Typhoon opened his mouth. He grunted, then nodded.
Soon, they were on their way. Mia had taken the bus there, so she climbed onto the back of Typhoon’s bike—her skirt hiking up to her hips, so her lace underwear pressed against Typhoon’s jeans—and they were off. The wind blew in her hair, helping to calm her tiger's growling. It was clear the conversation wasn’t over.
They stopped by her place first. Typhoon’s phone rang as soon as they came to a stop. “Go on inside,” Typhoon told her, gazing at his phone with a dark look on his face. “I’ll take care of this.”
Mia shrugged and went inside. Gracie was at the kitchen table, a plate of uneaten food beside her as she poured over her textbooks.
“Baby asleep?”
Gracie jumped. “Oh! I didn’t hear you come in. Yeah, he went down about half an hour ago. Did you have fun on your date?”
Mia scowled. “It’s complicated. I think he’s coming in so we can talk, so you’d better go home.”
“Are…are you sure?” Gracie’s face fell into a frown. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just a complicated situation. I’m fine, I promise.” Mia patted her shoulder and smiled reassuringly. “Go on home. I’ll call you in an hour if you’re worried.”
Gracie didn’t look completely reassured, but she nodded before gathering up her books and leaving. Mia saw her out and then waited in the doorway for Typhoon, who seemed distinctly agitated as he crammed his phone into his pocket. He gripped the handles of his bike, and Mia made a choking sound—he wasn’t going to take off, was he?
“Business?” she asked quickly to remind him she was still there.
“Yeah,” he grunted before stalking into the house.
He let out a deep breath as she closed the door behind them. Typhoon peered back at Mia with a strange look in his eyes. He let his gaze roam down her figure. The look sent an excited shiver zinging straight to her core, even as Mia pulled in a deep breath to tell him she hadn't forgotten about their earlier conversation.
Typhoon stripped off his leather jacket, his hungry gaze roaming all over her. “So, what exactly does a sugar baby do for her sugar daddy?”
“Uh…well, you know…it’s a marriage. It depends on the individual contracts.” Why had her mouth gotten so dry? She swallowed and moved past him to clean up a little in the kitchen. “Basically, I’m your girlfriend and wife when you need me to be, and in exchange, you give me money and presents.”
“What does someone like you need a sugar daddy for? You could be earning twice as much money as you are now…under different circumstances.”
Mia shrugged. Her heart pattered against her ribs as if it wanted to burst out. She thought about pulling him down to her lips, but her tiger growled, as irritated at her sudden mood switch as she was. “I want the space to do the things I won't have time for if I’m working, like taking my son to parks and things, being home with him, going shopping without worrying about always having my phone on me because I might get called in.”
Typhoon's huge, hot hands clamped around her waist, and he spun her around without warning and pressed her against the wall. His dark eyes burned with increased hunger as he leaned in closer. “So, did you expect your own credit cards or would you rather have a salary?”
Mia was unable to respond for several moments. Her brain nearly short-circuited. Was this really Typhoon, the same guy who never had a girl more than once? The all-powerful alpha who never took no for an answer?
“A salary would be fine,” she managed. “Monthly or bi-weekly?”
Typhoon’s hand traced the curve of her hip as he pondered. “Bi-weekly. How does three-thousand sound?”
Three-thousand every two weeks; six-thousand a month. It was two-thousand more than she'd been earning, which was pretty intense. She let out a shaky breath and nodded. It would be plenty to get by on. Where would Typhoon get that kind of money? Did he plan to pay her from Brotherhood funds, or was he secretly rich?
“It sounds good.”
Typhoon grinned as he brushed the hair away from her neck. “Then pour some sugar on me.”
Zings of pleasure went through her. His teeth grazed her neck, curling her core. She wrapped her arms around his neck. The argument concerning the clinic seemed far away as she dug her fingers into his hair and undulated her hips as they pressed against him.
Typhoon lifted her dress and hooking his thumbs beneath her underwear.
As he stroked her through the lace, a loud squawk-squeal rang through the house. They jumped and drew back from each other. Typhoon turned his face toward the kitchen door, frowning heavily. “Is that—”
“My son, yes.” She pushed against his chest and shook her head. “I have to go take care of him. When he’s like this, he won’t calm down on his own.”
The cry again, louder this time.
Typhoon snorted, and he stepped back. “That's going to get tiresome. Are you sure that—”
“You married me knowing I had a son,” Mia snapped. It was his son. Surely he'd wondered, given the timing of his birth. They were careful, but it wasn't like it was one-hundred percent effective. He had to have wondered. “If you don’t like the fact that my baby’s needs take precedence over your wants, then you can just go back to Blake and tell him to annul the arrangement.”
Typhon scowled. “I don’t intend to go back to him for anything.”
“Then you’ll have to deal with the fact that I’m a mother. We don’t have to live together.” Jasper let out another, louder cry, then he grew quiet. “I have to go.”
“But he’s quiet now.”
“He’s listening for me. If I don’t go, he’ll get really mad.”
Mia strode from the kitchen, chewing her lip as she walked, trying to keep it together.
Typhoon followed after her, but before they got too far, his phone rang again.
Mia hesitated for a moment before disappearing into Jasper’s room. He'd pulled himself to his knees and was leaning against the side of the crib in an awkward position. “Come here, baby.”
She pulled her baby into her arms and glanced at the hallway where she could hear Typhoon talking on his phone. Mia crept to the door and peered out.
Typhoon’s expression was furious as he clutched his phone. “I told you never to phone me,” Typhoon snarled. “Now twice, in one night? No, I don’t want to see you. No—” He looked up suddenly, as though he'd just realized that Mia was watching, and let out a snarl that made Jasper whimper.
Mia’s tiger growled back.
Typhoon turned on his heel and headed for the door. “Fine. I’m coming to see you.” He hung up as he stormed out the door, slamming it behind him.
Chapter Four
Typhoon
It was the last thing he wanted to deal with at that moment.
He'd intended to leave Mia at her house and pick up their conversation in the morning when he'd be less agitated. Then he'd gotten the first call, and he needed a distraction to calm down. And then there was the second call. He knew if he stayed, Mia would ask him what it was all about. The mood had already been broken, so there wasn’t any point in sticking around.
Typhoon jumped onto his bike and rode hard to meet the man who called him. The man—whom he never wanted to lay eyes on again—was the man who had haunted his nightmares for years.
There was a small logging road that led to an open area a half-hour out of the city, where young, horny couples went to fuck each other senseless. Typhoon had brought a few girls there himself when he was younger. These days, once the weather grew cold, it was more or less empty. The site was close to the no-man’s land between shifter and vampire territory, which made it the perfect place to meet his father.
Typhoon came to a stop and glared at him. He was tall, thin, and gave off the heavy scent of rotten fruit, the smell indicative of a vampire.
“What do you want?” Typhoon snapped as he leaped from his bike. “I told you never to call me.”
The sound of the name his mother had given him sent a growl through his chest. This vampire didn’t have the right to talk to him like that, not after everything he'd done.
Typhoon’s hands clenched as he glared at the vampire. “I told you never to call me.”
His father gazed at him for a long moment and nodded. “I know. And I'm sorry for putting you in this difficult position, but I…I don’t have anybody else to call. I’ve been ousted from Cromwell’s kingdom. He caught a family camping in his territory and I—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Typhoon bit back the desire to snarl again. He might not want to hear of his father’s "heroics," but that didn’t mean he could ignore it. If there was someone out with knowledge of vampires, then he had to find them and bring them into the fold, one way or another.
“Fine. What did you do?”
“Got them out.” His father scowled and kicked the ground. “The parents and three kids under twelve.”
“Human or shifter?”
“Human.”
Typhoon shook his head, his grimace deepening. It was always more difficult to deal with humans than shifters when it came to newbies who learned about vampires. A whole family like that would make it even more difficult. The parents were going to be completely freaked out.
“Cromwell found out what I did,” his father said, his voice soft and hesitant, “and he exiled me. Once the other kingdoms find out what I did, I’ll have a death warrant on my head.”
“You’re already dead—what difference does it make?”
His father’s shoulders slumped.
Typhoon viewed him for a moment. He looked thinner than normal for a vampire. His skin was even more sunken and pale, with a papery texture. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said it had been several weeks since the vampire had last fed. The sickly scent of rotten fruit seemed stronger on him.
He glanced at his father’s leg. There was a slightly darker area on his pants, making them cling to the leg.
“How long ago was this?”
His father stared at him for a moment before shaking his head. “Three weeks.”
“And you’ve been injured all this time?”
“Yes.”
So it really was desperation that had driven him to call his son. Typhoon snarled under his breath and rolled up his sleeve. His mother’s final words kept playing around in his brain. She had been far more forgiving than his father deserved, but he'd made a promise to her. Now, he'd do whatever it took to keep that promise—to a point.
His father looked exhausted as Typhoon stalked over toward him before shoving his wrist into his father’s face. “Drink.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Right. So you’ll just end up going into town and killing someone because you’ve starved yourself? Drink before I change my mind and take you in.”
His father took hold of the wrist with a sigh. Typhoon turned his face away, trying to ignore the stab of pain when the fangs punctured his wrist. He could spare a little blood if it meant that innocents in the city—and his father—survived, even if his father’s survival wasn’t high on his list of priorities.
He waited fifteen minutes while his father drank. When he finally pulled away, Typhoon’s legs felt crampy. The rotten-fruit scent had lessened, and his father's face looked a little pinker and much fuller.
“Thanks,” his father said, wiping his mouth.
“Yeah, well, I don’t want some innocent kid in the city ending up dead.”
“You know I don’t—”
Typhoon snorted. All vampires killed. It was a part of who they were. It didn’t matter if they didn’t want to or if it was their policy not to kill. Situations always arose. Starving himself for three weeks? That was one heck of a situation.
Typhoon wrapped his hand around his wrist, stemming the residual blood flow. “We’re done here. Get yourself to another kingdom. Guinevere has been working with us. I doubt she’ll have you killed for intervening on the behalf of children.”
“Robby—”
“If you called thinking that I was going to take you in, you’re crazy. I don’t have room in my life for a vampire, especially not the bastard that killed my mother.”
His father inhaled sharply. A look of pain flashed over his face. Robby was happy to see it. If his father had lived with any of the pain Robby felt every day, knowing his mother was gone and never coming back, then maybe it was a better punishment to leave him alive.
It couldn’t be that much of a punishment if his father were so desperate to live.
“Robby, I never intended—”
Typhoon ripped his arm away from his father’s grasp. His wolf pounded against his chest, and a growl rippled through him. Typhoon's teeth bared. His fangs started to grow. His eyes narrowed.
His father released him at once and backed away, dropping his gaze. It was a reaction with which Typhoon was familiar. He expected it from virtually everyone with whom he interacted. Well, most everyone.
“My name,” he said in an even, measured tone, “is Typhoon. Robby was Mom’s boy, and he died when she did. I don’t care what you intended or what you wanted. You killed her. And it’s only because she made me promise not to let you die that I didn’t kill you.”
His father lifted a tortured gaze, but Typhoon didn’t care about his pain. He was the one who had taken his mother away from him. He was the reason she had lain, body broken and bleeding in her son’s arms, gasping out her final words, begging him to forgive his father, making him promise not to let his father die while her life slipped away because of him.
“You were never there,” Typhoon continued, his voice low. “It was always her and me. You didn’t want anything to do with us until she was gone.”
“I couldn’t stick around, and you know it. It was for your protection. If the Brotherhood knew your mother was involved with a vampire, they’d have turned on her. If they knew you were half-vampire—”
“They’d have killed me. I know. I know,” Typhoon snarled, “but the Brotherhood was so much smaller back then. There were so many—” He cut himself off. He didn’t need to rehash ancient history. Typhoon had gone over it in his mind a million times. He'd screamed and shouted and rained his fists on his father’s chest. He’d torn into limbs and broken down, sobbing; there was nothing more to say. “Don’t ever call me again. If you do…”
He let the threat hang.
His father didn’t reply. Rather, he stood there looking old and tired. Typhoon turned on his heels and marched away before anything else could come of it. Since his father had drunk shifter blood, it would mean he'd be more human for a certain amount of time. He might even be able to pass as human if he made it to the city where he could cling to his humanity by eating a strict vegan diet for a while. He'd eventually revert back to being a vampire, though. He always did, and he always would.
Typhoon had no place for vampires in his life, other than between his jaws. It was his job to protect civilians from vampires, not protect vampires from other vampires. His father had taken care of himself for hundreds of years—he'd be able to take care of himself for a few more hundred years. Typhoon's father wasn't his responsibility.
Don’t let him die.
The plea came back to him as Typhoon swung onto his bike and drove away.
The taste of blood welled in his mouth, the remnants of the memories from that day. When he'd come home after running in the woods to find blood scattered throughout his home. When he'd found his mother lying on the floor, her body broken and blood welling from the holes in her neck, the crust of vampire venom building on her pale skin. And his father, lying there next to her.
Up until then, his father had been the guy who'd shown up every few months, stayed overnight only to disappear in the morning. Typhoon had always enjoyed those visits. It was something new, and he liked the way his mother’s eyes lit up whenever his dad w
as there. He usually brought small gifts with him and plenty of stories.
Then it all changed.
Typhoon had just begun to integrate himself with the Brotherhood. He'd thought if he were part of it, his parents would one day be able to live together without fear. Then he'd come home to find his mother dying, and his father near death. Having been attacked by another vampire and on death’s door, he'd returned to the one person who would always let him in.
And she had.
And he'd lost control.
After his mother had died, Typhoon wanted to kill him. He wanted to tear that vampire apart and leave his body in the street to burn in the sunlight, but his mother’s last words rang in his ears over and over again. Instead, he’d cut his own wrist open and dribbled blood into his father’s mouth until he was strong enough to open his eyes to see what he'd done.
Typhoon's father wept.
He continued to weep until Typhoon kicked him out of the house. Later, he'd returned, trying to get him to go back to wherever he was to live with him, and Typhoon had attacked him. Three years passed before they had any further contact. They'd met in the woods like they had earlier that night.
“Was it you?” he'd asked, staring his father in the eye. “Did you kill her, or was it someone else? Did another vampire do it?”
He wouldn’t have believed his father if he'd said yes, though he would have pretended to. Typhoon had been so young, so alone. He'd wanted anything to give him some semblance of peace again.
But his father hadn’t said yes; he also hadn’t lied.
“No," he'd said. "There was nobody else. It was me, but you have to believe—”
“I don’t have to believe anything,” Typhoon mumbled, just as he had back then.
He'd attacked again. Had nearly killed him. Typhoon had stopped himself just in time. Had spent a week bringing his father back from the brink of death. After that, he told him to leave and never contact him again. His father had broken that rule a handful of times, and each time he did, Typhoon felt that much closer to breaking the promise he'd made to his mother.
Typhoon Page 3