Chapter 16
sixteen
BLAIR
We made it back to the pool fairly quickly. I was wearing one of my one-piece swimsuits, thanks to a certain possessive vampire asshole, but I didn’t mind.
After our conversation about nudity earlier, I was trying to see things from his perspective, and I understood enough to play along.
The movie had started and the drinks were distributed when we got there. We made ourselves comfortable on the far side of the pool, tucked in a small gap between two floating tubes. Our butts were on the rock and our feet in the water.
My back was pressed comfortably against Damian’s front as we sat, his arm securely around my middle. Someone passed me a fruity cocktail, and I took a sip, lifting my eyebrows at the flavor.
“I don’t drink very often, but that’s pretty good,” I remarked. “Try it.” I passed the glass to Damian, and he took a sip, nodding and handing it back.
“You hate it, don’t you?” I teased.
His lips quirked upward. “Not my favorite.”
“If they give you one, I want it.”
“Deal.” He pressed a kiss to the side of my throat, his lips brushing the sensitive mate mark there.
Sure enough, he was given a drink a few minutes later, and it became mine too.
Alcohol didn’t affect magical beings very much, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t have fun drinking it.
The movie was a rom-com that made me laugh a few times, and the intermittent chatter around us was really comfortable. Being surrounded by my sisters all the time meant I was used to that easy-going camaraderie, and many of Damian’s vampires seemed to share it.
So it made me feel like I was home.
Then again, the big, strong arm around my waist might’ve made a difference too.
When the movie ended, I thought everyone would split up… but someone turned on some music instead.
All of the inner tubes and other floatation devices were tossed out, and the guy who’d greeted us at the door announced loudly that it was time for Sharks and Minnows.
“What’s that?” I whispered to Damian.
He summed up the rules of the game—a big group of “minnows” swam across the pool while a small group of “sharks” tried to tag them, turning them into sharks too.
“We want Blair,” the first shark announced, and groans echoed through the room as a bunch of people looked at me.
“We get Hale, then,” the first minnow announced.
That didn’t cheer them up.
I bit back a smile and pushed Damian’s arms off my waist, diving in and swimming out to join the other two sharks.
Everyone lined up, and my gaze caught on my mate’s.
He was watching me closely, daring me to take him down.
“Here’s the plan,” the first shark guy said, and me and the other girl turned toward him. “I take Hale. You know he’s going to try to distract you, Blair.”
I nodded.
That much was already clear.
“No strategizing!” one of the minnows exclaimed.
The guy gave me a nod that I probably should’ve understood the meaning of.
I nodded back, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what he was trying to say.
Either way, I had to resist the urge to go after Damian.
Someone yelled, “GO!” and the game began.
There were bodies everywhere.
Arms and legs kicking, swimming clumsily but with everything they had. And with vampire speed, they had plenty.
But I had the same speed.
I sailed through the water, tagging, then tugging on ankles when they ignored being tagged.
Splashes, protests, and laughter echoed through the room, bringing the pool to life even more.
Damian was the last minnow standing, facing off against all of us with a ferocious grin.
He’d been drinking from me enough that he seemed to be tapping into his enhanced speed without even realizing it.
And he was faster than me—faster than all of us—but I had a trick up my sleeve.
I made eye contact with the first shark guy and mouthed, distract him .
The guy grinned, then yelled at Damian, “You’re moving faster than a vampire is supposed to!”
“It’s not my fault you’re a bunch of slow fuckers,” my mate tossed back, as I sank slowly beneath the water.
I’d have to be careful about what I was going to do, because it could go wrong fairly easily.
My magic wasn’t exactly stable. I was already a little hungry. I’d noticed Damian trying to keep me away from other people the day before, so I could tell my magic was radiating a little.
But I couldn’t drink from him yet because of our agreement.
So, the hunger remained.
I was just going to make it work in my favor, for once.
I slowly glided across the pool, heading toward the edge, and focused on the feel of the water. I couldn’t control it, but if I paid attention, I could feel exactly how and when it moved.
At the first sign of Damian’s motion, I pushed my magic to the surface, focused completely on drawing him in.
He was on me in a heartbeat, colliding with me and swimming me deeper into the water as I released my hold on my magic. The water dissipated it smoothly, and I crossed my fingers that no one else had time to feel it.
We surfaced a moment later, and I laughed as whoops and cheers erupted through the room so loudly my ears rang.
“Cheater,” Damian said with a grin. There was no heat behind the accusation—he actually looked kind of proud.
“If you get to use your magic, so do I,” I tossed back.
“She could wipe the floor with all of us if she tried,” the first shark guy declared, swimming up to us and tossing his arm over my shoulder.
Damian’s eyes narrowed at him, and he quickly removed it.
“Don’t touch Big Mama B if you like having hands,” someone called from across the room.”
Damian made a noise of exasperation, but I laughed so hard that my eyes watered.
“Is there room for us in there?” Clementine called out, approaching the edge of the pool with the rest of my sisters. Izzy seemed reluctant, but the rest of them actually looked excited.
“Hell yeah!” the shark guy said, gesturing for them to get in. “I think we need the sirens to play minnows while the rest of us are sharks.”
My sisters all jumped in, heading for the wall when they were pointed that way.
“Someone has to teach us how this works so we can kick your asses,” Zora announced, and someone launched into another explanation.
“Go to the wall, little siren,” Damian said, a wicked gleam in his eyes as he shooed me toward the minnows’ starting point.
I was totally going to lose…
But I’d have a blast doing it.
Our pool crew ended up in the dining hall around two AM, feasting on ice cream from a soft serve machine that I’d foolishly never visited before. Everyone was spread out across different tables, and though we were sitting with my sisters, we were still interacting with the other vampires a lot more than we usually did.
“We need one of these machines in our room,” I told Damian, my legs draped over his lap as I relaxed in the chair next to his.
“We need one in one of our rooms,” Zora corrected. “Maybe we can come up with a way to make it a tax write-off.”
“Ice cream?” Avery asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Seems like a stretch.”
“It can be our mental-health soft serve machine,” Zora said, biting into her fourth or fifth cone. Luckily, someone in our group had a key to the place they kept the machine’s refills.
“Ice cream is good for the soul,” Clementine agreed.
“Someone better talk to our government about that.” Zora fixed her eyes on me.
I laughed. “My connections aren’t that good.”
She looked at Damian.
Everyone else did too. Except Izzy; she was keeping to herself and still looked a little uncomfortable.
“Her connections are that good. Write it off,” Damian said with a shrug.
“Blair totally took one for the team when she mated with you,” Zora said.
I glanced at him, worried he’d find that offensive, but he just chuckled. “You aren’t wrong.”
We ate ice cream and chatted for another half an hour before people started peeling away from the group, finally heading to bed.
“Same time next week?” the shark guy called out, his gaze on me (I finally learned that his name was Colby).
“Ask him,” I called back, gesturing to Damian.
“It’s your pool,” Damian countered, looking at me. “One of my assistants already set up a calendar for you. I only agreed to tonight because Colby hunted me down and refused to take no for an answer.”
My protesting hadn’t achieved a damn thing, and I did kind of want to know when things were going to happen at the pool… so, I finally called out, “Same time next week.”
A few people whooped, and there was satisfaction in Damian’s eyes.
“I’m calling it a night,” Izzy announced, standing up.
The rest of my sisters followed suit. A few of them looked concerned about Iz, but I knew she could take care of herself. Whatever she was dealing with, she would figure it out.
Their departure left me alone with Damian, but having just the two of us there wasn’t uncomfortable the way it would’ve been before. It wasn’t tense, either.
He squeezed one of my feet, since they were still on his lap. “Ready for bed?”
“Mmhm.”
Instead of throwing me over his shoulder and speeding us to the elevator like he did fairly often, he offered me a hand as he stood.
When I took it, he pulled me to my feet and tucked me close to his side. The feel of him against me, with his arm draped over my shoulder, put me at ease in a way not even his magic could.
It was natural, and genuine.
And just… real .
“I kind of miss your glitter,” he remarked, teasing my hair a little.
“It’s never returning, so deal with it,” I warned, and he chuckled.
We were quiet through the rest of the ride up to our space, but it was nice.
Comfortable.
Easy.
We got back to our room, and Damian kissed the top of my head. “I’m going to take a quick shower.”
The pool’s water was completely clean, thanks to mine and my sisters’ magic, but I could understand wanting to rinse off after being in it with a ton of random people anyway.
I didn’t feel the need to wash off, so I just stripped down in the closet and pulled my usual sleep t-shirt over my head. On my way to the bed, I tied my damp hair up in a bun so it wouldn’t bug me while I tried to sleep.
As I tucked myself into bed, my eyes moved over Damian’s bare back. I watched him scrub his hair with shampoo until I reached the bed and could no longer see him.
The man was gorgeous.
Ridiculously attractive.
Though my gaze lingered on his ass for a moment, that wasn’t what I focused on the most.
The mark on the back of his neck took that prize.
My mark.
I’d seen it before, obviously. Every day. And there was no getting around what it meant, but I guess I had never really let it sink in before.
Damian was mine.
There was no going back for him.
He couldn’t change his mind, or walk away.
We were mates.
And it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted, but there was no getting away from it. No use in pretending we were anything else.
I didn’t have to fall in love with him—but I did have to be his partner for the rest of my life, just like he had to be mine.
The bond made us a team.
And that was really, really intense.
I finally looked away from him, biting my lip as I curled up with my pillow on our bed and closed my eyes, trying to sleep.
My breathing evened as I drifted in and out of sleep, hovering on the edge as Damian, my mate , dried off and slipped into bed with me.
As he turned toward the pillow, but didn’t cross it.
As he brushed a hand lightly over the top of my hair, smoothing a few loose strands away from my face like he didn’t want them to bother me.
And in my half-conscious state, I finally admitted to myself that if I had to spend my life with someone, I could’ve done a lot worse.