Hello... And Farewell Read online

  The sort of slim, youthful form that would have gained whispered words of appreciation from Adrian, if he’d been there to see him.

  Adrian. He had to make sure his lover was all right. Had to get him well out of the reach of the sun before dawn.

  Wary of the small man, he tried to stand, but a hand pressed him to the stone, the lips compressing into a frown, head shaking to send the braids dancing, making another gentle song.

  That hand was warm on his chilled and blood-streaked flesh.

  Gryphon felt that flow of power, the offering plain.

  He considered the situation. In his present state he wouldn’t be of much help to Adrian, and his vampire lover would be in dire need of blood, which he lacked.

  And he lacked enough remaining energy to heal his body.

  He accepted the gift, took the power offered and used it to begin healing his wounds.

  The unknown Dragon visibly trembled, legs going weak.

  Gryphon caught him, wrapped his arms around the narrow hips, felt the Dragon curl over him, protective, yet pliant, reminding him of someone accustomed to submitting himself to others. It made him wonder who this young man, this young Immortal was, and where he’d come from.

  Body healed, he pushed the blond away a step, but man’s legs started to give way and Gryphon found he had to catch him, hold him or he would fall.

  He looked down into dark eyes that glowed with dim radiance all their own, the most intense shade of blue that he’d ever beheld. Something in his chest went tight, and something else much lower down his body went stiff.

  No conscious volition entered the picture. Gryphon simply bent down and kissed the other Immortal, their lips meeting in a gentle, exploring kiss, the unknown younger man’s lips parting to let him have entry.

  After a moment of delicious exploration that pulled quiet moans from the man in his embrace, Gryphon let him go. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, not sure that the other Immortal with his barbaric appearance and strange garments understood him. He was speaking the King’s English, but there was the look of someone unable to comprehend those words.

  He stepped away, heard a thump and glanced back to see the blond kneeling on the grass, gaze on Gryphon.

  He looked so...lost. Or perhaps he was confused. Gryphon couldn’t tell exactly, but he could see something was wrong with the other Immortal.

  He returned and held out his hand. “Come along, then.”

  A slender hand reached for his and he took it, pulled the other man to his feet, heard that sweet chiming sound as the bells spoke.

  He smiled, pointed to himself and said, “Gryphon.”

  He waited expecting to be told some outlandish name, something in a foreign language, but the reply startled him. The blond took a braid in his free hand, shook it and said, “Bells,” in oddly accented but understandable English.

  “Do you understand me?” he asked.

  The other man’s gaze went almost blank, that look of confusion crossing his features. “I...think so, yes.”

  Gryphon took a moment trying to understand the odd way the man spoke. The accent didn’t help. It wasn’t like any he’d ever encountered, carrying an odd lilting, lisping quality that was as exotic as the man’s appearance.

  “Come with me,” he told the other man.

  “Okay.”

  Gryphon wasn’t sure of the meaning of the word, but the other man followed as he led him along by the hand. He soon found himself leading the smaller man with an arm wrapped around his waist. For all the power of the younger Immortal, giving over so much the way he had left him weak and unsteady.

  He’s probably never given himself to anyone that way before. And that led him to wonder if this Bells had given himself over in other ways.

  Unworthy of you to think about such things. Adrian is your lover.

  But the memory of the kiss--and how Bells had responded--wouldn’t go away.

  They found Adrian sitting up, his expression almost as confused as the blond he had in tow.

  “What happened, Gryphon?”

  At the sound of his voice the blond beside him froze, refusing to go any nearer to Adrian. “Who might that be?”

  “He says his name is Bells. He doesn’t seem to speak our language very well.” Gryphon glanced at the smaller man, saw the signs of uneasiness.

  He knew what Adrian was.

  “Vampire,” he all but growled and would have hurled himself at Adrian, his intent to kill evident in the twist of his lips.

  Gryphon stopped him, but it took all his not inconsiderable strength to manage it, which came as a shock. Not a moment before the blond had been done in, now he had enough vigor to make a real contest of it. “No, he’s a friend,” he tried to explain.

  “Friend?” the tone made the word an obvious question.

  “Yes, my friend. My lover.”

  That got the blond’s attention, the too-blue eyes focusing on him. “Lover?”

  “His eyes are glowing, aren’t they?” Adrian asked.

  “Yes.” It sufficed for both queries.

  “Bells? Strange name.” He watched as his lover murmured in the stranger’s ear, speaking words meant to calm him, Gryphon leaning over the smaller man, holding him against his broad chest. He didn’t understand it, but seeing them that way, the pair of them struggling—gold and blue mist spinning around them like a whirlpool— heated the remainder of blood left to him.

  By all the gods, they’re beautiful. Both of them so bright, so full of life and energy.

  He found himself licking his lips, wondering what it would be like to taste the small man’s golden skin and of their own accord his fangs started to ache, the need to have blood rising strong as lust, his dry tissues crying to be laved in Immortal blood.

  “He’s like you, isn’t he?”

  “Immortal, yes.”

  Adrian frowned as he recalled the events that had come close to taking his life. “Shouldn’t we be fleeing from Jerome?” he wanted to know, though now that he was aware of things to an increasing degree, he discovered no trace of the tainted Dragon. He’d be the first to admit that his senses were not what they normally were.

  “No need. Bells killed him.”

  Adrian’s brow rose at that comment. “How? I thought you said only—” And the answer hit him, because it took a Dragon to destroy a Dragon. “But there aren’t any others in all of Europe, that’s what you told me.”

  “And that’s true, or it was until today.”

  Gryphon frowned.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know where he came from. One minute I was battling for my life and close to failing you, and then he came charging in out of nowhere I can discern, riding the most peculiar horse I’ve ever set eyes on.”

  “Would you be upset if I said I wanted him?”

  Gryphon looked at him, his aqua eyes concerned. “In what way?”

  The blond in his grasp seemed to understand that well enough; he started to struggle.

  “He’s not going to hurt you,” his lover tried to reassure him.

  “Biblically,” Adrian smirked.

  “Ah, yes, he seems to have that effect on me too,” Gryphon admitted to him as he got a better grip on the struggling form in his grasp, holding the man closer and giving an experimental thrust of his pelvis against his behind.

  The glow of his eyes was dimmed as they narrowed, Bells going still in Gryphon’s grip.

  “I’m not sure he liked that,” Adrian said.

  “Nor am I,” Gryphon agreed. “But he made no objection to my kiss earlier.”

  “You kissed him?”

  Gryphon nodded. “I was...startled by the attraction, but I feel it too.”

  Adrian got to his feet, using a chunk of stone to steady himself. He stepped closer to his lover and the creature in his grasp. He set his hand to the small blond’s chin, urging his head up, and met with little resistance.

  They gazed at one another, and Gryphon surprised them both b
y lowering his head to the side of the blond’s neck and biting it gently.

  A soft sound, his breath catching at the sensation, and then neither of them had any doubts about Bells. He’d gotten hard; the tight garments he wore hid nothing.

  “Thank you for saving us,” Gryphon murmured against his neck.

  Adrian leaned in, captured the man’s lips and felt him turn his head aside.

  He sighed. “He doesn’t seem to like my kind, but he has no objection to you, it would appear.”

  “Perhaps it’s the flavor of my blood in your mouth he dislikes,” Gryphon suggested.

  Adrian shook his head. “No, it’s me. Or rather, his perception of me. I’d say he doesn’t like vampires.”

  “Well, considering what most vampires are like, I shan’t blame him.” Gryphon offered him a smile. “Tempting as he is, we do have other pressing matters to attend to, Adrian.”

  “That altar?”

  His lover nodded and released the man he’d been holding.

  Bells turned his head, frowning, and then eyed Adrian. He stepped away from both of them and stood watching, his eyes moving back and forth between them.

  “It’s as if he doesn’t quite know what’s happening, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. He seems, I don’t know, rather disoriented,” Gryphon agreed. “Though he did Jerome in quite effectively.”

  Bells edged away from them, and it appeared that the small blond was putting more distance between himself and Adrian.

  “He’s had a bad time of it with vampires before, that’s my guess,” Gryphon remarked.

  Adrian sat down on one of the stone blocks to make himself appear less threatening.

  In a jangle of bells, their namesake vanished out through the archway, moving with a speed that astounded the vampire. He stood, took a step, but Gryphon caught him, held him close. “Let him go, Adrian, he’s not ours.”

  “I know that, but dearest gods, did you see how fast he is?”

  “Faster than your kind or mine, yes.”

  “What is he?”

  “He killed Jerome, that would make him a Dragon, but exactly what sort I couldn’t begin to tell you. It’s the strangest Beast I’ve ever set eyes on.”

  It felt good to have Gabriel’s arms around him, and he rested his head on Gryphon’s shoulder, closed his eyes.

  “We need to get back home, it will be daylight soon,” he remarked.

  “But the altar must be destroyed first.”

  “Then let’s get to it.”

  He found that he couldn’t walk far and had to lean on Gryphon for support after only a short distance.

  There was no sign of the other Immortal until they got close to the horrific construction. Jerome’s altar on which he’d intended to bring about Adrian’s death. A death that was to be the fuel to power the gate.

  Composed of human bones—the remains of every man, woman and child of the nearby village—it towered into the night, an unholy thing from which malicious intent beat like the thump of a heart against them.

  The small blond of the bells was standing within a few feet of the thing, his back to a remnant of the castle wall, staring at it intently. Motionless as something carved of stone, he didn’t even turn at their approach.

  Adrian’s kind could stand so totally motionless for as long as they chose, but he’d never seen any of those with the souls of Immortal Beasts do so until now. It sent a chill up his spine.

  Immortal Dragon, and something else. Something strange and—

  Vampire. It was there, a familiar darkness beneath the power of the Dragon.

  He stumbled as the force of the altar hit him, grabbed hold of what he was and tried to strip what was left of his unlife away.

  “I can’t get any closer,” Adrian gasped to his lover. His legs gave way, and not even that drew the gaze of those unnatural eyes to them. Fire, blue fire, that’s what they reminded him of, a flame so hot it would melt stone.

  “Foolish of me to bring you closer. I should have left you,” Gryphon murmured.

  Adrian offered his lover a rueful smile. “Yes, that might have been best.”

  The thing was meant to steal his unlife, and that’s what it had come close to doing.

  Adrian could smell his own blood, and his fangs ached, body feeling empty, almost hollow.

  He needed to feed, but it had to wait.

  “Wait here, beloved, I’ll see what’s to be done with this thing.”

  He nodded and watched his lover walk closer to the altar.

  His lover hadn’t gone more than a few steps closer when Bells separated himself from the wall he’d been leaning against and sprinted to the altar. He leapt into the dead center, stood there, then drew the sword that was across his back.

  Mist poured from him, so thick Adrian could barely see Bells at the center of it. He saw the flash of the steel, a Dragon’s roar boomed through the ruins.

  A flash of light so brilliant that it blinded him, erupted from the altar and the gate it had tried to create. Another roar, one so loud he could hear the stones of the castle groaning in response tore the air, slammed Adrian to the ground and held him there the way a dog would hold a rat.

  Everything went black, all sensation ended.

  So this is death for me, then. Well, at least Gryphon should survive. Maybe that blond will stay with him. I think he’d like that.

  Adrian let the blackness take him, let it carry him along into the gentle flow toward nothingness.

  Beat.

  A pain to disrupt the dark current.

  Beat.

  Jolt of hurt that lifted him from the touch of oblivion.

  Beat.

  A woman’s face, pale beauty, her hair a raven wing’s cloud of night-dark hair, offering him a sad smile.

  Beat.

  Adrian screamed in agony, his body arching with the torment. His eyes came open to find his beloved holding him, weeping and clutching him so tight it hurt.

  Beat.

  His heart struggling to circulate unlife through empty veins.

  That was when he became aware of a hand over his lips, a few drops of precious blood landing on his tongue.

  Power. Strength.

  But not Gryphon, not his lover’s blood.

  He shifted his gaze, found the creature of the bells sitting beside them. Pale, haggard, his clothing rent by countless cuts, the small Dragon was covered in blood.

  Beat.

  He groaned, tongue lapping at the blood he was being offered.

  And it burned. Burned hot as flame over his tongue, down his throat.

  He screamed, but he couldn’t stop his tongue from taking more.

  Gryphon held onto him tight, speaking to him, the words incomprehensible, some old language as dead as he’d nearly been.

  The fading spark of the taint that kept him unalive burned brighter, became a bonfire as he took drop after precious drop of the Immortal’s blood into his body.

  He pulled free of Gryphon’s embrace, moved to Bells with the same intensity of a moth pulled toward the fire.

  Instead of fleeing as he expected, the beautiful creature let its hand fall, tipped his head to expose his throat, showing his willingness to let him feed.

  Adrian moaned, took the blond into his arms and bent his head to the offered throat. Fangs pierced skin and he heard a low moan that sent a thrill of lust through him.

  Behind him, Gryphon wrapped his arms around him, holding him, kissing his shoulders, his lover’s warmth, his presence keeping Adrian from tearing out the golden throat in his lust for blood. He growled, instinct ruling him as he swallowed down the first mouthful of blood.

  Liquid flame.

  Cobalt fire burning down his throat, filling his belly with light, spreading into his veins.

  He growled again, warning the Gryphon off. This was his prey, his.

  “Shhh, Adrian. Shhh...”

  The words and touches tried to gentle him, to control him. Adrian shuddered as a hand wrapped around
his cock and the blond turned his head a little more.

  The flame seared his heart, and all thoughts of killing pleasure vanished. He let go of the Dragon as he felt its power touch his heart. Trembling, the Gryphon gathered him close, his lover’s mouth closing over his lips.

  The kiss awakened other lusts, that of the flesh rather than the unlife, and Adrian moaned, cock hard and aching, still wrapped in a firm grip. A grip that his mind finally identified as a hand not belonging to his lover. It was too slender, the fingers longer, but no less sure of what they were doing.

  He groaned into Gryphon’s kiss, his arms going around his lover’s shoulders as Gryphon pulled him closer, his tongue invading his mouth. He groaned into the possessive kiss, body still afire from the blood he’d gotten from the Dragon.

  The scent of spice filled the air, rising from his skin, the scent of a vampire’s arousal, something his body naturally produced to lure and seduce mortal prey. Something he hadn’t actually done in centuries because he had his Gryphon.

  He didn’t think his vampiric allure affected the other Immortal, but the way the smaller man reacted, leaning in and breathing deeply made Adrian wonder if Gryphon was immune from long exposure or if something in the Dragon’s past had made him susceptible.

  He let go of his Gryphon with one arm, wrapped it around the smaller blond and pulled him close.

  Gryphon ended their kiss to do a bit of exploring of the Dragon’s mouth. It is difficult for me to comprehend his willingness, yet he appears to want us as much as we desire him.

  I think you’re right, and I’m no less confused by that, I admit.

  Loneliness is the worst part of our existence and I never stop thanking whatever divine power or fate cast you into my path, Adrian.

  But what of him? Is he going to join us or is this just for the sake of pleasure? the vampire wanted to know.

  I don’t know, my beloved. We’ll find out after when he decides to stay or leave.

  I don’t want him to leave.

  The Dragon was kissing along Adrian’s thigh, Gryphon’s mouth covering his, their tongues dancing.

  Adrian groaned as teeth grazed the tender flesh on the inside of his leg, nose brushing against his balls, nuzzling them even as the teeth clamped down, biting, hurting and sending heat surging long his nerves. His cock jumped in the grip of the slim hand holding it, stroking it and he groaned into Gryphon’s mouth, heard an answering chuckle, his lover amused.