Chapter 21
Scotty
“I’m really sorry about all this,” I whispered to Chance once I knew Ego was paying attention to Harry and Buck and not to me. “I know how inconvenient it is to have your primary employee up and disappear.”
Chance waved me off. “You’re fine. We were already actively looking for someone else to help out. We invited you to stay and gave you a job so that you’d have options, not to have you at our beck and call.”
I’d gotten so lucky ending up in Willowhope. Chance and Jetty were two of the greatest people I’d ever known. “Is everything okay?”
He snickered. “Yeah, Theo is loving all the hours, and Buck and Stevie are having a blast pranking him.”
“Will you ever tell him that ghosts are real?”
Chance nodded immediately. “One hundred percent. Mom and I can’t quite work it out, but we’re pretty sure he’s a descendant of a magical family.”
I practically rolled my eyes. “Of course he is. It seems like everyone who ends up finding a place with you is somehow magical.”
“Including you,” Ego said, tuning back in and pushing into my side.
Without thought, I wrapped my arm around his waist. Ego’s eyes widened, and I went to pull away—because really, what the hell was I doing—but he snuggled in before I could.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not magical.”
Rosie, the High Priestess, joined us with a drink in one hand and a chocolate éclair in the other. “Yes, you are, dear. What do you think an anchor is?”
“Uh…actually, I’m not sure.” I shrugged one shoulder. “I figured Ego was just used to me, so my presence gives him a measure of comfort.”
“True enough.” She wrinkled her nose. “But you already have to have the magical abilities for that to happen. Your soul has to carry equal parts patience and protectiveness. And it’s essentially your blood that carries the properties that soothes Ego, and demands his vampiric nature take notice.”
“Really?” I asked, shocked.
“Well, duh,” Ego teased. “Lysandro told us that.”
I gaped at him. “No, he didn’t. He pretty much said, you’re his anchor, and you have to stay here with him. That’s it. The end.”
Ego’s brow furrowed. “Then how did I know everything Rosie just said?”
Lysandro appeared on Ego’s other side. “Once I said it, you just knew. It’s part of our nature. Sometimes we know things we don’t even know we know until someone says something. Then centuries of knowledge poof into our brains.” He motioned above his head like it was exploding.
“That’s…okay. That’s helpful, I guess.” I still didn’t really understand why that was magical, but okay.
“Anyway,” Rosie continued. “I’ve been asking Lysandro questions that I never thought to ask before we had our own little baby vamp.” She smiled fondly at Ego. “And he says your senses are heightened now, but that you haven’t tried eating yet.”
Ego huffed. “Yeah, no. The whole food burning up inside my body and coughing it out sounds horrible. Since I don’t experience hunger anymore, and the only thing I crave is…” He trailed off.
“Blood. You can say it, dear,” Rosie said. “We don’t mind.” She held the éclair out to him. “But I really think you should try eating something. Think of it as a test run.”
Lysandro smacked his hands together. “Oh fun! Extra training.”
I leaned around Ego to give him a are you for real look. We both knew Ego had done more than enough yesterday. Like the rest of us, Ego didn’t have the ability to say no to the older woman, so he took it and glanced at me. I gave him an encouraging nod, and he popped the whole thing in his mouth.
Then moaned—so long and low my dick twitched. The bliss that crossed his face rivaled the expression he made when he’d orgasmed. His eyeballs rolled back in his head, and I tightened my grip around his waist as his knees buckled. Lysandro chuckled and grabbed his arm, helping me hold him up.
“I told you food was delicious now,” Lysandro said.
Ego licked his lips so aggressively that I felt my dick plump, and I stepped half behind him like I was holding him up when I was really just trying to make sure no one saw the bulge in my jeans.
Ego’s voice came out thick and deep as he said, “That was the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
Sky barked out a laugh from across the room. “Wow. All those years on tour, and that’s the best thing you’ve ever put in your mouth? Cousin of mine, you were doing something wrong.”
There was laughter across the room, and I planned on teasing him about that later because I rather thought my tongue should’ve been the best thing he’d ever put in his mouth, when his head whipped toward me, and his eyes bulged like they were going to pop right out of his head.
“Excuse us,” I said abruptly and dragged him into the hall. “Cough.”
He clasped his lips shut, cheeks bulging, and shook his head.
“Don’t make me get Lysandro. Cough.”
He wrinkled his nose and turned his head away, hacking up what sounded like a lung, but was nothing more than a small plume of ash. He stared at it as it floated to the ground with disgust.
I took that moment to adjust my dick while no one could see me, then said, “That was awesome.”
He glared at me. “That was disgusting.”
“So you’re really going to tell me that éclair wasn’t worth it? I’m not going to lie, Ego. It looked like it was better than coming.”
He smiled slyly, using his body to back me up toward the wall. “Not better than coming with you.”
As I looped my arms around his neck, not sure what we were doing here, but into it after watching the ecstasy that was his first time eating.
Our mouths were close, so damn close, when I heard a throat clear. I froze, recognizing that sound after hearing it so many times in my life. “Stevie. Hi,” I said, dropping my arms from around Ego’s neck.
“Stevie, it’s good to see you again,” Ego said, but kept his hands firmly on my waist. Oh shit.
Stevie glared daggers at Ego’s hands. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said brightly. “We were just about to rejoin the party.”
“Mhm. It didn’t look like it,” he said.
Trixie, standing a little behind Stevie, covered her mouth as she giggled. My brother turned around. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because your brother’s a grown man, and you’re interrupting what looked like a very sweet moment.”
“Thank you,” Ego said. “It was going to be—”
I smacked my hand over his mouth. “Why don’t we all go back into the living room and mingle?”
Stevie made a face, but trailed after Trixie when she pulled on his hand. I went to follow them, but Ego stopped me with a press of his lips to mine. And it was indeed a very sweet kiss.
“You don’t mind me stopping by?” Stevie asked.
“No, I wanted to see you. We barely had a second to talk last night.” I gestured for him to come into the mini-castle. “But I’m not sure why you wasted energy ringing the doorbell. You could’ve just popped in like you do at the manor.”
“I wasn’t sure what you’d be doing? Or who?” he mumbled at the end.
Holding back a snort, I walked with him back into the other room and settled in my normal chair. “How are you doing, big brother?”
He sat—not that he needed to—in Ego’s spot. It was a good thing it was daytime, and he was still asleep. “I came to ask you that. This is all happening kinda fast, isn’t it?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure I’d have ever known I was an anchor if I hadn’t met a vampire who needed me.”
Stevie scowled. “I didn’t mean you being Ego’s anchor. I meant…whatever that was I caught you two doing in the hallway last night.”
“Still the over-protective big brother,” I teased.
He sighed and leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees. “It’s my job.”
I stared at my brother, letting our lives together run through my mind like a movie reel. “I think…I think you’ve done your job, Stevie. I think it’s time for you to live your best life now.”
“I am.”
“Are you?” I asked. “What’s going on with you and Trixie?”
A myriad of expressions crossed his face. “Nothing. She’s my friend.”
“But you like her.”
He shrugged, glancing away, and I went to sit on the couch next to him. “That’s okay, you know? For you to move on and care about other people—to care about her. It doesn’t make me feel any less loved.”
He side-eyed me. “It doesn’t?”
I shook my head. “I think it did before, maybe. I guess that’s why I was acting so funny and not telling you why I was going to the library and stuff. I didn’t realize it until I moved in with Ego, but I think maybe a part of me thought you were leaving me behind.”
He corporealized enough to set his hand on my shoulder blade. “Scotty, I’d never—”
I held up a hand to stop him. “I know that now. Because even though I’m here, and I’m Ego’s anchor, and I’m…
well, I’m studying for my GED. I want to take a bookkeeping certification and maybe start my own business.
And I realized, even with all of that, nothing’s changed about how much I love you.
How much I still want to see and talk and hang out with my big brother, and tell you what’s happening in my life.
“But I want to hear about yours, too. I want to know if you’ve told Trixie you like her? Have you kissed? I want to know all the things, and it’s okay that we’re not doing them together. Don’t you think?”
He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and wrapped me in a fierce hug.
The big bear hug that I’d counted on through all the years when I needed shelter in the storms of life, and I leaned into it.
So happy that this small, magical town with these extraordinary people had given us the opportunity to still have this.
“I think you’re right, little brother. It’s time for me to face the fact that you’re truly grown up. Maybe we can just be…”
“Best friends,” I said.
He hummed with contentment. “Best friends.”
Then I wiped away a few of my own tears before we dove in and caught up on all the things that had been happening in both our lives.
“Are you sure you can’t stay?” I asked Lysandro as he fastened the button on his shirt after preparing Ego’s dinner.