Bruiser raised his head and hooted with laughter. “Good Lord, you do know how to cut to the heart of the matter, don’t you, Jane Yellowrock? Why not ask me at what age I gave up my virginity?”
Before I could think, I said, “What age?” Oh crap. I felt Beast chuff a laugh as she twisted around my control in a lithe S-shape and stared at Bruiser with my eyes. As if he saw something different in me, Bruiser focused on me like a laser. I/ we/Beast stared back. Look away is loss of dominance, she thought at Bruiser. I will not submit. I scrabbled at control, reaching for Beast. For a moment it seemed I felt pelt and ribs beneath my palms. The sensation rocked me.
“I was sixteen,” he said. “They were female vampires with a predilection for young boys.” Beast chuffed with silent delight. “Do you want to know more? There will be a price if you do.”
“No,” I said, holding Beast silent. “I don’t bargain blind.”
Bruiser tilted his bottle back and drained the beer, his throat catching the evening light. Lifting the bottle away from his lips, he smiled at the sky and he said, “I’ll tell you more. But I’ll require a ... dance as payment.”
“Done.” Bruiser laughed, and I shivered inside at the sound. My big mouth would be the death of me. But both Beast and I loved to dance. “But the choice of the dance is mine.” The words came from my mouth, sounding sensual and warm and ... something that was not me. Not at all. Beast was close to the surface, powerful, aroused, and curious. Curiosity killed the cat, I thought at her.
Greater than five lives, she thought back at me. And I could feel her heat, her desire. Beast liked Bruiser. A lot. But I wasn’t going to play around on Ricky Bo. With a mental move better attributed to the dojo than to conversation, I flipped Beast over and kicked. Though my body hadn’t moved, I felt my foot impact her. She spat, spun, and raced out of reach, but I could feel her claws in me, painful, piercing.
Bruiser settled back, a smile on his face every bit as predatory as any expression Beast had ever worn. Dangerous. This was dangerous. And the worst part was that more than half of me didn’t mind it at all.
He opened two more beers and handed one to me. I took it. “I was nearly seventeen. Bethany and Katie and Leo were living together most of the time, sharing a lair.” He smiled at the sky, and the lower rim of sun slid below the tops of the buildings, throwing darkness over us, cloaking his expression in shadow, but not before I saw the memory of desire there. Potent. Strong. Even after nearly a hundred years. He glanced at me. “We danced there once, you and I.” His voice was hot coals and brandy, warming and volatile when mixed together.
Something new blossomed deep in my belly, heating me, radiating outward, warming my skin. Electric sparks danced just beneath the surface of my flesh, pricking and sharp. This wasn’t Beast. This was me, all me, half angry and brutal, half needy and lonely. Fear rolled through on top of the need, icy and tingling, mixing with the heat to make something I had no name for. “I remember,” I said, not looking away from him. I remembered every step, every move, every undulation. Crap, crap, crap. I’m in such big trouble.
“Bethany and Katie thought a boy of sixteen and still a virgin was abnormal, but then, they come from more primitive times, violent by today’s standards; boys became men much earlier in the past. And though it was the twentieth century, and the sexual development of males was very different from their time, they fancied me,” he said, sounding very British in that moment. He drank down the beer, leaving only a few inches in the bottom.
“They made plans, they did. They got Leo’s favorite female blood-servant drunk—deeply drunk—on brandy and gave her to him. He drank from her and when he was finished with her they brought me in to him. And he drank from me.” Bruiser finished off the beer and opened a third. The sun caught on his skin, on the sheen of perspiration, glistening rosy and gold. When he offered me another beer I held up my full bottle, refusing. “The first time a Mithran mesmerizes and drinks from a human is ... electric. An experience that can only be compared to a state of drunken euphoria. Drunk on champagne, the finest brandy, the best liquors, and joy and laughter and ... desire. For a boy, not yet a man, it was overwhelming.
“When Leo finished, he gave me a sip of his blood.” Bruiser swiveled his head to me, his eyes bright in the drawing night. Shadows crossed his face, stark and discordant against the reddish light thrown by the coals, and by the gold and vermilion sky overhead. “And he swore to protect me and keep me safe for as long as I lived.” His mouth curled down, and I knew he was thinking that Leo was foresworn. His master had thrown him out.
His voice was amazed and impotent and empty when he ground out, “I have never since felt anything similar to that first taste. It was like lightning made alive. Like stars made liquid. Like the moon made into air to be breathed into my lungs to give me life.” He took a breath, his chest moving as if with pain. “It was like riding a wild, icy river beneath a full moon.” Bruiser finished off his third beer, staring at the evening sky.
“And the women took me from him.” There was something in his tone when he said, “the women took me from him.” It matched the melancholy mood I’d noted already. He slanted a look at me, the alcohol riding him hard, consumed so quickly on an empty stomach. “Do you want details?” he asked, his mouth turning up, his mood mercurial, a wicked gleam in his eyes.