And Dad could’ve reached out before, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t even done it now. Amber had. If anyone in his family deserved a real shot, she did.
Zack was where he needed to be.No. Where Iwantto be.He took a deep breath and straightened. “I’m not coming home, Dad.”
“Zack—”
“Look, you’re the one who said you’re short on time, so let me tell you things you need to know. Four hunters died last night. They were dragged into Devil’s Cove. Dmitri was one of the coven captains, and he wanted to kill his sire, Anton. The five of them failed, and Dmitri’s the only one left alive.”
“Were any of them turned?”
“No. At least three of the four weren’t. I doubt the last one was. It went pretty quick for all of them.”
Dad nodded.
Zack cleared his throat. “And, uh. Completely different note, but I have two vampire boyfriends now.”
“Two?” Amber grabbed the phone, and she appeared on-screen again. “I can’t get one human boyfriend, and you’ve got two immortal ones?”
“Amber,” Dad said, voice straining to contain order.
“I’m trusting Zack’s judgment. He’s not going to date murderers, Dad.”
“I’ve killed two vampires, Amber. My hands aren’t clean either,” Zack said quietly.
“Yeah, but they werevampires.”
Zack tilted his head back and slapped his hand to his forehead. “Fuck, no wonder everyone got pissed at me last night. I sounded just like that. Fuck.”
“Killing vampires is our raison d’être,” Amber replied.
“And killing humans is kind of what vampires are supposed to do,” Zack said. When Amber sucked in a breath, he said, “Wait, wait, wait. They’re not like that, like that. They’ve just both been alive a really long time, and sometimes there are reasons.”
Dad took the phone back. “Zack, maybe you should come home.”
“Dad, look, if you want to stay in contact with me and try to make this work, this is what it is. Vampires kill on occasion. Some of them are evil bastards that I would gladly run my stake through. My boyfriends aren’t evil. And if they turn out to be evil, then I’ll burn their hearts out, and you can tell me, ‘I told you so.’ But some part of youhasto know that everything the family’s taught us is through their narrow little filter, right?”
“You can’t let them lure you into a false sense of security.”
“Trust me, security’s not something I’m feeling huge on lately.” Zack ran his hand through his hair. “Roger got me an original copy of Rudolph Hagen’s book, the one that practically everyone has a copy of. But the reprints are nothing like the original, Dad. There’s all this juicy stuff about how vampires and humans can actually coexist in it.”
Dad frowned. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
Amber darted up into the camera. “Uh, I think Mom just got home. So we should go. I love you, Zack. I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“Love you, son,” Dad said.
Zack was almost too choked up to say “Love you” in return before hanging up. The tears were stupid. He shouldn’t have been crying. But the relief that the people he’d spent so long loving didn’t actually hate him was too great. He wiped his eyes. Mom and Cal sounded like they were worse, but Dad and Amber cared about him.I’ll take what love I can.
After another long minute, he emerged from the office. Kit and Carver had come down from their rooms. Carver had his sunglasses on and his feet kicked up on the coffee table. Kit had the room service menu in their lap.
“Hey,” Kit said quietly. “We were about to order food. Carver needs protein.”
“And to never drink again,” Carver muttered. “Fey wine is not something to fuck around with.”
“Duh, it has literal magic in it.” Zack sat down beside Kit and snagged the menu. “Do you want to split a pizza?”
“Full moon’s coming up. I need to stack on the carbs and protein, so sure. As long as we can get some wings and breadsticks,” Kit said.
