Chapter Nineteen:
Noah

 

“Are you going to keep helping them?” Khaz asked, setting the last box down beside the front door of their new apartment.

Noah glanced at him, jerking his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. I mean… Tartarus was pretty incredible, and I think things have changed. I think the rebellion finally grew some fucking teeth.”

“Yeah, once they started accepting supes,” Khaz said acerbically.

Noah scoffed at him, but he couldn’t deny his sire had a point. They hadn’t gained much momentum over the course of a decade, but once the supes had started actively — and visibly — helping them out, that had all changed.

Not all of the rebels were happy, obviously, but they couldn’t deny they’d done the impossible with the supes’ help.

Some of them insisted they could’ve done it anyway, pointing to Elder Palmero’s death as an example, but Noah had been quick to point out that they wouldn’t have been able to manage or survive it without two vampires and a werewolf there with them. There were even rumors that two of the living Elders had helped orchestrate the attack. That had shut them up pretty fucking fast.

No one wanted to admit they owed a damn thing to anyone but themselves.

That was the thing, though. It wasn’t about who or what they owed. They were in this together. The supes who were helping were tired of the world being what it was — or they just wanted to be on the winning side, and it was obvious the scales were tipping.

“Stop thinking so hard,” Khaz chided him, wrapping his arms around Noah’s neck and pulling him down into a kiss.

“Can’t help it,” Noah said after they broke away from the kiss, hands sliding down to the small of Khaz’s back.

“Bet I can,” Khaz said, that fucking smirk settling onto his lips.

Fuck, that thing was still a weapon even after all this time, and Noah found himself turning into goo then and there.

“Prove it,” Noah challenged him, as though they didn’t both know Khaz could easily get his mind off the rebellion and Tartarus and everything else once he set his mind to it.

Khaz hummed then kissed him again, flipping them so Noah’s back was against the wall. “I think…” he said between kisses, “we have a new apartment to christen.”

“Mm, very important tradition,” Noah agreed, even though he had no idea what traditions were important or realistic or even relevant anymore. If it meant Khaz fucking him senseless, he’d take what he could get and call it what Khaz pleased.

Sliding his hands down Noah’s sides, Khaz’s fingers curled around the hem of his shirt and yanked, pulling it over his head before dropping it to the floor next to them. His hands ran down Noah’s chest in appreciation.

“All of this is mine,” Khaz noted with relish, leaning down to kiss Noah’s throat.

“Mhm…”

Despite knowing what Khaz’s touch was doing to him — despite knowing it was maintaining an addiction he’d never be able to shake — Noah reveled in the feeling of the other vampire’s hands on him. Even as it reinforced that addiction, it soothed it, keeping the side effects at bay…

And he didn’t want to stop.

Noah was quick to make Khaz’s shirt follow suit, his own hands following the slender lines of his sire’s body. He was gorgeous, every perfect angle preserved for eternity by the blood running through his veins. Noah would never get tired of gazing at him.

Khaz shoved him against the wall, kissing him hard and deep, and Noah’s hands went to cup his ass and pull him close. He was already half-hard just from the sight of the other vampire’s beauty and the feeling of him so close. No matter how many times they touched, Noah still felt the same excitement he had every other time, the same desire exploding within him like fireworks and leaving him weak in the knees.

Before he even realized Khaz was unfastening his pants, they were half off of him. Noah kicked them the rest of the way off. He just as eagerly reached to get Khaz’s out of the way.

There. That was better. They didn’t need clothes in their own new apartment — their own new apartment, one that wasn’t tainted by the ghost of memories or Mays’ presence downstairs. This one was far away from Bound, and Noah was never going near that place again if he could help it… until it was to tear it to the ground like they had Tartarus.

 “I’m still thinking,” Noah told Khaz with a smirk of his own.

Khaz smirked right back at him, making him melt all the fuck over again. “Not for long.”

Slender fingers curled around his cock, and Noah moaned as they cleverly played him like Khaz was a musician and he was some fine instrument. He’d always possessed that touch, but Noah no longer thought of him as just some two-bit whore.

Guilt raced through him every time he even got close to thinking that, and he thought instead about how much Khaz had given up for him. They’d both given so much, but Khaz had been the one to truly sacrifice so much.

Noah’s life didn’t even seem like that much in comparison.

Fuck, he had it bad — so bad he was hard and leaking in seconds.

Was it any wonder he preferred it when Khaz topped? At least then he could last a little longer, with his sire’s cock buried inside of him while they joined together like their bodies had been meant to.

Khaz paused just long enough to grab one of the handy packets of lube from his pants — and Noah was glad as ever that his sire was always prepared, even if it reminded him of things he didn’t really want to be reminded of.

Noah took it from him, tearing it open with his teeth and drizzling it down Khaz’s cock.

Khaz reached for it, but Noah shook his head.

“I can take it.”

Khaz eyed him skeptically. “It’s going to hurt.”

“Not for long,” Noah replied with a shrug, groaning as Khaz’s fingers continued to work his cock. “I want it.”

Noah could feel how horny his sire was through their bond, how excited he was. The next thing he knew, his sire had shoved him further up the wall, pulling his legs up, giving Khaz room to press his cock between his ass cheeks.

Khaz pushed further, and Noah groaned, feeling the stretch and the burn and luxuriating in it. It wouldn’t last long. It never did. But it felt really fucking good while it did. It would feel even better when his body adjusted to the intrusion of his sire’s cock on his unprepared ass, and better again when the tip of Khaz’s cock rubbed that ever-perfect spot within him on each angled thrust.

There were definitely advantages to fucking a vampire, and the way Khaz could easily hold him up against the wall while they fucked was one of them. Noah closed his eyes as Khaz’s lips found his own, the kiss sloppy and hungry as his sire asserted his dominance.

Noah surrendered to him, yielding as he almost always did.

Khaz’s fingers continued to work Noah’s cock, and they worked toward climax together. The bond caused the sensations to reverberate and rebound, making Noah’s pleasure Khaz’s, which became Noah’s, which amplified it and raised it up and—

It was so good that words couldn’t even begin to describe it. Noah had tried before, but he’d fallen short every time. There was just something about sex with Khaz that lacked comprehension. It was inexplicable, something to be experienced, not described.

Laced with the feelings they held for one another, how could it be anything else?

Khaz’s hand continued to pump Noah’s cock, deftly twisting with a flick of his wrist and thumbing the crown, and Noah cried out as he came all over his sire’s abdomen and chest.

“Fuck!” he swore.

“We’re already doing that,” Khaz teased him sweetly, giving a few hard thrusts just to make it impossible for Noah to speak through his orgasm.

He saw stars, and he arched as he helplessly rode out his climax while pinned between the wall and Khaz’s hard cock.

Noah was keenly aware of every thrust Khaz made into him, and fuck, it felt good.

Khaz came, spilling into him and filling him, leaving him feeling…

Complete.

Noah groaned when Khaz leaned in, fangs sinking into his neck, and it turned into a startled moan. He clutched Khaz’s hair, holding him close, and he lost himself in the sensations.

It wasn’t until Khaz drew back out of him, that he started to return to reality. Nothing compared to the feeling of Khaz inside of him — with his fangs, with his cock — but being with him never failed to leave him wanting more.

For a long moment, they stood there, Noah’s forehead pressing against Khaz’s. It was quiet and still, and there was no ominous feeling pressing against him like there had always been at the apartment over Bound. It was like his chest felt freer, and even though he didn’t really need to, it felt like it was easier to breathe.

“So was that a proper christening?” he asked, holding Khaz tight to him.

Khaz snorted. “Not even close. We still have the couch, the coffee table, the counter, the bed…”

“You think the coffee table can hold our weight?” Noah asked with an arched brow.

“Are you calling me fat?” Khaz drawled.

“I’m calling myself muscular,” Noah informed him with a flash of a grin. It felt good to smile. It felt good to banter. It felt good to be away from the dark gloom that the world seemed to be swallowed up by. “I mean, not to brag or anything…”

Khaz rolled his eyes. “We can always replace it if it breaks.”

“We’re not having sex on the coffee table,” Noah said dryly. “For fuck’s sake. Do I always have to be the responsible one in this relationship?”

“You? Responsible?” Khaz asked, arching a brow. “Who had to rescue who, exactly? Who keeps running toward danger instead of away from it? You’re such a shit vampire,” he said, affection lacing his voice and their bond alike. “We’re supposed to be all about self-preservation.”

“Good thing I have time to learn all about being a vampire,” Noah said, stealing another kiss. “And I have the best teacher.”

“That’s not going to stop you from running toward danger, is it?” Khaz asked, and his voice went a little quiet then.

Noah sighed, hating that the mood had to come to this when it should’ve stayed thick with the afterglow of sex and pleasure. “I don’t know,” he said after a long moment. “I wish I could say I could stop, but this is… This is important to me.”

“Then I guess we’re rebels now,” Khaz said with an easy shrug.

“You don’t have to be involved in any of this,” Noah replied, pressing in close. He wanted to keep Khaz safe as much as he knew Khaz wanted to keep him safe, but he knew better than to try to order him around.

“Someone’s got to keep an eye on you. I gave you a second shot at life,” Khaz said fiercely, kissing him hard. “So I’m going to make sure you’re safe instead of sitting around at home and wondering if you’re okay.”

Noah blinked at him, startled by the depths of emotion in those words. “Khaz…”

“Don’t Khaz me,” Khaz said, kissing him hard. “You get to live, idiot. So live.”