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Jamie

“ H ave you figured it out yet, mijo?”

Jamie looked up from where he was fiddling on his mom’s laptop. She’d shoved it at him the moment he’d stepped in the house, claiming it had been “hacked by the internet.”

“Almost. I’m deleting the malware from your hard drive, but you need to stop clicking on random pop-ups. The internet didn’t hack you, Má. You hacked yourself.”

“I told her that already,” Izzy said, wincing at a tug of her hair. Their mom was giving her two French braids and apparently wasn’t being very gentle about it. Or maybe that particular tug was just a little punishment for Izzy’s sass.

Their mother made a face. “It said my computer was infected and I needed to act fast. It looked very official. How was I supposed to know?”

Jamie held in his eye roll but just barely. “Next time, just text me, okay? I’ll tell you what’s real or not.”

“I didn’t want to bug you.” In response to the look he gave her, his mother raised her hands in defeat. “All right, all right. I’ll text.” She gave his sister a pat on the head. “All done, Isabel. Go finish your homework.”

Izzy hopped up from the chair, dashing to the bathroom for a look in the mirror before running back out and giving their mother a quick side hug. “Thanks, Mamá. You gonna help me with my math, Jamie?”

“In a bit, little menace. I wanted to catch up with Má first.”

Izzy huffed. “You see each other all the time. What’s there to catch up on?”

“Why don’t you go ask Jay for help? He’s, um, older than he looks—maybe he’s good at math.”

“I’m right here. But I’m not very good at math.

” The little vampire walked in from where he’d been sitting quietly in the living room, holding the bag of Vero Mango pops Izzy had given him earlier.

The spicy-sweet Mexican candy was a favorite in the Hernandez household.

And possibly a new favorite of Jay’s, because while the bag had been full earlier, it was looking suspiciously empty now.

“Dude,” Jamie laughed. “How many of those did you have?”

“Seven,” Jay said happily, unwrapping an eighth and popping it into his mouth.

“Whoa,” Izzy whispered, gawking in fascination at this stranger with a stomach of apparent steel.

Jay held up the bag to her. “Did you want one?” He cocked his head. “Was I not supposed to eat all of them?”

Izzy shook herself out of her admiration with visible effort. “Um, no. Go ahead, eat all of them. I just want to see what color your tongue is by the end of it.”

“Izzy!”

Izzy shot their mother a guilty look, then held out a hand to Jay. “It’s okay if you’re bad at math. I don’t wanna do homework anyway. Want to see my comic book collection instead?”

Jay perked up, smiling around his candy. “Yes, please. Very much.”

“Homework after, Isabel!” Jamie’s mom called out in their wake.

Jamie watched the two of them leave—the little vampire only barely matching his younger sister in height—with no small amount of amusement.

Jamie had been…not exactly reluctant, but maybe a little skeptical, bringing a vampire he hardly knew to meet his family.

(Well, another vampire he hardly knew to meet his family.) But Luc had insisted on him having a vampire chaperone, even though he had informed Jamie it was incredibly unlikely a feral vampire would attack in broad daylight.

Supposedly the more a vampire’s inner monster took over, the less they liked exposure to the sun.

And honestly, as much as Jamie’s vampire was on his best behavior with Jamie’s family, Jay’s presence was that of a docile little lamb in comparison to Luc’s intimidating aura.

Jamie’s mother adored him already.

Luc had reminded Jamie that morning that it was part of his truce with the creep twins to help them find whatever feral vampire was murdering Tucson’s citizens, and now he was off on a tracking expedition with them and his two frenemies (as Jamie absolutely refused to stop calling Roman and Danny after Luc had let slip Roman’s little comment).

And while Jamie didn’t like it, he couldn’t really argue with the fact that he wouldn’t be much help to their cause as a human.

He had no tracking skills and no superstrength, his visions were useless, and Luc absolutely refused to use the one asset he did have—being chock-full of delicious blood—to lure the feral vampire out.

All of which just served as another reason to not be human anymore…

“Mamá…” Jamie swallowed hard. Now that he was here, he realized he didn’t actually know what to say. How did one bring up the “my boyfriend is a vampire and someday soon I might be one too” conversation to one’s mother?

“Shall I make us un café?” His mom shut off the sink where she’d been washing her hands and hustled over to the espresso machine Eric had gotten her the Christmas before.

Jamie murmured his assent, less out of a desire for actual coffee and more from the knowledge that it was almost impossible for her to stay still for any prolonged amount of time, except when watching her shows at night.

As if that was the one time of day when she’d finally tired herself out enough to relax.

“Where’s Luc today?” his mom asked.

“He’s…working.”

She hummed at that, tamping down the espresso. “I like him, your new man. So polite.”

Jamie grinned. “I like him too. I…well, I love him, I think.”

Jamie didn’t just think—he knew —but as far as his family was concerned, he’d barely met the guy, so he was trying his best to play it cool and not come off like an entirely bonkers, impulsive mess of a person.

His mom chuckled at that. “Diving in headfirst, I see. No surprises there, mijo.”

Okay, maybe he hadn’t played it as cool as he’d thought.

She set two cups on the table, then turned to grab the sugar from the counter. With her back to him, Jamie couldn’t exactly read her face, so her next words came as a complete shock.

“He isn’t human, is he, Jamie?”

Jamie’s surprise had him giving out a startled bark of laughter. “What?”

“Luc.” His mother sounded shockingly calm for someone discussing their son’s potentially not-human lover. “He’s something else. Something…more? Or at least, different.” She took a seat at the table, spooning sugar into her espresso and giving him an open, curious look.

Jamie was the one who’d wanted to start this conversation, and now here his mom had gone and beaten him to the punch, but now that it was happening, he found his mouth was dry, and he couldn’t stop tapping his fingers on the table. “Um…yes? Yes to more. Yes to—to different.”

“Hm.” She nodded, sipping at her coffee. The cup shook a little in her hands. “I thought so. It’s those eyes.”

Jamie reached for his own coffee before bringing his hand back, realizing he’d slosh it all over the table in his current nervous state. “The contacts bit didn’t fool you?”

His mom waved her free hand in dismissal. “It’s not just the eye color. It’s something else. The way he looks at the world around him, it’s…predatory. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“But even so, you…like him?”

“I do.” She shrugged. “He may look at the world like a predator. But the way he looks at you? He looks at you like you’re the world.

” She smiled at Jamie then, tender and a little sad.

“If anyone deserves to be looked at like that, it’s you.

Of course, I might be a little biased.” She covered the back of his hand with her own, halting the tapping of his fingers. “My special Jamie.”

Jamie turned his hand up so that his palm was touching the warm, dry palm of his mother. “And if I was even more…special? If I was different too?”

Jamie didn’t elaborate on how he would be different, and his mother didn’t ask him to. She just gave his hand one firm, loving squeeze. “As long as you’re still you, I will love you. That could never change.”

Maybe Jamie had been wrong before, in what he’d said to Luc. Maybe unconditional love wasn’t as rare as he’d thought.

They sat for a while, sipping their coffees, Jamie’s nervous energy slowly dissipating from his body in his mother’s calming presence.

“Would you want to live forever, if you could?”

“Me?” His mom laughed in surprise at his question.

“Ah, no, mijo. I like my life the way it is. But you?” She looked him over with her discerning gaze.

“You’ve always been meant for more, I think.

I never understood why you stayed so close, when you have such a hunger for the world. You knew this was coming, didn’t you?”

Jamie shrugged. “I knew he was coming.”

She nodded in response, and Jamie let himself breathe easy. He was more than a little stunned by the ease of this conversation. It wasn’t that he’d ever doubted his mother’s love, but maybe he hadn’t fully realized the depth of her understanding.

He debated going into more detail then, the down and dirty logistics of it all.

When was the right time to tell her that her son was going to stay young forever?

That he might no longer be able to eat her cooking?

Or perhaps they should just take those things as they came.

How much did a verbal warning really prepare someone for their family member becoming a vampire?

Maybe there was pamphlet out there somewhere.

But before Jamie could decide, his vision whited out.

It had never happened this way before. It had never come on this strong, intensely enough that Jamie lost all signs and sense of the present. Or if it had, it had happened in his sleep, when he’d already left the real, waking world.

But now, in his mother’s kitchen—was he still in his mother’s kitchen?—it was all he could see. All he could feel.

Luc. His vampire was fighting. Urgently. Violently. Jamie couldn’t see at first who he was battling. Had Roman finally snapped and tried to exact vengeance on his old friend?

But no. Luc twisted, grappling with his opponent, and Jamie could see it was someone he didn’t recognize. Light-brown hair. A stocky stature. Not as tall as Luc, but he looked…strong. Way too strong.