Page 12 of Bad Luck Vampire

Alasdair blinked at the greeting he hadn’t heard in a long time, which was common in Aberdeen and actually translated to “How are your pigeons?” He then winced as Odart too slugged him in the arm, hard.

“We’ll help,” he growled, the two words sounding like a threat.

“Aye” was all Ludan said, and Alasdair half suspected he only bothered so that he too could give him an arm punch.

“So, where’s yer lass?” Connor asked, turning to peer into the tent of people.

“She’s the pretty brunette seated beside—ouch!” Colle stopped when Alasdair elbowed him in the side and gave him a meaningful look. The last thing he wanted was help from their uncles. In fact, it seemed like a bit of bad luck that they were even here when he found her. Not only were his uncles old and stuck in their ways, they were also nosy as hell and a good part of the reason that he and Colle had left Scotland. They’d wanted to live without their constant interference.

“Well? Where is she?” Connor asked, pulling his gaze from the people in the tent to arch his eyes at Alasdair.

“It does no’ matter,” Alasdair said firmly. “She’s someone else’s date tonight. I’ll have to wait to start wooing her.”

“She’s on a date?” Inan asked, horrified at the very thought.

“With another maun?” Connor asked with equal horror.

“Well, that’s no’ on,” Ludan said with disgust. “What kind o’ ass would date yer life mate?”

“It can no’ be an immortal,” Inan decided. “No immortal would be foolish enough to date another maun’s life mate.”

“He didn’t know she was anyone’s life mate when he asked her out,” Colle said soothingly.

“Hmm,” Inan said, looking disgruntled. “That’s a bit o’ bad luck then, is it no’? Findin’ yer life mate when she’s datin’ another?”

Odart and Connor grunted in agreement, but Ludan scowled and asked, “Does he ken now that she’s yours?”

Alasdair frowned, unsure of the answer to that. Marguerite hadn’t mentioned whether Tybo knew or not.

“Tybo?” Connor jumped on the name in his thoughts. “She’s his date?”

Alasdair merely scowled in response. It was so annoying when others could read your thoughts. He’d briefly forgotten that his uncles could, and it wasn’t like this was something new. Centuries older as they were, his uncles had always been able to read his mind, as had anyone else older than him. Normally that was at the forefront of his mind and he either controlled his thoughts, or took steps to try to mask them. However, finding his life mate had made him forget to do either.

“We should probably get back in there now,” Colle said, glancing past him with a small frown. “Val and Tybo are on their way out. The wedding must be about to start.”

Alasdair glanced over his shoulder to see that what Colle said was true. His cousin Valerian and Val’s best man, Tybo, were just coming around the side of the clubhouse, heading for the tent. That meant the bride and the rest of the party wouldn’t be far behind.

“Aye, we’d best go in,” Ludan decided, tossing his now empty glass into a garbage can set up outside the tent. Once the other uncles had dumped their own empty glasses, Ludan began urging the group toward the tent entrance, before adding, “But don’y worry about claiming yer lass, boyo. We’ll help ye with that. We’ll get together after the ceremony and have a think on how to do it. Right?”

Alasdair merely grunted, and tried not to think that that was possibly the worst idea he’d ever heard. He wouldn’t put it past them to think clubbing her over the head and dragging her to the nearest cave was the best approach. Truly, his uncles were old barbarians and he cursed his luck that they were here.

Five

Sophie heard a disturbance to her right and glanced over to see that Colle and Alasdair had returned. Or were trying to, she realized as she watched them interact with four other men, two of whom definitely looked like relatives. They weren’t quite as tall as Colle and Alasdair, but they did have the dark good looks, and the two in question were also twins. At least, they looked identical to each other and very similar to Alasdair and Colle. The other two men had similar facial features to the rest of them, but both had dark auburn hair rather than black. All four of them, however, had the builds of linebackers or something. She’d thought Colle and Alasdair big and brawny, but these men surpassed even them. They also wore kilts, she noted, and had a brief vision of them in a scene from Braveheart, wielding broadswords as they charged across a glen at their enemies.

“Those are Alasdair and Colle’s uncles,” Marguerite announced.

Sophie glanced around with surprise. “Really?”

Marguerite nodded, her gaze narrowing on the group of men in the aisle.

“But they don’t look old enough,” Sophie protested, and then smiled wryly. “But then neither do you and Julius look old enough to be his aunt and uncle. Were his parents a lot older than you all, or a half-sibling from the father’s first marriage or something? Because those men cannot possibly have the same mother as whichever of Valerian’s parent they’re related to. She would have been ancient when she had Valerian.”

“Oh dear. It looks like there is a bit of a disagreement as to where the uncles should sit,” Marguerite murmured, rather than answer her question.

Sophie peered back to the group to see that Colle and Alasdair appeared to be trying to direct the four newcomers to the chairs on the other side of the center aisle, while the uncles seemed determined to follow Colle and Alasdair down the row of seats to sit with them. Which wasn’t really possible. The tent had continued to fill up since the two men had left. Every seat in their row was now taken except for the two Colle and Alasdair had briefly abandoned.

Sophie was just beginning to worry that they would march on down the row and order others to abandon their seats for them, when the man with platinum blond hair stood up with an exasperated huff to join the men.

---