Page 129 of Labor of Love

No, no, I don’t!

Yes, yes, we do,his animal half came back with. A cheeky little squirrel who had a very playful nature and Ledger suspected if he’d been able to shift into his animal form, he’d be the kind to get Ledger into trouble.

You can do that all on your own,he pointed out.But this one, you should most definitely get into trouble with.

The smell coming from the bakery didn’t mask the spicy scent that made Ledger’s animal spirit want them to get closer, so they could stick their nose in all the intimate places to see where it was strongest.

Behave!

His sensitive nose could detect the warmness of saffron combined with Italian fruits. It created a contrast of intense spiciness with luminous accents.

The man—alpha—didn’t fit with the town. Heck, Ledger didn’t know where he would fit, but he wanted to find out.

No, mister, you aren’t falling for the first guy you meet in bumfuck. Not happening, you hear me?

Why are you talking to yourself like that?

His animal was actually laughing at him, and Ledger was feeling very insulted. Except everything about the alpha appealed on so many levels—mainly the naked kind. All the promises he made about getting involved with an alpha that got his dick hard seemed to evaporate as the guy moved closer, offering his hand.

“And who might you be, sweetling?”

Sweetling. I’m swooning.

Those eyes held him enthralled in their depth of blue ringed with black. Ledger fell hard enough that his innards felt the impact. It radiated through every cell inside him. Spellbound, hetook the hand, having lost all sense of reality when cool, long, tapered fingers wrapped around his hand, engulfing it.

“Yours,” he murmured with absolute certainty.

Thorn

“You most definitely are.” There on the main street in Bayfield—and as the sweetling with honey eyes had put it—in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, no other reply made sense.

This, Thorn could now see clearly, was what had driven him to arrange a meeting with their new sommelier in town, when he easily could have given the man directions to the winery. Like his brothers, Thorn had enhanced senses that few outsiders of the family, and even in the vampiric community, were aware of. As an ancient coming from one of the oldest vampire families, his abilities had been honed over centuries.

Abilities he never questioned.

Initially, he’d become intrigued at seeing a bright red corvette in town. Not a familiar sight in these parts, where SUVs and trucks were the norm. Then the blond-haired divergent omega had stepped out of the car and Thorn’s senses had heightened painfully as he followed the omega’s progress down the sidewalk. A sense of knowing washed over him, and he was unable to deny that the omega belonged to him.

His senses spoke to this tiny divergent being his destiny and the need to claim him as such—now. As a vampire, he’d heard the lore about finding his dhampir, the only problem with that a dhampir was usually female. The cutie in front of him was most definitely not female.

As of right now, he needed to find out what the omega was doing in town and how to introduce him to a vampire family few knew existed.

While he considered if using his thrall to get the answers was the done thing, a knock to his shoulder forced him to let go of the hand or wrench the omega’s arm from its socket. He scowled at the idiot who’d walked into him, then forced back a groan at seeing the big alpha, Brigg. Thorn had a dalliance months earlier with the bear shifter and had no wish to repeat, no matter how persistent Brigg was. Thorn, on a very rare occasion he chose a bed mate, wanted one that was strong enough to cope with his vampiric strength. The bear, he recalled, hadn’t met his expectations at all.

“Thorn, what a surprise to find you in town.” The bear actually simpered, like that was an attractive trait, flirting way too obviously.

“I came to find…” Thorn glanced at the omega, then frowned at seeing him hustle off down the sidewalk, providing a view of the impressive sway of his slim hips and how his bubble butt moved in the designer jeans. Where on earth was he going?

“Me, I hope,” Brigg interjected, stepping in front of Thorn and blocking his view.

Thorn was not quick to anger. His brothers often said he had ice in his veins as it never heated like Dacian’s or Calvert’s. In this moment, however, he found himself furious at how Brigg was impeding him from claiming his dhampir. The bear would be lucky to keep his head on his shoulders. Thorn’s eyes flashed red as his back expanded, his wings working to unfurl. He grabbed the bear by the throat and got treated to a dose of pheromones that made his nose burn unpleasantly after the sweetness of the omega.

His thrall, if used to its full effect, could incapacitate and cause pain, and it could also remove memories. Something heshould have considered earlier with how persistent Brigg was. Holding the other man’s gaze, he unfurled his thrall more carefully than the bear deserved. “You will have no memory of me, of what we did together. Go about your business.” He let go quickly, noting several interested stares as Brigg spun on his heel and walked off without a backward glance.

Thorn searched the sidewalk and groaned in disappointment at not seeing any sign of the unnamed omega. He did note that the car remained on the other side of the street, though.

He growled, his teeth dropping, wanting to rip out Brigg’s throat for getting in his way.

His phone buzzed, and he groaned again when he pulled it from his slacks to see Dacian’s name on the screen. He swiped at the screen. “I’m fine,” he said without preamble, knowing Dacian would have picked up his mood.

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