His to Protect (5 page)

"Stop teasing, little vampire," Adrian
said reaching over to lift Tyler's hand into his own. "Outer upper arm
should do nicely."

"Spoil sport," Logan grouched as
he wriggled across the bed and moved to stand in front of Tyler with a wide
grin on his face. Amazingly, just as Tyler was beginning to wonder if his best
friend was lost completely, Logan's usual, helpful personality shone through
again. "I know this is weird, Tyler, and I truly am grateful that you're
willing to do this, but maybe what you need is a distraction."

Logan raised his eyebrows as he turned his
attention to Adrian, apparently challenging him to do something to help Tyler
out. Tyler stifled the moan that threatened to telegraph how much he liked that
idea. He barely knew the man, but when Adrian stepped up behind him, apparently
willing to follow through on Logan's suggestion, Tyler felt all of his
fantasies flare to life.

True, an attraction to Adrian had been
growing over the past four days, but that sure as hell didn't mean Tyler needed
to act on it. He'd tried to convince himself that it was just an
illusion, that
the man's personality wasn't as close to his
idea of a perfect partner as it seemed, but it didn't stop his imagination
running wild. Adrian was bossy and dominating and clearly comfortable touching
Tyler reassuringly, perhaps even affectionately, but that didn't really mean
anything when it came to sexuality.

Unnerved by his own thoughts, Tyler tried to
step away, but his awkward escape from the confined space between the wall and
the bed had him accidentally brushing his hand against Adrian's rock-solid erection.
Shit. It took nearly all of his strength to pull away from that interesting
revelation.

"I'm sorry," Tyler mumbled
quickly, hoping like hell that Logan didn't understand what he was apologizing
to Adrian for.

"Don't be," Adrian said with a
grin, "but maybe we should get Logan fed before my brother gets here."

Tyler nodded quickly, not really certain he
wanted to do anything that might increase the arousal he was feeling. Adrian
must have read his distress because he grinned and touched his face softly.

"It's just a kiss." Adrian
searched his eyes, his grin widening at whatever he saw. "Nothing else
will happen. Not even if you beg me."

Chapter Five

Adrian knew this was a bad idea,
monumentally stupid even. The rapture that came with feeding a vampire could
very easily morph into something more than either of them was ready for, but he
couldn't resist the chance to hold Tyler in his arms again.

Adrian was in control.
His
mind.
Not his libido.

As long as he remembered that, everything
would be fine.

Oh fuck…as long as he remembered…

The first touch of Tyler's warm lips against
his scattered his thoughts like leaves in a hurricane. Tyler moaned softly,
opening his mouth, inviting Adrian to explore more deeply. Adrian couldn't
resist. He slid his tongue into Tyler's warmth, caressing him all over as he
pulled him closer, his cock hardening further with every soft sigh and gentle
caress.

He was almost shocked when Tyler reacted to
the pain, and was secretly pleased that Tyler's initial desire had been
genuine, not rapture induced. Adrian held him close, caressing his spine as the
pain of the vampire bite slowly morphed into something far more pleasurable.

Tyler pressed closer, moaning as he took
over the kiss, thrusting his tongue into Adrian's mouth over and over, his
arousal obvious, his scent filling Adrian's mind as the man practically climbed
up his body.

Adrian held him tighter, a small kernel of
sanity keeping his promise to go no further. The rest of him railed at the
restriction. Visions of taking the man hard and fast, slaking his lust as Tyler's
ass squeezed around him again and again and again filled his mind.

Adrian pulled away, his imaginings almost
too real to control his need to claim this delicious man.

Tyler's eyes were wide as he watched
him,
both of them panting hard as Logan carefully extracted
his teeth from Tyler's arm.

"Shit," the fledgling vampire
exclaimed as blood continued to run from the puncture wounds. "It's not
stopping. Why isn't it stopping?"

Fortunately Logan's panic managed to
dissolve the lust clouding Adrian's thoughts.

"It's okay," Adrian said in as
reassuring a tone as he could muster. "This is normal. It takes a while
for your saliva to develop the healing properties typical to vampires."
Logan didn't look happy about that tidbit of information. "Grab the first
aid kit." Adrian pointed to the small tin that he'd placed by the bed days
earlier.

Logan rushed to grab the box, his hysterical
reaction obviously snapping Tyler from the rapture he'd been feeling.

"Hey, it's okay," Tyler said,
reiterating Adrian's reassurance as he grabbed a wad of sterile gauze from the
tin and used it to stem the flow of blood. "Logan, I'm fine. It's barely a
scratch."

Logan turned his gaze to Adrian silently
pleading for him to confirm his friend's words. Adrian nodded, smiled
encouragingly, and then moved to help Tyler. The bleeding had already stopped,
but it looked like the surrounding flesh would likely bruise pretty badly. He'd
seen worse fledgling bites, but this one was a little more ragged than he'd
expected. It certainly would have been easier if Logan's sire had been around
to teach him.

The reminder that William would never have
left a fledgling vampire on his own if he'd been given any other choice, seeped
the last of the lust from Adrian's blood. He had a job to do. Protecting Logan
and vampires like him was a sacred duty of the Alateeka family. It had been
their calling for many, many years and he had no intentions of failing now.

"So this is where you're hiding the
newest vampire in town," Gavin said as he stepped into the bedroom
uninvited and unannounced. Adrian didn't even need to look at Tyler to know
that he bristled in anger. Clearly he planned to defend his friend from
everyone who might do him harm.

"And you are?" Tyler demanded,
turning to face the intruder, hands on his hips, jaw held aggressively. Gavin
gave him a smart-ass grin, ignoring the man's reaction in favor of teasing his
brother. He sniffed the air, very clearly telling Adrian without words that he
could still smell his and Tyler's arousal.

"Did I miss all the fun?"

Tyler blushed, perhaps remembering that
amazing kiss, but it was Logan's reaction they should have been prepared for.

The new vampire ran at Gavin, his attack
clumsy and easily read, but his emotions clearly out of control.

"Fun?
You call this fun?" he screamed as he landed punch after punch
against Gavin's solid body. "You think William thinks this is fun?"
Gavin let Logan hit him, obviously unhurt by his awkward attack. "I'm a
fucking vampire, and I don't know what I'm doing, and I nearly just killed my
best friend."

"What?" Tyler exclaimed, sounding
shocked. "No you didn't."

But the words didn't seem to register as
Logan continued to pound his frustration into a man more than capable of taking
it. Gavin smiled sadly as Logan's attack slowed, and then he carefully wrapped
his arms around the newly made vampire, pulling him into his embrace as Logan
started to cry.

"Feel better?" Gavin asked in the
same tone of voice Adrian had often heard him use for upset subs at Santutegia.

"Fuck you," Logan said sulkily as
he rested his head tiredly against Gavin's chest.

"Didn't my brother mention the hormone
changes?" Gavin asked, turning annoyed eyes in Adrian's direction.

"I did," Adrian said, trying to
hide his own irritation at his brother's tactics, "but I wasn't cruel
enough to push him into a tantrum."

"He needed it," Gavin said as he
lifted Logan into his arms and carried him back to the bed.

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here,"
Logan said angrily, squirming away from Gavin as soon as he put him down.

"We're right here," Gavin said
with a nod in Logan's direction. "Why don't you go help Tyler get cleaned
up? Maybe you could help with those wounds." The happy grin on his face
said exactly how Adrian should help Tyler. Adrian glared at his brother and
tried to hide just how appealing that idea really was to him.

Tyler didn't look very happy about leaving a
man he didn't remember in charge of his obviously vulnerable friend, but Tyler's
willingness to protect Logan from unknown dangers just made the man more
appealing.

"I'm sorry," Adrian said as he
reached for Tyler's hand. "This is my brother, Gavin. You met him the
night William was murdered." Tyler shook his head, but didn't say
anything. "My brother is bossy and rude and on occasions a serious pain in
the ass, but he knows even more about vampire fledglings than I do. Logan is in
good hands."

Tyler didn't look convinced, but eventually
nodded when Logan moved closer to the man now sitting on the edge of the bed.
Logan reached for Gavin's hand before settling down beside him and going back
to sleep. Adrian sensed Tyler's confusion at his friend's strange behavior, but
he didn't protest when Adrian put an arm around him and guided him into the
main bathroom.

"Is he still… Logan?" Tyler asked
very quietly as Adrian closed the bathroom door and then turned his attention
back to Tyler's wounds.

"In most ways," Adrian said with a
quick nod. "It'll take time, but he'll adjust to life as a vampire soon
enough."

Adrian moved the gauze away from Tyler's
wound and inspected the angry bruises already blossoming around the puncture
marks. They looked damn painful and guilt assailed him once more. He'd watched
Tyler trying to type on his laptop yesterday, but all of the tiny cuts on his
fingers had obviously made it quite painful. Guilt had slammed Adrian then.
Knowing he could help Tyler and was doing nothing about it went against every
ideal he owned. The problem was that it meant revealing a side of himself that
he usually preferred to keep hidden.

"How soon?"
Tyler asked skeptically.

"The change into a vampire takes several
weeks. A lot of fledglings act like difficult teenagers at the beginning. The
forgetfulness is concerning, but certainly not unheard of. His mind and body
are going through massive changes, but most vampires quickly regain the
personality and maturity they possessed before being turned."

"So he'll still be the quiet and
helpful friend I've always known?"

"Probably," Adrian said, "with
a few minor changes. It's impossible to go through something so life altering
without being a little bit different afterward."

"I suppose you're right," Tyler
said with a sad smile. Adrian doubted Tyler would get through this experience
unscathed, either. "How long will it take before Logan can stay awake
through the night?"

"Several more weeks, but he should
sleep a little less each night." Adrian pressed gently against the swollen
edges of bite wound. "Does this hurt?"

"Not really." Tyler was obviously
lying. He wasn't able to hide the wince as Adrian lifted his arm and inspected
the raised bruises on his pale flesh. Logan's saliva had only partially healed
the broken skin, but it clearly wasn't as strong as it would be. Soon, the new
vampire would be able to bite a human without leaving any marks whatsoever, but
for now the bruises on Tyler's flesh looked quite painful.

Guilt washed through Adrian again. He could
help heal them right now. He wasn't embarrassed to be
who
he was, but it wasn't something he usually shared with strangers. Although, if
he was truly honest with himself he'd admit that he was already beginning to think
of Tyler as his, so they weren't exactly strangers. Maybe it was time to tell
Tyler while the man still had a chance to walk away.

"Give me your hand," Adrian said,
accidently slipping into his Dom personality. Tyler seemed to recognize his
tone, his eyes darkening with arousal as he shivered noticeably. Showing
absolute trust in him, Tyler lifted his arm and placed his wrist in Adrian's
hand. Not his fingers, not his forearm…his wrist. The way a good sub would do.

Adrian groaned as images of buckling his
leather cuffs onto Tyler's slender wrists weaved a path through his brain. What
would happen afterward had his cock growing really, really hard.

Apparently he hadn't been imagining Tyler's
submissive personality. Add that to his fiercely protective nature and
willingness to help his friend no matter what the personal cost and it was a
heady combination.

Adrian shook his head, trying to dispel the
appealing images of Tyler as his submissive. If he was going to take a human
sub then the least he could do was warn Tyler of what he would be getting
himself into. Adrian's species history was full of stories of alpha male
behavior when it came to claiming a life-mate. Judging by the
already-possessive feelings he was having for this human, his apple hadn't fallen
far from the species tree.

He lifted Tyler's damaged fingers to his
mouth and laved the flat of his tongue over the tiny, half healed cuts. Tyler
groaned, his eyelids lowering in arousal and his legs moving restlessly as
Adrian bathed his fingertips with saliva.

"This will help," he said quietly.
"It's not quite as good as Logan's saliva will be at full strength, but
for the moment it is stronger than his."

"You're a vampire?" Tyler
asked,
his expression one of wonderment rather than fear.

"No, sweetheart, I'm something else."

Tyler studied his face closely. "Can
you tell me?"

"I can," Adrian said, searching
the young man's face to be certain he wasn't afraid, "but are you sure you
want to know?"

"Of course," Tyler said without a
hint of fear. "Over the past few days you've proven yourself to be an
honorable, protective man. What…um…species you are doesn't really matter."

"Not even when I turn into a wolf?"
Adrian asked with a half-forced smile as he pulled Tyler into a loose embrace.

"You can really do that?" Tyler
asked in a serious tone.

Adrian nodded. He didn't even realize he was
holding his breath until Tyler smiled and then hugged him closer.

"At the risk of sounding like one of
the star-struck teenagers I teach…that is
so
cool."

Adrian laughed with him, holding Tyler closer
as he marveled at this human's ability to accept things that would have most
people screaming in terror. Perhaps if he hadn't known and cared for Logan,
Tyler would have been harder to convince, but he'd seen enough over the past
few days to realize that there was more to life than what most humans knew.

Adrian lifted Tyler into his arms and
carried him into the bedroom, inordinately pleased when Tyler didn't insist
that he put him down. Eventually though he had no reason to hold him, so he
placed Tyler on his feet at the side of his bed.

"Sit down on the mattress so I can take
care of those bruises on your arm."

"Yes, Sir," Tyler said as he
pulled out of Adrian's embrace and went to do as he was told. Adrian grimaced
as he inspected the increased swelling, the lumps clearly getting worse. It was
just as well that feeding a vampire created a feeling of rapture because it
would have been quite painful otherwise.