The first time I cried in front of a horse, I made sure no one important could see me. Important, in this case, meant my father, the Council, any of the old men with rings on their fingers and blood on their breath who liked to remind me what I was supposed to become.

  The mare did not count as ‘anyone,’ which was the whole point.

  Her name is Sable. She’s black as spilled ink except for a small crescent of white on her forehead. The other horses roll their eyes and stamp and pull at their tethers when I come near, whites flashing, muscles trembling. They smell what I am and their bodies recognize it in the way prey recognizes teeth. But Sable just flicks an ear and breathes steam at me like she’s mildly annoyed I don’t bring sugar.

  Tonight she lifts her head when I enter, lantern swinging from my hand, straw rustling under my boots. Her large eyes catch the light, gold-brown and steady, calm in a way I have never been able to be.

  The stable smells of hay and leather and horse sweat and old wood soaked in years of rain and piss. It’s a living smell—messy and warm and full of dust. It clings to the back of my throat, stubborn against the cold, metallic ghost of blood that never quite leaves my mouth, no matter how thoroughly I rinse.

  My father would be furious if he knew I came here instead of to the drawing room, where the other vampires sit around polished tables and practice the art of saying cruel things in pleasant tones. Where they call humans ‘stock’ and ‘assets’ with the lazy boredom of men discussing investments.

  But my father is not here. He is in the council chamber with the others, drinking from crystal and pretending it makes it less barbaric.

  So I am here.

  I hang the lantern on its nail and lean my forehead against Sable’s neck. Her skin twitches under my touch, but she doesn’t move away. Her coat is cold on the surface but warm underneath, heat thrumming through muscle and bone. Alive.

  I breathe in. Out. Pretend for a moment that my lungs need the air.

  “I hate them,” I tell her softly. “That’s not very filial of me, of course, but I do. I hate them. I hate him.”

  My father, Silas. Lord Beckeronte. Vampire Lord, terror of three counties, scourge of every sermon in a fifty-mile radius. Also the man who told me he was proud of me exactly once, and only because I’d drained someone he didn’t like quite as efficiently as he did.

  “You should have seen him tonight,” I mutter. “You would have bitten him. I know you would have. I might have even let you.”

  Sable flicks her tail. A wisp of straw drifts down from the rafters. Somewhere above us, something shifts in the hayloft with a soft, shushing sound.

  I freeze.

  The horses are tied and quiet. The night outside is cold and still; the only sounds are the distant hoot of an owl and the drip of water from the eaves. Whatever moved is inside, above, where the lantern light doesn’t quite reach.

  Slowly, I lift my head from Sable’s neck, eyelids drying in the cool air.

  “Who’s there?” I call up, voice sharpening, all softness gone in an instant. It’s instinct, that switch—the years of training my father has hammered into me. Kindness in the dark is a liability; fear is a tool.

  The movement stops.

  I could leave it. I could pretend it was a rat or a cat or the shifting of old wood. But I have been on the receiving end of too many ambushes to dismiss small sounds. The human servants know better than to be in the stables at this hour. The grooms were dismissed. Dinner is over. The house is full of vampires and their guests; the staff cling to the kitchens like barnacles to rock, hoping not to be noticed.

  “Answer,” I say, and my tone drops cold. “Now.”

  There is a rustle and then a head appears over the edge of the loft, backlit by the faint light from the tiny high window. A shock of curls catches the dim glow, turning them into a clutter of copper and shadow. A young man peers down at me with wide, startled eyes. Well. Not that young. Older than me, when I grew into my teeth. Younger than me as I am now.

  Human.

  “Evening, m’lord,” he says. His voice is scratchy with sleep, or disuse, or both. “Didn’t mean to eavesdrop. Just live here, is all.”

  I blink at him. “What?”

  He jerks his chin toward the hay behind him. I can see it more clearly now that my eyes have adjusted fully—a small hollow in the loft, half hidden by stacked bales. A blanket rolled up into a makeshift pillow. A shirt hanging from a nail. A pair of boots lined up against the low wall, one of them with the heel half-worn away.

  “Sleep here,” he clarifies. “In the hay. Cheaper’n a room, and someone’s got to keep an eye on the horses at night. So. Congratulations, you’ve found the stable boy in his natural habitat. You gonna tell on me or just keep complainin’ to your horse about how hard it is being rich?”

  Of all the possible responses I expected, that was not one of them. My mouth opens before my mind catches up. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Loud, apparently,” he says. “You woke me up.” He squints at me. The lantern light slides up over his face, catching the freckle-dusted bridge of his nose, the stubborn angle of his jaw. His eyes are pale, a washed-out green or grey—I can’t quite tell from down here. He’s broader through the shoulders than I expected, for someone who looks half-starved. The bones of his throat stand out under skin that is just a little too tight over them.

  He does not smell like prey. He smells like sweat and hay and the river wind that comes in under the gaps in the stable walls, and beneath that the faint, metallic sweetness that marks him human.

  “You’re lord Preston,” the boy adds after a moment, as if the name just occurred to him and he’s not entirely impressed. “One of them, anyway.”

  “One of…?”

  “One of the vampires,” he says, as if it should be obvious. “Name’s on everyone’s lips whenever there’s a new blood tithe or some poor sod goes missing. Whole village knows you lot up at the castle. Hard to miss.”

  I should be offended. I think I am offended. But it’s slightly drowned out by the sharp, absurd realization that I am standing in my own stables, being scolded by a half-starved human for… complaining. “I do not—” I start, and then stop, catching how petty that sounds. I do complain. Frequently. Sable has heard more of it than anyone else.

  The boy’s mouth tilts, not quite a smile. “Didn’t say you shouldn’t. Just said maybe keep it down a bit, yeah? Some of us have got to be up before dawn to shovel shit. I’d like to enjoy the four hours of sleep I get.”

  “Watch your tone,” I snap automatically.

  He lifts both hands in mock surrender, light catching on the faded patches at the elbows of his shirt. “Apologies, m’lord. Must be terribly exhausting, the weight of all that money on your shoulders. No wonder you have to come down here and weep into your horse.”

  My cheeks burn. “I was not weeping.”

  “You were making very sad noises at her neck,” he says. “Looked like weeping from up here.”

  Sable, traitor that she is, nudges my shoulder with her nose, as if agreeing.

  “I could have you flogged for that insolence,” I say, because it’s what someone like me is supposed to say. Because if anyone heard me let a human talk to me like this, I’d never hear the end of it. Because anger is easier to show than any of the other things gnawing at my insides.

  The boy considers this, then shrugs one narrow shoulder. “You could,” he says calmly. “You won’t, though.”

  My mouth twists. “And why is that?”

  He leans his arms on the edge of the loft, letting his weight rest there. For a moment he looks older. Tired, in a way I recognize. “Because you came here to talk to a horse instead of one of your own,” he says. “Because you sounded more miserable than dangerous. And because you’re not the type.”

  “The type,” I repeat, unimpressed.

  “The type to hit someone for pointing out you’re being a bit dramatic,” he says. “Gallows out front are already full of men like that. Can hear ’em from town when the wind’s right.”

  He has me there. I hate that he has me there. I fold my arms. The lantern creaks slightly on its hook. “What is your name?” I demand.

  He seems mildly surprised I bothered to ask. “Cormac.”

  “Cormac what?”

  He snorts. “You planning to write it down?”

  “I—”

  “I don’t have a family name that’d mean anything to you, m’lord,” he says, rolling right over my protest. “No one worth knowing, anyway. Cormac’s fine.”

  I should shut him up. I should leave. I should remind myself that he is human, and therefore temporary, and therefore not worth thinking about. There will be another stable boy in five years, and another after that, and another, and I will still be here, standing in this same straw, avoiding the same expectations.

  Instead I hear myself say, “You’re insolent.”

  “Hungry,” he corrects. “That’s all. Insolence is what you call it when a starving man speaks his mind. ‘S all right, I’m used to it.”

  There is a beat of silence between us, punctuated by the soft, wet chomping of a horse tearing at hay.

  I hadn’t noticed the hunger, not really. I’m used to smelling it as weakness—something our kind exploits. Hunger, fear, desperation: all the little hooks that drag humans closer to us, one favor at a time. But Cormac’s is different. It sits on him like a coat he’s been wearing so long he doesn’t feel the itch anymore.

  “I heard you say you hate him,” Cormac says, almost casually. “The ‘him’ being your father, I’d guess. On account of the tone.” His lips tilt. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell. Wouldn’t be the first lad to complain about his da to an animal.”

  I exhale through my nose. “He was… displeased with me,” I admit. My throat feels tight around the words. “Tonight.”

  “What’d you do?” He sounds genuinely curious, not fearful. It’s baffling.

  “I refused to drink,” I say.

  He whistles low. “That’s a new one.”

  “It’s not new,” I argue, stung. “I simply don’t see why we must… indulge so often. It’s wasteful.”

  “Wasteful.” Cormac’s eyebrows climb. “That’s what you call it? Around here we call it ‘horrific,’ but to each their own.”

  “They sent for one of the villagers,” I say. I feel nauseous just remembering it. The tight-lipped girl, the way her hands shook despite how carefully she held them still. The way she kept her eyes fixed on the floor so she didn’t have to look at us. “She couldn’t have been more than sixteen.”

  “That’s older than some,” Cormac mutters.

  I swallow. “Father said it was a test. A show of loyalty. He said I’ve been… soft recently.”

  “Have you?” Cormac asks.

  I want to say no. I want to say I am exactly what I’m supposed to be: a good son, a good Lord to be, a good monster. That I drink when I am told to drink, and punish when I am told to punish, and never think past the next command.

  “Yes,” I hear myself say instead. Quiet. Honest. “Apparently.”

  Cormac studies me for a few long heartbeats. His gaze is unnerving. Human eyes shouldn’t feel like they see through you the way ours do. “But you didn’t drink,” he says.

  “No.”

  “Good,” he says simply.

  The word throws me. It lands somewhere I don’t have a name for. “Good?” I repeat. “It was… disobedient.”

  “Good,” he says again, more firmly. “And if he hits you for it, he’s a bastard.”

  “He doesn’t hit me,” I say automatically. “He’s not…” I trail off, realizing halfway through that I don’t actually know how I meant to finish that sentence. Not cruel? He is. Not monstrous? He is that too. He just prefers other methods.

  “He doesn’t have to,” Cormac says softly. “You look like you’re doing all his work for him in here.” He taps the side of his own head.

  I have never had a human speak to me like this. I’ve barely had a vampire speak to me like this. The Council is made of mirrors angled toward each other; everyone sees only themselves, reflected and distorted. No one looks at me and says: you.

  I feel… seen. It is awful.

  “What business is it of yours what I do?” I snap, dredging up irritation like a shield.

  Cormac shrugs again. “None. Just hard to sleep when someone’s down there having a crisis over their family drama.”

  I glare at him. He does not immediately burst into flames or beg forgiveness, which is deeply inconvenient. “If you dislike my presence,” I say frostily, “you could relocate. There are other jobs.”

  “If you dislike my commentary, you could stay upstairs with the other big, sharp lads and choke on silk,” he says. “This is where the horses are. I stay with the horses.”

  “It’s my stable,” I say weakly.

  “Sure,” Cormac says. “And these are your horses. And that hay’s your hay, and that blanket up here’s your blanket—” he smacks it with the back of his hand; dust puffs up around him “—and technically, this is your shirt and your boots and your skin as well. Doesn’t mean you get to tell me what I’m allowed to think while I’m using ’em.”

  “Your logic is appalling,” I tell him. My mouth is trying very hard not to curl into a smile. I am not used to my mouth doing anything I haven’t ordered it to do.

  “Been called worse.” He yawns. “Look, m’lord, if you want to weep to your horse, go ahead. Just… maybe save the self-pity. It’s a bit much when some of us are counting how many meals we can skip this week without falling over in the yard.”

  Self-pity.

  That’s not fair, I want to say. It’s not self-pity if I genuinely am miserable, if I’m trapped, if I never asked to be this—

  Except I am standing here in boots worth more than his yearly pay, wearing a wool coat lined with silk, complaining to an animal while he sleeps in my hay and wonders if he can afford to be hungry.

  I have no idea how many meals I’ve eaten this week. There’s always food. I just don’t like any of it.

  “I didn’t…” I start, then stop. The apology stumbles on my tongue, unfamiliar and awkward. “I’m not… used to thinking of it that way.”

  He tilts his head, curiosity softening the sarcasm. “Then think of it that way now.”

  It’s as simple, for him, as turning his head. For me it feels like someone has unhooked a bone from my spine and asked me to stand up straight anyway. “You’re very bold for a stable boy,” I say finally.

  “Bold for someone who sleeps in a barn, you mean,” he says. “If you’re going to use our titles, I’ll use yours. You’re very dramatic for a lord.”

  I close my eyes for a second and silently ask Sable for patience. She snorts, which might mean ‘you deserve this.’

  When I open my eyes again, he’s still watching me, head pillowed on his folded arms. His hair is a mess of curls spilling over his forehead, catching the lantern light—copper, gold, a little bit of rust. The sight tugs at something low in my chest. Something I don’t have a name for.

  I stare too long. He notices. “What?” he asks. “You look like you swallowed a bug.”

  “Nothing,” I say quickly, tearing my gaze away. My cheeks feel hot again.

  It’s not… attraction. It can’t be. He’s a man. I’m not— I’m not. I can’t be. If I were, I would know. And if I was, my father would—

  No. Absolutely not. That’s not what this is.

  This is… curiosity. Irritation. Mild admiration for his stubborn refusal to be properly afraid of me. That’s all. A strange fascination with the way his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks when he blinks. The way his mouth curls around his words, quick and sharp and amused.

  Nothing else.

  I press my palm against Sable’s neck until she flicks an ear in protest and I’m forced to ease up.

  “Go back to sleep,” I tell Cormac stiffly. “I’ll… keep my crises quieter.”

  “Appreciate it,” he says, already turning back into his nest. “Night, m’lord.”

  “Good night,” I say, then immediately dislike the very human domesticity of the words. I’m a vampire, not some farmer’s son borrowing his father’s coat.

  I blow out the lantern and stand in the darkness with Sable, listening. I can hear Cormac rearranging himself, the soft grunt as he settles, the creak of the old rafters under his weight. After a while his breathing evens out.

  My own chest moves in sympathy. In. Out. Pointless, habitual. Watching him sleep makes something hollow open up in me—a space where something should be and isn’t. A childhood, perhaps. A life not mortgaged to an eternal hunger.

  I don’t like it.

  I leave the stable, coat pulled tight, cold air biting at my face. On the walk back to the manor I rehearse explanations. If my father asks where I’ve been, I’ll say I was checking the grounds. If the Council inquires, I’ll say I was inspecting the stock.

  I will not mention the stable boy.

  Stolen story; please report.

  I will not think about the stable boy.

  I spend the rest of the night trying very hard to do exactly that.

  I fail.

  Days pass. Weeks. Winter sharpens its teeth. The frost crawls up the windows of the castle and coats the world in brittle white. Humans track mud and slush into the entry hall; the servants are scolded for it. Fires are lit in every grate, sparkling off crystal and silver and the red depths of wine and blood in their decanters.

  The Council convenes more often as the nights lengthen. They like long nights. More time to talk. More time to feed.

  I attend, because I must. I sit in my appointed seat, back straight, eyes lowered just enough to be respectful but not enough to be cowed. I listen to them argue about territory and tithes and which family has been shirking its obligations. I nod at the right moments. I let my father’s hand clamp on my shoulder like a vise when I say something he approves of. I endure his fingers digging tighter when I say something he doesn’t.

  I drink when I am required to, and only then. I choose the ones who are already half-drunk, who won’t remember clearly. The ones whose eyes are defiant, so I can pretend they have a choice.

  I hate every moment of it.

  And every night, when I can, I go to the stables.

  Sometimes Cormac is already there in the loft when I arrive, pretending to be asleep and failing, because he snores when he actually is. Sometimes he’s still up, finishing some small chore by lantern light, mending a halter or checking hooves, his hands moving deftly despite the cold.

  The first time I see him standing on the ground beside Sable, one hand on her flank, my chest tightens in something like panic.

  “Horses are still animals, you know,” I say, stepping into the doorway. “They spook easily.”

  He glances up at me, then back at Sable, unconcerned. “She’s not spooked.”

  “She might be.”

  “She isn’t,” he says, and pats her side. “If she was, I’d know. Worry about your own nerves.”

  My nerves are fine. My nerves are perfectly— they are not fine. They fizz and snap every time he looks at me, like raw wire. “What are you doing to her?” I ask.

  “Checking her legs,” he says. “You may not have noticed, what with being busy and important and all, but she’s been favoring her back left. Could be a stone, could be nothing. Looked like she might’ve pulled something last time she was out.”

  I move closer despite myself. Sable rolls an eye at me but stays calm, head dipping in a lazy sort of greeting. “How do you know that?” I ask.

  “Because I watch,” he says, as if it’s that simple. “That’s the job. Know your horses. Know how they move, how they breathe, what’s normal and what’s wrong.”

  I crouch slightly, peering at Sable’s leg. The lantern throws a pale circle over the straw, over the strong line of tendon and bone. I don’t see anything obvious.

  Cormac tugs gently at her fetlock, lifting her hoof. She complies with a huff. He turns it in his hand, thumb running around the rim, checking for stones wedged in the frog.

  His hands are rough, nicked and callused. There’s a small cut along one knuckle, dark with dried blood. It’s nothing, really. A tiny, stupid injury. One he probably got without thinking, and will forget in a day.

  My gaze snags on it anyway.

  The smell is faint but there. Fresh. Copper-sweet.

  It should make my throat tighten with hunger. I should feel the old, dull ache in my gums, the itch in my tongue. I should feel my pulse—imaginary as it is—speed up in my ears. That’s what it does, every time, when I see blood. That’s what it’s supposed to do.

  Instead my stomach turns.

  Cormac notices my silence and glances up. Our eyes catch and hold. For a second the world shrinks to the circle of lantern light, the dark gleam of Sable’s coat, the small line of red on his skin.

  “You all right there, m’lord?” he asks, brow furrowing.

  “I’m fine,” I say, too fast. I tear my gaze away from his hand, from the cut, from the idea of putting my mouth there and—

  No.

  Absolutely not.

  “What happened to your knuckle?” I ask instead.

  He looks at it like he’d forgotten it was there. “Oh. That. Caught it on a nail in the east stall. Horse twitched when I wasn’t ready. My fault.”

  My father would call that negligence. He would say a wounded animal should be punished until it learns not to hurt itself. He would say Cormac was careless, that it is better to lose a hand than lose control.

  I hear my father’s voice in the back of my head, cutting and precise. I shove it away.

  “Have you cleaned it?” I ask.

  He raises an eyebrow. “What are you, my nurse?”

  “Have you?” I insist.

  “Washed it in the trough,” he says. “Which I’m sure isn’t up to noble standards, but I’ll survive.”

  The image flashes through my mind: his hand under the cold pump water, the shock of it up his arm, the sting of it in the cut. I have been burned badly enough times that the idea of any pain, no matter how small, sticks. “There’s a proper kit in the infirmary,” I say. “Bandages. Spirits. Ointment.”

  “Can’t exactly walk into the castle and ask for it,” he says wryly. “ ‘Hello, my Lord, I seem to have bled a bit on your livestock, may I borrow a poultice?’ I don’t think your father would be charmed.”

  “He wouldn’t,” I agree.

  “Then there’s your answer,” he says, and goes back to inspecting Sable’s hoof as if that settles everything.

  “I’ll bring some,” I hear myself say.

  He glances up again, surprise flickering there. “You?”

  I scowl. “Yes, me. Who else? The horses are fond of you. It would be inconvenient if you died of an infected scratch.”

  “Right.” His mouth curls. “Can’t have that. I’m a vital resource.”

  “And irritating,” I add.

  “Two for one.” He grins.

  The grin does something to my chest. It feels like someone has reached in and turned something over, exposing the softer underside of it to the cold air.

  I straighten abruptly. “Hold still,” I order Sable, though she hasn’t moved, and turn on my heel. The stable door bangs softly behind me as I leave.

  On the short walk to the manor I berate myself.

  This is foolish. He is human. You aren’t meant to care if they get sick. You aren’t meant to care if they die. That’s the entire point: they are temporary. Replaceable. We are not.

  But the memory of his hand won’t leave me alone. The little crescent of dried red. The nonchalance when he said I’ll survive, as if he wasn’t entirely certain.

  By the time I’ve slipped into the infirmary and pilfered a small bottle of spirits and some bandages, my heart—figuratively speaking—is a tangle of sharp, bright threads.

  When I return, Cormac is back in the loft, Sable contentedly chewing her hay. I climb the narrow ladder before I can think better of it.

  He watches me with open curiosity as my head clears the floorboards. “This is a first,” he says. “Didn’t think your kind liked heights unless it came with a balcony.”

  “Hold out your hand,” I say, ignoring that.

  “Buy me dinner first,” he says, but he obeys, palm out, fingers twitching.

  The flirting makes my brain stutter. He doesn’t mean it. Humans make jokes. Banter. They say outrageous things and don’t mean a word. That’s all this is.

  Still, my fingers tremble a little as I pour a splash of spirits onto a scrap of cloth. “This will sting,” I warn.

  “Done worse in my time, m’lord,” he says. “Get on with it.”

  I press the cloth to his knuckle.

  He hisses between his teeth but doesn’t pull away. The old boards creak softly under our combined weight. We’re close enough that I can see the tiny pale scar under his left eye, the uneven freckle at the corner of his mouth. Close enough that if I leaned in, just a little, I could—

  No.

  The idea rises up, hot and startling and terrifying. It feels like standing on a cliff’s edge and suddenly understanding, in one sickening lurch, that you want to jump.

  Kissing a man is… wrong. It’s unnatural. It’s disgusting. That’s what my father says. That’s what the priest said in the old church in the village, the one we used to haunt just for the thrill of sitting in the back pew and listening to someone describe us as devils. Men with men, he said once, are worse than beasts. Men who want such things should be cut out of the world like rot from an apple.

  I remember the twist of fear in my father’s face when he’d said it. Not at the idea of damnation—we don’t believe in that—but at the idea that anyone might suspect.

  Men like that aren’t fit to lead, he warned me afterward, hard fingers digging into my shoulder. They’re weak. Sick. Twisted. Remember that, Preston.

  I took the lesson into my bones.

  Now, with Cormac’s warm hand in mine and his breath ghosting against my cheek, those bones feel softer than they should.

  He watches my face as I wrap the bandage around his knuckle. His eyes are very clear up close. Grey, with the faintest ring of green near the pupil.

  “You’re making that face again,” he says softly.

  “What face,” I say, far too quickly.

  “You get a faraway look. Like you’ve left the building, but your body’s still standing here.” He says.

  He’s closer than I thought. Close enough that I can see the stubble on his jaw, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes from squinting into the sun.

  “I don’t—” I start, but the words tangle. I tie the bandage off with a small, sharp tug. “There. Try not to injure yourself on nails again. They’re not worth the trouble.”

  “Noted,” he says. He flexes his hand, testing the wrap. “You’re not half bad at this. Bit out of practice?”

  “I’m not in practice at all,” I say. “The staff tend to the staff. We tend to…” I trail off.

  “Each other?” he supplies.

  “Ourselves,” I correct. “If we’re injured, we heal. Mostly.”

  “Must be nice,” he says. There’s no envy in it, just weary observation.

  I sit back on my heels, suddenly aware of how close we are in this cramped little nest. The hay rustles under my boots. I’m so used to being the one people shrink from that the idea of being the one who wants to shrink away feels wrong.

  I should stand. I should go.

  “Why are you here?” I ask instead. “At this estate. You could find work in town. A room. A life without—” Us, I almost say. “Without vampires breathing down your neck.”

  He huffs a quiet laugh. “You think there’s anywhere in this county not under one of you? You own half the farms and all the good pasture. I picked this place ’cause the horses are treated better than most. And because…” He hesitates.

  “Because?” I prompt.

  “Because you don’t drain us dry,” he says. His eyes flick to mine. “Them up on the hill, I mean. Your lot.”

  “There are laws,” I say.

  “There are laws against stealing bread,” he counters. “Doesn’t stop a man if he’s hungry enough.”

  I don’t quite know what to say to that.

  He sighs and looks away, out the little window over the yard. Snow is drifting down in lazy flakes, dissolving against the dark earth. “You asked why I’m here,” he says. “Truth is, I was hungry. Your steward came down to the square a while back, asked for hands. Offered decent pay, a place to sleep, and only the occasional chance of being milked like a cow at festival. Better odds than some. So I came.”

  Something in my throat tightens. “How long have you been sleeping up here?” I ask.

  “Couple of years,” he says. “Since I was… what, eighteen? Nineteen?”

  He’s older than I expected. Or maybe he’s simply worn in a way that makes him seem older than he is. “Alone?” I ask.

  He looks back at me sharply, something wary in his gaze. “Yes.”

  “No family?”

  “Dead, mostly,” he says, too brisk. “Rest might as well be. I’m not exactly a letter-writing sort, m’lord. Bit hard when you don’t read.”

  I blink. “You don’t…?”

  He shrugs, mouth twisting. “Few letters on the tavern signs I know. Enough to find the privy and the ale. Not much else.”

  I try to imagine not reading, and fail. Books were my one escape when I grew up. Stories that weren’t mine, lives that weren’t mine. They were the only places my father’s voice couldn’t reach.

  “You could learn,” I say before I can stop myself.

  He lifts his bandaged hand. “With what time? Between mucking out stalls, hauling bales, and pretending I don’t hear my employers smelling me like a butcher at market?” He shakes his head. “No offense, m’lord, but letters aren’t much use when your stomach’s empty.”

  I have no idea what hunger feels like in that way. The hunger I know is different. It is constant and gnawing and cruel, but it is never for bread. “If you want,” I say quietly, surprising myself again, “I could… teach you. To read.”

  He stares at me.

  Then he laughs.

  It’s a quick, bright sound, startled out of him. He claps his bandaged hand over his mouth a second too late. “Oh, hell,” he says through his fingers. “Sorry. Just… that’s— That’s funny.”

  “I don’t see what’s so amusing,” I say, stung.

  “Well, it’s just—” He gestures between us. “You. Me. Stables. Lessons. Seems like a dream someone would have after too much cheap wine.”

  “I’m entirely real,” I snap. “Unfortunately.”

  His smile softens. “I know that. You bleed, same as anyone. Just seems… I don’t know. Kind. And no offense, m’lord, but ‘kind’ isn’t the first word that comes to mind with your lot.”

  Someone else might have said it with malice. He says it with bare honesty.

  “I am not my ‘lot,’” I say, chin lifting.

  “Good,” he says. “Then yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, you can teach me,” he says. “If you’re serious.”

  It takes me a moment to catch up. My mind had mostly offered the idea as a way to see that brief, startled look in his eyes, the crack in his usual easy sarcasm. I hadn’t thought past that.

  “I’m serious,” I say. “I don’t… offer things lightly.”

  “Then I’ll take it,” he says. “I’ve slept in worse places than a loft and worked for worse bastards than your father. Might as well get letters out of the bargain.”

  He holds out his hand. We shake on it.

  His palm is rough and warm and entirely too large in mine. The contact is brief, but it leaves sparks behind. Not literal ones; that would be easier to explain. These are worse. Invisible and insistent, crackling along the nerves of my arm, up into my chest.

  If I weren’t what I am, my heart would be pounding.

  As it is, the silence between us stretches, suddenly fragile. I let go too quickly, fingers fumbling.

  “Right,” I say. “We’ll… need a book. Something simple. I’ll bring one tomorrow.”

  “Looking forward to it,” he says, and to my horror, I believe him.

  The next evening, I steal a primer from the library.

  It feels absurd, creeping along the rows of shelves, avoiding the bored eyes of the older vampires lounging nearby, as if I am a child again, sneaking sweets from the kitchen. My father would be furious if he knew I was using my time on such trivialities, instead of reading the treatises on governance he keeps pressing on me.

  If he knew who the primer was for, he would do more than be furious.

  I tuck the thin, worn book under my coat and leave without being questioned. No one stops me. No one ever stops me. Being the son of a lord has its privileges.

  At the stables, Cormac is already in the loft. He’s sitting with his back against the wall, knees drawn up, hands dangling over them. He looks up when I climb through the hatch and grins. “You came,” he says.

  “Of course I came,” I say irritably. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Didn’t think you were lying,” he says. “Just didn’t quite believe a man with your boots would bother trudging all the way down here for my benefit.”

  I glance at my boots. I hadn’t really thought about them before; they’re simply what I wear. Now they feel gaudy in the straw. “I didn’t come for your benefit,” I say, which is only partly a lie. “I came for mine. You’ll be less insufferable once you can read.”

  “Ah,” he says. “Well, then. Purely selfish. That’s all right. Most kindness is.”

  I sit opposite him and pull the book out from under my coat. His eyes widen. “God’s bones,” he mutters. “That’s… it’s small.”

  “What did you expect?” I ask. “A holy text?”

  “Thought letters came in bigger parcels,” he says, scratching his cheek. “You know. Like stories. Bibles. Those things they thump in front of us on Sundays.”

  I can’t help it. I smile. A small, reluctant, traitorous smile. “This is where stories begin,” I say, handing him the book. “The letters are only marks on a page. It’s what you do with them that matters.”

  He takes it as if it might break, fingers careful on the worn leather cover.

  “Go on,” I say. “Open it.”

  He does. The pages whisper against each other, releasing the smell of old ink and dust.

  I lean closer, pointing. “This is A,” I say. “Ah. Or ay, depending on where it is. We’ll start with ‘ah.’”

  He frowns at the shape. “Looks like a little man with his legs spread.”

  “That’s… one way to see it,” I say, biting down on a laugh.

  We work through the alphabet slowly. He learns quickly, brow furrowed, mouth moving silently as he traces each letter with his fingertip. His tongue pokes out slightly at the corner of his mouth when he’s concentrating; I have to look away more than once.

  At one point, our heads tilt toward the page at the same time and nearly bump. The almost-contact sends a jolt through me like static. I pull back sharply, breath catching.

  “You all right there, m’lord?” he asks quietly.

  “I’m fine,” I say, too stiff. “Focus.”

  He does. Mostly. I try.

  It becomes a rhythm.

  Nights at the Council, where I learn how to be cruel in the correct way. Evenings in the stables, where I stumble through a different kind of teaching and learn how not to be.

  Cormac is infuriating. He refuses to be awed by my titles. He refuses to cower properly. He speaks his mind even when it is dangerous. He laughs at me. He makes me laugh, in spite of myself.

  He also listens.

  When I complain about my father, about expectations, about the Council’s endless demands, he doesn’t tell me to be grateful. He doesn’t praise my duty. He doesn’t say what countless vampires have said: This is the way of things. There is nothing else.

  He says: That sounds awful. Or: Why do you let him speak to you like that? Or even, once: Have you tried telling him to fuck off?

  The idea of telling my father to fuck off is so absurd that I almost choke on my own spit. But the image lodges in my mind, bright and sharp and tempting.

  “You can’t understand,” I tell Cormac one night, when the weight of it all presses too hard on my ribs. “You can’t know what it’s like.”

  “Probably not,” he admits. “Don’t know what it’s like to be immortal, or rich, or have everyone do what I say. But I know what it’s like to have someone bigger than you tell you what you’re allowed to be. Not the same, but not nothing, either.”

  The words lie between us, surprisingly gentle.

  I look at him. At the freckles crossing his nose. At the scar under his eye. At the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.

  A thought comes, unwelcome and unstoppable:

  I want to kiss him.

  It is not the first time the thought has come. It is merely the first time I’ve let myself complete it, instead of cutting it off halfway and stuffing it into the dark corner where I keep all the parts of myself my father would rather not see.

  I want to kiss him.

  I want to go the other way. I want to lean in, instead of always leaning back. I want to know what his mouth tastes like when he laughs against mine.

  The thought makes me feel sick.

  “You’ve gone quiet,” Cormac says softly.

  I swallow. My tongue feels thick. “This is… nothing,” I say. “We’re wasting time. You should be sleeping. I should— I should go.”

  He frowns. “We haven’t finished the next page—”

  “I said I should go,” I snap.

  He flinches. Only slightly, but enough for me to see it. Enough to hate myself immediately. “Right,” he says. His voice is flat now, all the warmth pulled out of it. “As you like, m’lord.”

  The title hits different on his tongue like that. It’s not mocking anymore. It’s distance.

  I stand too quickly. Hay shifts underfoot; the loft creaks. My hands feel wrong at the ends of my arms. “This—” I gesture vaguely at the book, at the two of us, at the too-small space between. “This was… an indulgence. It can’t continue.”

  He watches me carefully. “Why not?”

  “Because it can’t,” I say, angry now, but mostly at myself. “We’re not… It’s not…”

  “Proper?” he suggests. There’s a tired amusement in his voice.

  “Yes,” I say, grabbing the word like a rope. “Proper. Lords don’t— I don’t have time for this. For you. I have responsibilities. I can’t spend my nights playing tutor to a stable boy who refuses to be appropriately grateful.”

  He flinches again. This time there’s no mistaking it. “I see,” he says softly.

  I should apologize. I should take it back. I should explain that what I really mean is I cannot bear how much I like you, and I don’t know what to do with that, and it terrifies me, and it feels safer to shove you away than risk anyone seeing what you make me feel.

  Instead I hear my father’s voice in my head, sneering: Men like that aren’t fit to lead.

  I straighten my shoulders. “This ends tonight,” I say. “No more lessons. No more talk.”

  He stares at me for a very long time. The book sits between us, open to a half-finished page. His hand rests on it, fingers curled around the edge.

  “That so,” he says quietly.

  “Yes.”

  He nods once. “Understood, my lord.”

  The title is a wall now. Tall and cold and absolute.

  I turn and leave. Sable snorts at me as I pass. I can feel her eyes on my back, accusatory. I ignore her.

  Outside, the air is razor-sharp, full of stars. The cold doesn’t touch me. I walk back to the castle feeling hollow.

  This is better, I tell myself. This is safer. He’s human. He’ll leave in a few years, one way or another. I won’t have to watch him age. I won’t have to feel this strange, stupid, wrong longing.

  I am a Beckeronte. I am to be a Lord. I am my father’s son.

  I spend the rest of the night in the Council chamber, listening to a debate about raising the tithe. The words slide past me like water.

  When it comes time to feed, my father shoves a young man toward me. He’s about Cormac’s age. Dark-haired. His hands shake. “Drink,” my father says. “Show them you’re with us.”

  I look at the boy’s neck. I see Cormac’s bandaged knuckle instead. I see his careful hands on Sable’s flank. I hear his laugh, bright in the loft.

  My throat closes. “No,” I say hoarsely.

  The room goes very still.

  My father’s hand lands on the back of my neck, fingers digging in, hard enough to bruise. “Preston,” he says, in the tone that means I’ve gone too far. “You will.”

  “I won’t,” I say. My voice is shaking. “I can’t.”

  The boy looks at me with wide, terrified eyes. I step back. One step, two, away from his smell, away from my father’s fingers.

  “I’m not hungry,” I say. It’s a weak lie, but it’s all I have. “If I drink when I’m not hungry, I’ll lose control. You’ve said that yourself.”

  My father’s jaw tightens. He hates when I use his words against him. “Get out,” he says finally, low and contained and furious. “If you must sulk, do it elsewhere.”

  I leave. Not because he told me to. Because I want to. Because if I stay, I might break. My feet take me to the stables without my permission.

  The night is silent. The air is thick with impending snow.

  The horses shift in their stalls when I enter, restless. Sable lifts her head and nickers softly. My gaze goes to the loft, to the shadowed edge where Cormac’s head should appear.

  Nothing.

  “Cormac?” I call, before I can stop myself.

  No answer.

  I climb the ladder.

  The loft is empty.

  The little hollow in the hay is flattened. The blanket is gone. The boots are gone. The shirt on the nail is gone. The only thing left is the primer, lying face down where we left it.

  My stomach drops. He’s gone.

  I pick up the book. My hands are very steady. Too steady.

  On the back of the front cover, in clumsy, shaky letters, someone has written: Thank you.

  The Y trails down where the ink blotched. It’s barely legible, but I can read it just fine. I sit down hard in the hay. Sable snorts below, hooves shuffling. “He left,” I tell her, in case saying it aloud will make it less real. “He’s gone.”

  Of course he is. Why would he stay? Why would anyone stay where they are treated like an inconvenience at best, a food source at worst? I gave him one decent thing and then snatched it back the moment I became afraid.

  I did exactly what my father would have wanted. The realization makes me feel sick. I turn the book over and over in my hands. My wrists ache with the effort it takes not to cry.

  This is ridiculous. He was a stable boy. A human. One of dozen in the castle. Men like me aren’t supposed to mourn when the servants leave. There will be another with red hair and rough hands and clever eyes soon enough.

  Except there won’t be. There will be other stable boys. Other humans. Other hands and mouths and eyes. But not his.

  Something inside me shifts.

  I imagine him walking away from the castle at dawn, pack slung over one shoulder, curls hidden under a cap. I imagine him stepping onto the road that leads away from us. From my father. From me.

  Away from the hunger and fear. He’ll be cold. He’ll be hungry. But he’ll be free.

  I hope, fiercely and selfishly, that he finds somewhere he can sleep in a bed instead of a loft. That he finds someone who will teach him the rest of the letters. That he laughs as easily with them as he did with me.

  The thought hurts. I cradle it anyway.

  “You were right,” I say to the empty loft, to the ghost of his presence. “I am self-pitying. I am dramatic. And I am… weak.” Not the way my father means. In the better way. The kinder way. “Or maybe I’m just… wrong.”

  I sit there until the sky begins to pale and the first early servants stir in the yard. Then I tuck the primer under my coat and climb down.

  I don’t know what I’ll do, exactly. I don’t know how to be anything except what my father made me. But I know, with sudden clarity, that I don’t want to become the man he is.

  I know that when I think of drinking from someone now, I see a bandaged knuckle and a clumsy thank you written with shaking hands.

  I know that I never want to put my mouth on anyone’s skin without their consent. That the idea of taking from someone who has no choice disgusts me more than any sermon ever could.

  I know that I wanted to kiss a man in a hayloft, and that he left before I could ruin him with that want.

  I know that I deserved it. And that he didn’t.

  Sable nudges my shoulder as I pass. I rest my forehead against her neck for a moment, breathing in her warmth. “I’ll do better,” I tell her. “I don’t know how yet. But I will.”

  She sighs, as if skeptical.

  I straighten and head back toward the house, the primer weighty under my coat, the echo of Cormac’s laughter lodged somewhere in my unbeating heart.

  Years from now, when the Council snarls at my refusal to drink, when my father rages at my softness, when others whisper that I am not a proper Lord, I will remember a redheaded stable boy in a loft, bold enough to tell a vampire he was being a rich bitch.

  I will remember the way his rough hand felt in mine.

  And I will think: I would rather be wrong like this than right like them.