Restitution From the publisher: An elder vampire`s life is sex, power, responsibility — and sex. Vision has always wanted it. Janus has actively run from the responsibility part. When their choice is taken away, they’ll learn how it all comes down to sex.

I really didn’t like that last sentence, but okay. Restitution has some of my favourite Vision/Hanz moments. They’re just such goofballs together. 🙂

Restitution

The strobe lights fed Lyall’s headache. The extreme clarity of the dance club didn’t come with the second of excruciating whiteness. The bright light bleached everyone’s face to glowing skin and dark pits. It was in the darkness, when Lyall’s pupils were as wide as they could be. And in the momentary darkness, Lyall saw it all.

At the bar, one of the pretty boys, dressed in black leather and chains, watched him watching the room. His blond hair defied gravity and he wore gauntlets with D-rings that Lyall found intriguing.

The next flash of light blinded Lyall, and with the third, the pretty boy was gone. Lyall turned, scanning the bar, but he couldn’t find that knowing smirk.

The skin on the small of his back tightened and he spun backwards. The pretty boy was behind him, still several feet away. On the crowded floor that seemed like a mile. “I was going to say you were new at this, but I guess not. I’m Sam.”

Sam. Not Vladimir or Death or anything as silly. Lyall liked him already. He smiled. “Lyall.”

Sam looked past Lyall’s shoulder. “You want to get out of here?” he asked.

Lyall nodded, and followed him out.

The night was cool and welcoming after the stifling air of the bar. “I’ve never seen you here before,” Sam said. He didn’t look to see if Lyall would follow him, but took a left turn straight down to the docks. As a human, even Lyall had hesitated to be out after dark in the neighborhood, but Sam didn’t look concerned.

“It was my first time.” Lyall walked behind Sam, the bare skin of Sam’s neck suddenly erotic. Lyall wondered what it would taste like under his tongue. Sam kept a pace or so ahead of him.

“You’re taken, obviously.”

“Yes.”

Sam’s shoulders tensed, but only for a moment. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

Sam nodded, though he lost some of the swagger. The alley to which he led Lyall was dark and dank, and even Sam didn’t leave the circle of light given off by the sole streetlight that hadn’t been shot out.

“This good?” Sam asked. He still hadn’t turned around. His shoulders were still tense, and Lyall wanted to run his hands up them, to feel Sam’s pulse under his fingertips. It was so intoxicating he lost his words. He couldn’t even nod, but took a step forward. Sam nodded for them both.

Rather than dropping to his knees or even turning around, Sam yanked the neck of his black T-shirt to one side and exposed the whole of his throat. The skin there was so delicate and thin Lyall could watch the blood in the veins, fast and hot from the artery, slower and cool from the veins. Sam had known all along. Lyall couldn’t stop his teeth from coming out. He pierced the skin, and hot blood filled his mouth.

Two things became readily apparent. The first was Sam hadn’t been drinking. He tasted of fruit juice, something exotic and excessively modern like pomegranate or cherry. The other was despite his confidence, Sam hadn’t done this before either, and the wasp-bite of pain upset him.

Lyall held him, comforting him even as he drank, and Sam sank back to him. Lyall drank his fill, intoxicated by its purity, and held him long after the teethmarks had healed over. Lyall smelled semen in the air. Sam had apparently come in his pants after the bloodletting, and now, when he was coming back to himself, was inordinately embarrassed over it.

“Don’t be ashamed,” Lyall said. He let Sam go, and Sam took a moment to adjust himself back in his jeans. “We do this again, I’ll make sure it’s on purpose.”

Sam swallowed. His skin was paler now, his pulse weaker, but color would return. “So you have done this before,” he said, voice cracking.

“Never on my own.”

Sam touched his neck, rubbing Lyall’s saliva between his fingers, and then touched the spot of the bite again.

“I’ll take you back to the club,” Lyall said. Now that he was fed, the feeling of being watched started, and it was beginning to make him nervous.

Sam waved him off. “I can make it back myself.”

“You shouldn’t ” Lyall began, but Sam left him. Lyall leaned against the wall and took a moment to recover.
* * * * *
When Hanz had woken that morning, the bed beside him had been empty. He reached out, feeling for warmth, but Vision had been gone too long. He closed his eyes, listening, and it took a moment for the faint rumbling of Vision’s voice to come to him in the office. Just listening to it made Hanz smile, and he got dressed quickly.

He left the room and went down to the heavy wooden door. Vision called for him to come in. Hanz pushed the door open. Vision glanced up. His blond hair was still wet from a shower, his skin flawless, and for a moment Hanz could only stare at the way Vision’s suit accented his shoulders. He was much younger than Breylorn, the vampire he was with, and stronger, too. Just by being in the same room, Breylorn didn’t stand so tall.

“Do you need me, sir?” Hanz asked.

Vision licked his lips. “No,” he decided. “Not yet.”

“Yes, sir,” Hanz said, and went downstairs.

He wasn’t alone. Janus was at the kitchen table, reading the business section of the newspaper. Vampires aged slowly; a few centuries may cause a line or two, but their hair kept growing. Janus’s hair was in his eyes, and it offended Hanz’s sense of tidiness. He wanted to brush it off Janus’s forehead like crumbs off the table.

“Do you have plans tonight?” Janus asked, flashing him a smile.

Hanz didn’t quite have the ability to smile back. Janus set Hanz’s teeth on edge with how easy he was around Vision. The two of them had a history that went back years.
“Why?” Hanz asked.

“Lyall went out hunting alone tonight. It’s his first time. I’m stuck here for the night. I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

“He’s old enough to hunt for himself,” Hanz said.

“I know that,” Janus said. “But that doesn’t necessarily preclude the fact that I don’t want someone to watch over him.”

“You want me to watch him?”

Janus grinned at him. “Oh, would you?”

Hanz really had nothing better to do.

The roofs of the buildings down by the docks were in no better repair than the façades and foundations, so Hanz carefully picked his way over to where Seraph lay in wait for Lyall.

Seraph was of late Hanz’s ex-master and of late-late Vision’s ex-master’s ex-pet. (Hanz knew he was a smart guy, but just thinking about the ways their lives were intertwined gave him a headache and made him want a diagram.) Seraph was thinner than he’d been when he’d locked Hanz up in an old hotel room, and the look of pampered assuredness was gone. He looked wan and washed out, and his golden hair had become straw yellow.

He was muttering to himself, promises of what he was going to do with Lyall the moment the human he’d fed from was gone. Hanz probably didn’t have the same knowledge base as Seraph did, but Hanz didn’t think over half of them were possible.

Hanz wasn’t being silent as he approached. At least three times his shoes scuffed in the loose pebbles on the roof, but Seraph didn’t turn. Hanz reached down and picked up Seraph’s wrist.

Now Seraph did react, turning on him. He snarled, exposing his fangs. Hanz held Seraph, one hand on his wrist, the other on his throat, and he waited for Seraph to recognize him.

And recognize him Seraph did. His eyes widened, which considering they were already bugging out a little, was downright comical.

“You.” The word was spat at Hanz’s feet.

“Me,” Hanz agreed. He pointed to Lyall, who was just then moving off. “Not yours. Leave him alone.”

Seraph exposed his teeth again, curling back his lip. Hanz squeezed the wrist he still held hard enough that he felt the bones separate. Seraph’s snarl deepened, as though daring him to snap the damn thing. Hanz came within a fraction of an ounce of actually doing it.

Still, Seraph didn’t break. His mouth twitched, now more from pain than anger, but he kept Hanz’s gaze the whole time.

Hanz let him go. Seraph only closed his eyes for a second, then took his wrist back, delicately. He couldn’t fool Hanz; Hanz could smell the broken capillaries and torn tissue in the wrist, but Seraph reacted as though it had been a minor wrist slap. He brought his hand back and licked where the bruises of Hanz’s fingers were starting to form.

“You doing bitch runs for Janus now, too?” Seraph asked. He cocked his head, leaning towards Hanz. Hanz wanted to take a step back, but he’d already broken once in front of Seraph and didn’t want to do it again.

And Seraph knew it. He took another step closer. “You’re full of elder blood,” he said, and dared to put his injured hand on Hanz’s chest.

“What did you expect I’d be full of?” Hanz asked.

Seraph looked up at him, eyes slitted. He wasn’t smiling, not yet, but the ghost of it was on his lips. Perhaps he was prettier than Hanz had originally allowed for, if Hanz were to go for the china doll look. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

“Maybe I want to see how clever your tongue is.”

“Surely you can think of a better way.”

Hanz wanted to draw back. He wanted to go back down to the street and get in his car. He wanted. Yes. He wanted. “Get on your knees.” His voice was a growl.

Seraph smiled, his tongue slipping between his lips. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Seraph dropped down, undoing Hanz’s slacks. Hanz wanted to push him back. It wasn’t right. He didn’t stop Seraph from licking his way up Hanz’s thigh. It tickled, but not in a bad way. He even went so far as to stroke Seraph’s cheek.

He grabbed Seraph’s chin, letting Seraph fight, but he was stronger and at the better angle. “That is not on the table,” he said, but didn’t apply pressure.

“What’s another kind of suck between friends?” Seraph looked up, but didn’t put his fangs away.

“So many things wrong in that one little sentence.” Hanz was just beginning to feel the stir of his erection. For some reason, feeling Seraph’s throat and the blood just beneath his fingers was turning him on more than it should. “You going to play nice or am I going to have to ”

“What, hurt me?” Seraph broke in. “You tried that, remember?”

“Go,” Hanz finished. “I’m going to have to go.”

Seraph’s fangs pulled back in, and he bared his flat, human teeth at Hanz. “See? Puppy has no teeth. You want to be sucked off or not?”

Hanz let him go. Seraph took a moment to adjust his jeans, then began drumming his fingers behind Hanz’s testicles. It was so sudden and unexpected he jerked, and was rewarded by another smirk from Seraph.
And, he was hard. Seraph’s long, cold fingers wrapped around the base of his cock, holding it up to expose the thick vein on its base. Hanz tensed, expecting to have to push Seraph away, but couldn’t move. Even after Seraph ran his teeth flat and dull against the length.

Someone had trained Seraph well. The coordinated effort involved in making the fingers still rubbing Hanz’s perineum match the movement of Seraph’s fist was maddening. Hanz had nothing to hold onto, but didn’t want to grip Seraph’s head if it meant disrupting what he was doing with his tongue.

So instead, he spread his legs further and concentrated on just standing upright while the master went down. He thought he’d kept track of all Seraph’s fingers, but then Seraph managed to find his prostate. It didn’t entirely seem possible; if Hanz’s brain was any more functional he would have demanded a re-count. But it wasn’t, and Seraph’s slick fingers rubbed just exactly right. Hanz couldn’t help himself. He grabbed Seraph’s head, pulling himself deeper down Seraph’s throat, and Seraph held onto his hips and let him push.

The intense wave of the orgasm didn’t last, though his cock still in Seraph’s mouth did help prolong it an extra moment. His blood sang in his ears, his stomach muscles tensed, and his knees and elbows ached with pleasure. Then it was over. He wondered, incongruously, if he’d parked in a no-parking zone.

Seraph sat back first and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Good?” he asked.

“You don’t need me to tell you that,” Hanz said, then took a second to do his slacks up again. “But thank you.”

Seraph shrugged, then stood up in one fluid motion, more cat-like than human. “You wouldn’t have done the same.”

“You don’t know that.” Hanz took a step forward.

Seraph held out his hand. “No, but I can guess. And knowing you, you’d only do it wrong,” he said, and took three steps backwards.

He was only two steps to the edge of the building. The third one wasn’t a trip, and Hanz couldn’t quite follow Seraph flipping over the edge and falling jumping? the seven stories. Seraph landed on his feet, again, like a cat, and was gone, running down the street.

Hanz, wisely, took the stairs.