Page 37

F oxx smiled as he stepped out of the hotel room they’d rented just to shower. Quickly heading down the hall, he dropped the keycard off at the front desk before hurrying outside.

“I feel better,” he chimed as he reached Harlow, who was leaning against the Jeep. The dhampir had showered first, after Gavin had demanded they do it separately, stressing that they didn’t have time to waste hours there. They’d only agreed…because Gavin wasn’t wrong.

Harlow grunted in response, his gaze pinched and clearly angry.

Ah, shit, he should have showered quicker! He’d given the man time to think! Clearing his throat, Foxx tugged on the collar of his jumper. “Want a bite to eat, Old Man?”

Harlow snorted. “Trying to butter me up, huh?”

Smiling, he stepped closer, resting his hands on the dhampir’s chest. “Would I do that?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, be that way! Just don’t kick yourself later for turning me down!” He pouted before holding his hand out and demanding, “Now, show me the photos of the land!”

The dhampir rolled his eyes. “They are on my laptop.”

“Ohhh, yay!” He rushed to the back of the Jeep, and after popping the boot, he quickly fished Harlow’s laptop out of the man’s duffle bag as Harlow got into the driver’s side. Closing the boot again, he hurried to the passenger’s seat .

Once he was buckled in, Foxx opened the laptop and typed in Harlow’s password.

“He knows your password?” Gavin asked, as he leaned forward between the seats.

“Foxx set it. Sit the fuck back, what are you, five?” Harlow growled, as he started the Jeep and pulled out of their parking spot.

Foxx ignored them and clicked on the folder that Harlow cutely labeled ‘land’.

He gasped when the pictures popped up. There were many pictures of trees and other fauna, but a few showed a small field of beautiful purple flowers that, if he wasn’t wrong, were wild bergamot. Another group of photos showed a small lake from all angles.

Gavin, who was still peeking between the seats, whistled. “Nice.”

“It’s so pretty!” Foxx clicked through more images, his brow rising as he scrolled and came across a property map, showing that the plot was just over a hundred and ninety acres. “I’m surprised Gabriel sold so much land at once. “

“I believe he’s moving towards expanding, yet with the aim of less in terms of population density.”

“Mm, possibly.” Foxx eyed the photos for a moment longer, before looking at Harlow with a bright smile. “I love it.”

Harlow glanced over, and then quickly away, the man’s grim expression twitching. Foxx could only giggle as he watched the dhampir struggle to stay mad.

Harlow did his best to not look over at Foxx while he purposely messed with the neck of his sweater. The brat had gone from trying to melt his anger, to taunting him, and they were only an hour into their drive.

“Stop it,” he growled.

“Stop what?” Foxx asked, way too innocently. “What’s wrong? Thirsty, Old Man? ”

“Brat.”

“Why stay mad when it is clearly putting you at a disadvantage?” The vampire giggled. “Besides, what is there really to be mad about? I only kissed his cheek. And like, I kiss Alastair all the time and you don’t care.”

“Alastair would never, ever even think about fucking you, so…” Harlow wasn’t even fucking mad about that. Well, he had been, but it was hard to stay mad over a simple cheek kiss when he knew it meant nothing.

“And I would?” Gavin growled. “Like, do you realize how weird that would be for me knowing that you two are together?!”

Foxx cleared his throat. “Technically, Alastair has thought about it, and we did try, but it was really weird. We were really, really drunk at the time… and as it turned out, we're both bottoms. Though, that was like many hundreds of years ago, so please, don’t try to kill him or be jealous over it.”

Harlow snorted, before bursting into laughter. “You are so fucking ridiculous. I’m not mad about the kiss, but don’t do it again. Also, you know damn well you would have gone further if it hadn’t worked.”

The vampire shrugged without shame. “I would have. We both know you are triggered by me. My choices were either that, or putting myself in danger. I figured you’d be more pissed off if I did the latter.”

“And what the fuck do you think you did by forcing me to change, hm? All it would have taken was a moment of not recognizing you for me to kill you. You know that, right?! If I wanted you dead, it would have been over before Gavin would have ever had a chance to stop me.”

And that was the part that pissed him off. Because who could he have even blamed afterwards? Foxx? Gavin? Or himself for ever agreeing to do the stupid ass training?!

Foxx tugged Harlow's right hand off the steering wheel and linked their fingers together. “I’m fine. I was safe. I ran a lot, but still pretty safe. The only time you didn’t realize it was me was that first night you were changed.”

“Which adds up to a fifty-fifty chance—comforting.”

“No, it's a two-to-one chance now, as you recognized me while killing those council dogs, and you recognized me tonight, right from the first moment you shifted earlier.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because you went for Gavin and not me,” Foxx said with a giggle.

“Hey!” Gavin complained.

“Foxx, that doesn’t…”

“It does. And when you were chasing me, you were playing. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure when Gavin flew away and you turned to look at me, but then you didn’t take a step towards me until I started running away. I think you knew I was wary of you.

“You could have caught me, easily, seconds after I started. But you didn’t. You stayed back, pretended to be human—not completely sure of the logic there—but you were obviously playing around with me. I’m thinking that the human mask you were holding on to was your way of trying not to scare me.”

“Foxx, I was fucking hunting you!” He yanked his hand away.

“No, you were playing. You had no intention of harming me. And I know this because, when you cornered me, it wasn’t food you were thinking of. You were clearly turned on.”

“I'm not commenting about the turned on part,” Gavin said slowly. “But I think the best development tonight was that we now know how to turn you back. Even if both of you were pissy about my timing.”

“Time better,” Foxx hissed.

“Find a less dense area to run!” Gavin chimed snidely.

“Break the damn trees next time!” he snapped, before groaning in disgust when the ridiculousness of what happened finally hit him. “Getting stomped on by a dragon. How is this my fucking life now?”

Gavin chuckled. “Just lucky I guess!”

“Lucky, my ass!”

“Anyway…” Foxx giggled. “We know what triggers you, so now we need to figure out how you can bring on the change without my help. It’s just like with all the other things you practiced, from your heartbeat to the scent changes. You figured out how to appear like a vampire perfectly, and even figured out how to appear human—even if that latter is still limited time-wise. You will figure this out too. While it would be nice for you to manage to change without losing your mind, next time we will be happy with you just managing to change on your own.”

“So I’ll need to either make myself feel overly homicidal, or like I’m having a heart attack. Great fucking choices,” Harlow growled as he turned the radio on, in effort to end the fucking conversation.

Foxx opened his mouth, no doubt to speak, but both of them stiffened as My Boy Lollipop started to play over the speakers. This odd, tight ball of anger bloomed in his chest as Foxx’s eyes grew wide and filled with tears. He hurriedly cut the radio off and grabbed the man’s already shaking hand.

“Foxx…”

“What’s wrong?” Gavin rasped, sounding confused.

“I—” The vampire’s voice broke as his tears spilled over.

“Fuck.”

Harlow sharply pulled off and parked on the side of the road. As quickly as he could, he tossed his seatbelt off as he pushed his seat back and unbuckled the vampire, pulling him into his lap just as the man started to sob. Wrapping him in his arms, as Foxx clung to him, he pressed the vampire’s face to his shoulder.

“Shh, I got you.”

When Gavin took a breath, clearly about to speak, he sent a pointed glare the dragon’s way. The man closed his mouth and made a zipper motion over it.

Rolling his eyes, he looked down at Foxx, while running a hand up and down the man’s slim back. Harlow couldn’t imagine that the vampire hadn’t lost people in his many years of life. Yet, the way Foxx was reacting to Charity’s death…

“Foxx…”

“Mm…?” The vampire whimpered.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Since you lost someone close to you.”

The man nodded against him, before slowly pulling back, his nose already red. Harlow started wiping away the man’s tears as they kept falling. “You know what I felt when I heard the song?”

“W-what?” the man asked with a stuttered breath .

“Anger. And even more still when I realized it wasn’t her calling. That I won’t ever again hear her call me those stupid ass nicknames, as she annoyingly wakes my ass up to deprive me of more sleep.”

Foxx let out a sad laugh. “S-she loved to w-wake us up, d-didn’t she?”

“She did. No doubt the more sleep she stole from us, the more energy she siphoned. Foxx…” He wiped a few more tears away as the man stared. “I’m not like you. While I’m unsure about a lot of things when it comes to what I can and can’t feel, the one I have no doubt about is sadness. I can’t feel it. I’ve tried. You aren’t the first person I tried for.”

“Elowen…?” Foxx rasped softly.

“Yeah, I tried for her. I liked her and Gabe as people, even if they didn’t see the real me. At least, I convinced myself I had. Looking back, I think they were my last attempt at being normal. I thought if I could feel it for someone, I would be fine if it was for her. But I didn’t.

“I tried to fake it, to say all those useless white lies people say to those mourning loved ones, but I couldn’t do it. I searched inside myself for the things she was feeling, and found nothing. Just a big pit of empty, in the middle of a fuck ton of rage. And that is what I feel when people, who I have sorted in my mind as belonging to me in some way, die.”

Foxx nodded, tears still trailing down. “I know.”

He ran his hand slowly over Foxx’s curls. “I don’t have the words or the emotional fortitude to even begin to know how to make you feel better.”

“I know…” Foxx repeated, his voice breaking.

“But there is one thing I can do for you…”

“W-what?”

“Kill—I can kill for you.” Harlow grabbed both of the vampire’s hands, holding one in each of his. “Foxx, I don’t mourn, and I sure as hell don’t cry, but I get violently angry, and I fucking get even . I promise you, we will kill Maverick. And I won’t stop until the bastard is dead by our hands.”

He lifted Foxx’s hands to his lips, pressing a soft kiss on each before releasing them .

Foxx's face pinched, the man obviously trying to stop his tears, and he nodded while wiping his eyes and nose. “Y-yes…we’ll make him suffer.”

“We’ll make him scream for mercy that we’ll never give.”

“Yes!” Foxx said more firmly this time.

“What we’ve done to everyone up until now will be nothing compared to what he briefly lives through!”

The vampire grabbed his face and pressed a hard but quick kiss to Harlow’s lips. “We’ll fuck over his barely breathing corpse, so his last moments are pure physical and mental agony.”

Harlow chuckled darkly. “There’s my little Sadistic Ball of Sunshine.” With a growl, he kissed the man back.

“Please don’t fuck in front of me!” Gavin cried out. “Like, I am already dealing with the scarring memories of HEARING you two have sex, I really don’t need to add on actually seeing it. Again, you are basically, pretty much my brother, Harlow, so please stop.”

He broke away with a sigh and met Foxx’s watery but amused expression, before glancing back at Gavin. Harlow was debating internally on whether to kick him out of the Jeep or not when his phone started to ring.

Letting out an irritated growl, as Foxx giggled and leaned back against the wheel so he could get to his phone, he pulled out the damn thing and just handed it to the vampire.

Smiling, Foxx accepted the phone. Noting the call was from Tony, he answered it while remaining seated in Harlow’s lap. Or rather, he wiggled evilly in the dhampir’s lap, making him groan right as the call connected, before settling down and properly using Harlow as a seat.

“ What the fuck was that ?” Tony barked, before almost desperately gasping, “ No, never mind, don’t tell me !”

“I think you should tell him what you were doing, because I shouldn’t be the only one traumatized,” Gavin snapped .

“ Be traumatized alone, you fuck! ” Tony growled.

Harlow chuckled. “Need something, boss?”

“ Oh, I do. I need one of you assholes to tell me that you had nothing to do with two houses blowing up in Arizona. ”

“Two houses, you say?” Foxx mused sweetly with a sniffle. “Wasn’t us,” he lied.

“We would never,” Gavin said, his voice completely monotone.

“ So just a big fucking coincidence that it happened along your travel path, to two people who are related to Charity in a very negative capacity?”

“Yep!” Foxx chimed.

“ Fucking hell. You know what, I don’t want to know. Because as far as I’m fucking concerned, you all are on a sight-seeing vacation .”

“How’s shit going there?” Harlow asked, sounding and looking bored.

“ Fucked, that’s how. Things are absolutely fucked! The Guild is on its way to being rebuilt, but everything else is fucked. Vampires and werewolves are causing issues in every fucking corner of the USA, and the world, as many are lashing out about the motherfucking ‘vaccine’.

“We're currently about to release the full footage of what happens when someone is infected and does not get the counteragent on time, because that will likely be the only thing that knocks some sense into these morons. Oh, did I mention that humans are causing problems too ?”

He huffed. “What’s their problem now?”

“ Oh, well, no doubt it has something to do with that fucker and his group of humanity’s dumbest, but protests are popping up. These people are screaming that the poison shit is a hoax, and there is this whole conspiracy theory that the government is just trying to cover up that they accidentally sided with ? —"

“Vicious beasts?” Foxx supplied helpfully.

“ Yes .” Tony sighed. “ It’s a mess. But hey, Harlow, you got your wish. The police are finally getting involved in that side of our job, because there are too many of them, and not enough of us, to deal with all of the shit going on right now. ”

Well, that was some good news, if they ignored the fact that it was only happening because a chunk of their numbers had been wiped out. “How’s Wes? And Jerry? I’ve been meaning to ask about him, and I guess the others who were also changed?”

“ Right, Wes was planning to text you when he got out, but there were some complications and ? —"

“What?!” Gavin interrupted.

“ I was about to explain !” Tony snapped. “ He ended up going in for another emergency surgery two days after we talked. Something about a vessel bursting and worsening his brain swelling. They kept him in a medically induced coma for a bit, but woke him up this morning. He’s recovering well now. The plan is for him to be released by the end of the week, with the earliest possible day being Friday, latest Sunday. So likely three to five more days.”

Foxx took a deep breath. “I’m glad they realized something was wrong.”

“ Me too. As for Jerry and the others, people are adjusting. The vampires are getting there faster than the werewolves, of course. It’ll be at least a month or so before most even shift back .”

Right, as newly turned werewolves had no control. Most turned werewolves were completely lost to the change until the one month mark, sometimes even two. And after, they’d be easily triggered toward violence. Sadly, it would take most turns at least six months to a year before they could safely be alone with humans. And when it came to the full moon, they’d have to be locked up during each one for the next five to ten years.

“How’s the permission thing going?” Harlow asked.

“ That was the other reason I was calling. We’re close, super close. I’d say I’ll have it for you sometime over the next few days. Which is why I’m going to suggest you hold off going after your next target .”

They only did the pit stop for training knowing it wouldn’t affect their time, since they’d planned on going in at night, but… “You have until the sun sets tomorrow. We can’t wait longer than that. The place is a full-blown lab with paranormal captives. Holding off will put the lives that are trapped in there at further risk, and from the information Gavin managed to get, along with the camera feeds, some don’t have long.”

“ Fucking hell ,” Tony cursed. “ Do what you have to, but be careful… And for fuck’s sake, be quiet .”

“Boom,” Harlow said with a laugh.

Tony just sighed and hung up on them.

“Boom.” Foxx giggled.

Smiling, he kissed the dhampir lightly before starting to crawl back into his own seat, squealing when Harlow smacked his ass and repeated, “Boom.”