Page 25 of The Baby Hex (Mori’s Mementos #2)

“Very carefully I’d guess. If it wasn’t for your bird, I’d be worried about you eating it, but crows eat carrion.”

I wasn’t going to tell him that my crow’s spoiled ass had never eaten carrion or anything like that because I wanted another bite of his burger. I opened my mouth to ask but a caw-caw came out as I shrank down and grew feathers.

Fucking crow!

He was always pulling that stunt at the worst possible moments.

At least Pierce already knew I was a crow in addition to being an elf and a wolf.

Plus, he didn’t seem to mind me pecking at his food.

Which was a good thing because my bird wasn’t about to stop.

I’m sure plenty of vampires would’ve taken issue with their mates shifting on the dinner table but if anything, Pierce seemed amused as he left me to peck at his burger while he set out my food and filled our cups with iced tea.

When my crow had eaten enough, he relinquished control and allowed me to slip back into my elf form. I sat crisscross applesauce in the middle of the table as Pierce took his seat at the head of the table.

“I can’t believe he did that.”

“He? He is you,” Pierce said. “Right? That’s how shifters have always been explained to me.”

“Yes and no. I mean, obviously yes. But also they have their own set of instincts and sometimes they don’t align with ours.”

“Did you not like the burger?” he asked me.

“No, I loved it!” I said.

“There’s another in the bag if you want it instead,” he said. “I would’ve woken you to ask what you wanted but you were sleeping so well. I know sleep is splotchy during heat and I want you well rested.”

I ate the chicken tenders because at the end of the day, I loved chicken and wasn’t sure I wanted that much blood floating around in my belly.

“But he’s right about sharing,” Pierce said as if I had missed some conversation between him and my bird. “I’m not going to ever say no. I mean, maybe if I was sucking a bear dry or something. I’d tell you to wait to eat him until I had finished.”

I lost it. I wasn’t sure if Pierce was trying to be funny but the hormones circling around my heat made that into a very naughty mental image that had nothing to do with blood. Pink rose on Pierce’s cheeks, and I cocked my head to the side.

“I didn’t know it was possible for you to blush,” I grinned.

“I can almost see what you must be seeing,” Pierce said.

“Do all vampires talk like that?”

“Sometimes,” he shrugged. “At times we do think more about blood than sex. For some of us it all mingles together but for others that doesn’t happen.”

“You’ve never bitten someone during sex?” I asked.

“Uh… Yeah. Of course, I have. I’m a vampire but that doesn’t mean I’m going to bite you. Not for blood anyway. You’re a treasure, a gem, maybe even a sword or a wand with your attitude, but you’re not food.”

“Okay, but…” I took a deep breath. “I’m an elf. Not an object. If I’m a sword, you’re a book duct taped closed. Because you know plenty about me but I don’t know much about you.”

“What would you like to know?”

“Are we alone in the house?” I asked.

“Yes,” Pierce nodded. “The house will appear to be a living entity from time to time because the magic is set to respond to my commands but we are alone in the house except for a raccoon who occasionally hangs out in the attic.”

“Wild or shifter?”

“Wild of course. I don’t think I’ve met a raccoon shifter,” Pierce said. “If I have, they were covering their scent.”

“What does it mean to be born under the sign of the fang?” I asked, stealing one of Pierce’s fries because I’d already finished mine.

He pushed what was left of them over to me.

Usually, I’d argue that the person trying to share with me needed to eat but I was ravenous and if I planned to grow a baby in the near future, I’d need all the calories I could get ahead of time.

“I know that you have freewill before and after the claiming vows. I know there isn’t some secret keeping spell involved but---”

“If you’re a serial killer just tell me. I mean, look at what Teal and Morvan do. Polite to a bloody fault and they have a type. The whole warehouse has a type but at the end of the day that’s what they do. It’s why Teal never ratted out my business.”

“Quite the opposite actually,” Pierce chuckled. “Promise you won’t freak out?”

“I promise not to freak out if it’s within my control,” I nodded.

“Under the correct circumstances, I can pass on my vampirism. Before you ask, yes, I’m a born vampire.

So, is my carrier. My sire on the other hand was turned by my carrier after almost dying in an auto accident.

He loved him too much to let him go. I mean, it was something we were always going to have to discuss anyway.

That is, what would you want me to do? My instinct would be to save you at any cost but being a vampire might not be the life you want for yourself. ”

I didn’t speak for a long moment, and I worried if I didn’t hurry up and wrap my head around what Pierce had just told me that he might take my silence for insult or disdain.

“I want to stay with you. So, if you could save me, do it. Especially if we have little kids running around or something.”

“That makes my life easier,” he nodded. “Because I think I would hate myself every day if you needed something I could give and I withheld it.”

“Don’t say it---” I pointed at him.

“Don’t say what?” he leaned back in his chair and raked his eyes up and down my body.

“That you’d rather die with me today than spend all your life without me.”

“It’s the truth. Sure, we need to get to know each other this time around but I stand by my judgement in the Other World, Crilus. I loved you then and now and I think we’ll manage a decent life together.”

I bit my lip and eyed the other bag.

“Eat the damn burger,” he laughed.

“What about you? I feel like you’ve given me most of your food.”

“That is the price of a mate occasionally,” he teased. “But I got extra because I wasn’t sure how hungry you’d be. Plus, the fridge is stocked. Most of it is blood this or that but meat is always in season in this house. So, eat up. What’s mine is yours.”

“Ha, ha,” I said and rolled my eyes.

“So, Jesel is your vampire kid or something?” I asked tentatively.

“Oh? Mine? No! I’ve only ever turned one person and he’s off exploring the northern regions.

He wanted the blood so the cold wouldn’t bother him as much.

He bought the ritual. No, I don’t normally sell it but you can’t give things like that away all willy-nilly.

We were school chums and all that. Jesel is my sister by the blood.

Well, because she was dying of some rare bear disease and my carrier took pity on her because she was so young. ”

“Oh, so she’s your sister! That’s why she was looking at me like that!”

“Sister is probably the best word. Though, my carrier had turned enough people that I’ve lost track of most of them and turning someone doesn’t make them your child.

It doesn’t make you related at all. The venom just takes up residence and eventually spreads throughout the body.

Then you have to feed all the cells it makes with lots of blood.

Turned vampires need more blood than those of us born into it.

And before you ask, no, this doesn’t run in every family.

If it did every vampire born in May or June would be able to turn people. ”

I tried to count up when our kid would be born if we conceived this week, but it was impossible to know what our hypothetical child would be. I was a punnet square all on my own without adding in the vampyric genes of my mate. Though…

“Is your family all vampires?” I asked. “They can’t be, right? Like your sire was something before he was a vampire?

“My sire is still what he was before he became a vampire. If I turned you today it wouldn’t mean sacrificing your wolf or your crow.

It makes you more and keeps you alive. It doesn’t make you less.

There is sacrifice involved but that’s all on the side of the vampire who’s turning you.

We give up the blood it takes to turn you.

We give up some magical ummmph for a few months or so. ”

“So can I know what your sire is or is that a family secret too?” I smirked.

“Oh, he’s an owl.”

“Oh,” I blinked. I’d obviously met a variety of bird shifters in my day but never an owl.

“Is that okay with you?” Pierce arched a brow and locked his eyes on mine. “Is there some ongoing war between crows and owls that I’m unaware of.”

“We have a lot of similarities in our lives. Two omega biological parents. The birds. The magic. Wait! Are your parents poly at all?” I asked.

“No. I think my carrier would eat someone over my sire. Though, they might eventually have to deal with one or both of their true-mates coming back around.”

“Damn. I always worry about my sire if that were to happen. His true-mate that is….” I sighed, wishing I could stretch out on the table now that I’d finished eating.

Instead, the fast-food trash cleaned itself up and Pierce gave me the quickie tour of his house, only hitting the highlights and promising that I was free to explore whatever I wanted as long as I didn’t fiddle with his wards or spells.

“If we live here the majority of the time, feel free to add your own. Our magic should be complimentary, at least in theory. True-mates and all.”

The tour stopped at the bedroom because I opened the door and walked in.

Of all the rooms in the house, this one smelled the most like Pierce and since we hadn’t passed a magical workshop it was either in the basement, the attic, or perhaps he had a trapdoor that led to it hidden somewhere inside his bedroom.

Curiosity tickled the back of my throat but there would be plenty of time to figure out all of that later.

“It’s so tidy. The whole house is super tidy,” I said, taking in the bed made up with black and silver bedding, complete with a four poster curtain that could be drawn around the bed.

A sword hung on the far wall and the headboard was covered with thousands of tiny carvings all filled in with his blood.

I reached out to touch them but glanced at Pierce for permission not wanting to get zapped by his magic for trespassing where I shouldn’t.

“I’d be cautious,” he said, slipping into bed. “I would think that it would know you as I knew you by scent but I do not know for certain that it will recognize you.”

“What are they for?”

“Protection, a catalogue of symbols, a back storage of charged blood. Doodles?” Pierce shrugged, taking my hand in his and pressing my palm against them.

I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the zap that never came.

A warmth washed over me and I longed to stretch out but didn’t want to stop touching the magic rippling under my bare skin.

“It’s so warm,” I murmured. “Are you sure it’s not a sleeping spell?”

“Positive. I get bouts of insomnia. If it were a sleeping spell, that wouldn’t happen,” he said and kissed the crook of my neck.

“It makes me want to put down my shields,” I said. “That’s crazy, though, right?”

“Nothing can touch you here. They have to get through me first.”

I opened my mouth ready to argue that his magic wasn’t stronger than mine.

That I wasn’t some weakling who needed to be protected but the warding on his house had nothing to do with me.

He’d set it up for himself and perhaps his parents and any friends who visited.

His magic invited me in but that was a happy side effect.

“You first. Drop that glamour,” I said.

“I did as soon as the door shut and locked behind us, mate,” he chuckled.

“I told you. It’s not about how I look or sound.

It keeps my magic from trailing over unsuspecting people and reminds me that though I could probably bespell a lot of folks to do my bidding that such magic is reserved for life or death situations.

I don’t think it’s my magic making you tired.

I think it’s like resting after exercise.

You’ve been carrying around every shield you have for years – probably years – I don’t know when you started but for a while at least. Now you feel safe enough to relax. Take a nap.”

“But we came here for ---” I didn’t want to finish that sentence, suddenly shy.

“To exchange our claiming vows?” Pierce asked, stretching out on the soft bed and pulling me down under the blankets with him.

“Yeah, that,” I nodded.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere. Rest up, mate.”

As if I had a choice. I was out before my head ever reached his chest.