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“Do you… when you feed, do you kill people?” Neri blushed.

Aubrey reached out and squeezed Neri’s forearm before she explained.

“Oh, sweetie, no, mates can feed from each other. Before I met Seth, my human best friend, Cole, brought me bags of donated blood from the hospital where he worked. But some vampires have taken from humans when they don’t have mates, but they don’t kill them.”

Aubrey paused and leaned forward.

“To humans our saliva had a numbing agent and the venom acts as an aphrodisiac, so it could lead to deeper feelings. Vampires can alter memories, but they don’t take blood unless the human is willing.”

Neri nodded, before something struck her. “So, Cole, he knows about both of you? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Aubrey told Neri how Cole had saved her after he’d found her covered in blood after her transition. Neri, shocked by Aubrey’s story, reached for her free hand and held it as she told her how Cole sacrificed for years and kept her fed, and by the end Neri nodded.

“I’m glad he’s in your life,” Neri whispered.

“So am I. And his husband Simon is a sweetheart and they are perfect together. I’m sure you’ll meet them.”

The three other vampires approached and joined in on the conversation. They introduced themselves and Neri smiled as they shook her hand. Kane took a seat next to Seth, and they joked back and forth until Seth laughed and butted his shoulder against Kane’s. She smiled as the two joked together.

Hunter turned his attention as Thomas and Isaac, attached at the hip as far back as Hunter remembered, as they smiled at Neri and sat on the loveseat in front of her.

Thomas was tall and lean with a black hair and preferred to wear black or dark blue at all times. Isaac was more laid back, his hair dark brown, but his face was softer although his body was bulkier than his counterpart. Hunter remembered Ghost telling him they walked into his office together asking for a job and he hired them on the spot. Hunter still had no clue where they lived, and they appeared whenever they wanted.

Neri looked back and forth between Thomas and Isaac, studying them as they moved closer to each other. If he hadn’t known they had a mind link, he assumed they communicated by searching each other’s gazes. As Neri continued to watch, Hunter took the time to observe too.

Their movements were fluid, even when they sat. They had to know they were being watched by at least two, but instead of turning their attention to Neri, they continued on for a few minutes. Their forearms brushed, and they angled their bodies toward each other, and Hunter spotted the reason she had the fleeting thought they were a couple.

When they turned their attention to Neri, her shoulders relaxed.

“Were you turned at the same time?”

Thomas smiled. “No, a vampire turned me in 1850. I was twenty-six and like most of the immortals I don’t know who bit me.”

“There is little I remember of my life before I turned, but Xander found my birth certificate from 1933. In 1963 at thirty, I turned. I remember everything about the transition and when I woke up, Thomas was there. He’d come upon me after my transition started and we’ve stuck together ever since,” Isaac said.

Seth laughed and elbowed Kane. “Tell Neri how you became an assassin.”

Kane snarled at the kid but shook his head. He had a smile on his face.

“I threatened to kill Seth if Liv, who was still human mind you, didn’t come with me. So, we locked Seth in the lab downstairs and I took Liv to the man who had my mate imprisoned.” Kane said it so matter-of-factly, confusion and anger flashed in Neri’s eyes.

“You kidnapped… thetiniestwoman on the planet and…”

“Hey!”

“The doctor who created the bioweapon tortured her.” Kane flinched.

Hunter moved to Neri and placed his hands on her shoulders, prepared to hold her down in the chair. Her head whipped back and forth between Seth and Kane, who sat close together and who’d been joking with each other minutes before.

Neri snarled but made no move to lunge at Kane, which surprised Kane. He blew out a breath and looked down at his hands clenched on his lap.

“I’m not proud of what I did and I couldn’t hurt her the way the doctor wanted me to, but I didn’t protect her either. She knocked me out with a sedative and I woke up to this group around me. But they understood and told me the scientist had killed my mate, Annabelle.”

Liv gasped. “You never told us her name.” She walked over to Kane and tried to wrap her arms around him, giving up when she realized it was futile and patted him on the back.

“I’m sorry—”

“Nope, no,no. No apologies. Kai changed me and we’re married. We have a family, and we’re happy. An unusual family, but a family nonetheless and you’re as much a part as I am. You shouldneverhave been in that position.”