Chapter 35
Star
Mate?
Something wasn’t adding up here, but the conversation was already moving on from the last mic drop of a statement.
“Pearl… You said you weren’t given a choice to be turned. Can you tell us what you meant by that?” Max carefully asked, reaching up to place a hand on Damon’s—checking on his mate when I could tell he was barely hanging on by a thread. “If you’re comfortable doing so, that is.”
Pearl stared at him a long moment before replying. “I can, assuming what I have to say won’t upset anyone present.”
“I want to hear it,” Damon quietly replied. “But first… I need you to know that I am so incredibly sorry for—”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she interrupted, her breathy, Marilyn Monroe tone shifting to no-nonsense Jane Russell in an instant. “It was simply a wrong place, wrong time sort of situation.”
This is so tense!
I wanted to offer her comfort, but I didn’t want to make things worse for everyone.
Pearl’s return from the grave had obviously triggered Damon, and Max had been giving the few inches between me and the newcomer enough of a death glare for me to know he was stressing out about me even sitting next to the other vampire.
Always so protective…
But who protects him?
Luckily, Chaz stepped up, taking her tiny hand in his like the sweet himbo he was, and it was all I could do to not openly squee over the cuteness.
I can behave.
For now.
Damon nodded and sank to the floor at Max’s feet—a favorite place for when he was anxious—and we all waited for Pearl to elaborate.
She blew out a very slow breath before she began.
“The night it all happened, I had woken up before the other doves, and gone downstairs for a glass of water. On my way to the kitchen, I happened to see a man slip into the Madam’s office, followed by her loudly demanding that he leave.
I knew it wasn’t Damon—knew he hadn’t slept at the House in weeks.
I also knew if I ran to get the marshal, it might be too late. ”
Damon closed his eyes with a devastated expression on his face, probably still blaming himself after being told not to.
Both my mates need to cut that out.
Pearl caught his reaction too. “I know, Damey. I shouldn’t have gone in there, but I spotted the crowbar we kept near the piano… you remember the one? We'd use it to fiddle with the side window that always got stuck—”
“I remember…” he sighed, reopening his eyes, looking haunted. “That same crowbar was then used to frame me for your murders.”
Well, shit.
I knew Damon had been hanged by the town marshal—for also being in the wrong place at the wrong time—but I hadn’t known about the “evidence” used against him.
Death was the least they deserved.
Pearl nodded slowly. “Yes, I heard. That was Vlad’s doing, by the way. Marshal Wallace never would have been smart enough to mastermind a setup like that, but my maker knew what would hurt Max here the most…”
“Fuck.” Max dropped his face into one hand, fisting the other in Damon’s hair. “I should have known there was another vampire around—”
“It’s not your fault either, you dunderhead,” Pearl snapped, making Damon snort and Chaz hide his smile behind a cough. Then she turned to me. “How do you manage two of them? And here I thought my mate was dramatic…”
There it is again.
“Mate.”
“The irony is that Vlad hadn’t even been feeding off the people of Opalite for very long before you rode into town, Max,” Pearl continued with a bitter laugh.
“But he’d already decided to stake his claim.
So, you can imagine he was none too pleased when another vampire arrived to take what he believed was rightfully his—especially one who didn’t… look like him.”
“Fucking Vlad,” Damon muttered, but Max looked about as unsurprised by the news as I was.
Fucking Vlad is right.
A creepy thought occurred to me. “Do you think he might have originally wanted Damon for himself?”
My guys both viscerally reacted—Damon with disgust and Max with murder—and my pussy throbbed once again.
Down, girl!
“Who wouldn't?" Pearl giggled. “Everyone wanted Damon back then. He was the prettiest thing for miles around.”
Our pretty boy blushed, but that only made him prettier. “Oh, hush,” he murmured.
Deal with it.
Pearl continued. “I actually don’t believe Vlad snuck into the House of Eternal Moonlight that evening for anything other than blood and revenge—and perhaps the doubloons Max had paid the Madame off with—but when I interrupted him slitting Roulette’s throat, I suppose he realized making me his mate was a way to drive the knife in deeper. ”
She was so weirdly nonchalant about what must have been a majorly traumatic experience, which reminded me I needed to address the mate-shaped elephant in the room.
Here we go.
“Pearl…” I laid a hand on her forearm, despite Max’s glare. “You keep referring to Vlad as your mate. What… what do you think a mate bond is?”
Everyone froze—including Chaz, who was definitely locked in for her answer—but Pearl just seemed confused over why I was even asking.
Red flag number one.
She laughed lightly. “Why, it’s the bond between a maker and their creation—”
“Absolutely fucking not!” Max barked, making Pearl cower in a way that was red flag number two. “What my maker did to me doesn’t come close to the connection I share with my mates.”
I also knew Max had been turned against his will, but that was all he’d ever shared with either of us.
His mates.
Obviously, the similarities with Pearl’s situation was majorly triggering him, but we could only get to the bottom of one pile of baggage at a time. My main concern at the moment was how unconcerned she seemed about what was clearly Stockholm syndrome.
Does she really think this is okay?
Puffing out a breath, I powered on. “Did Vlad tell you what you have is a mate bond? Or do you feel it?”
“Feel it?” Now she was looking at me like I had three heads. “I-I feel nothing for him but hatred.”
“Then why are you calling him your mate?” Chaz gritted out, with a noticeable edge to his normally cheerful voice.
Ruh-roh.
“Because… choosing a mate is up to the discretion of the maker alone,” she slowly replied, as if we were the ones who needed educating. “I’m sure Max was very sweet about the whole thing with you two, but it’s simply a vampire’s right to claim what one wants as their property.”
Oh, this is not gonna go over well.
The color drained from Max’s face so quickly, I thought he might pass out, but he just stood, spun on his heel, and headed for the door.
Shit.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Damon was on his feet and after our mate before he could disappear, grabbing Max’s bicep in a death grip. “You need to stay and hear what I have to say.”
“Now this is definitely my fault,” Pearl muttered under her breath, and I gave her a reassuring squeeze.
“It’s not your fault, you dunderhead,” Damon snapped at his long-lost surrogate sister.
“Vlad is to blame for telling you a bald-faced lie for his own selfish benefit. You want to know what a mate bond actually is?” He gestured at Max’s rigid back.
“This man crossed hundreds of miles of uninhabited terrain because he could hear my heart calling to him. When Marshal Wallace and his men hanged me, Max felt the rope around his neck, cutting off air he didn’t even need.
He took his vengeance on them for even trying, but if they had succeeded in killing me, he would have murdered the entire town. ”
Facts.
His gorgeous gaze fell on me as a smile twitched his pouty lips.
“When Star first walked into Sizzling Discourse, both Max and I felt it, even if one of us wanted to act like a giant jerk with a stick up his ass at the time. ” I laughed and he refocused on Pearl.
“My point is, the connection you feel with your mate—or mates—is undeniable. You feel like you’re…
missing a limb until you can hold them in your arms. Their pain is your pain, their joy is your joy.
Most importantly, it goes both ways, and it’s… ”
His words choked off as emotion overwhelmed him, but I knew what he was getting at.
“Most importantly, it’s consensual, Pearl,” I finished for him.
“What Vlad did to you wasn’t a mate bond.
” My gaze drifted to where Max was still standing with his back to the rest of us, ready to bolt. “It was… a violation.”
Chaz growled low—a sound I had never heard from him in all our decades of forced proximity—but Pearl only gripped his hand tighter, offering him comfort.
“I… had no idea,” she murmured, looking understandably upset.
We need to get this girl in therapy, stat.
Before I could steer the conversation to less traumatic waters, Max turned and gave Pearl an assessing once-over. “Well, now you know, and now you’ve found us again. Did Vlad mastermind that as well?”
“Not… exactly.” She cleared her throat and reached forward to open her—frankly, iconic—vintage beaded purse before peering inside.
“I wasn’t aware you were in Los Angeles until after you’d escaped and Vlad started ranting about you to anyone who would listen.
Apparently, driving you out of town was only part of his plan… ”
Max tensed but I huffed a laugh, remembering that batshit crazy time in our lives.
“Yeah, Vlad dug up—literally, dug up—my psycho ex-bestie, convinced her she was destined to be his mate, and then sent her to kill me at Sizzling Discourse while the guys were stuck in a coven meeting. It didn’t end well for her. ”
That’s what happens when you bring a letter opener to a vampire fight.
“Oh.” Pearl looked more confused than ever. “I didn’t know anything about that.”
Red flags all over the place.
“Are you sure?” Max stalked closer again, his hot-yet-terrifying focus making me feel conflicted all over again. “You didn’t finish explaining how you found us, Pearl, or where Vlad is now. Start. Talking.”
“Max…” I warned, in no mood for victim blaming.
Now I’m the one being protective.
Probably due to her long career of dealing with difficult men, Pearl waved a hand in Max’s direction, dismissing the tension and refocusing on digging around in her purse.
“While Vlad was obsessed with figuring out where you’d run off to, I snuck away to the Retail Haven mall, to see if I could find any clues to your whereabouts.
For myself,” she clarified as Max’s eyes narrowed.
“Sizzling Discourse was locked up tight, but before I could locate a mall worker to compel into letting me in, a human woman appeared, asking if I was there for a makeup appointment.”
Oh, no…
Pearl continued as my heart sank. “I explained the store was closed indefinitely and she pulled out a business card, aiming to throw it in a nearby trash bin. I convinced her to give it to me instead and have kept it hidden ever since. Ah! Here it is…”
I already knew what “it” was. Pearl pulled a purple card from her purse—a card I knew well, since I’d also kept the remaining stack hidden ever since.
A business card for Star Baby Cosmetics.
For obvious reasons, I couldn’t use that business name anymore, but had soothed my spiteful soul by naming one of my collections Star Baby along the way.
Looks like our dove is a legit detective.
“From there it was a dead end for a while, which made me glad for all your sakes.” Pearl sighed, smiling sadly. “But then Vlad finally started letting me attend coven meetings about a year ago, and I happened to look over the shoulder of the vampire next to me as they used Linkstagram.”
How sheltered has she been?
“Instagram,” I corrected, realizing I was going to have to catch this poor girl up to speed on the entire last century.
“Yes! Instagram.” She beamed proudly. “They were watching a video demonstration for ‘vampire makeup,’ being applied to the prettiest man either of us had ever seen. The bottom half of his face was covered with a mask, but I would recognize those eyes anywhere.”
Damon.
My muse and I shared a helpless look while Max sighed. “Before anyone blames themselves, can we all agree Vlad is far too decrepit, self-centered, and allergic to anything technology-related to track us down in this way.”
Okay, fair.
“Not that he won’t find other ways to get to us,” he added, with a suspicious glare at the newest vampire in our midst.
“I wouldn’t be so sure…” Pearl fidgeted with the card in her hands, radiating anxiety.
“Discovering your Insta… gram only told me you still existed, not where you were. Vlad wouldn’t even know where to start with social media and if what you’re saying about mate bonds is true, he also won’t be able to track me here on his own. That’s a shame…”
“Excuse me?” Max snapped, his mouth dropping open as he stared at the runaway vampire. “Are you… admitting it was your plan to lure Vlad into following you here? For what purpose?”
She sniffed, impressively unbothered by his blatant accusation. “Like I said—so you can kill him for me! I can’t do it. Vlad told me if I even tried I would burst into flames… oh, dear…”
Just call the red flag factory at this point.
“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” I announced, giving all the growly men in the room the stink-eye until they settled down and sat down.
“Personally, I would love to rip off Vlad’s bald head and use it as a bowling ball, so let’s do this.
Let’s lure that Dracula wannabe to Maine and end him once and for all. ”
“Oh, thank you, Star!” Pearl threw her arms around me and hugged me tight, making my grinchy heart grow three sizes. “What would I ever do without you?”
I grinned wildly at Chaz looking all grumpy and left out over her shoulder before I replied for all of us. “Well, you don’t have to wonder anymore, girlfriend. You’re part of our family now.”