According to Michael, a ten-thousand-year-old vampire whose soul had been bouncing from one human vessel to the next for God only knew how many centuries was going to be his son-in-law, to use the human terminology. All the effort to shield the vampire had been because Bijou hadn’t been in existence yet. Now she was, which meant Khari could be resurrected, his soul dumped back in his original body. Wherever it was.
But Kaj’s biggest issue was the prearranged mating. He’d mistakenly thought they’d done away with that centuries ago. Unlike angels and humans, vampires didn’t have predestined mates. There were noamsouelots, no destined souls.
No, vampires had their own unique method to mating:mielix zanwas the term in the ancient language, which loosely translated to sexually imprinting. And they only did it once, if they were lucky to find their life mate at all. Hence the reason many vampires simply settled down with a mate who made them happy. They were similar to humans in that regard, wanting to couple because the endless days and nights were more bearable that way. As formielix zan… if and when they were affected, the option for mating anyone else went right out the window, as the humans liked to say.
He got the feeling Michael didn’t understand that.
What if his daughter thought the male unworthy? It wasn’t like Kaj could simply force the mating upon her. He hadn’t raised Bijou. Her mother had done that without a lick of help from him because the female had felt it unnecessary to mention she happened to be having his offspring. Twenty-six years later, Bijou popped up on his doorstep with ahey, surprise! I’m your daughter. Kaj had known the moment he’d looked into her green eyes that she was his, but that didn’t make him a father by any stretch of the imagination. Had they developed a relationship since? Yeah. He’d like to believe they had. It had taken effort on both their parts, but they seemed to be making it work.
Didn’t mean he could resort to the old ways and pass her over as though she was a piece of property. The vampires had shed that tradition with the modern ages, and Kaj was quite fond of theselect who you want to spend your time withprocess. Even without the lifetime connection ofmielix zan, he still believed in choices.
As he strolled through the tunnels, Kaj tried to imagine the original vampire being trapped somewhere inside the body of Oliver Calazans.
How the fuck did that even work?
Oliver Calazans strolled through the game room, pausing near the iron railing that overlooked the main floor below.
He did a quick visual sweep of the area, relieved when he saw no signs of Bijou. It meant he could sneak down for a bite since he’d purposely skipped the morning meal. Then again, he’d purposely skippedeverycommunal meal for the past … fifty days. Wow. Nearly two months now that he hadn’t sat with his fellow … with the angels for their twice-daily chow sessions.
Made him feel like a bit of recluse, more in line with the Oliver who had been hog-tied and dragged here than the one who’d come to enjoy the sense of belonging he’d found with a bunch of holy motherfuckers.
However, there was no way around his bob-and-weave exercise. Ever since he’d witnessed Bijou feeding from Madok, that lucky bastard Fae with the magic blood, he hadn’t been able to so much as look at her. It hurt too damn much to think about, so he’d gone back to his old, grumpy ways, hiding out when he wasn’t in the war room using those fancy systems to hack whatever the angels needed access to.
With his path clear for the time being, Oliver hurried down the front staircase to the main floor, strolled down the wide hallway, over the fancy blue rug, past the weird lobby/living room that no oneevermingled in, then on to the kitchen, where he found Emily, theheurospwho’d just magically arrived with about a dozen others in the past month. Oliver had no idea where they came from, but they’d integrated right into the day-to-day, helping out with the many goings-on at both Angel Central and the Lair.
“Hey,” Oliver greeted with a half-ass wave as he made his way to the pantry with the fancy opaque glass and the curly-cue etching that announced what was discreetly hidden behind it.
“Sire,” Emily said softly, ducking her head.
“Oh, no,” he corrected, gripping the knob and twisting. “I’m no sire. Just a plain ol’ boring human.”
Who couldn’t feed a vampire, thus sending that vampire to bite the neck of a male worthy of her.
Oliver shook off the thought.
“Shall I prepare you a meal?” Emily offered, her kindness exactly what he expected from those who worked in the mansion.
“I can get it.” Last thing he wanted to do was put more on her plate.
“As you wish.” She returned her attention to the few dishes that were in the sink.
Oliver stepped inside the “pantry”—what mere mortals referred to as a decent-size bedroom—snagged a loaf of bread from one of the many shelves, grabbed the gallon jar of peanut butter, headed back out, then over to the complicated contraption they called a toaster oven. What happened to the good ol’ spring-loaded thing that launched the toast high in the air when it was perfectly browned on both sides in like two minutes? This ridiculous thing had about fifty settings and took three times as long to make toast.
Resigned to spending a good portion of his twenties waiting for bread to brown, he tucked two pieces inside, began punching buttons, because toasting bread had been relegated to a fucking science and this thing had all the buttons to prove it. Once the heating coils were flaring red behind the little glass door, Oliver tied the plastic bread bag off and replaced it in its home in the enormous pantry that had its own stairway leading down to a wine cellar fit for a kingdom.
When he returned, there was a fancy glass plate and a sterling silver butter knife on the counter beside the peanut butter.
Oliver peered over his shoulder at Emily. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the way she kept her chin tucked down as though he might not possibly be able to figure out she was the one who’d brought the utensils over. She was the only other person in the kitchen. How would he not know?
While he waited the remaining six minutes to toast bread, he turned around to face Emily, crossing his arms over his chest. “So, how’s it going? You like it here?”
Pretty brown eyes lifted to meet his. “I do, actually. It’s quite pleasant.”
“What did you do before?”
Her eyes quickly lowered. “That I do not recall. It was part of the agreement.”
“Agreement?”
