“About one too many, some would say.”
“Would you?”
“Maybe,” Thanos said. “A few nights ago, definitely.”
“But not now?”
“No. Not now.”
Paris’s stomach flipped at the directness of that answer, and he sat up straight so they were eye to eye. “Will you tell me more?”
“More?”
Paris nodded and then reached for his hair, ready to tie it back again. But Thanos’s hand came out to stop him.
“Leave it,” he said, and then ran his fingers through the strands.
“Okay, I will. If you show me more.”
“And what, pray tell, do you wish to see?”
Paris wasn’t sure. He was curious about a lot of the things he’d seen and heard, especially the reference to the, uhh…whippings.
Does Thanos like to be whipped or— No, I don’t want to know. That’s one thing I can live without seeing—Thanos in a brothel. He did, however, want to know more about Thanos’s past. Paris was hungry for any kind of information Thanos wanted to share, and told him so.
God. Am I really sitting here talking to a vampire about what his life was like in 20 BC?
“I believe you are.”
Damn it, he’d done it again. Thinking without remembering that Thanos could hear. “You know, that’s a really infuriating habit. Listening to someone else’s thoughts.”
Thanos chuckled, and the sound was so foreign that it made Paris lose his train of thought.
“Well, if you said everything you thought then I wouldn’t have anything to listen to, would I?”
Paris’s eyes widened. “Who knew there was such a sense of humor lurking under there? Anything else I should know about beneath that mask of yours?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Paris wanted to smack himself in the head. Because really? Good job, moron, reminding him of the one thing he clearly does not want to talk or think about.
“Thanos. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
Thanos held a finger up between them. “Stop talking.”
Paris automatically clamped his mouth shut, and then he strained to hear whatever it was that had caught Thanos’s attention. He looked over his shoulder to the door behind him, and when he didn’t see or hear anything, Paris brought his face back to the one opposite him.
“They’re coming,” Thanos said, as he shifted him off his lap and unfortunately got to his feet.
“Huh? Who’s coming?”
Thanos looked down at him, and his serious expression made Paris more than aware of who must be coming. That Vasilios vampire.
“We must return to the chambers. They wish to talk to us.”
Paris scrambled to his feet as Thanos turned away, and when the vampire would’ve walked out the door, he reached out and wrapped his fingers around the cool wrist peeking out from beneath the sleeve of Thanos’s jacket.
“What is it?” Thanos asked, stopping in his tracks. When Paris said nothing in response, he continued. “If you do not wish to say it in front of all of them, you need to speak now, Paris Antoniou.”
“Umm…just…” He stuttered to a stop.
“Yes?”
“Don’t let them hurt me. I know they think I’m here with Elias and that I want to hurt you or worse. But…” Paris paused and scanned Thanos’s masked face, wondering what Elias could’ve done to make this once sinfully handsome man hide away, and then he said with the utmost sincerity, “I’d never hurt you.”
Thanos’s eyes swirled and darkened at his words, and then he looked away, tugged his arm free, and said under his breath, “Never is a long time. But for now, stay here.”
LEO SENSED VASILIOS before he reentered the chambers, and knew the only reason he was able to was because the Ancient was allowing it. He was more than aware that he was connected with both of the males he’d given himself over to. But Leo also knew that if Vasilios didn’t want him inside his head, he wouldn’t be there. That vampire was so skilled that he’d mastered the art of deception, even on a cellular level.
Right now, though, Vasilios had reached out to both he and Alasdair to let them know he was returning, and the feeling of the powerful Ancient coursing through him was both exhilarating and a whole fucking lot of awesome.
“He will be delighted you think so, file mou.”
“I’m sure, but he feels a bit—”
“Vexed? He is. And I suspect we are all about to find out why. Try not to agitate him.”
Leo opened his mouth, ready to tell Alasdair that he didn’t go out of his way to annoy the big guy. But before he got a word out Vasilios, Diomêdês and—oh shit, the woman, Elias’s woman, Isadora—appeared. But where is Elias?
“Now that, young Leonidas, is a very good question. One I’d like answered,” Vasilios said. “Thanos!”
Oh shit, Vasilios was not happy.
Less than two seconds later, the masked male emerged from the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
“Cousin, you are here. You have finally left your chambers,” Isadora said, and rushed forward, only to stop in her tracks when Vasilios pinned her with what Leo could only assume was a stay put look.
“We have a slight issue at hand, Isadora. Perhaps you could reunite later,” Vasilios said, slowly bringing his head back around to face Thanos, and it was clear to Leo that the calm tone in which that statement was delivered was merely the rumbling of a much bigger storm.
“Eton,” Thanos said. “Yes. He is most certainly an issue.”
“How right you are.” Vasilios’s words cut through the tense air. “And it’s because of you that Eton left us such a lovely departing gift. Isn’t it?”
Oh God, what did Eton and Thanos do for Vasilios to be so pissed?
Leo took a quick survey of the chambers to see silver-haired Diomêdês still standing with Isadora, his hand in front of her cautioning her to stay behind him, while Alasdair stood so close beside him that Leo could have stroked his fingers with his own.
Vasilios was in the middle of his bedchambers situated between Thanos and the rest of them, and though Leo couldn’t see his face, the tense set of Vasilios’s shoulders and the waves of annoyance thrumming through him clued Leo in to the very real possibility that this could turn ugly—and ugly for these guys meant fangs, threats, and blood.
Then Thanos spoke up. “It was his choice to do what he—”
“You dare speak to me of choices.” Vasilios’s voice was several degrees below frigid as he slowly stalked the male, and when he stopped an inch from Thanos’s face, he cocked his head to the side and asked, “And what was your choice all those years ago, Thanos? What did you choose?”
Leo caught the blue burn of two irises from beneath the hood, and could feel the aggression in the room increase. Whatever Vasilios was referring to had clearly gotten under Thanos’s skin.
Leo wanted to say something, try to calm things, as was in his nature. But when he would’ve opened his mouth to talk, Alasdair did indeed sweep his fingers across the top of his hand. Leo looked up at him, and when Alasdair shook his head, he knew exactly what he was telling him—stay out of this.
“I know very well what I chose,” Thanos said.
“Do you? Then you might remember the bargain you struck after that. That you would keep him on a leash. Keep him under control. For that, you would be granted eternal life. What I just saw outside your chambers does not bode well for your immortality.”
“Vasilios,” someone finally said, and Leo saw Diomêdês step forward to intervene between the two volatile vampires. “Why don’t we try and work out a way to contain this latest problem? That way we can get back to working out the much bigger one at hand.”
“Agreed,” Thanos said.
“Nobody asked for your opinion,” Vasilios snapped, and Leo’s eyes widened.
God, if Thanos doesn’t shut the hell up, he just might end up dead.
“Well, maybe you should,” Thanos said, and Leo had to ad
mit that talking back to Vasilios right then took serious balls—or stupidity. “Who knows Eton better than I? Do you even have a plan beyond containment? If you don’t, then perhaps it would be a better use of our time to be thinking and implementing one rather than laying blame on one another?”
Vasilios narrowed his eyes, and Thanos finally seemed to grow a brain cell or two, because he backed up.
Huh, at least he doesn’t have a death wish anymore.
“I do not lay blame on anyone in this room other than you. Which means you are going to be the one to fix this.”
“I can help you find him. But how can I possibly fix this? He wants nothing to do with me. He made that very clear.”
Vasilios took hold of Thanos’s throat then, his patience finally snapping, and yanked the vampire forward. “You are a fucking fool if you believe that. But it is too late now. You either fix it. Or—”
“Vasilios,” Alasdair said, as he went to his Ancient and placed a hand on his arm. “Come. Let us all think on this. We need to find Eton.”
“We need to do much more than that. But you are correct,” Vasilios said. “It appears though that Thanos’s little issue took off with our biggest one.”
Elias? Leo thought.
“Yes, agori,” Vasilios replied, and for the first time since reentering the room, the Ancient turned his head to catch Leo’s gaze. “It seems he has a bone to pick with the male, though I cannot imagine what. As Thanos said, Eton wants nothing to do with him. So why would the Ancient care to take the one who hurt him most?”
Somewhere in Ancient Peiraieús—20 BC
“WHERE IS HE?” Thanos demanded of the male who’d just stepped inside the cell he’d been tossed into several nights earlier. Vasilios, he’d called himself.
“Ahh, I see you have finally come around, agori.”
He hadn’t come around to anything, but after sitting in the dark for the last however many days, Thanos had come to the conclusion that if he didn’t do what this…this thing asked of him, he may very well wind up dead.
“That, file mou, is an accurate guess,” Vasilios said, as he strolled farther into the small confines and the door behind him groaned shut.
Gods above, Thanos thought, as he stumbled back to hit the wall. Then he slid down it until his ass was planted on the narrow wooden bench. Did he just answer my thought as though I’d spoken it aloud?
“Yes. I did. It is one of the many perks that you too would be able to enjoy should you say yes to this little offer of ours.”
Ahh…yes, the offer. It was all he’d thought about since Vasilios had brought him there—wherever he was—and what an offer it was.
After he’d been taken from the alley where he’d last seen his sister, he’d somehow appeared in this dank underground prison with Vasilios. He had no clue where he was or how the man had done it. But with every passing minute, hour, and now day, things had gotten increasingly more bizarre.
This Vasilios had spoken of a male who required his “services.” He had told Thanos he was the one who’d been committing the murders outside of Daidalous’s, and claimed the individual was suffering due to a demon inside him.
Vasilios’s answer to this “problem,” as he put it, was to find someone who was able to tame the male. Bring him to heel. In exchange, his sister would live to see another day, and Thanos had been told he would live like a king.
That wasn’t so strange, Thanos supposed, until you added the final part of the offer. He would live like a king—forever.
“You see,” Vasilios said, as he wandered over and sat beside Thanos, “you are already so much like us, which is why we sought you out. You have power in you, Thanos Agapiou, and a temper which draws blood. What if you were able to avail yourself of both these things in a way which aided someone? In a way that brought healing and pleasure to the being your hand fell upon. We can give you that. All we ask in exchange is your human…life.”
Thanos stared at Vasilios and wondered, not for the first time, if he had passed out from that new poppy concoction the girls had been passing around of late—the one that caused hallucinations.
But no, that couldn’t be it. He had refused the herb, wanting clarity for his final customer that day before. Then he’d gotten word of his sisters at the dock, and he clearly remembered going down to the pier and watching Rhoda and Airlea as they’d headed to shore.
So what was going on?
He wasn’t stupid. He knew the kind of vulgar life he led, and had always assumed he would wind up dead in an alley or brothel bed sooner rather than later. But never had he expected this.
“What makes you think this male will respond to this kind of discipline? It is not for everyone,” he said. “What makes you think it will help?”
“Because when he is like this he resembles nothing more than a beast,” Vasilios said. “An animal. And all animals can be tamed if they have the right master.”
Thanos did not like this. Not one bit. He’d been told on more than one occasion, including the night he’d been thrown from his home, that his sexual proclivities were barbaric, monstrous, and the work of evil.
But as he stared at the man beside him, he was starting to believe that even his lifestyle could not adequately prepare him for whatever atrocities awaited him outside that door. Thus far, from what he’d seen of vanishing acts, fangs, and talk of eternal life, Vasilios was as close to a demon as he’d ever seen—so what could possibly be worse?
No, he didn’t like this at all, and he had a feeling that what Vasilios wanted from him was much darker than even he could imagine.
“You said if I were to do this, I would have to give up my human life.” Thanos frowned. “If I am dead, how will I be of service to you and your…problem?”
“You do not appear unintelligent, Thanos. Surely you have made some kind of deduction as to what I am by now. What we are. Have you not?”
He had, of course. But the things that came to mind didn’t at all seem likely. They were the stuff of myths and tales that parents told children to frighten them. But as the thoughts filtered through his head, Vasilios’s lip curled on one side, and a pointed fang came into view.
“Were you told tales of creatures that lurk in the night, Thanos?”
He nodded as Vasilios’s voice urged his entire being to relax, even though his mind was an anxious mess—the effect much like that of the poppies.
“Tales of the ones who lure the innocent…”
“Yes,” he breathed, as Vasilios placed a hand on his thigh.
“Who invite them to sin…”
“Yes.”
“And you like to sin, do you not?”
Thanos blinked as Vasilios came closer and the hand moved even higher.
“You really are a very handsome man, Thanos. I believe that is why Eton chose you. He will be most pleased if his punishment can come from the hand of someone such as you.”
Thanos’s cock hardened under the palm now close to stroking it, and the seductive words that were swirling around him had him swaying closer to the one delivering them.
“If you agree, we will make you one of us. Would you like that? To be looked upon as a god and not a demon who crawled up from the fiery pits beneath the earth. People will beg for you to look at them, and you will never again be banished or degraded for the pleasures you take such delight in. In fact, they are what we want you most for.”
Thanos’s breathing sped up as the fingers upon his leg finally grazed the material of his black toga, which was doing nothing to hide the hardened length now throbbing between his thighs. Vasilios’s eyes were locked on his, and when Thanos shifted closer, those green eyes flared at him.
“Do you want to meet him, agori? Are you curious to see the one you would be tasked to tame?”
Was he really going to say yes to this? But when Vasilios drew his upper lip back and those wicked teeth came into full view, the most depraved side of him, the part of his soul that Thanos had always been led to believe was
rotten to the core, roared to life and he heard himself saying, “Yes. Take me to him.”
In an instant, Vasilios’s hand was gone, and when he stood, he said, “I believe you are going to enjoy our young Eton. Come…”
THANOS FUMED AS he faced off with the vampire who’d originally brought him into the fray over two thousand years ago, and cursed the memories now beginning to swirl back to life.
No way would he give Vasilios the satisfaction of knowing how much it had wounded him when Eton had broken their connection. That would be admitting weakness to the arrogant male, and he’d vowed never to do that again.
“Where is he?” Thanos demanded, much like he had that first night in the cell, wanting to know if Vasilios had seen Eton or not.
But he should’ve realized that now was not the time to be making demands. The Ancient’s grip contracted around his neck, and Thanos could feel the slight sting of nails as they lengthened from Vasilios’s phalanges.
“You tell me. I can sense you revisiting your past.”
Thanos concentrated on trying to pinpoint anything from Eton—but there was nothing, not even a blip on the radar, and up until now it hadn’t really registered how alone that made him.
For a long time now, he’d begun to believe that was what he wanted most. But it appeared that over time he’d become accustomed to Eton’s presence, even with as damaging as it was to his own psyche. Because without it, he was left feeling bereft. “I said I know him best. Not where he went. He disconnected from me. From us. There is no way for me to track him now.”
“And whose fault is that? We both know that even I can’t reach him when he is like this. That is why we needed you. But you, you wanted your freedom. You sent him away.”
“I never wanted this for him. I just wanted him out of my—”
“Face? Or what’s left of it,” Vasilios said, his eyes locked with Thanos’s.
“Vasilios.”
At the gasped sound of Vasilios’s name, Thanos was reminded that there were others still in the room with them. Vasilios glanced over his shoulder, and there was that brave blond—Leonidas—heading toward them, to stop beside Alasdair.