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Lestat had coveted many beautiful things in the century and half—give or take—he’d been stalking around the Earth. Fine furnishings and rare art for every room in his home; the finest fashions his wealth could afford him, bespoke footwear and hats, a seemingly endless array of expensive, well-tailored clothes; rare books and enchanting strains of music to fill the dull hours destined to stretch across the centuries.
But if you took all those beautiful, coveted things Lestat had gathered to shape his life—their sum wouldn’t come anywhere close to how forcefully—how fearfully—Lestat had coveted Louis.
And now he had him. Ecstatically, irrevocably had him. Mind and body and damned soul. His Louis. Companion in the Dark Gift now and always. Always and forever. Never again to be alone in the slick, tangled web of endless night.
In the weeks following Louis’ transformation, he’d been haunted by the brutal, bloody death of the salesman—his first taste, his first hunt—by his own immortal hand. He wasn’t taking to killing the way Lestat had hoped he would. The way he’d felt in his bones would be as natural to Louis as it was for mortals to soak up the sun. But there he was—undead, Lestat’s blood pumping fast in his veins and feeding the spark of his soul. Yet still clinging to the fragile vestiges of his mortal heart. But Lestat would break him of that soon enough. It was his nature as an apex predator, after all. The killing. The feeding. It was only a matter of time.
Tonight, Lestat was ravenous. Felt as though he hadn’t fed in decades, even if he’d taken two plump, juicy souls for himself just the night before. But of course, as was becoming habit with him—Louis had declared himself not hungry. Declared he’d rather stay home with a book. Declared Lestat should go hunting alone. They’d argued about it, of course. And Louis had won. Of course. But when Lestat found himself out stalking the Quarter, the idea of a solitary hunt made him nothing short of miserable.
So—
A plan had come together without Lestat ever once really thinking about it. And not an hour after he’d left home, he was walking back through the front door with something special in tow just for Louis.
The young busker was aged twenty-three and had skin the color of warm honey. Unburdened of his mind and his instrument, Lestat led him into the drawing room and left him to sit—fully enchanted, locked in the fog of some beautiful memory—on one of the couches alone. An immovable feast utterly ripe for the taking. His death would not be brutal like the salesman, or the others that had come in his wake. And as he walked up the stairs to the bedroom to find Louis, Lestat scolded himself for not having considered a stepping stone such as this before.
“Mon cher,” Lestat said, his undead heart thudding as though living the moment he laid eyes on him. Louis. Propped up on a pillow while lounging in bed with a book spread open in his lap. “I know you have every intention of going to coffin hungry tonight, but I…” He had to pause. His belly ached. He could feel the sweet scent of the busker wafting up from the drawing room. Wondered if Louis could smell it too. “Please. Will you come to me? I have a surprise for you.”
Though Lestat couldn’t get in his head anymore, he could see the thoughts in Louis’ eyes turning all the same. The fear, the trepidation, the uncertainty. All with an undercurrent of vampiric hunger snarling like a creature below. That thing inside him that he couldn’t hold back—not really—once the hunger had taken him. The bloodlust, the truest and purest part of his nature. The thrill of the hunt, the need of the kill. The undeniable, biological want to feed.
Louis shut his book and set it on the bedside table. “What is it? You know, I meant what I said. I’m not really—”
“Not really hungry. I know, mon cher.” A single beat. A single radiant pulse of hunger. “And you and I both know that isn’t true.” Lestat stepped into the room, stopping just shy of the bed. His hunger was some radiant thing burning deep inside him. Like a little star pulsing in his belly. “At this very moment our bodies are telling us exactly what we require. It’s a call we must heed, my sweet Louis.”
Louis pinched his brows together. “You didn’t hunt? What were you—”
“I didn’t hunt, mon cher. The idea of doing it without you…” How could Lestat explain it? How could he throw open the chambers of his heart so that Louis might know? “Please, Louis. I don’t want to fight with you again. Not tonight.” The hunger felt like an anchor sinking down the length of his throat. Hunger for blood. Hunger for Louis, Louis. “Will you come with me? Will you let me show you?”
Louis straightened his back. Swung his legs around to dangle off the side of the bed. Lestat could feel Louis’ hunger growing on the air between them, bloomed in his beautiful veins like life itself, like lust. “I, uh…” He hesitated, eyes on Lestat’s face fixed and unblinking. Like he was hoping he might find some answer on the bow of Lestat’s hunter’s mouth. “Okay.” The word came out like a sigh from his chest. The slightest bit of hesitation when he nodded his head. “Yeah. Okay.”
Lestat crossed the remaining distance between them without even thinking to do it. Reached out slowly and took Louis’ face in the cupped palm of his hand. It was clammy and slightly cold. Lestat could feel the starvation growing like an icy fever. “Mon cher, don’t be nervous,” he said, running one gentle hand along the slope of Louis’ neck. “Do you truly not trust me?”
Louis shook his head a little. He touched Lestat on his waist over his vest. “Course I trust you,” he said, and shook his head again. “It’s not that. It’s just…”
“The nightmares haven’t abated.” Lestat cradled Louis’ neck with both hands. The hunger in him was growing to some wild, howling thing. He had to focus very intently to keep himself from shaking. He needed to feed, but he needed this moment with Louis more. He needed the night to stretch out before them wide open and endless. “Oh, my sweet Louis—”
“It’s fine. Really, I—” Louis’ hands bracketed Lestat’s waist sweet and firm. Holding on as though he were afraid he might float away if he didn’t. “I’m good.” A tight little smile spread across his lovely mouth. Then he laughed, tugged at the fabric of Lestat’s well-tailored vest gently. “So you gon’ tell me what this surprise is, or…”
A feeling swelled in Lestat like the first lovely strains of a melody. There was still that trepidation in Louis, the fear, the tension. But Lestat could feel it loosening a little more by the second. It was thrilling, to be filled with such a feeling—such hope. He leaned in close and pressed his lips right to Louis’ ear as he said—“I could tell you, mon cœur, but where’s the fun in that?” He stopped to sweep a kiss along the plane of Louis’ brow. Then pulled back, meeting Louis’ gaze dead-center. “Come quickly. I’ll show you.”
Lestat led Louis from the bedroom, down the stairs and into the drawing room where he’d left the busker on the couch. His spine straight and rigid as the length of an arrow. Eyes open and locked straight ahead, seeing visions of his mother laughing in his childhood home.
Louis turned to Lestat the moment they entered the room. “Les, what is—”
“Mon cher, listen to me.” Lestat pressed the length of one pale finger to Louis’ lips to hush him. Plucked it away after a second or two. This close, he could feel the drumming of the busker’s heart on the couch. Smell the sweetness of his blood like honey. Lestat was growing wild with hunger. And love for Louis, Louis. “I know you haven’t been sleeping.”
Louis’ eyes flicked from Lestat to the busker and back to Lestat again. His brows pinched together. Something washing over his expression that felt decidedly like shame. “Don’t know what you expect me to do about that,” he said. Shook his head. The set of his jaw going hard and tense as a razor. “I can try and stop the thoughts when I’m awake. But when I sleep—”
“I know.” Lestat cupped Louis’ tense, cold face in both hands. “Mon cher, I understand exactly, and I…” Lestat paused. He breathed. Trying to conjure the perfect combination of words that would make Louis lay his armor down. Make him understand. Help him to finally see. “It’s my fault. The nightmares. The not sleeping.”
Louis’ brows pinched together more tightly. His mouth twitched upward with the phantom of a smile. “How you figure that?” His smile shifted, growing more true. A little white flash of the ends of his teeth. “‘Cause last I heard, you couldn’t get in my head anymore.”
Lestat drew a breath, a soft humming sound in his throat. Oh—how he longed to be back in that pretty head again. Feel the tangle of Louis’ complicated thoughts like a hurricane whirring around him. Understand exactly and always what his Louis was feeling. “I only mean…” His hands slipped down to cradle Louis’ neck. To feel the undead thump of that precious pulse in his throat. “I should have taken more care in easing you into it.” A pause. A single beat. A single, sensual flutter of Louis’ undead heart. “The feeding.”
Louis’ smile faded. He looked at the busker on the couch for a very long time before he offered his gaze to Lestat again. “Yeah, well, I don’t think there is a way to ease someone into the idea of havin’ to eat folks for supper, Lestat.”
Lestat hummed. He still had his hands on Louis’ neck. Could feel the way his skin was growing colder by the second. “You might be right about that, mon cher,” he said, at last moving his hands down to Louis’ shoulders, drawing them in reverent lines down the lengths of his arms. “And I promise we can have a spirited debate about it after we eat. But for now…” He glanced over his shoulder at their immobilized meal on the couch. “He’s locked in a dream of his childhood home in Lake Charles and cannot feel a thing, I assure you”
Lestat stepped back, took both of Louis’ hands in his, tugging him gently in the direction of the couch. And for a moment Louis seemed to be as immovable as a mountain.
“If you can just lock ‘em in a dream so they don’t have to feel it,” Louis said, pulling his hands from Lestat’s with a frown on his mouth. “Why not do that every time? Why wouldn’t you—”
“You know why,” Lestat said, trying to keep his words low and easy, though a spark of irritation started creeping up the back of his neck. “Hunting is pure instinct, Louis. It is our—”
“Our nature as apex predators, I know.” Louis couldn’t hide the irritation from his tone. And Lestat could see it looming like a shadow between them. The argument that was to start if Lestat didn’t tread very carefully. “Lestat, I already know. I just don’t—”
“Louis.” Lestat made his voice soft as feathers. Soft as the air that fluttered all around them. He put one firm hand on the nape of Louis’ neck. Fingers playing just beyond the collar of his shirt. “I am going to feed.” His clunky, starving heart struggled against itself in his chest. “I won’t ever force you, mon cher. But it would mean a great deal to me if you didn’t leave me here all alone.”
Lestat could feel Louis soften under his touch almost at once. Felt him draw a breath. Felt him huff it out. His jaw going tense and then relaxing quickly. And he looked Lestat deep in the eyes as he said—
“Fine. Okay.” All the fight seemed to drain from Louis like blood from an open vein. The hunger had him in its hold. There could be no denying. “Let’s eat.”
They walked hand-in-hand to the couch. Only parting to take their seats on either side of their supper. Lestat’s teeth and jaw seemed to ache with the force of his hunger. The busker’s blood glowing and radiant just under the surface of his skin. Lestat could see the veins and arteries like roadways running all along the length of his neck. He was nearing the point of animal madness. It was almost too much to bear.
Louis looked beyond the busker at Lestat. And Lestat looked longingly at him. Louis was shaking. He badly needed to feed. Between his parted lips Lestat could see his fangs had half-extended. But there was still a hint of that look in his eyes that said he didn’t know if he could stand it.
“There is beauty in that which you believe to be monstrous, Saint Louis.” Lestat reached behind the busker to run a hand along the top of Louis’ head. “Don’t fight yourself. Let it be like breathing.” His hand trailed down to skim across the soft nape of Louis’ neck. Fighting with all he had to keep his fangs from shooting out at the scent of the busker and his blood. “Just for tonight, don’t think. Don’t let your pretty head get filled with such a wasteful feeling as shame.”
Lestat thought back on the first nights of their union. Those nights that Louis had seemed to be filled with nothing but shame. Not only for the want of the blood, but for every part of the life they were building together. His eagerness to make love—for Lestat to make love to him—matched only by his reticence to allow Lestat to see him. Even now, with their nights spent together more than double that which Lestat could count on all his fingers and toes—Louis would often shrink in on himself in the light being thrown from the bedside lamp. But that he allowed Lestat to see him in the light at all was a miracle. Felt like nothing short of their love fighting for its own creation and winning.
Lestat could feel it under Louis’ skin, even as he slowly drew his hand away. The want to protest, to shove at the insistence of his nature. To deny himself his hunger as he’d always been denied so many things in his life before. “I’m not…” Louis could hardly speak. Quivering lips, body shaking. His hands curled over the curves of his knees like he was trying to force the hunger out. “Not ashamed. That ain’t…”
Lestat watched Louis’ eyes fall shut. His breaths were coming quick and shallow. His fangs had fully fallen like they were begging for the blood. Begging Louis to surrender to the pure, natural instinct of his hunger.
“Call it whatever you wish, mon cœur, but the fact remains…” Lestat breathed in. The scent of the blood pumping in the neck just beside him was so potent it nearly doubled him over. “You need to eat.”
Louis opened his eyes. He looked at Lestat beyond the boundaries of the man that sat immobilized between them. He tried to shut his mouth, but the little white ends of his fangs poked out, urgent and erect as the rest of him. “Okay,” he managed, line of his neck like a tower reaching for heaven. “Okay.”
Lestat’s fangs dropped down at once. The sound of the busker’s blood was so loud it seemed to fill the room. Veins pumping life in his neck like deep red rivers. “You first, mon cher,” he heard himself say, the sound of his own voice muffled beyond the sound of the blood. He took the busker by the short crop of his hair. And tilted his head to one side to expose the line of his neck for Louis. And—
A little animal sound slipped from Louis as he pushed forward and let his fangs sink in. Lestat’s belly growled like a wolf at the sight. All the lamps in the room seemed to burn so much brighter, as though they were miniature suns. Their only aim to burn Lestat mind and body and soul. He reached beyond the busker and held the back of Louis’ neck as he sucked. Hunger flaring right along with the lamps inside him. His eyes wide open and flooded with so much light.
Lestat could only resist for another second before he let his mind go blank. Before he let the beast take over. Before he let the madness win. And he latched onto the busker’s artery with a growl in his throat and began to have his fill. Reaching across to the other side and holding onto Louis all the while.
They ate until they were sated. Until the busker was empty, slumped like a husk of some insect on the couch between them. Refuse which they’d be certain to turn to ashes later. And they said nothing for a long stretch of wondrous seconds. Letting the warmth of the blood in them settle. The howling wolf in Lestat’s belly curling nose-to-tail and finally, finally sleeping.
Lestat felt strong when he finally stood. When he turned to Louis, still sitting on the couch. And took his beautiful blood-warmed hands and pulled him up to his feet at once. “Mon trésor…” He touched Louis’ neck with both hands, fingers skimming just beyond the collar of his shirt. Feeling the kill pump inside him like a brand new heart. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”
“I’m, uh…” Louis’ hands nestled quick and easy against the dips of Lestat’s narrow waist. There was a little drop of blood on his mouth. Lestat couldn’t resist the urge to lean forward and lick it clean with the curl of his tongue. “I’m good.” Under Lestat’s careful hands, he shivered. “That was…”
Lestat pressed his forehead to Louis’. And kissed him on the corner of his sweet warm mouth. Arousal blooming in him swiftly, nipping at the base of his spine like something with long, sharp teeth.
“Les…” Louis’s hands were on Lestat’s back now, drawing like carriages over the fabric of his vest. “He really couldn’t feel that?”
Lestat hummed, nuzzled the end of his nose with the end of Louis’. “You were right there in his head with me, mon cher. You know…” He kissed Louis again, teasing at the seam of his mouth with a soft little curl of his tongue. “He drifted away just as sweetly as I hope you will tonight when I take you to coffin with me.”
Louis’ growing strength under Lestat’s hands was nothing short of riveting. The thump of his pulse sure and quick. He let Lestat kiss him again. Opened his mouth to the curl of Lestat’s careful tongue. His powerful hands winding tight against the fabric of Lestat’s vest, sharp pointed fingernails nipping at the fabric. “I…” He broke the kiss slowly, as though waking from a dream. “I should go. Take care of business. Do my rounds on Liberty.”
Desire thumped in Lestat like pure, unfiltered instinct. Like the want of the kill, the thrill of the hunt. Something up on its hind legs howling for the moon. “The night is young, my sweet. Give me just an hour? S'il te plaît, Louis. If I must, I will beg you.”
“I mean, I can’t say I hate the sound of that.” Louis laughed. Coiled his arms like two snakes around Lestat’s waist and pulled him close. “If you wanna fill me in on what you’re beggin’ for.”
Lestat hummed, smiling just a little. The tiniest hint of bone-white fangs poking out like they were begging for Louis. “Oh, surely you must know already…” He pressed one hand in between them. Pushing beyond the tight press of their centers to grope at Louis’ cock through his pants. “Only that which I long for with all of myself every waking second, my Louis.”
—
They crashed through the bedroom door with hungry hands pawing one another all over. Curling fists greedily tugging at the fabric of each other’s clothes. Louis’ fist gripped the knot of Lestat’s tie in a stumbling attempt to pull him closer. Snarling, blood-red mouths seeking heat the way a moth will seek a flame. The two of them only parting so that they might undress more quickly. The need for skin-on-blood-warm-skin some feral, instinctual thing.
Lestat tore his clothes from himself with no care or concern for the expense of the fabric. Popping buttons and ripping seams with his overly-eager strength in the rush to get back to Louis. Louis. To touch him and to taste were the only things that mattered in the world. Lestat’s wardrobe was full to bursting. He could always buy new clothes. His need for Louis was a monstrous thing. A crushing, physical weight in his bones.
The last of the offending fabric torn off and left to rot on the floor—Lestat set his eyes on Louis where he stood a short distance away by the bed. Freshly naked in the light being thrown from the bedside lamps. And Lestat could see it in the line of his neck, the proud, easy way he held his shoulders. There was no shame to be found in that moment. His back to Lestat in such a way it was like he was saying—You want it? Come to me.
Lestat didn’t hesitate. He pushed forward so quickly it left him dizzy. Crushing his chest to Louis’ back and locking one greedy arm around him. Holding him close. So close it was like they had melded. Feeling the wild gush of his heart through his back. Mouth on Louis’ neck like the flesh was calling him home.
“Oh, mon cher…” His cock pressed to Louis’ backside, nestled right in its fleshy center. Mouth peppering kisses all along the slope of Louis’ neck and shoulder. “Do you feel what you do to me?” Both arms wrapped around him now, one greedy hand pushing up to cradle the curve of his throat. Lestat’s ravenous mouth pressing right to Louis’ ear as he spoke. “Do you feel the way our hearts are dancing together?”
Louis drew a breath, and Lestat felt his own lungs filled to the brink in an instant. They exhaled together. The quivering, vibrant planes of their flesh moving perfectly as one. Louis reached back, pawing Lestat’s flesh anywhere his greedy hands could find it. Making sounds that were not of any language but that Lestat understood like his mother tongue all the same.
His fangs descended all the way as though he were starving again. And the wolf inside his belly woke up, exposed the dripping points of its teeth. It howled, and Lestat’s mouth opened against the side of Louis’ neck. Fangs pressing in to open the red river of his artery. Lestat felt as though he were dropping to his knees before a sacred altar. Sign of the cross. Sanguis Christi. He sucked. He drank his fill from the font of his lover. Their veins like a blessed chalice passing between them. Their heartbeats syncing until one was entirely indistinguishable from the other. Saint Louis, pray for us. One hand on Louis’ throat, cradling him gently. The other falling down to encircle the entirety of his cock and balls. The body and the blood. Transubstantiation.
Louis made a guttural sound. Sweet vibrato humming in the cupped palm of Lestat’s wanting hand. Lestat’s hips were rocking entirely of their own volition, leaking cock seeking its pleasure against the mounds of Louis’ flesh. The whole of Lestat was erect as a pillar. Sacred, driving heartbeat thump.
It felt like emerging from deep underwater the moment Lestat ceased his drinking. Ite, missa est. He lapped at the puncture wounds he’d left on Louis’ neck. Blood on his chin and slipping in tiny red rivulets all down the length of his throat. “Bed,” was all he could manage for a long moment after. Panting, lapping, breathing, breathing. Then, at last, releasing his hold on Louis as though rending his own flesh in two—“Lie on your back.” Then—“Now.” Then—“Please.”
Louis made a sound that was almost a growl. Pushing forward and falling down on the bed so quickly Lestat hardly registered the movement. On his back facing Lestat with his legs hanging over the edge of it. His fangs were out, his cock was hard. He looked like he wanted to lunge forward and lick his own blood from the cup of Lestat’s hungry mouth. And it was such a thrill it made Lestat’s cock thump and his heart flutter as though it were living. And he allowed himself to believe for one moment that it had finally happened. Louis was at last giving himself over to the truth of who he was. And all his shame was gone. But then—
Lestat licked the blood from the corner of his mouth. Said—“Legs up, mon cher.” One hand on his cock stroking base-to-tip. So close to coming already it was madness. “Show me how far back those gorgeous knees can go.”
And a look flashed over Louis’ face Lestat instantly recognized as their old friends Fear and Shame. Louis shut his mouth. Hid his fangs away. In the light of the lamps it was as though he were shrinking.
Oh.
“Louis.” Lestat plucked his hand from himself and stepped closer. Ran one hand along the velvet notch of Louis’ bare hip. “My love, it’s me.” Reverent touch. Both hands on him now, caressing the dip of his waist like something most precious. The snarling beast inside melting into something softer. For Louis, Louis. Always and forever. Louis. “Up on the bed all the way. Please, mon cher. Let me show you…”
Louis was still for a long stretch of seconds. Eyes on Lestat’s face in the warm golden light spilling from the lamps. Lestat watched him swallow. Watched words catch in his throat like he couldn’t bear to speak them. One of his hands reaching for Lestat and touching his bare skin right above his navel. And then—
He nodded. Crawling up onto the bed all the way and positioning himself in the center. Lying with his legs stretched out and pressing tightly together. His body a long narrow line cutting down the middle of the bed.
Lestat stalked around to the foot of the bed like a hungry animal. His cock blood-heavy and bobbing between his legs as he moved. He felt like a creature being drawn from dark and doomed to burn in the light. Flying up to meet the sun with wax wings shot through with the scorched tips of some monstrous animal’s feathers. He would gladly burn if Louis asked him to. Fall to his knees and greet the dawn with a smile if it only meant getting to have this.
He crawled up onto the bed. Spread the tight line of Louis’ legs apart as though opening a door. Not forcing his knees back at all. Just settling between the V of them, running his hands slowly upward along the lengths of Louis’ bare thighs.
“L'amour de ma vie. My Louis. My most wondrous creation…” One hand on Louis’ hip, the other drawing one pointed finger down the center of his chest. “Do you feel the way my blood is beating inside you?”
Louis drew a breath. His skin was sweat-damp and very warm from his feeding. His cock gloriously rigid and pressed to his belly. He reached out and touched Lestat on his arm, offered up a little nod of his head. “Yes,” he said. And Lestat could feel the instinct inside him blooming, growing, winning. “Yes. I always feel it, Les. I…”
“Shame is not a thing that can ever exist between us, mon cœur. You are part of me. I exist only because I exist inside you.” Lestat put both hands on Louis’ knees and pushed them slowly backward. Not ceasing until Louis’ feet were planted firmly on the bed. “I don’t ask you to do any of these things just to please me. It is only your pleasure I seek. Above all. To feed you. To fuck you.” He shuffled closer, nestled right in between the spread of Louis’ thighs. Close enough to reach forward and grip the curve of his waist. “I want you to embrace your entire self exactly as you are, Saint Louis. Killer. Lover…” He dipped forward as though praying, pressed a kiss to the blood-swollen head of Louis’ cock. “Loved.”
Louis made a sound. Something dark and frantic. And suddenly his hands were winding in Lestat’s hair and Lestat was swallowing him down. Not stopping until he’d taken Louis’ full length in his throat all the way to the bottom. Tongue pressed flat to his balls in the most divine act of lover’s worship.
Lestat pulled back, rasped a breath, gazing up at Louis through the pale curtain of hair that had fallen over his eyes. Wolfish grin flashing Louis the bone-white ends of his teeth. Long tendrils of spit dripping from his mouth like blood. He pressed a kiss to the head of Louis’ spit-slick cock before he drew away. Sitting back on his heels and curving his palms over Louis’ knees.
“Will you let me see all of you now, my sweet?” He pushed on Louis’ knees as gently as he could manage. The ferocious snarl of desire buzzing under his skin. “Will you let me put my mouth on you all over?”
Louis’ eyes shone like the light of a hundred-million candles. Like two big moons watching Lestat’s pursuit of blood beneath a darkened sky. He nodded his head. He said nothing. He drew his knees back against him until they bracketed his chest. And Lestat was enthralled in an instant. Drawing the tips of his nails in reverent waves all up and down Louis’ thighs, fluttering over his backside gentle as kisses.
“There we are, mon cher. There’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
Lestat began to move. Down on all fours like a beast on the prowl. Belly dragging the earth underneath him as he caught the scent of the hunt. He licked a striped from Louis’ entrance to his balls and back again. Nuzzling that sweet dark star like it was the answer to everything. Every prayer, every hunger. Peppering it all over with a flurry of greedy kisses.
“Lestat.” Louis’ mouth growled the name out. Reaching down and gripping Lestat’s hair with both hands by the roots, tugging hard. Knees drawing back just a hair’s breadth more as Lestat’s tongue rolled like a wave against his hole. “Fuck…”
Lestat held Louis open with two firm hands. Pushed a sound from his throat that was nothing short of a growl. The beast in his bones tossed its head back and fixed its hungry eyes on its treasure. He opened his mouth to take the Holy Eucharist inside. Take and eat; this is my body which is broken for you. He lapped at Louis’ hole over and over and over. Louis’ hands in his hair tugging hard, shooting a blaze of sparks all down the length of Lestat’s coiling spine.
Lestat licked Louis until his head was spinning. Until his swollen cock ached and the room was so filled with Louis’ sounds of pleasure it was as if some divine soprano were singing. When Lestat pulled away and sat back on his heels, he felt as though he’d been drinking from a goblet of wine. As though their prey that night had been soaked in gin before they’d sucked his lifeblood down.
“Do you want me to fuck you, Louis?” Lestat’s pulse beat like the skin of a drum beneath a fearful hand. He took his cock in his fist and stroked from base to tip, over and over and over. Foreskin gliding over the glans like kisses. Swollen pink tip of it glistening with the slick that was spitting out of his slit slow and steady. It was drooling for Louis. For Louis’ warmth it was starved. “Do you want to feel the beating of my heart deep inside you?”
Louis’ mouth was a snarl. His fangs were out. His hands were the gnarled claws of an animal gripping the bedclothes beneath him. Liquid, gurgled sound of wanting in his throat. No words passed between them. Louis could only bare his teeth and nod his head. And draw his knees back as far as they would possibly go. The whole of him flushed with blood and lust and utterly without shame. Not even the phantom of it dancing between them. They were nothing but sinew and bone together. Nothing but swollen, pumping vessels of blood and wanting.
Lestat plucked his hand from himself, crawled forward to fetch the bottle of lubricant from the bedside table. He slicked his cock and Louis’ hole and set the bottle back down. Blinded to the sight of anything that wasn’t Louis Louis Louis.
“Mon cher. My heart…” Lestat’s thighs spread wide where he knelt before Louis. One hand on his cock stroking slow and steady. Stoking the pleasure like flames licking along the length of his spine. His other hand on Louis’ backside spreading him wide open. That beautiful clench at Louis’ center winking like a star. “Look at you…”
Lestat pushed closer, spread of his thighs so wide he felt as though he were tearing apart. Dipping down low enough to draw the head of his cock over Louis’ slicked-up hole. Lamplight seemed to dance like magic in that most sacred place where they touched. Lestat chased it with soft little swipes of his cockhead, reveling in the sounds Louis made as he would the rising strains of some lovely concerto.
“My beautiful Louis…”
Lestat braced himself on the back of Louis’ thigh with one hand. His cock held firm in the other as he licked inside with just the end of it, nothing more. Barely breaching that tight, slicked ring that stood between his body and his one true heaven.
“Relax for me, mon cœur.” Lestat soothed his hand all down the bare expanse of Louis’ thigh. Drawing away and pushing back in, penetrating just a tiny bit deeper this time. “Take all of me inside you, Louis.” Pushing in, pulling out, pushing in. Louis’ body accommodating him a little more each time. As though his flesh were slowly sighing. “Let me in.”
Louis reached forward with a broken whimper sound in his throat. Pressed the palm of his hand to Lestat’s fluttering torso. Sharp-pointed tips of his nails grazing skin, the taut flex of muscle underneath it. And Lestat pushed in. And his vision seemed to dance with a million little dots of light like the room was filling with stars. And Louis opened up to him utterly and completely.
Lestat bottomed out with a growl in his throat. He held himself flush with Louis for a handful of seconds in an attempt to gain his composure. More ravenous for Louis’ flesh than he’d been for the blood in the moments before they’d eaten. “Mon cher,” he managed. Drew a breath. Took Louis by the tops of his thighs and slowly drew them forward. “Just like this, my sweet. Yes. Here. Brace your feet on my chest. You know how—yes. Oh…”
Their shared blood pounded between them like an enormous drum. Lestat cradled Louis’ hips in his hands. Pressed a kiss to one of his ankles. Eyes on Louis’ face, the plush, swooping bow of his mouth. His eyes half open, half shut as Lestat started rocking his hips and driving in, drawing out. Fucking Louis slow and steady with fluid little snaps of his hips. A skill he’d honed wonderfully in truth over the last one and a half centuries. Though had only come to feel he’d mastered—blissfully and at last—that very first night Louis had permitted Lestat inside him.
“More,” Louis commanded. Hands gripping Lestat’s bare thighs and his eyes squeezing shut all the way. “More. Deeper. Les—fuck.” His nails dug into Lestat’s thighs hard enough to draw little pinpricks of blood in their wake. “Please.”
A delicious zing of pleasure-pain traveled from Lestat’s thighs like a livewire straight to his cock. “You want it, mon cher?” Lestat snapped his hips hard. Drove into Louis with a snarling, beastly sound in his throat. “Take it from me. Take everything you need.” Fucking into Louis once, twice, three times until his nerves were singing. “You know everything I have is yours for the taking, Louis.”
Beneath him, Louis snarled. Letting Lestat’s words settle over him for just a second before he started to move. Quickening the pace using his feet on Lestat’s chest for leverage. Rocking himself back and forth back and forth back and forth until it neared the point of madness. Fucking himself on Lestat’s blood-fat cock again and again and again. Pleasure leaping from Louis’ body and into Lestat’s like a moth making love to a flame.
Lestat couldn’t speak, stricken utterly silent by the heat and the rhythm and the sight of Louis losing himself in the rush. His heart pumped with excitement as in the moment’s just before a kill. Blood and death and pain; love and life and a warm, safe comfort like sinking down into a bath. It was all the same in that moment. It was all the same. And Lestat couldn’t help but utterly surrender to every feeling inside him. He was a snarling beast giving chase on the hunt. He was a man so in love her could die. He snapped his hips, fingernails digging into Louis’ hips, perfectly matching Louis’ speed with his thrusts. The bed underneath them howling with it until Lestat wondered if it might collapse beneath the fury of their love.
“Mon cher….” Lestat fucked in to the hilt and held himself inside Louis with all his strength. Their bodies pressed flush together like they’d been chained that way. “I need you closer. J'ai besoin de toi—come here. On top of me…”
Their bodies parted. Lestat felt as though he’d torn himself in two the moment he slipped from Louis. He sat down on the bed with his legs outstretched and slightly bent at once. Panting with his heart in his throat. More alive than he’d ever felt in all his years undead. And like some benevolent god reaching down to heal his damned soul—Louis climbed on top of Lestat. Straddling his lap and sinking down on Lestat’s hard cock without a single moment’s hesitation. Rocking his hips like some well-oiled machine that had been created for nothing but this: taking all of Lestat, every single part. And their mouths crashed together in the rush of it all. And they kissed they kissed they kissed they—
Louis broke the kiss. Panting hot and sweet against Lestat’s mouth for a handful of blissful seconds. Then—still moving, still fucking himself on Lestat’s full length, taking it to the hilt with every fluid, rocking thrust—he shoved Lestat’s hair out of the way and latched onto the side of his neck. Sharp pointed tips of his fangs finding Lestat’s artery like they were coming back home.
Lestat gasped. A deep, guttural sound pushed out of his throat. He wrapped his arms around Louis and held on, allowing Louis to drink him down, allowing himself to be taken. “Yes,” he was almost certain he uttered as his blood pounded hot and slick into Louis’ golden mouth. “Louis, will you—Louis, Louis…”
Lestat could think of nothing—no words, no music, no poetry—to possibly compare to this. It was as though he were up in the sky, winking down at the ground like a star, like a god. Pleasure coursing from Louis’ mouth into Lestat’s punctured artery; feeding Lestat that life-giving essence from the bottomless font of his love.
Louis pulled back with an animal sound in his throat. Blood on his teeth and in the corners of his mouth. His rhythm never stilling, their breathing still perfectly one. He pressed his forehead to Lestat’s as he rode like a hunter astride a stallion. Lestat’s hands pressed to the coiling, sweat-damp planes of Louis’ back, his spine like a great flaming wick flaring up under his skin.
“Louis…” Lestat’s mouth twitched. He pressed a kiss to Louis’ blood-slick mouth. Tasting himself, swiping his tongue against it. Pleasure fluttered in his belly like bat wings chasing the dark. “Tomorrow night, mon cher. My Louis…” Knees drawing back, he pressed his feet flat to the bed and thrust up. Matching the pace exactly as Louis slammed down and down and down on him. “Will you hunt with me? Will you—”
Lestat gasped, tossed his head back. Louis wound two big strong hands in his hair and kissed Lestat as he fucked. As he rode Lestat like some feral thing beneath the rising moon.
“Will you…” Lestat was breathless when they broke the kiss. His cock jumping hard inside of Louis’ perfect heat. He was so close to coming it was madness. “Mon cher, will you feed with me? Let me fuck you after under the light of the moon…” Deep, guttural grunt in his throat. He could feel Louis’ cock pulse where it was pressed between them. Leaving a slick, wanting trail all over Lestat’s torso. “Do all the beautiful things we were put here in this world to do?”
“Yes,” Louis said, his breath coming warm and frantic against the flesh of Lestat’s pounding temple. His hands in Lestat’s hair winding so tight it burned. Oh, how beautifully it burned, burned. “Yes, Les—fuck. Yes…”
Lestat felt Louis’ orgasm before it actually hit him. He felt it pure and sure and true as the drumming of their shared blood, their shared heart. And the moment Louis’ cock started to leap and spurt all over—Lestat was coming too. Thrusting up into Louis as Louis’ whole body quivered and shook around him. As Louis sobbed against the top of Lestat’s head and they shuddered through the final throes of their orgasm together.
After—they collapsed in a big sticky wonderful heap on the bed. Covered in come with blood tears on their faces. A million words he couldn’t speak dying on Lestat’s curving tongue. And it didn’t matter their syllables, their shapes. Each of them sounded like love. Each of them sounded like Louis Louis. I love you, Louis. Saint Louis, pray for us.
Eventually, somehow—Lestat extracted himself from their bed and fetched a wet cloth and cleaned the blood from both their faces. Swiping the cloth over Louis’ whole form as he lay silent and watchful on the bed. Breathing slow and steady. A contented little smile playing on the corners of his mouth.
“You don’t have to do all that,” Louis said when Lestat moved down near the foot of the bed and started washing his feet with the cloth. Tender little swipes on the soles, around the arching curves of every last one of his toes.
“I know,” Lestat said very quietly and with all the love in the world. All the love he had for Louis, Louis. “I want to, mon cher. Let me.”
When he finished, Lestat tossed the cloth on the floor among the tatters of their clothes. And pressed a soft little kiss to the sole of each of Louis’ feet. And crawled up onto the bed. And pulled Louis close to his side. Wrapped Louis up in his arms, held him tight. Sighed and shut his eyes as Louis’ head came to rest his right over the beat of his heart.
“Gotta go soon,” Louis said after a long, content moment of silence stretched between them. His voice drowsy and sedated, as though he were already half in dreams. “Gotta…”
“I know, my love,” Lestat said, and pressed a kiss to the top of Louis’ head. The pointed tips of his nails drawing gently over Louis’ scalp. “Soon. I’ll go with you, hm? And after…” He sighed. His heart was beating gently. Exactly to the beat of Louis’ heart that was pressed against him. “I’ll take you to coffin and sing you into dreams.”
Louis mumbled something Lestat couldn’t hope to make out. The rhythm of his breathing as though he were fast asleep. Right in that gentle, beating heart of the place where Lestat was soon to join him.