by I. T. Lucas
“I just knew.” Jackson shrugged. “I can’t explain it.”
That wasn’t helpful, and it didn’t answer the question that bothered Vlad the most. “Did you know before you made love to her or after?”
Jackson chuckled. “Way before. We’d dated for a long time before we got intimate.”
Was Jackson trying to be chivalrous?
Because the guy was like a sex god, and he’d never had to work hard to seduce a girl. Besides, Vlad had been there during their courtship, and it hadn’t looked like a platonic relationship.
“I know it’s hard to believe.” Jackson’s lips lifted in a sly smile. “But Tessa had trust issues, and I had to be patient. I don’t regret a moment of it, though. We got to know each other better, and I think it solidified our relationship.”
“Wendy has trust issues as well, or rather had. She is doing better now, and she seems ready, but I can’t make up my mind whether she is the one or not. I don’t know if I should tell her and try to induce her, or use protection until I decide. The problem is that I have only two weeks to do both. If she doesn’t transition by then, I’ll have to wipe her memories of me and everything that has to do with immortals. I don’t want to lose her, so I feel pressured to hurry, but I don’t want to make a mistake either. Talk about a rock and a hard place.”
Jackson nodded. “I had a similar problem with Tessa. Kian relaxed the rules for her because of Eva. Since Tessa owed her life to Eva and was loyal to her, Kian trusted her to protect Eva’s secret.”
“Unfortunately, Wendy is not considered trustworthy.”
“Maybe that’s your problem? You love her, but you hold back because you are afraid she is using you again?”
“That might be part of it. She is the first girl I have ever loved, and the thought of losing her makes me ill. What if I’m not thinking straight?”
“Tessa was the first one I loved too. For me, it was simple. I didn’t want anyone else, and given my history, that said it all.”
Vlad snorted. “I can believe that. You were Jackson the sex god before falling for Tessa. But I don’t have that litmus test. I’ve never been with anyone.”
Jackson didn’t look surprised. “I wish I could tell you what to do. But you are the only one who can decide.” He stopped and turned to Vlad. “I have an idea. Is there an actress or a model that you fantasize about? Or at least think that she’s hot?”
“A few.”
“Pick one, close your eyes, and try to imagine yourself having sex with her.”
Vlad grimaced. “I don’t want to.”
“Does the idea gross you out?”
He nodded.
“Then you have your answer. Most human men have no problem fantasizing about other women even when they are in committed and loving relationships. For us, it’s different. Once we find the one, we can’t even have sexy thoughts about another female.” Jackson chuckled. “Maybe 'find' is the wrong term. We don’t find them, the Fates do that for us. And once they bless us with our one and only, none other will do.”
If that was indeed the test, Vlad had to give it a more serious try first.
“Give me a moment.” He closed his eyes and imagined Katniss spread out naked on his bed, beckoning him to her with a hooked finger. Except, his archer lady looked like Wendy and not the actress who’d played that role.
Vlad opened his eyes. “It’s no use. I tried to imagine my favorite movie girl, but she turned out to look like Wendy.”
Grinning, Jackson clapped him on the back. “That’s your answer, my friend.”
10
Wendy
“What do you want to make?” Wendy stood in front of the open freezer. “We have pizza that we can heat up, and there is ground beef, a bunch of steaks, and two whole chickens.”
“I thought of making spaghetti Bolognese. That’s an easy and quick dish.”
Wendy opened the fridge. “We have Parmesan cheese.”
“Do you have canned crushed tomatoes and tomato paste?”
“Look in the top cabinet over there.” She pointed.
Tessa opened it and looked inside. “I think I see crushed tomatoes on the top shelf. I can’t reach it, though.”
Tessa was tiny, even shorter than Wendy, and skinny like a twig. Still, Wendy couldn’t reach the top shelf either, not without climbing on the counter.
“I’ll get the cans.” She hopped up.
“Careful.” Tessa stood guard as if she could catch her if she fell.
If that happened, Wendy would squash the girl under her.
Looking worried, Tessa chewed on her lower lip. "We should have called one of the guys.”
“I got it.” Wendy pulled out the cans, handed them to Tessa, and jumped down.
“Now, we need the spaghetti.”
“I know where it is.” Wendy opened one of the drawers and pulled out two packets. “These guys eat a lot. Do you think two will be enough?”
“I think so. We can add a salad.”
Wendy chuckled. “Right, as if they’ll eat anything green. I thought that it was an immortal thing, but you eat salads, so it must be a male thing.” She sighed. “It’s odd being the only woman with four guys. Vlad’s mom was supposed to come, but she bailed.”
“Why did she do that?”
“The plan was for her to meet Richard, but she must have changed her mind at the last moment and came up with an excuse for why she couldn’t come. I don’t know whether I should be happy about it or not, though. On the one hand, I’m curious to meet her, but on the other hand, I’m afraid that she might hate me for what I did to Vlad.” She pulled out a pot and started filling it with water from the faucet.
Tessa looked uncomfortable. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Wendy shrugged. “There isn’t much I can say in my defense. It was a nasty thing to do. I wasn’t in a good place back then, but that’s not an excuse.”
“Are you in a better place now?”
Turning the water off, Wendy put the pot on the stove and turned the burner on. “I am. Vlad is amazing, and he helped me to get over my trust issues.” She chuckled. “No offense to Jackson’s mom, but Vlad did a better job than she did.”
“He loves you. That makes all the difference. I had some issues too, and I didn’t want to talk to shrinks at all. Jackson helped me climb out of the dark place I was in. He did it with a lot of patience and love.”
Wendy leaned against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “He seems like a nice guy, and he is gorgeous.” She smiled. “Vlad told me that true love is a reward for those who have sacrificed a lot for others or those who have suffered greatly. Which one applies to you?”
Tessa grimaced. “The second one, unfortunately. I grew up in the foster system, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as the trouble I’ve gotten myself into by being stupid.”
Wendy frowned. “My friend Jacki grew up in foster homes too. She hinted that she had to fight off unwanted attentions. Is that what happened to you?”
Tessa shook her head. “My foster parents were okay. They were strict, and I got pissed about something trivial and ran away.” She looked down. “I don’t want to talk about it, but I got into a lot of trouble. Eva saved me, and I’ve been working for her detective agency ever since.”
“I’ve met Eva. She is the one who did the makeovers. Is she an immortal?” Wendy waved a hand. “Of course she is. That was a stupid question. Everyone I met in that underground was immortal, right? Including Ingrid, the interior designer who hooked up with Richard, Kian’s weird butler, and Edna, the alien probe.”
Tessa nodded.
“Wait a minute.” Wendy frowned. “If you are an immortal, how did you end up in the foster system? And how did you get into all that trouble when you could have thralled your way out of it?”
“I was human back then.”
This was news to her. Vlad hadn’t said anything about someone turning immortal. Wendy had assumed that immortals were born, not made.
“Is there a way to turn immortal? Is it like in the vampire movies? Does Vlad have to bite me and pump enough venom into me until I die, and then I get reborn as an immortal?”
Tessa looked away. “You’ll have to ask him. I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not? You went through it, so you must know what’s involved.”
“I do, but it’s a secret, and we are not allowed to reveal it without getting permission first.”
“From whom? Kian?”
Tessa nodded. “The water is boiling.”
“What?”
“The water for the spaghetti.” Tessa pointed at the pot. “It’s ready.”
The water wasn’t the only thing that was boiling.
Wendy was mad. Why had Vlad told her everything but that? Why was he hiding it from her?
It seemed that she’d been right about men all along. None of them were trustworthy.
11
Vlad
All throughout dinner, Wendy seemed in a sour mood, Tessa looked guilty, and Vlad wondered what had happened while they had been left alone in the cabin.
Had Tessa slipped and told Wendy something she hadn’t been supposed to?
He’d warned both her and Jackson not to mention anything about Dormants and transitioning, even explaining that Kian had forbidden it to make sure that neither blurted out anything.
But maybe Tessa hadn’t been careful. Or perhaps it had nothing to do with the secret he was keeping from her, and something else had upset Wendy. Fates knew that women could be unpredictable and fly off the handle because of the most trivial things. He’d dealt with his mother’s moods enough times to realize that.
“Jackson and I had a great time.” Tessa pushed to her feet. “We should do this again soon.” She glanced at Vlad. “Maybe next time you can come to our house.”
“I would love that,” Wendy said.
Once the goodbyes were done, and Jackson and Tessa got into their car, Vlad wrapped his arm around Wendy’s shoulders, but she shook it off. Waving at their friends with a fake smile on her face, she waited until their car left and then walked back into the cabin without sparing him another glance.
If he wanted confirmation that something was off, he’d just gotten it. And in case he had any doubts left, the sound of Wendy’s door slamming shut ended them.
“Do you know what’s gotten into her?” Richard said. “Did she get her period or something?”
Vlad rolled his eyes. The guy was lucky Wendy hadn’t heard that misogynistic comment.
Bowen flicked the back of Richard’s head. “No wonder you have no luck with the ladies.”
Richard lifted his hands. “What did I say? Everyone knows that women get irritable when they get their monthly visitor, as my mother used to say.”
Bowen shook his head. “Whatever, dude. For future reference, if you don’t want a one-way ticket to the doghouse, don’t ever say that in front of a woman.”
“I know that. I’m not stupid. But we are all dudes in here.”
Leon waved a hand toward Wendy’s door. “Go talk to her.”
Vlad grimaced. “It doesn’t look like she wants to talk to me.”
When his mother got into one of her moods, the best strategy was to keep a safe distance and pretend as if nothing was happening.
“She does,” Bowen said. “The door slamming was an invitation to a duel. You’ve been served.”
Vlad swallowed. He didn’t want to fight with Wendy, but if he didn’t talk to her, things would only get worse. Perhaps it was better to get it over with.
Knocking on her door, he waited for a reply that didn’t come. He knocked again. “Can I come in?”
The door opened, and Wendy reached for his shirt, pulled him inside, and slammed the door closed again. “Sit!” She pointed to the bed.
He did as she commanded, but she didn’t join him. Instead, Wendy stood with her hands on her hips and glared at him. “When were you going to tell me that you can make me immortal? After you killed me with your venom?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Isn’t that how it works? In Twilight, Edward had to bite Bella over and over again until her heart stopped, or slowed down, or whatever, and she became a vampire.”
He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him. “Haven’t you heard my heart beating when we kiss? I’m not a vampire, I’m not dead or undead, and that’s not how it works.”
“So how does it? Tessa said that she was human before, and now she is immortal. How did that happen?”
He patted the bed. “Come, sit down, and I’ll explain.”
Reluctantly, she did as he asked, probably more out of curiosity than wanting to be near him.
“No one can turn immortal unless they already have the genes for it. Some humans are dormant carriers of the godly genes, and you might be one of them.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because of your paranormal abilities. It’s an indicator, but it’s not a guarantee that you are.”
“Is there a test for it?”
He shook his head.
“So how does it work? How do you find out if someone is a dormant carrier? And then how do you turn them?”
Vlad’s ears got dangerously hot, but he was just going to fess up and be done with it. “You kind of guessed the answer to that. If you are a Dormant, I can activate your genes by injecting you with my venom when we make love.”
She cast him a sidelong glance. “That’s it? You’ve already told me about the biting during sex thing. Why didn’t you say anything about turning me immortal? That’s a bigger deal than the biting and the sex combined. Not that I don’t want to be immortal, but you should have said something. It’s not your decision to make without asking me first.”
That was going to be difficult to explain. “As long as we used condoms, you would not have transitioned. The bite alone is not enough. I didn’t have any, but Bowen got me some. Then I thought about using them, and I didn’t like the idea of having a barrier between us our first time together. But I wasn’t going to do it without telling you first, and I also wanted to make sure that you had some other form of protection. Because of our low fertility rate, the chances of me getting you pregnant are slim, but I don’t want to risk it. We are too young to become parents.”
Wendy looked confused. “I get everything that you are saying. What I don’t get is why you couldn’t tell me about my potential for immortality, especially since you’ve told me everything else. Tessa said that you needed Kian’s permission, but you’ve gotten it already.”
Taking a deep breath, Vlad pushed his hair back. “There are rules about inducing a Dormant. We are not supposed to do that unless we are sure that the person is the one and only for us. Our fated one. But that’s really hard to determine. I wasn’t sure, and I needed more time.”
12
Wendy
He wasn’t sure?
After all his big talk and his big promises, Vlad wasn’t sure that he loved her?
What a liar.
He was just like the rest of his gender, opportunistic, manipulative, selfish, and interested in only one thing—getting her to sleep with him.
She shouldn’t have given him her heart.
“Get out.” Wendy pointed at the door. “And don’t come back until you make up your damn mind.” She shook her head. “On second thought, don’t come back at all.”
Ignoring her request, he frowned. “Why are you so mad? Are you a hundred percent sure that I’m the one for you?”
“I was until about two hours ago. Now I know that I made a mistake.” She shook her head. “I was so certain that I was smarter than my mother, that I wouldn’t fall into the same trap. But here I am. I guess I’m lucky that I discovered who you really were before it was too late.”
Vlad’s eyes gleamed dangerously. “And what am I?”
“A liar.” Wendy’s chin quivered. “You told me that you loved me, but you just
wanted to have sex with me.”
“I do love you. But I’ve never been in love before, and I doubted my own feelings. I needed more time to think things through. Is that a crime?”
The tears she’d been forcing back finally broke through the dam. Didn’t he realize how badly he was hurting her? Maybe if she gave him a dose of his own medicine, he would understand how deeply he had cut her.
Wendy waved a hand. “A crime? No. In fact, I need to do some thinking of my own. Maybe you are not my one and only either? Perhaps Bowen or Leon is? Or maybe one of the other immortals? Any of them can induce my transition. You are not my only option.”
As the blaze in Vlad’s eyes intensified, and his fangs punched out over his lower lip, Wendy shifted away from him and huddled upon herself. Was he going to strike her? Bite her?
Looking at her as if she was a bug that he wanted to squash, Vlad pushed to his feet. “You’re welcome to explore your options. In fact, I’m going to stay out of your way. I’ll be in the motorhome.” He stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him.
At least he hadn’t hit her.
Wendy lay down, pulled the blanket over her head, and curled into a fetal position.
Everything had just gone to shit. All her hopes for a better future and a normal life, they had all evaporated, and what was left was a gnawing emptiness.
She’d been right all along.
Life was crap, and the only way to survive was not to give a damn about a thing and not get emotionally attached to anyone.
Now she really didn’t have anywhere to go, and no one gave a damn whether she lived or died.
When a knock sounded at her door, Wendy thought it was Vlad coming back to apologize and tell her that he loved her and couldn’t live without her, but a moment later she heard Bowen’s deep voice. “May I come in?”