"Andy? Love, I'm leaving."

The Prophet only gave a distracted hum in response.

Ashley sighed and crossed through the library to wrap his arms around his mate's waist, burying his face between sharp shoulderblades. "Are you sure you'll be okay?"

Andy pulled from his thought abruptly. "Ashley, I'm fine. It's just a few days."

The sigh was speaking. "We haven't been apart more than a night or two since before we were mated."

"Mhmm." Andy leaned down over the book he was thumbing through, fingertips tracing over unrecognizable lettering.

"That was three years ago."

"Yeah yeah. Fly safe." The younger man waved nonchalantly over his shoulder.

"I'll be gone a week, maybe a bit longer."

"Yeah, love you."

Ashley pressed a kiss to his mate's temple and sighed. "Love you too, baby." He smiled uneasily as he stepped to the balcony. Something about leaving just didn't feel right.

Andy had been lost in his research for a week, already. When he wasn't buried to his nose in books, he was sleeping. The vision plaguing him this time didn't seem to care if the Prophet was asleep or not. And something about an entire fleet of falling angels had Andy understandably spooked. Scared shitless, more like.

Even more disconcerting was that they hadn't had sex in almost two weeks. Andy may have been able to go without before, but being mated to a vampire meant certain physiological necessities, sex being paramount. It was necessary for the strengthening and maintaining of their blood bond.

But Ashley knew how his mate's mind worked. Once something had a hold of the Prophet, he'd work until he either dropped from exhaustion or found his answer. He'd already dropped about three times. Ashley just hoped his beloved found the answer, soon.

Ashley sighed and stepped to the open edge of the balcony, unfurling his wings. He needed to go. If he didn't gather enough kills on this hunting trip, he wouldn't have enough blood for the winter. It had set on early, this year, with a light snowstorm at the end of October. A lot of animals had died, and even more had gone into early hibernation. If the vampire wanted to survive a three week snow-in, he'd have to fly south and hope the bear population hadn't holed up down there, yet.

It was a few hours later when Andy finally resurfaced from his research. Or rather, his cock forced him to resurface. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but he sure as hell was annoyed by it. Just when he'd really start to get somewhere with his research, his mind trailed to Ashley and his cock stood at full attention. And it was becoming more and more frequent.

And Ashley wasn't here to suck him off.

Apparently, his cock didn't even need NAKED mental images of Ashley. Fully clothed and grinning up at him with those gorgeous caramel eyes was enough. It probably didn't help that Andy couldn't remember the last time they'd fucked. Usually, when Andy got too buried in research, the vampire would give him space, only checking in to make sure he ate every couple of hours, and force him to lay down and go to sleep every other night. Occasionally, Ashley's urges would start up. Then the Deviant would prop himself into the comfortable, gigantic armchair in the library the couple had christened the "sex chair," and start pleasuring himself and moaning Andy's name until the human came back around. Then Andy would climb in his mate's lap for a quick, hot, dirty fuck, clean himself up in the bathroom, and return to his research while Ashley curled up on the couch to nap.

But there was no Ashley to fuck him stupid. So Andy gave a resigned sigh, flopped down into the sex chair, and set to relieving the ache between his hips. He didn't even really think much, just stroked it out until he came, wiped himself off with a tissue, and tucked himself back in. This research was too important for him to be distracted by how bad he needed Ashley and how very far away Ashley was.

He picked up the fourth volume of Kissington's Demonology and set in to read. Latin gave him headaches, even with his Prophet's Eye to translate. The dictation was unfamiliar. Thus far all he'd manage to glean was some garbled text about following The Light, and a cryptic comment or six about the misconstrued notions regarding fallen angels and Nephilim. Andy damn well knew the difference, thank you. He'd written a whole damn album about the former. He'd once fallen in love with the latter.

With a frustrated sigh, Andy caved and decided he needed help. He picked up his phone and dialed a number he swore he'd never call again.