by Mandy Rosko
Cedric would have stopped speaking and let him get his sleep, but then Silus spoke. “Most know better. Others are still cautious. It’s how they have survived my father’s house for as long as they have. Give them time.”
It was the most sound advice Cedric had been given, and though he was still feeling a little squished with all the people constantly around him, being alone with his lover, everything around him silent and warm, he felt better already.
He nearly drifted off before a desperate banging at their door startled him, and Silus, awake.
Silus grabbed for the clock on the nightstand, squinted at the red block numbers, and then cursed and pulled the blanket over his head.
Cedric thought he heard him muttering something about a lack of respect for sleep but said nothing as he slipped out from under his warm haven during the next set of banging on the door.
“Coming,” he called on a sigh. He wasn’t expecting to see Joey’s face or for the guy to look so panicked.
This wasn’t still about the frickin’ window was it? Cedric wouldn’t have thought Joey would be so afraid of Cedric that he would look so scared.
No, Joey did know Cedric better than that. This strange, excited fear was coming from something else. “What is it?” Cedric asked.
Joey swallowed hard. “Damon sent me to inform you that there are guests waiting for you on the lawn.”
Ben and Seth? They were early. “Great, I’ll go down and—”
“No, sir.” Joey held up his hands, stopping him without touching him. “Not your usual guests.”
Silus must have heard that because he flipped the blankets off his head and sat up, dark eyes sharp and wide awake as he stared at the young omega. “Who has come?”
The worry in his words had Cedric’s caution meter go up, and he waited with a sinking stomach to hear who could be on the property asking to see them.
No door-to-door salesman would have Joey this worried. The weres outside having their game would have told the guy to get lost had that been the case.
“Well? Come on, out with it,” Silus said, one of the few times Cedric had ever heard him speak in such a way.
Joey straightened and cleared his throat. “We don’t know who they are, sir. The female is definitely a vampire, but no one recognizes her. We don’t think she’s connected with your...your former house.”
“A vampire waits for us outside?”
Joey nodded. “She specifically used your name. Both of your names.”
Cedric’s stomach dropped. They’d been found. Someone connected to the Veturious family had tracked them down, and now they were caught. After more than a year of living peacefully on the lake, Cedric had dropped his guard and had allowed himself to think it would never happen.
Now it finally had.
Holy shit.
That seemed to be Silus’s reaction, too, considering how silent he’d gone.
“Wait,” Cedric said, his brain working for him again. “You said vampire. Why is she up and risking to come here in the middle of the day? Who is the other person with her?”
Joey ducked his head a little, as though it shamed him to have not gotten to that part already. “A male, sir. We don’t recognize him either. He says he’s a sun sprite and claims to be related to you.”
Chapter Two
Silus was not the sort of vampire to travel out of doors during the daylight hours, even once he could handle such things. Having a sun sprite for a lover, and drinking his blood on occasion, allowed him to withstand most sunlight by a vampire’s standards.
To be sure, his skin would no longer blister or catch fire under the sun’s rays, but that hardly meant he enjoyed venturing outside if he could help it. His skin still became red quite easily unless he wore a good deal of sunblock and applied much of it, and often, kept the rest of his skin safe by wearing the sort of clothing that could hide him from the burning heat.
Still, being mated with a sun sprite as he was, there was the occasional time when he would venture out of doors, either by necessity, as he had done six months ago to help rescue his kidnapped lover, or curiosity.
Regardless, his internal clock never seemed to adjust the way he would have liked, and he always found himself seeking his dark and quiet bedchamber while daylight shone outside.
The fact that a vampire was sitting across from him at the breakfast table, slightly red in the face, with a sun sprite at her side, who did indeed have the sort of look a relative of Cedric might carry, could only mean that the two surprise guests were mated to each other.
It also meant that Silus and Cedric were not the only ones. “How did you come to locate us?” Silus asked, waving away the girl attempting to top up his cup of coffee. Not that he much needed it, or anyone else at the table for that matter. No one had taken more than a polite sip from their mugs before forgetting their drinks entirely.
The sun sprite, Cecil, was the one to answer. He was a tall, wellmuscled male, of similar build to Cedric, though his golden hair was longer. It would have reached his shoulders had he not tied it back with a strip of leather. He was dressed as though Silus were performing some sort of interview for working labor.
Though he and Cedric were similar in appearance, Cecil was noticeably older. Sun sprites always aged well, however. He looked to be in his late thirties. Silus would guess his true age to be around forty-five or fifty.
He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, briefly glancing at the woman at his side. “It wasn’t that hard, really. Everyone who wasn’t at the...uh, the attack on your house.” He looked to Silus sheepishly, as though apologizing for his lack of tact.
Silus nodded and urged him on. “Yes, I imagine word of that would have spread quickly to those not involved in the battle. What of it?”
Should Silus be worried that his lover had remained silent almost the entire time they were at the table? Cedric hardly did more than stare at the two people across from him, his palms wrapped tightly around his mug of coffee.
“Well, it took a little while for the news to reach us. We live just outside of Niagara Falls across the border and don’t really get social with any of the local clans in that area. Y’know, just in case.”
Just in case, indeed. Just in case someone from the local clan of sun sprites was to discover that a sprite living near them was fornicating with a vampire, or the other way around. A war between clans might not necessarily break out over such a thing if neither of these two were from those local clans, but it would still be inviting trouble.
“When I heard of it, though, my first thought was to agree with the rumor. There was no way you two could be alive, but then, a couple of months ago, there were people muttering about how the Veturious house was attacked again. The werewolf guards abandoned their posts, and a teleporter came in and stole some property.”
Cecil pointedly looked at Cedric during this part of the story, obviously thinking him to be the teleporter.
Cedric blinked and then shifted, aware now that the attention was on him. “That wasn’t me. I mean, I was there, and so was Silus, but the teleporter was a friend of mine, Ben. He’s a human and a true teleporter. He can go from place to place without being in direct sunlight.”
Cecil nodded, accepting the explanation as truth.“That Lord Silus was there would explain the behavior of the guards, and the fact that they’re all, well, here.”
Cecil looked up at Damon, the current leading alpha of the pack that Silus now controlled, and Jackson, the former leading alpha.
Both men were formidable sights, and they nearly ripped the cotton of their plain T-shirts as they crossed their muscled arms over equally large chests. When Silus had asked for privacy, both men had, as politely as they could, declined their Lord’s request and had asked for permission to stand guard.
Jackson and Damon were not like some of the more skittish omega weres who looked upon Cedric with suspicion and fright. They trusted that Cedric would not use his natural abilities to harm their mas
ter and had made Cedric their master as well.
It was obvious they held no such regard for this new sun sprite, or his female vampire companion, who had yet to speak more than a quiet greeting to both of her hosts. She was small, with straight blueblack hair and almond eyes. She seemed most content to simply allow the sprite beside her to speak, and Silus wondered, with a touch of suspicion of his own, what the true story behind the pair was.
“There’s nothing disloyal about them, if that’s what you’re saying,” Cedric said, coming to the defense of the werewolves. He spoke with more conviction in his voice than Silus had ever heard in regard to their new staff. “They had a good reason to leave the Veturious house, and they did it without breaking whatever code of honor they work with. Silus is the Veturious heir. They were perfectly within their rights to leave and come here.”
Cecil raised his palms as a gesture and a plea for peace. “I wasn’t suggesting that, and if you got that impression, I’m very sorry. I was just trying to explain how we found you. All those incidents, coupled with the fact that someone had enough money to build a new house, and has apparently contracted another.” He looked at Silus when he said this. “And then when Varinia came to look things over one night and smelled all the werewolves here, we were convinced it was you and decided to introduce ourselves.”
Silus was barely listening at this point in the conversation. That thisthisCecil person had been looking through Silus’s financial records, and that Silus himself had been foolish enough to not have more patience before buying more land and contracting another house.
Angered was hardly a decent word to describe it. He was angry with the lack of respect for privacy that these two had shown, and he was angry with himself for not realizing how easily his actions could have given away not only his and Cedric’s secret—that they were alive, for one thing—but also their location to the people who had once tried to kill them.
Damon and Jackson were apparently thinking along a similar path, as their bodies became tight, muscles tensing and ready to defend their masters.
Cedric had gone pale in the face. “Jesus, if someone else put it together like you did—”
“I don’t think they did,” Cecil said quickly, “I mean, we’re not exactly trackers. Well, I guess Varinia kind of is, but we never caught a trace of anyone else other than werewolves on or around the property.”
Damon growled. Silus sent him a sharp look to silence him. Whether the alpha’s pride was hurt over his pack having missed someone snooping around and spying on them was not the issue. What was done was done. Now all Silus wanted to do was deal with it to ensure his and Cedric’s safety.
For the first time, he dearly wished the sun would lower so that Benjamin could come over here and help assess the situation. The man was not only Cedric’s good friend but also a former bodyguard. He was trained to handle situations such as these diplomatically.
Unfortunately, sundown was not for another ten hours, and he would not leave his lover, Seth, a vampire, behind if he could help it.
Seth could not handle the sunlight the way Silus could. If Ben attempted to teleport them over such a large distance, and missed his target, the inside of the house, while he was teleporting with his lover, Seth would be consumed by the fires of the sun.
“What do you want from us?” Cedric asked.
Silus was eager to hear this as well.
For the first time, Cecil’s face became red as he blushed. It was not a deep blush usually associated with humiliation but more of a hesitant little thing.
Regardless, Silus noticed it, and he smelled it. It was a reminder that he hadn’t fed in nearly four days, and he would be unable to feed from Cedric. A man’s body needed time to reproduce blood after a feeding, after all, and Silus was doing his best to take no more than little sips from his lover when he absolutely needed to. The rest would have to come from hunting the small animals that populated the surrounding woods, and Silus hadn’t realized how badly he needed to hunt until just now.
Perhaps he could coerce Cedric into—
“My apologies, but could you repeat that?” Silus asked, realizing he was being stared at.
Cecil blinked at him then seemed to understand. “I’ve lived with a vampire long enough to tell when they’re hungry,” he said, smiling and trying to be polite about it. “Maybe we’ll come back after you’ve fed, and we’ll finish our conversation? Varinia needs to feed by now anyway.”
“Do you have anywhere to stay?” Cedric asked, standing as their guests did.
It was abominably rude how long it took Silus to get to his feet. Damon stepped forth, as though to offer him some aid. Silus glared at the man until he went back to his post.
“We rented a room in town,” Cecil said. “We’ve been careful, and after so long away I don’t think anyone in our family would recognize me if they saw me. Varinia’s a bit different, though, since she doesn’t really age, but we’ve still been careful.”
Silus glanced at Cedric. Just from looking at his lover, Silus could tell he wanted to offer the man and his mate a room which they could stay in, curiosity taking its severe grip on him over his new relatives.
The fact that no rooms were available to be had at the moment, with their already full house and all, was likely the only thing that kept Cedric from offering.
“Are you and I really related?” asked Cedric.
Cecil smiled at him. “From what I remember of our family history, yeah, but pretty distantly. We share a great-grandmother on your mother’s side. I’ve met her a couple of times before, your mother, but that was usually at the annual family balls or whatever. I don’t think I’d recognize her if I saw her walking down the street.”
“But I’ve never heard of another sun sprite mating with a vampire,” Cedric said. “I was shamed in front of the whole family, distant relatives included. I should have at least heard about you.”
Silus was most eager to hear this explanation as well. An hour ago, he would have gambled everything he owned that he and Cedric were the only ones of their kind foolish enough to mate with each other. Proof of otherwise scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. Varinia looked at no one in the room, not even the guards who glared at her for making them seem incompetent.
“From what I understand the story wasn’t passed around like that,” he said. “You probably heard something about a distant relative being carried away and eaten alive by vampires.”
Cedric’s eyes grew to the size of golf balls. “That’s exactly what I heard! Ben and I grew up listening to that. That was you?”
Cecil inhaled through his teeth. “Yeah, that was me.”
“Eaten by vampires?” Silus asked, his eye twitching. He was perfectly aware that the sun sprites spread their distorted horror stories about vampires the same way vampires did about the sun sprites. But that the sun sprites had been whispering tales of vampires eating people, well, it was too ridiculous.
“Let me assure you, my lord,” Varinia said. It had been her longest sentence since being introduced, and she still kept her head down. “I found it to be quite ridiculous as well.”
Cecil gave her an odd sort of smile that Silus couldn’t place, but he didn’t ask about it.
But then, no, it couldn’t be. Though he wanted to remain polite, he could hardly stop himself from staring, recognizing small details that were so familiar now that they were in front of his face.
“May I ask, Varinia, which house you hailed from?” Silus asked.
Varinia’s black eyes were cold as they met Silus’s gaze for the first time, and his stomach dropped as he finally remembered her face.
“The Marcellus house, my lord.”
Silus leaned back in his seat. “I see.”
He could feel Cedric’s curious stare on him, but he explained nothing, at least not until they bade their visitors good day.
Cedric, ever the dutiful host, offered their phone number so that this newfound cousin and his mate could reach them
in a hurry if required, and he invited them back to talk more as soon as possible, eager to learn more about this mysterious paired vampire and sun sprite.
Silus hung back, eager to speak with Cedric alone. He waited as patiently as he could for Damon and Jackson to escort their guests back to their Honda Civic, listening for the crackle of tires over the rocks of the unpaved road leading away from the lake.
Once the navy car was no longer in sight, Cedric came back into the house and found Silus waiting for him in their living room, standing by the tinted window and watching the goings-on of outside.
“How do you know each other?”
The question was not an accusatory one, but Silus dreaded the possible reaction from his lover that the news would bring.
“Thirty years ago, she and I were engaged to be wed.”
Chapter Three
Cedric stared hard at Silus, his stomach saying hello to his tonsils the entire time.
Varinia was his long lost fiancée. That had been...unexpected.
“All right, explain,” he said slowly.“I thought vampires didn’t do arranged marriages because they thought it was cruel.”
Cedric could still remember Silus telling him that. He’d been angry at the time, because he himself had just learned that Cedric had a fiancée back home, despite how he constantly snuck over to spend time with Silus.
Silus had thought Cedric was being unfaithful to a mate, to someone he shared his soul with. Cedric could still recall the look of disgust on Silus’s face when Cedric had made the confession, and the fear he felt when Silus nearly walked out on him. He also recalled the way Silus didn’t at all care for his explanation of an arranged marriage.
Vampires didn’t do that, he’d explained, so Silus had, at first, not fully understood that Cedric wasn’t in love with the girl in question and that he didn’t want to get married.
Now Cedric was finding out about this.
“Vampires don’t arrange the marriages of their children,” Silus said, folding his arms in an obvious show of defense. “But loveless marriages still occurred often enough, and still do. Should the matched couple choose to mate with each other, it could still bring about a very prosperous union.”
