Page 55 of Dark Stars
Bobby grinned.
"Shut your fucking face."
"Not a chance. How is life as a bloodmate?How did you two even figure that out?"
Harold groaned. "Can't you just let thisgo?"
"Of course I can. If you want me to mind myown business, I will. I am happy for you both, though. I alwaysknew there was something there. Why do you think I was foreverteasing you both about flirting?"
"It's fine. I'm just still kind ofdiscombobulated about it. Of course I wanted to fuck him, and maybeeven go on a date, but…" He sighed. "Things got dicey when we wereout taking care of our side of things. He was depleted by the timewere done, and neither of us had the strength to just take us home.So I let him feed on me, figuring that would be enough, so we couldget out of there and recharge properly. I wasn't expecting to windup basically vampire married." He stroked his fingers gently overthe now mostly-healed holes in his neck. "It's been a lot, and he'snot exactly thrilled."
"After being alone and independent forsomewhere around seven hundred years, I'd imaginea lotdoesn't begin to cover it. He foundtheneedle in ahaystack, and he wasn't even looking. And it lived just five milesdown the road. Crazy times."
"Says the entity thousands of years old whofound basically the same thing in a twenty-something hunter withthe strangest combination of arcana I've ever seen."
"All that matters is that he'smine."
Harold cast him an amused look, voice wry ashe replied, "Funny, I'm starting to hear that exact tone fromKo—Jones."
"I know his real name."
"Of course you do," Harold muttered.
"My age is four digits long, and he isn'teven a thousand yet. It has nothing to do with trusting me with itand everything to do with the primordial dark gossiping. Don't getjealous, young human."
Harold gave a wispy, barely there smile."Fair enough."
"It is promising, though, that he told youhis real name. That he feeds from you."
"Near as I can tell, he doesn't have achoice in getting overly attached to me, and he's not happy aboutit," Harold said bitterly, gentle happiness from a moment agovanishing. "Pretty sure he was happier before he bit me, butnothing for it now, so it'll work out or it won't. Ain't like I'm astranger to being dumped."
A few yards to the east, just out of humanearshot, Alejo was bickering cheerfully with his mother. A numberof yards southwest of them, though, a vampire had gone too still ashe eavesdropped.
"Bloodmate bonds aren't a love spell; theycan't force anything, only saypay attention dumbass. Hetold you his real name. The rest is a creature of habit beingthrown forcefully out of his comfort zone. But if you ever need meto put him in timeout, just say so."
That brought out a laugh as he'd hoped. "Imight say so just to see the look on his face. Thanks, Lord of theFlickering Lights."
"Ugh."
Jones took the opportunity to emerge fromthe woods. "Got the intel. Where's Alejandro?"
"Here," Alejo said, emerging from the otherside shoving his phone into his pocket. "Hope you guys likeoverbearing mothers who expect everyone to eat twice their weightin food, 'cause I only managed to delay her by like a week, and ittook bringing in my dad to help."
"Problem for later," Jones said dryly. "Thesite is indeed ready for war. All kinds of wards, at least threelayers, the largest the size of a damned house. I could only sensetwo layers beyond that, anything else is too hidden by the previouswards. Some creepy little black things with tentacles andhooves."
Bobby's head dropped back as he groaned."Not more Dark Young. I've already killed like ten of them! And atefour of them! Can they just fuck off already?"
"That's disgusting, and I once drained aPope dry."
"Holy shit doesn't actually affectvampires," Alejo said with a laugh. "What the hell difference didit make he was a Pope?"
"They're decrepit, rancid, and drinkconcerning amounts of wine."
Harold looked impressed and horrified. "Whyin the hell were you drinking that?"
"It was that or starve to death. Not thebest decade of my life, believe me. Worse by far was that my onlyway out of that hellhole was hiding in a coffin. My dignity has notrecovered to this day."
Harold laughed. "You're kidding me."
