Chapter Five
Dain
“He’s. Not. Yours,” echoed through my head, through my heart, and solidified there.
He was right.
I wasn’t Anton’s—at least not in the sense that Lanche meant. Anton was my friend, perhaps even family, but I wasn’t his.
But I wasn’t Lanche’s, either.
At least not yet.
But my soul was telling me… I could be.
Holy shit. Was that what this magic was?
Without another thought, I rushed over to Anton and Lanche and placed my hand on Anton’s forearm. “Let go, Anton. Please.”
Anton glanced at me, then looked back at Lanche. “Not until he explains himself.”
“Then maybe loosen your hold on his neck so he can talk.” For fuck’s sake, duh. What a butt. Plus, I was feeling a little… protective of the big snow yeti, and I was afraid Anton was hurting him.
Anton ignored me completely. “What did you do to Dain?”
Lanche glanced at me and whispered, “I-I-I gave him my… my icicle.”
What? What the hell did that even mean? His icicle? I didn’t understand.
But apparently it meant something to Anton because he loosened his hold a tiny bit. “Why?” It came out like a hissing growl, angry and a little scary.
Lanche tried to speak, but no words came out.
Anton growled again. “That’s something you give away when you’re in a committed relationship. You barely know Dain. Why would you do this to him?”
Lanche’s brow furrowed. “He… he’s… he…”
Anton didn’t have the patience for Lanche’s spluttering, and he shook him a little. “You’ve trapped him.”
Lanche tried to shake his head but ended up choking from the movement before he finally managed a sentence. “I would never. He’s not trapped with me.”
Anton searched his eyes while I stood there and stared at the two of them, confused, annoyed, pissed off, and sick of the whole thing.
And wishing my boss would let go of the poor guy before my werewolf side decided he had a problem with Anton touching him.
“Then why?”
Lanche sucked in a deep breath. “I… he… I want… he’s my… my viramore.”
A gasp fell from my lips, and I grabbed my chest in shock, staring at this man, this yeti, this practical stranger. How in the world could he think I was his viramore?
We barely knew each other. He barely spoke two words to me every time he came to the store. He was skittish and shy and always flushed when I managed to talk to him. Why would he think we were viramores?
And why the hell did he give me a chunk of ice filled with magic that I couldn’t seem to put down? And how was it still so solid? It wasn’t melting at all, despite being in a warm room with my warm hand wrapped around it. My hand wasn’t even wet.
Weird.
Before anyone could react to that news, the breakroom door burst open, and Oakley and Roman rushed through. They looked out of breath, and Oakley asked loudly, “What’d we miss?”
Jed started blabbing—of fucking course—but I ignored him and stared at Lanche for a long moment before I quietly asked, “You really think we’re viramores?”
He nodded. “I know we are.”
He said it with so much surety that I almost believed it myself.
But I wasn’t sure.
Did I like the guy? Sure, what I knew of him, at least.
Was I attracted to him? Duh. I had eyes, didn’t I?
But were our souls connected?
Hell if I knew.
Did I think I’d ever be lucky enough to find my viramore?
Since when was I ever, in my entire life, lucky? No way. No way would I be one of the lucky ones.
I stared at Lanche for a moment, then realized Anton’s hand was still wrapped around his throat threateningly with his claws out and ready to tear through skin. It made me shudder, and I reached over again and grabbed Anton’s forearm.
“Let him go, Anton. Now.” My voice had a little bit of werewolf growl to it that seemed to surprise both Anton and myself.
He lifted a brow at me like he couldn’t believe I’d just growled at him, and I shrugged. My emotions were all over the place, but I knew I didn’t want him to hurt Lanche. I wanted to… talk to the snow yeti.
Alone.
Without an audience.
And that couldn’t happen with the old-ass vampire threatening him like this. Or hurting him.
The thought of him hurting Lanche made my stomach queasy, so I squeezed Anton’s forearm and added a small, “Please let him go.”
Anton stared at me for a moment, then sighed before he turned a hard look Lanche’s way. He put his face right up to the yeti’s and growled out, “If you hurt him, I swear to the Mother of All, I will hunt you down, drain you of every last drop of blood, and feed your corpse to a frost basilisk.”
That made me shudder. Frost basilisks were no joke.
They were terrifying creatures that hunted any living creature and ate them with gumption.
They were large snakes, bigger even than most dragons, with huge mouths that opened up to reveal shark-like teeth.
They had hard scales for digging through snow and ice, so they were like a giant fist bursting through the ground when they hunted.
Honestly, they were one of the most terrifying creatures around and definitely one of the reasons I never traveled outside of the city.
The city itself was protected by charms, spells, and dragon magic—and probably other things I didn’t have the clearance to know about—so the ice monsters that were true threats to people never came into the city.
Supposedly, they stayed away from most of the roads that led out of the city to other towns and cities, but why the hell would I want to risk it just to see another city covered in snow?
Anton’s threat was… a good one as far as threats went, but I really needed him to stop and let this damn yeti go.
I said, “Anton,” and a bit of a growl came out of me—a threat. A warning. But both of them ignored me.
Lanche breathed out, “I would never hurt him.”
Anton stared at him for a long moment before giving the yeti a small push and releasing him. Lanche let out a loud exhale as he bent over, panting, coughing, and trying to catch his breath.
I stood there, wanting to reach out to him but unsure of whether I should or not. I didn’t know if he liked being touched or if he’d freak out after Anton’s reaction. So I stood there like a chum, staring at the big man with my hand reaching out halfway between us.
After a long minute, he finally straightened and met my gaze for a few seconds before he looked away, and I dropped my hand, feeling even more unsure than I had a few seconds ago. What the hell?
“Anton?” a voice called out from the breakroom door. “Someone’s asking about renting out the whole store for a party, and I don’t know what to tell them.”
I glanced over to see Vanessa, my fellow employee and yet another vampire in my life, grimacing at us and looking uncomfortable for interrupting… whatever this was.
“Be right there,” Anton said, staring at me for a long moment before he turned to help her.
Jed and the others were chatting loudly behind me, so I asked Lanche, “Do you want to go somewhere we can talk?”
He nodded.
I glanced around, saw everyone staring at us, rolled my eyes, flipped them off—getting a few chuckles—and nodded toward the back door that opened to the employee parking lot. Lanche followed me without question as I led him out to my car.
We got in, and I turned it on since it was freezing out, then sat there, unsure of what to do or where to go.
After a long, awkward moment, he said, “W-we could go back to my-my place.”
I glanced at him, then down at the icicle I hadn’t realized I still held, and something swirled uncomfortably in my belly.
A huge part of me wanted to trust Lanche—honestly, my heart felt like it already did, despite not knowing him—but I’d been burned way too many times to give in so easily.
My gut told me he’d never hurt me, but could I even trust my gut?
No. I couldn’t. Not after Joshua.
So my mouth opened up with, “How about we go to my place?”
His eyes widened. “Y-yeah. That… that’d be great.”
Maybe showing him where I lived was unwise, but at least I’d be on my home turf if anything were to happen. I didn’t want him to lead me to his home and find myself locked in the basement—again—or something else terrible and creepy.
At home, I had more control of the situation. Plus, I had wards and spells to protect me there. So… home it was.
We were quiet on the way there, but luckily, I only lived about five minutes away, so it didn’t get too awkward.
Well, Lanche was awkward all on his own, if I was being honest. Although, it was more of a cute and dorky kind of awkward that I found quite endearing.
Not that I planned on telling him that after this strange display with the damn icicle—that I still hadn’t released even though I was driving—and everything else that’d happened.
I parked in the apartment complex’s lot, and we got out, then headed for my building. I unlocked the security door, led the snow yeti up to the second floor, and let us into my apartment.
“Home sweet home,” I murmured, happy that I’d straightened up a little last night before bed. There was no embarrassing underwear on the floor or dirty dishes on the table, thank the Mother.
“Your place is lovely.” He murmured it so quietly it was like a whisper on the wind that I’d barely caught.
I turned to him. He was standing in the doorway, looking more uncomfortable than I’d ever seen him, a flush on his handsome cheeks, his hair a mess, likely from running his fingers through it, and old paint splashes all over his jeans.
He was an artist. I knew that simply from observing him from afar for so many months.
He always had paint or pastels or dried clay on his clothes, and half the time, his hands were stained some strange color.
I’d put two and two together fairly quickly, so the paint splatters were no surprise.
He was utterly adorable, and all I wanted to do was pull him into a hug and hold him all night long.
But since that’d be just as weird as him giving me some strange magical icicle, I refrained and waved him inside. “Have a seat in the living room, Lanche.”