STORY EXCERPT

One. Two. Three. Abel took a deep breath.

“Ouch!” Abel doubled over, clutching at his stomach. Tears burned at the back of his eyes. One would think after a week and several hours of this torture he’d be used to it by now.

“Come on, Abel, get up. You can do this.” Strong hands grabbed Abel by the shoulders, forcing him up.

Abel looked up to see Quinn, a huge, muscular warrior staring down at him. The constant scowl on the man’s face did nothing to ease the fear and pain coursing through Abel’s body.

“I…I’m not sure I ca…can,” Abel stuttered as he tried to steady his feet under himself. God, it’d only been ten minutes and he was ready to call it a day.

“With that attitude you never will.” The hard lines of Quinn’s face softened and he gentled his tone. “You need to practice, Abel. Once you get the hang of controlling your power you’ll be unstoppable against the dark warriors.”

Quinn gave what looked to be a smile but came off more as a sneer that had Abel’s hands clenching into fists. He hated being so afraid of everyone and everything. Before all this, his life had been easy. He was able to live his life in peace away from the craziness of dark warriors wanting to kill him. Oh, and the Warriors of the Light needing his help.

Help? What a joke.

It had been a little over a week since Abel left San Francisco to come to Texas with his new friends. Without Josh, Carlos, Lachlan, and Garrett, Abel would never have survived, let alone made it out of San Francisco in one piece. The life Abel lived was so different than what was expected of him now. Couldn’t everyone see he just wanted to be normal?

Abel was the child of a witch and a vampire. He was an anomaly in their world, but when magic is brought into play anything is possible and Abel, it just so happened, was the product of such magic.

His mother had been a nice and sweet lady. Her only fault had been wanting to have a child. In a fit of despair she cast a spell and hopped into bed with the first man she saw, who just so happened to be a vampire.

Abel knew his parents were good people even though the rest of the word thought his father was a killer. He knew better than that. People judged what they didn’t understand. People tended to act first and ask questions later and his father had been on the run for over a thousand years because of the stupidity of others. If only those in power had given his father the chance to explain he wouldn’t have been forced to run and leave Abel vulnerable to others wanting to harm him.

Now his mother had it a little different. Her just being a witch was frowned upon and being that she was a witch that possessed the ability to undo any other witch’s curse made her dangerous and a hot commodity to the paranormal community. In order to protect herself, she had a good friend who also was a witch cast a spell that made her unrecognizable to the rest of the paranormal world. This had worked for her up until she casted another spell that allowed her to become pregnant. She unintentionally made a super being, part vampire part witch. It was impossible for paranormal to crossbreed. Up until he met Astrid, a man that was part fairy and part witch, Abel had thought he was the only one.

It wasn’t fair. Abel didn’t ask to be born into all this and after the death of his mother he was raised by her human boyfriend, Phillip. Phillip tried his best to give Abel a normal upbringing. Even Asher, Abel’s father, stopped coming around in hopes that Abel had a chance at a nice normal life. A lot of good that did.

Now, as he stood in the back yard of the house he now called home, Abel was just sick and tired. A sharp pain radiated up from his lower abdomen to the top of his head. The bright sun beat down on him and caused a trickle of sweat to run down the side of his face. Abel hated this. He just wanted to go back inside and draw, paint, anything at this point than be outside.

“Hello! Earth to Abel.” Quinn snapped his fingers in front of Abel’s face.

Abel gritted his teeth and tried to beat down the urge to slap this jerk in the face. He knew Quinn and the others were just trying to help him, but hell, he just couldn’t do the things they thought he could. It was useless. He was useless.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.” Abel straightened his shoulders. “I appreciate all that you guys have done for me but this—” Abel brought his arms up to indicate the paint splattered on him and the bruised skin that wasn’t covered by his clothes. “Just isn’t working out. I’m not good at this.”

“That’s just because you’re telling yourself you can’t do this.” Quinn crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at Abel, making him feel two feet tall. “Do you really want to quit? Give up on what your abilities are? Lose the opportunity to learn to protect yourself?” Quinn let out a bitter sounding chuckle. “Do you want to be a victim for the rest of your long life? Well—” Quinn shrugged. “Long if you don’t get yourself killed first.”

ADULT EXCERPT

“Can I come in?” Elias asked when they stopped at Abel’s door.

“Of course.” Abel entered his room first and headed to the bathroom. He turned the nozzles on the shower and waited for it to warm up. “If you want you can wait out there.” Abel pointed to the bed but Elias ignored him and stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. He lowered his hands and lifted his shirt up and over his head. “What are you doing?” Abel asked.

“Taking my clothes off.” Elias kicked off his shoes then unfastened his pants.

“Why?”

“You do remembering me saying we’d shower together after toss the egg at Abel time was over, right?” Elias pushed down his jeans, his underwear coming down with the stiff material.

“I…I…you were serious?” It took all of the power Abel had to pull his eyes away from Elias’s semi erect cock.

“I’d never lie about something like that.” Elias ran his fingers over Abel’s arm as he passed by and stepped into the shower. “Now hurry up before the water goes cold.”

Abel looked in the mirror and grinned at his blushing face. Nerves still clung to his every movement and doubt sat heavy in his chest, but he wanted to do this. He wanted to get naked and touch and be touched by Elias.

Once he had his clothes off, Abel pulled open the glass door and stepped in behind Elias. The hot water splashed off of Elias and hit Abel on the chest. Steam began to fill the room.

With a shaking hand, Abel reached out his fingers to touch Elias’s plump, firm butt. Elias hummed and leaned back into Abel’s touch. Abel let his fingers explore the tight muscles and toyed with the crease that shielded Elias’s opening from him.

“I love it when you touch me.” Elias spun around and wrapped his arms low on Abel’s waist, letting his fingers massage over Abel’s ass. “I also like that you don’t seem so nervous either. You know I can sense it when you’re nervous, right?”

“You can?” Abel lifted his arms to rest on Elias’s shoulders. Suddenly a little self-cautious.

“Yeah.” Elias kissed Abel’s collar bone. “I can hear it in the spike in your heart rate and smell it seeping out your pores.” He flicked his tongue out to trace around the divot under his Adam’s apple. “It’s not a bad smell, just a warning signal, bitter and strong. Lets me know something is bothering you.”

“That’s a little disconcerting.” Abel titled his head to the side, giving Elias full access to his exposed neck. “You know this from smelling me and being able to hear things I cannot. Seems a little unfair.”

“You’re a witch, babe. You can freeze shit. That’s a pretty awesome power.” Elias nipped at the corded muscle running up and down Abel’s neck.

“Thank you.” Abel moaned as Elias tongue lapped at the water trailing down his neck. “I’m just glad I took after my mother and not my father. Being a vampire and drinking blood is something I don’t think I could do.”

Elias pulled back to look into Abel’s eyes. “I wonder why that is exactly? I mean usually a person takes after both their parents, but not you.”

“You know that witch, Klaus?” Elias nodded. “He thinks it’s from the magic my mother used to conceive me. Said the laws of nature probably only allowed one trait to take root inside me and lucky for me it was my mother’s.”

“Sounds like a liable theory.” Elias went back to sucking a line of bruises up Abel’s neck.

Elias started to bite harder into his tender flesh. Abel cried out. He let his lover shove him up against the hard, tiled wall. Elias pushed Abel’s legs apart and positioned himself between them. With Abel’s legs spread, it allowed for Elias to line up their cocks and rub them together.

“God, that feels good.” Abel ran his fingers through Elias’s wet hair.

Elias didn’t say anything but pulled back to reach for Abel’s body wash. He poured a good amount onto his fingers then grinned at Abel when he brought his hand back to wrap around both their straining lengths and squeezed. Abel’s head fell back to thump against the shower wall, his mouth falling open.

“You like that?” Elias asked as he bent his head to tease Abel’s right nipple.

“Um-hm.” Abel arched his back off the wall and thrust into Elias’s hand. The feel of Elias’s silky, smooth cock made Abel’s balls tingle and his orgasm rush to the surface.

Elias kissed and sucked over Abel’s chest and the up and down pulling on their cocks increased. Abel’s legs began to quiver and he feared he’d fall over, but Elias’s hard grasp on him held him in place.

“So fucking hard for me.” Elias used his free hand to wrap around Abel’s neck and pulled his head down for a hard kiss. Elias let go of Abel’s neck to move his hand down his body. The skillful hand reached around Abel to run the length of his crack, slowly easing his way in. Abel grunted and sucked harder on Elias’s tongue as one finger caressed over his twitching hole. He’d never been touched there before and it released a need in Abel to be filled, but only by Elias.

“Touch me more.” Abel whimpered and spread his legs further apart. “I need to feel you.”

“Fuck yeah.” Elias used one finger to breach Abel’s untried hole and that was all it took to send Abel flying. It was tight, a burning sensation flared up his channel, but as Elias moved in and out of him the pain melted into something else, pure ecstasy.