Page 22

Alexei

D inner wasn’t nearly as awkward as Alexei had feared.

With the minor inquisition—What are your intentions? Who’s mated to fucking who?—out of the way, it seemed like the group was content to proceed with the night as usual, chatting with one another easily.

Jay—seated next to Alexei at the dining room table—was quieter than Alexei had come to expect when it was just the two of them in a room, but he seemed content enough, gazing at his friends happily, eating more food than his small frame should ever be able to accommodate.

No one seemed to expect Alexei to talk much, which suited him just fine, especially with such an incredible meal before him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten so well, weirdly enough (were there vampire cooking show hosts as well?).

Although, Alexei still had…questions.

Mate. Mates. Mated pairs. Fated mates.

How did one go from being a boyfriend to being a mate?

It was incredibly fucking important that Alexei find out, preferably yesterday.

But the fate part of it was throwing him for a loop.

Did that mean Jay had a mate out there already?

Was Alexei just…filler? Prepping Jay, giving him a taste of sex and romance, only for someone else to take him away permanently further down the line?

Alexei hated the idea, so much so that his generally steel-lined stomach started churning well before they got to dessert. Why the fuck couldn’t he be Jay’s mate? He’d be the most devoted mate there ever was, given the chance.

And no, the irony didn’t escape him. The fact that he’d only just recently risked it all, blown up his entire life to be free of family obligation, to avoid a future of permanent fealty to his brother.

Only to be ready, less than two months later, to swear eternal devotion to the pint-size barista with a traumatic past and very specific dietary needs.

Alexei couldn’t find it in himself to care though.

Because Ivan? Ivan was a toxic, power-obsessed asshole of the highest level, molded to be so by their complete dick of a father.

And Jay? Jay was everything good and right and wonderful, somehow remaining so even after centuries of horrific influence.

So yes, Alexei would be fucking thrilled to be mated to Jay.

But Jay would have told him, wouldn’t he, if that were the case? The little guy was an open book, a large-print picture book at that. He didn’t exactly seem the type to keep many secrets at all, let alone a massive one like a fated, vampiric bond with each other.

One big question did make its way out of Alexei during the first real lull in the conversation, his practical side unable to keep holding it in. “What will you all do ten or twenty years from now? When none of you age?”

It was Danny who answered his question, after sharing a look with Roman. “We’ll leave,” he said simply. “All together. Find somewhere remote to spend some decades, until enough time has passed to join society again. Somewhere new though, obviously. A different country most likely.”

Alexei looked to Jay, who was helping himself to a fifth portion of chicken. “And…you’ll go as well?”

Jay flushed, shifting in his chair. “I’m not— Well…”

“Of course you will,” Danny protested, his voice infused with a sincere warmth. “You and, um, well…any companions you might have. Luc and Jamie will come too, I think.”

Alexei had no idea who those two were, but the other three vampires around the table—Jay excluded—started protesting immediately.

Danny only shook his head, a stubborn set to his features. “They’re our friends. We’re putting petty differences aside in the future. For the future.”

“Gabe’s broken arm—”

“Your murder —”

Alexei took a large sip of wine. Maybe life around vampires was more violent than he had originally thought.

He wondered if Jay had an opinion about the two potential additions to their getaway crew, but Jay ignored the argument, declaring a complete non sequitur instead. “I’d like to make a snow angel, I think.”

Everyone stopped talking, all of them looking at him with varying degrees of fond indulgence, but no one was actually stepping the fuck up for his suggestion. So Alexei did. “I’ll make one with you, kotyonok.”

Even with Alexei’s coat on for once, the cold night air was biting, but it was hard to care when Jay was so clearly delighted by the prospect of playing in the thick snow blanketing Danny and Roman’s backyard, bouncing on his toes on the deck like it was Christmas morning.

Alexei, slightly more sedate, stood next to him with his hands in his pockets, hoping his lack of gloves wasn’t going to lead to his fingers falling off. “Do you know how to make one, or do you want me to show you?”

“Of course I know how . You just flop like this—” Jay stepped off the deck and did exactly as he said, flopping onto his back “—and then you move your arms and legs like this—” He stretched his limbs out like a starfish, grinning like a loon all the while.

Alexei’s chest ached with a strange sort of pressure at the sight, as if it was too full of emotion for him to even begin to bear.

He knew he wasn’t much to offer anyone, let alone an immortal being.

Alexei was a runaway ghost, without a present or a future.

He wasn’t particularly kind, or good, or fun, or funny.

But in the face of Jay’s sweet delight, sprawling about in the snow, Alexei thought maybe he could offer something at least. He could be a companion.

A witness. To help Jay enjoy the simple pleasures he’d been clearly denied for so long.

Jay loved the outdoors? Alexei would live in a forest cave with him, if he asked.

Jay wanted to be around people? Alexei could handle that, if it was for Jay.

He’d let Jay do all the talking, all the inadvertent charming, and it wouldn’t be so bad.

Jay wanted a messy house? They’d make blanket forts, have a million pets, destroy their kitchen with culinary experiments.

Alexei could be enough. He could try. He would try.

Until Jay’s better half came along and ruined it all, at least.

And wasn’t that a kick to the fucking gut?

But even if they weren’t fated, Alexei could stay at Jay’s side until then, couldn’t he?

Until Jay found the right person to tether him.

It wasn’t like Alexei was going to deny him that, when it came down to it.

Not if the alternative was insanity or death for his perfect, sweet vampire.

Jay, seeming to take Alexei’s silence as reticence, peered up at him cautiously from his spot on the snowy ground. “Have you ever made one before?”

“No, kotyonok.” Alexei made his way off the deck. “I wasn’t much for the outdoors when I was a kid. Or maybe I would have been, but I wasn’t given much of a chance. Not much of a childhood, really.”

Jay nodded solemnly and lifted his gaze to the stars above them. “I had a good childhood, I think. I do remember being very sad when my parents died. But my aunt and uncle had a farm, and they took me in. I liked it. The chores. The animals.”

Alexei could picture it so perfectly, sweet Jay tending to the cows, running barefoot in the fields. “And that’s where Vee found you?”

“Yes.” Jay’s face fell. “And then my life was very different.”

Out of a desire to bring that joyful smile back to Jay’s face more than anything else, Alexei flopped onto his back in the snow and spread his arms and legs about.

He looked to the side to see Jay peering up out of his Jay-sized hole in the snow, gray eyes once again lit up with happiness.

It took so fucking little to make him smile. “See?” Jay beamed. “Isn’t this nice?”

“So nice, kitten.” It was miserably fucking cold and wet was what it was, but that didn’t make Jay any less right.

“I’ve always liked the snow,” Jay mused, flopping again onto his back.

“I wonder what else I might like? It’s weird…

I’ve been alive for so long, and we’d move about so often, but it was always to the same kinds of places.

Different variations on remote European countrysides.

There’s so much of the world I haven’t seen, except for through books or movies.

I went to the desert for the very first time this year.

I poked a cactus, just to feel it.” Jay held up his pointer finger, as if in demonstration.

“Didn’t that hurt?” It was certainly hurting Alexei, this absentminded confession of all Jay had never been given, never been allowed.

“Oh yes.” Jay smiled up at the night sky. “But it was a reminder. That it was…real.”

It was suddenly completely unacceptable that Alexei didn’t have Jay in his arms. “Hey,” he said softly. “I’m a little lonely over here.”

“You are?” Jay scrambled up out of his snow angel immediately, clambering on top of Alexei’s supine form, settling his round bottom on Alexei’s stomach. “Better?”

“Almost.” Alexei tapped at his own lips with one ice-cold finger. “Need a kiss, I think.”

Jay leaned down eagerly to oblige, his frozen lips still managing to warm Alexei from the inside, out.

Jay released the kiss first for once, darting out of Alexei’s reach with a giggle. Then he sighed, but it was a contented sound, full of relaxed pleasure. “I’m very happy when I’m with you, Alexei.”

“I’m very happy with you too, kotyonok.” Alexei reached up to brush a strand of hair from Jay’s rosy cheek. “I didn’t have a real childhood. Your adulthood was stolen from you. Do you think together you and I could make one complete person?”

Jay pressed his cheek into Alexei’s palm. “Except I’m not a person.”

“You are .” Alexei frowned, confused at Jay’s self-assessment. “You mean because you have a”—what had Jay called it?—“a beastie inside you?”

Jay nodded solemnly against Alexei’s hand.

Alexei let out a slow breath. “You’re a person, Jay. A vampire person, maybe. But still a person.” When Jay still looked unconvinced, Alexei pressed on. “Would you tell your friends in there they aren’t real people?”

“That’s different though. Danny and Gabe…

well, they’re freshly turned. Practically still human.

Roman and Soren… They’ve lived . Out in the world.

Soren escaped our den; he experienced humanity all these years.

I’ve only read or watched or heard stories.

I’m odd and stunted, and most of the time, I don’t even know I’m acting that way.

Until someone laughs at me or looks at me strangely. ”

“If I laugh, it’s only ever because you delight me.”

Jay smiled softly down at him. “I know that. You look at me differently from other people. I like it very much.” He started playing with the loose strands of Alexei’s hair. “Why does your brother want to kill you?”

“I deliberately went against orders. I made a business decision that cost him a lot of money. I was…tired, I guess. I wanted to blow it all up. I wasn’t brave enough to do it literally, so I went the monetary route.”

“You wanted freedom.”

“I wanted freedom.” Freedom to find you was the thought that went through Alexei’s head. Freedom to choose. To find a person worthy to serve. Worthy to love.

Jay tugged gently at Alexei’s hair. “Thank you for playing in the snow with me.”

“Anytime, kitten. Literally anytime.”

“I read a book once on love languages,” Jay mused, a thoughtful expression on his face. “There were five of them, which doesn’t seem like nearly enough. I think quality time might be mine.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. I like having you with me, at my side. Although, I also very much like physical touch.” Jay leaned down, pressing his hands down on Alexei’s chest, and smacked a kiss to his lips in apparent demonstration.

“Mm. I noticed. And you’ve maybe got a bit of a thing for words of affirmation too, don’t you, kitten?” Alexei teased, thinking back on how much Jay had wanted to be told he was doing a good job in the bedroom.

Jay flushed, his already rosy cheeks darkening even more. “Maybe.”

“And you like to make people comfortable,” Alexei said, now thinking about the five blankets and the many glasses of water. “Acts of service.”

Jay nodded. “Yes, that. Also, it was very nice when you brought me a cupcake. I liked that. Gift giving.”

Alexei couldn’t help his laugh, could only hope Jay knew it came from deep affection and not any sort of mockery. “Well, now you’ve named all five, haven’t you?”

Jay’s flush deepened, if that was possible. “I guess I have. Is that horribly greedy of me?”

“Maybe, but I don’t mind. You’re hungry for affection; I’m hungry to give it to you.”

Jay beamed down at him. “Have I told you lately you’re the nicest human?”

“Only to you.”

Because you’re special and perfect and I adore you even though we’ve only been technically dating for a day.

Alexei wondered, staring up at that gorgeous, happy face, if he could make the words come out. He wondered if he even should.

But there wouldn’t have been time for it, anyway.

Because the little vampire atop him suddenly cocked his head, the smile dropping from his face as he turned with a start to the yellow house behind them. “We need to go back in, Alexei. And you need to stay behind me.”

“Sorry?”

But Jay had somehow already pulled Alexei to standing and was tugging him back to the house by his hand.

Inside, Jay’s friends were squared off to the front door.

Danny was pushed behind a growling Roman.

Soren was in front of Gabe, held tightly to him, as if Gabe was preventing him from leaping forward.

And in front of all of them was…well, he sort of looked like the head of a British boarding school, really.

A slim man in a brown tweed suit, his light-brown hair slicked back severely.

“I will ask you one more time,” Roman warned, and holy shit, that dude could really growl when he wanted to. “Who are you?”

The stranger caught sight of Jay and Alexei then, and a cold smile graced his lips, one that didn’t reach his flat brown eyes. “Ah, Johann. There you are,” he said coolly, his accent very much matching his clothing.

The stranger inclined his head to Roman then, as if he was being introduced at a dinner party rather than two steps away from having four different vampires jump his ass. “My name is Wolfgang. Or Wolfe, should you prefer the simplicity.” He met Alexei’s eyes. “I’m Johann’s fiancé.”