Page 13 of Blood & Bond (The Bouchers #2)

Ambrose let go of me to say goodbye to Matthias and Josiah.

The two Vampires must’ve been brothers based on the resemblance.

They both had the same brown skin, high cheekbones, and strong jawlines.

They also carried themselves the same way.

I wasn’t sure how to explain it, but I wasn’t sure they’d ever slouched a day in their lives.

But, while I remembered Matthias’s hair in a curly halo around his head, Josiah’s fell straight and ended in a jagged line at his shoulders.

Charlie walked over to shake their hands and thank them too. He didn’t seem to have any problem touching them, which seemed odd.

I stood alone and tried not to fidget.

It didn’t matter that none of them looked at me. It didn’t matter that they didn’t say goodbye to me before they turned and walked toward the trees. None of it mattered. Charlie was being pulled into the fold. That was all I could’ve asked for.

“One last ride and then we’re home,” Ambrose announced as he moved toward me. His hand found mine, and he tugged me toward the plane at the other end of the landing strip.

“Who’s flying the plane?” I asked as Charlie and the others followed us, their conversation too quiet for me to hear.

“Danny,” Ambrose replied. “Don’t worry, he flew with the Wright brothers.”

“Didn’t they crash?” I asked wryly.

“More than once, I think.” Ambrose laughed. “But avionics have come a long way since then.”

The inside of the plane was comfortable and smelled like leather, but I still hated it.

I couldn’t stop thinking about all the plane crashes I’d ever heard about and the fact that they usually happened in small private planes.

Flying on a commercial airplane was different.

I didn’t actually know that pilot, and there was a sense of anonymity and false safety when I was crammed into one with a hundred other strangers.

I sat down and buckled my seat belt while Ambrose watched with a small smile.

Charlie and the others followed us in a minute later. I looked my brother over as he sat across from me and set his bag and my baseball bat between his feet. The animation in his expression while he’d been talking to the others slipped as he met my eyes. My chest tightened.

I would’ve let Matthias hug me for an hour if it would’ve taken away that look of defeat in Charlie’s eyes.

“Here, Charles,” Chance said as he walked down the center aisle, tossing my brother a little paper bag. “Just in case.”

“Thanks,” Charlie replied sheepishly as he set the bag on his lap.

An air sickness bag.

“It’s Charlie ,” I snapped at Chance. “And he doesn’t get air sick unless we’re in a helicopter and bouncing all over the place like a frigging ride at the county fair.”

Chance raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“It’s fine, Luce,” Charlie said, glancing at me in embarrassment.

“We good?” Beau asked as he stepped inside the plane.

I was still glaring at Chance. He was such an asshole. I could take it, but I’d fucking end him before he treated my brother like shit.

“It was a joke.” Ambrose chastised me quietly.

“Did you think it was funny?” I asked, turning to look at him as I unbuckled my seat belt.

“Good luck with that,” Chance grumbled as he disappeared inside the cockpit.

“Knock it off,” Charlie whispered.

I ground my teeth as I turned forward in my seat and glared at the wall of the plane.

We’d give them a couple of days, I decided.

After that, if I didn’t see any change in Charlie or if we just weren’t feeling it, we’d leave.

Zeke had procured us a couple of fake passports that we’d never had to use.

I was resourceful, and Charlie wasn’t exactly social anymore.

We could find some small town and get lost. It wasn’t as if it would last forever.

The Bouchers seemed like they were on top of things.

They’d stop the assholes going after Vampires and their mates, eventually.

“What’s going on in there?” Ambrose asked quietly as he sat down beside me, moving my bag to the floor.

I just shook my head. I’d talk to Charlie later and see what he thought. We didn’t have to stay with the Bouchers. We could change our minds at any time.

I refused to think about the mating heat and the fact that everything inside me seemed to still when Ambrose was near. Time and distance would make it fade if we decided to leave. Their brother Beau had walked away. It was possible.

Takeoff in the tiny plane was surprisingly smooth, but I re-buckled my seat belt and tightened it across my hips anyway.

“Almost home,” Ambrose announced, smiling tiredly at Charlie. “You guys will be safe there. My parents’ property is large and protected. No one will even get close.”

“You know, no one got close until you showed up,” I mentioned dryly. “Maybe you’re the problem.”

“Just because you didn’t see them doesn’t mean they weren’t close,” Ambrose replied, leaning his seat back.

“If they got the drop on Zeke, they’re good at keeping a low profile,” Beau added. He’d sat down across the aisle from us, his legs stretched out in front of him. “You two got lucky.”

“Or maybe they weren’t even looking for us,” I shot back.

“Well, they weren’t looking for Ambrose,” Beau said flatly. “Since no one knows he has a mate.”

“Maybe they’ve changed tactics, and they’re going to follow unmated Vampires until they find their mates,” I said smugly.

“For the next hundred years or more?” Beau asked with a grin. “Seems time-consuming.”

I rolled my eyes.

“What’s going on?” Ambrose asked me quietly as Charlie closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat.

“What do you mean?” I hedged.

“I mean, you’d dropped those guards for a while, and now you’re acting like we’re the enemy again.”

“Maybe I don’t like being manhandled and tortured without warning,” I hissed, turning to look at him. “Maybe I’m wondering if I screwed up royally trusting any of you.”

Ambrose’s eyes darkened with remorse.

“Baby, as far as anyone knows, you’re just Charles’s sister.” He reached out and wrapped his hand around my knee.

“Matthias grabbed your arm so that anyone watching would see that you’re not mated,” Beau added, sitting up and leaning his elbows on his knees. “On the assumption that if you were, none of us would touch you except your mate.”

“Matthias is mated to someone else,” Ambrose continued. “Anyone with any knowledge of us would know you’re not his mate.”

I stared at him while the information clicked into place.

“It had to be Matthias, didn’t it?”

Ambrose nodded. “Or Beau. But Beau is better in close combat if it came to it. He needed his hands free.”

“Because no one else has a mate,” I said slowly.

“She’s getting it,” Beau joked.

“But none of you discussed it,” I argued, glancing at Ambrose’s brother. “You didn’t plan it.”

“They’re over a hundred years old,” Charlie said without opening his eyes. “They all know what the others are going to do before they do it.”

Beau huffed. “Accurate.”

“I’m sorry,” Ambrose murmured in my ear. He gently kissed my temple. “I should’ve warned you.”

“Yeah, no shit,” I mumbled.

“If it’s any consolation, it couldn’t have been comfortable for Matthias either. No one will touch you again.”

“Don’t make that promise,” Beau warned.

My eyes widened. There was no way he’d heard what Ambrose said.

“Our mother is going to hug you,” Beau continued. “But it shouldn’t bother the bond.”

“How the hell?—”

“Vampires have really good hearing,” Ambrose explained.

“Interesting,” I replied, glaring at my brother. “That’s something I would’ve loved to know.”

“I can feel you looking at me,” Charlie said, his eyes still closed.

“You don’t think this is something I would’ve liked to have known, oh, I don’t know, months ago?”

How many times had I whispered to Charlie, assuming Zeke couldn’t hear us?

“How good is your hearing?” I asked Ambrose.

“Very.”

“Give me an example,” I ground out.

“You could’ve whispered to Charlie in the hotel room next door, and I would’ve heard you from the bathroom even if both doors were closed.”

Frigging hell. I couldn’t even remember how many times I’d said something quietly to Charlie, assuming that Zeke couldn’t hear me.

I was pretty sure I’d mentioned Zeke’s ass.

I’d warned Charlie not to get attached so quickly.

I’d bitched that he was leaving me alone again, even though we’d stopped staying in hostels, and Zeke had paid for nice hotels.

I’d bitched about Zeke paying for our hotels.

God, I couldn’t even remember all the things I’d said.

The comments I’d made, believing that they were just between my brother and me, were plentiful and colorful, to say the least.

“He didn’t mind,” my brother said gently. I looked up to find him watching me. “He thought you were hilarious.” He swallowed hard. “He was glad that I had someone who was so protective of me. He wasn’t ever offended.”

Zeke must’ve thought I hated him. The things I’d said…

well, they hadn’t been very complimentary at first. Who could blame me, really?

Some Vampire had walked up to us one day, and everything had suddenly changed.

Charlie had jumped into that bottomless pond with both feet, but he’d always been the dreamer.

I was a pragmatist. I’d seen almost every way that things could’ve gone wrong.

We didn’t know Zeke. He could’ve been an absolute creep.

Eventually, he’d worn me down. Surely, he’d known that before he left. By the time we’d parted ways, he’d known how important he’d become to our little family, right? Not just to Charlie, but to me too?

I’d never have the chance to ask him.

Pulling my bag closer, I rested my chin on it. I needed to remember that these Vampires could hear everything. No conversations were private. It put a damper on my plans to discuss with Charlie whether or not we’d bail, but that was a worry for a different moment.