Chapter 22
Hugo
Ihonestly never thought I’d love living in the middle of a forest, surrounded by about a billion of my boyfriend’s—mate’s AKA viramore’s—family members, but I seriously did. I loved it here. Everyone was just so… kind to each other.
Of course there were arguments, especially between Ailin and a few of his kids, but they were never cruel to each other. And they always made up, and of course, there was a ton of hugging involved.
There was tons of hugging. Period. All the time.
That was something else I didn’t think I’d enjoy, but it’d been so… nice.
I never really had nice in my life before now, and I didn’t think I’d ever get sick of it.
Buuuuuutttt… I really missed working.
I loved my job and my coworkers, and I missed them. I missed the atmosphere and the independence.
Kian had been hanging out with us and even staying in our new house, nearly every day, which was good.
I was definitely still worried about him.
He just seemed so… so fucking sad. But with Zay and me being forced to live here for the last few weeks, Kian had to come back too. And it’d been good for him.
His sister and cousins were taking him out and not letting him become a hermit in his house—or ours—which was great. He’d been hanging out with us a lot, and there was almost always someone else here with him. So yeah, he was doing a little better.
He wasn’t good, not yet, but I was hopeful that he would be.
Toby had taken me with him to run errands the other day, and I’d handled being around humans fine. I wasn’t even a little bit tempted. Honestly, it kinda grossed me out to think about biting into some stranger.
The only one I wanted to drink from was my viramore.
Well, and Toby, if I was being real. His blood was delicious. Being my sire made me crave it.
But definitely not as much as I craved Zay’s blood.
Shaking that off, I walked into Toby and Thayer’s house without knocking—another thing that was strange to me. I was so completely comfortable just walking in like this. Who would’ve thought little ol’ me could honestly feel like they were my family?
I sure as hell never could’ve imagined it.
“Hey, Hugo!” Thayer yelled from the kitchen.
“Hey!” I yelled back, following the sound of his voice.
When I turned the corner, he was finishing up some dishes and turned to smile at me. “How’s it going?”
“Good.”
“You still feeling okay? Still good with everything?”
It was sweet that he checked in with me often. He knew I’d been scared to become a vampire and had a lot of reservations, so he always made sure I was feeling alright about everything.
“Honestly, I’m feeling great about everything. I feel good, strong, and healthy, and I’m loving living here.”
“That’s great, but I hear a but coming.”
I snorted. “I miss working. That’s actually why I’m here. I wanted to ask Toby if I can go back to work.”
“Ah, makes sense. Let me tell him to come here. He’s over Em and Jules’ house doing… I don’t even know what. Probably work crap. Anyway, let me get him back here so you can talk—”
“Oh no. You don’t have to interrupt him.”
He waved me off. “Trust me, kiddo, he wants to be here for you. He’d be upset if he found out you were looking for him, and he was busy, and I didn’t let him know.”
That made me feel… weird. Sort of guilty, but also… I dunno, pleased, maybe? It was… sweet.
Having a sire was so strange, but I definitely lucked out in that department. Toby was one of the gentlest souls I’d ever met, and he’d truly stepped into that fatherly position seamlessly.
And Thayer was just as… fatherly.
I’d never had that either.
It seemed that Zaos and his family were determined to give me everything I’d ever missed out on and more.
It was only a minute before Toby walked into the house, and I knew he had to have used his vampire speed to get here that quickly. As soon as he saw me, he walked over and pulled me into a hug.
It was a total dad hug, and I was here for it. He always gave me a nice, big dad hug every time we saw each other, even if it’d only been a few hours since we’d last been together.
He released me and squeezed my biceps, grinning at me. “Hey, fledgling. You okay?”
For some reason, the whole fledgling endearment thing felt special, so I smiled back. “Yeah, sire, I’m good.”
He patted my arms, then walked over to Uncle Thay and gave him a quick kiss before turning back to me. “So what’s going on?”
“Um… so… I really, um, miss working… so I was wondering if I can maybe go back to work? Even just part time or something?”
“Oh. Okay. I’m sure we can arrange that.
” He stared at Thayer for a moment, and I had a feeling they were speaking telepathically.
When he nodded at him and turned back to me, I knew I was right.
“The two of us can come with you as your bodyguards. That way we don’t even have to worry about being apart too long. ”
That made me equal parts happy and guilty. “Are you sure? I don’t want to mess up your schedules.”
He waved me away. “We were already planning on guarding either you or Zay, but since you’re my fledgling, we all, including Alec, decided a while ago that I’d stick with you when you guys went back to your normal lives. That was already the plan. We were just waiting for you to be ready.”
“Oh. Um… okay, then. That’s awesome. Um… when should we start?”
“We can start tomorrow if you’d like?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Yes. That’s great! Thank you so much!” I ran over and hugged him, then I hugged Thayer too before I rushed out of the house to find Zaos and tell him the good news.
He was probably going to be worried as hell, but he’d also be happy for me because he knew I didn’t like just sitting around at home all day and night.
For my first day back, Drin gave me a super short shift. I’d told him everything that’d happened—hell, the attack and being-bitten-to-turn-vampy all happened in his bar, after all—so he wanted to make sure I could handle all the noise and everything before he put me on a long shift.
All of this was coming after giving me nearly a month straight off to adjust to my new body.
I appreciated him working with me on this.
The second I walked in, I was overwhelmed with so many sensory things that I got dizzy and had to close my eyes.
There was music and people yelling over it and so many conversations going on at once… and I could hear every single thing. It was terrible.
And then the smells. Holy hell, the smells were… so fucking gross. Beer and sweat and a million other alcoholic drinks, food and perfumes and just. So. Many. Smells.
It was disgusting.
And overwhelming.
I peeked one eye open and slammed it shut because holy crap, even the lighting with its flashing lights and bright moving mini spotlights was overwhelming. What the hell. As a human, I hadn’t even thought the bar was bright. At all.
Toby put his hand on my shoulder and whispered into my ear, “Take a deep breath and focus on only your own breathing. Listen to it, feel it, smell your own scent.”
That was super weird, but I did what he asked.
“Okay. So you’re gonna need to block everything else out, okay? I know it isn’t easy, but if you focus on the things directly in front of you, like me right now, it’ll get easier. It takes a lot of practice to block things out when you need to, but you’ll get there.”
“My head hurts.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty common when you’re getting used to blocking. Like I said, it takes time. If you need to leave, we can go at any time.”
“No, I… I just need a few minutes.”
“Alright, kiddo. I’m right here if you need me.”
I nodded and did as he suggested—concentrated on the things right in front of me. So… him. I took in his scent, ignoring all others. I smelled his blood along with his natural scent, and I held it there in my nose.
He was familiar. He was my sire.
He was family.
Nothing was overwhelming about my sire.
Finally, my nose seemed to stop trying to inhale every single thing in a two-block radius.
Then I listened to his breathing. Vampires didn’t technically have to breathe, but most of them did as a habit developed when they were human.
I blocked out the music and the billion conversations and focused only on my sire.
When I felt like I had a little bit of a handle on those two things, I turned my face toward my sire and opened my eyes.
I squinted, but I also focused on him standing there, all intimidating and serious-looking.
He smiled and laughed so easily at home that it was almost surreal seeing him like this.
He sent me a small smile, but when he looked around at the other patrons, his serious face was back in play.
Shaking my head in amusement—Toby was one of the gentlest souls I knew, yet everyone was scared of him—I slowly walked over to the bar, doing my best to focus on what was right in front of me and ignoring everything else. It was way easier said than done, but I was working through it.
Jett was already behind the bar, and he gave me a back-slapping hug when I joined him. “It’s good to have you back.” He’d visited me a billion times and was nearly as excited about my new coven house as I was.
In fact, he’d loved it so much that Ailin and Sebastian had offered to make him and Ward one right beside ours. He was having trouble accepting it—the hypocrite—but I was pretty sure he was going to tell them yes the next time they asked. I couldn’t wait.
The new house would come in especially handy when Toby turned Jett, which they both agreed to and planned on doing in a few months, once I no longer needed Toby’s blood. I was excited for that too.
Jett was looking forward to it even though he was a little nervous. But after seeing how well I was doing, he was ready to jump in with both feet.
I said, “It’s good being back. Everything’s really weird though, so I might be a little slow moving today.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Just… it’s a lot. Very noisy and smelly.”
He chuckled at that. “I bet.”
“But I’m excited to get back to work.”
He sent me a smile. “Let me know if there’s anything you need, alright?”
“Will do. Thanks.”