Chapter Nine #2
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Vaughn’s expression went dangerously blank, the kind of calm that preceded violence.
“I’m getting real tired of being called that.” His fingers flexed against Hershel’s throat, not quite tightening but making the threat clear.
Newt’s heart hammered against his ribs. This was spiraling out of control faster than one of his botched spells.
He needed to do something before Vaughn snapped his father’s neck like a twig.
Not that the idea didn’t have a certain appeal, but murder would complicate an already complicated situation.
“Vaughn.” He placed a hand on his mate's arm, feeling the tremor of barely leashed violence beneath the skin. “Please.”
For a moment, nothing changed. Then Vaughn’s grip loosened, though he didn’t step back. Hershel gasped, gulping air like a landed fish.
“You dare lay hands on me?” His father’s voice came out rough, but the outrage was building again. “I am Hershel Twistboots of the Unseelie Court, and you are nothing but an animal!”
Wrong thing to say. Really, spectacularly wrong. Newt watched Vaughn’s jaw clench, the muscle jumping beneath stubbled skin.
“Stop.” The word came out steadier than Newt felt. “Just…stop calling him that.”
Hershel’s gaze snapped to Newt, disbelief etched in every line of his face. “You’re defending this creature?”
“He’s not a creature.” Heat crept up Newt’s neck, but he forced himself to meet his father’s eyes. “He’s my mate.”
Silence dropped like a theater curtain. Hershel’s mouth opened and closed several times, no sound emerging. When he finally found his voice, it came out strangled.
“No. Absolutely not. I forbid it.”
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in Newt’s chest, bitter as burnt coffee. “You forbid it? It's already done, Father. The bond is complete.”
Understanding dawned in Hershel’s eyes, followed swiftly by rage that turned his face an alarming shade of red. “You stupid, selfish boy. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The marriage contract with the Silvermoon family—”
“I don’t care about the contract.” The words felt like breaking free from chains he’d worn so long he’d forgotten they were there. “I never asked for it. Never wanted it.”
“What you want is irrelevant!” Spittle flew from Hershel’s lips. “This is about our family's future, about rising above our station!”
“ Your station,” Newt corrected. “ Your ambitions. Your dreams. Never mine.”
His father’s hand lifted, and for a moment, Newt thought he might actually strike him. But Vaughn shifted slightly, a subtle reminder of his presence, and Hershel’s hand dropped.
“If you don’t come with me right now,” his father said, voice dropping to something cold and dangerous, “I'll have your mutt sent to another dimension. Somewhere you'll never find him.”
Ice flooded Newt’s veins. His father had connections, favors owed by fae far more powerful than either of them. It wasn’t an empty threat.
“You wouldn’t.” But even as he said it, he knew better. Hershel would do whatever it took to get his way. He always had.
“Try me.” His father’s smile held all the warmth of a winter graveyard. “One word to the right people and your precious mate vanishes forever. Is that what you want?”
Newt’s mind raced, searching for options that didn’t exist. He couldn’t let Vaughn be banished to some hellish dimension, but going back meant a lifetime of misery, married to someone he’d never love while his actual mate lived on without him.
Behind him, Vaughn’s breathing had gone carefully controlled. But there was something else there too. Concern for Newt, a willingness to fight regardless of consequences.
That’s what decided it.
“No.” The word dropped into the charged atmosphere like a match into gasoline. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Hershel’s face cycled through several colors before settling on an unhealthy purple. “You ungrateful—”
“I’m staying with my mate.” Newt’s voice gained strength with each word. “And if you try to have him sent away, I'll follow. Even if it takes me the rest of my life, I'll find him.”
“You dare defy me!”
“The last I checked, interfering in a mating was forbidden,” Vaughn said. “Unless you want a visit from the Ultionem , I would suggest you leave.”
Hershel’s face turned molten. “You think you can unravel generations of tradition? The Unseelie do not recognize mating outside our kind.”
“Dude,” Vaughn said, looking as if he was drawing from the bottom of a dried well for his patience.
Newt’s brows shot up. His father had never been addressed so brazenly before.
“I have had it up to my ears with threats.” Vaughn took a step closer, and to Newt’s shock, his father took a step back.
“Between demons and vampires, and now you, I’m at the point where I’ll call the Ultionem myself if you don’t get your pajama-wearing ass out of my house. Newt’s my mate. End of story.”
The bedroom door slowly opened. On the other side stood Zeppelin, Quinn and Wade flanking him.
Taking a tentative step toward his father, Newt said, “This is where I belong, not married to someone I don’t want, let alone love.” It was the wrong way to declare his love to Vaughn, but he had to make his father see that he wasn’t leaving his mate’s side.
After everything he and Vaughn had been through, Newt would fight tooth and nail to stay with his pack. A family who cared more about him than his father ever had.
Hershel glanced between them, his nostrils flaring. Then he looked back at Newt. “You’re dead to me.”
“I was never alive to you to begin with. Just a bargaining tool so you could climb your social ladder.” Newt wasn’t going to deny it hurt.
Deeply. He would miss the Unseelie realm, a place he cherished, but if it was a choice between what he would lose versus his mate, he would choose Vaughn every time.
He would also miss his mother. But she’d never had his back. Not really. She’d always bowed to what her husband had wanted, pushing aside Newt’s needs with a warm smile, which was supposed to seem as if she truly cared about him.
But the only person who had shown they cared about Newt stood beside him, canines bared.
Hershel glared at them before a portal opened and he stepped through. Newt could’ve sworn he saw a glint of sadness in his father’s eyes before the portal vanished.
He collapsed in Vaughn’s arms, everything feeling permanent now. There was no going home. No wild fields or markets or the Unseelie way of life.
It was just him and Vaughn and a house full of strangers Newt was eager to form family bonds with. And two mates he was dying to get to know better.
“You okay?” Vaughn asked as Zeppelin closed the bedroom door.
“No,” Newt answered honestly, clinging tighter to his mate. “But I’ll get there.” He pulled back enough to look up into stunning brown eyes. “I love you.”
A smile curved Vaughn’s lips. “Love you too, sweetheart.”
Newt shook off the sadness and straightened. “Since this is my new home, show me how all those appliances work.”
Vaughn laughed. “Just as long as you don’t destroy them like you did the toaster.”
“Hey, that toaster had it coming. It tried to eat my finger!”
“Because you stuck your finger inside of it while it was on,” Vaughn countered.
Newt led the way down the hallway and stairs, feeling lighter than he had in centuries despite the ache in his chest. His bare feet padded against the hardwood, and he could sense Vaughn close behind him—both the warmth of his presence and the subtle scent of pine and something uniquely him that made Newt’s newly formed bond hum with contentment.
For the first time in his life, Newt wasn’t alone.
He not only had a pack but a wolf shifter who’d gone through hell and still stood there, strong at Newt’s back with a growl ready for anyone who tried to get between them.
* * * *
Zeppelin gave the hand signals as the pack closed in on the house where the six vampires were hiding out.
The sun blazed in the afternoon sky, limiting the vampires’ ability to escape.
Chase was anxious to pay back the bloodsucker for that kidney shot in the alley and for threatening his mate.
It was Newt who’d given them the location.
Sunlight slanted through the dusty windows, casting long shadows across the vampires’ living room.
Through the glass, Chase caught movement, Zeppelin slipping through the back door, silent as smoke.
Perfect timing. With the bloodsuckers trapped indoors during daylight hours, they had nowhere to run.
Chase’s pulse quickened as he circled to the side entrance. Three months of tracking these parasites, and it all came down to this. His kidney still twinged whenever he thought of the cheap shot the vampire had delivered in that alley.
But that wasn’t what made his jaw clench. No, what really pissed him off was remembering the vampire breaking into Jalen’s apartment, how terrified his mate had been.
Good thing Chase had followed the bloodsucker that night. Good thing he’d been on patrol that night. Otherwise…
A crash echoed from inside. Zeppelin’s signal. Chase shouldered through the side door, wood splintering under his weight.
His wolf stirred beneath his skin, eager for violence.
In the dim hallway, Bayne had already engaged one of the vampires. The two figures blurred together, a tangle of limbs and snarls. Chase stepped around them. Bayne could handle this one himself. Quinn had gone after one, while Wade had already beheaded a vampire and was going after another one.
Movement at the end of the corridor caught his attention. There. The one from the alley.
“Well, well.” The vampire’s lips curled back, revealing fangs. “The puppy found me.”
Chase didn’t bother with banter. Talking only gave opponents time to think, and thinking was overrated in a fight. He lunged forward, using his momentum to drive the vampire backward into the kitchen.
They crashed into the refrigerator hard enough to dent the metal. The vampire twisted, wrenching free with inhuman strength. His elbow caught Chase in the temple, sending stars across his vision.
“Still protecting that pretty little human?” The vampire circled, keeping the kitchen island between them. “Such devotion. I wonder if he’d taste as sweet as he smells.”
“You’ll never find out.” Red hazed Chase’s vision. He vaulted over the island, catching the vampire mid-dodge. They went down hard, Chase’s weight driving them both into the linoleum. His hands found the vampire’s throat, squeezing until cartilage shifted under his palms.
The vampire bucked, knee driving into Chase’s ribs. Air exploded from Chase’s lungs, but he held on. They rolled across the floor, each fighting for leverage. A chair shattered under their combined weight. Splinters dug into Chase’s back through his shirt.
Claws raked across Chase’s shoulder. The pain was distant, unimportant. What mattered was the way the vampire’s struggles were weakening, the way his eyes were starting to show real fear.
“Should’ve never gone after my mate,” Chase growled, adjusting his grip.
The vampire’s response was lost in a gurgle. With a savage twist, Chase snapped his neck. The crack echoed in the sudden silence. But vampires were tough. A broken neck would only slow them down.
Chase dragged the twitching body upright, one hand fisted in his hair. Through the kitchen window, sunlight streamed in golden and lethal. He hauled the vampire toward it, ignoring the weak struggles.
“Wait—” The vampire’s voice came out strangled, desperate.
Chase shoved him into the light.
The scream cut off almost immediately. Flesh sizzled and blackened, the smell making Chase’s nose wrinkle. Within seconds, nothing remained but ash.
Footsteps behind him made Chase tense, but the scent was familiar—pine and gunpowder. Zeppelin.
“That’s all of them,” his alpha said, brushing dust off his hands. “Found one still sleeping upstairs. Didn’t even get a chance to open his eyes.”
Through the doorway, Chase could see Bayne wiping his blade clean on his jeans. A vampire’s head had rolled somewhere under the dining table. Chase didn’t bother looking for it.
They regrouped in the backyard, afternoon sun warming Chase’s face. His shoulder throbbed where the claws had caught him, shirt sticky with blood. It would heal once he shifted.
“Glad that’s finally over.” Zeppelin stretched, joints popping. “Three months was too long to let them run loose.”
Chase hummed agreement, though the satisfaction felt hollow. Sure, these vampires were dealt with. But there would be others. Always were. Vampires, demons, hellhounds… The list never ended.
At least Jalen was safe. That was what mattered.
“You good?” Zeppelin asked, eyeing the tears in Chase’s shirt.
“Just scratches.” He rolled his shoulder experimentally. “Nothing that won’t heal.”
They stood in comfortable silence for a moment, watching clouds drift across the sky. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. A normal, everyday sound that seemed surreal after the violence inside.
Peace never lasted long in their world. Chase had learned that lesson young, and life kept reinforcing it. But for now, for this afternoon at least, one threat was eliminated.
Felt like a damn good win to Chase.
THE END