Page 123 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“That’s quite the piece of metal you have there,” Lorien said in the aftermath of William’s undoing. “May I ask how you handled it without burning yourself?”

“Leather grip,” Henry said. He turned his head toward Lorien to answer, but his eyes were flicking back to the screen time and again. They were still trying to watch the football, and Lorien didn’t know what else to say, so he used his vampiric methods of sliding away mysteriously into the darkness where he watched from the shadows, trying to discern what his fascination was. He told himself many things. That wolves were rare. That was true. That wolves with any measure of control of themselves were even more rare. Also true.

Henry was hot. Hot in a way Lorien was not accustomed to. Hot in a way Lorien didn’t want to become accustomed to. Henry knew what he’d been up to. Knew he’d formed a den with Ivan for a short while. Probably the most embarrassing mistake he’d made lately, though Lorien had a reputation for embarrassing mistakes in general. He didn’t blame Henry for thinking he was a specific kind of moron. He’d probably have thought the same himself if he were in Henry’s position.

Eventually the game ended. The younger wolves dispersed back to the room they were sleeping in, but Henry stayed behind. Lorien stayed too, wondering what the pack master was going to do next. Some small part of him hoped it was find the porn channel and start…

“What do you want, vampire?” Henry asked the question without looking around. Clearly, he sensed Lorien’s presence, even in shadows.

“My name’s Lorien. I don’t want anything. I live here,” Lorien spoke smoothly, as if he hadn't just been caught spying like a complete weirdo.

“Uh huh.” Henry got up and turned around to face Lorien, who stepped out of the shadows which weren’t really doing anything to obscure him anyway. It was much harder to be sexy and mysterious with someone who wasn’t impressed by any of his tricks.

“Ivan’s not my friend,” Lorien said.

“I should hope not.”

“I mean, just in case you thought…”

“In case I thought what?”

“That I was like him. Or involved with him. Or…”

Henry quirked a brow and cocked his head to the side in a way that made Lorien’s stomach perform the kind of contortions it hadn’t performed in a very long time.

“Anyway,” Lorien said. “I guess I should be going. You know, out.”

“Mhm. I know out.”

Was that a hint of a smile on Henry’s face? Was he laughing at him? Lorien certainly felt awkward and laughable. He didn’t even know what he was trying to achieve.

“Alright,” Lorien said. “Well. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Lorien,” Henry said. The way he said Lorien’s name sent a bolt of excitement down his spine. It was so strange, the way the simplest and most pedestrian of interactions suddenly became ripe with meaning and intensity when they took place with someone who had a globe’s worth of sexual charisma at his disposal.

9

“Mom! I need my boots for tomorrow.” Carter’s scream floated down from the top floor to the kitchen where Candy had her hands deep in the sink scrubbing at a pan of lasagne she’d had to eventually throw out because the kids had ordered pizza. Again.

Candy looked at herself in the kitchen window, her reflection coming back to her faded in the darkness. She looked tired and older than she remembered being.

“MOM!” Carter screeched again.

“Lora! Have you seen Carter’s boots?”

Chuck joined in the questioning fray. He was watching television, beer in hand, happy as a proverbial clam. She doubted that he’d even taken his eyes off the screen. Probably forgot what he’d yelled already.

She hadn’t seen the boots. Or maybe she had. Lora Candy adored her family. She drew breath for them, but if they didn’t stop using her as a GPS for every random bit of crap in their lives, she thought she might literally go insane.

“Mom!?” Carter appeared by her elbow. He was a sandy blond-haired boy who was fast approaching his fourteenth birthday. He was the spitting image of Lora’s father, or at least, that’s what her father said every time she sent pictures of the kids. Carter and Lisette. The two children she’d birthed in wedlock to Chuck Bremmer. She’d refused to change her last name when they married. He’d asked, but she’d asked him right back, and it turned out he didn’t want to be Chuck Candy any more than she wanted to by Lora Bremmer. The kids had his last name.

“Yes, I’ll look in a second, honey,” Lora said patiently, pushing a stray string of blonde gray hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist. If this fucking pan didn’t get clean soon… She gave up with a sigh and decided to resign it to soaking for the rest of the night.

She looked around the kitchen again and realized that the house felt emptier than usual.

“Where is Lisette?”

Carter picked at a corner of the dish she’d just left to soak. He hadn’t been interested in eating the lasagne, but old wet cheese was apparently a delicacy he couldn’t resist. “At a sleepover. Remember?”