Someday, I would get Kingsley to open up about Franklin.
Anyway, we both apologized to the patchwork butler. Franklin sneered, turned his head, and loped away. That one leg seemed longer than the other or that one ear was actually a different skin tone than the other, was disturbing.
Now, back up in his room, I lay next to Kingsley, with one hand propping up my head and the other veritably buried in his chest hair.
“I get that you are a werewolf,” I started. “I also get that you change each full moon. I even get that you play host to your own highly evolved dark master, as do I. What I don’t get is why you are so damn hairy.”
“It goes back to what I said a while back, Sam.”
“That you continue to grow.”
“With each transformation, I’m just that much bigger. That much closer to the beast within.”
“And that much hairier?”
“In short, yes,” he said. “Will that be a problem?”
I didn’t have to think about it. “It won’t be a problem for me,” I said. “But I can’t vouch for your shower drains.”
“One of Franklin’s many jobs is maintaining the household plumbing. Let’s just say, I keep him busy.”
“Eww.”
He laughed and pulled me into him. I don’t think I could have resisted him if I tried. Instead, I went willingly, and found my face buried somewhere between his shoulder and neck...a good place to be.
“You are too much,” he said.
“I’d like to think so.”
We were quiet some more. I heard Kingsley’s late-night snack rumbling in his belly—his had been a roast beef sandwich, mine had been sherbet ice cream. After a moment, I said, “When you had sex with mortals in the past, did they, you know, fall under your spell, too?”
“The way the boxer did with you?”
“Yes, and he has a name.”
“Any man who had sex with you ceases to have a name. They are no-names, at that point.”
“Fine. Yes, the boxer.”
“No. Not that I know of. That particular spell might be Samantha Moon-centric.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, it’s particular to the entity within you.”
That gave me pause for thought. As I paused and as I thought, I discovered that I was making curlicues in Kingsley’s chest hair. He didn’t seem to mind. I said, “So, you’re saying that not all vampires have the same powers?”
He shook his granite-like head slowly. I think the whole damn bed shook with it. “Nor do all werewolves. We all have similar traits, true. All werewolves change at the full moon. But not all werewolves, for instance, can change at will.”
“Like you can,” I said.
He nodded. “But not all talents are gifts, Sam. The entity within me craves the dead.”
“You mean corpses,” I said.
“Yes, Sam. The fucking sick bastard literally gets off on it.”
“Jesus.”
“Jesus is right,” said Kingsley. “Which brings up a point. Some vampires can see themselves in mirrors, others can’t.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“I know. Some vampires can turn into mice, into fog, others can climb sheer walls.”
“You know a lot about vampires for being a wolfie.”
“We are not that dissimilar, Sam. We’re all possessed by the same dark forces.”
“I love when you sweet talk me,” I said.
“There’s more,” he said, taking in a lot of air and propping his free hand under his head. I almost felt sorry for his hand...and pillow. “Some vampires prefer living humans. Some prefer dead.”
“Mine prefers the living,” I said. “Of course, she can prefer all she wants. She gets what she gets.”
“And that brings up another point. In the end, we all have some semblance of free will. For instance, I can cage the creature within me, thus depriving him of fresh corpses. And quit shuddering every time I say that.”
I shuddered again.
“Jesus, Sam. We are grown adults here, dealing with the same shit.”
“Sorry,” I said, patting his meaty chest. “I’ll do my best to get used to the thought of you chowing down on the dead.”
He rolled his eyes, which I saw clearly enough in the dark.
“None of us asked for this,” he said.
“Some did,” I thought.
“Fang?”
“Right.”
Kingsley nodded. “Someday, he will wish that he hadn’t. You still talk to him?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“How often?”
“Regularly.”
“How often is regularly?”
“Almost every day,” I said.
“Oh, brother. Should I be worried?”
“No. We’re friends again.”
“Like old times?”
“Almost,” I said. Fang had sort of gone off the deep end in the months following his transformation. In fact, his hedonistic lifestyle could have been lifted from the pages of every Anne Rice novel ever, with a little Poppy Z. Brite added in for good measure. He had lovers coming and going. He feasted on whoever and whatever he wanted. He stole, he robbed, he worked with real criminals.
It took him about a year to get it out of his system. And he had, thank God. He still ran a blood ring, but he’d ditched most of his loser business associates. Now, he mostly operated it alone and, as far as I could tell, he mostly didn’t kill anyone.
The good news was, he was back to living alone, with only the occasional girlfriend showing up. What I didn’t tell Kingsley was, of course, that I suspected Fang had cleaned up his life...for me.
Fang also understood that I was in a relationship with Kingsley, and had mostly kept his distance, only occasionally dropping hints that he might want more.
“Well, that’s good,” said the werewolf in bed next to me. “Because I will rip his head off if he makes a move on you.”
“You mean that metaphorically, right?”
Kingsley grunted.
I laughed nervously and patted his chest. The truth was, I wanted to be right here, in Kingsley’s arms—and nestled in that warm nook between his shoulder and jaw.
Shortly, I was asleep...and I dreamed of nothing.
Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Chapter Fifteen
It was the strangest popping sound. Like hundreds of soap bubbles bursting at once. I was just turning to see what the hell it was when I heard, “Your son is very skilled.”