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Perhaps there was a way to signal his desire to stay in town without arousing the twins’ ire. A way to prove he had no nefarious intentions toward their citizens. Not for the first time, Luc wished he’d been given some sort of handbook. Some clear guide to vampire rules and etiquette.

He wished he hadn’t been left to fend for himself and figure it all out on his own.

He wished he hadn’t been abandoned.

Roman was sulking again. A full-on mope, the kind that came around a few times a decade.

“Cheer up, mon ami,” Luc urged. “We’ll find you something pretty to drink tonight.”

Roman frowned into his scotch and soda. “Not every problem can be solved with a pretty face, Lucien.”

“Why, sure it can.” Luc relaxed back into his chair, feigning easy indifference. It didn’t pay to give in to Roman’s moods when he was feeling somber. “What else would there be?”

“Love. Virtue. Purpose.”

Luc laughed bitterly. “I’m afraid I can’t offer any of that. How about another cocktail instead?”

“Don’t you ever feel…tired? A life with no end. A life with no meaning.”

So it was going to become one of those nights. Existential debates. The question of their damnation. Luc wasn’t wholly opposed to it, when he was in the mood.

But he wasn’t in the fucking mood.

He gave a prolonged and appropriately dramatic sigh. “Goddamn it, Roman. Tell you what—” He leaned across the table, catching his friend’s eye. “—if it’s that terrible, we can make a pact. We’ll both end each other one day down the line, when it all becomes too much to bear.”

Roman’s blue eyes narrowed. “Do you mean it?”

Did Luc mean it? He wasn’t even sure. He just wanted an end to the maudlin mood that had overtaken their night.

He was saved from answering as Roman inhaled, his head swiveling to peer around the speakeasy. “He has returned tonight. The little blond one. I can smell him.”

Luc could too. A refreshing pine scent, incongruous with the smoky bar. “By all means, invite him over.”

“I do not see him.”

“Evening, gentlemen.” A melodic voice, from Luc’s left. Soren.

He was a lovely man. Delicate stature, a beautiful face. The kind of face Luc might try a seduction on, normally. But something about him warned Luc off of any sort of romantic pursuit.

That eerie fucking smile, for one.

Even so, it was rare enough he and Roman met others of their kind they both liked enough to speak with more than once.

“Take a seat,” Luc offered, pushing out the chair next to him with his foot. “We were just discussing a brotherly pact. Mutual destruction, should we tire of this fate before we reach eternity.”

Soren sat in the seat next to Roman instead and giggled. “How dramatic. And unnecessary. You’ll go mad long before then, I’d expect.”

Luc and Roman shared a glance.

“Pardon?” Luc asked.

“You’ll turn feral.” Soren looked carefully at each of them, at their blank faces. “Christ, do either of you ever socialize with other vampires? Who raised you?”

“We raised each other,” Roman said, casting a glance toward Luc as he did.

Luc loved him very much in that moment.

And then Soren explained it to them. The fate that awaited them with time, their inner beasts taking over slowly but surely.

“Well.” Luc kept his voice light, even if his mood had turned unbearably dark. “Hear that, Rome? We won’t need to do it ourselves.”

Roman looked back at him with horror in his eyes.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and find your mates first,” Soren said cheerily, waving down the waiter.

“Our what?” Luc asked, intrigued in spite of himself.

Soren sighed, muttering something about sheltered vampire babies. But, after ordering his drink, he then explained dutifully. He told them the other half of the brutal equation.

He gave them hope, however unlikely.

Tethered souls. A way to keep their humanity, their extended lives.

Mates.

Often over the years, Luc had wished they’d never run into Soren that night.

It had lit a fire in Luc he’d never been able to extinguish. Why it would, when he’d just been discussing a possible way out of immortality not ten minutes before, he couldn’t have said at the time.

But he knew it wasn’t just the assurance of extended sanity, an escape from a potential feral state. It was the idea that there was someone out there just for him. Someone who was bound to love him—who was bound to him. Someone who would never leave.

He’d had Roman by his side, yes, but that was different. That was brotherhood. This would be a marriage, of sorts. An eternal promise.

And then Luc would have both brother and spouse. A family.

Luc had ignored so much with Victoria because of that hope. He’d ignored the way she delayed every discussion of turning. He’d ignored the way his monster remained unmoved, no matter how much the man inside him loved her.

And then he’d lost it all in one night, from one silly car accident, of all the fucking things. He’d lost his brother. He’d lost his future mate.

Or so he’d thought at the time.

Did that excuse Luc’s tormenting Roman for decades after?

Probably not. But how terrifying it had been to face the rest of his life—however long or short that may end up being—all alone.

How maddening to be left behind by the one person who’d promised to stay.

How fucking disappointing for Luc to always be so easy to leave.

It was part of why he’d never turned anyone else. What would be the point? They wouldn’t stick around. They never did.

Luc slumped over his whiskey, absolutely hating himself for how maudlin his thoughts had become. He was turning into a caricature of Roman, brooding about morality over cocktails.

As they approached two in the morning, Monique started flickering the lights, kicking the remaining customers out of the bar with a surprisingly booming shout of, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay the fuck here!”

Luc downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass, watching the last of the patrons trickle out.

He’d finished the bottle Monique had been offering him throughout the night and then some.

Possibly unwise, to reveal the extent of alcohol he could consume, but whatever Jamie’s friend thought of his unnatural tolerance, she was keeping it to herself.

How many bars had Luc been to over the centuries? How many mortals who had sat beside him for the night were already dead and gone?

“What’s wrong?”

Luc opened his eyes—when had he shut them?—to find Jamie standing beside him, finally on the right side of the bar.

“Come here,” Luc murmured, tugging him in for a kiss.

He’d intended for something chaste and devotional. But Jamie quickly turned it dirty, slipping his tongue into Luc’s mouth and stepping between Luc’s legs to press his entire body against him. Luc’s cock hardened in an instant, his mate’s scent enveloping him in a wonderful cinnamon fog.

They broke their kiss at Monique’s whistle. “This is when I tell the two of you to get a room.”

“I have a room,” Jamie quipped, giving Luc a pat on the cheek. “I pay you rent for it.”

Monique threw up her middle finger before heading out the back door, trash bags in hand.

Luc leaned in to claim Jamie’s lips again, but Jamie was already heaving his upper body over the bar, his feet lifting off the ground, searching for something on the other side. The position placed his surprisingly round ass on display right at eye level for Luc to ogle.

Jamie rummaged around with something on the counter under the bar, then tilted back onto his feet before Luc could decide whether to give the temptation in front of him a smack, triumphantly holding up a pack of cigarettes. “Aha! I knew I left these here.”

Luc’s hand shot out before he could stop himself, grabbing the pack and tossing it across the room.

Jamie stared at him, stunned. “Um…”

“Those are bad for you,” Luc declared lamely in the ensuing silence.

“Uh…”

“Your mortal life is precious,” Luc explained. “Those could shorten it.”

Jamie cocked his head, blinking rapidly. “But I’m not exactly staying human until old age, am I now?”

Still, Luc felt surprisingly dizzy at the thought of it, a certain weakness in his knees. He couldn’t say why he was suddenly so terrified. “Chew on one of your toothpicks instead,” he suggested, trying to keep his voice light.

Jamie stared at him a moment longer before shrugging, pulling a cinnamon-flavored toothpick out of his pocket. “You’re lucky I’m not a die-hard smoker,” he mumbled around it. “You gonna start pushing me around about stuff like this?”

Luc stood from his barstool, making sure his legs would hold. “I just want you…healthy. Whole.”

Jamie nibbled on his toothpick, scanning Luc’s face. For a moment, Luc thought maybe Jamie could see it all painted there. Luc’s past mistakes. His horrible, twisted insides. The monster that ruled him always, no matter how he tried to fight it.

But if Jamie did see any of that, it wasn’t scaring his human off. Jamie just nodded thoughtfully, moving his toothpick from one side to the other before reaching out to take Luc’s hand.

“Poor monster,” he said softly. “Come on. Take me home.”