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“Are you comfortable?” he asked, moving around so he could crouch down and meet her gaze without her needing to crane her neck.

“Yes?”

“Please be honest,” Gio begged. “This is about you, not me or Carter. He’s not going to die if he doesn’t get to cuddle you. If this is too much, we can reposition you, or I can pull you free. Be honest with me,bellezza. What do you want?”

Mila looked confused by his question. “What do I want?”

“Yes, Mila,” he said. Why was she so surprised that someone cared about her needs? “I need to know what you want.”

She blinked a few times and let her head lay back down on Carter’s bicep. “You’re coming back, right?”

He nodded. “It’ll only take me a few minutes.”

“Then I’m okay,” she answered.

“You’re too good for us,” Gio whispered.

Mila blushed. “That’s not true at all.”

Gio shook his head. “You’ll see that I’m right.” Straightening up, he pointed at the door. “Call if you need me. I’ll only be a moment.”

She gave a little nod, then closed her eyes and relaxed into Carter’s embrace. Gio hurried out of the room and upstairs to his studio. There was a small pile of blood bags on one of the tables. He’d grabbed the blood from the downstairs fridge and brought it up here to keep Mila from seeing it. He’d gotten lucky that she’d decided to take a long shower.

There wasn’t a way to keep them cold up here, and Faith pulled a lot from him to help heal Carter. He drank all four instead of risking them going bad. He felt overfull and a little drunk by the time he finished. He hadn’t consumed so much since he was a voracious young vampire with no control.

Those were dark days. His maker had enjoyed tormenting him. Gio would forever live with the shame of all the innocent lives he took while under that man’s control.

Dismissing the memories, he looked around for his laptop. Grabbing it, he made his way back to the second floor. Faith was standing in the hall outside his bedroom, yawning.

Fear spiked through him at the sight of her, but she languidly waved a hand and calmed his worry. “Carter’s fine. I’m going back to bed. I’ll check on him one more time, but only so I earn my exorbitant fees. Mila’s taking good care of him.”

“Thank you.”

The knitter didn’t answer, she was too busy yawning again as she shuffled back down the hall.

Slipping back into his room, he found both Carter and Mila sound asleep. Like most vampires, Gio could see auras, and Mila’s was shockingly bright. He'd never seen a pure human with an aura as startlingly brilliant as hers. But that wasn’t what was surprising.

Coming to a stop at the side of the bed, he watched the movement of Carter’s and Mila’s auras. When he’d first seen Carter, the wolf’s aura was frighteningly dim. It wasn’t back tohis normal color yet, but there was a sheen of Mila’s bright aura mixing into Carter’s.

She was feeding him. Not as much as him or Faith, but far better than any human should've been able to. Even more interesting was that her aura wasn’t diminishing. When Gio fed Carter, he’d felt his magic being pulled from him in a massive amount to keep Carter alive and to help him heal. It didn’t look like Mila’s aura was changing at all. It was building back up at the same rate that Carter was syphoning.

Gio didn’t think that was possible, but the evidence was right in front of him. Mila was slowly but steadily feeding Carter without doing any damage or decline to her own aura. It was astonishing.

“What are you?” he whispered. “Your aura only has human colors to it, but there has to be something else in your ancestry.”

It was something they could puzzle out later. One thing was certain, she might not be fully human, but she was entirely theirs!

He pulled a chair close to the bed and made himself comfortable. He would’ve liked to get into the bed and curl himself around Mila so she was between him and Carter, but that wouldn’t be appropriate yet. The last thing he wanted to do was spook her.

Balancing the laptop on his lap, he started researching the things a pastry chef needed. When Mila was admiring the kitchen, she hadn’t opened any of the drawers and cabinets to find that most of them were absolutely empty.

It was fun to pick out mixers, bowls, knives, measuring spoons, cups, and many other items. He paid extra to get everything by the end of the following day.

He was tempted to order a full set of dishes because they only had the mismatched ones Carter had moved in with, then decided against it. He wanted Mila to pick out what she wanted,and if there was already a full set, she might not feel comfortable ordering more.

Once that was done, he set the laptop aside to gaze at his peacefully sleeping flock and let a deep sense of contentment fill him.

Mila