Chapter Twelve - Teagan
Waking up is a sluggish thing.
For long moments, I drift. Bobbing in and out until I float back into consciousness, only to regret it immediately. My mouth is pasty, my head full of cotton, and my body aches worse than any time I ate pavement falling off my skateboard.
But…
“You have fangs,” I croak, not needing to crack open my eyes to know I’m in Kai’s arms. Only my big brother would keep me locked in this way.
“Oh, thank God. You’re awake,” he rushes out on a single breath.
Slowly, I push myself out of Kai’s arms, needing to sit up to shake away some of the fog.
“Drink this.” A cup is held to my lips, and I take short sips until it’s empty.
“You have fangs,” I repeat, my throat raw from screaming.
Fuck.
The memories of what happened with Summer at King’s crash over me. Along with finding Kai and Vidar drinking each other’s blood. I’ve never wished so badly to walk in on two people having sex.
I don’t know what to think, or even feel, and figuring out the shitstorm raging through my emotions is useless; my every last neuron is fried. I need paint, distance, a bottle of vodka and someplace high up to drink it.
“I…yeah.” Kai reaches for his ash-blonde braids that cover the left side of his face. “Yeah, little bro. I have fangs.”
My stomach sinks. I’ve known for weeks that Kai’s been keeping things from me. Bigger things than the secret I’ve been keeping from him. Who gives a shit about uni when my big bro is chomping on his boyfriend’s neck?
Kai doesn’t say anything else, just keeps nervously tugging his hair. He hates the white swirling scars crisscrossing from his forehead down to his chin. When we were kids, I once told him they were pretty. The devastated look he gave me ensured I never told him again.
“What happened with Summer?” Kai asks when I stay silent.
Breathing out a long breath, my gaze drops down to the arm Summer cut. Someone—probably Kai—changed my bloodied clothes for sweats and a T-shirt that’s too big, causing the neck to hang awkwardly, and I’m surprised to find only smooth skin. Somehow, I’m fully healed. There isn’t even a scar.
“Would you believe me if I told you?” My voice might be quiet, but it shakes with simmering rage. My friend took control of my body, and I don’t even get the evidence that it happened. It’s bullshit. “I hardly believe it myself.”
“I’m a vampire.”
I wait a beat, then my gaze drifts up to stare into Kai’s jade-green eyes.
Kai was the first person I came out to, the first person to understand without explanation that words aren’t always my language. He said there was nothing wrong with my silence. He gave me paint and showed me that art could be a way to communicate. To express myself.
The only thing I’ve ever lied to him about is why I left uni, because if Kai knew, it’d make that shitshow too real. Too shameful.
So, for the first time since Mum and Dad brought Kai home and told me I had a big brother, who I loved completely in the wholehearted way only a three-year-old could—and that has never really changed—I stare at Kai and don’t know the person looking back at me.
“Vampires are real?” I whisper, small and fragile.
“Yeah. They are.”
“How long…” I swallow. “How long have you been one?”
He sighs. “Not long.”
“And is Sen…?”
“Yeah, Teagan,” he murmurs, laying a gentle hand on my cheek. “Him, too.”
I drop my head, and for once, my silence isn’t where I find comfort or fun. It isn’t meant to annoy or be full of sarcasm. The world is simply too loud, and if I add more noise, I’m scared I’ll implode.
But then a greater urge takes over—Sen. For some reason, a guy I’ve barely spent an hour with is all that’s keeping my head above water, and isn’t that the strangest fucking thing?
“Sen saved me from Summer. Where…where is he?”
“He’s fine,” Kai assures, and the muscles I didn’t know were tense relax.
“Teagan, what happened with Summer?” Kai asks, soft but insistent. “Please, you’ve gotta tell me, little bro.”
“Are you still my brother?”
“Teagan.” He flinches. “Of course. Always. You know that.”
“Do I?” His teeth are blunt now, but if I wait long enough, will I see Kai’s fangs again? Vidar’s blood on his chin? Just like Kai’s blood smeared across Vidar’s serious mouth? “I thought I did.”
“You’re upset, I get that, mate. But c’mon…” Kai lets out an exasperated breath. “You do realise I’m trying to protect you, right?”
“By lying to me?”
“Fucking hell, I’m not—…okay fine, I lied.
Or didn’t share the truth, whatever. I can also admit maybe I didn’t do the best bloody job.
But what was I supposed to do? There ain’t a fucking manual on how to handle when your kid brother learns about the supernatural, because if I lay it all out, it sounds like utter madness. ”
“I already feel like I’ve lost my mind.”
I should focus on Kai, vampires, Summer controlling my body—Sen, Sen, Sen. His name quiets the confused screaming rushing between my ears.
Before, I thought we just had an instant connection, a crush that would become more if I poked for long enough.
But now there is something that scares me about this urgent need.
Why, if I concentrate hard enough, can I feel a…
thing? An arrow, a rope, a connection that leads directly to Sen.
Deliciously dark and all mine, but he isn’t.
But he is.
“We’re all mad down here,” I whisper, digging my fingers into my sweats in the same way my entire focus holds onto Sen. I spit out a shaky breath and try to ease my grip on both.
Kai sighs. “I’ll tell you everything, and then you’ll tell me what happened with Summer?”
I nod. What else is there to do?
He breathes in—then begins.
Kai tells me about Golden and his brother Jace. How Golden fell in love with another vampire named Lucero. He tells me about Emma and a burning warehouse. About a spellbook that no one can touch but whoever owns it, and how he gave that spellbook up.
“Sen saved me from Emma,” Kai tells me.
“He’s slick, that one…”
Kai gently strokes my hair back, and he seems to understand what even I don’t. “I know, little bro. I know.” I pull my knees up and bury my face in them. “Sen is okay, and he’s coming back.”
“Why do I care?” I ask, voice muffled. “You’re telling me all this shit, and all I can think about is him.”
Kai sighs. He doesn’t answer, and soon I learn more: “You know how my birth parents died in a house fire?”
I frown, confused by the shift, but nod.
“I always told you I was playing with candles, but…I wasn’t.” Kai holds out his hand, and after a moment, the smallest purple flame unfurls atop his pointer finger.
“Holy shit…” I let go of my legs, slowly sitting up straight as purple light dances across Kai’s half-hidden face. “Holy shit…”
“I know, right?” he chuckles sadly, then blows out that little flame. “I didn’t know how to tell you, Teagan. How to admit I killed them…”
I’m angry at my brother, hurt, and overwhelmed by so many other feelings that only paint will help sort out, but I look at him sharply. “You weren’t to blame for what happened to them. You were a kid.”
He startles, and after a beat, his expression melts. “Summer was the one who told me I’m a half-demon. That’s why I can use magic…”
“Stop. Wait, so…you’re a half-demon AND a vampire?”
“As I said, it’s all crazy.”
“Fucking hell. Demons, vampires…what’s next?”
He snorts in a way that makes me think there’s so much more. “Emma ripped out my soul, and we trusted Summer to help. But when we found Emma, she was…weak. Sick. Demons apparently make mages ill.”
“I’m sorry, she did what? Your soul? Fuck, Kai. Are you okay now—”
“I’m fine, I promise. It’s all totally healed.” He pulls up his t-shirt to reveal a long scar going down his chest.
My heart seizes. Kai hates pain; he’s a tattoo artist without a tattoo. I can’t even imagine how scary that must’ve been for him. “Kai—” My voice breaks, and I throw my arms around him, hugging him tight.
Kai swallows back a shaky breath and drops his forehead against mine, hugging me back. “I promise, little bro. I’m all good. Better than ever, in fact. But I did fuck up with Summer. I should’ve told you to stay away from her.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
We stay connected, Kai holding onto me like if we part, I’ll never let him hug me again.
I wanna assure him that nothing has changed. The problem is that everything has.
“Alright, it’s your turn, Teagan,” Kai says, easing back.
Before I can say anything, a man walks in. A man with… “Holy shit. You’ve got silver eyes.”
He smirks. “That I do, cutie.” Then he looks to Kai, face becoming serious. “They’re back, and with people.”
“They have Summer?” Kai kicks the sheets away so he can climb out of the bed.
I stifle the little kid inside me that wants to reach out for Kai to keep him close.
“Not Summer,” the silver-eyed man replies before moving aside as Vidar marches in with all the grace of a battering ram heading directly for Kai. “Something deadlier.”