“Go on, see what he wants. I’ll be fine,” Beatrix said. Titan gave her a quick kiss, made her promise to shout if she needed him, then walked off to talk to the Lobo Gris Alpha.
The moment Titan was gone, Cora spoke up. “Ask us anything."
Beatrix let out a sigh. “How did you know I have questions?”
“How could you not? Most of the humans here were thrust into this world, not introduced. Briar found out gradually and never got the shock, but I was kidnapped by an evil vampire. Mila rescued her wolf mate from an attack of magical creatures. It’s too bad Imani isn’t here, she was kidnapped and turned into a vampire against her will. She could give you a lot of insight on vampires.”
Beatrix was shocked by Cora’s words. Kidnapped? Attacked? Forced? “Those sound like nightmares.”
“It wasn’t pretty,” Cora agreed.
“I guess I got lucky,” Beatrix said. “Nothing violent happened. I watched Titan shift and then I got to pet him.”
“I think it’s supposed to be gentle,” Mila said. “Unless they’re forced, vampires like to court their flock for however long it takes to make them feel comfortable. At least that’s what Gio said once. They want to make sure their human is ready to hear the truth long before they tell them.”
Beatrix almost laughed. “I kind of forced them to tell me. I threatened to take Arthur to the hospital because he wouldn't wake up this morning.”
Mila gasped. “You only found out today?”
Beatrix nodded, Mila’s reaction making her feel better. “It still feels surreal.”
Cora snorted. “That never entirely goes away. At least it hasn’t yet. Especially when Pike is in his bear form and tries to feed me grubs.”
Beatrix and Mila burst out laughing.
Mila and Cora told her a few more funny stories about their shifters and vampires. Their good humor and matter-of-fact attitudes made Beatrix feel much better.
Suddenly she wasn’t in the middle of an alternate reality or worried about being in the middle of a psychotic break. No, she was simply in a nontraditional relationship.
At least that was how she decided to frame it.
When Cora told her about sharing souls, she listened intently, only interrupting to ask an occasional question.
“What if you guys get angry with each other?” she asked, thinking about all the bitter, angry conflicts her parents had when she was young. “Are you allowed to leave?”
Mila and Cora looked at each other, making Beatrix uneasy. “What?
“When you’re upset, it hurts them,” Mila said in her gentle South Dakota accent. “And you can feel their pain too. Carter had a nightmare a few weeks ago and it woke me up, even though he wasn’t thrashing around or anything.” She rubbed her chest. “His fear felt like my own. I wasn’t sure what was going on at first. Gio figured it out and pulled Carter out of sleep through our link.”
Beatrix wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “What if they use the link to hurt you?”
“They wouldn’t fucking dare!” Briar said, pressing in to join their group. She had a big grin and a frosty mug of beer. She took a large swallow before addressing Beatrix. “Look, the one thing vampires hold sacred is their flock.” She pointed to where Memphis and Tobias were talking to Arthur. “My last period was a rough one. I felt so bad I told the guys to go away and leave me alone. Memphis called his mom asking what to do. The next thing I knew, I had two heating pads, a fuzzy robe, socks, blanket, an entire grocery bag full of chocolate, and every type of drug available and not all of them were over the counter.”
“That’s um, nice,” Beatrix said, unsure how to handle Briar’s interesting overshare.
Briar didn’t take offense to her lukewarm response. “What I’m trying to say is that they’ll feel anything you feel as their own. So unless they’re sadists, they don’t want you to be in pain. Get me?”
Beatrix was starting to understand. This wasn’t a situation where Titan and Arthur could decide when they felt like “dealing” with her or not. They had no choice. It brought up a whole new worry.
“What if they get tired of me?”
“They won’t.” Briar’s conviction didn’t convince Beatrix.
“How can you know that?” The words came out a little more aggressively than she meant them to, but Briar didn’t seem to care.
“Because you’re a match made by the void,” she said. “It's hard to get bored when you’ve got that going for you.”
“Arthur and Titan said something about the void. What does that mean?”
