Season content notes include discussion of violence, explicit sex, and bondage.

Avery woke to a splitting headache and cursed. The blood from that bastard in the alley wasn’t keeping him sated any longer. Another day, and he’d start really feeling it. He blinked slowly and rolled to sit up. Bare walls, but they were the wrong color. A real bed. When did he get a real bed?

Fuck. The car. He was so screwed.

Heart pounding now, and knowing he needed to calm down, Avery sighed and dug in his backpack. It only took a moment to pull out the small length of silky blue rope he’d found in a dumpster a few weeks back. The door to the small room stayed closed. He pressed the bed with one hand, checking to be sure this wasn’t a dream, and then laid back, resting his hands above his head.

The rope was just long enough to wrap twice around his wrist and once around his palm. He held it in one hand and used the opposite hand to wrap and unwrap it methodically. The new-but-familiar routine calmed him, and the fuzziness in his mind sharpened into memory.

Deryn. Dark skin. Black hair. Green eyes. The barkeep had offered him the room for the night. Avery hadn’t made much of a mess, but he would clean up everything once he was ready. After all, that was the agreement.

That was fine. He needed to get moving again and find some other mugger to drain. Avery snorted. He knew this plan wasn’t sustainable — couldn’t even be called a plan — but he had nothing else. Really, it was a miracle the Sun’s Chosen hadn’t caught up with him already.

He shook his head. Deryn would look at the car, hopefully fix it, and he’d be out of here by midday. He opened the door and glanced up the stairs, but there was no sign of anyone awake in the apartment, so the dhampir returned to the bed and got lost again in the rhythm of wrapping and re-wrapping the rope. At least it dulled the boredom after losing all his books with his last backpack.

It also dulled the passing of time.

---

Deryn sat up slowly and bit back a groan, resisting the urge to stroke himself. Fucking dreams. The dhampir sleeping in the room behind the bar had snuck into last night’s dreams, leaving him still tired and aching for release.

Sunlight shining bright in his eyes convinced him it was better to just get up. Huh. He probably should have warned the young man about how late he usually slept.

Shaking his head, Deryn got up, dressed quickly, and headed downstairs. The door to the small room was open. The dhampir slept on the bed, face contorted in something like anxiety. Clamped in his hand, wrapped around his wrist, was a small, ragged length of blue cotton rope.

Fuck. Nope. Not thinking about it. Deryn shoved his thoughts aside and focused on the matter at hand. He rapped lightly on the door. The young man startled awake and immediately hid the rope behind his back. Hoping Avery hadn’t noticed his attention following the motion, Deryn took a deep breath. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“It was a long night.”

“Ayuh.” The poor kid smelled like sweat and fear, even after last night’s shower. The dominance from last night lingered though as he dismissed Deryn’s apology.

“So… car.” The young dhampir stood, shoved the offending rope in his pocket, and led the way outside.

Deryn could watch that ass all fucking week and not get tired of it. No. No. Stop. Kid just needed help getting his car going and then he would be gone.

Avery popped the hood. One look at the chipped paint and rust told Deryn quite a bit. Then Avery sat in the driver’s seat and started the junker. White-blue smoke came pouring out the back with a sickly sweet smell, accompanied by the sound of grinding metal.

With a hiss, Deryn shook his head. He didn’t have to see the pistons to know what had happened. “You’ve got a blown head gasket. That’ll take a professional to fix.”

Avery swallowed and Deryn could see the way he twisted the rope in his pocket between his fingers. An anxiety stim, most likely. “I doubt I could pay a professional. If I could find another beater, I could maybe swing six for that, but that’s it…”

It was the first time Deryn had seen the young dhampir looking uncertain. He looked Avery over again, this time not as a needy sub but as an experienced vampire. “Come inside, we’ll talk.”

Avery gave him a side-eye even as his fear scent spiked and a bit of pain blended into the mix. He nodded, though, and followed Deryn inside and upstairs.

Deryn led him into the kitchen, where he pulled out two bottles of his special stock. Handing one to Avery he said, “You keep this up you’re going to end up dead, and that would be a damn shame.”

---

Avery blinked. He hadn’t expected something that blunt from the quiet barkeep. He also didn’t trust a free drink, but he opened the bottle and took a small sniff.

Blood.

The thirst burning his throat nearly choked him, and his eyes snapped to Deryn immediately. He looked over the man with hunter’s eyes.

Slightly pronounced canines behind closed lips. The scent of magic, soil, and something like clotted blood. Green eyes with a reflective shine. Smooth, quick movements that didn’t read as human clumsiness. “You’re a… Fuck…” He sighed and dropped into a nearby chair.

“Ayuh. Clocked you the moment you walked into the bar.”

With a snort, Avery sipped at the bottle. He really couldn’t ignore his thirst anymore. “I’ve been told your folk can do that.”

Deryn took a long sip of his bottle and nodded, “You should be able to, too.”

“I’ve never seen more than depictions.” Damn. He was so thirsty that just a few sips of blood from the bottle had him spilling his guts. And to the enemy, no less. But Deryn had helped him. And he wanted nothing to do with those asshole priests anymore. So, was Deryn really an enemy?

Deryn eyed him warily. “We gonna have trouble now?”

Avery scowled at the table, forcing himself to drink instead of gritting his teeth. “Those bastards can go fuck themselves. I left for a reason. For all the good it’s done me.” Why the fuck did he add that? Why was this vampire so damn easy to talk to?

“So you are on the run.”

Avery rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t deny it, but he wouldn’t confirm it either.

“How long?”

How long? That was a question. The only thing he could pinpoint was the season. “Since spring hit the northern Rockies.”

“Bout six months, then.”

Avery huffed. Six months. Yeah, he’d gone rogue, so they’d probably dispose of him when they found him, but they hadn’t yet. And he knew his trail was fairly obvious to any vision mage worth their scrying mirror. He’d done what he could to cover the trail magically, but they’d made sure he didn’t know enough to truly hide.

So why hadn’t they caught up with him yet?

“Any sign they’re following you?” Deryn asked, as though he’d read Avery’s thoughts, though Avery knew he couldn’t.

“Pretty sure I threw them off about halfway here.” Avery sneered. “Not like there’s a paper trail to follow.” No need to alarm his host when he wasn’t staying any longer than necessary. “Look, I just need to find another car, and I won’t be your problem after that.”

Deryn nodded slowly. “If that’s how you want it.”

Under his breath, hoping the other wouldn’t hear, “What I want doesn’t matter.” With a sigh, he asked the barkeep, “What do you mean by that?” One hand on the bottle, one hand on that small rope in his pocket.

Deryn sighed, “I’m offering help, kid, but I’m not going to stop you going it yourself if you want to be stubborn.”

Avery took a deep, steadying breath. The vampire was pretty damn good at faking empathy. If that was even the word for it. They did function on deception and subtlety, after all. Damn, he wanted that rope around his wrists right now. He’d have to settle for stroking it between his fingers.

“I don’t know how much longer the cash I’ve got will last… And once that runs out…” He downed the rest of the preserved blood. All his training screaming he should fight, kill, destroy. No. Those bastards in the Sun’s Chosen could go fuck themselves.

Deryn seemed a bit distracted, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was using this opportunity to get back on the road. Maybe it would take a bit, but — The vampire’s next question caught him off guard. “So what is it you want?”

“To survive.”

The words just slipped out. There. He’d said it. To a total stranger who was a vampire, no less. He set the bottle down and dropped his head to the table. He couldn’t pretend he had it together in front of that kind of life experience.

A gentle hand patted his hair. “Will you let me help?”

Fuck.