Lover Dearest (Ziam Vampire AU)

Chapter 21

Zayn pulls him down into another kiss, and Liam goes with it. It feels like forever, the time spent in Zayn's bed. The blankets are on the floor by the time they're both out of breath and panting into each other's mouths. The fire stopped burning a while ago when no one attended to it, but Liam still feels warm. Even Zayn's hands are hot to the touch from being all over Liam's body for so long.

Liam falls back against the bed, catching his breath. Zayn props himself up on his elbow, unaware of how wrecked he looks, and how his hair has dried in clumps that stick around his head, making him look younger than he is. Well, he always looks younger than he is, but more so at the moment than usual.

Zayn drags one nail down the front of Liam's chest, and his shirt rips open easily, slicing cleanly down the middle. "Do you want to know how I got this way?" he asks. "You said you don't know everything about me. Do you want to?"

Zayn's nails are now at his stomach, scratching lightly at the thin hair there. Liam swallows thickly, trying to focus because this is important, but his dick seems to think that other things are a lot more important right now. "Yeah," he says, with a bit of difficulty. "I'd like to know."

"Okay." Zayn nods, pushes Liam's shirt open so his whole chest is bare. He traces invisible patterns on Liam's skin, making it turn red sometimes when he drags his nails against it. "I was like you," he says. "Before it all happened, I was like you."

"You were all human," Liam reminds him. "I already knew that."

Zayn shakes his head. "No, I mean — I was a blood slave, before. I lived in a manor house bigger than this, was loyal to a clan of eight vampires. My family sold me to them. We were poor, and this was during a time when our whole village new about vampires, back before they had to hide the way they do now. My sisters were dying, my parents couldn't afford to put food on the table, and my dad was sick. So my mother went to them, begged them for help, and they asked for something in return."

"Your family just — they gave you away?" Liam demands. "How could they —"

"I volunteered," Zayn says. "They wanted one of my sisters instead, but I said I'd do it. I didn't know what I was signing up for, though. It was different than how you have it. I wasn't treated like a person. One of them, Alasandra, she used to make me crawl on my hands and knees and everything. I hated all of them and they didn't like me much better. They thought humans were scum and they weren't afraid to tell me so."

"But one of them still turned you?"

Zayn shakes his head. "Nah. It was some passing visitor. She stayed for weeks, and put everyone on edge. And before she left, she asked me if I wanted to come with her. I think she thought she was in love with me. She wasn't, not really, but I was attractive, or something. Back then, that's all I was good for. A pretty human that the clan liked to use and show off whenever they had guests. Like a purebred dog."

Liam grabs Zayn's hand, pulling him back from his memories.

"Anyways, I told her I couldn't. If I left, they would have killed my family. So she offered me another option. Said she'd give me a way to take care of my family myself. And I took it. Anything to get out of there without risking someone I cared about getting hurt." He takes a breath. "I never wanted to be a vampire, Liam. I hated them. But when your back's against the wall, you take the only chances you have. So I let her turn me."

"And what'd they do? The clan that you were with."

Zayn shrugs. "Nothing they could do. The one that turned me had a lot of friends, they wouldn't risk hurting someone she turned. And we don't kill our own kind often, vampires. It's an unspoken rule, and it's too damn hard to actually do it."