by Belle Harper
I didn’t expect this reaction when I saw them. But they were my first real…well, real anything. Real family, real parents. I couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. I sobbed as Jack held me tight, Grayson rubbing his hand on my back, saying soothing reassuring words.
“You’re okay, sweetheart, we’re here. We’re here.” I started sobbing louder. “You’re safe. We have you.”
I felt it in that moment—I didn’t have to keep being strong, and for once in my life, I really could let down my walls. I could lean on them, and they had me. They would catch me if I fell. I trusted them, that they would take care of me, fix whatever was wrong, and make me smile again. This was who they were, this was why they were the best foster parents. It took compassion, understanding, and patience to raise kids from the system, and they did it with these beautiful smiles, big open hearts, and cupcakes.
“I miss you both so much. I want to move back, but also…I also don’t want to leave here either. I know I don’t get that choice, but I just wanted you to know that I will never forget what you did for me. Never.”
I was sniffing and then so were they. “We thought we’d lost you when we heard what had happened. We came over straight away. But by then, you were sleeping and we heard what happened with Galen. We’ve been here, waiting for you to wake up.”
They were waiting here for me? Jack wiped a tear from my cheek, and it made me cry even more. His eyes were red rimmed, and he looked tired.
“Let it all out, beautiful. You’ll feel so much better. We’ll hold you for as long as you need. Even though you’re not living with us, know that you are still our girl. We made you a promise, and we will keep it forever. If things don’t work out here, you will always be welcome back home, Lexi. It’s your home as much as it’s ours,” Grayson whispered to me.
Well, that just made the tears flow faster, and my nose was running badly. Crap. This… I never knew how bad I needed this in my life until now. I needed to get it together, since I couldn’t spend the whole day crying. I sniffed and took a step back.
“I love you both. You were more a family to me in those few weeks than I had in almost eighteen years. I want to thank you for that. For caring so much, for…just everything.” That set them off again, and we did another round of hugs and tears. When I couldn’t cry anymore, I took a step back and tried to straighten myself out.
“I’m going to take a shower. Are you still going to be here if I have one?” They both nodded as Jack swept my hair over my shoulder. It had dried blood and tears…and snot. But he didn’t seem to care.
“Of course we will, and Ada has been waiting for you too. She’s in your room. Go wash, chat, and we’ll meet you downstairs a little later.” I gave them both one more hug and hurried off to see Ada. I was worried and yet excited to see what she made of all this… well crazy vampire and shifter stuff. Bet she was regretting being my friend now.
Chapter Three
Lexi
I opened my bedroom door and quickly closed it behind me. Ada was standing at the window, she turned to me and the look of relief on her face at the sight of me told me how worried she must have been.
“Oh my god!” She ran at me and held me tight to her body. “I was so scared! You almost died, and Galen saved you, then…” I started to stroke her long blonde hair, trying to calm her.
She took as step away as she held onto my shoulders looking me up and down, her nose wrinkled a little.
“You need a shower, so I’ll grab some clothes for you. Go jump in, and then we can chat…and like I mean really chat. Because I saw Maverick turn into a big gray wolf while you were passed out, and I have a million questions.” She pursed her lips and nodded as she started to push me towards the bathroom.
I smiled, I needed this. I needed a friend who knew what was going on. “Okay, bossy boots.” I really did need a shower. I felt so icky and gross. Plus I knew once she started talking, it would be a while before she stopped, and I was actually looking forward to that.
When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I shuddered. My eye makeup had run, giving me panda eyes. My neck was healed, not even a scar from Galen. I looked down at my jeans that I still wore. I could see the wolf bite was healed, but there were raised marks…teeth marks. That was new, since I always healed without a scar. Maybe it was the venom that made it heal like that.
Fuck, did he have to ruin my favorite jeans? I wasn’t going to be able to fix these. I stripped off and found I looked the same as yesterday. Nothing magical had changed on me, not that I thought it would. I’d just hoped that maybe I’d have a power after that, like the shifter venom might have woken something up in me, because there had to be a reason my blood smelled different and I healed fast. Oh, oh…maybe I had super speed now. I needed to try it. I positioned myself against the bathroom door and tried to run at super speed to the shower.
When I slammed into the shower’s glass door, I heard Ada’s worried voice call out, asking if I was alright. I wanted to say I’d just found I now had super speed, but really, I’d just slid on the bathmat and crashed into the glass shower door, like a dumbass.
“Yeah, I just slipped.” I heard her let out a shriek before the bathroom door swung open, my hands automatically covering my privates. Raff was standing there with his hands stretched out towards me, his face pale and worried. My heart was racing, and I could see his chest heaving heavily. Now that was super speed. When his eyes met mine, I could see his body visibly relax. He didn’t say anything before he looked around the room once, then quickly backed out the bathroom and closed the door behind him. I took a deep breath and started the shower up. I smiled to myself.
As I flopped onto my bed beside Ada, my stomach growled, but I knew she was full of questions. As much as I wanted to forget what happened last night, I really needed to tell her everything. I just didn’t know where to start. I stared at the white ceiling as I felt the bed shift, then her face came into view as she stared down at me with her eyes crossed and a crazy smile. I laughed, “I feel so much better now, thank you” I told her, and she smiled.
“So, let’s just get this out the way. Galen is a vampire,” she started. I pushed up on my elbows and quirked my brow at her. She had this funny grin on her face. Man, she was taking this so much better than it did. And I guess that was a good place to start.
“Yeah, and before you get all chatty, just know that they can hear everything we say. And I mean everything.” Her eyes grew wide as her mouth dropped open. She put her hands over her mouth as she glanced around the room. “Yeah, I didn’t learn that until a few days after. So when you’re talking about one of the guys…” I could see her brows were so high, they were sure to join her hairline, and a blush creeped up her throat. I pulled her hands down, and she still looked embarrassed.
“What? Oh god, what did you say?” I wanted to laugh but I was holding it in, because Ada was a talker and she could have said anything while I was sleeping. She shook her head, as she played with the strands of her hair, then she giggled nervously.
“Ah, you know, last night…” Then she gestured with her head towards the window as she twirled long strands of her blonde hair around her index finger.
I remembered last night… wanted to forget about it too. I nodded, but my expression must have shown my confusion about what she was referring too. She mouthed the word “Saint.” Oh god, at the party last night, she’d said that she wanted some of him, and yes, he totally heard that. I burst out laughing, now that she knew and I could talk to her about these things, it made it a little funny. I nodded my head, and she grabbed onto my hand, her eyes wide.
“Oh my god, Lexi. You should have stopped me. Shit…did they all hear?” I didn’t know what to say, so I gave her a slow smile, and she groaned as she flopped onto the bed, her hands going to her face to hide the pink on her cheeks. I flopped down beside her, pulling her hands away, she looked over to me and I gave her a funny face like she had given me. I took her hand in mine and gave it a
small squeeze.
“It’s okay. I’m sure Saint already had a big ego before you said that.” I giggled, and she playfully slapped my arm and rolled over to look out the window before rolling back to face me.
“So, they’re all shifters? That’s what Jett told me when he said I could stay up here. I was stressing them out, but I was so worried when you passed out.” I could see her eyes welling up. Oh god, I didn’t want her to cry. It would make me cry again, and I didn’t want to do anymore crying. Plus I just did my makeup, so I looked like I was okay on the outside, but on the inside… I was freaking out and trying to hold it together for now.
“I was fine, just exhausted.” Which was a lie, since I had no idea that I passed out or why. The last thing I remembered doing was asking Galen about my blood. Heaven, he had said.
“Shit.” I sat up. Was I like an angel? What else would taste like heaven?
“What is it?” Ada’s eyes wandered my face, looking for what was wrong.
“I think…I think maybe I’m an angel. But I don’t have wings. Huh?” Ada looked behind me, like she was checking for wings that might have magically grown overnight.
“Yeah, you don’t have any wings.” I tried my best not to laugh and shake my head at her remark. But then she laughed at herself and I burst out laughing with her. It felt good.
Did that even make sense? Were there angels? Like real ones? Or what could taste like heaven to a vampire? Fairies? Oh wow, could I be a fairy? I still didn’t have wings. Were those things even real?
Vampires and shifters were real…but then how did I heal a vampire? Shit, was I a demon? Was I a good guy or a bad guy? Should I be like killing vampires? Or healing and saving them?
Oh my gosh. Was I like a vampire slayer?
There was a knock at the door, and I froze in my thoughts.
Chapter Four
Galen
“Fuck,” Jett hissed out.
Yeah, I wasn’t the only one that heard that. I knew she would be smart enough to start guessing what she might be. At the moment, it was a wild guess, one that I had been tossing around in my head all night. Was there even a possible chance that she was an angel, or part angel since her mother was human. I wasn’t even sure if they even still existed. Her mother was human, and maybe…her father was an angel? A fallen one at that.
I was in service of a witch for many, many years. She was very strong and powerful, and the reason I could walk in the daylight. She had told me of angels and demons. They had existed in all her books, even some of her grimoires mentioned them for spells, but that was as far as it went. She’d never met one, or she’d never told me she had. I’d protected her, a hundred-year service for the chance to walk in the daylight. I was her bodyguard, I protected her from other vampires or anything that wanted her dead. So I would have known if I’d met an angel or demon…wouldn’t I? I guess they would have smelled like Lexi if I did.
“I have this. Let me go speak to her.”
Ranger protested, but Alaric gestured I go. We didn’t want this getting out. If other vampires knew what Lexi’s blood did to me, they would want her. They would kidnap her, hunt her down for her blood. Her blood would make them truly immortal. We had to keep this quiet.
We had Pack Bardoul meeting us here, we didn’t want to tell them over the phone why but asked for the scientists to attend this meeting. Alaric invited them over for lunch, and were on their way. I needed Lexi to stop talking though. If any other wolves were around the property, they might talk, and then the other packs would find out and it would be impossible to stop this information from getting out. We needed to keep it contained and in Pack Kiba.
I was glad for spring break. At least most of the humans were off on vacation for now, and school was closed, so no chance of it being leaked there.
I knocked on her door and heard her sharp intake of breath. She could sense it was me. I could feel her and her emotions when I was close to her, it was like she was a part of me. They ran through me as if they were my own. This had to do with her blood, and something I would bring up when Pack Bardoul got here. I wasn’t going to scare her by telling her this new development.
“Come in, Mr. Donovani.” I couldn’t help the wicked smile that stretched across my face. God, she liked to push my buttons in the hottest ways. I never knew I was into the whole teacher-student role play, but with Lexi, I was into all of her. I pressed down on my hardening cock, something I noticed was always affected around Lexi, and strode into the room like I owned it. Ada sat straighter against the headboard and eyed my warily. She looked at Lexi, then back to me.
“Oh god, are you two—” Lexi’s hand moved fast, covering Ada’s mouth, and her eyes went wide then crinkled at the edges. I shook my head to deny it, but then realized she saw everything last night. The kiss, Lexi telling me she loved me—one of the best moments of my life—how I cared for Lexi after she passed out, how Mav lost it and shifted.
“We’re just great friends is all…” Lexi started to explain, looking a little unsure at the statement of us being friends.
I agreed, adding, “Yes, friends…who like to eat cake.” Her smile grew and her cheeks pinked a little. I liked to see her like this, affected by me as much as I was by her, and I could feel that through her emotions. God, I could feel everything she was feeling, and it was making it hard not to go to her and kiss her. If she wanted this a secret from Ada, then I would have to play along. For now. God, she was just so fucking sexy.
Lexi made a strange sound, then coughed to cover it. Maybe she was thinking the same thing I was…
“Don’t you like drink blood though?” Ada blurted out. She was not the best at internal thoughts, I had come to find. “Can you like actually eat cake?” I ignored Ada’s questions for now as I had come for a more important topic.
“Lexi, it would be best if any thoughts of what you are be spoken in Alaric’s office or my home, where no others can hear.” She nodded slowly, her eyes still pinned on mine. She bit her lip, and my body stiffened at the sight. I wanted nothing more than stride over, grab her in my arms and kiss her. Really kiss her, not the chaste kiss she gave me last night. One that would show her how much she meant to me. That I wasn’t just a friend. I sure didn’t have friendly thoughts about her.
“Okay,” she squeaked out, so unlike herself. But then, she was still processing things, and I knew what that was like. I hadn’t slept at all, still rolling everything over in my mind. Hers was the sweetest tasting blood I’d ever had. I wanted more. But if I was to feed from her again, what would that do to me? To her? Even though she’d asked for me to feed from her in the past, I knew I couldn’t drink from her. It hurt me to see she was in pain from my bite, I cannot compel her. I’d felt her pain as I drank her blood and I didn’t want to feel that ever again.
Plus Ranger was right—her blood was like a drug. I just wouldn’t admit that to him. I could see more, hear and feel more. My speed had doubled, and I had this strange connection to Lexi. Shifters could smell her moods, and so could I to some extent, but now I felt her. She was confused, turned on, and a little hungry.
“Come down for an early lunch. Jack and Grayson are down there waiting for you.”
That had her moving. “Is Joshy here?” I shook my head, and her face fell. They had left him with another shifter family, since they didn’t know what they were walking into when they came. As much as Alaric had protested, I told him to make the call, that she would want them to know. It was important for her that they be here. They were the closest thing to a real family for her, and when you’re hurt or in trouble, you want your parents.
Even I knew that, and I wasn’t overly close to my parents when they were alive. My governess was more a mother to me and my younger sister than my own mother. She’d been too busy worrying about gossip and the next scandal, too busy attending balls and carriage rides around Hyde Park to care about her own children. My father was even more non-existent in my life, spending most his time with his mistress
es.
“Come on, ladies. Let me escort you down to the dining room,” I held my elbows out for both of them. Lexi giggled as she skipped over and put her arm through mine. Ada was a little more hesitant, which surprised me, as she didn’t seem too bothered by me being a vampire last night. She tilted her head at my words.
“How old are you? ’Cause you sound like you just came out of a posh movie.” She moved closer and finally placed her arm in mine. I didn’t get a chance to answer before Lexi leaned forward, her golden brown hair falling from her shoulder as she turned to her friend.
“He’s twenty-one…and totally posh.” She looked up at me and winked, a playful glint in her eyes as she giggled. It was so nice to hear her happy, after hearing her with Grayson and Jack, it took everything in me to not go to her. Ada just shook her head and laughed, but it had a nervous tone to it. She wasn’t fully comfortable with me yet, but I hoped that one day she would be, because she was good for Lexi. And Lexi needed a friend like Ada.
After last night, I wasn’t going back to teaching. If I had to choose between teaching and Lexi, it would be her. Always. I knew that would be something that Alaric would want to discuss with me soon. And I was ready for it. I just hoped I could keep him happy enough to let me still live here. I wasn’t too sure what Lexi and I were, but I wouldn’t leave her. Unless she wanted me too.
I started to lead them both down the hallway, and Ada was suddenly more relaxed and full of questions.
“How come you don’t sparkle? And like, can all of you walk in the sun? Do you know Edward from the movies? Who else is a vampire? Oh wait, don’t tell me, let me guess…” Just before Ada could guess or let anyone have a word, Lexi stopped and pulled her arm free of mine.