Page 53 of High Stakes and Soulmates (Fanged Mistakes #3)

Julian nods. “I mostly bit people long enough that Casimir could kill them. Killing isn’t really… my specialty.”

“Good,” I say. “Obviously, they were awful people to think it was okay to just… murder people. Hell, to murder their own. I wonder if we’ll ever find out everything that happened.”

“I don’t know,” Ezio says. “How about we head out? Clear our heads.”

“Yes, please,” I agree as I stand up. “Thank you all for helping us. Thank you for doing so much for us.”

“Any time,” Julian says. “Literally. We would do anything for our friends. And you’ve proven again and again you’d do the same for us. I’m just disappointed you won’t be turning into a wolf with me. Oh! Speaking of, do you need some blood?”

“Johnny, get him some blood,” Atticus orders, and off Johnny runs. He rushes back with a wineglass of blood that I apprehensively stare at. “Just take the glass with you.”

“Uh… I don’t want to like… spill it in Ezio’s sports car.”

“Johnny,” Atticus says, and Johnny snatches the glass up and dashes off. He returns after a few minutes with a reusable bottle… like I’m just going to sip some blood from a straw as I go.

“I don’t know why this feels so weird,” I comment.

“Maybe it’s the sippy cup?” Julian asks.

“I have a nice woman I can invite over, and you can suckle on her,” Yorick offers. “She’s a delight to suck on.”

“Yes, invite her over,” Atticus says in a way that makes it sound like he’ll snatch her up so Yorick can’t have her. Why? No one knows.

“We’re, uhhh, leaving?” I say before I carry my odd drink out to the car. Right outside the car, I hold it out in front of me. “You know… slurping it down mid-sex was just like… I went for it, but now…”

“You realize you have to have been consuming blood sometimes, right? I mean, you clearly weren’t drinking it enough, you were always tired and looked pale, but he must have been mixing it into your food.”

“No wonder I thought he was a phenomenal cook,” I say.

“Take a sip.”

I stare at it.

“Do you want me to feed it to you like a momma bird to a baby bird?”

“Jesus, no.”

He laughs and I take a sip of it, and even though I was convinced the taste would be absolutely horrible, it hits me so hard.

“Oh my god,” I moan before sucking as hard as I can.

I can’t get it through the straw fast enough, so I rip the lid off and chug it.

Like… Ezio’s blood was good, but it was just a taste, and this is like… “Fuck.”

“Do you want more?” Ezio asks as I realize I’m trying to lick the cup clean.

“No,” I say, a bit embarrassed. And even more so when I look toward the house and see everyone staring at me.

Quickly, I get in the car where I continue to lick the straw where they can’t watch.

Ezio laughs again as he starts the car and pulls out. “You can have that as much as you want now.”

“I feel like now that I know the taste, I’m going to walk into a crime scene and just like… drop to the floor and begin lapping it up. I feel like a starving man who’s been fed for the first time.”

“You don’t ever have to starve again,” he assures me.

“It’s so good,” I moan.

He smiles at me. “Good. I hope it makes you feel better like the blood at the hospital did.”

As he pulls out onto the road, I realize we’re heading away from either of our houses. “Where are we going?”

“Secret.”

“Hmm…”

Ezio drives for a bit before pulling off near some trees. Then he gets out and grabs a backpack from the back.

“This looks suspicious.”

“Don’t be suspicious!” he says as he waits for me to come around to his side. He reaches out and takes my hand before squeezing it. “Fuck, I love you so much.” He lifts my hand and kisses it. “I can’t stop wanting to just… look at you to make sure you’re really here.”

“Don’t cry again. I’m not going anywhere.”

“It’s too late,” he says as he starts dragging me off, presumably so I can’t see his tears.

I squeeze his hand and close my eyes, letting him pull me after him. And when I do, it’s like I can feel the familiarity of it. I can see his smile in the sunlight. I can see parts and pieces of a life I lived but whenever I open my eyes, it seems so fleeting.

He leads me over to a beautiful spot as I discover how clearly I can see in the dark. The moon isn’t even that bright, but I can see the flowers, I can hear the animals and smell the plants.

“It’s so beautiful,” I realize as he leads me up to a river. “It’s like… I can hear things… see things… my senses were so dulled. What else can I do?”

“We’ll have to explore it together. Traditionally, dhampirs were strong enough to be vampire hunters.”

“Uh… I have reason to believe I’m not strong enough to go against a vampire.”

“We’ll see,” he says.

“So does this mean Sansón isn’t my full brother?”

“Correct. Likely, your fathers were different. You never met your father?”

“No, my mother said he died when we were still young.”

“Maybe Sansón knows more. Come,” he says as he guides me to the water’s edge. It’s all so beautiful.

“How did I end up so lucky to find you again?”

“It took too long,” Ezio says. “It took far too long.”

I feel that pain, that desperation like something huge had been missing from inside me, and I fill it with the happiness of this moment.

“I wish I could thank the real Cyrus and his family for giving me a place in this world. I just wish it hadn’t come at such a heavy cost. Because without his family… I’m not sure I’d have ever met you again.”

“Maybe we were always destined to meet. I told you that I would find you again, whether in the afterlife or another life. We were just lucky enough we didn’t need either,” he says before drawing me from the water’s edge. He throws a blanket down and sits down before patting his lap.

“What?”

“Lay your head on my lap.”

“Ah, okay.” As I lie down, I understand it’s like the memory he’d told me of him and Arturo swimming in the pond. I set my head on his lap while he pulls a book out of the bag, and I realize how old it is when he opens it and reads the first line.

I freeze before grabbing his wrist so I can pull the book down to examine it. “This is mine.”

“Is it?” he asks like he could possibly not know.

“This is my book,” I say. “This is my book. I remember this. How do you still have it?”

“I had it on Valley.”

“It didn’t get ruined in the ocean?”

“No, I’d put it in a waterproof saddlebag. There was some damage, but not much. And it was my treasure for many years. Just like you are, tesoro.”

I close my eyes and it’s like I can hear Valley tearing up grass, the swish of her tail. A frog jumping into the pond and Ezio’s sweet voice.

“Read to me,” I beg, wanting to be drawn back in time.

Wanting to remember every minute of it no matter how much it hurts, because it’ll be worth it for every moment that I loved.

He might have only been in my life for one year out of two hundred, but it was that year that kept me going.

It was that year that pushed me to this very moment.

“Who knew that two hundred years later, we’d find ourselves in a spot just like that one,” I say as I reach out and dig my fingers into his shirt. I feel a drip on my face and open my eyes, expecting to see that it’s raining, but instead, I realize it was a tear that escaped Ezio’s frantic wiping.

“Stop crying,” I say as I reach up and swipe my thumb through a tear.

“I can’t,” he whispers before pulling me in tighter with one hand. “I just can’t believe I found you again. I’m going to keep you so safe. I’m going to make sure your next two hundred years couldn’t be better, my sweet Arturo.”

And then he begins to read, and I’m drawn back to that time.

A time when I’d never known how I could feel so happy.

I wish I could go back and tell that lost soul that the pain, the desperation, the fear…

it would all be worth it because someday it would lead to this very moment where I’m being held by the man who will never stop loving me.