43. Ass oclock in the morning.
Chapter forty-three
Ass o'clock in the morning...
Luka
T wo days, Luka thought, studying Nick’s peaceful face in the dim light of his bedroom back at the farmhouse. Two days since the diner.
Luka’s beast stirredcontentedly, a warm purr of satisfaction: Safe . Ours . Protected . The possessive certainty felt different now—not desperate or grasping, but settled.
Nick shifted in his sleep, pressing closer as his hand pressed against Luka’s chest. The simple trust in the gesture still amazed him. After everything Nick endured, he could sleep like this, so vulnerable and unguarded as long as Luka was with him.
A memory surfaced unbidden: Owen’s voice in the van, describing what he’d done to Nick... His beast snarled at the phantom threat.
Stop, he told himself. Owen is dead. Shaw is dead. This serves no one.
But the images lingered—Nick kneeling in submission while Owen gloated, saying “thank you” after—
Enough. Luka forced the thought away. Nick didn’t need him carrying this poison.
He looked down at Nick’s sleeping face again, trying to replace the van memories with this reality.
This wasn’t the broken thing Nick pretended to be.
This was brave, beautiful, resilient Nick.
The man who strategically used his own conditioning as a weapon.
Who had looked Shaw in the eye as he cut off his head with the world’s dullest meat cleaver.
Who had taken control of his own nightmare and ended it on his terms.
A soft knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Nick stirred but didn’t wake as Lukaextracted himself from the bed and padded to the door.
Vincent stood in the hallway,fullydressed despite the early hour, his expressionneutral despite the fact he was rocking on the balls of his feet.
?Need to talk,?Vincent signed, his movements clipped withbarelycontained energy. ?Caleb and Marcus are downstairs.?
Luka nodded and slipped out into the hallway, closing the doorquietlybehind him. They walked to the kitchen in silence, Vincent’s tension radiating through every line of his body.
“Richard,”Vincent said without preamble once they were alone.“I need to tell you something about Richard.”
Luka studied Vincent’s face, seeing guilt etched in every line as Vincent confessed the full story off what truly happened at the warehouse with Adam all those months ago. Richard, the vampire who’d tortured him and Adam, was Vincent’s own creation.
?You couldn’t have known.?
“I made him,”Vincent said, looking sad and nauseous in equal measure.“A hundred years ago. I thought he was dead. I thought...”He ran a hand through his hair.“Shaw was my fault, in a way. My mistake, passed down through Richard. How many people died because I fucked up a turning a century ago?”
The raw self-recrimination in Vincent’s voice made Luka’s chest tight. He understood guilt—the weight of choices that echoed through decades.
?You couldn’t have known Shaw would exist,?Luka saidfirmly.?You couldn’t have known Richard survived.?
“But I did know, seven months ago. When Richard attacked us, when I learned he was alive—I chose to focus on protecting Adam instead of warning people. I chose to let sleeping monsters lie.”
?You chose love over destruction,?Luka replied as they continued towards the kitchen.?Shaw chose to become a monster after Richard turned him. You didn’t make those choices.?
Caleb sat at the kitchen table and looked better than he did two days ago, when Luka and Nick rolled back into town looking like hell. Marcus was the steady presence Caleb needed then—grounding him, keeping him from overwhelming Nick with his own emotional reaction.
Luka was grateful for that. Sometimes the kindest thing wasn’t to cry for someone or with someone. Sometimes it was just to be strong and present.
“How is he?”Caleb asked, looking like he was fighting very hard not to jump out of his chair and go running through the house to find his brother.
?Sleeping,? Luka said. ?Healing.?
“The Society?”Marcus’s question wascarefullymeasured, but Luka caught the underlying concern.
?Leaderless again. Scattered, hopefully.?Luka shrugged.?We wait. Watch. But we don’t go hunting.?
Marcus nodded.“Smart. Let them tear themselves apart fighting over succession.”
“And the neutral hunter networks?”Caleb asked.“Haley and Alexei’s people?”
?That’s different,?Luka sighed.?That’s building something, not destroying it. When Nick is ready, if he wants to help rebuild what Shaw destroyed, we support that.?
The conversation drifted to logistics—safe houses, communication networks, the quiet work of protecting their community without becoming aggressors themselves. Marcus’s voice took on a thoughtful tone as he observed Vincent’s continued guilt.
“You know,”Marcus saidquietly,“there’s a Japanese art called kintsugi.
When pottery breaks, instead of hiding the cracks or throwing the piece away, they repair it with gold.
The breaks become part of the beauty, not something to be ashamed of.
”His gaze movedmeaningfullybetween Vincent and Luka.
“Sometimes being broken and mended makes something stronger than it ever was whole.”
Luka was prepared to tell Marcus that it was a beautiful and apt sentiment, but he nearly burst out laughing when he saw the expression on Caleb’s face instead. The poor boy had tears in his eyes and his face was turning the color of a very ripe tomato. “Marcus, that’s so—”
“Come here, togaki. “ Marcus pulled Caleb into an embrace, allowing him to hide his face in the fabric of his shirt, though Luka could see the tips of his ears practically glowing red as he attempted to not cry.
Twenty minutes later, preceded by that warm floral jasmine and a touch of morning breath, Nick appeared in the kitchen doorway, hair mussed from sleep, wearing the same button down pajama shirt Luka helped him with every morning.
His throat bore the visible marks of Shaw’s bite, but his expression was calm, alert.
Luka noticed the way Nick’s gazeswept the room—cataloging exits, positions, potential threats—but it was subtler now, more controlled.
“Morning,” he said.
Caleb looked up from Marcus’s chest, quickly wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve, and thankfully he didn’t rush to embrace his brother or overwhelm him with questions.
“Coffee?”Marcus offered, already reaching for a clean mug.
Nick nodded, settling into the chair beside Luka. Their knees brushed under the table, a casual bit of contact that made Luka feel warm and fuzzy. ?Sleep okay??Luka asked.
Nick smiled and nodded his fist.?Yes.?
The conversation resumed around them—quiet talk about plans for the weekend, Vincent mentioning a supply run, Marcus discussing some business at the club. Normal, domestic concerns. The kind of boring conversations Luka usually hated, but for today, it felt like exactly what he needed.
Nick didn’t contribute much, but he listened,occasionallyasking questions or making dry observations that earned quiet laughter from the others. His head still turnedwhenever someone moved—an old reflex—but he didn’t tense or reach for weapons that weren’t there.
This is what he looks like when he’s not just surviving, Luka realized, watching Nick navigate the conversation. When he’s just... living.
Luka noticed the subtle changes in Nick over these two days—the way different aspects of his personality seemed to surface and work together now instead of fighting each other.
The tactical awareness that kept him safe, the learned compliance that helped him navigate social situations, and underneath it all, something that seemed to just be Nick.
The cracks were still there, would always be there, but they were part of the whole now instead of breaking it apart.
The peaceful conversation was interrupted by the sound of uneven, heavy footsteps in the hallway.
Adam wandered into the kitchen wearing nothing but boxer briefs Luka was certain belonged to Matteo and his prosthetic leg, hair sticking up in twelve different directions, bite marks and bruises decorating his neck and shoulders like abstract art.
He moved with the unconscious comfort of someonecompletelyat home, heading straight for the cabinet, pulling the top off a can of peaches and taking several long sips of the syrup inside like it was made from ambrosia.
“Oh,”he said, blinking at Marcus and Caleb with mild surprise when he turned around.“Hey. I didn’t know we had company.”
Nick had gone very still at Adam’s sudden appearance—not panicked, but still on high alert. Luka noticed him tracking Adam’s movements, the prosthetic, the obvious comfort with which Adam moved through the space.
?Cover up,?Luka saidto Adam, keeping his signs simple.?Guests.?
Adam glanced down at himself, then back at Luka, and flipped him off with cheerful irreverence before heading toward the refrigerator.“Yeah, yeah, let me get some food first. I’m starving.”
“Adam,”Vincent’s voice carried a note of warning, though his expression showed more amusement than actual irritation.
“What? They’ve seen worse, I’m sure.”Adam pulled out sandwich fixings.“Besides, this is my house too. If Marcus can wander around in his fancy suits at ass o’clock in the morning, I can wander around in my underwear.”
“It’s eleven AM,”Marcus said dryly.
“Ass o’clock for people who don’t sleep at night,”Adam replied, slapping together what looked like the world’s most chaotic sandwich.“So, how’s everyone doing? Very domestic scene we’ve got here. Very... family breakfast vibes.”
Luka saw Nick’s expression shift—not uncomfortable, but thoughtful. Like he was trying to process the idea of“family breakfast vibes”in relation to himself.
“Adam,”Vincent said again, with more emphasis this time.
“Right, right. Clothes. Becauseapparentlymy magnificent form is too distracting for polite company.”Adam took a massive bite of his sandwich and headed for the stairs.“Give me five minutes. Don’t say anything interesting while I’m gone.”
As his footsteps retreated down the hall, a moment of silence settled over the kitchen.
“He’s...”Caleb started, then seemed to lose his words.
“A lot,”Marcus finished with obvious fondness.“But he means well.”
Nick’s mouth had quirked into what might have been the beginning of a smile.“He’s comfortable here.”
“It’s his home,”Vincent saidsimply.“Has been for seven months now.”
Something passed across Nick’s face at that—understanding, maybe, or recognition. The idea that home could be a place to wander around half-dressed and safe.
“He’s been giving you space,”Vincent added.“He knows what it’s like to need time to recover after... difficult experiences.”
Nick noddedslowly, his gaze moving around the kitchen—taking in the lived-in comfort, the easy familiarity between everyone present, the way even Adam’s interruption felt like part of a larger whole.
True to his word, Adam reappeared five minutes later in jeans and a t-shirt, hairslightlymore manageable.
“There,”he announced, settling into the chair across from Nick.“Decent and respectable. Happy now?”
?Much better,?Luka said, earning another cheerful middle finger.
“So,”Adam said,apparentlyincapable of letting silence stretch for more than a few seconds,“anyone want to fill me in on current events? Last I heard, we were all very dramatic and covered in blood. Now we’re having civilized breakfast conversations.
Did I miss the part where we decided everything was fine? ”
“Not everything,” Nick said. “But... some things.”
Adam studied Nick’s face with surprising perceptiveness.“Some things,”he agreed.“That’s a start.”
After the humans ate breakfast, Marcus and Vincent stepped into another room to discuss something business-related. Caleb lingered,clearlywanting time with his brother but uncertain how to ask for it.
Nick solved the problem for him.“Want to sit in the living room? More comfortable than the kitchen.”
They settled on the farmhouse’s worn couch, the three of them arranged in comfortable proximity. The morning was peaceful, with the kind of quiet that made everything feel suspended in amber.
“I keep thinking I should have questions,”Caleb saideventually.“About what happened. About... everything. But I don’t know what to ask.”
Nick was quiet for a long moment, his fingersabsentlytracing the edge of the bite marks on his throat.“I don’t know what I’d answer yetanyway,”he saidfinally.“It’s still... settling.”
“Are you...”Caleb started, then stopped, searching for words.“Are you happy?”
The question seemed to surprise Nick. He considered itseriously, his gaze moving across the farmhouse’s dim interior, the comfortable furniture, the peaceful morning scene.
“I think so,”he saidquietly.“I think I might be.”
I think I might be. Such a small admission, but it hit Luka like sunrise breaking through clouds. When was the last time Nick considered happiness as a possibility?
Caleb smiled.“Good. That’s... that’s good.”
They sat in comfortable silence after that, the three of them sharing the morning peace. Luka felt his beast settle into contentment, nolongerprowling with protective anxiety. Just... peaceful.
Eventually, Marcus called Caleb over to discuss something work-related, leaving Luka and Nick alone on the couch.
?Tired?? Luka asked.
Nick shook his head.?Thinking.?
?About??
Nick’s fingers movedhesitantlyin the air, practicing a sign Luka had taught him yesterday.?Future,?he managed, the gesture still clumsy but recognizable.
Future. Not survival, not escape plans, not threat assessment. Future.
Luka reached over and covered Nick’s hand with his own, threading their fingers together.
“I want to learn more,”Nick saidquietly.“Signs, I mean. And... other things. I want to figure out who I am when I’m not running from something.”
?We have time,?Luka signed with his free hand.
Nick’s smile was small but real.“Yeah. I think we do.”
They sat together in the dim safety of the farmhouse, comfortable in each other’s presence, in the promise of days and weeks and months ahead of them.
The boarded windows created a perpetual twilight that felt protective rather than oppressive.
A place where they could heal without having to watch for threats.
His beast purred its agreement, Ours . Safe . Home .