and into the dark
outskirts of planeswalker territory. He was alone, and he was
defenseless, and he didn’t know who—or what—those footsteps were
calling to.

He only knew what he was leaving behind, and that the time had

come for him to walk away from it.

* * * *

Elijah stood on the outskirts of the Fatelands and stared at the

place that, until five months ago, had been his home. A lot had
changed since then. Five months ago, he’d been a planeswalker. He’d
been able to traverse to other planes through the planesgates in Trinity
Green, the sacred forest that lined the Fatelands. He’d been able to
share dreams with his friends and family. He’d been able to feel the
call of fate, guiding him in his every decision.

He didn’t know what dark desires or impulses guided him now.
He took a closer look at the sight ahead of him. The war had

changed the landscape. A lot of the small residential buildings on the
edge of the Fatelands had gotten destroyed in the war, and now the
area where he’d grown up was nearly unrecognizable. Not that it had
been much to look at in the years before the war. The lush fields and
royal farmlands were nestled safe on the other side of the territory,
where the vamps couldn’t easily plunder them. Even the lower classes
of planeswalkers that tended those lands were better off than Elijah’s
family had been. Those families who didn’t even have a field to
sharecrop were forced to reside in the poorly built shacks and
tenement houses on the edges of the territory, where they could find
some other way to turn a profit.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Several planeswalkers were clustered under the single streetlight

that lit up the alley between two of the tenements, or rather, between
the remains of them. Scattered lights still shone from some of the
windows in one of the buildings. The other was little more than a
crumbling cluster of bricks. The young, taut forms of the
planeswalkers’ bodies stretched out on display under the streetlights.
They left their necks and wrists and the crooks of their elbows bare,
plainly showing the spaces on their pale skin where the veins criss-
crossed underneath, where warm blood flowed for the taking.

At least, for anyone who could afford it.
Elijah sighed. Bloodpeddling was exactly the sort of thing he

hoped to put a stop to with the Humane Bloodletting Act. It wasn’t
that he was opposed to planeswalkers allowing vamps to feed from
them or even selling their blood, but the current means of doing so
were dangerous. A lot of the vampires were overly rough with the
bloodpeddlers, and the Dead Zone was notorious for the violent acts
that often transpired there. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot he
could do about the situation unless the United Morgana vote passed.

A group of young vamp thugs strolled over to the spotlight,

leering at the young planeswalkers, imploring them to plump their
veins and show off any clean patches on their skin where they hadn’t
been bit a dozen times before. Quickly Elijah turned away from the
sight, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and quickening his steps
back toward the Bloodlands.

Then he heard a voice call behind him.
“Hey, bloodsucker!” Elijah kept walking, but the footsteps

followed after him. “I saw you at the rally, you know. I know who
you are.”

Elijah stopped, sighed, and turned around. “Yes. Hi. Nice to meet

you.” He blinked at the young vamp ahead of him. Judging by the
tone of voice and the way he’d called Elijah bloodsucker, he’d
expected an irate were or maybe just a masochistic planeswalker
looking to make a bloodsale. Instead, it was a young vamp in front of

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Elijah with close-cropped platinum hair. He must have broken off
from the group of hoodlums harassing the planeswalkers, Elijah
thought. Swallowing down his distaste, he diplomatically stuck out
his hand to shake. “Elijah Grey,” he said with some trepidation.

The vamp smirked at the polite gesture, making no move to return

it. “I know.” The kid couldn’t have been more than seventeen or
eighteen when he’d been turned, small enough for Elijah to slam on
the ground and subdue with just the tips of his fangs. If he was
intimidated, however, he didn’t show it. In fact, the way the smaller
vamp was sizing up Elijah suggested he had a death wish of some
kind.

After a long moment, Elijah withdrew his hand. “Yeah, all right.

Thanks for your support.”

“Just out for a walk, then?”
Do you have a problem, kid? Elijah wanted to ask, but instead he

choked down his anger and put on his most diplomatic expression. Or
at least, diplomatic enough. There might have been just a touch of
irritation in the gaze he turned on the little vamp punk.

“Yeah, I’m out for a walk. It’s a nice night.”
“Not really anywhere to walk over here though.” He leaned into

Elijah, and he could tell from the smell that the kid had been drinking.
Beer, not blood. It might not make him any stronger, but it would sure
as hell make him stupid. He touched the back of a hand to Elijah’s
lapel confidentially. “I mean, between you and me? Fangs like us only
really come out here for like one reason. You know what I mean?”

Elijah stared off into the distance where the other three vamps in

his gang had started taunting the planeswalkers, pushing them until
they were fumbling in their pockets for the tiny spray bottles of holy
water the smaller of the species carried for protection. Only then did
they back off, snapping and hissing and clicking their fangs as the
planeswalkers retreated into the building, leaving the vamps pissed
off. And hungry.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

“I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” Elijah said, as

calmly as he could. Given the rather public stance he’d taken against
bloodpeddling, he didn’t like what the kid was insinuating. He
certainly wasn’t here to buy a vein. Elijah turned away from him, and
his eyes flitted again to the area under the streetlight, where another
shadowy figure was cutting a fast pace toward the tenement. A wolf,
he thought. A young one. He’d have to walk right past the vamps to
get into the building.

“Sure about that?”
The voice pulled Elijah’s attention away from the scene, and he

turned back to the brat who was trying to stare him down. He was
rapidly losing his perpetually cool temper. “What do you want from
me, kid?”

“Fuck you. My name’s not kid.”
“Well, then, what is it?”
“Marshall.”
Elijah studied the kid’s piercing blue eyes and the way they kept

shifting uncomfortably around. He looked nervous as hell as he pulled
his gray hooded sweatshirt further over his head. “Marshall what?”

“Marshall Go-Fuck-Yourself. I already told you enough.”
The words were plain enough, but he was the one who’d

approached Elijah in the first place. And he certainly wasn’t making
any move to rejoin his sociopathic peer group. Elijah stared hard at
the kid, lowering his voice. “Do you really want to be here, Marshall?
With those assholes?”

“I’m not with them,” Marshall replied. The defiant look in his pale

blue eyes seemed to momentarily give way to one of hurt and
defensiveness, but before Elijah could press the issue, he heard a long,
tortured howl rise up out of the silence of night. Both he and Marshall
jerked their heads around to see the commotion.

The three vamp hoodlums had left the irate planeswalkers and

turned their attentions to the wolf trying to snap and snarl its way past
them into the tenement. The vamps weren’t about to let him. Two of

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them had caught the little wolf around the waist and were trying to
hold him down for the third. He kept squirming and scratching away,
but his small jaws weren’t nearly intimidating enough to keep them
from trying. One of them caught him by the tail to pull him back, and
he howled again.

When the vamp let go, Elijah saw the stump of a tail his closed

hand had concealed, and he recognized the wolf as the one he’d seen
at the rally earlier. Tobey.

“What the fuck is wrong with your friends?” Elijah asked the

trembling kid standing next to him.

“I—” He looked almost ill as he turned back to the group of

vamps snapping their fangs at the wolf. “I have to go.”

Like a shot, he took off, heading for the darkened shadows of a

nearby alley. Elijah didn’t plan on watching any more of the display
either. Five minutes ago, he’d cursed himself for following his feet
out here, worried at what exactly it meant to let the dark forces inside
him guide his movements. Back when he’d been a planeswalker, it
had meant surrendering himself to the pull of fate, but for all his
political rhetoric, he’d truly believed he lost that the day his heart
stopped and he sprouted fangs.

Fate guided him now, or at least, something like it. Whatever it

was, it lit a fire inside him as he crossed the boundary to the Fatelands
and made his way into the courtyard where the wolf was being held
against his will. He’d heard Tobey talk in the arena about what had
happened to him during the war, how he was, over and over, held
down and bled out by the vamps that kept him as a feeder pet, and
Elijah didn’t think he could take it if he had to see the wolf go through
that pain again. Before he could stop himself, Elijah had descended on
the assailants. His body sprouted claws and fangs as he pushed one of
the assailants hard against the concrete post of the streetlight,
wrapping one strong hand around his neck in a gesture of
unmistakable vengeance.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

“What the fuck, man?” The thug squirmed underneath him, his

back edging against the post, his face a mask of discomfort as he tried
to free himself. Elijah tightened his grip as the thug’s open mouth
gaped uselessly.

However old the vamp was, his face and body were young, and

Elijah felt a moment’s hesitation before causing him any harm. He
didn’t want to hurt the kids, only scare them and keep them from
hurting Tobey.

“Get the fuck off him!” came a voice from behind him.
“Yeah, leave him alone,” called another. “We were just fucking

around.”

From the tones of their voices, Elijah could tell they were

frightened. Maybe they were even telling the truth. He turned to look
at them and saw that none of the kids had shifted into their beastly
forms. Claws and fangs and bold yellow eyes hadn’t come into the
picture yet because they hadn’t really intended to do any damage.
They were all talk. Elijah wasn’t. And to them, he must have looked
damn scary.

Just behind them, Elijah saw that Tobey was using the distraction

to back slowly away from the punks, into the shadows, but they were
still closer to Tobey than Elijah would have liked. He bared his fangs
at them, and they backed away from him, hands held up in a defensive
posture.

“Okay, you’ve made your point, tough guy. God, just let me go,”

eked out the vamp whose throat Elijah was still clutching.

Eyeing the hoodlums who were still backing away and

determining the threat was over, Elijah released the vamp, and he fell
forward, hands hitting knees as he coughed and sputtered. “God
himself will not be able to help you if you do not turn around and go
home.” He growled, low and deep and dark. “Now.”

He left the vampire wheezing as he turned his attention back to

Tobey. Elijah felt his gums and fingers smarting as his claws and
fangs receded. He had never used his beastly body to attack before,

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and the energy and excitement of the gesture had set every cell in his
body on alert. His skin tingled, his muscles tightened, and his cock
had stiffened into a painful erection.

And unlike his claws and fangs, it wasn’t going away.
Willing himself to calm down, he peered into the shadows ahead

of him, trying to catch a glimpse of the wolf he’d rescued. He could
see Tobey’s eyes now, pale yellow instead of the blue and green they
were in his human form. Tobey stared back at Elijah with a
frightening intensity, but the look in his eyes wasn’t one of gratitude
or even embarrassment from the way he’d been rescued. It was
something else altogether, something that resonated deep inside
Elijah, in that near-forgotten pocket of his soul that still waited
patiently to hear the call of fate.

Wanting to follow that call, he took a step toward him, but the

sound of a scuffle at his back gave him pause.

“Fuck you, man,” ground out a voice from behind Elijah. As he

turned, he saw the gnarled face of the punk he’d threatened and felt
the sharp points of his claws as the young vamp ran at him in attack,
jumping on his back, fingers clawing and fangs snapping wildly.

Elijah stumbled backward toward the light post, trying to throw

the vamp off, but the vamp was so furious he didn’t seem to know
what he was doing. In his full vampiric form, Elijah would have
easily been able to handle the kid, but having shifted back, he felt his
skin easily tear as his arms and chest and throat were clawed at.

The terrified shouts of the kid’s friends echoed in the night as a

particularly deep scratch landed on Elijah’s neck and blood rushed out
of it. The kid, too, seemed surprised by the rapidity with which Elijah
seemed to be bleeding, and he backed away as Elijah gasped for air
and reached for his throat to cover the wound.

Distantly, Elijah saw the kid’s fangs and claws recede, his eyes

wide as he backed away from Elijah.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh, shit…” the kid muttered, glancing back

helplessly toward where his friends were already taking off into the
night.

Leaning against the light post to support himself, Elijah clasped at

his wounded throat. The scratches and cuts all over his chest and arms
stung, but the pain that radiated from that deep gouge in his throat
was unreal. It had all happened so fast he had hardly been able to
process it at first. Now the whole of the attack came back to him in a
haze of jumbled images, all of them laced with the dull, throbbing
pain that was so great it seemed capable of consuming Elijah
altogether.

Elijah caught one of those images and held it in his mind as best

he could, the best defense he could muster against the insufferable
pain he felt. He remembered Tobey’s eyes, and the look he’d given
Elijah as he walked toward him, only seconds before Elijah was
attacked. He didn’t regret saving Tobey. In that instant, with those
eyes staring at him, Elijah would have died for the little wolf if he’d
had to, for he knew that look and the promise it held.

It was saying very clearly, I am yours.

Ellen Ginsberg

Chapter Three

Tobey’s wolf had already healed the scratches and cuts he’d

gotten from his tussle with the vampires, but he couldn’t say the same
for Elijah. His body collapsed against the light post, knees buckling
under him as blood seeped out of the wounds at his chest and arm and
neck, slower than it would with a working heartbeat but pooling
underneath him all the same.

There was blood everywhere.
The neck wound was deepest. Tobey remembered how the

younger vamp had clawed at him recklessly and cut him so deep he
seemed to hit an artery. Elijah clutched at his throat uselessly, but the
blood kept flowing. The claws and fangs that had sprouted when he
came to Tobey’s rescue had retracted, and Elijah’s yellow eyes had
faded to the pale blue he’d seen in the arena that day. How am I
supposed to trust you? Tobey had asked then. He knew the answer
now. He’d been saved before, had been rescued and revived and
recovered by Mitchell more times than he could count. He’d been
pulled into strong arms and guided away from danger and had his
hand held while he was returned to a safe place.

But the pitying look Mitchell had given him each time it happened

was nothing like the look Elijah gave him before he closed his eyes.
As if he didn’t mind dying for Tobey.

Tobey wasn’t willing to let that happen.
Tobey shifted as he crossed the distance between them, heedless

of his now-nude human form. Elijah might be a vampire, but he’d
saved Tobey’s life. Thoughts of what it would take to save Elijah’s
life played in Tobey’s mind as he knelt in front of Elijah. Tobey

Bloodsucker and the Beast

would have to let the vampire drink from him in order to heal. The
mere thought of being fed from again nearly gave him a panic attack
this morning, but Tobey hardly gave it a second thought now. If it
hurt, he’d allow it. He would do what he had to in order to save the
man who’d saved him.

He placed a hand under Elijah’s chin to prompt him to open his

eyes, to see the way Tobey was stretching out his neck for him to
access it. Elijah opened his eyes and looked. His expression was
pained, but he shook his head no.

“Please,” Tobey said. He wrapped his hand around the back of

Elijah’s neck to pull him closer, until his lips grazed the tender skin of
his throat. Elijah’s left hand was still closed over his own throat, but
his right drifted down to Tobey’s thigh, running a length up his naked
form, caressing his hip and the side of his stomach. Tobey’s heart
thudded in his chest, and he became aware of the way it made the skin
pulse under his neck, so close to that spot where Elijah’s lips trembled
above his skin.

Elijah’s eyes were yellow now, and his fangs elongated into sharp,

white points. Tobey had been drained before, had been bled out and
sucked at more times than he cared to remember. The raw violence of
the act, the intimacy in being fed from, had an undeniably sexual
element to it, but it had always embarrassed him before. In the past,
he’d pushed it to the edges of his mind and fought against the fangs
that bit into him, even if the struggle made the act hurt worse.

He didn’t fight against it now. Elijah’s hand drifted up under his

chin, and his fingers lay delicately over his throat, and Tobey gave in
to the touch, feeling his cock harden underneath him.

When Elijah’s sharp teeth pierced his throat, Tobey had to bite his

tongue to keep from coming. In the past, when he’d been bled, the
pain had been overwhelming, but this was nothing like it had been in
the past. There was pain, yes, especially with the initial bite, but that
raw, animal act had also awakened something else inside Tobey. He

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didn’t want to pull away from the aching pressure in his throat where
skin met teeth. He wanted to push against and dissolve inside of it.

“Oh, God!” he moaned as Elijah’s fingers pressed against the

underside of his chin, the sharp points of his claws like tiny, electric
pinpricks on his skin. Elijah kept his hand still as he sucked the blood
from his throat, but Tobey couldn’t exercise the same discipline on
his own hands. He pawed at Elijah’s thighs and chest and stomach,
and he felt that Elijah’s body was muscled and his cock was hard
under his clothes. He wanted to rip them off the smooth, tight planes
of Elijah’s skin.

When he closed his hand tight around the hard cock straining the

crotch of Elijah’s pants, a hand closed around Tobey’s bicep. It
squeezed him tightly for a moment before pushing him away. Tobey’s
whole body felt the loss of Elijah’s teeth in his neck, of his tongue
against his skin and his fingers on his throat.

“You taste good,” Elijah said. “Oh, God, you taste fantastic.”
Tobey’s movements mirrored Elijah’s, heaving with big, gasping

breaths. His hand fumbled for the closing wounds in his body. There
was still blood there, and his fingers slid across it. He leaned over and
pressed them to Elijah’s mouth, but Elijah reached up his hand to
push them away, eyes closed, gasping for air.

Tobey looked at him, hurt. “You don’t want to?”
“No, I want to.” Elijah opened his eyes and stared at him. His eyes

were no longer their predatory yellow, but he looked like he might
pass out from the effort it had taken to push Tobey’s fingers away.
Elijah’s blue eyes roamed over Tobey’s slick neck and red-tipped
fingers before he shut them again, licking the last smudges of blood
from his lips. “Believe me, I want to.”

“I don’t mind,” Tobey said, staring at Elijah’s red, plump lips. His

face was no longer as pale and wan as it was before. His skin almost
glowed, and he saw how completely the deep gashes on his neck had
healed. It was clear he didn’t need any more of Tobey’s blood to
recover, but Tobey wasn’t thinking of his recovery anymore. He was

Bloodsucker and the Beast

thinking of the way Elijah’s stiff dick had felt in his hand as Elijah
sucked at his neck. “I liked it,” Tobey added.

Elijah’s hand met Tobey’s on the pavement below him, and it

wandered up his arm until Elijah’s thumb caressed the crook of his
elbow. The action pulled Tobey closer, until he was almost crouching
in the lap of the bigger man.

Elijah was so close now Tobey could smell him. Tobey had been

too overwhelmed when Elijah fed to notice, but the scent washed over
Tobey now, and he inhaled deeply. At first it was all cologne and hair
gel, soap and shampoo, but below that, he could smell something else,
a heady, masculine something that made him dizzy.

Mate, called a voice inside his head, mate. It shouted very clearly

at Tobey, and every muscle in his body clenched in response to it.
Tobey remembered what happened the last time a vamp got this close
to bleeding him, and it made the word hurt as it pounded in his head.
Mate. He closed his eyes and only heard it louder, felt it stronger.

Tobey looked at Elijah, at the way his fangs pushed out of his

mouth as he rubbed his thumb across the crook of his elbow. Mate, he
heard again, but that was impossible. Elijah was a vampire.

Elijah’s hand tightened around Tobey’s arm, and that, too, sent a

thrill through him. He nuzzled his head against Elijah’s, and a hand
closed around his naked thigh. Tobey turned his head to lick the side
of Elijah’s face, and that hand wandered closer to his cock. Both men
growled.

“I can’t control myself around you,” Elijah said. He nearly

moaned the words as Tobey pressed against him. His mouth found the
spot on Tobey’s neck that was still dotted with blood from the
feeding. His tongue pressed against it, and Tobey closed his eyes,
relishing the sensation as Elijah lapped the sensitive new skin that had
closed over the wound.

“Me neither,” Tobey agreed. It was true. Aside from a few short-

lived relationships he’d reluctantly attempted to get over Mitchell, his
sex life was utterly nonexistent. He’d never had a one-night stand

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before, and he’d never fucked anyone without a long, awkward
courtship, but the need he felt now was so overpowering he didn’t
know what he was capable of. With the way Elijah’s tongue was
lapping at his neck and his hand was inching closer to Tobey’s
intensely naked cock, he was ready to unzip the vampire’s pants and
suck him off in the middle of the street.

As if on cue, a catcall erupted from the nearby tenement house

where Tobey lived, drawing both men’s attention. A jeer followed it,
shouted through an open window. “Get a room, bloodpeddler!”

Elijah laughed, and Tobey felt him smiling against the skin of his

neck. He laughed, and his grip on Elijah relaxed, but the moment’s
relief did nothing to diminish the crazy tension that was growing
between them.

“You wanna invite me in?” Elijah murmured, his breath warm on

his skin. Tobey felt a chill down his spine at the words. He didn’t
need to ask. Obtaining an invitation inside a warmblood’s house was
more a custom than a necessity for Morgana vampires, but it meant
something all the same. It meant whoever was doing the inviting was
aware of the risks involved and paid no mind to them. It meant
whoever was invited in was welcome back again. Anytime he wanted
to return.

Having licked the remainder of the blood off Tobey’s throat,

Elijah pressed a kiss to the skin there. Tobey knew the risks, but with
all the crazy, heady thoughts swimming in his head, he couldn’t bring
himself to give a damn.

“Okay,” he said quietly. He felt a sudden pang of worry as he

considered the one-room apartment he’d been living in since the war
ended. “It’s not much, but—”

“I don’t care,” Elijah said. His blue eyes wandered over Tobey’s

naked body, and his grin widened in a way that seemed almost
wolfish in the light of the full moon. “All I need’s a bed.”

* * * *

Bloodsucker and the Beast

“Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh, fuck.”
Doubled completely over as he was, Marshall irregularly panted

out expletives until his breaths became steady again. Lifting his hands
tentatively from his knees, he stood on wobbly legs.

Then he promptly threw up all over the pavement.
Goddamn it, he was such a pussy.
For once, once, his brother, Keegan, had finally let him go out

with him and his friends. He’d been excited as hell, even if they
teased him the whole way over to the Dead Zone. Had he known that
was where they were going, he never would have asked to go along,
but there was no way he could back out once that bomb dropped.
They’d totally figure him out, and he’d be even more of a joke than he
already was.

And then everyone would have a good laugh at the dumbass little

vampire who couldn’t stand the sight of blood.

It was pathetic. He’d go hungry without it, but just the idea of the

warm, sticky stuff made him want to either throw up or pass out.
Usually both. Keegan had sure as hell seen him do that enough times
to realize what an unbelievable wuss he was, especially next to
Keegan and his friends. They were total badasses, practically the
right-hand men of Cade Matthews, the leader of the Vamp Power
movement. It would take a fucking miracle to impress them.

Luckily for Marshall, a miracle had just fallen into his lap.
His hand closed around the cool, smooth plastic in his pocket, and

he withdrew his cell phone. He flipped to the photo he’d taken of
Elijah and that skinny wolf he was bleeding and stared at it. His face
puckered in disgust as he eyed the picture he’d taken. Granted a
picture of it didn’t make him puke the way the real thing had, but
still…

Before he got too much of an eyeful, he squeezed his eyes shut.

He could think better that way, and he had a lot to think about. Cade
had been talking about what a hypocrite Elijah was ever since he

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started his whole stupid United Morgana thing. For months now,
Marshall had heard the same thing from Cade and Keegan and all of
the rest of the guys involved with Vamp Power. Elijah was a
hypocrite, and a fangophobe. He might talk a good game about being
friends with the weres and planeswalkers, but no way could vampires
and warmbloods all live together on one big, happy plane. Vampires
were scary, powerful, blood-drinking predators, and fur-faces and
fatefuckers were their prey. It wasn’t anything to be ashamed of.

Or grossed out by.
Opening his eyes tentatively, he managed another glimpse of the

picture before looking away. It was still so fucking weird to see Elijah
Grey going all Dracula like that. Sure, he’d been creeping around the
Dead Zone, but he didn’t seem like he was waiting around to buy a
vein when he’d talked to Marshall. In fact, when Marshall saw
Keegan later, all scared and claiming that Elijah had tried to kill him,
he had to go check things out for himself. Boy, did he ever get an
eyeful. After telling hundreds of vamps they should feel bad for
bleeding warmbloods, that it should even be illegal to suck someone
who didn’t want to be sucked, there was Elijah, the big proponent of
humane bloodletting, sucking at that skinny wolf’s neck like his life
depended on it.

And Marshall had caught it on camera.
Breathing deeply in and out, Marshall forced himself to take one

final look at the picture of Elijah, fangs splayed, hands wandering the
body of the naked warmblood as he sunk his fangs deep into his neck.
Ugh. Schooling his eyes away from that part of the photograph,
Marshall covered Elijah’s mouth and the wolf’s neck with his thumb
and examined the rest of the picture. There. That wasn’t so bad, he
thought. Without all that blood drinking, it was actually kind of hot.
One thing was for sure, Marshall thought as he eyed the warmblood’s
giant, hard-as-nails werewolf cock, the guy certainly didn’t seem to
mind being drained like that.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

For about five seconds, Marshall wondered if there was more of a

story to the picture than he’d originally thought. Maybe he ought to
hang on to it for a while before showing it to anyone else. If he sent
the photo to Cade, Cade would make sure it was all over Morgana by
tomorrow. Maybe he should try and talk to Elijah and ask him to
explain himself before doing anything that might ruin the guy’s
reputation. Unlike Cade, Elijah seemed pretty open to talking.

Fuck that, Marshall thought. Talking was for pussies. And

Marshall had been a pussy for way, way too long. He punched Cade’s
number into his phone, attached the photo that would finally rid him
of that reputation, and hit send.

* * * *

Elijah didn’t wait until his wolf was on the bed to start stroking

him. Naked as Tobey was, Elijah had taken his hard cock in his hand
the second they got inside the building. His enormous cock. The guy
was hung like a fucking…well, like a werewolf, as the saying went.
And damn if he wasn’t responsive as hell. From the moment Elijah
ran his hand over that thick dick, Tobey was moaning and sighing and
trying to wrap his legs around him until Elijah had to practically pull
the wolf off him just to get up the stairs and into the privacy of his
apartment.

Not that either of them was giving much thought to decency.

Tobey grabbed him by his shirt at the top of the stairs and pulled him
close. As he fumbled at Elijah’s belt to free his dick, Elijah wanted
the touch so badly he didn’t do a damn thing to discourage him. On
the contrary, Elijah grabbed Tobey’s ass and jerked him off and
licked his neck until Tobey pulled his cock from his pants. Only when
Tobey ran the calloused pad of his thumb over the slit of Elijah’s dick
and softly growled did he force his wolf away from him, and only
because he feared premature ejaculation. If he hadn’t stopped to
weigh his need to come against his need to come in Tobey’s ass,

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Elijah would have happily let Tobey’s small hand rub him to
completion.

Instead, he waited impatiently, pawing at Tobey as he fumbled

with the doorknob. The action took all of about ten seconds, but it was
long enough for Elijah to pull Tobey’s hair back and suck his earlobe
as he pressed his fingers between the notches of Tobey’s ribcage.

God, he was skinny. He was skinny, and he was small, and

something about his size and the pained expression in those two-
colored eyes of his made everything inside Elijah want to pull him
close, to protect him and keep him safe.

It was a weird impulse, considering how much of the wolf’s blood

he’d just drank.

Letting his mind linger on that thought and the dangers therein, he

forced his libido to shut up and his hands to stop roving long enough
for Tobey to get the door open. He worried that this was a bad idea,
that every fumble and grope and grasp at Tobey’s warm, soft skin was
bound to end in disaster, but no matter what his head was telling him,
his body couldn’t seem to believe it.

He tried to stay still, to stop before things went too far, but fuck,

Elijah was already standing outside the guy’s apartment with his dick
sticking out of his pants. The time to exercise judgment might well
have already passed. Tobey’s cock, his hands, his lips, even the flat
planes of his chest and stomach seemed to call out to Elijah, begging
him to rub against Tobey, to hold him, to claim him.

Holy fuck, was that what he was feeling?
The overpowering rush of emotion that slammed into Elijah at the

thought put an end to his ministrations, allowing Tobey enough pause
to finally walk inside the open door. He took two steps and turned to
face Elijah, one green and one blue eye beckoning. In spite of the lust
in his eyes, his gaze was almost innocent, and Elijah worried he was
using the poor guy like he’d used every vamp twink who had let him
in last five months since his conversion. His sex life had been
reasonably modest as a planeswalker, but he’d turned into a

Bloodsucker and the Beast

downright slut ever since he was converted to a vampire. Adjusting to
his afterlife and the cold, dead feeling of his unbeating heart had made
him desperate to feel something, anything, and Elijah had tried any
number of hookups to try and regain that connection, that feeling of
life he’d felt before he was turned. Each time, however, he’d known
the second his lover’s cool skin met with his that he would only walk
away from the encounter feeling even more numb and empty than he
had before.

He didn’t feel numb now, though. His stomach was churning and

his mind racing, and warm, fresh blood was singing under his skin.
Tobey’s hands were warm, and when they touched him, they lit a fire
in his body.

Elijah was done listening to his better judgment. He couldn’t keep

himself from touching his wolf any longer.

His wolf, he thought as he stepped into the apartment, backing

against the door to close it behind him and pulling Tobey close as he
did. Eagerly, Tobey turned around, slipping his hands under Elijah’s
shirt and stripping it off his body before he kneeled down in front of
him. Tobey pushed Elijah’s pants to his knees as he wrapped his
hands around Elijah’s thighs and his mouth around Elijah’s throbbing
cock.

Elijah moaned, both hands fleeing to the back of Tobey’s head to

tangle in his hair and guide his movements. The long drink of warm
blood Elijah devoured in the courtyard had awakened his mind, soul,
and body in ways he’d never imagined possible. He’d thought for sure
he’d lost the ability to feel anything for a lover, had thought the
sexual act, like feeding, had been reduced to a base need. Filling that
need had only made him hate himself before, but Elijah could feel
Tobey’s warm blood coursing through his body as Tobey moaned
around his dick, and the intensity of what he felt now nearly brought
him to his knees.

Tobey pulled back on his cock, almost pulling it all the way out of

his mouth as he cradled Elijah’s balls and lapped at the sensitive skin

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under his cockhead. He opened his eyes and turned them up toward
Elijah, one blue, one green, both of them wide and wanting to please.
He kept licking, kept sucking, administering more of that same slow
torture, and it nearly killed Elijah to pull away. Still, he wanted to see
more in that sweet gaze than submission. He wanted to see the way
those eyes rounded and rolled back as he spread his legs and fucked
him.

“How about that bed?” he asked, not quite believing the breathy

tone his voice had taken on. His heart had hardened when he was
turned, and even as he’d mourned the loss of his life, his soul, he
reasoned with himself it was harder to hurt him this way. He’d
thought he was invulnerable, but when Tobey touched him, his breath
hitched and his voice cracked, and he was certain he felt his heart
squeeze in his chest.

Tobey touched Elijah now, running a hand down from the inside

of his thigh to the place where his pants bunched around his feet.
Tobey smiled and turned his head to the place his hand had departed
from. Elijah bit his lip when Tobey’s tongue darted out to lick the
flesh there before playfully nipping at it. He tugged at Elijah’s pants.
“Should probably get you out of these first.”

Elijah nodded, and Tobey bent to untie his shoes. Gently he pulled

one, then the other, from his feet and tugged off his socks. When he
bunched the fabric of his slacks around both hands, Elijah lifted his
foot, and he slipped it out, kissing his ankle. There was something
weirdly intimate about the gesture.

“Did you just kiss my foot?” he asked, letting Tobey pull his pants

the rest of the way off.

Tobey nodded, and Elijah’s vamp eyes could see him blushing in

the darkness. “Maybe.”

“Come here.”
He slipped a hand under Tobey’s armpit, urging him to stand.

When he’d gotten off his knees and his thick cock was rubbing
against Elijah’s slick one, Elijah put one palm under each of his

Bloodsucker and the Beast

round, bare ass cheeks and lifted him into his arms. Tobey’s arms
encircled his neck, and Elijah slid his arms around Tobey’s waist and
walked him across the room to the bed, feeling Tobey’s mouth on his
cheek and ear and neck and jawline.

He climbed onto the bed with Tobey, not bothering to let go.

When his wolf fell onto the mattress, Elijah’s mouth found Tobey’s,
and his tongue plunged inside it. The second his tongue breached his
lips, he realized with a thrill it was the first time they’d kissed. Elijah
ran his tongue everywhere inside Tobey’s mouth, licking his teeth and
gums and the insides of his cheek and feeling a strange twist in his
stomach as Tobey’s taste mingled with the salty flavor of Elijah’s pre-
cum. Their tastes. Together. Both of them.

His hands squeezed tighter around Tobey’s ass, and his cock

pulsed with the need to get inside it. He pulled away from Tobey’s
mouth, and his legs gave easily as Elijah pushed them apart, nipping
and kissing a wet trail down Tobey’s flat stomach.

Elijah paused on his path downward, distracted by the glistening

drop of pre-cum at the tip of Tobey’s cock. He lapped at it, causing
his wolf to buck his hips up and groan. Elijah’s grip tightened around
Tobey’s ass, and his fingers pressed against Tobey’s hole. Fuck, he
was tight. Elijah felt it just rubbing against him. He had to get down
there and get Tobey slick and wet enough that he could slide his
aching cock inside, but he couldn’t pry his tongue off Tobey’s dick.

Those tiny beads of pre-cum tasted too much like Tobey’s blood,

and Elijah felt the pulsing vein under his cockhead. Forcing his desire
to the back of his mind, he pressed a hand on either side of Tobey’s
ass to part his cheeks and thrust his tongue inside his pretty, pink
asshole.

Tobey shouted and tried to squirm underneath him, but Elijah held

him tight, rubbing tiny circles on Tobey’s thighs with his thumbs as
he fucked his tongue inside him. His legs fell farther open, but he
fought to buck his hips, and Elijah was torn between letting Tobey
take his pleasure and controlling it, urging him to stay still and stave

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off his orgasm until the second Elijah had his. He wondered how
many times he could make Tobey come in one night. He wondered if
he came easily or if he fought it. With the way Tobey moaned when
he ground his ass against Elijah’s mouth, Elijah imagined it wouldn’t
be difficult.

Elijah relaxed his touch against Tobey’s thigh, reaching up to

stroke his cock. Wrapping his fingers around the base of it, Elijah
pushed up, once, twice. Tobey bucked against him.

“Oh, shit. Oh, God, Elijah. I can’t—”
Elijah pulled his mouth away from him, breathing hard. “Just

come, baby. I’ll make you come again.”

He moved his mouth over Tobey’s balls. Like clockwork, he

came. Elijah pulled away, laying his head on Tobey’s thigh to watch
the way his face contorted, his mouth open, his eyes closed, his chest
heaving. His mouth closed in a pout, and his hips jerked up, pushing
Elijah off him before Tobey’s hand came down over the back of his
head, urging him to suck his balls again. Elijah lapped at them,
sticking his fingers in his own mouth alongside them to slicken them,
too, before he reached down and pushed those slick fingers inside
Tobey’s hole.

Tobey stayed hard the whole time. Elijah licked a long trail from

the base of his dick to his cockhead while he fucked him with his
fingers. Tobey groaned and pushed against Elijah as he worked his
fingers inside Tobey’s hole, urging him farther, deeper, faster. Elijah
had been worried about getting them inside there, but in spite of the
tight fit, Tobey continued to mewl and pant and grind against the
motion. He made so much noise Elijah had to pull away to watch his
face, fascinated by the focused expression he made, even as his lips
pursed and then fell open, first in a silent sigh and then in a stream of
ecstatic obscenities.

“Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh—”
With one hand, Elijah pushed Tobey’s ass up as the other cracked

down on the pale plane of his cheek. “Language,” he admonished,

Bloodsucker and the Beast

grinning. It wasn’t so much the need to punish Tobey as the desire to
see his ass redden under his touch that drove his action.

“Oh—!” Tobey shouted and pursed his lips as if he were trying to

think of another expletive to complete his thought. Elijah pressed
another finger into him, and Tobey bit his lip as he rode it with a
slow, rocking motion. When he opened his mouth, he slowed his
movements, and his eyes were pained when he looked at Elijah.
“Please,” he panted. “Elijah, I need you to—” He stopped himself,
biting down on his lip again. “I want you to—” he began again, and
halted. Elijah almost regretted Tobey’s obedience. He would’ve liked
to spank him again. Finally, Tobey shook his head, unable to finish
the thought. “Please.”

Elijah nodded as his fingers retreated, and he climbed on top of

Tobey. It had been a struggle not to touch himself while he watched
Tobey squirm and plead with him, but Elijah knew he wasn’t going to
last long. Three fingers had been a tight fit, and Elijah half worried
he’d come before he pushed his full length inside Tobey.

He lined himself up to Tobey’s tight hole now, unable to think

about the size of that small hole compared to the width of his
cockhead. Elijah was practically shaking with the force of his need,
but he held back, lowering his hand down Tobey’s outstretched legs
to spread his ass cheeks wider. “I’ll go slow,” he promised.

Tobey shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. “Just make me come.”
Elijah thrust in, and Tobey’s head fell back. His legs were pushed

up in the air so high his knees could almost close over his shoulders.
Before they did, Elijah sucked the tender underside of one of them
into his mouth. The harder he sucked, the more he felt the blood
pulsing underneath Tobey’s skin, and each thrust inside him made the
voice in Elijah’s head clearer. Mine, mine, mine, it said, its chant
pulsing in time to the hard, driving rhythm he’d set for Tobey. My
mate, it said this time as he drove in deep, so far Tobey’s mouth fell
open and revealed the sharp points of his canines where they’d burst
from his gums.

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The thought took Elijah so much by surprise he lost his rhythm,

and Tobey whimpered underneath him, urging him to push in harder,
to thrust long and deep inside him again. He did, but God, he was
rattled. Just thinking the word reminded him of what an impossibility
that was. Tobey was a werewolf. It was beyond unorthodox. There
was no way.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind, easily able to

distract himself with the way Tobey was moaning and writhing
beneath him. Elijah put his arms around Tobey, drawing him up to his
body, pressing him close so his head rested in the crook of Elijah’s
neck and his sharp teeth pressed flat against Elijah’s skin. Tobey rode
Elijah’s cock up and down, faster as Elijah ran one claw-tipped hand
down the side of Tobey’s neck, tracing his skin and the curve of his
collarbone until he found the spot he longed to sink his fangs into.
Tobey’s round, smooth ass bobbed against his balls, and Elijah felt
them draw up tight as everything inside of him yearned to bite that
smooth, tender spot in the hollow of his wolf’s neck.

“I’m close,” Tobey panted, showing the sharp points of his teeth

and pressing his mouth to Elijah’s throat as he stroked his hand
through Elijah’s hair, and Elijah could feel those teeth against his skin
as Tobey kissed him. Those tiny pinpricks of Tobey’s teeth meant he,
too, had lost his grip on the beast inside him, and the way he pressed
those teeth against Elijah’s skin was almost daring Elijah to do the
same.

“You want to bite me,” Tobey moaned.
Elijah didn’t know if that was a question or a statement, but there

was no way he could hide an urge this strong. He nodded, his voice
strained. “I’m sorry,” he panted. “We have to stop, or I don’t think I
can keep from hurting you.”

“You won’t,” Tobey said. “I want to be claimed.”
Elijah stared into Tobey’s wide, pleading eyes, and he knew that

Tobey had meant what he said. Elijah felt it, too. In that moment,
Elijah didn’t give a damn what anyone else would think about him

Bloodsucker and the Beast

and his wolf together. He bit down and drank deep, and Tobey bit into
Elijah in turn. He felt his own blood rushing out of him as Tobey’s
filled his mouth, and as Tobey jerked and shot against his stomach,
Elijah came, too, the wealth of sensations flooding his body bringing
him to the brink of ecstasy.

He pulled away, swallowing the last mouthful of Tobey’s blood,

riding out the last wave of his orgasm, pressing his hand against his
mate as he rocked on top of him. Tobey licked his lips and threaded
his hands through Elijah’s hair. His expression was peaceful and
serene, and Elijah couldn’t help but lap at his neck again, licking the
last of the blood so he could see the mark he’d left behind. Any
ordinary bite or scratch or scar his little wolf might suffer would heal,
but not this one. Mating bites were permanent. The whole world
would see the mark Elijah had made when he claimed his mate, just
as they’d see the bite Tobey left on Elijah’s neck.

He stared at the two perfect tiny circles dotting Tobey’s neck.

Tobey closed his eyes when Elijah ran his thumb along them and
kissed his chin. “You’re mine now,” he said in Tobey’s ear.

“Mmm hmm,” Tobey murmured, his body relaxing into Elijah’s

touch.

Elijah pulled them both down onto the bed, and Tobey curled

against him. God, he felt good. “You’re so warm,” Elijah said.

Tobey opened his mouth, but instead of a reply, a yawn escaped it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, seeming to fight another yawn. “It’s been a long
day.”

Elijah smiled, holding him tighter. Elijah was exhausted, and as

Tobey settled his warm body against him, Elijah felt certain that for
the first time in months he could fall asleep before the sun came up.
He considered the night’s events, the chaos of the United Morgana
rally and the punk vampires that had attacked him and Tobey.
Morgana was still a dangerous place, but with any luck, he’d change
it. Pressing a hand against his mate’s chest, Elijah silently vowed to

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himself to always protect the sweet, steady beat of that heart. “It’s
okay, baby,” he whispered. “You’re safe now.”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Chapter Four

Four months earlier

“If he ever snaps like that again,” the vamp said, “you should cut

his fucking tail off.”

The vamp was tall and thin and ugly, with ice-blue eyes almost as

cold as the touch of his hand on Tobey’s throat. He was colder than
most vamps, and Tobey didn’t like to be touched by him. When the
vamp bit into him, Tobey had liked his firm, unyielding grasp even
less, and he had lost control, snapped at the vamp, and nicked his
wrist. He only drew a tiny drop of blood, nothing compared to the
long drink the vamp had taken from Tobey. All the same, when it
happened, the vampire had screamed and tended his wrist and pouted
over the cut as if his entire afterlife had flashed before his eyes.

Finally, he’d made so much noise the other bloodsuckers had

laughed at him. That was when he’d said it. “Cut off his tail.” He
hadn’t directed the warning at Tobey so much as about him, and to
his owners, Marc and Leigh. Marc just laughed at it like everyone
else in the room had, but Leigh took his friend’s remark as serious
criticism. He didn’t like the suggestion he wasn’t managing his
property well.

And that was what Tobey was now. Property. Not a thinking,

feeling creature anymore. Just a container holding several arteries
and numerous small veins that could be punctured and bled infinite
times a day. If he had a brain, it didn’t matter. If he had a heart, it
was already hardened. If he had a mouth, it could be gagged and
silenced. All that mattered was the warm and flowing blood inside

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him and that his body healed when it was taken so he could never lose
so much it killed him. So he could never stop feeling the pain.

Tobey hunkered down in his cage, resting his head on his paws. It

helped him fight the urge to paw at his collar. The tight silver ring
encircled his throat and would only infect him if he scratched too
hard and broke the skin around it. He couldn’t risk that happening
again. Anyway, it didn’t matter. No matter how hard he tried, the
damn thing wasn’t coming off.

Leigh approached him now, his whiskey sloshing on the carpet as

he did. Tobey could tell he was drunk, which meant he’d be rougher if
he bled him now. Leigh had only fed a few hours ago, so he shouldn’t
need any more. But the hungry look in his eye was unmistakable, so
Tobey cowed his head.

“Maybe I oughta just cut him right now,” he said, his hand

reaching through the steel bars of the cage to tilt up Tobey’s chin.
“Would you like that, little doggie?”

Tobey wasn’t a dog. He was a wolf, and Leigh knew it. He

reached up and squeezed his muzzle, sending a cold chill down
Tobey’s spine, but he endured it. Leigh was trying to get him to shift,
but he resisted the temptation to change forms and talk back to his
assaulter. As much as he wanted to defend himself, it wouldn’t do him
any good to shift in the small cage. His naked, human form would be
forced onto his hands and knees. He didn’t want that. It only made
him feel more like an animal, a possession. A pet.

Leigh opened the latch of the cage. The vampire was small, but he

was well-built, and his arms were muscular. He was stronger than
Tobey. Even without the collar, he could do what he wanted to him.
Tobey crowded his body as far against the back wall of the cage as he
could, but Leigh reached in and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck
and latched the small silver chain to Tobey’s collar. He couldn’t get
away now.

Jerking the chain, he pulled Tobey close to him, his hands

roaming over the fur at his neck, inspecting it, looking for a place to

Bloodsucker and the Beast

suck. He jerked the chain again, painfully, the collar cutting into
Tobey’s throat.

“Shift,” he said. “I don’t wanna get your fucking fur in my

mouth.” He pulled the chain impossibly tighter until Tobey could no
longer breathe, and his mouth uselessly flapped open, struggling for
air that would not come. “Come on, shift.”

Tobey shifted, and the chain relaxed. His naked body slumped on

the floor, and he heard the laughter of the other vampires in the room.
There were five of them, Marc and Leigh’s friends. The couple wasn’t
well-off, and most of the cluster of vamps that hung around their
apartment couldn’t afford wolves of their own. Leigh let them around
Tobey to take their turns whenever they wanted. It made them feel
rich and powerful to bestow that favor on their friends, and anyway, it
wasn’t like they could ever drain Tobey. No matter how much blood
they took, his body would always produce more.

There was really no escape from the hell his life had become.
All the same, he squirmed as Leigh climbed over him, and Leigh

clawed at him for his efforts. The scratches healed quickly, but the
pain lingered as Leigh pulled at his hair and spoke quietly in his ear,
in that harsh, warning tone he had. “Don’t move, and don’t fucking
push me.” He pulled a small black switchblade from his pocket and
flicked it open, holding it right in front of Tobey’s eyes. They widened
at the gleam of light glinting off the sliver blade. “I’m going to drink
from you now,” he said, “and you’re going to decide whether or not
you pay for what you did to my friend. He thinks I should cut off your
tail, but if you stay very still and don’t make a sound, I might let you
keep it. If not…”

Leigh’s lips turned up in a strange smile, and he shrugged. He

lowered the knife from Tobey’s face and relaxed his grip on him, but
Tobey didn’t move a muscle. He stayed perfectly still as Leigh moved
down his body, spreading his legs and finding the vein in his upper
thigh. He bit his tongue to keep from whimpering. He didn’t want
Leigh to feed from there. The place was too intimate, too sensitive,

Ellen Ginsberg

and the sensation of being bled, already so intense and painful, would
be much worse now. There was an audience watching him, and he
didn’t like that either. Remembering Leigh’s words and watching the
knife held loosely in his hand, Tobey wanted to be still and keep his
mouth shut, but he couldn’t help but tense his muscles in anticipation
of the bite.

Leigh bit down savagely, and the pain was like nothing he’d ever

felt before. Jerking away from the vampire’s mouth, he let out a long,
pained howl, and Leigh looked up at him, vengeance in his eye even
as he wiped the blood from his lips.

Tobey swallowed hard and tensed himself again.
He knew there would be hell to pay.

* * * *

Tobey awoke from the nightmare, his heart pounding, his mind

racing. The dream was always the same, an exact replication of what
had happened four months ago, every detail as vivid as the day he’d
lived it. It was over now, but he could still feel the dizzying sensation
of blood rushing from his body, could still feel the dull ache of those
fangs piercing his thigh, just as sharply as if it had never stopped.

A too-cold hand brushed across his spread legs, and Tobey

stiffened. Every muscle in his body went rigid when he saw the dark-
haired head tucked between his thighs. The nightmare hadn’t ended.
He was still there, still collared, still miserable and enduring.

Instinctively, he backed up, arms flailing, legs kicking. His left

knee connected with the chin of the vampire huddled over him.

“Damn it! Ow! Son of a bitch!” he shouted out, but Tobey wasn’t

watching him. He kept backing up, kept inching back to safety until
his back hit the wooden headboard behind him. The headboard, he
thought, slowly becoming aware of his surroundings. That wasn’t like
the other dreams. His hands flew to his neck to pry at the collar
around his throat, but it was gone, too, and the awareness of its

Bloodsucker and the Beast

absence brought a little relief as he stared down at the vampire
crouched at the foot of the bed, cupping his chin and swearing.

Elijah.
Suddenly, the whole night came crashing back to Tobey in a

wealth of mixed-up images. The United Morgana rally. The riot that
followed. Elijah’s claws in his wrist. Elijah’s teeth in his throat. Being
shoved and scratched and hurt by three young-looking vamps. Being
saved by Elijah. Tobey’s throat at Elijah’s mouth. Tobey’s voice
urging him to drink.

They were mates now, he thought, reaching again for his throat

and feeling the two rounded indentions where Elijah bit into it. They
must have made love, but in the haze of violent images that made up
the evening’s events, he was having a hard time settling his spinning
mind on the night’s pleasures.

He stared at Elijah, trying to remember the taste of his lips, the

smell of his skin, the feel of his arms around him.

He couldn’t. His nightmare was still with him, blocking

everything out but fear and pain. It would always be with him. He
stared at his mate from across the bed and felt small and scared and
naked.

Elijah looked up at him, his blue eyes pained as he rubbed his jaw.

“That is a hell of a hook you have there. Or knee. God…” he mused,
opening his mouth wide as if to stretch it. He shook his head.
“Remind me never to wake you up with oral sex again.”

Tobey instinctively pulled his legs closer to him, feeling distrust

rise up inside of him as he watched his mate. “Is that all you were
doing?” he asked, hating himself for the note of suspicion in his voice
as he stared down at him.

Elijah raised an equally suspicious eyebrow. “What are you

accusing me of exactly? Trying to kill two birds with one blow job?”

“That’s not funny,” Tobey snapped. Fuck, he didn’t want to be

talking to his mate like this, but he couldn’t help it. He closed his

Ellen Ginsberg

eyes, and all he could remember was the nightmare. He opened his
eyes, and there was Elijah.

His mate was a vampire. He’d mated a vampire. Tobey shut his

eyes again.

Elijah’s eyes narrowed with apparent hurt. “Even if I was…” His

voice faltered, and he didn’t seem to want to name the act any more
than Tobey wanted to think about it. “I mean, correct me if I’m
wrong, but last night…you liked it, didn’t you?”

He had, but that thought was little comfort now. He didn’t answer

his mate.

“Did I hurt you?”
The look of misery and remorse on Elijah’s face was too much to

take. “No,” Tobey croaked. Seemingly comforted by this admission,
Elijah moved toward him on the bed. He scooted back against the
headboard and hit his head on the wall. Elijah eyed him
uncomfortably.

Tobey lowered his eyes to the bed. “I did like it,” he said softly.
“Okay, so…”
Tobey opened his mouth to speak, but all he could hear in his

head were the voices from his dream, from his past.

“…you should cut his fucking tail off.”
“Would you like that, little doggie?”
“…if you stay very still and don’t make a sound…”
Elijah made a move toward him again, and Tobey jerked away.

Elijah raised his eyebrows at him, and he knew he had to explain
himself.

“I had a nightmare,” Tobey said quietly.
He looked at Elijah, his arms dangling over his bent knees as he

sat staring at the edge of the bed. His face wrinkled with worry as he
ran a hand through his dark hair. His full lips pursed in thought.
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Tobey hesitated. He knew from Mitchell that Elijah had been

turned during the war. He couldn’t have been a vamp for long, and

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Tobey was starting to get the impression he hadn’t quite adjusted to
the change yet. He had the feeling Elijah wasn’t going to like being
likened to Tobey’s captors.

“Not particularly.”
Tobey turned his head to see the sun casting light against the

curtains. It was daytime. The vamps who had kept him during the war
had always slept during the day.

“You should be asleep, shouldn’t you?”
Elijah’s shoulders lifted and fell. “Sunlight doesn’t really bother

me unless I’m out there awhile. Sunglasses help. Or curtains,” he said.
“Anyway, I thought it would be nice to get up with you.” He sighed.
“Obviously I was wrong about that.”

“You weren’t,” Tobey insisted. “I’m just…messed up.” He

stopped hugging his knees to his chest and lay back down on the bed.
His bare feet stretched out toward Elijah, and he felt a hand close on
one of them tentatively, as if he expected Tobey to move it away.

He didn’t.
After a minute, he felt the bed shift underneath him, and he closed

his eyes. Soon, he felt Elijah lay down alongside him. Tobey opened
his eyes and looked into Elijah’s. “I guess things happened pretty fast
last night.”

Tobey nodded. “You could say that.”
He shifted his position, and his arm fell against Elijah’s chest. It

felt good there. Elijah glanced down at it then back up at him
uncertainly. “Do you regret it?”

Tobey considered it. He’d always heard about how intense the

mating pull was and how hard it would be to resist it, but he’d hardly
expected the dizzying rapidity with which things had progressed last
night. He’d had three lovers in his entire life, long, torturous,
awkward courtships, all of them, but he could probably count on two
hands the number of sentences he’d said to the man lying naked in
bed next to him.

Ellen Ginsberg

And now he was destined to spend the rest of his life with that

man. Or more precisely, that vampire. Elijah reached up to touch the
twin indentions he’d left in Tobey’s neck. The skin was sensitive
there from the scar tissue. The scar would be there for the rest of his
life.

Tobey only had one other permanent injury on his body. He

preferred not to think about that one.

He flinched and pulled away. Elijah withdrew his hand. “I guess

that’s an answer.”

He didn’t get up right away. He waited, as if he was hoping for

Tobey to say something, to correct him, but Tobey didn’t say
anything. He wasn’t sure how to answer Elijah’s question. They were
mates now. That couldn’t be taken back, but he couldn’t deny the way
his body reacted to Elijah touching his throat. And he couldn’t keep
his mind from circling back on his nightmare.

“I know you’d never do anything to hurt me…” Tobey began.
“I’m sensing a but at the end of this sentence.” Elijah sighed,

squeezing Tobey’s hand and turning his eyes up to meet Tobey’s.
God, those blue eyes were beautiful. Elijah smiled sadly, and tiny
wrinkles appeared around them. He was gorgeous.

“It’s just a lot to handle all at once. My last experience with

vampires wasn’t exactly pleasant, and I don’t know if I can…”

Elijah raised his eyebrows at him. “What?”
Tobey considered the myriad ways in which he might have ended

that sentence. Deal with this. Make this work. Love you. He shook his
head, deciding it was probably best not to say anything at all.

“You think I’m like them?” Elijah asked. His voice sounded

strange, not at all like the confident, smooth politician that had swept
away the entire arena when he gave his speech at the rally last night.
There had been a warmth in his voice then, but it was gone now. His
voice was cold now, empty.

“Why would I think that?” Tobey asked, but he knew exactly

why. The vamps who kept him during the war had been cruel to him,

Bloodsucker and the Beast

but only because they could be. Tobey’s collar had kept him weak and
prevented him from running away. They didn’t have to coerce him in
order to get what they wanted.

Or seduce him.
Not that it had taken much seducing. Hell, Tobey had pretty much

laid himself out for Elijah on a silver platter. He couldn’t blame him
for taking his blood. He’d done nothing but encourage him. More than
that, he’d liked it. And now they were mated, and Elijah could have
him whenever he wanted. Those two holes in his neck were like a
different sort of collar. His throat felt very tight all of a sudden.

“Do you?” Elijah asked.
Tobey pressed his lips together. He wasn’t sure he wanted to

answer the question.

Elijah got up, walking across the room to the place where he’d

shed his clothes last night. He found his boxer shorts and his pants
and stepped into them, pulling them up.

“You’re leaving?” Tobey asked.
Elijah picked his shirt off the floor and pulled it on. “You seem

like you maybe need some time.”

“To do what?” He’d been uncomfortable with Elijah touching

him, but he realized he wasn’t too crazy about the prospect of him
leaving, either.

“Not jerking away when I touch you?” Elijah stood on one foot to

pull a shoe on. “That would be a start.”

“You can’t go,” Tobey said as Elijah finished getting dressed.

“The sun’s out.”

“I’ll manage,” Elijah said, pulling his jacket on. “Layers.” He

pulled a pair of sunglasses from the breast pocket and put them on. He
looked spectacular in them, but the sight did nothing to unfreeze
Tobey from the bed as Elijah stood at the door, one hand frozen on
the knob.

“Are you coming back?” Tobey asked.
“Do you want me to come back?”

Ellen Ginsberg

“Um” was the best Tobey could manage. He might be mated to a

vampire now, but he didn’t know if he could live with one.

Elijah heaved out another sigh and nodded, as if he’d half-

expected the answer. “Maybe you should come talk to me instead,” he
said.

Tobey bit his lip. “When?”
Elijah stared at him. “When you’ve figured out a way to trust me.”
Tobey choked down a hard swallow at the words he’d spat at

Elijah less than twenty-four hours ago in the arena. Even then, he’d
felt something for the vampire, and that had infuriated him because he
was certain that, after the war, vampires and werewolves could never
live in harmony. If they tried, things would only get worse.

All the same, as Tobey sat and watched his mate walk out the

door and close it behind him, he thought Morgana had never seemed
so lonely or so bleak a place as it did just then.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Chapter Five

“Oh no. No, no, no, no…”
Tobey started to panic as he stared at the front page of the

newspaper. After the fight he’d had with Elijah this morning, he
honestly hadn’t thought his day could get any worse.

Apparently, he was wrong.
He stared in disbelief at the half-page color photo of himself, ass-

naked and writhing against Elijah while the vampire sucked his blood.
The image was so lurid he had to double-check that he was looking at
the Planeswalker Post and not one of the less legitimate Bloodlands
tabloids that featured little more than celebrity gossip and photos
taken by the vamparazzi. His eyes hadn’t deceived him. The photo
was followed by a lengthy article titled, “Grey Publicly Denounces
Bloodsucking, Prefers Public Exhibition.”

A knock at the door interrupted Tobey’s burgeoning panic attack.

Answering the door, he was nearly knocked over by the short,
hyperactive werewolf who was clamoring to get inside his door. He
had a hungry look in his eye and a camera dangling from a strap
around his neck.

Sniffing to make sure the little pup was a werewolf and not the

bottom-feeding parasite he resembled, Tobey narrowed his eyes. “I
thought only bloodsuckers joined up with the vamparazzi.”

The were looked at him, offended. “You shouldn’t call people

bloodsuckers. It’s offensive.”

Tobey rolled his eyes. The last thing he needed was a lesson in

interspecies etiquette from someone who barely looked old enough to
shave…which, for a werewolf, was pretty goddamn young.

Ellen Ginsberg

“Worst day ever,” Tobey said under his breath. He started to close

the door, but the little were wedged an arm in the crack, forcing it
open.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait! Okay. Okay, I know what you’re going to

say, and I respect that, but before you turn me away, I just want you
to hear me out. Five minutes of your time, and I’ll go away. Look,
there are dozens of reporters out there who just want a juicy headline.
I want to tell your side of the story.”

Tobey glared into the were’s sincere and pleading eyes. “Why?”

he asked. He would have closed the door on the little shifter by now,
but he just seemed so damn sure of himself.

“Because I know what it’s like to be in love with a vampire.”
That certainly got Tobey’s attention. “What makes you think…I

am not in love with...We were just…” Tobey squeezed his eyes shut,
rubbing his temple with his hand as he tried to form a coherent
sentence. The sheer effort of it made him feel like his brain was about
to explode, so he settled on a single word instead.

“Why?”
In an instant, the young were’s expression went from sincere to

downright sappy. “If you had any idea how unbelievably gorgeous
this vampire is…I mean, they all are, but this one in particular is just
unbelievable. Tall and muscular and, okay, maybe a little pale, but
nothing like the last guys I was into. Well, kind of like those guys. I
mean, they were vampires, too, but this one—”

“Oh, for fate’s sake. Not why are you in love with a vampire, why

do you think I’m in love with one?”

“Because he’s your mate. Duh.”
Tobey felt his face flush as he tried to place how the pup could

have possibly surmised that. The best he could figure was a lucky
guess combined with the pup’s obviously hopeless romanticism. If
that was the case, denial definitely wasn’t out of the picture. He
smiled coolly at the were. “Sorry to break it to you, but Elijah isn’t
my mate.”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

It wasn’t such a lie, Tobey figured. After the fight they’d had this

morning and the scandal that had broken this evening, there probably
wouldn’t be much hope for them even if they hadn’t been freakishly
mismatched by fate.

The were blinked at Tobey, then pointed to his neck. “Okay, so

what’s that?”

Tobey’s hand flew up to his neck to hide the small but certainly

not inconspicuous mating bite the were was pointing to. Anyone who
took one look at the twin holes Elijah had left on his neck last night
could pretty much piece together what had gone down between them.
At least, anyone with half a brain, Tobey thought, staring at the dopey
kid standing in his doorway.

Apparently, he’d underestimated him.
With a resigned sigh, Tobey opened the door and retreated into his

apartment, leaving his uninvited guest to trail in behind him. “Five
minutes,” he warned the kid as he approached the kitchen table and
pulled out a chair for himself.

He hardly had time to collapse into it before the younger were had

bounded into his apartment, closed the door behind him, and sat down
at the table opposite Tobey. He scooted his chair uncomfortably close
to Tobey’s, gazing with interest at the newspaper resting on the table
with the lurid picture of him and Elijah on it. Embarrassed, Tobey
flipped the paper over to hide the photo.

The little were flipped it back over and, much to Tobey’s dismay,

clasped Tobey’s hands excitedly. “Tell me everything.”

Wrenching his hands away, Tobey stared at the kid skeptically.

“Seriously, everything? I don’t even know your name.”

“Franklin. Franklin Cline, of the Daily Vein.” He shook Tobey’s

hand with unnecessary vigor. “Well, technically, I don’t write for
them yet, but I figured that after my exclusive interview with you I’d
be an absolute shoo-in for—”

“I hate to break it to you, but the Daily Vein is a vamp paper.

Their entire staff is vampires.”

Ellen Ginsberg

“I know,” Franklin said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. He

elbowed Tobey. “You know how it is, right?”

Tobey jerked away from Franklin’s insinuating elbow as it jabbed

into his side. “No, I don’t know. Look, what happened last night with
Elijah was a mistake.”

“But you’re his m—”
Tobey clapped a hand over Franklin’s mouth before he could spit

the word out. “A werewolf,” he finished. “And he’s a vampire. So
let’s just leave it at that, okay?”

Franklin nodded dejectedly, and Tobey pulled his hand from his

mouth. “Mates,” he whispered. The reverence with which he said the
word almost broke Tobey’s heart.

Suddenly, the rush of emotion that Tobey had felt last night

flooded his senses again, making his stomach clench and his heart
sink. They were mates, and he knew it. The full-page photo of him
and Elijah might have made Tobey blush, but it also made him want
to run out of the apartment and into Elijah’s arms in spite of the
torrent of problems facing them. Impossible as their mating was, it
was real as hell. All the stories and clichés he’d heard about mates
were true. Being mated was exactly as Tobey had always imagined it
would be.

Except for one glaring detail.
“So what happened, anyway?” Franklin asked. “I mean, obviously

something happened or he’d be here and you guys would be, I don’t
know, cuddling or something.”

“Nothing happened,” Tobey said defensively, remembering all too

keenly how he’d practically forced his mate out of bed this morning.
When Elijah left, he’d made it sound like he just wanted to give
Tobey some space, but given the scandal that had broken this evening
and the undoubtedly adverse effect it had on his campaign, Tobey
kind of doubted he’d be coming back anytime soon. “Look, I told
you, it was just a big mistake. He got hurt trying to get me out of

Bloodsucker and the Beast

trouble, and I let him drink my blood, and we both got a little carried
away.”

“I bet.” Franklin’s gaze fixed on the lurid-looking photo in the

Post as he spoke, and Tobey snatched the paper away from him. He
could still remember the gentle feel of Elijah’s fingers on his throat as
he drank from him. It hadn’t felt lurid at the time. It had felt intimate.

Franklin cleared his throat and sat up, adopting an almost

professional pose as he dug a small pad of paper and a pen out of his
pocket. “So he’s like a hero, huh?”

Tobey’s eyes flashed hopefully over to Franklin. As the previous

night’s bad dream had dissipated, Tobey had felt increasingly anxious
about the way he’d treated his mate. When the sun went down, he was
ready to go straight over to Elijah’s campaign office and try to explain
himself. Unfortunately, that was right around the time the early
editions of the vamp papers came out, giving Tobey a full-color,
front-page reason why he couldn’t have picked a worse time for an
apology. Tobey had singlehandedly obliterated Elijah’s reputation, his
burgeoning political career, and any chances of United Morgana’s
success.

Only now, Franklin had given him a chance to salvage that.
“Definitely a hero,” Tobey said, leaning in to the diminutive

werewolf. “He wouldn’t have even drunk my blood to heal himself if
I hadn’t practically forced him to. He was totally willing to die for
me.” Tobey winced at his slip and quickly corrected himself. “I mean,
for his principles. In fact, if he’s any indication of the character of
vampires involved with United Morgana, I’m completely in support
of the Bill of Rights. How fast can you go to print with this?”

Franklin tapped his pen against the side of his face thoughtfully.

“I could probably make the midnight edition. I write fast. And good.
Wanna hear my headline?” Before Tobey could answer, Franklin
spread his hands in front of his face as he reverently spoke the words.
“‘Bloodsucker and the Beast: A Tale of Star-Crossed Mates and the
Prejudices That Attempted to Destroy Them.’ What do you think?”

Ellen Ginsberg

Tobey bit his lip. “Any chance you can leave the whole mates

thing out and just focus on the Elijah’s-a-hero-not-a-hypocritical-
bloodsucking-leech angle?”

“Why?”
“Because he’s a public figure, and as much as he’s trying to

change things around here, people aren’t exactly keen on interspecies
matings on this plane.”

“Trust me, I’m aware.” Franklin snorted derisively. “So what?

You’re just going to pretend you’re not mated? Buy a bunch of
turtleneck sweaters and sneak in and out of each other’s apartments
every night? Because you’re never going to change anything around
here if that’s your attitude.”

“Please? Look, I can just go to another reporter if you’re not going

to—”

Franklin held up his hands in protest. “No, no, no…that’s not

necessary. How about this?” He splayed his hands in front of him
again. “‘Misunderstood Hero Crucified by Bigoted Public.’”

“Still kind of abrasive,” Tobey muttered. “But good,” he added

after hearing Franklin’s frustrated sigh.

Tobey eyed the little were sitting across from him at the table,

scribbling in his notebook. He still couldn’t quite believe the pup was
so intent on working for a vampire paper. Pretty much every
werewolf on Morgana had come over during the war, either as slaves,
serving as feeder pets for vamp families, or as warriors, fighting
against Murdock and his vamps in the war. Neither situation
explained a wolf of maybe eighteen whose turn-ons apparently
included fangs and blood drinking.

“Why are you so into vampires, anyway?” Tobey asked carefully.
Franklin stiffened in his chair. “I don’t know. Why’s anybody into

anybody? Jeez, you sound like my dad. He thinks I ought to go see a
therapist. Lucky for me, there aren’t any in the Fatelands.”

“Actually,” Tobey said, recalling what Mitchell had told him

about his son Lars’s profession on the Earth plane, “I do know one.”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

“Perfect,” Franklin grumbled. “Well, there goes that.”
“Sorry.” Eyeing the poor kid slumped in his chair like that, Tobey

really was starting to feel sorry for him. “Who’s your dad, anyway?”

“Marcus Cline.”
“Oh.” That explained a lot. Marcus Cline was one of the fiercest

warriors who had come over to fight during the war. The guy was a
total badass, but he was also kind of a dick. No wonder the kid hated
him. “So this is like a teenage rebellion thing? You’re trying to get
back at your dad?”

Franklin narrowed his eyes at Tobey and growled.
“Okay, okay,” Tobey said. “Sorry. I’m just trying to understand.

My past experiences with vampires weren’t exactly pleasant, and
now—”

“You’re not over what happened to you in the war?”
Tobey shook his head. It had been months since the war ended.

What had happened to Tobey still upset him, but it didn’t keep him up
at night anymore. “No, but—”

“You think Elijah will hurt you?”
“Definitely not.”
Franklin wrinkled his nose. “Okay, so what’s the BFD? Just go

over and talk to him—”

“I—”
“—you big chickenshit.”
Tobey stared at the smaller wolf, open-mouthed. If he’d had an

idea of where his protest was going when he began it a moment ago, it
was silenced now by his overwhelming embarrassment. If the
hundred-and-ten-pound adolescent pup in front of him wasn’t afraid
of the big, bad vampires, it seemed awfully stupid for Tobey to be. He
stood up, pushed his chair in, and marched out the door to find his
mate.

But not until after he’d smacked the scrawny-assed pup upside the

head and escorted him the hell out of his apartment.

Ellen Ginsberg

* * * *

“Mr. Grey! Mr. Grey! Do you deny the allegations that you

frequented the Dead Zone last night for the sole purposes of soliciting
blood?”

Elijah winced as yet another sleazy tabloid journalist cut in front

of him, waving a handheld tape recorder in Elijah’s face to capture his
response. He paused before answering, shielding his eyes from the
incessant popping of flashbulbs as the vamparazzi took his picture.
They hadn’t let up, not for a moment, since he’d left his apartment in
East Central Bloodland, and that was nearly forty-five minutes ago. It
had taken him that long just to walk the ten blocks to his office on the
eastern border of vampire territory, besieged as he was by every
goddamn journalist, photographer, and good-for-nothing gossip in
Morgana, legitimate or otherwise.

“For the sole purposes? No, I was just out for a walk. I wasn’t—”
“What do you make of the photo that appeared of you in the

Bloodland Bugle?”

“That publication is nothing but an ill-reputed tabloid full of lies

and gossip. Everyone in Morgana knows there isn’t an ounce of
legitimacy to—”

“What do you make of the photo’s appearance in the

Planeswalker Post?”

Elijah snapped his mouth closed, unable to respond and unsure

how he honestly could at this point. Unlike the vamp press, which
was mostly comprised of tabloids and celebrity gossip, the
Planeswalker Post was a legitimate publication. He and Luke had
taken out a whole series of half-page ads in it for their campaign not
one week earlier.

He had a suspicion the Post might pull the ads, given the fact that

its current front page was now plastered with a full-color photo of
Elijah, eyes yellow, claws monstrous, fangs sunk deep into Tobey’s
neck as he writhed naked underneath him, fumbling for his hard cock.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

He’d only managed to glimpse a copy of the paper, handed to him

by a journalist when his repeated chorus of “No comment” had grown
tedious for the bloodthirsty crowd. Faced with the photo of the
previous night’s events, Elijah had no choice but to fumble through
the sticky web of exaggeration, fabrication, and outright slander as he
painstakingly made his way across the Bloodlands to his office.

“Mr. Grey, is it true that the wolf was underage?”
“Is it true that you and the wolf have intentions to mate?”
“Is it true that you intend to use your interspecies mating as a ploy

to garner favor with the progressive vote?”

“Is it true that you’ve worked out an arrangement promising the

wolf sex in exchange for warm blood?”

“Is it true, Mr. Grey, that you have no intentions of attending

rehabilitation courses for your sick sexual perversion?”

“Mr. Grey, how do you plan to defend your actions to the

werewolf community?”

“Mr. Grey! Mr. Grey! Boxers or briefs?” That last one had been

from a vampire. No doubt about it. Elijah turned to the smiling red-
haired reporter—and he used that term loosely—and raised a
disapproving eyebrow. The vamp held up his little spiral notepad and
looked at Elijah imploringly. “The people have a right to know, Mr.
Grey. On behalf of Answer the Bleeding Question.”

Elijah considered it. Answer the Bleeding Question was one of the

hipper vamparazzi celebrity tabloids in Morgana. If they were willing
to spin this disaster into some kind of sexy celebrity mishap, it might
be worth answering.

“Boxers,” he told the blogger, as discreetly as he could. The

response sent the entire crowd into a screaming, scribbling,
photographing feeding frenzy.

If nothing else could be said for the PR disaster that was quickly

becoming his life, it was at least true that all three Morgana species
were, for the moment, coexisting in a state of reasonable nonviolence.
Despite the interspecies gathering of vamps, planeswalkers, and even

Ellen Ginsberg

a few outraged werewolves, no one seemed to give a thought to
hurting one another, and everyone seemed focused on a single,
common goal—destroying Elijah’s reputation as quickly as possible.

He had to get inside his campaign office.
Pushing his way through the hordes of vampire gutterpress

demanding juicy tidbits and planeswalker reporters demanding hard
facts and breaking news, Elijah finally reached the door to his office.

“No further comments!” he bellowed over the din of accusations

as he pushed open the door to his office and slammed it shut behind
him.

“You guys,” he managed between breaths, “have no idea what I

had to go through to get here.”

He backed up against the closed door and heaved out a sigh of

relief as he turned his eyes on his last and most loyal followers.

Eighty accusing eyes glared back at him.
This was not shaping up to be a very good night.
Elijah searched the indignant glares ahead of him for Luke. The

guy might be kind of a hard-ass, but Elijah figured he could count on
his oldest friend for a little mercy or at least a sympathetic ear. When
his campaign manager pushed his way through the crowd of
disillusioned volunteers, Elijah looked at him with pleading eyes.

Luke looked nervously back at him. “Did you do it?”
“No!” he shouted. The crowd responded with a resounding groan,

several of them rolling their eyes and whispering as they gestured to
the numerous copies of defamatory publications spread out amidst the
desks of the office. All of those publications had the same picture on
it. Elijah was going to murder whoever took that photo. He was going
to absolutely bleed the fucker dry.

He winced. In light of the circumstances, the idea might not have

been the best one he’d ever had.

“Okay,” he admitted, raising his palms to the crowd in a gesture

of surrender, “I admit that I drank his blood. But it wasn’t like they
made it out! Come on! You guys know how these newspaper guys

Bloodsucker and the Beast

are. This is their first big political scandal! Obviously, they’re just
going to spin whatever kind of story they think will make the best
headline, regardless of whether or not there’s any veracity to it.
Just…trust me on this. Please.”

Some of the eyes watching him softened, but not all of them. An

irate old vampire spoke up. “You were in the Dead Zone, drinking his
blood. You admitted that, even, just now. What else do we need to
know?”

“Well, for example…” Elijah paused a moment, trying to gather

his thoughts. There were a lot of extenuating circumstances to explain
that photograph, truth be told, so many he wasn’t quite sure he could
package them into one of the clever sound bites he was used to
delivering. Eventually he just said the first thing that popped into his
head. “Well, for one thing? I swear to God he really wanted it.”

A groan went up from the room, and several volunteers threw

things at him. Pens were a popular choice. So were copies of the
newspapers that had done such an impressive job of flushing Elijah’s
good name down the toilet.

“That is the most offensive load of bullshit I’ve ever heard,” said

Suzie, a tough planeswalker who had been one of the first to cross
neutral lines to work for him. She was a founding member of the
Morgana Alliance of Women Liberators, a group Elijah had hoped
she would bring in some funding from. Like United Morgana,
MAWL crossed species lines, although it wasn’t like the women
needed any help defending themselves if they got any flack for their
stance on interspecies relations. Elijah didn’t like to stereotype, but
Morgana’s population was mostly homosexual and the group was
chiefly comprised of angry lesbians. They didn’t call themselves
MAWL for nothing. Given how pissed off Suzie looked right now,
Elijah was seriously starting to fear the wrath of MAWL.

“Whoa!” Elijah shouted over the angry buzz. “Listen, Suzie, I

didn’t mean it like that.”

“How did you mean it?”

Ellen Ginsberg

After the tiff he and Tobey had this morning, he honestly didn’t

know. Elijah tilted his head in thought, running a hand through his no-
longer-perfectly-gelled hair. “All I’m saying is that no one was being
taken advantage of. The experience was mutually satisfying for both
of us.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Suzie quipped. She snorted and held up a copy of

the Undead Enquirer, the one with the headline, “So-Called Man of
Year Swaps Bodily Fluids to Satisfy Bloodlust.”

That set off another torrent of whispered and not-so-whispered

conversation around the office again until Luke finally held up his
hands to quell the crowd. “Listen!” he shouted. “Look, I know
Elijah’s not exactly being intelligent right now—”

“Thanks, Luke. For that,” Elijah interjected.
Luke rolled his eyes and continued. “Or intelligible, but listen,

I’ve been to democratic planes before, and believe me, in terms of
political scandals, this is nothing. Morgana just hasn’t seen one of
these before. All we need to do is put someone appropriate in front of
the press to do PR—”

“You don’t think I’m appropriate?”
Luke leveled a glare at Elijah, then turned his eyes downward to

the BloodBerry device Elijah had given him as a gift at the start of the
campaign. Luke found the webpage he was looking for and held it up
for Elijah to see. It was the blogsite for Answer the Bleeding
Question. The top headline on the page read, “Grey Declines
Comment on Rabid Bloodthirst, Instead Dishes Deets on
Undergarments.”

“That smarmy bastard!” Elijah remarked.
“That smarmy bastard is deciding right now how you look to the

rest of Morgana,” Luke retorted. He moved closer to Elijah and set a
hand on his shoulder. “Look, I know that you wouldn’t have been
caught in this position without good reason, and I honestly doubt you
were just wandering around the Dead Zone looking for a vein to suck,
like some people are saying.” Elijah blanched. He hadn’t heard that

Bloodsucker and the Beast

particular catchphrase yet. Luke continued. “Why don’t you just tell
us what’s going on between you and the werewolf?”

“Between me and Tobey?” Good question. Elijah wouldn’t mind

knowing the answer to that himself. “Well, um, honestly? It’s a little
complicated because—”

“He hurt himself trying to save me,” came a familiar voice from

the doorway. Elijah hadn’t heard the door open, but his eyes flew to it
like a magnet now. He’d only heard that voice a handful of times in
his life, but he knew, he knew, the low, halting, careful tones of the
man who he’d held in his arms last night.

He’d heard that voice cry out in pleasure as Elijah claimed his

mate, biting him until he came. He knew exactly who was speaking.

He just didn’t expect to hear that voice in his campaign office.
“Look, I know there are a lot of rumors flying around, and I know

it’s hard to imagine a situation where Mr. Grey—” Elijah’s heart
clenched at Tobey’s formal use of his last name. “—seems like
anything but a total hypocrite. But I swear that’s not the case. I’ve
been staying in one of the Dead Zone apartments since the war, and I
got into some trouble with a gang of vamps who were out to purchase
blood. Elijah stepped in to help me, and they ganged up on him. I
shifted into my human form and let him drink to save his life.”

“Doesn’t really explain the erection and the groping,” Suzie

quipped, but apart from her caustic comment, the crowd seemed
satisfied with Tobey’s testimony.

“Can you tell the press the same thing?” Luke asked, his eyes

gleaming with hope for the first time since Elijah had entered his
office.

Elijah glared at Luke. “He doesn’t have to do that.”
“I already did,” Tobey said, glancing from Elijah to Luke. “I don’t

know how much they believe, but…” He shrugged. “I did what I
could.”

“Thanks,” Luke said.

Ellen Ginsberg

Elijah eyed the cluster of volunteers who were still standing there,

glancing between him and Tobey, uncertain what to make of things.
They didn’t seem enraged and indignant anymore so much as plain
curious. “All right,” Elijah said, “show’s over. Go back to work.”

“You heard him,” Luke added, and the crowd set to moving.
As they did, Elijah crossed the room toward Tobey. He still didn’t

know where they stood after what happened this morning, or what
had possessed Tobey to cross into vampire territory to see Elijah,
particularly after the way those vamps had attacked him last night.
Elijah growled. Whatever Tobey’s feelings were, Elijah certainly
didn’t like the idea of his mate out there amongst the bloodsuckers.

When he reached Tobey, one green and one blue eye met with

Elijah’s. God, those eyes would be the death of him.

“Can we talk?” Tobey asked quietly.
“I guess that depends,” Elijah said. “Do you trust me now?”
One of Elijah’s hands was resting against the doorway, but the

other fell loosely at Tobey’s side, bumping accidentally against
Tobey’s hand.

Tobey still hadn’t answered his question. Taking his silence for a

no, Elijah thought to move his hand away, but before he could, Tobey
took Elijah’s hand and squeezed it. He didn’t say yes, didn’t even
nod, but damn if that gesture didn’t make Elijah’s heart almost burst
with happiness. He didn’t let go of Tobey’s hand until they were safe
inside Elijah’s private office. Tobey was here, and that was all that
mattered. This time, Elijah wasn’t leaving him without a fight.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Chapter Six

“About that picture…” Tobey began, clearing his throat.
He’d left his apartment with a clear idea in his mind what he

would say to Elijah when this moment arrived, but hell if he could
remember now. Reporters had been relentless in accosting him with
copies of the incriminating photograph on the way over here, so
Tobey had seen himself naked and groping Elijah’s extremely
apparent erection while the vampire sucked his neck maybe three
dozen times in the last half hour. It was hard to keep his dick under
control with that image burned into it, especially given how little
space there was between him and Elijah in his tiny private office. The
whole room consisted of two chairs, a desk, and a stack of
newspapers plastered with front-page headlines explaining exactly
why being alone with Elijah was a really, really bad idea.

“I don’t care about the picture. It’ll be okay.”
Tobey wasn’t so sure about that, but he nodded anyway, amazed

at how unbelievably dry his throat had gotten all of a sudden.
“Thanks,” he croaked, “but your campaign—”

“What happened this morning?”
Elijah looked up at Tobey across the space between them, taking

two steps toward him to shrink that distance. Tobey’s breath
quickened, and he felt his stomach flip-flop at their proximity, but
Elijah left a ghost of a space between them.

“You remember what I said yesterday in the arena? About what

happened to me during the war?”

Elijah nodded, his eyes drifting over to the pictures in the

newspaper. “I remember,” he said warily.

Ellen Ginsberg

“I really liked what happened last night,” Tobey said, hoping to

chase the look of apprehension off his mate’s face. “I know things
happened fast, but I wanted you to claim me. Except then, I fell asleep
and then…”

That worried look was back on Elijah’s face. “And then you

didn’t anymore?”

“And then I had a nightmare,” Tobey said finally. “About what

happened in the war. And I know you would never hurt me, and I
know you’re nothing like those guys—”

“Sure about that?” Elijah asked.
Tobey nodded. “Of course I am. I just…” His eyes trailed upward

until they met Elijah’s, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “I just got
scared.”

Two big arms encircled around Tobey, pressing his face into

Elijah’s neck and his body flat against his mate’s. He breathed in
Elijah’s scent and felt Elijah’s hands stroke his hair and sighed. He
felt safe in Elijah’s arms. Tobey let his hands, previously clenched
into frightened fists at his sides, drift up to clutch at his mate’s shirt.

“It’s okay,” Elijah said, his other hand running gently up the

length of Tobey’s arm. “We can take it slow.”

Elijah’s hand stopped at his shoulder, and his thumb stroked over

the spot on Tobey’s neck where he’d laid his mating bite. His shirt,
buttoned all the way up, hid the bite, and Tobey couldn’t be sure if it
was an accident or not. Either way, he didn’t want that touch to stop.

“Slow is good,” Tobey said, allowing a wandering hand to run a

path up Elijah’s side. “I mean, with everything that happened, with
the news and your campaign and all…we probably shouldn’t…um…”

“Shouldn’t what?”
Shouldn’t be doing this in your campaign office. Even as Tobey

thought the words, his hand stroked up and down, cutting a wider
circle each time until he was practically petting his mate’s back and
chest and stomach. Every breath Elijah took made Tobey’s hand rise

Bloodsucker and the Beast

and fall where it lay on his mate’s shirt, and Tobey felt his own
breathing synchronize with the steady rhythm under his hand.

“Everybody’s seen us together,” he said, practically purring the

words in Tobey’s ear.

“I know,” Tobey said, his mouth dry with the reminder that there

were bigger problems with their relationship than his freakout this
morning. Like the fact that their mating could probably fuck up
everything Elijah had accomplished in the last two months.

“It’s really…” Bad, he had meant to say, or any number of

synonyms for the word. Uncomfortable, fucked up, embarrassing, but
the more he tried to concentrate on speaking, the more Elijah’s hard
cock ground against his through the fabric of their pants, and the
words he landed on were chased from his mouth with a needy moan.
“It’s really fucking hot.”

The words seemed to snap something in both men, and their slow

touching dissolved into a frenzy of lips and tongues and teeth as their
mouths collided together. Tobey wrapped both hands around the back
of Elijah’s neck as Elijah sucked his tongue, walking him backward
through the small office. He didn’t stop until Tobey’s ass collided
with the wooden desk that stood in the center of the room and bumped
against it with each slow grind of Elijah’s leg between his.

“Whoa,” Tobey said as he pulled away panting. This wasn’t

exactly how he’d envisioned their meeting going, especially after
they’d resolved to take things slow. Tobey managed to pry his lips off
Elijah’s, but Elijah’s hard cock was still grinding away between his
legs as his fingers worked the button on his slacks. “Wait, wait,
wait…”

“Are you okay?”
Elijah halted his movements, but his fingers lingered dangerously

close to Tobey’s cock. Tobey groaned. “Don’t stop.”

Elijah smiled as he unzipped Tobey’s fly then ran his hand slowly,

teasingly over the waistband of his boxers. Tobey’s mind was so
fogged by lust he could barely think.

Ellen Ginsberg

“I just…I mean, shouldn’t we…” Tobey stopped to gulp a

mouthful of air as the involuntary grind of his hips forced Elijah’s
thumb over the tip of his cock. “We’re in your office. If people found
out…”

“No, you’re right,” he said, pulling away. “You’re right, you’re

right, you’re right. Fuck.”

Tobey instantly regretted the loss of his mate’s hand. He dropped

his own hand to his balls, trying to relieve the pressure. It didn’t
exactly make him any less turned on. “I could be wrong,” Tobey said
quietly.

Elijah’s mouth opened slightly as he watched Tobey rub his cock

through the soft cotton of his boxers. Tobey could see the tips of his
mate’s fangs had already popped out. “Wrong is good,” Elijah panted,
placing his hand over Tobey’s and giving it a light squeeze as he
buried his face in Tobey’s neck. “I like wrong.”

Tobey choked down a nervous swallow. He was pretty sure wrong

wasn’t good, but it was hard to remember that when Elijah’s fangs
were grazing his neck. “I don’t know,” he said as Elijah’s extremely
capable hand cupped his balls and worked them expertly. “I mean
with the…” Elijah tugged his balls gently, and he bit back a moan.
“With the news reporters and the campaign and the…
vampire…werewolf…oh, shit that feels good.”

Letting go of the last razor-thin thread of his control, Tobey let his

hands roam freely over Elijah’s broad chest and flat stomach,
stripping the double-breasted jacket off him and letting his hands fly
to the buttons of his shirt while Elijah busied himself with stripping
his boxers off his hips.

“You have any idea how many times I had to see you naked this

morning?” he asked, stroking Tobey’s cock with one hand while
trying to undo his belt with the other.

He fumbled, and Tobey reached down to take over, abandoning

his struggle with the buttons on Elijah’s shirt for the vampire’s

Bloodsucker and the Beast

considerably more alluring cock. “Oh my God,” Tobey groaned. “I
had to see that picture so many times…so many times…”

“God,” Elijah panted. “That picture…so hot…”
“I know. Your campaign…is so fucked.” Finally, he managed to

unzip Elijah’s pants and shove them down, closing one hand around
Elijah’s cock to stroke it as his other gripped his tie. “Holy crap, you
look good in pinstripes.”

“Totally fucked,” Elijah agreed, pressing a hand against his

shoulder and urging Tobey to turn around. “Bend over the desk.”

A soft cry escaped Tobey’s mouth as Elijah’s hand stroked down

his back, guiding him to lean over the desk and forcing his now-bare
ass out behind him. Tobey placed his palms down on either side of
him, sending important-looking papers flying off the desktop as the
hard wood of the furniture chafed against the hard wood that was no
longer safely tucked inside Tobey’s slacks.

Briefly, Tobey considered how big Elijah’s cock had felt last

night, how tightly it had fit inside him, and worried about the decided
dryness of the fuck that was almost certainly about to happen. Those
fears—along with all rational thought—fled his head when Elijah
cupped Tobey’s cock, stroking it as he ground his erection against
Tobey’s ass.

Tobey’s body stiffened against Elijah’s, torn between thrusting his

hips forward to hump Elijah’s hand or backward to urge Elijah’s cock
against his asshole. Instead he settled for a gentle rocking back and
forth, which did nothing to quell the pressure building inside him
much too quickly to last until Elijah fucked him. He’d always come
easily, but here in his office, with his pants hanging around his knees
as Elijah’s big dick slid up and down the crease of his ass, he doubted
he’d last five minutes.

“I don’t exactly have any lube in the office,” came the strained

voice behind him, “so you’re going to have to work with me here.”

Before Tobey could question him, a hot hand landed on his ass

cheek, snapping the thread of his resistance as hot jets of cum shot out

Ellen Ginsberg

of him, painting the desk and Elijah’s hand. Tobey’s head fell limply
on the desk ahead of him, but his cock continued to grind against
Elijah’s hand as it rubbed him to gather his release. He had half a
mind to apologize for the mess that he’d made before he felt that same
sticky hand stroke inside his crease and circle his hole, using his own
cum to slicken it.

Tobey had to bite back a scream at the eroticism of the act, and he

could swear he felt his softening dick twitch when Elijah’s stiff cock
pressed against his opening. From the way it slid against him, he
could tell that it, too, had been slickened with his cum, and he licked
his lips as he thought of Elijah rubbing Tobey’s seed against his cock.

He sucked in a breath as he felt Elijah’s cock breach his hole, hard

and fast as Tobey panted in and out in long, heavy breaths. The last
time they’d fucked, Elijah had started out gentle, careful, but not this
time. He drove his cock inside him hard and deep, making him moan
and squirm against the desk until he felt his balls press against his ass.

“Oh, fuck, Elijah,” Tobey groaned as Elijah pulled out and pushed

back in again mercilessly. Each forward thrust shoved Tobey against
the desk with a hard jerk, and each time his cock pushed against the
desk, he felt it stiffen a little more.

As if reading his mind, Elijah’s hand slid around from his hip and

found Tobey’s cock again, thrusting in and out of his ass. Tobey’s
hands curled into fists on the desk, fuck, even his toes curled as
Elijah’s hand roved up and down him, almost groping more than
stroking him.

“Your cock,” Elijah panted, “is the best cock,” he continued

between thrusts, “of all the cocks I have ever seen.”

“Is that a lot?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re really fucking good at this.”
Tobey heard as much strain in Elijah’s voice as there was in his

own, and he pushed backward to meet his movements, urging Elijah
so deep inside him he couldn’t help but cry out again. Abruptly,

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Elijah’s hand trailed up his back and around the side of his face to
cover his mouth. Wild with need, Tobey lapped at the hand that
pressed against his lips, drawing a moan from Elijah almost as loud as
the one he’d silenced a moment ago. “Oh fuck, that’s good. Oh God.
Suck my fingers, baby. Oh fuck, I’m gonna come.”

Tobey nodded his head weakly to signify he was right there with

him. The hard strokes of Elijah’s cock in his ass and his fingers
fucking into his mouth were pushing his orgasm closer, closer,
closer…

Until it was interrupted by a loud and unbelievably inconvenient

knock on the door.

* * * *

“Please don’t fucking come in right now!” Elijah shouted to

whoever had irrevocably ruined his dick’s plans for the rest of the
evening. Now the only reminder he had of those plans was the dull
ache that was slowly spreading up from his balls as both men
scrambled to hide their dicks and straighten their clothing. It was a
losing battle. Elijah’s cock was still standing straight up.

“Maybe we should sit down,” Tobey whispered.
He nodded appreciatively and sat down in one of the chairs as

Tobey sat in the other, staring at him from across the desk that Elijah
had hoped to be coming on by now. Speaking of which…Elijah
handed Tobey a tissue, nodding to Tobey to wipe the front of the desk
with it. Tobey’s cheeks colored adorably as he did. With the tissue
safely deposited in the trashcan, Elijah gave a resigned sigh and called
to the door loudly, “Okay, what?”

Luke swung the door open and stood in the doorway, staring at

Elijah and Tobey sitting primly in their chairs, legs crossed, hands
folded over their laps. “Did I…interrupt something?”

“Why would you think that?”
“Your papers are all over the floor.”

Ellen Ginsberg

Elijah blushed as he scrambled to pick up the documents Tobey

had shoved off the desk in the heat of the moment. “I was
reorganizing,” he replied quickly.

“O…kay,” Luke said dubiously. “Listen, I just wanted to let you

know that Tobey’s statement went over brilliantly, and we are
currently up to our eyeballs in campaign donations.”

Elijah’s mood lifted a little. He cleared his throat, giving Tobey a

sideways glance across the desk as he replied to Luke. “Great, well, I
was just communicating to, um, Mr. Lennox how extremely pleased I
am with his readiness to help set the record straight.”

“Do you think you can come look at this list of donors with me?

God knows we can use the contributions, but I don’t want to take a
check from anyone if it’s going to come back and bite us in the ass.”

Elijah’s eyes wandered across the desk to Tobey as he

contemplated the possibilities of ass-biting. “Kinda like to get back to
what I was doing if you don’t mind.”

Luke’s eyebrows drew up in surprise. “Thanking Tobey?”
“Privately.”
Luke gave Elijah a questioning look, but just the same, he began

to edge out the door. Thank fuck. He held up the clipboard in his
hands, signaling to Elijah with it. “As soon as you get a chance.”

Just when he was about to pull the door blissfully, wonderfully

shut behind him, Luke flung it back open again, sticking his head
through the crack. “Oh, and Elijah? The Interplanal Association for
Interspecies Mating wanted to back us, but I already told them no. I
mean, no offense, but I really kinda figured we’d want to keep our
distance with the, ah, publicity that circulated this morning. I mean,
it’s not like they’re the most popular organization on Morgana
anyway, you know?”

Elijah’s eyes flitted nervously over to Tobey before he turned

them back on Luke’s self-satisfied smirk. A growl escaped his lips as
he contemplated the words. It wasn’t that Luke was wrong about it.
On the contrary, Elijah’s frustration came from how spot-on he was.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Although there were a few out interspecies couples wandering around
the plane and almost certainly a wealth of them hiding in the closet,
the idea of interspecies mating was still fairly taboo in the
supernatural realm. In fact, some planes even had laws against it,
forcing couples to take refuge away from their home plane. If United
Morgana did form an alliance with the IAIM, there was a good chance
that the campaign would gain a reputation as a pit stop on the way
toward legitimizing interspecies mating. Definitely not something the
plane was ready for, and definitely a surefire way to get United
Morgana shut down.

Unfortunately, Elijah was already mated to a werewolf.
“Um,” Elijah began, trying to determine just how long he could

stammer out unintelligible syllables before either man in the room
called him out on his indecision. “See, the thing is, Tobey is,
um…he’s…well…” He glanced at Tobey helplessly, trying to figure
out the best way to break the news of his mating to Luke without
sending him into coronary arrest.

“I’m going to be helping out with the campaign from now on,”

Tobey finished. “Elijah was going to give me some jobs to do around
the office. Right, Elijah?”

“Um, right,” Elijah said. It wasn’t exactly the announcement he’d

planned. He eyed his mate carefully from across the desk, trying to
figure out what was going on in his head, but Tobey merely smiled
back at him easily. Elijah raised a curious brow in return, and Luke
stared at both of them like they’d gone completely nuts.

“Okay. What does this have to do with interspecies mating?”
“Nothing,” Elijah and Tobey said in unison.
They stared at each other. Luke stared at them. “Everything okay

with you guys?”

“That is a weird question to ask two people who are virtual

strangers. Which…we…are?” he asked, turning to Tobey for
verification on whatever game he was playing.

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

Ellen Ginsberg

“You tell me.”
“I asked you first.”
“Okay, this is getting really weird, so I’m just gonna let myself

out and deal with the whole IAIM thing—”

Elijah glanced from Tobey to Luke to Tobey again. “Um, can I

actually get back to you on that issue?”

“You’re joking, right?”
“’Fraid not.”
Luke’s mouth fell open for a moment, gaping until he snapped it

shut. He stood there silently, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the
bridge of his nose before he managed a response. “Okay, change of
plans. I know you just had a near-death experience last night, so
maybe today isn’t the best day for you to be making decisions that can
affect—”

“Can you please just leave us alone for a minute?” Elijah asked,

giving his friend a look he hoped would end the conversation
altogether.

It did. Wordlessly, Luke slipped out of the doorway, pulling the

door shut behind him. Elijah glanced back at Tobey, hoping that being
alone with his mate again would ease the sudden weird tension that
had crept between them.

It didn’t.
“So I guess we’re not telling people,” Elijah said, unable to keep

the edge from his voice. He hadn’t exactly been chomping at the bit to
tell Luke their little secret, but he hadn’t intended to hide his mating
from anyone either.

“Isn’t that what you want? I just thought, with your campaign and

everything, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to announce it to everyone.”

“Where did you get that idea?”
“I mean, you didn’t exactly correct your friend when he said

supporting interspecies mating would ruin your campaign.”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Elijah eyed Tobey, licking his lips as he noticed the haphazard job

Tobey had done of tucking in his button-down shirt. One delectable
patch of skin was peeking out from the waistband of his slacks.

“I really, really want this to work,” Elijah said slowly. “I know

this isn’t going to be easy, but you’re my mate. I can’t walk away
from that.”

“Me neither.” Tobey’s eyes dropped to the cluster of papers on

Elijah’s desk. “But I also know this campaign is important to you, and
I don’t want to fuck it up.”

Elijah shook his head. “You’re not going to fuck up—”
Tobey’s expression grew serious as he looked at Elijah. “You

know I will. Luke’s right. Interspecies couples aren’t exactly popular
on this plane, especially after the war. If people find out we’re
together, they’ll never vote for the Bill of Rights.”

Elijah wanted nothing more than to contradict Tobey, but he

couldn’t. He was right. It would be more than a scandal. It would end
the campaign altogether.

“You really believe in this now?” he asked.
Tobey nodded. “Whatever I said yesterday, I was wrong.”
“You had every right to say what you said. After what happened

to you—”

“It’s in the past,” Tobey said firmly. “This is about the future.

Look, all I’m saying is that if you think there’s a way that everyone
can live together then I believe in you.”

Elijah bit his lip, recalling how hurt and angry Tobey had been

when he’d shouted at him in the arena yesterday. He certainly hadn’t
seemed to believe in Elijah then, but a lot had changed in the time that
had passed since that rally.

His eyes drifted to the newspaper sitting on his desk, complete

with the photo of them that was still hot as hell. When he glanced
back up at Tobey, he saw his mate had turned an adorable shade of
red. Elijah nodded toward the paper then grinned at Tobey. “You
think this can be as sexy in private as it is on the front page?”

Ellen Ginsberg

Tobey turned back toward the closed door then smiled at Elijah. “I

don’t know. Ever gotten a blow job at your desk before?”

Elijah smiled. He had a feeling he was going to like this mating

thing.

* * * *

Marshall sat on the couch in Cade’s living room, right next to his

brother Keegan on the couch while Keegan’s friends, Brolin and
Mike, took over the two armchairs. Marshall had pretty much
dreamed of this day ever since Keegan and the guys started talking up
how great a leader Cade was. He’d hoped that someday he’d be
allowed into the inner circle of the Vamp Power movement, that he’d
get to hang out with Cade and the guys, and that for once, he’d finally
feel like he was one of the gang. Now he was there, and it was exactly
like he’d always thought it would be. Maybe even better. It was so
fucking awesome.

Kind of.
Marshall winced as his eyes drifted toward the TV where that

skinny wolf from last night was on the screen, talking about how that
Elijah Grey wasn’t at all like the papers had made him out to be and
the picture was just a big misunderstanding. That in itself was bad
since Marshall was, after all, the one who’d taken the picture. What
was way worse, though, was that the more that werewolf guy talked
the redder Cade’s face got until finally he threw the remote at the TV
and started yelling. Apparently, Cade spent a lot of time doing that.

“What the fuck?” Cade shouted, not so much to Marshall or the

guys as to the world at large. “Do they seriously expect the public to
buy this shit? He was only naked because he shifted? Can they not see
the groping and the erection?”

“Yeah, he’s huge,” Brolin chimed in. “Hard to miss a cock like

that.”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

“He’s a werewolf,” Keegan snarled at his friend. “What the fuck is

wrong with you?”

“Sorry. Jeez,” Brolin muttered. “Look, I’m a guy. What do you

want me to say? He’s fucking naked.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cade snapped. “You’re a guy?

And I suppose the rest of us aren’t?”

Marshall considered the question. He was pretty sure Cade had the

parts and all, but he was kind of starting to seem like a prude.
Marshall had only been around him for less than a day, and he’d
already made about a billion remarks about the importance of moral
standards and sexual purity. The way Keegan and his friends had
talked up Cade, Marshall had expected hanging around him would be
like a twenty-four-seven orgy. Instead it was like one boring,
unending lecture.

“Hey, whoa. No. Listen, I didn’t mean any disrespect or

anything,” Brolin stuttered. “I was just saying, you know, like you
always do, that I have needs, you know. You can’t hold it against me
if it’s natural, right?”

“Like blood drinking,” Mike chimed in.
“Exactly.”
Brolin reached over to offer his friend a fist pound, but before he

could, Cade stepped between them, grasping both of their extended
fists and twisting them until they yelped. His eyes flashing yellow,
Cade glared at them.

“Not like blood drinking,” he said with a growl.
Marshall sat totally motionless in his chair as Cade released

Brolin and Mike’s hands, leaving them to rub their sore wrists as he
furiously stalked away from them. To say the guy was touchy was an
understatement.

It would be more to the point to say he could be kind of a dick

sometimes. Or most of the time. Or all the time. Marshall sighed. It
was a good thing he hadn’t brought up the guy’s weird affinity for
sports or the fact that his house looked like it had been decorated by

Ellen Ginsberg

two blind butch lesbians, or Cade probably would have bitten his head
off. Anyway, if the guy wanted to spend his free time at pickup
football games, more power to him. Marshall wasn’t about to draw
any conclusions.

At least, not out loud.
As Cade crossed in front of the remote he’d hurled at the TV

screen, he bent to pick it up, thwacking it against his open palm. He
continued to do that as he paced across the room like an army general
readying his troops for battle.

“Interspecies sex is not natural. Interspecies sex is an

abomination. Warmblooded creatures might resemble us in their
human form, but I assure you, they are nothing like us.”

“What about planeswalkers?” Mike asked, his brow furrowed as if

he were deep in thought.

“Did you just raise your fucking hand?” Brolin asked him.
“No.” Mike put his hand down, his face reddening. “Shut up.”
“Why? Because I don’t have permission to talk?” Brolin shot

back.

“Both of you shut up,” Keegan said. “I was trying to listen to

Cade.”

“Suck-up,” Brolin muttered under his breath.
“What was that?” Keegan said, raising his voice.
“You want me to answer? I thought you just told me to shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“All of you, shut up!” A loud growl from Cade silenced the whole

lot of them. “As I was saying…” He glared at each person in the
room, almost daring them to interrupt before he continued.
“Warmbloods are prey. For us to be sexually attracted to them would
be like a werewolf being sexually attracted to a steak. You wouldn’t
fuck a steak, would you, Brolin?”

He looked at Brolin savagely, thrusting the remote control into his

chest. “No,” Brolin said.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

“Then I guess you’ll reconsider the next time you make overtures

about a fucking fleabag.” Cade snorted, shaking his head. “Idiots, the
whole lot of you. Thank God you showed up, Marshall. You’re the
only one who seems to listen to a word I say. As for the rest of you,
sometimes I get the impression you just started yelling ‘vamp power’
one day because you thought it would make you look tough.”

Marshall felt his face flush furiously at that. That was exactly

what he’d done. “Uh, thanks,” he mumbled, staring at the TV screen
where Elijah was now finishing his statement.

“And while I do not deny drinking this young man’s blood, I do

object to the assaults on his character. Yes, he was naked when he
offered me his blood, but only because he was acting out of
compassion and necessity, without a thought to how he might be
perceived by others. When he saw me severely injured from the group
of vampires who attacked me, Tobey shifted from wolf form and
offered me his blood as a means of saving my life…”

Marshall looked up sharply, his eyes darting over to Keegan.

“You attacked him?”

Mike smiled. “Yeah, man. You should have seen him. He totally

jumped that fucker Grey. It was fucking sweet.”

“Like you even hung around to see it,” Keegan grumbled.
“Can he identify you?” Cade asked.
Keegan’s eyes flashed with fear, and he shrunk in his seat. “He

didn’t,” he said. “Look, he just said a group of vampires. He didn’t
say what we looked like. Anyway, he’s fine. Look at him,” he said,
gesturing to the screen.

Marshall looked at him. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You said he jumped you.”

“Yeah, right,” Keegan said, nervously glancing around at Brolin

and Mike as they gawked at him. “I wouldn’t let that pussy get near
me. God, he’s even worse than you are. Fucking fangophobic
asshole.”

“Yeah, but he said you almost killed—”

Ellen Ginsberg

“Well, he fucking deserves to die! He hates vampires. He’s gonna

fuck everything up for us. Right, Cade?”

Keegan glanced at Cade for approval, but Cade shook his head,

growling in frustration. “You can’t go attacking other vampires. Even
fur-fucking, traitorous, simpering, sorry excuses for vampires like
Grey. Vamp Power is about taking pride in our own species. If we
start turning against our own, we’ll just look like a bunch of thugs.”

“Yeah. Exactly. We’re totally gangster,” Mike said with a

confidence that seemed to wilt the second Cade glared in his
direction.

“But we don’t want to look like gangsters,” Brolin explained.

“Otherwise the stupid Bill of Rights will pass and we won’t have
Vamp Power anymore.” He looked at Cade for approval. “Right?”

Cade nodded wearily. “Right.”
“Yeah, but what about all that Vamp Power bling we got? Can we

still wear it or is it just for like around the house? What about our
gang colors? Can we wear those?” Mike asked.

Brolin rolled his eyes. “That’s the good kind of gangster. He

means the bad kind.”

“How many kinds are there?”
“The good, the bad, and the stupid. Guess which one you are.”
“At least I’m not the pussy kind,” Mike quipped, leaning over his

chair to punch Marshall on the arm. “Right, dipshit?”

Keegan and Brolin laughed as Marshall rubbed his sore arm and

sighed. Nothing like finally being accepted.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Chapter Seven

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Wow, Luke. You know, I really haven’t seen you this worked up

in a long time. Not really sure it becomes you.”

Elijah coolly pulled his arm away from where Luke was holding it

and straightened his jacket as Luke tried to burn holes through it with
his heated glare. It was amazing. Usually Luke was far and away the
more levelheaded of the two of them, but now, Luke’s long-
suppressed anger seemed to have reached the boiling point. The guy
looked so angry steam was practically pouring out of his ears.

Elijah reached out to pat Luke’s shoulder in an effort to calm him

down. He hardly got two pats in before Luke smacked his hand away.

“You know what doesn’t become you, Elijah?” Luke stood close

to Elijah so he could say the words in what could only be described as
the most intense whisper ever. “Or maybe I should say what doesn’t
become your status as a public figure? The fact that you’re obviously
on a date with a fucking werewolf!”

Just when Elijah was about to reply to that accusation—

personally, he would have omitted the obviously part, but other than
that, it was a pretty accurate assessment—his phone buzzed in his
pocket, signaling a text. He flipped the phone open and read the
message.

Do you know what winks and gives great head?

Ellen Ginsberg

Elijah glanced across the bar to the table where Tobey was sitting,

pretending nonchalance. He raised an eyebrow at his oblivious mate
and typed a reply.

?

Before he could hit send, Luke pulled him back to reality.
“What are you looking at?” Luke followed Elijah’s line of sight to

where Tobey was pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Oh, for fuck’s
sake…”

“I’m not on a date with him,” Elijah retorted, flipping open his

phone when it started buzzing. He grinned at the message.

;)

Shaking his head, he typed one back, shielding his phone from

Luke’s prying eyes.

U sexy dork. Am holding you to that later.

“What are you typing?”
“Nothing,” Elijah said, flipping his phone closed abruptly.
Damn, he thought. Maybe they were that obvious. Up until

tonight, their system of meeting up in public places and “happening”
to bump into one another had seemed to work pretty well.
Unfortunately, Elijah hadn’t planned on actually bumping into Luke
on his way to Bloodlust. His initial attempts to politely say hello and
keep on walking had failed when Luke trailed after him, demanding
answers for why United Morgana was not only now accepting checks
from the Interplanal Alliance for Interspecies Mating, but why Elijah
had tweaked the bill’s “right to a free and unforced mating” to imply
interspecies matings could not be legislated against. Eventually,
Elijah had given up trying to evade Luke altogether and walked into

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Bloodlust, telling the irate planeswalker he was just going to have to
follow him in there if he wanted to talk.

It had done absolutely nothing to improve the guy’s mood.
His phone buzzed in his pocket again, and Elijah realized that,

either way, he was going to have to excuse himself soon. There were
only so many times he could feel the damn thing vibrating next to his
erect dick in one night.

Especially if Tobey was going to keep texting him sexual

innuendos.

Groaning at the message on the screen, he frantically used his

shaking thumbs to type out a response. He could only pray the gods of
autocorrect were kind to him.

“If you don’t put that phone back in your pants, I am prying it out

of your hands and shoving it up your ass.”

Like that was really going to solve his problem. “Talk about a

rock and a hard place,” Elijah muttered.

“What?”
“Nothing,” Elijah said, sending the message and pocketing his

phone. “Look, I had no idea he was going to be here when I showed
up. I haven’t even seen the guy since he made his ‘Elijah’s a hero’
statement, which, if you remember, actually put us ahead of where
we’d been in the polls before the whole Dead Zone scandal.”

It was true. Well, at least the part about the campaign was. There

had been some worry as to what would happen after the photos of him
and Tobey had made the front pages of every newspaper in Morgana,
but those worries had been quickly assuaged. In fact, after Tobey’s
statement and a massive PR blitz from Elijah’s volunteers following
close on its heels, the vamparazzi had left Elijah alone and found
other public figures to follow around.

Which was why Elijah had been able to get away with sneaking

Tobey into his apartment to sleep with him every night.

“You see him in the office every night. I know because he shows

up for work almost exactly five minutes after you every single

Ellen Ginsberg

evening. I don’t want to draw any unsavory conclusions here, but so
help me God, if you’re sleeping with him—”

“I’m not sleeping with him,” Elijah retorted. His phone buzzed,

and he glanced at the text.

Why, Mr. Grey. You never told me you had a foot fetish.



What the fuck had he just typed? He scrolled back through his

sent messages and landed on the one he’d hastily written while
dealing with Luke. Goddamn it. He definitely had not intended to tell
Tobey he made his sock hard.

“Why would you even think I’m sleeping with him?” Elijah

retorted as he frantically worked to reply to his mate’s smart-assed
text.

Not funny. Turning off autocorrect now. Spanking you later.

He grinned, pleased with his response. Glaring at him, Luke

pointed at his face. “Because you get that look on your face every
time I ask you about it. Damn it, Elijah, you can’t bring him to a bar
like Bloodlust—”

“Just because it’s called Bloodlust doesn’t mean there’s

interspecies sex happening in the back rooms. Or feeding, for that
matter,” Elijah said, staring at the doors to the back room. As the
doors swung open, they revealed a vamp strolling out arm-in-arm
with a were, both of their faces plastered with I-just-got-laid smiles.

“—and give each other doofy smiles like that all night—”
“Okay, I might have smiled in his general direction, but I certainly

didn’t smile at him.”

“—and expect people not to figure out that you’re fucking each

other.”

Elijah’s phone buzzed again, and he opened it to read the

message.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Sounds hot. Do you promise to sock me off afterward?

Elijah glanced across the bar to see Tobey smirking at him. Oh, he

was so going to get it when they got home. Grinning like an idiot,
Elijah typed a response and hit send.

“Did you just sext him?”
“No,” Elijah snorted.
Luke stared across the bar to where Tobey pulled his phone out of

his pocket and nearly spit out his drink. Elijah smiled, first
triumphantly, then sheepishly when Luke snatched the phone out of
his hands, flipping back to read Elijah’s message.

“‘Tell me where to…’” Luke trailed off, his brow furrowed in

thought. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

He shoved the phone back into Elijah’s hands. Elijah shrugged,

putting it away. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t read other people’s
private messages.”

“What the hell is so private about a soc—” Luke’s eyes widened

as the lightbulb seemed to go off in his head. “Oh my God!” Luke
stabbed a bony finger into Elijah’s chest. “You are going to go home
now. You are going to cancel the check from IAIM. You are going to
rephrase the ‘right to an unforced mating’ clause in an appropriate
way, and you are going to leave Tobey the fuck alone before people
start putting two and two together!”

“I told you, none of that interspecies mating stuff has anything to

do with Tobey.”

“At this point, you might as well be mated to the guy! Goddamn

it, Elijah, at least then we could chalk it up to fate and pass it off as a
star-crossed lovers thing, but this? What am I supposed to say? I’m
sorry, your future leader would like to endorse drinking the blood of
non-sentient animals over warmbloods, but he just can’t seem to keep
his dick in his pants. I mean fuck, Elijah…”

Ellen Ginsberg

Luke continued to talk, flapping his arms in the air, his face

flushed with the effort of his wild gesticulations, but Elijah wasn’t
really listening anymore. He’d heard all he needed to. God, was that
really the case? Not that their little secret didn’t have its merits. All
the planning and meeting up and pretending usually had both of them
ready to rip each other’s clothes off by the time they finally managed
to reconvene in the safety of Elijah’s apartment at night. But it was
also exhausting as hell. Aside from that, Elijah wasn’t exactly nuts
about not being able to take his mate’s hand in public or dance with
him in a bar like a normal couple.

He glanced around the bar. Poised on the outskirts of the

Bloodlands and conveniently close to the Dead Zone, which lay on
the other side of neutral territory, Bloodlust had a reputation in
Morgana as the only bar where all species were welcomed without
prejudice. To more than a few citizens of Morgana, that policy made
the bar a sketchy dive where vamps could seek out bloodpeddlers to
feed from, but to others, it was a place where interspecies mates could
go and enjoy each other’s company without being hassled or harassed.

Provided, of course, they weren’t complete and total cowards.
“Maybe you’re right,” Elijah said. “Maybe it is pointless to

pretend like there’s nothing going on between us. I mean, our whole
campaign platform is based on the idea that separate species can get
along. Am I totally stupid here for keeping my distance from him?”

Luke’s eyes widened, and he smacked his palm into his forehead.

“Have you heard a single word I’ve said for the past five minutes?”

“Not really, no.”
“I’m going to tell you this one more time. You are being stupid.

And you haven’t been keeping your distance.”

“He’s my mate, Luke.”
“That’s…not funny.”
“You said it yourself. It would be better if we were mates, so…”
“So? So what? Elijah, please tell me that sentence doesn’t end

with ‘so I thought I’d just go ahead and flush the campaign we all

Bloodsucker and the Beast

worked so hard on down the toilet,’ because I was speaking
hypothetically! Goddamn it! What the hell were you…what
are…what…” Luke’s words sputtered to a stop as Elijah loosened his
tie and jerked down the collar of his shirt to show off his mating bite.
“Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

“Like I said, he’s my mate.” Setting his collar right, Elijah stared

at Luke’s increasingly red face. “Look, I’m sorry if you don’t
approve, but I can’t exactly undo it. Anyway, you’re right. It’s going
to come out eventually, and it’s better now than later.” Elijah waited
for a response from Luke, but he was too busy downing the rest of his
beer in one long gulp. “You okay there, buddy?”

“Fine,” he said. He banged the empty beer bottle down on a

nearby table with a bit more force than necessary. “Just going to go
home, drink five more of these, and bang my head into a wall.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go ask him to dance.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
Elijah stared at Tobey as he sat at the bar, nursing his drink and

staring off at the dance floor where several interspecies couples were
grinding away amidst the masses of vamps dancing under the low
lights. Some of the more brazen vamps were even feeding from their
partners on the dance floor. As Tobey reached up to absently finger
the side of his neck, Elijah groaned and felt his cock throb with desire.

“Definitely not joking,” he muttered, draining his beer before

setting it on the bar and heading toward Tobey.

Luke grabbed for Elijah’s hand to stop him, but Elijah wrested it

away effortlessly. “So help me God, if you do anything to jeopardize
the future of this campaign, I will…I will…” Elijah raised an eyebrow
at him. “Organize a press conference!” Luke finished with as much
menace as he could muster.

Elijah smiled and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Be my

guest.”

Elijah was certain he could hear more of his friend’s shouted

protest as he made his way across the bar toward his mate, but as

Ellen Ginsberg

Tobey’s gorgeous eyes turned upward and he flashed Elijah that
adorable smile he loved, there was no way he could be expected to
listen.

* * * *

“You’re kidding. Never? But you’re mates!”
“Shh!” Tobey hissed, looking around with alarm to see if anyone

had heard Franklin’s outburst. Thankfully, the only person who
seemed to be paying attention to his big-mouthed friend was Tobey.
“That isn’t exactly public knowledge, remember?”

“Uh, is it private knowledge? Because correct me if I’m wrong,

but in order to mate, don’t you have to—”

“That was different,” Tobey said in the most insistent whisper he

could muster. “We had to bite each other to mate. It was a one-time
thing.” Franklin opened his mouth to protest, and Tobey held up a
hand. “And before you ask, the same goes for when I saved his life.”

Franklin snorted. “So this is…what? The third one-time thing?”
Tobey guessed Franklin did kind of have a point with that one.

His eyes trailed to the text Elijah had just sent him.

Meet me in the back in 5 and tell me where to sock. Am open to

suggestions.

Tobey swallowed hard. He had a sneaking suspicion his mate

wasn’t talking about footwear. Biting his lip, he glanced up at
Franklin.

“You don’t think he wants to, um…”
“In my experience, yes. There is an awful lot of umming going on

in the back room.”

Tobey raised one eyebrow at Franklin. “In your experience?” he

asked skeptically.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

Franklin shifted in his seat, his former bravado dissipating. “Okay,

maybe not. But,” he said, triumphantly pointing a swizzle stick at
Tobey, “it’s not like it takes a rocket scientist to figure out what goes
on back there. I mean, come on. He told you to meet him at an
interspecies bar, for fate’s sake.”

“I guess.” Absently, Tobey ran a hand up to his neck. When his

fingers brushed against his mating bite, he shuddered. It wasn’t like
he didn’t want Elijah feeding from him. It was just that, after his
nightmare and subsequent freak-out, the subject hadn’t exactly come
up.

No matter how much Tobey secretly kind of wanted it to.
Tobey sighed. “Look, he’s the one who came up with the whole

humane blood-drinking thing. He doesn’t believe in drinking from
warmbloods. Being mated doesn’t change that,” he said with
conviction. At least, he didn’t think being mated changed that. Feeling
his conviction waver, he continued. “He has principles.”

“Is that why you guys are lying to everyone about your mating?”
“We’re not lying. We’re just…not telling anyone. It’s completely

different.” Franklin gave him a look that implied he didn’t believe as
much. “It is. And as far as anything else goes, both of us are
completely fine with what we do and do not do in the bedroom. And
dining room.”

Franklin rolled his eyes. “Prude.”
Tobey narrowed his. “Freak.”
“Oh my God, you know what else is freaky? Guys who swallow.

Oh, and guys who don’t shower before and after sex. Completely
repugnant. Total freaks.”

Tobey growled. As much as he hated to admit it, his smug, self-

satisfied friend had a point. Still, there was no way he was going to
admit that to him.

“It is so seriously none of your business if he’s—” Tobey cut

himself off abruptly as he saw Elijah approaching them from across
the bar. “—right over there. Fuck. Don’t be weird.”

100

Ellen Ginsberg

“When am I ever weird?”
Tobey didn’t even have time to contemplate the myriad answers

he’d already amassed to that question before he felt a hand on his
shoulder and heard a silky smooth voice in his ear.

“Sorry to bother you, but didn’t you save my life recently?”
Tobey was unable to help the smile that spread across his face at

Elijah’s careful touch. To anyone passing by, the gesture might
appear as a friendly platonic greeting, but most passersby wouldn’t
notice Elijah’s fingers lightly scratching across the fabric of his shirt
as he asked the question…or the way Tobey inclined his head toward
Elijah to discreetly inhale his mate’s scent.

At least, he hoped they wouldn’t notice.
Tobey glanced across the table to where Franklin was openly

staring at them.

“I could probably find some pictures of that on the Internet if you

really can’t remember,” Franklin interjected, directing his pointed
words at Tobey. “Although, I’m not sure why you’d forget. From
what Tobey’s told me, you both spent a lot of time staring at those
pictures last week. Like a lot of time…privately…ow!”

“Sorry, my foot slipped. Elijah, this is Franklin. Franklin, this is

Elijah, who you’ve never met and know nothing about.” He glared at
Franklin, hoping the little twit would get his meaning.

Rubbing his shin with his left hand, Franklin stuck out his right to

shake Elijah’s. “My mistake,” he grumbled.

Turning his attentions back to Tobey, Elijah nonchalantly laid a

hand on Tobey’s.

“I’m gonna go dance,” he said. “Any chance I could get you to

come with me?”

“Maybe later.” Tobey smirked at the now-familiar innuendo

they’d repeated to each other so many times over the course of the
week.

Rather than returning his smirk, he eyed Tobey with apparent

seriousness and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Completely

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serious, baby.” He tugged at Tobey’s hand until he’d pulled him out
of his seat and almost into his arms. “Come on.”

Tobey hadn’t been this close to his mate in public since their first

night together, and his entire body was buzzing with excitement.
After a week of keeping their distance, the simple feel of his body
brushing against Elijah’s felt like downright exhibition.

“Sure about this?” Tobey asked nervously.
“One dance,” Elijah replied. “What’s the harm in that?”
“I want details,” Franklin mouthed at Tobey as he trailed

helplessly behind his mate.

* * * *

“Don’t be a chicken. Don’t be a chicken. Don’t be a chicken.

Don’t be a chicken.”

Franklin had been repeating the same four words to himself for at

least the last ten minutes, but they hadn’t gotten him any farther from
the table where Tobey had left him sitting or any closer to the huge,
hulking hunk of vampire he’d had his eye on since he walked through
the door. Well, technically, he’d been ogling that one bartender first.
Okay, and also a few other vamps who had already walked off to the
back room with other warmbloods, and he guessed he could see how
Tobey had thought he was flirting with the doorman just the tiniest bit
when they came in, but he totally wasn’t. Besides, that had been
outside the building anyway, so it wasn’t like that counted.

This guy, however, was definitely special. Downing his own

liquid courage, Franklin stood up and began to cross the room,
muttering to himself all the way.

“You can do this. You’re not a chicken. You can do this. You can

do this. You can do this. You can do…Hi!” he said loudly as he
reached the vampire’s table. “I’m Franklin, and I’m a chicken-
shifter.” He winced. “Wolf-chicken. Were-chicken. Chicken…fuck.
Any chance you could maybe forget you heard any of that?”

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The vampire didn’t say a word, just raked his eyes over Franklin

and hunched his enormous frame farther over his beer. Franklin
shifted from foot to foot nervously. It wasn’t exactly the reaction he
was hoping for, but he figured it wasn’t exactly a no, either, so he
tried again, swallowing his pride. It wasn’t like he had that much of it
to begin with.

“So…come here often?”
The vampire stared at him. After a minute, he shrugged. Thank

God. Franklin was beginning to think he was deaf or something.

“Yeah, me neither. I mean, not that I’m opposed to what goes on

here or anything. It was just sort of dangerous to hang out in vamp
territory when the war was going on, you know?” Franklin said,
taking a chair at the table next to the vampire. When the vampire
raised an eyebrow at Franklin, he jumped back up, resuming his
awkward standing position in front of the guy.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry. Was that offensive? I didn’t mean to be

offensive. Honestly. I just… Sometimes I don’t realize I’m saying
something because my dad is like, really fangophobic? I mean, you
should hear him. He’s always like, ‘these goddamn leeches and
bloodsuckers, always taking what doesn’t belong to them like a bunch
of no-good, parasitic, low-life…’”

The vampire turned his head away from Franklin.
Franklin winced. “Sorry. Wow. That was…also probably really

offensive. Can I start over again?” The vampire turned back to
Franklin, and he blew out a relieved breath. He really needed to bring
out the big guns now. “Look, let me make it up to you. I can get you a
bite to drink if you’re hungry. I know a great place.” Smiling what he
hoped was his most charming smile, Franklin gestured to his neck.
“Tada!”

The vampire stared at it blankly.
“It’s my neck,” Franklin explained, gesturing again. No reaction.

“That’s the great place. To bite. Because of the sexy…blood…fuck.”

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Franklin dropped his hand from his neck. “This isn’t going very well,
is it?”

The vampire grunted and turned away from him.
Franklin was just about to deliver another winning pickup line

when his friend Baxter came running up to him, panting as if he’d just
run a marathon.

“Holy jeez,” he said between gasps, “I just ran like ten blocks to

get here.”

“Wow. Ten whole blocks. What’s the emergency?” Franklin said,

smirking. As a werewolf, Franklin could run up to twenty miles in a
single day. Baxter, on the other hand, was a planeswalker. Most of
them weren’t exactly the greatest athletes.

Baxter took several deep breaths and continued. “I have to show

you something. You have no idea what I…what I…”

He trailed off in a fit of wheezing gasps. Franklin rolled his eyes.

Planeswalkers.

“You think you can have your asthma attack somewhere else?”

Franklin asked his friend, lowering his voice. “Kinda trying to hit on
this vampire.”

Baxter looked up from where he’d doubled over, hands on knees

as he regained his breath. He cocked an eyebrow at Franklin and
gestured to the vampire. “Who, him?”

“No, the other big, sexy vampire sitting in front of me.” Franklin

sighed, turning to the vampire and giving him an apologetic look.
“I’m so sorry about my friend. Now, where were we?”

“He can’t hear you,” Baxter said.
“That’s ridiculous. We’ve just been talking for the past five

minutes. Haven’t we, uh…Mister…gosh, what was your name
again?”

The vampire stared at him blankly.
“His name is Damon,” Baxter filled in. “He’s deaf.”
Well, that certainly explained a thing or two. Baxter waved at

Damon, and Damon grinned and waved back at him. Jerking a thumb

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at Franklin, he said something to Baxter in sign language then shook
his head.

Baxter laughed and signed back. “He says no offense, but you’re

not really his type. He likes guys with big muscles.”

“I have…” Franklin glanced down at his less-than-impressive

frame. “Oh, shut up. What was so important that you came running
over here to show me?”

Baxter grinned at Franklin, then at Damon. He signed to Damon

as he spoke. “You guys are not going to believe this. I was crossing
through one of the alleyways in neutral territory, and I saw
something.”

Well, that was specific. Damon furrowed his brow at Baxter and

shrugged.

Baxter shook his head, signing furiously at Damon. “You won’t

believe me if I tell you.”

“So why are you telling us?” Franklin demanded.
“Because I took a picture of it.” Baxter pulled his phone out of his

pocket and pulled up a photo.

“Holy shit,” Franklin said. “Is that who I think it is?” Baxter

nodded, and Franklin let out a low whistle, impressed. Baxter hadn’t
been kidding. If that photo got out, it would be the scandal of the
century.

And Franklin would be the one to break it.
“Any chance I could get a copy of that photo?” he asked Baxter.
Baxter hugged his phone to his chest. “Why?”
“Because I just got a job at the Daily Vein.” He waggled his

eyebrows at Damon and Baxter. “You guys wanna help me break a
scandal?”

* * * *

“This is going to be so fucking sweet,” Mike said.

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105

“Totally badass,” added Brolin. “You’re going to love this. Just

wait.”

Keegan smiled at Marshall and slung an arm around his shoulder.

“Seriously, Marshall? You are never going to forget this night.”

Of all the things Keegan and his friends had said on the way to

Bloodlust, that last one stuck in his head. It sort of echoed there,
playing in an endless loop, over and over until he damn near turned
around and ran home. And why not? He was just going to do it
anyway, just as soon as they arrived at Bloodlust and got to the
evening’s main event, which Marshall was looking forward to about
as much as a root canal.

“Fuck, man. You know how lucky you are to have friends like us?

I wish someone would buy me a bloodpeddler for the night,” Mike
griped.

Brolin snorted. “Like any of us really have the money for that.”
“You guys have the money to buy one for Marshall!” Mike

protested.

“Honestly? You really don’t have to do this,” Marshall spoke up.
“Yeah, we do. It’s your first time,” Keegan said, in an almost

affectionate brotherly tone Marshall wasn’t used to hearing. It was
replaced a moment later by a smug smile Marshall was way too
familiar with. “And it’s way past due. Don’t think I don’t know how
old you really are, little brother.”

Marshall rolled his eyes, thinking there ought to be a statute of

limitations for how long vampires could call each other little brother.
After the first hundred years, that shit just shouldn’t apply. Then
again, since he’d pretty much spent all that time acting the part of the
stupid tagalong, he guessed the title still fit.

As they rounded the corner and turned off Artery Avenue and

onto Pulmonary Lane, the club came into view. Marshall choked
down a dry swallow, trying to think of some plausible excuse that
might get him out of this. It was no use. He’d already tried everything
from saying that he refused to patronize an establishment that catered

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to disgusting interspecies couples to arguing that if the cheapest beer
at Bloodlust was four dollars a draft, it might be better not to dilute
his blood alcohol level with any more of the strong red stuff. Nobody
was having any of it.

As soon as they entered Bloodlust, Marshall made a beeline for

the bar. Overpriced beer be damned. There was no way he could do
this sober…assuming he could do it at all. Keegan, Brolin, and Mike
joined him at the bar and sized up the two short, skinny guys Marshall
was standing next to. As they waited for their drinks, the planeswalker
and werewolf chatted away, oblivious to the vamps that were leering
over them. Marshall stiffened as he scented their blood. He winced.
From the looks Keegan and his friends were giving each other, they
had scented it, too.

“I don’t know, Franklin,” the planeswalker said. “Maybe we

shouldn’t. I mean, would you want your sex life published in some
vamp tabloid?”

“Provided I had one? Uh, yes. And hello, we live in a democracy

now. Didn’t you read the Bill of Rights? Freedom of the press, baby.
And I’m the press. The public has a right to see this picture, Baxter.”

He waved the phone in front of him until Keegan came up from

behind him and snatched it, holding it behind his back and out of
Franklin’s reach. Franklin turned around, grasping for it and getting
only air. “Hey!” he shouted.

“Hey yourself,” Keegan said, turning an evil grin on them both.

“What are you two bleeders doing in this part of town?”

“Uh, we were just leaving,” Baxter said. “Right, Franklin?”
“No way,” Franklin said. “We’re not leaving without your

phone.”

“Franklin, come on. This is stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. This is important.” He grasped for the phone in

Keegan’s hands, but he handed it off to Brolin before he could grab it.

Keegan’s lips curled into a smile. “Really? Then I guess you

wouldn’t mind paying something to get it back.”

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107

“It’s his phone,” Franklin said, jerking a thumb at Baxter. “We’re

not paying for it.”

“Maybe you don’t have to pay money,” Brolin said, smiling.

“What if you just hang out with our friend here for a little while?”

Shoving the phone deep into the pocket of Marshall’s jeans, he

put a hand on Marshall’s back and pushed him toward the two guys.
The force of the gesture sent Marshall face-first into the werewolf.
The kid didn’t look much older than Marshall had been when he was
turned. He looked scared, too.

“Hang out how?” he asked.
“Franklin, seriously, forget it,” Baxter said, grabbing his friend’s

sleeve.

Mike intercepted him, shoving him back toward Marshall. “Aw,

are you feeling left out? Don’t worry, fatefucker. We’ll take good care
of you, too.”

“Yeah, not really interested,” Baxter said.
“Maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe you don’t have a choice.”
Soon Brolin and Keegan had encircled both of the warmbloods

and Marshall, trapping them in the center of the group.

“Come on, bro.” Keegan said. “Let’s escort these bleeders back to

our place. I bet we could make them real comfortable.”

“Yeah, what the fuck are you waiting for, Marshall?” Brolin

asked.

“Um,” Marshall said, trying to stall the inevitable. Fuck, he had to

think fast. As much as the idea of drinking blood sickened him, he
definitely didn’t like the leering looks on his friends’ faces, or the fear
on the faces of the warmbloods. He’d spent years regretting his
cowardice because of the trouble it gave him, but he’d never given a
thought to what it might do to someone else.

Before he could make a move, a large hand closed over his

shoulder, jerking him away from the warmbloods. He turned around
to see a big hulk of a vampire standing over him, growling.

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“Hey, fuck off, asshole. Find your own warmblood,” Mike said.

“These guys are ours.”

The big vampire turned and glared at Mike, or rather, glared down

at Mike. He was a hell of a lot bigger than Mike was. Keeping one
hand clamped down on Marshall’s shoulder, he shoved Mike’s chest
with the palm of his hand. Mike went flying backward and the big
vampire smiled. Puffing out his chest, he raised a threatening fist to
Brolin and Keegan.

“Okay, okay!” Brolin said, backing away, his palms in the air.

“Forget it, you can have them.”

“Yeah, screw this,” Keegan said, inching away from the big

vampire. Marshall would have done the same if the guy didn’t still
have a one-handed death grip on him.

He watched his friends disappear into the crowd, and then he

looked up at the big vampire. “Hey, whoa, listen, you got the wrong
idea, guy. I wasn’t going to drain them. I don’t even want their stupid
blood.”

The vampire took his hand off his shoulder and then held out his

palm expectantly. Marshall sighed with relief, digging in his pocket
for the phone. He pulled it out and stuffed it into the guy’s hand.
“Okay, there. Are we cool?”

The big vampire handed the phone to Baxter then turned back to

Marshall and gave him a thumbs-up before lumbering over to a
nearby table and sitting down at it.

Thank fuck. Marshall’s breathing returned to normal as he started

to walk away from Franklin and Baxter.

Franklin called after him. “You don’t want my blood?”
“Okay, Franklin, say good-bye to the nice vampire, and let’s get

the hell out of here.”

“I’m not nice,” Marshall ground out. “Fuck you.”
Paying no attention to Marshall’s assertion, Franklin continued.

“Seriously, what gives? My blood’s not good enough for you?”

“Maybe I’m just not in the fucking mood, okay?”

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109

“Not in the mood, huh?” Franklin asked. “So is it more like food

or sex? I mean, do you have to wait for your fangs to get all sharp and
pointy, or do you just sort of see red, sticky blood and immediately
want to—”

“Shut up!” Marshall used a hand to brace himself against the bar,

trying to fend off the dizziness and nausea that was starting to
overwhelm him.

“Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
“He’s a vampire, Franklin.”
“Yeah, but particularly pale. Maybe he’s hungry. Are you sure

you don’t want to—”

“No blood.” Marshall could tell it was going to take more than

that to get the two of them to shut up. Especially the werewolf. “I
don’t like it,” he admitted.

“Seriously?”
Marshall nodded. “Just keep your mouth shut,” he said, giving the

werewolf the evil eye. The request seemed like kind of a tall order for
Franklin. “And if anyone asks—”

“Don’t worry,” Baxter said, smiling at him. “We’ll tell them you

can be trusted.”

“No, you’ll tell them I’m a sick son of a bitch, and you’re lucky

you got out of here alive.”

Franklin frowned. “Okay, first of all, Damon could totally kick

your ass if he wanted to. Second of all, I thought we were going to be
friends.”

“We’re not going to be friends!” Marshall snapped. He winced

when he saw the hurt look on the guy’s face, but he couldn’t do
anything about it. “Look, if Cade and those guys find out I’m making
friends with warmbloods—”

“Cade Matthews?” Franklin asked, arching an eyebrow. He gave

Baxter a sideways glance, and Baxter almost smirked at the name.
That definitely wasn’t a response Marshall was used to seeing with

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regard to Cade, especially not from a couple of skinny ass
warmbloods like these two.

“Yeah,” he said cautiously. “Why?”
“Kind of a secret,” Franklin said. “If we’re not going to be friends,

I don’t know if I can trust you with something like this.”

“He did just say he couldn’t be trusted.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Looks pretty scary to me. He’d probably just

go straight to Cade with the information if we told him.”

“He is a sick son of a bitch,” Baxter pointed out.
“Kind of a cute one, though.”
“I’m not cute,” Marshall growled, snapping the hood of his

sweatshirt over his head. “I’m dangerous.”

“Obviously,” Franklin said. “And I’m Franklin, and this is Baxter,

and that over there is Damon. Friends?”

Grinning like an idiot, Franklin stuck out his hand to shake.

Marshall glared at it. He had a feeling he was going to regret this.

* * * *

Tobey glanced from side to side as they disappeared into the mass

of moving bodies on the darkened dance floor. He wasn’t sure exactly
what he was supposed to do. Tentatively, he started to sway his body
in time to the music, but he left a space between his body and Elijah’s
that made his movements feel awkward. Before he could protest,
Elijah’s hands wrapped around his waist to encircle it, and he fell into
them, unable to stop himself from pressing his body against his
mate’s.

He inhaled deeply the scent that called to his entire being then,

burying his face in Elijah’s shoulder, inhaled again. Sure, it was a hell
of a lot more bold than either of them had dared to be in the past
week, but it wasn’t exactly like anyone could see what all was going
on out here on the darkened dance floor…which, if Tobey stopped to
think about it, was actually kind of terrifying.

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111

And hot.
He’d never been much for dancing, but God, if his mate’s body

didn’t feel good against his now. Feeling the weight of Elijah’s hands
on his hips, he let them gently rock back and forth, pressing them
flush against Elijah’s until he felt the outline of his mate’s erection
pressing into his thigh.

“You’re so hard,” he whispered, hoping no one could hear him

under the loud, thumping bass that echoed through the dance floor.

“Can’t help it,” Elijah said back in Tobey’s ear. “You have any

idea how fucking sexy you are right now?” As if to illustrate his point
Elijah’s hands slid down his hip to his backside and squeezed his ass.

Tobey had felt a lot of things during his past experiences with

dancing—awkward, uncoordinated, self-conscious—but sexy
certainly wasn’t one of them. It was now, though. His desire fueled by
his mate’s touch, Tobey let his hands roam between them, letting go
of his inhibitions and giving himself over to the whims of his body.
He didn’t know how long they danced like that, bodies grinding
against each other, hands grasping and groping, but judging from the
way the dance floor was starting to thin out, it must have been a
while. They’d be easier to identify now, Tobey knew, but he couldn’t
pull his roving hands away from his mate’s body, not until his palm
dipped too low and slid against the thick bulge of Elijah’s hard cock.

“Keep going,” Elijah whispered, urging Tobey’s hand between

them again. “I’m close.”

Holy shit, Tobey thought, did Elijah actually want him to get him

off on the dance floor? A distant voice in his mind reminded him that
given the amount of discretion they’d used in the past week, this
might not be the most informed decision either of them had ever
made, but Tobey was way too turned on to listen to it. As carefully as
he could, he slipped his hand between them again and rubbed it
against Elijah’s cock. Elijah’s hand pressed against the back of
Tobey’s head, grasping at his neck as his breath started to speed up.
Tobey gave against the gentle pressure, tilting his head until he could

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feel that ragged breath on his neck. He felt Elijah’s hand sprouting
claws and, knowing his lover’s fangs were near his neck, strained
closer to him, urging him to bite it.

For a long while, Tobey felt nothing more than the warm wetness

of Elijah’s tongue lapping at his neck. Just when Tobey didn’t think
he could take the sensations anymore, Elijah’s hand squeezed the
back of his neck, and Tobey felt the body pressed against his jerk and
shudder with the force of orgasm.

By the time Elijah’s body relaxed against his, both men were

panting heavily. Grinning like an idiot, Tobey squeezed Elijah’s body
to his, delighting in the feel of his mate’s face as it nuzzled in the
crook of his shoulder, laying kisses all along his wet neck and
dampened collar. The dance floor had cleared out and the lights had
come up…and the music had stopped. It must nearly closing time, he
thought dimly.

That was his last thought before he turned around and saw half a

dozen slack-jawed spectators staring at him and Elijah.

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Chapter Eight

“Can I get you anything?” Elijah asked. “Water? Beer? Scotch?

Vodka? I have…wow. Kind of an alarming amount of alcohol.”

“We just came from a bar,” Tobey reminded him.
“Right you are,” Elijah said, and, with that, deliberately closed the

liquor cabinet. “Sorry. I just thought you could maybe use a drink…or
I could.” He closed his eyes, setting the glass down in front of him. It
was probably for the best. Getting drunk would only upset him
anyway, and it wasn’t like he was particularly thirsty.

At least, not for anything in the liquor cabinet.
“I know why you’re upset,” Tobey said.
Elijah seriously doubted that Tobey would be standing there with

his arms around him if he actually knew what was upsetting him. It
didn’t have anything to do with his campaign. He’d pretty much
known when he asked Tobey that he was essentially outing them as
an interspecies couple, even if he hadn’t meant to get quite so carried
away on the dance floor with Tobey. Hell, he’d even anticipated
having to deal with the mob of vamparazzi that followed them out of
the club. He’d dealt with them before, and it didn’t bother him that
much. What really bothered Elijah was what the vamparazzi had
shouted at him as Tobey and he ducked into his apartment building.

They’d called him a parasite, and with good reason. He’d taken

his mate to an interspecies bar and joked about meeting him in the
back room, half-hoping he’d go for it. When he didn’t, Elijah had
dragged him onto the dance floor and nearly sucked him off right then
and there. Even now, his mate’s arms were around him and all he
could think about was his mate’s delicious smell and the dizzying

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hunger it inspired inside him. They were right. He was a fucking
parasite.

“I’m not worried about the campaign, if that’s what you’re

thinking. I’m not embarrassed about us.”

Tobey furrowed his brow, taking Elijah’s hands in his. Fucking

hell, Elijah could feel every single vein in those warm hands pulsing
beneath his thumbs. “Is that what you think I am? Embarrassed?”

Elijah sighed. Maybe, he thought, but it wasn’t like he could

blame Tobey for that. If he was embarrassed by Elijah, he had good
reason to be. “Look, you heard what those reporters said. I’m a
disgusting, fucked-up, parasitic, hypocritical—”

“Thought you said you weren’t embarrassed.”
“Of us? No.” Elijah frowned. Of himself? That was a different

story altogether. He let go of Tobey’s hands and retreated into the
living room.

His mate followed him, his scent so delicious Elijah had to scoot

away. Tobey inched closer to him, and Elijah scooted away again
until he was almost bumping against the arm of the couch. When his
back and ass were wedged into the corner as far as they could go,
Tobey curled up in his arms and rested his head on Elijah’s chest.

Goddamn it.
“Those reporters are wrong. You’re the most upstanding vampire

I know,” Tobey practically purred as he lay in Elijah’s arms. “You
want to make things better for Morgana, to make it safe for everyone,
even if it means changing things or making sacrifices. You started the
whole humane bloodletting campaign, and you stuck by it. You have
principles.”

Some fucking principles, Elijah thought, fighting the urge to

sprout claws as he moved his hands restlessly, trying to find a way to
hold Tobey that wasn’t skin to skin. It hardly mattered. Every move
Tobey made conspired against Elijah as his mate wriggled in Elijah’s
arms, oblivious to his own temptation.

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115

“You don’t even feed from me,” Tobey said shyly. He turned his

eyes up to meet Elijah’s, and the gesture stretched his neck out in an
unmistakable gesture of submission.

Maybe he wasn’t so oblivious after all.
“I know I got a little carried away tonight—” Elijah began.
“I don’t care. You’re my mate. I want to experience everything

with you. I’m ready for this.”

“What happened to you in the war—”
“Is in the past,” Tobey said firmly. “You’re right, you know. All

those speeches you make? We have to get over what happened to us
in the war. Everyone does, or we’re never going to be able to live
with each other. Or ourselves.”

Elijah bit his lip. He knew Tobey had been talking about Morgana

in general, but he couldn’t help but feel the truth of the words when
applied to him.

“The other night,” Elijah said, “when I, um…”
“Bled me?”
Elijah’s cock throbbed at the unquestionable eroticism of the

words on his mate’s lips. He nodded. “That was sort of my first time.”

“Really?”
“I mean, I’ve drank blood before, obviously. I know a guy who

sells animal blood, and I keep it in the fridge. I mean, it’s cold, and
it’s not great-tasting, but at least I don’t have to hurt anybody. I’ve
never been able to stand the idea of what the vampires did to you
guys. When I was a planeswalker, I even helped out in the rebellion,
but then—”

“You were ambushed and turned. I know. Mitchell told me.”
Elijah blew out a long-held breath, and Tobey laid a hand across

his chest, rubbing it in soft circles as if to soothe him. Elijah closed
his eyes, reveling in the gentle touches. “Was that hard for you?”

Elijah nodded. “My body felt cold all the time, and I couldn’t hear

my heartbeat. At first, I didn’t drink any blood at all. I thought I was a
monster, and I didn’t want to live. Luke was the one that helped me

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out. We were friends back when I was a planeswalker, but when I was
turned, I never expected to see him again. I thought he’d be afraid of
me, but he came to see me right after the war ended. That was when
we came up with the United Morgana campaign. I figured if I could
find a way to change things for the better, I wouldn’t hate myself so
much.”

“Don’t. You don’t have to. Not with me. Not anymore.” Slowly,

Tobey got up from the couch and offered his hand to Elijah. “Come
on.”

“Where are you taking me?”
“To the bedroom. I want us both to be comfortable for our first

time.”

Elijah arched an eyebrow at his mate. “Uh, Tobey, this is hardly

our first time. We had sex this afternoon. Twice.”

“I wasn’t talking about sex.”
“Then what are you—”
“And I’m not counting that time outside my apartment either.”
“Oh.” Elijah swallowed hard. Suddenly he was starting to feel a

little dizzy. “Um, okay. I think I might need to sit down again.”

Ignoring his protests, Tobey pulled Elijah away from the couch.

His legs were shaking, but he didn’t resist the gentle tug of his mate’s
hand in his. His body urged him onward, and for the first time since
he’d been turned, he didn’t fight it. He accepted it, accepted himself
for the first time since he’d been turned.

And for the first time since he’d been turned, he felt at peace.

* * * *

“How do you want to do this?” Elijah asked, studying Tobey as he

sat on the bed. “I mean, where do you want me to—”

“Sock?”
Both men laughed at Tobey’s reminder of their private joke.

Thank God, Tobey thought, grateful for the break in the tension.

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Things had gone very quiet ever since he’d led Elijah into the room,
and he’d noticed the usual pale blue of Elijah’s eyes had gone the
bright yellow of his vampire. When his mate laughed, he saw the tips
of his fangs peeking out over his lips. Had they been that long when
he felt them against his neck earlier? Tobey didn’t think so. Suddenly,
he began to get a little nervous.

Tobey swallowed around the lump in his throat, and his hand fell

from Elijah’s leg. “I don’t know,” he said, considering the question.
His voice had gotten a little breathy. “Is there a place in particular that
you wanted to bite?”

The last word came out as a whisper as he shyly glanced up at

Elijah. Not knowing what to do, he held out his wrists and arms for
inspection. Gently, Elijah took them in his hands, his thumbs stroking
over the undersides of Tobey’s wrists before tracing their way up his
arms.

Tobey’s breath hitched as Elijah moved closer, his big thighs

straddling Tobey’s as he sat down on the bed with him. It was strange,
having the bigger man settle himself in his lap like this, but certainly
not unwelcome. A hand traced up one of Tobey’s arms to his neck,
and Elijah’s hard cock pressed against his, drawing a sigh from him as
Elijah dipped a hand inside his shirt collar to pull it back.

If Tobey had been scared before, he wasn’t anymore. Now he was

mostly just turned on. He tugged at the bottom of his shirt to give
Elijah a better view of his collarbone.

“Do you want me to take it off?” Tobey asked.
“Do you want to?”
Tobey nodded, reaching down to strip the shirt off, chest heaving

as he stared at the man in his lap again. Before he could lower his arm
back down, however, Elijah caught it, holding it up to examine the
tender skin along the side of his armpit. When he brushed a finger
slowly across it, Tobey couldn’t help but stifle a laugh.

Elijah raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you ticklish?”

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Tobey felt his face flush. “Maybe. Kind of.” Elijah brushed the

sensitive spot again, and Tobey had to bite his lip to keep from
laughing.

“God, you’re adorable,” Elijah murmured as he leaned in to kiss

the spot he’d been teasing and finally released his firm hold on it.

Finally free, Tobey lowered his arm, feeling Elijah’s hands drift to

Tobey’s legs where one claw-tipped thumb was pressing against his
inner thigh. Even through his pants, Tobey felt the vein pulsing
underneath Elijah’s thumb, and he tilted his head up until his lips
almost brushed against Elijah’s.

“Do you want me to take anything else off?”
Elijah nodded slowly, climbing off Tobey so he could slide his

pants and boxers off. When he was totally naked, Elijah brushed a
hand carefully over his thigh, drawing it toward him as he slid off the
bed to kneel between Tobey’s legs. Tobey’s breathing quickened as
Elijah spread his legs farther apart to gaze at the place where his thigh
met his groin. He seemed to be trying his best to mind those claws,
but they brushed light scratches across his skin all the same, and
Tobey couldn’t help but squirm underneath them.

“Maybe I should take your neck after all,” Elijah murmured as he

dipped his head into the crease of Tobey’s thigh.

He dragged his tongue from one end of that crease to the other,

causing Tobey to jut his hips out toward him, even as he promised, “I
can be still.”

“You know there is one spot,” Elijah said, his breath hot on

Tobey’s thigh, “I was sort of hoping to try.”

“Which spot?” Tobey asked, his breathy voice turning to a moan

as Elijah cupped his cock with one hand and began to slowly stroke it.
On the third languid stroke, Elijah’s thumb slid over the underside of
his cockhead and pressed down. When he turned his pleading eyes up
to Tobey, tapping down on that bulging vein, Tobey let out a groan.
“Oh my God.”

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“You don’t have to,” Elijah murmured between the hot kisses he

was pressing along Tobey’s thighs and stomach. When the tip of a
fang grazed Tobey’s lower abdomen, he had to curl his fingers into
the bedsheets beneath him to keep them from pushing Elijah’s head
down.

“I want to,” he choked out. God, did he. He was practically dizzy

just from thinking about it, overwhelmed by the twin sensations of
excitement and terror racing through him. “It won’t hurt, will it?”

“Not any more than any other vein,” Elijah said. “Well. Not from

what I’ve heard, anyway.”

Tobey resisted the urge to ask him where he’d heard that, instead

giving himself over to the sensation of Elijah’s thumb as it lightly
traced the underside of his cockhead. Anyway, Elijah had already told
him he was the first one he’d drank from, which meant he’d certainly
never tried this with anyone else. He liked the idea of being Elijah’s
first. Steadying his breath and jutting his hips outward, he nodded.
“Okay. Go ahead.”

Elijah’s hand slid down to the base of Tobey’s cock, and his head

dipped forward, his lips closing around the tip of Tobey’s dick. His
tongue slid over the tip as his lower fangs pressed firmly against the
vein, and Tobey felt a sudden rush of terror as they pricked at the
sensitive skin. The second Elijah bit down, however, that wave of
terror was immediately eclipsed by the waves of pain and pleasure
that came crashing over him. Elijah moaned around his cock, and his
fangs shifted inside Tobey, pushing farther in, making the sensation
deeper, more acute.

It felt like one giant, unending orgasm. With each pulse of blood

flowing out of him, he experienced a release like none he’d ever felt
before. It took him a minute to realize what was happening when he
felt his actual orgasm approaching, a feeling so intense that his body
had started to shake and his breath had shortened into panting gasps.

His hands squeezed into fists at his sides, and Tobey tried for all

the world not to succumb to the urge to come. He wanted Elijah to

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drink all he wanted, but trying to keep his own need at bay was like
trying to dam up the ocean in the midst of a hurricane. Eventually it
overtook him, and he cried out, one hand gripping Elijah’s strong
shoulder as the other pressed his head to his cock.

The moment Tobey’s hips shot out and his release flooded out of

him, Elijah pulled his fangs out, causing Tobey to moan with both
regret and relief.

“Okay?” Elijah gasped, his voice sounding almost as breathless as

Tobey felt.

Tobey nodded. “Yes. God. Holy hell.”
Elijah got up from between Tobey’s legs, climbing onto the bed

and pulling Tobey’s body against his. He leaned his forehead against
Tobey’s, cupping his face with his hands, and Tobey saw that his
claws had retracted and his eyes had resumed their normal azure
color.

He stared into Elijah’s blue eyes a long time, letting him stroke

and kiss his face until finally the words slipped out. “I want to tell
people we’re mates,” he said. He winced at his sudden admission, but
now that it was out there… He took a deep breath and continued. “I’m
sorry. I know that we decided it was better for your campaign if we
didn’t—”

“Technically, I think you decided that.”
“And I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize what you’ve

worked for, but—” Tobey tilted his head, eyeing Elijah. “Wait, did
you just say it was my idea not to tell people?”

“I care about the campaign. I care more about you, though. I

would have been happy to tell people from the start if you hadn’t
convinced me otherwise. Why do you think I asked you to dance
tonight?”

“Maybe you just really liked the song that was playing?”
Elijah nuzzled against Tobey, lowering his voice into a deep

timbre that made Tobey’s stomach flip-flop. “And why do you think I
let you stroke my cock out on the dance floor?”

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121

Hell if Tobey knew, but he sure as shit hadn’t been about to argue

with his mate when it happened. He shrugged. “Because I’m such a
good dancer?”

“That you are.” Elijah planted a quick kiss on Tobey’s lips. Then

he lowered his voice again, smiling knowingly. “But did you honestly
think no one would see, baby?”

“I—oh.” If Tobey’s hands weren’t busy holding his mate, he

would have smacked himself in the forehead. He couldn’t believe
they could have been open about their mating all along. Not that all
the sneaking around wasn’t hot as hell, but it certainly would have
saved them a lot of trouble.

Elijah didn’t seem to mind, though. He smiled at Tobey. “So what

made you decide to finally want to tell people?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m embarrassed by you.” Elijah started

to respond to that, but Tobey pressed a finger to his mouth before he
could. “And I know you said you don’t think that, but I also know that
part of the reason I thought we shouldn’t tell anyone was because of
what reporters would say and what people would think if they knew
we were mated. They think that you feeding from me is some kind of
perversion.” Tobey looked at Elijah firmly. “Those people are wrong.
You know that, right?”

Elijah pressed a kiss to Tobey’s forehead. “I do now. Thanks to

you.”

Tobey felt his heart swell at the words. “I’m glad,” he said. After

hearing from Elijah earlier tonight what he had gone through in the
past few months, Tobey wanted to be sure his mate was as accepting
of himself as Tobey was of their relationship. And he wanted to be
sure everyone knew it. Snuggling closer to his mate, he asked, “So
what do you think? You think Luke can arrange a press conference
for tomorrow night?”

The corners of Elijah’s mouth tipped up in a conspiratorial smile.

“After the heart attack I gave him tonight? I think he’s already way
ahead of you.”

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Chapter Nine

Elijah stared numbly at the note cards in his hand, the neatly

printed words on them starting to fade from the sweat on his palms. It
made them damned hard to read, but it wasn’t like that mattered
anyway. He was positive the second he reached the podium and
opened his mouth he was going to hurl all over the microphone.

Practically all of Morgana was gathered in the arena, and

practically the entire audience was craning their necks toward the side
of the stage, staring at Elijah.

Make that glaring at him.
While Elijah and Tobey were busy cuddling in bed last night, all

of Morgana’s major media outlets were working to scandalize and
sensationalize their relationship. A flurry of news headlines, blog
posts, and TV broadcasts, all with accompanying photographs, had
displayed the details from Elijah and Tobey’s night at Bloodlust to
everyone on the plane. The reaction to this scandal, however, was
nothing like the last one.

This was a thousand times worse.
It’s just a press conference. It’s just a press conference. It’s just a

press conference. Elijah closed his eyes and silently repeated the
words to himself until he felt calm. Then he opened his eyes and
stared out into the crowd where several dozen picketers were causing
a ruckus and holding signs ranging from “Fight Hunger, Not Nature”
to “Don’t Give a Dog a Boner.”

When the photos of him and Tobey necking in the Dead Zone first

surfaced, Luke had arranged a similar press conference where both
Tobey and Elijah had issued official statements explaining that Elijah

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123

was not paying Tobey to drain him, that Elijah had, in fact, rescued
him from the vamps who were trying to hurt him, that Elijah only
drank Tobey’s blood to save his life, and that there was no romantic
involvement between them of any kind. The conference had gone well
and people had believed them because they had no reason to suspect
otherwise.

Now, they had a whole new set of photos of Tobey and Elijah

leaving Bloodlust and heading to Elijah’s apartment, combined with
one somewhat blurry but nevertheless authentic Internet video of the
two of them grinding together out on the dance floor.

It didn’t exactly do wonders for their credibility.
Together, Elijah and Luke had dutifully prepared a statement that

explained Elijah was mated to Tobey, along with responses for just
about any question reporters might throw at him. Tobey had grilled
Elijah on those statements until he was blue in the face, but all the
preparation in the world wouldn’t calm his nerves now. Mated or not,
there was a deep-rooted prejudice against interspecies couples on
Morgana, and it was going to take nothing short of a miracle to
overcome that prejudice.

Two hands closed over his shoulders, and Elijah relaxed into

Tobey’s touch. Thank God Tobey was here, he thought, closing his
eyes as Tobey kneaded the stiffness away. “Honestly, I don’t know
why you’re so tense,” Tobey murmured in his ear. “You’ve done this
a million times before. You’re brilliant, you’re articulate, we’ve
already established you look sexy as fuck in a suit and tie, and you’re
a natural in front of a crowd.”

Elijah captured one of Tobey’s hands in his own, craning his head

around to look at him. “What, like this crowd?” Elijah snorted. “Half
of them think I’m fangophobic—”

“You are not fangophobic…at least, not anymore.”
“—and the other half think I’m a total hypocrite. Some of them

think I’m both, actually, which is where that slogan ‘Fangophobic
Vampires Suck’ came from.”

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Tobey leveled an irate glare at Elijah, seeming to prepare an

argument that died on his lips the moment the Vamp Power group
started chanting again. “What are they saying?”

Elijah growled, embarrassed by the rhyme he now knew all too

well. “I think that one is ‘Fangs are fangs and weres are weres, Elijah
Grey should grow a pair.’”

Tobey wrinkled his nose. “Wait, do they mean fangs or balls?”
“I have both, thank you.”
“Obviously.” Elijah swatted at his mate as he started to giggle.

“Oh my God, corporal punishment. Can you please save that for
later?”

“Can you please be serious for just one minute?”
“I am serious. Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”
“You sound really confident.”
“Are you implying you don’t want to do this?” Tobey asked, his

eyes searching Elijah’s.

“God, no,” Elijah answered, and it was true. He was relieved that

he wouldn’t have to hide his affection for Tobey anymore, but he also
knew there was less of a chance of the Bill of Rights passing with
Tobey at his side. If the bill didn’t pass, Elijah didn’t know what
would happen to interspecies relations in Morgana. They could leave
the plane if they could find a planeswalker to transport them, but
Elijah didn’t know where they could go. There weren’t exactly a
whole lot of places in the supernatural realm where interspecies
mating was condoned. Or even tolerated.

Not sure he wanted his mate to see the worry in his eye, Elijah

smiled and dodged his gaze. From this vantage point, standing in the
wings at the side of the stage, he could see all the goings-on in the
arena. All along the stage, busy interns were checking microphone
cables. TV journalists readied their cameras. Spectators readied their
camera phones. Elijah would be going on any minute now, and his
hands were shaking and his throat was dry.

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125

“It’s just too soon,” Elijah finally blurted out. He turned to look at

Tobey, closing his hands around his mate’s to keep them steady.
“Two months ago, everyone on the plane was trying to kill each other.
All that stuff I said, all those speeches I made…I believe that things
can get better. I really do. And I believe that we can all coexist, but
after two months?”

Tobey placed a finger under his chin, propping it up so that Elijah

was forced to look at his mate’s eyes rather than the polished tips of
his shoes. “Time isn’t a factor when you know something’s right,” he
said. “I’ve known you for eight days, and I’m already in love with
you.”

That certainly took Elijah’s mind off the press conference. “You

love me?” Tobey nodded, smiling, but Elijah still couldn’t seem to
wrap his head around how calmly his mate had admitted it. “Wow.
You are really fucking fearless, you know that? The way you just said
that? What if I didn’t say it back?”

“Are you going to?”
“I was working up to it,” Elijah admitted, lifting a hand to brush

his mate’s hair from his face. His hand came to rest against the
warmth of Tobey’s cheek, and Elijah looked into his eyes, one green,
one blue, both shining with love. His hand closed around the back of
Tobey’s neck, pulling him close so he could kiss him. He intended
that kiss to be gentle, loving, but Tobey sucked his tongue until he
practically pulled the words from Elijah’s lips.

“Love you,” he said, breathless and a little dizzy.
“Thought so,” Tobey quipped, straightening Elijah’s tie and

giving it a playful tug. “Now, I want you to go onstage, do your thing,
and come back down here to me so I can take you home and we can
dream up some erotic uses for this tie.”

Elijah gaped at his mate’s brazen suggestion. “I’m sorry, I know I

just told you this, but I am really fucking in love with you right now.”

“Me too.” Tobey kissed Elijah again, pulling away with a smirk.

“Still nervous?”

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Elijah shook his head, dazed. Thanks to Tobey, he was now

mostly just horny. As he approached the stage, he tried his level best
not to dwell on his mate’s promises too much, though. He’d already
learned his lesson about attempting to discuss public policy with an
erection.

* * * *

Tobey had to force himself not to grope his mate any more than he

already had before sending him up to the podium to announce their
mating. He’d regretted it at the time, but he understood now that it
was for the best that his mate hadn’t faced his audience with any
outward evidence of his arousal.

Especially since so many members of that audience were now

chanting “pervert” at him at the top of their lungs.

Tobey chewed his lip nervously, watching his mate from the side

of the stage. He might have put on a good show for Elijah, but
secretly, he’d been terrified of what would happen when the
vamparazzi got their fangs into his mate. As it turned out, he was right
to be worried. Elijah’s announcement that he and Tobey were mates
had done nothing to appease his most vocal opponents. If anything, it
had only seemed to incite them more.

A large hand closed over his shoulder, and he looked up to see

Mitchell standing next to him with his mate, Adrianna. “Thought you
could use a friend,” he said gently. “We are still that, right?”

Tobey smiled. “Always.” As the jeers from Cade and his group

grew louder, Tobey felt the angry ripple of his wolf pressing against
his skin, threatening to erupt. He turned back to Mitchell. “Want to
help me go murder some vampires?”

Mitchell grinned. “Tempting as that sounds…” Adrianna leveled

an indignant look at Mitchell, and he forced the smile off his face. “I
have faith that Elijah can handle this in a nonviolent way.”

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127

Adrianna smiled, leaning against her mate. “We’re into peace

now, remember?”

“Right,” Tobey muttered. “Coexistence.” Not that he didn’t

believe in it, but watching the three-ring circus Elijah’s press
conference had devolved into, it was kind of hard to picture at the
moment.

Practically shouting into the microphone to make himself heard

over the ruckus Cade and his followers were causing, Elijah tried to
regain control of the conference. “Despite what certain members of
the audience may or may not believe with regards to my mating, I
assure you that my relationship with Mr. Lennox in no way impairs
the validity of the United Morgana campaign or my judgment as a
founding member of it.”

Adrianna nudged Tobey. “See? He’s handling it. He’ll be fine.”
The smug smile left her face when thirty hands shot up in

response to Elijah’s statement. “You were saying?” Tobey asked,
eyeing Elijah nervously.

Elijah cringed as eager journalists pounced on his statement, not

waiting to be called on.

“Are you implying that interspecies mating is an impairment?”
“Are you hoping to seek help for your affliction?”
“How do you intend to dissolve your mating?”
“Do you and Mr. Lennox have plans to seek appropriate partners

once your sham of a mating has been disbanded?”

“Whoa!” Elijah shouted in response to the rapid-fire questions that

were coming at him from all over the arena. “All I said was that some
people—not everyone and certainly not me—might think that my
somewhat unorthodox makes me a hypocrite. It doesn’t,” he said
quickly. “I haven’t violated any of the rights in the United Morgana
bill. All vampires are free to drink blood. They just aren’t allowed to
hurt or restrain anyone in order to get it.”

“Are you suggesting that you and Mr. Lennox are in opposition to

S/m and bondage?”

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Elijah glared at the man who’d asked the question. “No

comment,” he growled.

“No surprises there,” called out a familiar voice from the side of

the stage. Tobey groaned as he turned with the rest of the audience to
look at Cade’s smug expression. “I think it’s pretty clear that Mr.
Grey is in favor of a great deal of perversions. The fact of the matter
is Mr. Grey’s abhorrent behavior does affect his judgment. Sane
people don’t drain their lovers, and they don’t fuck their food. That
isn’t just bad judgment, it’s downright lunacy. Instead of celebrating
him as a hero and a potential leader, we ought to lock him up before
he becomes a danger to those around him.”

Tobey could not stop the growl that escaped his mouth at that, but

even as his claws and fangs started to burst through his human body,
he felt his friend holding him back. “Let go,” Tobey snarled.

“Look, the worse he gets, the more extreme and insane he sounds,

okay?” Mitchell reminded him. “Not everyone is as narrow-minded as
he is, so instead of doing anything that might violate the rights your
mate is working so hard to guarantee everyone, let’s just shut up and
let him dig his own grave.”

“Easy for you to say,” Tobey said around a mouthful of fangs.

“It’s not like it’s your family he’s slandering up there.”

“…and I just thank fate that he isn’t a breeder as well. The last

thing we need is another set of half-breed mongrel offspring like those
Craven boys.”

“I take it back,” Mitchell said. “Let’s rip his fucking throat out.”
Tobey eyed Adrianna, waiting for a rebuttal, but the planeswalker

merely shook her head. “No arguments here.”

“Adrianna and Mitchell Craven are highly esteemed by numerous

members of this plane. In addition to that, their son Alexander, one of
the ‘half-breed mongrels’ you just referred to, is widely regarded as
the person responsible for bringing peace to this plane, along with his
mate, who is, I might point out, a planeswalker.”

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129

“Saved the plane from what?” Cade sneered. “Bad dreams? As far

as I’m concerned, that’s all a bunch of softheaded planeswalker
garbage.”

“Which is exactly why you would make a terrible leader,” Tobey

shouted out. Mitchell and Adrianna both looked at him in surprise.
Frankly, Tobey was a little surprised himself. Clearing his throat to
steady his voice, he continued. “You refuse to respect the beliefs of
anyone who isn’t exactly like yourself. You keep saying that Elijah
wants to take away all of your rights, but he doesn’t. He just wants
everyone to have the same ones as everyone else.”

“Well, then someone should tell Mr. Grey that everyone isn’t the

same as everyone else.”

“You’re right,” Tobey said. “Which is why it’s so stupid that

you’re so afraid of everyone who’s the least bit different from you.
You don’t even think these people deserve to live. Well, guess what?
No one is exactly like you.”

“Everyone who’s normal is,” Cade said. “As far as I’m concerned,

there’s only one law I have to listen to. Nature.”

“Normal and natural are relative terms,” Adrianna chimed in.

“And I don’t exactly think it’s the best judge of what is and isn’t
acceptable behavior. Back on the Earth plane, there were places
where oral and anal sex were illegal, all in defense of ensuring that
people were adhering to nature and normality.”

A confused murmur went up from the audience. “But what do

they…you know…do?” asked a young female reporter from the
Planeswalker Post.

“Well,” Mitchell explained, “I mean, most people are straight on

the Earth plane, so—” A disgusted groan went up from the audience,
effectively silencing him before he could say any more. Mitchell
turned bright red. “Which is their right!” he shouted defensively.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Cade said. “Are you really going to listen to

this pervert?”

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A tentative hand shot up in the audience. Straightening at the

podium, Elijah pointed to a small, bald planeswalker with large, round
glasses. “Did you have a question?” he asked.

“Actually, this is a question for Mr. Craven,”
“Uh, okay,” Elijah said uncertainly.
Turning to the side of the stage where Mitchell was standing, the

planeswalker said loudly, “I like using vibrating dildos in bed. Are
those illegal on the Earth plane?”

“Uh…yeah,” Mitchell finally managed. “There are definitely

places that have legislation forbidding the use of sex toys.”

“What if a household object is converted into a sex toy?” another

voice called.

“What, like using clothespins as nipple clamps?” offered

Alexander Craven.

“Exactly. Is it illegal to use clothespins as nipple clamps?”
Jasper Craven turned to his brother. “Does that really work?”
“Oh my God, you have no idea,” mused Jacob Walker,

Alexander’s mate. “See, the trick is to rotate them around after you
put them on so that it really—”

Alexander put a hand over his mate’s mouth, cutting him off as

Tobey raised a curious eyebrow at Alex’s parents, who were now
turning a spectacular shade of red. “Really a lot more information
than I wanted to know,” Adrianna muttered.

By now, all around the arena, other members of the audience had

begun to put their two cents in as well.

“Sometimes I use my feet to masturbate my lover to orgasm!”
“I like to cover my entire body with large elastic bands and have

my lover spank me with a cold, ripe carrot!”

“You guys will not believe the things I have shoved up my—”
“You’re all a bunch of fucking perverts!” Cade shouted, his face

pale and expression mortified. “Every one of you! Is this the kind of
place you want to live in? Where everyone is allowed to indulge in
whatever disgusting, unnatural fetishes they have?”

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131

A murmur of approval rippled through the audience, and Tobey

had to smile when he saw Elijah smirking from behind the podium.
“Sounds pretty great to me,” he said into the microphone.

A loud, long burst of applause greeted Elijah’s response. Furious

at the crowd’s enthusiastic cheers and whistles, Cade continued to
sputter and stammer. When the applause finally died down, he tried to
resume his chants of vamp power, but it seemed a number of his
followers had defected from the movement. The few who chanted
along with Cade seemed to have lost most of their enthusiasm.

“I have a question for Mr. Matthews,” called a voice from the

back of the audience.

“Hey, aren’t you friends with that kid?” Mitchell said to Tobey.
“No fucking way,” Tobey muttered. He had to crane his head to

see him, but he could just barely make out Franklin in the back of the
crowd.

Holding up the press pass around his neck, he added, “Franklin

Cline, reporter for the Daily Vein. For those of you who aren’t
familiar with our papers, they’re actually circulating the audience as
we speak.”

“Get to the point,” Cade ground out.
Franklin smiled. “Of course. I just wanted to know if, when you

started screaming about perverts a minute ago, you were also referring
to individuals with a preference for different-sex partners?”

Cade’s eyes narrowed. “Do I look like the sort of person who

mixes with breeders?”

“But I thought you said…” Franklin’s confused expression melted

into a smile as if the lightbulb had suddenly clicked on in his head.
“Oh! Oh my God, was that supposed to be a no?”

“Yes!”
“Wait, yes as in yes is your answer, or yes as in no? You’re kinda

giving a mixed signal here.”

Laughter was starting to ripple through the audience, and it didn’t

seem to be doing anything to improve Cade’s mood. “Sorry, forget

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Ellen Ginsberg

that. Let me rephrase. Would you say you feel approximately the
same way about heterosexual couples as you do about interspecies
mates?”

“Yes,” Cade said through gritted teeth. “Is that clear enough for

you?”

“Crystal,” Franklin said. He snapped shut the handheld notebook

in his hand and tapped it with his pen. “I think I’ve got everything I
need here.”

Tobey’s attention was drawn from the stage as his arm was

nudged, and he looked up to see a planeswalker holding a copy of the
Daily Vein out to him. “You’re Tobey, right? I’m Baxter. Franklin
said you might like a copy of one of these.”

Tobey took the paper in his hands, and his jaw dropped open at

the photo of a man and a woman groping each other in a darkened
alley. The picture wasn’t the best quality, but it was plain enough
what was going on and who was doing it. The photo in itself was
shocking, but the headline really completed the picture.

“CADE MATTHEWS TOTALLY COMFORTABLE WITH HIS

HETEROSEXUALITY” was far and away Franklin’s best work to
date.

Glancing out into the audience, Tobey noticed that copies of the

paper were circulating throughout it, and many of the people gathered
in the arena were reading them. Apparently, Cade noticed, too. It
would be hard for him not to have. The ripple of giggles that had
started a few moments ago had coalesced into a tidal wave of
laughter. “What’s everyone laughing about?” he shouted, grasping at
a paper that one of his cronies was holding out of his reach. When he
finally got ahold of it, his expression turned an even paler shade of
white than usual.

Up on the stage, it seemed Elijah had received a copy of the paper,

too. “I just want to say, on behalf of United Morgana, that we are in
complete support of sexual freedom and whatever lifestyle our
constituents choose to pursue. That goes for you, too, Mr. Matthews.”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

133

“Boo! Vamp power!” shouted a skinny vampire alongside Cade.
“Oh, shut up!” Cade snapped. Pushing the poor kid out of the

way, he stormed out toward the exit with several dozen reporters,
news crews, and vamparazzi hot on his heels.

“Any further questions?” Elijah asked of the emptying arena.

Seeing that he wasn’t about to get a response, Tobey crossed the stage
to his mate, falling into his arms as he reached the podium. Elijah
smiled at Tobey as they embraced. “You know, I actually think that
went pretty well. What do you think?”

Tobey smiled as he leaned in to kiss his mate. “No comment.”

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Ellen Ginsberg

Chapter Ten

The television in Elijah’s apartment was a monster. With thirty-

six inches of flatscreen and about a zillion different channels at his
disposal, Tobey had enjoyed the hell out of what had now become
their den. At least, he had until now, when every one of those
channels was lit up with the same terrifying image of the as-yet-to-be-
determined results on the United Morgana vote. The longer his eyes
stayed glued to that indeterminate news on the screen, the more
Tobey felt his claws pushing through his fingertips and digging rips in
the leather of the recliner.

Only when a cool hand wrapped around his tense shoulder and

gave it a squeeze did he look up. Kind of. He turned to his right to
smile at his gorgeous mate, but he could still see the TV out of the
peripheral vision of his left eye.

“Whatever happens, happens. Staring at the screen like a zombie

isn’t going to change that. You know that, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Tobey said, zombielike. When he heard Elijah’s

warning growl, he tried again for nonchalance. “No, I know. I was
just…I mean, there’s nothing else on, so…” The result of another
province in vampire territory came in, lighting up the corresponding
section on the map with black as another NO vote came onto the
screen. “Oh, come on!” Tobey shouted at the screen in frustration.

Elijah crooked a hand around Tobey’s cheek, turning his head the

rest of the way from the screen. Tobey smiled sheepishly at his mate’s
knowing expression. Elijah smiled back, lovingly running his hand
down Tobey’s cheek and squishing in alongside him on the recliner.
Tobey shifted in his seat, cuddling against his mate as he settled in to

Bloodsucker and the Beast

135

watch with him. As he did, one of Elijah’s hands traced the shell of
his ear while the other wandered down along Tobey’s lap.

Tobey moaned inadvertently as the now ever-present knot in his

stomach started to churn, not only from anxiety but also from sexual
tension.

“You know I love you, right, baby?”
“Mmm,” Tobey moaned, hitching his hips upward into Elijah’s

touch.

“And you know I’d do anything to make you happy, right?” Elijah

nipped at Tobey’s earlobe as he palmed Tobey’s erection through his
pants.

“You’re keeping me very, very happy right now.”
“Would you do the same for me?”
Tobey bit his lip and nodded, fumbling beside him for the stiff

dick in his mate’s lap. When the election results turned the last of the
werewolf provinces victoriously white, signaling a YES on the UM
proposition for the werewolves, both men tightened their grip and
moaned. Elijah licked at Tobey’s neck, and Tobey tilted his head,
letting his mate rest his fangs on the soft skin under his chin.

“You promise you’re mine?”
“Promise,” Tobey choked out as Elijah lowered his zipper and

freed his cock from his pants. His fingers closed around Tobey’s bare
skin, his thumb playing across Tobey’s cocktip. “Oh, fuck, Elijah, that
feels so good.”

“Promise to trust me forever?”
Tobey nodded quickly, moving his hips in time to the slow,

controlled pumps of Elijah’s wrist. He leaned his head back into
Elijah’s chest but kept his eyes glued on the screen, his stomach
practically falling out from under him when another province
onscreen lit up white with a YES vote. Just a few more provinces and
the bill would pass. Just a few more strokes and he’d be in heaven.
“Yes. Oh my God, yes.”

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Ellen Ginsberg

YES, proclaimed the results of another province in the Fatelands.

The planeswalkers only needed one province and they’d pass the
proposition. Just one more vote. One more.

“Yes?”
“Yes!” Tobey groaned, his breath quickening as he felt his orgasm

approaching.

Click.
In a flash, the TV went completely blank, and Elijah’s hand stilled

completely in its movements. Tobey groaned, trying his damndest to
grind against it, but Elijah’s strong arm, now grasping the remote
control, wrapped around his stomach, holding him still.

“Oh, you son of a bitch!” Tobey panted, his face heated, his chest

heaving. “They were about to—and I was about to—” Damn, Tobey
didn’t know if he was more upset about the uncertain election results
or his still-painfully hard cock. Elijah pressed the palm of his hand
flat against his erection, drawing a moan from Tobey. Well, that
answered that question, Tobey thought as he squirmed in his mate’s
arms. “Okay, seriously, Elijah, not fair.”

“I’ve tried to pull you away from that screen more times today

than I want to think about. You have been a man possessed ever since
the press conference, and today, the obsessive worrying has only
gotten worse by the hour. The only recourse I had was to use your
libido against you.”

“That’s not—”
“The last time I tried to pull the remote away you actually snarled

at me. I’m positive I saw fang.”

“Whatever. Hand over the remote.”
“The remote—” Elijah chucked it across the room, a gesture

punctuated by Tobey’s shouted protests. “—is going away. And you—”
Tobey shouted as Elijah stood up, carrying Tobey with him as he
headed back toward the bedroom. “—are coming with me.”

“Hey! What do I look like, a sack of potatoes?”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

137

“The more you protest, the longer you’re going to have to wait for

that orgasm,” Elijah warned, nudging the door open.

“Oh, like you can’t make me come more than once,” Tobey griped

as Elijah dumped him onto the bed.

“Can and will are two very different matters, sweetheart,” Elijah

said, holding Tobey’s wrists as he stretched his arms over his head.

Tobey’s quick retort had just formed on the tip of his tongue when

he felt something close around his wrist, tying him to the bedpost.
“What the—” He glanced up toward his other wrist just in time to see
Elijah tying him to the bed with one of those endlessly useful ties he
was always sporting.

Elijah tugged one of the ties to test the strength of his handiwork.

A decadent smile spread across his face as Tobey wriggled against the
ties and realized that, in addition to being turned on and pissed off, he
was also totally immobilized. “And now,” he mused, “you’re not
going anywhere.”

“I could still kick you, you know.”
Elijah clucked his tongue, running a hand down the side of

Tobey’s neck, tracing the twin holes of his mating bite and making
Tobey’s breath hitch. “Kinda feel like I’d have to punish you for
that.”

“Would you?” Tobey asked as Elijah pressed two fingers firmly

against the sensitive scar tissue, rubbing the skin in tiny circles. Tobey
smiled blissfully, hitching his hips upward to present his needy cock
to his mate. When Elijah slid a hand between his bare thighs and
began to stroke his skin everywhere but where he wanted it most,
Tobey nearly added please to the end of his question.

“Is that a request?” Elijah asked, smirking.
“N–No,” Tobey stammered, his voice laced with uncertainty.
Elijah bent over and pressed a kiss to his lower stomach, just

above the swollen head of his cock. Tobey tried his damnedest to
press that cocktip to his mate’s lips, but Elijah pulled his smug smile

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Ellen Ginsberg

away before he could succeed, standing at the edge of the bed as he
began to slowly strip.

Tobey wet his lips as Elijah pulled his shirt over his head,

exposing his own mating bite. The sight of his mate’s bare chest and
muscled abs was a gorgeous sight, but that bite mark… Tobey
couldn’t help but turn his thoughts back to the election and the results
that were almost certainly broadcast by now. He knew he’d been a
worried mess the past week, really he did, but he couldn’t help but
wonder what would happen to him and his sexy vampire if the Bill of
Rights didn’t pass. If the citizens of Morgana didn’t vote in favor of a
united plane, how long would it be before the separate kingdoms
erupted in war again? Where could he and Elijah make a life for
themselves if the plane voted in favor of a strictly divided nation?

“I can see you worrying over there, gorgeous.” Tobey was pulled

from his thoughts as his now-very-naked mate climbed onto the bed
with him. He smiled, anticipating the rough play Elijah seemed intent
on distracting him with, but his mate surprised him when his hand
softly caressed the side of his face. “Hey,” Elijah whispered, “we’ll be
okay. We have each other. Fate will take care of us, remember?”

Tobey smiled as his mate repeated his own words to him. “And

you believe that now?”

Elijah nodded. “I do. No matter what happens, I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Tobey grinned. “Although if you want to

distract me from worrying…”

Elijah’s smile turned sinful again as he leaned over Tobey’s ear.

“Give me five minutes, and I promise you the only thought in your
head will be the most persuasive way to beg me for your orgasm.”

Elijah sealed that promise by drawing Tobey’s earlobe into his

mouth and playfully nipping at it. Aroused by the tiny bite, Tobey
stretched out his neck, exposing it in case there was anywhere else his
mate wanted to bite him. He shuddered as Elijah instead licked a path
downward, lapping tender circles around the holes of his mating bite
while a hand began to tease at one nipple, then the other.

Bloodsucker and the Beast

139

Tobey tugged at the ties that bound him to the headboard. “You

know, if I could move, I’d already be pushing your head down.”

“I know,” Elijah murmured, a hand traveling downward. Tobey

hitched his hips hopefully, but that hand bypassed his cock and
grabbed at his ass, lifting it higher. “Someone had to teach you some
damn discipline around here.”

Smack! Elijah punctuated his statement with a stinging slap to

Tobey’s exposed ass, and he moaned, feeling his cock only grow
harder from the blow. Smack! Smack! Elijah delivered several more
smacks to Tobey’s tender ass, each one drawing a louder moan. The
pleasure/pain that those smacks brought Tobey was amazing, but
damn, did he want Elijah’s mouth on his cock.

Finally, finally, Elijah started kissing a path downward, taking his

sweet time and making Tobey writhe until the sheets were a tangled
mess underneath him. He kissed and sucked and nipped at the tender
insides of Tobey’s thighs and the backs of his knees and the sensitive
skin below his belly button. Tobey was so fucking close one swipe of
his tongue might be his undoing, but Elijah left his hard cock and his
needy hole untouched, moistening every other inch of Tobey’s skin
until he felt like he’d melted on the bed.

Tobey moaned and bucked, rolling his wrists in their soft, silky

restraints, half wanting the endless pleasure to go on forever and half
wanting to yank the damn things free so he could give his aching cock
some relief.

Tobey’s mind was made up when Elijah pulled his mouth from

between Tobey’s legs and began to rub his own hard cock along every
surface he’d slickened with his tongue. Yep, that settled it. He
definitely wanted to come already.

“Baby, please,” he begged, grinding against Elijah’s slick dick as

Elijah pushed it back and forth along the crease of his thigh. Oh, fuck,
it felt good. Too good. “Touch me.”

Elijah held up Tobey’s legs and rubbed his stiff member over the

moist backs of his thighs. “Touch you where?” he teased. Tobey

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Ellen Ginsberg

couldn’t help but rejoice when he heard the breathy, needy tone his
voice had taken on. The fucker might be putting up a good front, but
he was close, too.

“Rub my cock, jerk me off, suck my dick, fuck me with your

fingers and cock and tongue, just…” Tobey’s mouth was dry. “Fuck.
Me. Please.”

“Your wish,” Elijah said, lining his cock up with Tobey’s hole.

“My command.”

In one long, hard stroke, Elijah thrust inside Tobey, making him

cry out with an almost instantaneous orgasm that seemed to go on and
on as Elijah continued to ride him. Tobey’s mate pushed his legs up to
thrust inside balls-deep, over and over until Elijah shot inside him,
eyes closed, mouth open, his expression sweet and serene.

He left Tobey’s arms bound to the bed as he lapped Tobey’s cum

off his cock and belly with long, lazy laps, sending a ripple of
sensations up Tobey’s spine. By the time Elijah reached up to untie
him from the bed, he was squirming again, this time needing to kiss
his mate, to taste him, to seal the intimate act they’d just performed.

Now that he was no longer preoccupied with the brain-melting

need to get off, he remembered the election and the results that were
no doubt waiting to be discovered by them when they left the safety
of their bed. He didn’t leap off the bed, though. Instead, he wrapped
his free arms around the neck of his mate, kissing him long and hard
until they were both gasping for air.

“What was that for?” Elijah asked.
“Because you’re right,” Tobey said. “It doesn’t matter what

happens. Even if we have to leave here…we’ll be okay. You’re my
home now.” A peculiar smile spread across Elijah’s face as he seemed
to slowly process that thought. “What?” Tobey asked. “What are you
thinking about?”

“How lucky I am.” Elijah trailed his hand down Tobey’s arm and

squeezed his hand. “You wanna go see those results now?”

Bloodsucker and the Beast

141

Tobey let out a long-held breath. “Good God, I thought you’d

never ask.”

“Race you to the living…”
Tobey was off the bed and halfway down the hall before he even

heard Elijah finish his sentence. Not that he was worried about things
between him and Elijah anymore…but still. With shaking hands, he
picked up the remote and turned on the television.

And stared at the screen. “No fucking way,” he muttered.
“Good God, you are insanely fast,” Elijah called from the hallway.

“Are you sure you didn’t shift into wolf form just then, because… Oh
God. Is that…?”

Hearing his voice, Tobey turned around. He nodded wordlessly,

unsure he could even speak. He was so shocked he could barely
move.

“I can’t believe it,” Elijah said. “After all that work…”
“I know,” Tobey managed to croak out. Finally, he felt his

breathing return to normal. His eyes met Elijah’s, and he smiled at
him, saying the words Tobey still couldn’t manage to think to himself,
let alone say aloud.

“We won.”

THE END

HTTP://TWITTER.COM/ELLENLOVESYOU

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ellen Ginsberg is the pseudonym of an Austin-based writer who

has published numerous works of fiction and nonfiction and has had
plays professionally produced in New York, Washington DC,
Chicago, and across the Midwest. She graduated from Truman State
University with her master’s degree in English in 2010, and moved to
Austin, TX, with her husband, who, as a heterosexual male, may
nevertheless be the single most enthusiastic supporter of her recent
endeavors in M/M erotic romance. She loves her readers dearly and
invites them to email her anytime at

ellenginsberg@ymail.com

or find

her at

http://twitter.com/ellenlovesyou

Also by Ellen Ginsberg

Everlasting Classic ManLove: Dreamcatcher 1: Danny in the Dark

Everlasting Classic ManLove: Dreamcatcher 2: Ben in the Shadows

Everlasting Classic ManLove: Dreamcatcher 3:

Jacob at the Break of Dawn

Available at

BOOKSTRAND.COM

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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BLOODSUCKER AND THE BEAST
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