Nimo sighed and shook his head. He should have known it had something to do with vampires.
“Well that’s certainly interesting,” a voice, deep as a bass guitar, smooth as silk, and sexy as sin said from the doorway and Nimo felt a shiver work its way over his entire body. He knew that voice. Had been bathing in its audio for over an hour and replaying it in his mind as he waited for his son to awaken for the last half hour. It was the sexy Dr. Dakota Sevion. The most gorgeous man to walk the face of the Earth. Ever. In history. And Nimo should know, he taught mythology.
Taking a deep breath, Nimo turned with a smile for the doctor and felt all the breath rush out of his chest. He’d been expecting the doctor to be in his “doctor” clothes, as he’d been before: scrubs, and a white coat, all of which clung to his large, muscled frame. Instead, Dr. Dakota Sevion— or “Doctor Do-Me” as Nimo thought of him — was wearing a pair of jeans, Doc Martens, a royal blue polo shirt that looked as if it were about to burst at the seams around his muscles, with the wisps of his chest hair peeking up from between the opening of the shirt, a leather jacket was hooked over his finger, and held over shoulder. He was leaning against the doorway of Zay’s room and in that moment Nimo found himself wishing, if only for a moment, that Zay was either not there, or still asleep, so he could climb the good doctor like a monkey.
Solid parenting there, Nimo.
“H-hu-hello, Doctor Sevion,” Nimo said.
“Hello, Mister Moore,” Doctor Sevion said with an answering grin in his direction.
“Daddy,” Zay whispered.
Nimo turned to look at Zay and noticed his wide-eyed gaze as he stared at Dr. Sevion and realized that his son had never seen anyone quite so big before. Nimo was surrounded by professors. Nerds, geeks, and dweebs of the highest caliber. All of his friends that were in constant contact with Zay were either academics at the university, computer programmers, scientists, or researchers. They did have one fashion designer and one chef in their little group, but they were exceptions, not the rule. Zay was probably frightened, because besides on television and in movies, he’d never really seen a real-life… well, superhero.
Nimo leaned down and whispered, “He’s not really Superman or Thor or Hulk or any of the other superheroes, baby.” Nimo turned to glare at the doctor when he heard the choked laughter from the doorway and realized he must not have been as quiet as he thought.
Zay shook his head. “I know that, Daddy. He’s a vampiyuh.”
Nimo turned to glance at the doctor and noticed that he’d grown extremely still. He turned to look back at Zay and shook his head. “No, honey. We talked about this. First of all, I told you that vampires aren’t real and then I said if they were, how would you be able to tell that they were?”
Zay’s eyebrows lowered and then cleared. He lifted his hands and began counting them off. “They can’t walk in the sunlight. They are vewy skinny. They are vewy pale. They have weally long hayuh like that actuh you like in that movie.”
“Brad Pitt?” Doctor Sevion asked.
Nimo scrunched his nose in distaste and shook his head. “No. Too blond. Antonio Banderas. I like my men with some color.” He immediately looked away from Doctor Sevion when the man grinned and quirked an eyebrow. He gazed back at Zay. “And what else, honey?”
“They have shawp fangs,” Zay continued counting. “They tuwn into bats. They sleep in coffins and live in Wo-Wo—”
“Romania,” Nimo supplied.
Zay nodded. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome, baby,” Nimo said with a smile. “So see? Doctor Sevion doesn’t meet any of the criteria, so he can’t be a vampire.”
“But he is, Daddy! He is!” Zay protested.
“Why do you think I’m a vampire?” Doctor Sevion asked with a friendly smile.
“Because I can see it!” Zay said with a defiant lift of his chin. “I see vampires. You awe one and so awe the thwee men standing behind you.”
Nimo examined and noticed three equally large men, who all looked just like Dr. Dakota Sevion, standing directly behind him, all contemplating Zay with expressions of shock on their faces. Nimo wanted to laugh it all off and tell them that his son just had a wild imagination but then one of them, taller and bigger than even Dr. Dakota, and who appeared as if he ate rabbits for breakfast just for the hell of it, stepped forward and crossed his arms.
“So what the fuck are we going to do about this?”
CHAPTER TWO
Nimo watched Dakota’s eyes narrow at the other man as he stepped in front of him and turned as if he were protecting Nimo and Zay from him. It was very weird and Nimo would have felt very touched if he weren’t so damn confused.
Dakota was easily six foot six inches tall, having at least three inches over Nimo’s own six foot three. He was all broad shoulders, muscles packed on top of muscles and looked as if he belonged on a football field, playing with the New Orleans Saints instead of working as the Chief of Surgery for Loweston, Mississippi. He had long, black hair that had been pulled into a ponytail when he’d been in his white lab coat but now hung free and rested on his shoulders. His skin was lightly bronzed and though Nimo would never tell his son, for fear that it would only encourage Zay’s ramblings, Nimo had initially thought perhaps the gorgeous doctor was Romanian, or at least had some Romanian ancestry. His eyes were a brilliant hazel color and though they were currently turned away from Nimo, he could distinctly remember the way they’d looked when they’d been trained on his face, as if they’d been trying to devour him. Not in a scary, Jeffrey Dahmer way, but in a seductive, Bill Compton from True Blood with Sookie way.
Nimo’s eyes slid closed. Now Zay had him thinking about vampires. At least he wasn’t thinking about the sparkling skin ones. Nimo snorted a laugh which he abruptly cut off when all of the men looked at him and shifted to protect Zay.
“What is it exactly you have to do something about? My son has a very active imagination? He always has, but all kids do. By the time he gets a little older he’ll grow out of it. Besides no one really believes him about being able to see vampires anyway,” Nimo pointed out. He turned when he felt Zay pulling on his shirt. “What, Zay?”
“That’s not twue, Daddy.”
“What’s not true?”
“Miss Nowma believes me.”
Nimo’s eyebrows lowered. “Your teacher?” he asked and noticed that Dakota had moved around the bed and now stood on the side next to him, still in an almost protective gesture, while the other three men, hovered slightly in the doorway, watching them curiously. “What do you mean she believes you?”
Zay sighed. “I told you this befo’!”
Nimo winced. He was sure that Zay probably had told him the story before, no doubt while Nimo had been grading papers, or cooking, or doing laundry, or any of the other thousands of things he had to do on a daily basis as a single father. He had probably nodded and said all those things that a single parent said when they were only listening with a half ear but not really paying attention. It wasn’t that he wasn’t really listening, he was; he was just listening for the “red flag” words: touch, private parts, penis, butt, kiss, hurt, cry, secret, no, stranger, dark, vagina, breasts, clothes, naked, things like that. And Zay hadn’t said any of them so his brain hadn’t sounded the alarm and he hadn’t fully engaged in the conversation.
“I know, baby, but tell me again,” Nimo soothed him, stroking his arm.
Zay smiled. “Okay, Daddy.” He grabbed Nimo’s head, he liked to hold Nimo’s head on his chest when he was going to tell him a long story and knowing that Zay was going to tell him what he deemed a “long” story, Nimo settled down on the bed and laid his head on the bed, laying his hand on his son’s chest.
“The fuwst day you took me to my new school I saw Miss Nowma I saw that she was special. She is a wolf. Like a big wolf. Not like huh husband. He’s a wolf too, but he’s a smalluh wolf than she is. She says she’s an Alpha wolf and huh husband is an omega. Whatevuh that is.
Well, one time, Tewwy’s pawents came to pick him up and I saw that they wuh vamiyuhs. Tewwy isn’t a vampiyuh yet though. He said it’s because he isn’t matuwe.” He stopped and tapped Nimo’s head. “What’s matuwe, Daddy?”
“An adult, Zay,” Nimo answered, baffled over the fact that his son’s teacher would encourage his fanciful and ridiculous imagination. He was all for his three year-old child having a great childhood and imagination, but shouldn’t his daycare teacher put a limitation on how far that imagination went? He’d have to have a talk with Miss Norma the next time he took Zay to daycare.
“Yeah. Well Tewwy isn’t that, yet. But he said today that he got to watch his mom and dad and his olduh sistuh bite some people and tuwn them into zombies the othuh day instead of just biting them to drink their blood, so he was biting the othuh kids at school and tuwing them into zombies and I said no and wan away and hit the desk with my head and woke up heah.” Zay inhaled deeply and sighed, before pushing at Nimo’s head. “Okay, Daddy. Stowy ovuh.”
Nimo nodded and lifted his head. “Okay, so Mrs. Norma and her husband are both wolves and Terry, his mother, father and older sister are all vampires who turned some people into zombies instead of just drinking their blood and Terry was play-biting the other kids at daycare today and that’s why you ran because you didn’t want to be a zombie? Did I get it all right?”
Zay nodded and smiled before he narrowed his eyes, looking at the doctor and the other men. He pointed at them. “Daddy, they awe vampiyuhs, but they don’t smell bad like Tewwy’s pawents.”
One of the men, who looked the most like Dakota stepped fully into the room and stopped at the end of the bed causing Zay to climb up into Nimo’s lap. The man held up his hands in a sign of surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you, little man. I promise you. Me and my brothers here, we’re all doctors here at the hospital and we like little kids. We all want to have a bunch of kids one day. Even Arizona here,” he said, gesturing at the really big, really mean looking man who still stood in the doorway with his massive arms folded across his chest, “wants to have a bunch of kids.”
“Weally?” Zay asked, raising his eyebrows. “But you awe vampiyuhs.”
“Zay, I told you that they’re not—“
“Daddy! They awe!” Zay whined.
Dakota chuckled and held up a hand to Zay and looked at Nimo. “Let’s just say that we are, okay?” he said with a shrug.
Nimo sighed and shrugged. “Okay, fine,” he agreed reluctantly. Zay was in a hospital and Nimo could humor him. He wasn’t going to be one of those parents who tried to stifle their child’s creativity, fun and imagination. He’d grown up with those kind of parents. It was a miracle that he’d turned out only a little screwed up, having Abraham and Georgia-Anne Moore as parents. “You guys are vampires.” He got comfortable on the bed, Zay, sitting on his lap, his little head, resting back against Nimo’s sternum as he looked at the big men in the room.
The other man, who had been speaking earlier, smiled at Nimo and looked back at Zay. “So, we all want kids, so because of that we aren’t going to hurt you now are we?” he asked.
Zay shook his head and Nimo smiled. This guy was good and above Zay’s head Nimo held up the thumbs-up sign. The man nodded.
“Now, you said that we smelled differently than Terry’s parents, can you tell me how?” he asked.
Zay nodded. “They smelled wotten. Like when Daddy fowgot about Uncle Lucas’s lasagna in the oven that one time and it went bad.”
Nimo wrinkled his nose as he remembered coming home after taking Zay on a road trip for a month. Lucas had made lasagna for them to eat before they’d left with strict orders to eat some and freeze the rest. Nimo and Zay had eaten some and then spent the rest of the night packing. When Zay had gone to bed, Nimo had stayed up indulging in his favorite pastime, watching Antonio Banderas movies. He’d completely forgotten about the lasagna in the oven and when he and Zay had returned from driving around the country a month later, they’d walked in the door of their home to the most noxious odor. It was the first time Nimo had regretted living so far out in the country. If they’d lived a little closer to a neighbor one of them would have come over to check on the smell or called the police thinking that there was a dead body rotting within, because that was what it had smelled like. Instead, it was a moldy lasagna that had grown so disgusting and foul that Nimo was still renovating his kitchen.
Dakota laughed. “Was it really that bad?” he asked.
“It smelled like a dead body,” Nimo told him.
Nimo noticed the look that passed between Dakota and his brothers and wondered about it. They seemed concerned and Arizona appeared livid.
“And what do we smell like?” Dakota asked. Zay shrugged. “C’mon you can tell us.”
Zay pointed at Dakota. “You kinda smell like my daddy.” Then he pointed at Arizona. “You smell like my stuffed animals.” He pointed at the other man who had been talking. “You smell like my uncle Lucas.” He pointed at one of the other men standing in the doorway. “You smell like my other uncle Dietrick.” Then he pointed at the last man. “And you smell like my uncle Tracy, but he looks like a girl sometimes.”
Dakota’s eyes widened and before Nimo knew what was happening, he was ushering his brothers out of the room. “We’ll be right back, Mr. Moore.”
“Umm, okay,” Nimo said, completely confused. He was about to ask what was going on but then he heard something that sent his brain reeling.
“The kid doesn’t just see vampires, he smells rogues and can smell mated pairs? Dak, he’s a forziq!”
What the hell was a forziq?
§ § §
Dakota followed Carolina, Arizona, Michigan and Washington into the conference room and slammed the door. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a loud growl.
“Whoa, baby bro, you’re starting to sound like one of the dogs,” Michigan said, sitting in one of the chairs at the table and propping his feet up on the table. He seemed completely unfazed to know the name of his mate.
“Why aren’t you more affected by this?” Dakota asked.
Michigan smiled. “Are you kidding me? I just found out that my mate’s name is Lucas and that he cooks. I’m in fucking heaven.”
Carolina chuckled. “I have to admit, knowing that my mate’s name is Dietrick does take a bit of the pressure off of me. And knowing that he’s a brother of your mate means that I know that he’ll be as attractive as your gorgeous Nimo.”
Before Dakota knew what he was doing he had Carolina slammed against the wall, his fangs bared and his arm pressed against his brother’s windpipe. Arizona grabbed the back of his throat and yanked him away from Carolina, tossing him effortlessly across the room.
“Do you see? This is what I was afraid of,” Arizona growled. “Forziqs were always killed in the old country because their appearance caused unrest, destruction and fighting. I know he is your mate’s son and therefore your son, Dak, but he must be disposed of.”
Dakota hissed and extended his claws. Pointing one finger at his brother, he allowed his second nature to flow over him. It was something they were forbidden from doing in front of humans, their vampiric nature so frightening that humans often passed out when they saw it, but Dakota was so enraged he didn’t care if a stupid human should happen to walk in. His skin stretched across his larger frame and turned pale white, his fangs grew longer, and his claws lengthened.
“If you get close to my child I will gut you where you stand. I care not for our bond as brothers,” Dakota warned his brother.
Arizona gasped as did Dakota’s other brothers, Dakota was aware of his eldest brother’s shift slowly coming over him and while that would have once caused fear to overtake him, this time it did nothing but anger him all the more. The Sevion brothers were all extremely close, their parents had raised them with the belief that there was nothing stronger and more important than the bond between family, but Dakota knew the bond between him, his mate and their son trumped
all of that. He didn’t care if Isaiah was a forziq, he would protect the little boy with everything he had in him.
“Do you know what you are saying to me, Dakota?” Arizona asked him.
“Do you know what you threatened me with, Arizona?” Dakota retorted, stepping closer as his brother shifted.
“Hey, guys. Shift back and calm down. Let’s try to find a solution to this, okay?” Washington, ever the negotiator, said. Dakota cut his eyes at his brother and shook his head.
“Isaiah is a child. An innocent. This is not the old country. This is America. Mississippi. It is not Romania!” Dakota practically shouted. “You will not harm my family.”
“They are not your family yet,” Arizona reminded him.
Dakota shook his head and returned to his original form, the tattered remains of his clothes at his feet, as he looked at his brother sadly. “You have not begun the bond with your mate yet, Arizona, so you don’t understand, but they are. Already the bond forms between the three of us and it is strong, surely you can see that?” He turned away from his brother and walked to the chest in the corner and pulled out a pair of scrubs that they always kept in the corner for moments like this. Quickly pulling them on, he turned back and stared at Arizona who looked at him in confusion.
Dakota Page 2