“She has?”
He tsks at me and shakes his head. I flop down next to him on my bed and he stretches his arm over my shoulder. Nestling in against him, I close my eyes.
“Where’s Diah?” I ask, hoping to change the topic to someone who isn’t me.
“He’s out with Liz.”
“I thought they broke up.”
“They never break up for long. Once he admits he’s attracted to men and women, it’ll be easier for them both, I think.”
Our other brother, my full brother Jedidiah, has been involved with a human woman for the past five years. Her name is Elizabeth, because no one will ever stop naming women Elizabeth, and we call her Liz, which she’s told us is okay. Unfortunately, Diah has been in love with his best friend Elijah for…well, almost one hundred years now; long before either of them were turned, which is a story of its own.
“Do you think Liz would let him do the whole…” I make a crude gesture with a few of my fingers.
“I honestly don’t know, Ezra. What you should be worried about, though, is doing the…” He repeats my hand gesture. “Thing yourself.”
“You’re not wrong.” I shuffle out of his arm and roll onto my side, turning my back to him. He ruffles my hair.
“I know you’re young and this seems really traumatic, but it’s not so bad. And I need to be honest with you. Every time you drag your feet about it, Mom takes it kind of personal.”
“I know she wants to go to Hawaii, alright?”
“Not because of Hawaii. Because you didn’t have the choice, you fool.”
I roll onto my back and Henry is glaring down at me.
“What?”
“She knows the real reason you’ve put off taking a mate, and she knows it’s because you don’t want to turn anyone against their will. And she is also well aware that she and William did that exact thing to you. She feels guilty.”
“I don’t mean for her to feel bad.” I cover my eyes with my arm. “I’m not cross with her for it.”
“I know that.”
“How do I tell someone, though? Hey there, nice to meet you, I’d really like if we came at the same time so I can drain your blood and turn you into a vampire because I sort of need a mate so my vampire mom can go to Hawaii for an eclipse.” I can’t even say it with a straight face. I laugh and Henry smothers me with one of my pillows. If I was alive, he probably would have smothered me to death, so I play dead anyway just to fuck with him.
“Unfortunately, little brother, that’s the situation you’re in now, yes. If you hadn’t put it off for so long, you could have developed a relationship with someone naturally and then told them after the fact.”
Henry stands up and checks himself in my mirror. He’s always so overdressed. It’s almost midnight and he’s in a freaking suit. No tie, but that’s probably a fluke on his part.
“That’s a bit dubious,” I remind him, and he shrugs, finding my stare in the reflection.
“You’re a vampire, Ezra. Start acting like it.”
Henry saunters out of my room and I’m left sitting on my bed like a scolded child. He’s right and I know it, but that doesn’t mean I hate it any less. The idea of mating with someone sounds positively terrifying. My mother swears it’ll be good for me, but eternity is a long fucking time, after all, and this isn’t a “til death do us part” scenario. It’s more like “at death do we start.”
I could sever the mate bond if I wanted to, but that’s it. I’d never get to take another mate, and I’d be right back where I am right now, which my mother assures me is not a good place to be.
I did try, though, years ago, to see if I could do what Henry said I should have done. I was in a relationship. He didn’t know about it. None of them did, and I didn’t tell anyone on purpose because I was scared of it ending poorly. . . and it did. Brandon was, well, Brandonishuman. I didn’t wait to tell him about me.
I waited a little, a few weeks, not a terribly long time, and he didn’t take it well. After he got over the initial shock of me being a vampire, he admitted he didn’t even think he wanted to be with anyone ten years, let alone ten decades. I didn’t want to be with him for ten more minutes, so that was the end of that.
He didn’t like to get roughed up anyway, so it never would have worked out even if he wanted to be my mate. Which he didn’t. So…here I am.
I shove my feet into my boots and stomp out of my bedroom because I’m committed to acting like a child, and I’m halfway down the stairs when I bump into Liz.
“Careful there, cranky pants.” She steadies me and gives me a wink.
