Chapter Four #2
“We’re going home!” Max called out from the bedroom.
“At least to see if I can,” I murmured. “We were just waiting for you.”
“Ah.” He grinned. “Things are starting to make sense now. Carys texted me a while ago to ask if we wanted spaghetti and meatballs or chicken Kiev for dinner tonight. I thought someone was delivering it here.”
“I hope you chose the chicken. You know, for maximum vampire jokes,” I deadpanned.
He frowned, then chuckled. “I did, actually.”
“I don’t get it,” Max admitted as he carried their bag to the door.
“Carys puts garlic butter into hers,” I explained.
“Oh. Oh.”
Rian’s snickering from the kitchen made us all laugh.
I went to put my own bag together. It was like ripping off a band aid, right?
It wasn’t like ripping off a band aid.
For one, as soon as I stepped inside the pack house, I could smell everything.
The kitchen was leaking the scents of cooking, but nothing was making my mouth water. Except, my alpha’s mate, Kye. The brave human stood behind his much bigger partner and peered at me curiously.
I could sense two more heartbeats in the house—the two young women upstairs—and I swallowed hard.
“How are you doing?” Brodie’s words made me tear my gaze off Kye’s.
“Uh… a bit overwhelmed.”
“Tell me more?” Rian squeezed my fingers.
We were all standing in the hall between the living room and the kitchen, with the stairs behind Brodie and Kye. I felt the warmth from Max and Ben at my back, and one of them put his hand on my hip for support.
I swallowed hard. “My mouth watered. I know there’s humans here.” My eyes flicked up past Kye, and Brodie’s jaw tensed. “But… but I don’t feel like….”
“Like mauling me?” Kye piped up, grinning.
I snorted, and so did Ben and Max, while Brodie snapped, “Not funny.”
Rian snickered. “It is a bit funny.”
Brodie growled, which made Kye wrap his arms around his mate from behind. “Come on. It’ll be fine. And if not, you promised to keep me safe, mate.”
That was enough to relax our alpha, and he sighed as his shoulders dropped a little. “Okay. Let’s… let’s get this done, I guess.”
Kye stepped around him and now Brodie put his arm around him as if to hold or pull him back.
“It’s good to have you back home,” Kye said, smiling that angelic smile of his.
As a kid, I’d learned that angels had long golden hair, but not Kye. His hair was down to his shoulder blades, but it was dark. There was something angelic about his features though.
Then he held his hand out to me, and I moved forward with the trio on my side. It was like the weirdest standoff ever.
When I reached to take his hand, the scent of what made him human invaded my senses. I could feel it, how the predator wanted a taste. It was like walking past the bakery first thing in the morning when the bread was fresh and the scent almost overwhelmed you.
I swallowed and grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, Brodie seems to think I’m pretty mouthwatering, too.” Kye winked.
“I’m not actually hungry, so that helps,” I promised.
“I know. Rian explained everything. The boys will keep you topped up until you can go a bit hungry for a while.”
“What about them?” I nodded toward the stairs.
Brodie took a deep breath and turned his head. “Carys?”
It took only moments for the two young women I considered friends to appear at the top of the stairs.
“Yeah?” Kye’s sister asked, holding onto the hand of her girlfriend.
“Can you come down to see Luca?”
“Of course.” They walked down the stairs, and I couldn’t really think for a moment with how their scent overwhelmed me.
“Can you stop hogging him?” Carys asked Kye.
I hadn’t even realized we were still holding hands. Kye snorted and let go, and she slipped her smaller hand into mine.
“Hi,” I whispered, then smiled awkwardly.
“On a scale from one to ten, how bad is it right now?” Carys asked as she squeezed my fingers and smiled.
I could see the relief that I was okay, and a tiny bit of trepidation just in case, but I was pretty sure all three humans were very conscious of what they were up against. I remembered meeting my first vampire as a kid. It had been the weirdest thing.
Of course these three had met various vampires, but never someone as new as me, which their lizard brain would recognize.
“On a scale of ‘not interested’ to ‘want to bathe in your blood?’” I asked dryly.
Lina snickered.
Carys nodded. “Sure.”
“About… five. But I’m not at all hungry.”
She hummed thoughtfully. “I’ve known to demolish a donut even when full from an actual meal.”
“Good point.”
“If you do drain us dry and somehow escape it, will you at least write a murder ballad about it?” Lina asked.
“Jesus Christ….” Brodie let his head drop.
“No, there’s nobody here who is taking this situation with the gravitas it deserves,” Rian deadpanned, grinning.
“I have dinner to make, not be,” Carys snarked as she let go of my hand. “You want your blood bags to be fed, right?”
The brothers made mock-affronted sounds behind me.
I nodded. “That’d be preferable.”
She used the grip she still had on my hand and pulled me closer as she leaned forward to kiss my cheek.
At least three people made alarmed sounds, but I couldn’t tell who, because suddenly my fangs were down and my head was swimming.
“Into the kitchen, now.” Brodie’s alpha tone wasn’t something we heard often, but it made everyone heel, even the humans.
“Sometimes I forget she’s a teenager,” Kye murmured as the girls did as Brodie had ordered.
“How about we go sit on the couch and everyone calms down?” Rian suggested.
It was then that I felt the body against my back and the arms around me, much like Kye had done with Brodie only moments before.
I didn’t know or care which brother it was, but I knew it was what shook me out of whatever I’d just gone through.
That had to mean something, right?