“Yeah.”
“I help quietly with that.”
Dawn eased back so she could tell if he was serious. His eyes were still dark as night from hunger, but deadly serious. “I thought you didn’t have a job.”
Garret snorted. “Of course I have a job, woman. I’m not lazy. I work online so my odd sleep hours don’t affect it.”
“So you’re good at computers?”
Garret’s grin grew wicked. “I was a hacker for years and got recruited by the government to switch to their side.”
“A Viking Vampire Nerd.”
Garret bellowed out a single laugh and spun her in a circle, dipped her, and then laid a quick nip on her throat. “I had a lot of time to learn technology, and in case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t any Viking wars to fight in at the moment. I had to adjust to the changing times.”
Garret pulled her up easily and spun her in close again.
“So you found me using facial recognition software?”
“I freelanced for social media start-ups when they began running similar programs and caught you randomly one day. I was just running tests on a batch of five hundred faces, and there you were, face one-thirty-two. I panicked. For a moment, when I was scrolling back through to find you again, I thought I’d imagined you, but I hadn’t.”
She could picture him sitting at his computer, frozen, staring at her photo with a shocked expression on his face. “Which picture?” she asked softly.
“One where you were at a bar drinking with two other girls. I don’t remember what they looked like, but all three of you had your shot glasses in the middle like you were making a toast, and you were looking right at the camera with this smile that just…blew me away. You were wearing a shiny pink top, drinking a pink drink, and you had on pink…” Garret waved his fingers around his lips.
“Lipstick?”
“Yeah. You looked like Torunn but looked completely different all at once. You were just…you. The one I’d waited for.” Garret’s voice broke on the last word, and he swallowed hard, trapping her in his intense gaze. “If I had a heart, it would’ve stopped.”
“But you were so smooth every time I came to the coven house. You were so confident and flirty and easy.”
“Yeah, and do you know how fucking hard that was to pull off? When I wasn’t around you, I was thinking about you. Your laugh, your eyes, what your ass would feel like in my hands, what you would feel like all pressed up against my body, what you tasted like. I mean shit, I’ve had my dick in my hand for four months now, just fucking frustrated because I didn’t want to be with anyone else, but I couldn’t be with you.”
“Why not?” she asked too loud, pulling their dance to a halt. “I was right there, waiting for you to give me some sign that it wasn’t just flirting for you.”
“Because what kind of life could I possibly give you? What life, Dawn? One without sunlight, surrounded by supes—”
“Supes, who are my friends—”
“Who put your life in danger. In the human world, you’re safer. It’s just the way it is. If I could’ve stayed away from you, you would’ve met a nice, normal human man who could give you all the babies you want. You could’ve lived a safe life in Winterset, and watched your children and your grandchildren grow up.”
“Why can’t I have that with you?”
“Because one, we can’t have babies, Dawn. I can with other supes, shifters and vamps, but not with humans. We aren’t compatible for procreation.”
“Don’t call it like it’s some scientific thing, Garret. If I need to be a supe to have a family someday, so be it. You can just Turn me.”
Garret reared back like she’d slapped him. “What?”
“It’s legal. You get to Turn one person.”
Garret shook his head hard and loosened his grip on her, stepped back, and ran his hand over his dark hair. “D, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I would never Turn you. I wouldn’t Turn anyone.”
Now she was the one who felt slapped. “Why not?”
“Because you would be this!” He gestured to his body. His face was twisted in disgust. “You would be a vampire. Forever, Dawn, not just for one lifetime, or two. You would last centuries until you finally sickened and went mad, went on a killing spree like all the old ones do. Like my last queen and Asmund. Like I will do someday, and Aric and Shane and Evan, and fuck, Dawn, I would never want to take the sunlight away from you. You’re light and happiness. You’re glitter and I’m matte black, and I don’t want to dip you in tar and ask you to be happy suffocating in shadows for eternity. No. You aren’t made for this. No one is.”
Dawn’s legs buckled, and she sat heavily on the curb right under the streetlamp. “But…I want kids someday.”
“Welcome to the club, D. I’ve wanted a kid for a millennium,” Garret muttered, hands on his hips.
“So what’s the plan with me then?”
“There is no plan! This is why I kept my distance. The only viable option is I stay a vampire, obviously, and you stay human, also obviously.”
“Garret, I’m going to age!”
“Which is a good thing.”
“No, you don’t understand. I will get older with every year, and you will stay the same, looking”—she waved her hand around his angelic physique—“perfect!”
“At the cost of my soul. At the cost of my heartbeat, and all the people I cared about. At the cost of sunlight and fucking steak, D. You know what vampires eat, right?”
“Of course, I do. I’m your feeder.”
Garret made a ticking sound behind his teeth and paced away and then back. “You’re more than my feeder, and you know it.”
Dawn sat there stunned with all of the obstacles that now existed directly between her and Garret. He wasn’t willing to Turn her, and she didn’t want to age while he stayed eternally the same. What life could she give him then? She would get older each year, making less and less sense with a thirty-year-old model. Her face and boobs and body would sag a little more each year, as it should, but he wouldn’t change with her. He would stay firm and fit, and if he stayed with her, he would eventually be in charge of her care instead of undergoing those life phases with her. “Well, I guess I’ll be really fucking awesome at blow jobs when I don’t have any teeth left,” she quipped.
Garret snorted and tried to hide a smile.
“It’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.” But his eyes were doing the laughing for him, and now her anger burned even hotter. Dawn barely resisted the urge to throw her heels at him and stomped off down the street.
The squeak of bats sounded above her, and then he was there in front of her looking all sexy surrounded by purple smoke.
“Furthermore, it’s weird that your clothes stay with you. Aric’s don’t do that. I’ve seen him bare-ass naked after a shift, but here you are, being even more perfect than I realized before.”
“That’s my power,” he said, but the corners of his lips still turned up in an irritating grin, so she held fast to her grudge. “Aric and Asmund got mind control powers, and I get to shift while hiding my dick. Perfection isn’t my gig, D.”
Dawn’s anger dissipated like a Texas rainstorm. To hide her smile, she crossed her arms and looked off toward the barbecue house.
“Stop being angry. It doesn’t suit you, and I didn’t mean to piss you off. If you still want to stick with me after everything, we can…I don’t know…adopt a baby farm animal or something. A puppy maybe.”
“I like potbellied pigs. Spotted ones that wiggle their tails.”
“Of course, you do. We’ll adopt one of those.”
That did sound pretty awesome, but she wasn’t giving up on the dream of having a family someday. Garret felt like hers. He felt imperative to her life. She’d known it from the first day she’d met him that he was going to be big. Dawn could be a patient hunter, and already she was planning on slowly wearing him down. “You’re going to bite me and Turn me some
day,” she said.
Garret shook his head and pulled her in close. “If only it was that easy, D. If I wanted to make you into a monster like me, it would take more than just a bite.”
“What do you mean?”
Garret’s arms tightened around her. “I would have to drain you dry and raise you from the dead. Let’s get off this subject. It’s too heavy for a first date.”
“This isn’t our first date.”
Garret twitched against her. “When was our first one then?”
“I have them written down.” Dawn eased out of his embrace and pulled her pink notebook from her purse, then flipped neatly to the middle and read aloud. “Date number one, Garret bought me tacos after he fed from me. When I asked him if this was a date, his cheeks went red, and he didn’t answer. I didn’t even know vampires could blush. Date number two, Garret asked to walk me home after I fed him, and he talked the whole way about what the sixties were like. I thought he was going to kiss me goodnight on my front porch, but he stuck his hand out and shook mine instead. It still counted. He was smiling a lot. Date number three, Garret picked me up after I called him drunk from the bar so I wouldn’t have to get a ride home from a sweaty man named Creeper Dave. I didn’t make up the name. That’s what his friends called him.” Garret was smiling beside her as they walked, so she continued. “Date number four, Garret called me two hours before dawn this morning and invited me to this pancake place with him. I forgot he couldn’t even eat pancakes until I waited for him to order, and he reminded me blood only. And then he just stared at me with his sexy eyebrow all arched up like he wanted to get his dick good and sucked—” Dawn cut herself off and cleared her throat delicately. “Maybe I shouldn’t read my journal anymore.”
“No, I like it, keep going.”
“Date number five,” she read quieter. “I really, really, really like him. Tonight he asked me to stay after I fed him so we could play chess and talk, and afterward, I fell asleep on his bed. When I woke up, it was midday. He had tucked me in all nice and tight, and he was sleeping on top of the covers beside me. He wasn’t touching me, but it felt like he was. I think I love him.” Heat flooded her cheeks and ears, and she kept her gaze carefully pointed away from him as she tucked her journal back into her purse. “There are some more dates, but maybe I was just reading too much into them.”
“No,” Garret said low. He slid his arm around her shoulders and hugged her against his side, adjusting his long gate to match hers. “I haven’t done this in…well…ever. Not like this. I don’t know much about dating. If you say those were dates, then they were. I guess this discussion needed to happen tonight. It’s not fair that we get deeper into this and you not know where I stand. Where we stand. You felt like mine from the moment I laid eyes on you, and if it felt the same for you, too, then okay. Can I see your phone?”
Confused, Dawn pulled her sparkly pink phone from her purse and handed it over. He poked a few buttons, then hugged her against his chest and held it up. She smiled in shock at their reflection on the screen. He’d turned on the vamp filter and was resting his head against hers, smiling with his mouth closed to hide his fangs. He took the picture, then reviewed it. She was all happy eyes and pink cheeks, and he was perfection that had never existed in Winterset before.
“I thought you didn’t like pictures,” she murmured as she took the offered phone gingerly from his hand.
“It’s a special occasion.” Garret leaned down and sipped her lips gently. When he eased back, he smiled deep enough to show dimples and murmured, “Happy four-month anniversary.”
Chapter Eight
The feeders were waiting on the front porch when Garret and Dawn arrived.
It was late, and Dawn was surprised they’d been called in on account of the impending coven meeting Aric had ordered. But here they were, Amanda and Erin, dressed to the nines and probably looking to get laid by Shane and Evan, the coven man-hoes. They were sitting on the porch swing with matching irritated expressions that said they’d been waiting a while.
Dawn waved at them from where she clung to Garret’s shoulders like a backpack. Her feet had started hurting a half a mile back so she’d climbed him like a tree. One of those towering redwoods with the sturdy branches.
Gently, Garret settled her onto the bottom stair of the porch and nodded a greeting to the feeders. “Ladies.”
Amanda giggled. “Garret, your eyes sure do look dark, honey. Big strapping vamp like you needs to be fed regularly.” Amanda cast a shady glance at Dawn. “If I was your feeder, I’d be taking better care of you.”
Dawn narrowed her eyes and parted her lips, prepared to spew hellfire on this wench, but Evan cut in. He bustled past Dawn, pulled Amanda off the chair, spun her slowly, and whistled a catcall. “Damn girl, you look gorgeous tonight. I sure hope this dress is for me and not Garret.”
Amanda, the persistent little trollop, shared her attention between Evan and Garret and offered, “I can feed you both if you like,” with a challenging glint in her eye. “We’ll make it a proper threesome.”
If Dawn was a vampire, she would’ve turned into a bevy of bats and dropped Amanda from a tall cliff. She lunged at the mouthy twit, but Garret caught her around the middle and dragged her inside. Shane’s laughter followed them inside.
“What a heifer,” Dawn gritted out, pushing off Garret’s immoveable arms. “Like I don’t take care of you. I’ve offered to feed you!”
“She’s trying to get under your skin. She’s been trying to feed me since you left, and I’ve declined. She isn’t your competition, Dawn. Dawn!” Garret cupped her cheeks and dragged her furious gaze from the door to him. “She isn’t your competition. You don’t have any.”
Garret pulled her by the hand toward the long, dark hallway. Refurbished dark wood floors creaked under her feet, and the bronzed sconces on the wood panel walls flickered. It happened when Evan was worked up and angry. Amanda must’ve been pissing him off outside. She wasn’t a very careful human.
On the basement stairs, they passed Sadey and Aric. The King of the Asheville Coven had been reserved with her before. He was like that with everyone—quiet but respectful with an easy demeanor that belied a power that few beings on this earth could match. He could control people’s thoughts, their minds, what they saw in their imaginations. Dawn was really glad she was on Aric’s good side. At least she thought she was, but it was kind of hard to tell with how quiet he was around her. She assumed he would do his little head nod and continue on his way without much attention to Dawn, but she was wrong.
Aric stopped suddenly beside her and gripped her wrist, stared into her eyes with shocking intensity. For a few terrifying moments, she stood like that, connected and frozen, as if she’d touched an electric fence. And then as quickly as he’d grabbed her, Aric inhaled sharply and winced away from her touch.
“Are you okay?” Sadey asked him from two stairs above.
No answer.
“Aric?” she asked louder, worry snaking through the word.
Aric cleared his throat once, twice. “Dawn, you’ll come to the coven meeting tonight.”
“Me?”
“You and…” Aric frowned deeply, his darkening eyes pooling with confusion. “You aren’t really alone, are you Dawn?” he asked so softly she almost couldn’t make out the words. “You’ve always been dragging ghosts. You’ve been the bait. The first grenade. Isn’t that why you came here? To start a war.”
What? Dawn shook her head helplessly. Nothing he said made any sense, and now his eyes were so empty. So cold.
Garret’s grasp went hard around her other hand. “Enough Aric. You’re scaring her.”
Aric’s face relaxed into a somber expression. He stood taller as he glared at his Second. “Two hours, Garret, and you’ll bring your woman. That’s an order. She’s a part of this now.”
Woman. It was the first time Aric had called her anything other than a feeder, but despite the passive look on his face, the air felt heavy, as
if the king was upset—and a wise human never angered a vampire king.
Garret led her down the rest of the basement stairs and put her in front of him, placing himself between her and Aric. His fingertips rested gently on her hips, and his chest was on her back, as if his protective instincts were kicked up. As they passed under the single hallway light, it flickered hard and then surged brighter. A low, terrifying hiss sounded from deep in Garret’s chest. When she turned around, Aric was still in the stairwell, watching them, and his eyes were reflecting strangely in the light.
Chills blasted up her arms as Garret ushered her into his room. When they were inside, he shut the door quickly. He stared at the barrier and then at her as he ran his hand through his dark hair. After a second of hesitation, he reached forward and clicked the lock into place, something she’d never seen him do before.
And now she was really scared. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.” Garret’s voice was too deep, too gravelly now, and he backed up a few paces, eyes on the door. “Something’s not right. Aric doesn’t scare women, and Sadey wouldn’t stand for it either. She should’ve called him out, but she stood there smelling…off. Not like fur, but like something different.”
When a soft knock sounded at the door, Garret reached behind him, gripped her waist. “What?” he asked, his voice cool as you like.
“It’s me,” Aric said. His voice sounded regretful. “Open the door.”
Garret’s broad shoulders were tense so she ran the flat of her hand up his back. He moved forward and unlocked the door, then opened it a few inches.
“I’m sorry, man,” Aric said low. “I don’t know what was wrong with me. I touched her and I saw… I’m stressed about your origin, but I shouldn’t have pulled that back there.”
Dawn was resting against the wall now with a good view of Garret’s rigid profile. His black eyebrows arched up high and, for a moment, he was silent. Then he said, “It’s okay. I stress, too, about protecting the coven. All’s forgiven, King. We’ll be up there in two hours. I’m jumpy as shit and need some food first.”