“We shall talk to Mama and Papa, and see what they think we should do about their grandchild,” Dakota said, putting the emphasis on the relationship and watching as Arizona winced. He looked at his other brothers and turned for the door.
“Dak? What are you going to do?” Carolina asked, rubbing at his throat.
Dakota grimaced. “I’m going to try and get to know my mate and my new son so that we can complete the bond before I die of thirst and I’m going to try and protect them. It’s my duty,” he stated. “I’m sorry. I just. I just kinda lost my head.”
Carolina shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure that when I meet Dietrick I’m going to be the same way.”
Washington spoke up then, “Think we can talk your mate into inviting us all over for dinner so that we can meet our mates?”
Dakota laughed. “Well, we can always try.”
Arizona growled and walked over to the corner to pull on a pair of scrubs. Dakota moved out the way. Once Arizona had done so, the sleeves ripping a bit at the seams as they tried to contain the mass that was his arms, Arizona turned and stormed out of the room without another word.
“Huh, do you think it was something we said?” Michigan asked.
Dakota shook his head and led the way out of the conference room, holding his torn clothes in his arms, dumping them in the trash bin before making a quick stop in the on-call room and pulling on his spare pair of shoes. Nodding at his brothers, he walked back towards Isaiah’s room.
His mind swirled with the implications of what he knew about Isaiah and what that meant for his mating with Nimo. Dakota knew his plan of slowly seducing Nimo was going to have to change. Growing up, Dakota and his brothers had been told horror stories about forziqs who had used their abilities to extort money from vampires and werewolves. Families were ripped apart when the forziqs would claim they couldn’t tell which brother or sister a particular mate belonged to. After centuries of fighting and swindling at the hands of those with the particular “triune” gift of “sight, scent, and knowledge”, forziqs who were discovered were slaughtered without prejudice, no matter their age.
Dakota’s parents had told them the stories as a matter of sharing their heritage and history; he’d been able to hear their remorse and guilt. He knew that they would feel completely different when the forziq in question was their grandchild. Besides, from what he could remember it wasn’t a law, just a practice, but even if it were a law, there was a law that trumped them all. The “blood-bonded law.” It stated that any child belonging to the mate of a vampire became blood-bonded to the vampire and the vampire’s family and by extension were considered vampires. Vampires could only be killed by breaking one of the four cardinal rules and being a forziq was not one of them as only humans could be forziqs.
So Dakota had to mate Nimo and he had to do it as soon as possible, which meant he had to reveal the truth about vampires to the skeptical man a lot faster than he had intended. Taking a deep breath, Dakota paused outside of the room where Nimo and Isaiah were. Nimo’s scent filled his lungs and he groaned.
“C’mon, baby bro, I really don’t want to hear you making those noises,” Michigan said.
Dakota turned and glared at his brother before spinning back to the door and knocking on it three times.
“Come in,” Nimo’s voice called from within.
Squaring his shoulders, Dakota stepped into the room. He’d barely taken three steps into the room when Nimo was suddenly standing directly in front of him, his arms folded across his chest, his dark brown eyes narrowed.
“What the h-e-double-hockey sticks is a forziq and why did your brother say my son is one like it was a bad thing?”
CHAPTER THREE
Nimo watched as Dakota’s eyes widened. He turned to look back at his brothers who slowly backed out of the room and closed the door behind them before he gazed at Nimo. He shook his head.
“Mr. Moore, I…”
“You can call me Nishon.”
Dakota paused, his eyebrows lowered in confusion. “What?”
Nimo smirked. “It’s my name. Nishon? Remember? Mr. Moore is my father’s name. I only get called that by my boss and my students call me Professor Moore. You can call me Nishon.”
Dakota smiled and nodded. “Well, all right. Nishon, and you might as well call me Dakota, or Dak.”
“Dak?” Nimo asked.
Dakota blushed and Nimo was instantly charmed as he nodded again. “When I was a kid and we were learning cursive in school, one of my teachers told me that the only thing that was legible when I signed my name were the first three letters and the last three letters looked as if I just got lazy and drew squiggly lines.”
Nimo laughed. “And did you?”
Dakota shrugged. “Maybe.”
Nimo nodded. “I figured. You sound like Zay. He starts off really strong at things and then halfway through he just squiggles through it.”
Dakota grinned. “Squiggling can be fun.”
Nimo shook his head. “Not when you’re trying to accomplish something monumental with your life.” He looked back at Zay who was pretending to not listen to their conversation as he played a game on Nimo’s phone. “Now about this forziq thing?”
Dakota sighed, gesturing to the pair of chairs. “You’re going to want to sit down for this because you’re not going to believe me and when I give you proof I don’t want you to freak out and pass out on me.”
Nimo slowly backed away. “What kind of proof are you going to give me that is going to make me freak out and want to pass out?”
Dakota just gestured to the seats again. “Please, Nishon?”
Nimo looked at the seats and then back at Zay. “And I have your word that no harm will come to Zay?”
Dakota smiled softly at Nimo and Nimo felt his breath catch at the tenderness he saw reflected in the man’s gaze. “Trust me when I tell you this, Nishon, when it comes to me, there are no two people on this Earth more safe than you and Isaiah.”
Nimo was confused by the man’s words but he nodded and walked over to sit in one of the chairs. Dakota joined him and spread his legs wide. Nimo tried hard not to look at the big man’s crotch but his eyes couldn’t seem to be able to do anything but stare down at the other man’s groin and he almost drooled at the outline of the man’s thick cock.
Dear.
God.
Almighty.
How was it possible the man could even walk around sporting something like that? Nimo shook his head and refocused his attention on Dakota’s face. The man took a deep breath and Nimo steeled his nerves for what he was about to say.
“Isaiah’s not wrong when he says that my brothers and I are vampires,” he said.
Nimo’s eyes widened. Of all the things Dakota could have said, that was not what Nimo would have expected to pass his lips. Nimo groaned internally. Of course the gorgeous doctor was mentally unbalanced! Nimo was attracted to him so something serious had to be wrong with him, but didn’t a person have to pass a psychological exam to become a doctor? Thinking of all the serial killers who had medical experience and licenses, Nimo realized that wasn’t true. Great, his gorgeous doctor was a psycho.
“I’m sorry, what?” he asked, scooting to the edge of his chair, prepared to rush to Zay’s bed and protect his son from the gorgeous, but insane, doctor. He froze when Dakota’s hand landed on his knee.
“Please, let me explain.” Dakota sighed. He shook his head. “I’ve never had to explain this to a human before. We are taught from a very early age to never reveal our true selves to humans because humanity has been known to not handle things that they fear historically.”
Nimo would have taken offense to the man’s statement if there wasn’t truth to it, so instead he stammered out a response, it wasn’t as eloquent as he would have liked it, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. “Well, you can imagine how a-a human would react if someone were to tell them that they were a v-vampire”
D
akota chuckled. “Especially with all of the inaccurate depictions you all have of us on television and in movies.”
Nimo’s eyebrows lowered. “Like what? I mean, besides, Twilight?”
“I’ll get into all of that later,” Dakota said. “I’ll start from the beginning. The very first vampires were created during the time of Emmanuel, or who you all inaccurately call Jesus. There were two men who were possessed of many demons who approached Emmanuel and asked what he wanted with them.”
Nimo nodded, he’d heard the story many times growing up. “Yeah, I heard that story growing up in church.”
Dakota inclined his head. “Well, what people get wrong is that Emmanuel was actually a preot, or a priest. When he sent the demons into the swine, it changed the two men and made them into vampires. You see, at that time, everyone who was filled with those demons had been marked by the Great One to be killed for some horrible crime or infraction they’d committed, so when Emmanuel used the considerable power he had as a preot to remove the demons, he left them changed. Those that he healed, he changed as well, by giving them the ability to change into another form, that of a wolf whenever the moon is full.”
Nimo shook his head as he listened to Dakota speak. “Your story sounds nice. It makes for a really nice bedtime story actually, but it’s fantasy. It’s something I would tell Zay before I put him to bed. It’s not real.”
Dakota sighed. “I knew you would say that. Now just… don’t scream, okay? Please, don’t scream.”
“Why would I scream?” Nimo asked and seconds later he covered his mouth against the scream that tried to leave his throat as Dakota opened his mouth and long fangs dropped down. The nails on his hands grew into claws. Dakota’s hair also grew longer, his skin became paler and his eyes turned red. In short, he shifted into a monster right before Nimo’s eyes.
Nimo dropped his hands and pushed back in his chair until he tumbled over the arm of it.
“Nishon?” Dakota’s voice was deeper and raspier than it had been before and Nimo shook his head.
“N-no! No. Don’t say anything. Y-you’re a m-monster! Stay away from me and you stay away from my son!” Nimo said harshly as he rushed over to Zay.
“Daddy?” Zay’s voice sounded shaky and scared and Nimo plastered his back against his son in a protective gesture. He watched in horror as Dakota returned to his former form.
“Nishon, I promise that I would never harm you or Isaiah. You are my mate and he is the son of my mate, which makes him my blood-bonded son,” Dakota explained. Nimo shook his head, trying to keep his eyes on Dakota’s face and off his naked groin.
“F-first of all, put on some clothes, you pervert, my son is in here!” Nimo hissed.
Dakota cursed and snatched up the bag that lay on the floor and grabbed out a pair of jeans which he jerked on quickly. Once Nimo could think again somewhat, though it was still somewhat difficult, what with Dakota’s naked torso still on display, he glared at the other man and pointed at him.
“I don’t know what the eff a mate is or a blood-bonded son is, but we are neither of those things to you!” he declared harshly. “We are nothing to you. We don’t even know you. You are—were—my son’s doctor, but no longer. I won’t tell anyone what you showed me, because they won’t believe me first of all and I don’t want anyone to take Zay away from me for spouting out insanities and also because I don’t want you and your family to come after me, but let me tell you something, Doctor Vampire. You stay the he—h-e-double hockey sticks away from me and my son. Do you understand me? I mean it.”
“Nishon,” Dakota’s voice sounded pleading but Nimo shook his head.
“Don’t you dare say my name,” he said, slashing his hand through the air. “This is not some fucking romance novel where I’m in awe of the fact that you’re a vampire or whatever and so amazed by how attractive you are that I look over the whole thing and I fall into your arms. No. You are a monster and I have a child to think of. You stay away from us. Now, get out of here.”
Dakota looked at Nimo as if his heart were breaking and he nodded, swallowing repeatedly before he leaned down to grab his bag and his ripped clothes then he opened the door and stepped out. Once he was gone, Nimo relaxed and turned to gather Zay into his arms, his body shaking as fear filled his being.
“Daddy? Do you weally think he was going to huwt us?” Zay asked.
“I don’t know,” Nimo responded.
“But if he was going to, don’t you think he would have alweady done it when he had the chance?” Zay reasoned. “He didn’t have to tell us he was a vampiyuh.”
Nimo opened his mouth to negate his son’s words but realized his little boy was right. With nothing to say, Nimo merely shushed Zay and rubbed his back as Dakota’s words rolled through his mind. Why did he say that Nimo was his mate and Zay was his blood-bonded son? What did that even mean? And now that Nimo had sent him away would he actually stay away forever, and why did the thought of him actually doing so feel like a hot poker to Nimo’s heart?
§ § §
The pounding on Dakota’s front door sounded like a jackhammer and he groaned as he rolled over, pulling his pillows over his head in an effort to block out the noise.
“Dak! Open this fucking door you fucking idiot!” His older brother, Utah, yelled. Of course they’d sent Utah. He was the most persistent fucker of all ten of them. He wouldn’t give up until Dakota finally opened the door. When fifteen more minutes passed with Utah banging on the door, Dakota finally tossed back his covers with a loud roar and stomped through his home toward the front door. Ripping open the front door that only appeared wooden but was in fact reinforced steel, he growled up into Utah’s face.
“What. The. Fuck. Do. You. Want?”
Utah smirked. “I brought cinnamon rolls for breakfast and coffee from Starbucks. I thought maybe we’d greet the morning together and then we’d play some Madden. You up for it?”
Dakota’s eyes widened as he stared at his older brother as if he’d taken leave of his senses. Turning his head, he glanced at the clock which read seven o’clock and then looked back at Utah. “You have got to be shitting me. You show up at seven o’clock in the goddamn morning to play Madden?”
Utah smiled and nodded. “Why?” he asked and tilted his head. “Should I be here for some other reason?”
Dakota’s eyes narrowed. “That’s seriously the only reason you’re here?”
Utah’s eyes narrowed in kind. “It’s Saturday, Dak. We always get an early start on Saturdays. I’m actually an hour late. I had these hot triplets in my bed last night and when I got up they were still there.”
Dakota’s eyebrows lifted. “Were they getting it on with each other?” he asked as he stepped back.
“A Sevion never fucks and tells, man.”
Dakota laughed and closed the door behind Utah as he followed his older brother into the living room.
“Dude, you smell like shit. What the fuck is wrong with you?” Utah asked, sniffing Dakota.
Dakota shrugged. “I had a hard night,” he lied. “I’ll go shower and be right out.” He’d walked out of Isaiah’s room, past his brothers, who’d tried to offer him sympathy and advice, climbed in his car and driven home. He’d gotten out of his car and walked directly into his workout room. He’d lifted weights until his limbs were shaking. Then he’d rested for two hours before he’d taken to slamming his fist into the punching bag for a few hours. He’d sweated blood, something he really couldn’t afford to lose and then when he felt weak, he’d dragged himself into his room and pulled off his sweaty and stinky clothes in the middle of the floor and clambered up into his king-sized bed then passed out. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept for so long and apparently this was now the result, his brother on his doorstep, bothering him.
That had been forty-two hours ago. It was a good thing he had the day off from the hospital or else the police would have appeared to check up on him because of a missing person’s report. He knew that
while his brothers would have just shown up at his home and dragged him out into the sunlight, the nurses would have reported him as missing and made the police come out to check on him.
Dakota walked into his bedroom and scrunched his nose at the stench that hit him.
“Holy fuck! Dude, what the hell did you do last night?” Utah asked, stepping into the room behind Dakota. “Roll around in shit and then leave it in your room?”
“Do you mind?” Dakota growled at his brother as he walked to his dresser and pulled out a pair of boxer briefs and a pair of basketball shorts.
Dakota Page 3