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Jonah was kneeling.
He was kneeling at the feet of Mordechai Lukas, dizzy with blood-hunger and the pressure of enthrallment.
“Stay down,” Mordechai ordered, his voice weighted with centuries of power, deep as thunder and sweet as honeycomb. Jonah ached to obey him, to soothe the scalded feeling in his mouth and throat that came with fighting the thrall.
But he ached more deeply, down to his core, to please him. And Mordechai, despite the power of his enthrallment, wasn’t looking for obedience. He was looking for power.
Jonah staggered to his feet. His mouth hung open as he panted around the phantom sensation of blistering, unbearable heat. He swayed, but stayed standing.
“Kneel,” Mordechai tried, but even making eye contact, Jonah had asserted himself.
Since his turning, Jonah had mastered himself. He’d learned to swallow pain as though it offended him, teaching his mind that his body was no longer fragile. He was too stubborn to remain a thrall, and Mordechai had decided it was safer not to force it on him.
“Very good, my sweet thing,” Mordechai praised, when Jonah stayed on his feet. He dropped the enthrallment, taking Jonah’s face in his hands and bending down to kiss him. “I’m proud of you.”
Jonah hummed in the back of his throat, encouraged by the praise. “I’m hungry , Mordechai.”
Mordechai smirked at him. “Always so demanding. One last test, Jonah, then you can eat.”
Jonah snarled half-heartedly at him, but he followed Mordechai out of the Moorland House and through the streets.
He recognized the path they took—he’d taken it himself, on his first desperate flight from the Moorland House, in terror at what he’d become.
His stomach wound into knots that had nothing to do with hunger. “Mordechai,” he said, low and threatening. “You made me a promise.”
“I did no such thing,” Mordechai replied. “But that is the test.”
Jonah sighed, very softly, and stepped ahead of Mordechai to knock on Barnabas Bennett’s door.
It took time, as it was the middle of the night, but Barnabas eventually came to the door, wrapped in his dressing gown, his face soft with sleep.
Jonah could smell his blood; he could nearly taste it, he was so desperately hungry. He leaned forward onto the balls of his feet, a predator ready to pounce.
“Kill him,” Mordechai said, with the full power of enthrallment. Jonah shook under the weight, mouth and throat burning, every instinct screaming to obey. He twitched, fighting it, as Barnabas stood frozen with shock—
—and the pressure stopped. The scalding retreated, and Jonah was alone in his head.
There were tears in Barnabas’ eyes. “Jonah?”
Jonah lunged.
Barnabas didn’t even manage a scream before Jonah tore out his throat.
Jonah tried to grab him, hold him up as he drank for him, but he overbalanced, and they fell in an arc of blood, chest to chest, face to face.
Voiceless, Barnabas grasped at Jonah’s shoulders, fingers curling into his coat.
Why? his mouth shaped, airless.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, my sweet one, but you’re too much of a risk to me.”
A tear splashed onto Barnabas’ cheek, sliding down to mingle with the blood.
“I love you, you know.”
Jonah watched the light go out of Barnabas’ eyes.
Only when he could no longer hear his pulse did Jonah lean down and drink his fill. The blood was still warm as it flooded through his mouth, fear-bitter and grief-sweet.
He’d made the right choice. He knew he had. Barnabas was too much of a liability—a last connection to a life Jonah could no longer live.
Mordechai stood aside, watching, as Jonah drained his lover’s blood. Jonah could sense him, cold and still, the pride seeping from him.
Jonah tore his fangs free of the mess that was Barnabas’ neck, throat convulsing as he tried to swallow around a desperate sob.
“It was your choice,” Mordechai reminded him, mildly. Jonah could sense his hunger, his urge to lick up the blood trickling down Jonah’s chin.
“I know,” Jonah whispered. Barnabas was terribly still in his arms, his face frozen in a rictus of shock.
Tenderly, Jonah pushed his eyelids closed and bowed his head, pressing a bloody kiss to Barnabas’ forehead.
“That’s enough,” Mordechai said. There was no thrall to it, but Jonah stood up anyway, and walked away from Barnabas Bennett.