Page 107 of My Vampire Plus-One

When Reggie answered, he spoke so reluctantly it was like the words were being pulled out of him against his will. “Zelda and I used to tag-team practical jokes on some of the more annoying members of the community.” And then, with a murderous glare at Frederick, he added, “All rumors that Zelda and I were anything more than friends are rubbish.”

I glanced at Frederick to check his reaction. He looked unconvinced but said nothing.

My cheeks flamed. Which was ridiculous. Even if the rumors Reggie had just alluded toweren’trubbish, the man was hundreds of years old. Expecting him not to have had any lovers at all before me was unreasonable.

I didn’t have to like it, though.

“You think The Collective is afraid of her?” I asked Frederick, trying to steer my thoughts to safer ground.

“I can’t pretend to know what goes on in their heads,” he said. “But yes, probably. Most of us are.”

I pondered that. “Any chance there’s a passage on her inThe Annals? Maybe there’s something in there we could use to scare The Collective into leaving Reggie alone.”

Frederick’s face lit up. “The Annals?” Once again, he reminded me so much of my dad on those rare instances he got asked a question about history, it was uncanny. “You may peruse them if you’d like. I must go run a time-sensitive errand for Cassie, otherwise I’d stay here and review them with you.” He glanced at Reggie. “Could you show her where I store the books?”

Reggie nodded. “Of course. Go take care of your fiancée.”

Frederick’s eyes were very bright. “Thank you.” And then to me, he said, “I will return in a few hours. In the meantime, please do not disturb Cassie under any circumstances. She is sleeping and must rest for the next several days.”

My eyebrows shot up. What sort of medical condition made someone need to sleep for days? “Is she okay?”

“She will be,” Frederick said. His eyes drifted over to Reggie, as though seeking confirmation.

“She will be,” Reggie agreed, reassuring. “I promise, Freddie.”

“Right. Right,” Frederick said, his voice so quiet it was like he was speaking to himself. And then, to me, he said, “Reginald can fill you in on the details, if you like.”

The moment he left the apartment, I rounded on Reggie. “What’s wrong with Cassie?”

“They got engaged last night,” he explained. “As part of it, Freddie…” He trailed off and rubbed at the back of his neck. “He turned her. When she wakes up, Cassie will be a vampire.”

My mouth fell open. Even though I’d known this was going to happen, there was nothing that could have prepared me for the reality of it.

Cassie—a person I’d known most of my life—was a vampire. I saw the way she looked at Frederick, and I wasn’t so dead inside I couldn’t recognize real love when I saw it on another person’s face…but even still. The idea that Cassie had chosen this for herself to be with her lover forever was very difficult to process.

“Wow,” I said. It was the understatement of the year.

“Yeah,” Reggie agreed. “I don’t pretend to exactly understand what it is they see in each other, but I’ve seen centuries worth of guys in love and guys not in love. I know what they have is the real deal.”

“Sam is going to lose his goddamn mind,” I said.

“Probably. But that’s something for Cassie to navigate when she wakes up. It’s not on you.”

“Won’t it be, though? Sam’s my brother.” Not only that, he had an incredibly black-and-white worldview. Much as I had had for most of my life. Even if I never made the same choice Cassie made, Sam would probably disapprove of my current situation if he knew how far Reggie and I had already taken things.

Reggie must have recognized how distressed I was getting, because no sooner did I think how nice it would be for him to hold me than he was out of his chair and I was in his arms.

“One step at a time,” he murmured against the top of my head, before pressing a gentle kiss there for good measure. “You can worry about Sam and Cassie when it becomes an issue. There’s no point in worrying about it now.”

I burrowed into his chest. “Worrying about things way too far in advance is kind of my thing, though.”

He chuckled. “You should work on that.” He paused, then pulled back so he could look into my eyes. “Have you considered bullet journaling?”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Excerpt fromThe Annals of Vampyric Lore, Seventeenth Edition

“Index of Notorious Witches and Vampires,” pp. 1123–24