6. That was when everyone thought you were male, rabid, and lived on the streets. #2
I swallowed, fetched a drink of water, and had a sip. “Dessert is for savoring,” I announced. “We might need to invest in a turkey farm, Emerick.”
“If a turkey farm is what you would like, a turkey farm is what you shall get. And how are our turkeys being raised?”
“They will be prince and princess turkeys who live in a nice stretch of forest so they can be happy until it’s time for them to be my supper,” I requested.
“And if there are any really nice or pretty turkeys, they become pets, safe from my gluttony. Every year, we’ll visit the farm and pick a nice or pretty turkey.
It’s my version of the turkey pardon.” I paused in my feeding frenzy to regard him with wide eyes.
“Could we have a turkey once every two weeks if we owned a turkey farm?”
“You can have a turkey every two weeks now. We do not need a turkey farm for this to become a plan.”
“I’m keeping him, Dad,” I told my father before resuming my chicken sandwich slaughter.
My father laughed. “I had already received that message, but thank you for your confirmation. Honestly, this was the most challenging part of raising you; you would eat an entire cow in a sitting if I let you once you discovered the wonders of steak.”
“You can have steak often, too,” Emerick informed me before I could ask.
“I already own a cattle farm, although we use it primarily for blood. It won’t take much work to add to the herd and increase our production.
I think I’ll look into buying out some failing ranches and add them to my operations.
If all goes well with eradicating the vermin irritating us, we’ll need the additional stock. ”
“Please tell me the chicken farm isn’t one of those horrific big barns where the birds are kept cramped together,” I pleaded. “For a voracious carnivore, I really can’t stand stuff like that. I like my chickens when they run around like wild things.”
“Our chickens run around like wild things,” he promised. “I have accepted the loss of a percentage of my birds to hawks, and I paid out to have a great deal of charms established to protect the flocks from foxes and other predators.”
“You couldn’t protect them against the hawks?”
“The hawks play a vital role in the environment, so we leave nature to do as it does. Hawks only take what they need, and we’ve done excellent work reviving endangered hawk and bird of prey species where we operate.
The foxes and other animals aren’t starving.
We release native prey for them to hunt outside of the wards.
” Emerick grinned, made to steal a piece of my chicken, and earned a thwack with the back of my fork.
“I’ll take you to our farms after our wedding ceremony.
It can be part of our honeymoon. You can make a list of places you want to go, and I’ll take you there.
With enough warning, the brood should be able to live without us for a while. ”
“Maybe,” Ben muttered. “I’m not sure Pepper alone is capable of keeping you out of trouble. Security will be required.”
I scowled, but I understood Ben’s point. “We can honeymoon with security hanging around in the background pretending we don’t exist.” I adjusted my hold on the fork, prepared to poke manners back into my husband if he argued. “Right, Mr. Lowrance?”
“We’ll be careful. You can even have your brothers chaperone us, assuming they can do so sensibly.”
Alisander grinned. “Providing an escort for you so you can enjoy your honeymoon without worry is absolutely something a trio of handsome vampire brothers of the bride would do without hesitation. Dad? You can come with us, and you can spend the time searching for another mother for us. We like this new mother you have provided, and we’ll accept the other vampire she’s taken a liking to.
But we need a dedicated and permanent mother. We are spoiled sons.”
I raised a brow at my eldest brother’s blatant attempt to play matchmaker for our father.
“You are a most spoiled son, so I cannot argue with that portion of things, but I question this new desire to have another mother. I am pleased you find Pepper’s mother to your liking, and you can take up any motherly matters with her.”
“Clarke, we’re laying a secondary claim on these spoiled sons. They’re on offer, and I see no reason to reject the offer. I like the idea of having three boys without having to deal with three pregnancies.”
Emerick’s maker chuckled. “I’m fine with this arrangement. It’s good for everyone involved. Charlie, how do you feel our chances at a run into the rainforest would be?”
“If we only take those with full resilience to the sun, use charms to repel vermin, and go armed with every stake we can get our hands on, they’re decent. He’s been working on his empire in earnest for at least five years. Alheen, how long has he been a vampire?”
“He was nineteen. His development was… stunted. He uses an illusion to mask his youth. The illusion is tied to a trinket he keeps on him, which is why it’s difficult for us to detect. Part of his issues involve the age he was turned. He had not reached hormonal maturity yet.”
My father sighed. “Such a waste. So, I thought he turned later than he was due to those behaviors.”
“That’s very likely,” my father’s uncle agreed.
“I do believe we should safeguard this woman he is targeting first. Should she disappear under mysterious circumstances, the chances are high we can do to him what he has done to us. That gives us the advantage—and unlike him, we have great experience backing us. You just did not know the full story, and without understanding the why, it is difficult to predict everything else. In good news for us, it will take time for word to reach his hideout. It is remote enough where only satellite communications work, and he is not willing to risk being tracked, so he has no contact with the outside world. He has to go to the nearest town. His plan is to become inaccessible, and that inaccessibility has a price. We have a chance to act without him catching us.”
“How long of a window do you think we have?”
“Not as long as I would like. If we strike at his operations, we need to do so in the next two or three nights. That will give us a few days before anyone can reach his sanctuary and tell him in person; he will likely check in with his operations after that point. Ideally, Darius will extract the woman during the day, we will have a chance to question her, and we can make decisions on where to go from there. I can give you a list of everyone I know of in his brood, however. They’re all young, violent, and ill-taught. ”
“I assume none are salvageable?” my father asked.
“None of them are worth saving. They would repeat what was done to your daughter for the pleasure of power and violence.”
“Pepper, how many stakes can you carve in a night?” my father asked.
I’d already heard what I needed to know, and if my father needed stakes, I would provide them with great joy. “How many do you need?”
“As many as you can provide. Tomorrow night, we will get into position. The night after, this filth’s house of cards comes tumbling down.”