Chapter 2

Abbie was fortunate in that Zeb didn’t want his company other than for the required sex and blood sharing. The sex was perfunctory at best. Sometimes he thought they should both put more effort into it since they’d only ever have each other to fuck.

That just depressed him, though. Monogamy was all well and good, but it helped to have a partner you liked, at the very least. Zeb was as annoying as a mosquito buzzing around Abbie. To be fair, Zeb probably thought the same of him.

Abbie sighed as he stretched out on the bed. Since he and Zeb had taken care of the mandatory exchanges the night before, the next several days and nights were all Abbie’s own. Zeb would be out doing whatever he wanted to do. Abbie never asked where he went—it wasn’t like Zeb was fucking around on him. At least, Abbie didn’t think so, but if he was, it wouldn’t have mattered.

All the other human mates were busy with the vamps. Abbie could hear the murmurs of some voices drift upstairs now and then. It made him feel lonely, which in turn pissed him off. That was entirely too close to pitying himself, as far as he was concerned.

Try as he might, Abbie couldn’t sleep. After an hour of tossing and turning, he got up and put on a pair of shorts. He left his bedroom and told himself none of the other mated pairs were looking at him like he was a loser. He wasn’t. Zeb and he were just in a bad situation of their own making.

Abbie murmured greetings when he had to, then he finally made his way outside to the wide porch. The moon was very bright and high in the desert sky. He walked to the railing and leaned over it slightly. There were so many stars out that it was difficult to see much of a space from one to another. He wasn’t even sure there were spaces between them. The longer he stared, the more it all became one big, bright blur.

He might have stood out there, transfixed by the beauty of nature, had he not heard a voice that never failed to make his insides warm with arousal. Abbie blinked then closed his eyes. It was messed up that hearing Claude’s voice turned him on more than Zeb’s touch ever had.

Anger coursed through him, along with that arousal. Abbie knew now that Zeb hadn’t ever loved him.

Thinking about his situation wasn’t helping. There was nothing he could do to change it, and mooning over Claude was a waste of time.

One Abbie hadn’t been able to cease frittering away hours on for a very long time.

He resumed looking at the sky until something skittering over the sand dune a few feet away caught his eye. Then Abbie gasped and stumbled backward. “Shit,” he muttered as he reached behind him for the door, his gaze locked on the zombie approaching.

It wasn’t the door handle that he grabbed. Abbie’s hand cupped a nice, warm bulge covered in fine wool.

Only one person—vampire—wore wool suit pants in the desert.

Claude hissed at the same moment Abbie jerked his hand away.

“Sorry,” Abbie got out, certain every inch of his skin was neon pink with a blush. He was just as certain that he’d feel the imprint of Claude’s covered dick on his palm for eternity.

Claude coughed delicately.

Abbie forced himself to breathe. “There’s a zombie, er, zombies—” He shut up as two more zombies came over the dune. Three more followed them.

“There are, indeed,” Claude agreed. “I supposed they’ve gotten bored. Always a dangerous thing for creatures who don’t have brains of their own.”

Abbie backed up until he was standing beside Claude. “W-what are they doing here?”

Claude huffed.

Abbie finally made himself look at the man, something he tried not to do. He feared Claude would see right into his heart.

Claude peered at him with those fathomless black eyes. “Why, Abernathy, I’m assuming they’ve come to die. What else could be the result when vampires are toxic to them if ingested, and the mates…? There is no way a vampire will let his or her mate become zombie food.”

There was a flicker of something in Claude’s expression, as if he wanted to add more to that statement. Abbie might have imagined it but doubted that he had.

“So they want you to kill them, then?” Abbie asked, turning back to look at the lumbering creatures. Short of a few missing parts here and there and some holes in their flesh, the zombies weren’t too terrifying.

“I would assume so,” Claude said. “Please alert the others.”

Abbie had a lot of questions he wanted to ask, like why were those creatures coming there to die, had this happened before and so on and on and on. Zombies weren’t something he’d seen often in the time he’d been with the vampires.

He didn’t ask. The truth was, being so close to Claude, smelling the cool ocean and mint scent of him, was too much. Abbie’s heart and libido couldn’t take any more.

Plus, the zombies were freaking him out. The wind carried a distinctive sewage-like scent when it blew over the creatures.

He slipped behind Claude and through the doorway. As he glanced back, he saw Claude calmly removing his suit jacket.

* * * *

Claude had been unable to resist coming outside after Abernathy had been on the porch for a good while. He’d seen Abernathy slip out and had forced himself to remain seated in his chair.

Until he hadn’t been able to stand it anymore. Claude’s senses had prickled with unease. His first thought had been that perhaps Abernathy had grown tired of Zeb’s idiocy and had decided to end it all in the desert. A foolish worry, of course, but one he couldn’t shake nonetheless.

Claude hadn’t been expecting to get groped—which had, sad to say, been the sexual highlight of the last few years for him—or to find the desert teeming with zombies.

Well, not quite teeming. Zombies were slow and cumbersome and ugly as sin. More were arriving, however, and Claude had seen such a thing once before, over a hundred years ago. Sometimes when the nasty creatures were too much in abundance, something kicked in and sent them out to seek their end. He figured it was a supernatural culling, just like vamps could poof, turn into ashes out of nowhere.

Seeing that happen a few times did tend to fuck with a vampire’s head.

He waited until Abernathy went inside, then Claude removed his suit coat. He settled it over the back of the nearest chair and started rolling up his sleeves. He stared at the closest zombie. “You’d better not get gore all over this suit. It’s a custom made Jon Green, you bastards.” Claude gave thought to stripping out of it entirely, but fighting in his Hermès underwear seemed too ridiculous to truly contemplate.

Plus, Hermès underwear. Only the best for my unused genitals. Masturbation didn’t count, and even if it did, Claude wasn’t in the mood much anymore.

The why of that made him grin and bare his teeth. Maybe what he needed was a good, violent fight. He didn’t wait for backup as he dove off the porch, snarling as he ripped off the first zombie’s head.