Page 8 of The Vampire's Werewolf Bodyguard

Cody

Cody is relieved to see Simon bright and early—sorry, dark and early?—the next night. He’d half expected another escape attempt. A failure Cody would have to report to Tobias. But Simon emerges from his underground lair as Cody is eating breakfast. Cody tenses, fighting back an instinctive growl, as Simon sits across the table.

Then silence. No disarming banter this time. Simon just stares creepily at the wall as Cody finishes his omelet. Utterly still, and if he’s lost in thought, those thoughts don’t show on his porcelain face.

Staring at the wall might be the best available option. Simon could be watching Cody eat instead. Or sipping a bottle of blood for his own breakfast, the thought of which turns Cody’s stomach. Call him a prude, but werewolves only feed on humans when something has gone very wrong. Vampires do it as a matter of course.

“Ready to go?” Cody asks, putting the dishes in the sink.

Simon rises, dangling keys from his finger. “What’s the approved bodyguard protocol—me driving or you driving?”

“I’ll drive,” Cody answers, and easily catches the keys when Simon flings them.

“Just as well.” Simon heads towards the garage. “My license is a little out of date.”

Cody snorts. “Did they make drivers licenses in the sixteenth century? Wait, or was it the fifteenth?” It always takes him a minute to remember how that goes.

“Sixteenth.” Simon pauses to enter the security code at the garage door. “The treaty council provides sufficient identification. I’ve just neglected to request a new license this decade.”

Reflexively, Cody holds the door closed before Simon can open it. “Sorry,” he says when Simon jerks back. “Let me enter rooms first when we’re outside the house, okay?”

“If it makes you feel useful,” Simon says drily.

Simon’s brief nervousness is only visible because Cody is watching him so closely. “How old are you in your current license?” Cody asks as a distraction, while he scans the freakishly clean garage. “All clear.”

“Forty-five,” Simon answers, following him towards the car. “It’s awkward when I get pulled over.”

Cody pauses at the driver’s door. “Does that happen often?”

Giving one of those little smiles that makes him look alive, Simon pets the sleek black hood. “It’s not my fault these newfangled automobiles go so fast. ”

Cody is extremely grateful to be the driver as he settles behind the wheel.

He’s also grateful he insisted on the extra night to research their destination. Lawrence’s apartment and roommate seem innocuous enough from what he and Atwood’s background specialist dug up. Cody and Simon shouldn’t be driving into a waiting ambush. But traveling with a vampire is new to Cody. He might not like vampires in general, or Simon in specific, but the ancient brat won’t burn to a crisp on his watch.

Simon used the intervening time to contact Lawrence’s roommate Erica, posing as Lawrence’s cousin. The story is that Lawrence is staying with family during a mental health episode, and Simon is picking up some things. Which sounds implausible as fuck, but Cody’s just here for security. Alibi critique isn’t in his job description.

At the gate, Cody presses the new remote. “I identified three motels with vacancies along our route,” he says as he exits onto the road. “If we get delayed, we can hole up in the nearest one until sunset tomorrow.”

“This won’t take that long,” Simon says, sounding amused.

Maybe Simon can be blasé about the danger, after surviving so many centuries. But Cody’s never had a principal vulnerable to sunlight before. “Can’t be too careful.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Simon reclines his seat, putting his feet up on the dash. “Worst-case scenario, I’ll just sleep in the trunk.”

Another minute down the darkened road, Cody says, “What.”

“I modify all my car trunks,” Simon explains. “It’s fully sun-proofed, plus I can lock it from the inside.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Cody says out loud, while making a silent vow to himself. He cannot let a principal sleep in a fucking car trunk.

They fall quiet for the next twenty minutes. Lights and traffic pick up as they approach the city. Not enough to slow them down, just enough to remind Cody that other people exist outside his own present circumstances. The whole mass of humanity and the fractional percentages of werewolves and vampires are going about their normal lives. Nobody knows that Cody’s currently strapped into a car with his hereditary enemy.

He’d like to think nobody would care, but he knows better than that.

This is the closest Cody has been to Simon for any length of time. It’s strangely comfortable when Simon isn’t being a brat. So far, except for the time Simon fainted, they’ve avoided physical contact. Cody’s more than happy to keep that streak going—no matter how touchably soft Simon looks with his sweaters and tousled hair. No touching means the job is boring. Cody really wants this job to be boring.

Minus the whole vampire thing.

“Tell me about yourself,” Simon says out of nowhere. At a glance, he’s still looking out the window.

“Really?” Cody returns his own eyes to the road. “I like barbeque and long walks in the park, and I haven’t chewed on the furniture in years.”

“Any furniture you chew at my house is coming out of your paycheck,” Simon says. “And yes, really, fair is fair. I assume you got an entire dossier about me.”

Cody hadn’t, actually. Atwood usually provides a basic profile, with more detail as necessary. Simon’s profile was the shortest Cody had ever received—it didn’t even include Simon’s date of birth. Tobias is the only other person at the company who knows Simon is a vampire.

“I know where you live, and I know your sire. That’s about it,” Cody says. “I wouldn’t have time to read an entire history book.”

“That’s more than I know about you.” Simon pulls his feet down from the dashboard. Probably staring creepily at Cody now. “Why don’t you have a pack?”

Cody’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. He focuses hard on keeping his claws from sharpening.

He isn’t used to answering that question. His entire social circle is human these days, and most of them don’t know he’s a werewolf. Of those few, Tobias is the only one who knows how dangerous being a lone wolf is. It’s not a life anyone would choose.

“I got kicked out.” Cody concentrates on the road, his wolf bristling with old defensiveness. “The alpha didn’t like me dating a human.”

Simon pauses before answering. “I’m sorry. That pack sounds very… traditional.”

Cody appreciates the phrasing. ‘That pack’ instead of ‘your pack.’ “I didn’t realize how traditional until I left, yeah. Maybe if I hadn’t met Patrick, or if I’d met him a few years later, I would have stayed. But I met him when I was twenty and stubborn as fuck.”

Simon shifts in his seat. The weight of his gaze doesn’t feel creepy anymore, but the thoughtful assessment might be weirder. “Was this Patrick worth it?”

“We only dated for a month,” Cody admits. “I never even told him I was a wolf. But yeah. Anyone would have been worth it. That wasn’t a pack I could live with forever.”

Not without becoming someone he would hate to be. Except being on his own isn’t working either. Every year without a pack bond, Cody becomes more of a monster.

“Leaving must have been hard,” Simon says, still weirdly sympathetic. “Even if it was the right choice, they were still family.”

“Not in the moment, but after, yeah.” Cody adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. No risk of his claws coming out, now. He doesn’t feel like a wolf—more like an awkward, vulnerable human. This isn’t the attitude he needs on a job. Better change the subject. “What about you? Any vampire siblings?”

The question seems neutral enough. Asking about Simon’s original human family could be sad, since they’ve been dead for centuries. Vampires tend to form small social units with the people they turn, and fledglings of the same sire call each other siblings.

The temperature drops. “Not anymore,” Simon says sharply. “Eyes on the road, wolf. We’re almost there.”

Finding parking in the city forces Cody’s focus away from the chill in Simon’s voice. Four hundred and fifty years is a long time to lose people. But that’s none of Cody’s business. He carefully angles the car into a free bit of curb.

“Remember to let me enter rooms first,” Cody says, killing the engine. “There are two elevators and two staircases. If there’s a problem, we head for the nearest staircase. I’ll signal Atwood, but you should plan to press your panic button too just in case I can’t.”

“Do I still let you enter the staircase first if I’m running for my undead life?” Simon asks. The return to his unhelpful attitude is unexpectedly reassuring .

“I’ll be between you and any known danger,” Cody answers, because one of them has to take this seriously. “Let’s do this quickly.”

Lawrence Baird’s neighborhood is still busy this early in the evening. Apartment buildings stack around little local retailers. Twenty-somethings new to the area mingle with old folks who’ve been there for decades.

Cody and Simon’s destination is an aged five-story building, and their first obstacle is the call box in the lobby. Cody stands back, eyeing the exits, as Simon presses the room number. A tinny voice replies a moment later.

“Hey, who’s there?”

“Hi, Erica? This is Simon, Lawrence’s cousin,” Simon replies, his voice shockingly cheerful and sweet. “Um, I brought a friend with me, is that all right?”

“It works.” The second lobby door clicks unlocked. “Come on up.”

As he leads the way to the elevator, Cody asks, “Does that count as an invitation?”

“Yes, it does,” Simon says. “It’s about the intention, not the words. I can enter the building and her apartment, but not anybody else’s dwelling.”

The elevator is grubby and smells like weed. There’s something off, and Cody takes a moment to figure it out. The metallic walls only show one blurred reflection.

Normally, Cody wouldn’t let a principal investigate their own attempted assassination. Nobody else has been reckless enough to try. But Cody needs to pick his battles with Simon. He’s lucky nobody had warned Simon about the gate system change—last night could have gone very differently.

At least Simon is armed tonight, and Cody knows he can aim.

Lawrence and Erica’s apartment is on the third floor. A woman opens at Simon’s knock, then frowns. “Who is this?”

Erica is a tall woman, with short red hair and blinding floral overalls. Her suspicion cuts towards Cody, understandably. Cody does his best to seem unassuming, but he can’t change his height and build. Next to him, Simon looks like an adorable kitten.

“Um, this is Cody,” Simon says. That ‘um’ is a nice touch.

Erica’s glare turns thoughtful. “Your boyfriend?”

“No,” Cody says immediately—just as Simon answers, “Yes.”