Page 76

Eric

O h fuck. This was not going to end well, was it? Not unless Eric did something. Should he distract Wolfe? How? Strip naked? Start talking about pretentious interior decorating?

Or maybe he didn’t need to distract. Maybe he just needed to…assuage.

“He didn’t hurt me!” Eric blurted out.

It felt ridiculous to say, what with how tiny this vampire child looked, Wolfe’s arm wrapped tight around his neck, his little fingers clawing at the restriction.

“I know he didn’t,” Wolfe answered calmly, not loosening his hold one bit.

“So…you won’t hurt him?” Eric allowed himself to be hopeful for one second that this wouldn’t turn into a complete shitshow.

Wolfe’s flat gaze met his. “Why, don’t you trust me, pet?”

Eric almost laughed. Because, well, that was the question, wasn’t it? The love stuff, Eric had maybe figured out. Or was at least open to figuring out. But trust ?

When it came to Wolfe and his behavior with other people, definitely not. He’d do what he wanted, when he wanted, without caring for how it affected anyone else.

But when it came to Wolfe and Eric?

Yes, he did. Eric trusted Wolfe to take care of him, to put his happiness first. It may have been intertwined with Wolfe’s selfish desire to feel that happiness for himself, but still…

Wolfe wanted Eric content, and he must have known that in this instance that included a nonviolent solution to this particular problem. So…

“Yes,” Eric answered, his gaze unwavering. “I trust you.”

There was a flash of fierce satisfaction through the bond, like Eric had just given Wolfe the key to the fucking kingdom. Which he supposed he sort of had. Without trust, what else was there?

The same kind of toxic relationship Eric had with his mother, he supposed.

“My perfect darling,” Wolfe purred, his light-brown eyes boring into Eric’s obsessively, as if he wasn’t holding a struggling, snarling grade-schooler with one hand.

Eric felt his face heat. “Um…”

The kid made a rabid growling noise, and Wolfe turned his attention back to where it probably should have been.

“Now, child,” he admonished. “You want to run. It’s quite understandable.

But that would be very foolish. You’re young and scared and hungry, and you have a beast inside you that you don’t understand.

You’re going to end up hurting someone. Most likely killing someone. ”

Eric started to protest—really, wasn’t that a harsh thing to say to someone so young?—but he closed his mouth when the kid’s struggling stopped abruptly.

“That’s right,” Wolfe said approvingly. “The grown-ups are in charge now. You won’t be harmed.” He met Eric’s eyes again. “We don’t harm children here.”

“Hungry,” the kid said, his gaze fixed on the squirrel he’d dropped in the struggle.

“And we’ll get you something to eat, won’t we?” Wolfe answered.

“Hurt Mama.”

Eric opened his mouth to explain, but Wolfe was already on it.

“We can get you food without hurting anyone. I’m afraid squirrels won’t fill you up for long. Now, if I release you, will you behave?”

The kid nodded as much as Wolfe’s tight restraint would allow. Wolfe loosened his arm, letting the little vampire slide out of his hold. Immediately, the kid moved to pick up the disgusting squirrel corpse.

“Leave it,” Wolfe ordered, his voice harsher than before. Apparently his new patience had its limits, and that limit was the prospect of squirrel guts on his upholstery.

But the kid obeyed easily enough, giving one last mournful look at the drained body before sidestepping the little pond and walking in what seemed to be the direction of town.

Wolfe stalked after him, tilting his chin for Eric to follow, and Eric trailed behind, trying to think what they were possibly going to do with the little guy once they got him home.

They walked on for a while, and Eric startled when he noticed the kid had sidled closer to him. At his surprised look, the kid grimaced. “You’re nicer.”

Wolfe scoffed at that. “What’s your name, little one?”

Jesus. Eric had forgotten to ask for a name. How had he thought he was equipped to deal with sniffing the kid out when he’d forgotten to even ask for a name once he’d done it?

The kid shot Wolfe a suspicious glance, stepping even closer to Eric. “Riley.”

“Well, Riley. Did the man who turned you harm you in any way? Other than the first bite?”

Riley frowned. “No. But I didn’t like him.” He glanced at Eric, as if confiding in him. “He kept saying he turned me for ‘her.’ To make ‘her’ happy.”

“Who’s her?” Eric asked, trying to keep the horror out of his voice. It all sounded creepy as hell. What the fuck had this kid been through?

Riley shrugged, looking back down at his feet. “Dunno. I ran back to Mama. Then I had to run away for good.”

“Do you remember what the man looked like?” Wolfe asked.

Riley kicked at the dirt as he walked. “Mean face.”

“And where does your mama live?” Eric asked, attempting to catch Riley’s gaze again.

But when Riley met Eric’s eyes with his own, they were all black. “Hungry,” he growled.

Eric froze, and he noticed Wolfe stepping closer out of the corner of his eye. “Um, we’ll get you food soon.”

Riley didn’t say anything in response. But he didn’t make any move to attack or run. He just kept walking beside them, making little growls every now and then. It was like he wasn’t quite all there.

“I think it would be wise to return him home now.” Wolfe spoke as if Riley couldn’t hear them, even though they were both flanking him. And maybe he couldn’t, with whatever state he was in. “It’s remarkable as it is that he’s controlled himself this well for this long.”

“He would have run, if it were just me,” Eric said, unexpectedly bitter. “I fucked it up, scared him somehow. Scumbag, per usual.”

“You are nothing of the sort,” Wolfe said evenly.

Eric shook his head. “You’re just saying that to keep me happy.”

He got a frustrated noise in response. It was kind of cool, actually, how Eric could manage to get a rise out of his unflappable mate. Everybody had their talents, right?

Wolfe stopped in his tracks, a hand on Riley’s shoulder to halt him, ignoring the little growl he got in response.

His gaze was piercing, freezing Eric in turn.

“If you don’t trust how I feel about you, pet, trust how I feel about myself.

You are my perfect match. My mate . So no, you aren’t a scumbag, or useless, or defective in any way, no matter what you may have been raised to believe. You are, by very definition, perfect.”

Eric sighed, unbelievably touched but also a bit tempted to laugh. “Was that just a roundabout way of calling yourself perfect?”

Wolfe cocked a brow. “Some would say I have my faults.” He smirked at Eric’s chuckle. “But you, darling. You are perfect for me.”

This time, Eric did say it, unable to keep it inside. “I love you too.”

The flash of pure, unadulterated shock on Wolfe’s face was incredibly satisfying. Eric would have kissed him for it, if not for the dazed, vamped-out child hovering between them.

He looked Riley over skeptically. “He seems really out of it.”

Wolfe started walking again, as if the declaration had never happened, pushing gently at Riley until he did the same. “We’ll feed him the blood bag at home. And perhaps call Danny, see if he can bring extras.”

“Isn’t that gonna raise even more suspicion? More missing blood bags?”

Wolfe shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll compel who we need to compel.”

It was a far cry from Wolfe’s original “do anything to prevent exposure.” He was helping , beyond just the big favor of not trying to put the kid down.

As rigid as Wolfe was by nature, he was adapting. Changing. And he was doing it all for Eric.

Eric smiled to himself as they picked up the pace. Yeah, the love definitely went both ways.

They made it back home without attracting any attention, thanks to Wolfe’s car parked at the edge of the forest. Jamie had caught up with them briefly, but he’d run off again with Luc to see if they could spark any visions of who had done this, given the small amount of new information they had.

Now Riley had already gulped down their one blood bag, slouching over their kitchen table, but his eyes were still all black and he wasn’t talking any.

Eric didn’t know what to do about that. It wasn’t like the kid had been mute before.

But who knew what it was like, being a kid and having that hungry, beastly presence in your body?

Like, was the beast a kid too? A baby beast?

The sound of the front door flinging open had Riley tensing up, clearly two seconds away from bolting, but Wolfe’s stern, “Stay put,” seemed to have the desired effect, and he relaxed back, licking at the stray drops on the inside of the plastic blood bag.

Eric followed Wolfe to the front door, visions of FBI officers invading their home running through his head. He knew it was unlikely, but they were harboring a kidnapped child at this point, weren’t they?

But it was only Danny and Jay, each carrying a giant paper bag stuffed to the brim. Jesus, was that all blood ?

“We come bearing comic books,” Danny singsonged by way of greeting, answering Eric’s unspoken question.

“Well, praise the lord,” Wolfe mocked, a sneer on his lips. “That solves everything.”

“Don’t be snide,” Danny chastised, swishing past him with a frown, before nodding at Eric in greeting. “We also come bearing blood.”

“Slightly more useful,” Wolfe conceded.

Danny gave a put-upon sigh and headed straight into the kitchen, where they could hear his soft, “Hiya, kiddo.”

But Jay stopped in front of Wolfe, his paper bag still in hand. “You did a very good thing, Wolfgang.”

“I’m so glad you approve.”

But Wolfe’s sarcasm seemed lost on the little barista, who nodded happily in response. “I do. Your mate is good for you. I get it. Mine’s good for me too.”

Wolfe’s lips twitched. “Quells your psychopathic urges, does he?”

Jay cocked his head, seeming to mull it over. “Well, I’m not sure I have any of those. But he does accept me, just as I am.”

Wolfe cast a sidelong glance to Eric. “Yes. I may know something about that.”

“Perfect!” Jay beamed. “You two are officially invited to the next family camping trip.”

“I’ll try my best to contain this overwhelming excitement.”

“You do that.” Jay wandered off into the kitchen, patting Eric on the chest as he passed by.

Eric moved to follow, but Wolfe stopped him with a hand on his upper arm.

And then Eric was being pressed against the wall, Wolfe’s breath hot on his ear, his voice the quietest whisper it could be without being too soft to hear.

“Once this mass of intruders is out of our home, I’m taking you to bed, and I’m not letting you out for a month.

” Wolfe tugged Eric’s earlobe between blunt teeth with a soft growl.

“It will be my reward. For all this…good behavior.”

“You want to be rewarded with another kidnapping?” Eric was going for sarcasm, but his voice came out too breathy for it to be very affective.

“I want my mate. And I want him alone . It’s been far too long since I’ve had my cock inside you.”

Eric did his best to suppress his shiver of desire, his breath catching at the heat in Wolfe’s eyes. He didn’t want to be walking into the kitchen with a massive hard-on. But fuck if he didn’t want the very same thing. Their last time together felt like it had been a thousand years ago.

Danny’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “May I remind you there are children present, and you two are not being as quiet as you think you are?”

“May I remind you whose house you are in?” Wolfe snarled before Eric kissed him to shut his mouth.

He allowed himself the briefest, chastest kiss he could manage—well, minus one tiny slip of the tongue—before he sidled out of Wolfe’s hold, readjusting himself before joining the others in the kitchen.

He found Riley finishing off another blood bag, his wary black eyes focused on Danny, who was smiling in encouragement.

Jay was unloading his paper bag enthusiastically.

“I hope you like superheroes. I borrowed these from Colin, though, so we should be careful not to get too much blood on them. And he’s really into something he calls the antihero, so we have a lot of that red-suited snarky guy and also that one sharp-toothed alien snake-tongued guy who shares the other man’s body, and they seem to be a couple, but also he looks a little scary for my taste.

” He eyed Riley with careful consideration.

“Is that too mature for you? How old are you? Six? Fifteen?”

Eric opened his mouth to tell him he was wasting his time, that Riley was too focused on his inner beast to even speak.

But Riley’s eyes were already returning to their normal dark brown, and he was tossing his empty blood bag on the table, reaching eagerly for a comic. “Old enough for comics,” he mumbled.

In less than a minute, he and Jay were settled side by side, giggling over whatever over-the-top comic-book violence they were reading.

“Okay, yeah,” Eric conceded, smiling at Danny. “The comics were a really good idea.”

“Psh. Duh,” Danny said happily. “But, um, speaking of good ideas…what exactly are we going to do? We’re all pretty well known in this town. It would be awfully conspicuous if we suddenly had, like, a half-feral ward. And Jay barely looks old enough to drink, let alone have a ten-year-old son.”

Jay looked up from his comic. “Technically I wasn’t. Old enough to drink, that is. When I was turned.”

“You, on the other hand.” Danny pointed a finger at Wolfe. “You’re new here.”

“I will not be raising a child,” Wolfe said firmly, his eyes focused on Riley’s dirty hands all over his kitchen table.

A wave of relief washed through Eric. Riley seemed…fine? But it was going to be enough of a challenge, keeping Wolfe in line for the next eternity, without the added pressure of throwing a child into the mix.

Danny looked a little shocked by the refusal, which was kind of funny, considering who he’d just asked. “But—”

“I think you’ll like my solution just fine, Nurse Danny. It should be here in about two hours. Plenty of time to get this creature a little more presentable.”

Riley scowled at Wolfe over his comic book.

Wolfe inclined his chin. “Yes, I’m talking about you. And you can’t take the comic into the bath. It will get soggy.”

Johann shuffled through the comics, selecting one out of the pile. “You can take this one. Colin has two copies, and he said you could have this one for keeps. So it’s okay if it gets a little soggy.”

Riley grinned triumphantly at Wolfe, as if to say, See? Wolfe looked askance at Johann. “Does this human manager of yours actually know there’s a vampire child in town?”

Johann didn’t even look up from his comic. “Why, was it a secret?”

Wolfe pinched the bridge of his nose. “Two more hours,” he muttered. “Just two more hours.”