Page 53 of Fated Mates and How to Seduce Them
Soft lips touched his forehead.
“I knew you were special the moment I laid eyes on you,” André murmured against his skin.
Ian peeked up at him. “You feel validated right now, don’t you?”
“So much. Come, sit, there’s things we need to discuss.”
Sitting sounded good. Did sitting come with a beer? Ian could desperately use a drink of the alcoholic variety right now.
Mrs. Castor gave him a searching look before offering, “Need a drink?”
“I need, like, three.”
She laughed and turned for the kitchen. “I’ll ask Auntie Im to make us some margaritas.”
Bless her.
Ian sat on the sofa with his boyfriend, looking at his hands like they held the answers to the universe. They didn’t, sadly, but he kept hoping some part of this would spontaneouslymake sense. Or at least feel real. His brain was trying hard to disassociate, so everything felt surreal more than anything.
A glass with a salt rim appeared before him, and he took it and promptly swallowed half before blowing out a breath. It was a delicious margarita on the rocks, but it had barely taken the edge off.
“I’d tell him not to stress,” Benedict said to the room at large, “but honestly, it’s probably best he stresses about it a little.”
Ian pointed a finger at him. “That. Expound.”
Benedict slung himself into the overstuffed chair next to him, which meant Felix immediately shifted seats to sit in his boyfriend’s lap. Benedict accommodated this without a blink, still focused on Ian. “I’m sure you’ve seen at least a few movies with fated mates being part of the plot?”
“Sure, they’re all the rage.”
“So parts of those movies are accurate. You are incredibly, indescribably rare. You’re as precious as a crown jewel to any vampire who meets you.”
Right, a question begged to be asked. “Why? I mean, the movies put a huge emphasis on the blood play being part of, um, intimacy, which I get is important to you guys. But the movies also portrayed the mate as suddenly having the same lifespan of a vampire, which is just Hollywood gimmicks…”
Ian trailed off as every vampire shook their head no.
“Do you mean that’s a thing? How?”
“Remember, I explained you’re highly compatible with vampire chemistry,” André reminded him. “It doesn’t only mean you react well to the aphrodisiac in our saliva, it also means you can be changed just enough to alter your body’s chemistry so your lifespan elongates to match your partner’s. Plus, you’ll share a vampire’s healing ability. So you won’t have to be turned, but you’ll still live as long as I do.”
Ian had often lamented the fact bodies were just piles of chemistry in a meat suit. Mostly when he hadn’t been drinking enough water or taking the right vitamins, and his body didn’t work as well as he wanted it to. The fact thatdrink more watersolved most of his ills pained him on many levels.
That said, he never thought a human’s lifespan could be elongated because of a change in chemistry. My god, no wonder vampires got so excited about finding a mate. A human they could feed from, a spouse who would live their lifespan—it must be like finding buried treasure.
All right, he had a better grasp of the importance. It would probably take a while to sink in, though. Now he had a whole new batch of questions.
“Mrs. Castor, you mentioned reporting this to the VSB?”
“We don’t want to do that,” she countered immediately, all while making a face. “The rules are we report you the second we figure it out, as all of vampire society should have a chance to court and win your favor.”
“Oh, hell no,” Ian blurted out, horrified by the mental image of prospective suitors lined up outside his door.
“There’s been some rather disastrous events in another city recently with the VSB involving mates, and it makes us hesitant to report you to them,” she added, still frowning. “They tried to forcibly take three men who were proven to be mates, all because they were still in the dating stages with their vampire partners.”
Hearing that sent a chill right down Ian’s spine. “You think they’ll do the same to me?”
“We don’t know,” Mr. Castor admitted with a shake of his head. “The clans they’d crossed killed the VSB agents on site, demolished the building, and every VSB agent who had assisted with the kidnappings were killed as well. They’re not even allowed to have an office in that city anymore. All VSB agencies have learned from the incident, I think, and they’re handlingall matters with mates going forward with kid gloves. But we don’t want to risk you, Ian. You and André just started dating. You should have the grace and time you need to decide if you want to be each other’s everything or not. Both of you are barely into your twenties. There shouldn’t be such stress laid on your shoulders.”
Hearing that was a relief, and Ian blew out a breath, like the stress had been taken off his shoulders before it could fully settle. “Thank you. I don’t want to make snap decisions right now.”
