Chapter 4 #3
“You have a mate that’s all.” He asked him about living arrangements. “Not that you’re not welcome here for as long as the two of you wish, but I’m sure that now that you have her in your life, you’ll wish for your own home.”
“I don’t know. We’ve only just met today.
I will be looking for something for us. With her, no doubt, but as for any other arrangements, I think we’ll have to wait on her.
She has a willful mind, and I’d hate to upset her by assuming that she’s going to want a home of her own.
However, she did like the house that Conri gave her.
You should see it. It’s as clean as a whistle and flowers all over the room that I could see into.
” He asked if he was able to go into the house to stay with her.
“She wouldn’t allow me to go into her home.
She’s smart in that. I don’t know what I would have done had she allowed me to enter.
I know that I wasn’t in the best frame of mind when she was in there without me. ”
“You two will get to know one another in no time.” Sirous hoped so. He really was falling in love with the pretty little human. “I take it that you’ve not figured out how she knows what she does about the winners. I could tell her if she didn’t trust you.”
“I don’t know that I could take that either, my dear friend.” There was only a bit of jealousy when Brew suggested he bite his mate before he did. He was sure that he understood, too. Brew was a good man and a better vampire than he had been.
For the rest of the evening, they spoke of nothing to do with Tabitha’s mother or the bear Carl.
It was a time of good friends, and he thought that perhaps he had the best of the lot.
When Mother Smith joined them, she brought up stories of their childhood and how they’d all grown up together under her roof.
As children, they had spent a great deal of time in the Smith household.
She’d only been known as mother and her mate as father, even though they all had parents of their own.
Sirous’ parents had been distant when he’d been a child.
So much so that when he felt their deaths, it was nothing more than a feeling of relief.
The same had been with Kenneth’s parents, too.
They’d been old when they’d had them, and they, like him, had been set in their ways too much to want to bother with them.
Mother Smith had made up for their lack of love and encouragement by making sure that they had a bed at their home and all the knowledge they’d need to become good men.
He knew, too, how to woo a woman; however, he’d not had much of a reason to use it until now.
He was going to make sure that he dusted off that knowledge and used it to woo his mate. She deserved the very best.
By the time the younger women were yawning their way through conversations, he knew it was time that he made a decision on where they were going to be staying.
He wouldn’t presume to sleep with her, but he would find her a good bed that she could rest in with him nearby.
Calla had made the arrangements for him, and he would be forever grateful to her for taking it upon herself to make sure that Tabitha felt welcome in the big home.
After the women went up to bed, he longed for a night out with his friends.
He’d been pushing them away because he knew that to get too close to them again would be harder on him, but now that that part of his life was at a close, he wanted to spend as much time with them as he could.
They all decided that they would walk into town and see what they could get into.
Brew and he wouldn’t participate in the feeding, but they’d have fun all the same.
He’d forgotten what it was like to spend the evening with a bunch of vampires on the hunt for a meal.
By the time the sun was coming up, he was beginning to feel the pull of his rest. He didn’t have to rest as much as a newborn vampire did, but he’d been neglecting his rest for trying to get in as much time with his friends as he could.
Now all he wanted to do was to sleep the sleep of his kind and not wake until he was better.
He would have to feed soon, and he wasn’t going to mess up with Tabitha by smelling of someone else when he had her to be his mate.
Checking on Tabitha before he had his slumber, he knew that she was sleeping well and left her to it.
As much as he wanted to just rest next to her, he knew that all the trust that he’d built up until now would be gone if he were to do that.
Instead, he made his way to the room he’d been using and laid down.
Sleep took him in its grip even as he thought about making sure that the house was well protected for the only true one of his life.
His mate deserved the very best, and he was going to make sure that she had it.
When he woke the next evening, he felt like he’d gotten a good day’s sleep.
Nothing had bothered him, and he found that Tabitha had gotten up long before he did.
Going to the kitchen, a place that seemed to call to the others too to spend time, he found her having a hearty breakfast and talking with the faeries of the house.
He’d forgotten they were around and was glad that someone had introduced her to them.
Calla was warmer towards not just him but Tabitha, too.
“I knew that something would happen and you’d not have to go through with your death.
” He said that he was humbled in the way that he’d met her.
“As you should be. She was just telling me how you were going to protect her from her mother. I hope you know that if you were to kill her, I’d not lose any sleep over it. She sounds like a monster.”
“That’s a good name for her, monster. I do believe that she’s that and more.
” Calla told him that she would kill her herself if given the opportunity.
“For now, I’m going to allow her to live.
But as soon as she tries anything with my heart, I’m going to kill her just the way that I warned her. Slow and painfully.”
For the rest of the evening, they talked about the upcoming festival that was coming to town.
Calla wasn’t all that thrilled about the rides, as she’d heard all her life that they weren’t well-maintained and were dangerous to be ridden.
He assured her that he’d take care that they were safe while in town to keep the children safe.
He found that he really was a different man than he’d been even one day ago.
Before, he wouldn’t have cared at all for the rides and the children on them.
Now he wanted nothing to happen to anyone who came around him.
Sirous not only made the rides safer, but he also made sure that there was no cheating going on with the games along the way, too.
It was the least he could do for his new hometown.
“We need to talk.” He told Tabitha that he was there for her.
“I’ve heard a great deal about vampires and more last night.
I don’t know what to believe.” He told her that she only needed to ask and he’d tell her.
“I don’t know about you either. You’re so different than you were when I first met you. It’s like you’re a pod person.”
While he didn’t know what that meant, he did strive to answer all her questions about his kind.
Before the end of the evening, he was sure that he’d given her every answer that he could have about vampires and what they did than he’d ever thought about in his life.
He was happy too. Happy that she was willing enough to question him about his kind so that she’d not be fearful of him. That made him happiest of all.