Page 19

Danny

L ife was so fucking weird sometimes.

That was the main thought going through Danny’s head as he sat at his kitchen counter, drinking his coffee, the smell of pancakes making his stomach growl.

Pancakes that were currently being made by his ancient vampire lover.

While his ancient vampire lover’s even more ancient—because it turned out that despite looking barely old enough to drink, Soren was older than Roman—vampire friend sat on the counter next to the stove, giving imperious orders.

“Don’t let them sit too long. You know I like mine a little bit raw,” he was demanding.

“And you know I think that is absolutely vile.”

“Don’t yuck my yum, Rome.”

“I do not even know what that means,” Roman muttered.

“Big surprise. Good thing you met Danny here when you did. You were way too close to losing complete touch with the human race.” Soren threw a wink at Danny, a flirty grin on his face.

Danny found that he liked the odd, petite vampire.

He may have come off as a little…unhinged…

at the bar, but he seemed to genuinely care for Roman and was staying in town to help keep Danny safe.

And his caring for Roman didn’t seem to be in any way romantic, a fact that Danny was beyond grateful for.

He didn’t want to even think about competing for Roman’s affections with a fierce, demonic supermodel.

He didn’t want to think about competing for Roman’s affections at all.

He still wasn’t sure what Roman saw in him, besides Danny appealing to his possessive demon. Danny was just…Danny. And Roman was…so many things. He had lived so many lives. Danny had barely been living his own.

Until now.

He had woken up wrapped in Roman’s arms as promised, and the morning had only gotten better from there. Danny fought a blush as he remembered Roman working them both to orgasm with his large, capable hands only hours before.

And now Roman was cooking for him again.

“Tell me why you know how to cook again?” Danny asked. “I don’t think being French is enough of a reason, when you’ve had two hundred years of not needing to eat human food under your belt.”

Roman glanced back at him over his shoulder with a little smirk that didn’t do anything to help Danny’s blush. “Maybe I was preparing for the day I had a sweet human mate to feed, little king.”

Soren made a fake retching sound, grimacing dramatically. “Blegh, Roman. There’s sweet, and then there’s saccharine. Spare us, please.”

Soren met Danny’s eyes then. “The thing about more or less eternal life, cutie pie, is that it can be incredibly boring. Especially when you don’t need to sleep much.

It’s amazing the things you end up teaching yourself.

Roman over here“—he gestured with his thumb—”speaks eight languages, cooks an untold variety of cuisines, and—absolute drudge that he is—is a master at chess.

” He rolled his pale-blue eyes. “Such a cliché.”

Danny was at a bit of a loss. “ Eight languages?” He himself could maybe sort of sometimes speak a little Spanish. Badly .

Roman stayed facing the stove, focused on the pancakes, but gave a little shrug. “Soren speaks six.”

Soren scoffed. “Don’t sell me short. I also play five instruments perfectly, I draw beautiful portraits, and I could crochet Danny a three-piece suit if he wanted me to.”

“You…crochet?” Danny fought back a grin but couldn’t quite keep the smile out of his voice.

Soren arched a golden eyebrow at him. “What—needlepoint isn’t ‘creature of the night’ enough for you?”

“It’s not that. You’re just so…” Danny trailed off.

“So what ?” There was a glint in Soren’s eyes now that reminded Danny he was speaking to a deadly predator, even if it came in a beautiful, delicate package.

“Chic,” Danny finished lamely. Soren was, after all, at this very moment, wearing a fur coat over what appeared to be a silk pajama set.

The deadly glint in Soren’s eyes faded, and he smiled wide.

That smile could be a bit unsettling—a big, manic grin paired with ancient eyes that seemed to know more than they should.

“Well, aren’t you the sweetest? It’s true I’m not exactly rocking my homemade creations out to the club, but I like a good knitwear as much as any other boy when I’m cozying up at home.

Plus it’s…meditative. Keeps the beast at bay, as it were. ”

That was interesting. “Your demon?” Danny asked.

Soren shot an amused glance at Roman. “Now you’ve got the boy calling it that too?

So dramatic, Rome.” He looked back over to Danny.

“I meant metaphorically. I don’t see the distinction between the two selves as clearly as Roman does.

I guess in my head, I just call that little, bloodthirsty voice he’s talking about my inner vamp . ”

“Do you…talk to yours? Like Roman does?” Roman had told Danny he sometimes had brief conversations with his demon.

Soren hummed in thought. “Sort of? But don’t we all talk to our own brains sometimes?

It’s just like any other voice in your head, any other set of urges.

Like, a little stronger, a little clearer, maybe.

A little more vicious definitely. But I’m not all that sure it’s so separate from the rest of myself. ”

Well, that did sound a little less dire than Roman’s choice of words. But that brought up another question for Danny. “Why do you sound so much more, I don’t know, modern than Roman?”

Danny watched as Roman flushed slightly while plating their pancakes.

Soren’s pancake did indeed look to be a paler color than what Roman was serving himself and Danny.

“Soren has always been better at blending into human society than I have—rolling with the times, if you will,” Roman explained.

“If I focus, I can do better, but mostly I am fine just letting people think I am…eccentric.” He shrugged. “Or European.”

“What about work?” Danny asked. “How are you running about all the time in your fancy suits without any income coming in?” Maybe it was crass to bring up money, but given the annoyingly large role the lack of it played in Danny’s life, he was more than a little curious.

Soren spoke before Roman could, seemingly happy to answer any and all Danny’s nosy questions. “We work sometimes. When we feel like it.”

The blond vampire giggled a little as he poured an ungodly amount of syrup over his pancakes.

“I was an acrobat once. That was a lark. Roman over there was an undertaker, the morbid fuck. But mostly we’ve had time to acquire and expand on some pretty crucial investments.

” He took a bite and continued around a mouthful of pancake.

“Plus, we’ve got that whole compulsion thing that helps smooth the way out of a lot of situations.

You’d be surprised how rarely we have to use money at all, if we don’t want to.

But anyway, you won’t have to worry about working if you don’t want to—you’ve basically got yourself a vampire sugar daddy there, cutie pie. ”

Danny found himself spluttering a bit. “I wouldn’t—that’s not—what?”

Roman hadn’t taken a bite of his food yet, had just been looking back and forth between Danny and Soren, as if in disbelief of the situation he had found himself in. “Soren,” he said now, a little sternly. “You overstep.”

Soren gave a huff and rolled his eyes. “Just speaking the truth. You don’t always have to dance around every subject, Mr. Mysterious.”

Danny felt the need to defend his vampire. “Roman’s been pretty open about answering my questions, actually.”

“Well, that makes you the first.” Soren eyed Danny with a strange look in his eyes. “Opening up is not Rome’s forte.”

Danny felt his chest warm at the thought. Roman really was different with Danny, it seemed. Why did that thought make him feel so good?

Roman cleared his throat, then muttered, “He is correct though. You do not have to work if you do not wish to. As your mate, I will provide for you.”

Danny didn’t even know how to feel about that statement. “But—I like my work.”

“Why?” Soren asked. He didn’t sound mocking, only genuinely curious.

Danny shrugged, a little uncomfortable at the scrutiny.

It was one thing to have all his questions answered; it was another thing to be questioned himself.

And he couldn’t tell them the whole truth, the one that involved him thinking, Because at any moment, you could walk away, and then where would I be?

“I don’t know. I just do. I like helping people.

I like being there for people at their worst moments, offering comfort where I can. ”

Soren frowned. “But you can’t always fix them. You humans are so…breakable.” He threw a look at Roman then, one Danny couldn’t quite decipher.

“No,” Danny agreed. “We can’t always fix them. But we’ll always try. That just has to be enough sometimes.”

Soren sighed lightly at his pancakes. “All that work for lives that end so quickly anyways. Little blips of existence.”

Danny tried his best not to feel offended. He didn’t think Soren was trying to bait him on purpose. The blond vampire even sounded a little sad at the thought.

Danny tried to put into words something he barely knew how to express to himself.

“That’s the thing though. That’s part of what makes it beautiful.

You know it doesn’t last. So you do your best with the time you have.

Help who you can, find comfort where you can, love as much as you can.

It can hurt definitely. It can really suck sometimes, how quickly things disappear.

” Danny was embarrassed to find that he was pushing tears back at this point, the discussion bringing up emotions he tried to keep buried around other people.

“But there’s beauty in trying anyway,” he insisted, voice thick.

Soren’s pale eyes softened at Danny’s words. “I understand what Roman sees in you, little human.”

Danny didn’t know how he felt about being called “little” by someone even shorter than himself, but he appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.