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Still, I wanted to tell him to relax. But as the night wore on, he seemed to realize that his vigilance wasn’t needed, andthe tension vibrating through him waned. And, with increasing frequency, his gaze kept sliding over to Danny.

I couldn’t help but notice the way he became more troubled with each passing moment.

I made a mental note to ask him about it later. He was my maker, after all. I wasn’t sentimental or anything, but he had made it possible for me to save Danny’s humanity.

I owed him.

And besides, he kind of grew on you.

I’m still waiting for you to call him Dad,Danny told me, his dark eyes dancing with mischief when he glanced over at me. And his happiness was infectious. When he grinned, I couldn’t help but grin back at him.

As it turned out, pretty much everyone at the table was in the same boat as Danny and I. James and Pierce were blood bonded. So were Ethan and Nathaniel. And, of course, Bryan and Tobias. And, even though Poppy kept making pointed remarks to Simone about ‘taking things a little more seriously’ and her obvious annoyance that everyone around her was ‘shacked up by destiny or some shit’—a direct quote—Simone’s gentle amusement never wavered. And somehow, I got the sense that Simone knew far more about their connection than she let on.

“I’ll do the Verum Amor,” Poppy threatened, when she was three beers deep, hiccupping in punctuation. She gestured at Tobias, who was her sibling, as it turned out. She glared at Simone, who had to bite her lower lip to keep from laughing. Poppy added, “And then, if it shows me your face, I’m going to be livid.”

“Darling,” Simone said, sounding not the least bit concerned. “You are a formidable witch, and you know that I adore you. If you remain patient with me just a little while longer, I promise that we will test those waters very soon.”

“We’ll take things to the next level?” Poppy demanded.

“Indeed, we will,” Simone replied, her lips curving into a smile, the obvious devotion on her face plain to see.

“Please stop,” Thierry remarked dryly. “I might vomit. Truly.”

But I wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t nearly as unaffected as he seemed. I was proven right when, a half hour later, he stepped out for some air. I excused myself from the table and followed him. Danny gave me a knowing look and squeezed my hand.

He’s lucky he turned you. Now he’s got someone to call him on his bullshit.

“You don’t need to breathe,” I said, when I found Thierry leaned up against the brick wall of the building at the far end of the parking lot. The bar was on the ground floor, with apartments above it, one of which housed Pierce and James. Thierry had rented a large house over an hour away, northeast of the city, in the shadow of the Cascade Mountain Range. There were very few neighbors nearby, which meant that he could supervise Danny and I until we were safe to be around people again. But I knew that he had an apartment in this building as well. So did Nathaniel and Ethan, on the top floor.

He looked up at me. “You ought to go back inside and get drunk with the others. We are, after all, celebrating your release back into the wild.”

That didn’t even deserve a response. Instead, I asked, “It’s Danny, isn’t it?”

“Of course you would believe that everything revolves around your mate,” Thierry shot back.

“It’s the fact that his humanity came back. And now he’s fine around people, just like he would have been if he hadn’t slipped.”

Thierry let out a long breath that hissed between clenched teeth, but he didn’t answer. And he didn’t look at me, either. But his body went more rigid with tension at my words.

“You’re wondering if the same thing could have been done for your brother.”

“My brother has been dead for two hundred years,” Thierry muttered, half under his breath. But his expression tightened. After a long moment, he shot me a dark look. But then, when that was clearly doomed to fail, he sighed. “Tell me, hunter: when did you get insightful? I could have sworn it said ‘big dumb jock’ on the side of the box.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I stabbed him in the heart with silver and set the building on fire with him still inside it. The building was a pile of ash by the time the fire burned out. He’s dead.”

“You’re certain? You saw him mummify?” I paused, frowning. “Well, if he’s as old as you are, I suppose he would have become a pile of crumbling bones.”

Thierry shrugged, looking unhappy.

“You didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”

“You kill the only person who has ever truly known you and then tell me how you handle it.”

“Look, I’m notjudging.I’m just saying—”

“My brother is gone, hunter. And even if he’s not, it’s pointless.” He shot me another dark look. “You can be forgiven for believing otherwise since you met yours long before either of you became a vampire, but it isn’t exactly common to meet your destined mate.”