"Hey." I chose to ignore Ainsley's snort behind me. I doubted that he would perform any better than I was in this situation so he could keep his comments, and his noises, to himself. "I'm going back to bed. It's too early for me to be awake. If you want to join me, you can."
Tad pursed his lips, then he looked back into his room. I looked as well. At his messy bed and the piles of clothes around it. "Want to come in here instead? I wouldn't mind a few more hours of sleep."
Our beds were identical, except for how they faced the water. I'd bought the same mattresses, the same sheets, and the same comforter, for both rooms. But Tad's bed did face the water, while mine lay along the coast, making it harder for us both to watch the water. I loved the view and watching the water could have been just the thing to calm us both. I also needed to tell Tad what to expect tonight, not that I'd ever taken part in a vampire wedding.
"Sure."
Tad offered me his hand and I took it as he led me into his room.
Sleeping next to him had been good. Simply sleeping, barely touching each other, and just relaxing.
When I woke up though Tad wasn't there. I sat up and found him sitting on the deck, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders as he looked out at the water. Being as quiet as possible, I went to him and sat down beside him.
He smiled over at me, but there were tears there staining his cheeks. "Hi."
"Why are you crying?"
"I'm not."
I snorted. "We're going to be married, a lot sooner than I thought too. How about if we don't lie to each other?"
He took my hand, his fingers cold against mine. I wondered how long he'd been out there for his fingers to be this cold, and why he hadn't just stayed in bed with me. "I was thinking about the mothers," he quietly said.
"I thought you didn't know who your mother was." And I was getting colder by the moment, even though he looked like he had no intention of leaving the deck. Ainsley was gone though, I knew that much. It was dark and he would be heading toward the clubs. With any luck he would find someone quickly and be back within a few hours so that I would know he was safe.
Tad leaned against my shoulder, surprising me with his simple, intimate gesture. "Not my mother, the mothers. Those people in the pack too old to give birth to children anymore. They were the ones who raised us. Who taught us to cook, and clean, and how to cut the tenderloin from a deer in the best way. Some of them were in their eighties. I was thinking about how they could have been helping to raise their great grandchildren without even knowing about it. I'm sad for them."
I pitied the people in the pack too, but there wasn't anything that I could do about it. No one was going to change thousands of years of werewolf culture overnight, especially not a vampire with no stake in it. "I'm glad you're out of there. We'll be meeting with the vampire council tonight. Your father is threatening to come after me for kidnapping you and once you're married to me, he won't be able to touch us. So you'll be a married man in a few hours. They don't start seeing people until midnight."
Tad looked uncertain for a moment, and I had a sudden, gut clenching thought that he was going to change his mind about me, our child... all of it. But then he turned and looked back into his room and said, "I hope I have enough nice things left from Ainsley to look good for the council then. I was planning to ask to use the washer, but then I checked the tags and everything but the boxers are dry clean only. In the pack we didn't have anything that didn't get all washed together with all the other clothes."
I was so relieved that I chuckled as I took his hand and led him back inside. "Good thing you checked, Ainsley would have probably tried to take your pelt if you had ended up ruining his clothes." I had hoped to be able to easily tell which clothes Tad had yet to wear, so that I could help him get dressed for the night, but with everything strung all over the floor there was no way to tell what was clean and what was not. "Where are the clothes you haven't worn yet?"
"Um..." It took Tad a moment, but he eventually found a pair of pants and another of Ainsley's light sweaters. For almost a year I'd hardly seen him in anything else and he must have let Tad borrow quite a few of them. "Will this work?"
I would have preferred him in a suit, but with the meeting having to be moved up there was no way that Patrick would have anything ready for him so soon. "That'll be fine. Get dressed. I'll meet you in the living room."
"Vallen?"
I was nearly to his door when Tad stopped me. "Yes?" I asked, turning back to face him.
He was blushing, and he was sucking on his bottom lip yet again. It disturbed me how easily that simple gesture made me want to kiss him. "Thanks for bringing me here and everything."
"You're welcome." I left him then. I wanted to kiss him so I left. I went into my bedroom and changed my clothes.
When I came out Tad was stretched out over the couch and he had his phone in his hands. "Should I get some food before we go see the council?"
That was probably a good idea. "Yes. I'll have something to eat as well." He looked curious, for a moment, until I went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle. I'd downed half of it while I walked over to the couch. He pulled back, giving me room, and I put his sock covered feet in my lap.
"Vallen?"
"Hmmm?"
"What's the council like? I mean, what should I expect with tonight?"
I looked over at him to find that he'd laid his phone over his chest and was now looking at me with wide, curious eyes. His violet eyes seemed to be just a bit brighter when he was focusing on me like that. I licked my lips to clean my mouth off before speaking again. "The council is three of the oldest vampires in the region. You don't need their names. No one even knows them. I've always found them to be polite and fair. I don't know what a werewolf wedding is like--"
"Werewolves don't have weddings," he interrupted me.
I ran my hand idly up the outside of his leg, stopping myself at his knee when I really wanted to go higher and touch all of his long legs. "Have you seen a human wedding on TV then? The flowers, the wedding march, the vows?" Tad nodded and at least that was a starting place for us, some common ground that we could both work with. "Well, there are people at a vampire wedding, but it's much more subdued. We'll go in, explain our case and what's going on and then ask the council to marry us so that you, and our child, can be recognized as vampires."
Tad shrank back from me. "So you're going to what? Turn me or something? I didn't think that was possible. And I've gotta tell you, I'm not a big fan of the taste of blood. Or the smell of it." He looked pointedly to the bottle in my free hand, but that was just something he was going to have to get over.
"No, of course not. No one will be trying to turn you. That's not possible and you're going to be a vampire in name only. We're given certain rights, certain protections, that you won't have as a werewolf with the vampires. But, once the council recognizes our marriage you'll be considered a vampire and wherever you go and whatever happens to you the vampires will treat you the same as they would me. Our child will have the best possible future that way, as will you, should you choose to remain married to me after you give birth." It wasn't something I had any particular hope for. After all, once our child was born, Tad's promise to me was over and I would have kept up my word as well.
He was quiet for a long time as I simply watched him. "Could I stay here until after my surgeries are over? It would make it easier, I think, to take care of our child too while I recover. I won't take advantage."
I didn't doubt that at all. "Of course you can. You're welcome to stay here with me for as long as you'd like. And, when you're ready to have your own place, I was hoping that you'd stay in the cove. I want our child to have both of their parents nearby."
He took my hand over my knee and laced his fingers through mine. "I want that too. I don't know how vampire kids are raised, but one good thing about the pack was how there were always people around when I was a kid. Every scraped knee, every little crying fit, everything was
taken care of. I could barely pee without someone there nearby in case I fell in the toilet or something."
Someone rang the doorbell and Tad got up to answer it. I assumed that it would be his food, and I was right. After a quick exchange he was back on the couch with me, a plastic bag dangling from his hand. He'd gotten some messy sandwich made of meat, cheese, and onions. Thankfully the smell of food didn't bother me nearly as much as blood seemed to bother him.
"We don't have vampire children." Which put me at a loss as to what to do about our child's education. "Where are the werewolf schools?" For the life of me I couldn't remember ever seeing them.
"We don't have them," Tad said in between bites. "Everything is handled in the pack. Education, money, doctors. It's all in the pack."
Of course it was. So that was definitely out. "Then, I guess our child will attend a human school." I would have considered private lessons first, but I wanted them to have friends and since vampires didn't usually have children, and it sounded as if werewolf children were never let out of their packs, the humans were left to be potential friends for our child. It wasn't a horrible prospect by any means, as long as the children were nice to our child and the parents kept any of their werewolf and vampire bashing opinions to themselves.
"You don't look excited about that," Tad said with a slight grin. He was nearly done with his food.
I shrugged and went back to rubbing his leg. The simple touch was comforting to me and I hoped that it was to him as well. "I'm not, but I want our child to grow up well and being sheltered here with only the two of us, and Ainsley, for company is hardly enough social stimulation."
Talking about Ainsley again made me realize that I hadn't checked my phone lately. I finished off my bottle of blood and then got up to get my phone. "I'm seeing if Ainsley has texted," I told him. Not that he'd asked, but in case he was curious.
"You're worried, huh?"
"Yes." Of course I was. He was a young-ish vampire who was out getting hit on by human men while he looked like a teenager. It wasn't a situation I wanted him in, but I'd long since stopped arguing with him about it. Ainsley was old enough to make the choices he wanted to and to risk himself in the ways he chose to.
Are you done yet? I texted Ainsley.
I got another bottle while I waited for him to text me back. And, since Tad was done with his meal when I came back to the trash, I threw his trash away too while I waited.
It wasn't until I was back on the couch and putting the late night news on that Ainsley actually got back to me, which was really unlike him.
I'm on my second of the night. I got lucky and ended up with a guy and his perv friend. I'll have them put away before you get back from the council meeting. It's at 12:30 in case you didn't get my note on the fridge.
I hadn't even seen his note.
"Is he okay?"
Sighing, I sent a quick okay back to Ainsley before giving Tad my attention again. At least he didn't go around trying to kill people. "He's fine. He found two men to kill tonight."
Tad scrunched up his face, and I didn't blame him one bit for his disgust. The men deserved to die. No one would ever argue with Ainsley over that. And hunting alone did mean he was able to get the guys that a group of vampires would have probably scared away. One lone teenage boy was a better target than ten of them after all. But it still bothered me that he had to risk himself at all.
"He'll be okay. It'll be back to work as usual tomorrow," I assured him.
Tad nodded, but I could still tell that he was bothered by what Ainsley did, whether it was the killing itself, or the risks he took doing it.
We left for the council at eleven-thirty. We didn't need an hour to get there. We didn't even need twenty minutes. But I wanted to be early and I wanted to make sure no one was waiting on us to fill out paperwork. I didn't know if there even would be paperwork for us to fill out, but I assumed that the vampires would want something for their records.
Tad took my hand as we walked toward the house that looked no different than any of the others in much of suburban America. The council had an acre to themselves, with tall trees blocking anyone who may want to look inside their home, but this was the twenty-first century and we no longer had to hide who we were and what we did. The single level ranch house was as bland as could be and, somewhere at the turn of the last century, blending in had been crucial for our kind. I knew as well as most how hard those old worries and fears were to let go of.
I knocked on the front door. I had a doorbell, because disconnecting it seemed like a pain, but I didn't enjoy using them. They were loud, and obnoxious, and showed nothing of intent. A good, solid knock against a heavy wooden door was a much better way of announcing my presence than some sing-song chime that blasted through the whole house.
Of the three members of the council, only one of them was a man, and he opened the door for us. "Vallen, and Tad, I presume?"
I nodded, and stepped back so that Tad could go inside first. When he didn't move I remembered what he'd said about not treating him any different than any other man. I wasn't. I was trying to be polite, but he must have thought I was given the way he frowned at me until I turned around and led the way into the house. We would have to discuss that again, but at another time when we weren't about to be married. We were both already tense. We didn't need to add that on top of it tonight.
"Follow me please," the council member said, leading us through the foyer and into the dining room. I thought we would stop there, as much of my business had been conducted at that table in the past, but he led us straight out through the french doors and onto the back deck where the other two members of the council were waiting for us under the gazebo. "Please take a seat," he said, indicating the plastic lawn chairs that had been set up for this purpose.
The two women smiled at us, and I noticed each of them look to our joined hands before the oldest of them, a woman with curling gray hair that she kept tied up in a bun at the base of her neck, addressed us. "Vallen and Tad, I'm glad you came early. Novak has been making a fuss and we aren't inclined to let him do anything in retribution to a vampire in our city. Tad, we would like to know more about you, and why you wish to become a vampire. The truth, only. We know that you two aren't terribly in love, as Novak claimed you were. His largest complaint stemmed from the idea that you two must have been in a relationship prior to your age of maturity, which, Vallen, you know isn't permissible. So since that's not the truth, let's begin with what is and then we'll see how to proceed from here."
I fell silent even as I wished that I could have spoken up for Tad and helped him in some way. But that wasn't my place in this and if Tad was going to be accepted as a vampire, he had to be able to stand on his own as one of us.
Chapter Ten
Tad
I took a deep breath as I wondered what I was supposed to tell these three strangers. "I..." I choked on my words and had to clear my throat. Then I dropped Vallen's hand. I wanted his strength, and his support, but I didn't want us touching to come off as just a show either, because it wasn't. But these three had already known that I'd lied to my father and I didn't want them to think that I was lying to them too. "I came to Vallen because I knew he wanted a child. We werewolves, as I'm sure you know, are really fertile. I thought we could help each other out. We would have a child together and I'd get out of the pack."
"And why did you want to be out of your pack so much?" the older women asked me.
That was a really long story. "Um..." I decided she only really needed the basics. "Because I didn't want to have babies constantly for the rest of my life with a bunch of different men."
She tapped her fingernails against her thigh. "So then, you'll be Vallen's baby machine instead of your packs?"
Vallen looked suddenly angry in my defense. I took his hand. "Wait a minute--"
"No," I said, cutting him off sharply, although I kept my voice quiet. I didn't need to yell at him to get him to listen to me. "No," I repeated to him. Th
en I looked back to the council member who had seemed to have taken the lead. "My arrangement with Vallen is that we'll have a child together, and then he'll pay for me to have the surgeries that I want so that I will never be able to have children again. I'll be a man more on the outside than I am now."
She nodded, apparently approving of what Vallen and I had decided together. "Do you have a plan for afterward?"
I didn't really know what she was getting at. I squirmed uncomfortably in the plastic chair. "Uh. Afterward? After what?"
The man spoke up. "She means to ask, once you are recovered from your surgeries, what are your plans for the future? Where will you work? Will you go get a degree? Will you go back to your pack and try to make amends with your father and hope that he learns to accept you, in time, as his son?"
They were too many questions, and I'd never really considered any of them. I looked to Vallen, but he wasn't looking back at me. He was looking at the members of the council. I realized then something I'd really always known. These were my decisions for my future, and I didn't have the answers. "In the pack I never had any future beyond having children and then, when I was too old to keep having them, I would have been there for the rest of my life taking care of generations of children after mine."
But that wasn't my future now. I'd have one child, and then I would be done with them. I would help raise our one and love them and care for them in a way that I never would have been able to in the pack. "I'd like to get a job, of course. Vallen has been so kind, taking care of me and paying for my surgeries. I want to go to college too, but I won't ask him to pay for that. He shouldn't have to either. So I'll get a job and I'll save money and maybe I'll get a scholarship or something. I've never been to school so maybe I'll need some extra classes to get me ready or something but I'm not in the pack anymore, thanks to Vallen, and I want to make the most of this opportunity."
The woman smiled at me. As a child I'd always imagined that I'd be afraid when a vampire would show me their fangs, as if it was some kind of a prelude to them trying to kill me. Those were the stories we'd grown up with in the pack of the bloodthirsty monsters who only wanted to tear out our throats and then laugh at us as we screamed. But these vampires, they didn't make me nervous at all. And the one in front of me, her smile helped me relax.
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