Accidental Sire (Half-Moon Hollow #6)

“You’ve cyber-gagged me?”

“Only for a little while,” Jane promised. “Until things have calmed down and you’ve proved that we can trust you.”

I wasn’t even going to pretend that being put on Internet training wheels didn’t hurt my feelings.

“And my phone?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Wait, where is my phone?”

Gabriel sighed and reached into his wallet, withdrawing a twenty and handing it to his wife. She snickered and stuffed it into her pocket. Georgie waggled her fingers, and Gabriel slid another twenty across the table and into her little paw.

“Uh, what was that?”

“We said that you’d ask for your phone within an hour of waking up, and he said you wouldn’t,” Georgie told me.

Gabriel was sulking. A lot.

“Gabriel is a little out of touch with today’s youth,” Jane told me. “Frankly, I was a little surprised that you didn’t ask for your phone last night.”

“I had a lot on my mind,” I told her. “So, seriously, where’s my phone?”

Again with the cringing from Jane. “Well, since it was in your back pocket when you were thrown against the building, it was crushed. And with all of your wounds, there was a lot of ‘you’ on it. It wasn’t salvageable.”

“That will not be covered under my protection plan,” I muttered.

“No, it won’t. But I got you a replacement,” she said, sliding a square chunk of plastic across the table.

“This is a KidPhone,” I said, lifting the phonelet with its three huge buttons. Seriously, it was one very small step up from one of those preschooler toy phones where the anthropomorphic eyes moved back and forth when you dialed. “It only calls three numbers.”

“Yes, V-one-one, the Council office, and my cell,” Jane said. “Keep it with you at all times. Prove that we can trust you in terms of contacting the outside world, and you’ll get a phone with four buttons.”

I pushed up from the table, pointing the block of princess-pink plastic at her. “Is this because I laughed when Ophelia fried your phone? If so, this is bull—”

I stopped suddenly as bubbles of some strange awareness rippled through my chest, making the hair on my neck stand up. My head snapped up toward the ceiling. I dropped the KidPhone and stumbled toward the stairs.

“What is this?” I whispered to Jane, who was watching me with bemusement.

“Ben’s rising,” she said, following me to the second floor. “I felt it with Jamie. You’re his sire, so you’re getting a sort of supernatural text alert as he wakes up . . . again, way, way ahead of schedule. But this only works when your childe is rising, and then it goes away.”

“That’s nice, but I wouldn’t get a supernatural text alert on my KidPhone, because it doesn’t get texts.”

Yeah, it was inappropriate to bitch about my phone at a moment like this, but honestly, I needed something to take my mind off my nerves. How angry was Ben going to be when he woke up? How many heavy objects was he going to throw at me? Was he going to try to bite me to get back at me? Would that mean I would be a double-weirdo vampire? Would we just keep waking up and biting each other in an ugly cycle forever?

“Let it go,” Jane said as we approached Ben’s door. She unlocked several dead bolts on the door and cracked it. “You should probably let him see me first.”

“So he can imprint on you like a baby duck?” I asked.

“No, so he doesn’t panic, because the last time he saw you, you were gnawing on his arm.”

I scratched the back of my neck. “Point taken.”

Ben was still lying across the bed, quilt pulled up to his chin. He hadn’t moved at all during the day, which made sense, I supposed. The dead didn’t develop restless leg syndrome.

Jane motioned me back. I stepped against the wall and watched as she moved toward the bed. Ben bolted upright and, seeing Jane hunching over him, swung out at her face.

“Why does everybody keep trying to punch me?”

“Maybe don’t stand right over new vampires as they wake up,” I whispered at her.

Gabriel appeared in the doorway, trying to lean against the frame all casual-like, though thanks to my newly keen eyesight, I could see every muscle was tensed. Georgie, on the other hand, seemed to be playing “Mario Kart” at an ear-splitting volume in her room.

“Ben, just stay calm,” Jane said in a soft, gentle voice. “It’s me, Jane. You know me. And you know I’m not going to hurt you. So just stay calm.”

Ben squinted at her, tilting his head. Once again, the vampire upgrade package was in full effect. Ben had been cute before, but now, well, he was still really cute. But there were dark shadows under his eyes, giving them a slightly dangerous glint. His skin, which had already been pretty damn nice, was perfectly smooth and had this pearly sheen to it. Also, his T-shirt seemed to fit a lot better than I remembered.

Damn.

Did being turned change your muscle mass? I poked my bicep. Nope.

“Jane, why are you talking to me like I’ve suffered a head injury?” Ben asked her. “Have I suffered a head injury? Is that why my head hurts?”

“No, Ben. I’m talking to you like this because I don’t want you to freak out and break my guest room like the undead Incredible Hulk.”

“Why am I in your guest room?”

Remembering how claustrophobic I’d felt when the shades were closed, I hit the button that raised them. And that was a mistake, because it took Ben’s attention off Jane and drew it to me. His green eyes narrowed, and his fangs dropped.

“You!” he grunted, throwing the blankets aside and hopping out of bed in one quick motion. He landed on his feet and stared down at his own body, as if he didn’t recognize it.

“Don’t freak out,” I said, reaching toward him.

Ben scrambled back and up the wall, hitting the ceiling and clinging to it like a spider. “What the hell?” he yelled. “How am I doing this?”

“Undead Hulk!” Jane grumbled at me.

“Ben, calm down,” I told him. “Wait—can I do that, too?”

“Probably,” Gabriel said.

“What the hell did you do to me?” Ben barked from his corner of the ceiling. “Am I a vampire? Are you telling me I’m a vampire right now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean, you’re not sure? You bit me!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t give you any of my blood. A bite alone shouldn’t have turned you. And we shouldn’t have woken up after just one night, but we did. We’re basically vampire unicorns, which is sort of fun,” I said, wincing.

“Probably not what he wants to hear,” Gabriel murmured.

“I’ve been in that unicorn room for too long,” I muttered back.

“It’s been one night,” Jane retorted.

“Could we please stop talking about unicorns?” Ben shouted. “And could someone tell me how to get off of the ceiling? And why am I yelling so much?”

“It’s a traumatic situation,” I told him. “I went through the same thing when I woke up . . . last night. I’m probably not the person you want to hear this from right now.”

“No,” he shot back.