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“What about you?” Mila asked Maddy.

“I’m human, like Briar and Cora,” she said. “But I’m not soul bound to a vampire. Up until Briar and Memphis mated Tobias, Mikey hated vampires.”

“Yeah, he tried to take on Tobias,” Briar said with a shake of her head. “That almost ended badly.”

Maddy grabbed Briar’s hand. “He was only trying to protect you. We were all worried.”

Mila might have stumbled into a strange world where vampires, animal shifters, and soul bonds existed, but she couldn’t fault the genuine love and support these women had for each other.

Even now Maddy was telling Briar she wasn’t angry or hurt about keeping Tobais a secret at first.

Cora was thanking Imani for revealing herself to Mila.

Harper was busy explaining to Mila that wolf shifters, especially alphas like her, Silas, and Carter, were only violent when they felt their pack was being threatened.

“Most of us just want to spend time with the ones we love,” she concluded, casting a glance over at Silas and Tag.

She couldn’t help it, she looked over to where Gio and Carter were sitting. Something Carter said made Gio roll his eyes and take a sip of wine.

“That’s not wine,” Mila whispered. All the talking at the table stopped again as everyone glanced over to see what she was looking at.

Imani spoke first. “No, that’s not wine,” she agreed, holding up her own glass. “But it’s not stolen either. This is blood that would've been destroyed by the blood bank. There’s a company owned by a vampire that takes that blood and sells it to us. We aren’t monsters. Well, the vampires here aren’t monsters.”

Mila nodded thinking of all the mugs of his special drink Gio would sip. The bags of blood in the small refrigerator on the third floor. The time she thought she saw a hint of fang when they made love…

“I’m an idiot,” she moaned, dropping her head down on the pastry box, flattening it with her forehead.

“Hey now, you’re not an idiot!” Maddy said, rubbing her back.

“I agree with Maddy,” Briar said. Then Mila felt a tug on the box. “Please don’t punish the pastries!”

Mila lifted her head and let Briar take the box. “How did I not put it together?”

“Because it’s fantastical,” Imani said. “If someone came to you and started spouting off about these things, you’d think theyneeded to up their meds. If you saw a video, you’d assume it was CGI or AI. We don’t see what we don’t think is there.”

Imani’s words made her feel better. All the movies with angry villagers attacking vampires or scenes with werewolves being killed by silver bullets filled her with fear.

“Is the sun deadly to your kind?” she asked Imani.

“Yes,” Imani said. “Other than that, we’re pretty hard to kill.”

What if something happened to the house during the day? Like a tornado or fire? Wait, were there tornadoes in Southern California?

It didn’t matter, there could still be a fire!

“Gio needs a fireproof safe room,” Mila announced, making all the conversations at the table come to a screeching halt. To her surprise, no one asked her why she said that.

“Oh, she’s one of us now!” Cora cheered.

“I’ll drink to that!” Briar said, holding up her mug of beer in one hand and a Danish in the other.

“Welcome to the family,” Imani said, raising her wine glass. “It’s not always easy, but it’s worth it.”

Chapter 22

Gio

“...would that work?” Carter asked. Gio didn’t catch the beginning of Carter’s question. That didn’t really matter because Carter was talking to Mila, but she didn’t seem to be listening to him at all. She was staring out the window of the car, deep in thought.