Page 4 of Endlessly Raphael
“So wrong,” Leander adds.
Eros, sitting beside me, plucks a grape from the vine and pops it into his mouth. “We were all saved in our own ways by Yves. Now our lives are decadent, beautiful, and more than your mind can even imagine.”
“I don’t understand. I am a petty thief and a prostitute. What can I give to you?”
“Your blood,” Yves says plainly. His eyes seem to glow as he moves nearer to me so smoothly I’d think he can float. “Your soul, your eternity.”
As I study his face, I notice his long canine teeth past his parted lips. “Wh-what?”
“Raphael,” Yves says, brushing his smooth fingers across my scruffy cheek. “I want you. Not for any reason other than your beauty and what I sense inside of you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know your heart,” he says, his hand sliding to my chest as the other men crowd around us.
Yves, this beautiful man in all his elegant clothing, kneels between my legs, undeterred by my filth, as if he can see beyond it.
“You need a family, a home,” Yves continues, “a place to belong. I can give you that.”
How does he know this? “And in return? You want blood? You mean to kill me?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I would never harm you. What I want, beautiful one, is your life. I can take you away from this struggle and replace it with untold beauty, safety, and love. All you have to do is say yes.”
I glance at the other men, all of them touching me in some way, their eagerness somehow palpable. “I don’t deserve a life like that.”
“No?” Yves asks. “Why not you? What happened to you was not your fault.”
I crinkle my brow. “How do you know that?”
“I asked around, remember? The ladies in the market told me of your mother’s death and your father’s absence. What else could a man in those circumstances do but survive? I do not judge you for choosing to live.”
My throat clogs with emotion I’m not used to feeling. “Everyone judges me. I am not good enough for any family, and my desire for men…” I stop, shaking my head. “I am nothing.”
“Not to me,” Yves says. “Not to us.”
I am a lot of things, but a fool isn’t one of them. “If I say yes, what happens to me next?”
“We will bathe you,” Alessio says.
“And show you to your room,” Leander adds.
“And give you the finest clothes available to us,” Eros tacks on.
“And then you will be brought to me,” Yves says. “And I will transform you.”
A shiver runs down my back as the next question bubbles up. “Into what?”
Yves moves his hand to my throat, not squeezing or in a threatening way, but in a caress. “You will be what I am. What your brothers are.”
I study his face, somehow even more perfect, and my stomach twists when I catch sight of his sharp teeth again. An unbidden storm of desire swells deep within me, stirring my cock to life.
“I think I should be afraid of you,” I admit. “But I’m not.”
Yves smiles. “I am not to be feared. Not by you.” He brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. “Tell me, Raphael, would you like to warm my bed and join my family?”
I nod, even though a small part of me knows this is dangerous. “For how long?”
“Eternity,” Alessio answers. “Like all of us. Give Yves your blood, and he will give you immortality.”