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Jamie reached out a hand to turn Luc’s face to his. He was tired of this staring at the ceiling crap. He wanted those black pools centered on him.

Luc gave in to his touch easily, but when he turned to Jamie, there was a pained expression on his face.

Poor, broody boy.

Jamie tutted. “You know why I stayed in Tucson for so long?” he asked.

“Why I went to college here, and not the numerous other institutions across the country I was accepted into? Why I busted my ass making a career for myself in freelance programming instead of just joining an established tech company on one of the coasts?”

“Because the desert is so captivating?” Luc suggested dryly.

Jamie kicked him in the shin. “The desert is captivating, dick. But I stayed because I knew I’d be leaving someday. Really leaving. I wanted to soak in as much of it as I could, because I knew something was coming for me. I knew you were coming for me.”

“You’d have to leave your family, Jamie,” Luc said, more gently than he usually spoke.

Jamie felt a sharp tug in his chest at the thought. To say goodbye to his mom for—what? For forever ?

Luc rearranged himself on the bed until he was mirroring Jamie’s position, facing him with one hand propping up his head.

“Roman tried to go back to his family, in the beginning,” Luc explained.

“I warned him against it, and I was right. It was an unmitigated disaster. And it almost broke him, that loss of control. Their reactions to him.”

“That’s one instance,” Jamie argued. “You said he has a mate now. The one you turned when you were being a vengeful dick. Did he have to leave his family?”

Luc frowned thoughtfully at that. “I—I don’t know.”

“Well, can you ask ?”

Luc narrowed his eyes at the clear exasperation in Jamie’s tone. “What exactly about the story I told you makes you think we have the kind of relationship where I can just—just call them up for a chat? They’d rather be dead than forced to speak with me.”

“Maybe you should remedy that,” Jamie suggested easily.

Luc’s lips twisted. “As if they would forgive me.”

Jamie held in his eye roll but just barely. Because really, were all vampires just a bunch of drama queens? Didn’t they ever just talk to each other? “You all are immortal,” he pointed out. “Can you really hold grudges for all eternity?”

“You’d be surprised,” Luc grumbled. He rubbed a hand along his jaw. “You’ve never seen me truly angry. You don’t know what I was like.”

Jamie hummed. “Maybe one day I’ll be so lucky.”

He bet it would be super hot, all that violence erupting.

“Don’t say that,” Luc scolded. “I don’t want to be…that part of myself. With you.”

Jamie cocked his head. “You know you don’t get to pick and choose what parts of yourself to keep, right?

I get that you want to be suave, debonair, in-control Luc all the time, but you can’t just squash down all the other bits permanently.

The monster is part of you too. For forever, it sounds like.

Maybe you’d get further by accepting it instead of fighting it.

” He nodded sharply in punctuation of this kick-ass wisdom that was pouring out of him.

Luc sighed. “Such insight from one so young.”

“Yeah, I’m super wise, aren’t I?” Maybe he should leave programming and look into a future as a vampire therapist.

But any insightful comment Jamie might add was interrupted by a yawn so wide he felt like his jaw was cracking. “Also super tired apparently.”

Luc pressed a kiss to the side of Jamie’s head, lifting the covers around him. “Enough questions for one night, then. Sleep, flower.”

Jamie dreamed of…twins. Redheaded, identical, fanged.

It was habit by now, when he had a vision, to attempt to place the location, the season. Any clues as to when or where they may be. But only the vampires themselves were in sharp focus, their surrounding settings a blurred fog.

Useless fucking visions.

Still, Jamie felt the cold clarity that came with one of them, so different from the fuzzy, muddled glimpses of a normal dream.

These strangers were real; he was sure of that. But he’d never seen another vampire in a vision before, besides his monster.

He wasn’t drawn to this pair in the same way; that was for certain. They were good-looking enough, Jamie supposed—tall and well muscled, dressed more or less similar to the frat bros that swarmed into town at the end of every August.

But it had never been about Luc’s looks, had it?

It had been that…pull. That certain gut feeling that here was a part of Jamie, cut out and let loose into the world, and that one day it was going to find its way back.

Luc’s evident loneliness had been further proof of that.

They’d both been missing something vital.

They’d been missing each other.

Jamie memorized the details of these vampires’ faces. Not that they would be hard to recognize, with their shocks of red hair and indistinguishable looks. But were they friends or foes?

The vision guttered out, and Jamie felt darkness pulling him under.

He’d have to ask Luc in the morning.