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Marcus was going to ask what happened, and Ethan would have to come clean. A soft sigh fell from his lips. At least with the injuries, there was a chance that Marcus might believe him that he left the group.
With his mind too full of muddled thoughts, Ethan found himself wandering into the music room. The blood-smeared blanket had been cleared away, cleaned, and put back on the spare bed since Bel’s departure.
The morning after Bel’s attack, Ethan had gone into the library to clean up for Marcus. He knew the man had a cleaning crew, but he wasn’t too sure what they were accustomed to seeing. In a small trash can, he found three empty bags of donated blood and a blood-stained glass. It was more than a little obvious that Bel hadn’t gotten the typical infusion of blood. No, Marcus had poured it into a glass, and Bel drank it down like he would a protein drink.
Ethan put the empty bags in with the rest of the trash as well as some bloody gauze and cleaned out the glass in the kitchen. There was no evidence that anything had happened. There was no reason to bring it up to Marcus. Ethan knew what he was looking at. Bel was a freaking vampire, but there was some reassurance that he’d drank bagged blood rather than lining up a bunch of poor schmucks for involuntary blood donation to save Bel’s life.
Would Ethan have given blood to Bel to save his life?
Would it have cost him his own life? Ethan would have liked to help Bel just to make Marcus happy, to relieve his worry, but he couldn’t believe that Marcus would ask him to trade his life for Bel’s.
But then, the belief that vampires killed every time they fed came from the League group, and Ethan had proved several times that they didn’t know their shit.
In the music room, Ethan found himself drawn over to the massive black piano, gleaming in the light from the hall. He didn’t bother to flip on the light as he crossed the room and slowly ran his fingertips along the smooth surface. The instrument was gorgeous and so damn elegant. It reminded him of Marcus. There was something regal and authoritative about the man. Maybe a little stiff and unmovable without the help of a few people. Ethan had a feeling Marcus was the type to dig his feet in whenever he set his mind to something, and it took all three brothers to change it.
Sitting down on the bench, he looked at the keys to find small smears of blood across the pristine white surfaces. He grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt and carefully rubbed one key after another to remove the blood. A soft note played as he pressed down each key and moved along the scale, wiping away the blood. He hated the idea of a beautiful instrument being sullied in such a way.
Listening to Marcus play was like being lifted by angels and carried into the clouds. He loved the music created by the goddess, but there was something different in listening to Marcus play. Maybe it was because he knew the man and was finally getting a glimpse of his soul. He’d suspected it was beautiful, but he hadn’t expected to hear such pain there as well. Marcus had old, deep wounds that he hid from the world, probably from his brothers, but there was no hiding them in his music.
When he was first directed toward Marcus, Ethan was sure that he was hunting a monster. The vampire linked to the deaths of his family would be a cold, evil creature who didn’t care about anyone or anything but himself.
What he found was a wounded soul, trapped by love and duty. Was he at all happy in his life? Considering that Ethan was the first man Marcus had ever kissed, it was unlikely he’d ever known love.
Fuck. Was Marcus incredibly old? Vampires could live forever, right? Was Marcus centuries old and a virgin?
The thought stopped Ethan cold, his shirt tightly clenched in his fist. Ethan suddenly felt bad about complaining about his six-month dry spell. He would have gone insane if he’d never had the chance to feel the pleasure of another’s touch. Sure, all his hookups were emotionless things. They were about both people getting off, but it was better than nothing, right? For a brief moment, he felt alive and connected to another human being.
Where did that lack of contact leave Marcus? Was that dark loneliness swallowing him whole?
The sound of a hard-soled shoe stepping onto the wood floor almost had Ethan jerking around to look at Marcus. It had to be Marcus. He was the only other one in the house. But he remained facing the piano with his back to the doorway. His aching face was a clear reminder that he wasn’t in a rush for Marcus to see him. His boss would demand to know what happened, and that would upset the delicate dance they’d been doing the past couple of weeks. He didn’t want Marcus to look at him with disappointment or hatred.
