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CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
FINN
“Clearly, he feels fine,” I say.
“Clearly,” Marcus agrees.
“I don’t…” Alexei starts. “Dear god. I can’t take this abuse. My body doesn’t enjoy emotions.”
“Hey, the upside is you never have to see that hideous outfit ever again,” I say.
Alexei nods. “A blessing in disguise. Now, do we even have clothes for him?”
“We might have something in the car. I’ll check,” Marcus says as his phone starts to ring. “It’s Brooks, probably wondering what the hell happened.” He wanders out of the room as he takes the call.
“I am too,” Alexei says before looking at me. “You fell off a bridge?”
“Was chucked, actually.”
“Are you okay?” he asks. “I mean… you look okay.”
“Marcus caught me or I’m one hundred percent sure I would have died,” I admit as I lean back in the chair.
“I… take it he got away?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“You alright?” he asks.
“He just… reminded me of Watson, but I’m fine. And you guys are alright.”
Alexei sits down beside me, and I lay my head against him as I wait for Marcus to return. I hate him being away when I’m already on edge. Ender wouldn’t track us here to finish us off, right? Fuck, there is a lot to unpack from the night, but I just can’t get my brain to cooperate to do so just yet. Instead, it’s running a hundred miles an hour, and I can’t seem to keep up with it.
The door opens and Marcus comes in, thankfully saving me from myself. “I dropped the clothes off to Claude. He was not pleased by his choices,” Marcus says, looking amused about this fact. “The doctor is discharging him because there’s not much more they can do now that he’s healed, so we’ll head out to the car. Now, Finn, don’t be stubborn. Can I get you a wheelchair?”
“Absolutely not,” I say as I stand up and use every ounce of my being to keep from falling. “See?”
“What are we supposed to see? Just a human pretending we’re dumb?” Alexei asks.
“I think he believes that we aren’t supposed to notice that he’s about to fall on his face,” Marcus says.
“You’re both assholes,” I decide, but they’re my lovely assholes since they each give me a hand to help me out to the car. We’re so slow that Claude actually beats us there.
“Oh. My. God,” I breathe, stopping suddenly to take it all in as Claude tugs at his clothes. “These were the only clothes you could find?”
Marcus looks quite pleased as he stares at Claude who is wearing one of my shirts like a belly shirt—the poor fabric is stretched to the max—and then a pair of Marcus’s black pants.
Claude’s eyes shift onto me. “Finn, my most favorite human, I will not hear a peep out of you. I actually asked if I could keep the hospital gown instead and they refused.”
“You look beautiful, Claude,” I say.
He sighs like he’s been defeated before looking between us. “Are you hurt, Finn?”
“No, I’m perfectly fine.”
“He hurt his leg,” Marcus the Traitor says.
“It’s fine,” I assure them. “Positively fine.”
Claude opens the car door for me, and suddenly, I feel like I’m the one we were here for, not him.
As I’m helped over to the car, Marcus glances behind himself and I notice Brooks coming up. Marcus turns back to me and instructs, “Finn, take your leg off in the car. Brooks is here about Kaden.”
I will absolutely not take my leg off in the car.
Instead, I get inside and sink down in the seat as Alexei stays out of the car with Marcus, but Claude gets into the back seat.
“Finn—” Claude starts.
“I’m sorry I put you in danger, and I didn’t help… I felt like I couldn’t.”
Claude leans between the seats. “You know it’s okay to be afraid, right? I was afraid too. I’m not brave like Marcus is.”
“You are plenty brave.”
“And so are you. Now take your leg off if it’ll help with the pain. If you refuse, I will strip you right here.”
“You’re not stripping me, and I’m fine.” The throbbing really would be better without the weight, but I can’t stand the idea of removing it, even in front of people I consider my family.
Claude stares at me for a second. “Did I tell you I once lost a fight to a rooster?”
“You’re not going to distract me or make me feel better,” I say.
Claude slides up on the middle console. “It was a bantam too. You know what those are?”
“They’re like mini chickens.”
“Yeah, so this mini rooster came after me. Ready to fucking slice me up. I thought it was adorable at first. I told him his feathers matched my shirt and that fucker flew right up and started kicking the shit out of me. It startled me so much I flipped backwards and bashed my head on a post.”
“A tiny little chicken that you could crush with your pinky?” I ask as I give him a look of amusement.
“Hands down, fucked me up,” he says with a grin. “Marcus says the hit to my head is what made me start dressing the way I do but I’ve always dressed magically.”
“Uh-huh. I’m going to be honest… while I love the idea of you getting attacked by a mini cock, I have absolutely no idea what this story had to do with anything.”
Claude is silent for a moment before going, “Now take your pants off or I will,” like that answers anything.
“Nope. Get back. I’ll do it myself.”
Undoing the button, I take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m in a car surrounded by some of the strongest vampires I’ve ever met. And that none of them are going to think I’m weak or incapable.
Once the pants are down far enough, I release the prosthetic leg with a hiss before the pain lets up. It really does feel so much better. Then I’m stuck debating if I want to pull my pants back up. Leaving them down will make it so I can quickly get my leg back on in an emergency, but also leave everything out.
With a sigh, I pull my pants back on as Alexei gets in the car. “Did you hear anything about Kaden?” I ask.
“He took a bit to heal back up since he’s not as old as Claude, but they think he’ll be fine. No one has seen Landall or Ender. Sounds like DeGray and Briar are going to deal with Kaden and Brooks wants us to go home for now.”
A moment later, Marcus returns and gets into the driver’s seat before turning and addressing Claude and Alexei. “I’m on edge about this whole thing but also feel like if Ender wanted us dead, he’d have killed me when I jumped after Finn. It would have been easy for him to take the side of the hill down and kill me before my legs healed and I could get up. That’s not to say we’re safe, but just… please be careful and watch your surroundings. Please don’t leave your house without telling me where you’re going… and if anything seems off, you alert me immediately.”
“I will,” Claude promises.
Marcus drives toward home, pulling into Claude’s driveway to drop off Claude and Alexei before heading over to ours.
I reach out to put my leg back on but Marcus stops me. “You need to take a shower anyway, I’ll just carry you,” he says.
“I guess washing Claude’s blood off me might be nice.”
Marcus comes around to my side of the car and picks me up before carrying me into the house where the dogs are eager to greet us. They’re positive we’d been planning on leaving them for years and jump and hop around eagerly.
Once in the bathroom, Marcus sets me down on the plastic stool I use when I can’t balance on one leg in the shower, and then holds on to me as he pushes my underwear down.
“I can unclothe myself,” I assure him. “Get in with me.”
“I feel so guilty for leaving you, Finn,” he admits.
“What is with our party of guilt tonight?” I ask. “Claude is right. It was none of our faults. Could we have done things differently? Maybe. But what would it prove? If you were with me instead of Claude, would you have been able to do something differently? Would he have just killed me to get to you? Marcus, we really don’t know what would have happened,” I remind him as I take my shirt and then arm off.
“Do you want to tell me what he said?” Marcus asks as he adjusts the water temperature before letting me take the showerhead.
So I tell him everything Ender said as Marcus uses a washcloth to scrub away the spots of blood on me. The area of my arm that’d scraped across the road hurts and my leg is red above the cap, but I’m really not too bad off after everything. I can tell I’m going to be ridiculously sore tomorrow but I’ll survive.
“How could he possibly taste Watson’s blood?” Marcus says when I finish talking. “The same blood isn’t in you forever and it replaces and replenishes itself.”
“I… don’t know. He was just… saying shit to throw me off, I think.”
“Could have been, but we’ll talk to Claude about it tomorrow,” he says.
Once rinsed off, we dry ourselves before Marcus picks me up and carries me straight to the bed. I’m not even tired but the idea of doing anything but lying there sounds dreadful.
“Wait, my prostheses.”
“They’re not going anywhere.”
“I don’t like being without them,” I say.
“Right, sorry,” he says as he kisses me before retrieving them for me as well as some pain pills and water. Then he climbs into bed naked next to me and draws me in close. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.”
“Let me change you.”
“Marcus… no.”
“I’m going to do it whether you want me to or not,” he says.
“Not now. I can’t have you ruin everything we’ve done. And even if I hid… I don’t know that I want to ruin my own life like that, you know? And what if Watson’s right and my body rejects my prostheses?”
“I heard peg legs are pretty in right now.”
I grin at him. “You’re ridiculous.” Then I tuck my head against him as the dogs squeeze into the narrowest opening. Closing my eyes, I try not to think about everything that happened today and let Marcus’s hand rubbing over my back ease my mind.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
MARCUS
I feel like I could sleep for a week, yet I don’t think I slept a minute last night. Instead, I just twisted and turned in our bed, and I think every time I looked over at Finn, he was awake. I could tell he was uneasy about everything, and I feel like Ender is bringing out the fear Finn had felt about Watson. At least Finn seemed to have fallen asleep about an hour before I got up.
Walking into the kitchen, I grab a mug for coffee. Coffee is definitely not my favorite, but I feel like I need something to jolt my brain.
I take a sip of it and immediately wrinkle my nose.
Why do humans love this so much?
Opening the fridge, I pull out some blood and drain it into the mug of coffee. I’m not sure if I’ve made it better or worse but I chug the entire thing as I stand in front of the kitchen window, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do now. The moment I lower the mug, I realize that there’s someone pressed against the window staring at me.
“Fuck,” I hiss as I jump back, wondering why the hell I didn’t hear anything.
Claude smashes his face against the window even harder. “I need to talk.”
“You nearly killed me,” I growl.
He disappears, making me guess that he’s trotted off to the front door. With a sigh, I head out onto the porch. “How are you?”
“Fine, perfectly fine. Totally fine. I think your boyfriend is strange,” Claude says.
“What?” I ask, confused about what’s happening. Maybe it’s the traffic cone suit he’s wearing that’s fucking with my brain or the godawful coffee/blood mix I just chugged like a damn shot.
Maybe alcohol was the ingredient it was missing, not blood.
“Finn, you know? Your partner? Your boo? Your man? Your suga?”
“I’ve heard of him,” I say.
“His blood… did something weird to me.”
“Yeah, it brought you back to life. We were all just bloodletting ourselves all over your face.”
“Not the weirdest thing that’s happened on my face. Anyway, Alexei was telling me what happened, you know? About you giving me your blood and Alexei giving me his blood and then when the ambulance arrived, they gave me bagged blood, but it wasn’t until Finn gave me his blood that anything changed.”
“Maybe it was just the amount of blood you needed?” I ask.
“Possibly, but here,” he says as he bites his wrist and literally stuffs his bloody arm against my face. “Lick it.”
I glance up and see the neighbor across the way taking her dog for a walk. She’s looking me right in the eyes as I lick my brother’s arm.
“It… tastes like Finn’s blood,” I realize.
“Right. That doesn’t make sense. You and Alexei probably gave me more blood than he did. Why would his blood affect mine?”
“I… don’t know,” I realize as I tug his arm closer and lick it again. “It’s probably just some kind of mishmash of all the blood you received.”
“Maybe…” He reaches out and bites my arm.
“What the hell?” I ask. The neighbor is still watching. She now thinks we have a brother bite fetish. Probably not the worst thing someone has thought of me, oddly enough.
“Have you fed from Finn lately?”
“A week or so ago,” I say.
“Huh.”
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s anything.”
“Hmmm…” He stares at me for a long moment, just watching me before he rocks back on his heels. “I’m going to figure this out. Is Finn asleep?”
“Yeah, he couldn’t sleep last night. He’s pretty shaken up. I… feel awful for what happened, Claude. I should never have put you in that position.”
“You feel awful? You were there for Alexei, and I literally wasn’t able to protect the very person you asked me to protect who’s also my closest friend,” Claude says.
I shake my head, wishing he didn’t feel like that. “A long time ago, I learned that it doesn’t always matter how hard you want to protect someone, sometimes things just don’t work out the way you hope they would. It was no fault of your own. Before I met Finn, I was used to doing everything alone and no matter how many times he’s told me and reminded me that we work better as a pair or in a group, I have this… mindset that I can handle it and I can handle it even better by drawing the threat away from him. If we’d have stayed together, you wouldn’t have nearly died. Landall wouldn’t have gotten away… fuck, I could have prevented so much.”
Claude watches me closely for a moment before leaning back against a porch beam. “I guess we learn.”
“Obviously, some of us quicker than others.”
Claude smiles at me before giving my head a gentle knock. “You’ve definitely been stubborn most of your life, but that’s okay. A lot of it I couldn’t have done without you being the stubborn one. I’m not sure we could have made it without your drive, Marcus. Even when we were little, you always had the mentality that you had to protect me. I’m not surprised it’s hard for you to change when it’s been ingrained in you since birth. I’m just happy to see you happy.”
“I’ll be happier when this is all over and I can go back to making men piss their pants for robbing a store instead of this bullshit.”
Claude laughs as he pushes off the beam. “Ah yes, I’m sure. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve so I better head home to finish up.”
I hesitate. “Oh shit, it is, isn’t it?”
“Finn told me a barn was too much for Alexei so now I’m torn on what to buy him. Is a second horse too much?”
“If you’re passing out horses, get me one.”
“You’re not as lovely as my Alexei, so I’ll think about it.”
I raise an eyebrow as he grins at me, clearly pleased with himself.
“Come over in your underwear tomorrow, you won’t need clothes for where we’re going,” he declares.
“Sounds like a threat,” I realize.
Claude gasps at me. “It is not a threat! I just mean that I’ll have clothes for you to wear. No sense in you wearing anything hideous.”
“Definitely a threat,” I determine.
He raises an eyebrow before shaking his head as he sighs. “You headed into work?”
“Yes.”
“Nice. Tell Finn I’ll be in after a bit to collect his blood and experiment on him.”
“I would like to say that I’m keeping Finn here to rest but we both know that’ll never happen.”
“What the hell you bleeding me for?” Finn asks as he yanks open the door. “You two being creeps out here?”
“I want your blood, Finn, in more ways than one. God, you look delicious,” Claude says.
“You can have some,” Finn says as he holds his arm out.
Claude smacks a hand to his heart. “I must not! I fear… I fear if I have another suckle, I will be an addicted man. You’re absolutely delicious.”
He instead reaches out and sniffs Finn, which is honestly just as creepy, but I get it. It’d been so long since I’d tasted fresh human blood before Finn gave me his when I was wounded that I went a bit crazy desiring it after. Thankfully, I can now have it anytime I like, but I still try to limit it to sex because I love the way it makes Finn react.
“I want to sample your blood, so if you could give it to me that would be mighty lovely.”
“This is getting weird,” Finn decides.
“It’s always been weird when it comes to Claude,” I remind him.
Claude runs his hand through his hair and gives us the biggest grin. “I am never weird. I’m magical.”
“Magically ridiculous,” I say as I grab him and give him a hug. “Don’t fucking die on me again or I’m going to kick your ass so fucking hard when I see you in the afterlife.”
“I won’t,” he says as I quickly let him go, deciding I’ve had my quota of being affectionate for the day, and hurry back into the house. Finn follows me.
I look over at him. “How are you feeling today?”
“Good,” he says, while clearly favoring his leg.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Fine,” he says, trying to pretend he’s not leaning on the counter.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Repeating the same question does nothing,” he says, giving me a pointed look.
He may say that, but I absolutely refuse to give up. “How are you feeling today?”
Finn gives me the longest sigh of his life. “Okay! I get it! I’m alright. My leg hurts so I took some pain pills that should kick in soon. I’m going to get ready for work, and no, I’m not skipping work. Clearly, we’re needed and yes, I will stay seated in my chair, and you can push me around all day if that appeases you. That or Alexei can carry me. Not you. You would be awkward, but Alexei would be funny, you know? And I’m a man of culture… comedy culture.”
“Deal,” I say with satisfaction.
      
The moment I walk into the office, I stare at Alexei. “You are now Finnigan’s pack mule. You will carry him to anywhere he wishes.”
“Of course,” Alexei says as he reaches over and picks Finn up. Both Finn and I are so startled by this that for an extremely long time Finn just goes along with it. Until Alexei tips his cradled Finn toward a trash can.
“Alexei, no… my love. Alexei, must you hate me? I am clearly the best human in your life. No… there’s gum in there. Does this perfectly handsome face look like it wants gum stuck to it?”
“Yes,” Alexei says.
Claude peeks into the room, sees what we’re doing and says, “Alexei, my love, when you’re done placing him in the trash can, bring him upstairs.” Claude’s clearly not concerned by the treatment.
Finn finally breaks free then glares at both of us. “I don’t need help from either of you ever again, thank you very much,” he says as he heads out of the room and down the hallway that leads to the stairs.
“I thought I did an excellent job,” Alexei says. “Kaden is supposed to be here in a few, so do you want to speak to him with me?”
“Yeah, let me go help Finn before he falls down the stairs.”
“Why does he refuse to use a cane or crutch?” he asks.
“Do you really have to wonder? Like at all?”
Alexei nods. “Right.”
When I reach the stairwell, Finn has already started up them because he couldn’t possibly wait for help.
“Finn—”
“Will you help me?” he asks, sounding quite reluctant.
“Of course,” I say as I reach him and pick him up, delivering him to the top quickly so I don’t have to settle for just giving him a hand.
We head into the room Claude has practically taken over as a tech stares at him like he’s absolutely fascinating.
“I am ready,” Claude says as he holds up a needle.
“Do you even know how to take blood?” Finn asks uncertainly.
“Of course. I know everything, Finn,” Claude says, which I feel like is pretty close to a lie. “And if it doesn’t work, I can suck your blood out and spit it into a container.”
“That sounds legit and not at all concerning,” he says. “Why are you guys so weird?”
“I think we’re quite normal, to be honest,” Claude says. “Have you ever read a book about older scientists? Or about medical schools that would pay for bodies to be donated so graverobbers began digging up the recently deceased, and when that wasn’t enough, they began to murder people to sell to medical schools, and you think we’re weird?”
“Well… not graverobbing weird but close,” Finn teases. “Why are people so morbid?”
“It is interesting looking at the brain to see why, but that’s not relevant. Although… if you’re ever bored…”
“I will never be that bored,” Finn assures him.
“Fine, fine. Give me your blood because I need to get to the store before it closes at four to get the shoes that will match tomorrow’s outfit.”
I give him a look. “You are absolutely not wandering out for a pair of shoes for an outfit for Christmas when there is a man out there who clearly wouldn’t hesitate to kill any one of us,” I declare.
Claude gives me big eyes. “But… the shoes. If I don’t, we won’t match. I had to hunt all around for tiny shoes to fit Finn.”
“Excuse me,” Finn says. “My feet are perfectly man-sized.”
“Yes, tiny man-sized,” Claude says, but he says it with a smile like Finn won’t notice.
Finn’s look is vicious as he stares down Claude who is all sweet smiles. “I know whose present I’m taking back.”
Claude gasps. “But Finny, I love you so much.”
“Fine, since you nearly died protecting me, I suppose I shall shower you with presents,” Finn says.
“And I shall poke you,” Claude says as he cleans the area and takes Finn’s blood with ease. It’s done with such skill that even I’m honestly surprised.
“You’re better at this than most doctors I’ve seen,” Finn says. “That’s shocking.”
“I worked with a traveling doctor for a bit. I’ve been all over, Finn. Literally everywhere. I used to love traveling and I always felt like I’d find something out there where I could belong, and how funny to realize that the only place I ever truly wanted to be was right here with all of you and Alexei,” he says before staring down at the bead of blood on Finn’s arm. Then the vial in his hand. He swallows hard then licks Finn’s arm quickly like no one will notice.
“Stop… licking him. It’s weird,” I say.
“Right, right, right,” Claude says. “That’s all. Yep. That’s all.”
Finn shrugs and gets up as we head to the door, but we’re only a foot past it before Claude reopens it and looks out at us.
“Okay, hilarious story. Like the funniest story you’ll ever hear, but I just tripped, and the blood just went… poof and I need more blood,” Claude says, flashing us his innocent eyes.
“You literally just sucked it all down, didn’t you?” Finn asks.
Claude looks minorly guilty. “That was… not the implied thing at all, and if I maybe tripped and dropped it in my mouth and sucked it down like a teenager finding a Jell-O shot then it’s not my fault. But Finn.” He holds out a new needle and flashes Finn a grin, looking like a mad doctor.
“I literally have to get stabbed again?” Finn asks.
“I’m sorry. I tried really hard,” Claude says, but I know Finn understands the withdrawal after what happened with me.
“Okay… so something Ender said made me feel weird,” Finn says as he heads back in and is ushered to a chair. “He said that the taste of my blood… told him I belonged to Watson or some fucked-up shit.”
Claude catches my eyes before looking back to Finn and smiling. “I’m pretty sure you belong to yourself, Finn. Blood can’t make you belong to someone. It doesn’t even matter if someone turned you, you don’t belong to them.”
Finn nods. “Right… I just… it made me feel dreadful, you know? It was similar to how Watson treated me. As if I really was his pet or something. I don’t know.”
He takes a deep breath and I set a hand on his shoulder to reassure him. “Don’t let that shit get in your head.”
“I know. It’s stupid. I don’t belong to anyone. I mean… besides you. ‘He is mine!’ and all that.”
I sigh, positive that at some point in my life with this man, he will hopefully forget all of that before I die of pure shame. Pure embarrassment. Am I embarrassed? Do I get embarrassed? God, if I do, Finn has been the only one to make me feel that way. No one else in my life has gotten close.
Skates? The names? God… what has this little human done to me, and why do I love him so much?
“Honestly, if anyone is anyone’s, Marcus would be yours,” Claude says with a grin. He hurries up with the vial, this time quickly putting it far away from himself before returning to us. “Your blood is… different. But we’ve been aware that you were given Aria’s blood and it was speculated that Watson used his blood to keep you from dying. We just don’t quite know how because it doesn’t work like that, unless he was simply using his blood or another during blood transfusions. Vampire blood doesn’t affect a human unless you were changing them, you know? So there has to be something going on here that doesn’t quite connect. I have absolutely no idea why your blood affected me more than the others…”
“Maybe just because it was fresh human blood and not out of a bag?” I ask.
“It’s a possibility, and honestly, probably all that it was. I promise I won’t suckle this vial down the very moment you walk out the door no matter how much the urge to suckle you down is driving me crazy.”
“That’s concerning. Marcus, wheel me away, please,” Finn says, so I grab his chair and take off with him. When I reach the stairs I loom over him, like I’m debating pushing him down them while still on the chair. “No, thank you. I would prefer to not slide down them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Cheetah Legs is positive. Like extremely positive.”
I help him up, kick Claude’s chair back in his general direction, and carry Finn into the meeting room that I hear Kaden and Alexei in.
Finn isn’t too pleased about that, and I realize I should have let him down outside the room.
“Your leg won’t heal if you’re on it,” I remind him as I set him down directly beside his chair.
“You were hurt?” Kaden asks.
Finn immediately looks obstinate. “I’m fine. Just… yeah, I’m fine,” Finn says. “You look much better today.”
Kaden nervously rubs his neck that’s definitely more attached today than yesterday. “Thanks. I’m just… honestly surprised it’s still on.”
“I think we all are,” Alexei says.
“What do you know about Ender being back?” I ask.
“Not anything more than you do. Probably less.”
Once DeGray and Claude join us, I go over what Ender said to me. While there has been a clear shift in dynamics in the vampire community, I never associated that as being caused by Watson’s death. Honestly, I assumed Watson did his own thing by being a dreadful and horrible man while keeping mostly to himself, but who else did he control? And why did he have such an effect on the community that none of us knew about?