Cronin's Key II (23 page)

“It was Heather’s voice!” Kole whispered. Alec turned around to see that he must have pushed his father over, because Eleanor was helping him get to his feet.

Jorge smiled serenely at Kole. “Oh, Kole. Yes, it’s me.”

“What…?” Kole said, shaking his head. “How…?”

Jorge waved his little hand. “This gifted child, so misunderstood, is a pathway for the taken.”

Kole shook his head, so unsure, so scared.

It was extraordinary to hear a woman’s voice come from the child, but Alec could somehow see into Jorge’s mind. And it was clear and crisp, the woman Alec saw was the woman from the photographs his father had kept. “Those in the afterworld of our kind have watched for this,” she said through Jorge. “We had to ensure our bloodline, the gifted blood—half vampire, half human—became what he was destined to become.”

“I can see you,” Alec said, staring at Jorge. “In his mind. I can see you.”

“Alec, Ailig, your father raised you so well,” she reached out her hand. “You and I will talk often. But for now we must leave.”

Jorge’s eyes returned to normal and the little boy grinned. “You see what Jorge sees!”

Alec nodded and put his hands to his hair. His mind was fractured, splintered into a hundred directions at full speed: sights, smells, memories, new things like other people’s thoughts, hearing music from God knows how far away, knowing he can control things like fire and water. Jesus. It was all too much. His throat hurt, his stomach burned, he had mud in his hair. He pulled a clump of mud out and looked at it questioningly. Then he noticed he had a red-black stain on his chest and a hole in his shirt and he stunk of mercury and, oh God, he hugged his father with a poisonous shirt.

“Alec, it’s okay,” Cronin’s voice was calm and smooth, like an audible Xanax. That thought made him laugh. Wait, did Cronin say that or did he think it?

Alec shook his head and his eyes burned. He pulled at his hair again. “It’s all too much. I have so much in my head,” he showed Cronin his hands. “I had fire and lightning on my hands! Did you see that? And I have so much energy and power in my bones.” His hands started to shake. “And I have a clawing feeling in my stomach and my throat and I—”

Cronin put his hand to Alec’s face. “You need to feed. It will help clear your head.”

“Afterwards, take him to New York,” Jodis said. “Spend a few days alone together, uninterrupted, without pressure or influence.”

Cronin nodded. “Yes. Good idea.”

Eiji walked over to Alec and took his hand. Alec was barraged with lines of molecular DNA, and he knew he was seeing Eiji’s ancestral history. He couldn’t make sense of it yet, or decipher what any of it meant, but he knew he would learn. “We will give you a few days grace, but we will help you learn.” Then Eiji grinned widely at him.
Take it easy on my brother the first time, yes? You’ll hurt him.

“In the very best of ways,” Alec replied.

Eiji’s eyes widened and he laughed. “You heard my thoughts? Do me a favor. Never tell me what Jodis is thinking about me. Not even if I beg.”

Jodis chuckled and she put her hand on Alec, something she’d done a hundred times before, and Alec reflected her own power against her. He didn’t use his own ability to produce ice by touch, he rebounded hers and she pulled back her hand. “Sorry,” he said quickly.

Jodis laughed. “Don’t ever apologize. I do think we’ll be cataloguing a lot of powers, yes?”

“Um, probably,” Alec said. He was so distracted by every damn thing, and that clawing in his stomach was getting worse.

“Go let him feed,” Jodis said. She smiled proudly at Cronin. “Oh, I have longed to say that to you.”

Cronin laughed, put his arm around Alec, and they were gone.

* * * *

Leaping the first time as a vampire wasn’t any less difficult than the first time as a human. It wasn’t painful, well, not physically. It was just that Alec had an ocean of strength and powers he couldn’t control, and leaping was one of them.

It was like two men trying to waltz as the lead.

After what was essentially a bumpy ride, they landed in a back alley in Mexico City. It was dark, the air was humid and wet, and there was an onslaught of new senses, new sounds, new smells. Not all of them pleasant.

“Are you okay?” Cronin asked him quietly. “You have the ability to leap as well?”

“I think so,” Alec said with a shrug. “But I think I should let you drive, because I’m not very good at it.”

Cronin snorted out a laugh. “Yes, you should probably let me
drive
, while you’re still learning.” He shook his head and looked at Alec in wonder. “You’re even more handsome now. You were so incredible, you
are
so incredible. You completed your own transformation by will alone! And it would seem you have an unending well of talents—more powerful than any of our kind before. You’re remarkable, Alec.”

Alec swallowed, then swallowed again.

“Oh,” Cronin said. “I apologize. You need to feed. The first time will come as a shock to you, Alec. You may not even like it to begin with. You might be repulsed with yourself—”

There were so many voices, noises, more voices, scents, and more and more voices—Cronin’s included—and he couldn’t concentrate. He was hungry. He wanted it. He closed his eyes and blocked out everything else. He focused his many-faceted mind on listening for just one thing: conversations in the alleys of drugs, rape, or murder.

He opened his eyes and grinned at Cronin. And he ran. With a force and speed that was liberating, he scaled the wall easily and raced a few blocks over rooftops in mere seconds and stopped on a dime. Cronin was right beside him, his fangs unhidden by his smile: a glorious sight, so perfect, and so
his
.

He wanted to kiss him, to fuck him and bite him. But his throat burned and he wouldn’t be distracted. He focused again, only this time on the th-thump-thump of blood pumping through veins, and there was no stopping him.

Alec appeared in front of a man covered with gold chains and rings, who had a small kid by the shirt collar up against the wall, telling him he would deliver the package or die.

Alec grabbed the man’s shoulder and threw him backwards. The man smashed into a concrete wall, and Alec could hear bones snap and internal organs pulverize before he slid to the ground, very, very dead.

“Oops.”

Cronin burst out laughing, the small kid took off and two other gang men ran out to meet them with handguns pointed directly at their heads. Alec felt no fear. In fact, he’d never felt more alive. He smiled at them and they both recoiled instantly. Then Alec remembered his fangs.

“Oh.” He looked at Cronin and pointed to his own mouth. “I’m gonna have to learn how to do that retract thing.”

Again, Cronin laughed and set after the two men who had turned to run away. He grabbed them both by the necks, rendering them unconscious, and led Alec farther up the alley until they were completely concealed by night. He pushed one of the men to Alec.

Cronin tilted the man’s head to the side and spoke softly. “Watch me.” He slid his lips over the pulse point on the man’s neck. “You will know where to bite.” And with a quick flex of his teeth, he punctured the skin and was drinking.

Alec was growling. He couldn’t help it. He licked his lips, wanting to taste, not only the free-flowing fresh blood, but Cronin’s mouth, his lips, his tongue. Alec lifted the man to his lips, feeling the pulse and lifeblood just under the skin. He pulled back his lips, and with what he was sure was much less grace and finesse, he bit into his neck.

The taste was hot and metallic, tangy and sweet. It was luscious and it was everything, and he drank quickly, draining the piece of shit human in seconds. And Alec knew he would do anything to taste it again.

Cronin was staring at him, his black eyes were on fire, he licked his lips as though he could taste the blood Alec was drinking. Then he pushed Alec up against the wall behind him, kissing him and gripping him everywhere. It was frantic and intense, pure want and need.

Alec spun Cronin around so he was pressing him against the wall, and kissed him as hard as he could. Cronin seemed to enjoy Alec’s newfound strength, moaning with every push and touch. Alec put his hands under Cronin’s ass and lifted him, spreading his thighs so Alec’s hips were pressed right against him. And fully clothed, they writhed and rutted against each other, kissing and tasting, growling and gripping until Cronin went rigid against him and came.

Alec could not only feel his own pleasure, but he could feel Cronin’s too. It barreled through him, Cronin’s orgasm and his own, and Alec pushed the pleasure out from himself, reflecting it back to Cronin again and again, both of them coming and coming until Alec couldn’t stand up.

Before he fell to the ground, Cronin must have leapt them, because they landed on the bed in Cronin’s New York City apartment.

Both men lay on their backs, gasping, growling, grinning. “What… what… was that?” Cronin asked.

“I um, I’m not sure. When Jodis touched me earlier, I reflected her power back to her. Well, I reflected your pleasure back to you, then back to me and then back to you.” Alec shrugged. “Well, I think that’s what I did.”

Cronin laughed and held his hands up. “My hands are still shaking. They’ve not done that since I was human.”

Alec snorted. “So, we’re gonna have some fun with these new powers, yes?”

Cronin sighed and rolled over to face Alec. “How do you feel?”

Alec thought of everything he felt. “Amazing. Energized. Very
sexual
,” he said, and Cronin laughed. “I feel jittery. Nervous, confident, happy, relieved. Overwhelmed.”

Cronin kissed him softly. “I think you’ve taken to everything extremely well. Better than anyone I’ve seen.”

“I have so much to learn, so much to get used to. It’s very overwhelming.”

“And I will teach you everything. Eiji, Jodis, and I will teach you all we know.” Cronin stared at him, his eyes shone with wonder.
You are more remarkable than I can say
.

“I am remarkable because of what you make me,” Alec answered.

Cronin’s eyes widened. “You hear my mind?”

Alec reached in the depths of Cronin’s mind, seeing flashes of different times and places, long ago and far away, like snippets of cinematic masterpieces. “I see everything.”

Then Cronin must have remembered their times in bed, because Alec was bombarded with not just explicit visuals, but how it made Cronin feel.

“Oh, Jesus,” Alec panted. He squinted his eyes shut. “I’m gonna need to learn how to block that out.”

Cronin laughed. “Or not.”

Alec rolled off the bed and went to snatch the lube from a bedside table, only to be left holding the entire now-broken drawer in his hand. His strength was bewildering to him, though Cronin burst out laughing. It was the freest sound Alec had heard from him yet. Alec plucked out the small bottle of lube and carefully threw it on the bed, then pounced on Cronin, and pinned his hands to the bed. Matched in physical strength, like Cronin had done so many times before, Alec ripped Cronin’s clothes from his body, then his own.

Cronin laughed, but the sound became a moan when Alec pushed Cronin’s thighs apart with his own. “You belong to me now,” Alec said, holding him down. His fangs were pulsing with want, his cock thick and aching. He smeared lube over his cock, giving himself a few strokes, and the new vampire sensations made him hiss. It was
so
much better….

Cronin’s chest arched forward, his head pushed back, and he exposed his neck to Alec. “Make me yours, Alec. Take from me what you will.”

Alec pushed against Cronin’s hole with his cock and kissed him hard, making Cronin whine and plead. He was stronger than Cronin now, he held him tighter, and he maneuvered him like he weighed nothing. And from the sounds Cronin made, he clearly liked being manhandled.

“Have me, please, I beg of you,” Cronin whispered. “Alec, please.”

Alec sunk his cock into Cronin’s ass in one hard push and sunk his teeth into his neck. Cronin was his, for every whim of pleasure, to do with what he wished.

As he was to Cronin.

It was a pleasure so divine, so raw, and so complete. He was inside him, in every possible way. He was so deep inside him, he tasted his blood on his tongue: a taste so delectable, so perfectly designed just for him.

Cronin gripped his arms, his back, and his ass, not having to restrain his strength anymore, and begged—he begged—Alec to fuck him harder.

So he did.

And then they made love, and then Cronin fucked Alec, and then they made love again, and Alec wasn’t sure for how many days it lasted.

Whatever it was, however long, it was not enough.

They were lying on the bathroom floor, taking a moment to catch their breaths. “I have some pretty special powers, apparently,” Alec said with a laugh.

“I’ll say.”

Alec snorted but was serious for a moment. “I can feel it. An energy bubbling in my bones. I can’t describe it, but I’m kind of scared by it.”

Cronin frowned and squeezed his hand. “Don’t be afraid, m’cridhe.”

“
My heart
. I love how you call me your heart,” Alec repeated.

“It is true.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” He touched the new scar on his chest. “You stabbed me in the heart. Is that something we need to talk about?”

Cronin laughed, long and loud. “How long are you going to remind me of that?”

“Forever.”

Cronin hummed contentedly. “I’ll be truly disappointed if you don’t.”

~Six months later~

It had taken some getting used to, but Alec was getting the hang of his powers. There was no use hiding them from the world; word had spread quickly that the one who had stopped Queen Keket, Genghis Khan, and their master Rilind from their quests of destruction had been reborn a vampire.

The stories of his untold powers soon followed.

There had been no sign of ill-regard toward him, in fact quite the opposite. Most people, or vampires to be exact, came from around the world offering gifts and thanks.

From the beginning, Alec had insisted on a counsel to show he would use his powers responsibly, for the betterment of vampires and humans alike. Cronin, Eiji, and Jodis would always hold rank on this counsel, but a leader, or spokesperson, from every continent would join them for meetings to discuss and raise any questions or concerns they may have.