Bloodline (28 page)

“Swallow it, damn you.” He held out his hand for the flask. “Let me give him more.”

Maryse wrapped her fingers around his outstretched ones. “Micah.”

“He’s not dead. He’s sleeping.” The words calmed him. Inigo was sleeping, and when he woke, Micah would be by his side.

Asher came rushing into the room. “It was the Kewen,” he said. “That was how they found Ellie. Oberon had let her take a ring. The hunters had more of the jewels, and the ring pulled them to her.” He held out his hand and showed them a necklace and bracelet. “They match Ellie’s ring.”

“Do you feel any pull?” Micah asked.

Asher shook his head. “No, but although our faerie blood is pure, we’ve never spent long amounts of time in Faerieland. Who knows how that affects our ability?”

“Give them to me.” Maryse held out her hand.

She clasped them to her chest and closed her eyes. Micah’s parents, Pixie, and Jago came running into the room, and Asher held up his hand to keep them quiet. Maryse opened her eyes and began to walk around. As she exited the room, everyone followed. Micah stayed at Inigo’s side.

“Micah,” his mother choked out from the doorway. “Please.”

He pushed to his feet. There was nothing more he could do for Inigo now. Ellie needed him.

It became clear Maryse was heading for the throne room, and the several faeries in there fell quiet when they walked in. She moved around the edge of the room and stopped by a small table.

“Somewhere here,” she whispered.

Asher yanked the table out of the way, and they began to bang on walls and the floor.

“Quiet,” Micah yelled.

He pushed Asher aside and tapped twice on the wall. Two distant muffled thumps came back in answer.

“Ellie,” Jago yelled.

Two more thumps. Asher kicked at the wall one side, and Micah kicked at the other. Jago dragged broken lengths of paneling out of the way and crawled through the gap. He emerged pulling Ellie with him, tape dangling from her mouth. Someone used magic to free her from the chains, and relieved as he was to see his sister safe, it reminded Micah of how he hadn’t been able to use magic to help Inigo.

Jago held Ellie in his arms, pressed his face into her hair, his shoulders shaking with emotion.
Why can’t I have a happy ending too?

* * * *

He spent the night at Inigo’s side, sheltering him with a wing, cursing them for not helping him when he’d needed them, and yet he knew he’d probably stood no chance of pulling Inigo free. Micah held Inigo’s cold hand, unwilling to accept he wasn’t going to wake. He had a horrible suspicion that the unicorn blood had killed him. Not the drop he’d tried to force into his mouth, but the first taste Inigo had taken, because it had changed him. The ability to stay out in sunlight had been provided at first by faerie dust, but not later. He’d started to eat normal food, not crave blood. He hadn’t slept in the way vampires do, and Micah regretted not questioning him instead of being angry he’d fed from a stranger.

And his heart. Micah could have sworn he’d heard it beat. The unicorn blood had brought the zombie back to life; why not Inigo? Yet if he’d stayed a vampire, he would have survived the quicksand. Micah stifled a sob. None of it mattered now, anyway. Inigo was gone. Deep down, he knew that.

So many came to pay their respects. His mother kissed Inigo’s cheek. Pixie cried. Ellie too, and she didn’t even know him. But she knew love, understood what he’d lost without him saying.

“Forgive me,” his father said.

Micah nodded. Inigo would have been pissed off if he’d said no, but Micah couldn’t forgive him yet. The pain was too raw.

Finally, Kit dropped down on Inigo’s other side. “We can bury him here with the highest honor,” he said.

“No. I want to take him home. I want…” Micah’s throat closed up.

“Whatever you want,” Kit said. “Thank you for all you’ve done. He was a good man. He gave me back the unicorn blood when he could have drunk it. I won’t let what remains go to waste.”

* * * *

When Micah emerged through the portal in Richmond Park, Inigo in his arms, Moss stepped out of the darkness. Micah was too tired to wonder for more than a few seconds how his boss knew what had happened or when he’d be coming back. When Moss tried to take Inigo from his grasp, he shook his head.

They walked out of the park, and Moss unlocked a silver car. Micah put Inigo in the back and climbed in beside him. He sat with Inigo’s head in his lap for the journey, smoothing his hair back from his face. He’d refused to let anyone wash him, insisted on doing it himself, and he’d sobbed silently as he’d cleaned the remains of the mud from Inigo’s beautiful, flawless skin.

Micah hadn’t thought about what he was going to do with Inigo’s body. He couldn’t bear the idea of cremation, that seemed wrong, nor could he face enclosing him in a coffin. Maybe Roman could arrange for them to be flown somewhere high, a place with snow, and he could leave Inigo sitting at the top of the world, as near the sun as he could be. His heart cramped again, and he bit back a sob.

Moss pulled into the underground parking, and when Micah headed for the lift with Inigo in his arms, Roman waited inside.

“You need to sleep,” he said.

Micah suddenly felt exhausted.

“Will you let me hold him?”

Micah tensed and clenched his jaw, but Inigo felt so heavy he was afraid of dropping him. As Roman lifted Inigo from his arms, Micah fell into Moss’s. His eyes closed, and his last thought before he passed out was that he hoped when he woke, he’d be next to Inigo.

* * * *

Micah opened his eyes with a start and realized that first of all he wasn’t dead, and second, he was naked and in bed, and third, someone was in bed with him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck
. He flung back the covers and gasped. Inigo lay beside him, also naked. Micah blinked hard and rubbed his eyes. Inigo was still there. He was afraid to touch him and afraid not to. He reached out slowly and brushed the vampire’s arm, almost expecting his fingers to go straight through, but they didn’t. Not a ghost then. In fact, Inigo was warm.

Warm?
Micah reared up to a sitting position and gaped at him. He had to be dreaming, hallucinating, freaking out. He was definitely doing the latter. He ran his gaze down Inigo’s body, from bony shoulders that narrowed to a smooth, hairless chest, over pecs topped with taut brown nipples, down to the flat stomach and the dark treasure trail beyond. His mouth fell open as he watched the vampire’s cock swell and harden.

“Like what you see?” Inigo whispered.

Micah’s gaze flashed to his face. His black eyes were open, and he was smiling.

“This
is
real?” Micah asked. “It’s not my mind playing a trick?”

“No trick. Really me.” He rolled to drop his mouth over Micah’s groin and licked the length of his cock.

Micah went from sponge to rock before he could blink.

“Recognize me?” Inigo asked.

“Oh yeah, I’d know that tongue anywhere.” Micah groaned and fell back onto the bed.

His brain frantically tried to make sense of the impossible, but every time he opened his mouth to ask a question, he forgot what he’d intended to say. His cock felt hard enough to break off, and the person who’d caused the problem and the one who could cure it hovered over him.

Oh God, not that fast
. Micah was talking to himself. He was fairly sure that whether Inigo sucked him long and slow or fast and hard, he was going to come like a lightning bolt. The back of his head tightened, nerve endings popped down his spine, and orgasm shot from simmer to boil in his lower back. It exploded through his balls, and he was pumping into Inigo’s mouth, firing jet after jet until he began to worry he might not stop.

He did.

“Pretend that didn’t happen,” Micah muttered.

“No way. I’m flattered. I didn’t realize I was
that
good.”

Micah smiled. Inigo wriggled his way back up the bed and licked Micah’s lips. Micah opened his mouth, and Inigo slid his tongue inside.
Oh God. He’s really here
. Micah’s tongue welcomed the visitor with little flicks and strokes, and the kiss slid to hard and deep. Inigo cupped Micah’s jaw and tilted his face, his thumb rubbing circles over his cheek. Micah was afraid to put his arms around him, still fearing this was a dream. But as Inigo kept kissing him, pressing his long, lean body against him, Micah wrapped his arms around the vampire’s back and held him tight.

Hands wound in each other’s hair, they kissed until there was nothing in the world but them, wrapped in each other’s arms. Micah stopped questioning what had happened, just accepted that it had. Somehow Inigo was back. They ate at each other with a greedy indulgence that made Micah’s heart sing and his pulse dance. When he tore himself away from Inigo’s lips, his breaths came in choppy bursts.

“Really you,” he whispered and spread his fingers over Inigo’s face, touching every part, the bony ridges of his cheekbones, his kiss-swollen lips, the shadows under his eyes.

He kissed his way down the salty column of Inigo’s neck, over his chest, down to his cock, the crest glistening. Micah wrapped his fingers around the root, and in one long swallow engulfed as much as he could until the shaft hit the back of his throat.

Inigo sucked in a breath and gave a long exhale. “Shhhhiiit.”

Micah went to work on his dick, lapping up the length of it, sweeping his tongue over the crest on every upstroke, teasing the little slit into giving up more precum before he licked the veined shaft all the way to the root.

“Shit, Micah, any second,” Inigo mumbled.

Micah sucked harder at the tip, fisting the rest. Inigo’s cock pulsed and jerked against his tongue, and a sweet splash of liquid heat burst in his mouth. Then another, until there was too much to swallow and it was seeping from the sides of his mouth. When the last spasm had died away, Inigo pulled him up and brushed his lips softly over Micah’s.

“Bet you don’t feel so bad now,” Inigo said.

“No, you came even quicker than me. That’s fine.”

Inigo laughed. “I did not.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Did not.”

Inigo narrowed his eyes. “We’ll just have to do that again.”

“And again.”

“We could do it at the same time. Slowest to come wins.”

Micah grinned. “Wins what?”

“To choose what happens next?”

Lying top to tail, they wrapped themselves together, hands and mouths on each other’s cocks, and it was so hard to
fucking
concentrate when Inigo had his tongue pressed in his slit and his finger on his prostate. How was he supposed to not come? But from wanting to win, Micah moved to not caring. What did it matter? Whatever came next was good for him now that Inigo was back in his life.

He came first. Not a surprise. And Inigo came following after. He fucked Inigo, and Inigo fucked him. One huge advantage of being faerie and vampire: they could keep going and going. And they did.

When they finally made it off the bed and into the shower, they fucked there as well, and only gradually did Micah’s desperation begin to calm. Inigo was here. He wasn’t going anywhere. Everything was fine.

Until they stood naked in front of a full-length mirror and Micah could see the vampire’s reflection.

Inigo stared at himself. “Fuck me. I’m even better looking than I thought.”

Micah snorted. “And you have a bigger head.”

“But not a bigger dick. Damn.”

Inigo slid behind him and wrapped his arms around Micah’s chest.

“Ready to hear it now?” Inigo asked.

Micah’s heart jumped. “Ready to hear what?”

The nip on his shoulder made him jerk.

“What happened to me.”

“Okay.” Micah stared into Inigo’s dark eyes.

“I’m not a vampire anymore. My eyeliner has gone.”

Micah had to laugh. “You’re not a vampire because your eyeliner has gone?”

“It washed off. Do I look better without it?”

“I kind of liked the look on you.”

Inigo smiled. “Well, then it’s the first thing I’ll buy.”

“So,” Micah said. “The unicorn blood made you not a vampire?”

“That began a process, but I don’t know where it would have ended. I died in that sand. I couldn’t breathe. I shouldn’t have wanted to breathe, but I did.”

“Then…”

“I’m still dead,” Inigo whispered.

“No.” Micah tried to turn in his arms, but Inigo held him tight. “A ghost?”

“No.”

Micah’s mind set off on a rambling journey of possibilities. Zombie? Ghoul?

“Look,” Inigo said.

Micah’s eyes widened, and he gasped as he saw white wings in the mirror.

“Are they yours?” he blurted.

“No, someone’s behind me pulling strings. Of course they’re bloody mine. Roman—well, Roman actually did pull some strings. Vampires aren’t supposed to ever become angels.”

“Oh shit.”

Inigo wrapped his wings around Micah and smiled. “Course now the boss owns me body and soul.”

“He made you an angel?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. Basically I’m a good guy. I had good reason for taking my maker’s life, and I had intended to save him before I fell asleep. I also tried to save Oberon, and apparently that was a really good deed. I don’t actually get that because we’re all better off with Oberon dead, but I’m not complaining.”

Micah felt the touch of feathers on his groin, and his cock sprang back to life.

“Thought you might like that,” Inigo said. “I did.”

Micah bristled and glared. “What the hell does that mean?”

Inigo rolled his eyes. “First thing I did when I got these was jack myself off. Two hands, two wings—I mean, wouldn’t you have done the same?”

“You’re crazy.” Micah laughed.

“And hungry. I can eat anything, though there are some things I don’t want to try. Cabbage, brussels sprouts, and octopus. I want chips. Get dressed.”

“Giving orders?”

“I outrank you now.”

Micah pulled away and hid his smile. As Inigo walked past, he stuck out his foot and tripped him up.

“Oh very mature.” Inigo picked himself up off the carpet.