Accidental Sire (Half-Moon Hollow #6)

“I don’t find much about this funny,” he told me. “I had a life before you bit me. I had plans. And they didn’t involve being turned into a vampire. This is not supposed to be me, OK? I’m the Stiles. I’m the powerless, normal human who sits on the sidelines and watches the people with superpowers do their thing, and then I help clean up the mess.”

I meant to apologize. I did. But instead, what came out of my mouth was “So why don’t you whine about it a little more, Ben? I didn’t understand what I was doing. I’d realized a grand total of three seconds before I bit you that I was a vampire! God, I know, this is not how you expected your life to be, but it’s not like you’re covered in boils or porcupine quills or something.” I can only blame this response on the sheer number of swabs I’d encountered in the last few hours.

He threw up his hands. “I know that. I know. I should have moved away. And I don’t know why I didn’t. I just couldn’t. And I know that’s not your fault. What I know in my head and the crazy gorilla rage in my gut every time I see you are two very different things. I can’t say I’m always going to feel this way. Because we seemed to be clicking before all this happened,” he said. “And you seemed like a really nice girl with a great laugh, and you loved Thai food and hiking and could sort of tolerate bowling. But now neither one of us can have Thai food because you bit me.”

“I know.”

“And we can’t go hiking, because hiking at night is dangerous. And hiking during the day would kill us both. Because you bit me.”

I pursed my lips. “OK.”

“And forget bowling, because vampires can’t handle the smell of rented shoes.”

“I’ve got it,” I told him.

“Because you bit me.”

“OK!” I spat.

“So for right now, I need some space from you.”

“That’s great, except I live two doors down from you, and we share a bathroom,” I shot back.

“I said I knew it didn’t make sense!” he exclaimed, throwing up his arms.

“Fine,” I ground out. And it took all I had not to turn my back on him and flounce away like a little kid.

Ben flopped down on the sofa and got comfy. “Look, Jane’s not going to let anything happen to us. It could be a lot worse, really.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” And when Ben gave me a blank face, I added, “Jane clearly loves you. But she seems to think of me as some sort of evil demon woman who defiled her favorite Half-Moon Hollow teen. If it came down to a choice between the two of us, she’s going to choose you, every time.”

“Why would it come down to a choice between the two of us?” he asked, frowning. “It’s not a game show.”

“Because having two fosters in a situation like this, with all of the drama and superpowers and bloodletting, it just won’t work. It never works,” I told him.

“Fosters?”

“Do you honestly think she would be slapping all of these rules on us if it was just you? No talking to our friends? No leaving the house? No Internet access?” I exclaimed. “If it was just you, you would have an iPad with Wi-Fi built in so you could chat with your friends anytime you wanted.”

“Yeah, she would have all these rules, especially with all of this extra-weird vampire stuff we have going on. Because Jane likes me, but she’s not crazy. New vampires can do some extremely stupid tricks when they’re not supervised. Jane pulled off most of them. It’s sort of a miracle she’s still around.”

“Well, didn’t Ophelia say you’re some sort of computer genius? Can you get around the firewalls she’s installed on my laptop?” I asked.

“I am a computer science major, about to graduate with honors, yes. And no, I probably can’t get around anything the Council installs on our laptops. Because I’ve met the people they hire for their IT department, and they make my programming look like a monkey bashed its fists against the keyboard. And I won’t do it, because I want to trust Jane. When she thinks we’re ready for Internet and phone privileges, she’ll give them to us.”

I groaned. “I liked it better when you said you wouldn’t talk to me. You are of no use to me. None.”

“Well, if I’m not talking to you, I guess I don’t have to tell you about the fact that Jane’s a mind-reader. And she’s been getting better and better at reading vampires’ brains.”

“Oh, shitballs,” I grumbled.

Because I’d had some seriously unkind thoughts about Jane since she’d shown up in my recovery room. Also, I’d had some different sorts of thoughts about Gabriel, and those I definitely didn’t want Jane to hear.

Ben opened his mouth to add something more, but Jane walked back into the parlor. Outside, we heard several vans pulling out of Jane’s driveway. I shrank away from her instinctively and tried to think of something besides my underlying hostility toward Jane and the seminude thoughts I’d had about her husband.

Wait, I couldn’t think about the fact that I’d had those thoughts, either.

Jane’s “brain scanner” didn’t seem to be on at the moment, or she had a really good poker face when it came to people who were living in her house having seminude thoughts about her husband.

Ack! Why couldn’t I stop thinking about it? Why?

Jane gave us a strained but cheerful smile and rubbed her hands together. “OK, kids. You’ve been very good little vampires. And it occurs to me that I haven’t been a very good surrogate sire, keeping you cooped up like this.”

“So we get our phones back?” I asked eagerly.

“No, better,” Jane assured me. “You’re going to get to go outside, in the yard.”

I tried not to pout. I really did. But I only had so much control over my bottom lip. Ben looked confused, too, so at least I wasn’t alone in that.

“Come on, you two!” We followed her out onto the huge front porch, where Georgie and Gabriel were arm wrestling. Georgie was winning. Jane shook her head, but there was a little smile on her face as she stepped out onto the grass. The night was cool and cloudless, the sort of weather you dreamed about in the choking heat of high bluegrass summer.

Would I miss that? Afternoons that stretched until nine thirty? The sensation of sitting in your car in August after a day spent in air-conditioning, feeling like you were sliding into a hot bath? Lying out at the beach? I mean, sure, I’d only been to the beach once, when I was seven, but I’d always meant to go again when I could afford it. And now I was never going to have that experience. How much fun could it be to go to the beach at night? Wasn’t that when sharks attacked?

I had a feeling that I would have a lot of these little moments over the next few months, realizing what I would be missing out on now that I was undead.

That would be fun.

“Close your eyes,” Jane told us.

When I didn’t immediately close mine—because this could all be some complicated ruse to allow Jane to drop some sort of net over me and let the scientists cart me away without damaging her furniture—she huffed out a breath.

“Really?”