Blood dripped from Salford’s neck. “Lick the holes closed, will you, love?” He settled back onto the pillows, his cock deflating, although a twinge of arousal still remained. Physically he could go another round, but mentally…

Let’s be honest, I’m too tired.

The night had been a long one, and he needed a damn good sleep today.

They both did.

Straddling him, Ruby slid his tongue up Salford’s throat, pressing it to the two holes there. 

“You’re getting a right lazy bastard, forgetting to do that,” Salford said, flinging one arm out for Ruby to settle beside him.  

“Sorry about that.” Ruby snuggled close. “But if you weren’t so…” He sighed. “I’m not saying it. Your head’ll explode.”

“Go on, say it.” Salford smiled, even though Ruby might not see it in the semi-darkness of their bedroom. Dawn wasn’t quite ready to show her face this morning. His smile grew wider. This kind of shit was the best, the way they wound each other up. The younger generation called it banter. Salford preferred repartee, but he’d be showing his true age if he ever let that one slip out of his mouth.

“Sexy,” Ruby whispered. “If you weren’t so bloody sexy, I wouldn’t have my mind all over the place when we’re fucking, would I?” He sniffed. “Anyway, enough of that silly business. We need to talk about what happened overnight.”

“It can wait.” Salford closed his eyes.

“For you, maybe, but not for me. You know I can’t sleep if I’ve got things on my mind. And if I toss and turn, you’ll only moan at me come the morning, rattling on that I woke you up every time I moved.”

“Fair enough. Go on, then. Get it all out.” Salford rolled onto his side so they were facing each other. He could just about see Ruby in the gloom, his pale face carved in mysterious shadow, his plucked eyebrows drawn together.

“They’re going to come back, you know that, don’t you?” Ruby blinked a few times. “They won’t listen to us and keep away. Not now they know where I work.”

“So we’ll deal with them if and when that happens.” Salford agreed with him, though. Those fuckers would come back to the alley alongside The Purple Room, no doubt about it. They’d made that clear with their mean words and spiteful expressions earlier. They were intent on killing Salford, Ruby, and every other vampire-wolf that existed, and every gay to boot.

Good luck in finding us all. We’re everywhere.

“It will happen, you heard them.” Ruby draped an arm over Salford’s side and drew their bodies closer together. “Did you listen to what that man said? The one with the beast of a black beard and shocking hair that made him look like some alien creature?”

“I listened to him. And I think you’ll find that beard is trendy at the moment. Hipster. You need to keep more up to date with the fashion if you’re going to constantly fit in, you know that. How often—”

“Do I have to tell you…?” Ruby said. “Yeah, I know. But we’re from more refined times, gentler times, and this particular era… It’s so messed up. I’ve even taken to speaking like them in my everyday life, when we’re alone—which proves I can fit in. But this world? People are going round dressed like clowns, for God’s sake, scaring folks for fun. Then there’s this lot after us all, The Killers as they’re calling themselves. So original, don’t you think, that name? And yes, I’m rolling my eyes. How did they even find out we existed? As vampire-wolves, not gays, because God knows it’s obvious I’m queer. You, not so much.”

“No idea, but they do know, and we just have to deal with that the best we can. Like we’ve done in the past. We’re used to running from someone or other, and people will never stop hearing tales about us.”

Ruby huffed out a breath. “I can’t get over how that bearded one didn’t even flinch when we showed him our teeth. He laughed, Sal, like what we did was nothing.”

“He did. Maybe he did it through fear.”

“Maybe. But the others were roaring too. Like we weren’t anything to be afraid of—when we are, aren’t we? They should sodding well be very afraid.”

Salford couldn’t argue with that. The gang of youths had been bold in the vocal department, their jackets possibly giving them courage, the way the hoods had draped over their foreheads almost obscuring their features. The bearded one, he hadn’t used his hood, so Salford had taken him for their leader, one who hadn’t seemed bothered his face would be seen. They’d been full of false bravado, though—not the sort of bravery needed to defeat vampire-wolves. Those fellas had had no idea who they were messing with. Still, they’d find out soon enough if they came back for another go. Salford only gave one warning, then all bets were off. He had no choice in the matter. If he and Ruby were threatened, those doing the threatening had to…go.

“Perhaps we should have pushed things further,” Salford said. “Roughed them up, thrown them around a bit. It might have shaken them into realizing this isn’t a game. That we’re not something to mess with.” He stroked Ruby’s long red hair, winding the ends around his fingers. “It says something, though, that they backed off. If they really thought they could take us down, they would have.”

“Not with those wooden stakes, they wouldn’t. Ridiculous having those. And then there were the silver crosses. Please…”

Salford recalled those men and their killing tools. “They don’t know any better, love. The myths and whatnot, they all say the same thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had garlic in their pockets, although one certainly had it on his breath. Christ Almighty, that wasn’t pleasant.”

Ruby laughed. “You always manage to make things seem better, you know that?”

“That’s what I’m here for. To settle your nerves, to make everything all right. Been doing that for how many centuries now? I’ll never get tired of it, either.”

“You old romantic, you.” Ruby swiped at Salford’s chest. He let out a long stream of air. “Sorry to go back to it, harping on and all that, but will this ever end? Us defending our kind? Do we ever get to retire?”

“No, we don’t. We’ll forever be thirty years old, remember that.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, shit.”

They lapsed into silence, and Salford drifted toward sleep. Ruby’s breathing grew long and steady, then he turned over, presenting his back to Salford. Ready for a good kip himself, Salford spooned his lover and waited for a bloody dream to start. He usually had one most nights, but when it was over, he managed to rest easy for the remainder of the day he spent in bed. It was just a pest that, without fail, he’d enter The Zone, the place that scared him witless and had him believing that eternal life wasn’t really his. That someone was going to come for him, try to kill him—and succeed—leaving Ruby alone to wander through his existence without Salford by his side.

Sleep dragged his body down, its grip hard, the journey to slumber swift.

The moon seemed to hang heavy tonight, all bulbous, as though it had been stuffed with extra cheese. Salford stared at it, waiting for the shift, for the tingle deep in his bones that indicated his wolf was coming to overtake him.

The branches of the tree beside him shivered in the breeze, like they were as cold as he was and just as naked. Winter was well and truly upon them, with its chilling air, frost-gnawed grass, and snow lurking around November’s corner. London wasn’t the best place to spend the colder months, but here he was, once again in the place of his birth. The call to return home had been strong this century, an invisible cord linking him to the Old Smoke of his youth, where people had pissed in pots and families had shared two rooms in a big house occupied by many.

Nowadays, he had his London home in a Victorian monstrosity many had dubbed as haunted, mainly because Salford and Ruby didn’t come out during the day, creating the illusion the house was abandoned. His turning on the lights in the dark hours gave people reason to suspect the place was full of ghosts.

It was, in a way—ghosts of Salford’s past. A long, bloody past at that. He’d lived in that house on and off for too many years to count, leaving it empty from time to time so that the neighbors could live out their lives, forget he existed. He returned once he thought everyone he’d known was dead, then started living there again, a supposed ‘new’ owner.

The webs he’d weaved to keep his eternal existence a secret…

The breeze swirled around him, and he shuddered. If the wolf shift didn’t come soon, he’d freeze his bollocks off standing out here. He’d give it another five minutes then he was going inside.

A snapping sound had him cocking his head and narrowing his eyes. There it was again, plus the subtle yet distinct creak of a boot on fallen twigs, that boot cracking the discarded bones of the tree like so much rubbish. Salford pressed his back to the trunk and waited. Whoever it was would show themselves soon enough. They always did in The Zone.

“I know you’re there,” a man said. “Dirty bloody pervert, standing around with no clothes on.”

Salford held back a bark of laughter. Was that how he was seen, then, as some naked Peeping Tom? God, if only the man knew what Salford really was, he’d shit himself and run home to his mother.

“I’ll have you down the station,” the man said, “for indecent exposure under the Sexual Offenses Act. Come out now, and I’ll see if we can’t make things easier for you. Better to admit what you’re doing and get help than deny it. You’ve been seen too many times now for us to ignore what you’re doing any longer.”

A policeman, then. It had to have been a neighbor who had reported Salford. Although his home stood well inside its own grounds, the people in the nearest house would be able to see him if they glanced out of an upstairs window. It disturbed him that he had been noticed at all—he’d thought coming out here around three a.m. would have meant everyone else in the vicinity would be asleep.

Obviously not.

Shit.

The shift took him quickly—thank the good Lord—and Salford walked out from behind the tree to confront the copper. He couldn’t see his face properly—a cloud had scudded across the moon and lingered there, not ready to sail away yet.

“Oh, fuck me,” the copper said and moved back, hand on his chest. “Scared me, you did.” He held out one hand, as though he wanted to make friends.

Salford stared up at him. The moon broke free of its shroud and cast a stripe of light over the man. It was the bloke from earlier, the one with the beard and strange hair, although that hair had been pressed down beneath the copper’s flat-topped hat. Salford wanted to bite that hand, to show this fucker that he’d meant business the previous time they’d been face to face, to make him go away and never come back. Keeping Ruby safe had been Salford’s only mission for so long that getting rid of this ‘policeman’ by ripping out his throat didn’t faze him much. If the man came closer, he could just…

No, he was sick of killing. Sick of the life they had to lead.

Salford growled.

“Oh, an unfriendly doggy. I shall just have to call the R.S.P.C.A., then, won’t I?”

Just fuck off, will you?

The policeman lunged forward, gripping Salford by the scruff. Salford refused to react for now. He’d see what was going to happen next then decide what to do.

“I know who you are—who you really are—and where you two live. Don’t think I’m going to let this go, you hear me?”

So it had been him with the garlic breath in the alley.

He let Salford go, giving him a kick to his ribs. Salford kept the whimper inside and sat while he got his thoughts together. One kick, he’d allow, but any more and he’d have to—

“We’re coming back for you,” Beard said. “Don’t get too comfortable, all right? Later—we’ll be seeing you two later, you and that weirdo man-girl of yours.”

Beard walked away into the mist that was swirling up from the grass, glancing over his shoulder every so often, until he reached the gates to the property. Salford shivered. This was a dream, yes, but, as with all of his dreams, they warned him of what was to come.

And this one was no exception. No exception at all.

Salford woke with a start, his heart beating double time, his mouth and throat dry. Ruby was still beside him, snoring gently. Salford’s chest hurt, emotion swelling there. So long as Ruby was with him, he’d get through anything. That bearded man, though… He was no policeman, but the symbolism wasn’t lost on Salford. Beard had it in mind to police his patch, much like all the other gang members around the city. Salford would have to eliminate him after all. He’d given him a chance to back off during their encounter a few hours ago, not wanting to kill anyone if he didn’t have to, but he had no choice now.

He would become the hunter, not the hunted.

Later, once this new day had switched to the following night, he’d find that man.

And make him wish he’d never been born.