“Okay.”
“Thank you for showing me everything. You’ve been doing a really good job here, and I’m impressed how quickly this place is coming together.”
Claudie gave him a shy smile and disappeared out the door. He heard her light footsteps patter down the stairs and the first and second front doors open and shut.
Ves wasn’t as angry with Eddie as he had been earlier, but he still wasn’t happy with the man. Following Claudie’s route, he went down and waved at Eddie to follow him into the kitchen.
“You want a drink, boss?” Eddie motioned between the fridge and the kettle.
“Blood please.” Even if he was still kind of pissed with the man, there was no need to be rude. He watched his second with narrowed eyes as the man went through the motions of preparing drinks for them both. Rather than going on the offensive, he waited for Eddie to talk. That tended to get more information anyway.
Eddie got bags out of the chiller cabinet, hidden behind a wall next to the left-hand fridge. He took them across to the counter, emptied them into mugs, and put them in the warmer. While they heated, he fidgeted, very unlike Eddie. “Ves, I’m sorry. Raff, he’s spent three years running from what’s between you. The first night Annie was supposed to start work, she threw one of her fits and Raff stepped in. He must have been over to check out what was going on, because he appeared out of nowhere. He lit into her about disrupting the pack and the workers and how he wasn’t going to let her do that here to people he cared about. They got into a huge fight and he”—Eddie shrugged, expression wide-eyed and admiring—“put her down. Several times. If they’d been human, he wouldn’t have even been breathing hard. Your mate…sorry, Ves. Raff, he isn’t weak. He might look like a pretty boy, but he can take care of himself. He took her down easily, and I know how much training you made sure she had.”
“I never thought he was weak.”
The timer on the warmer beeped. Eddie got the mugs out and passed one to Ves. Eddie’s words were leaching the anger from his veins. The urge to sink his fangs into someone and drain them was fading.
“Well, he kept coming over after that. He talked to Jake and Sol and me and wound up working here. Jake says his job is still there when, if, he wants to start back. Sol hired him to do the same basic stuff the others from our coven are doing, with a view to more if it suits him. And me? I wanted to tell you. I did. But I didn’t want to scare him off if I told you and you couldn’t resist coming up here. I hoped if he got to know us, he might start wanting to get to know you. Friend of a friend, you know? You’re a good leader, Ves, and a good man. If he liked us and we like you…”
“Okay, enough.” Ves put his already empty mug down and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms. “Look, I’m not happy about being left in the dark, but I understand where you were coming from and why you did it. And even if I don’t like what it led to, I trust your judgement. You wouldn’t be my second if I didn’t.”
“Will I stay your second, though?”
“What? Why wouldn’t you?”
“But if you and Raff sort things out, won’t he become your second?”
Ves frowned, silent for a moment. “When…if he becomes my mate, he’ll be my mate. He’ll have his own duties in the coven, but I won’t make him take any of them up, only what he wants to do. You’ve been my second for a long time, Eddie, and I’d like you to stay that way no matter what happens with Raff. My mate isn’t going to take your place just because he’s a man, rather than a woman. Look at Perry, Charlie, Sam, and Jake. Just because Perry mated Charlie, neither Sam nor Jake lost their beta positions.”
“No offence to Charlie, but Raff is a bit more of a badass than he is. And Charlie’s still young with a lot to learn. Raff is older and grew up expecting to inherit leadership of his coven from his father. He knows what it takes to lead one.”
“Look, whatever happens, we’ll sort it out. You’ll be my second as long as you want to stay that way.”
An invisible weight fell from Eddie’s shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Now that’s out of the way, as my second, I’ll need you to go down to the old house and look after things there. I’ve got a tonne of meetings over the next few days with Perry, separate and joint ones with Allan and Pat, Jake, and a few others, plus various ones with estate agents, lawyers, and such.”
“And we all know how much you enjoy those.” Eddie’s customary lazy grin was back in place.
Ves made a face. “Oh yeah, so much. Anyway, before you go, tell me how everyone is getting on? Claudie showed me what she’s been doing and around this place. It’s looking great.” He picked up his mug and went about refilling it. He listened while Eddie talked through what each coven member had been up to and everything they had accomplished so far between them.
Questions about every little thing Raff had been up to whilst at the coven kept bubbling up and Ves had to swallow most of them. He didn’t think he was fooling his second, but he had to try. As hungry as he was for news of anything to do with Raff, he forced himself to wait. He refused to lose hope that Raff would come to him. Something had changed in their last interaction, but would Raff ever change his mind?
Chapter Seven
Raff
“No. Out!”
Raff thought for a moment Freddie said that to him but realised after a beat Freddie was glaring over Raff’s shoulder. He twisted to look. He should have scented who it was, but he’d been a bit distracted.
Sol stood behind him in heavy work boots and trousers so coated in dust and what he could only describe as construction stuff that it was impossible to tell what colour they were supposed to be. Sol tried to give puppy-dog eyes at Freddie. “But, babe…”
“No. Not happening. Go rinse off and strip to your skivvies before you come in and then go shower. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve mopped the damn hallway floor since I moved in?”
Sol walked off around the side of the house, slumped shoulders, giving every impression of being betrayed or abandoned.
Raff was grinning when he turned back to Freddie. “Getting him trained?” he asked in an almost inaudible whisper.
Freddie smirked. “Maybe. Yeah, not really. Seriously though, shifters are so messy. Not like empty beer cans and pizza boxes and dirty socks everywhere, just…they don’t see as much of the dust, and they don’t smell the things we do. Sol and his brothers’d be happy to mop the hall floor once a week. I know they leave boots by the front door or in the mudroom at the back, but I don’t think they realise how much dust they shed when they’re coming in from work looking like that. Well, okay, that was more venting than I thought would come out. How are you? Everything going okay at the site? Come on in.” He stood back and waved Raff in, then led the way to the kitchen. “That all made me sound like the little woman, didn’t it?”
“Hey, you found your mate, doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing from there on”—Freddie snorted—“as you and I definitely know. It’s going to take you both time to adjust to the day-to-day stuff of living with each other. Shifters are pretty different from us.”
“At least that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about with Ves. If you ever get the guts up to do something about him.”
The sound of water running and splashing sounds started up from a doorway off the kitchen.
“Hey. Not fair! I might not have to learn to live with another species for a mate, but he’s coven leader. He’ll want everything his way and won’t stand for anything I do that goes against that. That’s not a relationship. It’s not a mating. It’s a dictatorship.”
“Is that what you think of him?”
“You weren’t there, Freddie. You don’t know what it was like when Maurice arrived and took over.”
“Were you there? Before Maurice, when your father was in charge. Do you remember him acting like that with your mother or only what came after with Maurice? Because Ves isn’t anything like what you’re implying. He’s like your father wa
s. He listens. Yes, he’s in charge and he has the final say, but he looks after his people, and he takes their wishes and needs into account.” Freddie leaned back against the counter, glaring at Raff. “He’s not perfect, but fuck it, who is? Raff, I haven’t said much to you so far because I was waiting for you to come around on your own, but seriously. You’ve met his people. You know me. Do I strike you as someone who’s been living under the thumb of a tyrant?”
“I guess not. But how can I take the risk? He could be different with the coven to how he’d be with a mate.”
“You’re missing out on something that could be great with a really good man. Are you going to stay scared and keep pushing him away forever?”
“I don’t want to. I want to be with him. He’s my mate.” The words tore straight from Raff’s soul. His throat hurt, and his eyes prickled. Admitting the feelings that clawed at him every moment of every day was almost as bad as anything either Michaelson or Maurice had put him through.
“Then be with him. There are so many places he could have moved his coven, but he chose to move it here. He did that so he could be closer to you without putting pressure on you and so that if you did work things out, you could stay close to the people you care about in the pack. He wants you. But he won’t force or coerce you into anything. If you want him, you’re going to have to make the first move.”
Raff choked out a wet and pathetic sounding laugh. “How exactly am I supposed to do that?”
“You could do what I did with Sol and text him and ask to talk. Or you could give him a call? Or go see him in person?”
“Why does the thought of any of those terrify me?”
“You’ve pushed him away. That didn’t mean you didn’t want him though. Maybe you’re scared he won’t want you anymore. That’s pretty much exactly how I felt when I realised I wanted to see where things could go with Sol. Ves does though. He wants you.”
Raff took a deep, shaky breath. “Yeah, I think he does.”
“Hey, everything okay in here?” Sol walked in from the mudroom. His was towelling off his hair, and he’d stripped to his boxers. He walked over to Freddie and kissed the top of his head.
Raff dry scrubbed his face while Sol and Freddie were focussed on each other for a moment.
“Yeah, we’re okay. You could do with some clothes, though,” Freddie said to his mate with a smirk.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going. I just wanted to check in before going up to get dressed.”
Freddie tilted his face up for a kiss, which Sol pressed his lips to without a pause before slinging the towel around his neck and leaving the room. Freddie watched him go with heavy-lidded eyes. A faint hint of arousal filled the air, and Freddie turned back to Raff with a slight blush.
“Hey, on another subject, how’s the addition going?”
“To the house? Pretty great, actually. Sol tells me it’s about halfway done. He’s running it as a side project, so he’s not able to put that much time in along with the work on the coven house, but Allan is giving him one day a week and a few workers. Perry is paying for the project and it’s an official job, so it’s getting done. It’s just taking a little time. Even with that, it’s going faster than I expected.”
“So, what is being done? It looks like a huge addition around the back.”
“You really want to hear?”
“Honestly, I could do with a distraction for a while. Even an hour of not thinking about my situation and Ves and everything would be great right now.”
“Okay. Well, after everything the brothers went through, they don’t want to be separated any time soon. That’s why they got the house together rather than move into the larger singles houses when they were built a couple of years ago. Mating is different though, and with three of the brothers now mated, there are now eight people living in a four-bed house.”
“Eight? Oh, of course, Isaac mated Keiron and Ari.”
“Yeah, plus Astley and Noah want kids already, so they want to make room for them for when that happens. So, with all that, this place needed to at least double in size, and with me being a vamp, Sol had plans drawn up that would include an extensive basement level. We’re getting three bedrooms down there, a small kitchen, bathroom, and living room. That will free up one of the rooms upstairs, and there are five more being added in the extension. We’re also getting a large patio area with a retractable roof, so it can be covered during the day if needed. Once the extension is up and the bigger kitchen it’s getting, this half of the house is being renovated. The bedroom that Sol and I are in is being removed and the space split between an enlarged bathroom and making Isaac, Keiron, and Ari’s room bigger. Keiron is getting a separate workroom built, and Ari is getting an office, so he can do his translation work in peace.”
“Wow, that…sounds like a lot of work.”
“You could say that. What it is, is a lot of plaster dust and sawdust that makes its way into this part of the house.”
“And other fumes. What’s that smell?” An acrid odour hung in the air.
Freddie shrugged. “Some type of varnish or sealant or something. Different ones come and go. I haven’t bothered asking. I’m just trying to ignore them until the work is finished.”
“You must have a permanent headache living with those smells.”
“Vampires don’t get headaches, don’t you know?” Freddie winked with a grin.
“Uh-huh, yeah okay.” Raff begged to differ. Fighting his attraction to Ves had been a bigger headache than the bitter and suffocating smells the shifters in this house probably couldn’t even detect anymore. “This place is going to be bigger than Sam and Jess’s house.”
“Sam and Jess have a lot of kids. We have a lot of adults who take up a bit more space. And potentially kids when Astley and Noah find a surrogate.”
“Hey, didn’t I tell you? They found one.” Sol, dressed in clean jeans and a simple green tee, walked back in.
“They did? That’s great! And fast. Who is it? Do you know?” Freddie asked.
“Funnily enough, it’s Hannah.”
“Wait, Doc is going to be their surrogate?”
“Yup. And before you ask, I don’t know why, but they aren’t going to turn her down. Astley said he likes the idea of the birth mother being a pack mate, so the kid can keep in touch with her.”
“Kid? They do realise it might be kids, plural, right?” Raff asked.
“With Astley’s genetics? Oh yeah, they know.”
Another thought struck Raff, and he grinned. “Be interesting to see their colouring when they’re born. Astley’s family are all black-haired with those gorgeous blue eyes, and Doc’s family all have that bright, intense red hair, except for their mother. Or if Noah is the genetic father, he and his brothers are all blond,” Raff finished, with a glance at Sol’s hair.
A furrow appeared on Freddie’s forehead. “Doc doesn’t have red hair—she’s a brunette.”
“Not if you get a good look at her roots before she manages to dye them again,” Raff said. “It’s almost the exact same shade as her brother’s.”
“Huh. I never noticed. But it’s such a beautiful colour, why would she dye it?”
“Asks the other redhead,” Sol said, leaning in and kissing the top of Freddie’s head as he had before.
Freddie slapped his chest and then slid the hand around Sol’s waist and snuggled in. “There’s nothing wrong with my red hair.”
“Never said there was, babe. Thought I’d shown you how much I love it already.”
Freddie went pink. “You did.”
“Okay, that’s moving into ‘I don’t want to know’ territory. On an entirely different subject, Sol, what did you think of going up with Freddie here? I know he took you flying.”
“A couple of times now. And I loved it.” Sol grinned down at his mate and hugged him.
They moved through to the sitting room, and for the next few hours, they talked of nothing much and everything. Raff hadn’t been able to spend much
quality time with his friend since he had found him again. At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel the absence of the three other friends who had died. He and Andre thought they were the only ones left after being rescued from Michaelson’s warehouse, but now Freddie was here, and even though Kourey, Guillaume, and Bastien weren’t, he was grateful they’d found Freddie. It was good to be able to get to know him again after all they’d been through.
“Before you go,” Sol said as Raff pushed himself up from a chair so comfortable and squishy he swore the damn thing was trying to eat him.
Something in Sol’s tone had him instantly wary. “Yeah?”
“I couldn’t help overhearing you talking about Ves earlier.” Freddie made an abortive noise and put his hand on Sol’s arm. Sol covered it with his own, but otherwise ignored his mate. “You were there when Ves and I got into that fight, brief as it was, after Freddie’s accident the night of the storm.”
Raff shivered, the remembered feeling of terror flooding over him at how close he’d come to losing his friend again just as they’d reconnected. He struggled to think about what had happened the following day. “Uh yeah, I think so.”
Oh shit, that was the day…that was when he and Ves had gotten physical. He flexed his hand, trying to rid himself of the phantom sensation of Ves’s hard length enclosed in his fingers. The heat of his cock. The slide of velvety skin over hard shaft. The smell of his musk.
“Do you remember why he was there?” Raff shook his head at Sol’s question. “He was already coming up to tear a strip off my hide for how he assumed I abandoned Freddie after mating him years ago, but then he caught the scent of Freddie’s blood, and one of his own being hurt infuriated him. He was ready to murder me for someone who had been in his pack only a handful of years.” Sol stroked his hand back and forth over Freddie’s where it still rested on his arm. “Do you really think someone so protective of his people could ever do anything to hurt his own mate? Just think about it.”
Trusting His Vampire Lord Page 6