STORY EXCERPT

After a long and exhausting night, Theo found himself at the proverbial fork in the road where he could take his usual safer route home, or shave ten minutes off and risk walking down the alleyway. He convinced himself that everything would be fine, that he was tired and the odds of anything bad happening to him was low.

He didn’t remember a lot about what happened next. He recalled a feeling, a sensation like there was someone behind him, but when he glanced back over his shoulder, he didn’t see anyone.

Just being paranoid, he told himself, pushing his glasses up his nose.

The next thing he remembered was pain and blood, in equal measures. He saw a face, the face of a monster with black veins around its eyes and blood smeared around its mouth. And then there was nothing, he was dead—wasn’t he?

Flashes of fear and pain assaulted Theo like strobe lights flickering in the dark. A man—a monster—ripped open his throat and left him to bleed out on the ground. He truly thought he was dead, that the endless cycle of flashbacks and darkness was the final death throes of his brain trying to make sense of what had happened to him.

There was nothing for what felt like days and then air rushed into his lungs so fast it hurt. Adrenaline pumped through his body, remnants from the danger he had been in. He sat up and blinked at the low lamplight in the otherwise dark room and quickly catalogued what he could in an attempt to figure out where he was. He had awoken completely naked, lying on a cold and shiny metal slab with only a white sheet covering his lower half.

“Ahh, you came back. I had a feeling you would,” a voice said from the corner of the room.

Theo’s eyes quickly adjusted and he saw an older man stand from a chair in the corner. He held a book in his hand and had a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. It was then that he noticed his own glasses were missing, and that he could see perfectly fine without them.

“Where am I?” Theo asked. His eyes darted around, taking in all the medical equipment and the row of metal drawers over on the far side of the room. “Oh my God, am I in a morgue?”

“Yes, you are, but don’t be alarmed.”

“Don’t be alarmed?” Theo asked incredulously. In his panicked state, he had to wonder if this was what the afterlife was like. “Am I dead?”

“Well, that depends on who you ask,” the man said. He came closer to Theo and started examining him, turning Theo’s face from side to side. “How do you feel?”

Theo took a second to answer because he honestly didn’t know. His throat had been torn open by someone who was clearly on a lot of drugs, but he didn’t feel any pain—which lent weight to his afterlife theory.

“I’m hungry,” he said, realizing that was the only complaint he had. He reached up and touched his neck. He could feel a neat row of stitches but miraculously the wound had mostly healed already. “How long have I been here?”

“A little over a day. I’m Doctor Marvin, by the way.”

Without asking permission, the doctor pulled up Theo’s top lip and looked at his teeth.

“What are you doing?” Theo asked, though it came out garbled thanks to the finger prodding at his teeth.

“Remarkable,” the doctor said. “It never fails to amaze me, no matter how many times I see it.”

Before Theo had a chance to ask any more questions, the double doors behind him swung open and two men walked in. They were both dressed in casual clothes and looked to be in their early thirties.

“Look at that, Doc. You were right again,” one of them said. He had bronze skin and thick dark eyebrows resting over a pair of chocolate brown eyes.

The other one, pale-skinned with ice blond hair and blue eyes, pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Doctor Marvin. Theo watched the old man pull out a wad of cash and start counting it.

“I tell you, I have a nose for these things.”

“You’re probably wondering what the hell is going on,” the blond one said, addressing Theo. “I’m Tomas, this is my buddy, Saleh.”

Saleh did little more than nod at him.

“Theo,” Theo said. The fact that he was stark bollock naked under a flimsy sheet in a room full of strangers should have been the weirdest thing about all of this, but it wasn’t.

“Well, Theo, there’s no gentle way to do this, so I’m just going to go for it. Like ripping off a band-aid,” Tomas said. “You, my friend, are a vampire.”

Theo stared at the man, waiting for more but it didn’t come.

“I’m a what now?”

“A vampire,” Doctor Marvin said, stuffing the cash into his back pocket. “And so are they.”

Any second now they would all start laughing and reveal that he was being pranked. Any second now…

Deep down, no matter how much he wished it wasn’t true, he knew that it was. He was a vampire, and by God did he want to sink his teeth into the doctor’s throat.

“Well…fuck.”

ADULT EXCERPT

“Be careful what you ask for,” Cullen growled dangerously.

Cullen’s voice was deep and smooth, like the blood they had just consumed. It caused shivers of arousal to wrack through Theo’s body. His cock throbbed as he was manhandled. Hands tore at his clothes and lips attacked his neck. He turned his head to the side, looking over at the bed, and giving Cullen more access. Bruises were being sucked and kissed onto his skin, making him burn up from the inside.

Theo wanted to touch, to taste. As his shirt was all but torn from his body, Theo’s own deft hands unbuckled the belt around Cullen’s waist before pulling it out of the loops. He was about to toss it to the side but Cullen’s hand gripped his wrist, stopping him.

Cullen pulled back and looked Theo in the eyes, their faces still extremely close together. Theo’s gaze dipped down to Cullen’s mouth, hungry for a taste. He was about to lean in for what would be their first kiss, but Cullen had other plans. He turned Theo around and held him against the wall before pushing the hardness of his cock against Theo’s ass.

“Shit,” Theo said, biting his lip.

His hands were held behind his back and the belt was quickly used to restrain them. This was far kinkier and more intense than what he was used to, but when he turned his head, unsure and a little afraid, Cullen tenderly nuzzled his throat.

The tension he hadn’t realized had built up in his shoulders relaxed at the gentle touch.

“Is this what you want?” Cullen asked. His teeth grazed Theo’s neck, causing a shudder to go through his entire body.

“Yes,” Theo said, not entirely sure what he was saying yes to. He was pretty certain that in that moment he would let Cullen do anything he wanted to him, just as long as he didn’t stop.

With Theo’s shirt lying in literal tatters on the floor, Cullen moved on to his pants, reaching around to unfasten them before pushing them down. Theo’s pants were tight enough that his boxers got pulled down with them. He let out a gentle groan as his hard cock was finally freed from its confines. With his pants down around his ankles, Theo kicked them off. He wasn’t someone who was shy when it came to his body, but with his hands tied behind his back and the fact that he was facing a wall, he suddenly felt very on display. He squirmed a little, pushing back against Cullen.

“Does this bother you?” Cullen asked, tugging on the belt hanging from his wrists.

Theo didn’t know. The fact of the matter was, he had never been in a situation like this.

“No, I don’t think so,” Theo said. “I just wasn’t expecting it. Shouldn’t we have some kind of safe word or something?”

Cullen chuckled darkly against his ear. “Why do we need one when you could simply break free?”

It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment that he could do that. He was stronger now. The thought was a heady one, laced with power. Cullen had ripped Theo’s shirt from his body like it was tissue paper.

“So then what’s the point of tying my wrists together if I can just get out of it?” Theo asked, genuinely confused.

“Because I wanted to see if you would let me,” Cullen told him, once again pushing his hard cock against Theo’s ass, only now it was bare and it felt even better. “Because you need to know who you’re getting in bed with.”

If that was supposed to frighten him, it didn’t.

“Who I’m getting into bed with is someone who talks too much,” Theo said cheekily.

Blunt nails scraped over an ass cheek, burning slightly but feeling amazing. It wasn’t until Cullen brought his fingers up to his mouth for a taste that Theo realized the other vampire had cut him.

“Oh my God,” Theo groaned. “That should not be hot.”

Cullen’s lips turned up in a smirk.

“Just wait,” he said before slowly sinking to his knees.

A wet hot tongue slid over his grazed skin, making Theo gasp. His cock throbbed painfully and he widened his stance, hoping that tongue would go elsewhere. Even though he knew it was coming, when Cullen’s tongue trailed over to the valley of his ass and traced down the crack, Theo threw his head back and let out a strangled cry.

Cullen swirled his tongue around Theo’s hole teasingly. All Theo wanted to do was push back on Cullen’s face and jerk himself off. The desire for instant gratification was strong and it took everything he had to let Cullen set the pace.