"He was in my head," Neal says, something of a protest against the idea that it wasn't intimate. There's a part of him that recognizes psychic invasion isn't exactly intimacy on equal footing, but that matters less.

The blood, cold from the fridge, is starting to warm a little in the air of the cabin. The smell is stronger. Neal lifts a clean hand to touch his neck in the spot where Lestat bit him and healed him and bit him again. "You don't-- The way it felt."