Teeth

Chapter Twelve

August rolled over onto his back and blinked away the aftermath of lust. Slivers of sunlight wormed their way past the tops of the curtains where motes of dust played against the mottled ceiling. He dropped his arm over his eyes, relishing the black as a teasing hand slid across his abdomen.

There were still half a dozen daylight hours left but he knew he wouldn't get that much sleep. He never did. There would be things to do and people who needed arguments sorted out, the children that they were. Putting so many predatory people in the same place always caused friction and he was seen as a commanding figure, funnily, far more than Charles. Charles hid himself away, letting others deal with the problems. The old man hardly realised that his absence was slowly causing his inconsequence.

"I shouldn't have come."

"Excuse me?"

"After the way you left me in the bar, I should have got my own back."

August lifted his arm from over his eyes and curled it around his head instead. He turned to look at the younger man next to him and gave him a measured look.

"Spencer, what have I told you about bad habits?"

Spencer propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at him. His dark hair was mussed but his hazel eyes were wide and alert. He stared down at him, considering his answer, before shaking his head.

"That they hold no power over me," he sighed.

August took hold of Spencer's chin. He turned the younger man's head this way and that, mocking his admission, and pulled him down towards him.

"Right. Well, that's true, except for me," he whispered, capturing his lips in a quick, breathless kiss.

When Spencer lifted himself up again, his eyebrow was raised, nostrils flared.

"You're not a bad habit?"

"No, I'm certainly that, but I, unlike the others, do hold power over you."

Spencer snorted and August winced as the younger man pressed his finger roughly against a bite mark on his hip. His eyes narrowed and Spencer grinned triumphantly. He smeared the remnants of warm blood against August's cool skin.

"I make my own decisions."

August rolled his eyes and turned his gaze back to the ceiling, ignoring the tantalising scent of blood not quite his own.

"Of course you do, Spence," he murmured. "You chose to come here instead of finding some toy to kill after you played with them."

"You told me to look after Thomas," Spencer argued. "By the time he'd fed it was almost light. You're a convenience."

The way Spencer said it, August assumed that the younger man was trying to belittle the whole thing, like the reason he ended up in August's bed more often than not was because he was simply there. He chuckled and shook his head, grasping Spencer's wrist and guiding his hand down towards his hips.

He knew that it was more than that. There was no promise of devotion or obedience between them, but he was sure that in the five short years since he'd been turned the younger vampire would do practically anything he asked. Should he choose to claim Spencer as his own, he doubted anyone, Spencer included, would question it.

Nobody really claimed anyone anymore. When he'd been turned claiming someone had been the thing to do, though that was in the day when society loved its rules and proper place for everyone. These days everybody was so up in arms about equal rights and independence. Yet, when August gave the order, they still obeyed. He'd made it that way. He'd spent almost eighty years making it that way.