He withdrew, and she whimpered from loss. Her widened when she saw that he was still hard. “You didn’t finish.”
“We don’t have a condom.” He grunted as he took himself in one hand. “Don’t want to get you pregnant.”
“But—” You already have once, she thought.
Mia swallowed her protest as Typhoon grunted and pumped himself with one hand. Her mind whirled, so high on her pleasure and the shock from the memory that she didn’t mind his making her do little more than stand and watch while he finished himself off, grunting and tensing as spurts came from him and disappeared down the drain.
When he was done, Typhoon kissed her gently once more. He picked up a bar of soap from where it sat in a rack. “Thank you,” he whispered, “for taking care of my men and me. Let me take care of you, now.” He winked as he turned her around and washed her back. “Like a true sugar daddy does.”
Mia opened her mouth, then closed it again. She was silent as he cleaned her, unable to make her brain settle on anything. She had to tell him, right? But he didn’t want to have a child, that much was clear. Mia throbbed between her legs still, but she closed her eyes and tried not to feel his hand on her body as he cleaned her.
She had three shifters almost dead out there. She had to get out before it was her lying on the table. Or worse, it might be Jasper one day.
Chapter Six
Typhoon
Mia fell asleep shortly after he'd carried her, freshly cleaned, dried, and wearing an extra set of scrubs, to one of the unoccupied rooms and put her to bed. Just before she'd drifted off, she asked sleepily for Jasper, but Typhoon was content to let Roxy and Hurricane take care of the baby. They had experience, having a young one themselves, and Mia needed her sleep after being up all hours of the night.
The clinic bed was a little larger than standard hospital beds, as shifters were naturally a little larger than humans. There wasn’t that much extra room, but Typhoon managed to squeeze in next to her as she slept. He had to admit, there was something nice about holding her in his arms, inhaling her scent, and seeing the way her whole body relaxed in sleep.
He buried his face in her hair and inhaled. The scent of shampoo and soap wasn’t quite enough to overpower her natural scents; she smelled wild and untamed, full of power and vitality. It was her scent that had drawn him to her in the first place. A slight chill ran down his spine, a recognition that he shouldn’t have gone to get her the night before, the way he had.
Typhoon had a system. He could smell when a woman was on birth control, and he never slept with one who wasn’t. He always used a condom, too. Accidental pregnancy was something he couldn’t risk, not with his heritage. As a half-vampire, he knew his own past, and that was that. He’d grown from infancy to full-aged in a year, and he hadn't had the luxury of keeping a child’s mind, either. Sure, there were some things he could only have learned by experience but looking back on his life, he wasn’t immature mentally, even when he had been physically. In fact, in many ways, it felt like he never was a child.
How would it affect a baby to have a half-shifter, half-vampire child?
And yet, he'd gone to Mia, even though he could smell she wasn’t on birth control, and he didn’t have a condom. He’d just craved the forgetfulness that sex would bring, even more than he had earlier in the day, after the phone call with his father. He breathed deeply of her scent, which overpowered the other scents in the clinic, the blood, the antiseptics, and everything else.
He knew that he wouldn't be able to put it off indefinitely. He didn’t sleep as he held her—rather, he merely used her to ground himself. Why her? He wasn’t certain. There was just something calming about being with Mia. Maybe it was due to the fact she refused to put up with his bullshit, and she wasn’t afraid of ordering him around when necessary.
When he heard stirring in the other rooms, Typhoon knew he could put it off no longer. His stomach cramped. Twister was a good member of the Brotherhood. He was in it for the right reasons. But last night? That could not be ignored. And if Typhoon ever forgave such a serious transgression…?
He slipped away from Mia, pausing when she stirred. Fortunately, she settled back down quickly. He didn’t want to involve her in this, not after all the work she'd put into keeping Twister alive.
Typhoon pulled on his shirt—which he hadn’t bothered to put on after the shower he'd shared with Mia—and left the room. He thought about checking on the others, but that would give him one more excuse to delay the inevitable, so he headed straight to the room where Twister had been left to recover. The sound of a heart monitor greeted him when he stepped in, as did Twister's wary, exhausted eyes.
Twister lay awake in the bed, looking as though he had just woken. His expression was especially grim, a haunted look mingled with regret. When his gaze shifted to Typhoon, he flinched. “Did anybody die?” Twister asked. His breath was short, and it was clear he was in a lot of pain.
Typhoon shook his head. “Not this time. We had to call in the human doctors, though. There was too much for Mia to handle. She spent a good five hours on you, alone.”
Twister nodded slightly, looking relieved for a moment before his face darkened. “Are you going to kill me?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Typhoon had gotten a report from the others in Twister’s gang about the events from the previous night. They had been furious—furious, worried, and uncertain. Twister had messed up, big time. Going after a vampire coven in the city without prior permission wasn’t too large a transgression. Getting his men hurt made it worse, but it was their job to root out vampires.
No, it was the events taking place at the coven that made this so bad.
“I haven’t decided yet.” Typhoon shook his head as he brought a chair to sit beside Twister; it was what he hated most about being alpha. “I told you that when you’re alpha, you have to make hard choices, but I'll give you a chance to tell your side of what happened.”
Twister nodded slowly. He turned his gaze to the ceiling and stared at it for a long time. Eventually, he swallowed. “There were children.”
“And?”
“I thought that if I were able to take out the vampires, you’d have no choice but to admit I have more potential than you’ve realized. I gathered my men, and we set out, but when we got there…there were children, and a vampire threw himself onto his knees and begged us not to hurt them.” Twister’s expression darkened. “Like an idiot, I called for my men to stand down and tried to negotiate, but it was a trap. The vampires came out of nowhere, and we were surrounded. I don’t even know what happened to the kids.”
Typhoon put a hand on his shoulder, awkwardly trying to comfort him. “They got out. They were being held as prisoners.”
Twister shook his head, self-disgust masking his features. “I was an idiot, and I nearly got my people killed over…I just thought that maybe these vampires weren’t so bad. Maybe they were more like Queen Guinevere, but I was wrong.”
“Luckily for you, you were the one who was closest to being killed.”
Twister turned to face him again, frowning. “I know Luke and Hans were both bitten.”
“We got vamp blood into them in time. They ought to be waking up soon.” Typhoon cocked his head as he studied the other shifter. He saw regret in Twister's face, but also, bravery—he wasn’t about to flinch, whatever Typhoon proclaimed his punishment to be.
“You broke trust, Twister. You put your men’s lives in danger for the sake of a vampire. Regardless of what I decide, do you really think they’ll continue to follow you after this?”
A flash of anger broke on Twister’s face. He made to sit, but his injuries hadn't healed enough for him to do much more than whimper and fall back against the pillows. His face turned a sickly shade of green, and he screwed his eyes tightly shut.
“I didn’t do anything for the sake of a vampire,” he spat. “I was thinking of the children. I thought they might have been the vampire’s kids; they didn�
��t deserve to see their father die if that were the case! And the vampire…I didn’t know he was holding them prisoner. If he'd genuinely been taking care of them, protecting them—”
“It’s not your call to make when it comes to vampires.”
Twister opened his eyes again, still looking furious. What, exactly, he was furious about, Typhoon wasn’t sure. “But it’s our call to be executioners, to decide they don’t deserve mercy, no matter who we face.”
“You’re having a crisis.”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t? That I shouldn’t wonder if all this killing is really necessary every single damn time? Are you telling me you've never once, in your long years as Alpha of the Brotherhood, looked into the eyes of a vampire and wondered if they were actually evil?”
Typhoon’s mind flashed to his father. His sad, dark eyes, so much like Typhoon’s own. They looked like each other, that much was clear. His father’s features seemed hardened on Typhoon. His father's stature was slimmer and shorter than his son’s, but that didn’t change the fact that it wouldn’t take much for people to realize they were related.
“Of course, I have,” Typhoon replied softly, a flash of regret passing through him. “And I had to learn a painful lesson about vampires, too. They aren’t evil. No more than humans or shifters are evil.”
Twister’s eyes widened.
“But that doesn’t matter.”
“How can it not—”
“They're too dangerous. They can’t be trusted. Even those who want to do good, like Guinevere. We can’t know for certain what they really want, and even if we did, how well can they control themselves? Do you think every vampire-caused death was on purpose?”
Twister sank back into his bed, looking exhausted. “There has to be another way, something that doesn’t keep killing people, something that doesn’t put our own people in danger.”
It was comments like that that helped Typhoon decide Twister wasn't suited to be an alpha, though he never thought he'd go out and nearly get himself killed, proving him right.
“I didn’t expect you to be soft on the vampires. Especially not with what happened to your parents.”
Twister flinched. “My parents wouldn’t want their deaths to be used as the basis of reckless hate. And it’s not like I'm giving out love balloons to vampires, besides. In this particular case, I just thought I saw a different way, and I don’t want to see any more good men die when there might be another way! What's so wrong with that?”
“Nothing, unless you're putting more good men in danger of dying because of it; which you did.”
Typhoon viewed him for a long time. It was true that in the last few years he’d been a little softer on certain actions than he should've been. That whole mess with Thunder and his little kitty-mate had started it. But she’d been pregnant and his mate. It was something that was understandable to the majority of the Brotherhood.
This, though? This wasn’t something anybody could understand. There was the chance the members of the Brotherhood would go after Twister for what he did. His men had been confused and betrayed by his actions, and they hovered between throwing him under the bus and sticking up for him. It wasn’t a position they—or the rest of the gang, for that matter—should be caught up in.
“It’s too bad that you were such an idiot. The Brotherhood could use more people in it that joined for the reasons you did.” Typhoon shook his head as he stood. “It’d be a shame to waste so much of Mia’s work by killing you, so, no, I won’t be killing you. Not today, at least. But you’re too soft for this.”
Twister stared at him, alarm seeping into his eyes.
“I can’t have a leader out there that I can’t trust. Not to mention that your men can’t trust you anymore. So you'll be stripped of your position.”
“I can prove myself again.”
Typhoon viewed him with pity. He knew what was coming; it shone clearly from his eyes. The pleading in his gaze was more than enough to prove Twister knew that losing his position was the least of his punishment.
“You will also be ousted from the Brotherhood. We don’t have a place for someone who puts his brothers at risk, not on any level. I will put out the word that you are off limits, so you don’t have to worry about anybody coming after you, but you are no longer welcome in any safe house, at meetings, or anyplace the Brotherhood gathers. If you breach these rules, only you can be held responsible for what happens to you afterward.”
Twister gasped. “You can’t.” He struggled with the wires stuck to his body and his own weakness. “You can’t throw me out. I can prove myself again. I learned my lesson. I—”
“No, you didn’t.” Typhoon shook his head. Even though he wished that there was another way, it was the best thing for the Brotherhood, which was his main concern. He liked Twister and was sad to see him go, but in the end, he'd brought it on himself. “If you'd learned your lesson, you wouldn’t be arguing about there being other ways. You’d understand this is it.”
Twister shook his head. “Please. Without the Brotherhood, I don’t have anything. I’ve given my whole life to—”
“You should have thought about that before you betrayed us.”
Twister froze, then crumpled. He turned his face away and closed his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath, and his muscles slowly relaxed. Twister didn’t speak again. He didn’t look at Typhoon, but he nodded tersely.
Typhoon opened his mouth, wanting to tell him that if he worked hard enough, he might one day prove himself worthy to return to the Brotherhood, but that would be a lot of hard work, and it would, more than likely, end up with him dead.
There weren’t many people who, once ousted from the Brotherhood, ever found a way back in. There were a few, like Hurricane and Blizzard, who managed to stay at the fringes, helping out from time to time. They were almost a part of it, but they could never be true members again. Best not put ideas in Twister’s head that might end up with him being killed.
“I’ll go wake your sister so she can take you home.”
Twister’s eyes widened. “Roxy’s here?”
“She gave you blood.” Typhoon paused a moment, then shook his head. “You were an idiot, Twister, a real idiot.”
He stalked from the room and went to wake Roxy and Hurricane. The baby was sound asleep in his car seat, and there was the faint odor of a dirty diaper. At first, Typhoon was afraid it was still attached to the baby, but then he spied the diaper in the trash. As Roxy and Hurricane collected Twister—promising to get him his own personal nurse for him while recovering—Typhoon carried the car seat to Mia’s room.
The baby squirmed a little before settling down again. Mia breathed peacefully, a small smiled on her face. Whatever she must be dreaming was better than the reality that would face her when she woke.
Typhoon looked between them for a long moment, but as Jasper’s eyes began to flutter, he quickly made his exit. The desire to talk to his own father had hit him hard and unexpectedly. Their brief talk the previous night played over in his head.
Vampires were evil; not the person, perhaps, but the being. They couldn’t control their bloodlust.
Twister’s words kept ringing through his mind, and Typhoon couldn’t help but wonder as he pulled out his phone…
Was there another way?
Chapter Seven
Mia
Roxy stopped into the room to tell her they were leaving. Mia protested because Andy shouldn’t be traveling yet, but Roxy told her Typhoon had told them to leave, and they would leave before he did anything that made her honor-bound to kill him. After checking him over one last time, Mia reluctantly agreed that Andy was stable enough to travel so long as they used an ambulance. She checked in on the two who had been bitten and found them awake. By then, Jasper had let her know that he was awake and ready to start the day.
Mia carried Jasper in one arm, letting him nurse while she did a quick examination of the two shifters who had been bitten.
“How are you
feeling?” she asked. She checked each of their heart rates.
The one on the left, Stephen, grunted. “Well enough, considering I got bitten by one of those fucking vampires. What was Twister even thinking?”
Mia shook her head. She didn’t know the details of what had happened, and she didn’t want to know, either. “That isn’t any of my business. My business is to keep you lot alive.”
Stephen grumbled while she finished the examination. As was her experience since Guinevere had revealed the trick to feed bitten shifters vampire blood, they appeared to be in perfect health.
“I think the two of you are free to leave. You’re not showing any danger signs. I’ll call someone to come pick you up.”
Stephen nodded tersely at her. Mia exited the room, plucked Jasper from her breast, and held him to her shoulder. She covered herself and patted his back. He fussed and squirmed until a large burp came out before settling back down. Mia brought him to her other breast, already looking forward to sitting while she made the call.
She reached the waiting room, and the distinctive scent of cigarette smoke wafted in through the window. Mia growled and marched for the door. How many times did she have to tell these idiots that there was no smoking on her premises? She charged outside, ready to start yelling, but was brought up short when a soft voice reached her ears.
“I don’t know if I can.”
The voice turned harsh. “You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I know that you wish things had been different?” She was shocked when she realized the voice belonged to Typhoon. His tone dropped again, going back to that same soft, pleading, vulnerable tone. The same tone he'd used the previous night, she realized. “It’s not that simple. It happened. Regardless of what either of us wants, it happened. I can’t just stop hating you because…because I want to. I don’t want to, anyway. I don’t want to forgive you.”
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