Page 92 of Vampire Kings Box Set

She looked at him. “Nostalgia usually makes you look back at things more fondly than they deserve. I have hated you for two decades. I blamed you for what I did. Now I look at you and I see a broken monster, someone to be pitied more than feared.”

“I think I can still give you a reason or two to fear me,” Ivan grinned, reaching out to a passing plate being carried by a waitress to another table. He snagged a piece of bacon from it and put it into his mouth. If the waitress noticed, she didn’t do anything about it, she just carried on her way.

“Now that," he said, indicating the woman with the remnant of the bacon strip, “is what broken looks like. I’ve never been less broken. I have a son.”

“Who turned you into the cops within a day of meeting you.”

“I don’t know how to be a good dad yet. I’ll work on it. Maybe I’ll ask your husband for some tips.”

“Don't you come anywhere fucking near my family," she said, her eyes flaring with emotion. “Keep them out of whatever happens.”

“Why do you think something is going to happen?”

“Because you’re here, Ivan. And I know you're uncontrollable, even if Maddox thinks you can be controlled.”

“I’d say he knows better by now,” Ivan smiled to himself. He’d gotten flesh into Will. It was his own flesh, true, but flesh was flesh. Lora had given him a bandage to put over his hand to stop him from bleeding all over her cruiser. She'd always tried to make him more accessible to others, and had ever since they were small.

“We’ve known one another too long to hate each other," she said. “But you left me, when…”

“Yeah.”

“And now there's a…”

“Yeah.”

Ivan didn’t bother trying to deny anything. He knew what he was. He was an animal, same as any other predator. He had done some shitty, awful things in his life and he was, in all likelihood, going to do many more. Pretending otherwise would do him and everyone around him a disservice.

“So you’re really not going to tell William who you are,” he said. “William! What kind of name is that.”

“I don’t know, I think it’s nice,” Lora said. “And no. I’m not. It would just confuse him…”

“And how would you tell the hubby and kids about your bastard wolf baby?”

“Shut up, Ivan.”

“Got two pancakes,” the waitress droned, appearing next to them with two plates that were somehow already lukewarm.

“Who did you end up marrying, then?” Ivan asked the question as they ate.

“Chuck Bremmer.” She named the school geek, pretty much the complete opposite of Ivan, he had probably been an appealing and safe option after the trauma of having a teenage baby alone.

“No! Specs!”

“He got contacts,” Lora said. “And he’s a software engineer now, so.”

“Uh huh. Sounds sexy.” Ivan was enjoying teasing her. He’d thought about Lora from time to time over the years. She'd been the first of many, so many he couldn’t hope to remember most of them, but there was always something special about the first.

“He’s a good man.”

“Good for you,” Ivan said, finishing the food on his plate. It tasted fine. “I got to get going.”

“Where are you going to go?” She was fishing for information now, information he had no intention of giving her.

“I don’t know. I’ll find somewhere to den up.”

“Ivan…” She spoke his name as he went sliding out of the booth.

“What?”