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CHAPTER THIRTY
MADS
Ender falls silent for a moment. “The village was used to supply Abel with humans. They did it for years. Hell. A hundred years? Who knows how long before I killed them. Not long before I attacked, Abel had said there was a vampire working with them. I assumed you were a participant, were you not? Did you truly not know what they were doing? I assumed you were in on it, which is why I taunted you. I assumed you were the vampire Abel spoke of… I mean, you sure wanted to protect those monsters. I’d seen you protect them from another vampire, so why would I ever think you weren’t the one he’d been talking about?”
I can’t see their expressions from inside the bag and find myself really wishing I could get out, but I guess there are windows someone could be watching us through. I just want to be out so I can comfort Ender if I need to.
“I didn’t know,” Marcus whispers. “I… I thought they were good people.”
“And maybe they were. Maybe they weren’t all involved. But my life was absolutely destroyed because of them. They found my brother and gave him to Abel, and because of that my brother was killed, my sister-in-law was handed over as a blood slave before she was killed, and who fucking knows what happened to my niece.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have killed them all. It had been many years since I’d been handed over to Abel. Hell, many of them who had handed me over were already dead, but that didn’t mean they’d stopped. They just passed on the tradition to the next generation. I will never deny being a monster, but I will tell you that there is generally a reason for it.”
I close my eyes in the body bag and think about what it would be like to be in Abel’s hands. To be closed in the darkness like this. Hell, I’ve been in here ten minutes and already want out. I already find it suffocating… how bad would my life have to be to find solace in it? To find that my only escape was in the darkness?
“I think sometimes it’s easy to only see things from one point of view,” Finn quietly says.
“It excuses none of my actions. I didn’t say this shit to get you to forgive me. You wanted to know so I simply let you know,” Ender states, as closed off as ever. Will he ever decide that he really does want others in his life? Or acknowledge that he doesn’t want to say stuff gruffly, but he makes himself out to be the bad guy to take the brunt of the blame and just deal with it because that’s what he’s done most of his life?

When I’m finally released from the body bag, I find myself set up in a lab that is quite a bit more complex than the university one.
“Am I safe here to talk?” I ask.
“The room is soundproof and there are no cameras or anything, so you should be,” Marcus says as he shuts the door. “I was told that the items you might need are in this room. You will have the lab to yourself and everyone is aware that no one is permitted to enter, so you are free to make what you need to.”
“While I work on this… can you all start identifying who is on whose side of the council?” I ask. “I have a plan, but it will only work if we know who is working for Abel. It’s… not exactly a plan where I can just go, ‘Whoops, I fucked up, he really was a good guy.’ Because he’s going to be a dead guy if we get it wrong.”
“I mean… we can’t guarantee it, but we can do our best.”
“I want everyone who we know is on our side to have an antidote before we call for a council meeting. There’s no way Abel won’t show up, and you know he will bring as many of his people along as he can. Once in the room, I’m going to have everyone who is on our side inject themselves with an antidote before the drug is distributed.”
“You plan to kill everyone we don’t deem on our side?” Finn asks.
“I understand that you’re part of the VRC, and that… killing them is an awful thing to do. Trust me, I hate the idea of it as much as you do, but at the end of the day, this drug can’t get out. If someone is working for Abel, I have to assume they would be willing to help Abel accomplish what he’s trying to do. He cannot win, Finn. He could eradicate everyone.”
“I’ll do it,” Ender says. “You get me the drug and I will take the blame for it.”
“There’s no ‘blame’ that needs to be taken,” I counter. “This doesn’t have to fall on your shoulders. Either we’re all in or we’re not doing it.”
“But if they don’t⁠—”
I shake my head. “It is my drug. And I decide what happens with it. Either we’re all in or we’re all out. Simple as that.”
“Not so simple,” Finn says. “What if we’re wrong about someone?”
Claude holds up a hand. “What if Mads makes enough antidote for everyone in the council? Yes, we are aware that some are on Abel’s side, but not all. What would it matter if we injected them and they really did deserve to die? We’d still be removing those who Abel brought with him, and hopefully weakening Abel enough that Marcus and Ender can finish him off. Without Abel to lead them, I’m confident many of them will fade into the background. He doesn’t seem to be the type to drag true vampires around with him. He seems to prefer those who he made, which means almost all of them will be susceptible to the drug.”
“Right. We’d rather accidentally save a bad guy than kill a good person. The most important thing is that this doesn’t get out to Abel before it happens,” Finn says. “We have to have enough people on our side to inject the council members quickly without making Abel suspicious.”
“How confident are we that we can kill him?” Marcus asks as I see him staring at Ender. “If we lock the place down… will we be condemning everyone inside to death, or do you think we could kill him?”
“What if we lock him in a room with just me?” Ender suggests.
“Why the fuck would we lock him in a room with only you?” I ask in disbelief. “Do you want to risk your life that badly?”
“Of all lives to risk here, yes, mine would make the most sense,” Ender says.
The look I’m giving him has to tell him that I’m not happy about any of this. “Why? Why do you think you’re worth nothing?”
“I didn’t say I was worth nothing. I just said that it’d make the most sense for me to be at risk,” Ender says.
“Why? Because you think your life has absolutely no value? Because you forgot that you have people who care about you? Because you think you deserve to be killed by him? What exactly is it?” I can tell I’m raising my voice because I’m feeling irritated with him, but it’s not my damn fault. He’s the one over here prepared to just fucking die off for no fucking reason. “You have help. You have people who can help you stop him, so why take the fall yourself? Yes, you might be perfectly capable of doing it alone, but if you were that confident, you wouldn’t have told the others to stay away.”
Ender just stares at me, like he doesn’t even know what to say.
I shake my head and turn to the others in the room. “For now, get us what you can find out about the council members. I don’t want or need any help in here. I don’t need another soul even figuring out what I’m doing. After I’m done, I don’t even want it to show what amounts I used so that no one can ever duplicate any of it. When this is over, this is over for good.”
“Got it,” Finn says. “Ender, stay in here and protect him. Lock the door as soon as we leave. No one will enter the room besides us, understood?”
“Yes.”
Ender is quiet, and once the rest leave, the overbearing silence suffocates the room, but I refuse to even look at him.
“Do you need help?” he asks.
I ignore him. If he thinks I’m insignificant and not worth living for, then so be it.
I set to work, and this time I have enough ingredients to make a large batch of antidote. It takes longer because I’m making so much, but it’s better to be safe.
“I’m sorry,” Ender says. “I… don’t believe what I said was wrong in any way, but it must have been, so I’m sorry.”
Like he thinks I should forgive him after that shitty-ass apology.
“Mads, I know you can hear me. And I know you can talk while you make this. You chatted away while making a bomb last time.”
Still, I ignore him.
“I said I’m sorry, what more do you want?”
I set the liquid to the side to cool before turning on him. It needs some time before I can keep working with it, so I might as well get this all out in the open now. “Use your brain.”
Then I head into the supply closet. I don’t expect him to follow me, but he does.
“Why do you think I should risk everyone else’s life?” Ender asks.
“Why do you think you going alone is better than working with others?”
“You want me to ask the VRC, all of whose lives I’ve made fucking miserable… you think I should ask them? Apparently, not only did I toss Finn off a fucking bridge, I killed some fucking happy village Marcus loved with all these innocent happy people in it.”
“They weren’t too innocent if they were sacrificing people. You can’t tell me that tradition went on for that many years and the villagers had no damn idea when most of the village was involved. You said there were people standing on the street watching it like it was a spectacle. How the hell could they be considered good people?”
“I can do this alone. I can kill him, and I don’t need to involve anyone else.”
“Yeah? Yeah? You’re just going to do it all alone? Definitely don’t need me.”
He looks pained. “I need you.”
“Ohhhh, just to make shit for you, yeah?”
“No… Why are you mad at me? I didn’t realize how fucking sick I was of everyone being mad at me until I met you… and it seemed like no matter what I did, you still saw the best in me. But now I’ve even managed to piss you off.”
“Because I want you to appreciate your life, not just… run off and want to toss it away because you’re being stubborn or thinking that you’re going to do everything alone. Stop making yourself out to be the monster and do something selfish.”
“I feel like everything I do is selfish! I just hurt people and take and destroy, and what have I done in return? If I could kill Abel, then maybe that’d be one thing I could do? Then maybe people wouldn’t think that all I do is shitty things?”
“If that’s how you’re planning on doing things, have at it. I’m done talking about this.”
Ender rushes up and grabs my arm before turning me around to face him and pressing me against the table in the corner of the supply closet. “Don’t be done.”
“Why not? You’ve decided that you might as well throw your life away. You might as well decide this.”
“I decided that I want you in my life. I decided that you’ve made me a better person. You’ve made me see myself in a whole different light. I’ve decided that I can’t do it without you.”
I stare at him as I try not to let his words get to me. I shouldn’t let him win. He’s being stubborn and impossible to deal with, when all I want to do is care about him.
He presses against me until his body is flush against mine before his hands slide up into my hair. “I’m not letting you go. I’ll become a monster and keep you by my side if I have to.”
“I’m not going to be with someone who tosses their life away,” I warn him as I try my hardest not to get pulled in by his lips or the way his hand feels as it cups my cheek. I can’t be swayed by any of his nonsense.
“I won’t. I promise that I’ll toss away someone else’s life,” he says.
I give him a look. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I’ll just grab as many council members as I can, and I’ll pit them against Abel, and I will sit back and watch just for you.”
“You’re not going to make me laugh and forgive you. I’m a very stubborn man.”
“I’ll throw Finn at him if I have to.”
“Don’t throw the damn human at him!”
“Hey, he defeated Watson, he has a solid chance. He is part robot, according to Rylee.”
“No,” I say, biting my lip to keep from grinning. “Stop.”
“What about Señor Fluffybottom? Maybe the cat can break him down too. I mean, if that cat can sucker me into liking him, maybe he can sucker even that man.”
“What if you work together with the VRC? That sounds like a good idea. I’d love to say I would help, except that I’m atrocious in a fight. But I will be there to help in other ways. More… Soupy ways.”
“You’re just going to blow the whole place up?”
“Maybe… maybe not. It’s more of a last-ditch effort, you know?”
“Understandable. So… does this mean you forgive me?”
“It means that I’ll consider it,” I say as my eyes catch his dark ones that are watching me so closely. “You’re not supposed to woo me so easily.”
“I would never do that. You seem to think I have social skills that I’m quite positive I lack,” he says as he lifts my leg and presses me harder against the table, but what it accomplishes is that I can feel his cock against mine.
“You… are you planning on seducing me into forgiving you?” I ask, like I can’t believe he’d try such a tactic.
Ender’s hand runs up my thigh, and even though I have jeans on, his touch makes me shiver. He leans forward and I feel his breath against my neck before he kisses my throat. When he nips it, it’s like I’m fucking putty in his hands. I moan and have to grab him to keep from just melting onto the table. I’m over here trying to be like “I’m a brave man who will stand up to this ferocious vampire” when all he has to do is kiss me, and I’m just gone.
“I’m not forgiving you,” I insist.
“Yeah? Not at all?” he murmurs as his lips travel down to my collarbone while one hand slides under my shirt.
“Not at all. Never going to,” I say.
“Hmm? Never?” Ender asks as he pulls back, and suddenly, I’m regretting everything I’ve ever done or said. Like what the fuck? I’ll forgive him if he comes back!
But before I can just cave right then and there, he turns me around and pushes me back against the table, hand reaching around to the front of my trousers which he swiftly unbuttons before pushing them down enough to reach my cock.
“You made me jealous when you talked about fucking your boss in your office. Maybe you’re the one who should apologize,” he says, even though I’m well aware he’s making this much more dramatic than it actually was.
“Ah yes, because me having sex with someone… fuck…” I groan as his hand grips my cock before running along it as I feel something cold drip into the crevice of my ass cheeks. Where the fuck did the lube come from? It runs down between them and his finger follows.
“What was that? I feel like you were chewing me out about something?” he asks.
“I… think I was. I definitely… I very much was,” I say as his finger skims over my hole, making me question what I’d even been going on about.
“You were proving a point,” he reminds me as his finger circles around it before dipping inside of me. “I’m dying to hear this point.”
The way his finger pushes inside as his hand strokes my cock has me prepared to agree to anything he has to say, but I do manage to blurt, “I… I was making a point.”
“Which was?” Ender asks, but his fingers rubbing inside of me make me question if I even care at this point. Wait! No! I do care!
“I was saying that… having sex with my boss is nothing… oh fuck… nothing like you trying to sacrifice yourself, dammit!”
“Yeah?” he asks as I feel his hard cock nudge between my thighs. “Tell me more.”
“I’m… I’m telling you a lot!” I threaten but my mind is blank. He’s added another finger as he stretches me and strokes me, and I’m prepared to just agree at this point. He teasingly nips my throat as the realization hits me that he has practically suckered me into agreeing with anything he wants.
“No! I’m a strong man,” I declare.
“Oh yeah? Tell me everything you want me to hear.” Ender’s voice is so teasing in my ear, making me shiver.
“You will not put yourself in danger, you hear me?”
“I do.”
“You will listen to me!”
“I will consider it.”
“Do more than consider or I’ll refuse to have sex with you.”
“You’d refuse this?” he asks.
And the way his fingers move inside me almost convinces me to just cave.
“I would because I’d rather you be around in the future than just have sex now.”
“Okay… I promise.”
“Thank you,” I say as I press back into him and turn my head so I can kiss him. His lips find mine, pulling me back into the pleasure of it. His fingers draw out of me, then his slick cock rubs against my hole before pressing against it. He pushes against me until I open up as his thick cock fills me up.
I let out a soft moan as he rocks his hips slowly, withdrawing slightly before pushing in deeper. His hand slides under my shirt and up my back as his other hand settles on my waist while he begins to fuck me.
It’s like he already knows every part of my body, like he knows just how to move, just how to drive into me. My fingers grip the edge of the table as he pulls nearly out before plunging into me. His hand skims down my back before wrapping around my cock.
“Bite me,” I beg, and I’m surprised by my own words but suddenly, nothing sounds better than his thick cock inside of me and the euphoria he makes me feel when he bites into my neck.
Ender doesn’t bite me immediately; instead, he pushes me closer and closer to the edge until I don’t know how much more I can take. And just when I’m at that point, he buries himself deep inside of me as he sinks his fangs into my throat.
Ecstasy tears through me, and I’m blinded by it as I moan. I can still feel him moving inside of me and I can feel his hand on my cock, but it’s like the pleasure of it all surrounds me and drives me over the edge as I come. I can hear his moans while he comes inside of me, and I’m wrapped up in the bliss of it.
When I slowly come back to myself, he’s licking my throat as he pulls his cock out of me. I’d come into his hand, which is significantly better than all over the table in some borrowed lab. I do feel a smidge guilty about having sex here, but his kisses on my throat wash all of that away.
I turn around so I can kiss him more easily. And even though I don’t ever want to pull away, I know I need to get back to what I was doing before someone returns and realizes that I’ve just been having sex with Ender in the storage room.
“You better keep your promise,” I threaten.
“I will,” he says as he accepts another kiss from me. “I will.”
“Good. I can’t lose you now that I’ve found you.”
“You won’t,” Ender assures me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And I really hope he can keep that promise.
I pull him in for one more kiss… just in case.