Enthralled - 3. Chapter 3

Andy sat at the small, cluttered desk in Lucas’s bedroom, a heavy algebra textbook open in front of him. He was attempting, with every ounce of his three-hundred-year-old willpower, to maintain the stern, authoritative posture of an aristocratic tutor. He had spent centuries cultivating an aura of terrifying intimidation. He had made grown men—kings, generals, and witch hunters—weep with a single, calculated glare. He had commanded rooms simply by standing in the doorway and allowing the temperature to drop.

Lucas, however, was currently sprawled across his unmade bed, his chin propped on his hands, watching Andy with the focused, unblinking intensity of a cat observing a particularly interesting bird. He was wearing a faded band t-shirt that hung loosely off one shoulder, and he was chewing on the plastic cap of a blue pen. He did not look intimidated. He looked hungry, and entirely too pleased with himself.

"The quadratic formula," Andy began, tapping the page with a perfectly manicured, icy pale finger. "It is not a suggestion, Lucas. It is a fundamental law of mathematics. It is simple. You just substitute the values of a, b, and c into the equation to find the roots. I knew men in the seventeenth century who solved far more complex theorems using nothing but a quill and the light of a single tallow candle."

"You know," Lucas interrupted, his voice dreamy and completely ignoring the historical reprimand, "when you talk about math, your eyes get all intense. They go super dark. It's really hot."

Andy's finger paused on the textbook. A muscle in his jaw twitched. "I am trying to educate you."

"I am being educated," Lucas countered smoothly, rolling slightly onto his side to get a better angle of Andy's profile. "I'm learning a lot. For instance, I'm learning that I find you incredibly attractive when you're frustrated. Your little fangs peek out just a tiny bit."

"I am not frustrated," Andy lied. His fangs were, indeed, pressing against his lower lip.

"You're gripping the edge of the desk like you want to rip it in half."

"The thought had crossed my mind."

Lucas grinned, rolling onto his back and stretching his arms over his head, a movement that deliberately pulled his shirt up to expose a strip of warm, tanned stomach. "But you won't. Because you need me to pass algebra. You have centuries of aristocratic pride, Andy. You absolutely cannot maintain your dignity as the dark, brooding consort of a Straight-C student. It would ruin your aesthetic."

Andy closed his eyes. He counted to ten in French, then in Latin, then in a dead dialect of Romanian he hadn't spoken since the 1700s. He had survived plagues. He had outlasted empires. He would survive a teenager with a C-minus average and zero impulse control.

"I said I would tutor you," Andy said slowly, opening his eyes and leveling his most lethal glare at the boy. "I did not say I would tolerate your insufferable, relentless attempts to distract me from the curriculum."

"Boink," Lucas said playfully.

Andy's mouth snapped shut.

Lucas sat up, crossing his legs lotus-style on the mattress. He patted the space next to him. "You promised, professor. We established rules. If I study, I get rewarded. I'm studying right now. I'm actively absorbing your mathematical wisdom through osmosis."

"You are staring at my jawline," Andy pointed out, refusing to leave the chair.

"It's a very nice jawline. Very sharp. Very biteable. Has anyone ever told you that you look like a marble statue that came to life just to make my life difficult?"

"If you solve this equation correctly," Andy said, his voice dropping an octave, abandoning the pretense of the stern tutor for something far more ancient and dangerous, "I will consider... accelerating the reward schedule."

Lucas was off the bed and sitting in the desk chair next to Andy in under a second. He snatched the pen, suddenly the most focused, determined student in the history of secondary education.

"Show me the numbers, professor," Lucas said, his grin absolutely feral. "I'm going to solve the hell out of this x."

---

Twenty minutes later, Andy found himself walking down the crowded, linoleum-tiled hallways of the high school, trailing slightly behind a very smug Lucas. The school environment was a concentrated nexus of hormones, anxiety, and rigid social hierarchy—an ecosystem Andy usually exploited with surgical precision to isolate and seduce prey. Today, however, he felt entirely unmoored.

The whispers followed him everywhere. Andy’s enhanced hearing, usually a tool for tracking heartbeats in the dark, was currently torturing him with the inane gossip of three hundred teenagers.

"Is that Andy? Why is he carrying Lucas’s backpack?"

"Is he a goth? I thought Amanda was dating him."

"I think he's a greaser. Like, a 50s greaser. The hair, the leather jacket... it’s very Outsiders."

"He's definitely a goth. Look at the pallor. That's not a natural skin tone. He looks dead."

"What if he's, like, a vampire or something?"

"Don't be dumb, Ashley. Vampires aren't real. He's just a kid with a vibe."

"A very intense vibe."

"His vibe is that he wants to kill everyone in this hallway."

"That's just the goth aesthetic. It’s called resting murder face."

Andy's eye twitched violently.

He had been called many things across three centuries of bloodshed and darkness. Monster. Demon. Fiend. Abomination. The Scourge of the Tsar. But no one, in all his immortal life, had ever referred to him as a "kid with a vibe."

Lucas, who could not hear the whispers but could clearly sense the murderous tension radiating from his boyfriend, dropped back a step and slung an arm casually around Andy's waist.

"You okay, bloodsucker?" Lucas asked cheerfully. "You look like you're about to commit a homicide in front of the trophy case."

"They think I am a goth," Andy hissed, his voice dropping to a subsonic frequency meant only for Lucas.

"You are a goth," Lucas pointed out reasonably, giving Andy's hip a squeeze.

"I am a creature of the night, Lucas. I am an apex predator."

"Same thing," Lucas said. "Look, you wear all black, you're unnaturally pale, you brood in corners, and you hate the sun. You're literally the textbook definition of a goth. Just lean into it. It’s a good look."

Andy stared down at him, genuinely appalled. "I have killed people. With my bare hands."

"Killing people is very goth."

"I have lived for three centuries in the shadows of humanity."

"Extremely goth."

Andy opened his mouth, but the words failed him. He was outmatched. He had no defense against the impenetrable armor of Lucas's teenage logic. Lucas patted his chest soothingly.

"See? You're fitting in perfectly. Just keep smoldering. They eat that stuff up."

Across the cafeteria, seated at a prime table that offered a strategic view of the entire student body, Amanda flipped her blonde ponytail over her shoulder and glared at the doorway. She watched her younger brother stroll into the room, hanging off the brooding, leather-clad new kid like a koala bear.

"He's not even eating it," Amanda muttered to her best friend, Chloe, pointing an accusing finger at Andy. Lucas had just fed Andy a tater tot, and Andy was currently holding it between his fingers with a look of profound, existential confusion.

"Maybe he's just not hungry?" Chloe suggested, sipping her diet soda.

"He's never hungry," Amanda said, her voice tight with vindication. "I've never seen him eat a single thing. He just drinks black coffee and smolders at the wall. That's not normal, Chloe."

"I know! That's what I'm saying!" Chloe agreed eagerly. "He's clearly got some kind of eating disorder or, like, a thyroid issue, and your little brother is totally taking advantage of his vulnerability."

Amanda watched Lucas lean in, completely ignoring the crowded cafeteria, and whisper something directly into Andy's ear. Even from fifty feet away, Amanda could see the pale, statuesque boy flush a deep, startling crimson.

"Look at that," Amanda hissed, leaning across the table. "He's blushing. Lucas is making him blush. My brother—the kid who once tried to convince the entire kindergarten class that the principal was a lizard person and cried when he lost at tetherball—is making a six-foot-tall leather daddy blush in public."

"He's not a leather daddy, Amanda, he's just a—"

"He's a man, Chloe," Amanda interrupted, slamming her hand on the table with the absolute, unshakeable confidence of a teenage girl who believed she understood the universe. "Men are dumb. They are simple creatures. They see a pretty face and a confident attitude and they lose all sense of self-preservation. Andy didn't stand a chance."

Chloe squinted across the room at Andy, who was currently glaring at a jock who had bumped into Lucas's chair. "I don't know, Amanda. He looks like he wants to murder someone."

"That's just his face. He's got a vibe. It's a goth thing."

Amanda watched Lucas drape himself over Andy's broad shoulders. Andy looked incredibly stiff, his eyes darting around the room as if he expected an ambush, but he didn't pull away. He just let Lucas hang off him, his cold hands coming up to tentatively, almost protectively, grip Lucas's waist.

"I should be mad at Andy," Amanda admitted, her voice softening just a fraction. "He was supposed to be my mysterious bad boy. He was going to be my ticket to senior year drama. I had a whole narrative planned out."

"But?"

"But look at him," Amanda said, gesturing vaguely. "He's clearly been through something terrible. He's pale, he's brooding, he's jumpy. He's probably got a tragic backstory. Dead parents, foster care, maybe a stint in juvie. And my brother just... pounced on him. Like a predator."

"You're calling Lucas a predator?" Chloe asked, choking slightly on her soda.

"Have you met Lucas? When he wants something, he is relentless. He's been obsessed with vampires and monsters since he was nine. He has a poster of Bela Lugosi on his wall. He wears a cape for the entire month of October. Andy walked into his room by mistake, and Lucas probably had a full-on orgasm and locked the door behind him."

Chloe winced, covering her face. "That's... really graphic, Amanda."

"It's the truth. Andy didn't stand a chance. My brother wanted a dark, brooding boyfriend, and he got one. I'm not even mad at the goth kid anymore. He's just a victim of Lucas's sheer, unadulterated big D energy."

Amanda stood up, smoothing down the pleats of her cheerleading skirt, her chin raised high.

"I'm going to go talk to him."

"To Andy?"

"To Lucas. I'm going to remind him that if he breaks the fragile goth kid, I'm going to break him."

Amanda marched across the cafeteria, parting the crowd with the effortless, Moses-like confidence of someone who had never once doubted her place at the top of the food chain. She reached the table just as Lucas loudly, and with zero filter, declared to the entire vicinity, "Hey, handsome," and brazenly squeezed Andy's butt.

Andy let out a sharp, breathless hiss, his entire body flinching as his head whipped around, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock, panic, and sheer mortification. He looked like a deer that had just been hit by a Mack truck made of teenage audacity.

See, Amanda thought, feeling a surge of protective pity. Traumatized.

"Amanda!" Lucas chirped, looking up with a blinding, unapologetic grin. "Come to congratulate me on my successful courtship?"

"I've come to warn you," Amanda said, planting her hands firmly on her hips and glaring down at her brother. "If you hurt him, I will end you. He's clearly been through enough without dealing with your particular brand of chaos."

Lucas blinked, genuinely confused. "He's a vampire, Amanda."

"He's a goth kid in a vintage leather jacket, Lucas. He's probably just very sad. You don't need to make it worse by treating him like a piece of meat in the middle of the cafeteria."

Andy looked between the two siblings; his dark, ancient eyes completely unreadable.

"I appreciate the concern," Andy said slowly, his voice a smooth, cultured baritone that always made Amanda's stomach do a weird little flip. "But I can assure you, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I am not—"

"See?" Amanda interrupted, pointing a manicured finger at Andy. "He's trying to be brave. He's deflecting. He's clearly been traumatized by something in his past, and you're overwhelming him."

"I have been traumatized by many things in my past," Andy agreed, a strange, almost hysterical note of admiration creeping into his voice as he looked at Amanda. "But I assure you, your brother is not one of them."

Amanda narrowed her eyes, studying Andy's pale face, and then looked down at Lucas, who was practically vibrating with smug, unearned victory.

"Fine," Amanda said, tossing her hair. "But if he starts crying in the hallway, I'm blaming you. And you're paying for his therapy."

She spun on her heel and walked away, leaving Andy staring after her in absolute, stunned silence.

"She thinks I am... traumatized," Andy said slowly, processing the interaction.

"Yeah, she's totally convinced you're a sad goth kid with a tragic past who needs protecting," Lucas said, stealing another tater tot.

"I am a sad goth kid with a tragic past."

"Exactly. She's got you pegged. She's very perceptive."

Andy turned his head, fixing Lucas with a heavy, centuries-old stare. "She called you a predator."

Lucas's grin was blinding, his chest puffing out slightly. "I am. I'm your predator. You're my prey. It's hot."

Andy sighed, a long, weary sound that carried the weight of eternal life, but there was absolutely no real anger in it. "You are completely insufferable. You have zero filter. You squeezed my... posterior in front of two hundred adolescents."

"You love it."

"Yes," Andy said, his voice dropping to a soft, incredibly honest whisper that made Lucas's breath catch. "God help me, I do."

The day did not improve Andy’s shredded dignity. By the time the final bell rang, echoing shrilly through the locker-lined corridors, Andy felt as though he had run a gauntlet. He was currently standing by Lucas’s locker in the sparsely populated athletic wing, doing his absolute best to look like a brooding, mysterious figure instead of a man who had just spent fifty minutes writing a romantic sonnet for a boy who thought The Fast and the Furious was the pinnacle of modern cinema.

Lucas was late. This was a universal constant. Lucas operated on a plane of existence where time was merely a suggestion.

Andy was about to go looking for him when he heard the footsteps.

They were heavy. Rhythmic. Multiple sets of them, moving in perfect, synchronized unison. Andy’s spine stiffened. The ambient noise of the hallway seemed to drop away. His ancient instincts, honed over three hundred years of surviving the darkest corners of Europe, flared to life. The adrenaline spiked in his cold veins.

The football team was approaching.

There were six of them, led by Marty, the massive, broad-shouldered linebacker Amanda had claimed as her rebound. They were all wearing matching blue-and-gold letterman jackets, and their grins were wide, unified, and unsettlingly sharp.

A pack of high school athletes should not have been a threat to an immortal apex predator. And yet, there was something about the way they moved—a fluid, rolling grace that defied their bulky frames. There was a predatory stillness beneath their swagger. Andy could smell them now. The scent of ozone, wet earth, and something deeply, aggressively animalistic.

They fanned out, forming a loose, tactical semicircle around Andy, effectively trapping him against the metal lockers.

Werewolves, Andy realized, his fangs descending a fraction of an inch to press against his lip.

"Well, well, well," Marty said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that vibrated in Andy's chest. "If it isn't the bloodsucker."

Andy's eyes narrowed into slits of pure, lethal darkness. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Vampire." Marty stepped closer, invading Andy's personal space, his grin widening to reveal teeth that seemed just a little too pointed. "We've been watching you. You and the little dude."

"His name is Lucas," Andy said, his voice dropping to a cold, subsonic register that usually sent humans fleeing in primal terror.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Marty waved a massive, dismissive hand. "We just wanted to let you know—we know exactly what you are. And we know you're in our territory."

Andy went very, very still. His muscles coiled like steel springs. He calculated the distance to Marty's throat, the trajectory needed to snap the neck of the boy to his left, and the speed required to evade the others. He was ready for a war. The ancient blood-feud between their kinds was about to erupt in a high school hallway.

"You're a chew toy," Marty said, his grin turning absolutely feral.

Andy blinked, the combat calculus in his brain grinding to a screeching halt. "I am a what?"

"A chew toy," one of the other players—a tight end with a buzz cut—repeated, nodding earnestly. "You know. Something fun to play with. Something to chase around the yard."

Andy stared at them. The sheer, unadulterated disrespect of the statement was so profound it momentarily short-circuited his rage. "You are werewolves. You are a pack of lycanthropes."

Marty laughed, a booming sound that echoed off the lockers. "Took you long enough to figure it out, bloodsucker. We've known what you were since your first day. The pallor? The cold temperature? The way you literally never eat a single thing in the cafeteria? You're not exactly flying under the radar."

"I am incredibly subtle," Andy said, genuinely offended.

"You have a vanity plate on your car that says V4M-P1R3," the buzz-cut werewolf pointed out. "Subtlety is really not your strong suit, man."

Andy opened his mouth, prepared to defend his vintage Impala, but he had no defense.

Marty clapped Andy on the shoulder, the impact heavy enough to make the vampire stumble slightly against the locker. "Relax, Vampire. Unclench. We're not going to start a turf war. That's so old school. So twentieth century. We've moved past all that Twilight-era drama."

"We're annoyingly ambivalent about your existence," another player added from the back. "It's kind of our whole pack ethos."

Andy stared at the massive linebacker. "You're... ambivalent? About a vampire in your territory?"

"Yeah, man," Marty said, shrugging. "You're fine. You don't hunt the students on our turf, we don't hunt on yours. It's a mutual understanding of non-aggression."

"I don't have turf," Andy said. "I live in a car."

"Your car is your turf," Marty said, nodding sagely. "We respect that boundary. We're not animals. Well, technically we are animals, but we have high standards of conduct."

Andy's eye twitched. "This is, without a doubt, the most surreal conversation I have ever had in three centuries of life."

"You're a vampire who lives in a 1970s land yacht with a vanity plate that announces your supernatural nature to local law enforcement," Marty said. "Your entire existence is surreal, dude."

"That is... not inaccurate."

Lucas chose that exact moment to jog around the corner, his backpack bouncing against his spine. He skidded to a halt, his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum, when he saw the massive wall of letterman jackets surrounding his boyfriend.

"Whoa, hey, what's going on?" Lucas demanded, his voice sharp and protective, stepping directly into the circle of werewolves without a single ounce of fear. "Why are you guys circling Andy like he's about to get jumped for his lunch money?"

"Relax, Moo-Juice," Marty said, his predatory posture instantly vanishing as he reached out and affectionately ruffled Lucas's messy hair. "We were just having a friendly chat with your boyfriend."

"His name is Andy," Lucas said, swatting Marty's hand away and stepping protectively in front of the 300-year-old immortal. "And I've told you, do not call me Moo-Juice."

"The cow head says otherwise," Marty said, his grin widening. "You're our lucky charm now. You're the official pack mascot. It's a permanent, tenured position."

"What the heck are you talking about? Uggh I hate you all," Lucas said, though there was no real venom in his tone.

"No you don't," Marty countered smoothly. "You love us. We're pack now."

Andy's head snapped up, his protective instincts overriding his confusion. "Pack?"

"Relax, Vampire," Marty said, holding up both hands in a placating gesture. "We're not going to turn him. Biting humans is a logistical nightmare and the paperwork with the Council is insane. We know he's your human. You're his... well, let's be honest, you're his bitch."

Andy's jaw dropped. The word hung in the air, offensive and utterly devastating. "I am not—"

"Oh, you definitely are," the tight end agreed enthusiastically. "We've seen you with him. The way you follow him around the cafeteria. The way you carry his backpack. The way he squeezed your ass in public and you just took it. It's adorable, actually. Very domesticated."

"I do not do whatever he says," Andy growled, his fangs fully descended now, his eyes flashing a dangerous crimson.

"We so know you two have had sex," Marty added, his grin absolutely wicked.

Andy went very, very still. The crimson faded from his eyes, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated panic.

"How do you know about that?" Lucas demanded, his face flushing the color of a ripe tomato.

"Werewolf smell, little dude," Marty said, tapping the side of his head. "We can smell a drop of blood from a mile away. And let me tell you, his pheromones are all over you, it is not subtle. You smell like he…” He sniffed Andy. “Yep at least three loads from what I can smell."

Lucas groaned, burying his face in his hands. Andy's expression was a carefully constructed mask of absolute horror.

"Hey, we're not judging," Marty said, laughing. "You're a vampire. He's a human. The Werewolf Council says we're supposed to hate your kind, but honestly? We don't care. Vampires are awesome. You guys have zero game, you can't play with a ball to save your lives, and you're dramatically allergic to sunlight, but you're cool."

"I have plenty of game," Andy said, his voice strained to the breaking point. "I have seduced royalty."

"You're a vampire, man. You're literally undead. You're like a great white shark—you just swim around looking threatening and wait for people to fall into your mouth. That's not game. That's just existing."

"And you're a giant, flea-bitten dog," Andy shot back, his pride wounded. "Do not make me drag you to the vet for neutering."

Marty's grin widened into something triumphant. "Anything for you to avoid playing with balls, Vampirella."

Andy opened his mouth to deliver a scathing, centuries-old curse, and then snapped it shut. His eyes went wide as the insult landed with the devastating precision of a sniper round.

"I... I walked right into that one," Andy admitted, his shoulders slumping.

"You did," Marty said, nodding sympathetically. "It was like watching a real-time car wreck. No airbags. Just total, catastrophic devastation."

Lucas was wheezing now, his face red with uncontrollable laughter. He leaned against the lockers, pointing at Andy. "He got you! He actually got you! A high school linebacker just out-bantered the immortal Lord of the Night!"

"Shut up, Lucas," Andy muttered, though he couldn't hide the faint, reluctant amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. There was no denying it. He had been outplayed.

"So, beer?" Marty asked, clapping Andy on the shoulder again. "We've got a cooler in the locker room. You don't drink it, obviously—you're a vampire, you drink blood, we totally get it—but you can hang out. Keep us company while we strategize for Friday's game."

Andy stared at the massive werewolf. "You want me to... hang out. With a pack of lycanthropes. In a high school locker room."

"Yeah, man. You're dating our mascot. You're part of the extended family now. You're pack-adjacent."

"Pack-adjacent," Andy repeated flatly. "That is not a recognized supernatural classification."

"It's a thing now," Marty said. He reached into the duffel bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out an enormous, furry cow head complete with floppy ears and plush horns. Before Lucas could protest, Marty shoved the mascot head down over Lucas's messy hair.

The cow head swallowed Lucas entirely, leaving only his mouth visible through a gap in the fabric neck.

"Moo-Juice is coming with us," Marty declared, patting the top of the cow head affectionately. "We need lucky, and he's our lucky charm."

"Please, for the love of God," Andy said, looking at the giant bovine head resting on his boyfriend's shoulders, "can you not stick my human in a giant cow suit?"

"Sorry, Vamps, no can do," Marty laughed, turning to lead the pack down the hallway. "Come on, Moo-Juice. The pack awaits."

Lucas turned the massive cow head toward Andy. Through the gap in the fabric, Andy could see the bright, unshakeable confidence in his boyfriend's eyes.

"Come on, Andy," Lucas said, his voice muffled and distorted by the foam padding. "Don't look so sour. I know this new gig is udderly terrifying, but I think I can really milk it."

Andy closed his eyes, pressing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He had survived plague. He had survived the Regency. He was currently debating if he could survive a teenager with a penchant for bovine puns.

"Mooooo-ving on!" Lucas yelled, pumping a fist in the air as he trotted after the werewolves.

Andy let out a long, defeated sigh. His aura of cool, cultivated over three hundred years of darkness, was completely, utterly, and permanently destroyed. He was the pack-adjacent boyfriend of a dweeb in a cow suit.

And as he opened his eyes and followed the pack down the hallway, the terrifying, undeniable truth settled in his dead heart: he wouldn't have traded it for the world.